And Don't Forget, the Penalty for Looting is Death.

Ladies and gentlemen, Sunday is over. Fear not! In approximately a dozen-dozen hours, Sunday shall return! Then we can all rejoice and do the church thing again! Unless, of course, you don't do the church thing to begin with... in which case, those of us that do will tell Jesus you said hello.

It was a great day today! I fell into the baptistery with my suit on, carrying my wallet, cell phone, iPod, laptop computer, Flip video, digital camera, my skateboard, a backpack full of cash, my wife (she was wearing her wedding dress, too), my favorite Scrabble set, my entire baseball card collection, our new big screen TV and my autographed & personalized hardback copy of Gates of Fire by Steven Pressfield. All of it, ruined. All of it, irreplaceable. But I'm looking at it symbolically... much like baptism, I went into the water with all of that stuff, and when I came up again, I was a new man! Well, a new man with a wet wife...

OK, I made all that up.

You: No, Dave! Really? You made all that up? Wow, I almost believed you when you told me that!

Me: Well, apparently, this morning's sermon wasn't called "The Importance of Telling the Truth in your Blog, Whether it's Boring or Not."

You: I'll never believe you again, you putz. You are no longer godfather to my son.

Me: Well, at least I can still beat you at Scrabble.

You: With that soaked set? Ha!

Double-Church duty today, as is my custom. The cameras were very glitchy today. Something is amiss in the video system at church. We had to unplug and replug the cameras a few times today, especially in the evening. That's the extent of our trouble-shooting abilities in the upper room. If unplugging/rebooting stops being effective, we may have to send for Paul and/or Anthony, aalllllll the way out in New Hampshire. Road trip!

I currently have the Black Caballero wallpaper up on my big monitor, and I have to admit, it looks absolutely killer. There is something I need to fix in the art... near the rear left leg. The stomach scales shouldn't continue like they do... I need to bring the rear leg all the way up. Here, lemme show you...


Technically, those big stomach scales are supposed to travel the length of the dragon's body along the underside only. They wouldn't curve up and around his back left leg like that. That tall red ridge of Stegosaurus-like plates is supposed to travel along the very top of its back... anyway, you get the idea. It's likely no big deal to anyone but me, but I'm sort of a perfectionist... I notice it every time I look at it, so I need to fix it. It sucks a bit since I've already moved onto the next...

Here are a couple Hosoi wallpapers I made... first, here's the actual board art I used as the source...


I had two of those when I was younger, though they really were quite heavy for a street deck. It was more sentimental, really. Hosoi was one of my faves. In fact, on one of them, I bought some different colors of grip tape and on the front, I replicated that design with the grip tape. Cutting up grip tape with a razor... now that was a chore, but I loved the results. Yet another board I have no clue where it went.

Anyway, I've made these two so far, but I'm not overly pleased with either.


The problem is, I wanted to use only elements that were in the graphics themselves. Reproducing the artwork straight across just didn't look good to me - it was way too strong for a desktop wallpaper. The red sun is sort of his trademark, so I had to try and include it. But with the red full bore, it overpowered the art. Those awful letters for his name are also jarring, especially with the red full strength. If I ditched both, the skater wasn't strong enough to stand on it's own.

So I decided to try and add a cityscape to the background, to tie the elements together better and add balance. I ghosted the red sun into the background, tinkered with the size of the letters, played with a couple different cityscapes... but neither really sings to me. I've decided to shelve them for now, and move on. Working on a classic Rodney Mullen next.

You: Dave, honestly, I believe I can speak for the rest of us when I say, "who gives a crap!"

Me: Well, I give a crap! If you don't like it, there's the door!

You: OK. [heads for the door]

Me: No, wait! I'm sorry! Please stay! What do you want? A funny cat video? How about an epic Maru video!



There, that helped, right? My three-year-old loves that clip too. Wait! No, I wasn't comparing you to a three year old! Wait! Don't go! Hold on! Here, lemme try daily trivia...

Todayve in History: August 24
-----------------------------------
- August 24, 79BC: Mt Vesuvius erupts, burying Pompeii, Herculaneum and Stabiae in volcanic ash, after cooking the remaining residents to cinders with pyroclastic flows. (What a way to go...)

- August 24, 1456: The printing of the first Gutenberg Bible is completed. (Yeah, but they didn't do Jesus' words in red. FAIL.)

- August 24, 1814: British troops invade Washington DC and burn down several buildings, including the White House. (Good thing no one was home at the time... President Madison was vacationing at Camp David...)

- August 24, 1875: Captain Matthew Webb becomes the first person to swim the English Channel. (his rudder froze; he had no choice...)

- August 24, 1891: Thomas Edison patents the motion picture camera. (So, ultimately, Edison is to blame for Bridezilla, COPS and Carrot Top's career...)

- August 24, 1949: NATO is born! (OK, who would win in a fist fight: the UN or NATO..?)

Among those celebrating birthdays today are: Orson Scott Card (1951), Mike Huckabee (1955), Cal Ripken Jr. (1960), and Dave Chappelle (1973). I'd play that famous 1991 All Star home run that Cal Ripken Jr hit for you, but of course Major League Baseball is notoriously tight-fisted with their footage, and scour the net for footage that they didn't give permission to post. Funny that one can find just about any scene from any movie on YouTube without problem... but baseball footy? Heck, no...

Me: Whew, I'm glad I got you to stay for the whole thread...

You: It's only because I can't find my car keys...

Me: Hmm? Oh, you mean these? [pulls keys from his pocket, and jangles them]

You: You little---

Me: MUAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!

Until tomorrow, remember, a Sherman can give you a very nice edge...

Link to DIRECTOR's CUT of today's post...