February 25, 2007
More of The Collector
I came across some pictures of a custom that I put together a number of years ago that I called "The Collector". I actually one a couple of awards for this costume, best in show and best overall construction, I think it was 1994 and Primedia in Toronto.
February 24, 2007
Pimp MySpace
Well, after the shedding of much blood, sweat and tears, I have finally completed renovations to my MySpace page.
Please take a look at let me know what you think!
(Pssssst! I also have a secret deal going on for MySpace friends this weekend! If you'd like to receive these kinds of exclusive offers as well, be sure to add me to your MySpace friends!)
February 23, 2007
All in the Family
Looks like I've inspired another unusual kilt-wearing cartoon character, everyone, let me introduce you to the creature who could be the Gumbleduke's long lost cousin, it's "Bicker 1" and "Bicker 2". Inspired from adventures on the Etsy forums, where you too can hang out with all sorts of cool artists!
February 22, 2007
300 Update
Anticipation is running high with the release of "300" a mere 2 weeks away! If you haven't heard about this movie yet you must be either living in a hole in the ground or on Mars, but just in case here is my original preview from just after New Year's.
In the meantime, Wired News has an excellent little Q&A with the director of 300, Zack Snyder that covers a lot of ground, from blood and gore, to how he gave his artists free reign to create the utterly unique look of this film.
I almost fell off my chair when I realized that Black Current Screenings played an advanced screening of the IMAX version of 300 last night in Toronto! I'm starting to think that a trip to the "big" city may be in order to see the IMAX version!
February 21, 2007
More Scare Bear
I came across some pictures of a custom that I put together a number of years ago that I called "Scare Bear". I actually one a couple of awards for this costume, best in show and best overall construction, I think it was 1995 and Primedia in Toronto.
GreatTrompe l'oeil Artist
Very nice stuff!
Crazy!
February 19, 2007
William Gibson
While I'm posting stories about my embarrassing adventures with Canadian celebrities, I should also post this one about the time I embarrassed myself on national television during an interview with William Gibson (noted Canadian author and possible inventor of the entire genera of Cyberpunk fiction):
Well, as if my Jane Siberry story wasn’t bad enough, here is the story of how I met cyberpunk author and legend William Gibson and embarrassed myself on national television.
It was back in the early 90’s, when "Idoru"
was released and I was visiting Toronto. I found out that William was doing a reading from Idoru on the waterfront, so I planned my whole day in the city around going to see him.
While wandering around the city I decided to look through the broadcasting museum at the CBC building and discovered a little setup in the atrium for the show that aired every noon on Newsworld with Ralph Benmergui. There was a little sign that said that today’s guest would be, you guessed it, William Gibson!
Checking my watched I discover that it was 11:30, so I decided that I simply had to stick around and, as a matter of fact, I got a really decent first row stool in the audience.
Now, not that anybody besides Canuckians that were really bored during the 90’s would remember that Ralph’s noontime show involved a lot of audience participation. So, during the course of the interview, Ralph was tossing the microphone into people’s faces and asking them various questions
Sooner or later it became my turn to answer a question and I turned loose with something along the lines of the fact that because of computer communication I no longer considered myself a strict Canuckian, but more of a world citizen. Well, this got Ralph all worked up and he asked me to explain further, which I attempted to, talking about the importance of information in terms of being able find what you need to knowing, not necessarily knowing something specific.
Somehow Ralph took this is a challenge and decided to grill me on Canuckian trivia, asking me which Canuckian province was the first to have provincial healthcare. I didn’t know then, but will always remember that it was Saskatchewan, since Ralph completely embarrassed me for not knowing the answer. With that, the show was over and I went on my way, chuckling to myself about being utterly embarrassed in front of one of the people I admire most and on national TV to boot!
I had called my dad to ask him to tape the show, but thankfully, he forgot and hopefully it has been forever lost in the non-existent CBC Ralph Benmergui archives.
Later that night, after seeing William read, I bought a copy of Idoru and queued up to have him sign it, fortunately the line wasn’t that long and it only took about 10 minutes to make it up to him. He looked up as I passed him the book and he says “Wow, you really blew it on national TV today, didn’t you?” I replied “Yup, but it was it worth it to meet you” and went on my merry little way.
Jane Siberry
I was just cleaning up some files when I came across the following story that I wrote for 43people before they unceremoniously deleted my account. It's a pretty good chuckle, so I thought I'd post it here so that you could enjoy my embarrassment.
So, without further ado, let me present "My Adventures with Jane Siberry" (Noted Canadian recording artist, now known as "Issa"):
I live on Manitoulin Island, where Jane visits from time-to-time in the summer; I had actually met Jane several times while working at a local natural food store, but never bothered to address her directly, always feeling that most celebrity type people would prefer to have their privacy respected.
Anyhow, a couple of years back I was at one of the local farmers’ markets when Jane came by my table. I greeted her, as I would any person visiting my table and spoke with her about some of the pieces that I make. She took a shine to a particular kind of sterling silver pendant that I make and asked me if I had two, going on to explain that she was looking for something to share with a specific special person in particular.
Apparently they had shared rings, but his had been lost in the ocean and hers down an outdoor privy hole.
I told her that I could easily make a second pendant if she gave me a few minutes, she agreed, and then asked me if there was a discount for two. I smiled and said “sure”, just because I knew who she was.
She wandered on, while I started to put together a second identical pendant, explaining to Audrey (my table partner) who she was and that she did a specific song (Calling All Angels) that was really special to me. Audrey didn’t recognize her name until I mentioned that she did (It Can’t Rain All the Time) from soundtrack of “The Crow”, which Audrey instantly recognized as one of her favorite songs of all time.
Jane returned after wandering the full vender circle, I showed her the pendants and she seemed pleased. Then she said “You know, it’s really not fair of me to ask you for a discount, I’m an artist as well and know what it’s like”, to which I responded “Yes, I am familiar with your work and enjoy it quite a bit.” She seemed please, paid for her pendants then apologized for not having any sort of CD or thing to give me, as she had recently switched to a press-on-demand service for all her music.
I told her that it was alright and that I thought that it was cool to move to that kind of system for music distribution and that was that, she left, seemingly happy. I gave Audrey a little high five, as I’m usually not adept enough to handle such situations with any kind of grace.
Well, about 10 minutes later Jane came back, she handed me a CD in a sleeve and explained that it was a demo that she was mailing out and that she wanted me to have a copy. I looked at the label, it had something like 6 songs and I thanked her profusely. Then Audrey completely messed me up by saying “is your favorite song on there?” It was and then all of a sudden I found myself babbling about why it was so special to me and the important time in my life when I first heard it. Basically a ton of irrelevant data that nobody, especially Jane Siberry, would ever care about.
As I babbling she started to get this really disturbed look on her face, like she had just met some sort of really demented fan and had better flee before I locked her in a secret bedroom, broke her kneecaps and forced her to write a sequel to my favorite song. And flee she did!
Audrey looked at me and said “Well, you really blew that, didn’t you?” I said “Yup!”
I saw Jane again this summer and she didn’t stay too long at my market table, but, on the other hand, she didn’t flee in terror either!
Last Year's Big Project
I've been meaning to post this picture for ages, it's a full suit of chainmail I made for a client last spring; it contains about 60,000 stainless steel split rings and is design to be worn on horseback.
Modeled by a very patient friend (and producer of excellent honey products) from the Island Farmers' Markets
Steve Ballmer Shovels it on Thick - Beautiful Technobust
Normally, I wouldn't bother to comment on an already well "dugg" story on Digg.com, but I just couldn't resist this one.
Apparently Steve Ballmer (the "other" "voice" of Microsoft) issued a statement blaming poor sales of Windows Vista on computer pirates, the second most vilified group of computer users (right behind the ubiquitous catchall of "hackers" and "terrorists"*).
Anyhow, things being as they are, Digg.com users aren't fooled by Ballmer's line of B.S. in the slightest, which makes the comments in the above article absolutely priceless.
Here's my tip of the day for Microsoft: Visit the above site, make a big list of every single issue that has been mentioned by commentors and fix them, now.
Here's my tip of the day for all other O/S developers: Visit the above site, make a big list of every single issue that has been mentioned by commentors and for the love of a duck, don't make the same mistakes! In fact, if you can avoid these mistakes, you'll probably make more money than Sir Bill himself.
*Which brings to mind the old saying of "One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter", which, in the case of factions that actually do pirate software, especially Vista, may in fact be just that. As they allow the general public to find out just how horrible software like Vista is before we actually give our hard earned gold over to the Evil Sheriff of Microsoft.
