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I’m No Superman

I had meant to do an entry for Illustration Friday today, but I started doodling this drawing of J.D. and Turk from Scrubs and just had to finish it.  So I guess for this week’s Illustration Friday theme of “Daring” I am daring to break the rules and draw whatever the heck I want!

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The R. Crumb Handbook

I picked up the brand-new R. Crumb Handbook which, as one reviewer put it, might as well be called the R. Crumb Bible since it’s about as thick and as full of content.  Plus, it comes with a CD: a compilation of Crumb’s various ragtime bands.  I didn’t plan on buying it, but the price was right (a mere 20 clams Canadian).  I’m glad it also comes with a Crumb bookmark because there’s no way I’m devouring this monster in one sitting. 

As an aside, when I went to Amazon to grab the image of the cover, I noticed that they redesigned their book listings.  Each listing now shows a larger-sized image of the book covers by default (in addition to hiding all the superfluous Amazon “departments” behind a wacky roll-over menu up top).  I like the change because try as they might, the Amazon shopping experience can’t quite capture the feeling of picking up a book with your own hands.  So at least the images are a bit bigger and I don’t have to squint and lean in to the monitor to read the titles.

Edit: Looks like I spoke too soon about Amazon.  They’re back to the small book images now.

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Overheard at the Laundromat

Twice now while visiting the laundromat, I’ve noticed it’s become the cool place to hang out at if you’re a 17-year old hoodlum who wants to drink beer and listen to obnoxious hip hop.

Now maybe because in highschool I always had friends with accommodating parents, but certainly these kids can find a better place to hang out in on a friday night than the laundromat.  Then again, maybe these boys are more sensitive than I give them credit for, and they just really enjoy the comforting scent of fresh dryer sheets.

Hoodlum 1: Where the fuck is Dave?
Hoodlum 2: He went to Amy’s house.
Hoodlum 1: He’s gonna be there forever!  Why does he always do this?
Hoodlum 3: ‘Cos he always does this!

Note the expert use of circular logic. Poor Dave, missing out on all the underage beer drinking and spitting on the floor. Has he no respect for other people’s time?  As the boys gulped down their cans of Löwenbräu, they opined on the finer points of lager enthusiasm…

Hoodlum 1: Yo, dawg, Löwenbräu is the fuckin’ bomb.
Hoodlum 2: Fuck, I know! **SPIT**
Hoodlum 1: In, like, the top 5 beers, **SPIT** it’s definitely, like, number 1.
Hoodlum 3: What about Stella?
Hoodlum 1: Man, fuck Stella!  Stella’s good, but it’s no top 5.  The top 5 in , like, the world are, like, Löwenbräu, ummm… Grolsch… Corona… Heineken… and, like, Kronenbourg.  **SPIT**

Wow… who knew little white rapper punks were such connoisseurs of European beer!  Shouldn’t they be drinking Molson Cold Shots or malt liquor or something?  I can’t believe I got schooled by a kid with pants that baggy; I hadn’t even heard of Kronenbourg.  I was so certain he was mixing up his beers with his Canadian film icons that I had to look up the spelling.  “I’ll take 6 Kronenbourgs, and a two-four of Egöyan Genuine Draft.”

**SPIT**

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Li’l Brudder

My iPod has a new little brother!  Now that the weather’s getting nicer I’ve started running again, and I’m sick of carrying my regular iPod around with me to listen to music while I run, so I caved and got a cute li’l iPod Shuffle because it’s so small and lightweight and can be worn around my neck.

I got the 512MB version because I planned on only using it for running, but since I only ever listen to my music on shuffle-play, I almost like this little guy more than its full-sized older brother.  I followed these instructions for a batch of linked smart playlists and I’ll be damned if I didn’t end up with the coolest evolving dynamic playlist full of the perfect mix of favourites and things I’ve almost completely forgotten about.

I named the little fella… wait for it… Mr. Shuffleupagus.

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There Once Was a Pope from Nantucket

Adina challenged me to create a Pope limerick like hers.  I came up with these:

Pope Benny, elected from various
Catholic cardinals gregarious,
may be righteous and pious
with a conservative bias,
but the funniest pope was Hilarius.

None in the Church can be greater
than the pontiff, Sanctissimus Pater.
Dressed all in white,
for the holy and right,
the pope is the anti-Darth Vader.

Does the big number one theocratic in
the city-state known as the Vatican,
at the end of each day,
when he kneels down to pray,
have to take off his big funny hat again?

