Getting Settled Into Laptop

Got some more stuff onto it and already I feel at home. It's wonderful, but maybe that's because for so long I have done without a working monitor backlight. Today, I took the computer to McDonalds for the heck of it, and used their lovely free wifi. There, I met a really nice guy. He has some tattoos but they look totally cool on him, and he told me he couldn't believe I was 30. Man, that is refreshing.

Still got some kinks to work out with this laptop so I can stream the Alpocalypse album some more.

Very Happy

Yup, I'm up rather late and stuff but man I cannot get over how awesome a bargain this is. And... I saw a rather strange music video on youtube. Are all of Beck's videos this whacked-out? Because man, I am starting to really love his music, even though I think he's kinda stupid for getting into the whole Scientology thing. Hope he doesn't end up dying mysteriously or even just 'disappearing'. Dude should totally switch to the Freezone.

Used Laptop - $15 Real Bargain!

My Toshiba laptop is getting closer and closer to dying. Dunno if I'll be able to fix it but my mum bought some old laptops at a garage sale. And she's letting me have one that she got for $15. It's an HP and not as flashy as the Toshiba was in its prime, but the monitor backlight works, and so does the CD/DVD-RW. And it has wifi and three USB ports, two of which work(one more than the Toshiba), and it isn't shutting down randomly.

Sure, it's older and its lid is a bit loose, but I don't need to hook it up to a second monitor that I have to lug around. It's got Windows XP, but it's fine - I don't need frills, and if I wanted to, I could duel boot the computer with Linux.

How did we get this lappy for $15? Well, the former owners said that the kids had put a virus on it and pretty much destroyed the thing. It works pretty well despite someone hiding most of the files, and it burned several backup CDs without a fuss. I've had to fight endlessly with my Toshiba just to get it to read a CD. And the Toshiba had previously refused to boot up even in safe mode and forced me to do a total system recovery. This time, it's being nice to me. Might be able to save all the stuff I need to this time.

Life can suck sometimes, but then there are little things like this that make everything right with the world for awhile.

Used Laptop and Big Fangirling Tangent... heh.

Family went to a garage sale and got a laptop for ten bucks. Nice model, mind you - hp, with about seventy-five gigs. But whoever owned it was rather stupid. I don't know if it was just the kids who mucked it up but oh man it is messed up badly. I can use it a bit and even browse on internet explorer or firefox, but after a few minutes, the browser decides to just stop working and I have to restart said browser. And it seems the damn thing has some viruses thanks to the kiddies playing around with it... but that doesn't explain why the contents of almost the entire hard drive were hidden.

But other than that it is just an awesome computer. I feel like I've been given an expensive car for five bucks.

I might be getting that computer to use for when I would really love to be out and about instead of chained to the desk with my Toshiba(the display on the monitor works fine but the backlight is shot. Gotta learn how to fix that one without hosing the whole thing.

Chatty Budgie

Well, my budgie is sure in a talkative mood, and he's swinging on his little metal chain swing. When I look at him, he'll often stop tweeting, but he's usually quite a chatterbox. No, he doesn't speak human, but he does speak parakeet, and sometimes he'll answer when I chirp or warble at him. Yup, I can do a great imitation of the budgie warble.

Yucko.

Got back from work rather late. Had to clean the bathrooms among other things, and one of the toilets was clogged. Someone used too much paper and it took forever to plunger it. Got some of the dirty water on my clothes too. Yuck. I sincerely hope that this will earn me some more hours and a raise. Working at a fast food place is so overrated. Wish that I could switch occupations with one of those rich celebrity twits who do nothing but get drunk and arrested and cause drama. Of course then the damn paparazzi would hafta look for someone else to bug.

Work

Gonna be leaving for work soon, but as of late I've gotten rather chatty online. Hopefully I will stay this way and won't be distracted by the shiny. I really hate how I will get so interested in some activity for awhile and then lose interest and fade away. Gonna probably do another picture tonight. Hopefully I can get a few good crits here.

Paparazzi Amuses Me Sometimes

Dear Paparazzi,

You will likely never find any dirt on Weird Al because he is so squeaky clean he doesn't even use my mum's favourite swear words in his music or his unbelievably awesome UHF movie. 'Bout all you'll get of interest is an unauthorized peek at his daughter's face, which I bet he is non-too-pleased about. Cut it out. Go bother Lindsey Lohan and Paris Hilton instead. They're probably savvy enough to know what makes you give them all this attention.

Besides that, the worst drug-related thing Weird Al has done was puff a clove cigarette in order to make a smoke-effect for his UHF video, and he has a rather upbeat outlook of life - so upbeat in fact that his other girlfriends often wondered why he was so darned happy all the time. Stop it. Just find someone else to bug.


(Yeah, I know, this is coming from someone who walked up to Al, and hugged and kissed him while he was performing. Shaddup.)


- Jenna da Capo



(yup, I know it may be old hat but it just amazes me at how these people are just trying to snoop around in the personal lives of celebrities who tend to be low key and don't do anything stupid.)

I'm Up For Requests!

What should I draw next? I'm thinking of doing a picture of a swan because one of the characters in a roleplay I'm doing is a swan and I love them, as well as geese and ducks. Even raised a few goslings and had a couple that imprinted upon me. I was even able to talk to them while they hatched, and they answered.

Also thinking of drawing a cockatoo or a lovebird. Lovebirds are so colourful, and they look super sweet when they're cuddling on the perch. Though I am quite interested in drawing owls as well. They are related to hawks and eagles, and many of them screech like the redtailed hawk, while others sound more like the bald eagle(and no, the bald eagle screech you are so familiar with is not really from the bald eagle, but from the redtailed hawk).

I will take requests for other things like portraits or fanart but nothing that wouldn't be safe for work - this is a clean blog. I am keeping it this way so I can use google adsense and they don't allow sites with adult content to use their ads. Sowwy. Which means if I do put any adult-ish pics here I'll have to blockatiel parts of them. Might even draw my own blockatiel. Haha!

Underemployed

I doubt I'm alone - there's got to be a lot of people who are working for a piddly 2-4 hours per week due to their jobs hoarding labor. These places go and hire a bunch of people they don't even need in case the economy bounces back and then everyone suffers. It's like there's too many hungry mouths and not enough food to go around. Why not just hire only the people you flippin' need? It's illogical to do that! It's like saying, "It's way too hot in here, so let's turn the heater up further!".

But at least I'm getting called in today despite practically being made the persona non grata by the landlord there. That genius of a landlord has been harassing me, calling me an idiot and apparently reporting me for ridiculous crap like using a fake accent when talking(when I can do a pretty authentic-sounding Brit accent). Yup. Blame it on me binging on Doctor Who.

Well, hopefully I can either get a job at Fry's Electronics or Target, or even Bestbuy(got my wonderful laptop there three years ago and the monitor backlight is out possibly due to me handling it a bit roughly). These places gave me such great service, though it would be a dream come true to just find a workplace that treated its employees as kindly and respectfully as it does its customers. It seems like these days it's okay to treat workers like dirt, especially in a bad economy when beggars can't be choosers.

I'll also be going back to school soon and be quite busy, but hopefully I'll be able to post some nice things still. It's really time I got back to posting here instead of just wallowing. Besides, I've gone on a Weird Al binge and I think his music is again serving as a side-effect free antidepressant.

And yup, I'm asking for tips and stuff, but only in posts where I actually do something entertaining - so instead of e-begging I'm e-busking. You know... like the performer on the street, standing next to an upside-down hat that people throw coins into. Just lookin' for some tips for people whose days I brighten, but I'm also looking for some critiques and friends. So don't be a stranger! Comment and crit my art, rip it apart, correct my grammar, help me get better at what I'm doing!

Also, if you have a product you'd like me to pitch, I'd be glad to! I'd love to get a free product to demonstrate on video to give you guys some much-needed customers.

Tuareg, Tu2 and TunaFish NOW FREE!

If you love sequencing music, then you should definitely check out these oldies: both versions of Tuareg and the awesome TunaFish. After years of simply being cheap, these gems are now completely FREE and their creator, Bram Bos, has provided the registration keys to them. They have been free for at least a year now, but many have yet to discover this. These humble programs have gotten so little attention these days and they deserve more love.

Get them and a few other treats here: http://www.brambos.com/archive.html

Also I would highly recommend downloading FL Studio. Image Line may be asking a lot for it, but they let you use the program all you want for as long as you want, and you now can even save your projects and fully reopen them after registering. And even with the demo, you can render your music. What other programs will allow this much freedom?

Download the FL Studio demo here at the Image Line site.

