Today i had to take my cat Wendy to the vet to have her put to sleep.

She was 19 years old and I had her since she was just a little kitten.

In the last few weeks her health had began to decline, she had already lost her eye sight and started to get weaker and weaker.

She could no longer stand or walk, falling all the time.

She could hardly eat or drink anymore her little body had just become too old too worn down go on.

I had to spare her from further decline and suffering, the vet told me it is for the best this way, that there was nothing left to do, but I will mis my little girl so much.

she was sweet and cute and beautifull and the smartest cat I have ever seen, and the idea that she is gone now fills me with sadness and pain.

i know 19 years is an very long life for a cat the vet told me that in human years she was 92 but I had hoped my little one would stay with me a little while longer.

I always tried to take care of her the best I could.

She was all I had, it hurts so much.

People who follow me on FA maybe noticed my lack of activity and new art.

For the last few months personal and health related troubles have left me stressed out and very tired with little time or energy to draw.

Especially my diabetes has been giving me a bad time, recent tests showed way to high blood sugar and my doctor told me that my old meds probably weren't working good enough anymore.

I was very surprised by this, because in the last few years I have done a lot to get in better shape, more workout and sports activities, lost a load of weight, watch my diet etc.

My doctor is very pleased with all this she tells me I'm doing very well, but its just not enough.

That kind of left me a bit disappointed, I really had worked hard to improve.

So recently I have tried out different new medications had loads more tests done, been very sick with all kinds of bad side effects of those new meds.

Finally my doctor found what seems to be the right combination of medication and insulin injections that is working and isn't giving me many bad side effects.

My blood sugar levels are dropping to a normal and save level again.

But things are still difficult, my body has gotten used to the way too high levels for so long it now reacts to the save low levels as if they are too low making me feel very tired and sleepy and giving me trouble concentrating.

My doctor told me this is normal and my body will need a few weeks to adjust, I should be feeling a lot better soon.

Hope to make some more fun pics for you soon.

PD.

A little reminder for everyone who enjoyed the recent "Squirrel Princess" and "Bessie Transforms' pics and wants to see them in one piece.

Complete (as in not cut into several pieces) versions of these and all my other transformation pics can be found in the "Transformation" section of my website at WWOEC.

http://www.wwoec.com/artist/plumpdragon/

Please check em out :)

PD.

I got my flue shot and I STILL got sick!.

So wrecked right now :(

Happy New Year everyone!!

and happy holidays for everyone.

44 years old today :)

Had a little accident while cooking, big splash of oil from a frying pan left me with big first degree burn on my wrist.

Just got back from the hospital, doctor told me its not really dangerous and its gonna be oke but it still freaking hurts!.

And of course it just had to be the wrist of my drawing hand.

*deep sigh*

So I get a call from my uncle saying he has a little problem with his computer, apparently when my aunt tries to play her online bingo game suddenly porn images will flash on the screen (my aunt is obviously very freaked out about this, in fact I can hear her shout “it happened again” in the back ground as I talk to my uncle).

So I tell my uncle it may be some malware or other crap they accidentally downloaded but I know a little program that can help.

I go over there and install Malawarebytes on their PC and let it scan for any infections.

After a looooooooong scan it returns the results and my face nearly goes into a “Tex Avery” like expression as I see them.

Over 1200 infections....

It took Malawarebytes over half an hour to get them all removed.

I ask them “what have you been doing to this poor machine, didn't you notice anything wrong with it?”.

“Well it had been running a bit slow” they tell me.

Happy New year everyone

Merry Christmas to everyone!

Nelson Mandela, 95 years old passed away today.

A great man , a wise man.

May he rest in peace.

Its my birthday :) 43 years old today.

Older, still not much wiser and slightly more grey here and there.

A while back I saw a picture on some message board, a strange long thin astronaut looking creature with a childlike but lifeless face, the picture was simply named “sentionaut”.

Some searching later I found that it was a character from “Beyond the black rainbow” a recent indie SF movie directed by Panos Cosmatos.

Intrigued I hunted down the movie and what I found was weird beyond description...

Its the eighties and in a strange sort of asylum a young catatonic woman is being held prisoner by a sadistic psychiatrist who tries to unravel the secret of her paranormal abilities.
Will she awaken and find the strength to escape?.

Sounds like a simple and cohesive enough plot you probably think, how weird can this get?.

Well more weird than I could possibly imagine and then some...

Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1ertVYn750

In a time where everything has to be fast this movie is slow, in a time where there has to be exposition dialogue every two seconds this movie hardly has any and chooses to tell its story mostly trough its extremely trippy visuals

It tries to bring back the strange experimental movies of the eighties, using grainy film stock, color filters and droning yet beautiful analogue synth music.

Its full of symbolism and references and most of it hardly seems to make any sense.

Is it pretentious?, yes its VERY pretentious but after having seen it several times now I’m completely forgiving it for every bit of pretention it has, because its just so wonderfully strange, possibly the strangest movie I have ever seen.

I cant compare it to any other movie, I cant even say if its good or bad, yet I’m utterly fascinated by it.

Its more an experience than a narrative, there seems to be hardly any story and the ending sort of comes out of nowhere and then its just over as if someone pulled the plug on the camera and they just said “screw it were out of money” “the end”.

I’m not even sure if I understand all of it or if there some parts can even BE understood.

Its like the dreams I used to have as a kid when I was sick and had high fever, this strange oppressive horrible confusing experience of sound and colors.

Disturbing.... scary.... incomprehensible.

And yet I cant look away, I’m fascinated, hypnotized, and I wonder: “is this what its like to take LSD?”.

Do I recommend this movie, oh yes huge recommendation, but I cant guaranty you will like it, I think most people will even hate it.

See it with an open mind, don't expect anything and just let it.......... “happen”.

I’m looking forward to the next strange and wonderful trip Panos Cosmatos will take us, will it be a much more conventional movie or will he go even deeper down the rabbit hole.

A final special mention has to go to the movie’s score by composer Jeremy Schmidt, haunting, disturbing, oppressive yet beautiful and perfect for this film.

Soundtrack sample: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vQS3IaR1NVU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_vNQfbXDSbY

I cant believe it.

Mysterious Cities of gold.... season 2?

Jean Chalopin actually... he really... been over 20 years... but he really?...

I know he promised a sequel for years but I never really believed…

*happy tears*

EDIT.

It gets better, so much better!.

3 new seasons consisting of 26 episodes each are currently in production.

Jean Chalopin and Bernard Deyries, writer and director of the original series return to oversee production.

Noam Kaniel composer of the original series music and intro will also return to do the new score.

And the show is not a remake or reboot, its a direct continuation of where the original left of.

One of the podcast I like to listen to has a funny recurring item called “Tales of the stupid”, where the cast tells stories about particularly stupid people they encountered in their personal lives.

Just for a laugh let me tell you a "tale of the stupid" from mine that took place a long time ago

I must have been about 10 or 11.

The stupid this time was my uncle who though he likes to think of himself as the brains of the family is actually a complete derp.

As I told before I always loved to read, especially SF and fantasy.

Another thing I always loved were robots, so when I discovered Asimov’s short stories and novels I was delighted!.

I read my way trough most of his short stories and then moved on to the detective novels about Baley and Olivaw.

One evening when I was reading their second novel “The Naked Sun” my uncle visited.

He took one look at the book then spoke to my mom “are you allowing your kid to read porn?!”

My mom just laughed, “Its harmless” she said “just a SF novel with robots, you know he loves that stuff.”

But it says NAKED on the cover! my uncle insisted it HAS to be porn!.

I tried to tell him that the title refers to the people in the story not wanting to go outside, they dont like to be in the naked sun.

Of course my uncle didn't believe me cause you know: “He adult, Me kid, He right , Me wrong” “Beat chest now”

It still took him a few hours of paging trough the book trying to find anything objectionable before he finally admitted defeat.

Because you know Asimov is SO known for his racy writing.

As to why it took him a few hours, well I’m sorry to say his reading level has always stayed at the “see Spot run“ stage.

PD.

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=345_1376904001

Well now I know what I want for my birthday.... :)

One of the podcast I like to listen to has a funny recurring item called “Tales of the stupid”, where the cast tells stories about particularly stupid people they encountered in their personal lives.

Let me tell you a "tale of the stupid" from mine.

This tale of the stupid happened very recently and the stupid in this case is my landlord a big company that has seems to be collapsing under its own bureaucracy and incompetence.

