More Brickfish Competitions!

Yep, another Brickfish entry. This time, with a brand spanking new, drawn solely for this competition piece! Please help me out by voting, it's free and simple and you can do it multiple times a day. Thanks everyone!

4 Elements Brickfish

Story of My Life Brickfish

Bring on the Green!

Well, with St. Patrick's Day just a few days away, Savannah has been in full force with Irish themes, green everything, and tons of college kids and tourists lining the streets. I'm not a big fan of getting drunk and wandering the very crowded streets with other obnoxious drunkards, so I stay away from downtown that day. Call me antitsocial if you must, but that's really not my scene.

What is kind of cool is how the city dyes all of the water in public fountains green. Like this:


This occurs mostly in the squares and Forsythe park, but I thought they dyed the river green too. It is pretty neat, but I can't imagine how well, gross it might look for green water to come out of wall fountains shaped like fish or children or something. I also don't know what they use other then food dye, but it's completely out of the system a day or two after the celebration. It also doesn't stain the statues or fountains, which is quite nice.

Yeah, I like to avoid the drunks, but there is a certain charm in green fountains.

A Little TV Twisty

Oh, I love my little t.v. I do indeed. It's a Samsung LCD, 23" widescreen. Perfect for a dorm room, since the place isn't very big. My roommate and I get along quite well, and I don't see how we could function properly without a t.v. here. My only complaint, is that I have to turn the t.v. constantly if she wants to watch it, since I have to have it on a table closer to me.

It comes with holes on the back of the case, ready for a LCD mount, but there's no way to mount it on the wall of the room without massively damaging it. Or, worse yet, having to incur repair fees. I kind of wonder anyway how useful mounting the t.v. is. I'm sure if you're in a small room and need to conserve space, putting it on the wall makes sense. Also, if you need to have it at a certain height. But most of us would probably rather have the freedom to move the t.v. easily, and access all of the connections on the back without any trouble.

I'll probably never mount a t.v. on the wall, it seems so impractical. Turning it works just as well.

Still holding off on the good stuff

We actually didn't visit Circuit City this weekend. Shocking, right? Even though sales are supposed to finally end this month, J and I are still contemplating going and seeing how much better the discounts can be.

I'm guessing stuff like video games are going to be completely out by next weekend, and DVDs are probably dwindling, but we're still going to look at things like printers and perhaps computer speakers. I'm realising that we need a good working printer, since his decided to crap out and not work with Windows Vista and mine is 400 miles away and low on ink. A nice wireless printer, like what I've got at home, would be amazing if we could get it for 50% (or more) off.

I'm still wondering what Circuit City is going to do with the surplus that's left over after everything is closed. Especially the furniture. I see signs everywhere letting customers know all the displays and furniture are for sale, but what casual consumer will walk in and decide to buy a checkout table?

I realized that if Circuit City hadn't gone out of business, I probably would have saved a bit of money this quarter. Oh well, chances like this are fleeting, so have at it while you can I suppose.

Warm, Goosey Glow

One thing I really hate about this dumb dorm rooms is the lighting. It's just awful. 4 long fluorescent bulbs on the ceiling, covered by plastic, that give the room a bright white sanatorium feeling when turned on. That's why I bought a gooseneck standing lamp, and it's been my faithful giver of light for 3 years now.

The only time the overhead lights are turned on in my room is when we're just stopping in for something quick, or the lamp is packed away. That's it. This year I don't think we've had the lights on for more then 10 minutes at a time. Even when I'm drawing, the gooseneck lamp is good enough.

Really, good lighting is needed to make a dorm room feel inviting and lived in, not stark and ugly. It also cuts down on my migraines, I've noticed. I'll have a rule against fluorescent tube lighting in my house. Henceforth, it shall be forbidden.

Certify This!

All my life I've known I wanted to be an artist. I've never had any doubt that it is my passion and dream to be able to illustrate for my career. Whether it's comic books, spot illustrations, or creative graphic design pieces, I'm there. That's my world. I've never been interested in math or science, as I find those to be dull subjects that I would just muck though in college. They're not creative or interesting to me in the least, but I understand that's a personal preference. I know how important math and science jobs are, and I respect those that choose to live their lives doing that. I also know that these people will make far more money then I can ever hope to doodling away, and for that, I am jealous.

Though I will say that I far more enjoy learning in the environment that I'm in, with small classes and getting to draw comics. It's a much better alternative to 300 students in a giant lecture hall, clacking away at their laptops while the professor drones on about calculus or whatnot. As well as the fact that you can continue to get degrees while working, which isn't something you can really do in a illustration field. I suppose you could also get a certificate online, in a programme like what Saint Joseph's University offers. They let you get your
CAPM certificate for project management.

I've got to admit, I was a little confused as to what project management actually means, since it sounds like such a generic umbrella term. It also seems like a certificate that only pads your resume more, though I suppose it could also help greatly with leading teams. As a complete outsider, I found SJU's website to be easy to navigate and understand what Project Management actually means. It's really a continuation certificate for those already in an office environment who want to learn leadership skills. Which is important for any job, not just math and science related ones.

Though this is a world I'll hopefully never know, I wonder how important a certificate in project management is to getting a promotion and larger paycheck. If any of you guys have one, please, let me know how it's helped you in your field. I'm genuinely curious.

It's a 24 week course, and while I have no problems with leading or time management, I know plenty of kids at college who could probably benefit from such a thing. Even though this is art school. The career choices page, which details types of occupations and median wages is pretty interesting to look over. If nothing else, to find out how much a laboratory manager or teaching assistant makes annually.

It's nice to have programmes like this one, designed for people who need a little extra push to excel at work. Though I would never, ever, go back and choose a different school or major, looking at what people could earn with CAPM certificates makes me a tad jealous.

Oh well, I'll just get back to my painting.

CC deep discounts= good times

Ohhh the buying of things at Circuit City continues....

Their liquidation sale has finally granted our patience. J and I visited the local store every weekend since the announcement, biding out time till the discounts were great enough. I don't understand the stupid people who bought so much stuff the first weekend, it was only 10-20% off! Of original retail price! That's more expensive then you can find it on Amazon or Best Buy. Stupid people.

We waited until games and DVDs were 40-50% off, and it was worth it. I've gotten The Simpsons seasons 7 and 8 as well as the movie and Memento. I also got a pack of 50 Double Layer DVD+Rs for $30. Pretty nice.

One more visit, in the hopes of just one more big discount (if the sale is even on, I know they're supposed to end it all in March) and we'll be done.

We are soooooo geeky. But frugal, which is good.

Try Again

Okay, I've been lazy enough these past several weeks. Along with schookwork, I'm going to try out Yourself Fitness, a game that's as close to Wii Fit that I can find for the Xbox. I'll never try diet pills, shakes, or powders, but I can try video games.

The worst that happens is that it won't do anything and I'll have a game collecting dust. The best is that it'll really work and I'll loose weight.

30 minutes a day, 5 days a week. That's my goal. Let's see how this goes.

Hoo boy

Talk about being out of touch! Sorry for not posting for quite a while there. Guess I just needed a bit of a sabbatical from the world of writing.

The weeks between posts have been busy with work-related nonsense...and uhm...video games XD

I'm pretty addicted to Rock Band right now, not that it helps that J got me a guitar for Christmas. I returned the favour by getting him drums, so now we have a full band set. Anyhoo, I hope you all had a good Christmas and got some pretty excellent gifts. I know I'll be busy with reading and playing now till I have to go back to school after New Years.

Young Skin

My mother's been trying a bunch of different products to fight ageing on her face. Just like the rest of America, women are so obsessed with keeping their youth that they try to put off any wrinkles for as long as possible. While my mother will probably never get anything as extreme as plastic surgery, or even botox, she will try different creams and hope that they work.

My mom really doesn't her age though, naturally she looks younger than she is, but there are some wrinkles starting to crop up. She's been trying Dermalastyl for the past week or so, and I have noticed some results. It's slight, but it has only been a week. Dermalastyl replaces the skin's natural loss of elastin with the synthetic Elastatropin, and promises really noticeable results in 2 months. We'll have to see how my mother likes it down the line.

