The Liquidfire Chronicles

F.C.P.R.E.M.I.X.

2009-04-17T07:56:00.001-06:00

Today I was around my new roommate Jordan - enough to know him better anyway.
He's into graphic design and has excellent taste in music.

I did play my guitar some today.
My post for today will likely be late, as I'm not in a writing mood.

He's got a lot of bands I like - I may get lots of new music at some point in the near future.

Today I picked up my new favorite song.
I've been working on
-Same Old Song and Dance (Aerosmith),
-3's & 7's (Queens of the Stone Age),
but the new one I like is F.C.P.R.E.M.I.X by The Fall of Troy.
It's a remix of another song with a bad name, but there's no real acronym-meaning to the name anyway. I like its lyrics.

I'm learning to play it on my guitar, at least the opening solo part. It is a GH song, of course.
I got the tabs at Ultimate Guitar, but I've modified them to what I've found made more sense.

It reminds me of my last day with Sarah... :(

I don't want to see the day
my words cannot make it safe.
Her heart in my hands - it's too bad - no regrets.

I don't want to see the day
tears are falling on my grave.
This is my one chance...

Back to ID... and a new blog title!

2009-04-16T17:18:00.000-06:00

Today has been a long, hard painful traveling day.
I didn't get any sleep last night, I've had little food, and I'm running on empty.

I've had a plane from Atlanta to Denver, from there to Salt Lake City, and I took a shuttle from there to Rexburg. I almost killed myself dragging roughly two hundred pounds of baggage across the country.

It's all over, though, and I'm here.

I worked in Photoshop while I waited for flights, etc.
I finally got a title I like, and I'll put it up as soon as I have internet again.

By the time I post this, it will be up.
I like my blog much better than before.
It was a pain to convert it's original reds and yellows to blues.
I have a better font than any that was available from blogger, so I used it instead.

For those of you with a good eye who've seen it, you'd recognize it as a clip from Fiery Collapse.

Question words and Moving

2009-04-15T16:20:00.000-06:00

I'm going to be moving to Idaho soon, so with this blog post I'm beginning to fall behind, as I've been so busy...

Today at iKnow I got a little done - nothing special.

The new-ish words were:

駅 - eki - railway station
おいしい(oishii) - tasty
大きい - ookii - big
男 - otoko - man,male
大人 - otona - adult

I picked a few good ones out of the sentences, though.
野球 - yakyuu - baseball
昼過ぎ - hirusugi - lunch
バラ - rose

要る and 空く (iru and suku) are the two that I've had trouble with of late.
The first is "to need/require", and the latter is "to be empty".
They're so short they feel generic and are hard to assign a way to be remembered

Today I've seen a lot of question/object words, and I need them sorted out.
So I'll make a list.

誰 - dare - who
何 - nan(i) - what
どこ (doko) - where
いつ (itsu) - when
どうして (doushite) - why

ここ (koko) - here
そこ (soko) - there
あそこ (asoko) - over there

この (kono) - this
その (sono) - that

Songs Old and New

2009-04-14T17:19:00.005-06:00

I've picked up another song from Guitar Hero.
It's Same Old Song and Dance by Aerosmith.

I can play all of the normal bits.
I can play one of the three solos.
In time, I'll be able to play it perfect.

It's an excellent electric guitar song.

It's not particularly easy, and there's not a perfect tab.. but I figured out the opening guitar solo out myself.

Darren's been playing my guitar all of a sudden...
I'm surprised to see they want to handle it now, esp. as I'm leaving Thursday for Idaho.

I've been busy - I've got lots of packing to do.

But I did put in a fair amount of guitar practice today.

I've been looking for the old version of Be Like That by 3 Doors Down that I learned. Darren's been messing with it.
I used to have that song perfect... on acoustic.

If I could be like that... what would I do...

Subscription and Bookmarking Images

2009-04-13T14:13:00.006-06:00

Today I added the buttons for RSS, Delicious, Technorati, and Digg.
I had found the ones I wanted on the www, but they were in one image.
The only solution I could find was to manually separate them.

Hence, today's photoshop project.

What I had to do was right-click "layer via copy" the best selection I could muster, and then fill in the left out white areas on a layer behind them.

All but the RSS were missing corners. I selected a corner of them and transformed the selection over the missing corner, then filled it in with white behind, like I said.

It was a big pain, though I was clever enough to get through it without a ridiculous amount of effort.

For those of you that want to use non-square images on your own blog/websites, here's how it's done:
- You save it as .png, having transparency.
- You upload it wherever (I use Photobucket)
- You include it in the code whatever way you is easiest. Basically you'll use an <img> tag.
For more info on the <img> tag, see Here.
If you're doing this and have questions, don't hesitate to ask.

My artwork for today is already visible, so of course I'm not posting under "artwork".

Caught up on iKnow at Smart.fm

2009-04-11T23:30:00.004-06:00

Today I did the usual 10 w/ 2 new, then one with 3 new... then an all 10 new!
The all-ten-new ones are harder usually... but this one had a lot I've just done myself.

First off ,there was:
高校生 - koukousei - High School student
上手 - jouzu - good, skilled

Then:
強い - strong - tsuyoi
七 - nana - seven (alternate 7 pronunciation)
they covered 二十日 / hatsuka / 20 days, surprisingly.

The two ones I had trouble with were:
触る - touch,feel - sawaru
痛い - pain - itai

The ten new were mostly numbers and family members.
Curious? See Numbers#1, Numbers#2, and Family.
The few truly new ones are:
暖かい - atatakai - warm
有る - aru - exist,possess
良い(いい)- good - often just in kana
上 - ue - up,above
動く - ugoku - move

I picked out two words from sentences:
誕生日 - tanjoubi - birthday
桃 - momo - peach

"Happy Birthday" is 誕生日、おめでとう。(tanjoubi, omedetou)

For you who are interested in this, but not particularly 私の日本語, it's pronounced
(tawn-joe-bee, oh-med-et-ohh).

My sentences for today are:
banana ga nanahon arimasu.
バナナが七本あります。
(There are 7 bananas)
I love saying this fast... lol... there aren't spaces in 日本語.

The other was had wind in it (kaze)
kyou wa kaze tsuyoi.
今日は風が強い。
(the wind is strong today)

I'm getting better at understanding the sentences without the translations... yay.

和
(peace.)

Bradley+Guitar and "Radio Song" Lyrics...

2009-04-11T13:38:00.005-06:00

Today Bradley was messing around with my guitar...
He has been thinking about learning to play bass.
I highly suggest he start with guitar, though...
To me, a bass is a dumbed-down guitar.

Even if it might be an octave lower, the only thing that I could think of that might explain why it even exists, it's still not worth the ridiculous comparison of prices and capability.

Anyway... He was doing all kinds of things with it. He ought to have fun while he can... I'm leaving for Idaho in 5 days... :( I'm going to miss Sarah... makes me nauseous just thinking about it...

I went and looked up the "Radio Song" lyrics...
They are French - I was right. I have a translation.

Radio Song - Superbus
J'en ai jamais assez, je suis vite lassée,
Je voudrais combler ce manque
Mon obsession me hante,
J'en ai jamais assez, je voudrais bien trouver
Que j'ai beaucoup de chance,
Me rendre à l'évidence,

We are we are on the radio now, the radio now !

J'en ai jamais assez, je vois toujours après,
Des fois je me demande
Comment je peux m'y prendre
J'en ai jamais assez, je suis vite lassée,
Je suis jamais contente,
On dit que je suis chiante,

We are we are on the radio now, the radio now !

J'en ai jamais assez, j'aimerais bien penser
A 2 centimètres à l'heure pour éviter les pleurs,
J'en ai jamais assez, je suis vite lassée,
Il faudrait que j'entende, un jour tu seras grande,

We are we are on the radio now, the radio now !
---------------------------------------------

I never have enough, I get tired very easily
My obsession haunts me
I never get enough, I wanted to think
That I'm very lucky
that I've become the evidence
We are, we are, on the radio now, the radio now!

I never have enough, I always see the 'after'
Many times I ask myself:
How can I be sucesseful
I never have enough, I get tired very easily
I am never happy
and they say I'm sanguinary

We are, we are, on the radio now, the radio now!

I never have enough, I wish I though
By 2 cm per hour, to evoid the tears
I never have enough, I get tired very easily
Is necessary to me to understand, one day I'll be big

We are, we are, on the radio now, the radio now!

Overhaul! New Blog Theme

2009-04-09T22:38:00.002-06:00

I spent ALL DAY yesterday coding my blog.
The thing's a nightmare to sit down and rearrange.

The Blogger code uses XHTML, JS, and other crap all inside CSS.
It's insane. No, it's a NIGHTMARE.

I spent forever trying to get my menu bar to work I'd previously given up on... Turns out, it was all Photobucket's fault.
With my luck, I'm not surprised.

I got it almost finished, and it's a lot nicer than before. What I decided was relatively simple: Use Moonlight Bestowal as a background. I made all of the other colors match, and I enjoy it. I wanted something watery and rainy for April, so I got it.

It's all blue! Blue is my favorite color... I could look at it all day...

The results are pleasing.
I wish the title area looked better, and I'll fix it, but not now. It's ok for this minute. When I find what I want I'll figure out how to put it there. I still am not sure...

I'm gradually changing the code, and it's becoming less and less restrictive. I remember back when I added my third column... that was a lot of fun. NOT.

Coding other people's code is annoying, no matter how carefully it's documented...
The Blogger theme I started with? Minima Black.
If you look at Marianne's Blog, Green Blue Purple, You'd see mine in it's early days, minus her ocean pic. I love her ocean pics, though...

Recognition... and More Numbers

2009-04-09T13:21:00.001-06:00

Today at iKnow I covered a few interesting words. I'm at 33%! a third of the way...

酸っぱい - suppai - sour
細い - hosoi - thin,slender,narrow
違う - chigau - wrong, different

I've never handled right/wrong before... now I have "wrong".
I wonder what "correct/right" is... maybe I heard it and forgot...
I reviewed つける(tsukeru) - "switch on" today... I also know 消す-kesu-"switch off".

I got two non-vocab words out of the sentences I picked out:
葡萄/ぶどう(budou) - grape(s)
美味しい - oishii - delicious

Hmm... bet I could make a sentence for practice...
このぶどうが美味しいです。
kono budou ga oishii desu.
these grapes are delicious.

There were two I keep screwing up on...
渇く - kawaku - to be thirsty (can't seem to remember)
ミーティング - mi-teingu - meeting (pain in the butt to spell)

I forgot about the # of things words last post... they're: (1-10)
一つ - hitotsu
二つ - futatsu
三つ - mittsu
四つ - yottsu
五つ - itsutsu
六つ - muttsu
七つ - nanatsu
八つ - yattsu
九つ - kokonotsu
十 - too
I think the numbers afterward are plain 訓読み ones, juuichi, juuni, juusan, etc.

Also on a last note, I had brand-new sentence I understood before I first saw the translation:
カップを三つ買いました。
cappu o mittsu kaimashita.
I bought three cups.

I'm getting better! I might try to find some serious reading material...

More Guitar Hero Songs

2009-04-07T22:14:00.000-06:00

Watching my brothers play GH III gives me ideas. I learn a lot.

I can play a lot of "parts" of songs... it's helping me broaden my abilities.
I can pluck faster thanks to The Seeker, for example. You can see it here.

Some of the stuff I don't even know what it's called.
Let alone who sings it.

Once again, on the left you'll find a link with Guitar Hero and Rock Band Tabs, if you're looking for songs to rock...

Today I picked up a piece called "Radio Song" by Superbus.
It's a weird part-English, part-French-I-think song.
I can play the opening perfect, not sure about the layout of it...

A peek? Sure.

Can't pronounce my favorite part... lol...

Photoshopping My Guitar

2009-04-07T21:56:00.001-06:00

Once upon a time, back when I was a little childish artist, I used MS Paint to painfully crop out an image of my guitar. That day is long gone, and the data with it.
Luckily, the photo still survived... so...
I went and PSed it. Isn't it wonderful?
I have my guitar at my disposal for anything I want to do with it.
Problem is, I'm not entirely sure what I want to do.
There's a mountain of potential, and I want to make use of it.

I've already played around with making custom brushes - I can make a million different colors and sizes and shapes of guitar randomly... I was being silly with that...

I'm just not 100% sure what my next piece of art will involve, and I don't know how to incorporate it. I'll have to think...

I can use just the outline for an abstract concept piece, and maybe warp it. Who knows...

Anyways, that's the latest project. I made a random monkey brush for my brother Bradley. He's a monkey nut. It's rather creepy to generate an possibly infinite number of smiling monkey faces.

I have two new brushes as of today... I wonder what I'll do next... I don't have anything big on the agenda. I still suck at typography, but I'm getting better... I may do some neat vector thing if I can find an inspiration.

I'm still trying to decide what to do for my blog for April...

Numbers and Days of the Month

2009-04-06T01:25:00.000-06:00

I'm not sure entirely how days of the month work in 日本語, but I have another down.

五日 - itsuka - 5 days, fifth of the month

In a desire to get all this, I've looked them up and compiled a list.

The other new one I have is this:
一杯 - ippai - full
I think I'll make a list of all the words with "一" (i.e. "one") in them.

Here is one through ten and twenty for now.

一日 - ichijitsu/ichinichi
二日 - futsuka
三日 - mikka
四日 - yokka
五日 - itsuka
六日 - muika
七日 - nanoka/nanuka
八日 - youka
九日 - kokonoka
十日 - tooka

２０日 - hatsuka

I think it's that they use the chinese pronunciation for "first, second, third" words... "ordinates", I think they're called.

A little FYI, there's nothing special to their month names. They're 一月, 二月, ans so on. Just ___+getsu.

Interesting... I'll have to see if there's anything else I need to know that goes along with these.

They call me the Seeker

2009-04-04T23:21:00.000-06:00

I've been searching low and high...

Today I've perfected another Guitar Hero song.
For real.

It's called The Seeker ...by The Who. Lol... who knew I would go after such a band?
I mean, if you read my stuff, you'd know I'm a Jack Johnson man.
I like the softer stuff.

Didn't stop me from learning the parts "My name is Jonas" or "The Metal" or "3's and 7's" though...

It's actually rather easy. You can find it and others at the Guitar Hero / Rock Band link on the left.

It is a fun one - I love the lyrics.
The chords are A,D,G, and C. Much of it a beginner could pick up. They're first-position chords. Of course, it's not all child's play.

There are some fast-plucking, and misc "realistic" parts most people would have trouble with.

Nevertheless, it's a good, fun song.

Here's a video:
ah... the sixties and seventies... lol...

I won't get to get what I'm after... 'till the day I die...

Turtle Soup

2009-04-04T14:40:00.008-06:00

I have finally gone and finished mom's other book, Turtle Soup.
I'm not entirely sure what it will be about...
She wanted me to do it like I did The Privateer.

The resolution on the image she has for this is way smaller than the other... This one actually fits on the screen... I cut the size of the original Privateer in half, and it is still significantly bigger... strange...

Luckily, This one was much better quality.

Here's her piece about it from her website...

Sea turtles may be endangered but after an encounter with marine biologist, Jack Brandon, nothing will stop Sara Hart from naming her deli, Turtle Soup. When Jack takes a job at the nearby Georgia Aquarium, Sara finds the environmental poster boy at her door, hungry and carrying a chip on his shoulder. Neither thinks the other has what it takes, until a scuba class reveals what lies beneath the surface. It will take food, friends, and a little help from Mother Nature, to help them see that making a difference isn’t all numbers and glory. It must begin with love.

I did it basically the same way I did the other...
I love the gradient I found for this...
I took the one from Happy To See You and I shifted the hue down halfway toward green and orange.

If you're curious about the method, it's relatively the same, so see The Privateer.

I must note, though, that moving the text to the spine was way harder, particularly the title.
I had to sit and rub with a tiny clone stamp, brush, and eraser for ages after I used select>color range... Where it touches the turtle, the colors are too close and it gets nasty.
I had to modify the spine lots, too. I couldn't just stretch the edge of the image. I did, but I had to battle hair and turtle to make them the right color, and make it all shades of green.

I love this one... I'm proud of it. I think I'm getting better.

More Family Member Forms

2009-04-03T00:59:00.000-06:00

Today at iKnow I covered another of the o___san words.
I believe it's the last.
I looked for more and there aren't any i want missing.
So...

Informal/plain:
兄 - ani - older brother
姉 - ane - older sister
弟 - otouto - younger brother
妹 - imouto - younger sister
母 - haha - mother
父 - chichi - father

Formal, Respectful:
お兄さん - oniisan - older brother
お姉さん - oneesan - older sister
お母さん - okaasan - mother
お父さん - otousan - father

Seems clear to me, if I got it right.

Today's interesting words:
そば - soba - side, vicinity ( a noun equivalent of 'near')

よう - way, like, kind (like "kind of", sorta, rather, etc. I think)

閉じる - tojiru - to close (another one!, tho a review... this is close a book)
閉める - shimeru - to close (this is to close a door)
締める - shimeru - this is to fasten, tighten (like a seatbelt)

辛い - karai - spicy, salty
三日- mikka - three days, third of month
来る - kuru - come

前 - mae - front, before ('前で/mae de' is 'in front of')

Here's a little one I picked out of a sentence... I'm sure of it.
りんご(ringo) - apple
Guess I ought to go learn my fruit... That's for later...

peace!

Studying Guitar Hero (Seriously)

2009-04-02T15:48:00.000-06:00

I'm not going to rant about playing the video game.

I'm saying I'm seriously studying it, from a guitar perspective.
I'm learning how they made the difficulty increase, and how it applies to the real songs.

I've learned several riffs from misc. songs already, and I can play one of them.
It's My Name Is Jonas by Weezer.

The tricks used to make the things that sound difficult are simple hammer-ons and pull-offs. With mastering those, I'll be able to play anything.

The Metal by Tenacious D (i.e. Jack Black lol...) I know most of.
If you know it or listen to it, you'll discover it doesn't sound easy... and it's not.

I've learned lots already taking this seriously, and if you're learning to play guitar, take a peek at guitarherotab.com, specifically GH III if you want to see the stuff I'm interested in.

It's all good... I'll add a permanent link on the left under guitar! If you're going there, you'd better have spent or be planning to spend some time at Guitar Cardio too!

I haven't had time to work on my song of late. I need to continue...

Moonlight Bestowal

2009-04-01T15:35:00.000-06:00

That's the name of my most recent piece.
It's a beauty, but it needs something... I don't know what...
Anyway, here it is.
I think it's one of the better ones I've done in some time. The name was spontaneous after I added the last touch - the moon. It is a wave of the sea tossing in the pouring rain on a stormy night. The foam glows in a surreal manner in the narrow stream of moonlight. It's very... poetic?

It's a theme that has always followed much of my music and poetry composition. It's rather strange to me to find that this is the best rain result so far. There's almost a little bit of irony to it - I was looking for something unique, and the uniqueness came out of a cliché of mine. Huh.

The rain was done by brushes of my own design. My ideas were heavily taken from this tutorial.
Aside that rain work, it was all purely mine. My personal brushes made the bubbles and the streamlines are standard-brush pen tool work. The bubble silhouettes on the right are my own gradient+circular selection idea. I used cloud/difference cloud filters, and I set lots of layers' blending to "soft light".

Homophones and Kanji... Yuck

2009-03-30T23:52:00.000-06:00

Today I sat down at iKnow... it still wanted me to do 40... so I did.

I've got this nightmarish conundrum I'm trying to sort out.
If I'm saying them correctly...

締める - shimeru - tighten, fasten
閉める - shimeru - close
閉まる - shimaru - be closed
開く - hiraku - open

They're all so similar it's hard to come up with ways to memorize! ugh...

I've also got
きれい(kirei) - clean, pretty
嫌い - kirai - hated, disliked

single vowel differences are a pain for me.
You'd think it'd be easier... like clean v. clone in English... but nope.

Two notable things I learned...
六日 - muika - 6 days, 6th of month
六つ - muttsu - six (things)
I need to learn the whole list of these...

I learned this too.
晴れる - hareru - to be sunny(weather)
It's easy, because it sounds close to "haru", which is 春, spring (season

I've been a little slow at responding to answers... I need to work on focusing better.

My other interesting misc were:
直る - naoru - be repaired, return to normal
お姉さん - older sister (another form... i need to go look up lists and differences. I think this is formal)
辺 - hen - vicinity, area, part
易しい - yasashii - easy, simple

The sentence I'm studying for the day is this:
私はパンよりご飯が好きだ。
I prefer rice over bread (or the other way around, i can't remember)
I'm trying to figure out how comparisons work.

More Practice... and Starting A Song!!!

2009-03-29T23:31:00.000-06:00

Today I finally sat down and found something!!!

It's in the early stages i.e. 1 verse, opener & chorus, but it's good!

No spoiler, I don't like to show my work 'till I'm done, but I can say the focus chord is Dm.

I'm using Dm, Am, G, C, and A.

Dunno if there will be another in the bridge (not there yet) but it's good. i like it.
It's not all strumming, there's a bit of picking to it i may continue to modify and mess with.

I'm getting better with practice at guitar cardio. In case you haven't yet received my recommendation, it's a MUST for those that want to get good at guitar.

I have a link to the left.

I still need to name the song. That's in the works, too.

Water Drop Attempt

2009-03-29T15:25:00.000-06:00

I haven't had time to figure out what I wanted...
It seems like the only good ways to do water are with a camera.

This is a piece of practice... I almost didn't show it. I am trying to learn to do cool water... this is comparatively lame.

It's not too bad, though. I'm learning, at least. The basics are layer styles. They are the easiest way to imitate water.

There are a large number of tutorials I've collected that I haven't had time to to that are worth a look.
Two significant ones are:
Water from a tap
Dark Rain - my favorite

These are out of 40 Tutorials I found a list of.

I hope to do SOMETHING april-themed... just dunno what.
NO EASTER EGGS. Sorry. I'm putting my foot down.

What do you think I should do? I'm saving flowers for spring.

iKnow I'm Falling Behind...

2009-03-28T17:55:00.001-06:00

Well, iknow yelled at me tonight for falling behind - it wanted me to do like, 50 of them!
Fat chance. It's late and i've got to get to bed.
I did 30, and only two words in each were new, some of them dumb numbers/weekdays still.

Today I will forbear a list, as there's little new anyway.

Here's the interesting stuff.

こっち(kocchi) - here
(i need to look up the "there" equivalent...)

開く - hiraku - open

つける(tsukuru) - switch on (to go with kesu- 消す - switch off !)

乾く - kawaku - be thirsty
二つ - futatsu - two things

Here's some I pulled from the example sentences.
The first was from "God, spirit" and other was from "why"
信じる - shinjiru - to believe/trust/have faith (in) (religious word)
泣く - naku - to cry
Tomar v. Tomaru
I have a language confusion I'm trying to sort out.
In español, to take, consume (like medicine) is "tomar"
In 日本語, to stay (overnight) (i.e. in a hotel) is "tomaru"

It makes memorizing 泊まる (tomaru) a pain.

Practice and Improvement

2009-03-26T22:01:00.003-06:00

Today I did a lot of work on my guitar. I played a little GH, but nothing mentionable.

I didn't create much, but I played all I know.
I got Hey There, Delilah back in shape.
It's a good song.

My fingers are killing me right now, particularly the ones on my left hand.

I'm getting better, but I need to keep going. I feel like I've almost slacked off.
I think I might head off to Guitar Cardio to do some exercises.

That should help.

I just had a thought recently... Eliza's older sister Abi is getting married this summer.
I'll be there.
I bet I'm going to be asked to play her a song... I might have one written by then anyway.
Scary thought. I might actually have to play in front of a crowd. I've never done that!

Anyway, I'll keep chugging along.
Here's the awesome vid.

Struggling with Raindrops

2009-03-26T00:14:00.000-06:00

Today I worked to come up with some kind of neat water/rain effect art in Photoshop.

That's what I wanted to discuss today...
Unfortunately, I failed miserably.

I did a few, but it's not what I want.

So I've decided there'll be a take-two on this. I'll show you some once i've had success.

Making a cheap water drop style in photoshop is easy, though.
If you draw something on a layer, and turn the fill to 0% instead of the opacity, only the layer style will show through. Do that, and use inner shadow, outer shadow, and bevel&emboss correctly, and water is actually very straightforward.

I will be more particular on the particulars, so to speak, once I get something productive finished.

Until then, I'll have to drown in clover... I really want to do a "rain" art piece, for April, though.

Going on to Grade 2... And Multitasking

2009-03-25T14:48:00.002-06:00

Actually, I have two cases of multitasking.
One happened, and the other is a long term plan.

Tonight I watched TV for a few hours, and during that time I had my 日本語 out on my lap.

I decided to write out the grade 2 kanji. It's helped me tremendously already.
As laborious as writing them can be, it allows me to see them in my mind.

That's necessary if I'm ever going to be able to write Japanese - also, it improves recognition dramatically.

The second case is my long-term plan. I plan to sit down and work at Smart.fm / iKnow as weel as writing. After I get done with grade 2, I'll probably write the iKnow vocab Kanji.

My vocabulary should begin to increase considerably.
That's provided I don't give up and slack off...

If you're curious, I just did the first 16.
They're:

引く - hi(ku) - (to) pull, draw
羽 - ha; hane - counter for birds&rabbits; wing, blade, feather
雲 - cumo - cloud
園 - en,sono - suffix for place, farm, garden, park
遠い - too(i) - far, distant
何 - nan, nani - what
科 - ka - dept., section, family (taxonomy)
夏 - natsu - summer
家 -　ie/uchi - house/home
歌う - uta(u) -(to) sing
画 - kaku - stroke, element (of art, kanji, etc)
回 - kai - occurences, innings(baseball)
会う - a(u) - (to) meet
海 - umi - sea,beach
絵 - e - picture, drawing, painting, sketch
外 - soto - outside

Moving on to Difficult

2009-03-24T17:38:00.000-06:00

I finally am posting my ones left behind again... this is the last for today.

