Bugs, Tablets and I may have bought something .....

Been a bit under the weather this week ...

The bugs hit on Wednesday and they felt really bad. I was still heading off into work but very definitely reduced capacity. Still not right but closer to normal again. It's been the classic hot/cold with a dry cough but add crippling headaches and joint pain to that as well. The headaches were intense on Wednesday. (Meningitis did cross my mind, thankfully it wasn't.)

It did mean I didn't have a chance to play more with the new toy acquired on Tuesday though. Yep. Acquired a tablet ... graphics tablet. It's a Wacom Intuos thing which is purely input. There's no screen on it but you can have it on your lap, keep your eye on the screen and it's fairly intuitive linking the hand movement to the screen when you get used to it. (It seemed to be fighting me today though which could easily be Windows).

Anyway ... I thought I'd try a sketch or two and this happened :

Click for bigger as per usual. I've been attempting to learn more from a group called Inklings, where the lovely pair of Steph (@sourfruitjunkie) and Aria (@genkisoda) have huge fun just drawing things while talking about the techniques that go into what they're drawing.

One thing I'm taking from it is ... there's a huge amount of work that goes in before it becomes as apparently effortless as when an expert does an activity. As a beginner, you look at what you make and think it looks rubbish. You forget that there's a massive amount of work and practice between the beginner and the expert. The thing to tell yourself is that by practicing, you're making the steps to becoming much better and you should learn as much as possible from your early efforts and from watching other people.

There's always room to learn. And it takes ages to get to an expert level. The underlying message though is that drawing is fun. Keep at it.

Here's another sketch :

This one is for the lovely Random Tuesday who had a birthday last week. I was doing more learning about the brush tools available in the drawing package (still far from getting the best from them) and looking to apply some of the skeleton lessons. Everything has a skeleton (even dragons!) ... and remembering that will make your drawings look a bit more real. So in here, I've used a pocket dragon as a reference again and added in customised arms and fingers to make the symbol on the middle. I hope she liked it.

The last one of the evening was for the weekly Mage Cast show, which has been huge fun to watch. One of the cast members has been busy doing other things for the last few weeks though. Where could he be ?

The original had lines which were far too faint, I hope the brightness adjustment makes it more legible. That's another lesson to learn, my AOC screen is extremely good but I think it's bringing out details that other screens cannot. Hence the one above having detail that's too faint to read.

One of the issues I'm fighting with myself on is that I want to unleash the drawings as quickly as possible, before refining them to be up to good standard. I dunno, I get ideas that I think will make people chuckle and I want to get them the chuckles as quickly as I can.

One last sketch before closing thing ... anyone need coffee ?

That one's from coming back to drawing today. I'm trying to keep the style to simple outline with filled colours (I'm surprised at how many drawings and animations actually are simple outlines and flat colour!) with highlighting coming in as appropriate.

But yep. Felt more like drawing today after the bugs in the week. Maybe could have yesterday but I wiped myself out with stuff going on in the morning.

Car service trip up to Cheltenham and ...
My cards were nearly wiped out by a bad reader in the petrol station (I may actually have flipped their PINs in my head, yep - bugs)
Scarily friendly receptionist. As in scary.
Distance travel. Not much but energy is very low still.
I'm changing the car again.

Yep. Lexus number 4 is on its way as part of an offer I couldn't refuse (of the nice kind, not the Godfather kind). I think they're terrified of Brexit and it's led to an offer where :
I pay the same monthly amount;
It holds off the "what happens at the end of the period" issue where I have to either fund buying the car or let it go;
They'll pay 3x services;
Massive deposit contributions - I'm basically not giving them any extra.
Possibly one for a disclosure note ? Maybe. The usual thing where disclosure is necessary is where you tell people how good stuff is without saying whether you were paid to say that. The incentives are all there above and I haven't said anything why I'll be on Lexus 4. (They're fantastic, solid, reliable cars with great performance and spec - what's not to like!).

The next one will be red and one reason to change is that while IS no 2 was better than the first, there were still a couple of thoughts like "It's not giving the economy of the first" and an issue with the phone which I was a bit perturbed about.

More in a few weeks there. In the meantime, I can feel bug affected legs threatening a pain flare up so I'd better hit "post" and say bye !

PS Check out Inklings on Geekspace.tv (twitch link). One more session on Monday evening (Tues 0.00 GMT) in this current run but I hope they'll be back. They're fun.

