Being the night owl, I'm still on Valentine's Day time, even though it's officially the 15th. I don't get philosophical here very often (even though I'm a real navel-gazer in real life) but a friend sent me a link to a blog that sent me off on a wee tangent. So here's a pretty entertaining write-up on No One Knows WTF They're Doing, and here was my email back to my friend (with slight modifications) —
I always felt like a fraud when I was working as an engineer; I never got over that and I didn't want to continue feeling like that. As an artist, I don't feel like a fraud, but I also know that there's no way that I can know that I'm not a bad artist. (Steve M and I just had this conversation actually, yesterday.)
The difference, I guess, is being comfortable with being an artist, even if it means I was a bad one. I'm willing to put myself out there and make a fool of myself, because it's worth it. But being a bad engineer, it's not worth making a fool of myself for that. (Although, it can also be argued, following the thinking of the original blog that Jo sent, being a bad artist is not so dangerous to others, in most cases, so maybe that makes it easier...)
I guess it's like being in love with someone, you love them enough, you put yourself out there for that person even if it means making a fool of yourself.
On that note, hope you all had a wonderful Valentines Day!
Showing posts with label babbling. Show all posts
Showing posts with label babbling. Show all posts
Monday, February 15, 2010
Friday, October 26, 2007
I defy categorization, and other fame induced babblings
Someone over at L&TM5K mentioned Clusty the meta search engine, so I went over there and typed in 'gocco'...and guess what!? I don't show up until page 5. And not only that, I don't show up anywhere on their list of 'categories.'
So I've concluded the obvious -- I clearly defy categorization. There is simply no other explanation for it.
And about those famous but fleeting 15 minutes -- it does go by rather quickly, but here's a interesting phenomenon, I bet someone can do a dissertation on it. I normally get around 100 hits on my web site...
Last Saturday (when the on-line version of The Cult of Gocco first came out), it went up to 122.
On Sunday, it about doubled to 254.
On Monday, it about doubled again to 528.
On Tuesday, it about halved, back to 267.
On Wednesday, it approximately halved again, down to 150.
It's a symmetrical bell-shaped curve! I do wonder if that's purely coincidental, or if there is a predictable, computable phenomenon?
There's is a bit of a ripple effect in play here. Because on Tuesday night, L&TM5K blogged about my open studios event, which got me some extra traffic (and a sale!) on Wednesday, and so the hit count 150 is a bit more than half of 267, but without the added PR, it probably really would've halved to 130 something, which it did on Thursday, one day later.
Here's the graph:
Well, it's all very interesting to ME anyhow, and that's what counts here on THIS blog!
Now on to the business at hand, which is getting ready for the Gocco Print on Your Food class on Tuesday at IPRC. Figured out a few things today -- lots of things will actually print, but they don't show because that thin layer of whatever food it is that you're putting down is just too transparent/translucent to show. So dark foods work best. Sour cream and Skippy peanut butter are great for mixing with other things to get a better consistency, and peanut butter mixed with balsamic vinegar doesn't taste half bad. It's actually an interesting taste.
So here are a few of the better results. Hershey's syrup mixed with sour cream printed on Fig Newtons, turkey lunch meat, & ham lunch meat. The Fig Newton results were excellent, but here I've dabbed up most of it with a paper towel, to see what happens, so that I can stack them for transport without smearing:
More of the syrup and sour cream mix on puff pastry, after baking. I wanted to see how it held up with baking. Pretty well, I'd say. They even look like little books, I thought. (Credits to Laurie Mitchell for suggesting puff pastry.)
Another shot from the side:
And a close-up of a couple of them with designs & text on them:
I had bought some lemon curd to print, but after realizing that the light color foods just won't show, I didn't bother trying. But I split one of those puff pastry things (after baking) and put a bit of the lemon curd in there, and it tasted pretty good.
And I just remembered one thing I meant to try but forgot -- the vinegar/peanut butter mixture on cheese slices, apple slices, and pita bread. Tomorrow.
So I've concluded the obvious -- I clearly defy categorization. There is simply no other explanation for it.
And about those famous but fleeting 15 minutes -- it does go by rather quickly, but here's a interesting phenomenon, I bet someone can do a dissertation on it. I normally get around 100 hits on my web site...
Last Saturday (when the on-line version of The Cult of Gocco first came out), it went up to 122.
On Sunday, it about doubled to 254.
On Monday, it about doubled again to 528.
On Tuesday, it about halved, back to 267.
On Wednesday, it approximately halved again, down to 150.
It's a symmetrical bell-shaped curve! I do wonder if that's purely coincidental, or if there is a predictable, computable phenomenon?
There's is a bit of a ripple effect in play here. Because on Tuesday night, L&TM5K blogged about my open studios event, which got me some extra traffic (and a sale!) on Wednesday, and so the hit count 150 is a bit more than half of 267, but without the added PR, it probably really would've halved to 130 something, which it did on Thursday, one day later.
Here's the graph:
Well, it's all very interesting to ME anyhow, and that's what counts here on THIS blog!
Now on to the business at hand, which is getting ready for the Gocco Print on Your Food class on Tuesday at IPRC. Figured out a few things today -- lots of things will actually print, but they don't show because that thin layer of whatever food it is that you're putting down is just too transparent/translucent to show. So dark foods work best. Sour cream and Skippy peanut butter are great for mixing with other things to get a better consistency, and peanut butter mixed with balsamic vinegar doesn't taste half bad. It's actually an interesting taste.
So here are a few of the better results. Hershey's syrup mixed with sour cream printed on Fig Newtons, turkey lunch meat, & ham lunch meat. The Fig Newton results were excellent, but here I've dabbed up most of it with a paper towel, to see what happens, so that I can stack them for transport without smearing:
More of the syrup and sour cream mix on puff pastry, after baking. I wanted to see how it held up with baking. Pretty well, I'd say. They even look like little books, I thought. (Credits to Laurie Mitchell for suggesting puff pastry.)
Another shot from the side:
And a close-up of a couple of them with designs & text on them:
I had bought some lemon curd to print, but after realizing that the light color foods just won't show, I didn't bother trying. But I split one of those puff pastry things (after baking) and put a bit of the lemon curd in there, and it tasted pretty good.
And I just remembered one thing I meant to try but forgot -- the vinegar/peanut butter mixture on cheese slices, apple slices, and pita bread. Tomorrow.
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