Random Thoughts

Off my duff.

Justin — Sat, 22 Mar 2008 03:10:55 GMT

One of the things I say I'm doing but showing little actual progress for (other than concept/test sketches) is my webcomic (which if you've read my blog, it's about all I blog about). I've finally actually started drawing the comic, I've drawn the first page (on different pieces of paper.. now I have to photomontage them together) and am in the proccess of colouring them. I'm rather pleased with the way this turned out, it's just part of the page (the rest of the page isn't as dramatic). I won't be posting the comic up until I have a buffer of about a month or two's worth, but I'll post a link when I do. I was drawing on Tuesday while talking on the phone with Khrysso, and I was rather pleased that my drawings were looking good when I wasn't focusing on them. Then I was drawing while talking with a girl I work with (who is also an artist) and she saw my drawings and said that I've gotten MUCH MUCH better.. again these are quick pen drawings I was doing so no going back and fixing mistakes. I spent quite a bit of time on this, but I like the way it looks. (I might redraw the eyes.. make them bigger.)

Lunar Eclipse

Justin — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 02:13:38 GMT

I watched the lunar eclipse tonight with one of my roomates. It was neat. Next one isn't until 2010. That's all :) Not horribly interesting but I thought I would blog about it nonetheless ^-^.

Art consistency improvements ^-^

Justin — Sun, 17 Feb 2008 05:37:00 GMT

My main problem with my art has been character consistancy. It seems like every time I draw the same character it comes out differently. Khrysso sugested trying to draw them on graph paper. So I did. Now I know most of temiel's face porportions (I did side and 3/4 tries too but I'm not as good at drawing those - need more practice). Knowing the porportions allowed me to experiment more freely, since I didn't have to worry about placement so much. I found an old picture of Temiel when he is older that I drew way back in high school. One of my friends (who is an excellent artist and works as a professional comic book illustrator now) was on a legolas fixation, I kinda copied her work. After seeing my old photo, I decided to incorporate some of that into this art, so I changed the hair (right) and added the cloak. Having the hair not in the fact makes him look more mature and less like a silly kid (which fits the character, even though he looks like a young teen, he's 140ish) And I decided to colour them ^-^. I'm happy with the colour I got for skintone. It's greener than human skintone which helps show that he's.. really not human. I think the green contrasts the hair more nicely :) However he is a fire mage and they wear red robes, so I'll have to play with it a bit more.

Gloria in egg shell sis eggo.

Justin — Sun, 09 Dec 2007 00:12:39 GMT

So I was on the phone with Khrysso, and he says to me "was thinking of converting to a new spiritiality.. but I forget the name of it... it's like Agnosticism, but it wasn't Agnosticism, for they tend to be percieved as wishy-washy." So I said "You could always become Eggnostic" (to which he laughed).. "No, I'm serious, didn't Jesus say take up my yolk and learn from me?" Being ever the theologiean, Khrysso said "yes, 'for my yolk is easy and my burden is light'". True, except that I preffer my yolks over-easy, being burdened by light toast sounds about right. This is, of course, why when Jesus was born, they sang "Gloria in egg shell sis eggo." Likewise, Cognito eggo sum (I think therefore I'm an egg.) Khrysso said "That puts a whole new spiritual twist on.. 'leggo my eggo'." Eggsactly!

Art n Stuff

Justin — Sun, 23 Sep 2007 16:59:46 GMT

I uploaded some of my better stuff from my sketchbooks to my photos album on tribe. These are freehand drawings done in pencil instead of the computer assisted stuff I've shown before. Just sketches, no finished coloured pieces (I might colour one or two of them if I get some time this week.)

Life is looking up, but I'm still sad.

Justin — Fri, 17 Aug 2007 04:25:48 GMT

For those not in my direct cirlce, I should ammend one of my earlier blogs to say that I'm still in and about Tribe, even if I'm the quiet type. I cuts my hair too ^-^. And shaved (most) of my goatee off (soulpatch FTW). I didn't realise I was so cute under all that hair! And I'm finally finally getting back in the lab with two people being transfered away and someone being hired on the Photo Counter. I've been wanting back in the lab (where I was originally hired for) for a long time, to the point where I almost quit a few times. And this month was a three-paycheque month so my bank finally has a positive balance *YAY!* (Not to mention I worked a Stat. Strange as it is my life has taken a bit of an up-turn since Khryssoand I broke up.. but not because of that (I'm still sad about that :( ). It's funny how sometimes when you lose something precious everything else seems to make up for it? Or perhaps it's because you appreciate what you have more when you lose something? Or maybe I've just learned to cope with grief differently than most people, I guess I have a long history of losing those I care about in my past to thank for that.

I don't feel safe in this city anymore.

Justin — Wed, 08 Aug 2007 05:04:05 GMT

Last wednesday, a young man was pushed into a c-train (our city's light rail transit) as it was pulling into the station. It turns out that he ripped off a woman of 10$ worth of marijuana, and had pushed her onto the tracks in the argument, she climbed back on to the platform and returned the shove as the train pulled up. This second shove happened behind the driver's line of sight. The boy (17), hit the side of one of the cars and rolled in between two cars, dying instantly. The friends of the victim arrived within moments and had a vigil at a makeshift memorial, which involved drinking and spilling beers. The friends later surrounded and attacked an innocent woman who happened to match the description of the purpertator, while the police were taking her into custody for questioning. I thought canada was supposed to be 'safe'. Between things like this and cars of young black males going around committing stabbings and robberies (I'm not being racist, I'm talking about a series of specific incidents) I'm not sure if I want to live in this city anymore :(. About a month ago a bloody brawl happened not two blocks from my home, at the nearby 7-11. When the clerk who was working at the time called 911, he was told "When the victims want to report the crime, we'll respond." 15 minutes later when a patrolling car came and saw all the blood, he went in and yelled at the clerk for not calling the cops because now all the evidence has been washed away by the rain. (The clerk said something to the equivalent of 'I did..") I guess it's not safe anywhere anymore these days :(. More discussion and information about the event on Wednesday can be found here; http://forum.calgarypuck.com/showthread.php?t=45626&page=5

Red Moon

Justin — Tue, 31 Jul 2007 19:33:56 GMT

Last night I saw a red moon in Calgary. The day after the full moon, it was quite a sight, this blood red disk in the sky. At first I thought it was a sign, but I noticed it stayed in the same place in the sky as the bus drove me home in the night. The moon often turns blood red when the suns rays pass through the earth's atmosphere. It is pretty common at dawn or dusk, when both the sun and the moon are visible on the horizon. It also happens at night durin the lunar eclipse, when the earth is positioned directly between the sun and the moon. However, this was late at night, and the last lunar eclipse was MArch 4th, and the next one isn't until August 28th. My roomate believes that it's likely smoke in the atmosphere from a nearby forest fire. The bood moon has been considered an ill omen in ancient times, and can see why. I've never believed in superstitions like that. However, I do know that for me, every time I see a blood moon I will be reminded of the first man I truly loved. My boyfriend completely shut me out of his life this morning. He has taken me off of his friends list, and I believe he is not reading what I write to him. It was quite sudden, only last Sunday we were talking on the phone making lovey-talk and now he's mad at me and I'm not fully sure why. I think I know him well enough that I know what he might be thinking, but I think he's mis-understood what I said, or took what I said and not really understood the underlying thoughts behind it. Unfortunatly, I can't even make my case because he's shut me out. Being an introvert, I don't usually share my personal, private feelings in my blogs, but I think it's important to today. Khrysso was pretty much the only reason I come to tribe at all these days, and if he's shutting me out, I don't know that I'll be back. I know that my time on tribe has taught me a lot about myself and the world at large and I bless the people I've met here. Who knows, I may come back, but for now I need to withdraw and recuperate (it's an introvert thing). Blessed be.

Information overload.

Justin — Fri, 20 Jul 2007 21:44:03 GMT

How many selling points can a product have before someone feels lost in information? This chocolate bar I just tried aims to find out. It is called Jocalat, and the company that makes it is name Larabar. I picked it up because I saw that it had organic, raw, chocolate. Raw chocolate I've heard is very good for you because it is really high in anti-oxidents. However, the product has this to say about it's selling points. Organic Cocoa Food Bar. Organic * 90% raw * Gluten Free * Soy Free * Dairy Free* Vegan * Kosher * Cholesterol Free * Sodium Free * High Source of Fiber * 1.5 Grams of Omega-6 That's a lot to put on the top part of the bar. The writing is very small and you practically have to have it in your hand to see all these selling features. And the feature I was most interested in (which is true of this) isn't even listed. It contains no sugars or artificial sweetners. It has so many selling features that it forgot some.

Picture worth a thousand words.

Justin — Thu, 19 Jul 2007 17:52:53 GMT

After slapping on a quick and simple texture on the model and bringing it into Torque, this is the result. I did a quickie to make sure that I understood the basics of texturing and make sure everything works as expected (I'm learning Torque as I go.) Here is a very quick and simple render of the textured dwarf with the bottom half of the robes that I started modelling.

Basics of Modelling

Justin — Thu, 19 Jul 2007 14:30:58 GMT

I've been trying to explain to someone what I'm doing, but the person I've been trying to explain it to has little frame of refference for this type of thing. Since a picture is worth a thousand words, I decided to take a screenshot of the model I'm working on, so I can explain it better. This model is made up of many points called "Vertices" (sing. Vertex) You can't really see them on this picture (they show up as little orange dots) but they are basically at the corners of the squares (which I'll explain in a moment) Between any two given vertices, a line (called an 'edge') can be drawn. Which edges exist determine the shape and curviture of the model. Either three or four of these edges can make a face (a triangle or a quad). The program I'm using now (Blender) allows me to make faces directly from the vertices, instead of being required to draw the edges first, which is handy. (I think most modelling programs these days have this feature) Now there are two main factors for creating models for real-time rendering (such as a video game). The number of Vertices and the number of Faces, with faces being more crucial. This is where the concept I've talked about called 'resoloution' comes into play. If you compare the body (upper right corner) to the face on the left, you'll see that the faces are bigger, and there's less detail. This is because that area of the body is more 'flat', allowing me to use less faces (you only really need edges to simulate curves). This frees up rendering time. Any two faces that are almost flat to each other can be made into one face to save rendering time, but doing so means there is less curves for accurate resoloution (For example if I were to make his nose all one face it would be a flat triangle instead of the 'bulb' it appears to be now). The upper body can afford less detail since it will almost always be covered by armour unless the player isn't wearing any. This model clocks in at 941 faces, which is reasonable for the game I'm making, considering there will be 16-32 of these guys on the field at any given time, in addition to mission objects such as walls and other obstacles. From what I've read, online games should aim for under 2000 polys per model, and I havn't don't armour yet so I want to base body to be small. It should be noted that when modelling for film, art or other non-realtime rendering, polygon (which is another word for 'face') resoloution is less important, and in fact you should use as many as you need to make them look as best as they can. The reason for this is because the images are rendered and saved to a file. If the models are huge, they can take forever to render, but it dosn't matter because you are saving them to a file (or movie reel) instead of rendering them on-the-fly like you would in a computer game. One other important thing to note is that it's really important to make edges where joints bend. sure on a low-res model you could draw the entire arm with about 4 faces, but it won't be able to bend unless it has a place to. Animating is another concept, where there are 'bones' (which as far as the computers concerned have a start point and and end point, but in this program they show as orange sticks). You can tell the computer which vertices move with which bones so that when you turn the bone, all of the vertices attacked to that bone also move in the same way. For example, I could attach all the nodes in the head to a bone, turn the bone and it would appear as though the head is turning. The model in the screenshot looks blocky, but when it is rendered in Torque, the program 'smooths' it to make it look more organic. (The orange lines, BTW, are 'seams' that I've designated for cutting apart the model to 'unfold' it (lay it flat, like you would unfold cloth) so that I can apply an image file as a texture. You can think of it like making a pattern for a toy animal (say, a monkey ;) ) and telling the designer (program) which parts of the image (cloth) to cut and where those pieces should go before stiching them together. The term for this is UV mapping.)

