My Girlfriend is an Awesome Person

When she went to Cosi the other day to buy a salad for lunch, and she then saw a homeless guy digging through the Dumpster in the alley by my condo, she gave him the delicious, delicious bread that came with the salad. She loves that bread, because it's delicious, and she gave it to him. Then, while I was dorking out and spending a truly profane amount of money on comic books on Saturday, she was doing volunteer work, taking children from group homes to a museum because they don't have anyone else who will take them.

In conclusion, these are just two examples of many of why my girlfriend Laura is a wonderful person who doesn't get the props she deserves. Just thought I'd throw that out there.

P.S. I deeply apologize for my egregious use of the word "props" in the preceding paragraph. I hope the reader will find it in his or her heart to forgive me.

Comic-Mania

Time for a bunch of updates! Went to the Wizard World comic book convention this Saturday with my little sister and my honorary little sister. It was my first time, and it was pretty awesome. And tiring! And way more social than I would have thought, what with all the indie artists and creators barking at passers-by to please buy their stuff. I ended up spending most of my time buying comics. Of course, I went in with a list of things I specifically wanted, and ended up buying everything in sight...oh well. Now I have a load of great comic books to read! I even went to Chicago Comics on Monday to buy more. It would appear that I am a great big comic book dork now. Thanks a lot, Sis -- I was wondering what I was going to do with all this money I have now that I'm not buying D&D books and video games every week. That was a close one!

Anyway, I wish I had taken pictures at the con...not sure why I didn't. I always have a hard time overcoming photography inertia for some reason. Anyway, it was about what you'd expect...really crowded, lots of people wearing costumes they really shouldn't, and a few wearing costumes they really, really should. The highlight had to have been Robin, complete with bare skinny geek-legs and green jockeys. That takes balls, and you could pretty much see them.

As far as celebrities go, I briefly glimpsed Priscilla Barnes, better known as Ivana, the topless, three-nippled fortune teller from my favorite movie Mallrats. WWE Superstar Al Snow was supposed to be there, but he evidently canceled. In his place, I saw former WWE Superstar "Grand Master Sexay" Brian Christopher, which was kind of cool, though I didn't get a photo or autograph or anything.

Overall, it was a very good time...count me in for next year!

Drawing: Angel

Well, an angel, anyway. Diverging slightly from my usual superhero schtick, I thought I'd go a little bit fantasy. I actually did this one fairly free-hand, with much less use of reference pictures than usual. Not too shabby. I got a bit lazy with the wings; turns out, details bore me! Not much shading either. Overall, though, pretty decent, I think.

On the High Seas of Lake Michigan

On Tuesday, I took a little cruise with my crew at Morningstar aboard the Tall Ship Windy, followed by libations and comestibles at Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. at Navy Pier. Good times -- it was a very pleasant day for it. Several intrepid photographers numbered among our crew, and the following pictures were among those taken.

Preparing to batten down the hatches, or shiver me timbers, or something.

Me trying to help raise the sail without elbowing poor Mindy in the face.

Chris, Andrius, Andrey, myself, and Cliff. Yarrrr.

Drawing, 2006-07-26

Green Lantern! Actually, I think this is my best work yet. The shading could use some work, though. And man, it took me a good four or five tries to get the head and face anywhere near close to right. Also, sorry about the glare from the lighting, making the shiny pencil all glarey and crap. Damn, I need a scanner already!

Anyway, this one's for you, Dad. ZAP!

Older than Dirt

Did you guys know that Haley Joel Osment, the cute little kid from Sixth Sense and other movies, is eighteen freaking years old?! Man. I feel old.

Drawing, 2006-07-24 part 2

Behold: Cap! Again, still needs work on proportion. You can see the guidelines I drew, in accordance with the age-old eight-heads-tall rule. I need to get used to that; I have a tendency to draw characters too short, closer to six or seven heads.

Also, let me say right now that my complete lack of 1337 coloring and shading skeelz is not the point of this drawing! I need to work on form first. The coloring was more of an afterthought -- really, it's an excuse to try out my expensive new colored pencil set. :)

Drawing, 2006-07-24

Here's a little pic of Superman I did yesterday. The musculature and proportions are a little off -- they're my #1 sticking point right now. Practice makes perfect!

Pumping Iron, 2006-07-24

Here's what I managed today. All weights are minus the weight of the bar, which varies. Anyway, it's not the absolute weight that's important, so much as the relative weight between sessions; if the numbers are generally going up, I'm happy!

(Also, "e" means the empty bar. Generally used for warmup sets.)

Squats	e x 12, 100 lbs. x 9, 7
Pullups	1, 0.7 (not quite all the way up!)
Bench presses	e x 12, 55 x 7, 6
Deadlifts	e x 12, 90 x 7, 8
Military presses	e x 12, 35 x 6, 4
Bent-over rows	40 x 11, 10 (on these, my legs were all a-quiver near the end of each set...I'll have to be careful.)

Starting over

Needless to say, I have been extraordinarily derelict in my blogging duties! This isn't surprising to me, but I think it is good for me to get some writing in. So, here's what's going on:

1. Birthdays! I turned 28 on July 16th, and Laura turned 23 just two days ago. Happy day of birth to both of us!

2. Dieting. I certainly don't consider myself fat, really, but I do have a little somethin'-somethin' that I could stand to lose. So - all aboard the low-carb express! I'll start probably Thursday, after I get some groceries.

3. Exercise. I just got back from the gym, in fact. Been lifting the weights -- a good idea whether you're trying to build muscle or lose fat, since in the latter case, it reduces muscle loss, which is important! Maybe I'll start keeping a log here.

4. Drawing - I'm getting back into it. I don't have a scanner - I need to get one - but I do have a nice digital camera. I'll post some of the work I do here, so you have pretty things to look at.

Let's see if I can't keep this going. On your mark...get set...

Ugh

Honestly, all you folks with regularly-updated personal blogs—I don’t know how you do it.

When I started this thing, back in…wow, late October of ‘05, I was afraid of one thing: that I wouldn’t have enough to say. I’d tell everyone about this blog, and even try to attract readers I didn’t know in real life, and then I’d just go blank. And surprise, surprise, that’s pretty much where I am right now.

Oh, I’ve got plenty of excuses. I’ve been working a lot lately, and rarely feel like pounding out a blog post when I get home. My free time is valuable and all too scarce; I try to establish a delicate balance between spending time with friends, spending time with my girlfriend Laura, and spending time alone (which is important for introverts like yours truly). Furthermore, I can be a very private person; particularly since people I know in person sometimes read this blog, I often don’t feel comfortable writing about every little thing that happens to me.

So, yeah, excuses abound. But a lot of the time, quite frankly, I just can’t think of a damn thing to say. Focus is a big problem. After all, when you run across a blog that’s about programming, IT, movies, games, and personal stuff, all rolled into one…well, unless you’re me, you’re probably not going to be all that interested. Throw infrequent updates into the mix and you’ve got a blog that nobody cares about—including yourself.

The whole thing kind of makes me feel inadequate. I have a problem with starting things and never finishing them. I've got a million creative projects on my computer hard drive—programs, games, short stories, and so on—that I've abandoned for God knows what reason. It's a flaw of mine, and it drives me batty sometimes.

Anyway…I’m not saying I’m giving up on this sumbitch or anything. But I figured that one thing blogs are good for is venting, so I might as well take advantage. Any excuse to post something, eh?

-Will

AutoHotkey Takes Names, Kicks Ass

Just wanted to take a moment to give props to my new favorite open-source program, AutoHotkey. It's basically a scriptable global macro program. You can set it up so that it sends certain combinations of keypresses or mouse-clicks to other programs, and the scripting features make this even more powerful. I use it at work when I have to type out long, repetitive strings of text, and to type in the current date quickly. It's great. I hold the Window key down and hit N (for "now"), and out comes the date: 03/11/2006. Basically, this is the sort of thing you're either going to think is entirely useless, or the most useful thing ever invented by anyone, ever. I'm of the latter opinion. (Well, okay, that may be overstating things a little. But only a little.)

Bienvenidos a Miami

Well, Thursday morning I returned home from a three-day vacation in beautiful South Beach area of Miami, Florida. The downside of the trip: I came down with Laura's cold about a day into it, and now my ears are kind of messed up (thanks a bunch, airplane); also, it was a little expensive. The upside: blue skies, warm sunshine, 75-degree weather, sandy beaches, good food, and the conspicuous lack of any need for me to work. Oh, and topless sunbathers. Yeah, it was a compromise worth making. ;)

-Will

HNY

Happy New Year, everyone!!