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Wednesday, November 18th, 2009
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I am craving of late the breakfasts my dad used to make on Sunday mornings.
It was ritual. My mother cooked the week, and it was never breakfast. Breakfast was whatever you scrounged up. I typically had dry cereal with a glass of milk, my parents had toast and coffee. Rarely my mother would make pancakes, which I adored and still do. They were the occasional treat. Sunday, however, was ritual.
Sundays, my dad took arms to the kitchen. My mother would relax and the air would fill with the snaps of frying bacon and the weak whir of an ancient French mechanism used to torture the juice out of whatever citrus you wanted to torment. I would wander slowly down the stairs around 10am, we would pull up our chairs and there would be our meal.
It was the same menu every time.
My dad would use the white plates, the ones his mother gave us, and the fancy glasses because my mom bought them and we wanted to use them. Crystal stemware. On the plate would be a wooden egg cup, smiling, mustached face painted on. Nested under a little knitted hat was a soft boiled egg. A little heap of strips of whatever toast was in the house, pile of hay, crisp and warm. The toast was aways made last. A basket of bacon sat in the center of the table, next to a basket of cut baguette and whatever jams my mother had. She used to make preserves herself and we fished the jars out for this. Apricot or strawberry, because my mother loved apricots (don't we all?) and because strawberries were plentiful. Cheese and fruit, fresh made orange juice, milk and coffee.
These were the warmest meals. At dinner, everyone was tired from a long day. Breakfast, everyone was ready to start fresh.
Or sometimes, on weekends, late at night or early in the morning when my dad isn't around, when I'm visiting, my mother will make crêpes, just for the two of us. Real ones, not the thick, gummy things I find here. I haven't had a good crêpe yet in the United States. I think it's because everyone wants to turn them into pancakes. My dad has the same problem. To be fair, a few bad crêpes means subsequently I haven't tried many crêpes in the US at all, and that's even if you can find them. But my mother can make them in her sleep, folding them with deft hands. She'll make piles of them and we'll sit in the kitchen eating them, sipping tea. Folded in quarters and dusted with granulated sugar, because you need that crunch and you have to eat it quick while it's still warm and before the heat melts the sugar. Or with that apricot jam, rolled up and drizzled with just the barest amount of chocolate.
These were the moments my mother and I had where we didn't fight or snip, and now when we have them they're like treasure.
I'm going to visit my parents again for Thanksgiving. I'm hoping for breakfasts.
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Comments: Read 2 or Add Your Own.
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Tuesday, November 3rd, 2009
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That was some seriously self-indulgent crap and for that I apologize. Normal service will now resume.
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Comments: Add Your Own.
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Sunday, September 20th, 2009
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| Time: | 3:30 am. |
| Mood: |  pleased. |
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- I bought a special Tea Thermos today. It has two lids, one with a strained for loose leaf tea, holds 12oz and keeps it hot for 6 hours before it starts to cool. This is exactly what I've been needing to take to work!
- I found both James Jean T-shirts at the GAP today, on sale. Thus I bought them both. They are very soft and nice, and much cheaper than what he did for Prada. Which was beautiful. But really very expensive.
- It's really been a while hasn't it? I do apologize.
- I'M ON THE COVER OF THE CITY PAGES! I cannot stress how awesome I think that is.
It is the nature of what and who I am to be in love with my books. A little bit all the time, but mostly a string of (mostly) monogamous serial love affairs, intense and unyielding. I read when I am happy and I want to celebrate, I read when I am sad and I want to either feel better or wallow in my misery. There is a book for every spectrum. Good day? Rainy day? Feeling frisky? Feeling low?
There was a habit I picked up when I was a kid. I was "afraid of the dark." I wasn't really, not that I can remember. I think I may have been at first. What I really was, though, was not tired, and bored. I had a nightlight at the foot of my bed, right up between the wall and the sheets. The narrow space dimmed it, a warm glow emanating from my covers, there wasn't enough to throw shadows. And like in all the illustrations and stories, I would reposition myself the other way, ferret a book out from a hiding place, and read.
As long as I could stand it.
If I was tired it meant a couple hours. If not then I would go through entire books. That was the original plan. I would start reading a book and then simply could not stop. It was not a concept my parents understood. I was in second grade, why did I have this burning need to finish Heidi instead of going to sleep?
Ever since, my best reading times have been in the dead of night. I remember with great fondness books I bought one lone winter evening in a brick-brack coated shop, took home and started reading, and then didn't finish until the sun began to rise. I would always dim the lights, like those very early times. Reading a book in a fully lit room seems like blasphemy to me. There's a warmth that comes off paper pages from a dull glow, a narrowing of the experience that disappears the locale and leaves you with just the scent of the pages, the stark black text and you. And whatever the world becomes.
I don't normally do that much these days, I have many other things to do. So it is with relish tonight that I have a book I cannot stop for the life of me, I must turn the lights low, get myself some tea (I have no milk, therefore no hot chocolate) and go until I either fall into exhaustion or the sun comes up.
