Turukhtan

Saturday, December 10, 2005

What I would want to do before potentially being exterminatd by Apophis

Recently, an asteroid on a potential collision course with Earth has ben discovered. If it would indeed impact, it would "release more than 100,000 times the energy released in the nuclear blast over Hiroshima. Thousands of square kilometres would be directly affected by the blast but the whole of the Earth would see the effects of the dust released into the atmosphere".

The other day, mum asked what I'd like to have done before 2036. I said I would like to have finished as many as possible of my comic projects.
"But they'll be destroyed anyway if the asteroid hits the area where they are!", mum said.
"I'll just have to make copies of them and have them stored in different continents!", I exclaimed.

Now that I think about it, it would make a cool idea for a post-apocalyptic story: I would survive, but the stash of comics closest to me would have been destroyed. I would go on a journey to retrieve the remaining stashes of comics, while the Earth would have been plunged into chaos and nuclear winter.

Posted at 4:15 pm by turukhtan
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Friday, December 09, 2005

Link of the day

The 'Defending our Oceans' voyage that two ships of the Greenpeace fleet have embarked upon is the single largest expedition that Greenpeace has ever undertaken. It's a year-long journey that will investigate "the crisis facing our oceans from the Azores to Antarctica, take you to places few humans have been, confront the villains and promote solutions".

Some crew members on the Esperanza and the Arctic Sunrise keep a frequently updated blog, and I find it really interesting. It can tell you a lot about the life at sea. I just had to include the following quote here, because it has a funny metaphor:

"... Every time we get sent rolling to one side [by a wave] it's a sure bet we'll rock almost as far the other way, so water comes aboard on one side, runs the deck like a pack of crazed pigs and dumps out the scuppers on the other side: if you happen to be out on the deck when that happens, if you aren't quick enough to hop on top of something on deck you'll end up with deck boots full of icy water."

If you don't know what I'm talking about regarding the metaphor, I have a clue for you ... here is how to say it in US American sign language:

Apparently, sign language is also not free from speciesism: "The fingers do not 'wiggle'. They bend and unbend from the large knuckles. If you 'wiggle' the fingers it means 'dirty'."

Posted at 4:03 pm by turukhtan
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Thursday, December 08, 2005

Dammit.

I'm currently fighting with finishing the fourth comic about Eva, Glass Rain, in order to be able to publish Tunguska #5 before the year 2005 has ended.

Meanwhile, the extra comic that will accompany Driftwood in issue #6 - Pigs Have Wings - has been finished a long time ago. I originally drew it for a manga contest this autumn.

I'm really having trouble with Glass Rain, as it's kind of complex and tricky. So, today I asked myself whether it wouldn't be easier to just switch places between Pigs Have Wings and Glass Rain, and have the former in #5 and the latter in #6 ...

The reasons why I hadn't considered this earlier were the following:

a) Glass Rain is longer than Pigs Have Wings, and Driftwood chapter 5 (in #5) is shorter than chapter 6. If I put Pigs Have Wings in issue 5 with Driftwood chapter 5, Tunguska # 5 would be thinner (50 pages or so), while Tunguska #6 would be really thick (70 pages minimum).

b) I've already drawn the cover for #5, and it has Eva on it.

c) I thought I would be able to publish issue 5 much sooner, and if I'd have included Pigs Have Wings, it would have breached against the rule in the manga contest about the entry not having been published anywhere previously.

But then, (c) is irrelevant now, and (b) is easily solved if I redraw the '#5' on the cover into '#6', and draw a new cover for #5 ...
(a) remains slightly problematic, but I've had previous issues being both very thin and very thick, so it doesn't really matter anyway.

Yay ... so if I switch these two comics, I can suddenly work on Glass Rain without any stress (for instance, I can finish it during the Christmas holidays at mum's place). And all my poor neglected fans (okay, the two of them) will finally get their long-awaited fifth issues.

Phew.

Posted at 11:17 pm by turukhtan
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Yesterday, I had hours of mindless fun.

I came across "the world's first applications to apply the scientifically advanced technologies of face detection and recognition to family history and to consumer photos".

Here are the results ...

Posted at 9:49 pm by turukhtan
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Tuesday, December 06, 2005

An abandoned house in Malmö

Last weekend, me and Mihai went to Malmö, where we walked across the city to IKEA (it wasn't very far ...). Along the way we came across this house in an industrial zone, opposite of the Olympus office.

Mihai inquired whether I would like to move in there. "YES!", I exclaimed, and immediately started planning what would have to be done in order to get it in shape. Getting window panes, for instance (unless they were still intact underneath the boards). Mihai seemed to agree, and said it would be a perfect place for loud parties, as there was no one near who would be disturbed.

The house must have been beautiful in the autumn, when the leaves of the vines turned red. Now their stems have been cut off. Too bad ...

A detail of the entrance:

Posted at 1:11 pm by turukhtan
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Aileen Wuornos

Yesterday, I watched the film Monster by Patty Jenkins, a highly socially critical story based on the life of Aileen Wuornos, the highway prostitute who was convicted of the murder of seven men and (incorrectly) labelled "the first female serial killer [in the USA]".

In the film, Wuornos decides to quit working as a prostitute after she is raped, tortured and almost killed by the man who became her first 'victim'. After that, it's shown how she completely went over to killing in order to support her young girlfriend Tyria Moore. The real Wuornos, however, seems to have kept on working as a prostitute during the 13-month period when she killed the seven men, and resorted to killing her Johns only when they attacked her (as she repeatedly said herself) and/or in order to get bigger stacks of money at times when she felt that Tyria might leave her (as suggested by Sue Russell, who has written her biography).

Prisonactivist.org campaigned for "equal justice for Aileen Wuornos", maintaining that the handling of her case was highly influenced by sexism, anti-lesbian and anti-prostitute prejudice. Their campaign article is still online, and presents interesting statistics, which unfortunately aren't backed by any bibliography. But also Sue Russell mentions this kind of bias: "One prosecutor described her at the 1992 trial as a 'homicidal predator', saying she was 'like a spider on the side of the road, waiting for prey-men'."

In any case, Aileen Wuornos 'volunteered' for death after serving about ten years on death row. Maybe she didn't see much point in continuing her miserable life.

Posted at 12:32 pm by turukhtan
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Wednesday, November 30, 2005

Around the railway tracks in Lund

A bunch of heart-shaped balloons got caught in a tree next to Klosterkyrkan.

Posted at 5:33 pm by turukhtan
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Tuesday, November 29, 2005

Indigo drips

So that's why it was 'dry clean only' ...

Posted at 7:40 pm by turukhtan
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Peanut butter kiss of death

Actually, it's not funny.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4481546.stm

In Canada, a 15-year-old girl has died after kissing her boyfriend. He had eaten a peanut butter sandwich nine hours earlier, and didn't know that she was extremely allergic to peanuts.

Imagine what a trauma the boyfriend is going through now.

Posted at 6:06 pm by turukhtan
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Saturday, November 26, 2005

I made a silly comic today.

It's right here:

http://www.kommiekomiks.com/judy-comic/index.htm

If it says 'page not found', it's because my web host's servers are 'under maintenance', I guess. That has been the case now and then lately ... Or at least I think it's that, because they haven't answered my e-mail to their support yet.

Posted at 9:33 pm by turukhtan
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