The Mystery Tree

I first noticed it in December, 1981, right before my 13th birthday.
We lived in the hills. From my bedroom I could see much of north Orange and Los Angeles counties. I remember sipping General Foods Orange Cappuccino coffee as I sat on my dresser (the best viewpoint,) gazing out the window. A tiny orange cone stood on the horizon. Ah ha! I thought, a Christmas Tree!
Further studies with binoculars and my telescope confirmed it. Not an actual tree but a conical cluster of lights shaped like one. With the telescope you could see the star on top.
This beacon became a symbol: the holidays had come! Sure, neighbors put up lights and the stores played carols, but nothing delighted me more than spotting The Tree each year.
One thing drove me crazy- Where was it? Over the years I'd become as familiar with the view as the ancient astronomers had been with the sky. For example, I knew the red and blue specks of light to the north was a K-Mart sign some six miles to the North. The Tree was more elusive. Oddly, it was only visible from or near my home, being eclipsed by distant hills from other viewpoints. I tried aiming my telescope to it at night, leaving it on the tripod to check for details in the morning. But all I saw in the daylight was a horizon. Once I somehow talked my parents into driving to it. After about six or seven miles in the general direction, we caught a glimpse of it from another hilltop. Still tiny and on the horizon. "That thing could be 15 or 30 miles away," my Dad observed. "We can't go that far!" Operation Tree Search was a failure.
We moved a few years later, but I never forgot The Tree. When I was in college, my friend Sandee worked in a city just east of where I speculated the tree might be. Once, before picking her up from work, I patrolled the area, looking for my old friend. No tree. Either it was gone or I was looking in the wrong place. Another failed Operation Tree Search.
I never found out where it was. Using Google Earth, I've concluded it was near or in the San Gabriel Valley. If you're reading this, and you remember a big rooftop tree that went up each year in that neighborhood, please let me know ...

Where the Bugs Are

According a radio show I heard, bed bugs are making a comeback, often showing up in fancy hotels. There's even an online registry where people can report their bed buggy experiences, including hotel names and a map!
For then non-sqeemish, here's a short National Geographic video about the little suckers.

Just added- I found a site that puts your pics on magazine covers. ...

Create Fake Magazine Covers with your own picture at MagMyPic.com

Subscribe to Fortune Magazine at a 76% discount!

The Angry German Kid: a Tribute

Above is my tribute to the Angry German Kid.
For the unfamiliar, it's a widely circulated video of a kid throwing a rabid tantrum at his computer. He screams, he curses, he smacks the keyboard, and screams some more. It's allegedly real, but I bet it's some ham putting on an act.
The original can be seen here. Don't watch it unless you have a high threshold for bad language and obnoxiousness.

Evil Bunny Rabbit Apple Pie Trees

When I was about three, McDonald's ran commercials featuring "McDonaldland", a tacky Oz-esque wonderland overflowing with burgers, fries, and mutants. I hated it. Ronald was creepy, Mayor McCheese was a burger headed freak with a quivering nose, and Cap'n Crook looked like the scary old neighbor who you weren't supposed to go near.
The "Apple Pie Trees" were the worst. They were supersized evil clowns. They'd lurch around and grin at the camera with a mouths big enough to bite my head off. They terrified me. Each time the commercials ran, I flipped.
My dad tried to calm me down. "Those trees are just costumes," he told me. "Actually there's bunny rabbits wearing the costumes."
This notion proved almost as disturbing as the Apple Pie Trees. Bunny rabbits grow that tall? my three-year-old brain wondered, And why do they dress up like trees? To scare people?
Who knew bunny rabbits could be so mean?

Update:
Click here to see a commercial with the Evil Trees.

Slice of Life

We're gonna need some glue here.

Who's Your Daemon?

The Golden Compass movie website lets you determine what kind of animal your Daemon is. In the movie, a Daemon is an exterior soul, shaped like the animal that most fits your personality. My Daemon is a snow leopard, it says.
Personally I think it's something more birdlike.
I thought his name, Philon, was cool until I realized it's "No life" when you say it backward. Ouch.

