| Latest Book Cover |
[Dec. 22nd, 2009|09:01 am] |
 This is the latest cover design I have done for Immanion Press http://www.immanion-press.com The artwork and my layout for it are under the cut. The Janus House And Other Two-Faced Tales is a short story collection by David Barnett, author of Hinterland and Angelglass. So far I have only read The Janus House (I am going to read the rest from my artist's copy of the book because its easier than reading it as a word document). Anyway, I hope you enjoy the art - I can certainly recommend the Janus House story, David is a very accomplished author and it is the sort of atmospheric and slightly ambiguous horror I love - I usually find a good spooky story needs a little mystery and uncertainty to work well and this one has both. ( Click here for the art! ) |
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| Berf |
[Dec. 22nd, 2009|12:05 am] |
Also, if I had $7,500 to spare, I would spend it on ( this ) |
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| Triumph Of The Usurper |
[Dec. 22nd, 2009|04:58 am] |
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http://hijinksensue.com/2009/12/21/triumph-of-the-usurper/ http://hijinksensue.com/?p=1237 
QUICK NOTES:
 I wonder if George Lucas went into Avatar thinking, “Heh, I’ll see Jimmy Cameron’s new movie. I’m sure it’ll be good for a laugh, but we ALL know who the reigning champ of 100% wooden digital characters is.” Oh, Georgie Georgie Georgie, you fat necked lummox. If Cameron can create CG characters with realistic human emotions and less than ridiculous accents, then why can’t you? Maybe he’ll teach a class at a community college next year and you can enroll. The funny thing is that Cameron waited nearly 12 years until technology caught up with his vision, so Avatar could look the way he saw it in his head. Lucas, on the other hand, made 2 awesome movies (and a third crappy one), then waited 20 years until technology caught up to his vision to digitally ruin them with pointless bullshit.
I’m trying to save my full on Avatar review for the next HE Podcast, but let’s just say I was thoroughly entertained and impressed. A lot of people are complaining that the story and writing take a back seat to the visuals, but else do you expect? James Cameron already used three of the dimensions making the movie beautiful, so of course there’s only one dimension left for everything else. Seriously, if you leave that movie and find yourself complaining rather than drooling for more you might as well sign up for the junior executive program at FOX because your heart has probably been replaced by a hate-filled pineapple.
I could very easily rant for pages and pages about how visually stunning the 3D was, how lifelike the motion captured performances were or how engrossed I was in the fictional world that Jame Cameron created but I’d rather just say this: the reason I know Avatar was well deserving of my (and your) entertainment time and money was that I left the theater asking questions. What are the far reaching implications of this characters actions? How will the final outcome affect Earth? How will it affect those already in transit to the planet (since it’s a 6 year ride)? Are there other inhabited worlds? Was the end really THE END? The list goes on and on. I don’t often find my curiosity so peaked over fiction without substance. Take from that what you will, but at least ignore the hype and approach Avatar with an open (if not childlike) mind.
Tags: avatar, george lucas, james cameron, movies, scifi
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| Holiday Supermarket Sucks/WTFs |
[Dec. 22nd, 2009|02:42 am] |
There's still three days of pre-holiday shopping before I go completely insane. It's a definite possibly right now.
1. We NEED twenty-four to forty-eight hours notice on any of our tray/platter orders. I promise, it's not something we do because we like to fuck with people; a considerable amount of planning goes into us being able to make you a tray. (We may need to call another worker in to help, it takes time to prep and make the trays, some platters are ordered in from another business, we may even be out of a specific product needed....) I can't just throw something together for you, ignoring all of the other customers because YOU say that someone in my department said you could come by and we'd make you a tray/platter right then and there. Everyone working in this department knows the 24-48 hour rule and they adore it.
2. I can't weight and price the frozen or fresh turkeys on my scale because a) my scales aren't programed with the codes for the meat department, b)I can't put RAW meat on the scales I use to weight cold cuts and c) my scale doesn't magically convert the weight into pounds. It tells me the weight in grams, just like the tag on your turkey. I can tell you the approximate weight in pounds of your turkey but not if you're going to be an asstard about it.
3. We do NOT price match turkeys just because you say you saw them on sale in 'some store downtown' for sixty-six cents a pound. Bring in a flyer, give us the name of the store- anything!- and we'll see about contacting someone for a price-match.
4. No you can't open up a dip to try it. We do samples during the weekend on new/sale/specialty items only. We're a supermarket, not a buffet.
5. Wittnessed Suck: None of the employees of my store can make the lady taking donations for the Salvation Army not say 'Merry Christmas', sir. I get that not everyone celebrates that specific holiday but the poor produce guy REALLY canot make her say 'Happy Holidays' instead. No matter how much you yell and gesture wildly and stomp your feet. You just look like an overgrown child. |
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| EFF's ebook-buyer's guide to privacy |
[Dec. 21st, 2009|10:54 pm] |
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http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/kfYErsYUgvg/effs-ebook-buyers-gu.html 
The Electronic Frontier Foundation has pored over the terms of service for several popular ebook services and devices and come up with "An E-Book Buyer's Guide to Privacy," a handy chart that tells you what information about your reading habits you "agree" to send to these companies by simply standing in the vicinity of the device, clicking a link, or, in some cases, breathing.
In other words, your Kindle will periodically send information about you to Amazon. But exactly what information is sent? Amazon's wording -- "information related to the content on your Device and your use of it" -- reads so broadly that it appears to allow Amazon to track all content that users put on the device, regardless of whether that content is purchased from Amazon. Some security researchers have indicated that the Kindle may even be tracking its users' GPS locations. Is this the future of reading?
Thankfully, there are some e-reader options that do not connect wirelessly, nor include any privacy or "terms of use" provisions that allow monitoring of what you put on the device or how you use it. Sony's Reader, for example, may collect information about what books you buy from its own eBook Store, yet the Reader also works with books purchased from other sources as well. Even safer still, popular e-reader software programs, such as open-source FBReader, allow users to download content from a number of sources onto a multitude of devices, including one's computer or mobile, without handing over all information about their reading habits to one source, or anyone for that matter.
An E-Book Buyer's Guide to Privacy
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| bday/xmas presents |
[Dec. 22nd, 2009|08:20 pm] |
For my mum's birthday I embroidered her house and garden. She loved it! And I was quite proud of my first actual embroidery.
Also, made some monster toys for my bf's nieces and a knitted scarf (from fabric strips) for my mum.
( pics below ) |
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| [German] Crash of the Year. New Penalties Facing Church Roof Flier? |
[Dec. 22nd, 2009|08:07 am] |
And now for something completely wacky.
Click the image for a photo gallery.
In January, David E. managed to drive his station wagon into the roof of a church 23 meters [feet] off the ground. Now, he may be in trouble again. For a television re-enactment, he got behind the wheel of a car -- possibly in violation of his driver's license suspension.
His year didn't start well. In late January, David E. made headlines in Germany and beyond when he managed to crash his Skoda Octavia station wagon into the roof of a church some seven meters (23 feet) off the ground. In addition to causing €63,000 in damage to the church, which his insurance covered, the 23-year-old fractured his pelvis, had to pay a €3,000 fine and lost his driver's license for a year.
Now, the end of his year isn't looking so hot for David, either. Following a television appearance last week, during which E. talked about the crash publicly for the first time, he could be facing further penalties. The show included a re-enactment of the crash -- and depicted E. sitting in the driver's seat of a car. Police are now trying to determine whether E. drove for the TV cameras despite having a suspended license.
"We have ordered a video from the television station," a police spokesman told SPIEGEL ONLINE. "We will then take a look at it to see if he violated his suspension."
The police may also investigate the television station, RTL -- and its host, famous German television personality Günther Jauch -- to determine whether it is guilty of inciting E. to violate the terms of his license suspension. The police declined to say what additional penalties could be facing E. were it determined that he drove on the show.
The January accident was singularly spectacular. E. was speeding through the middle of the small, eastern-German town of Limbach-Oberfrohna at three times the legal limit (139 kilometers per hour/86 miles per hour) when he lost control of his vehicle. His car hit an embankment on the side of the road and proceeded to fly 35 meters (115 feet) through the air before crashing into the village church.
Tests revealed that E. had been drinking prior to the accident . On television, he said "my girlfriend was in the hospital, I just wanted to get something real quick."
Instead, he ended up trapped in his car with multiple broken bones high off the ground. E., who has since recovered from his injuries, rapidly became something of a local folk hero for his unintended exploits. T-shirts, mugs and postcards of the incident quickly appeared as did a song.
E. told TV viewers that his mother drove him to the studio for the show. RTL insists that he didn't drive for the re-enactment.
Source.
Link to previous story (also linked from within the article.
It would be just like that TV station to get the guy into even more trouble than he is in right now. |
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