Gaming Craft

I like gaming. The social aspect is fun, yes, and story telling, but it's this whole crafting/art project portion that really hooks me.

As I've aged I'm finding it a little harder to just make things willy nilly without thought as to why or for what purpose. I've tucked about as many little monsters about the house as Adam will let me. I've given ones to many friends and all family members. Why make more things? Well, making things is FUN! But... why? That's where gaming comes in. Now I'm making not just "something" but rather a prop or an accessory. A visual aid for something that involves more people than just me. Purpose.

Up until this point I've mostly been playing in games but 2016 is the year I dip my toe in trying to run them. Picked up the D&D 5e suite of books/rules and have run 2 little one-shot games for my friends. Wouldn't say they've been that successful but I've definitely enjoyed having friends over and having an excuse to think creatively. The first game involved a 2 level map where I drew the ground on graph paper and then had a tree branch level drawn with dry erase markers on a glass shelf (resting on several cardboard tube tree trunks). The second involved a dungeon map slowly revealed as people explored it.

Turns out peeling off square by painful square of "fog of war" isn't super fun. Also, candy colored "fog of war" really doesn't add to the "dungeon crawl" vibe... The problem wasn't the taping down (that actually worked super well) but just the general scrabbling for a hold on tiny paper piece in order to pick up. One takeaway from it though was that drawing the map was a good exercise in thinking about the story and helping me build out an idea. Drawing is my best way of building a narrative- something I've known for a while.

Another delightful gaming craft recently worked on was the Rogue Trader Yu'Vath Battlestation Assault Plan. Given a rather math-y description of a patrolling ships around a point of interest, friend Nate and I wrote a little simulator to help find the best approach. Mind you, this is for a game I'm not even in. Was thrilled to have a valid reason to use the three.js library again and limber up my mind, wrapping it around 3D math/space/modeling. Not sure how long Nate will host it for, but the simulation is up at this site right now. [code posted on Github]

While not really a craft, I've found games (mine but especially others') to be an excellent source of sketching and art. Friend Kelly drew the characters from a game and then flattered me by asking to help with inking/coloring it. I appreciate that with her effort/interest/involvement I managed to overcome the wall of white space most my sketches hang in and provide the vaguest of something for background (drawing backgrounds being my majorly failed 2015 New Years resolution). Never mind the fact that it's mostly a munged photo I found on the Internet...

I was going to follow this up with several more gaming sketches but alas this week's plot didn't get far enough...

Along the gaming craft tangent: applying game content to other activities. Friend Suko and I continue our once-a-month shooting. I've marked my arrows with names of 4th Terminus characters and not only does it help me improve my aim/track my shot history but it also tells a story with every round. "Oh Hayley, once again going off target. Morgan, always flies true. Jayce, right where I send him and look at that- the Jaya arrow is snug up against him. Again." What I need to do now is figure out a better way to label the arrows. Right now I've scribbled the names on the nocks (over half of which need to be re-aligned) but the ink rubs off so easily there.... Anyway, the important take away is that once I named my arrows and could track which offset/corrections were needed for each I was able to hit the bullseye three times with the arrow named Jaya. Just saying. The other arrows need to start pulling their weight.

In conclusion gaming is fun. Friends are great, telling stories with them is a fantastic way to pass the time, and using said content to overlay on other actives makes everything better.

Drawing 2016

Started the new year off right with an intense bout of sketching. On Friday I spent ~8 hours in front of the Cintiq and Saturday I followed up with a couple more.

Drawing that much in one continuos flow felt great. The pictures themselves I don't know, but the feeling was fantastic. If I could draw like that more often I'm pretty sure I'd actually get better. Last night I had a vivid dream that I was still sketching, woke up partially and continued to feel it. "Gotta' make sure I save..." I remember thinking. This amuses me because it's the same sort of sleep processing feeling I get when I'm coming up to speed on a new programming language.

The main resolution last year that I completely bombed was "learn to draw landscapes" and it's definitely one I still want to try to tackle this year. And by landscapes I mostly just mean backgrounds, even the faintest of hints, for my sketches....

Using Clip Studio Paint as my primary sketching app & then doing colors/fill in Photoshop is working out quite well. I'm in love with the smoothing CSP does to the lines and I love the sensitivity options on the Pen & Pencil tools. I'm often jumping to the Marquee tool to reposition/resize my sketching as I go and often toggle back to the Pen tool by accident for a couple of strokes when I actually wanted the Pencil tool (both toggle on the P key). This has given an interesting sort of pacing/cadence to the the line sketching. Light feathery lines (Pencil), correction (Marquee), a few bold strokes (Pen), repeat.

Still feeling quite restrained in what I'm drawing though. Only used a pinch of photo references for the non-human elements but all subjects/scenes were from gaming sessions. Descriptions I heard or read. None of the crazy emo feeling sketches that spill out from my pen when I reach down inside and try to personify what the fuck is going on in there. Maybe next time.

Winning and Gaming

Life goes on, like it does. Things continue to be reasonably well. I am sad that I failed to post something in March. We visited Hawaii, it was nice, hopefully photos will make their way online at some point.

