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What are you doing this weekend?
This topic is part of a weekly series. It is meant to be a place for users to discuss their weekend.
If you have any plans, things you want to get done, things you have done, things you haven't done, or even if you just want to talk about how you're doing this weekend, this is a place for casual discussion about those things.
A list of all previous topics in this series can be found here.
So, what (or how) are you doing this weekend?
Having met and worked with quite a few therapists over the decades (I have issues ;) and moved around a lot)... the real giveaway for me when it comes to figuring out whether or not I will gel with one and get anything helpful/productive out of visiting them, is not based on any answers they gave to questions I asked of them... but instead, how good the questions they asked of me were, and how well they actually seemed to listen to, understand, and care about my answers/problems.
And on the opposite end, any overly long, drawn out, awkward/uncomfortable feeling silences (esp. ones where it was pretty obvious they didn't even realize I had stopped talking), and/or having them immediately offer up platitudes, hollow advice, and/or "silver bullet" suggestions to my problems after only listening to me for a short time, are giant red flags for me.
E.g. During the initial assessment with my last therapist, she asked me several questions that genuinely made me have to take few moments to self-reflect before I could answer, and she turned out to the best therapist I have ever had, and helped me come to terms with a lot of things in my life as a result.
Whereas the absolute worst therapist I ever had, almost immediately after she learned that I was diagnosed with panic disorder and agoraphobia, suggested I should simply try to "ignore the attacks and just force [myself] to get out more"... as if I hadn't heard that exact same advice a million times before in my life, and as if I hadn't tried that already (hint: it made things much worse).
Just my 2¢, anyways. Hope it helps. And good luck with the search for a therapist and the therapy. :)
Cutting myself some slack. Not working, for once. It's my legal birthday. Even though I don't celebrate it as gleefully, I do like to dedicate the time to myself.
I should do the same, it was my birthday not long ago and I did nothing special.
somehow ended up with a date on Saturday with a girl I met while out at a show with my friends the other night. normally I'm not "good at socializing" so I am truly baffled as to how I managed it, especially since I didn't even realize that she was interested until my friends directly told me it was obvious
Good luck! What are your date plans?
just lunch
aaaand sounds like the date is off, oh well!
Heading to Quebec City for work!
I look forward to the crepes and the fromages.
Don't forget to eat some poutine, smoked meat, and especially some traditional Christmas tourtière!
p.s. Taking a few trips down the Dufferin terrace slides near Château Frontenac is mandatory on any visit to Québec city this time of year too (if the weather is amenable), IMO. ;)
edit: Awww, it may not be open yet. Shame. :(
I do enjoy all these things. I'm only in town for 2 meals but I could probably figure out a way to combine all of these things into that.
I feel a bit iffy about tourtière; one time I bought some and they had not labelled it as bison meat, and I ate it... and I have an intense bison food allergy. I haven't had any since then (that was almost 2 years ago).
Ah, sorry to hear that. I have never had Bison in a tourtière before, but I have had Bison burgers (which were great), and have had several venison (both elk and deer) versions of tourtière (which are both fantastic). My godmother also makes an absolutely delicious Beef tourtière with an amazingly flaky suet based crust every year for Christmas dinner. It's honestly the thing I am most looking forward to for Christmas... forget the gifts, just give me a huge slice of pie with a heaping pile of baked beans and I'm happy! :P
I used to love a good tourtière, but now just looking at one makes me feel a bit queasy, and it's one of those things where I could just "get back on the horse" but it doesn't come up enough to be worth doing so.
I also regret the bison allergy a lot because I would probably love bison burgers or anything with bison in (each time I've had it, it's been good) but the results are really bad. On the other hand if I ever need to cut weight fast and know a week in advance, I can drop 10 pounds by eating some bison and just riding that explosive double wave of awfulness.
I totally understand... food/alcohol poisoning and inadvertently learning of food allergies can really mess up your love for certain things. It took me years to try eating chicken on a pizza again after I got a serious case of food poisoning from it once (along with several other friends living in a 1 bathroom apartment... talk about a nightmare!), and I still can't even smell tequila without getting instantly nauseous after a really bad experience with it in highschool (even though that was 20+ years ago). 🤢
Dialing in my shiny new Cintiq Pro 24 on linux manually since the calibration tool refuses to werk rite.
I can't actually draw, but I'm learning how. I found out the hard way that a regular tablet is absolutely useless when you're just starting out. I'm mainly practicing with paper / pencil, but got the Cintiq (it's my christmas present to myself) since I want to learn to paint digitally and see it as a long-term investment.
Oh, crap... do you (or anyone else) know what the support is like for WACOM tablets on Linux? I never even considered that if/when I finally migrate away from Windows entirely that it might be an issue. :(
So far, the calibration and EasyKey setup has been the only pain point. There's no graphical UI I can find that works, so I have to use the
xsetwacomcommand line tool, get things configured right, and then put those lines into scripts that I run. So I have thewacomscript that runs the lines that set the calibration, and thewacom_kritascript, where I'm putting all the key shortcut settings for the EasyKey remote, which is what I'm working on now. Had to get the thing to spit out the current config so I could get all the button numbers. I've assigned them to letter keys so I know which physical EasyKey button maps to which xsetwacom button number so I can get everything configured.Actually using the tablet seems to work fine, at least with Krita, pressure sensitivity and everything... although I think I'm going to have to alter the pressure curve -- and that's going to be a whole new trial-and-error adventure unto itself.
I'm not opposed to using the command line and scripts to accomplish things on a computer, so as long as the tablet basically still works after some fiddling around that doesn't actually sound too bad. Thanks!
l wouldn't recommend going super all-out for drawing tablets if you're a starting artist.
Expensive tools don't make you a better artist, just a more comfortable one.
Most of the time l've used a small Intuos tablet and l honestly prefer it over screen tablets since you don't have the "my hand is in front of my drawing" problem.
Also, for painting digitally l would recommend Ctrl+Paint, lots of (free) info on fundamentals for traditional and digital painting.
Check out Proko, James Gurney as well; both skilled artists with lots of videos on how to approach particular subjects. Of the latter artist l recommend the book "Color and Light" as well, it's a fairly information-dense book on how colors and light behave in various circumstances, and how to apply them in your art.
I totally get that, but I have a very specific goal in mind, and to accomplish that, I need to learn the ins and outs of digital painting in addition to my learning-to-draw curriculum. Money-wise, now turned out to be an opportune time, so I went ahead and bought it.
I have an intros I bought a few years ago (for interacting with 3D modeling programs, specifically Lightwave), but found it was useless for learning the fundamental mechanics of drawing, which is why I switched to pencil and sketchpads. Turns out I can't draw if the image doesn't appear beneath my drawing apparatus.
Ctrl+Paint taught me how to hold a pencil, drawabox.com is getting me up on the fundamentals, and I have a few good books as well on people-drawing, which I very much need to learn. I have less material on digital painting, so I'll be heading back to Ctrl+Paint for that.
Probably start a new farm in Stardew Valley with the new update, it's been a while since I've played it.
See you in two weeks!
Vacation has arrived for me so my answer is nothing other than mounting my Christmas tree and waiting until then.
I'll probably do something with my brother tomorrow. Otherwise it's gonna rain a lot on Sunday, I fancy going out and have a walk in the forest, I'm not sure why... something about braving the elements.
I went to the gem society show and picked up some sweet ass minerals for my collection. Right now, I'm waiting for my geode to be cut and then ima hang out with my best friend. Good day has been good.
Learning Substance designer and hopefully maybe model a real life object and texture it for practise.
In the past l've drawn and painted, both traditional and digital, but that turned out to not really be my jam. l picked up blender and love rendering and modeling a lot more, since you have fine control over just about anything.
l've also been playing a lot of Destiny 2 over the past month or so and l'm in love with its design, so l was wondering if l somehow can make some 3D modeled fan art of it. l was thinking of studying some of its levels and worlds to replicate the materials in Substance Designer and then get something that looks very similar to the original.
The program is much more versatile than Blender's procedural texture tools, and you can basically make any material fully procedurally.