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Cameras and Comics.

February 12th, 2009

Well, I officially killed my camera. I carry it around in my purse and it gets kicked and punched and dropped regularly (because it doesn’t cook my dinner the way I like it! Why do you make me hit you?!) and it decided to rebel by not taking pictures. Oh, it acts like it’s going to, the flash goes off and it makes a little “click” noise and you think, “I have taken a picture!”, but when you go to the memory card… no picture. So I went on my ole buddy Amazon and bought m’self a new Canon Eylphe OCD-2000 or whatever in slate blue. I will also get a case for it, so while it will continue to hang out in my purse with my keys and a myriad of other scratchy pointy items, it will be protected.

So, this past weekend. Cool experience. My friend Jem was in town (Glamor and glitter! Fashion and fame! Truly truly truly outrageous!) for the Comicon in the Javitz Center. I met up with her on Saturday night and we went to a utterly touristy place for dinner, Bubba Gump’s Shrimp Co. It’s one of those places I wouldn’t go to unless I’m with a friend from out of town. It was a lovely dinner, though. If you go there, I recommend the Louisiana Lemonade paired with either the dippin’ shrimpin’ broth or the spicy Louisiana shrimp with jasmine rice. Afterwards, Jem told me about a party occurring in her hotel. Here’s the back story: Person A bet Person B that he couldn’t get a Wolverine comic book signed by all six contributors plus Hugh Jackman. Person B accomplished the task and now Person A, having lost the bet, had to kiss Person B’s rump. The gathering in the hotel was to witness the booty-smootch. We showed up for a short while, but people were kinda just sitting around and talking quietly amongst themselves and no one was going to kiss anything for some time, so we said, “See ya,” and headed over to Connelly’s Bar for the Marvel party. It was, to use the common vulgar term, quite a sausage-fest. I am not what one might consider “smokin'”, yet a drink was purchased for me by a male. I attribute this to the lack of bosoms on the premises. I ended up in a corner talking to the guys who run the Toronto Comicon. They kept pointing out important comic people to me, saying things like, “People cry when they meet that guy… he’s like one of the gods of comics,” and to me, the man referenced looked like a sweaty bank employee – no shoulders, pasty and plain-looking. It’s amazing how ordinary celebrities can look if you don’t have a freakin’ clue who they are.

Next entry: Westminster Dog Show. I something-other-than-a-poodle won. I am happy.

Posted in New York, Stuff | No Comments »

Giraffe.

February 5th, 2009

Remember Sloth?

I have since decided to make the white part a yellow-orange, give it a little more zip! and ping! And I thought Sloth there needed some friends, so I designed a giraffe to go with him.

New ‘n Improved Sloth:

and Just Plain New Giraffe:

I really tried to capture that bored, slightly stupid expression giraffes have. I think I got it. Maybe I’ll make another forest creature that lends itself to the long, thin layout. I have to think about what animal would suit the space.

Addendum: After looking at the giraffe and sloth together, I think two things: one, the giraffe needs more greenery around him, and two, perhaps he needs a small butterfly or tiny bird on his horn. The sloth has that vine he’s hanging off of, so incorporating elements that aren’t the animal itself is okay. Revised giraffe coming soon.

Addendum to the addendum: Decided against butterfly or bird. Increased greenery. Better giraffe.

Addendum to the previous addendums: Oh dear God, I’m totally overthinking the foliage around this giraffe. I’m going to stop now.

Posted in Random Art Bloggery | No Comments »

I went to a reptile and amphibian show. I saw many cool things.

February 2nd, 2009

I went with Snorth last weekend, and it was delightful. I love all of God’s creatures, but I especially love crested geckos. And lo, there were many a crested gecko there. I got to hold two of them! One even licked his eyeball clean! And I exploded with happiness! I also forgot to take pictures of him while I was doing this exploding, so I found some good pictures of crested geckos online that I will post here. Imagine I’m holding one of those.

In that last pic you can really appreciate their windshield-wiper feet that allow them to stick to glass like suction cups. Crested geckos are also called eyelash geckos because of the little ridge of eyelash-like scales over their eyes. They’re just the greatest.

So, The Reptile and Amphibian Show happens semi-annually at the Westchester County Center, which is a giant hall, and the hall was filled to the brim with beasties in plastic containers. As we came in, the first booth on the right had this grotesque 3-D display.

Welcome to the reptile and amphibian show! We have corpses taped to paper! Enjoy your breakfast that you’re trying to keep down right now!

But at that booth, there was a smootchie little Western Hognose Snake. Hognoses are known for being excellent pets, laid-back and friendly (as friendly as snakes get). And I got to hold this little fella. What a sweetheart.

They live for about twelve years and get to be a bit bigger then a garter snake. You can’t appreciate it in this pic, but the hognose snake is called the hognose snake because its little snoot turns up at the end like a tiny cold-blooded piggie.

