unpolarized Moderator of Catacones's blog: "A Place To Really Speak Freely"

I am so tired of the endless bombardment of morphs, and other tools which seem to make everyone believe that they are an artist, or can create something artlike in a few quick steps. It wouldn't be so bad if people didn't insist on flooding every part of this, and other sites with the results of their non-effort. I hate to disillusion the masses, but it takes actual skill, and talent to create good, or even decent graphics of any sort, and more so for animations. No tool can substitute for understanding of a process, and skilled use of tools to produce something by design. Of course if you start by using bad graphics, photos, or art, you will end up with even worse results. Good work takes real time, and effort.

One of the coolest peeps here, and my earliest F-Friends just made this makin tribute to my art. Thank you so much C51 Girl...you rock :)

I thought I would offer up my thoughts on some stuff that is on my mind, and at the same time give you a better sense of myself. After a recent mumm on ripping caught my eye, and having read the comments on it, I felt the need to rant a bit on this subject, and on the general attitude towards other people's work. It is extremely rude at best to rip, use, copy or to in any way post another person's art, photography, writing, etc on your pages, website, etc without asking their permission FIRST. It is even worse to do so and not credit them clearly for their work. It is THEFT to try and pass it off as your work, or to use it in any way to make money without having a signed licensing agreement. While it may be totally lame, and wrong for music companies, software houses, and such to gouge us like they do, it doesn't make it ok to pirate said work, although if it is strictly for yourself not so bad, though still wrong, but always worse to pirate said work, and then sell it and not be paying something to the creator. Maybe Microsoft, Sony, etc don't deserve the money, but the person who did the actual work still does. I am quite happy to let people use my art/ and photography on their personal pages, website, or computer, if they ask first, and give me my due credit for my work. It's only fair that my name is displayed so that I get recognition for my work. Contrary to many common beliefs, I, and other's invest a lot of time, and effort, not to mention part of ourselves into my work. Even photos represent hours, if not days of actual work on my part. My computer art represents at least 40, and more often upwards of 100 hours of effort. My sweat, my blood, my creation, my pain, so it is fair that I get the credit. It is only fair, and right that if you want to use my work to make money, that I be paid. If you use my art on a business website, I deserve to reap the rewards gained by that use. If it wasn't a gift, then I should get some compensation for a print of my work being displayed. I also have the final word on how anything I create can be used. I think it is my choice on whether or not my work is used to represent anything, and if that use violates my ethics, or goes against my beliefs, or is contrary to it's intended message, then I have the right to deny anyone fomr doing so. Just because I display my work on the internet, does not mean I have given up control over my work, nor do I think it's my fault if it is stolen or misused, because I displayed it. I do take some precautions by not uploading high resolution copies where they are can be accessed by everyone. I don't watermark because it is either much too time consuming to do right, or requires cash outlay on my part. On another subject....After reading the paper this morning, came to the conclusion it is time to rant about child abuse. Get this. It is always Wrong. There is no worse crime, period. Those who experienced it know this truth, dammit we are not lying when we tell you. It never leaves the victims. We carry it with us forever, and nothing can make up for that. It is also never any7 justification, or excuse for your behaviour. Those who become abusers are the worst of all in my eyes. If you know the pain, how can you inflict it on another. People must understand that this is the most serious problem in existance. Only a fraction of the horrible things done to kids are every brought to light. It has to stop. There are many words used to mask the worst criminals of all, pedop[hiles. They are rapists of children, PERIOD. They are not lovers of children, because no one who really loves a child would rape them. Pedophiles who have sex with little boys are not homosexual, they are child rapists. Homosexuals have sex with other consenting adults, NOT children. There are no valid excuses for raping a child, and any adult who has sex with a child is raping them, even when no physical violence was involved. There is no difference in those who rape children based on their color, occupation, or involvement that is a lesser evil. In fact a parent, priest, or other family, trusted adult who betrays that trust is in fact worse than a random stranger. drinking, drugs, or your past are no excuse nor a true expaination for such behavior. All child rapsists should be treated equally regardless of who they are, nor is it in any way the fault of the child that they were raped. A person who rapes a child can never be trusted not do do so again. It is not a disease, but a chioce, and willing behavior. There is never any shame in being a victim, though until society acts as if it true, it will be given. It is ugly, and unpleasant to look at, but if it is not brought into the light of day, and exposed, it will never stop. Quit being complacent, and do your part to stop this now.

Went to the playground for the first time(for me, second for him) today, and had a great time. He had tons of fun, and totally dug walking around and exploring it all. He likes the slides, though after the first, not as much, cause he shot right off the end, and bonked his head on the ground at the end. He liked the swing, but really liked the tire swing, and watching him stagger around after getting off was hysterical. Lots of smiles laughter, and enjoyment was had by all four of us. We also got some pretty nice photos, and I still have a roll of film to be developed with more photos from today.

It's gonna be a busy, and work filled weekend for me. While I do get to see my daughter, and grandson, my son-in-law, and I will be spending all day both Saturday, and Sunday trying to get the garage cleaned out, and organized enough to make space to pull a car into it to be worked on. I am not looking forward to it as it's a huge ugly mess. Got to be done though, so I will force myself to do it.

Over the last week I keep getting random, and unpredictable bursts of people rating my default photo. I have tried to figure out why all of a sudden 6 or 8 people will decide to rate it within a few minutes of each other, but can't. It doesn't seem to correspond to any activity on my part. What ever is causing it to happen, I hope it never stops. It's always a nifty surprise to login, and find a bunch of rates, and even better the number of people whop have commented on how much they did the tat. I always check them out, just to see who was rating me, and it's a pretty diverse crowd. All I can really say, is Thank You.

Some words are just so fun to say, even if they are not so useful. They just roll off the toungue in a pleasing manner. Here are some of my favorites: colloquialism antediluvian blasphemy flatulence serenity oblong procrastinate multipath asyncronous

What is with this attitude that because fubar is a virtual community, that courtesy, and manners are dropped at the door. I act the same way online as I do in r/l...in fact I tend to be a little more polite, and considerate online, because it's harder to know if you have hurt someones feelings online. Just because it's the net, doesn't mean that people are any less likely to be hurt, or upset by cruelty, rudeness, and the like. It hurts just the same as those same things do in r/l. Some people seem to lose all civility once they are sitting at their computer. It's like the keyboard disolves all the restraints they have in r/l on what comes out of their mouths. I suppose a certain amount of it is due to their anonimity here, and feeling that because they face no, or no real perucussions, and don't have to see the result of their words in person, they are now free to turn into some kind of savage spoiled children. Their attitude of if you don't like it you can always leave, really chaps my ass the most though. Why should those of us who want to enjoy a mostly great community be held at the mery of, or driven away from yet another place by those who revel in destroying the good things we build, find, and want to be part of. I am not some whiney, old fart who is new to the world. I am an old school geek, who has been online since before the net was the net. I have seen too many great things online destroy by the malicious, the spammers, trolls, and those who just seem to be driven to destroy anything good. I watched usenet go from soething amazing, to something horrible... I watched the birth of IRC, and then left in disgust when it became a cruel parody of itself...Likewise all too many online communities. Maybe if enough people feel the same way, we can take some of it back. For those who think I am just pointlessly whining, DONT READ MY STUFF AND/OR QUIT BITCHING ABOUT MY ATTITUDE.

I've been re-reading one of Hunter S Thompson's books on and off over the last few days, and it got me thinking, and remembering why he is still one of my very favorite writers. I was immediately struck by how much I still love his writing, and how truly unique it is. No one else has his ability to turn even the most mundane into something interesting like he did, nor can anyone else create such amazing flow of consciousness thought processes seem so logical, effortless, and amusing like he did. He had a way of seeing to the heart of things, especially politics that was amazing. I caught myself thinking once again what a huge influence he has been on my life, and how I look at things. I realized that while he may not be the best role model in many ways, attempting to live as he did has made my life pretty interesting. I concluded the world is a sadder place without him in it. I understand why he killed himself, maybe more than most people really can, and sincerely wish it could have been different. I wonder if the same thing will happen to me some day.

Well I made it back from my trip up north to celebrate my mom's birthday. Despite the perils of flying, the forced separation from my computer, and spending 5 days in places where I couldn't even smoke a cigarette without slinking outside, and being harrassed by my mom, I had a pretty good time. I took a bunch of photos, some of which can be seen in my newly created album here. It is the My R/L Family album, and has some pics from the trip, and some pics of my grandson. You should also check out the other new albums I added, and the new photos added to some of the exisiting albums. Please check them out, and rate a few pics, and leave a comment or so. The family album is only for friends, so if you can't see it, then rate/fan/add me to do so.