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Evark
My lexica exude confidence like cartels' Mexicans dispute dominance while this rhyme's ever-increasing prominence brings sick-flow and I to concomitance.

Age 37, Male

Real world

UMass Amherst

Boston, MA

Joined on 10/22/03

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Evark's News

Posted by Evark - May 24th, 2009


BBL.

Alright: this terse entry is uncharacteristic of me. So I'll talk a little more life update jazz. Regarding 10k: I'll get there when I feel like it.

Anyway, I'm running a painting business through Collegiate Entrepreneurs (www.cepaint.com) as a "branch manager" in the company. That means that I'm responsible for marketing to source work, sourcing and hiring a crew of painters, maintaining a crew kit with all the painting essentials (three ladders (12', 24', 32'), several brushes, buncha rags, lotsa dropclothes, etc.), and produce the work this summer. I just reached and surpassed 20 thousand dollars in sales this past week, which means I became eligible and was promoted to "profit manager".

Essentially, I don't have to paint (though I can pay myself 15 dollars an hour when I do, and save myself money over paying my painters to do the work in addition to the profit I'll collect). I just work hard at selling more work and keeping my guys employed full-time. My friend who did this last year (and is now my boss this year) made 13 thousand dollars (fully tax free) last year. I'm looking to do a larger branch than the one he ran, so I'm hoping to make out with at the very least a similar amount of money. To give you an idea: I have 23,000 sold so far. If I produce all that at average profit (20%), I'll make roughly $4,600 this summer. Only JUST beats working a regular wage job for three months (I have to pay back 1k for the crew kit as well... so it's really 3.6k)

So needless to say, I'm really busy and I work pretty hard. I have to get up early in the morning to go buy all the necessary supplies for a job from the Sherwin Williams store 20 minutes away (they open at 7AM), then I've got to get everything to the job site by 8AM so I can have my crew being working. We'll typically do a 10 hour day, during which I usually have an estimate or two scheduled. If I were more organized and better at delegating tasks, I could easily make all my money this summer without physically performing a single task, save estimates on more potential jobs.

I'm kind of proud of my efforts here. I've been up and running now for just under two weeks (one payroll), and I expect that my first paycheck will be something like 300 bucks despite not working quite as much as I should have been.

My friend would say that last year he was practically hemorrhaging money all summer long. I'm starting to know the feeling and let me tell you: this fun-size version of the corporate world is quite delicious.


Posted by Evark - May 3rd, 2009


I wrote this short intro to get my creative juices flowing on April's MWC. Unfortunately, though I liked the piece, I didn't have time to finish it for the contest and doubt I'll find the motivation to (exempting a theme conducive to the story's continuation in a future MWC). Enjoy?

"I.""Am.""Not." The authority in her voice echoed rhythmically in my mind, accompanying her words as the ripples a stone skipping across the water; fading in volume as echoes tend. I hear her clearly, if distractedly. She's angry, that's the main point. She's cute when she's angry. That little furrow in her left eyebrow and the way her irides throw those daggers just like she'd throw a baseball...

The right corner of his mouth pulls him back into the conversation, as a tell like that can't but be told.

"Are you even LIST'ning to me!?" She asked, suddenly furious.
"I-"
"Forget it."

Myke's jaw follow orders perfectly.

I watched the anger on her face evaporate and saw something new, something different in those eyes: dejection. That was the moment, I later told myself. That instant was when the bond I shared with her fissioned. I'd've never quit dwelling on how perfect a metaphor the fission truly was if it weren't for what her words truly were. I mean, I'm deluding myself so hard with those memories of her happy and comfortable as she's deluding herself equally with my improvement at her behest? Even as I write this I manage a wry smile at the thought. Journal: I don't think you're keeping my mind on task.

He doesn't lift his pen at the 'k''s conclusion, rather, doubles back on its path to underline "task." Except, it quickly digresses toward a descending scribble, enveloping the rest of the page.

My recent obsession with all the duality I see in the world had come to a head. Mulling over these thoughts until I've pieced together enough to start drawing conclusions. Journal: are you upset that I keep thoughts from you until I've finished with them?

The pen moved rhythmically across the page, its cobalt ink evincing his fingers' inkling and his thoughts requesting ever more.

I'm done with these thoughts. They're yours now, keep well.

He closes his journal in preparation for a return to the middle drawer. As the desk lamp's rays glints across 'Noyes', his name embossed on the cover, he noticed her picture grinning wildly up at him. The photo, normally lifted before the journal's replacement, isn't disturbed tonight.


