Thursday, February 15, 2007

Guess who’s now cruising on Road Runner high-speed internet….meeeeeee, that’s who! Finally, after all this time glaring and cursing at dial-up, I am now free from its evil clutches. I just can’t get over that I click on a page and it…loads! Like…instantly! Especially here on Otaku, now I get to see the fullness of people’s sites as well as hear the music and the videos actually load and oh man, heaven. I’ve already started downloading anime and the first on my list of anime I’ve been itching to get my hands on is Death Note. I have the first 7 episodes downloaded and it only took me a couple hours to get them all! I saw the movie available for download as well so for those who have seen the Death Note Movie, do I have to watch the show first? I know the movie is live-action so I wasn’t sure how it connected with the anime. So yes, today we had quite the dilly of a snow storm. We got over 2 feet of snow and everything was cancelled and closed down…even my casino shut down early!!!O_O Here’s some pictures since many asked and this first one is our snow covered swimming pool in our backyard. You can see the diving board has quite the pile on it…wont be jumping off that for a few months: This next one is the road at the bottom of my driveway…as you can see, the road is completely white because the snow plows can’t keep up with the amount of snow that was dumping down on us…that and since we’re in the middle of nowhere, they don’t tend to plow our roads very often: So yes, I will admit that snow is very beautiful and it’s amazing how peaceful the world becomes when it’s snowing because all sounds get muffled however…snow is extremely dangerous and it causes quite the driving hazard so it’s going to be a butt going to work tomorrow morning….unless the casino is shut down again which I’m not keeping my hopes too high for but it would be smart if they did because people don’t want to leave their house now and gambling isn’t exactly #1 on the average person’s agenda. Death Note!

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Wednesday, February 14, 2007

Right now, I should have been cruising on high speed Road Runner cable but guess what? I’m still on flippin’ dial-up. However, tomorrow morning, Time Warner is going to do the final connections so we’ll be set by early afternoon. I can’t even go into why Time Warner couldn’t install our new cable and such without it turning into a super-long post but long story short, their was a dispute over a utility pole and the fact that all our cables and wires run underground to our house but we got the neighbor’s consent to run the cable line from his pole so they came back in the late evening and drilled holes in our house and so tomorrow, they will do the final install. Whew! And right now, we are getting one honey of a snow storm. We’re predicted to have 2 feet by tomorrow morning and when I keep saying “tomorrow” I mean “today” considering I’m updating at midnight, and we’re supposed to get an additional 8-12” throughout the day. Bleh. I’m not looking forward to having to drive to work in that crap. But I’m in a pretty good mood right now because my brother has left for Texas on a business trip for 2 weeks and he dropped off his doggy, Harley, for us to take care of. YAY! I can’t believe how much I miss having a pet in the house after Freddie died so Harley is a warm welcome. While I was watching American Idol(yes, I watch that show, so what?!) and House she jumped up on the couch and snuggled up on my lap so I was miiiiighty cozy. Oh yes, and Happy Valentines Day! I honestly, don’t pay much attention to this holiday whether I’ve had a significant other or not, it’s just…another day. But, my V-day gift to all of you is a super-cute picture of Harley, who I just talked about in the paragraph above:

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Tuesday, February 13, 2007

Sorry I’ve been gone so long again! Then again, I’m sure not too many people even noticed.XP Blame work and my friends again. I was planning on having a relaxing Saturday evening after I got done from work but I had called Tyler to ask him something and he asks me, “Are you at work?” I told him no, I was at home and he goes, ”What?! You’re at home? Then you’re coming to the movies with us!” Haha…they thought I had to close on Saturday evenings but I actually close on Sundays so they just got things mixed up. So, Tyler, Gavin, Phil, and I went and saw the movie, Pan’s Labyrinth. I’m telling you, if you can get into R-rated moves, then go see this one. It was really reeeeeeally good. It is a foreign film though to warn people in advance so you will have to read subtitles but I hear it was nominated for a few Oscars. And then today, I asked Gavin, Tyler, and Phil if they’d go to the mall with me when I got pierced. Heehee…in the ear and they said they wouldn’t miss it for anything because they wanted to see me in pain. Golly, what nice friends I have. I already have my earlobes pierced and I have one piercing in my upper cartilage but I wanted a 2nd piercing underneath my 1st upper cartilage piercing. So, I got it done and it hurt a bit and my boys took pictures and laughed at me and I glared at them but then they reminded me that I invited them in the first place so…yeah, they had me. My new piercing looks awesome though, I’ve always liked the upper ear piercing look so now I got 2 hoops in that ear. Tomorrow…er…today…Tuesday!...we’re getting cable!!! So hopefully, later today, I’ll be cruising the web on Road Runner without having to wait and wait and wait for pages to load like on dial-up. Whee! But…I’m not keeping my hopes too high because we’re supposed to get the biggest snow storm in our area in 2 years but it’s not supposed to start until 6pm and Time Warner is supposed to be gone by then so *knock on wood* hopefully, everything goes smoothly. And I apologize for the long post. *hangs head in shame*