At Guitar Cardio I just tried to do one on the level "difficult". It wasn't very... well, difficult.
It looks like the main difference is It was far higher notes.

Medium went anywhere from 1 to 11 on the fretboard.
The one I just did used 11,13, and 14.

I have to say, though... one I did was different. It was "double skip" triplets in C#, and they're a little more confusing.

I think the rule of thumb is to stay away from Medium until you're ready/capable of barring chords, and stay away from difficult until you've mastered every kind of chord in any position (like me, i suppose)

I bet Guitar Cardio would have helped me a lot more had I found it years ago...
But I'm obligated to make up for lost time if I wanna be good, then...

I'm proud of myself, tho... to be told I can handle anything cheers me up considerably.
It's nice to have a second opinion on your skill level.

The best guitarists don't tell people they're good... people just know.

Photoshopping From Scratch: Starry Scene

2009-03-23T16:23:00.000-06:00

I did a from-scratch (i.e. "real") piece of digital art the other day from that night sky tutorial I mentioned a little while ago. It took FOREVER.
I'm kinda burned out now.
Here's what the tutorial showed:
This is the one that I was supposed to imitate. Considering I did my own thing, not attempting to follow fully, I think in some respects I did a better job.

I do think he did better with the mountains, but mine aren't to shabby, considering the level of difficulty. If you go and look at the actual images, the resolution is different. His is only 1024x768 (4:3), and mine is 1440x900 (8:5/widescreen).

This is mine. His is "Night Sky". This I call Starry Scene. Unfortunately, the stars don't show out in this scaled-down image. I think you can click on it to see the full-size.
There are all kinds of differences. I added a displacement map for the water, which makes mine appear more realistic close-up, imho.
I thought his stars were a little rough, so mine are softer.
I like the elements in mine being more centered. Plus, his light-blue distant mountains seemed kinda fake - I faded mine - I almost removed them completely. My glow is lower, too.
Also, I colored the tree edges green, so on closer inspection you'd see that it's not just a black smudge - they are tree branches.

...
My mom's about to get a lot of website attention, and someone else wants to sell her book, thinking the image I did was of a real book! Well, They're a normally only-print company, and are making an exception in her case. I guess they like my pic!

Well, as her radio interview comes out the 7th, She wants me to help with a website tweak, as well as do the same for Turtle Soup that comes out in August that I did with The Privateer.
I'm excited to help. At least somone's cashing in on my ability...

Finishing iKnow Backup

2009-03-22T16:58:00.001-06:00

I've been meaning to go over some stuff I covered the 12th at smart.fm/iKnow.
It was the last time I put real work in.

Those of you with short attention spans can skip ahead to the highlights.
I like to put this list down for my own sake.

大好き - daisuki - loved (adj)
晴れる - hareru - to be sunny, clear up
汚い - kitanai - dirty
空く - suku - be empty
上る - noboru - to go up
髪の毛 - kaminoke - hair
茶色 - chairo - light brown
ご飯 - gohan - rice
つける - tsukeru - switch on
日 - nichi - day

月曜日 - getsuyoubi - Monday
今週 - konshuu - this week
開く - hiraku - to open
あれ - are - that(over there)
二 - ni - two
閉まる - shimaru - shut, be closed
締める - shimeru - fasten, tighten
水 - mizu - water
入る - hairu - enter
片仮名 - katakana

まずい - mazui - bad tasting, bad
ひらがな - hiragana
曇る - kumoru - become cloudy
触る - sawaru - touch, feel
駄目 - dame - no good
書き直す - kakinaosu - rewrite
飲み物 - nomimono - drink, beverage
木曜日 - mokuyoubi - thursday
曜日 - youbi - day of week
そば - soba - side, vicinity

Okay, now that's out of the way...

The Highlights

Things I take note of:

days of the week = cliché. See Here if you really gotta know.
Numbers = also cliché. See Here for numbers.

I did see the connection that:
taberu = to eat, tabemono=food
nomu= to drink, nomimono=beverage

So what's "mono" mean? I went and found out, of course.
物 - mono - thing, object

So now we know 食べ物 = "food thing", and 飲み物 = "drink thing".
Huh.

Aside a lot of basic words that day, I spotted:

汚い - kitanai - dirty
まずい (mazui) - bad-tasting, bad

髪の毛 - kaminoke - hair(on head)
and this 毛 for hair, coat, covering looks TOO MUCH like 手 for hand.
Poo. Oh well... I'll get over it.

Another Day of Practice...

2009-03-21T17:23:00.000-06:00

Today all I did was practice, again... I want to do something cool, but I haven't had the time...

For those of you who play guitar, and haven't been to Guitar Cardio.com, you're missing out.
The practice you can get there can't be replaced by anything else...

It's like every mathematically possible practice exercise in one place, and you can grab one randomly. It's getting my fingers stronger, I can tell already.

Also, you'll notice a few theory things along the way...
I found a neat little movable two octaves today, like on a piano:

---------------------------1-2-
-----------------------2-4-----
-----------------1-3-4---------
-----------1-3-4---------------
-----1-2-4---------------------
-2-4---------------------------

That can be slid to any position on the guitar. Add -1 for E, 0 for F, 2 for G, all the way up to +11 for E again!

I'm glad I've gone back there... I forget how much it helps me...

Doing a Book (In PhotoShop)

2009-03-20T15:33:00.005-06:00

Well, My mom has a book she's published coming out soon, and it's being sold online as an e-book, maybe/maybe not in print later.

For those interested in the book itself, it's about 18th century naval battles, I think. I haven't read it yet, but I hope to soon. It sounds pretty good. It comes out April 17th. You can find more at my link "mom's books" to the left, or just click here.

She wanted me to do an illustration of a book for it, rather than just the flat image someone threw together for her as a cover.

This is it.

I honestly had a moment of frustration when I first saw it way back when. I could have done a better job than whoever she paid to, had I had a source photo of such a boat. I just didn't help her because I didn't know where to find one.

I could do better water, better clouds, better lighting... It's not that bad, though. Still... I feel kinda dumb. I need to get better at finding source pics.

Here is my book. Or her book. Or whatever.
This isn't one she's using, but it's my presentation of it. She preferred a plain white background.

What I did was use free transform to give perspective. I moved a duplicate right and down once, then duplicated that a couple times with ctrl+alt+shift+T on the same layer. That made a front cover, with thickness.
I duplicated all of that and moved it left and up to be the back cover.

Then I used the single-column marquee tool to select the edge of the front and transformed it to make the spine. I put a low-opacity fill over it to make the spine different and darker and less striped from the stretch.
I copied the text from the original with color select, and used it on the spine via transform.

The pages was the tricky part. I finally ended up deciding to just do a carefully crafted white shape. I cut triangles out along the back page corners. You can't see it in this scaled-down image.

Last, I played. I found a nice gradient, I did a reflection, and I added mild shadows and lighting. I think it's a job well done!

Smart.fm History 1 - Meals

2009-03-19T14:13:00.001-06:00

I haven't spoken much about the stuff I've done at iKnow.
I do work there.
I need to get back more recently, but the 10th and 12th I was actually there getting things done.

Here's what I pulled from that day's practice and learning.

For those less interested, skip to the end, the more interesting part.

土曜日 - doyoubi - Saturday
金曜日 - kinyoubi - Friday

神 - kami - god, spirit (important in scripture!)

晩 - ban - evening, night

お父さん - otousan - father (i know お母さん - okaasan - mother, too)

太い - futoi - thick, fat
痛い - itai - painful
多分 - tabun - probably
時計 - tokei - clock, watch
どうして - doushit - why
掛ける - kakeru - hang, put on
曲がる - magaru - turn
泊まる - tomaru - stay overnight

おなか - onaka - stomach
閉める - shimeru - close, shut
嫌い - kirai - dislike
要る - iru - need, require
無い - nai - to not be
黄色い - kiiroi - yellow (a color!)
風邪 - kaze - cold (illness) (kaze means wind, too)
優しい - yasashii - gentle, kindhearted
ミーティング - mi-teingu - meeting (an english steal, obviously)

the interesting part

There are three (well, four) words I've picked up that apparently are used for meal words.
朝 - asa - morning
昼 - hiru - afternoon
晩 - ban - evening (same one seen today)
ご飯 - gohan - rice

Add them and you get:

朝ご飯 - asagohan - breakfast
昼ご飯 - hirugohan - lunch
晩ご飯 - bangohan - dinner

I guess all they eat is rice... lol...

Songs Remembered

2009-03-18T14:01:00.000-06:00

I wrote Eliza a song to the tune of "Hey There, Delilah" ages and ages ago, for her sixteenth birthday. She brought that up and wants me to dig out the lyrics and send them to her.

I need to figure out what I did with them. They are buried away between paper and computer files. I have to sit down and reconstruct them, because I never had a hard final copy - it was all in my head.

Yuck. I want to do it and will, but that's hard enough, considering I'm still trying to figure out what I did with those lyrics I need to get to Alyssa (no, I haven't forgotten).

Hmm... Oh, and to make things worse, her mom wants me to record it. I'm not big on doing recording!!! It's not like I have a way to do a decent quality recording. I'll have to come up with something, for my sake.

Why I care? I dunno. There was a song I wrote for Sarah, but I never had an opportunity to play it for her, as dumb as that is. I ought to reconstruct that, too.

Well, amid all this nuttiness, I want to write something else. Just makes my blood pressure go up thinking of all this. Maybe I need to go do something else. Peace out.

BubbleWorks

2009-03-17T13:43:00.000-06:00

'BubbleWorks' ...
is the name of my newest art piece. It looks better full-size, as usual, but For what you already see it's not too bad. It was fun. More of a toy than a piece of art.
I didn't learn anything. I hated the tutorial. It was one of the ones I listed yesterday. Another one was dumb, too. I didn't even try it.
I have two left to look at, and if they're worth what they appear to be, I'll have something to show next time. We'll see.

Anyways, the things I covered in this were tricks like inventing a layer style and copy-pasting it to multiple layers. You'd be surprised how much spice that can add without significant effort. It all adds up pretty quick. I played with designing my own brushes for it. Nothing significant, though.

One thing I did learn significant today, however, is that you can make a shape with selections, and modify them, especially with free transform. Then you can fill them with a color, a gradient, and add layer styles to your heart's content!

Using layer styles and old/plain brushes often feels like cheating. It can do wonderful things, but it's easier to be proud of your work when it's your concept or creation. My Feeling Lucky Four-leaf clover (and background brush) were all from stuff I did myself with the pen tool. I can credit it all to my own idea. I'm proud of that one. I did good. If you're ever doing art you want to have value, at least to you, keep that in mind.

Finally Finished!!! (With My Writing Practice)

2009-03-15T22:44:00.000-06:00

I've got to stop writing these so late at night. Also, I need to actually go to my blog and post them... I'm falling way behind...

Anyway, I finished with my Kanji writing and I'm going to do some examination on what I've learned. I can't write all of them a million times each... there's literally thousands of them. It would take years at this rate.

I need to learn what I've learned, such that I can improve my overall, rather than each individually. maybe there's a place online with guidelines for determining the stroke order or something.

I am going to re-write them beneath a place where I wrote them all beforehand. That way, I'll be able to compare how much I've improved.

I may start writing Grade 2 ones, but there's twice as many. (exactly... 80 vs. 160)
So... yeah. I don't know. It'll be a lot of work. I really need to get back to iKnow/Smart.fm.

Next time I might post some stuff I've written down that I learned there recently.

Playing Guitar (Hero) Again

2009-03-14T22:32:00.000-06:00

On a side note, I'm well under way on beating Expert on GH. I rock in every meaning of the word. lol...

I've got back to playing my guitar more (finally), and I must say I feel kinda stuck.
I haven't done much new of late.

I'm thinking of writing a song, and I have the material to do so, but no lyrics.
However...

The gears are turning.
That's my expression for "i'm thinking about it".

What do you guys think? It's kinda strange to ask the internet questions, but seriously...

What topic do you think I should choose? Any ideas? I want to pick something unique.
Something close to me, but no mushy cliché love song.
It has to have meaning... I don't want it to be silly, otherwise I'd pick randomly.
I want it to be GOOD. Something people would want to listen to.

I wonder....
Well... if you've any suggestion, comments are always welcomed.
Enough musing for one night.
もう寝よ。

Photoshop Finds

2009-03-13T22:17:00.000-06:00

Couldn't find anything worth doing until late this evening, so I'm writing this late and don't have time do anything.

I'm excited, though - I have bunches of things I want to try.

At psd|tuts+ there's a neat tutorial I want to emulate with my own stock photography here.

There's a place called eyesontutorials that has these two tuts I want to try - they're abstract art, but still... I like that kind of thing. One's called Digital Life, and the other Color Variations.

The fourth one is a beautiful illustration at AdobeTutorialz, called Night Sky.
This will be the centerpiece for a work I'll do in the future - I like it a lot.
More importantly, if I can do it, I can do it better.
Not to be arrogant, but if I see something I might outdo, I like to accept the challenge.
To me, that's part of learning. Sometimes I win, sometimes I lose. I learn either way.

Well, I hope to have something cool next time folks. We'll see...

Continuing to Write

2009-03-13T00:34:00.000-06:00

Nothing new to report in the Japanese department.
I am still writing the grade 1 kanji over and over... how tedious.

I know many of them by memory.

一、二、三、四、五、六、七、八，九、十、百、千
日、月、火、水、木、金、土
子、人
大、中、小、出、右、左
赤、白、青
学、校、本、先、生、年
天、気
足、手、見、
山、
早、空、
円

These are some on the list I know how to say without looking.
Most of the ones I can't I know how they look and mean, just not a word with them off the top of my head.
If there's any you wanted to know, once again you'd find them in The First 80 Kanji.

What I've Done

2009-03-11T23:54:00.002-06:00

That's a song by Linkin Park I learned about from a friend.
It was Thomas, from when they came down a while back.

I've heard it before, but I still like it.
I don't have it, and I think I'm going to get it.

I'm going to learn to play it on guitar.
Yes... That's why I brought it up. today's a guitar day.
I'm listening to it as I write this.

It's a very inspirational song.
It reminds me of the All-American Rejects' Move Along, as far as mood goes.

The beginning is easy to play... and fun.

If any of you wonder, I learn to play songs by doing tab searches at Ultimate Guitar.

I love this youtube box... It's pretty shweet.

Let mercy come... and wash away what I've done.

Feeling Lucky?

2009-03-10T23:53:00.001-06:00

That's actually the name of a piece I did for March.

I drew a clover from scratch and made it into a brush.
Voilá!
I love it. I may even use it as my background to my blog at some point.
I took the brush I made and played with the dynamics.
I made several scatters with gradually more and more blurred with low opacity toward the bottom. The result is a slight depth of field... It has depth. It's probably one of the shortest works I've done in a while, and considering how much I like it, it was far worth it.

In other news, Rob is a pen-tool PRO! Who knew I could do something so beautiful so easily. My drawing abilities leave a lot to be desired, but they do occasionally come through when I actually use them.

I think I should have put an outer glow on the main clover. I probably will at a later date - it would look much better that way.

Dragging through the Kanji

2009-03-09T22:28:00.001-06:00

In my last piece on 日本語, I showed you the old grade 1 kanji I've been learning to write.

I'm still working on that. Not much has happened of late, though I am beginning to face some difficult realizations.

First off:
-Kanji have right to left strokes , it seems. And all kinds of other strokes.
(are you kidding!? I'm a cursed American. I wasn't taught to do this before!)

I'm learning to write correctly, as far as I can tell. Rather than look up online how to draw them, I'm just figuring it out by looking at the details. I draw them all kinds of ways, over and over until I get it right.
It's very slow and monotonous work, but I hope to see an increase in my abilities as time goes on.

There's not much to report on, other than I feel like a kindergartner. Well, I can only handle one column on that list in Writing the Kanji at a time. And yes, I'm going right-to-left. Lol...

So, yeah. That's all I got to say 'bout that.

Learning to Play Something Fun

2009-03-08T22:37:00.001-06:00

I haven't had much to keep me going lately, at least as far as guitar is concerned.
I have looked for new things to do, but I keep spacing off and doing other things.

The latest obsession is writing those stupid Kanji. How pathetic.

I've looked at some like Cliffs of Dover, but some are multi-instument, and some are just too hard. I need to find something to further my guitar-playing abilites.

I have been toying with new chord groups, and I might write a song if I find some I like.
I have a chord progression encyclopedia I got at a music store years ago... I'm thinking of pulling it out to use again. It's come in handy before.

Well, maybe I'll have a cooler discovery next time.
Sayoonara.

Photoshop Issues and a Tip

2009-03-07T22:44:00.002-07:00

I haven't got much done lately, as my PS has been issue-ey.

Well, I would love to have something to show, but unfortunately I don't.

Well, actually I do. There's a pseudo-tutorial Here that discusses how to keep the file size on a .psd down. That's always helpful, because anyone who works in PS as much as I do would know how much of a pain it is to have enormous files. they're hard to move, massive folders take ages to open, etc.

So my life is made easier by the internet once again... if only marginally.

I found a neat transparent glass tutorial for text, if anyone wants to see it.
I've noticed PSDtuts has changed, as their series of websites has become tuts+. so now it's
psd | tuts+
I like the feel a bit better. I use their site vector | tuts+ for Illustrator.

Hopefully I'll have a pic to show you next time around. Until tomorrow, folks.

***March 18
I left my laptop for a long time - though my life still goes on. I have a pile of posts to put up. I'll put up several a day till it's live. Sorry for the backup - to those of you who actually care.

Smart.fm Habits and Writing the Kanji

2009-03-06T23:35:00.005-07:00

Lately I've had trouble with Smart.fm/iKnow always wanting to be down. They have issues to work out - having moved their servers from Japan to San Fran in a day, and I'm not mad... still - it makes it hard to maintain my habit of practice when I don't know when I'll be able to.

Today had a ridiculous amount of review.
All that was new was 2 each time. I covered these:
始まる - hajimaru - to begin
食べ物 - tabemono - food
ゲーム (ge-mu) - game
十 - juu - 10
天気 - tenki - weather
暑い - atsui - hot, warm

Desperate for for new material, I identified these along the way.
かゆい (kayui) - itchy
海 - umi - sea, beach
窓 - mado - window
ビデオゲーム (bideoge-mu) videogame
近所 - kinjo - neighborhood
皿 - sara - plate, dish

Hopefully next time I'll see more new.

These are the 80 Grade one Kanji I've been working on writing. I've done the first four columns so far. I'm writing them repetitively kindergarten-style. I've seen marked improvement in my ability to see them in my head - recognizing and reproducing are two different things.
I'm learning to "write" better now!
You can find the meanings in my First 80 Kanji Post.

Credit for these goes to http://www.learn-japanese.info/

Beating Hard - Upside Down

2009-03-06T01:01:00.001-07:00

I beat it!!! I beat the Devil Went Down to Georgia final battle!
I was extremely pleased with myslef... seems like I've been finghting to for weeks.
I'm trying to F.C. (100%) all of easy for fun... if we get five stars on all we'll get a new guitar, supposedly.

Enough Guitar Hero.

Jack Johnson! I'm so cliché.
Lol... no, seriously. tonight Thomas showed me a music video of him doing "Upside Down" for Curious George.

It's kinda cute to me, and I love the song.
This one I actually recommend you check out.

Watch it! It's cool.
I'm SO learning this one. I love JJ. Even more.

If you're interested, Eliza brought me on to this very sad one.
It parallels some stuff she's dealing with so well it just about made me cry.
It's White Horse, by Taylor Swift.

I also want to give a shout out to Andrea... I know it sounds silly, but I wasn't aware videos could be put straight in until I saw her do it... I just was a little slow on making the connection that I could figure out how to do it as well. I may be a veteran of the internet, but I'm new to the creating/coding/blogging side of it.

Well... I've been staying up because Stacy and Darren took Thomas to the hospital over his asthma. I was goung to stay up till they got back, but it's almost 3:30. I've got to sleep eventually. Peace.

Been Kept Away... but Happy!

2009-03-05T00:49:00.000-07:00

My parents had to go to Las Vegas for a writer's convention and with me and my brothers left here at home, we're not on allowed on the internet until Stacy&Thomas get here... so it means I won't be on the internet for a few days... this will be late... poo.

Anyways, I did some artwork I hadn't had ready to show till now.
It's Happy to See You.
I have been meaning to look into the minimalist art or whatever they call it... where there's just a simple subject. Playing with a tutorial that looked both important and annoying, I decided to make a smiley face in ridicule of the aforementioned tutorial. It came out so much better than I expected I made it into it's own little slice of art. The back gradient took forever - I was toying with colors for ages. I finally settled on white, light yellow-green, a light cyan, and a medium sky blue.

I like it. I put it as my desktop wallpaper temporarily. How many works of art can be described so well by as little as two characters? :)

iKnow Is Now A Part Of Smart.fm

2009-03-04T13:36:00.008-07:00

Today sucks. iKnow is GONE.
By gone I mean they removed the iKnow website.
iKnow was a learning application that the iKnow site provided. Now it's Smart.fm.
The iKnow application is still there, but iKnow's website that held my items in progress, etc. appears to be gone. I had to create a new username for Smart.fm.
the iKnow address redirects to Smart.fm now.
well... it's not all bad.
I'll just move on to the Part 2 of the Core 2000 series I had been in.

The review over section 1 was getting old, anyways.

Today I worked some, but the site keeps going up and down, so I am not sure it saved...

Here's what I have to cope with for now:
時 - toki - time
閉じる - tojiru - close
切る - kiru - to cut
米 - kome - rice
線 - sen - line
決まる - kimaru - to be decided (I know i've used this kanji somewhere before... hmm...)
楽しい - tanoshii - fun, enjoyable
服 - fuku - clothes
後ろ - ushiro - back, behind
嬉しい - happy, glad

日曜日 - Nichiyoubi - Sunday (redundant... i know this)
開ける - akeru - to open, unlock (scarily close to makeru-to lose)
腰 - koshi - hip, lower back
昼 - hiru - daytime, midday
お母さん - okaasan - mother (huh... a form i didn't know)
留学生 - ryuugakusei - student studying abroad (i.e. foreign exchange student)
大学生 - daigakusei - college student (thought i did this... must remember 大学校 (college))
終わり - owari - end, conclusion (the noun form of owaru-to end I suppose)
背 - se - height
手伝う - tetsudau - help, assist

鼻- hana - nose
起きる - okiru - to occur (this is from last time! I knew 大学生 looked familiar!)
熱い - atsui - hot (something actually useful... finally.)
載せる - noseru - to place, put on (apparently you can use either kanji - 載 or 乗 )
悲しい - kanashii - sad
愛する - aisuru - to love, care for (i already know this kanji)
近く - chikaku - vicinity, nearby (another I already knew)
しゃべる(shaberu) - to chat, talk (doesn't have a kanji, oddly)
甘い - amai - sweet (food)
テーブル (teeburu) - table (an English steal)

now I have to deal with English homophones... close/clothes... lol...
well, they're not really homophones, but close enough to be disorienting.
Oh, and "sen" is also 千 - 1000. So yeah, homophones, anyone?

Anyone watch Naruto? Enough to know the character Gaara? The kanji on his forehead is love.

愛

And now for some naughty/immature humor just because I can:
彼女はお母さんが熱いです。
kanojo wa okaasan ga atsui desu.
ever heard that weird/dumb song stacy's mom? lol...

well... I can say more things now with my better vocab... like
昨日私は新しい服が買いました。
kinou watashi wa atarashii fuku ga kaimashita.
Yesterday I bought new clothes.

Well... lets keep the vocab rolling I guess... lol... I hope iKnow or Smart.fm or whatever saved my work.

Playing Guitar (Hero +/- Hero)/2

2009-03-03T12:54:00.000-07:00

It's a math trick for being both guitar and guitar hero, for those of you not in a thinking mood.
I was bored and did that to entertain myself... it's something I used to use in programming.

The whole title thing?
My brother was playing Barracuda on expert and I was sitting there with my real guitar playing along. I learned it as he went... lol... I'm getting better at playing by ear.

I've been playing all the songs I know, and I needed to pick up something new... so I did.

It's called Taylor by... yep. Jack Johnson.

I know it should get rather old to keep learning his songs...
But every time I do, I learn something I needed to, something significant.

This time around it's getting more serious on the hammer-ons and pull-offs. I wouldn't have been capable of doing it until now. I've thought about learning this one for months, though, so it's about time. It's a good thing I didn't, too because I probably wouldn't have been able to and would have given up.

Eliza discovered Fall For You by Secondhand Serenade, and I haven't played that one in ages. It's one that's technically piano, but it's the type that sounds good on guitar too.
Too bad How to Save a Life (by The Fray) doesn't, or I'd have learned it too.
I feel obligated to brush up on it. It's just C,F,G, and Am, but because that's all they use, it's shuffled up so many ways that the memorization is a nightmare.

Incoming!!! New Artwork

2009-03-02T12:57:00.001-07:00

I have a lot of new stuff I've spit out since last time... I can't even show it all now... I'm saving some for next time!

First off... Fiery Collapse
This one is my first attempt at artwork using zoom and spin in (filter, blur) radial blur. It is almost a concept piece in that respect. I like it - to me it's matter approaching the event horizon of a black hole. Nobody knows what happens once it's beyond that line. Not even light can escape it, so once info or material goes in, nothing comes out - there's no way to know. As things are squished with near infinite force, the temperatures generated are ridiculous. That's why my colors of choice were red, yellow and white.

