Photoshop brushes to play around with while you’re supposed to be doing your taxes

75 Sets of Unusual Photoshop Brushes.

Interesting and seldom seen group of (free) Photoshop brushes, ranging from angel wings, label maker, horror movie posters, keys, grungy street signs and more.

Yes, brushes are probably overused in the Photoshop ‘community’, but if you’re an incompetent boob relative newcomer to Photoshop’s fancy tricks, they come in so so handy!

If you don’t know how to use PS brushes, download the collection, extract the .ABR files (using  WINRAR or your favorite file uncompactor program) to the Adobe Photoshop BRUSHES file, which is probably located in C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Photoshop CS3\Presets\Brushes (or something like that). Once installed, they will appear in your selection of brushes.

I keep playing and playing and never got anywhere. At my age, I don’t have that kind of time to spare!

I’ve been in a wheelchair for two months, with another month to go. Amusing recreation activities have jumped to the top of my to-do list. Pop Cap’s online stand-bys, Peggle and Bejeweled 2, were getting stale, so my heart glowed with joy when I found new Pop Cap games—Peggle Nights and Bejeweled Twist.

My best new find, though, is a new Pop Cap game, called Plants vs Zombies (”Get ready to soil your plants in an all-new action-strategy game from PopCap!”). Love it, love it, love it.

That’s enough promotion for Pop Cap, because the real point of this post is to give players the fix to a frustrating problem: The game stops saving your progress for no apparent reason. I played through levels 3-2 through 4-5 three times, thinking I was doing something wrong. Luckily for me, Google is my friend. The solution is simple enough, but nothing you’d think of on your own: Vista Administrator mode.

Someone, somewhere, forgot to ensure PvzZ would run properly in Vista. simply “Run as Administrator” (ie, Right click on the program shortcut and select “Run as Administrator”). If that’s too tedious, make it a permanent property by right clicking on the shortcut, click “Properties”, select “Compatibility”, and the “Run this program as Administrator” check box. This will make sure the game always is approved to play.

Goodbye, and thank you. I’m going to destroy more zombies now.

Good News: Vista can find my USB drive again

Bad News: It took me three hours to find that out.

My kid got a fancy new phone/MP3 player and needed to ‘borrow’ my Readyboost USB drive—like, right now. I got a new thumb drive and—Zow! Vista couldn’t find any USB drivers. It didn’t even know what the heck a USB drive WAS. Didn’t care, either. Read the rest of this entry »

It’s okay to steal snowmobiles, ride around on someone’s land and run over as many deer as you can in Waupaca, Wisconsin

That’s what the judge said.

Last January, a local story unfolded about a horrific deer-killing rampage in upstate Wisconsin. Five deer were run down with snowmobiles. One had been crippled, tied to tree by its neck and strangled itself to death. Another was still alive and was put down by authorities. Read the rest of this entry »

Marshall & Ilsey’s stealth “courtesy” overdraft fee.

Don’t steal from me and pretend you’re doing me a favor.

You run into Pik n’ Save for frozen pizza and some Pringles. You pay $11.65 with your M&I ATM card. Erm—didn’t you put your car payment on that account? No prob. The transaction went through, so there must be money in there, right? RIGHT?

Wrong. You’re screwed. M&I paid the $11.65 as a “courtesy” and and charged your account $31 for the overdraft. Sneaky. You can’t ‘opt out, either’. And don’t look for this service in the new account bundle either. It’s a double-secret service.

I wasn’t eligible for M&I’s ‘real’ overdraft protection (”Worry-free Overdraft Protection”)I closed my account over it, and refused to pay the $62 for fees. Done.

Here’s an article on this subject in the Bank Systems & Technology blog