- Experimenting with visitmix.com lab’s Gestalt
- Saint Shenanigans
- Speed, Quality, Cheap. Pick any Two.
- State of Software Design in NSW HSC
- It is not the Apple Tablet, it is the Store
- Facial Update
- Why the Quietness?
- What does Transparency mean to me?
- The long search for the perfect WPF Twitter Client. Over.
- #auteched week begin
- Twenty Years Ago Today
- Where is Nick?
- Sanity Prevails
- 28 Weeks. 18 Weeks Down
- New Windows Home Server
- Japan Photo
- Microsoft and Web 2.0 Stuff
- Bing Box on your Website or Blog
- New.CloudApp();
- Fifth Barcamp Sydney, Saturday June 27th
Explaining my Avatar
By Nick Hodge | April 30, 2009
The above avatar is a cartoon drawn by the famous crikey.com.au’s Firstdogonthemoon. (twitter: @firstdogonmoon)
My request was “a black cat with glasses”. Firstdog stated that a black cat with glasses was a tough ask, but we can see the excellent result.
The black cat, Hodge the Cat, was one of Samuel Johnson’s cat. Samuel was a mercurial man of letters from the 18th Century, having created A Dictionary of the English Language. Hodge the Cat immortalized in a characteristically whimsical passage in James Boswell’s Life of Johnson:
Nor would it be just, under this head, to omit the fondness which he shewed for animals which he had taken under his protection. I never shall forget the indulgence with which he treated Hodge, his cat: for whom he himself used to go out and buy oysters, lest the servants having that trouble should take a dislike to the poor creature. I am, unluckily, one of those who have an antipathy to a cat, so that I am uneasy when in the room with one; and I own, I frequently suffered a good deal from the presence of this same Hodge. I recollect him one day scrambling up Dr. Johnson’s breast, apparently with much satisfaction, while my friend smiling and half-whistling, rubbed down his back, and pulled him by the tail; and when I observed he was a fine cat, saying, ‘Why yes, Sir, but I have had cats whom I liked better than this;’ and then as if perceiving Hodge to be out of countenance, adding, ‘but he is a very fine cat, a very fine cat indeed.’
Glasses, for studiousness and learnedness; both to which I aspire. Black cat to describe my moods, and against a grey background to symbolise the shades of greyness in the world. A cat as obviously, I am a cat person.
Hodge the Cat symbolises me. Thanks First Dog!
My second favourite albeit random avatar is Mr Alien Puritan as taken by Delic8genius. There is a story here, but that is for another day.
Topics: avatar, firstdogonthemoon | No Comments »






Comments