GRRRR!!!! computer Strife

Okay, so against my better judgement, i bought a gateway computer. Half because I was in a rush and the store was closing but half because it was a great deal, and it was really the best specs of the whole store. Seriously quad core 6 gigs of ram lotsa hard drive space and a good video card - it was a sweet machine! and Windows 7 to boot! Perfect. got it home, didnt work. 2 system restores later and 3 hours on live chat and phone with gateway customer service and these asshats want me to send the fucking thing back to the depot for a repair... its 3 hours OLD! am i going to wait a week and send the thing to the god damn depot or am I going to bring it back to future shop and demand an exchange tomorrow!? So the thing is packed up, I'm taking JUST the computer part back not the monitor and I'm getting it exchanged tomorrow. I'll make em test it in store too. Just to make sure it works.

On the Plus side the Futureshop employee was fantastic. I was glad he got his commission. He gave us a 40$ cable for 5$ (goes to show how hight the mark up is eh?) and I'm sure future shop will exchange it for us no problem. Hopefully I packed it up right.

Another plus (DESPERATELY SEEKING PLUSSES!!) The monitor is STUNNING, STUNNING. its so big (and its so close it seems bigger!) and the buttons to turn it on are not visible as buttons! its a hard plastic case but when you tough the edge it comes on. its brilliant! I love it!

anyways, First thing when Future shop opens tomorrow I'm taking it down there to exchange it.
All will be well :)

The main Event!

Phew, Finally back home!
Got a great haul of stuff this year! WOO!
Right now I'm making a big pot of soup and a big pot of stock as well since I got a set of 4 big stock pots. Tomorrow I'm going to make a Lasagne with rotini instead of lasagne noodles (kinda like a casserole) and bake it in our great new toaster oven that Temple & Jeff bought us.
I also got some great red jammies, red house coat, my slippers I mentioned before. I got one of the Scented heat up Penguins from Sage, a Penguin ornament, fuzzy socks, Jack (skellington) hoodie, a blue knit vest, touque/scarf/mitten set, New Jacket, black shirt.. probably more that I'm forgetting LOL.
OH, i bought a  label maker and Wii Speak with some of my christmas gift cards and money as well :)

Temples place was fun. No snow, and Kitty had a bad headache the whole time, and i had a headache for quite a bit. we arent used to the dryness of the Okanagan and the loudness. Children are LOUD, and Kitty and I are in general - really really quiet. we never watch movies loud,we sit and type with gentle music playing or drawing and painting... Loud is extremely hard to tolerate when you are used to extreme quiet.
I wish I could spend more time with Temple when we are there. Its hard because she's always jumping around doing absolutely EVERYTHING!

SO Friday I'm heading out to get my new computer. Hopefully I can get something affordable still after the boxing week madness! I'm terribly excited about that! I'll have to convince Jeri to help me lug it home, HEEE

Christmas Spirit tested

Had my merriment put to the test today.
got to surrey to mums house,then out the to grocery store, then back to mums and on the way back to mums she phoned me to remind me to bring my ID to get on the plane. Thats when I realized I didnt have it.
Westjet (plane company) had a 2 hour phone hold time and that was out of the question so I phoned Kelowna airport to try and see what could be counted as ID and they were useless. I did determine that nothing I had was sufficient. ANOTHER 10 dollars it would cost to train back home and back to surrey to pick up my id... But I had to go... So i left mums to head home filled with rage, and realized after getting one stop... forgot the house keys.. had to get off wait for a train going the other way, and get back to mums pick up the keys and back i go. took forever for the train too.

2 1/2 hours later i'm back at mums.

because we dont want to log things crazy huge back and forth as I mentioned before, we opened some presents tonight. I got lovely red jammies, a soft fluffy red house coat with funky bulldogs on it, Quatchi (one of the Olympic mascots for 2010 which i DO NOT support but wanted the slippers because ...he's cute and hes a Jacko and I love them!) Slippers, and a set of 4 stock pots, and they are fucking huge stock pots! i'm stoked about making a big pot of stew!!

From my aunt dewey kitty and I got a sushi for 2 set of dishes and some Nood pencil crayons that are cute as hell!

I just finished upgrading mums vaio laptop from vista to windows 7 and it is sensational! my mum doesnt do much but internet and the odd other thing on her laptop so she doesnt have many compatibility issues with hers.  Its great! excited for mine!
Tomorrow morning we are leaving for vernon! so there we go, hopefully all the crap i'm due is finished from the frustrating ordeal today, and the rest of my holidays are wonderful :D

watching pet patrol! woot!

Goodbye Vancouver

Thanks for the green christmas, bitch :|

We're going to Vernon tomorrow, but we leave for Surrey to my mums today. Tonight we have a mini christmas where we are opening some of our presents that are too big and therefore pointless to lug on a plane! We've got mum a couple things but most everything we have links to her main present that we don't want to give away HAHA! Tomorrow morning we run to catch our plane to Vernon to be with my sister. Kitty and I are bringing our oil paints. Can't miss this opportunity to plein air in the country!

On my last shift at work before my holidays I said merry christmas to someone and they gave me the dirtiest look ever! and then she spat bacl "happy HOLIDAYS"...

She had a santa in on her shirt....WTF?! really! she had talked with me about buying christmas presents, its not like she was jewish, or something else that would not want a merry christmas!

this "political correctness" fever that the world has caught is simply out of control!
We're supposed to celebrate our diversity here in canada by making everything neutral? well multiculturalism is fine but if we are going out of our minds crazy to celebrate chinese new year, and Punjabi festivals I want my fucking merry christmas's too!

so fuck you canada, MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Anyways, will be back!

You Know You're an Animator When...

You think about the how many frames it would take to animate when you see your friends walking

A bouncing ball is much more complicated than it looks

Besides the 'compelling storylines' anime really does suck

MAYA is not just the name of a girl you know

Same goes for BRYCE

When teachers draw stick figures you doubt their teaching ability...

When you are used to hearing gasps when you tell people exactly how long it took you to animate 'those 15 seconds'

Disney is a building full of gods

You know who Glen Keane, Andreas Deja, Ub Iwerks, and Bill Plympton are

Paper dominates everything else in your room

You are always think of new things to animate, even while animating something else

Drawing 200 drawings in one night is not that uncommon for you

Hearing the word 'Modeling' does not make you think of photographing advertisements

Hearing "Flash" has no sexual connotation

Hidden Mickeys are everywhere

You know exactly why the Disney sequels suck

You know what PSD, MOV, AVI, and AEP files are

Tarzan is the greatest musculature ever

Not going to sleep all night is not unusual

You hate X-sheets, but you know if you don't use them, it will all fall apart

Damn $500 hole punches

You can see the color change in Ratigans Cape (Great Mouse Detective) as he moves and changes layers

Flash really is a bitch

You can easily convince people to let you draw them (they ask me)

People act like your career choice is awesome, but you know they are thinking "Where the hell is the money in animation"

You can find the 'soul' in Sully's eyes... but Polar Express looks like a scene from 'The Exorcist'

You never want to hear how many individual hairs were rendered in Sully fur, or feathers on Chicken Little... ever again

CGI is not as easy as people make it sound

Neither is timing out the damn lip sync

There is no greater joy than watching what you just drew nonstop for a month come to life

Someone asks you what you thought of an animated film and you comment on the animation techinques

You watch Fantasia especially for Night On Bald Mountain and think wish I could animate like Bill Tytla

You skip the Night On Bald Mountain because you are just jaw droppingly shocked at how much detail has gone into and how well animated the whole thing is.

You think Fantasia is one of the best animated films ever despite your friends moaning that it has a soundtrack of classical music

You watch a cartoon on TV and start noticing repeated frames or backgrounds with ease.

You know that Tim Burton started as an animator for The Fox And The Hound

You know that Tim Burton worked on The Black Cauldron

You know that Vincent was Tim Burton's first success at stop motion.

You know Tim Burton did not direct Nightmare Before Christmas .... OR....Coraline.

You know that Don Bluth walked out (with over 30 other members of staff)halfway through The Fox and The Hound.

You refuse to watch any movies by Don Bluth because face it... they are awful. (not all of them, but most DO suck)

-You want Tim Curry or Jim Cummings to voice a villain in a film of yours because they are just brilliant.

-You demand to know why Basil of Baker Street : The Great Mouse Detective is such an under appreciated film. Also Vincent Price makes a brilliant villain.

You want to cry when you hear the words from your tutor ''it's good but if you re do this bit'' with the knowledge that you have just drawn, fine lined,scanned,colored and edited together at least a minute's rough cut.

You say you do animation and your friends who don't do it say ''are you mad? how can you stand drawing that much?''

You try to be sneaky in using repeated frames and hope nobody notices...

You spend a lot of time listening to music while coming up with concept art or waiting for rendering

Someone (from outside the knowledge of animation) looks at your work and goes''is that it?'' despite the fact you have just been spending at least 7 hrs a day for 15 weeks working on it and you feel the sudden urge to thump them.

You have practically no social life when animating during crunch time.

Looney Tunes not only make you laugh but the artwork and animation is draw you back to watch again and again

Anything.... literally anything... can happen 




Found this on facebook :)




In a few days I'm getting a brand new computer with enough Ram to kick animation ass! I bought Toon Boom 5 and its sitting here waiting to be installed on the new computer. I'm stoked, absolutely stoked. This Laptop is great for casual use but for what i want to do its really impossible!


I'm so excited for Toonboom 5 HAHA :D 

Going to Vernon for Christmas

Last week of work before heading to Vernon for Christmas.
Works been kinda crazy for me actually. Trying to get everything ordered for while I'm gone and dealing with things that really shouldn't be an issue in the first place... Grr. Whatever. 4 more shifts, then I've got a couple days to pack then we head to mums and we are doing an early christmas at mums of stuff thats too big to take on the plane (pointless to take it there to unwrap just to take home again). I'm going to be making a trip to Planet Bee to get a ton of beeswax for myself and Maria (for encaustic painting). Exciting!
Maria's getting 6 blocks, and I'm not sure what I'm getting yet, but we'll see. Hee hee :)

Oh its exciting.
I'm really bummed that there is no snow though... off to paint :)