Sade

Spent the day painting elf faces before going to the gym It is remarkable that I hate edge highlighting so much, that not only did I decide on a color scheme for the razorwing to procrastinate on it, but I also apparently would even rather paint faces than do edge highlighting. Next thing you know, … Continue reading "Elf Faces"

Maybe Later, a local graffiti artist whose colorful work can be seen throughout the city, recently tagged up the awning above the old Muddy Waters coffee shop on 24th St and Valencia with a giant piece that says “Catalyze”.

The artist also shared a playlist of 9 songs along the southern edge of the awning:

• The Cramps- “You Got Good taste”
• The Pixies- “Isla De Ecanta”
• Dead Kennedys- “Pull My Strings”
• Pinch Points- “Reasons 2 Be Anxious”
• Misfits- “Astro Zombies”
• Mike Sarne- “Hello Lover Boy”
• Dionysos- “Coccinelle”
• The Oh Sees- “Devil Again”
• Homeless Cadaver- “Art. Eat It.”
• Kate Fagan- “Come Over”
• Beastie Boys- “Body Movin”

I’ve created a playlist on Youtube Music of these songs. You can find that here: https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL1g-GXFBtDQc3bYL_OYZNnQGIccS2ujQK&si=–sWsTpiqabM_ikX

Here’s another great piece by Maybe Later on Mission Street.

Fantastic new piece by Maybe Later on the awning of the old Foxy Lady boutique on Mission Street. #SFGraffiti #Graffiti #SanFrancisco #MissionDistrict #MaybeLater

— Doctor Popular (@docpop) 2024-07-06T18:37:16.259Z

The post Maybe Later’s graffiti playlist appeared first on Doc Pop's Weblog.

/2025/01/16/mexico-city.html

I think I finally need to get a new laptop. My old trusty ASUS is 15 years old now, and is getting weird (I suspect hard drive). And then I fired up my “new computer” as a backup, only to find that it is from 2015. So it might be close to time. But I … Continue reading "Computers and Elves"

I’m always on the hunt for new music and have really been loving the music of ShyGodwin. ShyGodwin is a grunge-metal duo from Philly. Their riffs are heavy, and their lyrics get stuck in my head for days. “New Enemies” is a great song to start off with:

Their full discography is available on Bandcamp, and their website, shygodwin.com, is worth visiting too for some weird and retro vibes.

The post ShyGodwin rocks! appeared first on Doc Pop's Weblog.

Thinking Machines

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The Night Parade is an annual event put on by Raining Chainsaws in celebration of the winter solstice. Anyone can join, but bright lights and/or puppets are highly encouraged. The parade started in Precita Park and walked down to Dolores Park. I think there were about 600 folks in attendance (just a guess). It happened a few weeks back, but I wanted to share some pics and videos from the event.

The event was a blast in spite of the rain. It was a great way to meet other folks in the community, and it was great to hear how much joy it brought to other folks on the street, many of whom joined for a block or two.

On a separate note, 2024 was one of the deadliest years for pedestrians in the past two decades. Cars are getting bigger, and drivers are less attentive, which makes it suck for going out for walks or grabbing a bite at your neighborhood restaurant. The streets just suck now for everyone outside of a car; hell, the two of us nearly got run over by a car running a red light as we were crossing the street… and we were wearing blinking lights and LEDs, kind of hard to miss you if you are actually paying attention. Cars are killing our city (pun intended), which made this year’s Night Parade feel so special. On the eve of one of San Francisco’s deadliest years for pedestrians, hundreds of friends and neighbors went out for a walk. It felt empowering.

Until we walked back home alone again and remembered how many cars park on the fucking sidewalk in our neighborhood.

The post The Night Parade in San Francisco appeared first on Doc Pop's Weblog.

I had started working on the other minis’ armor highlighting and details specifically to procrastinate on making a decision on how to color bird-guy’s bird (how to color the Skysplinter Assassin’s razorwing). But after 4 elves, I was so sick of armor highlights that I actually painted the bird to avoid more armor. Bird-guy’s bird … Continue reading "Bird-Guy’s Bird"

Producing…

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We went up to Humboldt last week to visit family, and had a lot of fun! We only just got back.

