Category Archives: Random Randomness

Punctuation Pedantics

The book I am reading at the moment is called Eats, Shoots and Leaves. It's been around some years, but I never got round to checking it out until we got a copy in at the charity shop where I work.

I embraced it like a long-lost friend.

Or perhaps even a long-lost lover, that's how much I like it.

Yes, I do get really annoyed when shops advertise that they are selling "CD's, Book's and Video's"! Freaking hell! Who are CD, Book and Video and what of theirs are you selling?

One more step on the road to ulcerdom.

It's not just bad punctuation that gets me going: bad grammar does it too. Whenever I read the words "try and" I feel my blood start to boil and I simply must, absolutely ALWAYS, mentally change them to "try to". "Try and" means you are trying to do one thing AND doing another thing. "Try to" means you are trying to do such and such a thing. You never say, "I am trying and do my homework", do you? Nor do you say, "I tried and do my homework". Saying "I tried and did my homework" says that you tried and then succeeded. Two distinct things. See? "Try" goes with "to".

I tried to do my homework. I am trying to do my homework. I shall try to do my homework.

It's not that hard.

It also annoys me when people confuse "shall" and "will" when using the future tense. "Shall" is used with the first person, i.e. "I" and "we". "Will" is used for the others. Only when emphasising or expressing determination are these reversed, and "will" is used for the first person, "shall' for the others.

Yes, I mentally change them too, when reading, although I haven't got so far as mentally correcting speech.

I'm sure I'll get there one day, along with carrying a stick with a cut-out apostrophe taped to the top, and blank labels to cover up any apostrophes that shouldn't be there.

By the way, kids, it's "grammar", not "grammer".

Now where did I put my meds?

Paint Packages, Adopted Brothers and MOAR Anime!

I've decided — I am not going to bother finishing Twilight Princess. As I said before, action games are not really to my taste, and anyway — I can haz new game!!! The game I am playing right now is called Faia Emburemu - Radiant Dawn. It's full of yummies!!

But seriously, it combines two of my favourite game genres ie RPG and strategy (my other fave is platformers - Commander Keen and Kid Icarus, yeah!). I'm playing on easy level since I've not played any previous titles, and I'm not doing too badly. I'm playing Ike's mercenaries at the moment (Oscar!! love Geoffrey! love And all the others! love). I've already killed Ike's sister twice.

What I am saying is, it's an awesome game.

The only thing that's spoiling it is something I read on a character profiles site, ie that Micaiah is going to marry Sothe who PS is her adopted brother. That's just... wrong.

Moving swiftly on, a friend recommended watching Naruto. Well technically, I asked her about it because I keep hearing that Continue reading →

TSR Sinks to an All-Time Low…

The depths Thoma$ will sink to... Buggybooz @ MTS2, who PS is one of my fave CC artists, recently had her stuff ripped off by Shakeshaft, one of T$R's Featured Arti$ts. Obviously, Buggy was very upset and kicked up a fuss.

Then Buggy's MTS2 account got hacked, and her stuff all pulled. Her policy was changed to 'do whatever you like with my content'. Coincidence? I think not. An IP check reveals a match with Thoma$$...

From MTS2's Delphy:

I think it's clear here one of the following things happened:


- Either Thomas himself removed Buggy's stuff, or
- Thomas gave the password to his account to somebody else at TSR and they removed it

In addition to the above, they must have gotten buggy's password from somewhere, which indicates one of two things:

Continue reading →

I’m in La La Looooove

I've been trying out this new program of Paint Tool SAI, which is an awesome paint package and I am absolutely totally in love with it. It makes increeeeedibly smooth anti-aliased lines, which you can't get in Paint Shop Pro, and also it's great for paint effects which is utterly brilliant if you are the kind of person who makes lots of mistakes and also can't afford to buy real paints and paper. The problem is it is only a 31 day trial, what I am going to do when it runs out I don't know.

Rabid fangirl is rabid! dancing banana

pit squeee by silver arrows

I am also feeling quite utterly disillusioned with Paint Shop Pro at the moment. Firstly, if I use the graphics tablet, even on another application, I can no longer use the mouse to paint. I don't know why, nothing happens, although the airbrush tool still works. So I have to exit and reload the application, which takes a while. Also as well, I am sick of it always crashing. Thirdly, you don't get smooth lines like you do in SAI. I still think PSP is awesome for vectors, especially when you need to do precision stuff and might need to resize and tamper with lines a lot, but I hate the way the ends of the vector line are so blocky, you'd think they'd at least have a way to smooth the edges, but you can't have everything I suppose.

It costs £40.

What happened was, my How to Draw Anime book which I ordered last month, seems to have got lost in America somewhere - or something - anyway the upshot is, I can't be bothered waiting for it, and £15 crumbs! So I've cancelled that, ordered it second hand and also ordered Manga for Dummies, which in total together, cost me about 12 quid.

Sooooo, I hope that in 2 weeks or a bit longer I should have my books, and by then I hope to be able to produce some new work and say, What an improvement!

The Story of Selene and Endymion

There are many variations of this story, but this is the version narrated in Atticus the Storyteller, and the version I am going with in Dreamsong.

