Friday, July 30, 2004
Tree Hugging for Fun and Research
"While Morse looks on, Keeping Track trainee Debra Kraemer hugs a tree to try to re-create the action that left teeth marks behind on this trunk. Visualizing the event often helps to identify the creature that made the sign or mark, in this case, a black bear."-from Smithsonian Magazine, January 1997; photo: Richard Howard.
~
7/30/2004 03:10:00 PM
It's Friday.
The weekend has been sighted. It's right there!
Tell everyone, Tarzan!
AAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAA
AAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!
Johnny Weissmuller and Maureen O'Sullivan:
The definitive Tarzan and Jane.
(John Sheffield as Boy.)
(She looks happy, and I'm happy just looking at her.)
~
7/30/2004 11:23:00 AM
Thursday, July 29, 2004
Illegitimi Non Carborundum
He wonders if it's safe to post about his job on his weblog. Maybe he should write in the third person, just to be safe? Plausible denial at a later date, heh.
Is there any chance that anyone he works with could have stumbled across his blog, though? Do any of them even know what a "'blog" is? He's quite certain no one but IT technical support could connect him to his online ramblings, and IT generally likes him.
He remembers the last time he was on the phone with IT. He could hear them all laughing in the background, watching a Flash animation, something they'd pulled off the Web, chickens singing a pop song in screeching clucks and baaaaawks and all the IT-heads laughing hysterically and playing it over and over again. Something that would probably get him fired. His kind of people, they are.
He wishes he were an IT guy himself, instead of some kind of glorified data-entry associate, plugging in numbers in five screens while constantly Alt-Tab-ing back and forth to an Internet screen, surfing the 'net frantically for anything to keep him awake and interested enough to keep staring at his monitor. Feeling besieged in his cubicle, surrounded by Sourcing and Finance and Accounting.
IT can wear anything they want, can't they? Even stern, conservative, midwestern office folk expect IT workers to be a little eccentric. He remembers the IT worker he called the Lumberjack, always showing up to fix people's computers in his jeans and boots and flannel shirt, his long hair scraggly and three weeks overdue for a cut. No one batted an eyelash. But himself, well . . . just wearing a shirt untucked (a collared shirt with a hem, at that, the kind you're not supposed to have to tuck in) is enough to cause people to look at him as if he were a pot-smoking hippy in beads and a dress who'd somehow wandered stoned onto the floor of a 1950s Republican convention.
IT, heh: That's gotta be the life. As if these IT guys are all goofy, mad professors the company can't do without, to be excused from all eccentricities on the basis of their brilliance. Next thing you know one'll show up riding around the office on an old bicycle, tongue sticking out, looking like a montage of photos of Einstein: the greatest hits.
If he were in IT he could probably even bring in a plastic figurine, maybe a rubber Godzilla or a vintage Freaky cereal box toy, for his monitor to sport like some kind of goofy headgear, a mascot and good luck charm to accompany him like a faithful pet, see him safely through the endless ashen gray fields of boredom that stretch unending until 5:00 finally arrives. Comfort comes in small packages, and allows for an ounce of self-expression too.
One of the IT guys has "WARNING, WARNING, WILL ROBINSON!" playing as the program error message on his machine; he'd heard that on the phone, too, and he'd complimeted the person he'd been talking to. IT would understand the wav sound files with which he had replaced his own computer's standard sound bites. IT might even already know that those strange words spewed by his laptop every morning at startup are "Klaatu barada nikto," spoken by Bruce Campbell in the cult film Army of Darkness and borrowed from the 1951 classic The Day the Earth Stood Still.
Even if they didn't know that, they'd ask him, and he'd explain, and they'd all laugh and tell him what a geek he was. He pictures the warm comeradery, contrasting it with the cold alienation he feels where he is.
But they're not all bad, these office folk where he works. The English guy was the best boss he'd ever had, nothing but no-nonsense common sense that got the job done, and that told him to leave early on Friday after he had got the job done himself.
But common sense and common decency are rare in a huge corporation, and the bad eggs stink up the whole henhouse. Like the middle-aged bleached blonde at the switchboard, who'd told him a nigger joke the first week she'd been there, winking at him as if she were trying to usher him into a secret club of good ol' rednecks who aren't afraid of officeplace-PC. Everywhere he went there was always one of those, the same ritual repeated by someone whose suit or skirt is a facade over a nastier true nature. He wishes the head of Human Resources, who was black, could have heard that joke (before he ended up downsized, anyway.) But HR actually liked the blonde, and moved her right up the ranks. In CorperateLand a big mouth equals assertiveness and confidence and, you know . . . the scum always rises.
Still, there are quite a few nice people in his office, even if he had got enough blank stares in his first week to learn not to talk about foreign films (with subtitles of all things) or reference any Monty Python skits in his jokes (or maybe just forgo jokes altogether.) Except with the English guy, of course. Heck, you could have whole conversations with him about Monty Python and Benny Hill and Rowan Atkinson.
His old boss, the English fellow, would go all whistful and nostalgic sometimes and tell you the whole history of English comedy, going back to the old school and the movement that started what John Cleese and company carried on to brilliance. When his old boss talked like that, he'd sit back and listen attentively, sometimes even jotting notes. It was funny, also, that his boss looked a little like Scotty from the Enterprise, at least the older Scotty in the cheesy movies that followed the Original Series
And of course there's that one delightfully batty accountant he discovered who is eclectic and creative. She even has a saw for stained glass work in her basement, the kind of saw that cuts under a film of water to cool and lubricate the glass, and she tells him about leading and foil and glasscutting. He can always e-mail her a joke and she'll get it right away, like the picture of the man and the giant mouse in the cubicles, the man saying "You seen a copy machine?" and the mouse replying "You seen a chunk of cheese?" He'd printed that one and hung it in his cubicle for a while before he noticed how many puzzled looks it garnered. But she got it.
It's her last week, though, and it's Thursday already, so he finally remembers to e-mail her that website of funny phrases in Latin he'd promised her. He does this, and she laughs and walks over to his cubicle, tells him that she already knows Illegitimi Non Carborundum by heart.
"Don't let the bastards grind you down."
(Technically maybe "Noli illegitimi iniurias pati," but that's a long conversation between geeks.)
Well . . . Goodbye now.
She gives him one of the cartoons she had hanging in her own cubicle, a picture of a man sitting at his computer. The man is calling out the window, and the caption says, "Lassie, get tech support!"
He knows it's time he should leave too. Sure, the job is security, and he gets to surf the 'net all day. But there's no future, even if he wanted there to be, and the pay is only just okay. It's an easy job, but the commute is two hours a day, leaving him too drained at night to write or draw or type up submissions for magazines. Too tired to go back to school in that online Graphic Arts program, where he'd play with Flash and Photoshop and probably stay up all night for the sheer joy of it. He needs something closer to home, even if it pays less.
He makes a list of reasons to leave his job, not minding if some are a little silly.
1. The company has begun selling material to a company that sells it to Halliburton for use in oil wells and in Iraq. Three degrees of separation from the Evil Empire? Not anymore.That's it! he thinks. If I'm going to quit, it should be for my cats! Do it for Buffy!
2. It's a multinational, for God's sake. A multi-damned-national! Sure, it was like a gift from God five years ago, especially for a guy without a degree who worked himself up out of labor jobs to office work. And I remember the first day I went to work and did nothing but goof off! Heh. But I can get jobs easy now, and I shouldn't be working for a company that e-mails its workers to tell them to lobby against responsible environmental laws for fear that the company might lose a few dimes of profit. Multinational = evil. Yup, no two ways about it.
3. If I stay here I might eventually be so desperate that I sleep with one of those cute, flirty, brainless, married CSRs, the ones with motivational posters and American flags and "Freedom Will Be Defended" slogans on their cubicle walls.
Naaaah. That'd never happen.
