| Winter is Here, and So Am I |
[Dec. 10th, 2009|01:50 pm] |
They said after a while I wouldn't miss it. "They" being people in California, and "it" being the snow. They were wrong, as I told them at the time they were.
The snow has been with us for a couple of days, but I didn't officially acknowledge it until about 10 minutes ago. I was walking back to work from the Winter Garden and took a look around me. The wind was in full force and snow flakes were descending, riding the currents. It felt like being in the middle of a snow globe that had just been shaken up. And in that moment I realized how beautiful winter is and how much I missed it.
Say what you want about it. Bitch and moan about shoveling and being cold and slippery roads. Winter is beautiful, it's pure, and I'm happy to be able to experience it again.
I'm home. |
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| A Whole New World (now its in your head, mwa ha ha) |
[Dec. 9th, 2009|02:58 pm] |
I am currently sitting in my new area at work. I can't remember if I mentioned, but my position was recently transferred from IT to marketing, so I'm at a completely different desk on a completely different floor which houses a completely different department. They're lucky I adapt easily. It should turn out to be good, though, considering my background and skills.
Oh, and I have a window now! Granted, it's behind me and it faces a busy street and I can hear the traffic clearly (well, not at the moment; death metal drowns anything out), but it's still a window.
I'm in that post-con mood right now (if you missed it, my con report is over at Bardic Musings). It's hard to come back from an environment like that, even when it was a financially bad weekend, and have to slide back into the role of "normal job". I would give anything to be able to travel around and make money off of my artwork. Yeah, that would be a hassle in itself, but I would much rather be doing it than sitting at a desk for 8 hours.
Someday, Pete... someday...
Crap, I just realized there's no bathroom on this floor... I'm gonna have to run upstairs every time I have to go! Blarg. |
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| Retrojunk |
[Dec. 3rd, 2009|10:33 pm] |
Decided to start posting stuff on Retrojunk.com. You can check out my first article here. And check out the rest of the site! It's got a lot of cool stuff. |
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| (no subject) |
[Dec. 2nd, 2009|03:07 pm] |
With only tonight and tomorrow left to prepare for Steel City Con, I am oddly not stressed. I like it. I like it a lot.
Katie and I have dashed our plans to go to Phoenix, AZ for New Years Eve after receiving an invitation to a wedding in Oregon in July. As much as I will sorely miss the New Years Eve bash, I've always wanted to visit Oregon, and with July being further out than January, we'll have more time to save up for plane tickets (which were ASTRONOMICAL for the holidays). So now we are in the midst of planning our own crazy bash.
Last week, after spending almost a month away from it, I finally went through and edited my short story (which, I just realized now, I still don't have a title for; I'll have to do something about that). There was a good amount of language polishing and a few minor changes here and there, but all in all... this is probably the best thing I have ever written. I am so happy with it, much more so than any manuscripts I've ever had the pleasure of finishing. Once I get the first round of edits finished up, I'll give it one more look-over, and then I'm going to shop it around. It might be hard to do since it's a genre mash-up (pulp noir/detective/mystery/fantasy), but I think the work will speak for itself.
And now, a lovely gem my brother sent me:
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| I lied... |
[Nov. 30th, 2009|03:43 pm] |
I couldn't resist making this.
"Aaaaah, Mr. Sparkle!!!" |
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| (no subject) |
[Nov. 30th, 2009|11:00 am] |
This was the first Thanksgiving in 4 years that I got to spend with my family, and I couldn't be happier. Thanksgiving Day itself was spent with Katie's family (dinner at her aunt and uncle's, and dessert at her dad's), and my family did their thing on Saturday at my aunt's. Food, food, and more food. Can't go wrong, eh? Now it's the countdown to Christmas.
We also got our Christmas tree on Saturday afternoon. My parents, for the last handful of years, have been going to a nearby farm (Stokoe Farms) to cut down their Christmas tree. I think this was my first year going with them (I have memories of doing it before, but I don't think it was that particular farm). Currently, our tree is sitting in the basement because we don't have a stand yet (d'oh!), but we'll be getting one soon. We really need to clean the house in a hurry, too, because we have much decorating to do!
Steel City Con is this weekend, and Katie and I excited and confident about this one. I'm trying a few different things with our display (instead of a binder with my art prints I have them all in protective poly bags and in a holder so people can rifle through them; and we have some matted artwork to show off), and Katie will have a few new items to sell. In addition, we have a whole slew of newly made cookie plushies for the comic. It's gonna be good, I know it is.
