100 Posts of Random Hate

In celebration of my 100th post on Blogger, I've compiled a list of 100 things that I hate. There's no underlying theme (well, that I'm aware of... my psychologist might have something to say to that), no order, and no justification. I kept to petty hates, and left the big-ticket hate items for people who want to be taken seriously. For the record: yes, I do agree that anti-semitism, world hunger, and murder are all BAD.

Anyway, without further clarification or explanation, here are 100 Things I Hate.

1. People who say "LOL" or "WTF" when they talk.
2. Cars that change lanes without using their turn signals.
3. Junk mail.
4. Facebook fan pages created for concepts.
5. Morning radio talk shows on music stations.
6. Naked baby pictures.
7. Family Guy.
8. Lady Gaga
9. Cauliflower
10. Angry poems about loneliness and alienation written by white teenage boys - including my own.
11. Professional athletes turned actors.
12. She's the Man.
13. The ridiculous amount of praise a mediocre movie like Avatar has gotten.
14. Uncomfortable church pews.
15. Making phone calls.
16. Sean Hannity.
17. The Wheel of Time book series.
18. Picture texts.
19. Black licorice.
20. Wet socks during the winter.
21. The lyrics to the song "Renegades of Funk" (or pretty much anything by Rage Against the Machine).
22. Angry single people at Valentine's Day.
23. People who sue over things that they themselves are responsible for.
24. Stage makeup.
25. Any Billy Joel song as covered by a country artist.
26. Inversion.
27. Novelty ringtones.
28. The flavor of cola.
29. Itches on your feet when you're wearing shoes.
30. Politics according to Green Day.
31. Those freaking Happy Bunny posters.
32. Stuttering when talking to a pretty girl.
33. The "blue screen of death."
34. That beeping noise video games make when your character's almost dead.
35. Company-wide comic book crossovers.
36. Sawdust.
37. The Chipmunk voice.
38. Driving west into the sunset.
39. Food poisoning.
40. Carlos Mencia.
41. People who come in to doctors' offices smelling like cigarette smoke.
42. Owl City and that stupid "Fireflies" song.
43. People who wear Bluetooth earpieces when not actually on the phone.
44. Eggs.
45. Radio ads that rewrite the lyrics to popular songs to hock a product.
46. John Lennon's "Imagine."
47. The premature cancellation of Pushing Daisies.
48. Autotune
49. Lucy Van Pelt.
50. Typos in text messages.
51. Splinters you don't notice until a day or two after you get them.
52. The cult of Michael Jackson.
53. Random brownouts.
54. Trying to spell the word "bureaucracy."
55. Mathematical series.
56. Smelling dog poop/BO and not being able to tell where it's coming from.
57. T.S. Eliot's "The Wasteland."
58. Cherries.
59. Katy Perry
60. The card game "Scum."
61. Pants that don't sufficiently cover a person's butt crack.
62. People who say, "'Funner' is not a word."
63. Short, awkward conversations on the elevator.
64. Winter.
65. The Fray.
66. Obama adoration.
67. Any comedy television show that tries to be Arrested Development and fails.
68. Phone tag.
69. Nickelback.
70. Shrink wrap glued to the spine of a DVD case.
71. Marshmallow Peeps.
72. Getting an itch just before you fall asleep.
73. Trite expressions like "You can't get CRAP without RAP."
74. Fergie
75. Uninspired graffiti.
76. The fact that the numbers on a 9-key and on a telephone are in a different order.
77. Pioneer Day.
78. Live tracks where the band gets the audience to sing along, and the audience can't sing.
79. Internet fanfiction.
80. The constant rebooting of decades-running franchises.
81. Boy Scout uniforms.
82. Mosquitos and their bites.
83. The insane popularity of Twilight.
84. "Funny" email forwards.
85. Brand names in songs and poetry.
86. Andrew Lloyd Weber and the stupidity of a Phantom of the Opera sequel.
87. Unnecessary sequels.
88. Talking baby commercials.
89. Icy sidewalks.
90. Holes in the toes of socks.
91. Star Wars, post prequels.
92. Any round of American Idol that didn't have Kelly Clarkson as the eventual winner.
93. Chuck Norris jokes.
94. Anyone who writes "teh" instead of "the" on purpose.
95. World of Warcraft.
96. Adults who refuse to use real language when talking to babies.
97. Those little popcorn shells that get stuck in your gums.
98. Touching people.
99. Getting cold hands.
100. Dating.

Confessions - Superstitions

The following confessions are 100% true.



1 - I consider it to be bad luck to look at a digital clock at 11:34. Remember playing with old digital calculators in elementary school? You input a few numbers, turn them upside-down, and then you spell a word? I think I always felt guilty for spelling "hell," so now I'm conflicted every morning and night.

2 - What I hear on the radio in my car while driving to any public event foreshadows how much I'll enjoy/dislike that event. If I hear good music on my way over, I'll have a good time. If I don't, it'll be a wash.