It’s been a long time since I’ve watched the animated classic Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, so I was happy to watch it again as an adult. My favorite part was the Island of Misfit Toys, where all the unusual toys go instead of being given as gifts. I was particularly rooting for the bird who couldn’t fly, so I was happy to see him again at the end of the movie… Until I saw an elf shoving this flightless bird off of Santa’s sleigh from high up.

I made a video about it:

That elf just murdered that bird, right?

One slight correction to the above video: the animated Rudolph film is actually 60 years old, not 80.

The post That Elf Just Murdered That Bird appeared first on Doc Pop's Weblog.

Shrine of the Silver Monkey

/2024/12/28/december-shenanigans.html

I wore my suede jacket to the beer garden today, but it started raining on my way biking back home. It was raining about a half hour earlier than expected, alas. I took shelter under some awning and waited for a break in the rain And a break did come! I was halfway home and … Continue reading "Suede in the Rain"

First snow of the season, on the solstice

I’ve blogged about Matsu’s graffiti before, but I wanted to share another big batch of tags they’ve put up recently. I’m a sucker for character tags, and I love seeing these mushrooms pop up around our neighborhood.

Matsu has also shared some rad wheatpastes in the area too. When World Coin, a seedy crypto company started by Sam Altman, started promoting their BS in our neighborhood, Matsu covered it up.

Both of these were put up illegally, but I’d rather look at mushrooms than ads for a financial scam.

The post More Matsu In The Mission appeared first on Doc Pop's Weblog.

/2024/12/19/thanksgiving-in-minnesota.html

Started getting the base colors down for the little plastic elves

The Bay Area Dungeon Crawl was a night of dungeon synth music at the Knockout in San Francisco. Dungeon Synth is a type of electronic music that blends elements of black metal, dark ambient, and old-school electronic music. The scene is kind of nerdy, but very sincere. It reminds me a lot of the old chiptune shows we used to put on in SF. Both genres are based around a love of games and have a sort of lo-fi sound to them.

Here’s some footage I shot at the show:

Kudos to Edge Of the Wild Records, a local dungeon synth music label, for putting the show together. And props to Knockout for keeping San Francisco weird. Here are links to all the local dungeon synth bands that performed that night:

PSYCHIC LABYRINTH by Magick Creature FORWYRD by FORWYRD Sands and Scrolls by Emberwilde The Wounded Desire by Wood Archer Lothlórien by Frogknight Horizon Leap by Minimal Starfield Traversing the Frostspire by Frostvale

The post Dungeon Synth at The Knockout SF appeared first on Doc Pop's Weblog.

July 1936.

There are betrayals in war that are childlike compared with our human betrayals during peace. The new lover enters the habits of the other. Things are smashed, revealed in new light. This is done with nervous or tender sentences, although the heart is an organ of fire.

A love story is not about those who lose their heart but about those who find that sullen inhabitant who, when it is stumbled upon, means the body can fool no one, can fool nothing — not the wisdom of sleep or the habit of social graces. It is a consuming of oneself and the past.

I like to keep an eye out for cool shapes during my walks and use them as inspiration for my #SidewalkFriends drawings. It’s like my version of hunting for Pokémon.

A friend had a long stay in a hospital recently, so I didn’t have as much walking around as usual. I did see an unusual toilet in their hospital room, though, which inspired today’s Sidewalk Friends sketch: The Astronaut Cyclops.

Today’s #SidewalkFriends sketch was made while visiting a friend in the hospital. I didn’t get to see as many cool sidewalks as usual, but was oddly inspired by this fancy toilet.

— Doctor Popular (@docpop) 2024-12-04T18:06:44.687Z

The post #SidewalkFriends: The Astronaut Cyclops. appeared first on Doc Pop's Weblog.

Spicy meatball

An audio version of this post. Read by the author.

I’ve found a few great Mac apps this year that have really made a big impact on me. I’m sharing some of my favorites here, but I also wanted to give a shout-out to the Hiro Report, which is probably how I found half the apps here. Okay, lets go.

Yoink For Mac – $8.99 https://eternalstorms.at/yoink/mac/

Yoink is like a little shelf for your files. Rather than copying/pasting files, you can drag them to Yoink’s “shelf” on the side of the screen, then grab them when you are ready. It’s really hard to describe the use case for Yoink, but I really can’t overestimate how useful it’s been for me personally. Along with making it easy to grab files and move them somewhere else, Yoink has also solved a ton of other problems that I never would have expected. For example, I like to upload videos to social media, but if I drag a video file from iPhoto onto a webpage, it often ends up as a static jpeg instead of a video. In the past, I had to drag the video onto my desktop, then drag the desktop file onto the website, and then delete the video from my desktop. Now I can drag the file into Yoink, then drag it back out into a webpage, and I don’t have to worry about filling my desktop with unnecessary videos.

