Before I begin, if anyone out there knows what happened with ParanoidPerson (that's the way she had the username here), send me a PM please, or at least tell her CosmicSailor (she might not even remember me) is concerned okay? I know some people had been giving her a hard time about alleged plagiarism (that's an ugly word, in the likes of terrorist or copyright infringment, to be used so haphazardly. It ruins reputations and people's good names). She may have decided it was better to just leave this site and not have to deal with the stress of having her works approved one day then deleted the next. At last check (in late November) she had over 200 pictures posted here, that's a lot of work to be gone in a blink because of a little petty arrogance. If she is gone from this site (by force or choice), I know I'll miss the pleasure of her company, and the quality of her artwork. She was one of too few artists on here who's humorous images (though she did serious works too), actually made me laugh. No offense to present company intended.
I'd better just stick to the comments this time, sorry it took so long to answer them everyone.
Comments:
Caprice
A very lucky guess I promise. Actually, most people I know who've taken college level courses kept the books because they spent $50.00+ dollars on them (usually closer to $70.00 or $100.00), and knew the resource would be beneficial (and you'd never get full price for a used textbook if you tried to sell it anyway). Also, I'm a pack rat of sorts, and I kept a lot of my high school work, notes, handouts, and I even have a few textbooks (collected from used book sales mostly). It just seems to be more practical to hang onto that sort of thing because it will prove useful in the future.
All right, here's what I've got for you (and anyone else interested) on the data recovery front. I did find some freeware(I always look for freeware first by the way) utilities for data recovery, if you're interested.
Disk Investigator is one,
PC Inspector is another one that looks promising to me. Now for the expensive (but I won't lie, possibley more reliable and or able to recover the data) finds:
Runtime Software has a $70.00 program, but you'd have to read the site and see if you could handle the way they instruct you to do a data recovery (they have the instructions right there). They also have a free trial, but usually those just show you the data is there, and you have to pay for the full version to actually do the recovery.
r-tools Technology specifically identifies several Paint Shop Pro files as the types of image files it will recover. Their undelete utility, (called R-Undelete) runs at about $54.99, and their trial will undelete files up to 64 kb in size (not much but I guess it gives the user an idea how to work the program). The also have a full suite program for data recovery, but it runs at about $80.00. If you'd like to investigate any of the programs I've come up with, check out their sites, or you can check on
the S2 Services database of data recovery utilities, they cover both freeware and commercial programs, but I didn't look to see if anything I found on my own was listed there.
I'm looking forward to being able to tell someone the specific scene that addicted me to animé, without spoiling anything for them. It gives me an excuse to watch the series again myself (like I need one anyway), so I can be sure the scene I'm thinking of is in the episode I think it is. In fact, this weekend before my brother and his family came over (he's married, and I have two nephews and a niece), I watched the first Disc of Escaflowne myself, that's Episodes 1-4. I'll be watching Disc 2 (Episodes 5-8) today sometime. Take your time with the series though, and do let me know when you've gotten through Ep 1, like I said in the comment the other day, there's a scene in that one I like (it's funny to me anyway) but I don't want to spoil things for you. When you're ready to hear my thoughts, send me a PM with the first episode's title as the subject line, that way I will know you've seen it.
Actually for anyone who wants to get my take on Escaflowne, send a PM with the episode's title as the subject line, then I'll know what you want to discuss and limit myself and try not to reveal plot points unless I'm specifically told you've seen all 26 episodes. I have also seen the movie, so I can dialogue about that, but I like the series a whole lot better.
With my WACOM Tablet came a software bundle, Correl Painter Essentials 2, and Adobe Photoshop Elements. Those are the stripped down free versions of the multi-hundred dollar image editors that are supposed to impress a person enough to go out and buy the full programs. You know what, I uninstalled Photoshop Elements after having in on my laptop for only one hour. Let me tell you, I will never go near Photoshop, again I was that frustrated with it. They provide no built in instructions, all the help documentation is online, which won't do me a bit of good because my laptop isn't connected to the internet, and the user interface is overly complicated to the point a person can't figure out how to work the thing on his own without the online help files. I've been using Pixia since 2003, when I wanted to get into making banners and avatars and such, and I've been hooked on it since. They only just added tablet support this year though. Interesting enough, if you can read Japanese, you can get the latest releases of Pixia, which was created by a Japanese programmer/artist Isao Maruoka from the Japanese
Pixia web site (You'll need the Japanese language pack to see the page properly). I think the Japanese version may be one or two ahead of the English translation release, which at last check was Version 3.
Personal experience keeps me out of those contest things period. I dont vote, I don't judge, and I definately don't participate in them. I know I'm just a sore loser. That comes after being encouraged to take part in "contests" and having nothing to show for all the work I put into it. Oh, don't even go near the "it was a learning experinece", "you should be proud of your effort", and "it was all in good fun" lines. Those are the kinds of things a person tells the losers to try and make them feel better, and believe me, it doesn't work. I guess when I heard from the "contest" sponsor(s) that my "friends," who said they supported me, but actually didn't, left a bitter taste in my mouth, so I stay away from that.
I had to take some time to myself, or else I'd have been one crabby person to deal with, and that's not a pleasant thing for anyone. I went back over my previous posts, and could see me getting progressively meaner as it was getting closer to things. Now I have been haunting the comments (even yours) the past few days, I like to do that, just to keep people on their toes. I'm back here early, and that's not a good thing, because I'm looking for answers. I'm already not too happy about some things that are going on here (on MyO), and if I don't like what I find out, everyone who reads my blog will know about it, that's a promise.
Mamma Vash:
All I've got is a nasty case of Psoriasis, which isn't very pleasant this time of year. For those that don't know, it's like a mutant case of itchy, rashy, dry skin that never fully goes away. It hits my scalp the hardest, but my elbows are seeing it this year too. Scientific recearch suggests it's related to stress among other things, which I can certainly vouch for. I can remember the initial trigger too, 7th Grade.
I'm getting to be good with a digital camera myself, don't have too many pictures to show off, but I have a nice hiking trail that used to be a railroad spur right through my town, and it still has some of the old signal lights and bridges and tunnels to go through. When I get some pictures from being on it (it's not practical to walk it in the winter) I'll put them up here and show you what I can do with a digital camera. Photography is a hobby of mine, and back in my archive should be the links to the Mothman statue pictures I took this year. They're pretty much all I've got at the moment because the camera eats batteries. Well, there's the abandoned trade school in Lakin WV, but you're not interested in a creepy old brick building in the shadow of a nuclear power plant, near where the Mothman sightings occured back in the 60's are you?
The only thing I can recommend for muscle aches is Potassium (i.e. eat a banana or two). I take it before I go on a hike and I don't get sore and stiff from the efforts. If I know I'm going ot be doing strenuous things, I'll take it beforehand too, but it dulls the pain if taken afterward too. Bear in mind it's not a pain reliever, Potassium is needed by the body, having something to do with muscle control (it's good for the heart too, but not too much!), so when the muscles lack it, they kind of hurt for it, literally.
You asked me to find you some Kanji, see if
this is what you had in mind. Bear in mind that these are Japanese translations, and I'm still learning the language, so I had to get a lot of online help with this one, and that help may not entirely be accurate. See the notes on the image itself for the details about the Kanji I know as "harmony". If you can use them, by all means do (just cut out my comments first).
Outlaw Melfina:
If you mean my drawing everyone the pictures last year, it was different and I enjoyed doing it.
BlackMagicianGrl
Thank you for the thought, I hope yours was (or is) enjoyable and filled with peace and contentment.
Well, its not over for me yet, but yesterday was fun, though tiring.
Random Anime Quote:
"Oroka na mono." - Sesshoumaru
Inuyasha (Japanese dub)
Anime Dreams.