I've had some minor successes here and there recently that please me. While camping at the start of the month I was Mistress of the Campfire and managed to start several fires (in the fire pit) with one match each. This makes me proud. In the last seven months I've managed to lose 10 pounds and am only about 3 away from my randomly-chosen target. In that same time frame I've gone off the pill, and despite initial fear/uncertainty stayed off of it. While I struggle with Feelings, less reliable biology, more Feelings, and whatnot I think being free of it has improved a lot of things in life. When I ask Adam if he's noticed any change his immediate response is "You want to draw all the time."

At work I've been more assertive and involved in more external facing stuff. On a recent call the folks on the other side of the line said something along the lines of my introduction being the best they've ever heard and they were happy/excited to work with me. I continue to "Make an Impression" on people. It helps that I finally feel like the non-engineers I'm working with respect me. While my hatred and loathing of Python blossoms by the day, I've been able to carve out work for myself in Java and it's a delight.

On the art side I've had several crafting successes that makes me extremely pleased with myself. The feeling of having an idea, executing on it, and having it not suck is incredibly delightful- and sadly still quite rare. My sketching is still sporadic- I've fallen off the "morning sketch" routine and ache to return to it- but at least I'm sketching sometimes. Tonight at Dr. Sketchy's I finally won again (2nd place) which always makes me happier than it should.

On the other hand, there's been some gaming. Definitely no winning there. Have been mostly having fun, but so not winning. Except for one game of Pandemic, which was won... but when I think back on it, I'm pretty sure we were cheating...

Extended 4th Terminus session was fun- there was a map and even some dice rolls! But sadly there was also NPC deaths and damage, despite all efforts. And the party is split. And who knows when we'll ever game together again. The end is nigh.

Played my first LARP character this weekend. Burying oneself in costuming does in fact help with nerves! Does not magically help you win however. Upon hearing my character's description, Adam asked if I was worried about being typecast, to which my response was simply :P

Game of Thrones is a horrible game. It may not displace Caylus as Worst Game (since Caylus has fundamentally broken gameplay in my opinion) but it displaces Power Grid for certain as Most Unpleasant To Play. Will I ever get to play Puerto Rico again? At least Adam and I played a couple hands of Race for the Galaxy and while he (as always) won the 2 of 3 set, I put up a solid fight each round.

Life goes on, like it does.

Thems Blogger Rules Changes

Just wanted to post that the upcoming Blogger changes are bullshit and will probably be enough to finally motivate me to find a different service. Blogger is free, so I guess I can't complain. You get what you pay for. But still, there's a lot of artists blogs out there I'm worried about. I don't think my content would get me in trouble, but with fuzzy lines like these, who knows?

Context: Google Changes Content Policy To Prohibit Adult Material On Blogger Platform Starting March 23 (official post here )

However, under the new policy Google will continue to allow some nudity, as long as it “offers a substantial public benefit, for example in artistic, educational, documentary, or scientific contexts.”

"Substantial" Oh good, we're going with an undefined individual's opinion here. That's some substantial bullshit right there.

In other news, patterns are hard. Photoshop makes them a bit easier with the fantastical Offset Filter, but technology can only help you so much. I think I lack some key "randomness" vibes... Also, I think I need to re-draft the pattern with an offset repeat rather than aligned up repeat.

And now to start poking around for other blogging options...

January is taking forever

How are we not yet in February? Ugh. I'm feeling pretty done with this month already...

It wasn't all bad though. Adam and I caught the Cirque show Kurious, which was delightful. I was distrustful when someone told me it had great clowning, but really, it has great clowning! Mesmerizing! Would recommend the show.

This was followed up by the Edwardian Ball. I swore last year I wouldn't go but there I was again, all dressed up two nights in a row, hauling my sketching supplies. This year's new reveal: LED tea lights! Solves the "can't see my sketch" problem! Would be nice if they were a pinch brighter, but the grip, size, and slightly fluctuating luminosity are great.

There was a sketch artist there, officially set up in the VIP balcony. I spent the entire second half of Saturday night camped out behind him, enjoying lovely dressed folks standing still for long periods of time with excellent lighting for them and my page. (Friday sketches posted over here) The artist was Ben Walker and his ability to knock out full body sketches of two people in such a brief period of time was impressive.

Most people ignored me sketching off to the side but there was one couple who made a point to come over before their pose, say hi, and request a sketch. Very nice, very friendly, pretty drunk people. I took a cell phone photo afterwards, comparing Mr. Walker's style to my own. It's a shocking reminder that I need to learn to draw FASTER. At the end of the night I tore the sketch out of my book and happily handed it over the the couple and-- I swear, for the first time ever-- someone tried to tip me. True, he was pretty drunk, but hey! It made me happy! I politely declined, but it's the thought that counts. Later he came back around again with a tarot deck he had purchased and was randomly handing out cards to folks he had talked with. Was a cute idea, I still have my Temperance that I drew propped up on the desk.

Keeping busy

Been doing a lot of things these days. November feels like it breezed right past and we're about to trip over the middle of December any day now. Crazy, that...

Been keeping busy lately. More production, less consumption. A couple things in brief about consumption.

• Birdman was great. You should go see it
• True Detective rocked my world. You should watch it.
• Interstellar is lame. You should avoid it.
• Inherent Vice is great. You should go see it when it comes out, but don't expect to understand/catch half the dialog
• Big Hero 6 is incredibly predictable but very lovely and hilarious. I laughted out loud multiple times in the theater. Also seeing animated Japan!SF was fun.
• I think American Horror story this season is good... I bought a season pass but just can't seem to find the time to watch the last...4? episodes. I'll get to 'em... eventually.
• I'm stalled out in the middle of In The Woods and it's blocking me from starting anything new/better. >:-/

In terms of production, I've been drawing a lot. Haven't tackled many backgrounds, like I'd hoped to, but I'm working on some composition/layout stuff and "coloring" in monochrome. My True Detective fan art has been fun and gotten me the most "Likes" of anything I've posted on Tumblr. Been coding a bit in my spare time, which feels nice. I think it's because of all the rain we've been getting here this winter. So easy to stay inside and draw or code when it's so shitty out.

A nice union of drawing and coding not too long ago was a Blogger page with my 4th Terminus character lineup on it. Turns out there's too many dudes to nicely put in one static image... and I've handfuls of more characters that I should sketch! Going for just a basic silhouette and minimal character features is super easy and very fun! Check out my 4th Terminus page in general incase you'd like to know more about that game I keep talking about. And here's a picture of my character around the start of last session. Good times!

Am really looking forward to the long winter break. Adam and I are psyched to be just saying around town doing nothing, no joke.

Nest of thoughts

Oh no, a post lacking photos! How dull! Very Livejournal-ish, let me spare you the effort:

TLDR: I'm really bad at drawing backgrounds/landscapes. I need to practice, but that sounds like work. Ugh.

---

When we were younger, my mother would frequently reference the idea of doors closing with age. Opportunities lost as time passed. I would never be a Olympic gymnist. I would never be a ballerina. It isn't always age that closes a door, often it's intent. I'll never be a poet, I'll never be a chemist, I'll never be an economist. This idea has always stayed with me.

There aren't many things that have passed me by that I honestly regret going. Sure, I wish I was athletic enough to be a circus performer, but that's not a realistic interest. I mention this, because I'm dwelling lately on whether my ability to "level up" at drawing has passed me by.

Most things are a matter of will, so why don't I just "try harder"? The problem I'm facing these days is I'm blanking on how to draw backgrounds. I simply have no idea what to put there. I know in a vague hand-waving way what I want to see, but the technical execution of pen hitting paper (or screen) escapes me.

I enjoy analogies and parallels, especially across my interest. Quilting and algorithms strike me as similar. To me, drawing is similar to data structures. It's the distilling and modeling of reality into this other medium. Failure to sketch landscapes/environments/backgrounds then translates into... what? Perhaps it's like you're describing a problem and don't know how to model it. It's not that I can't figure out the steps, it's that I can't figure out the very thing itself. Like I didn't know about a map or linked list or something.

Unlike the many things that I'm not good at, I'm finding this to be increasingly distressing. The lovely tabletop game I'm in has some delightful descriptions in it and I can easily "see" a scene. I know, as the description unfolds, what's there and my mental image remains consistent throughout the scene and often across sessions. But what am I seeing if I can't sketch it? I'm so confused.

Suko, one of the players, has taken to making audio recordings of the sessions which she then transcribes to everyone's delight and benefit. It's a monstrous outgrowth of her perviously daunting activity of taking notes during the session and then writing them up. Aside from rapturous joy, these transcripts also bring a sense of despair. I now, better than ever, can reflect on the descriptions given and then hold my pen at the ready, doing nothing. A lovely example from the last session:

They walk through the tunnel out onto a gently rolling hillock. On one side we see stretched before us, low buildings made of stone and metal roofs. The moon is hanging over them. It is sort of magical.

It flows into another hillock, over which hangs the other moon. At the top of that hillock are two people, backlit by the moon, sitting and holding hands.

And to the left, starting slowly at first but then growing to a veritable mound, nay, a hill, nay a mount...of bones. Bleached white and gleaming in the moonlight. Skulls. Femurs. Ribcages.

I totally know what that looks like. Except I apparently don't because I've tried twice now to frame the shot and end up with some really weak squiggles.

In a pervious game I sat and watched a fellow player sketch out the dramatic scene we were playing out right then and there. I can't recall a time in recent history where I felt such a intense stabbing, burning feeling of envy. It's been over three years and I still dwell on it.

The worst part is that I think I know what I need to do. Am I going to fail simply because I can't bring myself to take the correct actions? Possibly. In order to draw scenes and backgrounds for my characters, I need to be able to draw scenes and backgrounds without characters, which means I need to practice just drawing landscapes (and cityscapes, and interiors).

I hate landscapes. I mean, I can sort of appreciate an illustration or photo of a landscape (I don't *actually* hate them, the way I do poetry. Ugh, poetry...) but they're really quite booooring. Have you seen my photography compared to Adam's? All my shots have subjects right there in them, front and center (more like 2/3rds to the right) where as Adam's are sweeping shots of things far away. Buildings or a hill or a subject-less city-scape. It's his thing, our travel photos benifit from the mixture of our contributions.

Practice makes perfect. Drawing landscapes sounds like a pile of homework. I haven't done homework in nearly 10 years. Am I willing to put in the practice to get better? I hope so. I worry though.

I'm going to go buy a book tomorrow of landscapes and attempt to sketch from it-- finding digital references is just another avoidance tactic I've found. I really, really, really hope I find the strength to focus and work on this. Right now it sounds comparable to chewing glass.

Worken' on things

If I try hard, I might be able to finish this quilt before Thanksgiving, keeping it under a year of work. Am excited to try the idea of laying down masking tape as guide lines when I get to the actual quilting portion.

Been seeing a lot of people lately, doing a lot of things. This is good. Behind me is pizza, soap making, pretzel making, dinner cooking, and gaming. Ahead of me is archery, gaming, and hopefully more dinner cooking. I have finally cooked a meal with meat, I feel so proud of myself. Want to try it again. Thanks, Hannibal, for showing me the way!

Got a lot of things going on at work. I hope this is a good thing. Learning more things. Working a bit on things that I actually use daily in my not-work life. Trying to be a good person and actually follow through with quality documentation and faster email responses. It's hard. Being lazy is way easier. Shout-out to my awesome manager who leads via good example on those fronts.

One of the problems about work going well though is that it makes side code projects hard to do. I've been really wanting to work with WebGL but can't seem to find the energy after a day of work-- and weekends are meant to be spent entirely outside, in my opinion. I got a Cardboard headset from unofficialcardboard.com and haven't yet made something for it.

So instead of coding I've been finding myself drawing a lot. The morning doodles have decreased in number due to poor sleep... but on the other hand, when I do doodle half the time I've got crazy dream inspiration. Drawing while on a flight remains solid as well-- I made some progress trying to draw the character Hayley on a recent short flight. Dr Sketchy's this month also went quite well.

The 4th Terminus game has been going quite well. Playing Monster Hearts was interesting. Winning at Tigris & Euphrates and losing at Glass Road was fun and makes me sad that we don't play more board games.

Ac-Cent-Tchu-Ate the Positive

My Oculus Rift arrived yesterday and I have no Windows machine to run it with (and they've still not released the Mac SDK). So rather than fall into a pit of despair, let's focus on some recent positives.

Visited my parents in Vancouver two weekends ago. Lounged in my verdant childhood backyard and gobbled a number of fruits and veggies right off the vine. Saw The Book of Mormon. Did a lot of reading.

Our head of Engineering keeps bringing in veggies from his garden, a most kind and appreciated gesture. On a Friday my posse & I made squash/everything/anything cookies. Too much egg resulted in them being more like mini muffins than cookies... but still good! The whole squash that was grated and tossed in did no harm!

Visited Seattle last weekend for a wedding. The planets aligned and my sisters were both in town as well (for their own Washington based weddings to attend). Always disturbing to see which parts of you come from your family, visible in the looks and behaviors of siblings. Weddings that prominently feature Jesus and preach about marriage belonging only to men and women are aaaaaawkward.

I've been carefully grooming a playlist themed on my character Jaya from the 4th Terminus game. Good times, been listening to it a lot. A lot. Have found myself doodling while sitting on airplanes (a disturbingly common occurrence lately) and I've been running through my list of tabletop characters but frequently finding myself back to drawing Jaya.

I've been pushing numbers around at work lately. Wringing my hands frantically wishing load times to be faster. Pulling at my hair trying to extract meaningful information from a pile of logged data. I appreciate the diversity of work for my current team- writing SQL statements, poking at iOS code, still battling JavaScript, and possibly getting better at python (I still hate python)

I saw Snowpiercer in theaters. Twice. Damn fine film. Most excellent. Best thing I've seen in a long while. I felt good while watching it, like someone hitting a hard to reach itch. Have finally escaped my horror shlump of reading material and am back on a good kick of distopian material. Am on book 3 of the Silo series (which starts with Wool). The author, Hugh Howey seems like a cool guy. Finally read Starship Troopers. Am looking forward to the new Mad Max movie coming out in 2015.

My old art blog just passed 10k views.

Tumblr is best thing

I've been fond of Tumblr for some time now, and that fondness has only grown with my usage of it. Started in on a wordy write-up on why I liked Tumblr so much, but I'm not feeling it. Brain is in image mode, not text mode I guess. The above sketch is from a work weeks' worth of morning warm up sketches, drawn while I sipped my tea before leaving the house. All of them are drawn from reference, see the tumblr post for links.

Ask me about it in person some time, I'd love to wave my hands about and rant why Tumblr is so marvelous. I don't think it is the single solution for all Internet things (see, I'm still posting on Blogger), but I find great value in what it provides and no end in sight for the delights found there. Distilled: animated gifs, fan art, community, content creation, reference photos, and simple interactions.

I continue to favor it as a dumping grounds for artwork. Currently the artwork chain goes Tumblr -> Flickr -> Blogger.

