Zen Pencils

Thanks to a post from a Gawker Media Site, I managed to stumble upon Zen Pencils from Australian artist Gavin Aung Than.

Zen Pencils are interesting, often inspirational, quotes taken from a variety of sources and put to a more graphical form. Than makes a lot of his work available as print posters and even has a few free ones available as well (download & print off yourself).

There were a few Zen Pencils that I really wanted to be able to use as desktop wallpapers, which wasn't easy to manipulate because the art is often oriented vertically, which doesn't always work for my widescreen monitor.

After making a couple of wallpapers I discovered that Than already had a few fan-made wallpapers that he graciously makes available to anyone who wants it. I found that pretty cool, so I made sure to email him with the wallpapers I made:

I made these to fit my 1600 x 900 desktop, with some allowances made for my menu bar. I don't know how well Blogger handles the pictures, but this should give you a snapshot of Zen Pencils and I'm sure someday Than will make them available for download.

Empty Promises to at Least This Veteran

I just have no freakin idea who is in charge of the mess that is the Veterans Retraining Assistance Program (VRAP), but I'm thinking it was one of those initiative intended to make people feel good and not really intending to actually help veterans.

I spent time & money attending school towards a "high-demand" occupation. I graduated last May and you know how many of these "high demand" jobs I've seen come up in this field? One....well technically two, but one required a Masters Degree and a bunch of experience.

Now the whole idea behind VRAP is giving unemployed Veterans help & opportunity for employment. I just wonder how they intend to actually accomplish this task. Today, more than three months after graduating I receive my first contact from the Department of Labor.....the Dept. "in charge" of VRAP:

June 20, 20131

Dear Christopher Stogdill,

Thank you for participating in the Veterans Retraining Assistance Program (VRAP).

We at the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) and Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) would like to take this opportunity to wish you well as you begin your job search2 for the high demand occupation of General and Operations Managers3.  We would also like to inform you that as you begin your career search, you are not alone4.  DOL supports nearly 2,800 American Job Centers, sometimes known as One-Stop Career Centers, across the country that can provide you with high quality career services at no cost to you.

Whether you are looking to explore new opportunities, update your resume featuring VRAP training, receive tips on interviewing techniques and preparing cover letters, find out more information about salaries and benefits in various occupations, or receive assistance with your job search, American Job Centers are ready to provide you the career services you want!  In addition, your military service entitles you to Veterans’ priority of service in all of our American Job Centers!

To find out more about the services available at American Job Centers and to search your state’s job bank we encourage you to visit, http://www.careeronestop.org/.  To find the American Job Center nearest you please visit, http://www.servicelocator.org/ where you will be able to find the nearest American Job Center location by entering your zip code or city and state. Also, visit DOL personnel collocated at your local VA Benefits Regional Office. To find the Regional Office nearest you please visit, http://www2.va.gov/directory/guide/home.asp.

Again we want to thank you for your participation in VRAP, and encourage you to take advantage of all the career services currently available at your nearest American Job Center.  An American Job Center staff member will be in contact with you to offer assistance and help you achieve your career goals.

Sincerely,

The US Department of Labor

1) June 20th?! Still a whole month after I graduated. Some help then would have been useful......
2) "As I begin my job search"? If I didn't need the help this would all be a moot point.
3) Umm.....while I have a degree and experience in that field, that isn't the one I entered VRAP for.
4) I've been alone so far........ 

Chicken Fight!

Today is my 11th Wedding Anniversary and I'm not sorry to report I'm pretty much phoning this entry in today....

....mostly because I think this video is freakin awesome and unfortunately I don't have anything worthwhile to add.

Re-enactment of Peter Griffin/Giant Chicken fight from family guy.

Enough said: go here and see for yourself.

What Should We Buy?

For those of you thinking about maybe....possibly....kind of getting a next generation console this year, no doubt you've been pondering the great PS4 vs. XBONE debate.

Hopefully this NSFW Bert & Ernie Mashup will help you decide....

....ok, it won't help with anything, but I found it amusing all the same.

Feeble Attempts in Humiliation

For those of you who for some reason simply don't know.....I was considered "ornery" as a child. I still have a bit of a mischievous streak in me and the transition from "ornery" to "mischievous" has taken quite some time.

Back at my first duty station when I was in the Air Force, almost 20 years ago, I was fortunate to live at McChord AFB. I say "fortunate" because I worked at Ft. Lewis, which is normally where I should have been garrisoned. The folks at McChord were doing us a favor, but they weren't going to do too much for this group of Airmen that didn't belong to them.

Blog of Tattoo EPIC FAILS

Those of you who know me in real life know that I have some ink. Nothing too major, just three pieces that hold a strong personal significance to me.

I am neither for nor against tattoos, excepting for some stupid ones, because I think tatts are, or at least should be, personal. I also expect people wanting to get ink done to be mature and sober. In case my nephew reads this, I think getting your last name tattooed across the whole of your back (shoulder to shoulder) in an ugly font is a bad idea.

I think getting wasted on a three day pass in a foreign country and then getting your first, second, third and fourth tattoos covering your shoulders and both pecs is also a bad idea. I wish I had taken pictures of the guy I'm thinking about.

