Christmas week

I didn't expect to get much dolling stuff done while at my mum's place. I ended up doing less than I thought. While I can use a laptop touchpad for pixelart, I don't like it. It leads to me having an even smaller attention-span than normal so not much gets done. And I ended up doing much more Fields of Clover related stuff than I thought I would. Among other things, I've started a DaWanda shop for my mum. I don't think I'll be adding my cross stitch, it doesn't seem like the right place for it. Don't know how well it will go but currently there are no fees unless you make a sale so there's no loss if it sucks. Did a bit of cooking with mum and went and saw Avatar again. It was still as stunning and moving as the first time.

I didn't bring my Wii with me so I thought that I would play one of the old Gamecube games whenever I was sick of dolling. That was the theory anyway. I ended up getting addicted to Lost Kingdoms. I loved that series at the time and it seems that I still love it. Would be great if they made a new one for the Wii.

I spent Christmas Day alone with the dogs, playing Lost Kingdoms. I'm too anti-social to go to my stepdad's family lunch. But my sister, her boyfriends and Summer came over on Boxing Day and we had our Christmas there. They got me this Zelda wall-hanger, plus a gorgeous calendar on pooped puppies and Tales of Symphonia 2. Damn, should have brought my Wii over...

The next day was christmas for my mum's side of the family so we drove over to my uncle's place. I felt a bit out of place with both the grown-ups and the kiddies. But I still enjoy spending some time with them. From there I got Unseen Academicals.

Now I'm back home and sorry, I don't really feel like doing much arty stuff. I want to play the crap out of ToS2, LK and Okami (still trying to finish the game. I'm thinking I'll give up on collecting stray beads). I've already played a few hours of ToS2. It's a little sad that it isn't the same artistic style as the first one but it's still nice. Not so keen on the voice-acting, particularly since old characters seem to have lost their original actors. It's quite boring right now because I'm stuck on the tutorial and scene-setting stage. It's mainly long cut-scenes.

Hope everyone had a good week, whatever Christmas means for you. Even if it means nothing more than time off work.

Annual Duty

I didn't plan on posting here until the year was over. But I've just spent a weekend with my uncle and grandad and they never cease to fire me up. They have made appearances in this blog before. But no amount of my ranting can encompass why I have a problem with them.

One of the benefits of no longer having school holidays is that I can use it as an excuse not to visit them. Of course that doesn't stop the phone calls. I still can't avoid them over Christmas but at least I can choose how long my visit will be (ie. as short as politely possible).

Once again my grandad tried to interrogate me about what I do (like he does every single phone call). My uncle got angry and yelled at him so I didn't have to try and explain again. He'll never understand population genetics, even if he didn't have dementia. The closest he can get to understanding is working with mice and doing medicine. Then was the standard questions about jobs after my PhD. Then the standard lectures about getting jobs, moving up in the world and what to do to get a job. Smile and nod, occasionally say "uh-huh" and "yes".
His mind really has deteriorated. He would ask the same question more than once in the same conversation, let alone the same day. And so often he'll just say "I don't understand". I tried to explain why his senior movie ticket cost less than my uncle's adult ticket and he just ended up saying "I don't understand". He can't even remember things about his own car. He's had that car for 22 years.

My uncle hasn't changed at all. No surprise there.

One of the more distressing parts of the weekend was the toilet. It always smells. I'm sure they understand a window in theory but they don't seem to have a grasp of the practical side of it. Over the years I've learned to take a deep breath before I step in. And I've also taught myself to not look at the toilet walls.
The situation has deteriorated. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if they haven't cleaned it for ever a year. The caked on layers on dirt and grime on the sink was a hint but what was the most foul was the toilet bowl itself. Despite dying for a cuppa, may I resisted my cravings. Not if it meant that I would need to pee more often.  Oh the horrors...I almost wanted to take a photo of it so that other people could suffer with me.
The bathroom wasn't as bad but I had decided that I would rather feel a bit dirty for a day than have a shower there. Not without something to at least cover my feet.

My mum gives me the advice to ask to go to the movies. That means less time interacting with them or sitting on an uncomfortable chair in my uncle's bedroom. They have perfectly comfortable couches in the living room. They even have a fucking HD TV. Why oh why must we watch things his bedroom...
Anyway, I made the most of mum's advice by recommending we see Avatar. Not only was it a long movie but it was an expensive one that I didn't have to pay for. And with public toilets as an added bonus.
Avatar was awesome. So beautiful, good motion capture and a captivating world. The 3d was much better than the only other 3d movie I've seen. Stupid one-liners did let it down but could have been worse. Sigourney Weaver didn't know how to handle a pipette (though I'm probably right in thinking that only people who do use pipettes will care about that ^_^).

Food was it's usual terribleness. KFC, all-you-can-eat, microwave pizza...all the things that put me off meat.
They offered to drive me home. That really surprised me since it takes about an hour to get to my place and they don't really like driving that far. But they also offered to have lunch somewhere near my place. I was going to have some sushi but a decent meal from one of the many cafes on offer did appeal.
I should have known better. Of course they by-passed the nice cafes and homed-in on the crap fast food. They chose a pizza place (despite us having pizza the night before) that sadly doesn't do pizza at lunch. Shit pasta it is then.

There. I've done my yearly duty. I've done my ranting and will be able to rant again when I go to my mum's place tomorrow. I shall have quality food either made at home or from a quality restaurant. I shall not have to hold my breath and will be able to drink as much tea as I like.
I'm so glad I decided to visit them at the start of my holidays and not the end. It's all up-hill from here.

EDIT: My sister visited after me and even she didn't want to shower there.

Final art dump of 2009

The end of the year is finally here. I’ve been waiting for this moment...probably since April, maybe March. I think I can rate this as being the second-worst year of my life. Hopefully next year will be an improvement.

2010 will be the year of the Superb Blue Wren for cross stitch designs. In terms of drawing, it was so much easier than my poppies. Though I suspect the shading will be harder. Up until now I’ve tried to avoid birds and mammals with their feathers and fur.

Been working hard on my aussie bird series. Some of the designs seem to be working well while others need a bit of work. I’ll definitely be tool-shading these. I don’t think they’d look as good pixelled; at least, pixelled by me.
Bases made by Lithriel.

I don’t really know what’s going on with this. The idea was to do a kitsune in denim and this seemed like the best base for my idea. The ears started to suck and then I saw someone using the same base for a cat-themed doll and quite similar in design to sketch. Hey, what can I say, great minds think alike.
The doll was very pretty and just sucked the motivation right out of me. So now I’m going with horns, in an attempt to bring the motivation back. So no one make a horned doll on this base until I’m done!
I'm really liking this base. Look, she's got nails. I was originally going to go with sneakers but those feet are so cool, I don't want to cover them.
Base by Jo.

Not much to say with this one. Just trying to pick out some colours – preferably combos that I haven’t done to death lately.

Man my life is boring...

Avast fail

I use Avast. It was the antivirus program recommended by the uni. Every day it has a little pop-up and an annoying american accent telling me that the virus database has been updated.

Today I was analysing my data when a virus alarm popped up to inform me that my program was infected by a virus. No idea when I last did a thorough scan so I decided to give it a go. Avast informed me that it needed to restart my computer and scan before rebooting. OK...not what it usually does but I'll run with it. After all, it's just trying to protect my computer, right?
The problem with scanning on start-up is that you can't bum around on the computer while you wait. I did some lab work but eventually ran out of things to do that didn't require a few hours to do. And I had finished my book on the tram so...I guess I can do...umm...sudoku?

Over an hour later the scan had detected 92 infected files. Gosh.
There were so many files that my virus chest couldn't hold them all. I ended up deleting files. All of the infected files had the same name. It actually impressed me, the fact that a virus had made copies of itself into multiple places.
I then decided to get back to my analysis. Oh wait, I can't. I had deleted an important file. I went online and tried to download the program again. Oh look at that...another virus...this can't be right.

A quick google search informed me that all the virus detections were false positives. They weren't viruses, it was just a glitch in the latest virus database download.

Fuck.