The new style i'm using for the comic is coming out good. It's like disneys snow white meets manga.
….okay that sounds retarded as hell. But i swear it works.

My cat has been so pushy and mouthy lately -_- She's also soooo fat. When she's in my computer chair i shake it and she sloshes around like jello. BD

Skullbie
When she's in my computer chair i shake it and she sloshes around like jello. BD

That sounds ridiculously adorable. My one fat cat Haiku isn't as fat any more because Baby(the young one) chases him around. : (

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Just got our Internal Assessment assignment for IB History.
I'm pretty excited about it, I had lots of fun researching for it last year. As far as school assignments go I think the IA is as good as it gets. I think I might do whether Stalin was murdered and if so, who might have done it. But if any of you have ideas for historical questions I can research let me know! :)

Does it has to be one with a ‘right’ answer? (I'm guessing no, given your example)

My suggestion would be “is there treasure on Oak Island?” it seems like a narrow topic but there's a lot of weird stuff that's gone on there.

Actually if you look through the “stuff you missed in history class” podcasts (from howstuffworks.com I think) you'll probably get a bunch of ideas.

skoolmunkee
Actually if you look through the “stuff you missed in history class” podcasts (from howstuffworks.com I think) you'll probably get a bunch of ideas.

Reminds me of when teaching US I (Beginning of time to 1865) we skipped from the War of 1812 to John Brown.

US History class is flyover country in school and most World History classes never get past the Middle Ages. The teachers spend all that time on Greece and Rome and Egypt and the students still believe that Aliens built the pyramids and the Parthenon, Cleopatra was black and so on.

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So I woke up yesterday and my left shoulder was screaming. I didn't do anything and yet there was great pain. So I stayed in bed and didn't move most of yesterday and I'm almost alive again. Pass the Motrin please.

Just gazed upon the shadowy moon that is the lunar eclipse for the winter solstice.

Magnificent.

Chernobog
Just gazed upon the shadowy moon that is the lunar eclipse for the winter solstice.

Magnificent.

Same here, well…there's not much to see since it's totally blacked out right now. (except for a little blotch) but i saw it earlier when all the werewolves were writhing in pain.

I love this game so much:
http://wulfhammer.org/
so damn funny and so many endings and things to do, i can't believe just one guy wrote it.

Oh there is nothing more stunning than seeing the midnight snow illuminated by an intense full moon.

A beautiful sight indeed.

Bloody cars.

Just trying to take the kids out and the car won't start. well it seems the steering lock has broken so we can't start it and I doubt me limited mechanical skills will be enough here.

bravo1102
US History class is flyover country in school and most World History classes never get past the Middle Ages. The teachers spend all that time on Greece and Rome and Egypt and the students still believe that Aliens built the pyramids and the Parthenon, Cleopatra was black and so on.

History in Australian school (at least when I went to school), focussed exclusively on Australia. We learned about Willem de Vlamingh, Dirk Hartog, Captain Cook “discovering” Australia, then early explores like Burk and Wills (Idiot and Moron), Ludwig Leichhardt, Mathew Flinders and so on. A bit about convicts, about free settlers, and Aboriginals and that's all.
No other history in the whole of the world, unless you read about it yourself. -_-

——————–
Christmas shopping is hell. Lugging heavy bags around on a hot, humid day does not improve the mood.

Wheee… drew four pages of page layouts yesterday (an entire short story) and did the first layout for the second 6-page one (which still needs a good title). The plan is to layout the rest of the second one, scan it in and start inking and coloring this while I'll be working on the layouts for the third, longer story which uses the working title of “flying submarines vs dragons”. These three + a couple of 1-2 pagers should be enough to fill the second issue of Coilstar Illustrated (and give me three months of webcomic updates). And after these three I want to finally tackle Robyn Hood (another two and a half months or so of updates) for the third issue of Coilstar… and then do a b&w graphic novel.

Now if I could only assemble something that would help me stay financially afloat longer than the end of February (I think I can stretch my money that long), I could actually draw all that.

Anyway… from now on I am drawing daily. Who knows how many days I'll have to do this stuff until I have to start working on a regular job again.

ozoneocean

bravo1102
US History class is flyover country in school and most World History classes never get past the Middle Ages. The teachers spend all that time on Greece and Rome and Egypt and the students still believe that Aliens built the pyramids and the Parthenon, Cleopatra was black and so on.