More book ! Children of Time

And with my new found quest to learn how to draw, you probably know what's coming for the thumbnail ....

There we go.

Gosh, this one has felt like a grind which is a shame because there was a lot of good stuff in there. Book ? Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky.

The book has a two main threads running throughout and it alternates between the perspective of the creatures on the planet and the humans on board the Gilgamesh, an ark ship with the last remnants of the human race fleeing a dying and toxic Earth.

The planet they arrive at is the subject of an ancient terraforming project headed up by Dr Avrana Kern. However ... at the culmination of the project, all sorts of crazy people erupt and overthrow the old order. Humanity is thrown into chaos, all sorts of bad things happen and the original subjects of an accelerated uplift project all burn up in a firey reentry.

Hopefully going to avoid the spoilers !

With the monkeys all gone, what's left to inherit the uplift project ? The book is split up through various epochs, where the crew of the Gilgamesh wrestle with Dr Kern and with themselves in various vignettes.

Similarly, the spiders on the planet steadily evolve into far more complex and intelligent creatures and face their own challenges.

The book ended well and the various challenges were well written. It's a very well written book looking back on it.

But I didn't really enjoy it and found it a bit of a slog to get through to the finish. maybe due to the constant swapping between perspectives ? I don't think so, I've read similar books and enjoyed them. I suspect I formed a low opinion of this one quite early due to the tiredness and general burning out feeling but I didn't want to give up on it.

What's next ? Not sure actually ! I might well go back to an older book. Nah. I've got a few books on the Kindle waiting to be read.

PS That's totally not a Thargoid up there that's hosting Dr Kern's Sentry Pod.

Old Meme, remembered

People have had me looking for a cake joke just now and I found an old meme ... You know me and memes, can't resist. And I couldn't resist updating this one.

But ... cake ?

Cake from the archives ! This was great cake.

Meme ?

The idea is that you will learn a lot of little things about your friends that you probably didn't know already. It's going to be curious how many of these have changed since the original post in 2006.

1. What time did you get up this morning? Awake 0710 ish, on the bus at 0730. My morning routine resembles a terrified realisation that quite soon I will be in work and terror can be a powerful motivator. (I skip breakfast at home, have a teacake at work and gradually wake while on the bus).

2. Diamonds or pearls? Diamonds are more sparkly ? Yep. Same answer.

3. What was the last film you saw at the cinema? That time it was Narnia. This time it was Battle Angel Alita, which I would highly recommend for a bit of anime style action fun.

4. What's your favourite TV show? Currently, it's Star Trek Discovery because it pulls off what it does with a certain style and it has continually kept me guessing as to where it's going to go.

5. What did you have for breakfast this morning? TEACAKE !

6. What's your favourite cuisine? Pizza. Yep. Still pizza.

7. What foods do you dislike? Foods that are too mushy or are hassle to eat.

8. What is your favourite crisp flavour? The Flaming Bacon type flavour.

9. What's your favourite CD at the moment? It was Alisha's Attic Vaults cd 1 back then but I've since developed a heavy Nina Persson addiction and it's between the A Camp self titled album and Long Gone Before Daylight by The Cardigans.

10. What kind of car do you drive? Back then it was a Puma, now it's a Lexus IS300h. Both are fantastic cars in their own ways.

12. What characteristics do you despise? Misplaced Arrogance - gotta agree there. Still the same.

11. Favourite sandwich? Ham tea cakes. Not had one of these in years ! (I don't keep butter in the house any more because I waste it by not using it quickly enough)

13. Favourite item of clothing? Clothing with no holes in the wrong places. Jeans, t shirt, leather jacket. Same ! I have a newish T-shirt with a kitty in a ball of string that says "It was like it when I got here !" that's a favourite (link !).

14. If you could go anywhere in the world on vacation, where would you go? Kennedy Space Centre on the way to the Moon. No change here !

15. What colour is your bathroom? Blue and yellow (I haven't repainted it since moving in). And it's still the same colours.

16. Favourite Brand of clothing? I avoid clothing brands that put their name on the item as they're not paying me to advertise their stuff. No change there, although I would happily recommend Genki Gear and Fuzzballs (link)

17. Where would you retire? Caribbean probably - cos of the cricket. Might not like the heat there though. Not any more, due to attitude of people observed while the cricket coverage is on. Now it would be on a canal barge, touring the canals.

18. Favourite time of day? Getting home from work. Same ! Oh and stream time or any time I get nice messages from good people.

19. What was your most memorable birthday? Can't remember many of these ... The last few when I've had gifts :-D

20. Where were you born? Birmingham. No change there ! I have not been cloned since the writing of the last post. I think.

21. Favourite sport to watch? Cricket. No change there !

22. Who do you least expect to send this back to you? It's not really a sending back to thing any more ....

23. Person you expect to send it back first? See above

24. What fabric detergent do you use? Was Persil. I actually have issues here now due to my outsides. Believe it or not, I am allergic to hypoallergenic washing blobs. Nowadays it's Persil blobs (still!) and Tesco softener, although I'll switch the softener when it runs out.

25. Were you named after anyone? No. Don't think so ...

26. Do you wish on stars? No. Although they are very nice to look at.

27. When did you last cry? 17 - just before going into an exam. (Tears weren't due to the exam !). That's changed ! The tears come a little more often now, the emotions seem to have woken up a bit more. Last time was actually Friday, with a few tears pulled out in bits of Alita.

28. Do you like your handwriting? Nope. Can barely read it. And ... it hasn't improved much at all.

29. If you were another person, would YOU be friends with you? Aye - Unless I'd rubbed me up the wrong way. Haha, no change there.

30. Are you a daredevil? Yep. I'll risk stuff, although I do wear a helmet when batting now. I'm older now but I'll still go for stuff. It's just moderated by what my body currently lets me do.

31. Do looks matter? Only to those who don't look at the personality beneath the looks. Are they worth knowing ?

32. How do you release anger? I get aggressive and try to release the aggression on sport. I try to redirect the anger/aggression into driving myself harder. Tough one, I don't think this has changed much, except I don't have that release in sport. I generate much less anger now because I redirect it into better emotions.

33. Where is your second home? Lincolnshire with the parents. Same !

34. What class in High School was totally useless? Previously : Foreign languages. Make them speak English ! Muahahaha. (heh - kidding). Now : Religious Education.

35. Do you use sarcasm a lot? Yep. When I can, although sarcasm tends to be destructive and I prefer to use constructive humour. I try and use it more now too, hiding daftness behind words that take a little time to decipher.

37. Favourite movie? Previously : Sky Captain. What would it be now ? The Martian is right up there, Rogue One. Must watch Sky Captain again.

38. What are your nicknames? Then - Sleepypete or Ice. Now, I've adopted Sleepydwagonman as the nickname I tend to use online.

39. Do you untie your shoes when you take them off? Yes - makes it easier to get them back on. No change.

40. Do you think that you are strong? Reasonably - can hold my own in cricket but I suffer from injuries too much. Haha, not any more ! My legs are probably above average strength but they're not getting the exercise at the moment while my arms are affected by really unhappy shoulders.

41. What's your favourite ice cream flavour? Vanilla. It's Mint Choc now.

42. What are your favourite colours? Then : Red, blue. Yellow for cars. Now : Blue's a good one, last two cars have been dark grey metallic, which has worked well with them.

43. What is your least favourite thing about yourself? Easily distracted, absent minded. Add "has difficulty with wrods" to that now.

44. Who do you miss most? The dogs. Oh yes. Muttleys are awesome. Add my dad in there too.

45. Do you want everyone you sent this to send it back? Muahahaha - maybe :-) Lol, if anyone who sees this does a copy/paste/change, let me know !

46. What colour pants are you wearing? Then : Dark blue, unless you're going by the American definition in which case it's black. Now : Erm ... exactly the same. And they're not the same two items of clothing. Oh wait ! Switch them around. And no the underpants are not on the outside.

47. What are you listening to right now? Then : 3 phone conversations and 2 people (inc me) tapping a keyboard. Wonder what the other person is doing ... An Enter Elysium video, Heychrissa streaming on the laptop and the current iTunes track is "It", the first track on the Chaleur Humaine album by Christine and the Queens.

48. Last thing you ate? Then : King Size Twix. Now : a small Smarties Easter Egg. Yes. I have no shame in that. HA !

49. If you were a crayon, what colour would you be? Then : Rainbow. Now : probably green for the dragons.

50. Last person you talked to on the phone? Then : Mortgage people. (Wonder what that was for ? It was +1year after I had to remortgage). Now : a fella at work about a training solutions meeting tomorrow.

