not from me, but from somebody who's actually good at coloring and draws really cute stuff -- I am talking, of course, about my good friend  shiin once again. She's moving homes and needs to pay some bills to get everything straight and in order for the move, apparently. At least I think that's what it was all about, forgive me if I'm wrong since I'm writing this while sleepy ¦3

Anywho, you guys know the drill. She does cell phone charms and keychains, too, and YES. Shiin has very little practical following on FA, so if you like cute stuff and want a very INEXPENSIVE trinket to cherish forever, why not consider one from her? :B

http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/862426/



P.S. To any of my other friends who don't get any commissions and feel left out of the free advertising, and I know there's probably at least one of you reading this right now, feel free to bitch me out on this journal, and I'll be sure to give you props too :<

you get the women, as Tony Montana once said in the movie "Scarface". It's an interesting summary of a psychology I think really does permeate the attitudes and secret insecurities of a lot of guys out there, and I'm not excluding myself from that possibility.

 mikewulf linked me to this article, and it made me think about it quite a bit, especially when I took into consideration the latest happenings in my life (just barely starting to enjoy a new job that I really love to do, maybe even my life's work) and how they have effected my own personal confidence level and etc. How the lack of that may have negatively effected personal and social skills; things like that. Maybe if you're a guy (or have one), you'll find some grain of truth in this, too:

http://thelastpsychiatrist.com/2009.....airy_tale.html


(Forenotes: the subject of the article deals with gender roles as expressed from the straight, action-movie hero point of view. If your personality bucks typical gender roles and you haven't felt like you wanted to be an "action hero" at any point in your life growing up, then this might not apply to you! But maybe it does to someone you know!)

So Howard Dean hosted Countdown (normally with Keith Olbermann) last night. It was pretty good!! And it dealt with the issue most important to me right now, which is health care reform. As things seem to get more dire while reform is held up by the bastards and sell-outs in the senate finance committee, Dean is taking a more outspoken stance than many of his fellow Democratic compatriots and standing up for the public option.

To me it almost feels like now he's gone rogue or something for hosting a show which isn't afraid to be open about its political leanings like Countdown and even speaking out against fellow party members. C&L is reporting that Dean will now be filling in for Keith all week. Crazy stuff :0

I really hope the dems don't compromise this bill and waste money on some option which isn't strong enough to avoid getting bludgeoned to death by its opponents. Any loss in that matter simply validates the failures of government in the minds of critics. I'm fine with skepticism, but I'm not fine with government bureaucrats doing a half-assed job when the American people want strong action and stronger reform. It undermines what little faith in the system people might still have.

Can the governor save public health care from the lobbyists? ONLY TIME WILL TELL, HYEAAAARGH 8D

Okay so!! I just saw a video on youtube for Jaleco's "The Goonies 'R' Good Enough" for MSX, and it struck me as interesting and familiar, although the engine seemed totally different from what I was used to (IE: Konami's "Goonies II"). Actually, it reminded me a whole lot more like a really old arcade game known as Psychic 5!! Having Loved both Goonies II and Psychic 5, I'm not sure what to think here, but it makes me want to play this game :B



Oh, and also, there needs to be more games with phone booths to change characters and where you only get one life for each character :V


EDIT: This appears to be game by Kralizec, never heard of them but they definitely took some inspiration for the different character switching from Psychic 5...

HEY! An update on my "cursed" PDA. Two weeks ago, I took the thing apart and for a week it sat in about 10 pieces in a drawer while I custom-ordered a battery called varta v20hr (NiMH button size) and a new lithium-matrix pack. There were some serious problems replacing the backup battery (UGH soldering the leads!!), but I think it might finally be fixed. NOW, I wonder if it's still worth anything :V

A really cool person who goes by the name Tiido and has been floating around the MD homebrew community totally went and covered one of my songs using a tracker he wrote himself and rendered on an honest-to-goodness actual console!! His music replay engine for MD was utilized in the playback of it. There are no pitch bends in the engine yet, but even still this is probably one of the coolest things anyone's ever done with my stuff 8D


