HELLO! THIS IS TELEVISION!

new things

2010-11-09T02:52:21Z

Visit my tumblr:

ant marquee

that is where things go now.

It is "not safe for work", as they say.

IF - "rescue"

2010-03-29T16:51:07Z

IF - "rescue"
Originally uploaded by sn

I'm making weekly illustrations again. This one was done (pretty quickly) in a sketchbook during Drawing Night. If I work real fast then I can probably keep making these and not take a year between entries.

hourly comics day 2010

2010-02-02T05:17:58Z

Hello hello. My hourly comics.

If you would like you can also go see them at the Hourly Comics forum.

That is all!

live journal

2009-12-17T05:35:44Z

I was just thinking

OH JEEZ I ONLY UPDATE THIS THING WHEN I WANT TO TALK ABOUT MYSELF THAT'S SO AWFUL

then i remembered that this is livejournal

Slice where you live like pie / Lemon yoghourt

2009-08-26T04:10:33Z

WELCOME BACK TO THE INTUITIVE KITCHEN

Peaches are only in season for a little while and canned peaches can go to hell. To hell! So, peach pie season. How do you make a good peach pie?

Crust: I used Bittman's from "Everything". For some reason, since he wrote that he went on to claim, in "Vegetarian Everything", that he doesn't like double-crust pies. What a goof! Anyway, 2 and a quarter cups all-purpose flour. 1 teaspoon salt. Two teaspoons sugar. Pulse them twice in the cuisinart.

The cuisinart? Yeah every time I made pie crust I did it by hand using the Alford and Duguid method (freeze the butter and grate it on a box grater -- pretty cool!) which kind of... didn't work. But the cuisinart is actually totally miraculous and I made a goddamn excellent pie crust for the first time ever.

IT TURNS OUT for pie crusts, you have to do it RIGHT. Which is to say: if it is acting up, or not coming together IMMEDIATELY and behaving TOTALLY WONDERFULLY, you're boned, and should start over. If the pie crust is going to work, it will do so from the very beginning. Sad news, but... it's also not hard. Listen up.

Pulse the dry a couple times, like I said. Add the butter -- one cup, nice and cold, chopped into SIXTEEN PIECES -- just by dropping it onto the mix. BY THE WAY did you put the PASTRY BLADE in the cuisinart? The soft, not a blade one? Hope so.

Use organic butter, please. It really matters -- fuck cows! it TASTES better.

Okay now run the cuisinart FULL BLAST for TEN TO TWELVE SECONDS ha ha. No, don't time it. Watch it and when the butter sort of goes away -- blends in with and gets coated with flour in little pieces, you're done. It is OKAY to go a bit overboard! Not so much UNDERboard.

Put it in a COLD bowl, add six tablespoons water, and holy crap it's just making a beautiful perfect ball! Divide it into one ball 2/3 another ball 1/3 and put them in the fridge for a while. EVERYTHING you do with the crust should be on a COLD SURFACE. Run your rolling surface under a cold tap before each rolling! Keep your hands cool. Roll on a table that is NOT right next to your preheating oven. IF THE BUTTER TURNS LIQUID YOU'RE DONE FOR.

That's kind of what Bittman says but whatever.

Peaches time. I used a technique drawn very closely from, uh, Sir Gawain. On Chowhound.

Okay so whatever use the best peaches you can find. LEAVE THE SKINS ON. Don't boil them. Cut them into little bits and put them in a bowl and add some sugar, a bit of salt, a little nutmeg. You should probably add some lemon juice but I never remember to have a lemon when I make pie! SHAME ON ME!

Let them sit for a long time, and then put them in a colander over the SAME BOWL and let them sit EVEN LONGER. Look at all that juice! THAT JUICE RUINS LESSER PIES. BUT WE WILL FIX IT.

Put the juice in a POT and BOIL IT DOWN (slowly) to a THICK SYRUP then toss the syrup with the peaches and some tapioca flour. THE BEST PIE FILLING? YES but only until apples are in season.

Roll the crust out (this takes some practice and you are just going to have to work on it) and put it in the pan and put the peaches in it and stuff. SPREAD MILK ON TOP with a pastry brush. Good old milk slop it on. 450 for ten minutes, 350 for another 40 to 50. Here's how it should look:

Here's how it should taste:

OH MAN YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

We had it with Mapleton's Organic Lemon Frozen Yoghurt. Lovely combination!

Here are the inspirations for the title of this post:
Don Caballero: Slice where you live like pie
Caribou (Manitoba): Lemon Yoghourt

For more pictures of the pie, and some other interesting things, there's a flickr set. Notable? A photo of the Cream And Tomatoes dish from a previous entry in this series in progress. With tomatoes from our garden yay!

drawing night

2009-08-23T06:17:26Z

Well I finally managed to draw Lisa successfully! If you've ever seen me draw you know how incredibly impatient I am.

Drawing night is fun.

Design

2009-08-16T22:26:14Z

So I just switched over to google reader from net newswire (because they turned off syncing and I lost my clippings) and decided it was time to Read Webcomics Via Feeds.

What a fucking hassle tracking down the RSS links on all the comics I read! I mean, okay people who draw comics are designers in one sense but they are for the most part not remotely interface designers or layout designers. Neither am I, really: the most recent redesign of Name Removed is based on my aesthetics and requirements but almost entirely the work of Lisa. But we SWEATED EVERY DETAIL.

New Art

2009-08-14T23:11:47Z

I bought a beautiful ceramic deer skull from Karla and it arrived and we hung it and took pictures.

The flickr set of photos.

lurking on a webforum, people talking about webcomics

2009-08-08T18:04:46Z

This is not the important interesting post I have been planning to write for some time now.

But I lurkin' on the somethingawful forums and someone just said something REALLY GOOD about the critical response to things like webcomics, which are free and easy and nevertheless (or because) have dedicated fans with particular and high expectations.

Dmitri-9 posted:
Onstad is just going on a magical realism detour. Watching a luchador helicopter walk to Mexico or a "Magreaux dog" fall over wasn't very entertaining but somehow I avoided crying about it like a colicky baby.

Tree Goat posted:
this is actually a pretty good criticism, since i think i'm just a few stages shy of object permanence in my piaget-style webcomic development. every time in the past when there have been isolated strips that were not funny they have almost always developed into a complete arc that turned out to be pretty good, and yet every time there aren't good strips i am like a child playing peekaboo, assuming that mommy is in fact gone forever.

the post I quoted

convention report

2009-05-10T02:52:18Z

I went to TCAF! Lisa and I waited in line to meet Paul Pope. He signed 100% for us, to both of us. We love Paul Pope.

He's one of those people who understands that there is bones + meat under the skin of a body and remembers to make things Grotesque Beautiful. I said "DO YOU REMEMBER ME?" ha ha

There was a signing like 10 years ago at the beguiling, him and Jay Stephens and I think Seth? And I shewed him a big page of CLASSIC TRANSMITTER that I had made with like a uniball pen. He said "You should learn to use a brush" and I said "My hands are not steady enough!" and he said:

"No one's hands are steady enough. Do it."

WELL I told him that and he was like "OH YEAHHHHHH" so I gave him one of my cards.

Cards?

I made 2x3.5 business cards! Printed them on the new printer! Lisa cut them for me because I'm Not Safe.

I gave one to Paul Pope, both to Jeffrey Rowland, both to Ryan North (who got a complete set of the cards I did for Free Comic Day 2007 but lost them in his bathroom, he CLAIMS), one to Richard Stevens (whose ear I talked off, but he's SO NICE), one to Meredith Gran who is almost certainly completely awesome, one to john campbell (who signed a minicomic for me IN THREE-D) and and Karl Kerschl to whom I fangirl squealed because I got to flip through the A.C.C. book he draws in.

And I met other people too! It was so fun.

I hope one of them links to me. Ha ha ha. Mr. Stevens said "What sort of promotion have you done for your comic?" and I said "Well I gave you the card already right? That's... there you go."

And I warned Mr. North that I would complain to him about the ohnorobot api.

IT WAS SO FUN. I just realized that other than Paul Pope I basically only talked to webcomic people. Well, they were smilier.

oh and Lisa saw Cory Doctorow and said "GIVE HIM A CARD" and I was like "no way that's not him" and I insisted for so long that by the time I realized it probably was (many hours later) I couldn't find him and I was a chump.

what

2009-05-09T02:37:11Z

Rule 34.

Actually it's not-quite-the-real-art for one of the little cards I'm bringing to TCAF...

IF - "legendary"

2009-03-20T03:45:15Z

IF - "legendary"
Originally uploaded by sn

Here we go again! This time it was plenty of no. 3 sable brush and 512 map-point nib. None of those crumby "permanent" drafting pens that got lifted by my eraser. I know, I know, I should be finishing tomorrow's comic...

illustration friday "intricate"

2009-03-13T02:40:35Z

IF - "intricate"
Originally uploaded by sn

I'm doing this thing now. CHECK IT YO. Heck even critique it I'M A MAN I CAN HANDLE IT. Proportions are to fit a three-column half-height image in the New Yorker... I can dream!

SCIENCE

2009-03-10T03:15:30Z

Okay so here is a drawing of the sun rising, as we commonly picture it, being big old dumb primates who use our crazy thinking-meat to think about all KINDS of things it wasn't designed for:

Illustrations from Paul Churchland's Scientific Realism and the Plasticity of Mind as discovered by me in a conversation on the excellent new site LESS WRONG

Look at what is happening. Look how COMPLETELY AWESOME it is.

The Fake Album

2009-02-26T19:23:12Z

Band name is the title of the first result from wikipedia random page. Album name is last four or five words in the last quote returned from a random quotes page. Album photo is the third on the Most Interesting Recently flickr page.

The picture? Is of a cake.

replaying okami

2009-02-22T16:30:10Z

So I decided to finally try beating Okami, I ran out of steam last time. I think I figured out a big chunk of the fancy cel-shading technique they used: I think there's a lower-poly model around each object with inward-pointing normals, and a shader on those polys that contributes to the ink-filter. This is pretty clearly what's going on on most of the landscape, and SOME of the characters. I'm so smart.

An Important News Thing

2009-02-03T04:02:17Z

My email address is now, will ever be, and stays unchanging:

contact@nickwolfe.ca

Please update your address books and so forth.

snicker@chumpco.com and all derivatives will function for a few months but are now considered deprecated.

the itunes movie store

2009-01-31T05:22:41Z

I rented SOLARIS the soderbergh version. hm. Totally lackluster as far as the whole ...

excuse me ...

FUCKING POINT OF THE NOVEL goes.

Nice soundtrack + use of shallow focus, though.

Looking back, Solyaris was pretty missing-the-point too but the longer setup helped increase the "no, you do NOT understand what's going on" payoff considerably relative to the new one. Lem says: "I only wanted to create a vision of a human encounter with something that certainly exists, in a mighty manner perhaps, but cannot be reduced to human concepts, ideas or images. This is why the book was entitled Solaris and not Love in Outer Space." ha ha ha

That Clooney fellow is rather well put together though I suppose.

EDITED TO ADD: why do all the star trek movies have german box art?

Source Available

2009-01-30T19:43:21Z

The source code for the nameremoved.com website is up again.

On github!

The css and such are also in a repository there.

Feel free to branch and fork, and suggest changes and all that. And discover new features as I work on them!!

Okay good news

2008-11-05T06:30:56Z

Yeah I'm pretty happy about some things. C-C-C-COMBO BREAKER! Anyway, that's not important! Look at pictures!

That's what my comics look like about a third done! On half a sheet of 12 by 14 bristol.

Also I got an awesome haircut from June.

diaryarena @ 2008-10-24T00:08:00

2008-10-24T04:17:13Z

Apparently I was mentioned in episode 162 of the Gigcast, a podcast dedicated to the culture and appreciation of webcomics! Relevant quote:

Very colourful, very imaginative. The monsters are like monsters you'd see almost anywhere: Big alligator things with laser eyes, I'm seeing here; pac-men type monsters. All kinds of monsters.

Space Frog's gonna be pissed when he hears that. Anyway, that's pretty cool. Hearing someone I don't know telling people to read my comic is a rush, and kind of bizarre.

I should have a "press" link on my site with quotes and blurbs and hi-res images... hm.

Another bit of news: I've invented the perfect iphone playlist. You need to have rated your songs? I know. If you use I Love Stars it's not so bad. Anyway, here's how it goes:

Playlist is MUSIC
This gets rid of podcasts and tv shows and audiobooks and stuff.
Last Played is not in the last 1 weeks
So you don't get stuck listening to the same five songs every time you turn on Shuffle
Last Skipped is not in the last 1 weeks
This helps a lot to keep Not Favourite Songs that are still high rated for whatever reason out of the mix.
Rating is greater than THREE STARS
I Love Stars lets you do half-stars and I have a bunch of songs that are 3.5 stars which this captures.
Kind does not contain video
Music videos, you know?
Limit to 500 songs selected by random
I also have tv shows and podcasts and audiobooks and apps, and only 8gb of space. This is still plenty of songs!
Match only checked items
This is so high-rated songs from Selmasongs don't start playing while I'm walking around outside and it would be embarrassing to start weeping.

The great part is every time you sync it updates and keeps being awesome. Syncs are a LITTLE slower because of the uploads but whatever. It's worth it. If you don't use ratings, you could probably do something with play-count and skip-count instead.

Really the point here is to listen to the library as deep as possible, while also accommodating moods and temporary preferences. Living with an ipod shuffle for a year or two really got me into the idea of "shuffle all"... and I now understand why people who like the songs on the radio like LISTENING to the radio. This is the best way I found to surprise and entertain myself with the music I already know and love.

mother mother mother

2008-10-17T16:04:03Z

Mother 3 fan translation finished

This is important, people!

fame and money

2008-10-17T04:06:23Z

I spent about thirty bucks over the last month running ads on Project Wonderful to bring people to my comic. About 1500 clickthroughs total. Might maybe have increased readership by twenty or so? Maybe? That's neat.

Then I, for some reason, posted a link to my comic on Reddit. And then another redditor (I kind of do not like that word) made a STORY out of my comic which hit the front page for a bit. 1500-2000 hits in a thirty hour period.

It was in the WTF subreddit, with the title "0sn, a fellow redditor apparantly has a webcomic, now maybe he can explain what the fuck they mean."

It's maybe worth reading for the comments? (I coined the phrase "narratological impressionism" which is quite fitting actually!) I hope some people decided to stay. Look at the comic he chose as an example of "WTF", though. I mean... okay. I have written considerably more difficult stuff...

I just resent the implication that I'm making RANDOM FUNNY. Oh well, more readers! Hi everybody! Whee!! It's really fun seeing forum topics in my referral logs and seeing what people have said about me.

The next project I think will be buying a couple of days on the Dinosaur Comics adbar.

video

2008-10-14T21:23:04Z

A Let's Play of Oddworld: Stranger's Wrath ... one of the best games of the "previous console generation" that got basically NO LOVE.

Rumor has it that Oddworld Inhabitants is hoping to be able to do a PC port on Steam if enough people buy the Abe games that are on there now. Fifteen bucks for two great games!!

Dream imagery

2008-08-30T15:37:18Z

I dreamt that my next door neighbour, back where I grew up, started a bonfire in my backyard. I went out to see him. Badger, Lisa's cat, was there. Badger got frightened and jumped over the fence. The fence was very high and Badger jumped swiftly and well. My neighbour and I commented on the skill of her jump. The wooden fence was then made out of wire. Badger was scared and wanted to come back but could not jump as high. She got tangled in wire, and stuck, and cried piteously.

I went to her and lifted her from the fence. It became daytime, and Badger became a package of Garofalo spaghetti, my current favourite brand. I petted the package, and it purred.

When I awoke, I felt that I had learned something about how I feel about Badger; I knew I understood my love for her better.