F:Dgikn44tj mf wr23io

I'm gonna go sleep for a few days.

grbl

Also

My bar tab is something like $30, plus $500 for answering honestly. I'm a godamn fucking SAINT. D=<

Man, I knew this would happen. Got a trade and three commissions left, and I've run out of steam. At least only one of them's paid. Gotta work gotta work gotta work ...

Wasn't DirectX supposed to make gaming EASIER? Y'know, not having to set up your sound card, knowing your DirectX hardware would work with your DirectX software ... so what the hell happened, huh? Why do I suddenly have issues with games made in the past three years? Games in which I clearly meet the recommended hardware requirements?

Blue screens of death? BLUE SCREENS of DEATH? Weren't we supposed to stop having shit like this when Windows 98 became obsolete? Oh! It's a problem with my video driver! Guess I'll update to the newest version! Except I won't, because my Nvidia card was put together by BLIND ASSCLOWNS. New version of Forceware? Oh, that would be nice! Except I'll CRASH AND BURN if I install it! Guess I'll stick with this ancient driver from a year ago that MOSTLY works!

And oh, look! This game over here has shitty sound! Stuttering, big chunks of audio vanishing into the mist ... update my drivers, you say? OK! Wow, that feels better. Except, y'know, for the fact that it DIDN'T DO A FUCKING THING.

Ah! And NOW it gets fun! Nobody knows why these things don't work! We're supposed to have this nice happy unified video/sound thing going on! The most concrete answer I get is "maybe it's something with your motherboard." Well GOLLY! Thanks a buttload, Fibber McGee! I'll have this thing licked in no time! Maybe I need a new BIOS! Perhaps an updated chipset driver! Nobody really knows. Oh, sure, I've updated my chipset drivers. Didn't do anything, of course. But the BIOS! Ahhh, yes. That's the answer to EVERYTHING. That's what every troubleshooting forum I've been to says, anyway. But how to do it? Nobody knows! Not even my motherboard manufacturer knows! They tell me to go to the company that built my computer! But the BIOS download there is older than the computer itself! Then I'm told that such an operation is INCREDIBLY DANGEROUS, and that I should only do it "if I need to".

Look, I'm probably just a fucking moron, but that doesn't even BEGIN to seem "easy". Shit, give me the days when I had to setup my sound card manually.

So sometimes I get songs stuck in my head, right? I mean, sure, we all do. Sometimes I'll have a spiteful little ditty in my brain for days at a time. Sometimes even years! Sometimes ... even DECADES.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=cMH1mcNFqRY

If the date on this is correct, then I've had this song stuck in my head for 19 years. It's the OMEGA SONG. I use it to push newer, less worthy songs from my head. I didn't even know where it came from. Then suddenly, a few minutes ago, a word came to mind: Hi-C. And it all became terrifyingly clear. A quick search on Youtube confirmed my fears! THIS ... this commercial ... has been driving me insane for the better part of two decades.

For some of us, Hi-C isn't a cheap boxed fruit drink with dubious nutritional value; no, for some of us, Hi-C is a nameless terror that drives fear through our very hearts! Some of us can't let go! Some of us can't forget, reliving the horror in our minds every day for the rest of our lives!

Is it just me, or is every other journal entry about commissions? Did I just not notice until now, or is it a new development?

Anyway. I'm feeling risky today, so I'm gonna jump headfirst into this and then regret it after the fact. And by "jump headfirst" I mean "test the waters". Whatever! Stop looking at me!

To make sure I'm actually capable of doing this, I'm opening up five commission slots. These will be digital sketches and are priced at (what I hope is a relatively low) $5 USD apiece, payable via PayPal.

1. QuetzaDrake
2. Darkie
3. EraDragon
4. Spottycat
5. Dier

Here are some pictures I've done that should give you an idea of the quality I'm talking about here:
http://www.furaffinity.net/view/371709/
http://www.furaffinity.net/view/173046/

I'm open to quite a few subject matters. Nothing too complex though, please. This is my first time doing this, so go easy on me. And as I said, I can only accept payments through PayPal.

... Actually, I just signed up at PayPal today. If anyone can give me some tips on how to use it effectively, I'd greatly appreciate it.

My E-mail address is zombiecat@gmail.com, if you have any questions or need to send a payment, or ... whatever.

Good lord, it's been hot this past week. The kind of heat that permeates your very soul and lingers through the night. The kind where you just lay there at night, no sheets, a fan blowing on you, and sweat dripping from every pore. So yeah, I didn't sleep much. I don't cope well with high temperatures. So I've been in a daze. Just kind of ... existing.

Anyway. It's cooler now, and my brain came back.

I've ... almost been considering taking commissions. I could use the money. But how would I explain where I got it?

"Oh, yeah, I've been taking commissions. Drawing people's, uh, characters. Like ... cartoons. you know."
"Oh, really? Can I see?"
".... No."

