abc006

I'll be gone most of tommorow, so I'm going to post my thoughts now, before I forget them all: ...I've realized that I've been a member of this site for more than a year now, and what's more, I've been active for nearly all of that time. Well, okay, not all - in the beginning I wasn't that active, then I was, er, forced not to be active on the site, and then the last month or so I've been also forced to be about dead, though not in the same way. Anyway, thanks to everyone for making the site so great! ...I had a dream where Robinson Cano was traded to the Mariners. It was awful, I saw Cano on TV in a Mariners uniform, I was sick to my stomach (in my dream). Then I woke up, thankfully. That was the same dream where Reggie Jackson almost gave me his entire baseball card collection. I'm not kidding. ...Just last night I had a dream where I was in a stadium, trying to find my seat - I went through a labyrinth of rooms, staircases, and elevators that looked more like they were in a concert hall than a stadium. I finally got to my seat and saw that A) we where way high up, We couldn't see home plate for some reason from where we were, and C) The field looked really small, like 250 feet long instead of 400. There was also this thing with this ancient watch (like a wrist watch only 1,000 years old - don't ask) that I for some reason suddenly was wearing. Don't ask. ...Yesterday was the perfect day baseball-wise: All the teams that needed to win won and the ones that needed to lose, lost: The yanks won, the tigers and mariners lost, putting the yanks at a tie in the wild card. The Red Sox lost (how do you like your taste of Eric Gagne so far?), the Phillies won (my favorite NL team), the Braves and Mets lost... ... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ninFjxj_DQ...related&search= Classic.

I was just in that area myself! Spedies are one of the few foods sent straight from heaven - what I love is the simplicity of it: you take three or four spedies, most a bit bigger than your knuckle, and just wrap it bread. That's it. Not that I would pay for it either, but... :? Betemit's done a pretty nice job, but I didn't think we needed another first basemen, with both giambi and mient being helthy soon... and what's worse, supposedly a trade was offered with Farnsworth for Bob Wickman - now I know that Wickman isnt exactly the best pitcher on the market, but Farnsworth needs to just go somewhere else and be semi-productive, and we just need somebody who going to be reliable besides Mo. ...two days late for sunday, what who cares. Wild summer so far. I went to Italy, first to a small town in the "tip of the boot" of Italy, in the reigon called Apuglia. Really beautiful down there, and I'm glad it hasn't been discovered as a tourist destination as much as some other places. Then I went up to Naples, saw Pompeii and Herculaneum, (always amazing seeing those ruins and everything) and then went up even more to Venice. No matter what, with all the massive amounts of tourists, the commercialization, the eroding buildings, Venice is still really beautiful. It's a shame that it won't last forever. From there I went to Budapest in Hungary, which was amazing too. (I'm using amazing alot, but it's the only word I can think of to describe it.) Part of my family was from Hungary, so it was interesting to see everything there, especially the Jewish neighborhood - Budapest was hit particularly hard by the holocaust. (Check out this) ...ron, I envy you, not because you're in Finland and Norway (though there's nothing wrong with that at all - but I prefer Italy), but because it was just so damn hot everywhere I went, and in the little apartment in Italy I stayed in for two weeks had no air conditioning, just an overhead fan. Still, it was worth it, no question. ...I'm exhausted, just got back from the area of the spedie, I have the rest of the summer to just relax... and do all my summer reading. Great.

...I'm off to Italy for the summer! Maybe supercuic can give me some advice. ...The Yankees are starting to play like a real ball club. Hope they keep it up. ...I hate inconsistent umpires. Either be consistently good, or consistently bad, don't keep calling the same pitch differently every time.

They're basically 3-D abstract images, that can be turned into brushes.

oooh, I'd like some too if that's what your using.

...This may sound strange, but yesterday was a solid loss. Except for the bad pitching, there was just a lot of flat-out bad luck, and they also did something they haven't been doing since early in the season, and that's at least attempt a comeback. ...Four things essential for a happy life: baseball, music, peanut butter, and silly putty. And kiwis. Kiwis are also good. ...check out everything in my sig! You could win a million dollars! If you happen to win the lottery or something, not by clicking on the links.

...We play today. We win today. 'Dats it. ...in fact, I think I'm going to replace that with my karma blurb in my sig. ...Beckett left today's game with an injury to his wrist and/or hand. No news article yet. ...Jeter is batting .376 entering today's game, while Posada is batting .369. I wish the hits were just more evenly distributed with Abreu and Cano. ...this guy in the times today makes a good point about bosox fans: they hate the yanks more than they love their team, and I think it's the opposite for Yanks fans, though both teams still hate one another. ...NBA playoffs starting to heat up, there have been some really good games so far. Since the knicks aren't in the playoffs (big surprise there ) I guess I'll go for golden state... jumpin' on the bandwagon, so sue me. ...Check out everything in the sig.

...CLEMENS IS A YANKEE. ...see (and click) verything in sig. ...That and I almost pulled a Dave Winfield on a bird the other day. Don't worry, I said almost.

You can defenitely see a big change of styles and improvement from the last time! I would suggest changing the shadows on the text and maybe make that arm blend a little more with the background. Other than that, looks pretty good.

This is when sig-making can become very emotional...

...Sig comp on the way. I'm really bad. I can't make a sig. Whoever's facing me doesn't have to put in all the effort to make a really good one, they'll beat me even with a crappy one, so you don't have to put all the time and hard work into it. ...Everytime I'm at the "guess that song" thread, the newest couple I can't name, but when I'm away for like an hour, I go back and see at least one song I could've named. Oh, well. ...Haven't made a blog post for almost two weeks. I'm going to wait a bit to make a new one, then do it on a regular basis, I've been really busy, spring break having just ending. (So teachers think they have to pile us all with homework to make up for the "lost time". Please. Though we did have so many snow days this year we have to add an extra day.) ...A-Rod is on an absolute TEAR. It's really quite amazing. Watch out Bonds. Something might be gaining on you. ...Mo = sadness. I'm not worried though, just a bit nervous.

What I wrote got deleted when the site temporarily was down, so I'll summarize it quickly: ...UGH. I hate Marco Scutaro. ...Blog's been slow lately, no need to worry. ...Sig Competition probably coming soon, stay tuned. ...Check out everything in my sig.

Defenitely Improvement - now try sprucing that one up. Try duplicating the layer with the Griffey pic. Then set the newly duplicated layer (the top one) as "Overlay". This creates a more textured feel. Try another little trick that I like to do with things like backgrounds: Duplicate the background layer. Pixel Blur the duplicated layer, and then sharpen it to make it look kind of like a mosaic. Then, set that layer as overlay. Also, try moving the "Reds" text a bit to the left so it's easy to see, but still is slightly behind Junior. Btw, are you using photoshop or gimp? (Or neither?)

deviantart.com is a good place to get brushes - to create backgrounds I use a combination of gradients, plasma renders, and brushes. Try looking at a tutorial or something and see how various people make backgrounds - there's no one specific way.

YankeeFan, try making the background less bright, and the main render stand out more - not too much though, because you want it to flow, but not enough so your eye is drawn to Santana rather than the background. Also, I'm not sure the text fits with the style of the sig. Other than that, it looks very nice.

I tried a kind of "pop-up" effect, but it didn't turn out too well: So I went to this, which is probably the best sig I've made:

Two quick ones, not sure if I like all the results:

It's pretty sick - You should write a tutorial for it. (Or direct me to one already made. )

The render's a bit small, but it was either that one or the one in your sig, KC. (You always take the good ones first! )

...Spring Break! ...I have been eating nothing but matzo, kugul, and gefiltefish the last few week. Somehow, I'm not completely sick of it yet. ...mlb.tv is getting more and more annoying. First they make this extremely idiotic rule where you have to put your credit card information every time you watch a game to make sure you aren't getting a blacked out game. Then, lately the video has been skipping slightly - the sound is normal but the picture skips, and it continues like that for some unexplainable reason until something like a commercial break. Good thing I didn't get the "premium" because supposedly the video quality isn't as good as they say it is, and that the "mosaic" has serious glitches. ...blog has been slow lately, but I'm still working out it. ...Did I mention mlb.tv sucks? It just completely stopped on me, and now when I want to switch to another game, it asks for the credit card info again.

Actually, I've found wordpress to be very reliable. They're basically non-profit (their stuff is free), they don't really have any affiliates, let alone marketing deals, and it's run by actual people rather than just a company whose sole objective is to make more profit. Still, I see where you're coming from, I hardly ever give my e-mail for those types of things.

...Ex. act. ly. Only... I think we want different results. ...BASEBALL IS BACK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I'm so happy. ...Blog is running very well, more than I'd imagined it to be. Only thing that's annoying me: I'm getting about 10 views per day, but in a whole month not a single comment in it. Kind of bugs me, but I'd rather take lots of views and no comments than one view and one comment. Speaking of which, should have a new post in about an hour or so. Stay tuned. ...BASEBALL IS BACK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Sorry, I felt it had to be emphasized a bit.

If I remember correctly, I'm pretty sure it was made by KC, which would explain the freakin awesomeness.

...baseball. Happiness. ...Yankee season: not starting to good. Two starters injured. My stomach doesn't feel so good... Nervousness. ...OSU headed to final four. Happiness. ...Georgetown good match to be OSU. Nervousness. ...I discovered http://www.uniwatchblog.com about a week ago, and I've been reading it almost every day, it's really quite cool. ...Just so people know I'm not an impostor: ditto.

here it is sac51: