New Wallpaper Project!

I've recently been asked by a friend I met in the MMORPG Final Fantasy XI to create a custom wallpaper featuring his game character. I had started to make one for him years ago, but it was lost... somehow. Still not exactly sure where the file went, but we both kind of forgot about it.

Anyway, I'm pretty excited about this project because I've learned a whole lot since the last time I made a wallpaper, which was a year and a half ago... Man! What have I been doing these past two years?!

Below is my most recent wallpaper. It's from the anime Please Teacher!. I completely redrew the main image in Photoshop because I wanted the lines and colors to be smoother and more even than the raw scan was. Altogether, it took 9 hours to complete, and the background isn't even that great.

Also, here is the link to my profile on AnimePaper, the wallpaper site I post to. If you're a fan of that kind of thing, it's the best site on the internet for anime and game related wallpapers.


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Now playing: Andrew W.K. - Party Hard
via FoxyTunes

Garfield Minus Garfield

A friend pointed this out to me - it's a regular Garfield comic strip, with the big orange cat and all his lines omitted. From the website:

Who would have guessed that when you remove Garfield from the Garfield comic strips, the result is an even better comic about schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and the empty desperation of modern life?

I am not afraid to admit: I lol'd profusely. Here's the link - Garfield Minus Garfield

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Now playing: Gackt - Vanilla
via FoxyTunes

Happy Pi Day!

Today (3/14) is Pi Day (3.14). Festivities include calculating the area of circles and eating pie. So it's basically the 3rd best holiday out there, after Christmas and Talk Like a Pirate Day.

To celebrate this wonderfully geeky holiday, I made a peanut butter pie last night and brought it into work today. It was generally well-received, although it's quite high in calories. Probably almost dangerously so. But so are most things that taste good, right?



For the decoration, I stuck some strips of duct tape onto a piece of cardboard and cut out the shape of a pi symbol. Be sure to draw it backwards, which is actually more difficult than it should be. Carefully lift it off the cardboard and place it (sticky side up) over the finished pie. Then just sprinkle crushed-up Oreo cookies over it and lift the tape stencil off. Easy as 3.14159!

Peanut Butter Pie recipe from RecipeZaar.

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Now playing: Belle & Sebastian - We Are The Sleepyheads
via FoxyTunes

Photo of the Week #5

This is my blog-writing gear: I don the feathered cap, and quill in hand, painstakingly transcribe my thoughts to papyrus. The document is then scanned and faxed to a small monastery in southern France where a team of friars take turns typing the text into Notepad. The file is then emailed back to me, which I copy and paste into Blogger. So if it seems that I don't post very often, you now know the reason.

Bonus alternate post:
One of my favorite hobbies is calligraphy. I picked it up a few years ago and have practiced off an on ever since. I'm not the best, but it's something I enjoy and I find it surprisingly relaxing. I am a big font fanatic, so I suppose calligraphy is a natural extension of that. Or is it the other way around?

I've found a few uses for it, which is always exciting. My graduation announcements were addressed in calligraphy, and I have filled out the marriage certificates of two of my friends. That was especially neat because it's something they'll have and cherish for a long time. Maybe sometime soon I'll post a few examples...

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Now playing: ORESKABAND - Chuck
via FoxyTunes

Photo of the Week #4

There is a cat on my shed!

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Now playing: ai otsuka - Sakuranbo (Original)
via FoxyTunes