Have you ever wondered where your industry got its start? Since a lot of us are in IT, I bet you're thinking WW2 and the codebreakers at Bletchley Park, Alan Turing and all the rest.

Would you be surprised if I told you it was the loom? Or even further back, the water wheel?

In the 1970's the BBC produced an absolutely brilliant documentary series call Connections, hosted by James Burke. It had a wonderful way of showing technology advancing, not by a solitary inventor, but by taking the work of someone else, often in a completely different field and applying it to the problem they were working on. It's absolutely mind blowing.

Fortunately the internet archive has all three series available to stream, for free. Each episode is about 45 minutes long. There's a lot of anachronisms, the World Trade Center towers make a frequent appearance, for those touched by the events of 9-11, be warned. But, if you have the time, I promise that it will not be wasted.

https://archive.org/details/ConnectionsByJamesBurke/Connections/

And if you want to see the origin of IT.

https://archive.org/details/ConnectionsByJamesBurke/Connections/Season+1/Connections+S01E04+-+Faith+in+Numbers.mp4

MORE
7/8 '20 2 Comments
Right, the punch cards for patterns in the loom. I had forgotten that, thank you!

We saw a punch card loom in ... the Smithsonian, I think.
Thank you for that - I'll definitely be checking it out!

I seem capable of running out of worthwhile streaming content despite its seeming endlessness....
 

...the virtual kind.

So I've had DragonBones.Net since 20200928. After a blank page with just simple hypertext in the center which read 'dragonbone.net' and you had to click to enter, you came to a page which looked like this according to the WayBackMachine.org:

That seems about right, though I can't remember any reason for making you click on a link once you had arrived at the site in order to enter the site. It's not like it was a gateway guarded with a password or anything. If I remember correctly, the text was even grey on black, so it wasn't super easy to see.

I'm guessing I thought it was stylistically cool or something. Functionally annoying in hindsight, but hey - I was new to website building (more or less) and I probably stole the idea from other site I thought was cool at the time.

Those frames may have even been frames - remember those?! Maybe it was a table. Not concerned enough to really check.

Anyway, it wasn't too long until I added some more content, including some art, and (probably) an animated gif or seven of flaming torches in sconces because c'mon... DRAGONBONES.

Also, the size of that graphic demonstrates just how drastically the resolution of our monitors has changed over the years. That 'frame' pretty much filled my screen at the time.

Just a few short months later, and the WayBack has another capture. This one mid December of the same year, and I'd done some significant work on the site.

A lot more art, and that menu at the top was... *chef's kiss*. I mean, I was really proud of it. Why? Well...

  1. Each of those skulls was based on an actual dragon illustration from the current Monster Manuals for D&D with the exception of the center skull - one of my own design and still the site logo today. If I recall correctly, two were evil dragons and two were good - with 'my' dragon in the center. Don't think I ever told anyone that. It was just interesting symbolism for me to think about when I opened the site.
  2. Each skull was an animated GIF triggered by a mousover event. That took... a lot to the n00b that I was. I was using a pirated copy of Dreamweaver at the time to help me over the humps that I couldn't bash my way through when it came to code. I was completely ignorant of anything past rudimentary HTML, so that was a significant amount.
    1. The page displayed a default static image (as you see in the screen cap).
    2. Thanks to some 'onMouseOver' code from Dreamweaver, I figured out how to go from that static image to an animated GIF  that went from that same static image to a shaded / rendered / sorta 3D version of the same skull at the same size with a color tint and highlighted text over the image which said where the link would take you (same as the labels under the graphics - just in case the graphics didn't show for any reason).
    3. The image would return to a static image once you moved the mouse away from the image. Each graphic only changed once, so it created a feel like 'you changed the icon' by mousing over it to something 'more real'.
    4. I remember getting the sizing just exactly right so there was no 'flexing' of the table it all sat in took me 4-ev-ah.
    5. How did I get the animated GIFs of each skull? Well, I used some kind of 'morphing software' which took one image and morphed it into something else. Usually, this was done with faces. Think of the tail end of Michael Jackson's "Black or White" video. (Side note: do yourself a favor and watch that if you haven't in a while.) Anyway - I did two versions of each skull - one 'flat' and one 'rendered' with a tint' and fed them into the software as 'start' and 'end'. If either image was off by a single pixel? It would 'flex' the table holding the menu. That took some time.
    6. I managed to crunch those menu graphics down small enough that the load time was... reasonable. Back then, that was FAR more worrisome than it is these days thanks to X baud modems.

And look at that news feed! If I remember correctly, that was an RSS feed from my LJ account. I think. It miiiight have even been for only 'public' posts which I treated as a new feed for my site so folks could get the info in either place.

Lastly, I have no idea when I actually started drawing digitally, but I was definitely doing so by this point. St. Nick there as well as the aforementioned menu items were all done digitally. In 2003. That feels a little like having a cell phone when most folks didn't have a wireless land line in their house.

20080505 - It looks like I finally found out about this funky thing called 'WordPress' and switched over to GoDaddy.

In related news - holy hell with the dbn logo/crest. Calm down, dude. I'll say that it was a sign of the times and NOT my lack of good design skillz. For srsly.

20090303 - Some changes to layout (though that's almost meaningless with WP) and mention of 1100. There was one previous episode, but this is the first instance that the WayBackMachine caught.

20130602 - Thanks to Jill "xtingu" Knapp 's better sense of style, this is the first appearance of the billyBoldHand font (in the logo). I like it so much that it's become a staple and gets used in most everything I do if I can manage it.

20141217 - Pinterest style 'brick' theme. While the site has undergone some minor changes since this point, it's more or less stayed like this - a 'brick' theme (like Pinterest) so that I can show off more art thumbnails directly on the front page. This seems the most sensible layout for the most part, so it's stuck for years.

So why am I telling you all this?

I'm thinking about pulling the plug on Ye Olde Bones of the Dragon as well as a number of other sites I own / host. It's doing nothing for me other than being a vanity site at this point.

No one gives one rat's ass that the site exists. They certainly don't go to it.

According to Google's Analytics for the last 9 months:

It seldom goes above single digits and they're almost entirely 'new visitors' which makes me think that most of those are web crawlers, bots, and the like.

The site's been taken over more than once, and I'm not even certain that it's 100% clean now (which would help to explain some of the low stats since the Almighty Google would likely not rank a 'dirty' site highly).

You've Made It This Far, So Here's the Honest Truth

I put a lot of hopes and dreams into this site, and it's gone no where in all these years.

The analogy that keeps popping into my head is the lame horse that you deeply love, and don't want to see suffer anymore.

Well That Escalated Quickly

Yup. I can't imagine that you've made it this far down my meandering along Memory Lane, so it's time to just get to the fucking monkey.

She won't die completely. I'll likely keep the url and point it to a subset of posts or a page on mrlich.com.

Hell, I'll probably do that with most (all?) of my other sites - rideoffintothesunset.com, libriexmachina.com, lightinthewoods.com, matt-works.com, etc.

Same reasons. No one gives a shit, and I'm spending... well, not a lot per year, but over time...

Have you somehow managed to make it all the way down here? Well shit, you must have some kind of opinion on the subject - please tell me. I'm all ears.

MORE
7/5 '20 4 Comments
How about you hop on wordpress.com and make a blog site there, which is both free and much safer than self-hosting, and just post stuff when it pleases you so to do? Then you have something to drop links to. But, I completely get it if you don't want to bother; boutell.dev is a microscopic shadow of the old boutell.com.
That is a reasonable solution. I'll think about it.
I'm always saddened by sites that disappear and get their name squatted on by some unrelated entity, but I'm not the one paying for the name registration. I was there, 5000 years ago, when the world's dictionary words hadn't yet been claimed, but still never bought a single one. By "keeping the url" but deleting the site you're just saving the online storage costs?
Yeah, the online storage costs are the lion's share. Still, I see what you're saying.
 
 

Google sends you a monthly map of everyplace you've been the previous month. If you're like me, and based on experience, you're probably not, this has always struck me as a little big-brother-ish. Hmm, thinks I. Can I add navigation to my truck? Sure enough, there's ways. Now usually when I'm adding a factory option that didn't come with my vehicle I will ply one of my favorite you-pull-it salvage yards. But it seems that Ford used a module that is coded for the VIN of your particular vehicle. And to get a used module re-coded, requires you to bring a large valise full of money to a dealer. Or just getting a Ford dealer to install a new module requires a foot locker full of money.

TO THE INTERNET!

Yes, as it turns out, there are a multiple companies who sell the module, cutom coded to your VIN. Although you have to do the installation, it lands somewhere between a valise and a footlocker. Call it a large suitcase full of money.

What ho, let's check Ebay. And again, there are plenty of people selling the module. Some as low as $100. But excluding anybody not in the US (easier to wrangle a refund if the part is bogus) The lowest price was still above walking around money, but about one third of the price that Ford would want to install their component. After receiving a windfall from the department of unclaimed property, I pulled the trigger, bought the part and sent the seller my VIN.

The part arrived in five days. I had taken the time to review the installation procedure. Fairly easy, no special tools required. One heartening sign, when I opened the box the seller had included a printed out copy of my truck's build sheet. Obviously the seller has an in with Ford technical support. The process was supposed to take an hour, I had it installed in half that time. Nav works great. I didn't even lose my radio or satellite presets. All I had to do was re-pair my phone to the truck and join my home wifi.

I am sure my descendants will be Morlocks, maintaining machines and popping up to the surface to have the Eloi descendants of politicians, phone sanitizers and marketing wonks down for dinner.

MORE
7/1 '20 3 Comments
How big a container of money do I need to send to have your descendants not eat my descendants?
My Google Maps report of all the places I've been in April - June were a single blue dot over my house, with one jaunt up to my folks'.

I imagine our January report will be on dot solely over my folks' place.

But yeah, it's all quite Big Brothery and feels oooky, I agree. I'm also too lazy to do anything about it.

Good on ya!
 

Been a while since I did any Patch images, and I got the proverbial itch tonight, so...

MORE
6/25 '20 5 Comments
That came out well!
I love his facial expression.
The shadows on #3 are a little stripy, not sure where the light source is, but the image itself is ... alive and predatory and amused. Reminds me of the t-shirt Houser has that says something about being excited for the zombie apocalypse.
The real take-away for the lighting is that it isn't clear, but just so you have the info, my INTENT was for two light sources: Moonlight or electric (blue) light that is subtle / gentle from behind (to our right) and above and a white light almost directly above (I was thinking 'streetlight').

I'm trying to play around with multiple light sources to add to realism. Honestly, this may be a bit of a mistake since I don't have a really 'realism' style. I'm far too cartoony, generally speaking.

I'm glad his facial expression seems a bit nuanced. Something that... irks me about a lot of wolf / werewolf artwork is that there is zero nuance. Perhaps that makes sense given the subject matter, but I'm a fan of subtle. More than binary seems a good thing. Real wolves aren't either A: I love you or B: I'm eating your face, so I figure werewolves could have additional complexity too.

And thanks!
Sometimes that's A and B. :)
Any time spent drawing is a good time. :)
It's really true. And I have to admit - there's additional comfort with this guy. Like comfort food, or reality tv or... whatever. A little bit of 'coming home'.
 

<since I'm now home all the time, I started playing DnD again after all these years. Stephalorus is my current character, a young fighter. This is a letter to her older sister, who is also a fighter out adventuring somewhere in the other half of the world.>

Dearest Candalorus,

I hope this letter finds you well. I don’t know what adventures you’ve gotten yourself into or where you are just now, so I’m sending this to Da. I hope he can forward it to you, and that this finds you in good health.

As you know, I have been traveling in Vilhon and was in the city of Northbridge as of late. Few weeks ago I fell in with a group of other travelers (ok, we were newly met drinking buddies) and we got ourselves hired as caravan protection heading to Redport. Haha, yes, I know. Me, a caravan guard just like you were! Following in your footsteps, sis! 

I was expecting it to be a dull trek escorting the esteemed Lord Grahm Weylan and entourage to the capital Redport, but it has been anything but. Yeah, that Weylan, the brother to Lord Tomin Weylan, new ruler of the Duchey of Storm Coast! If Da hadn’t dragged us along as kids all those times to see every minor nobility that came to town, I would be cowed by His Greatness. Instead, I just try to keep my own council and let the more charming members of our group do the talking. Mostly.

Word is, if we are judged exceptional over the course of this journey, we may be able to find employment with House Weylan. Then at least you’ll know where to send my care packages!

Apparently Lord Tomin is traveling by ship to the capital as we escort Lord Grahm overland. Lord Grahm is also checking out the local leadership and securing support as he goes, and driving out hostiles (both man and beast) along the way. And things are not as peaceful as they once were. As you know, the succession was initially contested and there is lingering unrest. 

