Tuesday Absurdity

Because I like weird things and pony anachronisms - I found this artist who takes My Little Ponies and transforms them into movie characters.

Man, wait til I find my Strawberry Shortcakes and Rainbow Brights!

How? Why? Huh?

Spied these exciting diaramas while waiting for my breakfast ciabatta melt.





I think they should step up their drug screening. Seems like they're having too much fun on the night shift.

Mouthy Broads

Two years ago, my mom hinted that she'd like to take up beading as a hobby. So, for her birthday, my sister & I loaded up on all the beading supplies we could find. On the next birthday, a full year later, when the beading supplies had gone completely untouched, my sister & I decided to take up beading---if nothing else to burn through all the stuff we'd bought. But we went off the rails somewhere. Our basement turned into a mini bead store in itself. We mostly made/make badge holders---a prettier alternative to those shoelace-looking thing with the faded/flaking screenprinted logos from which most people at the hospital hang their credentials from.

In my obsession with all things beads & beading; I pondered the idea of making my own beads. Glass-blowing, however, is way too expensive for an ancillary hobby. So I started playing with polymer clay. And I made some truly hideous beads. Frustrated at my sheer suckitude---I just wanted to make something that looked like something. So I made a little head & gave it some swirly hair. Tiny beaded eyes, and a big fat mouth, in my mind saying "what did you expect---michelangelo you ain't".

I made a few more just-heads, initially wanting to use the just-heads as focal-type beads in my badge holders. Then, one time, I had a bunch of orange clay mixed up & left over. It was too much for a just-head, so I gave it arms and a torso. I made some lovely pink spaghetti flowing hair with a clay extruder my brother gave me for Christmas. She was totally topless---but she was the first, if rudimentary, broad. Next, I tried making some
clothes, and it wasn't so hard. I was kind of in love with this idea. So I just started making more & more. And my basement suddenly had a few dozen very bossy-looking tiny residents.

In perusing Etsy, I found that lots of people like to play with clay. And yarn. And plaster. And beads. And every other kind of crafty type of thing---and people give them money for it. So I started a store. I've been in business for 2 days and I've sold two broads. Admittedly both to my brother, because he loves me, but he did pay actual money + shipping so he's a customer. Even if my Mouthy Broad empire never takes off, I'll probably still make them. If only so my sister will keep making up squawky voices for them & giving them ridiculous lives.



You can get to the store from the "mini-store" in the sidebar of this here blog. And if you don't like them, maybe look at some other stores. There's a lot of cool handmade stuff!

Christmas is so gay.

My sister and I happened upon these gems at the local home & garden store (which is mostly a Christmas store, actually). This iPhone picture totally does not do them justice. "Clint", the gay cowboy merman (left) is 8 inches tall. There are several more, and I definitely plan to at least pick up Jack Hammer before the season is over.

I don't know why I love these things so much. They're just totally random & I think the perfect example of how ridiculous Christmas really is.

And yes, that is leather-pants-era Elvis serenading the fellas. And yes I purposely have him straddling a red chrimmas light.

I needed this.

I had to put my cat, who went by too many names to mention---I called her Ging, to sleep last night. She was 16 and pretty frickin' awesome. So, needless to say, I'm pretty bummed out, but my office-mate Heather sent me a link that has brightened my day.

Passive Aggressive Notes is a website showcasing "painfully polite and hilariously hostile writings from shared spaces the world over". I have always been a fan of signs; handwritten, computer-generated, industrial, from god, whatever.

I learned at the waterpark that if you have a sign, no matter how preposterous the concept, you are right. This may not be true, but it's one of those things that I came to believe at a young age, and therefore will never let go.

Also, I'm always intrigued when I come upon a random sign prohibiting a certain behavior, because it makes me wonder what had to happen for a sign to be made. I also feel a certain amount of pride when a sign is erected because of some foolish behavior of mine.

A big draw on Passive Aggressive Notes is office-related signs/memos/notes. I am totally guilty of crafting overly complex signs & notices for mundane things---and I don't care how annoying they are. I love making them! You'll never stop me!

Hench ate a pickle once

I was once again cruising the popular stuff on delicious and came across this site, which is basically a portal to run filters on your pictures. Yes, I can totally do this stuff in Photoshop without the help of a website, but as I was trying it out, I chose this photo of Hench from our January summit (the NYC leg) and I just like it. It looks like she should live in that Waking Life movie.

just for fun

This cartoon is in absolutely no way a political statement or a support/dis of any candidate.

I listen to the Howard Stern show each day, and of late, the sound effect employed by Mr. Eric "Fred" Norris that cracks my shit up the most is the one I drew this picture in honor of.

I guess it Obama's current/former minister, Reverend Wright, exclaiming "Obama is a long-legged mack daddy!", which Fred will slip in whenever Mr. Obama comes up in conversation or when Robin is reading a news story about him.

Anyway, I've been trying to fiddle with my Bamboo more, and the idea of a pimp running for president is kind of amusing. I am very proud of myself for drawing this completely from scratch, aside from using a shape for the belt buckle, and some doofy font for the actual quote--which I realize I f'ed up (he just says "long-leg").

Anyway, I wouldn't mind if some people sent me some suggestions for other things to draw. Song lyrics (an old past time), random notions, household objects, etc.

**Update: In the great tradition of my personal lack of journalistic skillz, it wasn't Reverend Wright that called him a long-leg mack daddy, it was a different guy called Reverend Manning.

To go Home

I thought that I'd posted a picture of this thing back in November, from nighttime, but it's not showing at the moment. Anyway, they've added a whole bunch more beach balls, and I think it's kind of cool.

My brother moved into a new place today. It was built in the 60's, originally as motel rooms. Long since turned into "condos", his place is two units (one on top of the other) combined in a very typical Wildwood slapdash fashion in that none of the rooms have logical proportion and there are all sorts of extra doors leading nowhere in particular. The bathrooms are quite distinguished, though...all with a set tile candy color scheme. The one bathroom has a purple toilet! Purple porcelain. The tub & sink are purple too. (Dunno why I didn't photograph, will the next time, though).

Today was a perfect "Wildwood in the Winter" day. The wind was whipping , street signs clanking against themselves, and the ocean howling quietly down empty, empty streets. You almost feel like you're sneaking into the store while the owner is away.

First "Illustration"

My mommy got me a Bamboo for Chrimmas, and this here is the first thing I drew, kinda quick just to try to blog while it was still Chrimmas (will probably fail at that, too). I don't know why I always draw grapes.

My brother and his girlfriend spent the day with us and we had a delicious dinner and everyone had the warm fuzzies. Until he went to go home and found that the rear window on his brand new car that he's only had for 2 months---the first brand new car of his 31 years, had been shot out by some jerkoff kid who got a bb gun for Chrimmas. Seriously? If I see a kid in my neighborhood with a bb gun I am totally unleashing Uma on him. Then I will follow him home start kicking over shrubberies until his stupid parents reimburse us for the glass. Ok, none of that is true, but I would maybe have a grown-up talk with the stupid parents.

My dad passed away on Christmas Eve-Eve when I was 14. That New Year's, my friend Kristen insisted I come to her Uncle Frank & Aunt Sandy's NYE Party. It was kind of great. Just after midnight, everyone ate grapes and that was supposed to mean good luck or something in the new year. After the grapes, there were the homemade sausage & lettuce sandwiches on crusty rolls. The sausage sandwiches were frickin' awesome. Every year after that, until Kristen's grandmom died, whatever New Years party (the ones with booze & stuff) we were at, after the ball dropped, we would pile into a car (with a responsible driver, natch) and zip over to her grandmom's house for a sausage sandwich. We would stand there in her kitchen, kinda drunk, while Kristen's dad told us inappropriate jokes.

That's it, the end. No epiphany. Grapes & sausage sandwiches.

wildwood days/nights

In between dashing around the island the other night, we stopped to admire this new sign they put up on the boardwalk by the new convention center. Those beach balls are solid concrete, and are a whimsical version of those barricade things they have at the end of the driveway to the White House.

There have been lots of changes in my hometown in the last 10 years, and there are a lot of streets I don't recognize that I once knew like the back of my hand. This sign didn't replace anything, so liking it doesn't have to be bittersweet. If I had any sort of determination/ambition I'd take some pictures of the things that are left on the island that I love (double entendre intended)...maybe one day.

Back Amongst the (Sorta) Productive

I hounded Leslie endlessly to finish this piece for me, stemming from a cellphone conversation some months back, as I was driving home from yet another job interview; and I'm just now getting around to using it.

Anyway, there was some kind of discussion about how she had me listed in her cellphone as "Pony" (a fairly innocuous nickname we call eachother), and how once when riding in the car with her cousin, her cousin was bewildered that a Pony was calling her on the phone.

We laughed (probably too long) about the thought of her cousin imagining an actual pony making a phone call, and then somehow the conversation morphed into a pony going on a job interview. And the idea of a pony in a business suit apprehensive about an interview at a glue factory just about summed up my job hunt that has mercifully come to an end.

After too many crappy interviews to recount, I finally got a job, and started work about two months ago. I'm very happy to say that I'm no longer working in a "terrestrial" radio station---and can now loudly advocate Sirius Satellite Radio to everyone in the land. No, I don't work for Sirius Satellite Radio either. I just like it a whole lot.

Anyway, I now work in a hospital, but not in any sort of medical capacity, and that's about as specific I'd like to get about my actual position.

But I can say that it's been an adjustment, working in a hospital. I couldn't help but feeling eerily similar to when I showed up at college. There's an overwhelming sense of "they", that there's some shadowy consortium working the knobs & switches behind the curtain that makes this whole place run. There's also a department, vice president, director, manager, supervisor, and then finally regular staffers for just about everything. And, most like college, it's not entirely out-of-the-ordinary to look up from your desk and see someone passing by in not much more than their underwear and socks.

OEF Challenge: M&M your Friends

Leslie & I were talking over IM, and discovered that we'd both made M&M's of ourselves. She wasn't crazy about the one she'd made for herself, so I offered to make her. Thus, an OEF challenge is born. The rules are you can't get fancy with Photoshop--you have to use the options available on the website, as shabby as they may be.

Above you have my personal M&M, as well as my Leslie & Hench.

My Me Choices: I don't have any special excuse for my choice in shell color, besides the fact that I'm sorta tan most of the year. And I looked weird purple. The hair selection over at becomeanmm.com was sort of vexing, so I settled on this once I accepted the fact that I was going to have to abandon any semblance of reality as I was making a self-portrait if I were an M&M candy. The glasses are easy because my glasses are purple and sorta look like those. Same thing with the shoes, except I added a dash of purple to color-coordinate with the glasses. The tiki drink is an omage to a favorite glass/cup of mine that I found in a shop in Cape May lots of years ago. It holds the perfect amount of beverage and could very well double as a weapon as it weighs like 3 pounds.


My Leslie Choices: I settled on Leslie's lovely greenish/silverish hue because that is the designer Ralph Lauren color that she recently settled on for an accent wall in her house. Her hair color is a throwback to the color it was when I met her, and the shortness/choppiness is a throwback to the haircut from hell she received by visiting Captain Zig-Zag next to Gray's Pharmacy. Athletic socks because she is at the gym like every minute, and headphones because she is a voracious consumer of music.


My Hench Choices: Hench is blue in honor of the first car she drove when I knew her, and her current one. Her eyes are all wonky because of her recent Lasik-related troubles, not because she's about to go postal (though she might). Her hair is another unfortunate victim of poor choices in the character creator, and I didn't want to use the same hair as I did for mine, so she's just wearing a pony tail. Yellow flip-flops to go to the beach, and Bobo hot from the dryer!


This was fun.

Scothy & the Gardlers

This is my brother's dog, Scotchy:



In this picture, you can also see the the leg and arm of Leslie, who was drawing a picture of her new best friend on my laptop with one hand (the one not occupied by a non-ironic Smirnoff Twisted Drinkamabob). And here is her masterpiece:




My brother really, really likes this picture. He said he's never met anyone who could "do that" before. Which I thought was weird, but regahdless, Leslie is quickly becoming the official artist of the Gardler clan.

On a totally unrelated note...While hanging out in the 'peake this weekend I was playing some Mario Party 7 with my nephew, and in creating a new game, I named it 'CAG', and he asked what that stood for. It totally blew his 7-year old mind that I had the same last name as him. I'm not sure if I should be worried. Are family ties not something covered in elementary school?

Another fab discovery on my trip to the 757 was a new children's show to enjoy, "Charlie and Lola", which my 2-year old niece is quite obsessed with. This is an import from our friends at the BBC, and it's adorable. I went to the website, and I moused-over some part and Lola said, "I'm too busy playing to do computers!". Am totally having my TiVo pick this up for my grumpy days.

Also a cure for grumpy days? This picture of my aforementioned niece, Emily, who couldn't resist hopping in my newly-made-up couch-bed and pretending to be immediately asleep (though she sadly didn't do the fake snoring noises).




It should also be noted that this is pretty much the only useable picture I took of Emily all weekend. She has an annoyingly adorable habit of fluttering her eyes when a camera flashes, so she looks like she's actually asleep in every damn one.