This is it. This was my first Cast of Horribles. After drawing these strange squigglies in front of a city, I realized I may be on to something. It took a few more drawings to flesh them out, but they became the loveable (at least in my head) creatures that now adorn this website.
I don't remember what I was thinking when I drew this. this was posted on sewcrates under my original Doodles category. It was the first doodle that stuck with me and made me want to draw more of them.
Here's what I had to say about my first attempt:
"I doodled for the first time in a while today. I’m not sure what to think of my creation. I always liked the cartoon-building style, and the little people staring at the rising circle thingy, reminded me of the scene in “City of Angels” where the angels wait on the beach for the sunrise. I don’t think I could sit through that movie again, but it was disturbing and very powerful. And it had a great soundtrack."
It wasn't until I drew Julie in the next doodle that I was truly hooked.
And there she was: Julie in the form of a Horribles. You shouldn't be surprised to learn that I was Julie-free when I drew this.
This is the first appearance of the blue guy. He's a combination of my friends, and my sense of philosophy. Like most of my friends, he's much smarter than me. And he wears glasses (which rule!). It's not a coincidence he first appears in a coffeehouse. Many great things begin with coffee.
There was a lot of discussion about the title of this doodle between Julie and my mother. They both think that the English is bad, that I should have titled it "If I only know now what I'll know then." I didn't agree and it remained the way I drew it. I know the grammar isn't right, but I was trying to convey the circular sense of time: the Little Guy is looking at himself in the past, and speaking as the past Little Guy about knowing the future. I couldn't quite wrap my mind around it, which is why I used the grammatically strange title.
Julie didn't like my first version of the little, Little Guy. He was full sized with an extra large foot. I explained that the large foot is like the large head of babies. Julie didn't buy it and I ended up redrawing him.
Ah, our new dining room table. Julie picked it out without any guidance from me. The first table we chose was from a Vietnamese furniture store. We negotiated the price down to a reasonable price, and were left negotiating only the delivery fee. When she wouldn't budge on the seventy-five bucks, I used the slow walk out to try to push her to see our point of view. She waved as the door hit us on the way out.
I think walking out only works in movies.
As to the dark table, after drawing the chair, I grew tired. I figured if I made everything dark, I wouldn't have to draw the other chairs or most of the table. I was right. Don't tell anyone, though. It's all about artistic effect. Or is that affect in this case?
This was my portrait shot. I threw the Cast together and made them smile. If they had mouths.
One cause of my migraines/headaches is hunger. If I don't eat a scheduled meal, there is a high chance that I will pay for it with some sort of headache. Even eating before I have the headache but after the scheduled time doesn't help. Actually, I think it's eating after I was hungry that triggers the headache. It's a vicious circle.
I've always wished for a pill that I could take regularly in lieu of food. Now, don't get me wrong, I like food. It's just that food tends to cause drastic mood swings in me. It's not consistent, and I can't predict when and how it will happen, but once it does, I feel terrible: either grouchy and miserable, or headachey and hiding under the covers. Either way, it's awful for me and those around me.
I really enjoy the colors in this doodle. I keep trying to use brighter colors, but it rarely works. This time it did. Of course, this isn't the most original of content, but we already knew I was a hack.
I'm usually good at putting things together. Give me a large Ikea box, and I can build furniture in less than an hour. The barbecue we bought for the Castle wasn't as easy. A few of the screws they gave us didn't fit in the holes they drilled. I spent many hours trying to make them fit, and then decided to create my own holes. I used too large of a bit, of course, and ended up with bolts holding on the left arm-thingy.
That's my mom (who visited for the weekend) and Julie in the back, watching my frustrations. While I didn't come away with a bandage on my head, I did get a few nasty splinters in my fingers from the deck.
The instruction book was really fun to draw. I need to do more of those.
I don't know what was said to me, but I was in a bad mood when I drew this. Although I enjoy receiving criticisms (from the growth perspective), it does tend to depress me a bit. I rely too much on others for my self worth. I think most people do.
Ah, when in doubt, I draw the little guy and then scribble a background until something hits me. Obviously nothing really hit me here.
That's us flying to NYC for the wedding. I drew this before we left. I was not looking forward to another flight, especially since our NY flight was in coach. Except for the luggage aggravations, it turned out not to be a bad flight.
That's Jason to the left. He was my trainer for the past couple of years. He's a big guy. Very big. I'm a small guy, much smaller now that I stopped seeing Jason and starting riding my bicycle home from work three times a week.
This brought back memories of my Snowmen in space doodles. I love drawing stars and the moon, and, come to think of it, anything in the sky. Throwing the earth in there with the space helmet was just a bonus.
I don't know what it is with the blue guy and the sky and the philosophy, but there you have it.
I'm rather proud of this sky. I'm still working the kinks out of my sky technique, but I feel like I'm getting closer.
When we were looking for rings, I told Julie that after the wedding I didn't want to wear the ring. I decided to give the ring a chance only if it provided me with powers. I told her I would accept invisibility or invulnerability, but actually I was open to anything.
As I was sitting around with Chuck and Charles after the Taiwan wedding, we were discussing what powers my ring granted me. I forget which one said it, but they told me that my ring did not grant me powers, but granted Julie powers.
I do wear my ring more than not, but we'll see how long it lasts. I occasionally attempt my "Sleeeep" (think Dark City) technique, or try to move objects with my ring-clad hand, but so far no good. I'll keep you updated on the powers of the ring.
This is one of my least favorite doodles. I expected so much more from it. It was supposed to show how playing video games is not the same as living. Now, don't get me wrong. I play a lot of video games. It's just sometimes when I've played too much, I feel like I could be using that time for better things. You know, like doodling or writing useless paragraphs on nothing.
Ah, the day and a half between the Taiwan wedding flight and the NYC wedding flight. Surprisingly, I wasn't that tired. We somehow avoided jet lag on the way home, and relaxed during the break. I even caught up on some work mails.
The title was taken from the fact that people who fly in airplanes a lot gain microseconds on their life. This is a relativity thing: if you move fast, time for you slows compared to things moving slower. When you fly at 500mph, you are moving faster relative to the people on earth. It's not that you live longer since according to your watch, you live the same amount of time. It's more that your life appears longer to those who aren't moving as fast. It's confusing and funny and absolutely brilliant (not my doodle, but that it works that way).
I drew this right after we returned from our wedding extravaganza. I enjoy sameness. I like habits and patterns and doing the same thing over and over again. I like change as well, but I view change as the opportunity to create new and better habits.
This might have been the inspiration for the color scheme of the Horribles website. I wanted to give the doodle a 50s feel. Notice the string holding up the earth? That was a last minute addition, and gave me the title.
I used to love to draw random objects. When I worked as a computer programmer in Washington D.C., I spent a lot of my time drawing wallpaper for my computer screen using random objects around my desk. I would draw coffee rings (and I didn't even drink coffee at the time--such a foolish youngster I was), paper clips, mugs, pencils, you name it, I drew it. I wish I still had some of those computer drawings. The scary part is I used a hand-coded pixel editor to draw the images pixel by pixel. Luckily, we've moved beyond pixel editing for the Horribles.
And, yes, the rug does say Geeks.
My mother called me after this was posted. It went up after our wedding, and my mother was very concerned about the newlyweds. I assured her that I drew this much earlier in the year, and it had nothing to do with our relationship. (This was posted before my fancy new website, with Create and Post dates, and squiggly lines on the bottom.)
Julie and I used to jog in Seward Park. This was in our starry-eyed living-in-sin stage. We would jog around the park, and I would listen to Julie complain: pain in her side, trouble breathing, heart rate too fast, unbearably itchy legs (I can't make this up!). After a while, I began keeping a complaint meter. The more she complained, the higher the levels. From the looks of the smoke coming from our sneakers, you can imagine the level of complaints.
Spiderman 3 was similar to the earlier Spidermen (and, yes, I can create a plural for a trademarked movie franchise): fun but not spectacular. It would have been better if it focused on less stories. There's only so much you can do in two hours and change.
Another hot day during spring. The rocket ship was originally much bigger, but I couldn't figure out how to make it look like it was approaching the sun. I eventually shrunk it down for this uninspiring doodle.
Another in a long line of tributes to Cy Twombly: the artist who taught me that if you draw enough, no matter what it looks like, it's considered art.
His art is much deeper than that, of course. It was just that before I saw him at the wonderful Menil collection in Houston, I never understood modern art. His works made me smile for two reasons: first, I couldn't believe that someone painted those scribbles and got away with calling them art and making money on them; and second, they truly were wonderful.
I never had to write stuff on the chalkboard as punishment during school. Then again, the thought of detention scared the shit out of me. I remember intensive crying in elementary school when I was given detention for throwing snowballs while working as a bus monitor (yes, I was a geeky kiss-up in my scholastic years). There were two injustices: first, I don't think any of us threw snowballs that morning; and second, they gave us the option of a week of detention or a month of not being bus monitors. I chose detention for us since it was shorter. Looking back, I should definitely have taken vacation over detention. I can't believe I volunteered to work for free. What was I thinking?
For the record, injustice tastes worse than detention.
This was drawn before summer, during a spring heatwave. Very few houses have air conditioning in Seattle. We happen to live in one that does. Of course, everything is relative. You get used to anything after awhile. That's why I keep trying to get Julie to join me as a Mountain Man (and Mountain Doctor!) in Alaska. You know, to test my theory.
I really like the bungee cord that's threaded through his 2D eyeballs. I'm not sure what I was thinking when I drew it, but I can almost feel my eyeballs being stretched when I look at it. The vice was for added pain.
My second D&D doodle. Drawing these characters keeps me sane when my hands start to shake and I think of World of Warcraft or Dark Age of Camelot or Everquest or any of the MMORPG or RPG or D&D nights that kept me up long hours. Conjuring these costumed Horribles is as good as rolling up a new character, leveling him up, and then casting large fireballs. Well, almost.
Notice Julie is in front, and we're cowering behind her. That's exactly how we play video games: Julie runs ahead, and I cast from behind. Allegory for life, or just my love of magic coming out. I'll let you decide.
This is the doodle for the official unveiling of my new Cast of Horribles website. Feel free to look around, kick some buttons, get a good feel for the place. I've gone back and added spot musings on some of the later doodles, and will eventually do the same for rest.
Writing in this small format is rather freeing. I don't feel as if I have to pound out 500 words to say something. Writing next to a doodle also provides me something to write about. If all else fails, I can talk about what I was thinking when I drew the doodle.
Julie figured this doodle out rather quickly: the house is based on the color scheme of the website. She thought she was clever, I thought it was obvious (after she pointed it out at least).
Anyway, before I forget, welcome!
I played with shadows, smoke, and light on this one. It didn't end up very interesting but there you have it.
I just bicycled through the rain in Seattle. There was about fifteen minutes of my bike commute home, where I was sure the rain somehow turned to hail. As I coasted down a hill, the drops stung my face like tiny dull needles. Luckily, for the second half of my ride, it cleared up and the sun came out and washed away all the rain. I didn't see any spiders, though.
Sometimes you aim for the sweet spot between the rain showers, and end up riding right through a nasty one.
This has been a strange summer in Seattle. Where we usually have drought warnings toward the tail end, this year has been beautiful and rainy. This past week in particular was rainy. While a nice break from the constant sunshine, I paid for the changing weather with two and a half days of migraines. The change in pressure destroys me.
This doodle was drawn way before that, though. I like the thick, translucent rain. The rain jumping from the puddles could have been better, however.
We brought Ziggy home yesterday. This was my first attempt to bring him into the Horribles gang. Actually, this was my second attempt. Julie made fun of my first attempt and I decided to start over. I plan on simplifying him a bit in the coming days. He's a bit complicated to be with the others.
I wanted to post this yesterday, but the rain doodle already went live. We didn't bring Ziggy home until after 6pm. We went to the pet store to buy a fish tank for Julie's office. As Jerry, the petstore guy, was helping us get things together, I saw this skinny little dog in a pen. You know how they say dogs look like their owners? Yeah, he does. I'm not as cute, but I'm as skinny, and needy, and shivery, and ill-mannered. Well, maybe not the last one.
We left the store but kept talking about Ziggy. We finished setting up the fish tank in Julie's office at around 5:30pm. We decided to head back to the pet store for more information about him. As we drove and missed light after light, I was sure we would not make it before it closed at 6pm. As ever, I'm an impulsive buyer. Once I said I wanted him, more information would not be enough. Sure enough, we pull up at 5:54pm, and they're still open, and still willing to put together the puppy pack with Ziggy at its center.
After a night of constant Ziggy whining, I woke up ready to send Ziggy back to the pet store. I figured the amount we paid would be my Stupid Tax (stolen from "Fight Club"). After speaking to a few people today, we learned that whining is normal for a puppy first few days in a new house. While he's no longer dead-dog walking, I'm watching him closely. Very closely.
Julie thought a dog would be good training for monsters. After not sleeping much last night, I'm not sure I ever want monsters. I like sleep too much. We may have to stay with fish.
When I drew this, Julie thought the dragon looked too wolf-like. I was never able to fix his snout to make him less wolfy.
The rain finally broke in Seattle. Today was beautiful, and tomorrow I hope to jump back in the saddle and bike home from work. I can't wait.
Ah, my rafting trip. I know I posted this already on sewcrates, but it wasn't a separate post, so I feel okay about reposting it.
The link above has the full story behind the Event depicted here. The people involved: top, from left to right: Will, Chad (overboard, bruised legs), Eran (overboard, bruised buttocks). Bottom, from left to right: Me, Steven, Erik.
Another one of my favorite doodles. Do you see the Super Little Guy? This was his second appearance. I definitely need more comics with him.
I don't actually see these pictures in my head before I draw them. It's a weird process. These are my approaches:
I sometimes "see" the entire doodle and tagline, usually when showering or walking or riding my bicycle. When I do, I jot it down, draw a quick sketch on Julie's free medical sticky notes, and then draw the doodle for posting. (When I say "see" I'm really talking about "know," since, as I said, I never see pictures in my head, only thoughts, if that makes any sense.
Other times I start with what I believe is a clever tagline, and work from there.
More usually, when I have no ideas, I'll start by drawing a background or the Little Guy, and then seeing what takes me. Sometimes I'll have a fully drawn Little Guy sitting on a white background and have not idea what to do with him.
All these methods have produced good doodles (and many bad ones). I used the last method on this one. I drew him, decided to focus on his eyes and neck, and ended up sticking his thoughts on top of his head. Yeah, I know, a cliche, but a good one.
I drew this after a full day of meetings at work. Not the meetings I enjoy: vigorous debate and problem solving. But the meetings I can't stand: constant talking at us, trying to teach or show us something or other. Twenty minutes into these talks I'm wishing for sleep. Unlike the Julies, I can't fall asleep when other people talk. Their voices are too distracting. Instead, I sit and suffer. Toward the end of this particular day, actual tears of boredom were streaming down my face. It happens more than I'm willing to admit.
Another cold day in Seattle. After sleeping away the morning, we spent the day walking around the park. Ziggy still isn't housetrained. At this time, I don't think he ever will be. It's harder than it looks.
Ah, Ziggy. We may not be able to train you, but you are awfully cute when you're not trying to bite my fingers off or pooping on our rug.
We took him to Seward Park yesterday, and it turns out he's a fast dog. I'm still a bit faster at full sprint, but I know once he grows into his full size (he's about 7 pounds now, and should end up around 13-15 pounds), he will be faster than me. Ah, how the puppy surpasses his master. Or something like that.
Today's work was the result of my posting this doodle about a month before our wedding. My mother immediately called:
"David."
"Yes, mom?"
"Is there something you're not telling me."
"There's lots I'm not telling you."
"I'm talking about your drawing yesterday, the one with the parachute. Is Julie, you know?"
"Pink?"
"No, pregnant?"
"Huh?"
"Well, you drew someone dropping in a parachute, and I was thinking you might be trying to tell us something--you know, subconsciously."
I failed, clearly. After all this time, nobody has a clue who's who. For the record, I'm the beige one, Julie is the pink one, and the blue guy is the philosopher, a combination of my friends. Julie was dropping in on my life. I decided to draw this picture as way of explanation.
So, thanks to that conversation, I bring you the ultimate guide to the Cast of Horribles, pre-marriage and pre-Ziggy.
There are some doodles I don't want to post. They sit in my postable list until I break down and throw them up. This one started as a terrible drawing of the camel. You can see him way in the back. After I finished him, I kept shrinking it until it looked good. Trust me, if I could have made it smaller and made it recognizable as a camel, I would have.
Ziggy was a bit better today. I was trying to convince Julie to sell him again, but she held strong. He managed to pee outside, and we moved his home from our second bedroom to the second-floor porch. He'll be fine in the summer, but I'm afraid what will happen once it gets cool.
We signed up for dog classes this weekend. If nothing else, Julie and I have a lot to learn.
It's almost Seafair weekend in Seattle. The one time of year it's cool to live in Seward Park.
The weather has finally cleared, and the latter part of the week has been beautiful. A bit too beautiful today, as the sun pushed the temperature into the mid-80s. I managed to bicycle home. It was a very long and tiring ride. Some days I have it, other days I feel like a nut. When an old man with a large pot belly pedaled passed me on a hill, I knew what type of day it was. (For the record, he cheated a bit, as he had a little extra oomph from a motor contraption hidden near the chain. Or at least that's what I kept telling myself.)
This was drawn after a bowling morale event at work. Yes, this is how they attempt to brainwash us. Bring us to the bowling alley and ply us with fried food and alcohol.
I bowled surprisingly well that day. I was never a good bowler. Like swimming, I believe you need a bit of muscle or fat on your body to throw the ball down the alley and hit pins. Luckily, I've put a few more pounds of muscle (or is it fat) on my body since last I threw the ball. The muscle is slowly melting away, as I cancelled my trainer, but for the bowling trip, I was in strong form.
I went with a strategy that seemed to work out exceptionally well. You know how when you throw the first few balls, you hit a lot of pins. This is known as beginner's luck. It's my theory that people squander beginner's luck on the warm-up frames. I didn't throw any warm up, so my beginner's luck was available for the actual game, where the scores counted.
We won all three games. I was amazing. Then I had to go back to work where I wasn't so amazing.
We went to the lake today to watch the Blue Angels fly overhead. They were tremendous as always. What's difficult to imagine as they perform their acrobatics is that usually, these types of airplanes are flying over countries armed with missiles that kill people. Lots of people. I'm not a pacificist by any stretch, but it does put the Navy's recruiting in a interesting light. We should enjoy the amazing acrobatics and speed, but know that there are some people where the sound of that jet screaming by is a sign of bad, bad things.
Ah, another goody. As part of NEQID (my never-ending quest to improve David), I sometimes confront the ugly fact that I am a negative person. Now, before you jump in and tell me how I'm not so negative, that there's an entire world of cynics in line before me, people who think the world will end and all humans are generally evil and despicable beings, let me stop you there. I appreciate your efforts, but I know I'm a negative person. I don't want to be, but I am.
This doodle reflects that. Every time I try to clean off my negativity, there's a lot of shit to work through. It turns out that today I'm again turning the leaf, making this post rather timely. It's clear that when I drew this, I also thought I would turn over the leaf. I guess I have lots of leaves to work through.
I've always loved the night sky. At the beginning of college, I thought about a career in astrophysics. I took Astronomy 101 during my first semester. After an early class, I spoke with the professor and expressed my interest. I don't remember what advice he gave, but I told all of my freshman friends about it. I had a rude awakening after my first examination. It turned out that for classes that require memorization, I was not able to squeak by with no effort. It actually required studying. I never studied in gradeschool, and I wasn't about to start in my freshman year. It wasn't until Calculus II that I woke up early on a Saturday morning and spent the morning memorizing integrations and working on problem sets. I can't believe it took me so long to learn to study.
I dropped the astronomy class to protect my GPA and didn't tell my friends. I pretended to attend for the rest of the semester, too embarrassed to admit my early failing, especially after my enthusiastic career plans.
As to the title, this is another of my Jewish learnings. If we accept the Jewish teachings, then God created the world for humans to choose His path. This is a very involved concept, and something I really want to write more about (or at least plagerize out of my one of my better Judaism books). To be truly happy, you follow God's laws. It seems almost anticlimatic to know that happiness equates to absolute obedience. The easy question is What happened to free will? (Free will is a core belief in Judaism.) The hard answer is that the choice to follow God's laws is the perfect exercise of your free will. I'm not explaining this well, but there's something more involved in that answer, something that needs a longer sewcrates musing. Don't think that link brings you there. I haven't written it yet. I'm just hopeful, is all.
I drew this when my headaches were hitting me every day. It used to be I would go to sleep after a headache day, and wake up to a beautiful PHD (post-headache day). I don't know what happened to those days. I rarely have PHDs anymore, and must suffer through days of headaches, never knowing whether a nap or night's sleep will make things better or worse.
Julie had the grand opening of her clinic this evening. There was a nice turn out. She has the office, the medical equipment. Now all she needs is the patients.
Ah, my dolphin story. I don't know how many times I've told it. Don't worry, I won't bore you with how dolphins saved my life, yet again.
My drawing style (and the fact that I even bother to draw these things) are greatly inspired by Sam Brown's work on Exploding Dog. For this one, after I looked through some of his wonderful works, I realized that I sometimes add details only for complication sake. I decided to draw something simple and leave a lot of empty (blue) space. It makes it more poignant, or something like that.
I'm still not over my sickness. It has been almost a week since I came down with this cold, and it refuses to leave me. I've thrown dayquil and nyquil and cough drops and advils at it. It was too late to take nyquil last night, so I had to suffer. Ziggy woke us up at 530am, and Julie found the nice little mess he left in his bed. No wonder he was whining and barking. Now, if he only whined and barked before he made the mess, we would be much happier.
Julie has to bribe me to go to Ikea. I hate that place. It's number two on my list of least-favorite places, right after the Container Store. Who needs an entire store for containers? The one good thing about Ikea is the incredibly cheap prices. I can't believe it took businesses so long to figure out that gluing furniture together shouldn't cost thousands of dollars.
Julie needed to buy furniture for her office, so she dragged me along, mostly to carry the heavy boxes (in the end, even with Julie's humongous SUV, we had to have the furniture delivered, so I wasn't even necessary. I did have to put together some tables. I am very skilled with the screwdrivers and wrenches). Her bribe was a gift. As we were wandering through Ikea, I saw the guy pictured in the doodle. Similar guys were used by early (and probably modern) painters as a model. Ikea took the idea and created a knock off that people could buy to "accessorize" their houses. I guess they figured it would be a conversation piece: "Yes, I paint in my spare time, and I can never get the tilt of the torso quite right when my subject is jumping. This doll has been a life saver!" When I saw him, I figured he'd be useful for my Horribles.
It is ironic, of course, that my Horribles don't have legs or arms, and not much of a torso. In fact, this doodle was one of the few times I had to draw limbs, which is why it looks so weird.
Well, not surprisingly, it turned out after I got him home and drew him, he wasn't very necessary for later doodles. He now lives on the top of my bookshelf in the computer room, unloved, unwanted, and unnecessary. Now, if I had bought a wooden dog doll, that would have been very useful for my Ziggy doodles.
I drew this on my last day of work before my wedding vacation. It was a tough day, probably the lowest point in my career since moving to Seattle.
We were having a high-level meeting with other people in the legal department, and I expected to debate the merits of a legal position, which I believed they had wrong. When we arrived at the meeting, they refused to touch on the legal merits. The decision had been made, and tough noogies was their argument.
Had I not been leaving on vacation the next day, I might have escalated it again. It wasn't that this was such an important decision for the company. It was more that they were not being intellectual honest with their decision. (I know I'm being vague. I don't usually talk about work happenings. I purposefully keep my two worlds separate. And, anyway, trust me, you wouldn't want to hear the details of most of my days.)
So this scary Horribles was the result. While I don't think I was wrong, I wasn't able to sway the decision makers. I guess in that way I was wrong. Live and learn, I guess.
On lighter notes, I'm almost over my cold. It came back with a vengance over the weekend. (Julie believes I purposefully get sick every weekend.) I'm hoping it stays away, as I'm tired of wearing my sick sweatshirt every night to sleep.
I drew this after we returned from Julie's sister's graduation. At Harvard, they wear funny robes with little swirly things on the collars. Since I'm reading the Harry Potter series, it makes me think of Hogswart as everything reminds me of Potter's world. (I hate being a Muggle, by the way.) The trip to Boston was fun. The graduation was a graduation. It feels important, and yet, for all its importance and pomp, it is excrutiatingly tiresome. We did have yummy Japanese food to celebrate.
Jennifer was a bit concerned that I made her look witchy, what with the green skin and red hair. She did dye her hair red, so I had no choice but to draw it that way. The green skin was an afterthought. It's always difficult to figure out what color I should make people. Many times green is my default. I already have the beige, pink, and blue people. Green is the big missing one.
Ziggy was amazing yesterday. He learned to sit (sometimes--mostly when he wanted a treat, regardless if we asked), and even walked to the park without us having to drag him. He's still not properly housetrained, but he is getting better. While running up the hill after our park walk, I accidentally stepped on his foot when he crossed in front of me. Ziggy is a small dog, and there were lots of warnings about how delicate Italian Greyhound's legs are. He yelped for a good three minutes, and it left a nasty cut on his toe. I spoke with Dr. Julie, and she assured me he would survive. Barely.
We finally hit another nice week of sunshine in Seattle. I was concerned that summer had passed us already. I may even bike sometime this week. I'm a bit nervous: I feel my muscles attrophying even as my appetitie dissappears. I'm destined to be overly skinny, and to hear about how bad I eat everytime I see my mother or Julie's parents. We all have our issues, I guess.
After finishing the animated icons for The Dr. Julie Show website, I was on a bit of an animation kick. I thought about animating the Horribles, before I relized how much patience and time it would take. I have neither. Instead, I pretended to animate the Little Guy by throwing him on a filmstrip.
I do enjoy drawing food, probably more so than actually eating food. I've been losing weight lately, probably because I haven't been bike riding or going to the gym. Skinny and flabby is what I'm destined to be.
This has been a very long and low energy week. I'll be happy when I escape it. On the bright side the weather has been very bright. Did you see how I used "bright" twice in that sentence? Yeah, I did too.
This was in response to Chuck questioning my writing. I sent him the secret link, and he immediately responded: yeah, that would be great if I could actually read your handwriting. I think it's perfectly understandable. Be sure to zoom in (you do know how to do that, right? Click on the doodle, silly!) to see how truly bad it is.
My wrist was aching at the halfway mark of the page. But for the good of my art, I persevered.
Okay, so the box is a bit crooked. I never said I drew straight lines. Did you notice the packing peanuts? I hate packing peanuts. They get everywhere and they're difficult to recycle. We usually end up dumping them in someone else's garbage. I think I may have said too much.
The rain returned this weekend and continues today. The past three years everyone has been telling me how atypical the strange weather is for Seattle. We have seen crazy wind storms, rain showers in the summer, blizzards, and power outages. At some point, atypical becomes the norm. We seem to be quickly reaching that some point.
I was exhausted when I drew this. Jet lag after the wedding found me, and I drew bubbles. Go figure.
This was another one of those random doodles, where I drew the little guy, played around with the pink paint, and finally realized the paint would cover him. I like the green and pink/purple contrasts.
The weather has cleared up in Seattle, and I am looking forward to the weekend. I've been rather low energy lately. I'm not sure if it is because of the weather, lack of exercise, or a descending blah mood. Whatever caused it, I'm hoping it passes.
I love hot dogs, especially beef dogs with crispy skin. I can't explain it. Well, I guess I can partially explain it: my mother used to cook frankfurters with everything: on buns, with eggs, in casseroles (well, she would have if she knew what a casserole was). Now, every time I find decent kosher Hot Dogs (not as easy as it sounds), I pounce. They're best cooked over low heat on the barbecue.
I had two glasses of wine at dinner last night. That's one glass more than I usually do. I woke up with a slight hang over. I'm glad hang overs rarely last past noon.
I had bigger hopes for this doodle. We have many of these small blue shades (I know that's not the official name--blinders, perhaps?) around the house. On the day I drew this, the sun was shining through one of them, creating a very nice effect. I sat at my desk and tried to duplicate it, before giving up and settling on an orange wall. Beautiful sunlight, orange wall. Yup, just about the same.
I admit it: the only reason I drew this doodle was to try out a new technique for drawing grass. Sad, huh.
The moon was a bonus, and where I found the title.
I remember the good ol' days: I would take the shuttle to the gym twice a week, Wednesdays and Fridays at lunch, and work out for an hour with a trainer. I was huge! Okay, huge is a bit of an overstatement. But I was shapely (in a manly not curvy type of way).
Then summer hit and I started riding my bicycle to work every day. I had just returned from my wedding, and with the wedding bills mounting, I decided to take a break from my overly expensive habit. Fast forward to today: I'm skinny again, my muscles have all melted away, and my lower back is starting to hurt, a sure sign that I haven't been exercising.
My solution? I don't have one yet. I still need to get Julie membership at my gym. Once I do, I can bum a ride from her to at least climb stairs or play basketball at the gym. When and if that happense is still floating around in my globe of failed but good intentions.
I play many RPGs (that's Role Playing Games for the uninitiated) on the computer/xbox. These are games where you usually find yourself in a fantasy world where elves, magic, and bad Old English collide. I started playing a new one, Two Worlds, with Steven yesterday. From the little I played last night, it's a decent game with some bugs and lag issues. Since there's been a derth of RPGs that work over the inter-webs, Steven and I are not choosy about quality.
In these games, the goal is to create a character, and build him to be as powerful as possible. You do this but killing monsters for experience (which increases your level or power), and collecting magical items, such as armor, swords, and jewelry.
Many times you have to choose between two magical items: one is much more powerful but extremely ugly, and the other less powerful, but goes very well with the aesthetics of your character. (And here you thought video games never provided you real, meaningful choices!)
Because I'm a min-maxer, (i.e., someone who tries to create the most powerful character possible), I usually choose the ugly clothing or jewelry. Julie, when she plays, is very fashion conscious, and will choose the pretty furry brown boots over the uglier red and green polka-dotted shoes. Steven, who is the ultimate min-maxer tends to look like the Little Guy.
We're planning to play again on Thursday. I can't wait. Now, if only Julie shared my enthusiasm. While she usually joins us in this types of games (she particularly likes the pretty elves), because of technical limitations, only one of us can play with Steven at the same time.
Arms! He has arms. Did you notice the scotch tape? There are some doodles that make me laugh before I even begin to draw them. This was one of them.
Another beautiful day in Seattle. The weather people are telling us that the holiday weekend will not be as beautiful.
We brought Ziggy to the dog park yesterday. We were afraid the adult dogs would be too much for him. He held his own. He has a bit of a Napolean complex. It's hilarious to watch him jump up to the face level of a larger dog, and then run away, hoping the dog follows him.
I was bored when I drew this. It was a pre-Ziggy picture, which goes to show you, I knew I was getting a dog. Further proof: one of my recent short stories (do you remember when I used to write those?) was about a dog.
Anyway, I drew this dog, and Julie thought it was extremely ugly. I kind of liked it. It was wolfish with terrible coloring. I decided to throw in the horribles and call it a doodle.
This was something Julie said after we were married. I thought it was pretty funny, especially since it reminded me of taffy. I soon after drew this doodle.
Another in a long line of philosophy in the morning. The thought came to me and I grabbed a piece of paper to record it before I lost it (I lose many Horribles ideas that way). I was thinking about religious choices and how doing nothing is the same as making the choice against doing something. That morphed into the more general thought that sometimes you make a choice without even thinking about it.
And, yeah, I realize how terribly unoriginal this is. It was more a reflection of my failure to act on what I thought was right than recording a new and clever saying. Before cleverness and intelligence and book-smartness (hehe), there is willpower. Without will, you can do nothing. For all my pretend knowledge, I severely lack that very important aspect.
Originally, I drew a setting sun, but when that didn't look quite right, I replaced it with the cloud bank.
Julie and I went to see Harry Potter: The Order of the Phoenix. We were both very excited, and the movie was quite good. The wizard fight at the end was one of the best magic fights I've seen. I'm more convinced than ever that these are books that were written to be watched and not read.
Since I wrote that paragraph I read passed the first book, and started rewatching the movies (yes, I am a Harry Potter addict). While the books are not much deeper than the movies, the differences become more apparent and meaningful in the later books. As with all books, there are more details that fill in the whitespaces in the world. I still think the movies are more enjoyable, but it's best when you combine the two.
Julie was convinced my original rendition of the wand looked phallic. I explained to her it's very difficult drawing something coming toward the viewer. She nodded in agreement, and again asked why there was a penis sticking out of the wall.
In the posted version, I tried to make it more pointed, and less penis-like.
I'm on the seventh book of the Harry Potter series now. As I said before, she's a very good storyteller. The books don't have the meat of a deep fantasy series, say Robert Jordan's overly long saga, or George R. R. Martin's incredibly original series. But for all its faults, it is a great and addicting read. Ask Julie, who barely sees me without my nose buried in the middle of a book, waving her off so I can concentrate on finishing the latest chapter.
The design and development of the new Horribles website was slowing my doodling. I was afraid I wouldn't be able to get back into it. After all that work, it would have been very dissappointing not to draw new doodles. This follows my underlying fear that if I think too much about my doodles, I won't be able to create them anymore. Both unfounded, right?
Before you ask, I don't know what those white things are. At first I thought of cotton balls or pillows, but in the end, I left them as squiggly whitish gray things with incorrect shadowing. The little guy is supposed to be smothered by them. I originally drew the pillow-things over everything, but when I deleted a few to make room for the words, I realized the blue space was comforting. I deleted more pillows to balance out the holes and remove that feeling of being trapped.
I had this thought when I started praying a few months ago. As part of my Jewish journey, I pray each weekday morning before leaving for work. Jews are supposed to pray three times a day, so it's only a start. Even the bit I do, reading the Amidah, which is known as the standing prayer, is only a small portion of the rich prayer tradition. The Amidah is at the center of the ceremony, and there is much text that surrounds it. It is where you acknowledge God, ask for your needs, and then thank God. In the middle, I include more personal prayers--although the more I learn about the text, the more I realize all of these personal requests are included in the Hebrew prayer at a higher level. It has taken me some time to learn the routine, and I still don't understand most of the words I'm saying. Like most things in life, it's a process.
I'm so used to recording my thoughts and ideas--and, yes, I realize that since I rarely write anything these days, this means I rarely think or have ideas anymore--and to say and think something that I know nobody except me and maybe Him will hear felt strange at first. The more I did it, the less strange it felt. I'm still undecided on how it makes me a better person. What I do know is that if I don't try, I'll never know. It's not one of those things that I can think about know how it will come out. It's something that only experience can teach.
The moon in an episode of Full Metal Alchemist inspired me to draw this doodle. It was another quick and simple doodle. Many times, they come out much better than the more complicated and intricate (and time-consuming) doodles.
I'm leaving for NYC tomorrow, and I probably won't have a chance to draw many Doodles until I return on Sunday. While I still have a number of backup Horribles, I won't be posting Wednesday or Thursday because of the Jewish holidays.
This won't make much sense to most of you. This is a badly drawn doodle of the characters from our latest Anime addiction: Full Metal Alchemist.
It's a wonderful and long series that starts with two brothers who use the magic of Alchemy to bring back their mother after she dies. It doesn't work out as they hoped: Ed, the undersized, blonde haired older brother, which Julie dresses up as, ends up losing his arm and a leg, and replaces them with Automail, a type of robotic limbs; and his younger brother, Al, who finds his soul attached to an empty suit of armor after he wakes from the spell.
The story is plot heavy, and each episode moves one of the many intertwining plots forward. There is very little filler, which is delightfully surprising for such a long series. We're very close to the last DVD, and were very thrilled by how good the series was. (We thought it would be another unfulfilling robot story.)
The actual doodle and tagline came to me while I was biking home after work. I had to pull over and write it down before I forgot it (I kept repeating it to myself, and since I'm a terrible multitasker, I was afraid I was going to crash).
To explain the joke for those who still don't get it: the armor is supposed to be empty because Ed is the armor. They dressed up as the characters and Julie was reprimanding the Little Guy (that's me, for those who still haven't realized). Yes, I know, funny doesn't need explanations. It's a good thing I never claimed to be funny.
As I said yesterday, this will be my last doodle for this week. I'll be back on Sunday night.
Another headache, another lethargic and wasted day, followed by an inspired doodle.
This doodle came out surprisingly well. I've had a lot of practice with the glass effect, and I think I worked out most of its kinks.
This was one of the first doodles where I used a simple geometric shape as the background. I saw this done in a number of other comics, and decided to give it a try. It does work in certain circumstances, and it make the doodling process much faster.
We're back from our visit to NYC. I have a nice stockpile of new Horribles. Being trapped in a aluminum cylinder for six hours does wonders for my productivity.
This one was one of those random doodles where I had no ideas but wanted to draw. In the future, I'll try to be more abstract on days like that.
Ah, rain in Seattle. The summers in Seattle are supposed to be rain-free. That's what they tell you before you move here. On average, Seattle has no more rain than NYC. The average is skewed because of the summers. If we take the median instead of the average, I bet that number changes significantly.
The mornings are growing colder and darker. Dragging myself out of bed these mornings is growing harder and harder.
Okay, not my best title. Many times, the title is the last thing I slap onto the doodle before posting. If nothing hits me while fingerpainting, I end up scratching my head before throwing nonsensical words onto the page.
My mother heard back from the doctors, and the news was very good. She'll need some follow-up treatment, but hopefully she'll make a full recovery. This has been a very scary two weeks. It's these challenges that remind me how unimportant the little things in life really are.
I didn't write much about it, but I did doodle a bunch while in the hospital. I'll write about what happened when it's time to post those doodles. This will give me time to put everything into perspective.
Ziggy! I have a love/hate relationship with Ziggy. When he's a good dog, he's a great dog. He's fun to watch run at top speed in the dog park, great to cuddle with while watching movies or drawing doodles...of Ziggy, fun to take on a hike as he insists on saying hello to every person or dog that comes near him.
But there are times when I regret taking him home: when he's biting my hand, running around like a crazy animal, peeing on the carpet, refusing to do his business outside, stopping us from going away, shivering in his dog house (okay, that's more of a guilt thing than a bad dog thing).
I guess it's like any relationship: there is the good and the bad. He has gotten much better since we took him home. We still haven't figured out where to keep him, as being a porch dog in the winter may grow more difficult once the rain and cold set in.
Every few years, I get the video game bug. This is not the play video game bug, which is a more constant companion. This is the write a video game and become a video game publisher--the dream usually involves lots of bags with hand-drawn dollar signs, and a large house somewhere. I usually see myself sitting on a beach thinking big thoughts, while the programming happens somewhere else, with only small amounts of input from me. That is, once I get it up and running.
This time I attempted to write a game in Javascript. The graphics in this doodle are what's left of the game. I managed to create a large, scrolling map, and fully moveable (and freely rotatable in 360 degrees) Horribles. I even added rudimentary network play, where a server allows multiple Horribles to run around the scrollable map.
What I didn't have the patience for was all the planning and programming that the game needed to work. I also had second thoughts about Javascript. While I did find some interesting games written in Javascript, it does have severe limitations, not to mention platform inconsistencies.
In the end, I decided to return to doodling, and (I keep pretending) writing. And then there's my real job, the one that keeps me knee deep in toys and video games. I need to spend time on that as well.
Until next time I get bit by the game programming bug....
I was going to post another Ziggy doodle, but I decided to spread out the Ziggies. There are only so many Ziggies I can handle, and I imagine you're the same.
When we first brought Ziggy home, getting him to pee outside was an accomplishment. It's amazing how little things feel so huge when you're in the moment and so inconsequential when you realize a few months later that you were celebrating your dog peeing in the garden.
With Sukkot fast approaching, Julie and I scavenged wood from last year's attempt to reform our Sukkah. As always, my plan was better than my execution. After buying new roofing materials, and additional wood, I managed to get the walls and ceiling sort of done. Once again, I question the sturdiness of the roof, and worry that the 2x2x4s that hold up the roofing will come falling on our head one evening.
Today was Halo 3 launch day. Julie and I met up with Steven for many hours of playing the co-op campaign. Julie is a bit of a novice when it comes to FPS games, but she held her own. The game played wonderfully, with only a bit of lag caused by my sub-optimal DSL connection.
I decided to post a bit out of order because of my back log of Horribles, I keep missing date-relevant doodles. We'll return to my massive collection of Ziggy-related posts soon.
This one deserves a longer explanation than I'm willing to write.
Tonight is the first night of Succot. I won't post tomorrow, so you'll have to live with this doodle for the weekend.
Also known as Ari's theory. We were talking in the van about Ziggy and how much work it was to have a dog. Ari mentioned this proportional relationship, which is why I named it after him. Well, sort of.
I wanted to change the axis, as maintenance felt more like an X axis (something controllable), while cuteness made more sense on the Y axis (something that changes at a more proportionate rate in the population). Regrettably, my computer chose this weekend to finally die, less than a year after Julie bought it for me. This is the last Alienware computer for me.
It's true, my computer is kaput. It has slowed down my doodling as I'm forced to use my work Tablet PC to create the Horribles.
After many hardware failures, the power supply finally blew, and took the power strip with it. The blow took out the house circuit as well. Using my incredible deductive powers, I determined that the power outage was caused by either a faulty power supply in the computer (unlikely) or a faulty powerstrip (much more likely, as it was a very old strip).
I'm not sure of my next steps. I thought about buying a new computer, but the more I looked insides of computer, the more it seemed a huge waste of money not to reuse them. I'll begin replacing the components piece by piece, hopefully stopping at the new power supply, and maybe a new case and fans (the Alienware case, while shiny, is huge and its fans make too much noise).
After a weekend of not doodling, it felt strange to pick up the pen again. That was then, of course. Now it feels absolutely normal, as my weekend doodlings have mostly been regulated to Sundays.
Nanowrimo fast approaches, and I'm quickly not coming up with any ideas. I did reread my last year's offering, and was plently surprised that I remembered none of it. I wasn't even sure I had written a third Marathon, thinking my wanna-be fantasy story was my last offering. After reading through the first couple of entries, I realize why I trained myself to forget. I had a few good ideas, but I never managed to capture them.
Now, don't get me wrong, it's not as terrible as I thought when I finished it last year; I said some rather harsh words. The amazing thing about those words is how wonderfully they're written. I wonder if I can return to that style and ability before next month.
I skimmed through most of last year's offering, and while it's not terrible, it's just not great. I'm hoping for more this. And, yes, that's wishful thinking as my mind refuses to focus on developing this year's vision and outline and idea.
A bit tired today. It's been a long week. I had a few newer doodles that I should have posted before this one, but they all required (or merited) an explanation. This one only needed a few consternated sentences.
Yes, I know that photographs have a rectangular border, not a circular one. I would have fixed this doodle, but my computer is dead, and the Illustrator file is sitting on the dead computer's harddrive. I do upload the Illustrator file to this site, but for reasons best explained by bad programming (and weakness in MySQL's storage of large blobs), it doesn't work, and I have not had time (or energy) to make it work.
The weekend is almost here, and with it, relaxation. These past two weeks I've been a bit off. I'm not sure if it's a light case of depression, or seasonal moodiness (which, come to think of it, probably amounts to the same thing). It is growing darker, colder, and more rainy. AS a result my energy levels have been particularly low, even at work. Hopefully I'll fight through it, and get back to working and planning for the Marathon.
I have a couple of ideas, none of which will probably amount to much. I hope to start writing again to warm up. Does this count? A little bit?
This is an ode to Jennifer, Julie's sister, who visited us in Seattle during her summer vacation. Since graduating college, Julie spends more time talking with Jennifer on the phone, which is good for both of them.
The weekend is almost here. I plan to fix my computer and maybe build a second computer to install Microsoft Home Server. Lots of fun (and probably frustrating) computer building this weekend.
Update: I spent the weekend failing to get my computer working. I'm typing this on a semi-working computer. After three trips to Fry's, I had the computer running for almost 15 minutes before it overheated. At least I think that's the problem. Have I mentioned how much I hate the hardware end of computers? I've given up. I'll salvage the parts and buy a new, fully built system.
When I drew this, Julie was decorating her Doctor's office. Her office is now complete: she has wonderful wall art, comfy furniture, exam tables, measuring devices hanging on the wall, cotton balls and needles, and everything a doctor would need to exam patients. What she's still missing is patients. But that's okay. They're probably hiding under her reception desk.
Julie wanted to hang a Horribles on her wall, but felt they weren't medical enough, which is where this one came in. It didn't turn out as well as I hoped, as it's rather depressing and not well drawn. But it is my first Doctor Julie Horrible (which is different from Dr. Julie of the Dr. Julie Show).
As I mentioned yesterday, my computer rebuilding efforts did not work. I received free computer advice in the van this morning, encouraging me to try again. I'm not sure I'm ready to fail again. We'll see how I feel tonight, and more importantly, how much patience Julie has left with my time-consuming computer rebuilding project.
I'm happy to report that after another night spent poking around the computer, my computer still does not work. I did manage to turn the fans on, but getting to the BIOS seems to be beyond me. I hit another dead end tonight, and unless the vanpeople come up with something tomorrow, I might to have to throw in the towel, and return the new parts to Fry's. It gives me no pleasure to follow this course.
I spent many hours on this doodle. I was inspired by the wonderful anime, Kino's Journey: The Beautiful World. It's about the journey of a girl and her motorad, a talking motorcycle.
The anime has a cinematic style, and spends much of its time lingering over landscapes or pondering philosophical questions. The story takes a backseat to these meanderings. Kino is detached from the world, an atypical young woman with no goals or aims or relationships besides her motorad. I know it's a cliche, but for Kino the journey really is about the journey.
Each country she visits (which are never larger than a city) is different, and used as a parable for a societal issue or fault. You never know what to expect at the beginning of an episode. They don't always focus on the obvious truths, and not every story has a lesson or a purpose.
I haven't doodled since Sunday. Rebuilding my computer (or my failed attempts thereat) has taken my free time. While I still have a sizeable stockpile of Horribles, once the Marathon strikes next month, I might have to go on hiatus for a bit. I would hate to arrive at the end of November with an empty bank of Horribles. The bank is what keeps doodling fun: it doesn't feel like an obligation, since I'm not doodling for tomorrow, I'm doodling for next month. It's amazing how much pressure that removes.
I decided to not play with the computer today. I'll try again this weekend. Instead I managed to eek out a doodle. Oh, and I also wrote about a page of notes for the Marathon. You should fasten your seatbelts, you're in for a terribly uninteresting ride.
I had this discussion with a friend at work. He's always complaining that I cut him off when he's telling a work story. I do this for two reasons. First, because I want to show how smart I am by guessing the conclusion of the story, or providing advice before he's finished. This sometimes works.
The second is the stronger reason. Once I understand the gist of the story, I want certain details to better understand it. I find it's much more efficient to interrupt and solicit those details than wait for them to come out in the telling of the story.
One of the amazing parts about working in my corporations are meetings with executives. They walk into a meeting and take over the conversation. It's not that they dominate the conversation by talking more or louder as many people do who enjoy hearing themselves talk. It's more that they want to guide the conversation to the issues that they think are important.
The first time I was in such a meeting, I sat in amazement as the executive interrupted the detailed powerpoint presentation, and attacked the important issues, some of which the presenter was attempting to avoid. I hate meetings, especially meaningless meetings. But by guiding the conversation in this way, the executives turned a potentially useless meeting into an exciting and productive one. At the end of the discussion, we walked away with a detailed plan, and covered the pertinent issues.
After leaving that first meeting, I vowed to emulate their example: I walk into every meeting, and where possible, guide the conversation in a more productive (and sometimes combative) manner. It sometimes goes over very well. It very much depends on the audience.
It's late, and I don't have much to say. Ziggy is five months old now, and his growing has slowed down. He'll probably grow a bit more, but he'll never be as big as the other dogs. I've learned to accept it. I hope he will too.
The weekend approaches, which means my second shot at computer rebuilding. I'll need to go to Fry's at least once more to exchange the motherboard, and hope the next one works better than the last one. This is my last chance. I figure if I can't do it this weekend, it won't be done by me. Julie is comfortable with my failing, and will probably be relieved once I finish this project and clean the computer room.
It works! I'm typing this on my new and improved computer. It only took me five trips to Fry's. I replaced: the power supply, the motherboard (twice!), and the DVD drive. Had I properly connected the power supply the first time, I probably would have needed only one motherboard, and no DVD drive. Live and learn, I guess. I can now build a computer from components. That's got to be worth something on the open market, right?
Speaking of markets, yummy whole chicken in today's doodle. We cook chickens, ducks, and cornish hens about once a week (that's a bird a week, not all three in a week). They're very yummy and make delicious chicken salad. These doodles are almost like Chuck's food writing but without the yummy photographs or detailed descriptions.
We had amazing weather this weekend. Freezing cold at night, and wonderful during the day. We just returned from the dog park with Ziggy. We have dinner reservations tonight (we went out last night as well). We're rebels these days, I tell you.
Did I mention my computer works? It might take me a week to stop mentioning this, so get used to it. (Yes, I get off on celebrating my victories to a disgusting degree. You should see my "I told you so" dance. It is epic.)
October is half over, which means my month of planning for the Marathon is half over. I would like to report incredible progress, but I only have two pages of unintelligible notes, which I wrote much earlier in the month. I'm beginning to get that sick hollow feeling in my stomach. If anyone has a plot laying about, please send it my way.
This is another of those draw-anything doodles. Julie was going through my collection of unposted doodles, and pointing out the good ones and the bad ones. The good ones usually took a long time to draw, while the bad ones I whipped off in less than thirty minutes. She wasn't, however, taking into consideration the excellent titles of the bad ones. I consider that half the genuis. Yeah, that last word made me laugh too.
We love truffles, and especially truffle oil. Not too much, or it takes over a dish. But a sprinkling on mushrooms or a piece of fish. We'd never use it at home, of course. That would require a level of skill I'm not comfortable with. But in a restaurant, as soon as we see truffle oil, we know it's going to be a good dish.
I made a break through in my Marathon planning. I might have found a genre and a style. I still don't have much of a plot, but I do have some ideas, probably small minded and worth ten or so thousand words. It's a start. I'll see if I can continue my progress through the end of the month.
The answer seems know this week. As Ziggy becomes an inside dog, and begins to roam more freely, he's beginning to leave small presents for us scattered throughout the house. They say it's always worst before it improves. If that's the case, it'll be wonderful in no time.
I'm writing this late, after finishing another anime doodle. Julie has been coughing the last few nights, and I haven't slept well. Another late night (this time, all my fault) isn't going to help matters.
I forgot that my Thursday doodle was the doodle for the weekend. Sorry about that. I'm sure you'll survive with this sub-par horrible.
I've not had much energy to write these past few nights. I have given the Marathon a bit more thought. If only my thoughts translated directly to words, I'll be okay. It doesn't, for the record.
This is how I feel today. I must feel like this often because I drew this last month. The weather was nice today. But we've had our share of rain this winter. I shouldn't complain, as the Californians have it much worse with the fires. I can't believe how close they are to populated areas. There will be many unhappy insurance shareholders.
It has begun. You might see this Horrible for quite a while. Watch
sewcrates.com to see how things are going.
Update: I figured I'd take a few moments to report back on how things are going. I'm a bit more than halfway through the horror show. I have only drawn one Horrible during November, so I decided not to dip into my backup store until I finish.
I'm looking at this break in a positive way: I was floundering a bit in my newer doodles looking for topics. I would draw the little guy and then stare at it for long periods, not sure what situation I should put him in. It turns out, except for my movie/anime drawings, I rarely put my horribles in "situations"--which is similar to my storytelling where I don't actually tell a story.
That's enough consternating. When I do return to full form, I promised myself I would not do this as much. I need to be more positive. Move forward, make the world a better place, cure cancer, you know, be good.
Since I officially won the Marathon, I could not wait to post a new Horrible in place of the long-running On Hiatus. Here it is. I did not technically draw this with the Marathon in mind (it was drawn back in September), but when going through my collection of unposted doodles, I thought it was the appropriate one to open the festivities. I have much more depressing Marathon-related ones still in the queue.
I lowered the frequency of posting to the Horribles to three times a week. This is in preparation of using a few of my post-dinner/Julie's Jazz Choir hours for activities other than doodling. I hope to write more and perhaps explore a few programming ideas/posts that have been marching around my tiny head. We'll see how that goes.
I decided to post out of order again. The next Horrible in the queue is not one of my favorites, and it's taking me a while to move past it. It's not that it's terrible, but there's a (relatively boring) back story I want to write, and I haven't yet found the will.
So I decided to lead with this welcome back message that I drew a couple of days ago. I did miss posting new Horribles. I only managed to draw three or so doodles during the Marathon. I'm glad I waited, however. I couldn't stand not having a least a month's worth of backup doodles in the queue.
This fits in well with one of my goals in life: reduction of stress. Whether it's arriving at the airport three hours early or taking the vanpool to and from work to avoid driving in traffic, I do everything in my power to not put myself in situations that are stressful while in control. That last part is important: if I have some say over the situation, but my say is not sufficient to make a change, it creates much more stress than sitting by and watching something that I have no control over. For example, I'd rather sit in traffic in the passenger seat than drive in traffi, even thought by driving I still maintain a semblance of control. I'm not sure why I'm wired that way, but I am.
Here it is. I warned you, it's not my best work. This is the Spirit of Washington dinner train that runs through the Seattle-area burbs. I would provide the link, but I'm afraid someone may accidentally go there and book a ticket. We went with Julie's parents and Jennifer on this fifteen hour torture ride (okay, it may not have been actually fifteen hours; I use that number in an attempt to portray the horror of our trip).
The food, service, and view were all subpar. And the worst part? You couldn't get off. Ever. There was a "mystery dinner" a few cars in front and behind us, and strangely dressed people kept walking through our car. When we finally walked through these mystery cars, we saw people sitting at tables with papers in front of them. It seems the actors would stand in front of the cars and use the microphone to act or something. The passengers took notes to try and figure out who did what. I imagine one of the characters must have died--and then stood up and walked to the other car to die again. It looked like school, except whatever you did record would never be useful. Similar to Mathematics. (I kid! We love Numb3rs!.)
Halfway through the dinner, we arrived at the destination: a track overlooking a rather pitifully small and unimpressive lake. We weren't allowed off the train, but were encouraged to walk to the open car at the front (soon to be back) of the train. Once in the open-air car, we reveled in the beauty of sick-looking trees and green-looking water.
The conductor and engineer switched from the front to the back, and we were on our way home, passing the same sites as earlier, only it was darker. The darkness did improve the view. It turned out the train tracks did not ride through the more picturesque parts of Washington. Instead, we passed through sad-looking suburbs and rundown factories.
They did have alcohol, so it wasn't a complete waste of time. If I ever needed a reason not to go on a cruise, this would be it. The only thing I could think of that would be worse than this train ride would be spending a week in such an enclosed box.
***
It snowed in Seattle this weekend. We were told Seattle rarely gets snow. This is the second year where we've seen it. We did venture out for Sushi last night, when the snow had mostly lightened up and started melting. I was not feeling very good, as is usual on Saturdays. Just call it my Saturday blues. I feel better today.=
It took me awhile (three months to be exact), but I've arrived at this set of doodles. I drew this after speaking with my mother back in September. She was diagnosed with uterine cancer. She called me in the morning, while I was in the parking lot waiting for my vanpool ride. It was a shock. She had told us earlier that she was going in for tests after unexpected bleeding. I remember telling her that it was probably nothing. When she called, I had forgotten about the tests. That's the type of terrible son I am.
When caught early, uterine cancer is highly treatable. Luckily, my mother was very conscientious and went immediately to the doctor and followed their instuctions. She is doing very well now after a successful surgery.
This is the first of a handful of doodles I drew during this time. There was a lot of waiting in the hospital, and I spent much of this time in Illustrator. Doodling was calming and eased (at least for me) the passing hours while we waited.
This is my favorite Ziggy doodle. It shows the only area we suceeded in training him: our dinner time. Ziggy will wait under the table until we finish. This is an incredibly long time for him to sit anywhere. This good behavior might have something to do with the tidbits of leftovers we feed him (from the kitchen) after we finish eating.
I drew this while waiting in the hospital for word from my mother's doctor after her operation. The hospital was amazing. Each of the waiting rooms had fresh orchids. Each flower took a while to doodle, which was much more effort than probably needed, as most of the details were lost after I shrank it.
Julie went with me to NYC to be with my mother. She was very helpful explaining medical things to us. It was also great to have her around. She's wonderful. Just having her there kept me grounded and helped me through this difficult time.
Notice how in this Horrible, David is leaning on the Julie. While I can't say I planned it that way, it is very appropriate.
Update: Of course I planned to lean David on the Julie. I don't know what I was thinking when I wrote that yesterday. It's even in the title. I guess when I look at these doodles three months later, much is loss as to my original inspiration. In some ways that's very good: I take a fresh look at it and see it from a different perspective. In other ways it's very bad: I completely forget what I was thinking when I first drew it.
I drew this while spending time with my older sister's kids. Well, not this exact picture. I scribbled this one while they were watching, using Microsoft Expression instead of Adobe Illustrator. While Expression has some interesting functionality, it still has a ways to go for me to use it effectively. Even with such a terrible first draft, they were impressed. It doesn't take much to impress children these days.
It wasn't until I had time later, while waiting in the hospital, to turn the terrible Expression doodle into the one you see to the left. I took notes about the clothing and accessories they were wearing before they left. The shadows came to me late in the drawing. They made me laugh before I even started drawing them. It comes back to my terrible theory: until they are 26, all children are monsters because their brains are mushy. It should go without saying that this does not apply to my childhood.
We were discussing the new Warhammer Online with Steven. Julie and I haven't played a MMORPG since I destroyed my second set of World of Warcraft discs. We decided it was time for us to try again when Warhammer releases.
We talked to Steven, who is an even worse addict than me. He hasn't played since Everquest because of his addiction. We told him that as long as we stick together and only play when we all play, he should join us. This strategy has failed me in the past, but there's always this time.
So come mid to late 2008, we'll be knee deep in orcs and swords.
My mother's surgery went well. I doodled this while in the study near my mother's hospital room. Besides a large television, the study had a seperate room with internet-enabled computers and a large table. While my mother rested during one of my visits, I sat at the table, plugged in my computer, and doodled away.
My Horrible is hiding behind is the symbol of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, the hospital where my mother was treated. Sloan Kettering is the leading hospital in NYC for cancer treatment. While my mother went through tests, we saw many other cancer patients from around the world in the waiting room, including many small children.
It was the same hospital that treated my father's cancer back in the 1980s. It was one of the reasons my mother tried to avoid it. In the end, she chose this hospital because it provided the best care.
Julie complained when she saw this horrible. She said my horribles did not bleed red blood. Looking back through my crop of Horribles, I found two bloody doodles (that's clearly not enough, something I plan to rectify in the near future), (now) conveniently tagged with Blood. In the first one, we see that the blood is indeed flesh (or David-Horrible) colored. In the second one, we see the more traditional red blood (although it's arguable whether that is Horrible blood or dragon blood). What does this all mean? Absolutely nothing, or in other words, I had too much time to write this.
I received my early birthday present from the Julies on Tuesday. In my About section (which I won't correct until after NAIS, the New And Improved Sewcrates.com), I lament about not having a Cintiq monitor/tablet to bring my doodling to the next level. Well, the Julies broke down and spent too much moneys on the David. I am now the proud owner of a brand new Cintiq 20WSX (disregard the price--I'm worth it!). I created my first three doodles on it over the last two days. I'm still setting up the very useful buttons, but already my detail work has greatly improved. We just finished watching an anime, and I'm very much looking forward to creating my anime Horrible this week.
I'm now expecting my audience to grow two fold. With my newly acquired skill (of which nobody will see for probably another month as I work through my queue), I'll, well, do something. Maybe draw doodles.
I came across this very apt comic at one of my daily Video Game stops. I immediately sent it to the Julies. It is very apt: Julie and I pick the same classes when we play RPGs: Julie is the warrior, and I'm the wizard. Just look through my version of events. (On second thought, perhaps you shouldn't. Tim Buckley, the artist/writer of Ctrl+Alt+Del, is what they call an "artist." I'm what's known as a "hack.")
I apologize for the excessive linking today. I don't know what came over me.
The real thing is that big. A work colleague presented it to me. They had grown too many oversized vegetables and needed to offload their bounty. I took it, planning to bake zucchini bread. I never did get around to it. The colleague suggested I add it to me horribles, and here it is. The giant zucchini still sits in our vegetable/fruit bowl. When it starts to smell bad it will end up at the bottom of the garbage disposal.
We brought Ziggy to a new dog park yesterday. We've been experimenting with different places to bring him on weekends. We were discussing it yesterday, and without Ziggy, we would spend much more time at home.
It snowed today. We had a few brief moments of grass sticking, but most of the snow melted on contact. Our four day weekend is just about over. Work this week should be slow, as most people take off the time between Christmas and New Years. While I don't usually like downtime at work, this will give me more time to work on NAIS.
I'm getting very close to sharing it with Chuck, which is the first step toward public release. There are a few more advanced administrator functions for the photos that are not yet done. I finished the basic layout, design, and back-end database and code. I'll have a few odds and ends to finish up once I post. The most important one is to combine the castofhorribles.com and NAIS databases, so I can avoid either double posting or migrating every time I post. (The current sewcrates.com just sucks the data off of castofhorribles.)
There's a sense of desperation in this doodle. As I've described before, I tend to start my doodles by drawing the little guy. It stands there, staring at me, while I try to figure out what he's doing. This one stared at my so long that I grew sick of him. Hence the disguise.
NAIS is going very well. I've settled on the design and I'm finalizing the mastheads. Most of the interior work is done, and I'm getting very close to going live. Julie can barely stand to look at the old sewcrates site (why didn't anyone tell me it was so ugly?).
This is a fitting doodle. I have been working hard trying to finish NAIS, my New-And-Improved-Sewcrates.com project. I'm in the final stages, and I'm hopefully I'll post a nearly final version on Tuesday, the first of January.
To accomplish this, I locked myself in my little computer room for longer than I care to admit. This is not uncommon. These website projects tend to overwhelm me. I lose all sense of time until I finish.
Here's where I knew I approached bottom: as part of the new design, I'm resizing all of the thumbnails and photographs to enlarge them for today's bigger monitors. Because of server limitations, I have to manually generate each photo album (as opposed to creating a batch project that does all of them overnight). It takes anywhere from two to ten minutes to create the album on the server. Even though it was not important that I finish today, I found myself unable to stop. I would tell myself, last one. I can continue tomorrow. But instead of getting up, I would decide to wait a few minutes longer until it finished. Then I would click generate on the next one, and tell myself just one more. You have no idea how addictive generating photo albums is for me.
It's similar to the MMORPG video games I play. While large parts of those games are not fun, I continue to chase the carrot at the end of the stick. No matter how often the carrot moves, I just tell myself just one more.
It's past New Years and this is the first Horrible of 2008. At the last moment, I switched the doodle. The next Horrible in the queue had a suffering tag, and I decided that wasn't a good way to start the New Years.
We had a relaxing day at home. Julie's sister Jennifer is in town until tonight, and we visited the local coffee house (where I managed to write something. I'm not sure if it's post worthy. After I finish this I'll take another look and see if I can clean it up), took Ziggy to the dog park, and I took a long nap. I don't remember the last time I napped. I think it's been a long time, way too long. I feel groggy but my soul feels rested, if that makes any sense. I definitely need to take more naps.
Besides the new mastheads at sewcrates, this is the first Horrible I've posted using my birthday gift.
Happy New Years!
Ah, the "suffering" tagged doodle I planned to post on the first of the year before I had second thoughts. I realized it was bad to start the year on a sour note. There are many suffering Horribles, almost too many. I draw these when I feel like sitting in a dark corner and avoiding everyone. Or it could be I felt like drawing a spiral at the time. It's always hard to say.
We're almost finished organizing the second set of photographs from the wedding. As soon as Julie double checks the ordering, I'll post them.
Do you get it? Shades of gray!?
Okay, I got that out of my system. Sometimes my lack of cleverness knows no bounds.
Things are quiet this weekend. Even though the masthead tells other stories, the weather has been better than expected. Today is looking to clear up nicely as I stare at a beautifully cold blue sky. I woke up early after a dreadful headache day yesterday. Even after my magic pill, I spent yesterday sleeping and hiding under the covers until early evening. The dog park (combined with the magic pill kicking in) took me out of my funk late in the afternoon, and we managed to go to Indian food for dinner to pretend that we did not waste yet another Saturday.
I'm not sure what it is with Saturdays, but I've ruined too many of them with headaches. Maybe there's something in the air, or I feel that I can sleep late without paying the penalty. I quickly forget how much pain I was in the previous Saturday and justify sleeping in by thinking that since upon waking my head already hurts, there's no harm is staying asleep a few more hours.
My dreams of waking to a wonderful PHD (Post-Headache Day) today were dashed when my head still hurt this morning. I managed to drag myself out of bed (fool me twice in a weekend, shame on me), and I'm in the coffee shop typing away, having escaped the possible Sunday headache by the skin of my fingernails.
Not all is bad, of course. I'm still tweaking NAIS, but most of the big administrative functionality is done. I had hopes of using Javascript to make very user-friendly photo functions, but I decided to pare down my plans. I did manage to create a nifty Javascript box moving thing that allows me (and the Julies) to choose the square thumbnail from the slide. When I get a chance to clean up the code and get it to work in Firefox, I'll share the code.
Speaking of sharing, I have written the past two days pieces of something that resembles a story (sans plot or action or anything that would be of much interest to readers). I won't make any promises, but I do hope to continue to work on it and eventually post it.
For now, I'll suffice with a Horribles post and call it something new.
Ah, Julie's singing career. That's me in the front row (even though I missed Julie's first concert in Taiwan last year). Julie's joined the Bluestreet Jazz Voices, a Seattle jazz ensemble. It's a great chance for her to stretch her voice into a new genre.
We bought new pillows this weekend (the second time we've attempted to replace our current pillows, which date back further than I care to admit), and we went with extra firm. Julie claims the first night I slept without a pillow. I don't remember. I plan to give them a few more days to see if they grow on me.
The Little Guy in the golf course. It wasn't originally a golf course, but it somehow became one. It's hard to control these bad doodles.
Ziggy started day care today. Yes, our dog is growing up so quickly. He's attending once a week, mostly to get him out of Julie's hair and give us a chance to clean his pee from the rugs and couch.
The weather continues to be overcast and rainy. I need to put a sweater on the Little Guy. It has been downright cold lately.
The weekend draws to a close. We had wonderful weather today: sunny and almost warm. We tried a new restaurant last night, and will head to our normal haunt tonight for dinner. We took Ziggy to an Iggy meetup, and Julie tried out her new camera. The foster parents of Button, our possible second dog, stopped by today with Button for a home visit. Ziggy played well with Button--although she was a bit overwhelmed by his energy. We'll take over fostering her when we return from Hawaii in two weeks.
Other than that we didn't do much. I pretended to write Saturday morning, and spent too much time dreaming of video games (the ones I create, not the ones I play). I always get riled up and write pages of documentation and specifications, before realizing that my dream is just that. It's a lot of specialized work to write a game, and I'm a lazy man. I'll feel inspiration for a few hours, and then find myself staring at old Diablo screenshots and realizing that it took thirty 3D artists six months to draw and animate the little people and monsters that populate that world. How many hours do I have?
Perhaps it's good to dream. It gives me something to look forward to thinking about, even if I know I'll never do much more than think or install the odd compiler or gaming framework. Either way it gave me something to type tonight.
My first comic! Well, it's kind of "mine." I based it on one of the panels in Scott McCloud's excellent book Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art. Besides learning how squiggly lines transform into story and emotion, I also learned that what I draw Scott does not considered a "comic." He spends the first part of the book defining what a comic is (the definition is in the first panel). Now that I consider it, this is the first graphic novel I read: it is written/drawn beautifully in the style of a long (and insightful) comic.
It turns out that one-panel drawings are not comics because nothing changes. All of the action is inferred from before or after the panel. Of course, seeing as I never pretended to tell a story in the Horribles, there's nothing that needs to be inferred. It's simple thoughts or happenings that I color.
I have wanted to take the plunge and draw more multi-panel drawings, or comics, perhaps a web comic, if you will. I haven't, though. I'm not sure I can even put together a story arc worth telling. I guess there's a challenge for me. I have been looking for subjects to draw. I grow tired of doodles like the last one I posted, where nothing happens and I have no ideas worth sharing.
Like most of my plans/dreams, I expect this one to end up an empty promise on an unvisited website.
My mother is arriving tonight for a weekend visit. We all leave on Sunday, Julie and me to Hawaii, my mother back to Brooklyn. We have a Bat Mitzvah to attend on Saturday night, and our regular Friday dinner tomorrow night. I've just about mastered whole chicken. I should write up the recipe one of these days. The secret is rosemary. I've also had a hankering for mashed potatoes. I have a new cookbook, and I'll try to find a good potato recipe.
We're in the middle of packing for our trip to Hawaii. We had a whirlwind weekend: my mother visited, we had a Bat Mitzvah, Julie had a Jazz performance, and we dropped off Ziggy at his boarding after he dug a hole in our carpet last night while we were away at the affair. I'll hopefully write more about my exciting weekend on the plane. For now, enjoy today's horrible.
This was one of those work realizations: I can only make a difference when I want to make a difference. It's not very profound, but it has helped me be more aggressive in presenting ideas and trying to change directions and policies where they don't make sense--and there are plenty of opportunities for this where I work.
I didn't appreciate what would happen to the Horribles when I went on vacation (I write this as if anyone truly cared. Oops, sorry. I slipped into consternation mode for a moment). I planned to doodle and post in Hawaii, figuring we'd have time at the end of the day to relax and fiddle around. It didn't work out that way. The little time I had I used to write my short journal entries and choose photos. The rest of the time we were out exploring or eating (we did a lot of eating--it's going to take me days of hunger pains before my stomach shrinks to its normal size) or collapsing in bed at the end of the night. We didn't even turn on the television the entire week. This is unheard of in our household.
Next time, I'll post an On Hiatus doodle for my time away. For now, I'll get back into it. Since Button arrived yesterday, I plan to add her to the Horribles tonight. For now I'll continue going through the queue.
It's good to be back.
Late post today. The rain and cold returned to Seattle with a vengeance (I didn't realize there was an A in vengeance). I think its trying to get back at us for escaping to the warm sun of Hawaii. I can't believe we were there on Sunday. It feels like it was a long time ago.
Chuck has agreed to restart our ping-pong short story "contest." This is where one of us sends the other a story idea, and the watches (with sadistic glee) while the other writes a story based on the story idea usually within the month (or was it a week? I forget). We played rock-paper-scissor and I won (or lost, as Chuck looks at it): I get to serve first and deliver him a story idea. I still haven't come up with the appropriate idea, but it should be ready by this weekend. That means I'll be writing a new short story next month. While I'm excited to start writing again, I'm a bit nervous about actually doing it. What if it comes out like the Marathon?
This Super Little Guy horrible wasn't as good as my others. I don't particularly like the city or the building colors (they're backwards: the buildings further back should be darker)--but I'm too lazy to fix it. You should see the terrible horrible I doodled today. I still haven't returned to form after a week away.
This suffering doodle was apt for yesterday when my normal Saturday blues returned. I didn't suffer while away in Kauai, but as usual, I woke up with a storming headache, which got worse throughout the day. I know I promised to keep complaining to a minimum, but yesterday was miserable, and I feel like the universe owes me a do-over Saturday.
We saw a few houses today. We're looking to upgrade from the Castle. While we love the house and the view, having two dogs without a proper yard is a bit more complicated than we imagined. And since Julie is working more on the east side, it's starting to make sense to improve both of our commutes. We're in no rush, and we might not find something for quite a while, but we are spending some of our Sundays at least looking.
Button and Ziggy are working out well. They've had a few stomach issues lately. My friend Shannon finally identified the cause: the two bacteria floras living in each dogs' stomach are intermixing as they spend more time together and mix saliva and share food. As it mixes, it causes stomach issues until arriving at a steady state. In Shannon's experience, this takes a few weeks. We were afraid they might have a stomach virus. His explanation sounds better. We will probably have to delay Button's spaying until the stomach issues pass. We're still happy (if a bit overwhelmed) to have two dogs.
I'm a little behind on these Horribles. This was drawn in the autumn, which ended quite early in Seattle. We had our first snow in November.
Button went in for spaying this morning. Hopefully she will heal as quickly as Ziggy: he was up and running a few hours after his neutering. Their stomach problems seem to have passed, and except for an increase in Ziggy marking, we are getting into a good routine. Update: Button is out of surgery and in recovery. Julie will pick her up around 3pm today.
I'm halfway through uploading all the Hawaii photos. I still haven't figured out where to link them as I don't want six or so albums cluttering the photo's index page.
I did come up with a topic for the first ping-pong serve. I thought of it as I fell asleep yesterday, and managed to jot it down. I remember part of it, but I won't send it along to Chuck until I review the paper tonight.
I sometimes have these disheartening meetings at work where I'm passionate about a position and then lose to the "we-say-so" brand of argument. When you're passionate about anything, you set yourself up for pains when your position does not prevail. This was one of those situations. (Sorry for being so cryptic--I do that too often on here.)
I really liked the pointed-headed purple guy. I have hopes that he'll become a recurring character representing all that's unknowledgeable and unfortunately powerful in the world. He's a Dilbert character at heart.
It's been a couple of days since Button's surgery, and she's on the mend. Julie is still worried about how her stitches will heal, but there's only so much inactivity these dogs can handle before going crazy. Right now, they're probably running around the couch biting each other in a wrestling match. Good for them! (That is, until all Button's stitches pop out and she has to wear that silly collar cone for fourteen days.)
We do love our anime. I drew this after we finished watching Witch Hunter Robin. We watched it back in October, so my memory is a bit hazy of the actual anime. From what I do remember, the animation was excellent and the story was at first intriguing and then tiresome: I slept through a few of the middle episodes.
