Your Occasional Dose of Dangle

It’s been pretty crazy around here since my last dose. Hae, Oscar and I went to Chicago and Wisconsin to see family. Her parents played Amazing Grace for us on harmonica and digital clarinet and her mom made us kalbi for lunch. Her brother Henry had us over to their new house and made a pho. It took all day and was delicious. Henry and his wife, Tracy, have a dog and a bunch of pet birds. Oscar had fun sticking his finger in the cages to see if the birds would bite him. They did.

Hae also attended her high school reunion where the women were all stunning and the men were bald and fat. The midwest depresses Hae and me if we stay there too long so it was good that we got in and got out quick. It’s the gray skies and endless suburban blandness that gets to us. We spent one night in downtown Chicago, though, so we had a little jolt of city and it was great. We took an architectural tour on a river boat. Then it was on to see my dad. He’s still chugging along at ninety-one. His sister lives in Milwaukee and he’s always driving there to see her, especially lately because her heath has been bad. I wish he wasn’t driving. I suggested that he hire someone, but he’s pretty cheap and that’s probably pretty costly.

We had the big opening for my show at the Cartoon Art Museum. It was awesome. Thanks for coming if you did, or shame on you if you didn’t. The show is up until January 22, so come to San Francisco and make your Troubletown commitment.

I was feeling really rusty work-wise when I came back from Chicago and spent a couple days in the studio not getting much done. Then I hit my stride and really cranked for the next couple days. I’m almost finished with that big year-long no-deadline project but the revisions keep coming. And I did an info graphic. Rush job. Tons of revisions. No time to work on the novel and after a few days away from it I have a hard time getting started again.

We got a laugh here at the Dangle studio over the new Airborne packaging. Yes, they finally got rid of my art and replaced it with some that was done in Illustrator and looks it. I’m not complaining, just marveling at corporate decision making. The new packages resemble everything else in the drug store aisle.

I upgraded my operating system to Snow Leopard. Fingers crossed, so far everything seems to work. I’m definitely not upgrading to Lion, I read that it sucks, no disrespect to Steve Jobs, may he rest in peace. I finally found an app I like for the Ipad. Sketchbook Pro. It’s a drawing program that actually works well and is very responsive to the stylus, not like Brushes, the program a lot of people like. I don’t like drawing with my finger because I can’t see the line underneath it. Besides, if I’m eating fried chicken the screen gets all greasy. Somehow I’m going to make money using the Ipad, dammit.