Craziness

Besides wiping out the equivalent of a small (at least) NZ city, the 'deadly Asian earthquake may have permanently accelerated the Earth's rotation -- shortening days by a fraction of a second -- and caused the planet to wobble on its axis, U.S. scientists said on Tuesday.

'Richard Gross, a geophysicist with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, theorized that a shift of mass toward the Earth's center during the quake on Sunday caused the planet to spin 3 microseconds, or 3 millionths of a second, faster and to tilt about an inch on its axis.

'When one huge tectonic plate beneath the Indian Ocean was forced below the edge of another "it had the effect of making the Earth more compact and spinning faster," Gross said.'

Full story here.

Another diversion

I found this at Wired Kiwis.

Oh well

Staying at Steve and Anna's was a bit of a dead loss as far as painting was concerned. I was all geared up the weekend before last, but the last week of work really knocked the stuffing out of me, what with us getting radically restructured and all. It was good to just hang out in the sun, read books, and relax.

I'm back home now and will try to get some stuff done over the next week.

A diversion

Play silly buggers with the Doctor Who theme.

A turn up for the books

I was feeling a bit hungover and unmotivated, but I've received an email that seems to say I'm a finalist in the 2005 Waikato National Summer Award. I entered Painting and smoking, which features on the front page of my website.

It hasn't worked out quite how I planned it

I haven't done any work today. Basically I've got tomorrow to pull the stops out. Today hasn't been too good at all. Valium and wine and Johnny Cash.

Slacko

After a reasonably good day on Saturday, I only did a couple of finishing things to the city painting I gave to my mother for her 60th birthday yesterday. So far today all I've been doing is sitting in the sun reading a book. It looks as if it might be clouding over, so maybe I'll get something done this arvo. I'm not sure quite what though - I suppose probably Skeleton Guys. I've also got to decide what to do with the objects one. I kind of like it all line and no colour, but I don't think I can really leave it like that.

Decisions, decisions...

Last night's efforts

Here we go

This was playing around on canvasboard while gesso dried:



This is going to have a few more layers of colour added, but it gives you the general idea:



And, yes, that is sunlight coming through the window, difficult though it may be to believe for those who have experienced the Welly summer of late.

Blah

I'm house-sitting for my friends Steve and Anna at the moment - just me and their two crazy cats. I've got a stack of canvases and a stack of reference books and a shitload of paint. I'm waiting for the gesso to dry on a couple of non-Skeleton Guy paintings. I want to see how they turn out before deciding whether to do some more of those or some more SGs. Hopefully there'll be some pics later today...

And yet a-goddamn-nother

Nice

Cuba's put up some big billboards in front of some yank office there - pictures from Abu Ghraib, a swastika, and the word 'fascistas'.

And another

Studio views

In the interests of making those viewing this on dial-up's download speed as slow as possible, here's some more pics:

Historic

Yesterday was the last day of smoking in pubs.

French art blog

This is what it's all about. Some French guy scans in his sketchbook and sticks it up for all to see. That sucker's going in the links.

Street art

Rose has started a new blog documenting Wellington street art.