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The Previous Grand Mufti (aka Max Brooks)
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| (no subject) |
[Oct. 10th, 2008|01:16 pm] |
Obama's buying half hour TV blocks on major networks, and before you wince, there's something here that's terribly clever that everybody seems to be missing.
McCain is already low on funds, as evidenced by his pulling out of Michigan to focus on Ohio. Obama literally has more money than a candidate needs, but he's using it very cleverly to defeat his opponent, in one of the more brilliant applications of Macchiavellian politics I've ever seen. By amping up advertisement to a new, epic level, Obama is forcing McCain to compete, a thing which McCain can't help himself but do. This will result in one of two options:
- McCain ponies up and blows several dozen million more dollars than he has for the national campaign instead of the electoral states. This lowers the amount he has free to spend in the electoral states, putting him at an enormous disadvantage, and soldering off his impact there. Obama can then continue to buy ads on top of the big one.
or
- McCain doesn't slap money down, and continues to focus on the swing states. This exposes his flank to attack, as suddenly Obama is advertising in all states, instead of just the swings. A half hour to attack one's opponent without the opponent being able to defend himself (as lightly as he does, regardless) is deadly in a close campaign. I can foresee several of the tighter red states flipping to blue just by dearth of "Oh, so that's what Obama is like." since McCain must win all ten swing states to win, and Obama only has to win one, this is a brilliant, epic, legendary tactic.
Now, the only disadvantage to this is that McCain will robble-robble about the "uncooperative media" and his imaginary "maverick" status, but nobody pays attention to that shit anyway.
Las Vegas is giving 9 to 1 odds that McCain wins right now. They've stopped taking bets for Obama. |
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| (no subject) |
[Oct. 10th, 2008|04:32 pm] |
I've not mentioned it but my eyes are severely burning regularly for the past month or so. I suspect that it may have something to do with the fertilizers sprayed around here, since this is a still a fairly rural area. My eyes are a serious concern in my life, since my father has a dead eye and my grandmother was blind. I freak out about it just a bit.
I'm sorry Ben Stein, but your eye drops aren't doing much for me. Maybe if you used chemistry instead of faith.
In other news, I'm obsessing over acrylics these days. When I studied acrylics in college, nobody ever bothered to inform me that there are these wonderful things called mediums, that not only let you communicate with your loved ones that have passed on, but make your acrylic paint do all sorts of crazy stuff. I'm really fascinated by the acrylic tendency toward peeling off easily. Acrylic does some things oil simply cannot, and despite the old guard still preferring oil, you'd be hard pressed to find a mundane person who could tell the difference at sight. I like acrylics because they dry in half an hour and have some... unusual... properties.
First experiments in viscosity medium have been splendid. Adding viscosity medium to your acrylics not only lowers the cost of new paint (enormously) but allows some interesting effects. The early complaints about acrylics, int he 50s and 60s, were that acrylics don't have the strength and tactual body of oils. Nowadays, through science, that's hogwash.
Two experiments I've tried:
- Loading the acrylic up with viscosity medium allows you scrape it on thick, and if you wait a few minutes before it's totally dry, you can use rubber stamps in the paint, which is really interesting. I've never seen anything like it. You can then fill the stamp divots with transparent gloss gel medium mixed with pigment, which leads to a stupendously alien appearance that you simply cannot get with oil or watercolor.
- Put some viscosity medium'd acrylic of a dark color into a baker's frosting triangle, with a fine tip. Squirt it out like you would frosting. You can use this to build a framework like stainglass leading, or even a strange version of Cloisonné enamelling by filling in the viscosity medium frame work with gloss translucent medium filling. My old (worthless) metal professor Keith Lewis would be gog-magog'd if he could see it.
An idea I have percolating:
- What if you could paint on something that is stretched like canvas on a tee but is transparent? I had the mad science idea of putting a base coat of transparent self-leveling medium and pigment on top of a layer of florist's mesh, on top of a piece of glass. When it dries, peel the wire off the glass, taking the acrylic with it. Stretch it as you would canvas, and then paint/glaze on top.
OR!!!
Not even do stretching. Lay a waffled framework of florist's wire, taking care to be as stylistic or messy as you like, and then do the same.
I really am obsessed with the 3-dimensional qualities of acrylic. I think it's so fucking cool. |
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| (no subject) |
[Oct. 10th, 2008|09:44 pm] |
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Oh, why hello there, Troopergate. We had almost forgotten about you. |
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