Sunday, November 26, 2006

Maxwell P. Kitty Cat's Big Adventure

Max got out this evening without anyone noticing (he's very good at slipping out) for some 30-60 minutes. By the time we did notice he was gone it was dark out and he was nowhere to be found. I really thought it was going to be the end of Maxwell as he's pretty damned clueless about cars and unfriendly people.

I quickly checked throughout the house and yard for him but couldn't find him. So I asked my brother and niece if they had seen him. They hadn't, so we all started to look. We did a couple searches close to the house and garage, but no Maxwell. I was pretty upset by this time because I figured Max was or would soon be a goner. We decided to widen the search area for him and went out the front of the house while my brother and niece checked the ally that runs behind the house.

I'd call Max a few times and then stop and listen for him, but got nothing. Then my cell phone rang -- "we got him!" my brother told me. I was sooo relieved. Max is old and used to the country and has hyperthyroidism so sometimes he gets these intense urges to go places even if he doesn't know his way around. I guess much of that is standard cat activity, but it was very worrisome anyway. So I come back to the house and my niece was there holding Max and he was purring away and just looked very happy with himself.

She found him walking down the ally meowing his fool head off. Or at least he was trying to meow. He must have been doing it a while because he seems to have lost his voice a bit. And sure enough, he was walking smack dab down the center of the allyway looking around like "wow, look at all the stuff. I don't think I'm in Kansas anymore." She said he was headed back towards the house so I imagine he did hear us calling him. I shudder to think about where he was and how close he was to getting squished.

Anyway, he's now sacked out in front of the heater reliving his big adventure.

Friday, November 24, 2006

Steve's Art

Working on setting up a group of 19 older SK paintings on my photobucket site. Once I get all the info in and correct I'm going to send out an email to the the SK art mailing list with a link so they can see them and purchase if they want. Steve didn't want them up on the regular art site and I have to agree with him. I do like many of these, but for the most part his newer work is much more mature and developed. Some of these have the feel of studies rather than completely finished works, but some are very nice pieces which just didn't sell earlier. The really cool thing for the people on the mailing list is that not only do they get first (and probably only) dibs on these pieces, but the prices on these will be excellent. The images won't be nearly as good as the ones on the regular site as they are just snapshots I took. They aren't colour corrected and most are a bit lopsided, but they do give a pretty good idea of what they look like. And all of them will look more intense and vibrant in person, so I think people will be pleased. I just have to make sure I note that in the email to the list.

I'm also supposed to be picking up a new set of small (8"x10" to 9"x12") SK paintings from the photographer on Monday and will put them up on the regular SK art site. That, combined with the email-list-only early works and the set of larger pieces I put up earlier (but didn't push much as I wanted people to focus on the paintings SK had up on ebay), means there will be a LOT of SK original art available to buy very soon. I did expect sales to be slow after the big SK birthday celebration sale and they have been. Of course, the five large paintings I put up a little while ago didn't get up nearly as soon as I wanted (early November vs mid September) and then I really haven't pushed them. Plus, I expect that most people are buying the paintings for themselves and during the Christmas shopping season the focus is on buying gifts for others. People should be more like me, dammit! Buy for yourselves! ;-)

I'm going to work on re-vamping of the art site that I outlines in a previous post. I hope that will make it easier for people to find what they want there. Because we have quite a few images up it's quite a slog to get through them all. I'm also thinking of allowing people to do a payment plan if they find a piece they love but can't afford it all at once. It would still have to be a relatively short timeframe -- maybe 2 or 3 months -- and I think I might restrict it to people on the mailing list at first as kind of a test to see if it works, but it could encourage people who want to take that step and buy an original to actually do it.

Wednesday, November 22, 2006

The obligatory Thanksgiving blog entry

A thread on one of the boards I post on this week is "What are you thankful for?" This pretty much covers it.

I am thankful:

That I have pretty much everything I really need.

That I have a good deal of what I want.

That I don't have everything I want.

Sunday, November 19, 2006

the Steve & Marty shows

The first of the Steve & Marty shows is this Tuesday. God I would love to see some of those! They had such a fantastic rapport during the US tour I bet these shows will be so damned much fun. Oh well I do know a couple people who are going, so I will get emails about it and possibly pics. Got some quite decent pics of Steve at Vegan Day -- I would have loved to have gone to that too. You know it would be just my luck that if I did live in Australia I would live in some super remote area and get to see them play even less than I do now. At least when the tour the US I go to multiple shows and I do love that.

Anyway, back to the Steve & Marty shows. In thinking about these shows I couldn't help but think about when The Church was down to just Steve & Marty. It was a pretty bleak period for the band -- creatively they had their moments, but they weren't at their best; personally, at least for Steve it seems as if that was a very rough time; financially -- they got dumped by Arista and then had that distribution disaster with MATS. It really seems as if the band was hanging by a very thin thread during that time. But they did hang on, and sometimes I wonder why. I wonder what made them keep slogging away when very little was going their way. While PK gives off a very practical "I'll do whatever I need to do" vibe, SK and MWP seem to be more quixotic types -- each in his own way, of course. Maybe that kept them going when honestly it didn't make much logical sense.

So it pleases me to hear of Steve & Marty shows (even if they are Steve & Marty as solo artists instead of Steve & Marty as The Church if that makes any sense) now that they, and the band, are at such a high point creatively, and it seems personally as well. I love a happy story, and this feels like a happy story.

Saturday, November 18, 2006

YES!!!

Steve's painting used for the cover of ULTC just sold on ebay for $8280 AUD (approx. $6364 USD)! I am so fucking excited for him. He must be absolutely delighted. A while ago -- a year or more -- we talked about how much it might bring and he mentioned a figure he thought it might be able to bring. This blew that figure right out of the water and I am absolutely delighted by that.

The others are doing quite well also. Block is currently $2650 AUD (approx. $2040 USD) and A Quiet Night In is $920 AUD (approx. $707 USD) and I expect them to go up before they end.

Not only is it a nice chunk of change right now (I think the other band memebers might be getting a cut too as being used on something by The Chuch most likely helped the price), but it also helps to establish a higher value for his paintings in general. That can only be good.

Hey, maybe I should sell off part of my collection while the interest is high. :-)

Saturday, November 11, 2006

Ratty Little Gerbil Car Saga -- Part Whatever

Yes, the Gerbil Car Saga continues!

I've mentioned before that the hood won't latch properly. There are usually two hood latches -- the main latch and then an auxiliary latch in case the main latch doesn't work. Most cars have a lever inside the car to "pop" the main latch open and then you have to manually press a lever to open the auxiliary latch to actually open the hood.

The first year I had the car (oh so long ago) I was involved in an accident where some kid cut in front of me in an intersection and the front corner of the passenger side of his car hit my poor little car smack dab in the front center -- right about where the hood latch is. Car got repaired and we went on with life, but I suspect that the main hood latch was damaged somewhat in that wreck. Still, it did fine for a lot of years after that so I can't complain.

However, a few years ago that main latch just gave up the ghost and all that was holding down the hood was the auxiliary latch. This worked, but it allowed a bit (maybe half an inch) of play and the hood would rattle up and down as I drove along, especially in windy weather. Not a great deal of fun, but hell, it's a ratty little gerbil car and it still worked so I got used to it.

So a couple of weeks ago I'm driving down the road and I notice the hood isn't bouncing in the wind. I think "Cool! The latch is working again" and go on with my life. Now my little car also uses a bit of oil -- not a great deal, it just needs a bit added every few weeks or so between oild changes. So I go out one day this week to check the oil level and add more, and I find there is a little drawback to the hood being firmly latched. I can't get the damned thing to open. The inside hood release lever isn't attached to anything anymore so is no help at all. Because I have short fingers, without the hood releasing a little bit I can't even reach the lever that releases the auxiliary latch (although I doubt that would help since it doesn't do anything for the main latch). Argh!

So I tell my brother my most recent tale of ratty little gerbil car woe. This caused him great mirth, but he did say he'd see if he could open it. If all else fails he said "we'll just cut the damned thing off and figure out how to latch it again later." Sounds like a plan to me. Guess that multipack of duct tape might come in handy after all! ;-)

Sunday, November 05, 2006

woohoo!!

I found my biscuit cutter tonight! Yay!!

I know, I know, what a pitiful thing to write a blog entry about, but I have been in this house over a year and have looked everywhere I could think of several times trying to find it to no avail. I have been forced to use a heart-shaped cookie cutter for my biscuits -- oh the horror!

So tonight I was looking for the battery charger and I moved something out of the way and there, as plain as day, was the biscuit cutter. Best thing to happen all day (yeah, that is pitiful, but I have a cold, so I haven't actually done much today. On a normal day it would probably be a couple down from the top ;-) ).

What's really strange about finding it where I did is I have looked for it in that spot several times during the year. It would just be my luck that my house is haunted by biscuit making ghosts.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

An update on a previous post:

The art reproduction woman of a few posts ago got in touch with me just a day or so after I posted that entry. She finished up the work and got everything back to me, so I put some of the paintings up on the SK art site (I still have to put the shopping cart buttons for the prints and cards on yet). What a relief to have the pieces back. Took waaaay too long, but at least it's done and we can move along.

I'm planning on re-vamping the SK art site a bit. I think I can now have a more "real" homepage as opposed to just jumping right into the "gallery" of paintings, and I can also separate the work into two or more groupings as opposed to just having one large mass of images for people to wade through.

Terri suggested that I separate the images of original paintings which are available from the images where only prints are available. I like that idea. Right now I'm thinking of three divisions:

1) Original works available for sale. Recently sold works may stay briefly, but will eventually be moved.

2) Prints and/or cards. Images of every painting which has either prints and/or cards available for sale. Some of these pieces will also be found in the originals for sale section. I don't want the people looking for just prints or cards to miss them just because the original hasn't yet sold.

3) Images of original works which have sold, but for which we offer no prints or cards. This will be just to show SK's variety of work, and to keep the prints and/or cards section from becoming hugely cluttered.

Saturday, November 04, 2006

MWP has a stache...

And I have yet to see a good pic of it.

I am not happy about this at all. I wanna see his stache, dammit! >:

I have long loved how SK looks with a beard, but could never picture Marty with facial hair, and was pretty sure I wouldn't like it if he had it (although he's perfectly within his rights to have it if he wants it. Isn't that nice of me to allow that? ;-) ). But someone I've been talking to online saw him in Melbourne and said at first she thought "eewww! Marty, what have you done?!" but as the show went on she started thinking "you know, it's kind of working for him."

Hmm. So now I'm really interested in seeing some good pics of the damned thing so I can decide for myself. C'mon people! I NEED someone to post some decent MWP stache pics. :-)