Asymptomatic

There must be intelligent life down here

Global Advantage
September 29, 2003

I got this message on the answering machine at home. It was some guy telling me that I had put my name into a drawing and that I had won a prize. It sounded conspicuously like some kind of advertising pitch for a three reasons: 1) He started talking before the beep and the beginning of the message was cut off, so he was probably a recording. 2) His voice sounded like it was coming through one of those lousy headsets with people in the background. 3) He didn't use my name. The whole thing sounded like a recording just meant to be dialled at random.

Anyway, I ignored it. He said something about winning a car or some nonsense, but if it was some marketing thing I didn't feel interested.

Old Pictures
September 25, 2003

I had to clean up my office this week because they're painting it while I'm on vacation, and I came across a strangely labeled CD.  The title said "Packard Bell P-75".  We didn't ever use a Packard Bell computer at work, so I knew it must be a disk from our old home computer.

I put the disk in the drive and looked through the directories.  On there, I found two directories full of pictures from our first digital camera, the Casio QV-11.  It's funny how all of that technology now fits into a watch.

Hurricane Driving
September 21, 2003

The hurricane driving was alright. Actually, we left on Thursday night to try to avoid the bulk of the storm, which was scheduled to hit Johnstown during the morning hours on Friday.

I think this was the second most frightening turnpike trip I’ve ever taken. It was dark, of course, and there was rain everywhere. Wind was blowing all sorts of tree detritus not just onto the road but into the air above the road, swirling in the driving vision of the headlights. I guess we had just passed the mountains having come out of the tunnels when we came to follow a minivan. It was out about 50 yards or so, and all we could see was its tail lights. At one point, it simply seemed to swerve smoothly but suddenly to the left. I thought to myself, “That’s odd,” and was thinking about following them just when I saw what was going on. A huge tree had fallen completely across the cruising lane. Luckily I saw that minivan, because I didn’t see the tree until we were almost upon it. Berta and I just kind of sat there silent for a few moments until I asked her, “Did you see that? Did that just happen?”

Chibis
September 17, 2003

Well, I've been searching for a book for a long time that would start out at a basic enough level that I could actually learn to draw.  I've finally found one.

Katy Coope writes How to Draw Manga, published by Scholastic.  She has many drawings all over the internet, particularly for fan fiction.  She has a web site of her own and participates in DeviantArt.