Clean Pop

Clean Pop, originally uploaded by headexplodie.

A very peculiar looking product found at the grocery store, hmmm?

The Holidays

I think I ate too much on Thanksgiving. We went to Whole Foods and I loaded up a big box full of food from the buffet and also got some other goodies, and proceeded to eat it all over an episode of Star Trek. I did not experience the effects of this until the day after, when I felt a growing fire in my belly. I left work early and passed out for a couple of hours till I felt better.

It's that time of year again! So here, I'd like to share with you some wonderful illustrations from a Disney Golden Book called Santa's Toy Shop. This book is from 1950, and the illustrations are adapted by Disney background artist, Al Dempster. I've always wondered how games were made...

What do you think of this song?!

Michael made a new song, and I've uploaded it to his page. I'm also messing with some options for making his songs available to listen to in a flash widget type thing, so here, click it, listen to it, and let him know what you think of it by commenting here, or through is email which can be found on the bottom of his webpage. Enjoy!




Here he is, at Quark's Bar, eagerly awaiting your feedback...

The US Constitution: 1976 and 2008

1976:




2008:

A Sad Story with Funny Pictures

So, friends and loyal readers of this blog know that I happily work at a park.

But this is not just any park, it is special, not-for-profit, and is a 10 acre storybook fantasy world for little ones.

Well, the other night, while most people were asleep...



A small band of criminals broke into the park, to do some thieving.

They broke into my workshop and stole our computer set up, and my iPod, which I foolishly forgot to take home that day.

They broke into our carpenter's workshop, and stole many expensive tools.


They broke into our sound booth for performances, and stole the sound equipment.


To top it all off, they sprayed graffiti ALL OVER the park.


When I was called the following morning, I rushed to work.


You can imagine my heartbreak upon seeing my beloved work place desecrated.

Michael was more upset. He spent weeks working on designs for the park, all that work was taken away when they took the computer and hard drives. You can imagine how he felt that morning.

I guess our stuff is now up for grabs at the flea markets and swap meets.



There is no happy ending, I can only hope that karma does its thing and the criminals get what they deserve.


You can only hope, and move forward. There is much cleaning up to do now.

Tomorrow it's back to work, back to making the park a happy place again, for myself, my co-workers, but most importantly, these guys:

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Images from Free Style Scraps - Pictogram by BNN.

Trek, and Illustration Friday:Wise

I made this for this week's Illustration Friday theme: Wise. It's Athena, goddess of Wisdom.

Here's the line drawing:

and my doodley sketch:

I'm not really that thrilled with the way it came out. I still have a lot of experimenting with the gouache before I feel comfortable with it. But oh well, that's what the illo fridays are for, experimentations.

So Michael and I have been watching Star Trek Original Series episodes in anticipation of the new movie coming out next year, and it's been pretty entertaining so far. TOS had such great colors in the show. I hope that in the 23rd century, we make space travel look as good as they did in the 1960's.

Now, I've never been into the original series, I grew up when Next Generation was showing, and I loved Deep Space Nine and Voyager, and ok, we even watched Enterprise which had its good moments. But the very few episodes of TOS I'd seen were just so hard for me to get into. So what brought on this sudden desire to watch every episode of TOS?

Visiting the STAR TREK EXPERIENCE in Las Vegas. We heard it was closing down in September, and we've always wanted to go, so making the trip was a no-brainer. I really hope it re-opens somewhere sometime in the future, because if you are a Star Trek fan, it was nerd heaven. The first thing we did was eat at Quark's Restaurant. I had the Holy Rings of Betazed, and Michael had the HamBORGer. SO DELICIOUS.

We were greeted by a Klingon and Ferengi before and after our meal. They never broke from their characters, and it was so cool that they allow you to play with them in that way, immersing yourself into their fantasy world. Not that it's that hard for Trekkies and Trekkers, I guess. This kid next to our table was questioing the Ferengi about the ins and outs of their monetary system. Our Klingon warrior asked if we were from San Francisco, specifically, Star Fleet Academy!

Anyway, the experience was great, we did the rides, toured the history of the future, got caricatures made of ourselves as a Cardassian and Bajoran. It's rare to be in a place with lot of other people who love a thing as much as you do, and are sad to see it go. It was mostly wonderful to just feel like I was in this world that I've become so familiar with just through watching the shows all the time, I guess like Disneyland where your wishes come true, except I've never cared that much for Disney and I think Star Trek is way cooler.

Fantasies are very powerful and transformative, I've felt it in the screams of the grown up women at the New Kids on the Block Reunion show and I've felt it in the kindness of the fellow guests and employees at the Star Trek Experience. I hope I get the opportunity to experience something like this again in the future.

Teen Idols and...Star Trek?

So I finally sent back my last Netflix movie, Drakmar: A Vassal's Journey, which was EXCELLENT. I'm a sucker for awkward nerd kids, so of course this one is a winner. In the special features, they show Drakmar a few years older from when they started filming, and it's crazy how tall the kid's grown! Seriously, adolescents are mutants, I've said it before.

Jonas Brothers? Totally mutants. Their mutant power? Transforming legions of young girls into wailing banshees.

Anyway, I got my next movie in today, The Idolmaker, which was also great. While there are no awkward nerd kids in this one, there are tons of screaming pre-teen girls, great choreographed dancing, singing, and Ray Sharkey is so great as the charismatic idolmaker. It was really fun to watch, and for a long time I've been fascinated by how young girls project their fantasies onto these dudes, and go totally bananas crying, screaming, trying to touch them, rushing stages and shaking tour buses, etc. See scene below:

SO AWESOME!!!!!!!!!!!! SUCH INTENSE EMOTION! AGhghahAAGAGAGAHH!!!!!! Such great hair, too. I got to experience this phenomena for myself a month ago, when New Kids on the Block came to do a show in San Jose. I guess I have to thank my 3rd grade school mates for exposing me to NKOTB, they had the board game, and all I remember from it were their big faces on the playing cards. I was too young to go to concerts back then, so of course I could not pass up the chance to see them now, 15-something years later.

So it was kinda like that scene in the Idolmaker, except all the little girls are grown up now, but they scream and cry just the same. I was a fool for not wearing ear plugs that night.

By the way, apparently the choreographer for The Idolmaker, Denny Terrio, was in this, heh, obscure little movie...

I have no idea where in the movie he is, but the internet tells me he is Khan's Crewman #11. Michael has been chastising me for not mentioning anything about our Star Trek Experience Trip this past September, so I shall do it now, though I'm sure he is upset that I have loosely linked Star Trek to New Kids on the Block. Wait, on second thought, I'd post about it tomorrow, since it's very late now, and I have a bowl of ice cream waiting for me. MuAhahaaAAaaa.

"I don't want to set the world on fire..."

Halloween was delightful- I viewed several performances of Larry Schmidt's always wonderful Driveway Follies. Michael was one of the puppeteers!

Also, I've been sorting the books in the Duchess Reading Room of Children's Fairyland, and I can't help but stop myself constantly when I come across books with 50's style illustrations. This one reminds me of being in the 4th grade, when we learned about simple machines, and I made a crane truck with sewing spools, string, and cardboard. FUN!

Speaking of retro, I am now addicted to Fallout 3 on the XBOX 360. Yep. It pretty much sucks up all of my free time.