Archive for projects
On Writing, Designing, Games, and Beer
So I had this dream last night where I was a character in some Bleach episode, and I was trying to build PDFs out of CNC router parts. This sums up my last couple of weeks pretty well.
The website is launched, though there are still things that need to be done to it before it is finished. Still, I now have the time to get back to working on my other projects. I’m about halfway done with the font I’m working on. I now have piecemeal Drupal modules that I would like to clean up and stick on their site. I also again had the revelation that my professional website looks bad and needs a makeover. I get that revelation on a regular basis. This is good in that I’m constantly a.) learning more about design and programming and b.) upgrading the website to reflect that knowledge, but is a pain because this is a chunk of work to have to do on a regular basis. Am also thinking of shifting it into Drupal, to give me another Drupal site and to give me more Drupal experience. The site is just straight PHP right now, before that it was built with the ever popular duo of M4 + shell scripts. Which made me feel pretty cool to have a site built in them, but was not all that applicable to the job direction I was trying to go in. Oh yeah, I also have my super-cool new site idea that I wanna build and launch at some point. And there’s still converting the rest of the php into classes at Writaur.com. And making a version of Storypath that uses gamebook/rpg character elements.
Apparently none of this was as important to get done as beating Peggle Nights yesterday. It’s a free download if you create an account at PopCap games and say “yes” to getting a newsletter. Not nearly as exciting as Oasis, but it’s still pretty fun, and is apparently effective at distracting me from the pile of things I have to do. I’ve still got most of the “Challenge” levels to beat, so it will pose as a potential distraction for awhile to come, I suspect.
I made it to the second round in the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Contest! The first round was where they read your 300 word pitch for your novel. 1000 people get to go on to the second round, and as they accept only 5000 entries, and the Young Adult category was a new one for this year, there’s a good chance I was accepted for my lack of typos and misspellings. Still, I was in the top 20%, so that’s good. The 2nd round is where they read the first 3000-5000 pages of my story. I really hope the style of the novel won’t be a hindrance – as it’s a “Choose your own adventure” style book, and the contest requirements said it had to be the first 3000-5000 words, so they will be reading a rather disjointed story indeed.
And on a final note, tonight will involve beer. Apparently the Coors factory is about 15 minutes away from where we live, and a coworker of Drew’s invited us to go take the tour. Seems that they’re very generous with their free samples, and the end of the tour involves being able to try up to three of their products. We still need to determine the “Who’s driving?” strategy of all of this, hopefully the factory is near enough to downtown Golden, CO, that we can stroll around and sober up a bit. The best part about Colorado is that, were we ambitious, there is a path about a 10 minute’s walk away from where we live that we could bike on to this factory. It’s a 9 mile ride, which I don’t think is bad at all, but Drew might have difficulty with. Still, we’ve got a stationary bike that he’s been using, so maybe come Springtime we can try the ride and see how it goes.
Gaming, Misc Projects, Jobs, and Media (a.k.a. I Suck At Making Relevant Post Titles)
My current site project right now involves bunches of icons, and I wish I had more time for it. I’m also trying to get myself in gear with the Amazon Breakthrough Novel contest. I’ve never written a pitch before and it’s a tough slog at this point. My writing tendencies are entirely too stream-of-consciousness for their own good, and I need to focus more on a decent packaged whole when I write. In other news, I’ve eaten Mexican food every day this week except yesterday.
I finally beat Oasis on Insane. Were this 2004, when the game actually came out, it would likely be much more exciting. Nonetheless, Oasis has provided me with months of gameplay, and was totally worth the $6 I paid for it. On a similar note, rumors have it that a version of Civilization will be coming to Facebook this June. Aside from my occasional Scrabble obsession (and whenever someone flings a Pathwords invite at me), I’m not a big Facebook gamer. Yoville got tedious, and I haven’t logged into my account in months now. There’s a bunch of others (Mafia Wars, Farmville, etc.) I signed up for, played once, and then promptly forgot about. I think a problem with these games is that they’re mostly about doing the same thing over and over to acquire more stuff and build your character. None of which is all that interesting to me. One thing that is immensely interesting, however, is Civilization.
Job prospects = still slow. Didn’t get the job I interviewed for this past Friday. They might have a temporary use for me for a project that may or may not happen, however, which would be nice. I’d like to get more hours at Liberty, as though the pay is meager, it’s actually pretty fun to jump around by the side of the road all day long. Also, I don’t think I’ve ever felt this healthy in the middle of winter before.
I wish another Chick-fil-a would open up out here. This is because I want to do another First 100. Preferably without the blizzard this time around. I also really just want to eat chicken constantly, because it is so freaking good.
I finished reading “Jonathan Norrell & Mr. Strange” by Susanna Clarke recently. It was fabulous, a very British early 1800’s take on magicians and magic, quite long and involving with quirky characters, I highly recommend it. I’m currently reading “Nature Girl” by Carl Hiaasen, which is quite funny.
