Little Bombs and Birthday Chefs

Work-a-Doodle

Every so often something surprises me when it tumbles out of my head and onto a blank page, such was the case with the drawing below. I'd initially drawn this little guy running around with his wick on fire as a kind of warm-up doodle; something to get the creative juices flowing so I could work on one of my more "serious" (yeah, right) efforts. It was fun and it was kind of cute. Then I drew this while taking a lunch break from work. It's like I'm channeling my inner Hans Christian Anderson. Honestly, I wonder what that might say about me.

Extreme Chef: 33 - Birthday Candles: 0
My brother's birthday was last week and I decided to do something a little different to commemorate it. For the last few months he's been working as a cook at an upscale hotel in Denver. By all accounts he's been doing a bang-up job, too. I didn't have anything to send him, so I thought I would try my hand at a special comic strip.

It's already been said, but happy birthday, Chris. Keep doing what you're doing and I'll keep telling everyone how awesome you are.

Geek Speaking of Stockholm with a Side of Happy Music

Geek Speak: Stockholm Syndrome

I blame Die Hard for the overuse, and often misuse, of "Stockholm Syndrome" in the popular lexicon. Even so, that's what it sometimes feels like when my daughter insists on watching My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic for the umpteenth time. All told, I think Mildly Sensational and I have seen the three seasons available on Netflix a dozen times. Even as I write this, my daughter is in the living room with her mother working on making it a baker's dozen. 

To be fair the show actually its merits. The animation is consistently of very high quality, the voice acting is solid, even brilliant on occasion; and many of the songs are difficult to get out of your head once you've heard them. I'm particularly, and consistently impressed with the woman who gives voice to the characters of Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy. She makes the character voices so distinct you'd never assume they were voiced by the same person. She even gives them noticeably different singing voices, a feat that becomes especially amazing when both characters are singing together, and you still can't tell it's the same person. 

With that said. I really wish the girl child would find something else to watch, within reason. Caillou is a dick. For all of its merits the show's central message about friendship, while important, is delivered with all the subtlety of a bedazzled wrecking ball. 

Sounds like she's starting over with season one, episode one...again. Imagine me sighing as my shoulders sag.

"Friendship is magic," and my eyes well up with anguished tears, "friendship is magic." 

Random Thoughts

In the quest to find some music that would help to lull my infant son to sleep I pulled up some Pomplamoose on Spotify. He didn't care for it, which meant I had to change his white noise to something more...white. For the little bit that we were able to listen I discovered something about Pomplamoose. Their music makes me happy. It's a small but significant victory, discovering there is some music out there that can just make you...happy.