Tidbits

Greetings intrepid readers. You know, if you've read more than a year's worth of posts at LIA or have this blog on your RSS reader, I'd like to commend and thank you for your patronage. I often get the most random of comments from posts I'd forgotten about and it's nice to know that some people actually read the site...people I'm not related to that is.

That said, Deb, I'll also have to look at the Morning Star packaging. I generally don't eat the products with the exception of the veggie crumblies we put in spaghetti sauce or for burritos and I have no known food allergies so checking those boxes isn't terribly important to me. I will check it out though, but I'm sure Ms. A probably wouldn't eat so many of the breakfast sausages if there was stuff in there that she couldn't handle.

Moving on. Hurricane Ike has come and gone from Texas. It's now being a pain in the ass for the midwest in the form of rain and possible tornados. The hurricane itself never made it to Austin. Original models had it glancing off the hill country before traveling north, but the closer it came the impact became smaller until finally it was looking as though we'd not see any problems. Which we didn't. As the storm saturated everything along I-35 from Galveston to Hunstville, we enjoyed partly cloudy skies and some gusty breezes, but not a drop of rain. By Sunday morning we had bright blue skies and at present a cold front has moved through Central Texas bringing highs in the low 80's through the rest of the week. Not bad.

Ms. A's dad and step mom came out yesterday to leave the powerless Conroe. They tried leaving ahead of the storm, but decided not to and so they rode out the storm instead of riding a twelve hour car trip to Austin. Can't say as I'd blame them. Twelve hours to go 150 miles, I'd rather get punched in the nuts...but just once.

Moving on yet again, my LEGO addiction has taken full hold. All my old sets are built and I'm now debating on whether or not to go buy more older sets as well as new Star Wars sets or to dismantle what I have and start building on my own. It's the collector versus creator fight and sadly I've abandoned most of my drawing. Odd considering how many times on this blog I've bitched about not having enough time or motivation to draw. Amazing what one good weekend with an old familiar plaything can do for your morale. LEGO is a happy place for me. I could lose hours building with it, organizing it, coming up with ideas for new things. At one point in my life I'd even sent a letter to LEGO asking how to become a builder/designer. Turns out, at the time, you needed something crazy like an engineering degree or an architecture background. Later I became aware that you could get a Toy Design degree (which most major universities don't offer, but you can get them at art institutes.) Even later it became apparent that these accredited individuals were not sallying forth with the same creative spark as average LEGO fans so LEGO started Master Builder and Amabassador programs. These are hobbyists that are involved in the LEGO community but are recognized by LEGO (though not official employees) and as such have certain responsiblities and receive certain perquisites for being community role models.

How you get to be one I'm not sure, but from looking into it, I believe owning millions of bricks for more than 30 years is the only way. So I've got some work to do.

Talk about dream job. Long before I wanted to be a voice actor or comic book artist or cartoonist or comedian I wanted to build LEGO for a living. Wouldn't it be funny after 20 years of doing nothing but drawing I end up doing what I wanted to do from when I was 8? Don't get me wrong, I will likely still draw and doodle and illustrate when given the right motivation (good idea, money, familial request) but without daily practice that muscle will likely wither. I don't have 10 hours a day to draw and hone that craft, but I do have a few hours a night to build and building doesn't take as much practice, just a love of the bricks.

Moving on thrice fold, the 100 Artists Project is still going on. There was a snafu with the sketchbook so I had it sent back to me for corrections. So I got to see a year and a half worth of input and it was kind of neat. The book has traveled all over the US and to see it still in one piece was joyous - I almost teared up, honestly. I've received five short stories and one piece of artwork for the new project and so far about 50 people have signed up for the various charities. It's obvious this is going to be a long term project and I hope it gets its due at some point. It doesn't require a lot of work and I hope we can raise some good amounts of money for these groups. That's really all I want. If I wanted fame I wouldn't be doing a charity project.

Moving on completely and finally, the new season of shows are out and so far I've only caught a couple. I saw Fringe the other night and liked it. It didn't blow my mind but it didn't make me blow chunks either. I thought it was well rounded and it did admirably well for a pilot. I also caught The Sarah Conner Chronicles and was really impressed with that. I'm glad that show is back. I'm still watching Charlie Jade for the remainder of its sad little 2am run. It's not a bad show, honestly more well written and plotted than a lot of shows. Television Zombies has a current review and I've got more to come. Plus, keep an eye out for a Clone Wars commentary I recorded (yay voice!) that they'll hopefully play on the show or link on the site.

No more moving on today. I hope you all had a good summer and let's see if I can start posting more.