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Comments: Read 3 or Add Your Own.
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I've been biking and exercising a lot lately. Did 19 miles yesterday, another 19 today. It sounds even more impressive if I say 30.6 km.
I'm not really at my limit, I don't take breaks and I'm holding steady at 15mph. I can feel the muscles tightening, oddly enough my lower abdominals are getting quite the workout. I might add another 3 miles or so though, since I know I can do more. If only I could do it faster. If nothing else, it's helping with the depression.
Went to Lund's and they completely got rid of their beauty/hygiene section upstairs but Target started carrying my brand of stuff. Went looking for a some clothes and they didn't have what I wanted, but they've got underthings with owls on them and I loves me my owls. OWLS. There's a rumor going around that Angelic Pretty is going to start a line with a deer/woodland critter theme. It might be easier for me to like lolita if there was stuff with owls on it.
That's all I got.
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Comments: Read 1 or Add Your Own.
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- I have now drawn sexy fanart. And won a prize for it!
- I caught a...something, crawling up my arm while fixing my drafting table and chair. I felt, saw something black out of the corner of my eye and did an instant "shake and fling off" maneuver. Now I don't know where it is and I am pretty well terrified of spiders. It might not have been an arachnid, but this is a dubious line of reasoning. I have no proof either way. I'm just going to have to hope that where ever it went, it died instantly.
I don't despise the little eight-legged critters, not so long as they are away from me. Even the little ones freak me out. I am also quite susceptible to spider venom. A bite from a wolf spider caused my foot to swell twice its normal size, rendering walking (and the wearing of shoes) impossible.
Fortunately, I have good aim. Unfortunately, they're little bastard ninjas that you just can't fucking prepare for.
- The above statement turned into quite the amazing ramble, did it not?
- I like drawing sexy things but I'm not a very good designer when I'm working in one night. I kind of want to redraw it so that it looks more graphic (as in design, not explicit).
- If you look at his tech specs, his stats are mostly middling around 2 or 3. Except his courage level is at "10." Yes, that's right. He is one brave little toaster. My fellow nerds, we've hit in-joke mother load.
- I was a hair model! This happened a while ago, but the photos now exist on the stylist's blog. At some point they will be on the salon site. Those of you who have Facebook may have noticed my new photo. It's from this shoot! Nothing makes a girl feel pretty quite like, "hey! Will you model for me?"
- ChicagoCon tickets are no longer comped for pros. I have heard varying rumors as to why (perhaps more people elected to simply walk the convention than to pay extortionist table prices?). I have decided it's because those people are dicks, and this is yet another dick move. It is Wizard after all. I am still going to Chicago to see my posse. I have paid for hotel and flight, both nonrefundable. I may or may not attend the convention still, I'm not sure.
- Too many parties in too few days. I'm pooped.
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Comments: Read 2 or Add Your Own.
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Wednesday, May 20th, 2009
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I don't do well in heat, at all. It's just a nightmare for me. This is not a dramatic statement, it's the way I'm built. I bike through the wind and snow and sleet of winter, but once the dial pushes up past 75 it becomes increasingly difficult for me to move. I'm a cold weather creature. I haven't decided which one, but I'd like to think some sort of owl.
Yesterday it was 94 degrees and humid and this means when I got back to my tiny little apartment, I was unable to function. I couldn't even lie on the floor, it made me feel sick.
Using my superhuman strength and the fact that it's only 70 right now, I have installed my Air Conditioner.
Blessings be upon us!
- The room mate is off in LA right now on a business trip, I am relaying to concerned parties the following message: "Ramen = Maximum Umai!"
- Not having a room mate is causing me to revert to my pre-room mate hours, which is plus and minus depending on how you think of it.
- Dan, I would like your assistance please. I'm ditching the sweltering studio this summer, it just makes the most sense. I'd like to get all my shit out of there this weekend.
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Comments: Read 1 or Add Your Own.
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Wednesday, May 13th, 2009
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| Time: | 9:04 am. |
| Mood: | excited. |
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The Unwritten hits shelves today for a whopping $1. I have put time, sweat and blood into this comic. No, you still won't find my name in the credits, sadly the game doesn't work that way yet. But for my purposes this is still my book, with my work and my heart in it. And I snuck myself, my friends and my idea of humor in plenty of other places.
Props to you if you find them.
And when they eventually do the Eeyore thing...yeah that was my idea.
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Comments: Add Your Own.
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| Time: | 9:47 pm. |
| Mood: |  pissed off. |
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I can't talk about the sexism in comics anymore. I just can't. All it does is make me angry and frustrated.
Joe Quesada is a smarmy sexist frat boy. He's a tool. The solicits for Marvel Divas is billed as four superheroines in a Sex and the City sort of story, full of: "Hot, sudsy fun." This book is being "marketed" towards "women," and by that I mean quite obviously aimed at the gullet of fanboys who desire nothing more than lesbian pillow fights drawn by Greg Land, an artist who swipes all his drawings of women from pornography.
Someone called him on this, asking about the sexism of such a marketing scheme. Let's review the question, shall we?
Here's the copy:
"Diva (dee-vah), noun: An unusually glamorous and powerful woman. See: Patsy “Hellcat” Walker; Felicia “Black Cat” Hardy; Angelica “Firestar” Jones; and Monica “Photon” Rambeau. What happens when you take four of the Marvel Universe’s most fabulous single girls and throw them together, adding liberal amounts of suds and drama? You get the sassiest, sexiest, soapiest series to come out of the House of Ideas since Millie the Model! Romance, action, ex-boyfriends, and a last page that changes everything! Let your inner divas out with this one, fellas, you won’t regret it!"
I should note this is modified copy and not the one that I originally read with the solicit. While that may be what's running now, it's not much improvement over the original:
“The idea behind the series was to have some sudsy fun and lift the curtain a bit and take a peep at some of our most fabulous super heroines. In the series, they’re an unlikely foursome of friends–Black Cat, Hell Cat, Firestar, and Photon–with TWO things in common: They’re all leading double-lives and they’re all having romantic trouble. The pitch started as “Sex and the City” in the Marvel Universe, and there’s definitely that “naughty” element to it, but I also think the series is doing to a deeper place, asking question about what it means…truly means…to be a woman in an industry dominated by testosterone and guns. (And I mean both the super hero industry and the comic book industry.) But mostly it’s just a lot of hot fun.”
Here's the question:
"About the "hating" on Marvel Divas, let's call it what it really is—criticizing how sexist this book appears to be. If Marvel produces comics that are offensive to female readers, why shouldn't people "hate" on it? Why would I want to support a company that produces offensive, sexist material? Why shouldn’t everyone speak out against it? While the book hasn't come out yet, what has been released so far is blatantly sexist. But what troubles me the most is that Marvel thinks people want to read this, and this constitutes strong female characterization. Does Marvel actually want to attract female readers or is the whole point that Marvel Comics are only for guys?"
Joe was dismissive, giving off this lovely answer:
"I’m going to go on a limb here and assume you’re a Marvel reader. It’s an assumption I’m making based upon the fact that you’re responding to this column. If you’re Marvel reader and truly feel we’re sexist, then why are you reading our books? Now, perhaps you’re not a Marvel reader, then if that’s the case, I’m not quite sure what you’re criticizing if you don’t read our books?"
If you really thought we were sexist, you wouldn't read our books. And since you don't read our books, sit down and shut up. You have no business being upset by the institutionalized sexism we're peddling to the masses. That's why you shouldn't speak out against it. Because I said so. Now get me a sandwich and beer.
"Is the cover image provocative, perhaps, but it’s no more or less than any other book we do.
The cold hard reality of publishing and trying to sell our books to as many people as possible, so here’s an example of what happens more often than you may think here at Marvel. From time to time, we’ll be launching a title that doesn’t focus very heavily on the super heroic. From time to time I’ll get a cover sketch and it doesn’t have a costumed hero or villain on the cover, what we internally refer to as a “quiet cover.” On those occasions, more often than not, I ask my editors to direct their cover artist to give me at least a first issue cover with the characters in costume. Why? Because it will help launch a book that will most likely have trouble latching onto a large audience. We want to give every title the best possible chance to be successful. Marvel Divas is no different and that’s why you’re seeing our strong female leads in their super hero personas."
You didn't say anything about the cover image but instead referred to the sexism in general, which I'm going to completely ignore because I can't defend using the phrase "hot, sudsy fun" by calling it feminist. I'm going to instead pretend you were talking about the cover, which you are going to admit isn't bad because it's not and this way I can pretend I win.
Remember people, this is the same man who printed this cover on an all ages book and his defense was, "Tentacle porn? WHAT tentacle porn?"
I'm so sick of this. I'm so sick of the fanboys falling all over him because he's the most popular geek in the room. I'm sick of having my opinion marginalized because this asshole and the people like him think that if we don't like something, the solution isn't to try and fix it or make it better, it's to go away and not be spoilsports. Every time they do something stupid (talk), sexist (see previous examples) or just plain wrong (whoops, did we forget to color Vixen so she's black? Well no one will notice, it's not like she's our only black female character, and they're all staring at her tits anyway), it's my fault for getting upset. It's my problem.
Fuck you, you self-inflated, slime encrusted, beernut scented greasewaffle.
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Comments: Read 6 or Add Your Own.
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| Time: | 11:51 pm. |
| Mood: | pleased. |
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Now that I have a Flickr account, I really like using it. This is a set of process photos of the making of Rocket Betty.
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Comments: Add Your Own.
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| Time: | 11:51 am. |
| Mood: | calm. |
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I feel like I have a rant in me somewhere but it's just not coming to the surface. I'm so exhausted with being annoyed at the world that I have defaulted to not being annoyed. Perhaps once I have my tea I shall feel better.
Even the Massive Fight had last night by the people in the apartment below me didn't phase me much. One guy took off in the dead of night somewhere around 3am and the police came an hour later to deal with the two that were left, resulting in the woman once again getting kicked out and making a huge stink about it. She came back this morning.
