etherbrian

Pixel History

Lesson 1: The Father of Our Matrix ...

still another page from a cheapskate's sketchbook

"When you awaken you will remember nothing."

Though they occur very seldomly, there are times when I stumble over some old bit of work of mine about which I can remember little or nothing. This is one of those times. What the Marginal Motor Company was, or was supposed to be, we'll never know.

Cursor Wednesday

Up, up, and away! Getting strong now ... gonna fly now! Straighten up and fly right! I want to fly like an eagle! Off we go into the wild blue yonder! Eight ... miles ... high! Hey (hey), you (you), get off of my cloud.

(This animated cursor is presented at 300% to show detail and to discourage its usage elsewhere. Disregarding the obvious inference that it should not be re-used could land the perpetrator in a legal predicament best described as "crash and burn".)

encoded audio (oo la la!)

LEGO Y-Wing

Joe has a passion for LEGO. And a passion for Star Wars. And a passion for drawing. The small smiling pilot makes me smile, too!

pixel history

Though a line of text on the front page turned out to be a pinch prophetic, the story behind Etherknot is actually quite dull (and the banner ads that have since made their appearance are a major turn-off). But it was the monochromatic bitmappiness found there which Chooch Martin desired (and received, by golly) for his little place on the web which goes by the name Pooch Karton. Its intent was to be a music label, but, unfortunately, that never came to be. How very strange it is that it's still online in spite of not having been updated in four years. Though the place is really old news now, I'm still rather fond of a few of the freeforms! The sounds are his. The art is mine. Or ... maybe it's his, too. Whatever.

Don't sit under the preternatural dynamastic twilight tree ... with anyone else but me ... anyone else but me ... anyone else but me ...

Cursor Wednesday

I dream most every night, and most all those dreams I can recall the next morning. And of all the dreams I've dreamed that I can remember having dreamt, only two have concerned extraterrestrials touching down upon the earth. And, strangely enough, both absolutely terrified me! These visitors weren't of the friendly variety like Mork from Ork, or a Reese's Pieces-eating Spielbergian E.T., or the tall, skinny, oversized-head guys who play G, A, F, (octave lower) F, C on their intergalactic keyboards. No, these were frightening far-out folk. The first dream found me peeping through my bedroom curtains at a ship which had made a midnight landing on the lawn of my childhood home. Out stepped a tall humanoid carrying a weapon, and the freakish malevolence of the event immediately awakened me. The second dream was also set at night, but this time I stumbled upon the aliens while riding a bicycle through the tall grass of an undeveloped, remote countryside. The invaders didn't see me, but I was able to stealthily have a peep at them, and I observed them gathered in a ring while eating a ... eating a ... eating a ....... Never mind! Shudder.

(This animated cursor is presented at 300% to show detail and to discourage its usage elsewhere. Using them elsewhere is nothing more than an invitation for lawyers from a world far away to invade your own world and wreak havoc of scifi proportions.)

deoxyribonucleic assessment

PersonalDNA purports that one who takes its personality test - a test designed by a team of psychologists, no less - will find one's "true self revealed". Hmmmmm. I'm very skeptical of the accuracy of these sorts of things. Anybody with half a brain can usually figure where various questions are leading, and there's nothing to stop those people from nudging their answers. The final report could be heavily swayed by someone embellishing his various qualities, or failing to admit to any lack thereof, resulting in a profile which depicts what the individual wishes he could be instead of what he really is. On the other hand, the results could respresent someone who was unduly conservative and overly cautious with her responses, resulting in a profile with which she humbly hopes no one might find disagreement, even though it's likely no one else will ever see the results. Yet, regardless of my criticisms of personality tests, the day the PersonalDNA URL was making it rounds at all my usual haunts I simply could not resist giving it a try. I mean, it is, by gargantuan leaps and bounds, a heck of a lot better looking than all those other banner-ad-laden atrocities one normally encounters! Funny ... Upon receiving my results it wasn't the accuracy of the test's portrayal of yours truly that concerned me. No, it was the Mondrian-meets-hardware-store-paint-chip-display square that brought dismay. It was much, much too tidy a representation! If only I were that orderly! So late one night while listening to Arthur Lee (though, as my mother used to say, that's neither here nor there) I remedied the graphical misstep: