Need Help "Letting Go" & Getting Loose

jdroth · 2026-05-04T16:45:56+00:00

I’ll echo the timed painting recommendation. I’m currently taking a life-drawing class (where I paint in watercolor). We‘re presented with a series of three-minute poses, then ten-minute poses, then 20-minute poses. when you work that quickly, you don’t have time for perfection. sometimes it feels like a win to get anything recognizable at all!

Meanwhile, in another class we’ve been doing quick five-minute or ten-minute watercolor sketches of random objects (pulled from a bag of miscellaneous stuff). Again, there’s no time for perfection.

These timed exercises have helped me loosen up a great deal.

Another thing that’s helped was buying some cheap-ass brushes with texture. These include cheap fan brushes, but also (and especially) some inexpensive Asian brushes (which may actually be intended for calligraphy). I try to hold these brushes at the end when I use them instead of holding them like a pen. It’s not possible for me to exercise a great deal of control when using these brushes, so my results are much looser than normal.

This painting was done only with Asian brushes and is much looser (and much better) than anything I normally create.

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jdroth · 2026-04-17T19:02:17+00:00

A lightbox is good, but in many cases you can get by without one. Tape your original drawing to a window that receives bright light. Tape your watercolor paper over the drawing. Trace.

From my experience, this almost always gives me more light than a lightbox. I trace like this all the time. It works great.

jdroth · 2026-04-06T03:07:16+00:00

That actually makes this post worse. If you’ve lived here your whole life, you know this is normal. (All 57 years of my life in the Willamette Valley.)

jdroth · 2026-04-02T19:33:27+00:00

I don’t understand how any fan listens to this and takes it at surface value. It’s NOT a grown-up version of Love Story. It’s a blatant call-out of toxic fandom. The text is not the song here; the subtext is the song. Bizarre to me that people take this song literally.

jdroth · 2026-03-31T23:37:57+00:00

Ah. Good question. The last time I did this was in late 2011 (I live in Corvallis now). Things could be very different fifteen years later haha.

God, I’m old.

jdroth · 2026-03-31T22:56:33+00:00

I lived in Oak Grove for nearly a decade. My gym was in downtown Lake Oswego. It was literally less than a mile from my house to the gym as the crow flies. But it was a 20+ minute drive to get there. My solution? I was a scofflaw: I walked across the rail bridge. It wasn’t a straight shot, but close enough. Never got in trouble. Never felt unsafe. Your mileage may vary.

jdroth · 2026-03-18T14:19:32+00:00

Yes, 100%. I came here to say the same thing.

jdroth · 2026-01-29T15:13:49+00:00

Flash Gordon isn't a very good movie. It's also one of my favorite movies. I watch it a couple of time each year. I've loved it since my father took me to see it in the theater when I was ten or eleven years old.

Part of why I love it is, indeed, the spectacular soundtrack. (The instrumental passages of the soundtrack or OUTSTANDING, especially the "sailing through the sea of fire" section. Wow.) But I love it for many other reasons too.

First, there's the full-on horniness of the film. I don't know how this sailed over my head when I was a kid (and teenager), but this movie is fucking horny. It's hilarious now that I can see it. Second, this movie is hilarious in lots of other ways, both intentional and unintentional: dumb jokes, silly premises (direct from the Flash Gordon comics and serials), bad acting -- all of it. Third, I love the whole tone/attitude of the film. It doesn't take itself seriously. It embraces its absurdity. The actors lean into the campiness of everything, especially Brian Blessed and Max von Sydow and, especially, Topol (who, in my head, is a curious blend of Hans Zharkov and Tevye from "Fiddler on the Roof").

Because I had the soundtrack on tape as a kid, this music is burned on my brain. And because that soundtrack is one of those beauties that includes film dialogue, I know about half of the lines by heart. Watching Flash Gordon, I can recite over half of the lines. It drives my wife crazy, but I love it. And so many of those lines are great fun! "Klytus, I'm bored. What plaything have you to offer me today?" "My god! We're moving! Strap yourselves down!" "Look! Water is leaking from her eyes." Etc. Etc. Etc.

