So I watched Demolition Man again.
And the topic of the seashells was brought up.
How they are used was never mentioned. They only laughed when Stallone's character had no idea what to do with them.
There have been a couple theories as to how they work.

I have a theory.
What are y'all's? >:)

-D!

It has been merely a week since I have returned from the mossy green world of ice and fire. I still write of my travels regarding that ancient Viking island.
It has been merely a week, and I have already sand in my shoes.
The need is real.
Come October my nephew shall be wed to his sweetheart, and I have been invited to their marriage. The date which I shall journey to the rugged Texas plains and hills cannot arrive soon enough. It is only to Texas, a place for which I am all too familiar as I have spent much of my years, but the yearning to travel even there burns within my soul. Perhaps I have missed my one-time home of shrub hills, rattle snakes, prickly pear cacti, armadillos, hearty food and music. Family is there. I shall see them too and rejoice in fellowship with them once more.
I am a simple man. I am not a greedy man. I do not wish for riches or material things. I wish not for fame. I wish only to gaze upon the wondrous lands with which God has blessed this Earth.
Perhaps I do suffer from greed after all. A kind of greed that can truly never be satiated. A greed, akin to an undying thirst, and I would be remiss if I was not completely honest with myself when I say that my hope is that my thirst will never be fully quenched.
There are only two instances with which I care to die: at my desk writing and drawing, or abroad whether it be in some clear blue tropical land, an ancient mountain terrain, or in a desert of pristine sand with only the sound of my last breath.
Would I have been given the chance to visit Mars if that were possible? I do believe I would utter a resounding 'YES!' if asked. Perhaps I now fully understand the term 'wanderlust'.
Surely this is what the early explorers must have felt many eons previous. On their wooden ships they were willing to journey across vast, unforgiving waters, walk through empty, desolate terrains, and risk deadly encounters with fellow humans and animals with whom they were unfamiliar. I do not believe the travelers of yesteryear truly desired riches or new lands to conquer. I believe what the people then truly desired was to look upon what they had never seen.
Curiosity is a powerful force.
With many of us who travel it was the same then as it is now. And in this regard, alas, the modern Great White Northern minstrels were right: 'Plus a change. Plus c'est la meme chose.'

Truly. The need is real.

1) They LOVE scooters here. Holy shit, do they get their scooter groove on. I see un-manned scooters here and there all over the street, even in towns that aren't Reykjavik. If ya wanna hop on one, just lay your phone with the app down on it, it'll charge to your account, and off ya go.

2) The speed limit is not the foreboding rule I was told it was. "YOU MUST GO THE SPEED LIMIT LEST YOU GET A TICKET THAT WILL COST YOU YOUR FIRST BORN CHILD!"
No, no it won't. I mean, it might, but I can't even tell y'all how many times I was passed by other cars (tailgating me, no less), then passed me zooming way ahead of me by going 15- 20 kilometers faster. (Dammit, I wanna say 'miles' so badly.)

3) Seagulls here sound like someone yelling/crying/moaning loudly, and it freaks me out.

4) They don't sell Icelandic flags here made in Iceland. (Do I really have to buy a flag made in China?)

5) There are no Icelanders working in the hotels and hospitality business. Everyone behind the desk is from elsewhere. Mostly Polish and Czech Republic I find.

WHAT. THE. FUCK?

1) The public restrooms are marked 'WC'. Wow. The restrooms are still called the WC in Iceland.

2) Many Icelanders are not aware of the 2-4 second space cushions. Later I'm told it's likely an American thing. Odd, as I thought safe distance should be an everywhere thing.

3) Some public restrooms you gotta pay to use. It's about 200 isk.

I know they said Iceland was expensive, but damn, man.

1) Some hotels need you to slide in a room key card in the wall in order to get the lights and outlets to work.

2) At stoplights a yellow light briefly shows between the time red switches to green.

3) Hotels don't seem to have those little bars of soaps provided.

4) The hot dogs can be served with crunchy onions.

5) Half of the fun is meeting people from other places. Besides Americans, I've met some Irish folks, Canadian, Bermudan, English, Portuguese, Spanish, Polish, Czech Republic, German, Belgian. Ukrainian.

That's all I can think of for now. I'm goin to bed.

So next week I'll be heading to the land of Ice and Fire, and no, I don't mean the Ralph Bakshi film of a similar name. It's where  karno's originally from.

I've been watching a ton of videos on Youtube on 'what to do', 'what to bring', 'what not to do', 'what to wear', '5 to 10 tips for first-timers visiting Iceland', cetra-cetra, because I'm paranoid and am also deathly afraid of coming off as the 'annoying asshole from such-and-such country'.

I am amazed at all of the 'what not to do's' people are saying on these videos, and they are more or less repeating most of what the other Youtubers are saying. It's common sense, really.
Some examples:

"Don't go off-roading" Yeah, why would I do that? I don't know this place.

"Don't go and pet the farm animals. Farmers don't like that." Who the hell does that? I live in Iowa. We're surrounded by farms. NO ONE does that here. Unless maybe they're high?

"Don't go to the restroom just anywhere." Well. Duh.

"Don't ask the locals if they know any elves." I am not five. I won't ask. I didn't even think of asking.

Simply amazing the shit of which they have to remind people. Are there that many tourists out there who lack this brand of common sense?

Here's a few I likely didn't know:

"Don't bring an umbrella." Apparently, the wind there murders umbrellas. It's fine. I hardly use an umbrella anyway.

"Don't park off the side of the road to take photos." Iceland apparently doesn't have any shoulders, so yeah. I can see why that is a hazard and liable to annoy the locals.

"Buy your booze at the duty free after you get off of the plane." Didn't know. Don't care. I don't drink, but if y'all visit Icyland and like to get your booze on, go there, I guess. You'll save some money.

"Take your shower and scrub all of the bits before getting into the pool/hot spring. Oh, yeah, others will be there, including the opposite sex. No one cares." I wasn't planning on bathing out in public, so no one has to be horrified.

Oh, and my personal favorite one, and am glad to know:
"Do not use a credit/debit card at a gas station and choose the 'fill the tank up' option." Apparently, that will place your card on hold for a good while.
I guess they don't let you control how much ya squeeze the handle there like they do here. *shrug*

I'm sure I'll learn more odds and ends whilst I'm there, but in the meantime, wish me luck, God Speed, good journey. I don't know anyone there, and I'll be driving in a foreign land for the first time, so... I'm a tad nervous. :)

If there's anyone here who lives in Iceland and frequents my page, feel free to let me know. It's good to have contacts in other places. :)

-D!!

So I've doing less streams lately, but don't fret; I still accept them, so I guess what I shall do is make a list of folks who still want to hire me.
Please note me on here or contact me through gmail: dutchcartoon[at]gmail.com if you'd like to snag one.
Also, please let me know if you'd like to do one-on-one's for your commissions, which I can set up on Picarto.

I definitely shall keep streaming, and announce them when I do. Lately, they've been less frequent, but life likes to throw stuff at ya. I plan to be more frequent once I get back from my trip, which is coming up near the end of this month.
(Hint: the place has got fire, and also ice. :) )

So any commissions I can take now will help with that. Again, let me know on FA note or my email: dutchcartoon[at]gmail.com
Thanks a lot!

-D!

Anyone hear of these games?
I am surprised more people haven't.

So the sequel Cat Quest II is co-op and is much more difficult to play than Cat Quest (then again, I'm not playin story mode, just regular.)

It's a series I've been watching on Netflix. Ricky Gervais is the main character.

After watching season one, I've come to the conclusion that the best comedies are the ones that make you end up bawling like a baby.

This time, using my own voice...

https://twitter.com/Dutchcartoon/st.....331996684?s=20

Rest in Peace, Marvin Lee Aday, aka Meatloaf:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertai.....-arts-60080934

I guess he's up there with Jim Steinman, Lemmy, Neil Peart and many other greats who have passed on in recent years. Hope they form a Heavenly super group or something.

-D...

I just found out. They spoke about his passing on Doomock's livestream. I was sad. I loved his dry wit from the show The Monkees.

Come to find Michael wrote some books and produced quite a few things, such as producing the movies Repo Man and Time Rider: The Adventure of Lyle Swann.

Only one Monkee is left.

RIP, Mike.

-D

Sound ripped from the movie The Wolf of Wallstreet:

https://twitter.com/Dutchcartoon/st.....795290627?s=20

Now that I think about it, I shoulda drawn the shorter cat as a wolf...

Sometimes I do one-on-one commission with people. I offer that option if you commission me, especially if it's a complete picture that's fully colored in.

One person who did commission was watching me on Picarto, suddenly just stopped replying. I was almost done with the two-character sketch.
About 50 minutes go by with no reply. I figured maybe they had an emergency?

I give 'em ten more minutes, then I end the stream. I saw they left the Picarto chat, so I'm guessing they were functioning enough to sign out of there.
I sent them a note on FA. Two notes, in fact. Both unread so far. FA shows if outgoing notes have been opened or not.
So now I sit here with this sketch that's done, ready for the next step.
I'm like... well, did you wig out on me, or are you physically okay?

Does any of this sound familiar to anyone?

