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2012-11-24 19:42:21 (1 comments, 0 reshares, 14 +1s)

Recipe Time: Not-Exactly-Raw Pizza Kale Chips

I made these yesterday and, according to Matt, they taste more like pizza than some pizzas he's had. Folks have been asking for the recipe on Twitter, but I can't link them; The recipe I used is something I made up, basically a mash-up of three different kale chip recipes I found online. Two of the recipes were from "raw diet" sites and required a dehydrator, but I don't own one or want one, so my directions will involve an oven. You can use a dehydrator if you want, though; set it to the highest temperature (118 F) and just keep checking until the chips are crispy.

1 large bunch of kale (variety doesn't matter, but curly-leaf kinds hold the seasoning better)
1 cup raw cashews, soaked for two hours and drained.
1/4 cup sun-dried tomatoes, soaked for 30 minutes and drained.
2garlic cloves, ... more »

2012-05-16 23:28:12 (28 comments, 7 reshares, 8 +1s)

I need an artist who wants a long-term project, likes to draw aliens, likes to work from a script, and likes to get paid. I will need them in about four months. I may need them for years.

Know anybody like that? Note: They have to be very good.

Some details:

- I do not like "superhero-style" art. If the stuff you draw would look at home in an X-Men book, I don't think you'd be a good fit.
- "Anime/manga-influenced" is fine. "Anime/manga style" is not.
- This will be for full-page comics, not strips. I'd like to see a portfolio containing full-page comics, sequential pages preferred. I need to know you can tell a story, place word balloons, etc.
- I like expressive, cartoony-but-not-too-cartoony styles, more interested in being fun to look at than making the characters beautiful. If I could, I'd try to hire Tyson... more »

2012-05-15 16:09:08 (2 comments, 0 reshares, 3 +1s)

Anime Update: Smut Peddler Kickstarter More Than Doubles Goal ...

2012-05-06 21:59:24 (53 comments, 1 reshares, 6 +1s)

Spike presents: WHAT SHOULD I WORK ON IN 2013?

There are three ideas.

Blikada is a low fantasy adventure epic. It's about a three outcast brothers from a nomadic society of herders, slave-drivers and warlords, compelled by their own misbehavior to abandon their home and strike out east for civilization. Unfortunately for them, civilization is in the middle of a devastating war.

Wreckers is a sci-fi comedy/adventure epic. A pair of twins, born to a stone-age culture that considers them the salvation of their species, ruthlessly grooms them for savior-hood and sends them against the encroaching, space-faring colonists that have just touched down on their planet. The twins immediately ditch their pre-determined destinies, lie/cheat/steal their way to mega-wealth, and buy their own home planet. Nothing good comes of it.

Lucas and Odessa... more »

2012-05-29 03:05:37 (7 comments, 6 reshares, 20 +1s)

Ever since Smut Peddler's Kickstarter (see link!) went up, I've been getting a lot (A LOT) of private messages on KS, asking me how I got it funded so quickly. I'm just gonna go ahead and post my usual reply right here.

HOW I GOT MY KICKSTARTER FUNDED.

Kickstarter has created an environment where strangers will show up and say, "Yes, show me a commercial for your product. I've got my money right here; give me your best pitch!" So, give 'em your best pitch.

Make a video that demonstrates your competence. A video that explains what you want and what you plan to do exactly, clearly and succinctly. Not your life story, not YOUR hopes and dreams, but the story of your project. And prove that, if you get to goal, you can and will deliver. Kickstarter's failed project graveyard is full of projects by people who didn't think very... more »

2012-05-04 18:21:55 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 1 +1s)

Repost for the daywalkers: The Smut Peddler Kickstarter!

We are less than $400 away from offering private commissions, and a $250.00 bonus for SP's artists! Help spread the word! Help pay the artists!

2012-04-27 01:45:19 (4 comments, 8 reshares, 13 +1s)

SMUT PEDDLER'S PRE-ORDER KICKSTARTER HAS LAUNCHED!

2012-04-16 19:59:12 (7 comments, 4 reshares, 20 +1s)

Supposedly a real poster from the 1950s, issued by Senator Joseph McCarthy at the height of the Red Scare and anti-communist witch hunts in Washington.

Keep your eyes open, ctizens.

