GIMP

I stopped having easy access to Metro Times, the paper that carried Life In Hell in Michigan in 1989 or 1990, when I moved to bf-rural Michigan.

I hesitated to make this and the other splash because it has been so long since I read the strip that I am not so confident that I remember the flavor of it -- and I certainly probably don't remember or know all the characters.

It was made a little easier when one of the characters lost his bunny ears and gained some wilber ears though.

This is an obvious reference to a Life in Hell that I read online.

And this is funny for me personally as well as being something I read online.

And next (as you can see, the blender team has been able to use the web mechanism that the team I was on designed and that Raphael hid after listing himself as 'guru') we get something different.

If you would like an original splash like this that says things that are even funnier or even more in character, I have made the xcf available here. I used one of the fonts that I picked up from here called "Comics" which is the reason that the text has been typed in all lower case there. You can choose your own font, alter the speech/comment balloon -- really, whatever the hell you want to to make your own splash. The xcf should scale up nicely for a desktop image and definately it scales down well enough for a GIMP splash. I scaled each of my final versions to 400x300 (pixels, of course) and you can do whatever you want with whatever software you want to do it with.

There is nothing that is sexier than one of the natural rulers of the jungle, caged and on display.

Found on wikicommons where you can see, he got a window also!

This text been written and the image was manipulated with a complete and very bitter sarcasm.

This was a great sign but in the wrong setting. So I stuck it on a somewhat better background.

I did try to watercolor the image.

Making it look like someone had scribbled it with a pen might have been the best way to handle it.

Long ago, when I was living my own life, I was told one of the sweetest and funny stories that was also about copyright problems. This image appeared in the stream of Creative Commons images at that popular photography web site and I couldn't help but use it. I had the privelege to know everyone but Paul in that story.

Somewhere, a blackbird is singing in the dead of night as well.

When I saw this image in that Creative Commons stream of photographs, I could not help but love this guy, this bewinged critter who did not seem to have posed for the camera.

Had gimp-1.0.2 been able to use different splash and had this image been available to me, I would have used this young bird for that -- the version has little if anything to do with it.

The background of the original image was not wide enough for this task, so I made a new one and I made it alittle darker.

Ari Pollack (google searches tell all!) seemed to need me to be racist and sexist, so in the spirit of trying to help this Debian (new url now ->) maintainer of GIMP, I made a pretty splash image that insinuates or hints that I think that all people claiming to be Jewish men are gay.

And it is also true that within a few days before that, I was watching an Arabic speaking African and a German perhaps starting to have a conflict on #gtk+. I did not take this that seriously because the German was getting monies from google SOC, but since California is the most boring and sorry excuse for a high cost of living area on this earth that you could ever beyond your wildest nightmares imagine living in (if you are like me and had had a real life before) I went forth and attempted to resolve their conflict. First I tried sharing this awesome and truly peace promoting video which I have not seen in about 25 years. When this failed, I suggested that the African Arab and the German help me to rid #gimp of the three Jews which had recently appeared. So, I guess it is safe to say that I am more peaceful than I am not a racist.

Is it racist and sexist enough to help Ari? I have no idea. To me, Ari has done something like well -- I have had friends who decided they would find financial freedom by selling cosmetics or knickknacks for the home. They would buy a whole bunch of product and then sell this to their friends. As soon as the colors of cosmetics for the typical Michigan imbred or the colors for todays stylish livingrooms had sold, these girls would be left with all the product that the accessible territory knew would not work for them. Usually my friends would just give me this crap leftover stuff to get it out of their homes and lives. Ari is like that about Debian. When they insist that I install a bunch of stuff that I don't want, need or use -- how is it not the same thing as buying a color of blusher that doesn't work for your skin and never will unless you suffer liver shutdown or some life changing and skin shading ordeal?

One of the things that I liked most about GPL was gcc and that really cool configuration/make software that allows you to build software to suit your own needs. For example, I don't like libtiff and I don't use it very often and I don't like having GIMP with libtiff enabled. I don't even need to justify this, all I need to do is to build GIMP myself without it and my needs are met perfectly.

Ari is like one of those girls with too much wrongly colored make-up product in the right side of town about this. I don't know what her problem is since the software is free and all....

