I haven’t seen this kind of beautiful, misty, hard rain since Germany. It’s even more amazing from the balcony.

So today’s class was in a different room and we were using pc’s instead of macs. We grabbed two images off of the ftp server, one was a little girl with a flower hat, the other was a window frame with broken panes. I definately learned alot, especially about the magic wand and lasso tools. Which also work the same in GIMP. Shift to add selections, alt to subtract. I also learned the purpose of “paste into” I’ve always wondered what it did. Now I know. I’ve gotta decide which class to take next and when. There’s no set schedule to follow.

I’m currently working on a sig for Brenu Littlebone.. A Gnomish Necromancer & Alchemist. He wants something black and purple with no white, pink or yellow. I’m cutting out two of the 6 pictures he sent me, the first is his character looking sneaky and evil.. the second he looks a little confused and his eyes are peaking over his glasses. I might be lazy on the second one since I think I only want to use his face. In both he’s wearing a purple & grey robe. I haven’t worked out a “look” for the background yet. Feel free to make suggestions

The next sig in line after Brenu has me a bit worried. Vercas has a whole lot of text he wants added, faded into the background. Along with his name, class, guild and server he wants the following quote in Japanese and French. Forgive any mistakes, I don’t know either language
“hana wa sakura gi, hito wa bushi”

“parmi, toutes les fleurs, le fleur de cerisier, parmi tous les hommes, le guerrier”

That’s alot for a little 400 by 100 frame. I don’t really like doing gif’s since it kills the rest of the colors. But I may have to for this one. The only other option would be to make two sigs, one with the french and one with the japanese and set up a rotation script like my sig. So the only thing that would change would be the quote. I would prefer that to doing a gif. But how would I explain to Vercas that if he wanted to host it himself he would have to grab both pictures and the script file? He doesn’t speak much english. I had a hard time figuring out that he was requesting

*sigh* I’ll just think about Brenu’s background for now.

I went to my first class at Humber today and I haven’t been inside a classroom in 5 years so I was very nervous. There were only 8 other students in the class and the teacher, Paul Minstrell, was funny and laid-back.

An interesting quote he cited:
From “As We May Think” by Vannevar Bush in The Atlantic Monthly: July 1945

Consider a future device for individual use, which is a sort of mechanized private file and library. It needs a name, and, to coin one at random, “memex” will do. A memex is a device in which an individual stores all his books, records, and communications, and which is mechanized so that it may be consulted with exceeding speed and flexibility. It is an enlarged intimate supplement to his memory.

He discussed several of the different programs available, like Quark Xpress, Adobe Acrobat, Adobe Illustrator, Macromedia Freehand, Adobe Photoshop, Macromedia Dreamweaver, Macromedia Fireworks, Macromedia Flash, Adobe Premiere, Adobe After Effects, Macromedia Director, Powerpoint, Apple Quicktime, Sonic Foundry Sound Forge, Sonic Foundry Acid Pro, Discreet 3ds Max, Alias Wavefront Maya, Corel Bryce. I noticed a distict lack of Frontpage, which I used to make the church bulletins and newsletters 3 years ago, and the GIMP, which I’ve used for the last 9 months.

He also commented, jokingly I think, that southern americans tend to think canadians live in igloos and have very little technology. I almost blurted out, “I do?” since I currently live in Virginia. I’m pretty sure he was joking, but it is a rather funny mental picture of all of Toronto covered in snow with little huts everywhere. Makes me giggle every time

Then we discussed some of the file formats, and XCF (gimp layers format) and PNG (transparency) didn’t make the list either. Though he did give PNG an hono(U)rable mention.

Last thing I wanted to comment on was that while I was taking notes, copying from the flash presentation I caught myself writing “colour” quite a few times.. It just felt wierd!

Today was the last day of the EX We took a cab to the Princes’ Gates and walked all the way to Ontario Place to catch the end of the Snowbirds air show. Then we went around looking for an ATM. We passed at least 4 that were turned off or out-of-service. The one we did find working had a line at least 25 people long.

After we had some cash, we went over to the Food Pavillion because we didn’t eat at all before we got there. I really don’t like that place, too busy, hard to find a place to sit while you’re holding super hot food. It’s expensive and the stores are often out of their “main” item. We always walk all the way around first to see what’s available and then split up to get our food. I wanted cheesy fries and a pogo (corn dog). I went to one place for the fries, which turned out to be under cooked, and another place for the pogo. The cashier at the pogo place kept insisting that I give her my $5 bill and 2 toonies.. When I was trying to give her a $20. I had to stop her from asking and tell her to take the $20. Just needless hassle..

After we ate, we went hunting for somewhere to get a pack of smokes. I knew I needed some before we got there but I didn’t know we’d be taking a taxi so I didn’t have anywhere else to get some. End up costing me $10 for a small pack and I got carded..

Then we got to the international pavillion, usually our favorite part. The prices are dropped on the last day and it was around 8pm so there was at least half as many people. Found a good deal on 12-packs of socks. Then we watched a bit of a dance show which was cool. Then Ken’s feet starting hurting because his shoes are on their last stitches. So we went to sit outside and caught the final performance of the Human Cannonball. Then we grabbed a taxi home. I usually don’t get to see much of the area as I’m driving through, I’m always watching the streets and taxis and waiting for directions. But I got to see alot of pretty stuff on the way home tonight. Maybe someday I’ll walk around there and actually check stuff out.

All in all, a tiring day but school starts on Thursday!

5 months ago we moved everything over to a new faster server. In the last few weeks we discovered that the database for my blog was MIA and there was no way to recover it. So yesterday I spent a few hours looking through blog templates to create this new blog. I never found one I completely liked but this one will do for now. Wish me luck as I attempt to customize it

You can still see the old blog HERE I kept it because even though there were no prize winning entries, there were some like “Good-bye Dopey-cat” that I don’t want to lose.

If you know of a good movable type free template site, I’d appreciate a link