Gallery 2

Put on your installing shoes because tonight - tonight we throw down.

Who? Me and Gallery 2, the software that has been plauging my existence for a week now.

Wish me luck, becuase when I finish this, my install of photoshop is getting a quick refresher in functionality.

PHP & Nail Polish

I should write a book entitled "PHP and Nail Polish" becuase it would be gaurenteed to kick ass.

Okay, anyway. I'm gonna cry or scream or throw things.

Today i got the bright idea (and a nasty note with the words "security risk" in it) to update my Gallery 2 install to the non-beta 2.0.2 version. This was an ill concieved notion for which I should now be famous. I've spent the last hour searching every version of Gallery 2.0.2, Gallery 1 and Gallery 2 beta (my original install) to find the missing files that it says I no longer have.

Rumor has it that the reason I no longer have them is becuase I never had them and they don't exist in the beta, the developer release, the 2.0.2 upgrade pack, or 2.0.2 itself.

Great big fucking anime tears.

Stay away from my gallery - lest it explode.

America's Obesity Problem

I am by no means a small human being. So let me say that clear away from the beginning.

Once a week I go to the grocery store for my mother and my brother. This works for us. Since the advent of this little tradition I refuse to purchase potato chips or other junk food for them - ever. This week, however, I was weak. I bought potato chips and ritz chips . Now, I knwo what you're thinking: So what?

We delivered the groceries to the house yesterday at 5:00 pm. It is now 10:00 am the next morning. The ritz chips and the potato chips are gone. All 6 whole wheat bagels remain but 3 - count 'em, 3 - of the regular bagels and a stick of butter have been consumed. The salad greens, lunch meat, fruit salad, yougurt, apples and other such healthy snacks remain untouched. And this, ladies and gentlemen, is why American's are fat.

No one in this country can show any self discipline toward food. They perpetuate their own sense of a scarcity environment - my mother certain that if she doesn't get her potato chips the first night they're here that Jameson will eat them before she does and likewise. What's worse, midweek they will go back to the grocery store and buy two more bags of chips, a bag of pretzel sticks, cookies, ice cream and some redi whip and repeat the binge eating behavior.

They're like great big children. You literally have to lock up the junk food until they eat their god damned peas.

Oi.

Wikipedia Has Everything

I was googling for more recent Gilmore Girls screeners (because the only person i've found who takes them reliably only takes them of Luke and, as much as I love him, we all know my heart resides with Logan) and I ran across this:

Logan Huntzberger @ Wikipedia

Stop It!

I'm having a ranty moment. Okay, actually, i'm a little bit freaked out but the ranting is distracting me from that.

Stop Blurring Every Fucking Thing

About four months ago someone posted a tutorial at The Dark Arts that i'm firmly convinced should be deleted. The Doll Face Blur.

To this, I say, FUCK.

It's a great technique, one that has been incarnated in several different fashions and ways and everyone has their own way of doing it but what it does is make the testure of the skin smooth as glass while making th eyes and mouth vividly sharp. The combination can be impressive when you want to highlight something and everything was OK. And then...well, then there were a few things.

Stop Blurring Men:
We all know that I love men. Where women are soft, smooth and, to a degree, supple. There are soft lines that appeal to the eye and make women the ideal candidate for so many things. Men are an entirely different encounter. Men are angular, with hard lines, and harsh skin and these are the quintessential beings of man. Period.

Now i know everyone's into the sensative metro-sexual now, and don't get me wrong because I happen to have bagged myself a man who is into laying in bed with me for hours and more than patient when I want to talk (and to listen) about life and problems and the days of our lives script that seems to surround us. But before he gets thrown out of the gender, he's a big fan of blowjobs, facials, good whiskey and too many cigarettes, so give the man some credit.

Let men be men! They're supposed to be slightly scruffy, they're supposed to have a bit of razor stubble - they're supposed to be that way! I'm all for tidying them up occasionally and I've more than once fallen in love with Logan Huntzburger - despite the fact that I suspect he'd bump back our dinner reservations for a manicure. (In his defense, he also insists on being called master and commander.) But let them be MEN!

Stop Blurring Every-Fucking-Thing:
Last night I blurred something - I know, you're shocked, but sometimes it's appropriate. I blurred this and I wont appologize. I blurred it because I wanted two things to stand out - the eyes and the tears - and one way to do that is to make the perfection in the skin texture absolute. I am not ashamed.

You, however, YOU should be ashamed. You blur men, women and children beyond recognition. You blur their skins to the point that their noses disappear and their hairlines are unrecognizeable. Freckles are abhored and made to disappear and the slightest sight of an enlarged pore is cause for panic and excessive use of the smudge tool.

If I had it in my power I would take these things away from you and limit your usage to only instaces where there's a valid reason for it. However, as I can't, now comes the begging.

Stop. Calm down. Really think about it before you act. There are instances where the results are appropriate and gorgeous but in much the same way someone gets ahold of a brush or a font and TDA artists use and overuse it until you all want to vomit, stop yourselves now! I have a much lower threashold than you. I will throw up before it starts to bother you but mark my words, you will come to be sick of it soon!

Good News

At a time when i'm reasonably certain the world is an evil evil evil place, it's good to see that some people are being repaid, albiet a bit late, for their good karma.

Corvette Stolen in 1969 Returned To Owner

Of course, I also noticed this piece of news that, despite it's huggy-lovey headline, reveals a nasty note about how often your local movie theater cleans

Defending Smokers

I don't smoke. Let's just get that out of the way.

However, during a very long conversation with a few random people about turn on's and turn off's and having every single one - the smokers and the non-smokers - rail on the nicotine addicted something occured to me. I'm attracted to smokers.

This from a non-smoker, at that! And not a reformed smoker either but a literal never ever ever ever smoked non-smoker. To which I must ask: what?

Truthfully, i'm sure there are a lot of reasons, not least of which would be that about half of the people who whom i've attached to in life smoke or that the smell of stale cigarettes immediately brings me comfort. I'm sure it has something to do with the fact that men who smoke invariably develop that tone to their voice that it is biologically impossible to produce without carcenogenics of the liver and lungs.

So there you go, boys. There's still one of us out there who says political correctness be damned (but please smoke on the patio. no, wait, i'll go with you!)

Re-cast

Okay, so I knew, when "april" appeared on the scene of the Gilmore Girls as the blast from Luke's past (in the form of the mother of his 12 year old daughter - one he didn't know about) I knew i'd seen her somewhere before. however ,being that there's nothing else on the WB that I can sit through, I had no idea where from.

Behold! In searching for images of the gorgeous and, finally adult looking, Milo for the gallery , the answer has revealed itself.

About two years ago when Jess (luke's nephew and Rory's ex boyfriend) fled the scene for California and his estranged, dead-beat dad, we met Jess's dad's girlfriend...

...and then it clicked.

Article


How weird is that. Seriuosly, who recasts an actress for the same show. Did they think we would not notice?

Back Up's

Due to a hacking incident with an e-friend of mine, i'm backing up my entire server - yeah, that's right, all of it.

I am an idiot.

Downtime, patchy loading, or patches of my hair strewn all over the floor are all a result of this. Patience grasshoppers.

Sublime Entertainment

I'm watching PBS, as I am want to do, and I just thought i'd share tonights gem with you.

There is a british nun with buck teeth and a terrible lisp offering art critique. It's called Sister Mary's Odessy and it is television at its best. There's a costume, an ugly lady with a treatable disability to make fun of, and - here's a teaser - she uses the word pubic hair.

If you ever find it on your local TV listings, grab a bowl of popcorn and some red vines and settle in for a half hour of high quality entertainment.

Things That Should Not Be

1. My shoulders hurt. Why do my shoulders hurt? Were I to tell you i'd have to make the kids cover their ears.

2. February this year brings us a Thursday the 23rd. Because none of us ever could get the hang of thursdays, or the 23rd, i think we should all stay home that day.

3. April comes bearing another Thursday the 27th (a day that I plan to spend sitting in a very safe place around a very safe person, paranoid that something is going to go wrong)

4. Mike got a song (Freak-A-Leek, to be specifc) stuck in my head and I haven't been allowed to sing it for over a year. (There was an incident in the car, apparently, in which they both turned on me and yelled "Don't ever do that again!") *sigh* It's catchy.

5. I just stared at a render that i want to have sex with...except, whats' that, oh yeah, it took six hours on a system with 3 gigs of ram. Oi.

Skin :)

Because some of you can't be troubled to visit the index page, I thought i'd port the update over here as well to keep people from wondering why everything has gone inexpelicably lovey-dovey.

Happy Valentine's Day, all! A little premature, perhaps, to be celebrating but I've had a really bad last couple of months and yes, i'm admitting it, I cannot help but want to affix myself quite firmly to whatever joy happens to be floating around.

This skin series offers a unique and wonderful treat - that being the ability to change the theme for the entire site in fifteen minutes from graphics to uploaded, which makes changing it too often all the easier :)

A few new additions to the site - one's that i'm reasonably happy with. First, several new tutorials that focus mainly on cell-shading for manga/hentai as well as a few more general photoshop tutorials and a website layout tutorial that should get any beginner from point a to point b with reasonably little pain. This skin is listed under the skins pages should you want to borrow it at any point and does include the psd's to edit the header and footer to your specifications.

You'll also find a few new locations under my links section, including some things i'm rather hesitant to admit to :)

Deviations

That's right, i've finally caved and become a deviant.

http://bitterepiphany.deviantart.com/

I've avoided it for ages but today as I was browsing, I thought that, if for no other reason, offering some of my favorites a little bit of crit and kudos would be appreciated by them so I joined up and set up my deviant profile and I even uploaded one of my desktops as a test for how it works.

I may use this more when I get a little bit further into the Hentai Project or if when my love of vectors and bad insomniac tendancies finally reach a point where i'm loopy enough to make them or when the cash appears for the gig stick that maya and i are dying for and I can finally get to some of those gorgeous 3d renders i've been itching to do.

(No, i'm not above commandeering Mike's computer in the interum :P)

Headlines

Okay, first of all Pat Robertson appologized. How weird is that.

And yeah, i'm completely sex obsessed and enjoying every sticky, sweaty hour of it.

Embarassment

I've been and done a lot of things, but today is a day that is making me blush.

Later i'll get into how ass out I am and how I heard the words "I quit my job today," but, for now, i'm focusing on the new found embarassment, and I do not embarass easily.

First, there was the t-shirt binge for Jay. That's all colors of fun until I realized that I could, in theory, wander down the street tomorrow and pass someone wearing a t-shirt I designed. Now that's just fucking weird.

Then there was the fourth e-mail request. Some of the members at The Dark Arts have come across the knowledge that my disappearance from TDA hasn't meant a disapearance from graphics and that I am doing things - new things, things i've never done before - and that they didn't know about it. Well, they've been e-mailing me all sorts of new fun things begging me to log the project - the pain and agony of me learning to do something new.

Why the drivel? Because I did it and as I was doing it the only thing I could see behind my eyelids was the amused look on King's face if he knew. Oh, the pain of The Hentai Project.

10 Reasons To Date Geeks

So it's it cool to scam a nod from your boyfriend? Probably not. But, in this case, I simply have a larger audience and one who would benefit from this knwoledge at their young, impressionable ages.

So, I offer you this - and, yes, i'm another woman who can attest to everything on her list.

Geeks are faithful pleasure mongers who also function fully as workhorses.

Top Ten Reasons You Should Consider Dating A Geek

Fuck Meth

Today I was devistated, because today I saw this on my NyQuil bottle.



That's right, folks. My beautiful pseudoephedrine has been torn from my clutches and I blame every single one of you. I don't care if it gets to the point where I have to bring in a phelm filled Kleenex and cough all over the pharmicist then present two forms of photo ID to get the original recipie - fuck this new version bullshit.

Me and Denis Leary.

Fuck you Procter & Gamble. Fuck you crystal meth addicts. Fuck you legislature for trying to protect them all from their dumbass selves.

I'm gonna go cry now because my sinus cavity is three times it's normal size and my brain is not thrilled. Why, you ask, do i not go take three advil for the migrane? Because I already took the NyQuil and it's chock full of crappy acetominophin.

Fuck you, NyQuil, i'm taking away your big fucking Q. From now on, it's just Nyquil, like every other product out there.

So, would crystal meth empty my sinus cavity - cuz i bet I could get my hands on some of that.

Death To Ticketmaster

So today...

So today someone mentioned that Colin Mochrie was coming to town to do a show with Brad Sherwood - both comedians Mike finds amusing so I thought i'd look it up. After fighting with my mother's useless website for about 10 minutes (because if it's listed - I should be able to enter it in the keywords and get a friggin result!) I gave up and turned to ticketmaster - the ever faithful, always listed....

Too many webpages loaded from this IP...

WHAT?!?!

I opened all 8 listings for this duo (after searching the names) in tabs and loaded their pages because far be it from ticketmaster to list all dates under one header and they lock me out of their service because i'm loading too heavily on their server?

Fuck you. Fuck your tickets. Fuck your service charges and your server.

This rant brought to you curtosy of Southwest Airlines.

You Know You Need Sleep...

When you've seen the same episode of Elimidate 5 times.

The worst part - I fucking HATE this show.

Cutest Google Ever!

I've been collecting google ads since...well, since the beginning :) This one, however, has to be my favorite so far. Yes, I know, it's just braile, but its so CUTE!

Sweet Death

So last night I layed in bed for four hours, every few minutes interupted by the death that was my hacking cough. I did manage to get a few minutes reprieve this morning before I was stupid and sat up but I just thought i'd say, i'm dying.

Holy Backup Files, Batman

So today - wow, today - today I agreed to backup the files on my mother's computer. This is a task i've been avoiding for, quite literally, years but for some reaosn today I was feeling kind and gentle and I agreed to do it.

Her lack of a DVD burner meant either a 40 gig harddrive was going to get backed up to CD-R's or that I was going to be kind, set-up a home/office network and drop her files to my PC to burn them to DVD's.

Allow me to say, simply, succinctly, thta i've been waiting to reboot this compuer for 35 minutes because, silly little me, I assumed she's backed up her outlook files sometime in the last 3 years. I can't reboot until it's finished exporting and i've only managed to make it through Inbox and Sent Items - there's still Board, Contributing Partners, and about 15 other sub-folders of Archives that need to be backed up....I feel stupid...

I should have known when I say the 147 in blue next to INBOX.

I'll just go learn a language while I wait.

Christmas Decor

I know that I wanted to make this a bit more of an extravaganza than it has turned out to be but, the best laid plans and stuff.

In the interim between this year and next, however, I thought I would leave you with this. While driving through Cleveland, we saw this house and had to go around the block so that I could get a picture of it. It's unbelievable.

To really grasp the gravity of the photo, you have to click through to it's full sized version - i couldn't bring myself to resize it.

I counted 60 plastic statues in their yard - and that does not include the candy canes. Don't even get me started on the amount of lights they have.

There's a full god damned nativity on their porch roof for christs sake.