The Unlikely Hero and the Artist's Dilemma.

Justin — Thu, 22 Feb 2007 03:05:46 GMT

So far I only have complete drawings of Temiel. I figured it was about time that I designed the 'main character' of the story. I have a confession to make. I don't draw from scratch. Instead, I use a program called DAZ|Studio and some commercial models to render a pose and then I draw overtop of that pose. The 3d modelling program has lighting effects and several other features that help me get colour right. So I select the props I feel fit the character and change morph settings (you can morph the models jaws, eyes etc to create new characters), pose my new character, and render out to a .jpg. I have to say.. I opened this and I was stunned (I think my expression was the same as his, minus the askew glasses). What you see here is the raw render right out of DAZ|Studio. I havn't drawn a thing. This creates a very real dilemma for me. Nothing I could draw could ever be this perfect (Granted, the robes are too big... the robes he's wearing were made for Michael 3 and I'm using David 3 here). I'm very tempted to have a webcomic of DAZ-created images rather than using it as a base for drawing. The only problem is that I would have to get clothes that fit the characters and/or 3d model various parts and props myself. On the other hand.. hand-drawing it gives me more freedom. I don't know how I'd create fire-effects in DAZ (but I'm sure I could find out!) Plus, there's a whole community on the DAZ3D forums.. and poserpros and a few other sites... that would be willing to share tips. Both mediums have their merits, and therin lies my dilemma.

Perfection vs. Progression

Justin — Wed, 21 Feb 2007 17:11:31 GMT

My sweetie encoraged me yesterday to get back into doing what I enjoy... working on my webcomic. Bolstered by inspiration, I attempted to draw a new image from scratch. I was trying to draw an elven boy (the same boy depicted here) sitting down. But I got frustrated, because I never drew him sitting before and I wasn't sure how to draw the robes. I started fretting "I can't do this, I'm not good enough at this.." It was midnight... 2am in ohio... but I called Khrysso anyways. Fortunatly, he was still awake. "I can't do it, I can't draw. It dosn't look right." I whined. Khrysso explained something to me that I felt very encouraging. I don't remember all the exact words (my memory of what I remember of what he says isn't as perfect as I pretend it is hehe) but I remember that every artist needs time to revise.. to grow... and to learn. Today I pulled open an image I started a month ago. I had drawn and coloured temiel, and I had a black-line outline for the fire. I had no idea how to properly draw/colour fire so I left it at that. I was inspired to finish it. Today I added the glowing sphere, redrew and coloured in the fire, and added the background. I'm very pleased with the way it turnes out. I set aside my "I don't know how to do this" fears and just did it, and I think it looks great. Thanks, Khrysso, you told me what I needed to hear to get past my own criticism.

Dreams and Parallel Realities

Justin — Fri, 09 Feb 2007 15:19:08 GMT

So many times when I dream, I just know things. sometimes a whole lifetime of things that just come out of nowhere. I was re-reading my dream that I had last night, and I find it odd to notice that I find "Leave the Speaker on!" to be such a reasonable expression to use, so much so that I think I could find myself using it today. If you hadn't read my dream, basically there is a speaker they use for communication and as a safety survival line, and when it gets turned off or malfunctions, bad things happen. And they tend to say "Leave the Speaker on!" as a way of saying a combination of "Keep in Touch!" (because the speaker is a communcation tool) and "Stay Safe/Remember Safety First!" because the Speaker is also a safety-line. My life experiences don't leave me any rational explanation of why I 'know' how deep this meaning is, but yet it feels natural now for me to say "Leave the Speaker on!". I'm wondering how in our most vivid dreams, we arn't actually experiencing a sort of Parrallel reality. And in this Parallel Reality, these people really and truly exist. And by becoming them for a short time, we actually pick up a few of their habits and traits. It reminds me of the movie the Thirteenth Floor. In this movie there is a virtual reality simulation where you download you mind into the mind of the simulated psychological match to you. The main character right at the beginning of the movie indicates he dosn't smoke. Yet he downloads into a banker for the first time, the experience is weird and he feels disoriented at first. His bank manager offers him a smoke, and he replies "I don't smoke!" and his bank manager says "Since when?". Unbeknownst to the character (and to the viewer) there is another level of the simulation... an upper level. And the main villain downloads into the main character's psyche. Later in the movie, he very diliberatly takes a cigarrette and smokes it. Now in the middle of the movie, the main character is stressed out, and he picks up a cigarrete and smokes it, rather naturally and absent-mindedly. The Police Detective (who had offered him a smoke earlier) said "You're picking up bad habits left right and center!" I wonder if when we dream, especially such a rich and vivid dream, I'm not in some ways 'downloading' into these other people's minds, and that I don't in some ways become more like in reality them by becoming them in the dream. Just thoughts and musings. I believe that to be true.

(Dream) Dragons need to LEAVE THE SPEAKERS ON!

Justin — Fri, 09 Feb 2007 13:23:29 GMT

I usually don't post my dreams to my Blog, I usually post them on a dream-tribe and link them in my link-list on the lefthand side, however this dream was something else! I went to bed in a very emotional state last night, and I know that usually when I do that, I have a very vivid dream that has underlying currents of the root problems. Problem is, the dreams are so intensely movielike in detail that I can't see the root symbols in the graphic FX (in other words, I can't see the trees for the forest) Please, I need help with this. I get accused that this is not really a dream, it's too vivid, but I'm not creative enough to make this kind of stuff up overnight. These works are always weirder than my immagination and I simply cannot interpret them! The first part of the dream that I remember is very fuzzy, because of our natural tendancy to forget dreams when we wake up, the earlier portions of the dream are hazy and half-forgotten and towards the end they are VERY clear. I remember something about being friends with two young children (a boy and a girl). For some reason we had this lie concocted that we had just met, when really we had known each other for longer. We were sitting around eating with their mother, and the girl said something that let is slip that I had known them before this meeting. The mother was livid (mostly because her children lied) and wanted me to leave. We were staying in a hotel, and for some reason the door to our suite was INSIDE their suite. This woman wanted me to move out the next day to another suite. Now it happens that my mother and I were planning on leaving the next day anyways. I got into the suite and my mother is there, and she's wondering what's wrong for all the yelling. She goes outside and has a row with the other mother. I notice on the wall there is crafting supplies, some kind of wax balls that can be melted a little to form sculpures or something. (This might be relevant to another portion of the dream where things are made of wax...) I was a troll mage on a tropical island. There feels like there's two levels here. I'm actually experiencing being a troll mage, but it also feels like I'm playing the World of Warcraft game. In the dream I am just coming back to an old roleplay server I used to be on that I hadn't been on for a long time. I was a student and my master was there too. My master is level 40 something and me the apprentice is level 8-or-so. Anyways we decide we want to teleport to another island, but then I find out that it's not my master, but someone else, who was level 5, and I had just forgotten because it had been so long since I played. At one point I was talking to him and I had the experience of 'mousing over' him (pointing at him with the computer mouse) even though I am actually the character in game, and seeing a tooltip reminding me that he's my brother. I remember vivdly the experience of lying back in a pool and doing a backstroke saying, "I'm having a hard time remembering that you're my brother." I didn't put OOC quotes around it, and he replied "What are you talking about, we've been brothers our whole life." to kind of remind me that it IS an RP server. And now the main portion about dragons and speakers. This gets VERY weird! This transition felt more gradual then I remembered it but the only way I remember it now is I was walking with my troll brother past a tree, and inside the tree was a 'dragon'. Now a dragon in my dream is not what we'd consider dragons, but some sort of paperlike entity. Very thin and ribbonlike. In fact it looks more like a bunch of streamers than a living creature. I was no longer the troll mage at this point, I had the experience of being someone else. A human who had helped the dragons achieve a presence on this planet. I wasn't in the dream, but I was abserving it from this personna so my experiences and memories come from this 'personna'. And I remembered having to do some serious negotiation to have the dragons live inside these trees. These trees wern't very big. They were thin pine trees, but the dragons didn't take much space (I heard the conversation where I explained this to the government agency that was handling this decision while I watched this) the dragon has a hole in the top of the tree that it unfurls out of. When it wants to go to sleep it coils up and hibernates. This dragon was coming out of it's tree after several years (4 seems accurate) of sleep. I saw in the backgroudn another dragon coming out too. Now these dragons cannot fly on their own, they need some kind of a heavy wind. When the dragons last came out of hibernation, we had a flight of US military planes as an escort. (This is all memory that comes form this Personna, this isn't something I 'see' in the dream. I have a distinction in my dreams between what I know, what I know because the person who I am in the dream knows 'dream memory' and what I'm seeing happen.) There was some kind of war going on between the dragons and some other entity, and I (the personna) remember negotiating with the president at the time (A woman, who now that I think about it resembles Hillary Clinton). The premise being... Okay if you help us fight off these creatures (who, incedentally, are a threat to your national security) we'll help you fight your battles against other countries. It seems as though the wind currents created by these aeroplanes are enough to hold the dragons aloft. However this dragon, just emerging from it's hibernation is either a newborn.. or has forgotten this, and tries to fly anyways. It winds up crashing on New York city. These dragons are fairly large, and it creates a huge mess of destruction. The govener of New York remembers the dragon, but the presidency has changed hands. The current US president has no clue what the dragons are, and is frantically trying to catch-up on the knowledge. Since I am the human 'embassador' for the dragons, I realise I need to start smoothing things over. With help form the New York Govener (or, now that I think about it, I think it was just the Mayor of NYC), I get in to see the President, who is watching the First Movie. At this point I have the memory that this is like a Hollywood Movie, and that this is the sequel to the original blockbuster. Now the president is laying (clothed) with a prostitute who is wearing a fench maid outfit. (Dreams don't always make sense.) I entered to watch the movie with him and ready to answer questiosn about these very real creatures. While we watched, a secratary entered. She was very beautiful, stunning, with her blonde hair up in a bun. I had the sense that she was the human host for one of the dragons. dragons and humans can form symbiotic unions, and dragons seem to almost always choose the most beautiful supermodelish women as hosts. In the movie, it seems as though the dragons had just taken their first unhindered flight through New York (they were making thair presence known.) All the major characters in the movie looked up and either cheered or scowled (depending if they were a good guy or a villain). But then there is this one kid who is nowhere else in the first movie, with long hair. He is kind of stoned out of his mind with his two female friends. He looks up and goes "WHOA!" but then I realise that this kid is the current US president! One one level I know that now this short scene is a lead-up to his involvement in 'this movie'.. Suddenly the president and I and some other guy (who I don't know how he got there) are in the movie and on a train with this young-president watching the dragons. The young-president and his friends jump off and start roller-blading down the street to follow the dragons. In the movie, this is where this character exits I get an inspiraiton and tell the old-president to follow and push him. The prez says something to the effect of "I don't have any way of follwoing them!" but the other guy pulls oud a skateboard and jumps quickly enough to put the skateboard under the president and control it enough to follow them. This guy has a stylish hat and a black leather trenchcoat. The president is holding on for dear, but the man with the trenchcoat knows what he's doing. All of them get on board another train right where the path of the dragons are. On this