Mermaid

This weekend I drew a mermaid on 6x6 bristol board. I used just a regular ball point pen, though, because it was too freakin' hot to use the dip pen. I haven't even inked the pencils for Arthur and Georgie I did last Tuesday because it has been too hot out. The ink goops up almost as fast as I can get the pen to the page. Hopefully this Saturday morning or Sunday morning, I will be able to. But I have to get my hair dyed for my High School Reunion in a couple weeks.

I was inspired by the Girls Drawing Girls blog, whose theme last week was mermaids so I saw a bajillion mermaid drawings and had to do this one to get it out of my brain. For some reason I am tending to draw people with great big heads and tiny little necks...

Also, this weekend we got to have "lunch" with my Aunt Bonnie who lives in New York. I haven't seen her in two years about, so that was nice. We went to the Greenbean and Yum. I got a Peach Granola Muffin that was divine and Bonnie got a Vanilla Lavender Italian Soda. Pretty good. I would have preferred more vanilla less lavender. Then we ran home and got the dogs and represented the Boyle's at my Aunt Carol's party because none of the rest of my immediate family could go. Jerks. :) Actually, Isaac might have gone after we left, since we had to leave early because we have a headlight out. Fortunately, we were going to bring the car in for a tune up today anyways so we just had them fix that at the same time.

Playing catchup

Whoops. I forgot to post in a while. Maybe next time I will post about the plants. There is a new one...

Well, I have been up to a lot. Let's start with Harry Potter Crafts. I participated in the last swap, which was potions themed. Here is the very practical swap I received. From left to right, there is glittering body spray that smells like pear, brown sugar hand sanitizer, and baking soda based cleanser. And I think a small hand-knit sock.

I sent my recipient a potions recipe box.

This was pretty fun to make. I got the box at Good will and sanded and painted it. I am pretty pleased. I think if I make another, though, it will be even better.

I also sent her these potions. The sleeping Draught broke, but I sent it without the liquid. I put the correct number of drops of food coloring in each bottle so she only had to add the water to get these colors.

Haha. Funny stuff, right? Anyways, here is a scarf I wove. This one was tricky because the yarn I used was shlubby.Crystal Palace Yarns Waikiki in Kiwi/Mango. I am a bit smitten with it. It is nice and soft.

I also knit these socks from the Rockin'Sock Club in just under a week and a half. Pretty awesome, right?

They are pretty comfy. My next project is the Lilac Leaf Shawl. I have one end done and I am almost at the same point on the other end. I just need to have it done by October 15 for the Nordic Knitting Conference, which makes me giddy every time I think about it.

Also, I bought this funny magnet I drew for The Jerks Store. We will get pictures posted when it arrives and let you know how the quality is. $7 is a good price for a test though. Better than just buying a bag. Since Abe has a job now and I can never tell when the dishes are clean or dirty, we got this so I don't have to call him at work and ask.

Finally, I drew this the other day and I am pleased. I think it was inspired by looking at drawings of Regina Spektor on Deviant Art.

Check it out

Check out my desktop. I can't stop laughing.

A short post

Just a quick post to link to this which is one of the most interesting things I've seen in a while. The guy that did it took WWII photos and found the places they were taken then took pictures today and overlaid the WWII photos so you can see both times at once. Some of them are really powerful.

--Abe

Good news

So, after much deliberation and consideration, I went back to the metro and asked if I could work there. My friends Kim and Jeff were amazing and not only got me rehired but did it quickly too. I'll be on the schedule that starts this Friday!

The pay isn't fabulous but it's not much lower than nintendo and the work environment and management are about 10 billion billion billion times better. So I am very pleased and Angela is really happy as well.

I went in on Sunday to fill out some paperwork and I spent like 3 hours there chatting with old friends and new people too. It was really fun.

I have some pictures to post that we took at the blowing sands gallery this weekend. We dropped in there with Anita and Jim. They both seemed to enjoy the show. Jim became our official first customer of The Jerks too! He bought one of the collections of the first twelve comics that I made for the gallery. You can see the cover, and order one if you want, here.

Anyway, I can't find the cable to get the pictures off my phone at the moment so I'll edit this post and add them tonight or tomorrow after I find that darn thing.

--Abe

Two birds on a wire

I didn't get a chance to post earlier because I had to go to the dentist for a cleaning today. My teeth hurt. Anyways, this Friday I actually did some digital painting. Very fun. Here it is, a short comic inspired by the song Two Birds on a Wire by Regina Spektor on the CD Far. This may be made into a print at some point once we figure out how. Sound good?

Here's a link to a better one.

I also have the plain black and white version up there.

An Isaac'ed weekend

Here's a head kerchief thing I knit with three different yarns from the Phat Fiber box I bought a long time ago. I tried buying one this time but kept getting errors from Etsy so I think I am done with that little experiment. :(

My brother came over this weekend. We had a good time. He arrived before I got home from work, so Abe met him downtown, where they had coffee. Then they came home and played Team Fortress together. When I got home, we went to the Phinneywood Farmer's Market. Isaac bought Strawberry wine, Tayberry wine, and Blackberry wine and let us have the remainders of the strawberry and tayberry. Unfortunately, I didn't like either, but Abe did. So he can have those and I will drink beer. That night Isaac and I played some Lego Batman and it was awesome. I can't wait for him to come down and play with me again. Abe played through it once with me and that was apparently enough for him.

On Saturday, we didn't wake up until 10. Whoops. We went to Patty's Eggnest across the street for breakfast. I had swedish pancakes with strawberries instead of lingonberries. They were pretty good. Then we rushed over to the Sidewalk sale at Acorn Street where I think we (Isaac and I) spent 2 hours or so looking at the yarn. I found this great french one that looked like fur, but I wanted to make a whole purse with it and it was $8 for 17 yards. That was way too expensive. So I bought some other stuff.

The Waikiki from Crystal Palace will some day be woven into an AWESOME scarf. I think it will be awesome. It is the Kiwis/Mangos colorway and I just love it.

The Baby Alpaca Grande from Plymouth Yarns will be fingerless gloves. They were supposed to come with a free pattern, but I didn't get it because I forgot to ask. Though perhaps it is inside the band? Anyways, I can undoubtedly find a pattern on Ravelry, my love. It is so soft, you can barely tell you are touching it. I will make the fingerless gloves and see how it wears. I might get two more skeins to make a pair of the best slipper socks ever.

