Saturday 26 May 2007

Al 2.3 & 2.7 and Bonus Eye

When I made the leetle goatlet for my own fibre fairy, as I have mentioned, I was told that his name was Al. I am going to guess that was an alliteration thing. Anyway Al's owner liked leetle Al very much and back in December she asked if I might make a couple more for her family members who had also admired him.

Oh sure, I said.

I probably should have added something to the effect of it's only going to take me SIX MONTHS to get around to finishing them.

So here six months later are leetle Al 2.3 and 2.7 (O.G Al and my first rendition being Al 1.0 and 2.0 respectively) sitting on one of my grandma's old aprons:


Happy that they are fully covered as they have sat on the computer desk naked since February. Can't you see the joy on their wonky leetle faces?

ETA, speaking of wonky, I just have to post this picture-because for some reason I have always been very proud of the genetic anomaly that caused my wonky eye and love to tell people about it.

I wanted to take a different picture for my avatar-one that would disguise the genetic anomaly that did NOT give me the skinny nose I deserve.
Anyway when I took this picture, the flash made my hair look orange like that flash always does, so I colour corrected it in photoshop-and lo and behold, there is my wonky eye, plain as day. It usually never shows up in pictures.

If you can't tell, my left iris is split in half colourwise. The top of it is green as the other eye but the bottom is brown. Basically I got mama's eye colour gene with a random bit of dad gene attaching itself in there. Now I've met and heard of many people who have two completely different coloured irises, but I've never met anyone (and only ever heard of one other) that had one iris that is split into two definite colours like that.

Oddity being the epitome of coolness, I have always loved my weird eye. I can remember when I was a child my mom was always hoping it would change colour to all green as I got older, while I dreaded that it would.
For some reason though people often think my eyes are brown. Ah no only half of one is...

I secondly think it's hilarious that my infamous grey hair is peeking out. People always seem drawn to pull out that particular grey hair. Often with only the warning "you have a grey hair, let me get it" *Yank*. It survived the last attempt on it's life by a co-worker the other day.
One time I had a resident point it out, and when one of the other girls teased him for being impolite, he protested "But mine are all grey". Ha.

I also have to say that judging by the look on my face in that picture, I think I may have been planning the Knife-stick match of DOOM or wondering how much more I would like the hellions if they were slathered in barbeque sauce. Heheh.

13 comments:

mem said...

That is awesome. My left-handedness and o-neg blood are about as odd as I get (physically, anyway). Well, that and my Gumby-like flexibility, which I inherited from my mother.

And the picture does look like you're about to jump out of my monitor and kill me. Are you sharpening a knife down there?

My eyes shift colors depending on season and food intake, picking up a bit of green this time of year and washing out during the colder months. However, I don't have any split coloration. That is pretty wild.


I think that your appreciation for science would increase if you were able to appropriate the knowledge for your own crafty-ness. Everything starts with color, for example, and I would guess that understanding color is kind of important for the sort of thing you do.

The sheep are delightful, incidentally.


And as regards snarly and nasty, how about choosing points for who you can knock off in a parking lot? My old landlord and I decided that a hit-and-run on grandparents obviously in love (holding hands) and herding little children (or better yet, a baby in a stroller) would be the highest point total. The look on our faces when we discovered that we both calculated points in the parking lot was probably classic.

Sarah said...

That eye is so cool! I have never seen or heard of anything like it. Mine change between blue, green and gray, but horizontal color split is amazing!

Cute goats, too btw.

mem said...

Hmmm....wheelchairs did factor into our equations, actually. But we found the hand holding worked better, especially with children.

And it's actually somewhat uncommon in FL, probably because there are more aged people there. So ha.

I don't know that song, and I'm a little frightened of you now. Following around kids in cars is liable to get you in big trouble here.

Even though I don't know the name of the song, I think that M and I are going to start a band called "Boys with Means." (To show we're evil. Mmmmhmmmm.) He plays drums, and I sing badly. Maybe I'll just narrate instead.


If this sounds strange, it's because it's about 1:10 on the eastern seaboard. (I just struck many evil sentences. They were all very amusing at this hour, but I'm not sure how they'll translate.)

Also, I don't like BBQ sauce. In fact, I don't like sauce at all, but I seem to get it from people all the time.

mem said...

It's a little past 7:30. It's Memorial Day here. I'm about to go to work. I think I'm going to shower when I get back. I'm also going to respond in some coherent fashion to your last comments.

But all I have to say for the moment is that I surely don't need to be in a band to be a complete jerk. People in the know will tell you all about it, I'm sure.

mem said...

When I said coherent, I basically meant "incoherent." I just got back from the airport, and I am really pretty tired. I slept less than I thought I did.

I'm sure you will educate me all about Lou Reed. Aren't you aware of my cultural illiteracy? I don't know anything about pop culture (or indie culture, for that matter), and if we ever played Trivial Pursuit you would probably destroy me.


I had a student in one of my classes at school who liked Metallica, and I called him Lars because I could never remember his real name. He looooooved me.

You know, you can delete comments off of my blog, sure, but they still show up in my inbox. Your self-censorship was therefore only effective for the two people who actually read my blog (you're one of them, btw). I am proud to tell you that my pop culture illiteracy again saved me, regardless, but M was not so lucky—he was doing the drum beats to Take a Walk on the Wild Side for the rest of the day after I read your comment. I was highly amused.


I think I am going to go sleep for awhile. Then I'm going to eat. Then I'm going to sleep again. This was a good weekend, but I'm pretty beat.

mem said...

Ha, yes, I am functionally illiterate when it comes to culture references. I listened to Glad, Petra, and some classical music as a child. And my folks weren't thrilled about the Petra. I guess I also listened to a lot of other stuff (Guardian, Jet Circus, Painted Orange, Idle Cure and others), but I never owned any of their stuff until after the bands retired, usually much later. I mostly hate the radio and will usually only listen to classical music on it.

To give you an idea of how culturally illiterate I am, my introduction to "Free Fallin" was through an Arnold Schwarzenegger parody of the same called "Total Recallin".

Basically, if I know about it, and it's pop culture, everyone knows.


I don't get stat pay, mostly because I'm on salary. Salary is a two-edged sword, as it means that I get paid whether I work or not. I don't often work overtime, but I work more overtime than not working at all.

I basically did it because it's good PR, and because it means I'll work less for the rest of the week. A couple hours' worth of work on a holiday isn't such a big deal.


And I expect we will eat in the hereafter. Jesus did after all tell his disciples that he wouldn't eat with them again until he came in his kingdom. Which as far as I'm concerned is an endorsement of pie in heaven. Especially pumpkin pie. Warm pumpkin pie.

And I did sleep well. It was nice. I could've slept awhile longer, however.

mem said...

Ha. Well, I have never felt particularly compelled to be a badass, no. My obliviousness extends to a great many things and has been an asset in many circumstances. It does mean that I got started late on almost everything.

I think you would've been far more enjoyable to hang out with as a kid than many people, both from my perspective and my parents'. I had one acquaintance in 6th grade who was a year older, swore a lot, and did not have a happy family life. He bought Petra records at my suggestion, however. In fact, he probably still has the sand album. We had sleepovers often and would play video games and try to program his Apple ][. I was a bigger dork then than now, if possible.

But my parents actually were not very strict as regards people. I think Dad just didn't really like the music. I feel rather fortunate that it was Petra, since there's actually measurable quantities of reasonable doctrine in Bob's lyrics.

We get along well mostly because my brother and them didn't. And because we know when to leave each other alone.

Did you ever listen to Whiteheart? They toured with Petra a lot. They weren't as good, I don't think, but I pull out some of their records every once in awhile.

mem said...

I somehow scored as "Cool, Modern Nerd" (69% Nerd, 52% Geek, 43% Dork). I guess my social awkwardness is not as pronounced as it used to be or something.

And as regards your commonalities with my friend of many years ago, that was hilarious. You do strike me as rather colorful. Maybe it's the split iris or something. Ha.

I personally try not to hold myself to external standards in what I enjoy. I generally like what I like and won't apologize for it. This means I'm generally not critical of other peoples' preferences, unless it involves something like bad doctrine. And then I tear them a new one (on Mondays).

mem said...

HA! NOBODY EXPECTS THE SPANISH INQUISITION!

No, I have mellowed out some as I have argued about the same things over and over and over and over again. It gets old after a few billion threads.

On that quiz I also answered that I quoted from movies, but it's mostly from certain cult classics like Spaceballs, Office Space, Army of Darkness and the like. My movie illiteracy is like my pop culture illiteracy. Though I suppose I have more of the cultural consciousness of movies than I do music or other stuff.

I also quote celebrity jeopardy all the time. Mostly because that's the only thing I saw on SNL I thought was funny, except for Al Gore's "lockbox" skit...and the Mike Myers ones. And the El NiƱo one with Chris Farley. Ok, so SNL did have it's good moments. But not when I watched it. Sigh. Like I said, I got started late on everything.


And, uh. HAHAHAHAHAHAH, you own the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack? That's horrible! What's on it?

mem said...

I'm sure you picked up on this, but I really haven't seen Saturday Night Fever. /me points finger at self and laughs. I am sorry that poseurs (is that a highbrow version of "poser"? hahaha) fell out of fashion on you. But what do you expect? They're probably the ones endorsing skinny jeans now. And did your brother sing as well as the Bee Gees?

I just got up from a nap. You don't happen to have a neck-corset for kinked out cervical vertebrae, do you? If so, can I borrow it?

So I don't recognize many of the skits you mentioned on SNL. I have heard the line about being old enough to remember when SNL was funny, though. And the older episodes still are pretty good. But I don't see them with any regularity. And I was called Buckwheat by someone in my neighborhood when I was in sixth grade. I'm still not sure how to take that.

I guess the skits I remember most were the verklempt ones, the one with Madonna, Mike Myers running away with the jungle gym (I just wrote "Jim" there...sigh), Aerosmith...not many others. Until later, when I saw the lockbox one during the election crisis. And the celebrity jeopardy skits I would watch instead of doing my labs for some classes.


So how does this Azwacajy thing measure up? Do we conclude messages with it, or start them? Or do we shout it at unwary passersby? And how is it pronounced? Does it require war paint to use correctly? If so, is woad acceptable, even though it's not Aztec? (I've always wanted to paint myself blue, but the Blue Man Group evidently wants people with talent and the Picti don't really exist anymore.) This is hurting my brain. (Not that it takes much to hurt my brain these days.)


And I just totally made the huge mistake of trying to confirm that the Picts really did paint themselves with woad. In addition to some resources, I found this obvious precursor to Monty Python songwriting, which now makes me wish that ancient Scots led normal lives with central heat and socks with separate toes.

mem said...

Ha, that explains one reason why you don't like to sleep. My brother never jumped on my bed—he just farted a lot. And yes, I shared a room with him while I was in grade six. And yes, that was quite traumatic. I spent all of my childhood being vaguely confused. Now my confusion isn't vague anymore.

Okay, so my friend who got married this last weekend so went to see BOC a few years ago. He said lots of people on Harleys were there. Who thought it was cool that a young twenty-something and his buds (not me) would go see them. I think they played with Steppenwolf.

And I definitely did NOT wear my socks in my pants in sixth grade. That's a purely kindergarten phenomenon, no matter what people who were gulled into thinking the sun was blue and the sky yellow say. I am not even remotely close to being the height of fashion, or the depths of fashion (my favorite clothes—and most expensive—look like white pajamas), but I was heavily discouraged from doing anything like that with my socks.

I also have problems with Wikipedia, aside from the inherent unpredictability of the accuracy of the results.

The cowbell was pretty funny. Christopher Walken is hilarious, just by being himself, and there was a really good questionable impressions game on whose line with him in it once. My roommate sophie year thought "Weapon of Choice" was the best video ever. (You can go with, you can go with that.)

Ack! I'm being attacked by work!

mem said...

Wikipedia is evil, on many levels. In some respects, it is good, since it exposes on a wide scale what already happens in print. People aren't really experts but know how to sound like it get paid lots of money to essentially spread disinformation. Of course, this is slightly different because no one is getting paid, except in personal ego points.

I am not surprised to find heretics wandering on Wikipedia.


So many of that guy's cartoons are just spot-on. A lot of them are quite geeky (I guess now that I've been educated, I can't use the word Dorky anymore), but quite hilarious. Like today's is really good but requires you've read The Once and Future King and seen Memento (I would consider them both worthwhile pursuits, the former more than the latter). Or this one, with its play on Godwin's Law (soon I will add a Wikipedia article for your own Law, which, according to Internet Naming Guidelines, must be called Char's Law, not Monsanto's Law).


Unfortunately, I am still buried in work. And I am going to try to get some of it done before tomorrow rolls around. Ugh.

mem said...

Oh, and this one. I would watch out how close you are to WMRC in the future.