I think it looks more like a shoehorn with eyes, but it’s called the hognose, and hognose-named it shall remain.

So Snorth and I pottered around commenting on the beautiful patterns on all the beasties (quick recap: they were very beautiful) and we saw a little boy chillin’ with some big ole lizards. Big. I took pictures of the lizards with the child so you can see the scale.

And I got a shot with some flicky-flicky tongue action! I think the lizards were plotting to eat the child.

And there was a man selling a variety of reptiles with his favorite on his shirt, literally hanging out.

I was so envious. I want a dragon hanging from my shirt all day. I talk to myself a lot, and I could pretend I was talking to the dragon instead, which is slightly less insane-looking.

This particular vendor had a pretty standard snake set-up, which I took a picture of so you could see it. And one of the snakes was shedding, I think.

See him? Lower right-hand corner? And not only were there snakes and frogs and lizards, there were also tarantulas and walking-stick bugs and giant African millipedes. They really covered the whole creepy-crawly gamut. It was wonderful, and I can’t wait to go back next time, if only to cuddle my beloved geckos.

Posted in Beastiesbeastiesbeasties, Nature, Stuff | 1 Comment »

All The Way Down: The Tortoise piece is complete.

February 1st, 2009

I finished the tortoise piece. Wow, that only took forever, didn’t it? But it’s done, and that’s what matters. I spent four hours tweaking those four words – a little taller, adding pointy bits, deleting something, blah blah blah. But (again) done, most important thing. So lookit.

I did the four-hour-tweaking, then I printed the words and cut a stencil (that took forever too) and painted the words with a semi-transparent silver on a chunk of a board I found on the streets of New York. I think, as long as you know the story (story here) it’s a kind of cool piece. I’m pleased with it. And hopefully you are too.

P.S. I gave B. the moth I painted and he liked it, he really liked it! Always nice when that happens.

Posted in My Art/Design/Business, Nature | 1 Comment »

Dirty Jobs, Part II.

January 29th, 2009

Seriously, what is going on with Dirty Jobs? Last week I saw an episode with the cow recycling, this week: recently-shot duck and goose plucking and dressing factory. Mike Rowe is really with the “dead animal having it’s dignity ripped away at the hands of the humans” thing, eh? No, literally. Mike was using a plucking machine (it resembles a car washing rotating brush, you hold the fowl under it and it rapidly brushes off all the feathers), he accidentally let go of the duck he was de-feathering, it shot around the brushes and he was left holding the duck’s head in his hand, like Perseus with a tiny, non-threatening Medusa (bone up on your Greek mythology, people!). I suppose it’s a nice change from poo (Dirty Jobs should really be called Interactions With Poo), but it makes it difficult for me to come home from work, all tired and stressed, get into bed with my cocoa and soy milk and relax with a little TV. I still love it and I’ll still watch it, but I guess I’m just a little traumatized. I’ll be okay. As long as Mike’s next trip isn’t to a charnel house or anything, it’ll be fine.

Posted in The Telly | No Comments »

Bad calligraphy makes the baby Jeebus cry.

January 26th, 2009

Look, there is nothing to be ashamed of if you can’t write in a calligraphic hand. That being said, if you can’t, please don’t. I have to walk by this sign in front of a pub on the way to work almost every day, and I wince at its suckiness every time.

Oh dear. There’s so much wrong with this. The biggest offender, for me, is that “K” at the end of “DRINK”. The painter isn’t even trying anymore. “I hate this typeface, I’ll just put a big ole curly thing on this K, and then I’m done! Whee! I’m getting paid in beer!” So profoundly crappy.

Posted in New York | No Comments »

Nerd in three parts.

January 25th, 2009

Part 1.

For my holiday present, Snorth made me a present she knew I would absolutely love. It is a cross-stitch of a two-toed sloth. Yes, yes it is. In this picture I also included the softie sheep she made me. Take it all in, people.

Part 2.

Remember how I had lolcats all over my wall? Remember that? New lolcats have been coming out since then, and I just added them in. My lolcats are crawling around the wall, yo. They’re like the blob in the movie The Blob, slowly encroaching into my sleeping space until I choke to death on cuteness and misspellings.

Part 3.

Dude, this is freakin’ awesome:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQtbcgBWobA

Posted in Nature, Teh Intarwebz | No Comments »

Dirty Jobs and Gelly Rolls.

