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COTTON THISTLE CLEARANCE
Random musings from the noggin' of Knolltrey
(Best viewed on a monitor running Mozilla Firefox, with a brain running on a case of Grolsh...)
Monday, 12 November 2007
The House of the Mouse! (...not THAT one...)
Mood:
 celebratory
Topic: Entertaining Insights
I have a gift coming in the mail soon: the first four seasons of the greatest cartoon show in the history of animation! I suppose that I'm just a big kid at heart, and alot of this is just nostalgia, but still: DangerMouse is inarguably the greatest thing to come out of Great Britain since the Beatles ("Cor!"). I remember like it was yesterday: sittin' on the shag rug after school in front of the massive, non-flat-screen TV, my face baked by the humming, tempermental cathode-ray-tube as a (then) brand-new eipsode of the mighty mouse (no relation...) hit the US airwaves on that gilded gem of a TV station: Nickelodeon (this was during the 'Golden Age' of that channel in the early 80's, before kids were treated as morons with 'Nick Jr.' etc... and before shows that appealed to adults as much as kiddies were eschewed for more... well... mundane fare... ...hmm... ...strange of me to criticize the Japanese animation scene, isn't it? Well, I'm generally a HUGE supporter, but like American TV, the Japs put out more than their fair share of mindless twittery. British shows... well... while less sleek and appealing overall, tend to be infused with a mesure of... I dunno: intelligence and quality that's admirable, at least in my book.
But there's no debating DM: the mouse is the man, and don't you forget it! Now, then: I'm off to stake out a spot near my mailbox...
Posted by shanekentknolltrey
at 1:20 AM MNT
Updated: Monday, 12 November 2007 12:53 PM MNT
Saturday, 10 November 2007
A farewell to arms?
Mood:
 d'oh
Topic: A Hello to Arms
Idiots... So, Cleveland has an unusual spate of gun-involved homicides for the year, and (one assumes) a bunch of ne'er-do-wells running amok. So, what to do? Let's give people gas cards for their handguns... *Sigh*... I suppose they don't know that the ONLY PEOPLE who would possibly take advantage of this program are the very people who DESERVE to have those guns... (..."honey, you know that I don't want a gun in this house with our kids around, so why not go turn that beastly thing in for a gas-card? That's a great idea...") Meanwhile across town, a drugged out junkie sits on his hardwood floor and thinks: "Gee, the price of gas is really high these days, and I WAS plannin' on using my gat here to break into a house and steal some s**t to finance my habit, but my Civic is nearly empty!"... As a result of this policy, then, both the junkie and family man turn in their weapons, hold hands together and dance under a rainbow sky with lollipop gumdrops raining down from heaven. (...lollipop gumdrops?) Anyway: no, that won't happen. More likely is that the now-defenseless family gets their asses handed to them by drugged-out junkie man who, despite his desire for cheap gas, would rather sell that urn with grandpa's ashes in it to a pawnshop to parlay himself a nickel of smack. (...nickle of smack?) Voluntary gun turn-in programs ONLY draw in law-abiding citizens: the people who SHOULD have their weapons in tow, while the CRIMINALS who actually use their weapons for no-good aren't gonna give up their livelihood for a gas-card and $50 certificate to the local Applebee's... ...it's more profitable to bring the gun TO the Applebee's, and then leave with the cash register. No need for good manners if no one else can resist 'cause they wanted cheap gas. Do you want 'politeness', then? An armed society is a polite society.
Posted by shanekentknolltrey
at 11:01 PM MNT
Final attempt to crash the page (or: "The Imageshacked")
Mood:
 quizzical
Alright: no more pictures forever after this (or at least for a hell of a long time). Well, here it is, and it sucks... Too bad, really... A bunch of things went wrong here, IMO (don't you hate that abbrv.? OMFG....) 
Of everything that went wrong, I'm most miffed that I can't make convincing 'jangles' for Ever's boots (whereupon, naturally, her Karat Spheres reside). The attempt to put in a leg iron on the reflection is somewhat laughable, too... Question one would be: why is the logo in Japanese (and, of course, what does it mean)? Well, if AltaVista's BabelFish served me right, it's a funny little pun (to me, at least) and as for the choice of Japanese... well... I wanted this image to stand out for SOMETHING, other than badness, and in addition Samantha will be revealed to be a practitioner of high-level iaido later on (and she even has her own genuine shinken, so there). She's a badass, after all, and while her speciality from her days as a SPAR Marine Commando is Krav, I wanted her to have a little swordplay in her repertoire as well. Why? Well, she and Chenine start training together (the latter with a spray-painted wooden sword, natch), and a significant plot point hinges upon the difference between Chenine's wooden training sword and Sam's lethally sharp katana (and the ability to tell that difference ON SIGHT...). *sigh*... anyway, this pic sucks. Well, I've got a GOOD picture to use to counter this li'l mess, and to satisfy my ego I'll go ahead and play that card now:  Stay away from him: he'll rip yo' lungs out, Jim! (But I don't think I'd like to meet his tailor...)
Posted by shanekentknolltrey
at 2:09 AM MNT
Thursday, 8 November 2007
In order to make the pageloads for this site as slow as possible (because... well, I care :) here's a li'l picture of Chenine and her Essene (that almost rhymes!)... 
And I might as well repost the Justin/Quint image for the hell of it, since last time I forgot to add Quint's necklace/collar to the image (I almost forgot Mehta's teddy-bear, but when I was coloring in her green eyes I remembered the importance of those li'l Karat Spheres... uh, if you haven't read any of TYPERS, then forget it...) 
Now all I need to do is the last one at some point: Samantha and 'Ever', sitting on top of one wing of her Raiden, Ever in Samantha's lap and a full-body reflection beneath them (...guess I'd need to render them both in Poser at the same time for the lap thing... shouldn't take more than two hours for my computer to process... ugh...) If there's any curiosity, the reason I didn't put Chenine's Raiden and a reflection into her pic is because I have no f***king idea how to put the Chaste Gazer into an image (and given its opal finish, it wouldn't reflect anything too well in any event, would it?). Again, if you haven't read any of TYPERS, never mind...
Posted by shanekentknolltrey
at 1:49 AM MNT
Updated: Thursday, 8 November 2007 2:00 AM MNT
Wednesday, 7 November 2007
"C'mon, c'mon, c'mon, c'mon now TOUCH ME babe!..."
Mood:
 bright
Now Playing: (see title...)
For a variety of reasons, the 'robots' of today leave something to be desired. One of the problems, as I've said before, is that no robot comes standard with 'Turing Tires' yet, and one of the most important things a robot must do to be accepted by us flesh 'n bloods is hold it's own in a good conversation. But another requirement, it seems, is to have an appriciation of the sense of touch... Eh, makes sense, anyway. Touch is the second most important sense in humans (a distant second behind vision, which engineers still can't really nail 'cause the mammalian brain still kicks any computer's ass about a trillion times over in terms of raw processing power...) There's tons of ways to communicate, but I guess this study proves that a touch is worth a thousand words. Scientific Progress whips out its AT&T-based cell phone*... * (...you know, "reach out and touch someone"?... no?... nothing?... God, I'm dating myself...)
Posted by shanekentknolltrey
at 7:00 PM MNT
Tuesday, 6 November 2007
On the lamb
Mood:
 caffeinated
Topic: General
I've wanted to make an image like this for some time... The results... well... they're not terrible, but not too great... 
I'm kinda happy with it, all in all, but not overly pleased (I think the reflection works well, if nothing else...) 'Quint' is rendered as an out-of-the-box cutout of Poser's 'Ben' character, who, for shame, comes packaged with the software (I can barely customize an adult's face, as you can tell, and kids're harder...) The resulting kiddie is older than I'd like, but there's nothing I can do about it with my artistic limitations. And, yes: Quint isn't supposed to throw a shadow, and yes: Justin's 'Aegis' sawn-off shouldn't be visible in the reflection, and, yes: the lettering on the Platonic Love should look better, but I layered it into the composition too early and couldn't go back and de-crapify it... GODDAMNIT!: the logo on Justin's torso SHOULD be visible in the reflection, though. To hell with it: just assign whatever artistic and poetical ideals you want to it and forget that it's a product of laziness. It's kinda chilly out today: I'd better bundle up in my sheepskin jacket... aroooooooooooo!
Posted by shanekentknolltrey
at 2:11 PM MNT
Sunday, 4 November 2007
Legendary Delays...
Mood:
 blue
...unbelievable as it may seem, I'm getting closer to finishing the next chapter of TYPERS (and it is unbelieveable, ain't it?). There's an early draft of the opening. The Bold-faced text before the first roman numeral are notes for my benefit (there's usually alot more, too). God willing, the chapter'll be significantly lower than 10,000 words (there's only one POV to write for: Justin's) and it'll give me an excuse to really beef-up the word count on the next chapter. That one's gonna be called Filial Affection. That one's gonna be bloody. And that one's gonna reveal the true power of those wonderful/horrible little cherubs/devils inside the RH units: the Essenes (who still haven't been given that name... eh: wait a few chapters for that development...) 
Posted by shanekentknolltrey
at 1:49 AM ADT
Updated: Sunday, 4 November 2007 1:54 AM ADT
Friday, 2 November 2007
I'll take the 'penis mightier', Alex.