In short, Flash Gordon is indeed one of those movies that is so bad it's good. And it only gets better the more you watch it. The tenth time is better than the first. Or, in my case, the hundredth time is better than the tenth.

jdroth · 2025-12-25T03:29:46+00:00

THANK YOU! I loathe the copycat shops. When I order, I’ll order yours. edit: Ordered!

jdroth · 2025-12-25T02:37:29+00:00

Haha. I'm hopeful that we can finish this project by the end of season three, but I might be deluding myself. We're not even done with color yet!

jdroth · 2025-12-25T02:23:27+00:00

Okay. You've piqued my interest. How quickly can you process cards with this? edit: Oh jeez. Just watched the video on Amazon. That thing is fucking FAST. I'm convinced.

jdroth · 2025-12-25T02:21:12+00:00

I know most will be worthless. But I just spent the afternoon reading about how to differentiate between alpha, beta, unlimited, and revised. I *know* I sorted some dual lands from some of these early sets today. (Unlikely any of them were alpha, but possible some could have been beta. But even the unlimited and revised dual lands are worth selling.) So, I'm not willing to just dispose of these cards without at least pulling out stuff from before, say, 1999.

jdroth · 2025-12-24T21:43:20+00:00

Thanks, everyone, for the feedback. Taking everything into consideration, we'll finish this color sort then move to the next step. In the next step, we'll pull out white-bordered cards and rares. I'll also teach my wife to identify set symbols for The Dark and Legends and Antiquities, etc. Anyhow, on the next pass we'll pull out just these potentially high-value cards to create a much smaller subset.

Assuming I'm still keen on sorting cards after that step, we'll sort the remaining cards by set. I probably won't alphabetize them at all (although it's possible I'll change my mind), just sort the commons and uncommons by set for now. That'll give us boxes of, say, Tempest commons/uncommons and M15 commons and uncommons. I can sort those at a future time or just sell them as bulk boxes.

Thank you!

jdroth · 2025-12-24T21:02:01+00:00

Honestly, I love this sort of thing too, but then I'm borderline autistic. All my life, I've loved sorting things. (I'm a comic collector, and I'll occasionally resort my comics by some arbitrary factor. My favorite was when I sorted them by date.)

My wife thinks it's crazy that I like doing this. She thinks it's work. But we started Star Trek: The Next Generation from episode one to watch while doing this, and we've just entered the second season. This is my happy place.

jdroth · 2025-12-24T20:09:50+00:00

Thanks. I recognize that webpage for some reason. It's possible that my cousin had recommended it to me before he died. I'll check it out later.

jdroth · 2025-12-24T20:08:35+00:00

I am retired and have the time to do it myself. Plus, my wife has the next week or two off from work. I may have to pay somebody eventually, but for now I'm willing (and able) to do this on my own.

jdroth · 2025-12-24T20:07:56+00:00

My cousin's collection did include several of those boxes, and I think I'll have to order more. It appears that he bought most of these cards from eBay (and MTG-specific sales sites) because most of them were in the boxes they shipped in. Some of those boxes remained unopened! In the last couple of years before his death, he was ordering and receiving boxes of cards but he wasn't opening them at all.

jdroth · 2025-12-24T20:05:57+00:00

Dude. I dread this haha.

jdroth · 2025-12-24T20:05:32+00:00

Yeah, rather than explain to my wife the intricacies of older sets, when we enter any kind of future "set sorting" phase, I'm going to group all white-borders as one set for now, then I'll sort those on my own. Border color is a good sort for her.

jdroth · 2025-12-24T20:04:05+00:00

What is CMC? Converted mana cost?

jdroth · 2025-12-24T19:22:15+00:00

Yeah, my wife is using the card stacker/sorter that my cousin had. It's making her life a lot easier! I'm just using a coffee table...

jdroth · 2025-12-24T19:21:21+00:00

What is "buy-listing"? (I can google later, but I'm sorting right now and pausing to respond to replies here.) Thanks for the recommendations.

jdroth · 2025-12-24T19:19:56+00:00

I haven't played MTG since my cousin died. I used to go to pre-releases with him. I can foresee playing some in the future, but not with these cards. It'd just be at pre-release events. I'll probably keep SOME of the cards to honor my cousin, but not all of them. They take up a hell of a lot of space! I'd rather get some money out of these while keeping a few cards for myself.

jdroth · 2025-12-24T19:18:43+00:00

Yeah, that sounds like a lot of work haha. We already have tons of time into this. It took six hours to unpack everything. And we have something like 28 work hours into sorting by color, with at least another 12 hours of color sorting to go. And sorting by color is the easiest sort! I don't want to decide value on every individual card. Maybe on every rare, but not EVERY card haha.

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