All right, finally I’m creating the sequal to Clay! So far, I have ideas for gravity changers, sticky walls, two new droppable blocks, and acid blocks. I’m pretty excited about it, and once again I’m working with a friend (Zachary Bruno) to make all the graphics. The only things I’ve had to make so far (well, really just edit) are the acid and sticky walls, the gravity arrows, and the background a little. It looks good, but there are a few glitches I have to work out still. Hopefully it won’t stall progress much. I plan to make all the features first then start with the levels, so I can fix all known bugs. Pink walls = sticky walls, and green floors = acid floors. When you change the gravity, it changes the gravity of all the blocks, so it adds much more depth to the overall game. So many options for level design now. Also, the blocks come out randomly, but each level will still be possible no matter what. To play the first Clay, click here.

Also, yesterday I created a cool Christmas based graphic with GIMP. Basically I made two layers, the top one transparent and with the black outline, and the bottom one with all the colors. For the shading, I just took the paint brush, set the base color, and then lowered the opacity. All I had to do is go over the desired area a couple times, getting lower each time, to make it look darker. Today, though, I noticed the leg looked more like a piece of cardboard with green wrappings on it, so I changed the wrappings to look more rounded. Unfortunately, it’s still not looking the best, but I’ll continue to try to fix it.

Interesting, huh? It was a spur-of-the-moment idea, and took me about 30 minutes to create. I went for a REALLY colorful theme, as you can see from the image, with stained-glass and a giant candy-cane in the background.

-Nathan Wood

P.S. - Yeah, I know the post image is pretty pitiful. I just wanted to publish this fast. I figure the image included in this can make up for it, since I didn’t feel like prettying up the post topic. Really, does it matter all that much to you?

Is this wooden object a stick or a pole? In any case, it is an essential element of Tokyo policing. I love seeing the local cop at the kabin standing guard with the wooden stick, or the more formal occasions in front of a government office.

The tool is at once simple and, most likely, ineffective against any real emergency. Yet its presence is somehow soothing to the police and the public.

For the past few weeks these two have had daily play time outside.

With all their toys and options they still unanimously elect to playing with a stick. Jumping for it. Playing tug a war with eachother for it.

Since they began with this game there have been a few changes: homies gotten faster, monkey has gotten smarter about running up on homie from an angle he’s not expecting, and both can jump higher.

RETRIEVERS
will do ANYTHING to get that stick

Picture by: dunno source Caption by: JaneAnne via Loldog Builder

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Accessing Files from a Teachers Computer

Well I’m sure that there are some people who would love to just access their teachers computer to see what files they have, say their Excel Spreadsheets of grades, or even student references, so here is a few ways you can do this.

1. Depending on how stupid your teacher is, you could just easily plug a USB memory stick, about a 4 or 8 GB, into the teachers computer and take the files you want to have a look at.
2. Following the first point, if you are doing ICT and your teacher has work up on her computer to show the class, ask her if you can have a look at some code or what a part looks like, plug the memory stick in and you have a bit of time to get some files.
3. Get some “Remote Access” programs and connect your laptop to the schools network, but make sure you aren’t being discoverable if using Vista, and access the teachers files, although this might only work with knowing the teachers password.

Although many people with have alot of different methods to doing this, I found that 2. was really good. I advised my friend to use that method, and with success. He managed to find files in the teachers documents containing predicted grades for every student’s A2 examinations, aswell as student references from the subject teacher.

The second method can be used for more than just getting documents though. If the teacher uses Mozilla Firefox, you can access all his/her saved passwords as long as they haven’t set a master password.

Enjoy trying this out!

Hey Ladies…new tip – Don’t sleep on IMAN Cosmetics!  Oh my goodness!  I just tried IMAN  Second to None Stick Foundation on a whim today.  OMG!  So far I love it.  It is oil free and it gives me a matte finish!  I have oily skin so matte skin is a task for me.  I don’t even have any powder on top!  (Although, I’d like to try her powder.)  Not to mention it had benefits that I wasn’t even looking for…ie my pores appear smaller and my under eye “tiredness” looks invisible!  Hallelujah & let the church say Amen again!  lol.  Since it is a stick it also offers buildable coverage.  Personally, I prefer light coverage so all I need is a few dabs and blending with a cosmetic wedge.  For more coverage all I would need to do is put more on.  How easy is that?  It can also travel well, unlike my bare escentuals.  It’s a stick so it can fit in my purse if need be.  Best part – it was $15.  Yes this is pricey for the usual drugstore makeup junkie (such as myself), but if you have ever purused the department store brands you know that $15 for a good foundation is not only inexpensive; it’s worth the price. 

