Here I was, on a complete design high working on my friend Kelsey and I's forthcoming Disney blog. Originally I had intended to have it publishing with wordpress, the same case for this site. Using wordpress was a pain in the backside... I had just started to get a grasp on their coding and dashboard when... then went and changed it all.

Wow, was I annoyed. That's when I gave up on wordpress, transferred all my posts to blogger, and totally changed something-unpredictable to what we see today.

So working on my disney blog I go looking for fun gadgets that might be good for us to have on the site. And I come across the Blogger Buzz blog and this post.

Well crap. As of March 26, 2010 I will no longer be able to use Blogger for my blog. Why? Because I paid for two very nice domain names, hosting space, and all that fun stuff.

I'm so frustrated right now.

Thanks Blogger, much appreciated that you make my life suck.

Labels: rambles

I'm not behind reading (I'm actually a book ahead), but I didn't want my blog to be entirely made up of my crappy book reviews. That why we have a break in between.

Fly Me to the Moon
By Alyson Noel

This was a fun book. Definitely a chicklit book, but it was so much fun that I breezed through it in no time.

One of the things I find with these books, however, is that they are utterly predictable. As soon as the main character and the guy she would end up with (this is a chicklit book after all, they always end up together) made his first appearance, I knew that was who she would be with. And they hardly had a passing glance together.

This is a shot review, I know. :P

Labels: books

OH MY GOSH!

I just discovered there's going to be a Star Trek Convention here in Vancouver!!!!!!

*Andrea's head ruptures from excitement*

Labels: geekery

It's days like this that help me get over my worries that I"m not a good graphic designer.

My friend Joseph works for an airline in the States. It's his job to create those computer base training modules, so that pilots can refresh / learn their stuff. He is a pilot himself, not a graphic designer. He can, however, manage through okay. But what does he do when he hits a block and cannot work through it?

He asks me.

Today he needed a flash box, that he could update the text it, and it would scroll. Kinda like the iframes of internet yore, the ones that I loved so much. Plop the box in, pick your size, type in your text, and away you go.

Unfortunately for Jos, he doesn't know Flash. Doesn't even have Flash on his computer. So how could he make a box like this, without knowing a bit of action script.

So he fires me an email. While I always assumed I was crap at Flash (despite the fact that my Online design portfolio is completely Flash based).

I have never made a scrolly iframe type box in flash before.

So I dig out ye-ol tutorials. Turns out to be easy enough.

The tricky part?

Make the text work dynamically so all Jos has to do is plop the text into a word file and voila! Magic scrolly text box.

Dusting the filing cabinet in the brain off, I remember actually doing dynamic text in class. And video. And pictures. Do I remember how? Just.... hardly.

And what do you know? I managed to get it to work :D So now I feel all warm and fuzzy inside that I don't suck completely.

Yes I am probably silly for having such low esteem when it comes to my own creativity, but I will take whatever small steps I can. I know I can do this. I mean, look at my blog? It was several hours of work figuring out layers and textures and all that, but it's beeaaauuutiful (except if you use internet explorer, but that is because IE sucks).

So yes, I am a good designer. I just need to smarted up and do a better job at taking days like these to heart.

And now he tells me he needs it in actionscript 2 instead of 3... joy.

Labels: rambles

So in an attempt to get ahead on my "one book a week" resolution, I have been reading like crazy.

Heat Wave
By Richard Castle

If you haven't seen the TV show Castle (starring Nathan Fillion and Stana Katic) on ABC yet, then you are crazy. It is a terrific new take on the standard procedural crime shows like CSI and NCIS. While it's still your traditional person gets murdered and the police/forensics/navy guys have to figure out who did it and why, they give it a much more lighthearted spin. In the series, it is Kate Beckett (played by Stana Katic), a police murder detective, who has been slumped with Richard Castle (played by Nathan Fillion). Castle is a novelist, who called in a favour to the mayor to be allowed to follow around a police team so that he can research his new book.

The pair make a great comedic duo, but not in typical "slapstick" comedic way. It's very witty humour, typical stuff you'd get from the characters that Fillion usually plays. There is also that relationship connection / spark type thing between Castle and Beckett, that leaves you wondering what if...

Throughout season one, Castle is researching for his new book, based on a new character (since he killed off his usual protagonist in his last book). At the beginning of season two, the book is released and the series is now peppered with jokes about the book that Castle has written.

So what did ABC do? They released the book that Castle wrote! It's got FIllion as Castle on the back as the author and everything.

The book is great, and reads just like an episode of the show. There is still that same partner dynamic, but this time between Castle's fictional characters Nikki Heat and Jameson Rook. All the references to the book in the TV show match up exactly with the book (yes, the sex scene is on page 105, and the dedication on the front of the book is exactly the same).