I think the big problem with creams vs. surgery/botox, is that people want instant results. You just can't expect a cream to give you instantly smooth, youthful, skin in a day, you need to give it time for the ingredients to really activate in your epidermis. But Botox gives you that insta-fix, but it's not permanent. Nor are the results from most cream applications, but since Dermalastyl works on actually rebuilding the skin cells, it's more permanent. Dermalastyl uses Infusion Therapy to promote faster penetration of the Elastatropin protein by eliminating inert skin cells and activating the remaining cells and loosening the bonds between them.



Like I said, it's only been a week and my mother doesn't have that many wrinkles, but hopefully Dermalastyl will work for her and make her happy. We'll have to see how my mom looks in a few months to make a real determination if this is the miracle cream she hopes it is.

Black Friday

Thanksgiving went off well, I'd say. We went to two houses for it, and plenty of food was there at both. The evening commenced with staying up playing Rock Band 2 until we left at 2:30 to go stand in line at Best Buy. This is the first Black Friday I've been to in about 8 years, and the only one J's been to.

Our plan was to only hit up Best Buy, he wanted a new monitor, I wanted a few seasons of The Simpsons. That was all, no clothes shopping or anything else. Then go home and sleep. Since the last Black Friday I went to, (coincidently a Best Buy), was packed, with lines travelling deep into the store, I expected the same madness. But really, we didn't know what was in store for us, which is why we stood outside for over 2 hours in the cold in a line that reached past the large Kohls set up right next to Best Buy.

Of course, we weren't that hardcore, we saw several tents set up outside a few stores. That's crazy to me. The time went by fairly slowly, but just seemed to crawl for the last 10 minutes before the store opened at 5 a.m. It was so much more civil though than the last time I attempted Black Friday! Everyone shuffled inside in an orderly manner, the store was set up with several different lines that separated sections, and everyone was handed a map detailed what lines led to which product group beforehand. Since there was a line for computers, J made his way there to ask for his monitor and I made a beeline to the DVDs. The stock was great too, I was able to pick out all the seasons I wanted, with no crowding or pushing of anybody else.

After that, I met J at the computer line. The lines had little fences made of products. We stood there for a half hour, before the line snaked around and we noticed something. The monitor J was looking for was one of those products fencing us in. Which a quick slap to our foreheads and a jump, we grabbed one of the monitors and rushed to the check-out line. Surely, the line would be horrible, since everyone wanted to rush out and get to their next stop, right?

Wrong again. The line moved quickly and it was no longer than a typical weekend line at this Best Buy. Another fabulous surprise I'd say. We finally arrived home at 6 a.m., and after some badgering from my cat to feed him, fell into bed and slept until 3 p.m.

I'm pretty sure we could have gotten out earlier, if we hadn't stood in that silly line, but overall I was happily surprised with that Black Friday adventure.

Not that I really want to do it again. Not for several years.

Catching Up

Man, it's been way to long since I last posted. Sorry guys, totally my fault for dropping the ball on this journal. And my reason is pretty, well, bad. See, I've been doing nothing this past week but homework and gaming. I've just been floating through the days doing that. I'm glad this week is almost over anyway and I'll have that stupid cover drawing all coloured in.

I also keep waking up with some nasty dry eyes going on. So much so that whenever I look in any mirrors, I feel like the undead with my red eyes. Oh well, that's the downside to the surgery. Aside from being uncomfortable, I'm not really too disappointed by this result. It's expected and all I can do is take my eye-drops and use the nighttime gel to help. I'm pretty sure it's also because we have a dehumidifier in the room and that's drying it out a bit more here, you know along with the change in weather to a dryer winter. Hopefully when I get back, I'll be able to wake up and not see a pair of red, dry, eyes staring back at me in the mirror. Or this will dissipate by next summer. Not a bad tradeoff for a lifetime of good sight.

Not fun to wake up to

Today's my birthday and I was woken up at 8 a.m. by a tree falling. Awesome! It wasn't so bad, just because it was a short loud "CRACK" noise. And I don't think it did too much damage to the car it fell on. It was later, at 9 a.m., when the chainsaw started, that I quite disliked Nature's way of telling me happy birthday.


Oh well, the day is dark and dreary and the tree has been cut up and moved. I'm looking towards a pretty good birthday day now. Nice and quiet, spent with the man I love.

Stressed? Not really, no

Part of my worries about stress and all when it comes to school probably affects a bit of my health. Though, in all honesty, if it does it's hard to tell. I mean, I don't break out, I don't get acne and I don't tend to over/under eat in times of stress. So really, when I'm feeling any sort of stress what happens to my body? Nothing.

It always just affects my mind. But I like being busy, and I like some element of stress to be a part of it. That way I really feel like I'm working.

And away we go!

Whoo. I'm done packing, finished a few hours ago I suppose. Tomorrow we leave for that familiar trek down to Georgia again. I'm hoping this coming school brings a few new changes. I'm really going to work on finding a good fat burner method, whether it be exercise or food portioning we'll have to see. Whatever works successfully I hope. I'll be getting a new toy, an Xbox 360, and will be quite enthralled with that I imagine. This year I really need to find myself a signature style and work my best to impress editors and find a job. I'll also be continuing with VisArts, working while I can at school which is great news.

This new year brings about promise, excitement, and dread. I can only see what's in store and not make any great predictions.

Reading the watchmen on red koi.

Well, I did it. I finally ordered two things I should have had a long while ago.

Watchmen and a yoga mat. I know, I know, I'm super late for both. I should have bought a mat months ago when I started this new yoga-sizing thing, but I just kept dragging my feet about it. Hoping I would be fine just doing yoga on the carpet. No such luck though, as I tend to slip a bit and I'm sure that's not good for my joints and makes it more difficult to get into poses.

The other...I know I should have bought this amazing comic book a long while ago, but I'm really such a newbie when it comes to owning English comics. I did want to buy it before the movie comes out, so at least I met that goal. I don't want to be met with a huge sudden rush of Watchmen fans, like what happened with The Dark Knight. While it's an excellent movie, which I enjoyed immensely, the giant and sudden "hipness" of Batman just hit too quickly. Yes, yes Batman is angsty and cool. Indeed, the Joker is a fabulous foe who represents what all of us would be like if we just let go of modern day ethos.

Anyhoo, I'm hoping Watchmen will be just as bloody amazing. The trailer at least brings hope:

Xbox 360 is sad

Ah, and now for a more relaxing Friday. It's nice to just sit around and be. Even though I can't play any Xbox games...yep, it's dead. Turns out it wasn't an A/V cable problem, it's the console itself. Well, the bad news has been told to the owner and now a coffin is on its way. It should take 3 weeks in total for it to be repaired, and one can only hope that this will be the one and only time J's roommate's Xbox will need repair.

This is one thing that I'm happy about with the Xbox 360. It seems to break down more often than other next-gen consoles. At least Microsoft is quick to fix them, but it's still the biggest problem that makes me feel a little ...eehhnn... about buying one. The hope is that I'll get a brand new version with a better cooling system and not have this problem. I'm crossing my fingers.

Crazy About Shrimp

Let's get something straight, one of the few pleasures I truly enjoy in life is cooking. I absolutely love to make meals, and desserts, and snacks, and...well, you get the idea. Which is why, as I've stated before on this blog, how itchy I get when I'm at school and away from my full kitchen. While I'm not terribly creative myself, I'm always willing to try new recipes. If I ever get the chance, I'd love to go to culinary school and really learn my way around food.

Seafood is probably my favourite "meat". Specifically, shellfish. I do like beef and poultry, *I stay away from pork* but there's something about shellfish that just makes me want to experiment more. Perhaps it's the cost of shrimp, my typical weekday meal, or perhaps it's the lack of time and fact that I tend to cook for one. Whatever the case, I just prefer to try new things with shellfish. Shrimp, scallops, crab, all great ingredients to experiment with and serve alongside some delicious pasta.

