Given the drift of yesterday’s conversation, I couldn’t resist showing you this Sunday example of reality-bending from five years ago. Speaking of yesterday’s conversation, I would like to set the record straight about one thing. I do not draw my comic strip digitally. Far from it. In fact, I recently experimented with felt-tip pens, which most cartoonists—the decreasing number who do not draw digitally—have favored for years. I drew with felt-tip pens for several months, but I didn’t care for the results. I have gone back to pen nib and India ink on 100% rag Strathmore paper. In fact, they don’t make the pen points I use anymore. I have to watch for them on eBay, where they’re sold as antiques. I figure I have a two-year supply on hand right now. Only after I finish drawing an A&J strip do I enter the digital world by scanning the artwork and creating a file.
153 responses to “Fowl Story”
Laughs for the weekend: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/universityeducation/10959363/32-worst-exam-howlers-of-all-time.html
Mark, I would hire some of these individuals; they clearly can think and reason. We ask questions of candidates not for correctness, but to understand how their minds function.
Good day Y’all. Art old style and electronic seems to be an ongoing discussion. Today’s Working Daze also stirred up the old paper vs electronic discussion. Personally after having owned a Kindle Fire HDX for 7 months I think there is room for both the old and new. Certain classic books are better in paper just because they can be had no other way and “feel” better that way. Yet Gutenburg.org has available older books that have long been out of print yet can be had for free for electronic reading sources. And nothing beats having a wide selection of books available in small format when you have a lot of waiting to do. I used to think “Paper ONLY”, but have come to see there is room for both. Kindle yet my Arlo and Janis paper books.
Ursen ^_
Ursen, thanks! They’d probably have books on/by Great War pilots, wouldn’t they? Worth a look. 🙂
Ursen, funny you should bring that up. Also take a look at Open Library. And I just read of two services that are trying to do for ebooks what Netflix has done for video. Instead of buying everything to keep, and I have never been one to want to keep every book I’ve bought, you subscribe and read from what they have available. Only thing is, I read more science fiction these days, and out of the favored authors I looked for, found only one. So I’m not ready for them yet. But they do have many more books available though. The services are Oyster and Scrib’d. (think I have that last one right).
Mark (and others) – Your local public library probably offers free access to eBooks too.
Ruth Anne: Many public libraries do offer eBooks on a lending basis. However, many others (including mine) are not able to do so, primarily due to financial constraints. In those cases, contacting your city/county representative might be a good thing to do.
Cool Hand Arlo?
http://www.gocomics.com/arloandjanis/1995/02/02#.U7GRLPldWa8
Ghost:
Here we go again. What is it about 50 boiled eggs?
BTW, each one = 12.5% of my daily fat allowance. I eat eggs in moderation, mostly as a component of takeout egg fried rice.
emb, look at this
http://screeninsight.blogspot.com/2012/08/cool-hand-luke-stuart-rosenburg-1967.html
I just read the post I put up. I never knew how much I was missing in “Cool hand Luke”. I think the blogger gets a little too deep.
Nodak Wayne: Thanks. emb
Hmmm… I wish I could share that blog with Father Cunningham and hear his reaction. I remember that my notes for his humanities class at FSU in the fall of 1967 included “see Cool Hand Luke if at all possible”. He told us that the movie’s portrayal of life in prison camps in the south at that time (the book was set in central Florida) was true to what he and/or his religious colleagues had observed.
Yes, I had pages and pages of notes about art, music, literature, and philosophy (good stuff that would be on tests then and Jeopardy ever since) and that’s the one line I remember – a fine example of “brain sludge”!
I did find this link to my introduction to that term, however, and it still makes me laugh: http://articles.baltimoresun.com/1996-03-10/features/1996070072_1_robin-hood-sludge-human-brain
Best apps… For renting e-books
Oyster emerged last fall as the potential Netflix of e-books. Subscribers pay $10 a month for access to a library of 500,000 back titles, and 10 e-books can be checked out at any one time. The app is free and available for Android, iOS, Nook, and Kindle Fire.
Scribd charges subscribers $9 a month for access to a book library of similar size but also maintains a strong focus on shorter reads like essays and stories. It’s not available for Nook.
Entitle typically costs more, but it offers access to new titles from two major publishers and allows users to keep the books they download. Users get two books a month for $10, three for $15, or 24 a year for $99.
OverDrive lets you borrow free e-books from the library, using your library card information to sign them out. At times, you may have to wait for an available copy.
Source: The Washington Post
Ruth Anne: You mean Jeremiah WASN’T a bullfrog? That was one of the major cultural items I learned during my first professorship…and at a church outing, yet.
One of my favorite Dave Barry observations goes something like this: The human brain is indeed a mysterious thing. Mine can remember all the words to the theme song of “The Beverly Hillbillies” while half the time forgetting where I left my car keys ten minutes ago.
GR6, they have an app for that. Does require that you know where your phone is and you remember to charge it. 😉
http://mashable.com/2013/07/18/find-keys-apps/
Your smart phone will notify you when it gets separated from your keys by 50 meters? Yeah, that would narrow it down to about 85,000 square feet. I guess that could be called “Steve Jobs’ Big Acre”. 🙂
The TrackR had some neat features. Especially if one wanted to surreptitiously track the movements or learn the whereabouts of a spouse or significant other. That could be fun.
Debbe – Getting around my side of the complex is okay by car, the concrete guys have moved on; however, I never know what obstacle course will be between me and my car in the mornings. The fire marshall would be having kittens some mornings. Vehicles, building materials, old fixtures, and a rouge shopping cart greet me during my morning trek. The old counter behind the front door can stay though – rather handy.
… And the A/C is dead again at work. Cooler outside than in.
One of my x2? x3? great grandpas was a Schwab (some relation to famous Charles) who was indentured to a John Schmidt (I think I’ve mentioned this before.) We have a scan of the original indenture document, with some court stamp (not legible of course), giving names and dates, but have yet to nail down more than that. We DO know he ended up bitter towards his birth family (He was eight or so at the time of indenture, I believe.) and opted to stay with the Schmidt family. Not sure how “legal” his name change was, as I can’t find any of that either. Even more vexing, I’ve not been able to track down a census record that shows a Schwab family -1 boy and a Schmidt family +1 boy when I know most of the details!
The only line I know from Cool Hand Luke is the “failure to communicate” bit. Trying to watch Steve McQueen in Thomas Crown Affair, but my darn closed captioning isn’t working right. Background noises and soundtracks bother me so much anymore, I struggle without CC.
Vellum: There is an episode of Dirty Jobs where Mike makes vellum. One of only a couple episodes I struggled to get through. (I’ll pass on the slime eel and window port into live cow episodes thank you very much.)
And the only songs that will survive for all eternity will be The Chicken Dance, Hokey Pokey, and Y.M.C.A. – forever preserved on wedding videos without number.
You’ve heard about what happened at the undertaker’s when the originator of the Hokey Pokey died, no?
Nooooo? (She said, setting up what she knew to be a splendidly wretched punny punchline.) 🙂
No, castler, not any Renaissance Man. Heck, I barely speak one language (not counting gibber and babble). I just like recreating old stuff, getting as close as I can to the original methods and tools.
Regarding eBooks our local library uses something called “Overdrive” to allow patrons to check out ebooks. In the fall they will be adding the service EBSCOhost. Being addicted to the paper version of books I’ve yet to try their digital equivalent.
I’m sure I will, someday but I deal with way too much technology at work. When I’m home I prefer to keep it slow and simple, not unlike myself.