The trouble began when I had just bought a new washing machine, ah finally after months of saving commission earned money and dragging my clothes back and forth to the laundromat there it was my wonderful new Samsung washer.

My happiness would soon be gone.

After using it the first time my downstairs neighbor came complain about water leaking from the ceiling

Soon we discovered the problem, my washing machine is located next to my kitchen sink and there is a special pipe to put the hose for the waste water in, that pipe was overflowing, it had become clogged up.

No problem I thought, I pay some extra money on my rent as “service cost” just for stuff like this, just call the inspector from the landlord and he will send a plumber round to fix it.

But the inspector came round himself first this time and he refused to believe there was anything wrong with the pipe.

“You must have just spilled some water on the floor” he said “you have to be more careful”

I told him I WAS careful it was that clogged up pipe that was the problem.

He refused to believe me and told me everything was fine and I should just use my washing machine like normal.

So I did, with predictable results...

“Ring!!!!!” “oh look its the doorbell I wonder who it is” , “oh hi neighbor what do you say still more water dripping down, well lets just call the inspector again shall we”

Still the same answer, “nothing wrong with that pipe.”

No help, no matter how much me or my neighbor complained or begged they wouldnt believe us.

It went on for days, then days became weeks then weeks became months.

I’m happy to say that trough all this my neighbor was always reasonable, she understood I wasn't the problem here, she even told me not to worry.

But by now the wood board of my kitchen counter was sucking up all the water and began to slowly fall apart, fungus began to grow all over it became really disgusting, I had asked my social worker for help but even he couldn't get it trough to them.

Now I’m a diabetic and stress is very bad for my blood sugar levels and I try to avoid it as much as possible but this was really starting to get to me, my kitchen and my neighbors kitchen were slowly falling apart!

So why not call a plumber yourself you may ask, well I couldn't, legally all maintenance and repairs to the apartment complex where I live has to be approved by the landlord and be done my their own sub contracted maintenance personnel.

Finally after lots of pressure from my social worker several people from the landlord came round, by now the kitchen counter was beyond repair they decided that it had to be completely replaced... on their cost, at least THAT was a small victory.

But did that solve the problem, oh no, the ordeal wasn't over yet.

I asked the guy who build in my new kitchen counter if he was fixing the pipe too.

He didn't even know what I was talking about and said I should just use my washer.

Again I used my washing machine, again it rained in my neighbors kitchen again she came to complain.

I told her that I was just ready to completely give up, I told her I would let them do ANYTHING to fix the problem but that they just refused to see reason.

I told her I was just ready to go and look for another apartment, cause the stress was beginning to seriously mess me up.

I think that afternoon she must have send death treats to my landlord cause the next day they finally send a plumber

He took one look and said: “now there’s your problem, that waste water pipe is all clogged up, i’ll call my buddy to unclog it for you.”

And he did, 5 minutes work.

Problem solved.

After more than half a year, what seems like hundreds of phone calls by me my neighbor and my social worker my kitchen and my neighbors kitchen being needlessly destroyed and rebuild, and my blood sugar levels being fucked up by the stress, it was finally over.

All this because they just didn't want to listen to us.

PD.

So I went to see Pacific Rim, I don't often see movies in the theater (cause most of the crap Hollywood poops out these days isn't worth it) but Guillermo del Toro is my fave director and he never dissapoints.

Once again he made a winner!!

The plot: a rift in the ocean floor has opened that leads to another world and periodically humongous monsters emerge from it to terrorize humanity.
Humanity tries to fight them with equally humongous robots that need 2 pilots in a sort of mind linkt to control them

I know, there isn't a single thing in this movie that's even remotely deep or original and know what?, it doesn't matter.

Because its so much FUN!!.

Its a earnest honest cynicism free love letter to the giant monster movie genre and its fans, and its glorious.

Go see it now and stay during the end credits for a little fun extra scene you don't want to mis.

Many years ago Sky Channel used to be one of the TV stations we had on cable over here in Holland and late at night they would have their own “horror host” show, the “Deadly Ernest Picture Show”

Ernest a vampire who lived in a graveyard with his stupendously sexy girlfriend would show all kinds of horror movies.

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_oXsV5Js58.....orror1989b.jpg

So why am I telling you all this, well I think it was on his show that saw a movie I would like to ask your help to identify.