Malaka talked me into getting an Xfire profile. It has potential for awesome. And right now I'm pondering the wisdom out said profile in a public area such as this, lest I be swamped in idle chatter. I'll sleep on it.

I've been in a total funk lately. Mentally and physically. Which is weird, because I've been going to a gym, and working out usually perks me up. Now it just beats me into submission. I come home and lie down and never get up.

Hey, ever get those dreams? The kind where you do normal, everyday stuff? And then you wake up and think about it later and can't remember if your memories are real or imagined? Yeah, I do that a lot. It's fun.

I think I have pending trades. Yes, I'm sure of it. I should probably do something about that.

It's like really fucking hot outside. It's 1 AM and still hot enough to trigger the AC. This is unacceptable, gentlemen.

http://www.next-gen.biz/index.php?o.....3&Itemid=2

And this, children, is why we shouldn't rush to conclusions. Do as I say, not as I do!

 ailure made me a new avatar! I think it captures my swarthy, rugged side, don't you?

Jaap Van Ballegooijen has a bit of a problem. What is it? He works for Shell!! Jesus fucking christ, am I the only one about to kill someone if I have to see this ad again? Lemme see if I have this straight ... This poor fool came up with a way to suck the planet dry of oil in a more efficient manner. HURRAY! Now we don't HAVE to come up with alternative energy sources! Fuck hydrogen! We have SLIGHTLY MORE OIL! But Shell couldn't keep this little morsel to themselves, no they couldn't! MEDIA BLITZ TIME! Every commercial break, we get to see a TANTALIZING GLIMPSE of their tepid little short film about Jaap Van McGoofyname and his noble quest! Oh joy, I can HARDLY WAIT to see the entire thing!! Especially since they sent me a fucking CD-ROM with his horrifyingly contemplative face on it! And hey, even Discover magazine is getting into the act! GEE WHIZ! If I'm quick, I can be the FIRST TO SEE IT when it makes its RED CARPET DEBUT on June 23rd!! I can hardly wait for Shell to boast about HOW MUCH MONEY THEY'RE MAKING!

It'll be FUCKING AWESOME!!

This morning I was wondering why I can never keep a schedule, or stay on any kind of plan to improve my life in any way. I tried keeping a personal journal back in January. That lasted a couple months. Now I completely forget I even have it for weeks at a time. I tried keeping track of what I eat, and excersizing a few times a week. And it worked! I felt great! Until I FORGOT. I had a bookmark to a site with figure anatomy lessons in Youtube format. I diligently went through them one-by-one, picking up valuable tips. Until I FORGOT. By the time I remembered the place existed, the Youtube videos were taken down in favor of a mail-order DVD set. I can't even be bothered to read the godamn comics in the morning! I just can't form ANY kind of habit that involves thinking!

And that's when I realized! I don't THINK anymore!! I'm operating entirely on instinct and experience! Occasionally an outside stimulus will awake within me a desire to LEARN, but it always dies out!

Has it really come to this? Has it been so long since high school that my mind has become a weak slurry? I've lost my curiosity! My drive to learn! It's not just my furry scrawlings that are in a rut! My entire being is stuck in an infinite loop! Every attempt to break free results in failure! What do I do?!

What did I do? I bought Half-Life 2 (hey, that rhymed) and Garry's Mod! I've doomed myself to an indeterminate amount of idleness! Doomed, I say!

Hey, anyone here use GMod? Show me your builds/weird comics/random shit! I MUST KNOW EVERYTHING!!

Also, went golfing with my dad today. My back is threatening to go out. DOOM! It's TWINGING. Hey, that's a word! And it even sort of means what I thought it did!

What's with all the camwhoring? Did I miss a memo?


ALSO: I finally found a (working) ROM of Metroid 2! I used to subscribe to Nintendo Power when I was a kid, and I remember seeing a guide to it in one of my first issues. It released in me a nameless dread. Seriously, I was deathly afraid of metroids, and the thought of having to fight them throughout the ENTIRE GAME was a terrifying thought.

TURNS OUT I WAS RIGHT! Metroid 2 scares me. Although, actually, I'm doing pretty well. Just got the varia suit, space jump and spazer beam. 23 metroids left. But it frightens me. The rambling music, the dreary greyscale graphics, the inability to see more than 10 feet in front of you, the lack of a map, and the METROIDS. Everywhere, METROIDS!!

So yeah! It's fun, in a "nameless terror" kind of way.

I've been on a Metroid kick recently for some reason. Actually ... Hell, I guess I've only been at it since yesterday afternoon. I started a new game of Super Metroid and got all the way to Tourian in a few hours. But I've beaten it a hundred times before, so I loaded up the original Metroid afterwards. I'd forgotten how fun and infuriatingly frustrating it could be. Well, only frustrating if you DIE, and spend the next three hours refilling your energy tanks. I had the benefit of a map, so I was able to get the screw attack early on. Should've spent more time exploring, I guess, but I was never any good at making paper maps. Anyway! I got to Tourian last night, and beat it today. I've never beaten Metroid before! I even got the good ending. Man, that'd be awesome if you could play as a suitless Samus in Super Metroid too after you beat the game ... Hey, do any of the newer Metroid games let you do that? I think Super Metroid was the last one I ever played, hahaha. Never owned a Gamecube or a GBA.
Hey, is it just me, or are old NES games deceptively difficult? I mean, they can be wickedly hard compared to games today, but once you get the hang of them, they're pretty easy. I've beaten Super Mario Bros., both the first and second quests in Zelda, Contra and Super C (WITHOUT the Konami code), and now Metroid, when years ago I had thought them impossible. Granted, I sometimes use save states, but only to save my progress, not as insurance before a difficult area. Maybe I'll try Metal Gear next. Never could get past the first few screens ...

Uhm uhm uhm. What else? Need to draw. Draw draw draw. But WHAT? I draw rabbits when I can think of nothing else. NOBODY KNOWS WHY.

http://www.psychologytoday.com/arti.....20-000001.html

YES! Now I can point to this next time I'm ostracized for not being happy while I drown in a dense sea of humanity.

I've been thinking ... and talking to several other artists who feel the same way, and ... I'm just not enjoying myself here anymore. It was great when the requests I was getting happened to coincide with what I wanted to draw, but that's not the case anymore. Now I've got a huge backlog of pictures I just don't want to draw. I feel like my creativity and skills have fallen in the past year because I'm trying to cater to everyone here. Back when I wasn't getting comments and requests, I just drew for myself, and ... I was happier. But I can't seem to really draw for myself anymore. Every time I start a sketch, I get this wave of guilt that I should be working on something more important. It's drained me. And as a result I've stayed offline for the most part. I can't seem to deal with talking to anyone other than a few close friends.

So ... from this point on, and until I feel otherwise, all pending requests are on hold indefinitely. Pending art trades will still be finished, but I can't say when.

I'm sorry to have to do this, but I draw mostly for my own enjoyment. I no longer have any incentive.

There's this insane woodpecker who thinks our house is his own personal little tree, so he goes and slams his head against it, EVERY MORNING AT THE ASS-CRACK OF DAWN, right outside my room. Whoever happens to be up at the time usually runs out and sprays him with the hose everytime he does it, but so far all that's done is make him finicky and neurotic, flying away at the slightest noise. Makes him easier to get rid of, but that doesn't change the fact that there are TWO GAPING HOLES in the side of the house that are continually getting bigger.

It's not like there are a lack of trees around here! We're surrounded by trees! INUNDATED by them! Trees of every shape and size, encroaching from every angle! Does he just like eating PAINT? Because I see no reason how our house is any better than the dozens of trees that surround it!

There are also a buttload of moles tearing up the yard, but they don't make any noise, so they're ok.

I just want to SLEEP! *sob*

Wow. Went from like ... not doing anything for months to finishing three requests in one night. I still haven't recovered. My mind is still blank. Maybe sleep for a few days. Glrbrl.

Oh, heheh ... found this ... http://www.adobe.com/misc//trade.html#photoshop ... what the hell is that all about? They're not satisfied that their flagship product is a household name? They're all "NEIN! The UberImageEditor must be addressed as Adobe© Photoshop©! TRADEMARKS ARE NOT VERBS! So sayeth the thought police!" .... or maybe I'm just tired and irritable. Whatever.

So, I'm hearing all this stuff about how PhoenixBIOS has some kind of deal with Microsoft, in that computers with PhoenixBIOS-based motherboards will only load Microsoft-based OS's. Is this new? Because my old jury-rigged Compaq here uses a Phoenix BIOS and it just totally spazzes out if I try to install any kind of Linux distro. It'll get as far as unpacking the kernel, then ZAP, instant reboot.

I've probably brought this up a dozen times, but DAMNIT, I really liked Linux. I had Mandrake installed on my old PC before it finally gave up the ghost. I'd like to put Ubuntu on my backup partition here and turn it into a dual-boot. Five gigabytes, should be plenty for a small package.

I don't even know why I'm writing this here. I'm tired and half-dead, but I need to write something. SOMEWHERE!


Also, I just tore a big chunk of skin off my left thumb. It kinda hurts.

Oops, now my shirt has blood all over it. WHAT HAVE I DONE?

I have fond memories from years ago, when I had just gotten my driver's license, and my old friend Garth and I would wander over to the electronics section of Fred Meyer on a hot summer's day and peruse the selection. Age of Empires 2, Unreal Tournament, No One Lives Forever, Serious Sam ... all were results of these excursions! They were often dirt-cheap, being relatively old at the time, and we'd bring it back to my house, install it, and play it for the rest of the day in a hot, stuffy room while sucking down Dr. Pepper and Doritos.

