Three in a Series of Three

Panels from an all-digital comic that I toyed with a few years back - all done on a Wacom Graphics Tablet (Intuos 2, I believe). I was reminded of these when I reinstalled the software for the Wacom the other day, which allows you to really do all that it's built to do. Of particular use is the tablet's pressure sensitivity, meaning you can make lines that have the natural curve and thickening of a brush or dip pen.

What I really want to do is get my hands on a copy of Painter and see what I can do. I couldn't really 'do' color in the real world until I worked out a lot of problems in Photoshop, where a mistake is infinitely correctable. The confidence I gained working with color in the digital environment allowed me to loosen up in traditional media, particularly watercolors. I wonder if Painter will give me the same results in terms of working with oils and other opaque media? Talk about a feedback loop.

Like the Rambler, the point of doing this comic was entirely as an exercise; draw quickly, loosely, and don't get caught up in the expectations of being great. I'm pretty sure it was my first return to comics (and drawing in general) in quite a while, so it was a success in the regard of getting me motivated to work. It was more decidedly not a success as an actual comic, a fact I saw right away.

These three panels are the extent of it. Where does it go from there? I don't know; it was inspired by Scott McCloud's Morning Improv, which title is pretty self-explanatory. That's another one I owe McCloud - more than anyone else, he's given me the needed confidence to do the work that I can do in the medium I love.

D.

A Word from Our Sponsor

Forgot to link to this: The recently completed mini-site for Putnam's new album. It uses sound as part of the effect, so turn those speakers on. I pulled all the various sound effects in from the truly awesome freesound.org, which has a really boss library of exactly what its name suggests. Edited in Logic, naturally.

Thanks again to Greg for Flash advice - really, mostly amounted to looking over my shoulder and pointing out that the reason nothing was happening when I exported it was that I'd put a 'Stop' action on the first frame. But, still. Thanks. I'll put up some shelves at the new house, or something. I'm quite handy.

And I recommend again Putt's new album, which has actually gone to number five on the folk DJ charts, which is pretty impressive. You can hear samples at the site and find links to all sorts of ways to buy and download/ship it.

D.

Dave @ 24, Part 2

Continuing from the previous entry, the next entry covers a conversation between me and my sister (Leah). I've redacted large chunks of the entry, simply because the level of bile on display is fairly embarrassing. Suffice it to say that my sister and I have always had a somewhat combative relationship - much less so, now, thank God - borne out of classic sibling rivalry (she's three years older) and continuing well into our twenties.

A pretty clear source of that friction is on display in the below excerpt, even in edited form:

11/14/94

Tired, all the time and unmotivated. Sometimes bursts of confidence and energy, but it's totally clear that visual art defeats me. More on lis this later.

Had conversation with Leah yesterday, driving her down to Ma's at Midnight last night - we were on very different wavelengths, which happens with us sometimes.

(Janet rubs pen and book as I write)¹

[...] I tried telling her the story to the "Dark Muse" as I drove, eating whoppers between words ([from a bag] with a Silence = Death sticker on it that she'd been plastering on toll booths) and the waves of restrained sarcasm and disdain rolling off of her were so palpable I just felt like a total schmuck. I really couldn't wait to drop her off. It makes me feel more than ever that there's very little that I could ever do to win her respect - our values systems are so different. - But I guess I've learned to hold my tongue with her and just play stupid. - I drift and I can't even bring myself fully into reality when I get in situations like that - not really listening, not really responding - not all the way on - (It was kind of hilarious because I was driving and was sort of drifting close to cars and in and out of lanes.)

So I say that Katie² and I are thinking of going to Amsterdam and Leah just thinks of it as this big drug city - in her my mind, why else go there - Literally! "All my friends who've been there say that" she says. I say, "well, Kate and I really don't do drugs³ - Pot has no effect on me⁴"

Never say shit like that to a diehard Pothead [...] because then you have to deal with all the "oh, you don't inhale right" or "you haven't tried it enough" shit [...] she lectured that the reason Kate and I (or indeed, any of my close friends) aren't into Pot is because we "came of age in a conservative administration."

[...]

Hairbat cover coming along well - at some point have to get cracking on Dark Muse, though... Music is currently stagnant, haven't written, really, in about a month - must buy guitar strings on mon friday and rectify that. Goodnight, 1:50 am.

================

Dream:

Dreampt I spent the night at Lancourts house⁵ - Asle Ansley called saying "Where'd you go? We wanted to jam." So I go but we don't jam. I pick up my coat to put it on (to leave their house) - The stuffing is all styrofoam popcorn⁶ - the lining has ripped and its slowly spilling out as I walk. their aunt Gayle sees the popcorn and says "whoever is doing this has to leave now" I walk up to Gayle in the hallway and scream "Fuck You, Bitch" at the top of my lungs right in her face⁷ - she reacts in that weird, nervous smiley Gayle way. Nobody else seems to notice or care. I go outside and there's snow all over the place - I go to my car, worried now because I have to be at work in a little while - the passengers door was accidentally left open all night (It's still dark out) and snow has gotten in the car. I get in the drivers side and try to start it - I notice the hood is open a little too... I'm pretty sure that somebody broke in. After much forcing and pumping the gas pedal, the car starts - I'm afraid I've burned out the engine as I pull up the hill, though.

For some reason - the temperature gauge is all the way over on the right hand side of the car

========

Woke up and called in late so that I could stay home and work on Hairbat cover. Another hour of sleep first, tho.

========

Dream:

At an old English hotel for some blind persons convention with Bran or Dave, maybe. In the main auditorium I met meet a young blind girl, age Eleven or so - I have a book of piano exercises or something - she apparently went blind at the age of three or so, so she remembers colors and things - There's a chart of notes and their corresponding colors - I play a "C" which she says is "Purple" + she's right! I'm very impressed with her perfect pitch and I'm also becoming attracted to her⁸ - but she's getting older - by the time she gets onstage to address the convention, she's a long, brown haired twenty year old. As she talks, she gets possessed by some malevolent spirit, and she starts to look like an old Asian harridan. She works up the crowd into a fury against sighted people - and then they go on a rampage, determined to blind everybody - I panic, but keep my head enough to know that if they can't hear me they can't find me - but then Bubba⁹ leans over my shoulder and loudly asks "what's going on." We run outside and it's a fucking free-for-all. Blind people attacking sighted people on a beautiful meadow spring afternoon.

Later I run back inside and get into a race up the stairs with someone in an elevator to the contents of an office on the third floor. At this point, I think I may have become Leslie Nielsen.


1) Janet was our childhood cat, and one who outlived our childhoods by quite a bit. She was over 18 by the time she finally died, meaning that she went from me being in fifth grade to lasting long enough to be around for the first year that Yesenia and I dated. Terrorized as a kitten and young cat by my stepsisters' 'playing' and skittish for years as a result, by the mid-90's she'd mellowed and become surprisingly affectionate. She's laid to rest by the chimney, next to a rose bush that Yesenia planted later on. On the day that we buried her, Edz and I were jamming with (a lame) guitar player, and we launched into a memorial version of Shine On You Crazy Diamond. My father says of Janet - named after the Joyce DeWitt character due to her black fur - that she raised the kids, but by the end she really was my father's cat after all, an I think there's some deep sentimentality in his quip.

2) College semi-girlfriend Kate TenEyck - our relationship was always too complex and aggravating to be 'boyfriend and girlfriend.' Kate was in the Sculpture Department at RISD and had risen to the top, and was spending the year in Rome as part of RISD's European Honors Program. This was after being named All-State on trumpet in high school and only really turning to the visual arts after a summer at Interlochen. As you can see, she excelled at excelling in these things. I was planning to visit her in December of '94, some of which turns up in later entries.

3) Obviously, this statement is paper thin at best for myself today, and I have no idea as to its accuracy in the period regarding Kate. At the time, it was true enough for me - but it does serve well to illustrate a difference in approach to the topic between Leah and myself.

4) Having gone to RISD, I'd had more than enough experiences with it to say truthfully that it didn't have an affect on me. But I'm guessing that I projected an image of being uptight about it to more than just my sister, based on what people have told me since.

5) The Lancourts refers to Ansley and Bran (also referred to as 'the twins'), and the house in question is the one they spent the bulk of their childhood, adolescence and early 20's in, a split-level ranch on Ash Street in Piermont. Much time was spent there by myself, Bubba and Rich Clarke, usually doing nothing, to the point of distraction. To this day, I have never been able to get into the rhythms of the Lancourt life - spending the night over there was like an experiment in CIA sleep deprivation, as every member of the household slept with their own televisions (one in each room!) on at full volume, and all the lights in the house shining mercilessly down. Something of that vibe is here in this dream.

6) I worked at Barnes & Noble in Nanuet at the time, in the shipping and receiving department. Still my favorite job! We had large bins of packing popcorn, my favorite of which was the proprietary brand, which was made from potato starch. Tasted good, and the mice loved it, too.

7) My dreams often featured Lynchian explosions of anger and almost manifest violence. Less so now, which I hope means that I'm less angry than I was.

8) It's a dream. I cannot be held responsible for things like this.

9) The erstwhile Christopher Jeremy Yacopino, nicknamed 'Bubba' around the age of 12 by a classmate and it stuck so well that even his father calls him that. I had known of Bubba for a long time, as his class had been brought into our school due to one of the many school closings in the 1970's. I believe he came to William O. Schaeffer School (mine) from Tappan Elementary, which was sold and later became some seriously nice apartments. My first awareness of Bubba (still just 'Chris') came in first grade, when someone told me not to drink out of a particular water fountain because Bubba had sipped from it earlier. Tainting it with cooties, I suppose.

I think I drank.

I became friends with Bubba through Jim Doller in high school, although Bubba seems to have been independently friends with pretty much all of my friends over the years. Not really surprising, as he's had early-onset avuncularity since high school. He and the twins met doing time at RCC, and hung out for a long period in the mid-90's when I was largely absent.

Bubba, Dave Zapanta and I made a completely off-the-wall take off of the first Batman movie in 1992, and I'd swear there are bits in there that are comedy gold. I was Batman (the straight man, as always), Dave was the Joker, and Bran turns up in the Jack Palance role, turning it into a running gag on his hosting Ripley's Believe it Or Not.

D.

Look Out Below

During all of the anniversary brass and pomp for the moon landing, when everyone is (rightly) celebrating the bravery of Armstrong and Aldrin, let's take a moment to remember the man who - to me - performed one of the bravest acts in the history of the human race: Michael Collins. For a full day, he circled in the Lunar Orbiter, and when he passed out of radio contact, became the most solitary man.

D.

Dave @ 24, Part I

While cleaning up the basement today, I finally found an old journal I've been seeking for almost a year. This thing is seriously talismanic to me, in ways that are hard to describe. It covers a very brief period - a little over a month at the end of 1994 - but I'd never seriously tried to keep a journal before, and didn't afterwards, until I started the Rambler back in April '07. But the Rambler is, by design, a largely public affair; I don't get into long, soul-searching anecdotes about my personal life online. The journal was very much a journal, talking about friends and fights and dreams and hurt feelings and all of that stuff that makes up a full life.

Now, it's been fifteen years since these pages were written, and I still know almost everyone involved. But I think it's past time enough that I can post some of this (not all!) and not violate anyone's privacy.

Since I've been so bad with delivering anything of depth here lately - or, at the very least, length (depth's tedious cousin) - I think that drawing excerpts from my old journal is a good way to fill the electronic space.

Archivist's note: for the sake of authenticity, I've decided to leave in all grammatical, spelling and otherwise errors as they appear in the original. This includes the occasional strikethrough. All you really need to know for background on this entry is that I was living in my parent's basement at the time (in a room that has since been demolished, by me), six months out of college and working at the Barnes & Noble in Nanuet while struggling to get a comics career off the ground without any enthusiasm for the task whatsoever - and, obviously, not happy about any of it. Anything else that needs illuminating I will footnote as we go along.

11/12/94

Well, I think I'm about ready to despoil the pages of this book.

Not much to say this evening, + for now, I want to avoid the trap of writing deep analysis or a lengthy introduction to my life.

(Right now that new Sting song is in my head "When We Dance")

What to say? Here I am on the cusp of twenty-four, a quarter of a century distant from my rocket into the world. Plagued by self-doubt, feelings of worthlesslness, homliness, lonlieness - too intellegent to not to see that these feelings are self-created but not intellegent enough to think my way around it.

It occurs to me that all I really feel are these negative emotions - but, then again, I don't really even feel them that strongly.

Had dinner w. Bran + Tina¹ at the Blauvelt² tonight. Big argument in the car because Tina quit Battershell, but Bran got really angry because Tina was annoyed that Tammy supposedly flirted with her ex-boyfriend Jim. Big To-Do and even I lost my temper. I'm unclear why and I'll have to remember to watch that shit - the reason I snap at other people is rarely for something that they're doing.

At the diner we relaxed - Bran + I reminisced about the depressing intervening yrs. between high-school + now. Bran says this is the first real year he's had - I say I'm not even having this year - I'm sleepwalking through it all. Unclear but I think this makes him uncomfortable.

Working on cover for Hairbat Six,³ still don't see it as ar a real thing, think Dave might change his mind - I have no faith in my ability to pull off a good cover and I'm not sure he does, either. I think he'll go through, but we'll see. I'm supposed to finish it Tomorrow at his house - I told him the pencils were finished but I'm still not satisfied w. the background. - Perspective is proving troublesome. Got to get on the ball with this drawing crap. Also doing Dark Muse⁴ origin issue s for + with Terry W. - I've told him the first five pages are pencilled but only the first page + first panel second page done, + badly + cartoony at that. More stuff to worry and deny. -

Goodnight. 2:05 am.

Dream:

Dad has divided up susan's old basement room into thirds - I see it or a model of it, the sections are very tiny - a cardboard cieling. I try to show how small the space is by pressing myself into a corner. Dad is renting out one of these sections to the Prestons⁵ - A family of four! - for a large amount of money - a thousand dollars a month, maybe? In the living room, I tell him this is unfair - he agrees, but Connie says "Brickwork" "Oh yeah, that's right" says Dad. The apartment is worth so much because it has a nice brick wall. -

I get a call from Terry's business partner⁶ - he's real critical, knowing I'm yanking Terry's chain - I get defensive, blustery. "Listen, fuckhead" I say. He's taken aback. Later, he starts to act up again and I say "Well, now we're getting back into that fuckhead territory"⁷ So I go into the basement to work in my 'studio'. It's dark, cold + damp water from the cieling + somebody's moved the bed so it's blocking the desk. I move it back, but then I have to pee. So I pee and pee and pee.

========

I woke up, obviously having to pee very badly.

========

Footnotes:

1) Bran is Kopperman mainstay Bran Lancourt, a high-school friend. Tina was his then girlfriend, and they were very fighty as a general rule. Tina, like Bran, was a musician. In her case, a guitar player playing it as second-fiddle to a hickish girl from Northern California named Tammy (who was dating Bran's twin Ansley at the time - all very classic rock). Tina was a more sophisticated Long Islander, but Tammy had drive and songs. Tammy and Tina lived in the rehearsal space loft they rented, illegally.

2) The Blauvelt Diner, the scene of endless hours of hanging out with the twins and friend Rich Clarke from the years 1987-1996. I'm told the twins were eventually banned, but, really, the management was doing them a favor. A restaurant from the Twilight Zone if ever there was one, and not one of the cool scary episodes with Shatner, but more the boring, moralizing ones with Jack Klugman. The Blauvelt (or 'The Blauve' - rhymes with 'ow' - as my dad called it) is still there, but has been forced to upgrade somewhat in light of the added competition, so its air of failure and sadness has diminished somewhat.

3) Childhood friend, fellow cartoonist and sort-of RISD alum David Zapanta created the comic Hairbat while at RISD, in a comic class we took together. Dave saw potential in the story of a man with a bat trapped in his hair, the indirect outcome of childhood trauma suffered when witnessing the death of his father in a bat/barber related incident. It ran six self-published issues and one issue from indie mainstay Slave Labor Graphics (now going by the less spot-on 'SLG'). He's recently been trying to restart it, fitfully, and you can get a feel for his casual cartooning brilliance (and also find a better recap) over at his site: Hairbat.com I had, if I remember correctly, lightly pressured him to follow through with the idea he had to have me draw a cover for an issue - he was initially enthusiastic, but clearly regretted mentioning it to me before I even got started. Here's a scan of the cover that I just pulled from Mile High Comics - I don't think I actually have a copy of the issue myself, and Dave has yet been able to locate the original art, which I desperately want to scan and fix. Like, really want to, a lot. More on this in future entries, I believe.



4) Christ, this is a really involved one. The ultra short-short version (to be expanded on later), is that through either Dave Z. or Bubba (a mutual friend), I met a man who was self-publishing a B&W horror fanzine with occasional comics, featuring his own Vampirella-ish mute hostess/star in the person of Melpomene, who was the traditional muse of Greek tragedies. I designed the character and drew several comics for him with her, and extensively rewrote parts of his (it must be said) amateurish script. Note: I didn't make it any better, I just said I rewrote it. I was heavily into Neil Gaiman's Sandman at the time, so I tried to bring that flavor to it.

All of the work I did for Terry gratis, and we split the copyright. Later, he unsplit it and took it back (naturally without consulting me). There was a movie made with the character, which has my sole IMDB credit, as 'comic art,' one of five such names listed. Bear in mind I'm not saying this as lament for losing my true due on the character (who still bore my design even in the film), but to point out that this was an unethical way for Terry to behave, to say the least. Some satisfaction is had by me that he paid Dave to illustrate a story for him that Dave never delivered.

5) The Prestons were a British family that house-swapped with my parents for a year while I was in college. The father also swapped jobs with my dad, with him taking my dad's classes at CCNY, and my father teaching at South London Polytech. Statistics, I believe.

6) Terry had some investors from Texas (aren't ALL investors from Texas) who were trying to make the Dark Muse a more professional affair. I presumed - rightly, as it turned out - that they didn't like my art and wanted something slicker. It must be said that the work I did for Dark Muse was pretty weak.

7) No backstory here - just wanted to point out that 'Well, now we're getting back into that fuckhead territory' is a genius line. God, I wish I were that pithy when awake...

D.

The Poop of Defiance

In a wholly unprecedented event, my cat just took a perfect little shit on the carpet in the guest room. No muss, no fuss. No idea what that's about, but I gave her the outdoors time out that she was so clearly begging for.

D.

Second Verse, Same as the First

Wow, tonight is exactly the same as last night, so I recommend that you just reread last night's entry.

D.

Night of the Living Dave

Make that 'nights,' since this current week is being marked by very late nights full of all sorts of catch-up work. Almost almost almost done with the previously Rambled Jamaican food website - then one of our few remaining car dealers is undergoing a branding change that I have to churn out both radio and logos for. Putnam's site has been left at the threshold, agonizingly close to the finish line but must wait until at least tomorrow to finish it off.

What else? Who knows. It's almost exactly 2 AM as I type this, and the second floor and attic fans have done their jobs, so I'm going to go crawl under the blankets and steal some of Yesenia's warmth. See you tomorry.

D.

King of the Mountain

Did the semi-annual trek up to Storm King Art Center today with Yesenia, a trip I've made so many times over the last fifteen years that I've honestly lost track of how many times I've been and with whom. Always a reliable day in the outdoors with neat things to see (those that are 'friends' with Yesenia on Facebook can view the pictures), and the point of going with different people is that you always get to see it with new eyes and have different, interesting conversations about it.*

Of course, since Yesenia is my favorite person, a trip with her anywhere is generally the best version of anyplace that I'll ever experience. But she does make it hard for me to focus on the art.

D.

*For example: a completely impenetrable (yet charming) fumetti from Walrus Comix about the place.

Roger Ebert: Seer of Visions

Randomly checking reviews in the archives of Roger Ebert's site, and I found myself quite impressed with the foresight on display in his review for Tron, which he gives four stars to. Ebert has many weaknesses as a reviewer (maybe I should say instead 'soft spots'), and one primary weakness is for films that are completely new and unique in some way, even if that way is merely in its visuals, as most would criticize Tron as brain-dead eye candy. Not me, mind you.

Nor Ebert, who loves it and is honest about his reasons for loving it. And he's championed it well beyond this original review from 1982, fairly recently making a 70mm print a showpiece at his annual film festival.

What struck me most on reading this review was the last paragraph, which I'll quote in full, here:

"There is one additional observation I have to make about "Tron," and I don't really want it to sound like a criticism: This is an almost wholly technological movie. Although it's populated by actors who are engaging (Bridges, Cindy Morgan) or sinister (Warner), it is not really a movie about human nature. Like "Star Wars" or "The Empire Strikes Back," but much more so, this movie is a machine to dazzle and delight us. It is not a human-interest adventure in any generally accepted way. That's all right, of course. It's brilliant at what it does, and in a technical way maybe it's breaking ground for a generation of movies in which computer-generated universes will be the background for mind-generated stories about emotion-generated personalities. All things are possible."

To which, all I can say is: I hope he bought stock in Pixar, because he predicted their arrival a good 12 years early.

D.

Where Are We?

I've realized just what's been going on with me: I don't handle transitions well, and my entire life for the last year or so and for at least the next full year has been (or will be) nothing but transitions. It's not to say I don't like change - I do - but I like the change to be over and done with.

I like the outcome, not the journey. Which is curious, because that's exactly the opposite of the way I treat vacations and traveling. But in life, too much hanging out waiting for the shit that's supposed to happen finally happen is just no fun.

D.

Sosumi

Yes, I once again will not be continuing with my thoughts on Manga/Anime. Are my comments so deathless and incisive that they cannot work themselves free of the abstract cathedral that is my brain and be crushed down into something as limiting as mere language?

Apparently, they are. At least tonight.

In the meantime, something I've been keeping in reserve. The Onion has apparently run out of targets to satirize and has settled on merely interviewing my friends and then posting that as a story. Fuckers. They should be grateful I'm not the litigious type.

D.

Animanga

I'm still looking to getting back to my personal lifetime wrestling match with manga (and anime, two industries that are inextricably linked). Here's some new grist for the mill.

Tomorrow, I'll spend some time talking about how this sums up everything I've disliked about anime/manga over the years, and also some of the touches I've liked. For now, though: guh.

D.

DIY Jonathan Schwartz

My handy tips on how you, too, can sound just like the anti-avuncular host of the Saturday Show & Sunday Show, as heard on WNYC:

Tips for the DIY Jonathan Schwartz impression:

1) As much lip smacking as possible, as if you were broadcasting from the depths of the Gobi.

1a) And keep it low and husky.

2) Remember: your opinion is FACT.

3) Speak slowly, and reiterate endlessly. ("This great work... this masterpiece... if you will...")

4) Don't hold that emphasis in reserve. You've got eight hours of airtime to fill every weekend, so liven it up with pause and inflection for effect ("This great WORK... this MASTERpiece... if you WILL...")

5) No anecdote should have an end or a point.

6) As George Carlin notes about his Ed Sullivan impression: it's not so much how accurate your vocal stylings are - it's all in the bizarreness of the act. Your typical Schwartz anecdote begins with a rambling quasi-history of the song/artist, which then morphs into a defensive insistence that you know how to use email - or something like that.

Putting it all together:

"Frank SINatra... ladies and gentlemen... does it GET any BETTER?... (slurp) ...a recording... not heard for... oh... 1972... forty YEARS... with a superb Nelson Riddle arrangement... Octopus's GARDEN. Locked away... unseen by human EARS in ... TWO generations... A song my FATHER called, ... he considered it 'pure melodic diamond SOUP.'... (slurp) Now... here's something WONDERful... Maude Maggart with... a beautiful... REVELATORY... version of 'Brand New KEY'... (slurp)"

D.

Codin' Fool

All right - I've hit about the halfway point of the massive Everest of site-building that I want to get done before the first week of July is out. The big one is the new site for the Jamaican food company that the agency works for. It's had a fairly tortured and convoluted birth - mostly in the decision-making process of just what goes on the site and it what order. Even with most of that out of the way, the site itself is quite labor intensive. But it's coming together nicely, and I think we'll be going live sooner than later.

The second one is smaller and I really wanted to be done with it weeks ago - the mini-site for Putnam's new album. The question for this one wasn't 'what's going on it?,' but rather 'what's it going to look like?' It took me longer than I'd like to come up with a design I liked, and then once I found it, the site got caught in the pipeline behind the Jamaican site. Not so much that I didn't have time to do both (Putt's site really would only take a couple of hours once the design was sorted out), but you know how it is when one large project completely enervates you for doing anything even remotely related. Well, that's how it is for me, at any rate. Still, I made substantial headway on this tonight, and we should be live in a couple of days.

I will say this: it's probably my best-looking site, yet. Me loves the design.

Also in the music department: as soon as I finish Putt's site, my friend Noah - a jazz pianist, among other things - wanted to refresh his site. It's also, thankfully, past the starting gate in terms of finding a design that both Noah and I like (a little more faith on his part in the color department, since he's partly color-blind) - but the work of building the site and all that will likely take about 6-8 hours. Hopefully, that will be gotten to by this time next week. Under any other circumstances, I would have gotten to Noah's site before Putnam's since it's the larger of the two and I like to hit the big jobs first, but Putnam's album has been out for about a month, now, and there's only the smallest of blurbs up on his site about it.

In my defense: Putnam didn't even request the site upgrade until a couple of days after the album was released. Hint: this isn't really the best way to do things.

Also in the next couple of days will be a minor site upgrade for the Rockland accountant firm, and also lurking around the corner for them are two brand new sites, bringing the total number of complete sites we've done for them to four. One of their new sites has a fun technical angle I haven't tackled before - but, really, almost every site I produce does. Been learning this stuff in leaps and bounds. Really, at some point, I should break down and take classes in all those server-side issues that scare me so.