Catching Up on What You are Missing

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I just added an in depth post about process choices concerning my current painting project on my Patreon page.  This one has me excited and I hope you will join me on the journey.  Just a reminder, several of my previous posts are now public if you want to see what you are missing out on.

Artist Still in Residence

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Hey all, I just wanted to let you know that I am still creating digital paintings as well as stories.  I just uploaded an image of a new project I started so if you want to see what I am doing now, become a patron and support my artistic endeavors at my Patreon page.

Faster than a Speeding Planet, Able to Leap a Tall Star

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Recently I asked for help finding out the speed of the planets of our solar system after hearing about the velocity achieved by the probe we have circling close to the sun.  I had asked because I actually thought it would be hard to find and I am a bit lazy.  Yeah, I said it.  Anyway, I decided to see what Google could come up with on my phone today.  Damn, got it on the first try.  Here is what I found (I checked out a few sites to verify as well):

Mercury – 107,082 mph

Venus – 78,337 mph

Earth – 66,615 mph

Mars – 53,858 mph

Jupiter – 29,236 mph

Saturn – 21,675 mph

Uranus – 15,233 mph

Neptune – 12,146 mph

Pluto (for us old school types) – 10,592 mph.

And his is the whopper that drives them all:

Sun around the Milky Way – Avg. Velocity = 828,000 mph.

Oh, one orbit around the galactic center would take 230 million years. No wonder humans are so restless and destructive, we never get the chance to truly sit still.  LOL.

 

 

What’s in a Name

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I have added some more to “Lost Contact” and wanted to talk to you about one of the many challenges in writing fiction, creating names.  I was faced with this problem on several levels for this section of the story, because I wanted to write about the planet where Jack Carson meets his demise.  First of all, not only did I have to come up with his name in the first place, but now I had to come up with the name for a planet.  You can’t just plug anything in either.  It has to sound good.

While I was working on that planet’s name, I realized I had not named the planet Jack was currently on or the star of the planet he was going to.  Should I name a real star or make one up?  Will the planet have its own name or be named as a number of the stars name?  Oh, by the way, that got me to thinking of the name of the ship that transports Jack to the star system.  Damn!  This kind of stuff grows exponentially to me.

Well anyway, the star is called Erindi, the planet is called Erindi II, and the ship is the Strange Inquisitor.  I had fun naming the ship.  Well, that is it for now, but I still have to come up with a last name for Allison along with other things I will unfortunately think of later.  Be glad I am not ranting about coming up with titles and paragraph headings this time.

New Year, New Post

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Here is my first post of the year 2020.  I was looking through YouTube videos, something I do quite often, and saw an old interview of Carrie Fisher around the release of “The Empire Strikes Back”.  I will admit like every other man of about my age, I was in love/lust withh Carrie Fisher/Princess Leia when she was young.  Her looks really turned me on and I never questioned the images of her I devoured.

In the interview, she was asked about the fact that she had to diet for the role of Leia in Star Wars.  She said she weighed 110 pounds and they wanted her to get down to 90, but she only made it to 100.  While yes she is short so being a little heavy will show more, 110 pounds for her size was well within healthy levels.  Hell, at that weight it would take more than two of her to match my current heft.  She later mentioned that during Empire she had gotten down to 85 and once went three days without eating.

This caused me to do some serious thinking.  Why is it that after all these years and untold technological advances in cinematography that actresses and even actors have to maintain unhealthy body weights just so they do not come off as fat on the big screen?  How many times have you drooled over or admired a good looking celebrity then been shocked by their real weigh image?  Forced dieting has been a thing of Hollywood since its’ inception.  I have seen first hand the effects photography has on looks.  While I am by no means a slim person, pictures of me make me look even fatter than I am, which is why I hate my picture taken.

However, my intention for this post is not to layout a rant about the false imagery forcing generations of Americans to idolize unrealistic body types, well not totally, but to ask one simple question.  If we can send men to the moon, stop Polio, and dive to the bottom of the ocean, why haven’t we created a camera or camera lens that can show people as they are.  One that does not require drastic weight loss to achieve a sultry body image on screen.  How many lives have been ruined in this constant war against natural humanity?  How much money has been spent to keep the on screen looks of celebrities?  A one time fix for the amplification effects of the cameras would be cheaper and better for the world then the ugly truth behind the scenes.