I usually turn my computer off before I go to bed, but last night I left it on to download OnePiece fansubs on BitTorrent.  Little did I know that the power was going to crap out, followed by power surges this morning.  I was certain that my Dell (this comp) was okay, but STA03 (my website comp) was in a pickle.  This troubled me greatly as my art is heavily on both computers.  I did back up my art on my father's computer and the BenMachine, but both had massive harddrive failures and I wouldn't be able to find the data if I tried.  So where do I turn to if my Dell and website computer are crippled?  Will I be out of art to supply?  Will I be screwed?  Scary thoughts.

Another thing that was an immediate concern was my reptile collection.  I do not have a secondary heat source and if the house temperature gets too low I could irriversably cripple their health.  Don't get me wrong, I do have emergency backup heating sources - like heat pads and warmable bags of rice (trust me, they work) - however it's a very short term solution.  It's not often on this side of Michigan that the power dies in the dead of winter, so I was a tad ignorant of the need of backup heating until this morning.

Luckily the power went back on after an hour or two.

Unluckily there'll be a massive winter storm whapping the house tonight, with up to 50 mph winds.  I think I'll turn my computer off tonight.

Fish!

I got two new algae-eating fish for my tank today.  Otocinclus, I've gotten them in the past without much success.. These two little new ones have a feast on their suckers because my tank is heaping over with the Japanese sushi-wrapping junk.  Let's hope the fish leave them alone and they survive.

Legos!  Star Wars!

My father bought me Lego StarWars - the Complete version - for the Wii.  I've yet to play it, anyone else watching me play it?  It looks damned well fun.  I somehow had one of those Godly feelings I was going to end up with this game.  Earlier I watched an episode on Cheat about the same game and thought to myself for the first time, "That'd be a nice game to have."  Next thing I know my father brings up how he wants to get it for me later on the same day.  Joy!

Avatar!

Avatar Season 3 disk 2 came out.  I bought it.  I've yet to see the episodes and I'm very happy about it.  For some reason the tag said 15 but they only charged me 10 - which also made me just as happy.

While hanging out at BestBuy to get StarWars and Avatar, a worker there named Bob hung out with me.  He's my favorite employee from the place because everytime he sees me or my father he always wants to start some random nerdy conversation over anime or computer junk.  Supposedly my father and I are different from normal customers and he likes our company.  I enjoyed seeing him again.

I really should have simply painted or drawn something today, but instead I spent it once again completely on the computer.  And while my eyes are soggy lumps of cancer now, at least I enjoyed myself.  For today was different, unique.  I went onto a trouble forum on an art site, found a member being reported for trace/copying art from copyright sources, then I went through the person's gallery, sorted out their art, and tried to find the original sources to all of it through Google and other search functions. 

Mind you, it wouldn't be so evil if the person didn't blatantly rip off art from other sources.  If this person was only guilty of one picture and I went through their gallery to relentlessly find if their other, innocent stuff, was somehow ripped, it'd be a different story.  I may be evil, but I'm not that evil.  After all, you can usually easily tell by the varying styles and cheap lines if art has been traced/copied or not.  Most of the ripping was from anime, which made the search pretty much a huge game for me.  Sometimes the reported 'artist' even put 'I took example from the art of this other artist' in their submission notes.  Look into art from that other artist and, Hey, there's that picture being stolen!  Or that artist says on their web page not to take their characters!  Controversy.

Anyway, wasting away my day is one thing, wasting it away trying to ruin the online reputation of someone is another.  Have I really dwindled into the realm of ass?  Or is it like bounty hunting, where someone's head is on the market and I'm spending the time searching them out. 

Other people willing to help me with the hunt also act like it's a game.  Oh, oh!  That one submission drawn is ____ character from ___ anime!  Joy, now I have an easier time finding the original stolen art on Google.

This is my first Live Journal.  I am making it to spite myself since others I know also have them.  No guarantees I'll get into this or make one as they probably will not be viewed nor cared about by anyone other than myself.



Today I started playing "God of War I" on my Play Station 2.  It is a good time to play it as I am in the midst of bottling anger and this is definately a good medium to expel it towards; although deep down I still feel as though this is another mindless button-masher like all PS2 games I've played recently.  I also started playing "Avatar 2" on the Wii, but this also appears to be another masher - though more than likely a short one.  After "Avatar" I'll probably play a more stable Wii or GameCube game such as "Harvest Moon" or "Super Paper Mario".  If I beat "God of War" before the week's over, I'll play "Valkyrie Profile 2" (which I purchased yesterday at Toys R Us.)  Back to what I was saying, however: "God of War I" is what I am playing now and it will generously allow me to fuel my hatred of certain things towards the television and gaming controller.

Along with VP2, I also purchased Legos yesterday.  Recently, as in the last year, I learned that the lego manufacturer came out with Giant Robot Anime legos called Exo-force.  In it there are anime guys and robot guys.  In the last two holiday seasons, someone bought me a random anime guy robot, so to rectify the problem I thereafter purchased a robot guy...  Robot.  Either way, yesterday I purchased a panther variety of Exo-force robot, so now my lego collection is even once again.  I must clear up something before ending this paragraph: I am much older than you probably think I am by now.  I believe that legos are imparitive to one's imagination in building things.  They are the one toy on the market currently that allows someone to use full creativity and distract the mind. 

I burn candles to make the room smell better [I own cats].  I learned recently that I am low on the candle supply.  I'm burning off the last of my tarts, but I'll have to find more before the weather gets worse.

Today the weather was bad.  There was a blizzard, then lake-effect.  I was snowed in but have been rescued by a snow blower and tons of free time.  My current living environment is fine now, though the wiither channel said it would blizzard again tomorrow or Tuesday.  This is alright, I found a new/old coat to wear that fits.   Now I can shovel more snow without suffering completely from the negative temperatures.

Lastly, I have fish.  Three Red Barbs in a 5 gallon tall hexagon tank.  Recently I noticed that the tank was turning green.  Last night, after cleaning the tank, I found a film of Japanese sushi-wrappings on the tank walls.  Asked around, learned it was algae, and now I need to go get an algae-eating fish.  The weather is a factor and while I have an urge to get this over with immediately, I supposedly can't because the roads are all ice, black-ice, and...  Well...  You get the idea.




While typing this journal, I have been irked to find that my FireFox instant-spell checker underlines improperly spelled words, but it wont let me right-click and fix the problem.  This is bloody evil, if you ask me.  Pardon my mis-spellings.