Duck Goes Moo!

My old art teacher from highschool, Ron Isom, mentioned wanting to see some of my stream of consciousness art. I have tons of notebook paper covered with these repetition, pattern based drawings that where I draw what "smells right".

I haven't scanned any of them in yet, but here is one minor example of one that I did directly on the computer a while back:



The actual squiggle pieces are much larger and elaborate than this, but I often due sketch minor squiggle groupings like this when sitting with a pen and something to draw with.

I do have some paintings that aren't quite squiggly line based in nature, but are indeed done with a sense of smell instead of a sense of artistic composition:





Also, there is this one which I think I may have posted before, but if not here it is again:



I have perhaps thought of getting back into art and perhaps even sharing an art show with a photographer friend of mine. Still, I've been neglecting my comics enough already. I have a new Strange Bedfellows drawn, but not inked, but I should get to that hopefully soon.

I was at a nearby pancake place for a midnight breakfast last Sunday night and I barely missed a gang shootout, but my car was not so lucky.

Let me back up. I was eating pancakes, eggs and corn beef hash very peacefully, got up to pay the bill, and then noticed all the police cars, evidence tape barriers, and broken glass outside. It turned out there was some kind of shooting that occurred while we were all eating, though none of us inside heard it.

My car was quite a bit away from the main carnage so I figured it was fine to just drive home and none of the police seemed to be trying to stop me. So on the way back home I noticed my engine seemed really loud and the "air bag" light was lit up. I was a little perplexed by this, but my car was getting old so I assumed it was just age problems with a part or perhaps a lack of oil.

The next morning I did check my oil and found it was pretty full, and I couldn't see anything wrong offhand. I wasn't sure if my car would make it over the river so I took it to a local NTB (National Tire and Battery) and they took FOREVER to look at it to tell me it might be the catalytic converter or the spark plugs, but they could replace them all for me, but my car was fine to drive for now, just a bit noisy.

I declined the offer and decided to schedule an appointment with my family mechanic, which I had this afternoon. Almost immediately into the car examination I was asked:

"Hey, were you in any shootouts?"

I replied that I indeed had, and immediately realized that my car most likely had not survived the gun battle unscathed.



They said there were four bullet holes, and they could see one of the bullets embedded in my muffler. Further checks revealed that there was a bullet embedded in my firewall and one perhaps stuck inside a box of papers in my trunk.



Needless to say I was a bit floored by this, but I also couldn't see why I didn't put two and two together right away. I guess it was because my car was so far away from the cars that got the majority of the damage.



Well, I went to the STL police and related to them my situation. Most of them had not even heard about the shootout, but a detective or two had and came out to ask me some questions. Eventually they sent over a guy to take pictures of the bullet holes and extract the slugs, finding the bullet in the box of papers and revealing that my muffler actually had a bullet rattling around inside it.



While I was in the station I got to see it was a skirmish between local gangs, and that both sides wounded each other and escaped into the night. The cops kept pretending to find drugs in my car, which was funny at first but got annoying after the tenth time. They also encouraged me to try to pick up a girl while I still had the bullet holes.

So, I've called my car insurance company and they're towing away my car and giving me a rental for a week or so. They're towing the car because the air bag light being on classifies the car as "undriveable". They need to patch up the holes going into the trunk and engine area, plus replace the muffler and any other incidental damage.

All in all, an interesting adventure. I will say one thing, though, the cops might have been right about the whole "pick up girls with bullet holes" idea. I got to meet three pretty girls who came up to me when they saw the bullet holes, who seemed pretty excited about the whole idea. Fo Gigure.

See, ducks do go "Moo".

http://www.sdpb.org/Old_learning/RRYRI/2002/k/k9.htm

For those of you who have not been watching Battlestar Galactaca, or listening to it closely, you have missed some really immaculate music.

More specifically, the music of Bear McCreary, a man who has composed the majority of the music for Battlestar Galactaca and may soon have a character based off of him as the Final Cylon (rumor).

Here is some of his work for BSG:



This music is first played as Gaius Balter hallucinates himself in the Kobol Opera House, making out with the "virutal" Six in his head, discovering his destiny as the "chosen one", the father of the new race of human/cylon hybrids, all while Commander Adama is shot and bleeding by the cylon infiltrator (number 8), Sharon Valeri and all seems bleak and hopeless for the remains of the human race.



This next piece, the "Song of Baltar", is what is played as the background for the interior of the cylon basestars, perhaps reflecting the alienation and sense of separation Baltar feels as becoming fully despised and rejected by the majority of humanity, finding no refuse besides the torturous and genocidal whims of the cylons, whom he slightly suspects he is one.



And of course is the anachronistic "All Along the Watchtower" which awakens four of the "Final Five" from their slumber and into awakening as cylons. It is a little hackneyed, but none the less a powerful piece of music properly relaying both the horror and excitement of the awakening sleeper cylon agents as they discover their true identities.

I recently watched the earlier episodes of BSG and have to say that the decision to make Galen and Tigh cylon sleeper agents definitely enhances those episodes, as it makes many of the past statements and challenges so ironic in the light of the fourth season.

What happened to Earth? Who is the "Virtual Six"? If you take a look at the last season of the original series then it can be explained by humanity evolving to a point by which they are able to exist as pure mentata, pure mental energy. All the Lords or Kobol are just people who long ago shed their physical bodies and became beings of light, and I imagine that "Baltar's River World" is a part of this spiritual realm that humanity escaped into (and by spiritual I mean "unexplained scientific discoveries").

There was a recent murder spree across Illinois and Missouri, including St. Louis and Galesburg. The man the police have grabbed for the evening is Nick Sheley, age 28, and if I didn't know better I'd swear I know the guy from somewhere.

News Article

A bit of really sad news, George Carlin has died from heart failure at age 71.

This is the first official issue of "Strange Bedfellows" I have the characters down pat and the drawing style is about how I wanted it too.

Dora (the progressive donkey) "wins" in this one, but I promise that the next on Ed (the conservative elephant) will "win". I want to try to keep it pretty even between the two who gets the last laugh in the final panel.

It's beginning to look like an actual political cartoon!

These videos make me very happy. It's all part of what I call "Web 3.0", where the virtual world and the real world mix and combine in what is becoming known as Augmented Reality. With how well these demos work I think that my earlier estimate of ten years for this sort of thing to become mainstream may be a bit too long, and perhaps five years is more accurate.

I wonder how soon it will be until card games like "Magic the Gathering" will play much like these games, where when you plunk down a card a 3d version of the creature/event will take place, possibly even showing them battle and other neat effects.

I may need to find an investor, hehe...

Okay, well maybe this lady is a bad example, but it does remind me of a recent SNL skit:

NBC Site

BTW, in case you do not know, The delegate issue has been decided. It netted Hillary a bit of a boost but not so much. The exact decision:

Michigan Delegates Awarded: Clinton: 34.5 Obama: 29.5

Florida Delegates Awarded: Clinton: 52.5 Obama: 33.5

Of course, the "winning number" has been moved higher as well. It is now 2,118 and Obama has 2,051 delegates and Hillary has 1,877 delegates. Seemingly a winning race for Obama, and in 14 hours or so we will find out how they did in Puerto Rico with 55 delegates at stake (Hillary leading in polls by around 10%) and on Tuesday night we get the results for Montana and South Dakota with 30 delegates collectively (Obama leading by around 10% in both states).

Obama needs around 70 delegates to cinch the nomination with around 80 pledged delegates left and around 200 super delegates left, meaning Obama needs less than 1/4 of the remaining vote to win.

Unless there is some other major deal Obama will be our next President.. er, Democratic nominee.

Believe it or not, the Phoenix Mars Lander uses Twitter:

http://twitter.com/Marsphoenix

Apparently, I lack offensive support.

I hate this commercial. It's yet another perpetuation of some memes I hate:

"Congress is corrupt and useless."

"Working men are smarter and wiser than those sneaky, educated elitists."

"Nothing is complex or requires any deep thought, it's just that some people make things more difficult than they really are."

Once again I acknowledge that anti-intellectualism has been a major part of American culture since it's founding, but I still grow tired of it. I've also grown tired of the persistent view that Congress impedes democracy and does nothing but get in the way of good government.

Yes, it is true that Congress slows down government, but that is the idea. The whole point of democracy is to counterbalance the inequities of the human spirit by making sure that just one person is not able to pass any laws or immediately take action out of emotion or short-term thinking. Otherwise we have a despotism or monarchy, not a democracy.

When Congress "fails" to pass laws or takes a long time to decide to enact a law, Congress is not broken, Congress is functioning as planned. Debates and deliberations are not signs of dysfunction in a government, a lack of it is.

There a those out there who love to perpetuate the idea that Congress "doesn't do a damn thing" or "is full of crooks and liars". Admittedly, there is corruption and other problems, but the nation would not be a better place without Congress as some believe.

The people in this commercial are just saying, "This should get done", without stating how they should get it done, who should do it, and for how much. There's more to laws and bills than this and it is not because Congress is corrupt or a bunch of eggheads, it's because any law or decree or budgeting involves very, very complex issues.

The next time you hear someone complaining about "Oh, that stupid Congress is always stuck in gridlock", or "Congress is too slow to respond to our modern world and modern threats", please take time to remember that Congress is supposed to prevent immediate actions and is not meant to be a magnifier for a single person's decisions.

Another reason I hate this commercial is because it is very patronizing to firefighters and other blue collar workers. It's essentially saying that those sorts of people are dirty, grimy men who have no understanding of politics and no concept about the complexities of civics, economics and anything else that requires deep thoughts and study. Sprint is saying that firefighters are stupid, unwashed, unread simpletons.

Still, those phones do look cool.

I may have popped a rib out of place and back, or at least that is what my doctor told me. I was reaching around a large table to fiddle with the computer below it when I heard and felt a snap in my lower left abdomen.

It's hurt pretty much since then, but only when I move certain ways or poke at it. For a while I was possibly thinking an organ or a stretch of intestine busted, but the fact I was still walking around and pondering such a thing and not on the floor dying was proof enough nothing severe had happened. In previous years I would have driven to the emergency room, convinced I had seconds to live, but I've learned since how to identify when my hypochondria is getting the best of me.

Still, the pain was weird enough that I decided to go see my favorite doctor (who, yes, happens to be a pretty lady) and she decided I had just popped a rib in and out of place and gave me a prescription for painkillers to dull the pain, which she said should go away in about about two weeks if I take it a little easy.

It's not a really horrifyingly bad pain, but it's enough that I am a thankful for the prescription. It hurt quite a bit to tie my shoes or pet a cat at my feet, two actions I do a lot.

I'm also cutting back on the caffeine while I've got some good meds to deal with the withdrawal symptoms that come from not constantly drinking coffee.

Did you know that just last Friday a new socio-economic bloc was formed out of almost all the nations of South America?

It is called the Union of South American Nations, or more accurately the Unión de Naciones Suramericanas. It is modeled much after the EU and hopes to have as good of a union as the EU by 2019.

Of course, not all of the nations of South America have gone along with it all, most notably French Guiana, Falkland Islands, South Georgia, and the South Sandwich Islands as they are already part of the EU since they are territories of England and France.

What is with all the political unions? Well, many would say it is a reaction to globalism to ensure that smaller nations do not get thrashed by the new world economy, but others might say is not meant to fight globalism but the hasten it by creating unified economic areas to lessen the number of heads of state that would oppose further globalist and neo-liberal reforms.

The latest national polls show Hillary in a virtual free-fall and Obama rising higher than ever. Is this a sign that America is finally losing faith in Hillary?

She doesn't seem ready to concede and is now is 31 million dollars in debt. It was thought that she was perhaps staying in to raise enough money to pay off her debts, but now it looks like she is trying to break into the White House and the poor house at the same time.

Even if she wins the democratic nomination, is America ready for its first debtor president?

I guess this could be considered the first "Strange Bedfellows" strip, but it was more about working on the character designs than anything else. The conservative character has come along well, but I am still struggling with his progressive spouse. Her look here is still not what I was looking for, but is getting closer. The glasses help define her character, but I don't know about the blond hair or her outfit.

As for the content of this comic itself, I did a one-panel comic instead of a multipanel ("Strange Bedfellows" is intended to be a multipanel comic like Doonesbury or Garfield) because, once again, I was just working on the characters and not trying to make a real strip. Still, this one is a bit funny an poignant, though I worry that it makes "Dora" seem stupid and clueless. Really, this is okay as I am going to try to play both sides as a little clueless and missing the point from strip to strip.

Still, a definite step towards an actual comic.

I think I may be done drawing cats for a while, and with drawing teenage mice and cyborgs. I really got to reduce the number of things I am doing at once.