Finally, there is the Noro Sukko. I think I will be making the Swallowtail shawl out of that. It is a simple shawl pattern and it appears others have done that with success and it looks nice. The colors of the yarn are black, green and brown, as far as I can tell, but I bet there are surprise colors inside too. There always are.

Then we went to the Cartoonists North West meeting where Milt Prigee gave a talk/answered questions. It was fun. He does editorial cartoons, which Abe is more into than I am. Then we dropped Isaac off at the train station to get back home to his GIRLFRIEND. :) Good for him.

Anyways, the other thing I bought at Acorn Street was a skein of Noro to make a tea cozy. And make a tea cosy I did. (I think I just heard one of the dogs fart...) So here it is in all its glory. This is a nice pattern. I am not kidding. I think the whole thing can be knit up in 4 hours (small version). If I hadn't been distracted by how much I love the first X-Men movie, I think I could have knit the whole thing Saturday night, but as it is, I sat there just holding the knitting for a fair chunk of time. So I finished it Sunday morning while I drank tea.

This week on the Ten Ton Studios Sketch Challenge, the theme was Nocturno, an Argentinian graphic novel, by Salvador Sanz. Lovely, but I can't find it in English. Anyways, here is what I drew. It is also up on the Forum.

Last week, I also started the Lilac Leaf Shawl so I will have a Nancy Bush Estonian Lace Shawl to where when I go to the Nordic Knitting Conference in October! (I am taking Icelandic Lace on Saturday and Estonian Cuffs on Sunday.) I started with the other end so that I can knit the middle until I run out of yarn or finish the pattern, whichever comes first. My skein of yarn is about 50 yards smaller than the one called for so I wasn't sure I would have enough.

One of my friends, Celina, put a link to I Write Like on her blog. So I though I would give it a shot. Here are my results. I tried a bunch of things because that is how I am.

When I put in writing from the blog, which is a bit stream of consciousness: Vladimir Nabokov. Abe was impressed.

A story I wrote in high school (which I may end up turning into a graphic novel - 'Cigar Smoke' if I ever talk about it again): Jack London.

Office Cowboy is apparently written like Stephen King. (Haha. There is a joke in that sentence if you know of Stephen King's writing style well enough.)

The water lady story is like Harry Harrison, who I have no idea who that is.

At this point I stared to think it is just completely random.

Vergamon is apparently written like Dan Brown.

A paper for a TC class my last year of college: Agatha Christie.

Hmph.

I will have pictures of my plants in my next post, maybe.

I hate titles

So, I found this article on the naked capitalism blog and I think that everyone should read it.

It blows my mind that the sheriffs office just goes and sets up an auction for whatever house the banks tell them to without checking to see if the bank that makes the request is even the issuer of the mortgage for the house, or that the name on the notice even matches the name of the owner in the county records.

The Jerks comic is coming along quite well. I'm really pleased with it. Angela's art is just getting better and better. And my stories, which began with poop and vomit jokes, are actually moving toward less potty humor which you'll see in a few weeks.

I re-started playing WoW last week after Angela and I spent an hour being nostalgic about it. My favorite feature of the game now is the random dungeon finder. It usually doesn't take more than about 15 minutes and most of the groups have been excellent; friendly people, competent playing, willing to work with the strengths and weaknesses of the group members. It's also really nice that I can play for an hour or two and actually *DO* something in that time. EQ2 has gotten to the point where it takes hours and hours to get anything done and I always logout feeling like I wasted my time.

Wow, I got distracted by webcomics there, stopped mid-sentence and just came back after like 45 minutes.

--Abe

Here is some yarn for you...

First, check it out - I made Abe a toy. I started this, no kidding, in July of 2005 and finished it in July 2010. Go Ravelry for keeping that information for me. I am crazy, yes.

Two weekends ago, we had a good ol' time. Saturday we went to my mom's and met my brother's new girlfriend, who seems nice. My mom and I spent most of the day washing 10 lbs of wool in her yard. That was a lot of work. Then I brought it home and I have been washing it even more. Boil it on the stove and dry it in the oven. I am done, and it only took 4 days to wash all 10 lbs! Now I have to card it and then I have to spin it. And probably dye some of it. I spun up a test of the 10 lbs of shetland(?) that I had already washed and it is a creamy lemony color. The one I am currently washing is quite white. And filthy. Lots of poop and bugs and grains (their food) and even pieces of hoof.

I also found this car on one of the blogs I read. Holy Cow. I would consider driving that, but not in the rain...

Maybe this is what we need to have a less jerky comic.

Uh...

More recently, since it seems I haven't posted in a while, we have The Jerks up at the Blowing Sands Gallery in Ballard. Our stuff should be up until about Aug 11. There are free stickers and some small comic books for sale. We hung out on Saturday night and hula hooped a bit. I don't know if we will sell anything, but a couple of the people there liked our stuff. The president (Mary Beth) of Cartoonists Northwest thought they were cute and liked the humor. So there are other people out there that like poop humor.

At one point, we also had a pinata, which was pretty funny. It was a mermaid that Mary Beth'd had for a while and put fresh candy in. We didn't have a place to hang it so they tried just tossing it in the air, but that didn't work. Then a lady with a cane let people use her cane to whack at it like a baseball. Eventually, no kidding, little Tootsie Rolls started coming out her butt. I was nearly doubled over with laughter. Good times.

I also started working on a Positions Swap for the Harry Potter Crafts group. I am pretty excited. I think the items are going to be great, when they are done. I hope they ship ok!

I've been doing the Tour de Fleece (spinning every day that the Tour de France is running). I was supposed to start on Saturday when I went to Mom's, but I got distracted by washing all the wool. But Sunday and Monday I spun up a couple skeins. One is teeny tiny. 2-ply lace yarn. The other is the fourth of five skeins of Monkey Farts Corridale from Spunky Eclectic which I really like. I somehow messed it up, but whatever. Hopefully the next one will go better.

Day 3:

Day 4 (from knittyandcolor in the Dragonskin colorway which I got in a Phat Fiber Box):

Day 5:

Day 6:

Day 7 (the same knittyandcolor but all spun up and plied; I also washed some of the Monkey Farts to make sure the color wouldn't leech too much, and it didn't!):

Day 8 (wool mill ends and carbonized fiber - I spun this while watching the very weird movie Krull):

Day 9 (from Xtreme Spinning in the Princess Bride colorway from the Phat Fiber box):

I forgot to take a picture of my spinning on day to. But I was just plying the singles from Day 9 and didn't even finish. I drew Arthur and Georgie stuff until about 9, so I didn't have much time. The backgrounds are getting more and more detailed, so I am needing more time.

After the long weekend

We had a lot of fun over the long 4th of July weekend. It started when Angela got off work 2 hours early on Friday! We went to the farmers market and got some sausage which I later turned in to our favorite sausage stuff. Then on Saturday we went to Bellingham to celebrate with Anita and Jim and Isaac and his new girl friend who's name I can't quite remember at the moment. She was nice though.

On Friday we stopped at Fred Meyer to get something or other and the up escalator was broken. I totally mis-stepped the first few steps and sort of lurched like a broken robot. This cause Angela to start laughing and flailing about so much that she tripped and fell UP the stairs. Her knee landed right on the front edge of one of the escalator steps and it gave her a wicked bruise.

Then on Saturday my left leg got devoured by mosquitoes and now it looks like I have leprosy or something.

Then Angela spent the rest of the weekend washing raw wool and drying it in our oven while I played EQ2. It was a fantastic weekend.

Jeez, I almost forgot to mention that I created a store at cafepress for the-jerks.com yesterday and I made a few items; two shirts, a magnet, a button, a bag, and a few others. There's a link in the top nav bar of http://the-jerks.com or you can go there directly at http://www.cafepress.com/the_jerks

--Abe

Happy friday

So http://the-jerks.com/ now has eight comics posted. I'm really excited about how it's coming along. Angela's made great strides on the art in the last few weeks so we've got comics that look even better than the ones that are up now. So keep checking back there's some good stuff coming in the next few weeks.

We checked out the collected Iron Man comics volume one from the library last weekend and I read a few chapters of it this week. Wow. It's not even veiled, it's straight up cold war propaganda. The movies are actually way tamer in this regard. The writing is also *terrible* like it was written in five minutes with no editing on the back of a napkin or something. The art is pretty good though. It's my favorite part by far.

I submitted a short story to the Aeon Award competition this week. First prize is 1000 euros so wish me luck!

--Abe

Snow and Rain

When I was reading blogs, I found this website, the cartoonist studio. Here is my favorite studio, I think: Tom Batiuk, who does Crankshaft. It was fun to look at all the studios. My studio is currently the couch. I have a drawing board that fits on my lap, a TV Table that I set up to put my ink and water and nibs on. And all the drawing stuff that will fit, like the nibs and pens, inks and erasers, go into a fishing tackle box next to the couch. I also have a full spectrum light that I can set on it side behind the drawing board if I need to trace something, like this drawing! I did it on the "brown" paper, Yupo, which I call brown because it is made of polypropylene. It is fun to work on though. I used a water brush and watercolor pencils to make this. I like the trees and snow, but I don't know how well the girl turned out.

I also draw this, though I drew this in my spare time at work. It is on the cardboard from the back of a pad of paper that I had finished. I like it a lot. It was rather inspired by Edward Gorey. I didn't have a reference of his, but it turned out ok.

Here is this week's Ten Ton Studio Sketch Challenge . The first one is pretty dang funny. I would like to draw something, but I can't think of anything.

I started working on this cropped cardigan for summer (I say cardigan because I will be adding sleeves). I had about 800 yards of cotton and didn't know what to do with it, so I looked up the gauge, weight, yardage, and fiber on Ravelry and found 4 patterns that I liked to choose from. How sweet is that. I also found this top that I plan to make using two different colors of yarn. I might even use two different weights. I might have to modify the pattern a bit, but the top part could be a bit lacy. And this tank top, which is cute and simple and super easy to modify, I bet. And this little Hexacomb Cardigan that I want to make with robin's egg blue for the main part and a nice sunny yellow for the hems. If you look at it on Ravelry, there are some great color combos, so I might do another combo other than blue and yellow.

I have also wanted to start another Harry Potter kick lately. I have a bunch in my queue, so I will probably just finish up some of those, but I might start up on the Harry Potter Craft group again. This month is a challenge to create a transfigured object. Not sure what I will do yet. If anything. And I might join the Hogwarts Sock Kit Swap, round 11. I have at least 2 pairs of started Ravenclaw socks that I should finish. One is my own pattern. Another is from the Harry Potter knitting book, which is an okay book, but not great.

I was working on other socks, Ravenswirl and Ada Lovelace, both Rockin' Sock Club kits. But both ended up being too tight to fit over my heel, so I need to rip both out and work a bigger size or something. I am not sure what to do. More increases at the gusset on the Ada Lovelace? I think I will just make the L instead of the medium. Sigh. I had only finished the ankle on the Ravenswirl and the leg part wouldn't fit over my heel. Maybe I have a giant instep?

FridayFridayFriday

Not a lot to talk about today.

I've been working on a short story to submit to the Aeon Award competition. Angela is going to give it one last proof reading this weekend and then I'll pay my fee and send it in.

I've been doing a lot of thinking and experimenting with the mechanics of how I tell the story in my writing. I've primarily written in a first person present tense style over the years but I am experimenting with a third person non-omniscient present tense these days. No one but me has read any of this yet though. Not even Angela although she will, in all likelihood, be the first.

I've been spending a lot of time in the battle grounds in EQ2 lately as well. So far I really prefer my Wizard to the other classes I have. Unfortunately my slots are all full or I'd probably make either a pally or shadowknight specifically for the BGs.

The BGs at level 90 are really brutal. There are *a lot* of people that can one shot Denaso. I was going to link you to Denasos info page on eq2 players but their search is busted atm so you don;t get to see her nerd sheet. I need to get her some more lvl 90 PvP gear and that one shotting should stop. Hopefully. I'm also going to play Eunika, my berzerker, in some BGs as well.

Anyway, off to post on the arachknits etsy shop.

--Abe

I wove

What a fun weekend. On Saturday, our house was all clean, which was a nice change of pace, Abe... Anyways, we had a nice relaxed morning with tea and stuff. Then we went to the Cartoonist NW meeting. The information was OK, about SEO, but I don't know if we will use it. We'll see. Perhaps we will start a couple of twitter accounts since people seem to like those so much. But at the meeting, we talked to the president of the group and decided we would really join and include some of our work in the art show they are having in July in Ballard. More details to follow. We even talked to some of the people in the group instead of just running out of the room. I we showed someone who is working on a new syndicated comic (or getting ready to submit it?) our Bus Stop story. He seemed to like it. I couldn't really tell. His comic was funny. Shrub - keep an eye out for it.

