jeffrey + upstairsloft

I’m running on caffeine powernaps but I feel great. I’m on a mission to quit sleeping and nap throughout the day. Lately I’ve been drinking coffee or tea and napping soonafter for about 1 to 1.5 hours. When I wake up, I’m good to go. I nap 2-3 hours before I have to wake up for class, battle a bit of the grogs, but I’m good to go. I think my class is getting a bit annoyed of my hyperactive antics though. Oops. I’m pretty hyper regardless but it’s been less controlled lately. It’s worse when my classmate brings those satanic cookies of death and destruction. I love cookies.

I was innocently walking through the halls in school, minding my own business and a bully came up to me and knocked my taco on the ground. Then he dipped his finger in the grease from the meat of my tacos and wrote “Die Jeff” on the wall. All my friends beat him up. Then the bully cried and ran home. He bought me a new taco and crunchwrap supreme for Rob.

Posted two sets of photos in Lomographs

I need a fix. I need to walk around the city and just shoot away. I realized I am getting quite bored ______graphing the same stuff over and over. What sucks is going to SF is a trip. I wish I can just walk outside my loft, take a stroll in my pajamas and just shoot away just because I feel like it.

That’s what’s cool about congested cities. Constant living. Big cities inspire me. There’s a wealth of visuals, characters, colors, textures, sounds and awkward odors that weirdoes like me constantly take whiffs of even though it smells nasty. Yeah, I’m one of those guys.

On another note, I’m glad people are taking a liking to film—enough to go out and shoot rolls of it. A few of my friends at Sac St. have been on constant lookouts for great deals on ebay for toy cameras, plastic cameras, 70s Nikons. Rob and Vince have been shooting film for several months. It’s fun. That’s why I do it. With such objectivity and rationale I devote to design, it’s great to keep the fun and subjectivity going with photography.

The day Urban Outfitters starts selling toy film cameras and SLRs (aside the Lomolitos), me and my bath tub may have a date with the blow dryer.

If you call 1-800-409-9497, you can receive your free green prosperity handkerchief. Now, this thing performs miracles. This one lady had breast cancer and she was watching TV and then she called that number and then she got it and then everyday she put that handkerchief on her bosom and then one day she was cured from breast cancer. The power of God in the green prosperity handkerchief. If you pay $20, God will bless everything you own. O yeah, and this one lady, she ordered one, and then she had bad eye sight and like she was nearly blind and then she called that number and then she received it and then she was cured of near blindness.

>>> Get yours now.

I just posted some pics I shot mid yesterday and early today. I experimented with a different development technique to push contrast. It turns the blandest scene into a visually exciting image. They lack message, but form itself can be art. Anyhow, here’s my first crack at cross-processing slide film with c-41 processing. Kodak Elite Chrome iso400.

I can’t wait to shoot my rolls of iso50 Velvia. I’ll save that for the city or something. Elite Chrome will suffice for now.

Lately people have been expressing their excitement for the Lomo LC-A to me. It’s a great toy camera. But it doesn’t take the picture for you. Plus, their crazy expensive and if it weren’t for Kate and a group of friends pitching in for my 22nd birthday, I’d be sans LC-A. The LC-A is a dope rangefinder though if you don’t want to lug around a metal, 1970s SLR camera like the Nikon FE and FM. But again, marketing, supply and demands and current LOMO trends have jacked up the price of a Russian toy camera.

Some alternatives: Olympus XA and XA2. Minox 35. Holga 35 and 120 They’re way cheaper and not shipped from Russia. The LC-A does slightly push contrast a bit with its optics and it creates a subtle vignette effect. The best thing to do, really, is funk with film. Ooh. The coolest thing is expired film. Buy cheap film and let it settle in the garage during a couple of summers.

Finally, something I agree with. US Marines join the search for landslide survivors in the Philippines. No oil, no terrirtorial means and no fighting. I was wondering where aid was. London Times and NY Times finally reported outside assistance to find survivors, build roads and provide potable water.

I went from Univers to Meta. I am replacing my squared black-rimmed glasses with a humanist style frame. And they’re brown. Nerd.

Kate is an “I want the whole package” type of girlfriend. The amount of good I do is heavily overweighed by the bad. What classifies as bad? Not remembering to do simple tasks. Not paying attention in class. Not knowing if there is a quiz. Not knowing what scantron to use.

What’s the good? Being on-call for any of her needs when she is sick. Taking care of her. Comforting her when she has a “the dementor sucked the happiness out of me” days. Unexpected signs of affection. Assisting her with project brainstorms. Downloading the full season of Avatar the Last Airbender. All while I take care of my own shit.

Regarding my lack of focus in GE classes, well, it’s not like I’m sticking my thumb up my butt to see what I ate the previous day. She thinks I’m spacing out. I think I’m thinking on the more interesting thoughts of the day. Plus, GE classes distract me from proper learning.

Imagine a traffic coordinator. His job requires directing traffic so he isn’t going to remember every single car that passes him by unless something strikes as interesting or unordinary. With all the Camrys, yellow taxi cabs and Hondas passing by, the only thing that will strike as interesting will be a Chevy Economy van with vines growing all around it, like a bush on wheels or a van covered in fur.

She is upset with me because of the several details I tend to overlook. Well, all I can say is “Oops.” I missed a detail during a lecture in my Production Management class. Well, I thought that it wouldn’t be a bad idea to put away my bunny ears while the instructor covers a tutorial in a program. Knowing how to find the swatch palette in Illustrator is beyond redundant. I’m not saying I’m too good for the lecture, I’m just not interested at that particular point.

I think she pretty much established that we don’t cover much in Government, given that a few students like to ask what the instructor thinks about this situation, that situation and if China will come to rule the world in August 2079.

Ok I’ll admit, by some people’s definitions, I tend to space out. But it’s not like I daydream about chasing bunnies in vast green field, as entertaining as that is. I can’t keep track of all the thoughts that occur in my mind either; I do write a lot of things down, but no one person can write it all down.

It’s safe to say this. If I don’t write it down, I will probably forget it. I feel that I am too busy thinking to just settle a select amount of ideas. Excuse me for that.

Vices. For this I apologize. I apologize for not knowing there was a quiz that day. I apologize that I didn’t e-mail the instructor to include me in her mailing list for the class assignments (though i write them down during class). I apologize for not locking the locker in silkscreening. I apologize for not putting much effort in Ancient Roman history. I apologize for not turning in your papers when you were absent.

Still, I fell I am a stronger thinker than I ever was and at a trade-off, I subsided my ability to pay attention to everything that occurs around me whether it is directly or indirectly aimed at me.

I posted two rolls of pics in the “Lomographs” section. I have two more to scan and post.

As for everything else, I am too caught up in my current lifestyle and it needs a drastic shift. I feel dry, dull, bland. I want to go out more and explore things. I’m too caught up in process that I’m not playing with ideas. I say this in a design sense and in my everyday life sense. I’m uninspired right now. We’re designing a novel cover in my type class and I just want to play with ideas more.

I admit that it’s my state-of-mind that is stopping me from exploring and playing with ideas, lighting things on fire, ripping things up, taking things apart and doing a shit job of putting it back together. But I need a boost to get things going again. I need to set myself up for an exhilerating creative experience. I need a creative orgasm.

I’m also a stubborn and immature and I hold Sacramento responsible for this because there is too much dry wall and not enough brick. Most things here are about 5 months old— so not much life, not much environmental diversity, not enough chaos to keep me alive, fresh and kicking. Thus the frequent trips to SF to suffice my fix for an experience. Sac is s a great place to relax because it’s pretty isolated. Again, I’d rather be isolated amidst crowds, chaos and disorder, and not isolated because of location. A fly on the wall.