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$300 later, at least I have my car back. It's been.... It's been a day. I'm exhausted since I've been up since 6, and the stress has just been piled on. But, at least it's over for now. We'll see what happens going forward. Though, my experience here is that absolutely nothing will change despite what's promised.
I am so livid right now. So, some dumbfuck had my car towed because it was parked in front of my garage all night. I only parked it in front of my garage because there was literally no where else to park inside the complex that was within reasonable walking distance to my front door. And I had the full intention of parking inside my garage when someone left for work. That person didn't go to work today, so, ultimately, it was left out all night. I was sure as fuck not going to park my car on a dark, unlit street outside of my complex, being a lone woman at 11 at night. But, the funniest thing, is that there are people here who park their cars in front of their grarges all night without getting their cars towed. Only me. Apparently I'm the only one who has to adhere to the fucking rules. Fuck this place. Fuck my piece of shit neighbors, and fuck this fucking HOA. I'd burn it all to the ground if I could.
I've gotta say, I'm pretty happy with how Nocturnal Retribution is turning out. I've got some insanely active members, and they're brining to forum to life. Even my not so active members, those dear friends who joined just for me. I'm so thankful. I've got amazing graphics for the Crest, rep, and my Mark. I do still need to completely overhaul the main page, but I've been slow with that. It's hard to put things into words when it's not your creation. I don't want to turn away from what was originally written, but I also want to put my mark on it. I'll probably brainstorm a bit this weekend when I'm with Logan, see what insights he can give me. But yeah, I'm happy with how it's going.
This is my jam at the moment. Fuck man, it was something else growing up in the 90's with music like this. I miss it. Simpler times. Granted, this song is from '99, but it still counts.
I posed this question to my House members, but I figured I'd also post it here. I'm having trouble picking my Master's Mark. Currently it's the symbol for the Imperial Empire from Star Wars, because I'm a nerd. But, I've been playing around with MidJourney a lot and it's given me some pretty awesome images to pull from. So I have a dragon one that's more on theme with Nocturnal Retribution as a whole. But, I can't decide between the two. So, why not see what others think of the two? Let me know which one you prefer, my current Mark, or the prospective one.
I am torn.... I like the current one because it's simplified making it easy to see at the size it has to be.... I like the potential one because it is more house themed.... tough choice here....
Right? It's so hard to pick. I want to stay on theme, of course, but I also want to be able to express myself, which is why I went with Star Wars. But I really like the dragon one. I can't do difficult decisions, haha.
The current mark for sure. The other one is nice, but why change something that seems to work?
01:34 Jan 25 2023 Times Read: 250
Update: Galaxy projector is everything I didn't know I needed. The one problem is that I couldn't really find a great place to put it so it could project onto my ceiling, for best results it kinda needs to be in the middle of the room, but that's space taken up by my bed. So, for now, it's on a box in front of my closet, and it works. It looks so pretty. Best $40 spent in a while.
Also, I did more playing around in MidJourney, and I have a few fun things from it. So, I'll be updating my Mark, (probably) and my rep file as soon as I find the drive to set up my laptop so I can get the images into Photoshop. Hopefully I'll take care of that at some point tonight.
Has anyone here used MidJourney, the AI art tool? I've been playing around with it in my personal Discord channel, and it's surprising how good a lot of these images are. I mean, you can still tell pretty easily that it's AI generated art, there are a lot of weird extras and things that don't makes sense, but despite that, the art still looks really good. I am not a fan of AI art, as most of these programs "learn" from stealing art off the internet from real artists who don't consent to their work being used, but the results are pretty interesting. I'm really torn on it.
On one hand, the artist in me hates the whole idea of AI generated art. As someone who's had their words stolen more times than I care to count, I know how frustrating it can be when you have no recourse, when you can't stop someone from using your art, stripping you of the credit you rightly deserve. That shit hurts. On the other, I can see how this could be used as a really helpful tool. You can get a rough image of what you want out there, something to reference, something to build upon. I was seriously surprised how good some of the images I asked for turned out. A lot of them are practically Crest worthy with some minor adjustments in Photoshop.
It pains me to admit that. It really does. But, I'd be a liar if I said I wasn't seriously considering using some of these AI generated images in things for Nocturnal Retribution. Nothing to replace the Crest, because I love that Crest with every fiber of my being, but for general graphic related things, a lot of these images would be well suited for it.
Not at all, it's $8 for the most basic subscription plan, which gives you 200 prompts a month. You just need to have a Discord server of your own, or to be able to use their official server, to use their AI program. They also have a free trial which allows you 25 prompts to test it out.
04:22 Jan 24 2023 Times Read: 309
I haven't been feeling totally myself the last handful of days, so I decided to splurge a little on myself. I bought one of those galaxy projectors for my bedroom. I got one for the White Elephant gift exchange we do with my mom's family for Christmas Eve. I tested it out before wrapping it up, and it was pretty nice. I like soft, shifting light in my room as I'm trying to wind down, so I think this will prove to be a good buy. Plus, the colors are just pretty. The color setting of soft blues and greens is likely going to be the only setting I really use, though. Since those relax me the most and it would match the colors in my entertainment center/electric fireplace.
Sometimes it's just the little things that can make you feel better. Nothing expensive, nothing over the top, just a little galaxy projector for my bedroom ceiling will do it.
