Moar stoopid pix

I'm supposed to be working on freelance right now, but I'm having a very difficult time getting into it. Why? Because even though it's a cute little Flash show, it's a complex little Flash show with about 10 kazillion characters who have a lot of battle sequences. How the f*** did I get a job with battle scenes, fer feck's sake?! It ain't right, I just like to do the funny, not the epic!

Ah well, at least I have plenty o' thumbnail drawings that the storyboard supervisor gave me, so I should be slogging through it soon enough.

In the meantime...

The weather is also distracting me. Too damn hot and humid to draw in a house with no air conditioning. Funny, since the last job I had where I was in-house, I spent the majority of my time freezing my tuchus off, thanks to the other directors being covered in a protective layer of...who knows what so that their offices were sweltering dens of masculinity which resulted in the air conditioning needing to be on full-blast all the time. Anyway, Sweaty Betty is in full effect at my house. Be forwarned.

And Sweaty Betty got to sweat it out in Compton last night. The Derby Dolls had to move our track again. It looks like we're officially out of our Little Tokyo location, and are currently homeless. So we're storing our track at Mila Minute's work in freakin' Compton. I've never been to Compton before...it was an experience.

You know how on tv you see how the ghetto is full of liquor stores, fast food restaurants, car repair places, general squalor and hookers? Guess what? It's like that in real life! I carpooled with new Siren Roxy Cotton and Tough Cookie Kaboom, and we sounded like tourists when we saw our first smatterings of hookers. Oooooooooohhhhhh, WOWWWWWWWWW! was emitted in non-sarcastic ecstasy several times as we drove down the street. Amazing...just...amazing.

Enough people showed up to unload the track and store it so that it took about an hour and a half...a new record! On our way out Roxy, Kaboom and I planned on checking out a revamped dive bar in Culver City...that is, until a skittish-yet-friendly bundle of fur found us. A young pup, around 4-5 months old with rheumy eyes, wandered into the parking lot and found her ticket out of the ghetto. We immediately knew that we couldn't leave her to the fates, so Kaboom volunteered to take the pup. No name for the dog yet, so we're just calling her the Derby Dog.

One more thing to yakk about...I went in for my first of seven laser treatments to get rid of my one tattoo. It stung like a mofo getting it done. But it was over very fast. My skin was warm like a nuclear reactor for the rest of the day, and I was pretty good about icing the area. There are a couple of small blisters on the tatt area now, but they don't hurt or anything and it isn't distracting. I go back in six weeks for treatment numero two.


Here's a few more pix from Saturday. Here I am getting kicked out of the game:





















I love the expression of Haught Wheels in the center of this photo:





















Tawdry Tempest and I in full-on Scooby glory:

Holy crap, I'm in pain!

Saturday night was painful.

Fun, but painful.

We had our bout in City of Industry. Quite a few people showed up, which was great. Different from our usual downtown LA/hipster crowd, but very enthusiastic.

The game against the Sirens was brutal. Tough, close game all the way through. Unfortunately, my team didn't win...the final score was Sirens 40, Fight Crew 36. However, everyone who saw the game loved it, and the crowd was going apesh!t the entire way through.

AND, as an added bonus, I GOT THROWN OUT OF THE GAME.

AND THEN, I WAS BROUGHT BACK INTO THE GAME.

Aaaaaaand, I got a lot of cheering for both!

How the hell did that happen?! you might be asking yourself. Well, it's like this: a skater can accrue up to four penalties during the course of a game. If she gets a fifth penalty, she gets kicked out of the game. Someone miscounted the penalties I accrued. During the last quarter of the game I was thrown out. So I left to much cheering by the fans while Fight Crew's team manager, Fighty, screamed at me, "F*** YOU, TARA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" as I stepped out of the infield of the track. I imagine she was expressing how the rest of the team was feeling at the moment, since I was in every other jam of the game.

