Memorial Day

A day set aside to remember all those who gave of themselves that we who were left behind should remain free.

Your sons, your daughters, your wives, husbands, brothers or sisters. We will never forget.

I got the Menu/table of contents for Hunter's Destiny done, as well as In Defence of Honour - in the Chamber of Magic.
I did that one so I'd have an idea what everything /else/ would look like.. So far, I'm pleased. I'm a little pissed though - the 'contact me' link is /red/ - it's /supposed/ to be blue... >.< Edited, 'cause I accidentally mispoke myself..

No, we aren't amused. But I'll strangle it later - I've got other stuff I want to get sorted first...

Blehgh...

Spent yesterday chasing around town trying to find small canisters of tubifex worms and luggage tags.
No luck on either thing, but we did find some stuff we /hadn't/ been after - specifically after, anyway. A Whisper filter to replace my noisy Penguin - nice filter, but noisy, and a pain in the ass in a lot of ways. I /really/ prefer the Whispers - they are silent, the filters are /easy/ to change (and you don't have to buy the whole damn cartridge...) you can also get replacement parts for them!
Mom bought a trio of tri-coloured platies. (Brought 'em home, and the next thing I know, she's crowing because her Ember Tetras are spawning ... must be the season.)

As for webpage stuff... meh. I finished a sketch of N'yati - which I'll scan, if I can remember. Haven't gotten anywhere else. Am psyching up for the great Chapter Rearrangement - wherein I will set up the same table arrangement as in the Gallery sections. That will be fun. ^^

I think I'll set /all/ the fiction up that way - it should make it easier to read. /AND/ I will have MARGINS! Can you imagine that? Wow. ^^

Site hits!

283 hits..
Wow.
What to do when I get 300?

Hm. Well... I /could/ do what most of the other folks running sites do and do a sketch ... of what, I don't know....

Hm. Maybe take a request?
Mph. I'll think about it for a bit...

Fish?!

Heh.
So much for a unproductive spawn - yesterday we fished ten babies out of the betta-spawning tank, and earlier today I found one more, bringing it up to a grand total of eleven little bettas. *tilts head* Thank the gods - I was /not/ looking forward to another hundred little jars. Some people spawn these little buggers and wind up with /hundreds/ of little tiny fish... o.O

My tank's humming along just fine - and it's occured to me that selling mollies might offset the costs of food, filters and whatnot. What a concept...
Dunno why it didn't occur before - anyway, I'm debating where to get a couple more female lyre-tails. I could get blacks or dalmations, but I would rather have the silvers. I /like/ the silvers, they're pretty. Mom kinda went 'bleh' - but she's got all those loud killies... at least, she does if she can stop killing them. She lost the female lucania goodei a while back (and the guy she bought that pair from replaced them - /eight/ pairs! Meep..), the female nothobranchus kilembaronsus(sp?)> - hopefully not before she laid a bunch of eggs in the peat-box - but now we've only the male nothos.. She lost the rivulus xiph-somethings - raw water killed them, and the guy she got 'em from is all willing to replace them .. NOT until July and she's back from Missouri though! *sighs* Small relief that, I think... but I'll take what I can get!

Anyway, the baby-fish count in the big tank is thirteen - eleven bettas and two endlers, with the other endler female looking ready to pop... it'll probably be a week or so before we notice the tiny little fish. ^^

Haven't accomplished much about updates - got a sketch of the Woodwright trio (Mariah, Keil and Krysse) in the works - /not/ happy with Frost. Apparently, giant wolves are not my forte. We'll see about that - in the meantime, I'm going to try and figure out why a 5'something redhead has come out looking mildly Callisto-esque. (The armour - not the hair. Thank god. O.o)

Okay.
Either, I've got to stop inventing people, or I have to find something to DO with them all.

Aurian is in the Peanut Gallery. I can hear him cheering from here - usually, me actually /drawing/ one of this lot means they're here to stay.. *sighs*
Oh well. He'll be easier to find space for than, say, Embyr....