Was in Barcelona last week attending a Music Hack Day event for work. There was a minimum team size of 2 so I worked with a Paul fellow on making a web monome (he had a real monome that you could plug in and use with the site) [Github repo][Site]

It's 11:36pm and I haven't been hit with jet lag pains yet... am almost frightened by that. I don't worry about sleeping either since my eyes are already heavy, now as I type...

Two tones of good

I've just finished two books, both of which I deeply loved. They both feature strong women. Romance, to some degree, is touched upon in both. The nature of a successful relationship as well. Mystery, intrigue, action. Good books, I'd recommend all to read both though they are deeply different. It amuses me to say of both "This is what a fabulous female character is like. Why can't more characters be written like this?This shows the workings of an excellent relationship. Behold and take note! Study it!"

For one of these I say it with an ernest, honest tone. Heartfelt, friendly, wistful. Possibly a little teary eyed. That book would be Valor and Vanity by Mary Robinette Kowal (book 4 of 5 in the Glamorist Histories series)

The other I say with a smirk. With a grin and a wink. With the same tone that I confess my love of Cerci from Game of Thrones with and declare Silence of the Lambs to be the most romantic film ever. That book would be Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn.

Look away to avoid potential spoilers after the picture of Jane.

Jane of Valor and Vanity is so fucking sensible, it hurts. She's plane looking and normal. Times get tough, things get complicated, mistakes are made, but she keeps a level head. She does the things that need to be done, even when they're hard-- which frequently means emotionally hard rather than physically hard. She talks about issues, rather than letting them fester. Reading all of Jane's stories makes me happy, I'll probably cry after the next book comes out- I don't want it all to end. I wish I could have read this series when I was younger- here is an admirable but relatable character that strives to do the right thing and is a good, believable role model.

Amy's mind is amazing. The cadence, the logic, the poetry of her thoughts are seductive. Reading Gillian Flynn's writing was like drinking hot chocolate. How can you not love this: "... [we] fit together. I am a little too much, and he is a little too little. I am a thornbush, bristling from the over attention of my parents, and he is a man of a million little fatherly stab wounds, and my thorns fit perfectly into them" I itch to include a couple other quotes (oh Kindle highlights, how I love you!) but they'd be too spoiler-y... Amy's planning and commitment is admirable. She is without a doubt strong. She knows what she wants and she takes great efforts to obtain it. I wish I could be as strong and powerful as Amy.

Jane is the person I actually want to be, in real life. Amy is the person I like to imagine being, the ideal role-play character I wish I could play.

I wish all books I read starred such fully formed and compelling female leads.

(p.s. - I also just finished Ready Player One which I wish I had in book form so that I could throw it across the fucking room in rage. Reads like a Young Adult novel- which is fine, I read lots of those- but I wasn't expecting that and in the end all the "lessons" and "morals" and "take aways" from the story are shit/non-existant. At the end of it all the young white boy "wins" the love of the young white girl. She's just sitting there at the end, like some prize. Nothing challenging happened, there was no self reflection or growth. Waste of my time, I regret reading it)

Dreams

Nobody really want's to hear someone else's dream recollection. But I drew some pictures for mine! So maybe that makes this blog post ever so slightly less horrible...

I've been having several bad dreams recently. Cannibalism, not cool. Anyway, this one starts off and I'm somewhere and I notice there's these little creatures. They're almost cute, but a touch too disturbing. They're made up of a normal animal and where that animal's head should be, there's the torso of another animal. Not a graceful gryphon like transition... sort of a cut off & this other thing stuck on look.

In particular there's a rat with a rabbit top and a rabbit with a tiny adorable black kitten top.

The kitten is hungry. There's this... deer thing laying there. It's basically a deer but has a long chicken like neck that's mostly plucked. I try and convince the kitten to eat it-- it tentatively takes a bite of the animal's neck-- but it's a no go. I understand that if the deer-thing was dead the cute kitten would be able to eat it.

I go out looking for knives to kill the deer-thing with. Nothing I find is large enough or sharp enough to do the deed. I start to get squeamish. I contemplate looking up online where one cuts a deer's throat. Is it up high? At the base? In the end I acknowledge the fact that even if I had a knife, I probably wouldn't kill the deer-thing. Also, I think the deer thing has a human face now (curse you, Midwinter!).

I contemplate never eating red meat again.

I wake up

A couple more sketches can be found over on my Tumblr...

Two fictional stories about not nice people.

I recently went to go see The Wolf of Wall Street and read American Psycho. The first was about a horrible person doing horrible things and getting away from it. So was the second one. American Psycho's horrible acts were far more horrible, but for some reason I found the story much more worth while.

DiCaprio's Belfort was an obvious asshole that I in no way could relate to. Everyone around him was an asshole. There was no fall from grace, no real victims other then the faceless folks on the other side of all those telephone lines, who we only vaguely understand are being hurt.

Ellis's Bateman is an asshole that is a tangled mess of things at his core. His friends are assholes, but in a way that I can almost draw parallels to myself and people around me. There are victims, some are assholes but none deserve what Bateman does to them, described in horribly clear detail.

