Bitching, tissues, and free stuff
It's 38C here today. Have I mentioned how much I hate summer? I also have a cold - the kind where your head feels like a soggy, oversaturated sponge - and all I'm really interested in doing is lying down and not moving until September arrives. In addition, I do not have a single work project to do right now and that always makes me nervous (like, 'I'll never get another job again' kinda nervous) which is stupidly magnified by the working-from-home cabin fever.
On the upside, I wrote something (it's supposed to be about 2 characters cuddling but it's ACTUALLY a secret ode to thunderstorms), and Orbit appears convinced that I've retired from my career to provide her with full-time neck scrunches. Ahhh, to live inside that dog's head...
Over the weekend, I had brunch with LO'B who has started a gaming project which involves creating his own set of custom game cards *super nerdy*. Anyway, he is using this FREE image software and was having issues with it, so he asked me to come to his place and take a look. It turns out that it is an awesome program especially if you have any knowledge of Photoshop (Paint.NET - only available for PCs). I was surprised at how close it was to PS and considering that even PS Elements cost money and doesn't provide some of the tools included in Paint.NET, this seems like a real bargain. I thought some of my graphics-making f-list would appreciate the link. The biggest problem that LO'B discovered was that you can't go back and edit text once you've clicked away from it (the program rasterizes it automatically), meaning that you've gotta be really sure about what the text is gonna be BEFORE you type it (I found a text edit plug-in here, from a list of plug-ins here). Anyway, for a free program it's pretty nifty.
Speaking of free stuff, for those of you who require background noise while you work but can't listen to music or are a little too wound up, I've found 2 lovely natural sounds streaming sites: soundrown is great - it features a multitude of mixed sounds (you can even combine channels if you want) including songbirds, rain, and children at a playground. raining.fm is just about rain (YES!!!) but you can mix how loud, long, and intense you want the storm to be. What can I say? Rain is my happy place.
On the upside, I wrote something (it's supposed to be about 2 characters cuddling but it's ACTUALLY a secret ode to thunderstorms), and Orbit appears convinced that I've retired from my career to provide her with full-time neck scrunches. Ahhh, to live inside that dog's head...
Over the weekend, I had brunch with LO'B who has started a gaming project which involves creating his own set of custom game cards *super nerdy*. Anyway, he is using this FREE image software and was having issues with it, so he asked me to come to his place and take a look. It turns out that it is an awesome program especially if you have any knowledge of Photoshop (Paint.NET - only available for PCs). I was surprised at how close it was to PS and considering that even PS Elements cost money and doesn't provide some of the tools included in Paint.NET, this seems like a real bargain. I thought some of my graphics-making f-list would appreciate the link. The biggest problem that LO'B discovered was that you can't go back and edit text once you've clicked away from it (the program rasterizes it automatically), meaning that you've gotta be really sure about what the text is gonna be BEFORE you type it (I found a text edit plug-in here, from a list of plug-ins here). Anyway, for a free program it's pretty nifty.
Speaking of free stuff, for those of you who require background noise while you work but can't listen to music or are a little too wound up, I've found 2 lovely natural sounds streaming sites: soundrown is great - it features a multitude of mixed sounds (you can even combine channels if you want) including songbirds, rain, and children at a playground. raining.fm is just about rain (YES!!!) but you can mix how loud, long, and intense you want the storm to be. What can I say? Rain is my happy place.