The Bouncy Board

When I was pre-school aged, my family would take us to a little airport called Meadowlark.
It was cool because it had a snack bar and a picnic area where you could watch the planes taxi and take off.
Also cool was what I dubbed the "Bouncy Board". It was a low wooden platform made of creaky old wood. Springy wood. My brother and I jumped on it like a trampoline. No trip to Meadowlark was complete without a jump on the Bouncy Board.
The fun ended the day an old timer pointed out that the platform covered an old swimming pool. My brother and I had been stomping on half rotten wood over a concrete hole!
Whoops.
Here's an aerial view of my old, ah, stomping grounds.

It's from this site. Bouncy Board details added by me.

Scary Tree

A comely tree on Sally Cruikshank's blog reminded me of something that happened when I was little.
I remember looking at a peeling eucalyptus tree from our back window. A scary face stared back! I knew it was only an illusion, but it was so sinister looking that I didn't want see it, ever again. I suggested we permanently draw the blinds. My parents didn't agree. I'd have to devise my own avoidance tactics. For days I avoided the window (a large one in the living room)- I wouldn't even face the same direction.
A week later I asked my dad to check on Scary Tree. Perhaps the bark that made his features had peeled off. My dad glanced out the window and gave the all clear. "Looks like a bunch of peeling bark now", he said. I looked out the window-

He was still there! Mean and angry looking as ever! Cold fear surged through me. How could Dad miss it? My preschool brain thought. Doesn't he see it?
I forget what became of Scary Tree (this was over 35 years ago). Either he peeled off or I got distracted and forgot about him. As an adult I find it amusing, but boy, did that thing scare me when I was a kid.

Kuchisake-onna

There's a bizarre urban legend from Japan about a spirit known as Kuchisake-onna, (Slit-Mouth Woman). I find it goofy... ... yet unnerving. I'm very thankful I didn't hear this tale when I was a kid.
The Story:
In life she was beautiful, until her jealous husband slashed her mouth from ear to ear. Her ghost wears a surgical mask. On foggy nights she comes up to children and asks "Do you think I'm pretty?" When the kid says "Yes," the mask comes off, the victim screams, and the chase is on! She comes after kids with a scythe (or knife), either killing them or carving them up to look like her.
That's one hardcore legendary creature! She makes the Boogyman look like a leprechaun. I bet she'd put the chupacabra on a leash and take him for walks. If she met Bigfoot, she'd make a fur coat out of him. She'd turn the Loch Ness Monster into clam chowder, and spread nasty rumors about La Llorona.

Scorpion Fun

Click cartoon for larger version
.

My Little Scorpy

I was fiddling with another Martian vs. the Scorpion cartoon. I couldn't shake how creepy the thing looked. Was it possible to make one cute, yet still recognizable as a scorpion? I wonder if I could pull the same stunt with a horseshoe crab?

Parking Ticket

Working long hours and weekends means:
1. It's tough to find a parking space when I get home.
2. I forget what day of the week it is.
This in turn got me a parking ticket. Supposedly it's for blocking the street sweeper, but the goons make several rounds it chugs in. Easy money.
Of course, it had been issued minutes before. I'd have missed it if I hadn't bothered to take out the trash before leaving.
On the way to work I saw a bunch of other cars who'd gotten the same surprise. Ticket frenzy.
Parking enforcement cars would play the them from Jaws and look like this:

Look Who's Melting

Frustration + Sheer Amazement + Too Much Caffeine = Silly Picture

The Walrus and the Carp in Tar

"The tie mask gum,"the wall russet,

"Toot alcove man knee thinks
Of shoo- sand-gyps-ant- ceiling-whacks
Shove cab ages-ant kinks
Of white thus see yes boy lean ha-
Tan weather piks half winks"

No, I haven't lost my mind. It's a modegreen.
A mondegreen is misheard (or deliberatly scrambled) speech or lyrics.

The old song "Mairzy Doats" (Mares eat oats, get it??) is an example.
When read aloud, "the tie mask gum..." is phonetically similar to Lewis Carol's original:

"The time has come," the Walrus said,

"To talk of many things:
Of shoes—and ships—and sealing-wax—
Of cabbages—and kings—
And why the sea is boiling hot—
And whether pigs have wings."

Humpty Dumpty

Ever wonder what would have happened to Humpty Dumpty if he stayed off the wall?
Would he hatch? Would a chick spring from his head, the way Athena sprang from Zeus?

America Sings

One Disneyland attraction I miss is America Sings, a tribute to American music. For the unfamiliar, it had a central stage divided into six parts. A ring of six theaters circled them, scooting around to the next stage for each act.
I never tired of it. The characters (designed by animator Marc Davis) were cute. Even bit characters, like the Boothill Vultures and the donkeys have personality. Well animated too*, considering this was early seventies technology. It had a real cartoony feel. Characters and props pop out of nowhere. Or drop into place. Storks ride bicycles. A horse drives a car. Geese dance the CanCan. In my opinion, the show is more sophisticated and well crafted than some of the newer Disney attractions.
That being said, the weasel does get annoying.

*this video was shot towards the end of the show's run, and a few characters are broken or missing. For example, in the "Goin' South" section, you'll see the geese turn and look at a barrel. That's where a fourth goose once stood. He'd already been moved to a new gig as a Star Tours robot. Most of the other characters were recast in the Splash Mountain attraction in 1991.

The Divider

"What's that?" my preschool-aged self pointed to what looked like a pull down door in the middle of the back seat of my Dad's car.
"That's the divider. It cuts the back seat in two," Mom said.

I dared not open it. I thought it would unleash a ferocious set of mechanical jaws. They'd chomp the seat, and possibly me, in half!

Months (possibly years) later I summoned the courage to face the beast. The stumpy block of upholstery that swung in place was something of a let down.

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.

The Fire (October, 1982)

These fires bring back memories.
I've never been evacuated. My house hasn't burned, but both  almost happened in 1982.
I was thirteen and lived in a semi rural part of Orange County. One Saturday morning, I glanced away from the television. Everything had an orange tint, like a big glass of Tang  was filtering the sun. I went outside to investigate.
A wall of smoke blotted out the eastern sky. Flames twinkled on a hill, four miles away. The smoke flowed in my direction. Would the fire follow?
"I wouldn't worry," my Dad said. "It doesn't look that big. But you can bring a few things if want to be safe." We were going to Redondo Beach that day to help with a family yard sale. My folks brought along some important paperwork, documents and photo albums. I packed my plush walrus (my favorite childhood toy). Just to be safe. The fire probably wouldn't spread.
But it did. As we sold plates, glasses and knickknacks from card tables, the radio kept blurting about the fire. It was getting bigger. It was threatening homes. People were on their roofs with hoses...
"Maybe we should go back and get our stuff?" I said.
"Nah," my Dad said. "First, our house probably isn't in danger, and second, if it was, they wouldn't let us go near it."
The drive back (after the sale was over), was scary. The radio babbled about the now-enormous fire and the homes it was burning.  Entire blocks were aflame.   It hadn't reached my street.  At least not yet.
   We could see the smoke as soon as we got on the freeway, even though it was over 20 miles away.
The police set up a checkpoint near our home. My folks had to show I.D. to get through. The official word:  Yes, the fire was close, but it had burned a path to the south of us and was now heading away . Unless the wind changed (The small gap between our home and the fire was clogged with dry brush), we wouldn't need to evacuate.
The wind didn't change. I remember watching flames less than a half mile away as the wind shooed them southwest (where they would do more damage). Interesting how the fate of our home stood on something as fickle as which way the wind blew.

Little Nemo vs. The Turkey

Click Little Nemo Cartoon for larger image

When overtime keeps me busy, I post other people's work.
Today's artist is Winsor McCay.
This is one of my all time favorite Little Nemo in Slumberland cartoons.
The only large version I could find online* cropped at the top and translated to French, but you can still follow the plot. A big turkey has come to fetch Nemo and bring him to Slumberland, but the plans go awry.
The pircture of the bird strutting through the city, house in beak, cracks me up. It's such a ridiculous concept, yet it's drawn realistically. The nightmare could have ended there, but there's more. A lesser artist/writer might have had Nemo land in a lake or the woods. Here he lands in a lake of cranberry sauce, surrounded by a forest of onions!
Sadly, I recently found out that all that's left of the original artwork is a ripped corner. What kind of idiot would tear something like this up?

*I have a copy of it at home in a book but I need to hook up my scanner (and I'm nervous about cracking the spine of said book)

Yeecccch!

Unless you've worked at a tropical fish shop, (as I did from my late teens to my early twenties), you have no idea what a dirty job it is. It goes way beyond scraping algae.

My first duty each day was to do "a run", which is happytalk for "get a net and a baggie and scoop up any dead fish you find." Nothing like a baggie with smelly dead fish at the bottom to start your day.

The live food smelled worse. We kept tubs of brine shrimp, redworms and blackworms in a fridge behind the scenes. The redworms were harvested from sewage and smelled of it. The blackworms had a rusty, blood like odor. We sold worms by the ounce, so I had to scoop them into little bags with a NyQuil cup. At least the leaches that lived amongst the blackworms never attacked me.

A freezer stood near the fridge. It held frozen sea life from kelp to krill, plus cubes of beef heart and spinach. T.V. dinners for fish. It also served as a morgue for expensive fish. The official word was that they were being "preserved for an autopsy", but the truth was the owners didn't want to part with a fish that cost as much as a television, even if it didn't move. One night the freezer konked out. By the time we reopened the contents were a melted, decaying soup of slop that I had to clean up. After I cleaned it the owners decided to throw it away instead of fixing it. Thanks, guys.

The most horrifying thing was a dead sea anemone. They didn't roll over and die as fish did. They slowly dissolved into a fowl smelling, viscous globs of slime, which rose from them like glop from a lava lamp. It was like an alien bio weapon. If you scooped it out with a net, the goo would ooze through it. Siphon it out and the more meaty parts would clog the tubing. And the smell! It was a foul, evil scent that stayed with your hands the rest of the day, no matter how often you washed.

The job also involved roaches, meal worms, rats and the occasional crayfish, but I think I've made the point on how nasty it could be. Not that I regret it. It makes me appreciate my current job. Any time I feel stressed or overwhelmed I look back to my tropical fish days and I feel much better.

The Jerk is Me

It's street parking at my place. This can be a problem when I work past 9 or 10 p.m. Most spots are taken. I usually have to park down the street or around the block, which makes me nervous because I'd be easy pickings for any mugger or murderer lurking about. Last night, however, the bad guy was me.
I wasn't trying to be a jerk. When I left the car, I noticed the end of my car jutted a foot into a curb ramp. Someone's driveway? It was maybe four feet wide and lead to what looked like a narrow walkway. There was enough room for a bike or motorcycle to maneuver around my car so I let it go. It was late, I was sleep deprived, and I wanted to get indoors before my feared murderer spotted me.
Bad decision. Next morning a dew soaked note on my windshield scolded me for blocking her driveway. Part of me felt indignant- what kind of car could fit on that thing? Does she drive a Big Wheel? I felt bad too. I imagined her (I figured this was a she because the stationary was pink, there was a "please" and there was no profanity) coming home late and sleep-deprived, hoping to get indoors before she was mugged or worse. And there some jerk has blocked her way. What kind of person would be so inconsiderate!? Some people!
I hate it when I do something rude by mistake.

Cat Snoods (circa 2002)

Click image to see 'em blink


I almost forgot about these.

Snood is a shareware puzzle game.
The characters are clumped on a descending wall. The object is to "free" them by shooting additional characters at them. A character who hits a clump of like characters causes them to fall from the wall. Any characters left when the wall hits bottom turn to skulls.
The characters are animated, cycling through two different faces.
Officially registered players can swap out the standard characters with custom ones. I submitted two graphic sets- one with cats and one with crazy fish. The cats made the cut.
My contribution to internet kitsch.

Earthling Scorpions

Click cartoon for larger image

Supporting bad behavior (or ideas) with inflated language annoys me. It was one of the reasons I left teaching.

Giant Flesh-Eating Bedbugs from Upper Flimflambia

I'm normally against spreading nonsense but I couldn't resist.

I sent this email to my coworkers:

Anyone want to start a snopes-worthy internet fib?
I say we start circulating pictures of this deep-sea pill bug (Giant Isopod),
Flimflambia Hemotophus Cimix Vicarius

With the following text:

WARNING! Giant flesh-eating bedbugs from Upper Flimflambia have been accidentally introduced to California in a banana shipment. While small enough in their larva stage to hide amongst fruit and leaves, they can grow up to a FOOT LONG! In spite of their length, they can squeeze through cracks and under doorways. In the wild they feed on sleeping herds of buffalo and zebra, but there have been three cases where they have been found IN PEOPLE'S BEDS. They hide between the mattress and the box spring by day, feeding on the blood of their victims when asleep. Talk about things that go "bump in the night!".
The National Entomological Society has these tips to keep them OUT of your house.
1. Make sure cracks under the door are tightly sealed
2. Wash sheets and blankets weekly, in hot water.
3. Patch or replace screens with holes.
4. Hang fresh cherry-scented air freshener "trees" (the kind you hang from your cars rear-view mirror) on your doorknobs and bedposts. These creatures have a strong sense of smell and are repelled by the cherry scent. Pina Colada scent is repels them too.
5. Keep a radio on at night on an A.M. dial. The sound waves bouncing off the ionosphere also repels them.

PLEASE FORWARD THIS TO YOUR FRIENDS!!!

There you have it. Silly story, misuse of caps and quotation, a dangling participle, a cliche and a real photo. Beware!

The Future

The future was cool when I was a kid. Cars will fly! Robots! You will go to the moon!
Now it's a scary void. No guarantees of love, happiness, success. Even long term employment is a maybe in this idiot century. Nothing is certain.
Then again, I've been dreading "the future" for the last twenty years, worrying about things that.
1. Usually didn't happen
2. Or if they did happen, it wasn't the horror show I expected.
When I was in high school I worried that I'd miss it after graduation (I didn't). Same with college. I was sure my life would be over once I graduated from college and left that life behind (it wasn't). And so on. I know worrying is counterproductive. It doesn't change anything, it's a waste of time... yet I do it anyway.

Tosca v.s. RoboFalcon

I was watching television when it happened. Tosca, my cockatiel, shrieked from the next room. This wasn't his usual "stop that" shriek. It was a piercing scream that would put a fire alarm to shame. What was wrong? I wondered, dashing to the next room. Was he hurt? I knew it was possible. The other cockatiel I owned managed to get tangled up in the chain of one of his toys once. ( He survived his injuries but lost part of his lower beak.) I flipped on an extra light and went to Tosca's cage.

He was fine. A bit agitated, but unhurt. What had set him off? Maybe an earthquake? I scanned the chain pulls for the lamps and blinds, but nothing was swinging. Then I looked beyond the doorway and figured it out.

I could see the television in the next room. The show was about runway safety at the airport and they'd just done a segment about birds striking planes. To scare them off, one airport hired someone to fly a realistic remote controlled falcon over fields adjacent to the runway. The falcon had been on screen when Tosca started screaming. Poor little guy. He thought it was coming to get him!

This was a good example of how his head is wired. In the wild, a cockatiel (or a buffalo or an antelope etc..) is food for preditors. The ones who live to pass on their genes are the ones who panic and bolt at the hint of danger. Tosca probably doesn't have direct ancestors who had thoughts like that shadow in the corner of my eye might be a falcon. I better get a closer look....

Martian Tools

Click cartoon for larger version.

Here's how I make these things. I use Painter 8 and a tablet p.c.
Once I have an idea, I type in the words (I have a typeface that looks like my writing) and roughly sketch them in. Sometimes I draw them separately and paste them in. This lets me fool with the composition.

Then I fade the rough sketch and sketch a tighter layer, with more details.
Note in these early versions that the punchline is different. The original joke was just showing Vespa snapping a picture. The problem was that I couldn't make it clear that this was a camera (and not a Martian ray gun or something). To bad, since just showing her taking the picture would be funnier).
I often force myself to write alternate punchlines anyway. Sometimes it leads to a better joke.

I zoom in for most of the "inking", using painter's Smooth Ink Pen. I'm not satisfied with my inking ability. It's something I need more practice at. Wally Wood I ain't.

That's it.
Also note that the scorpion actually looks like one this time. His earlier incarnations looked like a lobster Beanie Baby. I was trapped in jury duty when I started the scorpion gags and didn't have web access for a reference.

Olympia

I had cartoons I wanted to finish and post, but Painter8 has corrupted again so I'll have to reinstall it when I get home*
Instead, I'll mooch off my older blog, where I chronicled my adventures in Second Life (an online virtual world, see below for details**) in 2005. In Second Life I'm Olympia Rebus, and have a home base in the P.G. rated sim of Green. I built goofy things. My favorite creation was Morris the Torusaurus (pictured above). He's comprised of toruses (actually toruses and slices of toruses). A copy of him is (or was) on display at the welcome area in Ahern. When slew of Second Life books were published I skimmed each one, hoping he'd be pictured, but poor Morris didn't make the cut.
I don't spend much time there anymore. Part of the problem is each time I log in I'm slammed with emails asking for free copies of things I've made. It crashes my laptop too. Maybe I'll return some day...
Here are some of the better posts from my old blog:
Freak-Builds-that-Didn't-Make-it
Building Bugs
The Aquagon
Space Warped
*this was written off the clock at work
**Second Life (as defined by Wikipedia) "is is an Internet-based virtual world launched in 2003, developed by Linden Research, Inc (commonly referred to as Linden Lab), which came to international attention via mainstream news media in late 2006 and early 2007.^[4][5] A downloadable client program called the Second Life Viewer enables its users, called "Residents", to interact with each other through motional avatars, providing an advanced level of a social network servicemetaverse. Residents can explore, meet other Residents, socialize, participate in individual and group activities, create and trade items (virtual property) and services from one another."

Eleanor Rigby

The Eleanor Rigby segment* from "Yellow Submarine" is my favorite animation with a Beatles song. Here's why:

The Creators Went Beyond the Obvious

A lessor effort might follow they lyrics exactly- showing Miss Rigby picking up the rice as the wedding party departs. Instead we get a quirky series of gloomy, grimy city images.


Not Too Maudlin.

This isn't a happy song. Too much pathos would have made it a sapfest. Thus the whimsical touches. For example, while we see a tombstone, we also see the cute submarine chugging around behind it. Or the end when the camera pans to the top of a building and there's a guy on top. With butterfly wings.


Clever Use of Animation


The animation is limited. A leaf falls, smoke curls, the camera moves, the sub hovers. Yet it works. Most of the people are high contrast loops of film. This makes them seem distant and robot-like (strangers in a city?), but it's funny in places too, like the hapless ball players, lurching in the field.

Ending the song with a mad jumble of road signs was a good idea. They could have ended it with morbid imagery ("oh isn't this sad and hopeless") or some upbeat nonsense like a pretty sunset ("yes, it can be lonely out there but there's always hope"). Instead we get the road signs. "Where do [we] all belong?" it seems to suggest "Beats the heck outta me... ...but that doesn't mean we can't have fun."


*The clip is supposed to appear at with the post, but for some reason it's not always showing up, so I added the link.

Nuts

My mom is back in the hospital. They think she had another seizure, but they're not sure what's going on. I'll add more when I know more.

More- 7:30 p.m. Sept 18
It's official, it's "only" a seizure and not another stroke, which means she'll recover much sooner, usually within a few days. She's a bit confused has trouble talking in the meantime (the wrong words came out), but made it very clear that she wanted out of that hospital a.s.a.p. This morning she insisted on changing back to her street clothes. No hospital gown for her! She was cooperative with the speech therapist at first, than got snippy- she decided the tests and exercises were a waste of time. She even kicked at me a few times when the nurse and the speech therapist questioned me about how she'd recovered when it happened before. I think she thought I sabotaging her escape from the hospital. Or maybe telling the nurses stuff that was none of their business. Other than that she was happy to have me around.
They sprung her from the hospital this afternoon so she's back home and I'm back at work. I offered to come by their place and help out but my dad insists they'll be okay.
11:45, Sept 19
I spoke to my mom on the phone today. She picked up the phone and sounded pretty normal. Hard to believe that 48 hours ago she could barely talk. I like it when things change for the better.

Stupid Noises

Click the cartoon for a bigger version. :)

I named him Goro after a character from the opera Madama Butterfly. The latter Goro was a scheming troublemaker, and not the most sucessful trickster. In the show he actually gets his butt kicked by Madama Butterfly when she catches him spreading vicious rumors.

I toyed with naming him Thycho (after an astronomer), but "Goro" seemed to fit him the best.

Buoy!

Buoys fascinated me when I was little. Maybe because they were floating out of reach- like a toy on a high shelf. Maybe it was because I typically saw them on vacations or days at the beach and associated them with good times.
Each year my family would go on vacation at Mission Bay in San Diego. Four buoys were visible from the beach. I named them, gave them personalities and wrote stories about them.

Swim Area wore his name. He was the youngest, the cutest, and the shortest lived- he was replaced by a clunker called "No Boats".

Orangey floated further away. He was the friendliest. In my stories he was friends with the gulls, dolphins and seals, who often delivered him news.

Sailortilt lived near a bridge and floated to the side. He was the oldest and wisest.

Blockade floated furthest from shore. You could barely see him. He was the mysterious type, but he had an important job: he kept an eye out for the bad guys. Buoy security.
Back to the real world...
My brother liked them too. When I was seven we coaxed my dad to row us out so we could see the buoys up close. When the boat bumped into Orangey my brother and I shouted "Buoy!" and patted "him" as if "he" were a dog. My dad was horrified. "There's bird shit on that thing!" he said.

Scorpion Abuse

If it has pinchers, don't get it mad at you.

That Window is Looking at Me

I can see a face in nearly anything.
For example:
I can look at this

And it looks back at me like this:


Okay, I used some artistic license. If my imagination is wacky I might as well have fun with it.
It used to scare me. When I was five I quit ballet lessons because some tiny cracks in the studio wall frightened me- it looked like a monster! I lied and said I didn't want to be a ballerina anymore.

Zombie Dogs!

Next week's drawing board topic will be Zombie Dogs.

Pound Foolish

Click the cartoon for a bigger version.

Neon Mother Goose

The next Drawing Board topic is "Neon Mother Goose."
Painter (my usual drawing toy) was down so I did this in Photoshop, which lacks Painter's neon pen. Getting the effect in Photoshop was a convoluted mess of layers and channels.* It probably would be easier to build a real sign and photograph it.
It's based on 1950's signage. Typically this meant a themed name in a cursive or cute typeface, plus what the business offered (bowling, laundry, apartment etc...) in block letters. Throw in yards of glowing, blinking neon and you're set.
Many people think these signs are tacky and garish, but I like them.

Bonus Pic:
Here's the dish and spoon before I installed the neon.