-D

Since I'm not in the entertainment biz I'm gonna make a list of directors who, if I were an actor, artist, composer, set designer, key grip, best boy, caterer, whatever, would love to work with, I think it would be these five:

1) Clint Eastwood - He makes films about real people faced with tough situations and how they deal with them. I get the impression, based on his films and the characters in them, that he's practical dude who would be relatively easy to get along with provided you work hard, show up on time, and don't get an attitude about you. But as the current saying goes, 'if you fuck around, you'd likely find out'.

2) Denis Villenueve - Most of his films have this very stylized air of scale and seriousness about them, which I see prevalent throughout his films, all the way from Sicario to Arrival to his adaptation of Dune. He's a fella who doesn't sacrifice the art style, story or substance for the other, but rather finds a way to blend these aspects together seamlessly for an end goal. He seems like someone who inspires his crew to love the subject matter as much as he does.

3) Christopher Nolan - A man who has generally epic-scale films and only relies on CG when absolutely necessary. I get the impression he'd tell you what he's goin' for and there'd be no question about it; simple, direct and not a tyrant on set.

4) Quentin Tarantino - This guy has an insane amount of film knowledge, and he shows his appreciation of the art from throughout his movies. Why would you not want a director who loves films the way he does?

5) The Coen Brothers - They're a directorship duo with a nice blend of humor and dark overtones, but seem like down-to-Earth people who, if you got into character, would easily let you run away with the part if it helped to tell the story.

These five (well, six) directors seem like the kinds of folks who care about their crew as much as the story they're trying to tell, and they would refuse to kowtow to the Hollywood 'standard', which otherwise limits movie makers from making the best and most creative decisions they see fit.

These are just my initial impressions, really. I don't really know what these folks are like in person. I don't really need to know, but as I was saying, if I had a chance to pick a director (or directing team) to work with, these would be my top five.

I feel like 'Ask Mojo' all of the sudden.

Thoughts?

I saw it this week (very possible spoilers coming up).

Overall, the visuals were fantastic. I think one of my favorite aspects of the film was how they captured the ornithopters. Holy shit, I think Frank Herbert himself would have been pleased with how they depicted those flying vehicles. They were like giant metal dragonflies.

It's only one half of the story so far, so keep that in mind when I list the things I liked versus what I didn't from both films.

I think the main things I liked from the Denis Villaneuve film over the David Lynch version was
1) How they captured the look of the ornithopters.
2) The lack of Weirding modules. Though they made for a cool idea, they were never in the book, so I was confused why they were in the Lynch film, but I'm going to guess it's because they needed a quicker and easier way to showcase the Weirding Way.
3) No surprise here, I loved the hopping muad'dib (the native jerboa on planet Arrakis) that they showed in the desert. Anyone who is familiar with Paul Atreides' Fremen name will know and understand the visual significance.

What I liked about the Lynch version over the Villaneuve version:
1) The sandworms, I felt, were visually superior, at least in terms of design; they actually looked like more real earth worms, which I appreciated.
2) They spent a bit more time on Geidi Prime and had more dialogue with the Harkonnens, so you got see them more fleshed out. Kevin McMillan's depiction of Baron Harkonnon was cartoonishly evil as well as the Beast Rabban's depiction. I've yet to see Feyd Rautha show up in Denis Villaneuve's depiction of Dune, so I'm not sure how they'll bring him in to the story with part two.

For the most part, both films seemed to follow the same path story-wise, though Villaneuve's felt more like it stuck to the feel of the Herbert novel.

Visually, both films had a very strong stylistic choices. The music for both films was pretty good.
The time and limitations David Lynch was given had drastically affected how he wanted to make the film. It was campy in parts, I have to admit.
Villaneuve seemed like he was given much more freedom to capture Frank Herbert's book, which was definitely felt. The movie had a more serious tone to it. Stellan Skarsgard's portrayal of Baron Harkonnen felt much darker and more brooding. 'Cartoonish' would not be the word I'd use to describe the actor's take on the Atreides' arch enemy.

So for anyone who has seen the recent Dune film, have anything to add for either movies?

So I watched the series 'Squid Game' on Netflix recently. It's a Korean series with a basic premise: a large group of people in serious financial situations are given the opportunity to play in six simple games. The winner, of course, gets a shit ton of money. The losers get something else.
Of course there was gonna be death and blood. It's the kinda series you know will have darker tones to it.
Keeping the serious tone of the production in mind, what you don't want to do is place bad English dubs over the dialogue, because it's going to make the acting seem cheesy as hell and completely belie the tonal intent of the feature.
So I decided to watch it, not thinking to switch to the original Korean language and just have it with English subtitles. Immediately, I hearkened back to the corny voice overdubs of the old Chinese kung-fu flicks many of us used to watch as kids on USA Network. It's really difficult to take a serious movie seriously when the voice acting sounds like something from a funny action cartoon. About 3/4 of the way through the series, I had the bright idea to switch to the Korean language and view it with English subtitles.
My. GAWD. The difference was literally like night and day. The acting seemed like it had improved 10-fold just with that switch alone.
It's like when I got those MASH DVDs and watched them without the laugh track. The difference made a vast improvement.
So I have to ask, why the hell do we have dubbing issues when it comes to Asian films and shows? Is there something to the language difference that makes Asian to English more of a challenge?
I'm not a linguist. I don't get it.
I realize some anime out there have actually really good English dubs, but apparently, it's still a thing.

