dewline | Entries tagged with good things shared

Because it's his birthday too today. And his achievements are at least as reliably documented, and his work has also been continued to this day.

Current Mood: hopeful
Current Location: Home-for-now

1. I actually got some sketching time - with actual ballpoint pen and paper! - taken care of today. It's been weeks since the last such session!

2. Took in several video presentations during Day Three of Typewknd!

3. Did some housekeeping on my new computer's hard drive, exporting files so that I could clear some space. Before, I had 45-50 GB free space. Now, it's 75-78 GB available.

4. I got an hour's walking exercise in today. Half of it via the shopping errand for newspapers and groceries, the other from walking around the block. Usually, that latter was only three circuits around the block. Today, it was four.

5. Celsys has announced that Clip Studio Paint's got a new update, v.1.10.0, to become available to users starting in four days. Apparently, the big thing is import/export ability re: SVG files. They specifically refer to working with Adobe Illustrator, but we'll soon see if any and all graphic designware that can create SVG files can play nice with this. Corel, Affinity, Inkscape, and whatever else is currently in play, hopefully.

6. Solved my Clip Studio Paint brush size menu problem: it was millimetres vs. pixels. I fiddled with that setting and confused myself as a result. Oops.

Current Mood: accomplished
Current Music: "Kyoso" - Kodo

Remember this one? Seventy-nine years ago in about a dozen US newspapers...Shermy, Patty...and Good Ol' Charlie Brown...

Current Mood: busy

1. Side note: I had one of those Beyond Meat-branded burger-style sandwiches at A&W before seeing the Spider-Man movie tonight.

Could not tell the difference. Tasted just fine.

2. Okay. I got to see the new Spider-Man movie tonight.

Whoooo!

Current Mood: satisfied

...to

seanan_mcguire
Thanks for all the stories so far, and hoping you have many happier birthdays to come!

Current Mood: hopeful

If you live in Canada, you'll remember a company called MapArt. They are based in Oshawa, Ontario. MapArt published folding maps of cities and towns and provinces, and eventually got around to publishing street and road atlases too. They became known for a certain presentation style, one that got highlighted in Cynthia A. Brewer's book Designed Maps: A Sourcebook for GIS Users as an example of how maps could be designed well for their users to find their way around those cities and towns. Orange spaces for urban spaces in general, bright pink for landmark buildings, yellow lines for major streets, white for the side streets...and here's an example of their classic style:

But for some reason(s), they weren't able to continue publishing their maps in that design style.

But the style changed hands, first to a publisher called RouteMaster. Now, it's being used by G. M. Johnson and Associates Ltd. out of Vancouver. They're using the data and the design style for folding paper maps, as is right and proper. I'm happy with the Ottawa and Halifax editions that I bought via World of Maps here in Ottawa a few months back. My issue with them is the lack of street and road atlases being published using the same material. For my purposes as someone trying to get around Ottawa - or any other Canadian city - the atlas format is less awkward to work with as I'm walking or bussing around town.

I don't know if posting this commentary on Dreamwidth will get me even one step closer to an admittedly selfish desire. But I thought I'd get this on the record anyway.

Current Mood: hopeful

I took a vacation day today. Mental health reasons, shopping reasons, family reasons, exercise reasons. Not going into the details of them, just making note that the reasons exist.

I saw Spider-Man: Homecoming last night. I had fun watching that for a lot of reasons. Sure, it's mildly annoying that this is the third version of the character to hit the movie theatres in the last decade. But since it firmly locks this version into the MCU, and for a lot of other reasons, I can be good with it.

In fact, I am very good with it. Some of those reasons for that mood?

Tyne Daly as Anne Marie Hoag.

(Feeling sad that Dwayne McDuffie didn't live to see that.)

Seeing Midtown High reworked as a specialty high school dealing in science and tech.

(I still felt uncomfortable with some of the high school stuff being no different from my day in the real world. *sigh* )

Spider-Man being part of the fabric of the Borough of Queens.

The first big twist midway through the show.

The surprise ending. Was NOT expecting that.

(Not the Avengers angle. The thing after that. Come back after you've seen it yourself and we'll talk about that.)

This is not a complete list of the good stuff.

Current Mood: satisfied

Seeing Dan Rather holding forth on whatever subjects come to his mind on Facebook.

Knowing that GAIA is still up in orbit mapping our galaxy.

Seeing Ottawa-Gatineau in actual winter mode.

Knowing that an actual, official Star Trek series is being filmed in Toronto.

Having good friends.

Current Mood: calm

So Canada is exceeding expectations - exceeding hopes at this point! - in terms of medal count at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio. At the same time, tomorrow night in Kingston, Ontario will mark a change that many will count at best as a mixed blessing.

One reason for that: tomorrow night is currently what I call the last-we-fear concert of the Tragically Hip.

