Happy New Year

Welcome to 2018 - The year after 2017, now considered one of the most violent, unruly and truly terrifying years in modern history.

2017 is the year of the Trump. The year of the war on the US GVT as it has been known, the year of constant threats from Trump towards the North Korean dictator and, of course, the revival of missile testing and nuclear explosions from the Kim North Korean dictator.

Today is the first day of 2018 .. shall we see together how this year will differ from the last. Let us hope that we have many more years in order to digest all the chaos that 2017 brought us.

Shadowboxer

Dutchy Grieves awoke to the staticky radio voice of his alarm clock and then whacked it a second time for good measure. The signal from his least favourite talk-radio program straightened out for a few seconds – long enough for him to catch the weather report and the far more important traffic updates before wandering again into a steady hiss punctuated by the occasional word or phrase. untangling his legs from the sheets which had magically wound around him, he swung them off the edge, letting his feet touch the cold floor. The chill did more to wake him up than the alarm-clock ever could, even when it was working.

With a grunt that shouldn’t have matched his age, he pushed himself upright and scratching at his sparse brown hair, made his way into the living room of his small Montreal apartment. Stooping down some, he hooked an empty mug from his stained coffee table and continued into the kitchen. Dutchy raised his free hand and rubbed some of the sleep form his eyes and began the morning ritual which had been his practice for the over ten years of being a taxi-driver. The mug slid on the counter towards the sink, with a light spin to it which was Dutchy trying to curve the mug as if it were the last shot of a curling end. The mug fetched up fairly close to the edge of the sink, beating the imaginary hog line and narrowly missing the button, stopped on a bit of scratched linoleum once again. Dutchy reached across the counter and hit the on button of the coffee maker he’d packed the night before, and then he reached above the sink for one of the myriad cans of cat food piled there. Sliding that one across the counter didn’t give him any better results, mostly because his old tabby, nicknamed Cyrano, had leapt onto the counter and stopped it’s progress with an oversized mitten of a foot.

Taking the can back from Cyrano, he pulled an old manual can-opener from his junk drawer and took what seemed like a torturously long time, at least according to the cat, to open the can and empty its contents into the food dish on the floor near the edge of the kitchen.  The cat placated and left to its own rituals, Dutchy rinsed the mug free of any remnants of the last night’s scotch and filled it with some of the coffee, black, of course. The rest of his breakfast making and eating went by with the blurriness of a well-trodden path, lacking details but getting the job done. Glancing out the window to see if it had snowed last night, Dutchy chose some relatively warm clothes, dressed and grabbing his keys, turned to wish Cyrano a good day before popping loose the security chain and the steel lock below it and opening the door made to step out into a perfectly boring tuesday morning hussle and bustle of a day.

Me cago en ... pulled a muscle!

I pulled a muscle...I don,t know how and frankly, I don't care anymore. All I know is that althought there is no real pain, everything from my back, over my shoulder on the right and to my fingertips..is tingly!

Not in a good way.

This photo pretty much resembles where the muscle is and how it is pulled...

I hate it!  I am lucky in that I have a friendly co-worker who is willing and able to massage the spot for me..and it works for short periods of time.but it is not a solution.

I have some Advil liquigels..and took 2 of them, but damn!

Typing does not help, so I will stop now.

Sheesh!

eCigs and the quitting game - year 1

This weekend is the 1 year anniversary of my vaping adventure.  For the past 2 months, I have reduced my nic intake from the original of 18mg to 12, then 9,6,3 and now - ZERO!

So..not only am I no longer addicted to nicotein..but the whole vaping thing is behind me. I don't think about it. Get no particular joy from it and although I carry the damned things with me everywhere I go..I also spend very little part of any day actually vaping.

Sometimes, it is just while I drive. I certainly don't go outside to vape anymore...lucky for me, because the temperatures are wickedly cold now.

I should try and leave the damned thing at home and see what comes of it.

Cheers!

Me

Reuniting

Decided to reunite different blog posts from different blogs into one place..here.

Easier to keep track of this way.  Now, if Only I can figure out a way to grab and export all my kivejournal and myspace posts in one go...that'd be fab!

http://mrbishop.livejournal.com/
https://angrydesigner.wordpress.com/
http://thousandmonkeys.blog.com/  *THis one will not be coming here - it is a whole nother story.

Trafficking in insanity

Trafficking in chaos

Let me preface this post by saying that if there is one thing that can make being late for work anything less than frustrating..it is when you are late BUT your supervisor and boss are both later than you are.

Traffic sucks. It really does. It slows you down to the point where you are lucky if you get where you want to be before you are actually late. I am not saying anything new here. I am not re-inventing the wheel. Nobody likes traffic.

What I am saying is that there is a scale of traffic frustration that must be dragged kicking and screaming into the light...and beaten soundly.

So... imagine that you are on your way to work. You didn't sleep in or hit the snooze button once too many times. You didn't dawdle over breakfast, or sit too long in the bathroom reading when you should have been leaving. You left on time, didn't turn off for a coffee or anything... you are acting responsibly and yet... you are about to be late for work. You are about to risk your job for a reason beyond your control.

So -reasons for traffic.


Weather- The weather often has a way of messing with visibility or making driving conditions less than optimal..leading to accidents, mechanical issues and FEAR.

Accident(s) - Sh@t happens. Someone wasn't paying attention, or going too fast or just unlucky and crunched his of her wheels, blocking a lane or two in the process. Everyone in that lane is going to have to go around them until a towtruck can arrive to get the car out of the way. As it stands... it is not horrible, but there are complications -and those,..well...

Stalls and mechanical issues - Very much like accidents, but usually you can't inflict blame on the person for innatention. Complications also apply here.

Construction- like accidents and mechanical issues, they mess up traffic because they tend to close lanes, force people to go around or deviate onto unknown routes. The latter also slows people down because they get people lost...which will slow them down (see Fear)

FEAR - Some people just cannot drive in less than optimal conditions, and sometimes, not even then. These are the people who should stay off the road most of the time. They are the types who brake early, often and without particular reason. This kind of randomness makes other drivers nervous and overly cautious and causes an overall slowdown and traffic. I call this invisible traffic. You cannot see the cause of it - there is no warning and no way of stopping it beyond getting the fearful driver off of the road.

Rubbernecking- This is one of those complications from accidents and stalls. Drivers passing by an accident or a stall HAVE to slow down and take a look for themselves. They HAVE to see if there is any blood. They HAVE to see the damaged car.  Why? Because when they get to wherever they are going, they HAVE to tell everyone about it and those people will want details!  **This is made far worst thanks to social media. The audiences are MUCH bigger than they ever were before Facebook and Twitter.  It is also made worst thanks to cell-phones which can take pictures - because a picture is worth 1000 words and who cares if you mess up the traffic behind you! That picture MUST happen!

Rudeness -  This is perhaps the most frustrating cause of traffic. Rudeness comes in many different guises. Sometimes, it looks like tail-gating (which makes people nervous and may cause accidents). Sometimes, it comes form not letting people merge, which causes slowdown in the lane of the rude person and also the lane of the person trying to merge and being denied entry. **This is a shooting offence in my mind - thanksfully, we have tight gun-control laws up here, so the idiots get off with mere threats of violence. This is another form of invisible traffic and it only takes one or two rude drivers to cause a world of hurt int he form of traffic for thousands of other drivers.

I can deal with the first four any day of the week and twice on Sundays. The last three on the other hand.. kill them all!

Until driverless cars make an appearance on a grand scale and turn getting to work into a mechano-socialist paradise where NOBODY drives their own cars and thus nobody gets into accidents, or causes traffic due to fear, rubbernecking or rudeness - until then, my friend.

FUCK TRAFFIC!!!
I hate you long time!

Have a good trip home and - please...don't be an assh@le!

