Third Blogaversary

October 26th marked the third anniversary of Tail o' the Rat.
Over the past year I chased mice, was reunited with the Crack Monster (whom I hadn't seen in three decades), made a Flash cartoon, started another, and drew a bunch of pictures.
According to my stat counter, the blog has been visited 68,575 times by 52,826 unique visitors since it debuted ...
...okay, some of these visits were triggered by bots and search engine misfires.
I never said I was picky.

Second Aniversery

Wow, it's been two years since my first post on Tail o' the Rat!

First Anniversary!

This silly blog is one years old today!
The odd picture is a satire of on an infamous local painting which I discussed in my first post, Ghost of the Pink Lady. It was one of several posts where I compared then and now photos, warping the modern one so it lined up exactly with the historical one. Other examples include Sixty Years Ago Today and Crime and the Scary water.
Many early posts were snarky and satirical. I goofed on Thomas Kinkcade , Bumper Stickers and frivolous Sharper Image gadgets. I posted pics of garishly painted buildings and demanded to know why anyone would paint their house that color.
Soon cartoons replaced the photos and composites and the blog became more autobiographical, perhaps even self absorbed. Early examples include Rant of the Ant (drawn with a mouse) and Nothing is Certain but Death and Crackers (an early tablet p.c. drawing.)
Then came the Drawing Board and the Martians...
I was newly unemployed when I started this blog. I'd planned to point out that now I'm up to my neck in work. A "wow, I've come a long way" observation. Then I found out I was soon to be unemployed again. I've come full circle. I'm sure I'll eventually find something else. Until then, more time for me to work on Tail o' The Rat.
Special thanks to loyal readers Ghostbuild and Sally. You make it all the more rewarding.

Ghost of the Pink Lady

Malibu canyon is haunted. In 1966 a woman was rubbed out at an early age. Her ghost is still there.
Here's what happened. Grafitii covered the rocks over a tunnel on Malibu Canyon Road. A local artist thought it was ugly. She cleaned it up and painted a 60 foot high woman. Local authorities weren't impressed (probably something to do with the subject being nude). Within days she was blotted out with brown paint. Local authorities are no fun.

Here's what she looked like in her glory days:


She's considered long gone, but you can still see her "ghost" if you know where to look.
Perhaps it's traces of the original paint, but what kind of paint lasts 40 years? More likely, the paint they covered her with has protected that section of rock long enough for it to erode at a different pace.
Here is a contemporary photo, scaled in photoshop to line up with the cracks in the rocks.
She seems to be wearing the shrowd of paint they covered her with. Can you find her?


How about now?
Here's the rock part of the original photo superimposed over the modern one.