Spain Sketchbook 002

I can't remember what prompted this picture. Maybe it started with a brief glimpse of a woman on the train from Sitges (a beach town) to some other town that I can't remember the name of which turned out to be a crappy excursion. When we look at this drawing, we must think, "What will I eat for dinner tonight?". And another thing, I'm sort of turned off by these types of expressions where people look all self-satisfied. Come on, it's so ridiculous. Can't she have a little pain her life? What the hell does she have to be so "at peace" about?!

Spain Sketchbook 001

I did some doodling in Spain. I'm not saying the stuff is great, but at least I was drawing. Here's page one. As I remember it, I was inspired by a dude walking and tugging on his pants. Hey look! Whaddya know...the guy in the picture is doing the same thing. Wow. Wow!

You know what I hate about this drawing? The head. It's not in the right spot...the "neck" is off-center. It just doesn't fit right. Plus, the beard is probably an attempt to salvage what was turning out to be a crappy face anyway. He looks like a dang hippy. Oh, why? Why why why why why? And what's going on with his mouth? Is his tongue coming out the side? I don't know. I just don't know.

Flash Drawing 002

Dammit, I just wrote a post and uploaded it and nothing happened, so here I am again. I hate repeating myself. The short story is that I hate seeing hack furniture in background design (I work in animation) and I love it when background designers actually go the extra mile to use nice furniture in their designs. With that in mind, I felt like drawing a chair...

Wait...I just found the original post. In the interest of redundancy, here it is:
I am really disgusted by that typical couch you see in animation...you know the one with the two arms that sort of bend out to the sides. Jeeeeeeeeeeezzzzzzzz! Haven't we seen enough of that freakin' couch? I'm an animation director at the moment, and it's always exciting when a background designer actually puts in cool-looking furniture. This heavy issue was on my mind, so I drew a chair. It doesn't look very functional, but who cares?

Flash Drawing 001

This is the first in a series of drawings done in Flash, which is quite nicely suited to my often scratchy mode of work.

Why Life Sucks

Since Friday morning, I have been feeling a small stinging sense of crapiness.

Bob Bowen, Ira Sherak, John Aoshima and I spent about 12 hours today working on a "video scavenger hunt" project, and for what result? Total, humiliating garbage. Unwatchable. The most satisfying part was working up the nerve to show the video to the crowd at Titmouse Studio, then laughing and crying hysterically from the overwhelming shame of it all. John and Ira had already left, so it was up to Bob and myself to bear the load. And we did, dammit, like the men of old. We were not proud of our failure, but Bob does own the only copy available on Earth, and he will hopefully destroy it tomorrow night.

That is all.

Jeff Levy Hooked Me Up

It is unlikely among my <1 readers that any of you have heard of Jeff Levy. He is a radio talk show host who hosted a computer-centric based program on KFI for years. It was stylishly called "On Computers”, and even though I'm an Apple fan and Jeff pretty much addressed Windows machines, I still somehow found the show interesting. He had a knack for inserting a slightly blue-cheesy vaudeville sense of humor.

Anyhow, I was walking the dog sisters Chuy and Scout and decided to stop at the donut shop around the corner to get a little somethin' somethin' when this older man approached and asked what kind of dogs they were. I don't really know what they are...Retriever/Lab/Australian Shephard? Anyway, he told me about his adventures in adopting rescue dogs, culminating with a $7500 Doberman. And it has a passport from italy, he exclaimed. He said that he could mentally communicate with dogs and showed me his "dog training techniques". I was curious at first, until his first command was something like, "Okay, don't roll over". He then proceeded through about two more jokey commands, then we made way to the donut shop doors. He told me that anybody who liked dogs was "alright in his book" then insisted on purchasing my cappucino and croissant.

I thought he was an eccentric rich guy (he had a newer white Jaguar), and when he gave me my stuff he noticed my iPod. He told me that he had a website, "www.jefflevy.com" and then I instantly knew who this phlegmy-voiced comedic angel was. I gave him some props and told him that it was a pleasure and he assured me that we would see eachother again. So there you have it. My brush with radio aristocracy. Perhaps I will see Jeff Levy again. And when I do, I'll tell him you said hello.

http://www.jefflevy.com/default.aspx

My Sister Broke her Back

My sister is my dentist.

And I was on my way to have her veneer my dead-nerved and discolored left front tooth. Only about 30 seconds from home, I was checking a cell phone message from her office, saying to give Sandi (my sister) a call on her cell. She answered and in a woozy voice said, "I broke my back." I said "Whaaaaaaaaaaaat?!". How often do you hear of someone you know breaking their back? It sounds crazy.

She was riding a dunebuggy and hit a hard bump, and on landing felt that something had gotten out of whack. I instantly thought of paralysis, but she can luckily move everything and was even painfull walking around and working for two days! Thinking it was a simple thing, she went to a chiropractor, who told her that she had a misaligned disc or something like that AND THEN PROCEEDED TO ADJUST HER BACK!! When she went to the doctor the next day (I think) and got a cat-scan, the doctor told her that she had a broken back and that the chiropractor was of course an idiot to do anything to her, and that she could have been paralyzed by the "adjustment"! The doctor put her in a back brace and sent her off with some pain medicine.

The cat-scan or xray (I forget which) revealed that, as Sandi said, "It looks like someone took a hammer and cracked one of my vertebrae". I guess that there's all kinds of fragmentation going on. She was waiting to get an appointment with her real doctor, who is an orthopedic specialist, and when I last talked to her, he was finally on the phone calling her.

Anyway, the discomfort finally got too much for her to work another day, so my long-awaited tooth veneering is on hold.

The Slowly Evolving Bathroom

I humbly admit that I have not been very diligent about finishing the redecoration of the "vanity area" of the guest bathroom. Yeah, we've been in this house at least two years. Why can't I remember how long? There you have an example of my inexact memory. Anyway, now that my hiatus from work is coming to an end, I wanted to be able to go back to work knowing that the cabinets were in and the wallwork around them finished and perhaps even primed for painting.

I built the simple cabinets out of birch wood. They're basicly open boxes with slots for glass shelves, which I have already had cut to size. You'd think it'd be easy to make a simple box, but it took a long time to get those cabinets right. In the process, I bought a nail gun for my Sears Craftsman compressor, which I scored from my brother Jerry after he bought a better one.

Back to the bathroom. I should be commended for gutting out the old double-sink cabinets, ripping out the old boring floor tile, installing the little blue wall tiles (my first tiling job ever), installing a new sink (which involved my first copper pipe work ever), and installing the little hexagonal floor tiles, which were a real pain around the curved profile of the bathtub. And don't even ask about the bathtub/toilet area...that whole thing needs to be redone too. Although I did put in floor tile there too.