Old Year Out, New Year In

Time is forever moving forward. Each "now" instantly becomes "yesterday". Change is the "status quo". The Earth has made another turn around the Sun. We mark that turn by celebrating the end of one year and the beginning of another. We hope that everything will be new like a virgin field of snow. We hope for prosperity, we hope for good health, he hope for peace but, most of all, we hope for love.

May all your hopes and dreams come true not just in this coming New Year but forever. Hopefully, we will all regard each other with compassion. And love ...

Don't Get Your Speedos Out Yet

Yep. It has been confirmed that liquid water does exist on Mars. Not just in one place but in a few areas around the red planet. This fact, while interesting, doesn't seem to be that significant. Many years ago scientists came to understand that liquid water absolutely essential for all life to begin. The discovery of liquid water on Mars has excited scientists all over the world (the average temperature is about -30C at noon so it's not entirely liquid). Finding water on Mars increases the chances of finding life there. We're not talking Little Green Men! Finding microbes would revolutionize the way we look at the Universe and ourselves. Such a discovery would suggest that if life existed in a rugged environment like Mars, the chances of life existing on other worlds increases a thousand-fold. For more information and images go to:

www.nasa.gov/home/

Follow the links to access the Mars photos. 

Chain e-mails: An Urgent Warning

I received this information from both Yahoo! and Google. This is no joke! Chain E-mails are commonly sent through the Net via your server. These e-mails have attachments and a large "CC" list. Usually, they encourage you to send it to between 1 and 10 people. Some attachments are in "pps" format or "jpg" images. They are usually cute and completely irresistable or are messages of deep thought. Some have music while others haven't.

I think you know the ones I'm talking about ("Send this message to 10 friends in the next 10 minutes or your head will explode."). According to Yahoo! and Google these "chain e-mails" often contain spam, or worse, viruses! Sending it to so many people will spread the bad stuff all over the Web ... including your computer. Some virus stay dormant on your hard drive until it activates at a random moment.

You can send all the "chain e-mail" you want. Personally, I'm going to delete them before opening them. As I say, do what you want but I highly recommend following these instructions. 

Confessions of a Big Pussy

Dang! I guess I did try the weirdest things in my ... ahem ... youth.

Here I am in that murderer outfit! Yup. I was the Dawson College mascot, Cool Cat. Every time I donned the big cat head, I inhaled the tangy, intoxicating sweat of all the previous suckers that wore this suit. I had to look through the dark "sunglases". They were really tinted pieces of plastic, permantly smudged with the finger prints, nose prints and some ... other stuff.

I normally wear size 12 shoes. The footware that supposedly came with the outfit looked more like black duck's feet. My big toe reached about halfway into the foot. This and the dark, smudged glasses made walking tough; navigating the stairs was a nightmare. The genius who invented this horror made only one air hole, at the lower part of the head. I was sweating, I couldn't breath too good and I had insisted that someone "volunteer" to be my guide. I had to take breaks every 15 minutes or else the CO2 levels got too high and I started hyperventilating.

Cool Cat also had a blue tail, held in place with a safety pin. People pulled on my tail all the time. When it came off my guide had to pin it back on.
At sporting events people would through plastic cups, beer cans, whatever they could get their hands on. Meself and this costume were so big that it blocked the view of the came. The same abuse went on at parties. It was non-stop torture ...

... But I would trade this experience for all the tea in China! Despite generaly unpleasant conditions I enjoy this. I've got to admit, when the end of the semester was looming over the horizon, I was really hoping that Cool Cat didn't have any more events to attend. Thankfully, today's mascot costumes are more "user-friendly" and much lighter.

The best part was that I could make and ass of myself (at Christmas I played a "Jack Daniels" Santa [hips!]) and no one knew who was in the outfit! Totally anonymous! Oh, what fun. 

The Message

This would probably work better with Len's TOTDs ...

I guess this is my own way to let my friends - the people I care for - know how much I care for them and would carry any one of them.

I'll put my sarcasm aside this one time. 

IMPORTANT NOTICE

According to the folks at "Blogger", the Pius X blog is getting kinda big. So I've created this second blog, all fresh and new. You will be able to read the first blog but not post anything. Accessing this new Pius Blog will be faster and easier - until it too gets too big!

Also, I've removed some other postings that were just taking up space. I hope this will also improve the performance of the blog.

Blog away ...

Sci-Fi:The Bad Old Days

In the 1950's, the so-called "Golden Age" of science-fiction the pulp magazines ruled. The covers featured scantily clad girls in space being rescued by an astronaut in full gear. Another favorite of the time was the alien of the month, always bent on taking over the Earth. In honor of the pulp magazine covers of old I concocted this image - the threatening glare of the evil alien overseeing the Earth fleet battling the alien fleet. This image was rendered entirely on the good ole Amiga 4000. 

One Last Goodbye

This awesome picture was taken by the Cassini probe still in orbit around Saturn. The tiny blue dot in the upper right portion of this image is our home, planet Earth (click to enlarge). Cassini took this spectacular image looking through Saturn's rings. Despite the density of the rings we can see Earth quite clearly. Seeing this image changes our perspective of our world; it's not so big and seems very fragile.

I just had to share this ... 

URGENT INFORMATION!!!!

In an earlier posting I said scientists believed the Universe was about 30 billion years old. I recently found out that, because of new reasearch and better instruments, they've discovered that it's only (!) 13.7 billion years old. That's more than half the previous estimate. How will this affect science and our understanding of the Universe? Couldn't tell ya. I will be keeping my eyes out for science magazine, websites and TV.

Gee, I've really sorry it took me so long. I just hope none of you lost any sleep over this. 

BLAST from the PAST!

I wonder - how many of you remember this guy. Strange, the characters you run into on the Internet. I actually watched the show but I found this image completely by accident. I remember some Japanese guy holding up a flahlight and - kazam! - he became Ultraman. When his power got low the light on his chest would flash. Where were you when this was on TV? (Probably outside playing & having fun - lol!). 

Back To Work

Here's my latest piece ... of work, smarty pants! If we survive global warming, rampant viruses, the possible mysterious disappearance of the Internet or a direct hit from an asteroid (remember the dinosaurs?) we might see this. Of course it will happen in about 5 billion years - give or take a few billion. When the Sun runs out of hydrogen, it will start eating itself, so to speak. Over time it will expand like a big red ballon, boiling the planets as it expands. Woohoo! What fun! If we're lucky it will just erupt as a supernova (not the band).

On a personal note, I cannot access my own blog! Stoopid %&*@()*!!! So please me patient, my Peoples.

I'll be back ... 

Just For LAFs

It often happens that I come up with some really silly ideas. I was working on some image manipulations when a friend saw me working on a picture of a "fake" UFO (Hey! They can't all be real!). He was looking over my shoulder - not something I like very much - when he slapped said shoulder and exclaimed, "Chicks and UFOs!". After snapping my shoulder back into place, I turned and stared at him. "What have you been working on lately? Chicks and UFOs, Dude!". I don't know if he actually said "dude" but I wouldn't be surprised. At the time, the X-Files was still on TV and I had a prepubescent (look it up, perv) crush on Gillian Anderson - aka Scully. I started seeing some kind of cosmic connection. Not to mention the fact that one of first image manipulations had Gillian Anderson emerging from a UFO! As Homer Simpson would say, "This is freaky!"

My friend suggested I do a series of images - he told me to do twelve - like real artists sometimes do. I never made the mistake of thinking this was art. This was just goofing around. At the time, I only had my little crappy Amiga with an amazing 1 meg internal memory! Not to mention I had no Internet whatsoever. I tried tying two soup cans together with string then attaching one end to the Amiga and left the other hang out the window. Well, it didn't work. The friend that came up with this stupendous idea did have Internet. So I sat in front of his computer for hours looking for images of backgrounds, women and UFOs. What you see here is the result of the ungodly union of two warped minds. I never got to do all twelve but then again did I really have to?

>CLICK ON IMAGE TO ENLARGE<

As always, in my case, each picture tells a story. In the first image (top) the aliens, after kidnaping this poor girl, leave her out in a meadow. At least they left her in a chair in the shade. In the second one the aliens also left another girl in a field but forgot to give her her clothes! And it looks like a storm's coming. In the last image the only human is the guy getting pulled up by the UFO. I actually used a picture of David Duchovny (Mulder from the X-Files), flipped it, shrank it and pasted him in the air next to the truck. Yup ... I am a little twisted. So are these stupid aliens. In honour of my friend I called this small series "Chicks and UFOs". The titles I gave them were Latin but I lost them.

People who have seen these images (Oh, so many I had to beat them off with a stick!) ask me if I'll ever finish the series. I really don't know. Right now I have other priorities - and a better computer! Who knows, maybe one day I'll see a picture that will inspire me to do another ... NOT! 

Halloweens Past

Ahhh yes. The good old days when I still thought Halloween was a good enough reason to party. The suit cost an arm and a wing and there was no belt, gloves or boots. Belt and gloves were made by a good friend. As for the boots, one of my buddies in the office let be "borrow" his hockey pads and painted them black. The headpiece was rubber and would have pulled my hair out had I not been wearing a nylon stocking on my head. As a final touch I put black makeup around by eyes. There was a contest for best costume - I lost by one vote. Later, people came up to me to apologize. They said they had voted for the pathetic clown because they felt bad for her. Yeah ... right. The prize was dinner for two at a fancy steak house. C'est la vie ... 

Image Manipulation 2: Photo Repair

This photo dates back to 1929 and if you look at the top image you can see that it showed it's age. My mother showed me the picture and asked if I could fix it with my computer "magic". I had never seen a picture in this bad a condition but decided to take the challenge. By the way, the child in the center, that's my mom aged 1 year old - isn't she cute! (Nice boots!)Anyway, I work on it for a week off and on, trying things I'd never tried before. The final result is the photo on the bottom. I'm still not entirely satisfied but I learned a hell of a lot while I did it. And I enjoyed myself doing it!

What I Do (Part 2) - Image Manipulation

Creating computer images from scratch is often difficult, time consuming work. Image manipulation is way more fun but can also be difficult. I work with already existing images to produce new, original images. It's even more fun when you work with images of people you know (muahahaha!).

At the top left is "Forest Fayrie". To give the image depth, I used an extreme close-up of a bush then blurred it. Next, I looked through all my files for an appropriate model. I chose this Asian model because she had the neccessary fayrie-like attributes. Then, I gave her pointed ears and slanted her eyebrows and tainted her green. I searched and found a nice clear picture of dragonfly wings, cut them and pasted them. Finally, I cut and pasted a bunch of flowers in front of her. This created the illusion that she's really tiny. There's a lot of checking to see if part of the image is too dark/light, too blurred/sharp. The exact process is a little more complex, but you get the idea.

Next is a modified image of my buddy, Francis. He brought me this picture of himself just as he was about to leave the Bahamas. He said he was satisfied with the image of himself but didn't like the background. I told him to leave it to me and started chuckling like a madman. Having known him for twenty years or so, I knew exactly what to do to his precious photo. The Enterprise in the sky recalls one certain episode where the ship looks like a cardboard cut-out. It moved with a jerky motion that always had us in stitches. The Death Star from Star Wars? Why not? As he didn't like his boss at the time, I cut a face from a photo of Albert Einstein. Since it was black & white, I had to tint it with a flesh tone that more or less matched others in the scene. Just for fun, I added Homer Simpson crawling in Einstein's hair (Einstein's a genius & Homer is not - get it?). At the time, Monsters Inc. had just come out on video and we both liked Mike - so there he is on Francis' shoulder. A naked girl? Heck, what warm-blooded male wouldn't like that? And I added a whole bunch of other stuff, some obvious, some not (I made him a Terminator - just for fun). See that other little green guy at the extreme lower left? That's Glyx, a cartoon character I developed a few years ago. I have a feeling that you'll probably be seeing real soon.

Finally, this is an image manipulation done by a professional with a fancy computer and lots of expensive software (Maxim magazine). This one's totally nuts. All the cars, people and, yes, chicken are real pictures. Whoever did this image is a master. Every image is seamlessly put together (all I added was the words). One day I, too, shall be a master.

HAPPY EARTH DAY!!!! (I almost forgot.Thanks Tony)

 

"Fanny Mae" - by Luke A. Fallon

A chrome beach ball? No, no. This is Fanny Mae - rather Fanny Mae sphere. Inside is a big spoon-shaped thingie and above that floats what looks like a lavender lotus flower. You can barely see it and if you look at it from certain angles the image might just disappear. That image of a lotus flower is Fanny Mae - as we see her on our plane of existence. And it's, like, really, really hot inside her sphere. Why? Because Fanny Mae is a star. No. Not like Brad Pitt. Like the stars we see in the sky at night. All of them are alive - all life forces. This image is based on the novel Whipping Star by Frank Herbert (best known for his Dune novels). I fell in love with the novel as soon as I read it - and re-read it! I've been wanting to draw Fanny Mae for a long time. Now, with the tools I have, I think I've done a fairly good job. Too bad Frank Herbert's not around to see it.

By the way, Fanny Mae falls in love with the secret agent that watches over her. Charming! 

"Mountain Lake Sunrise" - by LAF

It took me a heck of a long time to get this one finished: the image was too dark, the mountains too crowded or the water had the wrong texture. But experimenting with the software finally lead me to this image. My heart told me that nothing more could be done, but my brain insists that one tiny element. Stoopid brain! Now, everytime I look at it I have to restrain myself from making any changes. So tempting ... 

"The Sorcerer's Island" -(#1 & #2) LAF

Sometimes, I find it really difficult to be objective about my work. Consider this one; there's a storm going on, obviously. But do I use the rain effect or not? It seems like a distraction from the image. But I'm able to control the rain's "density" and the angle at which it's falling. I can even make the rain fall up if I wanted (just like Forrest Gump!).

Opinions are appreciated. 

COME RELAX AT A PLACE WHERE EVERYBODY KNOWS YOUR NAME ... OR AT LEAST YOUR E-MAIL ADDRESS!

Welcome Pius X Class of 1980!

All friends gather 'round for stories of then and now ...