The mom and Jim came over for dinner. They spent the afternoon with one of Jim's professors. Turns out that professor is the dad of one of the ladies I sort of work with. So that was funny. We had a really good time. We were supposed to get a picture of mom's scarf I wove for her for mother's day, but we didn't get a chance. She sent me this "bad" picture. (haha - better than the ones I take.) She didn't want me to post it, but I have to post something. It is just too exciting.

We had some steak and corn and pink mashed potatoes. Cute. And some beer. We tried a white seasonal ale from Pike Brewery, but I don't think anyone particularly cared for it. Then we all moved on to Smithwick's, which has taken its place as my favorite. The dogs behaved OK. Mom was sitting in a chair and Nisa leapt into her lap, but mom seemed to think it was funny. She also got to try on her nearly finished Girl Friday sweater and we bought some buttons for it that should be delivered soon. I hope by the end of the week. I only have 1.5 inches of 1x1 rib left to knit and a couple ends to weave in. Then I can finish blocking it and sew on the buttons. I finally did the thing where you wrap the wet knitting all up in a towel and step on it, then block it. Wow does that make a difference. I will never look back. That is a forever thing for me now. This way it can block over night instead of waiting 3 days to a week for the dratted thing to dry. Thanks, Yarn Harlot!

Before they left, we showed them Super Rub-A-Dub, which they simply did not appreciate, and the demo of Fairy Tale Fights where you play Little Red Riding Hood in a white room and massacre other fairy tale characters. Very funny. That demo cracks me up. It is nothing like the game, so I am wary of buying the game, but we'll see.

In The Jerks news, I am now able to do the two pencils for each week's comics in one evening. If I don't wait to long to get started. I think the upcoming ones are just getting better. At least in regards to my drawing if not in hilarity. And next time I post, I will have an actual non The Jerks drawing to post. I just have to Photoshop it together since the stupid scanner is an inch too small to scan the whole thing.

Update: I posted an image at the Ten Ton Studio sketch challenge. Go check it out. :) It's not super amazing, but it has a lot of background and I really need to work on backgrounds.

Abe's my etsy fiend.

So Abe is posting needles on Etsy for me because I can't be bothered. I am so busy doing other things that I don't have the 30 to 45 minutes or so it takes to do the photo shoot and all the data entry. Buh. Today he posted these funny spades needles.

We got our second comment on the comic, but it seems to have been spam. :'( After next week, I am not sure if I will continue to post comic updates on my Facebook page because I don't think anyone cares. We'll see. Maybe I can annoy them all into looking. It is weird to send the notice out to people who I haven't seen since high school, but whatever. I hear about their nights out drinking or their days out running.

I started posting The Jerks comics to DeviantArt. Though I will just post the previous week's comics there on Tuesday instead of the same day.

The porkchop dinner didn't turn out as well the second night light it does with the Cream of Mushroom soup. Oh well. It was still good. Surprise surprise, the french cook book food doesn't lend itself well to the microwave.

This weekend, I watched Delgo. I liked it more than Abe. It was a nice-to-look-at movie, for sure. Not the best, but interesting enough. It was just a plain classic story, but it was also a Family PG movie, so I didn't expect much. Actually, the concept art they showed throughout the credits was far more amazing than the art in the movie. I wish the movie had been done in the style of the concept art, which was gorgeous. From the concept art, it looks like there could have been more interesting detail in the movie, too, but for a Family movie, they have to keep it short. Weird voice cast, though. Freddie Prince Jr, Jennifer Love Hewitt, Eric Idol, Val Kilmer, Malcolm McDowell, many other weird ones.

I got an email from Amazon today about a book that comes out June 29, Knitting MochiMochi by Anna Hrachovec. Wow. I must admit I am excited for that book. Cute Cute stuff. On Ravelry, she has a bunch of cute patterns, like bats whose wings close shut with a button so you can hang them from the ceiling, baby alligators, pigeons that can actually perch on things, a resistor and a capacitor, "dust bunnies," a bath tub with bubbles, a toilet paper roll, and so much more. She also did woodins ("a tiny apparition that lives in fallen trees and is characterized by its asymmetrical ears and leaf tail"), which is a cute pattern from Knitty.

Monday madness

So on Friday night we went to the Phinney farmers market and got some locally grown organic pork chops among other things. On Saturday the pork was thawed but it was too hot to cook. On Sunday I spent most of the day cooking. First I made some bread. Nothing fancy, just the fast white bread recipe from the joy of cooking. I used the SAF Red Instant Yeast that I ordered from King Arthur Flour last week. The bread was awesome, like always, but the yeast made it rise almost double what the old Fleischmann's yeast I used to use did.

Check it out:

Then, for dinner I fried the pork chops:

Made some white sauce with fried mushrooms and onions:

Put it all on rice and served it with some fresh corn:

It was an awesome meal :-)

I caught Nisa being a real jerk on Sunday too. The litter box is in the bathroom for two reasons, first to keep the dogs from trapping the cat in there and second to keep them from eating the kitty-roca. Nisa still finds ways to be a jerk though.

No way to know for sure how long that'd been going on when I caught her but it's entirely possible that the cat had been stuck in the bathroom for a half hour or more.

New comic posted at http://the-jerks.com/ tomorrow morning! Be sure to look for it.

--Abe

Friday!

So, we voted Nisa the jerks of the week because she ate some huge turd on our walk and Angela had to dig it out of her mouth. It was gross. Then, she climbed up on the table and ate all of the cats food. So I pushed the chairs in as far as they would go and later I caught her pushing one of the chairs out!

We've posted two comics on http://the-jerks.com/ this week. Our schedule is Tuesdays and Thursdays. It look like we had about 3K hits since Tuesday morning which is pretty good. Hopefully that will get a lot bigger over the next six months or so.

I've been busy all day and I have a lot to do still so this one is short.

--Abe

The Jerks is a live web comic!

Woot. So the comic is up: the-jerks.com. Every Tuesday, Thursday, barring Abe forgetting. We have about a month of backlog. I haven't really worked on much else, drawing wise. I do have these sketches I did during breaks at work.

Abe has been looking over the views on the-jerks.com and they are coming from all over the world. But mostly between 9 and 5 on the server time. Weird, right?

We did go see Iron Man 2 last weekend. That was actually a really fun movie and I have no idea why it got such bad reviews. I thought it was really fun and completely in the same vein as the first one. It was so loud though. Almost too loud for me to hear, but not quite, if you know what I mean. I am so glad we saw it in theaters. Maybe the bad reviews were from "traditionalist" Iron Man fans, but I know nothing about Iron Man except these movies. Abe and I were talking about it and we can't think of any good way to follow all the "canon" from the comics. They are going to draw in people with no knowledge of background so everything is new. If they just tried to take an existing comic and make that into a movie, it wouldn't translate well because the comics tend to assume a basic amount of knowledge (usually it seems to me). I like the approach they have taken where they make a story based on existing pieces of story. It is a new story based on old story. That way it is new to the newbies and the old fans. Old fans get to see live action pieces of the story they love but in new context. I could just be talking out my butt, but I like how they are doing them.

I have been watching Ten Ton Studios sketch challenge and their challenge this week is what a superhero of supervillain of your choice would look like from a different era. There are already some really good ones. I might do the drawing, but I don't know if I will enter. Can you say lazy? Scanning sucks. I dream of one day owning a scanner large enough to scan in one shot a 9x12 piece of paper. Ooh. That is about an inch or half an inch larger in width and length than my current one. Annoying, right? I have no idea what superhero I would draw or what era to move them too. Abe had a good idea that I will try though. If I can get it done in time, maybe I will post it. I only have to give it away if the winner likes mine enough and that is a bit of an honor.

I know I had an epiphany about the Water Lady story, but I haven't been able to bring myself to draw any character sketches yet. I really need to get on that. In my defense, I have been working on The Jerks and trying to focus on that. Though I guess sometimes I get distracted by drawing a picture for the circus story, which doesn't even have a story line yet.

This past Friday, I got my May Rockin' Sock Club kit in the mail. I am doing the Ada Lovelace sock. It came with a nice green Spirits yarn, which means it is barely colored at all, but I think it is lovely. The pattern is sort of steam-punk according to the description from the designer. It has a mix of lace and cables, which I just love. In fact, that is used on my spats. I think I should make some of those spats and sell them on Etsy. And some of my gloves. Today, I will get Abe to start posting items on Etsy. I have a fair number of items ready to post, but they need pictures and stuff and Abe can post them. Anyways, back to the new sock kit, I started Friday night and am currently working on the heel flap of the first sock. So I am about a quarter done. This cuff looks kind of short, but complicated, so it is hard to gauge. I am working on this instead of my mom's sweater. Bad Angela. But my plan is to work complete the first sock, complete the second sleeve of mom's cardigan, complete the second sock, and then complete the right front of mom's cardigan. Then I will basically be done with both. But not really, because then on the sweater, I have to block it, sew it, and knit the button band stuff. Which shouldn't take too long. And I can't finish that until mom gets me the buttons so I know how big, where, and how many button holes to make.

Monday

So, the new website for our comics is a terribly kept secret :-)

I've finally got it all working and set up the way we want it so we are going to post the first comic there tomorrow. We'll be posting comics there on Tuesdays and Thursdays. This blog will continue to be our personal blog. We haven't decided on the posting schedule for this blog yet but we'll let you now as soon as we figure it out.

I made some kick ass oatmeal, maple syrup and bacon bread yesterday. It makes the best damn sandwiches :-)

I'm watching the Ken Burns WW II documentary, The War, while I work on the site. It's pretty fantastic.

--Abe

Happy Friday!

Angela asked me to post today.

On Wednesday night I went to Dissonant Plane to see Thione Diop and his brother play the drums. They were totally awesome. They played for about an hour or so and they asked and answered questions in between songs. I bought one of their CDs. It's awesome.

I finished Dragon Age earlier in the week. I enjoyed the game a lot. The story was well executed if a bit unoriginal. The party characters were *awesome* though. I played a human noble lady rogue and I peopled my party with good characters; Wynne, Leliana, and Alistair. I made Alistair a shield wielding tank, Wynne in to a heal bot and me and Leliana into a dual wielding death squad. We pretty much just rolled through everything.

I wanted to keep playing after the end but, for some reason, the game took away both of my characters weapons. That pissed me off so much that I haven't played it.

Instead I went totally different and have been playing Dawn of War II, which I've mentioned previously. I hope to finish it this weekend.

--Abe

Wednesday weirdness

We don't usually post on Wednesday but I forgot to post on Monday so . . .

I spent all day working on our little surprise. It was a long and painful experience. I'll post about it in detail once the secret is out.

I've been playing Dawn of War II lately. I generally dislike RTS games because I find micro-management to be a form of torture rather than a game. However, DoWII does away with micro-management of bases, resources and resource gathering and leaves you with just managing your squads of hilariously over-the-top space marines as they shoot, hack, chainsaw, explode and stomp their way through hordes of Orcs, Eldar and Tyranids. It's a good time all the way around.

Well back to hacking away at the project.

--Abe

Phinney market and sewing

We had a pretty good weekend. On Friday we went to the Phinney Farmer's Market, which was the first one this year. It is very small, but has some good stuff. Not much in the way of vegetables yet, unless you like thumb-sized asparagus or salad (which I hate). But we did find a place that sold local, grass-fed, organic, free-range meat (of the 4-legged variety). We got a huge piece of top sirloin that will make three meals for each of us. Holy cow. (haha)

We also got some potatoes from them -- Purple Majesty. Made into mashed potatoes, they looked like Play-doh. But they tasted like normal potatoes. The meat tasted amazing, though. A little pricey, and you had to buy whatever size they had, but Abe just cut it into three pieces and then he cooks that and cuts it in half. I am drooling just in writing this. We also had some organic corn on the cob with it. Man that is a good meal. Anyways, they also sell bratwurst, so next Friday, we will go again and get maybe some pork chops and some bratwurst. Hopefully there will be more vegetables soon.Isn't that just the best looking dinner. The meat really does taste different than the other meat we have gotten. I cannot wait to try those bratwursts.

Then we went to good will. Or was that Saturday. Anyways, Abe got some shorts and a shirt, and I got some comfy corduroy pants and a cool black and white hounds tooth purse with red trim. Then I went to the mall and got a new wallet because mine was pissing me off. Every time I opened it the stupid cards would all fall out. So I went to Fuego and got an Angry Little Girls wallet. It is really cute. I almost wish I had gotten the vampire one, but this one is great and now I am not one of THOSE people. Turns out I LOVE that store. It is similar to hot topic, but funnier.