One of my more favourite recipes that I tried this year is Crab Stuffed Shrimp. It's a fairly domestic recipe, in fact I got it from the Lady and Sons restaurant in Savannah, though, to be honest, I don't recall seeing it on the menu the one time I went. But I digress, this recipe is a little complicated, but delicious! You can view the full recipe here:

Bacon Wrapped Crab Stuffed Shrimp with Lemon Basil Cream

You'll notice I didn't mention the bacon part, like I said, I don't particularly like pork so I left that bit out. I'm sure it's just as good with the bacon though!

On most nights, I just prefer to do a simple recipe like Shrimp Scampi. It's so easy to put together and fast, thus making the perfect after work, lazy dinner. I've gotten to the point where when I cook something for myself there's not much measuring, but here are the ingredients that I use:

Shrimp - 4-8
Garlic -1 clove
Lemon juice
White wine
Butter
Olive oil
Parsley
Linguine or whatever pasta you're in the mood for

It's all trial and error for me, but shrimp scampi is such a basic dish you can't really screw it up. Unless you do something like bombard it with garlic or add peanut oil instead of butter or something.

Anyhoo, I think if I were to compete in a Cook off, say, a Great American Seafood Cook Off, I'd use the crab stuffed shrimp recipe. It's unique, savoury, and quite possibly one of the best shrimp dishes I've ever had. It's also a very domestic seafood dish. I'm all for the positiveness of domestic seafood sustainability, it's one of the few things grown in America that I'm rather happy about. Plus, there is something nice to knowing where the source of your fresh seafood came from, especially if it's local. Yeah, I would like to participate in a cook off one day, that would be really fun. Though, I am a bit afraid that I would get stage fright being up in front of a crowd cooking.

The more I think about it, the more I believe I would enjoy a seafood cook off. Maybe one day I'll get to participate in something like that. Well, I've just got to keep practising!

Are there any seafood recipes you love to make?

If you do try the crab stuffed shrimp or scampi dish, let me know how it was! I'm sure you won't be disappointed.

Summer Woes

So far, I've been lucky in that I've been able to stay away from loans for college and haven't had too many bad financial nightmares. Yes, this is mostly due to my parents willing to help out when they can, but another part of it is that I'm good enough with my money that I don't need any Debt consolidation, because there is no debt.

College is quite expensive though, and I'm always aware of other people's financial troubles because of it. When I decided I wanted to get my bachelors, I hoped that I'd never need Debt help because I won't go into it. I won't apply for any student loans unless absolutely necessary, and I won't ask for too much or complain that my parents don't spend enough money on me. That's silly.

That said, this summer has been my most feduciarily scary yet. My job, while I do love it, isn't paying me at all until the end of the summer. And when I do get paid, I'm not expecting much. Tis the trouble with non-profit businesses of course. Since I don't have to worry about a mortgage or monthly house payments, I'm not freaking out. However, I'm not positively ecstatic about the situation either.

Working at VisArts has given me a good amount of portfolio work, and I've got some great references when I need them. The lack of any sort of hourly wage does prevent me from coming in everyday. I also can complete a lot of my work from home, so I can save on gas, which, by the way, is also cutting into my funds. If I didn't have a place to stay, who knows where I would be living.




This summer is certainly not the ideal situation, but it's better than nothing and more appropriate than working retail. I am talking to my boss about getting some more money and outside commissions, so that should help. Really, I need more money to invest so I can prepare better for my future. I never want to be in a situation where I'll need Debt relief, so I need to prepare. Even when I'm making practically nothing, I need to stop thinking about the present and realize my future is more important. I can get through this summer just fine, it's next June that I'm really worried about.

For the Love of Cooking

Lately I've been addicted to watching shows on BBC America. In the afternoons I love to just laze about and watch You Are What You Eat and Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares.

Frankly, I think Gordon Ramsay is a good chef and honest with his criticism. Now, I've watched Hell's Kitchen a few times too, but I think Ramsay is far more endearing in Kitchen Nightmares. He's not portrayed as a giant ass, and he really does appear to want to help the restaurant owners with their problems. Of course, he does swear but not as much and it's not nearly as bothersome as when Fox edits everything out.

I don't know, I much prefer the British depiction of Gordan Ramsay far more than the American Fox version. Do you agree?