the_gneech | Entries tagged with himself!

Suburban Jungle (Starring Tiffany Tiger) for July 22, 2005

Not the R63 version of Rarity, although I'd be happy with that, too.

So, the past several weeks have been bonkers. Got a new job (Barnes & Noble), moved back to Virginia from Maryland, spent four days in Chicago for Midwest Furfest, and then had an unexpected (but welcome) visitor come spend the night at our place over the weekend. I haven't looked at my hours, but I do know that of the 12 days I've had off since mid-November, six of them were either moving, convention, or Thanksgiving. So I've been pretty harried.

The good side of that, is I've been insulated from all the noise and drama around world events and social media. The bad side of that, is I've been isolated from all my online friends and barely able to work on my writing and art.

Fortunately, now that the moving is done and we begin the long process of unpacking and assembling the house, that particular problem is much reduced. The last single large bit (car paperwork) will probably be dealt with tomorrow, and from then it'll be slow but incremental improvement until the new house is truly a home. It's already got a Christmas tree, the first one we've had in two years, and that is a bigger deal than it sounds.

I'm not to the point where I can get some work done in the morning and then go off to my job in the afternoon/evening yet, but I expect that will start being a thing later this week or early next. Of course, once the holidays come barreling through, the B&N job will either scale back or possibly disappear entirely. But I've got some big things in the works for 2018 that will make everything happening for me job-wise right now seem like the smallest potatoes, and that's going to be pretty awesome. I'll have more updates on that as I get them worked out, or probably by my annual New Year's post.

In the meantime, hey! I'm still here! I'm still creating stuff! And this time I'm not even dodging 16 ton weights! More like spinning 16 hundred plates.

It's an upgrade, man. It's an upgrade.

-The Gneech

Current Mood: accomplished
Current Location: The Bookshelf

So I discover from my Twitter feed, much to my own surprise, that I had people specifically wanting me to weigh in on Ghostbusters before they decided whether or not to go see it.[1] Well, the answer to that is an unequivocal: Yes! Go see! Preferably opening weekend because that’s all Hollywood cares about, they consider anything not a blockbuster to be a flop, and we don’t want to give the assholes any excuse to say “See? Women in the lead, killed it!” Or, as I put it on Twitter:

Now that’s out of the way, let’s get into the nitty-gritty of it a bit, shall we?

As should be obvious to anyone, I am a Ghostbusters fan. As such, my experience of Ghostbusters: Answer the Call (or simply “Ghostbusters 2016″ as I suspect it will generally be known) is going to be colored by that. All those fanservicey inserts? Those were put there for me. And reader? I squee’d.

I can’t address whether the mainstream viewer will enjoy it as much as I did, because mainstream audiences and I are from different planets. I mean, I think so? The ghosts are scary regardless of whether you get the connection between the subway ghost in this movie and the Scoleri brothers from Ghostbusters II, and the jokes are funny regardless of whether you notice the “Big Twinkie” ad in the background.

However, if you are a fan already, this movie is steeped in Ghostbusters history. The cameos are obvious and awesome, even if some of them were a bit shoved in. Bill Murray’s especially stands out as not only an important moment in the current story, but also as a sly commentary on Peter Venkman. But there are references to and elements brought in from just about every previous incarnation of the Ghostbusters, from the Extreme Ghostbusters-ish array of busting gear that Holtzmann dreams up, to the animated logo ghost from Real Ghostbusters, to a stinger at the end that references… [spoiler!].

However, of special mention and dear to my own nerdy heart, is that the entire thing is almost a movie version of Ghostbusters: The Video Game, which I was totally not expecting. And by that, I mean, the core plot of the story is the same core plot of GBtVG: “Evil genius using ghosts to power up ley lines and ascend to kaiju-hood.” In the Video Game, it was the ghost of Ivo Shandor using rivers of slime, deftly tying the original two movies and the game into a cohesive trilogy. In the new movie, it’s an internet comments section personified in the form of Rowan.

Between Rowan and Kylo Ren? Watch out, internet manbabies. Hollywood is coming for you.

But the biggest GBtVG moment, and one that is way too specific to be an accident, is the Macy’s Parade. The Video Game takes place on Thanksgiving, 1991, and originally had a giant parade sequence which had to be dropped in production. And while yes, it’s a perfect way to give [SPOILER] a cameo, it’s also a shout-out to a lost moment in the game. Given that Dan Ackroyd and Harold Ramis wrote the game, and that Ackroyd was a big consultant behind the new movie, I can’t help but think this might have been something he specifically brought to the table.

So yeah, as a Ghosthead, this movie definitely reached into my brain and pushed the Happy Button. It wasn’t absolutely flawless, but my quibbles with it are matters of emphasis rather than any serious objection. I would have liked Erin and Abby to be differentiated a little more. I would have liked a little more backstory on who Rowan is and how he ended up that way, as well as a little more definition of his personality in general beyond “creepy dude,” and honestly his big transformation at the end is a bit clunky and inconsistent– but that moment is short and it actually is kind of a footnote to the “real” ending, so you get carried past it quickly.

But these things are all minor clunkers in the overall result. I spent 99% of the movie either grinning or laughing, and came out of the theater already planning my trip back to see it again… later today.

-The Gneech

[1] The power! The raw social POWER! I AM GNEECH, MOLDER OF OPINIONS! *cough* Erm. Pardon me, got a little carried away. ^.^’

Puritanism: The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.
–H.L. Mencken

I tossed out an off-hand tweet yesterday that I had encountered a "selfie stick" in the wild for the first time. In return I received a few replies of the usual sort of sneer that tends to come up when selfies are mentioned, and my immediate thought was a somewhat bothered, "What gives?"

Selfies, it seems, have been deemed BadWrongFun by certain quarters, and as must always be done, BadWrongFun is metaphorically spat upon, by those who must spit upon it. In short, I received replies tinged with selfie hate. And, well, I just don't get it. Certainly the obvious "If you don't like selfies, don't take them!" response applies, but of all the ridiculous things to be judgmental about, why heave your scorn upon people using a cellphone to grab a quick snapshot of themselves, usually with a loved one?

In particular, the selfie stick I encountered was being wielded by a member of a large family in a restaurant, who appeared to be gathered for some sort of important event. I didn't mention that in my tweet, but really, is it relevant? Is wanting to be in the family dinner party photo somehow more worthy?

The psychology behind selfie scorn, as near as I can tell, is probably best summed up by my friend Indigo's observation, "selfies are not humble." And really, when I think about selfies, that does seem to be their leading characteristic. Someone willing to take a selfie is someone who is for that moment at least comfortable in their skin, and that is a state of mind which we, as a culture, seem to have serious problems with.

Compare/contrast the pathological dislike of having one's photo taken, which is common among many friends I've had over the years. Of the two states of mind, I would say it's much healthier to be able to take a silly snapshot of yourself than to be so distraught by the difference in your ideal self vs. your real self that you can't stand to even look at the evidence of it.

I've also heard it posited that people hate selfies because they're associated with teenage girls, which is something else our culture has serious problems with. While I can see that being a contributing factor, I don't think that's all there is to it. I think it's more that a lot of the things typically associated with teenage girls (youthful exuberance, high interest in sociality, a certain sophomoric shallowness) are related to the fore-mentioned comfort in one's own skin. (Which is ironic, considering that many teenage girls would consider comfort in their own skin to be the last thing they have.) The sort of self-containment and self-sufficiency shared by a clique of teenage girls ("Hire a teenager: you don't have to train them because they already know everything!") is something many an adult, mired in the vagaries and irreconcilable problems of grownup life, wishes they could reclaim.

I dunno. I'm just rambling I guess. I think what it boils down to is, "If you don't like selfies, don't take 'em." As far as I'm concerned they're harmless and fun, and may very well be prized by people later as a remembrance of days gone by. So what's not to like?

-The Gneech

PS: Selfie time!

Stupid Sexy Selfie

Current Mood: contemplative
Current Location: The Hobbit Hole
Current Music: The Art of Noise feat. Tom Jones– "Kiss"

So @EpicBirdbrain on Twitter did this in response to a silly conversation we were having, and I pretty much love everything about it…

Thanks, buddy! It’s awesome. And I plan to use it early and often.

-The Gneech

Originally published at gneech.com. You can comment here or there.

Gneech Christmas Card 2013 by ~the-gneech on deviantART

Just a fun little thing I did as an excuse to play with Manga Studio 5. Unfortunately, for all its improvements, it STILL can’t make me a better artist.

-The Gneech

Originally published at gneech.com. You can comment here or there.

Beginning of the fourth full week of my strange new life; things are still strange and new. After an initial flurry of pre-writing on the Michael Macbeth story, I put that aside to wait for NaNoWriMo (I'm finally doing it this year, aww yeah!) and have spent the rest of the time working on commissions when I wasn't taking care of kittens/my mom/house stuff.

For the first few weeks, what I really missed more than anything, was Starbucks. When I was freaking out about the shutdown, and the kittens, and so forth, one morning we went over to Starbucks and I had my once-common morning selection of grande skim no-whip white mocha and ham & egg sandwich, and I was like a junkie getting his fix. Stress melted away, I was suffused with a quiet calm, and I was ready to face the world.

Why this reaction? I don't know. It wasn't caffeine withdrawal, I've got plenty of the stuff at home. It was something about the ritual, the going-and-getting-it, the "I want this and can have some" aspect, maybe. A previous counselor I had once told me, "When you repress, you depress," and I wonder if maybe the fact that we were trying to not spend any money at all (because none was coming in), while "Starbucks breakfast" used to be something I could readily choose to have, may have created a repression effect.

In the time since then, I've struck a better balance. We've spent less than half of what we used to on food this month and for the most part we've not lost out on enjoyment and we're probably getting better nutrition. And I've made a point of letting myself have Starbucks trips once or twice a week, which seems to help my mental health.

The Kittens

The kittens are all thriving; they're now roughly double the size they were when we rescued them. They're losing that ungainly fling-your-paws-in-the-air bounce-run-sideways awkwardness and looking more like miniature cats. A co-worker of Laurie's has expressed the desire to adopt Sweetums, and is pondering taking Inkyboy along (since we mentioned that the two of them are quite attached to each other). We have decided to keep Inkygirl ourselves, as she is less dependent on the others and seems to like riding my shoulder so much. We love them all and it will be rough to let them go, but as long as they are getting a good home with people who will love them, it'll be okay.

People have been amazingly generous to us regarding the kittens. The veterinary office gave us special pricing on their initial health check and flea removal, and in the time since then have also given us a $100 credit towards future treatments. Other folks have given us food or cash to defray some of our costs, and Fancy Cats loaned us a large cage which we have put to good use at feeding time. Laurie and I were prepared to pay whatever was necessary, but thanks to everyone's generosity our own outlay has been very manageable.

Life Stuff

We're working on getting my mom into assisted living by the end of this week or shortly thereafter; she's eager and excited to be somewhere she'll be able to meet a lot of people and not be moping around the house by herself all day, and we're eager to have her somewhere that will take care of so much of the stuff she can't handle herself any more. Once she's moved, the new big family project will be getting all the stuff in her house sorted, stored, distributed, or disposed of, so we can sell her house. That will pay for several years of assisted living, and get rid of a lot of expenses.

Our own house, sadly, is not moving at all. Once the shutdown hit, even the people who would call for an appointment and then not show up stopped appearing. I expect we're going to have to just pull it off the market and eat a lot of macaroni until spring. We'll be all right, it'll just chew up our savings more than we'd like. On the other hand, we'd be a lot more comfortable for six months with our stuff back in our house and not having to worry about keeping it "show-ready." We'll probably figure out what to do about that this week.

Anyway, that's enough nattering for now. Time to get to work!

