08/10/08

04-25-08: This is the graphic I made for my neighbor Jolly. She's getting her post graduate degree in "Health" something or another. I keep on forgetting to ask her. Anyway, she had to put together a flyer about "Stress Reduction" and the services that SFSU has to offer students.

After brainstorming a bit we worked out how to trim down her information to be suitable for a flyer and I thought a before/after image would be fun. We both wanted the graphic to be genderless and without ethnicity, so we don't alienate anyone. Under the graphic there'll be the question "What's the difference?" and the answer is "Stress Reduction". Jolly was amused.

The Wacom tablet I was using on my old computer wasn't hooked up to this new computer until I had to give it a shot. I put off checking whether the tablet would conflict with the mouse. I had enough web and computer wrestling to last me a while so I procrastinated. Yesterday I took a deep breath and plugged it in and the drivers didn't work with Vista. I went to Wacom's website and got the updated drivers and now I have both a mouse and a Wacom tablet. It's an "Intuos2". Wacom is up to "Intuos3"

04-22-08 The Guys from LA. I was so stuck in my clay block that I couldn't get started sculpting the heads for Dr. D. and the claymation project. That's him on the left there. So the Sagittarius that he is says "We'll come up to SF and then we'll.... ". I was unable to talk him out of it. Rather than stay at a Motel and waste that money Dr. D. and M.G. crashed at my crib, hippy style, and we clayed for two days. I got 4 hours sleep. We got over a dozen face molds made, 5 heads on sticks for their next episode and I got over my clay block. Whew. Almost 4 months of tech issues with changing my web host, loosing data over the old web host erasing my site three times for no good purpose, doing edits until my eyes glazed over like donuts, getting the new computer that had to go to repair twice, I was so punchy I couldn't focus on doing clay.

Now I'm feeling so much better. I'm so glad that Dr.D didn't take "no" for an answer. He was very happy with how I could make "short order" adjustments to faces while he watched. M.G. discovered he had a knack for sculpting. I was able to share with them a Japanese movie "The Great Yokai War" since it was free "on demand" through Comcast. What I thought was too fun was there was a lot of stop motion animation, CGI, as well as live action. Another plus was there were just tons of Japanese spirits, spooks, goblins, classic ghosts, like "Yuki Onna" the snow woman. Below is a picture of some of the classic spirits and ghostly creatures from that movie. I discovered some spooks I never heard about, like the lady with the stretchy neck, the wall that can walk, the lady with two mouths. Now I want to do a series of classic Japanese spooks and ghosts.

Yesterday was very pleasant, one of those "bronze the moment" sort of days. Note to self: check transits for 7pm. It's always a good idea to check the transits when things go well instead of always checking transits for when things go wonky. I'm watching the movie again. There's so much to see that repeated viewings are necessary. I'm glad that Dr. D and M.G. got to see it when they were here.

Speaking of which, I started a "study of famous faces" in the claymation section. Three male and three female famous black Americans. I had created a review of the past famous face studies in a post to COC. But the faces of the past were mostly my beloved bald white men.

Back to Japanese topics, there's a series of books written by an Englishman who lives in Australia. The author writes under the nom de plume of Liam Hearn, the books are set in medieval Japan. I told James about the series and he's on the second book right now. He says after reading Japanese authors it's easy to tell that this is a non-Japanese writing about these topics. He doesn't know how he can tell, but he can. Past life memories of being a Samurai I'll wager. He's looking forward to seeing the Great Yokai War.

James is also getting a new computer. He needs two and one of the two he has keeps on rebooting and we can't figure out why. So he ordered his new computer yesterday and it'll be in within the week. I do hope he doesn't have problems like I did with my new computer. I'm thinking that if we can figure out what's the problem with the computer that keeps on rebooting I might be able to ask James if we can give that computer to Bushyaib. We'd have to find a monitor for it. James needs two monitors. He and his EQII friends often play two characters at the same time so a handful of players can look like a mob of characters.

Computer games are alright. I did like the adventure/puzzle games but they don't make them anymore. Lara Croft was fun to play. I had a joy stick and everything. The BladeRunner game was great because you could change the endings by how you behave through the game. Tex Murphy games were great fun because I do like detective stories. Manny Caladaras, a game set in Day of the Dead environment was a lot of fun. I sent it to my sister Linda to share with her sons, I doubt if they even fired it up.  If I get caught up with my To-Do list I might schedule in some game playing time. But right now there's just so much still to do. This blog is my indulgence as a time sink. It's a backup for "Old Timer's Disease", should I forget what happened in my life. LOL

Bohemian Euphoria, the magic dream of peace, art and culture. I'm writing this down because Bushyaib said that SF gays were living in a "bohemian euphoria" and I started laughing. "Sounds like a good name for a band." I said.

Today is Amy's 24th birthday, year of the Rat, explains her pack rat tendencies. She took off of work thinking that she'd go to Japan Town. But Bushyaib got off early, bought designer chocolates, flowers, and I had birthday scav clothing I found in the laundry. So she's a happy girl.

The Bohemian Euphoria comment came up when Bushyaib was describing the Castro, where his job was, where he got the birthday goodies.

Regarding the afore mentioned author's pseudonym "Lian Hearn"
http://www.lianhearn.com/
might be an homage to Lafcadio Hearn, the collector of ghost stores, who went to Japan, married in and got adopted by a Japanese family, etc.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lafcadio_Hearn

It's just a brain fart for me.

I have the two video set of "Kwaidan" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kwaidan (film) 
"Kwaidan is a 1964 Japanese anthology film directed by Masaki Kobayashi; the title means 'ghost story'. It is based on stories from Lafcadio Hearn's collections of Japanese folk tales. The film consists of four separate and unrelated stories. Kwaidan may only have specialized appeal today but at the time it marked the most expensive production in the history of Japanese cinema."


I'm going to review that after I finish reviewing "Rosencrantz and Gildenstern are Dead". That movie reminds me that no matter how unaware we are of our fate we are not able to avoid it. You have to know Hamlet to appreciate this spin off. I R an Engrish major, so ...

Amy's look is influenced by the Harajuku girls who are "Lolita" and "Goth" but it's light weight. So I asked her if the look could be called "Lolita Goth Lite" and she said, sure and laughed.  She bought one of those miniature top hats with dangly strings of beads coming off of it. She wore a wide head band to Japan Town Cherry Blossom Festival (no, she's not Asian) with blue satin and white gathered lace. I was pleased I was able to identify the sub culture of fashion she likes. Not bad for an old hippy grandma.