Endymion was the mortal son of Zeus and worked as a shepherd, which he found utterly dreary. He was also incredibly handsome, of course. One night, bored out of his mind, he was stunned to see a beautiful and radiant woman approach. This was Selene, the goddess of the Moon, and she fell hopelessly in love with Endymion.

selene

But she was immortal, and he wasn't, so in order to have him forever, she asked Zeus to put him in an eternal sleep, which he did, and so Endymion never grew old or died. And every night, Selene visited him in his dreams, and she bore him 50 — yes 50 — daughters, each more beautiful than the last.

And that's the story of Selene and Endymion.

<< Back to Dreamsong

Comments from old blog

Totally untrue, Selene was Ambrogio's lover and she died loving him, she was a mortal and a priestess at Apollo's temple then when she died (you have to know the full story there's lots more) Artemis granted her to become the goddess of moonlight because Artemis is goddess of the moon and she looks after Ambrogio guiding him and the children he creates. I'm obsessed with greek mythology and research it frequently.
— Moyasu 22/11/11
You sure about that? Are we talking about the same person here?
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/533214/Selene
Like I said, there are different versions; however the one I used is the most common. I've never come across the version you relate here. Even looking on answers.com, I can't see any reference to your narrative. As far as I know, Selene was old school (Titan), whereas Artemis was one of Zeus's gang (well, his daughter).

Well it's ALL untrue anyway, since it's just a myth n_n
— Silver Arrows 22/11/11
@Mosayu – the myth of Selene and Ambrogio is recent fiction, I assume it came from a White Wolf RPG or similar. The myth of Selene and Endymion is an actual ancient Greek myth. A quick google will show you that, and even a seconds research in actual scholarly sources will show that no such figure existed in Greek myth. 'Ambrogio' is only mentioned on roleplaying and 'otherkin' websites, and has no historical basis. Also, you'd notice precisely the same cut and paste text of this 'myth' is used on all sites that mention it; and also that 'Ambrogio' is a contemporary Italian name, not an ancient Greek one, I would assume whoever first penned the 'vampire origin story' chose Ambrogio because it means 'immortal'.
— Sara 03/06/14
Thank you for this. It's nice to know Mosayu wasn't just imagining it. I never did find out where s/he was getting that story from.
— Silver Arrows 21/06/14
The website http://www.gods-and-monsters.com/vampire-origin.html listed Ambrogio as the fist vampire as well. I was skeptical, so I googled the name and Sara is right about it being a modern fabrication. Why do people do that? It makes finding the actual history of something much harder when people write hoaxes on subjects that actually have a true historical origin.
— Bebo 30/10/14

Blue Hair or Pink Hair?

  • Blue hair - 52% (43 votes)
  • Pink hair - 29% (24 votes)
  • Wha??? - 18% (15 votes)

Total Votes: 82

Say what you like, this poll was rigged. I mean, I don't get that many votes on my polls, yet somehow blue went from 4 votes to 29 in like two days?

kiki squee

F I X

But then again, Geoffrey has blue hair and he is utterly handsome so I declare blue the winner.

SSBB: Custom Maps

Okie, I have a few custom maps if anyone's interested. They're not particularly elaborate, I was aiming for layouts that give a good fighting experience.

Update April 2016: The Nintendo Ninjas filed a copyright claim against my uploads and they got deleted by Box. For real, how is this piracy? I'm not claiming copyright, I'm not distributing the game itself. You can't run the files without the official game. They're just freakin' custom maps. Frick's sake, Nintendo. They even claimed a replay file. HOW IS IT PIRACY?! Goddammit, Nintendo. This is why I will never judge anyone who arrquires Nintendo games. SEGA will always be the superior company. Nintendo will file a DMCA against you for merely saying the name "Mario". Make a Sonic fangame, and SEGA will feature it on their Twitter. SEGA rocks! F you, Nintendo! (Psst! Click the Read more link for an update!)

Continue reading →

Back to the Drawing Board

Il faisait beau aujourd'hui. It's surprising how much better one feels when the sun is shining. In any case I'm feeling happy enough to start my drawing lessons — as my regular readers (all one of them) will have noticed, there's been a bit of a hiatus in the drawing lessons department. Anyways, I'm having another go. So let's see what wonders I've managed to come up with!

copyright silver arrows 2009 all rights reserved Continue reading →

Baby Kid Liquorice

Cover art ready. Whose dumb idea was it to give her psychedelic hair? Oh yeah, that would be me.

silver-dreamsong

Kiki when she was a toddler.

copyright silver arrows 2009 all rights reserved
(ETA: Clicky for actual in fact finished version)

No she isn't nakie, it just looks like that cos I haven't got round to drawing her clothes yet. Needless to say, the picture is not finished.

But I'm getting better, aren't I?

Twilight Princess and Cheer Squads!

The game I am playing at this actual in fact moment is called The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. It's not that good.

When it first came out the reviews were saying it's the best game EVER! and Wow! It's amazing! But I have to say I am not enjoying it as much as I thought I would. The mostly reason I am playing it is because of Link.

link-gale

I have two problems with this game, besides being crap at it.

Continue reading →