Dana's Animated Mind

As you might be able to tell, I don't post a lot in this blog, and that is kind of weird. This year saw only 12 blogs while 2007 saw 34.

People look back at 2008 and go "What the hell?" Allow me to list the what the hells for me:

1. Lost my job
2. Had a flareup of Fibromyaglia
3. Lost my ability to drive

Despite the economy and health, I am still strong. One of the positive highlights of 2008 is:

1. I finished animating Rite of Passage. :)

With all the bad, you must also count the good. :)

I just got done watching "Children of a Lesser God", and it kind of made me think. Can anyone truly understand me? Can they truly get inside my head and go "Dana is this way because..."

I know 90% of the time I am quite secretative and private, and for good reason. I really have a hard time trusting people. Watching Marlee Matlin in that movie made me think of myself..well except for the fucking better then hearing boys or other topics. However, people look at closed caption on the TV and go "Cool."

It is a convenience so you don't have to take in every sound or whisper, and you know what they say.

But do you also consider there are people like me who can't sit in the movies because I can't understand 50% of the dialogue? Without closed captions, I wouldn't be able to understand tv. It was an interesting reminder, that movie.

Some days I look around and wonder what matters anymore. For example, today. I got yet another cold versus a bronchospasm. The problem is..it is possibly bronchitis. Now, for those of you wondering how one can tell the diffence:

1. Bronchospasms, as with other asthma related symptoms, seize your air ways until you feel like you are dying. Bronchitis in progress can sound almost identical.

2. Bronchitis feels like your lungs just want to die if you try to take in a deep breath but can manage shorter breaths. Usually a result of lack of sleep and cold virus going around.

3. VERY Bad cold: Unfortunately, we know what this is like. However, typically with a very bad cold Advair or Abuteral will open myself up. Not always with bronchitis due to inflammation and infection, but a lot of times for bronchospasms. Probably what's keeping me breathing. It could also be a bad cold causing a bronchospasm, but only one way to know for sure. I think any asthmatic will fully empathesize with the fact when you get a problem with your lungs you simply don't fuck around.

Aside from that bit of drama, I did start college, and since I have not receive any private notes from my instructor I am starting off strong. I didn't have an doubts about that, but it is a good feeling anyways.:)

Also, I have applied and gotten a welcome from group that hosts erotic art as a paysite. This is my first venture into having my artwork viewed and I get paid for it..it sounds kind of interesting. I do have to be careful what I use since a few things have "No Commerial use", but other then that I am excited.:)

Well, I do believe there is a such a thing as never keeping a good man down. So, I decided to make a physical representation of a female character I tend to write about now and then. Female Irish Boxer with a perchant for knockouts (in more ways then one).:) It helped my mind anyways.:)

Before people start thinking I dropped dead, I am still around. Just haven't been in much of a mood to write aside from an occasional update on Rite of Passage.

Has stopped me from animating or stuff, just writing. Right now, I am facing the truth that I have a neurological disorder that is sometimes rather painful and difficult to deal with. Of course, I have ulcerative colitis, and that helps me get through the day. Well, in a way. If it had not been for that, I would of lost complete patience.

However, I am going back to school to major in Network and Communications. I thought about animation, and I know the job could be lucrative if I really pushed it. The truth is..if I did animation for a living then what would I do as a hobby? To level my mind out.;)

It's been awhile since I haven't posted here since March, but a lot of things happened between then and now that dampen my post.

1. I turned 30. Ok, it wasn't that bad but I really did turn 30.:)
2. I made a made push to get Episode 2 finished, and for the most part it is. The composer has done five minutes, and just need to do two sets of vocals, and we are peachy keen.

3. I have been in pain which prevented me from sitting in my chair recently, so..

However, I made this picture the other day, and it just came to be.;) I think that describes my style..I don't force it out, I let it flow along. Sometimes, what I planned doesn't work out but something else comes along the way. It is exciting that way:)

I watched Rocky Balboa the other night, and it was pretty good despite all the negative publicity before the movie even came out. It came very strong and very human. It also has a good message that I think I knew anyways. It isn't about how hard you can hit, it is about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward.

That's pretty much my life because I get hit hard, and I still try to move forward. I did this picture the other day despite the fact I felt absolutely awful. So despite anything, I am still trying..:)

I have been battling for my right to sanity the last month or so. I spent the last two weeks of February sick, and a whole lot of Febuary and the beginnings of March in pain from a pinched nerve.

Now I am not whining, but when your entire left arm is effected and your primary duties is chat support, this tends to be a little bit of a problem.:)

And the drugs..if a toxicology was ever done on me, they would find so much shit in my blood streams it is scary. Aside from caffeine, you will find a muscle relaxer which is the only way I can perform my job with any amount of effectiveness due to a pinched/inf lammed nerve, a tylenol/muscle relaxer mix if I get one of those blasted headaches from said pinched nerve, asacol for colitis, calcium with vitamin d for osteopenia, aciphex for GERDs, and prednisone for inflamed nerve. I turn thirty next month.

If you are wondering what a young man like myself is doing with osteopenia or how much I screwed up to get it, it is really not that simple. The fact is I drank milk and exercised regularly before my battle with colitis begun. The truth is: That when all this crap begun. Before I had colitis, I rarely took anything. My pain tolerance is good enough to withstand enough without taking alieve or anything like that consistently. Of course, when a beer bottle landed on my knee, that was a whole different story.

Yes, Prednisone is an antiflammatory, and there are plenty out there. I am sure if anybody else got the inflamed nerve, they would go with an asprin based product due to how nasty prednisone is. However, there is also colitis. Asprin will thin my blood out, and when you got something where blood comes out of your rear...thin blood isn't good.

On the PLUS side, a lot of the weight I packed on is water and will go away in a week or so after I am off the prednisone. So this is what was on my mind while making this picture..:)

Recently (Monday) I lost a cockerpoo. He had lived for 11 years, and once of the bright points of my day. My golden retriever would be my other one. He was dying from a blood disorder that really hit on Saturday so by Monday, he was nearly gone. This could of been treated with steroids, but he was diabetic so it would only cause more problems. So we did the only thing we could do: We put him to sleep.

Some people treat these matters like it is no big deal, but these pets are family. I remember when he was a pup and he would jump up and down at the gate so excited to see me. I remember the times when he would climb on the bed and lay on my leg so I wouldn't go anywhere. I remember the times...essentially I remember a lot of moments. It is going to be very different without hearing his bark, but I am at peace with the fact he is no longer suffering.

It's kind of hard to get artistically incline this happens, but I decided to do one this morning because while I am sad, I don't want Mickey to see me horridly miserable. He was fully of happiness and joy, and brought happiness and joy to us.

I once told him I love him to death...I kind of lied. I still love him after death. So for the fuzzy little cockerpoo name Mickey or nickname Fudley, may you be in peace bud.

Yes, I say hmm alot.:) I took a vacation which somewhat means I didn't do much 3D art. Not that I don't consider it relaxing, it is the fact my poor laptop didn't like it.:)

But I did come back with avengence with this cute little doll.:)

Sometimes it is difficult to express thoughts that a whole majority will understand, but then again, that's life. It's a little late to be worrying about that almost 30. Still, I can't help but wonder if there is something about me that is a little off.

A study done a few years back suggested that creative people suffer a form of an insanity (I doubt suffer is the appropriate word for this). So the more creative we are, the deeper we are into the abyss?

No, I don't think that is entirely it.

One person told me that it sounds odd that I consider characters like they are real people, but sometimes I don't think they quite get it. At least that's my impression. All the characters I have written and drawn are a fragmentation of my core personality.

If you wonder about me playing female characters despite being a guy and what part of my personality that is, well I don't think there is any non-psychological way to explain it. The best I can come up with is the balance of very diverse personality. I embraced a bit of my feminine side a long time ago to create a balance in the story so it is not too macho or too much girl power. Both make me ill.

Think about it. If I wrote a story built around a guy needs to be great at everything, and how he is the sole purpose of existence, then that will ignore the females completely. If I wrote about the opposite extreme, then damn shoot me. Instead, I try to write a balance in between to blend in a unique collection of characters with scenarios that sometimes you only see if nightmares.

Of course, if nightmares are the source of disturbance, hell I've been disturbed since I was a young kid. I don't have comparison notes with other children, but often would dream of things that to this day frightens me a whole lot. I often don't speak of them, but they have become a source of enlightment when I do the horror bits.

However, my best ideas for horror tends to not be tangible. I was once talking about doing a Sci-fi Horror where the monsters were toxic vapor hallucinations. It would save money on the monsters, that's for sure.

Oh my..I see some arguements about David Bowie and Kurt Cobain about the Man Who Sold The World. Youtube comments tend to make laugh because you can always except at one point for it's maturity to dive. The funniest part of all this is a copyrighted material, and it's amazing how they get into a tizzy.

I am not so much into David Bowie, and yes I like Nirvana..but..come on. "U R a Fagoot" gets very old very quick. It's like these people are in their very early teens or lack the ability to properly communication

Was there a point to this blog? Not really..just sat down and wrote.:)

Can someone please explain to me this one. Why people go out and buy Vista machines when there are machines that have XP, and try to turn the Vista into XP machines? Then yell at Technical Support when it doesn't quite work?

"I can't do this, I can't do that!" seems to be the logic, but a smart buyer would've found out if there were programs they critically use before they bought the machine. Oh..yea, they like to throw in "I paid X amount of dollars."

For the love of holy, why do I care? It's annoying because they still expect us to support the machine even though it is not in factory state. That's kind of like opening a CD player and adding on modification then faulting the company if it breaks down.

The best one? When people do these swaps without asking Technical Support. We know which machines have NO XP drivers availiable. So when we inform them of such, they go on and on about how they have a paperweight like it is my fault. I kind of like to go "Sir, if you contacted us, not only would we tell you we wouldn't support it but we would of also told you there were no drivers." Unfortunately..I can't.

The only pleasure I find in life anymore is animating because customers drive me insane. Well, not for a week. I will be going on vacation and not dealing with those customers. WOOT!

Sometimes in order to survive, I must learn certain truths that my not be pleasant. One of those truths is colonoscopy. Now, in skilled and careful hands, these tests often go smoothly and fear not, it is did in this case.

But this is the reason I animate. I know there is something inside me that may go active, might not..or do something worse. Animation keeps my mind off that dreadful fact and bring me to a happy place..although some of my animation can be ruled dark, disturbing, and possibly a little moody. ;)It's how I survive.