This is my first "serious" photo-manip since, oh, perhaps 2011 2010 apparently. The only way I could find out was through the site itself since the original files in my computer have corrupted dates (all the way up to 2021).

The pictures, however, were taken in 2011. This was still when I lived with my mother (sad? you bet), 2 relationships and 3 places ago. A simple enough concept, a composite of two pictures, one with the pressure points on my face and another with a hand far from the face. The quality of the final product is not what I was hoping to achieve, my only excuses are that the pictures' quality was lesser than what I had expected after all these years and, that once I had achieved the main effect, I was in a hurry to finish it and most of the original concept was thrown out the door.

Originally, it was meant to have my face being stretched and ripped, much like this scene from Poltergeist:

An early concept also included my other hand grabbing the one you see, ripping it as well.  In the end, I solved it with a big "fuck it" and finished it.

Well folks, this year has been a bit rough. Some ups (getting a new full-time job) some downs (being broke for the year's first quarter), some ups and downs (getting kicked out by a nagging bitch forcing me to grow cojones and do things my way) but the time where it affected me the most was Halloween.

I couldn't invest a lot in this year's costume, so I had to find a smart, cheap way to make myself a recognizable character that I could have fun with. As the previous "hinting" posts laid out, I decided to go as Jim Carrey's Ace Ventura. The character was something I could do as a kid even with my eyes closed, in terms of quoting him, walking like him and even being out of place in certain public events was right up my alley. So I decided to invest $8 on a pre-owned Hawaiian shirt (or Aloha shirt, as it is supposed to be called), $2.50 on a faux-leather belt (I hate leather belts so I had none that could look the part), dirty black tall boots I already had (I used the same boots for the V for Vendetta and Ghostbusters costumes) and the two most difficult things were the hair and pants.

I looked up and down endlessly for pants that resembled anything close to these:

Chef pants came to mind, but the stripes weren't thick enough and the damn things were $30 or more. Even worse, the ones I found locally were always black and white, not black and red (or burgundy) so that's a double insult. Next, I tried 90's exercise baggy muscle pants, but again the colors were a problem.

The title pretty much says it all.

More to come, hopefully.

After almost a year without posting, I figured I'd do an extended post of one of my favorite activities.

Besides laughing at the suffering of toddlers.

I mean Halloween. It's that one thing that surpasses any other date in my entire calendar and any other life event, like when I got my job, or when I bought my car, or when I found out Mr Rogers died, or when I lost my virginity, my birthday (or anyone else's), the only exception is any day that is a payday.

This is a 1989 "BluePrinter Batmobile Cocoon Armored Shield", it's a model kit, which means you have to assemble and paint it. Got it off eBay a few months ago as my own birthday present since the original Batmobile of the same year for the action figures weren't as cheap as I thought they'd be (it was Christmas season after all).

Looking at the uploaded versions of Blogger, the upload process somehow, apparently, compressed and fucked the blacks on the photos, so I've replaced them with Flickr's version.

It has been almost a year since I moved out of my house, this implied using the laptop a lot more than my desktop PC at first, but with the advent of a fried motherboard (two, actually) I relied solely on the laptop. I have almost the same stuff on both computers, but my desktop had more recent photos of my Canon Rebel XTi, so I always felt it inadequate to update my Canon Rebel XTi folder on the laptop, since there would always be some photos missing.

The last couple of days I've installed Lightroom and imported the photos and catalog from my desktop's hard drive to my laptop's, have been retouching some old pictures that were on hold as well as transferring all the new pictures that had been accumulating in the camera's memory for almost a year (as mentioned previously). So this small batch is of those new pictures that had been gathering digital dust up until now. Enjoy.

Leatherface

Leatherface figurine against candle and LED flashlight.

 Les Paul

Gibson Les Paul Guitar.

Banana Tree

The innards of a banana tree.

Any video game nerd will tell you of atrocities in the 1980's, #1 being E.T. for the Atari and almost destroying video games in general, and not too far down the list is the artwork that some games had the misfortune to be associated with.

Now, these aren't times of dazzling graphics, so they had to make ends meet and capture the audience by making the artwork extra realistic. But the artwork for the SEGA Master System games had amazing disparities when comparing it to  the Japanese artwork.

The Japanese box art and the box art used for releases elsewhere, respectively.

These aren't one-shots, these were the norm. Someone in SEGA's marketing team was PROUD of this decision!

Google always changes some policy or violates some privacy agreement and causes a shitstorm, they then create something so cute and/or cool and almost everyone forgets and forgives. Or just forgets. Now Google Maps has added a new option called "Quest" and it turns your typical maps into 8-bit goodness, reminiscent to some NES games such as Zelda or Dragon Warrior. It might be an April Fool's only kinda thing or it may stick, either way it's pretty... um... blocky.

The option is right beside the other "view styles".

Proof that if Puerto Rico were a video game, it'd suck balls.

Perhaps the coolest tidbit is the "Street View" icon being replaced by what would pass off as a Dragon Warrior or Final Fantasy character.

Street View always has a distorted view but it resembles more a broken monitor/screen than 8-bit. There are many funny and curious Easter Eggs scattered across the globe. Visit Reddit to view the full list so far.

This little guy woke me up early for an entire month. I took this the last day they moved the machinery away for a new phase at the construction site. It's sort of a bitter-sweet memory of that hateful bastard.

Ceiba Tree, located at Quebradillas, Puerto Rico

Composed of 4 shots, this Ceiba tree is located right next to another one of equal beauty in the middle of a highway, some assholes wanted them taken down but someone with a heart and a brain succeeded in leaving them intact and altered the planned highway plans, so that the road would go around them. Thank you, whoever you are.

In response to Nazario's request, here is what's behind the actual ruins.