Oops, did I spoil the cartoon? For Illustration Friday: propagate is the challenge. And chickens do that.

This is an easy idea to tinker with, if you’re good with words. The ending to Which came first, could be anything, and I think I’ve come up with half a dozen gags over the years. But politics has been a big part of my life this last year, working for Slate, so these hens have that on their mind, too.

I’ve been thinking recently about New Yorker cartoons vs Editorial cartoons – which I’m spending most of my time doing  now. New Yorker cartoons are easy, so easy that anyone can do it, and they can and do, with the little caption contests. I haven’t looked at the contests in years, but there are many clever entries, I’m sure.

“But I can’t draw,” they sigh. That’s what she said.

That’s what I said. I wanted to write them, not draw them, but I sent ideas to a couple of New Yorker guys, they said they didn’t buy gags, and I gave up on just writing right away. I’d have to learn to draw. Sigh.

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My Gateway FPD 2185W, Gateway FPD 2185W Widescreen High-Definition – LCD 2121″, just DIED 3 months after the warranty expired. I was so shocked (literally) that I got sick.

I ordered it in 2006 at the same time as my Gateway computer. I’m a tough shopper, and love to do research and understand everything. One thing I knew I wanted was a very quiet computer – and 3 years later, this is the quietest computer I’ve ever heard, even with a 500g hard drive and 2 gig of RAM (did I say that right?) Although it gets a little noisy, when the fans start going when I use Photoshop… I’m still not sure if a better video card or more memory would help me out there.

I also wanted a widescreen super-sharp dealie monitor, and  if you got a monitor with the Gateway computer you got a good deal. The FPD 2185W was the best or 2nd best monitor at the time, and it cost $600, and $100 less with the computer so I happily chose that one.  I loved that monitor – -crisp and sharp, with never a problem. I told everyone how great it was!

But what kind of crap monitor just blows like that?! No warning, nothing at all. The reviews here at Amazon Gateway FPD 2185W Widescreen High-Definition – LCD display – TFT – 21 say it all:

DO NOT BUY THIS MONITOR!

As has happened to many others, my monitor went dead (blank screen / can’t turn it off) a little after the warranty expired (after a year and a half). This was a very expensive monitor and Gateway knows that this model is defective, yet they refuse to admit this or do anything about it. Also, like many others, this is definitely the last Gateway product of any type that I will ever buy. I hope others follow suit.

He’s right on that. I’m not even looking at Gateway for my next one. (Turns out Gateway is now owned by Acer anyway.)

Of course, once it breaks, you’re dead if you don’t have another monitor just lying around the house. There was no warning, just black. I couldn’t get online to even find anything out. Used a neighbor’s computer and right away found this blog on Gateway Monitors (which should have been called Gateway Monitors Suck.) Anyway, turns out it is 8 cheapie capacitors that go bad, pfft. Easy to fix, IF YOU KNOW HOW TO SOLDER. Oh, yeah, just get my solder iron out from under my drawing table here…I’m so screwed!

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Life is short. Time is precious. Movies are only 2 hours long. I can’t invest too much time or thought in them, but some are enjoyable, and stick to your mind like post-it notes.

Let me know if any of these stick in your mind…or craw.

Bark
Bark! I hate indie films. Please don’t make me watch them. But this had Lisa Kudrow and didn’t sound too weird, so I took a chance on it. Kind of funny! There were only a few scenes where they “experimented” and got “edgy.” A man’s wife decides she’s a dog. (no animation, no talking dogs, just an actress.) Good actress, and husband was a good actor. People try to figure her out. There’s a romance. I liked it.

Lisa K might think about trying to stretch her acting repertoire. She has the power. And the Amazon reviewers are right – the cover for this really truly sucks.

The Sixth Sense (Collector’s Edition Series)
The Sixth Sense, with good old Bruce Willis. I know, it’s really really old. Sorry! For reasons too long to get into, (these reviews can only be a minute in length) a great friend left a pile of movies and a box of Junior Mints on my doorstep one day, and this was in there, so I thought, well, I’ll TRY it again.

For some reason, I really noticed the quiet cinematography this time. In Philly, yay, with skies and weather you rarely see in movies. The whole movie is really good, and, okay, I cried a little, again.

The Return (Widescreen Edition)

With Sarah Michelle Gellar. Gah, is she a bad actress. And the bf was kind of abusive. Horror? Fantasy? Stupid. Sucks.

Come back later for more one-minute movie reviews!

I went to Marty Murphy’s memorial service on Monday at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery. This is only the 2nd funeral I’ve ever been to since I’ve been a grownup, and my first time at this famous cemetery. We signed in and met Marty’s sister and nephew, and some people said some nice things about him. (Not that many people spoke, but I think that’s because most of the guests were artists, and they are very right-brained, not too wordy, and internal people.) Afterwards we went into another room for coffee and chatted.

I only recognized 4 people: Floyd Norman (who I don’t think knew me), Bill Riling, Bob Foster, and Sergio Aragones. I hadn’t seen Sergio in at least a year, and it was great to chat with him. He never gets older! And he’s still quite the ladies man. Interestingly,  Virgil Partch (VIP) came up in the conversation, probably because Marty had always talked about him, and admired him so much. He had died tragically in a car accident many years ago. He has a very distinct way of drawing that anyone can recognize! As it turns out, Sergio had also always admired him, and when he moved here from Mexico he was so excited to finally meet the man! VIP was one of the best. I didn’t know he had done so many books – I think he’s quite collectible. I know he’s a little risque! Here are some I found on Amazon:  Virgil Partch (VIP).

Man the Beast by VIP.

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I like games. I’ll play them for a long time. But I don’t like games with no rules at all, because it’s only fun if I can learn the rules and play better. By this, my 2nd blog, it’s apparent that Google is better at games than I, and believes that too much SEO knowledge is a dangerous thing…

It took me 6 months of writing my first blog, Griffith Park, Interrupted, to realize that no matter how much I wrote, or how good (I thought) it was, or how important, Google had no interest at all. If I searched for complete sentences from my posts, I could find them when I Googled. But keywords, or just search words, nada, my posts never came up. I was so disappointed. Like most bloggers, I don’t get paid for writing, and although I had a few commenters, not that many, so watching yourself get more popular on Google is a well-deserved reward, I say!

I redesigned my whole WordPress theme, and learned a hella lot about blogs and design by doing that, but I avoided adding plug-ins. WordPress constantly warns you that your whole blog can FAIL or GO DOWN, and everything will be LOST if a plug-in goes bad. It wasn’t worth it to me. But there is one plug-in that is very important, and will change your fun in blogs, and that is the All-in-One SEO plugin. And Blogger or LiveJournal doesn’t have it! It’s our special prize!   Read more »

Old theme (template) doesn’t work…shoot. I only put about 50 hours into it over the past year, tweaking, punching it up. And now it won’t work with this new upgrade. It’s true that WP has thousands of free themes. But this was MY theme.

I do like part of this new theme – very modern structure w/ a lot of fun add-ons. I changed a lot. I kind of mashed up Copyblogger theme with this one, the first free theme by Blog Perfume. But I don’t know if it says CARTOONS exactly! Comments? I’ll be tweaking it anyhow, because I just love tinkering with Wordpress themes, but I didn’t know I’d have to say goodbye so suddenly to my old theme, which was totally Donna, so I’m in shock…

I feel that any theme or template I pick should enhance the cartoons, or at least not distract from them. That’s a challenge, as some themes are gorgeous. These are some strong colors in here, too. But being on the inside column, I think my cartoons should still stand on their own…Anyhoo, I’ll  continue to tweak this behind the scenes,  because this new dashboard is kind of fun, and none of the plugins are activated yet. (And never you mind your pretty head about this tech talk. Just sit back and enjoy the show.)