January 23rd, 2009

Sorry about the lackadaisical posting. You know how it gets with work sometimes. But do not fret, I’m making quite a variety of cool stuff which I will be sharing with you shortly. In the meantime, a story: I got home from work on Tuesday night at 1:10 a.m. (not kidding about work kickin’ my butt ovah here) and I wanted to fall into bed and slumber, but for some reason I flicked on the tube and Dirty Jobs was on and it was an episode I had never seen before, about recycling cows. Really. See, on farms with thousands of cows, a portion of the cow population dies of natural causes. Then the “dead truck” (their name, not mine) pulls up with a winch and winches Kicked-the-Bucket Bessy onto the truck and off to the cow recycling plant. Here’s the point where I couldn’t turn it off. If the cow is fresh enough, they use the skin for leather, but in order to get the skin off of the cow, they cut a small hole, stick a metal tube in there, and fill ‘er with air to pull the skin away from the muscle. Which looks exactly like what you would expect it to look like. Ole Bess there went from a dead cow to the world’s most disturbing Thanksgiving float in two minutes. The guys who’s job is to skin swoop in there and put the hide in the basement and cover it with salt, and then they stick the remaining skinned cow into a gigantic wood chipper a la Fargo and chip her. That also looks exactly like you would expect it to look like, which is why I will not describe it to you. The only thing about the episode that irked me was how many times Mike said, “So you separate the meat and fat, and the meat goes into farm feed, while the fat goes in cosmetics.” He kept saying “cosmetics” like you and I would say “stanky gas station bathroom”. Hey, buddy, I’ll have you know on your high-and-mighty horse* that cosmetics include soap and lotions, so you’re smearing Essence of Bessy all over yourself too. Which is why if this shkeeves you out, you should use soap made from vegetable glycerin. If it doesn’t say vegetable glycerin, chances are it’s animal-based.

*They’re skinning the horse later.

And pertaining to my artsy-artsiness, I would like to give a shout-out to Gelly Roll pens by Sakura. I only recently discovered them, and they are terrific. They have nice tiny nibs, the ink flows smoothly, and they are waterproof to a certain degree, so you can put your lines in and then paint over them with watercolors without having the ink run and smear. I haven’t investigated the myriad of wacky variations of pens Sakura makes (puffy, metallic, flourescent, glaze, etc.), I’m only speaking about the basic Gelly Roll colors right now. Excellent pens. And they sell them at Michael’s, so I don’t have to go to the fancy art store to get them.

Posted in My Art/Design/Business, The Telly | No Comments »

Pimp My Shoes.

January 14th, 2009

Now that Bride Wars is the #1 comedy in America, and He’s Just Not That Into You is coming out, I want to point out that not all women are psycho harpy shrews. All clear on that? Good.

Check ’em out: The way the shoes were constructed, they’re leather on the outside and spandex on the top. The spandex was getting shmutzy considerably faster than the leather, so I painted the spandex. I didn’t really have a design in mind, but I didn’t want any black. I’m trying to fight my natural inclination to paint anything and everything I wear black. Here’s a pic I took while riding on MetroNorth:

It’s blue and magenta that gradually gets darker towards the toe, covered with metallic turquoise paint dots and the occasional orange crystals. There’s a cool side effect – when I stand on a beige surface, it looks like I belong to some profoundly bizarre foot-binding cult with long, thin feet.

Posted in My Art/Design/Business | No Comments »

Two things I need to get off my chest.

January 12th, 2009

1. Within the last six months, I have seen two British films described as “romantic comedies” – Maybe, Baby and Dirty Filthy Love. I think we need to sit the British down and gently explain what a romantic comedy is, perhaps using a Powerpoint. Maybe, Baby is about a man and woman unable to conceive and how their marriage falls apart. Now, they get back together in the last minutes of the movie, but… not romantic, not comedy. Dirty Filthy Love is about a man who suffers from OCD and Tourette’s and how he loses his job and his wife and basically holes himself up in an apartment for months. He meets a nice OCD girl in his support group and they walk down a beach at the end after he has emotionally shattered into a million pieces, but… still, not romantic (since he spends the whole movie pining for his estranged wife) and DEFINITELY not a comedy. A person who would find this funny would find jokes about “retards” funny. I’m not saying that romantic comedies have to be all sappy and cuddly, but these are dramas with moments of funny in them. Totally different. A vaguely happy ending maketh not a comedy, so sayeth me.

2. OH DEAR GOD, have you seen any of the commercials for Rock of Love Tour Bus? It’s so, so bad. I, frankly, didn’t know women like this existed. I’ve certainly never seen them in person. Brief description for those of you who are lucky enough to have been spared until this point: Bret Michaels, lead singer of Poison, finds the Love of his Life while traveling around the country on a bus full of skanky trollops and OH, these girls are mind-blowingly skanky. Really. I work in New York, I see all kinds of people, but nothing like these women.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J-Mynku1vq0

I don’t know why Bret doesn’t just go and date Amanda Lepore already.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUfN7ZcF5wY

Posted in Advertising, Movie and Book Reviews. Possibly With Spoilers., The Telly | No Comments »

design-newyork.com

Cameras and Comics.

Giraffe.

I went to a reptile and amphibian show. I saw many cool things.

All The Way Down: The Tortoise piece is complete.

Dirty Jobs, Part II.

Bad calligraphy makes the baby Jeebus cry.

Nerd in three parts.

Dirty Jobs and Gelly Rolls.

Pimp My Shoes.

Two things I need to get off my chest.

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