Blink Kitty Love

NOTE FROM HQ

Howdy.  Welcome back.  First, Happy Year Of The Water Dragon.  May it bring you(and yours) health, prosperity + happiness.  Have been drawing Water Dragons as immersing myself in the Chinese zodiac animal of the year is how I recenter myself artistically. I started in the Year of The Water Horse, and the dragons are reminding me a little of that.  Doing them digitally with Autodesk's Sketchbook (bargain of a program) on my iPad. Instead of buying paint, paper or pens this year, I acquired a refurbished printer from Canon that did a good job of printing out the first batch.  

 

 

 

Next step:  to distibute them to family + friends.  I like that part of my Chinese New Year tradition.  It's a chance to reconnect with the people I like to talk to.

Music I've been listening to:  Joan Jett's Up Your Alley.  Really enjoying her cover of Chuck Berry's "Tulane" and "You Want In, I Want Out" still holds up as the reason I bought the album.  That and the cover.  On a pop note, happy Selena Gomez's "Love You Like A Love Song" has resurged on the radio.  Love the video.

Comic-wise, loving Demon Knights, Legion of Monsters and looking forward to Night Force so seem to be in a fantasy/monster mood. Except the Jughead, Kevin Keller, Archie and Kiss habit. Betty or Veronica?  Have an opinion? And back on monsters:  does anyone else want the Criterion Godzilla or at least a poster of the cover?

Have been posting regularly on the new Blink Kitty Love Signs of the iApocalypso art Tumblr.  You need to be checking in there, or following the fun on @blinkkittylove, which will get you everywhere Blink Kitty Love you need to be.  

I'll leave you with my latest two dragons, one cartoony, one not so and my thanks for stopping by.  Soon, back to tongue twisters or some other silliness.  Stay tooned!

 

 

 

A CONCERT WE AGREE ON

Joan Jett (Happy Birthday!) is trying to reclaim the verb "to rock" for rock and rollers*. This is a cause we can support.  So we've stopped using it as a general description of cool things and begun using it as a very specific description of the wonder of Joan Jett.  She so capital R-O-C-K-S rocks, her concert was awesome and now we have a lot of songs to look up, listen to and download.  And a t-shirt and maybe a hoodie to buy.  

Joan Jett at the York Fair, September 13th, 2011.  Jett made us laugh, sing, shout, smile and dance.  And looked like she was having a blast the whole time.  One of the best parties we've been to:  we had a great time, everyone around us had fun and the music continued excellent all night.  Joan Jett rocks enough to personify the verb and can do it again in our vicinity any time she wants. Please.  

 

And the songs we can't get out of our head?  Here goes:

 

Ty   mood: pushing the speed limit

"Hold tight (hold tight) hold tight for the ride of your life
And the lovers go by so fast
Here it comes, here it comes feel it comin’
Backlash backlash backlash"

"Backlash" Joan Jett and The Blackhearts

 

Tinker  mood:  singing it loud because it's fun, darn it

"Talking's fine
If you got the time
But i ain't got the time to spare
Yeah"

"Do You Want To Touch Me (Oh Yeah)"  Joan Jett and The Blackhearts

 

TK  mood:  can't pick one and won't admit to either

"Ah, now I don't hardly know her 
But I think I could love her
Crimson and clover"

"Crimson and Clover"  Joan Jett and The Blackhearts

"I love playing with fire
And I don't wanna get burned
I love playing with fire
And I don't think I'll ever learn"

"I Love Playing With Fire"  Joan Jett and The Blackhearts

 

Tammy   mood:  too many moods (aside:  you can say that again)  (also:  please don't) (and yes:  talking to self, I know)

"Can't stay at home, can't stay at school
Old folks say, ya poor little fool
Down the street i'm the girl next door
I'm the fox you've been waiting for"

"Cherry Bomb"  Joan Jett  

*and we quote Ms. Jett, from a Jackson Free Press interview by Neola Young:  

"We use "rock" as a verb, and everybody's rockin'. Everybody's rockin', and they're rockin' the dress, and they're rockin' this. I'll tell ya, for me, it's kinda sickening. Rock means nothing. It doesn't hold what it used to hold in the '70s. It's a dead word.

