Aquamentis12

Yeah, I like YYB, I just can't play that much every blasted day. Cheaters just make it worse for everyone who plays fairly.

Granny, there are humans who are members of All-Star guilds that often PICK a team and work hard to boost that team to victory. That's within the rules. There have been rumors of cheater guilds too though. I don't know anything about them other than rumors I see here. I don't typically frequent the Neoboards much but I'm sure TNT quashes any topics about them pretty quickly. I can try to imagine what they do. I don't know if you can bot the games, (have a program play them for you), but I can imagine other ways to kind of stack the deck without cheating at the games. Probably technically legal, but very bad sportsmanship. Since I don't know, I won't post what I'm wondering about anywhere. I don't believe anyone here would use the tactics, but better safe than sorry. Right? And if what I'm imagining might be new, I don't wanna put any ideas out there. It's hard enough to play the game enough to make rank-points (For me at least), without worrying about other players and what they are doing. I mean, I can score plenty of goals usually. But, the goal totals don't count towards rank-points, sadly. If they did, I might make All-Star... I somehow fluked into All-Star one year. lol I forget what AC that was though. lol It just, seems sad/pathetic to me. Cheating, especially in a free-game like Neo in general. I mean I used to have a LOT of trouble playing YYB. Now I can usually get a score of 17 at least 1 time per AC. If I'm lucky, a few 16s too! Scores only help your team though, not your rank or prize-shop points. I don't get to play as much as I would like, frankly, it gets more than a bit tedious. Playing a bunch of games of YYB every day. Sundays were the one day I often would have a little extra TIME to do some more games, if I felt like it. To improve my personal rank. Which is why I'm still frustrated that TNT took that away from us. Anyway, just go with your team and do your best. It's all we can really do. We don't know what team the TOP AC guilds will go with, so we can just try our best for the team we choose.

C'mon Maraqua! For my 12th AC the "signing bonus" I got was a Plushie Yooyu. lol Not bad! I doubt it'll happen, but I WISH they'd let us "pad" our personal stats on Sundays! It USED to be that way against the practice team. Otherwise, there's really no incentive to play on the "days off" from the actual competition. Ok, 3k from score-sends, but that's hardly anything to get excited about. *sigh* I wish they'd give a SPECIFIC date when the previous year's prize shop closes. I went looking on the 21st, and the shop was already closed. Ah well, didn't have a LOT of points from last year, but still. Would've been nice to spend the couple thou I had.

LOL Granny, had to laugh about the clamps! Maybe they should've tried like a temporary version of Super Glue? lol j/k The laser thing, because of the visible cataract I was born with. That's like, I guess an air-pocket in there, if I recall how it was described to me at whenever my last eye-exam was. Well, if the laser is HOT, I'm concerned that would heat up whatever air might be int hat pocket. And you know what happens to heated air in a small bubble, like a balloon, it bursts. So... I really need to talk to an eye-doctor about that. It's a VERY OLD, almost a childhood fear of mine. I just haven't had the time, incentive, nor the funds at the ready for a full eye exam. I don't even know how much one would cost anymore. lol That being said, I would HATE getting my pupils dilated. I heard they can use puffs of air now, which DOES sound better than eye-drops. But still! lol Boy, I hope this talk doesn't get Duma worried. I mean, you're talking experience, and I'm talking childhood fears. @Duma, don't worry, ok? We're just talking *euphemism* here. I'm sure your doc knows what they are doing and YOU WILL BE FINE! Alright? You'll have friends praying and hoping you will be well too! Just follow the doc's instructions, stay calm, do your post-op treatment, which I'm assuming is eyedrops and no screens, and YOU WILL NEVER NEED GLASSES AGAIN! Just keep that in-mind, NO MORE GLASSES! No more getting fitted, no more worrying about losing or breaking them. No more need for adjustments to the lens strength or new frames! You've GOT THIS, Duma! So BEST OF LUCK next week! We'll be rooting for you! EDIT: I decided to join The Sway! Just added my vote to the tally too!