51. What is the first thing you notice about the opposite s*x? Then (I believe being sarcastic !) Hair. Unless I'm sitting down or they're way taller than me - then it's breasts. Now : eyes and what the eyes are saying in their silent way, curiously though, I can never remember someone's eye colour. Then hopefully a smile :-D. The grin tends to bring out an answering smile.

52. What's your favourite drink? Coke (diet). Same !

53. Do you wear contacts? No but I have glasses on through most of my waking hours. Now - I still have the same glasses I had back then. I need new ones ....

54. Favourite Day(s) of the Year? Christmas, days out of work and the day I bring the donuts in to work (sometime near birthday). No change ! Although add in Comic Con plus the Lords trip in the summer.

55. Scary Movies or Happy Endings? Then : Happy Endings but endings that are definite. I.e. not a Spielberg multiple ending. Now : happy endings. Movies that have a satisfying ending.

56. Summer or winter? Cricket season. <- br="" this.="">
57. Hugs Or Kisses? Hugs, although anyone I know who I spot with Iceangel is in danger of a good tickling. Now : Hugs are awesome.

58. What Is Your Favourite Dessert? Then : Chocolate fudge cake - must resist ... Now ? Hmm. Still cake ! Although the lunchtime thing if I have cake is usually a lemon muffin.

59. What Book are you currently reading? Then : The Apocalypse Troll by David Weber. Now : Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky.

I meant to slot a few tasty pictures in there to break it up but I think the way I copy/pasted it in made the format go a little wibbly ... However !

Historical accuracy is everything.

Alita, shops, arty ideas

Seem to be busy again at the moment !

Definitely missing the chance to do more posts. Things happening lately and I'm ending up crashing out when I get home and turning the brain off as much as I can. I did feel like an escape to something where I definitely could turn the brain off though .... this was Friday pm.

What's that ?

Friday's escape was a film called Battle Angel Alita. Without giving too much away (like some of the images that Google will show you !), this one is a live action / cgi film set about 500 years in the future where all of the cities of Earth have fallen in an apocalyptic war, save one. The film is set in Iron Town, below the flying city of Zolom. (I may be getting a couple of the references wrong here).

I really enjoyed it and .... a tear or two may have escaped at certain points. Actually, I've been feeling the crispiness of impending burn out this week* and it feels like this film gave me a much needed reset. Films tend to be like that.

*(what I mentioned last weekend, plus I damaged my eye last Monday which was getting me down too. It's ok now.)

Anyway, the story picks up with our Alita being found in a junkyard and being put together by Dr Ido, very ably played by Christoph Waltz. She has no memory but everything that she sees and experiences is met with total joy and absolute commitment.

And there are those big wide eyes too that take in the world. But there is more to Alita than the big cute eyes and a personality that wants to jump into absolutely everything.

And the story leaps off from there. As usual, there is daftness involved with the storyline and shortcuts to make it all fit into a film. But ... lots of action, plenty of spectacle and I thought the central character was incredible.

Thoroughly recommended.

Friday's escape wasn't just about the film though. (It was on at 5pm so I needed to find something to occupy until then ! Plus lunch).

One thing I've been observing over the past years is that our High Street is steadily disintegrating. It started with a few big names collapsing when the banking collapse happened. But it's continued ever since then.

My theory is that the continuing austerity regime means that people don't have any disposable income any more, so the shops that thrived on that have been driven out of business. The curiosity shops with knickknacks and trinkets. Fun stuff. Useless decorative stuff that makes you smile when you look at it.

Those shops don't exist any more. We have expensive clothes shops, nail bars and vape shops instead. I'm not interested in those. I'm not sure if I'll be doing the old run across to our local Mall any more, with the closure of the HMV shop there. That place now has an increasing number of empty lots and the HMV was one of two shops I'd regularly have a look in when there. (The other was the Lego place).

It's a similar story in town, except that it still has its HMV and its Foyles bookstore. (And Waterstones too). The HMV thing is curious actually, they've just suddenly closed another 27 stores out of their 127 and some of them are very painful looking closures indeed. (Here's the BBC story with the list).

