Out of Ideas
I have virtually no ideas on what to write.
Well, so long as you exclude this idea about ‘writing about no ideas’. (Ahh, paradoxes.)
Image Post
[Pixel Art] DB32 Palette Experimentation: Treasure Chest
A few days ago, I crafted a treasure chest design based on Final Fantasy VI’s treasure chest design using Dawnbringer’s new 32-color palette. I didn’t like the design all that much after looking back on it, so I went searching for inspiration again. I found it with Live-A-Live, an SNES RPG. I found a treasure chest design from that game that intrigued me, so using its design as a base, I created another treasure chest design using the DB32 palette that I feel looks far better.
I then used the palette to create a number of other color schemes for the chest. (I love doing that sort of thing, if just because it’s easier to do than designing and pixelling a whole item/sprite/etc.)
Q&A Post
talonlardner asks...
What sort of projects have you been working on lately?
At the moment, not much of anything. I don’t have any fully-developed ideas for stories or pixel art. I don’t have any posts in mind for this blog or Complete Shot. I don’t even have a new design for the blog in the works (shocking, I know).
But as the old saying goes, life is what happens when you make plans. I prefer to let ideas come to me in the heat of the moment and work from there. I realize that this approach sucks, so I plan (heh) to start working aspects of The Daily Practice outlined by James Altucher into my daily routine in an attempt to improve things. It couldn’t hurt to shake things up a bit in my life.
Hyperbole and a Half: Depression, Part Two
After a sixteen month hiatus, Allie Brosh has resurrected her blog/webcomic hybrid ‘Hyperbole and a Half’ with a post that follows up on her first post about her battle with depression.
I can’t claim to have experienced clinical depression. I have had suicidal thoughts in the past, though. I’ve also felt so down and alone at various points in my life that I did find myself wishing I could ‘stop existing in the same way you’d want to leave an empty room or mute an unbearably repetitive noise’ (as Allie puts it).
That makes this post (and Allie’s last pre-hiatus post) so moving to me: while I can’t begin to understand her entire experience, I can personally identify with the feelings she expresses because of my own prior suicidal tendencies and bouts with depression.
I hope Allie’s post helps someone find a way to help (or at least better understand) a person in their life who suffers from depression. And that’s why I’m linking to it.
Paul Miller Returns to the Internet
Writer Paul Miller returned to the Internet yesterday after spending a year away from it in an attempt to determine what effect (if any) it had on his life. While the first few months of his ‘forced offline’ existence turned out well for him, his eventually spiralled into a series of awful decisions based on fears and thoughts that he couldn’t use the Internet to excuse away. One of his big revelations?
I can’t blame the internet, or any circumstance, for my problems. I have many of the same priorities I had before I left the internet: family, friends, work, learning. And I have no guarantee I’ll stick with them when I get back on the internet — I probably won’t, to be honest. But at least I’ll know that it’s not the internet’s fault. I’ll know who’s responsible, and who can fix it.
I’ve tried numerous times before to curb my Internet usage by breaking away from the ‘Net for brief periods of time. I did so in an attempt to do what Paul did: discover what effect (if any) the Internet had on my life.
My life didn’t get better by even the loosest definition of the word when I took my ‘Net breaks, though.
