Complimentary colors are the shiznit. Visualizing how scrambled eggs should is not so easy. 

Bacon grease

The best thing about vacation is the breakfast freedom.
As you have no real plans for the day, you are free to cook mega whopper breakfasts.
I'm talking bacon, eggs, pancakes....the works.
I woke up at 5 am this morning, made a mega, and watched Rene Zelwegger play an orthodox jew in a movie on IFC. She doesn't make a good orthodox jew, but I make good blueberry pancakes.
Then I went back to sleep (of course). I only have 2 vacation items left

1. get a haircut (i am sporting a semi mullet)
2. get an oil change

I have been putting off the oil change. Going to jiffie lube is excruciating. They always try to sell me 20 dollar wiper blades. It's just not right.

I had a dream last night about a praying mantis and a plate of scrambled eggs.  

Moving forward

I am kind of hyped about this project. Using Cote's suggestion,
I wrote a python script to parse out the real time queries found here:

METASPY.

It works pretty well. The next step is to get some sort of a handheld for dirt cheap (one with wireless) and port this script somehow so that it will run on the handheld. This will take a bit more time........

People are so sick. Check out these search terms that came up:

pre teen
rent increase letter
sda2546
fat teen photos
"water quality" + grants for teachers + california
18eighteen pics
bev doolittle
error on credit report
performance parts on line
international medical corps
jdm engines
how to setup ntpd for redhat 7.2?
rosie perera
loans
camarillo springs golf course
what college presidents earn more annually


I'm on vacation this week from work. It is 2 pm and I am still in my pajamas. I think its time for a nap.

Racking the cranial area

So the below picture.....
I have been trying to decide what I want them to say.
Then a cool idea hit.

This is hypothetical at this point but.....
What if installed two led screens.....one in each bubble. I could put in some bracing on the back to mount the screens. Then, somehow stream real time Google search strings to each screen. You would see things like this:

http://www.dogpile.com/info.dogpl/searchspy/results.htm?fci=1?filter=0&qcat=web

I have been itchin to build something. This could be it. I would need some type of small computer with wireless capabilities.

Any ideas of how this can be done? I am going to start with figuring out how to get the search results. The worst case scenario is I write a small java proggie to print them out.......

Almost done. Need to do touchups, finish the bubbles and it should be done. I spent like two hours shading the upper lip. It's probably the best picture I have ever done. 

a sunday selfie 

Minor Possesion

I'm not sure what triggered this memory.

In junior high and high school, getting beer on weekend nights was key. At first our process was lackluster, but over several years it was refined. Here is how it progressed.

The junior high years.

Junior high was rough in the getting liquor department. We were limited to foot traffic, bicycles, or the kindness of older brothers. At first we started using the older brothers of neighborhood kids. For the small fee of twenty dollars they would get a sixer for you. It didn't take long to realize this was a jip. Also, when you asked them, they often would hit you. I wasn't a fan of this. We then moved on to an equally dangerous situation. Up the road from my house lived the town karate instructor. We used to go to his house to jump on the trampoline. We also knew that he left his garage unlocked and that he had a fridge full of beer. In desperate situations, we would sneak in and steal his beer. This shit was pretty scary though. After all, he knew karate. Then we struck paydirt around eighth grade. Since we snuck out a lot, we would spend the nights walking around looking in the back of pickup tricks. In a small southern indiana town, coolers in the back up of pickups were always abundant. If you found a pickup with a boat trailer attached you were 100% guaranteed to find a cooler jam packed with old milwaukee. These methods got us through until high school, when we started driving.

High School.

This was cake. Finding somebody to by beer usually took a whole ten minutes of time. All you had to do was drive to the X-market parking lot and sit. Someone showed up. If that failed, Vern Tinsley would get it for you (if his back wasn't out). In extreme cases you just walked into the L store slapped a case up on the counter. The clerk would be all like "ID!". Since most L store clerks are dumb and can't do quick math, you just show them your liscence. 90% of the time they would sell it to you.

