Lets run in circles!

3:06pm: Oh, and I also might have to buy a pair of these at some point :3

3:01pm: Well, that's the Paris trip over and it's back to the grind at uni again. I'll do a write up of the trip at a later point, when I can be bothered with going through it.

What I wanted to talk about today though is glasses. In particular, the selection and cost of glasses. As anyone who wears glasses knows, the cost of buying a new pair is extortionate, and can severely limit your options if you're buying on a budget. Personally I'm not particularly fond of the pair I've got, as they look pretty cheap and don't really fit me all that well, but since I'm unemployed right now I wasn't able to afford to buy a nicer pair (even with the half price discount when I wore contact lenses!)

But, with the revalation today that I need a new prescription anyway, I've decided to try a little experiment. I'm going to try buying a pair online and see if I can get a better deal on a nicer pair of glasses.

While looking about online for places I could get glasses, most of which seemed to charge the same as brick and mortar shops, I stumbled across Glassy Eyes, a website all about buying eyewear for reduced prices by shopping online. To my surprise, the site actually includes links to some discount online eyewear shops, as well as recommendations and user reviews. So, off I went to browse a few of the sites they have rated, eventually finding Goggles4U. On here I found a good selection of glasses, and eventually settled on a pair of rimless glasses that were similar to a pair I'd seen in a brick and mortar shop.

Total cost with lenses? £13. Brick and mortar price for near identical pair? £150. More than 10 times the price.

So, knowing that I won't be losing out on much if I were to order these and it goes wrong, I've placed the order and paid (they accept paypal too, and have free international shipping :D). Now I just need to wait up to 10 days for the order to arrive and see what I get. From the looks of the reviews it should be good, but I'll be letting people know what the results are.

Oh, and if the service is good and the glasses are satisfactory I'm planning on getting another pair, although this time from a different store (as goggles4u don't have this one), a pair of full rim glasses with photochromatic lenses (lenses become tinted in bright light) and anti-reflection coating. The photochromatic lens adds a fair bit to the price, nearly doubling it. However, £20 is still significantly less than the £50 I've seen in some shops.These will cost me just over £30, £4 less than my current, half price, NHS partially funded Specsaver glasses. Somehow I doubt I'll be going back to brick and mortar shops for my glasses if this works out.

4:39pm: Funny Spam
I seem to be getting more spam in my inbox recently for some reason. This one in particular sticks out though

'Doctors discovered new weapon lamar - Show your lover your NEW 8"'

Apparently headcrabs can increase penis size. I guess that's how the Combine took over so quick then

6:41pm: Note to self: After spending a month reducing soft drink and snack intake, do not expect to have the same appetite for something advertised as "rich chocolate cake". Blech >.<

7:07pm: Well, this weeks been both somewhat un-productive and productive. On the one hand, the goals thing went pretty much out the window and I didn't get much done project wise, but on the other hand I've gotten a job doing web design again (although it's probably a temporary placement) and I've solidified my ideas for all three projects to the point they can get done.

so yeah, not sure how I should feel about this week. I'll see about picking things up again this week though, maybe I just needed a bit of a time out, since I'm not falling asleep mid-afternoon anymore.

10:31pm: Linux Woes
Well, that was an interesting weekend. I decided I'd install linux on my laptop to see how it would cope with the tablet screen and the monitor itself, not to mention the memory management. Cue a whole weekend just trying to get the pressure sensitivity working and having to alter and correct files through the linux terminal after having screwed up one of the files*. Still, it's working now and I can also now set up an apache server (except the database part, which I can't seem to get working). It also meant I had a slightly more laid back weekend than I'd expected, since I had to leave linux running for a while to install some things and there wasn't really much that could be done with it.

Now that it's working though, the tablet drivers seem to be coping pretty well. I'm also happy that linux seems to be controlling the monitor and wireless card much better than windows was (windows the colours were off, the back light was faulty and the wireless would disconnect constantly. None of these is now a problem, and I actually spent most of my time travelling reading eBooks, which I would usually hate)

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm off to read some books on my laptop. One of the cold reading books has just hit the bit where it explains what the statistics and percentages that made up the first 30 pages were actually for

*It should be mentioned that, other than the tablet drivers (which aren't something linux supports easily yet and the problems caused by which were wholey my fault), Ubuntu has been incredibly easy to get used to. I'm seriously considering having my desktop as a dual boot now, and even that's only because some of the software I have is windows exclusive. Having free desktop publishing, web design and vector art software is hard to resist

12:35pm: As a quick update on what I've been up to recently, I joined a gym (well leasure center. I wanted to use the pool more than the fitness suite) and I'm trying to up my number of visits to 3 times a week, I started back at uni and I've gotten about half way through one of my projects for this semester (and haven't even heard about one of them) and tonight we're having a house party. Also looking for a new job because the web design company went belly up.Also, I've decided to give my self a few goals that I want to do by this time next year. Originally I was going to do the <a href="http://triplux.com/dayzero/">101 goals in 1001 days</a>, but I really can't think of 101 goals that I could aim for. Seriously, I have no idea how those people managed it. Still, I've made a list of a few things, and since most of them can be done sooner rather than later I'm going to try and have them done within the year. So, ( here's the list )

So, starting this week I'm going to start working on two of the month long goals, #1 and #2 (no soft drinks and going to gym 3 times a week). I'll let you know how I get on with it.

Actually, since I'll probably be recording what happens with it here, I'll throw in #26 too (bloggin twice a week)

6:07pm: Why haven't I posted about this yet?
How to deal with terrorist attacks

9:55pm: er... ok, I probably shouldn't have done that. In my defence though I really didn't think I'd actually get it. So yeah, apparently I just bought a tablet PC on ebay for like £250. Er...

Man, now I *really* hope this job pays well.

5:39pm: To update on the "holy shit" post a week ago or so, I've finally managed to get myself a job, even if it is only part time. I'm doing some work for a web design company, layout, graphic design and stuff like that. No idea how that ended up working out, but they seemed to quite like the test layouts I showed them last week.

Now I just need to find out how much they want me to work/get done and what their new address is before I leave so I can sort out any contract stuff with them

1:06pm: Emailed back? Really?
Well, they wrote back after all, this time with an easier to read email. ( Doesn't mean it makes sense though )
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I'm not sure if I'll bother writing back this time. Doing so would result in either me ranting and them ignoring, or me bothering to read in detail all the documentation they linked and making up arguements based on this, which would take up a lot of time and, again, most likely be ignored.

4:52pm: HOLY SHIT O.O
more when I have more info

6:08pm: Holy crap they replied! O.o;
A while back I sent an email to "focus on the family", asking why they thought that "pro-family" groups would attempt to protest legislation in the US which would allow crimes based on sexual orientation to be classed in the same way as any other discriminatary crime (or "hate crime", as people like to call it)

To my amazement, they actually replied to this query. Not just that, but they have actually... avoided the question entirely. Big surprise.

( Read more... )

12:41pm: Jesus was a kick boxer

10:21pm: To save spamming my (what is supposed to be a) art journal, I'm gonna post non-art stuff here, since I seem to have an increased output of this.
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8:02pm: And to clarify the previous, not an april fools (man, I always forget about april 1st. Always have good ideas for it too, only *after* the fact)

1:58pm: well, that didn't last long. After the last entry I went out for a walk and ended up having a cup of tea at Borders while drawing my character for animation.

While there I  ended up talking with one of the servers (barista, is it?) about games dev. Apparently her boyfriend worked for Rare before they went over to Microsoft.

So yeah, after getting back from it I'd calmed down and managed to sit and get some work done without headaches or whatever, so ended up being well worth the (over)price tea

1:45pm: Whee ( cut for whining )

Strangely, despite this I'm overall quite pleased with things as they are. I'm hoping to be able to keep working at things steadily after the summer starts, but  we'll just have to wait and see what happens.

10:18pm: Woot! Completed Disgaea 2 and got the good ending :D

What? Resolutions? Oh, yeah, those... >.>;

12:52am: New years resolutions:

Less procrastination
More work on character design
Put a decent amount of time into working on coursework
Work on graphic and web design
Do an animation in Maya as part of character and environment design section
Get a permenant job I can do to help fund uni rather than a christmas temp one
Do an oil or acrylic painting every day
Work on 2D animation
Take up swimming

Well, I'm off to bed. Hopefully tomorrow I'll have a fresh start and actually start work on some of these

Happy new year everyone


p.s. Have I got this wrong, or is there really a day off work so that people can recover from their New Years Eve hangovers? I mean, there's not any real significance to New Years Day, is there?

10:49pm: As of today I've done maybe half the necessary sketches for the July 30 and found out there's some pretty big gaps in what I can do when drawing sans reference. Smart think to do would probably be to give up on it for this month and try it over next month.

So yeah, I'm either going to have a few things uploaded mid-week or a mass upload at the end of the week. Never did say I was particularly smart :p

12:29am: ( Quick upload for next batch )

12:45pm: ( Day 2 )

Uploaded late due to connection problems last night

12:11am: Had a bit of a rethink on the animation thing. Decided the overweight main character was pushing "suspension of disbelief" a little far for what I wanted. He's been changed to a boss later on. The main character is going to be a kid/teen now, got a few ideas on how that's going to go, and although I still haven't decided for definite I do have a sketch for ( one of the ideas )

In other news, to try and get my ass in gear and start working more on this animation I'm going to do the July Sketching Challenge with character design for my animation being the theme. Wish me luck :p

7:19pm: Some fun links (edited for working html)
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That's me for now. Next update should have some sketches for the animation in it.