Puny Project

We're researching Puny Entertainment for the team project in my Organizational Behavior class. When we were planning MIX I had a hankering to create comics, and all this is making me want to make something (our craft shows have a mild contributing effect but at this point they're sort of background noise).

We visited their temporary studio space in Minneapolis and interviewed Vincent Stall (a.k.a. King Mini) about what makes Puny tick. Then I've been reading about folks like Julia Vickerman (who does animation for Yo Gabba Gabba in the LA office) and Erin Pearce (voice of Toodee & miniature landscape artist). I love creative people. They're so... creative.

I'm especially intrigued by paper cutting right now. Stay tuned for the inevitable experimental craft project!


Happy Valentine's Day! XO, Etsy from Etsy on Vimeo.

Craft'za: coming soon!

Totally Binomial

I always learn better if I can apply my lessons to video games. As warned by our professor, I am finding lots of real-world opportunities to use tools from our Statistics course. One of those was in the Facebook game Outernauts (a.k.a. Space Pokémon).

Part of the game involves battling creatures, which you can capture and collect. When you attempt to capture a new beast, the game will tell you the probability of success. Today as I repeatedly tried (and failed) to capture a monster I wondered: what are the odds that I really have a 39% chance of success (as the game claims), given that it took me over seven attempts to capture?

This is a job for the Binomial Distribution! It turns out that the probability of zero successes in seven attempts  is 3.1%. Suspiciously unlikely, but I ended up successfully capturing it on my eighth attempt, so this story has a happy ending.

Statistics Comix

(click the pic to embiggen)

Of anything, I never would have guessed that my Statistics class would inspire another Bob the Golfer comic, but here we are. Maybe the collegiate atmosphere of UST has rekindled the desire that drove me to create this strip from high school through undergrad; who knows? I saw the gag and I went for it.

"I already know that!"

 Natalie is in a know-it-all phase. We could tell her that she was adopted, that Jenna is pregnant, or that she is getting a pony for Christmas, and the response would probably be the same: "I already know that!" Or sometimes, "mama told me that already!"

Natalie started her second year of preschool in the fall and is taking dance class. She is a good big sister. She has an invisible friend named "Cora." She has a pet caterpillar named "Silly Cad" (it's silly because it won't eat the leaves Natalie gave it). Every night after bath time, I wrap her in a towel "cocoon" and she turns into a beautiful butterfly.

Paisley is a cuddler. She is mobile now and scoots around on her butt very effectively. It appears likely that she will skip crawling altogether. Her hemangioma is shrinking but that eye is slightly astigmatic. Since she's bound to need glasses anyway, this is not really a problem.

Jenna's grandma died :(

Paisley is one year old!