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So my sweet las Azadeh decided earlier this spring that going to Spain would be a natural step towards becoming fluent in Spanish.
Who do we call?
Our man in Benidorm, of course, Nacho AKA Farlander AKA "you are very smart".

Nacho translated Aza's CV, arranged a job in a nearby bar and provided free (!) accommodation in one of his parents' apartments in down town Benidorm. He was furthermore very helpful in various matters, and Aza hung out with his family a lot.

I visited them last week, and there was much joy.

Some photos from a nice excursion to an old village in the mountains.
Azadeh, Lorena and Nacho:

Yours truly and the nice Benidorm beach:

Azadeh in an old sort of opening of some kind:


Muchas gracias, Nacho (and family)!

This is a picture I've been working on every now and then during the last months. In periods I've been completely sick of it, then returned to it with renewed energy, well you know the routine. I'm not used to projects this big, as I'm typically happy with speedpainting for an hour or two, so this has been a massive workload for me. Spent hours and hours looking for references, and finding far too few I've been happy with. Re-done parts, erased parts, moved parts, etc etc.

This is a slightly reduced version; the original is over 1200 pixels high.


It's still far from finished, as you can maybe see; at least three of the characters aren't done at all (the little fairy is half-done so far...), there are things to polish basically everywhere in the picture.
The lighting, brightness and contrast are not adjusted, so there will plenty of areas with different contrast and intensity, and shading is not coherent throughout the piece.
The "magic" effect also needs plenty of work.

Basically the piece is depicting a storyteller reading a book that suddenly projects an image of what happens in the tale. The tale is about a unicorn being murdered.

I've stared myself completely blind at this, so there might be some flagrant errors that you can tell me about. C&C appreciated.

Hello, dear forumites, it ares I, Andaile.

Some of you may have noticed that today is Friday 13th. At least if you're that kind of person who works, studies or goes outside regularly; otherwise you might not care much for dates, or other extra-basemential events. Yes, that's a proper word, look it up in a dictionary.
According to Wikipedia, Friday 13th is considered a bad day in "English-, French- and Portuguese-speaking countries around the world"; other regions hold other dates as particularly unlucky. In Greece, for instance, it's Tuesday 13th instead, and in Italy people are extra precautious on Friday the 17th. This means that if you're really superstitious, you can avoid exposing yourself to the mysteriously unmotivated wrath of the time-gods by just crossing a few borders.

Before I actually put something personal in this post, I'd like to take the opportunity to tell you that being afraid of Friday 13th is handily called paraskavedekatriaphobia, which you have to be a proper word-geek to actually memorise.
Why all this lengthy paraskavedekatriaphobia-trivia, you might ask yourself, if you actually managed to memorise that darn word, a question I now feel obliged to answer.
Let me list the events of my day.

1. I can't sleep, despite being exhausted and hung-over. The people in the apartment I've chosen to spend the night in snore too much, and it's too hot, and too crowded.

2. Restless, I get up to check my mobile phone at 5 in the morning, only to find two recently recieved voice messages; one from my girlfriend who is pissed off because I haven't called her for too long; the other from the police who tell me my stolen car has been found.

3. I didn't know my car had been stolen. Apparently the thieves haven't managed to start the engine, so the car has only moved a couple of meters, now blocking the street to my school (where I had parked it the night before) in a disorderly unlawful fashion.

4. I miss the bus, and decide to walk 45 minutes to the school, dehydrated and tired, to move the car myself, as no towing companies answer my calls at this early hour. For some reason the police had no interest in helping me with this simple task; instead they have just tied a neat bow around the side-view mirror with their police tape, as if this would prevent further thievery, or help me identify the car, or serve any bloody purpose at all.

5. The car is broken into (loose cables and plastic debris, you get the idea) but can be pushed back into its parked position, although I'm too light and/or weak to do this myself, since the street is sloping slightly upwards. Several people decline to help me push it, although I am still dressed in my fancy suit and must appear very decent.
Not many people pass by on this street at 6 in the morning. Eventually a woman and her child agree to assist me in this labour. The street is now free from my murdered metal darling.

6. I go home, which takes almost an hour by bus. The communications between home and school are worthless. Which is why I enjoy going by car so much.

7. I phone my girlfriend, who is upset with me. Added to that, there has just been a major gas-leak in her block in Benidorm, and she has just been abruptly evacuated by the police. Then the connection just dies, and I turn instantly worried something terrible has happened.

8. An hour later, I can call her again. She's technically ok. I call around for a company that can tow my car to some garage.

9. At 9 am I call my colleague, who tells me my boss is annoyed because I haven't showed up at work. I mumble something about force majeur, then go to bed.

10. I sleep for a few hours. I wake up and check my job e-mail. An angry mother has complained about the grade I've given her daughter. I realise I've accidentally given the student a too low grade in English, and understandably she and her entire family now hate me.

11. I call my boss. I apologise for my absence. Since there are no classes today (the kids left yesterday) I only miss some evaluation-workshop-crap-thingy.

12. I visit the garage, located in the slums of my town, to which my car is supposed to have been towed, although of course it hasn't yet, since everything works in slow-motion in this branch, and I leave the car keys to some shady ex-convict who’s dressed up as a car mechanic. He mumbles something about wanting extra payment; “for what?” I inquire, and then he forgets about it. "I'll call you on Tuesday", he shouts as he walks away.

13. I return home again. I sleep some more hours. Write this crap.

How's your day been?

No idea behind it really, just relax-painting a bit now that my job is getting less and less stressful.
Feel free to comment. Don't really know where to go from here.

cheers

Finally got around to create a myspace music account. That's one step in the direction of doing something fruitful with my music, I guess.

http://www.myspace.com/petterljungqvist

Haven't had time to add friends yet, just dabbled with the coding for a bit, mostly due to a sudden streak of insomnia. So if you have an account, please be my friend
Oh, and tell me what you think of the music as well, of course. Cheers!

So the other day in school, one of my pupils approaches me in the corridor. She seems to have something urgent on her mind, and some meters away, a little group of girls follow her closely while they whisper nervously amongst eachother. We're talking 12-13 year-olds here (I teach kids from 12-16 currently).
She starts telling about how her two friends - two of the bystanders - have had MSN-contact with a young male teacher for about a year now (already at this point, I probably raised my eye-brows a bit) and how his behaviour during these chat-sessions had gradually increased in intimacy. Some week ago, it had culminated in pure sexual harassment on his part, and the girls had ceased all Internet contact with him. I was rather shocked by now.
So I take the two girls in question (after having thanked my own pupil for being so brave and wise to bring this up with an adult) to the student health counsellor, and bring the head teacher, and some sort of emergency meeting takes place where the girls are properly interviewed one by one. It turns out he had also been mildly physical with them in the corridors; hugged them a bit too often, approached them a bit too enthusiastically.

After this I'm sort of off the case and return to my daily teaching chores.
Some days later, the young male teacher - whom I had only met occassionally and never really spoken to properly - is interrogated and apparently confesses. He's suspended from his job and the police takes over the case.

I'm left rather puzzled. At first I had accepted the possibility that it might be a very vicious conspiracy - not that I mistrust the kids in question, but because kids in that age, over all, aren't very conscientious witnesses, and often fabricate or add to their stories afterwards.  But these particular kids left very straight and credible testimonies without any contradictions whatsoever.

My other impulse was that a person this careless might be calling for help. I mean, everybody now has heard of web-paedophiles getting caught, and everybody knows that chat records will be saved and that IP-addresses can be traced. And even if you can't control this urge...why pick kids at your own school? You're bound to get caught.

Lastly, I can't help but wondering how far this scum would have gone, had he not been revealed. The victims themselves weren't really about to tell anyone (except some close friends), they just thought it enough to block him from MSN.
I'm very satisfied that my own pupil had enough confidence in me to choose me as her channel for this. I must have done something right there

Anyhow, quite dramatic. Like things you read about in the papers.

[TEH RULES! READ CAREFULLY!!]

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, it is time to kick off this activity.
TEH RULES! READ CAREFULLY!!
The general idea is that you will receive a document attached to an email in your inbox, which you will add an amount of text to, and then send to another writer. By participating here, you are obliged to read through the story in its entirety, and make sure you understand it as well as possible, before you add your passage. If you don't have the time or motivation to read through the story that you receive, don't add to it, just pass it along.

How do we do it?P
This time, we write 300 words each. For the sake of coherence and quality, please try your best to make the passage you contribute with fit in the already existing story, and avoid clashing too strikingly with its genre and tone of voice. Remember tense and person and try not to confuse the future readers.

This time, the story will branch in a certain pattern that is laid out below.

                                                       Vince_Twelve
                                                        rock_chick
                                           /                                       
                            Babar                                                  Jack Sheehan
                           Stupot                                                   Tuomas
                     brokenbutterfly                                           Antonio
                          auriond                                                   enveloop
                 /                                                               /                     
[Cameron]                   LGM                                   Eggie                 Pixelperfect
FSi                                voh                                   Jon                     Akatosh
Candall                       Afflict                                 Emerald                Venus
TheJBurger                 twin-moon                      lo_res_man             Jelfish
                                  Andail

You need to consult the signing up-thread to find the cunningly disguised email addresses.

Huh?
Ok, to clarify: Vince_Twelve gets the honour to write the opening passage. After him, Rock-Chick takes over before the story divides into two paths. This means she must send the document to both Babar and Jack Sheehan.
Two teams take over the story, add their words and send it along to the four final teams.
TheJburger, Yours truly, Lo-res-man and Jelfish each makes sure they finish their versions, so we get four complete stories. Of course, each story will only be 3000 words, and less than half of every story will be unique reading.

Time frame
Use this thread (yes it will be cluttered beyond comprehension) to confirm that you've received the document. You must receive and send the story within 48 hours, or the person before you will re-send it to the writer after you in line. This means you have two days to add your passage.
The four stories don't need to be published simultaneously; whenever one path is completed, it will be published here.

Reminders
Keep in mind where you're positioned, and adjust your text to fit that position. If you're in the beginning, don't kill off important characters or try to conclude the story. If you're towards the end, don't introduce too many new characters or concepts.

What do we write about?
Here's the funny part. The genre of this edition's story shall be:

                                              A CONTEMPORARY URBAN SATIRE

Have fun!

Inspired by the ambition and talents displayed during the previous round (even though some considered the result to be dog's vomit) I'm proud to present the new edition.

This time it will be even grander, as I aim to create a story that branches into sub-stories, resulting in multiple endings, just like the best adventure games. I don't need to bore you with technicalities just yet; all you need to do now is sign up and hopefully take part of one of the more extensive collaborative efforts this community has ever witnessed.

You don't want to miss out. Sign up. Now.

This chain story has been finished.
This is the result. Read and laugh/weep:
http://www.2dadventure.com/ags/Another_Day.doc

Well, two new productions by yours truly, one that people might have heard in other versions and one spanking new.
http://www.andail.com/poseidon.mp3
http://www.andail.com/restless.ogg

Sorry that they ended up in different formats, something bugged when I tried to convert the first Poseidon one.

The second one is not entirely finished, it definitely needs something more, like some sort of beat or another instrument etc. But I'm rather stuck so I'm uploading it to get some feedback.

I've intended to start looking for a band soon enough, but haven't had the time yet, so you still have to stand my less than satisfactory vocals and not-so-advanced guitar playing
I sort of like both the melodies, although they differ a lot in style, the first being rather casual singer-songwriter routine, while the other is more medieval so to speak.
Have fun!

What the title says. Not along the lines of "I'm a good husband" or "I raise five kids" or "as a doctor I've saved many lives using my patented life-saving apparatus", no I mean an out of ordinary, self-sacrificing, unexpected and completely benevolent deed.
Preferably you weren't awarded, thanked or even noticed while/after doing it.

Can you come to think of such a deed?

PS: Obviously, the "not even noticed" paragraph is not affected by writing about it in this thread.

[What's a mini story?]

What's a mini story? It's like a short story but shorter. The Times had a competition that yielded some nice results, so I thought it'd fit this community. We need to exercise our story telling, but we might not have time for longer stuff.

Rules
The story must not contain more than 55 words. It needs to be pithy and smart to earn votes. It must inspire the reader's imagination, provoke their thoughts. Be brief but eloquent.

The winner
Will be decided by a public vote, which will be carried out after the deadline. Which is exactly 2 weeks from today.

Good luck!

PS:
I might contribute with a story in due time

Voting procedure update!!
Considering the unexpectedly high participation, I'm implementing a change. We'll vote for five finalists after only one week. These finalists will then write one more contribution each that we will vote for during the second week.

This activity is simple. We all download the 1991 Delphine adventure Cruise for a Corpse.
The game is freeware and can be obtained at various sites, such as the underdogs and abandonia. It's a small and quick download.

I haven't played this game, but I understand that the progress is measured in time, and that each solved puzzle or correct action makes some 30 mins or full hour pass. So I propose that the first segment we play is up to the point where the clock strikes 12:00. I hope this can work out well.
I suggest we give ourselves a couple of days for each segment, so let's say the first deadline is Tuesday, and then we move on to the next segment.

We post regularly in this thread with opinions and comments, and there are no restrictions for how much or how often you can post.

If you can't keep up with the deadlines, just use a walkthrough. I think hiding spoilers in this thread is almost superfluous and quite tedious, so if you wish to try to solve the game on your own, just wait until you've finished the segment before reading a lot of posts.

So, explore the game as much as possible, try out different commands, try alternative routes. Comment about the game's strengths or weaknesses, compare it to AGS games, what could they have done better, what could we do better with AGS, etc. The more elaborate c&c the better.

So, get yourself a copy and let's get started!

Someone requested a tutorial on my technique, so I thought I could demonstrate the simple sketching and painting I use to build up my backgrounds.
The background in its current stage:

This is a picture I started on several years ago, but I picked it up recently and started working on it again.

Here are the steps I save for the tutorial:
1. Basic sketch, laying out the composition. Just a large diagonal, with a chunk of ocean left for the ship to come.


2. Filling with some fundamental colours. I want a very bright scene, so I'm letting through a lot of light blue hues.


3. Refining shapes, adding details, applying a colour depth.


4. Sketching out some textures, more refining.


5. Adding the ship, laying out real textures to the sea, refining shapes.


6. Water gets better reflections, sky gets some handpainting.

First I thought I should cram this into my previous thread, but then again it's not exactly a speedpainting (far from it) so I'll spam this board with another bg-thread...

This is based on a rough sketch I did some time ago for a competition (you can prolly dig it up if you search a bit, although I recommend against that, as it was a jumble mess of a background...), now spent several hours trying to get the right light conditions and colours. It's rather schematic; the yellow light in the foreground, the steel blue in the background and some sort of mix halfway through (the tree to the side).



Need serious c&c before I go on. Do you find the colours/lighting fitting? I think I've stared myself blind on this one so I need opinions.

I really want to start production for an AGS-game, but I realize I'll have severe problems finding the time, with both work and studies and girlfriend. So in order to increase the chances of actually getting anything done, I need to keep a really quick pace, and not get stuck in details.
If I can paint a background under an hour, I could always whip 'em up during coffee breaks and before bedtime.
Example:


So what'ya think? Too sketchy? Too few details to rest your eyes upon? C&C please.

A rather straight-forward thread. I'm just curious as of how much money you make, what you do, how much you work and what kind of area you live in.

I'm a teacher myself, which is pretty much the worst paid job in Sweden if you look at years of education. I've done 4.5 years in university and my (and most other new teacher's) entrance salary weighed in at 20.000 SEK per month, roughly 2000 euros or 3000 dollars. I pay about 30% in taxes. My current rent is about 3000/300/450.

I think that's quite horrible myself, considering that people around me who've studied economics or engineering are paid at least 50% more in average.
(The good thing is that teachers typically don't teach all their hours, but can take some time off for preparations and correcting tests and whatnot (the bad thing is that all the extra-work exceeds that time in the beginning, when you haven't got the experience and routine)).

This is a cover of a Swedish song, a ballad written and performed by the slightly mysterious Kjell Höglund. The only original version I could find online was here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K_I_mro-hkU.
My (rather corny and not so strict) translation to English lyrics.

http://www.andail.com/lake.ogg

I tried to make this very rocky and a bit garage-ish, so there's an unusual amount of compression and distorsion for being me, but also less panning (maybea bad thing?) and a very uncomplicated arrangement; just drums, two guitars and a bass.
I might also add that I haven't heard this song on ordinary speakers yet, as they broke before the recording, so I only know what it sounds like through phones.
C&C appreciated.

To celebrate that my thesis is done, I recorded a song yesterday.

As per usual, I have no freaking clue what I'm doing when it comes to mixing, or when it comes to what style I want to achieve. So in case you don't mind what style of music you listen to, this might suit you.

Upon his Throne

Lyrics, arrangement and vocals all done by me.

This problem has always been there, but it seems to never wear off, and it's becoming increasingly blatant now with all the blogs and whatnot.

But as soon as people can leave comments anonymously, the atmosphere turns so damn hostile. Are people really so full of surpressed anger? Does everyone just feel like smacking every other commenter in the face?
Check a random youtube page; every other comment is just about taking the piss. Any site which doesn't require people to register thoroughly ends up with chidlish, uncalled for aggressions.

So here's a mission: Go to a particularly inflamed board/forum/site and offer a comment that is all about being considerate, polite, mature. Take a screenshot and publish it here. We'll see who can make the biggest contrast - who can offer the most friendliness in the most hostile environment.

Or, if you just wanna discuss this phenomenon and try to explain why it's come to this, you can do that too!