History in Australian school (at least when I went to school), focussed exclusively on Australia. We learned about Willem de Vlamingh, Dirk Hartog, Captain Cook “discovering” Australia, then early explores like Burk and Wills (Idiot and Moron), Ludwig Leichhardt, Mathew Flinders and so on. A bit about convicts, about free settlers, and Aboriginals and that's all.
No other history in the whole of the world, unless you read about it yourself. -_-

——————–
Christmas shopping is hell. Lugging heavy bags around on a hot, humid day does not improve the mood.

For some reason in primary school we were taught a lot about american history. I think it spun out of the stuff about the great british empire as they smoothed over the loss of the colonies.

In comprehensive school it was all rome and then stuff fron the last century. So in between nothing happened anyway.

bravo1102
US History class is flyover country in school and most World History classes never get past the Middle Ages. The teachers spend all that time on Greece and Rome and Egypt and the students still believe that Aliens built the pyramids and the Parthenon, Cleopatra was black and so on.

To be fair most school teachers have to use standardized curriculums, either direct lesson plans or a big list of “the students must understand…” And since the goal is to pass a standardized test, they get almost no time to teach what they actually want or what they think is important. It was half the reason I decided I didn't like teaching.

I like those “Stuff you missed in history class” podcasts because they're 15-30 minute explorations on a given subject. It's still pretty “western world” centric but it has introduced me to lots of people and topics. If I want longer in-depth stuff I listen to Hardcore History, but it takes him a long time to produce those and they're almost all either Classical world or World War II.

Genejoke
For some reason in primary school we were taught a lot about american history. I think it spun out of the stuff about the great british empire as they smoothed over the loss of the colonies.

Aww, you still gots Canada! :(
Most we learned about American history was that after the revolution the Brits hd to find somewhere else to transport the convicts…

skoolmunkee
I like those “Stuff you missed in history class” podcasts because they're 15-30 minute explorations on a given subject. It's still pretty “western world” centric but it has introduced me to lots of people and topics. If I want longer in-depth stuff I listen to Hardcore History, but it takes him a long time to produce those and they're almost all either Classical world or World War II.

This isn't bad:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/programmes/genres/factual/history
New stuff all the time… although “new” probably isn't the right word here :)

I listened to all 120 of the 15 minute “short history of Ireland” thingos here when they first re-broadcast it:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0072vjc
That was a marathon, especially since it's mostly pretty grim. But I learned a lot.

ozoneocean

bravo1102
US History class is flyover country in school and most World History classes never get past the Middle Ages. The teachers spend all that time on Greece and Rome and Egypt and the students still believe that Aliens built the pyramids and the Parthenon, Cleopatra was black and so on.

History in Australian school (at least when I went to school), focussed exclusively on Australia. We learned about Willem de Vlamingh, Dirk Hartog, Captain Cook “discovering” Australia, then early explores like Burk and Wills (Idiot and Moron), Ludwig Leichhardt, Mathew Flinders and so on. A bit about convicts, about free settlers, and Aboriginals and that's all.
No other history in the whole of the world, unless you read about it yourself. -_-

It's actually the same here in Canada…and in case you weren't aware, Canadian history is super incredibly boring(that's probably a good thing, but still). That's why I took IB history in the first place. While the normal level classes are studying “and then the British fought the French blah blah blah John A. McDonald” for the millionth time, we get to do cool stuff like Russian and French History. And neat assignments like the I.A. where we can basically study whatever we like as long as it happened over 10 years ago.
My history class(and teacher) is awesome.


I have so many ideas for my I.A. I think I might just end up doing the Stalin thing, though. Russian history is my favourite, and I think it would fit the format of the assignment really well. Last year my topic was “Does a communist society have to be run as a dictatorship?” and it was really interesting, but also quite tough to fit into 2000 words.

Edit: Oh, and thank you for the links and suggestions ozone and skoolmunkee!

So I went to buy some roast chicken. Since they wouldn't have any ready for the next 20 minutes, I hit the nearby store that had a sale on books.

I was browsing randomly with no intent to pick up anything but ended up grabbing four books anyway.

All four are on ancient cultures: first one deals with The Art of Ancient China (both buildings and paintings, sculptures etc.), second one is on the Angkor Wat (with looots of closeup photos and stuff), third one talks about The Culture of Ancient India and the fourth one is about Pre-Colombian Central America (so Mayan and Aztec cultures etc.)

