Window Unto My Mind

This is why designers hate Internet Exploder (Explorer).

Trying out the ScribeFire plugin for Google Chrome.  If this works well enough, perhaps it will enable me to do more frequent updating here.

A concept artist @ ArenaNet.  Seriously.

ArenaNet recently showcased a bunch of their concept art for their upcoming game, Guild Wars 2, at GDC 2010 (game developer’s conference).  They’ve now released this video in three parts on YouTube.  I’ve dreamed of doing this type of art since I was a very young child, drawing hot rods and Colonial Vipers in Mr. Lewis’ class with Randy (O’Donnell), Mike (Boat) and James (Thayer).

Anyway, check them out if you are interested to see what enthralls me so.  If the music selection is from the upcoming Guild Wars title as well, it looks pretty promising all around.

Namaste friends!

Health care reform.  Quite a hot and potentially volatile subject to discuss these past few days, given the passing of bill H.R. 4872.  There are some strong feelings on this matter, both for and against.  People have concerns about a great number of things related to this reform, and deservedly so.  This is a big step for us as a nation.

My intent of posting here is to provide a number of links to which my family and friends may read more about the impending reform, so that they may make reasoned and intelligent decisions and conclusions in regards to how it will affect them and their families. 

Please keep in mind, that there is a lot of hate mongering and divisiveness surrounding this topic.  People screaming “socialism” and “the beginning of the end”, etc. blah blah.  They have every right to do so.  My challenge to you and to them, is to provide factual proof and citation in the written word of this bill and it’s addendum as to where these claims of socialism and other looming atrocities are stated.

Think for yourself, form your own opinion and stance on the matter.  That being said, here are the links that I was able to dig up this evening.

• The Consumerist - Finish Up Your Weekend With Some Light Reading On Health Care Reform
• Committee on Ways and Means - Health Care Reform
• U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Rules - H.R. 4872, THE HEALTH CARE & EDUCATION AFFORDABILITY RECONCILIATION ACT of 2010 SECTION-BY-SECTION ANALYSIS
• New York Times - How the Health Care Overhaul Could Affect You
• Chicago Tribune - Chart: How the bill affects you
• Nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office - The bill’s effects on the federal budget (PDF)
• FactCheck.org - A Final Weekend of Whoppers?
• FactCheck.org - Health Care Summit Squabbles
• PolitFact.com - Florida Republican Party claims Democratic health care plan is government takeover
• PolitiFact.com - Top 5 lies about health care

And for good measure, I thought I’d throw this one in.  It’s an interview from CNN in which it is pointed out that the content of this bill is indeed bipartisan.

• CrooksandLiars.com - Wasserman Schultz on Health Care Bill: This Passed Without Any Republican Support by Their Choice

That is all for now.  I hope that you all find this information useful and productive in your evaluation of what this legislation means to you and yours, as well as how it may impact all of our lives.

Peace.

Came across an interesting article today, via Mohammad Haque (or Hawk - artist of AppleGeeks and one of my favorite creative people on the web).

Ask Mr. Artist Guy: Should An Illustrator Work In Multiple Styles?

This is especially poignant for me.  I struggle mightily with my illustrative “style”.  I will often times set out to purposely try and do an illustration or sketch in a different style, give it some different character from what I normally do.  It’s hard for me though.  Ultimately, I generally end up with the same outcome.  Very frustrating.

I believe I could overcome this if I just got my tail to my drafting table more often, though it is difficult to plan sketch time when I usually have so much to do once I get home from work (cooking, cleaning or even just relaxing for a while).

I find it difficult to motivate myself to purposely sit at yet another desk after having sat at one all day at work.  Although it’s pretty easy to do if I’m going to be playing a session of Aion, etc., Perhaps I just need to get my priorities adjusted.

In any case, I plan on having even less time here shortly.  I’ll be gone for two weeks in December and after the first of the year, I hope to focus on getting my tail back into an early-morning gym routine.

As my friend and mentor Patrick says — “Focus!”

I have set a goal for myself to try and finish one complete sketch per week.  Along these lines, I picked up some new motivation tonight at Barnes & Noble.

What?!  But it was so conveniently located near the Apple Store!  ;)

Funny story.  The Bluetooth headset that I’ve had for some time now (Aliph Jawbone) was on it’s last chip for a while.  The rubber bit on the ear piece has been frayed, cracked and coming off and the plastic cap on the end had become detached, making it excessively difficult to charge.  Being the frugal person I am though, when it comes to material items such as this, electrical tape was keeping the ear piece in check and I had devised a rubber-band solution for getting it charge when needed.

Well, that has come to an end.  Yesterday morning rolled around and, upon pondering where the heck my headset was, I realized the last time I had seen it was when I had thrown it into the bag containing my take-home mexican food.  Oh yes.  What you are thinking is probably correct.  Upon tracking down said bag that had now been in the garbage bag the entirety of the weekend, said Bluetooth headset was sitting in the bottom of the bag, along with a small portion of salsa.

They looked quite happy together, so I thought best not to disturb them.

I grabbed a new model of the Aliph Jawbone tonight at the Apple Store. Thus far it seems quite the improvement over my previous model, which was probably a year or two old.

I absolutely detest holding a cell phone while driving, so this makes me happy.

The time seems right to fire up a blog page again.  While Facebook serves it’s niche of a convenient way to share the happenings and occurrences in your life with people, it doesn’t really provide the type of platform that I prefer for expression and discussion.  Plus, I’m still not to sure I’m thrilled with the terms of use that Facebook asserts, essentially claiming all content that you post as their property (at least as I read it).

As for Twitter.  Meh…

All that being said, welcome to the new blog.  I’m new to Tumblr, so I’ll have to take a poke around to see how best to configure the site here, but in the mean time, feel free to comment and discuss.