thepoisoncontrolcenter:

The Poison Control Center are honored to be one of the 50 Things Juice Magazine likes about Des Moines!  

We are number 26!  Wow how exciting.. Coffee only beat us by 1!  Thanks to Juice magazine for including us in this rad list and thanks to Des Moines for being so awesome and supporting us for so long!  Read the whole list here…

http://www.desmoinesregister.com/article/20120207/JUICE/302080018

Love these guys, and I’m glad they’re getting the recognition they deserve.

(I also love Juice, but I’m soon to be aging out of their demographic, so I guess I’m not contractually obligated to like them for much longer)

“The Endermen”, a Minecraft poem

Lest anyone think that this is nothing more than an art blog, for my week five creative project, I’m submitting this little poem, based on the 1.8 update to Minecraft, which introduced us all to the terrifying Endermen. I had started writing it then, while on a plane on one of the many overseas business trips I took in 2011. Since I’ve hardly been able to squeeze in any drawing time this week, I just finished up the last few stanzas the other day so I could present it here, to you, below the fold.

Next week, likely back to more drawings.

The Endermen are watching and waiting.

The Endermen see all that you do.

The Endermen are horrid and hating.

The Endermen are coming for you.

The Endermen are throwing and shaking.

The Endermen are wicked and cruel.

The Endermen are flailing and quaking.

The Endermen are coming for you.

They are lifting and hauling, denying what’s true.

They are scraping and mauling, and nothing you do.

Can stay their thirsting, hungering queue.

The Endermen, they are coming for you.

They are building and stacking, destroying what’s new.

They are breaking and cracking, preparing for you.

Preparing a feast for their Endermen stew.

The Endermen, they are coming for you.

The Endermen, they are coming for you.

I’ve decided that this will be my week four creative project, instead of the previous drawing I was working on that I had posted earlier on the week. I just really like how the dragon turned out, even as my very first foray into using crosshatching for shading. The other one might end up completed as my week five project. Or it might not! Who knows.

In any case, I really like drawing. Four weeks down, 48 to go!

Things for 2012 That Sound Suspiciously Like Resolutions, but Totally Aren’t, so Try Not to Get Confused

NOT resolutions. Really.

They’re numbered, but they’re not necessarily in any particular order, so I guess I could have just not numbered them, but then it would have been harder for me to figure out how many I had written.

Onward and upward.

  1. 1. One new creative project every week, either artwork of some sort(illustration, sketch, painting, sculpting, etc.) or writing. No websites or anything complicated that can get me off track like last year. I’ll be tracking it with this tag.
  2. 2. Continue to improve my art and illustration skills and potentially start selling prints from an Etsy shop.
  3. 3. Read the entire Bible in a year, using the One-Year Bible reading plan.
  4. 4. No new video games. Continuing with Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword, then I’ve got Xenoblade Chronicles in April. Beyond that, just focusing on Steam games I already own, with plenty of Minecraft mixed in here and there.
  5. 5. Sell our house and move closer to Des Moines. This one has been in pretty much every list since 2008, so hopefully putting it on here will eventually lead to something more than just idle pining.
  6. 6. Surf less (web, not water). The pointless Tumblr, Facebook, and Twitter browsing gets me nowhere and takes time away from more meaningful pursuits.
  7. 7. Read more. I pledged to read a lot of books in 2011, and while I did read some great ones, including Bitter Seeds, The Name of the Wind, and Love Wins, I didn’t get to nearly as many as I would have liked. And my “to-read” pile isn’t getting any smaller.
  8. 8. Pare down. Stuff is stuff, and I need less of it. This includes not only material possessions, but also digital. I’m getting rid of some domain names and websites that I don’t want to bother with anymore, including the URLs for It’s Dangerous to Go Alone and Nerdshelf. On an unrelated note, anyone want to purchase a cool domain name? Give me a call.

I think that’s it for now. How many is that, eight? I was going to try to think of twelve for 2012, but that’s a lot of work, and I think eight is enough.

Yes, I just threw in a reference to an 80’s television show. That one was free.

On Anniversaries and Adversaries

Apparently the traditional tenth wedding anniversary gift is supposed to be “tin” or “aluminum”. I know this because I looked it up last week. Well, I’m nothing if not a stoic traditionalist (hint: I’m so not) so today, the day of our tenth anniversary, I got my wife two four-packs of Trader Joe’s Cafe Mocha in — what else? — aluminum cans.

Of course, our real anniversary present will come late in the summer when we whisk off to the coast of Oregon for a three-day “Second (First) Honeymoon” vacation (we never took a honeymoon when we got married, so we have a hard time deciding if this is the first, or the second). But I couldn’t NOT get her something for the day itself, could I? That just wouldn’t do at all. And she loves the TJ’s Mocha cans, so it was a perfect fit, really.

Now, those of you who know my wife see a side of her that is generally pleasant. She’s smart, beautiful, kind, thoughtful, a wonderful mother, and a caring friend. And all of those are absolutely some of her more endearing qualities. But you don’t see the side I see every day. The side that is roaring furnace of righteous anger. The side that is cold and calculating. You’ll notice that there aren’t many letters that differ between the words “anniversary” and “adversary“. My wife is in every possible way my worst enemy. She is demanding and honest. Brutally so, sometimes.

And I wouldn’t have it any other way.

You see, I’m an extremely lucky man in that my wife knows me better than I know myself. She knows that I’m capable of doing and being more than I allow myself to be today. And she pushes me with every ounce of strength and patience she can muster to force me to realize my own potential. She does it with the kids, too. But in a gentler way because, well, they’re kids. And I’m a grown-up. Or at least that’s what they tell me I’m supposed to be.

But I don’t want to be a grown-up. And I don’t necessarily have to be. Even my wife doesn’t force me to be any more mature than I am. But she does remind me that I am to be responsible. For my family, and for myself. Every missed opportunity, every moment’s hesitation, every dumb mistake, she’s there to put them on display. Not so she can shove failures in my face and cherish a false sense of superiority. But to remind me that I am better than that, and why don’t I just step up and prove it?

(Don’t worry – I see the loving and caring side of her, too. Quite a bit, actually! And while that side of her is wonderful, it isn’t the part that makes me a better person. The loving and caring side is what makes me want to be a better person.)

And that is why I am grateful for every single day of the past ten years I have spent married to this absolutely amazing woman. This woman who has the patience and fortitude to deal with a bumbling idiot like me, and push me to focus on loving what I do, and doing what I love.

I don’t deserve her. And don’t think I won’t fight with all my strength to ensure that I get to keep her. For another ten years, and hopefully, for many more.

I love you, Amanda.

(PS – can I have one of those cafe mocha cans? You don’t need all eight of them, do you? Just curious.)

Iowa-based Townpoints Launches

So, a brand-new Iowa-based web startup has launched today called “Townpoints” (@townpoints).  The concept behind the new startup appears similar to popular daily deal sites like LivingSocial and Groupon. Basically, the site promotes a local merchant with some great deals. There are, however, a few basic differences behind Townpoint’s effort that are worth pointing out.

First of all, Townpoints is apparently not a daily deal site. It’s a weekly deal site, from the looks of it. They highlight a single merchant for an entire week, allowing you ample time to get in on the deals, and earn plenty of points.

Yes, that’s right: earn points. Townpoints doesn’t just have a deal, it’s also somewhat like a hyper-local rewards card. Every time you participate in a merchant’s deal, you gain some number of points for your account. Points can be accumulated and traded in for even more deals with either the same, or (presumably) other merchants in the future.

For example, the current featured merchant for this week is Being There Coffee (@btcoffee). You can purchase a $15 gift certificate for the coffee house for only $7. Which also earns you 50 space bucks (or Townpoints points, if you prefer). And, in addition to that, you can also tell others about the coffee house via Twitter, Facebook, or email referrals, and earn even more space bucks on top of that. Points can then be redeemed for things like free coffee and pastries. Alternatively, saving up 1,000 points can get a coffee drink named after you at BT. Which is a pretty cool idea, but I doubt anyone will want to drink a Nathaniel Payne Mocha (or the “Natty Pocha”, as it would inevitably be called, but even that sounds undrinkable and a little too much like a Hungarian band from the 70s).

No doubt the daily deal coupon space is getting crowded by the day, and most activity is being pushed to the outer limits by monster deal sites Groupon and LivingSocial. Another local startup in this space called DSM Daily will be launching soon, and it will be interesting to see what they focus on and how their service differs from the others on the market. Because the ultimate factors in people deciding where to spend their money will come down to this: just how good is the deal, and what all do I get out of it?

With Townpoints, it seems like they are going the route of highly-customized promotional solutions for local merchants, focusing on a week-long campaign that rewards people for telling their friends about the merchant. The discount deal itself is almost an afterthought here, the service instead using that to pull people in, and then drawing their attention (in a very Farmville-esque  manner, I think) towards racking up points and earning special rewards. Which in turn benefits both the merchant through word-of-mouth advertising and low-cost promotional opportunities, as well as the customer who gains those rewards.

It’s a pretty slick platform, if you ask me, and I really look forward to seeing what future weeks bring for the service. I love supporting local businesses, and any service that brings attention to lesser known establishments is a plus. Here’s hoping future deals are just as good as this week’s, and that everyone finds something they can like there.

“I’ll take one tall Natty Pocha with extra cream.”

Nah, still don’t like it.

NOTE: I’m not an investor in Townpoints, nor do I work for them in any capacity, up to and including not being paid to promote them. Just thought it was an interesting service worthy of a post.

Web development as a creative art

So, creative projects, MIRITE?! Still going strong, despite the fact that I still have to finish that week 3 poem, and I’m still missing a couple from February when I was on a business trip to Brazil, but for the most part, I’m still there, still creating things on a weekly basis. But lately, these projects have taken a detour into an completely unexpected area.

Programming.

Not my original intent, mind you. When I conceived of this little project for myself, I had envisioned short stories, drawings, paintings, and music. All the usual sub-standard trappings of what we like to term the “creative arts”. An opening of my heart, an outpouring of raw, unfiltered emotion. We’re talking about Lifetime Original Movie sort of content. But then a couple of weeks ago, I thought “Hey! Why not take my shabby little game database, and make a sweet looking website out of it for my creative project?” And so I did.

And then, once I posted the site online, I had yet another thought (you can see where this sort of thing could get dangerous), where I thought “Hey! Doing this sort of thing in HTML is time-consuming and clunky. I’ll bet I could teach myself to create a more dynamic website!” And so, after asking around on Twitter a bit, I bought a PHP/MySQL book, and did just that.

Now, I am consumed. Consumed by the power of PHP and MySQL. Brilliant sparks of creative thought flash against the empty interior of my skull and scream for attention. What I could build with just these two hands and a shaky understanding of relational database schemas! What worlds I could create through the power of a poorly-structured SQL query! What tapestries I could paint with a severely lacking comprehension of PHP arrays!

I have become like a GOD. (But not an awesome one like God, but more like the fake, lesser ones, like one of those that the Israelites worshipped when they fled Egypt. You know, like Baal.)

But the beautiful drawings? The mesmerizing wordsmithery? GONE are the days of stirring the soul with pens and imagery. No, sir! I shall stir the soul with gorgeous variables, gently laced with dollar signs and carefully-placed semi-colons! I shall pierce the heart with a fitting SQL login script, and render it mute with a caress of lovingly-crafted FOR/EACH statements.

You cry out “LOVE!” and I shall cry out “echo ‘Yes, ‘.$love.’ indeed.’;”

(The above may or may not have been written completely in jest, at a moment of weakness brought on by a code-induced frenzy. But I will say this: I really do love programming. But not more than words, because, jeez. A man’s gotta TALK.)