Eclipse, A Poem By Harrison Aye

Eclipse by Harrison Aye

My kind of women doesn't need anyone,
it seems she'll wrap you 'round her pinkie while she dials with her thumb.
She'll step into the elevator without word from her mouth,
but let the door fully open before thinking of stepping out.

Can you read minds?
cause you're never around, (because you're never around)
except for these moments,
impetuous passerby,
from the corner of my eye.

You can eclipse most anything,
and set all the ocean's waves offbeat,
but this is no dissonant haiku,
I'm looking at the sky tonight,
Are you?

Your kind of face is just too hard to miss,
you've got a phasing cat smile,
and a strawberry kiss.
Your strut's illuminated,
only comes out at night.
Your paradox can put out the sun,
and bring out the brightest light.

Can you read minds?
cause you're never around,
except for these moments,
impetuous passerby,
from the corner of my eye.

You can eclipse most anything,
and set all the ocean's waves offbeat,
but this is no dissonant haiku,
I'm looking at the sky tonight,
Are you?

I enjoy rotation on this Earth,
but sometimes I wish I'd fall up into the sky.
When our paths cross I'd dream that you'd turn back toward me.
No, I wish that you'd turn back
with me.

I must find out if you read minds or eyes,
do you have that potential?
and what you think when you read mine.
Am I the passerby,
from the corner of your eye?
You can eclipse most anything,
and set all the ocean's waves offbeat,
but this is no dissonant haiku,
I'm looking at the sky tonight,
Are you?

Credits: Video, lyrics, music by Harrison Aye, guitar performed by Brian Wood, and drums performed by Scott Weber. This song can be purchased for a buck: http://gum.co/cCfOI

Notes: I wrote this poem because I kept crossing paths with this girl on my college's campus. I think I had love-at-first-sight, because everything she would walk by, I would be frozen with that tingly feeling. Some days, I would set out with nerve and the intention to finally talk with her, but I never saw her on those days. No, it seemed like she only ever walked by when I was least expecting it. I was never prepared, although, I did end up talking to her a few times. She started dating a friend of mine, though, but I never stopped having my secret crush for her. She was totally out of my league, anyway.

I was in several bands throughout my life, and usually any poetry I wrote would eventually be turned into a song. The video is a recording of that song, performed by some awesome area musicians, one of which leads an awesome band called LuxPerSono (https://www.facebook.com/luxpersono). I took the video at PAX Prime while I lived in Seattle. It is distorted mainly because I took the footage on my 3DS, but I find the low-quality perfect for a lyric video like this.

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Comic - "Flexible Figure"

So, I made a web comic late the other night. I was extremely tired, but somehow I still found this funny after I read it again the next morning. When I was a kid, I used to dream of making a comic strip. I used to love Garfield, specifically. I would check out those giant books of Garfield comics from the school’s library and read them all in one sitting.

As an adult, my favorite comic is definitely Monty, which used to be called Robotman. There was some episode when Monty gets captured by the Teletubies, and to let people know he was being held captive, he wrote “help me” or something on his koolaid mustache. Absolute genius. Since then, if I go to read the funnies, I always start with Monty. I truly haven’t held a newspaper in years, though (who has?).

The comic I made above speaks for itself, really. There are so many stick figure based web comics nowadays, and a lot of them are extremely funny. However, the art style is so overdone and bland that I usually avoid them anyway. Art style doesn’t have to mean complicated. Look at Garfield, Charlie Brown. Those comics have style. Stick figures are not style; they’re laziness, imo.

Anyway, as far as my writing, I’m working on some major projects right now. I’ve mainly put blogging to the side, so that I can focus on the most important thing (my novel). I’m thinking about going for an MFA in writing, maybe I’ll post more about that later.   

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Animal Crossing: An In-Depth Wealth of Constructive Criticism and Suggestions After Having Played New Leaf

This is not my first post about Animal Crossing, and it probably won’t be the last. You see, something sparks a fire in me about this game. The premise is so seductive. The idea of a game about collecting EVERYTHING sounds like so much fun. Build a house; live a new life. This intrigues me.

I enjoyed the Gamecube version of Animal Crossing. The DS version, called Wild World, was slightly more fun. The Wii version was so atrocious that I resold it (the only Wii game I ever traded in). Now, we have the 3DS version, called New Leaf.

The one big problem I have had with ALL of these games comes right after paying off my final loan. At that moment, I lose all interest, because I felt like I had nothing to work for. I thought New Leaf would be different, with the new public works projects, but it wasn’t. I think, in the case of this new game, it’s because the only way to make money efficiently is by selling beetles caught at the island. Doing the beetle routine every night gets old after a month. Each public works project was just another estimation of beetles I would have to catch to see an object that is already in all of my friend’s towns anyway. If there were more optimal and varied ways to make money, I might still be playing consistently.

As of this moment, it’s been three days since I’ve last checked in on my town. The only reason I’m considering looking at my town right now is because I’m afraid that all my black roses have wilted. “NOOOOO!” I said. In the middle of writing this paragraph, I checked. Eleven out of fourteen of my black roses are dead. I should have put them in my refrigerator storage unit. Man…

The Other Night, a poem by Harrison Aye

She was caught up like she always was.

She would pause things,

they were still-frames in her mind.

From the audience she’ll follow you

with her incandescent eyes.


The first two hands to strike applaud you.

They set off a chain reaction,

Christ, that crowd adores you.

A bold technician turns the spotlight.

Can you overthrow the banshees and

slay the critics this night?

Because they see all

and they cannot be seen.


I entered in your dioramic view

from a crawl space,

where you could not see behind.

From this lofty spot I dreamt of you,

in senescence and supine.


The other night,

when I told you what I thought of your design,

the path that you chose, deceived us all.

the other night I chose to be the only one,

the one that told you and freed us all.

But paint doesn’t come off dry.

I left it there despite.

The set’s a brilliant red,

I painted you instead

I think I’m going to blog a little bit today about what exactly I did with the month of June as a writer. First off, I didn't do much. Excuses, excuses, I know. I worked a summer camp for special needs kids all June, but it has finally ended. It was a fieldtrip camp, and it tired me out most days (although it was a ton of fun).

Beyond that, something has blocked my writing from me, and I should just put it this way: I’m not good at splitting my creativity. I usually can only handle one artistic project at a time. Before wanting to become a writer, I spent every drop of my creative-self writing songs for the bands I was in. When I moved to Seattle, I had left behind my musician friends, and therefore was able to focus solely on making my novel happen. 

Now, since moving back to the homelands, I’m enjoying making music again. I’ve always been the songwriter in whatever band I’ve been in, and it started out that way mainly because I was the only one of my friends who would do it. However, it grew to be my main outlet of personal expression. I wrote hundreds of songs and selected a few to become full-band performance pieces. I have a hundred-something page document of pure lyrical madness. 

 

me performing at Pop's Nightclub, a long time ago

My drummer and I are planning to start a new band, and I’ve made it my intent to write all-new music for it. I want to see what I can come up with as the person I am now rather than simply reuse the old material. So, that’s been eating my creative energy. Maybe I’ll update again when I get that going. So far, I’ve written seven songs. They are really cool and fresh (I think)! But, I feel like I’m finally getting back to the point where I can focus on writing fiction again. I guess I just needed a break after doing my novel’s 2^nddraft. 

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Paint and Me

I’ve never taken a painting class. I would probably learn a lot from one, though. I’ve always enjoyed painting. I would say I like it as much as straight up drawing, but I do it less because painting requires more set up and expensive stuff. Drawing is quick and not messy.

This is one of the first paintings I’ve ever done. I was in high school, and I had asked my mother for a set of paints for Christmas. She got me five tubs of house paint. Stuff meant for painting on wood siding outside. Well, I made the best of it. This one is untitled because I never had the notion to title painting at the time. I’ve always liked blending colors, so I made this by scattering paint with my hands until it formed some coherent shapes, at which the story of it took over.

 

Kind of looks like an arm reaching out for a horse or something. I like to call my style of visual art… organic. I don’t do well with instruction/outlines/predetermined ideas/planning. 