Check it out!
http://8bitcollective.com/music/TmEE/The+Coast/

Edit: if the flash player is playing back the song all weird pitched, download the file and play it in your normal mp3 player

http://s47.photobucket.com/albums/f.....throcon%202009

get going and look at pictures. I may have more elaborate stories to tell later. Thank you all for those of you who I got to meet for the first time; it was a pleasure meeting all of you. I was very happy to draw pictures for everybody and I hope I'll be able to get some scans of a few of them since I didn't manage to photograph every one 8)

Maybe it's just me but it seems that AC was much more cool and much less creepy than most of the conventions I've been to in the past. Maybe I'm just filtering it out better (?). Well, anyway, what somebody else said about it not being a sausage-fest anymore is totally true. There's normal looking people (and grls) everywhere

What's this world coming to? Also, the bars and local joints seemed to welcome the big-ass convention crew. And there was supposedly news about AC, lots of it :0
I find this all very interesting.


Some things I did at AC09:
* Saw Transformers 2 (worst movie ever)
* Spent a day with  myrilla and crew and drew pics for them; I hope they send scans of my drawings back to me!
* Spent part of a day with  sorethumb who somehow recognized me purely by my self-portraits here on FA. Scary lol D:
* Was introduced to  pathia for the first time. I had some issues trying to avoid gushing and acting like a fanboy upon realizing it was actually her. Gosh, I was pretty embarrassed and was trying very much to hide it. I have no idea why I reacted in that way, since I'm usually a pretty cool customer when it comes to meeting people in the fandom nowadays. After getting her sketchbook I had to excuse myself before it became too awkward for me :\
* Met the TFur2 crew and the TFP crew; sorry for having to run so fast TFP guys, I really wanted to stick around and chat!
* Hung out a whole bunch with  sukebepanda , who is really super-awesome and if you don't already know all about her you should visit her FA page right meow. (She also totally saved my trip from being a disaster)
* Watched lots of CSI and Law and Order with  ritts in our hotel room -- Edit: L&O is clearly superior to CSI
* Got 2 of the cutest phone calls EVAR from miss  thorn , who I'm sure everyone on FA misses a lot already. I know they missed you at AC!! :V
* Drank a lot of stuff, but nothing with Midori in it because some FAGETS drank it all from the doubletree bar and if I find out who it was I'm going to punch it out of them cause they did straight shots of it instead of mixing it with stuff like you're supposed to
* Crashed some BBQ party which kinda sucked and ate too much and got the hiccups and embarrassed myself
* Met some of the old and new Hantu crew at a pizza place.
* Bought copies of SALON PIXIV by Macop and Megaton Dragon by  kitora. I didn't get to meet Kitora though :(


P.S. Why didn't any of the hotels have MSNBC? They had CNN and Fox News. That's pretty fucked up considering some of us actually want to watch political coverage. I was practically without news for a week save for the Crooks and Liars blog. Drove me fucking nuts.

my hotel room is ttly on the 9th floor at the doubletree, MAYBE I'LL MAKE A SIGN. or maybe not, since I heard they were getting anally retentive about that sorta thing now.

anywho, I'm kinda bored and waiting around in my room for friends to contact me for a while before I'll probably try and embark on my own out of sheer boredom. God this city is depressing. I HOPE TO EAT AT MANY FINE ESTABLISHMENTS WITH THE MOST ELITE OF COOL DUDES but let's see how that goes. That, and hanging out with nice people is the saving grace of these god-forsaken conventions.

I hope to be back soonish and get to work on my new job (hooray! makin' vidyagaems again), which is still on my mind even way out here in Pitts.

Finally,  cautioncat links me to an article that's a little disturbing: http://www.coloradoan.com/article/2.....TES01/90701035

not just for the mom putting the moves on a teenage boy (which talking from experience would probably fuck anything), but also now you know that BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU, FURRIES. That's right, that hawt trap might not be a trap at all, but a TRAP! ha ha, dangly parts. Anyway, kids, the lesson of the story is: don't go to conventions for the express purpose of soliciting a minor or you will eventually end up like this woman, seriously.

the doctor is out

Okay so like, who's at the doubletree and who's at the westin here? Anyone been to AC before? Know any good places to eat? What should I pack that I will have wished I did beforehand? These are all important questions for me!

Finally, I got a keyboard tie for christmas from my aunt since she knew I was trying to finish my bootleg CD by the time AC came around to promote it. Sadly, I didn't finish enough tracks to make a full CD, but I'm wondering if I should still bring the tie anyway??? It doesn't match most of my clothes sadly (maybe with my jacket it will look better?)

answers, people! P.S. I still haven't done my badge yet HMMMM  cautioncat if you're reading this could I funnel you a few bux for maybe an emergency digital?

