4th down addendum

Seattle went for the first down on fourth, not once, but twice in Monday's game.

Hell yes. That's why they're my team.

Proof that sometimes, sometimes you just gotta hang your balls out there and go for it all... and it'll be worth it...

the one, one...

Well, this goes way back, about 8 years I believe. I'm not going to start in on how this began, but I have many of these things that say 'I'm the one' on them. I guess I'll upload them all eventually.

This is the first one I drew. I made it in Painter 5 I think on one of those old timey giant Wacom tablet that were like 8 feet across...

bubbles

When a bubble forms, it pushes everything around it out and away from the center. Inside there is a place that is untouched by what is beyond the bubble. Often times, with most bubbles it's just air inside. And the bubble's surface tension holds it together until whatever stuff the surface is made of collects in one area more than another across it's surface, then the bubble bursts as air slips between the molecules.

Now, while it is a generally accepted notion that people suffocate when their oxygen runs out, this is actually not true. What happens when trapped in a space, like a bubble let's say, where there is no means of ventilation, the body expels high concentrations of carbon dioxide, and will die of carbon dioxide poisoning as opposed to asphyxiating. Asphyxiation is the deprivation of oxygen altogether, which typically occurs when no air can be taken into the lungs whatsoever.

My horoscope today told me I'm not satisfied with the way things appear on the surface, that I have a deeper vision of what love should be, and I want to 'manifest' it in my life. If I fail to achieve this, I may slip into fantasies to make it appear real in my imagination.

Great.

I suppose the case can be made that a bubble bursting may actually save your life...

hair-face and anime-boy

These two go together only because they found their way onto the flatbed in the same go. I draw stuff like this in a space about the size of your hand, not really that big, but I guess about average. I'd say I tend towards the small size in terms of my drawings. The fun part about that is you generally use the texture of your line work to give the impression of details, rather than explicity drawing the details itself. It makes for some fascinating line quality. That is something you can expect me to make many posts about in the future....

4th down

It's 4th down, and I'm not kicking. I never bought that strategy.

Kicking on 4th just says, 'yeah, we suck, we f'd up, here's the ball, we quit'

I don't care what you may think of that. I understand the strategy of containing the enemy, limiting his gains and all that, but you don't win if you don't gamble. And I'm just one of those unfortunate souls who refuses to give in way past the point of any common sense and cleverness, who refuses to let control go out of his hands. I guess that's right what it comes down to.

So, yes, I am a stubborn dumbass, and have been bitten by my strategy of not kicking on 4th when anyone half as smart as me would.

In fact more times than not I have had my teeth kicked because of my view on this.

And I can't stand admitting it, but life has been teaching me to kick on 4th.

I hate it.

It feels like bending my elbows backwards.

The end zone is conviction and nothing is standing my way, even if I end up mulched against an iron wall... which is the case, more often than not.

It's an ugly truth.

the trouble with war

Aftermath.

Ghosts that haunt dark places, unexpectedly touching your shoulder as you pass by.

Scattered remains, charred; an assualt on the memories.

The smell, dry like charcoal.

Panic and fear are still dark waters at the bottom of your body, they are heavy stones dragging down your soul.

The place where your eye falls upon the broken landscape, searching.

For the defiant beauty, to peirce the dark veil, like a knife in reverse:

the wound of life across death's cheek.


*****

You know, it's not arranged very well at, as verse, or prose, but I think you get the idea. I wrote all this shit down awhile back actually, and it has sat around for some time... I guess you readers who read this all the time remember back in the day when I spoke of the 50 plus blogs that sit around like deformed aborted children, soulless husks belched up from the sixth dimension...

I'm trying to say its just a bunch of words, incomplete thoughts, emotions hacked at by a butcher possessed of too much zeal for his work.

But I think you get the point.

the dog from hell

I can hear
a woman
down a concrete
corridor

sobbing

the ratcheting
of her cries

like fishhooks in her
lungs

or the wet slapping
of meat
on lonely cement walls

I can't get it right.

If a hammer were... something... something important, good, and useful... and the nail was... something also important... important in a way that is wholesome and good, you know... it contains some nutritional value...

It seems all I've managed to do is smash my fingers.

