Spooooooky~ It’s Nate’s birthday today! He’s 24 and he’s complaining that he’s “sooooo old“, which is a total load, if you ask me. He was born an old man, so he can’t really get any older. I also have a couple of friends who share this birth date and it’s kind of creepy.
I’ve recently re-discovered the joy that is a good brandy. I’m normally not much of a hard liquor fan, but brandy is just too good to pass up. Going to be trying absinthe soon, now that it’s legal and our anniversary is coming up.
Here’s some newish art:
I had a really weird dream recently… I don’t remember the whole thing, but the most vivid portion had to do with my cat, Coal. She apparently decided to nest in a small cupboard way up on a wall somewhere in the house (think one of those cupboards that goes above an over-the-stove microwave) and was nesting in it like she was going to have kittens. However, instead of giving birth, she laid two small eggs, about the size of a quail’s and they almost immediately hatched into these fat, tiny little kittens. I remember being excited about how novel and strange it was, then not so pleased by the realization there would be more kittens to deal with. That was pretty much the end.
Also, new artwork. Skogul doing what a junker does… collecting junk.
I never realized how boring the internet can be when my friend Lunchbox isn’t on for dorky discussions about all the things we’re hardcore nerds for.
Anyhow, I think I’ve reached a sort of milestone as a crocheter, I guess. I’m working on my first true crochet commission, for my friend Vero. It’s a scarf, and she wanted it thick and striped (rugby scarf style), but I couldn’t find a pattern that really gave me exactly what I wanted in crochet… so, looking at a few to get ideas (primarily the checkerboard and vice-versa scarves), I kind of made my own pattern of sorts. I’m thinking about typing it up and posting it for people to use, but I’ll wait until the scarf is more complete so I can accurately gauge whether or not it was a success. I’m calling it the “Tim Burton” scarf, because of the black and white stripe motif that’s so prevalent in Burton’s work.
I found a couple by the front door. First one was a female, decent size and she liked to try to bite my fingers when I was handling her. I let her go after watching her scramble around the bottom of a plastic tube I had left from a set of brushes. Then, last night, I found her again… and a few minutes later I found a male who had flown oh-so-gracefully into the wall near the porch light and landed in the patch of bark mulch and clovers by the front steps. He was even more aggressive and they were crawling over each other and flipping one another over in the tube. Then I let both go in the clovers and now they’re probably going to have hundreds of babies.
I didn’t even know we had stag beetles around here, so that was pretty cool. I hope I find more; particularly males with huge mandibles like the ones in my entymology books.
I’ve been productive. Usually when I think about what to write in this thing, I think to myself, “There’s nothing interesting going on. I’m not doing anything.” But then I realized I’ve done quite a bit since my last blog entry.
I’ve been doing some writing of a cooperative sort and it’s been inspiring me to expand and refine characters of mine, which usually means a bit of tweaking and lots of concept pictures! I’ve also done some redesign for one of Nate’s characters, who has sorely needed it for a couple of years.
I also got most of my stuff re-uploaded to my site’s gallery now. There might be a few pieces I’ve neglected to add, but I probably will in due time. I also renewed my domain hosting (I remembered, yay!), so my site won’t be going anywhere for at least another year.
And, as usual… crocheting. I’ve gotten Nate’s mom hooked on crocheted dishcloths, so I’m in the process of making a few of those, and I’ve finally used that delicious wool I got and have plenty left over for more yarn love.
Just a side note: We barbecued for the fourth and that’s about it. It’s too mosquito-y out to go see fireworks.
My PS2’s disc read error issue has gotten worse; I now cannot play ANY DISC that I put into the console, for gaming or otherwise. That sucks like nothing else, even though I have a DVD player that’s separate so I can still watch movies.
I now need to crack the sucker open and mess with the innards. I’ve got a sneaking suspicion the position of the laser has something to do with it…
I just need to get me one of those itty-bitty eyeglass/jeweler screwdrivers. Sigh.
If anyone tried to access any part of my site or a sub-site on the skogul.net domain in the last 48 hours and got a 404 error, that’s because I’m in the process of moving my operations to a new host.
I’d been with DreamHost for 2 years, and despite a few problems (none of which really affected me that much), they’re a pretty solid service for $7-10 USD/mo. Buuut, I got an offer from the gracious and awesome Dee of void-star.net for free hosting, and I decided to take her up on it once my current hosting plan ended with DH.
So, I first changed the DNS servers for my domain from DH’s to vs’, which took about… I dunno, 12-48 hours to propagate across the internet, then began to move my content. The site and my blog are up and running and now I’m slowly re-uploading my artwork to the gallery. That will probably take a few days to get done simply because of the volume of files I need to sort through.
Since I’ve really started crocheting (and slowly learning to knit), I’ve only ever bought yarn from places like Michaels, Joann’s and Walmart, because they were close and affordable.
I did some looking on google eventually for a proper LYS (Local Yarn Shop/Store) and found one called The Wool Patch in Middleboro, right down route 28. I finally got Nate to agree to drive me there while we were out on Friday doing errands.
I was pleasantly surprised with the shop. The proprietor was very friendly and helpful given it was my first time in a proper yarn shop, and I eventually settled on two gorgeous hanks of Cascade 220 heathers. She was nice enough to wind them into balls for me and Nate was fascinated by the swift and ballwinder in action. He later reported it was, “Not as bad as he thought it would be” and that he’d go with me again some time. VICTORY!
I gave Spider a bath today with the hose. He didn’t appreciate it at the time, but he feels a lot better now.
I was checking my email and there was a promotional/newsletter message and there was some kind of fancy ass new motherboard sweepstakes… so, I said, “What the hell, sign me up.” Never hurts, and I may just actually win, although I doubt it.
So, I’m putting in the info and all that, and I look at the big banner image at the top and notice the deadline for entries…
June… 3th? Don’t they mean 3rd? 3th would be the thirth, right? Not the third, the thirth.
Newegg might want to assign some proofreaders for their graphics department.
A bit of shameless self-promotion: If anyone didn’t already know, I sell prints of some of my work through RedBubble. I’ve sold a few, but haven’t gotten any feedback on how they turned out. A few more sales wouldn’t hurt if anyone’s interested. :p
I finished the FlyFF version of Skogul piece. It turned out rather nicely if I do say so myself, considering a lot of it was me experimenting with new coloring and blending techniques. It won’t be a print because that’s treading close to copyright infringement territory, and I don’t go there.
Next, I’m to draw either a Theban hoplite or a Macedonian phalanx. It really depends on which I can get more acceptable reference for. Maybe I’ll do it in an art nouveau style. Greek soldiers in art nouveau? EXCELLENT.
I’m feeling terribly stressed out for some reason. I’ve got a good idea why, but I don’t think that alone is the reason. I don’t like it and I want it to go away.