Overall pretty good haul and the best thing, all four are LOADED WITH PHOTOS which means I'll have nice visual reference for my non-dark ages centered fantasy. Now if I could get some books on ancient asian clothing, that'd be great :D

history, the subject that always interests me. Mostly about the presidency. Back in the day, they were all cheaters or gay.
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my youtube account got deleted because of my amvs. i spent days working on one of them. hours on the rest. :( it was my artistical pride.

oh well. they're all jerks anyways.

there was something else to talk about, but i seem to have forgotten it.

Yeah I think youtube is getting more and more negative-amv, with the music industry all up in its face.


Aurora Borealis reminded me that I haven't been in a bookstore in a long time, which is kind of sad. Half the books I buy, I buy for my eReader, and the other half I just order online and have mailed. There's just something special about going into a bookstore and finding stuff though. Something… that makes you spend a lot of money and come home with books you might not end up liking much, and never end up reading every one of, and then you have too many books for your limited bookshelf space and you end up getting rid of some of them to secondhand stores or whatever, and then 4 years later you think “I kind of want to read that book again” but the library doesn't have it and so you buy it again and….

Oh yeah, that's why I don't go into bookstores despite how nice it feels to be in one and look at all kinds of books.

Still, next time I'm near a worthwhile bookstore I might just stop in. The only good bookstores are in the town centre though and I haven't been THERE in… almost a year.

My son isn't “sure” what he downloaded last night, but he now has System Tool 2011 screwing up his laptop. Spybot hasn't found it yet (running in safety mode) and now I'll give Malwarebytes Anti-Malware a go. There goes the evening.

Why can't people who have so much friggin extra time on their hands just create web comics? Or polish their toenails? Or invent a new omelet? WTF

—-later—

F

now I can't even get it to boot, even while holding F12 (F8 lost its magic awhile ago)

WOW I fail. I uploaded the not-cleaned pages for my smackjeeves comic and didn't notice until yesterday. (by accident)(the comic is already finished)

The new page on my comic has me at a total roadblock with the layout. I'll just skip it for now…

ayesinback
now I can't even get it to boot, even while holding F12 (F8 lost its magic awhile ago)

The delete key is also sometimes used for booting…

If you do get it to run again, Adaware has proved ok in the past…

http://www.lavasoft.com/

Other than that… prolly best to get the little fella a Mac :(

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Go listen to our latest podcast!!! Merry Christmas messages to all!

Wow, never know we had so many history buffs.

I had an awesome AP US History teacher (world history was pathetic). Personally, I like military history, especially dealing with WWII through Vietnam, and the politics of everything was intriguing. But my favorite kind of history is aviation history. For example, the comic I am working on in fits and spurts is based off of the story of a particular B-17F, Old 666. Let's just say there's a reason I included the serial number of the titular ship in the title.

Oh man I can't wait, this is going to be the hap-hap-happiest christmas ever

Salsa
Personally, I like military history, especially dealing with WWII through Vietnam, and the politics of everything was intriguing. But my favorite kind of history is aviation history.

I think I like revolutions the best. : )

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My Annie keeps biting me when I whistle. :\
She's a weird cat.

Indeed, the history buffs and military buffs here seem to be in high numbers, something about which I shan't complain. My history classes were all over the place, I'm suspecting because of how much I changed school districts. I got fed WWII 4 different years, and that was almost exclusively. A lot of American Southwest focus as well, but they at least still touched on other time periods and parts of the world. I don't know what they're teaching these kids today, but I tried to help one of my cousins with her history homework last year and she had no need for the detailed stories by which I had learned the subject.


Today was rather exciting. I got my new license finally. I got to see Dead Snow, which was fantastic. The local grocery store now stocks rooibos tea. My stache is making its glorious and overdue return. And did 7 miles in the freezing cold. Definitely a highlight reel day.

Hippie Van
My Annie keeps biting me when I whistle. :\
She's a weird cat.

No, that's pretty common. Many cats don't like whistling.
——————-

As to war history- we mostly got the glorious defeat of the Gallipoli invasion over and over and the brave stand by the ANZAC forces there in WW1… Glorious.

It's interesting how every country has its own specific perspectives on major world events like WW2 and ww1 (that are really quite different), but it's the US one that's largely taking over because of the pop-culture dominance of Hollywood.

…remember the stupid Enigma machine film? @_@

ROAR!