I also drew some more for the upcoming web comic, including a header image. So we are getting there. Arthur and Georgie are fun to draw. Actually, there are two new characters who are also way fun to draw. I will draw away and then stop to look at it as a whole and laugh every single time.

Yesterday, I wanted to go get some zippers for the cloth I bought to make skirts from. So when I got home, I made a skirt. I also got another zipper to fix a skirt that had a broken zipper. So now I have two skirts to wear. The skirt I made myself looks great. I had to make some darts and mess those up, but I think my shirts will cover it, and if not, I can always go back and fix it. I should have read the instructions in my Skirt book on how to make darts. Anyways, the book is Sew What: Skirts and it is awesome. The one I made yesterday was A-Line. I also plan to make a straight skirt with some green and cream hounds tooth, and a pleated skirt with some green and brown plaid. While I got the zippers, I also bought some clearance fabric because it as 30% off, so I got some cute red fabric that I will use as a layer over some black fabric for a skirt. I think that will be really cute. And I got some yellow fabric with pink dots that I will make into bloomers for which I will tat some lace to attach at the bottom of each leg. Nice, yeah? (FYI, I was totally spacing out every time Abe took a picture of me in this skirt.)

I have plans. I have too many plans. This is on top of all the knitting I have to do, including the new Rockin' Sock Club kit that should be coming in the next couple weeks (so far I am two for two - received two kits and both are already knit up) and the sweater I am knitting for my mom. Another Girl Friday, but in evergreen. It is coming right along. I have the left front, back, and one sleeve done. I started the second sleeve yesterday, but I only got about an inch in. I also have the Raven Swirl (rav) Rockin' Sock Club socks on the needles. I am almost half way done with the first sock. I love this pattern and can't wait for them to be done. Speaking of plans, I also got a free coat rack and I plan to sand and paint it this summer...There is a chance I might have more to do than can possibly be done...

One day when I was working on something at work, I looked out the window at the rain and had a bit of an epiphany on how to tell my water lady story. It was very satisfying. So that is my next big comics project.

Friday hooray!

Hey it's Friday on a three day weekend :-)

I'm working hard on the new the-jerks.com and you should hopefully see the fruits of my work in the next week or two.

We're going to the Phinney Farmers Market tonight when Angela gets home. We're going to get some fresh veggies for dinner tonight.

Valve upgraded Half-Life 2 and Episode One to the most recent build of the source engine this past week when they released the Half-Life 2 games on the mac platform. They also added achievements to HL2 and Ep1. I'm kinda burned out on RPGs so I think I am going to replay the entire Half-Life series when I finish Dragon Age.

Speaking of which, I haven't had any time to play DA in the last few days which is kind of frustrating because my save is about five minutes into the battle of Denerim and I'm pretty sure that's the end of the game. When I finish it I will post a review and some thoughts.

I finished a short story recently. The first draft was completed a few months ago and it's been aging since then. Last week I opened it up and did a second draft. I cut about 7 pages from it, rewrote a bunch of dialog, fixed a ton of grammar and punctuation errors, fixed a bunch of consistency issues and added a ton of character development. Angela is going to hit it with the editor bat sometime in the coming week and then I'll send it off to some magazines and see if I can make a few bucks off it.

I am *very* happy with the story even though I am acutely aware of many ways that it is lacking. I've got few other stories that are ready for comprehensive second drafts in the next month or so and I'm really looking forward to finishing up my current top secret project so I can get back to working on the fiction.

Well, I'm gong to make some coffee and put on some laundry now :-) Have a great weekend.

--Abe

Home Sweet Homo Erectus

Finally, here is the painting I did while I was on vacation. Pretty fun, right? Well, I had fun with it anyways. I really like the eye sockets. This got me excited to do more painting, too, which means I might finally get around to doing something with poor little Umbrella girl.

In a couple weekends, we are going to do a craft fair with Abe's mom. Abe will have more information tomorrow, but it is in Lake City from 9 to 5 or 6. We will have knitting needles and other knitting stuff, cards (blue lady), and comics (Bus Stop). We will see how well the comics sell and then put them up for sell on etsy.

More Dragon Age

I played dragon age on sunday. Now that I'm into a part of the game that I haven't played before the voice acting is much less annoying. I am concerned about replaying the game though.

I had a weird situation where the game was crashing to desktop every time I killed a certain boss. It turned out that there's a big explosion with a bunch of particles and stuff that happens when the guy dies and that's what was crashing the game. All I had to do was turn off "post processing effects" and it worked like a charm.

The game is buggy as hell though. Not Bethesda buggy mind you but buggy nevertheless. It crashes to the desktop randomly which is pretty annoying. Most of the time it takes a few hours but sometimes it crashes after just a half hour or so. The one that bothers me the most is that when combat starts, the volume of the music jumps up by about 30%. So I am constantly adjusting the volume because if I turn it down enough that the combat music isn't painfully loud I can barely hear the characters talking when I'm not in combat. The other bugs I've noticed are that some quest npcs don't lose their overhead indicators when the quest is turned in.

I'm really enjoying the story though. And the characters in my party are mostly interesting and are very well voice acted. I find myself actually enjoying talking to them.

--Abe

Funny Video

This is really funny. It looks like any other pair of talking heads at the beginning but you'll soon realize that they are mercilessly lampooning the state of the worlds economy :-)

Angela went to Portland for a few days with a friend so I've been playing Dragon Age which was actually a christmas present I got for myself. I had started playing it when I first got it but I was not enamored of the party mechanics and I got frustrated with micromanaging stupid bots and gave up. This time I made a group composed entirely to support my main character who is a rogue and I'm having a great time.

I've got to say that the voice acting gets pretty tedious the second time through though.

Last I checked I had about 22 hours in to it and the game says I've completed 33% of the game. I'm doing every quest I can find and I'm exploring and talking to everyone so I expect it'll be a hefty chunk or time before I'm done with the game.

--Abe

Coming Changes

So, there are some changes coming to the blog in the near future. For now, the only thing that's going to change is that http://www.the-jerks.com is NOT going to automatically take you to the blog anymore. Instead you will need to go to http://adventuresinjerkiness.blogspot.com and, because I'm nice, I'll set up a page on http://www.the-jerks.com with a link to the blog :-)

In a little while there will be more changes and I think you'll enjoy them.

--Abe

Vacation is fun. Now I remember.

So I guess I never posted about my vacation. Here goes.

We started out packing my mom's VW bug (new version) with tons of art supplies and promptly driving south to go to Lake Quinalt. And promtply taking the wrong highway and going on a huge detour to Hoodsport, if that means anything to you. But once we got back on track all was well and we got to the Lochaerie Resort without any further problems. We did stop at a gas station so my mom could make sure she was going the right way, but we were.

View Larger Map

The Cabin was very nice, though we had to make about 5 trips down two or three flights of very steep, uneven stairs to get all our stuff down to the cabin. I like the stairs when we weren't carrying all our stuff. And I thought to myself, "Well, I would rather be carrying all this down than up and Abe and Jim will be here to carry it all back up..." The Cabin itself was nice. Small, but nice. And I thought to myself, "Abe might have a hard time here since it all seems to be size for mom and myself." My mom and me are within a quarter inch of each other in height. Abe is almost a foot taller than me. The bedrooms all look out on the lake. The porch faced the trees, but we did sit out there and drink cocoa one evening. That was fun. Mom got some great pictures of some birds. Yellow Thrush? She got pictures of a loon swimming in the lake and some common merganzers taking off from the lake. In the morning, the hills around the lake were covered in fog. Absolutely gorgeous.

We spent our evenings in front of the fire place (they give you firewood for each night) doing crossword puzzles mom had brought with her from the newspaper. We wanted to get more because we were running out, but not a single store in teh lake quinalt area carried them. Doh.

During the day, we intended to do a lot of art. I apparently don't know how to do that yet. It is hard to switch from a cubicle for work to a couch. :) Anyways, we didn't do much because on the first day, mom had heard mice in the walls; and on the second day, we found mouse poop; and on the third day, a mouse came tearing ass out from behind the fireplace. So we spent a lot of time trying to work out that problem.

In addition to the "pets" we had not requested, mom forgot her watercolor paper block, so we called Abe and him look up the nearest art store, which was in Forks. So we spent a few hours and drove to Forks. Oh, and for the first few days, mom had a very sore back. She thinks it was from the stress of actually taking a working vacation, which I tend to agree. So in Forks, we found the art store pretty easily. Small town, so it was not the most varied art store. Mom ended up getting some cheap watercolor paper in sheets because they didn't even sell watercolor blocks. When we went up to the counter, I noticed a bunch of Twilight fan art and twilight merch, like notepads and pins. I giggled to myself. When my mom asked the art store lady where we could go for lunch, she mentioned the Twilight restaurant. And then a Mexican restaurant, which is where we went. We did drive past the Twilight restaurant, and I giggled again. The window displays were a bunch of stuff from the book covers. Anyways, the mexican restaurant was a converted gas station. The food tasted ok, but made me a bit sick.

Then we went grocery shopping. The grocery store had a section devoted to twilight with rain boots and hoodies and bumper stickers. Things like "The rain and the vampires both suck in Forks, WA." Yikes. I ended up getting some corn that was cookable in the microwave because that is all they had. And it was really gross. Tasted like chemicals.

On the way back from Forks, we stopped by a beach. We would have walked more, but mom's back hurt too much. We grabbed a cool looking bottle that had little things that had grown on it, like clams or something. Cleaning up the beach.

Anyways, the cabin was fun, but what with mice pooping in our dishes (so unsanitary), we decided to leave and ended up spending the rest of vacation at my moms. We ended up having to lug everything back up, including about 7 days worth of food, without the aid of our men. While we were at the cabin, I had started a painting for Abe, "Home Sweet Homo Erectus," and a pencil of Arthur and Georgie.

On the way back home, we stopped by our apartment so I could say hi to Abe and the dogs. And grab some things, like more crossword puzzles. We spent the entire drive up to bellingham doing the crossword puzzles.

In Bellingham, we also didn't get much done because we had all this money and I wanted to spend it! (Refund) I got an Ashford 16" rigid heddle loom from NW Handspun Yarns. And then I made mom a scarf (with her help). It was super fun. I can't wait to make another, but it has been SO HOT. It is cooler today, so I guess that is what I will do. Yay for rain. The loom came needing to be put together. It is a good thing I didn't wait to do that until I got back home because it was so hard to get the screws in we ended up having to use mom's drill as an electric screw driver. A few comments on the directions. The two pieces that are both marked H are not identical, they are the exact opposite, so they should have different letters. The pieces are not labeled, so you have to figure it out. The tools that are optional, like wood glue, should be marked optional in the tool list, not just in the instruction steps. There was something else, but I have forgotten now. And with about an hours time, we had the whole thing put together and were starting the scarf.

Anyways, we also went to Goodwill, where I got some shoes for $7 that I had been eyeing at Fred Meyer's for $35. I also got an awesome green cardigan (smaller guage than I can do with awesome buttons and a great color), a herringbone sweatshirt (no hood! Yay!), a white button-up shirt (which turned out to be too big, but I will see what I can do to fix it), and a box with drawers (black and painted with moon and stars). I went back with Abe later and got a 99 cent green v-neck t-shirt and an awesome green goblet. Abe hates it (the 70s goblet).

In all, I had a great time. Abe came up Friday to pick me up. That is when we went to Goodwill. That was the day we did my birthday celebration with my family.

For my birthday, Isaac gave me a bone large-eye blunt needle that he had made with the information he learned in the Bone Carving class that was his birthday present from mom, jim, abe, and me. The bone came from a porkchop he'd had for dinner. Haha. And mom bought me some books at Hendersons: Weaving things you can use, The joy of hand weaving (though mine was printed in 1950), How to draw and sell comic strips, How to draw and sell comics (which I just realized is the by the same guy who did the previous book...), and Aubrey Beardsley: Sixty selected drawings. The Aubrey Beardsley one might be my favorite. Turns out one of his drawings was used as the cover on one of my favorite books, The Einstein Intersection.

For my birthday and Mother's day, we had a GREAT dinner on Friday. Jim made polenta, which I could never complain about and nearly have to force him to make everytime. Man that stuff is good. We also had the Brussel Sprouts Braised in Butter from the book Mastering the Art of French Cooking. And from the same book, we had chicken breasts in mushrooms and onions. That might just be the best chicken I have ever had or will have in my life. Holy cow. The whole chicken thing took about half an hour. The sauce (butter, mushrooms, green onions, vermouth, chicken stock, and cream) was amazing. It was good on the polenta and brussel sprouts, too. I am drooling just thinking of this meal. For dessert we had some delicious pistachio/almond ice cream with chocolate syrup. Yummy.

