Maggie Update

Took her to the vet today, and apparently she's allergic to her own plaque and tartar! Not surprising, she has such a ferocious flea allergy that just one flea will have her itching and scratching so bad she rips out her fur all over her back and hind end, as far as she can reach.

So she's going Thursday to have her teeth cleaned. Poor girl, the insides of her mouth are inflamed and swollen all along where her teeth touch. It looks so painful! Dr. Hollingsworth gave her a cortisone shot and some antibiotics (Augmentin). I have to give her one a day until they're gone.

She will NOT be a happy camper, since she can't have anything to eat after 10 pm Wednesday night. But all she wants to drink... however, Maggie is a chowhound (as if weighing 17 lbs wasn't a clue), so I don't think I'll get a whole lot of sleep tomorrow night.

Online Encouragement

I'm currently participating in the Last Icon Maker Standing competition at Chamber of Secrets, a HP website. In order to show solidarity with palsgraf_polka, who's currently angsting over a PhotoShop class she's taking with a bunch of snot-nosed 20-something hotshot know it all college kids. The LIMS competition is full of hotshot 20-something college kids, too, and I'm a 53 year old elderly fart who's just beginning to learn the GIMP.

Honey, if you think the "what's good" gap between 20-something and 30-something is big, you should see the one between 20-something and 53! Entries from others I've thought were just great have been totally trashed. Luckily, everyone's really nice about it, and I am learning a lot. But sometimes the gap yawns -- I just don't like some of the stuff everyone else thinks is incredible, and vice versa.

Anyway, on to the showing...

This was my first entry. I figured it was a throwaway, since I didn't know what I was up against. I think it averaged a 1.5 out of 3 points. The theme was a signature image no larger than 300x300, on the topic "Beginnings". It also had to incorporate a texture from a list.



Here is entry 2: take a tarot card and make it a Harry Potter themed card. You had to keep with the meaning of the card, and it couldn't be bigger than 150 wide x 300 tall. It averaged 2.5 out of 3. Can you believe, some people thought it was creepy? I thought it was really good. The original it was based on is next to it...

    

This is number 3: make an avatar/icon, no bigger than 125x125, of a closeup of something you find beautiful. Scoring is still going on with this one, but it's probably going to be a 2.5 again, too. No one can figure out it's just a piece of beautiful wood -- everyone thinks it's part of something else... bunch of kids, can't process that a beautifully finished piece of tiger maple is beautiful in and of itself... but I think that's 50+ showing; everyone else is doing cats, flowers, butterflies, children...



This is the current challenge: In the style of vintage ads create a graphic featuring a modern item. You can cut and paste images together or scour the internet for premade images and edit from there. You must include at least seven words on the banner. Any textures, animation and images may be used. This is a non Harry Potter challenge. It has to be no larger than 300 wide x 150 tall.



I had a lot of fun doing this one -- had to paint over the squeezable bag of margarine this crazy lady had clutched in her claws (back in the 40's you got margarine in a bag with the colorant, and you had to squeeze it to make it yellow -- margarine is sort of off-white in real life. The ad was for plastic bags) with the background color, then find an image of an ebook reader, trim it up and rotate it, then paste the whole thing together. Took several layers, then had to think up some sort of verbiage to put on there.

I'm sure they'll hate it, but I don't care, I had a ball doing it. I originally had "Suck it, Public Library!" as the tag line, but it's a super family-friendly forum, so I had to dial that waaaay back.

The whole point of this is that I'm not going to win this competition, but I'm having a lot of fun, my creative side is being exercised, and I'm really learning to USE my graphics program (the GIMP, which is free and works a lot like PhotoShop). Grab that attitude, sweetie, and run with it.