So I finally got my graphics tablet working…
My graphics tablet, a Trust 1200 Wireless Tablet has been lying unused in my bedroom for about a year, I once had a dream of doing a grand web comic called Men N’ Bots, but my Windows PC was too crappy to handle my leet skills. So I got a mac, and low and behold, my tablet didn’t work. Well long story short, I put some batteries in, and found some compatible drivers (not by Trust) and it works like a charm, and it’s truly great.
So to get to the point, I’ve been doing some drawing, and here’s one I’d like to show you…
Click for larger.
It isn’t perfect, but yeah it was like my second try, and I sortof cheated on the face, if you call tracing cheating. But I still need to master the art of faces.
and yes… OK OK, I promise my next one will not be of Evangeline Lilly. I promise, gimme a break, geez.
Testing out Windows Live Writer
Now as you know, I’m a mac guy, but I thought over the winter, I might try out VMWare with XP, since Vista looks shit without its aero glass (oh and it’s getting the most awful rep from everyone who utters its name).
So I thought I might try out Windows Live Writer, it had been recomended on a podcast I listen to, and it’s incredibly cool looking, no ads like messenger, it’s got the wordpress logo seamlessly integrated into the design, and it’s just generally nice looking. Obviously this is my first post with it, so I don’t know if it will post yet, but hey, it looks nice.
Oh yeah, and you can change the colour! How awesome is that.
But as I said, I have a mac, I mean, do I really want to boot XP every time I have to express myself? No, I don’t but you know, it is pretty neat.
Leopard’s turning out to have some bugs…
Turns out when you wake a mac from sleep, it’s keyboards attention can go AWOL on you. Best solution is to restart and don’t put your mac to sleep, unless like me you decide to rant to your friends through the on-screen keyboard.
Lack of a Television
I lack a television. A few years ago, I’m sure, this would be ridiculous for someone like me, so in love with entertainment to force myself to go without a television. There are a few simple reasons why I didn’t, which follow.
- The Television licence is like £130, and I’m not the type to try and get away with it
- Most of what’s on TV is crap that I don’t watch
- I can’t schedule myself for anything, I missed most everything I like when I was at home.
- Most of the TV I do like is on Sky, which I can’t get in student accommodation, and is a stupid luxury I really can’t afford.
- I have a laptop, and I get a lot of entertainment from it.
Read on to read what crap I watch…
Why I love the Apple Store
Recently we have had an Apple Store move near where I live in West Quay southampton, I attended the opening, now I’ve had my mac since before then, we bought it online and it’s served me well. So my battery failed, and I took it to the store to see what the problem was, and they said they could fix that, but then the guy looked at my display and saw that it had dirt and grime underneath, it’s totally annoying as a graphic artist but I never thought about complaining about it.
So now I have a great new display! My previous one looked awful compared to this and hence now I should be able to do much better work and truly enjoy my MacBook Pro. They also fixed my keyboard which was very nice of them. All for free. I am one happy customer… but soon my warrenty will run out – AppleCare for me?
‘Event’ful? Hardly
Well yes, the night of the ‘Christmas Ball’, ‘Christmas Event’ or as some people putridly attempt to call it ‘Crimble Mingle’ came and went on Wednesday, an ‘Event’ that has turned out to be rather disappointing every year since it first entered existence, was well, rather disappointing. There was some good music, lots of dancing (presumably of the amazing variety when it comes down to me), and a reasonably ok and a pretty crap band respectively but I’m sure the front row made sure they were all insulted healthily enough.
I enjoyed the event quite a lot, I hung round my new friends, who are not as 100% reliable and dedicated as my traditional friends, who seemed to be sat down all the time, I ended up always going back to them when I couldn’t find my partner (who wasn’t that positive, and my ‘friends’ who I didn’t know very well but I could dance with cos they’re cool with me, it’s all about the social build right? Probably.
One notable absence this year who made last year’s ball so much better for me, Laurence, a truly truly great friend, I miss him loads. (Maybe if I’d had a proper girl date partner thing, instead of just a ‘Mate date’ it would have been different)
It may interest you to know, that I got a lift back in my friend’s new Mini, or rather, new classic Mini (yes this is the same mate who wrote off his first cream coloured one), it’s maroon, and we went very fast at 2 o’clock in ther morning and he got me home, he and his girlfriend smoking in the car reminded me of classic 1950’s comic books, I hope he keeps this one good and up, but he has said he will not drive any safer after his experience. Foolish, no doubt, but only time will tell.