With all the events going down in Iran questioning the legitimacy of a strong Islamic theocracy in the country (namely, the ability of the theocracy to usurp democracy rather than to protect it), it is interesting to see the parallels of the popular fundamentalist movement in iran 30 years ago compared to the fundamentalist evangelical movement since that time in this country, and how we almost succumbed to a similar fate by getting our collective faith mixed up with good governance.

To that end, here is an article by Frank Schaeffer, who's been on the TV a bit recently philosophizing about right-wing extremism in the wake of the murder of Dr. George Tiller and the recent shooting at the D.C. holocaust museum. His view is unique in that his views have become more moderate over time, having once been an important figure in the religious right, and the son of one of its founders:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/frank....._b_218359.html

being able to see the shades of gray in this world helps us to understand why we can feel with our heart, but should think with our head. I hope we can learn something as a country by watching what happens over in Iran, and I also hope people will eventually understand why many of us feel it's so important to mind our own business despite -- having seen the violence escalate -- wanting to help in a more quantifiable fashion.

Where are you staying?
Doubletree

What day are you getting there?
Wednesday

Who will you be with?
and possibly and IF EVERYTHING GOES TO PLAN

Do you do free art?
yes but I also like getting arts too !!!! PREPARE FOR SKETCH MANIA

Do you do trades?
Yes but I don't like to call them trades cause that implies obligation. MUTUAL GIFTING IS THE WAY TO GO, BRO

Do you do commissions?
Pay for my food and I'll draw you something

Do you have prints/ CDs ?
NO cause it's really hard writing like 10 good cover songs in 2 weeks and nobody at furry cons buys music anyway APPARENTLY :(((
(see FC '08 for proof of this, only 2 people bought my CD that year and I worked my ass off on it)

Do you do badges?
I can't draw that small, and you wouldn't like the results anyway :V

Will you have Art in the Art Show?
Nope

What is your gender?
man dude

How old are you?
25 arrrrggghhhhh I'm way too old to be doing this shit without a damn good excuse

Can I talk to you?
yes just try to be a nice person about it plz since I'm not going under an alter-ego this time :3

Can I touch you?
.....Do I know you?

Can I hang out with you?
if I know you and/or you're a well-balanced (ie: stable) artsy type of person, yes plz

How can I find you?
I DON'T KNOW YET. Where do people go to doodle stuff at AC? Is there enough room? Are people always in closed social cliques hogging up all the tables? I intend most of the time to be socializing with my pals and hopefully meeting up with people I have every intention to say hello to ¦0



SO in conclusion, yes AC ahoy, I hope to draw stuff and be creative and eat lots of tasty foods and meet lots of cool people (I hope)! And hopefully I won't get creeped out or have an "oh god nooooooo" moment I'll later wish I could forget. Who else is going? 8)

We have received copyright complaint(s) regarding material you posted, as follows:
* from Valve Corporation about Heavy Breakfast Machine - nobuyukinyuu
Video ID: FOhcUT0Ir_o
Please Note: Accounts determined to be repeat infringers will be terminated. Please delete any videos for which you do not own the necessary rights, and refrain from uploading infringing videos.

I thought you guys were cool
Anyone know anybody who works at Valve that can get me permission to put my video back up?

EDIT: I get the feeling someone sent a fake request, but I can't confirm it. Has anyone filed a counter-notice before?

I have to warn you, it's cursed. First, it cost me my job. Then, it started to act kinda funny and randomly turn itself on and off without me doing anything. Just recently after the battery level dips below 40% it starts hard-freezing and the screen just sorta fades out.... The other day, I tried taking it out to the forest and burying it, but when I came back home it was still there on the charger. I'm pretty spooked.

Anyway, an old gypsie told me that the only way I can break the curse is to sell the PDA to somebody else, so let me tell you a little bit about it. It's an HP iPaq rx3115, one of them pocketPC models with 802.11 wifi, bluetooth, IRDA (plus a universal remote app inside), which I've taken excellent care of over the years despite the fact it now has gremlins inside. The battery is starting to lose its charge, but you should still be able to get 1-2 hours of constant use on it before recharging, depending on whether or not you're cranking tunes on it or surfing the internet on a crappy wifi signal. New batteries go for $25/30 online, and that would probably fix everything....