I skated back to the dressing room area and started taking off my skates so that I could put my shoes on and sneak back to watch the rest of the game. Oh, another thing about getting kicked out...if that happens to a skater, she's supposed to go back to the dressing room area and STAY there. No going back to watch the game, or being with her team, or anything. It's supposed to be a punishment, fer crissakes. Next thing I hear is one of the announcers saying, "TARA ARMOV, REPORT BACK TO THE TRACK. YOU HAVE TWO MINUTES!" The husband is already running back to the dressing room, screaming at me to get my gear together. I already had my helmet, mouthguard, and one skate off. The husband grabbed my helmet and mouthguard, I grabbed my other skate, and I scooted back to the track on one skate while the husband jogged behind me. The crowd continued to go nuts.

I get back to the track and am promptly seated in the penalty box. Fighty informs me to get my goddam skates on as I go back into the game in one minute. Those last three jams I was in were the best I skated in the game. Apparently, I do my best skating when my team is losing. Goddam competitive nature, I guess. I know that I fell a lot. Usually due to my own attempts at blocking. I guess that's a good thing...the Sirens didn't get to wipe me out much...I did it myself!

Here's some photo highlights:

Crystal Deth and I waiting for the star jammer of the Sirens, Mila Minute:















PS--it's a bad, bad idea to wait for Mila. She's really fast, and when one waits too long, they get passed.


Oh looky, here I am trying to block out Roxy Cotten. She stayed upright. I trained her well!




















Here I am blocking out Kung Pow Tina. She looks bored.




















Here I am falling. This was after making a block with such force that I took myself up to the railing and bounced off. On the rebound, I hit my own jammer, Leia Mout. Who you see in the white helmet in the process of going down. She told me after the game that she got three big hits, and mine was one of them. Good going, sport!













And here's a Triumphant Return to the Track photo:












You can see that I'm still in only one skate.

Unfortunately, none of these photos show off the Scooby Doo I drew on my chest for the game. Yes, I'm a big idiot. A sore, bruised idiot.

Mind=Blown

Moar pix of The Dress:











































Frightening, isn't it?

Good times, good times

New Fight Crew teammate Vulvarine took a lot of pix at Rollercon and she posted them up on Flickr. Since I still don't have my photos on my computer and therefore haven't uploaded them to Flickr myself, I'm going to steal some of her thunder.

First, we have one of the drawings I did for Lonestar skater, Cherry Chainsaw over the course of the weekend. Yes, that is a Homer Simpson quote next to the drawing:



















For those who can't read it(I barely can), it says, "Alcohol: the cause and solution to life's problems".



Next, we have a leg drawing I did on Sirens' teamember, Ana Hymen:





















And here we have one of our new referees, Corporal Carnage, dressed in PVC and Sharpie ink. The drawing on his chest is from Vulvarine. Notice that I'm wearing a dress. And it's blue. That's because this was taken during Rollercon's Black and Blue Ball. It was fun. We almost crashed through the ceiling onto the casino floor below because everyone was bumpin' to the music.




















I should post a better pic of the dress. It's weird to see me in anything besides black.


And here we have a fine example of my kick-ass cross-training. Yes, I'm smoking and am not entirely sober. Yes, I'm wearing a goddam skirt. Yes, I'm drawing on people while sitting in the casino bar. The guy with his hand in my crotch is Hurt Reynolds, who lives in Seattle but is going on a cross-country derby-livin' extravaganza of epic proportions. He's a really cool guy, and I've had many an interesting derby discussion with him, especially since he hangs with the flat-track crowd.

















And here we have my reaction upon seeing the above photo:


















Today I'm going into work withdrawals.

No, seriously. I miss the job already.

Friday I was completely useless at work...my act went into shipping and I had a margarita at lunch and a Long Island Iced Tea at dinner to celebrate. I made a huge card for the supervising director to thank him for babysitting me on this job. I slipped the card under his office door and went back to my office to watch some Jimmy Cagney films. He came shuffling by about an hour later with a completely shocked look on his face. It was awesome. Later in the day he came back with a drawing of his own that depicted me running over characters from the show and breaking through the guard gate of the studio on my motorcycle. It's awesome.

So far there isn't much out there work-wise...even the freelance situation ain't lookin' too good. Ah well. I have a huge list of stuff I need to do this week...everything from making an appointment to get my tatt removed to sending in some jury duty paperwork to cleaning the house. Also, the cats have been on strike food-wise. It was really bad over the weekend, but I think now that it's not quite as blisteringly hot outside, the little buggers will start eating again.

I hope.

The Homestretch

This Friday is my last day at my job.

I'm sad.

However, this next week is going to be busy as hell since I HAVE A GAME NEXT SATURDAY.

I was kinda hoping this game wouldn't happen, but it is. So please, show the f*$) up if you can, it should be good! And, it's all ages, so bring the kids and have 'em be psychologically damaged for years to come due to roller derby exposure!





















Last weekend the husband and I went to Vega$ for Rollercon.

Holy hell, was that fun!

My daily routine consisted of: getting up around 10am. Cursing the dry air. Getting my skate gear together and trudging down to the parking garage for on-skate workshops. Sweat like crazy. Stink up the place. Hit girls that I've never skated with before. Go back to the hotel room. Take a shower. Take a nap with my contacts in. Wake up and get dressed in outfits that I'd never wear in public while in LA. Go wander around the hotel casino floor. Text everyone since I couldn't get cell phone reception worth a crap. Sit in the Mai Tai bar and pull out a buttload of Sharpie markers. Wait for some girl to get in range, grab her, and start drawing on her. Get a crowd. Get free mai tai's. Go find some food. Come back to the hotel and draw some more. Wander around the Strip at night, cursing the dry air. Come back to the hotel and draw some more. Rinse and repeat until 3, 4, or 6am. Go crash in the hotel room.

Seriously, bringing the Sharpies was the BEST. IDEA. EVERRRRRRR. Over the course of the weekend I drew on over 80 people. It was incredibly fun! But something funny would happen over the course of the weekend. I'd draw on people, then see them the next day with my doodles still on their bodies, and they wouldn't recognize me! Ah yes, drunkeness at its best! Here's a couple of examples of my doodles:






























The husband took pix of almost every drawing I did. I still have to sift thru the pile and then post everything to Flickr. When I do, I'll post a link here.

Gimme the Bat, Wendy...

All work and no play makes Knuckle-Dragging 101 a dull blog.
All work and no play makes Knuckle-Dragging 101 a dull blog.
All work and no play makes Knuckle-Dragging 101 a dull blog.
All work and no play makes Knuckle-Dragging 101 a dull blog.
All work and no play makes Knuckle-Dragging 101 a dull blog.
All work and no play makes Knuckle-Dragging 101 a dull blog.
All work and no play makes Knuckle-Dragging 101 a dull blog.
All work and no play makes Knuckle-Dragging 101 a dull blog.
All work and no play makes Knuckle-Dragging 101 a dull blog.
All work and no play makes Knuckle-Dragging 101 a dull blog.
All work and no play makes Knuckle-Dragging 101 a dull blog.
All work and no play makes Knuckle-Dragging 101 a dull blog.
All work and no play makes Knuckle-Dragging 101 a dull blog.
All work and no play makes Knuckle-Dragging 101 a dull blog.
All work and no play makes Knuckle-Dragging 101 a dull blog.
All work and no play makes Knuckle-Dragging 101 a dull blog.
All work and no play makes Knuckle-Dragging 101 a dull blog.
All work and no play makes Knuckle-Dragging 101 a dull blog.
All work and no play makes Knuckle-Dragging 101 a dull blog.

















The job's rockin', though. Me likey it very much. Well, it's the crew that's making it fun. One of the board artists who has gone on to another show at another studio came back to visit this week and lamented that the atmosphere where she's at now isn't as much fun as our crew. Awwwwwwww!

I just wish the schedule wasn't as crazy-short as it is. I feel that I've barely gotten my feet wet when it comes to some of the directorly dooties I'm supposed to know because things are moving so fast. My act ships in two weeks, fer feck's sake. That's an insanely short amount of time when one considers that we started storyboarding in late May.

