Rarely do I get the bug to work on a piece to its completion. It’s hard to say completion though because I pick every last nit to the end and it’s never good enough. “I should have done it this way,” or “I should have left that out,” or “this spot doesn’t look quite right.” I could work on one piece halfway to doomsday and not be done with it.

It’s funny though, I’m laughing at myself a bit for what I can’t get right. When you’re first starting out, anatomy is just a word. Caution to the wind! Arms look like this, I’m sure of it! The sure sign of an amateur is when they say, “But I just can’t seem to get the boobs right.” Then, you realize that hands aren’t something to be put behind objects just so you don’t have to draw them. Sometimes I still say, “Fuck it! The still living corpse of Liefieldbe damned, I’m obscuring these hands (Which almost rhymes – I’m surprisingly proud of that).” Somewhere in all this there’s an anime/manga phase (all of us did it), and I’ll admit it, no matter the shame: I had an offshoot of Furry in my history.

Anymore, I get caught up in small rendering problems. I’m not a trained artist, but I think I know what “rendering” means. Other balance problems bug me, or bad anatomy “uglies.” I need to look at the piece I’m working on again and fix the problems with it as best I can with as much elegance as possible and mark it as done. It’s on par with the other work I have on my wall and I may decide to print it as well.

Ultimately, I’d like to set up shop here and sell prints or do commissions and be like Brandon Bird. I’ve mentioned him at least once before – I wouldn’t say I idolize him though. More like… statuettize.

Indiana: Give me the whip.
Satipo: Throw me the idol. No time to argue. Throw me idol, I’ll throw you the whip.
Indiana: [throws the idol] Give me the whip.
Satipo: Adiós, señor.

Yes, my Xbox 360 caught the horrible plague that is the Red Ring of Death. I thought I had gotten away scot freeafter owning it for almost two years, but I think it was just denial. There were a handful of problems with the device from the get-go like disc read problems when the console was vertical for some games, horizontal for others. One day, Bioshock would not boot for some unknown reason. So really, yes, denial.

You may spot a couple new links on the Links to Other Places category. I feel confident linking to the Freakonomics blog without ever having been there. One day I had quite a lot of time to kill at a Half Price Books and read a chapter or two of the book. It was quite good, and I still want a copy. The other one, God Plays Dice, I stumbled upon in my adventures on the Internet.  It’s not on my rotation proper, but I go there whenever all my other avenues have dried up and I’ve got nothing to read. A glowing endorsement I know, but I’m almost always pleased when I go there. He tends to focus on math and physics, which is cool, but he sometimes gets a little too excited about numbers.

Then there’s Joel on Software. An amazingly excellent post got my attention one day, and it similarly went in my pile of things to look at when things are slow. He doesn’t post often, but when he does, it’s likely to be pretty good.

I likes me some roast beef sandwiches from Arby’s, but my last visit there irked me a little bit. You know how they have that promotional deal where you can buy 5 items for a low, affordable, price? You might remember it didn’t always used to be like that. For a long time, it was only a limited time offer, and then only at individual stores. Asking if the “5 for 5 deal” was in effect awaited an answer with bated breath. The sweet part of the deal though was you could get 5 Beef and Cheddars, big F’n roast beef sandwiches, for $5.00.

Then there was a change. Instead of Beef and Cheddars, they became Arby’s Melts. Just as delicious as before, but smaller. At $5 for 5 sandwiches it was still a hell of a deal, and still only at participating locations. Then they changed it again. The deal was now “5 for $5.95.” I understand that time passes, the dollar inflates, so really… a good deal.

Then there were two changes, pretty recently, and for the better I believe. First you could choose from 7 other items to mix and match your way to “5 for $5.95.” Second, the deal was in full force at all Arby’s locations all the time. A glorious moment. No longer did I have to ask if the deal was in effect. I could safely assume I could get tons of beef, and even curly fries included, without asking.

Then there was a change. This was my most recent trip to Arby’s, and this one snuck in under the radar just as the others had, but took me by surprise. I pulled up to the window to pay and the total was more than I expected! $6.95. We’re now in a dangerous territory friends. If this trend continues, and I’m almost certain it will, the 5 Arby’s Melts (to be accurate 3 sandwiches, a drink, and curly fries) will cost me $7.95 and no longer be worth my money compared to any other combo item on the menu.

There are a small number of words that I just hate. It’s not that I hate the ideas behind these words, which I guess is the most important part of the word. What they represent is another matter entirely. Before I even get to my point, take an interesting word like ‘nigger’ (this is where I get burned at the stake, or crucified, or rocks thrown at me). Regardless of how it is used and what it means, it is a fine English word. It fits into English almost to a ‘T.’ It is iambic, and has a duplicated middle consonant that defines its pronunciation very well. I’m serious here, though. I feel I have to choose a word with an objectionable idea behind it to illustrate what I’m talking about.

Now that we’ve defined what I’m not talking about here, let’s move to the meat of things, eh? Words that I hate. The words themselves. These words don’t follow the rules, and flaunt their genitalia in my face. Fuck you, words.

• Goodly

This little bastard comes along and reminds us of the whole “good, better, best” routine in grade-school and shits on it. Why not use the word “good?” Hell, restructure the sentence so as to use “well” in there so you can sound like a regular English speaker instead of sounding like a prick by saying “goodly.”

• Monies

Conceptually, all I have to say is “what.” No question mark; just an incredulous “what.” This one is simple, people. Now, I understand if you take an envelope of money from Jack, and another envelope of money from Jill, you technically have everyone’s “monies,” but I don’t buy it. It’s all just “money.”

• Onomatopoeia

Stop it. Just… stop it.

• Any word with an “ough” in it

I was clued into this one fairly recently by a coworker of mine, Rich. Think about all the words you know with “ough” in it. Here’s a horrible example to illustrate the frustrating nature of this little shit:

A rough-coated, dough-faced, thoughtful ploughman strode through the streets of Scarborough; after falling into a slough, he coughed and hiccoughed.

Now do you share my hatred? I think you do. If you don’t quite understand, say it out loud. I’m not English, so I don’t have the foggiest idea of a way to pronounce “hiccoughed.” I know what a “hiccup” is, which is what this word means. My spell checker doesn’t even recognize it. I’ll attempt to phonetically translate here:

A ruff-coated, doe-faced, thottful plowman strode thru the streets of scarbor-row; after falling into a sluff, he coffed and hic… fuck.

I think I got close. What do you think?

I think that’s all I’ll rant about for now. I’ll get angry again in the future, I’m sure. I always do. Until next time, same Bat-channel, some random time.

First things first: Definition of meme. I only put this here ’cause it’s a relatively new word to English, so I’ll be generous and educate those who don’t know.

I’ve got some memes that, well, let’s be honest here… I guess they’re more inside jokes in the vein of “You had to be there.” I’m just blogging about it and waving my dick in your face while I talk about how awesome I am at brandishing my genitals. But what else is blogging about or for, I ask? What, indeed?

But I digress far, far too much. Here’s the list and some explanations. Enjoy it or die in a lightning fire made of cars.

• Cocket Snatch
  Bam! Cocket Snatch! It sounds dirty, doesn’t it? Really, it’s just a derivative of a brainstorming session to title a game modification for Unreal Tournament 200X. We were taking an original, licensed game, Rocket Jockey (a totally killer game, by the way), taking the core gameplay, and making it our own. We couldn’t name our game Rocket Jockey of course, so we came up with a list of titles. Rocket Grab was one of them, but that just seemed gay. Enter: Cocket Snatch. It’s like Rocket Snatch, but this one is intensely funnier. Ever since this brainstorming session, Cocket Snatch is on the list almost every time for sake of tradition.
• Dollar Cakes
  When I was but a lad wandering through the nudity of the Internet, I saw a word. I couldn’t pronounce the word. I knew I didn’t like what I saw alongside the word. It was a label. But I didn’t know if pronouncing it “Buck Cake” was correct. I later learned it was Bukkake, but I just tucked this nugget away for later.Coworker Steve and I were talking, and as conversations go, teenage masturbation is a roundhouse subject. You can always follow the train of thought and logic back to it. I decided to dig up my “Buck Cake” story for him, and he remembered thinking the same thing too! Over the course of the week, we would mutter “buck cake” to one another, and burst into laughter. It eventually evolved into cakes costing one dollar (a buck). Hence, “Dollar Cakes.”
• Baggadix
  Once again, this one has to do with coworker Steve. He was being especially pissy, for who knows what reason. I kept telling him to eat things like “bags of hell” and “dicks.” It continued until I told him to “Eat a bag of dicks.” Apparently the possibilities here were endless. “Eat 10 bags of 20 dicks” was just one of the phrases uttered. Eventually I grew weary and simply said “bag o’ dicks.” It’s not a huge mental leap from here to get to Baggadix. It sounds like a breakfast cereal though, like Trix, so it stuck.
• Liquid Bees
  You know, sometimes I don’t even know. Just – liquid fucking bees, okay?
• Lemonade from the ass well!
  Kyle Naziaxier (hehe, another inside joke), Allison, and I were driving someplace. Kyle had a habit of lingering the ’s’ of “as well,” making it sound like he was saying “ass well.” I, being the goofball that I am, had to do something with it, so in a strange voice, I crooned,”Ass well? You can drink lemonade from the ass well!”

So there you have it. A strange look into why I say what I say. There’ll probably be another entry similar to this sometime in the near future as I recall more weird shit I say.