Tag Archive for 'Steph'

Italy, Norwich and the death of HandRooster

Published
by
Mike
on November 19, 2008
in Comic, Nonsense and Writing
. 1 Comment

It has been a long time, my friends. I’m sorry. I have news, and some of it is sad. I have just announced the death of HandRooster.com, which you can see more about if you go to the site itself. Needless to say, I find it upsetting because so much went into it. Most of the effort was on Steph’s part but I think that most of the emotional investment was made by me. Though it seems silly, there was a lot of my stupid head in that comic and it makes me sad to see it die.

To tell the truth, I’ve been thinking about getting rid of this blog. I’m not talking about my livejournal account, so if you’re on there reading this you’re safe. I just think that in terms of time and commitment, I may not have enough of one or the other to contribute to a regular blog anymore. I don’t want this site just sitting here as a rotting old blog so I’ve been contemplating just letting the people who know and like me go to my flickr site for my photos and to my livejournal for my rare text updates. This, I’m thinking of turning into a very basic site which could showcase a tiny bit of my writing. We’ll see. No decisions have been made yet.

As for other news, we recently came back from a trip to Puglia, Italy and we have now moved out of Scotland and back south to Norfolk, not far from Norwich. I don’t have any photos ready to show you from Italy, but I’ll do a separate update soon with those. I may do a blog post to accompany that as well to tell about the trip and move, because I think I’m done typing for now. I hope you’re all doing well. Thanks for putting up with me.

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I wish you a Merry Leap Day and a Happy New March

Published
by
Mike
on February 29, 2008
in Books, Comic, Photography, Web/Technology, Wood Carving, Work and Writing
. 0 Comments

Leap day – it seems to be a symbol to me of the lost. It is a day which comes so little that one feels as if he should take a close look at his life and spend the day doing something crazy in order to remember its very special nature. I don’t really plan on doing that, mainly because I can’t think of anything crazy, but also because something crazy enough might get me kicked out of the country. I wouldn’t want to jeopardize any future attempts at British citizenship, would I? The answer is no, children. Can you say that? No.

Seriously, though. Maybe I’ll make a Youtube video. I’ve never done that. That would be the craziest thing I could do in comparison to my normal nature. I was going to take a photo of a pork pie today, but Steph ate the last one yesterday because she was starving. I was sleeping at the time, so I couldn’t protest. I wanted to take a photo of it because I actually like them. I hadn’t tried one before, but the pies made from humans and gooey bug stuff in the Sweeney Todd movie made me want to try one. I did, and it was delicious – not at all like the movie, of course. Anyway, I was sleeping because my schedule was opposite of what it should been. I basically got up at night and went to sleep at the morning, so I didn’t sleep the night before last, and then stayed up all day until 6pm. Then I went to sleep and woke up at around 7pm with a horrible cramp. I won’t say anything more about the cramp, but you can investigate it here if you want. It seems to happen to me sometimes if my diet isn’t varied enough. I’m probably going to seek out fruits and vegetables today, because it is one of the most horrible things that I experience in life.

In recent personal news:

We have been working on HandRooster, and it seems that not everyone has left us. Our web hits aren’t massive like they used to be, but I’m hoping that will come with time and good comics, so we’ll just keep making them. I haven’t carved wood in ages, mainly because the house is still cold. I usually carve in the living room but I don’t have any wood or coal right now so the living room is cold if we’ve got the fan heater in the computer room. Steph never spends time in the living room, so I don’t want to steal the heater from her. Perhaps I’ll get some wood or coal soon and heat it up in there so I can carve. Otherwise, my hands are too cold and they hurt while I’m carving. I’ve been writing a bit – mostly small journal posts, HandRooster scripts, and little poems. I’ll remind anyone that is interested that most of my poems are in the poetry section of my website. I’ll probably be making individual pages for them or rearranging the page I have because my friend Lewis suggested that it might make them more readable. I agree, so I’ll get on that soon. If you read them and have any comments, email me or leave a comment. There is some contact info here Hmm. What else? I got some books yesterday. I intend to do book reviews on all of these at some point, but here are a couple of links. They are quite good books. This author writes very different fantasy books. They are a refreshing change to the usual:

Golden Fool
UK version
Fool’s Fate
UK version

Anyway, those are the latest two I’ve received and I intent to start reading them right away, although I have many other books to read. After I’m done, maybe I’ll finally get around to doing some book reviews. I guess we’ll see.

I hope you all have a Merry Leap Day and a Happy New March. Do something crazy!

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Pleasant sunny day

Published
by
Mike
on February 16, 2008
in Comic, Photography, Web/Technology and Writing
. 1 Comment

Ah, so this post is to serve as a sort of main course to the sort of starters I’ve been making lately…if you’ll accept the food analogy.

First of all, we’ve almost finished the cosmetic updates on my website. I think it looks very nice and Steph has done a good job adding the birds into the header. It’s pretty cool, and it keeps the idea behind the theme the same. I really like it, and it makes me want to post a whole lot more than my previous theme, which had some problems displaying images correctly and just did some screwy things whenever I’d try to format things the way I wanted them. This theme is clean and simple, but remains visually pleasing. Anyway, enough of web stuff.

I thought I’d mention that I’ve added a poetry section to my site, and I’ve got a bunch of my poems on there. Now, I’ll just state for the record that I haven’t really made most of my poetry available to just anyone to read before this, so please realize that this contains a ton of my stuff, some of it left unfinished or without any editing yet been done. Stuff will change on the poetry section as I add/remove/edit poems. I also hope that nobody makes fun of me. I write from the heart, but I haven’t always followed the rules for some of this stuff, I’m sure. It has mainly been a way for me to express my emotions, which I’m usually really bad at doing. Anyway, if you want to read them, feel free. If not, that’s fine too. Just don’t send them to tons of people in chain emails making fun of the crappy ones. Oh, and don’t claim them as your work, just in case one of these babies turns out to be my cash crop. Yeah…..that’s going to happen…totally.

HandRooster: The comic is coming back. It is coming back soon. It is coming back this next week. This week’s scripts are done and they have been sent to the beautiful artist who is my wife, and she will be working on them tomorrow and later this week. I hope we haven’t lost our fan base entirely, but if you read this and you used to read the comic, get your RSS news readers ready..or just go to the site later next week if you’re old school like that. I must admit that sometimes I prefer to go without a newsreader myself. I call it “going newsreader commando” and it can be quite an exciting experience.

It was a nice sunny day today, so Steph and I walked to the shop in Strathtay. On the way, I took some pictures which I will share below. I had been wanting to get some photos of a couple of little waterfalls near the path, so I got those and a few others. I hope you enjoy them, because I had a problem with my Aperture plugin which uploads photos and I couldn’t get most of them on for hours. Now that I have conquered that problem, I present them to you.

Small falls near River Tay

Little shaded falls

Sun drenched stream

Shaded waterfall

Old stone thing - I have no idea what it is

Building waterfall

Mossy stone post

Moss

Last year's leaf

Snowdrops

Tiny smooth falls

Honestly, this post was going to be longer. I want to talk about some books I’ve been reading and also some work stuff, but I think I’ll do proper book reviews at a later date and work can wait. I’ll leave you to what you were doing before this rude interruption. Have a good one, as required by law.

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Update on projects

Published
by
Mike
on February 15, 2008
in Web/Technology and Wood Carving
. 2 Comments

In case I’ve forgotten to mention it before, but I’ve recently updated my site design. I’ve been using the same theme for a while and I thought it was time for a new one. So, I downloaded K2 and I looked up some styles for it. I found a pretty cool one called Curlz and Steph has edited the header and footer images for me using elements from my previous design. I think it looks good. It isn’t done all of the way yet, but it probably will be in the next couple of days.

So, I’ve updated my Projects page. I added the photos of one of the woodcarving projects I did, which I’ll also put below. It is called a Dalecarlian Horse, and there is a bunch of cool stuff that this wikipedia article will tell you about them. I’ll just let you look for yourself if you’re interested. Anyway, have a look at my projects page or just read below for the same stuff:

This is a Dalecarlian style horse I carved from basswood using instructions from a Swedish style woodcarving book I have. I made it as a gift for my mom for Christmas but just got around to uploading the pictures. I don’t think it’s too bad for a first attempt at this style of woodcarving. It is difficult because I don’t have a bandsaw to cut out the rough shape so I had to rough it out by hand from a block. Steph (my wife) did the fancy traditional paint job.

Dalecarlian style horse - side

Dalecarlian style horse - front

Dalecarlian style horse - rear

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a day

Published
by
Mike
on February 14, 2008
in Nonsense, Web/Technology and Writing
. 1 Comment

I’ve had a pretty lazy day. I’ve been getting a bit frantic lately for no reason. I guess that after all this time, I still have major doubts about which direction I should head in life. Honestly, I have no idea if I’ll ever resolve this stuff in my head. I know that I should write every day, yet I avoid it as if I hate it. After I avoid it, I feel like crap because I haven’t done it. When I actually get down to doing it, it is pretty enjoyable. What’s wrong with me? I feel so messed up when it comes to things like that. Instead of doing something, I agonize about how I should do it, spend hours reading about doing it and how I should do it, and coming up with alternatives to doing it which will make me rich and give me tons of time to do anything I want. In the end, I am stuck sitting here in front of my computer realizing the fact that I’ve just wasted another day which could be spent furthering my skill and lessening the pain to which I drive myself steadily. I need to find some sort of project which occupies my time – something which requires modest amounts of research and detailed writing based on that research. What I need is some sort of minor starting job to make me feel as if I can actually write instead of sitting here telling myself I might be able to write.

Ah, you were right, Edgar. In the case of my creativity, misery is manifold. You were a bit of a downer, I must say…how we do this to ourselves is beyond my comprehension.

Oh well. So, Valentine’s Day, eh? I wrote Steph a silly poem as my gift. We’re never really big about giving each other gifts, except on birthdays. It is nice to have no pressure in that sense, but I hope there isn’t some sort of rage building inside of her which will tear up swathes of rural Scotland if she decides to destroy me.

If anyone reads my posts anymore – hi! I used to have so many online friends, but now my reclusive nature has extended into my online presence and I guess I’ve built a hermitage in a tiny part of the web. Unfortunately, it is the part that has spiders and mildew and wretched stray dogs with fur worried patchy and thin by their gnashing teeth as they vainly try to rid their bodies of fleas. I always told myself I’d be happy to be a hermit, but I’m beginning to think otherwise in my old age. My vast 28 years of experience have yielded much wisdom, this being the latest data gem gleaned from that proverbial database. I long for a nice internet campfire with stories aplenty, a minstrel’s sweet ballads, ample food, good company and good cheer. Maybe I’ll build an internet campfire website – a web application of some sort. Social networking, and all of that.

What kind of websites don’t exist that you’d want? I’ll steal your ideas and make them. I’ll cut you in on the profit, though.

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