See Yonder Scribbles Here

Man, I wish at least one of the big create-a-thons took place during a more convenient time of the year. NaNoWriMo hits towards the end of the fall semester just when all the final projects start to pile up, the screenwriting equivalent is during a busy time in the spring semester (I think). And 24 Hour Comics Day is this weekend, right when I have a bunch of projects that need to get done before next week. :(

I was actually thinking about doing it this year, but for some reason I thought it wasn't until the end of the month. Maybe I can set aside a day during Thanksgiving break and do one then?

Ugh, I was all set up to enjoy a weekend with a decent workload -not so little that I'll be able to get everything done in a few hours and enjoy the taste of sweet freedom, but still more than manageable enough- and I get an email from one of my professors basically going "whoops, forgot to mention a few things!:D" which has effectively tripled the amount of shit I have to do before the weekend is out. Uggghhh.

Well, guess it's an early start tomorrow and a full day's work. I wanna get as much shit out of the way as I can. So much for sleeping in and catching up on all the zzz's I missed during the week.

I missed SketchCrawl! I just found out about it for the first time right after the previous Crawl, went "say, that sounds like a good idea! I'll have to keep an eye out for when they announce the next one!" ...and then promptly forgot to do just that. *facepalm*

Lately I've really been trying to push myself to draw from life more, particularly sketching members of the public (which is why the idea of SketchCrawl appealed to me). I want to get into the habit of doing it every day, regardless of whether or not I feel "up to it". You would think that riding the train every day would give me ample opportunity to do so. But I keep falling asleep instead! I should also take advantage of the sunny weather while it sticks around (although it's been pretty fucking hot this week) and head -*gasp*- out of the house to draw people in coffee shops, at the park, etc. And use my dinner breaks to draw people in the student center. Basically, there are no excuses!

Except my brush pen is out of ink, and I need to order refill cartridges. But I'm thinking about maybe trying another brand besides what I have right now (Pentel Pocket brush). 75-85% of the times I've used it for quick sketching, it's been great. But it's often given me some real problems with feathering when I've tried to lay down a controlled line as opposed to quick strokes, even on very smooth paper and Bristol. Since this the only kind of cartridge-based brush pen I've used I don't know if this is a problem specific to the tool in general, or to this make of pen specifically. When I'm more awake and sensible I'll have to do some more research into this.

Me, at around 9PM: Well, I guess I should finish up my concept map so I can go get it printed tomorrow morning. Luckily I've only got a few tweaks to make, so I should be done before Inside Man is finished!

[CUT TO FIVE HOURS (or the rest of the movie, the new episode of Psych, some NCIS and listening to a couple of albums) LATER]

Me: :|

And this was five hours of solid work, as opposed to the classic "bang out a couple of paragraphs, then proceed to space out for fifteen to twenty minutes" method that was pretty much standard operating procedure for me whenever it came time to write an essay. And it really was just tweaking too! I got pretty much all the major stuff worked out during the second draft, so the only thing left was to make sure it looked good. So queue the five hours of tweaking curves and adjusting text and then stepping back to notice even more things that could be fixed. There are some problems that I'm going to have to overlook due to space restrictions and the fact it would be both time consuming and completely unnecessary to try and solve them. But I'm also looking at a small scale test print out and noticing even more stuff that could be adjusted. Arrrrgh.

But overall it's been deeply satisfying work. Though if one looked at the final product there would probably be a reaction of "it took you X hours to make that" (it doesn't help that every time I use illustrator I get the sense that I am inadvertently using the most difficult and labor intensive method of accomplishing my task). Still, I'm very glad that I was able to get into this class (info design) and am looking forward to learning more about this particular subject matter. I just hope that this whole "work ethic" thing I seem to be developing can be employed for my other school assignments and any personal projects.

Graphic Design 2

Digital Media 2

Information Design 1

Computer in Graphic Reproductions (AKA Survey of Print Production)

WHAT IS THIS? WHAT IS THIS?

IS THIS A FULL-TIME CLASS SCHEDULE CONTAINING ONLY DESIGN CLASSES? NO USELESS FILLER, ONLY DIRECTLY-RELATED TO MY MAJOR GOODNESS?

WHY, YES. YES, I DO BELIEVE IT IS.

MARK THIS DAY, FOR IT IS A HISTORIC DAY IN THE LAND OF kosher_jenny.

*fistpump*

Well, the fall semester is officially off to a running start. I'm supposed to have a 10-15 second Adobe After Effects animation done for Monday. So I guess I should hurry up and install the trial version, huh? I haven't used After Effects before now, but it's more similar to Flash than I expected, so it shouldn't be too difficult to suss out (famous last words). I also need to make some icons out of Helvetica for Tuesday. So far I haven't progressed beyond some mucking about in class (which I couldn't save, because I had forgotten to bring a thumb drive with me). But it was pretty fun!

Anyway, some two links!

This is actually a collection of links, from the ASIFA, of various posts relating to illustration. Also, apparently they have started to sell Kay Nielsen prints, which is bad for my wallet. I want to just plaster my walls with them, is that so wrong?

Just now I double checked to see when Info Design was meeting on Wednesday so I could crash the class in the hopes of adding. And I noticed that there were now two spots that had opened up. So I enrolled, and now I'm in the class.

I still haven't heard back from the department chair regarding getting the add code that will add the CCSF class to my regular schedule. But this means that I was able to get into all my wanted classes for this semester.

I'm a little shocked at the moment. Are things...actually going my way, for the first time ever?

I got into the printing class! \0/ I guess everyone else decided to take the morning and evening classes instead, as yesterday's class wasn't even full. Or maybe people got lost trying to find the classroom, like me, and never made it. I arrived an hour early and wound up wandering for about thirty minutes before I was able to find the basement room where the class was being held.

So the next thing for me to do will be to email the department chair for the necessary forms the school needs in order to make this whole concurrent enrollment thing official. And after that's done I should get an SFSU add code which will then free me up to drop one of my dead weight classes without being downgraded to part-time student status. And this would also result in my Fridays getting freed up, since I would no longer need to waste three hours total travel time to sit in a classroom for fifty minutes. Of course, I had to learn all this from the professor yesterday, since my adviser told me nothing beyond "you should sign up for this CCSF class" and apparently she'd been telling others that they didn't have to bother applying for CCSF until the first day of class! Arrgh.

There's another girl in my class from State who I recognized from a couple of my design courses and we got to talking, which quickly turned into a bitch session against State. One of her friends has wound up having to "take a semester off" because she couldn't get into any of her classes. Arrgh part two. This is making me less optimistic about being able to get into Information Design, but I'm now pretty grateful that I was able to get into Graphic Design 2 and Digital Media 2.

Anyway, fun stuff time: turns out that Junko Mizuno will be doing a signing in SF this Saturday! I think I will certainly try to attend. It will also give me a chance to investigate the New People complex that Viz has just opened in Japan Town, maybe see a showing of 20th Century Boys if I can. Speaking of the former, here's a blog post comparing the complex with Japanese otaku spaces and more mainstream stores/boutiques which I found pretty interesting.

Also, by the same author as the last link and also on the subject of manga artists who I love, Moyoco Anno has teamed up to design some really pretty looking cleansing products and makeup bags for shu uemera. Shame that 1)they're exclusive to one Canadian store and 2)waaaay out of my price range (seriously, $77 bucks for "cleansing oil"? Even in Canadian dollars that's ridiculous). The press kit came with booklet showcasing some of Anno's work, and you can see some good quality scans at the link.

So the BART strike was on, but then off, but then it was going to be on again today, but I guess they called it off at the last minute? Arrgh, I just hope that's the end of it for now and I'll be able to get to and from school okay.

Well, this week is the start of the Fall semester for CCSF, so tomorrow I head downtown to see if I can get into their print production class. It was full during my registration period, but the class is no longer marked as full on the website, so maybe that means that some people have dropped and I can get an add code? I sure hope so! I don't want to wind up wasting a trip.

Also, it's a good thing I decided to double check the dates tonight, because I was under the impression that CCSF's classes started at the same time as SFSU's does, which would be next week. Close call there.

Some links:
-These cookies look like they would be delicious. Too bad I don't have access to an oven at the moment.

-Interview with Junko Mizuno and a preview of her story for Strange Tales. I love how Spidey is almost a full head shorter than Mary Jane. And related to that...

-The Junko Mizuno My Little Pony! I don't know which I like more, the clear hooves or the furry hood.

Another semester, another round of adding classes I don't need because I can't get into the classes I want and because if I'm not a full-time student I lose my health insurance. Whee. The upside is that both of the classes I couldn't get into are (at the moment) electives, so if worse comes to worse I could probably convince my adviser to remove them from my contract. Of course I still really hope I can get added into the classes because they both cover subject matter I'm really interested in. So time for cautious optimism? I also wonder if I'm ever going to have a semester where I get take more than two classes that are directly related to my major. Maybe during my last one, if I'm lucky. And I thought that my chances were actually good this time around. Fffff--

What's funny is that one of the courses is actually at CCSF, and the course in question is actually offered three times a week. The session I want to take is full, and the two other sessions occur the exact same times as the DAI courses I'm already in. Hahahahahaha...ha.

In somewhat happier news, guess what I got in the mail this week? A check! Why a check? Because one of my former employers had a big lawsuit brought against it and the check constitutes my share of the settlement! They weren't providing employees with enough breaks during their shifts. The funny thing is that when I worked stock back there in high school I was mostly unsupervised so I was able to take my breaks whenever I wanted to. Only my legal ones mind, I did not slack off! I can't remember if that was the case when I was pulled onto the sales floor though. Although apparently I was not working hard enough for my manager, even though she never actually told me this to my face (had to find out from my mom, via the in store grapevine) and I was never given any official training so how was I supposed to know? And then she pulled the old "we aren't going to fire you, but we are going to schedule you for the smallest amount of hours possible in the hopes that you take the hint and quit" so I did. And then I found out much later that she was fired for stealing from the store. Mmmm, schadenfreudilicious.

Anyway, because I wasn't there that long my share is not that big, about forty six bucks. Mom got much more than that, since she worked as a sales clerk there for much longer than I did. Still, it's nothing to sneeze at, and I can use it to get some nice sketch books for the new school year. I recently made the mistake of buying a sketchbook that's sturdy but way too heavy for me to carry around on a day to day basis. I've read some good reviews about the Maruman Mnemosyne notebooks so I'm thinking I'll try a couple of those; maybe a large blank one for drawing and a smaller gridded one for layout and design ideas.

I also picked up a sharpie pen today. I'm very pleased so far! Basically it's a fine tipped marker that's comparable to a micron or a copic liner, except cheaper than both. My only complaint so far is that on copier paper it feathers quite a bit if I go too slowly and starts to bleed through the paper a little. However neither issues have been a problem on any other papers I've tried so far. Plus I plan to use it just for fast sketching and note taking so I don't think that this will be a problem for me. So overall I think I can recommend it! Unless you are planning to use it to carefully ink your drawings, in which case I recommend that you test it first on your paper of choice or otherwise stick with a micron/copic/what have you. Myself I'm trying to get away from using markers for inking, but using them instead for sketching because I'm trying to train my eyes to take in more while I'm drawing from life as well as loosen up a little. Hopefully using a pen will help with this since the temptation to try and erase and correct every half a second will be stifled a little. Well, that's the plan anyway.

Please don't strike, please don't strike, please don't strike.

Auuggh, not sure what I'll do if a strike does occur. Find some sort of temporary accommodation for class nights? I don't really know anyone who is living close to campus that I would be comfortable asking, and I'm not sure what the alternatives are. Time for some research/finger-crossing!

I finally get to register for the rest of my classes next week. Originally was supposed to register a couple weeks ago, but the school decided that it needed to cut even more classes and pushed the dates forward even more. And then it said "well, looks like we'll be cutting more classes and raising your fees by twenty percent. Also if you don't cough up it before your priority reg date you won't get to register!" Ffffuck. I'm in a very fortunate position with regards to paying for school, but I know that not everyone is as well off. WTF, school. WTF. This is what we get for living in a state that is currently serving as warning to the rest of the world on the dangers of direct democracy.

As it stands neither of the classes I already register for have been canceled, and the other class I really want to get into is still available, and has seats. One of my possible electives/back-up choices is gone though and my remaining elective only has a couple of seats left. My registration date for CCSF is next week too, and hopefully there will be space left in the class I need to take there.

In more upbeat news, yesterday I was able to meet with friends to hang out and sketch people at the mall. I didn't do as much drawing as I would have liked, but it was still fun, and I feel rejuvenated somehow. I've been in a pretty bad funk this summer and as a consequence haven't been doing as many creative things (like practicing drawing, but also working on increasing my Adobe CS-fu, which is pretty weak atm). Setting up regular weekly sketching outings will help, I think. Yesterday I was also introduced to SketchCrawl, which looks like it could be really fun. Just missed the most recent one though, so I'll have to keep an eye out for the next date. Also, there are some intimidatingly skilled artists in the SF group, but for some reason that
just encourages me rather than scares me.

Saw Star Trek for the second time tonight, this time on IMax, and managed to catch literally the last show on the theater's screen (starting this week it will be surrendered to Transformers 2). But! I think that there will still be some showings on one of the regular screens, so hopefully I can maybe squeeze in one or two more showings while it's still in theaters.

...yeah, in case you can't tell, I enjoyed the movie. A lot. :D I've even had some fanarty ideas. Of course, I'm pretty out of practice when it comes to drawing at the moment. I barely drew anything during my trip (and I had plenty of downtime during that, but I just read instead) and I haven't practiced at all since coming back. I need to set a rigid daily schedule or something and --this is the hard part-- stick to it. If only I didn't have the willpower of a cat. :\

Anyway, some links that I am posting so I can finally close the tabs in Firefox, including some good posts from the Colour Lovers blog and couple blogs I've recently started following:
-Vintage Color & Design: Juaná Gaita
-Color Basics: Dos and Dont's
-Transmonster: Text to Color Transmuter
-Vintage Color & Design: Mid-20th c. Euro Poster Art
-The Colorful Art Of Radiology
-Vintage Color & Design: The Architectural Review
-Bob Jones: "Drawing is drawing, whether it's realistic or not."
-100 New and Beautiful Seamless Patterns

Hello, I'm back from vacation in lovely Scotland! I can say "lovely" because the weather was nice and sunny for about 95% of the trip. Though I think two weeks is just about the limit of the amount of time that my family can stand to stay in each others' company. I actually got back yesterday evening, but basically went straight to bed. Today I've just been unpacking and trying to make a dent in the number of unread posts in my RSS reader. Right now I'm just about to start in on my flist, so I hope that everything has been well with you. Did you know that the "previous 20" button stops once you reach 340? I didn't. Good thing that brings me back to the day I left then.

More on my holiday later, and a few photos when I can get them onto my computer. For now let me just say that, since my last visit three years ago, Scotland has apparently gone panini-mad, and there exists such a thing as a haggis panini. Yes.

omg so many recs. I wasn't kidding about me losing my DS charger cable, btw. It's not in the drawer were I usually keep my charger cables and I haven't been able to find it yet. Hopefully I'll track it down before I leave in two weeks. But I turned my room upside down today and I still couldn't find it. I will be incredibly annoyed if I wind up using part of my Star Trek and video game money on a new charger cable. D:

Also, I have a favor to ask of you. If you are near me at some point in the future and I utter something like "it will look great! I'll start by using the pen tool in Illustrator to partially trace a detailed photograph..." I ask that you promptly shoot me in the head. I assure you, it will be for my own good.

(I have been working on a final project all night and I am about 65% done with the image in question. And I'll still need to place that into the file that will be the final poster, and set the text, and retweak the logo and oh god please send help)

(Why not use LiveTrace, you might ask? Because I don't want the final image to have the LiveTrace/Poster filter in Photoshop "look" and it will be easier to make color changes with simpler forms. I mean, that was my thought when I began work last night, and now I've done too much to simply chuck it all out the window. Right? Right.)

*sob*

Well, early priority registration time today. I was half-hour late, but I was able to get into Graphic Design 2 and Digital Media 2 with no problem! \0/ There were still seats available in Rapid Viz, just to fuck with me, I assume (remember this was the class that I tried to add at the beginning of this semester and it was too full and now that it's impossible for me to take it has space and asdhsvadfjhahahahaha!)

But on the more positive side, the Information Design 1 class still has a lot of seats left, so --given the long list of prerequisite classes, which I will have fulfilled by the end of this semster-- it looks very likely that I will have no trouble signing up during my regular registration in July. \0/

And now, a few, mostly food-related, links that I have been holding out on you fine people:

How to make:
-Rainbow cake!
-Totoro cream puffs!
-Domo-kun* marshmellows!
-Orange Julius! Now that I think about it, I've never had an actual Orange Julius before. Maybe they don't operate in California anymore, as none of the malls I've ever visited seemed to have one. I did once have a good recipe that was made with frozen orange concentrate, but I lost it. :(




*Also, when did they start selling Domo-kun stuff at Target? I got a small Domo plush a couple months ago for a pretty reasonable price there, and they had larger ones with bendy arms too. I suppose this means that Domo-kun is uncool now or has sold out** or something. Whatever, I still think he's cute.

**As much as it's possible for a corporate mascot to sell out in the first place.

So, as you might remember, in the past I have had, shall we say, some bad luck when it came to registering for classes. But after meeting with my adviser this semester I felt that things were going my way! I had taken all the right classes, in the right order more or less and would receive a high place in the class-picking line! According to my adviser I should have no trouble registering for my classes! So I made a note to register for what I felt were my two high-priority classes --Graphic Design 2 and Rapid Visualization-- and waited for the Fall 09 schedule to go up. And then it did. And those particular two classes are only being offered at the same time as each other next semester.

...

I WILL NEVER GET THIS RIGHT WILL I?


All right, it's not the end of the world. I don't need to take Rapid Viz in the fall, and can bump it up to next spring, which will (hopefully, though I'm crossing my fucking fingers here) be my last semester. So I'll just register for one of my other classes during early priority. My other main worry is correctly applying for a particular class that I need to take at CCSF, but their website is such a mess of fuck-bad web design that I wasn't sure if I could just sign up as part of their concurrent enrollment program (which lets me take courses there while still being a member of State) using the regular application forms or what. If I do apply properly and get into the class it means I'll be working with actual printing presses next semester, which I am excited about. And there is a new class in our department, Information Design 1, which I'm hoping to get into during my regular registration period. It's a subject I'm very much interested in as a would-be graphic designer, and I'd love to learn more about it in a class room setting.

I'm still pissed about those overlapping classes though. I swear, there must be some sort of scheduling god, and I have done something to anger it.

I know I swore that I would get this last midterm done and over with tonight (it's only a five-page paper) so I wouldn't have to write it tomorrow night when I get back from my evening classes. But I've had maybe six hours of sleep in the past forty eight and right now I can barely think straight. So I think what I'm going to do is finish picking out all the quotes I'm gonna need from my sources, then I'll just do my other reading assignments and call it a night. Then tomorrow morning and during my dinner break between classes I'll work on creating an outline/draft of my paper, so hopefully all I'll need to do when I get home at night is just put everything together and type the damn thing up. And then on Thursday I can turn it in and watch Tampopo, and after that I will officially be on spring break!

Last week I had two midterms, and a meeting with my adviser. The first midterm was easy enough, but oh man did I bomb the second. I wish the professor had told us that the exam was going to be so heavily focused on memorizing all the terms and rules we learned. Or indeed, told us anything about what was going to be on the exam. Arrgh. My advisory meeting went very well though. She signed my new Bachelor of Sciences contract, said that I am perfectly on track, and should be in the group that gets highest priority during registration! \0/ She did put me down as needing to take a printing class that's actually offered by a community college (one where I'll get to work with actual printing presses) so I need to figure out the registration process and find out when they start allowing sign ups for fall classes. Plus I need to sign up for a drawing class at my local community college for this summer. Taking that should give me the prerequisite I need to take some of the art classes offered at State as electives.

