...

Talk about sleep-deprivation...
I guess I haven't gone to sleep earlier than 3 am since Tuesday, or maybe Monday.
And now it's already 4am...
Good thing is, tomorrow is a 'holiday'. Yup, we're having a holiday here, the day of independence of Ukraine. Actually, the date is 24th of August. Tomorrow is a day off because 24th was Saturday, a week-end day.

different kind of holiday

A boring story, really...

Friday started very early for me, because my bro finally took off on his vacation and someone had to drive him to the airport. Yeah, you know, here in this country sometimes it's very hard to find a taxi that will take you anywhere at night. Even if you live in a 'respectable' part of the city. If you went ahead and ordered a car the evening before, taxi driver can just decide not to show up, leaving you stranded, because it's highly unlikely that you'd get a car at night, and get it fast.

So, wake up call was at 4 am. After 4 hours or less of sleep, endless wait while they get their things together (urgh, I always forget if he says he'd be ready at X hours, take it as X + 20 minutes) and get their kid in place, and a drive to the airport (25 minutes long x2, actually), at ~6 am I was home again. My first business meeting scheduled for 10 am, I was like 'what am I to do now?'.

I decided to have coffee and work a bit on my projects. As Alf said, 'big mistake'. 

I boiled water for coffee, filled my cup with boiling liquid and decided to drink it at my desk, as usually. When I'm not sleep-deprived, I remember that my cat is a precarious little creature. This particular day, I forgot about her nature and she decided it'd be extra fun to make me trip while I was walking with my cup.

As a result, I spilled steaming coffee on my right had. Despite my anger and pain, I felt that I shouldn't drop the cup on the beast and managed to put the cup down on the floor. During that I spilled coffee two more times, again on my hand. The pain was agonizing and when I looked at it, at least half of my hand was deep dark pink. I have anti-burn spray at home, so I used it. Though, it didn't help much. When I didn't move my fingers, the pain was bearable. When I did... I found that no typing or operating a mouse was possible. I can use my left hand well. However, to my discomfort, as time passed, the pain only grew worse. I didn't know how I'd cope with it the whole day.

In the end, I forfeited all attempts to work, swallowed some food and set out to find painkillers left from the time in spring when I hurt my foot. I took what emergency room doctor prescribed then, finished the damned coffee, and gradually found myself very tired plus somewhat drowsy. But the pain started to go away.

Very naive me, I set the alarm for 9 am before laying down to take a nap.

Needless to say, I didn't hear it. A person I was supposed to meet at 10 am woke me up at 11 am after n-th call.

Now for the funny part. When I woke up, the burn was mostly gone, only small patches of tender pink skin remained at places that suffered most. But since then it didn't give me any discomfort, apart from burning a bit near heat sources, like all burns do.

hooded RC

and now behold - a pic I've produced during winter 2012.

this resolution doesn't show much of his eyes, I guess...
oh well, I'm not into sharing full-scale paintings at the moment.

it's release candidate, so mostly done.

bride 3

Also because I've been asked when I'm going to finish it, I've done some work on the pic from 2011.
Yes, that's in my nature - leave things 95% done for years. I can draw about 90% very quickly, without distractions or sleep, but then it's hellishly hard to find time to finish the thing...
Now it's 98% done I guess.

Nevertheless, I've successfully done other 2 full-color paintings in the meanwhile. Or even more, I just can't say for sure now. So it all depends on my mood, a dreadful thing.

a discussion about videos...

Hm, here's the not-so-interesting story that may relate only to certain individuals...

I've given several of my friends links to two videos of the same performer (Miyavi), both are in English. I was interested how people would react to music and graphic representation, because I wanted to know how my own views correlated with those of the general audience.
Yes, I don't consider myself 'general' audience... perhaps you can guess why, but it really doesn't matter much,

Ok, 1st video,


 More or less commonplace song.
2nd one is more pretentious:

Even snapshots help you to understand the difference.
2nd vid wants to look 'sexy' and 'hot'.

I asked people to tell me which video was more appealing. And why - if they wanted to share.
If we take demographics into account, results are a bit strange.
Female viewers had better opinion about 2nd video (generally), than males. And females also mostly thought music and images match.
I'd like to think no one had a reason to lie :)

What would you make out of all this?

Sekai no Owari - RPG

Sekai no Owari - RPG

A song I favor lately.

Don't let images fool you - it's actually not that childish. Or is it? :)

Anyhow, that's really one of the songs that's been making my days better in August.

August of 2013

When you're stuck in the routine, each day seems to drag on forever, yet time passes you by quickly... 

Last month of summer is nearly over and I haven't had even a glimpse of what they call 'vacation'. 

Eh, this also might be the year when I won't even see any water body bigger than a bath.

So much for youth's greatness...

I even don't envy those of my friends who are taking vacation 2nd or 3rd time a year - I know I'm not that lucky yet, to be financially stable or pretend not to care about that aspect of life.

Or allow myself to buy expensive things on a whim. 

Well, to those who might be interested, it's actually my family (or what's left of the family I was born into) that's taken a huge bite of my financial resources. Pretty much on a whim too.

Some people don't know what responsibility means even after they turn 50. Or 60. Or until deathbed. 

But things like this sober you up. You 'grow up' fast, learning not to trust anyone, even 'closest' blood relatives unless their words are sealed officially in written form.

I'd like to be sure I won't ever make a mistake like that again, therefore I'm not going to forget easily. 

Recently I've been accused of being cruel too many times. But that cruelty arises from the sole fact that I have to fight for my rights. Being 'kind' doesn't mean letting other people take advantage of you, the word they should use is 'stupid' or 'gullible'. 

There's a thick line between being 'kind' and 'naive'.

Money matters aside, hell, it's really almost September. 

Actually, I wanted to write about many things here, but when I had time to, I usually chose to sleep / eat / work out instead. Maybe when my mind is less preoccupied with so many things to learn, remember and think about (and forget about), I'd find my notes and write down something.

As you may know, I've taken up twitter again; however, it's mostly job-related now. Professional news, updates and IT talk. Twitter wasn't successful in making me write something either. I guess if it wasn't for re-tweets, I'd produce like 0.2-0.5 tweets a day.  

Maybe if someone or something was constantly nagging me, telling me I haven't done anything creative in days, I'd succumb just out of irritation.