Okay, they’re not as political as Adina’s—but it’s hard to rhyme “Hitler youth”

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Confessions of a Packrat

I am a packrat.  I keep everything and throw out nothing.  So it baffled me when, planning for a trip, I could not find my passport.  I knew I had it somewhere, because as a guy who for some reason hangs on to every receipt, tag, box, and useless piece of paper, it was inconceivable that I wouldn’t still have such an important piece of identification somewhere.  (I could find the boarding pass of a trip to Ireland I took 4 years ago, but not the passport I travelled with)

I know that the expression, “it’s always in the last place you look” is baloney because as we all know, once you find what it is you’re looking for, you simply stop looking for it.  However, in this case, I think the expression would be accurate, as by the time I found my passport it was in the last place it could possibly (and even then, almost impossibly) have been.

After exhausting every file folder, box, shelf, drawer, nook, and cranny of my aprtment, I finally found my passport wedged far back and underneath my DVD player, which, housed in its narrow shelf, does not allow for much wiggle-room to move around.  I had to blindly shove a ruler underneath it in the hopes that I would scrape out the treasure I was searching for.

Clearly the passport was not put there by accident.  At some point I consciously slid it in there, no doubt thinking it was a safe a spot as any so that I “would not lose it.” Well thanks a lot, past self!

In my frantic searches however, I did manage to purge myself of a lot of collected junk.  As much of a packrat as I am, I do enjoy the cathartic process of throwing out crap every now and then.  For the record, here is a small list of things that got chucked into either the garbage or the recycling in my search for the lost passport:

• The box my 3-year old iPod came in


• 
  A hydro bill from 5 years ago (keeping in mind I’ve moved twice since then)


• 
  The negatives from a college photography class


• 
  A 2001 yellowpages for a neighbourhood I don’t even live in


• 
  A particpant’s pin from my highscool Reach for the Top team (which, admittedly, I only hung on to because I liked the typography)


• A plastic army man (with parachute)


• An application form for last year’s film festival

Plus, I filled 3 garbage bags with clothes I never wear, and donated them to the centre for addiction.  And yet, my apartment still feels like it’s overflowing with junk.  I think I need to take a second pass at it… After all, do I really need that stock photo catalogue from 1998?

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Interviewed

Erik over Kartooner.com has posted a small interview he did with me when he chose my font Girls are Weird as the subject of a typopgraphy class he took.  Go read it now!

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I Am Stupid Ugly Robot

The above chalk drawing was found mere steps from my house. Something tells me the neighbourhood kids don’t like me very much.

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Alone

It’s been a while since I contribtued to Illustration Friday.  Here’s this week’s entry.  The theme is “alone”.  (Click on the image for a larger view)

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Britney Preggers

It’s official.  Everyone’s favourite white trash superstar done got herself knocked up! Who else is guessing/hoping that the baby ends up with a ridiculously hideous name?  One spelled all funny with superfluous y’s?  It’s only par for the course with celebrity babies, but Britney and Kevin practically guarantee it.

My predictions if it’s a girl:
Chardonnay, Krystllyna, Mona Lisa, Allegra, Bit Bit Jr., Florida, Trapezia,

And if it’s a boy:
Dylyn, Kevin 2, Wolverine, Mykenzieyeie, Jacyn, Hickory, America

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Fontlab Boobery

I’m trying to unlearn all my bad habits in Fontlab, so I’m reading the book Learn FontLab Fast by Leslie Cabarga.  This afternoon I flipped open the book at random, and this what I see staring me in the face on page 57:

Are you seeing what I’m seeing?  Let me zoom in a little for you, so you can get a closer view:

The book is filled with technical diagrams of how to draw glyphs and letterforms, but if I’m not mistaken, this is a picture of a boob. I wish I knew what button on my keyboard was the boob key.  I don’t even know where in the alphabet the boob is.  Is it punctuation? Is there a left and a right boob like brackets? Does it have a lowercase? I’ve taken the liberty to hilight what I think is the key word in the set of instructions.

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Striking a Chord

For all the times that I see my fonts used without payment, I still never underestimate the kindess of people who send me a little note, like the above inscription from Lynn Johnston’s latest For Better or For Worse collection: Striking A Chord, which uses my font Girls are Weird on the cover.  Such penmanship! Such puns! (punmanship?) A woman after my own heart!

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