It's only part austerity though. Some of it is down to the online people who don't play fair. Like Spotify who draw you into their renting model and other places who don't pay their taxes. Places like Waterstones and Foyles can't get away with that and compounding that, have their prices fixed by the publishers. I'm not even seeing the old Buy 1 Get 1 Free type offers that the bookshops used to do.

I choose what I buy based on what's more economical to buy, which means favouring Kindle over Paperback. But .... I'd much prefer to buy paperback if it were the same price because ... paperback will always be better and you're helping to support the awesome people who work in the Foyles and the Waterstones.

Oh and I'll always want to own my music rather than use Spotify. Even better to acquire the music from places like Bandcamp or as downloads from the artist's own site. Spotify and Youtube are rubbish for supporting the creators ... and if those creators aren't getting the recompense for making stuff for us to enjoy, they will quit and get jobs to let them eat. I'd rather see them making videos or music.

I sense I should come down off that particular soap box though. I did acquire a few things on Friday :
Seal - Standard
Jean-Michel Jarre - Equinoxe Infinity
Ed Sheeran - divide
Lorde - Pure Heroine
It might take a while before I get to listen to them though, there are still 6,000 unlistened to tracks in the library and I'm going from A albums to Z albums .... (After 6 months with the laptop, I'm in the C albums).

There's a Steam sale going too .... and games called Frostpunk, Unavowed and Blood Bowl 2 have been acquired. (Maybe a little dealing with Sad by buying stuff ? Haha, maybe).

Last bit ... I'm trying to develop the drawing still. I have ideas, one nearly emerged for today but after cogitating on it over the last week, I didn't get a solid enough idea. Not like the one someone gave me the other week ... Here we go :

There we go. A Sleepy Wagon Man, dreaming of pizza.

I've been enjoying watching as much of the Inklings streams on Geekspace.tv, led by Steph the sourfruitjunkie who has a thing for crows. She saw the Sleepydwagonman username I use on Twitch and wondered what a Sleepy Wagon Man would be like. And then there's pizza.

I quite enjoyed making that one, as I'm enjoying learning more of technique from teaching streams like Inklings and by observing what I'm seeing. When you look at cartoons, drawings or animations, keep an eye open for the technique. It may surprise you how flat the colouring of the picture is ! Gotta keep it simple though, as less seems to be more.

Erm. That "it's getting a bit too more" pinger is going off, especially as I haven't had me dinner yet and it's getting later ! Cya.

We've had snow again ...

Snow seems to be coming at convenient times at the moment here !

Last year, I can't remember the circumstances but I spent the Thursday working from home, so I missed the announcement that said the site was closed on the Friday. We have laptops, which is pretty much all we need to enable working from home. That said, the laptop hooks up nicely to a big screen while in the office and you can talk to people more easily. (And they do teacakes which I could do here but ...)

I could hook up the laptop to my home monitor but ... I'd honestly prefer not to do much rearranging of the cables.

Wait ... snow ! It arrived a few hours later than advertised, starting properly at maybe 8pm instead of the predicted 2-3pm. We got a little less than last year, maybe a couple of inches and it was actually starting to melt even as the last of it was falling.

The snowman above was made by a neighbour. It's glorious isn't it ? Definitely pretty snow when it started coming down.

As always, click for bigger. Most of these are phone camera but there are a couple with the proper camera.

I was able to do my usual Friday thing of working to around lunchtime and then taking advantage of accumulated flexi credit during the week to disappear. I used to have the standard 9 to 5 pattern, plus leaving a little later when I wanted to finish something off. I still have the pattern of hanging on until about 5pm but I start earlier ... means I build up those extra hours.

Yep. Totally not noping out of venturing too far. (I'd left my boots in the boot of the car).

The main roads had been fairly well cleared by the time I ventured out at lunchtime. The pavements were still pretty dangerous though. What I can't believe was that idiots were cycling on the icy rutted pavements still, instead of sticking to the clear roads. Well, that's cyclists for you. They're not smart round here.

There was, of course, a battle still raging on the surface of Hoth ...

And up in orbit.

A snow kitty was looking on from afar.

Which gave me ideas ....

A path to chips ? (And pizza).

That wasn't the idea that popped into the head, although I did raid a rather busy local Chinese later. I do love the muffled crump crump crump as you walk through snow.

Before I go, a proverb. The early bird beat the snow and got the worm, this is the late bird.

I wonder if my new front door guard is still there !