xmascard 03: credits
- And we thought last year was bad...
- Bad Santa was in the
air this year with the B movie by that name starring Billie Bob Thornton that
drew a bit of fire from conservatives for its poor taste, mostly excessive
foul language. But it was the bearded Saddam photos that hit the
internet/print media December 14/15 that inspired our theme with a real life
bad Santa who clearly redistributed the wealth of Iraq to the naughty list
while contributing a lot of misery to the masses.
- Uncle Sam was a natural partner. Few people understand the
incredible
numbers in the simple bar graph comparing the US military budget to the entire
rest of the world. The Center for Defense
Analysis run by former military people provides the
data.
- And it doesn't take a genius to conceive of George Bush as another Bad
Santa. A Stop the Looting ad from the activist internet group
Moveon.com provided with the right image
for utilizing this idea in the card graphic lineup.
- The shark character from the hit Disney Pixar
movie
Finding Nemo (the frequently smiling
head of the "Friends of Fish" Club) provided the opening Bad Santa model for
the first of the mandatory bob sketches that make the card unique, with
positioning just right for the teeth to show through the address windows on
the envelopes.
- Queer Eye
for the Straight Guy premiers on Bravo TV
and becomes a huge hit. We're big fans. It was only natural that someone would
think the haggard Saddam
emerging from his hole in December would be a good candidate for a
makeover.
- The Santa Mole was apparently a little sketch done during grad school at
UC Berkeley, now part of the
dr bob cd sketchbook
lifetime collection of scanned dr bob sketches that bob gives away for free to
the few people he suspects might be receptive candidates, or to anyone who
asks for it. Our on-line
cookbook (also on the CD) fell under the category of food blog
(contraction of "weB LOG") this year as another internet word entered our
vocabulary.
- Bob finally finds an excuse to buy the Pottery Barn Kids Clancy
the bear that bob took a liking to and repeatedly visited in 2002. [Made by
"Gotta Getta Gund", the world's most
huggable stuffed bears and other animals since 1898.] For
another nephew less
interested than bob in stuffed bears. But this did not make the cut for the
Christmas card.
- Bob and ani buy their first DVD player for 50 bucks. We'd be willing to
pay much more if the labor that produced it was treated fairly.
- Using nephews/nieces as an excuse, bob buys his first DVD movie:
Finding Nemo, which inspired the Bad
Santa Shark (Bad Shark Santa?) drawing.
- Ani buys the Tony Little Gazelle
exercise machine from the Home Shopping Network for a hundred bucks. Bob is
skeptical but agrees to keep an open mind. Then pilates seem to come out of
nowhere and ani goes picks up the Winsor
pilate DVD's from the same source and moves
on, leaving bob as the Tony Little enthusiast. With continued borderline high
cholesterol numbers looking at increasing age, the
Lipitor threat moves into view, providing
the incentive. Who needs a livelong addiction to pharmaceuticals if you can
avoid it?
- December 7, "a day that will live in infamy..."
December 8, The Day After. The Medicare Reform Bill of 2003 becomes law.
Another
bait and switch from the compassionate conservatives. Unfortunately John
le Carre's powerful essay on Big Pharma [In Place of Nations, April 9, 2001]
at The Nation is not available free
from its archives.
- This summer we finally got our trip to Rio
courtesy of a general relativity conference
MG10. The photos don't
do the city justice. It is remarkably beautiful with its rounded hills and
beaches. This gave us the excuse for a side trip to Buenos Aires to visit
ani's long lost relatives.
- Mine Ener was a caring giving person loved by all who knew her, whose
academic career was devoted to the politics of the poor in the Middle East.
Bob had the pleasure of just barely getting to know her through helping her
with the web pages of the
Center for Arab and
Islamic Studies at Villanova University that she was the director of for
the past couple years. Her tragedy with her newly born daughter Raya was truly
sad and shows the continuing failure of our society to be able to deal with
mental disorders and personal hardships, and to provide the proper support and
care to those in need. Her loss has impacted so many, especially with the
promise she had to help make a small difference in the world.
-
- Printing instructions (for web card)
Microsoft products are a constant source of frustration. Last year we had to
resort to physical cut and paste to get the photocopy template for mass
production since no amount of tweaking would make the webpage version print
out correctly. This year after a tedious battle, we got it to work for at
least one browser: MS Internet Explorer 6.0 with side margins of 0.5 (left)
and 0.25 (right) and top and bottom margins of 0.25 inches [but side margins
of 0.4 (left) and 0.35 (right) inches for the back side], after deleting the
default header and printer (with no apparent way to restore the ugly code that
produces them other than writing it down on a Post-it for later restoration!
what were those folks at MS thinking?).