My Hightower Life

A merry Christmas in spite of all

2011-12-25T01:39:00.009-05:00

[Making-of video] Pinecone is CC by Menchi Every year, come December, I do the same thing: I greet or say goodbye to people with a cheerful "Merry Christmas." And every year I find the same sad reality: less and less people correspond. (Two people total gave any sort of answer this year.) The thing is, they don't say anything at all! They either completely ignore what I said, or are so taken

Filmed in front of a live audience

2011-12-23T13:03:00.005-05:00

…not exactly because it's the season to be jolly. You probably noticed my new avatar, which I made yesterday. If you saw it used in one of my comments on someone else's old post, you'll be wondering how I managed to use it before creating it. But the interesting thing about this avatar is not that I've been wanting to make it since July, it's that I created it while Livestreaming. Created in

Resorting to image macros

2011-12-05T15:52:00.013-05:00

I've always thought image macros were a rather cheap way to convey an idea. After all, you're taking something someone else has made, and merely changing the caption to fit your own devices. Wouldn't it be so much better if people could make their own things from scratch? However, as a Computer Scientist, I've been taught that things need to be as efficient as possible, and anything unnecessary

Delicious spam

2011-11-19T17:40:00.001-05:00

by Neil Motteram. November 2, 2005; San Francisco, California. Yesterday I deleted my first Spam comment. When I enabled the possibility to comment anonymously, I knew it was bound to happen sooner or later, but I never thought I'd have to face it this soon. I was expecting, at the least, to have ten people commenting, which would allow spam comments to go almost unnoticed. I would later

What's this? An actual blog post?

2011-11-07T16:25:00.007-05:00

Preliminary image. Will be finished later Of course, I've never actually taken apart a coin, so I don't know if this is even possible… Nor do I encourage you to try For weeks, I haven’t been able to focus on my studies. The fact is, I keep worrying about money. Maybe It’s the fact that my scholarship wasn’t paid for two months. Maybe it’s the fact that three-quarters of the people I went to

Small update: new avatar

2011-10-17T15:13:00.001-04:00

Considering I'm in the middle of the "what's been keeping me busy" series, which is basically a long drawn-out apology for not having posted all summer, I thought it would be best to not create another cause to appologise for. Unfortunately, I don't have anything finished I can post yet. I was aiming for a Columbus Day special, but I didn't make it in time. I did, however, add a new avatar to

Fridge Logic

2011-10-01T22:12:00.002-04:00

Originally drawn for I hate long weekends There are some things that just leave you thinking. Take my Independence day post for example. Very nice, very poetic, but a couple of days after posting it, I started wondering if the clothes I had chosen had other implications. These kinds of considerations have long been known in the movie industry, and in 1958, they were given the name "icebox logic

Indentured Servitude

2011-09-20T14:09:00.001-04:00

(Or “What’s been keeping me busy, part 2”) You may have noticed that, recurrently, the little box in the sidebar titled “My current situation,” not only displays the courses I’m taking, but also a cryptic “indentured to the library.” Today, I want to explain to you what on Earth that means. When I originally started working for the library, I was given a contract that basically said “I agree

Review: The Paper Wings podcast

2011-09-19T00:18:00.002-04:00

Text-only version Sometime in March, I was pointed to the Paper Wings Podcast. Hosted by Lora Innes and Chris Oatley, The podcast brands itself as “the show for visual storytellers” to “help [them] find the time and energy… to finish their personal project”. However, I didn’t think this was my kind of thing because, at the time, they were focusing on what people should do if they wanted to become

Community Service

2011-09-14T04:22:00.002-04:00

(Or “What’s been keeping me busy, part 1”) Like many American (and, indeed Pan-American) colleges, mine requires me to do some community service in order to graduate. Apparently this is an alien concept to Europeans so I’ll try to explain it briefly: Basically, I’m required to do work for free “for the benefit of the community”, in hopes that this will motivate me to do stuff for the places

In Memoriam

2011-09-11T04:50:00.003-04:00

To the brave souls who gave their life to save so many others, that fateful Monday, 10 years ago. Today, I take my hat off to you Associated avatars More to be added here as I make them Unfortunately, I didn't start on this early enough to be able to get Jane's help, unlike last year. Next week, I'll be telling you what has been keeping me so busy. I promise.

The Graduation Countdown

2011-08-06T01:12:00.003-04:00

I had it all figured out. I only had Statistics, my thesis, and community service (required by a local law – or was it an ordinance?) and then I could graduate. I would do statistics during the summer of 2010, community service during the summer of 2011, and my thesis throughout the 2011 calendar year. There was plenty of leeway if anything went wrong. The plan was flawless! …or so I thought.

