| Wednesday, May 27th, 2009 |
| 12:29 pm |
The mystery, solved!
Well at least I think it is. I was petting Lilith, the cat we suspected was responsible for our bloody walls, the other day. For some reason when I pet a cat I like to go over the head, down the body and lightly over the tail. I sort of loosely grip the tail in my fist and stroke it gently. When I got to the end of the tail I felt a little bump. Nothing gross. It just felt like a scab. Lisa and I tried to inspect it but hidden under all that fur, not to mention a cat that won't sit still, it was hard to get a look at. Lisa spoke to the vet and tail cuts are kind of like head wounds on people. They bleed a lot even when they aren't very serious. We're going to keep an eye on her but I'm sure its fine... I'm thinking of taking out an ad in Gothic Beauty. Ok, groan at me if you will but a fella has got to find a way to earn his keep somehow. The ads are fairly cheap although I would be buying a 12th of a page. Lisa get's lot of compliments on the heart even from non gothy people so while a gamble it's a cheap gamble and nothing ventured and all that :-)  I've made new bat wing hearts that are a little different from the one I made Lisa. The one I made Lisa is currently up on my website now but won't be for much longer. Anyway it looks like I just missed the Gothic Beauty deadline as it was last week sometime. The next deadline is before Valentines day so that seems like a good one to aim for. The other reason why I'm not to upset about missing this deadline is that it'll give me some time to work out what I want to do about the chain. The one I made Lisa has a heart chain that I bought at a store. I have been able to find it on the web in bulk but its expensive and I'm not sure I trust the company. I can buy silver chain in bulk from Rio Grande for a much better price. What type of chain says goth though? Rope chain doesn't seem right... At first I thought of something heavy and chain link like but I'm trying to keep costs down on this thing. I have them up on my site now for $50 for the large one and $35 for the small one. I may up that by $5 or $10 depending on the chain and the difficulty of soldering it on. I have found a 2.4 mm link chain that might do the trick but there are a few other contenders as well. Maybe I'll pick my top favorites and take a poll :-) There may be a holiday Black Market. That would be cool. If so I'm going to order more stones and make some more rings. They always fly off my table. The same guy who puts on Bats Day is also hosting www.frightnightla.com. It seems cool but I actually have work Friday (and all of next week!) so there's no way I can leave work at five and be up in LA by 7:30. |
| Thursday, May 14th, 2009 |
| 2:30 pm |
Someone Get me Dexter!
We had a mysterious kitty event yesterday and could use a good blood splatter expert. Before you get worried everyone is fine. That's actually the weird part though. Lisa comes home from work and turns on the light just inside the door. I say hello but she wants to know what's splattered all over the wall. I go over to take a look and she says it's blood. I wasn't so sure at first but it quickly became obvious that it was blood. Little splatters that were all over the wall and the blinds on a window that is about a foot and a half wide and goes from floor to ceiling. I got a wet paper towel to clean it off and it came right up. It was pretty much dried though so whatever had happened must have been a good couple of hours before. We thought it was weird and a little disturbing but everyone acted normal so... They were all going to get a thorough inspection after dinner just in case. Then I went into the upstairs bathroom and saw more blood on the floor. Then I saw more on the counter and some on the bathroom mirror. Now we search around and there's blood drops all over the place. There was some on the dining room table where I had some sculpture stuff and on the dinning room wall. Then Lisa found two large drips of blood by the stairway and a little puddle of it underneath... We were both a little freaked of course and I felt bad because I thought someone might have gotten into some of my sculpture stuff and hurt themselves. I don't think that's what happened. However everything that could even possibly be pointy is now put away in something just in case. We checked all five kitties from stem to stern and there wasn't a damn thing wrong with any of them. Lilith was acting a little strange so Lisa wanted me to take her to the vet today to make sure she was all right. They didn't find anything. All of this must have happened in the half hour I went into the garage to do some work. Our two best theories at the moment are that the kitties were playing and someone bit or got someone with a claw bad enough to bleed a little but not enough to be noticeable. Or, a lizard or a mouse was dumb enough to wander into our house. Shrug, I don't think we'll every really know for sure... |
| Wednesday, May 6th, 2009 |
| 4:30 pm |
Bat-tered
Bats Day weekend is finally over. I know it's Wednesday, probably closer to Thursday, for most of you but I'm only beginning to get over the exhaustion of the week and a half of preparation and then the weekend. I spent the week and a half making spoooooky art. Man, wanna a good exersize program? I recommend taking up hollow casting plaster. To warm up carry a five gallon pail of water up a short city block (up hill!) at least twice a week. Next you mix up half a bucket of plaster and quickly throw it into a 8lb mold. Now, you have to rotate the mold so that the slowly hardening plaster coats the sides. To insure you get maximum detail with minimum amount of air bubbles you have to lift and tap the mold on the ground, over and over and over again. To make matters even more difficult make sure you don't have any schooling in mold making or casting insuring you do things the hard way :-) I finished almost everything I wanted to but with only a day to spare. I ended up using that day to toss up a *slightly* better web site. I'm not happy with it at all but it was the best I could do in the short time I had. http://www.hauntedcreations.comYou can at least see what I was working my butt off over. The pictures aren't anywhere near as clear as I want them and we won't even talk about the design or product descriptions. My mind was something very mush like at the time. Why haven't I fixed it by now? Well my laptop decided to bite the big one. I think it's something with the video on the motherboard. In short it's not really worth repairing. I'm on my desktop now which has a slightly slower processor but still usable. The hard drive on my laptop was fine so I didn't lose anything which is cool. I have to do a little work on it but it'll do until I have the cash for a new machine. Speaking of which I went into an electronics store called Frys and I think every PC laptop they had was *UNDER* $1000! Some of them were fairly powerful machines too. I have to admit it temps me to go to the pc side but I like my macs... Why do they have to be twice the friggen price!? I'm considering an iMac. Anyway Saturday was the Black Market. We had to get up early and pick up the rental car because Lisa's car is way to small to tote anything. I was a little concerned about having to pay for a rental car. That's another expense to cover making it harder to break even. Turns out that wasn't a problem. The drive up wasn't to bad. It took us about an hour, maybe a little less. You know funny thing about driving. I find that after not having to do it for three and a half years I really don't miss it. I've never been all that excited about cars in general but it's different now. I suppose when I start driving again regularly I'll get over it. For now though I'm happy to only do it when I have to. The Black Market was on the second floor of the hotel and we got there a little late. So I ended up lugging everything across the parking lot and up a flight of stares. Thankfully I didn't have all that much to carry and I packed it well or I would have passed out. Lisa sat up stares watching the stuff as I brought it up and then we set it all up. As I said before we did pretty good all things considered. We not only made back the booth fee and the rental car fee but made about $100 on top of that! Ok fine I'm not about to retire to a spooky tropical island or anything but I made money. I sold mostly jewelry. The rings with the semi precious stones always went pretty well. I did sell two of the gargoyles right away. Then at the end of the night I sold one of the angels and one of the bat mirrors. Everyone seemed to think the pumpkin was cool but only a few people even asked how much it was. No one balked at the $125 I was asking for it but no one seemed interested... I might do better with the big things if I try to get them into some of the Halloween stores that are going to pop up in a few months. I also want to try some ebaying. I have to figure out what it's going to cost to ship them though. Once I figure that out I'm going to put paypal buttons on my redesigned site... Bats Day the next day was fun, although, I was really tired. Still the haunted house, Pirates of the Caribbean and a few other rides were fun. Oh I had a lot of interest in that heart with bat wings. I'm thinking about taking out an ad in gothic beauty and seeing if I can sell a few of them. |
| Monday, April 20th, 2009 |
| 11:19 am |
Forgot to post this the other day...
When I was down in Florida for my brother's wedding my parents introduced me to aloe vera juice. It's really good for digestive problems. I've been drinking it for almost a month now and while it hasn't cured my lousy tummy it has helped **significantly** I haven't had heart burn and had very little trouble with upset stomach. I've been drinking about two ounces of it in the morning. My parents bought had a brand called George's. It's taste almost like water. The brand I was able to find by my is a little more bitter but not to bad... You can find George's on line: http://store.naturalnirvana.com/ge10alveaac3.htmlbut I would imagine that would get kind of expensive. It's probably better to find it at a health food store near you. |
| Sunday, April 19th, 2009 |
| 10:43 am |
The Spirit
Lisa and I watched The Spirit last night. I had heard this movie got a bad review but I wanted to see it anyway. Will Eisner, the guy who created the Spirit, taught at the School of Visual arts and I got to be sort of friends with him. He let me visit him in his studio in Florida. I got to see actual art work. He was a really nice guy and very helpful and encouraging. I was sad when I heard he passed away... Anyway out of some sort of respect to him I wanted to see and like the movie. I saw it and managed to get to the end but I just couldn't like it. Samuel L Jackson's performance was... weird. What really threw me though was that I was expecting it to take place in the past and while it looked like it took place in the past it also had elements of the present (laptops and cell phones). That's just being picky though and I could have gotten past that. I did like the "Sin City" effect but I guess it was the script that was the big let down. Sigh... Well back to work. |
| Saturday, April 18th, 2009 |
| 11:17 am |
Now where was I?
I have no idea what I posted last. Sure I could just go back and read it but that would lower my lazy levels to near zero and I'm just to lazy to do that. I managed to pick up some temp work. Yeah good thing right? Well, sure, the money is always welcome but I also need the time to get ready for Black Market. I am, naturally, going to be working until the very last second. I was beginning to think I wasn't going to have stuff ready when the temp job suddenly comes to a screeching halt. They had to re-figure their budget or something... So that means I'm back on full time as a sculptor. Of course it's an unpaid sculptor... That one piece that I was bragging about oh so long ago is racing me towards the finish line to see if I can get it done. The funny thing is I don't know if I'll even sell any of that particular sculpture. It's large and a lot of work is going into it. I'm probably going to have to charge somewhere around $150 for it. I don't know if anyone will have the cash for that now a days. I'll probably fair better with it around Halloween at some of the larger Halloween stores. The reason I want it done and ready for Black Market is for the draw factor. A friend I knew ages ago who works street fairs said she'd always have something big and impressive to catch the eye and bring people to her table... And hey you never know I might sell one. Anyone excited about the Star Trek movie? It looks like such an action flick I'm not sure... We'll probably go see it though. Well I'm off to sculpt. |
| Thursday, March 26th, 2009 |
| 11:11 pm |
temp web site...
I just found out that the Bat's day website has posted my hauntingcreations.com address. I wasn't going to put anything up until I had some finished pieces ready but rather then have people hit a dead address I put something together quick. I just reset the nameserver (assuming I did it right :-) so hauntingcreations.com won't work for another day or two. This is the VERY temporary and very quickly created site: http://haunted.nfshost.com/Oh and just in case you're curious this is the logo I'm going with for now.  |
| Tuesday, March 3rd, 2009 |
| 12:42 pm |
Logos logos AHHHHHH, LOGOS!!!!!!
I'm having a nasty case of indecision here. Anyone have any comments about any of these?       I'm leaning towards #1 (drippy skull) at the moment. However #2 (non drippy skull) is so much cleaner. There's no spot for the .com though and I think I need that. I was very hot on the bat for a while but now I don't know... Think DC will sue me if I use it? :-) Ah, that's not even why it's low on the list. I do kind of like #4 (hooded floaty guy) but is it to cartoon like? I like the spider but as a logo it doesn't work at all. The last one (text logo) suffers from okness. It just doesn't send me. I think my problem with all of them is that none of them are really haunting. While I like the first two they seem kind of skater punk or something somehow. That's not what I want... I need something spooky. Something haunting, ghostly... And I'm running out of freakin time!!!! Bat's Day and the Black Market are the first week in May. Any thoughts would be appreciated. Maybe something someone says, good or bad, will send me off in a direction that will get me what I want. P.S. There should be 6 logos. You might have to hit reload once or twice. LJ doesn't seem to want to show all 6 all the time... |
| Tuesday, February 17th, 2009 |
| 8:34 pm |
Corn Chowder!
I have discovered the most wonderful thing. Trader Joe's corn chowder soup. AWESOME! Go get some... Right now, I'll wait... No I mean it it go get some it's so yummy you won't regret it. Well, if you're allergic to corn or something and you swell up to the size of a giant unwieldy thing then, yeah, you'll regret it. Otherwise you're golden! Just add some chopped up chicken and pasta or something and you have dinner in minutes! Awesome.... |
| Monday, February 9th, 2009 |
| 10:21 pm |
What to say?
Not much been going on as of late... I got sick, got better and managed to find a little work. Nothing permanent mind you but it's easy work and lasts as long as it lasts. It's doing catalog stuff for this wacky guy who sells all sorts of religious material. Don't worry none of it is cult related. It's inspirational wallet cards with various gods on it. Lot's of Indian (as in India not American) Gods, some Wiccan stuff and a few Jesus, Jesuses, Jesi? What the plural of Jesus? Anyway mostly new age type stuff with some quotes from philosophers and that picture of Einstein with his tongue sticking out. It's work... Lisa is doing well but hates her job for a change... Oh I'm going to be vending at the Bat's Day Black Market in May. I'm making some gothy jewelry and I hope to have some sculptures to sell. I still have a lot of work to do and not much time left to do it in... Hopefully I'll get it all done in time. I'm also trying to get a website for it up in time. I registered hauntingcreations.com. there's nothing up there yet but hopefully there will be in a month or so. |
| Thursday, January 1st, 2009 |
| 10:34 pm |
Check me out! Oh And Happy New Years :-)
Look at me! I made money with just a little bit o plaster! (ebay link below) http://tinyurl.com/85cqzbOk sure, it's not exactly a million dollar sale and the art world elite sure isn't gonna be impressed but I say screw 'em! I made money with art. Now I just gotta figure out how to make a lot more money... Always a catch huh :-) That awesome piece I was talking about a while ago didn't work out like I planned. Oh I still think the sculpture is cool but the mold I made for it didn't work out so well. I got one casting out of it and it tore. I'm going to have to figure out another way to make the mold after I repair the sculpture :-/ I have a few more ideas that I'm trying to have ready for Bats Day. I may take a table at the Black Market. I hope everyone had a happy new years. Lisa and I spent it with her friends up in Big Bear. It was nice. I don't think I've ever been up to the mountains before. The air was kind of thin and it threw me a bit but other then that we had a good time. |
| Friday, December 26th, 2008 |
| 8:36 pm |
Merry Happy Holidays!!!
Sorry folks I guess I should have wished you all a merry one before but the holidays are always weird for me... Anyway hope you had a good one and you all have a Happy New Years! |
| Wednesday, November 26th, 2008 |
| 2:42 pm |
Goth Cruise the movie?
I don't know if this is old news or not but I was watching IFC and saw and ad for this: http://www.gothcruisethemovie.com/Goth Cruise is a feature length 'gothumentary' about the enduring allure of goth culture in the UK and USA. Directed by Jeanie Finlay. Independent Film channel in association with EM Media and Cactus Three present a Tigerlily Films production I wish I could say that I had a whole lot to talk about otherwise... I had a job interview last week with a company that does touch screen kiosks. They're looking for someone who's handy with Photoshop and Blender 3d to do the interfaces. Could be interesting. I did a try out piece for them. They were supposed to get back to me this week but I got an email from them this week and they said they're going to make a decision next week. I'm not sure if that's a good sign or not. It's not exactly what I have4 a load of experience in but then again how many people have experience in touch screen kiosks? Shrug? Hope everyone has a good Thanksgiving! |
| Saturday, November 1st, 2008 |
| 1:59 pm |
Braaaaaaainssssss and candy
I joined the zombie party last night. Lisa's friends had a haunted house at their place last night. Their theme was toxic waist zombies. The highlight of the night was when I stumbled up to a girl and did the classic zombie cry of braaaainsss. She held up her bag of candy and said she wasn't afraid to use it. I kept up the standard zombie cry of brains. She slugged me with it :-) She was probably all of ten so it wasn't much of a slug so I kept stumbling towards her crying , "Candieeeeeeeeee!"Two more swats with the candy bag and I think she started to get scared. When she started to run away I let her go :-) There might be a picture of Lisa and I from last night if it ever makes my way I'll post it somewhere... |
| Tuesday, October 14th, 2008 |
| 11:51 am |
MOVIE! MOVIE!!
I don't know if it's made the news out there but just in case it has, while the fire is in Oceanside it's north of us. They're evacuating people to our area so we cool :-) It smells and there's ash all over the place but we're good. I've been wanting to post for a while but there really hasn't been much to tell. I'm still looking for work and not finding much. I've been working on my jack o lantern sculpture but I've hit a set back. I'm going to re-sculpt part of it. I had a little gargoyle figure that just doesn't seem to fit now. It's throwing off the composition. I'm having trouble coming up with something that fits though... I'll figure it out eventually I suppose. Does anyone have any experience with domian names? The one I want is taken. I can't tell if it's by someone who actually wants to use it or one of those a-hole companies that just buys them up in hopes of selling it later. Regardless, a variation of that name is available but it's very close to the taken name. Do I wanna pick a name that's that close to one someone else has? I don't know if I want to spend time attracting people to a web sit only to send them somewhere else if they leave a dash out of the name. Or am I worrying about nothing? |
| Sunday, September 7th, 2008 |
| 3:40 pm |
What has California done to my wonton soup?
I had a real strong, yen, for some Chinese food but all we knew of around us was Panda Express and Pick up Stix. I'm not a big fan of fast food and it was also 9 PM at night by the time we went out looking for a place to eat. Almost everything closes out here ten minutes after the sun sets. The only thing that was open were the large chain restaurants. We ended up eating at outback. Damn they serve a lot of food at that place. Anyway Lisa mentioned my Chinese food craving to her friend who said there was a good place near her and it turned out to be every bit as good as she said it was. We ended up doing some kind of family dinner thing. Everyone chooses one dish that the whole family shares. No big deal I've done that before. The weird thing, at least to me, is that the family meal came with egg flour soup. It turned out to be egg drop soup. Wanton soup has always been the default when I went out but whatever. I had noticed that the wanton soup was kind of expensive, $6 something a bowl, but I was in a bad way and needed my fix so I paid extra for my soup. What I got was not what I expected. First off it was huge! What I expected was a small cup with a couple of wantons and maybe a few strips of pork. What I got was more like a large bowl of vegetable soup with wantons and shrimp! Weird but good! Then a few nights ago I got Lisa to try the Thai place that's right around the corner from us. They don't deliver but like I said they are right around the corner... I've gotten used to Thai and was glad that I found a place out here. The food is good but a little different then the place in Astoria. They had wanton soup. I know Thia and Chinese are similar in ways but I don't expect wantons at a Thai place. It was good but more like clear both with vegetables and wantons. Weird but then again I'm still trying to get over cream cheese wantons. |
| Saturday, August 30th, 2008 |
| 12:48 pm |
I've been working!
