Friday, February 20, 2009

Random statements from me

Dear friend,
Every now and then I feel the need to make random remarks in this blog. This, apparently, is the first time since I've adopted the letter format to the blog. Here goes nothing.

I have a twitter account. I have no idea why, I just do.

I, as far as I can tell, am the only person who actually didn't watch what her mother told her not to watch when I was a child. As such, I still have never seen a horror movie, or an R rated movie.

Poptarts, before being heated, have no smell.

The St. Louis Arch, so I'm told, is as wide as it is tall.

Psych's and Monk's season finales are on tonight. I will miss Psych, despite the lackluster season it had.

I can't decide who my favorite is, between Yakko and Wakko. I used to say, quite decidedly that is was Wakko, but I'm not sure now.

I need to get my hands on some Krazy Kat, since it seems every comic strip writer I like credits it as one of the greatest. I've never even seen it though.

Yahtzee.

The Oscars are on Sunday, and despite the media telling me I should, I can't bring myself to care.

God is great, and greatly to be praised.

Sunday, February 15, 2009

Easily distracted

Dear Friend,
Every day, as I go about my life, I think of interesting topics to blog about. However, every day as soon as I turn on the computer my brain seems to say "Ooh, shiny!" and get lost in the glitter that is the Internet. I then, after having gone through my e-mail, facebook, various blogs and discussion forums will hit the New Post button on blogger and think, "Why am I here again?" Today, as you see, is no different.

I wish I could blog while riding in the car. I become especially creative while in the backseat of my Mother's car as we drive down the highway. Everything worth going to around here seems to be at least a half-hour drive away from us on the highway. My parent's have toyed with the idea of naming our property Cartegena since we love to use the quote "Angel, you are hell and gone from Cartegena!" from Romancing the Stone. And, truly, everything is hell and gone from our home. And so, when our little family decides to go do something I end up in the backseat, wishing I had my laptop or my sketch book. However, if I had either of those I'd end up feeling queasy and carsick. For some reason I started getting nauseated by windy roads at the age of 23, it was odd. I used to be able to read in the car. Maybe that's why I get so creative in the car now, I don't have anything to distract me from my oh so brilliant thoughts.

I wish I had more consistency in my drawing. I'm attempting to do something with Eliot, my little cat cartoon. I kind of want to make him a comic strip or some such, but I can't imagine a comic involving one solitary character. I would draw "My girl" (he calls his owner My girl, apparently because he can't be bothered with learning her name or something) but I truly and utterly fail at drawing people. I can draw animals, cartoony or otherwise, till the cows come home, but my people frighten small children. I am practicing, but it seems with little progress. I suppose I could draw other cats for him to interact with, but from my life experience cat's don't tend to get on well together. In any case, he's the first character I've drawn in years that seemed to come ready with a personality as soon as I drew him.

Weird, isn't it, that I could draw something myself, look at it and feel like I've just met an actual personality. Maybe I'm nuts. The strangest part of it was the fact that I could figure out what his voice sounded like, despite the fact that in my head most comic and book characters don't have voices, I just read them in my own voice. One of these days I'll work up the motivation to go down to the office and scan a few pictures of Eliot so that people know what the heck I'm babbling on about in my blog.

Saturday, February 14, 2009

The Valentine's Day post

Dear Friend,
I guess I need to do an obligatory Valentine's post.
I need to play Animal Crossing: City Folk, today. I need to see if my fake, animal neighbors love me. I'm still waiting for Bones to move into my town, I miss that dog. I've had him in the original and in Wild World, and he was my bestest friend each time. I need him back. Anyway...
I had an interesting V day. I was with my parents all day. I had lunch with them, went to the store with them and went to the Science museum with them. It doesn't feel like a holiday. I was amused by the sight of a mug in the shape of Darth Vader's helmet filled with Hershey's Kisses. If that doesn't scream Be Mine I don't know what does.
My DVD player isn't cooperating lately. It, thankfully, doesn't freeze while playing, but on the menus it sometimes refuses to do anything. It won't even turn off. It makes me move a shelf full of DVDs to get to the power outlet and unplug it. It seems to hate my double sided discs in particular so it's super annoying when I try to watch Avonlea or Freakaziod. (Spell check just loved those two titles)
I am so tired. There, I've made the holiday post. Have a happy everyone!

Sunday, February 08, 2009

25 Things

Dear friend,
My Brother has already done "25 Things" twice over. I found it interesting, both times, and pretty revealing, too. I thought I'd take a shot at it, and here we go.

1 I'm becoming increasingly interested in Name Meanings. My most recent fictional character went through approximately 5 names before I found one suitable: Eliot which means My God is Yahweh.

2 I was once told that I should go on Jeopardy merely because I knew the origin of the word "chortle."

3 I don't understand when people say they're mad at God. I don't know how they can forget that we live in a fallen world, and have an enemy who does everything he can to make our lives suck, and people have free will. I just don't get it.

4 I don't think I have any taste in music, good or bad. I've liked masterpieces and I've liked garbage. I'm well aware of the difference. I just like what I like.

5 I honestly believe that if I lived in a house without a cat in it some part of me would shrivel up and die. Cats are vital to my life.

6 Though I enjoy poetry, I don't like poems that don't rhyme. It may sound shallow, but I like clever wordplay with rhyme and rhythm.

7 I'm fascinated by points of view. It amazes me how siblings, raised by the same parents in the same home for years can see the exact same instance in completely different lights.

8 My favorite constellation is Orion because I remember the cold Michigan night I first noticed three stars in a row as I stood in our snowy driveway.

9 My sense of humor occasionally disturbs me. This for example shouldn't make me laugh, as it's quite morbid, in fact Mordecai (the black and white cat) shouldn't be my favorite character since he's a cold-blooded killer, but he is. Yet at other times I'm appalled at the horrible things others laugh at.

10 I make "Personal Celebrities" out of people that most others around me have never noticed. Real celebrities bore me, and show up on tabloids far too often.

11 I hate hearing cuss words. (I also refuse to call them swear words) Yet if you could read my thoughts, you would think my favorite word was sh*t.

12 Up until age 24 I hated Pineapple, and only tried it again because of Psych. I still can't eat it in large amounts, but I love the stuff now.

13 I never cheated on a test until I was home schooled. I got away with it once and was caught the second time. I never did it again.

14 I greatly dislike people who try to act like my buddy as soon as they meet me. Especially if they make stupid comments and act like I agree with them or if they are huggy or touchy right away. (Or ever, really)

15 I love birds, even the ugly turkey buzzards we've got around here, but I hate Canadian Geese. Those are just plain creepy.

16 I find accents interesting, American, English, Scottish, Australian, etc. Especially the regional aspects of them. It's fascinating that two people from opposite sides of a city can have different accents.

17 I sometimes get caught up in what happens "off camera" in a story. For example, I wonder about the news coverage of the "traffic" in Mr and Mrs Smith or what if some poor dope was walking outside when Kelly Clarkson decided to start chucking junk out of the apartment window in the "My Life Would Suck Without You" video.

18 I refuse to drive in a car with my mother. She makes me too nervous. I even was dreaming one morning that I refused to get in the drivers seat of a car she was in.

19 I adore the Geico Gecko. He's so cute.

20 I tend to be attracted to guys with what I call distinctive noses. The world at large would probably call them large noses. (Not all cute guys have big noses, though, just a lot of the ones I like looking at)

21 When I was little I wanted to go to Australia, when I was a teenager I wanted to go to Canada, now that I'm grown I want to go to the UK. The only thing these places have in common is that most of the people speak English. :-)

22 I love miniaturized things. I plan on having a dollhouse for my kids.

23 I'm amazed at how alike my Mom and Brother are, and how alike my Dad and I are. Yet, I'm also amazed at how alike my Mom and I are and how alike my Dad and brother are. Our dynamic is awesome.

24 It amazes me when people speak well of me. Not from some false sense of "modesty" or because I think I suck or something, I just figure I fly too low under the world's radar to be thought of.

25 My favorite word is Awesome, because, well, it's awesome!!!

Sunday, February 01, 2009

"Oh no, she has another obsession!"

Dear Friend,
I'm using the moments between Super Bowl commercials (you know, when actual football is happening) to post here in my blog. I've something I wish to share with you, whether you end up looking at it or not. If you do want to look at it, feel free to use the links in this entry.
So, I've started looking at DeviantArt again. There are some people that I like to check for new art on a somewhat regular basis. I've noticed a couple of these people had a certain artist's series in their listed favorites. I decided to check it out and that's how I became a fan of Lackadaisy. I mean, come on, Cats in Prohibition era Missouri running a Speakeasy? How was I not all over that from the beginning. I'm kidding, of course. The only thing in that last sentence that really got me to give this a second look was cats. I'm seriously mad about cats.
I decided to give it a go from the beginning. And the art kept me going until we got past plot development into character development. I am nothing if not "character driven."
Anyway, the first thing that grabbed me was Rocky. In typical fashion, I adore the enthusiastic wimp musician with the smart mouth and poetic phrases. When I started picking up on an unrequited love, I was sold. Oh, and he may be a bit of a pyromaniac? Or not, but he does to like his "Sweet Justice." Yeah, just about everyone in this strip has some mental and moral issues.
On the mental and moral issues note, I need to bring up Freckle. Don't let the baby faced adorable looks fool you, that kid is messed up. He derives far too much joy from discharging a weapon. That could be why he got kicked out of the Police academy. I love him, too. These two cousins are pretty much the main characters in this comic.
I love the character designs that the artist is using here. Her work is amazing to me. I enjoy her sense of humor, too. I am beginning to notice a trend in my entertainment; I love serious subject matter handled in a frivolous manner. For example, this (Organized crime and cats), Psych (Murder and humor), Chuck (spies and more humor), Pushing Daisies (death and quirkiness) and a few others. Anyway, I keep trying to decide who my favorite character is, but they're all so great. Just about all of them make me want to scratch them behind their ears, but with a lot of them you know if you tried you'd get shot or strangled (especially with Viktor and Mordecai, but they are so cute!).

So, check out this comic. You may be pleasantly surprised.