Christmas time makes me think I need to stop wasting my time with art and get a real job. Not because I have to visit with relatives who think it's so cuuuuute that I have a “job” that, to them, equates to fingerpainting. No, because I'm too poor to buy gifts, I feel I should make cookies and candy.

This is a horrible idea. Especially the candy…. I boiled the sugar stuff. Whipped the eggs. And all I have to show for it is soup.

Sugar soup.

More of it on the walls and the counter than in the bowl. So if anyone really really likes divinity you're welcome to lick my kitchen clean. Much appreciated.

*Gag* I lit up this glitter/ground glass encrusted incense mom got at world market and it smells like burning shit wood….almost like the shitwood from my neighbors firelace a while ago. I bet they buy their shitwood from world market! >:[

I see battlefarts little spin-off being advertised here…maybe i'll check it out.

ozoneocean
As to war history- we mostly got the glorious defeat of the Gallipoli invasion over and over and the brave stand by the ANZAC forces there in WW1… Glorious.

That's sad considering the Aussie triumphs in World War II. Holding Tobruk, Burma and New Guinea. But of course thery're nothing compared to the Kiwis in North Africa and Italy. Hard to live in the shadow of another but once tight fighting companion. Just ask the British about the ETO. American this, American that. The only thing Americans can remember about the Brits in the ETO is A Bridge Too far Even Band of Brothers continued that American predjudice. Doesn't matter if it's all historically documented incidents… just so bloody insulting of the British contribution to the ETO. I mean you ever try functioning in British Battle Dress? ;)

Hollywood had for the longest time trouble getting US's involvement in World War II right. lol! And we still get crap like Inglorious Basterds and that insipid intrusive Vietnam breakdown scene in Saving Private Ryan. And it was British Typhoons that were rocket armed tank killers. Mr Spielberg we know you love the P-51 Mustang but please give credit where it's due! lol!

About the only part of World War II Hollywood hasn't ruined is the Russian Front. Cross of Iron and Enemy at the Gates were very un-Hollywood productions and compare well to German productions on the same subject matter.

When you get a bunch of history buffs together at a model show or even in a college classroom talk invariably drifts to the War movie. When you're debating the accuracy of uniforms and vehicle markings in various movies you know you've gone far. When you know a movie has accurate tank fire commands it gets scary.

bravo1102
Hard to live in the shadow of another but once tight fighting companion

Oh you don't know Aussies that well… ;)
We've never even heard of any independent NZ victories, and anything else we completely annex. …sort of like great Canadian film and comedy stars that everyone just assumes are American.

BTW We'd like to officially disown Mel Gibson. He was born in the US and lived there as a kid. He was only here in his late teens and 20's and stuff, then he moved back to his motherland. You can keep him! :)

binaryfaye
More of it on the walls and the counter than in the bowl. So if anyone really really likes divinity you're welcome to lick my kitchen clean. Much appreciated.

Usually the way with delicious home made stuff :(

@ Skull LOL!
Shitwood ^^

So I got my mom's christmas presents today.

Because I'm overseas I just tell people not to get me gifts, or to get me stuff that can be delivered electronically or mailed in a regular envelope. My mom had trouble buying something off amazon.co.uk for me so I said “Oh, I don't know, an itunes giftcard would work because my itunes account is United States.”

So, I get a little card in the mail this morning with a sizeable itunes giftcard. I was like “wow, that was pretty generous of mom! This will last me all year.” I decide it's a good morning to balance my various bank accounts and I see that while she was back home visiting my sister (who has my US bank info), the other day she deposited a big chunk of cash in my checking account. Yay moms! :kitty:

I am refurbing my crap ikea coffee table to be pretty and red with tiles on top. I keep forgetting to take pictures of the stages.

Lastly my other ‘present’ in the mail was the Castle Waiting volume 2 big ol' hardcover collected book! I'm so frickin' excited, I've been waiting about 5 years to read more of this story. I didn't even think the book was out yet, but mentioned awaiting the book casually to someone in a chat who works at a comic store. She said they had some in stock and I paid her over paypal and she mailed it Monday and BOOM it's here! With backlogged royal mail and everything! I kind of want to hold off reading it because the anticipation is so nice, but screw that. I'm gonna sit down and read it all right now. It's bright and snowy outside, I'm on vacation, I've got some mulled wine and warm animals. Christmas! <3