I spoke to Apple, who are gonna take back my fraying sparking “DANGERCORD!” and send me a new one – sexytime. Should be hear by Wednesday.
For now, I soldier on, – Casino Royale page count ‘17′.
Type your title here
College is over – thank goodness, and I finally now have a chance to relax and process whatever I’ve been doing since September. My MacBook Pro’s power cord has broken thanks to Steve Jobs, who designed it personally to irritate me, so this is quite hard to write with my old cathode ray gun computer, with it’s insistence that all who use it must be blind by age 22.
It’s hard to think about College now, because it is so different and I sort of pushed my self out there into this new world – without question it’s 10,000% better than my old school, but I don’t think I made the right choices. But it’s too late now, and I’ve set my self on a course which I think will be far less predictable and hopefully far more fun. My treatment at Brock has been great (ish), I mean apart from those two quote unquote “cool people” who ignore me when travelling to and from college, I’ve got on well with most everybody, bar maybe one person, but that’s hard for me to explain.
2006 as a whole has been mentally pretty terrible I guess, i spent most of the year worrying over things that really don’t matter and not sleeping enough to make any sense of the days ahead. I really need to get sleep and think things through more. Outside of my apparent mental-ness I guess life has been good, though my brain is so misted it’s hard to remember.
The holidays are a time to clear my head of the fog it’s accumulated , will it work? Hopefully, and hopefully I’ll be a better person for it.
Back in black…
Well it’s time for me to say hello and apologise for abandoning LiveJournal for a little while, now I think I shall attempt to be a true blogger, and why not? it’s good for the soul, apparently.
My Weekend: I went on a march with my good friend Katie, we were marching to have nuclear power reinstated as we both passionately believe it is the energy source of the future… just kidding, I do, but she doesn’t. Well it was the climate march in central London, I would show you some pics but they havn’t been processed yet, yes I probably need a good digital camera if I am to be a true blogger, you’re right, but I will process them soon, and let you have a gander, promise.
I was very happy at the end of the march, because it turned out there was a gig afterwards, how exciting! KT Tunstall, and well 2 seconds of Razorlight for me, as myself and Katie had to hike (in some cases barefoot) back to land of dragons, southampton, nightmare.
Then on Sunday I went to the cinema with Freya (who may I add is delightful) and we went and saw Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan which is a documentary by a Kazakhstani journalist by the name of Borat Sagdiyev and his assistant Azamat Bagatov…
It’s Nice!
The film is widely misinterpreted as a comedy by some, who say that Borat is simply a creation of a comedian from England, but anyone who has been watching carefully will see that everything to do with Borat is desturbingly true. The racist underpinings of the film are widely seen in the east as not amusing, but frightening, where we might see comedy, in Kazakhstan they may see horror, Borat’s "crazy" attitude in the west may be amusing to some, but it is a desturbing view of the future to people like me, one day we will be flooded by many Borat clones, a nightmare world if I ever thought of one.
None the less this documentary, documenting Borat’s travels accross America in order to find a wife is well worth viewing, if only to see the attitudes prevalent in nations such as Kazakhstan and understand our worldly neighbours. Five Stars.
Up next movie fans: Casino Royale!
While I have been gone many things have happened, I got a laptop notebook in the form of a now defunct MacBook Pro…
(This is the new one but it looks almost exactly the same as mine)
(while it was still new, in August) and I’ve been playing around with it, now you must understand I absolutely hate the current iMac, urgh! So I’m put off of all Apple’s consumer line, so no MacBooks for me. But I love this, so easy to use, but I’ve currently clogged it up with Lost episodes, what I need is an external hard drive. Next on my wishlist is Windows Vista, which if you’ve seen pics of, actually looks really cool, it could almost put my mac to shame, for a screenshot look here and for those that are wondering, yes it is exactly like Mac OS 10.4 – with cooler looking windows, no dock and less security. Ace!
Ah but there’s always Mac OS 10.5 to look forward to… ok nerdyness over…
And I hope this brings about more bloggieness in the future! See ya then!