Hoosgot the answers to your questions.

David Sifry (http ://twitter.com/davidsifry) took a mere 48 hours to
create a Web2.0 app that truly demonstrates -- and puts into action --
the power of social networks.

His new tool is called 'hoosgot' (http://hoosgot.com and
http://twitter.com/hoosgot). And it's a way for anyone to get stuff
they're looking for. And 'stuff' could be information or things.

The word 'hoosgot' is a phonetic spelling for the phrase, 'Who's got...?'

As in, 'Hoosgot a Kindle they don't really want, and can send it to
Roy in South Africa?'

Or, 'Hoosgot any idea how to upgrade a blogger.com template to the new
widgets version without losing all your old formatting?'

Or maybe even, 'Hoosgot a way to get George Bush impeached before the
Third World War he's started spreads all over the world?'

If your blog pings Technorati.com, just using the word 'hoosgot' will
get the post parsed by Sifry's innovation, and open your question up
to a huge community of people who might be able to answer it.

In order to access your answers, you do one of two things:

1. Go to the hoosgot.com site, and check the comments section of your
query for responses.

2. Follow the RSS feed for the comments in your blog aggregator (I
used to use the free Bloglines.com. Now I use the free Google Reader.)

One thing Sifry mentions is that this system will only work if you
work it (some twelve step resonances there, I suspect). He means that
it's a community tool, which works through reciprocation. In other
words, don't only post questions. Sometimes, post some answers too.
It's a give and take situation.

I'm posting this as an email to go@blogger.com from gmail on my
cellphone. So I'm not sure how links are treated. Hopefully they'll be
live. If they're not, you'll need to copy them into your browser. And
I'll rectify that when I'm online from my computer.

Jennifer holding two... Uh... Cushions(?)

Jennifer holding two... Uh... Cushions(?), originally uploaded by royblumenthal.

These... Uh... Uhm... Cushions are for sale in the shoplet at Ludwig's. They're R190 each. That's approximately €20. Or US$25. A bargain, yeah? If you want simulated vaginas on your bed.

[UPDATE:]
Jennifer saw this and said, 'Yuch! Is THIS what stimulated vaginas look like!?'

And I said, 'Simulated, not stimulated.'

She said, 'Oh.'

- Camera phone upload powered by ShoZu

The World’s Shortest Marketing Plan, Version 2.1

www.blog.guykawasaki.com

	What	Why	When	How	Who
Product	What does the product have to do?	What articulated wants or unarticulated needs does it fill?	What is the window of opportunity?	How will the product fill these wants and needs?	What is our best guess at who is going to buy our product?
Presence	Where in the virtual and physical world do we need to sell our product?	Why will the marketplaces and market spaces distribute our product?	How will our presence change during the lifecycle of our product?	How will we establish and maintain a presence in the important locations?	Who are the decision makers at the marketplaces and market spaces?
Persuasion	What are the social factors in the buying process of our product?	Why will people recommend our product to others?	When can we credibly go after opinion leaders and early adopters?	How do we ensure that comments, rankings, reviews, and counts portray us in a positive way?	Who are the relevant opinion leaders and persuaders? Which communities must we reach?
Preference	How do we enable customers to express their preferences and to personalize what we do?	Why would people take the time and energy to express their preferences?	How will customer preferences change over time?	How do we capture customer preferences? (Customer ratings, transaction history, search behavior, and configuration tools?)	Whose preferences do we care about?
Price	How much do we sell our product for?	Why is this the right price point?	What is our pricing strategy through the lifecycle?	How do we set and reset the price in a world of “perfect information” and dynamic pricing?	Who will demand different price points? Which segments do we care about?

Version History

5/4/06—changed to Helvetica font, made title and headings boldfaced

I think Alfred doesn't love me anymore...

Date: Mon, 24 Dec 2007 22:03:09 +0030
Subject: Re: thanks
To: Alfred Koffi <alfred.koffi@yahoo.co.uk>

Please, Alfred...

What's happening with our deal?

Dude... Be reasonable! It's Christmas! I could absolutely USE a couple
of million US dollars.

I just want to check... We are talking about United States dollars,
aren't we? Cos I'd be reluctant if we were talking about Zimbabwe
dollars. Apparently it costs about five million Zim dollars to buy a
bar of soap!

I'm really not saying I need soap. Seriously... Please don't get me
wrong. I HAVE soap! My brother gave me some soap-on-a-rope last
Christmas. And I've never used it. It looks so good.

I've often wondered why my brother would even give me ANY present
whatsoever for Christmas. Since we're half-Jewish, we tend not to
celebrate Christmas. We accept gifts, of course. It would be stupid
not to. But I've never given him a Christmas present in my life. So
why the hell would he give ME one? And why soap-on-a-rope? It doesn't
make sense.

Please send me details about how we can proceed to make money together.

Your continued silence is VERY disturbing to me. In fact, it makes me
think that someone might have killed you. Please give me some sort of
sign that you're alive, and that we can proceed, and that it's US
dollars, and that my percentage split is safe, and that I'm going to
be able to score some serious serious serious cash before the new year
starts.

Alfred... Are you for real?

Blue skies, love, Roy

My eager response to Alfred's letter of 'thanks'

On 23/12/2007, Roy Blumenthal <schmucknews@gmail.com> wrote:
Ah, Alfred! (I apologise if I'm being very forward. In my culture we
believe that a person's first name is very much a part of their soul.
And it's rude if we use surnames. But I do understand that maybe your
culture is different. I want you to know that I respect and admire the
French. You are French, are you not?)

You're too clever for me! You SAY you want to work with me, but you
neglect to mention my percentage split.

I want guarantees. I want to know that I can trust you.

I don't want to trust you 1%.

I don't want to trust you 10%.

No, Alfred. I want to trust you 100%.

So how can we work together when I don't even trust you 0%?

Prove your loyalty, big man. I eagerly await your message assuring me
of your honesty. And of your ability to circumvent the law for mutual
gain.

If it weren't for the fact that I'm a fairly religious half-Jew (I go
to shul for the first half of the Friday night Shabbos), and a
slightly religious half-Christian (not the bottom half, I assure
you!), I MIGHT be inclined to believe that your intentions might not
be godly.

So. I'll remind you. Where's my proof? I want at least 50% of the
US$23.6 million.

Alfred Koffi, phisherman, responds: 'thanks'

From: Alfred Koffi <alfred.koffi@yahoo.co.uk>
Date: Sun, 23 Dec 2007 12:16:42 +0000 (GMT)
Subject: thanks
To: schmucknews@gmail.com

Thanks for your mail, i would want to work with you just go ahead and
send your details to me.

Regards,
Alfred.

My response to Alfred's kind offer in his email, 'My Regards'

Hi Alfred...

I warn you, dude... I know what your racket is! You're going to try
and give me only 30% of US$12.5!

I'm telling you this now... Don't bother getting back to me if we're
only talking 30%!

I want your deep assurance that I'll be getting a MINIMUM of 45%.

Do.

You.

Understand.

Me???

I think it's best if I remind you about what happened to your friend,
'Harith Achmad'. That sardonic bastard promised me a mere 20% of US$11
mill.

I warned that son of a bitch that there would be consequences if he
didn't up my cut to 35%. I told him that my underworld associates
would 'deal with him' if he messed me around.

Sadly, that poor orphan got 'scared' into silence. Well, that's what I
tell my friends. In actual fact, Harith is now 'enjoying' the
'affection' of Madame Tricolor. And you know what THAT means.

So, my friend, let's get this off to a good start. I'm being
reasonable. Are YOU willing to be reasonable? Or must I call in some
'favours'?

I'm going to be ROLLING in bucks! Phishing letter... 'My Regards'

From: Alfred Koffi <alfred.koffi@yahoo.co.uk>
Date: Sun, 23 Dec 2007 09:06:41 +0000
Subject: My Regards
To: schmucknews@gmail.com

From the desk of
Alfred Koffi
ICB Ghana.

