Frustro the typeface was a jolly happy soul

if i meet someone who is involved in anything related to printing, i ask them about Comic Sans.
i do this because i like Comic Sans.
the answer is always the same
"DON'T USE IT."
so mostly i don't.
jeez.

here's a bit of an interesting font.. or typeface as they call it (is it not the same?) named of "Frustro" !

it reminds me of that thing i first saw in Mad Magazine, (and subsequently drew many times during the looong loong days of school) -- which later was called a blivet, even tho that word used to mean something quite stinkier.

luckily there is the World Wide Web so i followed the trail to -- ta da! - Wikipedia, which thinks it might be something like "In its most common usage, the word "blivet" refers to an indecipherable figure, illustrated above.[citation needed] It appeared on the March 1965 cover of Mad magazine, where it was dubbed the "Three-Pronged Poiuyt" (the last six letters on the top row of many Latin-script typewriter keyboards, right to left), and has appeared numerous times since then. An anonymously-contributed version described as a "hole location gauge" was printed in the June 1964 issue of Analog Science Fiction and Fact, with the comment that "this outrageous piece of draftsmanship evidently escaped from the Finagle & Diddle Engineering Works" (although something else called a "hole location gauge" had already been patented in 1961)"
Wikipedia also explains other uses of the word if you are interested.

Frusto was apparently inspired by the Penrose Triangle, which i never heard of but recognized when i googled it. Frustro seems not to be available as a computer font.

read more about it here http://www.behance.net/gallery/FRUSTRO-typeface/2525513

something fishy

caught in the act...
the great St Pete Beach sand investigation
what is this stuff, anyway?

home again

mmmmm so nice to be home and sleep in my own flannel-sheeted bed under my heavy pile of quilts in the land of snow and mud after weeks of sleeping on other people's lumpy sofas and guest beds in the near-tropics.

warning - if you put some beautiful powdery white beach sand in a small zip-lock baggie, your carry-on will be searched and you may be treated as slightly suspicious at first, then dotty afterwards. 

but your cats will enjoy scooping it around in a bowl and tossing it on the floor!

dreams of no doubt

in the dream a very small girl, maybe age 3, plays around some puddles as a slight rain sprinkles.  she has sandy rough boy-cut hair and wears a simple rumpled shift.  face and arms are still baby-fat rounded.  her caretaker, young mother, teenaged sister -- yes i think it is her much older sister -- stands nearby staring off at a shadowy female figure some distance away.  the tiny girl raises her chubby arms in the pick-me-up gesture and goes to the sister without hesitation without doubt without trying to read her sister's face or posture.  her sister scoops her up without hesitation without doubt without asking "do you want to come up?" and molds her to her shoulder, still looking off.

this vision of perfect mutual trust and accomodation is so profoundly affecting, i can't get it out of my mind.

country mouse

i couldn't believe how long it took to pick up a carton of milk on the way home.  i'd recently moved from the city, where you took your stuff to the counter, paid, and you were out of there.  now i had to stand in line while the checker conversed with each customer...and even worse, when my turn came, i was expected to comment on the weather and exchange other inane pleasantries before leaving with my purchases.

i thought of this today as i stood in line, an activity i've come to know as an opportunity to chat with anyone else in the line, and then, at the counter, discovering that the checker is a friend i haven't seen in awhile and we catch up on each others' lives. she even came around from behind the counter for a happy new year hug. i glanced back at the people waiting in line, hoping they were all from around here.  even at the pharmacy when i pick up some meds or something, the pharmacist comes around the counter for a hug!

up to no good

could this be mudpie?

this doesn't look good!