I've information vegetable, animal, and mineral

(Missed the reference? Click here, and then go brush up on your Gilbert and Sullivan!)

Note the new avatar fanciness at right. Don't know what an avatar is? What, did you go to public school or something? (I'm so kidding. I, of course, went to public school, and they taught me plenty of fancy words like "avatar" and "autocracy" and "deus ex machina".) In the literary sense, an avatar is the very embodiment of something, an idea or philosophy manifest, an archetype. Alternatively, it can also indicate a deity taking on human form, but it's really this manifesting embodiment usage that's most frequent, particularly in the virtual world, where the word has gained outright common usage. Because now, we're all assailed with programs to create graphic, stylized representations of ourselves that can stand in for actual images in various realms. Avatars. Useful things. Given today's world, and doing what I do for a living, eh, I'm not going to post an actual picture of me in my profile.

While wandering around the internet today trying to find a usable picture of the main street of South Park for...well...what will ultimately be a commissioned piece of artwork for my office, but that's perhaps another story for another day....I stumbled across the South Park Studio site, courtesy of the folks at the Planearium (no, that's not a typo), where you can create your very own South Park Avatar and learn lots of things about South Park in German. If, of course, you read German. I made two. One, I found the little straitjacket, and I thought that was hysterical, you know, what with the psychiatrist thing. But then I looked at that for a little while, and I thought, eh, maybe that's just giving the wrong impression. So I made another one that was a lot more vanilla. It was very cute. You can tell which one won out.


Vanilla I ain't.


In other news, there's a super-secret birthday project in the works. I'm pleased with the progress I managed to make while my mother was at work today. Alls I'll say is that it's crochet, which, during the hours of crocheting today, I'd composed a whole treatise in my head, that started with, "here's the thing about crochet..." Now? Hell, I don't remember. Maybe tomorrow. I also finished the heel flap on my dad's sock, turned the heel, and am smokin' into the instep, because I needed something to work on after my mom came home, while amidst the third concurrent project of the day - my best friend loaned me (thrust upon me) Season One of Veronica Mars, which I have to watch and return before I leave. I made it all the way to disc 4 today, and damn if I'm not sucked right in like Powdered Donut Pancake Surprise at Cartman's house on a Saturday morning. (See? I wanted to bring the whole South Park thing back full circle for you. Be grateful I didn't go to Liane Cartman with that "sucked in" reference...")