One final, completely unrelated note: I had thought I had gotten the hang of Firefox 3's new address bar and had it working the way I wanted it to, but apparently when you clear your cache it resets itself or something, because when I start to enter text it brings me addresses to pages that I haven't accessed in years before it brings up the website I visited less than 24hrs ago. WTF?

I may be running on zero hours of sleep right now and it is pissing rain outside but here are two happy things, one which has made me very happy:

Firstly, Oklahoma has named "Do You Realize" as an official state song! I think that is a pretty cool move on Oklahoma's part, though the cool is slightly lessened by the fact that it is not the state song, but rather the official state "rock song" (they have a state folk song and a state country song too). Still, as a Californian I have no place to complain, because we only have the one state song, and it sucks donkey balls. Seriously, read those lyrics and tell me that the first thing that comes to your mind is not "awkward elementary school recitation". Aw, but we'll always have the quail. And that with the passing of each new day we lurch closer to the possibility of a full-on, Mad Max-style, dystopia. So we've got that going for us at least.

Anyway, more happy! So earlier today a little item from the Onion Av Club popped up in my RSS feed, announcing the cancellation of the US remake of the UK TV show Life on Mars. Hm, yes, very sad. I'm sure it's dozens of fans will miss it. But wait! What is this tidbit of information?

And speaking of the UK Life On Mars, here's some good news for stateside fans of that show: Acorn Media has announced that the Life On Mars: Series One DVD will be available in a four-disc set with extras, arriving in stores July 28th. Take a look at the lawmen....

the Life On Mars: Series One DVD will be available in a four-disc set with extras, arriving in stores July 28th.

:D

Yessssss. Fucking finally! Oh, and to think that I had given up on the possibility that I would ever be able to legally watch the best TV ever uncut! Happy day!

If you haven't seen Coraline yet, I highly recommend you do. Especially if it's still playing in 3d near where you live and if it costs you as much as it did me you will probably wind up keeping the glasses out of spite. 14 bucks?! It's an amazing movie, and the 3D is integrated really nicely into the overall film, not in a gimmicky "lets throw stuff towards the camera!" kinda way. I read a review that compared the effect to a puppet show, and I think that's an apt comparison.

Seriously, I can't praise this movie enough. The attention to detail is staggering, and I definitely want to see it again in the theaters while its still playing, to catch details that I surely missed the first time around. It looks like it's been a financial success so far, and I know that the showing I went to was packed, which is a good thing. And I hope it continues to live in the public consciousness for a long time to come.

Also, it is fanatically creepy. I'm sure that some of the kids that were in tonight's audience will be having nightmares tonight. Good, I say! That kind of entertainment-related trauma is good for a child's development! I have no data to back this assertion up, but it feels right, dammit.

I think tomorrow I'm going to see if I can find one of those neat vinyl dolls in any of the local toy stores. Makes me wish that we still had a Suncoast store in our mall, since it's the kind of thing that they would certainly carry. Oh well.

Well, my McAfee subscription is going to run out in about a week and I think I'm just going to let it lapse and then uninstall the whole shebang. Because I have gotten so sick of it slowing down my computer to a crawl (and it's continued to do so even after I quadrupled my RAM!) with it's constant need to download shit every other time I boot up. Use a free antivirus program like Avast! or AVG and stick with the rest of my current security setup, which is:

-Firefox 3, with Adblock and NoScript
-MalwareBytes Anti-malware
-Ad-Aware SE (Although it looks like I need uninstall that and grab a newer version)
-SpywareBlaster

And once McAfee is gone I'll probably install Search and Destroy again, since MacAffe made me get rid of it when I had to install a particularly large update. >:|

Anyway, I put this question to you, my flist, in the hopes that anyone has any input: am I making the right decision here? My biggest concern is that once McAfee is gone I'll be down to using just the Windows XP firewall. My second biggest concern, after seeing Norton take down my family's last desktop PC, is if I'll actually be able to get rid of McAfee at all.

(I'm also wondering if it might be a good idea to install CCleaner, since after I installed CS3 space on my hard drive has now become much harder to come buy. If you have it, was it able to free up a lot of space for you?)