The avoidance of anonymity

I'm a member of The Glambert Rock, an Adam Lambert board where most of the older fans hang out (think anywhere from 20 to 60+ years old). On Christmas day one of our members, Terri, who was also active over at Adam's official website was brutally murdered by her ex husband with a tire iron. She had three children with this man. Their babysitter hid them inside their house after she failed to intervene in the attack, and all three of the children could hear their mother being beaten to death.

Here's the story from Houston's KHOU channel 11.

Examiner article.

Second KHOU story with video.

Understandably they're going to need some major help now. The manager of the Walgreen's in Houston where Terri worked has set up a trust fund for the children which will be used for funeral expenses as well as higher education for the kids. Here's the information if anyone is moved to want to help, taken from AdamOfficial.com:

Send a check or money order, made out to:
The Terri Sanvicente Funeral and Child Benefit Fund.

Send the check or money order to the following address:
The Terri Sanvicente Funeral and Child Benefit Fund
2808 North Gessner
Houston, TX 77080

Everyday, the checks and money orders received at Walgreens will be deposited in the bank's trust.

The bank will be administering the trust. This money will ONLY be used for the following:

Funeral expenses
College and/or University expenses when the children turn 18 years of age.

No family members, or people involved in the care of Terri's children, will be allowed to touch this fund. The money will be divided equally among the three children. Their living expenses are to be handled by other sources, such as life insurance and Social Security. Again, our donations will only be used for funeral expenses and higher education. All Walgreen employees, from across the county, have been asked to donate $1.00 to the trust, as well.

Any help will be greatly appreciated. We had to wait until now to get this all set up because of legal issues and the holiday weekend, but I can assure you this is legitimate.

...who like to poke stupid things with sticks, here you go:

To me, prettying up photos with software programs is about the same as making digital art with those fancy little digi-tablets.

I really want to know which filter in Photoshop produces finished artwork, because I sure as hell haven't found it. I didn't know I could get a tablet with a feature that craps out a finished piece from the tip of the stylus, either.

Okay now I'm going to squee about the snow and share some picspam. Since I posted my last entry the snow actually started accumulating and the grass and bushes are completely white now! It's supposed to keep snowing for the rest of the day until about 8:00 tonight with wind chills getting down below zero overnight...

OMFG I think we're actually going to have a white Christmas! Dear God PLEASE let this be an omen that 2010 will be a better year. Please.

After it started accumulating enough to make the grass white we decided to take Sushi out front to discover what snow is.

( Sushi snow pic spam! )

WHEEE MY FIRST WHITE CHRISTMAS! :D

I've been meaning to make an entry for days but every time I have a spare second to sit down and actually write, I don't feel like it. I'm taking a break now from the day-before-Christmas baking/cooking, so let's give this a shot.

It's been snowing outside all day today wtf. We have less than a 5% chance annually of having a white Christmas, so that's pretty wild. None of it is going to stick because it's been too warm the last few days leading up to now, but around here I'm happy to consider it a white Christmas if the stuff is even falling. It makes it a great backdrop for baking, man. I might make some coffee later.

I haven't said much lately because either nothing has been happening or I've been business busy or just trying to tune out everything else that's happening. Angeline has her first tests next week and the results will tell us what her prognosis is. As of right now they're saying the breast cancer has spread to her liver, they think it's in her right lung, and they're doing a brain and bone scan. A liver transplant isn't an option because it's not liver cancer, it's breast cancer in her liver. If it were to be transplanted, the breast cancer would just start taking over the new liver.

Right now all we know is that if she responds to the chemo, she could have a few years left. If she doesn't respond, all we know is "it will be quick". She can't take the same kind of chemo she was on before (which worked) because your body can only tolerate so much of it in your lifetime. She's in a lot of pain right now because of where it's spread to, and the pain meds they gave her make her deathly ill. She's going to try and get them changed, but with JPS that's a craps shoot with loaded dice that favor the house. They NEVER give out pain meds... think Tylenol 800s after a mastectomy. For now we're all trying to put it all out of mind to enjoy the holiday, Angeline included.

In other news I've been hired by a game developing company to do design work for an educational video game. :D I can't say anything more than that because I've signed an NDA, but so far it's been far too much fun to be considered work. I love my career. :D

That's all I can remember right now for an update. If I think of anything else I'll write again later. It's just that I've been severely neglecting LJ lately and I need to stop.

Besides there being really lovely animation of mundane little actions, I wondered something...

Do you guys think this:



Had any influence whatsoever on this?



It's the first thing I thought about when I saw this guy. :P

LiveStreaming again... but I don't think I'm going to post on LJ every time I do. If you want to know when I stream, the best way will be to . :)

http://www.livestream.com/kriscynical

A little late in streaming today... was working on some prelim work earlier for an actual JOB with an actual COMPANY. :D

EDIT 1:20am CST: LiveStream over. Thanks to everyone who came to watch. :)

Going live again. I need some distraction.

http://www.livestream.com/kriscynical

Angeline's here at the house.

