...doodled to keep me awake long enough to pull laundry from the machine....

Where the hell is all that energy I hear you get from exercise...

Have been rather social in person of late. I went to NY, it was fun. I bought lots of things and saw some people. I've hung out here on several occasions with flashfeather & her dude. We talk about arts and crafts stuff, it makes me want to do more- be more. Same with a different couple I know through Adam. Pro : crafty people are awesome and make me more crafty. Con : everyone is in that couple's stage, all paired off. Don't get me wrong, I am too, but that doesn't make it any less creepy. (Happily) Not engaged though, which separates me from, like, 50%+ of my peer group. I don't like growing up.

Bought silicone mold making supplies- will cast something soon. This is practice though- my end goal is to use food safe silicon and make edible mechanical parts. My dream of some day eating a computational machine are moving forward... slowly... but I'm coming just that much closer to realizing it. Still doing the same-old, same-old type yarn projects. This fellow I actually started in NY and finished shortly after. He has magnets in his mouth and wires in his arm.

Read more about the Foo Man Choo-Chew Bear project here

Work is work. Not really happy, but it's not all bad. Office is moving though... my 5 min bike ride to work will be turning into a 40 minute one... up hill. Will probably move to either Palo Alto or San Francisco before the height of summer.

Black-cat version here

You'd never know it from my presence on the Net, but I'm still not dead. Work consumes me entirely. The fist closed about my life at the start of December and wont release till the end of this month. Even if my time is not fully occupied by it, my thoughts can do nothing but circle it.

I'd apologize for my anti-social behavior, but when am I ever *not* sorry about my failure to bond and communicate with my friends and acquaintances? Despite being a social brick wall, I have done a number of things. Attended Crucible fire ballet, all three days of the Edwardian ball, dancing classes with Adam, doodling at the Dicken's Fair, snowpocolypse* in Seattle, New Year's silent film & techno event, clubbing with a co-worker, mix CD exchange party (anyone want a copy of mine?), attending a terrible (and terribly expensive) show, and only one measly Dr. Sketchy's. On top of that, mix in a heavy dosing of Left 4 Dead and all you get is brain rot. Input is good, but excessive input in place of output is wasted.

The picture in here was done for a friend, based on the request: playing card, moon, cat, nature. Meh. I traced the cat from a photo. I've doodles from Dicken's, Dr. Sketchy's, and the Edwardian Ball but neither the energy or the computer/scanner physical connection to present them to you. Because I follow all trends set by b_zedan I've been doing a pinch of embroidery of late, I finished one monster (rather cute, of course no photos yet), and am in the middle of my first paid commission. Literally in the middle. Scraps of cut up black faux fur surround me, I've my toes in the stuffing and thread on my blouse. Shattered my machine's needle last night so in the face of my growing lazyness, I guess I'll be handing sewing the sucker.

I don't know when I'll post next. The urge to do so has drained entirely from me. I'd much rather focus my attention on my art blog, but if I haven't been able to muster up the effort in over a year, I doubt I'll ever by able to increase the posting rate. Aside from Process & Thoughts, I like to include a pinch of flavor text with each posting and that's actually the hardest part to write

Trying to be social.... seeing Coraline with Theresa, had a fab-o time hanging out just recently arrived flashfeather, making vacation plans with Trisha, and a possible New York trip coming up. Still not actually *feeling* social though. I fucking hate the winter. It may yet be the death of me.

* shot out to the most awesome bluemoonshark, who I give credit to for the much used by me 'snopocolypse' term

I can't even wait till the end of this episode to express my rage. Ugh, eck, ick!

I can't remember if it's in the book, but in the movie Misery the psycho lady goes off on a rant about how the serial movies she used to see in the theater cheated one day. At the end of one the hero drives a car off a cliff, but in the start of the next he leaps out in time. It really pissed her off. It was a great scene, great movie. I had a similar reaction to the start of this episode.

Bah! I spit on the show. To think the character I liked the most is key to my extreme disgust with it now.

Maybe if they actually *kill* multiple people this episode, it'll be okay... but that'll never happen. Sigh.

(will rant more in this post no doubt after end of episode)

Failed to make it to the hay maze last weekend due to lingering illness, very sad. This did, however, allow me to attend a friend's house warming party, very fun. I however accidentally started drinking and wound up puking drunk before the morning arrived, very sad. Hangover lingered through all of Sunday, barely leaving me capable of bowling, very woozy.

I am so ready for vacation. Flying to Wisconsin this Tue with Adam- am dragging him to an extended-family Thanksgiving. Will be passing through Chicago as well... must fight temptation to spend all extra time at natural history museum. I hear it's 7 degrees in Kiel. I am in fear.

Dr. Sketchy's!! Dr. Sketchy's!! Am loving the new location which is only a couple of block's from Adam's apartment. Miss the atmosphere and crowd of the old place though- definitely a different everything at this location. I miss Marc's insane tallent and the rich interior of Betty's studio. The music was better there too- we got stuck with a batch of Prince followed by Depeche Mode followed by Prince. It was.... something.

I claimed not to have sketched since the last session which, upon later thought, wasn't true- there was the stage show and the two convention evenings... but aside from that nothing. There was a contents to draw the model as an alien. I am overly-proud to say I won. I can't remember ever winning any kind of art contest, even a joke one (damn you CS department for banning my t-shirt design from the contest! I'll never forgive you!!) I think, however, I got the (very nearly tie) win due more to concept then talent- no one else went for the (what I thought was obvious) multi-breasted creature. Huh. As we were sketching, she confessed to being a fan of Predator and I squealed with glee- almost scrapped my picture to draw her in fish-netted, mask wearing glory. Picture to the right is the set from her sexy maid outfit, which I liked. Black is fun to draw when you have brush pens and markers! Some point I'll upgrade from dark grey to *real* black. Some day. When I'm older.
( Dr. Skethcy's doodles behind cut. Warning: features boobies )

My bottle-cap pin-cushion army numbers now 12, lining my cube wall. Will need to get a picture at some point. Received from Ravelery this neat pencil-sharpener robot thing that was covered with a crocheted owl/alien monster with a cape. It was.... strange. Fun, but very insane.

Speaking of insane (last topic, I swear). OMG!! b_zedan is INSANE!! I received her half of our monster swap and it's... freaky. Adam flipped out when he thought it included a real tooth (she *claims* it's just a authentic doctor-made fake...) It's got clay, and metal, and a lasso, and a feather, and a magnifier and... it's amazing. Luckily she does photography, so you can see a picture of it HERE. (I have a strange personal taboo against photographing my outgoing gift creations, but lucky she snapped & posted a picture of what I sent her as well here).

My health continues to be shit. While my cough is slowly diminishing (slowly!) my brain activity seems to be fading with it. I haven't made anything in ages, so I'm sad. The rotted mind however has been numbed enough so that I actually spare the time to clean. That's good, right? Cleaning is hard.

I read another book by S.M. Sterling- The Island in the Sea of Time. I hate the man but keep coming back because his premises are so very much what I want. But, again, he lets me down. I would have wrote a large ranting review of it, but then I found this guy's review of a different Sterling book, which still is spot-on for the one I just finished. It also features the author himself responding in the first comment, which I feel underlines part of the problem with the man. I just wish someone with some real writing talent came along and ripped all his ideas off. Props to him for all his research, but there was not a single beautifully described scene or interesting or unpredictable character. Sigh. I bet at my hypothetical best, should I ever write, my stuff would come out much like his....

My taste in music continues to be lame. Please please please ignore the first 35 seconds and then enjoy the awesome that is Captain Dan and the Scurvy Crew- a pirate hip-hop group that has captured my heart. You can find all their music on their Last.fm page...


In conclusion, some sketches from the stage production of the War of the World live broadcast. Doodled these before the steampunk convention, forgot to post them. The show was great, I'm happy I dragged visiting-in-town Red Shirt Dave aka Puppy Dave aka Davey J. to it with me. It was nice to see him, he seems to be doing well.



Oh! Wait! Forgot to mention! I just saw Repo! The Genetic Opera movie today at the theater. Hilarious and totally bad. Definitely pick it up some evening to watch with friends if you enjoy such things. A one of the reviews I read called it a steampunk bloodbath... and I'm kinda' shocked to agree with them. Paris Hilton wasn't the worst actor! Some of the singing was okay! The art direction was honestly awesome!

I'm going to post a pair of ridiculously large images. I apologize. However, it's my birthday and I'm sick and grumpy and it's the only thing that will make me happy. So I'm posting them, even though I know it's obnoxious to do so at this size. Okay, these images were just TOO large... but you really must click on the images to see their larger selves since they look so much better at that scale.







Despite repeated, violent attempts by my lungs to exit my chest cavity via my mouth, I attended the two musical events of this last weekend's Steampowered Steampunk convention here in the Bay Area (and boy did I get tired of seeing the word Steam within, like, two seconds). The music was fantastic and the costumes even better. I missed the day-time events but I think I'm okay with that.

The top image is from the Abney Park concert. While I'm not a fan due to entirely unfounded vibes of jack-ass-ery I've always gotten from them online, and there has been documented events of general retarded-jerk-psycho behavior witnessed and endured by heresyoftruth relating to the group, I must yield to the fact that they really know how to put on a kick-ass concert. Their look is fantastic, there music (only when it's live!) is actually kinda nice, their banter is great, and their fans (when they're not being psycho) are awesome at the show. So in a very cautious kind of way, I guess I'm saying you simply must catch any show of theirs if you can. And at all other times scorn the band.

The second is from the dancing evening. Beautiful music and beautiful dancing. I'm quite put out that I was totally gross with my coughing (and my "I thought it was funny" Halloween costume of a bloody handkerchief for mock tuberculosis) which meant that I was rightly so never asked to dance. Had I been healthy I would totally have been out there, it looked like so much fun! All those pretty people!! The drawing however was a perfectly acceptable backup.

There was one lady there who was very nice- part of the filming team- who repeatedly seemed surprised that I kept drawing. But it's so fun! It really is! And I'm not the only one who thinks so. There's someone else in the Bay Area who I've bumped into twice now who draws (far better then I!) at events. You should totally check out her Flickr set. Now when a certain other artist happens to come into the town, we can surely team up and form an unstoppable sketch collective documenting all the awesome that goes on here.

Made a voodoo doll for Ravelry- shipping it out tomorrow since there's a hard deadline of Halloween for it. I feel very "meh" about it. During the const-

HEEEEEEERRRRRRRROOOOOOEEEEEESSSS!!!

I am so thrilled with the show at the moment. Want to join in the fan-girling? ( Just head through this LJ cut... and please, if you bother to read it (or not) I'd love to hear your thoughts on the show if you're watching )

In other empty-headed media consumption news : Adam and I started watching Mad Men and it's crazy good.

Finally drew something. Meh.

The sunny side of things: Got another entry for the snail-mail game. Rocken'! 2/4 spots filled and the 3 week deadline is next Sunday, the 25th.

Yeah, sure, it may look like a mess, but it can do what it was made for. Also, it was my very first attempt at sewing a circuit and the first embroidery/clothing item in a looong time. Made at Adam's house as well, which means severely limited supplies and absolutely no pattern/planning. Second image- overhead view- found here.

Above is my first (and already outdated) version of an artist's light. I absolutely love sketching at shows, but quite often I run into light issues. I don't want to haul out a tacky book-reading light or anything but I love drawing the people too much to just give up. The hope of this is that the light is weak and downward angled so that only I see it, and the whole red not ruining night vision thing as well. Failed to finish it in time for Decompression, though I didn't end up staying that long past nightfall so it didn't much matter. Damn them for having a late-night event on a Sunday!

I swore to myself a year ago that I'd make something electric before Make. Failing that, I took a new vow to make something electric before my 25th birthday (which I'm dreading already). Ordered some conducive thread last month but had no idea how awesome it would actually turn out to be. I just soldered a pin to one end of the thread (tricky, but do-able) and I'm having a blast playing the "Is it conductive?" game at my house.

Normally I'm not a fan of LED projects- this one was fueled by necessity however. Once I perfect the design, I'm not sure what else I want to do next. I can think up fun components and understand how to make the circuit/logic more complex... but to what end? Blinking lights? An obnoxious buzzer? Poo to that... Any suggestions?

Ugh- the artistic dry spell that started with my sketching continues and creeps into all areas now. I've got a bottle cap monster that's just sitting there. I have but two tiny scraps to sew on and I'm done but I can't even manage that. Sigh. I'll get my groove back... some day.... My brain is entirely consumed by work these days- the time flies by and there's still more to do!

I forgot when posting my last set of sketches that I had in fact done another set since then- the DNA Lounge's Gooferman show! Actual pictures of it, as taken by my favorite photographer are here.



( Two [crappier] ones here )


I will now go back to my mess of yarn which is supposed to be a voodoo doll. Ugh. I hate abstract pieces- I've not been this sloppy in ages.
On the upside- the weekend! Yay! Also, I received the first (and so far only) entry into the round-robin in the mail! Score!


p.s. - I keep bouncing back and forth between these two songs. Odd.

Mr. Muggles
( Another shot )

It's sad to see my creations go, but at the same time exciting. Here's something I've done being sent to the other side of the country to people I don't know. More people will see him then ever would have if he sat on my shelf. The original specs were: hat, glasses, scales, extra limbs, beard, open mouth, humanoid, larger hands/feet (sorta' failed that one)





p.s. - Powergrid still sucks.

Seriously...the last sketching happened last month. And I mean August, not September. I've done one or two very simple doodles at work during meetings, but for the most part. Poof! All gone. I think it's the lack of train/lightrail commute, sleepyness, and other creative output. I miss it though.


( Slightly NSFW sketches from Dr. Sketchy's : August )



Whenever the erge comes back to me, I'll be ready. I'm just waiting in the mean time. Waiting for something.

I search for days and days for my black foam. I tear through every room and nothing. After much pain, I admit defeat and give up. Today I go looking for my wooden dowel and oh!- of course the first place I look I find that damn black foam (helpfully tucked between my two black bookcases). No dowel of course. ARRRRR!!

to express my rage



... I share with you a bottle cap squid monster, attacking a shipment of corn


UPDATE: Now I can't find my seal. I'm *really* freaking the hell out that I can't find my seal. Found the dowl of course, while looking for the steal, but I already came up with a better work-around in its absence. Where the hell is my seal?

Last we left, it was mid-August and I was making bottle cap monsters. Hmm.. since then:

- I was in Seattle, yes. It wasn't working out however and I opted to leave early- skipping my flight- to drive down with Adam. I'm sure it'll take another 12+ months to wipe the memory of how much I loath a day in the car. Ugh. No Seattle trips planned in the near future- the earliest would be this Christmas... maybe.

- I continue to make bottle-cap monsters. I've done 4 more so far, brining my total to 6 now. I'm using actual tiny water-bottle caps for these and I bring the critters in + pins to work. They are slowly filling up my cube walls and have gotten a very positive reaction from people from work. I like being able to look up and be (sorta') surrounded by my work. It's calming. My hope is to fully populate my walls to create a kind of 2-dimensional world where my creations live. Well, not entirely 2-dimensional. I've broken the left/right only boundaries with my last fellow- he has a simple frame and BENT PINS soldered to his hands so that he may climb the walls. The monsters are too "cute" for me to really love them. Using icky patterned cotton prints- my least favorite medium for 3D work. It's cleaning up my scrap stash though from appliqué projects. You can see one in the (rather blurry) image below. At some point I'll bring my camera to work. Also: The Pin Cushion Monsters (need a better name) are noted for feeding on and protecting chocolate money.


- Bullet bugs! <3 Latest baby has little springs and pivots at his hind legs to help him sit level despite my crappy soldering jobs. Simple but really cute! It bit me though- badly. Had to take him home for some touch up and he was in my bag, nesting in my scarf, and I reached in blindly and DAMN didn't that hurt... I'm expecting a bout of tetanus attack any day now.

- Adam and I went to prom. Good man Garret left for NY and for his going-away party he rented a place, decorated it, and threw a big party. Adam and I missed the 20+ ride in the hummer limo, but Garret let us sit in it while it drove literally around the block. We found many empty champagne bottles inside. Anyway, it was awesome and I got to go offset my somewhat-traumatic actual prom memories with some happy new ones where I actually had a date. Bonus points for going into a thrift store and finding perfect prom outfit in 15min for $30. I'm totally wearing that dress again.

- I'm caught up in my work. My work hours are not insane, but I'm certainly erroring on 40+ (rather then the 40- I was pulling at Cisco). I think about work when I'm not at work and often wish I could get more done while I was at work. This cuts into my mental processing a lot and makes me more scatter-brained then usual.

- Made Chewie-kun for my buddy back at Cisco. I had promised him for ages I'd make him a Chewbacca toy and thanks to an AWESOME garage sale where I got yards of faux fur at a stellar price, now I have. He's a big Star Wars fan and our group named boards after SWs characters and his board was Chewbacca (mine was Sebulba). So-so on the chewbie front... looked more like a bastardized domo-kun to me, hence the name. I weighted the limbs with old non-rechargable batteries which worked out well.


- Adam and I did a little romantic-get-away thing over Memorial Day Weekend. Went camping last minute which worked out well, then to a bed and breakfast on the coast where we also went to a spa. I've never been to one before and it was... interesting. Not as awesome as I had hoped, but still nice. We got a "sea salt scrub" which sounds neat until you realize it involves them rubbing sand all over your body. Thanks, but I was doing that to myself when I was 9. I really liked the aroma therapy stuff and the steam shower.



- I went to the first Dr. Skethcy's they've hosted in a while. While my art was rather bland the event itself was awesome and I had a lot of fun talking to people. One of the guys there- Marc- afterwards invited me a different sketch event at his house on the next Monday with a smaller group of people and a model! [[Insert Massive Artist Fan-Girl Squee Here!!]] This of course was due to my friendly nature more so then any outstanding artistic talent. But it was fun. Lots and lots of fun. There was just him and three other friendly artists. He let me use his tablet PC thing and it was educational but I didn't like it- good to test though. My results are here (NSFW)- the only sad thing was that she didn't have any costuming.

- Lots of other stuff

- I started and finished a monster for my parents' birthdays. Fully wired. Sadly I shipped 'em the moment I was done, a shame since I really wanted to animate him. Fully wired!! I did it! Now I just have to do it again and KEEP the damn monster this time. He was VERY neat looking until I put the last (lower) pair of legs on. Then blah.

You must understand, this is near magic. If magic lived in the real world, it wouldn't be flashy dragons or eruptions of fire from someone's hands. It would be this.

Twice now. I've written it and it was done before my request was received. Of the days and days to do these actions, why do they line up? Believe in the power of snail mail.

I feel like both events were loosely tied to a similar dream, but I can't remember the length of time between the last dream and action so we'll leave it out of the equation for now.

Finally, to de-vague-ify it, I'll be straight forward. I've written twice now to two different people requesting music and the very day after I send the letter, I receive what I want. The fact that today's package was dated on the 4th and my letter was written on the 5th boggles my mind. And to be clear, there is no good reason why we chose now to resume writing each other.

Combine this with the fact that I also received a separate item unrelated through the post at this very same time... Odd, odd, odd. I sent, I received, I sent, I received in the last two days.

Adam wins. He found my camera cabel, just as I was truly losing all hope. Now if only my cell phone would magically appear in a similar manner.

Most these are older projects from before I lost myself in books. So a month ago?


Yet another god-damn Dandruff attempt, the bat-rabbit-dragon, and an awesome bullet bug

( Some larger pictures )


<3


Am in Seattle this weekend (1st weekend of August) and am basically booked. I return the 3rd week of August and am pretty booked again as well. :( Still, a craft night must be had!
Still no cell phone... yet

I don't understand- I feel as if it's still mid-June. I'm out of the loop on everything. I'm (again) without phone. It took me all of a week to lose the new one I think. I've also lost my camera cable so I can't upload any photos. Sure, the phone loss may almost be comical, but combined with the cable and other things I'm starting to severly stress about attention issues.

I went in a cave. It was more interesting then awesome. Came out of it with a nasty rope burn/gash on my arm. I mean to write more about that later.

I have not been on the Internet lately. I'm behind on LJ posts and replies to everything and everyone. I was on the Internet enough to see all of Dr. Horrible's sing-along blog though. Genius. I plan on buying the DVD- if anyone hears news about it being available, let me know.

Saw Batman, it was damn awesome. Bought the soundtrack- anyone want a track or two? Go see the film before you're spoiled. The suspense is delicous if you don't know what's going to happen. Delightfully dark.

My sketching and crafting has ground to a halt as I drowned in books. I don't like this. Mental input is good, but if it's not inspiring output then it's not how I should be spending my time. Says I. Will finish Twilight, Nightwatch, and The Angel of Darkness and call it quits- no new books for me for a while!


So out of it, I have nearly no art! Here are the sketches from my work notebook so far

So, so, so terribly behind on talking to/keeping up with people. I do like you all and think about you. Busy/distracted phase will go away eventually.

--Sorry, no pictures. My sketches are all in work notebooks atm and I'm too lazy to pull pictures from my camera--
Dude, shopping on the 4th of July in the city is awesome- no obnoxious American shoppers or their offspring to bother you. Just a handful of foreigners who are friendly enough. Yay. Alas all the small interesting (yarn!) stores are closed.

New Ravelry exchange/swap starting up again, I'm so excited.

The Skull Bear, which I was barely able to part with, has arrived in Denmark I hear. Awesome.

When I originally started the Skull Bear project, I did it in parallel with a bat dragon creature which fell onto the way-side. Well, I've sorta completed it now. The wings were so awesome! And the torso! And the neck- I had all the right materials for once. And then I went and botched the head. It looks neat, but it's waaay too big and so the whole thing fell out of proportion. Sigh. At that point I broke from the given character design and made this sort of bat/snake/rabbit... thing. Pictures will be uploaded later.

Thanks to a trip shooting (did I mention I went? And that I was *terrible*?) I have all the casings I'll need for ages and so I made a couple more bullet bugs. My technique is definitely improving. I design them faster, with greater complexity, and the assembly is much soother. Pictures will be uploaded later.

Going caving- like for reals caving with the local caving group- this next weekend. Dragging Adam with me (whose nervous about it) and going with my co-work (who is also nervous about it) and his wife as well as a guide and others.

I feel awesome at work. The work I'm doing at work makes me very, very happy. I cannot adequately describe how much more awesome my current job is then my last one and how much of an impact it's having on my life. Yay.

Nabbed new books- Nightwatch to further my interest in reading movie related books & another S.M. Stirling book. I HATE S.M. Stirling. SUCH a bad writer but the premises are all so damn good I can't resist! I figured a second try was in favor but already by page 5 he's pissing me off. Did have a funny quote though:

It wasn't taking the trip well; cats seldom did, being furry little Republicans with an inbuilt aversion to change. Judging by an ammonia waft, it was-- literally-- pissed off.

When I walk through the city, I delight in examining the architecture and judging what is scalable and how I can get into builds/a safe area. I evaluate how easy it would be to raid a store and what value it would have for survival. Where is the best area to go to set up a strong hold? Adam then said that the Zombie Apocalypse was my Rapture. Just as the Religious Right believes that the End will come and that they will be the Chosen Ones, so do I. That we both sort of have similar twisted reasoning and logic. ... ah, zombie apocalypse, how I dream often of you... ... sigh ...


Happy 4th of July everyone. Be safe.