TOM ATKINS SHIRT

My new "best shirt in my closet." I don't even know if I wanna wear it and mess it up. Maybe I'll just wear it on very special occasions, like weddings or job interviews.



I got it from the man himself. Even if you don't know him by name you would probably recognize his face.

Everyone else was doing it, so I did it. Now I regret it.

500 POUNDS

This is based on an actual dream I had recently.

PROCRASTINATION COMIC

Here's a comic strip about my favorite pastime. It's another comic that could go on forever. Maybe it would be funny as a really thick book.

Here's an alternately colored version (which I do a lot of times, because sometimes one color looks no better to me than another, and I have difficulty settling on one.)

And here is is in black and white. I believe I like this one best. The slightly varying gray tones remind me of old UPA cartoons.

ELECTRIC GUITAR PROJECT part 14

Well, I went and did it. I made a tail piece like the one in the faked photo in the last episode of my electric guitar building project.

I owe a big thanks to my buddy Wayne at work for helping me out a bunch. After the perimeter and the string grooves were cut on the bandsaw it got bored for screws.

Then a chamfer was put onto the top edges. I traced a line around the edge with a Sharpie and shaped it to the line with a grinder wheel.

After the chamfer was cut I hand sanded it with gradually finer grits of sand paper ending with 600 grit. Then it got polished and now it shines like platinum or silver. I'm very surprised at how much aluminum will shine.

Aluminum was almost as easy to work with as wood. You can use all the standard woodworking tools on it. One bad thing about working with aluminum is it gets very hot, and becomes scalding with heat even by hand-sanding. I dunked it in cold water every once in a while to lessen the burn-blisters on my fingers. One good thing about working with aluminum as apposed to working with wood is the lack of grain direction. You can go at it any which way without worries.

SINISTER WINSTON #2

Here's another Sinister Winston comic. I posted the 1st one a while back. I like this character because I have lots of prank ideas, but my fear of jail makes me too cowardly to try them in real life. Seeing them play out in drawn form is probably just about as satisfying.




If anyone doesn't know what a wire saw is, here's a link. You can skip ahead to the 2 minute mark if you wanna get to the action.

PARKING PRANK IDEA

Just in case you were wanting to know how you could prank the handicapped spaces in parking lots, here's an idea.

Everyone's seen this iconic symbol:


First you would need to know what scale you will be working with. You will probably need to make a visit to the location to get measurements beforehand. Then you could make a cardboard template like in the picture below and cut out the black holes. Get some some paint the same color as the actual symbol on the parking space and Voila! Yer ready to go!

You can lay your cardboard template over the actual symbol and spray paint the additions in a matter of seconds, and then skeedaddle. Your results will look like this:

Of course this is all just conjecture for educational purposes only, and if anyone actually tried it they'd get arrested, so as awesome as it is, don't actually do this supercool trick.

ELECTRIC GUITAR PROJECT part 13

As you may or may not remember, I'm having a mental struggle as to how the tail piece should look on my guitar. I originally planned to make a star-shaped tail piece. In the end it didn't look as good as I thought it would when I started it. Plan B was to use a boring old standard tail piece, but that doesn't make me happy either.

I used my photo-manipulatin' program to create some mock-ups of 3 new designs:

This is a pretty straight forward and simple design. It incorporates the curve of the body and stays somewhat subtle.

This one is a little fancier. I'm not sure I like it as much as the previous version. Depending on the time of day when I look at it, I either like it or I don't. I wonder if it seems a little beefy and obnoxious, like a super hero's chest emblem. When I started writing this description I didn't like it. Now that I've finished the paragraph I think maybe I do like it again.

This is a streamlined version of the previous tail piece. I kind of like the pointiness of it.
Does anyone have any thoughts on any of these designs? Another thing to consider is the color of the wood later on. Everything will be darker and shinier, and gradient-ier when it's all said and done.

CAP'N CRUNCH COLORING BOOK

Of all the cereals I think I enjoyed Cap'n Crunch the best, with the monster cereals at a close second. Cap'n Crunch had the best prizes and I liked the way they drew him back then, with the eye bags.

Here's a coloring book I found on Ebay. It's a strange image on the cover. Jean LaFoote is twisting the Cap'n's mustache. Is that a torture? It doesn't look like it hurts. Is it humiliating? Lots of times people will twist their own mustache when they are bored, or when they're thinking up an evil plot. This torture is a failure in my opinion. Much like if he were to twiddle the Cap'n's thumbs for him.

Some of the pages inside were colored. Look at it! It's obvious this kid has no understanding of human sclera! Now that I think about it this is a pretty violent picture for a kid to be coloring anyway. What's going on in the head of THIS kid? Why'd he pick THIS page?

For fun I removed the color. I POSTERIZED the drawing down to 8 colors so there wasn't a whole lot to have to deal with, and then I used the REPLACE COLOR feature, and changed everything (other than the blacks) to white. It only took a few minutes, and TADA!

It seemed too white so I replaced that tan background.

Upon viewing the bad stuff in the book I think, "Wow! That kid needs to do a better job!"

Some of the pages are colored by a kid with more expert abilities. He even did Jean LaFootes' whiskers. When I see this good stuff I think, "Wow! This kid is too old to be doing a coloring book!"
So sayeth a 41 year old guy who bought a Cap'n Crunch coloring book.

DRAWING OF A GUY WHO IS REALLY PROUD ABOUT SOMETHING

Here's a drawing of a guy who's really proud about something. His name is Proudy. I should have splayed his fingers rather than making them into fists. Now that I think about it, the thumbs should be tucked in as they hold the suspenders. It's exactly the opposite of what it should be. Oh well. Maybe I'll draw some new hands for him later.

THE MYSTERY OF THE CHIRPING DOOR

I heard a bunch of squawking coming from just outside my front door and looked and found a bird nest in the decorative wreath Mei had hung there.

It's pretty nifty. I can stand inside my house and I have front row seats to all the bird happenings.

Seems like the whole process takes about 2 weeks. This is during the more disgusting phase where you can see their translucent flesh and veins.
The eye lids are so thin you can see the color of their eyeballs underneath. There's a lot of worm eating going on during these weeks. Lots of squawking and worm eating. Actually they are eating their mom's wormy vomit since they can't chew for themselves yet. It never gets boring.

Here they are starting to get feathers. You can also see where the mom bird has been relieving herself down the front of my door. Real classy, Mom.

Here's the mom. She's always watching me at a safe distance. I guess it's the mom. Maybe it's the dad. It's the worm-bringer; that's all I know.

She started getting more brave when she realized I wasn't trying to kill her or her babies.
When they aren't eating they're sleeping and waiting for more worms. As soon as the mom swoops back in they all instantly wake up and start clamoring for worms again.
Eventually they filled the nest up like they were a cup of liquid with 3 overflowing heads. I like the way that bird's beak zigzags and the upper part fits exactly into the lower part.

Once, one of them fell out of the nest and I wondered if I should put it back or not. The mom was squawking up a storm. I believe that's an old wive's tale that if you touch a baby bird the mom will reject it. I put it back in the nest the mom continued to feed it her worm vomit.

Eventually they all flew away leaving me with nothing but a boring old poopy door.

THE END

ELECTRIC GUITAR PROJECT part 12

This is Part 12 of the never-ending guitar project I started a while back. I couldn't think of a descent way to securely mount this custom tail piece without drilling holes through it for screws. I countersunk the holes so the screw heads would sit down flush with the surface of the star.

Here's the back view of the star. The reason the holes are arranged so strangely was so I could avoid the string slots.

This is how silver screws will look in the holes.

Alternately I could use brass screws. The silver-colored screws are less noticeable, but the brass screws seem fancier.

Now I've got some decisions to make. The hardware pieces are temporarily arranged on the body just to get an idea of the final appearance. Here's what the star tail piece would look like.

I'm still not entirely convinced I like the star tail piece. Here is the alternative standard tail piece.

I also have one of these single coil pickups in my box of parts. It's an option. The pickups above look better to me but they would
PROS of the star tail piece would be: it adds character and memorability to the appearance of the guitar.

CONS would be: it's probably gaudy, and there will be a steep angle where the strings come out if it and over the bridge.

PROS of the standard tail piece would be: it's non-gaudy appearance, and it's height. When the strings come out of it they require less of an angle to get over the bridge. The steeper the angle the more chance there is for strings to break. That may not be a horrible problem if I do some filing to lessen sharpness.

CONS would be: it's plain and bland and boring, and possesses a forgettable lack of character.

I'm curious if anyone has any opinions on this highly important matter.

OLD ALFRED E. NEWMAN RING

Here's an old ring with the MAD Magazine mascot on it. I'm not sure of the year. I like it because at a glance, and without very close inspection, it passes as a nice dress-up ring. You could wear it to a wedding or a funeral.

It's adjustable!

As I get older I notice my comics are leaning more and more toward the lazy direction. I like doing the ones which require the least amount of drawings possible. Then I can go watch tv with my extra time.

This could have gone on forever but there's probably a low tolerance for what a reader is willing to endure.

HOMELESSNESS AIN'T FUNNY

Homeless fun!

There are a few phony homeless regulars in my town, and they have their favorite corners to stand on and collect cash from innocent old people. I think it was my grandpa who told me he asked a "Will werk fer fuud" guy if he wanted a job doing some yard work, and the guy made a sweeping hand motion for my grandpa to go away.

Anyway, I had this idea. I could get a cheeseburger to wave around and make up a cardboard sign like in this drawing, and find a homeless guy to stand beside.


This actually happened to me in Chicago's Chinatown.


And this actually happened to me also.
We go to Chicago's Chinatown a lot and they're swarming that place. I was told the best thing to do is not talk to them but sometimes they will corner me, and even grab my arm. Then I can't get away until I ante up the cash. Once I got clawed by a woman with dirty fingernails because I didn't have money for her. I checked my pocket and it was honestly empty. I've been cursed by them too.

I realize there are legit homeless people out there and I do feel sorry for them, but a lot of them prefer it over working. Supposedly some make really good money standing on corners. There's a couple here in Evansville who have it all figured out. The husband will drive his wife a block away from her standing-corner, and then she will get out and walk the rest of the way with her cardboard sign. She stands there for for however long they've planned for that day and then the husband comes back in his car and picks her up and takes her back home.

AVATAR MOVIE POSTER AND A DENIM JACKET

I was noticing the other day how similar these 2 images were. I know it doesn't mean anything; I just thought it was interesting.