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Halloween is almost upon us!

Halloween is almost upon us!

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Hi gang,

Wow it’s been a little while since I’ve had a minute to post, but the fun never stops. Truth be told, my schedule sucks and I just can’t get the time in that I used to despite having a TON of new projects I want to get going. Seems like all I can is struggle to keep my head above water at this point. But, all depressing thoughts of self-loathing aside, HALLOWEEN IS HERE! This weekend most of us will be out at Halloween parties and such, so here’s an early greeting from Simba, who is now 5 months old and already nearing 60lbs! Oh, and this is my pumpkin Ned. Ned says hi!

Happy Halloween!

Corina and I worked on some pumpkins this weekend while Terri handled pumpkin seed duty… for those of you missing out on this, baked pumpkin seeds are DA BOMB! Seriously, if you’ve never had pumpkin seeds before, you are missing out on a seriously good treat. Not those store bought nasty things that taste like small bits of salt, but I mean do it yourself seeds right out of the pumpkin!

Actually for those of you that want to seriously try this, here’s how I do it:

1. Get a decent sized pumpkin and cut a big round hole in the top and remove the lid. Then with a big metal spoon, scrape out the guts and then separate the seeds from the gunk and put them in a bowl.

2. Lay the seeds out on some cookie sheets (non stick or put some baking parchment underneath) and make sure you don’t pile them over each other.. you want them flat and not covered by other seeds. Don’t worry about orange residue from the pumpkin guts… that will all dry up and vanish.

3. Pop the tray(s) in the oven and let them dry overnight (no need to turn on the oven). Check them the next morning, you might have to flip them a bit.

4. Once dry, spray the seeds a bit with cooking spray or olive oil and salt them.

5. Pop them in the oven at 300F for 15 minutes or until they start to get golden brown and you’re done!

6. Eat them before other people find out you made delicious seeds!

You might find other recipes that say to boil them in water all this other stuff… that’s nonsense, just go with the dry route, they rock!

Now who says this is just a tech blog 😉

New Tutorial on Cracked Text and Photos, New Splash for a Friend, Rescue Me and v5?

New Tutorial on Cracked Text and Photos, New Splash for a Friend, Rescue Me and v5?

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Hey guys! There’s been quite a bit of activity lately and I’ve been sort of dabbling in all kinds of spots… So here’s a quick round-up of what’s new, what I’ve been up to and all that jazz. First off, I want to show you a little splash page I made for a friend of mine. As some of you may know, I’m pretty heavy in to the Garage Kit community and one of my good friends and favorite artists in the community is Joe Dunaway, who is especially famous for his insanely awesome Predator model kit build-ups. Anyhow, I host a gallery page for him and he asked me to hook him up with a new front Splash page for him. Here’s what I came up with:

ModelZone Splash

You can check out the full thing at www.modelzone.com

I really liked the way this came out, and I really liked the way the ripple effect on the reflection turned out, making the logo look like it’s sitting in water. Call me bias, but I thought this turned out really cool. So then I was puttering around thinking of a new tutorial to write when I thought maybe folks would like to know how I made that cracked text effect and the rippled reflection. You can apply that cracked effect to anything actually.. text, objects, photos etc. So, I decided to divide this up in to a 2-part tutorial, starting with how to create cracked text and objects in Corel Photopaint.

Cracked Text Tutorial

This tutorial is once again published on the Pixel2life Publishing System, and I invite you to come check out my latest lesson HERE! This tutorial covers how to apply cracks and other textures to a variety of surfaces in a technique that is as easy as pie!

In a couple of weeks I’ll also be posting the second part that shows how I made the ripple reflection part, so stay tuned for that.

It’s also been pretty busy for me because Halloween is fast approaching and one of my new services on Predatorstuff.com is my costume sales. I’ve teamed up with Kre8-FX and the talented Pete Mander to create the ultimate Predator costume and this is our first Halloween round and it’s been MADNESS! We’re actually shipping out the first suits next week and I am REALLY stoked at showing off the final pics. Here’s a photo of the upper torso of an AvP Predator costume we released a couple of weeks ago:

Predator Costume

If you want to see more about these suits we’re doing, check out the post on www.predatorstuff.com.

And you thought I only did tutorials? HAR!

And on an entertainment note, is anyone else out there completely obsessed with how kick-ass Rescue Me is? I’ve been a Dennis Leary fan for years and his Fireman TV series is absolutely his best work and one of the best television series I have EVER seen.

Rescue me

If you have no idea what I’m talking about, Rescue me is an edgy adult TV series about the lives of various FNDY firefighters post 9/11 and how badly their lives have turned since that tragic day. It’s EXTREMELY gritty and isn’t carried on regular stations, it’s only on speciality stations like Fox’s action showcase channel. There’s loads of swearing, sexual content and has quite often had me in tears from laughing so hard. The 4th season JUST wrapped up and you can find the first 3 series on DVD all over the place. I HIGHLY recommend you check out this show, it’s every bit as good as reviewers say it is. I personally think television SUCKS and 99% of TV shows are absolute garbage, especially reality shows and all that nonsense. There’s only a couple of series I enjoy, like Third Watch (sucks it’s over), Prison Break (although that’s starting to get tedious now), but Rescue Me is probably the best thing since MacGyver!

You can also check out their official website at www.fxnetwork.com for showtimes and details about the production and cast.

The other day some P2L community members were talking about various ideas to boost the forum participation up and one of them jokingly poked a jab saying maybe we should start talking about version 5 of P2L, even though we just released v4. Well, I didn’t say anything he’d be surprised how close he came to the mark, because I am indeed already mulling over ideas and concepts for the 5th version of the site. There’s nothing SOLID down yet, but one of the things we are looking at is the possibility of a complete redesign and leaving behind the look we’ve more or less carried around since v2. This would be one of the biggest things we’ve done on the site actually as a new layout can be a make-it-or-break-it move. I’ve already been working with Nick and 2 other professional design groups, which will remain unnamed for the time being, on some concept designs, but I haven’t decided on anything yet. I just figured that being the guy that has designed everything on the site for the last 4 years, maybe it’s time we had a fresh set of eyes look at a design and freshen things up completely.

So nothing concrete on this yet, but I thought I’d mention it here for the few of you that read my blog, let alone read enough of this post to make it to this point.

So that’s about it for me… very busy on all kinds of projects and trying to have some fun in between. Take care gang and we’ll see you next post!

Dan

Simba is in da’ House! The Foster Family Experience Begins.

Simba is in da’ House! The Foster Family Experience Begins.

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Here’s a rather significant update on my application to be a foster family for a Mira Foundation Guide-dog puppy… while I was in Niagara Falls, I got a call that my application had been accepted and that puppies would be available the following week and if I could come and pick one. So last Tuesday we all jumped in the car and headed over to the Mira Foundation offices in Saint-Marie-Madeleine in Quebec and came home with Simba:

Simba

Simba was born Mai 10th, 2007 and is a Labernese, the patent breed created by Mira formed by a mix of Labrador and Burmese Mountain Dog. The end result is a stockier looking Lab with a bigger build and gentle temperament and extremely intelligent. He’s been with us now for 2 days and already has been catching on to the concept that if you need to pee, you go to the door. We’ve obviously had a few accidents (oops, I hear my wife scolding him as I type this lol!) but that’s expected and will continue for quite awhile but we’re working on it.

So that’s about it for now… If you’ll excuse me, I need to get my ass in gear and but together the newsletter after a 2 week hiatus.

Dan

And I’m Back… FINALLY!

And I’m Back… FINALLY!

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Went out yesterday and shot some high res images of the falls from various look-out points around Niagara Falls. Ended up getting some great shots and I’ll be blowing one up to print and frame for a wall in the house. It was a gorgeous final day just like the entire week… Sunny and hot with a nice breeze coming off the water, it was awesome.

It was a long drive back home today though due to traffic, so after leaving at 9:45AM, we crawled back in to the house at around 5:30PM and then it was right back out to the grocery store for food as our fridge was completely empty and Corina has summer camp day tomorrow and needed a snack and all that good stuff. Plus I needed milk… if Dan doesn’t get his morning cereal, things do NOT go well for anyone. But seriously, it was GOOD to be home and now I am just contemplating where I need to go first to tackle the ridiculous pile of work I’ve collected since leaving.

Speaking of ridiculous, should you be traveling to the Niagara region and you are looking to book accommodations, DO NOT book the Embassy Suites Fallsview, it is a complete rip off. We somehow managed to book this hotel, which ended up being one of the most expensive places to stay in the entire region. Everywhere we walked, you would see hotel signs showing “Free Parking”, “Free Wireless Internet in all rooms!” etc etc… Well, I managed to book the hotel that charged $20 a day for pain-in-the-ass-valet parking (only service available) AND $12.95 a DAY for internet!!! And no bloody wireless… thank God I brought a LAN cable with me just in case. Oh but wait… I know what you’re thinking… Yes, I did in fact call and ask about this. Prior to booking I asked “Is there parking at the hotel?” and the answer was “Yes sir” and I also asked if the hotel had Wireless IN ALL ROOMS” and it was “Yes sir”. So I booked with them.

Now for anyone that knows me for a few years, you know that I used to travel EXTENSIVELY for the company I used to work for, so I have stayed in hundreds of hotels and I have NEVER IN MY LIFE heard of ANYONE charging extra for internet in the hotel. So you can imagine how livid I was to find out that not only did I have to pay $13 a day, but that the wireless was only available in the lobby and in the business center. I have no words for this other than “what a fucking joke”.

Next up is the restaurant connected to the hotel, which in this case was TGI Friday. Now look, I understand that a hotel restaurant will be a bit higher than normal, that’s fine, I understand. This was the last day, we were tired, we just wanted to eat and go back to our room to pack and get some sleep. But come on, $4 for a glass of Coke, are you serious?! Then I ordered Chicken Quesadillas, which is pretty standard fodder for these diner type places, and those were something stupid like $18 for a TINY serving!!

Moral of the story is that if you plan on staying at Embassy Suites, get ready for a fairly deep and unsatisfying ass reaming.

There’s no place like home… Amen.

Niagara Adventures Continue

Niagara Adventures Continue

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Ah finally, a few minutes to sit down and write a few words… man this vacation has been exhausting! We’ve done all the fun stuff to be had in the area and here’s a few pics:

Corina and I in front of the main falls from the Canadian side:

The Killer Whales swimming in Friendship Cove at Marineland:

Feeding the bears (apparently they eat Cornpops, Marshmallows and Ice Cream Cones):

And here we are after going on the Maid of the Mist ride, which is the boat that takes you right in front of the falls. When you get the main part of the horseshoe falls, it’s like torrential rains in your face:

So there’s a little bit of what we’ve been up to!

Now time for bed… going to be a long day tomorrow 😉

Dan