Ingus Mat

(from Ingusmat.com)

I'm dusting off my guitars and megan's keyboard and getting ready to do a slew of new recordings.  Hell, I've got all this nice recording equipment, might as well use it. I'm going to take a bunch of my old songs, while I start writing new ones, and reimagine them solo-style, just me, some drum loops, and whatever instruments I can play, and lay down some tracks.  I'm hoping the results will be in the vein of The Eels, early They Might Be Giants, or She Wants Revenge.  We'll see what happens.

But at this instant, it's back to work.  While I'm laying down some crazy web code, what songs from the Ingus catalog do you, the teeming masses, want to hear re-recorded?  Anything's game, from Lawnchairs to Big Coat.  Let me know in a comment at my site, www.ingusmat.com, or in an email to me (ingusmat) at gmail.

Thanks!  I better get back to work.

Oh, and just a reminder, most all of my blogging is over at ingusmat.com.  Go there!  Your momma will be proud of you.

This journal is closing.
Yep.  I've had it for a while now, but it's time, I think, to move on.
I started Ingusmat.com  a year or so ago, and I'm really running with it now.  I just gave it a new facelift, and added some features and categories, so please, check it out, grab the rss feed, bookmark the site, whatever.  ooh, and please let me know what you think of the new design.  I'd like to know.

More importantly, though, I want to know how many of my awesome friends out there have other blogs as well, so I can a) add them to my blogroll on ingusmat.com, and b) add the feeds to my netvibes, so I can read your updates as I'm groggilly preparing for work each morning.
Throw me some links, people!

That's it for this LJ.  I'll probably take it down in a month or so.  Don't feel bad, Livejournal, I'm also pretty done with Myspace and Facebook.

Btw, just saw Iron Man.  It's fantastic.  You should go see it.  For real.

Yes, we've been back in Michigan for what, 3 weeks now, and no, I haven't posted. We got here though, and the apartment is solid. It's very brownstone-esque, with steep steps that lead up to the front door, and a gigantic living room. If it had an upstairs, it'd be the Huxtables' house. Pictures, I imagine, forthcoming.

more...

The Pugs and I (and Meg, holding cheese off camera) want to wish everyone out there a happy 2008!  Got any resolutions?  I got 4.

1. Run the Crim 10 mile in august.  For real.
2. At least 1 update to my webcomic <i>Loophole and Swan</i> each week.  I'd better get cracking if I want to have page one posted by Friday!
3. Blog more. Write more. Draw more.
4. Get better at communicating with all my Michigan homies .

So that's it.  First LH&S page up Friday.

Blogged with Flock

As promised, here it is, the finished version of my Super Ox project. I have no idea what the thought bubble means, but that's not the point. The customer loved it.

Tired today. Worked on the Ellison website a ton (don't look yet, it still ain't done!), then cleaned the apartment - Meg's parents are coming to visit tomorrow for 4 days.

Looks like 60s Jean is next on the classic X-Men project. It'll be a couple days, due to the afore mentioned visit.

Still homesick today.

I want some Halo Burger.

cross-posted from the astonishing Ingusmat.com!


As promised, Old Skool Bobby Drake!
This is the second try at Mister Frosty. The first saw him sliding down an ice pole a la X-Men #1 page 1. But you'll never see it. This is because a) I screwed up the inking a little (okay, a lot), and b) he looked really, really gay.
So enjoy! A much more hetero Iceman.

I'm proud of this one. Didn't use a marker on it at all - it's all brushwork - and I didn't use any reference for it. Again, this takes away some of its Kirby-osity, but I'm learning quite a bit about inking.

Which should I do next, the professor, Cyke or Jean?

as always, crossposted from ingusmat.com




No silver age Iceman yet... maybe later today.

Instead, here's what I've been working on at work. A customer wants shirts with an ox (their mascot) and a busty girl riding a chopper in the style of Ed "Big Daddy" Roth. So far, they're loving it. I still need to color it and fix the wheel in Illustrator, but here's a sneak peak at it post-inking.

Did this one entirely with a quill pen. no markers involved. It's challenging, but really fun.

Meg and I went to Michaels and I picked up some more pen nibs and some good brushes. This inking thing is seriously fun. I wish I'd found out about quill and brushing sooner, I'm really digging it.

Just kicking back today, drawing, playing WoW, listening to podcasts.

If you're interested in witnessing a colossal fest of nerdiness, the guys from the Crankcast and Around Comics are recording, in 1hr installments, the 24hour Comic Book Podcast. They've barracaded themselves in a comic book store in Chicago, and are recording until 10am central tomorrow. They're having a bit of technical difficulties (hour 4, for instance, was recorded, but has no sound...) but it's still quite a bit of fun.

I'm planning on drawing the first three-five pages of L&S this weekend. Hopefully I'll have them posted by tomorrow night.

-Ingus

I didn't go to the comic con. Too little money to buy lots of stuff, not enough experience to shop my sketchbook around. Next year, I'll get a loophole and swan table. Speaking of which...

I love Thursdays. And fall. And having my car back. Yes!! Scooter is fixed and back on the road! and about time, too. 3 weeks of driving that crumby Ford Taurus sedan was 3 weeks too long. Bleh. Scooter, however, looks good as new. Much props to the fine folks at Kadel's Auto Body.

Stumptown Comics Fest is this weekend. I'm stoked. I haven't been to a comic con in years and years and years. This'll be fun. I think I'm heading there Sunday for all the workshops, for sure. Not certain about Saturday, or the Drink-and-draw on friday night at Bar Carlo...

Speaking of comics, I just picked up the Casanova hardcover, signed by Matt Fraction. Haven't read it yet, but I read issue #9 (the first after the traded collection) and re-read it about 15 times. Not often a comic comes along that I can re-read even a few times and still pick up new things. Love the 2-color printing, and Fabio Moon's art is beautiful - super clean lines and uncluttered composition, but with SOOO much going on!

Funny, I picked up the new issue of Brian Wood's DMZ on the same day, and was completely unimpressed. The part that's funny, is that this issue and Cassanova #9 9 have an almost identical scene. The art and tone of DMZ, though, is just so... I don't know... vertigo-ey. That's the only way I can explain it. Meh, I guess you can't win em all.

Just had a nice IM convo with Marcus. I miss my Flint homies. Maybe I'll come visit next summer. Christmas is out, though. This Yule needs to be celebrated in good ol' stumptown.

Now if I only had a little more money saved up for the con...

Happy birthday to Brie!!!

Crossposted from www.ingusmat.com...

Grr... I miss my car. This 2006 Ford Taurus we're renting while our Accent is repaired is just for the birds. It's clunky without being all that much bigger than, say, a grand am... it just feels bigger. And there isn't a cupholder to be seen in the whole car. Bleh.

Scooter, the Hyundai Accent, is supposed to be ready tomorrow. Hopefully, I'll be rid of the aurus by the time I blog next.

Took the dogs on a run today. Mona tuckered out first, then me, then Vinny. Put em to bed around 2, and they're still sleeping now, 2 and a half hours later.

lots of sketches lately, but nothing postable. Lots and lots of copying, plus tons of character sketches for Loophole and Swan, that aren't done yet. I'll post the final versions when I figure them out.

That's it for now. Gonna eat some frozen bitos.

crossposted from my blog at www.ingusmat.com


No sketches this week so far. Maybe tomorrow or friday. To tied you over, here's me in the living room thinking about how cool my imac is, that it can take pictures of me in my living room. It's circular.

The main reason no sketches is that Meg and I got in a car wreck yesterday. Yep. Blech. Scooter (our Hyundai) got hit pretty bad, and he's in the shop now, awaiting the damage report. Meg and I are fine, as is the pregnant woman who didn't see the red light and drove her chevy blazer straight into us as we were attempting to turn left on a green arrow. grrr....

That says something for that little Hyundai Accent, though, that we got struck by a big ol' 1996 Blazer and other than a little stiffness, we walked away like nothing happened. At least, not to us.

The car itself has certainly seen better days.

Here's the carnage.

Is that true? 34 weeks since I logged into LJ? That's crazy!
Um...

I have been blogging, though. Actually more than normal (no, not every day, but still... more often than every 34 weeks...)

Check out my new site over at www.ingusmat.net.

Posts here in livejournalland will continue to be on the twice-yearly schedule, I have a feeling, so go there!  You'll make your mama proud!

What a strange strange day.
Meg and I ended the two month long tug of war between my work needing me to stay later, and Me needing to pick up Meg from work. From now on, I'm taking the MAX again (which I enjoy), so I can stay as long as I need, and then just hop on the bus and ride home. Meg is driving to work, and since she has a flex schedule, that means she goes to work when she wants and comes home when she's done.
Right on.
Anyway, that crisis solved, we then ordered pizza and played with the dog.
I apparently played too close to the pug, and got a nice big scratch across the nose. Ouch. I took a picture with my phone. Please pardon the poor light and mondo stubble.

So yeah.
I cancelled my MySpace account.

Not that I checked it all that regularly, mind you.
And it's not that I'm too old or too cool for social networking sites, although the first of these may be true.

And not even because of the ultra slow page loads or the irritating animated gif banners.  Not even the ridiculous circa 1997 web design on most of the pages.

Nope.

What finally set me off were the ads for some personal site called True.
Every time I loaded my home page, or visited any other page, there they were.  "It's naughty to be nice!"
Kiss my ass.

Not that I'm overly prudish or opposed to general sluttiness.  Christ, knock yourself out, and I'm sure there are millions of lonely emo boys clicking on the link every day.  Right on, man, the internet is the new bar.  I of all people am keenly aware of that.

No, it's the sheer laziness of this ad that bothers me.

Look, this is the day of "targeted marketing," right?  Isn't that why I scan my kroger card at the grocery store every time I buy anything?  or why amazon recommends me books that other people who read The Drawing of the Three enjoyed?

If Tivo can figure out that I might like Sports Night since I watch Six Feet Under and Studio Sixty, can't myspace include a simple script to give me some other ad when my profile clearly says "married?"  I mean, it's not helping their advertisers, and the research is already done for them!

Enough ranting.  I no longer have a myspace account.

I did, however sign up for facebook.  Because even though I'm way to damn old for this crap, it is still fun.  And the design there is much better.

Ahhhh.  A nice relaxing weekend.  Too short, but still relaxing.

We decided to have a relaxing stay at home weekend.  Everything was going swimmingly all the way until about an hour ago when we got hit with a triple whammy of hassle.  I won't get into details, and it's nothing colossally disasterous, but it does kick some of the fun out of the next few weeks.  Grrr... and I thought we were done with the bullshit.

I vow to rise above it anyway.

Hey, I lost some weight.  I'm down to 201, which is pretty rad for me.  Hopefully by christmas I'll be down even a little further.  Drinking mostly diet soda instead of regular helps a lot, and I've been drinking a lot of water.  Who'd have thought.  Me.  Drinking water.  Crazy.

And I've been using Kubuntu linux on this (my home) computer instead of windows for the past month.  It did take some adjusting, but I'm totally digging it.  My computer is 100% spyware, virus, badware free, with zero software of dubious license legality.  Kubuntu (and Ubuntu too) has this rad feature called a packet manager, where if you want a program or application, you just tell the packet manager, and it finds it and downloads it for you.  Sweet!  It took a bit of time to get World of Warcraft running, but I did do it.  Also, getting MP3s to play took a bit of finessing, but once I found out how, I could totally do it again in seconds.  (instead of a couple of days). 

Soooooooo, if anyone has the itch to try a new operating system (which is, by the way FREE,) send me an email, and I'll elaborate even more.

Speaking (er... a few sentences ago) of WoW, I missed playing Horde too much, so Meg and I rolled Taurens on the Onyxia server.  If you're so inclined you WoW players, out there, swing by and chat.  I have a Hunter named BlackIngus (cause he's a cow, you see...)  I like WoW.

I'm gonna go to bed now.  Meg's already sleeping, and it's way past my bed time.

So Meg and I went out to the Musicfest NW tonight, marking our first journey into the portland clubs. Why haven't we been out to see some live shows until now? I'm glad you asked, nudley!

You see, after running sound at the local and booking metropolis and before that the local again and doing club related stuff every weekend night for like... 4 or 5 years, well, I just plain needed a break. Being newlyweds, we took some time to just relax and chill on the weekends. Watch movies together, hang out indoors, etc. But now, two years later, we're ready to get out and get our rock and roll on again.

And so we ventured out to Berbati's for a fun night of rockin and rollin, and who do we bump into but Laura, former bartender at Metropolis and the Loft. Crazy! It was good to see somebody I knew here!

We missed the first band, but got there in time to see The Evening Episode who were pretty frigging fantastic and sounded a little bit like The Dial but the singer sounded like the girl from Mazzy Star. After that was the band I was really looking forward to seeing (from my limited web research), Caves. Great, great stuff. Very old-U2 sounding, but very modern too. Check em out.

After that, To Live and Die In LA were next, and Meg and I were both a little underwealmed by them, and it was getting a little late, so we called it a night.

I love walking around Portland at night. So much different than anything I'm used to.

Oh my god.

completecrazynerdygeekyglee...

Black fucking Costume Saga...

*faints*

In other movie-report news, Meg and I watched Steve Buscemi's Lonesome Jim yesterday, with Casey Affleck and Liv Tyler. I really liked it - even though it was a less hip and trendy clone of Garden State. Pretty much the exact same plot, in fact, but much lower budget and much more subtle. Check it out if you have comcast, it's on the IFC indemand part.

I'm gonna go play WoW now.

Edited to fix tag. I can't be expected to properly type on a saturday morning.

I'm not going to be updating this journal much anymore. Like my wife, I think I'm moving over to Vox. Just for a change. And it's prettier. I might cut and paste stuff over to here from time to time. We'll see.

The point is, if you want to keep up with the Burlesons, we'll be at http://pdxmlb.vox.com/ and http://ingusmat.vox.com/.

As for Dart Street Lager, I'm not sure where that will land. Maybe staying at Blogspot, maybe moving to Vox. Anyone have an opinion where I should go with Henry and Company?

Also, does anyone want a Vox invite? I've got a couple left, I believe.