Ten Years a Scrubbling Fool
A milestone: this week marks the tenth anniversary that I’ve been doing this weblog. It’s hard to believe a whole decade has passed since setting up a Blogger account so I could have a more dynamic element on my little site — complete with impenetrable web address containing a tilde (the scrubbles.net domain name would come a few months later). Although as of summer 2000 I had already been doing a monthly music review site (coded by hand!), this new venture opened up a completely new world. Before, the web felt one dimensional; after, it was a veritable lovefest of sharing, discussing, giving and receiving. All these years later, it still astonishes me that anyone would be interested in my ramblings on whatever crappy movie/book/album comes my way.
So, here’s to ten years of the bl*g! To celebrate, here are some links to other bloggers’ tenth birthday posts:
- Jason Kottke: Kottke.org is ten years old today (March 2008)
- Brad Graham: The BradLands at 10 (May 2008)
- Anil Dash: Ten Years! (July 2009)
- Gael Fashingbauer Cooper: PCJM Turns 10! (August 2009)
- Kevin C. Murphy: Ghost in the Machine: The First Ten Years (November 2009)
- Cory Doctorow: 10 Years of Boing Boing (January 2010)
- Meggan: Quiddity is now 10! (February 2010)
Related: Eight Years of Scrubbles.net (highlights reel); Seven Years of Unpigeonholable Tomfoolery (a look at the Scrubbles logos from 2000-07).
Living with the iPad
About a month ago, Christopher came to me with a surprise announcement: he was ordering a new Apple iPad. He was thinking about getting something similar to replace our old Dell laptop computer as a simple internet connection for us while going on long trips. As the Apple person in the family, I was delighted with this development — it certainly was going to get more use from me than that crappy Dell.
Now, I’m no early adopter when it comes to new technology, but the iPad really epitomizes what I’d want from a techno-gadget. When the iPhone first came out, I thought “this would be nice without the phone.” Then Apple released the iPod Touch, and I thought “this would be great if it was bigger, so you could read e-books and browse the internet.” Voilà, the iPad! The first generation iPad isn’t perfect; it’s still a bit bulky and the screen could use a few more square inches. However, even after a few weeks I can tell it will be a useful part of our household. We’ve already had a few times while watching a movie when C. will whip out the thing to check on an actor in the Internet Movie Database, a move that would have been not worth the extra work using the laptop.
The first thing I noticed on the iPad is how intuitive the interface is. You move around with the brush of a finger, like on the iPhone but more natural. Typing is accomplished with a small pop-up keyboard. Sure, typing with one hand takes getting used to, but I was able to adapt to it startlingly fast.
The first thing we did was to synched it up to my Mac’s iTunes. I downloaded several free apps, including some news feeds from NPR, the BBC and USA Today. While one could access all three via Safari, I kind of enjoy having them in their own uncluttered state. Browsing on Safari is nice, but the type is a bit too small and I had more than one instance of accidentally tapping the wrong link. As for the controversial lack of Flash, I’ve barely noticed it. Strangely enough, the best app I’ve seen has been MultiPong, a beautifully rendered simple pong game. Speaking of simplicity, there’s also a virtual koi pond app that Christopher immediately gravitated to. I bought SketchBook Pro, which packs an impressive array of features into a measly $7.99 app. At this point I’m just fooling around with it, somewhat frustrated at how I keep accidentally using my fingers to resize my sketches (hmm).
I’ve also explored e-books a little bit with Apple’s iBooks and Amazon’s Kindle app. First off, I think it’s totally cool that Amazon even has a Kindle iPad app. With it, you can see books in color and set the type at a comfortable size, even having pages displayed in brown on sepia (my favorite). I downloaded a cheap copy of Treasure Island with nice color illustrations by N.C. Wyeth; hopefully it’s a sign of things to come that more illustrated ebooks will come along. Although I haven’t explored Apple’s reader, I can already tell that the Kindle has an edge for being able to bookmark pages (if iBooks have bookmarks, I haven’t seen it (note: iBooks does have a bookmark, I now see)). One enormous downside of both is that the type is completely forced justified and not ragged right like in most paper books (remember those?). The font choices aren’t too thrilling, either. Hopefully future updates will remedy that.
Perhaps the most ringing endorsement I have for the iPad is that writing about it here makes me want to fire the thing up and explore more — off I go!
My First Modem
I recently came across a true artifact of its time while cleaning out the garage. This Hayes Accura 1140 modem was purchased after I moved into my first apartment in 1994. Armed with it, a Macintosh IIci, and a new America Online membership, I was ready to blaze the Information Superhighway — at 56K per second! Listen, I even had my place equipped with a separate phone line to enable websurfing and talking on the phone simultaneously (considering my pathetic social life at the time, not really necessary). I’m also not afraid to admit that the AOL membership was mostly used to find dates and look at porn. This was back when it took 15-20 minutes to download one photo, mind you. Thank our lucky stars that the internet has grown up since then, and so have I.
Dig this early AOL commercial from 1995. “A friend of mine told me ‘Try America Online.’ I said ‘Why? I’ve got a computer.’” That line always seemed so bizarre to me, even back then. What, were they selling to complete idiots?