The premise (for as much as I can remember it right) is that an UFO crashes on a remote island and an alien monster who piloted the thing terrorizes the inhabitants.

Nothing very original I know, but here comes the twist, the UFO isn't a spaceship at all its really a experimental enemy plane (probably Russian) and the pilot had been hard wired into the thing to control it with his brain.

The crash disfigured and brain damaged him to the point people now think he is an alien monster.

Thats all I can remember of it and I’m not sure its all correct or if I’m not mixing up the plots of several movies.

I have been searching for ages now but haven't found any movie even remotely close to it, and I’m beginning to wonder if my slightly deranged brain may have made the whole thing up.

Anyone who can help me out to and make sense of it?

PD

One of the podcast I like to listen to has a funny recurring item called “Tales of the stupid”, where the cast tells stories about particularly stupid people they encountered in their personal lives.

Just for a laugh let me tell you a "tale of the stupid" from mine.

It happened about many years ago when I was about 14 and still in high school.

To make the story more clear I have to mention I live in the Netherlands and over here its normal to have English, German and sometimes french as part of the lessons program.

I also have to mention I have always loved to read, and because of that I was familiar from a very young age with a lot of classic fantasy and science fiction literature.

The stupid in this case was my English teacher who revealed she was rather oblivious about the classic literature of the language she was supposed to be teaching us.

During English class the subject of classic novels came up and I told the teacher I had read “Alice in wonderland”, first in a dutch translation and as my understanding of English improved also in the original English version.

She was very pleased with that but as soon as I told her that I had also read the sequel, she told me I was talking noncence.

“What sequel” she said, “Lewis Carroll only wrote ONE Alice novel.”

“No” I told her “I read it, its called: “Through the looking glass”, Alice goes trough a mirror and ends up in another kind of wonderland, this one inspired by the game of chess.”

Again she refused to believe me, telling me off, even mocking me in front of the whole class.

That hurt, especially when your just a teenager and you know for sure your not wrong, but I got my revenge.

Cause you know, the library close to where I lived had a very nice English section.

Guess who after school was done got out his library card and went out to borrow two certain classic Lewis Carroll novels.

Guess who at next English class presented those to his English teacher in front of the whole class.

Guess who got to do some mocking then.

The expression of “oh shit I fucked up and he‘s got proof” on her face was absolutely priceless.

To her credit she apologized, didn't hold a grudge and actually turned out to be a pretty cool teacher after that.

She still totally deserved it though :)

PD.

If you read my journal entry: http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/4403334/ you know that I absolutely loved this movie, and so it makes me very happy to report that it has just been released on DVD and Bluray over here in Holland.

Movie comes uncut in original Japanese language and dutch subtitles.

No dutch dubbing but considering the abysmal quality of most cartoon dubbing we do over here that is really a blessing.

SHARKNADO!!!!

http://www.bleedingcool.com/2012/11.....rks/sharknado/

I just watched The Wolf Children Ame and Yuki and I was very impressed

It tells the story of a young woman who falls in love with a kindhearted werewolf,
they have 2 children a tomboy of a daughter and a very timid son both of them little werewolves.

shortly after the son is born tragedy strikes the young family as the father is killed in an accident.

Afraid people will discover the true nature of her children the young widow mother moves to the country
hoping that living at a farm far away from everyone will keep them save.

There she has to cope with learning how to work the land, and raise 2 very extraordinary children.

If someone had told me that this movie had been directed by Hayao Miyazaki I wouldn't have doubted it for a moment.
it tells it touching story with impeccable skill, not a single shot is wasted not a single scene out of place.

Using simple yet expressive characters against near realistic backgrounds that are subtly enhanced with perfectly integrated computer animation and manipulation each scene is simply wonderful.

There is one particular scene of the young family running and tumbling playfully trough the snow covered forest
that combines hand drawn animation and CG enhanced backgrounds in a absolutely dazzling way!. (part of it is in the linked trailer)

A fairytale set in the modern world told with great love, highly recommended!.

Edit added trailer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8xLji7WsW0w

A little reminder for everyone who enjoyed the recent "Celestial Transformation" pic and wants to see it in one piece.

A larger, complete and not cut into several pieces versions of it and all my other transformation pics can be found in the Transformation section of my website at WWOEC.

http://www.wwoec.com/artist/plumpdragon/

Please check em out :)

PD.