Looks like this crop ‘o gears is just about ready!

Working on the 30 Characters challenge, this one is just quick and silly.

Sharkguin never knows which side he’s on and who to eat.

I have always thought Gravity was a Bad Idea. Or at least, that it ought to have exceptions. Or at least exceptions for me. I know I am not the only one who thinks being shackled to the ground is occasionally a lousy constraint, or else there wouldn’t be so many people skydiving (though I can’t say I’ve tried that) and writing stories about superheroes and fantasy races with wings.

So in the course of finding like-minded material, I can only offhand think of two gravity-loss fictions:

One is the short story The Truth About Pyecraft by H. G. Wells, and the other is Birds Do it, a very horrible and forgettable Jerry Lewis comedy.

I just realized that if there are two stories out there (50% of which are actually a good read), there are probably others.

Can you think of any?

Hmm maybe I should read Mission of Gravity by Clement except who wants to live on a planet with 700 g ?

You too can proclaim your love for all things Mad and all things Science. Well, not REALLY mad. Just… unconventional. You know. Not, you know, anything dangerously unstable – scientists can handle these things. They’re rational, once you understand the principles. Nothing to be institutionalized over. Come on, knowledge is power! I think it’s fairly rational to want a Death Ray. Almost everyone wants one, deep down. But you know, not everyone can handle it. Not everyone has the knowledge – the genius – to get by with performing the impossible. You know it really IS a miracle of science – it should be called MIRACLE science, not mad science! Yes. It’s not mad at all. How DARE you call it mad. What were you thinking? Is it any wonder fools like you will be the first to go? I’ll SHOW YOU ALL…

I say, in the immortal words of myself, or perhaps Doc Gestalt, quoting my own Etsy description.

Look! Stickers! Magnets! Pins!  All for sale here. Or if they are gone, joy of joys, let me know so I can put more up for sale!

Happy Zombies Deserve the Best

I am happy to say this zombie pin (which you can buy on my Etsy site) was featured at BuyZombie.com !

I have 37 more brains to sell, but most haven’t been posted yet. Please drop me an e-mail if you are interested!

Mad science pins and more to come, if my maniacal machinations work out… first I have to borrow a respirator, and some eye protection…

It was a bright sunny day and Nycteris was outside in a dirt-smudged next-next-next-best robe and heavy boots, when a smallish, sleepy, dragonish creature approached her.

“Hail archmage of the polysyllabic and impressive titles that you are required by law to put on your business card.” Nyc turned, shears in hand, to see which smallish dragonish creature it was. She knew rather a lot of them. “What intricate and dangerous ritual are you about to undertake?” continued the dragon.

“I’m pruning the hedges.” She said with the intonation of someone who didn’t entirely enjoy pruning the hedges outside on a windy day when her gravity was radically impaired. One of the hedges had a nasty gash cut through the top due to a strong gust of wind. She would convince it to regrow later. It wasn’t hard; plants like growing, especially if they think they’re getting away with something.

“Don’t you have ethereal minions to do that, or something?”

“Would you trust ethereal minions wandering around enthusiastically with big, sharp pruning shears?”

I have discovered that I really like pens (by which I also mean pencils). I guess I always knew this, but I just realized “it’s a thing” and I’m not the only one who likes pens. So I found a few blogs of people who actually review pens. And via those blogs, I found some pens I wanted to buy.

I really love my Pentel P205, so much so that I didn’t have to go find it to remember the actual pencil part number.  So when I went to Dave’s Mechanical Pencil blog and looked at his “top 5 mechanical pencils” I was aghast to find it wasn’t on his list! And it had been edged from the top five by something called a Graphgear 1000. Vat ist dot?! (Yes I got so excited I went into really bad Jägermonster accent.) I had to go buy one stat!

(And I… ok just lied about that because I see now that the pencil that actually edged out the Pentel P205 was something else, but that makes my story much less compelling.)

But no one else reads this blog so I shall blithely continue.

I also started reading The Pen Addict blog. Many of his neatest pens are from Jetpens. So I decided to make an order. Now, Jetpens had the Graphgear 1000 pencil that I wanted… but they also had many other pens that I wanted. Specifically I had it in my head that I wanted a good fountain pen. First I checked Levenger, which is a lovely site that I have long drooled over, then I realized that I was too cheap to buy a pen there.

So I started throwing pens into my cart on Jetpens instead. And when my total started approaching $75 I got scared and removed most of it. Alas, I removed my Graphgear 1000! But, you ask, why did you remove the pencil you wanted so much? Because I found it locally!

Googling, again, I discovered an art store selling them right nearby (within an hour, that is), called Utrecht.

I was going to tell you all about the new pens and pencil I bought, but this is post too long without it, so I’ll add that info next time… HEY LOOK, I’m going to post more than once in a month!

If you read this far, here is an unfinished sketch, and my Pentel P205. I was considering starting a whole bunch of blog posts just to highlight “unfinished sketches” since I never seem to finish anything…

Things Unfinished

They are just as fun as I hoped they would be! The package came with a 4oz bottle of pink, and a 4oz bottle of blue. I didn’t open the “Presto Pink” Zubbles yet, though I did open the “Blazing Blue”. Many others are clearly shown on the site – just not for sale yet…

The zubble soap is very, very dark in the bottle. You can see where a few drops spilled in the photo below. But the color vanishes as soon as you rub it away.  The bottle’s lid’s rim is a bit leaky sometimes which would not be obvious except for the dark color.

Bottle of Blazing Blue Zubbles

Blue Zubbles in Action

They were “very expensive” I’ll just say, but I’m so happy that they are finally on the market that I plunked down my dollars so I could get my greedy hands on them.

And they are whimsical fun – if you like soap bubbles! I will take them tomorrow and let my Pre-K Sunday School kids mess around with them.