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01/11/2005 Archived Entry: "So Here We Are"

I fell on the sidewalk today. (Huzzah! I rule!) I'm beginning to hate ice. Snow's no problem! You fall on snow... *FWUMP!* You're soppy and wet, but you landed in mush that broke your fall a little. You fall on ice... *WHAM!* You're wondering if you're still alive, if you -want- to still be alive, and your ass is on cold concrete. I swear I'm gonna put handicap railing along the whole damn sidewalk so I can cling for dear life on those friggin' steps. I need spelunking line, cleats, and a mining helmet!

I can just see myself coming back from surgery. Slowly creeping out of the car, walking the sidewalk to the house... take my first step and *BOOM!* Back onto the operating table to replace my hips and a few vital organs with titanium!

Why am I feeling so damn old!? I'm not OLD! Old is when your buddies at the retirement home are Tutanhkamen and Methusula. Old's when you're complaining that they don't print cuniform like they used to and where did they leave your Rosetta Stone so you can read this damn newspaper?? Old's when you're still blaming this bad weather on that "big meteor" and damn if it doesn't make your rheumatism act up!

.... Okay, I'll shut up now.

Wait! No, I lied.

In Other News
So I get this PM on my message board that was something I hadn't had to deal with in quite a while. Not the PM, but the topic of the PM. Someone on Neopets, as they are prone to do, took one of my old SweetWater pets and entered it into the Neopets Beauty Contest. Which would have been fine by me because now I -allow- people to edit the old bitmaps and art now. People have donated about $40 or more to support my websites so I gave back with allowing people to use my old graphics for personal use.

What -really- got my goat about this particular one was that the account owner was claiming my art as her own work. If she had super-modified the hell out of it, I would've seen where she could've got off saying "Don't steal my work!" But guess what? She didn't! Not only did I recieve no credit whatsoever, she's saying "Don't steal my stuff -ever-! Don't -ever- enter it in a Beauty Contest!"

Uuuuhhh... Where's the logic in this? This is like stealing the Mona Lisa, painting over her hair to make it really obvious that's the only thing that changed, and then saying "This is -mine-! Don't ever make a copy of this and display it in another museum!" Naturally, I was really ticked off about it and told her via Neopets mail that I didn't appreciate thieves, let alone hypocrites.

On the subject of art theft...
The ones that are -really- amusing (and I mean that with SEVERE sarcasm) are the ones who are -caught- stealing someone else's work and then try to pass it off as REFERENCE! These are Grade A, top of the line, perfected-to-an-artform thieves -and- liars!

Oh, man, the most recent case of this made me almost physically ill. Get this...
Technically, there's a lot of grey area on copyrights and intellectual property when it comes to photography. But when you're claiming it was your own all-original work in the first place, you can kind of nail someone on the principles that they were lying like roadkill on a hot Texas highway - fuming with stench and of no use to humanity.

This happened like a week ago, but the story was this. My friend Karma was telling me about this really great artist and she was willing to autobuy (the commission art was being auctioned on Gaia online for a virtual item) the commission slot. She shows me the thread where this alleged "artist" has her work and some samples. The moment I see the image, alarm bells go off. "Whooooaaa... something's not right here." Sure, enough, I look at the images all posted as "samples" of her "really good art".

All Photoshop-ed photographs. Every last one. I don't care -how- well you Photoshop an image for a commission and -how- good of an editor you are... if you steal someone else's photograph or realistic painting and then claim it was all your original work... you're worth less than dirt in a third world country. The -point- of the matter was not so much at this point that she was a thief, now it was that she was liar and didn't start making excuses until AFTER she was busted!

You talk about nerve! This chick's like "Oh, well, I was using it as reference. It was for a job interview and the guy liked it." Okay, so you lied to your potential boss at an interview. Greeeeat... so it's HIS ass that's going to get sued when someone on a CORPORATE level busts your ass and ends up costing the company a very pretty penny. Wonderful! PRIME candidate for a professional artist, right? If you're willing to lie over editing the bejeezus out of art that was stolen, you're willing to lie to yourself and cheat people out of -real- art that should've been made by a legitimate artist.

And what was worse was her little string of lackeys going "Oh, I never met this person until now, but their art is so good! You're so mean! ;___; Why are you picking on her? She didn't do anything to you! You really need to calm down." This in light of that this "artist" had made images for them of their favorite characters previously for free for some contest. Can we say "BOUGHT OFF"?? And then the "artist" starts taking on this patronising tone... "No, love, you're the one who's wrong. Why can't you just leave me in peace? I only want to make art, can't you see that?"

....

Even if you legalised murder, you wouldn't have enough hours in the day to prevent idiots from breeding. So the only thing you're left to do is inform other people: DON'T BE AN IDIOT! And then just sit and pray.