In high school we were all about the Little King's 40 oz. ers of malt liquor. Barry's parents went out of town one snowy weekend. We all bought 40oz'ers and were chillin. Nick Smith wanted to be cool so he bought two 64 oz'ers. Everyone was telling him, dude, you can't handle two 64s. He was that kind of guy though. Around 12:30 everyone is drunk and laying around. Nick says, "I don't feel good." Barry yells, "You motherfucker! We told you. If you have to ralph, do it outside on the patio. " Nick promptly jumps up, runs to the sliding glass door and yacks out 128 oz's of malt liquor. Unfortunately, he neglected to open the sliding glass door first so in essence he created a wall of yak, slowly oozing to the floor.

Gross.

Working. 

Colors are in. Let it dry for a few days, then do the outlines. 

sketchdump2

sketchdump2
Originally uploaded by ruelloehr.

Just a test. Picasa makes my pictures small. I wonder if this is better??

Flickr

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

Perspective study. Since i don't have a personal model, its up to my collection of maxim magazines and my mirror, hence all the self portraits and girls in their undies. 

excercise 2 

excercise 1 

I've been off work one day and am already bored :) I bought an artwork course on figure poses. Thats my goal for the next 11 days. Lots of sketches and to improve my people drawing and seeing skills.  

My first adult christmas card. It's from Nick & Colleen. Nick is my brother from a different mother. We both started work within 2 weeks of each other in Vermont. He is tall, lanky, and hails from a farm in the midwest. We shared an office and it was ok to fart in front of each other. Of all the people I worked with he was by far the best. Stupid smart, awesome pop culture knowledge, and he knew the cheat code to Contra. I have many awesome memories of him, and miss hanging out with him dearly. He begged for a layoff, received it, moved to D.C. where he lives in sin with his girl (who is also super - cool) and is pursuing a P.H.D. Two of the truly stellar people I have met along the way........  

Most of the big colors are roughed in. I need to do something clever with the car interior, maybe a burgundy ish thing. I want the car to be like a taxi, so I will lighten up the outside, and give the girl hair of straw.... 

statesman.com | MTV's 'Real World' coming to Austin

statesman.com | MTV's 'Real World' coming to Austin: "MTV's 'Real World' coming to Austin"


The real world is one of my dirty little obsessions. Now it comes to my home. There is really no excuse not to watch now.

Horrible holiday cards

Some of these are really really bad.


BAD CARDS

Deafening noises

The sounds of the crickets chirping here at work today are overwhelming. My emails go without a response. I sit in a large bullpen, normally with about 8 people, but today we are down two 2 americans and 2 guys from japan. I haven't seen any other humans yet today. Vacation begins Friday.

We held our annual family Christmas dinner last night at the outback steakhouse. My brother related a story about a hottie he works with. Every time he sends an email he debates writing,

"You are pretty."

That made me giggle.


This guy has a cool job. I would like to steal it. He is an artist for the music industry...
Rockin' Jellybean


Yesterday I received my first ever christmas card in the mail from a non-family member. While this was somewhat disturbing as it is indicitive of age, I was comforted by the fact that the sender drew a vulgar picture in the card.

Overheard in my house

"I am not even religious and don't celebrate Christmas. I don't think I should be required to buy presents for other people."

The Straight Dope: Why do I start coughing when I clean my ears with Q-tips?

The Straight Dope: Why do I start coughing when I clean my ears with Q-tips?


Very important info.

holidays are here

As is apparent by the lack of people here at work today. Apparently people with a lot of vacation have decided to use it. What a concept. The remaining peons are sucking bandwith like there is no tomorrow.

Here is a fun link. People on the internet are genious.

http://forums.fark.com/cgi/fark/comments.pl?IDLink=1259893

word of the day

1. bi-sacksual

Able to use either paper or plastic bags.

MArk told the cashier that they could bag his grocerys in paper or plastic becasue he was bi-sacksual.

Globabalization

Sometimes globalization has ironic results.

I like to score.

Normally I would make fun of boys that do yoga. They generally look silly and it is the new hip thing to do. However, I like to try new things so I took a class today. It was awesome and I felt pretty relaxed when finished.

I have 4 days of work this week, then 10 days of nothing. This excites me even more. I plan on watching a lot of day time television, little house on the prarie, doing a new painting, and drinking a gallon of gatorade a day. These are subtle goals.