How can you influence taking back the word, what it means? 
I don't know. I don't think you can. It's just, you just have to go out and do it and hope that you get people to notice and go, "OK. That's what rock means." You know, everything comes and goes in a cycle, and soon enough the word will fall out of favor, and there'll be another word used and then the word "rock," "rock 'n' roll," "rock star" will take back the original meaning."

 

And a few more pictures:

• 
 
• 
 
• 
 
• 
 
• 
 
• 

 

Thank you Joan Jett!

HISTORY + HOLLYWOOD

We're still feeling like we need a step away from cute, so here's a very cool hoodie with historical intent from Declaration Clothing Company.  We've decided that a modern super heroic type would use this shout out to America's founding principles as the base layer of an outfit, topped by a kicky jacket and a navy watch cap w/ a red and white star/stripe combo -- then add cargo pants (pockets for cool crime fighting gadgets!!!) and kick ass made in America boots.  Inspired?  We are. 

 And with President's Day coming up, we direct to you to Declaration's blog, where you can catch Today in Revolutionary War History posts.  Here's George Washington's victory at Trenton.

 One of our favorite freedoms is the freedom to be goofy and this fun Michael Buble Hollywood video is just that.  We want a stunt budget.

KICK SOME...

Shirt o' The Week:  Be Formless, Shapeless* by Zerobriant at Design By Humans.  We've loved the flow and power of this design since we first saw it.  We like shirts that make us want to go out and do something kick ass.  As soon as this one arrives, it'll go to the top of that list. 

 

 

Speaking of kick ass:  Nadia G of Bitchin Kitchen has a quickie Valentine's Holiday special posted.  To quote our favorite TV cook and quipster:  "Serve with love or french fries whatever."  That's our kind of Valentine's sentiment.

 

*we ordered ours so you can use our 10% off code:  2TPGN1

Friday I'm in Love T-shirt update:  Received shirt from Threadless, lots of ooky loooking black spots in the print where it looks damaged and/or like it has a pox, the art image on the Threadless site did not look that distressed so we sent ours back, with sadness and a demand for the return of our monies or a better print.  And then we played the song even LOUDER.

 

And no, we don't care if Monday's blue.

ALL ABOUT EWE (AND OSCAR)

No, that's not a misspelling and we're not having a special Monday Shirt o'The Week post to annouce we've started watching Bette Davis movies.  What we are here to tell you about is the simple, funny and available for a limited time Ewe Boat shirt by JadenKale, artist and Tilteed curator.  Yes, we simply love puns and whenever we play Settlers Of Catan, we are harassed for how much our strategy involves hoarding sheep (Tinker's little brother likes to invent habits we don't have.)  But mostly, we're showing you this because every time we think about it we laugh.  Thinking...yep, still laughing.

Yes, easily amused. It's our middle name. And yes, still laughing. 

As for crushing, we're back to burgers.  And 5 Guys.  And french fries.  

 

Nothing beats natural lighting. If you haven't tried 5 Guys yet, you should find one. They're amazing and affordable. Our burger buddy, @KristynBurtt, frequently taunts us with pictures, sending us heartlessly out into the cold to cure our craving. And then we throw french fries at her.   And kudos to the aforementioned, french fry dodging @KristynBurtt, who is starting her Oscar coverage odyssey for Star Pulse and Mingle Media TV tomorrow. We're looking forward to some inside information. Who are we rooting for? Natalie Portman, Tangled (with a vote or two for How To Train Your Dragon), Colin Firth (Tammy doesn't care what he does, she just cares that he's Colin), Inception (Tinker likes the cinematography), Amy Adams (Ty always a fan) and we're really annoyed that the Joan Rivers doc was skipped over -- although to be fair, we haven't seen it yet, but we like to be unreasonably annoyed about something every once in awhile. Be glad it's not you. Also, Diane Warren's "You Haven't Seen the Last of Me" which allowed Cher to have the best song in a movie where she was not the best singer. Show stopped, hand over award. And we did like the job Pharell Williams did with the Despicable Me score -- fun and fresh.