My crew consists of a young priestess of the light (i.e. Goddess Ann Barros) named Keydove, a small fledgling wizard Mertly (who has a pet cat! A very useful pet cat! I never knew pets could be so helpful!), and a spry sneaky roguish sort Drago who is surprisingly good in a fight. We had another woodsman join us for a while, but he got pretty roughed up and has decided being caravan muscle isn’t for him. We’re trying to come up with a crew name. We are using TEAM RIGHTEOUS, but that’s not exactly a fit. Still hoping to come up with something better.

Anyway, we are tasked with scouting ahead, and we weren’t more than a few days into the trek when we came upon a looted farmstead with defiled slaughtered sheep outside. We took a look, and sadly found bodies of the farmers, some funds and notes, and surprisingly a trapped great mountain cat of sorts. A cougar maybe? Anyway, right after we dispatched the vicious cat to kitty heaven, we were attacked by some goblins. I know, goblins, right! Just like you always said, those pesky vermin are always popping up and causing headaches. We kept one alive for questioning. So yes dear Canda, I did listen to your advice of not killing all the vermin, in case one can prove useful.

Back at camp with the main force the goblin was questioned, and it became clear that there was a *great* goblin shaman Scragnar who had a band followers harassing and pillaging the countryside. They were holed up in ruins nearby. So we went in and cleared that place out, killed Shaman Scraggy, and rescued a captured noble Lord Daren Delvo. It’s great to have the gratitude of a Lord, and he saw to it that our gear was upgraded nicely afterwards. And we got some cool loot - including a potion of Enlargement, haha. Oh, and it turns out that these goblins were not random vermin, but encouraged by some nefarious party. We’re still trying to sort that out. Regrettably, this is also where our woodsman friend took some grievous wounds, and decided to give up the dangerous fighting life.

Oh, when we got back to the main caravan, there was an attempt on Lord Gramln’s life - they even got into his lordships private pavilion before they were stopped. We helped defend him, and subsequently learned that not everyone is happy with the current power structure. And that his brother is also threatened. Nothing really we can do from here except hustle on to Redport.

And man, that goblin escapade seems like a walk in the park compared to what has transpired since. And it seems so long ago, even if it was only a few weeks past. After bringing Delvo back and foiling the assassination attempt, we headed on again as advance guard. The next stop was supposed to be the village of Highmeadow. But as we got to the area, we instead found a lake. Apparently there had been a natural dam break that flooded the entire town. Highmeadow was completely submerged. While we were still trying to figure out what had happened, we found some woeful miners camped out in the hills.

The miners told us a strange tale of bizarre happenings in their mine. They had broken through to a lower, more ancient level and to their horror they released a necromancer. Or at least an evil dude with a staff that is raising the dead. Yikes. OF COURSE we decided to deal with that issue. 

So we went, met some faeries on the way, killed a boar and ate oh so well that day, cleared out the undead filled mine with help of a friendly ghost (I killed an undead skeletal Owlbear! I kept its skull as a helmet/trophy. It looks ridiculous. I love it.),  and got some good weaponry from a tomb. Yes, sis, I know. Tomb looting is bad. But we needed the stuff to fight the bigger bad aka undead raising Hekros worshiping staff wielding evil ancient halfling necromancer Tervous Mep. We’ll figure out a way to rebuild the tomb later. Then we killed a Redcap (I HAVE A REDCAP TOOTH NOW!!! I’m gonna mount it on the Owlbear helm.), and we made it back to the lake formerly known as Highmeadow without dying! Even the horses all made it! Well, horses and a dog. Our diminutive wizard Mertly rides a dog. My horse is named Mable. She’s sweet.

I’m writing this from New Highmeadow. They have started rebuilding Highmeadow on higher ground. Maybe they should call it Highermeadow? We just contributed to New Highmeadow’s new temple’s building fund and will have a stone engraved with our names placed there. Tomorrow we’re off to the abandoned Seven Cliffs Monastery, to take care of Necro Mep. I figure if I don’t make it back from attacking this necromancer, at least our names will be remembered in stone. Something to show the grandkids! I mean, assuming. . .

I hope you are well, and hope you are enjoying whatever crazy you’ve gotten yourself into these days. I don’t know when I’ll be in your part of the world again, but I look forward to our reunion someday. I’m sure we’ll both have great tales to share by then. 

You loving sister,

Stephalorus 

MORE
6/24 '20
 

The choices I have made and continue to make define borders in and around my life. They're not my only constraints, but past and present me are accountable for them.

I live in a densely populated area of a city with a population of 2.9 million humans. S and I moved here from a smaller, tech-focused city three years ago. Housing costs mean 3 humans and 2 cats occupy about 800 square feet including the balcony, at the edge of affordability for us in our current income/expense situation. The mortgage is scheduled to be paid off when I'm 72 years old. Being close to services, events, culture, transit, and a diverse population along many measures is critical. Expressions of white supremacy are out in the open; expressions of love and mutual respect within and among communities are as well, and they more than balance the evil in this part of the world.

We've come up with some curious logistics with our limited space. We don't have a working shower in the second bathroom because it's full of art. We rent a storage locker in the building and a parking space for our motorcycles, no car because we can hire one from two different car sharing services at need. We have no working stove or oven because storage is more important than the types of food prep we can accomplish among a microwave, toaster oven, instant pot, waffle iron, and air fryer. My work-at-home space through at least the end of December and our bed are in the shared space of our condo, because K having privacy and S having a studio with a door that closes outweigh my own needs and wants.

Until the pandemic is extinguished, I don't get out much. This is a huge change from The Before when I would walk all over, run little errands on a whim, go to the choir practice that is part of my health management, wander around crowded spaces to watch people, hit up the art galleries at least monthly. With health concerns in the household and others' behaviours and available environments outside it, even going downstairs to drop off recycling is a risk that requires masking up and diligent hygiene. Some days I don't break 3000 steps despite exercising at least 30 minutes daily. Exercise is critical, and I'm relying on an app to schedule my workouts for the space, time, energy, and equipment available. I need more biceps work if I'm going to ever do a pullup or chinup on the bar S installed in our kitchen doorway.

I'm somewhat underemployed for my skills. When we moved, I quit my job without another to go to. It was a long 12-13 months with no employment income other than working one long day as a Deputy Returning Officer in the provincial election for about $22-25 per hour. My prior career was in IT, where even a brief period of unemployment without a portfolio of side projects is ill advised. I'd had good prospects, I thought, and I knew my old job and workplace and city were deleterious to my health. Cutting ties even more completely that a former abuser could leverage to get at me was an additional factor. So I'm in the civil service, in an administrative support job I aced the qualifying exams for. I'm on assignment to a special project for 16 months at my substantive pay grade, doing work at a level people getting half again to double my pay are doing alongside me, having a mostly good time though chafing at the lack of physical presence. Maybe the assignment will help my longer term income and my level of engagement. My grandboss knows I don't want to go back to working for my substantive supervisor and we're working on a possible way to use and reward my skills and interests. Meanwhile, my 7.5 hour days tend to run to 8.5 or 9 and I'm both highly stressed and highly engaged. By Thursday I'm exhausted.

I started subscribing to a grocery service two months ago. FoodShare TO delivers a non-negotiable box of "enough fruit and vegetables for 2-4 people for a week" every week, and I get a loaf of locally made sourdough bread for K once a month. It reduces my exposure to grocery stores, especially the produce aisle. My purchase supports food insecure households and local farmers. Yesterday is the first time we got the automated notifications for delivery time: before that, the box was left in the building lobby and it was mostly our overburdened concierge who would let us know it had arrived. There's less fruit than I'd rather, and the vegetables are mostly brassicas and nightshades that S can't eat. I'm eating even more vegetables, K is making soup regularly, and I'm farting more (and have more gas pain) than before. It's good food, and I'm learning new approaches to cooking and eating when I have the energy and executive function to do so.

My garden is four pots on the balcony, each big enough to support one tomato plant. This year I haven't been able to work up the energy and interest to get food plants or seeds for planting while the few, narrow stores providing those goods are open. If we can find the wildflower seeds that friends gave us with their wedding invitation last summer, we'll plant those. It's not like I need more produce, though I'd love fresh strawberries that don't cost $8 a quart in season.