And more, I wrote this and made this splash because I was pestered into it. Because (I guess) there is something sexy about pestering a very out of place and misplaced and way too disregarded girl who really isn't that racist or sexist. I am even certain that Ari will grow up to be a beautiful and non-parasitic young jewish woman or man one day. Or Arab, or black or yellow or pink or B'hai or perfect size 12 or IQ greater than 43 or Masonic or Hoosier or whatever....

Now I wonder, if you are in posession of any personal goals will you be easily qualified as racist or sexist? I think so.

No matter what else, it is true. GIMP is not just for pansies....

Images from wikicommons: Hornveilchen 2, Viola tricolor, Heartsease-Orange, Hornveilchen 1, Pansy Viola tricolor Flower, Styvmorsviol and Viola curtisii-04 (xndr).

Perhaps there is some signal or secret handshake or whatever that divers/snorklers give to each other. Perhaps there isn't and this diver was simply telling the photographer that he had flatuated into the school of whatever fishes he was invading sharing the waters with -- I have no idea.

I do know what great splash for GIMP look like though.

I did get those tell-tale chills when I saw this image while fishing in the Creative Commons stream.

Under the surface of the water, no one can see your splash....

This image was seen and grabbed by me in the Wikicommons stream of incoming images. I have quite simply no actual proof that it is the back of the famed Mona Lisa; as it is just an image put on a web site where anyone can upload images and name/claim anything about them -- but the thing is, I want to believe that it is an image of the back of that painting. I want to believe this the same way that I want to believe that we landed on the moon and have yet to encounter an actual (other worldly) alien. I really really want to believe the moon parts especially.

When I was a much much younger girl and I learned more about Santa Claus than I really ever wanted to, it really did not take me very long to figure out that if my little brother continued to believe, that all of that would continue to happen and it is (in actuality) easier to do the right thing and give great stuff anonymously (like as Santa) than it is when you know who it is. That for whatever reason, simply because you know who it is, at that point, you should stop expecting and planning and wanting. This is the same thing about humans walking on the moon, which still gives me chills and still tears me up if I think enough about it. I know it was a big media landslide. The kind of thing that many many groups of well-paid and 'educated to do this' people attempt to do now. I know that me and almost everyone my age and older saw that on television and thought it (and we) were the coolest most clever rung in the evolution ladder, ever! (praise god for that, even) With that same expectation, I simply want to see an image that claims to be the back of Mona Lisa & put into a public archive like wikicommons and have it be simply that (what it claimed to be and nothing else).

Santa can hit the road (and did, and shortly after that so did christmas presents and family and a lot of other things that ((usually)) republicans ((which my mom is)) call important, protected and valuable). The moon walking and images that are uploaded to wiki commons being what they say they are -- this I want to believe. I figure that I am not alone on this.

Maybe there are three other people in this world who think that the back of the Mona Lisa is cool and good for a GIMP splash, maybe there are 300 -- hell, maybe there are 3 million others. As long as there is just one who thinks this (me in this case -- maybe you have in your possession or found a different image that is at least as cool as this one) that this is an image that is honest and worthy of being a GIMP splash -- it should go online prepared to be exactly this.

And when this page goes online, I will have accomplished exactly that.

Better to get along with things and wonder: "how come the French have Mona now?" It would be very much much easier for me to believe if any other nation had the image....

• gimp-2.4-splashes.tar.gz
• Life in Hell
• original-original-desktop-generator.xcf.gz
• Wikimedia Commons
• flickr creative commons images

Flickr seems to be a great place for photographers who cannot get people to their own web sites. Most community based web sites seem to be very very emotional and needing to promote themselves only. I try not to do that here, the reason is that it is wrong to do. So, if your professional web site is failing your professional photography business, do look into Flickr for getting people to see your photographs -- but remember, there will be many people there who are in the same situation that you are.

Then recently, I read a web log from a girl who was one of the most scary things I ever encountered. Not scary because of the way she chose to live her life, but scary because it looked like she was using the way she lived her life to scare everyone away until she could get what (for most of us) would be an unnecessary and expensive surgery. And, she is still whining and it is all about the trials and tribulations of being a wikipedia ADMIN (which is spelled with all caps like that).

I would like to hear tales from people who started to use GIMP, wrote some web pages about it and then lost everything they had and more than 70% of the people on the list of everyone they loved. If I am the only person this has happened to, then there is a big big big problem somewhere and I suspect that it is not mine.

Enjoy this new version of the software and these splash.