Lost Etymology

2011-07-21T00:00:00.126-04:00

On my twitter account, today's quote of the day reads as follows: "Truth can be decieving" --John LoefflerMeaning, "this doesn't necessarily imply what you think it does." Except that that can't possibly be the source. Since there's at least two John Loefflers, let me clarify I'm talking about the CEO of Rave Music. (The other John Loeffler is a radio broadcaster for Information Radio Network,

I Hate Long Weekends!

2011-07-11T16:19:00.002-04:00

Originally done out of Stresssss! Most people love long weekends; I don't. Long weekends for me are an opportunity; an opportunity I can never use. It's always the same. I see the long weekend coming up on the calendar, and I start thinking of what I could do with that extra day (or days). Usually I settle on one thing; something that I know I can do in much less than a day, and then start

God Bless America

2011-07-04T05:11:00.001-04:00

— source I'm pretty sure I can't be much more explicit than this. Happy Fourth of July, everyone! Associated avatars

Father's Day Special

2011-06-21T18:05:00.003-04:00

Huh, I was so sure I had set this up to be posted automatically on Sunday. C'est la vie. This was the Father's Day counterpart to last year's Mother's Day Special. I made sure to make both a Mother's Day special and a Father's Day special, least I be accused of sexism, and avoid having people talk badly about my father. Problem is, I couldn't simply copy the Mother's Day picture and change

Avatar Story: Winter's End (Part 1)

2011-06-18T00:12:00.001-04:00

⇤ Origins | ⇦ Previous | Text-only version | Latest ↠ Seeing as it's already June, I really should shed those winter clothes, shouldn't I? But to do that, I need to finish telling the Winter story, so let's get this show on the road. Avatar Story – Winter's End Part 1: Gift HorseThis was supposed to go up on the day of the Epiphany (January 6) Artist's noteJanuary 6 is a gift-giving

Stresssss!

2011-06-09T00:00:00.019-04:00

I haven’t felt stress –at all– for a very,very long time. Reeeeealley? What’s your secret? I don’t drink coffee; but that’s another story for another post (or rather, a whole series of posts). So now you know I'm stressed, and short on time, so I'll just jump to the discussion about the drawing: Artist's notesDang it, mice arms are short! It seemed to take me forever to get those arms so

Review: Chim Chum and the Portly Samurai

2011-06-08T01:37:00.004-04:00

Now that I’ve told you How I started reading webcomics, I can start doing reviews of the webcomics I read. I’m going to start with Adrian Ropp’s hilarious comic: Why? Why, you ask? Oh, uh… no reason. I have to admit I was a little skeptical when I learned the premise. The comic is a single-panel, gag-a-day strip, starring Chim Chum –who is a small, anthropomorphic fox that never speaks–

3 new avatars

2011-05-30T17:56:00.002-04:00

Take a good look at this image. Okay, I know there's not much to look at, but try to guess what it reminds you of. I'll give you a hint: it's something on this blog. Whiney avatarYes, that's right. I tried to put my avatar into the whining pose. I'd been wanting to do it for quite some time, but it wasn't until I actually was about to make a comment where it would fit that I set out to do it.

Now a Deviant

2011-05-20T12:00:00.001-04:00

"Hey Diddle Diddle (because, let's face it, if a cat was given a fiddle, this is probably what he'd do with it)" was the first (and up to now, only) thing I drew specifically with the purpose of uploading it to DeviantArt. So, yeah, I've created a DeviantArt account. When I started this blog, I was focused on telling two stories: the avatar story and the (as of yet unbegun) Jane's story. Every

After 22 years, I finally saw it

2011-05-18T19:23:00.003-04:00

Text-only version On Sunday, I finally saw Don Bluth's All Dogs Go To Heaven (henceforth ADG2H, because I'm in a bit of a rush). I had never seen it before: whenever it was in stores, I never had the money, and on TV they only ever showed All Dogs Go To Heaven 2*. Since I "got" the jokes in ADG2H 2, I had, until now, considered my knowledge of that part of pop culture complete. After all, you're

One year online

2011-05-14T00:00:00.003-04:00

Text-only version So this is it. Today this blog is officially one year old. Time to see what I've accomplished. Time to see where I'm headed. …Time to do an insufferably cute drawing … and explain it. What I've accomplishedWhen I started, I of course had zero readers. And it stayed that way for a month and a half. But soon, reality caught up with me, and I had to abandon many of my plans for

What I gave my mother for Mother's Day

2011-05-09T23:02:00.006-04:00

Text-only version So, yeah, I sketched this in pencil, colored it on the computer, printed it, and gave it to my mother. It was wonderful to hear her laughter echoing through the house! Artist's notesArgh! I hate drawing stringy teenagers! And yes, I know rabbits don't have thumbs! Now that I've got that out of my system, I can tell you that I was trying to go for the "every hair of his

Taming the tweeter

2011-05-03T02:46:00.002-04:00

Some of you have noticed that I've created a Twitter account. It's really nothing too elaborate; I mainly made it to be able to reply to tweets (up to now, I've been following several accounts by searching for the username every odd day). I did set up two "services": a "quote of the day" and a "twitter feed" Quote of the dayOne of the things I love about quotes is that they can express what

Say "bye-bye" to the "topics" page

2011-05-02T20:06:00.000-04:00

I've decided to take the topics listing off of the page listing at the top. When I created the topics listing on June 13, it was little more than a listing of the labels I had in the posts, which at the time was little more than my subtitle of "art, college life, and introspection". I structured the listing in such a way that when I crated new labels, I would have a space in which to put them. I

About "text-only version"s

2011-05-02T17:24:00.001-04:00

I've recently gone through all my old posts making sure the ones that can't have the alt text put as mouse-over text (mainly because if you put your mouse over them, that would get in the way of reading the speech bubbles) have a link to let you see the alt text through Google's wonderful text-only caching. These are seen as a link to the "text-only version" at the top-right of the post. But

Well, I thought it was funny

2011-04-29T00:00:00.004-04:00

No artist's notes for this one. It just came to me and I drew it.

What's with the package?

2011-04-27T11:13:00.003-04:00

Today is my birthday.Rather than an elaborate storyline, I've chosen to simply add a gift box to my already-made avatars. Why? Well, I'd like to be able to actually sleep this year! Associated avatars

The Web Standards

2011-04-25T00:41:00.006-04:00

Two weeks ago, I got a commission to design a website. What? you do that too? Oh, hush up. I learned to do web pages back in the year 2000, when everyone thought frames and Flash™ would rule the web. The only other widely-known method to structure a web page was putting all the text in a table, and using its columns to put your stuff where you wanted it to be. In January 2009, in one of my

The Japan relief effort

2011-04-24T01:19:00.002-04:00

Text-only version Artist's noteI did a bit of character re-designing for these panels. Why? Mainly because I noticed that my humans were in a slightly different style than my mice; and therefore when displayed together (or simply when bringing a prop from one into the other) the styles could clash. Also, the vectors for the nose had been set to “automatic” and gave me an India-ish

To make things simpler

2011-04-15T01:35:00.001-04:00

Text-only version On the other hand, if Google can contractually bind all latin americans to assume good faith, why can't a little mouse do so as well? Artist's notesThis one took me 2½ days to complete. I had been saving making this one for when I had not updated for a while because I thought it would be doable in just a couple of hours. Obviously, I wasn't considering all the new

Hamelin's motto

2011-04-01T10:52:00.001-04:00

Seal of Hamelin, depicting a grindstone. Around the top, in German, is written "Independent City of Hamelin." Around the bottom, in Latin, "Never dispute people who study rodents." I still remember when I discovered that Hamelin was real. I always thought the name had been invented for the Pied Piper fable, since it seemed like little more than random consonants. Formally the große

Ye Irish facepalm

2011-03-20T21:58:00.002-04:00

St. Patrick's Day ended, and I was unable to make the last image for my St. Patrick's avatar. My schedule, my sleep debt, my phone, and certain callers all got together and "decided" to make this impossible. Now, doing this wasn't exactly easy as (unlike the other three) the Thanksgiving equivalent wasn't saved (my computer crashed after I exported the final image, but before I had a chance to

St. Patrick's day avatars

2011-03-17T02:53:00.006-04:00

Text-only version Usually, this kind of joke would be explained by me saving over an old file, but that's not the case. The fact is I want to change my avatar for St. Patrick's day, but I'll be a little late putting them all up. Associated avatars (so far) Facepalm avatar goes here

How I started reading webcomics

2011-03-17T01:52:00.001-04:00

Yes, that's supposed to be me at that age. Wasn't I cute? No? Okay, I suck at drawing children. In About my display picture, I noted that I started reading webcomics in 2008. Those of you who read webcomics or know me from commenting on them are probably wondering how I could have lived before discovering them. Those of you who don't, are probably wondering how I got sucked into such a big and

Happy St. Patrick's day

2011-03-17T00:00:00.049-04:00

Text-only version Today, I'm commemorating St. Patrick's day with a strip from Tracy Butler's excellent comic Lackadaisy. Lackadaisy takes place in 1927, right in the middle of the prohibition era, which provides the main conflict for the series. You may ask, what can two cute little kittens care about whether alcohol is allowed or not? For starters, in the world of Lackadaisy Cats are the

