Going Green (Part 2 of 4)

Following the Skrull and Wookie from my last post (doesn't Skrull & Wookie sound like the name of a really nerdy tavern?), here's a Klingon Green Lantern:

click above for larger view

My apologies to hardcore Trekkies, the Bat'leth and D'k tahg were drawn without reference, so the details are a little sloppy. Stay tuned for more nerd synergy!

cold for sure

You know you have a cold when:

- you wake up at 7 am and decide to get up (to blow your nose and take aspirin) even though you could've had a lie in until 9 am

- you crave orange juice and bananas

-you don't fancy chocolate!

- you sleep for 3 hours after getting home from work and still go to bed and sleep a full night just 2 hours after waking up from that post work nap

underwear

A girl at work had a piece of red ribbon poking up from under her top today. I told her so.

"Oh" she said " it's the bow on my bra" and tucked it back under her top. This made me think about underwear:

About ten years ago I was a bit obsessed about buying nice, lacy, frilly, pretty underwear. Anything I saw in a magazine that I liked I had to get... I had a bra in each colour and one for every occasion.

Funnily enough, at the time I used to looove to buy lovely underwear I was going out with a guy who used boxershorts he'd found on the beach (it's true!!!), inheritaged from friends and his dad! Ha ha, from one extreme to the other when I think about it.

However, those days are long gone and my co-worker's little red bra-bow made me feel old today. These days my priorities are comfort. I don't have a pile of different colours for different occasions - well apart for period pants that is (all girls will be nodding understandingly here and all boys will think "too much information, Dana"!).

Is it an age thing? Or is it letting myself go? Perhaps it's a different kind of fashion now than 10 years ago? I don't know. And I don't care. It's saving me a fortune of money that I can spend on my new obsession instead: dresses!

A cold Sunday

As corny as it might sound - I'm kind of looking forward to the winter to arrive so that I can stay indoors with my cats much more without feeling guilty!

I am full of cold. This is also, in my world at least, a legitimate reason for staying indoors all day. The cats and I have done as little as possible today. Curled up under a big blanket watching "Fear Factory" (the cats have little interest in Fear Factory, but I love it) we have only moved to eat, drink or go to the bathroom/cat litter tray.

Around 3 pm I felt a bit guilty for not activating the boys, and so I got their beloved laser tourch out of their giant box of toys and flashed the tourch around the flat:

Tylor made a half hearted attempt to chase it before jumping up on my shoulder for a cuddle. Kif put his head out from under the blanket, looked at the tourch light and went straight back to sleep.

So perhaps this winter won't be as horrible as they usually are?! Surely it will be just as cold, damp and dark, but I reckon my boys and I will have pretty much the same idea about what quality time is all about during those winter months!

Subway Sketching tomorrow!

Answer to the last post: Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom

Hi everyone,

Just a reminder that Kei and I will be meeting up with the Toronto subway sketchgroup tomorrow!

Also for those of you interested, Udon Comics is having a Street Fighter Tribute signing at the Beguiling tomorrow starting at 6pm. Kei and I might not make it to this one but we're going to try.... depends how much work we get done today.
For more info: http://www.beguiling.com/streetfighter/

tooth ache a bit too late!

When I was about 12 years old I got kicked in the head by a crazy horse. I was wearing a helmet at the time, so my head was OK, ,but I bit my tounge and damaged my bottom teeth pretty bad.

My bottom front teeth were damaged the worst, and the dentist tried his outmost quite a few times to fix them. But after years of the fillings falling out as soon as I ate a piece of crisp bread I just left them without fillings. They have never bothered me, and I have learnt to bite and chew without using those teeth.

But last night I woke up with a sharp pain in my tooth. That one bottom front tooth. And today it has been very sore and hot/cold drinks have been irritating.

I have an appointment at the dentist next month, but I can't for the life of me understand how it suddenly started to hurt - 21 years after the accident??

