My FXTec Pro1 finally arrived!  Except it won't work on Verizon, AT&T, or T-Mobile.  Hope i get my $700 back.

I dreamed last night that i saw Faith No More in concert (whom i've not yet seen) for the second time (at a venue i didn't recognize).  This morning, i got a Songkick alert for an upcoming FNM concert.

I can't process this.

I woke up to catpee in my bathtub today. With the addition of Roger's cats, I'd been lazy about ordering the Feliway. I'm no longer feeling lazy about ordering the Feliway. Funny how that works!

So I looked at Amazon and there seems to be a whole variety of Feliway diffuser oils now. https://www.amazon.com/s?k=feliway+refill I plan to do some research, but if anyone has recommendations (*cough* Lindsay? *cough*) I'd appreciate it! I'm rusty. This former Cat-Foster-Lady-Extraordinaire is having to dust off her old tips and tricks, and some of them are way in the back of the closet* under piles of stuff.

I'm also looking at getting help with housekeeping. Two adults and three cats is showing its effects already. I'd already been losing the ability to keep up with my house when it was me and Alistair, now I can longer deny that it's gotten away from me, and is not coming back. Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes... turn and face the strange.

I'm tired already and it's not even lunchtime.

*My brain. I'm referring to my brain.

music: David Bowie - "Changes"

mood: mood

The folks at gmbinder.com are kinda brilliant. They've built a website that makes it easy for any old schmo like me build a PDF with all the formatting of a Wizards of the Coast Official 5e Dungeons & Dragons manual.

You enter simple markdown into one window, the website interperets the markdown, and uses CSS to spit the content back out in a second window with all the formatting done for you. No need to learn about different fonts or spacing or... whatever.

I've seen a couple different incarnations of this kind of thing, but GMBinder seems to be the best of them - at least that I've been able to find. And it's 100% free - at least currently.

So when I first came across one of their competitors, the idea occured to me: "This would be a great way to promote dragonbones.net and my illustration services. I'll make a short "D&D Book" that is filled with my art and talks about how to hire me to create the art for your D&D book!" It's kinda meta, and I think folks would like that. I've never heard of it being done before, and the name of the game when selling anything is 'stand out from the crowd'. So if I do this right, I can stand out from the crowd while demonstrating just how perfectly I fit in with the crowd.

Oh shut it, Westley - it makes sense to me, and that's what matters.

Anyway - if any of you would like to have a look, you can find it here.

The cover is just a rough sketch, but all the art in it is my work, and I'm already working on a revision which will expand the book, provide more samples, etc. But with that said, I would love any and all criticisms / feedback / reviews / etc. Please - beat it up. :)

So this happened. :) (My apologies to those who have seen this on my social media already.)

My 13 year old cat, Spot, has been living with a bone marrow cancer diagnosis for 9 months now. Her buddy, Scout, passed in November. Since then I've been her only source of love and affection. 

I should have known something was up when she stopped coming by for love and affection at bedtime. She stopped eating, and with a long holiday weekend coming up I knew it was probably time, before she had to suffer through three days to see the vet. So, I went looking for where she had denned up.

When I found her the look she gave me removed all doubt that it was time. Fortunately, my vet had me bring Spot to her house. My vet gave Spot a quick exam and agreed that it was time.

And just like her buddy, Scout, Spot left as soon as the euthenasia drugs hit her system.

Losing two pets in two months is hard. I like fixing things. But with Spot, and Scout before her, there was no fixing this. And the only choice I had left was to give them mercy.

Excitement today.

The wind blew the door open after Roger left for work this morning. Frost heave pushes the frame out of alignment, and I've had it fixed several times, but really I need a new door. If you don't get it just right on a really cold day, it won't latch. And he usually checks it but he's still new at it. In fact, it still catches me off-guard sometimes. (I've already woken up to snow in my living room. You haven't lived.)

         (Said culprit.)

Well, all three cats were outside when I got up, including his two who've never been outside AND who won't let me near them to pick them up. Thankfully they ran straight back into the house instead of out and away from me.

I still ended up traipsing all over the neighborhood in my pajamas though (no picture provided), shaking a treat bag and carrying a favorite toy, looking for my cat who is too deaf to answer to his own name... only to have him happily greet me at the door when I got back, the little fucker*.

My feet are full of blisters and my nose is running.

*Who I was incredibly happy to see the instant I saw his face.

music: Michael Martin Murphey - "Wildfire"

mood: blustery cold and relieved

After a bad week, I heard the news on Friday that Neil Peart had passed away. 

My mom and I moved to the Chicago suburbs in 1978, thorougly uprooting me from my Mayberry like life in rural New England. My hometown was an example of late 70's post-industrial collapse. No jobs, no surviving industry, and being located in a valley, no radio signals. We'd get one rock station, that specialized in 60's hippie and acid rock and distantly, on a good night, a pop station out of Westerly, Rhode Island.

And then I got dropped into Chicagoland, and the rock scene there was heavily influenced by Canadian imports. Moxy, Pat Travers, April Wine, Triumph and this little band called Rush.

While my school peers listened to more mainstream bands, the nerds at my school all listened to Rush, among other bands. WLUP would occasionally throw one of their songs on the air, and it was always a good time. While Rush wasn't mainstream, it was at least well known enough in Chicago that you weren't completely ostracized for listening to them.

All of that changed in 1982, when we moved back to New England and the valley of shadow of radio signals. Coincidentally almost in time with Rush's release of their album, Signals. Then, my age peers didn't want anything to do with Rush or Geddy Lee's shrieky vocals. The content of Peart's lyrics was of little interest to them. Rush became my solitary pleasure. The music I listened to alone, frequently when I had time to read the liner notes and contemplate the message that Peart, Lee and Lifeson were sending.

Peart, in his younger years was an admirer or Ayn Rand, and although by his own admission he parted ways with her philosphy, he remained a staunch libertarian. And that belief shone through in his lyrics, and in a way, infected me. Meanwhile, the 80's and 90's rolled on. The albums kept coming, life was good.

Until it wasn't. Peart was rocked by two tragedies, the death of his only daughter and his wife. Rush ended their tour early and went on hiatus. I didn't know it at the time, but Peart took to riding his motorcycle around North and Central America, twice, trying to decide whether he wanted to live or die. As usual, great pain can be channeled into art. And he wrote about his journey in a book, Ghost Rider.

Hiatus usually means a band is done. But around the beginning of 2001 I started hearing rumors of a new Rush album. And sure enough it came to be. My favorite band was back and hopefully would be forever. 

But if you live long enough, you get to see your heroes die.

Peart officially retired in 2015. It was explained that he retired because he could no longer perform at the level he expected of himself due to tendonitis. Of course, it's easy to now surmise that his retirement was related to his diagnosis of brain cancer. 

So, here's Rush being inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, an honor that was long denied them. It's a nice snapshot of a happier time and acknowledgement that this little quirky trio from Toronto is, was and always will be cool.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RTAqCEPMHEg

These are all very small and mostly just process and materials tests. 

Spadina streetcar. 

Untitled blue black. 

Iron teapot. 

Speaking of new music: