A few small things

So this update actually consists of a few things. Projects mostly, that I'm going to try and accomplish this year. Also, a few snippits from some short dreams I had last night (that I think are a side effect of my having no caffeine in my system for 3 days). So, let's get the to it...

Firstly; My diet. Or "Nicole's crash course in trying to loose weight". I've not had soda in 3 days and apparently it's showing. Not weight wise, but mood wise. Day one was fine. I had to fight going to the fridge and crabbing at the soda case and opted for OJ and water all day. Day two I started getting those tight chested "I'm gonna die" feelings. Day three though was enough to make me want to hit things. All day I was miserable, everything set me off, and all I wanted to do was crawl into a corner and lash out at everyone and thing by me. Luckily Mike handled this well and tried to keep me busy enough that I forgot why exactly I was being a vicious attack bitch. Today is day four. Let's see how this works out with a birthday party where the drink of choice is SODA. On top of my drop of soda, I've been doing 1/2hr of yoga on my wii fit every day. Mostly because the wii fit has a built in scale and keeps track of my weight and such things. And I think the fact that in 3 days I've lost 1.5lb and my little avatar looks a little less chubby is keeping me going. I am though thinking of going to like GNC and picking up some metabolism boosters or something. My goal is to be closer to the 125-130 mark by late summer when we'll most likely be going back to the ocean. We'll see though.

Secondly; One of two art projects for this year. My aunt has in her house this very large and very lovely and very expensive frame on her wall. Inside said frame though is the most atrocious mess of scribble to ever grace the Earth. One of my old drawings from high school art class. I hate this drawing with such a passion. The very first time I walked into her house and saw it hanging there on the wall, I freaked out and demanded it removed or I'd burn it off her walls. To no avail, the woman demanded it was good and she liked it. No. Not at all. And from that day I swore I would draw her something better. This is the year I'm going to try and do that. Only issue? I don't know what to draw. I have a good starting place, and that is her love of fairy tales, Cinderella, and the like. So I could just go with that. I plan to make it original by using my characters in it, rather than Disney characters. Make it obvious to what the subject is, but change the people in it. Nate gave me the idea of Rini in rags scrubbing the floor with soot on her face, looking up at one of the boys dressed as a prince holding a slipper down to her. Something like that is what I'm going for. You obviously know its Cinderella, but I'm not using Disney characters. We'll see though. Kinda wish she would of like Sleeping Beauty. Which actually brings us to the second big project for the year.

A little Nicole trivia for you guys. Ever since I really got into cartoons and drawing I have always wanted to see my characters dance. And not like.. Some stupid "carmella dansen" thing, but a full out ball room waltz. Case in point, the end of Sleeping Beauty. I have always adored Tchaikovsky's Sleeping Beauty waltz. I'm actually in the process of breaking down the frames to a chunk of that section of the movie with the help of CS5, and I'm going to use them as a base of sorts to try and animate two of my characters doing that dance. According to CS5, just a small part of that dance is almost 200 frames long. That's 200 drawings I'm going to have to try and get as close as possible to each other. 200 papers I'll have to scan and try to time perfectly in the animation studio. I don't really know if I'll be able to add music though, but that's fine. At this point, all I want to see is them moving. I'll start with getting the sketches moving, and then move onto colors. I really hope I can pull this off. It won't be as grand as I've always dreamed, but I'll of done something close. Maybe if I win the lotto some day I'll fly down to Disney Studios and pay them to animate it for me.

Dream time! I only really remember chunks of the dreams. One of them I remember better than the others. In this one it's Halloween night. I'm running door to door, dressed up, yelling trick or treat and getting candy. Mike and some other random people are following me. At one house though we stop and go inside. We start talking about a girl across the street who is trying to decide on either staying human or marrying her boy friend and becoming a werewolf. So I go over and start talking to her and we come to the conclusion that she does want to be a werewolf. But she doesn't have a dress to wear. So I catch a ride down to my parents house, find my prom dress and this older, black velvet dress I used to own and race back to her place. I try on my prom dress to show her what it looks like and then everything sort of fades away. Another dream started up, I'm actually still in the dress and I'm in the woods. I recognize this place actually. I've dreamed about it before. It's a clearing, really tall dark trees all around it and I KNOW there's a river if I start walking forward. So I do. Because last time I dreamed of here there was a guy standing in the water throwing paper. I find the river but there's no guy. So I start following the river and sort of walk into nothingness. Just black air. And there I stay for a while, just sort of floating. Then I touch down, still in that dress mind you, in the dark, but there's something there. I don't know what it was, but there was something in the dark. Apparently now I have a bow and arrows and I take aim into the dark and fire a flame covered arrow at whatever is out there. I hear it thunk into something and the ground moves under my feet. And then I ended up waking up at that point..