It's one of the worst feelings in the world to feel like you've been used by someone you thought was a friend. They took all that you could give, all your hard work and effort, and then threw you aside when you were no longer useful.
But, I'm just overly sensitive, and I dislike sudden changes where no reason is given. Because then I'm left to overthink the situation and speculate on what went wrong, how I screwed up. In this situation, though, I don't know. I guess I just need to put on my big girl pants and get over it. People are funny.
After five long, annoying days, I was able to get my phone screen fixed. So, yay! The tech came out to my work and it took all of 20 minutes to replace the screen. Now I just have to be extra careful until I can get home today and put a new scree protector on this bitch. Not that it really helped all that much...
I did manage to get a new case though, so that should be here soonish, hopefully. It's just nice to have a phone that isn't cracked. I don't know how paople can go without changing out a cracked screen. Not only does it look awful, but at least with my phone, it was effecting the actual display. Blacks were not showing properly, they became this muddy gray, and every time I turned the screen on, it would flash for a few seconds before showing the normal display. Not something I would want to deal with indefinitely.
Okay, now that I've had some time to soak everything in and have a look around, I realize I need to do some rearranging of my profiles. I was taken out of Eternal so I could be put in as the head of Nocturnal Retribution on this account, but I find I rather like being in Eternal, so I'll likely send my alt Sire back over there. Which means pulling it out of Caomhnõir-an-Eolas where it's currently housed. And, that would mean I would have a profile in three of the seven Houses, haha.
I'm truly honored and humbled to be given this promotion. It's been a dream of mine since I first joined VR so many years ago to reach the rank of Master Vampire. And, for the longest time I never thought it a possibility, then Cartomancer put my name forward, and, well, here we are. I am not quite sure what direction I'll go with Nocturnal Retribution, but I'm eager to get started. This is going to be a journey, but one I'm excited to take. But man, is it ever weird to see "Master Vampire" under my name and avatar
It really does take some getting use to, see it alongside with the username.
Hell, it's been almost (getting there) a decade now for me and I still go "oh, right... That's suppose to be there." LOL
22:34 Jan 15 2023 Times Read: 701
Holy shit, guys. Woke up to the most amazing news ever. Nocturnal Retribution is mine! I'm so honored to have been given this position. Thank you to Cancer, and to Cartomancer who put my name forward.
I've had one cell phone or another for over 20 years now, and never once had I ever cracked a screen on my phones. Until last night. I have a Samsung S22 Ultra, and it's got a case, one of those Samsung ones that flips open, and has a little widow you can see notifications and such through when the case is closed. I also have a screen protector on. But, I got so lucky last night that I dropped it maybe a foot into my bathroom sink, where it hit the sink stopper in at such an angle that it got right where the screen protector stops and right before the case begins. It's such a small surface area, but I'm just that lucky. So, now I have two chips in the screen, with hairline cracks going the entire length of the screen. I was about ready to cry when it happened. Thankfully I found out I have insurance, because it could be up to a $300 repair cost to replace the screen. But, I'll only have to pay a $30 deductible. The only downside is that it won't be fixed until next Tuesday. I just find it so funny. I went years and years with touchscreen phone, running around with no screen protector, and then the one time I have one on, it doesn't fucking protect the screen. I'm going to look into a case that comes with a built in screen protector now, because I'll be damned if I let this shit happen again.
I should play the lotto with that kind of stupid luck, I swear.
Lifeproof is the brand I would recommend. Their best cases protect not only from screen damage but are waterproof up to 6 feet. It's a case brand I swear by.
18:39 Jan 10 2023 Times Read: 831
I got my Hogwarts Legacy Delux Edition preorder in, finally. I was really on the fence about supporting someone like J.K. Rowling, given her beliefs on trans people, but the game looks cool and I want it... I grew up reading Harry Potter, I went to nearly every book release at midnight, did midnight shows for the movies, it has been a very huge part of my youth, that it's hard to just turn my back on it. I don't condone anything Rowling has said against trans people, but I'm not going to dislike something just because the creator is a piece of shit. If I did, I'd have to stop liking a whole lot of things due to problematic people/companies. So, I mean, you've just gotta separate the artist from the art at this point.
I did cancel my preorder for the newest Destiny 2 expansion that also comes out next month. This is the first time since I started playing Destiny on day one that I'm not actually pre-ordering the newest DLC. To be fair, I did when it was first announced, the whole hundred bucks... But over the months since, I've stopped playing. I missed pretty much all of last season. I was stoked for the pirate thing, then only really played about two weeks of that season. Didn't really do the Halloween or Christmas events. I'm just so burned out on that game. And, after a good 7 years of daily play, it's only natural. So, I'm really looking forward to Hogwarts Legacy, I hope it'll give me something to sink into.
Conversations, actual voice conversations, can be a healing thing. Text can be cold, unfeeling, nuance can be lost. It is going to be a rocky road, no doubt, but I think that was something that's been necessary for years now. It's a real step in the right direction.
All I can say to this it’s about damn time some progress was actually started lol
23:23 Jan 03 2023 Times Read: 956
Holy cow, Photoshop is hard to get back into when you have been without it for a number of years. I think the last time I had it was in 2020. It's gonna take me some time to relearn the many things I've forgotten, and to reacquainte myself with the program as a whole. Here's to hoping I can adjust and create pretty things again.
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