Time has permitted me to toy around with some more Fantastically Fabulous Freeware. And this time around the freeware highlighted can provide some very satisfying results. Yep, today I am going to highlight some amazing, free art programs that just about everyone can use to set free the creative spirit within them. The GIMP : One of the classics, the GIMP is a free, open source image manipulation program. A bit complicated to just jump into, there is a pretty decent amount of we inform...

This morning I realized my body has, though not of its own accord, become a factory. I awoke this morning, struggling for air as my respiratory passages were quite neatly and very nearly completely glued shut. Yes, I have become a veritable snot manufacturing plant. Fascinating, isn't it? And so, after stumbling out of bed, I began the laborious process of breathing again. This involved lots of coughing and hacking, face turning red, veins throbbing, leaning over the sink so I ma...

This morning I realized my body has, though not of its own accord, become a factory. I awoke this morning, struggling for air as my respiratory passages were quite neatly and very nearly completely glued shut. Yes, I have become a veritable snot manufacturing plant. Fascinating, isn't it? And so, after stumbling out of bed, I began the laborious process of breathing again. This involved lots of coughing and hacking, face turning red, veins throbbing, leaning over the sink so I ma...

Group dynamics are a fascinating thing. And while I don't have any formal training in that area I have had a fair amount of leading groups and working with them, as well as a bizarre fascination with observing the manner in which humans interact with each other. In that time I have noticed many phenomena, one of which has been more on my mind as of late. Interesting things happen to people when they get together. No matter the group they are in, once they begin to congregate the beginni...

Diversity is a popular buzz word these days. But I wonder if people truly know what it means. Perhaps we know, but just choose to ignore. It certainly wouldn't be the first time society has known the truth and willingly turned away. So just what is diversity? Dictionary.com defines it as 1 . 1. The fact or quality of being diverse; difference. 2. A point or respect in which things differ. 2 . Variety or multiformity: “Charles Darwin saw in the diversity of species the pr...

This is going to be about as random as I get. Even I don't know for sure what is coming next: Thanksgiving fascinates, excites, and disappoints me all at the same time. I love having a day to reflect on all my wonderful blessings (though I really try to do so a little more often). But it amazes me to see so many hours put into making a meal that will be done in less than one. At least we have left-overs. Distance is relative. When we lived a two hour drive away from our family we t...

Whew, we made it. Yesterday was travel day, flying from Durham, NC to Salt Lake City, UT. . .with a 5 year old and a (not quite) 2 year old. Always an adventure, it actually went pretty well. Aubrey amazingly fell asleep the majority of the second flight, but since it was a tiny plane, and I am not too little, it was a bit cramped with her in my arms. Northwest doesn't know their earlobe from their butt-hole, and so my parents had been told time and again that our plane hadn't lef...

Note : I generally avoid partisan politics. They disgust me. I lie pretty much in the middle, but won't deny a conservative tilt to the way I think. Nevertheless, I refuse to register with either major political party and have avoided the majority of political discussion on the site. But what follows is openly partisan. We are all closed minded. Every one of us. And I am fed up with liberals pissing about closed-minded conservatives/Christians/righties. Guess what, you are all ...

Lurking beneath the placid surface of loch BlueDev is an elusive monster. A mighty beast, both fierce and cunning, it has been dormant for a time. Lately, though, the water has been stirring, ripples carried across the surface, hinting at the disturbance the lies beneath the surface. Here and there a glimpse of the thick hide can be seen, peeking above the dark glass, a horn, the tip of an appendage. The monster awakens. And this is not a good thing. Long ago the monster frequently ...

I don't know the source of this. I wish I could credit the original author, but I can't. I just happened to find this flash movie and thought it was great. Missiles, infantry, tanks, fighter planes, subs and more, all ASCII characters. Plus a killer Rammstein song to boot. Check it out. ASCII movie goodness here!

Last night I started a thread in the forums that I hope will continue. It was the "Forum Game--Think of a Lyric" thread. I think it is a blast and the response so far has been great. Thanks to those who are playing along. But I have a confession to make. Secretly, deep down in the darkest parts of my blogging heart I wanted to earn some points off of it. Now I knew when I posted it just to the forums and not to my blog that I wouldn't get the 15 points for a new article. I was ok...

Okay denizens of JoeUser. This is something I have been wanting to do for a while here. I played along with this game on another forum and it was a lot of fun. Over there we had stretched it to over 2,500 replies. So I am asking you folks here to play along, let's have some fun with this. Here are the rules. Each person needs to think of part of a lyric from a song. I will start it off with some lyrics. The next person to post adds some lyrics, the trick being one of the words in the...

Eating dinner the other night, Jessica took a bite of her fried chicken and cried out in pain. She said she had something stuck between her teeth, so I took her to the bathroom, grabbed the floss and tried to help clean her front teeth out. I didn't seem to see anything so she went back to dinner, only to cry out again. I had her come over and I took a closer look. What to my surprise, one of her front teeth was loose! My little girl is getting loose teeth! She was, of course, ecstatic ...

One of the greatest joys of being a parent is playing with your kids. It is true. There are few things in this world that even come close to the laughter you hear when playing with your little ones. In our home I have the special distinction of being mammalian playground equipment. Perhaps it is some subconscious signal I send out, perhaps they sense it in me, but whatever it is my girls love to climb on Daddy. They jump on me, hang from my heights, scale to my summit and then slid...

I recently received via email my issue of the Bioware newsletter. Inside was a pretty big announcement. Bioware is releasing some new modules for Neverwinter Nights. Here is the catch. They are charging for them. Between $5-$8 US dollars for these additional modules is the price. And some gamers are up in arms over this. As far as I can remember, Neverwinter Nights wasn't really focusing on the SP aspect of CRPG gaming. Sure, they included a SP campaign in the original package, an...