I'm moving to Blogspot. My allegiance is with Google :p

http://blog.arts-angel.com/

So, for quite a long time I've had this totally crazy idea of working in the UK for a year or two. I've decided that this is the year I'm finally going to get my lazy arse over there and do it. Mostly because I have enough work experience in this field now that I feel like I could qualify for a position without too much hassle. My process for actually applying for jobs and such is already sorted, but it occurs to me there a a lot of other things I know next to nothing about when it comes to the UK (or more specifically, London, since I imagine that's my best chance for a cushy job)

- I'm getting an iPhone through work soon. It'll be unlocked, so that's not an issue. What I want to know is, can I stick a UK sim card in an AU iPhone and have it work normally? I kinda want Google Maps to find my way around (please, I don't want to hear any "don't get an iPhone you should buy a *blah*" I just want a specific yes or no answer :p)

- London Suburbs. Every city has suburbs with reputations. What are the areas to avoid, and where are the best areas with good apartment rental prices?

- How long does it generally take to travel anywhere, and is London bicycle friendly? I've seen people put bikes on trains in Sydney but I don't know if that's a common thing in other places.

- If you live in London, will you please take me on a tour? :3

OMG WOW.

This is like... a million times better than I was expecting it to be? At least, a million times better than anything I could possibly make. And I know, I've tried :D



Gotta get them to widen his neck and fix a couple of things with the hat and his expression, but otherwise... hot damn. I want a hundred.

THREE NAMES YOU GO BY:
1) Sarah
2) EEk (Seriously, don't ask)
3) Angel (Seem to have picked up this nickname twice, and I don't know why)

THREE SCREEN NAMES YOU HAVE HAD:
1) ArtsAngel
2) MinFarshaw (in my ye olde WoT fanatic days)
3) Elmindreda (yanno, when MinFarshaw was taken...)

THREE THINGS YOU LIKE ABOUT YOURSELF:
1) I can often make people laugh
2) I'm multi-talented and can usually do almost anything that I try
3) I'm obsessive and can spend endless hours on one hobby

THREE THINGS YOU HATE ABOUT YOURSELF:
1) My inability to take criticism (or respond well to praise, for that matter)
2) Negative autistic traits like not being able to read emotions and do eye contact
3) Too cowardly to take large risks

THREE PARTS OF YOUR HERITAGE:
1) Scottish
2) Dutch
3) English

THREE THINGS THAT SCARE YOU:
1) Ghosts even though I'm not sure if I believe in them
2) Cockroaches
3) Being lonely

THREE OF YOUR EVERYDAY ESSENTIALS:
1) Coffee (damned caffeine addiction)
2) Computer with Photoshop
3) CHEESE

THREE THINGS YOU ARE WEARING RIGHT NOW:
1) Slip-on sandals
2) A artists finger-glove
3) Green long-sleeved shirt

THREE OF YOUR FAVOURITE BANDS (or artists at the moment):
1) Coldplay
2) Muse
3) Joss Whedon (Dr Horrible soundtrack ftw!)

THREE OF YOUR FAVOURITE SONGS AT PRESENT:
1) One of us Cannot be Wrong - Leonard Cohen
2) Daydream Believer - The Monkees
3) Violet Hill - Coldplay

THREE NEW THINGS YOU WANT TO TRY IN THE NEXT 12 MONTHS:
1) Juggling five balls
2) Learning german or welsh
3) Moving out of home

THREE THINGS YOU WANT IN A RELATIONSHIP (love is a given):
1) Monogamy >:(
2) Dual Geekiness
3) Not trying to change who I am (or who they are)

TWO TRUTHS AND A LIE (in random order!):
1) I do more procrastination at work than actual work
2) I once accidentally went to the men's toilets at a park because the signage was bad
3) I flirt with people I have no interest in

THREE PHYSICAL THINGS ABOUT THE OPPOSITE SEX THAT APPEAL TO YOU:
1) Eyes. They're even better if they are framed with glasses.
2) Height. The taller, the better.
3) Body. I like 'em lean and a little effeminate.

THREE THINGS YOU JUST CAN'T DO:
1) SPORTS
2) Care about politics
3) Make friends easily

THREE OF YOUR FAVOURITE HOBBIES:
1) Drawing comics
2) Drawing comics
3) Drawing comics (...what?)

THREE THINGS YOU WANT TO DO REALLY BADLY RIGHT NOW:
1) Finish this quiz so I can get back to drawing comics
2) Eat dinner
3) Or cheese

THREE CAREERS YOU'RE CONSIDERING:
1) Systems Engineer (doing it)
2) Graphic Designer (got bored with it)
3) Forensic Pathologist (damn I wish I did it)

THREE PLACES YOU WANT TO GO ON VACATION:
1) England/Scotland/Wales
2) Vienna
3) New Zealand

THREE KIDS' NAMES:
1) William
2) ...
3) I guess I haven't thought enough about kids to be certain about more than one name :D Would it be weird if I called a kid Jonas?

THREE THINGS YOU WANT TO DO BEFORE YOU DIE:
1) Zero Gravity airplane dive trip!
2) Hopefully there will be space tourism one day, I'd take a trip to space any day!
3) Get married ;_;

This situation has been so *HEADDESK* that I have to blog about it.

So there's this woman, right. She logs a job because some of her mail isn't showing. She knows it's arriving because the total item count is increasing (this is Exchange mail in Outlook) but it's just not showing up in the inbox.

So we make sure her permissions to access the box are alright, I log into it myself, the mail is showing up fine for me and fine if she logs into Webmail to view it. So the mailbox can't be the issue.

So we keep trying different things. Eventually (they are in another city) I ask the local Desktop Support to go over to her PC and make sure everything is set up correctly. They find nothing wrong. Eventually they send me two screenshots - one of the mailbox on this woman's PC, one of the same mailbox on somebody else's (where it IS working). To prove to me that there is mail missing in hers.

First thing I notice: there is no little arrow symbol on the 'Received' column to show that mail is being sorted by date. Well, there you go. I email her and tell her it appears her mail is not sorted so she should click the column name to fix the issue. I also write a second email to desktop support informing them of my hypothesis.

WELL. I get this email back from The Woman telling me off for being so rude and assuming that she's not smart enough to figure out how to sort her mail! How dare I! (I didn't think my mail was rude... obviously I *was* asking a very basic thing to try, but I was sure that was the problem)

I write back and apologise. Sorry if it sounded rude, it was not intentional. I explained *why* I thought it might have been a sorting issue.

Ten minutes later, I get an email from desktop support. They went around to her computer, clicked the 'Received' column, and LO AND BEHOLD. The mail sorted itself properly and all the missing mail appeared! The woman had written back to me all angry without even TRYING what I had suggested. Because she thought SHE was right.

So a) Humbug at Helpdesk for assigning the job to us;
b) Humbug at Desktop Support for not figuring it out and giving it to Systems Services;
c) Humbug at users that think they are smarter than they really are.

I wonder if Angry Woman will email me back? :3

You know what life needs? Life needs a big fat undo button. So we can try stuff out that we would otherwise be afraid to, knowing that we can undo if necessary.

At the moment, my time (when I'm not eating or sleeping) is pretty much equally divided between work and comic. Each takes around 40 hours per week (eep o_O). Unfortunately, this means that when people want to commission me to do extra work, I have to turn them down because I don't have any more time left.

I have considered the idea of dropping my job in order to become a full-time commissioned artist. Then I could do all those other projects for other people. But I love my job. What if I didn't like being an artist full time? What if I didn't like drawing for other people? What if I didn't get enough work, and my income dried up for long periods?

I wish I could give it a try, and come back to this job if it didn't work out. But the IT industry is so fast-paced, that it's easy to lose the currency of knowledge. One has to stay up to date with technologies and trends. I'd be afraid that it would be hard to get a job again if I'd spent several years doing something else.

Blah. I see myself just doing what I am now, and just wishing there were a few more hours in each day (or perhaps that somebody would invent some drugs that would remove the need for people to sleep :p )

Being the proverbial 'Jack of all Trades' actually sucks. It might seem nice to know that no matter what you try, you'll be good at it; but in reality in the end you just feel like 'second best'.

