The results are pretty durned awexome:

I love Science Ninja Hero Batman, Superman as a Gaiking-style Giant Robot piloted by a young boy’s wristwatch (with Clark Kent as the scientist who invented the robot), and the crazy Wonder Woman/Captain Harlock mashup.

DC actually briefly considered greenlighting this, but eventually passed. It’s too bad.
I would absolutely read this comic.

via Project Rooftop

Not only has his Three Ninjas music been featured as my Album of the Month.

Not only was Three Ninjas my Musician of the Year for 2010.

Not only has he been on an episode of a very popular television show, featured in the Stranger (twice) and Seattle Weekly, interviewed on the radio and in the New York Times, for which he had an actual photo shoot that resulted in this bit of handsomeness:

Jason J. Brunet in the New York Times

Not only that, but last week The Today Show flew him out to new york just so that Al Roker could have the honor of talking with him for a few minutes:

And perhaps the icing on the cake? Mr. Jason J. Brunet now has a Wikipedia page about him. AND HE DIDN’T EVEN MAKE IT HIMSELF!

Oh, also his fans have a habit of taking photos of themselves with Jason’s Three Ninjas stickers covering their private parts (link is very NSFW).

Fame it up, Famestopher!

In case you didn’t know: woodblock prints involve carving a block of wood for EACH color. So a ten-color print (including black but excluding white) takes ten separate woodblocks to print. And these prints are generally no larger than an 8.5″ × 11″ piece of paper. So the carving work is incredibly intricate. It’s also a fascinating process in that practically off of the prints are commissioned by a publisher who hires the artist to draw something. Once the publisher approves the drawing (and the colors), it’s handed over to the carvers who do the actual carving work. Then the prints are mass-produced and sold, sometimes bound in a volume, especially the “series” works (like the 100 Famous Views of Edo and Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji series (which contains “The Great Wave off Kanagawa“) of prints). So it was really a commerce-driven industry, not artist-driven.

I got this swell postcard!

After leaving the museum, we swung by the Fulcrum Gallery in Hilltop to see their latest exhibition, “Seasonal Affective” by Sean Alexander. Mr. Alexander (who has a very sparse website) suffers from seasonal affective disorder (which is pretty common here in the Northwest), and allows it to inform his art. His artwork is intensively, minutely detailed with excruciating and teeny-tiny linework. Like this postcard I picked up at the gallery:

So if for some reason you find yourself in the area during Fulcrum’s business hours, you should definitely pop in and look at them up close. And then after that I came back home.

Tacoma Art Museum

Carrie had to teach in the evening, but fortunately I did not have to go it alone. I picked up our friend Laura and we headed on down to the Tacoma Art Museum. Why? Well, for one thing it’s free on the third Thursday of every month (in the evening). For another—more important—reason, it was the opening celebration of the Mighty Tacoma exhibit, which involved an exhibit of a whole bunch of photos taken by local Tacoma artists, including our good buddy Neighbor Gary. He had six photos up—three black-and-white (silvered gel prints) and three rather large color prints. Gary was there schmoozing with all the people who came to gaze at his photos, and so, coincidentally, were my in-laws. They were on their way to their wedding dinner and had decided to stop at the museum.

One part of the exhibit was the opportunity to get your picture taken with a digital camera that then uploaded your image to Tacoma Art Museum’s Flickr stream. A slideshow of all the photos taken was transmitted to a big flat screen monitor mounted to a wall of the exhibit, so that you could be a part of the show! Carrie’s dad had absolutely no interest in being a part of this, so I posed instead with Carrie’s mum. She wanted me to do something “silly,” so I struck a pose that I think is rather indicative of our relationship:

She thought it was very funny.

Laura photo taken as well, and also participated in another interactive part of the exhibit where you wrote down your thoughts about Tacoma on a sticky note, then read your note out loud into a camera before sticking it on a wall of all the other sticky notes. I assume that the videos will all be edited together at some point.

Also, there were free cupcakes from Hello Cupcake.

Tollefson Plaza

At 6:00 our friend Katie was s’posed to be dancing across the street from TAM in Tollefson plaza, so Laura & I headed over there but nothing was yet happening. So we went back to TAM where there was a beer garden put on by the Harmon. They were showcasing a steamed beer, which was tasty but a little flat.

After the beer we went back to Tollefson and watched the dance, which was put on by a troupe called BQdanza, which unfortunately does NOT have anything to do with Tony Danza. Much dancing took place in the water in Tollefson, which must have been very cold by that time in the evening.

Dorky’s

The show was over by 6:30, which was a bit early to call it a night. So instead Laura & I hiked the nine blocks up Pacific to Dorky’s Bar Arcade, which right now is only Dorky’s Arcade because they haven’t gotten their liquor license yet. We played many a game of pinball, including Cyclone, Bride of Pinbot, Evel Knievel, Supersonic, and Space Riders. Culture at its finest.

After we ran outta coin we walked back down Pacific to my car and I proceeded to drive Laura back home… or so I thought. While en route, she got a text message and asked me, “Do you wanna go to an art gallery?” Seems a couple of her friends were going to go. And the gallery was two blocks from where we were.

Fulcrum Gallery

The gallery was the Fulcrum Gallery in Hilltop. They were showing the “Street Botany” series by Maria Jost. I’d love to give you a link to her blog or website or whatnot, but I just can’t seem to find anything. So here are a couple of images from them:

They’re these incredibly detailed illustrations of plants that grow in urban areas, but there’s usually something whimsical or odd about them. Like if you look closely at the dandelion one, you’ll notice that whole, tiny dandelion plants are actually growing on the little ball at the center of all the puffs. Another one was an illustration of various mosses arranged to look like clouds. In recent weeks posters had been made of the whole series and plastered up around town. I like them. They’re science and they’re fun.

After looking around the gallery for a while (and having a bite of cheese) we left before Laura’s friends ever showed up. I took her home then came home myself. The ey-end.

OCTOCAM

If you ever, ever want to know what an octopus is doing right this very second, Oregon State University’s Hatfield Marine Science Center has installed a camera in the tank of their resident 40-pound Pacific octopus, Deriq.

It is for some reason very enjoyable and relaxing to watch Deriq meander around in his tank.

ALT/1977: WE ARE NOT TIME-TRAVELERS

Artist Alex Varanese has imagined what it would look like if someone from today went back in time and re-created today’s modern electronics—cell phone, laptop, hand-held video game system, mp3 player—using the design aesthetics of 1977.

The results are absolutely fan-frikkin’-tastic.

I was born in 1977, so I completely remember this style of design. Y’all have no idea how much I miss high technology that had a faux-woodgrain finish. Glorious.

EDWARD CULLEN TAMPON CASE

Etsy crafter and all-around awexome human being Taisha McGee made the one piece of merchandise that no Twilight fan should be without.

The product description speaks for itself:

Bella’s most useful accessory. Case is 5.5″ by 2″ and holds two average sized tampons. Edward’s face is sparkly. Tampons not included.

RIVER TAM AND THE FIREFLIES

Holy eff but that is so freakin’ adorable. This is an actual album sleeve that artist Joebot made for a gallery show (happens on July 9th).

But the really cool thing is that you can purchase a print of this picture at his Etsy shop as a gift to send to me! Joebot has some other really cool prints as well, like ones of the Nintendo princesses (and Samus).

AT-AT DAY AFTERNOON

An absolutely adorable short film with seamless special effects animation. Very well done.

THE WORLD’S ONLY NEWSPAPER

This is a fascinating collection of still frames and clips of people reading newspapers in dozens of films and television shows. The exact same newspaper each time. Going back decades. It looks like this:

It’s actually kind of astonishing how wide-spread this newspaper really is.

AQUATIC VIDEOS

Here are a couple of videos of aquatic awesomeness:

WATERMELON TURTLE

This extravagantly cute melon bowl is from my link-of-the month, Host-It Notes.

There are all sorts of other darling little foodstuffs at Host-It Notes, like sheep cupcakes, mushroom radishes, and frosting bees!

That’s about it for now.

I saw this yag at southeast corner of 6th Ave & Alder (at the former location of the ABC Chinese restaurant). “Imagine the infinite possibilities that each day holds.”

The artist was thoughtful enough to sign the back of the yag:

So her name is “LaLa.” I think that this is a spectacularly awexome form of street art because

1. Pretty!
2. Unobtrusive: if you didn’t know it was there you might just miss it.
3. Easily removable: if someone really doesn’t like it, all they need is a pair of scissors or a knife and they can cut that sucka down (or if someone wants to own an original LaLa piece).
4. Pretty!

The Feed Tacoma blog also found a yag! I’m not sure where this one is, but it looks like it’s on a stop sign:

I say, “Good job, LaLa! Keep it up, and add some prettiness to Tacoma!”

Here I’m going to round-up a big random heaping of things I’ve found interesting recently. Artists, websites, musics, games, whatever. In random order:

Michaela Eaves

I saw her at a studio open house where she had some paintings and prints out for display. I really dug the way her paintings have heavy outlines, and the way the lines break up the colors in such a way that her paintings almost look like stained glass.

She also had an adorable painting of a rocket ship, done in a soft, children’s book style of painting. I dug it, but I can’t find a picture on her website (which is mostly about her graphic design & illustration business):
www.michaelaeaves.com

8-Bit Jesus

I thought this was pretty spectacular. Not only did Doctor Octoroc (sic) make 8-bit chiptune versions of many Christmas songs for his album 8-Bit Jesus, but he also wrote them in the specific styles of various 8-bit video games. My favorites are definitely “Carol of the Belmonts,” “Bubbles We Have Heard on High,” and “8 Days of Master Robots,” which very excellently captures the essence of the Mega Man experience. Also, “Icarus! The Herald Angels Sing” is quite accurate. Check it out:
http://www.doctoroctoroc.com/8BitJesus/

Machinarium

Machinarium is a beautifully done, old-style, point-and-click adventure video game, unbelievably done entirely in Flash. I like it ’cause it’s about robots. But more than that, the world is completely enthralling, and the puzzles all involve robot logic more than real-world logic.

The art style is pretty much spectacular. You can play a demo for free, or buy and download the full version here:
http://machinarium.net/

Kaiju Dance to Thriller

Just what the title says: a bunch of Kaiju dance to Michael Jackson’s “Thriller.”

Wonder Woman Pumps

This woman takes shoes and tastefully collages them with pages from Wonder Woman comic books. She tends to use mostly monochromatic images, so the effect is a little subtler than you might expect.

She has an etsy shop where she makes all kinds of shoes and boots (not just Wonder Woman):
http://www.etsy.com/shop/Pachainkapink

Regurgitated Thanksgiving Dinner Scarf

Taisha McGee sells what she calls “Ugly Scarves.” They’re mostly actually quite pretty, but she nevertheless gives them hilarious names based loosely on their color schemes, names like “Mulched Roses,” “Tidy Bowl,” “Moldy Cheese,” “Mushy Froot Loops,” and my favorite, “Regurgitated Thanksgiving Dinner.” She also has the sense of humor to take photos of the scarves wrapped around a cardboard stand-up of John Wayne. Bravo!

Check them all out at her etsy shop:
http://www.etsy.com/shop/TaishaMcGee

Alexis St.John

An artist whose work I saw in a tea shop in Downtown Tacoma (Mad Hat Tea, 1130 Commerce Street) and I liked the humor and simplicity in it. I also really appreciated how most of the paintings were really small; a lot of ‘em were only like 6″ × 6″, and I don’t think anything of hers gets over 20″ in any direction.

You can buy the actual artwork, of if you’d prefer you can buy frameable prints of it.
http://alexisstjohn.com/Gallery.html

TheSixtyOne

TheSixtyOne.com is a fascinating idea for a democratic music website, where the more people like a song the more popular it becomes, and ANYONE can upload ANY song they’ve created (as long as they’re legally allowed to blah, blah, blah, y’know).

Not only that, but it turns listening to music into kind of an RPG. You gain experience (called “reputation”) and rise in levels. There are quests (like “Listen to 7 recently-uploaded songs” or “Listen to the radio stations of 5 other people for 5 minutes each”) that let you earn experience and “hearts,” which you can use to mark a song as a favorite (i.e., you heart the song). And you also earn experience as other people later heart songs that you previously hearted. The more reputation you have, the more likely other people are to listen to your opinions (in theory at least). So you get tangible rewards for finding new, unheard songs that you really like and then getting other people to like them as well, other than the reward of discovering good music.

Also, TheSixtyOne.com is the only place right now where you can hear Taisha’s musc (yes, the same Taisha that makes those scarves). Just go here:
http://www.thesixtyone.com/taisha/

A Very Alan Thickemas

THE Alan Thicke, Leeni, and puppets. Lots and lots of puppets. And Blake Lewis is somehow involved. It exists, I just have no idea of how to see it. Other than these:

That’s about it for now.

My wife caught a powerful sick that lasted the entire week leading up to H’ween, so I was busy taking care of her as well as doing everything around the house that needed to get done. I also had to drive out to me mum’s place a couple of times so that I could borrow her sewing machine, which I needed to create the body portion of my H’ween costume. I’m not a very good tailor, so it took a while, but it came out shockingly well. More details in moments.

The theme I decided on for my H’ween punkins this year was “fossils.” Probably because my friend Three Ninjas is so into them. So about a week and a half before H’ween I carved the first one: an ammonite fossil!

Then the day before H’ween my pal Leiapico had a punkin carving party! It was also a costume party but I didn’t have my costume completely finished yet. Anyhoo, I carved another punkin at the party. You should recognize it pretty easily:

Then during the day on H’ween I carved a trilobite fossil:

Then I had another punkin left over, so I carved a fossilized dinosaur thigh bone into it just for fun.

And here they all are!

Normally Carrie & I make Reuben sandwiches with potato/green bean/sauerkraut soup on H’ween evening and give out full-sized candy bars to the trick-or-treaters, but this was an unusual (and special) year in that Halloween was actually on a Saturday, so we actually performed our Fools Play Halloween format (Fools Play Trick or Treat) on Halloween night! As per usual, all the Fools dressed up in costume, so here’s a run-down of what was what:

Yeah! I designed it so that I could put the jellyfish “hood” down. I also made slits in the long tentacle sleeves about even with my hands. I then sewed strips of velcro on the slits so that I could cleanly close them when I was in full costume, but I could open them and stick my hands out when I was performing or interacting with grab-able things. I also put my purple shirt on over my jellyfish bottom for the duration of the show.

The Fools were not, of course, the only people dressed in costume. A huge percentage of the audience came in costume as well, which is what we want for our Halloween show. Some of my faves were Tia as a Starfleet Medical officer (with a costume she made herself), and her boyfriend James as Master Onion from Parappa the Rapper. There was also a very good Velma from Scooby-Doo.

Anyway, at the end of the show our apprentice Jamie, whose soul we’d manage to free from the influence of dark magic (long story; don’t want to bore you with the details) and who had overcome the brainwashing of Sir Ian McKellen (who wanted us dead for tearing a page out of his copy of the Forbidden Book of Improv Lore (but, again, I don’t want to bore you with the details)), managed to turn his soul completely around and became an official frikkin’ fool: Jamie Pederson the Ginger Fool!

Originally we were going to give him the Orange shirt seeing as how Nathan Geyer the Orange Fool hadn’t performed in about six years. But in a shocking turn of events, Nathan Geyer was actually in the audience that night, and jumped up in protest when we were about to give the Orange shirt to Jamie. He said he was back in town now, and so he was going to reclaim his Orange shirt and start performing again. So we had to scramble to find another shirt for Jamie and the best we could find was a shirt the color of crystallized ginger, so the Ginger Fool he became. So in one night we got a new Fool and saw the return of a long-lost Fool!

So, yeah, that was fun.

But because I was at Fools Play on Halloween, Carrie & I didn’t do our Reuben Sandwich Feast as per usual. We were gonna do it the day before, but she was still having the sick in her (which is why went to Leiapico’s punkin carving par-tay), so we delayed it until the Friday after. I made 12 Reuben Sandwiches. They were good.

Anyway, one of the reasons why this post is so late is that my digital camera broke back in September, so I didn’t have it with me at Fools Play to take pictures of everyone’s costumes! I had to wait for the person who took these pictures to get them off the camera and email them and then have them be sent to me, etc. Took a while. But there they are, baby.

OFFICER KANE

But there they are, baby. There they are.

CAMERA TRUCKS UPWARDS as OFFICER KANE puts his arm around CINDY. They turn and walk away down the alley in SLOW MOTION and are soon lost in the fog as the END CREDITS MUSIC begins playing.

FADE OUT.

THE END.

Hmm… I went somewhere weird at the end of this post. Oh, well.

Chicken Nugget Lemon Tooty

Album of the Month:
tangentbot: Cyclops’ Lament
Hey, I know this guy! This is actually a re-mastered re-release of his album of several years ago, but with a couple of changes. These newly-mixed versions are delightfully more crisp and deep, and there’s a very good remix of “8-bit Misfit.” Hey guys: listen up. This is good IDM. Good. Okay? Okay. Take a wissen with this handy MP3 player here:

DVD of the Month:
Avatar: The Last Airbender
I never watched this show when it was on because the commercials made it look like a lame rip-off of Dragon Ball Z and/or One Piece. But I was mistaken. Unlike those shows, this one is actually good. One thing I greatly appreciated was its sense of deadline: pretty early on in the series the characters learn that they have to accomplish the series goal by a set date that is rather disturbingly soon. It really gives the series a sense of urgency as well as the feeling that it is actually building towards a real ending. And, indeed, the show lasted for three seasons (or “books” as the show calls them) and told one full story with a beginning, a middle, and an ending that happened when it was supposed to happen, not because they ran out of stories or the show got canceled. Also, the characters grow and change slowly but surely, and there is never a single mention of “power levels” or “powering up.”
Avatar: The Last Airbender – The Complete Book 1 Collection
Avatar: The Last Airbender – The Complete Book 2 Collection
Avatar: The Last Airbender – The Complete Book 3 Collection