Wow, such a long time between posts! My apologies, friends. Work has had me absolutely hopping crazy lately. Additionally, taking care of two kids is more than twice as much work as one child, I've come to learn. How people cope with more than that, I just don't know. You just surrender a significant portion of your non-child aspects of life and keep going.

As I said, work has been wall-to-wall for a while now, but vacation is next week, Yay! I'll be seeing SAW down in Nashville, so it should be splendid. We'll be hitting HatchShowPrint while we're there and many of the other tourist staples of Nashville and possibly Memphis.

What else has been keeping me busy, you ask? Well, we got one of those above-ground pools with the inflatable ring that holds it all together. I had to bust a hump to get that thing set up. The first time, we thought we'd take a shot at just putting it on the ground, even though there's a slight slope to our backyard. The fact that the next day, about a foot of what had been a wall became a floor, we realized it wasn't the answer.

So I dug and dug and dumped over 30 bags of paving sand in the backyard to get it semi-level. I got close. but still a bit off, but not enough for it to topple. We just decided that since our dog passed away, we didn't really do anything with it. The sun in the afternoon is so intense it burnt the grass up regularly, so we thought that we wanted to do something with it so the kids would have fun. So we got a 13' x 39" and it's just right. Not too deep for my son, but deep enough that when we get in to play, we can be up to our shoulders if we get on our knees. And if my son's friends come over to swim, they have enough room to play without constantly being all over each other. Our little girl loves it, too. She's going to be the fish of the two. The boy was terrified of the water at first, the girl hasn't been able to get enough of it from the beginning. But the boy is getting better and is having fun swimming underwater, something he has been extremely afraid of because of ear problems.

But anyway, there have been those things, but I'll admit it, I got a Wii for Father's Day and have been captivated by it. We have the Wii sports that comes with it, but we also got Carnival Games, Disney-Pixar Cars, Pinbusters and...the truly greatest time-blowing game ever - Speed Racer. I have so much fun playing Speed Racer! All the car-fu combat during the races - hehe! too much fun. The tail-flip and torpedo maneuver is especially fun to watch. I like that's it challenging enough to keep you interested, but not so hard that you end up in last place all the time.

So anyway, aside from sleep, an occasional dinner out with Mrs. Dave, that's been my life. I'm really looking forward to vacation, so keep your eyes open here for anything interesting that develops.

Dave

More video toys

Since Flickr just came out with video support, I thought it an opportune time to give it a shot here. This is my daughter on the beach at the Polynesian Resort in Walt Disney World. You are allowed to comment on just how cute she is, provided you don't sound like a perv. ;-)

Dave

Album Art Exercise

Streeeetch 2,3,4 - march 2,3,4

My acquaintance and part-time nemesis on the How Forum, jlmonty posted this cool creative exercise which uses a Wikipedia randomizer, a random quote generator and Flickr Explore Interesting (because you'll rarely find a dud there) images to create Album Art. Click on the Wikipedia link and the title of the article is your band's name, click on the quote generator-go to the last quote on the page-the last four words of that quote are your album's title and click on the Flickr link - use the image in the upper-rightmost image for your album's artwork, no matter what it is or how unrelated it may be to your "artist" or album title. My buddy Jeope also suggested that you add a brief description of the band or music that they play. I like this idea, but found it easier sometimes to me to describe who the music is for, so pardon me if I jump around a little that way.

Simmer in your creative design juices for no more than 5-10 minutes and see what happens. Here are my results - I must admit, I found this a little addictive.

This was my first shot, I'm thinking an ecstasy trippin' euro techno vibe here.


80s Hair Metal


A Female Alt Rock Polka


Popular in Swingers Clubs across the world


REALLY Popular in Swingers Clubs across the world. I swear this is an actual random collection using the method above!


This is an actual former band, but not an actual former album. 90s Grunge with a sense of irony.


This one I cheated on. I found a quote from Kanye West that ended with "My misery is your pleasure" and just had to find the band and album art to fit it.


Death metal with a drop of early 90s alt rock whiney-assedness


For the Prozac Overdosed Crowd


Think Yanni without the zing.


Techno with a twang.


For recovering addicts


I'll have a blog-exclusive cover shortly!

But be sure to click on the link to the How Forum thread to see some other terrific 5 minute works of great design!

Dave

Howiezine 11 - Ambigram Alphabet

This is my page for Howiezine 11 - Alphabet. I dug deep to challenge myself with this one, for it was not enough merely to create some sort of ambigram for the zine, no! I wanted to something special. So, let's do one half of the alphabet on each side of the page! Yes! Wait...no! Let's do half on each side of the page such that it's the same graphic, just flipped over, but you see the other half of the alphabet! Yes! Wait...no! Let's make it even more challenging, let's make it so it's a cut out and you won't have alignment issues, YES!

Ok, wait a sec, cutting all that out by hand is going to take for-freaking-ever! So I scaled it back to the flip-over ambigram. The cut-out would have been really cool, though.

The E/N and the G/V combinations were really tough, so work with me when you notice the N is sideways. ;-)

This is A-M:



and N-Z - I think if you know the N is sideways, the rest falls into place.


I would have liked to do more stylized lettering, but it took so long to get to this point and trying to cut it out - I just ran out of time. Still pretty cool, though!

Dave

The Legend of the Club-Tusked Walrus

Here we find the very rare skull of the ancient club-tusked walrus on an arctic ice floe. Referred to jokingly by scientists as "an evolutionary mistake," this walrus was at a distinct disadvantage for both fighting off predators and climbing out of the water, which modern walruses are better equipped to do.

However, in addition to being extinct, the club-tusked is also notable for it's eyes. Unlike most mammals, indeed most animals, the eyes do not completely decompose. Not bone, but a substance closer to a metal in consistency, it is highly unusual to find an intact set such as this specimen. It is not known if the X in the eye was visible when the animal was alive or only after it died.

The species was discovered in 1906 when a large block of ice broke away from a glacier. Unlike most paleontological finds, scientists didn't have to dig deep to find it, it simply floated by them as they were on their way to unearth a Woolly Mammoth.

Astounded with their discovery, much fanfare surrounded the curious-looking creature. Inspired by the coverage, a young Charles Schulz, who worked for a Minnesota Newspaper as an editorial cartoonist, studied the photos of the animal and then made a decision that would affect the cartooning world forever. He used the distinct X shape in the eye to indicate a character in his cartoon that was either dead or passed-out drunk.

The trend soon became an expected convention in all manner of cartooning. Shows you how even the most unlikely and unintentional connections can have far reaching effects.

Have a Blue Christmas!

Another gadgety thing, but fun. Hope you have a great Christmas and a terrific 2008, with more posts here, I hope!

Dave

Create Your Own Video

Gadgety, but when it works, it works

I stumbled onto Slide's website and played around with the slide show feature. Kinda cool if the content works with it. These just seemed so natural...

Then there is this, an older set of chestnuts, but fun...

Fun, huh?

Dave