On another note (one that might actually mean something to half the people that bother to read my ranting) I can't find my lousy bottle of Dungeons and Dragons dice anywhere, despite having searched through the boxes under the stairs, the Box of Neverending Random Objects under my bed, and the bookshelves. They used to be all over the place, too . . . grah.

Click.

For some reason, I love the way Tails turned out in this sketch . . .

If I can drag myself through inking this, it'll be all rainbow-colored and shiny. But I'd best finish Watson first, right?

Click.

They changed a bunch of stuff for starting Sin'dorei. Mages and Warlocks get cool staves now, and hunters get axes . . . and you don't have to do a quest to get an Imp. That makes me sad.

Thank you for the volume of Sherlock Holmes stories, S! /cling to Conan Doyle works--

This probably needs some explanation. Okay, a lot of explanation.

To begin with, it has nothing to do with the new movie. I haven't even seen that yet, and if I do, it'll be only to severely criticize and trash it on my LiveJournal, because I am not impressed. (I could go into a very long rant on who they chose to act out Sherlock Holmes alone, but I won't, for any reader's sake.)

Anyway, Neil Gaiman, British author and now one of the Baker Street Irregulars, wrote a short story called "A Study in Emerald", something of a crossover between Conan Doyle's work and the Cthulhu Mythos (it was published in Shadows Over Baker Street, which focused on such crossovers, as well as in Neil Gaiman's Fragile Things). It's partly based on the original "A Study in Scarlet", and initially leads the reader to believe that the story is being narrated by the familiar Dr. John Watson and focuses on beloved Sherlock Holmes. It's written in the same manner and has largely the same feel, but the universe is strangely altered -- royalty are monstrous and green blooded, and the moon is red. In the end, you find that the murderers involved in the case are, in fact, "Sherry Vernet" and Dr. John/James Watson. Certain aspects of the story suggest that the Sherlock Holmes-like main character may have, in fact, been Moriarty, albeit living on Baker Street.

But, knowing that, how it pertains to this picture: the royal person murdered in the story was cut open explicitly, leaving his blood all over the room, and the murder having been done by Holmes and Watson, for some reason, suggested to me some kind of terrifying, cyborgian surgical doctor that can use his tools for much more than surgery.

This is just the lineart. I'll put up the finished work soon, it's half-colored so far.

( . . . I kept wanting to write Wilson. Because darnit, House M.D. is entirely based off of Sherlock Holmes in the first place, and the sidekicks are very alike as well!)

My sincere apologies to the real Watson, who was much, much nicer and more likeable.

Furiel got me a Kinder Surprise, mainly to go with the whole load of chocolate that Non-Secular Santa Day demanded. I haven't seen one of these in years.

I figured I'd share, because I thought it was pretty darn cool . . . I was doing Utgarde Pinnacle just now, with not the best tank, (not horrible, but not the best.) The first time we take a shot at King Ymiron, I get killed by trash mobs (huh? Why? I don't know.) The second time, they start while I'm still corpse running -- and the DPS shaman manages to keep up the tank until I get there, running through the entire instance. I jump in just as his health is near the end, and we finish. And Ymiron drops an epic sword. So whoo.

By god it's late.
( link )

Well, I got my new Warcraft Daily Calendar (only six days left on the old one! Soon we're going to have to write 2010 instead of 09, darnit!), Fragile Things by Neil Gaiman, and a pair of gloves. Also, if you count the fact that I failed to give Furiel a good gift and therefore ended up being forced to keep it (Furiel insists she's the worst possible person to buy gifts for, because the only things she wants are very, very expensive . . .), I got a House wall calendar. (I'm getting something better for her for New Years, I say. Goodbye, money.)

. . . /cling--

Would this work for what you asked me? (Though my shading is way off . . . I can't draw well, lately . . .)



Or did you want something or someone specific/an original character? I'm awful at creating the latter, but I sure could try.

You think children would ponder the plausibility of the Santa Claus story upon seeing that their gifts from Santa are pre-packaged and also sold at Wal-Mart. No, Santa definitely doesn't whip up all his gifts at the (inhabitable . . .) North Pole.

Which is why I think we should change the story so that Santa buys toys from all the warehouses in the world, and then delivers them to you . . . disrupting the economy by not paying for all those thousands of gifts. Wonderful holiday image, right?

As our holiday movie of the year, we watched UP. It was really touching at the parts involving Mister Frederickson's wife -- I ended up crying through two parts of it. Aw . . .

On a practical side note, though -- a bleedin' billion balloons couldn't lift a house.

Maybe an armoire . . .

Being that at least a third (well, maybe two thirds) of the people in this country (Furiel and myself included) are horrible, horrible procrastinators, the shopping rush on Christmas Eve is impressive. The amount of people running to King Soopers to stock up on food for one day during which the stores are closed is like a flood; everyone was directed to stand in the Chip + Soft Drink isle, after which they would be directed by traffic control to a cashier stand. The line eventually stretched out all the way to the back of the store, by the eggs. (Basically, it looked something like this:)



I also got my sister a Non-Secular Santa Day present, on a stroke of genius -- the DvD store at the God-awful old Twin Peaks Mall is going out of business, and they were selling Sonic plushies. Guess what she's getting?

Now I'm watching The Office, too, thanks to A. (and being really, really bored because I have no work to do.) It's kind of like a new Seinfeld, seems like.

From their blog . . .

My mood is less than pleased right now, and I’m going to tell you why.

To start things off, Lar and I will NOT be attending DragonCon in Atlanta this coming summer. In order to understand that, we must go back to a time and place…say, around September of this year.

This was our second year in Atlanta, and it was one of the shows we were most looking forward to. There’s just something about the atmosphere of this show that’s so casual, that you really get a chance to hang out with a great deal of wonderful people.

As last year was so successful for us, we paid for a larger booth this year and intended to do some fun & unusual things with the space. Upon getting to the show, however, someone had setup in our space. Confused, we asked the hall attendants what was going on, and were rudely informed that our booth had been moved.

When I inquired as to where, I was shown the furthest and poorly lit section of the room, with a giant pillar intersecting the middle of the booth. I then proceeded to tell the attendants that this was unacceptable, not only because of the move but because of the new location.

Despite the fact that I had announced where we were setup weeks leading up to the show, I would’ve been fine if we were moved to a location similar to the one we lost. But this was unacceptable.

The attendants, once again, were rude and told our crew that we could take the new spot or we could go home. This wasn’t their problem. Still calm and polite, I asked if there was someone else we could speak to, because we did not deserve to be spoken to like that.

A couple hours later, we sat on the carpet waiting, a minor functionary came downstairs and repeated what the attendants had told us. Again, I asked if there was anyone else I could talk to.

An hour later, one of the board members of the show came down to talk with us.

He apologized for the situation, note that this was the first apology we had received thus far, and inquired what could to be done to make things right. In the end, he generously offered to repay us for the booth, but still allow us to use. It was a good solution, we shook hands and all was well.

At the end of the show, I again thanked him for taking care of the matter, and we signed up for the next show gladly.

Usually how this works, is at the end of a show, you sign for the next one, and a few weeks later you receive an invoice. A month passed, and we had yet to receive a single thing.

Wanting to make sure everything was fine, Randy began calling them. For 6 weeks Randy called, at least 3 times per week leaving messages for everyone. No one called us back.

Finally, we reached someone, and were told that we were not invited back to DragonCon because of the incident. I was, am shocked.

We are not allowed to exhibit because their staff was verbally abusive towards us, including profanity. We are not allowed because they moved our location without any warning or apology. We are not allowed because DragonCon shoved us in the dark corner of the show.

Let me be clear. Never did I, or any of my staff, raise their voice or even mutter a ‘shite’ under their breath. That’s not how we behave.

I don’t understand this decision, and no one was inclined to explain it to me, only referring to the ‘incident’.

I am saddened by this, but more so that we won’t be able to hang out with the folks who came out to Atlanta to see us. I felt you were owed an explanation, and there it is. We hope to be able to find a show nearby that we can attend.

As for DragonCon, I will do my best to ensure that this story gets out, so others don’t share our fate.

Well, on suggestion from my close friend from five states over, I bought the new BioWare game Dragon Age: Origins. And it is amazing! I've begun playing as a human mage (love the beginning story), and I've just become a Gray Warden; the game has such a sense of character depth and plot! I love the way it's going so far! The mechanics are not unlike Knights of the Old Republic, so it's not too hard to play, and the only thing that bothers me is the excessive amounts of blood (and there may be a way to turn that off. Either way, it ain't Fallout.)

The game lags a bit, for me, which is strange, since it's not nearly as graphic-heavy as Oblivion. Odd.

As it turns out, Sesame Street has had 40 seasons and 4,200 episodes. 4,200!! Wow!

I miss The Count. Murray's not that bad, or anything, but the vampire with arithmomania was just cooler, as far as the number of the day went.

I can't find anything productive to do, and I just had Dragon Age: Origins shoved in my face, so I'm going to go buy it.

Yay.

Since I just saw the Star Trek 2009 movie twice in a row, I must say: Giacchino is such, such a genius . . . that man must be drowning in musical talent. His music . . . whoo. Yay!!

Also, on a Houseish note -- Kirk's mother was played by the same actress as Cameron. /facepalm. Who knew. (I have no idea how I didn't notice. She did a fantastic job in the movie, though. Lots of emotion.)

Wheee!

A nerdy shirt, a paid LiveJournal account, and the Star Trek 2009 movie. Heavenly. VIVA!

-- or with a border,

Not amazing quality, but it's hard to get any better without DvDs, especially since he's moving. I think it turned out okay thanks to the Dodge Tool, though . . .