Modification to legal info

2011-03-13T23:10:00.002-04:00

Just a brief note to say I modified the Privacy Policy and other legal info page. Part of the policy states that if I'm notified that I'm committing a copyright violation, if I don't acknowledge I received it, the sender must consider it lost in the mail. The purpose of this is so that I don't get sued without having first the chance to fix things by talking it out (or simply replacing the

Condolences

2011-03-11T10:20:00.000-05:00

The earthquake caused an explosion at an oil refinery in the outskirts of Tokyo. Photo by Craford for Wikinews. I just found out about the disaster in Japan, and would like to express my condolences to those there, or who know people there. I don't have anything prepared for this (how could anyone anticipate this?) I feel stupid now for having invested so much effort on dedicating the day to

In Memoriam

2011-03-11T00:00:00.010-05:00

A los hombres y mujeres caídos en sus trabajos aquel jueves, siete años atrás. (To the men and women lost at their jobs on that fateful Thursday, seven years ago). La red de cercanías de Madrid (The Madrid commuter trains railroads) no obliga a sus maquinistas a usar uniforme (does not enforce the use of a uniform on its engineers). El uniforme mostrado en este dibujo (The uniform shown in this

Now we have Ads

2011-03-10T13:07:00.003-05:00

Text-only version

The Leibovitz photos

2011-03-09T00:00:00.036-05:00

Leibovitz sits in front of one of her most famous creations Annie Leibovitz made headlines last Friday with her awesome series of photographs of famous Disney films with live actors and actresses. Leibovitz has been in the "too awesome for words" photography business since she got her degree in painting from the San Francisco Art Institute in 1969, and had already done a series of photographs

Containing Awesomeness

2011-03-08T00:00:00.006-05:00

The last line of my post from yesterday, states that you can't contain awesomeness. After a good night's sleep, this was the first image that the phrase brought to mind: "Ha, ha. Very funny. And the meaning is…?" Good question. If Bolt = awesomeness (which he indisputably does) I guess it means that you can contain awesomeness; it's just that, it will find a way out into the world anyway…

The Legend of Zelda: 25 years pushing the envelope

2011-03-07T02:06:00.012-05:00

Detail of Ag+'s tribute to Zelda's 25th anniversary, drawn on the day of the anniversary. Full image | Making-of video. (More information below.) This is not the typical “Oh, I wish I could draw like that” post. Sure, Ag+’s work is too awesome for words and sure, I probably wouldn’t be able to draw like that (even if I had all the fancy tools ’e did), but the main body of this post will be

The new Frenzy

2011-02-24T00:00:00.001-05:00

(The title is obviously a reference to The Ophiuchus frenzy.) Wednesday, February 16, 2011. 2:41 PM. The Computer Science student lounge. A group of students are trying to make sense of the instructions to a Computer Networks exercise, when one of the guys' cell phones vibrates. The guy reaches for his cell phone and reads the text message. "Hey," he announces, "you remember how the professor

Christmas story: Epilogue

2011-02-22T21:19:00.006-05:00

This one was supposed to go up on Holy Innocents Day at the latest… which explains the coat in my apology, but not the pendant. ⇤ Origins | ⇦ Previous | Text-only version | Next ⇨ | Latest ↠ Of course mice measure in metrics! What use are imperial units when the smallest basic weight unit (the ounce) and the smallest basic height unit (the inch) are a third of yourself? Artist's noteI

The Ophiuchus frenzy also got to me

2011-02-21T00:00:00.004-05:00

I wrote the following on January 14. I didn't post it back then because I felt the need to apologize first. I really hope I don't need to explain why I put this image here.So, I was in the student lounge Friday morning, January 14, 10 a.m., when I overheard one guy tell another, "Yo, you know what your sign is?" "Duh, I do." "Well, what is it?" "Scorpio." "Not anymore." "Whaddaya men 'not any

Pro Crass Ti Nation (or, the stealthy joke you probably missed)

2011-02-18T00:00:00.008-05:00

In panels 8 and 9 of my apology, Jane comes in to whack me with a book. "I can see that. The question is 'why?'" Well, she's an avid reader and the rolling pin was not at hand. "What? No! I mean why does she– You did that on purpose, didn't you?" The thing is, having decided she was going to hit me with a book, for it to really look like a book it had to have a title, and a back-cover

New Avatars

2011-02-16T23:36:00.042-05:00

I've made a set of avatars to go along with the apology which I'm now using when commenting. (That is, avatars using the new winter coat I designed.) Of course, they also go with the subsequent, prequelling explanations. Read those last three words again; they make all the sense in the world. What doesn't make sense is where I show him carrying the torch. It doesn't make sense because he dropped

An apology

2011-02-14T00:58:00.002-05:00

Text-only version What's this? The emperor has new clothes? There's an explanation for it! Seriously! I just need to get around to finishing it. And yes, the only reason I said "royally sick" was to reference Andersen's fable. Illustrator's noteI started this sequence on the Day of the Epiphany (January 6) when I finally recovered from my illness in full. I thought at first that I

Christmas Sandwich

2010-12-26T03:21:00.008-05:00

I have just discovered that the Christmas Sandwich (which I proposed here) does, in fact, exist! It was created for Mr. Bean (who else?) for the episode that aired on December 29, 1992. If you want to see the circumstances that led to the institution of the Christmas Sandwich, click the image on the right; it will lead you to a YouTube video. The video begins on Christmas morning, so the first 1

Larger format

2010-12-26T01:46:00.013-05:00

I've just edited the template a little because my last post has a couple panoramic images (images much wider than they are tall) that just don't look right in the tiny space provided by default. I knew I'd have to do this someday, which is why, from the start, any multi-panel (comic-like) sequence has been made with each panel in a separate image: the browser will adapt them automatically to the

Christmas Story: Part 3 (take 2)

2010-12-25T23:47:00.010-05:00

Let's try this again. It literally took me all day to draw the last panel (because, well, I'm with my family and you know what day it's today) but it's all good because I got it done before midnight ...right? ⇤ Origins | ⇦ Previous | Text-only version | Next ⇨ | Latest ↠ This sequence contains a lot of "firsts": Panels 3 and 4 are the first time I draw characters from a "

Christmas Story part 3

2010-12-24T12:08:00.008-05:00

⇤ Origins | ⇦ Previous | Text-only version | Next ⇨ | Latest ↠ There are two more panels after this, though you probably already know what's going on. Frank doesn't. We spent all day yesterday getting things ready for Christmas Dinner, which means I started drawing this at 1 AM. Panel 1 took me 6 hours, Panel 2 took me 2 hours, and Panel 3 took me 4 hours. Panel 1, thus is a testimony to how

Modularity

2010-12-23T00:00:00.001-05:00

Unless you're also a computer science major, you're probably still puzzled at what I meant when I said Forget modularity Forget reusability Forget modifiability To keep it simple, these are the three things any well-written computer program's code must be: Modular means that it is separated into the different parts of the program, each doing only what they're supposed to do. Reusable means the

Christmas Story: Part 2

2010-12-22T02:50:00.007-05:00

⇤ Origins | ⇦ Previous | Text-only version | Next ⇨ | Latest ↠ Woah, that's a lot of panels! I guess that's what happens when you choose to work without words. If you're confused, wondering why the rat's hat has jingle bells at its tip, you need to As to why the rat is in an undershirt in below-freezing weather; I have no excuse except, "because it's funny." Next ⇨ Fun fact of the

Christmas story: Part 1

2010-12-21T06:56:00.006-05:00

⇤ Origins | ⇦ Previous | Text-only version | Next ⇨ | Latest ↠ Next ⇨ I wish I could say I worked non-stop to make this, but alas circumstances out of my control prevented me from doing so. I'm starting to realize that doing these things in pencil takes exactly as long as doing them on computer, from scratch, using the mouse. The extra time invested on one side positioning the pointer

Of Cookiez and Internetz

2010-12-21T00:00:00.029-05:00

Predicting what's going to happen next is a natural part of reading literature. It's a sort of self-test that you understand what's going on, and have taken up the author's hints. It's also generally way too fun to speculate the wildest outcome possible, and see it unfold. On the internet, this can take on the form of betting. This practice started when the internet was young and people would

Now I know how webcomic artists feel

2010-12-20T02:17:00.005-05:00

As someone who reads webcomics, sometimes depending on them to relieve stress, when a webcomic didn't update when it was "supposed to" (say, Monday at Midnight) I always took the point of view of the reader: indignant because the promised witty neural stimulation was not up. But today I find myself on the other side. I was trying to have the next part of my Christmas story up by midnight, but

What happened to Part 2?

2010-12-19T00:00:00.123-05:00

I originally said I'd post the Halloween story in three parts. However, due to time constrains, I jumped from part 1 directly to part 3. What happened to part 2? To put it simply, I designed it to only garner suspense, and I thought that, after keeping you waiting for a month and a half, suspense was unnecessary. Below is the script of what would have become part 2, had I been able to do it on

Christmas story: part 0

2010-12-18T04:16:00.010-05:00

⇤ Origins | ⇦ Previous | Text-only version | Next ⇨ | Latest ↠ (Each of the following images can be seen thrice the size shown here by clicking on them) This is really what I've been wanting to do ever since I created the character. Back when I decided he had to keep the proportions of a real-life mouse, I just wanted to see him running for his life on all fours. Sometimes I have to

The last assignment

2010-12-17T11:50:00.006-05:00

Text-only version So, yeah. My semester ended today, which officially puts me on Winter Break. Realizing it wasn't the best idea.