CompressX – $19 https://compressx.app

CompressX is a quick and easy way to reduce video and image file sizes. I use this tool a lot when sharing media to Mastodon or my own website. Gotta keep them file sizes small. Similar to Yoink, CompressX has an area near the edge of your screen where you can quickly drop any file and have it compressed. The developer is very active in maintaining this tool and it’s a one time purchase. There’s a Black Friday code for 30% off this weekend. Use code: BF24

Croissant – $19.99 per year https://croissantapp.com/

If you have multiple social media accounts, Croissant is a smooth way to simultaneously post to Mastodon, Threads, and Bluesky. Unfortunately, this tool is only available on iPhone, which is a shame because I’m most often posting from my laptop. Writing posts on my phone stinks, and the price is pretty high (a recurring monthly charge of $2.99), but Croissant is a real lifesaver if you are posting alt-text on multiple images and don’t want to have to repeat the process on different platforms.

OpenVibe – free https://openvibe.social/

Speaking of multiple social networks, OpenVibe is a tool that puts all of your social media into one single feed. It works for Mastodon, Bluesky, Threads, and Nostr and is available for Mac, iOS, or Android. I know a lot of folks complain about there being “too many social networks,” but I honestly think “too many” is a better scenario than “one big social network that can be bought and ruined by a stupid fucking billionaire.” I’m on all the social networks for now, and I think a tool like OpenVibe can be useful for creating a centralized feed from uncentralized sources. Since OpenVibe is free and it allows you to create one post and share it across multiple social media platforms, it’s probably a good alternative to Croissant.

Paprika Recipe Manager– $5-$30 https://www.paprikaapp.com/

Paprika is a recipe app that my friends were raving about, so I picked it up on sale. If you like saving recipes you find online, this is a great tool. If you drop the URL of a recipe into Paprika, it will save that recipe into an easy-to-read and consistent format. I bought the desktop app and the iOS app because I often save recipes from my laptop but then refer to them on my iPhone while I’m cooking. I can’t say I’d pay the full price for the desktop app (normally $30), but I think it’s worth picking up for $15 on sale. Paprika is available on Mac, iOS, Windows, and Android and is currently on sale for about 50% off on all platforms.

Procreate – $12.99 https://procreate.com/procreate

I really can’t say enough about this art app for the iPad. The developers have kept the price fair while giving the users what they want and promising to never add any gimicky AI tools to it. I’m really happy to support developers like this and I can’t recommend Procreate highly enough. A bargain at $12.99.

Affinity – (on sale) https://affinity.serif.com/en-us/

Speaking of developers I support, Affinity are awesome. After years of watching Adobe rip-off their customer base, I finally decided to find alternative tools to all of my Adobe tools. Affinity makes wonderful art apps for Mac and iOS. Plus, they respect their customers! Switching tools isn’t easy, but once you learn how to use Affinity’s tools (Designer, Photo, and Publisher), you’ll be glad you switched. You can use them on your iPad or Mac pretty seamlessly, and there are no recurring fees. They are currently running a 50% sale, so pick them up now and ditch Adobe. I haven’t used Photoshop in over a year now, and I’m never going back.

Non-app (honorable Mentions)

Tourbox – $78-$270 https://www.tourboxtech.com/en/shop/

Tourbox is a standalone input device for creatives. It can be used for drawing apps, music tools, photo editing, etc. It’s like a miniature keyboard that was designed specifically for the programs you use most often. I mostly use mine for editing videos in CapCut. Tourbox has an app that you can use to create customized keyboard settings for any program. I’ve set mine up specifically for the way I like to edit videos. It works so well that I can easily edit videos without ever using my actual keyboard. I can scroll through the video, zoom in and out, splice, cut/paste, play/stop, and more all from the Tourbox. If you use one program a lot, you’ll really enjoy having a customized keyboard like this. If you only use apps for short periods, this may not speed up your workflow as much. I own a TourBox Elite, which is the cheapest of their Bluetooth models, but the Neo is a good deal if you don’t mind using a cable. The TourBox Elite Plus is an upcoming unit that can be used with a laptop or iOS, which could be useful in combination with artist tools like Procreate or Affinity Design on your ipad. All TourBox devices are currently on sale at 20% off.

