Blog of Blu

Planets, it turns out, can be made really easily in Photoshop. I should know as I just drew out 26 individual planets in Photoshop this morning for Theo Nordsieck’s game, concurr.

They’ve turned out really well. Check it out:

A green planet made in Photoshop.

There you have it, planet 4-green. Doesn’t it look nicely photo-realistic? I’d say so.

I’ve also drawn up a huge starfield for the game’s background. It is very incomplete, and really heavy on the amount of stars used… so, I’ll post an example of that a little later, once I’ve actually finished it.

Are not fun.

Or at least most aren’t, specifically the ones I currently take for my autoimmune thyroid disorder (Grave’s Disease). Until today I was taking 22 pills over the course of one day, 154 a week, 616 a month, etc. That is a lot by anyone’s standards. And the worst thing about it?

Side effects!

Ugh. The beta blocker I take, Methimazole is pretty easy on the system. But the heart medication, and the steroids are REAL tough on me. The heart medication I take (Atenolol) contributes to my overall feeling of crappiness: fatigue, nausea etc. but is a necessary evil because if I didn’t take it, my resting heart rate would probably around 120 bpm.

The steroid (Dexamethazone) is also unfun. It makes me hyper to ludacrosity. My entire body shakes, and my lower body swells over the course of the day (my skin quite literally feels tighter around my legs, and feet, making it uncomfortable to sit cross-legged for fracks sake.

The other main issue I have with my steroid is how it effects my music. Think about it: if I take a steroid that makes my body tremor whenever I use a muscle, think what happens when I use my vocal chords. They can’t hold a straight, clear, note anymore. So now I sound like some untrained idiot trying to sing in an opera  voice to every song. And as I’ve been training myself to sing, and be not horrible at it, I feel like I’m going backwards. At least my relative pitch is still really good, and even my general pitch is getting pretty excellent (if you asked me to hum an E, a G, an A, a C, maybe even a D, I could probably do it with out a general tuning device).

In other music news, I bought a little toy for myself!

Line 6 TonePort GX

A Line 6 TonePort GX ($50). What is it? Well, it is an external sound card which allows me to plug any instrument into my computer via USB. And the coolest thing that comes with it is the GearBox software included. Instead of going directly into a recording program (Audacity, Cubase), this allows me to run it through a really powerful effects studio with over 100 different effects, and a bunch of different “amps”. It is seriuosly cool. There are so many options.

So, the recording has begun. I’ve already recorded a piano piece (completely unfinished, but a great start). I’m particularly excited for this because over the next couple months I’m gonna be a generally bored person (I can’t work for awhile yet with my thyroid issue). So hopefully audio production will be fun.

Also, I hate being forgetful. Bobby gave me an old moniter of his last night. Problem is I think I forgot the adapter which allows me to plug in VGA to my graphics card.
BALLS.

Well? Do you?

A crack team of developers (the 5 or so people who actually might read this blog) have assembled to build, from the ground up, a space-based multi player strategy game. In fact, they’ve already created it. It exists. You can play it. I have.

It is fun.

So fun that I’ve volunteered to support the aforementioned team by building them a GUI from scratch. It is a lot of fun. I’m having a grand old time drawing planets and star fields, and logos.

For instance, here is a planet that you’ll eventually see in the game:

There you have it!

Anyway, I’m off to my brother’s house so I can steal a moniter from him and generally harass his roommates.  Tune in later on tonight with more Photoshoppage, and more information about this revived blog.