tekchic

Well, I’m on the market for a new job! I’m looking forward to it — my last contract was so long that it was time to make a change and get back to doing what I love. It was nice to step off the sinking ship ;-) The only rough part was going from that to having to get onstage and sing my heart out three hours later — that kinda stunk, but it was an awesome gig at Suede and the crowd was fantastic! I’ve got one more gig to go this weekend, my voice is at the edge after two nights already of singing. I’m on the tea and chicken noodle soup all day, and lots of water of course.

Monday I’ll head out to a few places and see what’s up with the jobs, I noticed the market’s looking better. I’m looking forward to getting my hands dirty and cranking out work on a new project. Fun!

I hear I missed a rather vulgar Super Bowl MCMIFOVSVIIEIO last night… yawn. Haven’t we seen Janet Jackson’s mammaries before somewhere? I thought she already posed for one mag or another. And yes, of COURSE that was planned — don’t be naive. :)

Gig last Friday went pretty good. Met some great people. I have three gigs coming up this weekend, so I’m not going to be going in to the day job on Friday. For me to work Thursday, gig Thursday night, work Friday, gig Friday night, and then Saturday night gig would probably put me in the hospital for fatigue the way I run around like an idiot onstage, not to mention the 2 hours of sleep a night I get when I have to do Thursday night gigs. Looks like a full weekend with a lot of Throat Coat tea and plenty of naps.

Tonight I think I’ll watch Groundhog Day since it’s playing on Starz. One of my favorite movies, and so apropos for a Monday (not to mention the fact that it actually IS Groundhog Day today). Little rat said we have six more weeks of winter. Color me surprised. I need to work on my character sheets for the toon I’m creating, but I have what the outside world calls “real work” to do tonight. Bah.

I feel like griping today. First of all, you know what irritates me to no end? Those idiots that come into your cube and ask you for help, and when you offer them help or tips they get all huffy and act like they know everything already. Um, if you have ego problems then don’t bother coming and asking me for help, dumbass! Or is it that you can’t stand the fact that a CHICK knows more than you? Not my fault you can’t program your way out of a paper bag. RTFM like I did.

Aah that felt good. I have a gig tonight at Fishbonz. The weather has been sub 20′s all week, and my butt is frozen. I hope people decide to make an appearance outside their igloos tonight but with the cold weather it’s hard to say. I don’t think there’s really anything going on downtown tonight so maybe that leaves some hope for the south side. We’ll see. It is a payday.

The rest of the weekend is left up to code code code, and hopefully throw some new artwork up on the site. I really need to organize it into some kind of portfolio, so maybe I’ll get to that some. Other than that I plan on spending a good chunk of hours immersing myself in Maya 5 and see what bizarre 3D stuff I come up with off the top of my skull. I’m in a crotchety mood today. Must be because I got 8 hours sleep. More than 5 hours sleep a night and I’m evil. My CPU processes instructions better in low power mode.

Whoa, has it been a month since my last update? Oops sorry. I’ve been incredibly busy at work, and in the evenings I’ve been working furiously on Java, .NET, Maya, Photoshop, Illustrator, you name it.

It’s not terribly exciting to exhibit my code samples here so I’ll show you artwork instead :P

Kid – colorized

Brushed metal background I did in Photoshop

Fish drawing scanned in

Shark drawing scanned in

Shark colorized and animation ready

Maya is a 3D rendering program that I’m using to create 3D animated creatures. It’s been a bear to learn, but I’m learning by videos, books, anything I can get my hands on or download :D I’ll post some Maya animated 3D movies as I get a bit more confident with the tool.

Latest art scans I’m planning to colorize:

Wolf

Cat

Kid

Yeah, I drew them all myself. :)

Made a slick little flash popup menu last night. Email me – tekchic AT tekchic.com if you want to know how its done.

Flash Popup Menu

Been working like a maniac in flash — buttons, animation, interactivity, art, etc. Figured I may as well start posting the links to them in the blog instead since I’m adding them at the rate of a few a day it seems. Here’s what I’ve been up to lately:

Daria (Now you know what I watched on TV tonight)

Flash Image Viewer

Loading Movies in Flash (leaf and ball animation)

Christmas Card 2003

Flu. Pooh. I’m normally bragging about being “hyper-immune” girl. Bah. Stupid flu. Has had me down for about five days now, and I’m looking at a Friday and Saturday as a 2-gig weekend. I’m toast. Had a huge snowstorm last night to boot, about 5-6″ judging by what I had to take off my Aztek with a broom this morning. Arizona starting to look like more attractive option.

Started subscribing to this site: www.lynda.com for their movie tutorials on a ton of packages. I figured I could afford the $25/month just by dropping some of the online games/accounts I’ve had going that I don’t even use. I never thought it’d be a good way to learn but I must say I’m pleasantly surprised — I’m learning a lot more tips/tricks/useful skills than I do from my books. Not a bad deal all in all. Almost like taking a class without having to leave the house.

Everyone is now ordered to keep fingers crossed for me this weekend so my voice doesn’t take a nosedive since I’ve been sick.

I made my first turkey this year, a 10 pounder. It took FOREVER to cook. The instructions said 3.5 hours, but in reality it was over six hours. But it was the juiciest turkey I’ve had in a very long time, if not ever :) I made turkey, stuffing, green bean casserole, gravy, and mashed potatoes. When it was all over, all that was left was some turkey… some relatives ate enough for four or five people. I guess that’s a compliment. I say more like PIG *snort*.

I’m tired. Tired tired tired. Been in one of those surly, irritable moods lately. I think the day job, the after hours contracts, and the band gigs/rehearsals are getting to me. I’m tired and grouchy, and the last thing I want to do at the end of the day is sit here and work on my own site. The shoemaker’s kids never have shoes. Oh well, I suppose if you see this website start looking really slick it means I have no life anymore.

Have a gig this Thursday at Grey Snail, hopefully things will go well. Then next week I’m playing my company’s Christmas Party on a Friday and the Voodoo Room on a Saturday.

I found out over lunch that a friend of mine died last week. His name was Tony, and he was a big, jovial, happy-go-lucky man that would always bring a smile to everyone’s face down at the cafe in our building. He was VERY young, not even 40. He died of a heart attack last week. I can’t walk by the cafe on the way to work without my eyes tearing up. I don’t think I’ll be able to go in there again without crying.

He used to make the best omelets, and always had something good to say or something that would make you smile. He would turn my scowling morning into one of laughter as I’d walk out shaking my head and chuckling.

This only further supports my theory that the good die young and the @$$holes live forever. Death just sucks.

Godspeed, Tony.