Stuff I've been able to do / apps I put on the PDA over the years for maximum awesomeness:

* Stream / Play MP3s using GSPlayer <-- you can do this over the network too!!
* Listen to / Compose MOD music with MilkyTracker
* Chat over IRC (PocketChat) or MSN (Pocket MSN)
* Play emulated games (NES)
* Fully Emulated TI-83 calculator
* Use an EBook / PDF reader (Repligo 2)
* Universal remote (Nevo)
* Watch movies (TCPMP) <-- you can do this over the network too!!
* Translate Japanese (ECTACO dictionary and IME)
* Doodle pictures

I haven't tried Skype with this device but it should be able to handle Skype.

I'm a little bit flexible on the price, but anyone interested in taking my first offer, I'll throw in this stuff free of charge:

* 1 Slip case (for storage)
* 1 Leather case that's nicely broken in (for daily use), with a new belt clip
* 1 512mb SD card that's full of music, roms, some personal sketches you won't find anywhere else, and hey what the hell you can even have some of my confidential work documents (I won't need 'em anymore)
* PDA charger / USB syncer
* A pack of screen protectors (very important!) which will keep the PDA's screen scratch-free for the remainder of its undead life
* The original box, and the manual (provided that's still inside the box!)


Hmm, so what do you say? This model is going for around $150-200 on Amazon, and its original retail value was $300. Is anyone willing to go through the trouble of taking it off my hands for maybe $150 plus shipping? I could def. use that money to help pay for my AC trip. If not, toss out an offer and I'll consider it.

http://comipress.com/special/miscel.....ng-manga#_edn1

Since everyone and their mom is flipping out about the Handley case, I thought I'd post an interesting link 8)







...have you read it yet? congratulations, you now possess material that is potentially illegal under the law 8)

So like the other day someone in my family noticed my car was leaking fluid. On the day of my last final, my car totally overheated and I wandered around in nature for a while until the engine cooled down. Also, it was nearby an A&W restaurant too, so I had a couple coney dogs :9

Anyway, pops was over for the memorial day weekend so today we tried to pinpoint the leak. Through some deducing he believed that the problem was the heater core; so, we went off to the car parts store to look and see if it was an easy replacement. The part's not expensive, but it's a huge PITA to get it out there, so instead, a much more awesome solution was formulated: totally bypass the bastard 8)

Well anyway, it's funny, cause to get to the hoses we had to take off the coolant overflow tank thingy, which took a metric wrench, but the hose was a 5/8" US measurement part. Go figure. To couple the input and output hoses from the heater core to bypass it, we had to get a part with a weird size and the car parts store didn't have one. So we used a garden hose coupler from the hardware store instead :V

After that, the coolant was replaced. No leaks so far. Will check for a new puddle and try to deliver  shiin's drawing to the post office tomorrow. Stay tuned....

I'm now officially too old to still be doing what I'm doing with my life ¦3

here's to progress

After working with the same company for the last 4 years, my employment is about to come to an end. I thought I'd mention that here for some closure, and hey who knows, this may be a new chapter in my life or some shit like that 8)

My old boss recently poofed and was replaced by this new guy who promptly fired about 1/3 of the old team. I hung on for a few weeks more but today was asked for my letter of resignation, which I refused. I expect to be given a notice of termination shortly, which is why today I also filed for unemployment benefits (LOL) while I attempt to jump-start my new career. Also on the bright side of things, I'll be getting my degree right around the time I'll be heading to AC.

SO! All things considered here, now I have some choices to make. I could continue to pursue a 4-year degree (possibly out of state, out in BOSTON where there's a publicly-funded arts college with much lower tuition rates than anywhere), orrrr, I can try finding employment here in Illinois, or maybe elsewhere, or maybe I could build my portfolio :V

HMM, CHOICES

Feel free to give me your advice if you've been there before, esp. for anyone who's taken unemployment entitlements, thx ;3

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQM3lRPcZs0&NR=1

if you don't like jazz you can turn away now, there's no furries here 8)

or am I lying

http://sharebee.com/bc8e1f08

Wow! It's starting to actually work, I can't believe it OuO

I didn't want to use any external libraries that people might not have installed, so instead of outputting audio to your speakers, I used the cross-platform "wave" library which is included with every python install. What this means is that my script writes a wave file based on a mod you give it! Try it!

Syntax:
python nb_modwrite.py [inputfile] [outputfile]

inputfile is a mod and output file is a wav :3


Coming soon: PyGame replayer?????????? :D

Anyone here know python?

So today I had the stupidly ambitious goal to try and play a mod file using libmodplug from python, with almost zero python programming experience first-hand, no knowledge of C/C++, and practically zero documentation.

A slight bit of help from  halcy set me in a decent direction, and many many hours later I think I managed to make the beginnings of some bindings, which you can see here:

http://pastebin.ca/1395447

To make it work, you need to replace all the absolute paths with dynamic ones to modplug.dll (which you can get by downloading OpenJazz, a jazz jackrabbit engine thing), or possibly libmodplug.so if you're using linux.

I'm not sure where to go from here just yet, but I'm assuming it has something to do with taking the output given from one of these functions and plugging it into some audio function from another library, depending on the platform.

Why go through all the trouble when there's already working examples in python for tons of other mod replayers? Mainly cause, of all the ones that are good, they aren't free, and the ones that are free, aren't good. The only exceptions are libdumb and libmodplug, and since dumb is derived from modplug (minus a lot of Impulse Tracker support), I attempted to go in that direction.

Oh, also, if I were to choose PyGame as my target framework, I'd need some way to play all the music I composed for Kyubi, so consider this like a first step to that :0

Edit: It might make it a whole lot easier to understand what these functions do if you read the comments from the original header file, modplug.h.

http://img511.imageshack.us/gal.php.....leasedmp3s.png

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=LLJG95GD

this was requested by dusthillguy and chocolatekitsune. I uploaded this a couple months ago, so it's missing some of the latest stuff!!!!! just so you know

If you see anything in the picture that's not in the rar that you want, let me know and I can upload it.

warning: contains incomplete tunes, embarassing comments, and even some stolen material (unattributed covers!!!!!) dating back all the way to 1998

I DON'T CARE AND HOW MANY OF YOU PEOPLE ACTUALLY GET PEOPLE TO WASTE BOTH OF OUR TIME

There's only one person in the freakin' universe who's ustream I will watch or did watch at one time, and that person knows who she is (I think -- Edit: and it's only because there was always something INTERESTING on there like critiquing a movie which spurred intellectual 2-way conversations and shit) :V

the rest of you, bugger off! IM the 3 people who watch you play video games while having a one-way conversation, or something. Your lives are totally not accurately represented on ustream if you have to tell us every 5 seconds to peep in, fffffuck. Speaking of, where are your lives?

I need to do something productive with my life before I end up starting my own ustream

Edit: Totally got my acapellas, wooooooooo

prepare for a mashup sometime between now and the future

Hey dudes,

this one's for some of the musicians on FA who read this journal, particularly ones who remix/mashup..... I need your help! Basically, I'm looking to get an acapella of a certain song which is located on one of those elitist fucker forums where you have to accumulate (or pay off the forums for) points which you then use in order to download the shit on the forum.

Now, this particular forum has quite a number of studio acapella tracks on it, but shit if I'm gonna pay £5 for just one track!! The number of downloads they claim you get with that is 100 track downloads, so I was wondering if any of you guys who remix out there might wanna go halfsies with me on it?

Musicians please respond, even if the answer is "no" I wanna hear back from you !! This forum douchebaggery can only be counteracted with spreading the wealth, so if I do find somebody, I wanna hear what kinds of acapellas you're looking for your own mixes and (hopefully) providing a link later, whether or not we split the bill for their silly points system ¦3

Thanks!

P.S. Note me if you want to know the name of this particular forum

Hey guys,

I just wanted to let you know that Cutesauce Cookbook (which is a pretty good name for a comic if I say so myself!) is on sale now in both physical and digital form, so if you like kemoshota comics and/or portfolios and stuff, I urge you to check it out and send a note to  catfiddle if you want a copy :V

She hasn't sold very many yet, which surprises me cause it looks pretty decent quality and price for digital's only $10 ..... so, if her style's your sorta thing, check it out k~

Sample: http://www.furaffinity.net/view/1925777/