Attn:

It is my pleasure to seek for your assistance, and you should
consider it very important. This is an opportunity i would want us
utilize well. I am Mr Alfred Koffi, an officer in charge of Auditing
and Accounting section with International commercial bank LTD Ghana,
and also a Relationship Account Officer to Dr Salim Chidiac, a
Lebanese.

He was a Seasoned Contractor with Ghana Cement Company in Ghana
Republic, who unfortunately died in the plane crash of Union Transport
Africans Flight Boeing 727 in Benin republic in December 25, 2003. You
will read more stories about the crash on visiting this website:
www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/africa/12/26/benin.crash/

Before his death on the 25th December 2003, Dr Salim Chidiac, has
a fixed deposit account with the bank and no other person knows about
this account or any thing concerning it, the account has no other
beneficiary and my investigation proved to me that his supposed next
of kin died along with him in the crash. Since then I have made
several inquiries to locate any of my clients extended relatives, this
has also proved unsuccessful.

After these several unsuccessful attempts, I decided to contact
you. I contacted you to assist in repatriating the money left behind
by my client before they get confiscated or declared unserviceable by
the bank to the government. Consequently, Since I have been
unsuccessful in locating the relatives for over 7 weeks now. I seek
your consent to present you as the next of kin of the deceased so that
the proceeds of this account valued at US$12.5 million can be paid to
you and then you and me can share the money in proportion 70% to me
and 30% to you.

I sincerely request your honest co-operation to enable us see this
transaction through. I guarantee that this will be executed under a
legitimate arrangement that will protect you and me from any breach of
the law. while it will take only 14 working days the funds will be in
your nominated Bank account. you should forward the following
information to me for a quicker communication.

A. Your Full Name
B. Private telephone and fax number
C. Your Full location Address.

Yours Sincerely.
Alfred Koffi.

My response to my good friend Harith's email proposal... 'Urgent Message To You?'

From: Roy Blumenthal <schmucknews@gmail.com>
Date: Sun, 23 Dec 2007 08:58:04 +0030
Subject: Re: Urgent Message To You?
To: harithahmad202@hotmail.com

35% or nothing. And don't try and rip me off, you orphan scum. If you
try and rip me off, I'll have you dealt with by the criminal
underworld. Understand me? Now give me my fucking money and let's get
this show on the road.

I'm gonna be rich! Phishing message... Urgent Message To You?

I just received this very promising message from my long lost pal,
Harith Ahmad. He wants me to trust him. And there's a vague chance he
wants you to trust him too.

Here's his proposal to me. What do you think I should do???

From: Harith Ahmad <ahmadharith42@yahoo.com>
Date: Sat, 22 Dec 2007 11:06:04 -0800 (PST)
Subject: Urgent Message To You?

Dear Friend

Please make a hotel reservation for me and tell me the nearest airport
to you and await for my arrival.This is a transaction of $11m (eleven
million USD) from a genuine source and duly certified.It is my
inheritance with full legal right.

I trust that with you I will be able to invest on the right business
to maximize profit and grow my money.I am not resident in your
country,pls be my partner,receive me well and 20% of the total fund
is for you.Trust me.

Regards
Harith Ahmad
479 Valley Road,
Valley Park # 12-04
Singapore.

Bambi stars in her very own Matinee Soup 2008 Calendar, now on selling at Zazzle!

I've just put the finishing touches on a gorgeous product of mine at Zazzle. Yup... it's a calendar for 2008 featuring my doggie-heroine, Bambi.

Click on the image below, and you can zap off to Zazzle and order a neat present for the New Year.

The calendar is an all-ages one. There's a cartoon for every month, along with a selected quote shedding light on the humour.

Everything I make on Zazzle is customizable by you. So if you want to add someone's name to the calendar, please go ahead. Or you don't like my background colours... change them to something that works for you.

(There are loads of other things of mine on my Zazzle gallery. So if the Matinee Soup 2008 Calendar floats your boat, maybe something else will too!)

Matinee Soup 2008 Calendar
by

royblumenthal

Get this custom calendar
at Zazzle

Jake White -- a timing genius through and through -- 'Win or lose, it's how he played the game!'

RugbyWorldCup_018, originally uploaded by Dplanet::.

In response to Paul's response to Henre Rossouw's musings on Jake White's marketing genius in the timing of his book release panning the South African rugby administration.

I too think Jake White was a genius in his approach to the timing.

I'd go further, and suggest that his timing was planned WAY in advance.

It takes a good year to merely WRITE a book, let alone see it to print. This book has necessarily been in the works for -- probably -- the past three or four years. I think he's a clever enough man to have been able to foresee the endgame years ago.

I'd guess that Mr White may have fanned certain flames, knowing that there'd be consequences. He's no fool. If he says 'X', and he KNOWS that one of his opponents in the rugby world will say 'Y', and he KNOWS that the exchange will be controversial, then hell... why not say 'X' for strategic reasons?

The guy's a manipulator. That's his job. It's what he does best. He's also a strategic genius. That's how the Boks won the world cup. I don't think the bloke set a foot wrong in his entire campaign to get the Boks there. Including the so-called missteps he took in fielding 'poor' teams. The subtle art of misdirection at work, no?

And I think there's a further element to his strategy and timing. He's not JUST looking for personal gain. He's making sure that he sets the bar for the next coach. He's really done an almost mystical job of setting very high stakes, and demonstrating to the world (and South Africa, for what it's worth) the consequences of his successor fumbling the ball.

He's checkmated SA rugby good and solid. If they put an idiot in his place, or continue with their own idiocy, there's a smiling Jake White holding a trophy on a book cover for them to be humiliated by in the privacy of their own consciences. Sheer genius.

The photo is used under a Creative Commons 'Attribution' license. Thanks to Dplanet for the pic.

Roy's avatar -- Wild Latte -- sitting in Illusions in Second Life -- wide shot

Roy's avatar -- Wild Latte -- sitting in Illusions in Second Life -- wide shot, originally uploaded by royblumenthal.

Thanks very much to Tynan Clary (Tynan Clary: tumbling through Second Life) who's actually Susan Reynolds (Case-Notes from the Artsy Asylum).

She's been helping me get myself alive and well in Second Life. Thanks to her advice and help and reading list, I was able to escape from the hell of perpetual nudity and helplessness, and sculpt myself a clothed avatar that looks something like me.

Wild Latte is my name.

In this pic, I'm sitting in the peaceful garden on the same property as an amazing Second Life shop that Tynan Clary directed me to. It's called 'Illusions'. This link teleports you to the store, so if you don't have Second Life, you'll need it in order to see the place: Illusions.

Apart from the fact that the place is an artistic wonderland, there are also freebies for people there. When I arrived on the island, I met a delightful shop assistant who handed me a free package of goodies. We chatted about things like protocol, politeness, being open to new knowledge. That sort of thing.

I haven't played with the new goodies yet. But I will.

Is it ever justifiable to kick a cat against a wall?

In a comment, Aiden asks if it's ever excusable for someone to kick a cat against the wall. He paints a picture of a cat really revving someone up and driving him over the edge.

Here's my response.

Isolated incidents are one thing, when it comes to redemption. And tempers may be lost. And individual circumstances need to be evaluated.

I believe that people mostly do the best they can with the tools available to them at the time.

What would alarm me is if this one-off incident turned into several more incidents.

Consider my 'hood...

There are six units here. In the heart of Linden's suburban bliss. Four cats. None of them aggressive or horrid or peeing anywhere they shouldn't.

One of them, Moyo, has in the space of nine months become 'accident prone' since his owners moved into the complex. The most serious of his 'accidents' was a femur, broken in two places. It's the strongest bone in a cat's body. It takes effort to break it.

Of the other three, one is limping badly, possibly cos it has a broken femur, or other breaks. We don't know, cos she's terrified of humans. Particularly humans with bass and tenor voices. In other words, men.