I also tried IMAN’s Luxury Lip Shine in Expose – love it too.  The lip shine is from the drugstore but has a thick department store gloss consistency.  Expose is a nudish pink color (you know that’s usually my color choice by now, right?! )  with a great shimmer.  According to the package all of the color choices of the Luxury Lip Shine have the same great shimmer because it’s infused with gold flecs.  I’ve also noticed that I don’t have to apply it often because the color doesn’t wear off quick, like most drugstore lip glosses, and it is moisturizing.  I checked the ingredients list and it has beeswax in it, which works for me since that’s my choice lip balm anyway.   I found my IMAN products at Walgreens and the beauty advisor told me that if it didn’t match I could bring it back – who knew?  But, it did so I didn’t have to.  My shade is Earth 1.  Go to her website www.imancosmetics.com and there is a list to let you know what your shade is based off of the shade you wear in other brands.  Anyhoo, girl…I’m just saying you need to run to the store and try this out – it’s definately a hit! 

Your Go2girl! 

Dec 9, 2009 AN octogenarian and his roommate were fighting over pornography at an old folk home.

The men caused an uproar at the home in Bahau, Negri Sembilan soon after midnight on Monday.

One of them, an 83-year-old man who was sleeping at that time, complained of being awoken by the loud volume on the television.

He alleged that his 75-year-old roommate was watching pornography in the room at that time.

“It was too noisy and disturbed my sleep,’’ he told China Press.

He asked the roommate to switch off the television but the latter refused.

A heated argument ensued.

One of them was said to have grabbed a stick and attempted to attack the other. Luckily, he was stopped by the caretaker of the home.

Police arrived to find out what had happened following a distress call.

The roommate, however, denied that he was watching pornography.

“It was two years ago. I have not been watching pornography recently,’’ he said.

Bahau councillor Phoon Kow Chai, a committee member of the home, said the duo had been placed in different rooms now.

He said this was the fourth time the octogenarian had complained about his roommate.

“We have warned the roommate not to cause any trouble to the other people in the home anymore,’’ he said.

He said there were 18 live-in old folks at the home.

I figured I’d let the actual reason for this post be the header image. It’s my first animation using Pivot, and while the program itself could be better, I found the whole experience pretty fun. (To download for yourself, Google “Pivot StickFigure Animator”) Anyway, I’ll work harder on follow up animations. I attempted to make physics, and I kept forgetting to move multiple things for each frame, so I had to keep going back and redoing it. Originally it was going to end with him trapped, but instead I gave him a seizure and he turned hero on us…crazy what stick figures can do these days !

-Nathan Wood

The rising steel beams and flawlessly executed plans for the crown of the Space Needle fit well with the theme going on in all my stories. The green stone and walking stick of my Family story were beautiful to me for the way that they felt against my hands: smooth, curved, and flawless. I imagine that if I were able to run my hands along the sleek legs of the Space Needle, or the slick facets of the Heart of the Ocean’s blue diamond, it would remind me of those days on my grandmother’s beach, palming my newest treasure.

Eat your heart out doctors and physicians!

According to Dr. Jahid Sidek, an Islamic practitioner, the common cause of most diseases is djinns, which modern medicine calls as “virus” and “germs”.

Let’s just forget for a minute that “virus” and “germs” are not even in the same category. Obviously Jahid did not get his doctorate in medicine, because otherwise he would’ve known how viruses look like.

They look like this.

Even djinns would be insulted by that.

That is not even the craziest of Jahid’s schemes, by far. He offers services to get rid of the djinns in your body—and supposedly your diseases—by beating (moderately) your body with the stick off the nona tree (custard-apple/sugar-apple tree, Annonaceae family).

In an article by Megat Lutfi Megat Rahim, Jahid likened his methods to reflexology, yet another vaguely defined method.

So, what was his reasons for choosing nona stick instead of any other type of sticks?

Was it because it was also preferred by the Chinese to scare away ghosts?

Actually, no. He just happened to use one when he first stumbled on this method, which miraculously worked on his first patient.

Believing his method to work, he continues to do so until now.

Causal relation much?

Oh, the article also mentioned that Jahid possesses 4 wives and 15 sons. I’m tempted make jokes using “wood” and “branch” puns, but let’s just leave it at this, ok?