The last really good movie I saw at the theater was 1917, which was a World War I film regarding two British soldiers tasked with the assignment of getting an urgent message to a battalion with little time to spare.

I did see Tenet later, but ,to me, it was a bit of a disappointment, especially for a Chris Nolan film (I know, right?)

With not enough folks taking creative risks, plus the recent pandemic playing no small part, the lack of decent movies coming out has been quite noticeable by a huge majority of movie goers. After a couple of years of having virtually nothing I was remotely interested in, I was met with three rays of cinematic sunshine:

Dune, directed by Denis Villaneuve, Ghostbusters 3: Afterlife, directed by Jason Reitman and The French Dispatch directed by Wes Anderson.

Dune looks like it will be able to capture the original intent of Frank Herbert's book, hopefully without deviating too much from the original source material. Plus Hans Zimmer's composed the music for it. That's definitely a huge plus.
I've never been a huge fan of music in film trailers that never is heard in the film, but for the Dune trailer I did like how they used a cover of Pink Floyd's Eclipse. Maybe it'll be in the film.

Ghostbusters: Afterlife. After having watched the trailer again, hearing the distinctive wail of the Ecto 1 siren, and seeing that colorful nuclear accelerator blast, had, I gotta admit, brought a nostalgia tear to this eye.
My thoughts seeing the trailer: visually, it looks consistent with the universe of Ivan Reitman's Ghostbusters, but it left an impression that this third installment will take on a more serious tone than the previous two films. No doubt there will be humor in it, but I am curious how they'll make that tonal shift work, if indeed there is that change of tone.

The French Dispatch I don't know too much about yet, but for me, this is a case of seeing a film just because of who directed it. I grew to like Anderson's distinctive visuals, which look like pastel-colored alternate realities to this one. I still say I'd love to see his take on the science fiction genre.

These are the three films I've been most looking forward to in a most recently empty void. We shall see how the bleak cinematic outlook appears after when they're released.

Maybe I have missed some gems that went under the radar. Any of these you want to throw at me for suggestions feel free.

Any films y'all are looking forward to seeing?

I recently found out that Jim Steinman had passed this last week. To those who may not know, he was the main songwriter/musician/producer for epics such as Meat Loaf's Bat Out of Hell album.

Meh. :( I guess he'll be up in Heaven making more music with the likes of Freddie Mercury, Lemmy, Hendrix, Vaughn and others.

So today was a sad day; I said goodbye to my 2015 Jeep Cherokee. I only had her for two years, but had already driven her all over the western half of the country a few times. She was a great car, everything I could possibly want in a vehicle: spacious, but not obnoxiously big, decent mileage on the open road, rear camera for whenever I backed up, comfy seats, great heater and AC. I had her outfitted with an undercarriage for towing stuff behind if I so wanted. I used it to support a bike rack in this case. I could literally pack almost everything I own in this vehicle and move at a moment's notice.
And now she's gone.
The incident occurred on Friday March, 26, 2021. I went to snag something to eat, and on the way home, another car had decided to veer completely into the opposite lane, hitting the car directly in front of me, and then my car. I saw it about to go down even before the first impact.
Amazingly, the car somehow kept going and then hit me in the front passenger side. The good news is, everyone involved seemed okay. The guy who hit the other person and myself had some blood on his face, but he likely just hit his head against the dash of his windshield. Otherwise, I think he was okay.
I have no idea why he veered right into oncoming traffic. It was like something out of an action film.

I heard from the adjuster today and he gave me the bad news: she was totaled. I signed the rights to my car over to the insurance company. The good news is, I will no longer have to worry about a car payment. The bad news... well, that's obvious.

For now, getting around isn't an issue, but it is sad having to say goodbye to a 4-wheeled friend. I've had to do that a few times in life now, and it never gets easier.

-D

I feel like my comic is a light comedy with some dark overtones, much like that of shows such as M*A*S*H, except my comic isn't quite as witty in dialogue.

That said, I bought some used M*A*S*H DVDs at Half-Price Books the other day, and I gotta say, I am so glad I found them as they have the option to turn off that annoying laugh track, which served only to take away from the impact of the show. The show never needed to give the viewing audience a 'queue' to laugh.
The makers of the show fought against having a laugh track at all, but had to compromise for keeping the canned laughter out of the more serious and poignant episodes.