My Standup Set From Last Night’s “Say Everything,” The Talk-show-esque Pub Comedy Show Where I’m

Bell “Gallows-Frame” telephone 1875

Alexander Graham Bell's original telephone prototype used a single magneto-based device as both transmitter and receiver.  The user spoke into the single orifice, and put the device to their ear to hear the response.

The device, which gets its nickname from its elegant mahogany frame, was the first with which Bell demonstrated transmission of voice-like sounds.  Intelligible speech would be transmitted by Bell with a redesigned unit the following year.

Acrylic on canvas, 7x5″.  From my series of paintings of historical telephones.

Going through my pin collection, I unearthed a "The Hunger Games" mockingjay which I'd purchased in darker times.

I like it a lot more now that I've given it a Woody Woodpecker paint job.

Me as world-renowned and universally-beloved superhero, Italian Spiderman. Unfamiliar?  Watch this, read this.

Thrift shop clothes: $8

Fabric paint: $5

Cut-up cat mask: $6

Bagged wig: $10

Dodgy pornstache: model's own

Unlimited admiration and caffè macchiato from every woman who happened to glance in my direction: senza prezzo

Photo by Sidepocket

Some more captchart.  The 1963 Wostro, the herpderpiest automobile the swinging sixties and a wonky captcha had to offer!

Public domain source images: 1 2 3 4 5 6

I’ve long tried to do something creative every day if possible, whether it be something huge and refined or a small sketch I throw out and never think of again.

For 2016, as I focus on getting myself back into a good creative place after a very difficult 2015, I’ve decided to try and make a project out of daily doodles.  Here’s Day One, a 10-minute MyPaint self-portrait.  I hate doing self-portraits and timed drawing, so what better way to push myself out of my comfort zone a bit?

Last Tuesday I worked as an election inspector, which meant a long shift sitting in the gymnasium of the grade school I attended in the early 1980s.  It was a slow election, so I had ample time to look around the place and trip out on nostalgia.  I sketched this on my lap in short bursts over the course of the day.

I remember being fascinated as a kid with those basketball nets, specifically the collapsible framework of pipes and cables which held them to the ceiling.  At the start of first grade gym class we were usually directed to sit in a group on the floor under one or another of the nets, and they always seemed impossibly huge and heavy hanging above me.  I imagined they could fall down and squash me at any moment.

The basketball nets were noticeably less forboding this time around, but still interesting.

Pencil on paper, 8x10".

A fascinating fact about the latest Doctor Who trailer.

Support the WHOFAX Kickstarter!

Hello!  I've been painstakingly replicating the TARDIS Key as used by the Eighth and Seventh Doctors in the 1996 Doctor Who TV movie.  Now you can buy a 3D print of it or, if you have access to the proper gear, download my file for free and print your own.

The key prop used in the film was an official TARDIS key replica available at the time from 800-Trekker, a now-long-defunct scifi memorabilia catalog, under license from the BBC in the early 1990s. The 800-Trekker key was a unique design largely based on TARDIS keys used on-screen by the Third and Fourth Doctors in the 1970s, but with many noticeable differences from those TV props. Rather than design a new TARDIS key for the 1996 film, the film's prop department just bought a supply of those keys from 800-Trekker and made them the canonical key design used by the Seventh and Eighth Doctors in their movie.

The newly-canonical 800-Trekker keys became very popular with fans, but had already been out of production and in limited supply by the film's release. They were also made of a very soft pewter which scratched and bent easily, so very few good copies of the Trekker key remain in circulation today. I happen to own one of the Trekker keys, ordered myself from the catalog around 20 years ago. Armed with calipers, 3D software, and a desire to replace my prop (which has begun to show noticeable wear, despite my best efforts to preserve it) with something more durable, I modelled this key based on it.

So, you can now order 3D prints of this key in a variety of metals and plastics right here on my Shapeways shop.  (Shapeways, for those unfamiliar, 3D-prints users' designs in a variety of materials on industrial-grade printers.)  What's more, if you have your own access to 3D-printing gear (or you'd just like the 3D source file to play with) I'm sharing that file freely here on Thingiverse so you can hack and print it yourself.

Add a wire loop and chain to wear your key in style, or just hide it in a cubbyhole above your TARDIS door.

Thanks for looking!  Please feel free to ask any questions you may have.

Sometimes upon encountering a captcha the obvious captchart gag comes immediately to mind, and won't leave one alone until one finds the right photos to 'shop.

Public domain sources: 1 2

Tim Berners-Lee (b. June 8, 1955)

Sir Timothy Berners-Lee, also known as TimBL, is an English computer scientist who invented an information management system which we know as the World Wide Web. He serves on several organizations dedicated to developing and maintaining the Web as the resource most visible to Internet users today.

Acrylic on canvas, 5x7″.  From my September 2015 set Luminaries of the Hacker World.