BarArch Obama

got it from my new friend and prospective young rehabber accomplice Kelli!

Remember the ladies

Another lady-themed post. Plans to make lady video games. I like the av club's ideas more than the vid game company's Pretty in Pink: Prom Paradise or whatever.

Video Gamez For Ladiez | The A.V. Club:

"If you're going to condescend to women gamers, Paramount, at least do it all the way. Why not Steel Magnolias: Shelby's Return, in which players battle a zombie Shelby by throwing tears at her lumbering corpse (Tears are earned by gossiping at the beauty shop). Or Not Without My Daughter: Escape From Alfred Molina, in which players must absorb a certain amount of Alfred Molina's yelling, before gaining the speed required to run out of Iran."

Whiteboard Hilarity - a chronicle

VTS
Originally uploaded by dgray_xplane

I just found this shot running a search for VTS on Flickr. I remember Mr. Dave Gray with his camera, and I've been honing my flickr search skillz for some consulting work I'm doing so I gave it a shot. Success! I like it how I look v. serious, even though this was a very goofy half hour. I take goofiness very seriously, I do. Flashback to good times in July!

So in case you were puzzled, VTS stands for Visual Thinking School, and it's run by XPlane, a company here in St. Louis that I quite admire. They have it every week to stay on top of their craft. I think that's such a great idea. I found out XPlane existed in a very funny/modern sort of way (a blog! an email! ) and a few intrepid email address guesses and some plane flights some time later.... I found myself at this VTS -- these folks have fun and stay fresh! A real sharp bunch.

Putting/visualizing laughter (that was our subject...found from a creative lil' exersize we'd done earlier involving post-its and some introspection) into four-five little squares was really something --- we thought we were so funny.

Elvis dressed as a pirate + the "cat attacks baby" youtube video +"endolphins" + some (established and aspiring) fluent sketchers = laughter, right? If you click on the photo you can try to see some of our "work" in the photostream and judge for yourself.

This whole drawing on the whiteboard business reminds me of the times my junior year when me, Janna and the whole Penn '04 gang would sit in our apartment and play a game called "Jumbo Nintendo" for literally 5+ hours. I love it that a CompLit major (that'd be me), a Finance Major, Neuroscience major, a Music major, Management major, and occasionally our PreMed major friend...oo, and I think our chemistry major friend, too (yeah, he was good at it...I think its b/c he was Canadian -- its my theory that they are a naturally goofy people)...would just sit around and DRAW pictures for hours. Not that art majors DO sit around and draw for hours (do they?), but here we were none of us draw-ers...drawin' up a storm!

My sister discovered this awesome "game" while working on our high school yearbook with my friend Adam. You're supposed to draw 3 pictures that rhyme... that's pretty much it. Adam, who is hilarious, and his buddies (also hilarious) invented it and really set the standard with the first example:

The rhyme? Jumbo Nintendo, Teapot Pretendo, B-extendo. !!!!

So that's the model, created by Adam and his gang...it is the epitome of nuanced and advanced Jumbo Nintendo. The rest is history. I bet they never play it anymore, but ooooh man - we still do.

I get into such trouble on whiteboards. I have always liked'em. Chalkboards, too, frankly. I love those things! From drawing snarky speech bubbles over my buddies' heads in class (Adam was there -- i think his presence was a bad influence) to implying a cat attacking a baby is a funny concept...the list goes on now that I think about it. I have a complicated history.

ps I love it how finding this one random picture has suddenly sent me back not only to college, but to high school. I love flickr.
pps I also love it how I met a cat named Gabe at this VTS. He made a neat little video, and I later put two and two together (took me embarrassingly long) and figured out he wrote for Webster U's Hwy61 blog that everyone's talkin' up these days. I later heard Gabe on Topic A...a nice lil' show on the KDHX. Snaps to XPlane/VTS/St. Louis! That was cool.

For Meredith

I "made" this for my kid sister, who is hard at work on the Iowa caucuses. Everyone here in St. Louis is in Snow-Day mode, meaining they're walking around like zombies not wanting to go anywhere (myself included, i had no idea what to do with myself today)...so that must mean its time for internetting!

Don't send a lame Holiday eCard. Try JibJab Sendables!

I'm particularly fond of my part. I love this movie.

Its a cool site, jibjab.com .. seems you have to pay to get more movies made, which is indeed a bummer. Ya gotta have some sort of business model, so I can't complain toooooo much now!

Birthday yesterday was blizzardy beauty. I have mostly shots of Scott, who accompanied me everywhere I wanted to go. We sang in our choir with gusto! Pictures to be popping up on flickr soon. I hope the idleness of today goes away tomorrow!

absolutely nothin'

Chart Depicting "things war is good for"

Mathematical Charts of any type of music are funny, that's all there is to it. This site makes me laugh, and I don't even really listen to that much rap music. Really spend some time with this chart here - it's pretty frickin' genius! I love it.

See more...

WikiLou

During a particularly partiotic moment last year when I was a'livin' in france, I made this entry about my favorite highway in St. Louis.

No one's edited it! So, those who actually look to Wikilou.com for their information (and they should) about the main highways (44's soon to become THE MAIN one) in my town will get my candid opinion about what your love of 44 means about you.

Hey you!
You should make an entry on the wiki. If it's funny/obscure enough, it will stay for a year -- like mine has. I don't know why, but I'm quite proud of that. Even the picture of my favorite billboard has remained ("Everybody's NUTS...pistachios!")

I encourage all my buddies to write one up -- & if you do, send it on over. :)