Whew…

Well, its been a little while again and I’ve got some news. Good old Uncle Sam’s accountant recently got ahold of me with some news; I miss-filed my tax returns. Thankfully, I did so to my detriment and the IRS fixed my mistake and sent me a bundle more than I’d thought I’d be getting, and with it I was able to accelerate a few things I’d been planning. I’m also debating whether or not to grab an Intuos tablet, basically something to make working with photoshop and Illustrator a bit easier. Seeing as I use photoshop fairly often in work, and quite frequently outside of work (slightly expanding from stick figures) it would be a fun toy to have and play with. Speaking of, here are a few examples of the newer stuff I’ve been doing, though its not really my favorite art style, its fairly easy to ink and color.

So, not too great, and definitely not an art style that I enjoy much, but being able to play around with computer programs is something I enjoy. These pictures were pencil sketches at once point, with heavy proportioning lines that were left, so I had to erase those in photoshop (no mean task with a touchpad) then import it into illustrator to ink and get the basic colors in, and finally port it back again to photoshop for final colorization, clean up any mistakes and make it look less two dimensional.

So, this past weekend was Memorial Day, and while I’m not going to do a song review (I may actually just discontinue that section of the blog though I will do them occasionally) I will suggest a song for those who enjoy harder music. The Soldier’s Song by Demon Hunter (one of my two favorite bands) is a tribute to America’s armed forces, and a great reminder of what it takes to live in a country like ours. A second song I would recommend, though itunes doesn’t have it for some reason, and its not an armed forces song per se, is Let’s Roll performed by D.C. Talk. This song was written by one of the friends of the leader of the civilians who took out the terrorist on the plane that didn’t hit its target on 9/11. The last words that were heard from that plane, or from that man at least were “Let’s roll!” his motto in highschool football.

Remembering to call my uncle in the armed forces, I spent most of the day with my girlfriend and her family and we all had a good time together. I watched more basketball than I ever have in one sitting (and by sitting I mean its on in the house and manage to watch it every time all the guys conglomerate int he room while the womenfolk are looking at baby pictures of someone else.) It was also the first time I’ve ever seen the Lakers loose, ironically, though I’m told they’re going to win in game 7, we’ll see if that pulls through.

I also got roped into playing taboo, a game I have no love for. The last time I played it was New Year’s Eve (fun in its own way, though I may have already told you here, if not, tell me; you’ll want to hear it) and my best friend and I were on the same team. For those who don’t know, the game consists of a time limit, cards a word and a list of words you can’t say to describe the word. Whichever team guesses the most words wins. So JD, you say, your best friend and you could do pretty well right? Ahah, not quite. He and I think a wee tad differently, and we were against sisters. The plain and simple fact of those kinds of games, is that females cheat. They may not mean to, and the may not even know it, but they do, just because I can’t prove it or figure out how doesn’t negate the fact, and so I get to live with it. We got soundly beaten. Which was fine cause i really didn’t like the game anyway.

So, five months later I again get roped into playing. Without my best friend, though on my girlfriend’s team, with her dad, sister and a one of their friends. Somehow we won, quite handily actually, and I did quite better than expected, though I almost got put in a straight jacket; I wave my hands a lot when I talk, even if it doesn’t mean anything. And I actually guessed more than my share of cards, which really surprised me. Dinner was really good too, and we also played pool.

Right before most of the other people who came got there, I went on a few errands and grabbed a few light-bulbs to fix my girlfriend’s taillights. They have been broken for a while and its been buggin me. So, here I am, the guy who detests getting dirty at all, let alone his hands, who will pay for his oil to get changed unless he runs out of money (and who needs to soon) though he does know how to do so himself, wrestling with a truck at least as old as me. Well, the side that has the broken bulb was being obstinate and not coming out. The good side popped out nice and easy for me and upon inspection of what was going wrong on the other side, yielded no help. It did make me pause however; I’d gotten two styles of bulbs because we weren’t sure about which it took.

There is a “Movius Line” of lightbulbs, and  how many headlights this truck had dictated the type of bulb. Well, it took the older bulbs normally, but the “good” side had the new style of bulbs, something that rather perplexed me. I finally got the other on off and look! it took the older bulbs. Well, they come in packs of two bulbs and another bulb looked like it would die soon, so I replaced them both. Coming in, her dad told me that the newer bulb side had been replaced a while ago, and so that explained that. I did, however, have to put up with requests to fix all the other cars represented at that party afterwards.  All in all, it was an enjoyable day.

One last note; I’M DONE WITH FINALS!!!!!!! And now summer life takes me over, which I’m grateful for. My best friend is leaving at the end of summer, I turn 21 in two months and a day, and I fear for my life for a conglomerate of those reasons. Well, enjoy your week people, its halfway done with the work week and there’s life looking at you all, enjoy!