PROHIBITIONS

Shirt o' The Week:  We are amused by this Regan Smith Clarke manifesto t-shirt.  And we want to start collecting $50 from people, starting with Seth Rogen, The Green Hornet's writer and Seth Rogen, The Green Hornet's executive producer.  We figure Seth Rogen, the actor, did the best he could with the material he was given.  So drop that $100 in the pizza fund, Mr. Rogen, and we might forgive you.  Especially if someone has the sense to release the original TV series on DVD.  We didn't consider Green Hornet a total loss: Jay Chou had the easy charm and physical grace we like to see in our heroic crime fighters so we might consider taking a chance on a Kato spinoff.  

Speaking of easy charm + physical grace, our local Blockbuster is closing down so we wandered through looking for bargains.  And guess which movie star had the most movies on the wall:  Jackie Chan.  Movies we love (Drunken Master), movies we've never heard of (Gorgeous) and so many of each kind.  Wow.  See, Mr. Rogen, if you want to know how to do action, funny and (we guess you were going for) manly and bromantic -- watch the Rush Hours and take notes.  

Video:  P!nk is always out there taking video chances and we love her for it. So while her latest isn't as much fun as some of her others*, "F**kin' Perfect" is our video tip for the week.  Pass it along. 

 

* Our favorite (and the one we quote most) is So What.  "I'm still a rock star/I've got my rock moves" is how we summon our superpowers.  You?

 

 

SAMURAI CRUSH

Shirt o' the week:  Timbercat from Le Grand Cru.  Because we like cats + unusual colors and it looks refreshingly angular.  @LeGrandCru confirmed on Twitter* that the color is peach.  We guessed pink.  Peach makes the shirt even tastier (not that we eat t-shirts, although it would solve some storage problems).

And right now we're crushing on a guy named Reiner Knizia because we can't keep our hands off his iPad games.  First up was Money (the closest we get to the stuff) a bidding and matching game against AI players.  We don't win a lot yet but we're working on it.  And last night, wonder of wonders, Tinker's little brother stopped by and we downloaded Knizia's Samurai and spent the night passing the iPad from hand to hand and trying to claim buddhas, peasants and warrior helmets.  Really fun, except for Mr. Yellow Computer Guy who kept sneaking victories.  We're about to go downstairs for another go.  The Money app is based on a physical card game, so whether you're iGaming or just having friends and family round the table, Knizia seems to have a game to challenge you.

 

*follow us on Twitter; it's where we have all the best conversations.

Video tip:  Anjulie's Boom (Boom about covers it. If you add a wow.)

 

NEW CRUSH + SHIRT O' THE WEEK

The Crush:  Nadia G of Bitchin Kitchen.  Yes, she rocks the kitchen, our world and makes burgers that look like this (graphic lifted from her site):

 

And so you don't miss us too much, we're going to do a shirt o' the week.  Remember, none of you are kicking into the pizza fund regularly so you won't be seeing fancy, expensive shirts, but we think the sites we frequent give value for money.  And make great shirts.

The Shirt:  So this week, it's cmdixon2 at Goodjoe with The Last Straw.  We'd like to wear it when we hit the movies over the weekend, but we'll have to wait for a couple of weeks to do that.  We're still hitting the movies though.  Which movies?  Tammy's opting for Black Swan and popcorn, Ty and Tinker are excited about The Fighter and munching on Reese's Pieces and TK, well, honestly, TK's seen Tron: Legacy too too many times (although we did hear a rumor he'd been spotted tearing up at a Tangled screening or two -- and not just during the dying parts.)  TK's snack of choice:  whatever's leftover in his jacket pocket from the last time.  We don't ask to share.

The Last Straw:  

 

And have you seen Joan Jett in The Eyeliners' "Destroy" video?  It's one of our 2010 favorite moments. 

Happy New Year.  Stay safe.  We wish you good times + good friends.

THE BLINK KITTY LOVE BLUES

OUR FESTIVAL MIXTAPE

A mash up of scenes from a day (or three) in the life of Blink Kitty Love: