Introducing... Focus!

I was chatting online with Steve (rootbeer1) yesterday and he came up with the idea for a superhero with specific powers. Like usual, I got the costume colors, design ideas, etc., and sat down and drew out a superhero while watching TV last night (keeping Steve's good looks in mind for the hero, of course). Steve came up with the code-name "Focus" and together we settled on the final touches for the hero late last night. The toon and his power description are behind the cut due to size:

( Work Safe Toon -- Introducing Focus! )

Snow Day Number Two

I watched and heard the falling ice yesterday, seeing my freshly shoveled driveway go from clear-ish to white again, this time from ice instead of snow. My office was open on a delay this morning, then closed again, and the snow is still falling. I do like how clean it makes thing, but it's obvious that it may cause some damage as my dogwood next to my walkway is leaning quite a bit.

Yesterday, I did a little experiment. Murphy the cat is always trying to sneak out of the house when the door is open. During the falling ice and snow yesterday, I let him walk out on the porch without stopping him. He took a couple of steps onto the snow and sank. His tail rigid and shaking in alarm, he came back to the porch. He then went to another side and stuck a paw into the snow again, only to back up to the step. With the ice falling on his back, he turned and looked at the front door. I opened the storm door and he went in with no coaxing whatsoever. I wish I had this on video.

So today will be laundry, watching the Discovery Channel, and maybe drawing more on the Grizzly/Bear Patrol origin. Oooh... cute bearded guy in the Cash Cab right now... with a bitchy girlfriend, poor cute bear...

Snow Day Fun

Stolen from the ever-handsome anziulewicz...

Rules: Copy, erase my answers, enter yours. Use the first letter of your name to answer each of the following questions. They have to be real . . . nothing made up! If the person before you had the same first initial, you must use different answers. You cannot use any word twice and you can't use your name for the boy/girl name question.

Have Fun!!

1. What is your name: Mark
   
2. A four Letter Word: Mash
   
3. A boy's Name: Matthew
   
4. A girl's Name: Marjorie
   
5. An occupation: Model
   
6. A color: Maroon
   
7. Something you wear: Mask
   
8. A food: Mango (you cannot touch the mango...)
   
9. Something found in the bathroom: Mirror
   
10. A place: Manhattan
    
11. A reason for being late: Mugging
    
12. Something you shout: "Mother F**ker!"
    
13. A movie title: My Man Godfrey
    
14. Something you drink: Milkshake (it brings all the boys to the yard..)
    
15. A musical group: M People
    
16. An animal: Meerkat
    
17. A street name: Main
    
18. A type of car: Mercury
    
19. The title of a song: Mamma Mia!
    
20. A verb: Make

Another Post! Grading Standards...

I was reading a Yahoo story about grading standards being challenged in Virginia. The school there has the grading scale as being 94 to 100 being an "A" versus the usual 90 to 100.

When I went to elementary school and high school, our grading scale was strangely more rigid than the schools around. It went like this:

• 95 to 100 = A
  
• 88 to 94 = B
  
• 77 to 87 = C
  
• 70 to 76 = D
  
• <70 = F

I have no idea why it as this way, though I've heard it's different now. It does burn me up a bit, as my 3.795 GPA would have been a 4.0 in any other school around my hometown. Any opinions out there why this is good or bad? Any educators have an opinion?