Posted by Evark - March 20th, 2009


Little do you guys know that dictionary.com pays me to post here.

Uh... anyway. I was bored so I recorded one of my favorite Something Corporate songs. The real version, which doesn't have my shitty squawking, is by SOMETHING CORPORATE, not any of that Jack's Mannequin bullshit that I can only seem to find on youtube. It's called "She Paints me Blue."

Oh, and since I'm apparently dedicating this update purely to music-related nonsense, I CAN PLAY GUITAR NOW! Not well by any stretch, but I have an effective pacing and command of every open position chord. Next step: unlearn my fingers' stupidity with barre chords while continuing to improve my strumming. After that: add my singing into the mix and become the bane of everyone's existence by being yet another mediocre guitar covering college kid.

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Update: I liked those patterned pointy things in my signature, so I went and made something over the top for my banner with 'em. First person to post the quote wins nothing.


Posted by Evark - February 20th, 2009


... unfortunately without any fucking.

So I just had a series of really odd dreams, culminating in my current state of awakeness. It only seems fair that I write them down somewhere, and since I don't keep a dream journal or anything I figured I'd let Newgrounds share in my bizarre subconscious life.

Those who don't like reading may find these interesting enough to read anyway, though be warned: I've tried to relate them as accurately as possible so they're quite lengthy.

THE FIRST:
I'm back at UMass. For some odd reason I'm wandering the hallways and corridors of random buildings. I enter one such building and find it necessary to reach the 5th floor, though the building is constructed in such a way that it is a large atrium in the center, that all the rooms open into, and there is little to no flooring outside each door. I reach the fifth floor mostly through climbing since the stairs seem pointless after the first flight. At this point, it's revealed that I've apparently made this long journey in order to get some work done at this kid's locker, because I have the key to it and that'll allow me to hold onto it in order to prevent myself from falling 4 stories to the interior floor below.

I work away at whatever work I have to do, but the kid shows up. He's like "uh, excuse me, do you mind if I use your key to get into my locker?" It's reasonable, I'm worried he would have a problem with me doing this anyway so I grant him that. He climbs around me, opens his locker, grabs a few things, then climbs around me again and goes into his dorm room (which happens to be right next to his locker, the closest door to it, in fact).

After a minute of thinking, an unknown third party suggests that I ask the kid if I can sit on his floor and get this work done, so I'm not continually interrupted with the fear of a horrific death from falling. I knock on his door, he opens it and says "come on in, QUICKLY!" I oblige.

As I get inside he's already sitting back down in a circle with a couple other kids on the floor. They're smoking out of a bong in an all-too-familiar manner. I think about how to decline the offer to smoke, though it never materializes. I note that this explains his nonchalantness with the locker scenario and subsequent use of his dorm floor.

Suddenly, there's commotion from the two rooms neighboring this one on the right. A teacher is grilling another teacher for his use of language with the students. His argument is mostly that he doesn't care how he teaches, but that when it disturbs him and his own class it's crossing a line. I've stood to catch a glimpse through the window on the front of the door at these quarreling teachers, all other parties present have frozen, horrified that they'll be discovered.

// THE FOLLOWING IS AN ASIDE TO THE READER // Keep in mind that all through this dream minor details that were originally one way are changed to fit the dream's purpose. The door was originally windowless, and they had a fan set up to pull outside air through the closed door, standard smoking procedure. It wasn't until I needed to see outside that there was a window. This is only one example, but they're too numerous to keep track of, so if you notice an inconsistency it's because of these changes. // ASIDE OVER //

This black girl who's friends with the kid in the room emerges amidst the commotion and knocks on the door. She leans through the window (apparently there isn't even glass in this window), but can't see inside the room until the kid responds and tells her to come in. She enters, there's some minor discussion like "man what was that whole commotion about?"

Soon, all the doors are opened and it's shown that the atrium is actually a lot smaller than it once was. There's a walkway around the length of it, and probably about a dozen entrances surrounding. We've got a veritable crowd of people moving about the walkway, but I notice one girl in particular. She has short red hair, green eyes, and her face is partially covered. She's like a mix between a ginger and an olive skinned arabian. It looks surprisingly good, in fact, I'm instantly attracted; though intrigued.

Turns out she's new, and she's one of those "Learn everyone's names here" sortof people. The setup of the building is such that we're all already facing the center, and she takes a stance leaning against a table that now occupies the center of what once was the atrium. She's giving her standard spiel about who she is and what she's done to get her here to this point in her life, and she starts going around the circle asking people their names.

I'm distracted. Precisely where frontal lobe is located there is sourced a faint light. It's bright, I can tell, but it appears very faint and I don't understand why it's there. I see her face and head normally, but where the light is concerned her features appear to give-way to that light.

She reaches me. As her eyes turn to focus on me, the light comes into focus. With all it's full intensity it trains on me and my eyes are overwhelmed by the brightness. It's as if I'm on the receiving end of a million-candlepower spotlight--yet, I do not look away. I mentally decide that this clearly explains why I was initially intrigued by this chick.

The light is gone. She's skipped me. I protest saying "don't you want to know my name?"
She responds, "No, Evan."

I'm stunned. How did this girl know my name already? Is she someone I've known previously? She certainly didn't get it from anyone in this building, because I don't know anyone in this building. I didn't even ask the names of the kids whose room I was sitting in. These questions take up the rest of the time it takes for her to get everyone's names.

There's commotion again, people are walking around, I take it as a sign that the introductions are over and I may approach. I do. I'm ready with the only question that seems pertinent, "How did you know my name?" She grins widely and gives me a knowing nod.

But, she doesn't really respond to my question initially. I'm persistent, and she reasons that she just took a guess. Her words were something along the line of "Listen, don't take offense of anything, but I've seen a lot of Evans and they tend to be large, y'know, in the way they move. I saw you and you're just clearly an Evan." I'm not offended, in fact, I almost agree, though it doesn't quite make sense to me. I'm cynical that it had something to do with that shining light, her knowing smile leads me on in this assumption, though I don't press the matter futher.

I ask her if she knows my last name. She responds coyly again, not really answering my question. Something to the effect of "why? So I can scream your full name when we're fucking?" I feel as if I've been condescended toward with this statement. It occurs to me that she doesn't know my last name, that she doesn't know why she knew my first name, and that only I truly understood why she was able to know my first name.

This time, I smile knowingly. I respond by walking away. She does not pursue me.

I head down the stairs, and run into my old math teacher, Mr. Sperry! He's a great guy, I greet him immediately and he gives his trademark "Yyyyyo-OH!" But he's part of a crowd obviously watching something big in the center of the once before (and now again) coliseum-like building, so I let him be. As I move down the stairs, I've stopped for a moment to consider my steps (don't want to be too loud out of respect for the crowd gathered and watching). I notice a bottle, and accidentally knock it over. It's a 20 oz. sunkist bottle. Those things are loud as fuck when dropped on the ground, and even though I stomp my foot on it precisely enough to stop it, the cap managed to slam into the floor and make the loud "PLONK!" sound they always make. I'm shushed by the crowd.

I continue down the stairs.

The dream tapers off at this point.

DREAM TWO:

I'm watching TV or something. There's a show on that's recapping and previewing for those who haven't seen these award-winning movie nominees for the year. There're several, one of which seems to be inspired by the video of this truck being carried downhill by this mudslide that I saw while actually watching TV earlier. All of them are as equally detailed as the one I'm about to describe, but obviously not nearly as thought-provoking, nor disturbing.

There's a vast conspiracy in this film. I'm no longer watching TV, I'm present and basically a walking camera. I see and observe all that is shown to me, yet I'm not part of the actual events. A man is standing in line waiting to get onto a futuristic rail-car and travel. One-by-one, the passengers are loaded into the car. Doors opening and closing in between each one. I'm following this particular passenger, so I'm unaware of the other passenger's situations. This one man is dressed in casual business attire. He has a general look of importance about him. I notice he's carrying a briefcase. The line is moving and ultimately, he's reached the door.

The door opens, he steps inside. He looks up from whatever was in his hand (presumably a cell phone) to look around as if to take a seat. His glance is interrupted.

A large screwdriver has torqued it's way through the wall opposite the door. It spins quickly, but it is precise. It strikes his neck and the torque causes his jaw to face toward the camera. His expression is frozen on his face as, in a fraction of a second his neck is broken against the flat end of the driver hitting the back of the door with his neck. He is dead instantly, the look of horror hadn't even dawned on his expression yet. He is looking at the camera with the same "I don't know what's going on, I'm just glancing up to get my bearing in the rail-car" expression.

His corpse is instantly carted off through a pre-set trapdoor upon his death. A short travel, indeed, as he is in the same tube that carried prior victims. His feet hit the head of the last person killed. The tube is small enough to keep each person standing upright as if at attention. The people are moving at the same pace they were moving while waiting in line. One at a time, they approach what I now see is a large machine. There're two tube feeding into it.

The process looks similar to a large zipper mechanism. Two tubes feed in, and one larger tube is fed and fed out. These people are sheathed in their own tight wrapping, paired, and surrounded by the larger tube. This tube is being buried underground.

It's revealed that this is a telecommunications plot. Matrix-esque "the human body conducts electricity quite well" reasoning is used to explain the use of people as the filling for the large network's media. The camera remains focused on the empathy-inducing mindless expressions of each corpse. They're freshly dead, each one looks as if they would be suffocated when stuffed into this tube, if only they had survived the neck-break in the first place.

I'm horrified. I wake up, cold sweat and all.

------------

I had a couple other smaller ones, but they're not really as interesting or bizarre in a broad sense (bizarre to me, but there's not as much detail to relate and they simply aren't as interesting) so I'm not sharing them.

Any thoughts?

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EDIT: Completely unrelated, and entirely for your entertainment. The end result of an originally locked, subsequently unlocked, and now finally retired thread.

Bizarre fucking dreams


Posted by Evark - January 20th, 2009


(Newgrounds, can you sing?)

This thread, which I lurked through months ago when it was first made, actually inspired me to record a couple samples of my singing, which I've been practicing constantly whenever driving alone and blasting my oh so individualistic tastes in music. I've had my license and a car for over 6 years now, and have held down two full-time jobs with driving as the mainstay, so that's left me a lot of time for practicing. It wasn't until about a year ago that I noticed I could somewhat carry a tune, though.

Edit: Here Comes the Sun. Is now the only file I'm going to keep linked in this post.

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SevenSeize and Malachy are in agreement with me: THIS VIDEO IS HILARIOUS!

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Posted by Evark - January 5th, 2009


This song is fucking win:

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Also check out "come around" if you like that one.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!


Posted by Evark - December 24th, 2008


Was bored. Took a bunch of pictures of myself flipping off my webcam (recently unearthed from the dust-covered laptop bag squirreled away in some cabinet) and decided to toss it together in animated form. Honest to god, the fact that I'm mouthing "I hate you" is a total coincidence. I bet I could jumble the images up differently and make myself say "FUCK YOU" or "FUCK OFF" instead, but that's a project for another fit of boredom in another time and place.

Oh yea, and Merry Christmas.

... damnit, now I'm wishing I'd spent the time to make the .gif say "Merry Christmas."


Posted by Evark - December 13th, 2008


I just made myself a new BBS signature. Took... I dunno, a fair amount of time and attention to make. I'd upload it, but I kinda like my old banner, plus odds are those of you reading this already saw it on the forums anyway. I'm excited, haven't changed my signature since the site redesign, it felt like it was time. Questions, comments, angry gestures all welcome.


Posted by Evark - November 26th, 2008


Happy Thanksgiving to you all. How was/is/will your holiday (be)?

My family usually has a relatively low-key thanksgiving. Well, it's not low-key in terms of the food, my mom goes all out and the food's delicious, but typically my grandfather, uncle, and a family friend are the only ones that join us for the meal. Then football for several hours. But, it does always mean I have to endure indentured servitude for a couple days to clean the house and all that jazz. What is it with moms and being crazy about entertaining guests?

This Saturday I'll be turning 22. I'm gettin' old enough that I'm starting to care that I've got nothing to show for it. This year's unique from most others, though, in that I was born on a Saturday as well, it's not every year that the day AND date line up for your birthday. So that's something.

What's up with you folks?

Oh yea, and I still write poetry every once in a while. This just the other day:

It's just a suggestion, what do I know?

I wonder if my life
was conceived or contrived?
Although I've thrived,
I've imbibed,
so I find myself screaming the normally mimed.
Those obstacles climbed
the loom in my mind's
strands of shadow to bind
the woven route you assigned.
Though, the unchosen path, I find,
has its sides neatly lined
with the remnants of burdens left behind.

As a slug within brine,
my thoughts dissolve into time.
Though this wording of mine
may prove useful in kind
to the yet undefined
with their path undivined.
So a package of rhyme
surrounds my fifth-of-a-dime,
and these thoughts are enshrined
for the few so inclined

to take a minute; stop where you stand.
See another struggle and offer a hand.


Posted by Evark - November 4th, 2008


So, who here voted? I sure hope if you're of age you registered to vote and either have already or have plans to before the day's end.

What are some of the local issues being decided on your ballots? Here in MA we usually have a couple questions to answer every year, this year the most important questions were repealing the state income tax, decriminalizing marijuana, and laws to end greyhound racing.