I k33l j00 n0w!

Have I mentioned how much of a PAIN IN THE @$$ Photoshop is? Because it is. I love it, but it's a pain in the ass. I hope my Intro to Comp Graphics course will help me solve some of the constant issues I have with the program. To outline:

Today I was working on skins for Dragonfayth. They're primarily based off the bluepurple skin that is offered with eFiction. There's a very nice background (you can see it if you look at DF now) with this cool beveled square thing going on. I tried to mimic it-- gradient overlay, layer overlay... no good. So I decided to try making the background myself.

I started with my gradient-- a nice blend of blues and yellow. Very summery colors, and if I can get DF finished by the end of August, it'll be perfect! Anyway, so I found a pattern that, when used as a Bevel and Emboss Texture Overlay, it looked great! Only problem was these LINES going down the middle... I tried Filter/Offset, but that didn't help any. Blurring, smudging... none of it worked. The problem is that on one side of the image, there are these *shadows* that I can't seem to get rid of. The last row of blocks on the right is not the same as the first row on the left-- which means when I use it as a background, you can see the "seams." Does anyone know how to help? /.\ I'm desperate here...

On the plus side, I'm having success with the icons... I've developed this sort of rainbow-colored set that I might end up using. They're 75x75, and are embossed using a Style that's predefined in PS7. All I'm doing to change the buttons is alter the color, the text (obviously), and the image (again, obviously). Thus far...

• Priest Seto - Alternate Universes - Golden Yellow


• Prince Yugi (you read right) - Alternate Realities - Ocean Blue


• Anzu - Challenges - Pink


• Honda - Continuations - Scarlet


• Haga - Crossovers - Orange/Vermillion


• Jounouchi - Oneshots - Kelly Green


• Mai - Songfics - Violet

There's still Drabbles, MSTs, Multi-Chaptered Fics, Poetry/Songs, and Round Robins to do... so I'm wondering, if I make this entire set, what characters should I use for the remaining categories, and what color should their backgrounds be?

The images I've been using are *.gifs from the various video games that have been released-- mostly Forbidden Memories, but a few from other games (Eternal Duelist Soul, I think). I have Bakura, Dark Yuugi, Yuugi, Teana, Pegasus, Sugoroku (Grandpa), Heishin, Kaiba, Jono, Ryuuzaki (Rex), and Shimon Muran. If anyone wants to donate more, then feel free!

The one thing that's pissing me off in the creation of these icons is this snapping of text thing. If I have a block of text (say 'Realities' at the bottom of the icon) and I change it to say something else (say 'Fanfics') and I want to center it, it keeps snapping back to where it originally was. I turned Snap and Snap To off, so I don't know why it's doing this. It usually takes me about five or six tries to get the text where I want it, all because of these dumb "snaps." Does anyone know what's happening?

...Okay. So I've got it set up so that the category images I've made thus far display for all the categories in every skin. The default skin is bluepurple, and when you first create an account, eFiction is the default skin after logging in. You can change all this good stuff in your account settings.

Though we're still in "broken" mode at this point, I invite all interested authors to set up an account now... and, those interested in helping me moderate (esp. specific categories... see further down), let me know.

I listed all the categories up above, but you can also help me with News, Skins, or other areas of the site that might need the er... more genteel touch than someone like me? If you'd like to apply for a mod-job, let me know which categories you're interested in staffing for.

Yep. So without further adieu, SIGN UP FOR DRAGONFAYTH at http://azurite.incandesce.org/drfa

I know it looks a bit narsty right now, but we're going to fix that soon... ^_^ and by we, I mean YOU AND ME, right? *grin grin*

My website has been flayed alive.

Well, hello.

What a strange day this has been so far. First off, Mom hasn't bawled once-- but my Dad has. Second off, Dad... well, he came into town. o_O For no reason at all. He said he just felt "drawn" to SF, and wanted to ask me out to lunch. Even though I only slept 5 hours, I was more than happy to have some company, especially Dad, who I know's been bummed out and stuff. So I got up and got dressed, and Dad was already waiting for me outside-- Mom didn't even put up a fight about me going out.

She was dealing with fixing up my health care, trying to get through to CSUN so she'd know which office to fax the paperwork to. So that's good, I'll have a doctor in LA! ^_^ She's also 90% sorted out the wedding plans; I'm leaving from Burbank instead of LAX, and heading to Phoenix, AZ and then booking it to JFK. Everything works out so that a) I'm not forcing my Grandparents to take me all the way to LAX at some ungodly hour of the night, and b) I don't arrive at JFK at some ungodly hour of the morning. ^_^ The catch is that I'm in Phoenix for 2 hours... o_O That'll be interesting.

Anyway, so Dad and I went to grab some lunch at Gordo's, and then I dragged him to C&C Central (*sniff!* I'm going to miss it...) to show him what Yu-Gi-Oh cards were. The "Anti-Anime" Dad came back for a while, but hopefully he won't be too prissy about it. I'll have the whole World Championships to prove to him that it isn't a total waste of time and money... (If I end up interning at Konami next summer, I'm sure he won't complain about it!)

After that, Dad was nice enough to drive me to Fort Miley, and we hiked down the hills to go to Land's End. Again, it was an issue of not really knowing 100% where it was, but remembering enough from my previous excursions with Jonathan and Joe to get a vague idea. The place we ended up was one of the gun-turret posts (Dad was saying that San Franciscans back in WW2 were a bit paranoid; they had gun turrets on the inside of the bay, as if the Japanese might make it that far in). Someone had taken a bunch of big rocks and arranged them to say ANGELA + SOPHIA, and another person did this sort of Zen Garden dealie around the old turret. There were swirls surrounding the remains of the post, and a peace sign, a heart, and a swirl on the compass points.

Dad and I could see the rock beach from there, so we headed down and decided to make some cairns-- at least, I think that's what they are/how they're spelled. They're like rock stacks, or little monuments. You can use them as memorials or indicators of which way you've come, but they also warn people of dangers if they're on a cliff edge or something. We made four of them-- one for myself, one for my Mom, one for my Dad, and one for Michelle. Dad told me to pick the rocks that I felt "drawn" to, so I sort of let myself go and picked rocks according to a "vibe" I felt. I know it sounds weird, but in the end, I made this rather interesting cairn of lots of different rocks-- and defying balance, but balancing nonetheless. Dad did a much better job with his 3 cairns-- he had one that even looked like a person looking out to sea.

Dad and Michelle never got along well --at least, not that I can remember. I remember getting into a bunch of huge fights with her about him. A lot of it was pointless jealousy, too, since her Dad died before she was born. But Dad really did care for her, and it surprised me how upset he was by the day. I mean, I don't remember him crying at Michelle's funeral, but now, 8 years later, he admitted he thought of her as his daughter, and he didn't want to lose me by doing something stupid (I was standing pretty close to the cliff's edge). I was really surprised. Dad also lost his best friend Ken in a hiking accident, so when he goes to Northridge on Thursday, he's going to meet up with his friend Steve, and they're going to go backpacking/camping in Yosemite, as a memorial thing to Ken. I believe Yosemite is where Ken died, and that's why whenever there were expeditions there for the Outdoors Club back in middle school, the one thing my Mom and Dad would agree on was that I could not go.

I didn't get ahold of any rosemary or black candles or a bell for any sort of ritual, so I just decided to sit in front of the Michelle cairn that I'd made, decorated with a small shoot filled with purple (for spiritualism) and white (for peace) flowers, and a big seagull feather. After a bit, I heard her.

You can believe me if you want, or not. But I truly believe that you can talk to the dead if you honestly will it. And though I can't really say I remember her voice vividly, I do remember her words. Despite my eyes being screwed shut, when I opened them, I was crying, and everything was blurry. But I felt glad that I'd "talked" to Michelle again, and kept true to my word that I'd always find her back at Land's End every year. I don't like to believe that her soul or spirit is stuck in that urn on top of her piano in the dining room.

Dad and I left not long after that, talking about all sorts of random things. Dad really wished he had epoxy and spray paint, so that when we got to the "Caution: Cliff Rocks and Surf Extremely Dangerous! People have been swept away and drowned" sign, we could add "No fucking shit" to the bottom, and add a tiny, handwritten message: "This message brought to you by all those that have lost someone to the edge." Though I never thought that dedicating a bench or whatever in Michelle's honor was either of our styles, Dad made a good point-- those kind of deaths really are sudden and heartbreaking. If we get the chance, I'd like to do some sort of granite memorial with a brass plate, too. To all those who have lost someone dear to their heart because the edge of the world came under them too fast... or something like that.

So we got back to the car and went to Martell's on 20th, snagging a Snapple and a Sprite to drink, after our long hike. Dad dropped me off at home after that and... here I am.

I'm feeling rather accomplished on the Dragonfayth front-- we now have 6 authors, and icons for all the categories. I'm waiting for Fran from Kokoro no Naka to get back to me with some images so I can finish making the official Dragonfayth Skin banner. In my previous entry, I got some comments about skins, so check back there for my replies on skin-styles and themes that I'm looking for. I'd love some skin submissions! ^_^ I can give anyone interested in the task all the files and info they'll need-- it's really not that hard, especially if you base the skin you make on an existing skin (eFiction, Zelda, or bluepurple).

I'm also almost done with WDKY10! I know I've probably been saying that for ages, but I'm serious now! I'll be sending out a beta-version to Harley, Mamono, and Atlantis soon, for them to pick apart and review. *grin grin* I'll have to get offline soon-- burn CDs and finish packing. Tomorrow I get to see Joe, go to the Aquarium Underwater thingy, and maybe have a boat cruise for an hour. ^_^ I'm looking forward to it.