Date: 2008-05-18 12:23 Subject: Dreams Security: Public

Hoo boy. I had the most fun dream, or set of dreams. I can't possibly summon up all the twists and turns of the plot, but it involved spacecraft from ginormous starships and/or generation ships down to barely coffin-sized ones, lots and lots (and lots and lots) of androids from mindless automatons to Cylon-style self-aware ones indistinguishable from humans (and yes, Dream!Me may well have been one of these), mysterious breakdowns, an ocean, paranoid obsessive concern on the part of a shipmate about contamination with alien cooties, reviving long-dormant backup systems and emergency protocols with the aid of two cheap pasteboard tickets such as you might get at a church raffle or county fair, plans for returning to Earth, lots and lots of running, hand-to-hand combat -- well, shoving, really -- some flying (but not unassisted), and last but not least, a genetically engineered ships-computer avatar whose face combined those of Alan Arkin (though he didn't really look like him) and David Warner; Arkin when seen face-on, Warner in silhouette (this was supposed to trigger some sort of reverence in androids who caught a sidelong glimpse of him in the corridors); and he used Warner's voice too, when issuing orders to androids or pontificating.

But strangely, no blue police boxes.

Date: 2008-05-15 04:39 Subject: Race in Australia's Next Top Model Security: Public

lauredhel blogged about an interesting moment in Australia's Next Top Model, and I took the liberty of extracting that sequence:

Date: 2008-05-10 18:58 Subject: Speaking of Mondegreens... Security: Public

... I was always amused by the Beatles singing "woodchuck woodchuck woodchuck" toward the end of "Hello, Goodbye".

Date: 2008-05-10 15:00 Subject: More Musical Ponderings Security: Public Mood: relaxed Music: Cocteau Twins, "Heaven or Las Vegas"

Currently listening to "Blister in the Sun". Brings back '83 at the University of Arizona. For the life of me, I cannot hear the word "blister" in that song; it insists on being "glister".

Oh, now we're on to a track I'm kind of embarrassed to own, "Africa" by Toto. This is notable for featuring the WORST MELISMA IN HISTORY, the way the singer mangles "Serengeti". I mean "SEEEEEE-_renge-TIII". (eeminy will inform me that that's a misuse of the word "melisma", but I don't know of a better one to describe how syllables are mapped to notes or meter.)

A few songs back my iPod came up with the wonderful "Land of Make Believe", by Chuck Mangione with the Hamilton (Ontario) Philharmonic and Esther Satterfield. Now this takes me back to childhood in Phoenix. I swear, every time my sister and I visited our dad, the radio (which would be tuned to KDKB back when they were AOR or what we thought of as hippie music) would always play that song. Uncanny. Great track, though the ending is almost a little creepy: "where everything is fun ... FOREVER. BWAhahahahaHAHAHAHA!!1!" OK, so Ms. Satterfield doesn't actually cackle maniacally. But isn't that lyric ever so slightly menacing?

Date: 2008-05-08 19:20 Subject: Icons And Beyond! Security: Public Mood: accomplished Music: The Seatbelts, "Is it real?"

Here you go, alice_q! I know the rocking chair is a bit cliché, sorry.


( More )

Date: 2008-05-07 03:23 Subject: Big fat music recommendation Security: Public Mood: lazy Music: Cowboy Bebop soundtrack, of course

Just about all the music for Cowboy Bebop.
( Really. )

Date: 2008-05-06 15:20 Subject: Icon requests Security: Public Mood: artistic Music: Buzzcocks, "Why Can't I Touch It?"

As a way to motivate myself to draw more, I'm offering my services to you. If you want a little doodle or LJ icon or whatnot, just give me a subject! They're free (but remember, you get what you pay for ;-) ). All I ask is that you give me proper attribution.

For starters, see the hand-drawn icons in my LJ collection. Those too are free for the taking. Remember to credit me.