Speaking of the comic, the going-digital venture is working out pretty well. I've had to tailor my style a bit, but it's something I was planning on anyway. It certainly makes things a lot more convenient for me.
Also - excitement! The Boondock Saints 2 is FINALLY playing in Rochester! Now I just have to figure out a night to go. |
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| Question for Readers/Writers |
[Nov. 25th, 2009|12:30 pm] |
Can anyone think of a book where the first several chapters followed the antagonist of the story rather than the protagonist? I'm playing with the idea of doing this in my current work-in-progress, but I was hoping to see if I could get some examples of how it was handled. It seems to me that it may be violating some unwritten rule of storytelling, but I've never taken much stock in rules. |
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| Labels Are Only Good for Beer Bottles |
[Nov. 24th, 2009|10:07 am] |
I'd be interested to know just how many people truly - and I mean 100% without a doubt - believe in the ideals of the political party that they adhere to. Do they ever think for themselves, or, more importantly, do ever they think about others? I'm making the jaded assumption that, no, they don't.
Maybe I can see it more clearly because over the years I've gone from being a pretty deeply involved Christian to a humanist, but politics, like religion, seems to cloud the important issues. Things are overlooked or ignored in favor of keeping the status quo of a political party's ideals. Because if that political party doesn't stay the same, it loses supporters, just like if Catholicism changes anything, it loses people. They go off and form their own groups that not only uphold the original ideals that they were comfortable with, but do it with a much more militant attitude (Tea Baggers anyone?).
It's ridiculous that those of us who think for ourselves and believe in common sense have to live through this. Personally, I want what's best for the people around me, not "the country", because in using the term "the country" you're dehumanizing the population in favor of a political ideal. But somehow that makes me "unpatriotic" and "socialist". It's sad that I would be labeled with such scornfully used words when all I want is for everyone to be happy and healthy.
The bottom line is that I'm sick and tired of any political party or label - Democrat or Republican, liberal or conservative, socialist or Tea Bagger. In my mind, all those things mean the same thing: someone who needs the crutch of a set of political beliefs in order to think. Unfortunately, we're not taught to how to think anymore, just how to work the system.
But that's another rant for another time. |
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| Adventures with Chicken |
[Nov. 23rd, 2009|04:49 pm] |
This past weekend I attempted to cook beer can chicken, or, as it affectionately referred to as, "beer-butt chicken". If you are unfamiliar with what that is, it's basically cooking a chicken with a half-full can of beer jammed up its pooper. What happens is that as it cooks, the heat causes the beer to steam up into the cavity, keeping the meat moist and imparting a bit of flavor. It was an adventure.
First, lighting the charcoal took forever. The only stuff I could find was lump charcoal, and I hate lump charcoal, specifically because it takes forever to start. Also - and I forgot this until it was too late - because it diminishes to about half-quantity once it hits the point that you can actually start cooking on it. Oh well, I thought, I'll deal with it.
The next obstacle was the fact that I had to cover it. The chicken was too tall (you have to cook it standing straight up), and the lid to my grill isn't deep enough. So I ran and grabbed a roll of aluminum foil and tore off long strips of it, enough to cover the grill. But it was slightly breezy out, so the foil wouldn't stay. Trying to act quickly, I grabbed a damp kitchen towel and placed that over the top. Boom, problem solved.
Until the next one. The chicken needed to cook for over an hour, and I was supposed to add new charcoal to the grill. Usually one would do this with a good chimney starter, but I didn't have one, so I tried to make one. Actually, I made two; you can make one out of a large coffee tin, but I only had two small ones, so I used a can opener to puncture holes in the sides. Unfortunately, I could only do it on the top and the bottom; the opener wouldn't puncture the middle (as there was no lip for it to grab onto and gain leverage). So I grabbed my power drill and drilled holes into the side, which was harder than it sounds.
Once that was done, I put newspaper in the bottom (to act as "kindling") and then put the charcoal on top of it and lit it. They worked! Sort of. When I came back to dump the ready coals, again they had burned down to almost nothing, which would provide almost no heat.
Oh, let me interject and also add that this chicken was supposed to be cooked indirectly, which means the coals were supposed to be gathered up to sides with no direct heat coming up from below the chicken. I didn't do this well enough, so I had blackened chicken skin at the bottom. D'oh!
Finally, in frustration, I removed the chicken from the grill and put it in a roasting pan into the oven to finish the cooking. As I was doing this, I realized that I had multiple cuts on my hand from the makeshift chimney starters. Yay.
When it came time to carve the chicken up, I grabbed our carving set and began making cuts. I didn't get far; the meat literally fell off of the bones, which I took as a wonderful sign. I plated the meat for myself, Katie, and Chris, and we dug in. Katie said she thought it was the best chicken I had ever cooked. I'm still on the fence about that, since I did half-chickens last year that were out-of-this-world. But for all the craziness I went through, I was quite happy with the end product.
Only next time I hope I have something better to work with than Blue Light (my brother drank all the Blue). |
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| Reason #884 |
[Nov. 19th, 2009|09:14 am] |
Another reason to hate the Twilight series: They gave Chris Weitz the chance to direct New Moon, but they will never give him the chance to direct the sequel to The Golden Compass, a far better series and (I'm assuming, having never seen Twilight) a much better movie.
Actually, that's another good reason to hate Hollywood, too, but I'm already overfilled with hate for them. |
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| Suck it, vampires. Wait... no, dont. |
[Nov. 17th, 2009|03:28 pm] |
Okay, seriously, I'm gonna go on and on with the Twilight bashing until I don't have to hear about New Fucking Moon anymore.
That being said, this is damn funny. |
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| Weekend Review |
[Nov. 16th, 2009|11:29 am] |
The big news, if you hadn't heard already, is that I posted the 500th Bardsworth strip. It's a big accomplishment for me, and I'm hoping that I'll be able to get another 500 in there. There's still a lot of story to tell.
Saturday was a busy day. Did some wine tasting with the folks, took Katie to get her picture taken for work (long story, I'll let her explain it), met up with Joe and Rachel for dinner at the Bonefish Grill (mmm, fish tacos), and then had an artist meet-up at Jitters in Henrietta. Which, of course, meant that all my work on the Bardsworth strip had to be on Sunday, which also meant that I wasn't able to work on the other artwork I wanted to. Oh well.
Getting excited about Steel City Con. Katie and I are feeling really good about it (Katie mentioned that she thinks it's the most prepared we've been for a con), and I think we have enough merchandise now to make some decent sales. Katie worked on our next batch of cookie plushes, and I ordered some Christmas/holiday/winter greeting cards to sell. HOPEFULLY I'll have the Fairy Magik store 100% finished this week so they'll be available to buy online.
The house is still a mess, but we're working on it. We need a few more shelves for videos and such, but other than that it's just finding spots for the miscellaneous stuff. Then we can maybe have some fun decorating.
Ugh, why isn't it lunch time yet? |
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| An Observation |
[Nov. 12th, 2009|01:08 pm] |
Sitting in the Winter Garden at lunch today, I happened to glance across the way to see a thirty-something woman reading a book, dressed nicely in black business attire, hair done up, looking very professional. What am I wearing? Tattered and faded jeans, one of my Bardsworth cookie shirts, and an ancient and worn red flannel shirt. What is she reading? One of the Twilight books. What am I reading? Death With Interruptions, a Nobel Prize winning novel.
Never judge a book by it's cover. |
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| The Filler |
[Nov. 12th, 2009|11:03 am] |
Writer friends, I send you a call for help!
Something about my writing has always kind of bugged me, and I've finally figured it out and put a name to it. Basically, I don't write good "filler". What I mean by that is when I'm writing a scene, I can nail the actions and the dialogues with no problem, but when I go back and read what I wrote it somehow feels empty. When I read other peoples' writing, they have nicely padded paragraphs that round out the writing and make you think.
A lot of times this "filler" ends up being the thoughts that a character is having, or details of a setting, or even just an omniscient narration provoking the reader into deeper thought. I try to do this, but I never feel that I get it right. Part of the problem is my style; I write very minimalistically (which isn't a word, apparently) and simple, and I don't like going whole-hog with descriptions and the like. But still, I feel like there should be more to what I write.
How do you folks deal with that? Does it come naturally, or do you have a method? Do you use something for inspiration? I'm really just curious if anyone other than me has this problem or has even thought about it.
Thanks in advance! |
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