August 2005 Fifty-four posts

Word of the Day

Expatriate.

Post of the Day @ Leahpeah

Read her piece about R. Kelly’s Trapped in The Closet. And my favorite resource site Wikipedia has a full synopsis too: Trapped In the Closet. It indicates that there are indeed going to be 10 parts to the saga.

Oi vey.

Joseph in Cyrillic

More travels through packrat-ism. In about 1994 I worked with a _very_ diverse staff of Respiratory Therapists. One of the women was a Russian, and I prevailed upon her to write my name, “Joseph” in Cyrillic. It looks pretty cool.

And now that I’ve scanned it, I’ve one less piece of paper! Yay for trimming and slimming.

Albeit one page at a time.

Gomez ArtLung

Ladies and Gentlemen, the Ferreteer repurposes my self portrait based on a suggestion from Tom Bickle.

Ferreteer has made me laugh out loud before with his PhotoShop shenanigans.

It’s a lovely morning. Feeling great. my back was hurting yesterday, but it’s much improved today. Today’s a pool day, I believe.

Psychology 101 Substitute Teacher, 1988

Though I don’t have the proof, this one is even better than the last one.

Psychology 101 Professor, 1988

Well, that last one was a terrible resemblance, as pointed out by Tom Bickle.

This one is rather better, I think. This actually looks like my professor. I even have some proof of that.

I used to draw a lot in his class, psychology is a great subject for drawings. Drawings to illustrate my notes, or just to doodle. After all, I think my major at the time was Fine Art, well, that was my declared major, inasmuch as a Community College student can have a major.

I enjoyed that class. I liked to make arguments in that class. The Prof argued that we overused the word “love” so much as to negate its meaning. We “love” the symphony, we “love” our car, etc. I argued that love still had meaning as a word, because from context we can tell what people mean by what they say when they say they love something.

Well, I love being able to share my meandering and rambling thoughts on this blog.

Can you tell that that’s different from when I say that I love Leah?

Oh, I’m getting pretty deep now.

It’s striking to me that a class I took for a few months 17 years ago has left such vivid memories.

And here I am disgorging them in a medium that did not exist when I had the memories originally.

Self Portrait, 1990

Little more than a scribble. The mustache is an afterthought. Not a great likeness.

I can tell the year because of the mustache, and the lab coat.

Maybe it’s not obvious to you it’s a lab coat, but it’s sure obvious to me.

Minimal Brushy Angst, 1988

I like this one a lot. So minimal. So few strokes, but it works as a whole. I like it.

Updates: we were given the great gift of a gym membership and last night we used it for the first time. Leah and Dev and Alex to a Tai Chi class, and I went to the pool and swam laps. Great stuff. I’m sore all over, which sounds like exactly the right thing. I’m very happy with that outcome. I have a lot of extra fat on me which impinges on my ability to do what I want to do.

Granted, I can lift stuff, and move stuff, and get around, and even walk a lot, but it’s hard on my body, my joints. If I were a car, I would be in need of a tune up. So I think that’s what this is.

I’m toying with making it a goal to swim laps every day. The place is open pretty late during the week, so we’ll see.

This morning is pretty, though it looks like it’ll be a hot day. We’ll see.

In other news, if you’re in Simi Valley and play racquetball, and are a middling player, give me a shout. Wanna partner?

In yet other news, I have failed to see both War of the Worlds and Fantastic Four in the theaters. We did see March of the Penguins, which was great, but it vexes me to not have seen WotW and FF on big screens.

In yet other other news, yes, the comments system for the site generates errors right now. It’ll take your comment, but it’s ugly. Rest assured, I’ll get your comment. If you resubmit, it’ll come in twice. Yes that stinks.

Okay, gotta get going. Leah’s off to work. I’ve done some email and blogging, and it’s time to begin the workday.

Spoils of Google Talk: Cantenna Illustration

One of my pals, Binary Wolf, and I, spoke for more than an hour (was it two?) yesterday — about all topics. Quite a wonderful conversation between two cable-modem havin’ guys.

Turns out he was looking for a logo, and right there on the audio call, I whipped up an illustration that now graces his Pringles Cantenna page. For a one off drawing I did and scanned in a few minutes, it was very gratifying. He described what he wanted, and I whipped out this:

This was a little raw, so I refined it and scanned that and got this:

Which in turn had some cantenna details wrong, so in Photoshop I tweaked and messed, and even added a genuine image of a Pringles can, about and the final result is this:

I dig it a lot. I got mad skillz yo.

Granted, it’s not my best drawing ever, but for someone who has been, in this space, mythologizing his drawing skills of _the past_ but providing precious little in the way of _new_ drawings, it was a terrific exercise. _I’m drawing!_

So go visit Do-It-Yourself Wi-Fi Antenna Update and of course and most especially, the Pringles Cantenna page.

DO NOT CALL

I said before that the first thing we started getting when we got a new landline as a backup was TELEMARKETING CALLS. Yuck.

Today I installed the new number in the Do not Call Registry. I hope that works.