That's a Wrap

We have survived Thingadailies 2026!

This episode brought to you by Hot Zotz

On my way home from the writing/reading/knitting group at the local coffee shop, I stopped by Ye Old Time Pharmacy to see if they had hypertonic saline. They did not, but they did have some fascinating candy that I'd never had before.

Hot Zotz Fiery Cinnamon Fizz. They aren't all that hot (maybe they are for Italians?), but they do fizz. They're pretty tasty and interesting.

Foster kitten update

Gnocchi just made her bald spot bigger. Ugh!

Lulu seems to be weaker in the hind end this evening. She's playing and running around, but she looks like a low rider with her back legs bent. I stopped the B-vitamins two days ago because I can think of no reason she would still be deficient, but I swear I'm going to restart them tomorrow if she's not better. At this point, it may just be magic.

The Maggot Muffins (Lucy & Nova) are doing great. They got to be the star of the show tonight. I fear there is not much going on in Nova's head, but she's very sweet.

AITA for my response after my parents destroyed my handmade Christmas presents to my siblings?

What did I learn during Thingadailies?

Mostly I learned how to use iMovie, which is useful. I also learned a bit about the vector side of Affinity. And I learned my foster cats are trying to make me tear my hair out.

My goals for February March (ha, good catch, Maria!) are to increase my writing output to 700+ words per day and maybe join a gym. We shall see...

Technically Not Spring

It's the penultimate day of Thingadailies! Woohoo!

Everything is growing

I spent a chunk of the day weeding, and I cleared space along the fence line of the neighbors who will complain if I don't. I still have a bunch of that horrible sticky weed in the back, and some of it is flowering, so I need to get rid of the rest of it in the next couple days or it's going to reseed. (On the other hand, it does seem to crowd out the bindweed, so I have to decide which one I hate more.)

I also helped my other neighbor upload a new copy of his novel, with an important typo fixed. I suspect I will be doing that every so often, but I don't think he has the computer skills to do this without help.

Between that and trying to finish this short story (which is almost done), I forgot to go to the shelter to pick up the special food the Maggot Muffins are eating. Tomorrow is another day.

Foster updates

Gnocchi remains herself. She kneaded my thigh so hard she left a bruise.

Lulu is about the same. I think she may have some pain in her hind end when she does certain moves, because she jumped down from my lap this morning and then hid behind the door. Later, she played with all her toys, so the pain seems to have been temporary.

Lucy & Nova continue to get into things they shouldn't. Nova's butt seems better maybe? I haven't needed to change the towels in the last 24 hours, which is a win. With any luck, she'll heal all the way and the girls can go off to be adopted before the wave of small kittens blows into town.

AITA for refusing to wear the engagement ring my fiancé made?

I cropped myself out entirely. Lulu deserves to be the star of the show.

Against the Rules

It's day 26 of Thingadailies!

That's against the rules

Lucy & Nova (aka, the Maggot Muffins) realized they could jump on the counter in the bathroom where they are staying, so nothing is safe anymore. I came back from the library makerspace this afternoon and they had knocked the scissors on the floor. No playing with scissors! Bad kittens!

AITA for taking advantage of confusion in cafe names to attract business?

Today's AITA question was a long one and I had to speed up the video a bit. Meh. If I had to do it again, I'd cut some text out of the question. It doesn't sound terrible, but it's obviously sped up. Live and learn.

Daal, Daal as Far as the Eye Can See

It's day 25 of Thingadailies! (That's great, but that also means I only have three days to finish writing, edit, and post a short story for my Patreon supporters. I guess I should figure out how it ends...)

So Much Daal

As you can guess, I made daal this evening. A lot of daal. I'll be eating this for a week, which would be fine if it tasted better, but it's just sort of okay. My only hope is that it will improve after spending a day in the refrigerator. It might. Some food is better the next day.

Foster Updates

We're in a holding pattern. I'm waiting on the results for Gnocchi, Lulu is about the same, and the Maggot Muffins are adorable and slightly less poopy. I need to run a load of laundry for them.

AITA for refusing to pay for an exterminator when a spooky spell attracted spiders to my friend's house?

It's weird that creating a YouTube short is the easiest of all options...

When in Doubt, Add a Cat

It's day 24 of Thingadailies, and I'm feeling a little tapped out. So tonight's thing is just a minor modification of what I had before. And that's okay.

But first, the foster updates

Gnocchi went in today to have the shelter vet look at her bald spot. The good news is that everyone agrees that it does not look like ringworm. But just in case, they sent of samples to the lab. With any luck, this won't scare the adopters away. Oh, and the funniest thing was she was perfectly behaved during her exam after I warned them she would probably require sedation.

Lulu seems a little better today. I need to find the second camera and put it in that room because every time I open the door I see her sitting on the heating pad, but when I'm in my office next door, I keep hearing her bang on the closet door. The ping pong ball has mysteriously moved behind the couch a couple times today. Fingers crossed she keeps improving.

The Maggot Muffins remain ridiculously cute while generating piles of laundry.

When in doubt, add a cat

I wanted to see what adding an animal to the cover would do, so I used the cat brush. (Yes, it's an actual brush type in Affinity that adds a cat and a ball of yarn.)

It not the right thing, but it adds a needed touch of chaos to the picture. I'll keep looking at ways to add animals to the vector covers...

Puppy

It's day 23 of Thingadailies!

Foster Updates

Not much change from yesterday for anyone. I did convince Lulu to eat a little tonight, but there's still something not right about her. If she's not doing well in the morning, I'll see if I can bring her in with Gnocchi for an expert opinion (or at least drugs to make her comfortable while we figure out what's going on...)

Puppy Vectors

Today I wanted to see how hard it would be to convert a real life image into vectors. That way I wouldn't have to either create or purchase vector images, especially for things I already have pictures of. I don't mind purchasing vector assets, but it becomes a problem when they aren't all in the same style. If I create the vector assets, I can control that.

This was the picture I was playing with, a puppy named Taylor that I drove over to Sacramento last year:

So, how hard is it to vectorize an image? Not hard at all, but... It defaults to breaking it down to so many tiny vectors that it looks like a raster image, so if you put it in a book cover with a bunch of vector objects, it looks like a bad photoshop job. The image below is technically a vector, but it might as well be a raster image.

What I really wanted was a more simplified version of the puppy. I feel like there's probably an easy way to do this, but I haven't quite figured it out.

I ended up going over to GIMP and choosing Image->Mode->Indexed..., which will create a palette with however many colors you specify. Then I pulled that image with fewer colors into Affinity and vectorized it using Vector->Image Trace...

There are two settings in Image Trace which control how exact a copy it will try to make. I tweaked the dials until I could get something recognizable while also being simplified. I also didn't try to clean anything up afterward, so they could probably be improved.

Results

10-color palette:

12-color palette:

16-color palette:

32-color palette:

I think 10 lost definition of the nose, and 32 looked too close to a photo. I could probably live with either 12 (after some cleanup) or 16.

Anyhow, it was an interesting exercise, and probably the real message is that you should pay artists. But this is fun, too, and I can probably get reasonably results if I spend some time on it.

More Vector Fun

It's day 22 of Thingadailies!

More Vector Fun

I didn't feel like recording another video, so I went back to playing with covers.

I copied book one to use as the template and then started changing things for book two. There are still things I want to tweak, and I need more objects of the table, but the branding is strong.

This is where I'm at right now:

It's a work in progress...

Foster Updates

Gnocchi met with the people interested in adopting her — it went about as well as it could, given that we had five people crammed in my office. She hung out on the edges and allowed herself to be brushed, and then after thirty minutes deliberately walked over and climbed into her cave bed. I think they're going to adopt her as long as the vet appoint on Tuesday (because of her weird bald spot) doesn't turn up anything strange.

Lucy and Nova, the Maggot Muffins, are doing well. Nova is still kind of leaking poop, which isn't great, but hopefully things will go back to normal at some point soon. In the meantime, they're eating and playing and just generally being cute.

Lulu has seemed a bit off for the last day, and I'm trying not to panic. She got vaccinated Thursday afternoon, so maybe that's part of it? I don't think she ate anything today. This cat! I need her to be healthy, dangit!