That's my ISP by the way.

Thanks John for the link.

Sworn to Secrecy

I've been pretty busy this week. A couple of nights working late, a couple of meetings with clients and when I'm not in an air conditioned environment I just want to close my eyes and sleep. I've been thinking about starting up a small freelance company, just to have a name to give to people when they ask me to do work for them and such. Finding the right name to put on it has been a little difficult.

Part of the fun of all this work though, is that I can't talk to you guys about most of it. Because of "confidentiality". What is confidentiality? Well, basically it's a way for people to cover their arses in business terms. It's a crazy competitive world out there, apparently.

I want to write a bit about women, but I've never been very good at that. Both writing, and women, so I'll just say that age old adage. Women, are complicated.

My father gave me several pieces of advice when it came to women, most of them delivered at sunset on the back veranda. His "approach" if you will, was insistence. Not like, continually pressing the point sort of thing, because that would be annoying. Just, be yourself, and not worry about trying to impress someone.

Because, if you're worried, then you feel that something's wrong with you. And no one wants to date a guy who has something wrong with him :P

Oh, and always make your intentions clear and honest. I think this was his way of explaining the "friend zone" to me.

I have to admit, that I haven't really been following his advice. And heck, the way things are going doesn't seem so great, so maybe I should try.

Anyway, enough of this, I think the heat is getting to my head. I'll leave you with a light hearted anecdote from this weekend.

John, Arjay and I are in Traps, which has just been renovated. They have a huge dancefloor in the middle bar now and space lasers all over the place (pew pew). Eventually, it came to the time where I really needed to siphon the old python. I make my way into the mens room, and step into a spaceship. I kid you not, they got their bathroom from a space shuttle. It's all silver and black and the button over the john is a huge lever thing.

I was so impressed that I rushed back to John, who was talking to a friend of his who recently got married. His wife was sitting next to him, and didn't seem involved in the conversation that John and his mate were having.

Me: Dude! Have you been to the bathroom yet!? It's totally a spaceship!

John: Uhh, yeah. Albert, this is (So and so) and (His wife)

Me: Oh, Hi. Congratulations. Have you been to the bathroom yet (so and so)?

So and so: Um, no. Not yet.

Me: You gotta check it out, it's the coolest bathroom ever.

So and so's wife: I've been in plenty of fancy bathrooms you know.

Me: Yeah, I bet you could tell stories.

*uncomfortable silence*

Mr. Eloquence strikes AGAIN!

Guardian

Sometimes I feel cheap using stock images for backgrounds. So I made myself feel better by filtering and blurring and texturing the shit out of these. Yes, I know it still looks pretty lame, but I had no idea what I was going for with this piece. I like how the knight came out though. So, yeah...

I like this one better

More effort was put into it.

Forgot to mention that I gots my stock textures and such from here. I especially like how you can search by color on the site, but I usually just change the layer into grayscale and set it to Overlay. Handy tip with textures! Don't be afraid to play around with different colors and levels of opacity, you'll be surprised at what changing the hue can do for a piece.

Humid as F***

It was today. Quick fireguy sketch so I could play around with some ideas I had in Photoshop.

One day, I WILL own this Shirt.

Because what's the point of being able to make stuff this awesome and not use it to cover your nipples?

How the other half lives.

Now I don't want you to get the impression that all I've been doing is playing warcraft lately. I have been spending a lot of time playing a Draenei Hunter though (and his amiable companion Barry the Bear) and it's been...interesting.

The one thing I've noticed? The quests on the Alliance side have a bit more depth to them, but apart from that the sides are pretty much interchangeable. You get the same amount of douchebags, the only difference is that some of those douchebags I know in real life. And they play Horde. An example?

Thanks to the new Looking for Dungeon feature, you meet wonderfully random people whom you'll never have to talk to or even be nice to. One Scarlet Monastery run I met a priest who started off the run by saying "I'm going to fuck your bear if you don't keep an eye on it hunter."

That sentence pretty much defines everything I hate about random people. He has a name people, his name is BARRY THE FREAKING BEAR.

Oh, and he called my macros gay. Fucking Alliance prick.

Anyway, on the work side, it's been good. I guess. I've been doing a lot of what I call "someday" work. That means doing awesome work today that I will be paid for someday. There's that logo job I've got going (which is...I'll talk about it after I get paid) the Feminist Propaganda work and the occasional poster.

There's also this other job that I've been having some strife with the parental unit over. Like I said, some work is "someday" work, but when that someday is an unforeseeable day in the far future for a lot of work today I have second thoughts. Sometimes third ones too.

Finally, I leave you with an important thing I learned about myself this weekend. You can make out with someone all night, but if you can't dodge a little vomit you have no right being out there at all.

True story.

The spoils of Hard Work

This is a short post. Today I peeled too many potatoes to count, cooked chicken, entertained people, made and received many phone calls, and celebrated the birth of a dear friend.

It's a good kind of tired. Warm, glowy and fuzzy.

That's probably the alcohol though.

Here fishy fishy fishy

My mum and sister have vacated the premises for a while, leaving me at home alone.

So, to keep myself company and to rain love upon I have obtained a fish. He is very cool, although still a bit traumatized at the moment. At the pet store I had to choose between your classic goldfish or the angelfish they had. I had originally considered a goldfish, but after looking at the angelfish it was no contest. They're really graceful >_<

So the new love of my life is a little zebra striped angelfish named Fishsticks. He swims around in his little bowl and I talk to him about things. He's a very good listener. Also, I refer to him as a he but I have no idea what gender he is. Apparently there is no discernible difference between the male and female angelfish, and the only way to tell which is which is by watching them while they're spawning. Which I wouldn't do, I mean come on, give a fish some privacy.

I've never really had a pet of my own, so this is kind of a big responsibility. Yes, there was a pony that was given to me on my thirteenth (fourteenth? fifteenth? it seems like a lifetime ago) but I think my dad just wanted a pony and used me as an excuse. I loved Jimmy the Pony, to be sure, but he was never really mine and I wasn't really responsible for him. Also, he was pretty mean to me.

Once he managed to escape from our compound and ended up on television. Imagine our surpise when on the six o'clock news there was a story about "someones donkey or ass" (apparently no biologists were able to give their expert opinion) wandering around the carpark at the supermarket, harassing small children and shoppers. He was never the same after that, always acting like he was too good for us. Fame went to his head I reckon.

So yeah, I'm going to go check on Fishsticks now, is it too early to start teaching him tricks?

On the Radio...uh oh!

This song gives me the happy feelings at the moment. Also makes me think, hence the art.

Bring on the Beard!

The foolish friends have decided to have a beard competition. We're trying to see who can go the longest without shaving, there is monies involved. They are foolish because I am young and fancy-free. Therefore, will win. It is 3 in the morning.

Thoughts

Here are some of the ones I've been having lately.