ZIMM

2011

Drawger Annual 2011

NOVEMBER 17, 2011

One of the cool things about being me is that every year I get to have the Drawger Annual all to myself for a while. It's like my own private show. I get to sit here and watch all the good stuff arrive and for a short while, it's all mine!

Eventually, I have to share it with everyone else. It's a bit sad, but I have to let it go.

Actually, this privileged position is probably the only thing that's cool about me, come to think about it. But still I still think it makes me pretty darn cool.

This year I worked with the remarkable Katherine Streeter on the poster. She gave me all these amazing options and then left it up to me to decide which one to use! I think she's a bit cruel like that, to tell the truth. It really wasn't fair, I tell ya! How do art directors even work with this woman? It was like trying to pick a perfect apple from a tree of perfect apples!


I hope everyone enjoys the show this year as much as I have already! I really hate to let this one go, it was so nice to have it all to myself.

Drawger Annual 2011

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Topical: At Drawger  

The Museum of Forgotten Art Supplies

NOVEMBER 10, 2011

Once hosted here at Drawger, Lou Brooks (with a bit of help from me doing some weekend and after-hours programming) has brought The Museum of Forgotten Art Supplies back!

Do the right thing: Here it is

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Topical: Props  Whatever  Seen  

The illoz Lugnuts!

SEPTEMBER 11, 2011

Every year, illoz sponsors a fall baseball team and this year, it's the T-Ball (ages four through seven) LUGNUTS! Woo hoo! I didn't get the official illoz logo in on time for the shirts, but what the heck do the kids care? They don't give a whip about no logo! They just wanna play ball!

The fall baseball season here in Western North Carolina is a big deal, folks! In just the age-group of four through ten there are almost 300 players! That's a lot of kids getting remarkably dirty!


I can't stand for stoic team photographs. Baseball is a kids game and the only point is to have way too much fun, as far as I'm concerned. They've got plenty of time to look serious later. At this age, it's just the coaches that shouldn't look exactly normal.
 

Why I'm involved in this:  Adults have an uncanny ability to ruin a good time for kids, especially when it comes to sports.

Looking to have the fun sucked out of something like baseball? Invite an adult, for sure.

If I had the money to build a baseball park where adults where not allowed, I would build it immediately. Adults, let it be said, are the worst thing that ever happened to the great game of baseball, so says me.

When kids are young, the crowds are huge. The player pictured left had his entire extended family show up for his season opener. Aunts, uncles, grandma and grandad, sisters and brothers all attended and cheered him on as he proceeded to hit no balls and never reach base. But, he had the crowd on his side, cheering him and his team on at all times!

It's an odd and rather sad state of affairs, but as they grow older, they're lucky to have one parent, or even a best friend show up to cheer for their team.

The kid in the picture (left) seems to know this sad truth already... or else he just doesn't like me!


Close to the LUGNUTS field is a hill where the team likes to assemble and collectively stare into space. Once there is enough of them on the hill, they  seem to spontaniously decide to run down that hill together, with complete abandon.

Remember when running down a hill was the best fun ever? That's why the illoz  name is on the shirt!

I had to be quick to get the photo above. The LUGNUTS don't waste any time when fun is to be had!


Thanks to everyone at ILLOZ for helping to cheer on the fabulous LUGNUTS this fall season! Above pictured is the true field of dreams, as far as I know.


Backwards in illoz baseball time:

The illoz Angels, 2008
The illoz Orioles, 2009
The illoz MudCats 2010
 

AT&T U-Verse SMTP for your email addresses outside of ATT.net

JUNE 13, 2011

KINDLY NOTE THAT this article is out of date and UVerse and Yahoo apparently finally fixed their lousy stuff. Glad it was usefull while it was.

The masterminds at AT&T U-Verse have gone to a great deal of time and expense to provide their valued customers with comprehensively incorrect information regarding how to send a non-ATT.NET email through the SMTP provided at smtp.att.yahoo.com. If you use your own email address such as me@mybusiness.com and have landed here, you are not insane, even though you probably want to bang your head against the wall at this point. You have just been supplied with remarkably bad information by your new U-Verse support.

Here is the fancy version of the incorrect information regarding sending your emails though smtp.att.yahoo.com. Here is the more pedestrian and also completely useless instruction  page for sending through smtp.att.yahoo.com. The useless information I am linking to is for Outlook Express. For incorrect information regarding other email agents, find the link for "personalize your support".

