"Ari's Room" Sign

Monday, August 20, 2007

It's not too terribly exciting but I hung up the “ARI'S ROOM” sign (carved by me, painted by her with a little touch-up by me — I posted it unpainted last week). I got a (motorized) miter saw today because it was too hard (and a little wasteful because of the way it cuts) to do with the CarveWright and I really need to start making frames since that was the main reason I got the unit.

If anyone in Toronto has an old electric guitar they don't want, I'm looking for a guitar to gut for spare parts. Please IM me if you're an IAM member, or write me at snowrail@gmail.com if you're not… The unit is large enough to carve full guitar bodies which is quite exciting (that's how Liquid Guitars make all of theirs — check it out) and I'd love to give it a shot.

It was sort of derailed this year because of my surgery and a couple other things, but I'm trying to get the pieces put in place to be able to move out of the city as soon as school ends this year. I definitely want a lot more space to work in because it's really hard doing projects in a little place in the city. My house is actually pretty big by city standards, but still, it's quite limiting. But in any case, my days are really full until school starts but after that I'll have lots more time for work and various projects as well.

Other than that I pick up my Lyrica at the pharmacy in a few hours, but really, the more I read about the side effects, the less I'm inclined to take it because they really suck. I hope I will get lucky and be in the group that doesn't get them, but if I do, I'm not going to take it. I really prefer to have a clear head, even if it includes pain.

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Daily Chronicles

Monday, August 20, 2007

I'd thought this story was fake/parody when I first saw it, but this isn't some fringe right-wing extremist movement — members of the current administration as well as numerous prominent and established mainstream Republicans are pushing to make Bush “President” for life. It's really quite insane — I'd laugh it off if it wasn't so mainstream in terms of who's involved and who's backing it. The comparisons to Julius Caesar and idolatry of Bush are rather disturbing… I really wonder what would happen if Bush actually was made Emperor? Would people revolt, or simply accept it? Would someone assassinate him? What a strange place America has become.

In more pleasant news, I made a really nice butter chicken dish last night with rice and mixed veggies. I've been trying to figure out exactly how much a family of three or four can eat for (something I never really paid close attention to in the past for some reason) and I think that for about $20 a day you can really eat like a king (and obviously one could eat well for less — that's eating really well). This meal would have fed two to four people depending on hunger, and was really “cheaty” in terms of using a pre-made sauce, and over-priced because I used a nice organic free range chicken and it had a total cost of less than ten dollars…

I figure that if you raise your own chickens and have a couple goats for milk and cheese, as well as producing many of your own vegetables, cost of food can be cut down incredibly. I think I mentioned that over this winter I'm trying to get all the pieces put together for the good life so by spring I want my storage unit to have a nice big yurt packed up in it, and I've been watching Craigslist for nice woodstoves, and slowly amassing tools and so on… So this all has been on my mind a lot lately.

We made a toy lizard out of some masking tape and a used up roll of paper towels and painted it this afternoon… Simple craft play is the best. That said, I need to set up my saw and do the framing of the paintings I have here, and get to work on a few new ones.

I'm very tired because this morning we got up earlier than usual as I had a first-thing appointment at the fracture clinic at the hospital. Both of my vehicles are kind of messed up right now so Nefarious and I have been riding a ton of transit and walking like crazy, which is actually really nice — much nicer than driving in the city, to say nothing of being hugely cheaper. Anyway, she got to watch them take all the staples out of my leg and we had a hot chocolate and then walked down to Chapters and got the pile of books I've been promising her since her favorites are down in California.

Saira is babysitting tonight and I'm going to go see Superbad so I grabbed my tickets while I was downtown. We had time to kill so we spent some time at the coffee shop in the bookstore reading, and continued that at home after lunch — I finished with The Lorax and it was actually incredibly difficult… Outside of the regular pain that I'm in, I somehow sprained my knee (I'm sure it's just temporary), and when I'm really sore I have a lot of trouble controlling my emotions, so my voice was totally cracking at the end of it! I just barely held it together, hahaha… I'm such a crybaby. Great book either way.

Anyway, I started my new pain meds, so hopefully this entry isn't too jumbled. General brain confusion is one of the potential side effects so how knows…

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Aim for the head

Monday, August 20, 2007

The first clip is from Boston Legal by the way… It's interesting to me that a lot of revolutionary concepts and serious criticism of the government do slip into the mainstream television in America. I don't know if that's a good thing or not, turning the idea of revolution into fiction and entertainment? Because it certainly doesn't seem to be inspiring people.

Anyway… the problem:

And the solution, in my opinion:

I'm not saying people ought to rise up and overthrow their government before the next election. But I do strongly think it's the patriotic duty of every American to arm themselves. Even if your rifle ends up in a locked box in your closet and you never touch it other than periodic cleaning and the initial learning to shoot it… Because if things get bad, an armed populace is the last defense, be it against a foreign power or be it against a government gone wrong. Jews certainly learned that the hard way (PS.) when they gave up their guns to the Nazis, as did many other groups.

And, if things don't get bad, you'll also be able to defend against zombies.

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A Night at the Circus

Monday, August 20, 2007

Ok, not really a circus, but with a tip from Phil, I'm taking Nefarious to see the Bedford Experience show tonight. There's a bunch of acts, but I'm really looking forward to the Shoebox Tour juggling aspect… A few (not very good — seriously, make better ones!) promo videos for their act:

Ryan Atkins and others will be there as well doing unicycle stuff…

Anyway, today is clean up the house day! So exciting.

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Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon

Monday, August 20, 2007

A while back we provided a bunch of BME gear to the folks producing Death Sentence (in theaters August 31; more), the new James Wan (Saw) and Kevin Bacon thriller — the trailer is online and I really have to give a huge thank you to the folks putting the movie together because not only is there BME stuff in the film as far as I know (go see it to find out), but they actually put a BMEshop sticker in prominently. Seriously, a big giant thank you to whoever made that happen!

Very cool… Does this mean I can update my IMDB page for having provided artwork? (And Jon for the sticker design, and Rachel for answering their email and following up with all the legal mumbo-jumbo negotiating a product placement that I'd probably have ignored for I hate contracts and such.)

PS. On the official site's gallery, there's a BME belt buckle and a “Some Things Never Go Out of Style” shirt… I know what I'm wearing to the movie!!! I wonder if anyone will notice (I doubt it — you'd have to be really sharp to catch something like that… when I went to see Clerks II it's not like anyone noticed).

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