Dear Megalocorp HMO and/or Private Insurer Corporate Slimeball Pig-Dogs,

Thanks for being there. I see that your ongoing snog-fest with the good-looking stooge that everyone around here voted for except me just isn't enough. No, it's very important that you also continue to provide lousy service, while keeping me so deep in Debtor's Hell that I can't even access those lousy services most of the time.

The final cherry on the ever-flowing garbage sundae, though, is the patronizing radio and mass transit ads you continue to run gently suggesting to me that if I just threw out the bacon and took more walks, I'd be transported to a magical happy land where I'd never, ever get sick. Oh, Thank You. Really. How much do these obnoxious and unnecessary lectures cost on a yearly basis? What percentage of them are purchased with my damn money? Seriously. Just do me a favor and eat a fist, all right?

( Stab them, nab them, cab them, grab them... )

I'm so glad that we could have this little chat. Now shut up and go away.

Sincerely,

ms_xeno

The score currently stands at Allergies: 5, ms_xeno: 0. I can't afford to go hit up my doctor for more generic antihistamines at the moment. On the bright side, I still have some prescription Sudafed [tm] left. Unfortunately, it's not the thing to take when the twin hellbeasts of Barbed-wire-throat and ZOMFG-what's-this-ten-ton-weight-lodged-a-foot-North-of-my-right-nostril wake you up at 4 AM and you can't get back to sleep. I considered employing vodka for this purpose, then thought better of it. Red eyes kind of ruin the overall effect when you're in Outer Suburbia at 9:30 AM for another stirring round of "Screw A Total Stranger Out of Their Remaining Cash For 9.00 an hour ? No benefits !? Why, I'd love to !"

Anyway, this at least is turning out to be a good day to clean out my sundry mailboxes. Thanks, riseup dot net. ( If I had two organic, sugar-free cough drops, I'd give you one. )

I was supposed to fix biscuits and gravy for my entire Friends list, but mr_xeno didn't make it back with the groceries in time. I'd yell at him, too, if he wasn't the only creature in the house actually drawing an income this week.

In the meantime, just a little gift for my favorite blogger over the border.

"skycooperfan240" does a Weird Al song-- with LEGOS !!



For you traditionalists, there's also the McKenzie/Moore version. We're all about limitless blue horizons hereabouts, y'know...

Dear F*ck-Happy Spambots/Purveyors of Fine Internet Viruses,

If you want to dupe me into opening that drivel you keep putting in my mailbox, you might want to use a more imaginative sender name than "me." Just a thought.

Really, I love the hell out of unbridled free enterprise and regressive visions of human sexuality. Not to mention endless garbled/misspelled/grammatically unsound euphemisms for sex. Not to mention secular humanist evangelicals doggedly trying to shove crap in my face that I don't want every twenty-four hours or so;Proving conclusively that what both religious and post-religious proselytizers have in common is that A) They have no respect for personal boundaries, B) They love money more than anything and C) They hate women more than anything else.

Still, you're not really putting your back into it, considering the overall competitiveness of your field, along with the ever-worsening economy.

Also, Paris Hilton deshabille' ? Please. That's so two years ago. Besides, Supergirl[tm] wears less than that on the JLU disc I just got from MegaMovieRentalsCorp. At least JLU has buildings exploding and warmed-over butt-rock guitar solos and stuff. Bet you don't, you pea-brained misers. [raspberry]

My feelings are hurt. It's like you're not even trying, anymore. :(

Sincerely,

ms_xeno

Is it wrong that even though I couldn't even pay the entire water bill for December, I still think that it would be cool to own a pinball machine-- oh, and a basement to put it in ?

Probably.

[shrug]

I can't even recall the last time that I consumed one of these things.



But this ad IS a fairly apt depiction of my mental and emotional state today, not to mention most of the 44 days (approx.) preceding today.

Discuss.

I try to get down to the KBOO Book & Record Sale every year. This morning I showed up at the usual time, fortified with homemade iced coffee;Only to be loftily informed by some smug brat in ringlets that they had a new rule: If you were a paying member of the station, you could get in at opening time for first crack at the donated goods. Otherwise, you could wait outside for an hour, like as a second-class citizen.

I stood there for a moment or two, pondering how I was a member of the station for several years before my income took a steep dive from which it has never recovered. Also how I'd told so many people out of state what a community asset the station was. I thought about all the goods I'd donated to their sales over the years and all the goods I'd purchased as well. I thought about the art I'd donated to them for use in their newsletter late last year;The art they'd never returned to me as they'd promised to.

I told Mr. Ringlet that I'd go spend my cash, such as it was, at the online Megalo-Marts, since it was clear that his station didn't want it.

( It's *Still* Money That Matters )

I hope your morning coffee's not Starbucks. Ewwww...

"...Technically, a claim of fair use asserts not that a particular
copyright infringement should be allowed, but that the use is not an
infringement at all. The U.S. Constitution states that the purpose of
copyright is to promote the progress of science and 'useful arts.' It's great
in theory, but in practice copyright law is often used as a weapon against
those who view so-called intellectual property as anything less than sacred..."

The above and what follows (up until you get to the six dancing asterisks) are artist/writer/graphic designer Sean Tejarachi's take on the Constitution's points regarding fair use. ( I borrowed them from a 1997 edition of his zine, *Craphound.* )

The reworked version. Mostly "Brush Strokes: Accented Edges," in various and sundry modes. The spoon was repainted, and the head is "Sketch: Reticulated." Other minor adjustments.



Some of you prefer the originals, I know. That's okay. Sometimes I do, too. However, I'm trying to teach myself a Useful Skill here. Frankly I don't see why I should suffer through the on-disc tutorials featuring some underpaid schmoes' wretched and/or badly dated corporate calling cards. Nobody's paying me, after all, in either money or some supposedly useful and/or hideously overpriced degree.

I'm glad to be in the home stretch of posting these, though. I wanna' make some new stuff from scratch, and soon !

In unrelated news, work was so lousy today that I nearly forgot all about how damn hot it is. :/

The re-worked version features mostly "Artistic: Smudge Stick." Or, as I like to call it, "A Three-Day Weekend In Portland." Also some "Texture: Mosaic Tiles," some color alterations, etc.



Come to think of it, the weather today strongly resembled this card, which would have made me happy if work hadn't been so heavily layered with endless clots of papery cowpies. But it wasn't horrid in an interesting way, so I'll spare you the details for now.

The same card. Some Lasso and Fill repairs. The cold cut has some Smart Blur filtering. I readjusted the pink hues with "command U" to make them look brighter and less grubby. I blame Satan. That triangle of weird limbless space-canines (actually, they're just fancy rolled napkins from an old volume of American Home, early 1960s) got a medium percentage run-through in "Artistic: Plastic Wrap."



Hijinks ensued at work. I am drinking beer and listening to Weird Al, which just makes every last one of you so beautiful to me.

Freshly-posted series of collages ! Get 'em while they're hot.




Gilliam's Replat 3 (2005)

Named for Terry Gilliam, of course. When I think back on my wasted youth (which would be anything and everything that happened earlier than six months ago), those mad animated interludes on Monty Python probably planted the seeds for all this. Possibly it was the first place in which I saw collage used by somebody other than my peers in the drink-your-milk-and-lie-down-for-a-nap set.

As for "Addition" and "Replat:" If you're a homeowner with your deed handy, look at the legal description of your land. Chances are good that it has a name like "Oak Park Addition, Block 1 Lot 12" or "Linda's Replat, Block 9 Lot 4."

(Note that the Miscellaneous Gallery also has a couple of pictures newly added.)

( PSA. Warning: Possible TMI Ahead. Use Caution )

...Or to whatever... Thank You, Eric Idle and Neil Inness. (And Thanks to their computer-literate fans, of course.)

Twas in my youth I ran away

To accountancy one day

With pen and paper collar and stud

Accountancy was in my blood

I'll scribble away and balance the books and sing an accountancy shanty!

I chartered an accountant at the age of twenty-one

I'll scribble away and balance the books and sing an accountancy shanty!

So raise a glass of medium-dry sherry

To the golden age of VAT

I'll scribble away and balance the books and sing an accountancy shanty !

Keys to the Treasure House aka "Neil Didn't Write This."

Q: When is "Hand In Glove" not a good thing ?

A: When you stick your hand in there and only then realize that the glove has been stewing in splinters and dog shit for a week.

IOW (Long version), I have landed what may be an actual permanent job. This happened last Monday morning.

Tuesday night, while sleepily reaching for a manual, I accidentally dropped the computer on the floor. It is now being held hostage at the Mac Store for $150 + worth of repairs, including a new hard drive. It seems a tad peculiar to me that dropping a laptop a mere three feet should be enough to destroy an entire hard drive. Perhaps I am being fleeced. Or perhaps this is the appropriate Stupid Tax for a person too stupid to go to bed when she's fucking tired !!!

So there you go. If I'm lucky, the first week's wages (4 days = 20 hrs. @ 11 per.) will just about cover the Stupid Tax with enough left over for a couple of Burgerville sandwiches. Learn from my pathetic life. Otherwise it's all pointless and I am dragging my sorry ass to Vancouver five days a week for no reason. (More on that part some other time.)

Thank You, and Goodnight.

Special "I'm-Screwed-Perhaps-Paint-Bucket-Patterns-Will-Save-My-Sleep-Deprived-Butt" Edition:





There's a bit of brush, pencil, Blur and Smudge in there, too. Better than it was, given the truly mind-blowing number of technical problems I had with this particular card from the beginning. Frankly, I'm convinced that it's cursed. Yesterday morning, addled by lack of sleep and general job-related anxiety, I accidentally threw out its master version. This wouldn't be so bad if there hadn't been three other cards on the screen with it at the time of the fatal implosion. Why, oh why, must the innocent suffer for my crimes ?!

:o I think I'm going to get a cup of herbal tea and go to bed now. :/

Same image, post-alteration. Brushed some clouds into the sky to create texture before running the whole thing through the "Artistic: Colored Pencil" filter. Worked several areas over with the Smudge tool. A little Desaturate sponge on the wedding-cake couple to make them less garish color-wise. Other minor adjustments:




Anyway, as a wise bumper sticker once said:

I owe
I owe
It's off to work I go.

Yeah, like you're all any wittier at quarter to six in the morning. :p

Same picture, run through a filter called "Sketch: Plaster," in either "Darken" or "Difference" mode. (Sorry. Should have left a note for myself) :




Some other adjustments using Paint Bucket and a few brushes, etc.

Off to a typically remote temp outpost this morning. You all have fun.

Same card, after a visit to Photoshop:




A mix of effects used here. There's some "Artistic: Smudge Stick" filter in the yellow field and over the big eye. Some other tools, too. There's an "Artistic: Sponge" filter over most of the green field. This is one of my first attempts to convincingly alter an actual drawing with computer pencil. Those "paint" smudges over Mrs. Suburbia and her cooking project came with the original picture (from a Pet milk pamphlet), if you were wondering.

( Update of Yesterday's News )

The redo uses a trio of Photoshop filters called "Artistic: Underpainting," set with the "Brick" option. A few other tools, as well:




I was aiming for the look of those exterior wall-sized ads that dot the downtown landscape around here. Didn't quite get it, but...

( In other news... )

Same card, using the filter "Artistic: Accented Edges," and some more of the Clone Stamp.




To see this card's partner, look back to the 10/5/06 entry. Enjoy your Sunday. I have to get ready for work.