If you haven't ever tried painting on a computer you have to check out Corel's Painter. There is a gallery of stuff made using it and free demo download here You can also use it to easily add painterly effects to photographs. The paints are so real they blend perfectly for each medium and some can even drip, etc. There are oil paints, crayons, markers (which similuate getting dirty and bleeding), watercolors, chalk, and many more.

It is beyond fun, especially if you have access to a drawing tablet. A small one costs about $90 and you can get them at compusa or online. Wacom is a good brand but there are cheaper ones I think. The drawing tablet makes it more interesting because depending how hard you press the stroke of the brush is bigger or smaller. You can also erase with the eraser side of the pen.

Here are two example paintings I made but unfortunately, I only had a mouse that time, so the brush strokes are all the same width. It is still very fun, I would almost say therapeutic.

These ones are called Wheat One and Wheat Two and are inspired by wheat fields and basket weaving.

The site and Buffalo went from green and 70 degrees to grey and snow. (e:matthew) said its like living four seasons in one day.

I totally reporgrammed the media upload system. It is super fantastically portable now. It can even insert html code instead of the tags and has a bizillion options for directory definitions, not as an option on your journal, but if you were using the code on another site and just wanted to upload media, as well as, have it dynamically encoded for you. Long live PHP. Pretty soon, everything will be super portable including me, lol.

While searching for picture from Iraq on the net, I found this picture of "British Soldiers." I wonder who they are posing for?

It seems like they finally started to knock the willis and lowe to build the coop. I still think it was a stupid idea and secretly, well now publically hope they fail. I can't see the green plan in destroying a building altogether.

I have to admit, I am not very educated on the matter since I stopped caring about the coop. I still shop there when it's convenient but I don't go out of my way like before. My feelings changed when we were asked to "vote" to give up our right to veto board decisions. At that point I felt less like an "owner" and more like a paid customer at Sam's Club.

The worst part is the "gas cut off" sprayed on the side of the building. I guess it signifies to the workers that building is ripe for deconstruction. The Atwater house next to pano's has the same spray paint now.

The current temperature is 66 degrees