My parents RAWK.

Today I got off work early. We're moving our offices from close-by Sherman Oaks to out-of-the-way Bore-bank this weekend. To prepare for the move(and, more importantly, keep out of the movers' way), everyone was encouraged to work from home today and tomorrow.

Check.

So after gathering my paycheck and packing the rest of my crap up(yeah, two weeks and I've already got crap. Mostly supplies), I went to change the incredibly bald tire on my murdersickle in the OC and then get a much-needed hour-long nap. I love "working from home"!

To celebrate my three-day work week, we went to one of my fave restaurants ever for dinner. My parents gave me a gift certificate for this themepark of meat for my birthday, and so we put it to good use tonight. This place was responsible for turning me into a carnivore when I worked in Texas four years ago. OK, I would've had to have turned away from my semi-vegetarian standards just from being in Texas to begin with, but Fogo de Chao helped the process along at a much more rapid rate. Luckily for me my parents picked up on my raving about it, and have given me gift certificates for the place when they opened up an LA branch a couple of years ago. Sweet, sweet carnivorous bliss! THANKS, Mom and Dad!

Despite the Derby Dolls being on hiatus, we had a special guest trainer come in last night to kick our asses. Her name is EstroJen and she used to skate with us until our league split last year and she went with the flat-trackers. She's an amazing skater and it was fun to have her teach us new stuff, especially strategy-wise.

I've also gotten into a spat with another Derby Doll. It's a situation where pot + kettle=black, but that ain't how she sees it. Pity. It makes me rethink why the hell I keep with the Dolls, as she insinuated that I'm not well-liked within the league. Again, the pot/kettle analogy applies strongly, however. It just makes me frustrated and I wonder why I bother sometimes.

Announcing in Bako last Saturday went well. For the most part. Other than the one wireless microphone shared between two announcers (me and Razorslut) kept cutting out on us. We did well enough to be asked to announce the next game in Fresno in June. Fresno. In June. Hilarity should ensue out of that, I'm sure!

Still slogging away on freelance. Got an extended deadline, so all is good.

I'm going to rub my fat belly for luck. Mmmmmm, meat!

More Rejects

Ah, the weekend. A three-day weekend. Where I get to relax and not do anything.

Except for breaking my announcer cherry at a roller derby game in Bakersfield, yell/train a bunch of out of town skaters from Tuscon for a couple of hours of banked track fun, do a derby interview, aaaaaand, more freelance!

Below are more rejected drawings for the freelance gig. I'm still having a bunch o' fun doing it, and I can't wait to see the final results. The people I'm working for seem to like what I'm doing, that they're asking me to do even more for them. Awesome!
















Yesterday I went on a casting call for a new "reality" tv show. A bunch of Derby Dolls went, so I know that some of us will be on teevee later this year! I think I totally blew the interview. The husband isn't disappointed by this...in fact, he's breathing a BIG sigh of relief. Why? Because this was for a tattoo show! He doesn't particularly like the one tatt I have(neither do I, hence my trying to get on a tatt show so that I can get a good coverup for it), and he doesn't relish the idea of me getting a bigger tatt to cover up the ugly one I already have. He asked, How do you know that the new tatt won't end up gross and muddy like your old tatt? Because the inks are better, I said.

That wasn't a satisfactory answer.

I've decided that if I don't get on the show, I'm going to research laser tatt removal options. Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

Back in the Saddle

This week I went back to work, and got back on the murdersickle.

Thank goodness!

Being a sequence director is a different experience. The board artists I'm working with are more talented than me, which makes me wonder why the hell I'm the director and they're not. Being alone in an office with a computer at my disposal is dangerous. I put on Pandora radio and wonder when they're going to figure out that I shouldn't be there.

At least I can ride the bike to work now. Gawds, I didn't realize how much I missed it until I had to push-start the damn thing on Tuesday morning after it sat around unable to be used for over a month.

Last night was another Drunk Scout adventure. I met up with the husband's work crew at close to 9pm where festivities were already underway and there was an Irish Car Bomb waiting for me. I think I had 2 Car Bombs and 2 Long Island Ice Teas. All I know for sure is that one of the coworkers had 7 Car Bombs on an empty stomach. That got ugly for him sooner than later. Everyone else took turns looking in on him while he curled up in the bathroom until 11pm, when it was decided that they were all going to the beach. The husband and I went home, drunkenly.

Thank goodness!

Today I got a report that one of the beach-goers broke her leg when she tripped over a dog. Wtf?!?! Glad I missed that. Apparently we missed a lot, because today the husband said that no one will talk about what else may or may not have happened. Hmmmmm...

Last weekend was amusing. I set up 4 hours of derby-learning goodness for the Sacramento league to absorb. They didn't get through half of my agenda. So hopefully they'll invite me back up so that I can show them the other crap I had planned. At least they paid me very well for the time and instruction that I gave them. They're going to be bouting against the Western Nationals champions from Seattle next month...oh my! That's gonna be a helluva learning experience!

This weekend I make my announcing debut in Bakersfield. The husband will make his drinking debut, I guess. Bless his heart! I also get to show a team from Tuscon how to skate on the banked track. Yeehaw! Busybusybusy...too busy to post a damn picture.

Sleep is for the dead

Thank goodness there's melatonin in the world, or else I would've gone completely batsh!t by now. No, I wasn't batsh!t before...scary, don't you think?

The next door neighbors got a new dog. A dog that likes to bark. A dog that likes to bark in the middle of the night while Beavis is lurking about. I freakin' hate that dog. Almost as much as I hate Beavis. So last night when I was woken up at 1:30am by the barking dog I stomped next door and rang the doorbell to annoy the neighbors as much as their dog was annoying me. They didn't answer the door, but the dog shut the hell up, at least. This is where the melatonin kicked in...I was still able to get enough sleep after that adventure so that I'm not completely useless today.

I have a lot of stuff to do. I have to pack for my roadtrip to Sacramento. I have to plan the bootcamp that I'll be doing in Sacramento. I have to prep the husband on the cats' medications before I go to Sacramento. I have to do work before I go to Sacramento. I may have to go shopping for props to use at the bootcamp I'll be running in Sacramento.

On the Derby Dolls front: no bouts until July. No training until July, except for the newbies. We're looking for a new home during this hiatus. This comes at a pretty good time, actually, as I was beginning to stress out about how I'm going to figure out work and skating at the same time while work moves from one side of the Valley to the other and the commute resulting. Should be interesting.

Here's some more rejected freelance:

Sleepless in LA

Ever since I hurt my knee a month ago, I haven't been able to sleep well.

I apparently twist and turn a lot in my sleep, and I constantly wake myself up when I twist my knee into something hurtable. That's not fun. I've tried wearing a knee brace to sleep, but all that does is cut off the circulation to my foot. Nothing like waking up to see the cankle of a 400-lb. women attached to my leg to make me rethink the brace strategy!

So I'm now even more of a walking zombie than normal. Phooey.

On the up side, I went to a fun little birthday party yesterday, I skated to the beach and back, I rode my bicycle around, and I saw friends of the non-derby variety. It was good. Very good.

With today being Mother's Day, the husband and I will attempt to ride the bicycles to his sister's house in Torrance. An approximately 45-mile round trip. Oh, good times! If that doesn't make me sleepy, nothing short of a heroin/Quaalude cocktail mix with a splash of horse tranquilizers will. Hmmm, I wonder if Anna Nicole's prescriptions can be updated for me...

Below is a rejected rough drawing from my current freelance. It's rejected not because of the pose(let's hear it for the Petty influence! Yay!), but the pose + the outfit wasn't working for the effect we were going for.





















I'm lovin' this freelance job!

A List

A non-comprehensive list of stuff I like:

• warm cats
• June gloom
• watching The Big Lebowski over and over again
• chocolate-covered pretzels
• hearing mockingbirds early in the morning
• the smell of strawberries while riding on the motorcycle
• big, black boots
• leather pants
• skeleton art
• small gadgets from Japan
• old movie posters
• LA house architecture from the 20's-40's
• riding the bicycle through downtown LA on a Sunday
• drunk drawing
• two-lane roads in summer
• riding the motorcycle at sunset in New Mexico without a helmet
• Taschen books
• the idea that stupidity should be physically painful
• refridgerator magnets
• truck stops
• abandoned gas stations
• skating against Texas
• skating in Texas
• driving through small towns in Texas
• redwood forests
• bears
• Sharpies
• flowers on hats
• suits on men who don't ordinarily wear suits
• cemeteries
• old bicycles
• swing music
• kissing
• red lipstick
• big earrings
• small parties
• hermit crab races
• jumping on trampolines
• mocha frappuccinos
• BBQ'ing steak
• organizing my clothes
• soap
• riding the subway in NYC
• petting dogs
• packing for a trip
• laughing out loud

Just throwing it out there.

What Have I Gotten Myself Into?!

So my union gig coming up is all pencilled in schedule-wise and it's all good.

Then I get a call the day before yesterday. The gig says that the sequence director originally assigned to my section has "punked out" and would I like to be sequence director?

Huh?!?!

Quick definition for the non-animation types: a sequence director basically is responsible for having three storyboard artists get their storyboards done for a section of script. In this case, a third of the script I'm going to be working on is assigned to three storyboard artists who will then split that section three ways and I get to tell them to hurry up and finish. Then I get to critique the work, give minor revisions, and will then help the main director to make sure that the timing of the animation in my section is done so that the whole shebang can be sent to Korea for animation.

Great googly-moogly!

When I was first contacted about the gig in general over a month ago, the main director had asked me if I was interested in being a sequence director. At the time, I said NO!!!!!!!!! But since it came up again, I figured that this was a sign that I have to follow through on what I said about actually trying to pay attention to my animation "career" this year. Thing is, I've been willfully ignorant about timing in animation, so I'm panicked as hell. And feeling nauseous. Everyone is telling me that I'll be fine, I'll learn it quick, and it ain't a big deal. However, I would still like one of these:



















Oh, and right now I'm busy as hell on some other freelance. Fun freelance. Freelance that isn't animation. Freelance involving drawing pin-ups. When it rains, it freakin' pours.

Now only if my knee would get better. Skating banked track aggravates it. Oh joy.

Well, what do you know...

I've never met Nancy Bieman.

I'd like to, though.

Here's a post on the infamous Anibator(who seems to have fallen silent again)and his views of women in the industry that she posted on her blog. She even gives a possible solution to some of the problems within the industry. The anonymous whiners won't like it, however.

I dunno...

I'm just not feelin' the background.

Blaaaahhhhhhhhhhh.






















Spent too much of the weekend indulging in bad things. No weight lost, and it hurt like hell to drag my fat ass to the SM stairs today with the hot north wind.

Now the Angriest Cat in the World is sneezing her angry head off. Luckily I have some leftover antibiotic stuff that I can give to her. The Fatass cat is laughing at her as he eats his diabetic food.

As part of my food and drink debauchery, I got to tattdoodle on more people. No pix so far, yet. But just you wait, I'll get some soon. Tonight I was supposed to do more tattdoodling, but I'm tired and broke and cranky.

Ugh. Bad mood over this background crap. The image is cool and the bg doesn't help it at all. It's really bugging me.

I Love It When A Plan Comes Together

What a difference a day makes.

I have a bootcamp gig lined up with one of the Sacramento derby leagues.

I have a union job starting the week after the bootcamp.

I'm starting to skate again.

I'm actually enjoying going to the Santa Monica stairs and exercising. I'm only up to five rounds, though. At my peak I could do almost ten. Jeez!



The Get the Fatass Cat Back On His Damn Diabetic Food Project is beginning to progress in a positive direction, too.

Who knew?!

I'm sure something will come along to screw all of this up. Ah, that's just the optimism talking!

Actually, the darkest aspect of my life is the continued lameness of LA City Council and the future of the Derby Dolls. We still don't have a date nailed down for a May bout because we don't know if the city will allow us to have a bout at all. Still.

Bastards.

Here's the Illustrator Monkey as a WIP. Something else needs to be done to his fur, but I don't know what. I like how his hands turned out. I'm still deciding what to do with the background. This "being an artist" thing isn't as easy as I'd hoped.