When I ordered the book into the store, I was surprised at how thin it was (it's only 208 pages in hardcover), so I didn't have high expectations for it. But it was definitely a great book to read, especially if you're a fan of the show!

Labels: books

So in my endeavour to keep up with my resolution to read more books, I figured I would try to keep a record of them all here my blog. You may not be excited for that, but I certainly am!

Ill Wind
By Rachel Caine

This is the second book in the Weather Warden series. I don't normally go for fantasy books (I read them if I have them). But we got a few of this series in at the bookstore a few weeks back, and I loved the cover design of them. I didn't really think about reading them until a customer ordered in one. For some reason I decided to read the blurb on the back and thought that it sounded interesting enough. I'd read enough Star Trek books to do me until 2020, so something different might be a change of pace for me.

So I went and ordered in the first of the series.

Oh my goodness, I was addicted. I polished the first book of in a couple days. And the next tiem I was at work I ordered the next one.

It was just as good. The ending was one of those that made me want to jump up and say "what?! No!" It was totally NOT what I was expecting, which is probably a good thing considering predictable books can be booooring. And if a book is boring I WILL stop reading it, that's just the way it is. I mean, why should I keep reading a book that I'm not enjoying?

Anyway, the main character, Joanne, is one of those kick butt heroines a la Charlie's Angels or Alias. It's always fun to have female leads who aren't dumb bunnies who always need to be rescued. Of course, sometimes even a kick butt chick needs to be saved, but usually she's at least put the sweat in to try and get herself out of the situation.

All in all I enjoyed this book. Can't wait for the next one to come in so I can devour it too. :D

Labels: books

Happy (belated) New Year everyone!!!

There's something about a new year that makes a person feel extra optimistic and hopeful. Sure, new years is just another day like any other on our trip around the sun. Yet as we throw out our old calendars and look foreward tot he fresh, new, unscribbled in ones, there is just something so invigorating that makes us look foreward to the next three hundred and sixty five days.

I'm not usually the type to make New Years Resolutions, but for some reason I figured this year I ought to (perhaps if I did it would give me better years than the ones gone past). They are very lighthearted, but are things that I would very much like to work towards.

1- Read at least one book a week.
During university I found that I barely had time to read all of my assigned textbooks readings, let alone anything for my own personal enjoyment. I think I maybe read 10 books for myself in the entire 5 years that I was in post secondary - and I call myself a book lover, yeesh! Now that I have more free time, I really want to get back into ready. Prior to Christmas I attempted this, but I ended up falling about 5 weeks behind even though I was reading almost ever night - yikes! I know it's a big thing to attempt, but I"m going to give it a whirl and see how it goes! :)

2- Draw more!
Drawing has always been one of my passions in life. If I wasn't doodling on notes, I was drawing this silly square-a-day comic strips about adventures my friends and I supposidly went on. It even got to the point that I made one about my best friend, calling her Super-Amy, and coming up with a big plot surrounding it. Over time, this evolved into Snowpirate, a supposdily weekly webcomic. Yet even though I've been doing Snowpirate for going on 5 years now, I don't even have 52 strips in the archive!!! It's rather gloomy, I know. So, my goal is to start drawing some more. Hopefully at least once everday, even if it's in my drawing journal. I also have a few friends who have promised to kick my ass and get me motivated to work on snowpirate some more.

3- Stop being a lazy duff!
Yeah... this one is rather all encompassing. I have a habit of just falling into lazy ruts and not doing anything. On days I don't work I'll sometimes sleep in until 10, and then just act like a slug and not do anything productive (even as I write this I'm still in my pyjamas; of course, I am blogging, so that is being productive). There are so many things that I want to do in life, I just have to remember my motivation (that was buried under dust while I was in school) and get back to it! There are so many great things to see, people to me, goals I want to achieve... if I could just get out of bed and get to it!

So those are my three. I know, they seem rather silly, but I want small goals that make me a better person, instead of those basic go-to resoluations like lose weight and eat healthy. I'm also going into this realising that it might take more than the three months to actually achieve these resolutions (most people give up on their resolutions by March). These are more like goals I want to work towards, not that I'm going to dive into feet first.

I've already gotten a good start on the first one, with a book almost halfway finished. Of course, I started it technically last year... but we won't split hairs.. he..hehehe. The second one I have been doing a little bit of sketching here and there. Not much, but its better than nada. And lastly.. well... I'm blogging aren't I? Yes yes, I know I'm still in my pjs, but at least I'm working on something!!

So cheers everyone! Here is to a new calendar year, and to a refreshing start!

Labels: rambles