Wrapping up

Those are my favorite apps of the year. Most of them are made by independent developers and I’m really happy to support them. Few of them are even free. If you have suggestions, maybe something I left off, please drop them in the comments below. I’d love to hear them, especially if they’re Mac or iPad, because that’s what I use, but feel free to share the love for anybody who you think deserves it.

And I wanted to mention, nobody asked me to share a link for them, and there’s no affiliate links. These are all genuine recommendations of apps that I love and have been using a lot this year. Not just on Black Friday.

The post my favorite Mac and iOS Apps 2024 appeared first on Doc Pop's Weblog.

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I tried Max Miller’s 1919 recipe for pecan pie that doesn’t use corn syrup, but I decided to make it into little tartlets instead of a whole pie because that is easier to transport and store. They were a hit! I would definitely make it again, it is more custardy and less cloyingly sweet than … Continue reading "Pecan Tartlets"

Gobble gobble

I like to keep an eye out for cool shapes during my walks and use them as inspiration for my #SidewalkFriends drawings. It’s like my version of hunting for Pokémon.

Some wild clouds on Thanksgiving morning inspired this Sidewalk Friends sketch of a giant turkey taking revenge on our neighborhood.

I spotted these cool clouds this morning and used them as inspiration for a quick drawing on my iPad.

Btw, I think the same clouds could work for a Phoenix drawing, like in San Francisco’s flag. If anyone wants to draw that, feel free to use any of these photos as CC-BY. #Turkey #procreate #Thanksgiving #SidewalkFriends #94110

— Doctor Popular (@docpop) 2022-11-24T19:19:12.417Z

The post #SidewalkFriends: Dia Del Turkey appeared first on Doc Pop's Weblog.

I started a heretic playthrough of Rogue Trader and I have to admit it has been altogether more unhinged and, dare I say it, chaotic than even I had anticipated. I just really wanted to see what all was different in a heretical game. And I was surprised that it was pretty much different right … Continue reading "Heretic things"

I’ve been using my denim pen wrap a bunch lately and thought I’d share some pictures. I made this wrap back in 2008 and it has had a lot of use in the past 16 years. I used to make a lot of denim objects like this when I was a tailor at Self Edge. My denim wallets still get a lot of use too.

The post Denim Pen Wrap, 16 Years Later appeared first on Doc Pop's Weblog.

Let us pray

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A few months ago, I wrote about Hit Em’, a novelty musical style inspired by a musician’s dream that went viral on social media.

Following the post’s success, Drew Daniels and MachineDrum announced they were accepting submissions for a compilation of Hit Em’-style tracks.

It’s been a long wait, but that compilation is out now, and it’s fantastic! Find it on Bandcamp, Youtube, and streaming.

Thank You, Dream Girl. by The Tabula Rasa Record Company

The genre started off with an inside-joke, but there really are some inspiring moments hidden within. It’s interesting how self-imposed limitations can push creativity in unexpected directions.

Interestingly, Thank You, Dream Girl isn’t even the first compilation of #HitEm-style tracks—another comp, Disposable Heroes of Hit Em, came out back in August. Both compilations are worth exploring.

Disposable Heroes of Hit Em by Various

The post “Thank You, Dream Girl.” – a new compilation of Hit Em’ style tracks appeared first on Doc Pop's Weblog.

I’ve begun assembling little plastic elves D:

Words from the risograph

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After having so much fun working on the The Fediverse Files series, I’m excited that Automattic has asked me to make more of these fun videos for their social media channels. It’s so rewarding to produce fun videos on topics I’m passionate about—like the open web, DIY ethos, and silly puns—that feel right at home on WordPress.com’s social channels. My latest videos dive into the world of cooking blogs: how to create them and why they all seem to follow the same recipe ( hey look, a pun). Check them out below!

If these videos piqued your interest and you’d like to learn more, you should also check out these new articles on WP.com’s blog:

• Why Your Favorite Recipes Come with a Side of Story
• Why a Recipe Plugin is the Secret Ingredient for Your Food Blog’s Success

For anyone curious, I am a contractor with Automattic, not an employee.

The post Cooking Up More Videos for WP.com appeared first on Doc Pop's Weblog.