It had an interesting set up and then never delivered on the full possibilities of the story. It's about a quasi-governmental agency that hunts witches. The witches are powerful humans who tend to abuse their powers. The anime hinted at what the witch power was but never fully disclosed how it worked or where it came from. There is some discussion about an earlier time where witches could control and use their powers. Whatever knowledge they had then was lost in modern times. Most witches ran around killing people with their power, and most of the anime consisted of hunting down these rogue witches.
There were good witches, and Robin was one of them. Through the power of religion, witches, if caught early, could be trained to use their powers for "good"--as in what the church believes was good. At the start of the story, Robin used her powers to help the agency hunt down the bad witches. She dressed like a nun and was seemingly raised in a convent where she developed the control of her power (a control that she did not perfect until she purchased reading glasses to allow her to see far away targets--weird, huh). She joined a well-knit group of investigators, some with witch-lite powers, that hunted the rogue witches. The co-star was the man in the doodle, who led Robin's field unit.
The story part consisted of an inter-agency plot and the development of a weapon that allowed humans to use the witches' powers. This part was never adequately developed. While the writers managed to bring the anime to a conclusion, it was not terribly satisfying, and, like many animes, seemed glued together with little more than good intentions and lots of hand waving.
We gave it four out of five stars on Netflix. We reserve four stars for animes that while not perfect (usually because of weaknesses in story or a terrible ending), we enjoyed, and would enjoy other animes of similar quality.
It finally hit fifty degrees yesterday in Seattle. We were growing tired of the cold and rain. We took Button and Ziggy to the dog park, and Button ran a bit. She's a fast dog. I watched from a distance as a dog started chasing her. She ran away from it at a normal pace, and when it got close, she shifted into super-speed mode. Unlike Ziggy, who when a dog gets too close when he's chased, turns his head and tries to run and look back at the same time, Button had no such concerns. She left the bigger dog far behind her as she blurred past a bunch of people who made comments like, "that is a fast dog."
Not that I need a fast dog to judge my self worth. Need is the wrong word: it's a deep-seated hunger brought about by my own clumsy past.
Julie, Steven, and I played through Halo 3 last year. This was Julie's first First Person Shooter (FPS) game. FPS games show the world through the character's perspective as if you were looking through her eyes. You use one thumbstick to move the character, and the other thumbstick to aim your gun and shoot bad guys. It takes a bit of coordination and practice to play.
We ended up running through the game twice, first on the normal level and then on the hardest level. We played about one or so levels per night, and It took many nights to get through the game. For the most part, it quite enjoyable. There's a microphone attached to the joystick, so Julie and I could speak to Steven and plan our next attack.
We played through the game cooperatively, that is, us against the computer. There is a story behind the game displayed through cut scenes (like little movies). It is not the game's strong point as it made little sense, and for the most part took away from the experience, particularly when it interrupted the game play. While Julie and I like the occassional competitive game (although our competition sometimes gets vicious), Steven is a co-op-only guy. My favorite games are a combination of the two: a team of players (like the three of us) pitted against other teams of real players.
Steven was a careful, good player. He rarely died and kept the team alive on most occassions, while sitting back and picking off bad guys from a distance. Julie and I didn't have the patience. We ran into the fray and tried to kill everyone, often dying in the process. Luckily, the game respawns the characters near living players, and we rinsed and repeated until all the bad guys died.
This became more problematic after we brought Ziggy home: we'd be in the middle of a very difficult part, and Ziggy would decide that he had spent enough time on the couch and jump off and run around barking. I would have no choice but to chase after him, while Julie and Steven continued on the game, one man down. They somehow managed without me, and Ziggy eventually calmed down and returned to the couch to continue his job as my personal warmer.
We've been looking forward to playing another co-op game, but so far there hasn't been many interesting games available. I'm hoping that changes soon as I've been itching to play video games again.
I drew this on the run up to Nanowrimo 2007. I spent much of that time fretting about not having ideas. It turned out, after all was said and written, I had good reason to fret. Writing 50,000 words without any ideas or planning is not a good way to create something worthwhile.
But it did leave me with a leaky faucet doodle. So I have that.
It's late and I almost forgot to post this. We enjoyed two beautiful days this weekend. It feels as if we've turned the corner toward Spring.
I haven't doodled since last week. I'm in a bit of a creative rut. I have a few ideas for my next doodles, but I haven't found the patience to sit down and draw. Same with writing. I went to the coffeeshop early on Saturday morning, thinking I would write lots of words. The caffeine failed, and I ended up staring into space. I'm not sure if this is a localized rut or something larger.
But the posting continues and here's todays brief thought.
This was one of the few doodles I did during the Marathon. When I wrote the title, I was thinking of unraveling the colored string. Looking back it was clear I was thinking about participating in the Marathon with few ideas and no direction.
The weather has taken a turn for the better in Seattle, and Julie and I have spent lots of time in the dog park trying to elevate our vitamin D levels.
Our xbox died the dreaded RROD (red ring of death) on Monday, and soon it'll be in transit to Microsoft for fixing. We've made do with my Mac as a DVD player for now. I will likely invest in a second xbox over the next few days. This isn't (only) because I want to play Kingdom of Fire with Steven next week--we also planned to purchase a second xbox so Julie can join in on the fun (once my original xbox makes its triumphant return) for co-op games that only support one player per console.
Work is starting to get busier, which is a good thing. Julie's practice continues to grow, which is a very good thing. I plan to work on her website this weekend. We're scheduled to look at a few houses on the market this weekend. We haven't seen anything too interesting yet, but we're keeping our eyeballs open. We also invested in tennis equipment. We're hoping the weather holds this weekend and we make it on the court. It's always fun to beat the Julies.
My Marathon doodles continue. I drew this one about a week before I finished. You can tell what I was thinking at the time.
We've had a busy weekend so far. We spent yesterday in the coffee shop, tennis center, dog park, and visiting Scott to play three hours of Rock Band. My wrists are very tired from all the strumming on my bass, or more exactly a plastic replica with five colored buttons and a cheap switch. Today is equally busy with breakfast, house viewings, tennis, dog park if the weather clears, and pizza dinner. Yummy.
My niece Sarah helped me draw this doodle when I was visiting NY. I loved the pumpkin heads. The bad English on the title was all my doing.
Letters! It's letters! (I drew this after finishing the Marathon.) I love the bruise on top of the little guy's head.
Julie and I are in intense negotiations for a new house. It's quite fancy. Once (and if!) we sign the contract, I'll post photographs and descriptions, and describe the process.
My headaches have returned lately. It might be the stress of the negotiations, or just bad sleep habits. I'm not sure which, but I'm sitting here nursing today's minor headache.
Julie and I went with another couple to a French bistro and a cute bar downtown Seattle. I drew this one awhile ago, but if felt like a timely doodle to post.
We had a busy weekend, preparing for the sale of the Castle and purchase of the Villa. We made a list of things we need to get done, and started checking off a few of the easier items.
Tonight we're heading to Lowes for supplies to "fix" the Castle. We figure investing a bit of money now making it more presentable will result in much more monies in the long run. At least that's what we hope.
Things have been chugging along around these parts. We're working hard to get the Castle in order for selling, lining up mortgages, scheduling inspections, looking at furniture, trying to decide wall colors. It's been very busy. Combine that with a computer that has started crashing again, and I haven't doodled much lately. I'm working through my large backlog of Horribles, and I will hopefully start doodling again soon. For now, enjoy the leftovers.
With everything going on, I forgot to post this yesterday. We finished the Villa inspection yesterday morning. There were a few minor issues that will require repair (and probably a price break), but nothing major. We're close to locked on our financing. And the contractor for the dog room is onboard and preparing an estimate.
This weekend promises to be just as busy.
Another busy weekend. We went to Whidbey Island yesterday. The rain stayed away but it was overcast most of the day. A bit cold in the evening, but a nice way to spend a Saturday.
Today we started moving some stuff to Julie's parents' house for storage. We want the Castle to be clutter free when it's time to show it.
The change in daylight savings messed up my schedule. I'm not sure if I'm overtired or undertired. Something is definitely amiss.
Today was a beautiful Post-Headache Day. That means, of course, that yesterday was an absolutely painful, over-tired, stop hitting me with a frying pan day. I was miserable. But since I'm an eternal optimist (when not being hit by a frying pan), I want to focus on today's renewed energy.
The house buying continues to move along. We're in negotiations over the inspection contingency. The Castle is getting in shape for showing. We're thinking of listing it next week. We have lots to do before then.
I like to pretend I create worlds: whether they are story worlds or video game worlds. When I create them, I imagine I look like this guy.
I drew this after attending a very scary Tori Amos concert. She gave us the finger during her first act. Jennifer told us that this was her "character"--that she chooses a different character to play at the beginning of every show, and we lucked into the angry chick.
I'm still recovering from the incident.
I cut back on my Horribles postings again. With preparing the Castle and finalizing the stuff for the Villa, I haven't had much time to doodle. That my computer still is acting weird hasn't helped things. I now only post on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I still have a nice backlog, and I'm averaging about a new Horrible every week, so things should continue to move along smoothly.
We lifted the Villa's inspection contingency yesterday, and the next step is closing, which is planned for March 31st. Julie has been doing a wonderful job of preparing our post-close activities, including getting people into the Castle to fix it up for showing, planning the Villa's dogroom, invisible fence, painting, and floor rebuffing. While doing that, she also picked out our new furniture and has arranged for it to be delivered after the contractors (should) finish. The earliest move-in date would be April 6, although it may be later, depending on how quick the contractors and movers work.
For now we wait and enjoy our last few weeks in the Castle. Jennifer is visiting this week, so we've been trying to entertain her.
I'm very tired. To catch up on my lost sleep, I need to sleep in. When I sleep in I wake with a headache. This is a vicious problem.
Julie and I went out to dinner last week. This was one of those bad days where my head was pounding. We walked back to the parking lot to drive home. I opened the door to a gray Prius and slid in. It felt different, but I didn't know how different until two women approached. "What are you doing in our car," they asked. We got out, apologized, and found our gray Prius two spots away. This can only happen in Seattle.
Even though we're less than a week away from closing on the Villa, we've not been that busy. Julie has just about finished scheduling all the contractors that will swarm the Villa once closed, and we've sent about a thousand copies of our financial documents to the banks (we remember fondly the non-doc loans that got America into this mortgage mess). But even though we're not busy, things are not quiet. The anticipation itself has a weighty roar.
As you can tell by my badly formed first paragraph, I haven't done much writing or creating recently. Even my doodles have dwindled from once a week to when there's a blue moon in Seattle when it's above freezing (which seems quite rare for early Spring). I keep kicking myself about falling into a rut, but kicking myself and doing something about it are very far apart.
Not that I should complain. There are other people who are supposed to be working on a ping-pong story, and who, while understandably busy with a new job and new apartment, have yet to provide a single update or progress report, other than, "wow, I'm really stuck on this."
Man, sometimes I can't believe how good my timing is for posting old Horribles. It snowed without sticking yesterday. The forecast calls for 2-4 inches of snow for Saturday (if it gets cold enough). Very strange weather for a rather cold start to Spring.
We're still hoping to close tomorrow. We're not sure if the escrow company will have the papers ready for signature, but we are hopeful. We're keeping our fingers crossed.
Julie and I had this discussion on Sunday: we were sitting around in the evening after visiting the Villa to choose paint colors. We had watched too much Grey's Anatomy (a wonderful show I found on the xbox a few weeks ago), and I needed to get out of the Castle as I was being smothered by the television and the dogs and the stillness. We couldn't figure out where to go. We already ate dinner (leftover Drunken Chicken, which was better the first time around), and it was getting late and dark and cold. It wasn't snowing anymore, thankfully, or thunderstorming, although it has been doing more of both lately. (Funny thing about Grey's Anatomy: it's set in a fictitious hospital in Seattle, and, not surprisingly, it's always raining. But instead of rain it's always thunderstorming, which is probably easier to portray than the sprinkling rain Seattle is famous for. I pointed this out to Julie, and she agreed: it almost never thunderstorms in Seattle. That night it snowed, thunderstormed, and the sun came out. I think it all happened in a fifteen minute window.) Anyway, so we're sitting around and I'm slowly going crazy and I'm trying to figure out what we can do. It's getting late as I download and begin watching yet another episode of Grey's. We can't go to the movies anymore because tomorrow (that is the tomorrow of the weekend, which was on Sunday which meant Monday) was a work day, and I needed to sleep at a normal time to be normal and get work done. So after three more episodes, we decided to call it a night and go to bed. We never did end up doing very much. The next day I thought we should have gone to Lottie's Lounge and drank something. Julie doesn't drink and I'm not much of a drinker either. That said, we could have done something, which would have made this paragraph much shorter--a win-win for all of us.
Don't ask. I'm in a weird mood after closing yesterday and I felt like sharing. The doodle brought it up.
I have a confession: I haven't been doodling lately. My computer has been on the fritz and I've been terribly busy with the Villa and watching Grey's Anatomy and not playing with the dogs although they're desperate and lonely and wish I would chase them around the couch a few times (my friend would say I'm projecting human feelings on our dogs--well, yeah, and so?) and the moon has not been in the second house and the sun, well, it's been coming out lately, which has really been throwing off my internal body clock. I mean, this is Seattle and after not seeing the big yellow glowy thing in the sky for six months, it's difficult to reacquaint myself with it.
To my litany of excuses I can now add a legitimate one: Button ate my pen. When we leave the dogs in the Castle for the day, we lock them in the kitchen and laundry area. (Soon they'll be locked in the dog room in the Villa.) While I would love them to roam the house, we can't trust them: Ziggy tends to pee on things, and Button, well, Button eats everything. We've also discovered that she may be able to fly. While we haven't caught her in the act yet, stuff that's way out of her reach (and the reach of most non-mutant humans) somehow ends up chewed and scattered around the house. I plan to invest in a wireless webcam for the new dog room so we can document this and make lots of money parading her around the various mutant carnivals as the Flying Dog.
Getting back to the kitchen, besides the gate to the dining room, the kitchen also leads to the computer room, which we are careful to close before leaving. We left it open a few inches on Tuesday, and Button and Ziggy managed to sneak in while we were away. Once in, Button proceeded to find every lose paper, memory card, and plastic thingy and throw it around the kitchen. She likely flew onto the chair or desk, and then reached over and grabbed my fancy Cintiq pen that was in its fancy pen holder. She brought her prize into the kitchen and spent the rest of the day chewing the two ends.
I ordered a new one yesterday. It will be the first delivery in the Villa (besides the furniture, of course). I'll continue to work through my dwindling queue of doodles, and hope once we set up our new fancy two-desk study, I'll get a-doodling again. I have a couple of anime doodles I need to draw, and I'm sure depression will hit as soon as I realize how much money the Villa will cost. Julie hasn't told me yet. Ignorance is a wonderful thing.
We do love us some drunken chicken. My recipe:
- Heat seasme oil over medium heat in a large pot.
- Clean and roughly chop about a hand-sized piece of ginger into one-inch pieces, leaving the skin on.
- Cook the ginger in the oil.
- Chop up chicken legs with a cleaver (usually into two pieces around the meaty part).
- When the ginger is fragrant, add a single layer of chicken legs to the pot. Increase the heat to medium-high and brown the chicken. I usually brown at least two sides of each chicken piece for 3-4 minutes.
- After the chicken is browned, remove it to a dish. Add a few splashes of drinking-quality Sake to the pot. With a wooden spoon, scrape the chicken goodness from the bottom of the pot. You may want to remove it from the heat while scraping.
- Return the chicken to the pot and begin pouring the Sake and water. You will need enough liquid to cover the chicken. My rule of thumb is about 2:1 for Sake to water.
- Bring the soup to a light boil, and then reduce to simmer. I usually use the highest heat to bring the pot to boil, and then reduce it to about 2 or 3 setting to simmer.
- Cook for 45 minutes to an hour, or until the chicken is done.
- Eat soup and dance with lampshade on head.
Drunken Chicken makes great leftovers. If you leave the soup in the fridge overnight, the ginger infuses with the soup and it tastes much stronger the second time. When you remove it from the fridge, skim the fat off the soup, and remove the chicken. Heat up the soup until a light boil, and then lower to simmer. Add the chicken. It should take about ten to fifteen minutes to reheat the chicken.
A while back, Julie and I went over to our friend Scott's house to play Rock Band. This was our first time playing the game, and we had a great time. (We went for a second visit a few weeks ago.) Besides the three of us, we were joined by Scott's family. I concentrated on the bass, while Julie, not surprisingly, did most of the singing. We created a tour group called the Periodic Elements, in honor of the lead singer's name of Phospherous.
While I keep promising to post photographs of the Villa, I can never seem to find the time to post (or take many) photographs. With the help of some awesome friends, we stayed in the Villa until midnight the past few nights putting stuff together and getting ready for our move in day. The house is shaping up nicely, and once the dog room is complete, we'll be ready to officially move in. It should happen by this weekend at the latest.
My new Cintiq! My birthday present! Okay, it's not that new anymore, and we're four months past my birthday. It survived the move to Mercer Island, and is now on my fancy new desk in my fancy new office in my fancy new house.
This is not one of my favorite doodles. It was one of my first doodles with the new Cintiq, and for whatever reason, I was never satisfied with the layout, colors, or saying. But since I'm scraping the batter bowl, I can't be too choosy as to what I post.
We're leaving for NYC this afternoon for Passover in Brooklyn + visiting Julie's sisters + wedding in Rhode Island. It's going to be a busy few days.
I cannot find the power cord for my laptop. My theory is that the Villa has house gnomes that hide all my important stuff. Julie thinks it's just a big house and I'm going a bit senile. Either way, I'm powercord free, which means I'm computer free, and doodle and writing free. I'll probably bring along a Moleskin (if I can find one!), and try to jot down some thoughts as I go along. My mother and Jennifer have computers, and I'll see if I can transcribe those thoughts along the way.
Yes! Finally, we hit upon one of my favorite Anime doodles. This one was for Solty Rei, a cute if somewhat schizophrenic story about a bounty hunter searching for his lost daughter. He is helped by his would-be-surrogate daughter, Solty Rei, who is a physically powerful girl with daddy issues.
We returned from our trip yesterday morning. I’m still recovering. We’ll post photos over the next couple of days. I know I keep talking about posting photos—I’m again having wireless internet issues with my house. I can’t seem to get a strong wireless signal from one side to the other. I’m beginning to think my television is somehow interfering with the signal—as before it was delivered, the signal was much stronger. I need more time for investigations.
This is a few months late, but here's my birthday celebration doodle from December.
We're getting ready for Erik and Gloria (and monster)'s visit starting tomorrow. Yesterday was our first relaxing day in the Villa. We planned to bring stuff to the Castle, but after dinner, we sat on our TV couch and didn't get up until it was time to sleep. It was very pleasant to veg.
Inspiration is a wonderful thing. I remember drawing this doodle. I was bored of drawing the Little Guy and adding the same background with a different hue. I decided to go crazy. I added a few swirls, and glowing stars, and then decided not to stop with just the sky. I was a rebel, a breaker of molds, a dreamer of bigger things, a. . . . Okay, so I can only go so crazy with an electronic pen in a small box with a sperm-like fellow. Looking at it now, months after I drew it, whatever inspiration struck, it still gives me tingles. I guess that’s what I hope for in these things.
The weather has been crazy in Seattle. It goes from hot to cold back to hot and then to rainy. It reeks havoc on my head, and I've fought a handful of migraines over the past week. The depression seems to have dissipated somewhat and I’m hoping the thermometer settles down soon.
Did you notice something missing from this doodle? That's right, no little guy. I was in one of my base-this-on-a-photo moods, and I found this turtle pic from NYC. I was about halfway done before I realized there was no place for the little guy. Even though it breaks my normal approach, I decided to post anyway. Be assured, the little guy is very sad.
The dogs received their final training on the invisible fence yesterday. We haven't let them out unsupervised yet, but it's only a matter of time. I was talking with Steven before, and I was explaining how the dog room has transformed our lives: We are no longer prisoners in our own home. While this wasn't exactly how we felt in the Castle, there was a sense that the dogs were everywhere, even when fenced into the kitchen, partially because of Ziggy's pee being everywhere, but also because we could hear them where ever we were in the Castle. We still hear Ziggy's occassional whines in the kitchen, but once you move beyond that, it's beautiful silence. Now I'm not saying we moved because of the dogs, but I will say it was on our top five list.
And that's why we built a dogroom. Ziggy and Button have been doing wonderfully. As I mentioned yesterday, they are now fully trained on the invisible fence, and they spend much of their time chasing each other around our front and back yards like crazy dogs, wrestling, and making outrageous turns and jumps. Ziggy changes directions so suddenly that he sometimes falls over. It's great to watch them play: like two oversized rats zipping across our lawn.
Enough about dogs. (Thanks to the aforementioned dogroom, our lives are no longer ruled by them.) The weekend is rapidly approaching, and while the weather turned cold again this week, we're expecting more Spring-like weather next week--we'll keep our fingers crossed.
I managed to eek out a horrible Horrible yesterday. My queue is diminishing rapidly, and if I don't get adrawing, I may have to go on hiatus for a while. As of now, I have 22 doodles in storage, which means another 10 or so weeks of postings. I guess it's not terrible yet--it's only approaching terrible.
We haven't seen "Iron Man" yet, but with all the rave reviews coming from my friends, we plan to hit the theater this weekend. Julie and I couldn't think of the last time we saw a movie. We won't be able to say that on Monday.
As part of my flirtation with NEQID, Julie and I purchased books to improve ourselves. I bought Perspective Made Easy. It's a short book that teaches how to illustrate with proper perspective. This was my first attempt. Notice the eye level, which is also the horizon line. It meets with the little guy's eyes, meaning that the viewer is at the same height as the little guy. Or something like that.
I skimmed through the book, but I've only attempted a few doodles with the teachings. I put it next to my computer again, and I'm hoping when inspiration fails, I'll open it up and try another lesson. Too many of my doodles have awkward and incorrect perspectives. It's why I usually have a horizon line and not much else in my world.
The week is off to a slow start. I attempted to write something yesterday, but never managed to polish the 200 words to something worth posting. So it goes.
I delayed part two of the World of Warcraft doodles to post my tribute to Iron Man. We finally watched it on Saturday night. I won't give a long review (unlike some people), but suffice to say, we both enjoyed it. I didn't have much doubt: any movie that all my friends recommend must be good. It wasn't spectacular, but there was nothing wrong with the movie, and it was thorougly enjoyable. Usually, they screw up one of those two axes.
I managed to eke out a few doodles over the weekend. My queue is slowly growing. Now, if only I can keep it up.
The World of Warcraft doodles continue. This is Asmin, Julie's Hunter character, and her pet wolf Snowflake. They haven't been calling to us lately, but I'm hopeful a new Asmin will one day rise from her ashes.
A headache found me this afternoon. I'm hoping it loses track of me soon.
Doodle-wise, this was a very productive three-day weekend. I spent much time hunched over my fancy tablet drawing doodles, and finishing other doodles I started but forgot about. I'm still not ready to return to the three postings a week yet, but if I continue at my current pace, I could be there in another week or so. (By saying that, of course, I've now jinxed myself to another slow period.)
Even though the forecasts were dire, the weather held rather well over the weekend. I posted a few photos we had sitting around, and a few albums we took over the long weekend.
I attempted to write on Sunday morning. I'll spare you the gory details, as I ended up with half a page of consternations, most of which concerned the fact that my dogs were running around my legs as I attempted to write in our backyard. Yeah, it was exceptionally engaging.
It feels like a long time since I last posted a Horrible. I have been busily doodling away. I now have a nice stockpile in my back pocket, which decreases my anxiety and leaves me a much happier person.
I'm not sure what inspired this particular Horrible, but I'm sure it was some sort of presentations where somebody was talking at me for an inexplicably long time. I've said this before, but I'll say it again: when I'm bored, I really do cry. Julie has witnessed this behavior. It is not a good sad cry, but an uncontrollable leakage of water from my eyes. It leaves none of the redness or soreness that remains after a real cry.
The week has taken a turn for the worse, as I woke up to a torrential rainstorm, which made my morning dog routine more difficult. I planned to post a bit of writing over the past few days, but haven’t gotten around to it. Don’t worry, thinking of the stuff I’ve written, you’re not missing much. It’s the usual inane musings about weather, dearth of writing, and aspirations to be a bigger, better David ala NEQID.
Chuck e-mailed me to claim that he was busily thinking of planning to work on my Pong serve. I don’t remember the story topic, but knowing my interests, I’m sure it’s excruciatingly painful.
Wow, it has been a long time since I drew this. It's dated January 29, which seems an impossibly long time ago. We've had Button for almost six months. She's much different from Ziggy: where he is gregarious and always looking to play, Button is more laid back. She's a terrific eater, elegant and sweet--when she's not trying to push Ziggy out of her way to get our attention.
This was my first attempt at drawing her when we returned from our Honeymoon (notice our fancy bathing suits). There are a few more coming up in the queue. I've not drawn the iggies in sometime. I'll have to rectify that soon.
Julie is complaining that I'm not posting often enough. I have to agree with her. I've fallen back into my rut of only posting on Horrible days. Another rectification is in order soon.
We are rapidly approaching Julie's birthday weekend. I made reservations at a Seattle restaurant for Saturday night (her birthday is on Sunday). I'll likely cook a fancy meal on Sunday--assuming we're not still stuffed from the Saturday night extravaganza.
Today is the last terrible Horrible for some time. I promise. While I considered not posting it because of its awfulness, the rain in the doodle convinced me otherwise.
It's been raining here too much lately, and while I'm still not sure what that beast behind the Little Guy represents, it does sort of convey how we feel about this strange weather. We're willing to take NYC's heat wave over this mix of cold and rain. Thankfully, it's forecasted to clear up on Wednesday and return to the sunny and 60-70s we expect for this time of year. (That's not completely true: we expect rain, just not so much of it or with such cold temperatures. The joke is summer doesn't start until July 5.)
I felt a slight cold coming on this morning. I'm either empathizing with Julie, who is still recovering, or catching her cold. It seems to have passed for now.
Work has been busy, which is a very good thing. My mother is visiting this weekend, and we're hoping to explore new places. (Unlike last time, where we forced her to sit around and stare into space.) This will be her first visit to the Villa.
I felt the need to change the scary doodle below as early as possible. Here is the one I drew shortly after returning from our Honeymoon in Hawaii. That's us, relaxing on the beach.
There's a terrible reluctance about me this morning. I'm not sure what's causing it. The week is drawing to a close, and I'm looking forward to my mother's visit tomorrow. I planned to bicycle in today, but failed. So it goes and goes.
On our honeymoon, I taught Julie to play chess. They set up chessboards along the sushi restaurant/lobby that led toward our room. One night, we sat down at the table, and Julie informed me she had never played. I went through the rules and we played a few games.
I played chess a bit when I was younger, and I consider myself an average player. Average players usually do well against stark beginners. It doesn't feel right when, during our first game, we end in a draw as I fail to properly checkmate her king. It gets worse from there. While she never managed to beat me (I stopped playing when it was clear we were one or two games away from that occurrence), that she got so close so quickly was quite scary.
The sunshine left us today. I'm rather thankful for that today: I had hopes of bicycling to work, but when I saw the light drizzle this morning, I gave up those pipedreams and merrily drove in.
A big pile of money! What could be better? Oh, yes, integrity. Don't worry, I didn't give up my integrity for the big pile of money. It just feels that way sometimes. It's my art dreams verses reality. Sometimes I get them confused as I don't truly know what's important in my life. The truth probably is that neither are important, and trying to find the meaning of importance is a fool's errand.
The dogs woke us up at 5:30am this morning. Not sure what they were barking at, but we had a rough morning. The week is drawing to a slow end with rainy nights and sunny evenings. We don't have much planned for the weekend. Hopefully that will change.
I had to go deep into my queue to find this today. I drew the background in 2005, but never posted it. I rediscovered it a few months back and added the Horribles.
The reason today is special is because one year ago in Taiwan, Julie and I were married in the first of our two wedding ceremonies. In some ways, I can't believe it's been an entire year, and in other ways, I don't want to remember what it was like before I married the Julies. I can't understand how I survived so long without the Julies. I never realized how terrible I was on my own until Julie was there for me.
This has been the first in what will be many years together. Going into the marriage, I had little doubt that Julie was right for me. She is smart, kind, and beautiful, and even agreed to marry me even after I told her that I had lots of issues--I never articulated what the issues were, figuring it would be more fun to figure them out once we were married.
We are off to our favorite restaurant, La Medusa, near the Castle. We haven't been back since we moved, and we're looking forward to celebrating our anniversary there tonight. We're going to alternate our anniversary celebrations every year: next year we'll celebrate on July 1st, the date of our New York ceremony (Julie prefers to celebrate both dates, but it's way too much pressure for me).
I'm beginning to think that my mood is directly effected by the doodle I'm scheduled to post. If true, I need to start drawing happier doodles. I'm tired today after a nice bicycle ride home yesterday evening. I can't seem to focus and I'm wondering what I'm doing here.
Although the cloud guy above tells a different story, the weather has made a turn for the better in Seattle. It's almost time to figure out how the sprinkler system works in the Villa and start asprinkling.
Before we moved to the Villa, we started playing tennis at a local center near the Castle. Julie had played tennis for many years when she was younger, and I had never owned a tennis racket. We went a handful of times before we moved to the Villa. We purchased tennis rackets (mine a bit fancier than Julie's to handicap her), and a few cylinders of balls, all of which now sit in the garage awaiting a tennis revival. I'm noticing a scared theme in these competitve doodles. Do you remember the scared chess one? (As I looked through my old doodles, I'm not sure I can call two doodles a theme.)
I'm a very competitive person. Lately, I've not put myself in many competitive situations. I used to have basketball and driving. I had to give up my road-rage-inspired driving after realizing how ridiculous and dangerous it was. And basketball fell by the wayside when it became inconvenient to play. Bicycling and weight-lifting (which I haven't done in over a year) are fun but not competitive since there's no winning. Work at times is competitive, when there are contentious issues being discussed; although this is much rarer than it should be. Even video games have grown less competitive as I mostly play co-operatively with Julie and Steven.
Tennis did provide a short release of competitive energy. While it isn't as competitive as basketball--mostly because I don't get the opportunity to wrestle for rebounds or push myself into the box--I refused to lose to Julie. I'm quicker than her on the court (thanks to my long skinny legs), and I am able to get to the ball faster. I'm also nastier, sending lots of short balls barely over the net for easy points. I won all of our games (we may have tied and ran out of time during the last few games we played). Whenever it looked bad for me, my competitive juices would churn and I would focus intently and begin dinking the balls, scoring easy points and tiring out the Julies. I miss these opportunities to play (and win!) competitive games.
Looking through my mail today, I received an e-card from my mother. Until I opened it I couldn't figure out why she sent it. Today is our New York wedding anniversary. (I guess it's true what they say about men's ability to remember anniversaries.) As I mentioned in my last anniversary post, we are alternating our celebrations. For my mother (and, in reverse, Julie's mother), there is no alternating: we were married in New York on July 1st. We're okay with that.
Ah, the Button! Here's the original photo. That grass is rather terrible. At least Button is cute. I haven't drawn the iggies in a long while.
Come to think of it, I haven't drawn anything in a while. Oh, yeah, now I remember why: I broke my computer again. I was trying to fix an issue I was having with Vista sleeping properly, and I attempted to flash the bios. This would have been fine if the WinFlash tool supported Vista 64-bit, which it didn't. I tried it anyway and it blue screened. This is not a good sign when flashing a bios. When I rebooted, the black screen stared at me. I had scrambled the bios and it would no longer POST. (The bios is rather important as it initializes the motherboard and devices and starts the boot process. Without it, no boot.)
I've done some research on Hot Flashing in which you swap the broken bios into a working machine and reflash it. Regretably, of the five or so computers at home, none of them have the same bios chip. One would think it would have been standardized by now. I plan to order a replacement bios from the internets today. Hopefully I'll be up and running sometime next week.
If you didn't notice (or read this thing through the fancy RSS feeder), my Little Guys are holding an umbrella this morning. It thunderstormed here this morning. During our bicycle commute last night, we also hit a short thunderstorm. I don't want to raise any undue alarms, but the sky may be falling, and the apocalypse can't be too far away.
This happened back in the Castle days. We were sleeping when Julie heard a noise. She got out of bed and went to the window and saw a kid rummaging through our mailbox. He took our Netflix and a few envelopes we left for the mailperson, and took off as Julie banged on the window. She somehow resisted running after him--although she seriously considered it. Me? I turned over and continued to sleep. I'm no brave hero, especially when it comes to Netflix envelopes. I doodled this to document the occassion.
We're heading to NYC tomorrow for our Hamptons vacation. I've only been to the Hamptons once: during my summer internship at the law firm, they took us to a partner's estate for dinner. It was large and grassy. They were trying to show us the good life that working 100 hour weeks for forty years would get us. I somehow resisted that good life, but I did enjoy the freshly shucked oysters and overloaded trays of shrimp. That was pre-Kosher days (also pre-Julie days).
I'm not looking forward to the flight early tomorrow morning. The less I travel, the less I want to travel. It will be nice to see my family and nieces. I expect much doodling and photograph taking. We've decided not to bring the video camera, so no Sagamore-esque video. It's probably for the best.
I did a bit of skipping to pull up this doozy. I drew this after my last long break from doodling back in April. I'm finishing up another break because of my computer problems. During the vacation, my new bios chip arrived from the Netherlands, and I plugged it in yesterday and watched as the beautiful bios logo appeared on the screen. I'm back in business.
While I had a good time on my vacation and took lots of photographs, I didn't accomplish much for NEQID: I brought a large stack of books, of which I read half a book; except for a brief doodle on the airplane, I didn't open my computer; which means I also didn't write a word. I did think about writing. That and a can of beans will get me lots of gas.
Sometimes the word "crap" isn't strong enough. I doodled this during a drought (a creative not water one). I was happy to put anything on the digital screen. Looking back, the monster reminds me of my earlier monster-doodling days.
We're getting back into our routine after our NY vacation. The weather has finally taken a turn for the better (albeit a bit unseasonably dark and cool this morning). I'm still slightly tanned--although that seems to be fading quickly. Except for brief moments standing in the ocean at the beach, like true Seattlites, in the Hamptons we both hid from the sun most of the time.
Guest Artist: Sarah
My niece Sarah doodled this Horrible (this was her first one). She also titled it and went strong with the fart joke. I don't have the courage to go that strong.
I'm coming up from a light depression. I didn't even realize I was down until this morning. Work has been rather blah lately, and it took me until this morning to realize it was me. (I sometimes forget everything is about me.)
Julie's sister arrives tomorrow, followed by her other sister and parents this weekend. Lots more family adventures.
This doodle was sitting on my harddrive for a long time. Julie helped put a name to it. It's another in a long line of suffering-for-no-reason Horribles.
Julie's sister Janie arrived with her dog Jimmy yesterday. We now have three people and three dogs in (or around) the Villa.
I would say more, but my head is clogged from a quick day trip to Mountain View yesterday.
It's not any better today.
Once again, timing is everything. I haven't been doodling much. I eke out about one doodle every week. Lately, the quality has been going down. I'm no We the Robots. It's hard for me to accept my limitations--viewing quality drawings with interesting dialogue moves me in the direction of accepting my limitations.
The summer weather has made a belated return. Here's to hoping it keeps up for the next few weeks. We're off to L.A. this weekend for a wedding and to visit friends we haven't seen in a while. When Julie lived in CA, we used to visit L.A. often.
Seattle has finally caught up to the rest of the country. We've had hot days and hot evenings lately. Summer was a long time coming, teasing us with a few days, and then returning to cold days and cold nights. Whenever it gets too hot, we yearn for the cool weather. When it's too cold, we yearn for the heat. It's true what they say: people want what they don't have, and quickly grow tired of it once they get it.
We're off to California for a long weekend tomorrow morning. I'm looking forward to the airplane time and my next two books. I've been on a bit of tear on the reading front. One of these days I'll get around to posting my thoughts.
Instead of doodling, I've been bitten but the bug again. I'm sure I'll get over it, but until I do, I'm pounding out code.
Our long weekend was wonderful. We saw many people, drove all over Southern California, and even visited Julie's old Newport Beach haunts. The experience makes me question my entire anti-social approach to life. Maybe visiting with people is better than sitting around the Villa. Just maybe.
Good ol' doggies. They're a bit smelly but still very loveable. It's hot in Seattle today, almost Houston hot. I plan to bicycle home this evening in the heat. I'll let you know how that goes. (I actually won't, I was just saying.)
Things are afoot at work. Hopefully very good things. I'll know more about these things next week. For now, enjoy Button Mutton and Ziggy Wiggy in their element.
Another poorly drawn fan pic. Have you noticed that I use the leaky paint brush for my lines? I do it partly to cover my shaky hand, and partly because I like the effect. Except for the little guy, it didn't work as well in this drawing. Draw and learn, I guess.
Life is moving along. I'm on the cusp of changing to a new job for my corporate overlord. It's not final yet, but it should be this afternoon.
Lately, I've found myself hoping to write more than a few sentences. I still haven't managed to fulfill those hopes. Here's to possibilities.
I accepted the job I hinted at earlier. I'm still with my corporate overlords, but now I'm working on video games. Yes, VIDEO GAMES. Well, I will be in a few weeks, once I finish the transition. While I'm not (yet) designing games, it's great to get into the industry. I borrowed four books on the history of video games from the library. I can't believe they pay me to learn this stuff.
The weather here has been strange. It's gone from cold and rainy to too hot and back again. We're now in the in-between part. There are patches of blue sky, and I have hopes it'll clear up before it's time to bicycle home. I brought my rain jacket just in case.
I decided to skip to a recent doodle. It's nice today: sunny and warm. The last few days were bad. Cold, rainy bad. This has been a tough August, drawing an atypical summer to a close. We dragged the dogs to the park yesterday in the late evening drizzle. They were going insane at home. Ziggy kept attacking Button, and Button kept eating Ziggy (when she wasn't cowering in the corner). They ran in the rain, not seemingly worse for the cold. Perhaps they're not as afraid of the rain as we thought. It's possible we were projecting our fear of rain onto our dogs. Or maybe I think about these things too much.
I start my new job on Tuesday. I'm excited. I'm also starting to think about the Marathon again. I have ideas. Small ideas. After writing less than 400 words a week for the past six months, I'm not sure how my fingers will survive the November beating.
I've been on a bit of a tear lately with new Horribles. I thought about increasing the posting frequency , but knowing myself only too well, I'm sure my tear will peak and I'll head back into the doldrums.
Speaking of doldrums, I've been in the hairy brown pit of doom lately. Not sure what sent me there, but the last few days have not been good ones. If I don't dig myself out soon, Julie will strangle me with a frying pan.
I put off posting this for a long while. While it's not one a favorite, I decided to clear it out of my secrets pile. So there you have it.
Today is the third day in my new job. I woke up excited. This is a good sign.
The good weather has finally returned. It's cooler in the evenings and morning, but beautiful during the day. A few more weeks of this and I'll forgive Seattle for its terrible summer. This time.
Steven mentioned that he was getting migraines because of the change in pressure (usually happens when the seasons change). I'm a sufferer as well. He also said he was popping lots of Advils. I used to do that until I learned of rebound headaches. I provided the link as a public service. For me, the rebound headaches were worse than the migraines, and more frequent. The way I broke the cycle was to limit my Advils to a few a month, and never more than one or two a week. I know I've harped on this before, but my discovery of rebound headaches was a profound moment.
Jennifer is visiting Seattle again. I drew this during one of her visits.
This goes to show that if people visit me, thhen they get their chance to be immortalized as a Horrible. Now if that's not an incentive, I don't know what is. And, as a huge bonus, you get to experience the beautiful Seattle weather--which, I have to admit, has been non-sarcastically beautiful this week. I'm ready to forgive the bad summer if this lasts another two weeks--and, yes, I keep increasing the length necessarily for forgiveness. I'm very grubby.
Man, I loved Street Fighter II. I was a big Chun Li fan because of the jumping on the heads and the sexy leg.
The new job is going well. I'm busy. It's a strange feeling to arrive at work and actually have stuff waiting for me. And this is good stuff: not just because it's interesting and challenging and we're making lots of monies, but because it's just so damn cool.
Okay, enough gushing.
Summer continues here in the Northwest. The evenings grow cooler, the morning light arrives later, the night descends earlier. But we've definitely hit a sweet spot temperature-wise.
I interrupt my normal queue schedule to post this tribute to DFW. David Foster Wallace died on September 12, 2008.
In 2001, I spent many months reading his Infinite Jest, a work of exceeding genius and weight (both physical and intellectual). I read the rest of his novels, short stories, and essays, always savoring them when I found them in magazines or on the bookshelf. My mentor, Doug, introduced me to DFW. It was a life altering moment: the first time I read great literature and appreciated its greatness. I'll miss reading what he could have written.
Returning to our regularly scheduled program. It's amazing how much of life's obstacles are seemingly random. Life is like D&D only you don't know what you rolled until long after you threw the dice.
Steven and I continued our slow drudgery through Too Human during last evening's video game night. It has a D&D-esque character building and loot collecting substory. The rest of the game is rather blah.
Today is the company meeting. I'm wearing my corporate-love t-shirt. They give us free shirts to show our loyalty to our particular group. I'm wearing a jacket for two reasons: (1) I hate advertising on my chest, and (2) it's usually very cold in the baseball stadium where they hold the meeting. This morning is overcast but warm. This might be my first meeting where I'm not slowly freezing to the bone.
I'm hitting my stride with the next four or so horribles. My queue has grown lately as I've managed one or two doodles each night (except for video game nights).
We're off to NYC this weekend for Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Years.
If you look not so closely then you'll see a lot of cutting-and-pasting in the scribbles. Julie noticed and was dissappointed at my lack of effort. Scribbling is much harder than it looks. My hand cramped after the few five minutes. If I did it again, I would spend the time to scribble as it looks more authentic. Either that or get better at cutting-and-pasting.
Today's my last day in the office. We head to NYC tomorrow. I'll hopefully have time for some writing and doodling while flying. I'm always hopeful.
It's the Jewish New Years and I shouldn't be posting today, but I'm not a very good Jew this year. We're in Brooklyn, after a fun few days visiting with Jennifer and Steven. We didn't take any photographs, so you'll have to take our word for it. The rain and humidity didn't take much away from our time.
I should draw more of these t-shirt-style doodles. I always seem to like them. We're heading back to Seattle tomorrow to rescue the iggies and get back to work.
I've used this doodle as my laptop wallpaper for a few months now. I always like my metacomical doodles as it reaches beyond the box (ignore the shadow--I still don't know what I was thinking). They're not always clever but they do provide entertainment for my little brain.
As evidenced by the photographs yesterday, we returned to Seattle after our NYC trip. I'm still a bit jetlagged, but I have hopes for tomorrow.
Tsubasa is an anime series that started strong, sputtered out, and was unceremoniously cut before finished. It's been a while since we watched it, and most of the details have escaped me. I like these breaks before posting: the good stuff will always remain wedged in my brain (or worth a trip to Wikipedia). The ordinary stuff will leak out before I post. On the good side, the characters were distinctive enough for the doodle, especially the little animal/alien thing. We never did figure out what he was--although I remember what he did: he swallowed the other characters to teleport them to different dimensions. Yeah, animes are very weird.
It's cooled down in Seattle. We've had a bit of rain lately, and today it's clear and cool. Hopefully it'll remain clear so we can take the Iggies to the dog park this evening. They're going a bit stir crazy in the dog room hiding from the rain.
We've been playing a lot of Warhammer Online lately. Similar to most of these games, it is a bit of a time sink. Unlike other time sinks, we've enjoyed almost all of our play time. In some past time sinks, some of the play required grinding: doing boring activities to reach the next achievement. So far, we've avoided that in Warhammer. I've almost completed my attempt to addict Steven. When he plays once, his fall to the dark side will be complete. (Hopefully he won't read this until he does play.)
I'm posting a bit early since tomorrow (technically, tonight, or very soon) is Yom Kippur. For those fasting, have an easy fast--since most of my family is on the east coast, they likely won't read this until after it is over. Oh well. It's the thought that counts, I guess.
I've been feeling extra tired recently, so, once again, this is a timely doodle. I'm not sure if it's the Warhammer Online or just not enough (or possibly too much) sleep. My new job is still keeping me busy, and coffee is getting me through the tougher mornings. There is way too much punctuation in this post. Damn punctuations.
Oh, I forgot to mention I once again signed up for the Marathon the other day. I think this is my fourth year. I keep forgetting why I do this to myself.
Ah, there's a monster with a small belly full of green liquid. This will be short. My mind has been on other things lately. Not that they're good for me, but they do keep me thinking and doing and worrying.
The balancing line between hungry monster, and satiated David is very thin. It's hard for me to know when I've crossed it. Julie has gotten good at pointing it out, and stuffing me with snacks to normalize my moods.
I just counted, and with my lax Horrible posting schedule, I have plenty of doodles to post during the Marathon. Now, if only I had plenty of words to write, this November would look less scary.
I'm trying not to think about it. It's almost Friday. This has been a long week.
I drew this in my religious phase, which happens every few months. I'm on a very normal cycle. For the curious: the last few months has been a severe downturn in belief.
The following argument thumbnail could have been better written and organized. Come to think of it, most of my writings can be better written and organized. You'll have to take what I give you, however.
This was the answer my rabbi gave for the meaning of life: connecting with the infinite. It sounded very profound when he said it. In brief, if there's an infinite being out there[1] that created us,[2] then the best possible explanation for our existence[3] is that we're given an opportunity in this life to grow closer to the infinite.[4]
[1] An infinite being itself contradicts our existence. By (human) definition, nothing can coexist with infinity since infinity includes everything, including us. There cannot be anything outside of the infinite. There are certain touchpoints in Judaism where the rabbis hold up their hands and say, this is an inherent contradiction of life, and humans will never be able to understand it, regardless how smart or wise we become.
[2] I'm not a proponent of Intelligent Design. I can very easily imagine a universe created by an infinite being that includes evolution from the galactic down to the organism scale. I even like the idea: the infinite being created the mind-boggling huge universe to show humans a perspective on their existence as compared to infinity (and this is true even if the universe isn't technically infinite--it is as close to infinity as we can understand in a non-mathematical sense).
[3] By "best explanation," I'm also including the assumption that the infinite being is Good. This isn't technically necessary for this argument, but does help understand why the infinite being would want us to connect to the infinite being.
[4] Remember, an infinite being doesn't need anything from humans. There is nothing that a human can give an infinite being that it doesn't already have. A perfectly good infinite being would give us something, however. Usually people say existence is the gift. While existence is definitely part of the gift, it can't be the end in itself. The evidence that there needs to be more than existence is in our very makeup: we always ask about the meaning of our lives. Is it really just about feeding our physical body and needs, or is there something greater.
There are rationalist that say the greater meaning in this random world is to make our lives and our children's lives better. I understand and sometimes feel that that is sufficient. Other time, I look to a more spiritual answer. I'm not saying the above is the correct one, but from a logical perspective, it does have its merits.
Such a cute, poorly drawn Button. I've been rushing home from work in a vain attempt to take the dogs to the park before dark. By 6:30pm, it's dark outside. We rush over and they run for about fifteen minutes before we have to pack it in. It's a sad time of year.
I've been very tired lately. Not sure why. Hopefully I snap out of it soon. November doesn't write itself.
This is a really ugly doodle. The foreground is fine, but the background: it's like I wanted my new house to look ugly. It's been sitting at the front of my queue. I kept promising myself that I would edit it and improve the house. I've decided that will never happen, and while I thought briefly of deleting it, I did like the blue guy and his coffee. And did you see the title? How perfect is that for the events of the last days.
I've been in a bad mood these last few days. Julie blamed is on my MySQL server going kaploey. That was definitely part of it. Now that it's back up--and in plenty of time for the start of the Marathon this Saturday--my mood will hopefully improve.
The real reasons for my bad mood haven't changed, but my perspective may have moved slightly for the better.
It's raining more than pine cones today. I'm feeling a bit sick: cold and stuffy and headachy. Hopefully it passes and is not a long-term thingy, especially with the Marathon fast approaching.
Happy Election Day! Yes, I think this should be a national holiday. I voted this morning at my local elementary school. When I was growing up in NYC, election day was at least a school holiday. Here I had to maneuver past small, snotty-nosed children to the library, where they set up the voting area. At least I got to read children's books while waiting for the one electronic voting machine. I opted to wait instead of fill out the written ballot to see how they translated written ballots to the screen. The machine is not bad. They just need another two or three of them.
This is my second attempt at a long-strip comic. I haven't tried again. One of these days I'll have a few thoughts that don't fit on a single panel. Before that can happen I need to have actual thoughts. I hate those darn things.
The regularly scheduled Marathon posting will be here later (hopefully).
I did not like Three's Company. I used to watch it as a kid, and at the end, when the big reveal happened, I hid my eyes with my hands, trying to get away from the anxiety-inducing moment of embarrassment, where Jack realizes that Cindy said that Janet was ... you get the idea.
I woke with a bad headache today. I so far resisted druggin myself. That resistance has broken down, and as soon as I finish this I'm heading over to the medicine cabinet. Tasty Advil here I come.
I had to skip around a bit to find this rain doodle. Today's doodle was supposed to be a sunny landscape. It didn't fit in with the rain storming down on Seattle.
Time to return to the Marathon. In case you're wondering, it still goes. I'd like to write more, but I have to save my limited supply of words for my word goal.
