PickleWeasel EGG Hunt - CONTEST.

It's a contest! Because the PickleWeasel app is marvelous and should be a household name, dammit. Also because Easter Eggs are funny.

To enter:
All you hafta do is click to tweet THIS (← click it). Or copy-paste this into a tweet or Facebook:

"The #PickleWeasel app is simply marvelous for comics & drawing. But don't take my word for it - try it yourself. http://itun.es/i6JL3nG"

Then leave your name / Twitter @ / email / way-to-find-you in the comments. You can also guess where the Easter Egg is hidden in this drawing.

It could be anywhere....but you don't have to guess correctly. You just have to guess.

The prize? Any t-shirt or mug from my shop. I'll tell you right now that these are quite popular.

Contest closes at midnight on Monday April 1st 2013. I'll draw the winner from all the entries and announce it on Wednesday at 9 PM.

Good luck and don't eat too much chocolate.

Tweet

A bunch of twelves.

It's the 12th minute of the 12th hour of the 12th day of the 12th month of the 12th year.

Deeply meaningful numerology or just a bunch of twelves?

PickleWeasel and I would like to wish you all the best for the holidays, the new year and just stuff in general. We love you so mucho. 

Tweet

MOJO-vember.

Maximum respect to everyone refraining from shaving for a whole 30 days. And to all those putting up with a spouse with a stiff upper lip - I salute you!

If you're part pickle / part weasel, you don't need to grow a mustache for Movember cuz HELLO WHISKERS.

Whether you're a man or a woman*, you can use your mustache growing mojo to raise raise vital funds and awareness for men's health, specifically prostate cancer and male mental health initiatives.  Yeah, shit happens to men, just like everyone. So...learn about it, talk about it and definitely donate to support someone growing a 'stache for Movember.
*Women have mustaches too. I have a small one. I never shave it though.

I love autumn...don't you?

Tweet

Pickle Weasel HALLOWEEN.

Last Halloween I went GREEN. Like for realz; I was painted green and photographed by Kathy Slamen.

This year? Pickle Weasel stole my costume. *pouts*

They say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. What's the best costume EVAR?

Tweet

Getting back to school.

I asked the 12 year old boy for a back-to-school quote. All he would say is:

"It sucks to go back. Period."

But I know that secretly he's loving the math.

Never let your schooling get in the way of your education, that's what I always say.

Tweet

#PickleWeasel survey contest WINNERS!

There were 63 entries into the Pickle Weasel App Survey & Contest. Amazeballs! 
Our random number generator picked two numbers as our prize winners. But in case you didn't win, you can still gaze at this drawing.

Look familiar...?

And here's the winners:

Jason @TechyDad
Sydney @momof1kid

CONGRATULATIONS KIDS. You each win this mug set. DM me your deets.

The irresistible Pickle Weasel mugs are for sale in my Zazzle Shop.

Thanks for being patient with all this stuff about the new app. Back to regular programming tomorrow.

Tweet

Pickle Weasel APP Survey & CONTEST!

Onward!

Right, so, yesterday I announced the super-fantasmic Pickle Weasel app coming this fall. Today I need data. Like information. To help us make the app as good as can be. So I'm hoping to tempt you into filling out this epic survey thingie.

But I don't expect something for nothing. Oh no - I designed the questions especially for discerning Pickle Weasel types, heheh... Plus, if you fill it out, you'll be entered into a draw for these two mugs. Two winners, two mugs each. It's a set.

UPDATE: The contest is now closed. The survey is still open though! If you get an error message, please fill it out HERE! You should still leave a heads-up in the comments below. 

Shall we begin? Greatness! Your input will help me make the app better for you. Contest closes this Saturday night. I'll announce the winner here on Monday night.

Lemmeeno if you entered by leaving me a Hi-5 in the comments. Pickle Weasel loves you. And so do I.

Props to The HUZ for putting this boss survey thingie in here. It looks just like my blog.

Tweet

Pickle Weasel goes MOBILE.

You’ve heard the rumours, right? It’s true. Pickle Weasel is getting his her ...its own app!

How did this happen? Some cartoon characters are like Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny; if enough people believe in them, they become real. Pickle Weasel hijacked so many of my blog posts and DrawSomeThings he’s ready to take the leap.

I can't give it all away but here’s what I can tell you:

• The app is being built by the fine people at Jezam Interactive. You need an app, go talk to @StephanieBaron and tell her I sent you. 

• There will be hundreds (yes many HUNDREDS) of funny/silly/saucy Pickle Weasel Toons updated regularly.

• I’m always encouraging people to draw, so there will be Draw-games! 

• And…it will be social! With sharing and other features. 

The Pickle Weasel app will be ready soon. Like this fall 2012. Holy FUQ that's in a few weeks. I know right? Craziness. We’re looking for fun bloggers to review the app in the run up to the launch so if you’re interested in that please leave your name below.

I'm too excited. I may wear a hole in my chair from squirming.

Click HERE for an epic contest survey thingie with cool Pickle Weasel prizes!

Tweet

Wave to Pickle Weasel!

WARNING: There's a nude Pickle Weasel surfer in this post.

Props for those who know what Hang 11 means.

Tweet

The Balancing ACT.

Trust is huge.

But even between best friends, a small misunderstanding can have terrible consequences.

There are times when you must really stretch to bring things back into balance.

Although emotionally taxing, it's usually worth it!

However, it's a good idea to talk about things afterwards so it doesn't happen again.

Also, remember to use the bathroom before going out.

Tweet

SEE what I SAW! About SeeSaw.

What the heck is SeeSaw? It’s hashtag-heaven for Tweeps! Go to Sees.aw, log in with your Twitter account and you’ll see the latest trending hashtags populating your screen in real time.

WARNING: You should not stare at this too long cuz it’ll hypnotize you. I'm not even joking.

Here's the cool part. Wanna follow a specific hashtag or topic? Let’s say you like a little #WineParty on Friday nights, heheh...hit the SeeSaw magnifying glass and type it in the box.

Presto! All the tweets with #WineParty will appear in a mesmerizing patchwork quilt on your screen. Of course there will be a few nuggets of incredible wisdom that you’d like to save forever, right? On Twitter it’s a real pain to scroll through tweets trying to find something you liked in a tweetchat, and there's no organized way to save it. But on SeeSaw, all you have to do is hover on the tweets you like and click on the word "Saw".

This saves that particular tweet to your own personal “Saw” board, which you'll find by clicking on the word "SAW" at the top right. So if you’re following hashtags for Twitter parties, chats, or certain topics, you can collect and curate tweets to your own custom boards. Like Pinterest, but for Twitter. Your favorite images, links, information, whatever is important to you, even an entire # stream can be saved to peruse at a later time.

SeeSaw is extremely useful for image lovers (like moi) because it’s so visual. I can save all my best #PickleWeasel tweets to a board – and if anyone asks what a Pickle Weasel is, I simply show them this:

If they see something they like, they can follow the link back to my blog. Someone says something nice about PickleWeasel – I save it for when I need cheering up.

SeeSaw is new and I’ve just started playing with it. You can tweet/reply directly into it, you can highlight keywords within a hashtag crop to harvest your content, and there’s share buttons too. There’s still a few bugs here and there - certain images won't show, for example - and it would be cool to have the option to make a board public or private (seriously I don't want you guys finding out which of the rude #DrawSomething's I'll be saving haw haw). But the peeps behind it (Internet Media Labs @SeeSawMe) are listening and refining, which is awesome.

Lemmeno if you find some other cool ways to use it.

#WineParty was created by @blogdangerously.

Tweet

Pickle Mommy Love.

Pickle Weasels love their lil' baby gherkins.

Some emotions are universal...motherhood is one of them.

Tweet

911.

Yesterday the 12 year old boy and his friend were playing “Sandman” in the park. Apparently this is a game where you close your eyes and try to grab the other players. Yes, the boy nearly became a Darwin Award contender by giggling and klutzing around 6 feet up on a play structure with his eyes shut. Of course he tripped and fell down, landing on the iron bars below.

I’d just uploaded The Birthday Kiss and tweeted out the link when I got ye olde dreaded phone call. It was a woman.

“Your son is hurt, in the park, the ambulance is coming.”

I ran. As soon as I turned the corner I could see the flashing lights. Note to self: start exercising cuz you can’t even run 4 blocks without needing a defibrillator. As I approached the group of people crowded around my son lying flat on the park wood chips, my heart sank. I could hear him gasping for breath and crying out in pain.

The Huz caught up with me just as the paramedics were putting a brace around our son’s neck and head.

"Am - I - gonna - die...?" Tears leaked out of the corners of his eyes.

Lemmeetellya a million fears shriek from the depths of your soul when you are in such a situation. I pushed them all down, and focused on reassuring the boy and staying calm.

Ambulance ride. Trauma unit. Intravenous. Ultra-sound. X-rays. Morphine. The Huz and I held each other, watching our son and waiting...I tweeted at that point I think; and Twitter was amazing with the support.

Finally the doctors told us there were no big fractures, just lung and rib trauma. The boy is now recovering at home with pain medication to keep him breathing deeply so his lung doesn't collapse. He's watching movies surrounded by his pals as I write this. He's going to be fine.