Finished watching Evangelion. Apparently the ending was poorly executed due to budget issues, and I thus need to see a movie called “The End of Evangelion” for proper fulfillment. I really liked the concept behind the ending, and we can hopefully get our paws on the movie sometime soon. Started watching Bleach, am enjoying it but with mixed feelings. The more it veers away from the “I need to kill this giant Hollow” plots, the more I like it.
Oh yeah, I totally scored some free fabric off of Craigslist. Giant bag, some scraps and some decent-sized pieces. I’ve got a pair of black shorts with a drawstring that never really fit me right, and I’ve got this great idea to convert it into a skirt, adding some fabric to the bottom in ruffles or something. I’ve got plenty of fabric to do this, now it’s simply the matter of locating said shorts. There’s this black hole that follows me sometimes, and likes eating things I’d prefer not to have eaten. I picked up a tank top from Old Navy with the final dregs of my gift card, and as a tank top it’s entirely too long, but with some fabric on the bottom it would make an awesome dress. I need to find a fabric really similar to the tank top’a fabric to execute this, however. Now, once I have made these items, I need to find or create circumstances where I would actually wear a skirt or a dress. Pants are just such a nice default, but it’s a shame that I keep making all of this crap and never wear it anywhere for the most part.
Oh yeah, crispy chocolate in my near future. Old Towne Arvada is having some sort of chocolate festival, whereupon I will enter items into their cookie contest and, with any luck, will win a giant pile of chocolate. Which would be good timing, as our Christmas chocolate is slowly running out!
On jobs and programs and that holiday thing going on right now
First off, Drew has a job. Yay! He was supposed to be just part-time, but they want him to go full time. He’ll be doing recruiting for an online college. Another phone job, which is admittedly what he was doing before he got his degree, and doesn’t have much to do with political science. Apparently one of the people who interviewed him has a masters in international relations, so it’s not like he’s the only one being hired outside of his degree area. Being that it’s for a college, they had strong preference for people who had degrees anyhow, so it works out.
I’m still poking along, and am dealing with the slowness of people who need websites as a side thing to their real work. I’m gonna try to get a temporary job with the census, most likely as an enumerator. I can go door to door with a clipboard! I’ll need to take a test of some sort which will likely be ridiculously easy, and then see if I’m needed in my area (along with the gazillion other people who probably applied to do this as well). It would be evening and weekends mostly, so if my web work picks up, it would not interfere with potential meetings and such. Waiting to get a call back to take the application test currently.
As of right now, I’m back to learning Flash. I have high hopes for this time around, as I have an actual project I’m working on. Avocado animation ahoy! Making a video to enter to win $2,000. Going slow but steady at the moment, I’ll be sure to post it here when I’m done.
I am nauseous from mint bark. It is ridiculously easy to make, mostly involving smashing oreos and melting heaps of chocolate in the microwave. It is also ridiculously easy to eat too much of it.
Oh, and we’re apparently going to Nashville for New Years. Nice long drive, there. Drew’s got a family reunion dealio going on, and it will give me an opportunity to retrieve my sewing machine and paintbrushes, both of which I managed to leave behind in Richmond and both of which are quite necessary for my general well being. We’re taking Drew’s car, as the back seat folds down and has enough room for whoever’s not driving to nap. First, we’ve gotta get Drew’s oil changed. Looks like we’re getting about 6 inches of snow by tomorrow, so that’ll need to go away (or we’ll need to find a nice clear lot) before we can deal with the oil. I just really hope his oil filter and other bits aren’t in completely ridiculous locations. He’s always changed his oil in a shop, and I really hope they didn’t use a machine to screw and unscrew the plug (Jiffy Lube is particularly bad with that), cause that makes it a real big pain for those of us with weak arms to loosen said plug!
Anyhow, Happy/Merry/Kwazy Christmas/Yule/Hanukkah/Kwanzaa/Festivus/etc.!!!
Quest for the Fountain of Life is now available in paperback!
So, about a year ago, I did Nanowrimo (aka National Novel Writing Month). I wrote a Choose Your Own Adventure style book, primarily as a means to test out the Storypath system I’d recently built on Writaur.com. Anyhow, I liked what I wrote, and have spent chunks of the last year editing it and finessing it and all that good stuff. Well, it’s finally done, and is available for the low low price of $10 at multiple fine internet establishments, namely Createspace and Amazon.
Quest for the Fountain of Life can also be read online for free! This way, people can preview the book first, and hopefully share the link with their friends.
I’m still trying to figure out how to market this thing, so I appreciate any suggestions on that, as well as any feedback on the book itself. Thanks!