It's been like that my whole life - I've done really well in everything I've tried, from drawing to programming to singing to chemistry. But I just can't seem to do better than 'really good'. In the end, I just try something else.

Maybe one day I'll find something.

Or perhaps I just need to concentrate on one thing. I'm already dividing my time between being a 'logical' IT person and a 'creative' art person.

Maybe I'm just being too arrogant to think that I could possibly be the best at something. I think what I'm feeling is that I would like to do something better than all the other things I do? Like I wish I was a better artist than a programmer, for example. Then I would really know what to focus on.

Please don't flood the comments with 'oh but I love your comic you're so great', that's not what I need. I'm just sort of musing here.

How did you find the one thing that you were really good at?

It's funny the number of people (read: US Americans) who so helpfully email me to let me know I've made a spelling mistake in my story, when it is in fact proper British spelling. I think most people are quite aware of the 'u' we add to words like colour, honour, and neighbour, but it looks like replacing 'z' with 's' in realise, patronise etc is less known. As is our spelling 'jewellery' instead of 'jewelry'.

So next time you'd like to politely point out somebody's 'mistake', perhaps you ought to check their country of origin ;)

Well, I officially have this job until the 31st of March. In January I'll be applying for the esteemed position of 'Systems Engineer' (because some annoying guy somewhere in the restructure plan decided we shouldn't be called Systems Administrators anymore... bleh).

The Director of ITD gave me a bit of a wink/nudge that because I'm young and I'm a girl I have an excellent chance of getting the job. I think they're afraid of the Systems team being a boys club.

I dunno, should I feel bad about my gender giving me an advantage here?

I should blog more. Yuss.

---

Tomorrow I shall be advised on how much longer my current job contract will be extended by (if at all). And not by a nice crispy letter, email, or phonecall; the division has decided that the most proper way to impart this information is by an individual meeting with the Director of ITD.

;_;

The 'secret' word is that things are not at all bad and I have nothing to worry about. Of course, the extension of contract is not at all what I plan to be worried about. The whole division restructure and elimination of my current position is a rather more colossal concern.
Sadly, due to my not having worked here very long and being in a lower paid position, I will not be immediately matched to one of the new, higher paid, job positions on offer in the new structure. It will be a process of application, although only within the division (initially), but with a spot of good luck I will be the only one applying.

A fixed, non contract position with an extra $10K per year would be rather splendid though. :>

The weirdest thing happened last night.

We have one of those liquid soap dispensers in the bathroom. It's mounted on a 4x2" panel which is glued to the wall.

At some point last night, the dispenser wandered into the sink and emptied its entire contents without a trace. The panel, previously glued to the wall and slotted neatly into the back of the dispenser, somehow contrived to free itself and glue itself vertically to the front of the bench.

Neither myself of my Mum remember hearing anything or getting up to clean up the mess. All wash-cloths were dry.

And the top of one of our German Shepherd's head was all wet.

Hmm.

Presenting my self-present, the unmistakably geeky new car!



Sadly, the past-circuits on this time machine are broken, and it can only go into the future (at one second per second).
I KNOW, it's not blue. I just liked the green a little more, and it was available in the car yard with no wait XD

And if you don't understand what the heck I'm going on about, shame on you! :p

Yesterday marked a monumental day: the final day (for me) of Inverloch. Though 13 pages still remain to be seen online, the last brushstroke has been put to canvas.

3 years and approximately 3800 hours of drawing - it's certainly been a wonderful ride, full of highs and lows, the good and the bad.

Inverloch has gone from being a tiny little rough comic with only a few readers to something much more wonderful, loved and enjoyed by many, even seeing publication.

I would never have gotten through this without your support, your love, your praise, and your criticism. It's you, the readers, who have made Inverloch what it is. You helped the story develop and evolve into something I could never have done on my own.

Thank you for being there, for supporting me when I was sick, and most of all, for reading my story.

