#it was like. completely out for like 2 hours saying “wifi connected cant connect to internet”

[snowflakeb0ttles]

god the internet is being so fucking weird right now i hate spectrum with every fiber of my being

[the-desolated-quill]

Quill’s Swill - The Worst Of 2018

Congratulations dear reader. You survived 2018. And you know what that means. It’s time for another best of/worst of list. Welcome to Quill’s Swill 2018. A giant septic tank for the various shit the entertainment industry produced over the course of the year. The films, games, TV shows and various other media that got on my bad side. As always please bear in mind that this is only my subjective opinion (if you happen to like any of the things on this list, good for you. I’m glad someone did) and that obviously I haven’t seen everything 2018 has to offer for one reason or another. In other words, sorry that Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes Of Grindelwald isn’t on here. I’m sure it is as terrible as some have been suggesting. I just never got around to watching it.

Okay everyone. Grab your breathing masks and put on your rubber gloves. Let’s dive into this shit pile.

Hold The Sunset

The news that John Cleese would be returning to the world of BBC sitcoms was incredibly exciting, being a massive Fawlty Towers fan and all. Unfortunately Hold The Sunset was not quite what I had in mind. It’s one of those rare breed of situation comedies that chooses to offer no actual comedy. It’s not a sitcom. It’s a sit. Like Scrubs or The Big Bang Theory.

An elderly couple plan to elope abroad only for Alison Steadman’s son to barge in, having left his wife, and forcing them to put their plans on hold. Hence the title ‘Hold The Sunset.’ It’s like a cross between As Time Goes By and Sorry, but if all the humour and relatability were surgically removed by a deadpan mortician. The characters are weak, the plots are thin on the ground and the humour (hat little of it there is) feel incredibly dated. The middle aged mummy’s boy is something that hasn’t been funny since the 90s. It’s an utter waste of great talent and what hurts even more is that this tripe is actually getting a second series. I can only assume the people watching this are comatose. Either that or there’s an epidemic of people in Britain who have lost the remote.

Avengers: Infinity War

Yes this is one of the worst movies of 2018 and no I don’t regret saying that one little bit. Avengers: Infinity War was fucking terrible. Period. There were too many plots and characters going on, which made the film hard to follow (and what staggers me is that the so called ‘professional’ critics have condemned movies for having too many characters and plots before. Spider-Man 3, The Amazing Spider-Man 2, Batman vs Superman: Dawn Of Justice and even Deadpool 2. But because this is an MCU movie, it gets a free pass. Fuck off). The characterisation was weak due to sheer number of characters they try to juggle, resulting in characters coming off as one dimensional caricatures of themselves and scenes where characters such as Iron Man, Doctor Strange and Star-Lord sound completely interchangeable. The villain, Thanos, is a stupidly and poorly written villain, but that’s hardly surprising considering what a shit job Marvel have done building him up over the course of these 20+ movies. And let’s not forget that pisstake ending. A bunch of prominent Marvel characters die and it’s all very, very sad... except all these characters just so happen to have sequels planned, which makes this ending fucking pointless and have less impact than a feather on a bouncy castle.

I don’t know which is more shocking. That Marvel and Disney think their audience are that stupid and gullible, or that their audience are actually validating their view. Fuck you Disney.

Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery

I’ve always wanted a Harry Potter RPG, where you could customise your character, choose your house and actually live a full school life at Hogwarts. This year, Warner Bros and Jam City gave us just that.

That was a mistake.

Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery is the epitome of everything that’s wrong with the mobile gaming market right now. The gameplay is boring and involving where you just tap images on a screen until a progress bar fills up. Wizard duels are little more than rock-paper-scissors challenges that require no kind of skill. Bonding with friends and caring for magical creatures just consist of pathetically simple pop quizzes and yet more boring tapping. Oh and of course you only get a certain amount of energy to complete these tedious tasks. If you run out of energy, you wait for it to fill up... or pay up for the privilege. So determined are they to extract your hard earned cash from your wallet, there’s actually a bit where Devil’s Snare strangles your eleven year old avatar and the game effectively tries to guilt trip you into paying micro-transactions to save them. It’s sleazy, gross and manipulative. Honestly, you’re better off just playing Candy Crush.

Agony

When the developers of this game said they wanted to give the player a trip through Hell, they had no idea how true that statement really was. Agony is dreadful on a number of levels. The design for Hell itself, while visually interesting at times, is often not very practical and gets quite dull and repetitive after a while. The stealth mechanics are a joke and the AI of your demonic enemies are pitiful. All of this alone would have been enough to put this game on the list, but then we also have the casual misogyny. Agony is a gorefest trying desperately to shock the player. We see men and woman get tortured, but it’s the women that often get the extreme end. The violence inflicted on them is often sexual in nature and the game seems to go out of its way to degrade and dehumanise women at every turn. The orgasmic cries of ‘pull it out’ quickly become a staple of the game’s experience as we see naked women raped, tortured and murdered, all for the purposes of ‘entertainment.’

I would call Agony sexist, but honestly that would be giving it too much credit. Agony is like a little child trying desperately to be all dark and edgy in a pathetic attempt to impress everyone around him, and we should treat it as such. Go to your room Agony. No ice cream for you.

Peter Rabbit

If you listen closely, you can hear the sound of Beatrix Potter rotating in her grave.

Yes we have yet another live action/CGI hybrid, but instead of something innocuous like the Smurfs or Alvin and the Chipmunks, Sony instead decides to adapt Peter Rabbit, with James Corden in the title role.

It’s about as bad as you’d expect.

Their attempts to modernise the story are painful to say the least with pop culture references, inappropriate adult humour and twerking rabbits. Plus rather than the gentle, but slightly mischievous character we got in the source material, here Peter is a sociopathic delinquent who seems to revel in making the farmer’s life a living hell. He’s unlikable and unwatchable as far as I’m concerned and the film doesn’t in anyway earn the emotional moments it tries so desperately to sell to the audience. And the worst part is it’s getting a sequel.

Wait. Do you hear that sound? That’s the sound of Beatrix Potter tearing out of the ground, ready to kill whatever idiot came up with this shit.

Fallout 76

I was excited for Fallout 76. A MMORPG where players band together to rebuild society after a nuclear apocalypse. Could have been great. Pity it wasn’t.

Fallout 76 is a dreadful game. Not only is it a buggy, glitchy mess that requires a constant online connection to play, which could result in you losing hours of progress if your WiFi went down, it’s also unbelievably tedious, and that’s because there’s nothing to do in the game. There’s no other characters to interact with, the various robots and computers you come across are really little more than quest givers, there’s no actual plot so to speak, and because of the sheer size of the world and the number of players allowed on a server, the chances of you actually meeting any actual players is remote. And let’s not forget all the behind the scenes drama. Bethesda falsely advertising Fallout themed canvas bags and players getting shitty nylon ones. Bethesda accidentally releasing the account information of various players trying to get a refund for said bag. Bethesda failing to program the year 2019 into the game code, meaning that the game’s nukes don’t work.

Maybe there’s a chance that Bethesda could pull a No Man’s Sky and fix everything over the coming years with various patches and DLCs, but the damage has already been done. It’s incredibly disappointing. The Elder Scrolls 6 is going to have be fucking incredible to win everyone back.

Mama Mia!: Here We Go Again

I can’t stand jukebox musicals anyway, but Mamma Mia was always one of the worst. Its boring, meandering story with its one note, obnoxious cast of characters screeching out ABBA songs like they’re at some drunken karaoke session at some poor sod’s hen party has always grated on my nerves. So imagine my delight when they announced we were getting a sequel. Ever wondered how Meryl Streep met her three lovers and founded her hotel? No? Well tough shit, we’re going to tell you anyway.

Mamma Mia: Here We Go Again is basically just Mamma Mia again. The actors still can’t sing, the characters are still annoying and story is still boring and meandering, completely at the mercy of the chosen songs rather than the filmmakers using the songs to compliment the story (you know? Like proper musicals do?).

How can I resist you? Very easily as it turns out. Gimme, gimme, gimme a fucking gun so I can end my misery.

The Cloverfield Paradox

A lot of people were unhappy about the direction Cloverfield was going. They wanted a continuation of the found footage, kaiju movie from 2008, not an anthology series. I was personally all in favour. Partially because I thought the first Cloverfield was a tad overrated, but mostly because I thought it would be a great opportunity for more experimental film projects and could be a great launchpad for new writers and filmmakers. 10 Cloverfield Lane was a great start. Then The Cloverfield Paradox happened.

The Cloverfield Paradox is basically JJ Abrams trying to have his cake and eat it too. Maintaining the anthology format whilst connecting everything together in a ‘shared universe’ (yes, yet another shared universe). The result was a cliched, poorly edited and idiotic mess of a film that actually took away from the previous two films rather than added to them. Everyone hated it and, as a result, 2018′s Overlord, which was totes going to be part of the Cloververse, was made its own standalone film and Abrams double pinky promised to make a true sequel to the original Cloverfield. A complete and total disaster. No wonder it was a straight-to-Netflix film.

The Handmaid’s Tale - Season 2

This is probably going to be the most controversial entry on the list, but please hear me out because I’m not the only one who has a problem with this season.

I was reluctant to watch The Handmaid’s Tale simply because of how gruesome the original book was, but I forced myself to watch the first season and I thought it was pretty good. It remained faithful to the source material for the most part and included some nice additions that helped to expand the story and mythos. If it was just a one off mini-series, everything would have been fine. But then they made the same mistake as The Man In The High Castle and Under The Dome did where they commissioned another season and attempted to tell a story that goes beyond the book.

There’s a reason why the original story ended where it did. The Handmaid’s Tale isn’t meant to be an empowering story about women sticking it to the patriarchy. It’s a cautionary tale about how fragile our civil rights truly are and how easily they can be taken away from us. It’s designed to shock, not to satisfy. So seeing a handmaid blow herself up in a suicide bombing feels very incongruous and just a little bit silly. It would be like doing a TV adaptation of George Orwell’s 1984 where the first season followed the source material and then the second season turned Winston Smith into this heroic freedom fighter trying to overthrow Big Brother. It would represent a fundamental misunderstanding of what the book was about in the first place.

And then of course there’s the increased level of violence in Season 2, which many have complained about. In Season 1 and the original source material, the violence was justified. In Season 2, the motivation behind the violence has gone from ‘how can we effectively demonstrate how easily a fascist patriarchy can happen in the West?’ to ‘what brutal act can we inflict upon Ofglen to shock the audience this week?’ It’s purely for shock and nothing more. And with the showrunner (who I feel I should mention is a man) announcing that he has planned ten seasons of this, it seems that The Handmaid’s Tale is going to go even further with this depravity until it effectively becomes the equivalent of a Saw film.

The Handmaid’s Tale exists as a way of shining light on and critiquing misogyny in its most extreme form. Season 2 however demonstrates that there is a serious risk of it becoming the very thing it’s criticising in the first place.

The Predator

I love the Predator franchise, but The Predator is the worst.

People thought that this would be good because director Shane Black had actually starred in the first Predator movie back in 1987. Instead we got this bloated, confusing, obnoxious and insulting mess of a film that seems to go out of its way to ruin everything that makes Predator so good. There’s no tension. No suspense. No intrigue. Just a bunch of gore, explosions and shitty one liners from annoying and lifeless characters. They essentially took this big alien game hunter from outer space and turned him into a generic monster from a bad summer blockbuster. It no longer hunts for sport. It wants to take over the world and splice our DNA with theirs. But don’t worry, a rogue Predator doesn’t want to kill humans (even though he himself kills a bunch of humans), so he gives us a Predator Iron Man suit to set up a sequel that will probably never happen because this movie was a box office bomb and it fucking SUUUUUUUUUUUUCCCCCCKKKKKKKEEEEEDDDD!!!

This film also has a very nasty streak towards those with disabilities. There’s a lot of jokes at the expense of a character with Tourette’s and it has an extremely ignorant and patronising view of autism, portraying the main character’s kid as being a super genius who can decipher the Predator language and even going so far as to say that he represents ‘the next stage of human evolution.’ Presumably the Predators want social communication difficulties because apparently it helps them hunt somehow.

What with Disney acquiring 20th Century Fox, the future of both the Alien and Predator franchises were very much in question. This film needed to be a success in order to make a case for Disney to keep making more of them. It wasn’t. Congratulations Shane Black. You might have just killed off this franchise for good. Thanks arsehole! :D

So those were my least favourite stories from 2018. Join me on Wednesday where we shall discuss something more positive. Yes, it’s awards season. Who shall win the coveted Quill Seal Of Approval? Watch this space...

Or don’t. It’s up to you. I don’t want to force you or anything. It’s a free country.

[sharksfood]

spoilers for Ralph Breaks the Internet (Wreck-It Ralph 2)

SO i was going to wait to record my thoughts on Ralph Breaks the Internet until after i finished my homework but i cant stop thinking about it!!!

anyways, I saw RBTI on Tuesday night in 3D and it was AMAZING!! i mean, both the movie by itself and how it looked in 3D. i loved that they put in a nod to those movies that took 3D to the fullest potential with stuff coming at you from the screen, when Ralph was throwing the football into the air.

BESIDES THAT i LOVED this movie!!!! i’m no negative nancy when it comes to sequels and i had been wanting a WIR followup since the first one came out!

but to get the biggest aspect out of the way, i was not always on board with the plot of Ralph and Vanellope going into the Internet. when I first heard the movie announcement and the whole Internet aspect it didn’t totally make sense to me. I mean, I originally thought the gang going into online games was a good mix between Internet and video games (since WIR revolves around video games). However I quickly changed my mind, especially since they WOULD be going into online/mobile games.

