Homo-Robotica!

The term "homo-robotica" refers to the general topic of homo-sapiens-like robots. Such as this character I drew for my d&d group.

Alder is a robot with a penchant for smiting evil and pretending to eat food.

That's right. D&d. It's what the cool kids at frog design do when they're not reading comic books...*pushes up glasses and grabs a fistful of cheetos*

So Much Pressure

I'm back on the pill. That's right, the blood pressure pill, because apparently eating handfuls of salt is not the best for your heart. So now I take half a pill before I consume vast quantities of sweet sweet salt.

Anyway, picked up Sense and Sensibility and Seamonsters and The Ghost Map in the middle of the day because the current work project is actively destroying the thinking center of my head parts. Harrible, just harrible!

So to combat my high blood pressure and relieve the megrim of the word day I picked up my painting utensils and painterated! Also, a sketch! Double-whammy!

Fanciful! Wondrous! Tree-ey!

Thugs love cricket bats, binoculars, and over-sized walky-talkies.

Tea hee!

Just finished drinking two pots of tea and my hands are shaking and i don't think i'm going to bed tonight but hey i started sketching out the subject of my next painting and it seems like it'll be nice but who knows right oh and here is a quick sketch of a man named truth based on the song by the monsters of folk which i would link to but i'm oddly lazy at the moment hey i'm hungry i think i'll make a sandwich with some hard-boiled eggs i made the other day oh man i'm tired

Sneak preview

kinda a bag of Ds.

People Open Windows

The steroids are kicking the rash's assssssss, so I spent the weekend cleaning up the apartment because it looked like a hobo exploded and left his crap all over the place. Kinda surprising how good I feel when the fridge has been emptied of all hazardous material (an astounding 3 dozen rotten eggs this time!) and everything is in its right place. I feel very responsible.
So today was the kind of day where you cook up a good lunch (left-over homemade okonomiyaki), play some Prince of Persia 3, listen to Joe talk about the past five seasons of Lost for a few hours, try a new chocolate cookie recipe, read your niece a few books, watch some infuriating Mad Men, and finish off the most ridiculous piece of fanboy art ever. A fine day indeed.

Oh, the fanboy art? So awesome!

Daredevil can see – with his heart!

Despite the subject, this is probably my best marker work to date. I don't know what that says about my motivation.

That was fun

So the aforementioned mosquito bite was cured by the antibiotics by wednesday. by saturday, however, i became aware of my allergy to the antibiotics. I became aware when i got overwhelming tired at my sister's (so tired i left before eating dinner – what?!) and spent the rest of the night shivering and piling on the blankets as a headache split apart my face. I became further aware when I couldn't get out of bed for the next two days, broke out in a full body rash that left my body looking like someone dumped pizza sauce all over, and had energy only to listen to episodes on hulu.

But now I'm on new meds and I have enough energy to at least post again. And post this!

Perhaps a new painting, perhaps a waste of your time. Or perhaps both!

Immediately after doing this I had an idea for another daredevil piece. It's so ridiculous that i have draw it. So I apologize ahead of time for anyone that cherishes that marvel franchise. But seriously. So. Good.

Marvelous!

A quick note:

Last thursday I swatted a mosquito away from my itchy left hand (the hand I use to do everything. EVERYTHING). The next day, there was slight swelling, but nothing i could say was beyond an allergy. As the day progressed, something was definitely going awry, as I asked a friend, "What kind of elephant man crap is happening to my hand?" along with my sister confirming that yes, I really should see a doctor.

So I asked my brother, who is a doctor. Yes, he said, that is not normal and should be taken care of immediately.

Wimmy wam-wam wozzle, a hospital trip and several days of antibiotics later I'm back. The drugs have me sleepy almost all the time, but that didn't stop me from attempting horrible drawings for the fazulak challenge. Fortunately, a few came out not bad, and although he wanted an acrobatic daredevil i felt like this was easily better:

Little known fact: Kingpin suffers from a disease that shrinks and cripples his left hand!

Double feature:

In the battle between East and West, people often forget the Darkseid.

Yeah, that last comment was terrible, but then again, I OWE YOU NOTHING! Hahahahaha...time to sleep.

Death and Icecream

Talked to Faz today and came up with the idea of asking him to ask me for sketches. I've always drawn whatever I feel like, so taking requests is really interesting to me. How will I draw Darkseid? What pose will I put Spiderman (or Daredevil) in? Who will they be kissing?

Point is, if you have anything you've been dying to see, or a spare minute to come up with something, let me know. Hopefully it'll get posted relatively soon.

They work hard. They play hard.

McMatt, the intern from last year and the tabletop gamer extraordinaire started work today, but I had no time to stop by and give him the welcome back slap to the face (as is the tradition at frog) because the project is reaching critical mass. Apparently I was sighing so much today that a coworker took me out and bought me some truffles (cinnamon/almond/chili and vanilla bean cream!), so that was quite a welcome break. Left at a good hour, made a potato and mushroom gratin, and spent the rest of the night drawing and finishing the above piece. I love having all this creative time, but feel guilty that i've stopped going to the gym and otherwise get out of the apartment.

Meh.

Days of Paul

I go through cycles.

Today was nonstop work with only a Baguette Box break (truffle fries!). My brain was fried after work, but that didn't stop me from working the aforementioned stupid funny watercolor and a side writing project. And then I found out that the local hippy-mart stays open until midnight which meant that I could make granola. I've been feeling the after-lunch brain slump pretty heavily lately, so breakfast is just what I need to say, "Hey stomach, it's morning, and you know I love you, so here's a little something-something from your pal: me!" So at about 10:30 I took a super leisurely stroll down the lamp-lit streets of Fremont, listening to disc 2 of Orphans (Bawlers) and almost felt like I was back on Ludlow in Cincinnati.

And tomorrow I have almond-cranberry-dark chocolate granola to wake me up. Huzzah!

PS: The way I make granola completely reverses the healthy benefits of said hippy food. Think butter and honey. But mostly think butter.

A Har-cuht

I know that last part of the word looks obscene but closer examination will find you overly anxious.

The last time I got a haircut the woman didn't cut much off, which was fine because she got the balance right and I don't look all that great when my hair is really short. So if a normal haircut lasts for 4 weeks (i push it to 7) then this one was good for 2 weeks and I visited Austin on the third. It was bothering me the entire time and today I wore the only hat I own to work (a bad sign), so I required a hair trimming upon immediate vacation of my work place. Yep, that's the story.

I bring up this pointless, time-wasting story because – hrm, I suppose there really isn't a reason, I could have just told you the point, which is that for some reason I get really caught up in saying "haircut" like "har-cuht" (rhymes with car-soot) in a, for lack of a better description, white trash style. Lots of emphasis on the "cuht", more like "har-cuuuht". I will say it over and over, "I need to get a har-cuuuuht" and giggle nonstop, even when no one is around me.

I bring up this pointless, time-wasting anecdote because – hey, check it out, two posts in a row! That means the blog is back on track! And you doubted me, internet. But I guess this shows who the person with the blog is and who the faceless series of pipes is.

Robo Washington is more human-friendly than is best pal Zombie Lincoln.

Also, I've started a quick, cute, weird watercolor about death and icecream. If anything, it shouldn't suck too bad!

Oh hey

Just got back from a lovely (though exhausting) weekend with Emily and her Dallas friends. Finding out what queso really is (a drug for which one fiends), grabbing cupcakes from an airstream trailer on south congress, dancing the night away on a shark tank and getting intensely anxious as our cab driver attempts to impress us with his blinking LED lightshow are all signs of a successful weekend. Only thing is that Austin is, for some unknown reason, hotter than the white flaming core of the sun.

Anywho, before I left I finished off a painting that is both my first canvas piece and my first painting larger than a 8.5x11:

In which our hero invades the subterranean realm and blows up its denizens.

I'll try to keep up the dailies again, but I've got too many side projects right now, so no promises.

Apologies

Just got in from Ireland. Today a friend of mine passed away after a week of being unconscious after an accident when he was riding his bike. I'll try to start posting as soon as possible, but things are complicated right now.

Peace and love to everyone.

And Dreams So Easily Dashed

Dear Paul, Thank you for your interest. Unfortunately, we do not have an Icelandic instructor available currently.
Best regards

I'll have a few sketches posted later tonight.

Update: it's 12:30 and I just got home. The Internet is out because comcast is a technological bag of dicks, so there are no sketches tonight. Might not be for a while. Looks like a possible 70 hour week. Thank god for sigur ros, tea, and Heaney.

Boo / Hiss

I'm behind on things, I know, but I was too busy celebrating freedom to lay down some ink. I'll make it up. Not today though, because I'm at work right now, and probably will be the entire week until I leave for Ireland. As the only person that knows After Effects in the office, it is my duty, my responsibility and my ass on the line to get this project finished before I leave. So here I am.

Picked up a Qdoba burrito, which just further reminds me why Qdoba isn't Chipotle. Smothered with Ancho BBQ sauce, the flavors of the actual ingredients are lost and only provide different textures when eating. On a scale of 1-10 I give it 2 asses down. But the workers were nice, maybe a little too smarmy (they call you "my friend"), but their eyes are like summer prisms and butterfly smiles, so you kinda put up with the entire charade.

And wasn't that Teddy Roosevelt sketch worth at least a few days?

New Deal

First of all, I know this isn't the right Roosevelt, but admit it: Teddy was the cooler one. That mustache, the wild west background, those killer glasses and complete lack of polio – the man only knew how to do two things: bust monopolies and kick ass. And build canals. And end Russo-japanese wars. And make low-fat fudgey brownies (the secret is apple sauce!) What couldn't the man do? Love.

And thus the nation's preoccupation with wonderful head attire began in earnest.

Not Horrible

Worked until 8:45 today and probably heading in on Sunday. To make up for this, I ran to the bus stop to head down to Pioneer Square and Eliott Bay Book Co.. A series of construction sites, mis-timed buses, and people in wheelchairs found me hailing a cab for the first time (I've always called for one). Seven bucks later, I stepped from the raucous world of drunken weekenders celebrating our sweet freedom to the warm atmosphere of the bookstore. It's like walking into a bakery: all the promises of delight, the familiarity, the general glow of the place. Ended up getting another Seamus Heaney collection, a book of Borges poems, a Chabon novel, and a continuation of the Mysterious Benedict Society.

Afterwards, wandering the streets by lamplight, I realized how awesome the city is. Walked past some kind of vendor fair where a group of Capoeira fighters flipped and cartwheeled to brazilian music and chants – there is always so much stuff happening in the world that it's tough to look past the sidewalks you're used to.

Tried to sum it up in, that's right, another damned poem. Horribly unpolished, taken word for word from the newspaper that I self-referentially describe.

I'm really, really sorry.

How strange and transformed the city.

My mind is filled with song,
Perhaps the melody of a waltz
Where swept into the crevices and cracks
The bustle of action and the fervor of passion;
Or perhaps the lonely croon of a bluesman
Pouring a whiskey-soaked tune
In a room of smoke and dark, wood-paneled walls.

Peering through the windows of fluorescent-lit offices
Their sterile light piercing the soft orange glow of lamplight
The illumination of all detail
– in contrast the whispers and secrets
Hidden in the still shadows of the street.

A bus lurches precariously at the turn
Its lumbering form for a moment
The terrible bulk of a heaving monster.
They run in the streets
With frantic gasps
As they jerk
And screech
To stop:
The clockwork automata of an ant colony.

As we leave
The ebb of the fantastic
And the slow seep
Of the world I know.

So I bury myself in this poem
Letting the careless sway of the bus
Make scratches of my words
As I pour ink onto the pages
Of a newspaper I found in my bag.

Now I'm posting this as I watch Heima because it's Sad Bastard Thursday.

No idea where this came from. She's checking her phone...and...yep.

1st Place Loser

Not much to report except that we held our first game night in two months. The result? In a game of five player El Grande, I remained at a sizable last place. But it was nice just to say weird, awkward, i-hope-HR-isn't-around things with coworkers.

If you enjoy euro-style board games (catan), try it out, easily one of the top 3 games we've played. Also the only one I consistently crap out on.

I'm not going to lie, I knew as I was drawing this the effect it would have on Laura's nethers. I KNEW THE EFFECT IT WOULD HAVE ON ALL YOUR NETHERS (none!)

Haha, if you check out the average posting time on these things, you can inference a lot about my current lifestyle (and morning productivity).

It's not a bra!

I'm a hip young go-getter, so when I suspected that the machines at the gym are inaccurate in determining my heart beat in relation to my untimely death I chose to get a hip watch/heart monitor suitable for a hip young go-getter. Thing is, the watch itself doesn't measure your heart beat, this small bit of plastic on an elastic belt does. So you wrap it just under your pectoral muscles (read: boobs) and both the gym machines and your watch pick it up. Pretty sweet, except that the adjustment slider in the back looks like a bra clasp, so the entire time I felt like people were staring at me and wondering why I needed support.

Unrelated: a poem! I know you love my poetry, or at least I haven't gotten any responses telling me not to post it and that's pretty much as close to adoration as I get. So blammo!

A place to rest

I should think a good place
would be the forest,
deep in the bramble and thicket
where age-worn oak and maple
etched with moss
vault a cathedral of branches
above you.
Lay me down in that soft earth
far down in the roots
and spongy loam
where muffled are the gentle
footsteps of elk and fox,
like raindrops soaking down,
down to that warm darkness
that heaves above you
like a thick blanket
on a cold winter's night.

So I leave my door open a lot, because I have no windows that open (well, one opens right into a thick bunch of branches, so much so that I can't actually open it) and the aforementioned fridge is spewing odors of milky rot throughout the apartment. So door open, cool breeze in. But the cool breeze brings with it flies and crap, so now I have an otherwise ignorable ecosystem of moths and mayflies that occasionally freak the crap out of me. On close examination, however, moths are pretty awesome. They're so damn stupid that they're adorable, like lemmings and dodos, and the dusty pattern on their backs is intricate, worn, and understated, unlike that damned gaudy butterfly with its blender vomit of color. So moth!

fig. 1 - Unknown to many people, moths feed on pencil shavings and the crumbs of BBQ style snacks. Some native peoples of northern Hungary feed the moths a steady supply of Red Fanta and Cheesy BBQ Fritos and harvest their wing dust, as this dust, in small portions, is a hallucinogen and diet supplement. In large quantities, this dust causes wild dementia and the possibility of fatal boners (the second definition) during the operation of heavy machinery.

True Story

Cooking has slowed down quite a bit, and I have no idea where I'm eating dinners, but apparently it's not at home. Opened up the fridge today and got a big whiff of evil. For some reason I have two pints of whole milk, both of which have gotten tremendously ripe, and now the odor of milky doom has permeated my apartment. This teaches me a lesson about something, but I sure as hell haven't learned it.

The spirit had a point, but Hal couldn't bring himself to throw out his collection of vintage milk cartons (each purchased on a special day: his twenty-first birthday, the second woodstock, the lunar landing, the conclusion of Who Shot JR, etc).

And come on ladies, I know no one reads this blog, but if my lazy ass can spend a few minutes sketching pointless crap then surely your prolific energies can put forth some tasty treats!

Jeepers!

Saw Food Inc. with joe, which basically reiterated the message of The Omnivore's Dilemma and reminded me why I spend way too much money on food: because food inherently comes from disgusting places, and at least this way it's somewhat less vile.

And oh hey! I've got a sketch and a poem for you today! (That's supposed to be good news...)

I walk the street at night
savoring the knowledge that
i will look upon these days
with the longing of old age.

I must take all I can.

The trees, vibrant in the light of day,
are held still and silent
in the amber light of lamps,
elms and sycamore casting deep pools
of shade on the walk below.

In the distance the rise and fall
of rushing traffic
as if a midnight ocean lapped
at hidden shores.

I close my eyes and take in deep
the night pollen and evening bloom
of the cool, slow breezes
that wander here and there
but never quite stir
the branches above.

And now, as a reward for reading my crap, something stupid! Huzzah!

Although they only solved one case during their entire career, Blossom and G.T. succeeded in imprisoning thirty-seven falsely accused men on ill-gotten, extremely shaky evidence.

23-Squidoo

Trophy Cupcakes. They were awesome.

The only thing evil cephalopods want are ice cream cones.

I really don't know why it's 23-squidoo, except that twenty-three seems like the only number that really goes with the word "squidoo". Four-squidoo? Five-squidoo? HOW DARE YOU SUGGEST SUCH NUMBERS!

Well, five-squidoo isn't that bad, actually...

Bone & Marrow

Big project at work is finished. Less stressed? No. New big project now beginning.

Finished District and Circle. Poetry is kind of like wine, which in turn is like every other easily elitist affection: you can dismiss it as above you, inane, or requiring great amounts of effort on your part. But when you stumble upon the one book or wine that you like, you immediately acquire the ability to appreciate the broader category of experiences it belongs to, and when someone tells you what you should appreciate, very often a bad experience will foul the entire thing (high school english classes). I never got poetry, but I get Seamus Heaney. His poems tap into a feeling of nostalgia for things that you've never experienced and his words rush through your mind in an almost song-like cadence. He's about quiet moments and appreciation of the present, childhood memories and the breath of the seasons.

Next on the list: Spiderman Noir.

[Just wanted to remind you that this blog isn't about me making sense nor me not making an ass of myself. It's to get all this crap out of my head, so I apologize if the last paragraph was too self-indulgent. But this entire blog is self-indulgent, so I guess we're even.]

Sketch!

I don't know, something about outward refinement and inward savagery? No, probably not. Meh.

Quick!

Not much time today, influx of books (in the process of reading 4 simultaneously), so here's today's sketch (with a poem too!):

All the spaces they push you in, full of piss and full of sin. Ain't no love like a bottle of gin; you can't lose but you can't win.

I don't know why i've been drawing so many old guys...the Walter project with fazulak has tainted my mind with wrinkles. I think I just love the idea of aged things/people, the familiarity and personality gained with each blemish and feature.

Or maybe my wrist keeps slipping and causing crow's feet.

PyraCats!

Long day at work, but as I hopped off the bus I thought, "Hey guy, why not order up some indian and get a new book?" My retort was, "Hey why not? High-five!" At which point I made an odd clapping gesture and made things weird for everyone around me.

Regardless I phoned in a curry pick up order and checked out the local bookstore. Evaluation: awesome. It's a small place, but they've gone through all the trouble of making sure each and every book is worth it, as all my favorites were right there and others, wishlisted cravings from Amazon, winked at me, "Do it do it do it!". And of all the sweet crap they had, I ended up walking home with Seamus Heaney's District and Circle, a book of poems. Why the hell did I pick up a book of poems? As a self-proclaimed philistine, I hate poetry. And yet maybe my brain stuffs are evolving, because if I take the time to process what is actually on the page, it's awesome.

Anywho, Kim launched her blog and made an outright, completely honest attack on my person. But instead of pointing out that those kids ought to thank me for teaching them in the school of hard knocks, I drew a pirate with a box companion and an odd obsession with cats. I don't know why...

Although Carlson was not created with the ability to speak, his advanced CardSpeak technology allows him to say three phrases: "Avast", "Yargh", and "What is its Zagat review?"

Helmsman Tashima

I wasn't happy with my Kevin Smith sketch, so I tried again and this time I looked in a mirror.

In the future, man will journey through space. Because I am asian, I will be the next Sulu. However, because I'm no George Takei (despite my attempts), I will be the crotchety old man that hates being in space. My catchphrase: Because we're in space, dammit! Weird crap will keep happening to our ship but I just won't give a damn, because being in space is hard enough as it is. And no one will care that I don't do my job well because I'm old and that's hard enough as it is. Oh the future! I can't wait!

In the future I will be angry. In space.

Day 2

Now that I have a blog I have a place to put all my inane stories. This one occurred this last Saturday, a fateful conjunction of my uncle's birthday party and the Fremont Summer Solstice [NSFW, seriously!], a little shindig in my part of the city where people bike around covered only in body paint and a weird little parade treads whimsically down the street. I happened to catch a glimpse of man-zebras on parade while slurping a bowl of pho, their erratic drumming followed by a quaint horn trio on a white pavilion. All this was great – who doesn't like a parade and naked people? I was also working on some awesome Mini Chocolate Tarts, a new recipe and practice for my horrible pie crust technique:

fig. 1 Mini Chocolate Tarts

The crusts were a tad undercooked and chewy, but my piping skills are awesome and the presentation was not that bad. So I was super eager to drive down to Fall City and have a blast with the family. And then i noticed my car was gone. And then I noticed signs telling me that my car would be towed if it had been there. I paused: yes, it had probably been there and had therefore probably gotten towed.

Wow, this is getting long and wordy. Short ending: I almost couldn't make it to the party but I sucked it up, got on the bus, and slowly made my way to the impound lot to pick up my car. The result was a fun night and some tasty food, and in the end, isn't that all that matters? No, because a damned hippie parade cost me $115 and a ride on the 358 bus.

100 Years of Paul

I would normally take this opportunity to ramble on and on about why I'm starting a blog, what I intend to accomplish with a blog, and throw in a few humorous anecdotes about how I came up with the name "Paul Eats Cake" (hint: i pulled it out of my ass!), but instead let's just say I was talking to a good friend and she mentioned she was starting a blog to force herself to sketch. I hijacked the idea and made it a competition, much in the same way I approach eating with a group of people. But instead of sandwiches, it's a blog, which isn't as delicious but, well, damnit, now all this talk about sandwiches is making me hungry. So here's my first post!

The Drawn.ca blog posted about a little competition where you draw what you would look like at 100. Hey, why not! Well, laziness for one, but I got over that because I'm starting a blog, dammit!

Blammo! Apparently as I age I look more and more like Kevin Smith (just imagine old me with facial hair that i can't grow). Who knew?

[PS: I would code my own site and make it all pretty, but I just wanted to get this out the door. Maybe later I'll redo this so I don't cringe looking at this page, but that's really assuming a lot about my work ethic to caring about things ratio.]