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.

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.

Thursday thursday thursday

I don't have much to talk about at the moment. I'm having a hard time keeping up with the news because it just seems like the world is going to hell in a hand basket and it just depresses me to know the details.

I'm pretty burned out on video games as well. I've been spending my free time reading. In the last week I've read books IV and V in the Dark Tower series, a graphic novel called Black Summer and I've started re-reading The Stand. I'm in a real Stephen King phase I guess.

I'm looking forward to watching more Lost this weekend with Angela.

--Abe

Uh, wow, just wow.

Cartoonists Northwest and stuff

We went to the Cartoonists Northwest meeting this past Saturday. It was a lot of fun. More fun than I expected it to be. We had a blast.

starheadboy gave a presentation about "street art". It was very educational. His love of his art and his playfulness was pretty inspiring.

I started reading book 4 of The Dark Tower series a few days ago. I know that "real" writers look down on Stephen King but I seriously think that 99.999% of that is just sour grapes. He's a great story teller and I'm thoroughly enjoying this particular story.

Also, apparently, there's some sort of flash game that's based on the series on his website called Discordia. It does warn you not to play until you've read the books though so I can't tell you more than I have about it.

--Abe

Happy Birthday Rijl!

I don't think she reads this, but happy birthday anyways! I drew this pic over the last few nights. The original idea was not for a card for Rijl, but when I started drawing it, I thought it would be a great card to give to her on Friday when I see her for dinner with her family. We will head up right after I get home from work. We have been friends since I was born, so we have quite a bit of history. I wish we could live in the same city at some point, but that is not looking likely. I don't want to get all gushy, so I will leave it at that.

Anyways, this pic is inspired by Edward Gorey. I am reading his book Amphigorey Again. I am very tempted to buy the book. Perhaps I can find an inexpensive one online. I got this copy from the library and it is due this weekend. I looked at the price on the cover--$35! (on sale at Amazon for $23...) It is pretty big and hard cover. But it has a TON of great pics by him in there. Great study of his work. This picture was a ton of fun to draw. Like Zen drawing. All those little lines. The skirt was particularly fun and I think her legs turned out well. But I am not so good at hands. I just need practice.

You know, I would like to go back to school for illustration, but it is so expensive, and I can learn a lot on my own. I will just have to work hard on my own and practice a lot.

My thoughts on New Moon and the comic

So I thought New Moon was good enough. It let me see the parts I had a hard time picturing, like the horse-sized wolves. But that was about it. I was disappointed with the whining in the book, but in the movie I was disappointed. It was barely good enough. I was glad that the annoying internal monologue of Bella was gone, but then they also left out the acting. It was a different director and I think that was part of the problem. I liked the direction of the first movie better. In this one it seemed like everyone could care less. They just went through the motions they thought they were supposed to without putting real thought or heart into it. But since the previous one was a bit better in regards to the acting, I would have to put it on the director.

When I read the book, I pictured Jane and her brother as pre-teens, like 9, but I guess she is might have supposed to be mid to late teens, so I guess Dakota Fanning was good. She looked beautiful. She was just older than I had pictured and I can't find any accurate information about Jane's age online. I am seeing 9 to 16 years old. Whatever.

I think in the end, if they don't keep getting worse, we will probably end up buying all four movies because it would be fun to watch them all in a row.

I think my least favorite thing about the whole series (though I haven't read the last book yet) is how pitiful Bella is. She drives me nuts. If my boyfriend all of a sudden changed his mind and told me he didn't want to be with me and I would never see him again, I would be pissed, even if I thought he was too good for me, because no matter how little I thought of myself, no one deserves to be treated like a toy that can be set aside and forgotten without regard. Let this be a note for you, Abe... :) Just joking. Sure, there would be some self doubt, but New Moon is like an exercise in self doubt. And she sure keeps with that theme throughout the everything, Bella thinking she is not good enough. Which can only mean to me that she also has trust issues since Edward tells her all the time that she is everything to him, blah, blah, blah.

Uh, but no kidding, I really enjoy the stories. I know that I have a lot of negative to say about it. I just think the books needed better editing and the movies needed better acting and directing (hand in hand).

Anyways, I just wanted to point out that I totally used a ruler to draw the lines in the last comic, so the crooked lie drives me nuts. Ah well. I did another one using the ruler and I think it looks awesome. At least the lines around the panels do... It is a Xmas one, so it won't be posted for a bit. I have at least three Xmas drawings to post. We don't decorate or anything until after the 11th to respect Abe's birthday, so we won't post the pics until then either.

Also, in the 4th panel, I forgot to draw in Georgie's fingers! And get ready. I think the next comic is pretty darn funny. :)

This was a bit more negative post than I had intended. The Twilight series just really frustrates me because it seems like such a great idea with poor execution. Especially for the books, being a technical writer, they can get hard to read. I just try to remind my self it is a teen book, though I think that is an even better reason to write well.

Oh, I also have a Thanksgiving illustration that we need to post. So get ready! I have been trying to draw and ink and color a lot, so I hope I can keep it up.

Wormwood Good

This weekend, Abe and I went to the library and got some comic books. I read the first Wormwood book by Ben Templesmith and I really like it. Funny, dark, weird, and pretty in a gross way. I like the art style. The main character is a magic maggot or something in a reanimated corpse. They don't come right out and say that until probably half way through that book, but you get the gist. Abe got that quicker than I did. I found it in another section of the library that has graphic novels. We thought it was just the one section in the Teens books, but those are mostly superheroes and other lighter stuff, so I was very pleased to find this other section. We also got a Conan one for Abe, and Harley Quinn and Pigeons from Hell for both of us. I am not interested in Conan at all.

Now I am reading Batman: The Dark Knight Returns (which I keep spelling Bathman...). I am liking it more and more. My favorite Batman, I think, will always be Michael Keaton. He was just everything I thought Batman should be. I think that I would never have picked Michael Keaton to play Batman and that is what makes him so perfect. He is an unassuming height, but not too short. He is polite and quite and refined in his tux but not boring looking. He has a twinkle in his eye that shows his intelligence and wit. But in his suit, he is powerful and serious. Strong and purposeful. This is what I think of Batman, not Michael Keaton, who I would guess is a bit of a weirdo but cool. Anyways, I am still enjoying this comic. Not quite my favorite art style, but OK. I did a tracing of a one page comic and I think it turned out well.

I also listened to Animal Farm on my commute last week. That book is a bit of a downer. Not what I was expecting. I think I was thinking of another book of his when I got the audio book. And now I am listening to Dubliners. I can get a complete short story or two in each way. I am not enjoying it as a car ride listen as much as I enjoyed Eragon. I actually really liked that one and need to put the next one on hold. The weird thing is that the last four or five books on CD I have gotten have been read by someone with a British accent.

Anyways, after the library we went to a cafe. (I almost wrote cage. Wouldn't it have been weird if we had gone to a cage?) They had a little bucket for donating to the businesses that were burned down in Greenwood a few weeks ago. Since then (Oct 23) and including then there have been a total of 10 fires in the area, most if not all apparently arson. Crazy! I don't know what is going on in Greenwood. The businesses that were destroyed in the first fire (which was so huge that the sirens woke Abe and me and it smelled of smoke at our place a 20-30 minute walk away (5 or less in the car) - well, none of them had insurance. They were all small, so not shocking. But the Greenwood area seems to be really pulling together to get the Green Bean Coffeehouse back going again. I think they help women in need get jobs there as jumping off points.

Uh, anyways, the cafe we went to was nice, though very small. I have no idea what the name is. I had a glass of milk. :) Abe and I sat there and read the comics we had just got at the library. Fun stuff.

Vacation Rules!

Whoops. Been a while. We've even done a lot of things. But Abe started work this week and I am on vacation. So lazy lazy...

So last weekend, we saw District 9. That was a really good movie. It was a different plot than I anticipated based on the previews, but the movie was very good. Abe said it was the best sci-fi movie in a long time. The CGI was great. The aliens were great.
I really don't want to give anything away, so I will just say when the movie was over we sat there for a while letting it all sink in before we got up. Actually, we went to the new movie theater at Northgate...well, south of Northgate in "Thorton Place" where most of the other locations are empty with signs that say "X coming Summer 2009." Looks like they will miss that mark. And a freakin' matinee is $8.50!! Still $2 cheaper than regular, but what a rip off. The theater in Burlington/Mt. Vernon is $6 for a matinee. Speaking of, in 2 weeks, we are going to see "9" at the Mt. Vernon one. I am so excited for that movie.

We also got a china cabinet from my aunt Carol and it is replacing a nasty old bookshelf we had that the back was coming off of and was missing a shelf. We might sand and paint it. I was thinking yellow with blue highlights and a bit of red. Then Tony, my cousin who brought it over, asked if I was painting it black, and that got me thinking. I eventually want a kitchen those colors, but since I don't have them now, I can really paint this any colors I want. And a black china cabinet could be awesome. (I totally just spelled 'could' as 'cood.' Vacation is over soon, but until then, I am not required to use my brain.)

I also knit Abe a hat. I missed his first day of work, but it was ready for the second. He can't wear it anyways because it is too hot. It is the Trilobite Hat from Knitty. I used Malabrigo in Burgundy. Looks great. Looked better, but I had to cut off the ribbing and rework the rib for 25 rows instead of 10. Turns out that is why I can't make a hat that fits Abe. His head is normal size around but an inch taller than most people. Where I think my head may be bigger around than most. Or I just have WAY too much hair.

I also started and have almost finished a painting of ogre Lolita. It is turning out really well. Water color. It is really fun to paint. I think I am learning a lot. This is a more complicated picture than the Blue Lady.

And I started (and have almost finished) Deja Dead by Kathy Reichs, who the TV show Bones is based on. It is actually pretty good. I like her writing style and the story is pretty engaging. They funny part is how much the writing, in particular the opening, sounds like the character Brennan in Bones. The writing style could not be more opposite from Twilight. The grammar and vocabulary assume a much more educated audience. It is a nice change...I guess I have been reading a lot of young adult books, but that is no excuse!

I have also been doing a lot of cross words, but mostly on my vacation, I have read and painted. And a little knitting, but mostly at night. I am working on a pair of fairly plain knee-high socks right now. I am trying to decide if I need to rip back to the increases to make it fit better, but we'll see if I am too lazy.

And also this weekend I scored some good pieces when shopping. I got two shirts for $10 each at torrid: a nice yellow one with a scoop neck and a bright green wrap style. That last one needs a tank top underneath, but it looks great. I love the color. I also got a pair of shoes for $17 at Fred Meyer's. Cute shoes. I can wear them with socks so when it is colder, I can wear some of my hand knit socks. Yeah!

Hot = Sweat

And that much sweat = no more brain left. I was so hot, I forgot to post. Stupid weather.

I don't have much to day. I have knit one and a half shrugs. I am working on a black one right now and a week ago I finished knitting a green one. All based on Stefanie Japel's One Skein Shrug. I looked through my lace book and added some lace patterns to it. For the fun of it. I have made a couple plain ones already. I think that makes 5 shrugs I have made, though some have certainly come out better than others.

In the mean time, since it has not been hot, I have had a headache off and on for 5 or 6 days. Nearly debilitating. By the end of work on Friday I was nearly cross eyed with this headache. It is right in my eyebrows.

Anyways, it was so hot, I couldn't draw without ruining the paper with my sweaty sweaty hands. But I got started again last night. I am almost out of tracing paper, so we will probably go get more tomorrow. One comic is now taking one piece of computer paper and two pieces of tracing paper, but I think they will be better in the end. Comics like Eerie Cuties give me a complex (because they look so awesome), but then I go read Goats and all is okay in the world again.

I also finally finished The Golden Compass. I really enjoyed it. A nice simple book that doesn't take too much brain power to read (teen fiction) and has interesting characters and an interesting story. I had started the sequel, The Subtle Knife. I am not yet as interested in it as in the previous book, but I am waiting to see how it ties it all in. It is getting more interesting as I read. Then I will read the final book in the trilogy, The Amber Spyglass. Then I don't know. Probably the sequel to Wizard's First Rule, Stone of Tears.

Abe is reinstalling Ubuntu on my computer today. The only thing I don't like about having Linux on my computer is I have no idea how to troubleshoot or install anything. I can get around ok in Windows because I have used it for so long now (what with school and all my jobs using Windows--UW had Macs, but the software for most of my classes used Windows).

Finally, my mom thought Abe was so hilarious when he described my sarcasm that she sent it to her sister and Jim. (Lol. I made that site for a college project. In Word. Check out the source code on that bad boy, but have a big bucket nearby. I would remake it but I think a new website was going to be a gift from mom to Jim a while ago, so that might not even be his current site anymore.)

Finished Books

I have finished 3 books: Sacred Book of the Werewolf, Batman: The Greatest Stories Ever Told , and Sunset in Sunshine City. I got all three from the Greenwood library. Small, but whatever.

I had Sacred Book of the Werewolf on audio CD and listened to it on the way home. The story was interesting, but the book was a little more existential than I like. But in this case, you couldn't really have one without the other. It was written by Viktor Pelevin. At first I didn't mind the readers voice, but I almost couldn't finish it because her voice was so grating by the end.

Last night, I just finished Batman: The Greatest Stories Ever Told last night. It is a collection of the "most important stories" told for Batman. (I didn't realize this was volume 1 until I went to that link.) It is super corny, but typical of the era. (I am watching TV and Tim Burton's Batman Returns just came on!) I actually liked it a lot, though some of the corniness was a bit too much for me. It definitely reaffirmed my love of Batman. I always feel silly when I tell people he is my favorite, but I think I might be in an actual minority. Sure people like Batman, but almost every time I tell someone I like Batman best, they tell me they like Spiderman best. But as a pointed out to Abe, Batman is better because he CHOSE to be a super hero. Spiderman is just some dumb kid who accidentally got bit by a radioactive spider. And then he was cool enough to get a girlfriend, which is when I realized that was why all the dorky guys I talked to laughed and said they like Spiderman better. I bet most people's favorite superhero is the one they most closely identify with, consciously or not.

Anyways, I also read Will Eisner's Sunset in Sunshine City, a collection of graphic stories. He is very good at layout. Most of the stories didn't really grab me, but I did certainly enjoy them all. For some reason, I can't find a link to this book and it is one of his more famous ones. Hmph. Maybe I have the title wrong?

I have also started reading Will Eisner's Comics and Sequential Art. This book is very interesting. Will was a great writer, I think. He sounds so smart and eloquent, which I didn't expect in a graphic novelists writing. But I didn't expect it because he spent so much time creating amazing stories through illustration. Just because you can tell a good story does not mean you can write. The book also has a lot of great illustrations. Comics to help make the point. Having little marks to point out what they are talking about and why he chose the things he did really impresses me. I am quite enjoying the book.

Soon, I should also finish Golden Compass. I am really enjoying it. I just get so busy. Maybe this weekend since my brother backed out and is not coming down to watch Harry Potter. I guess I will just go watch that by myself or with Abe.

Also, Abe sent me a link to this site: notalwaysright.com. OMG. I seriously laughed myself sick at this one and this one. I think anyone who has any remembrance of working in customer service will enjoy that blog.

In craft news, I am slowly working on the latest Rockin' Sock Club kit, but I am not enjoying it. This is my least favorite of the kits, both the color and pattern. Though at least I figured out how to do the cable without rearranging the order of the stitches. I am also spinning up some great Corridale from Spunky Eclectic and the color is...and no I am not kidding...Monkey Farts! It was the color of the month so it was on sale. I love it. The fiber and color is great. I will post pics someday.

And for the drawing class, we went over shadowing and hands last Saturday. Hands are frick frackin' hard. And his only advice was to just keep trying. Draw a lot of hands. If I didn't have as much drawing experience as I do, I would have found that very frustrating. But I did learn how to draw better people already because I got to watch him draw a person on paper. And paid attention. Just watching that was worth the whole class. I think that one piece of learning will make the people I draw so much better.

Edited: So it is called the Will Eisner Reader, not Sunset in Sunshine City, which is just a story in the book. I guess that would explain why I couldn't find it.

Nothing

Angela made me two cool scrubbies from her weird japanese scrubby book. One is just a blue circle but the other one is an elephant :-) Its so damn cute I haven't used it to clean anything yet.

I've been kind of depressed the last week or so. It's been six months since I was laid off. I've had one job interview in that time and it was last week. I've written a bunch of stories and done scripts for comicsbooks but it's all seeming like a big waste of time right now. When I stop to think about it for too long I start to feel like I'm going to cry.

Angela made my day yesterday when she came home and told me it was my half birthday. She took me out to dinner and I felt like a normal person for a little while.

The warhammer graphic novel is Exterminatus. I didn't like it that much either. The characters are flat and uninteresting. I am *really* enjoying Vampire Wars though. It's written well enough that the writing gets out of the way of the story. The characters are decently interesting and the setting is great. Thats really the problem with most of the warhammer stuff. The setting is awesome but the characters just feel forced and card board.

My guardian, Eunika, in EQ2 is level 75. I've been tanking stuff for my guild since I have the highest plate tank. Here's a picture of her. She's wearing level 12 master crafted armor in her appearance slots because it looks really cool.

The guys I'm playing with are a mix or newbies and players that have been away for a long time. It's been a lot of fun going through content that I haven't played in a while.

Game Update 52 is in the works and there are a lot of new features but the one I'm most excited about are shadows that are calculated and rendered by the graphics card. Previously all shadows in EQ2 were rendered by the CPU and it was an *immense* performace hit to enable them. I downloaded the test client last night to try it out and with shadows on full on test I get 25 frames a second more than I do on live with shadows enabled.

For some reason, a lot of people have been talking about what EverQuest 3 might look like if SOE were to announce it soon, say at fan faire. The topic of EQ3 comes up every so often but it seems to me that its getting more talk this time than it usually does. I've been thinking about it and here are a few things I would like to see.

No classes. This is a *huge* change but I really want to see a system thats skill based with progressive specialization as your skills get higher. An example, you start the game as "adventurer" there are trainers in the newbie area that correspond to the general divisions of melee, magic, crafting and support. You do quests for each one and the teach you an ability in return. As you use the ability you gain skill in it and are able to unlock choices at certain thresholds of skill. You might have 2 slots and six abilites to chose from though so your choice at one threshold determines what you will be able to chose from at the next threshold.

At the lower level scharacters should be fairly generalized but as they are played more and more they will progressively specialize. There would, of course, have to be ways to get your choices undone so you can try different combinations and permutations.

I would also like to see crafted gear be customizable by the crafter. So not everyone makes the same broadsword +1, then iron broadsword +1, etc. If the crafters can use different raw materials to determine the types of stats on a given piece of gear then every weird combination of abilities will be able to get gear with the stats they need to be effective. This is a big one for me because I play an Inquisitor in EQ2 and Dennika is very much pigeon holed into playing a specific role by the gear she is able to wear and what is available in the game.

I very much want EQ3 to not be a min/max stats and gear game like EQ2 is.

I want the creatures and enemies in the game to have and use spells and combat arts. The mobs should use tactics that are appropriate for the type of abilities they have. Casters should try to stay at range. Mobs should be social. They should run away, call out to their friends, ring alarms, use roots, stuns, mez's, dots, heals, etc. Mobs should use strategies consistently so players can figure out the strategy a mob is using and create a counter strategy. They should be a challenge, but the rewards need to be inline with the challenge. RoK is still an exercise in frustration for most soloists and the rewards, both in terms of xp and gear, are a joke. A mob that can one shot me damn well better give me more than .001% of a level's worth of xp.

I would also like to see a more or less seamless world like Vanguard has. I'm not talking about a world like WoW that is essentially a series of well constructed maps connected together by a few specifically designed points. I'm talking about a single world map with large geographic areas that bleed into each other like on the earth. Not large themed maps like eq2. A seamless world where you can ride your horse from the ocean, through a swamp, to a grassland, to a forest, to a forest in the foothills, to a pass through a mountain range, to a high dry desert, etc.

There should also be a good fast travel system like the bells, boats, griffons, spires and druid rings in eq2 and / or the rifts in vanguard.

I have more thoughts but I'll write them down later on.

Abe