gonzai55

Oi. My self-imposed semi-absence from the web should hopefully be over soon. I realized at a party a couple weeks ago that given the company I keep, both online and offline, I was going to have to bail on Sci-Fi and torrent Doctor Who. 2 down, 2 to go. We watched Midnight & Turn Left today (along with mini-marathoning the first 4 episodes of 'Life' ) and as soon as Journey's End shows up on torrents...Shore Leave is of course on Friday and I'll get doused with the Doctor there, so I sure hope I'll be caught up before then!

Normally I am not spoiler-phobic. My basic philosophy is to neither seek them nor avoid them. Spoilers happen. Oh well. But, when I know I'll be getting to see something within a few days of everyone else, I do try to avoid places where the show might be discussed. (Unlike a lot of people, I feel that if I don't want to be spoiled, it's MY responsibility to keep from being spoiled. It isn't everyone else's job to do it for me!) If I know it'll be more than a few days, then hell, spoil me, life goes on. Thus I know a lot of about Torchwood S2 and naught about the end eps of Dr Who (other than the casting news).

Finished my last (personal) piece of art for Shore Leave, a drawing of Mark Sheppard as 'Badger' from Firefly. Graphite pencils on Bristol Board, and hopefully signed by this time next week. I'd like to get a winged dog done before the con but not sure the arthritis will let me. 

I will 'fess up that most of these were read as requirements in school/college (although 'Dracula' was one of those!) and most of the non-read books were published after I left college and no longer had the time/requirement to read. An don't worry - #6 was also a school-required reading. 

If you want to post this to your own LJ - bold means you've read it, italics means you've meant to, and underline means you love it.

I've had better weeks.

What a way to wake up in the morning :(

Arguably my alltime fave comedian, always on target and always funny even when on a rant. 

I'm in the process of digitizing my vinyl collection, alphabetically; I think I will skip up to 'C' and do Carlin's old LPs tonight. Forecast: dark.

Finished the Season One DVD set last night (finished the eps Friday, and marathoned the Declassified disc last night.) All extras watched except the commentaries, I'll probably take a break and finish up Doctor Who and Band of Brothers before doing the commentaries.

Just what I needed, a new obsession! I read the Torchwood mags 1, 2 & 4 yesterday (3 is on order and should be here this week, 5 has been elusive at the stores but hopefully it'll turn up soon). Also went on a Torchwood vid downloading spree this week, half of which I lost, but found yesterday. They were accidentally saved to my 'Image' directory instead of 'Vids'. I think my fave vid at the moment is vaeltaa's 'Cells', mostly because I seem to have acquired an Owen Harper obsession. I went into Torchwood all about Captain Jack and thinking little, if anything of the rest of the cast, and my initial impression of Owen from the art/cast photos was that he was one weird-looking dude, followed by my first episodes impression that he was a total prick. Things do change, don't they? I still like Captain Jack, and I still think Owen's weird-looking (the artist in me says mouth is too wide), but I've also decided Owen is smoking hot and the most interesting of the regular characters. Go figure, right? Probably some of it is that when it comes to fanfic/fanvids, etc, I've always had a preference for hurt/comfort or torture fic. Owen plays right into that (and yes, I do know about Season Two.) I guess my next stop is pic-spam/image collecting. I've already drawn Jack, but I want to finish my abortive first attempt at painting him, and do the rest of the cast, esp. Owen of course, so a photo-hunting I will go. Might involve myself in some other Torchwood art projects, and try to scrape up some Torchwood merchandise. Obsession is expensive and time-consuming!

 http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/nation/bal-teacher0620,0,830089.story

The 'federal lawsuit' thing is weird though - shouldn't there be assault charges? Maiming? There's plenty of run-of-the-mill criminal to be worked with here...

On a more cheerful note, I finished this over the weekend. As George Takei is coming to Shore Leave next month, I thought a sketch of him would be in order (not to mention a good item to get autographed!) The standard graphite pencils on Bristol Board, 9x12. 

 

Scary, these people are. Really.

 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06/15/AR2008061502180.html

Now, what I would like to see is men, if they want to get Viagra, having to go to the pharmacy with their marriage certificate AND with their wife. Of course that would really slow down sales...

A ways back, I promised to post a step-by-step on how I did a commissioned portrait of SG:A's Rodney McKay. Now that I have DSL, it's possible for me to do it. Hopefully enjoy!

 

I have to wonder if this twit has ever refused to marry straight couples who were drunk, stoned, or otherwise clearly not a good idea.

 So yesterday pretty much sucked.

In this particular case, a portrait of everyone's favorite serial killer, Dexter Morgan.

Graphite pencils on Bristol Board is the order of the day. Took me probably 10-12 hours on this particular one, except that this isn't my first try at Dex. Previous versions resulted in uncooperative pencil/paper relations, so it was back to basics.

They can go on all they want about this that and the other, but I think the bottom line came down to this: Big Brown went out there, and said to himself 'my foot hurts, it's frakkin' hot, everyone's slamming into me, I just don't feel like it okay?' I doubt there was anything wrong with him other than he simply wasn't into it under the circumstances. Hopefully I'm right.

Good on Da'Kara though. Wire to wire for a mile and half. Really impressive!

My little dispute is really going to hell in the proverbial handbasket. 

Jim McKay was, after a fashion, a neighbor - his (huge) horse farm was next to my brother's in-law's place, so I drove past it on a regular basis. I also had the privilege of meeting him at Camden Yard once after an Orioles game - I asked him about his horses and he was delighted to talk about them. It's sad that he died before finding out if we will indeed have a Triple Crown. Sigh.

OK, I admit it, I'm old enough to remember Chuck Thompson. Met the man, too, a real gentleman.

But more on point, yes, it's war. I've filed a PayPal complaint against the Seller peddling unformatted Dr Who discs and he's filed against me. Just wait til I have PayPal, Ebay, Visa and my boss all after him.  

Not having the best of days here.

(This is my first attempt with a meme - bear with me? Please?)

1. Reply to this post and I'll assign you a letter.
2. List (and upload, if you feel like it) 5 songs that start with that letter.
3. Post them to your journal with these instructions.

sol_segave me M. Little did she know...I have well over 1800 M songs just in my ITunes library. To narrow things down, I kept it to only Ma songs, and tried to go for the goofier/gorier amongst them. Still wound up with more than 5, and a bizarre bunch they are too...

Ah yes, Balticon…talk about your long weekends.