Obsession?

Most of my friends will tell you I tweet a lot, incessantly even, so how does one strike a balance in terms of real life and the "social media" life?
I have my physical flesh and blood relations which I value and then I have my online "twitter" relations which I value as well.
I've separated my twitter account from my Facebook account as a first step and I work hard at making sure some content goes to either or or, or both if it makes sense, but it brings to mind something @decanblue said, "Maybe we do think about it to much." Do I?
I admit I can be obsessive, and I admit I can get caught up in "fads" but this (gestures at Social Media) is not a "fad" nor is it "fluffy" nor is it something to be taken lightly once one goes down the path of being "serious" about it.
There are consequences on both end, balancing your life, which is always important, not ignoring your friends, and trying not to be annoying to your friends (any of them).
Case in point, one friend has pointed out that she wants to get more into Twitter and blogging to make money, get her voice across on weight loss (both worthy goals). I, in my enthusiasm and happiness for this person, went perhaps a little to far into talking about it to her, pointing out etiquette (something another friend did as well), but it seemed...not welcomed.
It counterpoints the same thing that happened with me with @decanblue and how I fully embraced it, and how through suggestions to @365daygirl, she grew to love using Twitter. I have other individuals who "get" what I am trying to say about the potential for this vehicle to get you across, whether that is personal branding or your company's.
The danger lies in not being that crazy guy who stares at you with shiny eyes of madness when he is telling you that Social Media is the greatest creation since the invention of the wheel.
As much as I say, don't be the annoying company or person that says, "me, me, me" or "sale, sale, sale" because I'm just a corporate pencil monkey, I need to watch that in myself.
Walking around saying, "You on Twitter? You tweet? How is it working for you?" Sounds like I'm selling a car (I don't do that by the way, but that can come across).
But I was talking about it enough to annoy some people, but some people once I explained it in more detail began to listen. Why? I was enthusiastic, I was excited, I was infectious, I saw the potential and could get that potential across, I was borderline crazy shiny eyes guy. Never once did I say you're doing it wrong, your way sucks, instead it was listen, take notes, and then make suggestions on how certain avenues might improve a person's communication with their target audience.
Don't assume they will come to you because you have a Facebook account or a Twitter account (if you don't engage nobody will come to you) you have to work at it, be their friend, explore avenues of communication, and provide a reason for them to keep coming back to you.
This blarrrgh of information is what gets people going, but not all people.
You have to LISTEN, if you don't LISTEN then you fail to notice the person who isn't interested because they don't care, they don't need it, they are experienced or they just want to do it themselves. I need too assume that people want to learn something of value, but I don't need to assume that beating them with the stick of obsessive crazy is the way to do it.
I'm going to continue to tweet, and Facebook and sit there on my phone typing and reading, and I'm going to continue to learn what I can and pass on what I know about Social Media and it's place in one Magical Mexican's personal branding, but I will try to keep my obsession from ruining your day as well my friends.
At the end of the day, we all need our friends and scaring them away is tantamount to suicide or worse being the naked guy playing WOW after losing his job for not coming in for a week.
Not me man, not me. I stick to the pajamas and a few hours a day thank you.

Social Media Schizophrenia

I came to a realization last week, I've been bugging my Facebook friends with my Twitter posts about Social Media..and that ladies and gentleman is no good, no good at all.
It's crazy, but on the one hand I have this personality on Facebook, that is informative, a bit crazy, irreverent and entertaining (or so I believe) and then there is the Twitter side of things. On there, I am a bit crazy, entertaining and informative, but I'm also very interested in Social Media and it's potential, not just for me, but for the future of how we deal with each other and how businesses deal with each other and their customers.
My mistake was in trying to keep EVERYBODY informed of ALL aspects of my interests, when in reality it really should have been kept apart.
I feel like it cost me some in terms of my friends on Facebook, most of them don't get Twitter and most of them might not want to get it, and that's OK (there have been converts, hell I am a convert) but sending them post after post of my findings on blogs, articles and news about the latest in Social Media probably left them with a WTF attitude about who I was on Facebook.
My friend @decanblue on Twitter noted that when I mentioned I thought my friends on Facebook probably hated me for inundating them with Social Media articles, especially when most of them got no comments, had no "likes" and yet people seemed to enjoy the articles I RT or posted on Twitter.
Stupid, stupid, stupid, two different animals, two different audiences (audiences that could overlap mind you but different nonetheless) with one perhaps not caring any less about the latest articles from Mashable, bkmacdaddy or Twittercism (to name a few), unfortunate yes but in the end they are my friends and I have to be sensitive to that fact. If I'm not then all I am is a pitch man coming across for all intents and purposes like a salesman. Who likes salesman? If done wrong, not many and I don't want to be taken wrongly.
So for now, I'm going to keep my two "lives" separate, at time they will crossover, but not always, and that's OK, and I hope it's OK with both/either of my friends on both/either Twitter and Facebook.
Now if you will excuse me, I'm tired from unpacking and I have three cats I need to share a bed with :-)

Do you get it?

I'm often asked by my friends why I'm twittering all the time, to most of them it seems like a waste of time, or they don't get it.
True enough, when my friend @decanblue mentioned it to me in conjunction with working on our @impossiblebox project, my response was, "Huh" and "Why?" Honestly, when I tell people I tweet their response usually is, "Oh I hate twitter!" Trust me, I was in the same boat.
And then...I used it, I expanded upon it, true in the beginning I faltered along, but then it hit me.
I can get information this way, I can share my thoughts we people ANYWHERE, I can converse in a global conversation.
Initially it worked out that I could link it to my Facebook and Myspace account, and I don't have a fancy web phone, but that doesn't stop me from getting Twitter and Facebook replies to my posts.
Most people that know me, know I can be...bizarre to say the least, and it it's a great forum (Twitter) to get my voice out there, especially when your working on a project like the one my friend and myself are working on. But then I began to learn more and to see posts about Social Media and I began to READ them, and with @decanblue it all gelled as to what possibilities are out there.
We are looking at a medium of information that with it's 32 million users (Webbiquity: http://ow.ly/19LVa ) has a global reach and potential unmatched (as I see it) beyond what Television can accomplish.
With it you can reach out to new customers, provide links to interesting content, influence those you interact with, be influenced, participate in marketing ebbs and flows, get news, be heard, be noisy and so on.
With this knowledge has come a leveling out of my tweets, I'm still bizarre (I can't help it), but there has been a paradigm shift to an awareness of the self in proportion to my Social Media self. They are one and the same, but as "I" grow, so does that persona grow until eventually they reach equilibrium.
Why do I do it? I asked that question and am asked that question.
Because I have a comic I want to push, I have ideas I want to push, I want to learn, I want to be weird, I want to be noticed. I have an insatiable need to "out" there and anybody who get's twitter and gets it correctly knows what I mean.
All of us, in some fashion are narcissistic, even the corporations who have their own Twitter pages, and they go out and say what they have to say but say it with interest and with interesting content.
The person or person who is/are narcissistic, but doesn't get it only puts down what is simply a log of their life and if your interesting enough, then that is sufficient. If your not, well then we're treated to, "Took dog for a walk, saw a squirrel, got home, now eating oatmeal." To illustrate this, I will sometimes tweet that I am doing something specifically to laugh at myself, to laugh at Twitter and to laugh at how silly it can be sometimes.
The person or persons who take their narcissism seriously, well...they just don't get it. They are the ones who give you the sale of the moment, tell you they have specials, spam you with get rich schemes and "methods" and YOU NEVER GET TO CONVERSE with them, almost like it's really just a robot sitting there spitting out goo of info. To those, I simply turn of their feed, how sad is that? Your a company, you want people to follow and buy your product and instead of getting to know your followers/customers you tell them what they already know instead of saying "SPOTTED Extreme Pogo: When you're pulling off front flips on a pogo stick, you might want to wear a helmet." from @Delllounge where they post about music, videos and games (as an example). Dell talks to their customers, they listen to customer tweets, they monitor them because like anybody who is narcissistic, they want to know who if anybody is talking about them and what they are saying.
Most of us on here are here because we want to be noticed, we want to know if anybody notices us and we want to know what people are saying about us, from the individual to the company we WANT TO BE NOTICED.
So why do I tweet? I have a need to be noticed. Do you get it?

