More on the HorseBack Riding

I found a new picture for my blog's sidebar.

I was on vacation last week in the little town of Seaside Oregon (this picture was taken just north of there on Del Ray beach). I had to arrive a little late because I was working on homework trying to get that done and all (will post the finished works in a minute)

So anyway, I got there Saturday night when everyone else had gotten there on Thursday and I was struck with a realization that I really really REALLY wanted to run a horse on a beach, in fact this is something I have always wanted to do. So I shopped around for a place that would let me lope a horse on the beach and found Small World Farm. They offered the best deal and they actually let me run the horse on the beach, while the owner took a lot of pictures for me. He was very kind and this was one of those opportunities I couldn't pass up.




The horse I'm on is named Thor, he was a great little Arab, he loved to run and I got the impression he could go all day. He didn't like to run in the water so much, which is a shame because I really wanted to run in the surf, but after riding on the sand I realized how difficult this would be for some horses as the sand along the surf is really soft and horses tend to shy a bit when they come across water.

There were people along the beach with us, but I went early so I could avoid to much crowding. I told the owner I would probably post these pictures on the web and that I would give him a shout out, so if you are going to find yourself in Seaside Oregon anytime in the near future and you want to take a horseback ride along the beach (it is a lot of fun!) I would recommend giving him a call.

I had so much fun on the beach that I took my nieces for a trail ride later. I didn't enjoy it as much, mainly because I spent a good portion of last summer walking horses on trail rides so that experience has lost the novelty of it. But the trail had some good views as well, and also some photo worthy moments.

The beach ride was worth every penny I paid.

If I make it down to Seaside in the future, I'm pretty sure I would go again.

Horseback Riding on the Beach

So I've been quiet for a bit, and I'll probably remain quiet for another couple days as its a drill weekend and I'm busy and I should be in bed by now.

Anyway, here is a glimpse of me in my latest adventure.



I just got back from vacation, and one of the things I have always wanted to do was run a horse on the beach. I had to find the right place that would let me do it, and this little private stable let me do whatever I wanted to (well, within reason).

I will write more later, but I have to say that I had a blast!

Go Yellow!

Well, in honor of the new Simpsons movie, Burger King has teamed up with Matt Groening and they have put together a website where you can simpsonize yourself.



Granted, it looks really nothing like me, but it's still pretty fun messing with your simpson self.

My laptop has lost its Print Screen Function. This is really annoying.

Harry Potter - A Look Back

So I picked up Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone back in the summer of '99. I had just graduated High School but I had found that kids books were fun and an easy read, and I kept hearing about this series of books. The hype was just beginning to start.

I actually just picked up the paperback version of one because I didn't expect to really get into it so much that I would want to buy the hardback of two, but I was instantly hooked. Sure, the series has a few weak points, like Sirius Black accessing the school through the Floo Network which makes me wonder why Voldemort doesn't just do it, but overall I was enthralled, read all three of the first books within a week of each other and was pleasantly entertained by the prospect of reading the next four over what I assumed would be a couple of years.

Its kind of odd to think that I didn't like the idea of them making these books into a movie, as I had a pretty set idea of what the characters and school looked like in my head and didn't want it to get ruined like Hollywood has a habit of doing.

Strange, as the series progressed, it gained in popularity to what can be percieved as quite explosive. This series of books is hugely popular to a point that has never been seen by anything that I know about. I mean, has there been anything in pop culture that has spawned something like this that you can think of? I guess in music there was Beatlemania, and movies have Star Wars, but really, I don't think I've seen a book series this popular before.

Well, I have read all seven books, buying Deathly Hallows right at Midnight and cracking that badboy open and reading all night. I took a break at around five am for sleep, and was back up by 830 to read some more. I was done by five that afternoon.

I cried. I laughed. I sniffled. I cried some more. I am engrossed, and I'm pretty sure that Severus Snape is quite possibly one of the best characters in the book because he's got so many layers to him, most of which we never see as the book takes place from Harry's viewpoint. We always see things from Harry's angle.

Whatever the case, without spoiling the book, which is excellent, I do have a biff with the Epilogue, and I've discovered I'm not alone. JK Rowling could have left it off and the book would have been fine. In fact, the Epilogue raises even more questions instead of bringing closure to the series, like it only tells of some characters, and introduces some that I personally don't care about. It was a bit of a disappointment.

Well, nix the epilogue chapter, and the series went out with a bang.

So, now what?

The Ferrets Are Gone

So, due to the fact that I'm going to go on vacation next week with the family, and shortly thereafter I go to drill sergeant school for two months, there was a little problem with a couple of my pets.

My brother did not want to look after the ferrets. In fact, he's been saying for a few months now that the ferrets needed to go. It is his house, and though I kept them for as long as I could, I begrudgingly gave them up today, giving them back to the place I had adopted them from. They are in a good place, and I was told that they would likely be kept together. If it is at all possible, I would love to readopt them later, but I don't see that as happening so I can rest assured that my two little fuzzbutts will be in a good place.

And hopefully Blaine won't be eating anymore earplugs.

So long my little carpet sharks, you will be missed *sighs*

Animation Woes

So my current major is 3D Animation. And I've been having issues with my 3D modeling class this quarter. One of the main reasons being that I discovered that I'm not to fond of modeling.

The good news is that the industry generally doesn't have one person do all aspects of the process. You generally focus on one area and work on that and when you're done you turn it over to somebody else. For instance, in character animation, you'll have somebody model the character, then that character will probably go to a materialist who gives it a certain look (this might be the same person in fact). Then you have a rigger, who puts a skeletol structure in the character and skins it so certain areas of the model are affected by certain bones (kind of like giving a 3d character muscles so to speak). Once all that is said and done, you have an animator who goes in and animates the character to do action poses and so on. And then there are other aspects, like background modelers and animators, lighting specialists, camera animators and so on.

I discovered i like animating, and I get materials, lighting and cameras. I could focus on any of these four areas in the animation process and be all happy. But I think once I get the hang of it, the modeling process might grow on me as well.

I just don't get skinning. At all.

Army Mental Health

so, more on the mental health thing.

The airforce base is currently limited to one psychiatrist and you can't get in to see them until October, so I had to go to Fort Lewis for the day with two other guys. We flew in the morning and flew back at night. I got home about fifteen minutes ago.

that's probably some of the easiest money I've ever made with the army, though it was the first time I had ever flown in uniform. We got a lot of handshakes and people telling us how much they appreciated what we are doing. Warm fuzzies were shared by all.

It was strange, when I got back from Kosovo I didn't really know what to say to this, because I genuinely didn't feel like I did anything and really didn't deserve to be thanked for sitting on my ass picking my nose for a year. Now that I feel like I'm actually doing something worthwhile, I can give them a thanks for their support without thinking twice about it.

The mental health questionare had some, well, interesting questions on it, some of which had definite delusions of schizophrenia and paranoia, about people stealing your thoughts and being able to read your mind. My favorite completely random and at first appearances pointless but probably has some abstract purpose was 'Your favorite sport to watch is the High Jump." My assumption leads me to believe that this question is thrown on there to make sure you are not flubbing the health exam but whatever the case, i answered false on that one.

The evaluation went great, I am not insane, the only real red flag that came up was my Dysthemia which hasn't been a problem.

I don't know why we had such a late flight back, but because we had traveled in uniform and didn't bring a change of close (we've decided to rectify this in the future in case a scenerio like this should arise again) once we were done with the eval, we had to figure out how to waste the rest of our time until our flight left.

We chose to see a movie. Life Free or Die Hard, which I will include in an upcoming summer movie post. But we got some funny looks coming out of the theater, like 'what are they doing here? is this our tax dollars at waste?' We were considering going to Seattle, but walking around Pikes Street Market in uniform didn't exactly appeal to us. That and Seattle traffic just plain sucks.

But Seatac is not an airport you wait for the last minute to arrive at. I'm just thankful there is such a place as the USO, which offers free wireless internet and a forum to post my previous rant because that was very fresh in my mind. Still, I wish it wasn't a case of flying all the way to Fort Lewis for a 2 hour examination. But sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do.

I need a new set of ACUs. I washed a set with a pen in the pocket. Gah!

Dysthemics and Narcissists Shouldn't Mingle

Ok, I have a confession to make. I've let something bother me longer then I should have. And I've discovered today that I have had every reason to be bothered. Warning, this is a rant, and it's been a long time coming. And after this post is over, this topic is officially dead. Unless I write an update on my NCOER, which might cause it to resurface.

If any of you have been following my blog for the last few years, you know I deployed to Kosovo for the duration of 2005. And my deployment was anything but smooth. And it wasn't the stress of actually being in Kosovo that made it thus, because a deployment to Kosovo is a cake walk, basically a paid yearlong vacation.

It was the fact that I put up with a major asshole for the duration of the deployment. Yes you narcissist son of a bitch, I'm talking about you. And yes, despite the fact that you outrank me by one lousy paygrade, you know, you decided to look past the fact that the United States Army entrusted me with the rank fo E5, not you who treated me like a PFC (his own words), I'm going to consider the fact that you have no business leading troops and you were an E6, not a non commissioned officer. There is a difference. Therefore, kiss my ass. I don't respect your rank because you sure in hell didn't respect mine. Your job was to mentor me, great job on doing that. Hell, I learned more about what not to be in a leader from you then how to be a leader.

There, I said it. Though I doubt SSG Dipshit no longer reads my blog (I would definitely not put it past him though), I can now get over the fact that I am officially over that whole incident. I've let it eat away at me for to long and I gave him the benefit of the doubt for bothering me for as long as he did. I can take comfort though, that I got to him too. I know I did. How he treated me when we demobilized back to the states confirms that. That bastard was on his guard, and he knew I was just waiting for him to cross the line because I would have been all over his sorry self.

Well, maybe I should start at the beginning. Being a Drill Sergeant Candidate that leaves for school in less then a month, I had to take a Behavioral Health Evaluation to be sure I was fit for training troops. I wanted to be honest with it because I had some issues where I was worried with how I behaved during my deployment.

My psychiatrist was great. I've been diagnosed as a dysthemic, though I haven't had any real issues since my deployment, just the usual mood swings that accompany hormones, and in my case, it will probably help me as a Drill Sergeant. Drill Sergeants (especially females) are supposed to be pissy. She looked at my mental health evaluation and pegged me as a dysthemic right away. Being a dysthemic does not bar me from drill sergeant school. See, I've got a clean record. I've had some mental health issues like depression before, but I've never truly acted on it other then at times crying my eyes out. And the last time I had a real break down was in Kosovo. I've looked back and have realized that I've never had issues like that before with other commanders and NCOICs. Just the one. And its because of him that I needed to be medicated there when I've never needed it at any other time in my life, before or since.

The psychiatrist pegged him right away as a narcissist, and told me that having those feelings and how I acted was completely appropriate for the situation. In fact, she told me the best idea for dealing with narcissists is to avoid them completely. And how do you peg a narcissist? She told me a great way. If you run into somebody that makes you feel like you're stupid, get away from them. Believe it or not, he did that to me. I know I'm not stupid, heck, I was an A student in high school and did awesome on that ASVAB, having the pick of any non combat MOS I wanted. Why oh why did I pick preventive medicine to this day I do not know. But I remember feeling like an idiot when I was around him. And it wasn't that he was really that intelligent (in his eyes he surely thought he was the world's smartest person and knew more then General Schoomaker) but he did make you feel like a dumbass. That is one way to peg a narcissist. She described a narcissist to me and I thought 'holy hell that's him!'

There are some other feelings I had towards him that I won't discuss in detail, but imply what you will, and she said those were appropriate too. And I think those feelings was what made me dwell on it for so long, that I had the capability of actually thinking that. The important thing was though I had the thoughts (it is not uncommon for people to have these types of thoughts at some point in their life), it was the fact that I did not act upon them and kept my reason. Good thing, I wouldn't want to end up in FT Leavonworth because of his pathetic ass, he wouldn't be worth it.

I hope that guy turned in his 20 year letter, because he has no business deploying in a real hostile environment. He has no business being in the military during war, he'll get his soldiers and himself killed. And for himself, it would likely not come from enemy fire.

This topic is dead, this is my one last rant about it. I'm in a kick ass unit now that I love, with people who give me a hard time (what do you expect, they're drill sergeants!) that I can actually respect. When they get on my case, I truly deserve it. And instead of hanging me out to dry by explaining in detail how I'm being punished, they actually tell me what I need to do to correct it.

PS - Everyone that has looked at my NCOER since coming off my deployment has told me that one ate up as hell NCO wrote it. And they don't even have to hear my side of the story to make that assessment.

3D Animations To Share

So, I uploaded my animations onto YouTube to share. No, they are nothing fancy. At all.

I don't know why they uploaded weird like they did, but the first moment is kind of weird looking.

They are all really quick, only a couple of seconds. And yes, the meshes aren't right, hes not skinned properly, and he has no eyes. But the character works for me.
The first one is a walk run excercise, where I had to do my character walking or running. He's running. I've only got one cycle though, I can't figure out how to loop it yet.


Here he is pulling on a box. This one may have come out most successfully.


And here he is pushing on a box. More fun.


His arms look like puddy at times and the mesh isn't exactly perfect, but I'm very excited to be able to understand how to do this now, I just have to iron out the details. Now that i know what I'm doing *sort of* I feel better about the software. THere is a lot of it I understand, like lighting *sort of* and cameras and now animation and all of that. Now I got to figure out the modelign and skinning better.

3ds Max is driving me insane, but I am getting it finally

I forgot to mention how I learned how to drive a boat last weekend. Good fun was had by all.

I'm starting to pick up on 3DS max, and I can tell you that after playing with this software, I have a lot of respect for people who can do this. It's tough! You have to get the timing just right and well, the meshes are more then enough to try to figure out without having your animation just blow up on you when everything is tweaked completely out of proportions. Eegh.

But besides the Mesh, I'm figuring this out and it's making me happy now. If I can play around with it some more maybe I will actually want to do this. And knowledge of the software will get me into the career field I want to get into I think.

Although I'm not sure I want to be a character animator anymore. It appealed to me once upon a time but holy hell it's tedious! I could probably do it if somebody else wants to model and skin the character for me. There is just so much to know.

My teacher mentioned that 3DS Max is capable of about 80,000,000 functions, or something insane like that. Meaning that I will never entirely understand this software. But good news, I'm in a better spot TODAY then I was yesterday.

Now, if only I can get those meshes to look right.

Fun with New Recruits

This weekend is a drill weekend.

I'm thinking that a few of my readers probably wonder what goes on in the quest to become a drill sergeant and are probably disappointed that I don't write more about my drill weekends.

To tell you the truth, most weekends aren't all that exciting. I take a PT test every month (I passed my run this time by 2 seconds, which means that I need to run a LOT more) and most of the time I sit in a class room and modulate on the Position of Attention and the Rest Positions while at the halt. I can also modulate the hand salute. Sometimes we march each other around to familiarize ourselves and we also do a lot of PT. But it is usually very routine and often times boring to discuss later.

I'm very eager to get my hat, because I want to be done with this and actually do Drill Sergeant type stuff. Well, they let us have a little practice today by bringing in some fresh recruits, none of which have been to basic yet.

The recruiters brought these new troops in to give them an idea of what they will be facing when they go to basic training as well as give them a leg up by providing some training in basic Drill and Ceremony (D&C) and some other training that they will encounter when they hit the ground at their basic training unit. Today it was Mout training, although I didn't get to help out with that. But I got to do the D&C training, with about six drill sergeants backing me up in full drill sergeant mode. Oh the fun to be had! Some of these troops were shaking, you could see the terror in their faces as they tried to do as they were told.

This weekend confirmed to me that this is what I want to do, I had so much fun training these troops standard D&C such as Rest Positions at the Halt and walking along and making corrections as somebody else made adjustments. I think most of them thought I was just a little older then them doing this (most of these were kids right out of highschool) and when they found out I've been in the army just shy of eight years they looked surprised. A couple of them thought I was maybe 20 or 22 at the most.

I wrote a little bit more about this experience on my Milblog, but it did get me geared up for the fact that I leave for Drill Sergeant School next month and now I'm all motivated to go there and kick butt.

Now, all I really need to do is work on that run time. It would also be nice if I can shave of two minutes or so.

Aesop's Fables

So I mentioned that I'm learning Flash, and I had to do a 'fairy tale', with it being animated and everything. Well, my drawing tablet is on the glitch at the moment and I hate my voice, but I chose to do an Aesop's fable, the man, the boy and the donkey, and this is what came out.

No, the art is not that great, but seeing as I had a lot to do and only a short time to do it, I got it done and my teacher liked it anyway.



Some people should honestly take note. Let's just say that I'm sick of it now and will now just share it amidst my readers for them to decide.

The donkey is my favorite character in the whole thing.

More then Meets the Eye

I had an issue with trying to think of what to get my nephew Cody for his fifth birthday, when it kind of jumped at me while I was at work. I mean, I liked playing with them when I was a kid and now that there is a new movie out, they're making a come back.

Yeah, I got him a couple of transformers. I don't think he really knew what they were when he opened them up, as he was to caught up with his nerf toys, but hopefully when he gets them out of their packaging and realizes that they turn into robots he'll have a better appreciation for them.

But anyway, I might jump onto the bandwagon and get into a Transformers kick myself, because I'm a geek at heart and I'm all for things that bring on a nastalgic feeling in me. And holy crap, that movie is friggen awesome!

I think Transformers will be making a comeback this summer becuase I can predict that this movie is going to do well. I went and caught the first showing at 8 pm (strange time for a first showing) and was amazed at the level of animation. I'm an animation major, I can now appreciate the detail and tweaking that goes into modeling all those little parts and for them to shift and transform from a Chevy Camaro to a giant robot. I was amazed at this alone.

It was also amusing to sit in a theater with a bunch of twenty to thirty somethings who grew up on these things and were hooting and howling when Optimus Prime made his debut. They even had a couple people dressed up as Transformers in cardboard boxes running around at the front of the theater before the show started. Lot's of fandom and hollering going on, I shouldn't have expected anything less from a first showing.

The story is a little fast paced, but I didn't mind because it is VERY action oriented. And violent. There is lot's of stuff blowing up. I do recommend it however, to anybody who likes heavy action that features giant robots that turn into different kinds of vehicles and proceed to blow each other up.

Good old fashioned fun. I'll have to see if I can pick up some of the older cartoons just to see the difference, kind of like doing a comparison between old and new ninja turtles. That's always fun.

I Hate My Voice

I don't know what it is about it, but I think everyone hates the sound of their own voice.

I'm certainly no exception to this. I've gotten used to it, but I feel like I sound different then how I hear myself. Why do you suppose your voice does this? Its like you hear somebody else when you speak then what everyone else hears.

Aside from that paragraph making absolutely no sense, I just wanted to reiterate that I can't stand the sound of my voice.

And though I'm getting a grip on Flash, my animations aren't that great as of yet. Heck, their a blooming mess.

I should have my next animation up here soon, I like the story, but it is really painful to watch and quite frankly, I'm getting sick of watching and listening to it, as I'm narrating.

New Movie Out

So, a certain 'documentary' film maker released a new movie today, a movie that I will refuse to pay for to watch.

I'm sure he makes some good points in it, he does make a point or two in his previous forays. The thing about it is as far as I'm concerned, he has no credibility as a documentary film maker because he skews facts to mislead his viewers into seeing things the way he sees it. The fiasco with his latest film, in which he took rescue workers from 9/11 to Cuba to get medical treatment, backfired. What I find amusing was how he seemed to try to shift the blame of him doing somethign illegal to the fact that it was the government trying to shut his film up.

Well, apparently in Cuba's superior health care system, if you are a regular citizen, you have to provide your own soap and bedsheets. Hmm, sign me up now!

I also find the fact that this man decided that he needed to put a copy of his film in a safety deposit box outside of the country in his fear that the government would try to confiscate it was equally amusing. This shows the paranoia he faces, or rather, I think he stated it to get attention, and it obviously worked. Hey, even I heard about it, which gives the movie publicity, even though it is highly unlikely that anybody in the government would actualy confiscate the thing. Of course, with such a vocal figure, the government would be stupid to confiscate his movie, but I doubt that would stop him from making up a story that the government tried to.

All the guy does is lie to meet his means.

This is a fascinating article. I highly recommend reading it.

New York Post review of Sicko

Also check out Moore Watch.

Journalism???

Wow, there really are journalists out there who want to cover something other then Paris Hilton. I haven't laughed this hard at a news program for some time.



I have to agree with Perez Hilton. Priceless.

Flash Stuffs

So yes, I have made a few more flash animation type thingees, and I can definitely say that these will become more and more frequent upon my blog and other various ideas on the internet.



Bloody hell, I feel like I'm twelve again. Everything I do seems to surround a horse or horse like creature (with an occasional ferret jumping in and stealing the show now and then.)

So you have a horse, and you can dress him up, granted if you know what's going on here. The assignment was called "Ms Potato Head" and the example was a potato with a bunch of body parts, kind of akin to, well, the potato head toys. You were supposed to be somewhat original with this game, but I didn't know what to do really so I decided to draw up a horse and give him a bunch of tack that you can put on him. You can even mix and match a bit. Hmm, I probably should have done more mix and matching. But whatever the case, here he is, though yeah, not to exciting but the fact that I can do this is just cool to me. I'm going to do a lot more with it later.

Flash is awesome and I'm totally getting it (most of the time). I'm still completley lost on 3ds Max.

This Sums Everything Up Nicely

Six Chix

My parents saw this and immediately thought of me. They say it even looks like me.

Right now, it is a true statement. I don't have a life.

At all.

And I have discovered that I can't model anythign in 3ds Max.

More Issues

So I've been having more technical difficulties with my blog over the last week, in that for some reason I couldn't log into my account to post. Hmm. . .

I just got back from a friend's wedding who lives on the rainy side of the state, and there were a few other friends over there that I hadn't seen in a while as well. It was good seeing those friends, I haven't seen them in about three years. And roadtrips are always fun.

But anyway, now that my blog appears to be working again, I'll post more about it later. First I need to get some sleep. I pulled a bit of an all nighter to get home.

Email Issues

So apparently my email sucks. I've only had that specific account for about 8 years now. Mostly spam gets through. Everything else seems to be thrown into the spam folder or I just never see it.

I'm in the process of getting a new email. Any suggestions?

Edit: I resuscitated my Gmail account that I set up two years ago and then never used. My alias at Gmail is the email (leaving it vague because of the spambots which suck). Of course, I'll leave my yahoo account open, that's the email most people know how to get a hold of me, though kami(a)risawn.com is junk and overflowing with spam, so don't email me there. I don't think I even get emails through that account (which forwards to my yahoo account) because its such a mess.

Ron Paul for President

Ok, I don't know a whole lot about Ron Paul to tell you the honest truth. He seemed to be a minor candidate in the overpowering field of Republicans (and Democrats for that matter)

I think I need to do a little more research on him and see exactly where he stands, but based on this video, I really like him. He seems to be a true conservative and I agree with most of his view points. Before seeing this video, to tell you the truth, I wasn't really impressed with much of anyone running for President.

I did a rundown on my personal knowledge of the Democratic Candidates about a month or so ago. I need to do one on the Republicans.

Ninja Turtles on eBay

So, anybody interested in buying a bunch of ninja turtle comics?

I've been collecting them for the last couple months and then listed a bunch of extras I acquired on eBay.

I need to sell them. I would sell them in conjunction with the movie coming out on DVD when demand sparked for them again, but unfortunately it doesn't coincide well with my life, as I leave for Drill Sergeant School a week afterwards. So I decided to just go ahead and list them now and hope that if I post enough about them, people might actually buy them.

I hope.

eBay is good for the soul. And bad for the bank account.

Bush and Kosovo

Bush Recieves Heroes Welcome in Albania

I found this article to be rather interesting in regards to the update on Kosovo and Bush's stance on it. It doesn't surprise me that Albania greeted Bush with great enthusiasm, as Albanians love Americans, (There is a street named after Bill Clinton in Kosovo, and his image is plastered on a sky scraper in Pristina) and I wonder if he stopped by Camp Bondsteel and said hi to the troops (I'm sure they would appreciate the support as most people forget we are even still in Kosovo) but I found his stance interesting. Bush is taking a Pro Albanian stance on the issue that is Kosovo and declaring independence. To tell you the honest truth, that seems to be the best thing for the war torn international protectorate. Though the Albanian majority and Serbian minority need to learn to get along and live with each other.

I don't know how successful such arrangement will be, but it would be nice to see some resolution to this ongoing conflict.

More Fun with Flash

It can be educational too!

This is a slideshow persentation of Spots on Horses. Although Paint markings aren't generally thought of as spots so to speak, but I don't care, I'll call it whatever I want. So, Paint and Appaloosa Marking, for those who don't know what they are.

I got the images all over the net, so if you are perusing my website and recognize one of the horses as your own and are upset with me, I apologize but do take note that I make no money off this website.

I felt like I had to go back again and again to make sure my Tovero example was in fact a Tovero. I might be wrong and it is actually an Overo, so if you know spots and horses and you see something on my presentation as incorrect, please enlighten me.

I can definitely see using this program more in the future.

Legend Of Zelda

So, as I mentioned before, I got a Wii.

And I managed to get a copy of Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess.

The rating may change, but right now this is my favorite Zelda game ever, right after Ocarina of Time. And Ocarina of Time was my favorite video game.

However, I haven't finished Twilight Princess yet. So until the story concludes, I'm not going to confirm that this game is my favorite ever.

All I can say is the Japanese know how to make a kickbutt video game.

And the Wii remotes can make you look like a total idiot when playing video games.

Could You Do Time?

In light of the Paris Hilton and Jail talk, I have often thought about what it would be like to be in Jail, or worse even, Prison.

The thing is, Jail is not meant to be a fun time. Its meant to be uncomfortable and boring and a place you don't want to be, to encourage you to behave so you don't go back.

So Paris apparently can't handle three days in jail. Now the question I ask, could I?

Well, the thing is, I try to behave for the most part so I don't land in jail. For instance, I don't shoplift, I don't do drugs, I generally leave people alone if they bug me instead of assaulting them. And I also don't drink and drive. Heck, I don't even drink. In other words, I try to live my life as a model US citizen so I don't have to go to jail.

The thought has crossed my mind though, if something happened and I found myself in jail. An incident happened a few years ago where I saw a car stopped at an intersection and without really thinking about it, I swerved around it (on the right side, stupid of me) and as I passed I realized why the car was stopped. The driver was waving a girl across the intersection. Obviously the girl had seen me because she had waited, but if she hadn't seen me, I could have very well hit her. When I realized what was happening, and how I broke the law, I could have sworn my life flashed before my eyes as I realized how everything could have changed if that girl had been in that intersection, because I would have undoubtedly hit her. And because I was breaking the law, if something had happened to her, I would have undoubtedly served some time for it.

Something stupid and careless on my part, I'm glad she was paying attention, but I never forgot that.

So the question returns, could I serve time in jail without bursting into tears ala Paris Hilton? Well, I guess I might be a little emotional on account of it, but I think I could suck it up and serve if I had to. Without using some lame medical excuse to try to get out of it.

For one, well, I'm in the army. Being in the army is almost like doing time. Except you're armed.

Yeah, if I had to, I think I could survive a stint in jail.

But to be on the safe side, I really don't want to find out if I can, so I'll continue to try not to land myself in jail.

Paris Goes Back to Jail

Ok, I don't know why, but I've been drawn to celebrity gossip lately.

This might be related to the fact that I'm the official magazine person at my work now. See, I'm responsible for the magazine section at work now so I stay pretty current with the gossip rags. Whether it be Britney Spears, Lindsay Lohan, or Paris Hilton.

Not being one for gossiping much on my blog, or at least I try not to, I couldn't help but jump on this one. See, you have this filthy rich brat, who is famous for being famous. What's more, I look at this chick and wonder about what could possibly be going on in her head.

When I heard about her originally going to jail, I thought it was a fair punishment, due to the fact that she had been caught driving with a suspended license TWICE. Its not as if she has a roommate. When I heard that she was released early from jail yesterday, I like the rest of the US, was appalled by the fact that this appeared to be a severe breakdown of the judicial system.

When I heard that it was due to a medical condition, I found this even more appalling. Ok, so how many inmates do you think are in jail (or prison for that matter) that have a medical condition? I don't know what the deal is with Paris Hilton, but if its psychological I bet its due to her being pampered her entire life and having everything handed to her on a silver platter. Whatever the case, there is no reason why she can't be treated for her 'condition' by the system. And furthermore, if it is psychological, doing a major PSYCH! on her by telling her "guess what, you can go home for the rest of your sentance. Just kidding!" is probably not helping matters.

Actually, in that regard, I kind of feel sorry for her. That probably wasn't her fault, but rather the fault of the idiot sherrif who decided to go ahead and send her home when she discovered she couldn't take life in a jail cell. It would have been a lot less cruel just to leave her in the jail cell and make her 'suck it up' rather then to tell her that she could go home and then turn around and send her back 24 hours later.

But the fact that she thought she could talk to the judge via conferance call? Ok, now she's showing her colors again. The fact that they picked her escorted her in the back of a police car in handcuffs is priceless. The look on her face is priceless too.

Why don't you actually LEARN SOMETHING from this!

Maybe some of the other celebs can learn something from this as well.

Maybe, but highly unlikely.

My First Flash Animation

Yes, I am currently learning how to use Flash, however there are still quite a few things that I still need to learn about it. Like how to embed files so that they look exactly how I want them to look.

This file is VERY rough, as I ignored artistic talent in favor of actually making something that was animated. If you use Netscape, I'm sorry but I'm still trying to figure out how to embed objects for Netscape browsers and I can't test it to make sure it works, so you might not be able to see it. Also, you will need a Flash Player.



I call it Running Ferret. I can foresee using Flash a lot more in the future. It is lot's of fun!

Gotta Love eBay

Alright, so I put a bid in on an auction on eBay right? And it was kind of last minute so I took a chance and went ahead and bid on it with my end bid only a dollar more then the beginning price.

So I won the auction. Thing is, I bid on it at around midnight and I wasn't going to be able to watch the auction throughout the day because it was a Drill Weekend. I did have a question about it, but I couldn't ask and get an answer in time to make it worht my while.

The question was, how much is shipping? See, no shipping charges are put anywhere on the auction. I took a look at the lot and thought to myself 'this will easily fit into a flat rate box' and I was thinking maybe a $10 shipping fee. At most.

So I come home and find the invoice in my inbox and it costs $20 to ship this thing. I'm going, what the hell?

So I email the guy, asking him how he got to that amount and the fact that this could easily fit into a flat rate box, and why it wasn't posted anywhere on the auction (because I sure in hell wouldn't have bid on it if I knew that the auction was that much, because the lot isn't worth that much to me).

So this is his response.

Shipping was not listed because it varies by location. It is based on weight, location, including shipping material costs and insurance and delivery confirmation. I can take insurance off which would decrease it a little if you want.

Delivery confirmation I can understand, most people on ebay charge for delivery confirmation. How much does delivery confirmation cost though? Fifty cents? Maybe more. But here's the thing. Insurance is usually optional on the part of the buyer. They specify whether or not they want insurance, and nothing in this auction is worth insuring for me. But furthermore, when I got my email stating I won the auction, it specifically stated that Insurance wasn't offered.

You know the beauty of flat rate? The post office will actually give you the box! And it self seals! So you don't have to use tape! You just have to provide a pen to write the address onto the package! I know, I'm a pro at Flat rate, I got used to sending home a lot of crap via flat rate when I was deployed.

This is a case of a guy putting up an auction and not getting as much money as he wanted for it. So he decided to make a little more money back by charging extra in shipping.

I sent him a link to eBay's Excessive Shipping Charges policy and hope he got the hint. I still want the auction, but I don't want it bad enough to pay $7.00 more for shipping then the auction itself cost.

Weee!

Well, I did it. We finally got them in stock at work and I decided to endulge myself and get one.

I bought a Nintendo Wii.

It may have simply been the simplicity of the box, or the interactiveness of the games, or the fact that I just wanted to get one, but I brought it home, along with a second controller (picked up a third with Wii Play a couple days ago) and have been using the Wii as a socializing tool.

Its funny, actually. Like my dad, who hates video games, actually likes the Wii. The graphics aren't the greatest but the revolutionary controller puts this system in a category all of its own leaving Playstation 3 and XBOX 360 to dook it out as the machine for gamers (it appears Xbox is winning that war) as Wii has its own line of games that are made specifically for it.

Furthermore, some licensed games, specifically racing games, are better suited for the Wii. I picked up Cars and played that using the Wii remote as a steering wheel. Though other licensed games, TMNT for instance, play better on the other platforms, like Xbox.

I like my Wii, and when I do move out I'll likely get an Xbox 360 as well to sublement some of the other must haves, but in the meantime, I'm getting sold on the some of the mini games.

Wii Sports is a great little series of games that almost anybody can play, and even my parents got in on this one. And I hate sports games. Usually.

Wii Play is actually somewhat disappointing, but there are a few games on it that make it a keeper. Specifically Billiards (9 Ball) and a throw back to Duck hunt. I'm going to try to see if I can't get some more content unlocked, becuase it seems a bit lacking at the moment. There doesn't seem to be enough available.

WarioWare: Smooth Moves is currently my favorite game for the Wii. Its a series of quick small and usually easy games that can stump you in that you have to figure out what you are supposed to do when holding the remote in a specific way. But they get progressively harder and harder and you have to figure them out. Quick! And its just as much fun watching the person playing as playing yourself.

I've still get to get Legend of Zelda (we've got a used on in stock, but I have to wait until the sixth before I can actually buy it *sighs*) and there are a couple of other titles I want to try out, but I think I will start utilyzing more of the rentals to make sure I'm not wasting my money. You know, rent them before you buy them to make sure they are worth the extra cost.

Tommorrow we're having a family get together complete with barbeque at the Parent's house. My mom asked me to bring the Wii.

School Woes

I've come to the decision that going to school online is not working for me. It might be the whole communication thing for me or my undecided lack of motivation currently, but I don't think this is what I want to do anymore. Now don't get me wrong, I still want to go into Animation or Game Design, but I don't think that this is the way I'm going to go about getting my degree. In other words, I need to find a school that offers a good curriculum for getting my degree choice that is affordable and in a classroom. Of course, this will mean I will likely have to move.

I think what got me is the fact that I'm paying a lot of money to attend school and I don't feel like I'm getting the information I need from it. In fact, I'm tempted to just buy the books and learn it on my own, because honestly, this is how the whole school appears to be run. Its a curriculum for reading a book that is monitored by another adult that sometimes offers their advice. I've had some good teachers and all, but I'm not getting what I want or need out of this course. I'm going to attend one more quarter, then go to Drill Sergeant School and afterwards try to find a way to mesh all of this together and figure out what I want to do with the rest of my life. *sighs*

I was motivated with this course at first, but in all honesty I'm getting some heavy doubts with it. It might work for some people, but its definitely not for everybody.

I fear that my financial aid is so screwed up right now that the school could be charging me for things that I'm not getting and I wouldn't know the difference one way or the other. I do need to get that all sorted out before much else.

Yardsale Sortage

So we're having a yard sale tomorrow, and while we were sorting out stuff, my sister handed these out.

Apparently her husband used up all the blonde ones, so these look a little, well, nasty.



I won't even say what my sister called these. It was just gross. But we had a good laugh.

Love is a Tree. . .or something bizarre

Every so often I find enough time to come home with a movie from work and pop it into the DVD player and watch it. Just to keep current on new movies.

Frankly, I tend to like artsy films. I like movies that make you go 'whoa', most of the time.

Not to say I liked this movie, becuase I'm not sure that I did. Nor did I exactly hate it either. It was just one of those movies that left me scratching my head and wondering what exactly was going on.

See, the Fountain is an artsy movie, and maybe so artsy as to require you to drop acid before viewing it to actually understand what is going on. Because quite frankly, I didn't get it. It was very beautiful and very well done, if not but completely incoherent.

I think there was some play of metaphors, some symbolism between love and Hugh Jackman and The Tree of Life. But whatever the case, it didn't stop me from saying "you can't see a nebula that clearly with a telescope that small!" and other astronomical inaccuracies.

This might be a movie that requires two viewings to get. But I was quite content on seeing it the once and returning it promptly thereafter. To which I decided to get to further play with my confused state by renting The Science of Sleep.

I'll admit that this one does require a second viewing.

My Cause for the Week

So, a friend of mine rescues reptiles, however recently she acquired a sick cat.



It kind of looks like my neighbor's cat. Except we hate that cat.

The story behind this cat is rather sad however. Somebody starved it and threw it in a bag off to the side of a major highway in her town. She is in the process of rehabilitating it. More posted about the cat here

So anyway, being a rescue type person, she took the cat to the vet and yeah, its pretty sick. Another friend has agreed to adopt it, but in the meantime, it is wracking up some hefty vet bills.

The poor thing tugged at my sensitive animal loving heart strings. Although in conditions such as this I may have euthanized the animal (but then again, I will spend upwards to $600 trying to remove an earplug from the stomach of an overly curious ferret so. . .) I went ahead and forwarded her a few bucks to help with the costs.

In case you like cats, and your heartstrings are torn too, here's more information on helping out a sick cat.

It can be frustrating in regards to the sick world we live in sometimes. I saw a YouTube video of somebody torturing a ferret and it made me go snuggle Blaine and Abby.

Who Would You Hit in the Face?

We were working on a project at work last week that I worked every day. It sort of started to get redundent, doing the same thing for eight hours a day.

What got us through it was socializing, talking about all sorts of weird things. My mind would frequently wander, but all in all, it was good times.

One of the things we did was play games, and one of these games ecompassed a simple premise where we would expand further as to why.

That game? Who would you want to hit in the face?

It started off as Musicians, living or dead. Then it went to athletes. Eventually it came to actors and actresses.

I stated I wanted to hit Avril Lavigne for her new single 'Girlfriend'. Somebody mentioned Barbra Streisand, just to hit her nose. I'm game for striking her proboscus. Count me in.

Actually, I also mentioned Jennifer Lopez, but the others were thinking that might not be a good idea, since she's Peurto Rican or something (I don't know what she is, they're the ones who said it) and its common knowledge that apparently you would get your ass kicked for picking a fight with one of them. But I mentioned a few Divas in general need to be punched. But seeing as I'm pretty mum on the singer side (and I do like some of Avril's songs), I got more talkative when we got to Actors.

Rosie O'Donnell won the actress round, but I stated Alec Baldwin could use a solid strike. Actually, I think Lindsay Lohan needs to have some sense knocked into her. I actually will admit when she first came onto the scene in Parent Trap, I was impressed with her acting and I love the movie. But, well, since she became a skank, I'm a bit turned off to see her in any film these days.

Of course, there is always Micheal Moore. Actually, that guy needs to be shot. It would add to the irony.

Ferrets got Out

A few nights ago, my ferrets got out. And I didn't realize they were out until it was close to midnight.

Its one thing when the ferrets are just out of their cage, scampering about the house and leaving presents for you to clean up in the corners, but this was something entirely different.

They got outside. Yikes.

Anybody who has ever owned a ferret knows that these little furballs are not like cats and dogs. They are strictly an indoor animal with good reason. They have no concept of self preservation, that and coupled with the fact that they average about 20 hours of sleep a day and have most of their hunting instincts bred out of them, well, they wouldn't survive perhaps more then three days outside on their own. I don't know where they went or what they were doing, but I just know the two little dookers found themselves outside.

I had to be at work at 7 the next morning and had to get some sleep, but I couldn't just leave them outside so I went about looking for them. No such luck. I got a little bell and tried to call them, but they remained hidden.

My next option was to find something soft and cuddly and familiar and try to draw them back to the house with that. I have this little bed I got for them that I sat near the door on the flower bed, hoping they would find themselves back with that. I then left and went to the back, looking for them and calling them again. Then I went back to the front after a couple of minutes and sure enough, Blaine was in the bed, staring at me and wondering how it got there.

I picked him up, nuzzled him and put him back in the cage, hoping that Abby wouldn't be to far behind. However, Abby still hadn't come home.

I put the carrier in the backyard with a familiar blanket in it and searched around the house some more. Still no sign of Abby, and now it was nearing 130 and I had to get to bed. So I left the door slightly ajar and fell to sleep next to the couch, hoping she would find her way home during the night and nuzzle me with her cold wet nose like she's prone to doing.

I woke myself up at 430 with the thought that I needed to check on Abby. The sun was just starting to rise, but there was still no sign of her. I checked the back and didn't see her there either. If she wasn't coming home, I didn't know what was expected of me so I went ahead and closed the door and started to fall asleep on the couch.

The scratching on the door got my attention, and not five minutes after I closed it, Abby had found her way home.

Stinky ferrets. I don't know what kind of adventures they had that night, but Abby was outside for six hours. I can only imagine that she found some place soft and cuddly and fell asleep.

I'll be sure they don't get out unsupervised again.

Advice before Jumping on the Bandwagon: Don't

So, show of hands, who here has gotten an email about May 15th, telling you that we are going to crack down by telling those big bad oil companies that we aren't going to buy their gas for one full day. Yeah, that'll show them.

There is another email making the rounds stating that if we can boycott the two biggest middle eastern oil suppliers, Exxon and Mobil, they will be forced to lower their gas and everyone else will follow suit.

You know what I plan to do? On May 15th, I'm going to go find an Exxon or Mobil station and get some gas. I bet the lines won't be that bad and it will make for a quick fill up.

Now don't get me wrong, I'm frustrated with the skyrocketing gas prices as much as the next person, and any fiscally minded person oughta be. But there is a better way to try to combat rising gas prices then to skip a day to buy gas or to bypass one specific station completely.

If you continue to do your errands and use your car the same as you always do, it doesn't matter if you skip Tuesday, you still used the gas and you still need to fill that tank up, whether it be on Monday, Wednesday or Thursday. In other words, you're still consuming the same amount of gas! Maybe people should clue in that this shouldn't be a day where everyone just waits to fill their gas tanks. Instead, maybe the consensus should be that to solve the problem, you simply need to bring the demand for gas down.

Boy, what a concept.

If everyone participated in an event where instead of DRIVING their cars to wherever they needed to go, they found alternate modes of getting to their destinations. For instance, carpooling, public transit, WALKING, Bicycling, or a bunch of other items that cause us to use less fuel. Really, the way to crack down on rising gas prices is to stop using so much of it.

Onto the other popular idea making the rounds. The boycott of Exxon/Mobil (or whatever other gas companies). The problem with this one is the unique industry that is the oil industry. Exxon and Mobil don't buy their gas from one specific place. They will buy it from wherever they need it, and in turn sell it where the demand is. If they aren't selling their gas, and everyone instead hits the Shell station across the street, well, guess what? The demand for gas at Shell will go up, they will run out of gas, and they will turn around and buy it from the Exxon that people are boycotting, which in turn, will raise prices even more. Brilliant strategy.

Furthermore (and correct me if I'm wrong) but most gas stations are franchised out, so when you boycott an Exxon station, you are hurting the family that owns that specific gas station. The head honchos over at corporate might feel a little dent, but hey, they'll turn around and sell their gas wherever they have a buyer. But who will get hurt is the owner of that station, which will lose their revenue.

More information over at Snopes. -
Boycotting Exxon/Mobil
May 15th

I'm doing a persuasive speech on this topic, so I'm doing as much research as I can on it.

Army Weekend

It never ceases to amaze me how far technology has advanced.

I have wireless internet. In some really old barracks. On a national guard post. And it is actually a pretty decent connection!

The last couple days were filled with adventure and excitement, and a lot of down time in between. But I don't really care, it's hooah and it's army and I'm here to do my job and have fun.

I did have to get up at insane o'clock yesterday morning so we could get all of our gear in order, draw weapons, and get on the bus so we could make it to our destination in Montana in a timely manner. They just issued a weapon to us, and the supply sergeant was about to take one of the 16's out and give it to me and I noticed they skipped over a weapon. I was trying to figure out why when I noticed it had an extra attachment on it. An M203. Sweet.

So I asked if I could have it. He said sure, but asked if I was expecting to qualify. Why the heck not? I've never actually fired a 203 as an M16 before and was curious about it, so I got the 203.

Maybe not the wisest choice, as though the 203 is basically an M16 with a grenade launcher attached, the added weight of the launcher coupled with a different placement of the hand on the barrel (the bottom of the barrel is 2 inches lower), well, I now had to get comfortable with it.

But no harm done. Except for some reason I decided to volunteer for various tasks so I wouldn't get voluntold to do something I had no desire to do. And I got tasked with teaching how to evaluate a casualty, so I was lugging around a dummy with me. And I somehow stupidly enough volunteered to be Guidon Barer. What the heck was I thinking? I haven't done guidon in years, and as an E5, technically I'm not supposed to do that.

First thing this morning, I delegated that task out as quick as I could. One day was enough for me.

The range was fun though. Although I found a host of other 'excuses' for not doing as well as I usually do. On account of qualifying on a '203, my kevlar was to big, they made us fire in flak vests (which I hate), they changed the qualification round on us, we had to load and reload automatically, we only had ten round magazines, the sun was too hot, my foot was hurting, venus was out of alignment, so on and so forth. It took me far to long to zero, as I had to get used to the placement of my weapon in the prone position and get used to not really requiring a sandbag. Hell, I was all over the place, but once I got the thing zeroed, I took it and wandered over to the qual range.

We used to fire in the foxhole supported and the prone unsupported, 20 rounds in each position, but recently they decided to make the qualification range more in tune to how we actually fight in war. And, well, from what I understand, we really don't use Foxholes anymore. So we got rid of the foxhole position, and now its 20 Supported Prone, 10 unsupported prone, and 10 kneeling. A lot of people didn't really like Kneeling. It took me missing two targets (including a 50 meter, GAH!) to get it, but I loved kneeling. Prone Unsupported got me this time, like it usually does. But not for the reasons it usually did.

Well, usually we have a transition time when we qualify before, but this time, they just said get into your positions automatically. Given two ten round magazines, we had to change them out between shots and you move and your firing position changes. Then you had to quickly reload another magazine, move to the unsupported and engage the targets with only a few seconds to get comfortable. I had to constantly shift between targets until I got a good sight picture. And then its off into the kneeling position.

I qualified 26 the first time, which was qualified but considering I usually smoke the supported position and this time I flubbed it, I wasn't happy with my score (but I was happy I qualified first time considering all of my 'excuses'!). So I decided to see if I could go again, get a better score. I did, and I improved it by 2. Eh, Marksman for me.

Fine, I'll take the *%^$@# Marksman. *grumbles*

Other high points of the day included Hip Pocket Training in regards to me teaching how to Evaluate a Casualty. Except some other guy from one of the other companies got tasked for the same topic. I taught it once, then learned that they had the SAW range open so I went over there.

SAW is fun. I got in line and waited for my turn, then got a 25 round clip and got a quick refresher training on the M249 Squad Automatic Weapon (er, the technical term for SAW) and went 'yay!'

I got down in the prone position, tried to get comfortable and my stupid kevlar flopped into my line of sight, so I was sitting there fidgeting around until I got a decent site picture waiting for the tower to give us the go ahead.

What I got was something like this.

"Engage your tar- CEASE FIRE CEASE FIRE!!!!"

A flippen dear decided to take a stroll across my lane at that precise point and we were forced to wait until it ambled on past. I had a perfect line of shot for the sucker to, but that would be a bad thing as deer are plentiful yet a protected animal on post. So once it had passed (we hurried it along by flopping up the pop up joe targets) I engaged my targets.

It took me a few shots before I got a decent site picture. But I took out the 100 Meter target, and the 200 meter. And a couple of the 600 meters. :) SAWs are fun.

However, my favorite range of the day was the 9mil. Usually I'm not fond of the M9 qualification range because usually you just shoot at a paper target and you have nothing to really gage your score against, so you can be consistently missing and you won't know this because you can't see where your shooting until your done.

This is the first 9mil pop up joe range I have ever seen. And it was a freakin' blast!
I'm not sure the precise range, but they had a slew of targets ranged from 15 Meters to 40, or so. Like I said, not precisely certain on the distances. The firing range was a little eratic, we had to practice dropping a magazine and reloading another magazine quickly. Sometimes just five targets popped up, one time ten, all in all thirty targets in all.

For having brief experience on that range, I took people's advice from the past with my handling of handguns and instead of leaning back with a pistol, which threw me off balance, I leaned forward and suddenly I realized that I LIKE handguns! I was getting comments that I was smoking that thing left and right. A couple of targets I might have hit if they stayed up a split second longer, but all in all, I qualified first time and I was getting a couple comments that I should look into getting into competitions.

Whatever the case, I loved that range, I wanna go again!

When we got back to garrison, we were then treated to a Urinalysis. Yay us. . .

Tomorrow should be rather exciting, with a lack of flak vest wearage. I think I need to get a few different poses with a 203 and make more 'Girls With Guns' Comic Book Covers.

Stupid Thing Happened Yesterday

I was at work after stocking some Cds and when the cart gave me a flat tire that caused me to nearly lose my shoe, I looked down and realized that I was wearing an old Nike Tennis shoe on one foot and a new Sketchers Sneaker on the other.

Fortunately my pants were covering them up for the most part, so they weren't entirely noticeable, but it didn't stop me from laughing at myself and showing a couple of coworkers my error. They laughed with (or maybe at) me. Doh.

I get to be gone for the weekend, away from a computer, but things should be fun. I actually was on top (for the most part) of my homework this week and its all done so I can focus on playing Army all weekend. I should have a post up by Monday, or Tuesday at the latest, detailing my adventure.

In the meantime, I leave you with another piece of art I did in Illustrator. Not perfect, I understand, but still fun and I used a couple of techniques to do the lineart and it has become a thing I can do a lot more with. I think I will be using this particular program more and more. Now that I actually comprehend how to use it, I can see it coming into a lot more use.

YouTube Finds

One of my favorite comic strips of all time is Calvin and Hobbes.

I laughed so hard when I saw this on YouTube.



The untold story of Calvin and Hobbes, courtesy of Robot Chicken.

Ok, that show is seriously messed up.

Homework Update

So, remember the post of me with the bigass gun that I did in illustrator a few days back?

Well, let me finish the assignment for you.

See, we had to take a picture of us and convert it into a super hero pose, and I decided to do a girl in a post apacolyptic world. So I stripped her down to just grey BDU bottoms and a tank top, and gave her a scar and some tattoos (that's to seperate this fictional alter ego from myself) and then I slapped a horrible background onto it because I suck at backgrounds and this popped out.

I had to give it a comic title name, so its a comic called "Girls with Guns", until I could think of something more clever, which I didn't by the time the assignment needed to be turned in.



I've grown a little attached to Illustrator now. Excuse the abnormally long neck and the strange shape of the left pantleg, I took the bottoms directly off the other picture and I'm actually not this skinny so it looks a little. . . weird.

Eh, but not bad for a person just learning how to use Illustrator, eh?

Virginia Tech -

Virginia Tech suffered a tragedy this week. Total dead has reached 33. I even remember hearing something about it on the news before the second shooting.

Whatever the case, I thought I would say something in regards to this. Not so much about the shooting itself, or why the kid did it (or maybe I am), but rather I thought I would talk about the coverage of it.

Before I get started, I think it is awful what happened to these people and my condolences go to their friends and families. That said, this will likely be talked about on the news for at least a couple of weeks, in lot's and lot's of detail, I'm sure of it.

Anybody wonder why school shootings seem to be happening more and more? I'll give you my hypothesis. If you look at the scenerio behind these kids who shoot up their schools, they tend to fit the same basic profile. And if a kid is suicidal, why not go out with a real bang? Literally? It's a way to immortalize yourself, if you are the cause of some major tragedy, the whole nation will be talking about nothing but you for weeks.

That was exactly what this kid was thinking. I mean, he mailed a tape to a news station explaining himself, he was suicidal and he didn't want to go quietly. He wanted to be remembered. Immortalized in a way.

I've noticed when any major tragedy happens, the media runs it into the ground, and if you think about it, with these kinds of tragedies, that's exactly what the perpetrator wants us to do. Just dwell on every little detail of it, which makes them that much more famous, even if it is posthumous.

I would suggest, in the future, that if another shooting were to occur, sure, spend the day talking about it. Pay respects toward the dead, give the public the information they NEED to know, and then move on, recapping on certain events as they unfold. But don't spend the next month discussing it. That's exactly what encourages these kids to do something like this. Becuase they know it will get a lot of attention. If we don't give it as much attention, detailing every single detail out, I'm thinking it might help deter some of these mental cases from considering doing something like this.

But that is just a hypothesis.

Again, my thoughts and prayers go to the friends and families of the victims. But there is still other news out there. Like, what is Sanjaya doing now that he finally got the boot off American Idol? We haven't heard enough information about him!

Blue Star on eBay!