I had such a great time for a week and a half hanging out with my mom. She apparently spends a lot of her time saying mixed metaphors. About every other time she said something was a mixed metaphor. And it was contagious. I couldn't get a metaphor right by the end of the trip. Her studio was awesome, so we had a great time working our butts off there, even if we could only really agree on Frank Sinatra for music. No complaints here. I love Sinatra. I hope to do it again sometime. I could see mom and Jim running an art-themed bed and breakfast. :)

On Sunday, it turns out I had left all my birthday books at my mom's so we met her at my grandma's for tea and scones with my aunts. Before that, we went to Fluevog and I finished buying the shoes I had on layaway. They are comfortable and awesome. These are great shoes. We also went to Third Place Books in Lake City. I got the first two volumes of Walking Dead for Abe. I haven't read them yet, so no comment there. I also got myself Amphigorey and Amphigorey Also, and a book on Gothic Art. The Gothic Art book is just for reference. I might read a bit, but probably not much. I got it for the pictures. Gorey is amazing. I think these books will be a much-used reference.

After all this, I still had Monday to recup and Abe and I played Borderlands, which I really enjoy. I am playing Mordecai, the hunter, and I have to say, I am loving the snipers. I can kill a Rakk (flying thing) from halfway across the map or so. If I can see it, I can kill it. Totally awesome.

On Wednesday, we went to Outback for dinner and Abe gave me the two CDs previously mentioned. They are really good. I knew I would like Regina, but I really like The Reverend Horton Heat. That is some upbeat music. Great for a sunny car ride home with the stereo and A/C blasting. The first song has a start that reminds me or reggae, which gets my hackles up, but it only lasts a few seconds and then she starts to sing and I am comforted.

Anyways, back to the near present. This last Saturday, we went to the NW Cartoonists group and Abe told everyone I was shy and I put a comic of Arthur up for voting for Best of teh NW. It was pretty funny. If I can, I will get a copy or something and post it here. It was just Arthur being scared in a way slightly inspired by anime/manga. The guy who was supposed to come talk never showed up, but we did watch a video of Scott McCloud on TEDtalk. That was still fun. At least one person voted for Arthur for Best of the NW. And it wasn't me or Abe. (I think part of the rules involves not voting for yourself.)

So next time I post, I will put up the Home Sweet Homo Erectus. And this image makes me laugh every time I see it. The whole thing is great, but that one is the best. Haha. Adam West.

We now resume our regularly scheduled programming

Now that Angelas vacation is over we can get back to our regular posting pattern.

Yesterday was her birthday. I got her a few cds. Far by Regina Spektor who is just Regina in our house and Laughin' and Cryin' with the Reverend Horton Heat by The Reverend Horton Heat. I chose Far because Angela loves Regina and Laughin' and Cryin' because she's been really interested in rockabilly music recently.

We listened to Laughin' and Cryin' in the car last night and it's pretty awesome. The musicianship is excellent. The music is fun and interesting and the lyrics are often very funny.

I'm hoping to listen to Far either tonight or tomorrow.

I got the first two collections of The Walking Dead this past weekend and it's awesome. I'm not usually into zombie stuff but this is more of an apocalypse story that happens to have zombies. Apparently there's going to be a TV show based on it as well. Weird.

At the end of her vacation, Angela bought herself a copy of Borderlands and we've been playing it together. It's a fun game to play alone but it's fantastic to play with a friend. I'm looking forward to a few months of good times playing it with her.

In other news, I'm still writing, looking for a job and playing the bass. Now I'm starting to try to learn to play the guitar as well.

My heart bleeds for them

Those poor unfortunate rich folks. It's such a tough world that they're worried that they won't be able to continue getting richer.

--Abe

Stumptown to vacation in no time flat

Here was my description of our trip to Stumptown to my co-worker:
"well, we drove to Portland Saturday morning and went to Stumptown Comic Fest. we only walked around for about an hour over the course of the whole day as we spent most of the time in panels. But somehow I still ended up with 6 blisters!! They we drove back and got home in plenty of time to miss the I-5 Northbound closure."

Because of one of the panels, Self Publishing like a Rockstar, I started reading Octopus Pie, which I am really enjoying.

Here is a blister montage. Haha.I didn't take a picture of the one on my big toe because you can't really see it. The ones on the arch of my left foot are by far the most painful.

The digital painting class was great. I started working on something last night. I don't know how it will turn out, but I have high hopes. I have a tiny portion of it done even though I worked on it for about 2 hours. I did keep messing up and having to fix that, but that just takes practice. The guy who does Dresden Codak led the session. It was really impressive to watch him take 30 minutes and make a really cute little pic. I learned the brush settings I need and stuff. Very cool. You know, I was going to write a huge long post about all the stuff I learned, but I am too lazy.

Since I will be gone for so long, here are some pics I have done. First, a color of the Creeper from before I took the digital painting class. This is just a completely different style of coloring from the digital painting. Probably much faster. I like both.

Next, here is a picture called 'Bunny Loves Robot.' I have not decided what to do with this pic yet. I drew it much smaller a long time ago. So I scanned it, printed it larger, traced it again while make it much better, and then I inked it.

When I get back from vacation, I should have a lot of shtuff to put up here and on deviant art. Or not. Depends on what I work on. I have grand plans. I have no idea how much I will get done because it is not often then I have this much time to work on art. I should have the thumbnails done for another graphic story and some drafts of the main characters. I might even have a funny digital painting of batman. I did an ink of it, but I hate it. I like the pencil still, but I might need to fix that too. I already packed a bunch of stuff for vacation. In addition to my art box, with my ink and brushes and some water colors and other random stuff, I packed a bag of paper: 9x12 water color, 11x17 Bristol board (two kinds: with and without the blue lines for comics), 9x12 Bristol board, lots of computer paper, water color sketch books (including the one with the original Umbrella Girl drawings, which I am thinking of redoing), and more. I would bring my 11x17 water color paper, but I can't find it anywhere and I am so bummed about it because there are two nice paintings in there. :'(

Completely non sequitor, if you like comics, you might want to watch the videos made by Crazy Sexy Geeks.

I also forgot to post this earlier. I drew this for Isaac in the car on the way up for his birthday. Haha.