…and 2 things hit me.

The first thing was a hand. Megan slapped me because I had immediately fallen into a deep trance and was buying Ice Capades tickets by the bucketful, killing anyone who stood in my way. That snapped me out of it.

The second thing that hit me, though, was just how effective a commercial that is. I couldn’t stop thinking about Ice Capades for hours. Or at least I couldn’t stop thinking about the words “Ice Capades” repeated over and over in an ever-increasingly-creepier whisper, and that’s pretty much the same thing from a marketing perspective.

I wondered why nobody advertises products this way anymore, and I planned to fix it. So I made this:

…and this:

Do you want to buy cereal or scissors now?
Yes, you do.

Earlier in the week, it snowed, and now that the snow is melting away, little dots are appearing in the plow banks.

Hundreds of little dots. Such a clean separation. I’m kind of impressed.

Maybe we can harness this technology and put it to better use:

Before:

Boring

The more I looked at this photo, the more it became apparent that it needed to be animated.

After:

Much better.

That was fun, so I decided to make a harder one. Let’s try hair:

Let that be a lesson to you about the dangers of resting your chin on your hands.

Someone has probably already done this joke (I’m looking at you Gary Larson), but I don’t really want to look it up. So, it’s original to me.

I’m in Texas for the holidays.

I’m currently sitting next to my mom on the couch watching Jaws. Neither of us particularly wanted to watch Jaws, but my dad turned it on and fell asleep with the remote. We don’t want to wake him up, because it’s his birthday. So, I figured I could take this time to update the blog. I suppose it’s pretty close to this week’s deadline anyway.

Like I said, it’s my dad’s birthday, and since I didn’t have a lot time for handmade gifts, the guy with 2 gift occasions near Christmas gets the good one. Here’s what he got this year.

That’s a Russian nesting doll with his face on it.  His big, pink face. My dad takes pictures while talking. All his pictures are in mid-word, so this doll is too. Also, he is wearing Zubaz pants, because he once bought 4 pairs and wore only them while he was at home.

Inside the first doll is one that kind of looks like my mom. It’s hard to make flattering portraiture on bowling-pin-shaped pieces. And I made these all from memory, so I accidentally gave her a haircut from about a decade ago.

Now the punchline is coming up, so I must explain. These are arranged in order of age, and I have younger twin brothers. So next is me, then who?

I could easily make the technically younger twin the smaller one, but where’s the fun in that?

Two in one!

I split the smallest piece in half, length-wise and painted each half like a different brother. Problem solved!

And here’s a picture of the whole family.

If your interested in the process, I made these all with Sharpie oil paint markers, They’re pretty decent for this kind of work. I just get red, blue, yellow, white, and black and mix them on the surface as I go.

The bodies are from a set of nesting Santas. I sanded a few down, but then I figured out that I didn’t need to, so I just painted over them.

Goodnight, Happy 2012, and see ya next week!

Anyway, I was busy all week working and making plans for travel and holidays, so I didn’t do much I can share. I made a few gifts, but the recipients read the blog, so that’ll come later. I can however, show you what I did last night:

Yep. Gift wrapping.

(thanks to gifsofpopularrappers.tumblr.com for the original image)

I went with a classy black paper this year, and shiny ribbons.

Megan was shipping her presents this year, so she devised a cool way to spruce up the boring old box.

Nothing at first, but when you open it…

BOOM! Christmas explosion!

Well, that’s it for this week. I’ll tell you what’s inside next time.

Yes! It’s the canned food adventure you’ve all been waiting for!

So, go check out me eating gelatinous and translucent things:

Click me! I’m canned!

Whew. Got that in just under the wire, this week, again.

See you next week.

I got a job.

For the first time in about 3 years. So, that’s nice.

But, what does that mean for you? Can you expect the quantity or quality of these weekly somethings to change? I sure hope not. I’m going to try to keep doing this forever.

And for those of you who will inevitably say that this isn’t “something”, here’s a comic I managed to make during my first week of work. Yeah, that’s 2 somethings for the price of one this week. BOOM!

Click for bigger.

You’ve probably seen them in the comments on this blog and others. And, you may have noticed that since they’re symmetrical, they function as a sort of Rorschach test. What do you see?

Here’s what I see, when I look at your comments.

Let’s start off with the one I can’t help but see. Every time I look at this icon, I see a little blue person drooling with excitement, and now so will you.

You get the idea. This is going to be a long post, so get your scrollin’ finger warmed up.

Starting off with some interesting ones. We have Hair Lady, Pink Robot, and Banana Spider.

Since these are random, they sometimes look alike. Coming up we have Matt and Chris, the mustache brothers.

All of these you’ll see are pulled from my blog comments. If I miss you, try your hand at your own. I’ll host them here if you send them to me.

This next batch is composed of intricate avatars that all look like complete bodies.

This one is cool because it doesn’t look like a face to me. It’s a tricycle. It’s usually hard not to see a face when something’s symmetrical.

Next up we have another pair. Walrus-men, featuring my dad.

Alexander wins the prize for must unambiguously awesome avatar. Don’t mess with this guy.

Apparently WordPress really likes Batman, or maybe just bats. Because I was able to find 4 different occurrences of this shape:

If you scroll fast, it looks like an animation. No, not really. You may have noticed my dad’s second appearance. He used a different email.

There’s a special group I’ve been saving. It’s a group that makes no sense, even after I drew them. Have a look.

I’m affectionately referring to the top one as “Cruciflex” the middle as “Electric Briefcase” and the bottom, she goes by “Wheel Cat!”

How about some chubby-cheeked animals?

My mom’s gopher icon is quite angry with you.

And one more. I saved the weirdest for last.

MOOSECOPTER!

So what do you think? Did I get them right? Would you do it differently? Wanna just see what your generated pixel art looks like? Leave a comment and find out.

Thanks, and see you next week!

I don’t really like cupcakes.

I mean, I’m not going to turn you down if you offer me one. But as I’m eating a cupcake, I can’t help thinking how much better it would be if it was just a regular slice of plate-and-fork cake. I could go on, but this post isn’t about bashing cupcakes, it’s about averting disaster!

Cupcakes are hot right now, and as a result, everybody has an opinion on the subject. Because of this, bringing cupcakes to a social gathering can be dangerous. It’s practically an open invitation to start an argument. So, how do we solve this potential party faux pas?

Fear not, and be prepared for the inevitable with the Cupcake Diffuser!

Pictured above is the (patent pending) Cupcake Diffuser. It is simply a cake with cupcake-shaped holes already baked in. All you have to do is bring this negative-cupcake to any party, and when someone shows up with cupcakes, fill the holes. Crisis averted.

“But what if no one shows up with cupcakes?” you might ask. Yeah, right… Someone will.

Here’s how I made it:

I started out with a plan. A glorious plan. Above, you can see the little foil legs that comprise step one of this plan.

The little legs provide support for a muffin tin with the underside greased. It floats just a half-inch above the bottom of the larger baking pan.

Then we pour in the cake batter. The ultimate goal here is to create a cake with the impression of the muffin tin in the top.

And maybe if I had greased it more, it would have worked… who knows?

Instead, what happened was the muffin tin adhered firmly to the top of the cake, and would not release, no matter what I did. That didn’t work, but then you knew that if you counted the cupcake holes in the original picture.

I think if I had put the muffin tin upside-down with the cups pointing up like a bundt cake tin, it may have worked better, but there’s no time for that now. It’s Friday night, and I have a something due this week.

Alright, plan B.  How about we just bake a cake and cut out circles? It’s less elegant of a solution, but…

…at least, I’m fairly sure it will work. This method will have to do until I can get some custom anti-cupcake pans built.

I decided to only make 5 holes for structural integrity’s sake. I would recommend 6  in most cases, though. Cupcakes tend to come in half-dozens.

But that’s it! Gaze in wonder at the Cupcake Diffuser! Such a powerful tool, such a simple design.

Just unwrap, and drop them in.

And you’re done.

Slice and serve. This chocolate/vanilla combo looks pretty cool.

So, bring one to your next party, and enjoy cake on plates, with forks, like adults.

See ya next week, when I’ll do something entirely unrelated.