What? Had I thought this through a bit better I’m certain the process would have gone more smoothly.

Over the past couple weeks and into this holiday weekend I’ve been passing through the long and arduous process of moving into a new apartment. The process actually started back last year when I got engaged to Jean. Now almost a full year later we’re winding down to the wedding in October.

My now-ex roommates were new to the whole rental process as they are either FOB or fresh from couching crashing after moving out. I won’t go into too much detail here (It still makes me angry) but the money troubles one runs into with people who can not grasp the basic concept of utilities payments can cause ulcers with migraines, yup they’re so bad they have their own migraines.

Another aspect of stress when finding an inexpensive apartment in New York City is the scammers. In my comprehensive search for an apartment under $1100 I discovered that all online listings sites have a 60/40 split of scams to real listings. There are more people trying to pull the “send me money through Western Union and I’ll send you keys to see the place” scam then there are legitimately open locations.

I went and saw over 20 different locations. Astoria has great apartments but all of them have one month’s rent as a realtor fee to be paid by the renter (yes, that is backward from what it should be). So, that jacks up a year lease by 8-ish percent which put me over budget for anything of resonable size.

I went to the Bronx and Upper Manhattan, but while the spaces are sized adequately the people who hang out on the streets late at night, particularly near the subways and bus stops were hassling pretty girls in a very rude and derogatory manner, something I don’t want Jean to have to deal with.

I almost took an apartment in Carrol Gardens, Brooklyn, but I’m 6 foot, 1 inch tall and the basement apartment in my price range had one tiny window and a 6′ 5″ ceiling.

In an amazing find, I moved into the sunset park area of Brooklyn in a real apartment with a real kitchen, living room, and bedroom. The bathroom is a bit small and the toilet is up a couple steps like a throne room, but hey… why not.

Last Saturday Ali, Nathan, and I shifted all my stuff from Harlem to Brooklyn in one day (filled u 17′ Uhaul), straining all the muscles in my body and bruising my feet in the process; starting at a fifth floor walkup and ending at a third floor walkup with a weight transference of about 1.5 tons.

This weekend is our painting of the new apartment with a light blue/grey and white trimmed theme. I have some woodworking/staining projects (mahogany-ish) to make the place look classy and unique, but I’ll tell that in another post.

For now, I’m exhausted and tired (they’re not the same, you know) and have to crash since the regular work week is on a compressed deadline schedule due to the holiday. Yay, Fox commericial traffic…

In conclusion, this aardvark is falling asleep. Good night ya’ll.

Posted from Droid

I let a whole week slip by again?

This past weekend was a wonderful non-project day. Last week was a transition into a faster pace at work and as such I was a bit tuckered out by Saturday. I slept-in  until 730pm on Saturday “morning”. Yep, 19hrs of sleep straight through. Never done that before. Some practical home projects like painting and packing have been eating up my spare hours as of late, but I promise to delve into a whole slew of new graphics, sculpting, art, photography, and woodworking projects this coming month after the move. For those waiting for the movie posters they’re plodding along and I hope to have some pre-views up by next Saturday.

In the mean time I put up two more double-wide (2880×900) desktops in the desktops page.

Anyhow, that’s the update.

Project Saturday 6 has come and gone. The contest voting ended Friday night, check out the winners, if you like. The artwork will be up in a bit. The project this Saturday was one of packing. The loft I put up over two years ago was taken down and all the stuff I could possibly pack for this month is packed. I have a lot of work this week to continue the pre-moving process, but that loft was a big step in the right direction. I’m starting the in depth search for an inexpensive NYC apartment with space for Jean and I, post wedding. I’ll be moving in first on Sept 1.

Today is Wednesday and my Saturday is already filling up with all sorts of fun. Friday night is wedding invitation night, yay.  Saturday morning my roommate is finally coming by to move out his furniture (which has been sitting in my living room for over a month). Thursday – Saturday afternoon I be taking down all my loft storage and the loft it’s stored on so I can prep for painting the room back to white (painting white on top of black… should be fun). I might also get around to cutting a shelf for my roommate’s closet (a freebee in the effort to keep the peace).  Also, for those following the process, Friday night the B-Movie Poster Title Contest voting will end and I’ll get my first real look at what I need to start drawing up for the art. It’ll be a great in depth usage of my Wacom Intuous 4 which I’ve mostly used for photo touch-ups. If I can get the room situation ready before Sunday, I’ll have time to chill Sunday afternoon with friends. Next week will be my first solo flight in this new job as the rest of the department takes off on vacation, grumble grumble. I’ll use the after work hours to paint. Hopefully by the 7th of August I’ll be able to finish the posters and order the prints for the winners. If you missed out on sending in an entry this time around, I’ll probably do this type of Contest again in a month or so.

Vote for up to three of your favorite titles. The top three title submissions will be turned into vintage B-Movie Posters and a printed copy will be sent to each of the title winners respectively. The posters will be available for download and in print for order after completion. Thanks to everyone who participated. Now vote for your favorites and may the best titles win!

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Title submitters, when the posters are complete I’ll contact you via the email address you supplied when you submitted the title. Good Luck!

Submit your title suggestions to the “Call for Entries”, because tonight at midnight the comments will be closed and the entries will be sorted for voting. I’ll post the entries in a poll Saturday afternoon and leave it up until 5pm on Monday before starting on the artwork. Act fast and your idea could get voted number one! Score!

I just chatted with my new roommate, Dev, for a bit and in a round about way was reminded that I hadn’t posted any graphics on here for some time now. As such, I thought I’d let you into my brain, yet again, and let you know what random thoughts were rattling about in the dusty corners. I’ve been wanting, for a while, to make up some mock “vintage” B-Movie posters for fun and now here’s your chance to get something for free… Read the rest of this entry