train there is some kind of distorted colour thing happening, which I attributed to dragon magic. However old-presidents presence there made a few things different. The young-president sees the old-president and there's this weird kind of 'uh oh-paradox' feeling. I'm not sure how this transitioned, but then I saw images on a news broadcast or a billboard or something. It was talking about humans who allowed themselves to by symbiots. It was showing how 'longterm' exposure could mutate and distort the body as the dragon absorbs your power. It showed 'examples' of people who looked like strange mutated deformed vegetables. They looked like roots or carrots or some kind of green fungus. They were all different, but they were all hideous. The news reporters camera kept going, but then it became a birds-eye view of me 'floating' through the area in a dreamlike form. There was thsi man who was building kind of a park or restauront or gala of this but also had all kinds of souveneirs on display that were made from this dragonstuff (the rotted bodies). I wasn't really there (this gala hadn't opened yet) but in this dreamstate I picked up one of the trinkets and felt it, it felt like it was made of wax (remember the wax balls in the first part of the dream?) I had a firm belief that this was all a sham or publicity stunt designed to create animosity towards the dragons. And I had a feeling that it was working. The gala was opened and all sorts of ritzy people were coming in. I had the sense that this was the 'true motive', he wanted a festive gala where he would become famous with a lot of influential people, while at the same time attacking the dragon's reputation. 12 of the guests were cheerleaders from this one sorority group, who had become very well known and sorts stayed good friends after college. 9 of these girls(whoops, now they are women!) were the original dragon-hosts in the 'first movie', the other three knew of the dragons and supported their efforts. They look around, their faces remain calm and decerning, but I have a feeling that they are shocked and horrified that someone would create such a blatant lie. At this point, I percieve the dream from the Point of View of one of these girls (I don't know which one at first, which adds to the mystery). She had gone up to the creator of the Gala and was asking pointed questions like "Does this happen with everybody that has a dragon host? (Yes) How long goes it take for this to happen? (9-10 years of continued exposure.). She didn't believe, but I got the sense that she was beginning to doubt herself. He was starting to worry if the dragon really wasn't absorbing her power, and the dragon in her was sad that it might really be damaging its host unknowingly. Now this girl was fidgeting with a button. This button kinda looked like a 2016 battery, and it was an icon of the dragon's power. The man recognized it and commented on it, and the woman said "Oh, it's just a keepsake from my sorority days." But then the dragons started speaking up amongst themselves. Every time they did this I saw kidn of a panel 3x3, with silouetted heads against a dark red background. Whenever the dragons spoke, their panels would light up. They almost always spoke in unison, but sometimes only 3-5 of them would be saying the same thing at once, because I guess they had different sub-facests. Normally the dragons can only hear themselves. But this guy can hear them. he dosn't know why, but he can. He starts responding to what they are saying. The girl is shocked and asks how he can hear them. They continue talking for a bit, with the guy acting like a predator who has his prey exactly where he wants her, and the dragon-host on the defensive. The woman eventually remembers that the building they are in used to be their old base in the first movie. Now this woman has always been rather gullable and naieve, and takes the man to show them where their speaker is. I start getting the dream-memory that this speaker was used in the 'first movie' as their main communication means. They would go on missions (and when I remembered missiosn I get the sense of cyber-diving and other dangerous things.) and that if something were to go wrong, their only ssafety line was this one speaker that was wired to recieve the dragon's messages directly, even if the host was unable to speak. This is normally impossible. Thsi speaker became in many ways their lifeline and their only way of survival in times of extreme trouble. So much so that even after their 'work' was done in the 'first movie' and they no longer needed the speaker, the girls often said "Leave the speaker on!" as a way of saying 'keep in touch' and 'don't forget safety measures' even with their non-dragon friends they met later on and in their professional lives. The woman started getting mad at the man, "You turned the sperk off!?". She turned it on, and there was this wash of colour, almost like a hologram. It had some really cheezy 80s like visual effects reminisent of TRON or something. Inside was a holographic representation of her inner dragon. She was so mad about it being turned off that the man had a sense of how importat it was. He smashed it to peices. A combination of the womans and the dragons inner rage immediatly lashed out and with unhuman strength started punching the guy until he was a pile of broken flesh. Even though they no longer needed the speaker, it had become so ingrained in their mind as a survival mechanism, so seeing it destroyed triggered a 'fight for your survival' type reflex, as there had been a few times where they almost died (and maybe even did lose a few friends) because this speaker was not operating properly. Because I was viewing the world from the woman's point of view, I felt this vividly... she vomited.. but it wasn't vomit. It was lmost a kind of dragon bile that came up. It felt very evil... it was like hot blood or dragon-feces. It wasn't as liquit as vomit but more like feces. It oozed out of her mouth and onto the ground. She started looking around for someplace to clean up, but she heaved again and oozed some more. As she walked around all I could do was see it hanging out of her mouth (remember I'm seeing this form her PoV... really gross) I remember thinking 'you fool, clean up afteryourself, this could be used as DNA evidence'.. The fact that I didn't know which of the girls it was made it more suspenceful because I didn't know who would get in trouble for murdering this man. I could hear someone coming (and so could the woman dragon-host). A writer for a popular teen magazine heard the commotion and was on her way down the stairs while yakking on the phone. She was sure to find the body. The dragon-host found a set of stairs that led to an emergency evacuation exit in the subway. All the signs were labeled in spanish. She heaved at least once while using the stairs and I'm thinking 'oh dear, well at least they can track her..'. As she decended the long flight of stairs, my point of view shifted back a little and I could see the woman. She was the most plain of the hosts. As I said earlier, dragons favour gorgeous women as hosts, but this woman was more 'cute' than drop-dead gorgeous. She had sandy-blonde hair that was cut to a length just past the ears. I started seeing images of the other girls. One was an australian with firey-red hair and I saw a jamaican woman with full luscous lips and long black hair. And a few of the other girls but I don't remember now. All the woman were supermodel-gorgeous it felt to me like 'charlies angels-esque'. I woke because there was a rustling in my ear. My hair was making rustling noises.. it sounded like something was moving in it. I wanted to continue to dream because I wanted to know what happened to this woman but the rustling. I lifted my head to push my hair away but that action was enough to wake me up completely form my slumber. I used to have dreams like this every night, but my life has calmed down. I think I only dream like this when I am intensely emotional, and here it is again! (edit) Threads that I've posted this to that have recieved comments; Raw Wisdom - http://tribes.tribe.net/rawadvice/thread/c21cc8e4-0a3b-40c8-9283-99b6b4e9bbdc?newpostingid=8a43c390-9877-440e-b8b8-5d65e84f53b8#8a43c390-9877-440e-b8b8-5d65e84f53b8

This imporant message brought to you by the universe.

Justin — Tue, 30 Jan 2007 18:08:00 GMT

Sometimse the universe has something to tell us. Not all of us are in tune to this rythem, but it keeps trying. However, I feel that if we ignore this message long enough that the univese will find a way to make itself perfectly clear. I have a co-worker who is always on the go. She works two full-time jobs, one during the day and one at night. Her daytime job is in a photo lab, so not terribly active. Her night time job is at a casino bussing coins. Running back and forth with loads of coins. One day she was off work and I was closing, I asked her if she was working her otehr job that day, and she said no. I wished her a nice relaxing day off, and she replied "Oh, I'm going to do all my housework." with a broad smile. On Thursday or Friday she slipped on the ice and broke her leg. You have to understand that it was a brilliantly sunny week and more of the ice was melted. Somehow she found the one patch of ice in the shade that didn't melt. Her femer bone was completely split all the way to her knee and broken in two places. I was called in to work her shift on Friday night. I was talking with one of my other co-workers about her. He's a very spiritual person. At one point in our conversation he said "This is probably the universes way of telling her she needs to slow down." A little while later, one of her friends who used to work at my company called. She and Patty have been very good friends for a very long time. She was in to visit Patty in the hospital, and told me how she was so drugged up to numb the pain that she could barely even say "I'm so glad your here" before falling asleep again. During my conversation with her, she also said "You know, I think this is the universes way of telling her to slow down." I was shocked, because that was almost word for word what my other co-worker said. After talking with her, I went to the photo counter to tell the girl that worked there that she had called. We started talking about and expressing concern for Patty. And then she said "She's going to hate being in bed for a bit, but at least now it'll give her some personal space-time." I felt that it was extremely strange that 3 people said pretty much the same thing. I feel that it's important to listen when you recieve a signal, because the universe will get it's point across one way or another.

Webcomic in Progress

Justin — Thu, 25 Jan 2007 18:41:08 GMT

I have been on tribe for awhile, but I havn't yet shared with anyone here my passion (except mentioned in passing briefly to Krysso.) Ever since I was 11 years old, I've been writing stories. Fantasy mythologies percolating around in my brain eager to be shared. I've firmly decided that I want to author a webcomic. The story is already there, start to finish (with 'wiggle room' to make the middle intersting and cohesive.) This story has been percolating since I was 11 years old, and has grown and evolved with me. The image above is Temiel, one of the main characters. He is one of the last of the elves. At 150 years old, he has not yet reached maturity for an elf, but he far out-ages every human being he meets. As a result, he comes across precocious (That's my 'new word' of the day. Not really a 'new' word but a word I havn't used often, but have used a lot yesterday and today for a variety of purposes.) He tries to be serious and mature, but he has his temper tantrums. I just thought I'd share this with the friends i've made so far on Tribe. It's still very much a work in progress, but it's a beginning.

HACKED!

Justin — Wed, 24 Jan 2007 20:06:14 GMT

So my roomate finally convinces me to pick up the new World of Warcraft expansion, "Burning Crusade". I was a little skeptical, but I found that I still had wow on my computer and eventually decided "Why not?". I havn't played in 6 months to a year. I now have a Mastercard that draws from my bank account (Something I've always told 'couldn't be done' with the canadian banking system, even though it's common in the US.) so I figured I'd boot my old account back up. But my password dosn't work. And the email I used for it is no longer valid. Ok no problem, call up account services and get my email changed. But he tells me that my account was Banned on Janurary 5th of this year. What I don't get is I was using game cards on the account, so whoever was using that account was PAYING to use my account (since I had stopped playing, I wasn't being charged.) Maybe it was sold on ebay or something and someone bought the account? I can't see why, I never had anything above a level 42 character (Dwarf Hunter, Undead Shadow Priest and Troll Mage being all around 40-45ish) The guy at account services told me to send a letter to administration to have them look into it. I'm not terribly hopeful (permaban is usually for something serious, and just because I say my account has been 'compromised' dosn't mean I'm not lying.) So now here I sit with an (opened) Burning crusade box that I can't use. *sigh*.

