Begin the blogging for today.

Considering that I started my day off falling for a trick, you would think today was an interesting day. You might be right. There was some idle sketching at the desk today while I was letting formats run on some computers (I'm not slacking off, not really!) that turned out surprisingly well. At first, I was trying to sketch my Kenya dragon user icon... that didn't turn out great, but it was recognizable, I suppose, after the second pass. Then I decided it would be fun to try and sketch more of my user icons - I got an excellent one of Llewellyn (although I think I somehow changed his emotion trying to replicate it), and the second time around at my Musical Kodoma was decent. I only tried once on the Dragon Illuminati logo, and that bit. The Domo-kun anchor I sketched looks really surprised, rather than just at the desk, but it was a good sketch, too. Squidlet's a little taller in the cranium than normal, but actually he turned out really well, especially with a good shading. The best part about this is that they were done in pen, so there wasn't any erasing that could be done, and some of them still turned out excellent.

I'm starting to see component shapes a bit, I guess - lines, curves and such are a little more visible than they might have been before. I don't guarantee perfect emulation, but I got close on a lot of those. I came home and tried three different times to replicate the Kimiko sketch I have on my desk... and failed miserably. The second one's the closest, but I can't seem to quite pick up how Fred does good hair in very few lines. Oh, well. I freesketched something afterward, trying to perhaps draw another character with Kimiko's facial settings, and she turned out rather well. Enough that she has a bit of an upper torso as well. Although I think she's going to be rather flat-chested - I have no idea how to properly draw in clothed breasts yet. So she's probably a young'un, which matches well with what I drew up.

Amazing how occasionally things work out really well for me and I produce a good picture. At other times, well, not so much. But if good artists have bad sketches, then a beginner like me is certainly entitled to a few. Now I've got a few drawings to work with, but they're all still relatively small-scale. I haven't drawn anything that takes up an entire page yet, and I think I'm going to want to work up to that, somehow.

But enough about my drawing for today - there were far more interesting things that happened. Like a carjacker calling the police to report the vehicle he stole as "stolen" when the police recaptured it. That much fluff between the ears deserves a marshmallow recipe. Congratulations.

And while I'm trying my hand at drawing, you (and me, perhaps, if I should ever decide to become a ham radio operator) might do well to learn Morse Code. Then you can use it to decode things like the secret text in the Red Alert Manual.

Everyone's seen the Evil Overlord List, right? The stuff of "If I were the Evil Overlord..." Well, we now have the other side of the story, The Hero List. So now this sort of thing is Fair and Balanced, like what Fox News claims to be.

And there's a modest proposal from greyweirdo on the table - How to make gay marriage legal. There's a sinister truth to his arguments. If we can get this idea going, then perhaps we can also get people to consider all the methods of healing - not just allopathic, but all the "alternatives", too, and to accord them the research and scientific inquiry that they deserve.

Anime Central Road Trip begins in two days... eh-heh-heh... and this one promises to be interesting. Precisely because it may involve having to keep an eye on Pervy and outmaneuver his machinations. Oh, so much to do, so little (ish) time to do it with. Reminder to self, if you can swing it and find a good one, go grab a Chrono Crusade DVD that has both Chrono and Joshua on it so that you can get scribbles. And possibly drag a little more money from your already sick bank account so that you can support starving artists.

And one last thing - somewhat recently, when I've been setting my alarms (or even when I haven't), I awaken from a good slumber about two hours before I was planning on getting up. That happened this morning. I don't have too much trouble going back to sleep, but it often works in one-hour segments. I'll be awake again, then I'll go back to sleep, and about an hour later, awake again. This can't be normal, but is it something I should be worried about? I don't think it should, since I'm not becoming an insomniac over it, but perhaps someone with experience can say something about it.