Hard Yawn

Thanks to Facebook and now G+, places like LJ have fallen hard by the wayside.

I am amazed that it even exists and that my password still works.

So...here I am,posting well over 9 years after my last post.
I hope that this pings a few people who have forgotten about me, and wakes them up to LJ as well.

 That would be fun! :)

Week 11 and change

May 20, 2014

Well… more than 11 weeks done and still not touched a “real” cigarette since day #1. I have yet to find another PRO to add to my list, but I have inadvertently found one CON.
Even this one, I have not checked to see if it is linked top a specific flavour of eJuice, to all of them, or some variant thereof.

Context first: I started with apple flavour, and switched to blackberry 30mls ago. I have since switched from 18mg all the way down to the 3mg where I am now.
To put it bluntly, my personal odour has changed. My sweat, urine, feces and *coff* semen started having an unusual odour roughly 5 weeks ago, and it doesn’t seem to be going away. I decided that perhaps it was the “flavouring” additives which are messing with my body, and the latest 30ml bottle that I picked up, I did so without any flavour to it at all.
I can’t find any articles about this online, although for all I know, it has to do with the last artificial flavour in particular, and nobody on that specific brand and choice decided to post about it.

If any of my noble readers knows of this, have experienced it, have read about it and would be open to posting about it or perhaps sharing a link, It’d be MUCH appreciated.

In the meanwhile…flavourless vaping and I’ll try to post the results here.

Happy Vaping!

eCigs and the quitting game: Week 7

Well… it’s been 7 weeks now if my math is right and I still havn’t touched a cigarette. Not too bad at all.
I have reduced the nicotine/dose to the equivalent of 1/4pack a day…which isn’t too shabby at all.

 I have noticed something over the past few weeks which I find both annoying and disturbing. People have started telling me that they heard from someone, who heard from someone else that eCigs are cancer-causing agents in and of themselves and should be avoided.

 First of all… if you have proof of this cancer stuff…send it to me, or print it and give it to me… anything else is heresay.
Second of all…if it is heresay and unproven, I wonder who might want to spread such news – who might profit from removing eCigs from the market…hmmm… could it be … Big Tobacco!?
 Nah… that couldn’t be it, could it?

In either case, 7 weeks without a cigarette is nothing to sneeze at..or cough at for that matter.
At this rate, I’ll be putting the eCig down this summer. With 3 months on the eCig vs. 17years with real cigs (and native ones). I don’t think that I’ve got much in the way of cancer to worry about related to using vapes.

Don’t like it… put up a link or shut up.

Week Two

March 11, 2014

So….entering week #2 of my so far successful attempt to quit smoking with eCigs instead.

I’ve been thinking of some pros and cons of the eCig…actually, to be more specific, I’ve found many pros and almost no cons thus far.

Pros:
My breath and clothes don’t smell of smoke anymore
No more discoloured fingers and teeth
No more accidental burns (skin, clothes or upholstery)
No more discarding of filters on the ground
No more discarding of empty packs or wrapping (Recycled or not)
No more coughing up a lung
My sense of smell seems to have returned (and I can’t stand the smell of cigs anymore)
My sense of taste is pretty damned good too now
Substantial savings on the price of smokes vs eLiquids
Non-carcinogenic

Cons:
Out of the way locations to buy eLiquids
Still contain nicotine, so still adictive
Not a lot of long-term research on side-effects, if any

 Umh..that’s about it for Pro/Cons – I’d say that the Pros far outweigh the Cons any way you look at it.

eCigs and the Quitting game

 March 3, 2014

So… smoking is one of those things, that if you want to be a winner, you have to quit. I have in the past tried quitting in numerous other ways from the patch to going cold-turkey. I’m not religious, but once, I even left my pack at the door of a local church. the next morning, the pack was gone but the need wasn’t – sucks to be me. (Literally and figuratively).

I was left with 2 options. The pill – an anti-depressant which canhelp curb the appetite for nic, but has a serious set of side-effects, including but not limited to suicidal thoughts. This kinda answers the question of “Would it kill ya to quit smoking?”

The other option is eCigs. Plenty of names for these things, but they’re basically the same thing wrapped in different packages.

A power-source which heats small amount of liquids into a vaporous form, which can be inhaled through a pipe. The liquid can be flavourless or be flavoured in a myriad of ways, and it can contain varying amounts of pharma-grade liquid nicotine.

Cute, eh. You can reduce the percentage of Nic as you go. The batteries can be recharged 300 times, each giving you 4-5 hours of vaping (if you leave the unit on all the time) or quite a bit more if you turn the thing off when not smoking/vaping.

So far, so good.

I’m going to use this blog to keep tack of my path to quitting and perhaps some colour-commentary as well.

Tis the Season

Ah, yes....winter is coming and with it comes snow, cold nights, frost on the car windows that need scraping off and inevitably..the common cold (and if you're unlucky, the Flu). For those of you with no more people to care for than your own self and perhaps some significant other, it's bad but not horrible. You're big people now and can take care of yourself. You can make some chicken noodle soup, buy some stock in cough syrup and tylenol, hide under the covers and get this sh@t over with as quickly as possible. If it's not quick enough for your boss (providing you're employed), then you can always go into work and share your good fortune with your fellow employees and with any luck, your boss will get sick too...that'll show'em!

For those with kids in the house, it's a whole other story. Sick monkeys in your house can't take care of themselves all that well when they're young and when they're teens, they refuse being treated like a child. The cold, this fine year, has gone from myself to my S.O. in the amount of time it took to give her a kiss Hello, and went quickly from there to our kids faster than anyone could possibly predict. The joy has successfully been spread...now is the time to enjoy the fruits of that labour.

Fevers: Aah... kids are irrational creatures on the best of days. Finding the particularly irrational irrationality that is the sure sign of fever can be a chore..until you remember where you stored the thermometer. Then it's simply a matter of tucking that tool under an arm or under a tongue (or for those with the really young, into a more..ahem..hidden area), and then calculating from ºF to ºC or back in order to figure out if it means a fever or not. In my case, I bought a Celsius thermometer and I'm only familiar with Fahrenheit fevers. Once you've figured out if your kid is feverish, fine, or really feverish...it's probably changed. Doesn't matter. Apply liquid Tylenol or Motrin if you own the stuff...go shopping if you don't.

Coughs: There are different types of cough. Phlegmy and dry are the top two. You can hear the difference. One sounds like coughing and gargling at the same time. Pay close attention to that one. The white liquidy stuff is probably just snot that the kid has inhaled backward down his/her own throat because they didn't feel like blowing their noses for the 30th time that minute. It's a cold...not a flu. It's the greeny-yellowy thick stuff that should worry you. That added colour means a flu...and that'll mean a trip to the Doctors' office. Another joy and a fine way to spend a morning, an afternood and/or an evening. Be sure that when you're there, that oyu child touch as many objects as possible. That way, they can share what they have and pick up some new and different diseases. Less of a waste of time that way. Maybe you'll get lucky and pick up the chicken pox as the same time and can get that over with at the same time.

Sniffles: Your nose is bi-polar. If it's feeling all happy, it'll run all day long. If it's feeling down, it'll clog up the works. If it's like a kids' nose, it'll bounce back and forth in quick succession. Buy plenty of Kleenex..they'll come in handy at least half the time.

Listlessness: Your kid's supposed to have more energy than you. You're old and they're not. If they have less energy than you..they MUST be sick. That's about as easy to guess as anything else. If s/he is acting listless and the moment you keep them home, they jump on the internets, warm up the PS3, dig through your DVD collection...they're faking you out and aren't really in the mood for school. Take advantage of it. You're not at work today 'cause they faked you out. Fake out your boss and enjoy the day off. :D

That's about it..I may add more later. I've got to get back to my sick little monkey now. There's an episode of Dora the Explorer that I simply MUST see....again.

Lice rhymes with nice...

...but that's about as far as the similarities go.

Yes, if you are currently experiencing an itch that wasn't there before, you are familiar with the term Head Lice. It's not a nice term, and not a nice predicament to find yourself in. For the 2nd time in 3 years, one of my children brought home a friend from daycamp and that friend invited two friends who laid two eggs and so on and so on, until there was a party going on on my kid's scalp. My kid shared it with my wife and now it's like a double-mint commercial, but with less smarmy smiles. Not unlike facebook-inviting friends to your house party, lice bring troubles with them. Treating (or rather killing) the little bug(gerers) is easy enough, I suppose. Just $30 of insecticidal shampoo and ten minutes before rinsing... or so it would seem. The box doesn't tell you about the medieval torture devices that come with the shampoo. These often come in fanciful and pretty colours like blue or green and resemble afro-picks from the 80's but with much smaller teeth. Their duty is to help you pick lice from your hair, but their secret agenda is to introduce you to the joys of male-pattern baldness at an early age - through the ripping out of as many hairs as possible. Usually, this means that per pound, you rip out close to 1000x more hair than you uncover lice. Sure, lice are small but child psychologist bills are expensive and how else are you going to explain that all that pain is worth not having an itchy head  to a 5 year old.

This, of course, goes on for a few days, morning and evening. In the meanwhile, there's so many more fringe benefits for the parents than the box lets on. Who else can say that they change and wash all the bedsheets in their house daily, as well as all towels and clothes and who get to store teddy-bears in garbage bags outside their house for weeks at a time.  Don't worry about that last bit though... the kids will have no problem at all going to sleep after an hour of hair-pulling torture without their teddies. They fall right asleep, letting their parents continue with the laundry and vacuuming of all the sofas, couches, beds and rugs that their kids glanced at during the day.  Aah...lice. It's so much fun.

Dont mind me..just fishing for google spiders

"reality" shows "reality" tv 2007 2008 2009 2009 plans 300 contacts 42 9-11 a cat's health a memorial a/c abomanation ac accent accessibility acquaintances action center action centre adult ed aids air conditioner air miles am radio american election 2008 american idol american idol blather anastasia desousa andrew carter animation anna nicole smith annoying neighbor annoying travel anticipation anticipation 2009 apa apartment apas apolo ohno april fool's day arm artist as in none astro books astrology asus eee asus eee pc atv auction auctions august writing august writing challenge aurora aurora award aurora awards auroras aussiecon australia author avatar babylon 5 backup bahamas bank promotion banner basketball batman begins battery bed in being stranded sucks bettie page bills and statements online birthday birthdays blip.fm blog blood test bluetooth bob freeman forum bob freeman show bone marrow registry books boondocks boots border crossing bosnian war broadband brome fair browncoats bruising brush sets budget bugs building politics building trip bus pass bus strike bush business card busses crazy cable cable telephone canada canada day canada post stupidity canadian idol canadian pride cancer cards carmen electra cartoons casa greque cat cat health cat stiry catch-up cats cavendish boulevard cctv celebrity cell phone cell phone accessory celtx chair cusion challenges charity checkup cheyenne china china still has problems chris benoit christmas christopher reeve chunks and gravy church of the subgenius city housing city life city living city workers are assholes cjad coal from the city columbia house comic con comicbook comicbook artist comicbooks comicopia comics comicspace comicstrip comments commission community computer computer stuff computers con*cept configuration constance lethbridge contest convention conventions cool links cool sayings cool stuff copies cordless phone cover art covers cowboy hat cthulhu customisation cyndi lauper d&d d20 dalek dana reeve dance dancing database david carradine david eddings david letterman david tennant dawson college daylight saving's time dc comics deadlines death decor change deep thoughts degrassi deniz dennis d. young dennis leary design detectives diagnosis dick clark dick tracy digital camera dining disability disabled life disabled living disaster recollections discordia disney dns doctor doctor who don adams down under fan fund download day downtime draconis dreamwidth driver issues driving dual boot duff dungeons and dragons dvd dvd collection dvds e-book e-mail e-mail address books earth day ebay economic downturn editing efanzines election election 2008 elections electricity elevators emotional emru end winter already! exchange rate expozine 2009 facebook falls family fan forum fandom fanzine fast fiction fate fatherhood fatigue fcbd fcbd 2007 fellow alumni fema festival fiction fifa 2006 files maybe missing film firefly firefox firefox setitngs flames fnord folks deserving of honor forry forum forums fps fraud freaking huge! freaking rat poison freeze-outs suck friends fumigation functioning in society furniture gail simone game news gamer's world games gaming gargoyles geek-out moment geekery geeking gender gene colan genealogy george carlin george perez gerald ford gifts gimp gl glasses glee gmail good karma graduation greed green ronin greetings gripe groceries grooming gtd gurps gym hair hair-cut haircut hannukah hard disk hardware headaches harveys hdtv he who will not be named health heat hero system hero-clix high school high school reunion hippie historical figures hitchhikers guide to the galaxy hlm hlm crap holiday holiday time holiday trip holidays hollywood legend holocaust home home (montreal) home decor home news home renovation horoscrope hospital headaches hosting house cleaning house moving housing html hulu hurricane ike hurricane katrina i hate bugs! idiot mps ignorance im inauguration independance independant movement injury inspection inspiration intelligent posters internet internet explorer internet forum internet radio interviews ip telephone iq iq test isaac hayes isolation isp james brown jamie orchard jane seymour jaundice java jazz jeff healy jelly beans jewelery jibjab jocko alston joe murphy john cusack john lennon john updike joke stunts journal julnowrimo keyboard keycon klingon kriquor language laptop laws leg cramps legal legend lemons lie detector life life can be cruel life is cruel sometimes life is too short life stuff lifeline linux linux desktop litter live earth lj lj design loc locus sf magazine logic lola long day long distance calls long hair loss loudtwitter lrhs lsh lulu.com mail mail merge mail surprise mamas and the papas marathon marvel masquerade costume mast maury medical medical life medications meme memes memorial memorial day memories menu foods mepis message boards message forum michael jackson micro bytes microphone microsoft word mike weiringo mike wieringo mindmap mis-heard news missing people mobility mobo modem modem headaches moderating monitor monkey jar monteal life montreal montreal canadians montreal comic con montreal comic-con montreal convention montreal heat montreal life montreal living montreal only montreal weather montreal-only more pc crap morin heights mortality mother's day mottos mourning movie movie stuff movies mp3 multimedia murphy clan history music musical musical theatre mutants and masterminds my name is earl my pc hates me my pc still hates me my weight myspace name mashups naming naniwrimo naniwrimo. montreal comic con nanowrimo nanowrimo derivatives national holiday net article new year new year's day new year's eve new years eve ninja no snow nominatilons nomination norway nove; novel novel idea novel progress number six obama oj simpson old friends olympics on the go on the lot online online mall online security optometrist opus cards orientals oscars osteporosis ottawa outreach palm pilot pandora paratransit parents party passover passover trip passport office passport photos past life pay scale payment financing pc pc desktop pc geekery pc hardware pc repair pc solutions pc stuff pccc pdf pegasus mail personal history pet food phew! phone phone call phone help phone service photo photocopies photos picasso restaurant pidgin pin planning plurk plus account pocketpc podcasting podcasts podiobooks.com poison poker politics ponytail poor date poppies. veterans possible fraud postcard power power failure power-chair preparation presidential race printer prisoner projects promotion prop 8 publishing pvr queen quizzes racism rain ramen rbc re-encounters real hero reality shows reality tv recession recital recording red cross reflections rent repairs restaurant results reunion reunion thoughts revelations not ring tones ringtone rip ritalin roaches robert rodriguez roleplaying rollator romanian rosa parks rose bowl rosebud roy scheider royalcon rpg rpg convention rpgs ruminations s: tis sad news santropol scarble scheduling school school reunion preparations science fiction scientology scott mccloud screenplay screenplays screenwriting screw summer heat! script script frenzy scripts scriptwriting security shaving shelly winters shooting tragedy shower shrub idiot sick simply mepis single site templater skype slashdot sleep smallville smile smoke detector smoking ban snow snow cleaning snow day so you think you can dance so you think you can dance canada so you think you can dance? soccer soda pop sometimes life really sucks somewhere in time sound sound configuration sourcefiles space space: the imagination station spam sprimg spring squeaky st-patrick's day stairs stan lee star trek steffi d stm stumble upon styx subway summer heat summer weather sunburn system restore talk like a pirate day tardis tauruses are stubborn tax time taxes teaching tech tech geekery tech-geekery temperature template terror threat text tgio the action centre the belgariad the finality of his life the godfather of soul the office the old stomps not what they used to be the original universe the plateau the sadness of life the weather sucks this year's memories thriller thunderbird tiddlyspot tobacco smells... ugh too much heat toronto toronto trip totoro tracking stuff tramway transition lenses transport transport screw-ups travel traveller trekkies tremendous loss tribute tricia helfer tumplr tutoring tv tv history tweeis tweets tweeys twin towers twinks twitter twitters ubuntu ubuntu linux underwhelmed unity universal life church university usb usb key usernames v-day v-day sucks vacation valentines day variety show vcr vet vet visit via rail victoria day video videotron virtual desktops visitation volunteering vote voting wake-ups walking walter cronkite warm weather weather from hell web annoyance web game web-work webcam webcomic webhead website weight weird al yankovic wetpaint wheelchair which? who wants to be a super hero widgets wiki wikipedia wildcards will wind windows winnipeg winter winter adventures winter olympics wish list wolverwood wordpress wordtrip work world world aids day world cup world events world trade center worldcon wrestling writer's block writers writing wwe xp ya year review young adult stuff youtube zine ziners zines zinewiki zombies

What is Tetraplycotemy

Tetra - meaning four

Ply - parts

Temy - Cutting

Cutting something into four parts..often something difficult to do. In this case, splitting hairs with gusto.

Cats - R.I.P.

My last two entries were talking about my cats...so it's only fair that I finish off this post with something about my cats.

Tarzan was lucky enough to find a home and was adopted about 6 months ago or so.
Ginger, Seven and Bishop are gone now... they were brought to the SCDD (SPCA) and had one last week to get adopted, but didn't make it.

I went over on the day before and brought them their last meals.
 The manager was even nice enough to let me into the cage area to say 'goodbye' properly, withough a cage in between me and my cats.

 Rest in Peace!

I shall miss you all

Painting Miniatures - The work Space

Miniatures: The work space

Before you go to the store and buy yourself a series of figurines to paint, or even before you buy the paint to slop all over those figs, you have to get one question answered. That question is: Where will I be painting?

 The main answers to this question are:
a) Hunh?
b) I’ll be changing places
c) The same spot, but I’ve got to clean up afterwards
d) A permanent spot

 Let’s skip answer “A” for a second and go on to answers B & C. Hopefully, answer “A” will clear itself up by the end of this installation.

 The Basics: The main things that you need to think about when choosing your location (non-permanent or permanent) is space and lighting. Depending on whether you will be painting a single figurine, or whole groups of them at once will change how much space you’ll be needing. A good chair or stool to sit on is a MUST. Miniature painting is time consuming and there’s no need to break your back hunching over needlessly… a nice cushion is a plus. Try to ensure that the height of the chair or stool brings you to about elbow height to the surface you’ll be working on, so you can lean your elbows on the table and have the figurine at around face height. You’ll need a nice flat and horizontal surface to put everything on. I emphasize horizontal because little bottles of paint rolling off of your desk might very well add colour to your life, but it’s hardly practical. The area that you’ll need to clear off to put all of your stuff is around 4’ square (2X2’). This will give you 1-2’sq. for the actual work and the rest dedicated to the paints, brushes, water, towels, other figs, magazines etc..that you’ll be using to paint your fig. This area will change depending on how many or how large your fig(s) are and how many you plan on doing at once. In the case of a permanent location, you can dedicate more space for storage of paints, bits, boxes, tools and other assorted materials. *Note: Even with moveable locations, you’ll still need a semi-permanent/permanent location to keep all of the stuff that you’re not using immediately, and to store your work tools etc.. when you’re not actually painting. So…a chair and a flat surface. Easy enough, right? Wrong!

 Location: It’s all well and good to say that you’re just going to use the kitchen table to paint on, and many people do just that, but you’ve got to keep a few things in mind. - Lighting: not everyone can paint during the day, using pure sunlight to illuminate your work. In fact, most days and all nights, sunlight isn’t enough light, so you’re going to have to provide some extra light somehow. *This’ll be discussed at length when I talk about tools. -

Distractions: Like I wrote before, painting takes time and a certain amount of concentration (as you’ll find out). Distractions take many forms. The most obvious are things like pets (cats just love walking across paint surfaces, scattering minis, paint, & water), kids (what’s that Dad?, Can I touch? Dad won’t mind if I play with his toys), and Significant others (Why didn’t you take out the trash? Shouldn’t you be doing else?)… other, non-living distractions might be things like the phone, internet, television, or sunbathing neightbours. Avoid distractions when you can. -

Safety: Living distractions can also be sources of danger, especially considering that you may be working with glues, solvents, sharp obects & tools. You want to leave a swathe of dead enemies on the battlefield, not in your kitchen. Keeping this in mind might limit your work area to places where you can limit access. - The work surface: Face it…accidents happen. Paint get spilled, exacto knives slip, things get gouged and although you want to protect your surface, accidents will happen…. So working on that Louis XIV table might not be the best idea. It’s a good idea if it’s a stable work surface because you don’t want it either wobbling from side to sie or tipping over easily (TV trays are out, I’m afraid).

 That’s it for the actual area. In our next installment, I’ll be talking about the kinds of tools that will come in handy when working with both metal and plastic minis.

 Stay tuned.

Tick tock... another one of me on the way.

Tick tock... another one of me on the way.	Jul. 20th, 2005 @ 12:37 pm

Well...the missus and I have another child on the way, due sometime at the end of this year, and although a pregnancy is supposed to last 9 months or so, those 40 weeks sure do pass fast!

So many things to do. A baby room to create from my office, which means finding spots for all of my 'stuff' like filing cabinets, my compi, and about one metric ton of paper. It also means renovations to the room... aah, renovations, the home-owners greatest fear and by far the most time consuming prospect of all!

I've given up on my garden for this year...not enough time to really tend to any plants. My flower gardens are looking raggedy as well, with my miniature white roses taking over and suffocating my red roses. The house, and myself are starting to look our ages. Grey hairs and weeds abound! Wrinkles and cracks in the ceilings all grow with time, and I don't have enough stucko for both.

Don't get me wrong...I AM looking forward to this next child. If s/he is anything like his/her older brother, I'm sure that many of those lines on my face will be mostly laugh-lines and smile-creases :)

Now if I could just stop time for a while, I might jsut get everything done in time. In the meanwhile, I'm trying to convince my wife to extend her pregnancy for another month or two. It's not going well so far.

Another LJ Group screams out its first breath - Writer's Blo_k

Ok...so I have a lot of time on my hands. Started a Community called Writer's Blo_k . Hopefully I won't be the only person to see it :D

http://www.livejournal.com/userinfo.bml?user=writers_blo_k

anyone know of a good way to advertise it? Get people to see it?

hmmm???!?
Jul. 6th, 2005 @ 02:29 pm