I am a tickety-boo site. Don’t you wish you were a tickety-boo site? I bet you do.

2. I was watching Eminem’s new video which is supposed to be taking place in a crappy wood-paneled double-wide, and in one scene Megan Fox is getting beaten up by Dominic Monaghan and he puts his fist through the drywall in their living room and – hey, what’s up with that wallpaper?

I remember that wallpaper. I saw it on a design blog somewhere and I thought it was gorgeous and then I saw the price, which was $250 a roll and I was like, oooh, a little too rich for my blood. And now I’m supposed to believe a crappity trailer has that wallpaper in it? I think not. I could no longer suspend my disbelief. Bad set decorator. Baaaaaaad set decorator.

3. A while back I decided to incorporate different materials in my art, like eggshells and insect exoskeletons and tin cans, stuff like that. So recently I thought, hey, there are Japanese beetles everywhere, they’re not indigenous, they’re a scourge, I should collect their deceased bodies, remove their wing casings, and use it in my art. Here is a photo so you can appreciate their bronze-colored elytra.

So while I was in Massachusetts this weekend, I took my neighbor’s full bug bag. I brought it home, and yesterday Cricket and I opened it in the driveway. The good news: there were about 400 beetles in there. The bad news: they were actively rotting, all squishy and stinky. Gross. I asked Cricket what I should do. He decided I should go outside to his rose bushes in the morning, flick the drowsy beetles into a jar, put the jar in the freezer, and then remove their wing casings later in the day. I shouted, “Genius!” and went to bed. This morning I set the alarm for mad-early and when it went off, I went outside to capture my beetles. If you were Cricket’s neighbor and looking out your window at 7:15 this morning, this is what you would have seen: a sleepy woman wearing a crumpled t-shirt, her hair all jinky and unbrushed, her face all puffy, standing motionless outside with a jar in her hand, staring intently at a rosebush for ten minutes. If this was a movie, that would be the point when someone would come outside with a shawl, wrap it around my shoulders and lead me slowly inside while saying, “It’s okay, it’s okay.” I have since learned that this wasn’t a dramatically bad season for Japanese beetles, and the season’s over now anyway. So to drown my sorrows I went on good ole eBay and found people selling environmentally-harvested beetle elytra, so I bought them. It wasn’t quite how I wanted this to go, but when life gives you lemons, you buy stuff online. Here’s what fifty bucks can get you – two of these sets (20 elytra total):

Two of these sets (20 elytra total):

And a pile of 200 random non-matching elytra.

They should be here next week. We’ll see if I can get them to do what I need them to do.

I got really excited when I saw a car illustration in Wired magazine and I was like, “Hey, isn’t that Feric?” And it was! I was a happy camper.

The other artist I wanted to talk about goes by the name of McBess. Same story as Feric: His real name is Matthieu Bessudo, nom de plume is McBess, charming. His style is bringin’ back the 1920’s cartoon style, like this one. You know, the black and white people with all-black eyes and rubbery limbs.

And he’s in a band too, so he worked on a video for them. Just an FYI, there’s a couple less-than-work-appropriate shots in the video. Song’s real catchy, tho’.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cD1Rrfc0y-M

I think that the name should be changed to “American Cheese Slug”.

Thank you, photographer J-Fish.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/j-fish/

2. I saw The Princess and The Frog the other night (it was meh) but I noticed that I look exactly like the large friendly alligator named Louis who only wants to play trumpet in a band. I took a screengrab so you could appreciate the similarity. I mean, look at Louis’ facial expression. I make that face all the time.

I would prefer to look exactly like a fancy-pants lady movie star, but it is what it is.

3. Charts! First, a chart about Pixar characters.

And then an angry chart about how stupid charts are.

4. I originally thought this was the greatest Rube Goldberg thing of all time – the Honda cog commercial.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ve4M4UsJQo

And then I saw the OKGO video. Super rad, dudes. Super rad.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qybUFnY7Y8w

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AtyJbIOZjS8

Daft Punk’s “Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger” hand gestures (the good bit starts at 1:38):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2cYWfq–Nw

OK Go’s “Here It Goes Again”:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pv5zWaTEVkI

And Beyonce’s “Single Ladies – Put A Ring On It”:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8mVEGfH4s5g

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1-NULFMky4s

And to keep my hard-earned street cred, here is a Ukrainian band covering “Hot ‘n’ Cold” by Katy Perry. With an accordion.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1upZz3a-7iM

Gnarls Barkley “Crazy”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bd2B6SjMh_w
Does this really need an explanation? It’s a Rorschach test using light and dark to carve the artist’s faces out of the ink. And bugs and spiders. And a skull. That too. Gorgeous video. I actually sat down in awe when I saw it the first time.

Kanye West “The Good Life”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=su_zrW9WBVk
I wish I had worked on this video. I would have loved – LOVED – to do the animation. Also, so considerate for the deaf. Pretty much everything that is said is spelled out. Kanye is thinking of the aurally challenged, how sweet. He’s not the self-centered meanie-head everyone says he is.

Coldplay “The Scientist”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3Kd7IGPyeg
I don’t much care one way or the other about Coldplay’s music, but to have to learn your own lyrics backwards, wow, that must be hard. I like the video because it reminded me of one of my favorite movies, Memento. Very clean and emotional and stark.