Date: 2008-05-04 19:33 Subject: Groan Security: Public Mood: tired

Got back a little while ago from the longest bike ride I've done in a long long time: 8 miles, to Stanford's Lake Lagunita and back. I got started on this drawing:



I have more work to do on it.

Ow. My legs ache. I'm so out of shape.

Date: 2008-05-04 02:51 Subject: Pterodactylino. Security: Public Location: home Mood: creative Music: The Lively Ones, "Telstar"

Here's a little doodle I just did, and wanted to share:



It's a weird little bird/dinosaur sort of thing that I had a clear mental image of when I woke up this morning. I forgot about it all day, then it came back to me tonight and I quickly jotted it down.

What is immensely pleasing to me is that even with the small amount of practice I've been getting, I'm really getting much better at setting down on paper what I'm picturing in my head. If you look through my LJ user pics, you'll see other examples of this that I've just uploaded. Bottom line, I'm getting better at comic-style art.

Don't get me wrong, it's still crucial that I spend more time drawing from life and from reference, but it tickles me that my hand-eye coordination and technical ability are improving.

Date: 2008-05-02 11:44 Subject: Must. Be. Social. Security: Public

Ugh. I've been cooped up in my apartment all week, essentially, and I desperately need to get out and socialize. I'm not that good at it, though. My bud Ernest will be, as always on the weekends, booked up, as will my cow orker Jim. Damn these people with lives and families and shit. So I welcome suggestions.

(Actually it was only last Saturday that I had a lovely time with jonesiexxx, her friend, and my webcomic collaborator szielins in San Francisco. Somehow it seems longer that I've been a hermit.)

Date: 2008-05-01 17:31 Subject: On a lighter note Security: Public Location: home Mood: accomplished Music: Michael Jackson, "Ben"

... or at least, on a higher one ...

I can still sing along with 14-year-old Michael Jackson on "Ben". Feels good. Last time I tried "Great Gig In the Sky" it wasn't pretty, though I think if I really practiced I could still hit the high notes; but by gum, "Ben" is still within my reach.

Simple pleasures for simple minds.

Date: 2008-05-01 15:16 Subject: Scott Security: Public Mood: sad

Blog Against Disablism Day 2008

Like many people I know, I was something of an outcast growing up. Grade school (years 1-8, ages 5-14) was particularly tough. But in some of my darkest years, there was someone who brightened my life in a number of ways; one, I'm ashamed to say, was by having it much worse than me.
( Scott Clester. )

Date: 2008-04-28 12:28 Subject: Any venture capitalists out there? Security: Public Mood: amused Tags: dream

I don't usually remember dreams in much detail, at least not long enough to write down -- I greatly envy x_h00ine's recall (and imagination). But here's an exception.

First, I had a nice one about riding a bike with some woman; she on the seat, me on the handlebars, yet somehow steering. Nice sequences of riding along the wrong side of the road, deftly dodging oncoming cars; ending as we gently ran straight into a brick wall, as I explained that if you weren't going too fast, that was a nice way to come to a halt in a hurry.
( WARNING! Suspect business plans ahead )

Date: 2008-04-26 20:28 Subject: Dissonance Security: Public Location: home Mood: quiescent Music: Kronos Quartet, Glass' String Quartet No. 5

Talking with szielins today in the center of the SF Hyatt (where apparently "High Anxiety" filmed), I started thinking about names I'm deeply conflicted about. Stephan was appalled that I've never seen HA, I said "but I have seen Vertigo" [another film famously shot in and around SF, of course], and he mentioned his favorite Hitchcock being "Marnie". Sirens began to wail as I immediately thought of my mom's older sister Marney, whom, believe me, I am not about to confuse with Tippi Hedren. Love you, Aunt Marney, but that's just how it is.

Likewise, the other night my iPod served up "Martha My Dear", a lovely little tune on the Beatles' white album. I really like the song. I also really liked my great-aunt Martha (after whom Marney was named, in fact), but the last time I saw her, she was in her 70s. Listening to that song I'm torn just as I was in college, when I met a really sweet drop-dead gorgeous girl named, yes, Martha.

I'm getting over it now; maybe it's my own aging, maybe it's the deep admiration I have for my great-aunt and her accomplishments and her fiery spirit welded to a tempered carbon-steel backbone, but I can accept the notion of a woman with the beauty of my old college friend, whatever unknown quality that could inspire a very sweet McCartney song, and the keen intelligence and temperament of my great-aunt. In fact, damn. That's a good candidate for an ideal soulmate, right there.

Another one is Judy. There are many talented and beautiful and sexy Judies out there, but I'm afraid that to some part of me, it'll always be the name of that bratty, pudgy girl in 5th grade.

What names are you torn by?

Date: 2008-04-24 14:21 Subject: The earnest gullibility of youth Security: Public Location: home Mood: busy Music: King Crimson, "The Court of the Crimson King"

A while back brooklynite wrote of his daughter's mermaid archeology, reminding me of something.

Some time between ages 3 and 6, I found a dinosaur fossil.

OK, actually it was just a purplish rock with some pretty red streaks, but a mischievous friend convinced me that those were arteries running through dino flesh. I had a nightmare about the vacant lot where I'd found the rock erupting as a Godzilla-sized T. Rex rose again.

This "friend" was the same one who persuaded me that a bottlecap I'd found embedded in the asphalt of a nearby street was actually the cap on an underground gas tank; I remember a vivid image of streets flooding with gasoline, but I don't know anymore if that was another dream or just my imagination, running away with me.

Date: 2008-04-23 13:22 Subject: Hubschrauber! Security: Public Location: home Mood: goofy Music: Buzzcocks, _Singles Going Steady_

Have you ever thought about the origin of the word "helicopter"? It's mildly interesting!

The tendency is to parse it as "heli-copter"; but in fact it's "helico-pter"; "helico-" as in "helical", and "-pter" meaning "wing", as in "chiroptera" ("hand wing", that is, bats), or everybody's favorite Jurassic flyer, "pterodactyl". Cool, eh?

For further nerdy amusement, try saying it to yourself accordingly: "HE-li-co-PTER". Sounds kind of like Sellers doing Clouseau doing a bad Italian accent, doesn't it?

No, I have no idea why I was thinking about this.

Date: 2008-04-12 14:40 Subject: Angstorm Security: Public Location: home Mood: annoyed Music: Jean Sibelius, Valse triste op. 44

angstorm |ˈa ng storm|
noun
a unit of angst equal to one hundred-millionth of a tempest in a teapot. This Orphan Works flap on DeviantART is quite the little angstorm, eh?

Since yesterday a bunch of folks on DeviantART have gotten their knickers in quite a twist over this overwrought bit of "journalism". My BS-meter went off immediately. I asked my friend the IP lawyer about it and he still hasn't responded, but meanwhile, it seems to have been conclusively debunked:

debunking 1

debunking 2

Sheesh.

Date: 2008-04-07 14:40 Subject: Evolution of a catgirl Security: Public Location: work Mood: stressed Music: Björk, "Aurora"

Here is a little visual history of the toughest character in my comic (both to draw and in personality), Fist Smith (click image to view fullsize):




These are shown in the order I drew them. Which is your favorite?

Date: 2008-04-01 16:03 Subject: Aaaaaand we're LIVE! Security: Public Location: Work Mood: accomplished Music: The Tubes, "White Punks On Dope" Tags: comic art

Page One!

(Page Zero, really. But I had to get it posted today.)

I swear it will be less than 2.5 months before the next update.

Date: 2008-03-31 15:46 Subject: Art! Security: Public Location: work Mood: energetic Music: "Earth X" soundtrack Tags: art

See that new icon? I mentioned to a friend that I was wasting time "putz[ing] around on the Net" instead of drawing, so he said "draw yourself putzing around on the Net". And lo.




( And a couple of oldies )