Art by MeddygonThere is a fine line \ Between genius and madness. \ It is called timing.

A long time ago in a city about 150 miles away from where I am now, I drew crappy pictures and thought I was cool for having prismacolor markers. Also a time when stupidly large anime eyes were cool. Or something.

Click for larger, if you don’t value your eyes.

Agent Smith Stamp — Done for an Illustrator class. We had two weeks. I took two hours. 14 May 2003.

The above is the original description whenever it was I posted it last somewhere. The instructor wanted us to trace in illustrator some pop culture icon, and most people did some campy deals that took them forever because basic computer skills were beyond them.

I’m going to re-post some old stuff, be it art or writing or whatever, once a day. I’m probably going to just go alphabetically through my folders, but you might find something interesting (or crappy).

“Each dog is the size of three dogs and they have four of them. That is twelve times the daily recommended dose of dog.” – Jorenko

I’ve finally updated to the latest version of wordpress. In doing so, I also decided on using another theme and putting some distinction between private and public posts. So register if you haven’t already, and you’ll get to read EVERYTHING.

I usually go about my life assuming that people do not care about me or what I do. This is easy for me to handle because the amount of people who could possibly care account for such a minuscule fraction of the total population. Knowing this, I am usually content. However, this mindset assures me that I should not share with others what I am feeling, as they will most likely not care. If they do not care, then I would be telling them for the purpose of receiving attention. I do not care for insincerity.  This writing is intended for the internet with no target audience other than those who may stumble upon it and take interest. You don’t need to care. I don’t expect anyone to.

For those of you who don’t know what to get someone for Christmas, get them a Something. I first heard about the Something Store on NPR earlier this year and bought something just to see if this place was real, and that the somethings were as varied as they say. During the interview with the creator, he stated that the most expensive thing they sent out was a $450 emachine, though the majority of the somethings range from $2 to $20. Each something costs only $10, and that includes shipping.

The first something I ordered ended up being a wind-up toy from Kikkerland ($15 value). The second something was a mini magnetic dart board ($2 value). I was still impressed by the variation. The Something Tracker also gives you an idea of what people are receiving. I think that the only lie on that page is where they are going. I ordered 25 somethings this for my relatives this Christmas, and the majority of what I received is on that list.
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I signed up for Twitter. This could be very, very lame.

“I am a bard, a trav’ling man,
In homes and inns I sing.
I tell the tales of history,
Of heroes and of kings.
I never deigned to read or write.
I’m not a learn-ed man.
But in my endless pilgrimage,
I have learned all I can.
My words are now for you to read,
My thoughts are on the page.
Fear of losing my audience,
Strikes me in my old age.
It is time the world knew again,
How and why it was born.
And just who is the chosen race,
And who deserves our scorn.
I sing the lessons taught by gods,
I sing them for my kin,
So that we might be the holy,
and leave the rest to sin.”

The Women of the Lakes

(more later)

I am enjoying this point-n-click adventure with combat system reminiscent of Chrono Trigger with a hint of Wario Ware.

On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness, Episode One: great game or greatest game?
(hint: neither)

Good game. Certainly hilarious at times, and enjoyable to play, but I don’t see playing it again and again like I’d do with older adventure games of the sort. Maybe it’s just because I have more games now I don’t have to re-play old ones repeatedly for mild entertainment.

For a while I’ve been using two lcd displays. My first one, going on four years old or more now, has a crappy contrast ratio and really makes it difficult to deal with colors properly when making arts. Because of that, and because I’d just bought a computer that could hand dual display, I bought a second monitor under a year ago. That second monitor crapped out on me over he weekend. It doesn’t surprise me, though, it was $100 cheaper than most monitors at that time and came with no warranty. It did display dark colors better, tough, and now that it’s gone, I’m really missing being able to differentiate darker shades.

So I spent just under $500 on getting two new monitors for myself. This old one I’m using now I’ll be giving to my parents. They’re still using a viewsonic CRT I bought them eight or nine years ago.

(Originally written in late 2004)

 Chapter 1
The Chase

The river was beautiful. It was as clear as filtered and processed water, but it was natural. The sky reflected perfectly making it the brightest blue. Not even the riverbed could dirty the water. The water flowed smoothly in some places, and had small rapids in others. Rafting the river was a common pastime.

It was the belief of the townspeople that they were the chosen ones because we were blessed with this perfect river. This city was the only one on the river. It was odd, so very odd. Others tried to start ports along the riverbanks, but the river would switch it’s course slightly to engulf their wharves, or it would rain and the runoff would flood the river and the town. The river seemed to refuse another city to be built on it.

In 2000, a movie called “Pay It Forward” came about. In it, a social studies teacher gives his second-grade students a task for extra credt: come up with an idea to make the world a better place. The main character, a student, comes up with the idea he calls paying forward. Person A does three favors, for Persons B, C, and D. Then each of these people does three favors for three different people, so after just two tiers of this idea, twelve people have had their life made better in some way. The favors are to be done unasked and without any expectation or return: the person helped must simply pay it forward as well.

In the movie, the student starts his idea by taking a vagrant home and lets him clean up and get food. The child explains the PIF idea to him. The vagrant then learns that the child’s mother takes a taxi to work every day because her truck is broken down. The vagrant pays forward by repairing the truck. The vagrant noves on, and the idea spreads as he does his remaining favors. (Do watch the movie some time, the whole thing is wonderful, even if it is a bit long.)

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I have a headache. It started last night. It’s not a headache I normally have, and my medication doesn’t seem to affect it. It hasn’t gone away or diminished, no matter what I’ve taken.

So I watched it snow a bit in the middle of the night. Fuck. Snow. Means I have to shovel the drive in the morning, with a headache and little sleep. I got back in bed and put my earplugs in. I stared at the ceiling for a few hours, thought about tf2 strategies, social engineering at work, and other things.

I got up and looked at the clock. Two hours had passed. I pulled out my earplugs and heard rain. Fucking rain.

My driveway is two inches of ice.
Didn’t sleep.
Headache.
Coffee.

Some time last year, I got a spam email that has managed to live in my inbox for a long time simply because of the title above. The content is just as wonderful.

Do you like Jerky? Do you like money?

from Clint.

AMANDA,
Do you love JERKY? Would you like your JERKY to pay you money… I know it sounds silly, if not unrealistic, but let’s look at the facts:
1) It sells. It is literally sold in every convenience store, grocery store, and is in prime locations within these stores, all because it does sell!
2) It is consumable – people eat it (often within minutes of purchase).
3) It is naturally preserved (if it can last long enough to put into storage)
4) Is a great protein and low carb food source

While playing TF2 tonight, my Virtually Indestructible Keyboard decided to give out again. As it did, it caused TF2 to crash, right in the middle of a CTF_Well match. I had 55 uses of my teleporter, and since the map didn’t finish properly, my client didn’t record that for my stats. 55 uses! The teleporter use counter on the top left of the hud had rolled back to 0 several times! It was cool! And it didn’t count.

VIKs are soft keyboards made by GrandTec. I’d been using one for a while and I loved it. In the past few months, however, the outer silicone part had detached from the inner circuitry. There was a lot of shifting about and the keys would get stuck. I’ve switched to my cheap dell keyboard now. I really want another VIK, though, even though I know it’ll mess up all over again. I’d had it for a couple years, so I know it’ll last a while.

My husband and I wanted to start playing World of Warcraft again, starting tonight. Many people at my new place of employment play, and discussing it at work made me decide that it’s worth playing again. And, since we both have tomorrow off work, it would have been a great way to spend the day.

Did you catch that? Would. Have. Been.

We couldn’t log into our accounts to reactivate them, and we could reset our passwords because we didn’t know the phone numbers we signed up with. (For our protection.) James called Blizzard’s billing department. After much waiting (hold music is various songs from Blizzard games), he learned that his account had been canceled by a GM.  He was told that no information could be given over the phone (for his protection) and that he’d have to email the GMs about it. The gent helping him did forward the email regarding his account cancellation to the email address listed in his account (for his protection).

The real reason I finally got my driver’s license is because I’m starting a new job tomorrow (Dec 17) and my husband has to go out to California for a business trip. Even though the place I work at is closer than the school I used to ride my bike to every other day, it is now December, and that means lots of snow and cold.

Hopkins airport isn’t too far away, but I still felt uncomfortable driving home after dropping my husband off. I decided to not go on the highway for two reasons: I’m not comfortable surrounded by many cars and it was windy. There’s a large bridge crossing the Cuyahoga River Valley (hereafter referred to as “The Big Fuck-Off Bridge,” as that is what I titled it after seeing it for the first time). I’m terrified of it. TERRIFIED.

So I took some side streets. I had planned to go a particular way, but this morning it was raining. It had snowed last night, so there was double the water trying to go through the drainage system of the area. Even with normal amounts of precipitation, the way I wanted to go floods. I decided to go another way instead, a way I’d never been before to get home. I followed the signs out of the airport and just went north.

I decided to go north until I saw a cross street I recognized the name of. It took a while because I was about 250 city blocks west of my neighborhood and on the other side of the valley. I eventually started heading east. After about 90 blocks, I decided to start going south, since I knew I was too far north, the next angled street I saw. I followed it and was happy at how few people were taking it.

It had started to snow lightly as I’d left the airport, and it hadn’t picked up much as I was driving. If I’d just taken the highway home, I’d have been back in 20 minutes at the most. I wasn’t even paying attention to the time, but I knew I’d been traveling for longer than that.

The angled road twisted and turned but wasn’t confusing at all, thankfully. Eventually I got to the valley and had to cross it. This road had a bridge, so at least I didn’t have to go looking for one. It wasn’t as big as the Big Fuck-Off Bridge, but it was still pretty big. There was wind, but not a single car shared the bridge with me, not even goin the other way. I was in no crash-danger.

I got across and started checking the street names. I didn’t know how far south I was now, but I knew I was still north of home. The name of the street I was on had changed, and it was now something I knew from my bike travels and I no longer felt out of place. I knew exactly how to get home. The snow was now forming bigger flakes.

Around 11:30 I got home and parked the car in the garage. I called my mom (because this is so exciting to me I had to share).

Around 12:30 I looked outside and saw that in the past hour, there was two inches of accumulation. I’m happy I got home when I did.

Fifteen minutes ago my husband IM’d me to say that he’s waiting to get on a new plane because the windshield cracked!

I’m sure this is all very interesting to all of you reading (hi mom and dad).

edit 13:22 ] His flight has been canceled due to the blizzard. He has to catch the next flight out.

edit 17:26 ] Husband has boarded the plane and is hopefully on his way to LAX.

I feel so lazy.

Second comic with a proper timestamp for its creation. Backdated to the original date it was uploaded. LET’S SEE HOW LONG THIS COMEBACK LASTED!

Pencil doodle includes Happy Bob.

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First comic with a proper timestamp for its creation. Backdated to the original date I attempted to bring Corkies back.

GIS (Google Image Search) again.

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#13 Rantt Ô_õ 12/11

My my mind draws a blank.