It's unfair to compare a book to a film given the difference in length (though the movie is 3 hours long!!) and the fact that we can glimps into Bateman's inner narrative (though Belfort does speak directly to the audience a number of times). I can't really recommend either to anyone... though will probably recommend American Psycho. Just... brace yourself. After I saw Pan's Labyrinth there was a Q&A with Guillermo del Toro. When asked about the degree of violence used in the film and the need for it, del Toro responded with something along the lines of "It's like doing a deep tissue massage to the soul, to try and reach the point where you will react to the violence" (a quote lifted from some other Q&A by him). That's American Psycho.

I'm a fan of zombie films for a number of reasons and I feel like if you disassembled a good zombie film, specifically Dawn of the Dead (1978), riffle shuffled bits of it together like a deck of cards, and dealt a new hand you could end up with something like this book.

Rather then mutter on too abstractly or incoherantly, I'll just add a couple quotes from the book that I liked for some reason or another. Also, I'd like to recomment Clippings Converter as a service to manage any Kindle notes or highlights one might make.

“Hey Price,” Preston says. “Do you have one?”
“Yeah,” Price sighs. “If all of your friends are morons is it a felony, a misdemeanor or an act of God if you blow their fucking heads off with a thirty-eight magnum?”
“Not GQ material,” McDermott says. “Try Soldier of Fortune.”
“Or Vanity Fair.” Van Patten.

I’m on the verge of tears by the time we arrive at Pastels since I’m positive we won’t get seated but the table is good, and relief that is almost tidal in scope washes over me in an awesome wave.

For dinner I order the shad-roe ravioli with apple compote as an appetizer and the meat loaf with chèvre and quail-stock sauce for an entrée. She orders the red snapper with violets and pine nuts and for an appetizer a peanut butter soup with smoked duck and mashed squash which sounds strange but is actually quite good.

I was both in awe and horrified with the food described in the book. It was detailed just another faucet of the casts' souless consumerism but... but... but... it's exactly how Adam and I have behave :( All the food so carefully catalogued with ridiculous detail sounded so exciting and good....

J&B I am thinking. Glass of J&B in my right hand I am thinking. Hand I am thinking. Charivari. Shirt from Charivari. Fusilli I am thinking. Jami Gertz I am thinking. I would like to fuck Jami Gertz I am thinking. Porsche 911. A sharpei I am thinking. I would like to own a sharpei. I am twenty-six years old I am thinking. I will be twenty-seven next year. A Valium. I would like a Valium. No, two Valium I am thinking. Cellular phone I am thinking.

“The client had the boudin blanc, the roasted chicken and the cheesecake,” he says.
“Cheesecake?” I say, confused by this plain, alien-sounding list. “What sauce or fruits were on the roasted chicken? What shapes was it cut into?”
“None, Patrick,” he says, also confused. “It was … roasted.”
“And the cheesecake, what flavor? Was it heated?” I say. “Ricotta cheesecake? Goat cheese? Were there flowers or cilantro in it?”
“It was just … regular,” he says, and then, “Patrick, you’re sweating.”
“What did she have?” I ask, ignoring him. “The client’s bimbo.”
“Well, she had the country salad, the scallops and the lemon tart,” Luis says.
“The scallops were grilled? Were they sashimi scallops? In a ceviche of sorts?” I’m asking. “Or were they gratinized?”
“No, Patrick,” Luis says. “They were … broiled.”
It’s silent in the boardroom as I contemplate this, thinking it through before asking, finally, “What’s ‘broiled,’ Luis?”
“I’m not sure,” he says. “I think it involves … a pan.”

and it struck me that I was infinitely better-looking, more successful and richer than this poor bastard would ever be and so with a passing rush of sympathy I smiled and nodded a curt though not impolite good morning

“Doin’ the crossword?” dropping the g in “doing”—a pathetic gesture of intimacy, an irritating stab at forced friendliness.

“It’s okay,” I stress. Something snaps. “You shouldn’t fawn over him.…” I pause before correcting myself. “I mean … me. Okay?”

My pain is constant and sharp and I do not hope for a better world for anyone. In fact I want my pain to be inflicted on others. I want no one to escape. But even after admitting this—and I have, countless times, in just about every act I’ve committed—and coming face-to-face with these truths, there is no catharsis. I gain no deeper knowledge about myself, no new understanding can be extracted from my telling. There has been no reason for me to tell you any of this. This confession has meant nothing.…

The book started off so well and then spiraled so wildly out of control into horror that I'm still left somewhat stunned and confused. Hand waving. I start to ponder whether events were real or all in his head- it's really not conclusive- but then I remind myself that it's all fiction and it doesn't matter. I dwell on Bateman and his self reflection. He loathes those around him but never proves to be anything different then they are. I imagine this inner narrative that is the novel could have been running through all the characters' heads simultaneously.

In conclusion and entirely unrelated, here's some skull sketches I did today during the football game, referenced from my delightful book Skulls .