-The Gneech

Current Mood: good
Current Location: The Hobbit Hole

While crunching away on everything else, I have managed to do a few bits of art in-between. And here they are! Because I love you.

Gneech Bizcard 2013 by ~the-gneech on deviantART

Finally, after however many years, I’ve got revised business cards on the way, with new avatar, the current websites, and a new funny bullet.

Biggest Little Furcon 2014 Badge Submission by ~the-gneech on deviantART

Graveyard Greg asked me to do up a Ghostbusters-themed badge for BLFC. The theme is ’80s-tasticness in general, with emphasis on pink and purple, so I went with more of the “Real Ghostbusters” style than the movie guys. And of course, with a GB pic, I couldn’t resist a little self-insert.

I have no idea who the wolf gal is, but she’s blonde and she’s got glam stars on her cheek– that’s ’80s enough for me!

Jenny Everywhere 2013 by ~the-gneech on deviantART

It’s almost time for Jenny Everywhere day, 2013! My submission this year has Jenny catching a ride on a handy airship! I decided to make her human, just to be different, using Nichelle Nichols as my inspiration.

If any woman ever deserved a steampunk fantasy action show of her own, it’s Nichelle Nichols!

If you’ve never heard about Jenny Everywhere, check her out: www.jennyeverywhereday.com.

-The Gneech

Originally published at gneech.com. You can comment here or there.

Thanks for the input on my previous post all! Decision made and new avatar complete. Here it is!

Gneech Am Writing (large) by ~the-gneech on deviantART

Pencils by Spunky, digital "ink" and color by me. :)

-The Gneech

Current Mood: chipper
Current Location: The Hobbit Hole
Current Music: not sure, but it's from "Wreck-It Ralph"

( Decision made! Thanks for the input, all. :) )

Current Mood: geeky
Current Location: work
Current Music: Etan the Embassy -- "Everything Changes"

Just a heads-up, all you happy people! I will be running a "Penciling 101" panel on Saturday, April 6, 4:30 p.m. at Fur The 'More: Time Traveler's Party in Baltimore, MD. This is the first outing of a brand new furry con! It should be fun.

The panel will cover some basic artistic concepts, including thinking in shapes, the magic grid, and dynamic posing. I'll also do my best to answer questions and offer specific tips as needed. Hope to see you there!

-The Gneech

Originally published at gneech.com. You can comment here or there.

Current Mood: creative
Current Location: work

I just got back from my physical exam and apparently I passed it because I'm still here. The doctor's scale, once you account for the fact that "doctor's office scales weigh heavy" (the doc's words, not mine), more or less agrees with the current average from Skippy the Wonder Scale... for whatever that's worth. :D

Being an election year here, and also because the collective mind of the country is on such matters, there's a lot of politics going on around me, which I'm going to make an effort to spare my readers from for the most part. I do have opinions and some pretty strong ones on the current candidates and issues, but as I've mentioned before it doesn't usually achieve anything to go on about them.

I will however, make exceptions for particularly salient points or things which may sum up my feelings on a topic better than I can myself. One such instance is an essay that came to my attention called Aesop to the Right: Why I Believe Bristol Palin, which rang out like a clear bell to me this morning:

I know you may not feel this way, but remember:
It’s not illegal to be a conservative Christian in any state, never was, and never will be, thanks to the Constitution. Until a Supreme Court ruling 2003, gay sex was actually illegal in many states.

Conservative Christians enjoy the full equality and protection of the law, including marriage and employment protections. You can’t be fired for being a Christian. I can be fired for being gay. [...]

Conservative Christians may get “bashed” in the media. LGBT people get actually, literally bashed, sometimes to death. It’s an epidemic and it’s on the rise. [...]

Conservative Christians form a powerful, organized, well-funded voting bloc that has helped to keep marriage equality and other equal rights provisions off the table for LGBT people in many states.

As a person who identifies as both gay and Christian, I do understand that Christians can sometimes face social sanction. I will recognize that being a Christian isn’t always easy and that it hurts when municipalities level consequences at people who speak their minds. I certainly understand.

Did you know that Tennessee introduced a bill making it illegal even say the word “gay” in public schools? Yes. I understand.

But it’s important for you to recognize that there is a vast difference between facing ridicule or even occasional civic rejection, and facing systematic social and political inequality. There is a vast difference between being told you’re superstitious or old-fashioned and being told you’re an abomination that doesn’t deserve to live. There’s a vast difference between being told you’re acting hateful and being told God hates you.

I’ve been gay and Christian all my life. Trust me: Christian is easier. It’s not even close.

(NOTE: [...] indicates that links to the essay's sources have been removed from the quote.)

So, yeah. Fair warning, as the election season warms up, I will probably be a little more talky on such subjects than I usually am. But only when I am pretty sure that it's something actually worth saying. You're welcome to disagree with me on any given topic, but I'd recommend you do it in your own LJ or other soapbox of choice, because I'm not likely to be interested in debating it here.

(Factual data, on the other hand, is always open for correction. If you spot any errors, please let me know.)

In other news! Mood is fine again; Monday night/Tuesday morning, as bad as they were, appear to have been a blip. My guess is it was screwed up sleep from the weekend, combined with anticipatory stress related to deadlines looming, the coming weekend's trip to Tidewater, and possibly a little PTSD from the traffic accident.

Speaking of the traffic accident, we have our own car back now and all is well. Hopefully that's something we've seen the last of.

My new drawing-table-cum-desk is set up and seems to be working well. I've been drawing on it for a week (mostly ponies, but still it's drawing!) and having the tilted surface definitely makes it much more comfortable. The only real problem I'm having with it right now is finding a comfortable setup for extended typing. Something about the keyboard drawer, I keep ending up with the keyboard shifted 1/2" up and to the right of where I want it. Once that's fixed, I'll be in a happy place for letting loose the creative fires. :)

And finally, I leave you with this thought:

EHRMAGERD STERBUKS

I think there's a lesson there for all of us.

-The Gneech

Just finished another session of

jamesbarrett's Pathfinder game (in which I play my "Rarity-as-drow-bard" character Obsidian). Our current adventure is a rather mysterious intrigue affair involving peculiar events at a large agricultural complex (essentially an enormous farm run by four different families of competing houses). The previous session was mostly a collection of odd events that didn't parse, but this session we finally worked out that there are a pair of dopplegangers working some sort of scheme, and that there are some elements related to a large dark cult that we tangled with in a previous adventure which may more may not factor into the dopplegangers' scheme. It's certainly a very different sort of adventure from the kind

jamesbarrett typically runs, and we're enjoying it quite a bit. It's also a type of adventure Obsidian is well suited for, having a slew of knowledge and social skills but being little more than a lead weight in combat.

When the other players got to our house, they were all mystified (or at least surprised) by our rearranging of furniture, although it's actually rather minor so far compared to what's still to come. Tomorrow I am ordering my new art-table-cum-computer-desk, and we are going to start working on making a place for it. It will replace my current OMG huge drafting table which, as much as I love it, is freakin' ginormous and takes a lot more space than it has any reason to.

(If you are somewhere in the area and have use for a 5'x3' drafting table, let me know, I am looking to sell it.)

To make room for the new arrangement, at least one old desk is going to the curb, one 6' long hutch is probably going to be mothballed (somewhere), a lot of my old gaming books are going to be eBayed or otherwise disposed of, and a lot junk needs going through, sorting out, and disposing of. So that's going to be a big project over the next few weeks, interspersed with that commission I need to finish for Foalpapers and just the general stuff of life.

Finally, going along the theme of "everything changes," I got a new haircut today of a style I've never tried. Whattya think?

Crrrsh! There goes the monitor.

-The Gneech

Current Mood: good
Current Location: The Hobbit Hole
Current Music: Eytan & The Embassy-- "Everything Changes" (IMH)

Just a heads-up, I am not at SDCC, but some of my buttons are! Moonbase Press, dealer L-02 in the small press section (a.k.a, John Lotshaw, Bill Holbrook, and the ever-awesome Mammallamadevil) are carrying several of my button designs, including the pictured “Fear of Strangers” button, the Ponytastic “Button of Charisma +4,” and the newly-debuting “CONTENTS: Awesome + Win” button. At $2.50, they’re way cheaper than yet another Exclusive Spider-Man Statuette!

While you’re there, say hello to Kerry, Bill, and /JPL for me!

-The Gneech

Originally published at gneech.com. You can comment here or there.

Well I imagine he would know if anyone would!

-The Gneech

Originally published at gneech.com. You can comment here or there.

Taken last day at the Cherry Blossom Festival, by Mrs. Gneech.

-The Gneech

Originally published at gneech.com. You can comment here or there.

Hey, I won the prize at the office Halloween party, not too shabby. On the other hand, delicate costume is delicate! Three bits broke just from me standing around!

-The Gneech

Originally published at gneech.com. Please leave any comments there.

The Gneech ain't afraid of no ghost!

-The Gneech

Originally published at gneech.com. You can comment here or there.

Current Mood: Bustin' Makes Me Feel Good

I gotta run a test on this thing.

Gneech trying on his new unlicensed nuclear accelerator.

-The Gneech

Current Mood: Bustin' makes me feel good!
Current Location: workin' from home

As weekends go, it was reasonably successful. Saturday was spent taking care of errands and/or shopping that has built up, particularly in refreshing the wardrobe for spring and making sure bills are paid. The main thing that could be pointed to as "productive" is the pic of this ridiculous mug you see here, done by request for the Confuzzled conbook.

Aside from a small amount of book work done, the other main things that happened over the weekend are that I've gotten halfway through The Eyre Affair, which is a highly peculiar book, and

lythandra,

sirfox, and I all went out to Ashburn to see Rango, which is a great little flick full of shout-outs to everything from Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas to Raising Arizona to Chinatown to The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. I may have to see it again before I can talk about it coherently, as the movie is packed full of stuff. But I will say that what really sealed the movie in my personal "Great!" list was an epic moment involving bats and banjos which must be seen to be believed, but about which I can say no more without spoilers.

So now here we are looking down the barrel of a new week, with the transition to Daylight Savings Crime piled on top, as if that weren't enough. DST is joining forces with a small handful of internet troublemakers to try to make me bitey, but I am facing that as a challenge and determined not to let any of it bother me. Instead, I am channeling Puss In Boots and the Old Spice Guy alternatively as needed to remind myself to stay frosty and have fun with my life. So far it's working admirably, and I intend to keep it that way.

Hoping you're having a day with sufficient awesome, I am

-The Gneech

Current Mood: made of awesome
Current Music: Reel 2 Real -- "I Like to Move It, Move It"

The Gneech is wearing a lion hat. Your argument is invalid.

-The Gneech

Originally published at gneech.com. You can comment here or there.

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gneech.com -- John "The Gneech" Robey's writing, comics, and art.

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What Was I Saying...?

Personal Ramblings by The Gneech

Entries tagged with himself!

Elusive Gneech is Elusive

Actually, Yeah, I'm a Little Afraid of These Ghosts (and It's Awesome)

When Envy Met Narcissus

I Hear His Theme Music, He’s Around Here Somewhere…

Gneech Christmas Card 2013

Am I Writer Yet?

The Kittens

Life Stuff

Big Ol’ Art Post!

Me Am Writing! (New Avatar Yay)

The Mane Event

Penciling 101 Panel at FurTheMore

Your Gneechy Status Report

'cos Everything Changes (Whu-Ooooaaooh!)

My Buttons at Comic-Con! :)

The Doctor Thinks I’m Rare and Elusive?

The Best Picture of Me Ever

Happy Halloween (or #GhostbustersFriday )

Don’t Worry, We Handle This Sort of Thing All the Time!

Anybody Seen a Ghost?

Weekend Report

The Gneech is wearing a lion hat. Your argument is invalid.

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April 2025

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