Tentatively Known as The Crumplets

.crumplets.jpg

Here for your amusement and enjoyment (I hope) are some little characters that I’ve been working on in between phone calls at work. I want to do something with these guys…maybe an online comic. I don’t know yet. Right now I’m just trying to work out…I guess you could call them model sheets. I’ve got 8 jpegs up and you can already see the progression from the alpha (b&w) to the betas (colour).

http://www.thickets.net/toren/Crumpletsalpha1.jpg

http://www.thickets.net/toren/Crumpletsalpha2.jpg

http://www.thickets.net/toren/Crumpletsalpha3.jpg

http://www.thickets.net/toren/Crumpletsbeta1.jpg

http://www.thickets.net/toren/Crumpletsbeta2.jpg

http://www.thickets.net/toren/Crumpletsbeta3.jpg

http://www.thickets.net/toren/Crumpletsbeta4.jpg

http://www.thickets.net/toren/Crumpletsbeta5.jpg

Let me know what you think! I’ve given them names so that if one of them (or certain design elements of one of them) stands out you can point at him over the internet. Aspects that I’m still struggling with are the legs (placement and form – stick legs or “full”) and profiles, specifically body shape on the profile. I’ll do a gamma round some time next week, likely, and I’ll post them if there’s interest.

Lazy Layman part 2

So I’ve been further considering this “Introduction To…” communal grassroots (god I hate that word) educational system. I could make a new blog for it (vancouverfreelearning.blogspot.com?), which would be cheap and easy, but the disadvantage is that there’s no way to email people who are interested in partaking, unless I made a separate mailing list, which I could do. There’s yahoogroups, which is a glorified mailing list, but some people have a hate-hate relationship with it. Doing forums would be the most efficient way I think, but it would be a hassle to set up and would probably never get done since I am no programmer and probably don’t have the requirements to host such a program.

Thoughts?

Introduction To: Introduction To (aka The Lazy Layman)

I had this whacky idea. Let me share it with you. A group of people, i.e. you, me and a bunch of our friends, organize an “Introduction To” every-so-often event. We all get together and talk and learn about a subject for a couple hours. Typically (but not necessarily) one person is the teacher. For example, one week, Marlo gives everyone an introduction to Mandarin or communism. The next week Stewie gives everyone an introduction to culture jamming or screen printing or game design. Later, I give an introduction to Lovecraft or drawing or voice acting or Scrabble strategy. We could get special guest speakers in whenever possible. Chris Woods might tell us about painting or art history or donuts. Arinn can introduce us to writing and Martin can give us a history of DC comics. Repairing a bike; haircuts; miniature painting; cooking; nutrition; reading music; optimizing your computer; getting the most from exercise; using Flash; Photoshop; building a web site; photography; guitar; first aid; investing/finances; yoga; tai chi; gardening/growing avocado plants; woodworking; plumbing/fixing your terlet; basket-weaving; the list goes on. If we all decide we want to learn how to do a certain something but nobody is more qualified than anyone else we can take a group approach and just discuss, share snippets of knowledge, read from books, etc. It’s a chance to share interests, show off, and be social. The best “classes” would probably be ones that didn’t require “students” to bring big heavy or expensive things, like pianos, but at some point I could see the classes being held at places with useful facilities, like community centers for ezzample.

A Thought About Men and Women

Not that I’m expecting it will, but imagining for a moment that the Western population became 51% homosexual, do would segregated restrooms and change rooms become irrelevant? There’s a comedy bit in here somewhere.

Since I started browsing http://www.frightenstein.com/ I’ve had the Hilarious House of Frightenstein end credit song in my head.

I'm 29!

You know what would be fun? Telling people that I’m as old as they think I am. I should start doing that. Plus it would make them feel special for guessing correctly. 

I was reading on Pharyngula: The Blog the post discussing how an Ottawan Professor [was] denied research funds for assuming evolution to be scientific fact. In the comments they started discussing how, yes, in Canada we have religious nutjobs too. I wanted to share my favourite comment with y’all:

I have to humour my future uncle-in-law (devout baptist) about evolution. I’d love to be up front with him, but ironically, his farm hosts a most impressive, fossil-rich outcrop where I can find Cretaceous fish. I’d hate to cut myself off from access to it.

Meanwhile, not far away: Have you ever thought about what side a snail’s shell coils on? I haven’t, until today. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060324/ap_on_sc/southpaw_advantage

More Than This

While I was drawing cowgirl pinups last night, Lost in Translation was on CBC. I haven’t seen that film since it was in the theater. I missed the beginning but saw pretty much everything else. It was good. I recall a discussion with some friends about how Japan was portrayed, but I’ll reiterate that to me the movie isn’t really about Japan at all. It’s about two characters brought together by being out of their element and by not getting the attention they need from their “standard” sources. Plus I love Bill Murray. I drew a portrait of him at work the other day which I was going to give to Stewie but his (Bill’s) nose turned out too big. My coworker asked me if she could have it and now she does.

I’m sure I’ve blogged about this before but I’ve known people (in the Biblical sense) who couldn’t enjoy a movie if the characters were not being faithful to their spouses or suchlike. I guess because the characters have bad character. To me that’s like not being able to enjoy a gangster movie. Obviously garroting somebody is not something I condone, but I can still appreciate a well executed story about it.

Speaking of being lost in translation I had a dream this morning that I was in China and trying to talk with a couple of girls on top of this mountain but having to resort to rudimentary sign language. Later there was a cat that bit into my fingers and I couldn’t get it’s little curly fangs out.

I really like this quote…

I really like this quote:

 “If you should see a blind man lying in the gutter, kick him. Why should you be kinder than God?”

for obvious reasons.

And now a word on statistics:

“Misleading”

And now for a whole slough of words:

Whenever I hear anything–especially in the news–remotely involving statistics, by default I doubt it. And Ben Goldacre illustrates how misleading they are in this post on cocaine use doubling in schools as reported in the NYT and other papers. And I’ll point out somebody’s comment that notes how meaningful stats depend on those surveyed providing truthful information, which isn’t necessarily reliable with kids.

Take that Mike Tice and your 2000 people! Nyah!

Too Many Flies in the Web

My forays into myspace has resulted in many a headshaking, and I’ll tell you why. People are so adamant about having a million things on their profiles to show the world how unique and special that they are, that the profiles turn into Homer Simpson’s website (you know, the one with the dancing baby and all those other animations) and are virtually unreadable. It gets even worse when the people who add comments have to include animated gifs and giant images in what they post. All style and no content makes the internet a dull boy. It’s like having coffee with someone that has dozens of bad tattoos. They may be talking about something but you don’t hear a word over the sensory overload.

Meanwhile, let’s recap what’s happening for the Saturday Morning Cartoon Party:

The theme is “April Fools & Other Pranksters.” Here are some episodes in the running:

SPIDER-MAN Spidey has to resort to pranksterism to defeat the Vulture, Green Goblin, Electro and Dr Noah Boddy when they try “To Catch A Spider.”

BATMAN THE ANIMATED SERIES. Whose “fool” act has got the Joker in a tizzy? Here’s a hint: “Beware the Creeper.” 22 minutes

DUCKMAN. Some whacko kidnaps Duckman to prove that he’s a TV show in “Clip Job.” 22 minutes

SUPERMAN 1941 “The Bulleteers” 8 minutes.

THE MIGHTY HERCULES. With softness in his eyes and fire in his thighs, Hercules fools the Thracian king. 5 minutes

THE TICK “The Tick vs Arthur’s Bank Account” Arthur is unhappy when The Tick blows his bank account to upgrade their “secret headquarters” so Tick moves out to his own rather shaky “Crime Tower.” 22 minutes.

CAPTAIN AMERICA “Zemo and the Masters of Evil” featuring Thor and Iron Man! 15 minutes

SPONGEBOB SQUAREPANTS “Fools in April.” Spongebob’s favourite holiday messes with Squidward. 11 minutes.

POWERPUFF GIRLS “Jewel of the Aisle” A bumbling thief loses his stolen diamond in a box of Lucky Captain Rabbit King Nuggets, the Powerpuff girls favourite cereal. 11 minutes.

STAR TREK ANIMATED “Practical Joker.” The Enterprises’ computer develops a sense of humour. 22 minutes.

LOONEY TUNES “Little Red Riding Rabbit.” Hey Grandma! Those are awful big eyes for you…ta have! 7 minutes

FREAKAZOID! “Wrath of Guiterrez” If you were at the 5th Cartoon Party, you’ll remember Freakazoid’s origin story. Now the Ricardo Montalban-voiced villain is back. Laugh with me! 22 minutes

THE VENTURE BROTHERS “Mid Life Chrysalis.” The Monarch sends Dr. Girlfriend undercover to seduce Dr. Venture in order to inject him with a body-altering serum. Meanwhile, Brock is deeply depressed to learn his secret agent license to kill has expired. 22 minutes.

HOME MOVIES “Broken Dreams” After Melissa and Jason break their respective arms, Brendan tries to break his own to get out of a test. Who’s fooling whom? Meanwhile, McGuirk takes a lifesaving course. 22 minutes

BATTLE OF THE PLANETS “The Space Serpent” 22 minutes

SAMURAI JACK “X-9” 22 minutes

Wonderful Stories of Professor Kitzel “King Tut” 4 minutes

There's No Such Website!

I forgot my livejournal password so I can’t comment on Marlo’s blog with this information, so I’m just making a new blog post. It’s fun for the whole family, anyway:

Yes, it’s time for a great new game which we just invented. It’s called There’s No Such Website! and your mission, should you choose to accept, is to spot the fib. Below are links and descriptions for five websites. Four of them actually exist on the Internet. One is a phony that we made up. Study all five and see if you can guess which link won’t lead you to the website in question. There is no prize for this except that you get to visit four weird websites and to feel smug if it doesn’t take you five clicks to find the phony. Enjoy

http://www.highprogrammer.com/alan/nosuchwebsite.html

Created by Mark Evanier, writer for comics (Groo) and cartoons (Dungeons & Dragons)

Meanwhile, not far away…

They have scalloped potatoes…who wants to help me come up with a recipe for potatoed scallops?

"I Just Hope Medical Science Can Cure Me"

Mike’s blog link to a statement on the traditional definition of life in the bible (basically – life is in red blood, that’s why good Christians should eat flesh but let the blood “spill into the dust” (paraphrasing), and octopus and squid don’t have red blood so therefor they aren’t alive) led to me posting the link to The Octopus News Magazine Online TONMO.com which led to a careful discussion of religion vs science. I wasn’t going to just say “you religious people are delusional” so I skirted the whole religious issues to say:

Do whatever works for you to be a decent human being. If you have to wear a yellow t-shirt to avoid going on a stabbing spree, then far be it from me to tell you that yellow is a yucky colour. But don’t expect me to wear a yellow shirt. Conversely, if your belief in the Spaghetti Monster leads you to go on a bloody crusade, I’m against that.

Then there was some discussion about how much religion was responsible for violence in history. Clearly: lots. However, to think that getting rid of religion would end war and conflict in the world is specious. People are jerks and will fight over anything – land, skin colour, oil, sexual preference, women, etc etc etc.

And THEN somebody brought up this: “What lends the Bible credibility over the holy Koran, the Torah, the Egyption Book of the Dead, or the Greek pantheon of mythos? Holy texts depend on themselves as the base of their credibility.”

What’s interesting is that science textbooks are also bibles of a sort. Which is not to say that I believe they are sacred scriptures. My point is unless you are going to recreate every science experiment for yourself, you do have to take certain ‘tenets’ of science ‘on faith.’ Do I know for sure that quarks exist? No, but I put faith in science (generally speaking), and the reason for that is science’s foundation is one of logic, perception and constant analysis and revision. Christianity, on the other hand, is about wacky stretches of logic, unquestionable doctrine and outdated tradition.

On another note, who remembers MAOAM candies?