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Friday, February 9, 2007

I’m glad you guys liked my photorealism drawings in my last post. And to answer the question I was asked a lot, “How long have you been drawing realism?” I did my first true attempt at it with pencils senior year of high school and the parrot chalk pastel image you saw below, was an early attempt at photorealism in color…and my first try at pastels…a medium I doubt I’ll be using again because it was a butt munch. I’ve been doing realism for about…erm, 5 years now but don’t do it much anymore. 2nd question asked, “Are you human?” Pfft…ha! Well, I’d say the obvious answer is…no! But if I told you what I really am…I’d have to send my army of gnomes to shoot you with ice pellet guns. Here’s a random thought… For Pirates of the Caribbean 3, I was thinking, you know how in the first and second movie Jack Sparrow always had great entrances? Well, I think for the third one, wouldn’t it be the ultimate, if his entrance was him riding in on a couple sea turtles strapped to his feet like he claimed he did in the first one? Aye, I think that would be perfect. One of Life’s Simple Pleasures: When you put money in a vending machine and 2 of the items you bought fall down so you get 2 for the price of 1. Aye, isn’t that wonderful? That happened to me today when I spoiled myself to a 100 Grand candy bar…I sure felt like a 100 Grand after that! HA! *cough*

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Thursday, February 8, 2007

In less then a week I’ll be cruising on Road Runner! The 13th is the set day for Time Warner to come to our house and install everything. We’ve already bought all the things required for Road Runner including the Router and Wireless cards and all that crap so there shouldn’t be any reason why we have to put up with dial-up after the 13th, dang nabit! It can’t come soon enough because my dial-up has been getting into this habit where it will dramatically slow down (yes…as in slow down even more-so then it usually does) and then disconnect and then I have to sit there glaring while it reconnects. I worked on my first piece of a horse that will be sold in my casino’s gift shop. It’s coming along well and when it’s a little further, I’ll show it to you guys and for those of you who’ve never seen any of my photorealism pieces, here are a couple that were done in woodless graphite pencil: Here’s a couple of my animal drawings and the black and white piece was done in graphite pencil and the one in color, was done in chalk pastels: The large versions of all those above, can be found in my Deviant Art account linked in my profile if anyone cares.^^ Photorealism used to be the only kind of drawings I did but don’t do them as much anymore, mostly because…it’s boring. Lol! Well, I should say, it’s much more fun doing illustrations like anime then it is being anal retentive in every mark I put down for the photorealism…then again, I’m anal retentive when it comes to my anime pieces too so…never mind.^^’’

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Wednesday, February 7, 2007

Thanks for all your guy’s support from my last post. I’m not looking for people to feel sorry for me though, I just really reeeeeally needed to let off some steam and trust me, the way my mom is towards my artwork has never stopped me from doing it, if anything it makes me work harder just so if I ever do make something of myself in the art world, I can shove it into her face while laughing like a maniac. Today, to get my mind off things, I went shopping. Yay, shopping! I mostly needed to stop at Barnes & Noble because I wanted to get some books on horses since I’m going to be doing those photorealism drawings that will be sold in my casino’s gift shop since our casino has horse racing. I found some great books and I also spoiled myself with some new manga…I was very excited to see that Loveless Volume 4 and Absolute Boyfriend Volume 3 came out. And here’s where it gets interesting, I went to the register but there was one lady ahead of me so I waited. Well, I could hear this lady just talking and talking with the sales clerk and she finished her purchase and turned around to me and told me that I better get up here to buy my things before she talks the clerk’s ear off. So, the guy rang up my total and the lady just kept talking to me and the clerk asked if I had a B&N Membership card to save 10% and I said, ‘No,’ so this lady, who I’ve been chatting with, gives me her card to use on my stuff. I thought that was very nice so I decided it wouldn’t hurt to keep talking to her and it turns out this lady loves horses and works with them and I told her about my job at the casino and she just thought it was the coolest thing ever and she shook my hand and then told me I was too skinny. Lol! Blunt…I like it but then she asked if I was a rider and I said I wasn’t and she said she thought I was because I was tall, skinny, and had long hair. Ha! But then she told me her life story in how she got in an accident a couple years ago in which she went through the windshield and she showed me the scar where her skull had cracked and all this lovely stuff but I was really intrigued by this lady so I ended up talking to her for about 20 minutes before we parted our ways. I dunno, I’ve always loved talking to random people and hearing life stories so this was fun.^^

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Tuesday, February 6, 2007

I’m so upset right now I’m about to burst. It’s more-so anger then anything else and it’s because of my heartless mother. I don’t even want to go into everything that has lead me to snap but what really dealt the final blow has to do with Freddie and my mom basically telling me to stop crying over her because Freddie was just a “dumb dog.” I was finally starting to feel better about things too and then everything has just crashed because of her. She doesn’t give a rat’s ass about anything that happens in my life…but my one brother though, oh boy, according to her, he’s just the most perfect being on Earth. My parents had gone to see my brother’s re-decorated house and my mom was gloating to everyone after she returned about how my brother must be “the artist” in the family…want to know why? Because he did a good job painting a damn wall! I wish I could remember the last time my mom told someone about my artwork let alone even take a glimpse at it. I was so excited too about how my casino wanted to sell prints of my artwork at the gift shop too and I tried telling my mom about it and she “shushed” me because she wanted to watch the news! You know what, I’ve had it, I’ve spent my life trying to please her and I’ve always been a good kid(even though she thinks I’m a drug addict because I’m an artist, *rolls eyes*) and keep her up with what I’m doing in life but I’m done. I’m sick of her not caring and I’m sick of trying. I apologize for the rant, I just really needed to vent and I’m glad I’ll have your guy’s post to read to keep my mind off of things.

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Sunday, February 4, 2007

My dad and I watched Pirates of the Caribbean 2 last night. I had already seen it, like 4 times but he’d never seen and he wanted to and I had to problem watching 2 ½ hour of Jack Sparrow and Will Turner.^_~ My dad can’t hear well so we had to watch the movie with subtitles. Well, it’s not that my dad doesn’t hear things…it’s more like he can’t understand anyone who talks with an accent. Like with the Lord of the Rings movies, we had to sub them since all the characters talk with English or Irish or Orc or whatever accents so he can’t understand a thing they say. So pretty much, if you come from anywhere else besides upper America, my dad may not be able to understand you.XP I have to close tomorrow at work. Boo. But at least I get to sleep in tomorrow. Yay. And then I have 3 days off in a row. Double yay. Oh, I forgot to tell you guys that the head of marketing at my casino saw my portfolio and he wants to sell prints of my artwork in our gift shop! My photorealism pieces though, not anime. And since our casino has a horse track and horse racing (it’s called a Racino), I’m going to be doing a bunch of drawings of horses to sell so that’s going to be my focus for the next couple weeks. Some of you haven’t seen my photorealism…I’ll have to post a little snippet of one…but not tonight, me tired.

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Friday, February 2, 2007

The last few days have been very rough but I’ve been trying to get myself mentally back into shape. I had called my friend, Tyler telling him Freddie had died and he instantly told me to come over to his house and he invited a bunch of my other pals over as well and they helped cheer me up. They know how much I love the show, Mystery Science Theater 3000 and there’s this certain episode that I’ve always wanted to watch and my friend, Phil went out on a hunt and downloaded the episode for me so we could watch it. It was dandy, the movie they watch in that episode is called, Santa Claus Versus the Martians. Now tell me that isn’t a winner of a movie title right there. The movie was horrible but oh-so funny since it was just so…weird…and bad and yes, it really is about Santa Claus conquering Martians. By the time we finished the movie it was pretty late so everything was closed but they took me to the only place that was open at 12 am which was Dennys. Mmmmm….grease. But the night was full of laughs so it was nice getting my mind off of things. I have some dandy friends.

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Thursday, February 1, 2007

We took Freddie’s body to the vet to be cremated yesterday. We had decided that it wouldn’t be right to bury her in a dark, cold hole in the ground since she hated being alone and she always wanted to be near us. We did the same thing to my beloved kitty, Furball who died a few months ago at the age of 18 and he used to follow me around the house like a 2nd shadow. The urns will be put side-by-side. Tomorrow, we’re donating all of Freddie’s old food dishes and treats and bags of food to our local animal shelter. I probably wont go because I’ll be too upset to see her things going away. I want to thank all of you from the bottom of my heart for your cards and well wishes and for sharing your stories of lost pets as well. I just can’t get over how much it hurts to loose her. It’s like what Jaguar said in her comment to me: “I honestly hate losing pets more than I hate losing people. I think they get closer to your heart than any person could ever come. Unconditional love is an amazing thing, I guess.” well stated and it certainly proves true of my relationship with my companion of 16 years:

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