Recently, a forum called Project Pokemon was caught using Nintendo Pipeline's forum skin. The site admins IP banned the skin creator after ignoring private messages to politely remove the skin they ripped.

The site admins are:

• Fallen
• Sabresite
• SCV

You can find all the talk about it here.

I am disgusted, personally. The site itself is for hacking Pokemon. They don't help their reputation by ripping off skins. Art theft should not be tolerated.

Their host was contacted, but their host refuses to do anything about it since Nintendo Pipeline does not have lawyers.

Christmas has been losing its magic for me, but this year was nice. For me, Christmas is about celebrating Jesus' birth (regardless of how inaccurate the date may be), while spending time with the family. We do exchange presents, too.

This is what I received this year:

• $25 Visa gift card
• $60 in Gamestop cards
• $5 bagel shop card
• $25 cash
• NSMB Wii
• Canon PowerShot A1100 IS - nothing fancy, I just didn't own one before so I guess they bought me one to keep me from using theirs. It's a nice color green though
• Blazer, dress pants, and silvery shirt that I wanted for my Design Final
• Winter Coat
• 3 bags of Lindt truffles. One white chocolate, one milk chocolate, one milk chocolate coating with white chocolate inside
• 4GB SD card for the camera
• Camera case

SPOILER ALERT!

SPOILERS...i mean it!

okay,

I thought it was way overhyped. I didn't like it, at all, for a couple reasons. One being how incredibly unoriginal it was. Take Pocahontas and Atlantis. Two disney movies. Both the same as Avatar. Newcomers visit different world, hero falls in love with a prominent figure in the opposite (and savagely portrayed) society, hero switches sides and kills the war general, then stays in their newfound world. Except John does go back to his homeland in Pocahontas.

Only difference is that Jake Sully can switch between the two bodies, until the end.

My second beef is with the special effects. A few critics raved how it set a new standard for movies. Yet it's not any different than Up, Toy Story 1&2, or Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs in it's 3D department. Or any other Real D)) 3D movie.

I finished my first semester of college! The entire week I fretted over my Design final, because we had to formally dress and present our project. However, I feel like I did just fine, and the teacher seemed to like my project. I'm really excited, these next 3 weeks are dedicated to whatever I want to do! I plan to finish up some books I've been reading and learn some more CSS/XHTML (I made this journal skin).

I'm currently reading these 3 books, which I'd recommend:

1. The Elements of Typographic Style by Robert Bringhurst
2. Graphic Design: The New Basics by Ellen Lupton
3. The Savvy Designer's Guide to Success by Jeff Fisher

A few days ago I had to give a presentation, and I calmed myself, ready to do a good job, until after the second PowerPoint slide- then I noticed I started shaking for some stupid reason. That upset me, so then I started talking fast. Screw you, nerves.

I felt better afterward, because I got a 95% A as my final grade for English 150. And she gave me 100% on my bad presentation.

Granted, my smile faded once I got to my van, ready to go home for the weekend. A four-inch layer cake of snow and ice coated it. As a Michigander, the disgrace of not owning a ice/snow scraper in my van set in as I spent the next 17 minutes fighting it off by hand. Just trying to get my bags in was tough, because all of my doors froze shut over the past week. The worst of it being the hatch on the back. I tried to open it with no luck. I thought it was all good until I started driving and the door light came on, indicating my feeble attempts opened it just enough… but not enough to be able to close it. So I had to waste another 10 minutes getting that cleared up so I could properly open and close it. By the end of this all, yes, I was lightly dusted in white.

I did get home safe, nonetheless. Opening my front door to a hyper little mutt is heartwarming, truly. Springing up to reach me, with his shining beady eyes full of excitement… Moose, you slay me.

But tomorrow, I go back, to finish a drawing and all the other projects I shirked.