tavisharts' Journal

8:44pm: Momzilla from hell.
:/ wow... Glad I'm not going to have a momzilla situation.
I've decided to rant a bit because MOST of the news reports don't post the full letter. Which actually tells less of the story than whats there. So heres a link to it as well as my take on the situation considering a lot of the reports tend to make the bride to be look a bit worst than she probably deserves.

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/british-mother-carolyn-bourne-slammed-nasty-email-future/story?id=13975860&page=3

Yes, the daughter in law may have manner problems to correct. Not to mention there is a definite cultural clash. Whats ok in America is not ok Brittan and vice versa. With that said some of the "bad behaviors" are actually easy to explain... which actually makes this letter sinister... or just really sad and extreme case of ignorance. Heres some of the things that the MIL complains about it.

DIL didn't wake up early.
my explanation: jet lag. She did just cross an ocean to visit. This is sort of normal.

DIL was picky about food. Would eat before others and would often either say there wasn't enough food and would sometimes get seconds.
my explanation: the DIL is a diabetic. The mother in law KNOWS that she is a diabetic, she states such later in the letter. Due to this condition tho the DIL might need more food, not be able to wait if her blood sugar is going out of whack and was understandably concerned about what she might eat.

Talked about her diabetes.... a lot.
My explanation: well clearly the woman didn't understand diabetes... see above. As such DIL would talk about it. Perhaps in an attempt to get her mother in law to understand and stop glaring daggers when she explains that she needs something to eat. This is clearly a "I will be ignorant weather you like it or not" situation. She actually berates her on talking about her diabetes.

damn...

Admittedly there were a few things that were rude on the DIL's part: Like talking smack in the pub (but honestly... if I was running into this type of a problem I might make crude jokes as a form of tension relief. Still tho, that is rude.) And MIL potentially has a good point about the wedding. I don't know the details so I have no idea if this is an exaggeration in the letter. On face value tho if funds are a problem (considering the brides' parents are both unfortunately unemployed) a small wedding might be a good option.

I can't say that I might not have forwarded it to friends if I was in her position however... maybe just to show them and get a second opinion or at least have someone to cry/rant to. I don't think the DIL ever intended for it to go viral.

wow... just wow. I feel so sorry for the daughter in law. This is indeed a momzilla from hell. At least karma still works. Having this sort of self made dirty laundry go so viral that it actually got on the news is one hell of a comeuppances.

11:37pm: bwaa ha. I'm back.
I'm back... and with a new upgraded computer. :D

My computer used to suffer a lot with slowing down to a crawl. Not to mention my videocard decided that it's fan was an optional feature so I had to have that replaced. So for a while I wasn't able to really do much online. Not unless I liked staring at a loading screen provided to me with an old graphics card that despised the idea of smoothly scrolling.

I finally got my moles removed. After the tumor they sort of worried me. Especially because some of them were in areas that I could either not easily watch them or were in areas that got annoyed very easily. Most of them were fine accept for the two they decided to dig out and use stitches.

One of the two was behind my ear. So as you can imagine my glasses liked to rub against it.

The other behaved itself until the stitches came out. At that point it decided it didn't like how it was told to reform so it opened back up like a zipper. So I've had to keep an eye on it to make sure it didn't bleed too much. It still looks painful and very red... but at least it's getting better.


Also, my cousin is getting married. Not being able to attend the actual wedding I went to the pre party. Sadly, while there I weighed myself and realized I have a lot of weight I need to loose. So I've started biking every day for either 15 or 30 minutes.

At the end of this I will either be thinner... or I will be a plump chung lee.

new pictures.

7:55pm: Arizona
... Whats with arizona. It's starting to be whenever I hear something fucked up appears in the news I'm not to surpised it came from this state.

First the immigration laws (with no racial profiling.... yeah right. >.>)
Then trying to strip children of US citizenship.
http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/06/15/arizona.immigration.children/index.html

And now in their list of "really Arizona... really?" comes this abortion of sense and sensitivity.

I present you with the lion burger.

http://leisureblogs.chicagotribune.com/thestew/2010/06/more-on-that-arizona-lion-burger.html
http://money.cnn.com/2010/06/23/smallbusiness/world_cup_lion_burger/index.htm

Yep. Real lions. They are killing a threatened species and serving it up on a bun with fries on the side. Greatest part... we don't know where they are actually coming from. They claim some sort of "free range lion farm" which I highly doubt.

So... real lion meat from some sort of unknown black market that even the store owner doesn't care to learn about. Great.

I'm starting to wonder if Arizona thinks theres a prize for "most hated/fucked up state."

I guess next thing we should expect from this state is fried beer batter gulf dolphins, after a lion burger I wouldn't put it past them.

12:48am: Got hired to full time.
:D Well a lot has been happening.

Tax season is over so the calls have died down a bit.
I also got moved to permanent, so now I get all the benefits. And I can claim Clint as a "domestic partner" so he will be able to get on my health insurance and get his back fixed.

I also have some new art to show everyone. :D

9:57pm: update
I was asked to go permanent at my job. So thats a plus. I no longer have to worry about being tossed out after a year and I can finally get medical insurance.

I also filed my taxes. Because of how low my income was (unemployment) I got a pretty good return.

Also, I've been messing with some online pets. Here they are if you want to feed them for me.

6:01pm: WEST IS SHUTTING DOWN!
Sorry for the caps. I felt like it needed to be yelled from the mountain tops.


http://www.kbtx.com/home/headlines/87834407.html


It appears the rumors are true. On May 15, 2010 it will be shut down.


I have sort of a mix of emotions over this. On one hand I really disliked them and I'm pleased it happened with them. The management was bad and some of their actions were... insane at best so shutting down makes perfect sense and I'm a bit pleased it happened. May it be a lesson to all other bad management out there. It almost makes me want to do a dance.

On the other hand I still have a friend working there, so I feel a bit bad. I think this might be a good thing for him tho. He claimed he loved his job but whenever he got home the first thing he could think of doing was popping in a video game to shoot people repeatedly in the face. I take that as a sign that he is in denial.

West couldn't be west tho without doing something... typical of west even when closing.

The company has offered a severance package to its management staff and has encouraged other employees to apply for positions through the West At Home Program which allows people to work from home. Throughout Texas, the West Corporation operates 13 other call centers with some located in San Antonio, Beaumont and El Paso.

I guess thats nice. But keep in mind the severance is only for management. Everyone else is being kicked to the curb with nothing aside from "why don't you apply here too." So um... great for the management... >.> Sucks for everyone else.

I'm looking forward to the next time Jen and Zanne come down here. I'm sure they will enjoy a closed down west. :D

10:20pm: Update
Well.. I've been a bit busy.

I got a new image done.

I always like this avatar


So I turned it into a nice painting of sorts.


This one was a combo of both photoshop and open canvas 4. I used the two programs together to give it a different feel.

Oddly enough, open canvas is easier to make things detailed. Because of how it moves the colors and sometimes chooses different colors for you it does a good job in making things look painted and saves you a lot of time.
The background idea came later when I was playing around with it.


In other news... I have new odd pets.


They need a lot of feeding. But they are cute... and a BITCH to get on this site. >.< I have to go after the other elements now. This is only light and darkness.

8:46pm: Fortune cookies
Well.... finally after years I decided to update one of my more popular pages.

Oddly enough it's not my art that gets the most attention, it's a small fortune cookie page that everyone seemed to love. I had even stopped linking to it and people still found it.

After a bit I finally decided it was about time to update the page and add some new fortunes. I gave it a brand new makeover too. So please feel free to visit and enjoy the new fortune cookie page.

http://tavisharts.kamiki.net/fortunecookie.htm

7:07pm: bunning
Odd title huh? Oh don't worry it will make sense.

Bunning is a senator from Kentucky. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Bunning He's a republican.

Why would I make an entry about him? Because he caused me to rage today! >.< I swear if I wasn't at work there would have been some very strong words out of my mouth.

He decided for partisan reasons to hold all unemployed people people hostage pretty much. He is the soul person stopping a measure that would extend benefits. Meaning that if it isn't passed these benefits end monday!

And it's not just unemployment, COBRA health insurance subsidy is going to be effected too.

What might be more important than nearly 5 million people having enough money for food and rent you might ask? Balancing the budget.

Yeah... It's fine to want to balance a budget... but you don't try to do it during a crisis where those in question might very well not have enough to eat. >.<

Want to read more:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/02/26/jim-bunning-repeatedly-bl_n_477910.html
http://money.cnn.com/2010/02/26/news/economy/unemployment_insurance/

"tough shit" indeed.

10:18pm: Possible snow day
Tomorrow might be a snow day for me. This area of texas is gearing up for possible snow. If that happens I won't be going to work.

It probably wont sadly. It is Texas.



On another note I have a new hobby at work now. Because it's hard to wake myself up enough to draw at work (and my muse is on vacation) I've started to read manga between my calls. I use www.onemanga.com to read all of it. I've already finished dragon half and I'm now working on card captor sakura.

As far as art goes, I did make something new.



I created it for a contest on a site. The theme was science + valentines day. Heres hoping I win. XD That or get some amusing comment from the judge. I'm waiting for someone to call me a chauvinist pig again.

10:40pm: More fun stuff on deviantart
XD More pretty yuri.

http://moemai.deviantart.com/art/Vocaloid-tribute-Dawn-and-Al-140199019

I like the yin yang sort of effect with the colors. Also butterflies! Yay butterflies!

Also, for more fun with lesbians.
http://kl-chan.deviantart.com/art/Treat-or-Treat-142111526

Kl-chan has a lot of other neat things. I'm glad deviantart redid their update alerts for people I watch. Or I would have missed all the new full metal alchemist art she's been doing.

http://kl-chan.deviantart.com/art/rest-140659191
http://kl-chan.deviantart.com/art/Winry-and-Al-140245015 <- I swear this is the best winry boob picture ever.
http://kl-chan.deviantart.com/art/Fu-138031462
http://kl-chan.deviantart.com/art/nya-nya-137696703 <- meow
http://kl-chan.deviantart.com/art/BOY-friends-137695866

For more fun art.
http://ecthelian.deviantart.com/art/REQUIEM-113060880
Different artist but ooo it's pretty.

And she does yummy yaoi.
http://ecthelian.deviantart.com/art/Close-To-You-135006793
http://ecthelian.deviantart.com/art/Obsessed-141213819
http://ecthelian.deviantart.com/art/BITE-OF-BLOOD-141957556
http://ecthelian.deviantart.com/art/When-We-Can-t-Keep-Our-Secret-142205909

10:28pm: Valentines day
Well. This has been a rather uneventful valentines day. I didn't expect it would be otherwise. Poor Clint was sick. So we are going to be actually celebrating it next week.

It appears Clint might have a cold, his fever has gone down. He also has been having a lot of trouble sleeping. He tried taking some sleeping pills yesterday but today hes had a hard time feeling awake and sort of mopes about. I can tell he feels really bad. He didn't want to leave the house but eventually had to because it's also our shopping day.

I did try to make him feel better tho. I bought a cheap box of chocolates, gutted it and stuffed hot and sweet and Teriyaki. He was happy, especially because he ate everything else and that was the only snake food left in the house.

As for what I did today, mostly I worked on fixing pictures and a bit on my new queen of clubs one.

I also hurt my large toe on my right food. I think I sprained it yesterday. So it's hurt to walk around. Hasn't stopped me tho. For lunch I went to the mall, walked around a bit and had some sushi in the food court. Sounds odd to have sushi there but it's really good, nicely priced and has amazing salads. It was actually a nice day. Too bad the wind kicked up later and once the sun went down the temperature dropped like a stone.

Good part is that I have tomorrow off. :) More art and videogames for me. I've recently was given dragon age for my birthday and I've been playing a lot of it.

10:25pm: And more remakes
Somehow I feel I have turned this poor journal into an art blog

Welp.. time for more before and afters.

After fixing queen of hearts it was about time I dealt with her sister, the queen of diamonds.





What do you guys think?

5:51pm: Remake v2
Well.. More work on older pictures that I like.

I took another one where the face was messed up and reworked it. I was actually really surprised by how she looked at the end. It was a completely different type of face than what I was expecting when I started out. So I'm not sure if I'm completely satisfied with it.

Let me know what you think.

Original.




As you can probably tell my problem yet again was that the eyes were too wide.

12:31am: I worry for the lungers
For those who haven't heard the news yet, one Olympic lunger died during a training run.

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2010/olympics/2010/02/12/luge.death/index.html?cnn=yes&hpt=T3

Yeah. Whats worst is that this course has been bad to everyone. Even the gold medal favorite had trouble and crashed, his crash was on turn 11.

WTH.

Talk about one messed up course. I fear for these athletes. I don't know if I want to watch that event, I think I will be too worried that another one will get hurt or worst.

8:11pm: Very nice shojo-ai
XD Yeah, mostly I look for Shōnen-ai but I appreciate a good girl-girl every so often.

I found this one on deviantart and fell it love with it. It's an extremely well done Sailor moon fanart.

http://k-bose.deviantart.com/art/uranus-and-neptune-140024444

:3

1:42pm: Revisiting artwork.
Well.. I decided it was high time I went back and edited one of my favorite works. I saw several problems with it that I felt needed to be addressed.



Here was the original.

Sadly I had put it up for critiques at the time and no one really helped with it. I think the most I got was "her face looks man-ish."

Looking back that wasn't the case at all. It's not that the face looks like a man... its that it looks squished due to how long the eyes are.

Another critique was that the arm looked broken. I knew at the time that that wasn't the case, I could easily put myself in her pose. The problem wasn't the wrist but actually the shoulder. I had drawn the seam wrong for how it would attach to the jacket and that played a big factor in the arm.

So here is the new updated version. What do you all think? : )

10:57pm: I don't like the path "fine art" seems to be taking. Do not read if you have a weak stomach
( Read more... )

1:33pm: Damn riddles.
I found this on http://thereifixedit.com/ and nearly died from the title.

Elvish Riddles. Sneaksy They Is.

11:16pm: Proof I suck at keeping journals.
Well.. I think the insanely long gap between the first couple of posts and this one is good proof of my inability to stay focused on a journal. XD

I guess it's time for an update.

I worked for reynolds and reynolds for a bit then they fired me. Their main reason: apparently I suck at photoshop. I actually did take this as a rather big insult considering I'm a simipro artist who specializes with digital art. No thanks to this I was in a funk while I was job hunting and didn't get too many things colored.

Overall I think it was probably for the best. I honestly just couldn't connect with those co-workers. It was sort of odd that they weren't nerdy in the least, you would have expected a group of people that work with coding languages all day to at least play videogames. Nope... these were "manly men" who drove hummers and bragged about it.

I was snickering so hard about the hand fate dealt to them. One thing I remember them going on about was how even if everyone else goes to smaller foreign cars they would be driving their huge ass American cars... like hummer. Even if it was the last hummer in existence. Well, during our terrible economy GM had to sell hummer... to the Chinese. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31059625/
Oh sweet sweet irony. I love you so.

Well... after a lot of searching I came across a new job: at the bank of NY mellon. It's not a bad job, more phone work which really isn't the career I was hoping for. But during this economic times I'm glad to have it.

This Christmas I got a GPS. Which is nice because it means I can drive anywhere and not worry about getting lost in the next county.

I also finally downloaded trillian. Reason, because I still can't get Mirc to work. From what I hear trillian, on top of being able to allow you to sign on to aim and other instant messangers can work with IRC channels. Now I just got to figure out how to make it do so.

I do have some new art to show everyone. :3

2:48pm: Updating and CSS craziness
Long time sense I updated journals.

Good news is that I got that job.

Now of course sense I'm learning more CSS I'm going to town on profiles and everything.

Currently my livejournal got a makeover http://tavisharts.livejournal.com/ I'm hoping to have my insanejournal look like it soon. Sadly my insanejournal will not accept the CSS code I put into it. >.<

Also my gaia profile is getting a bit of a workout. http://www.gaiaonline.com/profiles/33658
I need to go back through and edit some of the code. There's a few areas that are being problematic and it's due to how I phrased some of the code in a few areas. <.< I'm not sure what I plan to do for the speech bubbles. Any ideas there?

I really need to get back to drawing. I have a few pictures lined up, I just need to get to coloring them.

10:23pm: >.> updates
Well... I suck at keeping up with a journal don't I?

So far what has been going on: just got into training. Sadly it looks like west is being a spaz. So far they have fired Jen as well as 4 other quite capable agents (one of which was a coach) 6.6 I don't know what is running through their heads. As such tho I have started to try to jump ship.

I know I have been telling myself that I need to get another job but this time I am actually going to do it. West is being too much of a spaz and my new schedule is going to suck too much to deal with.

I did get an offer for an interview today. :D It's for Reynolds and Reynolds. They want someone to help people over the phone with html, css and the like. I find this almost serendipitous. It was only a week or two before hand that I taught myself CSS. Let it be know that gaia has taught me life lessons. XD Take that people who said I was wasting my life on that stupid site.

I am praying for this interview to work out. T.T It would be so nice to get away from west... I might have Internet access to help get more information on html and css as well as just to play around. They might pay better too.

2:42am: Damn the illness
Well… so far this new year has started off rather bad as far as illness goes.

During December I got the flu which led to a cough while I was visiting my mom. This illness I got from Clint originally.

Afterwards I came back and got over it… mostly I still had a bad case of bronchitis. Gave the bronchitis to Clint. Bronchitis eventually let to Clint also gaining the flu or the cold I am not sure which. He gave it to me, of course it came with a few added bonuses, like two ear infections.

This caused what I believe has been the most absurd case of illness tag I ever had. Well.. I was mostly better except for the cough. As most of my coworkers would tell you this cough makes it sound like I am dieing.

Well. as fate would have it Tammy, my ride, got sick: combination of cold and flu. Well, being the idiot I am I figured “well I already got it not long ago what are the odds that spending a total of maybe 5 minutes next to her for a couple of days going to do. I can’t catch it again.” Well I was proven wrong.

So here I am with another 100 F° fever and feeling like utter crap. I am not sure how long I am going to have this but I am hoping it goes the heck away. @.@

Ah well. Blissful sleep for me.

9:22pm: I’m a boring little thing.
Well. Today was a so so day. I spent most of it fighting with install shield to force it to allow me to install maple store. After several hours I finally succeeded.

Odd thing about maplestory: It is an mmorpg… but it’s a side scrolling one. I may have to play it more before I come to any actual decisions on it. Looks like it might be fun and it is free, always a plus there.

The item update: I am far too excited about the upcoming gaia item update. It’s probably going to be insane how much gold this is going to drain out of the system.

From Juno’s journal:
“Hello, Gaians!


Alas, there is still some work to be done for the item update, so I am scheduled to release it by Wednesday, October 10 (or possibly earlier, if I can get everything organized on time.) Sorry for the delay! Halloween is always so busy!

Thanks for your patience, in the meantime. DX


*EDIT*...And I ran into some delays... . So sorry, Gaians - due to some complications, item update has to go out tomorrow at noon. However! This gives me an opportunity to stuff a few more items in there.

However, this is surely the biggest item update of all Gaian history. @_@ Hang tight, I'll see you guys tomorrow, guaranteed! o3o;;”

Biggest item update ever? That’s cool but this also makes it the biggest gold sink. Ha ha people will finally be forced to use the marketplace for more gold. They have been boycotting it ever sense the 2% listing fee.

I can’t wait to see what the items well be.

It’s sad that that might be the highlight of my day tomorrow. XP I am a boring little thing.

8:22am: O.o;;;; bad screensaver bad.
Ok… every so often I get a call that makes me go WTF. Got one this morning. I feel so bad for this poor guy.

At this point it’s pretty early in the morning and as such it’s almost the end of my night shift. Jen is doing floor support and I am twiddling my thumbs between calls.

Then suddenly I get a transfer from customer care. They are calling in with a customer on the other line who is having problems with our system constantly resending a wallpaper from t-zones to his phone. He called in once before about this and it didn’t get resolved. Ok. Not too bad, there is actually a case where the system might get confused and never gets the memo that you got a sms and as such spams you with the fervor of a crazed march hare. I pull Jen over and we are searching through the system to try to figure out what is going on and trying to find this long buried primus article on it. Sadly we never find the article but I remember enough from training to know some of the steps to get rid of this.

I send a few text messages through to see if I can’t bump the resending one off the que. Doesn’t work. It’s still spamming his phone about once per minute. Tries a few more things and it doesn’t work.

Turned the phone off then back on and it’s not coming through for a bit. The customer at this point informs me that the power cycling was done before and temporarily stopped it. I take note of this. Jen had asked that I check the status of the screensaver just to see what the system things and maybe credit or something to get the system to stop that.

I start to pull it up.

“So what’s it called?”
“Lighting strike.”

At this point I see the screen fill with just “charged resends for Lighting strike.” CHARGED resends. O.o I am scrolling down seeing basically an endless sea of these charged resends. I look over my shoulder at Jen who is also staring at my screen with her jaw on the floor. At that point it becomes pretty obvious that the system isn’t sending it to his phone because it thinks he hasn’t gotten it… but because the system sincerely wants to send it to him 100 times. Thank god we slowed this sucker down with that power cycle huh?

In the memos it shows another rep that saw this and set up a follow up to make sure any of the pending one didn’t show up as charges… that was nice.

This does lead to 2 conclusions. Either there was a rep that was far to determined to get this screensaver to him… or this was the work of a page refresher. >.<

Sent to tier 2…

The funniest part about sending to tier 2 is that I swear when he got to that page and opened it the phone went mute for a bit. I think he had to mute it for a second to get over the shock of what he just saw. I can just imagine the explicatives coming out of his mouth.

This is the second of my screensaver calls. Soon I shall have to post the first. What is it with me and crazy screensavers?