Friday, October 10, 2008

SoBe and Other Stuff

SoBe Rant: Over the last few weeks, one of my side projects was to try to track down "Dragon", one of the very few SoBe drinks I actually like, not only for the name, but for the taste. I noticed that it was no longer being stocked at some local stores, or in the rest area vending machine so I put out some feelers to see what was up with that. The following contradiction to personal experience is what I got direct from the SoBe people: Unfortunately, the product you’re asking about has been discontinued due to lack of sales. By now, if your browser isn't being lazy, you've noticed that the lizards no longer grace my site. If you haven't, a couple force refreshes should do the trick. I no longer respect SoBe as a brand or product, that means they lose out on my support for their products and what was once a very cool reptilian style. Friend Update: Still waiting for information, apparently the medical community in West Virginia is entirely incompetent and can't read MRI data efficiently. Please continue to keep him in your thoughts and prayers, thanks. Garden Update: Promised tomato pictures, but I don't have them ready yet. Dried mint brews stronger than fresh mint, only marginally so, but enough to be noticed. The technique I used for drying the mint and basil worked the way it was expected, so I'll be dong that again next year with the herbs. Project Info: The Pyrography "How To" will start posting really soon, the safety stuff comes first because it's the most important to deal with, and probably the most tedious to actually write up. Also with my schedule getting busy, it could be delayed a little bit, but I expect to see the saftey information ready for posting, as well as a special post. You'll have to wait and see on the special post though. Comments: jomz I hope the worries are just that too. FIngers toes, tail and wings are all crossed that this isn't serious. I have some spring flowers that have long snce peaked and faded for the year, and some roses too, but the bulk is tomato and pepper plants. Oddly our gardern took a little time to get jump-started, but once it took off, it's still producing. Hopefully, I'll get all the fruits in before it gets cold and kills off the plants. The video will be there, and I'll probably link to my Google Video profile if I can so it can be easily accessed any time. Not the worst storms I've ever seen, but fun to record. I never even gave a thought to the exchange rate, that's a whole other ballgame entirely. There aren't enough selling points to really pull me toward Otaku Premuim. Quite all right, I'm no saint about commenting these days. redmoonchick: First off I'm sorry I don't get around to your site that often these days. Thanks for dropping by here. I hope he recovers soon too. There's little more I can do at this point, I've done everything I can to support him. Bugs and woodchucks got my pumpkins this year. Guess it's not a good year for victory garden pumkins. Right now, I'm in the same boat, there are some neat things about it, but it's not enough to open up my waller for right now. I keep my eye on the features and stuff, maybe something will win me over. AngelBest Dream: One of my paragraphs got cut off last time, here's what was clipped before I noticed the error and repaired it: Something I learned, I think it was from Alton Brown on the Food Network, if not him someone on the channel, is that the heat agent (capsaicin) in peppers stimulates the body, causing it to produce endorphines, those "feel good" hormones. With the ups and downs of the past few years weighing on me, I need all the help I can get in the "feel good" department, and I'm not about to do stupid or illegal (not to mention expensive) stuff to get it. A little fresh cayenne pepper on scrabled eggs, in chili, burgers or even stew does wonders in that department and it's perfectly legal. I got the link to your story up in my post on TheO today. I haven't read through it completely yet, but what I have simmed, it looks good. Lime. That tip from my friend (the same one with health issues) has been a saving grace for the garden. Apparently bugs don't like it too much. They haven't gone after the tomatoes or peppers where I've put it. They got the pumpkins because the woodchucks got them first. The tomatoes are strung up on an old fence, and the peppers are lashed to dowels and branched from trees that came down or needed to be cut. I've been told the server had a major fit or something. I'm still on the older version of the forum so there's light at the end of the tunnel. I used to do that, but now I don't anymore, I like the feedback, but I try not to cling to it. I've learned in the past two years that some things just need to be let go. That push was certainly worth it. Magnus Lensherr: The MRI results ae something of a question mark for me right now. The neurologist went out of his way to deliver the news that there was no tardive dyskinesia (from the regular doctor issuing incorrect meds), but I don't think he went beyond that. I won't know any more till I hear from those around me what's going on. I hope he's okay though, if not, I might just have to seek psycholgical help for myself. Nothing tastes better than a vine ripened, grown in your own yard veggies. It takes some work, but it's worth it in the end. I'm still working on the dragon theme, but I had to change off the SoBe lizards as I explained above. If I get it done by the end of the year, I'll be lucky. Thanks for the good wishes, keep sending them, he needs all the positive vibes we can muster. Animé Dreams!

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Thursday, September 4, 2008

Important Things

I'm way later in posting this than I wanted to be, I got caught up in other things that really distracted me and just had me in a funk that I couldn't bring myself out of. I'm not completely out of it yet, but my head is working more coherently now, so I'm updating my blog here, on TheO, and elsewhere on the net that I frequent, I'm going to hit them all if I can manage. Friend Update Probably the biggest inhibitor to my being online in any capacity to get things done lately has been my offline friend. He's been under so much stress the past few months that his physical and mental health have been affected adversely. His personality is not what it once was, he's not nearly as cheerful as he had been up to that point. Several months ago, a lot of things hit him at once, and I don't think he's recovered. The most profound thing that seemed to affect his mood was his own kids backing out of a promise to come visit him. He's not one to really talk about feelings and such, which makes it hard for those of us who genuinely care about him to figure ths thing out. The physical repercussions to the stress have been apparent as well, possibly induced by one of the madications he was taking, possibly related to the stress, or both. He's had some twitching in his arm which came about at the time the stress started and his meds were switched around (it happened the same week). His doctor finally set up an MRI for him, that was yesterday. He promised he'd let me and my Mom know what they find out when he gets the information from his doctor. I'm worried for him, and I'm afraid of what might be found. I hope and pray that there's nothing serious wrong with my friend, but at the same time, I'm finding myself bracing for the worst possible news. My mom is scared too, and so is my sister. We don't know what to expect. If I take extended time away from the blogging circuit here, it's probably related to this topic. I will passs along updates as I get them. If I could ask everyone to keep my friend's good health in your thoughts and prayers, I'd really appreciate it. Garden Update As promised, the video clips of the storm in early June. There's three in all, I embedded the first one, the other two can be found here and here. Pumpkins got attacked by bugs, and a woodchuck sadly, lost all five of the ones we had growing on the vine. If I had the back-up I was supposed to get on the garden project, it wouldn't have happened, but no sense getting irritated over what can't be amended. The tomatoes are coming along all right, bigger than last year's and more on the vines too. In the past few weeks I've gotten over ten tomatoes so far, and there's still plenty more to come. I'll have a picture or two up next time, I kind of took up a lot of space with the vids this time, so I'll save the pics for another post. Bell peppers just started coming in also, a serendipity situation for me, I wasn't expecting them to do anything at all this year (we didn't get anything last year from our pepper plants). I've also begun to dry my mint and basil, using something I picked up from late-night TV viewing. No, not some one-use-wonder infomercial device, I'm talking good ol' Food Network and Alton Brown's Good Eats. I've learned a lot of neat little tricks from that show, including this fan and filter herb drying trick. Why use a box fan and central AC filters to dry herbs? Cause those food dehydrators use heat to move the air, and heat, even in small doses, changes the flavor of the herbs because while drying, it essentially cooks the herbs being dried. As Alton Brown would say: "Not good eats." This is my first attempt at doing this Mr. Brown's way, and so far, I'm impressed with the results. It takes a couple days (a week or more for thicker basil leaves), but it gets the job done. Otaku Technical Just a note of some significance to the site as a whole, not necessarily important to individual members as much, but the long anticipated, much discussed Premium has finally launched over on TheOtaku. Since I can't afford it myself right now, and certainly get nothing out of doing it, I'm not sure why I even brought it up. My Site Technical I'll be changing up my theme to something more dragon, it's about time I did that really. I've been wanting to dragon up my space here. Also, expect to see some pyrography posts coming to my TheOtaku site, and I'll syndicate those posts here. The first one will be a safety overview. Comments: AngelBest Dream: Something I learned, I think it was from Alton Brown on the Food Network, if not him someone on the channel, is that the heat agent (capsaicin) in peppers stimulates the body, causing it to produce endorphines, those "feel good" hormones. With the ups and downs of the past few years weighing on me, I need all the help I can get in the "feel good" department, and I'm not about to do stupid or illegal (not to mention expensive) stuff to get it. A little fresh cayenne pepper on scrabled eggs, in chili, burgers or even stew does wonders in that department and it's perfectly legal. I'll stop officially asking for progress updates next month, but if it takes you longer to get it done than that, I'll still link to it when it is done. I have a feeling that I'm not going to see completed works from everyone who committed to the project, but I'll cross that bridge when I get there. Take your time, don't rush the story though. The garden has done well, the pumpkins are all ripe now, we lost one to the neighborhood woodchuck, but we got four, and with no more flowers on the vines that have taken over the backyard, I'm obliged to cut everything back to somewhat of a sane yard environment. Had one tomato ripen already, and two more are on the way this week, the only thing not doing anything are the bell peppers so I'm inclined to think that my yard isn't idela for them since they flopped last year too. The site isn't lost that I know of yet, but I haven't talked with the main admin about it either. I know she was wanting to do other things with the site besides have the forum set-up. With as long as it's taking to get back online, I'm inclined to believe it's been put off, forgotten, or hit a snag in getting those other parts up and running. When I know for sure, I'll post info here. Yes, I'll certainly be roaring in the coming weeks. Yensid: The garden did very well this year, like 90%, so I'm happy with what I'm getting. Tomatoes that will probably take me into October if they ripen one or two at a time, some bell peppers, not to mention the cayenne, lots of mint, parsley and basil to work with too. The only real failure was the pumpkins which started off so well. I have zero luck with potted plants myself, so I do the outdoor gardening instead. There's a house my brother used to deliver newspapers to that had a rockscaped yard, it was quite interesting, and it looked really nice. That probably is the most energy efficient and environmentally friendly way to keep a yard. Less grass to water and cut, reduced weed issues as well, not to mention less up-keep. If I didn't have neighborhood cats and dogs to worry about, I'd have at least a section of my backyard done up into a Zen garden with the sand and rocks and stuff. "Self Promotion" and "No commercial advertisements" aren't the same thing. I can see wanting to keep down spamming "come to my Worlds" or "Come fav/hug my art" comments, and signatures. Over the years, I've gotten my share of those "yur site iz gr8 want 2 B frenz." messages, and they're annoying. The best way to "promote" oneself with the new direction the site has gone is simply by blogging, and commenting intelligently and let people come to you. I have no problem doing that, I've done that since I began here. "No Commercial Advertisements" becomes a totally different thing than self promotion when the core of the two ideas are compared. Commerical advertisements are about selling something to someone, about money changing hands. Any artist on the site who posts information about taking commissions is "hosting a commercial advertisement on their site" according to the broadly worded Terms of Service. When someone is disciplined for hosting a "commerical advertisement" of another sort while others are allowed to actively flaunt that they're seeking art commissions, that will create tensions. Whether anyone on staff comes by here or not, there's a strong principle behind my choice in the commerecial advertisements matter, and I'll stick to that come [Censored] or high water. I may not like it, but I'll honor it all the same. Besides that, I can blog about the heart of the novel project here without "selling" it. Seems like I'm finally getting a break in the weather, hope it holds out and I'm not too tired from other things to keep up around the net. Hope things settle down out your way. Wish I could send all the rain I've gotten the past few weeks to where you need it out there. Animé Dreams!

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Saturday, August 2, 2008

Return of the Prodigal Dragon

Apologies for the lengthy absence, I've been busy with a lot of things, and just plain worn out to the point I couldn't sit down and draft up a decent post. Not to mention there hasn't been a whole lot going on in my life of late. Now that I have a break in things, I'm back and hopefully I'll be posting regularly again. I'll know next week if I do or don't post. Garden Update I promised some pictures and videos this post, I have some good and bad news on that front. Google Video, the site I host my video clips on, has not been playing nice with me for a couple weeks now. Clips aren't being listed properly, embedded clips aren't loading or playing, they're becoming more like YouTube than a reliable alternate video host. That said, I can't trust the links I have to the video content I want to show you, I can't trust that they'll function so I won't waste my time and yours with those right now. I've already sent two complaints to Google Video over the bugs I've come across, and the third one will be my last, I'll port the clips to another host and try again. I have next to no tolerance for something that is supposed to function a certain way and doesn't. I promised some pictures of the garden, I only have a few online right now, but I'll have some more next time as the tomatoes are going like mad, the pumpkins are doing all right, and the cayenne pepper plant (right) has already produced several bright red peppers which I'm rdrying to grind into powder since that's the only way I eat cayenne pepper. I could use the endorphine boost, that's for sure. The pumkins are doing well, the first hints of orange are starting to appear on the skins, these pics are weeks old when I first found the pumkins on the vines, so they're bigger and more orange now than they were in these shots. The pumpkins will be nice to have, I'm not much a fan of pumpkin pie, but I can learn to like it, or make other things with it that I will like we have 5 on the vine right now, and I expect more will start to surface as the blossoms attract bees. It's a lot of work, but I like the garden, it yields results for the effort that's put into it. Next post I'll have some tomatoe pics, as well as some non-storm clouds that I've shot, just for something different. the bell peppers are still not yielding anything, wish I knew how to get some bell peppers to grow. I'll also have more up-to-date pumkin pictures as well, maybe more cayenne pepper too. I'll just have to see what the camera gives me. Commerical Projects Update I can't actually link to anything here, but I can post a financial update on them. To date, my commercial projects have netted me: $0.00. I'll post this information once a month, for my own "benefit" if nothing else. Forum Update Anyone who has the link to the Role Play forum I frequent, the site's been down for two or more weeks now and I'm not sure when it'll be back up. I haven't gotten an update from the site's admin yet, but I know it's being worked on from what others have told me. I'll link it again here when it's back online. Comments: Yensid: Yeah, I'm updating there more often than here these days. Got a few others I need to pop in on as well. scorchbird12: Long time no see, taking a break sometimes does a person some good, but still it's nice to see familiar names come around again. One of my vids has those freakishly low clouds in it, I tell you I haven't seen a storm like that since I lived in TX where you expect low couds to spawn tornadoes. Unfortunately, I have to hold off on embededing the videos here, as I mentioned, Google Video is being a major [Censored] and not cooperating with me at the moment, so ultimately my readers here, and on my other blogs where I post videos suffer. Well, being stubborn can have it's advantages, but it has it's drawbacks too. AngelBest Dream: Well, I've been worn out from doing a lot of hauling for the band, fighting bad weather, and I had a friend over last weekend also. When I burn the candle at both ends, something has to give and for me, that's my online life. I am still plugging away at the novel, I hope to have it finished and ready for the promotional stuff to begin again, not sure exactly when, but I hope to finish it sometime. Keep at it, and go with your gut. That's the advice I can give you. Hopefully I'll be around more often than I have been, I've kind of been her and there across both sites, not really commenting, but I have been reading posts and stuff. whtdragon: I used to live in Tornado Alley, so wind scares me to no end. All the luck to you in staying out of harm's way in the wind. Weather's been nuts this year up here like you wouldn't believe, hot and humid one day, pouring rain and thundering the next. Yeah, that's one of those subtle directions that needs to be made bold faced or something, cause I had the very same issue myself till I took that literally. Whoops, I missed that till just now. Sorry about that. Anyway, they did that here some years ago, consolidated schools, and they talk about it every couple years as well, but, at least here the parents have enough clout in the local government to push school closings off for a few more years. Their arguments are very valid ones about class sizes, student to teacher ratios, as well as safety and transportation concerns. Personally, if the parents wanted to send a strong message to the school board that the idea smells worse than a titan arum, all of them who have kids that were pushed to other school districts would pull their kids out of the public school system completely and home-school them. A trend like that would command the school board's attention because that's state and federal funding they would lose out on, so much per head that's not at a desk in a public school. Sorry about the mini-rant there, I tend to get loud when I'm annoyed, no matter the subject. Iruka Sensei: I don't tan, I burn so no comment there. The weather's still being a bit loopy here, but it's settling down for the most part. If I sit down uninterrupted (can't do that till the humidity goes down, my room is like a sauna, and not in the good way), I probably could get it all hashed out and polished in a month or two, I might just try to do that as best I can here in August. I don't know a whole lot about publishing either save the annoyance that no one takes unsolicited materials anymore, and agents for first-timers are hard to come by as well. Oh well, as I learn this industry, I'll be sure to pass on what I learn to others. jomz I saw that on the news, scary stuff. At least I got the photos up finally, sorry I couldn't get the vidoe posted though. Honestly, I'm not sure my work is "worth" publishing, but I'm going to try anyway. I'd like to have something under my belt in the success category, right now, none of my successes do me any good in the financial sense, and even if I get a tiny little trickle, it would be better than nothing. Yensid: I'm going to respond to this one here because this is something I want on public record, no matter the fallout it generates. I see a lot of potential here with the the TOS and the enforcement of the document. Now, potential can be a good or a bad thing. It depends on the people in those positions of power to handle themselves appropriately, and not fall into the ruts of past experiences when they do take actions. The TOS has me at a disadvantage these days because of one key point that doesn't fully make sense. Should there be a "no commerical advertisements" policy on TheOtaku? Yes, given that one of the premium features is ads free browsing, and the ads help support the free users use of the site, it makes sense that the site has that policy. Here on MyOtaku, a site that's not ad supported anymore, and not in the mainstream otakudon anymore, does it make sense to have or enforce a "no adverts" policy? To me it doesn't, but the policy is there. What that does is cripple me in two ways. I can't display or direct readers to my best photographs. When it is published, I won't be able to fully "promote" my novel. The policy also puts a damper on those artists who take commissions here as well. Any artist that promotes commissioned artwork here is commerically advertising and that's a TOS violation when one applies "the letter of the law" to it. That creates an environment of double-standards if certain ads are prohibited while others are allowed. What the site may become is yet to be seen, it could go downhill and turn into Elfwood, it could ride a flat line and not really go anywhere, it could go in a positive direction, we'll just have to wait and see. Yeah, that's scary stuff. The sad thing is, the national networks are banking on the suffering you guys are going through out there to play "lets get more ratings by pointing blame fingers at someone". Bureaucracies will alway cause more problems than they are created to resolve, that's politics at it's finest. Instead of trying to figure out who's to blame for the resources not being there, national networks would be doing a lot of good to try to get people, equipment, and supplies where they are needed to help combat the fires and lend whatever aid is needed to the people in the areas affected. just.me That's quite all right, I don't get around here as often as I want to these days anyway, so a few days is quite all right. I like thunderstorms, but I don't like the wind. I'm stupid enough to go outside with a camera and try to capture lightning. Would be nice to get a torrential downpour to knock the humidity out of the air though, these little spits of rain with all the sky fireworks just don't do enough. Yeah, I know, I've been stubborn my whole life. I do wonder though, if I'll have a fight with the publisher over my special dedication when it comes down to the wire. "To the fine people at Workforce West Virginia, the West Virginia Bureau of Employment Programs, and a couple of US Senators, who did nothing to help me find a job, get into a training program, or fix the corrupt system which failed me." Don't be surprised if that's the reason my novel becomes well known. Whenever someone wants a book I have, I send them to the used bookstore, tell them the investment in a copy of their own is worth every penny, and I buy sometimes too. I really don't like to lend stuff out, I rarely get it back. Magnus Lensherr: A year's delay is a rough estimate on my part, I'm horrible with time estimates. Hopefully I'll have it done and already be in the process of promoting it to agents by the end of the year's time. I'll know as I go I guess. The delay is mostly because agents and publishers don't like to look at an "in progress" work, and I have no idea how long it'll take me to finish my major overhaul. Had I stuck with the original plot, I'd be submitting for consideration right now, but the delay will be better for the book I think. Animé Dreams!

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