the best bed-wetting dream I have ever had

There is this pattern my dreams take sometimes: I go to pee, and things are Wrong, then I wake up and have to pee really really bad. Well, tonight, I didn’t wake up. And I don’t regret it because holy shit it was the best Wrong Pissing Experience dream ever.

I sat on the toilet and started peeing. And kept peeing, and peeing. I looked down and the toilet was this deep abyss with all these huge multicolored crystals hanging from the inside of the lid and poking up from far down in the cavern inside the bowl. The water was crystal-clear and up to my dangling testicles. I didn’t care, I just kept peeing. Even when a second hole opened up beneath the head of my penis. Well, that was kind of weird and unpleasant because of how the urine jetted out against my balls (probably because at this point I was starting to actually let loose some in reality). But I held a finger over it to try and stop it and kept peeing. As I did I looked closely at my penis and it was this weird flat-headed thing completely unlike a normal human penis. But it was still jetting urine. Mostly I was aiming it at the various crystals and watching them disintegrate. After a bit my penis changed to be this long, thin thing – about the length of two fingers, and thinner than one, yet very stiff – and I had to maneuver it carefully to not touch any of the piss-crystals, because they were kinda prickly. Also because they were crystallized pee, and that’s just icky. But really I didn’t care, I was having the greatest time ever peeing here overall.

There was a brief interlude where I was opening up a storage compartment in a car and taking out a bunch of little red and blue plastic figures – each color was stored in their own compartment, of course – and setting them out to pee on them. Of course. At some point someone described them as incubi and succubi. I don’t know, this is a thing I dreamt and it really didn’t make sense.

I got up and opened the toilet, looking at all the variegated colors of piss-crystals that had resulted from my excretions. Now instead of a toilet it was this huge decorative living room thing, that had stored something that was now thoroughly covered in my pee and the colorful crystals. My mother was kind of angry but I really didn’t give a damn; I was incredibly satisfied for some reason. The whole dream had this deep, animal satisfaction vibe to it that lingered beyond waking up.

For good measure, I started pissing in my mother’s kitchen sink, which was now next to the decorative living room storage unit somehow. And then I woke up in a wet spot. And I was both all “aww, crap”, and all “I don’t care, that was SO IMMENSELY SATISFYING.”

The sheets are in the washing machine, and I’m mildly annoyed at my body doing this the night before I have a con to leave for, but whatever, it’s not like I’m leaving first thing in the morning. I’m sitting by the open window, listening to the occasional car pass by in the rain, and I’m just oddly happy. Like I said at the start: this was the best Wrong Place To Pee dream EVER.

my least stressful failed con ever

Today I went to Jet City Comic Con down in Tacoma. I barely made back what I owe my table-mate for my half and the cost of some convention center-priced snacks.

But I didn't worry about it. I wasn't afraid that it was a judgement on me, on the salability of my work or anything like that. I've been to bigger cons and made a good profit. This was just not a con with a ton of people walking around buying stuff, and I know that now. I can just shrug it off and decide not to go next year. And hey, maybe I made a few new fans who I'll see at Emerald City with copies of book 2 of Rita on sale.

Yet another signpost on my journey to being a seasoned pro, I suppose. Hopefully Bent-Con next week will make my wallet happy. Or at least pay for a trip down to San Francisco where I can catch a little sun.

the dream of the battered robot and the uncertain transman

I was watching some bit of movie cosplay presentation that shaded into blurry B&W footage – probably a night vision camera – of a squat little four-legged robot poking its head out of some shrubbery, then skittering towards an ATM where it was assaulted by a few riot cops. Then I woke up and started trying to type it up to post – but the clunky C64 keyboard I was trying to type it on was wrapped in plastic, and the delete key was hidden on its back. Soon I got distracted from this anyway, by Erin's little sister, who was having major problems living with her parents and was on the verge of moving out to live with her SO who her parents did not approve of. In part, this involved her gender issues. I said, yeah, it's a good idea to find a safe space where you CAN explore these issues and figure out what's right for you; good luck, and I hope you can eventually come back and reconcile with your parents. She gave me a disdainful look like that was the last thing that would EVER happen, and I was filled with sadness.

Then I woke up.

 

oh hello fall

Hello again, seasonal depression. I haven’t missed you.

I haven’t missed the way you distract me from taking my pills – including the vitamin D that helps drive you off. I haven’t missed the way you make me disinterested in turning on the sunlamp – which drives you off. I haven’t missed the way you make me not want to exercise – which keeps you away. I haven’t missed the way you make me not want to work – and getting stuff done makes me happy.

Hello again, black dog. How did I chase you away last time? The memory of that’s always the first thing you take.

Hello black dog

weird behavior with indexed PNGs in Mavericks, anyone?

Mavericks has mostly been running fine for me, but I’ve noticed some weird stuff happening with the display of indexed PNGs here and there. In Finder’s column view, Preview, and Quick Look, they’re all washed out. Check it out:

Screen Shot 2013-10-29 at 3.40.48PMOn the top left, two Preview windows, showing the 256-color GIF and 256-color PNG versions of the same file. On the bottom left, two Finder windows in column view, showing its previews. And on the right, a Finder window in icon view. Which gets the PNG perfectly right. Weird, huh? It treats 24-bit PNGs fine, but indexed PNGs turn pale. (I also checked a 16-color PNG, and a 256-color-with-transparency PNG – same thing.)

 

Screen Shot 2013-10-29 at 3.46.01PM

It seems to only be Finder, Preview and Quick Look that do this. Here’s a couple Safari windows. I just threw those two images into a Mail message, and they looked fine there, too.

Most peculiar. And rather annoying.

Is it just me, or everyone on Mavericks? Here’s a couple of images to download and check out, if you’re curious. See what Finder’s column view, Preview, and Quick Look do.

 

edit: a couple people on Twitter have reproduced this. I’ve submitted a bug report to Apple.

an open letter to the iTunes team

Dear Apple:

Why is it that, despite having nineteen of the 44 albums Rush has released (basically every studio album and a couple live albums), I only just now found out they released another studio album last year? You have my entire library in iTunes, and I’ve checked the box in the prefs that says “share details about your library with Apple”. The play count on all of these tracks is high, and the skip count is low. It is not a big leap to make the assumption that I like this band, and will seriously consider buying new stuff from them. There are other bands or musicians that it’s pretty obvious I’m a fan of, too. I just found out Pop Will Eat Itself came out with a new album two years ago, for instance. Bought it within a few minutes of learning that fact.

Seriously, I’d love to have a feature where iTunes could look at my library and start telling me “hey there’s a new album by this band you obviously like” or “hey there’s a new solo project by a member of this band you obviously like” every once in a while. There’s a ton of data to mine here. Maybe a personalized tab in the store? Intermittent emails? You’ve done various attempts at music discovery, sure, but they’re aimed at “if you like these artists maybe you’ll also like this person” – you’ve done nothing on keeping me aware of new stuff by people I’m already into. I guess you assume I keep up with music news or something? That I actively seek out and subscribe to the mailing lists of artists I like? Hell no, that sounds like work.

You have enough data on my listening habits to hazard a reasonably good guess at what new albums will make me say “SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY”. Why aren’t you doing this?

Love, Peggy.

edit.

Oh, wait, there IS such a thing. Hidden away obscurely: go to the store, find “my alerts” in the column of tiny “quick links”. And you can turn on exactly the kind of thing I’m asking for here. Though it isn’t smart enough to only show me stuff I don’t already have. Man can I just make this the front page of the music store or something? Because fuck telling me that Justin Timberlake has a new album, show me a bunch of stuff you think I will probably groove on.

Well, now I know, at least, and it’s turned on. Such as it is.

geek girl con: done

Here is a moment that best sums up my experience of Geek Girl Con 2013: A woman had a conversation near my table with two guys, in which she decided she was going to totally ship them. They didn’t protest too hard; two dudes dressed in black suits with matching purple ties DO look kinda… shippable… especially when one of them casually leans on the other’s shoulder.

Here is another moment that best sums up my experience of GGC2013: A pair of cosplayers wandered by, both tarted up in skin-tight black latex. One was Black Widow, the other was Hawkeye. Neither was crossplaying. They had a pretty good pair pose worked out, with the Widow taking a dramatic low crouch at the drop of a camera in front of a dramatically-standing Hawkeye; after that, Hawkeye announced that he would also do Hawkeye Initiative poses upon request.

It was really neat to have the dudes being objectified for a change, is what I’m saying.

Not that there wasn’t any lack of skin-tight outfits on ladies, mind you. But there just seemed to be an expectation in the air that if anyone was gonna be public ogling property, it was the dudes, not the ladies.

Also I made something like 5x what it cost me for my table, despite being in the somewhat out-of-the-way Artist’s Alley rather than the main floor. I’ll be back next year.

interview puttering

I spent the morning sitting on the beanbag chair in the living room, writing up responses to an interview that’ll be appearing on another cartoonist’s site sometime next week. Now it’s noon.

I think it’s time for me to take a shower and consider what I want to do with the day until Nick comes over for the usual weekly dragon pettings.

Oh, and speaking of which, here is an interview with Nick on the subject of… um… stuff, I guess? There isn’t really an overarching theme to it, it’s just some questions and some answers.

Also, man, it’s hard for me to get moving, even with the sun lamp. Dana and I have been kinda kicking around the idea of some kind of winter cartoonist migration, possibly with SOs, and I think I really need to see if we can make that happen next year. Because I am just fucking dead. I like Seattle but I break when the sun goes to hide.

some thoughts on expansion

Every now and then, I see other artists muttering about people biting their style and/or cloning crafts they’ve done limited runs of. I think they’re going about it all wrong.

When other people are biting your style, that means you are awesome – you have carved out an idiom, and you have defined it so well that you get people shamelessly imitating you. That’s pretty awesome! You’ve blazed a trail into the wilderness, and a few people are following you. If you like having other people hanging out in this place you found, then you don’t have to do anything – but if you don’t, if having these people drawing the same way you do is making you itchy, then it’s time to move on. Open yourself to new influences, strike out on a new path, see what adding something new into the mix can do. It’s the universe telling you to level up.

When people are copying a crafty item you’ve made, sure, that means they’re riding on your coattails. If it’s moving for them, then that means that this thing you came up with is so cool that the world wants more of it than you’re willing or able to make. Do you want to own the market for this thing you came up with? Then own it: take on an apprentice (maybe even one of the people shamelessly ripping you off, if they’re close enough), hire someone to make the things, or look into ways of mass producing it and throw that sucker on Kickstarter. Clones are the universe’s way of saying “this is a cool thing and I want more”. This, too, is an invitation to level up.

If you’re comfortable where you are, that’s fine. But acknowledge that you are making a choice to not move on, and that other people will be joining you in this pretty sweet new artistic territory you’ve carved out.

(Disclaimer: Nobody’s ever made a serious stab at biting my style or cloning a thing I’ve made. Arguably I am just talking out of my ass here.)