This one is called Vector Exit
I like this one probably the most out of the three. It's arrows and bubbles fleeing toward the horizon. Toward what? From what? that's for you to decide. It was all transform - perspective that did it - unfortunately I had to battle against quality loss.

It has almost a sci-fi feel to it - like it's some white room opening into outer space. Life is like that; you're sucked into the future whether you like it or not.

This is Positive Influx
I did this one similar to the first, but there was a lot more play to it. I added colors on a top color-mode layer with a soft low-opacity brush. It's the energy flowing through the electrons in an electric cord of some kind. It started as an attempt to make my own brushes, which had a give-a-mouse-a-cookie effect... one experiment led to another until I did a whole image. I originally hadn't planned on doing anything else today, what with the other two and all.

Like I said, more next time... That's Thursday, I think.

iKnow is going down... and Kanji Grade 2

2009-03-01T12:37:00.001-07:00

I need to get on iKnow more... It's supposed to go down for a while for renovation around Wednesday.

I haven't got too much done today.

You'd think I would, as it's Sunday, but I really haven't been up to anything, really.
It's falling back and I've been doing more of photoshop.

I'll get practice in, though. I can't stop just because I have less interest than usual.

I think I'll work on finishing up the Grade 2 jouyou kanji.
There's 160 of them, as opposed to the 80 I listed (in The First 80 Kanji)

I think I have like, 75% of them or somewhere about there to where I recognize them. I need to get to work in that area, though. That way I can move on to better things.

I might list them in a few days... and add the post to my Japanese Resource site.

It takes time to put such an enormous list together, though. I have to have the kanji, kana/romaji, onyomi and kunyomi together in a chart I code myself... it's rather tedious.

I also need to sit down to paper an pen and draw the kanji over and over. That should help my ability to recognize and/or reproduce them considerably.

Triplets and Fingering

2009-02-28T13:04:00.000-07:00

On a side note, I beat One by Metallica on GH finally.
All I have is left now is the finale -
the battle against the devil playing Devil Went Down to Georgia.
It's both the most entertaining battle and most difficult (he's cheating scum.)

Anyway...
Today I worked on playing better, faster, etc. - It's hard work.
I got my chord progression encyclopedia out and played through the front.
I may get serious and do a harder chunk in a bit.

The latest work is toughening and improving my fingers.
I have been using my index+middle+ring to play triplets on three strings, and I'm trying to get faster at doing that. I'm mixed it up, throwing random patterns in - I even tried doing four strings with three fingers.

Also, lately I've noticed my clumsiness on the G string when barring chords. I'm not getting down to it. I need to strengthen my index finger, or at least improve my technique.

I have played through songs I know a fair bit, and I can play faster than before - so there's definitely some improvement going on.

Having Fun Again ! Pomp-Tuition!

2009-02-27T12:38:00.002-07:00

Today I did something in Photoshop.... something FUN!
I usually get impatient and annoyed - I was getting a little impatient with this one, but I'm done.
I'm glad to be back in the PS department.
It's called Pomp-Tuition.
It's from a tutorial I did off a PS-Roadmap link. I like the process - though I messed up the lighting at the end. I need to go back and see if I can fix it, maybe do it again better.

It taught that if you play with Layer Styles and get a neat one, you can copy+paste it on several different things. It was all actual characters that were rotated and placed. Most of the layers were text layers. It's not a fancy font - just something plain, blown up large, with layer styles of inner shadow, outer glow, and bevel/emboss.

The font was Georgia, by the way... and the streaks/ribbons were done simply with the pen tool.

I liked it! I hope to do something much better next time around.

iKnow it's Getting Old... Animals!

2009-02-26T12:10:00.001-07:00

Today I did more at iKnow.
They waste my time with ones I've got to 100%.
My overall progress is only up to 87%. It's trickling by 2 percentages still, it seems.

Some of the (not very) interesting ones I stumbled over today were:

次 - tsugi - next
消す - kesu - to turn/switch off
The homophone,
速い/早い - hayai - fast/early
My ryhming conundrum :
病気 - byouki - illness
飛行機 - hikouki - airplane
(silly, I know - but I need to staighten these out.)

One of my random notes I made was
猿 - saru - monkey
Lol... monkey...
Hey, I just realized - I know a few animals...

猫 - neko - cat
犬 - inu - dog
鳥 - tori - bird
猿 - saru - monkey
牛 - ushi - cow
きりん(kirin) - giraffe
馬 - uma - horse
and a few I looked up:
蛇 - hebi - snake
熊 - kuma - bear
動物 - doubutsu - animal

If I missed one you'd care to know, look it up easy here.

Receiving the Eagle Scout Award

2009-02-25T15:17:00.000-07:00

Today I spent every waking moment dealing with my Eagle Court of Honor.
I had things to write out, I had to iron all of the uniform, there was the actual occasion that evening, and that night I spent dealing with concerns abt... Eliza. Her boyfriend broke up with her - not like we didn't see it coming.

I gave an acceptance speech thingy - it went well, supposedly. I ended up directing it toward the younger scouts and the cub scouts that were there. I gave my two-cents about why Scouting is important and why they should never give up, I think.

That evening I saw Sarah there at church. We spoke for a bit - Everyone was dressed up - it was kind of amusing. Aside a personal fiasco involving her I won't mention, nothing significant happened. But needless to say, clearly the assertion that she's just been busy is true. My freak-out mode officially ended yesterday...

Uh... by the way, for those who wonder, Sarah is my girlfriend, or at least was at one point (complicated i know), and Eliza's my best friend - she lives like 7 hours away these days... but we keep in touch still. She's moving to Utah around the time I go back to BYU-I, so we might hang out every now and then more in the future.

Anyways...
I listen to music from Guitar Hero that I put on my iPod more than I thought I would. I skip lame bonus tracks, but considering the GH songs constitute 88 out of a little over 400 songs I have, I would hear them randomly often.
It's part of getting exercise - I listen to it when I go running.

This is one of my "big news" posts - there aren't very many occasions where I deviate almost completely. But with Eliza's breakup, my Sarah, and my Eagle Scout award thing tonight, there are always things to be blabbing about.
I'll shutup for now.
Peace.

The V-Day Equivalent

2009-02-24T14:59:00.001-07:00

Today I got to spend time with Sarah, finally.
We ended up watching a movie with her little brothers.
It was that Jack Black "Kung-fu Panda" movie. It was better than I thought it'd be.

We played with their parakeet, Bobby - her brother Eric keeps it these days, and was out of town at the time or something - they were keeping it for him.
We had a lot of fun. I have missed spending time with her greatly.

With all that's been going on, I haven't had the luxury of time on my laptop these days.
My Eagle Court of Honor thing is tomorrow and there's stuff to be stressed about.

I spent most of the morning going running today.
I need to get back into shape - exercise is important, especially as we're approaching summer.

I hope to get back to Photoshop as soon as possible.

I'm loaded up on Photoshop to-do, ideas, tutorials, etc.
For those of you looking for my usual artwork, I'll have something next time, I promise.
In the mean time, you could take a look at some of these - they're from some of the best.
http://www.artistsofphotoshop.com/

Virtue And Review

2009-02-22T23:44:00.001-07:00

善良 - zenriyou - virtue, goodness
This is a word I thought to look up from church Sunday.
Just something random...
there's not much new with Japanese of late... just doing reviews finishing up this first section at iKnow.

Here's a couple I've been working on getting better with...
図書館 - toshokan - library
授業 - jugyou - class, lesson
引く - hiku - draw, pull
全部 - zenbu - all, wholly (i.e. I want all of them.)
上げる - ageru - raise, improve

I knocked everything out of the park today - don't think I made a single mistake.
All of the once not completed are in the 50-99% benchmark - so it's all downhill from here.

I hope to come up with something fun to do to revive my motivation... like watching Naruto (sad, i know.)

No Guitar Hero Today

2009-02-22T00:05:00.001-07:00

I don't know if I mentioned, but I finally have all the Guitar Hero songs on my iPod. I had them for a while, but I wasn't sure how I wanted to group or sort them.
I finally just gave up and threw them into iTunes.

Well, today is Sarah's birthday (the "girlfriend") and I still haven't got in touch with her.
It's really depressing.
Our relationship has never been simple, but I don't know what to do with myself.
I got her something for V-day, but still haven't given it to her.

I talked to her mom for a few minutes. She said she's been busy. From the way she's treated me when we last spoke on the phone - a long while ago - that's probably all it is.
I hope I'm right. We'll see. I really do miss her at this point, for a million reasons.

It will probably cheer me up to have Guitar Hero III on my iPod. I will probably not take advantage of it till tomorrow, though.
I'm in a lot of discomfort. I get my bandages out on Monday, too. Yuck.

I won't have them today - I don't play GH or listen to that kind of music on the Sabbath. It's the Lord's day of the week, and focusing on inviting the spirit, reading my scriptures, etc. is better.

Happy Birthday Sarah! She'll never read this though. I just needed to say it.

Well, I often strum my guitar mindlessly in the evening, and I've been able to play a few hymns. I'm not even sure what the names of the songs are or the words. I just pull a distant tune from my head. It does invite the Spirit, though. I feel at peace.

Saturday Tutorializing : Energy Curves

2009-02-20T23:45:00.001-07:00

Today I just dug through some tutorials.
I have a mountain of illustrator ones, always more photoshop ones, and I've burned myself out on attention span.
Maybe in a few weeks I'll take them seriously.
I have too many things occupying me to deal with such unimportant life tasks.
Today's piece is called Energy Curves.
I have taken my time on this one, mainly because it's a simple one that left me rather confused.

I finally figured out a principle related to layers and "clipping masks". Layers apply to all the ones below them, but you can get them to only apply to a certain one. The colors were applied over top the lines as clipping masks. this way, I could put whatever I want in the back without worrying about color spillage onto it
(this would cause a "glow look" even if done well).
In the end, I actually decided to put similar colors in the back, so it didn't matter so much. It could have, though, if say I wanted the back blue or yellow or purple.

I think it turned out ok. It's nothing incredible, but it's good considering I haven't had the emotional energy to accomplish more. I like the stars... they were a last-min addin.

The inspiration tutorial is HERE. I think his/her end result looks like crap, tho. Mine's better. I feel a little guilty saying that - Seeing as it gave me the idea.

Out of Town, Out of Mind

2009-02-19T23:32:00.000-07:00

Today was the worst day ever.

We went to Chattanooga to visit my mom's old friend Stacey and her son and her new husband Danny. It was fun in a way, but I suffered through most of it.
Thomas is 14 - Bradley's age. and yet he's taller than Darren who's two years his senior.
Oh, and yeah, Darren is two years younger and taller than me.
Grr.
Thomas is a quirky and unique kid - called the "gentle giant", he's gifted and a musical genius.
He's more "refined" than any old adult rich person. Knows his history and lots of stuff most adults don't. He plays the flute. A delight to converse with, his vocabulary is a force to be reckoned with.

My wisdom teeth - or lack thereof - hurt all day, I was bleeding badly somewhere deep in the back of my mouth and it drained into my stomach all day - nasty.
Ever drank carbonated blood? Don't.
The burps make you want to die.

I also had a terrible migraine all day - worst headache ever.
I got nauseous from the blood in my stomach.
I also got carsick. Yes. Nausea and Carsickness are different and can be had simultaneously.

I still can't get a hold of my girlfriend and it's tearing my mind apart.
Eliza's sick w/ a headache and pretty mad at everything today too, and just as stricken in the heart. We won't go there, though.

I made my parents mad with my short fuse and they said some harsh things.
I'm hating my life right now. And my self.
So... yeah.

Things will get brighter, though.
It's probably all due to the wisdom teeth crap.
Life moves on.

Tomorrow should be a better day... hopefully.

Japanese!!! I have to do something. I haven't had time today.
Hmm... time... iknow! lol...

時間 - jikan - hour
時 - toki - time
今 - ima - now

遅い - osoi - late,slow
早い - hayai - early,fast

昨日 - kinou - yesterday
今日 - kyou - today
明日 - asu/ashita - tomorrow

and since i don't recall listing these:
日曜日 - nichiyoubi - Sunday (sun)
月曜日 - getsuyoubi - Monday (moon)
火曜日 - kayoubi - Tuesday (fire)
水曜日 - suiyoubi - Wednesday (water)
木曜日 - mokuyoubi - Thursday (tree)
金曜日 - kinyoubi - Friday (gold)
土曜日 - doyoubi - Saturday (earth)

Obsessed with Guitar Hero

2009-02-18T23:11:00.000-07:00

I'm officially a Guitar Hero nerd. The very one I've always disliked.
Oh well. Too late, now.

I'm stuck on the last chapter of Hard mode.
I just beat Raining Blood by Slayer today. It's the first one.
It's stupid. I won't be playing it again anytime soon.