My initial reaction to the movie as a whole was EXTREMELY POSITIVE!!! I loved how the animation looked, the fact that we got an introduction on what Ralph, Vanellope, Felix, and Tammy (Calhoun) had been up to since the last movie, and that everything including the arcade had changed in basically real time. That last part was a bit sad too, especially with how few games were left in the arcade and that it seems business was not as good for Mr. Litwak as it used to be. BUT this movie, especially the beginning, was like catching up with an old friend after a long time apart! WIR means so much to me and I was so glad Disney took the time to connect to those who’d seen and loved the first movie.

I’ll admit I was a little nervous with how they’d handle the Internet, especially for a fictional universe thats based on the real one, like WIR. I knew they’d have to create fake websites and video games and what not to fit the plot and because of licensing rights. I’m also glad they did this because if Yesss were the algorithm for actual BuzzFeed or YouTube I don’t think they’d let anyone forget that. plus that would be too 4th wall breaking in my opinion. and this movie did A LOT or meta/4th wall stuff. I dont think any of the references or hints or real-world tie ins were annoying or over the top, it was the right amount for me. they could have made everything fictional, but that would fail to hook people. it was the right amount of fiction and real-life.

that being said, I do think some of the things Ralph, Vanellope, and Yesss accomplished couldn’t work in the real world. What bothered me is that any video of Ralph showed him as 3D, like how he looks in Sugar Rush or in the Game Central Station. Yes, that is how he looks “inside” the games and from other video game character’s perspective, but does that work for humans? Maybe it wasn’t explained very well, thats all. WIR is at times a little hard to wrap my head around. But then again, not everything needs to be explained or completely realistic, since, you know, video game characters are not able to coexist in each other’s games or buy stuff from Ebay.

the new characters was SO GOOD especially Yesss, Shank, and Knowsmore (to me anyways). I would have liked if the new characters had interacted with each other on screen more (like Yesss and Shank are friends but you wouldn’t know that without each of them saying so). also the Disney Princesses were adorable and actually more plot-related than i thought they’d be!

the biggest surprise for me is how much importance the movie gave to Vanellope for being a princess, i mean, she got a song and everything! To me she never gave her princessship much mind, since she only wanted to be a racer. by the end of the movie she was farther from being a princess than before. but i think this was intentional and why we got the scene with the other princesses in the first place, Disney wanted to show that there’s no one way to be a princess. obviously Pixar addressed this with Merida, and I think Moana is a good example, too, but Vanellope really is the least-princessy princess. I’m also glad that they didn’t make her song or voice too cute/pretty, it fit with her character, personality, and dream!

the part of this movie that my most impactful for me was the message and eventually plot structure of how Ralph and Vanellope’s friendship was addressed. WIR means a lot to me is many ways, but the fact that romance or blood family isnt the main relationship dynamic is huge.  I mean, I can’t think of many Disney/Pixar movies that do this, and even those that do, friendship is just a subplot. Ralph and Vanellope becoming friends, protecting one another, even in the face of their differences is one of the main messages of WIR (the other being self-acceptance and following your heart). RBTI took this further with the message of how friends can grow, drift apart, have difference dreams, become too attached, and build negative friendships based on anxieties. I’ve NEVER seen this in an animated movie, and it hit me pretty hard.

so with anxiety in mind, I really liked how Vanellope’s glitching was utilized, i mean since she now has a general control on it, she doesn’t glitch out as much. the only time she does in RBTI is when she wants to or when she’s super anxious. its almost like a physical symptom of her having a panic attack. (on a personal note, Vanellope’s glitching was the main thing that helped me get over my fear of glitch, so that relation to anxiety and fear is very meaningful to me) but Vanellope’s anxieties were very different from Ralph’s, which is good! they both struggled with being accepted within their games in the past, and part of that still lingers, though now, especially for Ralph, it manifests in anxiety over their friendship. I really like the direction that Disney/Pixar has taken with some of their movies recently in that the main antagonist is not a villain, but rather an emotion or conflict anthropomorphized.

as for the characters, Ralph and Vanellope were PERFECT. Vanellope is my favorite and she was just amazing. Their characters were the right amount of the same from the first movie and different, since there’s been 6 years for them to grow. I’m also really happy that Felix and Tammy were in RBTI, though I wish they were in it more. I mean, this was Ralph and Vanellope’s movie, but most of Tammy’s appearances were just for comedic affect, in my opinion. They also seemed way different, but I guess that’s marriage? It’s as if their character-specific dialogue and quirks were toned down. Maybe after a second viewing it’ll make more sense to me.

My only other complaints are that when Ralph accidentally finds the comment section of BuzzTube, his reaction and that whole scene didn’t add much to the story. I think it was important, especially given Ralph’s past, but it was so short. Ralph seemed to have forgotten all about it after the scene ended. The comments and toxic parts of the Internet play a much bigger role than that, so I wish it was addressed better. I also thought it was weird that we didn’t get any clear context as to why Mr. Litwak got Wifi in the first place. I mean, I assumed it was to get an online presence for the Arcade, but i don’t think that was actually addressed. Of course thats a minor thing compared to my previous comment. 