So it was with great nostalgia yesterday that I ventured into the old electronics section once more and bought Neverwinter Nights Diamond. I've never had the chance to play Neverwinter Nights! Shame on me! So it was quite an awesome, nostalgia-waxing deal to be able to buy it and all of its expansion packs for 20 bucks. And so I brought it home and played it for the rest of the day in a hot, stuffy room, sucking down Dr. Pepper and Doritos, albeit by myself. And it was good!

... Until I opened up Furaffinity this morning and saw that my recently-cleaned messages list had been filling up again! 108 submissions and 49 journals! I had just nuked everything a few days ago! I had even managed to keep up on them this time! Now I'm behind AGAIN! Curse you, Neverwinter Nights! CURSE YOOOOOUUUU!!

I'm being assaulted by some twisted mix of severe allergic reactions and a nasty cold. Can't breathe! Is it time for nyquil yet? Wourghzrbl. If I don't make it through the night, then ... tell my toaster I love her!

I'm gonna sleep for the rest of the day!! Damn straight!!

I'm serious. This is not a joke. Lea'me alone. *SNORE*

http://bloggingultima.blogspot.com/index.html
I somehow stumbled upon this the other day. It's a daily log of a guy who's going through the entire Ultima series in order. I was on a big Ultima kick several years back. Played them all, except for 2 and 8. Only ever beat one of them, Ultima VII: The Black Gate. Almost made it to the end of Serpent Isle., but got frustrated and quit after Iolo and Dupre and whoever else was with me went insane and started killing the world. Anyway, it got me all nostalgic, so I started a new game of The Black Gate today using Exult (http://exult.sourceforge.net/ ). Anybody else ever played U7? I'd love to hear stories and anecdotes.

I apparently have a cavity BETWEEN two of my molars. Not sure how that's even possible, but it would explain the throbbing pain in my jaw.

My mom's 7 year-old computer crapped out on her awhile back. Helped her pick out a cheap Compaq. It came with Vista.
I hate Vista.
I hate how you have to pay to upgrade it to do even the most basic tasks. I hate how it takes 20 minutes to uninstall a program, and slows to a stop during complex maneuvers like MOVING AND DELETING FILES. Jesus christ. I almost considered giving her my computer and using the new one, since it has a nice shiney PCI-E port, but no way in hell am I being dragged down with Vista.

I've run out of inspiration. There was a time when furry art and cartoons made my imagination run wild. But that was many moons ago.

EDIT: I've been meaning to mention this for awhile, but I keep forgetting. A couple of people have made me think about art "theft" ... basically, as far as I'm concerned, you can all copy, alter and post any of my work anywhere, so long as you don't take credit for the original image. I'm not making a profit on this stuff anyway, and if i ever decided to, I wouldn't be so lazy as to use the same characters I draw now. Or whatever. So anyway. If I ever cry foul for someone exercising their free rights, feel free to smack me.

http://yro.slashdot.org/yro/07/03/24/2220222.shtml

You know, I have NIGHTMARES like this, where someone I love or care about is being threatened by some faceless evil. I ... I can't even articulate here. I want to choke the life out of every godamn corrupt recording label in the country and I CAN'T. That's how the dream would end, you know? It'd be like in a horror movie, me, my friends and my family being chased by an axe murderer, and I just SNAP, and I grab the guy by the throat and gouge his eyes out and ... UGH. That's the only time I ever feel violent. And I'm feeling it NOW. I want to KILL every last one of these companies for what they're doing to innocent people.

*shudder*

I mean, what the hell is their deal? I can see them wanting to bash my skull open if I happened to stumble upon their secret hideout in an old abandoned imperial fortress, but when I'm on a ROAD? All they'd have to do is say something like "Your money or your life!", and that'd be that. If I didn't want a confrontation, then fine, here, leave me alone. But NO! They see me and they're all "YOU MUST DIE FOR NO DISCERNIBLE REASON!!!", and they'll all come after me with their enchanted daedric axes and shit, bash my head in, mutilate my lifeless corpse, and strew my viscera across the land. Is that all really NECESSARY? Plus, they seem to outnumber the rest of Cyrodil by a trillion to one, and that's not even grouping them with the countless bands of marauders and vampires. Dude, forget the deadric hordes pouring out of Oblivion gates. These guys are the REAL threat. Cyrodil would fall within a day if these fools would get their act together.

Anyway. Where was I? Oh yeah! Tomorrow is Shutdown Day!
http://www.shutdownday.org/
I'm gonna give it a try. Maybe spend the day sketching. I've got a hankering to try some technical stuff, like architecture and perspective. Of course, without a computer I won't be able to get reference for stuff like that ... damn.