Every Other Monday: Robot

Hello Folks

I love Marvin the depressed Robot in HHGG.  'Brain the size of a planet' he often laments.  Poor thing.  I also love how the characters in the story soon become impatient with him and rather insincerely try to deal with him.


One of my favourite cartoons growing up was The Jetsons, so of course I had to draw Rosie the maid/robot of the Jetson family.

And here is my quilled robot.  I had a hard time photographing it because I thought it would be neat to put it on shiny paper like a well polished robot - not a good decision as it turned out.  (It showed the glue too much too).

Now if we could all have servant robots like Rosie, wouldn't our lives be easier - or would they?

Has anyone seen the animated movie Robots?  It's very funny and well worth a watch.

Every Inchie Monday: Button

Hello Folks,

I do love the button that comes along at this point in HHGG when out travelers have been picked up by the Heart of Gold.  Looking around at the ship, Arthur "reached out and pressed an invitingly large red button on a nearby panel.  The panel lit up with the words Please do not press this button again."  Pure Douglas Adams.

There is another mention of buttons slightly farther on, but  I think one reference is enough - am I boring everyone?

I confess that Trillian's marvelous collection of buttons and trinkets had me buying some tiny buttons for no other reason than that they are pretty:

I couldn't think of how to quill a button, but I do have the Martha Stewart button punch, which I bought simply because I love buttons.  So it's not quilled but it is made of paper.

Hope everyone has a good week.  And for those of us in  Canada - Happy Victoria Day (We celebrate Queen Victoria's birthday.)  The weekend is also called the May two four weekend, because of the date, and because Canadian beer is sold in cartons of 24 cans.   It's the unofficial beginning of 'summer'.   Enjoy the holiday and fireworks.  "It's the twenty fourth of May, [edit] the Queen's birthday, if you don't give us a holiday, we'll all run away"  (childhood rhyme which no one sings anymore).  [realized on Tuesday I had the rhyme wrong - ah memory]

Every Inchie Monday: Three dimensional

Hello Folks,

First, the spot in HHGG where I found a reference to this week's word at Every Inchie Monday:  three-dimensional.  It comes in a description of the Heart of Gold at the beginning of Chapter 11, where we are told the cabin is NOT "an ordinary three-dimensional oblong room,"  Because of this fact, it "looks excitingly purposeful" and kept the designers happy.  OK...  

Here is a rather boring three dimensional box drawn in two dimensions.  It used to be one of my favourite things to teach to first year art students because if you follow a few easy rules it is quite simple to make things look 3D and it always gave the students a great feeling of accomplishment.

 More exciting is the type of street art that draws on flat pavement and makes the image look three dimensional. Often you have to look at a particular angle to see the effect, which has been used in painting for hundreds of years.  This particular one is a simple little guy but I love this artist's work (If anyone can tell me her/his name I would love to know.)  There are many more examples, some very complex, to be found on my Pinterest Board called Street Art (my Pinterest name is Kia2828).  Or Google it.

And for my quilled offering I made a three dimensional mushroom. 3D quilling is its own separate little niche.  (It's less than one inch tall too!) 

Obscure fact:  Did you know that one of the earliest science fiction novels (1884) is called Flatland and is about a world where everything has only 2 dimensions.  

There, I got through the whole post without spelling dimensional with a 't'.  Thank you spell check.

Every Inchie Monday: Brain

Howdy Inchers,

This Week's word at Every Inchie Monday is brain.  Now, in chapter 10,  there is a "Sub-Meson Brain" which is involved in the creation of the improbability drive of the Heart of Gold, but I prefer the reference to Marvin the depressed robot who complains: "Here I am, brain the size of a planet and they ask me to take you down to the bridge.  Call that job satisfaction?  'Cos I don't." [chapter 11]  I do love Marvin.

The human brain is such an amazing thing.

Too hard to quill anything that looks like a brain, so my quilled inchie relates to that moment of brain flash when you get an idea:  (Does it look much like a lightbulb?)

Exercise your brain this week.  It's fun!

Every Inchie Monday: Monkey

Hello Folks, 

Well I have found  my copy of HHGG and so can tell you where this week's word, Monkey, (for every Inchie Monday) comes from, although some of you may remember, as I did.  After they are pushed out of the Vogon Constructor ship they get caught up by the improbability drive of the Heart of Gold, the travelling duo see many odd, improbable, things, including "an infinite number of monkeys outside who want to talk to [Ford and Arthur] about this script for Hamlet they've worked out." (Chapter 9)

. Now the monkeys typing Shakespeare is a mathematical idea - - "The infinite monkey theorem [which] states that a monkey hitting keys at random on a typewriter keyboard for an infinite amount of time will almost surely type a given text, such as the complete works of William Shakespeare."  (Wikipaedia).  OK...

On to the inchies.  First up is the Chinese character for Monkey because 2016 is the Year of the Monkey.

I have two quilled monkey ideas:  One, the monkey:

and two, something for him to eat - because my monkey doesn't quite fit into one inch.

Hope you are having a good year of the Monkey.  See ya'll next week.