The last thing I noticed is that the main conflict of the movie, the steering wheel of Sugar Rush breaking and how they’d need to buy a new one or Sugar Rush would be gone for good, was introduced too soon. I think this was done because there was so much content to get through within 2 hours, and I know that the main premise was involving the Internet, so staying in the Arcade would defeat this purpose. It’s just that to me it all sort of fell into place a little too easy and fast. Also, Vanellope feeling trapped in a boring loop of her game and other feelings from the characters in the beginning were told rather than shown. I know already mentioned that I thought certain things weren’t “explained” well enough, but I mean that like, both visually and through dialogue. With the emotional parts of the movie’s conflicts, I think those developed well once Ralph and Vanellope got into the Internet, but it seemed “presented” almost at first. Again, I only saw it once and its not totally fresh in my mind anymore, so maybe after seeing it again it’ll clear this up.

okay so as for the aesthetic and animation of RBTI it was GORGEOUS!!! I love how Disney/Pixar can take things like the Internet or your brain (like in Inside Out) and turn them into working cities/structures that are creative and make sense! I really like that Pop Ups are maneuvered by sentient beings like street salespeople, since the feeling of online popups and ads is the same! Also, the Dark Web being the underbelly of the Internet “city” and all the avatars are dressed like theyre in Incognito mode is amazing. i also LOVED the viruses, since they looked like gross, scary, creepy fictional bugs or visual germs (they reminded me of Osmosis Jones in a way). How the viruses functioned, at least the Insecurity Virus, made sense for how I think most people imagine computer viruses to act. I honestly don’t know how that stuff happens, and I bet Disney knew most of their audiences dont either, so they took some artistic liberties with that in mind. But the virus was a clever plot device because it literally detected insecurities, both in that Ralph/Vanellope were insecure about their friendship, and neither of them “belonged” in the Internet.

ANOTHER THING is when Shank and her crew had to fight the Slaughter Race players, the distinction between player and NPC was clear and funny. It felt very GTA to me. How they handled Slaughter Race in general was great, since it was obviously a violent video game, but they didn’t tone it down too much to loose that feeling. I think it would’ve been cool to see cars and buildings “update” like they do in some games, too. OH the way that the Virus Ralphs joined together to make the Giant Ralph and that they kept moving to make the entire thing kinetic was SO CREEPY BUT COOL!!! that must have taken forever to animate.  I also noticed that on the Giant Ralph the little virus dudes were like laying down or posed a certain way to give the impression of different textures or colors on Giant Ralph, which is amazing!!! the filmmakers and animators paid so much care to the look and feel of this movie and it really paid off.

okay last few things before I forget: all of the main characters were great examples of positive and negative personality aspects that real people could reflect on. Ralph felt so much more openly emotional and body positive than in the first, which for a dude character is great!!  Vanellope has always been a great example of a girl who likes “tomboy” or “masculine” stuff but still likes cute and “girly” stuff (i mean she obviously wasn’t into the whole princess thing but she found her own way around it!). Felix and Tammy in RBTI were obviously an example on how married couples can still love each other just like the day they met! Did i mention how much I love Yesss? I love her SO MUCH!!! she wore a different outfit/hairstyle every time we saw her, she was fun and smart and over the course of the movie grows to actually care about Ralph and Vanellope beyond their Internet fame. the MUSIC was fantastic as always, and I love Imagine Dragon’s song and the Julia Michaels rendition of Vanellope’s song on Slaughter Race.

Just like the first one, this movie was funny, heartwarming, emotional, and really fun!! I hope it gets all the recognition and love it deserves. I can’t accurately say if I like this one of the previous better, since I’ve only seen it once. HOWEVER I ma really glad that Disney has made a lot of merch for RBTI since the first one got barely anything. All in all, I loved Ralph Breaks the Internet!!!!

P.S. Did yall see the after credits scene?

[hollywood-hobo-blog]

My 2018 Goals While Being Homeless

In my notebook, I sometimes write goals. They come out of nowhere and some of them are pretty stupid but they help me stay focused even though every minute I want to give up.

1. Get my Documents My top priority is somehow getting my paperwork completed to help me assist better with employment and other legal situations. This will be my gateway to getting out of my rut. It's a long walk to it based on my current situation which I often keep disclosed as much as possible for safety reasons.

2. Get a Job Full-time. I go to job interviews but my luck has been sour. I don't have time to take a proper shower and some days I can smell body odor but I can't miss interviews. Sometimes I get a callback but even with a lack of a SIM card I use a third party application on my phone that connects to WiFi. I have to sit outside of Starbucks to take advantage and wait prime times for a call or to see if I have any missed calls.

3. Buy a Bike And a good lock. I want to be a delivery boy for services like UberEats. I saw a student doing it the other day and said it's great for side money. It's such an easy job. You just pick up food for people and give it to them and get paid weekly. This benefits me greatly as I am in dire need of money all the time. He showed me his phone and he made 22.00 in two hours which is a whole lot than what I have now. I've walked hundreds of miles in a week and my legs take a toll. My recent five-hour walk has given me leg pains which I try to recover by sitting down a lot. A bike would help me get places and perhaps help me get work much further out than DTLA.

4. Volunteer As a teenager, I assisted a lot of kids with disabilities and did things like reading, sports, and camp. When I think back to the times that really changed my mindset about the world. Every person deserves the right to life and some of us need help. My buddy was Raymond who used a special type of sign language. I wasn't all that social growing up so I was glad to spend a lot of my lunches and breaks volunteering my time with kids who have special needs.

5. Donate If I can double my meals in my hands for another, I would. I see a lot of homeless people around me and when I get that cookie or muffin from a Winchell's or Subway I want to buy another one but I can't. Sometimes homeless people ask me for money and I say sorry but little do they know that I'm homeless too. In my current situation, I cant befriend other homeless people for my safety and public image. I am hiding in the background. Within my paychecks, I would set money aside for weekend deliveries to the homeless.

If I am lucky I may have enough wealth to rent but as days go on I have a harder time accepting that if I really want to blow that kind of money for the shelter. I am homeless, but there are benefits which oddly enough help me better save my money. If I worked now and made enough cash. If I was homeless even for a year, I would have so much money for other things. A lot of my mental needs are being lowered especially in standards. I don't need a whole lot right now, I'm just trying to stay happy.

[ichangedmymindalready-blog]

Day 6 Begin with the end in mind. You’re beautiful

As I am writing about these days, they seem so long, I have done so much! Today, I woke up in the new area, I was so glad I did not get caught. However, I woke up and one of the first things I did was roll a blunt, it seems so normal like what is wrong about putting leaves into another leave. Well, a dude with bike walked by and scared the crap out of me, he wasn’t paying attention to me but I instantly got scared so I guess im the prejudice one. Or he just wasn’t paying attention. I finish rolling the blunt, took me 2 min - new personal record. I dip out to the nearest and cleanest gas station, get dressed, take my pictures and get out. Its time to explore the other side of this highway. Its a little map I made, there is one high through two sides of a part in downtown Atlanta. Each part is a different town, I explored the other side yesterday with the movies and such but today is museum day. Chyeah! So I go to a diner called “Atlanta Breakfast Club” and its super known in the Atlanta community. I walk in and get seated by a guy in a sweater. I ask him if I could sit on the side where there is a blackboard with drawings on it, to gain inspiration for the creative shit I’m about to do. He says that side is not being served so he sits me in the middle of the cafe. WHERE DA OUTLET, all the way across the room. So I open my laptop - around 30% - what da heck. I try and do some work, order a coffee, watch a lot of beuatiful people walk in and out of the cafe. I like people watching, there are so many people in the world and to me they are all not real unless you make them real so I try to learn peoples stories or just learn about people. I feel I suck at doing things with people or I haven’t found the right people but either way Ill figure it out.  I like watching people, talking to people but creating relationships suck unless they have that connection but its hard because ive learned some people don’t have that connection until later and I think its hard for me because lately its been awkward with people and I do not have a best friend, just me. Anyways, after my laptop dies, I sit for awhile until I have the nerve to ask the waiter to move spots. I finally move spots, get busy into work for like 7 minutes but first can we talk about how coffee or caffeine makes me inspired, gives me hope, but also makes me lean and vibrate its crazy. I need that drug in me without that shit. So I decided to not only do work but apply for hella jobs in ATL only applied for two because I got stuck trying to figure out somethings and I want to leave the O but I got some unfinished business there.  I got to stop trying to live my life by other peoples path but Im really not, I just want to move but RUkstyle needs me and the church. Once I get those on the feet I feel like maybe more ideas and opportunities that are more and better for me will come up but I still like ATL. Cant wait to travel more. Anyways, so how got online is that I ask the “ATlatna Breakfast Club”(ABC) sweater guy who now to me seems like the manager, if they have a social media team or marketing team. I let him know Im down for that shit, he asks to see all my stuff, gives me the wifi and everything, because they dont have wifi. Boom online and showed my work to this guy for about 10 minutes and gave him my card hope everything works out! I hate half asking shit so im gonna stop that habit first letts do this shit. Anyways done with ABC, I drive around the area for twenty minutes trying to find parking, park, smoke half the blunt in the parking lot next to a school, forgetting that  I decided to look for jobs at the museums so who goes to a job interview high, damn I got to get my shit together. So I get all my shit, takes me a while but I feel so dope because I love backpacking adventures. So I see that the school is a dope story from the outside so I take some pictures, go back to my car to get my camera manual so I can really get this shit looking nice. I finally get some good pics continue walking to go to a civil rights muesum across the street from ABC. AS I walk there its not cold anymore kinda hot but not too much. Im high as hit and feeling so fucking good. I finally get there and across the street is ATLANTA MISSION: ENDING HOMELESSNESS and I’m so hype because I know I can help in some way shape or form with media so I make note to go to that after the mueseum and find their hr. So I walk to the museum and just off the bat  the building is one of the most beautiful things ive seen, I spend a good hour outside just taking pictures of it. Then I go upstairs to go inside nad they sayits 19 dollars - dude thats all I got let so im like nah lets see how much the other museum is. I call the other museum - 15$ - I can do that but still have doubts. Well, the Coca Cola world is right across from thsi and I’m not really that interested but I do want a glass coke or two for 1.50$ YESSS.  Get two cokes and walk back to the car oh SHIT I need to go to the homelessness place. I finally go there and cant find the door, so I call and they tell me to look online. Figures. Anyways, so now I am back at the car, I put everything up and go inside the school. This school is top fucking notch. Uniforms, tv, and security. I ask for HR - in a meeting but they said they will email me so thats cool! I go back to my car, drive to a gas station near the concert venue  to change its only 230 but I want to be ready. o h yeah did I mention today is the AMINE CONCERT. Anyways so I get dressed for halloween, take some pics, drink a coke, smoke the rest of that blunt nad then witness  THE VARSITY - another well known DRIVE IN restaurant in the community. Im like I got to at least get fries but as I cross the street I see a guy with a broadcast camera on the bridge coming off the high way. So I drive in the resturant parking lot and they have a fucking two story drive in. I go to the second story cause when will I be able to do this again. I take some pictures from teh second floor, of the city and the place and then I drive down cause its not a drive in part just a parking lot. I park and still see the guy with the camera walking away on the highway so I get out and run, in my Jim as Dwight suit feeling like fucking clark Kent with my tie flying everywhere and my curls just bouncing. I catch the cameraman and ask him what is happening with film and photography in ATL, any spots? He says he moved here from Valdosta and just bought a camera, what a guy. Well I gave him my card and told him my story. He seemed kinda interested hopefully these people call. I run back to my car before its towed or something and look around, therses no’ button like sonic so I go to car with this black lady in a suit she cracks the window and tells me how it works. I wait look at my clock its 245, spend time on thsi or money on the museum. I end up going to teh muesum but see theres only paid parking, cut that shit, smoke the rest of yesterdays blunt WHICH I FORGOT ABOUT and go to find parking for the venue takes me about an hour, but I finally find parking for $4 totally worth the perseverance of finding cheap parking. Its right next to the venue but my ass went around and couldn’t find it, I asked a police officer and he pointed me to the right direction. SO THIS PART OF TOWN IS CALLED UNDERGROUND BECUASE ITS ACTUALLY UNDERGROUND THIS CONCERT WAS UNDERFUCKINGGROUND WHAT THE HELL. SO im underground and see a whole bunch of hot girls I mean decent but beautiful waiting in line and this is how the conversation goes.

Me(high as fucking shit): Hey are you waiting for the amine concert? Is this the VIP LINE?

Girls: yes

Me walks to the end of line

Girls: I mean yes but not VIP.

Me: Oh okay

Girls: What are you dressed up as?

Me: Do you watch  The office?

Girls: Yes (get excited) and points

Me thinks I feel a connection that they get that im Dwight so I just jump in the air and squeal: Yo im so glad you get it (walks away happily)

Im not really sure if they got it or I just think they did but I feel bad because I left and I dint know.

Anyways , I realize im hungry as shit so I go find some food. I see this guy who looks cute from behind but not really the face thinking he still cool enough to be my best friend I ask him if he knows any good places to eat, he’s not from here and trying to find the same thing. Im like okay and walk in teh opposite direction on purpose. I wish I could’ve saidwel do you want t look around with me. Thats a good way to make friends but still a lot and I didn’t. Anyways, I go all the way to the other side of town and see a completely Nasty looking asian place, it wasn’t nasty it was actually too hot to tell but it tasted nice asf. Like everything seemed wrong about the place it even smelled bad but I was hungry and I gave it a try. Im proud. So after that I walk all the way back and sit in line waiting for amine. The place is underground so im just glad to be there so hype about it all. I finally get called in with the others with my badge and everything, Im kinda nervous. I see him, still on edge. I show him my video for move the right way, he tells me to send it to his assistants email so I do!, I ask him to guess my outfit (Jim as Dwight) for halloween he doesnt watch the office but his best friend does and loves the outfit and gives mea high five. He asks what do you want to do for the picture I say something stupid cause you and your friends are stupid and he’s like you calling me stupid and im like oh shit NO stupid as in weird. I feel bad now, I take the picture and wait overthinking my life for the show to start. The show is blasting bad boy records and im so bout it. I know every song, I dance to my self in the crowd. I meet some people who seem really cool one person from Orlando too. The opener comes out, Towkio, in his set he asks for dancers, some girls come on stage, INCLUDING ME. The music starts playing and the girls start twerking , almost jump off the stage but instead I start cramping dopes. Amine comes on after that and he’s going in, I wish I knew the lyrics, I honestly truly just enjoyed the concert, I sang maybe 3 songs but Caroline was everything. After that, we dance it out with a dj and im so hype, people say they like my dancing and was happy and left home.after getting lost.

[travelinghermit]

July 6 - Puno

My GPS decided to take me on an adventure this morning. Because its a machine and not a concious, rational thinking being it thought “Hey this guy wants to get over there, well I have two options. One is the smooth pavement way which is a bit longer but atleast its nice and easy. Option two is straight over a mountain and into the baron tundra on a sandy, rocky, hell road. Say no more option 2 it is.”

And option two it was. Before any of this my morning started great. Got up early at 6:20am, ate my breakfast of yogurt and cereal - eating in the lazy backpacker method of taking turns dumping cereal in my mouth then swigging the yogurt. Worked great 👍. I was out the door by 730am while the rest of the city was just beginning to turn its gears. Of course I stopped off at my local cafe, grabbed a quick coffee, then began todays adventure to my last Peruvian destination Puno.

It was pretty painless getting out of the city but the real punch in the throat was not even ten minutes after leaving the city I began climbing the hills where my paved road ended with a fork twisting in two polar opposite directions. My road to the left was the gravely, potholed, just completely chaotic with bumps, sand, and the whole lot, ascending higher into the mountains. The very mountains I was gazing upon in Arequipa known for their human sacrifices. Makes perfect sense then I thought. The terrain would constantly alter between gravel and sand. Honestly the gravel and potholes were of no real threat as long as I went slow but the sand was a menace. Getting me stuck, and turning my front wheel and handlebars along with it at any moment that would have me flying. I knew just keeping the ship dead straight with a firm grip was the only way of maneuvering through this pit of nightmares. Finally over the mountain, nobody coming either way of me for the entire time for hours, I then entered a wide open tundra with nothing inhabiting the land except small groups of Alpaca’s. Which made me feel good, alpaca’s are a funny animal. At around noon I had crossed this “shortcut” according to my GPS and finally connected with the main road which lead to my goal Puno. Im lucky I decided to leave early this morning or else I doubt Id have made it here with some daylight. It made for an adventurous morning which im never opposed too but it deffinitley made for a long ride also.

The rest of the way I was riding though similar bright yellow fields and mountainous valleys from days prior. It was beautiful yet tolerably chilly. I was thinking this afternoon how vastly different the terrain has switched from the North to South of Peru, almost like their two different countries yet both are completely mountainous. My time here in Peru has only affirmed my affinity for mountains and cemented my position on how pointless beaches are. Along with this realization it has also given me an appreciation for the cold as a force thats possible to conquer and overcome. The warmth is easy theres nothing to it except walking outside and gladly accepting its rays of sunshine. Preparing myself for a full day in the cold is like a gladiator preparing to take on a roaring lion. Ive worked in the cold and rain plenty but I think theres an intrinsic difference in obligation between the two. Plus operating a motorcycle is much more appealing than operating a lawn mower. I cant deny that the bright sunny days are a huge morale boost. Id probably think otherwise if it was grey, miserable, wet, and cold.

By 400pm I had entered Puno home to the largest lake in South America and the highest in elevation in the world at 3812 meters. Lake Titicaca. The lake is also shared between Peru and Bolivia so this makes for my last stop in Peru after 2 months in her borders. Its a little bittersweet as I know ive seen more of this great country then most do on multiple visits yet it still feels like ive somehow rushed through and still have so much more to see.

I found a awesome hotel here for a great price which is run by a sweet woman who helped me get my bike up some cement steps into her narrow doorway to save me a few bucks for storage and the showers are hot, wifi fast, and beds seem adequately warm. Im staying for two days then off to Bolivia on Sunday.