SUCCESS!!

Today is a happy day.  Jed and I have pretty much got the first video of our playthrough of portal 2 ALMOST finished.  With luck it'll be up today.   Otherwise tomorrow definitely.  And then Jed can focus on finishing the next comic.

I finally got my new headset in to replace my broken one.  With luck it'll fix most of my sound issues and give better quality.  They're the Logitech G35.  Very awesome headset, excellent reviews, everyone I know whos used one swears by it.  I'm also a bit of  a logitech whore at heart so thats good.  Now fingers crossed it didnt come to me broken. 

Got to finally watch Megamind today.  That film is heaps awesome.  You should totally watch it if you havent yet.  Top film with awesome CG. and very funny.

Yesterday I got to try out mcdonalds new double chocolate fudge royal milkshake, or whatever its called.  It was scrummier then I'd expected.  And probably added on an extra 700 calories olollolo.  HERES ME DRINKING IT!

Someone PEN me.

As you may have heard Con and I are working on some Portal co-op videos. As always I was the first to finish my version of the movie and now wait for Con. He'll probably take forever as he believes he lives on the moon. That and the royal wedding is happening today (yesterday?) and Con loves everything England. Like soccer. Or fuuuuuuuutball as they call it.

Now since my blind and unprovoked picking on Con is over with I took some of my free time last night to do some drawing again. The comic I was suppose to release 3 weeks ago is still not done. Its so aggravating wanting to finish a project and you are stuck at work all the time. Even right now I am typing this with the last few mins I have before I leave for work again. Next week I got a few more hours off and that'll help.

I do want to share this with you though. I been working with a new program called SAI and its a great tool for artist. Almost a hour was spent last night messing with pen settings so I can get the right feel/depth. I think I am getting the hang of it.

Like Gods hand I destroy shit

Today was an extremely entertaining day.  I basically raped my works server system.  How you ask?  Well I went into the folder specifically created for the company, where they have all the applications we can run.  You need an administrative password to get into this area so its not like everyone tosses shit in there whenever they want.  You DO NOT add anything in there.  The programs are there for a reason.

So one of my bosses uninstalled an older virus scanner I had on my system and said to grab the new one.  So I did.  While trying to run it the pc started to not act right.  Long story short I'd gotten infected with a virus.  My boss laughed his face off, which isnt what you usually expect from someone whos running the IT section of the company.  My two workmates nearby however totally started blaming me and pointing fingers.  Told them I didnt do shit.  Later they do scans and the guy is telling me I clicked on this system.32 file on my desktop, I tell him I've never seen that file before, he basically says stop lying cause its logged.  I'm annoyed and sit down, run the virus scanner to install again, BOOM same shit.  Thats where I realise its the program.

Funny part is they've known about this virus but couldnt pinpoint its origin.  I found the damn thing, I deserver a gold fucking star, but the two workmates are like you should be more careful what you're running etcetc and I'm like fuck you pretentious bastards.  So yeah, I enjoyed myself as the entire server system went into lockdown for an hour.

This weekend Jed and I are hoping to have up the first video of our playthrough of portal 2.  Hopefully you lot will find it entertaining.  We're still passing clips back and fourth or it'd be up by now.

Oh happy days

You have NO idea how much I'm enjoying these 5 days off.   Only 1 day left but I've really gotten a chance to relax by playing games and watching heaps of stuff.  Finally up to the 3rd season of Fringe.  Very happy about that.  Good show.

So yesterday I reformatted my system, and as you can see its still operational.  The whole thing feels so much more faster and nicer.  Things that were broken before are totally functional now.  I love it.  And speaking of functional, I finally got my mic working with my soundcard.  And you know what that means.  YEP!  Jed and I FINALLY got to play Portal 2 co-op today with voice and recording and everything.  We had an absolute blast.  We're planning to go through the clips and edit and then upload them, but to be honest its going to be fairly hard to edit since all through it we were just being retards and each level is fairly quick to figure out except for maybe a couple we did.

We're planning to compare video clips though as the audio on my end was weird.  His voice sounded a little boomy and slightly echoey, where as mine sounded sharp and high toned.  Probably becuase of our mics but I cant test another since my usb one died.  So I wanna hear what his end sounded like and we'll go from there.  My other dilemma is I cant for the life of me remember what video editor I was using before.  It was brilliant, easy to use, did everything I wanted perfectly.  But I FORGOT to save the shortcut so I could find it later.  I thought it was xilisoft HD video convertor since I recall that being installed.  The program I used looked identical, but it had an editor section which this one doesnt.  I noticed xilisoft has an editor only one but that means using 2 programs.  I dont know what it was and I'm sad because I loved that program.  I'm going to see about giving Corel studio pro X4 a shot since its had awesome reviews and the videos/screenshots looks like it might be simple enough for my thick brain to handle.  We'll see.

A picture for your viewing pleasure.

Screw you pc

So the day finally came where I would have to stop putting it off hoping everything would fix itself up and just finish the damn job.  Finally got to meet up with Jed today, we were going to slap on portal 2 and give it a shot since we've been both twitching to play it as we loved the first one.  I attempted to get my mic working and as I feared my pc didnt want it.  Both my usb and analogue mic both would not work properly with my pc.  Even though the system was picking them up it just didnt want to work in steam. I saw that coming.  And ofcourse just to mock me my usb mic worked with skype.  Funny thing about this is it doesnt any more.  Halfway through our conversation my actual usb headset DIED, so now I'm stuck with just the analogue one.

So I've been backing up all my crap and getting ready to reinstall windows.  Its a simple painless process and I did it hundreds of times before at my job, but when you do it to your own pc you just really really hate it.  I just want this piece of shit to work.  Fingers crossed a reinstall will get it working like it used to.  I guess I'll find out tomorrow when jed appears and we try to play.

The other day I needed to get some new toothpaste as my one was about to run out.  Thats right I have my own toothpaste that noone else touches for risk of me obliterating them.  I have the cool tube one where you press the top and it squeezes out.  LIKE SO!

I love it.  The little nozzle thing at the top keeps everything so clean and nice.  Plus no more squeezing the botton of the tube and twirling it to get the rest out of the damn thing, this just presses everything upwards.  So anyway, I went to the store and omg they were all sold out.  I didnt want the stupid old style tubes cause they piss me off.  Thats when I noticed the other brand Macleans had their own version, but it was a GEL one.  Now I'm only familiar with Gillette shaving cream GEL, where you squeeze a little out and when you rub it on your face it sort of expands and goes crazy.  Well colour me pink when I squeezed a little on my toothbrush, shoved it in my mouth, and was suddenly foaming like a rabid dog.  Anyone seen that Ryan Renolds movie Just Friends, and the epic Blue Berry scene?  That was me.  It made brushing my teeth like a ride at the amusement park.  I so enjoyed myself that day.  I actually brushed again 4 times and I didnt even need to.

So I'm about to reinstall windows.  With luck I will return.  If not I'm paying someone to do this shit for me to save me the stress cause I hate working on my own pc.  Its a brain thing.   I've got many brain things.  None of them good.

If only I had a god damn rocket launcher

Today was the day I almost had my very first traffic accident.  Over the past 17 years of driving, my reflexes have been second to none and got me out of some freakishly scary moments.  Today I had to call on them again.  I was on the way to work and at least 5 times I was cut off by someone wanting to get infront of me in my lane.  Because of these stupid people my trip to work went slower then it should have, getting caught up in bits of traffic or held up by red lights.  And it was because of all this that I almost met my end.

On the last road that takes me to work, its a long stretch down 5 blocks through the side roads so not that populated.  Further down was an intersection where people must give way to you because thats how the fucking road system works.  I saw this lady slow down her massive SUV and wait for me to pass.  I was happy with this as everytime I come down this road I think someones going to just clean me up because they didnt stop. 

So now I'm about 20 yards away from her, she's been stopped barely 5seconds, and suddenly SOMETHING clicks in her stupid head and she drives forward and turns into my lane, REALLY SLOWLY THOUGH, and she does this when I'm about 20 yards from her.  I had to slam my breaks, first time I've done that in years, and skidded my way and stopped half a yard from her suddenly STOPPED vehicle.  My car had turned on a 45 degree angle or so because if I had been facing straight forward I would of easily slammed into her.  So I do something I never do and thats beep my horn at her. Heres the fucking stupid part.  After I beep she PULLS over to the side of the road and waits for me to pass her.  I mean....how does your fucking brain work woman!  Unbelievable.

Very sad

One of my favourite actresses died today.  Her name was Elisabeth Sladen.  For those who grew up watching the Tom Baker series of Dr Who in the 70s they would of known her as Sarah Jane Smith.  She was in a recent tv series linked to the Dr Who universe as well.  She died at the age of 63 to cancer.  It seriously cut me up because she was beyond awesome.   My hope of getting a chance to meet her at a future convention is over.  Would have loved to meet her.  I'm not sure how many of you would of known of her at that stage since Dr Who wasnt that big in America but it was massive in England and here in Australia.  Beyond sad..  She is missed by millions.

Earlier in the year in febuary the actor Nicholas Courtney, who played the Brigadier, also died.  He was legendary.   I'm afraid the next one will be Tom Baker.  That will suck beyond words.

Sitting in something wet

Man my last two weeks have been a head ache but more in the sooooooul. Con has been pressuring me to find a new job and I think I am going to finally start taking it serious.

There is just a point were poor leadership, morale, and costumer service hits a point so low it blends together like a tacobell bio-product. I do think honestly I want to do a good job at my work but the unprofessional practices make work days so aggravating I carry that burden home with me.

Jobs that should only be 3-4 hours to complete become 2-5 day projects. I could for example set up a 40ft of display Tvs in the order I was instructed to. Come back tomorrow and they want it mirrored instead. So once again I find myself doing the same job twice. Once done they find out they jumped the gun and need the TVs BACK to how it was before. So you do it again. I shouldn't complain but after a while you just become tired of it. More so when they use you as a excuse to why it wasn't done 3 days ago. "Jed didn't set the mod right".

Since our new managers the most common question I am asked is "Is anyone working in...", "Do you know when someone will be back in.." "Can you get me help in..." You know when you call tech support and DREEEEEAD the inevitable foreign voice on the other end that is no help to you?  We are becoming more and more on that level.

Our full time staff is being reduced to 18% while pushing the work loads on others. In short we have more low wedge part time employees, with no insurance or benefits, working 3-6 different departments a week with no training in any of them. As a costumer how would you like every visit you make to be greeted with a "This is my first day working here" level of help.

With that little rant out of the way..I had a new problem come up recently. My poor little dog Cloe is having potty time issues. For several nights now she has been wetting the bed wherever she is sleeping. It seems to be accidental..that or she is the best troll I have even seen. I made her a vet appointment for tomorrow morning.

Chocolate covered nuts

Been playing Total War Shogun 2.  Man that game is something else.  I really love that series to death.  But its brutally hard at times. I wonder if I'll be able to finish it before The Witcher 2 comes out.  I doubt it.  I should be able to play a good chunk of it soon as from friday to tuesday its a 5 day weekend for us over here.  Easter friday and monday, and tuesday is anzac day.  Very rare for that day to fall on a tuesday.

One of the best parts about this is I'll be able to get together with jed for some gaming, and what with portal 2 and a bunch of other co-op games we have in queue to play, we should be able to get some videos up for you lot to watch.  Cant promise they'll be entertaining, but it'll be something.  I havent tested my mic yet but I'm pretty sure it should be fine.  Thankfully my friends will be bugging me in the evenings to do stuff with them so I should be fine to play with him.

Also quick update on the upcoming comic jed is working on, we're trying for a new sharper look to it to see how it goes.  I think I mentioned this before but I've seen a couple panels so far and I think it looks quite nice.  It'll be easier to tell once the whole page is done.  I dont want to give a timeline on it since I know jeds pretty busy often, but if we're lucky it should be done by next weekend.  But it could take a little longer. As I said, I really dont know, it depends on how much he works on it.  Also I paid off that piece of SHIT $650 tax cockslap I was served with.  Good thing I've been saving up.  It just means I need to save up longer now to help my parents with the kitchen renovation they want to do.  Oh well.  Working working..



In the meantime heres what I'd look like if I had a majestic MULLET

fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck

You have no idea how fucked off I am.  That subject title doesnt do it justice.  A month or so back I got a letter from the taxation board saying I didnt claim certain wages in my recent tax return.  This amount was from when I was on unemployment benefits payments while I was looking for a job.  I remember being told by someone that I didnt have to claim this.

Anyway apparently I am meant to.  So I called the taxation board and they said since it was a first time I wouldnt get penalized.  However what I wasnt told is this stupid amount SOMEHOW changes the rules of my reality.  I now OWE these bastards $650.  I seriously am not fucking happy.   If I somehow owed like $100, maybe $200, I could handle that.  But $650?  Fuck me.  I'm paying tax on my tax.  Thank you world.  Makes you wonder why you even bother working and not just suiciding at birth.  Thank you Australian government.  Thank you from the bottom of my fucking heart.  Next time just come over and rape me with a pointed stick.

Heres the best part.  You know how long I have to pay them before they destroy me?  2 weeks.  I have 2 weeks to give them $650.  /wrists

Stuff it its broken

So driving home from work I finally got annoyed at seeing this stupid sign in front of me all the time in this area.  I dont get it.  Maybe it actually stands for something, and I'm not going to claim to be the smartest person, nor even remotely intelligent, but why is it so damn SMALL and only on 2 roads I know of?  So I recorded it.  The car in front of me was there a little too long for my liking going a little too slow lololol

BIG MEATY CLAWS!!

I had a rather interesting sleep the other night. I wake up to what feels like 4am. Laying on my stomach I find that I had been sleeping on my right arm for what must have been several hours. My arm easily feels 3x larger than it should be. I mean, I got big manly arms don't get me wrong, but this sensation was making my brain go "..What?"

Its dark, my arm is numb, and I am barely awake. I am not even sure I could move my fingers. As a trained warrior in Dragon FIST I thought I best take a look. With care I lift my arm up above my head to observe the damage. I can barely see it..lets move it in a little closer to get a better look..WACK! A warm meaty slap to the face. Its hard for me to tell distance apparently. I managed to move my hand in front of my face just before crash landing it in my eyes.

The sensation of warm numb hand hitting you at 4am is hard to describe. I felt my nipples become hard so I must have liked it. I imagine Con feels the same when petting his cats..Anyway, It took some great effort on my part but I was able to shove my arm up to my forehead. I knew I need to either give my arm some blood or I'll have to cut it off. I sighed in relief when I could feel it start to tingle. The precious heart pee was making its way back to my limbs! That was short lived as 18 mins of "ouch..ouch...ouch...ouch.." followed. I forget the tingles start to hurt.

Soonish

Jed showed me the roughrough draft for the upcoming comic so we're getting there which is cool.  Need to do a few things to it before we can decide the final layout for him to draw.  The only really pissy thing is talking back and fourth once a day through emails.  If its not the weekend its just slow in getting things done.

Speaking of getting things done, heres a picture of me at work today.  When I woke up the keys had somehow imprinted the word 'awesome' in my face.  No really, it happened.  I reckon it should of spelled sexy.

Its monday monday......wait thats wrong.

Today started off with a lol for me.  While at work boss was going around speaking to random people about whatever and then he came over to me and informed me that to his surprise I'd gotten the second highest jobs completed in the last few months.  Which means I pwned.  I told him to say it a bit louder so the stooge beside me who thinks I do nothing heard it.

Home was an entirely different thing.  Since I live with my parents I have to help them with this or that at times, and one of those times came when someone called and dad couldnt understand him, because his english isnt hugely super duper.  The only problem about this is I actually COULDNT help him at the time.  When I heard the phone ring I thought to myself LOL FOR MUM as I walked my single minded way towards the toilet.  30seconds later I found out it wasnt for mum but for MYSTERY person as the conversation follows...

Dad-  Con, are you free?

Me <in toilet> -  No

Dad-  Theres a guy on the phone and I cant understand a word he's saying

Me- Thats good

Dad- Can you speak to him?

Me- You're joking right?

Dad- I can pass you the phone through the door

Me- I'd really prefer if you didnt

Dad - Are you going to be long?

Me- Possibly

Dad - ..................if I tell him to wait--

Me- ARE YOU SERIOUS?!


And then he finally left me.  I dont know what happened to that phone call or who it was but I'm guessing my dad hung the phone up after saying some weak line, possibly needing to go greek dance or something.

Been playing Batman Arkham Asylum lately.  That game is pretty awesome.  Waaaay better then I expected it to be.  The stage design is brilliant, graphics are  really nice on the pc, especially with physX effects with the leaves and papers flying around.  And the voice acting is excellent.  It really has surprised me.  Really looking forward to the second one.  Heres a drawing of Batman I did in mspaint a couple years ago for fun.  And just for reference, thats a stone gargoyle, NOT A PIG!

Sooner or later

Sunday night, how depressing is that?  Work in the morning glory glory joy joy.   Now just another 5 days to get through before the weekend lol.  I managed to speak to Jed today and we've made plans to meet up not this weekend but next and play some games and record them since I'll have a 4 day long weekend because of a couple public holidays here.  With luck we'll get to play heaps and make plenty of clips.   Mind you I still havent tried out my mic recording since I got my sound issues sorted so I'm still a little paranoid it wont work.   But I'm sure Jed will have no problem with the recording.  Anyway I'll worry about that when the time comes.

My brains all over the place today so I dont know what else I can add without rambling so I'll just end it here.  But heres a picture of what I'll be having tomorrow at work.  Chicken Caesar salad.  My god it tastes good.  I'm cutting back on a few things so I can get my body back into awesome shape.  Oh sure I'm slim etc, but I miss the epic figure I had back in college while I was working out.  I mentioned to a workmate how I was planning to head off and exercise, do my 40min on the elliptical trainer for fun and he said why am I wasting my time with that?  I responded with You dont get a delicious figure like mine by sitting around all the time.  He laughed, but sometimes I wonder if people are taking what I say seriously or not.  Cause they seriously shouldnt.  But I'm not going to apologize for entertaining myself with my retarded humour.

Plans reversed

Jed!  Make me some new avatars and stop drawing porn!  Actually Jeds hard at work, supposedly, on the new comic strip which will be a big one.  The story will finally start to flow from here and he'll be doing a few cosmetic changes to it that I requested.  We'll see how it looks.  I'm pretty excited.  At this rate we should see it by next month lol

So today was fairly interesting, continuing from yesterday which was also interesting.  I've mentioned before my desire to leave my job once my probation ended which is this coming monday.  Well yesterday I spoke to my boss and told him my plans.  He pretty much said how they were finding my performance good and would like me to reconsider.  I said I'd see how I feel in a few days, which is polite way of saying no.  He chatted with me a little more and told me what I'd be doing in the next few months.  Apologized for tossing me into the deep end 2 weeks into my time there and said they'd be shifting me back to the easier tasks so I can get more comfortable.  So I thought to myself...hmm....easier work.. thats incentive to stay a little longer. 

Anyway today I go into work and the big boss comes up at me and asks for a private chat.  I've casually chatted to him briefly now and then but not like this.  He said he'd heard I was considering leaving and that he'd like me to stay, blahblah, wants to shift my probation period from monday to this coming friday and keep me.  I said sure why not.  Later in the day I get an email requesting I sign paper TODAY to become a permanent employee.  I tell you its a good feeling to be wanted.  So I'm going to stay for a few more months at least.  This way I'll be able to afford my perth visit in june I think it was, for another convention and dressing up as cobra!  Sadly this gives me less time to do some stuff I was planning on.  Like learn how to use this fucking expensive camera I bought a while back.   Oh, when I came out of the office after signing my papers I saw this on the roof.  Some of you may say its a reflection from the glass.  I say its a fucking rainbow.  A good sign.

Success!

 So today is my last week of work.  I didnt get to tell the boss yet as he left early which bugged me.  I'll catch him tomorrow for sure.  See if he wants me to finish out the week or go.  Either way wont bug me too much.  Oh sure the extra money would be good to have as I wont have an income for quite a while, but the daily crap would be good to get away from.

Yesterday my mum asked me to copy a disc she borrowed from a friend of hers.  I told her DONT take shit from other people because if something happens to it they'll blame me, and I know how everyone treats their stuff.  And sure enough I looked under the disc and it had scratches all to hell through it.  I made a copy of it to my pc and she gave the disc back the next day.  You'd think that was the end of it.  Oh no.  Apparently the disc isnt working properly anymore.  It skips now.  No fucking SHOCK with the amount of scratches it has.  So now I'm forced to go buy some cds so I cane make her a new copy.   Pleased?  Not in the slightest.

At least the day ended well.  I finally got the bowl I ordered in for my cat, much to the frustration of my parents who believe I should be spending less money on my cat and using that money on a potential girlfriend.  I'm hoping my choice of words 'Screw you' was clear enough as to what I thought of their idea.  I'll be uploading a video down the track of him eating from it and it'll be titled 'How to spoil your cat'.  I need to record a few extra things to put into it.  Lets hope I dont lose interest halfway making it like I'm prone to do lol.  HERES A PICTURE!  Got his name engraved on it.  FUCK YEAH!

You cant be serious.

So today 2 people 'schooled' me.  These two keep bringing out their uber knowledge of everything under the sun and assuming I know less.  Also their opinion is 100% fact and anyone who disagrees with them is wrong.  I'll usually say something, then they'll be like nu-uh, and I'll just back off with my hands up.  Getting into arguments with people like this is basically counter productive. 

The latest thing was about MMOs.  They're geniuses at them too.  I mentioned a little while back that I dont really play them since I prefer story driven games, unless its a strategy/tactics/simulation type game.  I was dumb enough to say I'm not interested in playing a game just to get to max level and do the repetitive end-games the MMOs have.  I just dont have the patience to grind my way to the good stuff.  I'll play a game for a while, then move on because I have too many single player games I want to finish.  Very picky with my MMOs.  Anyway, endgame + max level is NOT the purpose of MMOs.  Its completely about socializing.  They told me I should get out of my shell and experience more games.  These are guys who were probably 10 when fucking Everquest 1 came out which I was playing back in the day and others since.  Basically dont argue with people who think they are gods gift to knowledge. You WILL lose.  Your red shirt?  Thats blue.  No, shut up.  Its BLUE.  Got it?

Heres a couple pics I saw that I found lol worthy.  The first one I know Jed wrote it up somewhere.  The second one, thats Jeds preferred meal.  No really.  Click the first one to maximize so you can actually read it.