This next photo was at a point where I tried to take art more “seriously,” and you can see the effect of it. I painted the Arch, still in high school, but I was going for something more “artistic” rather than organic. That’s why I hate it, but I’ll post it here anyway.

Not really very interesting, is it? I had too much of a plan for my own right. During this time, I had asked my mother if I could paint the walls of my room, and for some weird reason she let me. I had people come over and we basically made a huge mural of random shit all over my walls. I tried to dig something up, but I don’t think I ever had taken a picture of it, sadly. It had giant waves crashing into a rock, a wall of eyeballs, creatures of odd proportions, and pyramids. It was cool. During that time I started painting other random things. I painted my furniture a red/purple mix. I painted a street cone. I painted a puppet that I made out of foam.

 

I was uncontrollable. Hah! I tried once again to do something “proper” and nice looking. I wanted to give my mother something for her birthday, so I made this.

It’s actually sort of a combination of digital and paint. The background birds are reprinted four times, only slightly changed. The white-ish birds are cut out from a splash painting I did (splash painting is probably not a technical term, lol, I never took a paint class). I thought it came out really well, actually. The border is just black paint.

This one was something I made for my friend for Christmas. We had been talking about duality, and I decided to make him something that represents that struggle. I’ve always loved 3D art, so I wanted this to pop out of the frame. I made the monsters separately. I regret that massive signature. Also, if my friend is reading this, I do not expect you to keep this forever, haha. It’s not something I would want hanging around my house at this point in my life, so I wouldn’t blame you if it “got lost.”

This next one is the first one on a real, wooden frame canvas. I bought the canvas because I had been going to art exhibits and I wanted to do something a little higher classed. It is interesting to note that I painted this before I realized that I made creepy artwork. This was waaaay before I realized that I loved Halloween and horror. Also, it’s my first painting that I really gave a title to. It’s called,  “It’s Scary Outside.”

 Here’s a close look at the spider and the repeated pattern:

It, like most of my art, is about examining for the monster within one’s self, as opposed to the world around you. I have a few extra secrets hidden within this one. The obvious one are the raccoons outside the window. The not-so obvious one I won’t tell you. It’s kind of terrifying once you notice it, in my opinion. If you have a guess, throw it in the comments. 

 

That brings us to today. I haven’t painted much in years. I’ve been too busy writing a novel and blogging about it. Hah. But, now that my novel is in the editing phase, I’ve been trying to play with some of my other favorite types of art (which is all types). This one is going to be called “Nine Levels” and it will be about my own Dante-esk version of the varying levels of the afterlife. Each level is its own “sin” personified. I’ve only just started on the foreground, so it’s still have a LOOONG way to go. It’s going to be very complex. I've been told by several people that I have a natural talent for mixing colors. If only I could also have a talent for brush control... I'm working on it!

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The Inevitable Super Smash Brothers 4 Character Predictions/Desires

As two new Super Smash Brothers (hereafter SSB) games are in development for Wii U and 3DS, I have been thinking about which characters will be in the game. SSB is my favorite game series. There’s just no other fighter that quite does what SSB does with such class and style. Today I’m going to build my own roster, made up from both my personal desires to characters that I think have a good shot at making it. I’ll discuss characters that I believe will be removed and those that will be replaced. So, let’s get to it!

My roster, drawn by me!

First, I want to start with Ganondorf. Always considered one of the worst characters, Ganondorf has been a clone-character (meaning uses the same moves as another character) of Captain Falcon. While his moveset has never made sense being that he doesn’t have any of his in-game powers, it’s always disappointing to have a character that plays the same way as another character (only Ganondorf is ridiculously slower!). I would love to see Ganondorf replaced with traditional Ganon. Yeah, the pig-like monster with giant tusks. He can be a Bowser-weight and size character, using giant swords and his traditional magical energy balls and magic. I know that Ganon is used as a Final Smash in Brawl, but I think that should be changed to a powerful dark energy attack.

Click the jump to read on!

Game Idea: Pokémon Tennis

Mario Tennis is awesome. The tight controls, awesome gameplay, and Mario-themed courts and playable characters make for solid fun.

Now, take the tight controls and gameplay, and add monster battling.

Pick your Pokémon Trainer and two starter pokémon to begin. Trainers have the basic stats of your standard tennis player. Speed, power, technique, or tricky playstyles.

 Pokémon either are attack, defense, speed, or special.

Now, the game begins like this: Trainer and the two starter pokémon appear together on either side of the court. One Trainer serves the tennis ball, which is really a pokéball (of course).

Tennis ensues. While you as the trainer are going after the ball with your tennis racket, your starter pokémon are launching attacks on the other team (Pokémon cannot attack until the ball is served). Fire pokémon shoot fireballs. Water pokémon shoot water. Grass pokémon throw leaves, etc. The pokémon can also help deflect the ball back to the other court. If a pokémon hits a Trainer with an attack, the trainer is stunned for a moment or moves more slowly.

Life Update Blog – 21 December 2012 – APOCALYPSE EDDITION!

What’s up with me?

For the first year of my life in Seattle, I worked at a childcare center, in a room with 14 one-year-olds. It was depressing and hard work, but I survived. I quit, wrote a book, then got a new job.

also, I met this Lando guy, who produced a little movie called Avatar

It only took me 18 days to find work (which felt like record-time for finding a job).

I resumed writing like a mad man after my successful interview, and on October 21, I put an ending on my novel. It was definitely one of the top achievements of my life.

On October 23^rd, I started working at a Big Box Retail Store. I kept applying during my time there (I hate retail, but I wanted to start making money ASAP), to hopefully find something better, which I did. I jumped from that retail job after another successful interview, and now I am working for a local Movie Theatre. I’m getting almost full time hours there, and me and the wife are enjoying the benefits of having free movies whenever we want (which saves us a lot of $$$ on date nights, lol). Also, it’s kinda fun working for a Theatre, because it feels like putting on a show (I used to be a part of a few Dramatic Theatre groups).

At the moment, I’m working my ass off at the Movie Theatre and working my ass off on editing my novel in my free time. After I’ve finished my first set of edits, I’m going to send it to a few of my friends and get some feedback. As the feedback comes in, I will do more editing on my novel. Rinse and repeat, until it is a very shiny document.

Next year, I’m planning on beginning my writing career beyond just my novel. I don’t know exactly how that will happen. Not all of the details on that are complete, though I do have great leads. I know that finishing my novel was the important first step, for me. I had to get that out; the art was screaming at me to create it.

In any time I am not at the Movie Theatre, however, I know I want to try my hand at freelance writing to bring in some extra bucks. Having a job that keeps me late at night is good for this, as I write best in the mornings and during the day (so the day is my own). I want to have a side job, writing on my own time. I also want to build an online presence with social media and blogging. That part will increase for me once I’ve sent my novel out to my beta readers. 

not a brony, not a brony

I also want to start working on other writings, whether it is short stories, poetry, or another novel. I have ideas for all formats, but this is just another cut of my time (that will have to wait for my finished novel to be sent to my betas). For my art time, I know that getting my finished novel published will be the top priority.

Now that I work downtown again, I’ve been doing a lot of reading (I always read on the bus). I finished a friend’s novel, started on another friend’s novel, halfway through the Silmarillian, working on SK’s The Stand, and have dabbled in JKR’s The Casual Vacancy. I’m a spastic reader, and I usually read a bunch of books all at once (for my different moods).

So, that’s me now and my immediate future. You have been updated, officially.

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My idea for a Wreck-It Ralph sequel: Wreck-It Ralph Junior!

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Sort of how Wreck-It Ralph is a play on Donkey Kong, its sequel will be a play on Donkey Kong Junior.

PLOT: A new arcade cabinet has been collected by the old man and plugged in to the surge protector. He’s very excited because it’s a very rare addition! Wreck-It Ralph Junior! This new game starts out with a visual of Felix and the townsfolk celebrating on the building and Wreck-It Ralph is locked into a cage. Then we see a montage of Felix’s carpentry business taking off and he becoming mega rich and twisted by his inflated ego. He becomes the evil version of Felix, known as Felix-Ferocious (or possibly a new character called Cage-It Carl or something, as long as it’s just a clone of Felix with an evil look on his face), and the player plays as W.I.R. Junior trying to save his father.

Hit the jump for more!

Building a Haunted House: 5 Things I’ve Observed While Being a Visitor

It’s a HUGE dream of my wife and I’s to own and operate a haunted house someday. I’m a lover of all things horror/creepy/Halloween, and this would be the culmination of my fascination. The other day, I went to a local haunted attraction based in a mall. On the drive home, my wife and I discussed a few things we need to keep in mind when we do end up building one:

 1. Remember the ratio of time spent in one room to the number of props. 

Sometimes haunted houses are over too quickly, and that leaves the visitor with a feeling of poor value for the money they paid. The haunt I visited the other day had a classic “meat butcher” room, and the props amazed me. This room was FILLED to the brim with arms and legs and heads and other fun Halloween props. But, we were pushed through the room within a period of about 5 seconds. 

There was hardly any time to admire any of the props. Meanwhile, the haunt was VERY short (although they had a lot of unused space to work with). I realized that they could have taken 1/4^th of the props from the butcher room and hung them from ropes and make you walk through them or something. Spread out all of those props you’ve invested in! People want to see them!

hit the jump for more!

The Spiny Blue Shell of Mario Kart: An In-Depth Discussion on Why It Sucks and How to Fix It

We all know that the spiny shell weapon in Mario Kart is the cheapest load of crap ever, but I’ve never seen an article articulating exactly why it is so unbalanced and unfair. So, I sought to correct that gap (much like the spiny shell tries to correct the 1st position gap).

As with any weapon in the game, there is an attacker and a target. In the case of the blue shell, the attacker is usually one of the last positioned racers and the target is always the 1st position racer. This is half the reason why the blue shell sucks.

Look at it from the perspective of the attacker: If you’re way behind, you want a weapon that will put you ahead. Your direct rivals must be taken out or bypassed before you can even think about going for the leaders. So if you’re in 7th place, who are currently your biggest rivals? 6th and 5th place. Who do you target when you fire a blue shell? The guy in way up in 1st place.

If you’re like me, you shoot the blue shell immediately to make room in your inventory for something more useful (is there any sense in holding on to it?). The 1st place kart that you’ve just taken out will surely be up-and-running again before you get close to catching up with him, and, even if you do catch up, whoever was in second place just took over as the new first place.

Some help.

hit the jump for more

Should I buy Animal Crossing?

I will answer that question in the end. For now, I will ask another: Is Animal Crossing obsolete? Is there a better game with similar game mechanics?

Yes, Minecraft.

Hear me out. Minecraft has caused Animal Crossing to become obsolete.

Why?

On the surface, these two games seem like they are very different. However, that’s not the case. There’s no real purpose to Animal Crossing, and, you know what? There’s no real purpose to Minecraft.

They both put you out there with nothing in your pockets and no goals more intricate than simply: gather stuff. They both allow you to do as you wish. You can choose where you want to go and how you want to spend your time. You can move into a house, upgrade it, add stuff to it, and live out a virtual life.

But Minecraft does everything better. Hit the jump for the full article!

A Concept for a New Star Trek Series

I love finding out that the bad guys are not so bad.

I have been thinking about what a new Star Trek TV show series would have to do to be “fresh” without falling too far from what makes the show so great. What I came up with would be a show where the viewer would get to know two very different spaceships.

Here’s the basic concept: A seemingly independent group of “evil” space marauders steals some sort of important object from Earth, and a new starship has been commissioned and a new captain appointed to pursue the marauders, return the object, and see that justice is served.

The object might be any number of things; perhaps it is a key rock that is used to generate enough energy for Earth’s replicators. Maybe the object is a living person; maybe the daughter of the Federation President was taken. A new weapon or technology? Who knows? The object must be interesting enough to survive seven seasons, and it must be important enough to send an entire ship after it.