2012-03-22 03:10:51 (1 comments, 1 reshares, 8 +1s)

New page!

2012-03-20 02:48:11 (2 comments, 0 reshares, 3 +1s)

New page! Warning: Butt.

2012-03-16 20:22:11 (2 comments, 1 reshares, 7 +1s)

New paaaaaage!

2012-03-14 21:35:15 (2 comments, 32 reshares, 52 +1s)

Alienate me more, fellas. What could possibly go wrong?

2012-02-21 17:10:01 (1 comments, 0 reshares, 5 +1s)

New page. And it took forever. Forgive me.

2012-02-17 04:50:02 (4 comments, 11 reshares, 29 +1s)

Yep.

2012-01-31 02:03:57 (16 comments, 0 reshares, 23 +1s)

I'm getting pretty good at this. I can actually make them circular, now!

Tonight's dinner: Pizza. Again. Homemade crust, homemade tomato sauce, fresh pineapple, ham, colby, jack, and parmesan cheese, with fresh sage.

2012-01-21 21:06:18 (4 comments, 1 reshares, 17 +1s)

State-of-mind update.

(Also whenever I talk about Krazy Kat with anybody, like I'm doing on Twitter right now, I'm compelled to remind everyone about how AWESOME IT IS)

2012-01-21 16:19:16 (6 comments, 0 reshares, 5 +1s)

So we don't have the money or time to start redecorating the new place just yet, but +Matt Sheridan and I are already throwing around ideas. Namely, paintjobs, because this neutral eggshell-toned wall stuff is not doing it for us.

We want a mural on at least one wall pretty darn badly. But that presents multiple problems. Did we really wanna dedicate a single wall, and all it's potential picture-hanging space, to one image? And what about my propensity to completely hate any art I've done after a few months? But now, I think we're on our way to solving both issues.

This is a mock-up of one possibility; it would be painted (and possibly embellished) by me, and it's based on a photo Matt took. So, total joint effort, and I probably won't want to die every time I see it 1 week after it's finished!

Thoughts?

2012-01-13 04:02:08 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 7 +1s)

New page!

Young lady, I expect you to conduct yourself with some decorum.

2012-01-11 19:32:16 (4 comments, 0 reshares, 11 +1s)

Wave goodbye to Chapter 5.

2012-01-11 12:54:40 (4 comments, 2 reshares, 22 +1s)

Yup.

2012-01-05 21:44:02 (5 comments, 0 reshares, 12 +1s)

New page! Ouch.

2012-01-03 11:18:16 (8 comments, 0 reshares, 18 +1s)

So I've been wanting to learn to digitally paint... not just color stuff in, but actually paint... for ages. I've been repeatedly thwarted in my quest for digi-painting competence by various roadblocks.

- Programs so unstable you could almost imagine they were just being goddamn vindictive about it. (Crashing on save, AND corrupting the save file? Thanks, Painter 10!)
- Frustration/Being overwhelmed by the tools.
- And, probably most pointedly, loss of interest. I work so slowly, especially when I'm learning, that it's easy to get bored.

Recently, I decided to try again. I found a new critique forum to lurk in, a shiny new (more stable) painting program, and was bookmarking tutorials. And I've decided to fight the boredom problem by appealing to narcissism!

My learning pieces will be avatar portraits. This is the first, and it's very... more »

2011-12-21 09:35:00 (30 comments, 0 reshares, 31 +1s)

So, now that it's inevitable, inescapable, and nunna youse can swoop in and snatch it away from me, here are some shots of the place +Matt Sheridan and I are buying. We get the keys the 30th, move on the 31st, and we'll start the year in a brand new apartment. I am super duper excited.

It's two blocks from the place I'm currently renting, so we're really barely moving at all. Which is fine by me! I love this neighborhood.

In case you didn't know, the real estate market in Chicago, and my neighborhood especially, took a massive hit when the housing bubble burst. I remember seeing signs offering $300,000 studio apartments in the mid-2000s, and the place was crawling with people looking for "investment properties." (Basically, house-flippers, but without the renovation aspect. They buy places, sit on them for a year or two, and then sell for a profit. Why... more »

2011-12-21 09:06:00 (2 comments, 0 reshares, 1 +1s)

My new apartment!

2011-12-21 09:02:11 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 1 +1s)

2011-12-16 08:25:24 (3 comments, 7 reshares, 23 +1s)

Later, Hitch.

2011-12-15 07:17:21 (21 comments, 17 reshares, 44 +1s)

THIS IS A PLAN WITHOUT FLAWS.

2011-12-13 04:21:49 (6 comments, 0 reshares, 2 +1s)

New TAZ! Ouch.

2011-12-12 09:22:31 (6 comments, 4 reshares, 6 +1s)

Artist of the Day: John Kenny.

These images were taken during one of Kenny's trips to northern Kenya in 2011 to document the effects of climate change on pastoral eastern Africa. I love them. They are filled with dignity, pride, and beauty.

Ethnographic photography of Africans has a pretty uncomfortable history. There are lots of suspicious, awkward stare-downs of anthropologists' cameras. The contrast with photographs like this, where the subjects are willing, self-possessed participants, is striking.

2011-12-08 04:48:10 (1 comments, 4 reshares, 14 +1s)

AAA ANOTHER ONE.

I wish the show were like this.

2011-12-07 18:32:40 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 1 +1s)

Artists of the Day: Franz Sedlacek.

An Austrian, Franz was part of the artistic movement called "New Objectivity," which was similar to Magical Realism. Pressed into Wehrmacht service in his fifties near the end of World War 2, he disappeared in action in Poland in 1945.

2011-12-07 18:25:55 (1 comments, 1 reshares, 12 +1s)

Yup. Pretty much.

2011-12-06 07:12:11 (10 comments, 10 reshares, 20 +1s)

I've been saying this for ages. I've never really liked Scooby Doo, but it's pretty much the perfect kid's introduction to rational skepticism.

2011-12-04 21:09:10 (3 comments, 0 reshares, 8 +1s)

Reagan sketch!

The pose is based on a post I saw on the "Plus Size is Pretty" tumblr.

http://prettyplussize.tumblr.com/post/12282446346/bad-girl

2011-12-03 19:04:13 (0 comments, 2 reshares, 5 +1s)

Comic of the Day - Bahrain: Lines in Ink, Lines in the Sand, by Josh Neufeld.

This autobio comic details Josh's relationships with Mohammed and Sara, two Bahraini cartoonists on opposing sides of the "Pearl Revolution," Bahrain's short-lived part in "the Arab Spring." Neufeld met Mohammed and Sara at workshops he led while visiting the tiny Persian Gulf country on a U.S. State Department-sponsored trip. They both subsequently friended him on Facebook, and he heard both sides of the story from them, both the loyalist and revolutionary accounts.

2011-12-03 04:23:44 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 2 +1s)

Five Fictional Facts Friday: Reagan Edition.

I saw this on Tumblr, it looked like fun.

Reagan has two siblings, and is the oldest of three children. She was conceived nearly instantly after her parents' marriage, and born before their first anniversary. Her sister came a year later, and her brother came a year after that. Needless to say, this wasn't an easy time for her mom, who still harbors a lot of resentment. The divorce was finalized when Ray was in her teens, but the marriage was effectively over long before then. Ray literally never remembers her parents being a happy couple.

Reagan's sister is named Nolan, and she's currently locked in mom's orbit. Kids take sides in divorces sometimes, and Nolan was a willing foot soldier in the army of mom. They're drinking buddies, club buddies, and go for the same men. There are... more »

2011-12-02 05:29:25 (1 comments, 0 reshares, 3 +1s)

I wish I could see this exhibition.

2011-12-01 04:22:44 (6 comments, 1 reshares, 5 +1s)

To close out a science-obsessed day: My favorite song off the They Might Be Giants children's album, Here Comes Science.

If my purely theoretical offspring aren't singing this to themselves on the playground when they're five years old, I will have failed as a parent.

HEY WHO LET IN ALL THESE ELEPHAAAAANTS

2011-12-01 01:40:44 (1 comments, 0 reshares, 13 +1s)

New page!

Ouch.

2011-12-01 00:02:39 (2 comments, 2 reshares, 7 +1s)

And one last post for my science-n-philosophy themed day.

Qualia Soup is one of my favorite YouTube posters. He recently completed a 3-part series on the origins of morality, which he's been working on since June. This is the first part; watch the other two, too.

The first part is mostly concerned with, as the very first guy to the mic in the previously posted Dawkins vid mentioned, the role of religion in morality, and the more-than-slightly absurd claim that without religion, society would be wholly immoral.

2011-11-30 23:53:54 (4 comments, 1 reshares, 11 +1s)

Another video, which is over an hour long, but I promise you, is totally worth watching.

In October of 2006, Richard Dawkins read excerpts of his then-new book, The God Delusion, to an audience of students at Randolph-Macon Woman's College. After the reading, he took questions from the audience, and it was discovered that a pitiful little ambush attempt had been organized by the students of Jerry Falwell's Liberty University.

Most of what followed was Dawkin's quiet, calm, humorous, and devastating dismantling of Liberty students and staff's attempts to confound and contradict his atheism. It plays like ideological lambs to the slaughter. I hope they at least got class credits for being humiliated like this.

I know some of you guys think Dawkins is too rude, too confrontational, and too "militant" in declaring and explaining his beliefs (or... more »

2011-11-30 23:22:07 (2 comments, 0 reshares, 9 +1s)

And there's nothing like a photo of the Martian sunset to bring a certain quote to mind.

Man, I hope we don't annihilate ourselves before we fulfill this destiny.

2011-11-30 23:19:46 (3 comments, 7 reshares, 19 +1s)

Captured by a Martian rover: Blue sunset on the Red Planet. It is amazing that we have the privilege of seeing this, you guys.

Interplanetary landscape photography. Not bad for a pack of naked apes.

2011-11-30 19:26:50 (2 comments, 3 reshares, 2 +1s)

HOW TO REMOVE "WHAT'S HOT" FROM YOUR MAINSTREAM

Since the new What's hot section was released, I've seen a lot of people complaining about it. Some "feel like being spammed, it looks like a Facebook ripoff... and I left Facebook to avoid this crap", some are trying to "avoide it like the plague".

Others say "'What's Hot' contains all of the stuff I am trying to avoid while on Google+" and "why do i have to see a stupid animated gif of a cat attacking a child [...], and I cant remove it or mute it" so most of them want to switch off "What's hot" altogether.

Personally, I like the idea of having a What's hot section, but this has to be totally unobtrusive and unintrusive. So having the What's hot tab on the left it's all right. But it shouldn't appear... more »

2011-11-30 17:45:03 (4 comments, 11 reshares, 31 +1s)

Sometimes, you just don't wanna even try to be eloquent about it.

2011-11-30 17:35:14 (0 comments, 1 reshares, 4 +1s)

Another video: Illusionist Derren Brown interviewed by Richard Dawkins, primarily about the art of "cold reading" and other elements of stage magic.

In the tradition of The Amazing Randi, Penn & Teller, and Harry Houdini, Derren is a stage magician so annoyed by "psychics" and "mediums" passing off standard-issue stage magic as real-life superpowers that he has, in part, made his career exposing such people as frauds. He's had multiple TV specials in the UK. My personal favorite is Messiah, where he convinces five different "experts" he can

1) Sense a person's medical history by touch alone since an alien abduction,
2) Record a person's dreams using crystals,
3) Read minds and remotely view original drawings from another room,
4) Instantly convert skeptics to Christianity with just a touch, and
5)... more »

2011-11-30 17:15:48 (2 comments, 8 reshares, 9 +1s)

Speakin' of Carl...

We are so small, you guys.

2011-11-30 17:12:26 (3 comments, 0 reshares, 16 +1s)

TODAY IS GOING TO BE AN ENDLESS STREAM OF SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY POSTS, because I LOVE THAT STUFF.

First up: Neil DeGrasse Tyson, whom I hold in the same esteem as Carl Sagan with regards to his thankless endeavors to force scientific literacy on an unwilling populace, discusses a common argument of theistic apologists, the "god of the gaps." In other words, anything we can't currently explain? God did it.

Quote to end all quotes on this subject: "If that's how you want to invoke your evidence for God, then God is an ever-receding pocket of scientific ignorance."

2011-11-29 20:05:13 (1 comments, 1 reshares, 2 +1s)

More art for ya, by a guy who's work you probably recognize.

2011-11-29 18:48:27 (1 comments, 0 reshares, 3 +1s)

Artist of the day. Fabrizio clearly has a deep and comprehensive appreciation for the medieval grotesque.