But I thought about it. Lord, strike me down, for I am lower than low, heh heh!
4. I came in this morning full of ideas I wanted to write up and now I can't even remember them. I watched helpless as my morning creativity faded, replaced by two-dozen e-mails and an Excel spreadsheet.
5. My cats. My cats! Especially Buffy. I don't get to see them enough, or play with them or show them the attention I should. They only live 12 to 15 years! Don't I know that yet? How many pets have I lost? On Saturdays I'm too busy doing the errands that I should have done during the week, and that's when Buffy expects to take an afternoon nap with me while I watch a movie or read.
And Illegitimi Non Carborundum, he thinks.
"Don't let the bastards grind you down."
~
7/29/2004 10:52:00 AM
Wednesday, July 28, 2004
Just a few of my favorites . . .
...from a time when I was stupid enough to work retail.
---------------
Customer:
"Is the iced tea cold?"
Me (barista):
Walks away and asks someone else to wait on the genius at the counter.
"I'm sorry. I just can't handle it."
---------------
-Customer:
Walks in, looks at the stack of big self-serve coffee cups, looks at the stack of little self-serve coffee cups, picks up one of each:
"Is this the small size and this the large?"
Me (barista), completely deadpan:
"Yes, the big one is the large size and the little one is the small size."
Got plenty of practice at that response.
---------------
-Customer:
"How long will it take me to drive to Hawaii?"
Me (travel agent): "Ummmm..."
---------------
-Customer:
Stumbles to window, holds up both hands with nine fingers raised:
Me (third-shift gas station clerk): "You want a twelve pack of Bud?"
Customer nods vigorously.
---------------
-Customer:
Asks for a vegetarian sub sandwich.
Me (barista/restaurant worker), just about to leave as my shift is done, sez to coworker:
"Dianne, I'm leaving, but this fellow wants a vegetarian sub."
Dianne:
"Um . . . a vegetarian sub?"
Me:
"Yeah, you know. All the vegetables, none of the meat."
Dianne, a very midwestern carnivore:
"Um, no meat? Um, what do I put on it?"
Me, hiding my frustration:
"Lettuce. Olives. Onions, pickles, peppers, tomatoes. He says he'll have a little relish, and he's vegetarian but he'll have a couple slices of cheese. Everything except meat."
Dianne, clearly incapable of comprehending the idea that even the very concept of a sandwich can exist without meat:
"Um, no meat?"
Me, clearly frustrated, off-the-clock for ten minutes now:
"Okay, you know how you make a ham sub? Just make one of those. WITHOUT THE HAM."
Dianne:
"Um . . ."
Me:
Walks away to wash hands, albeit with a strange nagging feeling I should make the sandwich myself . . .
Five minutes later . . .
Dianne:
"Um, Shane, the guy at the corner table is upset. He says something was wrong with the sandwich. Would you go talk to him and try to smooth it out?"
Me [internal monologue partially escaping and spoken under breath]:
"Oh $&%$!! &*%$%#! &!$#%#!!
"I'm so sorry sir. I am SO sorry. How long has it been since you ate meat?"
Customer, skin pale gray except face which is a dull lime green fluctuating hypnotically in tone and shading and with the most brilliant red splotches on his cheeks:
"Fifteen years."
Me:
Spends the next twenty minutes talking him through his nausea. Thanks God for practice I once had talking a friend through a really bad acid trip. Thinks, at least this guy isn't watching the wallpaper ripple and change form into thousands of running lizards, nor is he likely to think his bedroom is a large microwave oven about to be turned on. But he is going to puke.
---------------
These are just a few, mind you. Just a few. Of many. The worst thing about working retail isn't the low pay and lousy labor. It's losing all faith in humanity.
~
7/28/2004 10:19:00 AM
Tuesday, July 27, 2004
Graham Chesterton is out of the office.
That is what I read in the subject header of the e-mail.
But what happens for me is this:
First, a drumroll:
TRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR...