Entropy and the machine

I run. I'm a runner. It was really the best thing I was good at. I was fast. At my best I could pass the second fastest guy in high school, giving 110%, and could about achieve neck and neck with the number 1 guy pushing that to 120%. Damn he was fast. Somehow I felt like I was pushing myself until all my parts would just come apart and explode, like a race car will, pushed to the limit. And he never seemed as tweaked as I felt, but at least I made him work for it.

These were sprints. Long runs I wasn't much good for. I've been told by my doctor, who works to undo all the muscle damage I have now, that people usually fall into two categories, ones where the nerves fire all the muscles at once, and those were the muscles have a 'slower rate of fire' and so don't tire out so fast. I guess the trade is speed for endurance. I would've been a good receiver in football I suppose, but I'm so skinny I'd probably have been broken in half before getting to college.

At any rate, there isn't much exciting to tell here, expect that fifteen years after high school, it's not the muscles that bitch all day, it's the joints. Finally... finally they have all gotten together, organized some kind of committee and unanimously voted to go on strike. And I have to tell you, this time I better give into their demands. My ankles are bad, they've actually been swelling, which can happen with damaged ankles, and mine are hurting from the last couple runs I've gone on. I hope it's not gout at any rate, which is the other possibility... My knees are complaining equally. The right hates stairs... the left hates turning corners.

Goddamn bitches, the lot... but like public transportation, the city that is me would grind to hault if I didn't give them every benefit they ask for.

Ice seems to shut them up at least, but I need to find out what else they need. Maybe some good old fashioned deep tissue, acupressure, or myotherapy is in order... bastards...

Thank God I have them around...

meet Mr. Huxtable

Mr. Huxtable is the quintessential boy in a wooden box. I'm not sure what goes on inside that box, but I am convinced somehow that it is essential for his continued existence. The two wheels is another thing that baffles me, but somehow he remains upright. I imagine he is some sort primitive iron-and-gears 'Segway' created by dark magic.

He was christened Mr. Huxtable by Kevin, and the drawing was done on a Toshiba Tablet PC in Alias Sketchbook, provided by Jurco. I need to get me one of those someday...

Rust.

Seriously.

Okay, so what the hell has happened to Los Angeles? Daylight Savings Time has paid us a visit. Come and gone. All Souls has raised the dead and left them to rot in the past. And for the last several days, *everyone* in Los Angeles is driving like an old lady.

To be fair, many of them are, in fact, old ladies, but this isn't the point. Los Angeles has plenty of drivers to be sure, but what I've encountered is boggling my brain. They are driving slow. Real slow. Like 20 mph in 35 or 40 mph zones.

Anyone who has driven in Los Angeles knows that traffic is retarded, there's a hojillion drivers on the road every second second of the day, and gridlock can be had as readily as oxygen is acquired simply by expanding one's lungs.

Well, that explains why they drive slow, right? First off, what should be in the previous paragraph but isn't because I've already passed into this paragraph, is that, when given *any* opportunity, drivers here will stand on it.

God, I love that phrase, and I had no notion I'd use it here in this post. "Stand on it." Brilliant.

So here you have a fair understanding of Los Angeles traffic. Too many drivers who all want to go fast, right now. I'm sure you understand that this equation produces assholes. Let me explain.

((too many drivers)^2 * speed) / time = assholes

You see that science can predict what happens in large industrialized areas without futuristic public transportation. But that isn't the point. What science *cannot* predict, is the random periods of time when LA drivers drive ridiculously slow. As I stated five paragraphs ago, drivers having been driving at an unusually slow speed recently.

What you might expect to explain this is the aforementioned gridlock, however, I have observed no unusual increase in the volume of traffic. In fact, in one example I can give, there were four cars ahead of me traveling 10 mph under the posted speed limit. These four cars occupied up to a quarter mile. A QUARTER MILE. FOUR CARS. There is obviously plenty of space for four cars in a quarter mile to attain a speed matching a moderate amount of speed, up to and including 35 mph. But this isn't happening. Allow science to explain.

((too many drivers)^2) * (traffic volume + gridlock) / time = assholes * WTF?

The conundrum is that for inexplicable reasons people are driving too slow to get anywhere in a reasonable amount of time.

And the result is that I am pissed off. I have places to go. You see, I too, am a LA driver. So get out of my Goddamn way. Now.



The point to all of this is, I haven't written a blog in nearly three weeks. I wasn't sure I'd remember how.