RKNet Blog... Thing

Oops! Wish I had found this link a little sooner. $20 could have gotten you this super-rad octopus print, but they’re already sold out of their run of 100 5″x5″ prints. The proceeds would have gone

On the upside, though, they seem to update every couple of days with a new and enticing art print.
Tiny Showcase seems to focus on, well, tiny art prints. The site started as just a couple of art enthusiasts’ own showcase, but as of August ‘05 they raised prices a little so they could start donating to charitable organizations.

The heads-up on Tiny Showcase comes from Gregory Euclide, who is apparently going to be featured on TS here pretty soon.

Speaking of prints and Mr. Euclide, if I haven’t shared it yet, you should definitely zoom by We <3 Prints. It’s where I located a set of six prints by Gregory earlier this year. And hey, if you’re disappointed that you missed out on the first octo-print, you’re in luck because We <3 Prints found another one for just a little more money!

Cephalophiles rejoice! Internet art supports and understands you. <3

Also, I must tip my hat to my beloved ToM for helping me spread rad (cephalopod-related) art links today. Do I earn my (purely honorary) ToMcat ears now, John? The idea is as exciting as joining the Mickey Mouse Club must have been, except this is superior: it’s got WAY more Cthuhlu. Incidentally, since I subscribed to the ToM RSS feed back on 08/03/06, my search pulls up at least 38 direct references to Cthuhlu. Freaking awesome.

http://www.b3ta.com/features/phalliclogoawards/

A local restaurant just got covered by this blog for having a phallic logo.
Check out the Chop Shop’s logo and decide for yourself!
They’re really a remarkably great restuarant, if you can now get past the idea that it looks like a dribbly p33n0r.

Edit: I am an insensitive jerk and I forgot to credit my source! Thank to Regina Lynn over at Sex Drive Daily and one of her other devoted readers for locating this. I was just so shocked to see that the place where my company Christmas party was held has gotten internet notoriety now for having a phallic logo! :P

http://www.zefrank.org/signup/key/HWHFCTCZ

This is an invitational link to the ORG.
I hope to be able to quack you all back soon!

If you’re already an ORG member, then by all means look me up and gimme a quack!
http://www.zefrank.org/user/Giania

that’s all for now!

I started playing with my Flickr. :P
http://www.flickr.com/photos/giania/

There’s some blurry pictures of fish that might not be in my LJ photo gallery, other than that, not much in the way of progress.

I did it so I could start adding photos to The ORG.
I made my first post on the Ze Frank forums, as well. How neat is that?

Boring day, I’m actually getting really sleepy. Not looking forward to walking home. It’s cooooooold outside.
That’s it. That’s all you get. Neener.

I’ve heard of at least a few people who are finding themselves more and more depressed lately. There are times where I’m tempted to lump myself in with that group as well, although for the most part I’m doing my damnedest to keep a relatively positive disposition despite mounting fears about my irresponsibility catching up to me.

As it turns out, I and my compatriots are far from the only ones who feel this way. Via The Sherman Foundation, I found an article at Ananova entitled Blue Monday. It addresses the phenomena of winter blues, particularly that post-Christmas slump a lot of people seem to fall into.

Just a short blurb of an article, but it cites a few villans of positivity that tend to crop up right around now:

• bad weather - That one is a big 10-4. Winter finally showed up around here, and I have to say the cold snap and the nearly snapping my neck walking to work on ice doesn’t do much for MY mood.
• mounting debt - You bet your arse this one’s creeping up with increasing urgency for yours truly here. My holidays were at least somewhat expensive, and without a “nest egg” to speak of, making rent is stressful as hell.
• failed resolutions - I didn’t have any specific “New Year’s Resolutions” but I was definitely poised for reform of my habits until all the ice hit. It seems sort of obscene to drive to the gym, drive home, then walk to work… when the gym is in the same building as my office. If they hadn’t taken away my parking space, it wouldn’t be an issue. I was feeling a little more positive about the whole thing before the prospect of walking to work became a dangerous one.

So yeah, I can see what they’re getting at with that.

The solution proposed in the article is “volunteer”. Well, that’s nice and all, but that won’t shore up the hole in my bank account, now will it? I’m all for doing for others, but dammit, you have to do for yourself first. If you can’t help yourself, what business do you have helping others?

Still, I have to look at all this from a positive persective. Being broke is encouraging me to start cooking again. It’s going to get me to follow through on setting some things straight. It’s going to motivate the hell out of me. Hopefully I can take all this negative propulsion and adjust it, setting a trajectory that will slingshot me back to home using the moon’s gravitational pull. Or something.

Holy smokes!
Penny Arcade’s Gabe announced earlier that although the Child’s Play drive is over, they still have some items that did not get auctioned off. So they’re cleaning house and getting the organization a little extra somethin-somethin.

One of those items is a Nintendo Wii signed by the president of NoA, Reggie Fils-Aime.

At this moment, it’s up to $455 with 11 bids. Those of you privledged few who AREN’T broke may want to consider throwing your dollar-stuffed hat into the ring.

Incidentally, while looking for a picture of a hat full of dollars, I found this article about a car pwning the second story of a house. That’s right. The second story.

Today’s Questionable Content (#801, for posterity’s sake) leads me to believe that I am quite a bit like this “Faye” character. Not terribly fashionable, but I make certain insane sacrifices for fashion (read: overpriced, ill-fitting jeans). I can be grouchy and obstinate when I should be cool, and vice versa. I seem to get a bit of a southern accent when I get to drinking. I know I’m pretty annoying at times, but go forward with the hope that people will like me even with my flaws (because OR in spite of, I take what I can get). Shoot, I’d even be a pretty good physical prototype if someone wanted to cast for Faye. (Although I’ll be damned if ANYONE will get me into those “skinny” jeans that seem to be all the rage. Can you say awkward? ‘Cause I know those would be. The mental picture alone is enough to make me wanna throw up a little.)

And today’s comic points out one of the other reasons I assume people tolerate me. I’ll let y’all draw your own conclusions.

humans like the snow
going so very quickly
where the wind blows it

Feel free to critique my syllabic usage. I had it perfect a moment ago but I was outside.

Remember a while back when I started Words to Know? The first links I provided were on things like the golem, and the homunculus.

Well, thanks to Fulguritus, the first WTK of 2007 (volume #7, no less!) is going to feature some more curiousities of alchemical and religious histories. Since I consider this a landmark, lucky Words to Know, we’ll make this one extra verbose! Not just Wiki links here, folks! Read on. :)The link chain begins with the Jaquet-Droz automata, a set of curious dolls created in the 1700s. The first thing I thought of when I saw the photos on the Wikipedia article was: “Rozen Maiden!”

For those who don’t know, Rozen Maiden is a manga and an anime about a set of living dolls created by a master dollmaker and their life with a young boy named Jun. (Without Spoilers / WITH Spoilers (but more info) - See Also: Desu [nsfw])

Reading up about these automata made me curious, so I started digging around in that article. An automaton is defined, in brief, as “a self-operating machine.” That definition immediately brings to mind two things: 1 - The Uncanny Valley and 2 - Man’s unnending attempt to synthesize life. Not just “create” life - since any horny, unchecked teenager is pretty likely to “create” life - but to actually synthesize life using methods that would generally be considered non-standard.

One item in the automaton page stuck out: the description of and his coded Book of Stones. Cryptography is interesting in and of itself, but the ties to alchemy were what compelled me to read more. Down near the bottom of the article Geber is mention of the possibility that the term “gibberish” is derived from his name. Which is both plausible (were it not for contradicting evidence) and amusing, seeing as all his alchemy-related writings were encoded and therefore not able to be read normally.

As it turns out, Geber’s alchemic goals appeared to point towards Takwin. As it states in the article, the reason for his experiments towards this end is translated as “The purpose is to baffle and lead into error everyone except those whom God loves and provides for!”

This immediately reminded me of the golem and his role in Jewish mythos as a living protector created from mud.

Jinkies! Just a hop-skip and a jump to get me to come back to one of my first Words to Know research topics. From French robot dolls to ancient magic mud men in only a bajillion links! ;)

I could go off on these and more tangents for a while, but I’ll save it for another time.
Until next time, happy reading!

Happy Monday! :D It finally snowed here in a way that stuck to the ground. I can’t say I’m thrilled but I’m not disappointed either. It means it’s nice and quiet in the office here today, and it gives me plenty of time to share these tidbits with you and still get a ton of work done!

http://shaelriley.com/toybox/
Thirteen songs about the internet, video games, and generally being a badass motherfucker (or obnoxious, depending on one’s personal impression).
I thought it was worth sharing.

The one I’m most familiar with is “Bit Pop”, and I highly recommend it to anybody not sure where to start listening.

And now for something completely different: A non-english (although the site is in the UK) Flash game called Chaos Theory. The object, as far as I can tell, is to start an explosion near one of the blue dots as they get thrown up the screen, and cause a chain reaction to blow up as many as possible before they fall back down. It’s pretty fun!

Here’s a screenshot of my last score. ;) Trust me, it’s definitely an easily beaten score.