Who I am

At this point in my life, I'm career oriented with a desire to excel and move forward in my career for any job that fits my required skills sets. I'm also very interested in starting business ventures and have embarked upon my second one with my friend Lance already with hopes that this new one will fulfill a personal and professional dream. Both of these take time and dedication, sometimes to the exclusion of others, this has been a steady progression. I become to responsible never to the point of shirking my responsibilities as a partner to somebody, but the relationship does become hard for some to handle.

I'm to independent, I like my "alone" time, I cherish it. I enjoy the company of friends and I enjoy the bar scene (though it is NOT an overwhelming desire like in my youth). Because of my schedule I tend to plan my social life a week ahead of time. Sometimes, if there is a lull or I am ahead of things, spur of the moment social events become OK. But I'm not one for surprises or for cancellations on the spot, especially if the reason is lame.

I enjoy being single, there is a certain freedom to it that I love. It is something that I and others have discovered and we feel much better for the lack of title and seeming responsibility that comes with the bf/h title. What that does not mean is that I am not a player, a douche or a thug, my feelings on the subject is put up front. There are no lies but there are also no allusions to what will be or not be.

What I am is comfortable in my own skin. I'm not dashing or handsome or fit or young, I am simply me, Manny. I believe myself to be a funny, weird, geeky guy that enjoys a beer or a wine, cheap concerts and musicals. Burger joints and fine restaurants house parties and dinner parties. This is who I am after 43 years, and if I am not comfortable with that then there is something seriously wrong. I have my boundaries and I work at keeping them steadfast in order to protect myself, but that protection allows me the ability to help when I see it is needed and back off when a person's trouble can envelop me. I enjoy my dancing because it exercises my body and my soul and to hell those who mock me about it, your obviously lacking in something yourself. I am not shy about enjoying sex it is an essential part of life, but it is not the driving force of my life. It is slave to me, not me to it. I am a moderate liberal who can be opinionated but who will listen if the argument is sound and will admit my mistakes if I am guilty of them.

What I am is a friend or a good acquaintance, someone you can talk to bullshit with, bounce ideas off of, get advice or have an ear to listen to you. I will help when I can but will only continue if you truly want or need help. I will not be a savior or rescuer to the chronic but will help those who stumble in their path and are fighting to stand up again.

I am an asshole, I am a dick, I am loud, I am a dancer, I am harsh, I am honest, I am kind, I am Grey.

This is who I am and I dare the universe to stop me. It will curtail me, it will make me stumble and it will make me cry, but until I draw my last breath, I will never stop. Even if I should become a quadriplegic I will still have my mind and through that lies a wealth of adventure through imagination.

I assume the mantle given to me by others when they say, "You're Manny."

I'm Manny.

So please walk away if your hoping for something more but please come close if your looking for a friend.

I truly make a lousy bf/h, and that's OK but I felt you should know. :-)

Practical Immortality As I See It

I haven't written on here in a while so I thought I would restart with a subject near and dear to me.
Immortality.
I want it. Really I do, and the arguments about doesn't life suck enough as it is to keep going forever doesn't work with me. Despite my situation, my life does NOT suck and I want to see it all and there isn't enough time to enjoy it.
Now I'm talking about a very practical immortality.
Not Highlander immortality-impotence and the ability to die if you lose your head is lame.
Not Vampire immortality-reliance on an organic substance to keep you going and the those pesky weaknesses that vampires have does not a true immortal make.

No, this kind involves an advancement in human evolution and condition.
No more reliance on food or sleep, you are sustained by the energy of the cosmos, why is that cool? Well if you don't eat (unless for pleasure) then you don't have to perform bodily functions, I really hate bodily functions. Even if you do eat though, your body runs so efficiently that you use and consume everything you eat, you don't need to sweat because your body isn't bothered by heat or cold, you see where I am getting at?
The energy of the cosmos binds your cellular structure and advances your mind to see it's totality, because of it your smart very smart, because of it, your able to control the density of your cellular structure. Things just don't hurt you because you don't let it hurt you. You don't age because your cells constantly regenerate, and consequently you don't get sick either, cool eh?
Because the energy that keeps you alive is around and plentiful you don't need to sleep either (again unless you really want to) and you never tire or fatigue (the poisons that affect your muscles just get eliminated) and your like the energizer bunny.
We're not talking superman here like in the comics, there is not ability to fly, there is no ability to shoot beams of heat or possess super powers other than immortality like I've described above. No aging, no eating, no sleeping, no sickness or disease, regeneration, intelligence oh and strength, nothing superhuman but definitely superior to the limits of human ability.
What would I do with said immortality? The part that get's people.
I would travel the world, live where I chose as long as I wanted, leanr the languages and customs and move on. I would learn multiple professions, a doctor, an engineer, a scientist, whatever but with time why not challenge yourself to learn all you could possibly learn? Money? What about money? Do you need money right away? You could build a cabin in the woods and just live there. You could invest in something that takes a long time to build because you have the time to wait.
The only downfall is watching all those around you die as they grow old, that would be the true test of surviving immortality, but the escape is always there.
You want to die then you die you cease your hold on this world and go, your not cursed to stay here against your will, it's your will that holds your hear and allows you to be connected to the universe at large and absorb it's energy. Just stop it when you tire of it, and will your end.
Anyway that's my little aside and rant for today.

Job Woes

So I've been a contract worker for Rockwell Collins for 11 months now through Donatech.  Being that I only had a month to go, I felt it was important AND necessary to talk to my lead about my future with the company.  I.E. will I renew my contract, get hired on as a permanent employee or not continue on with the company.
It turned out to be the last thing on the list above.  Due to two projects (with projected hours above 20000 for each) being cancelled or delayed there isn't enough work to keep ALL of us contract workers there.
All four contract workers are being let go by mid October.  It was a shock to a couple of my friends who are employees and too the person I am answering to for this marketing demo we are preparing for the beginning of November.
You see they expected me to be there until the end of October for the crunch period, which this changes.
Can I say that my motivation went out the window, I think I spent a half hour in shock, then talked for awhile to the other contract workers about the situation.  I contacted Shreyash who is my liason with Donatech to start looking for jobs anywhere he can (meaning out of state, because in UT there are no prospects).  I also am preparing to give my Mazda back to the bank and walk away from it and take out the last of my mutual funds to buy a POS car to replace it with.
I have a $467 car payment which with rent and other bills will not be payable on Unemployment if I don't get a job.
My drop dead date is October 19th which is a Monday.
I didn't feel like working on Impossible Box stuff or on anything for Miah or April and barely scraped together the desire to turn in another business card design tonight:

Instead, I went over to Chris H's house to watch Battlestar Galactica: Caprica, have some yummy fish that he cooked up for us and a salad as well.  Then Erin joined us and we watched House.

I needed that, I needed to just center myself and be with friends to bring me to Earth.  If I had been alone I probably would have kicked the crap out of my punching bag (not a bad idea but is that really productive, wait neither was what I just did).

So, tomorrow is a new day where I work to take a negative and make it into a positive.

Impossible Box update

So Impossible Box meeting went well, we discussed some story ideas and a pulse on where we are in relation to the project and each other with the project. That way we're all on the same page. :-)
We cleared up some ideas on logos for the "universe" and made up a game plan as to how to safely and legally show our work without getting ripped off before even getting started.