This holds especially true for any performance I happen to be involved in. If, for example, on my way to an improv show, I spend the entire trip flipping between radio stations, I have a bad show that night. If, on the other hand, I hear anything by the Foo Fighters, I know the show will rock the ultimate.

3 - If you ask me whether or not I believe in telepathy, I'll say no. However, if you actually COULD read my mind, I think you'd be surprised at how often I think to myself, "Crap! I hope this person can't read my mind right now!"

Daily Sketches: Greatest Hits

Starting 3.14 (Pi Day), I've decided to post just the best of the sketches I do, and not every single one. I think it'll make me look a whole lot better - and isn't that really the goal?


3.14.10 - This is the best-looking female sketch I think I've done to date. The proportions seem to in order, the action pose is more or less genuine... I'm pretty pleased.

I got lazy, though, and decided not to finish drawing the monkey bars (for those of you that were wondering what she's doing).


3.16.10 - This character is roughly based on River from Firefly - I guess in spirit more than in actual physical resemblance. Truth be told, I didn't really think Firefly was all that great (more on that later. Or not. Haven't decided yet).


3.18.10 - If it looks like I'm drawing more women than usual... it's because I am. I decided I needed to get more comfortable with drawing women, so I'm indulging in a bit of immersion therapy.

Not that I'm immersed in women, mind. That'd be weird, and highly uncomfortable for everyone involved.

Anyway, saw this on the cover of a Nordstrom's catalog, so... here we are.


3.22.10 - This guy looked different in my head, but I think he turned out even more awesome on paper!

I named him "Geppetto," because, in my mind, this is what Geppetto looks like.

Why I'm Still Single #5

Daily Sketches

3.5.10 - What can I say good about this picture... Well, the lines are nice.

This was a cop out. I'm trying to draw more women, but I got lazy with this one.


3.6.10 - This is my first attempt at drawing a child. Children have bigger heads that I gave this guy, though, so it's not quite right. A success, all in all, though.


3.7.10 - Seriously, I have trouble drawing women. This is kinda ridiculous.

Well, it's not ALL bad. I'm pretty happy with the way the girl's arms turned out. But her feet look ridiculous (she's supposed to be wearing boots), and I finally just gave up on drawing a bust.


3.8.10 - My friends suggested I try drawing more women from advertisements and magazines, so I gave it a shot. It was... educational.

I think what I learned most was that the bust isn't really something to stress over drawing. It seems that it's mostly implied by shape, not so much clearly defined by lines. Which might make it a lot easier for me.

Also, I learned that modelling photographers are amazing with Photoshop. I drew pretty much the only model who's ribcage was NOT distorted to make her boobs look bigger.


3.9.10 - Drew this one on the quick. I like it, all in all... except that's not a bad scan. I really DID draw her on a diagonal angle somehow.


3.10.10 - While this guy's right arm is WAY too big, I love pretty much everything else about this picture. I've always been kinda fascinated with the shape of the jaw and chin from below, so I'm glad I got to capture that shape here - even if it does make the guy look like he's wearing a mask.

Also, I think I finally captured a real human emotion here - wonder - and I'm gonna try to do more of that in the future.


3.11.10 - Glen reads all about it.


3.12.10 - I set out to draw another woman - kind of in repose, with her cheek against her knee. After I started drawing the shapes, I realized that wouldn't work, so I had her tuck her head between her legs and... POW. The picture told a different story.

The girl's feet are a little weird, but I'm proud of the socks I drew.


3.13.10 - Drew this one on the quick, too - took me about five minutes. I wish I had spent a bit more time on the face itself, but the rest of it looks pretty good as far as I'm concerned.

Wish I Said It First #9

#9

"Let's be friends based on mutual hate."

- Wallace Wells, Scott Pilgrim and the Infinite Sadness

Daily Sketches

2.28.10 - I haven't done much beard drawing. I find I kinda like it.

That's really about the only good thing about this particular sketch. I think I forgot that people have shoulders. Plus, his hands are WAY too small.


3.1.10 - I'm gonna say I like this sketch. The woman looks mostly feminine to me.

I think I accidentally drew three legs. I mean, I drew two (and they're both visible), but if you look at the shape of her dress, her left side continues down as if she's still got a leg tucked in there somewhere.


3.2.10 - The Friday before I drew this, I went out to dinner at Tucci's (which, for those of you that don't know, is a delicious and very expensive Italian restaurant). The guy who waited on us was Papa Tucci himself. He looked something like this.

Most people, when they get a waiter they like, tip well. I remember what they look like and draw them a few days later.


3.3.10 - I actually kinda like this sketch, too, despite the fact that I think this girl's head makes her look like a duck.

I don't think I've quite mastered drawing hips from the three-quarter view. She looks kinda mannish from the waist down.

And I drew a heavy winter coat on her simply so I wouldn't have to draw her boobs. In case you were curious.


3.4.10 - Drew this guy in maybe fifteen minutes - which sounds like a long time, but I don't care, cuz I had fun.

I based him (kinda sorta in my head) on pictures of Jim Carrey from that new Christmas Carol movie I never saw. I think I should have hollowed his chest out some more. Still, like I said, I had a good time drawing him, so I won't get too picky.

Why I'm Still Single 4

Wish I Said it First #8

"You love secrets. You wanna marry secrets and have little half-secret, half-human babies." - Chuck, "Dummy," Pushing Daisies.

Things I'll Love Forever: Batman

No list of “Things I’ll Love Forever” would be complete without Batman. In fact, a lot of people are probably surprised that I didn’t START with Batman.

(Image from Batman and the Monster Men)

The Caped Crusader’s been a big part of my life ever since I was a kid. At five years old, I caught reruns of Adam West’s Batman on TV, and I used to race home after school to catch the latest episode of Batman: The Animated Series. I don’t think I’d actually ever READ a Batman comic at that time (comic books aren’t really something I picked up until… actually, a few years ago), but I always loved the mystery, action, and colorful characters of a Batman adventure. To this day, when I read Batman comics, the Dark Knight himself speaks with the voice of Kevin Conroy, and Mark Hamill speaks for the Joker.

Rather than list the reasons I like Batman (that post would go on for pages, and I’d prefer to hand write that one, so I could doodle little hearts and arrows in the margins as I wrote), I’ve decided to make a brief list of my favorite Batman collections – the ones that stand as exemplary comic narratives as well as simple, kick-@## Batman stories.

5 – In the late 1980s, two “graphic novels” hit the stands that changed the tone of the comics medium much darker and more “adult”. The first was Alan Moore’s Watchmen, which hit movie theaters last year and featured casual rape and giant naked God-men. The other was Frank Miller’s THE DARK KNIGHT RETURNS, which imagines a future where the government has turned against super heroes, violent crime is on the rise, and a retired Bruce Wayne dons the cape and cowl against the wishes of… pretty much everyone.

Highlights: The community reacts to Batman’s return in panels shaped like television screens, Batman has a final, fatal showdown with a crazed, obsessed (and enamored Joker), and Superman gets his red briefs handed to him by a sixty-year-old Bruce Wayne in a robot suit.

4 – An alternative take on the “Batman of the Future” story – although, in my mind, a bit superior – BATMAN: YEAR 100 shows how a super-authoritarian Gotham City tries to maintain control, and how the mythical maniac Batman teams up with Commissioner Gordon’s grandson to take them down.

Highlights: Batman’s suit – normally some strange Kevlar/spandex hybrid typical among superhero types – consists of a warm thermal sweater, army boots, gloves (that occasionally show his wrists), and ceramic teeth to really give him the monster look when he needs it. It’s a small thing, but by far the most memorable aspect of the comic.

3 – Frank Miller’s second take on the Batman mythos resulted in Batman: Year One, the definitive Batman origin story. This comic weaves together the story of Batman’s first year in Gotham City and a young Jim Gordon’s first year on the Gotham police force. This story focuses as much on Commissioner Gordon as it does on Batman. Sometimes, I think Gordon’s actually the stronger character – so the story draws a lot of strength from his presence.

Highlights: Gordon puts the beat down on a corrupt cop, Bruce Wayne dives off a bridge to save Gordon’s son, and Batman summons a swarm of bats to escape pursuing police officers (a scene that was lifted from Year One and placed directly into Christopher Nolan’s Batman Begins).

2 – Grant Morrison is one of the best comics writers in the industry. Normally, I don’t really care for his work on Batman, but Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on a Serious Earth is easily one of the best comic books ever written, ever. I mean, ever. A rebellion of the Arkham Asylum inmates draws Batman into a trap, where he faces all of his inner demons personified in his colorful and deadly rogues’ gallery.

Highlights: Morrison turns the scary up on the Mad Hatter, the history of Arkham Asylum is revealed (and is every bit as frightening as a Halloween night in a torch-lit cemetery), and the artwork… is DANG good.

1 – In my mind, Batman and the Monster Men is, bar none, the best Batman comic extant. To most people, it’s nothing special – a run-of-the-mill murder mystery. A B-list Bat-villain, Hugo Strange, genetically engineers a small army of monsters in his quest for genetic perfection. Batman interferes as only Batman knows how. For an ordinary story, though, Batman and the Monster Men hits all the right notes – we see Batman as detective, as martial-artist, and… as romancer. Which I don’t care so much about. But, seriously, Batman rocks in this story.

Highlights: Batman defeats the Monster Men armed only with a pair of handcuffs, the artwork is a near spot-on adaptation of that in Batman: Year One (to which this book might be considered a sequel) that takes the source material and improves on it, and… Actually, the scene with the handcuffs is enough for me to consider this one the best Batman story ever. To recap: Batman takes on a trio of savage, seven-foot ogres with a pair of handcuffs, and wins.

Batman is a burly burrito wrapped around a bit of Holmes and MacGyver, with a spicy evil-clown salsa, and a cop-drama tres leche dessert. Belabored Mexican food metaphor aside, Batman is the bomb, and I’ll love him forever.

In a manly, heterosexual way, of course.