Terrific News For a Tuesday Morning!

From dna_fans: Douglas Adams's Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency opens for business on Radio 4

Yes, I know that Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency is largely a recycling of Adams's work on Doctor Who, and that Dirk Gently himself is mostly a placeholder for the Doctor himself.

But I don't care! It's Dirk Gently! On BBC Radio 4! I'm going to squee like a cheerleader and you can't stop me!

-The Gneech, who actually prefers Dirk Gently to Hitchhiker's Guide by a noticeable margin

Happy Birthday, kamau_d_lyon and the late, great <user site="li

For your present, here's tomorrow's Forgotten English (© Jeffrey Kacirk) -- because I didn't care for today's:

periblepsis
The wild look that accompanies delirium.

--Robley Dunglison's Dictionary of Medical Sciences, 1844

From Greek peri, around, and blepein, to look.

--T. Ellwood Zell's Popular Encyclopedia, 1871

[Tomorrow:] Birthday of William Makepeace Thackeray (1811-1863),
English novelist, journalist, satirist, lecturer, and poet. In light of the long-standing history of poor leadership and even outright madness of the Hanoverian kings of England, Thackeray felt compelled to offer this explanation of their reign in "The Four Georges," a lecture given to Americans in 1855: "If in looking at the lives of men, of princes, courtiers, men of rank and fashion, we must perforce depict them as idle, profligate, and criminal; we must make allowances for the rich men's failings and recollect that we too were very likely indolent and voluptuous had we no motive for work, a mortal's natural taste for pleasure, and the temptation of a large income. What could a great peer, with a great ... fortune, do but be splendid and idle?"

He could start by not marrying his cousins! ;P

-The Gneech

Fictionlet

"You play a very irritating game of 3-D chess, Mister Spock!" said Alex, taking up the mouse and moving the red queen icon up two levels to block a strategem.

"Well if that move irritated you, I'm afraid you're going to hate this one," replied Greg, moving the green rook. "That's the game, I believe."

"What?" said Alex, as a victory fanfare tune played and the word "CHECKMATE" flashed across the screen. "Oh, no way! You suck!"

"Me? Suck?" said Greg. "I'm the one who won! Obviously it must be you who sucks."

"Nope, nope," Alex said. "You quite definitely suck."

"I'm sorry, but logic has no sweethearts. You lost, therefore you suck."

"Who cares about logic? I know from intuition that you suck!"

Greg shook his head. "Your intuition is misleading you. Four out of five dentists say you suck."

"Ha!" said Alex. "You suck so much that everybody calls you 'The Suckinator'!"

"You should know, you're Suckmaster General!" said Greg.

"You suck like a Hoover on afterburners!" said Alex.

"You suck more than the tornado that carried off Dorothy's house!" said Greg.

"There are black holes out in space that only wish they sucked as much as you!" said Alex.

Brigid, watching the interchange from the doorway, finally said, "I see intelligent conversation has reached a new high around here. I think, with a little practice, you guys might be ready for eighth grade any day now!"

"Do not interfere, she-devil!" said Alex. "This is man talk!"

"It would have to be," Brigid replied. "But I just want to say, for the record, that you both suck more than Sucky McSuckerson, five-time winner of the Suckville Suckrace's annual Suckiest Sucker award." She turned on her heel and exited quickly, leaving silence in her wake.

"See?" said Greg finally. "I told ya you suck."

-The Gneech

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Art Thoughts -- Your Opinions Wanted!

I'm starting to get scans back of sketchbook work at AnthroCon, and while some of it was decent enough, some of it frankly makes me cringe. {8-E

I knew it was going to be this way; I was (and somewhat still am) out of practice, and was largely uninspired until roughly 2/3 of the way through the con. Of course, even when I'm at my best, I generally spend days on a pic rather than hours, which tends to make anything I do at a con seem rushed and haphazard compared with what I'm usually willing to share with the world.

I've talked before about how I'm bumping my elbows on the comic strip format; when the strip era ends I intend to spend some time getting real art instruction from various sources. In the meantime, I am going to be assigning myself various art projects as time and circumstances allow to work on what I know are problem areas (e.g., "forearm/wrist joint at various angles").

As such, I'm throwing open wide the gates for critique from anyone out there who cares to comment on my work, so I can work on figuring out said assignments. I'm not looking for ego-boosts ("Your art is AWESOME! Don't change a thing!" while nice, is not really helpful in this context), I'm not going to argue any comments (although I reserve the right to ask for clarification), and you won't hurt my feelings as long as you give specific and honest opinions. If you'd rather not post your comments publicly, I'd be happy to receive them via e-mail at thegneech@gmail.com as well.

I you need samples of my work to examine or reference, you can find it at my JaxPad gallery: http://thegneech.jaxpad.com/ or sitting in a pile here: http://www.rumblepurrlion.com/artwork/

So c'mon! Tell me what you really think! :) Just keep it polite. ;)

-The Gneech