In roller derby news: next week I go to Rollercon. I'm STOKED.

The Derby Dolls still haven't found a venue to hold our bouts. That SUCKS.

I got a couple of my derby posters printed in a new roller derby book. GO BUY THE DAMN THING!

Full of Myself

I'm going to be even more full of myself than usual, so get ready.

In the opening credits of the DVD I'm working on, the sequence directors are featured in a quick vignette where we're popping up out of the ground in a cemetery. Of course I think it's awesome as all hell, and one of the two other directors think it's nifty-peachy-keen. The third...well, he enjoys being contrary and his first reaction to the idea wasn't the most positive. Luckily humor prevailed, and so one of our character designers started working on our caricatures. He came up with this for me:


















Well, OK. One's first reaction is, Yep, that looks like you.

But I wasn't happy. So I took his drawing and did some changes, albeit minor ones. The result is this:


















That's just more BADASS. And all I did was tweak the eye, tousle the hair, made the mouth even bigger, got rid of the Shaggy shirt, and gave myself the usual slouch to my back. Oh, and added big ol' earrings. The supervising director was amused and approved my changes. Ha!


I also have the drawing that I did for my coworker and his comic book that's being done as an anthology in freakin' Croatia done and delivered. I wouldn't have ordinarily done something like this for anyone, since I have zero experience with comic book art, but Raf said the magic words when asking me to do it: pin-up. So I came up with this in short order:




















Poor Sonambulo getting the snot beaten out of him by three roller derby chicks seemed to go over very well with Raf and a couple of other guys at work. If they're happy, I'm happy. I hate the background, but I was never very good at that type of thing. Oh well.

Speaking of comics, this weekend is ComiCon in San Diego. A bunch of the work crew is already there, but I won't be. I went once, ten years ago. It was enough at the time. I may change my mind in the future, but who knows. For now I'm content to stay in LA and do stuff.

How to TOTALLY Piss Me Off...

There are many ways to annoy me. There are quite a few ways to peeve me. There's a list of things to do to vex me. Some people think I'm horrendously cranky all of the time.

However, nothing sends me into an absolute rage than hearing about animal abuse. Yes, I'm a carnivore, but killing an animal for food(and hopefully killed as fast as possible) is waaaayyyyyy different than deliberate cruelty. Of course I'm talking about that NFL scumbag Michael Vick, as well as a story out of San Diego concerning two dimwitted teenage girls who set a kitten on fire.

Excuse me, but WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH THESE PEOPLE?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!??!!

What kind of dipsh!t gets off torturing animals?!? How fucked up was their upbringing?! I wish I could slap the living bejeezus out of their mothers.

So.

Unbelievably.

Messed.

Up.

Anyway, I found a petition from the Humane Society that's supposed to be forwarded to the NFL urging that Vicks gets suspended. I'm not a petition-type o' person, but I'll make an exception in this case. I hope a pitbull rips Vicks' balls off.

Sunday

It's Sunday and I don't know what to do with myself.

Of course I'm procrastinating on several projects, including doing a pin-up-ish drawing for a coworker who has his own comic that's getting published in Croatia(!!?!?!?!?!!) and wants the drawing for part of a "gallery" with other artists.

Below is a very veryveryveryveryvery rough Illustrator pose for what I would've used for a poster pitch if I hadn't gotten so damn busy at work. The pose is taken from a photo that my fave derby photographer Boss Hogg took at the Smog City game I announced for last month.

It was supposed to be for the "Texas Shoot Out" WFTDA Nationals that will be happening in Austin come September. Hence the cowboy outfit. I dunno, I might clean it up anyway just for snicks and giggles.
























Other news...still busy, still enjoying work even though it's busy, and wishing that derby hiatus would last just a few weeks longer. I don't want to drive to work at all, but due to the amount of gear I have, it's necessary. Phooey.

Oh, and I finally saw The Awful Truth on TCM today. It stars Cary Grant and Irene Dunne and was damn funny. I think I have it on dvd somewhere at work, so if I get a breath during lunch or something I'll watch it again. I have to give it to George Clooney...I've liked him a lot better since he decided to totally rip off Cary Grant. If you're gonna steal someone's schtick, steal from the best!

Ahhhhh...

I finally finished my freelance over the weekend. Here's the group of five girls that I did:













Wait til you see what they're going to be used for. Nothing huge, but it's fun and I enjoyed the work, even though I was going absolutely nutso trying to balance this with the day job. Ahhh, the day job...

I almost hate to admit it, but I'm really enjoying it. It turns out that when I don't know what the heck I'm doing, I have the most fun doing it. Go figure.

Vewy vewy qwiet...

It's not that I don't want to blog all day, but I can't.

Am wrking hrd.

This week is timing for the animatic of my act. Very long, very tedious work, but it's interesting and am learning A LOT.

brb, k.

Another Milestone

Today I did what directors everywhere do all the time.

I slugged my storyboard.

What's a "slug", you may ask?

It's very very rough timing of a storyboard in preparation of making an animatic of the storyboard to see how everything flows and if all the cuts work, etc. It's not rocket science, but if one has been willfully ignorant about any sort of timing like I've been, well, it's intimidating to say the least.

But I got through it. Badly, but it's done.

To add to the fun, the supervising director would say to anyone within earshot, "Doesn't Sandra look different today? More...confident? More...accomplished? That's because she slugged her board today!!!!!!!" Everyone laughed, I got embarrassed, and the rest of the world carried on without a hiccup despite this momentous occurrence.

The funny part of the above silliness is that the supervising director's spiel reminded me very much of when puberty reared its ugly head and I got my period for the first time. Of course my mom told my dad and he did the whole, "My daughter's becoming all grown up" routine that has embarrassed daughters for generations. To be reminded of that from my boss was surreal, and pretty damn hilarious. Like a dumb@$$, I mention this to said boss, who starts singing this:



And you know what? My job's pretty damn amusing.

What are you looking at?!

One of the perks of being a director-type is having access to a DVD player for "research purposes". Lately I've been "researching" The Maltese Falcon, Mildred Pierce, It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World, Fight Club, and a bunch of Bugs Bunny cartoons.

Strangely enough though, I've found that I get the most amount of work done while watching The Blackadder. Ah, Rowan Atkinson, you were so damn funny once upon a time! My fave clip from season #2:

Nothing Resembling a Timely Manner

My procrastination skills are pretty good. Not as good as the Husband's, but he's in a class of his own.

However, my skills came into play big time in regards to a Christmas present I was asked to do back in November. I was asked to paint up a rolling hard-sided suitcase for a fellow Derby Doll to use as her skate equipment bag. No problem, I said at the time.

I'm such a BIG FREAKIN' LIAR.

The reason why is because I decided that I should use enamel paint instead of my usual acrylic, as I figured it'd be more durable. I've never used enamel before, and I was really, really freaked out about using it on something that was a gift for someone else.

So what did I do?

I procrastinated in rare form when it came to doing the project. Out of the seven months I had the suitcase in my possession, I ended up doing five days of actual work, tops.

Freakin'.

LOSER.

However, I finally got over myself and asked for some advice from my friend Kenny and got going on the project and got it done...just in time for the Derby Doll hiatus to start. So I didn't have a chance to see the recipient of said present for a month before I could deliver the damn suitcase.

Which I was finally able to do last night.

So here it is:






















I think she liked it.

I hope she did, at any rate.

Ta-da!

Since I keep talking about it, here's some pix of the Divorce Desk. Notice that you won't see a real wide shot of the desk. That's because the room that it's in is so damn small, we can't step back far enough to take a decent photo. Here's a close-up of one of the hydraulic cranks that adjusts the desktop:
















Fascinating, isn't it?!


Here's a wider shot of the desk:





















Aaaaaaaaand another shot of the desk.
















On top of the desk shelving(which is cut off in the photos)are two lamps. Which were thrown in with the desk for free. Awesome. I heard that the mover dudes in Sherman Oaks threw away a bunch of shelving, desk parts, and animation disks at the end of the day when we went to get the desk. Sad, sad, sad. They could've told us to just take the stuff...I know that the animators would've gladly taken it off the movers' hands.



Oh look, here's a photo of me announcing at that Smog City/Bakersfield bout in Fresno last weekend. The guy sitting next to me is the dad of one of the skaters and was supposed to co-announce with me. Instead, he decided to just watch the game. I didn't complain.

















Some time I'll have to tell the amusing story of the husband and I meeting a nice bunch of lesbians at the pizza place we had dinner at after the game.


Thursday and yesterday, the studio at which I'm currently employed had a huge lot sale. They sold off a bunch of props, furniture and wardrobe. Unfortunately, they didn't have any cool props, such as a prop insect head or anything, but they had a lot of interesting lamps, dishes, shoes and baskets. The first day I went with some of the other ladies from my production. Now, a note about me and the rest of the ladies on the production. I'm not like them.

Oh, shut up.

Seriously.

They were humored at my attempts to find clothes, since all of the women's clothing available were actress-sized. Note: I'm most definitely not actress-sized. So I moved on to lamps, which I talked myself out of buying. Including the sparkly lava lamp. Dammit. And then shoes, where I found a pair of murdersickle boots, but couldn't manoever them onto my feet in anything resembling a timely manner.

So I came out practically empty-handed. The other ladies got some snazzy lamps, clothing, suitcases, etc. I make a terrible shopper.

Yesterday I went back on my own. This time I picked up six rice bowls for $2 and an umbrella for $1. It's of a nicer quality than the 99-cent store umbrella I'm currently using, despite it's having a bent rib. It worked great when I walked back to work from the lot, at any rate. The security people now know me well enough that when I walked back to work and swiped my ID card through to open the pedestrian gate, they didn't bother coming out to check my shopping bag for explosives. Awwwwwwwwww!

Back to work...

The Other Woman

I've discovered that I'm really jealous of someone.

Very high school of me, I know. But she's getting on my nerves.

Unfortunately, that someone is my own altered ego.

She gets a lot of attention. When I went to the Art Dorks show, I was introduced as Tara more often than Sandra. And people love to hear about Tara's adventures. No one really gives a flying rat's tail about Sandra. OK, Sandra doesn't do much except draw and ride murdersickles, but damn, Tara just talks about freakin' roller derby for hours on end. But everyone loves it.

What the hell?!?!?!?!!

And here I thought we were the same people. But apparently we're not.

I just came to the jealous realization recently, and haven't thought through the repercussions of it. Should I talk crap about my altered ego? Spread rumors? Puncture her tires? Call her out and have a bare-knuckle fight in a parking lot?

I can't kill her off yet, and she's already on hiatus 'til July. But she still persists. Betch!

Speaking of Tara, we drove to do the announcing thing in Fresno yesterday. It turned out to be a great game between the Smog City Rollergirls and Bakersfield. Bako won, but it was a close game and the audience went completely ape over it. The skaters did well(especially considering that they were skating on uber-slippery concrete), and I got $100 for my troubles(which were really nonexistent).

Highlights include:

• having bacon on a pizza. Talk about heart attack on a plate! Loved it!
• seeing that highway 99 is almost like a real freeway...I was able to go 85mph when I got out of LA-LA Land.
• central California is still rural enough to effectively play, "What's that smell?!" for hours on end.
• knowing that I can drink Southern Comfort, Newcastle ale, and a Long Island Iced tea all in one night without losing my guts. I think the pizza helped.
• seeing Bako continue to improve. I love those girls, I really do.
  

Hopefully I'll have the majority of my freelance done by a week from today. Woohoo! Then I can play with the new animation desk, which got nicknamed the Divorce Desk after all the yelling and screaming the husband and I did at each other while trying to fix the damn thing and bring it into the house to set up in the art room. Nothing else really fits into the art room now, but at least the damn desk is all set up.

Here's a non-sequitir to end with:

Chugga Chugga Chugga

Ok.

I know I needed a day job, but jeezus, I didn't expect the rest of my life to gear up and keep me as busy as work is! So I'm just chugging along with work, freelance, and outside-of-the-Dolls derby stuff.

Since I'm too lazy to post any artwork, I'll share some photos that were taken last Friday at the Art Dorks show at Thinkspace Gallery here in LA. I found out that nothing freaks out a bunch of quiet artists more than a big loud woman on a big loud murdersickle pulling up and stomping into the show. Funny thing is, I knew a lot of them online, but I got introduced under my real name as opposed to my online alias, so it took awhile to figure out who was whom. If you go to the Art Dorks site, you'll see a link to their photos and who they are.














































Speaking of big and loud, the security guards at work now all know who I am. Apparently I stick out like a sore thumb whenever I come up to the gate. Shocking, I know. Today one of them asked me if I'd ridden in, as he missed seeing me this morning. Yes I did, I replied. Good, he said. I heard about a motorcycle crash on the 170 yesterday and I hoped that it wasn't you.

Awwwwwwwwwwww!

This weekend the husband and I are going to Fresno. Willingly. Because I'm going to announce at the Bako/Smog City bout Saturday night. Should be verrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrry interesting. And hot. I hate hot, but I have no choice.

Hit Me!

Adventures in animation:

Yesterday the studio I'm working for sold off a buttload of animation desks. These desks were allegedly around $5 GRAND APIECE when they were first bought. They're really nice; hydraulics to raise and lower the desktop, side shelves and drawers to put all one's animation crap in, they even have electrical outlets on 'em! Verrrrrry nice.

The studio sold them for $100 EACH.

HOLY CRAP.

So the husband and I rented a van and got ourselves a desk.

It took forever...we got the van, drove to the Valley, and found a clusterf#%^% of epic proportions. I wasn't too surprised, but the husband wasn't happy. The original idea was that on the hour, every hour for four hours, a new group of people came, signed in, paid up, and got a desk loaded for them. The staggering of groups was to help keep a flow going through the loading dock.

Um, yeah. Didn't happen.

We got there a half hour before my appointed time, and the loading dudes weren't done with the first group(I was in the third group). So we waited for about two hours in line. snore. Then there were the groups of artists who banded together to rent just one truck, and had up to six desks loaded. That took forever. Then there was the pizza break that the movers took, leaving the two studio security guards to help load stuff in. Then there was the coworker who had trouble backing his rented truck into the loading area. Needless to say, he got a lot of grief from me since he regularly loves to aggravate me at work. His new name is, "Drives Like A Girl". Hehehehheh!

So we finally got my desk, along with extra bulbs for the light table, and an extra disk(worth around $60 or so)loaded up and back to the Westside in early afternoon. We unloaded most of the pieces with no incident, but the main desk part is too wide to put into the art room. So the husband has to take it apart and bring it in piece by piece to reassemble. Oh, and the hydraulics don't work. So we have to figure out how to get that going.

Then derby crap took over. We had to find outfits for the Sleazy 70's fundraiser thingy going on that evening. So after taking my sister to our favorite Italian place for an early birthday dinner, we dragged her along on our shopping spree. Two hours, $88 and two stores later, we had our goofy outfits for the evening. The husband ended up looking like Al Pacino from Scarface, and I ended up looking like a 70's groupie, complete with halter top. That was funny.

Here's a video clip that one of the Dolls and her boyfriend put together. The choice of soundtrack alone is fantastic, in my never-humble opinion:

I'm in my office...

...makin sum drawings.

This whole driving-30-miles-to-work thing is taking a bit to get used to again. No matter which route to Bore-bank I take, it's Lane-splitsville on the ol' murdersickle. Which reminds me, I gotta give the poor machine an oil change this weekend.

Anyway...

My new office is OK. When the air conditioner isn't on, it gets stuffy. But when the air conditioner does come on, I expect snow flurries any second because it's so damn cold. No matter how I set the thermostat, it's either stuffy or freezing. Ah well, at least I'm kinda out in the far reaches of the crew. Right now I'm the last outpost...the other offices beyond mine are for the moment empty. That probably won't last long.

The main complaint I have about the office is that the desk is stinky. Kinda an unwashed-animation-dork stink. I tried wiping everything down with some Clorox wipes, but that hasn't helped...it only added a rotting fruit stench. Oh joy. Thank gawd the window opens to the outside world!

The work is coming along nicely. I'm trying to throw in a Big Lebowski reference in a section I'm boarding. Mainly from the Gutterballs sequence. The director is saying, We can't do that! The reference to the Log Jammin' porno from the film will not fly! My response is that the kids won't get it and the adults will laugh their guts out if they've seen the flick. For once I'm being subtle about this. Srsly.

The crew is cool. They're funny and ridiculously talented. As in, what the hell am I doing on this production when there are so many damn good artists on it? I'm the weak link in the chain. A little unnerving, but much like everything else on this job, if I don't dwell on it too much I seem to do OK.




















Freelance is keeping me busy at night. It's plugging along, and I'm really happy about how it's turning out.

Derby crap is keeping me busy as well. Giving private lessons, doing more announcing, arranging for hiatus-training fun, and I'll be an MC at our little fundraiser/social thingy on Saturday:





















Do I have an outfit for this shindig? Of course not. Will I have time to get one? Probably not, as I have an animation desk to pick up Saturday morning and haul home. Should be entertaining.

Show up and have a derby chick yell at you drunkenly. It's entertaining and for a good cause...us!!

Bookshelves

Last night the husband and I straddled worlds and went to not one, but two parties. One was the birthday party for one of our animation buddies, CH. The other was an office-themed party(as opposed to a The Office-themed party) thrown by one of the Derby Dolls, TZ.

It's always a little surreal to go from one persona to another. Or at least it's weird being called one name then a different name based on the change of venue. But a common thread of the evening is that both CH and TZ lovelovelove monkeys(and who doesn't, in the end?). So I gave each of them little monkey toys to play with.

Anyway...

It was the first time for me to check out the living quarters of each party person, and it's always fun to see how other people arrange their stuff. As opposed to me, who has no organizational skills whatsoever. CH has a lot of DVD's. A LOT of DVD's. Some books, but not as many books as DVD's. TZ had a LOT of books. I like looking at people's bookshelves to see what they have and mentally compare it to what I've got. There's usually little to no overlap, which is fun.

So I was looking in a very non-specific way at TZ's books, and it got me thinking about my bookshelves and what's on them. I don't have enough damn bookshelves for all the damn books the husband and I have accumulated. He specializes in science fiction, I specialize in biographies. From Eleanor Roosevelt to Sam Goldwyn to a Scottish guy who helped bring in modern surgery techniques in the mid-1700's in England.

I also have a smattering of kids books. Not a lot. Many animation artists collect the old Golden Books rabidly because of Mary Blair and a couple other Disney artists who did work for GB. Dr. Seuss is of course also popular. Maurice Sendak is up there, too. But my personal fave artist is usually way underrepresented in peoples' bookshelves: Shel Silverstein. Yeah, that dude that wrote The Giving Tree, Where the Sidewalk Ends, and a buttload of other kids books.

I grew up with The Giving Tree, Lafcadio, Where the Sidewalk Ends, and A Light in the Attic. It wasn't until I was an adult myself that I found out that he wrote adult-themed stuff. Go buy Uncle Shelby's ABZ Book RIGHT NOW if you don't already have it. It's silly. We need more of that kind of silliness in the world.

And then there was the way he drew. I think I soaked up his influence the most in the way he drew, with the simple, solid black lines. Much like...a Sharpie! It all makes sense now, doesn't it?

Anyway, when Silverstein died, I didn't hear much about it in the press. Not like the hullabaloo when Dr. Seuss died. Not that I'm saying that Dr. Seuss didn't deserve the attention he got(having Jesse Jackson read Green Eggs and Ham on SNL as a eulogy was absolutely cool), but I've wondered why Silverstein doesn't get the attention like some of the other top artists?

Sad, as I think he deserved better.