Sunflower Saturday
Every Spring in our backyard, we get a lot of plants randomly growing here and there from the birdseed we throw out every weekend — milo, millet and beautiful sunflowers. I don’t know how it happens (from undigested seeds in bird poo, perhaps?), but we enjoy it a lot. Heavy rains this year have produced a bumper crop of sunflowers, including a couple of massive seven foot tall plants sprouting atop our compost heap. I took some photos last weekend when they were attracting plenty of bees and other flying insects (one of which was caught midflight in the pic below).
In other backyard news, our victory garden is coming along well. We’ve already gotten lots of lettuce which I never anticipated would grow so well in our soil. Carrots and green onions are growing nicely as well. Time to make carrot cookies! We also grew a half row of tomatoes from seeds. I wasn’t expecting much (again, desert ≠ verdant gardening), but the tomato plants have gotten so huge that they’re taking over neighboring crops. Having the garden located in a space that doesn’t get our killer afternoon sun might be helping. At any rate, I’m looking forward to having bunches of tomatoes to go with our lettuce, carrots and onions.
In the Garage
Last week, I went into the little studio we’ve set up for printing LitKids and took some photos to share. I have a nifty little corner of the garage set up with an old drafting table and a few inspirational things hung up on the walls. Things have been moving along okay, if a bit slowly for my tastes. There is so much trial and error involved in home screen printing, especially the method I’m using with photo sensitive goo and light exposures. I won’t bore you by going into too much detail; just want to mention that last Thursday I made the most perfect screen yet — a five minute sunlight exposure with four sharply defined images ready for printing.
Anyway, the photos below show some of the stuff I’ve been working on lately — a screen stretched with a cherished old silk shirt with a comic book pattern (which didn’t stretch right, soaked up too much liquid, and eventually got ripped), a piece with pages from a circa 1900 copy of Treasure Island pasted on, inks, papers, and all that good stuff. Enjoy!
The Cable/Satellite Trap
This New York Post story on how supposedly millions of Americans are giving up their cable and satellite services struck a chord with me. The article mentions that the average cable/satellite customer spends $70 a month on services, about the same as our DirecTV bill here at Chez Scrubbles. With every month that I must fork over that sum, I question why we’re paying so much when we can get the same programs on DVD or online. Do we really use it that much? I still love to watch Turner Classic Movies, but I only record about five or six movies a month on that. We also watch the occasional Modern Marvels or Project Runway, but it seems like everything on cable is about haunted houses, Nostradamus/Bible prophesies, macho men on the job, people with eighteen children, people with physical deformities, people who are grossly overweight, etc. etc. I’m paying for that?
By contrast, our monthly Netflix bill is less than a third of DirecTV’s — and we get so much more entertainment value out of that. Netflix probably hates the way we burn through dozens of movies every month. Now that we have our Wii and wi-fi set up with them, we can watch streamed content on the TV through them as well. I really want to try paring down the satellite to just the local network affiliates for a few months to see if we feel deprived in any way. What do you think?
Heidi Heidi Heidi Ho
Just finished doing another round of Lit Kids prints featuring a different character. These came out even better than the Anne of Green Gables one. Slowly, I’m learning this screen printing stuff.
One of the characters I have coming up is Heidi from Johanna Spyri’s novel of the same name. I designed the character first, then read the book. Interesting … more religious than I anticipated, but Spryri nicely conveys the atmosphere of a quaint, rustic Swiss village and its humble inhabitants (mostly kids and old people, oddly enough). I do think I aptly captured the impish, nature loving quality of Heidi herself in my design.
The copy of Heidi I just read is a nice “Rainbow Edition” from the 1940s with illustrations by Leonard Weisgard, much admired in artist circles for his modern approach to kid’s books. This edition also has some great binding with a pine and acorn pattern. Yeah, I can’t wait to rip this thing up for printing! That’ll have to wait for a later print run, however, since the first book I’m using is a different vintage edition published by Grossett & Dunlap. Its binding looks like it’s from about 1950, but the inside pages appear to be designed 20-30 years earlier with beautiful typography and ornaments of flowers, butterflies and the like (see the bottom three photos). Those pages laid underneath my modern-looking illustration should be a neat combination.
Turning Over a New Leaf
After a year, I think it’s time to give a sneak peek of my new venture — one that grew out of my frustrated inability to find work as an illustrator. I’m not going to dwell too much on the negative here, but lately it has been very difficult to find any freelance work at all. Last year, I put a lot of time and effort into sending out dozens of self-promotional postcards, only to find a chorus of crickets chirping in response. It was depressing as hell, but instead of throwing myself off a cliff I decided to channel that creative energy into something that’s on my terms. I’m making my own art and will try selling it on Etsy.
