Happy Birthday, higginsdragon!

For your present, here's today's Forgotten English (© Jeffrey Kacirk):

lamb's-wool
A favorite liquor among the common people, composed of ale and roasted apples. The pulp of the roasted apple [was] worked up with the ale till the mixture formed a smooth beverage. Fanciful etymologies for this popular word have been thought of, but it was probably named from its smoothness, resembling the wool of lambs.

--Robert Nares' Glossary of the Works of English Authors, 1859

The pulpe of the roasted apples, in number foure or five, according to the greatness of the apples, mixed in a quart of faire water, laboured together untill it come to be as apples and ale, which we call lambes-wooll.

--Thomas Johnson's Gerard's Herball, 1633

A corruption of la mas ubhal, that is, day of the apple fruit.

--Rev. John Boag's Imperial Lexicon, c. 1850

"Tenth Night" Cheer
After hosting a dinner party for friends on this date in 1667, English diarist Samuel Pepys wrote of drinking a lamb's-wool nightcap: "At night to sup, and then to cards and, last of all, to have a flagon of ale and apples, drunk out of a wooden cup as a Christmas draught, which made all merry."

Everythingll is betterll with superflluous llll's.

-The Gneechll

How Not to Accomplish Anything

Part of my rationale in giving SJ a two-week break for the holidays was that I'd probably have some free time during the second week and therefore be able to get ahead a bit.

Ha.

Ha ha ha ha ha ha.

Ha.

Granted, I spent Sunday evening visiting friends that I would then turn around and see again on New Year's Eve, but at the time I thought that jamesbarrett would be working NYE and we wanted him to be around for gift exchangery. Also granted, I spent New Year's Day going to the museum to see the Hopper exhibit, as it is leaving town sometime this month and the chances of having another shot at it were remote in the extreme. So those are two occasions where I could have been drawing and chose some other activity instead.

The rest of the time? Family obligations. (It was Christmas, after all.) Errands. Driving all around getting Buddha's food, getting myself a new PDA, cleaning up around the house, etc., etc. All stuff that needed to be done, but also all stuff that isn't drawing. Combine that with a fit of writer's block about a couple of items that are required but I really don't want to deal with, and you find me here on Friday, at the end of the two-week break, with still no scripts, and nothing drawn.

Argh. -.-

So I'm going to have to punt on what I was planning to have next and come up with some other stuff that doesn't leave me blocked instead, and shove everything else aside this weekend and draw. Those secret hopes I was harboring to maybe even do some "just for the fun of it" art on the side? Tossed out the window as usual. Pfui.

-The Gneech

Hey, Anime Fans!

Have you ever watched any of Dirty Pair? And if so, what did you think?

-The Gneech, looking for some good anime action comedy

JaxPad Post: Prehistoric Tiff and Leonard [artwork]

Prehistoric Tiffany and Leonard, created for the 2006 AnthroCon conbook

Comments welcome! :) This image appeared as a Saturday Grab Bag in SJ, so you may have seen it before.

I'm trying to beef up my JaxPad gallery a bit -- but at the rate I do new pieces, that will probably take forever. After FC, I have in mind to try posting some of the Cake images up there with the "Buy a Print" option and see what kind of results that gets.

In the meantime, I'm periodically posting some of my better older pieces to the gallery. Apparently anything with an older creation date doesn't get onto the "Recent" page, regardless of when you post it, so these things aren't going to show up there. Le sigh!

-The Gneech