Today: More Pencil Sketches!

` Note: These sketches start here.

` Today's been a quite sore day for EdgeWalker - he went to a dentist, who yanked out three of his wisdom teeth with amazing speed! It only cost him five hundred dollars, which I thought was pretty sweet.
` Phil pointed out to me that this was due to the use of only lidocain, which elicited much speculation about whether or not this was the Mad Doctor's motive for changing my consent form: I had to pay him $2,000 without insurance for the drugging and torture I'd endured. Perhaps Benninger is just an @$$hole.
` Anyhow, what else has been going on lately? Besides seeing The Chronicles of Narnia on Sunday, there has actually been some almost-interesting things going on. Things that some people might not mind me writing about. Or maybe they would. Regardless:
` Friday, EdgeWalker went out to do something or other with his friends, so Phil and I decided to go out and do something ourselves. After 2.6 seconds of pondering, we elected to eat at Agua Verde, a Mexican restaurant that uses organic ingredients and even makes anything you want vegetarian or vegan!
` Not only was the food excellent - I had the greatest flan, by the way! - but we got a good view of the Christmas light-draped houseboats anchored outside the patio.
` On Saturday, EdgeWalker managed to get back in one piece, just as Phil was driving us off to the ferry. We came back and got him, and the three of us went to Coupeville (on Whidbey Island), mostly for the sake of it. As usual, barely anything was open, though at least the sky was clear, the sun was warm, and the little gray whale skeleton was as spongy as ever.
` Afterwards - even though eating out is unusual for us - we dined at Taster's Wok (stupid name, I know), which had fairly impressive food, including a vegetarian menu with fake meat! It was da frickin' bomb!

` Anyway, thank you for bearing my prattling on - I wrote that down largely to ensure I'd remember it in the future, pathetic as that is. Bear in mind, this is about as interesting as my life normally gets....
` I could really use some robot henchmen about now.

` Getting to the point, the following sketches (being only the next few in my little sketchbook) are actually quite dated - really, you can check them!
` Now, the next drawing in the book that has nothing to do with my novel is a fisheye view of the rear of my childhood home in Medina, Ohio, complete with a resident blue jay. (I apologize for my sub-par solo photography skills.)
` The little note I wrote in the corner is the time, date, and abridged message that a reflection of the house can be seen in the grill on the left, that the tip of the railing can be seen at the very rightmost edge in front of the picnic table, and that the sun is peeking through the sloppily-drawn tree branches. Can you make all that out? Clicking on it helps some...


` Long ago, there used to be another maple tree on the left, but our obsessive neighbor, Peeping Steve, cut it down even though it wasn't his.
` As for today, the house and patio still looks basically the same as the drawing, although Brewmeister Burkhardt has renovated it a bit and installed French doors in place of the ultra short 'Jerry-rigged' screen doors.
` In fact, you may have already seen an actual photo of this house (and the tree!) - it's the Blocky Tan Shape that my Chevrolet Burgundy Rectangle is parked in front of! See?

` Next up, I had decided to test my vaguely Escherian skills by doing an 'animal puzzle'. Why such a pointless exercise? For some reason, whenever I did one of those, anyone who saw it commented that they thought it was cool. Didn't think it was that interesting myself. Is anyone with me?


` Yeee-ah. That's from a bored mind, lemme tell ya. And on the opposing page, I evidently drew this oddity on 24 June 1999, way back when Family Guy was a brand-new show:


` Let's see; there's a sunset-rhino, a geometricaly simplified and incomplete dinosaur-thing, and... an ant? Not sure what's going on here, but I'd say the most dangerous and bizarre creature there is the little mutant Griffin on the right (overlord of the Family Guy website), who I attempted to watercolor over. Looks like he has a plan, probably involving some kind of crazy invention of his....
` Man, I wish I could watch new episodes: Even though it's gone down in history by being un-cancelled, I can't pick up Fox on the antenna! Drat.
` Really, what made Family Guy for me (and probably most viewers) was that the dog and the baby had the minds of adult humans - one being a guy with issues, the other being an evil mastermind who has yet to be potty-trained - and none of the other characters seemed to think this freakishness was odd in the slightest!
` Genius! And boy, that's not the half of the weirdness! I guess that's what they were going for....

` Anyway, enough prattling and promoting. Phil's made us some really wonderful French Onion soup!

` Edit: Or not. He filled the pot with farfalle to the point where it became bowtie pasta with oniony liquid sauce. I had to eat it with a fork. So... much... starch!!

` Another note: These sketches continue here.