Seriously though...bad tatts basically just turn you into a walking billboard of dumbassery. Why let people know at a glance that you are stupid? Let them walk up and talk to you for a while first. Make them earn that knowledge. Of course I do realize that telling dumb people about earning knowledge is oxymoronic...and they wouldn't be reading this anyway.

The whole purpose of this post, aside from a related story I'll have to tell later this week, is to draw attention to this awesome blog called Hanzi Smatter. People send in picture of their Kanji tatts and the blog author translates them. Evidently there are a lot of tattoo parlors that have several kanji "alphabets" where people just get English words and phrases translated on a letter-by-letter basis.

Anyone who has traveled outside of the US to non-English speaking countries pretty much at all should understand why this just doesn't work. First of all, language differences aren't just a difference in alphabet and pronunciation. Proper nouns, idioms, well everything comes from a different train of thought.

I'm not going to get into semantics, but with Kanji whole words or even sentences/concepts in English can be expressed with a single graphic. Besides, unless you can actually understand the language, do you really want to have some foreign writing permanently etched onto your body?

These people did......

BFS Working on a New Album

I think I'm always one of the last to know about these things, but in case that isn't true I figured I'd let my 12 readers know that one of my favorite bands, Bowling For Soup, is putting together a new record.

They are self-publishing this record, using Pledge Music to get the funds together. This seems to be quite the thing to do these days...self publish that is....because I'm guessing that the label companies these days simply aren't adding enough value for what they take off the top from the bands.

My first indication that this was happening was back in 1998 when I discovered an artist I liked in Austin TX. Before trying to self-publish her music this artist worked for a record label. The fact that she was going off on her own pointed out some problems....to me at least.

Anyway, this is a post about BFS, so I'll get back to it. For $10 you get a digital download of the record when it is released. For $15 you get the digital download, a physical CD, and another download of an exclusive acoustic album. Figuring $10 for a digital download and $15 for a CD is what I'd pay anyway, this seems like a good deal.

The fact that BFS is donating 5% to a artist relief-fund and kicking in the extra acoustic music tells me that the record labels have to be taking in a lot off of artists...whoops, I went there again.

Feel free to check out the BFS Pledge Music site, or you could just watch the pledge video here...

....but your probably want to go and make a pledge.

We Went to See Red 2 Today

Today Carolyn and I went to go see Red 2. We both enjoyed the first one and neither of us had really seen anything regarding this second one.

Now to be fair, neither of us watches regular TV and we don't get the local paper, but still....to have a comic-based movie come out an to NOT have heard anything.....just doesn't seem right.

Of course as soon as the movie rolls you find out it is a DC property, so maybe it really wasn't advertised worth a crap. This is a shame because outside of some of the last few Batman movies DC hasn't done well with regard to comic book movies. When they do a good job, like they did with Red (and I dare say Red 2), they should get off their duff and let everyone know.

Aside from one specific detail, which I shall not divulge, I found most of the movie quite unpredictable. I laughed more than I expected and there were quite a few little tongue-in-cheek surprises that were tie-ins from the 1st movie.

Another surprise is to look up the movie online and see that Rotten Tomatoes has given it a 42%, which is odd because the audience gave it a 72%. I think the 72% rating is much more appropriate.


In short, if you liked Red you should enjoy Red 2.

Homemade Pineapple Vinegar

It has only taken about two months, but I have finally finished making pineapple vinegar.

Fred Meyer had a big sale on pineapple a couple months ago. They were $1 a piece and of course I stocked up. Fresh pineapple is fricken awesome and I made a HUGE batch of pineapple jam.

I'm always up for trying new food projects and after reading a copy of Wild Fermentation I decided I really needed to try pineapple vinegar from the huge amount of pineapple scraps I had. Of course I didn't use all the scraps I had, but I did this on a large scale, making almost 2 1/2 gallons.

I didn't quite follow the Wild Fermentation book to the letter, nor did I really follow any specific directions. After looking at a lot of slight different "recipes" online I just went with the general summation I mentally made. The variations were pretty wide, ranging from one pineapple skin good for one quart to one skin good for a gallon. The amount of brown sugar seemed reasonably static around 1/4 cup per pineapple skin.

Another Bizarre Dream/Nightmare

Last night we had a strong windstorm blow through town and a lower-than-normal temperature drop accompanied it. It felt more like late August or early September rather than the 1st of August.

When the seasons change here and the relatively cool night start to turn cold I end up having some real freaky-deaky dreams. When I wake up I usually can only recall a fragment or two, for which I'm thankful, but if I get woken up early I can often remember far much more.

Over the years I've noticed that if I have a "nightmare" I tend to wake up early.

This morning I woke up quite early.....

Two Geeky Video Game Shorts

Today was a rich video-game video day thanks to the fine folks at Kotaku.

They featured two videos today, one was a cool fan-film making fun of the venerable Resident Evil franchise. It basically makes fun of some of the absurdity of the video games, but I think it is largely still approachable for those that haven't played any of the games.

The other is actually part of a series (ok, episode two of a two-part series) that looks like it could have been made by the creators of Portal. It it really well done, but if you aren't familiar with the game this short is probably lost on you. The animation is good though. I'll post the vid for the 1st episode instead of the one released today.

Enjoy....