DUNE BUGGY

About 4 or 5 years ago I bought a dune buggy. I didn't know what I was getting in to. It had a few problems (I thought) and I figured I'd have it up and running by turning a couple screws. Boy, was I wrong. I found out to make it street legal in Indiana it needed a 2 page list of things, like bumpers, seat belts, emergency brakes, speedometer, roll bar, horn, turn signals, mirrors, etc....

I don't know anything about cars or motors or metal work. It made me sick to my stomach to think about it all. Fortunately my wife Mei knew Lee, a custom car guy who came to eat at her restaurant all the time.

Lee says these are called ghost flames. They show up and then disappear depending how the light hits them. The photos make this paint look purplish, but the color is more of a blood red in real life. First it got painted silver, and then it got a transparent red sprayed over the silver. Lee says that's called a candy color, and it changes tones as you move your head to view it. It's pretty danged cool.

The dash is tiny and there wasn't enough room to put the speedometer in there without it bumping your knees when you try to drive, so Lee put a scoop in the hood and mounted the speedometer outside on the hood. It's all waterproofed too.

There's a little cap just behind the speedometer to get to the fluids. Before, if you wanted to get to the fluids you'd just have to take off the car's entire shell. That would have been a nightmare.

It's not all that visible in this picture, but Lee put diamond plate on the running boards. Before they were just fiberglass, and people stepped on them so much they had cracked and were flapping loose. Now they have that on top and a metal skeleton underneath.

He also put a trunk lid on it. That way the engine is accessible without having to remove the entire shell. He made metal gallery walls too, but they aren't attached yet. When they're put on it, this will be like a little truck and I'll be able to haul small things back here.



This is a 1968 VW bug engine. Besides all the body work, Lee also had to get the motor working again. There were missing plugs and shorts and other strange problems.

Still a mess, but it's getting there.

That red thing in the center is an "AHH-OOO-Ga!" horn, and it's loud. He set it off and both Mei and I about peed in our pants.

This is the shifter knob. There's Mei in the background.

Behind the passenger's seat there's a lid.

You can open it to get to the battery. Again, it's nice knowing I won't have to remove the entire shell to get to something.
This is Lee holding up the grill he cut out to show me what it'll look like. Before it was just a solid closed in fiberglass panel. The air needs to be able to blow through to cool the oil or something. I can't remember what it cools. It wasn't the radiator since VWs don't have radiators. I believe it's the oil. You can see what it cools if you look back up 4 pictures. Whatever that is, that's what needs air.
Lee says there's still a lot more work to do on it, but it's shaping up very well. He said after this job he's retiring. It's killing me to wait for it to be finished. It was a big ol' mess when he started. He's worked miracles on it.

JOHNSON-SMITH NOVELTY CO. HORROR RECORD WITH ANIMATION

"BLOOD BROOD" FAKE MOVIE POSTER

Here's a poster for an imaginary movie. It's based on a nightmare I had so I actually have a germ of a plot for this movie too. I wrote out what happened in the nightmare, so if I fill it out a bit I'll have a script to go along with this poster.


Originally I just drew one ghost face, like this.


Then I copied it to make a set of 3, and mirrored it for a reflection. A long time ago I jotted down in a note book how BLOOD spells BrOOD upside down in a mirror, if you use a lower case "r." That seemed like it went well with this idea, so I stuck that in there.


I liked the black and white version above, but I was curious to see how it looked in a bloodier color.


It was difficult for me to decide whether I liked the B&W or bloody version best, so I elected to use a mixture of both colors. I used red for the water they are rising from. That satisfied me because it explained why the word was being reflected. Then I added all the silly text and it was done. This is a clean version of the 1st picture, without all the chips and folds and browning on the edges.

Sometimes I wonder if the fake aging process is a bad thing to do. It's popular nowadays to make things look like they're 50 years old with all the fake computer trickery. I wonder if that's gonna be odd in another 100 years.

People will see a bunch of fake antique images people created from this decade, and they'll look old, but they'll really be old, but they'll look older than they are. Will that be confusing? At that point it'll already look old naturally, but no one will trust it. I wonder if they're create a new word for this phenomena, like "genuine pre-antique" or something like that.

SINISTER WINSTON'S PRANK TIME #2

Welcome to episode number 2 of Sinister Winston's Prank Time. This one is called "Kitchen Shower." (You can see the previous episode HERE.)

Today's prank requires a kitchen sink, which most people have.

More importantly, the sink needs a sprayer hose, like this one. Giggle!

The only other ingredient for this prank is a rubber band. Heh heh!

What you need to do is stretch that rubber band around the trigger of the sprayer so it's always squeezed in the ON position. Tee hee!

Now you need to aim the sprayer so it's pointed at whoever would turn on the water faucet. Then skeedaddle! Snicker!

And Voila! Some sucker will eventually walk up to the sink and turn it on, and WHOOSHKAPLASH!!! BA-HAA!!!

This prank is for educational purposes only. Clearly it is related to the field of studiousness and academia, and is designed solely for the purpose of stimulating mental growth. It is our intention here at KWM Inc. to inspire and improve the quality of life, and by no means do we imply you actually attempt these pranks. If you do it and someone becomes startled and slips in the water and their skull bursts open and brains go flying under the kitchen table, don't blame us.

JOHNNY WEST

This is another Get-Well gift from my good friend Mike. He said he's been trying to build a complete Johnny West figure from auctions on Ebay, and in the process he had enough extra pieces to build a second one for me. It's missing 1 of the 3 bags of gold, but other than that it's a complete set, and in mighty fine condition.
He came with a rifle, a derringer (I think it's a derringer), a knife, a canteen, a chest with a lid that opens, 3 bags of gold to put in it (I'm missing one), a skillet and coffee pot, a coffee mug, 2 branding irons, spurs, chaps, a gun belt and a pistol, a vest, handkerchief and a hat.

Mike made this box for me to keep all the pieces inside.

I had a Johnny West as a kid and it was one of my favorite toys. I think The boot spurs are pretty cool.

Check out that cold stony stare.

The first thing I noticed when I picked him up was how heavy he was. They really made some solid stuff back then.

With all the tiny little accessory pieces it provided a kid with tons of fun.

Check out Johnny on his bold steed. In Lucy's old age she's given up on her resistance to humiliation.

After the evil Sam Cobra shoots at Johnny and he tumbles to the ground, his loyal horse Lucille never leaves his side. She licks his face to revive him and it works. Fortunately the bullet only grazed him. Johnny will ride again.

GOOD PALS

I've been under the weather lately and my friends have been taking care of me. The other day a big pile of comics came in the mail from Lysdexicuss. I hope this doesn't embarrass him. It was just a really happy surprise and I wanted to mention it.

Also Bob and my brother have been babysitting me for hours and hours and days on end. I realize they're busy with their own things and they put it all aside to help me.

MASTERSON BAT

This is a model sheet for a grumpy bat cartoon character. I temporarily named him Masterson Bat, but I also like Gus Guano. Alternately I guess his name could be Bat Masterson but that gives the joke away.

I don't really have any plans for him as of yet, but he's fun to draw so I wanna use him for something.

SIX MILLION DOLLAR MAN LUNCH BOX

Here's a new prized possession. I remember being a 2nd grader in the school cafeteria, and all my friends had colorful and exciting lunch boxes like Six Million Dollar Man, Planet of the Apes, Korg 70,000 BC and Scooby Doo, and I only had a dumb ol' blank one with a plaid pattern on the thermos. I hated that thing and was kind of ashamed of it. But now look at me! I'm as cool as all those other 2nd graders now. Ha! I bet they don't even have theirs anymore!

Why is Oscar Goldman running alongside Steve? He's not supposed to be on these missions! He's the brains of the operation! Maybe he just thought it would be cool to watch Steve bat some dudes with a tree. Maybe Steve told Oscar ahead of time he'd be doing that.

Since that one guy is already on the ground and the tree's on the other side of the standing guy, it means this is the second swing. That means the standing guy watched Steve bat that other guy with a tree, and it didn't scare him off. Man is he dumb! And the one on the ground, is that Davey Jones? Does Oscar hate the Monkees?

I figure this is where the meeting took place before the previous incident. It probably went something like this:

OSCAR: You know Steve, these two guys you're going up against, they're a little crazy.

STEVE: I've been thinking about that, Oscar. I figure I'll lure them into the woods where all the trees are, and pull up a tree and bat them with it. It's a pretty good plan because they aren't bionic, and would be unable to pull up trees to bat me.

OSCAR: Man! That plan sounds REALLY good. You know, Steve . . . I'd kind of like to see that, if you don't mind.

STEVE: Sure, you can tag along. Just don't get in my way. I'll be swinging that tree after all.

As you can see in the picture above, on the way to the woods Oscar nearly drove over Steve. It's a good thing Steve has those bionic legs.

But even with the bionics, thanks to Oscar's bungling, Rudy still had to tweak Steve's legs a bit back at OSI.

Oh no! Steve! Get outta space! That's dangerous! Didn't you learn the first time?! This is another fine mess Oscar's gotten Steve into! It sort of makes you wonder who's side Oscar is REALLY on.

The insides have a few specks of rust here and there. I blame the previous 2nd grader who owned it. If I knew who he was I'd give him the shame routine. Then I'd tell him If he isn't old enough to take care of this precious piece of metallic joy then it'll be taken away, and he'll be eating out of a dumb ol' blank lunch box with a plaid pattern on the thermos!

This is not the thermos that grubby little 2nd grader brat was eating Campbell's soup from. The horrible little ingrate lost his thermos. I had to get this one separately off Ebay. Or maybe it WAS the same long lost thermos and I just reunited it with its metallic mama.

SUZY PENNYWHISTLE drawing

I thought at first this guy should have a name like WRETCHOR or REPULSOR, but then it seemed funnier to give him a cute little girl's name.

The name "Suzy" was easy, but a cute last name didn't come to me as quickly. At one point I was staring off into space trying to think up a cute last name when my open-mouthed stupor pose was witnessed by Bob, and he thought there was something wrong with me.

COWBOY CEDRIC

Cowboy Cedric likes to tiptoe through the cow pasture. He has the cleanest boots on the ranch. No one is crazy enough to give Cedric any lip about it either. He don't put up with that.

BORP, ZOB and LI'L POLLY PIGTAILS

Here are some doodles from today. I haven't been very productive in the last few weeks, so I wasted some paper and ink this morning. Now I feel like this day wasn't a complete wash. That being said, here's a picture of a girl with pig butts sewn to the sides of her head.

Maybe she could be an entry in a second series of Pukey Pals cards?

MONEY-STER

GRAAWWW!!

CUSTOM UFO SOUNDS

Here are some UFO sounds I created in Audacity. Audacity is a fun program to play around with. It's free too! You can do just about anything you want, sound-wise. It's a virtual multi-track recording studio. It's probably fancier than what the Beatles and Jimi Hendrix had to work with back in their day.

UFO sound #1

UFO sound #2

There are a bunch of effects like reverse, tremolo, reverb, fade in/out, phaser, wahwah, pitch change, speed and time change, etc...

For these UFO sounds I started with a plain boring tone and just kept adding effects to it until it turned into something. Now I can use these sounds with this UFO and make a little video (if I ever get around to it.)