I still dream about and want the Cintiq 21UX, but now I want this one :

If you don’t know what a Cintiq 21UX is, then click here.

I currently own an Intuos 3 tablet and although it’s great for coloring and rough sketching I’ve never been able to gather the hand control necessary to get tight, clean lines that I would use in an illustration.

However, thanks to my friend Lynne Yoshii, I’ve recently had the opportunity to use the Cintiq 21UX on an extended basis for the purpose of digitally inking my Demon Hunter Kain comic. So, what are my feelings on the Cintiq, you ask?

IT IS SOOOO GOOD !

I’m starting to save up to get me one of these miracles of modern technology.  I’ll have an update ready once I’ve claimed one as my very own.

Thursday Nov. 27:

Started off the morning with a call from Shawana, the mother of three of my godchildren. She was verifying if I was coming over to her house to ride with her and the kids over to Nancy’s (Latonya’s mother) house. I reminded her that I’d be taking the bus to Nancy’s and proceeded to get ready for my journey. I got to Nancy’s at around 11 am, said hello to both her and Latonya and decided to go to work fixing Latonya’s PC which had gotten hit with a virus months ago. At this point I should let everyone know that the month of November hosts four birthdays that I celebrate: Sylvia’s on the 13th (She turned 12), Latonya’s on the 21st (She turned 13), Jeff’s on the 22nd (He turned 30), and mine’s on the 28th.

Shawana and the kids showed up about an hour and a half later. When the girls got settled I gave Latonya her birthday presents (I was a week late with the gift, but I was there a week earlier to sing Happy Birthday). I gave her a Nikon L18 8 Megapixel Camera and a 4GB Sansa Fuze MP3 Player. The other girls were smiling at Latonya with envy . Latonya showed her gifts to her mother and Shawana. That led to a discussion about the gifts I bought. Shawana thought I stole her gift idea for a camera that she was going to give Latonya for Christmas, and that I was trying to show her up . I let her know that she never told me she had plans to get a camera for Latonya and that I got the idea for the gifts from Latonya’s Christmas list.

Other guests arrived and the rest of the day went fine. Until that night when we were all getting ready to leave. I made a comment to Shawana (who was driving me home) that I don’t care where the kids sat in the car as long as I was in the passenger seat. I got scolded (in front of the kids, I might add) for my comment and was told that it “irks” her when I talk like I don’t care. My reply to that? I bit down and swallowed my urge to chew her out, turned away from her and asked Nancy where the bus stop was. She did me one better, Nancy asked her brother Buster to drop me home!

After Shawana and the kids left, I continued working on Latonya’s computer. It was pretty much fixed and I needed to restart it. That’s when I got hit with a “blue screen of death .” It was 11:23 pm so I decided to call it quits and took Latonya’s PC home to fix it at a later date.

Thursday night was complete.

Friday Nov. 28th:

MY BIRTHDAY !!!

I’m officially 31. I started the day off in a nice deep sleep, which got interrupted by the phone ringing at 7:30 am. Usually this would PISS me off, especially since I told everyone that I’d be off from work (which pretty much means let a man sleep in late). I answered and was greeted to Nancy singing me happy birthday to me, which immediately put my rage in check. We both laughed and I thanked her for the song before she hung up to head off to work. I returned to sleep, a thing that is damn near impossible for me to do once woken up. The phone rang an hour later, it was Shawana. She wished me happy birthday, I told her thank you and got off the phone 4 seconds after that. Yeah I was still mad about Thursday . Anyway I was totally up by then so I decided to go online and check my email. I got another call at 9:20 am, it was my godchild, Sylvia. She wanted to know if I was okay. I asked her what she meant by that. She said I looked sad after Shawana yelled at me yesterday. I explained to her that I was okay, that Shawana didn’t yell at me and I thanked her for her concern. I then reminded her that it was my birthday (So sue me! I rarely get gifts on my birthday the least I can get is a “Happy Birthday” from everyone !). She wished me happy birthday and I returned to my computer. Thirty minutes later I got a call from godchild, Destiny, she wished me happy birthday also. Then my friend Lisa called, we both have the same birthday so we wished each other a happy b-day. An hour later I showered, got dressed and headed to Queens for my friend Lynne’s after Thanksgiving get-together. I got there at around 12 pm. Only problem was I got there 6 hours early. Lynne wished me a happy birthday, gave me some birthday lemon cookies and a gift: The Megaman Zero Official Complete Works Art Book! Fucking awesome !

I helped her with some of some food preparations, played with her Cintiq , read some Hellboy comics and ate the lemon cookies. After being at her house for about two hours I started feeling cold and queasy. By the time Jeff showed up at 6 pm I had gone to the bathroom like three times already .

I was officially sick . The sight and smell of food nauseated me. Since 12 pm and for the rest of the day I ate nothing, watched Samurai Champloo, Wall-E and Kung-Fu Panda with the other guests, talked to my mom and dad over the phone and ran to the bathroom to throw up: twice. I left Lynne’s at around 11 pm feeling drained and nauseous .

Friday night was complete.

Saturday Nov. 29th:

Woke up at 7:30 am. Still felt a bit queasy, but I had a mission to complete . I promised Latonya that for her 13th birthday I’d take her out for the day and we do what she wants. Officially Sylvia was supposed to go with us, but she had an all day appointment to keep so she was a no go. Nancy dropped Latonya off at my place, we then jumped on the train and headed to Union Square where we went to see the new Disney movie Bolt in digital 3D. Good movie, not great, but entertaining and the digital 3D was a sight to behold. It didn’t bother my eyes at all as all 3D movies have done in the past. During the movie Latonya offered me some popcorn. I was hesitant but decided to be strong and put my stomach to the test. Well, not only did I not throw up after eating the popcorn, I found out that the earlier queasiness was actually hunger (I hadn’t eaten since 1 pm Thursday afternoon). That pop corn tasted like God himself popped it just for me. I had some more and decided to save room for when the two of us ate later. After Bolt we had an hour wait before our second movie excursion uptown. So to kill time we stopped at my workplace and I got her some new themes and games for her R4DS card for her Nintendo DS. She was really happy for that. After that we hopped the train again and headed to another theater, this one on 34th and 8th Ave to see Madagascar 2. Good movie, not as funny as the first but still entertaining. Once the movie was over we hiked up to Times Square and got some food at Applebee’s. By the time we got there I was STARVING , I mean people were starting to look edible!

We started off with three appetizers: the Boneless Buffalo Wings, the Dynamite Shrimp and the Spinach Artichoke Dip. Sustenance from GOD! For drinks Latonya got a Mango Banana smoothie and I got a Cherry Limeade. We then ordered the main course. Latonya got the Double Crunch Shrimp and I ordered the the 12 oz. Ribeye with the Shrimp Parmesan and grilled onion toppings and fully decked out mashed potatoes. The kid couldn’t finish all her shrimp, and I’ll admit I was having trouble finishing my steak, but I was determined to devour it or die trying. So after that spectacular meal Latonya wanted to go to Cold Stones for ice cream, kids seem to have a second stomach for sweets. It sounded like a good plan but I was completely stuffed and Ice cream sounded too decadent. I told her I needed to walk around a bit to lose some of the food in my belly. After walking around the entire block I still had no room for ice cream, so I got her one and we walked over to Grand Central and caught the train back to the Bronx. I dropped her back to her house and chatted with her and her mom for a couple of hours. I left at around 11pm.

Saturday night was complete.

Sunday Nov. 30th, Monday Dec. 1st and Tuesday Dec. 2nd:

Before embarking on this Thanksgiving weekend I used my last two vacation days of the year to take Monday and Tuesday off. Suffice to say it worked pretty well for me. From Sunday to Tuesday I woke up as late as I wanted to. . It was great. Sun I worked on Latonya’s computer and have running up to my specifications. The rest of the day and the following days was spent watching Ergo Proxy and surfing the web, total relaxation.

Overall, minus the stomach bug I caught on Friday, I’d have to say it was a great weekend. But of course it all had to come to an end and Wednesday morning it was back to the daily grind. Thanks for reading.

Peace!

The Nintendo DS is a great piece of hardware. Everyday at lunch my coworkers and I just link up our DS’s and have a Mario Kart DS tournament. Suffice to say we have been told to keep the screams of agony, rage and hate down. The game is fun, but it definitely brings out the worst in you, especially when you get really competitive and the computer or the people you’re playing against always get the better items. It’s a great game and a good way to pass the time .