Then the message itself, announced in a deep bass, formal, thick English accent (sort of a cross between Captain Picard and Worf the Klingon), building in an earth-shaking crescendo from the first word to the last:
"GRAHAM ...
CHEST-UH-TON ...
IS ...
OUT.
OF.
THE.
OFFICE!!"
Then come the visuals.
But I guess I should start at the beginning.
So I'm a lurker on an e-mail list for a certain U.K. folk band. Every day I get e-mails reviewing the band's live shows and CDs, and discussing their solo projects, interviews, what brand and type of instruments they use, their personal quirks, etc.
Occasionally this reply shows up e-mailed to the list:
Graham Chesterton is out of the office.
I changed his last name out of politeness, but that's the flavor. It's a very English-sounding name, very business-like and somewhat formal. At first it was just funny, y'know: someone signed up to the e-mail list at his work address, and when he's out, his address responds with his out-of-office message.
But the bored, caffeine-addled mind tends to dwell on small details, and Graham Chesterton is out of the office feels completely and laughably incongruous amidst discussions of what Steve the fiddle player ate for breakfast before the Brighton show and whether there is any remote possibility that Mike's hair might be a wig.
So as Graham Chesterton is out of the office shows up more and more on the list, the brain begins to embellish the message.
Drumroll:
TRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR...
The message, deep bass, formal, thick English accent (Captain Picard/Worf Klingon), earth-shaking crescendo from first word to the last:
"GRAHAM ...
CHEST-UH-TON ...
IS ...
OUT.
OF.
THE.
OFFICE!!"
Then a small tinny cymbal crash, and Python-esque graphics appear, accompanied by trumpet fanfare and the fluttering of cherubs and doves on the wing:
And finally a roar of applause. The clapping and cheering slowly fade to silence, followed by one last tiny, nasal, high-pitched "Waaay haaay!"
That's what happens for me, anyway.
Too much John Cleese and Terry Gilliam when I was young?
"Another sighting of the band at Glastonbury on Sunday night, in the New tent. Great guitar-based rock, with Steve getting plenty of chance to solo, and the whole thing live on tv. Pretty amazing especially considering that Rich didn't even have a set-list a week before the gig ! There will be a VCD available soon via the cd tree list, and an audio recording too!"Repeat, lather, rinse...
"GRAHAM ...
CHEST-UH-TON ...
IS ...
OUT.
OF.
THE.
OFFICE!!"
Pity me?
(Heavenly trumpeters borrowed from Michelangelo Buonarotti without his permission.)
~
7/27/2004 10:58:00 AM
Sunday, July 25, 2004
The fine feline art of relaxing.
Tracy's (Katgyrl's) cats Finn and Bonk practicing Synchronized Sleeping.
(Photo courtesy of Tracy.)
~
7/25/2004 12:19:00 PM
Saturday, July 24, 2004
Why I don't need drugs.
I'm watching tv.
I think, A cup of tea would taste good.
I get up, go to the kitchen; boil water, make tea, carry tea back to the tv and sit down.
I'm watching tv.
I think, A cup of tea would taste good.
I get up, go to the kitchen; set the full cup of tea on the counter; boil water, make tea, carry tea back to the tv and sit down.
That's right, set the full cup of tea on the counter; boil water, make another cup of tea; carry tea back to the tv and sit down.
I drink the tea.
I carry the empty cup back into the kitchen, where I discover a full cup of tea sitting on the counter.
What the hell is this doing here?
I sit back down in front of the tv, slightly mystified.
Five minutes later I realize what I did.
And that's on a good day. On a bad day (more than once), I think, Some music would be nice, and I turn the car radio on; five minutes later I think, Some music would be nice, and I reach down to turn the radio on . . . but it's already on. Of course, that may just be my subconscious telling me that whatever was playing didn't qualify as music. Hey, some music would be nice here!
~
7/24/2004 11:08:00 PM
Friday, July 23, 2004
It's Friday again.
Go out and groove to some music or something, why dont'cha.
~
7/23/2004 12:13:00 PM
Slumping at your desk, bloodshot eyes staring depressed at the monitor, coffee tastes like you're drinking it out of a dirty ashtray, ass beginning to reform itself to the shape of your chair as your spine mutates into a permanent scoliotic twist in the direction of your mouse-hand..?
Is this really the Man-Sized Job you dreamt of when you were young?
Don't worry, they'll probably downsize you before retirement, but social security will make everything better.
U.S. Social Security comic book from 1956, courtesy of the Social Security Administration-Dot-Gov. Johnny gets a good job and is quite happy, thank you.
~
7/23/2004 11:01:00 AM
Thursday, July 22, 2004
The strange ArgyBarple beast is proud to have joined the (dysfunctional) family of websites hosted by Katgyrl.com! Argy will now frolic and graze amidst other wondrous creatures you should be sure to visit, pet, and do the Snoopy dance with.
There's dongs an' snarks an' kitties (of course), plushly carpeting all horizontal surfaces. Watch where you step, that comfy shag may bite your ankle. Sweets and notsweets, too, and naturally screeming meemies and goddesses. And fonts. And much more more more more more more more.
There's a blog by our host and a Filter (where you don't necessarilly have to be a girl.)
It's a bigger playground for you, too.
Have fun. Thanks, Tracy!
~
7/22/2004 10:56:00 AM
Wednesday, July 21, 2004
testing. testing. 1, 2, 3...
testing...
~
7/21/2004 03:52:00 PM
Tuesday, July 20, 2004
On the advice of taz, I posted this over at AskMetaFilter:
Pen-n-ink illustration filter:We'll see if it nets anything good.
I've recently taken a renewed interest in embellishing or rendering in pen and ink. This has led me to this picture of a fiddling cat, which is naggingly familiar to myself and also to my Mom, although neither of us can remember the artist or source. Also, I came across this illustration from an Aesop's Fable, but I do not know the artist either (evidently, though, Aesop has a long and old tradition of finely illustrated editions.) Can anyone help me out?
And while we're at it, do we have any pen-n-ink or comics style artists out there? What good books or practice-methods have helped you? (I've had this great book since I was a child but am only now making good use of it.) Do you use traditional quills, or have you transitioned to modern markers and such? Or a Wacom tablet?
Really, I'd love any info from anyone who creates art or plays with the techniques.
Comic cover artist Brian Bolland has an incredible step-by-step tutorial on his site detailing the making of this cover:
Wow.
But it's completely over my head! Still, it's interesting because Bolland draws in the comics style of rough sketch, pen and ink, then color, but he has transitioned into a totally digital process involving a Wacom tablet and digital colors, etc. Bolland has a very smooth, refined inking style.
7/20/2004 03:50:00 PM
Ozzie found a home...
If you followed the story of Ozzie here, the big, sad-eyed Marmaduke of a puppy whose tail had been cut off and ears had been clipped down to half their size by previous owners who wanted him to look more Doberman...
Well, he finally found a home. He's been happy there for over a month. I had tried to adopt him myself, but he was just too much for my four cats, who live in terror of any canine bigger than medium. Ozzie's kind of an extra-large, not to mention a crazy bundle of nuttiness and energy.
Congrats, Ozz!
~
7/20/2004 11:14:00 AM
Monday, July 19, 2004
Lewis Carroll's Illustrated Alice Underground
On the subject of book illustrations, Lewis Carroll's own pictures in the first edition of Alice's Adventures Underground can be seen HERE.
(-via MetaFilter, where I am Shane).
Alice and Alice Liddell, her inspiration:
~
7/19/2004 11:07:00 AM
Sunday, July 18, 2004
"...soap is soap. It's self-cleaning."
-profound wisdom from Chandler on the TV show Friends.
~
7/18/2004 12:49:00 PM
Saturday, July 17, 2004
I can't tell you how much I love this:
I hear it's old news, but I love it. Click on the photo to check it out.
~
7/17/2004 05:51:00 PM
Friday, July 16, 2004
It's Friday
So, you know...
...get dressed up and have some fun with your friends.
(Yeah... all my friends are weird, too.)
~
7/16/2004 03:17:00 PM
Is it a gargoyle?
No, it's a long-tailed Macaque monkey in the Ubud forest of Bali. But he definitely thinks he's a gargoyle.
Maybe he's dreaming of Notre Dame.
These Komodo Dragons seem to think they're statues too. Maybe they are?
A fellow named Blake Holliday took this photo, also in Bali, where he learned about those naughty naughty monkeys too.
By the way, those ARE statues of monitor lizards (Komodo Dragons), although they had me fooled completely at first. The texture of the skin is absolutely perfect.
~
7/16/2004 11:06:00 AM
Wednesday, July 14, 2004
Speaking of Victorian Times...
It is still an offense of treason in the U.K. to post a stamp of Queen Victoria upside down.
It's probably a stoning offense to conjecture what the Queen Mum might have looked like before her morning shave.
(Is it just me or does she look better as a man? Certain people have theorized that she was actually replaced by a male member of the royal family in drag . . . okay, it's only me who theorized that.)
Meaning absolutely no offense to our own Vickie, who resembles the above not at all! By the way, there is still a law on the books stating that "In London, Hackney taxis must carry a bale of hay and a sack of oats." And in Victoria, Australia "Only licensed electricians may change a light bulb. The fine for not abiding by this law is 10 pounds. It is illegal to wear hot pink pants after midday Sunday. You must have a neck to knee swimsuit in order to swim at Brighton Beach." More stupid laws can be found here and here.
~
7/14/2004 01:00:00 PM
An Ape and a Dolphin?
(Click on the image to see the illustration full-size)
Oooooooooookay, then, how about this one? I have no information whatsoever. Victorian?
I mean, it's really fun, but it just kinda makes you say What the hell? ...doesn't it? In a good way, though, heh.
~
7/14/2004 09:37:00 AM
Tuesday, July 13, 2004
Shouldn't Google News have been named, like, "Newgle" or something?
In other news, I do not know the artist who created
this fiddling cat:
...but it reminds me a bit of the cover art by Paul Whitehead for the 1976 Genesis album Trick of the Tail.
What period or style of art do these illustrations riff off of? It should be obvious to me. Pen-and-ink book illustrations of the 1800s?
Or Victorian book illustration, I suppose...
~
7/13/2004 10:10:00 AM
Friday, July 09, 2004
Would you like to swing on a star?
Carry moonbeams home in a jar?
And be better off than you are?
Or would you rather be a fish?
~
7/09/2004 09:18:00 AM
Thursday, July 08, 2004
It's Friday
So get on outta here.
~
7/08/2004 03:40:00 PM
"They couldn't hit an elephant at this dist . . ."
-Last words of General John Sedgwick, Union Commander in the U.S. Civil War.
~
7/08/2004 09:37:00 AM
Tuesday, July 06, 2004
Is it just me, or do you see Lord Cthulhu's frightful visage on the bread of this sandwich, burnt there by the hellish flames of a Denny's Restaurant toaster?
My unutterable, indescribable horror has left me speechless to utter or describe the horror inflicted upon me (thus saving me valuable time and effort in writing this whilst encouraging the readers' own imagination to fill in the blanks with familiar and personal emotions and images.)
I will surely go mad whilst awaiting my inescapable doom at the hands of the minions of the Great Old Ones (thus striking a chord with the readers' own fearful mortality whilst echoing the plight of humanity on the whole.)
Those old time horror writers knew what they were doing.
~
7/06/2004 11:56:00 AM
Thursday, July 01, 2004
It's Friday.
Will it be a good weekend?
7/01/2004 05:25:00 PM
In the news...
________________________
Links to popular news stories:
Woman gives birth to frog...
Woman gives birth to octopus...
Man gives birth to boy...
Woman gives birth to Apple...
Apocalypse: can it be far behind?
~
7/01/2004 12:59:00 PM
