Map drawing day is a very dangerous day. At least, it is if you're drawing by hand. And having to do a lot of fiddly bits. And if you're not all that brilliant at drawing to begin with.
But it's fun. Even though all I'm doing at the moment is removing the outlines of continents from a world map so that I have a blank template with lines of latitude and longitude, and then repairing the bits of the lines that were damaged when continents were removed. No, I couldn't just draw up such a template myself. I tried. I failed. The programs I've got don't let me bend lines in nice, even, shallow curves, and as for doing that freehand... ha. Right. And it appears no one in the universe has any idea that SF writers might possibly want a map template without Earth's continents drawn in. Argh.
So we make do with what we have. And take breaks so that eyestrain doesn't become the death of us. I say "us" because most of this has proven immensely entertaining for the cat, and she's been "helping." Fortunate me.
So... what news have I missed whilst playing with pixels?
Is this an invitation for me to vent? (Really: if our situation were in a story, I would say it sounded too contrived to be believable.)
ReplyDeleteVent away, m'dear. ;-)
ReplyDelete(moi, fishing? "No no no no no no no no n.. yes." -- Eric Idle)
ReplyDeleteFortunately, I have slightly less to gripe about at the moment. As of that previous comment, though, the situation was this:
* plumbing totally stopped up, toilets not flushing very well at all (with the "very well" gradually fading like Michael J. Fox's image on the photo in Back to the Future III)
* no likelihood of any change in this situation until later this week (and iffy, even then)
* suddenly had to pick up Josh (you know... the autistic one, who always flushes toilets) from the Home -- where we thought we had safely squirreled him away for at least a few weeks (starting on Jan. 2) -- last night, because he was being destructive and alarming them
* unable to reach Josh's grandparents who are the only other people likely to be able to take him on short notice
Was this not to all appearances the perfect shitstorm in the making?
In the meantime, though, we've managed to:
* turn off the water to the toilet refill, so flushing doesn't do anything
* arrange a compromise with the Home so they will take Josh for the rest of the week.
We have until Friday afternoon, then, to get something done with the sewer. Since part of that depends on the city coming out in a timely manner and (a) marking the other utility lines, (b) issuing the necessary work permits... we may have to pay yet more to the plumbing company to work out some kind of temporary fix.
And that's the news from Lake Holicrap.
I'm sure there must be a RPG map creator that can help with this.
ReplyDeleteAt first I thought lasthussar meant that an RPG map creator could be useful in figuring out the plumbing, or diagramming the absurdity of our life at the moment... and I was amused...
ReplyDelete...but then the braincells connected.
I keep thinking: couldn't you make a square grid somehow, and then distort it into whatever projection you're trying to get? I don't know Photoshop, but PaintShop Pro has "camera lens distortion" tools. I don't see anything quite right in Gimp, but maybe there's a plug-in...
What projection are you using?
ReplyDeleteWoozle: ""No no no no no no no no n.. yes." sounds a lot like the character of Jim out of Vicar of Dibley. What did Eric Idle say that in?
Woozle, if I ever become despondent about my living conditions, I promise I'll think of you. Can't promise it will cheer me up, but it will definitely stop me from thinking that I'm being picked on by karma, or something.
ReplyDeleteAs for RPG mappers, good idea. There are also things called overlays that sophisticated drawing programs have. Photoshop and Gimp would be two such "sophisticated" programs. The latter is free.
Although, like Woozle, for just a moment I was thinking of a different sort of transform.
Aha! Playing with maps! Another sign that there's a Geologist Dana trying to take over.
ReplyDeleteEfrique: it's from the "nudge nudge, wink wink" sketch.
ReplyDeleteCujo359: Yes indeed, our lives are clearly the long-sought-after proof that atheism is in fact more correct than theism: God exists, and he's a right bastard, so worshiping him is morally wrong. QED. (Can we get an award from the Richard Dawkins Foundation or something?)