Superfood and Desert Solitaire and Stuff

After hearing my good friend [the] Blake rant for years and years about how good Odwalla's "original-flavored"
 Superfood is, I finally (*finally*) got around to even tasting the stuff. It is as delicious as he claimed. It is also the most ugly-looking drink I've seen.

It is green, like blended lentils (I HATE lentils), only perhaps mixed with the stuff you lay down floor tiles with plus some of the Swamp of Despair for extra effect. Oh, it looks so gross. But it is amazing; it tastes like a fruit smoothie ('cause, er, it is...).

In any case.. I do believe back in January I mentioned something about drawings. Well, I've had them, in a state of near-done-ness, for a while now, and haven't done anything about them. Like, you know, finish them. Or even scan what I've got and put them up or anything. I hereby promise that by Sunday they will be posted here, finished or otherwise.

Random note: I have (relatively) recently happened upon the Internet word "derp." I think it's an amazing word, and it is one of my favorites. It feels fun to say.

Sometime I am going to write thoughts about music here. Specifically, about rock 'n roll. More specifically, why I like it so danged much. I'll provide a healthy list of songs (and maybe links to said songs) for your listening, I assure you.

And now, a quote I rather like, from Edward Abbey. I have just read it for the first time:

     I am here not only to evade for a while the clamor and filth and confusion of the cultural apparatus
     but also to confront, immediately and directly if it's possible, the bare bones of existence, the elemental
     and fundamental, the bedrock which sustains us. I want to be able to look at and into a juniper tree, a
     piece of quartz, a vulture, a spider, and see it as it is in itself, devoid of all humanly ascribed qualities,
     anti-Kantian, even the categories of scientific description. To meet God or Medusa face to face, even if it
     means risking everything human in myself. I deam of a hard and brutal mysticism in which the naked self
     merges with a non-human world and yet somehow survives still intact, individual, separate. Paradox and
     bedrock.

Kicking Around Ideas

Behold, a mish-mash of thoughts.

--First, I have recently had my love of art nouveau rekindled (not really the right word, but my thesaurus is almost 200 miles away right now so it will have to do) by two friends who let slip they had no idea what it is. This launched me into a search via the Almighty Google for images to show them to explain; my art nouveau image collection has grown significantly since yesterday evening.

Because I've had a love for rock 'n roll that has refused to go away since I was a child, I've known that a fair number of 60's rock posters borrowed the art nouveau style heavily, and have as a result always found the style to be pretty fantastic (again, not the correct word, but can you really name such a fond adoration? I don't think so). So when I was looking through the images last night I was reminded of that use of the old style, but as I was browsing it struck me how much a lot of newer artists, particularly in manga and anime, have been influenced by art nouveau.

Here are some of those images that got me thinking about that:


The first one screams "Saiyuki" to me- the funky rendition of the Journey to the West by Minekura Kazuya. In particular it looks like the character Gyokumen Koushou. Here's another sample of Saiyuki. The next two remind me of Gankutsuo and some of Clamp's work, respectively (in particular Clover, XXXHolic), and the latter somewhat of Belldandy from Ah! Megami-sama!. One of the parts of art nouveau that manga artists seem to have drawn heavily on is the line work.

Splendid. Having spent almost an hour hunting for appropriate anime/manga images to reference, I have forgotten most of what I had to belch onto here.

--Moving on, I am increasingly troubled by the use of bad grammar, especially by people who should know better. No, I am not perfect in my usage either, but it offends me still. The increasing number of occurrences in public places is irking me more, too (I don't suppose the Internet counts as a "public place," as the current trend seems to be stated by Something Awful Forums: The Internet Makes You Stupid). In any case, I don't think I will properly "connect" my paragraphs this evening. I am listening to Led Zeppelin, and I don't care. Not that they have anything to do with this.

--I have had a request from a friend to continue the "Rabid Bundernick" faux news clips. This could be delightful.

--I have another doodle. Eventually I'll scan it and post it in its current Sketch form, and will probably then proceed to destroy the thing by experimenting with coloring it and post that too.

--Speaking of doodles, here's something of actual importance. Nagrom, I demand your input. Since I don't have the time to either draw up or conceive whole chapters or scenes or whatever for my comic, I have been thinking of drawing up "snapshots" of it and putting them up, and later (whenever that may be) lacing them together in a proper story.

Or maybe it should stay improper. Maybe snapshots would be a fantastic way to convey the story, since "snapshot" doesn't necessarily imply only single-panel images.

There, that's my important thing for the evening. I may go harass my guitar or viola. Facebook is more likely, and so is tea. I have a lovely new art nouveau tea glass.


EDIT: I feel the need to cover for myself here and clarify that I don't like Clamp's manga. Their art is fascinating and even beautiful, but I don't like them. Also, when it comes to grammar, I have to point out that I heartily approve the making up of new words.

The joys of photo-editing to make silly things

Break is upon me once again, and I have returned from over a week in Jurassic Park to the bitter cold of the desert. This means I have a good deal of time to be fat and lazy, which in turn means I tend to do more artish things.

In this case, a friend and I had a conversation about posole and how he'd put salsa on his first ever bowl of the stuff, and how he was glad that that was OK because "causing an international incident would be a bad way to start off the new year," to which I said that that would actually be pretty funny.

And this was born.


Here's the full version of Slash/Ozzy (ok, so I'm happy with myself even if it's not brilliant photo-editing). The original can be found on a Google search.

This Is What I Do When I Should be Studying for Physics

My love for learning all kinds of things hasn't died, but my motivation sure has.


So here. A doodle. It will be colored. ...Someday.

In honor of school starting....

...we have a drawing. A random drawing, because my beginning of a long Labor Day weekend was started by a 7-hour shift at work. What was I going to do, homework? So here's a sketch, not polished or anything. I kinda polished it up later, so if we want that one, let me know.

Thoughts on "Indie" and Girls vs. Women

I promised my thoughts on the above subjects, and here they are. Let's start with the thoughts on "Indie" stuff and then move to the Women/Girls topic. I dearly hope I offend someone with my thoughts, especially on the latter topic. Those are the best kind of thoughts.


You may have noticed the quotation marks around the word "Indie." This is, quite simply, because I don't think the whole "Indie" business is a valid art style. What, you disagree? Well, I really could be wrong, but the following mentions why, in short, I don't think it's a valid art form:

--The music seems to me to be born of several ideologies, including the "We don't want to be lumped in with any mainstream sort of music style, so we'll make up our own!" and "We don't know what the hell style this would be, so we'll call it "Indie"," and "We don't want to be called Emo, we have more musical taste than that. But we're still going to whine and complain about how much life sucks and our bitter black velvet hearts and all that, but dammit we're going to do it with real style."

(Now, this will probably lead me to have to mention Anberlin, one of my favorite bands, since I think they're classified as "Indie." I don't think they're "Indie," I think they classify as "Rock." This is because they're not whiny, and while not your typical classic rock (though they draw on elements from that), they definitely rock. I think they do their hair funny and stuff, but tall, lanky men with mussed hair, straight jeans and clean shirts seems to be en vogue everywhere anyhow. So there.)

--This kinda goes off of the music style idea, but I think wanting to not be classified as anything normal/mainstream doesn't qualify you to have your own music style. If it's a name-only thing, well, get over it. If you hate mainstream stuff that much, do something truly different. And for the love of, I dunno, something, stop whining.



Moving on to the topic of Women vs. Girls. I really must mention that I'm NOT a misogynist, even if I continuously crack jokes of that ilk. I just think they're marvelously sarcastic. I also am all for women having the same human rights as men, as we are all human. So here we go:

I absolutely can't stand girls.

I'm learning to treat them with love, but I really don't like them, and have, in the past, loathed them.

I do, however, love women.

I've always admired real women, and have always wondered why "female" did not always equal "woman."

Let's discuss- my topic here really hinges on definitions, and so I'll define what I'm talking about by "woman" and by "girl":

--By Girl I do not mean anything to do with age. Young girls (age-wise) can be women, since I do not think the traits of Woman or Girl have anything to do with one's age. Anyways, by Girl I mean the snotty, catty, pecking-order-queenish, mean kinds of female. The kind that are always evaluating everybody else out of jealousy and spite, always nit-picking insignificant things such as hair, weight, smell, clothes, yadda yadda (please note that I don't think that it's wrong to pay any attention to these things. I'm talking about obsession here).

The kind who (to my greatest personal disdain) refuse to get their pretty nails dirty and view men as either simpletons whose sole purpose in life is to be enticed and teased by pretty females or as complete misogynistic scum.

Girls are mean. Girls are nasty and cruel to everybody, male and female.

--Women, on the other hand, are entirely different. Let's use the good 'ole idea of Women in the Kitchen. You know (hopefully) what it's like to walk into the kitchen and your mom or aunt has baked something delightfully tasty? What you're coming into contact with isn't a Woman's Job or something like that, you're experiencing a bit of what a Woman is like: generosity, kindness, a care for people outside herself. Of course she didn't have to make you cookies. She just did.

Real women are people who are generous, kind, strong people who aren't afraid of getting their nails dirty, even broken, and put others first. They're capable and real- earthy and beautiful. Of course, getting fancy and dressed up happens, that's fine. But clothes and fanciness aren't what define a person, any person.



Some closing thoughts- Men share the same qualities as real women do, but I'm not here to discuss the differences between Men and Women (no one will ever understand- which, contrary to what people seem to think now, is great. More on that later). I wanted to briefly mention my definitions of Women and Girls, and my thoughts on them. Of course I didn't define what a Woman really is- that's too complex, same as trying to define a Man would be. I think I accomplished my goals for the moment.

Wishing for Everything and Nothing At All

I got bored with the old layout, so I changed it. But you knew that. I like that the banner makes it seem like I will be talking about a knowledgeable, techish sort of subject (or maybe some horrible sort of "Indie" topic), as opposed to artish stuff and Observations and the occasional random Other Post (which there have been too many of).

I also got quite bored with the NI3 story as it has been- so I changed it a bit too. The next page that goes up will be the beginning of the story, with good ol' use of the flashback to illustrate the part that has been drawn up so far.

I have been so very, very bored, for a very long time, and this is not a good thing. Sooner or later something, something big and highly interesting, will happen, and hopefully it won't interfere with my school too terribly much.

With all that said, I think I'll have to create categories: NI3, Observations, and Other. And *that* being said, I might have to put up something about my thoughts on "Indie" and girls vs. women.