The Bungalow

Seriously, I go away for the weekend and the internet explodes with Darren awesomeness. (Seriously, Darren. You can stop it with the being awesome and cute anytime now. Thanks.) Even with my swanky new phone, I was still pretty much unconnected cos you can barely get 3G out there, so forget 4G. Ugh. Being addicted to the internet sucks sometimes. :-P

And the weekend ended up being kind of a bust anyway cos of the weather.

Here's the dealio: June is a very busy month in the Switch household. My dad's birthday is the 4th. My mom AND father-in-law's are the 11th, which is also my wedding anniversary (5 years!!). My birthday is the 23rd and Father's Day is whatever Sunday it is. So, the last couple years we've just been picking one day in the middle of the month and doing one big celebration for everything. This year, we decided to invite everyone out to the summer house for a little mini-break and some fun on the lake. Well, Mother Nature decided to step-in and stick her tongue out at us and make it rainy and cold all weekend. Yuck.

One nice thing that we did manage to pull off was having my brother drive-in from Ohio Friday night. He'd just moved up there to start a new job so it was kind of like if nothing comes up he can probably make it. But he's also never driven there so, and it's kind of in the middle of nowhere, so *fingers crossed*. But he made it! Yay! So, we ended up just hanging around the house and playing games and stuff. It was OK, but maybe not as fun as it could have been. Had yummy steak dinner Saturday night for the official celebration night.

So, yeah. And, ugh, I'm having issues with spn_epicontest. I'm losing entrants like mad. The first couple weeks after I took over, it was still pretty steady with the usual 20-25 entries each week. But now it's down to 10-15 if I'm lucky. Is it just that it's summer and everyone is out doing other stuff now? I'm altering the schedule slightly to help me and I wonder if maybe it'll help the other folks, too. But, ugh. I don't know. It's getting frustrating. I'm contemplating a pimping/promo reward type thing. Like, for every new person you get to participate, you get to submit an extra icon that week. But not everyone submits the max anyway, so I don't know if that would really be helpful. If anyone has any advise that would be great. :-)

The Glee Project is recording for me to watch tomorrow. I don't know if I'll watch the whole season, but I at least wanted to see what the first episode was like. *fingers crossed*

wc_icontest wc_icontest wc_icontest wc_icontest

Come check us out if you think you might be interested in participating. Or even just voting on the challenges. And if you'd care to pimp this out, there's a code with easy copy+paste you can use. :-)

So, this one icontest I'm in (mcshep_icontest) has a special category outside the normal first, second, mod's choice, etc every week where the winner of Mod's Choice from the week before selects a Critic's Choice. This week, I got chosen as Critic's Choice winner for this icon:



And here is what the chooser had to say:

"*What strikes me first is the crops on the faces, which help focus the viewer on the two men's eyes. Eyes portray a lot of emotion, and I am feeling in their expressions a bit of discomfort. It reminds me of McShep fanfic where the two of them have deep feelings for each other, but perhaps they do not know how to express those feelings.
To consider an icon a good one I normally have to have a decent level of sharpness and contrast, and this icon had those. I would almost like a bit more saturation and contrast on the face, except here it just emphasizes a bit of emotional bleakness. Some icons that are divided into halves seem like there is too much going on, but this icon doesn't - it feels very well-balanced to me, with the faces mirrored on the left and right half, and the diagonal whiteish lines providing symetry.
Normally when I vote for my top icon I just think "this is very visually pleasing". This is the only icon I can remember looking at and immediately thinking "wow, this is not just visually pleasing, but emotionally evocative as well"! I know the first two paragraphs might sound pretentious, especially if you didn't set out to create an icon that was all emotional storytelling. But sometimes art speaks to us in exciting ways!"

That's just...um...wow. I mean, most of the time the comments are something simple, like "The composition and coloring really complement each other." Ya know, something basic.

Honestly, I'm very flattered someone thinks I put that much thought into my icons, but, um, I don't. So, this kind of amuses me. A lot. :-)

So, a couple weeks ago over at the sgmen_itest icontest that I'm in, the mod had sort of disappeared for a few weeks. No biggie, it happens. Anyway, when she came back she apologized and said as a "sorry" type of thing, that she would be getting us a very special guest judge for the upcoming round. Didn't think too much about it. Perhaps just some really prolific iconner or something. No. She got DAN FREAKING PAYNE! How cool is that? Like, THE Dan Payne. Anyway, she finally got his picks on the round and he picked two of mine!!! How awesome?!?! Hehe. :-D

So, I'm on the BJ LIMS contest. I just got voted out. :-( In the SECOND WEEK! Grr. I was tyring to be cute and funny. I guess it didn't work.

This was my icon:


Is it really that bad? Cos honestly, I think there was one that was definitely waaaaaaaaaaay worse.

I guess I'm just a little upset and shocked cos I had thought I would have made it futher. I guess this just goes to show that you can't make funny icons. :-(

I got first and third in the last sg_lyrical challenge! Yay! This is very exciting for me. :-D

This one got first:


And the funny thing is there were 3 icons that were all like this, so I was sure all the votes for each one would negate each other. Or something. But guess everyone liked mine most!

And this one got third:


I'm not sure what it is, but I just love that one.

Anyway, they're free for snagging if you want. I'll probably do another mass post soon with all the other ones I've made.

Later!

First, does anyone know what's up with sg_lyrical? I know there was a post a few weeks ago about not having enough for the most recent entries. But other than that.... Anyone? Bueller?

Second, after seeing the previews for both "Deck the Halls" and "Night at the Museum", I believe that Ben Still and Matthew Broderick were sent the wrong scripts. Is it just me? Night at the Museum is totally a Matthew Broderick movie and Deck the Halls is so a Ben Stiller movie. Right? :-D

Thirdly, I think I'm going to write SciFi a letter about Carter going to Atlantis. They're just going to completely ruin the character if they make her a regular, which they probably will. Which totally sucks cos I love Amanda. She is such a sweetheart. I really wish they would let her move onto better things. Carter will just be completely redundant on that show. It's very sad. I mean, I realize the contract stuff is a little tricky. But for goodness sake, just buy her out! Don't ruin the character and possibly the wonderful actress in turn. I dunno. It's aggravating.