Anyway, you get two views of Aurian - his 'human' self, and his dragon-self. The 'human' self is coloured. The dragon-self isn't. Highly detailed, yes. ^^

Btw - I /really/ dislike the concept-designs for ADnD dragons - the metallics are mostly okay, but a lot of the chromatics are enough to make me collapse laughing - the blues are the worst... mutated rhinos on steriods. *tilts head* Plot Rhinos with wings? *snerk*
Anyway - I'd like to bap the guy who did that first one... I've always had the impression that even - especially - the evil dragons had a fierce beauty; something feral and untameable. Reds have it. To a limited extent, Blacks have it. But the rest?! Uh uh. Laughable, at best.

I /do/ rather like some of the concept designs for the metallics though - the golds particularly appeal to me.
Not sure why - the whiskers are silly and /completely/ detract from the effect to my mind - but the way they look in flight is .... just wow.
That's a common wing-style, too - the coppers also have it, and ... I think the brass dragons. I don't remember how the bronze's wings were set, but the silvers were the typical gigantic bat-wings set up. Still impressive.

I can reproduce at least two, if not three or four of their dragon-types. Actually, I can probably reproduce all of them - I just refuse to draw the atrocity that is their idea of blue dragons.
^^

!?

I can't remember what I did and didn't upload ...

That's not good. This, however, is funny. ^^

> WARNING

Thorne is radioactive. Wear protective clothing at all times.

Username:

From Go-Quiz.com

Kim may explode without warning

M EXPLOSIVE

Username:

From Go-Quiz.com

Kimberly is poisonous! Induce vomitting if ingested.

N POISON

Username:

From Go-Quiz.com

btw - if you are not easily offended and have a throughly odd sense of humour, you might try watching PuniPuni Poemi. It's.. ...... different. It's the most screwed up bit of animation I've seen since I saw Excel Saga - and considering, that's pretty screwed up.
Yes, it offended me. I also did a lot of snickering and groaning - since it /did/ have it's moments...

Anyway... um ... updates. Yes. There is a new pic in the miscellanious gallery - I got that far. Need to upload that other thing though...

*sighs* I really ought to know better by now ...

Joules makes an offhanded comment, and out comes the idea-bat. I read the latest Dominic Deegan strip - and Mookie's challenge-contest - and get an idea. /Then/, an idea I've had percolating for a few weeks now abruptly springs into being - not living colour, quite, but certainly vivid enough to warrant putting onto paper... where'd I get the idea that I'm not a terribly prolific artist from?!

I'm a confused artist, too. But that's /hardly/ unusual these days. ^^
.. Now, if I could just get all the involved characters to COOPERATE! *glares at the current prize-winner for obstenance in any given character..* Rrr. This would be /much/ easier if I had access to men, in good shape, willing to lounge around in a Speedo while I sort out the male form. And not expect me to compensate them via intercourse or something equally idiotic. Hm.... Nah. Even if I /knew/ any gay men, they wouldn't be willing to lounge around half-naked while I attempted to draw them........

And I'm rambling. I'll shut up and scan those pics now.... ^.~

Done!

At least, until I get ready to upload the next batch of chapters.

We have up to thirteen at this latest count - I'm going to split and modify the table on the next chapter update... (Sucker for punishment? Me? Nah...)

Well, that's that - the new mollie is in.
Poor girl is already being chased by one of the boys - need to get some more plants in that tank, yepyep.

As funny as it is to watch him playing 'Casanova', methinks I /will/ finagle some more plants - lots of small stuff to plant in and around the Green Monsters...

Wonder where I can find more of that fluffy fern stuff........

The Edit posts thing doesn't work either, although I'm beginning to think that might be Opera barfing on me again. Yup. Opera barfing on me again... Same with the preview function. Damnit - I /hate/ using IEvil!
Btw, I'm not accomplishing anything because I'm reading /other/ people's blogs. Hmm. I sense a pattern - anyway, another neat thing gleaned from someone else's blog - Talon's, this time..