She has breast cancer in her liver and right lung. They're putting her on chemo for the rest of her life and if she doesn't respond to it there's nothing they can do.

I should be feeling more but I'm not.

Anybody who's ever been interested in watching me work on my stuff, I'm trying out LiveStream.

http://www.livestream.com/kriscynical

Working live right now on inuhanyounikkie's commission.

A few years ago I bought a fiberoptic tree for my bedroom but once I went off to Ringling my room got too messed up to actually have space for it. Because I gutted my room last January, I have space for it again this year.

And because I'm a dork and a fanbrat at the same time, I gathered all of the Inu trinkets scattered around the house and ( made myself an Inuyasha tree. )

Yes, that's raw Inu tankubon. Yes, I know I can't read Japanese. No, I don't care.

This was so cool I just had to share. Originally posted by meric00 in "lolobama:

Alright, a few things to cover right now... first off,

( Holiday Art! )

It had to be the holiday season for me to really finish this correctly. This is my family's Christmas card this year, but it's also available for purchase in packs of 10 and 20 through Cafe Press right here.

Second, my 2010 calendar is right here.

Third, I got the idea to try offering gift certificates this year. :D If you have a friend or family member who would like prints or a commission of an original character, their children, pet, or significant other, a gift certificate will let them get whatever they want from me. The purchaser will receive a paper certificate in the mail so there's an actual physical gift to give along with instructions for the recipient of how to redeem the certificate with me as well as what all it can be used for. The certificates will be valid for one year after the purchase date (to prevent potential wrenches being thrown into my books). If you're interested in purchasing one, please let me know.

I hope you guys are having a great holiday season! I'm going to try and be a little more active and post more stuff than I have been lately.

And it won't be self-promotion stuff. (Sorry about that...) D:

Today's teens seriously make me weep for the US public school system at times.

"They can think that two girls kissing each other is hot but were not aloud to think two guys isn't?"

Ohgod. D:

Dear Toyota of Dallas:

Crows do not go "cock-a-doodle-doo" at the sunrise. That would be a rooster you were looking for in your commercial. The silhouettes are kind of hard to mix up.

Our family has a long list of holiday traditions for both Thanksgiving and Christmas... I figured it would be nice to record them for posterity.

The day before Thanksgiving:

1. Mom must wear her red and green apron. I must wear my black apron with the multi colored snowflakes.

2. The cheesecakes must be made first, and they must be made with a wood spoon.

3. Mom must always remind me of the raw egg in the cheesecake batter while I'm licking it off of the spatula. I must then say that I don't care, and she must then bring up the fact that HER mother always made them egg nog that was whole milk, sugar, vanilla, and RAW EGGS. I then say that I don't know how she survived her childhood (she got hit by a truck, too).

4. The pumpkin pies must be made after that, and they must be made with the antique spoon in the white mixing bowl with the pour spout.

5. When the pumpkin pies are cooking, they must be checked with the antique butter knife because it doesn't have any serrations on it.

6. My mom must burn herself once sometime during the day.

7. Bree must make the Pink Stuff salad even though she doesn't eat it.

8. The stuffing broth-absorption-holes must be made with mom's finger. Nobody else's. Mom's.

9. I must eat at least a cup of dry stuffing while the water, butter, celery and onion are being mixed in.

10. The pie dough cinnamon rolls are made last, and we must battle for counter space while doing so.

11. That's when the burn happened this year, btw.

12. My dad fixes up the turkey that night which involves copious amounts of squirt butter, salt, and pepper. He then must hunt for a basting brush to smear it all around with, and that brush must then leave a few bristles behind that he then bitches about as he removes them from the turkey.

On Thanksgiving:

1. The Macy's parade must be watched with coffee and pie dough cinnamon rolls (although for me it means the last 30 minutes to an hour just to see Santa).

2. The neighbors must host their annual football game, and all of their guests must take up every single parking spot in front of our house so none of our guests have anyplace to park. Every. Year.

3. The dog must stand guard of the oven while the turkey is still cooking.

4. My parents must make the gravy.

5. Bree must stir it on the stove.

6. I must make the relish tray and slice up the cranberry sauce because we're classy and eat the good stuff out of the can. No, I don't want the other kind.

7. Michelle and I must make the yams.

8. My uncle Gordon must blend the mashed potatoes.

9. My dad must get all the turkey off of the bones while feeding roughly a pound of it to the dog (now that we have one again).

10. Uncle Gordon must have the liver from the giblet bag. Yeah, I know, it makes me think of "Save the neck for me, Clark!", too.

11. Michelle must watch the Cowboys game. All of us do, but for her it's life and death and nothing short of a fire will tear her away from the screen. There will be much screaming, 95% of it from her.

I have lots to talk about, but I just had to say this about the most recent ep of Inuyasha...

It's a real moment killer when just as the episode fades to black at the end, my dog belches.

"I wanted to protect her forever..."

*BOOOORP!*

A quick post before I crash: