Crooked Little Vein - Review

It took me a whopping two days to finish this books. Two days for 288 pages. I savored this book in a way that I usually don't, trying to extract meaning from every word. For someone who can tear through a 1,000 page book in 4 hours, reading slowly isn't something I'm used to. This time, I enjoyed every moment of it.

Crooked Little Vein starts as abruptly as it finishes, already neck deep in the dark humor that permeates the entire story. As it gets deeper, the kinks get weirder, the luck turns worse, and as much as I hated Michael McGill, the protagonist, in the end I was happy for him. Like him, I could forgive the book's sins and look the other way, as long as it came back to me in the end. And though the plot was contrived (As it had to be!), and the main characters weak, I found myself strangely attracted to the minor players, the pilot, the serial killer, the pimps and junkies and freaks that made up the backbone of the story.

This book is not for the faint of heart. It's a dirty, harsh, humorous look at our country and our lifestyle. It details the extremes of the fetish world, humanizes it, puts your face on the man with the green foam glove or the saline IV. It made me hate myself when I could empathize with Trix. But it also inspired me to start drawing at a time when I haven't picked up a pencil for months. And for me, that may be the highest praise of all.

RIP Taylor

A good friend and LARPer, Taylor Christian, passed away yesterday from a heart attack. Taylor was a vibrant, charming, wonderful jackass who will be missed not only by the people he gamed with, but also, I am sure, by everyone who ever knew him. It seems like he was impossible not to like, and could get along with almost everbody.

It's horrible when people die young. Even more so when they bring such life and color to the world around them, like Taylor did. It seems unfair that he left us so soon, but if nothing else, I hope it teaches us that life really is short, but we can still make things around us brighter for having lived.

R.I.P Taylor Chrisitian
AKA Warren Peace, the Messiah of Metal

We will miss you.

New year...

It's really weird for me that this time last year I was living in hotel rooms, going door to door. It's nice to be stable for a change. I consider myself incredibly lucky that I have a good job, a roof over my head, nothing really to worry about.

I don't make resolutions, but I'm drawing again, and I'm going to keep it up. Aside from that, I'm happy, relatively healthy, and ready to keep making kick ass video games!

Sunday Mornings

One of the clearest memories I have of my childhood is Sunday mornings. We weren't a religious family, so I didn't have to worry about going to church or anything like that. Sunday generally started with my dad waking us all up with something unusual on the stereo, like the Cabaret soundtrack, or Harry Belafonte. Once everyone was awake, and generally getting up, he'd move to the kitchen and start cooking breakfast.

My dad would turn on different music while he was cooking, occasionally some old gospel or country, but most usually, NPR. We would listen to Car Talk and Lake Wobegon Days as we got breakfast for 10 ready, and I remember laughing at the corny jokes, or hearing the stories my dad would tell to one-up whatever they just said on the radio.

The other night, I was talking to my roommate about NPR. He didn't know what it was, and calling it National Public Radio didn't help. So I went to the nearest comparison I could, and told him NPR is PBS for radio. At witch point he said, "I'm sorry. The more I learn about how you grew up, the sorrier I feel for you." Which, frankly, I still don't understand. Why would he feel sorry for me for enjoying NPR? Is it my comparison to PBS that tainted it? Or am I just that out of touch with normal people that I can listen to it and be entertained?

And by the way, I still enjoy Car Talk and LWD when I have time to listen to them.

Ya'rly

Image credit to Aden Nak from his blog ph33r and loathing

http://adennak.com/blog/wordpress/?p=109

Steampunk

Convention in SF in a couple of days, and I'm not going. I really wish I was, but after my failed vacation, and all the shit that went down with that, there's not enough time for me to hit it. Still, I'm hoping Abney Park will tour their way down here to LA so I can see them. I highly recommend them, if only for the fact that they may be drunken airship pirates, but at least they're honest about it.

I still don't know what I'm gonna pull together for Halloween, but I'll figure something out. If I don't have to do a lot of walking around, I might even consider wearing my new shoes. We'll see.

Papercraftiness

So, I've been spending all my free time this week working on papercraft projects. I've gotten pretty good, I think, mostly because I'm a perfectionist about cutting. I'll try to post some pictures of the one's I've done next week, or possibly even today. Depends on if I feel like dragging out my iPhone cable or not.

So far I've build Derek the Toast Ninja, Rommy-02, and Stubey. They look okay, though I could be a lot happier with Derek. In honor of the announcement yesterday of Scratch: Ultimate DJ, I'm working on Nice Bunny's DJ. It's probably going to take me a while to finish building it, it's a big one. I'll put pictures up as I finish pieces.