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Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in
Todd Dharken's LiveJournal:
| Monday, December 22nd, 2003 | ||||
| 7:45 am | 'Twas the weekend before Christmas Strange how this last weekend saw more 'net activity from me than several previous weekends combined and yet I had very little energy both days until mid-afternoon. I think I've caught whatever crap has been going around since the first really cold day here. I was so lethargic starting Friday morning. Still feel that too but at least the aches around my bones have gone away, except for my lower right ribcage along my back. It's deeper than the surface meaning it's not sore muscles and the way it hurts when I breathe, combined with the feeling in my lungs, strongly reminds me of the bronchitis I had when I was much younger. I sure hope I don't get that again. I really did think I was going to die from that a couple of times. Given the way I have to push myself to cover all my bases now, it probably would if I did get bronchitis or pnemonia. No rest for the wicked as the saying goes, though I wish I could be a bit more wicked (you know what way) to deserve what I go through. The anonymous post from Saturday afternoon has done better than I had expected quantity wise but somehow I'd expected someone to get a bit more...controversial? Or a bit more personal than has actually happened. And the communities ( ![[info]](http://library.vu.edu.pk/cgi-bin/nph-proxy.cgi/000100A/http/web.archive.org/web/20040514134221im_/http:/=2fstat.livejournal.com/img/community.gif){kind=small} anthroartassoc and xxxanthartassoc) I started Friday night have gotten off to a pretty good start - small and civil and functioning as I'd intended. No rough spots yet. Guess I'll have to wait and see if that particular trend continues. So far, so good as another saying goes.Not particularly looking forward to work the rest of this week, nor having to be out and about until Thursday when I have the day off. I know this time of year gets a little crazy but this time seems particularly crazy, at least as far as drivers are concerned. I've seen more accidents recently and have been involved in more close calls myself than I have in the past year. Unfortunately, I still have some shopping left to do, especially for ordinary items like shaving cream and hand soap. It would be nice if the store had a normal items checkout, kind of like they do an express lane. Oh well, at least the pain in my back has let up now. Maybe that feeling in my lungs will go soon too. It better. I still have laundry to fold and other loads to start, dishes to put away and one to wash, a bed to make, things to organize, shaving cream to coax out of the container (never had to contend with facial hair on Rhoantheka and wish I didn't now), and work to get ready for. And that doesn't include the rest of the Christmas stuff I have yet to get in the next couple of days. At least I've gotten a few things taken care of (like the BIG one, seeing Return of the King) and worked up the energy (and the courage) to start a few more (i.e. the communities). Not bad for a weekend where I didn't have any energy. | |||
| Saturday, December 20th, 2003 | ||||
| 5:24 pm | What the hell? Not again. You'd think people would have learned their lesson nearly a century ago when a few "moral, upstanding" busybodies mucked about with the Consitution and instituted Prohibition, giving organized crime its foot in the door in this country. Amendments to the United States Constitution should be for important things. REALLY important things like safeguarding freedoms and making sure the government doesn't get too big for its britches, not for social issues like bans on drinking and gay marriage. I mean how long will it be before public opinion changes the other way. It's a damn sight easier to eliminate a stupid law than it is to repeal a Constitutional amendment. Perhaps the amendment everyone should be seeking is one that prevents the Constitution from being monkied with for the benefit of a few political pundits and to mollify a few misguided moralists and reserve the amendment process for stuff that actually has to do with governing this country. Current Mood: annoyed | |||
| 1:39 pm | Anonymous resurrection I never did that anonymous question/thing/whatever post that circulated around Livejournal a few weeks ago. You know what they say about better late than never, right? Just in case you don't remember the deal, post a question, comment, whathaveyou to my journal and in the case of the questions I'll do my best to respond, provided it's not too personal a thing to get into. I've turned off that IP thing for the time being, so feel free to post anonymously by selecting anonymous when posting. Current Mood: curious | |||
| Friday, December 19th, 2003 | ||||
| 11:49 pm | Sense of community Well I finally got off my dead rump and did something I'd been promising/threatening to do for some time now....okay, so only Jon and Jawz have really heard about this until now, but I did go ahead and do it finally. I created my own community anthroartassoc for Livejournal anthro/furry artists to post work and (hopefully) receive positive feedback to their work. I had this idea months ago and developed it with a great deal of help from Jon. But ![[info]](http://library.vu.edu.pk/cgi-bin/nph-proxy.cgi/000100A/http/web.archive.org/web/20040514134221im_/http:/=2fstat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} jawzdharken gave me a tremendous boost to do this when I saw her artwork last weekend. She does some phenomenal stuff, as do a number of furry artists out there across the Internet. The big thing they lack is feedback and appreciation of there artwork. I don't know if the 3A is going to be that place but at least I've laid the groundwork. Now if I can just get a few more people in on it, maybe it can be a place fur artists can share techniques and tricks and artwork. Incidentally, for those of you looking for something a bit more....risque than the general community, I've also created the xxxanthartassoc but I'm sure a number of you saw that coming, now didn't you? Current Mood: creative Current Music: Trevor Rabin: Launch - Armaggeddon soundtrack | |||
| Monday, December 1st, 2003 | ||||
| 8:07 am | Eh.
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| Wednesday, November 5th, 2003 | ||||
| 12:16 am | For the past couple of days, I've felt compelled to post something here. I don't know why, that's just how compulsions are. For those same couple of days, I've struggled with what I should post. My dilemma certainly doesn't stem from lack of subjects. I could easily discuss recent "therapeutic acquisitions" to my book and DVD collections or some of my recent sketch ideas or how I enjoy my new Alex Ross art book but get discouraged with his magazine interviews and what they say about the state of the comic book industry or how I'm one season away from having the entire Deep Space Nine series or the doubts and difficulties I've had recently knowing it won't be too much longer before my grandmother dies or how I've accepted more (i.e. MAJOR) responsibility at work for an entire line of furniture that I won't be getting paid anything extra to take care of but I know the store needs or how my first genuine laughter in a while came tonight while watching Finding Nemo or how I was standing in the parking lot at Target on a couple of occasions watching a hawk and a flight of F-16 jets fly over and noticed I was the only one to look up and marvel at both or how badly I wanted to throw the printer at work through my office window because it kept tearing the price tags I needed to print up when I had so much other work to do or how my left forearm aches in sort of a strange way or how I miss talking to certain people but am powerless to actually get through to them. See? And that's kind of a short list. My problem is when I sit down in front of this thing, somehow I lose the desire, the will to actually say any of this stuff to whomever might be reading this. I honestly don't know why and part of me wonders why I should even care. I just don't know. Maybe this will satsify my compulsion for a while though so I can move on to other things. | |||
| Monday, November 3rd, 2003 | ||||
| 8:41 pm | Because there's so much to say.... ...but no energy tonight to say any of it, so you get this instead. Don't you feel positively privledged? Yeah, I thought it was a stretch too but that's how it goes in my thrill-a-minute existence. | |||
| Friday, October 31st, 2003 | ||||
| 12:53 am | ||||
| Wednesday, October 29th, 2003 | ||||
| 8:39 am | R.I.F. I've read a number of entries suggesting people are culling their friends lists recently. I suppose a number of them have upwards of 50 or more on their friends page as well as several communities thrown into the mix and have work up to their eyeballs too. Speaking for myself, I usually have to pry myself away from commitments and other time-sucking happenings to do things I'd much rather do. Or stay up all hours of the night. Or both. But I do take the time to read all the entries on my friends page. Granted, there are a number of people who may not post for days, weeks, or months at a time but when they do, I read it. I try to make it a big point when I'm online to read everyone's entries I can and a number of the follow up comments as well. Perhaps I'm following the "do unto others" rule of thumb, though I'd like ot think it's because I'm genuinely interested in what others have to say...when they post that is. I wish my reading everything could extend to posting comments too. To be honest, there are a number of people on my friends list I don't really know but am trying to by reading what they post. Most of the time I just don't know what, if anything, to say. I'd hate to come off as stupid, insensitive or flippant in a situation where such behavior is uncalled for or even to be misunderstood as such when I'm trying to be very serious. I've tried to be very cautious of what I say or do online and rarely post any comments without thinking them through carefully first. Sometimes this means that the entry I'm thinking about has faded before I have had a chance to post and I'm stuck with a dilemma. Do I post anyway and bring the post back to someone's attention? I know how valuable it is to finally be able to let go of and forget sometthing, to have it fade into obscurity just as I know how rotten it feels when someone else doesn't know when to leave well alone and dredges it all up again. In nearly all such cases, I drop my reply and try to focus on new entries instead. As most can probably guess, I don't get the job done very well with those either. I apologize to any who might be offended by this or feel I'm ignoring them. I'd just rather say nothing than the wrong thing. | |||
| Tuesday, October 28th, 2003 | ||||
| 7:34 am | Larger than life Not too much to really say. I find myself starting to stumble a bit in my recent momentum regarding my artwork, at least mentally. I've managed fix up another older sketch somewhat. I've uploaded it but not coded it into my webpage just yet. Lucky readers of this journal can preview the image here. Thanks goes to my boyfriend, Jon Redfox for suggesting the title even if he hadn't seen the image yet. Somehow I feel compelled to add this image is presented in 'widescreen' format. The black bars at the top and bottom are normal. | |||
| Sunday, October 26th, 2003 | ||||
| 5:08 pm | Mission accomplished I've been doing a bit better this weekend than in weekends past. I feel this time like I've actually accomplished something the past few days. Last night I finished watching the entire Battlestar Galactica series, capping the whole thing off watching the Remembering Battlestar Galactica featurette. Have some of the actors aged, especially Dirk Benedict (Starbuck) and Noah Hathaway (Boxey). Galactica represents the most complete viewing of a DVD boxed set I've ever managed so far as I've watched all the episodes and several of the special features as I've taken the time to watch the deleted and alternate scene segments for many of the episodes. I even hope to watch the 3 part pilot with commentary by Richard Hatch (Apollo), Dirk Benedict, and Herbert Jefferson, Jr. (Boomer) sometime soon. I've listened to parts already but haven't had time just yet for the whole commentary. I think I'll wait until after I've watched the Indiana Jones collection. And possibly Nightmare Before Christmas, which I caught parts of on TV earlier but commercials really ruin the flow of the film. I've also managed to update my webpage a little after over a year of not doing so. I only have one non-sketch image I've added this time, my commission on Furbid but I did add a fairly completed sketch this afternoon that I'd been finishing up over the past couple of days. For those of you interested, you can see it here. For some reason I really, really like this particular sketch. I wish I could remember why I started it and what I was thinking at the time. Perhaps I'm happy because it represents some forward progress on my work and that I've actually gotten this sketch to a nearly finished picture stage. I tend to think it's a bit more than that though. To me, there's so much emotion to the image. But that could just be me. I've been thinking of strategies to keep this momentum going that I've had on my artwork the past few days. One idea I've had I would tentatively call "A Work in progress", wihich would be a daily record of my progress from sketch to completed picture of an image. I could use some suggestions of pictures people would like to see finished though. I personally have too many to actually choose from one alone to start with. | |||
| Saturday, October 25th, 2003 | ||||
| 10:16 am | Jawz safe. Jawz approved? The Jawz-safe stuff is up on the website now Jawz. I know it's not much but there are a couple of sketches that need some more teaking before I can upload them. Four's not a bad start though, right? | |||
| Thursday, October 23rd, 2003 | ||||
| 9:43 am | Sketchy update I spent a lot of last night and on into the morning scanning and most of this morning updating and uploading some new sketches to my webpage. At this point all of them are adult but I promise to get to the safe stuff soon Jawz. I even wrote it on my main page to let the world know, okay? Not that I'm too concerned about the world but you do know where I live and it's wise not to upset a Hydrocarthian aquadragon for she may steal my Cinnabons and put wasabi in my hot chocolate. Not sure if that's better or worse than having an upset Wookie pull my arms off or not but I dont think I'd care to tempt either fate. | |||
| Wednesday, October 22nd, 2003 | ||||
| 9:32 am | Raiders rocks! Had a few spare minutes this morning so I put in the Raiders of the Lost Ark, er, excuse me, the Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark DVD. I skipped ahead to the famous truck scene and again to the wrath of God (take that Nazi scum?). You know, I've heard somewhere that George Lucas thinks DVD is an inferior format. If so Mr. Lucas, you have to be living in a galaxy far, far away. Raiders has never looked or sounded better in all the hundreds of times I've watched it. Far be it from me to tell you Mr. Lucas how to merchandise anything but you might want to rush a certain Episodes 4, 5, and 6 onto DVD as soon as you possibly can. You'd be doing me and a lot of other people one humongous favor (and getting oodles of cash to boot). Seriously (though I'm VERY serious about the last suggestion), whoever did the technical work on Raiders (haven't watched the other 2 just yet) deserves an award. As I've said, I must have seen that truck sequence hundreds of times but today was like watching it for the very first time. No, BETTER that the first time. Even with a 20" flatscreen. Perhaps it's the surround sound that makes the difference, though the fully-restored digitial picture quality might be a factor as well. In other news, I'm thinking about opening my picture idea to just about any design suggestion to improve my website (finishing sketches does not count as a suggestion, neither does do more work. More exceptions are likely to be listed as I think of them). I have some ideas of my own but nothing at all definite and I really don't surf sites that much. Maybe someone out there has seen something that would really add some flash....though not Flash to my website. Remember, I'm limited to HTML and some Javascript tricks and really don't feel like dealing with Dreamweaver, Frontpage, or Macromedia's stuff. | |||
| 1:24 am | "By your command." I've spent the lion's share of the evening restoring my webpage. Things are back to relatively normal, though this experience did force me to make some much needed changes, both to the site and a long-overdue redirect link. Have my page counts jumped the last couple of days. I have several more sketches lined up for scanning. I'm ever so lazy about adding new stuff though. And there's the oft-procrastinated overhaul of the whole site itself. Does anyone have any suggestions for the thumbnail images to make them easier to create, aside from generating a thumbnail grid? Those always lack style and give away too much of the image. I like the idea of retaining the graphic image as some of my verbal comments compliment the images at best and are totally irrelevant or just plain awful at worst. But I'm open to any suggestion and think it would only be fair to reward the best suggestion with a picture drawn by yours truly. I've also spent all this time uploading watching the first couple of episodes, complete with deleted and alternate scenes, of Battlestar Galactica. Funny how I waited all this time for the Indiana Jones collection to come out on DVD but I've spent the last several hours watching Galactica instead. At least I no longer feel psycho, thinking I'd dreamed up parts that weren't in the film version which I'd already had on DVD. Turns out all those parts are in the TV pilot version included at the beginning of the series box set (and in 5.1 surround compared to the movie's 1.1 mono soundrack). The one advantage the film retains in that case is the widescreen format. Oh well, maybe I can get to the Indiana Jones set much later today in the evening. Though I still haven't watched all of Matrix Reloaded (just the really cool freeway sequence a half dozen times as well as the fight in the chateau and with the Smith swarm). At least I did did watch The Lion King a couple of times and went through 90% of the extras....nearly a first for me. It usually takes me a year to get through the extras. Oh well....bedtime now. After all it is nearly 1:30 AM. | |||
| Sunday, October 19th, 2003 | ||||
| 5:44 pm | Changes I went ahead and made some website modifications. Don't get too excited, I haven't added anything, just taken some of it away. I may or may not ever explain my reasons. Suffice to say I don't feel like explaining them now. | |||
| Saturday, October 18th, 2003 | ||||
| 10:09 pm | --EDIT-- I decided to delete the auction after all. And I changed some portions of my webpage. Might make some more changes before I'm through. Depends on how I feel later. | |||
| 5:31 pm | Family "fun" The next time anyone even hints about me spending "quality time" with my family, their dentist will be able to afford a new Lexus, fully loaded. Maybe a bone doctor and pain specialist too. Depends on the mood I'm in. Right now that mood is decidedly foul. I could use every explitive in every language known to this world throughout history and they still wouldn't be enough to convey how I feel. I've spent the majority of my day with a sick, elderly woman and a spoiled child who subsists on nothing but sugar and starch. I've endured bad cartoons and whining about bad cartoons. And I couldn't even take advantage of resting in front of those bad cartoons without having to do something for someone every five to ten minutes. My father spent just about all of this time in bed because of his back, so I was completely on my own. He's somewhat awake now some I am taking advantage of that and sneaking away for a little mental breather. I am so looking forward to evening right now. I did manage to find out one thing watching cartoons today...well, two. Cartoon Network has a Duck Dodgers series (Finally! Daffy Duck with his own show!!) and the episode even had Green Lanterns in it and they were surprisingly accurate. It even featured long-time nemesis to Hal Jordan, Sinestro (voiced delightfully by Q himself, John de Lancie). So that was cool. And I found out that Cartoon Network also has a "new" anime show, Knights of the Zodiac. I say "new" in quotes because I've known the show for over a decade as Saint Seiya. Can't say I really cared for the theme song (an updated cover version of 80's band A Flock of Seagulls only hit). More disappointing was the removal of the original soundrack which was one of the biggest reasons I love Saint Seiya in the first place. At least they kept the characters original names. I guess the rest of the day is all downhill when the best part of it comes at the beginning, in my case, a phone call from Jon. Thanks for calling Jon, it's always so wonderful to hear from you. | |||
| Friday, October 17th, 2003 | ||||
| 9:20 pm | ||||
| 10:37 am | Crushed I know I've not had nearly enough sleep when I start coming up with odd little doodle ideas, especially when they're over something as frivolous as the recent crush....thing on LJ. But sometimes you have to go with the flow and draw whatever comes to mind or it will hound you until you do. So, for better or worse, good or evil, chocolate or peanut butter, here's my little editorial comment on the whole affair. Warning: the image is the product of a sleep deprived, somewhat unsettled mind and....well, somewhat gross. Humor/disgust value may vary. Management not held repsonsible for any accidents or psychological trauma that may result. Please use with caution. | |||