Honestly, all Microsoft cares about is selling you the software, after that, they don't give a flying fig whether it actually functions or not. You've opened the box, you can't take it back and get a refund, they've made their money and now they can add another notch to artificially skewed "installed user base numbers". Why else would they shuffle customer support calls to call centres on the other side of the world where you don't have a snowball's chance in the Mojave's of actually communicating with tech support personal?
February 17, 2007
Etsy Blogs
Anyone who's read this blog for a while knows that I'm a huge fan of blogs and online journals. Recently, there was a post in the Etsy forums (Etsy being the coolest place in the universe for finding handmade goods online) asking if people wanted to cross link blogs, which seemed like a totally faboo idea!
Therefore, for your reading enjoyment, I'd like to present this list of other Etsy vendors who keep blogs (if you're a creative person, have an interest in creativity, or just want to shop until you drop, there's some very interesting reading here):
3 Haute Mommas
A Punkin Card Company
Art of Andrew Daniel
Art Lovers
Backwoods Creations: Living Life Creatively
Beautiful Brushstrokes
Busy Bee
CAM Studio
cArried AwAy
Circular Accessories
Creative Sparks Studio
Creativity, Fine Art and Jewelry by Ellen Leigh
Claire Creations
Cupcake 2 Create
Curly's Queue
Dragon in Knots
Etsy Needlework
Eye Pop Art
Glassgrrl Studios
H. Garr
Indie Finds on Etsy and Elsewhere
Jessica Torrant's Artist Journal
Jewelry by Tara
JK Creations Boutique
Karma's Kreations
Knot By Gran'ma
LaPella Art
Lemons and Lollis
Lucid Cortege
Mermaid Creek
Mill Girl
Miss Mish Mish Mish Mash
Mrs. Dragon's Wares
Mouse Trails
Ms. Belle
Paw & Claw Designs
Plastic Pumpkin Designs
PoppyCat News
Rainy Day Art
Re:Form
Right As Rain Creations
Rita's G-string at Celticharpanddrum
Seaside Quilts
Simply Shell
Sylvia's Jewellery
The Blog of the "Lazy Cats"
The Creation Station
The Wine Bottle Orphan Chronicles
The Viridian Muse -Naturally Inspired
The World of MI Zombie!
There's Beauty in the Breakdown
Tina Rice
Whatever Strikes Mrs. Kwitty's fancy
Windys Designs
WoodNVisions
Yarn & Coffee
Yaslani's Groove Spot
February 14, 2007
In the words of a friend, "Oh My!"
Ok, total geek-out here, the new generation of movie tie-in Transformers are looking awesome!
February 13, 2007
Beauty
I recall a conversation with a friend once who decided to classify people in to two categories "what people" and "why people".
"What people" were the most common element of society, the worker bees, the drones as you would have it. There were concerned with what was happening to them in the immediacy and tended to be obsessed with the illusionary surface of the world.
"Why people" were more rare, they were inventors and leaders, the people that look underneath, shatter illusions, they're concerned with why things happen and how things work.
Now, while I think it's quite impossible to classify humanity into only two categories, I also know that the second definition very much describes a large part of my own personality. I've always taken things apart to figure out how they work, I never take anything in life at face value; I always have to ask why.
To a certain extent I'm convinced that while I'm enamoured with asking why, it also makes life more complicated, as a good part of each day has to be spent processing data internally, both input and output, or as my mom was apparently fond of saying GIGO! (Garbage In, Garbage Out)
The other day I found myself in an oddly disgruntled mood, I couldn't figure out what was wrong for the life of me. I processed my feelings over and over, trying to locate the anomaly. Not that repairing the error was even necessary, I was just driven to discover what it actually was, in other words, I needed to know why.
Continue reading "Beauty"
February 11, 2007
Ranting with a Great View
WARNING: The following is a major rant, if you don't like rants, then read a different post, because I need to rant and this is the place I'm going to do it.
So, what is the subject of my rant? Windows Vista, which I will now officially dub the worst Microsoft Windows operating system since ME, but not including 3.0 or anything prior to that.
First on my Vista hit list is the new "Aero" theme, sometimes referred to as "Aeroglass", which I had been hearing about for ages, but didn't experience first hand until this weekend, while installing a modem in a new Dell for a client.
Perhaps my expectations had been really built up, as I really was expecting some sort of awesomely beautiful interface, kind of like the faux computer interfaces that have been cropping up in Hollywood movies for the past 2 decades. Something beautiful, new, fresh and functional!
