And you! And you! And you! And who’s that behind you? Well, Merry Christmas to him or her or them too!
And if you know anybody else, why then Merry Christmas to them too!
And your mum and your dog and your dog’s mum and your mum’s dog!
The night of Wednesday, December 12, 2007, and into Thursday morning, I spent several hours playing Quake II, Warcraft III and Mechwarrior III, and a little Thief. I’d spent an hour or so working on NaNoWriMo 2006 and the TV was on in the background. Once or twice the William Shatner Warcraft commercial came on.
Part of the NaNoWriMo 2006 project involves non-imitative Star Trek replicator type technology which is related to holodeck technology, and I was writing a scene that involved its use. (NB: Star Trek didn’t invent it first. I’d mention Venus Equilateral, but…)
I’m mentioning these as likely influences because when I went to bed, I dreamt.
When I dream, man, do I dream. And I dream in colour.
So I go to sign in at this government sponsored think-tank work-shop job-search internet cafe at Parliament and Wellesley.
There’s a bit of a line up, so I wait. But the staffer proceeds to take my card and sign me up on a computer. She tells both me and the client she’s already talking to that she can multitask. Predictably, I tell the other client that she’s a robot from the future. She says, and new paragraph
“Oh, you’re sweet.”
So I say, again predictably, “the last time I told a woman she was a robot from the future…” but I never finished the sentence because what she said caught up with me.
Remember how, when you were a kid, back in the old country, and you were cleaning and chopping fresh jalapenos to blanch for chili and tomato sauce, your mama would tell you (and I won’t do the accent) “Now don’t go rubbing your eyes while you’re watching TV until you’ve washed your hands really good with soap and water, okay? Okay?” Here is where mama would whack you across the back of the head or on the knuckles with her wooden spoon. “Alright? Okay!”
Well, she was right.
Ronnie sent me a list of YouTube videos where people record themselves drawing with MS Paint, the standard basic drawing app that comes with Windows. I use it to draw sticks and round things and occasionally misshapen smears. Ronnie found guys who do stuff like this
Here’s the body of Ronnie’s email:
I found these while killing time because my WoW private server is down.
youtube.com/watch?v=Ksvaig8Fr5E (IPod)
youtube.com/watch?v=uk2sPl_Z7ZU (MONA LISA…Holy crap!)
youtube.com/watch?v=eFV9-RuVYRU (a PSP…Kewl.)
youtube.com/watch?v=ElrldD02if0 (green car…sweet! let’s get one!)
youtube.com/watch?v=vUWqRhReaZk (blue car…this is getting crazy)
youtube.com/watch?v=NZNYnO2m560 (a motorcycle)
there’s sure to be more but…. WoW server’s back up ”
I got a list of these from Ronnie the other day. These two are my favourites.
This is my favourite; a guy drawing the Mona Lisa, speeded up. It’s almost hypnotic to watch the image evolve.
This is a guy drawing a car.