Screw the colors, I have hurry

2010-12-16T00:00:00.017-05:00

Text-only version (The title is a reference to YuGiOh, The Abriged Series: "Screw the rules, I have money" ...not that I've watched it...) Forget shading, Forget lighting, Forget coloring, Forget inking. Forget reusability, Forget modularity, Forget modifiability. I promised you people I'd finish the Halloween story so that we could get to the Christmas story, so let's get this show on the

Apreciation never comes too late

2010-11-30T21:53:00.005-05:00

It really is things like these that make it all worthwhile: —source Hmm... I don't think that blunderbuss will be much good once I'm done squeezing it

How did you do that?

2010-11-28T21:54:00.001-05:00

If you read through the old comments on the sites I comment on, you'll notice some of my avatars have changed. Now I don't mean the typical "blanket" change (where all the avatars have adapted to something different) I mean that only some have changed. Every odd "normal expression" avatar has now been replaced by the image on the left, and only in the places where it's apropriate. The obvious

Character page

2010-11-28T20:39:00.004-05:00

I've made a Character page detailing, well, the characters that appear on this blog. I tired to explain them in the best detail I could, but I realized that there's not really that much more to certain characters. What was really hard was compiling the list of all their appearances (which meant creating a new label for each of them and applying it to the appropriate posts). If I've left any

Happy Thanksgiving!

2010-11-24T00:00:00.045-05:00

Maybe I am not celebrating Thanksgiving this year, but that doesn't stop me from making something special for you to commemorate the occasion. This is the first time I have a drawing ready on a date before it's actually supposed to go up. I guess we can call that a milestone! My original idea was to make a version of the American Gothic with a Blunderbuss (if that's what you call those wierd

Crossroad

2010-11-21T12:17:00.004-05:00

No, I don't know why I thought this image would be funny. And no, the blue clothes don't mean anything.I find myself today at a crossroad. On one side stands writing a thesis, on the other stands doing an internship. The university's rulebook states that I must do one of the two to graduate. And as I try to decide I think I'm stuck in some sort of infinite loop. I'm quite sure you're familiar

Expunge your vocabulary

2010-11-14T00:50:00.002-05:00

(Sorry, no art today. Just introspeciton.) When I was younger, I was constantly trying to learn bigger and bigger words. I figured the more words I knew, the better, and it was often the case that I'd learn a word, and realize something I had said incorrectly at some point in the past, had been incorrect simply because what I was trying to say was something I didn't know the word for yet. I

Okay, what's with the new avatars?

2010-11-06T21:23:00.004-04:00

If you've come here from the sites I comment on, you may have noticed the one or two new avatars I'm using. The short explanation is that I've noticed the need to be more expressive when commenting, and that I need a break after doing all those projects before working on the ones due next week. The "Oh, man" avatar It all started with the two avatars I made to commemorate the rescue in the

I didn't make it

2010-10-31T21:13:00.000-04:00

Firstly, I want to appologize to the people who expected I would have my avatar's Halloween story done by today. Or by Thursday, when I promised it for. The thing is, something happened. Something bad, yet it turned out monumentally well. And by getting involved in it, two days passed without my noticing, and my duedates caught up with me. (No, it's not love; I'll tell you what it was later.) I

Someone to introduce you to

2010-10-24T23:07:00.008-04:00

Text-only version Fun fact: Eurasian house mice are up to 4 inches long (measured from the tip of the nose to the base of the tail). The length range of American field mice (measured from the tip of the nose to the base of the tail) starts at 4 inches.

Mouse avatar Halloween story: Part 1 of 3

2010-10-21T00:27:00.005-04:00

⇤ Origins | Text-only version | Part 3 ⇨ (What happened to part 2?) | Latest in "Avatar story"↠ This is the first of three little sequences that will tell a sort of story about my mouse avatar. The next one will be posted next week (probably on Thursday the 28th since I have a test on the 27th) and the last one shortly before Halloween itself. Given that speaking

Do I really need Thanksgiving anymore?

2010-10-19T13:41:00.003-04:00

Thanksgiving is like the perfect holiday: it creates a weekend that’s not too short, not too long; it always lands when people have cash on hand, it’s there right when you need it – when the fourth quarter of the year is getting hectic–, and you get to eat all you want. What more could you ask from a holiday? Well, there’s the fact that you can’t always enjoy it, like when you have a test on the

¡Felicidades, Chile!

2010-10-13T08:58:00.003-04:00

For the past 70 days, 33 men, not all of them miners, have been trapped, 700 meters underground, in a collapsed mine in Chile. They managed to get organized, and survive, and are currently being rescued in what the Chilean president is rightfully calling a feat of engineering. Many happy returns, Chile (literally), from my humble little burrow digger, to yours. Now, if you're here because

Happy Columbus day

2010-10-12T12:56:00.005-04:00

Text-only version On this day, 518 years ago, an Italian entrepreneur captained a crew of Spaniards on a voyage never performed before. Although he became rich for discovering "new lands", he would die, 14 years later, convinced that he had merely found new islands to dot (what is now known as) Indonesia. Like all vessels at the time, his ships were filled with all kinds of vermin. I can't help

Something to tell you

2010-10-09T23:36:00.002-04:00

Text-only version

John Lennon Google Doodle

2010-10-08T18:36:00.004-04:00

Okay, so I was wrong when I said I wouldn't be able to post in a week, but today's Google Doodle is definitely worth breaking the silence. Click below to watch it "'All you need is love.' John Lennon. Smart man. Shot in the back very sad."—Julius Levinson, Indepdendence Day "Let us remember how he lived, not how he died."—73Kraven, YouTube comment "All I wanted to do was write a song!"—

Well... I thought it was funny...

2010-10-06T00:47:00.003-04:00

I probably won't be able to post again until next week or the week after, so in the meantime, I thought you guys could have a laugh with this drawing I was referred to through the Internet: It goes well with the following caption:Bat-Bat is the best superhero. He was a millionaire playbat who lost his parents and decided to fight crime.His butler, also a bat, walks in as he muses on the

"Sitting on Danger"

2010-09-30T10:00:00.006-04:00

Text-only version There really isn't much more to this drawing than meets the eye. If you're looking for a political, environemntalist, or other kind of connotation, you're looking to hard. This image just came to me as I was re-reading my July 4 post; all I did was put it on paper. Now, for some reason, it was very important for the image that my avatar be eating a sandwich. I really don't

Autum begins beautifully

2010-09-23T00:19:00.000-04:00

"For the first time in almost 20 years, northern autumn is beginning on the night of a full moon. The coincidence sets the stage for a 'Super Harvest Moon' and a must-see sky show to mark the change of seasons."—Dr. Tony Philips, NASA Today is the equinox (get the rake ready) but it is also the night of a truly beautiful full moon. If you can, try to get outside and see it, for not only is this

Those naughty not-ty prefixes

2010-09-18T00:00:00.019-04:00

Text-only version Don't you hate it when there's a word that seems to start with a negation prefix, but doesn't? It leads to all sorts of confusions! Take the following, for example: by David Morgan Mar.(in case you're wondering, that's basicallythe Grim Reaper in the last panel, and the"Nazi Science" punchline is basically areference to this strip.) And there's the brother prefix of "in-": "

Scheduling muddle

2010-09-17T20:38:00.003-04:00

I apparently made a mistake with the posting dates for the posts that would be automatically published. What follows is what I actually wanted to publish on September 11: In memoriamTo the men and women whose only crime was getting to work on time on that fateful Monday, nine years ago. (My appologies to those who don't consider short sleeves formal; it's to make sure you can tell what species

My absence

2010-09-17T02:34:00.003-04:00

Text-only version My sudden post last Saturday after several weeks of silence may have left many of you wondering where I was. I hope this little comic strip can serve as an explanation I hate summer.

The "when" of "now"

2010-09-11T00:00:00.057-04:00

Now then, there is one thing that bugs me now about the word "now". "Now" is a word that's supposed to mean "the present." It is what is occuring, what is just about to happen, or what has occurred immediately previously. It basically means "the time remaining to / elapsed since this event can be rounded to zero." But there's the other usage of the word "now".You saw how I used it in the first

Making my avatar: The hard part

2010-08-14T21:24:00.001-04:00

"If I had a foot, I'd be tapping it impatiently"I guess I might as well finish this... the "how I made my avatar" sequence, I mean. I feel kind of bad for leaving everybody hanging last time –a month and a half ago. The thing is, not only was I overloaded with coursework, I also thought I had passed the interesting part: what's coming isn't exactly "hard" because there's a lot of things to do,

Sigh, mothers...

2010-08-12T05:39:00.003-04:00

One thing I can say for sure already is that when this week is over I won't have watched that much involuntary TV, but still won't have gotten much actually done. Why? Well, the title says it all. "Help me with dinner a moment" "Help me clean out this closet" "Help me take down the paintings" "Help me clean behind the paintings" (honestly, who does that?) "Help me saw this board" (WTF?) "Help me

Summer vacation: 29.4% over

2010-08-04T05:11:00.002-04:00

So, it's over. I miraculously passed all my courses, and am officially on summer vacation now. It's a wierd feeling; I've been taking summer courses ever since I started college. I'm finally free to do whatever I want. Looking at the days gone by, I can't help but wonder, what have I accomplished? What have I been doing since the start of my "vacation"? I know I haven't been blogging, and that

Again on the library

2010-07-30T12:00:00.001-04:00

Ha! I bet you didn't expect me to blog about the library this far into the summer did you? Well, the truth is, what I'm going to tell you actually happened before I created the blog. When I did create it, there were a couple of things I just had to say first. By the time those were out, I had all but forgotten about this little event. I started working in the library because it just peeves me to

Dan Browned

2010-07-27T22:59:00.003-04:00

Gazing upon a cross, petting a mouse. I really can't think of anything to say about this drawing I know this is not what I usually post about, but last Sunday I finally watched The Da Vinci Code. Yes, I had read the reviews beforehand; so yes, I knew it was basically a big load of bullshit. But you know what? Halfway through the movie you can’t help but believe it. The moment doesn’t last (a

It's a miracle

2010-07-20T13:37:00.073-04:00

Self portrait #2: face loosely based on photo. The rest (hair, arms, etc) is the result of me guessing how long the lines should be; I have very little experience drawing people in profile –or people holding things up to their faces, for that matter. So, I've passed all my courses. "What? That's the title 'miracle'? I thought you said you were a 'mostly-all-A' student; what's the big deal?" It

if(summer_vacation == false){...

2010-07-17T22:32:00.004-04:00

The term is over. I should be on summer vacation. But noooo. I'm stuck here doing a project due (of all the impossibles) Sunday! (Yes I know half of you are going "Bah, I've had to hand in projects on Sundays before; I've had to hand in projects on Christmas day! What's the big deal then?" and the other half is going "What? Sunday? How can that even be possible? Is he going to be in his office on

What a game!

2010-07-12T11:28:00.003-04:00

I watched the World Cup Final yesterday, not that my avatar would know. ("What do you mean 'not that my avatar would know'? Is that all the explanation we're going to get?" Yes. Go see the birthday sequence if you want to know where this came from. And before you point it out, yes, I know there's no #99 in Football/Soccer.) I really, really, really wanted to write about it in the "heat" of the

Fourth of July special

2010-07-04T11:06:00.005-04:00

Take a moment to listen to The Star Spangled Banner. Seriously, do it. It is possibly the most American thing there is (after the Pledge of Allegiance... and Apple Pie... and Baseball... you get the idea) The song was written during the War of 1812, and didn’t become the National Anthem until 1931. For the Fourth of July (possibly the most American holiday… after Thanksgiving... ok, I’ll stop)

Life Sucks

2010-07-04T00:00:00.005-04:00

I had something brilliant planned for Father's Day. A wonderful series of posts which were to take advantage of the fact that I comment on about half a dozen sites with an avatar, which I was going to change for the occasion. I hoped to have it up long enough for people to notice, ask themselves "what's up with this?" and click it, linking them to the blog. And the explanation would be here!

Getting organized

2010-06-13T04:56:00.001-04:00

If you've been here before, you'll probably notice that today I've added a couple pages at the top (About the Author and Topics). These are just to tell the readers what the blog is about, again hoping to make it more inviting to new readers. My idea wasn't to sumarize what this blog has been or will be, but to allow easier navigation for the people who visit this blog (and, trust me, in the

Special occasions on (the) line

2010-06-12T02:01:00.010-04:00

Avatar story: Next ⇨ | Latest ↠ It’s important to have traditions. Very important. (I’ll explain later why I say this so categorically, just bear with me for now.) This year I started a tradition, and it was also a pretty strong force in convincing me to create this blog. No, it’s not in my first post, so don’t look for it. This tradition was to change my avatar at certain special times of year

Obligatory World Cup post

2010-06-11T19:11:00.003-04:00

As you very likely are aware, the South Africa World Cup started today, completely changing everyone's attitude and priorities. TVs were placed all over the campus, in every student lounge, making it more of a "lounging about" room and less of a "actually getting work done" room. Poor naïve little me, having not gone to student lounges during the last World Cup, actually thought I could isolate

Linking to the future

2010-06-07T01:40:00.000-04:00

Many of the posts I've made so far were planned for from the beginning of this blog; I simply didn't want them to appear yet, for fear that in some future week I may have nothing to post (last week was one such week, but since I had something pre-written, that's what went up, although it wasn't planned from the beginning). To make this more apparent and easier to navigate, I've gone through

Mouse avatar: Ears, nose, and mouth

2010-06-06T23:56:00.015-04:00

Last week I told you I was cheating when I showed you the ears, mouth, and nose before it was time. This week I’m going to show you why it wasn’t that much so. When I started with the ears, I thought I could fake it by drawing a circle á là Mickey Mouse. This didn’t work out so well. I therefore turned to tracing again. Because the image was so dark, there were two places that could be the top