bpgisme.com

No longer a starving artist.....

Well, almost.... :D

After finishing the huge 326 commissioned illustrations I was hired to do recently by a local author, I suddenly realized again that these art projects seem to be the only way for me to afford to finance anything in my music right now. How's that for ironic? For both albums to be released earlier this year I had to come up with $100 each. This was the cost to get the cds made, to get the barcodes for each, and to get each of them set up on CD Baby for distribution. So I earned enough to cover that and cover some of the missing child support money my exhusband isn't paying again by getting commissioned to design and build a website. I also did a portrait, which was something I hadn't done in a long time, but it felt so easy! It was as if I hadn't stopped drawing at all! Then Mom called me about this other job illustrating the book and I took it after testing myself on one chapter. (And this time I used the money to get a printer/copier/fax/scanner machine. It was something we'd been needing for over a year. We have so much paperwork to deal with with Max... All of his therapists and teachers and doctor and so forth... They all need things signed and copies made and things passed around to get approved and so forth so I really bought it because of that and because Cliff's been needing one for his comic art work.) This time, though, I did the entire job in just over a week, and I was really stunned at how easy drawing came back to me. It got me in the mood to do more. Chris looked over the drawings with Mom and said I should get an agent. Though I have no clue how to go about doing such a thing, but I thought I might look around and see if there's some other way I can sell my art besides in person and through Zazzle and Cafepress. (Both of which are about like the music websites; I disappear in the shuffle and drop to the bottom. No one can find me there.) So, I did what I'm best at... I did research. I found an artist who's work I admire and checked to see where his stuff is printed and sold. And just a short while ago I submitted two older pieces that I happened to have on my computer just to see if they like them... Wish me luck... Here's the gallery link, if you wanna look around and see a little of what I've done in the past...

bpgisme's gallery

Thanks for stopping by!
-Bonnie

Okay, okay.... Here it is. A NEW BPGISME.COM NEWS

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Hello people!

SITE NEWS (AKA NEW STUFF)

All of the sudden here at bpgisme.com, we are going from 160 unique visitors a day to 47? Not good.... So I'm thinking about how I can bring people to the site and I'm glancing through my stats and hmmmmm.... There is a trend toward RSS feeds...So, no substantial updates probably means no visitors, right? Well, it's either that or turning off hotlinking affected a lot more than I thought! Hotlinking doesn't afect RSS feeds does it? Yikes. I guess I'd better check on that. Okay... So I went and checked and sure enough, RSS feeds need Hotlinking. So, what do you know? I had to turn my hotlinking protection off. Now those two people who are using Cliff's movie screenshots as background images will get away with it until I can solve the problem, but I'm not jeopardizing my feeds just for two people who should know better, so there.

So, the most recent change to the site: (Ha!) I turned on hotlinking.

And (seriously) more changes to come are:

Here's something I'd like a fix for if anyone out there has any suggestions. I'm getting a ton of spammers who put entries in my guestbook. I don't want to abandon my guestbook entirely, so there has to be some sort of compromise.

I like the new galleries, but they aren't getting the visits I would like to see. Maybe I should put a featured image here in the news to entice folks to take a peek?

Orphic Endeavors is doing wonderfully! (Particularly at CNet!) I'm going to have to build a new category though; "Friends of Orphic Endeavors". I've got two bands to link to so far, Ugegi Aoiveae A Ser, and Funkis/Anulaibar.

I wrote a new entry for "The Rabbit Hole". It's called "DO NOT THROW THIS AWAY!!!!"

As always, Cliff has written more reviews on Cliff's Cosmic Movie Reviews. And he's actually working on some new Johnny Go and the Jazzmen tunes....

About a week ago I added several new images to the rotating frame on the main splash page...

Oh yeah, and I recently changed the background to my weblog too... Though it's been maybe two weeks since I did that.

Other than that, things are about the same. The biggest news is that Orphic Endeavors is now at number 84 out of the entire collection of CNet artists. (There are 18,339 of them!) My downloads there now are more than I could ever have imagined! The total is now: 44,467! I can't believe it. Wow.

So, let's see....

FEATURED IMAGE FROM THE GALLERIES:

Majestic Hubby Pose!

MOST RECENT WATCHED FILM(S):

Hoo boy... Now that's a tough one. We see so many films.... Maybe I should just talk about one? I just don't know where to begin... We saw The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, of course, and we just saw Shrek 2 last night, and The Day After Tomorrow the day before the day before yesterday or something like that, and I've seen lots more too, but these are the ones that are stuck in my mind at the moment, so I guess I shall talk about these.

What can I say about The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy other than just simply, I LOVED IT and PLEASE MAKE THE SEQUEL! ********** GO SEE IT if you haven't. Please. Then read the books, buy the radio show on CD or cassette, the tv show on DVD, posters, toys, t-shirts, objects d'art, etc.

The Day After Tomorrow was pretty good. I'm a fan of the new ice age theory, though I doubt it would happen in two days. It was a fun, cool, exciting movie. My favorite parts were probably when the huge ship is coasting down the street in New York and the statue of Liberty frozen and looking like a reverse scene from Planet of the Apes. I actually yelled out "You DID it, you finally did it" in the living room. The only parts I didn't like were of the gratuitous "everything that can possibly go wrong, will" attitude. There were unnecessary parts, like the doctor mom and the sick child waiting until the last minute to be evacuated, yet somehow surviving when the president didn't and he left right after they did? Hmm... There were just lots of unnecessary bits in there. A better idea, like my husband suggested, might have been to make the story about Dennis Quaid's character and his journey to rescue his son and all the stuff they find along the way. But, that's just our opinion....

Shrek 2 was one of those I probably would never have watched and been just fine missing altogether, but Cliff wanted to see it and watched it by himself and knowing me as well as he does he just knew I would love Antonio Banderas' Puss in Boots, and indeed, after seeing the movie, I have to admit he's right. The jokes were stale, the story was bland and extremely predictable, (switching to Antonio Banderas accent) but Puss in Boots was like an amazing feline Zorro!

Oh, si... How can you resist that face?

BOOK I'M READING NOW:

Actually, I'm reading a book about updating your floors. It's by Better Homes and Gardens and it's from 1985. Exciting reading there.... Yeah.

INTERESTING PICTURES I'VE FOUND ONLINE:

I found this recently:

In keeping with the new ice age theme, I guess... Here's where I got it from:
http://www.aopa.org/whatsnew/newsitems/2005/050103ice.html

ABANDONED WEBSITE:

Here's one: http://www.poundsqueeze.com/.... Last updated, December 29, 2002.

INTERESTING SOFTWARE I JUST TRIED:

JAlbum.... I built the entire gallery in it. You can get it here: http://jalbum.net/?skin=Simple. It's so easy and cool. Just check out my Details gallery to see an example: http://bpgisme.com/gallery/album/details/.

I didn't do a Free Music because I just haven't had the chance to look for any lately, but at least I did the rest! Finally!!!

So, Thanks for stopping by!
-Bonnie

BPGISME.COM NEWS

(It's about time, right?)

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SITE NEWS!

Hello and welcome again to bpgisme.com.  As always there's lots of cool stuff for you to check out, from art, music and music videos, to animation, fiction and mundane and uninteresting weblog entries from me, the bpgisme.


NEW STUFF

This time there's new tunes for Orphic Endeavors again, (I know... this can't go on forever) and some new entries in The Rabbit Hole and one new entry for Fortress.  I also rearranged some links and deleted the gcards section of the site due to lack of use.   I am about to do some upgrading to the long lost pages of the site, the family pages.  I've been neglecting them for quite a long time.


MOST RECENT WATCHED FILM(S):

Whew...  Movies.  I case you're wondering why we watch so many movies, see, we are collectors of movies.  We don't watch regular TV though we do get cable and all the channels (mainly for the kids).  Ever since we got our first DVD player we've been picking up movies everywhere we go.  You can find them everywhere now, yard sales, pawn shops, flea markets, thrift stores, even dollar stores.  And of course Walmart has that nice $5.50 DVD section.

So, anyway, here's this week's list:


SHORT VERSION
Pitch Black ***
Event Horizon ****
Duel *****

Not as many as we usually watch, but I'm right in the middle of Deep Blue Sea and I've attempted to watch one of my Hong Kong action movies, Shaolin: The Blood Mission, but I just can't get into it.  It's not widescreen and it's English dubbed with no option to listen to the original language.  Yuck.  I read reviews talking about how good it is, but the one I bought is awful.  The transfer is terrible and at times you can barely hear it.  It's all chopped up and missing parts too.  We got it at a pawn shop with a bunch of other DVDs so we got it really cheap, but I still wish I could watch the movie.  It sounds really great.


LONG VERSION

Pitch Black   I enjoyed it, but after seeing Chroncles of Riddick it was kind of tame.  My favorite scene is when Riddick kind of dances in one of the creature's blind spots.  That was so cool....

Event Horizon   I have been waiting so long to see this movie again.  It seems like they never air it on any of the movie channels, and what a waste.  It is such a great movie.  We finally found a copy locally so we snatched it right up.  The director is trying to get a director's cut edition made so he can show all the footage that was cut from the film.  I hope he gets his wish.  I'd jump on that in a second.

Duel  What else can you say about this film that hasn't already been said?  Wow.  It is my favorite of Spielberg's films which is good since... I... don't... like... most... of.... er.... his ....  films.....


BOOK I'M READING NOW:

Terry Pratchett !  I love him dearly.   I miss Douglas Adams so much it is so nice to get to read Terry Pratchett.  Anyway, I just finished "Interesting Times" and "Reaper Man" again.  I wish all our books weren't in boxes because I'd love to read them all again.  I especially want to read "Moving Pictures" again.  I'll have to poke around and see if I can find it.


INTERESTING PICTURES I'VE FOUND ONLINE:

This one is from a site about glass insulators for powerlines.  Just looking through my photo gallery even a few minutes is proof that I am a powerline junkie.  I love to take pictures of them.  They are the always present veins and arteries of civilization.  Anyway, here's a link to the main page of the site and a link to the postcard section where I found this picture.

http://www.peninsulators.org/index.html
http://www.peninsulators.org/Postcard/

FREE MUSIC TO CHECK OUT:

Here's Brannan Lane:  http://music.download.com/brannanlane   His music is very soundscape-type stuff which is how I discovered it in the first place on Emusic years ago.  He has an official site as well where he sells his CDs.  http://www.brannanlane.com/


ABANDONED WEBSITE:

Gosh....  I'm not sure if I can top the one from last week.  That one was just so....  weird!!!!
Okay, here's one:  Jay's Directories
I can't tell for sure, but it APPEARS that this site hasn't been updated since 2003.  Specifically, May 28, 2003.  I'm um.... not sure exactly what it's about.  I looked around.  I guess it's just a directory of links.


INTERESTING SOFTWARE I JUST TRIED:

No...  I didn't try anything new.  I just haven't had the chance.  I'll try something and post it here next time.  Sorry.


(I'm later and later doing these, aren't I?)

Thanks for stopping by!
-Bonnie

AT LAST!!! A BPGISME.COM NEWS!!!

**Please refresh your browser to see the latest news!**

SITE NEWS!

Hello and welcome again to bpgisme.com.  As always there's lots of stuff for you to check out, from art, music and music videos, to animation, fiction and weblog entries about this that and the other that goes on and on rambling about headaches and backaches and how there's this incredible pain in all the diodes down my left side and oh my God I think you aught to know I'm feeling very depressed sort of stuff.


NEW STUFF

This time there's new tunes for Orphic Endeavors and a new story, The Rabbit Hole and of course the new look for the site.


MOST RECENT WATCHED FILM(S):

Frankly, we've seen so many movies I really can't remember them all....  I'll do my best....  Let's see....

SHORT VERSION
I, Robot ****
Chronicles of Riddick ****
The Heroic Trio ***
The Incredibles *****
Porco Rosso ****

and to be honest I just can't remember the rest.


LONG VERSION

I, Robot was very good.  I enjoyed it alot.  No, I know that if you are an Asimov fan it probably will insult your intelligence and there are a couple of glaring mistakes, but if you can look at it as a action/sci-fi movie starring Will Smith and not as Asimov's "I, Robot" you will really enjoy it.  Excitement!  Adventure!  And really wild things!

Chronicles of Riddick was amazing!  I wasn't sure if we were wasting our money or not when we bought this one.  It was a double pack with Pitch Black which I really enjoyed but we were buying Riddick blind without knowing anything about the film.  I went in expecting a dumb sequel and came out hoping for another one!  It was a great movie!  There are a couple of Star Wars influenced things that kind of turned my stomach a bit (I am NOT a Star Wars fan though I was when I was a kid.) but really it was much closer to Dune than Star Wars and kept going and going.  It had the same quality that Predator had of feeling like more than one film in one film.  It was very epic.  Very huge.  I really enjoyed it alot.  So did Cliff and the kids.

The Heroic Trio was one we picked up at a pawn shop in Wilmington.  It's a Hong Kong action flick starring three "super hero" ladies.  There's wackiness, a couple of love stories, gross people eating and lots and lots of babies in it.  Plus Anthony Wong Chau-Sang was in it and he was in The Twins Effect which I really enjoyed too.  I can't help it, I like these weird Asian films.  They are so cool!

The Incredibles is one of those movies where pretty much everyone had seen it except me.  Not all together.  But everyone had seen it.  It was great!  I laughed out loud more than once and of course as usual the art and animation were gorgeous.  My favorite character?  Edna, of course.  She was fantastic.

Porco Rosso is another of  Miyazaki's older films and it was very good.  I think what made it so good was that things Miyazaki obviously loves himself were all through it, like flying and planes.  It's not my favorite.  Spirited Away holds that title.  But it was very good.

BOOK I'M READING NOW:

Catalogs.  Mom brought me a stack of old catalogs.  I'm looking through those whenever I get the chance.


INTERESTING PICTURES I'VE FOUND ONLINE:

This one is from a conservation site:  http://www.eura.co.uk/gallery/displayimage.php?pos=-324
I think the photo has a surreal quality. 

FREE MUSIC TO CHECK OUT:

http://www.amethystium.com/
Okay, so these aren't downloads per se, but, I truly love Amethystium.  I probably listen once a day.  My current favorite tune is "Enchantment".  Please settle back and listen to these for a while. 


ABANDONED WEBSITE:

Here's one that hasn't been updated since 1999....  And er.....  Probably with good reason?  I like creepy statues and cemeteries, but dolls just freak me out. 
http://pygmalion.mda.or.jp/yosida/yosida2.html

INTERESTING SOFTWARE I JUST TRIED:

Check this out.... FXpansion Mysteron.  It's a virtual Theremin.  You'll need a program called Savihost to use it, but it's really cool. 


Well, that's it.  I know it took a long time to get it done, but here it is at last.

Thanks for stopping by!
-Bonnie