Catch

Definitely not the first person the call the Heart-in-a-Jar image to mind, although I did draw it without looking at other images and, as I did so, I was imagining catching a heart as one catches fireflies. That's not clear in the sketch, though. For that you'd need flying hearts.

The Mason jar's a little warped but at least the shine on the glass is pretty well-rendered. I've nothing more to say on it, really it's not so deep. Another example of something slightly sad and trite, perhaps, but we can't be all sunshine and exploding kittens all the time (though we try!)

Trite

If you do not believe that everything is improved by being on a stick I will need to refer you to a specialist. Also, if you Google "food is improved by putting it on a stick" you get "100 Best Companies for Working Moms."

Their search algorithm is all grown up, clearly.

I drew this because I often use "sunshine lollipops and rainbows" as an adjective or noun phrase when I feel like being a little snarky about something that is pretty nice (and usually trite.) In the little world of this blog the phrase itself is now trite from overuse, and it doesn't really help it's case to know it's a reference to this Lesley Gore song (a link perfectly safe for work except for the spectacle you may make of yourself while laughing at her sweater and her "dancing.")

As I write about Lesley Gore (a thing I do far more often than the average person) it's worth mentioning that I recently found out that she's gay. I am a little obsessed with this fact because of the way it turns her early 60's bubblegum pop offerings upside down - talk about refreshing all things trite! It's also nice to know I'm not the first person to find this worth mentioning- a character in the movie Grace of My Heart (all about music-making in the 60s) features a character based on her called Lilly Banquette (I find both this last name and "Gore" to be unfortunate, but her real name was Sue Goldstein so.... fire the Hollywood guy whose job it is to rebrand people.)

So anyway, the sketch. Just a quick thought I found it easy enough to immortalize. I like the nice clean lines of simple sketches I can do in sharpie marker. I'm the person who usually, when I'm looking for an online image, specifies that I want clip art. Possibly clip art guy is old enough now that he's gone from trite to retro.

Raining Somewhere

If I may be vain on one particular point- Do you see the circle that I drew freehand? I don't know that I will ever do that again so can we just marvel at that for a moment?
...
And we're back.

This is the image that came to me when I contemplated the question of whether it is always raining somewhere on the globe.

Although this is much debated on the internet, searching the query "Is it always raining somewhere?" with such helpful terms as "science," "national geographic," and "meteorological society" produces no authority greater than snopes.com .

So far, so sketchy.

The general consensus is that it IS always raining somewhere. This is thanks, in large part, to the intertropical continental zone which experiences, to quote NASA "an almost perpetual series of thunderstorms." Given so many places on earth with such a high likelihood of rain the odds against a moment's drought are combinatorically huge ("combinatorically" being a mathematical word I just learned that means, for my purposes, 'much larger than astronomically, and that's using MATH'.)

If you're feeling isolationist, you should know that the chances of a split-second dry spell in the US is also extraordinarily low, mostly because Mount Wai-'ale'ale on the island of Kauai, Hawaii has about 350 days of rain each year. As for the continental US, I leave you to figure that out. Call me when you need something circular drawn.

The Jumbonaut

Green-Eyed

Runtime Error

This program will compile, but when it runs you'll find you can't divide by "shoe."

I'm taking a C++ programming course (to no particular end) and trying to convince myself to allot much more time for it than I ever would have when I was in college. Generally, I would like to commit more time to fewer things as the summer goes on.

Like this mythical program just when I think I've sorted things out nicely I don't run. I mean literally I don't run- I do a full set of sit-ups to repeatedly reach the snooze button but I don't find my feet until it's too late even if running's the one thing I've promised myself I'll accomplish that day.

I could make some pun about the need to hack my life but I'm not going to make a fool out myself pretending like I'm that kid out of War Games. However, I do imagine the procedure to solve to most of my problems, time management among others, is the same as for creating computer code in Comp 11: Think in circles. Sit, glazed, for hours, punctuating this with failures borne of brief but furious trying. Allow the solution to slowly reveal itself before you. Feel both proud and stupid. Run the program.

Mod Squad

Ok, so the look isn't exactly mod, but then again there's a lot of debate about what that term actually means. TV's Mod Squad wasn't mod. For one thing, they weren't British and for another, they were too late (and too hippie.)

The dresses' plunging necklines and low hemlines take this a few blocks over from Carnaby street, perhaps, but still the moniker"Mod Squad" seems to stick to this image. Maybe in the sense that it could be modern art? Some faint echo of Andy Warhol? Maybe because the image is modular. It isn't terribly counter-cultural (unless it's subversively bald?) Would we call the dress 'sexy and streamlined?' If so, it may yet be mod.

This is actually an re-purposed sketch from when, several years ago now, I had the bright idea to do a to-scale drawing of myself and attempt to design clothes on it. You'll notice our friend Lefty is naked (reasons I'm single #811.) My own form, stunted and bald (and with an oversized head,) did not inspire me the way that costuming characters does, so I continue to fight with my wardrobe in all three dimensions.

I'm glad this sketch has found uses here as today's entry, as an excuse to probe the many meanings of 'mod', and as a rather grown-up game of "One of These Things is Not Like the Other."