Author: grasshopper

A Little Teaser

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Let’s just rename today Teaser Thursday!

I’m sure everyone’s feeds are buzzing with Star Wars awesomeness right now. If you haven’t seen the new teaser trailer, head on over to YouTube (I’ll post a link at the bottom). I feel like adding my own little teaser into the mix!

This is by no means on the same epic level as Star Wars. πŸ˜‰

Teaser cover!

I’m working on a novella (I took a break from editing Omg!Orcs), and the best news is that it will be a FREE ebook! Here is a snapshot of the cover…which may or may not change by the time I’m done revising the story.

Oh, and as for my Photoshop woes? They are over. I downloaded a free alternative (yes, folks, it is a safe alternative and not one of those “super optimizer pro double speed freezz storage support paint and remember that’s free with a double z!” scams).

The program I’m using now is called GIMP. Wikipedia has a good summary of it.

GIMP (/Ι‘Ιͺmp/;[5] an acronym for GNU Image Manipulation Program) is a free and open-source raster graphics editor[6] used for image retouching and editing, free-form drawing, resizing, cropping, photo-montages, converting between different image formats, and more specialized tasks.

http://www.gimp.org/ is their website. Click download, ignore the torrent (they have a normal download option in smaller font right below the torrent option), and enjoy!

Here is a huge shout out to all of the people on YouTube who’ve posted GIMP tutorials. You guys are the real MVPs! 

And now for some Star Wars:

Just Between You and Me…

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Uh oh, what’s this?

Original picture is from Babylon 5

We all have them, those little white lies…You know the ones. I suppose I’ll share something sneaky with you. Here is a selfish little truth of mine:

Click on the image to view the full size. 

So there you have it, a dirty little secret! Hey, I was looking out for myself when it came to exams. πŸ˜‰

Do you have a sneaky confession of your own? 

And I’m Back With Easter Greetings!

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From your friends at the Empire, here’s to wishing you a happy Easter!

Imaged edited by good old Microsoft paint. πŸ˜‰ You can never go wrong with the classics.

Fantastic News
More than you ever wanted to know about my new motherboard, CPU, and ram.

Last time I posted, I was lamenting over my computer situation. I lament no more! I have a tablet, and it helped feed my addiction to the Internetz, but it doesn’t have all the bells and whistles as a full blown computer. Tapping and scrolling are okay for simple, mindless surfing, but for anything more than that… *pulls at hair*

Elrond taking a selfie with the new goods.

I had a lot of help from my comrade in arms getting all of this installed. I learned a hell of a lot about installation! I ended up deciding to replace the essentials. For less than $400, I have a working computer that is twice as powerful as my old one. I had to give in because I need a computer!

My review of everything is posted below. If anything changes, I’ll make an update. So far I give everything 5/5 happy computers.

I’m still trying to find Photoshop. I found an ancient Photoshop disc from from the early 2000s (possibly earlier!). I want to do some more searching before I install my retro copy. πŸ˜‰

CPU: Intel core i5-4460 (quad core!)
I could have gone for a beautiful (yet pricey) i7, but I am not running any virtual servers or dummy terminals, and I highly doubt Lord of the Rings Online needs an i7, ha ha! So far this little chip is awesome.  I was terrified of installing it (my comrade in arms did the installation and showed me how to do it). It’s not so scary after all because it’s mostly a matter of “the round peg goes in the round hole; the square box goes in the square hole!” You just put a dab of the thermal past onto the heat sink and install the fan.

Motherboard: ASRock z97 Pro 4
My old motherboard was about ten years old. I had to get new ram (DDR3) to accommodate it. Eventually I will get a new video card (thankfully it has a regular PCI slot). It is a little smaller than the old one, but it still fits in my case beautifully.

I just want to rave about and praise how lovely the bios looks and how easy it was to install the drivers from the disc that came with it. The bios is more advanced than any bios I had seen before. You can navigate with your mouse, and the graphics are a step up from the old blue and white standard.

The driver disc came with a tool set that allows you to easily monitor the temperature of your CPU (among other things). FYI: you want your CPU to stay below 50 degrees Celsius (this is important if you do a lot of gaming or video/photo editing). It also came with Chrome. I am the queen of lazy. With the click of a few buttons, I had all the drivers, the tool set, and Chrome installed.

Oh, and the Operating System install? Within 30 minutes, it was up and running!

Ram: Two 4gig sticks of GSkill DDR3
It’s ram…It’s fast. It does what ram does and fits in the DDR3 slots. πŸ˜›

There you have it, more than you ever wanted to know about my new computer setup. I will shed tears when the credit card bill comes, but it was all worth it!

Computers Behaving Badly and Something Awesome!

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Where, oh where have I been? As much as I like the idea of traveling to the stars and exploring new galaxies, that isn’t the case right now.

The computer saga continues…
It had all the symptoms of a failed hard drive, so I did the normal thing and installed a new one. It worked beautifully for a few days. I thought that was that. Nope! I troubleshot everything from drivers, to faulty Microsoft updates, to the memory sticks. I even wiped everything and started over, which leaves only one piece of hardware as the culprit, the motherboard. 
Despite what people say, money does make the world go ’round. Without it, I’d be hungry and without a roof over my head. Until I can get more of said money, I am out of a computer (I’m working from a tablet).  Digital commissions are a no go for now, but I can still do old fashioned paper or canvas pieces. 
Well that was a Debbie Downer! How about I give you all some good news!
The Year is Now has joined the electronic world of the interwebz as an ebook!

For only $3.99, you can jump into the Empire, visit Pluto, and follow Elly and Pierson as they struggle through the wrenches that life throws at them!
It is available on lulu.com and the iBookstore (coming soon to Amazon). 




The Ballad of the Red Cart

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Resting on a sheet of ice
until Winter plays nice,
the Red Cart stands its frosty ground.

Before the ballad begins, I need to inform you all that my hard drive recently kicked the bucket. It had served me for a good, solid six years. I salute you old friend! Anyone who is computer savvy knows what that means. For those who aren’t: it basically means all of my programs are gone until I can dig through piles of discs tucked away in boxes. I mostly just need Photoshop and Word.

Without Photoshop, I can’t do my digital drawings. The red cart was drawn with my fingers on a tablet…>.>

Digital commissions are on a temporary hiatus (paper commissions are still a go though!).

The Ballad of the Red Cart
There is a large pond with decorative fountains at one of the shopping centers the bus passes every morning. This winter has been a cold one, even for northern standards. It didn’t take long for the beautiful pond to freeze over.

For the past month or two, there has been a lonely red cart sitting on the sheet of ice that was once a glorious body of water. It is there day in and day out in the same spot, never sinking and never sliding. I don’t think there are any souls brave enough to venture out onto the ice to retrieve it. What may be a proper resting place for a lonely cart may be a cold and wet morning of misery for a 100+ pound human being.

It’s one of those amusing staples of my morning and afternoon routine, but now that temperatures are rising, I may not see my lonely red friend Tuesday morning when I go back to work! The ice finally began to melt Friday morning, and by Friday afternoon, it’s front was tilted downwards, held up by a thick icy slush.

It begs one to wonder how many carts are at the bottom of the pond.