I made another bit of artwork involving Daniel, my Winter Soldier-based Death Knight character.  I'm not happy with the background, but I'm afraid that attempts at fixing it will just damage the whole thing at this point.  Colored pencils on printer paper.

( He is huddled in a corner while his mind is clearly elsewhere.Collapse )

I'm going to weigh in on this Alabama Supreme Court Justice Roy Moore orders Probate Judges to stop issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples.

I'm not even going to talk about the rights of same-sex couples to marry if they want to.  Roy Moore has a habit of recommending that Alabama should simply refuse to follow judicial rulings that it doesn't like.  Well, that's all well and good, except that if individual county Probate Judges don't like Roy Moore's ruling...what then?  Marriage licenses are issued on the county level.  Does the state court get to issue "mandates" that apply to individual counties?  So far, Jefferson, Madison and Montgomery Counties have been issuing the licenses in spite of Moore's order.  I wonder how he likes dem apples?  My good money is on "he doesn't."

So, I am apparently one of the 12 people on Earth who saw the movie "Blackhat."  Verdict: Don't bother, unless you really like:

1.  Chris Hemsworth

2.  Watching excellent actors struggle valiantly to wrest some goodness out of an ultimately wretched plot, script, and everything else about this movie.

3.  Fight scenes filmed with that oh-so-edgy rattling camera.

I'm not even going to bother so summarize this silly thing.  Just watch any other movie about "hackers," and you'll get the idea.  However, here are some things I learned while watching this:

1.  Pharmacies in Indonesia ROCK.  You can go into one and buy everything you need to treat major gunshot wounds, including IV bags and antibiotics.

2.  If you just duct-tape enough magazines around your midsection, you will have enough protection to slow down a round from a rifle that was previously throwing slugs through heavy-duty shipping containers.  And police cars.

3.  If you are trying to sneak into a computer room in China to steal a piece of hardware, it helps you to remain anonymous in a roomful of Asian people to be extremely large and white.  Just pull down your baseball cap, you'll be fine.

4.  If your sibling waves poiniantly at you from a car where he is sitting alone, wave goodbye...forever.

5.  And last but certainly not least, if some muckety-muck's kid does a special project in computer class to illustrate packets of information buzzing along the "net," it will appear in loving, extended detail to illustrate how computers communicate...not once, but twice, both outbound and on the return path. 

Maybe I'm sick or something, but I saw "Guardians of the Galaxy" the other day, and...I really didn't care for it.  I mean, the actors were fine, and I liked the general look and feel, and the fight scenes were "like whoa."

There was something sort of "try hard" about the whole thing, right down to that stupid soundtrack.  Like Ewoks, in a way...created to sell toys, and you were suspicious about the cute little bastards the whole time.

I drew this as a Christmas present for a friend of mine.  She and I play WoW, and my character is a Death Knight whose story and look is loosely based on the Winter Soldier's.  This is "Daniel," who is loving his very first Christmas present. (Drawn with crappy colored pencils I found laying around)

( Cut in case it's too big.Collapse )

I was on vacation, now I'm back.  I bear a Thanksgiving gift specifically for cairistiona7:

I wasn't too pleased with this shot, but while experimenting with the colors, etc, I found an effect I sort of like.