Wednesday, November 29, 2006

Not a Blow Out


Bucknell had a nice come-from-behind victory last night. My graphics must be working.
Here's a player whose ankles got blown out. Another doodle from work.

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Tuesday, November 28, 2006

Bucknell Bison vs. Saint Francis Red Flash 11/29

GO BISON!
Another one for the brother. The last one seemed to work. By the way, catch my brother's basketball travels on his own blog and on College Hoops Net where he's documenting his pursuit of 10 games in 10 states in 10 days. He's now on Day 2 and was just interviewed on the Iona College Gael's half-time show.

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Friday, November 24, 2006

Bucknell Bison vs. Yale Bulldogs

GO BISON!

My little brother's been on a wild road trip following the Bison around the Northeast corridor. He requested a graphic to help the Bison overcome their 0-4 start as they head into Yale Saturday 11/25.

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Monday, November 20, 2006

Cheap Trick with OK GO

Last Wednesday, my 'little' brother, visiting from San Antonio, TX, and I hit the TLA in Philly for Cheap Trick and OK GO.

It was a happy accident that I stumbled on their visit. A couple of us at work were discussing Rick Neilsen's guitar collection and I pulled up the Cheap Trick site and saw that they were coming to town. I think it's been 5 or 6 years since they were in Philadelphia.

I was an early fan back in '78 with the release of Heaven Tonight and then quickly picked up their earlier records -- the first purchased by my grandmother for a birthday. As I got older and headed into my concert going years they lost me especially with 1987's The Flame.

As I got older still and they had their 25th anniversary tour, I got hooked back into them, buying the cd's and framing the vinyl's. But their tours and my schedule never crossed paths until now. They've long been on my list of bands I 'gots' to see before I or they check out.

I wasn't able to match the wink my wife got from Tom Petersson as a teen in Saratoga, but I was able to give Rick a pat on the shoulder as he made his way through the bar crowd during opener, OK Go's act.

OK Go was good sport. They've gained viral fame this year with their treadmill Here It Goes Again and backyard A Million Ways dance videos. Their encore for the evening was a re-enactment of the backyard video. Well done, lads. Good infectious entertainment.

Cheap Trick went full force through their set and gave it all, covering the hits from Candy to Surrender to Dream Police and including songs off their new record, Rockford and even The Flame.

Rick spent the evening spitting while singing and spitting on stage and stomping about, showering picks throughout and finished strong with the 5-neck. Robin Zander's vocals seem just as strong as ever and show no sign of aging like so many of his peers and elder rockers. Tom Petersson kept things humming with his 12-string bass and Bun E. Carlos kept the beat well -- though his sticks didn't seem to be as big as they used to be.

That's one more of those goals that I can cross off the list.

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Tuesday, November 14, 2006

beer gut

Roughly based on a friend of mine, Scott, who lives in Reno, NV. Though he has a kegerator going round the clock, Scott's not pulling the beer gut this guy does.

Scott was my coworker at PECo and room-mate throughout and beyond college. He collaborated on some of my earlier PECo doodles from the 80's like Putty Head.

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Sunday, November 12, 2006

The Elected with Margot & The Nuclear So and So's

Caught a show last week at the First Unitarian Church near 21st and Chestnut in Philadelphia. When I attended the Art Institute of Philadelphia just out of high school, we 'dormed' at the apartment house, then called the Ambassador Townhouse, at 21st and Chestnut, right across the alley from the church. I met my wife there on top of the building one night.

It was strange to be standing in the alley with a friend waiting in line for the show 17 stories below my wife's original apartment, 1818, (I'm pretty sure there was no 13th floor) 24 years later.

It was also a little strange to be in the basement of the church with about 100 other people who appeared to be less than half my age. I'm pretty sure that I was the 2nd oldest person in the crowd.

I went to see The Elected but was wow'ed by Indiana's Margot & the Nuclear So and So's. I had one of their songs, Skeleton Key, on my ipod and enjoyed it. Listening here and there on the commute was nothing compared to seeing them live. Their studio work only hints at the potential for rocking they gift to the fans and converts that have shown up at venue's around the country on their current tour. The eight-member band -- which includes a supplemental percussionist who drives the beat home with his marching band big bass drum and other noisy toys -- features a myriad of instruments that create a wall of sound that is rare on the small club circuit. How do they fit all of them --and their instruments too-- in their van?

If you get a chance, catch them -- they're sure to rise up.

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Friday, November 10, 2006

Sssssss


When I was a kid in the 1970's a movie was on TV called Sssssss, starring Dirk Benedict (before Battlestar Galactica and the A-Team fame) as a college student that volunteers to help a scientist work with snakes. It turns out that the scientist injects his 'helpers' with a series of king cobra venom doses that has the unwitting students turning into snakes. The creepiest part of this movie is when we see one of his failed experiments in a carnival side show -- half boy/half snake.

The memory of that scene has always stuck in my mind. In fact, I found out that my little brother's wife will not allow discussion or mention of the movie in her presence or household because of that scene.

Now, some 30 years later, I like to rent old horror movies that I enjoyed as a youngster for my own kids to watch. I rented Sssss from Netflix recently and once we started watching realized that it had originally been released in theaters with a PG rating. I found that it could have used some of that "edited for TV" magic for the kids.

Cuts.com (co-founded by my friend, whiffle ball nemesis, and old Half.com and Infonautics colleague, Sunny Balijepalli) promises to allow the ability to edit and mix movies you own so that you can play them the way you want on your pc or desktop.

What will be cool is when Apple releases its iTV product in 2007, I would assume you'd then be able to stream your Cuts-created videos to your living/family room entertainment center, rather than having to watch on the computer.

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Thursday, November 09, 2006

Dog Bite On My Leg

Dog bite on my leg
Not right
Supposed to beg

-Dead Kennedys

We got our first dog a couple weeks ago. I was never a dog person. This is a stretch for me but we seem to be surviving.

She's a puppy and does the spazzy things puppies do -- we're getting along fine.

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Sunday, November 05, 2006

Smoking in the cubicles

Nowadays, I often date myself around the office by recalling the days when people were allowed to smoke in the office. Before that habit was shown the sidewalk, we non-smokers coexisted with the nicotiners in acrimonious disharmony.

Filthy ashtrays and yellowed cubicle frames were the decor at Philadelphia Electric Co. (PECo). I worked there in college in a special program manned by college students and run by regular full-timers. As I mentioned before, we worked out payment arrangements for the very worst of the non-paying electric and gas customers.

An office full of college kids tended to often break down into goofiness, practical jokes and regular tom foolery. One of my favorite hobbies was attempting to shoot the cigarette out of the hands of my smoking colleagues while they were on the phone with customers or busy working away.

My most memorable shot was taking out a Marlboro light from 15 feet away, knocking the lit end into the unsuspecting employee's folder of paperwork. My cube-mate and I sat back and enjoyed the show while he tried to maintain his conversation as he urgently searched for the missing ember.

Once his phone call was over he was in a proper rage.

This is a drawing I did back then, circa 1985 or 86. It's a cross between my cubemate with the nostrils definitely taken from the guy whose cigarette I shot.

Incidentally, my current workplace is going completely smoke-free this month -- no smoking anywhere on the property -- including inside your car.

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Thursday, November 02, 2006

a sharp stick in the eye

In my physics class in high school, my friend Rich and I used to talk about how we'd rather stick hot pokers in our eyes than continue under the pressure of homework, exams, quizzes, and projects.

I thought of Rich recently when sitting in a long meeting at work and sketched this guy. Funny, Rich is now a middle school science teacher in southern Maryland.

My boss thought it was an indicator of my feelings for sitting through the meeting. Really, I just wanted to draw a picture of a guy that pulled his eye out with a stick.


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Wednesday, November 01, 2006

shuffle-nicity: Van & Ray

I have an hour-long commute each way to work and rely entirely on my ipod for the soundtrack to my ride. When I'm not listening to podcasts I'm listening to my 'top tunes' playlist in shuffle mode, only playing songs that have not been played after 10/17/2005 (when i started my job and the long commute). That way I avoid the repeats that often happen in straight shuffling.

Occasionally, I'm pleasantly surprised by how one track may relate to the next.

Recently, Van Morrison's "Dreams of You" played. In it he sings:
And Ray Charles was shot down
But he got up to do his best
A crowd of people gathered round
To the question answered yes
And you slapped me on the face
I turned around the other cheek
You couldn't really stand the pace
And I would never be so meek

The next song that came on was Ray Charles' "Busted".

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my costume design

want him on a tshirt? just click the picture.

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