The Personality Equation

Justin — Mon, 22 Jan 2007 03:09:26 GMT

Is it all about who we are, or who we think we are? On one of the tribes, we were talking about personality tests. The test in the thread was a personality FLAW test, which describes the core personalities by their WORST traits instead of their best. Well, I scored the "Emo Kid", the dreamy fantasy idealist who would hide in a corner and write poetry. And that fits me now, but dosn't fit who I was as a child. Looking at the four scoring chart, I think were Extroversion, Rationality, Arrogance and Brutality. I scored extremely extroverted, low rationality (higher intuitive than rationality), low arrogance (humble) and low brutality (pasive) Which is true of me now. But my entire life up until now I would have scored higher rationality than intuitive. I decided to find one of the 'Jung Personality Types'. My entire life up until the last time I took one of these (About a year ago) I always consistantly scored INTP. Introverted, iNtuitive, Thinker, Perciever. This time, however, I get INFP (the F being Feeler). I've been reading more and more about 'trusting your intuition' and letting go of ego, but I never thought I was 'there' yet. It makes me wonder what these personaly tests are actually scoring. Who we are? Or who we would LIKE to be? But that said, if we would like to be one way, and we tell our minds we are that way, and then are we not 'that way'? It it possible for someone to suddenly decide one morning to wake up one morning with the intention of finding a rational explanation for everything, when they are normally a feeler? Is it possible for someone who is introverted to go out and DECIDE to enjoy the company of others and start conversations? I think it is, at least for the most part. (People who are truly shy and blush and get clammy hands are less likely to suddenly become 'extroverts' than, someone like me, who can engage in a conversation with someone, but preffers to be alone with my own thoughts) I think we take these tests and say "You know.. of these two options.. I would like to be THIS way more often then not." because we've decided to be that way. And then when we get the test back, we say... yes! This is exactly who I AM. And this affirmation, this thought, starts creating synapses in the brain which connect together. So really, these tests arn't telling us what type we are, they are helping us decide and define what type we are. I feel that, because I've decided to get in touch with my intuition and less about my ego... I've gone from a place of thinking about everything to a place about FEELING about everything. And I've done so by virtue of deciding to. Likewise, while I'm an introvert, I've made the decision to get out more and experience people and while I genuinly preffer to sit at home by myself, I've learned to enjoy the company of others. If I CHOSE to be an extrovert I think I could. Now, there's one other possibility. Maybe I havn't changed at all, but merely the choices I made on the test better reflect who I *think* I am. I come to this conclusion because the INFP result very clearly matches who I was as a child. But at the same time, this very blog post shows that I have a rational mind. So, then, my whole life was I an INFP who was 'pretending' to be an INTP? Am I now really an INTP who wants so deperatly to be an INFP that I've created a false delusion for myself? Or perhaps its the fact that, growing up as a Jehovah's Witness and being (indirectly) told that my fantasy ideals were against god's will I've tried to suppress them, and now that I have embraced base spirituality bordering on Pagan Earth-Centric ideals I've come to realise my true self? Or maybe I just 'want to' be on the same psychic level as the rest of my pagan peers, and even though I may look at something as black or white, I want to be more like them so I pretend to be? Or maybe it's somewhere in the middle, or a combination of both. In the end, does it matter? I am me, regardless of the lables and tags these things put on me, but at the same time, I feel these tests help us guide ourselves and realise who we are.. or at the very least, who we believe we are.

Impressing the Boss

Justin — Sun, 21 Jan 2007 20:59:03 GMT

Or.. a day in the life of a 1-Hour Technical Specialist. I'm a pretty unassuming under the radar type of person, so it's not very often I get a chance to truly impress my direct supervisor. It's not that she's a curmudgeon (actually she's one of the friendliest, nicest people I know), it's just that I don't tend to leave a lasting impression at work. Yesterday we recieved an order for two 11x14 prints to be mounted and laminated. Now the mounting and laminating we send off to another company, but we have to provide the prints. Now there is a little 'glitch' in our machine. When a roll is severely light leaked, we can print it fine.. until the negatives are cut. When the negatives are cut and almost entirely light leaked, the machine glitches out a little. This image was an image of a dog. And the light leak was around the dog, but if you crop it a certain way it would have been fine. The customer included a print we gave them when we developed the roll for colour match. Because of this glitch, however, the frame turns a dark blue (to correct for the 'red' that appears as a result of the light leak). Well neither patty or I could figure it out so we left it for Nancy. Today when nancy comes in I showed it to her. Now it was completely dead with nothing to do so we figured we'd do everything we can. Nancy tried to go into the machine settings to 'turn off' whatever it was that was doing this (she figured it was some feature). She tried using Tone Curves and every other tool she had. Finally, she decided to scan it and save as a digital file to bring up in Photoshop, which we use for Digital Photo Restorations. She tried playing with every feature Photoshop has for changing colours, and kept saying "I don't think there is any way we can do this." Normally her suggestion at that point would have been to tell the customer to take it to another store for prints, then bring it back to do the mounted plaque. But then I had an inspiration, I said "What if we scanned the photo and used it as a colour layer?". She said she didn't think it would work, but she gave me permission to try it. Now I've never used photoshop, but I've used GIMP, so I figured it would be similar. Nancy must have started getting the impression I didn't know what I was doing when I asked "How do I move my selection over? It's just moving the box not the picture!" and "Is there any kind of Free Transform Tool?" I overlayed the scaned photo over the saved image from the negative. (The reason I did it this way was because the scanned photo is such a low resoloution and the scan from the negative is a really high resoloution and I wanted to keep as much detail as possible.) Since both images were, at their core, the same image I lined them up perfectly. Then I just had to change the layer to 'color' (Photoshop uses american spelling *sigh*) and it was the right colour with as much detail as possible. There might have been some minor flaws in the colour but nothing the human eye would probably notice. Nancy was on the phone chatting with her best bud, who is a Lab Manager at another store. I showed her what I had done and she was saying over the phone "Wow! Justin is a miracle worker!" I thought it was a pretty basic filter, but oh well. She told me to save it and print it, and I did. Once it was printed, Nancy could tell that it wasn't simply the scanned photo because it was much clearer than that could be, and it was almost the same colour (our scanning software on the front desk likes to auto colour correct which is annoying.) Nancy was pretty amazed, her eyes had this popping out of their eyesockets 'wow' type look. So then I say to her, "So, do you think I'm ready to learn to do Digital Restorations?" and she nodded "Uh huh!!"