The Season

While I frequently get quite depressed before Spring comes around again, I love Fall and early Winter. Which is where we're at right now. Halloween, my birthday, and Thanksgiving always come around in a wave of goodness. Eating, costumes, celebrations with friends and family. I also am quite fond of American Christmas and "The Holidays". While I've no tolerance of any of that religious nonsense, I enjoy the decorations, special color schemes, beautiful gift wrapping, cut trees, and emphasis on lights that "The Holidays" bring.

Had a lovely Thanksgiving this year. PURPLE POTATOES! SO GOOD! (visually that is-- taste wise they were exactly the same as the white potatoes... aka DELICIOUS!) Am wondering how I can work purple potatoes in to some cookies some time soon... It was the first time Adam's mother met my parents, so there was that. I'm looking forward to Christmas, where the whole family (sadly without significant others) will be together again before being blown our separate ways for the rest of the year.

Through casual conversation I have now secured myself access to carve up my mother's fabric collection into tiny squares for quilting purposes (something that I'm not willing to do to *my* precious fabric collection) and I'm quite excited! Just three weeks, three holiday parties, two birthdays, two soccer games, two gingerbread bouts, one table top game, one cookie exchange, and one crab feast to go!

November

A lot has gone on this month. Some of it really good, some of it not great, and some of it just kinda' stressful without being good or bad. I don't think I want to dwell on this month. The good things are worth highlighting though:

I turned 30. It wasn't as horrible as I expected. Adam was super nice to me all weekend long. His breakfast making skills are superior to most restaurants. His gift selection skills are quite expertly honed as well. This year I received a machete and a Cintiq. Both things make me ridiculously pleased. Then we went out to a crazy nice dinner at Sons & Daughters.

_{(a picture of me all dolled up for dinner w/ my awesome new machete)}

Friends and games! Adam and I have picked up Race For The Galaxy again and it's still fanastic. Have been playing D&D with our South Bay friends and it has been great fun! I painted my first miniature! Have been playing The Academie of Magic with other friends- an excellent custom game with fantastic game mechanics. Played Trains with coworkers twice-- it's good to find something not beer or food related to socialize with.

Poked at D3 some through work. It remains awesome. Much like Knockout, I found every question/want I had was easily answered/solved with the library. Sadly I haven't spun apart any of the code to make it share-able since it's rather tightly tied to confidential information at the moment....

A really awesome market has opened around the corner! They have fresh local food of good quality that is relatively novel/is not available at the other local markets. We are now getting Straus milk and it is tasty!

Adam and I saw 12 Years a Slave. It's a good reminder of what a great film is like. Beautiful, well acted, great music... extremely depressing subject matter though. Still, I suggest you see it.

Drawing with my Cintiq is... fantastic. It just feels good. "Fun" doesn't really capture the feeling. It feels good, like I imagine how people who enjoy running feel when they run. It's hard- I'm so badly out of practice doodling I don't even remember how to idly doodle any more... but it feels good to hold the pen and sit at the screen and draw. My joy comes not from the fact that it makes things easier/better but because it just feels right... odd. I look forward to many years with it.

I've been making food things at work with much success! I've started making progress on the free-style cookie! (screw you 1/2/3 ratio! It's 1/1/1.2 sugar/fat/flour I say!) I recently made bacon/banana/oat/black sesame/molasses cookies that were tasty! Also oat/goat ricotta/molasses cookies! They didn't suck!

| My work soccer team finally won a game! First one since I joined!







In less awesome news: _{I've been working too much and letting work follow me home. This has interfered with my ability to fully embrace my Cintiq. There were layoffs at work- I still have a job however. The overall issue of women & engineering has been getting me really down recently. There are no good answers and there are actual problems. Similarly, women & the whole damn word. I lost a really great jacket sometime during the summer and wish I had it now. I couldn't find a skirt I wanted to wear the other morning and started crying. I failed to lose any weight these last couple months and now the holidays approach. I can't find anything I want to read. I will never be able to buy a house (where I want) in San Francisco. I got < 2k words into NaNoWriMo. I continue to feel like I'm on the verge of getting sick (damn tickle in the back of the throat!). I attended 2 great Dr. Sketchy's and still haven't scanned & posted the pictures}

Things.

Season of Dreams...

Not sure why, but every night this week I've had vivid, odd dreams. This, after several months of nothing particularly striking.... I blame the changing temperature.

The second dream:

My co-workers and I were super heroes, themed after different sandwiches. Someone was a ham sandwich hero, I think I was egg salad or peanut butter & jelly. I wake up. I tell one of my coworkers about this dream. I wake up.

After telling the same worker about the dream and the dream within the dream, I did not (sadly?) find out I was still dreaming. I'm happy that this dream did not leave me sad/scared/worried.

The first dream:

I'm somewhere near a river, in which I find a goat being slowly washed down stream. I retrieve the goat and decide to keep it as a pet. Time passes and I go somewhere else. I realize I forgot my goat and call my aunt Laurie to see if I left it at her place. Sadly, she doesn't know where it is. I am sad to have lost my pet goat, but on the other hand kind of relieved... Apparently adopting a goat would cost $250 and it occured to me that the backyard at our house doesn't really have any grass and I start to imagine the damage the goat would cause in the basement if we kept it indoors. None the less, I spend the rest of the dream frantically searching for my goat. I do not find it.

Despite the above sketch, the goat in my dream was very clearly a Anglo-Nubian goat. This dream left me very sad/worried.

I have not yet sketched the third dream.

In totally unrelated news I went to the San Francisco Superhero Street Fair and had a great time. It's not an epic event, but one I would casually recommend. Fun dancing time. I wore a sparkly mask, glow sticks, and a skimpy outfit. Someone asked if wearing a mask made dancing easier. It didn't make dancing easier (that went just fine) but it made going out in public in one's underwear a lot easier.

Have been playing with the NVD3 graph library at work (which sits atop D3) and been having a good time of that. I can't really chew on numbers with any sort of statistical skill, but I can make a mean graph. Sadly our hackday that was planned for tomorrow has been moved.... to some time in the future. Alas.

Related to work, I've really been enjoying this song for some reason:

Adam has been playing GTA V and I've really enjoyed watching him do so. I <3 Trevor (just like everyone else, I'm sure)

Rolling along...

Just got back from visiting family in the Midwest. Both sides of the family, actually. I took a pile of photos and will at some point soon be sifting through them... In the mean time, here's today's Dr. Sketchy's doodles.

Have been very busy lately, sadly. Was in Seattle not too long ago and now this trip. Played my first outdoor soccer game on the Rdio team (8v8 coed) and look forward to future games. I didn't do that great, but I had fun.

I pulled out my Arduino stuff recently and poked at it some more but had to give up-- the weather is just turning nice again and San Francisco Second Summer is starting... who can stay inside and code on weekends like these?!? I look forward to the rainy season so that I can code contently in my home or at a coffee shop... but till then! Outside time!

Adam and I enjoyed the ever-wonderful pancake breakfast on Mt Tam this month in the company of a co-worker. Yay for socializing and exercise. Remember, the last pancake breakfast of the year is Sunday, October 13th. Other fun outdoor things- this Saturday is both the Tour de Fat event in Golden Gate Park but also the Greek Food Festival.

Things thing things... I've been flying my kite a lot lately. Actually, I drag my kite around and then Adam flies it marvelously. Makes me want to try designing some novel kites... My knees hurt a lot these days, which is sad.

An looking forward to upcoming new D&D game with friends. Reminiscing lately about old MUD playing days. Not looking forward to turning 30 soon. Time goes on. I'll write a better blog post next time...

Chillen'

Just spending a nice and mellow evening at home with the boyfriend. We met over a game of Catan and it's still quite nice to just play some Race for the Galaxy together even if our overall boardgame playing has dramatically declined in recent years.

Denver Hackathon went well. Made something that I find useful-- haven't uploaded it yet anywhere. Will do so... "soon". Just ordered some more parts/accessories for my Arduino and plan on picking that project back up again... "soon".

Also I have a new quilt in the works. Most of the fabric cut, time to start sewing.

Time Flies

Wow. It's already mid-July. Crazy. A lot of stuff has happened in the last month (though none of it all that important)

There was a hack-a-thon at work early early June and I got *really* into my project. Picked up my first Arduino and made a Next & Start/Stop external button for Rdio using the Rdio JS API and Chrome's USB API for apps. I had an intense weekend of non-stop coding and yet didn't quite finish the project (input works, but I haven't gotten output yet). I mean to finish it yet! Soon...

Adam's mother visited and we went to see The Tales of Hoffmann (an opera) which was quite fantastic. The Doll Song has always been one of my favorite pieces. Then Andreas visited and then we went way for a much needed vacation. Obnoxious vacation post to follow soon once we get our photos in sorted out.

Tonight was another fantastic Dr. Sketchy's. The dedicated Mercy Beaucoup posed as Beatrix Kiddo from Kill Bill. I appreciated Mercy's great outfits and ambitions/creative poses. I've sketched her before (as Wonder Woman) but the pictures were lost on my way home! Luckily I managed to hold onto them this time. I'm thankful that I won tonight's context with the below image. The prize was this super awesome book The Art of Sketch Theatre Volume 1 which I look forward to reading after this post is done.

Speaking of reading, I've been doing a lot of that lately as well. Was horribly let down by Robin Hobb's Rain Wild Chronicles which I dropped mid-series. Am struggling not to be entirely consumed by the thrilling magic realism World War II series by Ian Tregillis. I accidentally staid up till 3am finishing the second book (on a work night no less! shame on me!) and I'm worried the third book will lead me to a similar fate. Bitter Seeds (Milkweed series) is the first book and I'd probably recommend it to most folks.

In less happy news I installed Minecraft for the first time this weekend and lost several hours of my life. I regret it and wont be doing so again. Sigh. Having re-read World War Z and watched the movie (and surprisingly not hated it) I've a strong hankering to play some Left For Dead again, which I will not regret. But there are better things to be doing with my time. Like sketching. Quilting. Finishing my hack day project. Writing letters. Cleaning.

Pacific Rim was great. Not perfect, but what it delivered it delivered well. You should go see it. Now.