Gord Downie, the lead singer and front-man for the band, has been diagnosed with what is currently described as terminal brain cancer. Given the current state of the medical arts regarding the particular form that's inside Downie's skull right now, he might be able to buy a few additional years, but not much more than that. Barring the proverbial miracle, of course.

Between those two situations in the national cultural news, it's not going to surprise me if Canadians in general are suffering some degree of emotional whiplash right now.

That last-we-fear concert will be broadcast from Kingston nationwide by CBC. TV, radio, internet...you name it, they're using it to get the show out to as many Canadians as want to see it from coast to coast to coast. So if the Canadian streets outside of Kingston, Ontario (where the concert is going to be held) seem emptier than usual tomorrow night, that'll be part of why it's so.

We may be a little...off...as a people for a few weeks afterward. At least that's my suspicion at the moment.

Current Mood: tired
Current Music: Power & Politics on CBC News

As a student of marketing and fan of MCU-branded product for film, TV and internet broadcast, I believe that the MCU Exchange people who cobbled this together - flaws and all - nailed it as promoters and advertisement creators here. They took eight years' worth of movies and TV shows and Netflix programming and boiled it down to the key points that set the stage for May of this year.

Current Mood: impressed

Hoping it's a good one today, Randy!

Current Mood: hopeful
Current Music: _Q_ on CBC Radio One

exoplanet.eu reports 2030 exoplanets on their catalogue as of tonight.

Also, there's this item from the International Astronomical Union:

http://www.iau.org/news/pressreleases/detail/iau1514/

Current Mood: enthralled

It seems important to preserve and pass this along...for a number of reasons, not all of which I dare openly name. The reasons for not naming them range from personal fears to promises made that I still try to keep. Whether or not I name any of the reasons, though, you might guess at a few, correctly, anyway.

So from Mr. Gaiman's keyboard to your screens:

Originally posted by

officialgaiman at New Year's Wishes and gifts

http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2014/12/new-years-wishes-and-gifts.html

posted by Neil Gaiman

An old year ends, and takes with it people and sorrows and joys and memories, and a new one is on it way.

A New Year's Gift, for anyone who missed it:

The BBC Radio 4 GOOD OMENS Website, with all six episodes of the Radio Series available to listened to over the next 2-3 weeks. http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04knt4h

And a reminder, over at http://acalendaroftales.com/ you can read and listen to all the stories I wrote for the A Calendar of Tales. January's Tale takes place in the moments between the first and the last chime of twelve midnight, when the Old Year is over and the New Year not yet begun.

Fifteen Years ago, I wrote:

May your coming year be filled with magic and dreams and good madness. I hope you read some fine books and kiss someone who thinks you're wonderful, and don't forget to make some art -- write or draw or build or sing or live as only you can. And I hope, somewhere in the next year, you surprise yourself.

And almost a decade ago I said,

...I hope you will have a wonderful year, that you'll dream dangerously and outrageously, that you'll make something that didn't exist before you made it, that you will be loved and that you will be liked, and that you will have people to love and to like in return. And, most importantly (because I think there should be more kindness and more wisdom in the world right now), that you will, when you need to be, be wise, and that you will always be kind.

Half a decade ago, I wrote:

And for this year, my wish for each of us is small and very simple.

And it's this.

I hope that in this year to come, you make mistakes.

Because if you are making mistakes, then you are making new things, trying new things, learning, living, pushing yourself, changing yourself, changing your world. You're doing things you've never done before, and more importantly, you're Doing Something.

So that's my wish for you, and all of us, and my wish for myself. Make New Mistakes. Make glorious, amazing mistakes. Make mistakes nobody's ever made before. Don't freeze, don't stop, don't worry that it isn't good enough, or it isn't perfect, whatever it is: art, or love, or work or family or life.

Whatever it is you're scared of doing, Do it.

Make your mistakes, next year and forever.

And here, from 2012 the last wish I posted, terrified but trying to be brave, from backstage at a concert:

It's a New Year and with it comes a fresh opportunity to shape our world.

So this is my wish, a wish for me as much as it is a wish for you: in the world to come, let us be brave – let us walk into the dark without fear, and step into the unknown with smiles on our faces, even if we're faking them.

And whatever happens to us, whatever we make, whatever we learn, let us take joy in it. We can find joy in the world if it's joy we're looking for, we can take joy in the act of creation.

So that is my wish for you, and for me. Bravery and joy.

...

I meant, and mean them all. I wasn't going to write a new one this year. But...

Be kind to yourself in the year ahead.

Remember to forgive yourself, and to forgive others. It's too easy to be outraged these days, so much harder to change things, to reach out, to understand.

Try to make your time matter: minutes and hours and days and weeks can blow away like dead leaves, with nothing to show but time you spent not quite ever doing things, or time you spent waiting to begin.

Meet new people and talk to them. Make new things and show them to people who might enjoy them.

Hug too much. Smile too much. And, when you can, love.

Labels: Happy New Year