A Little Early But....

This is actually sort of round-about. It starts last night, and with something not to do with the image for this post. Actually it starts with Inuyasha. 

I was watching Inuyasha: The Final Act last night in my typical "cant sleep" fashion. And as I was sitting there sucking up the story I realized that I feel insanely stress free and happy when I'm watching cartoons. Maybe thats why I was so stress free as a teen. Because I spent all my time watching cartoons and ignoring real life. That brought me to thinking about my very first anime ever, Sailor Moon.

I started watching Sailor Moon back in 1995, I was 10yrs old. I remember getting ready for school one morning and flipped on the TV in the kitchen to see this... strange looking cartoon. It didn't match the rest of what I watched. The style was different, the voices didn't really seem to match up with their mouths, but my god was it amazing. I was officially introduced to the world of Anime. I was 10yrs old! 10! I'm 27 now and guess what I still have on DVD and watch from time to time? Yep, Sailor Moon. Who got me to start drawing and show me that I had some mystical talent? Sailor Moon. And who was the basis for all my characters, who have obviously changed a bit over the years? Sailor Moon. Sailor Moon was also my first Manga. Downloaded on the computer, mind you, but still. Sailor Moon taught me to read something pretty much backwards. A pretty useless little talent, but people seem intrigued when I tell them "yes I can in fact read backwards Japanese manga".

But then I thought of something else. Again, I started watching when I was 10yrs old. Obviously the show was being aired in Japan before the US, which was 1992. The show is turning 20yrs old March 2012. That makes me feel old as hell. Sort of like people who stop and go "Man, I've been watching Looney Tunes since they were first aired on TV"..

So before I forget, and more of a reminder for the future, Happy 20th Anniversary to Naeoko Takeuchi and her amazing creation. Without it, I probably wouldn't of figured out I could draw, and would never of spent so much time watching such amazing cartoons. I will have to remember to figure out what day exactly it was first aired and make sure to have some kind of fanart ready to go for my gallery. Maybe 20 different drawings for the 20th anniversary?

Eternal Ferrets and Everlasting Hamsters

Firstly, this was done on the mobile app. So excuse any weirdness. And I would like to start with a reading from the book of lolcat.

First there was Limecat. Behold, he was mighty. And he did say "Meow" and life was created. Now humans did sin and Clock Spider shalt be borneth. Evil and Limecat did so fight. Limecat did tore off Clock Spiders appendage and flung it into the sun and thus it did became the gods of many religions. And Clock Spider did shalt try to strike Limecat on the lime. But behold, the lime of Limecat did was unbreakable. Yea, Limecat did swat ye Clock Spider and killed it. Behold, Eternal Ferret did arose from ye Clock Spider's body. Limecat and Eternal Ferret did fight on thou video. Behold, the fight was great and Limecat did win.Then came LUEshi who smited Limecat before his time. Behold, a carbon rod fell and the universe did collapse upon itself. Some examples : And the universe did say KABOOM!

Now onto the topic at hand. Stupid people who should neither own animals or breed.
As tonight was Tuesday night, it was truck night. This means I had work. And after the bettas in the food freezer and the flooding of Oscar Island, I was ready to call it a night. And then this woman comes in with her son. Let's call them Derpy and Derp Jr. She is a prime example of the type of human who should neither breed nor be allowed to care for any living creature. Be it fish, a hermit crab, a cricket....

So I'm standing by the ferret hex talking with one of the ferret regulars. Derpy is just behind her looking at fish chems, and she over hears the regular saying she lost 2 to cancer over the holidays. As I'm giving my condolences we hear "ferrets can die?!" from behind us. We turn to see Derpy looking at us and she asks again if ferrets do in fact pass away. I look at Regular, she looks back. Loss of words is obvious.
Just then Derp Jr comes racing over from the small animal wall screaming that he needs a hamster or he'll die. So I excuse myself from Regular and get snagged by Derpy who now wants to know what it takes to keep a hamster. I start with the normal basics; cage, bedding, food, water, chewing sticks, and a play wheel. Derpy then asks "hamsters need cages? I can't just stick it in a ball and let it loose in the house?" I say no, it needs a home. The ball is for short play times while you clean their cage up. Also, how will you feed it and give it water if its in the ball? To this I get "you have to feed them too?"...

By that point I asked the woman if she had ever owned a pet and if she fed her kid. I quickly got a "no" and a "well humans are different. Not all animals need to eat."
Normally I have some witty comeback, or something to point out the fact that they're retarded without actually saying it. But this time I was struck silent. I just stared at this woman and her son and wanted to ask that she never breed again and do us all a favor and never own any type of pet.

Another chapter from Nicole's dream world

So I had a doozie last night. Lets see how much of it I can remember. There was a lot going on, and I think it might even of been multiple short dreams, but they seemed to melt into each other some how. This is also a massive mix of weird, erotic, and angry. So don't mind the massive jumps in whats going on. None of it seems to connect at all in my head....

It starts with me at a weird antiques store/pawn shop. Very dark, lots of weird, old things. I'm looking around for something and see an old china cupboard full of Jack Daniels related things. Old bottles, cups, etc. An old man comes up and asks if I'm looking for anything specific, if he can help me. I tell him I'm just looking for a gift for my husband and that he likes Jack Daniels stuff. So the old man pulls a key out and unlocks the cupboard and lets me paw around in there. Finally I settle on a really old looking bottle, still full and unopened. As I'm walking to the front of the shop though the bottle goes missing, and I realize that I'm not wearing what I came in wearing (jeans and a shirt). Now I'm in my black hippie skirt with a low cut black shirt and black high heels. And the store changed over to what looked like stadium seating on a stage. I guess it was a game show. And now I'm paired up with some girl and a guy I recognize from high school (his name escapes me, but I recognize him). I notice there are other other groups of two girls and one guy scattered through out the place. Then some man walks onto the stage and says that it's our task to see which teach can get their man to blow their load first. Well apparently I was all for this, because me and that girl were all over him and apparently just the sight of me laying on top of him, and the peek of a neon pink bra was enough. I said something to the girl like "He hasn't had any since the 9th grade, this will be easy". Needless to say, our "team" won.

And then Poof, now I'm in some small town. I'm with Mike now, still in that same outfit, and we're watching a big town party in the square below. (btw, this is where it starts to get sort of fuzzy and scattered) I remember lots of people dressed in traditional and very fancy Indian garb (Indian as in the country of India). All the ladies are wearing very sparkly bead covered outfits, there's lots of dancing. I notice there are some guys behind us in Navy uniforms. One of them is carrying a big cartoon turkey shaped cake. They're all laughing about something and I'm watching them. But then me and Mike are down in the square with all these people and there's some people asking Mike if we can help them. They needed something moved over to a small stone pillar in the middle of a small pond. So Mike goes to help them, and now he's wearing a Navy uniform. I'm standing back with a few of the ladies thinking in my head "wow those outfits look very pretty". Then I see the turkey cake go flying by and smash into the back of one of the Indian men. I turn to see one of the other 'navy' guys laughing his ass off. I snap and charge him and start yelling "And you're in the Navy?! You have no right to wear that uniform, you have no respect, and are a complete failure as a sailor" and I punch the guy, hard, in the face. Mike comes over and tries to hold me back, but I fight away from him and tell him I'm going home.

Now I'm in some part of Syracuse. It's night time, raining, and I'm walking out of a small house on a crowded street (almost like Stubben Ave). I'm really angry about something, probably that whole navy guy thing. And I storm away into the streets trying to walk home. I know where I'm supposed to go, and I make that general path, but I keep getting side tracked. I think I actually ended up on Tip Hill because every corner had an Irish pub or diner of one kind or another. I ended up inside one called Kelley O' The Green Shirts. The sign was a picture of a cartoon Papillon dog wearing a silly green tshirt with a shamrock on it. Inside, there are tons of dogs laying around on the floor and I'm jumping around trying to get past them all and not wake them up. Finally I get outside and I notice a sign that says James St --> and Genesee St <--. Which made no sense me to. I didn't think they touched. So I started walking in a direction that just seemed right. I ended up coming out near State Fair Blvd on Hiawatha. So I knew how to get home from there and started my trek thinking "When I get home, my parents are going to kill me".. 

Then the dog woke me up to go potty...