2009-06-28

Salmon Pink Shinesman… away!

Filed under: Education,Graphics,Writing — D. Moonfire @ 16:53
Weight Loss (4.1 of 14.7 kg)
College Petitions #3
DG Edit (3 of 34 chapters)

Okay, completely and utterly obscure reference. If you like parodies, check out the Power Rangers parody, Shinesmen. Wonderful little sense of humor with quotes like:

Business cutter attack! Ineffective as usual!

Well, I just sent out the third petition for college. Only came out to 28 pages but still a pretty solid example that I know project management. Or, I hope it will be a pretty solid example. We’ll find out in 3-4 weeks. I’m not planning on waiting for this one to be accepted before finishing up number four. I want them off my priority list and to work on other, more enjoyable, things.

Speaking of enjoyment, tweaked my website design a bit further. Uses a bit more dividing lines and I got this really cool watercolor effect with some alpha channel PNG’s. It also broke up the side navigation bar from the main. I did that so I could put a textured background on the main block of the page. Normally, I’m not fond of image backgrounds at all but I think the mass of black on white needed a bit of structure.

I’m struggling a bit with the first three chapters of DG. I found some of the things that bothered me from the original draft, but my writing skills have changed since I wrote this. The introduction, which I liked before, I felt is a bit too… bland to be a good novel. So, I’m using this as a chance to clean up my beginnings and see if I can make this one really grab the reader.

Future beauty in websites

Filed under: Technology,Writing — Tags: — D. Moonfire @ 01:13
Weight Loss (4.1 of 14.7 kg)
College Petitions #3
DG Edit (3 of 34 chapters)

Got a chance to see my website with the new Firefox 3.5 Beta. I got curious since 3.5 is supposedly the first Firefox that will be able to handle web fonts, a way of putting a custom font on a website without fancy tricks. Previously, I used sIFR, but I don’t like hack solutions for changing fonts, no matter how elegant or impressive. The site looks so much better, using Underwood Champion as a font. It looks like Courier, but has a lot more character to the text and gives the entire thing a nice feel.

So, in anticipation of it coming out, and my desire to get rid of sIFR, I decided to clean up the site a bit. I switched the banner to the right and integrated the web fonts a lot more. It goes with that “important” need to have a right banner than a left; it doesn’t really manner which side but I kind of like it on the right at the moment.

Sadly, the Windows version of Firefox 3.5 isn’t as pretty as the Linux version. The Linux renders Underwood Champion beautifully but I can’t get my Windows machine to render that font without it looking like someone write it out on a moving truck. No doubt, it is settings on my computer, but I’m still holding my breath.

Still, it feels good to play around with web design and avoid what I should be doing, like working on my petitions or editing DG. I got into the third chapter of DG when my laptop started acting up last night. For some reason, I couldn’t check in any changes, but I could if I copied them manually over to my desktop. I got around it, but it took me a little bit. Things seem to be working correctly now, so I’m anxious to get started.

I also got distracted with a little short story. Just an idea I want to get out of my head. So, I’m working on that while trying not to think about my inability to eat solid food for the third day in the row.

2009-06-26

Chattering monkeys

Filed under: Education,Games,Graphics,Programming,Technology,Writing — D. Moonfire @ 07:33
Weight Loss (4.1 of 14.7 kg)
College Petitions (2 of 4)
DG Edit (0.5 of 33 chapters)

Having trouble sleeping tonight. Part of it comes from the drugs flowing through my veins. Drugs for pain and ones to prevent infections. The aftereffects of surgery were not too bad; Fluffy said was I all cute and groggy when I finished up. I managed to sleep better part of fifteen hours today, which also contributes to the lack of sleeping and me making a blog post at two in the morning.

The rest of this is just a list, probably not interesting for most people.

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2009-06-25

No longer the queen *sniff*

Filed under: Writing — Tags: — D. Moonfire @ 01:46
Weight Loss (4.1 of 14.7 kg)
College Petitions (2 of 4)
DG Edit (0.5 of 33 chapters)

A good number of years ago, our good friend Evyl got me this kick-ass tea mug that proclaimed “I am the queen”. Yeah, one of those quirky things about me, but I loved that mug. Large, with a strange little clicking noise when you truned it on the side with a large base and able to take half my tea pot at once. Sadly, this evening, I went to make my tea (too much creamer and splenda with Earl Gray) and it cracked right down the length. It wasn’t even that cold before I poured stuff in it, but there was a lot of good memories with that mug.

So, I’m no longer the queen of the house.

Tomorrow, I get to have my wisdom teeth removed. While I’m not worried about the normal things about dentist visits (pain, someone yanking out things wrapped around delicate and cranky nerves, or even the occasional cracked jaw), I’m still slightly worried about be put under for the entire thing. I know, logically, there is nothing to worry about and I should be more anxious about the pain, but… emotions are a strange thing.

I’ve started working on DG as my writing project for the week. Only into the first chapter, but it has been so long since I read the book that it actually new again. And I can focus on the chapters and find those stupid typos that have been there. It just took me years of setting it aside to actually see them. I had the same problem with MG and some of my short stories, I memorize so much of my writing that I can’t see the flaws until it is finally purged from memory.

Still fun to read something that is new again.

2009-06-23

Changing gears

Filed under: Programming,Writing — Tags: — D. Moonfire @ 23:51
Weight Loss (4.1 of 14.7 kg)
College Petitions (2 of 4)
DG Edit (0 of 33 chapters)

Weight was not good for me yesterday. There are little tips and tricks with Weight Watchers that I know about, one of them is don’t wear jeans to weigh-in day. Those suckers are heavy. And, because of a lack of doing laundry, I did that exact thing, so I’m not exactly sure if I lost or gained, mainly because of a new variable in the mix. So, I’m holding my breath this week but still a bit down for going up.

I’m also trying not to worry about the dentist appointment on Thursday. I don’t know why I’m worrying, I like doctors and I’m not too worried about this. But, there is that stupid part of me that is just worried.

This morning, I released my MfGames CIL library. Minor little step, but just the head of a long list of dependencies which should take me through to the new year.

For my major project this week, I’m going to finish the edits on DG. They have been hanging around for better part of a year and I already paid for the chapter plates, I just need to actually come up with a list of illustrations I want. And that requires me to actually finish it and knock out 10-30k words.

This is the hard bit.

2009-06-21

Predictions

Filed under: Programming,Writing — Tags: , — D. Moonfire @ 18:57
Weight Loss (4.8 of 14.7 kg)
College Petitions (2 of 4)
MfGames CIL (22 of 22 tasks)

A few days ago, I made a comment to Fluffy that I wanted her to park in the garage when she comes home first. I don’t know why I can get cranky after getting home, but in that case, it probably came off harsher than I wanted to. She, naturally, asked why and I said that I felt uncomfortable parking underneath the tree since some of the branches looked dead.

The next day, as I pulled into the driveway, I saw a huge branch sitting right where I parked the day before. No one got hurt of course, but it felt strange sitting at it, realizing that my gut feeling the day before was a very real thing.

Kind of cool too.

Not very productive this weekend so far. I finished cleaning up my code for MfGames CIL and a ton of documentation. I am seriously and utterly tired of documenting my library and I probably short-changed the last few pages because I just couldn’t do it anymore. I plan on getting the release out probably on Tuesday or so.

I also consolidated my emails a bit. Now, I only have my two spam collection ones (which people keep on using though I ask them not to), and one for each byline I use. It will be interesting to see how it works, but I need to have less boxes lately. I don’t check my Yahoo or Hotmail ones at all these days, unless someone tells me to. Too much spam, pure and simple.

Getting anxious to write again and I’m planning on it for this coming week. I need to ignore code for a while, except for random banging on the keyboard, and start working on my two commissions. I also need to work on my personal projects a bit, too many books that need editing (um, 4) and one to write still.

2009-06-18

Mothers, writing, and documentation

Filed under: Education,Family,Programming,Writing — Tags: — D. Moonfire @ 13:42
Weight Loss (4.8 of 14.7 kg)
College Petitions (2 of 4)
MfGames CIL (9 of 22 tasks)

(I know I said I’d talk about Glorious Saber and artwork, but I decided it sounded too whining so I just canned it.)

My mother came into town this weekend on her way up to teach a class. I was hoping it was for her other company, but… oh well, it is here life. Nice visit though, mainly talking about random things while plate after plate of sushi showed up at our table. She ordered about 30 pieces too many for the group of four, including Fluffy. I try not to over-order on sushi, mainly because the flavor changes so much overnight and my contribution to the order ended up being exactly what I could eat. Except there was only one sushi chef and they were swamped. So service took three hours for our food to show up. That gave us a chance to talk.

Nothing really meaningful, but she made a joke that actually got me worried. She’s been falling a lot. She didn’t come out and say it, but she jokes about a few nasty falls and Fluffy said that a friend of ours (who works for her) said that she is falling more often. It isn’t normal of her to keep secrets like that but in other ways, I’m not sure how much I’m going to really worry about it. I’m trying to pull away from her to get a clear head, but it is something I’m going to keep an eye on. You never know if falling turns into something worse.

In more cheerful news, I got a 93% or A on my college course. Only two more to go, including the capstone project, and I should have my masters by the end of the year. I’m still hoping to get my petition out by the end of the weekend, but I suspect the MfGames CIL release won’t be until next weekend. It is all those documentation steps I want to get done before I finish.

Technical writing is an interesting best. It is far different than writing fiction and very different from my non-fiction writing. I have a separate voice for all three types of writing, just as I have a fourth for academic writing. It is hard, actually, to write documentation for libraries like this. Mainly because it is done last, but also because it sometimes is really hard to explain why you did something that works well in code. “Just because” is a horrible thing to write in documentation. For some, I reverted to just explaining how to use it, but for others, I explained why I use it, so people understand the decisions behind what I wrote.

So, programming and writing and school this week.

2009-06-16

Happily moving forward

Filed under: Education,Programming,Writing — Tags: , , , , — D. Moonfire @ 15:43
Weight Loss (4.8 of 14.7 kg)
College Petitions (2 of 4)
MfGames CIL (2 of 22 tasks)

There is something to be said about hearing the weight loss for the entire room and getting ten percent of it. Lost about 0.8 kg last week, mostly I suspect from happily obsessing about programming and playing games that I forgot to eat. That means this week will be even harder because I need to maintain the weight loss into next week.

Found a neat feature on my tracking system for Moonfire Games. It lets me see the progress toward a release. Since I was hoping to do a MfGames CIL release this weekend, I decided to put in all the tasks that I need to complete and use that roadmap to show my progress. It is in the progress bar, for those who are interested.

It looks like a lot, at first, mainly because I didn’t enter what I completed. But, my major goals this week are to work on the petition and get MfGames CIL out the door. As soon as I get this release off my progress reports, then I’m planning on switching back to a writing project. I have two commissions sitting on my plate now and one of them is due in three weeks.

2009-06-14

I have to stop, but I can’t

Filed under: Graphics,Programming,Writing — Tags: , , , , — D. Moonfire @ 17:00
Weight Loss (4.1 of 14.7 kg)
College Petitions (2 of 4)

I know I have some obsessive compulsive traits, I think a lot of programmers do just as much as a lot of artists and writers. It lets us ignore most distractions and actually get things done. In many ways, it is the same thing that gets someone up an hour early to finish NaNoWriMo or ignore normally basic things like eating, drinking, or going the bathroom just to finish a chapter.

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2009-06-12

Making the bits all shiney

Filed under: Education,Graphics,Programming — D. Moonfire @ 03:21
Weight Loss (4.1 of 14.7 kg)
College Petitions (2 of 4)

Late night because of work. I don’t mind the occasional extra hours helping customers, mainly because I know I can help and, in most cases, they’ll be much happier when I’m done. Still makes it a tired night though.

Didn’t do much beyond that, though. I finished most of the cleaning on MfGames CIL library and shuffling things around. I’m more comfortable with it now, which is good. Now, I can focus on MfGames.Settings and MfGames.Tools which will let me do the Unit Timing reporting tool.

I also finished my college course for this semester. This weekend, I’m going to work on getting the third petition out and try to get some pretty graphics out of my unit timing library.

That will lead nicely into the growing desire to actually write some more. I found taking a week off after a commission helps a bit with the creative juices and I’m still bribing myself with a new project or playing this computer game with getting unit timing generating useful data.

And, that nasty, icky documentation process going on. It’s taking a while, mainly because it requires a different set of gears. But, I want to get all of this nicely documented.

And, in the last little bit, I’m starting to work on a new style for Glorious Saber. It is still a lot like the old one, but it does more with arms and legs, which are the two things I’ve always struggled with. I think I’m pretty decent at backgrounds already, though I’m going to try making it look a bit more polished. And, I seriously forgot how lousy I’m at limbs; the main reason I loved the Thing Thing style, but that is me being lazy. Right now, my sketches seem a bit super deformed, which is fine. While I do have a few serious things, I want to be “not serious” about the strip and SD works nicely for there. And, like the other little bits of the comic, I’ll probably use the golden ratio (body is 1.618 the height of the head) for the main characters.

Yes, I’m a geek.

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