Logo Designs for Bay Area Warriors

 Well my friend Mara'D asked me to do a logo for her air group the Bay Area Warriors.  She's an old friend and workmate from SingleTrac Studios and I thought I would help her out.  She had sketched up a design for her logo and I did my best to emulate it.  As with any logo I do, I offer variations to see what is possible and to jog any brain cells into suggesting a more cohesive direction.

Here are the logos below:

Pocket Dimensions

It must have been all the rich food I ate, because lately I don't ever remember my dreams. 
In my dream we're at so me park, the park is part of the environment surrounding the "complex."  I'm there with Jeremiah and we're just hanging out, when Ed appears and wants to join us; naked.  Odd but ok, she throws a blanket on herself and we walk around the park.  At one point, Ed lays down and emotionally crumbles, Jeremiah and I try to get her up but to no avail.  Ed's next move is to throw off her blanket, I being a gentleman and also because of the kids decide to climb on top to cover her.  Why simply not throwing the blanket on her wasn't sufficient I don't know.  As we argue with her and a bunch of leering men and teens begin to gather, Ed bolts to the bathroom and disappears, running past Jen Simoni who comes over to chat with me.  We talk and the park area half becomes a bar while we are chatting and ten there is commotion in the bathroom and everything becomes the bathroom again. Jen is gone. 
Jeremiah comes out of the bathroom carrying Ed who looks like a tight emotional ball of flesh, but somehow she has some clothes on again.  We begin walking towards our car's to get out of this place, when she hops out of Miah's arms and runs to get water.  Miah is a bit frustrated at this point.
I run after her to make sure she doesn't get into mischief and as I approach her I witness something that Ed had mentioned before but I had not had the privilege to see (at least that's the way it was in the dream), the world in front of her hand goes all fuzzy and wavers and she reaches into this fuzziness and pulls out a water bottle!  OMG, I've just witnessed a fully functioning and existing pocket dimensions, what a find!  Jeremiah catches up and sureptiously  I try to convey that message to him, in a sort of over the shoulder mouthing exageratingly sort of way.  He just looks at me like I'm an idiot and there it ended.
Wonder what it all means?  Just a piece of grool stuck in my belly?

The Stand-In night.

Is home safe, and going to bed no later than he normally would be going to bed, save that his legs are really sore from dancing first upstairs to some Depeche Mode and then downstairs to finish off, I swear that Kevin was trying to kill me down there.  Dude, back to back marathon songs? Oh well at least at my age I can do it right?
This more than makes up for some frustration earlier, but that is past.  Once again, it was nice dancing out there with Miah and April, less idiots down there.  One tried to parody Miah but he was dissuaded by him and sent on his way.  Interesting, why does Miah get parodied by younger gawky 21 something male and I get parodied by the munchkin 18 year old?
Sigh, that girl, she literally lasted a minute trying to dance around me and make fun of me.  Finally, it was like "man I'm going to accidentally hit that girl," SHE WAS THAT CLOSE!
I turned bent down to talk to her, and said: "Hon if your unable to dance, you might want to get off the dance floor."
Sigh.  Probably should have ignored it, but a minute?  Come on, most times when that happens it's over like in seconds with male or females, because I just ignore them and (especially with guys) dance through their space as if their not there, they usually get the hint quickly.  But this little girl was literally less than 5' tall! 
Oh well, the night ended well overall.  I got a good workout.

The monkey see monkey do syndrome

Here is what I think is amusing...I submitted a design for a logo at 99designs.com for a company called Statrad.  The image at the link below represents the artwork previous to my entry.

http://99designs.com/contests/27446/entries/91

Then came my design:

 

Most entries previous to this were eliminated.  After that this is what the designs ended up looking like:

 

See a pattern?  This happened after I got some positive comments on my design.  My design is still in the running but so are all the ones afterwards which look like :-/

So much for originality on their part eh?

This is the final design based on their requests for a difference in color and removing the dots, which some people afterward didn't pay attention to.

 

Not sure if it's any better.

Shaving a penny here and a dollar there.

Trying to survive financially in this economy blows let me tell you.  I'm trying to pull some magic spells here to help.  I've reduced my gym membership to a pinance to just keep it open and locked at the rate it's at now, I'm getting rid of my storage unit and going to stuff it all into my one bedroom, I was able to do graduated payments at SHC and I'm negotiating my auto insurance to shave off $30-40 there as well.  Once I finish paying off this new phone my cell phone payments should drop another $60 as well.
All in the name of pinching money and surviving.  If this works out right, I could save almost $200, which turns into $100 once my loan payments start back up again.
To top it off, I begin my annual pilgrimage to any bank including my own to see about refinancing my car so that I can get lower paymens (that's what's really eating into my finances-$467 a month is a big gouge).
I'm sure you can understand.

Sleep...Perchance to Dream: Part 2

So early this morning I had a very quick dream (a quickie?) about being at my parent's home in Norwalk, Ca. I'm with other people but it's extremely vague as to who they are.  All I know is that someone is trying to break in and they have guns (the last dream with guns involving a break-in, I got shot in the chest), we're unarmed so we are hiding to ambush them.  Then a loud noise from the living room signals their breaking in, and I wake up.  Coincidentally, I did hear a loud noise from the living room which did actually wake me up and had gotten incorporated into my dream.
When I woke up this morning for work, lo and behold that noise is still happening, because they are doing construction again on 39th down the street, and some big digger is probably trying to break up the asphalt they just laid down.  LAST WEEK! 
Who sets up these schedules?  How is it in most jobs we cannot be inefficient, but when it comes to government at any level, inefficiency is the name of game.

Sunday-NOT just a day for rest

Great Day!  I got lots of stuff to do and it all involves sitting in front of my Mac, documents to write, responses to request to write, research, t-shirt artwork, freelance work hustling, and some personal writing to do.
Again I must make note, that it is the desire of humans beings to find a need to NOT have idle time, or perhaps it is a sign of age, a means for the mind to combat the fuzzies that come with age.
Certainly, as I've gotten older, I have found more time and desire to be personally productive than to have leisure time.
That being said, I'm Hispanic, Mexican-American, it's in my blood to be social and have fun, as my cousin's husband in Mexico put it to me once, "You Americans live to work, we Mexicans work to live."
I have to include myself in the former, and I am pretty sure he agreed as well.  It doesn't mean Mexicans are lazy, it means that they recognize that "fun" is important and without it, you have burnout.
So...I must continue to dance if at all possible, even if that means in my kitchen to music on my headset (April you know what I mean) and I must go out occasionally to be social.  It's very easy I see now to become like my father or mother, or even my grandmother.  A recluse, a being with the simple desire to be left alone to his/her own devices.  It's there, I can feel it, and a part of me wants it.
Enough rambling, get back to work!

April, Jen and I at the Depeche Mode Concert "E" Center SLC

Had a great time at the Depeche Mode, the band was amazing as always, don't really understand or get the people behind us, who barely knew any of the songs or wanted to just text and talk with each other instead of enjoying the music.  Jen wanted to kick their asses, lol and then April got told by security to put her camera away!  The video during "Strangelove" was way way erotic and quite risque I thought for SLC, but ....who cares!  The final duet of "Waiting for the Night to Fall" with Martin Gore and David Gahan was amazing!  Never have I had the opportunity to see them sing a song like that together!  All in all an amazing concert.

 

April and I

 

Jen and I

First Time Blogger, not first time Blogging

Well this is my first blog here on Blogger, greetings to you all, if you think you know me come find me on Myspace under the Bingo the God Clown.
Currently, I'm placing light points on a satellite map so that the software at work can place trees for the simulation we're working on.
Oh, did I mention I'm an artist? Yeah, I'm an artist, both traditionally and in 3D.
I've worked in the video game industry for almost 9 years at SingleTrac, Beyond Games and Sensory Sweep.
I've also bartended for about 8 years at Club Area 51 in Salt Lake City.
The purpose of this blog is to share my viewpoints, show my artwork, share oddities I find on the internet, have some fun.
That is all.