Mood:
 cool
Topic: Entertaining Insights
Hollywood: the land of high fantasy, glitz, glamour, celebs galore... ...and a bunch of friggin' pissed-off writers. Good for them. Seems that they want some of the moolah from DVD sales, which are a lucrative business these days for any movie or TV show (don't believe me? How do you think Family Guy got resurrected?) I'm not a huge fan of scripted TV shows (I like late night comics like Conan and Leno, 'natch) but I'm still gonna feel the pinch of this strike, and so will most TV viewers (and movie viewers, too, if it goes on long enough...) But I fully support these writers' demands (wouldn't I, though? ;) With all the glitz and star-power behind most projects people often forget that most celebrities and a-listers can't put together more than a few cogent sentences during an interview, let alone droll out the entertaining wit they 'naturally' spew in these shows (the average IQ of your A-lister is, judging by their composure in the limelight, significantly below average...) Do you want that woman writing the words she's gonna speak in her next schmoozy project? Image the horror! Most things with Sally Field in them are bad enough (minus Forrest Gump and Mrs. Doubtfire, where her relative lack of screentime helped remove the sting...) Celebrities surviving on their own wits!? Pleasch!!!! Enough fun, here. I don't really wanna just dump on celebrities, here, but let's recognize that the writers are MORE IMPORTANT that the actors, all in all, because even though most people would gladly listen to Kiefer Sutherland read from the telephone book, most actors can't be who they are without the benefit of that world constructed around them. It is a world of artiface, a world of fantasy. It's a world created by writers, and while the smiling face of an a-lister puts the icing on that world, its the solid cake beneath it, a bedrock of good lines and poignant conversation, that holds the world together. So give 'em hell, boys and girls. The pen is, indeed, mightier than the sword, and you can even use it as a sword, as these scribblers prove.
Posted by shanekentknolltrey
at 7:36 PM ADT
Updated: Friday, 2 November 2007 7:46 PM ADT
Tuesday, 30 October 2007
From rags to... rags...
Mood:
 a-ok
Topic: General
I'll be out of town for a few days (and most likely no updates) 'till Friday, perhaps. What to go out on for a few days? No major scientific breakthroughs to comment on, and the writing is the writing: it goes, and that's all, so I haven't much to say... So why not just saturate the airwaves here with some Ragdoll Cat media? Why not? My cat does that thing with the keyboard and monitor: he doesn't wanna admit that he wants my attention, so he f***king plops his overweight rear end in between me and everything else until I just 'happen' to decide to pay some attention to him... Right now he doesn't seem too keen on bein' seen: he's lounging right next to me (and my camera, too):  ...I take it back: he gets REAL keen on bein' seen when I go for the camera's USB cable (it's a Ragdoll's natural enemy, after all...)  What a fierce predator he is... *sigh*... Truth be told, as much as the cat's a gas, I'm really a dog person at heart (can't you tell? :)  My cat doesn't get fast food: that delicacy's reserved for my favorite mutt. And after all: cats tolerate 'ya, but dogs love 'ya (and my mutt doesn't cost as much as a new spleen and set of lungs, thank you very much...) Anyway, back in a couple, and enjoy the kitties until then... if you're a cat person.
Posted by shanekentknolltrey
at 1:26 AM ADT
Sunday, 28 October 2007
Death is a Bristlecone Pine
Mood:
 cheeky
Topic: General
The White Mountains of California, near Owen's Valley and just shy of the town of Bishop, hold a place called the Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest in which some of the oldest creatures to ever live... well... live. And it's the setting for a li'l horror short story I'm brewing up (can't imagine that it'll be done for Halloween, unless I get myself motivated...). It involves the mid-1800's timeframe, a rancher with a homestead way the f**k up near the treline (near where our Bristlecones live...) and a species of ancient demon unknown to man that spends most of its time sleeping (do you have to guess WHERE?)... The local Piaute Indians explain to two white travelers (the protagonists) that the 'trouble' on the mountain is caused by a creature known only as Pasatopo’ne (yes, I really did research the Paiute language, and yes: that actually means something in Paiute...) The horror aspect wouldn't so much involve shock as to the creature's location (I plan on titling the piece PINE...) or the bloodiness left in the monster's wake. The horror of the situation is best described by a quote that one of the Paiute Indians shares with the travelers: "It is when they wake that they work at their mischief. They awaken for two purposes, and the first is to spill blood... but the second reason, oh the second reason is a far, far worse thing, still..." Hey, don't look at me weirdly, or anything: I actually like Bristlecone Pines, but they still creep the ever-loving hell out of me...
Posted by shanekentknolltrey
at 12:40 AM ADT
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