But this story is not about him. This story is really about his friend, an 11 year old girl who showed true bravery and presence of mind in the moment because she called 911. She did so without hesitation as soon as she saw the boy was having trouble breathing. She didn’t call her mom first or get another grownup to do it. She did it herself. Then she stayed on the phone with the Emergency person and relayed directions to the people gathering around the howling gasping boy on the ground.

Stay with him.
Nobody should touch him or try to move him.
A grownup at the scene should call his parents.
Another grownup should flag down the ambulance when it comes in sight of the park.

This 11 year old girl deserves recognition. And so I’m awarding her the very first Pickle Weasel “911 Mojo” Award in acknowledgement of her bravery, quick thinking and calm action. In short: she's got mojo.

She’s a fine example to other kids and grownups of how to behave in a potential emergency. Walk tall girl, cuz You Rocketh.

Tweet

The Birthday Kiss.

Last week my grandmother turned 97. I don't mind telling you that she is really, really old. It's hard to be really old...it hurts. My mom told me that she moved the photograph of my Grandpa so that my Grandma could see it from her pillow. She turned and looked at it wistfully, smiling and nodding, remembering...she believes she'll be with him soon.

But not just yet.

I'll spare you the details of what it truly means to live this long in a body that's giving out, but suffice to say that my Grandma is brave, strong and a real hard ass when it comes to life. She's just not quite ready to let go yet. So the family gathered to celebrate her birthday, and although she was in a lot of pain, she did smile and tell us she loves us. And the youngest of us, my little Nieceling who is not quite two, got up on her tippy toes to give her Great-Grandmother a birthday kiss. Time stood still. The room was spell bound as the two leaned toward one another, the very young and the very elderly; no one wanted to miss the moment by fumbling for their camera.

So I drew it.

UPDATE - June 21, 2012.
My precious Grandma slipped gently away today. She is celebrated, missed and remembered.

RIP Maria Marrelli.

Tweet

#PickleWeasel poses for #TheTutuProject.

This awesome dude named Bob Carey does self portraits wearing a tutu in the unlikeliest of locations. He's made a lot of people smile, including his wife Linda, who has breast cancer. It's called The Tutu Project.

He's raising funds and awareness and others are invited to post images to Twitter hashtagging #TheTutuProject. A perfect fit for Pickle Weasel, no? The image driven stream is inspiring and it's easy to view in SeeSaw.

Spread the word!

Tweet

#DrawSomething - Repeating Words.

It can be kinda annoying to get offered the same words over and over in while playing Draw Something.

I always include Pickle Weasel in my Draw Something games. He was getting tired of posing with the "ruby". What repeating words have you noticed - do you avoid them or redraw them every time?

Start a game with me - I'm The Animated Woman!

Tweet

EPIC #DrawSomething ...with Pickle Weasel.

What's your fave?

I like Vader. Start a game of Draw Something with me, "The Animated Woman", and I will draw something just for you.

Tweet

How to #DrawSomething in 10 easy steps.

My strategy with the game is to keep you guessing until the very end, and hopefully make you laugh. So I plan what I'm going to draw and leave out the crucial details until the end. Here's how I play Draw Something in ten easy steps:

Step 1: choose the widest brush and fill in the background, if there is one. In this case, I want black, to set the mood.

Step 2: Add any details to the background using smaller brushes. Note that the new update to the Draw Something app has a single stroke undo, which is really useful if you choose the wrong brush size. I was so glad to see that cuz I'm constantly using the wrong brush and having to repaint over my mistake.

Step 3: I like to put Pickle Weasel in all my drawings. So here's where I block him in. I'm already thinking about his final pose in the drawing, even at this early stage.

Step 4: Block in the colour areas on the character's body. It's important to do this before the outline stage, cuz it's hard to fill in colour in this app. I suck at keeping in the lines, so I like to do it this way.

Step 5: Add the outlines! Not all character's need outlines, but Pickle Weasel does. At this point I also throw in the facial details: eyes, nose, mouth etc. I have to get his expression just right - if you've played with me, you prolly notice I spend more time on this part. Or maybe I just imagine that.

Step 6: Now I paint in the details on his "costume".

Step 7: A few clues begin to creep into the drawing!

Step 8: Adjustments to Pickle Weasel's pose by adding his arms.

Step 9: Lastly I may add some text - this part is a great opportunity to inject humor.

An artist needs to stay in shape. Playing Draw Something is like exercise for me. It forces me to create a funny drawing with limited drawing tools, in a short time. It's like getting really good abs.

I also like the idea of doing a drawing just for someone else, and I enjoy getting others to draw too. Drawing is good for your brain.

Step 10: It's a 3-letter word. And here's your letters below.

What's the answer?

Play Draw Something with "The Animated Woman".

Tweet