The photo below is the first fruit of my efforts. It’s a drawing of Anne Shirley from Anne of Green Gables screen printed atop facing pages from the book that bears her name. This was an, how we say, interesting experience. Many of the prints came out off-register and with blobby looking lines, but I might be deluded enough to believe those elements add to their funky handmade charm. They’ll get more professional looking in time. Anne is the first, but I have great designs ready for five more characters. The process has been an expensive learning experience, but I’m having a lot of fun with it. Each print is completely unique, and I think there are a lot of factors involved (nostalgia for printed books, new mommies wanting something special for their kids) that might possibly resonate with the Etsy crowd. Most of all, it’s a lovingly handcrafted project that totally reflects my style, not something someone else imposed on me. As far as I’m concerned, it’s already a success.
The Etsy store is not officially open yet. I want to get another character printed up so it’s not just Anne sitting there by herself. The shop ought to be going live in a few weeks.
Friday Fun
Christopher had the day off work today, so we decided to head out to Scottsdale and Tempe for some outdoor fun. Our first stop was Desert Botanical Gardens. This place is a a total snowbird tourist magnet, but it’s also a Phoenix area institution that reminds us of the beautiful flora and fauna that can still be found around here. C. had free passes, which included a special butterfly exhibit. The butterflies were great, and several of them were oddly attracted to my green shirt. After the gardens, we went thrift shopping and I found a set of small brown melamine bowls for my secret project. Then it was lunch at our favorite Mexican eatery in the area, La Fonda (a place that has stood in the same Scottsdale strip mall since I was a wee one!). We then drove to nearby Tempe to view the lake pouring water into the Salt River, and an exhibit on Chuck Jones at the Tempe Center for the Arts. The Jones exhibit was fantastic. It was mostly paintings and cericels from Jones’ personal collection, along with pencil drawings and other wonderful artifacts from the Warner Bros. cartoon vaults. A nice day — now I’m exhausted!
Gardening — for Victory!
This nice sunny Saturday was a perfect opportunity for us to plant the seeds for the very first vegetable garden in our backyard. We had actually been planning our victory garden for a while now. Christopher prepared the plot for planting last fall, and heavy rains over the winter caused the ground to get nice and soft. We have a good variety of crops including carrots, onions, bell and hot peppers, and green beans (marked by hand-drawn stones pictured below). I have no idea if the Arizona soil is good for vegetables, but we’re planning to water it diligently and hope for the best.
Wheels on Fire, Burning Down the Road
Welcome to our latest acquisition (Price Is Right voice) — a new car! This 2005 Pontiac Grand Prix was among the fleet of company cars for the place where Christopher works. When they came up for sale, we thought long and hard and decided to go for it. I loved my trusty old ‘97 Geo Metro (a hand-me-down from Christopher), but it was getting to the point where it was rattling, the AC didn’t work right, etc. So it was with a heavy heart that we donated the old vehicle to a local charity for the blind. This Pontiac is nice and sturdy, bigger than what I’m usually used to but very nimble and smooth on the road. Design-wise, I had this impression that Pontiacs were the cars made for dudes who think a framed Nagel print was the height of cool. This particular model is not too bad looking, however. Stylish, even.
Those Are People Who Died, Died
I was in the middle of reading about the fascinating people profiled in the annual Lives They Lived issue of the New York Times Magazine when I heard shocking news about the passing of another fascinating person. One that I knew, actually: Brad Graham of Bradlands.com. It appears that he died in his sleep of natural causes on December 31st, at the young age of 41. Yeah, I don’t believe it, either.
Brad was one of the earliest bloggers I knew of, and pretty much the kingpin of the (small) community of gay bloggers around in the early ’00s. Back then it was such a thrill to be writing on the net, and having someone else noticing what you were doing was an even bigger thrill — especially when that someone was as friendly and witty as Brad. His August 3, 2001 post, using the first Scrubbles redesign to explore childhood fear of Dow Scrubbing Bubbles, was typical Brad. We weren’t close friends or anything, but his warmth and humor was something I treasured over the years (we even briefly bonded over the ’70s kiddie-com Big John, Little John on twitter last year). I’ll miss you, Brad.
Fine Feathered Friends
I’m pleased as punch with the illustration for our holiday card for this year. Best wishes for the season, everyone.
From Beautiful Burbank
Christopher writes on our adventures attending a taping of The Big Bang Theory last night.
One thing he didn’t mention: after the taping, we were allowed to walk through the empty nighttime Warner Bros. studio lot by ourselves. Since we walked to the studio and the normal audience exit was at a parking structure on the opposite side of the lot from our hotel, they allowed us to take a shortcut (as long as we didn’t “dilly dally,” according to the studio page who helped us). The Warner lot has such a history, and being amongst the cavernous buildings where Bette Davis and Humprey Bogart once walked was such a thrill.
Scarf It Up
Earlier this year, I made a deal with crafty Kris of web-goddess fame: in exchange for designing a spiffy new weblog banner for her, she got to use her superfly knitting skillz to make me a striped multicolored scarf. The banner was finished last Spring, but it’s only tonight that the scarf has arrived from Kris’ homestead in Australia. Neat! I always wanted a scarf, and this one’s a beauty. Here’s a picture of me rockin’ it with my usual nighttime t-shirt and pajama bottom ensemble:
