ACEO! ACEO! ACEO!

I discovered the wide world of art trading cards, little pieces of art.

Just My Size:
I was bopping about the wilds of Etsy and came across This little guy by DeadPanAlley. At first I thought to myself that it was a cute little painting, but I realized that I never really investigated the term ACEO (Art Cards, editions and originals) which are the bought and sold versions of artist trading cards (rather than the traded between artist versions). The more I thought about it, the more I enjoyed the idea of tiny little works. I very often like to work in tiny, so I finally found myself a piece of paper to cut up and tried my hand using my usual medium, pen and ink.




You can see my lovely pictures taken on top of the ancient laptop I am using. The first attempt featuring Squidbot and a jellyfish is a bit disjointed... I didn't really have a plan going in.

The second attempt entitled "What's this doing here?!" is for a friend's birthday and is a much more solid work.

The third piece called "Don't Sink Your Boat," after the Flogging Molly song (not usually a big fan, but I love this song) is a little rough on the left, but is overall what I imagined.

Finally, the last piece, and my favorite is called "My Heart Sinks Like a Stone..." after the line in the Airborn Toxic Event song ("and my heart sinks like a stone, a stone, a stone"). I've envisioned this picture just about every time I've listened to the song, but never had the courage or fortitude to draw it. That's why these little art cards are so awesome. I don't have to commit to a whole piece and have it go south after hours of work, and yet it is still a valid piece of art. Having done these smaller versions successfully, I might go on to make some bigger ones, but for the moment, I'm having fun making little guys :D






In Other News:
My car insurance wasn't as messed up as I thought it was Yay! I didn't have to drive to Capitola. Instead, I got sick! Very sick. I had a fever and a swollen throat and aching ears. I feel better now, though still crappy XP

In Still Other News, From the TV:
Mens short program in figure skating was pretty cool. There were still a lot of tumbles, but I felt that they were less numerous than in pairs and more often because someone was trying to be too tricky. One of the issues I have with how skating is judged is the point system which puts an over emphasis on doing tricks instead of doing everything. In the pairs, it felt like if the skaters did enough tricks, they could still flub a great deal and get high placings. I think the men's competition is a little more balanced, but still skewed with the second place skater, America's Lysacek, barely behind the Russian skater, Plushenko. Plushenko did a quad jump. Lysacek didn't, but outskated Plushenko in all other aspects... is a quad really worth that much?

I'd also like to make mention of Johnny Weir. A bit of an odd duck to be sure, but an awesome skater. He has the habit of not starting his jumps how the judges think skaters should, so he's only in sixth (is it really that important?) despite a very well done routine. I think he deserves higher standing. I also enjoyed the two Japanese skaters, especially the younger one, Oda, and the Swiss skater, Lambiel, who did an awesome version of the William Tell Overture (classic XD). Unfortunately he missed some of his jumps, so he's probably not going to medal XP

In other news Lindsey Vonn kicked ass in women's downhill. She impressed me by crossing the finish line basically on one ski. She had injured herself previously and apparently had a great deal of pain though she still won gold. Nice.

Finally, I watched Shaun White on the halfpipe for the first time today. My goodness that man can fly. Those people are crazy @.@

Camera Crazy

Among other things...


It was a lovely sunny day here in the Land of Gilroy. So nice that I decided to synthesize some vitamin D. It may be February, but there are definately touches of springtime in the air.




My first picture is of Nessie, a large ceramic sculpture I made many years ago, with the shadows cast by Love in the Mist seed pods (appropriate for the month eh?).







Spring is often marked by Dandelions. I hope they'll last til April!


















I love how they look when the sun shines through the petals :)













There were some clouds left over from last nights rain. One parked itself here for a time. I feel like this is my Sistine chapel shot :B






















Lichen that presently grows along our set of walnut trees. As you can probably guess, these trees aren't doing too well, but they are covered with some great lookin' lichen! You can tell that the fungus half (lichen = algae + fungus) is some sort of Ascomycota or cup fungus :3

I find the second picture interesting. It shows the yellow/orange lichen and a second color set of white/burgundy. I don't know if the white/burgundy is just straight fungus or the lichen after it has died, or some other such thing, but it's cool.




I found this guy crawling in between our solar powered lights and the Alyssum. It's a Hemipteran of some sort with red eyes o=










Recently PG&E came and cut down the Eucalyptus trees we had growing under the power lines (who thought that was a good idea?). As you can see, the wood is a nice orange-red color. As you can also see by the width of the inner rings, these trees grow really fast. They're basically giant weeds. Once you got 'em, good luck getting rid of them D:

Eucalyptus fun fact: Firefighters often refer to Eucalyptus as "Gasoline Trees" because the high oil content of bark and leaves burn so readily, yay :D






















Ninja Chickens! Some of our young black Minorca and red New Hampshire chickens tried to sneak up on me. Later, everyone followed me to the back gate. Silly chickens!
















Your humble narrator :B

To the sea!

A couple of interesting ocean related things.

Yay Target!
Target has decided to stop selling Atlantic farmed salmon and will be stocking Pacific Alaskan salmon instead. This is exciting. "Why should I be excited?" You ask. Alaskan salmon are very well managed. They cost a bit more, but you'll still be able to buy them in fifty years. They contain only natural ingredient (free of pink dyes used by farms to make the flesh pink), and they haven't been swimming in their own concentrated excrement most of their lives (MMmmm farmed salmon D:). Also, salmon farming practices produce a great deal of waste and pollution directly in the ocean (see excrement).

For more fun food facts, and to see the best choices in seafood, check out the Monterey Bay Aquarium's Seafood Watch program. You can print out a pocket guide, or checkout the bestest seafood for you and the oceans :D
/plug


Yay Octopus!
Did you know that octopus use tools?... Actually, if you've spent any time at all reading about octopus, this should come as no surprise to you, but here's a cute little guy who carries around a coconut shell. The veined octopus (from Indonesia) picks out coconut shells discarded by humans. The cephalopods carry them along until they feel a need to hide. Then they make like a turtle and climb into a little coconut shell box. Silly Cephs o=


Pacific Travelers:
Finally, I give you the real time tracking site, TOPP for tags on Pacific pelagic animals. You can see the tracks of different species of sharks, seals, albatross (ALBATROSS!), and a sea turtle. Also some maps of sea surface temperature and chlorophyll-a. I recommend pushing all the buttons :B


Other News:
The continuing saga of my moving has found me opening some boxes I haven't seen since I packed them a year an a half ago when I left Davis for parts unknown (the East Coast). I have found some lovely things such as my pencil cup, my floppy disk collection, three stuffed animals, artwork, notes, drawings, and some old cartoons. Over the coming weeks and months, I'm going to share some of these since they are either cool or hilarious, so stay tuned.
Otherwise, I have about three commissions and an auction I'm juggling amongst other things. I'm putting some pieces together for The Works Anti-Valentine Auction in San Jose... I must buy a frame tomorrow.

OMG wall of text!

Health Stuff:
It seems that fate has conspired to present me with some interesting health articles today.
The first is a TED talk given by National Geographic Explorer Dan Buettner about longevity, and what keeps people young, or at least in working condition:

There are many aspects of his talk that I found interesting. First is the notion of incidental exercise, which is my preferred method. I don't exercise (though some days I feel like I need to), but I try to maximize the amount of exercise that "gets in my way." I park far away from where I'm going. It's easier to find a spot there anyway. I take the stairs which are often faster and less crowded. Not only are you being healthsome with these habits, You're being environmentally healthsome too!

The second is the idea of community and friendship. I spent the most dreadful year of my life when I first went to college. I started off not knowing anyone, and kept not knowing anyone (except for Seth of course ;P) due to a great deal of illness. The lack of companionship did nothing to help my situation. What's more, your friends keep you motivated to do things. They keep you moving, thinking, and happy. Friends make you happy. That's why you have them. I can imagine a pretty dismal old age spent alone.

There's also the idea of taking a mental or spiritual break in the talk. This is something I found myself doing a lot in school, even when I didn't mean to. I'd just become incapable of doing my work and have to do something else. I watched many crappy movies on FX those years. The talk points out people who regularly take time to rest and reflect. I think I should try this.

Finally faith and diet are also apparently important. Faith tends to keep people together and talking with a common interest, but I think it's the common interest and the together which makes the difference, not the particular reason for it (I'd like to think so anyway). Diet is harder. I feel that diet, like exercise, needs to be incidental. You eat well because it is what you like to eat, not because you're stressing out about what you're eating. I believe the trick is to figure out what you like to eat that's also "eating well." And when you do, let me know :B

PS: When he says your cells are damaged a little every time they turn over, he is talking about DNA replication. In the process of replication, a little bit of DNA is lost on each end (this has to do with starting the replication process). It starts of with junk DNA, stuff you don't use, but as you get older, you begin to run out of that useless stuff and may get into the used stuff. This equals aging :D




Thing number two in our health topic is this article from Slate. I tried taking vitamins for a while, but eventually found them to be more trouble than they were worth. Apparently, that fact remains true. The notes on antioxidants are also interesting. It reminds me of an article I read a long time ago about cancer cells actually stockpiling antioxidants as a defense against your immune system. Disconcerting to be sure, I'm still drinking my tea however.


As a final note to brighten your day, I give you Fizzgig, stuffed and with a purse strap: