Just to Prove I'm Still Alive

Not one Photoshop, but two (both utilizing the awesome power of Diffuse Glow)!


This next one I'm actually using as my current desktop.

Actual content coming, I swear.

An Aside on Fred Thompson

Now, I know next to nothing about this former Presidential candidate and prospective Republican running mate...

But God damn, this picture makes him look evil:
Put some flames and thrones stitched together of human bone behind him, and you got yourself a Grade-A candidate there!

My Weight Loss 101: A Q&A Session (I Hope You Like Reading)

Hey, Andrew.

Yes, disembodied bold voice?

When are you going to post that piece on your weight loss?

What the hell are you talking about?

Didn't you say over a month ago that you would be writing a full-on post about how you lost sixty pounds?

Hmmm....so I did. What do you want me to do about it now?

Well, you could make good on your promise and write about it.

...Fine. But how should I go about it? There's lots of areas to cover.

How about I ask you questions, and you answer?

Eh...fine. Where do you want to begin?

Hey, I'm asking the questions here!

Sorry.

So, how did you do it?

Heh. This is the most common question I received, and understandably so. After all, people don't just lose a lot of weight by doing nothing. But, anyway, my answer is simple: diet and exercise.

That's all?

Heh. That's a common response to my answer. Most people seem surprised - and even a little disappointed - at the fact that I didn't do some sort of wonder program.

That's probably because this is pretty much The Biggest Loser

Um, I've only really only seen about two episodes of that show, so I wouldn't really know. But I guess I'll give you some more specifics:
Exercise: 30 minutes (plus 5 minutes cool-down) of elliptical trainer every day.

Let's stop there. Why an elliptical trainer?

Several reasons, really. First (and probably most important) it was available. Where I live (in a dorm), we have a small exercise room in the downstairs central building. How small, you ask?

Actually, I didn't.

Well, it has four ellipticals, two stationary bikes, two treadmills, and a rowing machine. That may seem large if you're comparing it to a home gym, but for a dorm serving 1000+ people, it's not very big. Anyway, as such, I'm limited to one of the machines featured there. Technically, I could go to the Recreational Sports Facility, which is built like a palace of fitness. They have nearly 40 treadmills alone! However, it's on campus, which is really inconvenient. So, I make do with what I have.

Now, amongst the four options I had (elliptical, treadmill, bike, and rower), why choose what I did? Mainly because, from what I can see, the elliptical is the closest you I can come to the perfect exercise machine. It provides a low-impact, high-intensity workout for both your arms and legs, and easily keeps track of what you do. Overall, I think you get the most caloric bang for your buck (this is a concept I'll refer to several times from here on out).

The stationary bikes are obviously good for your legs, but they do nothing, absolutely nothing, for your arms. Also, you can do a lot on them and not burn many calories. The rower, I'm sure, is better for muscle building, and for my weight loss period, I was mainly focused on cardio. Plus, the electronics were missing their plugs, so I couldn't track anything. :(

Well, what about the treadmill? That's the classic exercise machine, is it not?

Here's where it gets tricky. I actually think you can do more on an elliptical than a treadmill. When you're on a treadmill (or rather, when I am), every time your foot hits the ground, a shock goes through your system. This makes you exhausted faster, and so you end up stopping/slowing down earlier, netting you fewer calories lost overall. On an elliptical, though, your feet are always connected to the "ground" and so there is low- to no-impact when you're moving. This keeps your body that much more energized, enough to go further/faster and burn more.

There are also some other reasons I like the elliptical more. For example, if you wanted to watch a movie (either on a laptop or on the nonexistent TV in the workout room), the elliptical keeps you more steady than running on a treadmill would. Also, when your resistance is high enough, the elliptical can provide quite a workout for your arms, as well. And I had my resistance notched up to...almost...the highest amount. People often joked about slow I would be moving (relative to them). I'd retort about how their 10 mph efforts were going to waste when they were on level 1/25.

Okay, so you did some cardio, but-

Some cardio?! Mister, in a scant 30 minutes, I would lose anywhere from 550 calories (nowadays) to 750 calories (when I started)!

Okay, okay, but I was going to ask if you did anything else. Weights? Pushups? Situps?

Uh, no. That wasn't really my focus at the time, but I'm doing those latter two things nowadays (I'll talk about that later).

Alright, enough about exercise. Exercise can only get you so far anyway. What was this diet you speak of?

It's pretty basic: eat less, and eat better.

Didn't you do any sort of program? Jenny Craig? Weight Watchers? Slim Fast?

I did do Slim Fast, mainly toward the beginning. I've since kind of stopped using them, but I still have plenty of their products. Considering one of their meal bars has fewer calories than a standard candy bar, they're pretty useful. But I generally eat pretty normal food, just less of it. Mainly in the early meals. I just eat enough that I'm satiated. In dinner, though, I kind of kick back and indulge myself a bit. I never leave any meal hungry, but I always leave dinner full.

Ooo, now we're talkin'! What kinds of things did you have for dinner?

Here, I'll just show you a picture:
Aargh! Too much green! Get it away!!!

Okay.

You would eat all that?

Sure would! This is a pretty typical example of what my dinner would look like. I'll explain each part of it. First of all, I mostly always got my food to-go, because 1)I had nobody to eat with (*tear*) and 2) it made portioning a lot easier. So, a to-go box had two small compartments and one large one. In a big one will go any of the following:
Spinach (Always)
Lots and lots of cherry tomatoes (Always)
Broccoli (Always)
Celery (When available)
Lima beans (Usually only when there is no celery)
Hummus (The magic formula: I use it to dip the veggies into)

All raw and organic, if you're into that (I'm not).

Dear God, and I thought you hated vegetables.

Well, I've come to...appreciate them. Sometimes I'll just snack on a leaf of spinach or a celery stalk. But cherry tomatoes! I loooooove cherry tomatoes. I could just eat them forever!

Oh. Well, what else is in there? It looks like you have burger.

A Garden Burger.

*Facepalm*

I'll get to the meat issue in a minute. But yes, that's a garden burger with tomatoes and mustard, wrapped in lettuce. I've officially given up buns on burgers, as you may remember from a while ago.

And there's also some crisscut fries. I still like my french fries (particularly if they're baked). They are, I would say, one of my two Achilles Heels.

One of two? What's the other?

Take a look.
Consarnit! That looks almost exactly the same as the last one, except the spinach is covering something. What is that...?Ah, nachos!

That's right. I simply cannot say "no" to nachos. They could have ambrosia being served in one corner of the dining common, but if nachos were being served, I'd choose the nachos. They're just sooo good. And while I know that my somewhat-healthier choices of soy meat, black beans, and jalapeños are completely overshadowed by that molten trans-fat that is the cheese-like sauce, I DON'T CARE! Nachos make a shortened lifespan worthwhile!

Okay, okay. Nachos. But what were you saying earlier about meat? Have you become vegetarian or *gasp* vegan?!

Hell no! I would never give those nuts the satisfaction of my joining their ranks. No, I definitely still eat meat (and enjoy it), but I have a...method, you may say, which may be summed up in my "Things to Avoid/Limit" Mantra:
"Wheats, sweets, and mammal meats."

A rhyme. Cute.

Thanks! Keep in mind, this is not a hard-and-fast rule. I did not give up every instance of any of these. For example, on St. Patrick's Day, I was more than happy to eat Corned Beef. It's just a general guideline, as these three categories tend to have a greater caloric cost than other, similar things.

So, for meat, fish was still in my normal repertoire, as was chicken and turkey (I still eat chicken quite frequently). I guess you could say I was just giving up red meats. But I never had any intention of becoming vegetarian. I'm just a lacto-ovo-pollo-pescatarian.

What about desserts? It says you "gave up sweets", but how can anyone give up dessert?

Well, I haven't had ice cream in the longest time, if that's what you're asking. One thing not pictured above is fruit. I always pilfer lots of fruit, especially apples. But all kinds of fruit work great. For a period, I was enjoying bowlfuls of frozen grapes (one of the greatest fruit innovations ever). Right now is watermelon season, and half of my meals' weights are made up of the stuff.

But, as far as more traditional desserts, there are a couple things I would do. First, I would get myself a mixture of one-part chocolate milk and two-parts nonfat milk. Yes, that would be my dessert. Other times, I would have one of my Slim-Fast snack bars. One recent idea I've come up with is getting a "Freddo" from the Peet's Coffee next to the DC (essentially, it's a Frappachino). I'd get it no-sugar, no-whipped cream, and with nonfat milk. Essentially, as bare-bones as it gets. I would then stick this in the freezer, and then take it back out hours later, scraping off shavings so as to eat it slowly.

Oh, and I know this isn't a desert, but one of the best caloric-value snacks out there is actually Trader Joe's Salsa Verde. If you live by a Trader Joe's, you owe it to yourself to pick up a jar (or six). It is so good that I literally will take a spoon and eat the salsa by itself. I wouldn't do that with any other salsa! (Mainly because it's kinda gross.) The best part is, an entire jar is only 110 calories, so it's completely guiltless.

Also, mints make a good dessert, as they make you not want to eat anymore.

Okay, cool. So that's how you lost the weight. But exactly how much did you lose? And over what time period?

As it turns out, I kept a log of my progress. On December 28th (I guess that's my official start date), I weighed 232 lbs. On May 2nd (my official "end" date) I was 174 lbs. That's 58 lbs in 127 days, or about 1 pound every 2 days (and some change). That seems almost excessively dramatic, and were I a thinner man at the start, it definitely would have been. Of course, it was nowhere near constant. Over the course of the weeks, the weight lost would fluctuate wildly. I tried to keep my weighings as consistent as possible to mitigate this, but there's always lots of variables.

One interesting note is that the scale I bought when I returned to school was actually a body fat scale, which measures your body fat % (it's supposed to be more relevant than BMI) by sending electrical signals through and seeing how fast they move, as electricity moves at different speeds in fat than it does in water. So, on January 20, by body fat percentage was 26.8%. On May 9 (a week after the official "end") it was 13.4%. So, as you can see, I've effectively cut my body fat percentage in half. So I've got that going for me. I've also increased my body water percentage by ten percentage points, but I don't know what that really entails.

Isn't this too much? Couldn't it be unhealthy? Have you seen a doctor?

Yes, I did, and he gave me a (figurative) thumbs-up.

Okay then. Well, I know that you posted that one comparison Before/After picture. Does that mean you had taken a picture last year for the sole purpose of being a "Before"?

Yes. That picture was actually taken in November, so it's not completely representative of the exact change, but it's pretty close, if not even more dramatic. It's one of three "Before" pictures.

Ah! So there are more?

...Yes.

Are you going to show them?

Okay, you've twisted my arm. Sure, I'll show them. Just be warned that pretty much from here on out, I'm not wearing a shirt, so you may want to just stop here. (Especially if you're at work. These pictures may not have anything unsafe in them, but your boss doesn't know that!)

Duly noted.

Okay, here we go.

So, the main premise behind the comparison pictures was to do a somewhat tongue-in-cheek parody of those "Before/After" shots that you see on commercials. Y'know, where the before picture is all bleak and frowny, while the after picture looks like the person just won the lottery. Well, the latter two before pictures were like that. I let my stomach stick out as much as possible, and I had a utterly depressing face. However, I wanted one picture with me holding my stomach in, because really, that's how I (and I think most people) present myself. The face is also decidedly less frowntastic, and I thought it worked well to give a better picture of the actual me.

So, you may remember this picture from a while back. This was the halfway point, 30 pounds. The main things of note (besides the hair) are the slight indentations my armpits, the vertical stretching of my belly button, the less of an overhang of my stomach. One interesting note, too, is the fact that my pants hang just a bit looser on my hips.

And, for a change of pace, here's the thirty-pound mark compared with the sixty-pound mark. Note that the armpits are now full-on crevaces, my belly button has almost disappeared, and there is almost no overhang at all. Also notice that my pants now needed to have the cord tied. In fact, that barely helped, and they fall off at a moments notice; I've since had to retire them. :(

And this is the picture everyone is familiar with, which shows the weight loss quite clearly.

Okay, but this is nothing I haven't seen before. What about those other pictures?

I was just getting to them. Here's my front gut-sticking-out/sad-face picture.

Ew. Anyway, this was again the thirty-pound mark. Not much to say.

You're doing it wrong! You're supposed to be smiling in the "After" picture!

Oh, right. Well, I didn't. Unfortunately, I don't feel these pictures did a good job in portraying the extent of the weight loss. Yes, there are some indications around the neck area, but it's not dramatic.

If you want dramatic, you need to see the side pictures!

Good God, that's hideous. But it's the way I was...when sticking my stomach out as far as it would go. At the thirty-pound mark, it's really not as noticeable as I would like.

At the sixty-pound mark, though, it is. I mean, look at it. The second picture is still me forcing my stomach outwards. And yet, it's smaller than when I would suck in my gut at my old weight. I would say that's pretty dramatic.

I guess. But what about muscle pictures? Don't you have any of those?

Well, like I said earlier, I wasn't really focused on building muscles. So I don't really have anything special. However, as I also said earlier, one of the benefits of the elliptical is that it also works well for your arms. So I did build a little bit, plus I lost the fat covering them. I took some pictures that show that, but I actually think better showcase my new armpits, which are among my proudest points, because they are actually pits now, as opposed to just being under-arm areas.

It's fun to note that I call these my "Fierce" pictures because I can't seem to flex without making a truly psychotic face. Hence, I find them quite entertaining, which is the only reason I'm putting in more than one. Enjoy!

Army Man! Hut-hut and ten-four!

Like I said. Completely and utterly psychotic.

This one I just found hilarious for some reason. So much so, in fact, that I decided to turn it into this:

As you can see, the resemblance is uncanny.


Y'see the pose here is excellent. It would actually be a good picture, if I actually had what I'm supposedly showing off.

Okay, that's enough of that! Please!

You asked.

Regretfully so! So, new question: what are some things you've learned about your body?

What is this, a 5th Grade sex ed class? Anyway, I've learned a few things.

1. I have big ears. Yes, I've actually always known this, but my face has slimmed down just enough that they stick out quite prominently...to me, at least. While it seems nobody else notices, it's one of the first things I see when I look in the mirror. That will take some time, I guess.

2. I have a ginormous chest! Look at this thing.

Yes, I'm sucking in my stomach, and yes, there are some light-and-shadow things going on, but still! My chest is now about twice the size of my waist at this point. I think I finally understand what it means to be "big boned."

3. My lower left rib sticks out significantly more than my right one. Apparently, this is a common thing, and as long as it doesn't cause any pain, I'll be fine.

4. My feet are really veiny. I won't put in a picture, as I've tortured you enough with that already. But still, the veins in my feet can stick out quite a bit, especially after I work out. I think I know which side of my family this comes from.

5. My back is bony. It makes sit-ups hurt quite a bit.

6. Stretch marks suck. They're one of the side effects of being quite overweight, and apparently, won't ever fully disappear on their own. (Note: the reason you can't see them on the picture immediately above is because I edited them out. They're no fun to look at.)

Okay, so let's talk clothes.

What about them?

How's the clothes situation been?

Well...mixed.

How so?

Well, to introduce it, take a look at this picture:

What's that? A paperclip on your belt?

Yes. This is a picture of the side of my pants. My belt, which used to only extend a few notches past center, now went all the way through that second loop near my back pocket. The paperclip was to make sure it wouldn't come out and flop around. I've since had to buy a new belt.

Here's some other examples:
-My high school ring is now too big. And since there's no jewelry size adjusters around here (that I can find, at least), I've had to simply put tape on it.

-Similarly, my watch and my gloves are experiencing a similar feeling of looseness.

-When we had a job fair a couple weeks back, I wanted to use the opportunity to wear my brand new suit. So, I put on the shirt, pants, and jacket, and...my pants fell off. Literally, off. It's not that they were sagging; they were at my ankles. I felt like I was in some kind of slapstick comedy. I couldn't use my new belt to hold them up, since my new belt was too big, too. And my jacket...let's just say it made me look like a early 20th century hobo. I'm going to have to get it re-tailored sometime this summer.

-On the other hand, I was able to wear my old sport coat to the job fair, as well as to every other job-related thing this past semester. I also wore it in my "new-age millionaire" style, which is a plain white t-shirt, jeans, and an open jacket. Why I bring this up is because in the past fall semester, I always wore that jacket open because I had to. I couldn't actually close the jacket. Now when I wear it, it's actually quite loose. Looser, in fact, than when I wore it in high school.

-All my old jeans: gone. Sag-o-rama. In their place, new jeans, most of which I picked up from the Goodwill piles at the end of the school year. The system works!

So, overall, it's a mix of current stuff no longer fitting, and really old stuff fitting again.

Moving along, do you have any advice for someone who wants to lose weight?

Nothing particularly inspirational, but I guess if I can do it, anyone can. You just need to be committed.

...Oh, and there's a very good book out there that I really enjoy! It's called Eat This, Not That. It's a book filled with simple hints, tips, and facts about food in general, but the majority of the book focuses on what to get at a number of fast food restaurants to cut the calories and the fat. It's extremely interesting, and you'll learn some general rules of thumb, such as:
-Mayonnaise is the enemy. Always. Avoid mayo.
-Cheese also ain't so hot.
-"Healthy" foods aren't always that. Example: a bagel with cream cheese can be 700 calories with 40g of fat.

It's very eye-opening, but it's done in a way that doesn't accuse you of being bad (rather, it accuses the other guys). Like I said, I recommend the book, but if you're too cheap for that, you can always go to the website for a good percentage of the info.

More than anything, I would say just find whatever works for you. I really doubt my system would work for many people, as it was something I designed for myself. See what works for you, and go with that.

And it's always best to have a goal and a reason for doing things.

Oh, what was your reason?

I won't go into that.

C'mon...

I dunno. Several reasons, I guess. Becoming healthier is definitely the main one. Also, what if I wanted to make myself look more presentable to the fairer sex? Before, the ladies could easily reject me because of my weight. Now, they can only reject me due to my personality! There's other, smaller reasons, but there's really no reason to go into them (mainly because I can't think of most of them :\).

So, I guess the only question left to ask is, where do you go from here?

Interesting question, and one I've thought a bit about myself. Honestly, I put myself in a weird situation. I can't continue the way I was going; while I may not have been risking anorexia (as you may be able to tell from my dinner samples above), I would definitely risk wasting away. At the same time, my mindset is totally different right now regarding food. When I'm purchasing something (anything), I instinctively twist the package until I see the nutrition facts. If it's a snack in one small container (or, like a bar or something), I am extremely hesitant to get it if it's over 100-120 calories. Candy bars are effectively out of my mindset. I do everything possible to limit my overall intake, and that's going to be tricky to change to any great extent.

Considering that, I've reduced my exercise caloric loss a bit, and I've begun to focus more on muscle building. I've begun doing sit-ups and push-ups. For the latter exercise, I actually purchased the Perfect Pushup, which delivers a more intense, effective movement. It's tough, but I think its working.

Since officially ending my diet and exercise regimen, I've still lost some weight, though at a slower rate than before. I anticipate that it will continue for some time until I find my equilibrium point. Overall, though, I anticipate keeping the weight I lost off, and having a much healthier, slimmer life overall.

That's nice.

Thanks. Well, thanks for joining me. My fingers are now calloused from all this typing, so I think I'll call it a day.

Hey, Andrew! I just thought of something! You aren't smiling in any of these pictures! You've lost a lot of weight! More than post people can think of! Can't we have at least one smile?

Fine...just one before we're finished.

Aww...

More Pictures! More! Mwahahaha!

Okay, I've been in a picture-posting mood lately, so I'm going to keep posting some! Why? I dunno, I've been in a visual mood lately. Maybe it's because I've visited two art museums in the past week. Or maybe it's because I've finally broken down and purchased a new digital camera. It's a Norcent DCS-1050, which was only 85 bucks and got decent (enough) reviews. It's not that my current camera is bad, per se, but it certainly has its limitations, namely the fact that is uses a CompactFlash card and is really bulky...restrictingly so, in fact, for someone who doesn't carry a purse. I give it credit for working well for many years (having served my sister before me), but I figured I should experiment with something new; see how that works. I should be receiving this new camera fairly soon (in fact, it's already a few days late). Anyhoo, in the meantime, here are some other shots that were taken when I was showing off my crow shirts.

Look at my face! Look at it! There's murder in them eyes! Or...something! (Just a quick aside, I've been told by several people that I have big/wide eyes. I'll let you be the judge.) I found this picture so hi-larious that I'm actually using a close-up as my desktop picture.


I find the vertical nature of this one quite charming and perhaps even a little artistic. I just wish that I could have shown off more of my shorts (which are brand new some of the ones I took from the big piles of clothes on move-out day).


And this is me making a really cheesy face (there are some that are even cheesier; so cheesy, in fact, that they shouldn't be shown!). Almost like a sendoff to my old camera. "It's been good, kid. We'll always have Comic-Con."

Now, some other pictures! Not of me!

First, you know how I said that my addiction du jour is the game Mass Effect? Well, I thought I'd show off my character. In the game, you can choose your character (Commander Shepard)'s first name (I chose Solomon, since I obviously think it's a cool name), personal history (I made it so he grew up on a colony that was attacked by alien slave traders; everyone he knew and loved was slaughtered), and military history (he was on a mission when his squad was attacked by horrible aliens. All of his friends and allies were slaughtered. [Wow, tough life]). You can also choose what their face looks like.

I decided to make the character look like a more badass version of me, with a shorter goatee (I would have made it longer if possible) and a scar (hell yeah!). This is a result:
Ironically, despite the ever-angry look on his face, my character is actually considered a moral and military paragon. So that's good. When I do my second play, through, I'll be a woman and follow the path of evil. Since, as we all know, women are proven evil.

Finally, sometimes RAs will put on stress-relief programs where people are encouraged to "act like 5-year-olds". At these programs, they almost always have coloring books. Now, I take a decidedly...different approach to these, as you can see in the following:


G'night, folks!

As My Birthday Gift to All of You

I give you the most awesome picture ever:

You can thank me later.

A Preview of Things to Come

Believe me when I say I'll talk more (much more) about this later, when I'm not juggling 18 hojillion kabillion things.

But for now...
...that'll have to do.

Have You Ever Wondered What I Would Look Like if I Were a Pretentious Snob???

Well, wonder no more!

I'll see you at the next art gallery opening!

Complete and Utter Vanity (Apologies to Your Browser Speed)

I like to think that my computer, and all my documents are pretty organized. For example, for pictures that were taken this school year in Berkeley, I have a folder within "My Pictures" called "Berkeley Year Three." In this folder, I have a folder for every month of the year (and a few for things that transcend beyond one month or are considered "exceptional").

The "March 2008" folder has a lot of pictures in it. A LOT.

I'm not sure why. I think it may be a combination of a bit of (relative) free time and...okay, I don't know what the other part of the combination could be. I've just been inspired to take a lot of picture. Of course, about 98% of them are of me (+/- 2%). There's not much else to photograph when you're alone in your room. But I like to think that I can be interesting enough for more than one picture.

Also, I like to Photoshop pictures of myself.

So, I decided to show off some of these pictures (a small fraction of them, but still what I would consider a good representation), as well as some of the Photoshop products.

So, let's get started! (Oh, and if your computer crashed trying to load this page, get a better computer! It's nowhere near as bad as during the Comic-Con days.)

We'll start out with one of the rarest pictures you'll ever see. I've only taken one picture of me like this, and I don't plan on doing so again. This is a side of me that most people never see. However, it was late at night, and I decided that perhaps, maybe, I should take a single picture of myself...wearing glasses.

...

......

...
There, I hope you enjoyed my restricted-vision self. That may be the only time you see me wearing glasses in a picture.

And next, we had a bunch of shots I decided to take one night. On said night, I noticed that a few locks of my hair were down, so I decided to do some "pretty boy" shots; maybe send them in to be a part of a gang, get myself a nickname like "Two-Bit" or "Soda-Pop". Or "Pretty-Boy." It's all good.

As I said, this is but a small fraction of the pictures taken, but I can assure that in most of them, I am not looking toward the camera. It seems to be a lot more mysterious. You can just imagine that when someone's not looking at the camera, they're saying something like "Yeah, whatever," or the ever-popular "..."

I've always been a fan or pointing toward the camera. I find the resulting pictures seem a little more...interactive than most.

This can either be a picture portraying someone's emotional downfall, or some guy saying, "Oh, God, what did I eat last night?"

I also decided to do a few close-up shots. You'll notice I'm still not looking at the camera.

This one was actually a semi-accidental shot, believe it or not. My camera was set up on a timer, and right before this one took, I was scratching my eyebrow area. And yet, to anyone who sees it, it appears to be some sort of emotive portrait picture.

Due to my larger-than-average pupil size, I tend to have more red-eye issues than your normal workaday average Joe. So often, I'll have to use Photoshop just to make myself look a smidgen less demon-like. But for some reason, I thought this picture worked pretty well as having one red eye and one black one. Almost gives a Terminator feel to the whole thing.

Speaking of Photoshop, let's take a look at what I did with a couple of pictures.

So, here's the original picture. Personally, I feel it would have looked better had I my thumbs in my pockets, but you only have a split two seconds to figure out what you're going to do before the camera flashes. In any event, I thought it would work we..

One thing I like to do on Photoshop is to remove the somewhat mundane background of my bedroom and replace it with something a bit more exciting. More often than not, I'll choose a city at night. I don't know, something about it just screams "interesting." However, to do this, you need to make sure that the lighting isn't as intense on yourself. Otherwise, it just looks awkward.

While I really like the way this looks it was, truth be told, accidental. (Like I've said before, the best way to learn on Photoshop is just to experiment.) This was done by applying the "Satin" blending option to the layer with my picture on it, and having the Mode be "Linear Burn". Somehow it turned into this, and I really liked it.

In fact, I liked it so much that this is now my desktop background. (Obviously, at a higher resolution.) It's a pretty kickass desktop, if I do say so myself.

Also, one of the things I tend to to do is add some random lines to pictures, to give it even more atmosphere. This is the "quote" for this picture. Also, you may notice this is quite brighter than the previous two. That's because it was meant to be put on my MySpace/Facebook accounts, and unless you brightened it a bit, it just looked like a black box. As is, I think it looks like it could be the poster for some Jet Li movie (in which Jet Li doesn't appear).

So, here's the second Photoshop project on here. For a while now, I've wanted to have a picture in which I'm holding fire or a fireball. My early (as in, 2005) attempts at creating fire on Photoshop were...well, lame. However, the resources of the Internet are boundless, and I was able to find someone who offers a tutorial on creating fire, as well as a few brushes to help you out. To give proper credit, here is their website. While some may consider using a special brush to be cheating, I don't. After all, Photoshop is meant to make things easier. Plus, in order to make really realistic-looking fire, there's quite a few additional steps, and there are options for customizations all along the way. So, let's take a look.

Here's the original picture. Note that I didn't remove my red-eye. I figured that if I'm going to be holding fire, it would actually be more appropriate to keep it. There are a few different "holding" poses I had, but I thought this one was the best, if only for the intensity of my face.

And here's what it looks like after the edits. Note a few things I did. First, I put a little bit of an orange glow to the face, to demonstrate a new lighting source (it's not perfect, but I think it works). I also cut out my upwards-pointing fingers and repasted them over the flames to make it less obvious that the fire was just pasted on the hands. I won't show you a comparison, but trust me, it make the illusion work out a lot better. Also, I'm not entirely happy with the rising smoke. Had I the chance to do that part over, I think I'd add some difference clouds to it.

And of course, after doing this, I decided to put on some Photoshop filters. Why? Because I'm a filter whore, that's why. It's one of my weaknesses, I suppose; a temptation I can't resist. What's interesting is that each filter will completely change the feeling of a picture. I've included four different pictures and you'll notice that each one has a different "quote" that I think fits with the feel of the piece.

Oh, and each of the pictures are in front of a dark city. Because I'm predictable.

With this one, I thought the eyes really stood out, and that the expression was a bit pout-ier than normal. To me, this kind of looked like some sort of lost soul. So I went with that.

Interestingly, this is the only one of my filtered pictures that's in color, possibly because most of the colored filters just make the picture look messy. This one, however, I felt really added to it. Of all the ones, I think the expression is the most neutral, and yet still quite mysterious and deep. One of those "hero or villain" ambiguities. I would say that this one is my favorite. (I also was tickled by my own double-entendre use of "light".)

This one came out looking like some sort of new-age demon. The fire doesn't even look like fire; it looks like some sort of unholy darkness. Anyway, I apologize for the somewhat weak rhyme, but remember, I'm making this up as I go along.

This one looks like it could be some devil-may-care protagonist who follows his own rules. I always find that when I use this filter ("Torn Edges", if you're curious), my pupils always stand out like a freight train.

So that's my Photoshop work. I only wish I wasn't so interested in it that it keeps me up at night, brushing and clicking away. Oh, well, at least something comes out of it.

And, now, I'll end with another picture of my hair sticking up. Because it's fun seeing how tall my hair can get!

...Okay, I'm done.