Yep. I think I hate toy collectors.

I don't hate all toy collectors, obviously. Some -- many -- most -- of my favorite people collect toys. I collect toys. But I never set out to collect toys, and I don't much enjoy the activity of collecting, per se. I don't pride myself on the size or value of my collection or the rarity of items in it, and I don't compare it to the collections of others as if it makes me more or less worthy -- I hate the "he who dies with the most toys wins" mentality. I just really love toys, so I buy a lot of toys, and I've amassed a collection because of that.

So it's the collectors who treat collecting itself like it's a sport -- like it's golf, even, 'cause that's the expensive one -- whom I really despise. I want toys, so I guess I "hunt" for them -- but not only do I not enjoy the hunt, I don't think it should be necessary. (My favorite lines right now are TMNT and My Little Pony, because they don't require hunting. I don't have to buy a figure on sight, afraid I might never see it again -- it's all but guaranteed that I'll see it again, multiple times, over the course of many, many months.) I hate the hoops companies like Mattel make us jump through to collect certain lines, and I hate how difficult it is to get most convention exclusives. (I found NECA's process to be really easy this year, but I even have problems with that. It just so happened that I was sitting at the computer when the figures were made available the second time, and folks who were elsewhere should be able to get them too. I preferred it when NECA sold the exclusives via their Amazon store.) (more...)

So like most of the random articles I read these days, this one was posted by someone on Facebook. I'm kinda not sure what to think of it, though I suppose it's not terribly surprising. Here, have a look:

Addicting Info: Republican Uses Noah's Ark Myth To 'Disprove' Man Made Climate Change

Yep.

Though I will say that the author of that article didn't impress me with her so-called takedown of Barton:

"Barton says that the Great Flood is an example of Climate Change, when in fact the Bible states that the earth was flooded to rid the earth of sin. ... So in other words the Great Flood was not a change in climate at all but God’s wrath brought upon all of the sinners and his intention was to cleanse the earth and start anew."

It could totally be both, though; the author is confusing God's intent with His potential mechanism of action. The torrential rains that caused the Flood (in one account) could have been a byproduct of God-made climate change -- which God engineered because He was super pissed at humanity and wanted to wipe the slate clean. There's no necessary contradiction there.

(I suppose one could make the argument that the change in climate that caused the Flood was more sudden -- and thus doesn't count as climate change proper -- but the rain that lasted for forty days and forty nights could have been the exclamation point at the end of a climate-changey sentence God started writing decades earlier.)

So now you can read my most recent tweets and maybe follow me on Twitter (@WesCrayon) and stuff! I don't tweet very much, though, and I almost never say anything remotely important. 😛

I kinda want to draw fetish art for people.

Like, seriously (but not seriously). I have this ridiculous dream of having a booth at a comic convention where I ONLY draw fetish art commissions for people. You want a drawing of Spider-Man snapping a photo of himself while dangling upside down? Fine, but you'd better pretend that shit turns you on.

That said, I wouldn't want the pictures to actually be erotic -- I'd want to do them in my signature (lazy) style and knock them off very quickly. I don't really want to produce great art or make gobs of money (if I broke even for the table I'd be delighted); I just want to hear people's sick sick desires and delight in giving them goofy six-minute Sharpie marker drawings. You like dickgirls? Here's a stick figure with hair and eyelashes and pouty lips. And a dick. I'd simply smile, but the voices in my head would laugh and laugh and LAUGH.

Have I told you about my desire to get a cardboard sign and sell $1 haiku on street corners? If my living sitch ever goes south, I'm totally going to be the Haiku Hobo.

the Haiku Hobo
writes haiku, obviously!
And he's homeless. Duh.

...Yep.

So this artist I know posted a thing about feeling inadequate when she browses DeviantArt -- in part because other artists (some of whom are younger than she is) are so awesome (presumably more awesome than she feels she is, otherwise she wouldn't feel bad about it). I responded with some hokey-sounding pretentious (and totally sincere) bullshit that probably makes me seem like the old man that I am.

I almost never truly feel inadequate when it comes to artistic talent! I think it stems from an understanding of personal style: there are definitely people more skilled at certain techniques than I am, but I've never seen anyone who draws (or writes, as is more often the case) quite like I do. So I certainly look forward to improving my own skills, and I'm eager to learn from other people, but I don't compare myself to other people because they're not me. No matter how good those other people are, they'll never be me.

Like I said, hokey-sounding pretentious bullshit -- but I really do never feel inferior when I browse the work of others. On DeviantArt, that's largely because I feel that drawing isn't my artistic strength. That's not to say that I think I'm completely without skill, and I often feel that much more skilled artists are less suited to certain artistic undertakings than I am (I feel like I do a really good job of drawing specific people, even though I don't even draw people with noses and/or ears). But even when it comes to writing, I'm never intimidated or humbled when I read other people's stuff. (more...)