No Touch Monkey!

When Alessandra started knitting my first question was: Will you make me a Jayne Hat?" Her answer was, "When I am advanced enough, yes." And after the countless Xmas Scarves and baby blankets, Ale was finally ready...to make sweater...but after that...The Hat!

Ale bought a very cunning kit from Wear With Style! which came complete with yarn, needles, instructions inside a handcrafted, stamped envelope. (see pictures below).



Oddly enough Heather Hill came to town last weekend for a Game Convention, but we didn't get to meet her. However, we missed her by 2 minutes at a knitting store on the other side of town from where she was staying. D'OH!

At the time of this writing I discovered that proceeds for the sale of Jayne Hat Kits go towards Occupational Therapy for Heather's special needs daughter.

So there you go. If you need a Jayne Hat Wear With Style! is your one stop shop. Click here for the song.

Labels: Fun Stuff, The Geeks are my People

I had seen this a few years ago but had forgotten about it until I saw a low res repro posted at a used bookstore yesterday. Since I am still thinking about story telling using the International Icons (that odd event story I'm still waiting to tell), and the artistic use and design will really influence how I design and illustrate my own story.

Fantastic work by Needmore Designs

Labels: Gosh_Wow, Story Telling, Visual Thinking

I was looking around for a mind mapping application for a collaborative project that is trying to get off the ground and I found Mindomo with which people can post public maps they have constructed. Thanks to Lady Gray who took the time to lay out some resources. Just roll over the little globes for pop-up links.

Labels: Worth your time

Some of the greatest people in history have educated themselves to a large degree using a process known as autodidacticism. This is something that's more easily undertaken these days with the great wealth of online tools available to anyone.

Whether you've gone to college or not, you can learn just about anything these days on your own. Want to learn about the classics? Carpentry and home maintenance? Philosophy or cooking? Chess or computer programming? It's all online, and with a little bit of excitement, you can motivate yourself to learn a subject in a growing number of ways.

Why self-education? Well, besides the obvious reasons of wanting to improve yourself, prepare yourself for success, and just learn as much as you can, self-education offers a few extra benefits: you can learn at your own pace, and in your own way. You can follow your passions, and learn about things that excite you. There's no price for failure, but there's every reward for success.

How do you go about becoming an autodidact? The answer is simple: any way you want. I would suggest you set aside just a little time each day to learn a specific subject, but that really depends on your learning style. Some people learn all in one great rush: they'll stay up late hours for a few days in a row, consuming everything they possibly can about a subject. Others are overwhelmed by an approach like that, and would rather learn a little each day.
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via - Dumb Little Man

Labels: Gosh_Wow, Worth your time

Last night while driving to the airport to pick up Alessandra I was thinking about how I visualize time.

My days of the week are pictured in mostly horizontal circle. Saturday is at the top, furthest away from me, Sunday is a swing back down towards the bottom counter clockwise. And the rest of the days of the week are an angled ramp back up. I only see the present day and the day ahead and behind on my wheel. They are spelled out by name and I can zoom in to look at my day.

Likewise my yearly calendar is a larger circle that runs counterclockwise with December and January up at the top of a 20% grade, then it's back down the dial to reach Summer. Of course the seasons are color coded with January and February being dark, dark gray and Summer the rest of the year being vibrant.

I've tried to describe how the whole thing is lit, and I believe I tried to model it years ago in 3D, but I just can't get it across.

Here, read about Flower Clock Gardens instead.

Labels: Nice, The Cap'n, Visual Thinking

The Day Out of Time has been celebrated since 1992, as part of a growing populist world movement, the World Thirteen Moon Calendar Change Peace Movement, whose purpose is just that - to change the calendar. July 25, the Gregorian Calendar date of the Day Out of Time, is the 365th day of the year of the Thirteen Moon Calendar. This harmonic timing standard measures the year in thirteen even months of 28 days each, a perpetual calendar of 52 perfect weeks, making a total of 364 days. The 365th day, the Day Out of Time' is no day of the week or month at all, but truly a Day Out of Time.

For this reason, this special day is observed as the day to cancel debts, to pardon and forgive, and to celebrate life through art and culture - hence, Peace Through Culture Festival."

Independent thought is not popular — it is absolutely, pricelessly, rare. Nothing you read about in the papers or see on the television is independent. Whatever we take in from the popular media is regurgitated conventional knowledge. There is nothing independent about most of the world.

This is a tragedy — independent thought is essential for progress. Conventional thinking moves us forward gradually at best (at worst it pushes us backwards). Independent thinking is required to achieve any substantial jump in performance.

Logically, when we think like everyone else is thinking, the best we can expect is to achieve what they're already achieving. If our aim is to over-achieve, we need to avoid the same banal influences and think impossibly. We need to become independent from conventional wisdom.

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I'm a pig for ice cream. I love the stuff, and it's high on my list of favorite things. I either eat a lot of it at once or if I have treats at home, I eat them in twos. The first one because I want it in me as fast as possible, and the other to enjoy.

I guess it's a character trait because I finished Harry Potter & The Deathly Hallows in about 10 hours or so, even as I worked 23 hours Saturday and Sunday Combined.

It turns out that I was indeed spoilered by Advertisements placed by punk ass spoilers at sites where I hang out. Oh well, you don't really know until you get there, then it's too late, and you remember the next one and hope it isn't right...and it is. So be it.

As it was, I reached a point last night when I should have put it away and gone to bed, but then a Brick Shitting Event occured and I had to keep reading until I was done.

Like the ice cream, I wanted it in me as fast as possible, now I need to go back and slowly read the last .25 of the book. This is fine by me, because while I enjoyed the first cone, the second one will be all that much sweeter.

ps: While I slagged on JK's storytelling and Deus ex machina in the previous post, I was reminded that according to her world logic, everything the characters do make sense, and there was nothing untoward that occured in the resolution of the story. So I was wrong there.

A funny quote was mentioned about how some people got advanced copies: "The publishers may have spent millions on security to make sure no one reads it before it's released, but that means nothing to a dude willing to risk a minimum wage job at a bookstore so his friends can get copies."

Ahahahahahahahah.

Labels: The Geeks are my People, Too Much Information

The Deadline for the catalogs is almost here. So far we've layed out each book at least 3 times and we are working hard today on redoing a 200+ page catalog. Wheeeee!

On the positive side, I will be paid hansomely for it, and they provided massages yesterday as well as lunch and dinner.

I spend yesterday evening reading Potter and I can't help but notice what a shitty wizard Harry is and how much Deus ex machina appears in this last books.

I mean, I know J.K. is writting for kids, but that doesn't excuse sloppy writing or the fact that nearly every aspect of Harry's success comes from events and people that conspire to help him.

Labels: Media, work

I am driving Southwest on Highway 44 at 8:15 pm. At Grand Ave., the Compton Hill Water Tower is to my left and the afternoon rain has slicked the highway; cars and trucks are throwing up puffs of mist.

The clouds have opened up and the sun is fat and red on the horizon. The rays burst across the highway from the right and all the cars are enveloped in pink-orange halos, throwing up pink smoke from cartoon cars.

I've never seen this before. Was I always in the wrong place at the wrong time or is my vision heightened by long hours at the office and a desire to nail down the world around me, and lock it into my brain? How much of my 40 years have I skated by looking at my inner eye, not using my outer one? Really, this is what I'm thinking.

The the cars pass back into the shadow, and I think about how I can't wait to tell Alessandra, when I get home. She's out of town, but we have Skype! We will look at each other on the the computer half a country away. "These are the days of Miracle and Wonder, this is the long distance call," indeed.

Half a mile ahead I see cars and trucks break the wall of light and turn into fast moving cotton candy. I love cotton candy, and I smile.

Hindsight tells me this is more rare than a Green Flash. If you live on a west coast, you can probably catch one daily. But this one...all the forces have to be in alignment. Time, Space, Weather and Season. Bullseye!

I pull off the highway at my exit and I look at the sky with its boiling clouds. Every color is represented in darkened hues. Why does the combination of Pink and Green or Orange and Purple look like crap everywhere else but the sky?

I wish, not for the first time, that I had the camera with me, so I can show you what I saw.

But, until I wise up and carry it with me, I have to use the words to paint the picture and bring you to me instead. Tonight: Youuuuuu....Arrrre....Therrrrrrreeeeee!

Labels: Gosh_Wow, Things and Stuff, Visual Thinking

My coworkers have about 30 days in here on the big project with maybe one or two days off.

In the past 5 minutes the guy to my right sneezes, the woman to my left sneezes, the guy that sits 15 feet behind me coughs and the woman in front of him on the other side of the cube coughs a deep raspy one.

My project manager, in another office, is congested.

The guy on my right has been sick for a few days and is constantly coughing and snorting his phlegm.

I use the hand sanititizer every time I get up, but it's a tough battle when the stuff is airborne.

My throat is itchy, and I have a sinus headache, but I don't feel too bad.

I do feel bad for everyone else though. Really, the client is treating them like crap with outrageous deadlines.

All this hacking and wheezing is grossing me out.

Labels: work

So with a few days left for the until the final Harry Potter book is released, jerkbags at some of the sites I visit, are spoilers as Message Heads, so I accidentally read them. I saw one (not a big one), so now I'm on the run to keep my eyes averted.

Speaking of Potter, I saw The Order of the Phoenix and unlike the previous 4 I found this one watchable. I think Daniel Radcliffe's acting has gotten signifigantly better.

I'm still putting in 50-60 hours a week as a Temp and we are at deadline, so that's good. Everyone is pretty beat, and this has become a sick office, people are sneezing and coughing all over the place. I never heard anything like it before.

That that was the segue to say that I'm the only person here who even gives a crap about the Potter stuff. It's really odd, no one intends to see the movie or has read (will read the books). Granted there are a probably more people who won't read it than will, it's just kind of an odd feeling.

Labels: The Geeks are my People

...About 50 people from the Midwest gladly forked over $300 to join the four-day Michigan search that ends Sunday. It was sold out, as are expeditions planned for Utah and New Mexico.

The Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization, a California group running the search, will add the audio recording to what it said are footprints, sightings and other mounting evidence from past expeditions.

"I'm not a believer. I'm a knower," said the group's president, Matt Moneymaker. "You've had to be in total denial to say that none exist."

At the very least, the big ape is a big draw.

Labels: Dumbass

I got a letter from my insurance company last week asking for my doctor's proof that I am taking some medication for it's intended purpose and not for cosmetic reasons. It turns out that not only does Avodart shrink your Prostate, but it also promotes hair growth in men with male pattern baldness, apparently better than Propecia.



Eleven years go I chopped off my shoulder length hair because my friend Kevin told me it looked like a comb over, and I've been competely shorn for the past 4 years at least. I've gotten used to it and enjoy slapping my bald head.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all about using medical treatment to improve one's looks. I got a nose job in '87 to fix my Hebrew Honker and in '88 I had my jaw reset to fix an underbite (another reason I don't want to pass my genes along), but the hair...well that's just stereotypical male vanity. I would never ask a doctor to hook me up. But would I turn down a freebie?
Shining


Oddly enough, before I discovered this, I noticed on a lower level of consciousness that over the past few weeks that it seemed like my hair growth on a shaving day seemed more like 5 days than it's usual 3, but I just wrote it off.

Since I've been very busy at work, I asked Alessandra to visualize how I would look if I did indeed actually grew hair, then let it grow out.

She likes this one.



But I think the sad fact would be this one.



I have a great dome. I think I'll keep it nice and shiny.

Plattner Dreams:

She asks me why
I'm just a hairy guy
I'm hairy noon and night
Hair that's a fright
I'm hairy high and low
Don't ask me why
Don't know
It's not for lack of break
Like the Grateful Dead
Darling

Gimme head with hair
Long beautiful hair
Shining, gleaming,
Streaming, flaxen, waxen

Give me down to there hair
Shoulder length or longer
Here baby, there mama
Everywhere daddy daddy

Hair, hair, hair, hair, hair, hair, hair
Flow it, show it
Long as God can grow it
My hair

Let it fly in the breeze
And get caught in the trees
Give a home to the fleas in my hair
A home for fleas
A hive for bees
A nest for birds
There ain't no words
For the beauty, the splendor, the wonder
Of my...

Hair, hair, hair, hair, hair, hair, hair
Flow it, show it
Long as God can grow it
My hair

I want it long, straight, curly, fuzzy
Snaggy, shaggy, ratty, matty
Oily, greasy, fleecy
Shining, gleaming, streaming
Flaxen, waxen
Knotted, polka-dotted
Twisted, beaded, braided
Powdered, flowered, and confettied
Bangled, tangled, spangled, and spaghettied!

Oh say can you see
My eyes if you can
Then my hair's too short

Down to here
Down to there
Down to where
It stops by itself

They'll be ga ga at the go go
When they see me in my toga
My toga made of blond
Brilliantined
Biblical hair

My hair like Jesus wore it
Hallelujah I adore it
Hallelujah Mary loved her son
Why don't my mother love me?

Hair, hair, hair, hair, hair, hair, hair
Flow it, show it
Long as God can grow it
My hair, hair, hair, hair, hair, hair, hair
Flow it, show it
Long as God can grow it
My hair

Labels: Ahahahahaha, Too Much Information

I got a blowout on the highway yesterday, and while wandering around a Borders as my tire was being replaced I found a book entitled Amazon.com: Pictograms, Icons and Signs by Rayan Abdullah,Roger Hubner. The final chapter was an essay by Jochen Gros discussing his creation of a working
grammar for a pictogram language of his devising.

At his site:
icon-language.com you can download an Open Type font that converts your text to pictures as you type it.



This is a complete sentence. What did I say? (The answer is in the comments.)

You should check it out. What also amuses me, is that many of the words he has pictogrammed involve sex, bodies in states of undress and seduction. I mean if I were going to create a language, those would be the first things I would define too.

Labels: Visual Thinking

Edit: If you didn't get the story, don't be surprised. I need to give it some coherence rather than just explode it. I'll post the rework, shortly.


After running my story past an illustrator, he suggested I add another feature to my key in order to add clarity. So I did. And I also added one more arrow somewhere.

It's not supposed to be a puzzle with the secret known only to me, everything you need to understand the story (without words), or breaking into a left to right story flow (in case there are right->left or up->down readers who encounter this) should be there.

You can click the picture or this link

Labels: Visual Thinking

happened Sunday Night. Over the past few weeks I've been growing my visual thinking perception, and I've been doing some layman's research by getting into articles from Visible Language, the journal of the Institute of Design from Illinois Institute of Technology, (I have a Proquest access to thousands of pdf journals, but that's another story). As a result, when the incident occurred I visualized it pretty much like this. Let me know if I'm able to get the point across. The first person to tell me what occurred Sunday night wins a prize.

The idea here is that the story should be understandable for illiterate (but not unintelligent), people of all nationalities. And I decided to use the generic AIGA Symbols for aesthetic purposes as I learn to draw, so the piece looks kind of primitive. Sorry about that.

Anyway, you'll need Adobe Acrobat or other pdf reader to view it. You are encouraged to zoom. Click the picture to begin download.

Labels: Worth your time, WTF

Forget Jimi At Monteray, or Dylan going electric. The Greatest Moment in Rock History occured yesterday when Spinal Tap played Live Earth.

Labels: Worth your time

My coworkers are up to 18. The first books don't go to the printers until July 11th, so I am working at least until then. My personal record is 2.5 months before my first day off, then it was back to work for another few weeks. I'll always remember that day off, as one of my best, most relaxing days ever. Me, Alessandra and the cats on our vortex sofa just chilling for an entire day...sigh. Don't get me wrong, I'm not stressed, not at all. I'm just sighing at the memory.

I'm also beginning to teach myself to draw to keep my mind in a creative visual thinking mode. Learning to draw increases your ability to literally see the world differently. I suspect it also sharpens your dreams, as has happened to me, but that's opinion.

Fact not Opinion: I am a stellar employee and would make a certain communications company very happy.

Labels: Things and Stuff, Too Much Information, waving a dead chicken

"Why most suicide bombers are Muslim, beautiful people have more daughters, humans are naturally polygamous, sexual harassment isn't sexist, and blonds are more attractive."

It's a very interesting article that really shows hows the foundations of our society are based on sex, marriage, procreation etc. It's nice to look under the hood and be reminded of our current well-dressed, storytelling apehood.

via: Psychology Today

Labels: Worth your time

Your employees will become very surly when forced to work July 4th.

Not me of course, because I'm getting paid, but still...Dude!

via TotalFark via i-mockery

Run wife RUN! Be like Coyote, Iike Rabbit and Raven! Steal the fire...RUNNNNNN!

Labels: Only Human