Going Green (Part 1 of 4)

Let's dial up the nerdiness here... a while back, I had an idea for the Green Lantern Corps which could never ever be officially made--the gist of it was to populate the Corps with aliens from various science fiction franchises. And even though it could never be officially produced, I still drew up a bunch of character designs. Yes folks, this is how I choose to spend my free time.

These sketches were done quite some time ago--for the first installment, a Skrull and a Wookie:

As you might notice, these are blue pencil sketches, hastily inked and colored with marker. I basically just wanted to get these down on paper, rather than stress out over them. I'm not trying to make excuses though--that Skrull's foot is terribly contorted and way too big. The next installment will be better, promise.

What's next to go wrong?

Last week my mobile phone broke. The week previous to that my computer broke...

Last weekend I had some real bad luck with my bank account, where lots of money went missing due to a mishap at a shop. Luckily my bank managed to sort it out and my money reappeared in my account.

Today I came into work to find a note on my desk:

"Please phone the Swedish- Chinese travel agency. Urgent!"

I phoned them and got told my trip to China next month has been cancelled!

I sat down and nearly cried. Pretty much everything that could go wrong has done so in the last month. The travel agent apologized profusely, then asked if I wanted to join another trip to another destination instead?

"I want to see the Terracotta Army!" I burst out. "I want to go to the Xian province or not go at all!"

Then I asked if I could perhaps do the trip at a later date instead?

"Sure" the lady said "I can schedule you in for a trip in March."

March?! 6 months away?! But then it slowely sunk in: I could move to the new flat without panicing of not getting done before the China trip (unless the flat falls through - I don't seem to have a very lucky month). I could save up some money (the computer melt down, broken mobile and future move is costing me a fortune).

And then she told me that the exact same trip in March next year would be a substantional bit cheaper, wish means I can prolong my stay in Beijing 4 nights for the same price! Yippie!

Thank god for a happy ending every now and again. But apologies for not getting you any of the stuff from China for Christmas that I might've been promising you...

More Warm up Sketches...

Answer to the previous post: Aviator

Here's some more warm up sketches...
Can you guess the movie? Hint: these aren't the main characters.

Bobby

No biscuits but boys

I'm gasping for a cup of tea and a biscuit. But in my lap lies a little bundle of cats - both fast asleep on top of eachother and on top of me - and I can't face waking them up.

They are truely wonderful, these two curly boys of mine.

Cue Jazzy Theme Music, Appendix (2 of 2): Solid as a Rock

Concluding a brief series that I started last time. I'll dispense with the small talk--today's post features a character who debuted in The New Adventures of Jonny Quest, Hardrock:

Hardrock was a living statue who joined up with Jonny Quest and friends. I honestly don't know how to expand upon that. Oh well, here's a clip:



In case you missed my take on the Jonny Quest cast a few months ago, here they are:

• Jonny and Bandit
• Hadji
• Benton
• Race (plus bonus wallpaper)

Good day

Today:

• had a lovely lie in and lazy morning before work
• managed to book a museum (!) for our next conference
• flat move finally booked to the 5th October
• got a lovely pair of boots from a friend
• got rid of my bed to a friend at work (I'm getting a new one)
• managed to get Tylor to walk in his harness for 5 minutes
• got a little bonus from my boss for "the time and effort I put into work the last few weeks"
• finished work on time for the first time in about two months

Certain days are just sooooo much better than other! And today was one of them.

GTA Chinatown Wars Screens

Nintendo Power magazine released some screenshots of Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars recently. If we take into account the hardware capabilities of the Nintendo DS, the game doesn't look half bad, but it does feels like a step back when compared to GTA IV. The game has an isometric view, which brings back the memories of the first two GTAs.

Those who thought that the Nintendo DS exclusivity of Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars meant it would be a family-friendly take on the series can rest easy, according to Rockstar’s vice president of creative Dan Houser.

In the latest issue of Edge Magazine Houser reveals that, while the presentation of GTA: Chinatown Wars will be changed to an isometric viewpoint game populated with cel-shaded characters, the language and themes will stay true to the series proper. “No one disagreed with Sam [Houser, Rockstar president and Dan’s brother]’s very clear edict that GTA has to be an M rating,” he explained. “It can’t be softened to make it family-friendly – that’s not the game we’re making. We’ve never not done well by sticking to our guns.”

Houser added that Nintendo was on-board with the direction of the product, telling us, “Nintendo wanted us to make GTA, and we wanted to make a game on their platform. They didn’t want us to make a GTA for kids, and we weren’t interested in making a game we wouldn’t normally make.”

So how mature will the game be? The latest issue of Edge also reveals that Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars will have a complete drug dealing minigame, which will allow players to peddle six types of drugs around the city. Players will make a profit by recognizing market conditions and demands based on geography and plying their wares accordingly.

Now feast your eyes on the very first screenshots of the game.




Source: edge-online.com, nintendopower.com

Warm up sketches

Here's some warm up sketches from this morning...
Can you guess the movie? I wasn't concentrating on caricaturing but more about simplifying my brush strokes so it might be hard to guess.

Bobby

My mother

mum 1976



A week before Christmas 1995 my mother passed away. It is 13 years ago but in many ways it feels a lifetime away. Of course I miss her - I miss her alot - but the thing I miss is what I could've had with her, if you know what I mean?

If she was still alive I dare say my life would've looked a lot different to what it does. My mother was such an encouraging person: she pushed me to try all those things I dreamed of doing, and when I was on the verge of chicken out she always gave me the courage to take the last step out into the unknown. And for that I am forever grateful.

My father, on the other hand, is the complete opposite. He is scared of everything I do, wants to do or dream of doing. He is negative to change in general and has more than once made me hesitate doing things I known deep down would've been right for me.

Sometimes, when I'm having a hard time or feel a bit down I dream about my mother at night. Usually it's heartbreaking dreams of finding my mum by the kitchen table, me screaming out "but they told me you were dead!" and she saying "well I am but I thought I'd stop by and say hello..." and we hug and her smell is so vivid it's for real.

And in a weird way I'm grateful for those dreams - or shall I say grateful for her stopping by every now and again. I need to remind myself of her strengh and positive spirit, her way of living and all those inpiring sides to life I sometimes forget.

I wish I had asked her more things. I wish she'd gotten the chance to see me as an adult, meet the loves of my life (yes there have been a couple actually) and tell me about what her pregnancies were all about. I wish she'd pushed me to get a grip and go to Africa when I chickened out. I wish she'd been around so that I could've had a shoulder to cry on and a best friend to share secrets with.

But most of all I wish she keeps popping by. Because the only thing that scares me is that I'll forget what she was really like.

Friday madness

Last night I went out dancing for the first time in ages. The thing with me when exposed to music is that I really can't control myself. I get so excited and let music take over. I don't give a shit what I look like, what people around me might think or even IF there are people around me. When I want to dance I do - empty dancefloor or not.

The first couple of tunes I bopped along like most people, but then that transformation happened and I jumped around lika a lunatic for couple of hours - silly happy.

My friend Maria isn't any different. But interestingly some girls near us started to point and stare... Needless to say that triggered me to dance even more outrageously (and Maria too), and so the whole song turned into a geek-dance-battle. I laughed so much I nearly peed my pants. Then a group of Norweigan buisness men joined us and the sillieness on the dance floor just exploded: we moon walked, did vouge and Saturday night fever moves mixed with the twist and god knows what.

The "point and stare" girls dissapeared with a disguisted look on their face, but Maria and myself had the most wonderful night.

This morning I woke up with pains in muscles I never knew existed. My whole body is sore and my stomach muscles are in agony from laughing so much last night. And that's what it's all about.

Cue Jazzy Theme Music, Appendix (1 of 2): Seeing Red

I posted my interpretations of the main cast from Jonny Quest a little while ago, and while I was working on those sketches, I waffled back and forth on including Jessie, a character who was introduced during The New Adventures of Jonny Quest, and later became a core member of the Quest team in The Real Adventures of Jonny Quest. She was originally depicted as a friend of the family, and was later retconned into being Race Bannon's daughter. At any rate, here she is:

I honestly wasn't trying to make her color scheme particularly "girly"--things just naturally went in that direction as I attempted to keep the colors consistent with her hair. Next time, I'll treat you to the most obscure member of team Quest, hands down!

In case you missed my take on the Jonny Quest cast a few months ago, here they are:

• Jonny and Bandit
• Hadji
• Benton
• Race (plus bonus wallpaper)

sod's law

Due to delay after delay with the delivery I cancelled the order for my laptop from the internet, and went and bought one from a good oldfashioned shop instead.

I went home and unpacked it. It isn't by far as nice as my old one as far as neatness and sweetness, but still it's a pretty good little machine I've bought. The screen is pretty amazing actually if I may say so myself - don't ask me why but I'm sure it's got something to do with some kind of hi tech thingie. And it's flashy shiny, black and red and so far it's not a scratch on it (give it a week with the cats is all I say...). Yes, I like it. I like it a lot.

Now I will need to install programmes such as the Office package, F-secure, Photoshop and iTunes... And then get all my junk from this old machine to the new one (hint hint mr. P - fancy giving me a hand?) I can't be arsed to do any of it tonight - I'm tired and quite happy just to look at it for now.

Funnily enough my old computer is working PERFECTLY tonight! Always the case, isn't it?

Life drawing, Schoolism and Subway Sketching

Hi everyone,

Subway Sketching
For those of you that have been to subway sketching these last two weeks, I'm sorry Kei and I missed all of you!

September 7th we were in San Fran and September 14th I was hit with the allergies BIG TIME!!... This Sunday Sept 21st Kei and I are attending an important wedding so we won't be subway sketching again!!... jeez I'm going through subway sketching withdraw symptoms!! We'll be subway sketching regularly again starting Sept 28th.

Schoolism Class Info
Digital Painting Techniques with Bobby Chiu - Starting October 6th
The Art of Caricature with Jason Seiler - Starting October 31st
Character Design by Silver - Starting January 5th
Storyboarding with Kris Pearn - Starting November 25th
Go to schoolism.com for more info.

Life Drawing
Here's a life drawing sketch I did for class. We tend to look at things through our eyes and the info then goes into our brain and then our brain tells us an interpretation of what we saw. We want to interpret what we see but also be able to see things as they are (before we analyze the heck out of it).
It was a fun class. I really enjoyed it. It's a great feeling when you see that the students are working hard and improving! Go 4th years go! It was supposed to be a 5 minute pose but I'm pretty sure it was 7 minutes.

honestly

My landlord was supposed to come and check the pipes in my bathroom today. As he only gave me one day's notice about his visit via a letter in my letterbox, I simply phoned him up and told him I wouldn't be at home during the time he wanted to visit.

"But" he said "aren't you interested in hearing about the forthcoming changes in your bathroom?"

"I couldn't care less. I want to move away from here as soon as possible as you are unprofessional and incompetent" I answered truthfully.

He quickly got off the phone and I smiled to myself. Then I took a long bath, had a lazy breakfast in front of the telly with my two boys in my lap before heading south of Stockholm to do some errands. I made sure to stay out long enough to avoid the landlord's visit.

I still haven't gotten the contract for my new flat and I'm getting very nervous indeed. What if I won't get the flat? Then I'm stuck here with a landlord I've pissed off something rediculous... Can't be good?

But IF I move I will move on the 4th October and anyone willing to help me carrying boxes and/or driving a minivan are more than welcome to get in touch! (If noone else I'm sure my landlord will be more than happy to help me move out just to make sure he sees the back of me!)

The Man Himself

I'm showing my age again... here's the Batman--not Bruce Timm and Paul Dini's, not Cliff Chiang's, not Christian Bale's, or Michael Keaton's. Not Bill Finger's, or Jim Lee's, or Alex Ross's, or Dustin Nguyen's, or Jeff Matsuda's, or Jeph Loeb's or Grant Morrison's, or Brian Bolland's. Not Bob Kane's, not Frank Miller's, and not even Darwyn Cooke's or Kevin Conroy's.

I love all those versions of Batman--but to me, this is the guy. The Batman of Dennis O'Neil and Neal Adams:

He's lean, he's mean, he's blue and grey, and he's got the yellow oval (though I drew it a tad too big). And I'm waffling... he might sound like Kevin Conroy.

I did some cooking

I have just eaten the best lasange I have ever done. (I'm not saying it's the best lasange ever - because no lasange in the world can beat Diane's wonderful lasange). But it was the best I'VE made.

It started off with me buying a huge pack of mince meat thinking I should do some serious lunch box cooking for work. And so I started frying the mince only to realize I had no onions at home... And what is a mince sauce without onions??? I got a bit pissed off but felt too lazy to go to the shop to buy some. And so the experiment began.

I wish I could repeat what I threw into that pan, but I seriously have no clue. Et voila - it turned out delicious!

And because I so obviously had a great cooking day I made a fish pie too - also gorgeous, and here is the recipe:

loads of baby spinach
a tin of chopped tomatoes
a box of cherry tomatoes
a tin of mussles
a dash of white wine

throw all the above into a pyrex dish and add fish - I used frozen haddock.

Add salt, pepper, chili and herbs (oregano, thyme, sage etc)

Add mashed potatoes on top of it all and finish off with a layer of cheese.

Chuck it in the oven and leave for an hour.

Yum yum!

another lazy weekend

I'm starting to get that autumn tiredness-thing again. I wouldn't say it's SAD syndrome, but it's pretty damn close.

I'm tired. Keep taking multi vitamins and minerals, energy drinks and god knows, but I am still tired tired tired.

They say cats sleep approx. 18 hours per day... And I've slept more than my cats this weekend and I'm still exhausted! I wonder if it's to do with the lack of sunshine or simply too much going on in my life that makes my system shut down like this every now and again?

So I spent the weekend sleeping and eating as per usual, and tomorrow I have a mega long, tiring day at work and so the week begins with a bang. Luckily I have booked myself in for a massage tomorrow lunch time to ease myself into the working week slowly. (well, as slowly as one can).

Then the count down begins again: "5 days to the weekend" "4 days to the weekend"... And by next weekend I will hopefully have my new laptop and will be able to post some more photos here on my blog... Aaaahhh, next weekend! :-)

A little something I wrote just a few months after arriving back in Sweden after over 10 years away... I found this in one of my old photoalbums and it made me laugh out loud - I really destested being back in this cold country!

Now, a few years later, I still hate the Swedish winter but am still happy I moved back here...

Strange what paths life takes you on!

The Commish

I never followed up after mentioning that I was heading out to watch The Dark Knight. No surprise--I really liked it. What might surprise you, is that my favorite element in both movies is Gary Oldman's performance as Lieutenant Jim Gordon, later promoted to his trademark rank of Commissioner.

I drew this right after seeing the movie, but it's only loosely based on Gary Oldman, drawn without looking at reference. More Bat-stuff next time. Perhaps even the Man himself?

apple pie

After work today I went for a long walk with my friend. The sun was shining and it was one of those really lovely autumn evenings.

We stole a couple of apples along our walk from peoples gardens (never grow up! Keep knicking apples!), had a nice chat and as we took our third lot of apples we got talking about apple pie. With custard or ice cream. Mmmmmmm!

Once back home I made dinner but the thought about apple pie wouldn't leave my head. No apples in the flat. No ice cream... And then I remembered - sure enough I had enough ingrediences to make a chocolate fudge cake! So now the flat smells of lovely home made chocolate cake and in about 10 minutes I will stuff my face.

Bon Apetite everyone!

Schoolism and Joe Biden Sketch!

This is a quick photoshop sketch I did this morning of Joe Biden. I'm working on a new color technique which I hope will allow for me to make tight deadlines while maintaining the quality that I aim for in my work. I will be adding color to this and will share when finished. I feel it's always good to experiment and try new things with your art, and it's also refreshing!

I need to also let everyone know that my next class at Schoolism.com is filling up. My next class starts on October 31rst. The classes have been going very well and the work that my students are creating is very exciting to see. For those of you out there who do not know what it is that I do, My course at Schoolism.com is an Online Art Class on The Art of Caricature. It's a one on one correspondence course. That means that every week my students watch a two hour video filled with demos and lecture followed by homework assignments. Each week I spend 15 to 30 minutes per student critiquing their work. What that means is that I record myself drawing and painting over the students work while sharing my thoughts and techniques. As a student you also have access to watch the critiques of your fellow students as well as the critiques of past semesters.
To learn more about Schoolism click here. There are limited seats available for each class.




I saved my Biden sketch in stages for you to check out. This is a study in values, so it was painted in grayscale using blacks, grays, and white!

just another day

Yesterday:

9 -10 am - meeting with a lovely member of staff who's been in a bit of trouble

11.00-14.00 - leading a staff conference

14.00-15.00 - meeting with a group of pshychologists

15.00-16.00 - meeting with a unhappy member of staff who hates my guts

16.00-17.30 - meeting with my boss to rapport the meeting with the unhappy member of staff

18.00-22.3o - dinner and wine with friends at a cosy restaurant in town

23.30 Bed.

Today:

9.30 - 10.30 - food shopping for one division

10.30-11.30 - adjusting staff rotas

11.30-13.30 - meeting with university student who is doing work experience at my place

13.30-14.00 - lunch (for once!)

14.00-17.00 - phone calls to book in meetings/sort out dr. appointments and god knows what!

17.00-17.30 - emails and letters written

18.00-19.00 - home to clean flat

19.00 dinner in front of tv.... This is my life... Christ of mighty! :-)
Jeeez... My life in a nutshell?

TMNT Tuesdays (Part 4 of 4): Ravishing Reporter

When I titled last Tuesday's Krang sketch, Brains Before Beauty, I meant it. Here's the Turtle Boys' resourceful (and foxxy) gal pal, April O'Neil:

Like the aforementioned Krang sketch, as well as Splinter, and Shredder, April is modelled after the 90's cartoon version, and the title for this post is a tagline from one of April's 90's action figure incarnations. For those of you who are too young to remember this, reporters in the 1990's were all extremely attractive women who wore brightly colored jumpsuits, usually made out of vinyl.

._.


This series illustrating TMNT supporting cast members follows a series from last year depicting the Turtles themselves:

• Turtle Power (Part 1 of 4): Leader
• Turtle Power (Part 2 of 4): Party Dude
• Turtle Power (Part 3 of 4): Does Machines
• Turtle Power (Part 4 of 4): Cool But Rude

Totoro Forest Auction Recap & new interviews with Side Bar Nation and CreatureDesign.org.

We're back from the auction and it was amazing... here's a little recap of our trip.

So on Friday Kei and I flew out to San Francisco to attend the Totoro Forest Auction the next day. Bill Presing picked us up and had a lovely dinner with him and his beautiful fiancee Ikumi. Nice, quiet and relaxing. Just looked through his book collection and talked about art all night.

Saturday we had breakfast in the park and for lunch we met up with Lorne Lanning and he told us about some of his crazy adventures back in the day. Mind blowing stuff. Unfortunately those are not my stories to tell so I wouldn't feel right going into any details.

Later at around 5pm we all went to the auction at Pixar. Kei and I spent most of our time meeting the fabulous artists that contributed to the show and getting them to sign our Totoro Forest book. It felt like I was back in high school and it was year book time or something but we didn't care. This was a once in a life time opportunity and I will cherish that book forever :)

In the beginning of the night, Kei and I tried to bid on a bunch of pieces in the silent auction like Peter DeSeve's, Herman Mejia's but were always out bid.

In the live auction we had a little bidding war for Luc Desmarchelier's painting, Enrico Casarosa's, Dice's, Luis Grane's and a bunch of others but each time we were out bid. We did however end up coming home with Lou Romano's piece "BB & Me"! Well, actually we only came home with a certificate saying that we bought it. The real painting will be displayed in a museum for a few months before coming to it's new home in Canada. We'll take good care of it Lou! What a nice guy. He came over to talk to us after the live auction.


But the highlight of the night was when my friends came up to me and told me that John Lasseter bought my "Twins" print! When I was 16, my first real job was designing Pixar toys in Canada and ever since then John Lasseter has been a hero of mine so it was a true honor to have him purchase my painting and a dream come true to talk with him and shake his hand.


Bobby Chiu and John Lasseter :)

Thank you to everyone we met at the auction for making this weekend one of the most memorable nights of our lives. A special thanks to Dice, Ronnie, Enrico and everyone else involved in the show. Also a special thanks to Bill & Ikumi, Lorne & Sherry for letting us stay with them. It was amazing and the book turned out incredible. A must have.

Bobby

-----------------------------------------------
On a side note here's a couple of new interviews:


Side Bar (sidebarnation.com) has done an MP3 audio interview with me so check it out HERE

For all my Russian speaking friends out there, CREATUREDESIGN.org has put up an interview I did with them. You can read it HERE

Soon back to normality?

I just ordered a new laptop. A Fujitsu-Siemens Amilo Si 2636-001. So there, all done and dusted, decision made and I feel relieved.

It's amazing how restricted I've been without a functional computer these last few weeks:

For example, just finding information about a new computer has been really difficult, ironically enough. Walking around the shops there has been little information about the computers, and the salesmen have been telling me to "look on the internet for details"...

Also I was about to join an organisation for rented flats (hyresgästföreningen, you English guys wouldn't believe it if I explained it, but it is a great if not necessary organisation to join when in disagreements with your landlord).
I phoned up and asked them to send me the leaflet to fill in to join. "you can fill it in on the internet" the woman answered.
"difficult" I replied "as my computer has crashed. Please send me the papers in the post"
Later she phoned me back. "sorry, we can't send it in the post, you need to fill it in on the internet".

Forget nuclear weapons - if you want to fuck a country up just mess with their internet!

Anyway, next week I hope things will get back to normal. Fingers crossed everybody!

me-time

Some people I know like having people around them all the time. This amazes me as I'm the complete opposite.

A lot of people need "me-time", but very few people seem to understand just how much me-time I need. Some call me a recluse, but quite frankly I couldn't care less. I know what keeps me sane, how to recharge my batteries and how to unwind.

I accept friends who want to be surrounded by other people all the time, so I do struggle with those who doesn't respect my need to be alone at times:

One of my friends has been phoning me about three times/night for the last 4 nights. It's been really late, I've been in bed and had early starts the following mornings. I sent her a yesterday text asking her to phone earlier in the evening or send me an email, whereas I got a text message back saying "I'm just going to keep phoning until you get fucked off enough and pick up your phone". Now that doesn't make me very enthusiastic or wanting to talk to her, does it?!

Today I took a day to myself to recover from a rather tough week at work. Booked myself into a whole day at the spa where I treated myself to a hot stone massage and a pedicure. Then I had a stroll around town before going to a restaurant and treating myself to a nice meal before heading home again.

I have had my phone switched off all day and not spoken to anyone apart from the waitress at the restaurant. I've had the most wonderful day, I feel relaxed and content. So why do people get annoyed with me having days like these, I wonder?