The days blur into each other, the weeks as well. Is it the hundred and twelfth day of March or something? It's summer now, and the sky will start getting bright, the birds singing, a little later each day. I'm in a cage I've chosen, better a housecat than roadkill. May as well sing.

MORE
6/21 '20
 

I last had a professional hair cut on January 3rd.  The last time I bleached my hair was on February 26th when I was up at my folks' place.

We snapped the following photo on March 27th, as a promo photo for our Coffee Break Concerts which launched on March 30th, 2020.

This next photo was snapped today, June 17th, after Coffee Break Concert #34. 

And here's a close-up comparison of my roots.  I have buzzed the sides and back several times with the #4 attachment on my clippers, and just two nights ago I finally broke down and purchased thinning shears because my faux-hawk was no longer staying up.  I'm wishing I had thought to snap the "after" photo before I had given the top part of my hair a little trim.

Seeing my natural hair color has been somewhat sobering. While I don't have much gray (surprisingly), my hair is pretty thin in the "yarmulke" part of my head. Having dark hair at the root makes my white scalp really show; where I feel like bleaching my hair makes it look less scalpy.

I do kinda like the way these dark roots look, though... but then I worry I'm treading dangerously close to Flavortown; I do not want to look like Guy Fieri.

Anyhoo, all is well here, considering.  I haven't worked at all this year, which is stressful... but it looks like training companies are starting to book more classes (99% of them are virtual at this point), which is good. Even if I'm not the one teaching them, I can still make a few bucks selling courseware for other people's classes, so that's good. 

Mentally I was struggling a bit right at the start of the lockdown, but these coffee break concerts really have been a saving grace. It's been good for me to have something to plan for, work towards, and look forward to... plus I get to be silly, and I get to "see" people I love in the chat window. 

We've scaled the concerts back to only Wednesdays and Fridays now that Delaware is into Phase 2 of reopening (back in the earlier phases we ran concerts on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays).  This was the first week where we only did two shows instead of our typical 3 shows, and it felt like it's the right move (I think).  It's good to have a long weekend so we can go visit my parents without having to schlep an entire sound system.

Physically, my health has been OK. I feel like I'm fighting a little ear infection or something-- when I swallow my left gland where my left ear drains into my throat is all ouchie, though it doesn't hurt as much today as it did earlier in the week-- so maybe I'm over it.

We've been taking the quarantine very seriously, because my dad needs heart surgery (routine, no biggie, just a valve replacement) soon, and when that happens we'll be staying up there while he recovers.  We've been up there to visit twice during the lockdown, but our first visit was after Matt and I got tested for Covid-19.  I know tests are kinda silly because we could have gotten infected 3 minutes after leaving the testing site, but yeah. 

We haven't eaten anything we haven't cooked ourselves since March 14th. No takeout food, no delivery, no door dash, nada.  It's actually been pretty fun cooking stuff, making creative use of the leftovers, making sure things don't go to waste, etc.

Matt's lost about 12 pounds (he's happy about that), and I'm down about 2-3 pounds, which I am not happy about.  I just don't have much of an appetite. Oh well.

It's getting to be iron infusion time, so hopefully I'll get that in the next month or two. I got my iron bloodwork done about 4 weeks ago but I wasn't quiiiiiiite dead enough, so I'll get another round of bloodwork in two weeks and by then my iron levels should have sufficiently crashed. Wheee!

Right before the lockdown I was scheduled to have a ton of dental work done, but then that all got canceled. I just got a note from my dentist office now saying that they're now accepting patients again for everything from cleanings and routine services to bigger mouf projects, so I guess I should get rescheduling that... but maybe I should wait until my dad's heart stuff is done.  Like I said, I've been soooo diligent in my covid-fighting, but if I go for Dental Derp, I don't have any way to be sure I'm being as neurotic as I should be... and I also won't have a way to keep an extra eye on the dentist staff, too (though I hope I should be able to trust them).


What else... 

We have so much music-work to do, in addition to our own music. We figured we'd be getting a break with The Rock Orchestra being on hiatus, but nope!

Matt's been hired by a modern-day vaudeville/performing arts group in Maryland to create a shit-ton music for their next big production, so he's been heads-down creating bespoke arrangements of Queen tunes and Meatloaf songs that can fit the size ensemble this group has.  But he's not just writing the parts out and calling it good; they want him to change the feel of some of these tunes to give it more of a steampunky feel, if that makes any sense. They're an interesting group.

I've been hired by two bands to help them out with their respective "covid collaborations" -- you know, those videos where bands record themselves playing their parts of a song at home, and then someone assembles the audio and video into a Zoom-like view so you can watch the individual band members singing/playing the song.  We did a few of these for The Rock Orchestra (here and here), but then two bands I've never heard of contacted me hoping I could handle some insane backing vocals and percussion-- I guess they wanted to go bigger than what their band can usually cover.  They're paying hansomely, which is very nice, because it's fuck-ton of work. 

One of the songs one band wants me to do is a tune by Boston-- so I'm covering all of those stacked vocals that go waaaaay up into the stratosphere. I can do it, but first I have to write all the parts out and then I'll record them.  The other song for the other band is an original, so I'm creating the arrangements from scratch and singing them, and playing a bunch of percussion, too.  It's fun, but it's a lot of work.


In other news, I'm officially 762876 years old because I bought a few bird feeders and I love watching the birds go nuts for them. We have pair of cardinals, two pairs of sparrows, two borbs (mourning doves), four crows... and now most mornings three squirrels have been taking up residence in the feeders and pissing off the birds. (I can't believe four crows are afraid of 3 squirrels... where the sparrows could not care less about the squirrels. Go figure.) 

Around 3:30am a family of five raccoons pops by and eats whatever's been kicked over the sides of the feeders to the ground, though tonight they decided to sit right in the feeder-- five racoons on a pie plate eating seeds and nuts. It was pretty damn adorable. 

OK, this is way too long.  I know there are more important things I should be talking about, but my brain is squishy.

love you all.

MORE
6/18 '20 5 Comments
Ooooh, I do not like looking at the yarmulke part of my head right now. The longer my hair gets the thinner that part of my head looks. Weirdly, when I buzzed it way down, it looked fuller. Hair is weird. If I'd known how brief my long flowing curly locks period would be I would have leaned into it more; every haircut I got in my 20s was a mistake.
love you! i'm happy you guys have so many creative outlets (especially the self-created ones, because we get to benefit from your awesomeness). i hope you feel better soon!!!
love you too.
he chomps in the air with the greatest of ease,
he's the raccoon on the feeder trapeze...
 

I just renewed onepostwonder.com for three more years. 🎂

Every few years I reach out to the guy who owns onepo.com. He always says no. I have made some credible offers. That's cool, the man likes his domain.

I should really take "beta" off the site, huh.

MORE
6/14 '20 5 Comments
Happy fifth anniversary!
why did I say fifth? what's wrong with me?
Happy Anniversary to you!
And us!
It's a great site!
I do love this neighborhood.

I wish I could convince friends to move in next door. On the other hand, being a quiet cul-de-sac is a large part of the charm.

I am ever grateful for your consistent efforts over the long term to create and hold space for community.
 

I'm still making the plotter art.  I post it elsewhere and haven't the energy to echo it here (and those of you who see it elsewhere shouldn't have to put up with that).

Also, I told Instagram to go shit on a post and slip, partly because it's incredibly artist-hostile by design, but mostly because it's part of Facebook, which is a major player in the white-supremacist internet complex.

If you'd like to get regular doses of my art, you can follow me on Twitter at @PhotoPuck, except there you also have to deal with my political rants and random garbar, or on Tumblr at plotterprints.tumblr.com, or on Mastodon at @smerp@mastodon.art. I probably should mention the online store also at plotterprints.square.site.

I'm at least a hundred prints behind on posting. I usually make like 6-10 a day but only post 2. I'm not sure what to do about that. I think it's fun to see the art evolve, but also some of my recent stuff is so much better

I mean that's all I do, pretty much. I make art, I exercise, I perform basic bodily functions, I socialize online with people here or there, and sometimes go outside to run errands. We're still under a state of emergency here. 

MORE
6/8 '20 2 Comments
I can appreciate that feeling.

Also, added you on Twitter (not sure how that hadn't happened before now).

Also also - have you described the method you used for the software behind your art robot? I'd love to read how an image is broken down / interpreted by the software.

Lastly - I'm definitely going to pick up one of your pieces, but I have to wait until I'm back at my apartment to do that. Also, I have to stew over which one to pick for a long while. :)
The plotter art regularly gets oohed and aahed at in this house.