Pick five, or ten, or more, of your fic titles. List them in your journal and explain how you came up with each one.

"A Day in the Life."
Very descriptive - essentially a day in Shimmer's life. Not one of my more inventive attempts, I'll admit, but at the time, I was focused on the story, not the title.

"Weilding Ice and Fire"
Zayiiri's favoured weapons as a war-mage. I create people - her history reflects some serious 'people-ness' - is that even a /word/?!

"To Join the Ranks"
More not-so-imaginative descriptiveness. I do like giving the odd hint about what's going on though - emphasis on 'odd'.

"To See a World With New Eyes"
Good god, /what/ a mouthful. Descriptive again - more inventive than the last couple. I'm gonna have to write a few more from this guy's perspective - he was interesting. (And understandably confused. Poor Fiiu'ri. ^^)

"Hunter's Destiny"
Descriptive. Short, sweet and, I thought, effective. *shrugs* I'm going to wind up writing that again a few times, but I think the title will stick...

Two chapters of that I was going to upload, yes? I'm on it, I think ...

Boredom impacting?

Instructions:
1) Copy and paste this: [font color=yourusername][b]yourusername[/b][/font] into your journal.
2) Replace [] with <>

Sylverthorne
Bleugh.
Thorne
I didn't see that coming or anything ..
Sylver
Blue, I can live with..

Oh well. I've got chapters I'm supposed to be uploading. I'd better get back into it ....

Blegh.

I do /not/ know what's up with blogger today - maybe it's just 'cause I'm on dial-up instead of the nice, /fast/ cable...

We did get a new router though - a Belkin. My dad's already pleased with it - the reset switch will cycle the router without forcing you to reconfigure everything unless you /want/ to, which the old one didn't.
We'll pull everything apart and maybe by tomorrow I'll be back on the cable modem.. it's a nice thought.

Also got the mollie replaced - she's settling in. I'll let her go sometime tomorrow, after I've fed water into her little bag.
I've also got black snails - black mystery snails. I got five - they were two bucks a snail, so it seemed like a good way to go...

.... ?!

.... Y'know, I don't like it when I tell the thing to open my blog so I can look at it and .. I don't seem to /have/ a blog all of a sudden ...

ARgh!

*grumble*
We had a little storm blast through last night - lightning, thunder, raining hard, wind blowing like mad - the usual, accompanied by a power-bump, which isn't uncommon.
Fried the router.

That means I'm on dial-up as I type this. Never knew just how /spoiled/ having a cable connection could make someone ...

Anyway, we're gonna replace it - and I have to hit PetCo to beat them out of another mollie.
Yup - dead fish last night. Just one - and not Wobbly.
*mutter* Oh well...

I got up to chapter eleven before my ability to think in HTML crapped out.. actually, I can still think in HTML, it's my ability to do the monotonous formatting that's gone down the tubes..

And I wanna do a table thing like in the galleries.. Wah!

I think I also fixed the broken links in the latter bunch of chapters. If I'm wrong, feel free to throw a tomato or two at me...

Alright, I give up.

Anybody remember the fiction /I'm/ supposed to be working on? *ducks sporks, rotten veggies and various prodding impliments* Ow? Okay, okay - I'm up to the next three or four chapters...

And I think I finished chapter twenty. No, I'm not a prolific writer. Whyever do you ask?

Heh.

1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open the book to page 23.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the sentence in your journal along with these instructions.

"Note that few leaders have Aura of Command sufficient to inspire their entire force at once."

.... The nearest book was BESM revised 2e. Shut up.

By the way - Master and Commander: Far Side of the World was pretty good. So said my Mom, also - and she's usually pretty hard on movie versions of books she's read. (So'm I, for that matter - it's the reason I nearly tossed my cookies watching Disney's meatgrinder of 'Hercules'.. >.<
Not to mention the garbled messes that have been made out of /other/ books I enjoyed as a kid.. and an adult, for that matter..)

I can only hope they don't mangle 'The Lion, The Witch, and the Warddrobe' - which comes out .. what, next year? I want to see that...
(Which reminds me - I ought to find a copy of the live-action 'Jungle Books' - they didn't mangle that too badly, and I rather enjoyed it... (looked a bit like Tarzan set in India, sure - but it was still okay..)

Eeeee! *boingboingboing*

*grins* Been wanting to do that all day. Feels good to bounce off the walls in all directions. ^^

Anyway. 'Whoops!' has been posted in the Miscellanious gallery. My Muse will henceforth be conditioned to work out of MY realities for a little while...

Also posted Siaan in the characters section. I'm apparently on a 'freaky character' kick....
Khem'bri }:And she wonders why we don't poke our noses in all that often..:{

Shut up. Or get out here and be useful....

I think I'm tempted to strangle my muse. I say that because I got the most useless (if kind of funny) idea /ever/ ... I'm not going to think too hard about the mechanics though.
The scary thing - the rules of the realities involved make it a possibility ...

I'm going to shut up now - I've piqued curiousities enough. Yes, I'll post it. I have to scan it and be pissed because it's not very good. (it's messy as hell, and I bothered to do some colouring, so it's /really/ messy in some places..)

The horse-anatomy issue may be solved. I have a resident expert in my mom - she is quite the artist herself, although she's lost a lot of her 'hand' due to lack of practice... for a long time, I had an ink sketch she did of a pair of unicorns in here - we've still got it, it's migrated downstairs until someone can figure out how in gods'name to /scan/ it.....
Anyway, her thing was horses.
(Found out something interesting - apparently, a horses shoulder (the withers) is not actually /attached/ to their backbone. The shoulderbone floats in all that muscle. And they put all that weight /right/ across that... I am trying to figure out just how the hell that works. Mom never thought about it, which surprised me a little...) Anyway, useless - or not - bit of trivia out of the way...

Feet. Feet are /always/ giving me problems. People feet, animal feet - one toe, three toes or five, it don't matter - it gives me issues. Is there anyone out there who /can/ draw feet? Have you got any useful tips? Willing to /share/?! I can't be the only self-taught frustrated artisty type out there...

Oh - and I just finished uploading ‘Waking Dreams’ - which is the ‘last’ portion of Maeva’s history. No, you don’t get the first part until /after/ I’ve found someplace to apply the character and I can horrify a ref or two. *grins* I actually busted the input field for character histories with Maeva - in all it’s glory, her history spans 17 pages. Cool, nh?

That makes me one of three people I know who’s done that...

*snerk*

Well, that's that - I've got a bunch of mollies. I wasn't paying attention when the guy fished 'em out, so I've got males. (Actaully, if they seem to manage ok, I may just leave it at that - I /don't/ want to be finding outlets for a million mollies ...)
I got three, and goin' from the current antics, it looks like they're Larry, Wobbly, and Moe - or Whoa - depending on who's doin' the watching.

The huge green thing is weighted down with a rock, since I can't get it's roots buried in gravel. This would be because I can't get into that back corner to bury it properly. I'll settle - it /should/ be fine.

No webupdates yet - I'm working on a group sketch that has a couple of different versions. The problem, and the reason I'm going to do it again - it involves a pair of warhorses. Can I draw horses? Technically, yes - I know where all the parts supposedly go. The execution however, leaves something to be desired. (Oddly, considering that my first few attempts were.. hm. not so great, Al, I think I've got a better handle on horse-anatomy than I thought... kindly get your brain out of the gutter.)

I'll let you know if I manage to scare myself again - but I've gotten into a very.. hentai mood of late. Not sure if that's biology kicking me in the .. nevermind - or just something cycling 'round again ...