Master of Orion 2 - How NOT to Suck

When I started out playing Master of Orion 2, I had to cheat to win because I sucked. Always played as creative, telepathic, omniscient, and never paid attention to how the penalties I had chosen made my race suffer with research and other things. I could have a bunch of neat toys, but other races would demand them and declare war if I didn't give them what they wanted. The silicoids were the bane of my empire's existence, as were the psilons. What I learned from watching gameplay videos and reading tips and strategies helped me improve vastly. Now, I usually play as a noncreative aquatic transdimensional species since 'wet' planets have a higher capacity for aquatic races. I often choose bonuses for production and research, so I can get all the higher techs I need before the other races do, and be at an advantage so they won't be so quick to declare war on me.

If you don't want to suck at Master of Orion 2, experiment and be creative without using the creative trait. Use my race - aquatic/transdimensional and try experimenting with different government types like democracy, dictatorship or unification, which can give you some enormous research, production and monetary benefits, and you'll be surprised at how well you start playing.

Linux Multimedia Studio

I found this program about a year or so ago and at first didn't play around with it much, but it's actually pretty cool and versatile. It's got several instrument units including a VST instrument loader, and you can load VST effects as well. Linux Multimedia Studio is a lot like FL Studio and even has a similar beat creator window and piano rolls. The instrument units are much like those in FL Studio as well with their built-in effect units for amplitude, filters and LFOs.

You can find LMMS here. It's free, open-source and comes with loads of free samples. LMMS' current version is 4.11. If you like this program, I would also recommend going to VSTPlanet and KVRAudio, which have loads of awesome music programs and instruments.

Here are some tutorials:

Whoo. Had an odd night.

Stayed up until around two, and hopefully fooled my roommates into thinking I was asleep. Had some rather interesting dreams including one where I killed or at least knocked out some kind of tiny eldritch abomination in a house. But yeah, I have a LOT of those types of dreams.

And I'm fangirling over Weird Al. Yup. And despite the fact he is married and has a kid, I still want to hug him again just 'cause I'm such a cuddlebug. Gonna hafta do some more art soon lol.

Drawing Video - Cockatiel and Macaws

Here are a couple videos I've made of me drawing birds in Artrage. The first one is pretty simple with no background and is of one of my favourite birds - a cockatiel.



It shows all the steps I took, and some of the mistakes I had made, like doing the sketching on the bottom layer first. It did create some problems but all in all I am pleased with how it turned out.

The second video is of me drawing two blue and gold macaws, because I also love them very much.



In this one, I used the oil brush. Some parts were difficult and I kept on forgetting which layer I was on when I made my swatches. Might just put them in the swatch panel instead in the next video.

I wanted to make a picture of two birds doing something instead of just perching there and looking pretty, so I had one of them preening the other. Parrots often do that to friends and mates, and will even try to groom their owners since they consider their 'owners' to be part of their 'flock'. Parrots, especially the larger varieties and cockatoos are very social and need to have someone around all the time, or they will think their 'flock' is lost or in trouble.

So, what should I draw next? I am thinking of doing some Ninja Turtles or Sailor Moon fanart, because I still think Nephrite and Seiya Kou are very sexy, but I might also do the main characters like Moon and the others, or the kitties. Luna is such a cutei! I'd also like to do some pictures of the turtles, and maybe some fancharacters like my mutant human who calls herself 'Noise'. She has a swan that's not really a 'pet'(he bites even her sometimes and is quite wild) and she calls him 'fuzzball' though he's also known as 'bruiser' due to his tendencies to be quite aggressive and territorial(swans are known for that and can inflict painful injuries to those who get too close to their nests and young).

I also have some cool ideas for drawing fanart of some of my favourite singers, including "Weird Al" Yankovic and Janis Joplin. If I do a pic of Weird Al though, it will likely be his current look since I like it better than the glasses/mustache/afro one he had before he got LASIK surgery.

Another thing I might do is make some videos of my original compositions and possibly me singing, because I love to sing and Weird Al got me into music. I do step-sequencing and stuff like that but often I am not satisfied with my compositions enough to upload them. Might make a separate blog to showcase those.

Anyway, here is my tip jar:

I need money as my hours have been cut due to labor hoarding at my workplace(don't worry, I am looking for a new job). Any small donation will do. And please, no smart-alecky comments like "Here's a tip - get a job!" because that joke has gotten stale.