andrew_jorgensen

I haven't done one of those gratuitous icon posts for a while, having spent very little time making icons recently (though more time making icons than updating my LJ). Here are a few userpics I've made in the last few months.

The strange thing is I didn't even have to download this episode to get the screencap:



"Hey Sweetheart! Whatcha got in that Poodle Gun? Anything for me?"



Using VirtualDub (as opposed to ActualDub) to grab frames of animation has made me respect how much animators rely on loops of sometimes as few as four repeated frames; imitation is one of the more sincere forms of respect.



Comics are even easier to screencap than television!



(In the original it's "I'm afraid I can't understand a word you're saying . . . I don't speak Fascist" which has a devastating power I can't fit into that little word balloon.)

And, finally, a caduceus!



That leaves two slots open. Maybe I'll figure out how to make borders before I've filled my allotment.

Yesterday's icon made me expand my wishlist. Making complex animations would go a lot easier if only I had my own East Asian sweatshop. After all, the producers of Futurama have their Korean animators, and they're able to get forty-five frames of a scene; by myself, I can manage only twenty-two. Yes, I definitely will be looking into this unfair labor practice idea. Maybe I could take on an unpaid iconing intern.

Speaking of unfair labor practices, my favorite quote in today's New York Times comes from this article on Wal-Mart's successful resistance to unionization:

Cody Fields, who earns $8.10 an hour after two years, said that he had originally backed the union "because we need a change" but that the videos had been effective. "It's just a bunch of brainwashing," Mr. Fields said, "but it kind of worked."

I guess it did.

Personally, I have no problems boycotting Wal-Mart; I find shopping there unpleasant and I am glad to avoid it. It's just that all the standard complaints about Wal-Mart can also be levelled against Target, which is often non-union, drives out local mom-and-pop stores, etc., and I love shopping at Target.

Also in today's Times is an article on some Alaskan bacteria that were revived after lying frozen in a pond for, possibly, 32,000 years. There's a techno-thriller plot in that; Michael Crichton might have to revise his stance on global warming.

And finally, the Times also contained an ad: "My kingdom for your old jewelry!" it proclaimed, above an etching of Henry VIII. "Henry VIII loved jewelry, and he didn't care about the cost. Windsor Jewelers is like him in this respect." Windsor Jewelers, Inc., apparently wants very much to associate itself with the British Crown and isn't too particular about those who wear it being distinct individuals.

Today I assembled a rolling tea cart from a cheap, drugstore-bought kit. The last line on the page of instructions was the boldfaced "CAUTION: Do Not Injured Yourself When Installing." That should hold up in court against any claims of liability. My East Asian sweatshop will have better proofreaders!

Gary Farber, the bestest blogger around who's shown up in my comments, links to a Locus article in which Lucius Cook reviews Futurama in terms of treating science fiction literature as more than just material for pastiche. And he does so without even mentioning "The Sting," an episode which bears a striking resemblance to Philip K. Dick's A Maze Of Death. One does, however, get to read of Matt Groening implying that Heinlein possessed a sense of humor, not a suggestion one hears every day.

11:23. After a few weeks of this, I'll have medians established for each day and I'll know how disappointed to be.

I've decided to do scrollgirl's icon meme, because other than cutting and pasting some <IMG SRC=url> tags, there's not much for me to do. The entire onus is on you! Muahhahaha! So, go right ahead and tell me which of my icons are most representative of me, or which you like the best, or which you'd hope to never see again.

( These, then, would be my icons. )

I don't usually gakk stuff -- but then, when you come right down to it, I don't usually post -- but this bit of ponygirl2000's is too good to pass up. Though I tend to denigrate the conspiratorial mindset, I have to admit that the possibilities of historical figures having met under strange circumstances sends my mind to some interesting spaces. The fact that Jimi Hendrix, Miles Davis and Sly Stone were all in London soon after the 1970 Isle of Wight festival makes me wonder about secret recordings of late-night jam sessions. (In fact, Jimi had made tentative plans to jam with Sly on the night of September 17, but he didn't feel like going and instead died.) That the Unabomber studied math at Harvard at around the same time as Tom Lehrer was teaching there makes me reflect on the different manners in which one can release one's cynical and anti-social impulses.

Indeed, I'm not sure that Alan Moore has done anything that exotic in The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. Philip Jose Farmer's Riverworld series takes a similar idea of a group of figures from history and literature banding together for adventures. From various television cartoons, I remember Al Gore's Action Rangers and Leonardo Da Vinci's Fightin' Genius Time Commandos (all good things ultimately spring from The Tick). In any case, this game of Moore and ponygirl is one I have played before. I remember wandering among the tombs in the Basilica of Santa Croce in Florence thinking to myself, "Those interred here would, should the resurrection occur, make a kick-ass A-Team." Galileo would be the MacGuyver of the team; Michaelangelo (whom all the women go crazy for but he has his eyes squarely on the mission) would be the artful one; Dante (admittedly buried in Ravenna despite having one of the largest tombs in the church) would have the inside track to the post-apocalyptic landscape; and the conniving Macchiavelli (who has a bit of a complex over everyone else having such wonderful monuments while he got chucked into the floor) would be the team's wheeler and dealer. But this is not the team I want to outline today.

I once had the idea of writing a novel based on the idea that Francis Bacon, still seeking a return to royal favor, faked his death in 1626 so to be available to serve on missions for the British Crown, which he undertook with the assistance of his recent secretary, Thomas Hobbes. This would be its sequel, sort of its Forty Years After. I have decided to eschew the parameter that I can choose figures from anywhere along the space-time continuum and have focussed on Restoration Britain, though I have fudged some ages. In any case, I present the Order of the Squared Circle, Defenders of the Crown and Anti-Papist League!

The Leader: Thomas Hobbes, philosopher, traveller, garrulous arguer, suspected atheist, possibly the worst mathematician ever known. His loyalties to both the crown and to the Cromwellians were suspect; his loyalties to himself never needed any such scrutiny.

The Team: Aphra Behn, playwright and actual spy in the service of Charles II. In another age, one might say that anything a man could do she could do better, but considering the men with which I've surrounded her, one can see that that is faint praise indeed.

Peter Blood, physician and swordsman. A fictional creation of Rafael Sabatini's, made famous as the debut starring role of Errol Flynn. Might be, technically, a little young for inclusion. He distrusts the Catholic tendencies of Charles II, but is willing to defend the rights of free Englishmen up to slavery and death.

John Wilmot, The Earl of Rochester, poet, nobleman, favorite of the King. Famously dissolute. Not afraid to wield his blade, but is more cutting with his verse. Might be considered a little young for inclusion, but Dumas includes a young but clearly adult Rochester in Charles's court in 1660 in Le Vicomte.

The Recruiter: Oh, I don't know, Monk or Clarendon or someone.

Minor Villain: Christopher Wren, whose dastardly and insane plan to put London to the torch so that he can have the space to erect large buildings must be averted at great peril to our heroes.

Subsidiary Villain: Marco da Cola, from An Instance of the Fingerpost, an Italian gentleman and adventurer, curious about all things scientific. Or, just maybe, a Jesuit agent secretly trying to suborn Charles into the Catholic faith. Not easily disposed of, but really just a front for the true villain of the age, the General of the Jesuits, a man with the determination and the resources to rechart the course of history itself.

Major Villain: do I really have to say?

Hmmm. I'd have to read Pepys to really pull this off. Is it any wonder that I started dating someone whose speciality is 17th-Century English History? Saves me all that research.