picture yourself in a boat on a river

Oh, Good God in Heaven. . .

kamilaa — Thu, 03 Nov 2005 10:21:58 GMT

There are, literally, no words, but I'm sure y'all can come up with a few nonetheless. *weg*

Make sure to check out image #56059344 and #56060276 up close and personally. They appear to be adding new images to the ones I'm talking about, so make sure you find the ones of Pickles with Prince Charles. 0__0

If they weren't at Getty, I'd bet my life's savings (assuming I had any to bet at the moment) that they were photoshopped. Instead, I'm speechless.

What is the woman on??

In other news, I have my first workers comp hearing Monday morning, so all prayers, good wishes, etc, are coveted and deeply appreciated.

sockkpuppett? I think your luck with computers has come to live with me. Mine went tits up again Sunday morning when the clocks changed over. I hate it when that happens. ~~I don't suppose you still have that copy of photoshop?~~ =D

Because It's Right

kamilaa — Sun, 02 Oct 2005 04:38:01 GMT

Gakked from taselby

I am the mother who told her lesbian daughter to invite her girlfriend over for dinner.

I am the father who punished his son for calling you a fag.

I am the preacher who told my congregation that love, not hate, is the definition of a true follower of God.

I am the girl who did not learn the meaning of "homosexual" until high school but never thought to question why two men might be kissing.

I am the woman who argues (quite loudly and vehemently) with the bigots who insist that you do not have the right to marry or raise children.

We are the high school class who agrees, unanimously, along with our teacher, that love should be all that matters.

If you agree, repost this. Do it. You don't have to be afraid. You can handle it. You're stronger than you think.

I am making a difference. Hate will not win.

just when you think you've heard it all . . .

kamilaa — Wed, 14 Sep 2005 01:28:30 GMT

From katallison.

'These people were going to die anyway'

The doctor said: "I didn't know if I was doing the right thing. But I did not have time. I had to make snap decisions, under the most appalling circumstances, and I did what I thought was right.

"I injected morphine into those patients who were dying and in agony. If the first dose was not enough, I gave a double dose. And at night I prayed to God to have mercy on my soul."

From The Daily Mail.

Dear God.

I don't see how they could've done anything else, given the circumstances, but I hope they don't end up paying for their decisions. I'm glad The Mail on Sunday is a UK paper. They've said they'll keep identities secret, and since they're abroad, they should be successful in doing so. I can't imagine they'll give two shits how much anyone in the US screeches on, they'll keep their sources safe.

But of course the biggest indictment these doctors and nurses will face will be from themselves.

May God have mercy on their souls indeed.

Tech Question

kamilaa — Mon, 12 Sep 2005 02:59:07 GMT

I was thinking about my lost LJ header, and it seems to me that a copy of it has got to be sitting somewhere in my computer memory files, if only I knew how to get it out of there. And I've looked and looked and I couldn't find anything -- but that doesn't mean it isn't in there somewhere.

~~God knows, if it were child pr0n, teh FBI could find it in a New York minute.~~

So I'm asking everyone who's smarter than me, which, ahh, in this case, is pretty much my entire flist, for help. I'm using what I believe to be the latest edition of Firefox as my browser with XP, and I've made sure not to let Norton One Button Cleanup run since I've lost stuff.

So, erm, help? Where would I go to look? And bear in mind, me st00p1d when it comes to following directions of this kind. So detailed details of exactly where to go to find the breadcrumbs would be greatly appreciated as well. =)

Thanks, y'all!

Icon Request

kamilaa — Thu, 08 Sep 2005 08:27:06 GMT

So, an accident happened today -- and my entire website went "poof".

Normally this wouldn't be too bad, but I hadn't gotten around to backing up my files since my hard drive crash -- so poof really means poof. Robin is combing the wayback machine to see what she can find, although it probably won't be tons because all the pages had "no index no follow" code. In addition, the folder I had my icons in was not only no index'd, it wasn't linked anywhere, so there's no hope of finding the things, mostly icons, that were in there.

It's okay, really, I can't even complain when there are thousands and thousands of people who've lost all of their real life possesions, and yeah, it's okay. I'm not mad or even really upset, but if there is a way to get some of my icons back, I'd be pretty happy about that.

I think Robin will be able to reconstruct the gorgeous site taselby made for me a couple of years back, so I'm not freaking about that. Yet.

So. If you have anything I made on your machine - couldja please hook me up? I'm gonna go trolling around my flist icons to see if I can find anything that way, but I'd appreciate any help. If you've got anything, if you could email it to kamilaa at gmail dot com, I'd be ever so grateful. I've already found copies of my Darla mood theme by following the comments from when I offered it, and I'm so relieved about that. All that remains there is to re-upload them once Robin has everything ready.

Thanks, y'all.

PS: Anyone have any suggestions for my new LJ layout? I'm pretty sure I'd never be able to find the pics of Sarah I'd used in the old one, and y'all are large with the creative -- so, ideas, please?

snicker

kamilaa — Sat, 04 Dec 2004 23:20:17 GMT

Gakked from half the flist, the what kind of cat are you quiz.

Behind a cut because it's hella big.

You scored as Love Machine Cat. Look out! The love machine is on the loose. You might want to take off a night of permiscuity and go get your junk checked out. Nothing sadder than a cat with herpes.

</td>

Pissed at the World Cat

50%

Love Machine Cat

50%

Couch Potato Cat

42%

Derranged Cat

42%

Drunk Cat

25%

Nerd Cat

25%

Ninja Cat

17%

Which Absurd Cat are you?
created with QuizFarm.com

I am so icon'ing most of these cat pictures. They're great.

In other news: Big Twelve Conference Champions! Yay, us!!

Miami, here we come!

GIP!!

kamilaa — Sat, 04 Dec 2004 19:06:48 GMT

Look what mmmchelle made me! Isn't it beautiful?

*licks wet!Adrian*

Thanks, hon, it's absolutely lovely.

nifty default override for brushes

kamilaa — Wed, 01 Dec 2004 16:04:24 GMT

I've always used the preset manager to load my brushes, but yesterday I was clicking around in Photoshop and found a nifty trick. Well, I think it's nifty anyway. :)

Behind a LJ cut because there are several images.

First, select the brush tool and then click on the button shown.

Next, click again.

You will see that the default view is stroke thumbnail, and that's what we're going to change.

Change that to large thumbnail.

Now, instead of this:

you have this.

Nifty, huh?

This really makes a difference on scanline brushes and texture brushes. Now you can see exactly what each brush is and how it varies from its neighbor.

Hope this is useful. :)

Darla Mood Theme

kamilaa — Sun, 28 Nov 2004 18:41:23 GMT

So I'm painfully, embarrassingly late with this, but I finally have my assignment for ats_endofdays finished. I had "Darla", a absolutely gorgeous episode, full of amazing visuals. I'd intended to icon it, but instead I decided to make a mood theme.

Preview:

Directions for installing, and a slightly larger preview this way.

I can't thank sockkpuppett enough for her help. She ripped footage from the DVD and sent it to me so I could make my own caps, and then sent it again, and again, and again, because YouSendIt.com was having a very bad hairday that day.

Thanks, babe! You rock.

There is a different image for each mood, and all have been recolored and sharpened, etc. Download the file here and upload the images to your own server.

Then go here and enter " moodtheme_create "Kamilaa Darla Theme" "Darla Moods" " and click "execute". Write down the number you're given and open the text file. Replace "64570" with your number. Then replace "kamil.slashcity.com/darlamoods/" with the correct link to your server. Copy the entire new file and paste it in the console window and click "execute" again. Then go here and choose "Kamilaa Darla Theme" from the list (it'll probably be way down at the bottom of the list) and click "save changes".

Voila! New mood theme.

I'd appreciate a comment if you decide to use it. Credit is, as always, optional, but I'd really appreciate it, mostly so other people can find it if they'd like to have it too. :)

Let me know if you have problems installing it and I'll do my best to help out. Enjoy!

respect

kamilaa — Sat, 13 Nov 2004 17:32:56 GMT

Most of you have probably already seen this. But if you haven't, from The Washington Post. The soldiers who've died in Iraq. Who they were, where they came from, how and when they died.

clickety-click

kamilaa — Tue, 09 Nov 2004 13:25:03 GMT

Have y'all seen this? Keith Olbermann, of MSNBC, has a blog. His last two entries are about election irregularities, and they are v.v.interesting reading.

Apparently in Cuyahoga County Ohio there were 93,000 more recorded votes than there are registered voters. 93,000. In one county.

0.0

That's a lot of extra votes, folks. mmmchelle, don't you wish you'd known that on election night, when you and your trusty calculator were doing overtime?

clickety-click

snicker

kamilaa — Sun, 07 Nov 2004 14:48:46 GMT

Help healing those election day blues:

clickety-click

For even more fun, visit georgewbush.org, and while you're there, make sure to look around; trust me, you won't be sorry. *weg*

non-political meme

kamilaa — Sat, 06 Nov 2004 22:11:15 GMT

Gakked from everyone.

1. Stop talking about politics for a moment or two.
2. Post a reasonably-sized picture in your LJ, NOT under a cut tag, of something pleasant, such as an adorable kitten, or a fluffy white cloud, or a bottle of booze. Something that has NOTHING TO DO WITH POLITICS.
3. Include these instructions, and share the love.

Behold Fawkes, the Cutest Goat EVAH:

Well, isn't that special?

kamilaa — Sat, 06 Nov 2004 17:24:18 GMT

Like I said to mmmchelle the other day, damn those wacky, wacky exit poll voters, lying to us, saying they'd voted for Kerry and stirring us all up like they did.

Only, ya know, maybe they weren't lying.

*adjusts tinfoil hat*

clickety-click

no words

kamilaa — Sat, 23 Oct 2004 17:19:24 GMT

on open letter to President Bush, from the mother of a 9/11 victim

prepping an icon

kamilaa — Sat, 23 Oct 2004 00:11:16 GMT

I've had a few people request a tutorial, so here 'tis. It's not a full tutorial, just the basics of prepping, but I start almost every.single. icon this way, so I might as well get this part over with first. *g*

This tutorial will show you how to go from this:

to this: in eight steps.

First take this image (caps courtesy of ezri_dax) and crop it.

Note on cropping: I have my crop tool set to 100px x100px, with a resolution of 250 pixels/inch. That way I don't have to pay attention to size and the crop tool minds the aspect ratio for me.

Now you have this, and it's way dark, so duplicate the bottom layer and set it to screen, like so:

Okay, that's too light, and it shows just how fuzzy the cap is.

So what you'll want to do now is sharpen the image -- and with this method, you'll sharpen the daylights out of it.

Bottom layer filter-->sharpen---->sharpen. Now do it again.

Now switch to the top layer and sharpen it twice as well.

Now you have this -- and isn't it lovely? Not. Don't worry, we're going to fix it.

Go to Layer---->new adjustment layer --->brightness/contrast. Dial the contrast way down. I usually decrease the contrast by anywhere from 45-65. This time, I set it to -53. Now you have this:

Better, the over-sharpened look is all gone (although the extra detail in the background, on the clothes, and the hair that you get from over-sharpening remains), but it still needs help.

Next step. Layers --->new adjustment layer--->selective color:

Go to blacks (use the drop down menu at the top of the palette),
and add +38 black, +48 yellow, +64 magenta, and +66 cyan. Now go to the neutrals (and always be careful here, the neutrals make an amazing amount of difference to the icon) and add black +8, yellow +8, magenta -6, and cyan +15. Go to red and increase the black by +41 and decrease the magenta by -20. Now go to whites and decrease the black by -32, and add +18 magenta.

And we're done with the prep.

When you use the selective color adjustment layer, play around with your choices. You can tell by swinging the slider bar all the way to the left then to the right what changes that particular setting will make to your icon, then it's just a matter of finding what looks best. I do it in this order --->black, neutral, then red and yellow if I need to (I normally only adjust these levels if there is a lot of skin tone area in the icon), then white (if there is a lot of glare, or light blue in your icon), then the other colors if there's still a need to adjust them. I don't know why I do it in that order, I just got started doing it that way and it seems to work well.

And now we're really done.

If you have any questions, please ask and I'll do what I can to answer them.

Thank you for your time! :)

kamilaa — Mon, 18 Oct 2004 11:16:12 GMT

A bit different this week. Matrix and Le Femme Nikita within.

Want. Take. Have. Comments are nice, credit is lovely, neither is necessary.

help?

kamilaa — Thu, 14 Oct 2004 14:29:03 GMT

Hey, does anyone out there have a 98.2 restore disk they'd be willing to copy for me, please?

The roommate's computer crashed and he can't find his restore disk. I'd be ever so grateful -- and would happily pay mailing/media costs.

Actually . . . since it all fits on one disk it's gotta be less than a gig file, and should, theoretically, be small enough for something like YouSendIt.com. . . . so, kamilaa at gmail dot com :)

Anyway, if you've got the disk (it's for a Compaq computer, btw, if that makes a difference?) and would be willing to share I'll cheerfully go along with whatever exchange method works for you.

*blinks fetchingly and shows leg*

I'd appreciate it ever so, and will happily make icons of choice for anyone willing to help. :)

Am hooked up, thanks to an anonymouse.

again with the icons

kamilaa — Mon, 11 Oct 2004 22:28:44 GMT

Man, did I miss doing this during the Four Days of Sleep, post-surgery. Better now, so now I offer this week's iconage.

Buffy, Angel, Michelle Trachtenberg, Smallville, and Highlander within.

Want. Take. Have. Comments are nice, credit is lovely, neither is necessary.

1. 2. 3. 4.
5. 6. 7.

Lyrics on #1 from "Jack and Diane" by John Cougar. Lyrics on #4 from "Free Falling" by Tom Petty.

Highlander
1. 2. 3. 4.
5. 6. 7. 8.

Smallville
1. 2. 3.

knit one, pearl two

kamilaa — Tue, 05 Oct 2004 12:23:39 GMT

I lived. Yay! *g* The doc says everything went swimmingly, so that's good too.

Also? OW!!!

/wimp>

Thanks for the good thoughts, prayers, etc., guys, I appreciate it more than you know.

Must nap now.

icons

kamilaa — Sun, 03 Oct 2004 18:46:07 GMT

This week's iconage. Buffy, Angel, Star Wars, and Orli within.

Want. Take. Have. Comments are nice, credit is lovely, neither is necessary.

kamilaa — Thu, 30 Sep 2004 17:18:43 GMT

Gakked from mmmchelle and ev_vy:

Of course I will.

so, yeah, that'll be fun

kamilaa — Tue, 28 Sep 2004 14:21:36 GMT

As most of you probably know by now, the radial nerve in my right arm was jacked-up at work back in March. The docs they've sent me to have done this and that and nothing's really helped, so now it seems the next thing is surgery on it this coming Tuesday, followed by two weeks in a straight complete-arm cast (unable to bend my arm at all for two weeks!! aieee!), followed by four weeks or so of physical therapy -- at which point I should be fixed.

Hopefully.

*worries*

Anyway, depending on my ability to use photoshop there may or may not be a decline in iconage. If I can still use it there'll probably be an actual increase in icons. I'm going to be hella bored, and if the experience in the normal cast was anything to go by, I won't be able to type worth a damn. So probably a decrease in comments and non-icon entries.

Bah. I'm going to hate this. /whine>

iconage

kamilaa — Wed, 22 Sep 2004 16:23:02 GMT

Now that mmmchelle has seen "Not Fade Away" I can post these. Buffy; Angel (obviously with spoilers for "Not Fade Away"); Firefly; Highlander; and a few misc. icons within:

Want. Take. Have. Comments are nice, credit is lovely, neither is necessary.

Buffy/Angel:
1. 2. 3. 4.
5. 6. 7. 8.
9. 10. 11. 12.
13. 14. 15. 16.

A redo of my icon set from "Not Fade Away":
1. 2. 3. 4.
5. 6. 7. 8.
9. 10. 11.

Firefly:
1. 2. 3. 4.

Highlander:
1.

Misc:
1. 2. 3.

About the various "Not Fade Away" icons:

I've talked about Connor=shanshu before, but like I said then the short version is this: Shanshu=humanity and redemption. Connor is both of these things to/for Angel.

Shanshu achieved.

Text on #2 is from "Rime of the Ancient Mariner" by Samuel Taylor Coleridge.
Text on #3 is from "Invictus" by William Earnest Henley.
Text on #7 is by William the Bloody Awful Poet; I'm glad he finally found his audience.
Text on #8 & #9 is from the Fleetwood Mac song, "Tell Me Lies"

lurkers support me in private emails!!!111!!1! so there, you ungrateful, stoopid h00rs!!11!

kamilaa — Tue, 21 Sep 2004 14:26:46 GMT

I know I'm probably the last person on my flist to get home and read about this, but just in case, I have to share.

Go. See Anne Rice make a complete ninny of herself by flailing about, spitting excuses for her ~~wank~~ work like the worst suethor author EVAH. Go. See fandom_wank laugh its ass off.

Good times.

Seekrit message for mmmchelle: I'm reading it as we speak. *g*

picture yourself in a boat on a river

Oh, Good God in Heaven. . .

Because It's Right

just when you think you've heard it all . . .

Tech Question

Icon Request

snicker

GIP!!

nifty default override for brushes

Darla Mood Theme

respect

*snicker*

non-political meme

Well, isn't that special?

no words

prepping an icon

help?

again with the icons

knit one, pearl two

icons

so, yeah, that'll be fun

iconage

lurkers support me in private emails!!!111!!1! so there, you ungrateful, stoopid h00rs!!11!

snicker