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We’re off to see the eclipse! How about an FFN strip to commemorate it?

by Aaron Williams on August 21, 2017 at 9:53 AM
Posted In: Science ahoy!

I’m taking the boy to (hopefully) see the eclipse today. My plan is to drive an hour north of Kansas City (traffic allowing) and get a decent amount of time in totality.

With that in mind, I kind of added the event to Full Frontal Nerdity’s current Cthulhu-based campaign.

If all goes well, and the clouds part enough, I’ll have some photos to share. If they don’t, as may be the case since I’m hearing thunder outside right now, I may have reports of a gloomy day becoming slightly gloomier while I sit in bumper-to-bumper traffic. If I somehow get superpowers, I’m hoping I get a better storyline than the ones NBC gave us. 🙂

2 Comments

Because Batman, that’s why.

by Aaron Williams on August 19, 2017 at 4:36 AM
Posted In: Mystery Clip Theater, Sequential Artistry

There’s a scene from a 3-part Justice League animated series story entitled “Starcrossed.” Our heroes are on the run from the hawk people, who have invaded Earth. They have a plan to move about in their civilian identities, which they haven’t revealed to each other yet. Here’s how it originally aired.

This version more accurately reflects the internet’s view of what should have happened:

1 Comment

My kid is back at school and my back hurts…

by Aaron Williams on August 15, 2017 at 10:12 PM
Posted In: From the Mouth of Madness, Paper with words on, The Basement Storage Bin

This was another jam-packed week and weekend, as Josh headed off to second grade and Cristi had to get a new classroom put together (with my help). Having helped my wife to move things relevant to her Early Childhood teaching duties before, as well as being called upon to repair some of those items after too many moves or too much love, I have to say two things:

1. Every grade-school classroom in the nation should probably have at least two wood clamps and some heavy-duty wood glue on hand. All that blonde wood stuff will eventually crack or be damaged, but it’s sturdy enough to take some repair work and still be almost as good as new.

2. Anyone who uses something like “Gorilla Glue” on wood should be shunned by society at large for their sins. I don’t care what it says it can hold together, it doesn’t do well with wood, and when it fails, it leaves a non-porous mess that has to be picked or sanded off so some real wood glue can soak in and hold the pieces together.

And, naturally, somewhere along the way I pinched a nerve in my back hard enough that I feel like I should be bleeding internally. I’ve had this happen before, and the worst part is not wanting to go to bed, since lying down for over an hour just lets the nerve endings regroup and attack when you least expect it. I probably helped bring this on myself due to sitting at a keyboard most of the day and not getting enough potassium in my diet, so walking Josh to and from the bus stop every day and snacking on bananas should help.

On the up side, I’ve managed to get a lot of writing done, and I’m about ready to inflict some on the world at large. I’ve got one idea that would kind of be a text-based webcomic, featuring a few pages of development a week. Of course, I’m trying to flesh it out and make sure it’s got legs before doing so, but I think it’ll work. Look for that (and a new blog category) soon.

Now to draw some more without leaning forward or moving my hips, because if I do, the demons will make my vision go red and I may wind up on the floor again. 🙂

2 Comments

Monday morning distractions.

by Aaron Williams on August 7, 2017 at 5:49 AM
Posted In: It's got Robots and Lasers, Nostalgia!, Science ahoy!, Tabletop Gaming, Video Gaming

• This is kind of interesting from a math vs. art perspective: The Hidden Complexity of Slot Machines.

• I have a bunch of old HO-scale train stuff I wish I had the time and space to put up, but one guy has managed to put a train setup valued at $3 million in his basement, and he’s still adding on to it.

• Atari is coming out with its own retro console, but the hardware specs hint that it does a lot more than play old 8-bit games.

• A bit of a language warning on this next one, but the minds behind the Warhammer40K send-up, “If the Emperor Had a Text-To-Speech Device” have put out a pilot episode of “If The Emperor Had a Podcast.” While there is heretical language not fit for the ears of younglings, some steps are taken in the podcast to limit such utterances… but still…

• All of Galaxy Magazine’s 30-year run is now available online. Get’cher classic sci-fi using a method the writers of the era could only dream about!

• A bit of strategy for your time-waster of the moment: Castle Woodwarf. Hire dwarves, upgrade your environment and equipment, and try to make sure your dragon stays fed.

2 Comments

No comics worth more than about $2.50 were harmed in the making of this episode…

by Aaron Williams on July 30, 2017 at 5:56 AM
Posted In: Articus Pharticus, From the Mouth of Madness, Nostalgia!, Sequential Artistry

So my kid has exceeded my talents exponentially when it comes to physical activities, especially the art I left unmastered as a wee lad: “Staying upright on a skateboard.” Josh can not only make it from one end of a skate park to the other, he can do so while using his legs to provide momentum. In my experience, that maneuver would result in the skateboard taking off in a roughly forward direction while my body plummeted to the ground. I was not so much a skateboarder as a wheeled-platform launcher.

Deciding to foster this interest in the alien worlds of “exercise” and “being outside,” my wife and I have decided to encourage this hobby in our offspring. The board he currently rides is a (I believe) longboard style one, measuring somewhere around 32″, which we found at a yard sale and painted ourselves. The graphics are simple, a kind of black-and-white sunbeam motif with a robot-like face in the middle, all formed by using masking tape and spray paint.

Skateboards are pretty pricey, and the best deals are often found by buying the whole thing in one go rather than deck + trucks + wheels separately. We found a trio of skateboards on Craigslist sold as a package for $35. My wife and I decided this was a good buy for Josh, and while he’s been away visiting his grandparents, we set to work on making one of them rather special. We started with this:

Two of the boards were Yu-Gi-Oh themed, so we figured one of them would make the ultimate sacrifice and get a facelift. The result is on the right, with its former twin, intact, to the left. We won’t even go into how hard it was to get the torn grip tape off of the other side of the board, as well as the resulting tape residue. My office smelled like Goo-Gone for days afterwards.

Not wanting to spend days applying tape, paint, etc., we decided to go the decoupage route. It’s a pretty easy way to put graphics on a surface, especially wood. We glued them down and gently used a brayer (a rubber roller) to iron out any bubbles, then hit it with more decoupage glue. This coating was lightly sanded and topped with several coats of spar urethane for some extra durability (though that’s kind of wishful thinking, as I’ll explain below). For the images themselves, We picked a superhero Josh has been enamored with on occasion, found some comics that came from our local Comic Store’s bargain bin, and this was the result…
↓ Read the rest of this entry…

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Friday’s child is made of links…

by Aaron Williams on July 28, 2017 at 2:25 PM
Posted In: It Came from the Internet, Om Nom Nom!, The Idiot Box, Video Gaming

I have a small art project that I’ll be sharing tonight or tomorrow, but until then, here’s this culling of things from around the internet:

• From the “This is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things” file comes the San Diego Comic-Con trying to enforce a trademark on the phrase “Comic-Con.”

• I love hot ‘n’ spicy consumables, but even I’d pause before drinking some “Satan’s Shot” vodka, which is infused with Carolina Reapers chilis. It apparently sent one 30-year-old man to the hospital. I guess it worked as advertised?

• Matt Groening is following up his Futurama TV series with a medieval fantasy cartoon called Disenchantment.

• Coke Zero is dead, long live Coke Zero Sugar. I wonder if Pepsi Zero Sugar (formerly Pepsi Max) will object to the use of their surname?

• Because video games aren’t challenging enough, someone managed to defeat Portal without moving their mouse.

• And our time-wasting Flash game today is Run Right, where you play as a gun-wielding dinosaur constantly (what else?) running towards the right of the screen. Dodge obstacles, zap humans for coins, and upgrade your dino-self.

3 Comments

Oh, what the fandom can do with the next Doctor…

by Aaron Williams on July 16, 2017 at 7:26 PM
Posted In: It's got Robots and Lasers, The Idiot Box

In case you hadn’t heard, the 13th Doctor on Doctor Who will be played by Jodie Whittaker, of Broadchurch fame:

For those who haven’t seen Broadchurch, it’s a highly acclaimed murder-mystery-thriller starring Whittaker and David Tennant. The following is a recap of the first season of the show, and it’s pretty disturbing, so if you’re only a first-regeneration Time Lord, you might want to skip it: Here you go.

Now, if we assume that all actors who play Time Lords are their characters first and foremost, then that makes Broadchurch an ongoing “paradox” series where a Time Lord tries to help their future selves solve the mystery of what happened to the child they had on Earth. 🙂

7 Comments

Spoooooon!

by Aaron Williams on July 14, 2017 at 11:44 AM
Posted In: The Idiot Box

I’m still a huge fan of the animated series from my sort-of-childhood, but this Amazon version of The Tick looks promising:

The higher quality uniforms make it even funnier, somehow.

I hope it’s as quotable as the cartoon. I still find myself looking for opportunities to say, “If you’re so evil, eat this kitten!“

6 Comments

They’ve given us the noise, now we just need the monster to go with it.

by Aaron Williams on July 12, 2017 at 7:40 PM
Posted In: The Internetonomicon

Of course, this could be a misleading title. The “malfunctioning tornado siren” could just be covering for the beast we can’t see, right?

I suppose it could also just be the effect of the Eldrich Horrors passing through the neighborhood. It’s why you should always have your computer on a surge suppressor.

2 Comments

Slight correction…

by Aaron Williams on July 11, 2017 at 2:14 AM
Posted In: From the Mouth of Madness

Today is 7-11 day, as mentioned in the previous post.

As anyone who knows me will tell you, I’ve never been good with dates. Of any kind.

2 Comments

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