I hope you've enjoyed it as much as I have.

I really really need to get my behind over to the states for a comic convention. Seriously. I keep putting it off, or forgetting about it, or making excuses. But I think it would be a) awesomely fun and b) a good idea for me to stop being such a homebody and actually get out in the world.

At the moment, I'm thinking Anime Expo, which is in the Los Angeles Convention Center in July 2008. California has the highest percentage of readers too. And I'll have made a good start on The Phoenix's Requiem by then.

Now, I just need several kicks up the arse to make sure I go through with it :p

I just had a slightly frustrating case to deal with.

A person at work sent an email message to three mailing lists, and got an error back saying 'too many recipients', and their message was awaiting moderation.

They then went to the trouble of searching Google to see why this would be so. Perfectly smart, reasonable thing to do. Maybe they wouldn't need to bother the sys admins.

Almost every single Google result mentioned that if you sent to a Mailman mailing list along with lots of other people, Mailman will block it for moderation because it doesn't like to be involved with potential spam. You can change the limit; our campus has this set to 40 recipients (the number of people in the list do not count).

But no, this was not good enough for the person! This could not possibly be the case!

They scoured Google, until they found a page which both mentioned the too many recipients error and also mentioned a server error where the mail server would keep sending a message every hour!

And this is the result they submit to us, telling us that 'this is what all the results mention' and so we must have a mail server error.

I checked the culprit email.

They had sent to 86 recipients.

*headdesk*

Yay! My box sets of seasons 1 & 2 of Doctor Who arrived yesterday. Now I can watch all the episodes I missed because I was too busy cooking. And that one that I didn't see because the power went out :(

I had my first small taste of what it's going to be like as a unix sysadmin last night: my first overtime shift.

"Okay, just boot dooku into single user mode, and we'll remove the old drive volumes, and permanantly mount the new ones. After that we'll sync all the data. Should take about five minutes."

But for whatever reason, the volume manager was refusing to save the new metadevice entries in the database, so after reboot, we'd lose the new drives.

"... Okay, well, this is a Solaris 8 box that we've never patched, so lets run all the recommended patches."

At 12:30am, the patches are finally done (four hours later) and we still don't have our new RAID array. At least the system is back up and working (the patches don't seem to have broken anything) so we just call it a night and go home :p

I fear we'll probably discover today or tomorrow that something HAS broken, but we still need to finish the patch run anyway (about half of the 200 patches failed).

So... somebody remind me what I'm doing in this job? :p
(Nah, kidding. It's actually kind of fun)

Okay, here's the deal. There is a guy in the CQ Conservatorium of Music who is putting on a technopera version of the opera Tosca (modernised, it's all about guns, drugs, sex and the mafia), and he needs simple comic-style, black & white Frank Miller-esque drawings for the backgrounds. The opera has all of the singers off-stage, so the artwork is the focus. There is literally hundreds of frames needed - I would hazard a guess at maybe 500.
I had originally agreed to do this project, but the problem is, I really don't have the time. It turned out to be a lot larger than I expected. If I had known from the outset that it would be 500+ images - I would have said no. I can't take time off work for it. He wants it done by September, and for me, it's just not doable.

Yes it's a paid project. Somewhere in the vicinity of $5000 Australian, paid for by grants. As such, I don't know if they'll be able to hire an artist from outside of Australia, but it's certainly worth a shot.

If you're seriously interested in this - remember, it is quite a bit of work, with less than three months to do it - please send him an email to k.kirkman@cqu.edu.au.

This person has to be mad. Completely, utterly, mad. Or just stupid.

http://cgi.ebay.com/Brand-New-Apple-8GB-iPhone_W0QQitemZ230148077091QQihZ013QQcategoryZ15036QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

Yes, they are trying to sell an iPhone for (cue Dr.Evil) 1 miiiiiiilion dollars.
Somebody ought to tell them that the phones aren't actually sold out and you can apparantly walk into almost any AT&T store and buy one without having to even wait in line :p

Ebay people amuse me.

Edit: Awww, Ebay have removed the listing! Spoilsports :p