I've become bemused by this constant struggle, where Madame and her Stupid Son (he might be 19-25?) make problems while Sir who lives down there tries to deal with them. The situation becomes these two slight statured, obnoxious nitwits getting drunk and screaming, sometimes getting violent, and this enormous 6 foot redneck trying to calm them down.
The drama plays out like so:
"FUCK YOU MAN!"
"Mellow out!"
"NO YOU FUCKING MELLOW OUT! YOU'RE NOT MY GRANDMA!" (I have no idea what that meant)
"Come on, just mellow out."
"FUCK YOU!"
bang crash shouts and yells.
Repeat for two hours.
Usually it's just Sir and Madam, and she'll get drunk and taunt him. She'll yell and scream and say he won't touch her (because she's a woman), and she'll throw things and yell abuse. And he'll try to calm her down and take things away from her and he won't hit her back (because he's not an idiot). The cops will get called and she'll get arrested or carted away or whatever (which surprises her every time for some reason). And if she's feeling particularly frisky she'll fight the cops, which is always fun to listen to because when she's drunk and fighting the cops, she'll start talking like a valley girl. If the cops are men she might try to talk them into taking her to Chicago.
The city. Not the avenue.
Right now I'm going to do some drawing exorcises so that I can be more like Esteban Maroto. If you don't know who he is, that's very sad. You can sometimes find comic anthologies he worked on in the 70s in cheap bins for a dollar. If you find one, mail it to me and I will so reimburse you.
I'm also waiting for UPS. I bought a Tokidoki pirata purse on ebay, used for about 30% of the original sale price. It doesn't have the original qee but I can probably replace that, and even if I can't I have plenty of Dunny to canibalize for the purpose.
So...I guess I should leave you with something to do.
- Animals that dance
- Frazetta-esque
- Sexy ice cream for the irreligious
- Hip Hop video blog that offers a lot of really fun commentary on bling, politics and more
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Comments: Add Your Own.
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Tuesday, April 21st, 2009
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| Time: | 12:00 am. |
| Mood: |  awake. |
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- Trent Reznor does something with the iPhone.
- Len Wein's house burns down, much to our sadness.
- Score for more Popgun! It's been a while since I've grabbed a new art book.
- The last time bras were advertised to women and not their man friends.
- Another reason to never have children, no flamboyantly stupid pod clothing.
- Only read it if the economy doesn't easily depress you.
- Fashion week!
- I really like this new artist.
- I so want to make one.
- Assholes.
- Ok, I know they're not as good as the real thing, but we could so have used some of these at MCAD.
- Oh no! The email is coming!
- I want this sweater. I know it's a little tacky but screw it, it's a Wonder Woman sweater.
- One of my new girl groups. I warn you, it's bubblegum pop techno.
- NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! Who the hell puts milk in tea anyway? Way too delicate to dilute with milk people, even sugar and honey should be used sparingly. Of course if you're tasting Lipton, I suppose anything would be better than tasting the stuff.
- Heck yeah, Target.
- You idiot, why can't we get rid of her? She just gets more vapid every time she opens her trap.
- I like the look of it but I'm not in the market for one right now.
- This is so fucking cool, you have no idea. How often do you really see superheroes saving people?
- If you need a chuckle, check this out.
- Oh man, that sucks.
- Freaky.
- Well it's an idea, though I can't say it's a very good one.
- Factory farming has always been bad people, this should not be new information.
- Twit.
- Did I ever link this shop? It is awful cute.
- Neil Gaiman legalese mumbo jumbo.
- I'm back into tattoo designing again, sort of.
( mild rant )
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Comments: Read 6 or Add Your Own.
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Tuesday, April 14th, 2009
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| Time: | 12:50 am. |
| Mood: | awake. |
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Things I learned from watching Dollhouse:
- It's not as sexist as it was made out to be, but it's still a bit on the creepy side.
- The characters don't change as radically as it's made out that they do. There's a deffinate underlying personality to each of them. I'm dissapointed that they touch so little on the other Actives. I'm dissapointed that most of the other characters are uninteresting.
- There's no TV show ever in the United States that has ever had someone speak proper French. You can pretend that's a French accent all you want, but it's so not. It's hit or miss with movies, mostly they get it wrong there too. Unless they hire a French actress.
Canada is RIGHT THERE people, they're at least closer than your garbled attempts.
- Enver Gjokaj looks really familiar.
- There is such a thing as a fight sceen that goes on too long.
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Comments: Add Your Own.
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I have a whole bunch of links and things that I was going to post, but it's been a whole series of increasingly busy days lately. So not right now. I will say that the Munny show is getting into swing as the date approaches very quickly. I'm in mild panic mode because out of the 10 artists I've got for this, I haven't heard from two of them in weeks.
Not. One. Peep.
So I'm getting really nervous that I said "ten" and now there might only be "eight."
8 =/= 10
AHHH!
I've seen Dan's so far. Let me assure you that it is awesome, which is pretty cool since some of the awesomeness was completely accidental. It has toes. This is all I will tell you, you must come see it to learn more.
Anyway. Here's the little thing I'll be tacking up in various places. Everyone should come, because you should support local artists. Even the ones who moved to LA.
Also, a House MD spoiler that's actually really cool and explains ( what happened to Kal Penn. )
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Comments: Add Your Own.
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- Purely for the illustration.
- Yeah, I could see that.
- Freaky.
- Yeah, that's a real fair use of the law right there. What's the next move? He buys her dinner first and you get her for prostitution?
- I'm not personally comfortable with the idea of a bikini wax done at a salon, but that's no excuse to make it illegal.
- No, it just sounds stupid. I will also now point out that I know about this BEFORE Colbert did, but I sit on my links so there.
- Speaking of Colbert...
- AWWW!
- Yer damn skippy. You go girl!
- I always suspected such heights of disgusting possibilities were, well, possible. But I didn't think someone would actually do it. Think about this next time you think McDonald's is a good idea.
- Anyone ever use this? Is it any good?
- My Tea Fairy count is now up to five. People really love sending me things related to tea. It's pretty awesome.
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Comments: Read 2 or Add Your Own.
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Right now there's a show on in the background while I'm sorting my music, and I'm half listening to it. I had to stop and fully pay attention because of the absurdity that I heard. The show is about "sexting," sending sexually suggestive texts messages. And of course, because it wouldn't be horrified outrage if it weren't, the focus is all on teenagers. Tyra, in her infinate ring-circus wisdom, is having a random person read out loud text messages sent by any of about a dozen girls on the stage, and then they have to identify themselves. This is supposed to horrify everyone, but I'm really rolling my eyes here. There's girls all range room about 14-16.
This is, in fact, about the time that nearly every girl or boy I have ever known had become sexually active. It is the acknowledged age by most surveys when people first become sexually active. This is not news.
Most of these "sexting" shamings follow the proper script. The text says something ranging from mildly to moderately explicit ("What would you do to me while having sex?" "I want to ride you all night."), the daughter pipes up, Tyra shames her. The daughter may shed a tear or two (the audience will boo her at least once), the mother cries and wonders where she went wrong. The confirmation at the end is that the girl must be having sex because she secretly hates herself.
Except once.
There is a 15 year old girl who sent a text message to her boyfriend along the lines of, "the next time I see you I'm going to throw you on the bed, take off your pants and stick your __ in my __." I'm not editing those out myself, they weren't read aloud.
When Tyra attempted to shame the girl, she stood up for herself. She said she was in a monogamous relationship with the same boy for a long time, she wasn't doing anything that any other fifteen year old girl wasn't doing, she didn't have to feel bad about this especially since she was safe about it. Tyra was stunned and then tried to shame the mother. And the mother stood up for the daughter.
She and her daughter had an open line of communication, she'd met the boy and his family, they'd had family dinners together. When her daughter was ready to become sexually active, she went to her mother to talk about. They went to an OBGYN, there was discussions about sex and health, etc. She wasn't pleased her daughter was sending explicit messages, but she knew she couldn't stop her. Trying to control her daughter's sex life would not make her safer, and the fact that she doesn't like the langauge of the text doesn't make it wrong for her to talk like this with her boyfriend.
Tyra got pissed off. When shaming them about the sex didn't work, she decided to pull out the big gun, "it's fine that she has sex and is safe and responsible about it, but how dare she talk like this."
Excuse me? Really? That's what you believe? It's fine to do it so long as you don't talk about it? Teenagers talk dirty. They start talking dirty a long time before they start actually having sex. They talk about what it would be like, what they want it to be like, how they want it to be, and even fantasize about what they would do. They do it so they don't end up groping blindly in the dark without any clue as to where the parts are, they do it because sometimes they're reading to think about sex but not to have sex.
Teenagers (she calls them children, which I find disgusting) shouldn't be saying these things behind closed doors, let alone texting them over phones. I can partially agree with the last one, because I will never trust my privacy to a fifteen year old boy, but I don't think there's anything fundamentally wrong with it.
The outrage comes from the fact that now people will know. You send a sexually explicit message to someone, they'll know you think about sex. One of the first questions posed to every girl was "are you a virgin?" If she said yes, "are you SURE? You know oral sex counts as sex." Either way the girl is booed, one girl commented on getting nasty looks from the crowd when her message mentioned oral sex. They're called liars if they say they haven't, shamed for even thinking about it, shamed more if they actually do it. "You're children, how dare you have any sexual contact!"
What I find most disturbing about this isn't the group shaming though. It's the girl who is doing everything right, her mother is doing everything right, and she's still supposed to feel ashamed because she dares to talk about it.
What a load of horseshit. Teenagers are apparently supposed to feel safe and comfortable talking with their parents or at least a doctor about sex, so long as they never actually do anything about it and never even talk about it.
As a note, Tyra was visably startled when a mother said the word "penis" and refused to say the word herself. The entire time she used euphamisms.
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Comments: Read 11 or Add Your Own.
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Wednesday, March 4th, 2009
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| Time: | 10:12 am. |
| Mood: |  bouncy. |
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- No, no this is just creepy. I may or may not call it cultish, but it is deffinately scoring very high points on my patented Squick-Meter. "Problems arose earlier this week when a church delegate attempted to entice a Totem Middle School student into an evening church meeting with promises of rides, games, and espresso." This reminds me of those terrible after school specials that used to run, paradoxically, on weekends. The drug du jour has changed. Where once all it took to get an 11 year old into your car was Laffy Taffy and some Sweet Tarts, these days it's all lattes and espressos.
I like the nice little note the receptionist gives that the reason the church members don't inform parents they're courting their pre-pubecent children is because they just get so gosh darned caught up in spreading the word.
- Yeah, I figured.
- My nerdy rant for the day: It's always nice to see them do a feature about my people, although it'd be nice if I actually knew any of these ones. Just to get this cleared up, the guy who says Green Lantern is bestest title and his reasoning behind it (the Hal/Kyle wars, ask me sometime about the wheel of nostalgia and why people can ruin or revive pop culture with it), clearly lives under a rock. There was a HUGE upset, namely because if you tried really really hard right now to find Kyle in a comic, you still wouldn't. It doesn't help that a lot of it is pretty badly writen and very strangley concieved. There are a bunch of different rings now, for example, with different colors and feelings. Go planet! *
- And now, to denerdify: AHHHHH! NOOOOO! WHY DON'T I HAVE SEVERAL EXTRA THOUSAND DOLLARS TO THROW AROUND!? It's not fair! When Paul Pope started doing art DKNY, I didn't think it was a trend. Now James Jean is doing work for Prada. JAMES JEAN! PRADA! I want that t-shirt dress so bad. I weep. Not only can I not find any copies anywhere of his large art books, I am taunted with sleek overpriced clothing. I doubt I could even aford the purse. Why couldn't you have done something for Target, or Banana Republic? Hell I'll break down and shop at American Apparal for James Jean...
- For some reason, every time the BBC news puts up a feature in video, it crashes each and every one of my browsers. I wish there were a warning link which articles were in video.
- I wish the Atelier Pierrot site worked damnit. I'm not particularly into the Japanese Lolita style but there's always certain elements you can incorperate into other looks. If their websites worked.
- For some reason, no image uploading site is working for me right now, despite trying muliple images saved in multiple formats from multiple computers working from multiple operating systems. What gives, internet? What gives?
This doubly sucks because I'm doing something for someone right now where converting the image to JPEG radically changes the colors. I mean radically, so that a muted sea foam green because neon.
- I tried making this last night, it didn't go very well.
- We can rebuild him, we have the technology!
- Why can't we get rid of her?
- Good to know they have their priorities in order.
- Worth a read, just 'cuz.
* You get a gold star if you get this reference.
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Comments: Read 4 or Add Your Own.
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Saturday, February 28th, 2009
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So I was given five things to write about, topics to mull over. I think it's a neat idea, so if you want five things then I give you a set of your very own.
Shiny
My mother hates Las Vegas, and I agree with her. I've never been there, and I don't think she has either. It's not the place itself, the shows, the gambling, the sparkle and shimmer and shiny nearly or entirely naked women. It's the location itself. You see, out there they have no water, so they run out of it a lot and they run out of it quickly. More people keep moving out there and taxing the limited water supply. It's the same with all of Nevada, California, Arizona, there's a whole cabal of states that people want to move to with no water. And they want water, people do need it to live. They want fresh water for their showers, their faucets, their casino fountains and their golf courses.
Where do you get fresh water? Why, the Great Lakes of course.
I'm with my mom on this: you people moved to a place with no water, deal with it. Find your own local solutions, don't screw with our ecosystem.
Feminism
I was in a coffee shop by chance when I saw them, people I had known in passing many year ago. Waiting for my tea we made small talk. I didn't know her, but somehow the talk mixed politics, marriage and children. She was aghast that I never wanted any, how dare I? It's my responsibility as a liberal feminist woman to pass on my genes, to educate the nest generation. It's my duty to humanity and shirking it means we will someday be over run by the others. My refusal is a surrender to the handmaid's tale. She is not the first person I have met who has said this. Many of them are self-identified and publicly recognized as feminists, because they make all the other right noises about equal pay, discrimination. The right to choose.
But being able to choose means making either choice forever, not one until we finally change our minds and make the "right" one.
I'm a feminist, but sometimes I really hate other feminists.
Phobias
There are some idiots out there who say that if you don't like a large dog, or a breed of dog, you're a "breedist." Your experiences with any single animal or string of single animals don't matter, you should approach every dog as if none of the other dogs happened.