Instead I was presented the ugliest heap of steaming donkey dung of an interface that has ever been conceived. Who came up with this crap and then sold it? Microsoft must have an amazing marketing department, because I can't imagine how anybody who has actually used "Aero" could have written all the glowing reviews that I've read in the past couple of months. Surely such writers just skimmed provided advertising copy and picked out appropriately fluffy descriptions, it's the only explanation!
Continue reading "Ranting with a Great View"
February 5, 2007
Life in Three Dimensions
It may be surprising (or it may not be surprising, depending on your point of view) to note that all of the illustrations for my first two books were created with a completely evil 3D rendering program called Amapi 3D that I received free with a 3D design magazine from the UK.
In all fairness, I can't label Amapi completely evil, as I was only using version 4. I believe that the program eventually made it to version 6 or 7 before the company was purchased and Amapi was discontinued. So it's quite possible that later versions may have actually sported a sensible interface or may not have been as sluggish as molasses on a cold February night or may not ever even been so prone to constantly crashing in a manner that completely corrupted working data files, version 4 however, suffered from all of these problems and more.
To a certain extent, the problems with Amapi 4 make me wonder how I ever managed to complete so many illustrations without going completely BFG on the developers of such a sorry excuse for buggy software.
But somehow my sanity remained intact (well, it's actually pretty hard to damage something that one never had in the first place); however, with several upcoming projects that are going to put my 3D illustration talents to the test once again, I decided that it was finally time to try out a some new 3D design software. Below is the result of 2 days of fiddling with some trial software. I'm pretty happy with the result, looks like it's time to bite the bullet and invest in some serious software!
General Tso’s Chicken
I was first introduced to the very tasty Chinese food dish known as "General Tso’s Chicken" back in 1998 while visiting the United States (oh, how I miss "good" Chinese Food, the little places in Sudbury just can't compare!) Little did I know that the history General Tso’s Chicken was filled all kids of political intrigue, including civil and world wars, Henry Kissenger and the history of Chinese food in New York City, go figure!
This article also includes a DYI recipe!
Bon Appétit!
February 1, 2007
Pirate Survey
I normally wouldn't fill out a survey from MySpace, but I just couldn't resist this Pirate themed survey from Pirate Queen, Ryskie the Red.
1. Why are you a Pirate? A. Since when does a free spirit need a reason to be a Pirate? B. Because I'm against Ninjas in any form. C. Booty! Plunder! Pillaging!
2. What type of ship do you have? The fastest Sloop this side of Andromeda, with crack four pound gauss cannons and an interstellar hyperdrive.
3. What is the name of your ship? The Black Ship Lollipop.
4. What is your rank? Captain! What other rank is there?
5. Do you have a crew? Who else would man the gauss cannons?
6. Pistols, Swords, Whips, Daggers...all of the above? Blaster Pistols, Laser Swords, Electro-Whips and Vibrodaggers, all standard equipment.
7. What is your favorite Piratical Punishment? Walking the plank out the airlock or 10 lashes of the Plasma-o-nine-tails.
8. Who is your favorite Historical Pirate? Captain Morgan, the Dread Pirate Roberts, Barrett. (The first person to say anything about fiction will lose an eye and not in the fashionable sense!)
9. What type of Pirate are you? SPACE! (and computer... ...in my spare time)
10. What part of the world do you or would you like to sail? Make that Worlds with a capital S! and all of 'em! 'aaaarrrrrrrr!
11. What is your favorite treasure? Fire Crystals of Betelgeuse, mercurial gold of the twin spiral galaxies, pocket-sized black hole spheres from the long handle of the little dipper and the Crown Jewels of Belxar the Flocculent, last emperor of the Cerulean Jelly Seas.
12. Do you have hidden/buried treasure(s)? What kind of pirate would give away that kind of information?
13. What is your preferred pirate garb? RegulusCorp Bionic hook and peg leg assembly, poofy pirate shirt, broad spectrum scan analyzer eye patch with optional radioactive glow upgrade, nanomorphic tattoo, leather boots with latnium buckles.
14. Do you have your own jolly roger? If so, please describe. Classic skull with crossed sword and pistol, alternatively: "Copy A:\*.*"
15. Do you have advice for MySpace Pirates? If so, what? Love Many! Trust Few! And always paddle your own Canoe!
April 2008