Hey, I just got a blue star on eBay, which means I must have hit an important milestone or something, so much so that eBay even sent me a certificate that I can print out congratulating me on achieving 50 positive Feedbacks. Wow, I think I'll hang it on my wall!



I guess some people actually think this is a big deal or something, I just found it to be a little lame. Seriously now, do I really need a PDF that awards me a friggen' blue star?

Well, it only took me three years on eBay to get it. Shows you how much I actually use it, doesn't it?

Super Hero - HAH! (work in progress)

So, for my current homework assignment, I have to take a picture of myself or somebody I know and convert it into a digital illustration, or more specifically, a super hero.

Huh?

Well, I got the converting part down at least, and so I've been playing with the illustrator software and I must admit, I'm not in love with it. I still don't know what I'm doing, but I'm kind of getting the gist of it.

So, back to the 'super hero' assignment, which had me scratching my head. When I first heard the assignment, I wasn't aware of it being an assignment converting a picture into a super hero, and I was thinking of doing something with a ferret (I have plans to do a spoof comic with ferrets, its not a long term thing by any means) but alas, I got the memo that I was to use a picture for this assignment.

Well, I need a lot of work, but after fiddling with it, I got, something?

What picture did I use you might ask? Why, the one that I ran into the ground about two years ago.



It's still a work in progress. I've got to find a way to make this all super hero-y. But I just converted the bare basics.


I even thought about giving myself long hair with it down, but, well, that would feel weird because I'm in uniform, so in order to make that a go, I have to ditch the uniform. And its so baggy that I'm having trouble trying to figure out where my limbs are underneath.

Maybe I should get another picture instead? Ah, but it's so much fun!

GrindHouse

Just FYI - Grindhouse totally rocked my world!

I don't know if its just the style of movie, the fact that it was a Tarantino/Rodriguez collaboration, or the fact that they have a chick with a machine gun for a leg, but this movie(s) flat out rocked!

Planet Terror was a perfect mix of humor, action and zombies! Gotta love zombie movies! Where as the second picture was a different pacing, they fit together becuase they both had the same kind of feel to it, a throwback to the grindhouse picture of the seventies, complete with typos and conveniantly missing reels. And some interesting fake trailers, like Werewolf Women of the SS, or something bizarre like that.

Some people didn't seem to like Death Proof, as it is heavy in dialog and slow at times, but for some reason, I liked it, even with all the dialog. There is one scene where there are four girls just sitting in a restaurant having a conversation that feels completely natural, and it never cuts the entire time, which I noticed.

So I liked it. But not recommended for kids, or parents for that matter.

Part Relieved, Part Distraught, Completely Unmotivated

So, I've got a little problem currently.

A few months back, I was set on what I wanted to do, I knew what I wanted to do, and was just working on getting there. A few things came in the way and I adjusted fire and everything was looking good.

Well, suddenly, things aren't looking so bright anymore. I'm frustrated with school and feel like I'm not learning what i need to learn with my current program. Suddenly I realized that school isn't working. I'm not learning anything, and furthermore, when I'm not having a good day, I tend to get into a mindset where I just don't care anymore. And with the events of the last few days, and heck, over the last week, I've realized that I'm just, well, bleh. I don't care. I'm not motivated. I don't know what I want anymore.

Good news is my foot should be completely healed in four weeks, and I can work on it as much as I am comfortable. Just no heavy running or jumping or other forms of impact on it. Sounds good. Which makes that it is a good thing that I'm going to DSS in July instead of May, I wouldn't be ready.

Strange, right now Drill Sergeant School is the only thing I'm realy motivated about. School is no longer keeping my interest and I've got this feeling that I'm going to be stuck working a mediocre job for the rest of my life if I don't get my attention focused again.

I think I need to call about that one job again. Find out where that's going.

And maybe, just maybe, I can find a way to recover some of the info on my two hard drives that won't end up busting my bank.

But strangely, a part of me feels relieved that the information is gone.

Another part is a little distraught.

Silver is Deader then I Thought

So, yesterday was Friday the Thirteenth, and this now makes sense.

My laptop is under warrenty, which is lucky for me because the issue I was having with it was not a software issue, it was a hardware issue. So fixing it is free.

Unfortunately, data recovery is expensive. I can basically consider all the information that was on it to be gone unless I want to shell out some hard earned cash.

So anyway, I took my laptop in and they ran a diagnostic on it to see how bad it really is. They also took my external hard drive in, the one that I brought up as being shot a few months ago.

Apparently, there is three levels of data recovery. The first one is when you have a computer that you just want to transfer information from, but otherwise everything appears to be in working order. Or something. Quite frankly, from appearances of what I know (and granted, with this sort of thing, it ain't much!) this level seems to be something most people could do themselves.

The second level is system error with the hard drive or some technical terms, but the hard drive can be reformatted or repaired easily enough.

The third level is the hard drive is dead. Kaput. Done. They have to send the thing in to a clean room and crack it open to get the information from it.

My external hard drive appears to be a level 2 data recovery. My laptop hard drive is level three.

Fortunately, I have all the stuff I need to restore my computer so they are going to replace my hard drive, as it is still under warrenty. So I'm just out of a laptop for the time being, and I should get it back in the next couple of days. But it looks like all of the information on the old hard drive will have to stay there until I can fathom shelling out the money required to get the information from it.

And aside from some pictures and a few stories I wrote, I cannot see myself doing this any time soon. Maybe the price will go down a few more hundred dollars, or I'll inherit a bunch of money from a long lost relative (yeah, right), or something. But in the meantime, well, so long hard drive, you will rest in peace at the bottom of my drawer until I can come up with the means to revive you.

Sims Self

Ok, so I didn't go see a movie. I just spent a bunch of time on my other computer, playing Sims2.

I swore that I wouldn't get a game on this computer, the internet is finicky enough as it is, but it runs programs really smoothly. Like Photoshop and 3DS Max, and those kinds of things.

Well, I got hooked on the sims, so sue me. I even attempted to make a Sims Self. Unfortunately, I don't think I can do anything to get my eyes right. And my face isn't round enough. But, eh, close enough.


For some reason Sim Kami has a long face, and I don't. But dammit, well, I tried!

I got her to do all sorts of things that makes you think that, yep, she could be me!



Like lack of table manners.



And sleeping on the couch regularly.



Furthermore, I have some other sims that I was playing with, one of them goes by the name of Todd (and ignore the outfit) and I invited him in and tried to get the two sims to be friends, or SOMETHING!



I tried to give him a hug, he wouldn't take it.



Later, I tried to play Todd and invite Kami over, but Kami shot him down. No, they don't like each other, at all.

I made comics out of the Sim characters, three of them are based off my Webcomic (to include Todd), which you might have to read in order to get the full gist of what's going on.

Silver is Dead, Long Live Silver

I have not been having very good luck lately.

My laptop (which I have dubbed Silver) crashed. And when I say crashed, I mean it is not functioning. At all. I can't even get it started in safe mode. It just restarts and goes back into the safe mode screen again, asking me how I want to start it. I'm thinking some whammy of a virus hit it or something.

Fortunately, I have my new computer as backup so I can still work on homework and all that jazz.

Unfortunately, the new computer is glitchy when it comes to all things internet. As in, it will freeze up when I'm online for no reason what so ever. I can't figure it out, but I should have taken it back the moment it started doing this. Its a good computer once I have the program running, but internet, well, tough toledos.

*sighs*

I will be taking my computer in first chance I get next week. This might be a good time to try to get the external hard drive recovered too.

Whatever the case, right now I feel a strange and urgent desire to get out of the house. I'm not sure what I'm going to do, but I just want to get away from the stupid computer.

If you want to hear me rant, here's a video for you to peruse!

Hair Blogging - It's about that time again

I've made up my mind that I need to do my hair every three to six months. Its been a year since I colored it and it was starting to show a need for a trim, and some color, or something.

Ever since I've hacked my hair off at the beginning of 2005, I've decided I'll never wear it short again (mostly because though I like it short, I HATE that growing out phase, fortunately I did it through a deployment instead of in the real world where I actually give some care to how I look) but it was getting to a long and hacked up phase where it was stringy and it, well, DESPERATELy needed a trim.

So I drove up to the sister's place and asked her if she would color my hair. She was gracious enough to help me and of course, I decided to post the before and after pics for you.


Ignore the hideous cape thing I'm wearing, as this is just to protect my clothes. My hair hasn't been touched for about 13 months, and it was due for something. You can see my natural hair color and how much its grown since the last time I did anything with it. And to think, I actually TRIED to style it that day! It's just looking dead and needs to be freshened up, considerably.

Coloring consists of mainly just doing highlights, which works well with me. Though I've posted pictures of me in tinfoil before, it never ceases to crack me up. The things a girl will go through to get beautiful! Hah!



This could be the look of the future or something. Kind of have stringy hair just spilling out everywhere. This is time consuming, but the results always turn out well.



Color and a trim. It does wonders to anybody.

Of course, the only people who seem to notice are the ones who are related to me. But then, that's usually the ones who only notice when you do something like this anyway.

The Path to 2008 - The Democrats

I mean, we're only in April of 2007 and we're already talking about who's going to be POTUS! Why do we do this to ourselves? Do we purposely like to drive ourselves bat wild? I don't know, but I guess because 2008 is completely wide open, we just got to suck it up and get on with our lives.

So, I decided I would look at each candidate for a moment and see what they have to offer and if they even have a shot. Or basically, my own rambling on them.

John Kerry
John Kerry, the Democratic nominee of 2004, has suffered a series of set backs to include making bad jokes at our trooops expense (and how was that supposed to be a jab toward a Yale Graduate now???) that he's, well, he's not a contender for 2008. However, I'd keep him on the radar for 2012 or 2016. This guy really wants to claim that oval office, he's just wisely decided to back out of the race for now.

Hillary Clinton
Wait, wasn't she President for 8 years already? Isn't there a law against this?

Furthermore, do we really want to start a trend here with Bush, Clinton, Bush, Clinton every four to eight years? Jeb for President in 2016! Chelsea in 2024! Barbara and Jenna can run on a joint ticket in 2032! It's madness I tell you! Madness! This will lead to a path of chaos that will end in our country blowing itself up in the anarchy!

Besides, do we really want another polarizing President in the office? You can't get more polarized then Bushes and Clintons in the office. A third of the country can't stand them, another third loves them, and the remaining third don't give a damn/don't follow politics enough to know the difference. I'm telling you, we really don't want another 8 years of Clinton.

Besides, I don't trust her. Everyone knew she was eyeballing the presidency for the future in 2004, she wouldn't admit it.

Barack Obama
This young charismatic candidate from Illinois has exactly two years of Senatorial experience and he's got the entire country buzzing. The question is, well, is he ready for the Presidency? What has he done and what does his experience say about him? Truthfully, I think he'd be a stronger candidate if he waited for 2012 or 2016, because I don't exactly know where he stands on things except to know that he's an eloquant speaker and therefore he knows how to play politics.

Still, I'm thinking I'll take eight years of Obama over eight years of Clinton. I'd say look at this guy on the ticket as a vice presidential candidate, which if the democrats win, sets him up for the presidency in 2016.

John Edwards
Yep, he's back, fresh off the Vice Presidential ticket in 2004 and ready to try for the oval office again for 2008. And he doesn't have the negative stigma of bad jokes that Kerry somehow managed to find. He's got experience in the senate as well. And his wife will help win the sympathy vote.

Except he's a trial lawyer, and he's got a record as a trial lawyer of big massive lawsuits against evil doctors and malpractice. I do have a problem with some of these malpractice suits, some of them are deserved, yes, but people win the lottery on them and it puts Doctors out of business as they can't afford their practice.

Still, as a guy, Edwards seems likeable and poses a chance. If he can find a way out from under Clinton's and Obama's shadow.

Dennis Kucinich
Is this guy for real? Seriously.

I mean, does this guy even have a sporting chance? Not likely. He was trailing the pack in 2004. What does he have to offer in 2008 that makes him a viable candidate?

Al Gore
Gore hasn't declared his candicay, yet, but hot off an Oscar win and with a passion for Environmental Protection that has Hollywood worshipping him, this guy has to think about the possibility of a run for president. Every major website listing contendors for 2008 has him on it as undeclared. And right now, in the liberal circles, he's very popular despite his fallout in lack of personal hygiene after he lost the electoral vote in 2000 to a bunch of Floridians who didn't know how to read a butterfly ballot. He's a contender, its just a matter of if he wants to give it another go or not.

Joe Biden
Ok, I'll admit, I don't know much about this guy, though 30 years of senatorial experience does give him an edge over some of the leading candidates. And to tell you the truth, that might actually help him with the moderate voters who are looking for a fresh face in the mix. But still, under the shadow of heavy weights like Clinton and Obama, he's got to find a way to make his name known to get the nomination.

Chris Dodd
Like Biden, I don't know really a whole lot about this guy. He's got a lot of years in public service, plus he's got a military record to help with the military vote and some of the moderates (but look what that did for Kerry!), so he's got a history to back him up.

Mike Gravel
I have absolutely no idea who this guy is, but he's taking a shot at the presidency and declared his candidacy nearly a year ago. He's got a diverse background in the Military, Business, and Public Service and has even written a couple of books and appears to be a worthy candidate by all appearances if he could find a way to get his name out there.

Bill Richardson
The Governor of New Mexico is making a bid for the Presidency.

Other then serving in Clinton's cabinet, I don't know anything about this guy. Hmm. . .

Summary - In my humble and far from expert rambling opinion, I would say for the Democrats, Hillary is the person to beat. But after a far from successful second term for Bush, do the Democrats really want to nominate a person that is just going to polarize the nation that much more? There are people that just don't like Hillary, and no matter what she does to try to improve her image, they are still not going to like her. It looks like Barack Obama may give her a run for her money however.

If the Democrats are smart, I think they should find a decent candidate who can appeal to the moderate vote. Avoid the double speak of 2004 because seriously, if Kerry had run with a plan and a purpose instead of just fumbling with the issues and not having any clear agenda, he would have won easily. This is a wide open election, its anybody's game really.

I'm just hoping the Democrats nominate somebody OTHER then Hillary.

Pictures and info courtesy of WashingtonPost

Webcam!

It's been a while, but I now have a webcam and a functional computer to use it with. . .

This should prove interesting. Some of the most bizarre things I have ever recorded involved me and a webcam.

Demon Spiders

I picked up the cold, a couple days ago I tried to go to work with it and I had both a cough and a sneeze. Plus the runny nose, the whole thing and as the day progressed, I realized I just wanted to go home and sleep the thing off. I told my coworkers I was sure I had Asian Bird Flu or something, because I haven't had these kinds of symptoms for a long time. They looked at me weird.

A friend of mine posted a picture of a huge spider that came from China in a warehouse box and she mentioned how she can't stand to look at it but wanted to get more information on it. I have a little entomology background on account that I used to be Preventive Medicine and I thought I would take a look at it for her.

I'm tempted to say its Lycosidae, which is a wolf spider, but I can't confirm this because all I have to go by is this picture and a few descriptions she has given. Apparently, its about the size of a fist, though I'm not sure if that includes the legs or not. However, when you do Taxonomy on arthopods, you tend to need a little more information to confirm this. Like, what kind of web does it weave, or does it even weave a web? What does its eyes look like? Can we get a better view of the pattern on its thorax and abdomen?

Entomology was one of my favorite subjects within my job as Preventive Medicine, I loved it. Unfortunately, it was one of the areas that tended to be contracted out to the civilians.

I do know a couple Entomologists, I was thinking of passing the spider along to them to see what they could find out, however I'm sure they would need more information then what is provided here too.

She thinks its disgusting. I think its kind of cool. But then that's just me.

Spring Quarter

So this quarter started off rough enough, but now I'm starting to get in the swing of things again and its not that bad. In fact, I'm actually learning something.

The first class is Intro to Business, which truthfully I've been dreading because I'm not really interested in business that much. However, this class is actually coming in handy and I'm even learning a thing or two that will probably come in handy later on down the road. This kind of stuff will actually be useful if I go into freelance work. Indeed, this could be useful!

The second class is Public Speaking, which got off on a really rough start but now I'm starting to get the hang of it. I had a couple of technical issues abound that didn't help things out either, and part of the assignment is giving a speech in front of an audience of five people and gathering five people to sit there and watch as I try to give a speech can be a little frustrating at times. I could have been a bit more prepared, but now I have to come up with an idea for an informative speech.

I'm thinking about doing one on Ferrets. :) I will post it when I finally get around to giving it.

The third class is on Digital Illustration, which is all about learning Adobe Illustrator, which I must admit, has had me scratching my head for some time. I never truly got it. But I'm picking it up pretty quick and so far am acing the class. But I've been acing all of my core classes so I'm not suprised really :) Now that I'm on top of things, hopefully the rest of this quarter will go smoothly.

I'm still debating on what I'm going to do with next quarter, whether I'll be transferring to another school or sticking with Westwood. I should know the answer to that in a couple of weeks.

On an eBay Kick

You know, eBay is kind of fun! Addictive, can get expensive, but its fun. You sit there, bidding on something, refreshing the page and you're quite certain you have the item in question when WHAM! Somebody outbids you. Out of the blue.

*laughs*

I'm on a TMNT kick, one of those people that jumps on the bandwagon when something is popular. Though there was one aspect of the fandom that I never got into before, and that's the origins of it all, the comics. And there are gobs of them.

I found some alternative methods of purchasing the items I'm looking for, which would have been helpful to know about before I started buying on eBay, but its quite a large collection and I've got a lot of gaps to fill. And if I get extras, I'll just turn around and sell them. On eBay!

In my haste, I ended up buying things I didn't need. Twice. Yep, learning how to use eBay all over again.

Endulging in my inner dork is something I do every now and again.