When I was 13, I was attacked by a friend's black Labrador whom I had met many times before. I walked up to the door, rang the bell, she opened it and the dog rushed out and tried to tear me to shreds. At the farm, Tati Juliette had a guard dog so vicious he couldn't be allowed out near anyone who didn't have daily contact with him. He would be locked in the barn and barking, tearing at the door while I sat in the stone room off the kitchen to have hot chocolat. When I was 14, a neighbor girl's golden retriever went utterly senile and attacked me. A year later, someone abandoned a dog, probably an old fighting dog out of Detroit. He made his way into my neighborhood and in the morning, when I was waiting for the bus, tried to take a bite out of me. I got away by miracle. For the next week I carried pepper spray until he was caught. Two years ago, a girl was walking a large and heavily jawed dog that turned suddenly and tried to eat my leg. He hit my purse instead, there are great big tooth holes in it, and she had to drag him off. I have been chased by at least half a dozen unleashed dogs while biking.
No. I don't want to pet your fucking dog.
Public Expectation
When I told my parents I wanted to be an artist, they were less than supportive. They were, in fact, dead set against it. Things were said that cannot be unsaid, and it ran for a while. When I was in school and we were made (weren't we always made to do these things that hurt us?) to talk about what we wanted to be when we grew up. More than once "artist" was derided as unrealistic. Everyone wanted to be doctors and lawyers, I had to compromise and lie through my teeth. "Architect," I said, because it made things so much easier. I made a choice then that whatever they said about it didn't matter. Since then, public expectation is an abstract. My own expectations matter far more.
Astrology
I was in high school and it was tradition for the three of us to go visit the Renaissance Fair. It was amazing fun. One year, Chris wanted to visit the psychic. I had no interest and it took much cajoling to get me into the idea. He paid for my reading in the end I think, or at least part of it. He went to his woman, I went to mine and we met back at the end of it.
His experience was transcendent. It was taped and I had to listen to it. She was right about so much! I was gypped. My psychic couldn't find Aquarius if the water-barer stood up and dumped the urn over her head. I made appreciative noises, pretended my psychic went well. He was so into it and thought it was so amazing, what else could I do? I didn't want to bring down the day, which was otherwise wonderful.
But it was all so much bullshit. I remember feeling offended that everyone else seemed to get something out of these readings whilst I had to deal with meaningless drivel. She pressed with vague comments for me to fill out specifics, but her basic premises were always wrong. I had to answer "no" to everything. No, I'm not a morning person, no I don't get along with my mother, no I'm not a technical person.
She didn't even have a crystal ball.
If you're going to be a psychic, and you have to be bad at it (as most are), then put in some effort. The crystal ball, the jingling jewelry, flowing blouse, hooped earrings, the works. You have to at least entertain me, even if you screw it up. Why aren't there mock-astrologists? It could be like stand-up comedy.
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Comments: Read 8 or Add Your Own.
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Tuesday, February 24th, 2009
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- So it turns out it really is
bad for you to play too many video games.
- Medicine finds good things too though.
- Meanwhile, cops find rabbits.
- I want to see one of these in person.
- I'm just about curious enough to read it.
- People really like this Obama guy.
- It's very rare that there turns up a video game in the world that I actually want to play, but it looks like here's another of those rare little treats. It's not just the retro factor that insidiously infiltrates my senses, it's the fact that I think Scott Pilgrim would think this was awesome. Volume 5 is out too, go buy it. It's great.
- Why aren't we doing this already? It's not like it's been going on in Europe for years or anything...
- I saw Coraline recently with Dan, because it's awesome and we were required to see it by law. That's what happens when you become an artist, you have to sign a contract and everything for it. Henry Selik makes a movie and Liaka is involved? You have to see it on pain of death. It was wonderful fun, amazingly magical and whatever people say about "it was all a dream" is a total bullshit lie. These are the say people who think Mirrormask was a love story. Oddly enough, all the people who insist this have been men, for either movie. I don't know what to make of that.
No, the cool thing is the tiny knitting. I am smitten with the sudden urge to take up crochet.
- People are crazy and stupid, especially comic book fans. Any kind of fanatic really, but in this instance it's comic fans. I think the best Batman ever was Kevin Conroy, and yet I'm not demanding they retire Batman from all cartoons ever.
- If only for the passion fruit truffle recipe at the end.
- AWWWWWWWW. Come on, with all the crap flying back and forth between parties, it's always nice to have an adorable puppy story.
- As opposed to a really interesting and yet incredibly depressing story about puppies.
- I'm trying to see a lighter side.
- But even the Onion is way more informative that the ridiculous and flamboyant stupidity and assholery than PETA.
- The only reason I can think of to visit Oklahoma.
- GROW UP. Why do we have to tiptoe around religions?
- Proof positive that people who teach Queer Theory are actually just teaching people to be queer. Have ANY of these conservatives gone to a real college?
- Mmmmmm....
- She really is quite stylish, though I think Jackie was still better.
- They're very good.
- What. The. Hell. For serious, that is SICK.
- My god are they ever amazing.
- This one is just for weird fun.
- I've been wanting to see this, is it strange so much of my viewing list lately is French?
- I'm trying to teach myself book binding, though I don't know where I'm going to find the time. I just feel it'd be useful to know.
- I feel just like this sometimes.
- I have to try and make these.
- Nerdgasm.
- Someday, I would like to go to Carnaval in Rio. I know someone from Rio, it's not like it'd be terribly challenging. But finding the time...ah, there's the rub.
- I want to go to China too, if not necessarily for the New Year. I just like the pop culture.
- A great way to spend your time.
- It seems kinda cool, if only I were more into sculpture.
- Did I ever post this?
- I so want to add vintage hats to my wardrobe, but I can rarely tell which is the front and my hair hates being told what to do, which one needs to be able to do with these hats. At some point I'm going to try pinning my hair into a more rockabilly style.
- It's supposed to be a "friendly" book about atheism.
- Teapot porn.
- Pepsi, in addition to trying to look cool by once again jumping on the pop culture phenomenon band wagon (formerly Spears, now Obama, and if you think I'm wrong then you are blind), is now trying to pretend they're iced tea. They claim "Pepsi Raw" (a totally unpretentious name) is a premium cola with no preservatives. I believe it will be as sickeningly sweet as anything else they've produced. I can't find pictures of the packaging, but it comes in a brown recycled paper carry cartons with abstracted brown leaves on them. If you go to the Pepsi site, and I recommend you have your speakers off for that, and click on the products you will see photos of a woman doing yoga next to the calorie count. This is true for any of their beverages.
- Yoga is, apparently, all the rage and yet still completely inappropriate. This from a company that just recently had that abysmal ad with the two women in the coffee shop proudly declaring that they don't have to pretend to be smart or interesting anymore, now they can go to McDonald's. I'd share, but the ad creeps me out and I can't even find it on youtube anyway.
- It's good to know some companies are still resorting to good old fashioned bad sex comparisons.
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Comments: Read 4 or Add Your Own.
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Saturday, February 7th, 2009
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| Time: | 10:33 am. |
| Mood: |  creative. |
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- I would like to see this
- To anyone who says cats aren't adorable, I say PHA!
- I do actually find it to be quite fascinating. My uncle formally expatriated to Germany at least 20 years ago, and before that had spent a great deal of time there studying music, before the fall of the wall. The east and west really were two different countries, not simply the same place with a wall in the middle. Attitudes, lives, hopes and fears were very different. If I could find a good book on the subject, I'd read it.
- This is really going a step too far. These machines are not alive, and until they receive something close to what we would call life (actual self-awareness, not programmed mimicry), they are just things. Putting eyes on it doesn't make it alive. If that were true, the prisons would be full of babies tried and convicted for domestic abuse against Teddy Ruxpin.
- Why aren't you listening to and loving them? HMMMM?
- For serious? There's a destinct Team Rocket feel to Shredder and friends.
- If you're ever in New York.
- SO. JEALOUS. I hate you, New York.
- A new meaning to Pretty in Pink.
- Oh my god, she just can't stop. There is nothing too culinary cruel for this woman! She's the Saddam Hussien of the kitchen. I vote we get Cheney to beat her up, he's not doing anything now.
- It's interesting, particularly since a fairly even-handed approach is used. I still think Wal*Mart is evil though. There's a Canadian documentary out there, The Corporation, and a Wal*Mart documentary which isn't as good, but shares some telling information about how they treat their employees.
- Delicious AND adorable!
- Flying hamster commercial!
- I really can't find it within myself to get too worked up over the poor widdle multiple sex offenders. This of it this way. In the United States, the general penalty for a single rape of an adult woman is three to five years. THREE TO FIVE! Now think briefly for a moment what one has to do to get life in prison for sex crimes. As you see, my sympathy quickly evaporates.
- This is SO. FUCKING. COOL. This is the next step closer to Neuromancer, the amazing dreams of Pillip K Dick being rendered into life. Imagine what this could do should it become a viable form of mass technology.
- He's got a point.
- Great. Among all the other things I have to worry about, now I have to add robbery by Klingons to the mix.
- Alright. Say it with me, deep breath, once out loud before you collapse into a fit of laughter so strong it threatens to rip the air from your lungs in a manner reminiscent of Alien. Republican is the new punk. AH HA HA HA HA HA HA HA! *wipes away a tear*
Those poor, put-upon Republicans, outside the mainstream, fighting The Man for control over the lives of people they despise. I'll give him a point for finding the one Republican in all of punk, Johnny Ramone, but he looses two points for failing to remember that every time the Ramones released an anti-establishment or protest song, Johnny bitched about it. I'll further go to say that anyone who says Johnny Cash was punk rock has so few brain cells rattling around in their skulls they might as well rent the space for storage. Don't diminish Cash's amazing contributions to music by saying that he invented an art form decades before it even existed. By these standards I could call Mozart punk as well. Amazing how he finds space of breath to mention Elvis and Orbson but completely misses Chuck Berry, Ike Turner and Bo Diddley (thank you History of Rock and Roll class!).
To quote one of his commentors, here's his logic:
punk = anti-establishment
Obama = establishment
GOP = anti-Obama
Therefore GOP = punk
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Comments: Read 1 or Add Your Own.
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theatrenocturne's journal
tired.