Sorry I haven't been on much but I've been working at the University of California for the last two weeks. It's taken me some time to readjust to being a working man after two months of being an unemployed slob :-) It's only a temp position and it'll end sometime next week. Still it was money and that's a good thing. There is even a possibility they might hire me on full time. It sort of a long shot and wouldn't happen until next year though. The guy I'm filling in for is retiring next year. So I would have to make do until July... the other thing is I'm not sure who well it pays. The production manager actually has two jobs. They do have some great benefits though. They have a pension! Can you believe that? I didn't think anyone gave out pensions anymore. So it might be worth it if the pay cut was to bad. There's a lot of ifs involved with this though so I'm not going to worry about it. They do really seem to like me and it's a pretty easy working atmosphere so it's an if with a strong side of possibility... Oh! I'll have to take a picture because words just won't do it. Lisa and I bought a couch. We bought a big purple velvet couch :-) I get my fuzzy pimp hat and fur coat next week :-) I've been working on this sculpture. There are no pictures of it yet... It's sort of a Tim Burton like jack o lantern sitting on a castle turret that is surrounded by four undead, things, then around that there is a circular stone wall with four gargoyles. It's possibly the best work I've ever done. I'd even go so far as to call it professional. Frankly it scares the shit out of me every time I look at it. Not that there weren't problems that had to be solved while I was working on it but it all just came together and feels so right. I don't know why but that's kind of scary for some reason... I started it in Astoria and somehow got it to Ca in one piece unharmed. It's almost done and now I have to make a mold of it. Mold making is very hard and so easy to mess up. I could easily waste money, months and months of time not to mention the sculpture itself... I'm going to take it slow and do some test molds before I jump to the main attraction. I wanted it done for the black market at bats day but that probably won't happen this year. If I can work all this out I want to try to get into the Halloween business. In fact there's a trade show in NY this December but I doubt I'll be able to make it. Sigh... |
| Wednesday, August 6th, 2008 |
| 5:17 pm |
I have my own washer and dryer!
We were going to stop by the laundromat the other day after work but Lisa and I were just to tired. I had been searching craigslist for a washer and dryer and Monday night I stuck gold. I had work Tuesday so I couldn't pick them up until today. At first I was planning on renting a cargo van but then I realized that I wouldn't be able to get them up in the van by myself (aren't you all glad you're 3000 miles away :-). I ended up renting a sixteen foot truck to pick up the set. A bit over kill and a pain in the butt to drive but I just hate laundromats that much. It was easy picking them up the hard part came in unloading them. The town house we live in two floors. The laundry room is on the bottom floor. There is a path that goes right to the outside door to the laundry room but it's long, winding and has steps. Still it would be easier then trying to get it down the stairs inside the town home. So I had to use the hand truck down this winding little path that was little more then the width of the hand truck. Luckily the maintenance guy was able to help me up the stairs or I don't know if I would have made it. I got the washer in place only to find out that I had to move it to get the dryer in place. Arg. Then I had to remove the door to get the dryer in. Damn that door was frikken heavy. They're both in place and working damn it! No more laundromats for me! Weeeeeee hoooooo! :-) P.S. It was really good seeing you the other week Drew. Next year we want to go to Comic con so hopefully we'll be able to hang out more. |
| Thursday, July 31st, 2008 |
| 12:04 pm |
WORK! I GOT WORK!
Well it's only two days next week but it's a start. There's also a chance that I might pick up a few weeks in August working for 1-800-Flowers. No not as an order guy. They need someone to do packaging mock ups for focus groups. Something different and sounds like fun. I did something kind of strange this morning... Most of the places we looked at before moving in here had some kind of gym that came along with the apartment. Nothing to spectacular, usually just a few machines, but I figured it would be good to get the blood flowing. Of course this place doesn't have a gym. It does have a small pool though. I took a look at it a few days ago and it didn't seem big enough for swimming laps. I decided to give it a try this morning. Man, ten lousy laps kicked my ass! And when I say lousy I mean lousy. I can swim well enough to keep from drowning but apparently not much more then that. Still it was good exercise and if I get up early enough so that there's no one around I don't feel to stupid doing it :-} |
| Wednesday, July 30th, 2008 |
| 12:51 am |
EARTHQUAKE!!!!!! Ahhhhh!!! Run away! Run away!
I just survived my first California earth quake... So I'm sitting here watching the History channel and practicing my 3d program when the house starts to shake. I'm not talking pictures falling off the wall dishes breaking kind of shake though. The town house we're renting is on stilts. Six to eight, or maybe ten, telephone pole thick wooden posts that I try hard not to think to much about. It felt like a really fat kid was jumping up and down on the porch or something. The whole house shook just a little bit for about five seconds then it stopped. The maintenance guy had just walked out the front door saying that he had to mix up some grout to do the shower so I thought maybe he was doing something. After it stopped I looked outside but didn't see him. I had put the whole thing out of my head when Lisa called and asked if I had felt that. It was then I learned that I lived through my first earth quake :-) |
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