Happy 113th birthday to Manfred Albrecht Freiherr von Richthofen, more commonly known as The Red Baron. Despite dying at the age of 25, Richthofen had an astonishing 80 victories to his credit (this during a time when 20 kills would bring hero status). Despite his fame Richthofen is probably best remembered in my generation due to the genius of Charles Schulz and his most famous creation’s legendary battles with the Red Baron.

These battles were played out in comic strips, cartoons and, thanks to the Royal Guardsmen, in song (you can listen to a clip of the song farther down on this site). I credit my interest in WWI aircraft to my childhood love of Snoopy and most especially these imaginary aireal battles.

“And now for something completely different…”

It is Monday morning and no one really wants to be working right now, whether at the job or at home. We all want to pretend that it is Sunday afternoon and that we are sharing a glass of (insert favorite beverage here) with good friends and having earth shattering conversations. Conversations about topics like the following:

I saw this on Jay’s site and thought it would be another fun exercise. I followed the links back and discovered that the idea is to pick 5 things from the following list and to write about them. Jay’s answers are fun and I would suggest clicking on the link as she’ll give you a nice Monday morning chuckle. I have changed this list ever so slightly from the list I found on the original meme and I’m not concerned about the number of them that you pick. 5 is what you should shoot for. If you do more, great, if you do less, also great because its the participation that counts. So, here is the list followed by my answers. (feel free to add your own if you don’t want to use these)

Choose your poison…
If I could be a scientist…
If I could be a farmer…
If I could be a musician…
If I could be a doctor…
If I could be a painter…
If I could be an artist…
If I could be a gardener…
If I could be a chef…
If I could be an architect…
If I could be a linguist…
If I could be a psychologist…
If I could be a librarian…
If I could be an athlete…
If I could be a lawyer…
If I could be an inn-keeper…
If I could be a professor…
If I could be a writer…
If I could be a llama-rider…
If I could be a bonnie pirate…
If I could be an astronaut…
If I could be a world famous blogger…
If I could be a justice on any one court in the world…
If I could be a store owner…
If I could be an explorer…

If I could be an inn-keeper… I would run an inn somewhere in the wine country in California. One that sat on a hillside overlooking vineyards with a view of the ocean in the background. The inn would have a very Tuscan look and feel. Every room would afford private, romantic views and large jacuzzi tubs with one-way glass so you could look over the beautiful scenery while taking long, relaxing baths. I would have the best chef that money could buy and wonderful wines to suit the tastes of every guest. Upon reserving a room there would be an extensive application that let my staff get to know your likes, etc. so that your stay would be uniquely catered to your specific desires. Pampering and privacy would be the name of the game. Ideally you would arrive with very little luggage because the inn would provide you with tailor made outfits, books of your choosing, etc. to make your stay pleasant and relaxing.

If I could be a store owner… I would own a tremendously large bookstore with several floors each decorated differently to reflect various architectural and design elements that I enjoy. The bookstore would be large enough to have what each person wanted. There would be a large used book section, a computer games section, a music and movies section, and a comics section all stocked with current but also old and out of print titles. I would have a section of rare, collectible books displayed carefully behind glass. I would scour the world for old antique bookshelves and comfortable furniture would be in abundance. The store would have a wonderful cafe with coffees and teas and light food and desserts. I would staff it with people who loved books and would pay them a wage that made them love to be at work sharing their joy of reading with the customers. Each staff would have their own ‘staff recommends’ shelf to put books, music, etc. on. I would also have an extensive computer system in order to assist customers in finding any books that we might not have. I would also want to stock various collectible items and art from people that I and my staff enjoy. This would be a one-stop haven for all your cultural needs.

If I could be a musician… I would want to play the piano, guitar and violin proficiently. Of course in order to truly enjoy the violin I would have to be able to morph into an attractive woman whenever I played so I could stand in front of a mirror to watch myself play. 🙂

If I could be a writer… I would want to write books for both children and adults and I would want to illustrate these as well. I would want to be an author who reinvented himself with each novel yet retained a style that is distinctly my own. I would want to create rich and imaginative worlds that people loved yet I wouldn’t want to be Stephen King famous. I would want to have a good sized following and be the kind of author whose books were magical to each person that discovered them and passed them on to others. I would want to tour occasionally to meet readers and have a comfortable retreat for me and my family to live where I could write (once again) overlooking vineyards and trees and water. A magical place that would be an inspiration to all my writings.

If I could be an artist… I would want to be able to devote my full time to this and not have to work art into the space between jobs. I would want to draw comics, illustrate books and paint and work with Photoshop and create 3 dimensional work. I would not want to be limited in any way except for the limits of my imagination. I would want my art to inspire others and I would want to be able to have opportunities to talk with fans, aspiring artists, etc. to encourage and motivate them. I would want to be able to give of my artisitic works to others.

That’s my 5…I may throw bonnie-pirate into the comments section as I feel bad letting that one slip by. Again, make up your own if you don’t like any on the list. Have fun and Happy Monday!

Jeff and I had been talking about getting together for some time now and last night we decided to meet at the new Oklahoma Joe’s BBQ in his neck of the woods. OK Joe’s is barbeque that is worth flying into Kansas City for, so if you’re ever here…go there! We had originally planned to attend a movie until Jeff found an advertisement in the paper offering a free talk on animation at the local community college by the head of the story team for The Incredibles.

The subject matter and the price were just too good to pass up.

We arrived and were soon joined by Jeff’s friend Mark. As we were sitting there I looked to the front and immediately recognized Mark Andrews from the making-of features on the Incredibles DVD.

I was very excited as Mark was very fun and quite animated himself on the DVD so I knew we were in for an entertaining evening. Mark Andrews was also joined by Brenda Champan.

Brenda has done story boards for many Disney movies including The Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast, was the Director for Prince of Egypt, and is now senior story artist on Pixar’s upcoming release, Cars. As Jeff pointed out afterwards, Brenda’s calm but entertaining personality was the perfect complement to Mark’s exuberance. Here is a link to the Johnson County Community College press release of the event.

They spoke about story and the structure of story and used examples from several different films. They also showed examples of how story boarding was used and shot for Snow White vs. how it was used and shot for The Incredibles. They both shared personal experiences and talked about the use of computers in animation. They were both very funny and Mark Andrews was as wild with his gestures and movements in person as he was on the Incredibles DVD. And speaking of The Incredibles and the DVD, if you haven’t seen everything on both discs then you are missing some wonderful entertainment. Not only is The Incredibles one of the best superhero movies out there, the extras are terrific.

The thing I found most entertaining on the extra disc was the short documentary “Vowelette” by Sarah Vowell, the voice behind Violet.

Sarah Vowell is a quirky young lady who is actually a well-known radio personality featured on This American Life on National Public Radio. Sarah is an admittedly bizarre young lady who has a fascination with Abraham Lincoln and is currently finishing up a book on Presidential Assassinations. It was so bizarre to watch her talk and hear Violet’s voice coming out of her mouth.

The extra cartoons, the bloopers, the making-of features…everything on that extra disk is top-notch.

We had a really great time and the crowd asked some very good questions in the Q&A afterwards. Most entertaining was the young girl who asked if they felt their jobs were important since they aren’t the ones who do the actual animation. It was very funny!

Afterwards Jeff invited me to his domicile where he showed me his original comic book pages and other collectibles while I drooled jealously all over the basement floor. I doubt that I’ll be invited back however as I kept him up talking until after 1 in the morning and almost let his cat escape into the cold dark night!

Thanks Jeff, it was a good idea and I had an Incredible time….(you could see it coming, couldn’t you?) 😉

Roughly once a year ye ol’ place of employment throws together some sort of family-oriented shindig and this past Saturday was the latest. This year’s event had a Mardi Gras theme so some sort of mask was in order. I haven’t ever been to an actual Masquerade

though I dream of attending one some day at which fancy dress and exquisite masks are donned by all.
Anyway, we went out to our local craft store and picked up supplies. I looked at the blank white mask in my hands and immediately thought of Masque of the Red Death by Edgar Allan Poe. I took Valspar American Tradition Plasti-kote “Fire-Engine Red” paint, some stick-on jewels, a little acrylic black paint, mixed in some procrastination and this is what emerged:

The picture on the left cheek is a picture of Death,

one of the 7 Endless in Neil Gaiman‘s epic Sandman comic series. The swirl underneath the right eye is also inspired by Death. I free-handed the POE logo from the Poe Museum as the space needed something….it actually should have been bigger but after several failed attempts at forging Poe’s signature in that spot I was ready to be finished…the paint brush has never been my friend! The Masque of the Red Death mask completed I decided the family should have at least some thematical symmetry so I headed over to the local Hot Topic for some poseur-goth shirts.

(the beacon of innocence is Jessica of the Jimmy’s House / Percolations family…I kind of look like a red-face Michael Myers! 🙂 )

Trying to stick with the death theme I chose an Umbrella Corporation shirt for myself (I was doubly proud of the choice as the Death character on my mask is holding an umbrella).

Mary wore a Lenore tee.

(watch her closely and she’ll surprise you)

Lenore is the disturbingly funny comic book creation of Roman Dirge and is one of my favorites. Check out this site for some twisted Lenore flash animated shorts. I recommend Li’l Bunny Foofoo, Li’l Ballerina, Fugly Duckling and Mr Gosh.

Tori wore an Alice-in-Wonderland shirt sporting this image:

(I found this to be very funny considering it was a party for mental health workers!)

I’ve been a fan of the darker Alice-in-Wonderland stuff since playing American McGee’s Alice several years ago.

This was such a great, psychotic, creepy PC game. You can watch a really great trailer for the game here that has a crazy, whispered “we’re all mad here” at the end that gives me chills.

The party was enjoyable and today my mask was gifted to the 15 year old son of my Administrative Assistant who was coveting it throughout the evening. In researching Death pictures I came across this very entertaining site (click picture):

According to this site, in normal mode, my day of demise is set for Monday, September 2, 2041. The optimistic view has me soldering on until Tuesday, October 4, 2061. I’ve noticed through several trials that my normal date of death does not change but my optimistic date fluctuates. For some highly entertaining reading I suggest you click on the Dead Letter Office and read the archives of email that have been sent to the creator of this site. There are some easily-offended, stark-raving maniacs out there! I realize that this is a slighly morbid idea but it is done in the spirit of fun! Come on people!

In closing this post I’d like to point out that today marks the date in 1792 that the guillotine was used for the first time in France. Happy Anniversary!

The title of this post is a myth of sorts as the truth is that they called her practically unsinkable.

I am researching and composing this post on the evening of April 14th. At 11:40 p.m. on this very evening in 1912, the Titanic experienced its fateful collision with an iceberg. I will post this on April 15th, the day that marks the 93rd anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic.

My fascination with the Titanic dates back to the early 1990’s when I was working in Waldenbooks in Tulsa, OK and picked up this book:

and saw these images, among others:

I was hooked. I had always been interested in the depths of the ocean and this birthed an intense connection with the disaster of the Titanic. To realize that this wreckage of what was once a luxury liner filled with people was actually sitting at the bottom of the dark, cold sea filled me with an equal amount of awe and horror. Its images are beautiful and sad and scary at the same time. It is estimated that it took 2 hours and 40 minutes for the Titanic to sink to its depth of 12,500 feet. And there it sat, in total darkness, unseen by human eyes for 73 years. The ship that was ‘practically unsinkable’ and was thought impossible to find was discovered in 1985.

Robert Ballard, born in Witchita, Kansas, (and looking an awful lot like my uncle Jack) has said, “I grew up wanting to be Captain Nemo from 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.” And it can easily be said that he has done that and more. Robert Ballard has not only discovered the Titanic, but has found many other lost ships including two ancient Phoenician ships off the coast of Israel, the oldest ships ever found in deep water, and most recently John F. Kennedy’s PT-109.

Ballard’s 1985 discovery of the Titanic and the events leading up to it can be seen on National Geographic’s Secrets of the Titanic. This documentary is amazing and the first time I saw it I was not only stunned into silence as I saw Titanic for the first time

but also was ready to dump my current career and go hunting for lost ships! There are many amazing images from this documentary including:

a chandelier

and the ship’s wheel:

It is so creepy to think of being confined to a tin-can like submarine, sinking quietly to that depth in darkness, only to come into contact several hours later with the remains of this tragedy. A few years ago my friend Scott and I were snorkeling in a state park in Hawaii and were the only 2 people out in this area of the ocean. We were following this big sea turtle and came across a large piece of debris that looked like part of a giant engine, sitting in about 20 feet of water. It was covered with plant life and sea creatures and it really gave me the creeps because I associated it with all the other pieces of boats and ships that undoubtedly litter the bottom of the oceans. As eerie as it would be I’d love to be able to take one of those submarine tours down to view the Titanic.

Of course the discovery of the Titanic renewed interest in this unforeseen tragedy which eventually led to the much maligned Titanic movie starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet.

I personally enjoy this movie but can easily understand why many do not. I’m not a big fan of DiCaprio but I liked Winslet in her role. The love story was a little overblown but the scenes of the ship sinking and people lying dead in the water really got to me. I think James Cameron’s ridiculous Oscar speech helped solidify public hatred for this big budget love story. If you haven’t ever seen it or just haven’t seen it in a long time I suggest you check out Titanic in 30 seconds with bunnies. It really is only 30 seconds long and amazingly enough summarizes the whole 3+ hours of Titanic in that brief period of time….with bunnies no less!!!

This renewed interest also spawned the Tony award winning Titanic: The Musical. I have no desire to ever see this. Visions of singers belting out show tunes while dancers soft-shoe their way to the icy depths horrifies me more than the actual tragedy!

In June of 2004, almost 20 years after his first visit, Robert Ballard returned to the Titanic. I have not seen this documentary but look forward to a future viewing. As expected Ballard found damage caused by the passage of time.

Unfortunately he also discovered much destruction from personal submarines landing on the deck as well as many artifacts missing. Someone had actually taken the plaque that Ballard left on the discovery mission to honor the lives of those lost. You can listen to some of the interviews Ballard did around this time period at the NPR site.

I admire Robert Ballard greatly as he has a historian’s appreciation for the things that he finds. He understands that the Titanic site is essentially the grave site for the 1,500 people who perished when it sank. He has some interesting ideas about treating these sites as museums and setting up underwater cameras so that people can “visit” these shipwrecks and explore them for themselves. I like this idea much better than pilfering the locations for their contents and having pieces scattered in various private and public museums. The sinking of the Titanic is indeed fascinating. There are as yet unsolved mysteries regarding this tragedy as well as a host of conspiracy theories surrounding its sinking. As fascinating as the story is, in retrospect it was still a horrible tragedy. I will leave you with these thoughts of Robert Ballard:

“The Titanic isn’t a ship. It’s an accident. It’s a huge debris field. The Titanic is linked to its location. When you see pairs of shoes on the bottom of the ocean where the body landed, and those pairs of shoes are perfectly preserved and sitting exactly relative to the body that’s now vanished, those shoes and their juxtaposition to one another, and sitting on the floor next to the ship are a much more compelling message — a personal message of tragedy — than some wrinkly old shoes sitting on a shelf in a museum in Memphis, Tennessee.”

“The spark of intelligence in your blinking eyes is not unlike the glow from the teeth of an electrocuted axe-murderess. “

Jenn See discovered this fun link the other day and I’ve been meaning to post on it over here. It is the Surrealist Compliment Generator. Each refresh will give you another bizarre, fun, surreal compliment.

For whatever reason the quotes generated on that site remind me of absurdist British humor and so this post fits in with the spirit of the previous one. I also mentioned to Jenn See on her site that the quotes remind me of the strange verse we created when playing with Magnetic Poetry during some of our more laborious staff meetings! Here are a few compliments that I received from the SCG that I share lovingly with you, the readers:

“Your eyebrows are as verdantly forrested as the seeded woodworms of my most sombre dreams.”

“The quietness of a manhole cover cannot compare with the wild vapours of nylon I sense in your larynx.”

“Your unexpected explosion entangles us in a web of premature umbrellas and precocious timepieces.”

“The sisters of Catherine the Great ask that you cover yourself with lightbulb filaments and take pains to make yourself fully incandescent this evening.”

“The perils of your eyelashes torture my libido into a state of crass belief in Roman Catholicism.”

“Madame, ist thou donning space underwear? For thine ass doth lie beyond the physical boundaries of this world!”

and, last but not least is one that I think I will make my new mantra:

“May clinging breasts always come to your aid in the kitchen.”

Have fun with this. Occasionally you’ll get one in a foreign language, the humor of which is lost on me!