(indecipherable snarling)

I had no luck finding it on Youtube, but back in the day, Cartoon Network used to run a hilarious commercial featuring Thundarr the Barbarian and Ookla the Mok. To the best of my recollection, it went a little somthing like this:

Cheesy sax music plays in BG.

OOKLA: (indecipherable snarling)
THUNDARR: Ookla, I think you're very handsome.
OOKLA: (indecipherable snarling)
THUNDARR: No, really.

That will probably be a lot funnier to you if you are familiar with the characters. Here's Ookla:

Ookla the Mok, for those who don't know, was actually designed by the late great Alex Toth. Toth is best known for designing Space Ghost, and while he is very much regarded as an artist's artist in comic book and animation circles, really he was a master of drawing, period. Be sure to check out the image gallery at the official Toth website.

Tylor

Todays blog is dedicated to Tylor:

TYLOR THE SAILOR

who is the cool, calm, contemplating and cuddly cat

(the last photo is so hideous of me I had to hide my face, but I love Tylor's legs so much I still had to add it!)

lazy laundryday

Due to a complete computer meltdown today (I'm buying a new one this weekend and until then using my brother's laptop. I give up on my own laptop - it shut down 10 times within an hour this morning) there will not be a "Tylor the Sailor" dedication today.

Today most of my time was spent doing laundry. I don't understand how it can be so time consuming to do a few loads of dirty clothes?! It took me 4 hours and still I haven't got around to do the ironing. And as I'm full of cold I'll leave the ironing until the weekend.

Tomorrow I have 3 meetings at work in a row. It will be a long day and I will simply spend my evening tonight having a long bath and curl up in my bed with clean, nice smelling bed linnen. Sometimes it's bliss to do absolutely nothing.

Kif

Today's blog is dedicated to Kif:

Kif the Tiff/Kif the explorer

Kif loves to play - be it in a paper bag or with a mouse on a string

Another favourite is playing and chewing on the cat grass and drinking water out of glasses

And when I'm boring he either sits down to watch what I do (here sat in my sewing machine's case as I'm sewing), or simply raids my bathroom cabinet!

just to let you know...

I hate mornings. I hate getting out of bed.

TMNT Tuesdays (Part 3 of 4): Brains Before Beauty

My drawing of Splinter may have sent some mixed signals, and you might not have noticed the pertinent details in my depiction of Shredder--but today it should be perfectly clear that I'm drawing upon the 90's cartoon version of the Ninja Turtles. Here's Krang (with the Technodrome silhouetted in the background):

click above for larger view

This is my favorite of the current batch, which may be an unwise thing to say before I post the final one, but I'm satisfied with the others as well. There's just something about the way the colors turned out on this particular one that makes me think I'm starting to get it. I'm also pretty happy with the irate parallel motion of Krang and his dopey android body.

This series illustrating TMNT supporting cast members follows a series from last year depicting the Turtles themselves:

• Turtle Power (Part 1 of 4): Leader
• Turtle Power (Part 2 of 4): Party Dude
• Turtle Power (Part 3 of 4): Does Machines
• Turtle Power (Part 4 of 4): Cool But Rude

New San Andreas Weapons

There’re new weapons been released for Grand Theft Auto San Andreas by the guy called Hans "Millenia" Palm. This is probably the best weapon pack currently available for the game. The realism of each model and the crisp details of the textures are just unbelievable. It’s amazing that it’s even possible to have such beauty in a comparably old game such San Andreas. If you still didn’t install this mod you have no idea what you’re missing. It’s an Everest of all weapon packs. Don’t waste your time reading this and start downloading right now!

Baseball Bat

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Nightstick

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Shovel

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Knife

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Katana

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9mm

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Silenced 9mm

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Desert Eagle

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Tec-9

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Micro SMG

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SMG

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Shotgun

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Sawnoff Shotgun

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Combat Shotgun

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M4

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AK47

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Sniper Rifle

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Grenade

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Vulcan Mini Gun

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Source: arenovalis.deviantart.com