GREEN!!!

*chuckles*
I have a tank half-full of plant. In this case that means that I have a /huge/ plant in the back corner, and a slightly smaller version of said plant near the front. That pretty much takes care of that end of the tank.
No, I have no idea what it is. Mom offered me some and I took her up on it. So I have a huge leafy green thing taking over one half of my tank. ^^

... I do /not/ like this narrow posting box. >.<

WTF?!

... Rrr.
Not sure I’m liking this new blogger thing..........

What is the fascination with fixing what ain’t broke?!

*sighs*
Well, depending on which source you are looking at, mollies are either /really/ easy to keep, or /really/ complex.
They do well in marine environments, they also do well in freshwater, with a minimum of a teaspoon of marine salts per gallon added to the water. They /do/ like hard water - which is good - because that's what I have.
They're live-bearers, which means that you have to have an outlet for all the babies... although they aren't as bad as guppies in that respect. They're also hardier than guppies.
However, they get /big/ - so I want I guess a maximum of three, if I'm going to get any silver lyre-tail mollies. *mutter* I'm gonna wind up with a mob of mollies... oh well. The pet-stores'll take whatever survives my lack of interest in retaining babies.. (Which is to say, whatever survives their parents eating them..)
We'll see - the betta-spawning isn't going too well at the moment. Not having been told about the tendancy of betta males to 'forget' about their nests if you turn the lights off (well, heck, they do this in the wild all the time - and it gets dark at night, eh?), I ... turned the tank-light off when I found it on at night.
Oops. (Actually, even without that light on, it's pretty bright in the diningroom at night - we have a nightlight in there - but apparently that wasn't enough light for Dad to remember he was taking care of a nest..)

Live and learn, I guess.

Site Update ..

Not pictures this time - I uploaded 'Days of Rest' into the Chamber of Magic.
Just figure that every adventurer has their time to veg.. ^^

I managed to get into PetCo the other day, and discovered they have some nice mollies... silver lyre-tails. This is tempting. Have to remember to look up what kind of water they like...

*chuckles* They also had blue platies, some sorry-looking white-clouds and some discus. Discus are throughly inappropriate - my tank is not /nearly/ big enough - but they're nice fish anyway. Even if they /do/ look vaguely like silver dollars floating on edge... ^.~
Better'n hatchet fish. Mom has hatchet-fish. They look like ... well, nevermind what they look like. not my thing - they're /boring/ ...
Damnit, I need space/money for a /huge/ tank - I want some of those ginormous fishies... >.<
Discus get to be four to six inches in diameter. Angelfish are nearly as bad. Lots of cichlids get to be /huge/ - and I'd like some plecos. But most of /those/ get to be ginormous too. There is a smaller variety that I think Mom is looking into, or another, smaller fish that does the same thing, only better.. plecos are algae-eaters. A necessity here, given the amount of algae we seem to have. O.o

I like keeping a tank - the noise of it burbling away to itself in the background is relaxing ...

Updates!

Lots of goodies.

Got sketches of Kytra and Obsidian, a random feline-cross and Darrien getting tied up in his work, plus a couple of the PCs and a pair of Draconi into the Shadowhunter gallery.
Also got some stuff in the Miscellanious gallery - a /colour/ pic, painted in Corel, of a spiderweb mask and a sketch of a girl having a good time on the dancefloor. No, I do /not/ know what she's wearing on her legs, but if it works.. ^_~

Also got the scary thing uploaded. No links to that. You want to see, you have to ask me. :P (and it's not as scary as Dominiq was..)

I've still got other stuff I was going to put in, but I can't remember half of it .. ;p

I /did/ get all the scanning done.
I'm now working my way through all the stuff I have to get cleaned up and posted.

Also due a water-change in the 10g tank. That shouldn't be a major big deal - take a bucket up, fill it to nearly impossible to carry - cart it down, put it outside so it can fill the rest of the way with rainwater. At least, I think that's the idea. (I'm tempted to just say 'to hell with it' and dump it in the garden...)

Interestingly - we tested the filtered tap-water. It's no higher in nitrates/nitrites than the water we've /been/ using - although the Ph is a little higher - nearer neutral than the bottled drinking water. It's still going to need some serious watching, but we can probably use it in the tanks, no problem.. Carefully, of course.

I could cheerfully strangle the person who wrote this and didn't close half the tags... Or the person who set Blogger up to not /show/ you the problem tags. Ah well.

They got the cat part right, at least....

What fuzzy animal are you?
Username
Species	cat
Ears	droopy
Tail	long
Cute noise	meep
Cuteness - 41%
This QuickKwiz by Lightbulby - Taken 3890 Times.

.. Pet me and die. ^_~

Anyway, it's been pretty calm, all things considered....

Well, sorta busybusy..

Was /certainly/ busy yesterday - we had houseguests, and I did most of the cooking. I'm not used to such copious and fervent compliments.......
Oh well. Dinner was good - we had chicken cordon bleu with little carrots and salad, with lemon tart for dessert. The lemon tart was a major experiment - and it was /very/ good. Success! Heh.
*grins* Need to see if I can find a two-piece tart pan, or maybe just do something different with the spring-form pan next time - the sides of the crust fell in while it was baking. No, I didn't have any really effective way of bracing it ... *sigh*
Even so, it was /very/ good - very rich and lemony with a hint of almond from the crust. I'm going to scan the recipe for a friend - anyone else want?

Fish news - I haven't lost any yet. I'm hoping to retain the record, such as it is. o.O

Webpage news - Finished another Forms sketch - the felines. Also finished a sketch of a male Draco-cross being a shirtless showoff. I'm not overly happy with it, but I'll probably post it anyway - just for the halibut.
I've been playing a bit - this is either a bad thing or not, depending on who you ask and how well they know me. ^_~
This means the Dominiq (the freaky demoness - anyone who knows what I'm talking about may either sit up and be facsinated, or wince now..) has some company in the freaky-bitch department. Yeh, I'm trying to see if I can scare myself again ...
Which means there may be some weird shit in the works.
Run. Run for your lives ....

*splat*

Algae. >.<
Well, I've changed out a bunch of the jars and one of the boxes - in the hopes of controlling the algae, nh?
On doing so, I got a chance to take another look at all these bettas - looks like I've got six or so males and seven or so females. (This presumes I've ID'd them all correctly - and I've been wrong before)

Having put four (now five) of the females in the 10G tank, I have four fewer jars to keep an eye on. (I would put /all/ of the females in that tank, but I'm not sure it's big enough to have seven bettas in - even if they are only female. They'll nip at each other, if they're too crowded...)
I've got one or two who look like they're gonna come out as Crown-tails - the rest look like deltas. Oh well - the pet stores'll take 'em.

*growl* I hate people, sometimes.
This, incedentally, is going to make absolutely /no/ sense unless you know what's going on - and I'm not going into that here...
This kind of shit is why I usually avoid the main chat at Rondak's. Bad enough the prick gets away with his odious jokes, nasty comments and near-insults - but you can't fire them back at him. Essentially the type who can dish it out, but he can't take it. Worse still, he has the power to ban the folks who piss him off. (Can we say 'Abuse of Power'? I thought we could.) He didn't ban ME - if he had, I'd still be spitting mad - but he had the gall to give me a warning just because I belted him with his own stick.
Naturally, I raised a stink.
He's now got a warning. I somehow doubt it'll do any good. That said, if it doesn't, I'll raise ANOTHER stink. I don't like doing that - but damn it all, I don't get away with that kind of garbage. I can't think up a good reason why he should be allowed to get away with that kind of garbage.
*/growl*

Coherency usually comes with the second re-write. When I'm so angry I can't think of any suitable profanity, you can then be worried. ^_~