I can't stop with the kindle covers!

Sunday Craft Project

Well, those seem to be two perfectly ordinary books.

When in fact, they hold my chatty kindle, Edison.

Kindle book cover section of the gift shop is now open.

A Taste of the Sticky Ictal

It started with a feeling that i have trouble describing. At the very basic, it's a feeling of unease, a sort of deep profound sense that something is not right. Almost the feeling that over the real world there is a drape that obscures the true shape or nature of things, and that that drape is fluttering and may be ripped away at any moment exposing some basic truth of reality that will literally drive me mad. This is metaphor of course, during the events it's just a growing, existential unease leading into mild terror. My mind then pictures some place i'm not, usually downstairs in the living room, and the idea that the room exists with no one to observe it causes a bizarre fear. Sometimes from there it passes and I feel better, some times it proceeds.

Today it proceeded, into the lovely world of time loss. So, i had my weird feelings, but while it's happening it's hard to realize what's going on, so i continued on with my morning. Made some coffee. Watched last night's Rachel Maddow. I started watching the show with full consciousness, but about halfway in my brain decided to reboot. I realized i had no idea of what day or time it was. I didn't really know what i was doing. I worked to reclaim the memories. The entire previous day was nearly gone, and the day before that hazy. I went upstairs and knocked on caroles door, to wake her, to orient myself. I don't know what exactly i said. I remember saying, "i made a kindle cover?" "Yeah, on Sunday," she replied. It's coming back to me. Most of it will. On the plus side, I only lost a Monday, which is widely acknowledged to be the worst day of the week.

Triangle Graphing Hollywood Nerds

Hollywood depictions of intelligence usually seem to fall into one of three categories, the Classic Nerd, the Mad Genius, and the rarer Alpha Nerd. Depictions of the Classic Nerd are common, think of the characters in Revenge of the Nerds or every Anthony Michael Hall character in John Hughes films. The Classic Nerd is sympathetic to the viewer and empathetic to other characters, while in comparison the Mad Genius can be nearly incomprehensible to other people due to their intelligence, usually treating those around them with an intellectual detachment. Sheldon Cooper on The Big Bang Theory and Sherlock Holmes on the BBC recent reimagining, Sherlock are both current examples. The third, and less common, is the Alpha Nerd. Confident, at ease with their intelligence, and popular with the members of the opposite sex, the Alpha Nerd is represented well in Good Will Hunting.
I really felt that these three archetype could be defined as locations on three different axises, sexual success (A), social detachment (B), and personnal detachment (C), so I rated a small sample of characters from television and film and then plotted the results. I present the Triangle Graph of the Nerd Triumvirate.

It's just so clear! Ok, so maybe not, but when you separate out the archetypes you can see they each have a distinct pattern.

The Classic Nerds

 

The Mad Geniuses

The Alpha Nerds

The 1980's Val Kilmer comedy Real Genius features all three of the main nerd archetypes,

while The Big Bang Theory only counts two of the three archetypes among it's main cast of characters.

The next step is plotting out basic nerd storylines as progressions along at least one of the three axises. I really should not enjoy playing with spreadsheets this much.

Hoisted by one's own petard

I hereby submit for consideration to the English language the following idiom:
Killed by your own cock
fig. To suffer disadvantage or defeat from your own actions. See hoisted by own petard.
Origin Early 21st century. Colloquial use began after a man in California died from wounds meted out upon him by his own fighting rooster. The man died at the hospital after having an artery in his calf slashed by the chicken.

Police Artist's Sketch

Original Story
Sketch

Egyptian Revolution as Seen On TV, or Bad Art: the Reflux

Just like with the protests in Iran following their elections in 2009, I can't stop watching the footage from the Egyptian protests. It's amazing to be able to watch the raw tape in nearly real time. Ok, so i got the 'ol art supplies out... Of course, mousepads, shirts and coffee mugs are available in the Gift Shop or by Tweet (just make sure to use the Jan25#.)



This is from the protests on Tuesday, January 25th.







This is an image of a protester being hit by a molotov cocktail. This is was 4:37 AM EET on the 6th Oct Bridge in Cairo. The protester in the background was able to turn and pat down the flames to extinguish them, while the protester in the foreground moved away and then used the classic stop-drop-and-roll technique. Both continued to participate in the running battle that night to control a section of elevated freeway overlooking an entrance into Tahrir Square.







I'm not sure exactly when this one occurred. It was actually during the day. When i saw this image on the video i was watching, i immediately hit pause to draw it. It's almost cliche; i mean of course every revolution is going to have someone who climbs up somewhere high and waves the flag. It's like an abacus, you can count on it. i loved how this picture shows all the interests vying for influence over Egypt's future: the people, the state, religion, peace, and maybe the dawn of a new day.

Bad Art

To show how well rounded i am, i thought that in addition to the bad poetry that i shared earlier i'd share some bad art. So, presented with minimal expanded comment.

Update: So, due to overall positive reaction by the local art scene, see the positive write-up on Maebel's blog, Mews of Our Times, i thought i'd give the public a view into just how bad art is made. First off, all bad artists have a certain misplaced confidence in their intelligence or skills or some other facet of their personality, which is ultimately what leads them to try to express themselves through bad art. So passing over the deeper reasons of why I created these particular pieces of bad art, i'll instead just show some of the how.

Ahh, lowly black and white pencil sketches.








with addition of carpal tunnel inducing mouse work and free photo editing







but wait, just to put the final touches, a little watercolors. Yep, and that's how I do it. Prints are available in the gift shop or by mail order.