fBlog

Things are Good

2009-02-01T20:36:09Z

Life is going decidedly well. I've got a cool new job as a Flash developer for a cool company in Troy; I'm learning how to speed solve a Rubik's Cube, even if my goal for now is 5 minutes; and I'm thinking of taking a drawing class.

Yep... things are good.

But, I felt compelled to LJ, so I did. And realized I have nothing more interesting to say at the moment. :P

I Have A Headache

2009-01-23T03:23:34Z

So I took a personality test.

I took the free ColorQuiz.com personality test!

"Wants to make a favorable impression and be regard..."

Click here to read the rest of the results.

Writer's Block: Tricky Questions

2009-01-13T21:32:37Z

What is your first reaction when someone says "I need to talk to you"?

View 505 Answers

Mentally: (I'm here. Talk.) Verbally: "What's up, now?"

Story: The Re-Up Clause

2009-01-06T01:50:39Z

     MJ was about to sign the contract when the lawyer stopped him.
     "You need to go through and initial each section," he said. "Look for the little boxes on the right side of the pages."
      MJ sneered at the suit; being in rock and roll for 20 years only magnified his resentment for the ordinariness, the formality, the system, and basically all else that this lawyer represented to him. The condescending attitude was like icing on a wedding cake.
     Still, this was the chance of a lifetime, and MJ knew it. No more openers for bigger, younger bands; no more dead-in-the-water promotional support from his recording studio. When the band got the call from Mepho Music about a contract opportunity, they were thrilled. After the heyday of their careers had died down, no one truly expected a comeback, no matter how they hoped. (MJ used to have seven mustangs and three houses. Now he had a used Chevy, six mortgages, and three ex-es with alimony checks. He eyed the huge stack of boilerplate legal language and tried not to sweat.)
     "Yeah. All right." MJ began rifling through the contract, pen in hand. He took some nominal comfort in recognizing the title sections of most pages he signed - even if he didn't really know what they were, at least they had appeared on the previous contracts he'd signed with other studios. (And let's face it, he thought, all the worst mistakes of my life are my own damned fault, not some studio executive's.)
     Mistakes like last night, for instance. After weeks of negotiating royalty amounts, Mepho finally agreed to move forward with the contract. The band was ecstatic to get the green light and blew the last of their money on a promo party. They opened the doors of the Arena Louie for all comers to meet the band and drink like they were two decades younger. The press barely made mention of it; a local paper called it a stunt.
     MJ didn't give a rat's ass. He knew the party would attract the right kind of people - the true blue fans, the groupies, even some old friends. The people who reached out and touched the band and felt like they held onto something timeless, something more than they were. Often enough it was true - with dead-end jobs and a string of bad relationships, as MJ observed was the usual case, the groupies needed this comeback more than the band did. And that's why MJ wanted to see them.
     "Time has changed you," Celia had told him that night. One of the oldest fans, a dear friend of his from high school, she had found him shooting up by the stage. She wore a distinctly un-sexy, marmish sweater and gazed at him with unreadable eyes from behind her glasses.
     MJ wanted to say something, some witty comeback. But as the heroin creeped into his brainstem he already realized she was right. But the party had started in his neurons; he didn't care. Celia must have read it from the dopey smile on his face. She turned and walked away.
     MJ would not feel the rotting guilt, the sting of the truth in her words, until after the party. He would not even think of Celia the way she used to look until after he met the other girl. She had pushed her way deliberately through the revelers, lost in their re-lived memories, and pressed her body up against MJ before he even saw her. the trick worked like a charm; MJ had an erection before he realized how young she was (was she even born before their first release?), the look in her eyes, the syringe she discretely cradled, well enough to conceal it from all but his eyes.
     "Wanna have a real party?" She had asked. MJ walked behind her, hardly even ending the conversation she interrupted. In the back of her van, she explained how the dope she brought worked better with a little less blood in you. MJ assented without a second thought, and she was right. A night of sexual fireworks, and all it took was a few CCs of blood and his dignity.
     Dignity and sobriety that he wished he had this morning as he filled in all the little boxes. His head, his chest still ached. Celia's face, the face he saw through a heroin cloud that evening, swam back to him. He didn't think it was the drugs.
     His distractions halted as he saw something in the paperwork. He crinkled his nose.
     "What's this... Re-Up Clause?"
     "Ah," the lawyer said, and nodded to MJ's manager. "It's standard. We discussed it."
     MJ had never seen it before. "What is it?"
     "It's a reservation of rights to renew the contract under the same terms, given certain conditions."
     Given certain conditions, MJ thought, but the question was dwarfed by the idea of renwal under same terms.
     "Same pay?  Same licensing?"
     "Very much so."
     MJ contained his relief. He decisively put the disappointed, middle-aged gaze of Celia out of mind. This contract could just keep on going if he played it right. All-night sexual fireworks, forever...
     MJ signed. Who gives a damn if there are strings attached.
     Several pages later he was at the bottom line. Sign and date at the X, the suit said, as if MJ didn't know. He dashed down his signature quickly. A corner of it, the last squiggling letters, were smeared by his little finger.
     MJ furrowed his brow. The thinned ink, fanned out by his finger, looked strange.
     The lawer, smiling, took the stack away and said some nice, condescending things. MJ just nodded, haunted by an idea.
     Live benefit show coming up soon, a little mass media promotion to jumpstart their next release, already in the can. Health check prior to the signing showed a little heart trouble, ought to get that checked out. His manager was talking to him as they both walked into the street.
     MJ looked at the smear of ink on his pinky, puzzled at how right his intuition had been.
     It was blood.

***

     Five years, three heart attacks, and two fatal strokes later, Mepho Music had taken full advantage of the Re-Up Clause. Playing a Superbowl half-time show, MJ sang and danced like a man full of life, though inside he was every bit his real age. His show gave a shred of hope to all the hangers-on who would buy his albums until they, too, were dead, and the fireworks lasted so many more nights than MJ ever wanted them to.

----------

I wrote this story in about 70 minutes this morning. I'm pretty pleased with it, considering.

Good News!

2008-12-23T00:57:57Z

Are you in need of good news? Between global economies and local job markets, I know I am. If you have some good news or blessings, share them. Please!

1) It did not snow today!
2) The snow is still everywhere, but it's mostly plowed. So, it's pretty out!
3) A very close friend of mine is back in school with a stipend - a great way to make it through a lean season. I'm truly happy and proud for him.
4) My dad recently retired, and my mother has a stable job that she wants to stay in for a few more years before she retires too. They're safe in tough times, my dad gets his life back, and honestly our relationship is closer now than it ever was.
5) I'm going to see my brother in just a few days, if not sooner. I have missed him very badly and I look forward to bear-hugging him.
6) Speaking of relatives, my brother's girlfriend (or something more...?) is flying in for New Year's! I can't wait to meet her.
7) We just got a very fun card game called Dominion and I'm excited to play it with my own girlfriend soon.
8) I made a friend recently, a web developer in Lansing who has a very well-established business. He gave me a lead for some work - it doesn't pay, but it's for a very good cause. A little seven-year-old boy with cerebral palsy, numerous airborn allergies, and an esophagal dysfunction needs donation money to cover some of his medical bills. I'm working with an HVAC contracting company and Make-A-Wish to do it. It's exciting, and I'm so glad to be working for a good cause for someone else's Christmas.
9) I have this little cat who destroys Christmas ornaments and chews the hell out of electric cables - but every day he follows me around and sits next to me. He can't stand to be away from me. It's comforting.
10) I'm going to see many friends over the course of, let's see... 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 parties in the next two weeks!

Share good news if you got it.

Whack-A-Mole

2008-11-21T21:24:24Z

Through what was unquestionably a wise investment of time, I created this Whack-A-Mole game. I hope you don't have work to do!

I'm actually pretty proud. This took me a little less than 6 hours to do the entire thing from scratch. I did all the graphics and programming, and created all but 2 of the sound effects.

Best of all - I can put this in my portfolio! This counted as WORK! I still can't get over it.

Detroit Area Adobe Users Group at ePrize

2008-11-21T15:18:31Z

I went to the Detroit Area Adobe Users Group (DAAUG.com) meeting last night. I loved it. I’ve never been in such close proximity to so many Adobe fans (in meatspace, at least), looking to ratchet up their skills. I like that I can walk into a room and socialize simply on the mutual feeling that I’m hangin’ with some talented folks.

The meeting was held at the ePrize building just north of Royal Oak in Pleasant Ridge at 7 PM. ePrize is a place I feel destined to work at someday (soon; already applied to be a Flash Engineer). Since the meetings are after hours, I had to be let into the building. On the way to the conference room, I passed through their production floor, where designers and programmers cut loose making web-based marketing and promotional games, gadgets, and gewgaws. There aren't cubicles as much as these kidney-bean-shaped round desks with svelte black Herman Miller chairs, facing each other in groups of three. Each desk was laden with nerdly delights according to the taste of its absent owner - the retrophiles with 8-bit Legend of Zelda posters in plain view, anime miniatures, and what I swear was a Japanese cat-shaped cookie jar. Each desk also had a huge flatscreen dual-monitor set-up with an Apple notebook. This isn't an office, I thought, it's a lounge where people work. Even though it was 7 PM, a few people were still at their desks plunking away. I understand them. I've been spending 5 to 7 hours a day mastering ActionScript 3 and Flex 3 specifically because I want to work at a place like this. I frequently resist the urge to stay up all night programming, because then I'd be too burned out to program all the next day.

At the meeting, Joe (from Ringside) walked us through an introductory lesson in After Effects. The effects you can achieve with AE are really impressive, even with just what we were able to cover in our time frame - masks, drop shadows, and Bezier-curve timeline animation (graph mode). And you just know AE is heavily laden with more sophisticated animation power. As usual, Adobe’s tools are good; but the amazing thing is what creative minds do with those tools in a remarkably short time frame. That point was driven home when Joe shared some of his portfolio work (like Wendy’s animated face).

This is indeed the start of something good. And I look forward to seeing a lot more of the inside of ePrize, sooner or later.

I'm Still In Shock

2008-11-05T05:46:16Z

I can hardly believe it. I'm happy - very happy - but my brain hasn't accepted it yet.

Table Topics Fun

2008-10-28T20:54:50Z

I'm having a blast writing Table Topics questions for my Toastmasters meeting tonight. In case you don't know (you probably don't), Table Topics are part of every Toastmasters meeting. They are questions asked to audience members at random, and the audience member must give an impromptu 1-to-2 minute answer to the question. It's an exercise in attentiveness, memory, and thinking on your feet.

Because we're so close to Halloween, our table topics theme is Scary Movies. I just had a blast. These are the questions I wrote. (The blanks are where I would say the name of the person I'm asking.)

Scary Movies

The Shining – The Shining is based on a novel by Stephen King about a married couple and their young son who spend the winter one year in the old Overlook Hotel. It turns out that the Overlook is haunted by a dark history, and soon this once happy family begins to get very strange. _____, have you ever been in a place that you could have sworn was haunted?

Army of Darkness – This is a crap movie classic, starring Royal Oak native Bruce Campbell. In this movie, Bruce is a chainsaw-wielding, shotgun-toting monster slayer who was transported back in time. Before he can get home, he must vanquish the evil spirits of the kingdom. _____, tell us about a time when you really wanted to go home but your to-do list just kept getting bigger and bigger.

Horror Hotel – “Just ring for DOOM SERVICE!” That’s the cheesy tag line for this cheesy movie. A college girl doing research on witchcraft – for an essay, of course – gets abducted by cultists who run a hotel in New England. _____, tell us about a time when a trip you expected to be quick was more than you bargained for.

Saw – Saw is a very modern scary movie about a crazed killer who puts people in tricky situations. These people must take huge risks if they want to escape their dilemma. In his weird way, the killer wants people to see how much they should value life and be grateful for personal freedom. _____, tell us about a time when you felt good to be alive and free.

A Nightmare on Elm Street – Even if you don’t know Freddy Kreuger’s name, you would recognize his face – and his hands. He has fingers with long knives on the end of them, and he attacks people while they are asleep. He is meant to be the classic boogeyman. _____, were you ever scared of the boogeyman growing up?