If you call U-Verse support on the phone, they can not help you because they don't know how to set it up themselves. If you are reading this in the India U-Verse support basement and want to actually help the clueless and deeply frustrated individual on the phone who you are trying desperately to make go away, please read the following to them, word for word:

Here is actually how do it:

Go to: http://att.net

You will land on the unholy marriage portal of Yahoo! and AT&T.

In the top right, look for "Hi, please sign in" (this will probably change soon because it is so vague and absurd, so if it's not there look for some way to log in). Click those login words.

Your user name is the email address you gave yourself at ATT.NET when the friendly person came to install your U-Verse equipement. Your password is the password you assigned to that ATT.NET email address. If you do not know this crucial information, you are most-likely without hope at this point and should probably just forget about it and give up.

After logging in, do not click on the MAIL button because that would be WAY too obvious.

Instead, click on Member Center (as of January 2013, this link has been moved under the MORE button up top, to make this process even more confounding).

Then, because this thing really is just awful, log in again! Same credentials as before.

Now, under the "Contact Information" area on the left, click on "Update Contact Information".

You will see your ATT.NET email address on that page and a tiny little link under that for Add Email. Click that.

Add your actual email addresses in there.(me@mybusiness for example).

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Note that if your email address starts with "admin" such as admin@mybusiness.com, then Yahoo! and AT&T will reject it. I have spent three hours on the phone with them trying to correct this error on their part with no result. It would take any decent programmer about 20 seconds to correct this pitiful error-checking mistake on their part. More evidence that this thing really is remarkably terrible.
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Check your email and confirm it through their ugly but effective confirmation email thing.

After confirming your email address, you can now add that email address to the outgoing authentication in your mail agent program (Outlook, IMail..whatever). All the other information that U-Verse supplies after this is correct, including secure port numbers (465 for outgoing SMTP port). However - you need to use your own ATT.NET email address and password for the secure STMP login.

Oh, one more thing...AT&T instructs you to use outbound.att.net for your SMTP settings. Remarkably, this is incorrect. Instead, use: smtp.att.yahoo.com

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If you work for AT&T U-Verse and are reading this and have finally corrected your bogus instructions, please post a reply stating: I'm sorry I wasted all of your time trying to figure this out and we really are a miserable service.

If you found this to be helpful, tell me. If anything I said is wrong, tell me. The internets are chocked full of bad information and I don't want this to part of the problem.

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My CMYK Birthday Present

MARCH 18, 2011

March 7th, CMYK Magazine #49 went to newstands as some sort cruel birthday gift for me. The editors decided to subject their readers to illustrations (if you can even call them that) I happened to have banged out when I was still doodling for dollars, back in the before-time, before the continents had drifted apart, before the ice receeded to the poles. Without my permission, even. Imagine that. 'Oh, here's a hack job that Zimm did for Mountain Dew that was obviously done under extreme duress because he simply needed some cash and didn't care where it came from. Let's print that! Wait, wait, here's a stunningly meaningless turd that Zimm did on a hangover for the 'Got Milk' campaign. Print it? Heck yeah! Ask his permission? Why bother!' Imagine the joy in the seeing these reminders of hackery and despair in print once again. Thanks CMYK! I usally hate my birthday anyway!

Where did CMYK find these forlorn relics, these dried-up left-overs from the salad days of illustration (people would buy anything back then, I tell ya)? On my largely forgotten website that even I haven't looked at or updated since the internet was discovered. A cruel reminder to all you people who haven't updated your sites in years. Just keep in mind, somebody might actually publish that crap without even asking!

Backstory: Ronald J. Cala wrote me an email some time back to inquire if I would write something for the magazine. I wrote it, sent it in, decided I  hated it, then asked that it not be published. Well, truth be told, I told Ronald J. that I didn't like what I wrote when I happend upon him at this years' AI Party, so he probably forgot. It's the only thing I remember distinctly from that night, so I know these things happen.

Happily: My article, along with the editors largely mis-informed (who the heck has time to call and get it right these days?) introduction, is sandwiched between articles featuring Scott Bakal and Yuko Shimizo. It was nice seeing my friends, at least!

 

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