I want an old motorcycle. This has been looming in the back of my mind for a while.

I also discovered a new band. The polyphonic spree. They have a full sound.

It is 1:45 and I deeply considering taking a nap. I went out last night to see a bluegrass ish type band play. I was home by 11, but my brother ordered elf on on-demand video. It was stupidly hilarous.

Howard

Howard was a regular. He was also the first grown black man who I had ever spoken with since our hometown demographic was 99.9% white. He drove a teeny-tiny white Nissan truck whih was nothing short of ragged. He came around about 3 times a week that second summer. When Howard showed up he was getting 1 of two things, either scaffolding or a pressure washer. His job was washing houses.

Howard was all of about 5' 4 inches and maybe 125 pounds, a little on the scrawny side. You could see every vein in his arm. He was always high. The cool thing about Howard was that no matter oppressing the southern Indiana humidity, he always wore a sock hat. I thought that was cool.

Like all the others, we had one basic conversation which we replayed with each visit.

"Whassup youngblood?"

"Not much Howard, man...how are they treatin' you?" "Man, they are workin me like a damn slave! I need that little pressure washer again. Can you hook me up?" The rhythm and timber of his voice rivaled Snoop Dogg's, it was cool and smooth. I loved listening to him talk.

I would ring him up and then walk back to the warehouse to load up his truck. We also sold gas to dentist's offices, you know, laughing gas. "How about you hook me up with a balloon?" "Ok, but just this once." So I would fill up a balloon with the laughing gas, and he would huff it down and grin at me. "Your alright, youngblood." "Yeah, man, you are too."

Of all the people that came around that place, Howard treated me as an equal, not as just some kid. He only came around that one summer and I never saw him again.

It's not perfect, but I am calling it done. Since my preference is painting people, this was to be a study a little more abstract than what I normally do. I also wanted to experiment with warm light and inanimate objects. I'd give it a C+ overall. I wanted to finish it up as vacation starts soon and I want to start prepping some new canvases.
 

Crowe

Crowe was a real piece of work and I never even new his first name.
He started coming around a few years after I started working there. You see, Crowe was an entrepreneur. He ran a business called "Sparkle Shine" cleaning. He was the guy who cleaned floors in the supermarkets at night. His power floor scrubbers were fueled by propane, which we sold.

He would show up about once a week always after the same phone call. "Dis is Crowe. You got some propane?" "Yes," I would sarcastically say into the phone. Then he hung up without even saying goodbye. You couldn't miss him when he arrived. I would spy the dilapidated maroon cargo van, the child molester model, pulling into the drive. Out of the cab would step a giant of a man. As I remember, his heighth paralleled Andre the Giant. He was easily a 7 footer. Time had not been so kind to him. He was tall and saggy, sported a Larry from the three stooges haircut, and had a salt and pepper moustache. Have you ever met somebody, and just by looking at them, knew that they would never be considered the brightest bulb in the bunch? That was Crowe. He was a bit dim, but goddamn, when he talked it was poetic.

Both my brother and I to this day recite "Croweisms". He would bestow this wisdom upon us over the course of 3 summers, 7.5 minutes at a time (the amount of time it took fill his propane bottles). I should also mention he had a bit of a speech impediment.

Our first conversations were brief and one sided. Crowe would see one us and holler, "Hey 'tupid. Ged over derr and fill up my pwopane!" "Don't jip me. I know you didn't fill it up all da way last time!" I think Crowe was a tad on the paranoid side. He always thought we were out to jip him.

Having a shitty summer job forces you to be creative. The creative outlet I shared with my brother was harrassing the customers any way we could. To do that, you needed an in. We found ours with Crowe. I don't even remember how the conversation came up, but one fine summer day we discovered Crowe's secret love......boxing. From there, it was go time.

On this day we were both hauling his propane tanks to dispenser. Empty, they are not bad, but when full they were about 60 pounds. If I remember correctly, that was 1/2 my body weight at the time. "Crowe, did you know me and my brother are boxers?" "What? You are? Youse any good?" "Shit dude, 14 knockouts between us."
"You boys is fullz ah shit!" "I tell ya what. You two punks come down to da gym. I gotta twelve year old down der, he will wear yo azzes out. He will dot yo i's and cwoss yo t's."

"He will dot your i's and cross your t's." I had never heard such a beautiful phrase come from a grown man's mouth.

"Now put those tanks back in da van. I gotta bad back!"

And off he would go.

To this day, I wait for the moment when I can use that surreal phrase in a normal conversation. The moment will be magical.

Crowe. 

Yahoo! News - Ala. Judge Wears Ten Commandments on Robe

Yahoo! News - Ala. Judge Wears Ten Commandments on Robe


This just makes me sad.

status

Illness has set it
somewhere between feverish
and clammy.
Antibiotics are necessary. or first aid.

Rest is required
but the idiot dog
keeps trying to hump
my achey legs.

He also defiled the garage 

Furry butt.

Very nice weekend with an extra day thrown in. Thursday night i went to the midnight premier of Ocean's 12. The movie was semi sucky but i had never been to the Alamo drafthouse before. The place is awesome. They showed an Elvis video prior to the movie. Ooh lala.

Friday night I went to a friend's office christmas party. I figured it would be yucky, but turned out to be a blast.

Saturday we went to a play, the Santaland diaries, and then to a late dinner at a chic restaurant in South Austin. Very fun night.

Thats all. Nothing clever. Nothing philosophical at the moment.

The bone is big it won't fit through the doorway. The little bastard drags it around everywhere. 

took me a while to get the bodies, flesh and clothes correct. Nothing left but small details now. 

doodles 

Blissfullness

Last show of the year. I just ordered my copy.

ruel -

Thanks for your order with CD Baby!

This is just a happy automated email to let you know a real person
will email you as soon as your package is sent, and you will also
receive a paper receipt with your order in the mail.

Please save this email in case you have any questions about your
order.

ORDER # ****** - Thursday, December 9th 2004, 09:29 - (PLEASE READ!)

1 of: PIXIES: live in new york - 12/18/2004 (late show, 12 midnight)
($25.00 each)



No work for me tomorrow. I am taking a vacation day. A friend invited me to see a midnight screening of Ocean's 12 at the drafthouse.

Musings

I just finished a pretty cool book. Here is the premise:

Average guy has average life. One night he goes for a walk, a statue on the building above him breaks free, and crashes to the ground, narrowly missing him. He realizes that he has been living his life in completely the wrong fashion and that he cannot force the world to bend to his well. At that moment, he decides to live his life strictly by chance. He hails a cab and heads to the airport and buys a ticket for the next departing flight, leaving behind his wife and family without saying goodbye.

The book then spends a few chapters discussing his "fly by the seat of his pants" approach to life. The ending though, in my opinion was perfect. He meets a girl and settles into a life which is a mirror of his previous life. Irony?

Whitey McTrashey. 

My first attempt at computer art.  

Another great pic i found on my computer. 

I found this picture tonight. At first glance, i thought it was shit. But look in the bottom left hand corner. In it is a man wearing a pink tutu. Life is surreal. 

Elusive dreams and jelly knees

8 hours. 8 straight hours.
8 straight hours sitting in a semi comfortable office chair with olive upholstery.
That is how i spent my day today. I am quite sure it is making my butt flatt. Someday I will need cheek implants to restore a round hemishpere like shape.

I left promptly at 4:59 and waded through the crowded streets with high hopes. Monday nights are for the gym and life drawing. My secret lover grasped me in her grips as soon as made it home though. I sit here now. 7:20 p.m., and my motivation is absent.

A friend once sent a prophetic email which read "I just want to sit on the couch and eat candy." I don't really like candy, but the overall gist rings true.

My weekend was poor due to 2 straight days of cranium cracking. I whittled the days away sitting in the book store and reading magazines with no intentions of buying and eating advils with coffee.

I've been tired.

The hidden rage of Donald Gossar. 

Acts of benevolance

My bestest Japanese buddy, Mutoh-sann returns home tomorrow. We are taking the afternoon off to go shopping. He wants "American rock star clothes". It should be an interesting day. His English is only slightly better than my Japanese.

The bodies are roughed in now and I am happy with the shapes. Time to really put the flesh tones in, the start adding the details on the clothing.