That’s right. The majority of tutorials teach you nothing that you couldn’t learn on your own. Most tuts exist to “teach” amateur “graphics designers” how to make “AWESOME LIGHTNING EFFECTS!” Let’s actually take a look at this tutorial that I saw on WikiHow and its end result:

Before you waste your time starting a tutorial on “How to make _____”, take a look at the END PRODUCT before wasting your time following the 6 steps of idiocy to produce a garbage looking lightning effect. What lightning looks like that? I wasn’t aware that lightning was hairy.

Photomanipulation tutorials can be even worse. Especially when they have titles like “How to make Dark style art”. If you need a “How to..” on how to make a style of art, give up right there. People who write tutorials like that only do so because a) They suck at art and think that they’re good enough to be teaching you and b) They want you to make crappy looking art. Here’s an example of a tutorial you should never follow.

I’m sorry, but that looks like something I made when I was 14. The saturation is out of control, the lost/lonely/emo angel-girl has no directional lighting on her face whatsoever. The whole thing looks like a bad CD cover for a failing gothic metal band (you know, bands with names like “Charlemagne” or “Black Unicorn”..stuff like that). It’s fine if you want to make something that you think looks pretty, but for God’s sake DO NOT UPLOAD IT AND WRITE A TUTORIAL ON IT.

Another thing that annoys me are tutorials about how to make sunsets with crappy fake grass in the foreground. Example:

The tutorial for this image is meant to be made into a web site, so I have serious sympathy to any of the misguided people who used it thinking that it looked good. Let me explain this in a delicate way that hopefully makes sense: making little “grassy plain with a sky in the background” images just look bleh. I’ve seen several examples of this theme used in signatures and art and it hardly ever looks any good. This is because the grass just looks flat and crappy and the sky is always made using some horrid filter (Render Clouds).

I’m not saying that you should never use tutorials. I’m asking you to not use tutorials that teach you how to make ugly things. If you follow these types of tutorials, you’ll be bound to make amateurish stuff that no one, but amateurs, will think looks nice.

1. Limewire: This is probably the biggest BS program there is. On any given day, I can enter any artist/song name into the search field only to receive 10-15 “Get Laid Now!” hits, 5-10 “_____ gets punked!” ones, and 3-4 hits for content that was actual relevant to what I was searching for. No, I do not want to get laid and, no, I’m not interested in downloading whatever .exe file that magically pops up when you click said search result. This programme sucks, stop being a wuss and move on to torrents.

2. Gimp: Look, I know people use and enjoy this program, but that’s mainly for two reasons. The first reason is that it’s free and the second reason is because it’s all these people have ever used. How many people have you seen start out in Photoshop and then switch to Gimp? None. Just as my grandmother swears by her crappy greeting card software, people swear by Gimp. In my opinion, is the worst example of open-source. Sure, if you’re a good artist you can make do with Gimp. But for people starting out, Gimp is one of the worst things to start out using. Let me do you all a favour (those of you who use it), go to the Adobe site and download the CS3 trial. I hate to say it, but I have never seen any really good work come out of Gimp. Please, please stop using it.

3. Norton Anti-virus: As if this couldn’t be the utmost worst choice in virus protection programs, it is seen on millions of computers. Symantec’s host of overall useless programs like “Crash Guard” and “Anti-Bot” only exist to usurp money from middle-aged computer-illiterate morons who think that they will undoubtedly be victims of identity theft if they do not shell out money to this evil corporation. Better yet, if any of its patrons receives an inkling of wisdom and decides to choose another virus protection product, Norton stonewalls the action by disallowing the Unistall software from removing many of its components. Cheap. Very cheap.

4. Windowblinds: I know most of you will not like this as my fourth choice, but too bad. Windowblinds is a rubbish product that follows the same tactics as Symantec when it comes to attempting to uninstall the program. Windowblinds is the type of program that your little brother installs on your computer because he wants to have the UltimateNinja3000 skin to appear in red and black everywhere ad nauseum. You curse at him and attempt to uninstall the program so that he can no longer toy around with the blessed familiarity of the Windows XP default silver skin ONLY TO REALISE THAT IT WON’T UNINSTALL. Well, that’s super. As if things couldn’t get any worse, he’s now found the icon unpackager and Stardock. Thanks a lot, jerks.

5. AOL Instant Messanger: It is the year 2008. How about you make a New Year’s resolution for yourself to evolve from the primitive instant messaging service known as AIM to the ultimately superior one known as MSN. Yes, I know that leaving behind that certain cute emoticon with the wagging tongue and cute shiny eyes will be hard, but you’ll ultimately become a better person for it. Even better, there will be something called privacy in this new-and-improved instant messaging service. Believe it or not, people who are not on your buddy list can’t actually stalk you like they can on AIM! That world has become a better place ever since AOL lost its stranglehold on internet users. Make the most of it.

There’s my list. Do you think any others should/shouldn’t be on here?

I’m not going to write a big long rant about how unhappy I am with the new changes to Runescape, I think I said all I wanted to say by cancelling my membership and quitting the game. I’ll stay around to help with the Christmas event, but then I’m fully done.

In more exciting news, I’m moving my interest over to my xbox. Creepy and I played Halo today and I didn’t suck as much as I did a few days ago. If this keeps improving, I definitely won’t miss RS. I will still be helping to design and work with RuneWire.

Alright, let’s not

Lately, I’ve been in a bit of a bind, rut, hole, et cetera. I’ve read a lot of fantastic books that I want to review, I’ve seen a few films that have made me think a little bit on things, but my brain feels tired. I have so many things that I want to say, but when I write them down they just seem meaningless and empty. I’ve actually tried to write a few entries in this blog after writing that short bit about the Sandbox, but I’ve usually just gotten bored and X’ed out of the window.

On top of that, I feel like I’m sort of letting people who read this blog down. I suppose that this is because I read other people’s blogs for the interesting, thought-provoking, or even just amusing posts. Right now, I just feel all dried-up. There’s really no excuse like “Oh, I have coursework” or “Oh, I have work”, it’s mostly that I feel like I can’t completely materialise my thoughts into words. On top of that, I’ve had little inspiration for making art. One of the things that I worry about most is feeling “stuck in a rut” for a long time. For a whole year, I stopped making art once.  I don’t want a year to go by until something finally gives me the drive to create things, whether they’re just my silly blog posts or not.

Something will come along, I guess. (cue to prompt readers to respond) Do you guys ever get stuck? What do you do to get out of it?

What the heck possesses people to submit news articles like this (I KNOW people don’t read the DailyMail, but still). A good portion of the world doesn’t believe in evolution and now we have some lone scientist saying that there will be de-evolution of the human species?

100,000 years into the future, sexual selection could mean that two distinct breeds of human will have developed.

100,000 years into the future? I somehow doubt that we’ll be on the earth in 100,000 years. I also am baffled why this “scientist” believes that there will be an “attractive intelligent ruling elite” that will govern the “underclass of dim-witted, ugly goblin-like creatures”. I can’t remember who said this, but it’s true: the more you know, the worse you look. I wasn’t aware that smart people are pretty and dumb people look like goblins.

The alarming prediction comes from evolutionary theorist Oliver Curry from the London School of Economics, who says that the human race will have reached its physical peak by the year 3000.

The London School of Economics? Wow, I hear that they have some ground-breaking evolutionary research going on there.

Men will have symmetrical facial features, deeper voices and bigger penises, according to Curry in a report commissioned for men’s satellite TV channel Bravo.

Women will all have glossy hair, smooth hairless skin, large eyes and pert breasts, according to Curry.

Rofl, sorry. I cannot believe that this guy is serious. I think he’s trying to pass off his daydream fantasies as science. Also, IN A REPORT COMMISSIONED BY A TV STATION? Bells should go off in the minds of the “attractive intelligent upper-class” that this “report” is grade-A rubbish.

Medicine will weaken our immune system and we will begin to appear more child-like.

Childlike = attractive = intelligent? Mr. Curry is obviously a paedophile who needs to put the HG Wells books down and step into the real world. This is the stupidest thing I have ever read.

I was playing Oblivion last night and I realised that it was the voice acting that made me really pay attention to a story and get involved in it. In Runescape, I just click past most of the dialogue without even being bothered about the story. What if Jagex actually got decent voice actors to read out the quest dialogues? Would you find it more easy to become interested in the quests? Before anyone brings up the whole thing about loading times, let me just ask that you throw that out the window for now.

Now, we know Jagex are NOT good at making sound effects. I mean, heh, they have that ultra-lame sound your character makes when getting attacked (you know, the “eerrk!” sound. Or the “oorrkk” sound if you’re a male). Now that I think of this though, Jagex release so many quests every few months that it’d be a bit of a hassle to hire someone to read off the dialogue for each new one. Anyway, just a thought.

-Gripe that is not related to the above post-

Ok, for those of you who work in retail jobs/food jobs, isn’t it annoying when customers use your first name constantly? Yeah, I have a name tag, I get it. I don’t need you saying “Hey, Kristina, I like this purse. Isn’t this a great purse, Kristina? Oh, Kristina, this one is even better..Kristina”. Wtf, I seriously had a lady do that to me today. Maybe she just liked my name..or maybe she’s a l– Oh god, I didn’t even think of that. AND SHE TOUCHED MY SHOULDER. I need a new name tag.. I don’t want some crazy lady stalking me. My new pseudonym should be ______. (pick one for me)

I knowww, it’s been a while. I’ve been really busy with uni and, frankly, I haven’t had anything that I wanted to post here yet. Did you notice that “yet” was italicised? That means that I have something that I want to post here, but not right now. I’m going to post my first Informer news article on here when the deadline draws closer to it. I’m sad because not a lot of people read the Informer. Whenever the sticky in the forum is posted, only 1-2 people respond.

We’re working on a way to fix that though. Right now, I just suggested that we post Informer and Update news on the front page. This might get new listeners/viewers to these sections. Anyhow, the article is an interview. A damn good one too. I’ve never really interviewed anyone before, so I hope people find this interesting since I did.

-Stupid Things that Happen in Kristina’s Life-

Ok, so I did a really dumb thing the other day at work. My boss told me to disassemble a large metal display case before I leave to go home and I though “Oh, that’s going to be easy”. I used to work at Ikea and, believe me, I can put things together really quickly. But, I um… didn’t exactly realise that taking apart a dusty old metal case would be so hard. So.. important fact: the display case is next to the window and there is no space on the floor to set it down whilst disassembling it.

So I figure I’d do the LOGICAL thing and start unscrewing the screws from the top and work my way down. The screws are a bit..screwy..because they hold together two panes of the metal siding. That means that when I unscrew all the screws on one side, two panes come down. Well, TWO people are supposed to be taking this thing apart but it was just me. .. Long story short: I unscrewed one side of the case and one pane slipped out of my hand and almost broke the huge window next to it. The only thing that stopped it from doing that was a box I set there earlier XD.

When do you all think I’m going to get fired?

Well, I took some of the criticisms to heart. Believe it or not, I’m a person who has feelings and logging on after a really long day to someone calling me a “c**t” wasn’t really something that brightened my day. I’m all for freedom of speech and, frankly, I don’t care about who said it and why. I’ve decided to improve on these criticisms.

So I put my mind to work and I came up with this.