Cool! If for some reason I don't see a poll from you when the next faction selection begins, I'll assume your eyes need a bit more time to heal and will do the poll if you haven't already. Best of luck with the surgery!!! I'll be hoping and praying for MAJOR success!! Granny, I think it was lianakos who was doing the polls. Not a staffer, just a member who had pretty faithfully been doing it since the beginning, I think. I don't know why they vanished, but I'm grateful they kept it up as long as they did. Awwww man! I'm sorry to learn of the troubles you and your sister have had with your vision. I was born with a cataract in the center of my right pupil. It's still there, still visible to the naked eye. It... I think they said it flattened out when I was still a baby, so it doesn't actually bother my vision, but I have to wonder about laser surgery, if that might cause some issues... Anyway, I'm sure I have cataracts that are non-visible to my naked eye. Because if I look at a street-light/lamp I can see a corona around it with either eye. They (the corona) look cool, but I've heard that that means there are some cataracts forming. *sigh* The thought of anything messing with my eyes, like surgery, is absolutely TERRIFYING. Especially if I could SEE the device. It would be so hard to not move my eye(s) or blink.... Which would of course, royally screw up the operation. Which would be much worse than having it at all, at least for right now. Plus I've ALWAYS hated and been super sensitive to eyedrops. >_< MORESO since they got messed with in a hotel pool. I went swimming in it during a family vacation when I was about 8. Apparently, the chlorine smell was fairly strong and since then I can't even get TAP-Water in my eyes without pain. One would think that over 3 decades later my eyes would've recovered from that, but nope!

Hey Duma! How'd things go with the eyes? Thanks for posting the poll! Was just coming here in case I needed to do it instead. Hmmm.... I'm leaning toward The Sway since I like their boons the best, but I'll wait a little, see how others vote.

I will usually battle the runner-up in predictions and/or poll twice as much as I battle the 3rd "ranked" faction. Obviously it doesn't always work. lol But it's a good policy, especially if the #2 in the Poll and/or predictions was CLOSE to #1. Oh well, we'll (hopefully) get them next time.

LOL Got a Sketch Sofa! Oh well. Predictions are never 100% accurate 100% of the time. XD Hopefully NEXT time!

Interesting! I didn't know that! Thanks! That would explain why they are not anchored in one place and why their shape, size and number changes over time. I've had some since I was in high school. lol Sometimes more annoying than others. And you're welcome! Just PM me here or NM on Neopets. My discord is down temporarily so I can't chat right now. Have a good weekend!

Thank goodness it's "something less"! XD And hey, cool you won't have to worry about glasses anymore! You know.... I've been noticing some little issues with my vision lately, I suppose my eyes are at the age where they start to go a little 'off'. lol I don't know if laser would work for me though because I have a cataract in my right eye. Nothing serious, I was born with it and it doesn't impact my vision at all from what I've been told. (Apparently during my first year of life or so, it flattened so was not an issue that needed attention). It's just a visible white speck when looked at. lol Even with the naked eye. But because of it being a cataract, I'm not sure if the laser procedure would cause some kind of reaction. I have to check on that someday. I also have, well... not sure what their OFFICIAL name is, but I call 'em "Floaters". little spots that seem to change shape, lessen, or increase over time. But they're not in a fixed-location in my field of vision, which makes me think it has something to do with some liquid involved, since it looks like they are floating/moving through my field of vision. It's... weird and a little distracting at times. lol Anyway, sorry. ^^; I haven't thought about that in awhile, but I did while replying. lol Anyway, GOOD luck with the surgery! If your recovery time coincides with the next faction selection I can take care of the poll that week.

Cool Duma! Thanks! Oh boy! I hope it's not super serious eye-surgery! Cataracts or less I hope! How long will you be offline after the eye-surgery? I've been trying to be more active here, maybe I can do the poll during your down-time?

Hey Duma! lol I didn't see you started a poll, great! I'm glad people voted! i just added mine (for the record), even though the fighting JUST began. Went with the Seekers this round! XD

YEAH! That user hasn't been around as much it seems. I wonder if someone else will start doing it? The polls here could lead to some interesting discussions among the members. lol In conjunction with the polls that were posted here so regularly, I also check out the predictions on this petpage. To help get a better idea regarding which factions to consider. http://www.neopets.com/~Oxbridge786 They aren't always right, but seem to be right more often than not. I hope this helps!

