Well, I bit the bullet and upgraded Wordpress to v. 2.5.1. I received a warning from my hosting company yesterday that I’d reached my CPU usage limit. Curious, I checked my access logs and discovered that a spammer has gained access to my root’s .htaccess file. It interestingly would redirect you from any file within certain virtual directories (via, pharm, etc.) to a page containing an iframe with a spam page’s content. I’m probably completely misstating this, but whatever. Anyway, I bumped up security and reinstalled Wordpress, which was surprisingly easy. Bonus: my issue with posting video is now fixed. Hurray!

Finally, an excuse to blog about the beloved 80s-era intro: Starship HBO. If watching the extended version wasn’t enough of a magical experience for you, try this mini-documentary - a 1982 behind-the-scenes look at making HBO’s miniature model city. Apparently they fabricated tiny bums and hookers to ease the boredom of the 3-month project.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Et_LsxlX8Y

One of my first posts was a list of New Year’s Resolutions for 2007. I thought it’d be nice to revisit that list, and see how I did. The short answer: not so good. But, there were some partial successes, and lots of progress in areas unanticipated. So without further ado:
My Abysmal Performance in 2007

Update Sign Shop page.

Off to a lousy start. I had a few sign jobs this year, but never touched the site.

Experiment with Airbrush on vinyl, HDU carving, and gilding.

I’ve actually taken airbrushing farther than this, and I’m getting pretty good. Haven’t carved yet, but I have gilded a lily or 2.

Start a series of realistic portrait drawings.

Hah. I doubt this will ever happen.

Learn to screenprint.

Nada. I never really expected to, so I won’t count it against me.

Create a 2-color comic book.

Man. I started this, and promptly moved it into limbo.

Learn to ink.

Interestingly enough, I’ve done a little inking. Plus pinstriping, which I never anticipated doing.

Update portfolio page with fine art, flash stuff, newer design, etc.

Partially updated.

Get a nice apartment with enough room to work.

Sort of happened. Space issue is looking up for 2008.

Paint the Vespa. Go to at least one rally this summer.

No paint. Went to 2 rallies, hooray!

Exercise, eat right, blah blah blah…

You must be joking.

Take a great trip this summer.

And…no. BUT I’ll be taking my week this April, probably in Hawaii. Stay tuned for a spiffy new 2008 list!

Click here for Kiddy Record Drawings!!!

From the collector, “This collection comes from a 1950’s series in which each side of the label had a little graphic on it. Most of the time the original image is less than one inch across, and these were printed on the cheap at the time, so they took some work to clean up. I think they’ve managed to retain their charm, and I really admire the craft of the original artist, who was able to convey so many moods and events in such a tiny workspace.”

Elm City Scooter Club’s 2nd annual rally was way beyond my expectations. Great people, music, food, prizes, rides, and (of course) scooters. For once, Stella looked to me like a boxy, modern beast among the dozens of classic Vespas & Lammies. Not a problem though- it’s motivated me to invest in scoot #2. Anyway, what a great time. I’ll be there for the whole thing next year, for sure.

Hundreds of pictures at Scoot.net

Pretty cool! Thanks to Dan Goodsell for this visual chronology of the beloved ursine Bing Crosby. (Fantastic as the list is, I’ll just add the origin, a VERY 80’s S.B., and the current bastardization.)

My signature is notoriously awful. I’ve refused to hand-letter signs, and simply hearing the word “penmanship” sends a chill down my Catholic-schooled spine.
Ironically, I love typography. As some of my good friends can attest, I’m a walking catalog of fonts. I’ve dabbled in type design, and someday I’ll surely dive into brush lettering. In the meantime however, I’ll scrawl my hideous endorsement on the backs of my paychecks.

In any case, check out this wonderful illustrator signature gallery.

This just in: checkers has been solved. You can theoretically prevent a defeat by Chinook, the “World Man-Machine Checkers Champion“, but a draw is the best you can hope for against this foe. Checkers was solved on April 29, 2007 by the team of Jonathan Schaeffer. We now know that, from the standard starting position, both players can guarantee a draw with perfect play.

Interestingly, checkers is the most complex game that has been solved to date. Modest inroads have been made into chess endgames, but computer science is light-years away from guaranteeing a win or anything like that.
The July 2007 announcement by Chinook’s team stating that the game had been solved must be understood in the sense that, with perfect play on both sides, the game will always finish with a draw. Not all positions that could result from imperfect play have been analyzed.

Wow. This clears everything up. Evidently Brutus and Bluto were two different characters. Rule of thumb: Bluto cartoons were good, Brutus, not so much.

Oh man, that was incredible. A bunch of tikiphiles on a chartered bus, stopping at the best Polynesian restaurants/bars in Mass. I’m so glad I signed up!!

The Official Homepage
Some great pics from Waitiki
A few of my own

edit 8/29- A whole bunch of great pics from Johnman!