Writer's Block: Left Behind

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Oddly enough this is something I've occasionally thought about. The main ideas have crossed my mind sometimes:

• Bush BBQs, as suggested by Doug Thorpe a long long time ago (free meat).
• Having my body wrapped in a plastic bag and hurled from a helicopter over the sea so that in 2-3 weeks time some poor jogger discovers my partly decomposed remains on the beach. It might make the newspapers and maybe TV for 30 seconds.
• Left on a platform for vultures or small birds to peck at until only the bones remain - but I'm not Parsee so really that'd be a gimmick. Also, where does one get vultures from in Australia.
• Having it "bronzed" just like in Man of Flowers. This was all the rage in Victoria times for a brief period, not just bronzed baby shoes!
• Shot into space on a shuttle or its replacement. Trouble is I don't have the money for that.
• Cryogenically frozen for the future. Several problems with this. Would I trust the company to be able to keep me frozen until whenever? Why would people from the future revive me any way? Read too many SF stories where either such frozen bodies were used as a ready meat source (variant of Bush BBQs) or the dead actually end up in a virtual hell.
• Donated to anatomy classes / posterity / transplants. Hmmm. No. Don't want anyone cutting my body up like that, even if it might save lives - it's too creepy.
• Buried next to Poogle. Who would dig the grave, and how would the house be sold afterwards? I'll be happy top meet him on that Rainbow Bridge.

Truth is that really death, although sometimes a spectre for me, is something I have planned for or thought about much on the after event. My religious view is that my personality will disintegrate with the shut down of my body, but that the spirit - the part of me that connects with the divine - will go on. That being the case, what does it matter?

It's Lammas today down here. I might post about this some more later.

Unconscious Mutterings

I say ... and you think ... ?

1. Take :: two
2. 350 :: 360, 370, 380...
3. Stand :: and deliver (yes, Adam Ant)!
4. Raspberry :: flavour ripple
5. Turnstile :: $2.50
6. Infomercial :: TV
7. Dejected :: again
8. What’s the word? :: fuck'd if I know!
9. Awestruck :: with the stupidity shown
10. Smashed :: again

Please remember to use http://subliminal.lunanina.com/ when linking to Unconscious Mutterings. Thanks!

Today's muckabout with painter

OK, I did another web comic page.

I thought that I'd try using Painter X to colour the page for me, but then swapped back to PaintShopPro when I got too frustrated with it. Both versions of the coloured page are shown below:

    

The second image is more complete as I finished doing highlights and shadows on it. Constantine, his wife Fausta and son Crispus are standing near the front of the Imperial pavilion at the Circus Maximus, so the shadows and highlights are supposed to reflect that. The largely blank area in the top half is filled with speech balloons in the final version.

I got so frustrated with Painter. In PSP I know all sorts of shortcuts (like pressing ALT with moving the mouse to dynamically resize a brush) but in Painter these seem to be missing. The colouring and shading in the 2nd is a lot smoother , whereas the Painter version is a lot scratchier (I was using a default brush, and using a mouse to move it). Now it might have been that I was trying to use techniques I've perfected in Painter, and they just don't work the same.

I'll crack using Painter yet, but maybe these web comics aren't the right vehicle for that.