Illustrative Art Stuffs and Getting One’s Dance On
So here’s something exciting: Forrest’s card game (Furoticon) is now live, and I have art in it! Yay! So this means that I now have two instances of illustrative artwork that is published, neither of which I can put on a resume, especially together. One is art in an erotic furry card game, and the other is art in a book titled “Jesus, Priceless Treasure”.
In other news, I made a super snazzy dance mix CD. It is strategically designed to be played loudly in your car in order to get your booty a-shakin’. While sitting in a car, but pretending that you are actually in a club with light-up floors and John Travolta. In fact, it will cause you to see all of the other drivers around you as actually being John Travolta. Such are the benefits of such a mix CD. Here are the songs, in order (with my way awesome TI-99/4a Winamp skin), on the mix CD:
I’d love to make extra copies and swap with people if they feel so inclined. I will also accept baked goods in lieu of mix CDs.
Jewelry for fun and profit
So here’s a rundown on how I did at the Black Market this past Thursday. I made a bit over $40 total, got rid of some stuff, and now have more stuff then I need. I made a bunch of jewelry in anticipation of people potentially wanting jewelry. However, for what I made, this was the wrong market it seems:
I had high hopes for the dice necklaces. I was selling them for $8 apiece. You can get ones just like it from Thinkgeek.com for $10 apiece plus shipping, or from Etsy.com for $15 plus shipping. Alas, not as many nerdy types there as I could have hoped for, so no go for any of them. I may try sticking the rest on Etsy to get rid of them, or hold onto them for future sales. No one was interested in glow in the dark bracelets either. I wonder where all the kandy raver and cybergoth types have gone, anyhow. I also did “experimental” jewelry involving keypads and beads. They looked rather tacky, so I’m probably gonna disassemble them. It’s a shame, I really like the look of computer and keyboard and phone innards, and I feel there’s much potential for jewelry use there, but hell if I can figure out anything attractive to make out of them. Oh, and for some bizarre reason no one wanted a bracelet that says “phallus”.
I did, however, make lots of money off of the brownies I baked. I also sold all of my remaining Magic card packs. Apparently someone out there loves some Homelands. No takers on the CDs, which was a bit surprising at first. But then I thought about it, and realised that part of the reason I was selling the CDs is that I prefer to just have everything on my computer rather then deal with pesky extraneous disks all over the place. Someday I will own no disks, just a teeny pile of memory sticks and hard drives that will hold everything in the world that is important to me, minus a Drew. And then I will be so infinitely portable, and can carry all of my worldly goods on my ultralight and fly around with geeses.
Salami Day T-Shirts!
It’s the moment that you all have been waiting for…Salami Day shirts are finally available to the public! There’s two designs at the moment (and hopefully two more to come in the near future), available in a select variety of shirt styles and colors. September’s just around the corner, so get your Salami Day t-shirt now!
Blathering!
So you know what’s really stupid? Pine Sol. Have you ever read the back of the bottle? It is not recommended for wood floors. In fact, the things it recommends using the stuff for are tiles and ceramic type surfaces and whatnot. Why mention pine in the name when you can’t actually use it on wood? Which, uh, I’ve been doing up until I read the bottle today. This is because I am super bright. I will just console myself with the thought that it’s all just soap in different packaging.
By the way, if you want to waste hours of your life in a most entertaining way, this is the method I currently suggest.
I bought a new domain. Impulse buy, couldn’t help it. (http://www.ambulophilia.com, to be precise). I hate how there’s no centralized and easy to use means of finding hiking trails out there on the web, one that uses google maps and has all sorts of search options. There’s some good resources, but they tend to be more localized and not too searchable (i.e. park websites). Or there’s other resources that look like they’re superuseful but only have like 3 trails total for the state of VA. Anyhow, I’m just gonna make my own.
Art and Salamis
I don’t think I’d mentioned this here yet, but a few weeks ago I got all excited over a working scanner and scanned a bunch of art, all of this mostly inspired by someone who contacted me regarding acquiring prints for a school library display she was doing on dystopian literature. So I had a few days of hardcore scanning…and rotating and delicately fitting things together, as the scanner is 8.5″ x 11″. But anyhow, if anyone needs art for their walls, I can hook you up (or rather, you’d hook me up by buying art!):
I’ve got some other stuff I need to scan in, but it’s all lodged in a ceramics studio at some mall or another.
I’ve been working on some Salami Day t-shirt ideas, and am remembering the vast bridge of differences between Photoshop and Illustrator. D’oh! Progress is slow but progressing. I’d love to be able to print up a bunch myself (assuring they’d be good quality and a reasonable price), but I think the initial cost is more then I’d be able to handle, and I’m just gonna end up doing cafepress or zazzle or another of such sites (higher price for the final product, but little to no overhead). Maybe once I get an idea of if the random public might be interested in some quality salami-related clothing, I can consider beyond those options.
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