I have been having an awful time since my birthday on nov. 12. first, my wheelchair tilt broke and the repair company said it would take a week to repair! On fri. the 13th, I went on to my old wheelchair without a tilt. I put my legs up on a stool, like I used to support me while getting repositioned. I guess my leg has gotten weaker and when I got pulled back, my muscles could not support the weight and I felt something tear inside. It was excruciating. I lasted the day but the pain was too much, so I went into the emergency. They took xrays and one showed a possible hairline fracture. They gave me an immobilizer and pain pills. The percocet weakened my breathing and my appetite was almost nill. I cut the percocet and took darvacet and codeine and my breathing and appetite returned. It's been 4wks, the pain lessened but it still aches. I hope it feels better in January. The dr. said 6-8wks, so I'll see.
The pain is depressing on top of my disability. I haven't wanted to do much for weeks. I reopened my ebay store after closing it after the injury because I didn't know where I'd be for several weeks. I canceled preorders on hess trucks and everyone, except one buyer, was understanding. He received his refund in 4 business days due to it being an echeck. He received it exactly what I said he would but he still left a negative feedback! I discussed it on the eBay forums,'looking for support, and all I got was criticism for canceling. I'd think what I did was the best option because it's better than going days without being able to explain everything to the buyers and probably receiving several complaints. Can never satisfy everyone is suppose!
I hope everyone is having a great December (better than mine). We had a few inches of snow here in Allentown, PA and a bit of cold but, so far, not too bad. Our xmas decorations have been up since November 1st.
Accept No Imitation!
my last few weeks
CommentsHoliday Airfare Deals from my Friend in Paradise!
CommentsThis is a sponsored guest post written by Ali Kendall on behalf of Airfare Secrets. Post powered by Sponzai.
Just wanted to send a quick "shout-out" across the Pacific to my friend Ali in sunny Honolulu, Hawaii!
Ali runs the airfare-now.com website with all kinds of tips, coupons, strategies, etc. for findng holiday airfare deals. Now airfare comparison travel sites have come a long way in the past few years but there are still literally thousands of them to choose from. So here's a big aloha and mahalo to Ali for keeping it simple on a pretty nifty little travel website!
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Short animation
CommentsThis is a sponsored guest post written by Matt Kelland on behalf of Moviestorm. Post powered by Sponzai.
Moviestorm is enabling a new generation of amateur film-makers to realize their visions. It offers easy, affordable animation tools that can produce sophisticated high-quality films on practically no budget. After several years in development, Moviestorm has demonstrated that home movie-making needn’t be limited to cheap hand-held cameras and clips of the kids goofing around. Its virtual movie studio allows users to break free of the limitations of the real world, and allows them to direct, film, edit and distribute 3D animated movies without any knowledge of animation techniques or 3D modelling. And best of all, it's free, and comes without any copyright restrictions.
Iain Friar, known as IceAxe, is one of Moviestorm’s many successful film-makers. His short film, Clockwork, a dystopian vision of a totalitarian Britain after a Soviet invasion in the 1980s, is winning accolades and awards around the world, most recently the audience prize at the Atopic Festival in France and the Grand Prize at the Machinima Expo. Clearly influenced by both 1984 and A Clockwork Orange, with a visual style that evokes both Communist era propaganda posters and more recent animated movies such as A Scanner Darkly, it is a stark, powerful film that belies its modest origins.
Iain, who's 42, works in marketing, and started making movies just 18 months ago. “I’ve always been a hands-on person, in music, sport, and everything else,” he says. “I thought it would be fun to shoot a music video, but I’m not the most technical of people, and it seemed extraordinarily hard. I remember when computer games started using in-game animation to tell the story instead of video clips, and this interested me, especially now that game technology has become so sophisticated. So I bought a book, Machinima for Dummies, which had Moviestorm on the CD, and I was hooked. I liked Moviestorm because it did what I was looking for, even though I didn’t really know what I was looking for at the time, and the Moviestorm community was very supportive. I initially made comedies, but I could see that the movies people respected were more dramatic, so it seemed that was the direction to go in.”
He spent four months working on Clockwork, and then the same again on his next short, Cloud Angel, a steampunk thriller set on board an airship. Apart from the voice acting, he made the entire film himself at his home in Basingstoke, England. “I'm lucky that my friends are so willing to step up to the mike and read my silly scripts!” he laughs. His next film is Gridlock, a science fiction comedy which he is co-producing with another successful Moviestorm director, James Thorpe. For this, they’ve stepped up the production costs a notch: they hired a recording studio and got the local amateur dramatic group to do the voice acting.
Iain is realistic about his future, though. “Am I ambitious? Yes. Do I want to keep it as just a hobby? Well, probably yes, because I imagine that if it became a full time activity, the fun might go out of it. I make movies as escapism. That said, I think that this industry would be really interesting to work in, because it's embryonic; I'm not sure what direction it will go in. It's exciting!”
Moviestorm’s CEO, Jeff Zie, is hugely enthusiastic and supportive. “Iain and the many other Moviestorm users are an inspiration to us all,” he says. “We’re really proud that we’re giving talented people like this the tools they need to unleash the creative potential they never knew they had, and to produce these wonderful films.”
Try it and see!
You can download Moviestorm for free: Windows and Mac versions are available. If you want, you can expand your virtual film studio and buy extra costumes, sets, props, and sounds in their marketplace. If you've ever wondered whether you might be the next Tarantino, Ang Lee, or J J Abrams, now's the time to find out!
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new updates: v, DirecTV, schwan's, printer, ventilator
CommentsAre you watching the new V series on ABC? I recorded the first episodes. They are supposed to air 4 episodes now and return in March -- the executives think that you will make it an event but it will only confuse viewers. Diana was hot but the new version is named Anna with short hair, ugh!
i got DirecTV with a DVR three weeks ago. It's a mixed blessing because now I have too much to watch! I bought it as part of a bundle from Verizon with twice as fast dsl (deal was for four times faster but our wires are too old to support it, yet they still charge me the same price!) and unlimited distance (with no one to really call).
I tried Schwan's food home delivery service but everything tastes like regular frozen food only at three times the price! The delivery guy comes every two weeks even if I don't order anything! I need to call the office to cancel it.
Printer problems. I was using my backup printer for over a year without a problem until last month when it started to skip. I tried about 6 backup and cartridges and only one works at all but with a few skips! I ordered a new remanufactured cartridge last week. We put the cartridge and it printed the sample page. When I shut down the computer, the printer made a weird sound. Yesterday, I used the printer and the weird sound got louder and didn't print. We noticed that the new cartridge didn't fit well -- it's for the Lexmark x217 but the store said that it's compatible with my x75 (it does not seem to be!). I called them up and they are sending me a return shipping label for the 217, which will be refunded, and bought the 16, which is for my printer but they do not sell it on eBay. That's kind of stupid, to carry the exact correct cartridge for my printer but only sell the 217 on eBay. I took the cartridge out and put the old one back in the cracking sound stopped but the printer still skipped. I reconnected my old printer (same model) and the old cartridge still skipped, so we soaked it in warm water for a few minutes and now it works with only a few light streaks (still readable by the post office meters). It should hold me off until I get the new correct cartridge. It was a fine time for this to happen, right when I have a bunch of hess trucks to ship out soon!
My respiratory therapist is bringing a new ventilator today. I hope it works out because it has good backup batteries and it will help me get a person care attendant faster -- the process is confusing!
