Anyone who has walked through the Cancer Cell Center (CCC) at Roswell, and has even a fractionally functional olfactory apparatus, can recall the all-pervasive sickly and somewhat homely smell that hangs about in that building. I have heard people make all sort of wild guesses about the source of this smell, ranging from imported transatlantic ducks being slaughtered alive in the building to cell-culture media rotting away to yuck-tastic glory. When your imagination is not up-to-creative-snuff with the almost-hallucinogenic peak of glory that your companions seem to have, you usually have three choices: a) Accept the most entertaining conjecture and hurry away from CCC, b) Make a mental note to not recall the smell while you are eating your lunch and hurry away from CCC and c) Decide in an unhinged moment that you will find out the source of that yucky smell and thrust your already unimaginative mind into the deeper doldrums of absolute, annoying and certain knowledge.
Needless to say, I took the third route. (Now, don't tell me you didn't see this coming!!) Though the exact source of the CCC smell still remains elusive, I do have a fair idea... and also my very own avatar. If you cannot see the relationship between between the last assertion and the rest of the sentence, then I guess you can safely assume that you are sane. (Yeah, breathe slow. You can cancel that shrink appointment today.)
Late last year I took the "Working with the Laboratory Mouse" course in the Animal Lab Facility in the CCC/Library building. It was then that the sickly smell hit me full force. It invaded my senses and took over whatever grey matter I had left, when I got out of the stairwell and headed toward the Animal Lab Facility. At this point, countless crime novelists over centuries might have hastily scribbled, "The realization dawned on her." Since these cool novelists were not around to make their erudite observations, I took on the responsibility of playing up EUREKA moment by shouting, not the eponymous "EUREKA!" but the painfully obvious, "IT'S THE MICE!!!". I quite understand why the veterinarian of the facility smiles in sympathy at me even after all these days. I earned the smile in extreme style.
I spent the better part of the practical training sniffing around the facility in what I thought was a discreet and sophisticated manner. But unfortunately, my discreetness was mis-interpreted as an incipient cold and a precautionary mask was thrust into my hands. Being masked put a damper on my detection capabilities and thus the mystery of the exact source of the omnipresent smell remains thus.
I came home, and did what any disappointed graduate student would do - wikisurf. I discovered fascinating details about the life and times of numerous members of the rodent family, hit the wikimedia commons road and fell in love with this magnificent image of the wood mouse.
I resized it and adopted it as my 18-odd-k pixels of online fame. Days passed, and at a party someone remarked that seeing a mouse reminded them of me (actually, they didn't really say this, but my brain came to this euphoric interpretation). My avatar had finally arrived! It was thus time to embellish it with idiosyncratic accessories. I chose a starred neck-tie. As any movie enthusiast would agree, drawing montages are always rolled out to the background of music. My music of choice for the nitpicky tale of avatarolution is the genre better known to the mainstream listeners as rap and to the classicist snobs as poetry.
With ball-point ink and felt-tip pen, I fell to sketching
But captured with a flash, it didn't look so fetching
Under lamplight the eyes were perfectly beady and filled with vice ((e:libertad,41910))
But I had an issue with brightness and I said, "No Dice!"
Tweaked brightness and contrast in PAINT.NET
A software so free that it is not a financial threat
At this point it lacked a certain punch
The oil paint and ink filters gave it the furry scrunch.
But alas, it didn't gel well with (e:strip) so I tinted it red.
However, in the comments background it looked rather dead.
The magic wand and colour inversion came to my rescue
OH NO! I had neglected the neck-tie with the stars askew
Added the sparklies and lightened it up a bit
Behold the 18750 pixels of the TinyPliny image-split.
But those 18750 pixels make it so hard to see
The eye on the right, won't you agree?
Looking out my window I found the perfect antidote
The rich blue of summer skies with a hint of creosote.
'Twas too much of colour and one too many alteration
Got sick of 'em all and opted for a modified third iteration.
Holy crap you go into detail. That's awesome, makes for a great read.
That was awesome. Thank you for sharing.