So in June of 2020, I replaced my ancient wacom bamboo tablet with this one... https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01GE59RZI/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o03_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 I really needed one WITH a screen. I'm more of a traditional media person when it comes to sketching, but sketchbooks ain't cheap, especially since the ones I've been getting for almost 20 years have been discontinued! So, enough back-story. I run a PC with Windows 10 Pro, got plenty of RAM. It used to work just fine, then I went awhile without using it, until several months ago. Since I like to study cartoons, anime, youtube vids, and have purchased a few lessons from Aaron Blaise's website. I wanted to get a second monitor. So, I did, but had to get an adapter (that has a built in program to get it to work properly for USB 3 to HDMI). Turns out I only had 1 HDMI port and a DVI port which I THOUGHT was HDMI when I bought this monitor... Whoops! So, with the tablet on I have 3 monitors. At first, things ran VERY smoothly! The I started having issues with the pen/stylus of the tablet was behaving ODDLY. If I placed the tip on one area and moved it around. It was like the stylus was making contact at two DIFFERENT points simultaneously! Another oddity, is that as I moved the stylus around, the distance between the 2-contact points seemed to change, (when drawing) even though I only have 1 stylus. The distance ranged anywhere from 1cm to about 4 inches on the tablet's monitor. ALSO, I was able to calibrate things to get it back in sync a couple of times. Though I did have some brief, additional trouble with calibration after I updated the tablet's driver. Which did finally settle down for a while. But, after the last time it "freaked". I wasn't able to. I was actually USING it at the time it lost calibration. I was using Clip Studio Paint, trying to get a contest entry done for their illustration contest. Didn't make it, even though I had switched to just using my mouse. Still had lines to draw and modify. Oh well! Anyway, has anyone had this kind of experience before? If so, was there a solution or did you have to replace your art tablet? I'm REALLY hoping I don't have to replace this... It's not even a full 2 years old yet! It's been a couple of weeks since I last tried it. I guess I'm just concerned it won't recalibrate again and I'll have to replace it.... The confirmation of that would really stink! Especially since i can't afford to replace it right now. Anyway, thanks in advance for whatever advice you guys can give! If you've any questions, I'll do my best to answer them!

As it was JUST what would've been my dad's 75th bday (4/29), I was listening to him... lol As usual. Got this CD from his old college roommate. Who happened to come across a reel-to-reel recording he had done of Dad sometime in the mid-70s. For Christmas (2020), this old friend of Dad's had it turned into an Audio CD and sent a copy to my sister, me, and our mom. VERY nice of him! Using the freeware Audacity, I managed to clean-up the audio a little. (There were some "crinkle" sounds from the tape on the old reel). As well as boost the audio volume a bit. Used one of Dad's old professional photos from back then for the "video", and uploaded them to youtube in order. Since this is for the family, not just myself or random people who find it. I left up all the extra dialog and such between songs on each track. It's good to hear his voice, even if his singing style changed a LOT between when this was recorded, and when I was a little kid in the 80s and would listen to him practice THESE and other songs. Anyway, enjoy the covers! If you go to the actual youtube pages.. The title, composer, and lyrics (as Dad sang them) for EACH song are in the description. Being a Folk musician, the lyrics of Folk songs are commonly slightly altered by whomever sings them. Please enjoy!

Ah ok, thanks man! I'm still trying to decide between Eventide and the Spring petpet. lol

So... there are 4 options at the end of Grave Danger, but only 3 petpets? Which option results in the Eventide petpet? I'm trying to decide between that and the Spring one which I'm assuming would be the "small faerie" option.

lol Mortal Kombat style voice-overs! "Finish him!" Kidding. Hiya Aimee, that's an interesting idea! Regarding the Obelisk War, when there isn't a poll posted in this forum, well even when there is. I still look at the predictions on this petpage. http://www.neopets.com/~Oxbridge786 My guild is a shadow of it's former size. But I try to keep what couple of us are left informed on things like this, and when events come out and such. Too bad I'm notoriously BAD at checking/catching the site-news on Neopets itself. lol It's probably in the forums somewhere here, but when the Obelisk War was on-going and in the aftermath, I kind of figured it would be kinda like a guild-ranked battle in some of those MMO games that were popular at the time. It kind of turned out to be right, only instead of a guild we just pick a faction. I've gone against the predictions/polls sometimes. If they are close (polls and predictions). I tend to favor Seekers and Sway if one of them is in the rotation, for their boons. Anyway, as for an ACTIVE game, of the ones you've mentioned I only know Street-fighter. It would be interesting, but that would have to be real-time. And might be bottable... Dunno but it seems like bots can be in almost ANY game. Even MMOs, which really surprised me when I heard about that! But yeah, what I'm thinking would be like, a bi-weekly game unlocking like Yooyuball does for the AC. Only in the game TNT would have, there'd be a battle-theme of course, then at the end of the 4 or so days of "battle", the winner would be determined like usual. There would still be the 3 or so days to pick a faction of course. And the boons could still last the solid week following the skirmishes like they do currently. Since you are a talented artist, you could try mocking up some of your ideas and hey, maybe even pitching them to TNT? That would be cool. Like, you described 3 different game styles. Maybe those would be 3 different options/mini-games to participate in to contribute to the faction that people choose to join for the skirmishes? I think that it would have more appeal if there was more variety to the process. It might even help with pitching to TNT, pique their interest more. LOL I've had some ideas forEVER for a Neoquest III. But, I don't think they accept game concepts/ideas/stories from regular users. lol That being said, it would be fun to design some of the maps, though tedious to do ALL of them myself. Not like I'd want much for it. lol I mean IF it was a possibility, I'd love a full set of the InSaNe prizes that I could keep for my gallery. XD They could even be "no trade". though equippable if they were weapons, would be nice. (Since we're talking pipe-dreams here. lol) I'd have to dig through my memory to try and remember more of the story I thought up, (as it's been over a decade that I thought it up lol). But it would kind of continue from the end of NQ2, though it would start out with a new character and story/goal in the first chapter. Then interaction with NQ2 characters would happen. That idea is not set in stone as far as when the NQ2 characters would come into the game. I've got a couple alternative ideas as well. The Chapter 1 plot is pretty much solid in my mind though. Character species/idea and goal at least. I wish I could develop games. But coding is WAY over my head. lol I used to draw maps and monsters for my own game ideas (various genres). lol Haven't done that in a long time though. ^^; Of course I haven't had much inspiration lately for new game ideas or how to expand on old ones either. lol ^^; I'm curious to see what others think of your interesting idea!

WOW! Just did the negg hunt for today and chose the Teacup Negg..... Insane luck! Got the Teatime in Neovia Stamp!

Interesting that you got the same selection for both days Angelo. I got a different negg selection than you did. I chose a Stained Glass Negg for Day 1, only got a Green check on it though. But I got the book from that. Day 2 I got the gold check, I selected the Music Negg and got the book from that! lol I'm a bit surprised because NORMALLY I have terrible luck getting the books or item(s) I'm hoping for. lol Two of the neggs I could choose from each day were the same.. I don't remember each though. I think the different neggs between the two days were the Aquatic Negg for Day 1's hint, I remember looking it up. And the Music Negg for Day 2.

Cool! Totally forgot about this even! lol Checking the guide out now.

lol xD This is GREAT! I noticed Faerie City's map was back the other night while doing dailies. But it's a PLEASANT surprise that they did such a big release after so long!

My 1st and 2nd cars were used. One was REALLY old. A 1992 Toyota Corolla. No power ANYTHING. LOL Not even locks or windows. I had it for some time, I was not it's first, 2nd, or even it's 3rd owner or so. I finally had to replace it because there was some tear in the underside...Some protective thing around.. I can't remember, it's been too long. Anyway, it would've cost WAY more to fix than the car was worth. It's value according to Kelley Blue Book's site, was $400. When I traded it in at a Toyota Dealership, they actually gave me $500 trade-in off of the cost of the used Camry I got there to replace it. Now THAT one.... a 2009 Camry, turned out to be a LEMON. Even though it was Toyota "Certified". Meaning the Toyota Dealership inspected it and made any repairs it might've needed with official Toyota parts. I mean it was fine for a few years, but then... UGH. I mean the heat-shield actually half-way came OFF while I was driving. I was NEAR the dealership where I got it, on my way to visit my mom, so with the back-end of the heat-shield literally dragging on the street, I turned into the dealership's service garage just around closing time. Fortunately, they let me in and took the shield off. I had to make another appointment to replace it later on... Let's see, the water pump, transmission (which almost NEVER dies on Toyotas apparently).. and a few other things. Around 2018 I got my first new car. I had to get a loan, but it was ok. It's a 2018 Hyundai Sonata, going with a Hyundai dealership my aunt and uncle recommended. Got about $4500 off with the trade-in on my Camry that I could take off of the Sonata. So it wasn't AS bad as I was worried about before I took out the loan. Just saying, that even a dealership car can be a Lemon. There's ALWAYS going to be SOME risk. My late grandfather, used to say that you never want to buy a car that was made on a Monday. I don't know if it's possible to find out about the DAY a specific car rolled off the line, but he said it because it was the first day of the work week and people were probably cutting loose on the weekend. So I guess the thinking was they'd come in to work on Monday with a Hangover, or something. lol Sadly, he had passed away before I got my Camry, so I never had the opportunity to ask him after I learned about that saying. lol Anyway, my Sonata so far is pretty good after about 3 and a half years. A couple of minor things have needed repair, but thankfully nothing major, so far. *phew*!

There are online resources like Carfax, at least in the US, Not sure what resources for the history of a car are available outside of the US. Buying a used car from a dealer is probably a bit "safer", albeit probably more expensive. Though one of my uncles, a missionary, would tend to buy a used car he'd find in the paper or parked on the side of a road when he would come back to the US for an extended visit. I don't know his budget or criteria, but he knows automobiles, and as far as I know, I haven't heard of him ever picking out a lemon. Whehter him or if his family was with him, he just needed a "runner". Didn't have to have much other than be in good working order, A/C for the summer or good heater for the winter. I'm assuming he'd sell the car before leaving back for Japan. Due to the pandemic I haven't talked with him in awhile so I don't really know how he knew if a car was good or not. I'm bringing up the anecdote because if you know your stuff and/or get the car checked out by a mechanic before you buy it, it can be pretty safe. So if there's a specific car you're looking for, or one you like the looks of and are wondering. Look up the make/model online and see what you can learn about the vehicle, in general and if you have it's VIN number, you should be able to find out if it's been in any reported accidents or not. And of course, get it checked out by a mechanic and have questions ready to ask them, their thoughts on what the car would be worth. Another good resource would be the Kelley Blue Book site. You can enter the make and model of the car, it's year,. mileage, what "bells and whistles" it has and they'll give you a decent idea what the car should be worth. I hope this helps!

So, about a week and a half ago I was asking family on FB about old photos of the inside of a bar/supper club where my Dad used to perform when I was little. Specifically for St. Patrick's Day he, his brothers, and their dad would perform Irish, Folk, and Western songs, tell jokes and stories. Dad solo'd there occasionally too, but family usually didn't attend those. Anyway, both "Nays" tie in to each other. I was working on a recent art contest entry put on by the creators of the art software Clip Studio Paint. The theme was "holiday", and I decided to draw a scene from back then for my entry. Thing is, I have ONE photo. It's a close-up and kinda blurry. But it's of all 4 of them on the tiny stage. Really just a plywood platform covered in carpeting, only several inches off of the dance floor. lol Though you can only see them from about the thighs up. lol Anyway, NOBODY on his side of the family thinks they have ANY photos! I KNOW this was 40-ish years ago, but this was an ANNUAL thing for 5-6 years at LEAST! So it's really more like 34-40 years ago. ONE person, an aunt, widow of one of my uncles thinks she MIGHT, but she Winters in Florida where it's warm and I don't know when she'll return to Wi. Another aunt, one who HAPPENS to be my freakin' Godmother though... At first it was ok, until she has the gall to ask me about these reel-to-reel tapes of audio recordings from Dad's place after he died. Reel-to-reel look like old filmstrip reels but they are audio recordings. I say "the gall", because Which brings us back to the contest. I lost a few days because of that blind rage I was sent in over this. It wasn't her comments so much as the deletion. Trying to "change history" so she can pretend like it didn't happen. Reminds me of something my Dad or my sister would do. I was shocked that she did that. I just couldn't concentrate on anything else. I distracted myself with whatever I could, but because the contest entry was directly related, being family related and asking for the photos brought up the reels and the incident. I just couldn't focus on that as much as I tried to. Anyway, so zoom to this past Tuesday night. I'm working on the pic again, and making some decent progress. The deadline was 11:59 GMT on Wednesday the 6th of April. Apparently I am 5 hours behind GMT to I had until 6:59 pm (locally) of that day. I pulled literally an ALL-nighter. And then around 5am my tablet died. The calibration anyway. I spent about 2 hours trying various things to recalibrate it, but NO luck! So, deprived of sleep I stayed up working with my mouse in Clip Studio Paint. The reason I do these contests in the first place is to practice CSP and my tablet. I still prefer using pencil and paper to draw and the digital stuff in my old stand-by Paint Shop Pro 6. Which I've had for over 20 years now. I had a phone conversation with my mom for about 40 minutes that afternoon. but I couldn't work on the pic during that time because my phone was losing the connection for some reason at the PC. (ODD considering that there is a Cell-Tower about 300 or so feet from my apartment building). So I laid down on the couch while talking with her. The signal stopped breaking up and my back was KILLING me anyway. After the conversation was over, I accidentally dozed off for about 40 minutes. Woke up and scrambled to finish my entry. Worked right up to, and sadly beyond the deadline. If I hadn't lost those few days to my aunt's frustrating temper. (Yes it runs in the family but don't try to tell HER that! You'll live longer!), I wouldn't have gotten my rhythm knocked off for those days. It wasn't just the entry either. I tried doing some animating on the weekends, a habit/hobby of mine that I do almost every weekend, draw or animate something. And things were SO OFF that I couldn't use ANY of the frames I drew that weekend. Even the following weekend, though better, I was still waaaaaaay too off to use any of the frames I (re)drew. Which of course irritated me again, because up until then, each weekend before had been successful with NO having to redo ANY frames. Surprising, considering it was my first time trying those poses and movements. This is what I had done PRIOR to getting thrown off-track. It's just a rough animation right now, details will be added later and then I rescan all the index cards that make up the frames. The gif is 38 frames at about 3-4 frames a night. But I haven't uploaded the frames after because they are sooooo OFF! I'm going to try AGAIN THIS weekend... What is that they say? 3rd time's the charm? *sigh* I hope I can get things to work this time. I've been working on this project for over a year, and I was really enjoying the progress I was making on this part of it before the incident with my aunt! *exhales* I'm going to finish my contest piece too, just not sure when. Since I've missed the deadline I'm going to slow down on it to focus more on the details of the lighting and such, as well as try to figure out SOME way to get my tablet working right again. When I touch the pen to the tablet, the cursor shows up/clicks anywhere from a few millimeters off to several INCHES off from where the pen actually touches the screen. Then sometimes it's like it's reading the pen hitting 2 places at the same time.... I can't draw with that. It's my first Parblo tablet. I don't really know these things very well. So I don't know what's going on. Plus it's about 2 years old so it's probably past it's warranty. A new one, same brand and size would be $200. Up about $30-$35 from what I paid due to inflation and economic garbage. Even so, I can't budget a new tablet right now anyway. So between those two things, I couldn't get my entry done on time. :-\ A real shame because it was turning out so well! Even though I did have to make a few objects in PSP6, because I don't know CSP very well yet. The contest is put-on by the makers of the CSP software, but they allow ANY illustration to be used for the entry. (Program or traditional). Anyway, glad to get that venting done. Thanks for reading this far. This is a piece I made for my contest entry in CSP after my pen/tablet stopped working. So this was made in CSP using my mouse and with the line/curve and little bit from a couple other tools. The type of Guitar my Dad usually played. A Martin D-35, 6-string acoustic Guitar. For these gigs he'd also play his banjo and Mossman 12-string guitar. He was quite skillful as an entertainer!