Another is skeletal, possibly from starvation. Which is consistent with our observation of his eating habits. He's fine around me while I speak to him in a falsetto voice. When I go to my natural speaking voice, he bolts.

And the last one has a free-floating broken rib. And eats just as voraciously as the starving one. She's tiny. The size of a kitten. But she's an adult. Runt of the litter? Maybe. Undernourished while growing up? Probably. A healed free-floating broken rib may mean that she was not taken to the vet. For the injury. She doesn't feel it now.

So I look at this and think, 'One cat in four displaying signs of injury... Let's look to the cat for the cause. Four out of four cats showing signs? Lets look at the people around this place.

Unit 1: a man and a woman. Own three cats. Share an old Corsa between them. Never seen the man. The woman tells us that 'Skippy has always been this thin.' Refuses to tell us her name when we politely introduce ourselves as her neighbour.

Unit 2: A woman dying, with nursing care 24/7. Never been seen. But is wheelchair bound.

Unit 3: An aggressive, obnoxious couple who have screaming matches, during which household items get smashed. Who get aggressive when their neighbour (Roy) comes round to ask if all is well. They tell him, 'Keep your nose out of other people's business. Go away.' And, 'You're creepy, man.'

Unit 4: Jennifer and me. Cat-lovers. I'm a bit of a cat whisperer. When I meow, they respond. And they come to me when they won't come near other people.

Unit 5: Bart and Anna, two youngsters with a cat, Moyo. They're cat lovers too. He does yoga. They're decent kids. Spent three grand to sort Moyo's leg out. Money they don't have.

Unit 6: The owners of this complex. They use their unit as a stopover place when they drive from their home in Cape Town to Botswana. They've been here a total of seven nights over the past three months.

My money's on the invisible husband of the woman in Unit 1. My guess is that he's a wife-beater. And that part of his honed technique is to abuse his wife's cats and blame her for his actions. 'You made me do this. Everything that happens in this house is your fault.' I'm willing to bet also that he strictly rations her spending money. And that she's not allowed to buy enough cat food.

I'm also willing to bet that the only way this cat abuse can end is to remove the cats from that home.

My dad was a wife-beater. And my mom was an abusive alcoholic. And I know the patterns well. And I can spot bullshit at a million paces. I know what it means when someone doesn't say her name to strangers.

Doesn't mean I'm right about this particular situation. But it does mean I'm willing to put money on my reading of it.

Now here's the rub... If I can get away from a background of abuse, and not repeat the cycle, then that means others can too. There really is no reason for anyone to BE an abuser.

Losing one's temper isn't the same as abuse. Losing one's temper regularly, and with intent, and unpredictably, and with precision might possibly be abusive.

Someone in this complex is abusive. The behaviour of these cats is a reflection of this. I'm willing to bet that the dudes in units 1 and 3 are physical abusers. And that the cats are victim to the dude in unit 1.

I don't know what the answer is to the person who kicks a cat once. I do know that in the case of someone who kicks and hurts cats more than once, I'm not standing by and letting it continue. Cos that would make me an abuser too. And I'm not one.

Is it ever justifiable to kick a cat against a wall?

In a comment, Aiden asks if it's ever excusable for someone to kick a cat against the wall. He paints a picture of a cat really revving someone up and driving him over the edge.

Here's my response.

Isolated incidents are one thing, when it comes to redemption. And tempers may be lost. And individual circumstances need to be evaluated.

I believe that people mostly do the best they can with the tools available to them at the time.

What would alarm me is if this one-off incident turned into several more incidents.

Consider my 'hood...

There are six units here. In the heart of Linden's suburban bliss. Four cats. None of them aggressive or horrid or peeing anywhere they shouldn't.

One of them, Moyo, has in the space of nine months become 'accident prone' since his owners moved into the complex. The most serious of his 'accidents' was a femur, broken in two places. It's the strongest bone in a cat's body. It takes effort to break it.

Of the other three, one is limping badly, possibly cos it has a broken femur, or other breaks. We don't know, cos she's terrified of humans. Particularly humans with bass and tenor voices. In other words, men.

Another is skeletal, possibly from starvation. Which is consistent with our observation of his eating habits. He's fine around me while I speak to him in a falsetto voice. When I go to my natural speaking voice, he bolts.

And the last one has a free-floating broken rib. And eats just as voraciously as the starving one. She's tiny. The size of a kitten. But she's an adult. Runt of the litter? Maybe. Undernourished while growing up? Probably. A healed free-floating broken rib may mean that she was not taken to the vet. For the injury. She doesn't feel it now.

So I look at this and think, 'One cat in four displaying signs of injury... Let's look to the cat for the cause. Four out of four cats showing signs? Lets look at the people around this place.

Unit 1: a man and a woman. Own three cats. Share an old Corsa between them. Never seen the man. The woman tells us that 'Skippy has always been this thin.' Refuses to tell us her name when we politely introduce ourselves as her neighbour.

Unit 2: A woman dying, with nursing care 24/7. Never been seen. But is wheelchair bound.

Unit 3: An aggressive, obnoxious couple who have screaming matches, during which household items get smashed. Who get aggressive when their neighbour (Roy) comes round to ask if all is well. They tell him, 'Keep your nose out of other people's business. Go away.' And, 'You're creepy, man.'

Unit 4: Jennifer and me. Cat-lovers. I'm a bit of a cat whisperer. When I meow, they respond. And they come to me when they won't come near other people.

Unit 5: Bart and Anna, two youngsters with a cat, Moyo. They're cat lovers too. He does yoga. They're decent kids. Spent three grand to sort Moyo's leg out. Money they don't have.

Unit 6: The owners of this complex. They use their unit as a stopover place when they drive from their home in Cape Town to Botswana. They've been here a total of seven nights over the past three months.

My money's on the invisible husband of the woman in Unit 1. My guess is that he's a wife-beater. And that part of his honed technique is to abuse his wife's cats and blame her for his actions. 'You made me do this. Everything that happens in this house is your fault.' I'm willing to bet also that he strictly rations her spending money. And that she's not allowed to buy enough cat food.

I'm also willing to bet that the only way this cat abuse can end is to remove the cats from that home.

My dad was a wife-beater. And my mom was an abusive alcoholic. And I know the patterns well. And I can spot bullshit at a million paces. I know what it means when someone doesn't say her name to strangers.

Doesn't mean I'm right about this particular situation. But it does mean I'm willing to put money on my reading of it.

Now here's the rub... If I can get away from a background of abuse, and not repeat the cycle, then that means others can too. There really is no reason for anyone to BE an abuser.

Losing one's temper isn't the same as abuse. Losing one's temper regularly, and with intent, and unpredictably, and with precision might possibly be abusive.

Someone in this complex is abusive. The behaviour of these cats is a reflection of this. I'm willing to bet that the dudes in units 1 and 3 are physical abusers. And that the cats are victim to the dude in unit 1.

I don't know what the answer is to the person who kicks a cat once. I do know that in the case of someone who kicks and hurts cats more than once, I'm not standing by and letting it continue. Cos that would make me an abuser too. And I'm not one.

Dealing with cat abuse in the complex where I live

I may be jumping to a whole bunch of assumptions in this narrative. But hey. It'll conclude at some point.

Unit 1 in this complex of 6 units has 3 cats.

Cat one plucks up the courage to visit us. At this point, we think he belongs to Unit 2, inhabited by a dying old woman and her 24/7 nursing service.

He's very skittish, and bolts at the drop of a piece of paper. Seriously.

We have a 'don't feed the neighbours' pets' policy. If they visit, it's cos they like us, not cos we're bribing them with food.

But we started noticing that Skippy (or Skanky as he'll be known when we catnap him when Jen and I move in together) was VERY thin. Kinda feline AIDS thin. Or starving to death thin. And we noticed that he was drinking LOTS of water when he visited.

We know his name cos he has a collar with a bell and a name tag. At least one of his 'owners' loves him.

So Jen and I discussed it, and decided that we would offer him food, and see what happened.

What happened is that he wolfed down the food. The same way a starving dog wolfs down food. And then he drank half a bowl of water. Gulping it down.

We fed him outside the gate of Unit 2. But the lady of Unit 1 came out and asked us what we were doing. I gave her my theory that the dying lady might not be feeding him, and that he was so thin.

And she said, 'Actually, he's my cat, and he's always been this thin. Since the day we got him.' And she scooped him up, and took him inside.

He visited us again. And ate and drank just as much.

Then last night when we got home, Skippy ran up to greet us. Followed by a little cute cat. Followed by a badly limping gray cat. All with bells.

Followed by the woman. Without bells.

A bit of neighbourly pleasantry, and then we all went about our evening business.

But Jennifer and I were both wondering why that third cat was limping. Because there's a fourth cat in the complex. Bart and Anna's little sweet thang... Moyo.

He's part of the puzzle in a horrible way. When Bart moved into the complex about a year ago, Moyo came with. And within a few weeks was at the vet. With a gash up his stomach. The vet thought it was probably a rabbit kick from another cat. Fair enough.

But then... One evening Bart and Anna got home and found Moyo on the sofa. Whining. Hissing. Took him to the vet. Spent R3000 on an operation to fix the broken femur. A break that the vet said could only have been caused by two things. A car hitting the cat. Or someone kicking the cat very hard. Against a wall.

Which brings us back to last night. And the limping grey cat. Why was she limping?

We don't have an answer to that question. Instead, we have a more intense, more disturbing question.

The little cat... Whose name we found on her collar... KC. She came to eat when we called Skippy for his meal supplement. And she came up to us for the first time.

We were sitting outside, out on the driveway. Jennifer was petting her. And suddenly Jennifer jumped a metre, and let out a small scream. She said, 'Roy, feel this cat's tummy.'

I felt the cat's tummy. And I couldn't feel anything. I was about to ask Jennifer what I was feeling for. When I felt it.

A very sharp, long, bony thing. Floating around under the ribcage. A broken rib. No. Not quite correct. A rib that had been broken off. And has since healed. And is floating around inside this cat's body.

So Jennifer and I went back inside. And I spent an hour or two pacing around, making sure that I was absolutely not allowing myself to go outside. Rip the motherfucker's gate off its hinges. Bash my way through the door. And kick that woman's husband's ass straight into hell.

Cos it's definitely him. If those cats were hurt in that house, he's the dude who did it. And probably as a way of abusing his wife.

So the upshot of this is that Bart called the Animal Anti Cruelty League. And I called Friends of the Cat, and the SPCA.

Anti Cruelty popped round this morning. Left a note on their gate warning them to contact them within twenty-four hours.

Tomorrow the SPCA comes. They'll be examining the little cat for its broken rib. That's where things stand.

My Nokia N91 running Opera 4: Is this a good solution for go.blogger.com?

Busy trying to set up mobile access to my blog from my phone.

I'm using a Nokia N91, which runs Symbian as its operating system.

I've got the latest Opera Mini on the phone -- version 4, which
recently came out of beta. Unfortunately, it came out as a full
release with a major glitch... It refuses to allow ANY attachments to
be added.

Which means that I can make text-only posts to Coffee-Shop Schmuck.
Which is pretty useless. But hey.

Setting up go.blogger.com on my Nokia N91

Busy trying to set up mobile access to my blog from my phone.

I'm using a Nokia N91, which runs Symbian as its operating system.

I've got the latest Opera Mini on the phone -- version 4, which
recently came out of beta. Unfortunately, it came out as a full
release with a major glitch... It refuses to allow ANY attachments to
be added.

Which means that I can make text-only posts to Coffee-Shop Schmuck.
Which is pretty useless. But hey.

The Mirthquake

The Mirthquake, originally uploaded by royblumenthal.

I visited Jennifer at her school today, to help her fix her video machine.

So when the bell rang, I asked Jennifer if we could do The Mirthquake with the kids.

It's a beaut group exercise that I got from a book called THE LAUGHING CLASSROOM.

People pair up, and make eye contact. For the first twenty seconds, they just silently smile.

The next twenty seconds. They silently mime laughter.

The last twenty seconds they let out all of the pent up laughing sounds.

This drawing was done on Jen's whiteboard, and then finessed afterwards so the kids can have it as a reference for tomorrow.

- Camera phone upload powered by ShoZu

2007-11-12 PowaPhone

2007-11-12 PowaPhone, originally uploaded by royblumenthal.

Please vote for this on Crunchgear! I need about 70 votes to stand a chance!!!

This is an entry on the CrunchGear 'Best Friends Forever' site. They've called for people to supply their very best open source ideas for what would be awesome on a cellphone.

I THINK they're fishing for things to add to phones once the Google 'OpenSocial' platform comes into being.

My idea is pretty simple. You've heard of the SETI project, right? The 'Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence'. Computer users can sign up to make their computers available to the SETI project to assist in the massive number crunching involved in sifting through the radio static picked up from outer space. They're looking for something that resembles a pattern, something that can't possibly originate from a randon source.

The way they do this is they create a powerful supercomputer by using bits and pieces of everyone's computer in the project.

Now. Let's get back to cellphones.

They're puny, right? The processors are TINY. And they can barely send MMS without a burden, yeah? But now what if phones were all linked up to a friendly, open-source, distributed computing platform?

Say I'm not using my phone right now. Neither are twenty or thirty other people in the vicinity. But you've just shot a little video, and you want to edit it quickly before zapping it onto YouTube.

Currently, you can't edit video on a cellphone. There just isn't enough processing power. But what if YOUR phone could 'borrow' processing power from all of the inactive phones in the area? Not only the phones, but ANY computer on the network?

You'd be able to edit, create 3D animations, run massive spreadsheets. Whatever.

And when your phone is inactive, you'll return the favour to others in need.

All at zero cost. Because you don't use your phone connection to do it. You use Wifi and Bluetooth.

I'm calling it PowaPhone, just for the hell of it. Sounds kinda muscly.

If you like this idea, please go to the CrunchGear site and vote for my entry! I realllllly wanna win the free Nokia N95 they're giving away. [http://www.crunchgear.com/bff/?p=177#more-177]

Oh... and if you're an open sourcer, and like this idea, please feel free to implement it!

This pic originated as two separate sketches in my Moleskine. I scanned them in, comped them together in Photoshop, and then did all the colour work there too. All on my Toshiba Tecra M4 tablet pc.

2007-10-30 Kyle Lindsay Monster Guitar Birthday Special Colour

2007-10-30 Kyle Lindsay Monster Guitar Birthday Special Colour, originally uploaded by royblumenthal.

Jennifer's sister, Bev, is dating a rock musician. He fronts a band called Elusion.

A few days ago I got a call from his dad. 'It's Kyle's 21st birthday party soon,' he said, 'and I saw a piece of your art on Bev's fridge. Can I commission you to do a caricature of Kyle?'

Did I say 'yes'? Does the Pope ogle nuns? Do old dogs fart? Am I glad to have been contacted two days ago after 13 years of silence by an ex-mercenary blast-from-the-past buddy of mine who got silver in the Comrades Marathon ten times in a row running BAREFOOOOOOOT? Does he prefer it if I don't mention his name on any public forum cos of some of the shit he's been involved in?

Of course I said yes.

'It's gotta be him and his guitar, in that "rock god" pose of his.'

So he sent me photos. And Bev sent me some too.

Unfortunately, the pics of him in his rock god pose were kinda impossible to use as reference. So I trawled the web, using 'rock god' and 'guitar hero' and 'cock rock' as my search terms. And found nothing.

Then I lucked on mentioning the challenge to Jennifer. And she said, 'Duh-uh! Search for Deep Purple and Pink Floyd and Black Sabbath and The Rolling Stones, and...'

And the legs you see here belong to Keith Richards. The guitar is Kyle's. The black mascara under the eyes is Kyles. The ultra gelled hairstyle is Kyle's.

I painted this pic in ArtRage 2.5, and did all of the texture overlay stuff in PhotoShop CS2. On my Toshiba Tecra M4 tablet pc. All the while not listening to (Va)Celine Dion for inspiration.

2007-11-05 Babybabybaby

2007-11-05 Babybabybaby, originally uploaded by royblumenthal.

Sitting in Doppio Zero. And the latest update to ArtRage 2.5 popped onto my system. So I thought I'd give it a whirl.

Just messing around, and decided to paint a reallllly miserable baby. I reckon it's cos I've been thinking quite a lot about abuse.

My neighbours three nights ago were screaming and shouting at each other. And then there was an almighty bang, followed by what sounded like flesh striking flesh.

And I decided to go and deal with the situation. Got dressed quickly. Shoes on. Went next door.

Two drunk youngsters. Him standing in the middle of the lounge. Her lying on the floor, half draped over a chair.

It looked bad.

I said, 'Hey guys, I heard some shouting and some loud bangs. So I just wanted to come over to see if all was okay.'

Kept my voice very calm, very reasonable. But I was in full combat mode. Proper stance. Ready to strike at any moment. The whole lot.

He said, 'Hey, thanks, it's fine. We're shouting at each other. I'm sorry. Didn't mean to wake you. She's pissed. Pissed! I fucking hate it when she's like this.'

And she looked up from the floor. No sign of any violence to her. And she slurred, 'Huh? Uh? Huhhhhh. Soooorrrry.'

And she kinda got to her feet almost, then toppled into the wall, and slid along it into the hallway, where she passed out.

'Hey dude,' I said, 'I'm just checking if there's any violence going down. And it would be better if you're feeling violent to just come round to my place, chill out, talk it down a bit. Is there anything hectic going down?'

'Hey, broe,' he said, 'nah. Nothing like that.'

It looked authentic. So I went back to my place. Jennifer was there. And we were both shaking. She came out of an incredibly abusive marriage. Her hubby was a complete prick. Still is, actually. And crap like this reminds her of the worst.

A little later, the dude knocked on my door. 'Hey,' he said, 'I'm sorry about that. I just wanted to come and say thank you for coming round. That's a really cool neighbour to do that. Thanks man. And I just want you to know that the two of us are never violent. And if you ever hear anything like this again, please feel free to pop round.'

And then we talked a bit of shit. Jennifer made tea. And then he went home.

And all through this, I'm just thinking, 'Ugh. Abuse. Not necessary.'

This painting was made on my Toshiba Tecra M4 using ArtRage 2.5 with cheesy continental music piped out of a speaker above my head at Doppio Zero in Greenside.

What's up on the 'Praise Wall'?

What's up on the praise wall?, originally uploaded by royblumenthal.

This is another resource for teachers and trainers to make use of.

It's a pretty simple concept. And Jennifer has implemented it in her classroom. And it's working a storm with fourth grade kids.

Here's how it works...

The 'Praise Wall' is a pin board on the wall, with a header such as this painting. The class members are invited to get up at any time they like to write a note of positive praise for a fellow class member.

That's it.

Very easy. Very simple. Very elegant in the way the positivity becomes something addictive.

We're going to be observing whether or not the kids abuse the system. But so far it seems to be flourishing. And it's flourishing pretty much with the kids policing themselves.

I'm thrilled that the idea has taken off. And I hope it can live on in other classrooms. Maybe it's one tiny way that peace in this world might be promoted.

I made this painting in several stages. Firstly, it's based on a sketch from one of my Moleskine notebooks. Secondly, I messed around with the pic in Photoshop CS2, getting the layout right. Thirdly, I painted the lettering and colouring in ArtRage 2.5. Lastly, I did the texturing and finishing back in Photoshop.

What am I proud of today -- classroom poster

What am I proud of today -- classroom poster, originally uploaded by royblumenthal.

Jennifer, my girlfriend, teaches fourth graders. Lately, we've been chatting about how to enrich the learning experiences of the kids.

I'm in the habit of asking myself three questions every night before I go to sleep. I ask, 'What did I learn today? What did I contribute today? What did I enjoy today?'

I told Jennifer about the questions, and she thought it would be a good idea to start the school day off with a little one-minute meditation on a particular question.

So I'm making five posters for her to use. One for each day of the week. There'll be the three questions I ask myself. This one: 'What am I proud of today?' And a fifth one: 'How have I touched someone's life today?'

She'll be choosing three kids at random to share their answers with the rest of the class if they choose.

You're free to use any of these as resources in your own classroom or training situation. Please go ahead.

The resolution of this pic means it's cool to print it to around A2 with no hassles. It might even be fine up to A1. Enjoy!

And please let me know if you get any super results from this.

I made this painting in several stages. Firstly, it's based on a sketch from one of my Moleskine notebooks. Secondly, I messed around with the pic in Photoshop CS2, getting the layout right. Thirdly, I painted the lettering and colouring in ArtRage 2.5. Lastly, I did the texturing and finishing back in Photoshop.

Lifekludger first idea

Lifekludger first idea, originally uploaded by royblumenthal.

I'm busy designing a logo for Dave 'Lifekludger' Wallace. He mooted the idea during a podcast interview he did with me some time ago. (The Extraordinary Everyday Lives Show #029 - Roy Blumenthal)

I'm basically open sourcing my thinking, and inviting the internet community to offer me their thoughts.

This is my very first grappling with the concept.

Dave's brief is fairly simple. He wants the Lifekludger logo to evoke the idea that things can be converted from their original purpose to make the lives of dis- or differently-abled people easier.

One of his missions in the world is to generate change in the way things and environments are designed. He's a quadriplegic in Australia. And to him, access equals community. Denial of access equals enforced isolation. When an architect or designer makes something that is fundamentally unnavigable by a disabled person, that architect or designer is actively isolating the disabled person.

I'll get deeper into his brief in another post. And I'll also talk a bit about my thinking.

In the meantime, this is the first idea. And as all designers and inventors and writers know, the first right idea is not necessarily the one to go with. It's important to generate many ideas. Some have to be crap. Some will shine. But it's essential not to be too critical (positive OR negative). Cos that stems the idea flow.

This sketch was scamped up in ArtRage 2.5 on my Toshiba Tecra M4 tablet pc after a long bath.

2007-10-08 Rule No 1 for Freelancers -- Get the Purchase Order First

2007-10-08 Rule No 1 for Freelancers -- Get the Purchase Order First, originally uploaded by royblumenthal.

Here's a golden rule for freelancers...

If you're going to do work for a corporate client, simply do not put your butt in your car seat UNTIL you have a purchase order number. In the corporate world, a purchase order is as good as money in the bank.

In a recent gig I did, the client was a consultant who hired me to do work for his client. When I told him I need payment up front, he uhmmed and ahhed. Said that it was very short notice, and his client wouldn't be able to get me on the system quickly enough.

So I said, 'Okay, just this once. But I'll have my payment before month-end.'

'No problem whatsoever,' he lied.

I did the gig. And he simply stopped communicating with me. And it took some heavy action on my part to actually get payment out of him.

In the end, he's got a lot of egg on his face with his corporate client. And he might still find that he's going to have to do quite a lot of explaining to them about how shoddily he treated me.

But the lesson is this... get a purchase order number. Put it on your invoice. Invoice BEFORE the gig. And only then get your ass to the gig.

This pic started off in my Moleskine as pen on paper. It then got converted into digits via my HP Deskjet F380 scanner/printer/copier. And then my Toshiba Tecra M4 tablet pc and Photoshop CS2 took over in the colouring department, with me wielding the stylus.

Damon Berry of the Rising Sun -- Collage2

Damon Berry of the Rising Sun -- Collage2, originally uploaded by royblumenthal.

Damon Berry's a great buddy of mine. He's just finishing the tweaking of some of his poetry/song recordings, and he's going to release the album online.

Yesterday he gave me a call and said, 'Hey! There's an awesome art exhibition on at the Joburg Art Gallery! Wanna pull in?'

So Jennifer and I went along with him. And we took Jennifer's camera. And mucked around taking strange pics of each other in the gallery.

Because we weren't allowed to use flash, the pics were pretty fuzzy and out of focus. But they were pretty cool. And I decided I'd try and play with an unusual (for me) technique in Photoshop to get them looking groovy.

So here's one of them. It's for Damon's album cover art (if he wants it).

The way I made the two collages in this series was quite simple. I used the photo as reference. Then I used the lasso selection tool to hand draw paths, which I then inverted, and simply deleted unwanted bits of various found textures. Once I'd done the basic building of the image, I used various layer blending to mess with the colours and contrasts. Voila.

2007-10-03 Satisfaction in the Stadium -- mid res

2007-10-03 Satisfaction in the Stadium -- mid res, originally uploaded by royblumenthal.

David Bowie, Eric Clapton, David Gilmour, and Mick Jagger. All gathered in a happy, fantasy bonhomie.

This is a commission for Eduardo in Brazil. He's a dude who digs my work, and wanted me to do something special for his new apartment. He had a dream featuring these four characters.

So here's my interpretation of it.

I thought I'd nudge the recognition factor a little by punning on their names. I mean, how else is someone supposed to know that that's Bowie?

While I was painting this, it struck me that Bowie looks a heck of a lot like Robert Redford. And Clapton kinda looks a bit like Curt Cobain. But maybe that's just how my head works.

I prepped the references for this painting in Photoshop CS2, comping various things together to get the right composition. Then I worked all of the painting in ArtRage 2.5, and did all of my tweaking in Photoshop CS2.

2007-09-09 A Monday Night at AACA -- You Earn Quite a Lot

2007-09-09 A Monday Night at AACA -- You Earn Quite a Lot, originally uploaded by royblumenthal.

I scribbled the Moleskine base for this image a month ago at an Al Anon Adult Children of Alcoholics (AACA) meeting.

One of the women who shared told us about a male boss of hers who told her, 'You earn quite a lot... for a woman.'

That was in response to her asking for a raise.

I've actually been taking a break from AACA for the past month. I've been finding that the twelve steps not only don't work for me, but that they actively work against me.

I've been going for somewhere close to a year. And getting to know quite a lot of the personalities there. And my observation is that most people there are in a holding pattern. They're stuck in the misery of their current lives through a focus on the misery of their past hardships.

I don't see a hell of a lot of evidence of progress or growth. I don't see a hell of a lot of evidence that people are in therapy, that they're taking control of their own destinies. I see micro insights which seem to be snuffed out by the next session.

Naturally, these are my own observations, biased by my own particular worldview. I believe in the power of therapy, for instance. I don't believe in religion as an ordering force in my life.

At the same time, while I'm certain AACA is EXTREMELY valuable to many people, as it was for me at the beginning, I need to surround myself with growing people. Not people who seem to me to be holding themselves back. Cos I don't want to be held back by myself.

One of the things that typifies an adult child of abuse is that we tend to collude with other people's 'needs'. So, if a room of people 'needs' one to appear to be failing, an adult child of abuse tends to fulfill that need. Either by acting as if they are failing. Or by sabotaging themselves so that they ACTUALLY fail.

And while I'm certain that AACA people all WANT each other to succeed and flourish, there's an undercurrent created by the steps themselves that says, 'Thou shalt not succeed. It's not in the council approved literature.'

So I'm deeply ambivalent about it.

But I like the doodles.

This painting originated as a pen on paper sketch in my Moleskine. I scanned it, then coloured it in ArtRage 2.5 on my Toshiba Tecra M4 tablet pc.

2007-10-03 Geoff Mulling Over His Birthday Wine

2007-10-03 Geoff Mulling Over His Birthday Wine, originally uploaded by royblumenthal.

A friend of mine's boyfriend's father is turning 70 soon. So he zapped me on Facebook and said, 'Roy... how much would you charge to make a portrait of him in your own inimitable style?'

So we negotiated. A deal was struck. Money was put into my bank account.

And yesterday I used the reference pics he supplied to create this elaborate scene.

The reference pics were tight head and shoulder shots. Which I felt were a little bit bald. Not bald as in 'lack of hair'. Bald as in 'not really revealing much about the dude'.

Which is why I searched through my reference materials to find a decent setting. And I had Geoff engaging in one of his favourite activities... exploring the inside of a decent bottle of wine.

I sent it off to Jason, deeply confident that the second half of my payment would follow immediately, along with gushing praise. Sadly, it was not to be. (Actually, it's not that sad. It's an expected thing. In portraiture, the client almost always has something in mind. And when it doesn't match, the portraitist always expects to make changes.)

Jason said, 'Uh, uhm, uh, I don't know how to say this... but... it's not EXACTLY what we had in mind. We were really hoping for a tight head and shoulders shot. I'm so embarrassed'

'Hey,' I said, 'no need to feel embarrassed! It's a portrait. You're the client! I'll happily do another version.'

'Phshew,' said Jason. 'I really didn't know how to tell you that. Oh... by the way... can you make his head more round?'

Lessons to be learned...

1. Tell the client in advance that they're free to dislike the pic, and that changes will happily be made. This will avoid their feeling embarrassed.

2. When a client supplies multiple reference pics, and they're all tight head and shoulders shots, chances are they want a tight head and shoulders portrait, not a mystical scene on a beach.

So... this is the one that got away. The new version is sitting with Jason right now. I expect he's discussing it with his boyfriend. And I'll know what he feels about it soon enough.

In the meantime, this pic's out and about. Feel free to hate, like, love it.

This painting was made in ArtRage 2.5 and finished in Photoshop CS2. It started out in CorelDraw 10 as six reference photos all comped together to make a rough reference. The arm holding the wine bottle is actually from a pic I took of my own arm holding a bottle of balsamic vinegar.

Kessels Smit brains trust session -- questions that intrigue us

Jennifer Cosslett Question, originally uploaded by royblumenthal.

Jennifer and I attended a brains trust meeting this morning. She was there in her capacity as a newly elected member of the Ministry of Creativity in the Crawford Group. She's part of an elite team tasked with transforming the schools in the Crawford Group for the better.

Mark Turpin ran the event as part of the work he does with his learning consultancy, Kessels Smit.

He started off by splitting delegates into pairs, with this task: to talk about something great happening in our lives at the moment, and then to formulate a question that intrigues us.

I made pics of everyone's questions, paraphrasing them in my own words.

The morning was a huge success. As far as I can tell from the feedback, people felt energised, and much utility was enjoyed by all. Not to mention an incredible lunch prepared by Giselle, Mark's wife.

All of the paintings today were made on the fly on my Toshiba Tecra M4 tablet pc, running ArtRage 2.5, as part of my ongoing commitment to improving my Visual Facilitation skills.(All of the paintings are in the set.)

Using a tablet pc to make art

This is a recent post of mine on the ArtRage Tips and Tricks forum...

Here's my solution to the tablet pc angle conundrum...



In this pic, you see it configured for use on a tripod. That's why I have the artist's palette slotted in at the front. Normally when I'm at my desk, I don't slot the palette in. But the keyboard and mouse are standard accompanying dishes.



The tablet all alone on the easel is a bit lacking. I find that I need the keyboard for ArtRage keyboard shortcuts. And for easy entry of file names. Tablet entry works, but it takes too much time under pressure. The mouse is useful for navigating around outside of ArtRage. Things like web pages and such.



Here's a look at the two items side-by-side, showing the tablet in laptop mode, and the easel waiting for inspiration to strike.



I've sawn bits and pieces off the easel, simply to make it fit in my bag for when I fly to Visual Facilitation gigs. (http://snipurl.com/visualfacilitation)

I find that this configuration really suits my needs. And because it's all adjustable, it's very friendly on the neck and back.

If you look for a table easel, I would suggest good art shops. I've seen similar ones to these at Herbert Evans in Joburg. And I got mine from a fleamarket -- the Rosebank Fleamarket, to be precise.

Things to look out for...

o It needs to be portable, and therefore, foldable flat.

o It needs to have sticky-outy-bits that can be sawn off to save space.

o The BACK sticky outy bits need to be fairly long, specifically for when you have your angle closer to horizontal than vertical... the centre of gravity takes over at that point. DON'T saw them off! And be sure to test it with your tablet pc BEFORE you purchase or saw anything.

o Light and small are your friend if you're lugging these things around to coffee shops and onto planes like I do.

Tags: artrage, tabletpc, tablet pc, art, easel, illustration, royblumenthal, roy blumenthal, blumenthal, coffeeshopschmuck, visualfacilitation, visual facilitation, graphicfacilitation, graphic facilitation

Intense 'crash test' -- ArtRage survives -- with some tweaks

Here's a post I recently offered to the ArtRage feedback forum...

I recently stumbled into becoming a visual facilitator. It's a field that requires real-time live capturing of people's ideas in a meeting or seminar.

The visual facilitator basically sits in the room capturing the content of the session, interpreting it visually.

Some visual facilitators use traditional art-making tools. I use my tablet pc, with ArtRage 2.5, with a video projector hooked to my machine, displaying my stuff in-progress on the back wall of the venue.



I have now done four sessions, two of them for money. And I can tell you, it's a pretty intense way to spend a coupla hours. Relentless. Hard hard hard work. And ArtRage is really tested to the limits.

Here are my responses to the package:

1. Freaking excellent!!!!! It works like a bomb! And I am SO happy to have discovered this package. ArtRage... you are the ultimate!

2. I see people's jaws hanging open in amazement as they crane their necks round, watching the screen, then watching me. They LOVE what they see.

3. Because of my ability to make incredible pics using ArtRage, the work is really just flooding in. From 0 to 100 in seconds, actually. Brilliant. Thanks, ArtRage.



Here's my working setup:

1. I'm using a pretty underpowered tablet -- the Toshiba Tecra M4, with 1.73gHz single core Centrino processor, 1 gig of ram, a 60gig onboard harddrive, and a 160gig USB2 external harddrive.

2. I have ArtRage 2.5.1.6 open at all times. Possibly two or even three instances of it. Cos sometimes I have to prepare a picture that will be used later in a session. And I need that open so I can flick back and forth at will.

3. I have Firefox open at all times, along with a 3G dashboard, allowing me constant mobile web access to be able to hunt for and download reference images as needed. Firefox is a memory slut. And it consumes WAY too much of my processor power for my liking. I'm thinking I'm going to have to reconsider the Firefox side of things.

4. I have Bluetooth switched on all of the time, cos my current easel means I don't have access to the switch. I take reference pics of speakers using my cellphone, bluetooth them across, and import them into ArtRage. Another bit of memory hogging.

5. In ArtRage, I have a few high res templates set up. These have a base layer of metallic coloured paper with a custom texture. I also have two images on separate layers acting as filters. One sits just above the base layer, adding colour and tone to the canvas. The other sits right at the very top level, and stays there, adding colour and texture to the painting layers I'm doing. Both of these layers have blending turned on. A memory hog, I suspect? I need this because I'm working live. My images are projected onto the back screen, so people are seeing it as it happens. I can't wait till the end of a pic to apply the blends and so on.

6. My images are fairly high res. Cos my clients all want to be able to print the final pics out at A0 size. Which means I'm working at 3508 x 2479. (This is a PowerPoint aspect ratio, cos I also have to save pics to memory stick for presenters to slap onto their own PowerPoint presentations.)



Now, let's look at some of the things that I've observed in terms of performance:

1. ArtRage is very slow in switching from layer to layer. It's ULTRA slow in applying blending options. If I had a more powerful machine, I would have Photoshop open all the time, and slap an image there to experiment with blending. But I can't. So I HAVE to use ArtRage. But it takes WAYYYYYY too long. Two things that need fixing... a. I need to be able to use the down and up arrows to go through each blending option. b. I need blending to be fast. Ultra fast. As fast as Photoshop. In fact, I need ArtRage to give me the option of using Photoshop's blending engine, instead of the built-in one. At least, that's what I THINK I need. What I reallllllly need is speed. Tons of it.

2. Exporting to Photoshop is too slow. I would prefer to be able to allow ArtRage to give me the option of saving ALL files as Photoshop native, rather than ArtRage. This would allow me to hit save (cutting out steps in between), close ArtRage, open Photoshop, do whatever I need to do in Photoshop, close it, and immediately open ArtRage again. With no intervening steps. Those steps add minutes to any swap. I don't HAVE those minutes in a visual facilitation scenario. It's time pressure like I've never dealt with before.

3. The 'transform layer' tool is brilliant. But the interface isn't friendly to this time-crushed practitioner. And it's WAY WAY WAY WAY WAY too slow. I would so prefer the traditional Photoshop/Corel interface... the marque with arrows on the corners. And it HAS to work faster. It takes around 20 seconds for me to resize a pic. Another twenty to see a rotation. Etcetera. This is one of those areas where I wish I could flip seamlessly between ArtRage and Photoshop. Photoshop is super fast at this stuff. ArtRage is super slow.

4. There is no tool in any package I've worked on to date that beats the ArtRage palette knife. Having said that, the palette knife in the 2.2 version gave me way better results. The new version doesn't offer me a tool that does the same thing. I realllllllllllly want the old tool back. It was way better for what I need. In one of the modes, it also behaves really slowly. I make a stroke, and it takes a good twenty seconds to show progress of the stroke.

5. I neeeeeeeed neeeeeeed neeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeed to see the full file name on screen at all times. It HAS to appear somewhere. This is something I actually can't do without. When I'm working hard and fast, cranking out six to ten paintings in a 3.5 hour period, I HAVE to know which file I'm on. Or I risk painting over one of the sessions I've done. This is critical. It's a red flag update, for me.

6. I spontaneously create multiple layers. Cos I'm capturing stuff in real time, I often paint something too big, and need to resize it later. Then capture the next thing on another layer, and resize that later. Which means that I end up with, say, six layers, that will ultimately become one layer. I would like to be able to do as in Photoshop.... select ALL SIX layers, and merge them down to one layer in one operation. The layer merge tool is ultra slow in ArtRage, and needs some attention, I feel.

7. One of my key needs for flipping between Photoshop and ArtRage is to move components around, getting the layout and design of my incredibly fast sketching into shape. ArtRage offers me no fast way of doing this. Photoshop does. But the two just don't see eye to eye fast enough for me.

8. Please bring back the space bar for moving the canvas around. I need it. The right click is faulty in two significant ways... a. It has a significant lag on it. b. Whatever tool I'm on when I press the right button to drag is active for a split second. When I'm erasing, for instance, there will be a single LEFT click that somehow happens on the erase tool as it engages with the drag. So a hole is left in the surface I'm moving. Same happens with the magnifying tool, the roller, and the brush. This has to be fixed. Both by fixing the right click functionality. AND in bringing the space bar back as the moving tool.

9. There is a significant tool-engagement error, that reallllllly irritates. It happens like this. I'll click, say, the magnifying glass, and start enlarging the screen. But because of the lag, the magnifying glass doesn't engage, and it stays on the tool I was on. So, if that was a brush, I'll end up with a streak of paint across the screen. It it was an eraser, I'll erase a swadge across the screen. When I'm painting, and I lift the brush, putting it down often doesn't engage the brush. It kind of seems to require TWO clicks. The first click makes it neutral. The second click engages the brush again. This didn't happen in 2.2. It's happened in all of the 2.5 versions so far. I really hope I'm explaining this one correctly.



Thank you, ArtRage and ArtRage-makers:

Having said all of this, I really want you to know that I LOVE ArtRage. And I've simply gone into clinical detail about these things cos I can. Cos I've tested it under seriously hardcore conditions. And if you look at my Flickr gallery of images created under these conditions, you'll see that ArtRage shines. http://snipurl.com/visualfacilitation.

Tags: artrage, visual facilitation, visualfacilitation, graphic facilitation, graphicfacilitation, art, painting, illustration, roy blumenthal, royblumenthal, blumenthal, coffeeshopschmuck

Roy's Visual Facilitation Travel Trunk

Roy's Visual Facilitation Travel Trunk, originally uploaded by royblumenthal.

This is pretty much the equipment I use when I do a visual facilitation.

I've prepared this pic as a checklist for myself when I head out on a gig. It's also a basic equipment list for anyone wanting to try their hand at using digital tools to do visual facilitation.

Clearly, it's not definitive. Rather, it's what works for me, and may work for you.

This pic started off life as two separate entries in my Moleskine. I scanned the pics, then stitched them together in Photoshop CS2, eliminating bits and pieces that didn't fit.. I then zapped it into ArtRage 2.5, and played to my heart's content., until the colouring felt right to me.

A surprise visual facilitation I did -- 06 -- 'Keys to Measurement'

06 -- Keys to Measurement, originally uploaded by royblumenthal.

This session was a short one, and it focussed on the fact that measuring performance and success isn't just about the hard numbers. It's also about what goes on in the hearts and minds of the people.

My final session for the morning. And then I was dashing to the airport, couriered by Jennifer, to make my flight to Maritzburg University to run a workshop on industrial theatre for the drama department.

This painting was made entirely live during the morning session of a seminar at the Sandton Convention Centre. I worked on my Toshiba Tecra M4 tablet pc, using ArtRage 2.5 painting software. You can hire me as a visual facilitator for your meetings, functions, events by calling me on +27 74 104 6386. You can also email me on royblumenthal@gmail.com.

A surprise visual facilitation I did -- 05 -- 'How Do We Change'

05 -- How Do We Change, originally uploaded by royblumenthal.

Another breakaway session. In this one, people at the tables came up with ideas on how they could change the company for the better.

This painting was made entirely live during the morning session of a seminar at the Sandton Convention Centre. I worked on my Toshiba Tecra M4 tablet pc, using ArtRage 2.5 painting software. You can hire me as a visual facilitator for your meetings, functions, events by calling me on +27 74 104 6386. You can also email me on royblumenthal@gmail.com.

A surprise visual facilitation I did -- 04 -- 'Boss Said So'

04 -- Boss Said So, originally uploaded by royblumenthal.

The CEO of the company stood and spoke. And basically said, 'It's not good enough to use ME as an excuse for anything anymore. You can't say, "The boss said so" anymore. Because I'm saying something different.' He also gave everyone in the room his cellphone number, saying, 'If you need my help, phone me.'

This painting was made entirely live during the morning session of a seminar at the Sandton Convention Centre. I worked on my Toshiba Tecra M4 tablet pc, using ArtRage 2.5 painting software. You can hire me as a visual facilitator for your meetings, functions, events by calling me on +27 74 104 6386. You can also email me on royblumenthal@gmail.com.

A surprise visual facilitation I did -- 03 -- 'Identity'

03 -- Identity, originally uploaded by royblumenthal.

This session was all about personal transformation being a cornerstone of corporate change. The key being to know oneself.

The facilitator, Ian (pictured appallingly poorly by me), got people to reflect on the high and low points of their lives, along with the emotions they felt during those times.

This painting was made entirely live during the morning session of a seminar at the Sandton Convention Centre. I worked on my Toshiba Tecra M4 tablet pc, using ArtRage 2.5 painting software. You can hire me as a visual facilitator for your meetings, functions, events by calling me on +27 74 104 6386. You can also email me on royblumenthal@gmail.com.

A surprise visual facilitation I did -- 02 -- 'Groundrules'

02 -- Groundrules, originally uploaded by royblumenthal.

After the introductory session, a 'ground rules' discussion happened. Each table came up with their own ideas, and nominated spokespeople delivered them to the group.

This painting was made entirely live during the morning session of a seminar at the Sandton Convention Centre. I worked on my Toshiba Tecra M4 tablet pc, using ArtRage 2.5 painting software. You can hire me as a visual facilitator for your meetings, functions, events by calling me on +27 74 104 6386. You can also email me on royblumenthal@gmail.com.

A Surprise Visual Facilitation I did -- 01 -- 'Some Objectives'

01 -- Some Objectives, originally uploaded by royblumenthal.

Last Thursday, as I popped my tripod and easel into the overhead stowage on my plane back to Johannesburg from my Somerset West graphic facilitation gig, my phone rang.

It was none other than Michelle Caldeira, MD of Blue Moon. 'Roy,' she said, 'would you mind if I gave your name to someone to do graphic facilitations? He used to use the cartoonist we use, but he's no longer in Joburg. I love the stuff you've been doing recently, and I want to know if you're keen?'

Of course I was keen.

So when I landed in Joburg, it was most pleasant indeed to be phoned in the car back. Jennifer was driving, so I was free to take the call.

'Ian Paterson here,' said the caller. 'Michelle said you're keen to do some graphic facilitation with me?'

Which is how I came to be ensconced in a typist's chair at the Sandton Convention Centre, scribbling paintings at a furious pace on Monday morning.

I made seven paintings all in all, but I'm only showing six. The six I'm showing have been 'anonymised'. I've taken any and all information off them that could lead anyone to discovering the identity of the company I was facilitating for.

This painting was made entirely live during the morning session of a seminar at the Sandton Convention Centre. I worked on my Toshiba Tecra M4 tablet pc, using ArtRage 2.5 painting software. You can hire me as a visual facilitator for your meetings, functions, events by calling me on +27 74 104 6386. You can also email me on royblumenthal@gmail.com.

Maritzburg Varsity 18-09-2007: How Do We Stop HIV/AIDS in a Mine?

Maritzburg Varsity 18-09-2007: How Do We Stop HIV/AIDS in a Mine?, originally uploaded by royblumenthal.

Once the groups had grappled with the problem of what exactly makes something 'industrial theatre', I set up another topic.

I asked the groups to shuffle, and chat about this question: 'How do we stop HIV/AIDS in a mine?'

I asked the group to imagine they were a writer in a meeting with a producer. The producer told them that the job they had to come up with a solution for was this...

A particular mine is losing 30 employees per month to AIDS deaths. This is specifically linked to the presence of a compound of prostitutes on the perimeter of the mine. These prostitutes offer their services without condoms.

The brief is a real-world example of a brief I've been faced with.

The World Cafe discussions were really energizing for the groups. They were grappling with something that writers in my position have to solve in a day or so. And they were pretty deft in their thinking.

I also had a bag of goodies that my buddy Graham at Blue Moon provided for me. But the highlight of the day came when one of the students asked, 'If I were interested in DOING industrial theatre, in BECOMING a practitioner, what would I DO? How would I GO ABOUT IT???'

I had mentioned before that companies like Blue Moon are NOT industrial theatre companies anymore. Sure, they DO industrial theatre, but only as part of a MUCH bigger plan. The buzzword phrase is 'integrated communication'. But I'm doing a lot of intensive work with Blue Moon, and to them, it's not a buzzword. It's real.

So the highlight came when I pulled out a string of 'tickets' to stardom in the world of integrated communications...

The tickets were actually Graham's business cards. They're printed in the form of actual tickets. And they come in a perforated tear-off strip.

It was a feeding frenzy. I did mention that Graham MIGHT consider one or two of them for future internships. And I certainly did mention that Graham didn't want to get flooded with calls. Even so, the response was amazing.

So... uh... sorry, Graham... you're gonna get a bunch of calls, I think. Hehehehehehehehe.

As usual, I made this painting using ArtRage 2.5 on my Toshiba Tecra M4. Thanks to Veronica and Janet for arranging my flight, my accommodation, and my stipend. Huge appreciation! Thanks guys. And thanks to Graham at Blue Moon for his graft in getting a bag of goodies together for me.