Friday the 13^th – Campers beware! In Friday the 13^th, our villain is Jason, a chainsaw-wielding maniac who wears a hockey mask. He hangs around the scenic Crystal Lake Park to attack campers on vacation. Like many scary movies, the weirdos are waiting to strike just when you think it’s safe. _____, have you ever run across a strange character while you were on vacation?

The Amityville Horror – The poor Lutz family. After moving into their Long Island home, they discover what the real estate agent didn’t tell them. That’s right, you guessed it – there was a grisly series of murders in the house. Doesn’t that just put a damper on your day? _____, did you ever buy a house or something else, only to discover that it was basically a lemon?

Night of the Living Dead – This classic George Romero film is about zombies who rise to walk the earth again! It might seem like old hat, but this movie inspired hundreds of imitations. Forty years later, zombies have a horde of comic books, movies, novels, and plenty more to their credit. But unless you really like crappy movies, you probably don’t get the whole zombie thing. _____, tell us about a runaway fad in fashion or entertainment that just made no sense to you.

The Silence of the Lambs – Hannibal Lector is a legendary villain. He is the gentleman cannibal, always charming, well-read, and witty – but if you don’t pay attention, he might have you for dinner. Just goes to show, people aren’t always what they seem. _____, tell us about someone who the more you came to know, the more they surprised you.

The Exorcist – Possibly the scariest movie of all time, The Exorcist is about a little girl who gets possessed by an ancient demon. But exorcism is an ancient practice that few in the Catholic Church still remember. So it takes a very old priest to do the job – in fact, a priest who accidentally released this demon a long time ago. _____, the lesson here is easy – little problems tend to get big if you ignore them. Have you ever come across a problem like that?

Jaws – This is Stephen Spielberg’s debut film, about a lazy New England town just going into a summer of fun. Come and play on the beach, where the water is safe and clean – that is, until the Great White shows up. This movie has a lot to do with false advertising – the mayor of this little town tries to downplay the seriousness of the problem. If he doesn’t, then a lot of tourism dollars will never come to town! _____, I think we all feel outrage when we are misled about our safety. Tell us about a time when someone kept you from learning all the facts.

Rosemary’s Baby – This movie freaked me out. Rosemary is quite unknowingly the mother of an evil child. She knows something is wrong and wants to go see a doctor, but her husband and her neighbors play it down like it’s all crazy talk. I will try not to spoil the ending for you, but let’s just say that Rosemary should have trusted her instincts. _____, tell us about a time when you knew you were right about something, even when nobody agreed with you.

Carrie – Another Stephen King classic, Carrie is based on the author’s first book. It features a sheltered young girl who just wants to have a few high school friends. But her mother is abusively controlling of her, and only a few people want to hang out with Carrie anyway. The supernatural really takes a backseat in a story about coming of age in high school. _____, tell us about an old childhood friend who helped you become the person you are today.

The Nightmare Before Christmas – Tim Burton is a storyteller known for his black humor, mixing sinister elements with tongue-in-cheek jokes and fantasy. The Nightmare Before Christmas is an outstanding musical about a mix-up between Christmas and Halloween. Jack the Pumpkin King is to Halloween what Santa Claus is to Christmas, and one day Jack gets it in his skull to do steal the role of Santa for a year. He wanted to try something new with the best of intentions, but he just isn’t made to do Christmas. He’s a Halloween kind of guy! So, _____. Sometimes we start a great idea only to realize later that we probably should have stayed home. Do you have an experience like that?

The Day the Earth Stood Still – This is a science fiction classic about an alien named Klaatu who comes down to Earth in a saucer. He demands that the people of Earth listen to him and learn peaceful ways before they endanger themselves. As a sign of his power he causes the earth to stand still for 24 hours. The movie is as much about robots and damsels as about how hard it is to change society. _____, if you could get the whole world in a room and get them to agree about one thing, what would it be?

inspectorzutto @ 2008-10-27T03:54:00

2008-10-27T07:56:26Z

I have a splitting headache and awful heartburn. After thrashing around in bed for hours, I decided to try sleeping on the futon downstairs, to no avail. We're out of Pepto Bismol and I don't have anything strong enough for a headache like this. My mother has migraines... I worry, at times like this, that I've inherited them.

And just to add insult to injury, the apostrophe key on my keyboard is sticking!

Whiiine...

Creeeeepyyyy

2008-10-23T13:12:52Z

The companies that manufacture printers, such as HP, embed technology that prints coded messages in tiny, nigh-invisible dots on EVERY PRINTED PAGE your printer produces.
The dots encode information about the printer's serial number and a date/time stamp for when the page was printed.
Bear in mind that with a serial number from a printer, plenty can be determined about the printer itself - when and where it was made, and very possibly how / where it was distributed. (Think of VIN numbers. The numbers themselves store a ton of data.) And, if you purchased a printer directly from an electronics store, sleep peacefully knowing that BestBuy associated customer identification data from their own database to the model of printer you bought. It may even be that the barcode scanner read the printer's serial number from its packaging - allowing them to tie a very specific printer to you exactly. Pure speculation, but I can visualize all the technological moments that would make this transaction possible; the steps are easy.

Basically this means that moder printers are, at the very least, like guns. When a gun fires a bullet, the bullet's casing is etched with a pattern unique to the inside of the barrel of that gun. This helps crime labs definitely associate discovered weapons to bullets fired at a crime scene. Now, any page your printer outputs associates to your printer - that's a fact. But how far back can that data be tied? It all depends on how compliant BestBuy is with an investigator, regardless of that investigator's intentions.

Orwellian? Outlandish? Yes - and true!

http://www.boingboing.net/2008/10/23/howto-read-the-secre.html

So Effin' Happy

2008-10-22T23:03:55Z

Aah. For the past 3 days I've been steeping in a sauna of code. A week ago I started questing for a good PHP MVC framework and found that, lo and behold, CakePHP is fundamentally MVC! They have hojillions of labor-saving utiltiies. It's like, robots that work for robots. That's nested labor savings right there. So, I've been ingesting the CakePHP docs and have been thoroughly impressed with it. It has some niggling obstacles that aren't well-documented, but apart from that, it delivers well on its promise of being a rapid develompent framework. Numerous times already I've tried to make CakePHP's take on programming more complicated than it really is, thinking I have to go throuh Z, F, and theta on my way from A to B. Turns out, A just goes right to B. Duh.

My Flex 3 for Dummies book by Doug McCune came in the mail yesterday. I have been so jazzed about learning Flex that English can't communicate the feeling. I was tempted to start reading it before bed last night. This is the kind of light pleasure reading I've drawn ridicule for in the past. But I couldn't even read it last night; if I started, I knew I would be too excited to sleep. So I made sure to block out an hour this morning just to dig into it before I started work.

And now, seven rewarding hours of CakePHP development later, my day is done! So I'm going to eat leftover baked ziti and airbrush Halloween props in my shed while listening to techno.

I've tried to visualize my perfect day many times in the past, and it looks a lot like this one. I'm happy. The only thing missing is a certain girl, but she's taking her robotics vision exam right now.

Happy Halloween!

2008-10-15T11:10:05Z

Here 'tis - the Internet unveiling of our 2008 Halloween prop - singing pumpkin choir! Check it out.

http://video.yahoo.com/watch/3711837/10207174

If you like it, perhaps link to it? We want to get something viral going. :D

Happy Halloween!

Dang

2008-10-14T02:47:36Z

I've been sifting through numerous articles covering the (apparently widespread) character assassination of Senator Obama. A frighteningly large and uninformed segment of the American populace believes a range of things about the man that vary from unambiguously but unemotionally false to morally reprehensible. Such as, for example, that he is Muslim (he is not), that he associates with terrorists (he once knew a guy named Ayers who terrorized his own country when Obama was ... eight years old?), and that he supports gay marriages (he does not, though he does support same sex civil unions and employment benefits). Some of these notions are just misinformation, and some are at best surrepetitiously-guided smearing.

What tops it for me, though, is this YouTube video. It is a recording of a very cowardly man, and it was recorded by undoubtedly a rather brave person. The man pictured is holding a Curious George monkey doll with an Obama '08 bumper sticker wrapped around its forehead like a fez.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=385x212515

Once he realizes he's been caught in the act - and is being recorded directly and unwaveringly - he half-heartedly shows his embarrassment by pocketing the bumper sticker. And then passes of the doll to a child as if to wash away his vulgar opinion and unobtrusively make light of it.

Maybe I'm crazy, but I find this small video-recorded anecdote is telling of the ugly sentiments teeming under the surface in this country. Some people are just waiting for an outlet - or a leader - to show how sick they are.

Am I the only one who thinks this is hilarious?

2008-10-10T18:11:28Z

On the left side, we see the all-consuming, destructive consequences of irresponsible lending.
On the right side, JIGGY JIGGY DANCING ADVERT! RATES WERE CUT! WOO! GO BUY ANOTHER HOUSE!

Your Long Lost Uncle!

2008-09-24T02:00:05Z

See more about the gore cannon.

buymyshitpile.com

2008-09-23T03:52:19Z

Worth investigating! This is MY contribution to the government buyout of worthless drek:

http://www.buymyshitpile.com/node/563

I AM A PRISONER OF MY OWN BUTT

2008-09-20T02:39:44Z

Maybe not me, but these kids are:

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2008/9/17/

Is it just me, or are those golden words of hilarity?

This Picture Makes Me Happy

2008-09-19T04:28:43Z

From an Instructable by MissMonsterMel: how to make a (badass) werewolf costume.
We've got some friends getting married on Halloween... Hmmmm...

Palin

2008-09-04T11:48:22Z

So! Anyone watch the RNC last night?

No kidding, folks. I almost threw up in my mouth. Sarah Palin had nothing but platitudes and emotionally charged "me-too" rhetoric that I swore at times was on the brink of "four legs good, two legs bad." I watched to the very end because I wanted to see anything about actual policy plans or concrete evidence of her track record.

The only really concrete, verifiable statement she made was that she vocally turned away federal money during a bridge-building project in Alaska. (This was in 2005; the almost $400 million funding for this bridge was being diverted by Congress to Louisiana for Katrina efforts.) This being the only verifiable statement she made, it seems a shame not to go and verify it.

According to Wikipedia (as of this writing):

"The Gravina Island Bridge (also known as The Bridge to Nowhere) was a proposed bridge to replace the ferry that currently connects Ketchikan, Alaska, to the Ketchikan International Airport on Gravina Island. The bridge was projected to cost $398 million.".

As far as I could tell, this was the one verifiable political fact she gave on stage - and the RNC commentators after her speech said she actuall contradicted herself. When campaigning for Governor of Alaska, she was the only candidate to voice support for the bridge and obtaining the federal funding for it. Later on, as Governor, she cancelled the project. Whether she did so before or after Congress decided to withdraw funding, I'm not sure.

"Bridge to Nowhere" Links / My sources (shared from a preliminary Google search)
http://www.heritage.org/Research/Budget/wm889.cfm
http://www.smh.com.au/news/us-election/this-ladys-for-turning-over-a-bridge-to-nowhere/2008/09/01/1220121135181.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravina_Island_Bridge
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ketchikan,_Alaska

I admit, I wasn't a fan of her from the start. I'm still not. But I, with my devilishly liberal "open mindedness", was willing to sit through her entire speech, listening hopefully for a single intelligent remark - anything about her track record, her policy plans, the basis and fruits of her judgment. I was even willing to spend this entire morning reading up on her! And in the end I was disappointed.

---

Interesting extra notes here...

Also in Wikipedia, about Ketchikan:

Ketchikan (pronounced /ˈkɛtʃɪkæn/) is a city in Ketchikan Gateway Borough, Alaska, United States and the southeasternmost sizable city in that state. With an estimated population of 7,368 in 2007, it is the fifth most populous city in the state.^[1]

So, let me get this straight. A city with a population that barely scractches 8,000 is the 5th most populous in the state? How big is this state?

Also in Wikipedia, about Alaska:

Alaska (IPA: /əˈlæskə/, Russian: Аляска Alyaska) is a state in the United States of America, in the northwest of the North American continent. It is the largest U.S. state by area, and the 6th wealthiest (per capita income).^[3]^[4]

Population Total: 683,478 (2007 est.), ranked 47th in the United States
Population Density: 1.2/sq mi, ranked 50th in the United States

(Damn you and your liberal "facts", Wikipedia!)

Alright, so I'm sitting in Michigan. And my perspective is that Alaska is 1) tiny and 2) wealthy out the wazoo. This woman has what kind of experience edge over Obama?

Michigan's "per capita personal income in 2003 was $31,178 and ranked twentieth in the nation" according again to Wikipedia, and Michigan's population is stated as 10,071,822 (2007 est.). Looks like Palin has been governor of Alaska for 2 years (since November 2006), and that before that she had been mayor of Wasilla, Alaska from 1996 to 2002 (Wasilla being the fourth largest city in Alaska, standing at 9,780 people according to a 2007 estimate).

I have gone to a university that's practically larger than this woman's state in terms of population. University of Michigan has a student population of 41,042 (Wikipedia again), making it more than four times larger than the city Palin was mayor of for 8 years. I'm not even counting the host of faculty and grounds staff employed by the university, let alone the remaining population of Ann Arbor.

Disposable Art

2008-06-29T05:18:18Z

A friend of mine is running a junker car in a demolition derby in Ohio. This year I was priveliged enough to use his car as a canvas for my airbrush projects. I've probably spent more than 20 hours airbrushing this car, knowing that it (and the art on it) will be utterly destroyed by other junker, redneck cars somewhere in Ohio come August. But it's been a hell of a lot of fun.

So far, the car has these murals:
- A flaming, insane-looking rabbit head (VERY crappy)
- A deep crow (pretty crappy)
- Some ghost-flames (crappy)
- Skull Snakes (badass)

I finished the skull/snakes today. Over 2 weekends, I reckon it took a total of 12 hours (excluding the time it took to draw the original design and the time spent acquiring the materials).

The final product:

The steps involved:
1. Copy a print-out of the guide drawing onto frisket film on the hood of the car. (Frisket is a sticky-backed transparent plastic film that can be cut with an Exacto knife, which you can then peel up in little sections to paint small areas at a time with crisp edges. Essentially, the plastic makes a stencil that you carve up into any shapes you want.) The reference image I drew previously is below:

In order to transfer the reference (on a print-out) to the frisket, I had to divide the print-out into a grid of 1-inch squares and copy it very roughly over, drawing onto the plastic frisket with a fine sharpie. The frisket was actually 8.5 x 11 inch sheets tessolated, resulting in a grid of 2-inch squares and a rough coordinate system.

2. Cut along aaaalll the edges that border two different colors, as traced by the sharpie. Using an Exacto to do this is really the only way, but it's a pain in the ass to cut the plastic frisket without also cutting the paint job of the car underneath. This is one of many very difficult skills that go into professional airbrush work, as I've come to see...

Okay, so steps 1 and 2 probably took 4 hours, and I haven't even touched the airbrush yet. This has all been preparatory work so that I can begin the airbrush in step 3.

3. Start painting the skull. As I said, the purpose of the frisket is to let you airbrush with the aid of a "do-it-yourself" stencil. The way this works is, you peel up one chunk of the plastic, paint it in, cover it up with the sticky-backed plastic again, and move on to the next piece. I did this for about 60 pieces of the skull, which I'm realizing now was way overkill. The snakes were probably 10 pieces each, much easier to manage. After the snakes, I did the swords and the handles on the swords.

I'll take this moment to point out something I learned: airbrush is an unforgiving medium and extremely demanding of your patient focus. At all times, there are a dozen tiny, lazy mistakes you can make that will set you back several minutes, hours, or ruin the entire project. You can't let your guard down, like, ever.

The frisket itself is a prolific source of such opportunities. Frisket, remember, is sticky-backed plastic; once you're done painting a spot, you are supposed to put the frisket back onto the painted area you completed. There's always a chance that the frisket will "lift" some of the paint you just put down. The shape of the piece of film you are replacing is like a puzzle piece. It fits the Exacto-cut edge of the rest of the film in a perfect, key-in-lock fashion. If you don't line those edges up perfectly, then there will be a hair-width exposed line on one edge of the film piece. This crevice will inexorably be filled with paint overspray, putting a color down in this hair-width trench where it shouldn't be.

Anyway. In using the airbrush, you are constantly removing and replacing these little pieces. It takes a lot of diligence to line up every piece as exact as it should be. I frequently ran out of patience and did it poorly. Every single place that I did this - that I DECIDED to be less than patient - the painting had a visible error in it as a result.

4. Once the base colors had been painted on all the stenciled work (about 6.5 hours, I think), I lifted all the frisket away and did my favorite part - the highlights and shadows. The skull was originally just grey, and now I was able to add this deep blue to make the shadows pop. After that, I used white to make the teeth and fangs shine a lot brighter.

This part of the project is very climactic and exhilarating, because it is by far the fastest and most challenging step. You've invested about 10 hours in the painting. This final step multiplies the vividness and life of the final product - but a freehand airbrush mistake can cost you the entire project. It doesn't have to; if I was smart, I would have used clear coat between the base layer and the highlights/shadows. That way if I messed up a shadow or something, I could use paint thinner to wipe it away without damaging the base layer under the clear coat.

Turns out, I'm just so good that I did the highlights and shadows without making any mistakes. Booyah!

Woot. All for a mural that will ultimately go through a demolition derby, and come out looking like it met a trash compactor. But somehow that's totally appropriate. I'm not emotionally attached to the picture, but I'm proud of it. It was an accomplishment and came out much better than I hoped.

Bother You Much?

2008-06-12T22:55:36Z

If you ever liked the Looney Tunes... Well, then you may not want to watch. This is an excerpt of the re-imagined Warner Bros characters in a 2005 series called "Loonatics." I don't know if it's still on the airwaves or not.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=tXokcgu-sCk

Good Quiz

2008-06-07T13:02:42Z

What philosophy do you follow? (v1.03)
created with QuizFarm.com

You scored as Existentialism

Your life is guided by the concept of Existentialism: You choose the meaning and purpose of your life.

“Man is condemned to be free; because once thrown into the world, he is responsible for everything he does.”

“It is up to you to give [life] a meaning.”

--Jean-Paul Sartre

“It is man's natural sickness to believe that he possesses the Truth.”

--Blaise Pascal

More info at Arocoun's Wikipedia User Page...

Existentialism

100%

Utilitarianism

70%

Justice (Fairness)

65%

Kantianism

55%

Divine Command

45%

Apathy

35%

Hedonism

30%

Strong Egoism

20%

Nihilism

Skull Snakes

2008-04-27T01:31:47Z

I am totally going to airbrush this on the hood of a guy's car. Drew it today and picked out some colors. Now, to go get paints and find a place that sells frisket film!

Papal Etiquette

2008-04-16T11:31:16Z

NPR has a funny (I think it's a little funny) article on what to do when you are around the Pope:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=89667043

What do I do when the pope enters?

Stand and applaud, the monsignor says. He says applause for the pope often varies according to the type and place of the event. In a small room, people often clap quietly, as if they were at a golf tournament. But in a big venue, such as a stadium, the crowd frequently greets the pope with loud cheers and a thunderous ovation. You're welcome to join in.

What do I have to do to set up this kind of protocol, man? How do you communicate it to the world? NPR?

Here, let's do a Mad-Lib.

1 _____ your name
2 _____ name of your butler
3 _____ verb
4 _____ another verb
5 _____ place
6 _____ an exciting noun

What do I do when _____ enters?

_3_ and _4_, _2_ says. He says _3_ing for the _1_ often varies according to the type and place of the event. In a small room, people often _3_ quietly, as if they were at _5_. But in a big venue, such as a stadium, the crowd frequently greets the _1_ with _6_ and a thunderous _3_ing. You're welcome to join in.

What do I do when Ross enters?

Throw the goat and scream, Frodo Fraggins says. He says goat-throwing for the Ross often varies according to the type and place of the event. In a small room, people often throw the goat quietly, as if they were at a satanic coffee-shop. But in a big venue, such as a stadium, the crowd frequently greets the Ross with exploding guitar riffs and a thunderous goat-throwing. You're welcome to join in.