Day 244: Minimum Doodle Allowance

Today, after a long day of work, school, and JKD, this is what I drew:


I'm not sure what it is, but I kinda like its minimalness and fanciness combined. It reminds me of lollipops and ruffles and pigtails and tea parties.

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Day 243: Boring School Tech Stuff. Ole!

I've been doing homework since I got home from work, and I have many more hours ahead of me. This semester, I have to watch a ton of videos, which is annoying and time-consuming (un-skimmable).

My web design class is going to be my toughest this semester, because my mind has a hard time wrapping itself around all that ethereal cyberspace junk. So, while it may not seem like much, my major accomplishment for today was in successfully setting up my own directory on Senna, the SJSU server. I configured the UNIX permissions, set up subdirectories, and did other things that I only marginally understand.

I also created a document about TCP/IP information and managed to put that document in my directory using FTP.


And if that's not enough of a make for you, then I've also carefully crafted a message in Spanish:

Buenas noches, mis amigos. Dejame en paz. Estoy haciendo lo mejor que puedo. Hasta mañana.

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Day 242: ZigZag Haiku

I'm a few minutes late in posting, but I wasn't about to stop and blog amongst the rats and homeless sleepers in the city.

Tonight after JKD, I went with Marcie again to the ZigZag Cafe, where we enjoyed delicious drinks, food, and Ben the World's Greatest Bartender.

I wrote a bunch of haikus on coasters.


There's more to tell, but it's past my bedtime. And now I shall sleep.

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Day 241: Wastelanders

Today I found this really old photo of four very intimidating people. I guess they're a band of badasses roaming the Wasteland in search of trouble, or caps, or both.


I wouldn't get too close if I were you.

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Day 240: Purple

Dinner at the Purple Cafe. That's all you get when I'm rocking the casbah with my Fallout Librarian costume.



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Day 239: Barbecued Iguana on a Stick

Today I made a(nother) finishing touch for my Fallout Wasteland Librarian costume, which I'll be wearing at PAX this weekend. It's a tasty and nutritious iguana on a stick. Here's its journey from thrift store castoff to fabulous prop:

1. Hanging out with a couple beers. Hey, what's that dowel doing over there?



2. Not cool, man. Not cool. And where'd the other beer go?






3. Hanging out to dry after a coat of black spray paint.






4. Sweet paint job.


5. Just add stick...





6. Voila! Iguana Don is now a tasty treat!



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Day 238: A Hundred Calories

Today I put together a little graphic comparing how much you get for 100 calories with some different foods that I like.

Now you can put together your own 100-calorie packs.

And if you can't tell what the images are, here they are, in a clockwise spiraling in fashion from the top left, because that's more interesting than left to right and top to bottom: sliced mushrooms, spinach, radishes, cherries, pistachios, mini marshmallows, M&Ms, Snickers bar, whole almonds, blueberries, banana, whole walnuts.

Day 237: My To-Do List for Fall Semester

Today is the first day of fall semester, and I've spent the last couple hours reading through my various syllabi with increasing awe and panic. So my make for today is a list of all the things I will have to learn and (in theory) master by December.

• Read, write, and speak the Spanish language
• Spanish-speaking culture, geography, and history
• Unix
• File formats
• HTML, XHTML, HTML5
• CSS
• Web 2.0 design
• Blogs, wikis, IM, collaborative writing
• RSS, widgets
• Podcasting, digital storytelling
• XML, XSLT
• Client side/server side programming
• PHP
• JavaScript
• Social research ethics and politics
• Research design
• IRB certification
• Sampling, measurement, typologies
• Descriptive statistics
• Qualitative field research
• Evaluation research
• Inferential/multivariate statistics
• Research proposal writing

At least I'll have 15 weeks to do 15 weeks of work this semester. Of course, I'm also working full time this semester. It'll be an adventure. 

By the way, I've already started figuring out how I'm going to alter my 365 project for 2012. But more on that later. 

Day 236: Tired of Blogging

After catching up with posting the weekend's makes, I'm tired and just wanna be a vegetable. So I made a new profile picture.


Or there's this one:



Maybe I'll save that second one for Halloween. Or my next finals week.

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Day 235: The Birthday Cat

Happy 12th birthday to my sweet kitty Guinness.


We celebrated with cat treats, catnip, trimming of the sharpies, fluff brushing, and a photo shoot.










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Day 234: Karol with a K and the Todd

Until my phone died, I gathered a few more gems this weekend. Karol and Todd were nearby when I went on a photo/video jag.

Todd pontificating or something in the form of an animated GIF:

Smiley Karol with a retro lens:

Todd showing off his amazing shoe-tossing talent:

And tossing both shoes at once:

And Karol has to go:

P.S. I took these videos on Saturday, but I'm using them for my Sunday make, and you can't stop me.

Day 233: Dance Dance Renaissance

Video apps on my iPhone are fun, especially, when there are goofballs willing to dance in the Hammered Troll pub at the Renaissance Faire.

First, here's Mat:

And Josh, who was reluctant at first:

Sadly, the most awesome video did not get saved somehow. It involved Karol, Mat, Josh, Todd, no music, singing about refusing to dance without music, and beatboxing. Luckily, it lives in my memory. So sad for those of you who didn't witness it.

Day 232: A Slightly Retarded Panoramic Camping Shot

The view from the tent at the Renaissance Faire campsite. This was the first time I'd used this particular panorama app, and it doesn't look so great on anything larger than an iPhone.


And yes, that is a giant rectangular black cloud.

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Day 231: Air Disney

Today, after much stress and technology failures caused by Apple, I needed a quick make. So I made these little Mickey and Friends paper airplanes.



Now I'm going to spend the rest of the evening poking needles into a little doll that looks a lot like Steve Jobs.

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Day 230: Crazy Colorful Doodling

In Texas, I bought many wondrous things, including this notebook with a special pen that makes colorful lines. So here's a piece of art using this mysterious technology:


And here's a close-up of the flower-like part:



Whew. Posted my make with 29 minutes to spare.

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Day 229: Another Smaller Purple Bear Thing

Today I made the other purple bear thing from the same kit as the one a couple days ago.


This one is smaller.


So Carol keeps the big one (on a high shelf where Bruno can't reach it and is tormented) and I keep the little one. Awwww.

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Day 228: Texas Jar Drinks

Today I made some drinks in the redneck wine glasses. Carol and I named the drinks and I wrote them on magic paper.






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Day 227: Stitchy Felty Fuzzy Bear

Today I got some craft kits at Michael's to fulfill my make quota for the long weekend in Texas. Here's a little hand-stitched purple bear thing with a tummy pocket.


Even though it came from a kit, it still look a good long time to make. The first two episodes of Battlestar Galactica, to be exact.

Carol didn't last that long.



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Day 226: Dervish Dog

Today, I woke up at 3:30am (after a solid 3 hours of sleep), got driven to the airport by my awesome nephew Zachary, flew to Houston with an assortment of obnoxious passengers, including a baby who kicked me in the head, got picked up by my awesome friend Carol, went shopping, ate a lot, drove past the World's Tallest Statue of an American Hero, and watched Carol's crazy dog Bruno run in circles in the bathroom.

So I have made an animated GIF of this peculiar event, so I wouldn't be alone in experiencing it.

Day 225: A Thing for Holding Stuff

There's a lot of stuff at the library that gets thrown away. Today, I rescued this box that held a book.



And I added some scrapbook paper and ended up with a thing to hold stuff.



And here's a view of the back and the bottom.


I'm not sure what I'll use it for, but I have lots of stuff, so it's always good to have one more thing to hold stuff.

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Day 224: Weird Spinner Thing

Tomorrow night, I'm helping with the library's kids craft booth at the Everett AquaSox game. They emailed out the craft ahead of time, so I decided to make one to make sure it was easy enough for kids to make. I figured that if I could make it after frying my brain with a research report for 6 hours after working for 8 hours after sleeping for 5 hours after doing homework for 8 hours after...you get the idea. Where was I? Oh yeah, if I could it make it with my brain in its current state, then it's probably doable by little rugrats.

I'm not sure what it is, except that it's called a Spinner. I made mine with patterned paper because I didn't have a vat of brightly colored construction paper like what I'm sure we'll be using at the game. I didn't bother with the yarn and fishing swivel because, well, I don't care.

And here it is in front of a picture of the model.


I guess they're supposed to spin in the breeze or something. Mine told me it would prefer spinning in the recycle bin. To each his own.

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Day 223: Two Monkeys Four Ways

So my brain is a bit fried. Today, I finished an 8-page report, took a final exam, and did six complex research problems (plus write-ups). Oh, and I worked a full 8 hours, including hobnobbing with the director of the entire library system. Twice. So by the time I remembered I still had yet to make something today, I didn't have much steam left. Or oomph.

So I found a picture of Boris and Pogo (my two favorite monkeys), and then I found some weird programs on the internet, and then I put them together.

Charcoal monkeys with light pastel coloring. The eyes!

Pop art monkeys. The eyes!

Lovey monkeys. Just like those crappy cloth photo posters you get at the fair.

Drama monkeys. The eyes!

I think it's time to get some sleep. I don't think I can trust any writing that comes out of my brain tonight.

The eyes!

Day 222: Abstract Art in a Hurry

Today, in the midst of homework madness, I took a very short break at some kind of online graphics playground program thing called Viscosity, where I made this beauty:

I call it Crumpled Term Paper Soaked in Blood and Yearning for the Sunlight.

You don't like it? Then I bet you won't like tomorrow's make, which will probably be a copy of my term paper on the evaluation of thesaurus-enhanced search systems.

Yeah. Enjoy today's pretty art.

Day 221: I Like It Dirty on Zazzle

Another stoneware coaster added to my Zazzle store.

You can buy a thousand of them here. Really. A thousand. Nobody will stop you. They can all be yours!

Day 220: Drinks Well with Others on Zazzle

Today I downloaded a few of the fonts I've been missing, so I was able to convert a button design into something on Zazzle bigger than a postage stamp. I decided to make a coaster (the fancy stoneware kind - ooooh) with this design: 

Feel free to buy a complete set of coasters for your next party. I'd suggest you get at least eight. Don't want anyone to feel left out.

Day 219: Boris and Pogo, Movie Stars

Today, Boris decided he needed to show the world how to make a blended mojito. And, of course, you can't let Boris do anything without Pogo being a part of it. So they went through the laborious process of making a blendito, and they documented it with photos, which they commanded me to put into a little animated GIF movie thing.

So here's how to make a blended mojito, if you can watch really fast and blink very little.

They have the taste of fame now, and I'm afraid I'll have to movie-ify their exploits again in the future.

Day 218: One More Thing to Study

The JKD evaluation is coming up in September, so it's time for me to start studying. Level 5! So today I made up a sort of cheat sheet to help me remember certain patterns that I know how to do but forget how to start. I don't need to know all of these for this evaluation, but it's good to start cramming them in my brain now, since sometimes it takes a while for things to stick.


It probably doesn't make sense to you, because it's in my own weird shorthand, but since it's a cheat sheet for me and not you, that works out okay.

Maybe someday I'll become good enough at drawing stick people to have an illustrated cheat sheet. Maybe by level 10.

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Day 217: Stickemup

Today I drew some stick people in various poses.


That is all.

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Day 216: What I Do All Day (This Week)

This week, I'm working in the Receiving section of the Acquisitions Department. So Here's a little collection of photos from today.

This is my desk. My computer has two monitors. Fancy! I work in one corner of the big Receiving room. Three very nice ladies are in the other three corners of the room. Big stacks of boxes (filled with BOOKS!) are in the center of the room.



Here's the contraption I use to tape the spines of magazines. I've been told I'm very good at it. I can probably thank the thousand times I've moved, and the thousand boxes I've taped up each time. And my lovably anal retentive personality.



Here's a pile of Christian Bale waiting for me to sort and drool on.



And here's a similar pile of Johnny Depp. It was a good day of unpacking today.



Here's a rubber band ball I started making yesterday. We go through a LOT of rubber bands. Everyone else just throws them away, but I decided to save them.



Here's my rubber band ball, the bands still in line for balling, and the nifty little barcode-sticker-shooter-outer.



There's ShamWow in the restroom! And it's made in Germany, so you know it's good. They make great stuff in Germany.



Next week, I'll be learning a different job, somewhere in the Circulation Department. Then I'll be rotating between here and there week by week. They call me a Floater, which brings up unpleasant CSI and Law & Order episodes, but it also gives me a great idea for a Halloween costume.

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