Month: June 2023

At our house, Masha was filming yesterday. And now imagine that at this moment, you are walking through a pedestrian crosswalk from right to left, engrossed in your phone, and then you realize the eyes…

This amusing sketch from Balmer in 1986 ends with the words “$99! Order today!.. Except in Nebraska”

I googled why, and it turned out to be quite funny. For many years, there were a whole bunch of things that were available “except in Nebraska”.

During the Cold War, when telephone systems were a Bell monopoly, there simply weren’t enough phone lines… except in Nebraska, where, it is said, the Strategic Air Command insisted on a huge number of them in case of nuclear war. Evidently, the nuclear war did not extend beyond Japan and certainly didn’t reach Nebraska, so most of the time these lines remained unused. Another theory suggests that this was facilitated by the state’s location and infrastructural capabilities.

A whole bunch of mail-order companies set up call centers there because it was one of the few places where you could come and order a whole bunch of lines for business.

However, according to Bell company rules, you could not use an 800 number simultaneously for calls out of state and for in-state calls. Therefore, companies had two options — either set up two numbers, one for 98% of US residents calling out of state, and one for locals… or simply indicate (as required by advertising law) that the particular offer was not available in Nebraska. Many did just that, and the meme became so entrenched that Balmer used it in this sketch.

Before doing this on a canvas with oil paints, I am trying out the process on an iPad. Principally without tracing. A week ago, I started directly on the canvas and realized that this is a challenging reference that requires preliminary preparation. I will soon move on to the canvas.

Masha and Yegor open the Ice on Fire show with a live performance of “Swan Lake” by the symphony orchestra of our county (Loudoun Symphony Orchestra). The program also featured Ilya Malinin, Gracie Gold, and Keegan Messing.

I like the sense of humor of this Kia’s owner

Our Masha and Yegor Barshak in the new season are representing Georgia. They are rigorously preparing for the Junior Grand Prix. And tomorrow, June 10th, they will be performing with a symphony orchestra at Ion in Leesburg. The video shows them preparing for the show

Robert Heinlein sends greetings from February 1943 to June 2023

In the studio, they told everyone to draw the nose and distributed reference pictures

Done!

Morning

So, I treated myself to a little gift and bought an iPad Pro 12.9. They’re not being made anymore, but you can still snatch one here and there. And I am just thrilled—how wonderfully the pencil and graphic apps work there. It’s probably unnecessary to say there are no lags at all—it’s a given. I once asked about software for my MacBook i9 for vector and raster graphics. Everything works so poorly there that it’s easier just not to use it at all. I have a Wacom tablet connected to my computer, and when drawing, the screen stylus occasionally lags behind the physical one 🙂 But here, I purchased Procreate and Affinity Photo 2, while on the Mac I use the free Krita and GIMP. Plus, I didn’t really see why I should pay for them. With the stylus, these apps are simply out of this world. Affinity Photo 2 meets all my graphic editing needs. Procreate is simply fantastic for drawing. In general, for drawing purposes, it seems nothing beats an iPad 🙂 I’ll be taking it with me on vacation.

The only downside—it’s unclear how to hold it. It has such small edges that you inadvertently touch the app interfaces with the fingers holding the tablet. Also, the magnetic latch of the Apple Pencil 2 is sometimes weak—you can easily lose the accessory. And also, the screen gets slightly washed out in the sun. It’s unclear how to use it outdoors in sunny weather. We’ll try it in a couple of weeks on vacation 🙂