Meow House Theatre

I don’t normally just link articles or other Web sites without writing something of my own to go with it, but this is too hilarious to pass up, and I really gotta get the hell out of my office:

DailyKos “reports” that Oscar, The Harbinger-of-Death Cat, is maintaining a vigil in Alberto Gonzales’s office.

I really needed that laugh.

“im in ur office, smelling your death knell.”

I just discovered upon reading this how much laughter echoes in a dome-ceilinged empty office suite. It’s true, you can learn somethin’ new every day.

I was down in New York yesterday and imagine my surprise to see this on the sidewalk at 513 W. 54th Street:

Yes, it was a giant painting-in-progress of the logo for The Colbert Report coming to life before my very eyes.

Sidewalk artist Victor Fraser came all the way from Canada to create a monument of sorts to Stephen Colbert and The Colbert Report.

From his own Web site comes this explanation of just what it is that Victor does:

Victor is known in Toronto mostly for his original, larger-than-life murals that are executed on asphalt, city sidewalks, and walls in prime, high traffic locations. Besides his awesome murals, Victor has rendered hundreds of paid art commissions on countless different mediums, from walls to glass to canvas to metal.

And this time, he chose to use his talent to create a tribute to an American he says he admires, or as he put it, “I came from Toronto to get on my hands and knees for Mr. Colbert and the Colbert Nation.” [Clearly this guy is an It-Getter in a majorly artistic way, and he’s not even American! Stephen’s powers can obviously transcend even Homeland Security’s borders.]

It was fascinating to watch him work. His wildly spiky red-and-black Mohawk may not have moved in the breeze, but he more than made up for it with all the maneuvering it took to work on the drawing while dodging random passersby who didn’t seem to notice either the logo or the site of a man looking like he was about to offer pony rides to children right in the middle of the sidewalk. I guess those New Yorkers really just tune out while they’re walking; a few times people purposely strode directly across his path, almost stepping on his fingers as he held the brush or chalk near the concrete. Finally the staff of the Report came out and set up a barrier of sorts although that didn’t stop entirely some of the distracted or uncaring strollers wandering by. Still, it’s bound to be walked on eventually and Victor is probably used to “blending in.” (Yes, I know that’s a terrible pun. That’s what makes it so good.) (And one more for the bad pun department: at one point he splattered his cup of paint/water on the street and jokingly said he was emulating Jackson Pollock and his “contemporary” art–get it?)

Making up for the oblivious was the stream of Colbert Report staffers who came out to check on the progress, along with the ever-growing line of ticket-holders who stopped to ask him questions, take photographs, and generally say “wow” to the emerging picture.

He was happy to talk with me for a few minutes about the project: he said he had arrived on Sunday and spent about 6 hours setting up the stencil and doing the lettering; then on Monday he got to the studio about 11:00 AM; at 4:00 he was still working on it. He must have finished somewhere between that time and 5:15 or so, because at that point he had already gone inside to see last night’s episode.

Victor said depending on the volume of pedestrian traffic, the logo will last about 2 weeks. There aren’t generally a whole lot of people on that part of the block, except for people arriving for tapings, so perhaps it will remain for even longer. And we’ll have the pictures forever.

I’m sure Stephen was quite impressed by the dedication it took to complete this ode to himself out in the hot sun, and I’m especially sure Character “Stephen” is telling himself that it’s only natural that His Supreme Greatness would inspire even a non-American to brave the Border Patrol and TSA just to honor him.

My best wishes to Victor for continued success, and for demonstrating that everyone has the power to spread the Colbert love, even if you do pledge allegiance to the wrong flag. (Just kidding; I love Canada–it’s my favorite among the bear-producing nations.)

You can see more of Victor’s amazing art at his Web site along with his photos, videos, and contact information.

**Editor’s note: picture size and quality has been reduced for the Web. If you would like high-res copies (10.1 megapixel, output image size 3648 x 2736 pixels), please email me.**

That’s graphics sex, not “graphic” sex. Ya pervs.

I just bought a Wacom Graphire4 4×5 Graphics Pen Tablet and I am in love. A graphics tablet is a device that interfaces with your computer and allows you to use a “pen mouse” in place of a regular mouse. Although the G4 does also come with a wireless battery-less (yes, there are no batteries at all in either the mouse or the pen) “regular” mouse if you prefer to use that instead of the pen for certain applications.

I was looking into a pen mouse and tablet because I do a lot of photo editing in Photoshop and PaintShop Pro, and it is MUCH easier to manipulate photographs, especially when layering in Photoshop, with a pen than with a regular mouse. There is not enough motor finessing allowed with a mouse. I’m talking about when using it to freehand around some portion of the picture, which you then need to “cut” and put onto another layer. It’s possible with a mouse but if you get any of the unwanted pixels (the ones outside the edge of the portion you’re outlining) in the cut, then they’ll show up in the new layer. So I decided that I should look into getting a graphics tablet. I had checked out the Wacom Intuos a while back but for me–considering I’m not a professional graphics artist–they were a little expensive. Then I was searching on Amazon for something and came across the Graphire2, and then when checking on the actual Wacom site discovered that the 2 is actually an older model and they are at Release 4 at this point. So I went back to Amazon, found out they’re selling the later-version Graphire4 for less money than the Graphire2 (I can’t figure that one out) and ordered one.

I ordered it on July 6, late; it shipped on July 9 (next business day) and got here on July 10. And that was free shipping. I don’t know why it was so fast. Ritz Camera, the Amazon merchant, sent it overnight delivery but I didn’t ask for that nor did I pay for it.

Anyway, it was a breeze to set up and it works great. The pen is pressure-sensitive in applications that support this (such as Photoshop) and it is much easier to do fine detail work in photographs. Also, it comes with full versions of Corel Painter and Adobe Photoshop Elements, which by themselves would cost far more than $79 by themselves. I actually don’t need the Photoshop Elements because I have the full version of Photoshop anyway. The documentation provided with the tablet says that this version of PS Elements doesn’t work in Vista but to visit the site for updates or downloads. Not sure if that means that there’s a way to make PE work with Vista.

The pen in particular takes some getting used to, but once you do it’s fine. Also I think I prefer it to be in “relative” mode rather than “absolute,” which is what the default is. Relative mode means that it functions like a mouse, where you can drag it across the tablet and the cursor will drag along the screen, much like a regular mouse functions. Absolute mode means that each point on the tablet corresponds to a point on the screen, so if you want to move the pen from the top-right corner to the bottom-left, you have to pick the point up off the tablet and then click back down in the bottom-left corner to make the cursor jump there. So far I prefer relative mode, although the user manual says that absolute is actually easier and faster when using the pen. Maybe I just need to practice more.

There is also an “eraser” on the end of the pen that is very useful in Photoshop. And although I haven’t tried this yet, the clear plastic cover comes off the tablet so you can put a picture underneath if you want to trace it and have it appear on screen. The mouse is pretty good too as just a regular mouse; maybe not quite as good as a normal one, but only very slightly less sensitive to touch. And while you may think a 4″ x 5″ area on which to work is far too small (I thought so too), it’s not. Especially when using the mouse: as long as about half the mouse is on the control area the tablet registers it so you effectively have just about as much area to work on as you do with a regular approximately 6 x 6 mouse pad.

I am looking forward to playing with this a lot more. To my mind I thnk it’s a great buy for anyone who uses graphics applications at less-than-professional level. If you are a serious full-time graphic artist or illustrator, perhaps the Intuos would be better, especially if you can get your employer to pay for it, considering it’s well over two times the cost. The Graphire4 can’t be beat at this price.

I pretty much stopped watching TV about 6 months ago, except for the Fake News™ and the real news on CNN, but the other night I flipped around and came across A&E, where they’re showing cleaned-up reruns of The Sopranos. So what the hey, I didn’t really remember this episode (I’ve seen them all on HBO) so I watched it.

Well, being on A&E, they’ve had to dub all the swear words. Most of the time you can understand what they originally said, just by the context–”freakin’” for “fucking,” and so on. So I’m watching and I hear Ralphie say (about his just having been dumped by Janice, Tony’s sister), “That crazy bitch, she wanted to put a pillow on my ass and pretend she was pimping me out!” (N.B. Actually it was Ralphie’s idea to do the pretend thing but of course he wouldn’t admit that to his hulking friends.) Anyhoo, the second that line went by I was all WTF? What the hell does that mean–for one, put a pillow ON someone’s ass? I’m not picturing how they could be having sex with a pillow ON the guy’s ass. And what does that have to do with pimping someone out? Come on, come on, think! What kind of freaky role-play uses a pillow in some kind of prostitution scenario? It bugged me all night. I have seen and heard a lot of crazy shit but for the life of me could not figure out how a pillow and being pimped out had any relation to each other.

Then the next day I was driving to work–still puzzled about what the hell it meant–and like a bolt of lightening I realized, they had dubbed what he actually said to make it “family-friendly”–and there’s not much ways to change “That crazy bitch, she wanted to put a dildo up my ass and pretend she was pimping me out!” and have it vaguely match the movement of his lips while he was talking. I guess “pillow” was all they could come up with.

The guy in the car next to me must have wondered what the hell made me burst out laughing all of a sudden.