There we go! A break in the torrential rain allowed me to post this doodle. I saw sun this morning, and there will be sun this afternoon! I'm in such a better mood. I can't understand why.
The Marathon continues. Sorry I haven't been adding comments to the end of my writings (even though some people found them tortuous). It's been enough to get Goal at the end of each day. I've been rather exhausted with work and driving and writing. I slept in a bit last night and this morning, and I'm feeling better for it.
My doodle output has been terrible lately. I can blame the Marathon somewhat; the real cause is playing Warhammer again. It was a nice three days without that wonderful addiction. I'll get back to doodling after I finish. Until then, you'll have to enjoy my backlog.
I almost forgot about posting a Horrible today. I just sat down to start pounding out words for the Marathon when I remembered. I'm better today after another Advil day yesterday.
This Horrible is from Noein. The story got a little away from the writers at the end, but it was an enjoyable run with an interesting style of animation (notice the scribles in the eyes).
Ah, another perfectly titled doodle. I really want to take credit for these, but I drew this in July. I must have known I would be approaching the end of the Marathon without having posted a word for anyone to read. Trust me. It's better that way.
I should finish the writing today. I can't say I finished the story, or that a story ever even formed. I'm beginning to think these Novembers are nothing but an exercise in finger fatigue. But I persevere and hope that one day I'll find something of value in the mountain of words.
Today's doodle is another in a line of religion/philosophy doodles. The idea was simple: Judaism (and many other religions) were created/discovered by people with an incredible amount of time on their hands. They did not have much to do (from what I understand, sheepherders stand around a lot) or many people to talk to. So they spent their time contemplating their navels. It's amazing what you can discover by looking at your belly button. I figured that was step one in religious discovery. I'm still searching for my navel and hoping to find the silence that will lead me to answers.
I'm not thinking today. My brain is moving through molasses as I try to formulate thoughts and words. I thought I slept well. I must not have.
Silence is not always a bad thing.
I almost forgot what anime this was taken from. Luckily I tagged it when I drew it: Gun Sword, or, as Julie and I remember it, the Western with the tuxedo and mechas (that's big robots for those who aren't into Japanese anime).
Even with the sun peeking through the cold clouds, today has been a bit of a drag. I slept badly and now my head hurts.
I skipped over a few anime-esque posts to show this one. It's a simple doodle but one I enjoy. After reducing the evenings we play video games from seven to two, I managed to eek out a couple of new doodles yesterday. I haven't been doodling much since the end of the Marathon. I won't point fingers.
Sun is not something we have to worry about these days. This weekend promises to be a winter wonderland. There is talk of snow. In Seattle. And cold.
Now that we've limited our Warhammer Online play to twice a week, my Horrible output has improved. I'm doodling at least one a day. If I keep it up, I might up to posting three times a week. This won't excuse my poor writing output. I'm not sure what to do about that. I thought I had something with a short story, but it vanished.
Not only could it, but it did! This bonus Horrible brought to you by the traces of snow that made it to the grassy and tree-lined areas of Seattle. Not enough to make the Snowman, but enough for a beautiful morning.
This is taken from the strangely entitled Fate/Stay Night, an interesting anime that went on a bit long with a moderately satisfying ending. We've been dabbling with the Netflix online offerings on Xbox 360 with some success. What we haven't found is any good animes. I guess we'll have to stick with 30 Rock (what a great two seasons so far).
I'm not happy with how the doodle came out. I had high hopes for this one, particularly the girl, but I was burnt out on animes. I should have delayed drawing it.
It's freezing and sunny in Seattle. It feels like NYC. Such a strange almost-start to what I'm predicting will be an even stranger winter.
It snowed. Again. I'm working from home today as I watch the plows push the snow from my window. Did you see the snowman on top of sewcrates.com? I really should draw more headers. I'm so lazy.
This was a work doodle. I was impressed by my wound-drawing skills. I don't remember the context, but I'm sure it had something to do with getting beat up and not getting support from management. Shocking!
We made it home after our NYC visit. It snowed even more in Seattle, and the roads were still terrible. Thanks to Julie's fancy (diesel!) SUV, we made it home, and even managed to climb our hill to pull into our garage. It took us around three hours from touchdown to garage. We had to pick up the dogs, grab groceries so we don't starve, and make it through the snow-infested streets. I'm exhausted.
I was brilliant when I drew this. I swear.
We're off to Kansas City to visit Julie's family in a few hours. I'm putting on my big smile for the next four days.
The snow has finally stopped falling. We had a mix of rain and snow yesterday, and the roads are better. There's still snow around our house, but by the time we return to Seattle it should be gone. The temperature is fighting its way into the forties, and will remain there hopefully for the rest of the winter. This winter wonderland has been entertaining, but I'm ready to return to the gray, misty Seattle winters I know and pretend to love.
We're back from our Kansas City and NYC travels. It's nice to be back in Seattle.
There are remnants of the snow still on some streets and in our backyard, but the roads are back to normal.
Update: Julie believes this doodle is pornographic. Not to be defensive, but I focused on the eyeballs looking at each other to come up with the title. And, besides, they're squiggles!
Plane from San Jose to Seattle | 2008.12.30 | | Julie, Love
Happy New Years! As the doodle shows, we spent ours sleeping. I'm getting old, very old.
Again I have no idea what I was thinking when I drew this. I know I stole the idea of the multiple layers of clouds from ExplodingDog. He did it much better in his drawing--it actually looked like smoke instead of colored layers (he used transparency that didn't work well with my doodle).
We've just about returned to our daily routine after all our travels. It's been a long time coming.
I have a bunch of doodles in the queue, and I may start popping them more frequently. Sunday may be the new Tuesday (or something like that). We'll see how the rest of the my week goes.
I love these D&D tagged doodles. Little did I know that this doodle was the precursor to our Warhammer Online addiction. We are finally over that game, as it grew a bit repetitive at the end. Julie still wants to play, but after trying out all the character classes, I'm satiated. The only thing left to do is choose our favorite characters and doodle them. I'll try to resist playing when we log in for the group photograph.
The cold weather has left Seattle, and we're now in the midst of warm, wet rainstorms. While the snow was nice for the first day, thanks to the terrible plowing and lack of salted streets (!), it grew tiresome quickly.
Work is busy after the holidays. It's a pleasant busy, kind of how you feel after a good meal, full but not overly so. I've been doodling a bunch but haven't seriously put pen to paper since the Marathon. I had high hopes. Now I barely have hopes in that direction. At least my Kindle is seeing lots of use.
This is my first Sunday posting in a long time. We just returned from a work holiday party in January. They voted last year and decided to have the party in January to avoid the December rush. It was a nice party and I'm a bit tipsy. Thankfully, designated driver Doolies drove home.
Update: At Chuck's request, I created an alternative version of this doodle where there is no light from the front of the tunnel.
It's the return of Super Little Guy and his wife. And before you ask: I have no idea what I planned to show her. I just wanted to go for a little flight.
Yesterday was a rather blah day. There was a get together of graduate school alums in downtown Seattle, and when I returned home, I was in a dark mood. I'm not sure if it was lack of food or too much socialization, but it continued throughout the night. Julie convinced me to play Warhammer again a few days ago, and even Warhammer's nestled embrace wasn't enough to shake the mood. It made it worse.
Today dawned better. Hopefully it'll last the day. I have a pile of work waiting for me, and I'm looking forward to starting.
This is the start of my pain doodles. When I drew this, I didn't know the next two doodles would be about pain. Or maybe I did know, deep down at places I don't talk about at cocktail parties (thanks Jack!).
Work is getting busier and busier. I'm forgetting if this is good or not.
There's sun out there. Cold, frosty sun, but sun! Enjoy the second in my line of Sunday Horribles. If this keeps up, I might have to change the About Page that nobody reads.
The doodle is about some disappointing news I received back in August. It wasn't terrible but it destroyed me emotionally. I don't know why I allow others to have such a huge effect on me. It's one of those character flaws I'm working on through NEQID (the Never Ending Quest to Improve David).
I decided to break up my two negative Horribles. Here's an optimistic one--unless you see through my fake happiness (known via Ally McBeal as smile therapy).
I came down with a cold a few days ago. I'm mighty congested and sneezing, but otherwise fine. It's a strange cold, one that I hope passes soon.
This has nothing to do with today's news (I'm fine for now). I was angry over something much smaller and more petty when I drew it. That's me: Mr. Petty Angry Guy.
As always, this is a timely drawing. I tell you when I go out of order, and this was the next doodle in my queue. I'm beginning to believe in the incredible psychic powers of my doodles.
Update: It occurred to me after I posted this that I did push a doodle earlier in the week to break up my negative doodles. Some may argue I had insider information about today's news. This may raise serious questions about my claims of psychic powers. I guess it all depends on what the word "argue" really means.
It's a good thing I cut my hair on Friday. My hair was looking suspiciously like this doodle before that.
It's an early Sunday morning. The sun is trying to come out. I wish it the best of luck. Today's plans are to perfect laziness. I'll start it off by not writing many words.
We had a dusting of snow this morning. My Prius drove through it like a champ. I think a dusting is about all she can handle.
Big red telephones rule. When I have nothing good to say, I'm trying to say nothing.
Another work doodle. I drew many of these while I contemplated changing positions at work. This one was after I accepted the offer. It's amazing how irreplaceable I thought I was and how quickly I was replaced. I think that's true for most people.
It's an early Sunday morning and I'm planted in the bucks of stars. I finished up some lingering work and I wanted to write. Wanting and doing have no correlation for me these days. It’s been like that since the Marathon. In previous years I would blame it on the Marathon sucking all creative juices from me. This year, however, I realized I didn’t write before or after the Marathon. It seems the Marathon did its job to at least get me to write for a month.
This is an ode to the dark and hairy pit of depression. I took a dip in it last week. Luckily it passed and except for a small headache, today is a good day.
I've been on a tear lately with new Horribles. The size of my queue has become almost unbearable. I need to share my fruit with the peeps.
And the trend continues: doodling during my dark, hairy pits of dooooom (5 o's should do it).
The sun continues to shine in Seattle. I have no idea what's happening, but since the huge snow dumps there has been little in the way of rain. Now even clouds seem to be a thing of past winters.
And, yes, this is a Wednesday posting. I did the math yesterday, and if I continue on my three-post per week schedule, it'll take 31 weeks to empty my queue. That is unacceptable as I have some gems I want to share. Enjoy!
We didn't sleep well last night. I'm not sure if it was the Satay dinner or the strangely warm weather, but Julie and I spent many hours staring at the ceiling. At sometime around 4am, I was convinced that a natural disaster had occurred. My clock was still working, so I figured the electricity somehow survived. It was earily quiet and I could hear the distance roar of I-90. I resisted getting up to check the news. Thankfully there was no disaster. Just an annoying night of tossing.
This horrible went through a few iterations before finding its final form. It started as a religious thought and devolved into a Dune-esque tribute.
It's another Sunday and another later morning in the bucks of stars. I'm waiting for the sun to beat through the clouds. The dogs will be visiting the park again--I'm just waiting for the perfect moment.
We saw Push yesterday. If you go into it with a MST3k attitude, it can be great fun. There are tremendous problems with the story and direction. You have to leave your rational sense at the door and enjoy the ride. If you think about it too hard your brain will hurt from repeated injury. Our first choice was Coraline but the tickets were sold out. We'll try again today.
My first robot horrible! There are a bunch more waiting in the queue.
I thought I'd break up my parade of robots.
I'm not sure what happened with my writing. It's not happening any more. I have many Sundays worth of Bucks of Stars writing that I haven't bothered to post. Don't worry, you're not missing much: I write a few paragraphs before falling into a deep consternated funk.
"And then something happened" is exceedingly hard for me. I can't do plot. I can't make things happen. My characters sit around and think without acting. I've tried writing exercises and stealing other people's stories, and I always hit a snag where I can't pull free. That's enough. I considered deleting this, but I'll leave it to prove that I do think about writing. I just don't do much of it.
Here's a bonus Horrible for the Pagan holiday of the Valentines.
We saw Coraline today in 3D (the glasses transported me back to the 80's). It was a beautiful movie--although I was less impressed by the story than what seems like the rest of the world. I'm not sure if it's a dark fairy tale so much as a repetitive one. That doesn't take away from its beauty, however. Hence the Horrible.
Julie has been complaining about my backlog. She wants me to post every day and only use the backlog when I have nothing timely to share. It does sound like a good plan. Here's day one of the new plan.
Some may claim I stole robots from Exploding Dog (only one of many robot drawings), or more recently discovered We the Robots (they're all robots!). I won't say that they're wrong.
I've always had a fascination with robots. I wanted to build one as a child. The closest I got was realizing that microchips are made from silicon which is made from sand. Turning the sand into silicon and then microchips was a bit beyond my capabilities. I did take apart a Speak 'n Spell, thinking I could use it as the heart and voice of my robot. I instead ended up with a broken Speak 'n Spell.
It took me this long to realize how easy it was to create a robot with an overpriced pen.
Dogs playing D&D! I know I'm using too many exclamation marks these days. It's part of my new optimistic outlook. Okay that even made me laugh.
I miss playing D&D. The last time I played was in college. Yes, I was and continue to be a geek. I like to think of myself as the king of geeks. Not in the sense of being the best geek, just in the sense of moving seamlessly between the world of geeks and the world or normal peeps. As I said, I like to think of it that way. In reality, I'm not that good at geekdom, and rather terrible at normal livinghood.
Did you notice Button (that's the dog on the left) staring at the Cheetos? She loves food. And Ziggy with the cigar? It's like that dogs playing poker painting, only not as good, and with D&D.
And thus ends the first collection of Robots. Was it as good for you as me?
Yesterday was a humdinger. While I have no idea what that world really means, I was thinking of terribly gray and awfully burdensome. Come to think on it, humdinger sounds too happy to be that depressed. Yep, the dictionary confirmed my suspicions.
As usual, the smallest things set me off. I should make that into a doodle! Oh, too late.
Today feels a bit better. We'll see if it lasts.
This doodle is in league with my doodling philosophy: all good art requires is creating lots of art over a long enough period of time. This philosophy has been going around the internet recently through excerpts from Art and Fear (most recently via Kottke).
The book presents a study where pottery students are divided into two groups. The first group is graded on how much pottery they produce. The second group is instructed to create only one piece of pottery, and is graded on the perfection of that piece. The quantity group churned out plenty of pieces and learned from their mistake. The quality group, which sat around theorizing and thinking how best to create the pottery, ended up with lumps of clay.
While the experiment isn't exactly scientific (at least from the exerpts--as soon as the book's on Kindle, it'll go in my queue): We're not told the skill of the students. For beginners, this would be the obvious outcome. But for advanced students, perhaps with more time and thought, the results would be better. Thinking and planning doesn't always hurt.
For me, I realized that doodling as much as possible, and forgetting about quality or the perfect Horrible has made the creation process much more rewarding. This is a long way of excusing the current Horrible. It was another quickly drawn and titled doodle that sat in my queue for a while before I posted it.
I always hoped to apply my creation philosophy to my writing. I still haven't figured out how to turn off the filter and be happy with the words I scratch while I'm scratching.
Thanks to the magic of computer art, even my crappy doodles can be tolerable. I hope you've realized that the secret to my doodles is in the pen stroke. Take a closer look: the pen is splotty, with variable thickness and uneven lines. It makes even poorly drawn lines seem slightly artistic. And as long as I draw many poorly drawn lines, I can one day point to one or two Horribles to claim they're artistic.
I'm glad this Kindle Horrible made it to the top of my queue. I recently pre-ordered my Kindle 2. Julie will be receiving the hand-me-down device so she can finish the Twilight series. So lucky!
I purchased the Kindle about six months ago, and I'm halfway through my eighth book. I'm still not fully digital as I intermix a small pile of dead-tree books between Kindle books.
Overall the Kindle experience has been pleasurable. The screen is crisp and easy to read. The feeling of the ePaper (or is it eInk?) is more similar to reading paper than computer or cellphone screens. The screen reads great even in direct sunlight. A warning to bedtime book readers: you still need a light to read the screen. The battery lasts about a week, even with heavy reading (supposedly the Kindle 2 lasts two weeks). You can also browse and purchase new books and magazines wirelessly. The wireless is free; the purchases are usually not free--although you can find most out-of-copyright classics for free.
Reading a short Jonathan Lethem novel is as easy as an oversized history book. I usually have two to three books going at a time: an evening non-fiction book, a "literature" novel, and a trashy novel. Travelling with the Kindle is incredible. I no longer have to lug three books and magazines in my backpack. The Kindle packs light and gives me choices on what to read. There are two drawbacks. Technically you can't read it during takeoff and landing because it's an electronic device. Don't tell anyone. And the Kindle 1's buttons are oversized making it too easy to unintentionally flip pages. It looks like they fixed this problem in the Kindle 2.
I try not to evangelize Kindle too much. It is still too expensive for non-early adopters. With that said, I'm not going back.
Keeping with timely posts, we watched My Neighbor Totoro, a cute anime by Hayao Miyazaki. We watched Howl's Moving Castle last weekend, and Julie is netflixing all of his films.
The anime is about a father and his two daughters moving into a new house in the country. Their mother is sick in the hospital. Near the house is a large tree where Totoro, an oversized wood sprite lives. We watch as the girls discover the fantasical Totoro and go on an adventures.
The weather is beautiful again today with highs in the fifties. Dog park, here we come!
The threatened rain finished last night, and today was mostly sunny and somewhat warm.
I doodled this gem when I switched jobs at work. The first few weeks of the new job was quite stressful as everything was new and scary. I've since found my groove and while at times stressful, it's no longer the one ton weight depicted in the Horrible.
I was a cute kid. I have no idea what happened between then and now. Life, I guess.
And the parade of robots continues. I didn't shave this morning. I usually don't shave every day, but it's been three days and today should have been a shaving day. That's me in the Horrible. Over the past few days my alarm clock has been chirping birds. It still wakes me up and I'm hoping it annoys Julie less (she sleeps in most mornings). What does this have to do with robots? I have no idea. I really don't.
The sun left us and the rain returned. There's a wind warning, and they warned us bicyclists to be careful out there. Luckily I don't bicycle in the winter. With any luck, I'll start again in a few months, once daylight continues through seven at night. Until then, I'm a driver, polluting the environment and creating stress for others on the road. I also listen to podcasts. This week has not been a good podcast week as my dog Button ate my Zune wire. Poor wire.
Many nights start like this: I sit in front of the computer and stare at a blank canvas and wonder what I'll draw. Sometimes I store an idea during the day on a scrap of paper--more regularly I have an idea but forget to write it down, which is the same as having no ideas. Most days I start drawing the Little Guy and hope for inspiration.
Once I have an idea, I either draw from memory if it's simple, or check sewcrates's photo page, or search various image searches for a model. I then start doodling away.
On the good days, I'll end up with something I'm proud of. On the normal days, I'll have something passable. And on the terrible days I'll question why I bother. As I was telling Jennifer yesterday, in my view, art is all about repetition until your fingers bleed in the hopes of creating something worthwhile.
I drew this in homage to the hipster I keep seeing in the cafeteria. I appreciate strange fashion statements, whether they’re hipsters or goth or just plain artsy. I’m too much of a wimp to make a statement with my fashion. I go for he-knows-how-to-tie-his-shoes style.
We had snow today. My little Prius managed the two or so inches well. The cars spun out on the sides of the highways weren’t so lucky. Hopefully it’ll clear up. It does mean you’re in for a snowy Horrible tomorrow. So lucky!
As promised, here's the snow Horrible. The sun is shining outside, and it's expected to get into the 50s today. Such strange weather Seattle has. It's lucky for me or I would have nothing to write about.
I'm exhausted from our Naginata practice yesterday. It went late and I didn't realize how tired I was until I woke up at 4am with a painful Charlie horse in my right calf muscle. I need to drink more water after practice. We received our uniforms yesterday before practice, making us quite the fancy duo. Now if only we had some skills.
I woke up a bit later than usual. Yesterday was busy, and the hammer banging on my brains didn't help things. The headache passed in the evening to be replaced by queasiness from a questionable Tapas place. I decided not to cook last night because of the headache and the late night at work. Wow, that's too many complaints for a beautiful Saturday morning. I'll stop now.
Julie insisted that I post this today. We started Naginata practice a couple of months ago. We're now professionals--in that we finally bought our uniforms. We've upped our attendance to practicing twice a week.
It's enjoyable in the same way as indoor rock climbing: you spend so much energy concentrating on what you're doing that you don't realize when two and a half hours passes and you're exhausted. It's exercising without the boredom. And you get to hit people. With a long stick. What's better than that?
The sun left us today and it's drizzling. We at least had one day of sunshine. We're considering going to watch Chun Li for its comedic value.
I do, I really do! We're almost out of video games. We're scraping the bottom of the console. There's not much we want to play. We've played through Horde mode on Gears of War II too many times, hitting the ceiling at level 40. It looks unlikely we'll make it to 50 unless we find a fourth person. We gave up on Warhammer Online a couple of months ago. We talked about going through Halo 3 again--although that seems tiring. We need a good sword and sorcery game, something that lets us level up and keel the bad guys with large lightning bolts; preferably one with nice outfits for the Julies.
After a bad start yesterday morning, I evened out after a dose of Advil and a small cup of coffee along with our delicious Crepes. I even managed to make a new chicken recipe for dinner. It turns out not all beer is the same in chicken stews.
This is certainly not timely. We played and beat Castle Crashers back in September 2008. It's a fun 2.5D romp with four square-masked and armored heroes through a cartoony world filled with damsels in distress and oversized ogres. It was a good three or four night game with a very shallow learning curve. We even had a fourth player, which is rare for us. My fingers were a bit tired at the end, and it reminded me how challenging the old-school games were in finding the proper horizontal plane to attack the enemies.
This happens too often. Luckily I was able to remember when it happened and jot it down in colorful black and white.
My mother is visiting on Thursday. We have a busy weekend planned. I can't believe it's Wednesday already. Such a fast week.
That is a meta-title. It's meant for you, the audience. I was being clever, artsy, a bit out there. And then I drew lots of circles.
It's raining again. I fell asleep to rain, woke up to rain, and drove to work through the rain. It's difficult to wake up when the rain is pounding the roof. I did manage today.
Today is a busy day. I have a full day of work, followed by Naginata practice tonight, and a long drive to the airport to pick up my mother at midnight. I haven't stayed up that late in quite a while. I'm old now, very old.
It ended a long time ago. And it's just around the corner again! I love that seasons do that.
This'll be a short note. I have a busy day and I want to finish early to head home and spend time with my mother.
The sun is shining on a cold Friday morning. Yesterday went as planned: work, dinner (left over chicken beer stew: egg-cellent; the third time was better than the first), Naginata, animes, and then picking my mother up at the airport after she arrive early. Now I just need to survive the day on much less sleep. I stayed up way too late for a school night.
Battlestar Galactica, oh how you started out so incredible and became such crap by the second season. Julie and I stopped watching it then. We loved the first season, somewhat enjoyed parts of the second season, and hated the rest. It murdered innocent old ladies. It did unspeakable things to polite society. It had such promise and squandered it by writers who forgot to plan ahead. The same thing happens to most animes: they start incredibly strong, but because they weren't well planned, they peter out and head in ridiculous directions. But at least BSG left us this Horrible.
It's snow-raining right now. This is by far the strangest winter. I had hopes that it would end well, with Spring sticking its colorful mug from the ground early. Hopes spring eternal, or something. For now I'll accept the snow-rain and get on with my day.
We finished Utawarerumono (we never learned to pronounce the name) last night. It was an engaging anime that managed to tell a single story with few deviations. Most amazingly, the end almost made sense and was enjoyable.
My mother leaves for NYC tonight. She brought the cold and snow to Seattle. I'll forgive her as long as she takes the weather with her. The sun did manage to break through the weekend's rain-snow. Now if only the temperature rose above forty.
Julie's choir performed this afternoon. My mother seems to arrange her trips around Julie's performances. This is the second time she's catching one. It's nice to hear traditional choir music. I thought I would like her Jazz choir better. I was wrong.
My mother visited this weekend. Besides our fun-filled activities, my mother volunteered to clean our oven.
When we use our oven, it fills the kitchen with smoke. We've tried the self-cleaning function a few times, and it filled the house with poisonous smoke. Julie hates poisonous smoke. I thought there was something wrong with the oven. I imagined that the chimney that sucks the smoke out of the kitchen was broken. I was surprised to learn that ovens are not designed like that.
My mother identified the problem: too much grease at the bottom of the oven. The self-cleaning function clearly does not work well anymore. She took it upon herself to clean it because she's the bestest. This is better than the alternative: call the oven repairman, and have him laugh at me when he identifies the problem: too much grease.
Zoom in on the drawing (click the picture!). I spent way too much time detailing the oven's dials and gauges. Man, I spend hours on these silly details that nobody ever sees. I guess it really is just for me.
Dipping into my well of old Horribles. After a brief stint of snow yesterday--which sent most of the office scurrying home, leaving evening traffic non-existent--today is blue skies and cold. It's expected to be this way for a few more days until warming up for the weekend. Maybe Spring will arrive.
I never liked stripes. I particularly don't like the horizontal background stripes. But as the title says, it is all there. And while I have no idea what that means, I agree wholeheartedly with the sentiment. And who can dislike the striped glove?
The caffeine is starting to kick in and my juices are flowing. The sun is shining and while not warm yet, there is the taste of warmth in the air. That's good enough for me.
My alarm keeps going off a half hour before I set it. I can't figure it out. Julie had a good idea: set the alarm 30 minutes later. I haven't tried it yet but it sounds like a good idea. I would get rid of it except it has a very soothing nature sound alarm. It beats the jarring ringing.
As I've mentioned before, coffee is great at faking intelligence and passion. It's Friday! The sun is out and the weekend promises to be sunny and filled with Watchman goodness.
This was taken from my niece Sarah's original drawing. Her sister's Horrible is tomorrow.
A late morning rain is hopefully clearing to a sunny day. We're off to watch the Watchman. I'm trying to keep my hopes low. It's the pessimist in me.
The Watchmen did not suck. We were very happy to see that. The movie could have lost thirty minutes and been a bit better (for the mainstream), but we don't understand the negative reviews. It was both faithful to the comic book, and enjoyable as a standalone movie. I think the end threw people off. The characters in the movie are not good and evil. There's a healthy spectrum that violates most moviegoers expectations.
And here is Rachel's original drawing. Hi Sarah and Rachel! They contacted me through my website yesterday. Nobody ever contacts me through my website. I feel so special!
Another cold and rainy morning. I thought we were over that.
Julie should write more of my Horrible titles. I'm posting this to remind myself to go get a haircut. My hair is becoming unbearable. And yet here I sit, typing away and not calling the haircut place. I'm unbearable.
They're trying to force me to bet money on a March Madness bracket. I'm trying to resist. I know nothing about college basketball (except go 'cuse! Okay, I can't even pretend enthusiasm), and I hate betting when the odds are against me. I like a strong 50.1% or greater. It's the peer pressure. It's too strong. It's like grade school again: they dangle friendship in exchange for filling out a form and paying $10. Wait, that never happened in grade school. The friendship thing, that is.
Enough babbling. Enjoy today's doodle. It's one in a long line of bloody doodles.
My queue is shrinking. I haven't doodled in a few days.
This is the opposite of timely. It's been so long, I almost forgot the name of this game. We stopped playing a few months ago. It was fun while it lasted--lots of keeling other players and buying new weapons and armor. We settled into familiar roles: Julie, the brawny fighter rushing to the front. David, the lightly armored healer/mage hiding in the back and trying to keep Julie from keeling herself too quickly. The memories.
Last year, we bought prints from a small Seattle art gallery. They were good, much better than I will ever produce. It was a style I yearn for: blended coloring.
Also, notice the bottom of Julie's head. It's concave insead of convex (go, go third grade math!). I'm trying a new style for her Horrible.
It's cloudy outside, as thick as pea soup (I've never found the soup that thick). I'm hoping behind all this fog is a dog-park-worthy day.
Skipping around a bit for the Gears of War 2 Horrible. Steven, Julie, and I finally beat the Horde mode on level 50 last night. We had to lower the difficulty to Casual to do so, but we've now completed the game and received the Achievement. It was quite an achievement. It took strong strategy and lots of patience. Not to mention some chainsawing.
I checked, and I don't feel much more violent this morning. I think it takes a while for violent video games to reorganize the brains.
There's a 5k/10k/half marathon going on outside my window this morning. I caught the tail end of the walkers when I woke up. There's now just orange cones to prove it happened. Those will be gone in a few hours as well. So much for healthy Seattle.
This is based on Justin Hillgrove's The Dreaming Tree, which resulted in much jealousy when I saw it in a gallery. So we bought it and a few other prints, and I created a Horrible as a tribute to unattainable artistic skill.
The weekend ground to a halt yesterday. Not sure what was on the road, but my wheels are gone.
...or a (poorly drawn) flaming pile of poo. Either way works.
Our guest arrived yesterday. She'll be here for the next week and a half. I'm scared, very scared.
We're approaching last year's Marathon. I didn't manage many doodles during that time, but there are a handful. Here's the first.
The sun in shining this morning. Luckily, I don't have a repeat of yesterday's headache. Good times are planned. Good times.
Super Little Guy returns! And he's here to save the day or something. We could use him at home as things are running amok. Our nice quiet organized life is at risk.
It's an early rainy morning without coffee. (Okay, it's not that early.) I'm not sure I'm going to survive.
These Horribles may continue for some time. Assuming I'm not sleeping when I should be doodling.
Another long night and early morning. The great ideas have dried up as summer rapidly approaches. I wish I had more to report.
Taking care of a 3-month old isn't too hard. When they cry, there's a limited number of reasons:
- Crying because her diaper is wet (commence changing)
- Crying because she's hungry (commence feeding)
- Crying because she's tired and she doesn't know how to put herself to sleep (commence rocking)
- Crying because she wants stimulation (commence carrying baby until arms fall off)
- Crying just because it's 3am (commence hiding under covers and hoping it stops)
Julie reminded me of the one I missed: Crying because she needs to burp (commence burping)
Julie pointed out that baby's usually don't tear when they cry. I never realized it but it's true at 3-months old. She went on (in her doctorly tone) to explain: After one month, the baby's tear glands are mature enough to have tears. Tears are usually a sign that they are very frustrated. If they are crying to communicate, then they won't have tears every time. Not tearing may also be the result of dehydration (not a problem with Angelina because she's a very good bottle drinker).
Update: This is my most edited entry. I posted three versions of the Horrible before I was satisfied, and edited the text four times. No more edits (I'm looking at you, the Julies!).
The new glasses Little Guy! Okay, not so new. It's a late start after a busy morning. Who knew there were so many things I had to do before I even took a shower? Luckily I'm done now and I can get to it.
I'm too tired to say anything this morning. This is not because of our visitor, who slept through the night. This tiredness was caused by too much sleep. I hate having to find the perfect amount of sleep every night. It's exhausting.
The sun is supposedly arriving soon. It's been a long time since I've seen her. The iggies don't event remember what she looks like anymore.
A sunny day and a simple Horrible. What more can I ask for? The weather threatens to go into the seventies tomorrow. That's like twenty degrees higher than normal. I think we're turning a corner. It's the same corner I've been predicting for the past few weekends, only this time, we may not turn back.
I know, it's just weather filler. What else do you expect from me? Life happenings?
I remember this. I had such high hopes for this year's Marathon. I always have high hopes until the end of the first day.
It's a wonderful Sunday morning. I'm sitting in the bucks of stars, enjoying my Kindle and my computer and the sun shining, visible only in my peripheral. I feel like a new person. I need more days like this pre-Spring day where the possibilities seem endless and the pains distant. I know it's the caffeine talking but I do feel wonderful.
It's two days of happiness. Beautiful weather is so much more beautiful after months of miserable weather. I can't wait until this is common and I'm looking forward to the rain. Oh, wait. I never do that.
This was drawn during our addiction to Warhammer Online. It has long since passed, but ran through the last Marathon with unsurprising results.
We leave tomorrow morning for NYC. I'm not sure if I'll be posting over the weekend. I haven't drawn much this week, and I might take the four-day weekend off from posting. My queue is still hefty, but it won't take long for it to dwindle away if I post every day without doodling.
The beautiful weather has past. We're back to overcast and cool. Hopefully NYC will be better.
I'm back from NYC! Did you miss me? Here's another in a line of Marathon doodles. We had a whirlwind weekend in NY. Lots of visiting and talking to family and friends. My sleep patterns are messed up, but I'm hoping coffee and a busy work at week will quickly bring me back to normalcy.
The Robot returns! Sort of. This weekend promises to be sunny and beautiful. I can't wait. (Yes, I realize I'm talking about the weekend on a Wednesday.)
Here's another photograph doodle from here.
Two nights ago, we tried to move to the second bedroom. Julie had a hypothesis that it would be quieter and we would sleep better. At midnight we decided to call off the experiment and return blurry eyed to our normal bedroom.
I had a terrible headache yesterday. Today is a bit better but the pain is still lingering.
The weekend has finally arrived after a very late Friday night. The sun in shining and the temperature promises to climb into the sixties and many seventies today. I can't wait.
I have a few more current Horribles I wanted to post, but I don't yet have the energy to write up a proper description. So back to the deep wells of the queue.
Get this: yesterday, I spent four hours editing an old Nano. I actually edited words, outlined plot, and wrote. Yes, you heard me correctly, I wrote words (after deleting about 58k of the original words). I met up with a couple of people from my Naginata class that also wrote for the Marathon in the bucks of stars, and through peer-pressure, I was able to write. We'll see if I can keep this up.
Maybe I'll even share some of these words with my audience of two. Maybe.
This Horrible is brought to you by this photograph. Too tired to even type words.
I wish the sleep monsters would take me away. I've not slept well the last few nights. I wake up more tired than when I went to sleep. This has to end. Hopefully soon.
We really need to get out of our house and see it.
I'm back! Did you miss me? I'm still missing some sleep. Let me know if you find it.
This is old. Snowy old. It's going to be in the sixties today and sunny. Too bad I won't have time to enjoy it.
Another beautiful but exhausting day in Seattle.
It's warm outside. There is talk of rain. I don't believe it.
Just got back from watching Wolverine. We thought it was enjoyable. I'm not sure what people were expecting. It's not going to win Academy Awards, but it's certainly a good way to spend a couple of hours.
The doodle is referring to this photograph, which was my wallpaper for some time before I doodled it.
I tried to write yesterday. I finished about a paragraph before calling it a day. Yes, I'm pathetic. But it's the effort that counts, right?
This one is pretty. It's based on this beautiful photograph.
The rain has returned. I guess it's good for the plants or something.
Today's Horrible epitomizes my creed this week. I feel like writing words today but I don't have any words in my pockets. They're pointy, the words are. And before I left this morning I took out a particularly painful capital A. The rest of the letters followed suit in protest. Or is that filed suit? Who knows anymore.
Here's a Horrible that uses the art styling of "Grin and Bear It" from 1954. I found it on a great Animation Backgrounds blog. I'm hoping to take more ideas from these old inked cartoons.
It's Friday. I need say no more.
This Horrible is part of a series documenting the transformation of Jennifer. In other news, the weekend is here and I feel better already. By tomorrow I should be amazing.
Thanks to VG Cats for inspiring me to try a new snow technique. There's a space before the shadow under the hat. It's driving me mad, but I'm resisting touching it up. I just need to keep breathing and hope nobody notices.
It's a beautiful Sunday morning and I expect to get wonderful and/or brilliant things done today. I'll let you know how that goes.
It's the world! And its squishing me!
Another beautiful Monday morning. The sun is taking a bit of a vacation this week to prepare for next weekend. I don't mind its strategy.
Another wallpaper doodle based on this Puerto Vallerta photograph of the Julies.
I keep meaning to get my bicycle ready for the riding season. The first ride will be painful. I just need to do it.
As always, the smallest things set me off. I don't remember what it was back when I drew this, but I'm sure it was small.
I've been busy with work and my reignited passion. I found this Horrible deep in my pile to show off my new hobby. Now, if only I had time to work on it.
My queue is beginning to shrink. I have to get adoodling this weekend.
It's a beautiful Seattle morning, the beginning for a beautiful Seattle weekend. Here's to not wasting good weather with bad headaches.
I've got nothing but scribbles for you these days.
So I make quick judgments about people that don't always turn out to be true. Sue me!
Julie thinks this is a homicidal doodle. I was thinking more of clothing when I drew it. To each their own.
It's almost over. While I don't think it's the swine, it has been annoying over the last few days. Hopefully by the start of the holiday weekend, I'll be right as rain.
Another beautiful day in Seattle going toward a beautiful weekend. Here's something to set the mood based on my rotating desktop wallpaper.
My sickness, it keeps dragging me back. I thought a restful three day weekend working on my secret project would make me well. I was almost there (the wellness) on Sunday, but by Monday it was back. It's just the edges of sick, but even the edges make me uncomfortable. I didn't sleep last night because I couldn't figure out if I was cold or hot. And then all these ideas started bubbling over in my brain and I had to jot them down before they would let me sleep.
And it involves drawing better Horribles. I'm feeling better today (stop worrying, Mom--I don't have the swine). Still not 100% but heading in that direction.
I'm finishing up Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions. I can't believe it's taken me this long to find this little gem. It helps that it's $0.80 on the Kindle. Excuse me while I try to ascend to the fourth dimension, yet again.
That's the material side. Get your minds out of the toilet. (I've been waiting to write that for a while.)
Another beautiful day in Seattle. I woke up late from a wonderfully weird sci-fi dream. If only I remembered it.
Another beautiful day in Seattle. Here on out, I'll only report on the bad days. Less words that way.
This is the start of what was supposed to be a multi-panel Horrible. I made it to two doodles. I'm terrible that way.
The week has started. Again. I can't figure out how to stop it. I woke up with no phlegm this morning. It is a glorious day.
Part 2 of the aborted adventure. Okay, so I can't tell stories. We've known this for some time. In this feeble attempt, the art got away from me. I'll try again one of these days once I finish my new Secret Project.
I doodled this after watching the incredible movie Across the Universe. If I have to explain the doodle, then you didn't understand the movie. Come to think on it, I don't think I understood the movie either. Strawberries? Thrown at the computer screen? I don't get it. There's modern art for you.
It's been a while since I was stuck in the muck of depression. In these sunny times, I forget what it feels like. That's a good thing.
We're off to Victoria, B.C. this weekend to celebrate the Julies birthday. We're even taking a boat.
It's not a cruise (thankfully) but a boat to get us from point A to point B. Cruises scare me. Too many people in too small of a space with too much fake happiness. It's the introvert in me: cruises are designed for happy-go-lucky extroverts--people who consider meeting new people in strange environments an enjoyable and energy-providing experience. I hate those people.
A fish doodle with not a Horrible in sight. I based it on this Kauai photo. We leave tomorrow for Victoria, which means more photos, and more models for my Horribles.
The introduction of my conspiracy guy. Sometimes reading the internets gets me angry. He's usually the cause of my anger. He's made a few more appearences in my queue. Here's his first.
We're back from our trip to Victoria, B.C. Photos below. It was a fun birthday weekend.
He's figured me out. I don't doodle anymore. It's been a few days since I sat down with my pen. I have a few ideas, but certain secret projects and birthdays of the Julies have been keeping me busy lately. I'll get back into it so my queue doesn't get too tiny that I give up my life of doodling and return to the more sedate life of doing nothing.
I doodled this after we watched 30 Days of Night, a movie about vampires descending on an Alaskan town that has one month of darkness (which is obviously the perfect vacation place for vampires).
Another beautiful day in Seattle. Not sure what's causing it, but my headaches have returned with a vengence. I miss the cold and rain and headache-free days.
Julie is sick. What happens when the doctor gets sick? . . . She takes Dayquil after coughing and fevering all night. Poor the Julies.
It's Friday again. This seems to be a weekly ritual.
I miss Hawaii. It's almost time to go back. Here's another photo Doodle.
The Castle is supposed to close today. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that everything goes according to plan.
Okay, so the closing is today, not yesterday. I was never very good at dates. I doodled new Horribles the last two nights. I might finally be getting back into the swing of things when it comes to Horribles. Other projects, however, may fall by the wayside (as usual).
After too much caffeine yesterday and waking up at 2am, it's been a strange and stretched morning. It might rain here. That would be nice.
. . . nothing at all. We went to a soccer game last night: the Seattle Sounders verse DC United (which is a different team from Manchester United, very different). We arrived a little before half time, and watched as the Sounders blew a 2-1 lead to tie at 3 (or something like that).
Tomorrow my internets get an upgrade. I also have big plans to drop ethernet wires in more rooms as I'm sick of fighting the losing wifi battles (draft-N my left foot!). This involves crawling up into the attic, fighting large spiders and insulation monsters, and trying to avoid cutting unseemly holes in the walls--at least avoiding it when Julie is watching.
Soon I'll be flying through the internets. Flying! This should improve the Horribles quality tenfold. Imagine, more bits on your screen, faster. I haven't exactly figured out how this benefits my overly large and thoroughly engaged internets audience. But somehow improving my video game playing and movie watching will indirectly benefit you, my dear readers.
Short post after a headachy morning. We finally had rain last night. Not sure if it triggered the headache, or last night's Naginata workout.
Over the past two weeks, I attempted to install ethernet cables from the router (middle of the second floor) to (1) the computer room (far end of second floor), and (2) the TV room (opposite side from computer room on first floor). This involved climbing up into the monster-infested attic, and crawling around while trying to avoid falling through the ceiling.
Sunday was the penultimate day. I had already given up on wiring the computer room, and settled on just wiring the router through the attic to the downstairs xbox. You know, for the kids.
I had cut a hole in the wall in the TV room to receive the wire, and a smaller hole in the attic to send the wire downstairs. Not surprisingly, the wire did not get past the second floor. I made another hole in the second-floor bedroom (which is above the TV room) and after much trial and error, snaked a trial rope from the attic to that hole.
All that was left was to drill a hole from the second floor to the first floor and send the rope down to the first floor. What I failed to realize (until the bitter end) was that the wood under the second floor is six inches thick. After two runs to the hardware store, and getting the drill bit stuck twice (you think I'd learn after the first time), I decided to give in. I was so close yet so far.
I spent the rest of the day attempting to patch up holes: in the bedroom I made a nice 6"x6" hole in my attempts to drill and my more diligent attempts to get the drill bit out of the floor holes. I also managed to put a smaller hole through the wall on the stairs (other side of the bedroom wall when drilling diagonally down--I knew there was trouble when I saw the light).
I ran out of drywall patches, and I decided to cover up the TV room hole with an ethernet plate to make it look like I succeeded. I just have to remember not to plug anything into it.
Final Score
Villa: 4 (holes)
David: 0 (ethernet cables)
Lots of new doodles these past few days. Too many pancakes this morning. Hard to form words.
Busy day ahead. I enjoyed creating this doodle. I like all my meta-doodle doodles.
Ah, the philosophy of a know-it-all. I know him only too well. It's another beautiful day in Metropolis.
This one has been a long time coming. We celebrate our anniversary this week. We settled on the NY date this year. We plan to alternate every year, giving me two chances to forget.
This was drawn awhile ago during the Borg's dreaded announcements. It was too soon to post back then. Luckily I have a long queue to protect me from the currentness of events.
Half my weekend was stolen by a late-afternoon Saturday headache caused by a trifecta: rapid change in temperature, no caffeine, and too much Naginata after too little exercise. I rebounded Sunday, thankfully. Between my headaches and our other activities, we managed to clean the dogroom floor. Now, if only we could convince the iggies not to mess it up again.
This was drawn at 3:30am on a sleepless night back in February. Luckily, that's a rare occurrence.
It's our anniversary day (part deux)! The doodle came from this Taiwan wedding studio photograph (you do remember our wedding shoot, right?). This was the next doodle in my queue, honest. Last week Julie did the math on my queue and realized what I was going to post. She's a smart cookie.
It's a beautiful day outside--after a brutally hot start to Spring, Seattle has had beautiful and 70s weather almost every day. We have reservations for dinner tonight. Before you set this date in your calendar, we'll be celebrating the Taiwan wedding date next year. Not only do I have to remember the anniversary, but I also have to keep in mind which day it falls out. That's a lot of math. Luckily I have internets and I can check back on my last Anniversary Horrible.
It's Thursday, which is like Friday on a non-Fourth of July week. Another beautiful day. Another pile of work to complete before the three-day weekend. I should get to it.
Particularly on the day after a long weekend.
My first repeated title. Except for the strange leaning, I like this one better.
Don't you hate it when you rush to work for an early morning meeting, arriving just in the nick of time, only to realize that the meeting is tomorrow morning? Yeah, me too. Me too.
I'm blue again. I think it's the weather. Cool clouds rolled in a few days ago and haven't left. They should clear up by the end of the week. Then I'll hopefully be pink again.
Yes, yes I am. I really have to stop answering my own doodles. People will start thinking I'm the crazy.
The sun has officially returned and things are looking up on this lovely Friday.
We practiced in Bogu for the first time yesterday. Outside of a little neck fatigue, and the inability to do even the simplest strikes with the armor, it went well. We'll see how practice two goes tomorrow.
It's another Monday morning. I don't have anything else to report.
Ah, this has been a long time coming. This was one of the first real video games I played: Dungeons of Daggorath. That's how it looked on my Color Computer II hooked up to my television (well, sans the Little Guy). There was an error on the disk, and I never managed to get past a certain part in the game. The game would crash. Such was life with floppies.
I've been blue again. Not sure what's causing these crazy mood swings. It'll hopefully pass before we head to NYC this weekend.
I'm better today. The sun and massive amounts of sleep did their trick. Now, if the weather would just stay still, life would be easier.
Just as a warning: We leave for NYC on Friday. This means tomorrow is the last Horrible until the following Thursday. How will I ever survive?
Sorry for the late post. It's been a busy morning in what will be a busy pre-vacation day. Enjoy my view of the internets. I doodled this after an awful Comcast evening. Since upgrading to a faster speeds, we haven't had many problems. Comcast just wanted more monies.
This could not be more true. We're still not recovered from our NYC extravaganza. Now if I could only take a vacation from my vacation.
That's Ziggy (seal-colored dog) and Button for those not familiar with our dogs. Most nights, as we get ready to cozy up to our couch and watch an anime or movie, or play video games, I say to the dogs, "Movie Time!" and they run out the dog door and around the house to wait by the living room door to be let in and act as our personal warmers.
I was going to talk about the weather, but I'm getting sick of the topic.
An overly warm Monday morning. I'm hitting the snooze button on the day.
(I cheated to post this today.) It's hot out there. It was hot last night, and will be hot the rest of the week. Seattle was supposed to have mild summers. What is happening to the world?
Another gloriously hot day. I would say more but I'm deflated by my lack of evening air conditioning.
The conspiracy guy returns. It's been too hot to draw anything lately. I dread going to into the study. Thankfully, the evenings are beginning to cool down and the temperatures are dropping over the next few days.
I had substantive things I wanted to write about this doodle. Then I remembered I don't write substantive things.
It was cool this morning! My days of writing about weather are over! (Okay, we all know that's not true.) It's Friday finally. This has been a long hot week. I'm more than ready for the weekend.
I may have to cut back on my horribles posting, as my queue is running dangerously low. If I don't draw any new horribles, I'll have nothing to post in fifteen weeks. That is not acceptable.
It's cool and cloudy this morning. The high today is 83. Tomorrow is 80. And then Thursday we're back in the 70s. This has been a long two-weeks of no air conditioning. I expect the HVAC people will descend on Seattle like the plague.
This has been a theme lately. I set my work password to a secret rendition of my theme. It's fun to type what you plan to do every morning and afternoon.
The days are cooling down here in Seattle. We're back to our normal summer weather. The morning sun has been replaced by morning clouds. I guess one can never be too happy with weather.
Not much writing yesterday due to a terrible headache. The weather changed dramatically through the day, first cold, then warm, and then cold again. It left me hiding under the covers with tiger balm on my neck. I'm better today, back to my old self. Hopefully more writing will follow. (Naginata may make things a big squished time-wise.)
I almost forgot to post a horrible today. It was a very busy morning. The weekend will be less busy: naginata tomorrow and a BBQ on Sunday. I'm hoping to catch a movie, either GI Joe or Cold Souls as well. That should leave me plenty of time for writing (hopefully).
I did write a bit this weekend. Nothing I'm going to share, though. It's unfinished and rather blah. You'll have to satisfy yourself with this horrible instead.
This is one of the Julies better lines, memorialized in a Horrible for all time. It's raining again in Seattle. So surprising.
With the cloudy and rainy weather, these weeks have been dragging by. I'm not ready for autumn. I need me more summer! (And not that sticky can't sleep because of the heat summer.)
Witty description would go here as well.
I've been waiting to post this one for a while. It's one of my favorite D&D doodles. I need to create more of these.
Tomorrow we're off to a hike for the first time this summer. We used to be such good hikers.
Ah, I've come full circle. This is a mock-up of a video game I started to design. I worked on for a few months, changing the design significantly. After I had it working I realized that it wasn't fun. The graphics were cute, in that Horrible-y way, but the gameplay was terrible.
We had good 70-degree weather this weekend. We did manage a Wallace Falls hike on our Naginata-free weekend (go PNNF!). My legs are still paying for the five mile hike. The last three miles or so were straight uphill. The climb combined with Julie's level-6 complaining left me exhausted and headachy yesterday, and achy today. Thankfully I'm on my PHD today.
I doodled this after trying to watch The Beautiful Truth movie. For the record, it is neither beautiful nor truthy.
It's another beautiful day outside. This good weather is starting to put me in a good mood. Hopefully it'll last.
It isn't. It really isn't. With my Horrible output drastically decreasing, I may have to scale back postings to three times a week until I get back into my groove. Poor Tuesdays and Thursdays. They used to be so good to me.
My new Naginata is coming from Japan via Boston. I can't wait to get my grubby hands on it on Thursday. Watch out world!
Julie reminded me yesterday that I can post text even after my decision to horde my Horribles on the Tuesdays and Thursdays. Drawing has become rare thanks to reading too many books (that's just a sampling; I've been on a tear this summer, reading 10 books over the last couple of months).
The weekend is almost here again. This week went quicker than last week. It's cloudy today and my website says it's a measly 62 degrees. I'm happy as long as we don't break 90 again.
Last Friday I stopped drinking caffeine. I suffered last Sunday for this lapse, but the rest of the week has not been bad. I realized I was drinking coffee more out of habit than for its delicious caffeinated drug-i-ness. I'm going to focus the caffeine on my writing day (man, I wish I could add an S to that last word). I'm sipping my decaffeinated coffee right now. As I've said in the past, it doesn't taste the same: it leaves my mouth feeling a bit chalky and dry, as if it's missing a very vital ingredient.
I doodled this after a large glass of wine. You can tell by the ellipses.
I'm tired today. My head feels heavy and aches a bit. I think I slept too much. It's almost the weekend. I'm looking forward to sleeping too much over this weekend as well.
It's Monday again. Not sure I can take anymore Mondays.
I know the type of magic I was thinking about when I doodled this. Of magic today, I have a few ideas but it's nothing definite.
The weather is achanging in Seattle. The warm days are giving over to rainy nights and cloudy mornings. It'll soon be fleece and umbrella weather. All I can say is bring it on!
I have a love-hate relationship with twitter. I enjoy using it, but there are times when my anti-social behavior gets the better of me, and I stop using it for months at a time. I'm in one of those ruts (or perhaps some would call it enlightened times). Maybe I'll get back to it. Or maybe I'll just let me my account wither away like too much dust in a tornado.
It's the Friday before a three-day weekend. This has been a long time coming. I wish to thank the Academy for the honor. Oh, wait. Wrong speech.
It's been a while since I threw another doodle to the wall. Here you go: another in a long line of meaning Super Little Guy Horribles.
My niece Rachel drew this back in April. I added the look-alike Horrible. Stay tuned Monday for her sister's Horrible.
It's a sunny, cool Friday of a short week. It's getting darker earlier, and we turned on the Villa's heat for the evenings. Hopefully we still have a few weekends of summer left.
Here's the promised Horrible of Sarah (Rachel's sister and my other niece from my older sister).
This weekend was chock full of fun. Julie's other sister is visiting, and we had a Naginata demonstration at the Japanese festival at BC (formerly known as Bellevue Community College).
I also did a bit of writing. Damn, I'm good at those hundreds of throat-clearing words. It's when I have to actually say something that I lose momentum.
We finished watching the first season of Legend of the Seeker. It was surprisingly enjoyable given that it is based on that terrible Terry Goodkind series. I read the first book and hated it: it reads more like an old-school adventure video game than a novel. You find a shiny purple sword. You see a monster. The monster can only be killed with shiny purple swords. You kill the monster! You see a magical key. Three rooms later there is a door. Only a magical key can open the door!
Okay, maybe it wasn't that bad. There were some elements of the magic and world in the television show that appeared to be taken from the book that were quite enjoyable. I might not have given the series a proper chance. Speaking of chances, I've been speed reading through a bunch of fantasy novels. I'm not sure what brought on my new addiction. I'm hoping it's my body's way of preparing for November.
It's another week. I wish it was a good week. I did manage lots of doodles. Sometimes my doodling reflects my mood. You'll find out the type of mood in a few months when these Horribles come around. At least we're having good weather. See? Always a silver lining of sorts.
And I'm not sure what they're going to do to me. I like this Horrible. I like it's terribleness.
She has changed so much since I doodled this. It's amazing how fast people move from place to place, and belief to belief.
Summer has returned to the Seattle area. I'm not sure I can deal with such warm positiveness.
The good ol' blue print. I have lots of inventions in my brain. Too bad I always get there second.
Summer is still hanging on by its fingernails. Good for the summer.
I'll call it Friday. A bit headachy today. The weather is sunny and cool. Chuck asked me if he was every going to see real writing here again. It's a good question.
It turned out I wasn't. I've been writing a bunch in my new medium, black imitation-Moleskine notebook. That means less writing for you Horrible followers. Reading through my scribbles, I can assure you that you're not missing much.
A bit of Dreamhost downtime yesterday resulted in me not being able to post. So here's my makeup Horrible. I really need to start doodling again or there will be a lot more downtime, and next time I won't be able to blame it on my host.
I like how the water effects came out in this Horrible.
We're less than a month away from the Marathon. That'll mean less Horribles as well. I'm sure y'all will somehow survive. Somehow.
I have an idea for November! Now if only I could morph the idea into a story.
We learned that in Naginata. I'm exhausted today. Too much of Naginata yesterday. I'm going to curl up on my chair and sleep for a bit. Hopefully the world will look different when I wake.
The hits just keep on coming! (With a bat, that is.)
It was raining when I drew this. Therefore there is rain in the Horrible. Sickening, isn't it?
It's still amazingly dry here in Seattle. It's growing cold, but the sun keeps shining. I'm not sure what the world is coming to: sunny in October.
Ah, Mr. Robot returns! This is my favorite laptop wallpaper (not that I would use one of my own Horribles as wallpaper--that would be egotistical and wrong on so many levels).
Afer a heavy rain last night, there is sun mixed with dark gray clouds this morning. I've been trying to convince myself it is Friday all morning. We're off to Taiwan next week for a vacation. I desperately need a vacation. This should work out swimmingly.
This may be the last Horrible for a week or so, as we're heading to Taiwan on Sunday night. I cheated a bit and found a doodle that shows my plans for the week: lots and lots of book reading. I spent part of yesterday buying new books in preparation for our travels. I can't wait to read and write and doodle and not work.
I'm fighting off a cold that is threatening to ruin my book vacation. Hopefully my heavy clothes and intake of vitamin C will hold it at bay. I'd hate to get to Taipei and be turned away at the airport for fear of flu.
We have our Naginata seminar and test this weekend. We should be good and exhausted by the time we board the plane on Sunday night (technically Monday morning).
I plan to have diary entries for our travels posted here. We all know how my plans usually go.
We're back from our Taiwan trip (proof in the photos). Julie spent most of her time working on her Dr. Julie thingy. I spent most of my time reading, eating, and waiting for Julie to finish.
I almost made it through all the books I brought on the trip. I particularly enjoyed finishing John Adams by David McCullough. Spoiler alert: everyone dies. This was another wonderful biography of a how a man rises to a great occassion.
I didn't get much sleep last night. I made it into work this morning and after a bit of coffee and I'm ploughing my way through my e-mail backlog. I'll probably be here all day just reading mails.
In other news, Sunday starts the Marathon. I had hoped to use my vacation to plan my novel, create characters and plot, and generally get ready. Regrettably, outside of a quick post when we first arrived, I didn't manage much writing. I did scribble a bit in my notebook, and I do have a few ideas. We'll see what happens to those ideas come Sunday.
Thanks to continuing jetlag sleep eluded us last night. I woke up at 1:30am and went to read in the other room. Julie woke up when I returned to bed a couple of hours later, and neither of us could sleep. We lay in bed talking until 6am when we managed to find sleep for a few more hours before work. Hopefully this weekend will cure us of our ills.
I hope to have one more Horrible posted on Monday before I lose myself to the insanity. This has not been a good couple of months for Horribles.
Happy birthday, Sarah! As requested, yet another Sarah Horrible. Taken from various photographs in this album.
The Horribles are back! Well, for one day at least. We'll return to our normal posting schedule next Wednesday. We're off to NYC on Wednesday for a long weekend of Turkey eating and family visiting.
We're back! We barely made it, though. We missed our flight on Monday (thanks to my confusion between AM and PM on my alarm clock) but managed to catch a flight through Salt Lake City that got us home a few hours later than planned.
The Thanksgiving weekend was fun and busy. We saw lots of family (see photographs below) and Julie recorded a couple of songs at Jennifer's music studio.
My mother is visiting on Friday, so we have another busy weekend coming up soon.
It's an early Friday and all I have for you is a snake. Sorry about that. This snake is just the first in a short line of doodles that were inspired by my feeble attempts at developing a video game. Every so often I get the bug and then spend too much time designing and developing something that, in the end, turns out to be rather crappy and unfinished. I won't spoil the conclusion of this project. You'll just have to see how the doodles come out.
It's another sunny and cold day. Winter has come early as the temperature has reached close to freezing these days.
My brain is not yet working this Monday morning.
Here's my favorite Horrible from my secret project. That was me during the peak of my work. (It all went downhill from here.)
The cold continues. Our fountain completely froze over. I kept it running because I liked the icicles falling from the lion's heads. I turned it off this morning to stop the pump from burning out.
A fitting Friday Horrible. This was the last in the line of Betrothed, my failed attempt at a video game. As you can see it ended in abject failure. I'm used to it.
For those tracking the Seattle weather at home, it will get into the high forties next week. It looks like we won't get any snow. I did doodle a couple of snow Horribles just in case.
Don't forget, tonight is part deux of Julie's choral concert.
It's above freezing today! Finally.
By request (hi, Kelly and Kelly's kids!). I particularly like how the dogs look. They're very cute if a bit smelly.
The Seattle winter weather has returned: rainy and fifties. Most of the icicles have melted on our fountain except for the bottom bowl, which is still partly frozen. I turned on the pump this morning but nothing happened. I'm hoping that it works once it completely melts. Otherwise I'll have to put on my toolbelt and start afixing. Or call someone. Definitely the latter.
Bonus Horrible! Actually, we're leaving for Dallas tomorrow through Monday, and I've been prolific in doodling. I decided to post this a bit early so you wouldn't miss out during the weekend. Enjoy!
We're leaving from Dallas in a few hours after our long weekend visiting Julie's family. The weather has been sunny and warm--A nice break from the strange Seattle weather. (Not as strange as that East Coast storm!)
I thought of writing something pithy for my birthday. Then I remembered I don't write anymore, and besides, I haven't had any coffee today which means I can't write even if I still did.
Enjoy Mr. Conspiracy. He's my new favorite Horrible.
Thanks for all the birthday wishes!
We found a great vegetarian Taiwanese place last night in Kirkland: Happy Cafe. They have vegetarian pork buns that taste like pork buns! We haven't had pork buns in quite a while. Julie bought a whole package to make at home (fun fact: pork buns taste better when microwaved than steamed).
I woke with a headache and sore throat this morning. I'm hoping the sunny sky and my morning (okay, late afternoon) tea will help get over it.
Sorry for the ugly doodle. I had such high hopes for the heat waves. Those hopes were obviously dashed.
We watched Avatar on Christmas Eve after we participated in the rest of a traditional Jewish Christmas by eating at a (vegetarian) Chinese restaurant. I ended up getting sick probably from a cold virus mixed with the 3D effects and a very nasty Avocado milkshake. Thinking about Chinese food now makes me nauseous, which is hard on the Julies.
Avatar is a beautifully rendered movie. I wish I could say the same for its characters and story. There will one day be a movie about a benevolent corporation that is trying to save the Earth from runaway Nature and the do-gooders who try to protect her by deifying her. Oh and there will be military people who are, like, real people who don’t want to fight just because they can, but actually care about their soldiers and civilians. And there won’t be any giant robots in this movie. Or flying blue people.
Otherwise the weekend was nice and long. We finally took the dogs out of the house thanks to the sun and mild temperature.
The Julies thinks my Horribles backlog is too large. She recommended more Horribles, so here's a Tuesday post. I started my computer-aided Chinese lessons again. I'm still not sure why 'elephant' makes it into the early part of the vocabularly list.
Ugh. This has been sitting at the top of my queue for quite a while. It was time I threw it out there and moved on tomorrow. I doodled this based on a decent photograph we had taken in Victoria. Not sure what happened in translation. Probably laziness and a good enough attitude.
The week crawls closer to the New Years. I'm looking forward to it.
. . . and it's not good. Not good at all.
It's New Year's Eve tonight. You all know what that means!
This vacation is getting a bit long in the tooth. We're ready to get back to our regularly scheduled routine. It feels like more than a month since we picked up our Naginatas or had a full day's worth of work to finish or played video games with Steven (not that I haven't been keeping myself occupied with Modern Warfare 2).
I suspect few of you are interested in knowing how my year went. I don't blame you. Instead I'll provide you statistics for my posting:
- 30 text posts (22 of which were for the Marathon)
- 25 photo albums
- 1,715 photos in the albums (okay, so we're not good at culling photos)
- 210 Horribles doodled this year
- 210 Horribles posted this year (not sure how that worked out so perfectly)
- 75 Horribles left unposted in my queue
- 1 story written (if we're generous and count my Marathon offering as a story)
What do we learn from these statistics? I spend lots of time doodling, and not enough time writing. But I already knew that.
Happy New Years!
If you visit my website then you might have noticed I spruced up the place. I decided to go with a cleaner more colorful look. Let me know if what you think (and if you see any bugs). I fixed a few internal bugs, but mostly played with the CSS and formatting. Julie helped by suggesting I add the Horribles to the menu above (check out the cool hover effects). I still have plans for a photo slideshow. One of these days.
I was inspired to code after helping my sister update her website.
I spent many hours this holiday weekend diligently doodling away. You'll see the fruits of my effort in, oh, a few months.
My world is again gray, rainy, and moderately warm. This has been a strange winter.
My Chinese lessons are going well. I've returned to the loving (and already paid for) embrace of Rosetta Stone for a second (or is this third?) try at learning Mandarin. This time I set up a spreadsheet to track my progress and to record vocabulary words. My plan is to create flashcards. I figure my Chinese will be better than Julie's in no time.
The menu on my website doesn't work in some browsers. I spent an hour last night working on IE 6 and 7 stylesheets. Somehow IE 6 worked but 7 still has problems. I can't wait until everyone upgrades.
I was wrong. Always wrong.
It's a slightly sunny and mild day today. Yes, I'm falling back on the weather since I have nothing else to talk about. I have the Horribles to post every day now. I wish I had the words to match the doodles.
I ate a fish sandwich at Wendy's the other night. I barely survived. Let that be a lesson to all the would-be fast-food junkies out there.
A warm, rainy Friday. At least it's not snowing and freezing here. The weekend is almost here. We're having a Naginata party on Sunday. This is our first large get together at the new house. We're looking forward to it.
The rain has returned and with it a perfectly timed Horrible.
We had fun at our Naginata party last night. The house held up well and everyone seemed to have a good time. Hopefully we'll have more parties in the Villa. It seems such a waste not to.
Ziggy was the only one who didn't like the party. He whined outside the living room door watching us watch videos, and lamenting that he wasn't in his evening Ziggy position: on the couch huddled in a small ball under the blankets. Poor guy.
But I rarely do, I rarely do.
It's Tuesday, which means tomorrow is garbage day. I just thought I'd share.
Another cloudy day. I can get used to this. Haven't had my coffee yet. Can't. Write.
A little late posting today. I had a busy morning. The rain continues. Things could be worse, I guess.
So I'm anti-social, shoot me.
It's Friday again. There seems to be a lot of Fridays these days. I'm looking forward to a quiet weekend. I made the mistake of checking the weekend weather. The rain will go on and on and on.
A beautifully cloudy Monday morning. The weekend was long and eventful. That is all.
We watched The Book of Eli this weekend. We weren't sure if it was a pro- or anti-religion movie. Either way, it was much better than expected. Going in, I thought it would be an enjoyable Waterworld romp. It turned out it was a bit deeper and more nuanced. The twist at the end almost made me want to watch it again. (BTW: Has Gary Oldman ever been a good guy in a movie?)
And, yes, I realize the irony of posting this Horrible after posting this one a couple of days ago.
Seattle Flight to NYC | 2010.01.19 | | Red
My youngest nieces finally make it the front page. This was doodled from a photo we took last summer at our annual family get together. Aren't they cute?
It's sunny and almost warm outside. I could have sworn I heard birds chirping when I came out of the shower. I love these faux Springs. It makes the rapidly approaching dreadful Februaries that much more bearable.
It's sunny outside and in the upper 50s. Maybe those chirping birds yesterday really did know something.
Another beautiful Friday. I can get used to Spring even in January. Hopefully it continues through the weekends. I'm sure the dogs would love to go to the dog park.
What's with the beautiful Mondays? We could have used a bit of this sunshine over the weekend.
I'm running out of weather reports.
A very foggy morning after a cold night. There is sun in these hills, so all will be good.
Sorry for the lack of Horribles the last two days. I've been busy. Julie requested I change to a new Horrible. So here it is.
Back in July this was true. Today, not so much. Although it has been very dry because of the forced air in the house. We went out and bought a fancy humidifier last night after Julie woke up with a bloody nose from the dryness. The white noise is very relaxing. It still felt dry even though it said it was close to 48% humidity.
Another feeble attempt to create a multi-panel comic. As you can see, this went as well as the last two.
The sun is peaking through the clouds. It's another glorious Tuesday.
Or a different place. I have lots of greener grass fantasies. I imagine I'm not the only one.
Looks like another nice day out there. Might be time to take out the rocketship.
I love this horrible. There are frogs in it. And they're falling from the sky. I sometimes crack myself up. Like in multiple pieces. Happy Friday!
It was a fun-filled shopping weekend. It's foggy over here, but as soon as it clears, it'll be sunny and hopefully warm.
We're stuck in the middle of a group of suffering Horribles. (Luckily, my actual suffering took place last summer.)
Must have coffee.... Too little caffeine flowing through my veins. Must rectify.
Another rainy day. It certainly beats the snow.
Aren't we all. Aren't we all.
But this one is close, at least today: a foggy morning gave way to sun and blue skies, with temperatures heading again into the mid-50s.
We downloaded all of our camera's photographs this weekend. We're a bit heavy on the Naginata pictures. We'll hopefully have lots of other things to photograph this year to fill our 2010 photo albums.
Another morning, another blue sky. This time sans fog. My back feels straighter today. At least it did before I slouches into my office chair. So much for good posture.
Nothing to say today. I'm exhausted from not enough sleep and too much Naginata yesterday.
Ah, the dream of doodling for a living! We'd have to move from the Villa to a cardboard box and I'd have to pirate electricity to power my drawing tablet. But think of the fun....
Today's kitchen tidbit: don't place salt in an air-tight metal container. The trapped water and salt eat away at the metal and the rust turns the salt brown.
It's Friday (yeah, I know, this shouldn't count as a post).
Another beautiful Monday morning. I can get used to this. The weekend went by quickly again. Lots of parks and dogs. I didn't doodle as much as I had hoped. I may end up paying for this.
There's no sun! I can't figure out what happened.
That's an OLPC (One Laptop per Child) in the Horrible. One of my writing mates uses it to write during our Sunday morning meet-ups.
We're off to watch the women's gold medal match in Vancouver on Friday. It took some arm twisting, but I am looking forward to a new photo album (it's sad that that's the reason I do things now).
I intended to post my Olympics Horrible, but I can't find the energy to write about the experience. This one needs fewer words.
This was inspired from this cartoon background found in this collection of Pocahontas (1985) backgrounds.
Sorry for the late update. We hosted a group of high school students this morning. They did a mock negotiation of the type I normally do at work. I'm worried that maybe I'm a bit more replaceable than I suspected.
Back to my normally scheduled queue.
As I left work yesterday, the warm rain smelled of Spring. I want to thank Winter this year. She has been quite mild.
Another tired morning. I need to sleep. For a week.
But I do try. I always do try.
And, regrettably, jumping rope is not one of them. I really have to start drawing better hands. I have a book on it and everything. All I need to do is read it.
It's cold in Seattle. Not sure what happened but people yesterday claimed to have seen snow. In March. Today is sunny but still cold. I guess Spring will have to wait a few more days.
We didn't sleep well last night. Not sure if it was the cold, the dryness, or the muscle aches from Naginata. Either way there was much tossing and/or turning.
The rain has returned and with it the blues. I love how my life is controlled by storm systems.
The blues passed quickly after a good night of Naginata. A bit headachy this rainy morning, but nothing that a bit of caffeine a possible Advil won't solve.
I'm looking at you, Californication! We watched the first season of this show, but I vetoed watching more episodes because of the annoying situations the characters found themselves in. Yes, I know terrible things are going to happen when everyone finds out the truth. Just please, for the love of everything television worthy, don't stretch out the period between when the audience finds out and when the characters do.
This was a nice, fun-filled weekend. The clocks jumped forward, and Julie and I both passed our Naginata exams. It's almost sunny this morning, and I expect good things this week. Good things.
I need to stand on my head more often. More blood = smarter.
Regrettably I do conflict for a living.
This is not one of my better Horribles. A colleague saw this on my desktop and thought it was NSFW until I explained what it was supposed to be.
A perfect Horrible for a wonderful Friday. See you next week!
Ah, Borderlands, it feels like it's been such a long time since Julie, Steven, and I visited its dystopic world. Besides an occassional dip into the tried and true Horde mode in Gears of War 2, Borderlands was the last serious video game we played. That's something we're hoping to remedy one of these days when someone ships a decent three-player co-op game.
Saturday creeped into the seventies while Sunday teased us with sunshine followed by Houston-style rainstorms. It was a long, relaxing weekend filled with the doodling of too many Horribles, and a startling lack of Naginata (thanks to the Mercer Island Rotary Half Marathon).
The posting of this Horrible is rather appropriate.
Sorry for the late post. You should expect another late post tomorrow as well. The weather outside is climbing close to 70 again. I love Spring (except when it's rainy and cold).
An early morning in another beautiful day.
This Horrible was inspired from this animation background from Pocahantas via Animation Backgrounds.
. . . not that I would know on either account.
The sunny and seventy degree weather did not last. It's warm and rainy today. I guess I can live with the every-other day good weather rule.
We didn't get much in the way of snow this winter. There were a few weeks of terrible coldness--it may have been too cold to snow.
It's almost the weekend again. We're off to NYC for the holiday. Depending on my mood (and doodling output), you may be Horrible free for a few days next week. I'm sure the three of you that read this will somehow survive.
We're back after a very rainy trip to NY. We spent most of our time in an oversized hotel room hiding from the rain. I worked too much during the vacation. I do have a few photographs I still have to post. I'm not sure if it was the depressing weather or just laziness, but we did not take as many photographs as we usually do to document our trip.
As we left NYC, the sun decided to come out. As we returned to Seattle, the rain decided to come out. We're not very good at this.
This doodle is inspired from this background (via Animation Backgrounds).
The snow has been replaced by rain. Lots of rain. I guess that's what I get for having a four-month queue. (I'm not complaining: long queues = less stress.)
I'm very happy it's Friday. We still need to catch up on our rest of our NY trip. I hope to sleep through the entire weekend. The entire weekend.
Much violence (usually on me).
Another relaxing weekend cut short by a Monday.
I'm tired. I spent the night dreaming I was some sort of superhero/vampire hunter. Now I'm paying for all of my nocturnal activities.
It's Angelina, part deux, doodled during one of our visits to Dallas. Yes, she can fully walk now without the cartoon walker. From what Julie has informed me (through her many virtual visits via Skype) she spends most of her time running.
We should be heading back to Dallas sometime this month. I can't wait for YAAR! (yet another airplane ride!).
I didn't have coffee this morning. I can't figure out why I feel so lethargic.
Things are going swimmingly on this beautiful Friday. There must be some convergence zone above us. The weather changes every ten minutes between sunshine, clouds, and rain. Luckily it hasn't graupled today (it did grauple yesterday).
This Horrible is based on this photograph.
Happy Monday!
I refreshed the design of Cast of Horribles this weekend. I tried to clean off the dark lines and used handwriting instead of a font for the titles. I also added a nifty navigation section. Julie thinks the navigation is confusing. I decided to stay with the grays instead of move to colors. I tried different colors but nothing stuck. Don't forget to refresh the website (F5) to clear your cache. I didn't think to rename some of the graphical elements when I recreated them.
I hate waking up to rain.
. . . and even if you did, it's hard to hear what it's saying.
I woke up with a pain in the neck this morning. Literally. Not sure if I slept wrong or if I got whacked too many times in Naginata yesterday. As long as I don't look to quickly to the left I should be okay.
Another bright and sunny and blah day.
. . . or stop pretending that I'm a writer.
A beautiful weekend followed by a too-soon Monday. I dropped Julie off at the airport for a visit to Dallas. Three whole days alone. Very the scary.
Another rainy lonely day. I'm tired and just want to sleep.
We're back from our Dallas trip. I hope you didn't miss me too much.