Syncronity?

Justin — Sun, 21 Jan 2007 06:19:24 GMT

I've always believed that amazing coincidences always have an underlying meaning, that if two things happen independantly that seem to be so perfect in that moment, it's really the Universe (or, if you must, GOD) working out it's divine plan. A co-worker of mine (who is extremely into metaphysical spirituality.. I think moreso than I am) suggested to me that I should enter "Justin Needs" into google and see what the universe brings up. Curious, I gave it a try, only to find a lot of gossip sites. Being web-savvy, I entered "-timberlake" and tried again. I came across this profile on Tribe: http://people.tribe.net/jmason/ (You can see the 'Justin Needs' in his testimonals). Curious about this site, I hit the nice orange wacky Tribe logo, and got taken to the default home page, where it lists 'recent topics'. The very top thread, was this one: http://tribes.tribe.net/friendsoftribe/thread/fea68559-02ba-4c08-b294-53c813e1b654 Now this poster's name is ALSO Justin (though not the same Justin who game up in my search) AND he's asking questions about Calgary.. the city I live in. Needless to say, I was completely shocked and baffled, but I quickly subscribed to tribe and replied to his posting. But the Syncronities don't end there. I went with the flow and spent some time on this site (and subscribed to many lists). I discovered many things on this site that furthered my personal growth that felt like they were the 'right time' for me to learn them. The default homepage for subscribers had a "Local Posts" section by default. On the very top post was some sort of Hug event to promote a new book (How to change the world?). Being brand new and just poking around I clicked on the poster's profile. Read it briefly, then clicked on one of her friends. This took me to the site of a user named Knoweapon. Reading his blog, I see he's a practitioner of a martial arts known as Caperioa (Spelling?). Here's the thing.. I had only just heard of Capaerioa just a week ago, and was eagre to give it a try. In fact, the only reason I didn't try it last week was because I couldn't find the bus stop downtown that took me there. My finding the Capaerioa website and the events that lead up to me wanting to take lessons there is a syncronity all in itself. Now being new to Tribes at the time, I didn't automatically add this person to my friendship circle, but afew days later I decided to (good thing he has an easy to remember username!) Thirdly, another random user sent me a poem. This person's username was Resonant (they were a new member and has since unsubscribed or got kicked, not sure). Being new to tribe, and slightly amused, I decided to add this person to my friend's circle. This person had a thought provoking photograph, of two hands (one of lighter skin and one of darker skin) clasping in such a way as to form a sphere. Their hands were painted blue, and if you looked closely, you could see that the 'blue' was oceans and you can see Earth's continents where their flesh is. This image was amazingly symbolic, and I really liked it. This person sent me a message which says "Tell me everything you know in a nutshell, go now." I was on break using a computer at work at the time, so I didn't have a lot of time to tell him everything. I stammered and stalled. I considered just closing it and posting at home, but I feel the 'on the spotness' was important and doing so would be cheating. Now, I had just found out about Mayan 'Galactic Signatures' from another tribe on this site, of which I had learned that I'm a Blue Rythmic Hand. (You can find out yours here: http://www.tortuga.com/eng/decode/index.php ). Each of the 260 kins has a poem. So I decided to send him that, since that poem is supposed to sum up my life purpose. Well he (she?) promptly responded with HIS/HER signature poem. Turns out He/She is a Blue Resonant Hand. I clued in that the image he used for his profile was 'blue hands' and his username was Resonant. Now, I don't know if I instinctively 'knew' that when I sent him my Galactic Signature, or what, but it was pretty neat. I also found it neat that we were both Blue Hands (Of the 13 icons). I'm sad that this person unsubscribed, but such the way it is. During my last week on tribe I've grown so much, learned so much and experienced so much it's incredible. I've met so many beautiful souls. Many of which I've decided to place in my 'Fiends' circle, and many more that I've met on individual Tribes that I havn't (yet) requested a friendship link to. I feel like I've made more friends in a week then I have in my 'real life' reality (I'm not terribly a social person, normally). I'm amazed that in one week I have 72 profile hits (though I think I have Krysso Heart to 'blame' for that!) Wether you believe in Syncronoty or Coincidence, Fate or Chance, Divine Guidance or Random Dice, I'm glad I came to tribe and am willing to see how this rides out. I encourange anyone willing to take a chance to enter "[your name] needs" into google and see what it spits out!

My first ever blog, and a new face.

Justin — Fri, 19 Jan 2007 01:44:17 GMT

So I've always wanted to create a 'blog' and since I came to tribes by a strange syncronity (I don't believe in chance) I decided to make one here. I've joined a few tribes and I like the communites and poeple I've met in only 3 days. In addition, I've decided to (finally, after 6 years) get a recent picture of me taken and put up here. I work in a photo lab and I know the people on the photo counter, and they have a passport camera. Since I needed a new passport ANYWAYS, I figured I'd get a 'nice' photo done as well. The passport office would reject this, but I have a passport appropriate one as well. So now people can see what I look like NOW, as opposed to 6 years ago! Thanks for welcoming me to the TRIBES community. I have a feeling I'll be staying here awhile.