I already skipped ahead and had beat the second and third.
they are:
Cliffs of Dover by Eric Johnson ...and
Number of The Beast by Iron Maiden

Cliffs of Dover is a beautiful instrumental. Even those that don't care too much for electric guitar would like it. Someday I'm gonna learn it.
Those of you looking for something entertaining, watch this nutter FC it ("full count" i.e. 100%) on expert mode here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hOLZeeCS0-4
It's actually neat to watch and listen to, considering it is silly guitar hero.

Right now I'm stuck on the last one...

One by Metallica.

I have... only One left in the game.
lol...
Well, sorta. Then I get to play Devil Went Down To Georgia.
It's a guitar battle. against the devil. even better, I live here in Georgia.

peace out.

Fire's on the mountain, run boys, run...
the Devil's in the house of the rising sun.

Illustrator Tutorials

2009-02-17T22:27:00.000-07:00

I've been loaded up with so many Illustrator tutorials it's not funny.

I've got hypertext coming out of my ears.
There's way too much for me to look at, and it's driving me nuts. I've got a lot to sort through.

I did run into the companion site to PSDTuts for Illustrator, VectorTuts.
You can find VectorTuts HERE, for those interested.

Lee, by the way, I'm curious to know what you have to say.
I haven't asked you about illustrator. I'm sure you could show me something - you know more than I do.

I've even found links to tutorials that use both Photoshop and Illustrator, like the ones HERE at VandelayDesign

I may put out a list of everything in some post, even if it's only for my own reference.
Yep. I actually post things for me to read sometimes. Sad, huh?

Putting Off Today

2009-02-17T18:21:00.000-07:00

I got my wisdom teeth out today.
I'm writing this retroactively, i.e. I wasn't conscious enough to write this today.

So unfortunately, my Japanese practice didn't get done. I'll work on it tomorrow.
I'm getting my kanji together with my vocab to see what i do and don't know still.

Back at iKnow recently, they've started giving me the last problem, where you have to spell it, twice. The first time they give me the English, like always, but now they want me to know it just looking at the kanji. It's not been so bad... yet.

It should help with my kanji recognition, I suppose. That's always a plus.

I'm to 81% with this section now. I hope to move on to number 2 soon.
I got 13 more passed off, all really old ones that beginners would know.
I think 彼女-kanojo-girl(friend) was among them. Yeah - dumb stuff.

Well, nothing else new besides that. I'm in a lot of pain right now.

If Guitar Hero Were Real...

2009-02-16T18:16:00.001-07:00

No. I'm not some nerd fantasizing about being cool.
Quite the contrary.

I've decided to learn all of the songs in Guitar Hero (III) on my guitar in order.
On my guitar = for real.

Not to be too silly, but I guess I could call myself a real guitar hero at some point.

It doesn't seem like it will be too difficult.
I worked on the first one, Slow Ride by Foghat today.
I just about have it down.

I'm kinda proud of myself.

I'm getting my wisdom teeth out tomorrow, and I'm kinda freaked out.
I hope I get this up in the evening before I get to bed, otherwise it won't be seen for a few days.

Valentine's Weekend In Pseudo Review

2009-02-15T18:11:00.002-07:00

My Valentine's Day is not over folks. It's tomorrow, because my girl was out of town this weekend ...unfortunately.
Dunno who the idiot is who planned that youth conference thingy over V-Day.
grrr.

Anyways, hopefully it should be a good day. I need to get to bed so I can get up earlier, for related reasons.

Today I didn't do too much in photoshop.
I did change my blog background to something for Valentine's Day a few days ago, for those of you reading this via a reader who didn't know...
It was hard to do - I wanted it to suit the month without coming off entirely gay.

I think it's good, though - it just replaced the snowflakes with hearts - another pain-in-the-neck blending mode experiment.

I think I want to emulate Lee's ideas somehow. His area of expertise is Illustrator, and he's incredible. You can find him at Leetopia. I love his blog look of late.

Today my brother was playing with a pic of Bowser in PS CS2 on our wrecked up old computer. I let him use my CS4 - I think it's easier to use - it's definitely faster.
I'm wondering if this will become a trend - considering we don't usually get along so well, it might be a good thing.

Valentine's Weekend Number Three

2009-02-13T22:25:00.004-07:00

V Day. And what a crummy one at that.
Yes, I began a sentence with "and". And you're going to deal with it.

Anyways, so much for getting this in early.

"I love you" transcends all languages.

Love is universal. Love is everywhere. Love has always been, and will always be.
Most Music is about love.

Love is the most desired thing in the world, and the hardest to find.
Love is optional, and yet mandatory.
Love is the light and the dark in the world.
Love is the best feeling ever, and also the worst.
Love is inspirational, and retarding.
Love opens our view to the world. Love blinds us.

Love is what I want and what I hate.

Japanese: Ai shiteru.
愛してる。

Spanish/Portuguese/Latin ?
Te amo.
(Italian is "ti amo".)

Greek?
S' ayapo.

Korean?
Tangsinul sarang ha yo.

French?
Je t'aime.

German?
Ich liebe dich. (I think)

Arabic?
Ana behibak. (to M)
Ana behiBek. (to F)

Chinese?
Wo ie ni.

Hebrew?
Ani ohev at (M to F)
Ani ohev atah (F to M)

Love you guys!

愛

Valentine's Weekend Number Two

2009-02-12T22:02:00.001-07:00

Today is guitar, and I'm still working on my little song.
I've got ideas, but the lyrics always come rather slow.

Here's some links to some of the love songs me and friends have liked of late.

Jason Mraz's Lucky

We The Kings' Check Yes, Juliet

We The Kings' Secret Valentine

Jason Mraz's Prettiest Friend

Bryan Adams's Have You Ever Really Love A Woman?

Happy Friday the 13th! And Pre-V-Day, at that.

Valentine's Weekend Number One

2009-02-12T17:43:00.000-07:00

Today I worked on Valentine's day stuff in Photoshop all day.
Something is wrong with my CS2, so I'm using just CS4 now.
This is the yield of all I've been doing.
Most of the tutorials out there are nothing but abstract art focused around either a single heart or multiple ones.

It all became the same after awhile, so I elected to just make all the different hearts at once. There are nine different ones. The original background I worked on was disgusting, so I tried turning it red and that didn't help. I tried blurring it and it looks awesome now. All of these hearts can be found in one form or another at:
Web Design's "Romantic Design Trends"

It's pretty cool, in my opinion. I'm a guy - if it were any other time of the year I'm sure you'd think I'm gay. I apologize for being in touch with my feminine side. (just kidding.)

I learned how to do lots with blending options and layer styles - particularly gradient overlays.
I know how to do the little shiny reflections now! That's something that's been eating at me.

The Great Kanji Matchup!!!

2009-02-11T17:29:00.000-07:00

Tonight I did some matching of kanji from my charts.
I stopped, because I had to get to bed, but I have several marked in red that are vocab.

I haven't studied kanji in a while - vocab is more important usually, but I want to list my 180-something iKnow vocab to my charts.

I printed out new charts I'm going to find a way to hang up on my wall, and I'm using the old ones to mark what's been done.

I'm going to eventually start marking off the ones I have fully memorized on the new ones, eventually.

I need to learn to write them, too. I may get a stack of blank paper to keep and just write some of them over and over everyday.

I may just start learning to duplicate the charts!

The charts in question are Kanji grades 1,2, and 3 at Nihongo no Narau ("learn-japanese.com")

Another Dancing Tuesday

2009-02-09T23:22:00.000-07:00

This Saturday is the day the dance-teaching will occur.
Tonight we got all of the waltz straightened out, and we spent the time doing other stuff.
We covered the basics of many things.

The main things we did were:
Foxtrot, Cha Cha, Rumba, and Swing.

-Foxtrot was the most confusing when it came to aligning it to music.

-My cha-cha is back! Yay!

-I believe the rumba was a bit like waltz for a 2/4 or 4/4 music timing.
It seems to be the most useful.

-It was a different swing from the kind I know. Useful, nonetheless.

Well, I could let this hijack my guitar article, but I refuse.
So...
Lately I've gone out running/jogging and I'm getting in better shape.
I listen to my iPod during that time.
I'm beginning to think I want to learn a song by Rocket Summer.
I'm just not sure which... I like many of them.

I haven't had too much time for my guitar, with adding on Illustrator to my Photoshop workload. Illustrator is slowing everything down.
Hopefully I'll get what I need learned and accomplished soon, so everything can catch up.

I'm thinking of writing a song for Valentine's day, but I'm not sure when or of what.
I might write it and play it for Sarah when I get the chance.

Today's song of note is "colors" - by - you guessed it - Rocket Summer.
I don't have that album, and I'm waiting for a chance to go buy it.

If I had to choose one artist out of all of them, if I had to throw out all my music except for one, that one, If I could be any of the people who's music I listen to, it would be Bryce Avary aka The Rocket Summer.

I don't "idolize" people , don't get me wrong. But his music relates to me emotionally and by lyric more than any other. I'm not very emotional, either... lol...
If would give almost anything to be able to make music like him.

Not Much New

2009-02-09T16:46:00.000-07:00

I'm still working on Illustrator stuff - none of it's finished.
Things are going slow - I have a short attention span for it and I have other things to attend to.

The past few weeks I've been gathering tutorials for Valentine's Day photoshop artwork.
It's all silly abstract focused around a heart.
I'm trying to figure out how to do the shiny part / reflections on objects, so when I finally get off my butt and do it I should learn a lot.

I am thinking of doing multiple things... it just hasn't all come together yet.

There's not anything for today, unfortunately.

Next time is the beginning of the 3-day-V-day marathon of Valentine's Day stuff.
I'll post some related artwork then, for sure, whatever I've done by then.

Not Much Left...

2009-02-08T19:49:00.004-07:00

Today's iKnow sessions had all old stuff. Review is important, though.

I'm stumbling over buy/sell:
売る - uru - sell
買う - kau - buy

I get them switched sometimes...

I dealt with a rather unfavorable
変える - kaeru - to change
帰る - kaeru - return/come home ...this is the homophone I hate most.

I got 22 new ones to 100% !!! That's considering I only study 30. I probably have as little as 14/15 sessions left.
Considering I do at least 3 every time I'm on, I'll be done in week or two.

I do need to produce a chart of kanji to study - I need to learn to write them better.
Part of learning Japanese is learning to write. Reading is far easier. It takes a lot less effort to read than it does to write.

Next time is the last pre-V-Day post.
I'll have Valentine's Day phrases in a few languages, for fun. Be sure to check back after Wed. the 11 - I'll include some Spanish, French, and German, with 日本語, of course.

String Bending

2009-02-07T19:16:00.000-07:00

I ran into a few problems with reading tabs recently - there was notation for something I'd never learned.

It's string bending!
If you push a sounding string left or right with the finger holding it down, it makes a
whammy bar - sounding noise.

personally, I don't care for the whammy - it deadens the sound too quick, and it makes your strings wear out faster. With all the technique out there, A whammy push is really not worth the trouble in my opinion.

But this trick, however.... is awesome. Very bluesy in certain contexts.
It's not particularly difficult, and has a lot of application.

I discovered it in Welcome To The Jungle tabs - something from GHIII.
I happened to hear it on the radio on the way to the Red-and-White Ball tonight... lol...

That was a lot of fun - that dance was youth and singles, so I got to spend time with my many friends old and new...
On another note, I actually people I can label friends now.
Life isn't so bad, I guess.

I am still dreading V-Day.

Adobe Illustrator... Yay!

2009-02-06T18:34:00.001-07:00

I just got a new program that I've been trying to get a hold of for quite some time - nearly a year, actually - I now have Illustrator CS4.

I also got Filter Forge and PS CS4, stuff I've been wanting for a long time.

The post for today is coming really late because I was hoping to show off something from Illustrator. Unfortunately, I haven't finished learning to use it!

It is a vector program - everything is done by math - and everything is editable, as if it were made by the pen tool in Photoshop.

I've had to learn all the advanced things the pen tool does.
I'm getting better, but I have my work cut out for me.

I can't wait to use Illustrator artwork in Photoshop!
It usually comes off cartoon-looking, but it's vector, and scalable to any dimension.

I hope to have something soon, but I can't make any promises yet.
I will have something V-Day related out before then, though.

Repetitive Repetitiveness

2009-02-04T22:45:00.000-07:00

Say that three times fast.

In all seriousness, today I saw something both surprising and irritating.
iKnow expects me to keep practicing the stuff I've passed off.

I didn't think it was so bad at first - it handed me:
持つ - motsu - to have
A very important one I'd "finished".
Then on the third and last block of the day I got four!:
置く - oku - to put
住む - sumu - to live(reside)
続く - tsuduku - to continue
分かる - wakaru - to understand

All of this gets kinda old. Review is nice, but there are other things I could be working on.
There were only three words marked as urgent/important...
出来る - dekiru - to be able/good at ...screwed this up a while back
引く - hiku - to pull, draw (like a door) ...a new one I was fuzzy on
寝る - neru - to sleep ...kinda new, but hah! I know this well.

In desperation for something original, I did pull a few in-sentence non-vocab ones:
靴 - kutsu - shoe
鳥 - tori - bird
意味 - imi - meaning
...and an often reoccurring
たくさん(takusan) - many, much, several, lots, etc.

Today's Hated Homophone (yay!) is "kiru".
着る - kiru - to wear
切る - kiru - to cut

I have spied enough "year" words I'm need to get them straight:
年 - toshi - year
今年 - kotoshi - this year
去年 - kyonen - last year
来年 - rainen - next year

Oh, and I found a cool and easy sentence for today:
I've been confused by early infinitive verb usage... it helped me.
私は絵を見るのが好きです。
watashi wa e o miru no ga suki desu.
I (=t) pictures (=o) look at (=s) like to. t=topic p., s=subject p., o=object p.
I like to look at pictures

Still Alive

2009-02-03T22:51:00.003-07:00

Here I am again, early in the morning filling out the previous day's post.
What a miserable day. I accomplished nothing. It's as if I never woke up.
And I didn't eat much, either. I was starving until I made myself some oatmeal and a ham sandwich. At a few minutes past midnight.

That's not entirely true - I did hack vista big time - I'm excited and pleased - but I'll talk of that another day.

I am going to write another song, and I'm not in the mood to right this minute.
Seems like my only abilities are before I go to sleep, and it's getting late. I'm actually trying to finish things up so I can get to bed.

There are lots of places to find inspiration, and I found a funny one I've kinda learned and I'm going to rip some inspiration off of it.
It's Still Alive, the end credits to a game called Portal.
Eliza showed it to me. She found it amusing - I, looking up the story behind it, found it rather creepy.

You can find it HERE if you're interested. (and the cake is a lie.)

Seems like a lot has been lagging behind. Tomorrow's Japanese will be all-out, then. I need to turn over another new leaf.

Stroking Paths and Heartache

2009-02-02T22:21:00.003-07:00

I'm working on doing something for Valentine's Day.
I do live in a bit of fear of it, though... Let's just say it will be the best or the worst day ever, and I hate uncertainty.

It's eating at me.

I'm working on a piece that's rather anti-valentine, though it didn't start out that way.
I guess it's just a mood thing.
We'll see what happens - I'm optimistic something significant will happen with it.
It's late, and I'll finish it another day.

Maybe you'll see it next time!

I found out how to use the stroke path again. I hadn't been able to fix it in ages.
I had to turn the internet upside down to figure it out.
To follow along a pen-tool path with the brush previously used,
right-click with the pen tool and select "stroke path...", check "simulate pressure", and hit ok.

that's the basics.
the problem is, in order for it to fade at the ends, you have to go to the brush menu and check/open shape dynamics, and set the size jitter (leave all bars at 0) control to "Pen Pressure".

It makes beautiful sweeps and arcs.
So as not to leave you empty-handed for today, here's a link to an easy and pretty example:
Electrifying Energy Beams

Peeking at Unit Two

2009-02-02T16:40:00.003-07:00

At iKnow I did all my practice today.
I'm at 70%, and I have 20 completed.
I've said before, I'm finished "starting" all the words.

I started a new section, even though my first one isn't finished.
I did this just to see what lies ahead.

I'm doing the Core 2000 series, and there are 10-200 blocks.
I started "step 2" just to preview what's next, even though I'm still on the first one.

It gave me ten new ones... I really wasn't ready, but oh well.
閉じる - tojiru - to close
楽しい - pleasure, fun
時 - toki - time
米 - kome - rice
後ろ - ushiro - behind
嬉しい - ureshii - happy
切る - kiru - to cut
決まる - kimaru - to be decided
線 - sen - line
服 - fuku

The last three I'd forgotten and had to go find. I managed to remember the rest, though. That's good- it means I'm retaining most of what I'm learning.

Sweet Home Alabama

2009-02-01T21:12:00.003-07:00

Yep. I figured it was time to take a peek at learning that.
It's one of the classic "everyone knows it" songs.

I picked up the tabs from ultimate-guitar... I can kinda do it, but I haven't heard it in so long I'm not sure how some of the timing goes.

I'm going to look it up and listen to it.
That should help. A lot. Not tonight, though.

It has a lot of hammer-ons and pull-offs which should help me "apply what I've learned", if you know what I mean. I've messed with them, but I've never done a song that uses everything.

If all goes well (and it probably will) I should be officially a "great" guitar player if I can get something like that down.

I'm hopeful - it will require lots of work, though.

I'm not in a particularly good mood, it seems, so that's it for today.
Peace.

Old memories, New Creations

2009-01-30T23:36:00.000-07:00

Years ago I read this article on how to do a cool abstract work in Photoshop.
Today's piece, Greenery Light, is based upon it - I dug it up again.
It's simply applying the technique of brush shadowing and highlighting on a layer selection and setting it to overlay. Playing with opacity is also important. I started with a special noise gradient background.

This one in my eyes is an abysmal heart-breaking failure. The geometry is a nightmare. I messed it up big time. I tried to half-follow the tutorial, and got neither what he wanted or what I wanted.

Still, the colors are pretty. I'm sure it's not as bad as I make it out to be. I'm thinking of re-doing it, though.
It's a sign that my life is getting better, anyways. Lately my from-scratch work has been a lot darker.

The tutorial on how to some of this and better can be found HERE.

Nothing New! Yay! - Issues Resolved and Electricity

2009-01-29T23:57:00.001-07:00

I've officially handled all of the vocabulary words...
I had wondered why it only gave me one new one instead of two.

So it will all be review now.
腕 - ude - arm
That's it for now.

I've studied to write - it's just 書く - kaku.
That had been bugging me for a while.
I'm glad to have something authoritative finally clarify.

My latest blunders and wonders are:
電話 - denwa - telephone (not iKnow vocab)
電車 - densha - train
電気 - denki - light or electricity(not iKnow vocab)
自転車 - jitensha - bicycle

In case you haven't noticed my pattern, I've discovered a new common kanji.
It's electricity - 電. the typical pronunciation is den-____.
It isn't a word by itself - electricity is 電気(denki)

A couple more fun words with it:

電子 - denshi - electron
電池 - denchi - battery
停電 - teiden - power outage/blackout
電圧 - denatsu - voltage
電光 - denkou - lightning
電動 - dendou - electric
電卓 - dentaku - calculator
電線 - densen - power line(s)
電撃 - dengeki - electric shock

your calculator's battery was shocked by lightning!
私の電卓の電池は電光で電撃だった！

lol... sorry. I couldn't resist. lol... No pun intended either.

Waltzing Around... And Still Practicing.

2009-01-29T21:14:00.002-07:00

This Valentine's Day I'm going to be co-teaching people to waltz at the little dance/ball thing I'm going to. I went and worked on it all with friends tonight. I'm a bit rusty, but I'm far better off than I was beforehand.

Today I worked on my blog code. I spent a lot of time, and didn't get much to show done. Oh well. Stuff is in the works. That's always something.

That's been most of my day - I haven't done much more with my guitar than what I'm doing now.
I'm just practicing speed and technique - nothing interesting.

It's stuff from Guitar Cardio. You really should check it out, those of you that play or are learning guitar.
It makes you better - significantly. Dunno if I said this before, but it's akin to the Hanon series for piano.

I played I Will Follow You Into The Dark the best I ever have tonight.
My singing is improving.
That's saying something. Vocal chords aren't something to be "fixed" magically.
I've learned not looking at my guitar helps.

What I'm concerned about is how sloppy I seem lately. maybe something's amiss. I just need to figure out what.
It could be the strings - maybe one just need tuning... i'll deal with it tomorrow.
It may be I'm just tired - or more observant than usual.

I have had trouble barring chords - namely the D string. Maybe I'm just improving from dead to flat or weak.
It could be a good thing, in a twisted way. I'm not thinking straight, tho.

I guess I'll head to bed.

Gradient Maps!

2009-01-28T12:41:00.017-07:00

Today will be more show than tell.
What is a gradient map might you ask?
Just the most awesomest thing in the world!
Awesomest is my new favorite, word. lol...
If you go layer> new adjustment layer> gradient map...> you can apply a gradient map to an image. A gradient map takes the brightness of an image from darkest to brightest and lays a gradient over everything based on that. If you set its blending mode to soft light, when you change the gradient map you'll see all kinds of different "lightings" or "moods" to an image. A gradient map is like a photo's mood ring... lol...

This one has a purple-green-orange gradient map. I personally colored the sky red.

If you make a new layer on top and set the blending mode to hue, you can manipulate colors as you wish.

This third one I changed everything this way, on multiple hue layers.

To get the surreal glowing look to each of these, at the beginning I duplicated the background, and used filter> blur> surface blur on it, with a radius of 8 and a threshold of 97. I set its blending mode to screen.
On the second of these I used a blue-green-yellow gradient.

Up All Night...

2009-01-27T18:43:00.004-07:00

Late at night is probably not the best time to practice my Japanese... especially when I have other garbage to deal with.
I'll finish up and note not to do this again... but seriously -
私は寝るが欲しい。

I ran into something rather irritating today:
hayai.
it's not new, but it's still annoying. I thought it meant early/fast.
it kinda does. but it doesn't. it means each of them separately.
It's another freaking homophone.
早い - hayai - early
速い - hayai - fast
That is retarded.

Words for the day:
全部 - zenbu - all, whole
去年 - kyonen - last year
図書館 - toshokan - library
引く - hiku - draw, pull
緑 - midori - green, foliage
上げる - ageru - to raise, to improve

I have a new kana-only word:
たくさん(takusan) - many, much

sorry for ending on a low note.
But my heart's empty. I might smile tomorrow.

Hammer-ons and Pull-offs

2009-01-26T14:26:00.000-07:00

These two techniques constitute some of the "real" things good guitar players know. I'm getting better with them, and hope to have a more broad reach of things to learn.
(i.e. more fancy stuff!)

I can now play "twinkle twinkle little star" with them alone, albeit rather clumsily.

Learning to pluck the string with your left hand too means you can play more notes faster - this can double your finger-picking speed.
I'm still getting the hang of pull-offs... They're kinda tricky.
I looked up how to do these two recently - They're the type of things that have to be learned in person. That's why I've fallen behind on technique - no teacher.

But I found a solution: YouTube. As much as I hate mindless YouTube videos by random nobodys, I did find useful stuff.
So my lesson is learned - in effect, never judge a book by its cover.
Same applies to videos and what they appear to be.

In other news, I have been looking at Guitar Hero songs to learn.
I have the whole of GH III audio and I think I'm going to put it on my iPod.
That will get interesting. I'll be sure to find the ones I want to learn.

Considering the fact I haven't really yet learned a song my electric guitar was meant for, I think it's about time to rock. :)

Shadowed Scarlet

2009-01-25T14:03:00.002-07:00

This time I decided to go find a picture I took myself and edit it.
The results were good, but I spent more time on it than usual.
Here beside me at the top is the original. This is from years ago at my old house. It was either from our garden or our neighbor's - I can't remember which.
One of the things I've learned with photography is sometimes the great one come to you - you just have to get out there and take lots to find something worthwhile.
That's where this one came from.
This one is today's piece, though it took a few days. I like it - it's better than it looks. It came out rather blurry when I uploaded it. I learned that if you select individual colors and turn them into layers, you can make look like anything . I used layer masks and noise gradients to make the light and dark. It took practice to figure out how to make the light not look lame.
Today's tip: When imitating perspective lighting, duplicate your "light" and erase different parts of each. having different light layers for different areas is key.

Kanji Confusion - Reading/Writing

2009-01-23T23:26:00.001-07:00

I didn't do much with Japanese today.
I did run into a bit of confusion with some kanji today,

and I'm trying to set some things straight.

the kanji for "to read", "to write", "writings", etc. have me all scrambled.

ok...

to read is
読む - yomu

to write is
書く - kaku

but, to write down (for the purpose of being remembered)...
to write down is 記す - shirusu

to write down/ compose (song/poem) is
詠む - also yomu !!!

so...
write=yomu
write down=shirusu
compose=yomu
read=yomu

confused? I am... but writing all this down has helped.

Do You Remember

2009-01-22T23:29:00.000-07:00

Today I started to learn this song... another one
by Jack Johnson, incidentally.

It was kinda tricky, but i figure it's taught me something valuable.
Aside being a little confusing in the middle of the chorus, it's relatively straightforward.

It's less chord and more individual notes. (it does use G 355433, A 577655, and D 557775)
I love the lyrics... it's a sweet song.

I almost have it perfect already!

I've been working on the song I wrote, too. It's not so bad.
I'm actually thinking of writing another one. This time my reason is kind of as an emotional outlet, so I'm not sure how it will go. Such can be rather spontaneous.

Today's my half birthday, if any one cares. I don't.

Same Old Grind

2009-01-22T21:35:00.000-07:00

Photoshop projects get kinda hard some times...
I get in and out of it - some days I'll do lots, other times nothing comes.

The thing that worries me is I've been rather attached to my guitar, lately.
I think I'm substituting everything else for it...

I need make sure i don't leave these things behind, as far as interest goes.

I think what I'm going to do is do artwork that's guitar-related.
I'll probably take source pics of my guitar.

I have an abstract/background piece in the works already.
Next time I might have something with my guitar - I've been thinking of doing such a thing for a while, anyways - just been to lazy to get the camera out.

This one should be great. I'm excited.
Moral of the story today:
when something you want to keep doing gets boring, give it a twist!

Japanese Resource

2009-01-21T13:15:00.004-07:00

I have a new blog I'm using as a website for teaching/learning Japanese. I am planning on making it an excellent place full of well-sorted and organized information.

The layout is and will be nothing like a blog - far less so than this one. I hope to build it up over the next few weeks, and I'll start communicating with the rest of the 日本語+English community. I might even look into making money with Google advertising, if it goes anywhere.

It's up and active if you want to look at it...
Japanese Resource

Today at iKnow I came across these :
来年 - rainen - next year
バラ(bara) - rose
レベル(reberu) - level

Along with the usual new:
肩 - kata - shoulder
飲む - nomu - to drink (already knew this)
寝る - neru - to sleep/go to sleep
消す - kesu - to turn off/switch off
元気 - genki - healthy/energetic (common word - knew this)
負ける - makeru - to lose (a game)

Finally! I've been waiting for "to sleep" forever! I've covered "wake up", "get up", "morning", but no evening words!?! And now I have it.

今私は寝る。
I am able to sleep now.

電気を消してください。(ください/kudasai means please)
please turn the light out.

元気/Genki is used all the time...

Genki desu ka?
How are you?(lit. are you well?)

Genki (desu).
(I'm) fine.

How To Practice Guitar!

2009-01-20T11:48:00.002-07:00

I dug up an excellent / incredible website.
It makes practice exercises for you, based on how you specify.

My StumbleUpon button yielded a list of guitar practicing websites, all I was aware of, except for this one.
At the website, guitarcardio.com, you're given options of root notes, scales, modes, and difficulty. You tell it how many you want it to generate, and it generates them.

The exercises are clearly helping me. They're a challenge - that's key to improving.
I'm doing medium difficulty ones. Some are harder, some are easier - it's about where I'm at. It's clearly helping my fingers to be more coordinated.

It seems to be the guitar equivalent of my Hanon piano books.

Brush Experiments

2009-01-19T11:25:00.008-07:00

I wasn't able to learn anything specific today that I hoped to.
I got a bunch of new brushes at qbrushes.com - a website I recently stumbled upon.
Today I did several experiments - as I usually do when I get new brushes.

They came out... interesting to say the least.

The first of these is Towering Flames. It's just a concept piece. I have been trying to successfully imitate fire for a long time. Nobody on the internet seems remotely good at it (without using source pics), so I'm rather pleased - it's the best yet, and makes me hopeful.
This second one I just did today, also. It's called Bearing it All. Perhaps it's a sign of my troubled heart... oh well. I'm perfectly happy... on the outside, at least. It's rather strange and shocking that such an abstract brush could have such an effect on me. It's still a decent piece, considering that I don't usually use perspective like this. Yes, the silhouette is actually me - from a photo.

Mental Language Barriers

2009-01-18T21:25:00.003-07:00

Today was nuts when it came to language.

I was studying my Japanese.
I got into that mindset and I noticed I'd come a long way when it came to vocabulary.
My grammar has improved a bit, also.

This was at church... not long after, I somehow ended up speaking with someone from the Spanish branch that shared the building... oh, and she spoke no English.

That's right - I had an entire conversation in Spanish! It was weird. I've never done it before - it was far easier than I expected. MY comprehension is very high, even though I have so little vocabulary. She noticed some of my Japanese stuff , and we briefly spoke about Japanese in Spanish.

Afterward I thought my head was going to explode... I had so many layers of language and grammar in my head I was losing it.

That's all I dealt with today reaffirming and recognizing things I already knew...
I haven't used much Spanish in years - for some reason thinking in three languages gives me a headache. Just writing this is causing it again.

The important thing is that I have never spoke in Spanish to someone to doesn't speak English. I was kinda scared. It took getting used to. I learned a lot from it, though.
Behind the language barriers, we're all the same people.

Harder to Breathe

2009-01-17T00:52:00.001-07:00

This is my new song.

Yes. Finally, the new song I promised myself.

I'm so glad to have written it - I didn't get this post in right away simply because I stayed up late with the song instead of coming here and posting about it.

I'll end with a preview of the lyrics - they're in the works still.

It really did take me into the early hours of the morning to finish it...
I seem to only be good at songwriting at that time of day... I've never understood why.

That's why I haven't written a song in so long - my other few ones were written in the early hours as well.

That's odd, isn't it? It doesn't make any sense. Why is my ability to write music only good early in the morning?

It's two in the morning
I'm still awake mourning
I'm finding some words for a song

She'd never believe me
but i can't help but feeling
i've known a deep truth all along.

Passing A Note

2009-01-15T23:51:00.000-07:00

I didn't get this post done on time because I had a lot to do today. I was at a dance all night - it was a lot of fun, though - I made many new friends.
Passing A Note is the name of my new piece for today. It's a work based on my new knowledge of brushes.

I used a fade-off size/opacity jitter to make it go out into the distance.

To get the pen tool to stroke the lines like I wanted took some time... a nice-looking stroke path is hard to do - the natural two-way fade-off one that "simulates pressure" is almost impossible to get to happen, even when instructed how to by the internet. There's just too many things that can screw it up. Luckily I didn't need it, but I need to figure out how to get it to work eventually.

There's a beautiful "fractal" trick I discovered a little while back - I got it to work on a music note - that's where the inspiration came from here.

Also, I just found the tune for the song I'm going to write. I'll cover that tomorrow, though.

Today's Vocab

2009-01-15T14:24:00.005-07:00

Today's new stuff was:
遠い - tooi - far, distant
弱い - yowai - weak
耳 - mimi - ear, hearing
据わる - suwaru - to sit (down)

浴びる - abiru - to take (a shower)

This is the first English homophone I've had to deal with.
I've had week before.
I've forgot it already, though - that's even worse.
Let's see...
weak - yowai - 弱い
week - shuu - 週

I'd forgotten 次 - tsugi - "next"

My new grammar/misc pieces for the day are...
また (mata) - again, also, still(doing something)
いつ (itsu) - when, how soon

It did "right" as a new one, so here's these.
右 - migi - right
左 - hidari - left

Traffic In The Sky

2009-01-14T20:58:00.004-07:00

and it doesn't seem to be getting much better...

I found a new song already - it was one of those stuck-in-my-head, learn-to-forget ones.
I have started learning it because I don't know the lyrics, which embeds it in my head until I learn them.

It happened to cover material I needed - more individual-string finger-picking.
I am trying to learn things that will teach me something. This covers stuff I needed.

Switching to and from the movable broken x1312x chord.
The two it uses are the second and fourth of this verse:

D - 557775
... - x 9 11 9 10 x
C - 335553
... - x 7 9 7 8 x

It's a good song - not incredibly difficult.
I just need to work on holding down those mysterious chords better.

The Hard Way: Eliza's Necklace

2009-01-13T21:15:00.007-07:00

I don't care for removing things from their backgrounds, as I'm sure I previously mentioned.
This is what you'd call the worst case scenario.
There are endless varieties of ways to separate one object from another. There is Hue, Saturation, and Brightness - at least one of these varies in some degree between separate objects. The other 1% of the time, usually the location or the size/shape/texture varies enough.

This time it was medium grays on medium grays... yuck... what a nightmare. I learned something, though - If you keep a steady hand, a layer mask can be fine tuned. Apparently different brushes on a layer mask and a careful stroking of it can get you what you're looking for no matter what. That's a big confidence booster: it proves that anything can be removed from anything. It did take a few hours, though - but probably half that time was spent searching for and attempting other things - and failing.

It's pretty, isn't it? Eliza sent it to me from her phone. Maybe my work's not perfect, but good enough for a source image, and I can always touch it up.

Noticing The Little Stuff

2009-01-12T15:47:00.006-07:00

Another day, another practice session at iKnow.
I'm halfway through the course (52%)... supposedly.
The words today are:
首 - kubi - neck
速い - hayai - fast
一緒に - isshyoni - together, at the same time
日記 - nikki - diary
遊ぶ - asobu - to play
今月 - kongetsu - this month

great... another homophone. don't we love those?
はやい - hayai - can be 早い or 速い - "early" or "fast".

I've notice a few little things along the way, though.

For example, とても - totemo - which means "very".
Also, the を (o) vs. に (ni) particles - and when to use them.

i'm a little thrown off by the formal vs. informal speech.
I need to go learn about the -masu and -shou endings, and what they mean.
the whole "shou" thing is a little confusing...

I learned that the -tachi pluralizing suffix can be added to many things.
not only does it make I -> We and You(s) -> You(p) and He/She/It -> Them, but
It makes Child -> Children.

I have picked up a few misc unintentional vocabulary words...
鳥 - tori - bird
キリン - kirin - giraffe
公園 - kouen - (public) park
忙しい - busy - actually i think this was vocab at some point... but I can't remember.

several are reoccuring-I-think vocab, like 寒い - samui - cold.
That one's used it the 冬/fuyu(winter) practice sentence.

I think my comprehension is getting a little better... I'm trying to help it along.
I still don't care for the dictation thing, even if it is helping.

The Finished And The Forgotten

2009-01-11T15:02:00.001-07:00

I finally have ...Follow You Into The Dark by DCfC perfect!
I'm glad to have another one down.

Something happened tonight to irritate me slightly... I realized something depressing...

I've forgotten a lot of the earlier things I learned.

Eliza showed me a song of Jason Mraz and Colbie Caillat tonight, Lucky.
It was pretty cool.

I used to know how to play Mraz's Prettiest Friend.
I've forgotten, and re-learning it isn't going to be easy - I had to figure it out by ear. Somewhere I wrote it down, though... Hopefully I can find out where.

Also, I used to be able to play Hey, There Delilah by Plain White T's.

I'm kinda thrown now... I feel obligated to go back... Once I do, I'll pick up something new, though. I still practice the more recent old stuff regularly, for practice's sake.

Finding Source Photos

2009-01-10T14:43:00.000-07:00

Photoshop without photos sounds kinda ridiculous, does it not?
Well, I don't particularly care for cutting things out. It doesn't matter whether it's with scissors, my dad's xacto knife, my pocketknife... It's really rather tedious to me.

The same thing applies to Photoshop. Whether it be a pen tool or a mask or any of the lassos, I don't particularly like messing with any of it. That's part of my suffering, it seems.
I found a solution that may help me to break this annoyance. I Googled it and found this on YouTube. You can get rid of whites and blacks by using the "blend if:" on the bottom in
blending options/layer styles. Alt-clicking can give you a secondary slider.

Fireworks!!! I have lots of them on my phone from July (of course). This is a neat green one I stuck on a Filter> render> clouds background. While I was in layer styles I gave it a nice outer glow. I love it! It's not a piece of art by its self, but it's an awesome proof-of-concept.

I think I'll be able to take advantage of source images hereafter. I do need to get to where I'm better at finding them or taking them - I don't really like taking pics from the internet - it comes off cliché - and you can't always prevent accidental licensing issues.

iKnow's Dictation

2009-01-09T16:37:00.001-07:00

There's a thing I hadn't yet noticed on iKnow that I tried using...
I couldn't figure out how to open it, but now I've started playing with it.

It's called "dictation". It gives me a word or two missing in 10 sentences, and gets me to fill in the pronunciation. Easy enough, huh?
The second half is each of the sentences entirely blank. I have to learn how some of the longer words in the sentences are spelled... it gets rather tricky - even frustrating. It gives you 3/4 chances to make a mistake or ask for a hint, though.

I'm still playing with it - I don't know if I'll keep using it... it might help train my ears, though.

We'll see. I do need work on listening/comprehending. I think I'll do better once my vocabulary course is "complete". It's at 44% completion right now.

Latest words:
電車 - densha - train
自転車 - jitensha - bicycle
探す - sagasu - to search for, look for
紙 - kami - paper
歌う - utau - to sing
遅い - osoi - slow, late

densha/jitensha would be very confusing w/ their rhyme, if it weren't for the fact that I already knew densha.
I practiced 言う - iu - to say/tell today.
It's the companion to "to speak" - 話す - hanasu...
I found this "say vs. speak" pair confusing in spanish once upon a time...
to speak - hablar - 話す/hanasu
to say - decir - 言う/iu

I Will... Into the Dark II

2009-01-08T17:38:00.004-07:00

I have the chords/lyrics to DCfC's I Will Follow You Into The Dark. I'm learning it today, like I said I was planning on doing.

It's not easy, but it isn't as difficult to understand as I thought it would be.
It uses:
Dm - x00231
F - 133211
Bb - 113331
Bbm - 113321
A -002220
C - 032010
C(bar) - 335553

It's just there's no "pattern", so there's a lot more to remember.
The intro is this:

Dm F Bb F C
Dm F C(Bar)
Dm F A Dm-C Bbx2 Bbmx2