Since I’ve been aggregated to the AnimeBlogger.net Antenna I noticed a number of new visitors coming to my blog. I’m taking the opportunity (see post title) to bring the attention on a pet project of mine, which is also quite tied to anime.

I’m pretty happy. As some of you already know, the book I wrote with my brother is finally out. The preview copies I had ordered arrived yesterday, and I can see it’s pretty impressive to hold the book you have written with your own hands: 470 It only needed a couple of adjustments in the drawings’ captions, so I made it available for everyone last night. All I need to do now is to wait and see the reactions…

I usually manage to write an entry or two during the weekend. This week was (almost) not the case as my computer time was spent editing and correcting the Lost Innocence manuscript. And when that was done, there were some problems with the cover files so I had to fix those, as well. Last but not least, the FAQ section of stealsaga.net needs an overhaul. Yes, plenty of S.T.E.A.L. related work going on.

I haven’t had much time to write here as I’ve been busy fixing and arranging things for the web page on S.T.E.A.L. It appears that thanks to Too’s deviation posting and subsequent journal entry, hits have skyrocketed. This makes me happy but it also means more work and need for refinement. As a matter of fact, I wrote a little more yesterday, and today I’ll be aiming to complete chapter 4.

Just minutes ago I got a MSN message from Too, stating that the cover for the novel had been completed! Of course, I downloaded it eagerly…

As promised, I got around to write for a while during this weekend and here is the result, a new S.T.E.A.L. snapshot ready for [download]({{ site.url }}/steal/steal.pdf). Notable changes include: New dialogue between Jim and Satsuki at the start of chapter 4. This should show better that Jim is and will be an important character during the story development; Text revisions throughout chapter 4; A whole new part of the chatper 4 story, that can be considered now roughly halfway.

As I checked my messages on deviantart this morning, I got some news from Too. Aside some delay in obtaining the actual artwork he did (not his fault, probably some quirk of the postal system) he provided me with a tentative sketch of the cover. It impressed me a great deal, so I already gave out the “green light” for coloring it. Here is the sketch (watermarked, as usual): 393

As promised, I put up a new snapshot of S.T.E.A.L. (available [here]({{ site.url }}/steal/steal.pdf)) Highlights include: Interpolated drawings. This should reduce the pixelation effect, but it will make them more blurry. I can’t fix this until Too sends me the actual art; Revisions throughout the text, to remove some parts where Yumiko acted out of character; A new part in New York, preparing the background for the more action-oriented parts that will follow;

I’m finally back from holidays and since there’s almost no one in the office here I thought I’d write a little mixed entry, while quant is busy compiling a patched 2.6.17 kernel (but quant as an odd overheating problem that I will describe in another entry, so I have to compile it by steps). Work is somewhat slow, as the people I need to contact are still on holiday. In the mean time, I’m reading an interesting paper on some GPLed software for Single Nucleotide Polymorphism analysis, written in Perl and R.

That’s right, I’m going on holiday from today until August 28th. As I don’t have a proper internet connection there, my entries will be few and far in between (not that I’ve been very active recently, I’ve been busy putting the house in order). I’ll be staying in Loano, in Liguria, for about 17 days, and I’ll spend the rest traveling around central Italy (Arezzo, Perugia, Assisi, Todi, Gubbio, Siena).

I’ve been writing a lot in the past weekend. The fact that I have some definitive art gave me the impulse after many months of inactivity. Being totally dissatisfied with the state of chapter 4 (the latest I’m writing), I completely reorganized it, moving one section to the top and rearranging the behavior of some characters (like Satsuki, who was a little too hysterical) and cut off part of a flashback.

Finally I get to blog about S.T.E.A.L. after so many months! That’s because finally I have illustrations for the novel after all these years! As I said on my [previous post on the matter]({{ site.url }}/2006/02/08/it-lives/), I had been in talks with two artists at the time. One simply disappeared after a while (and then I read on her deviantart page that drawing is not a priority… it would have been nicer if she had told me at least), while the other took a good deal of time (around seven months). But now, thanks to the incredible drawing skill of Too, I have the first set of seven pictures I commissioned (out of nine)!

I haven’t been writing a lot here mostly because of the rather hectic work schedule I’m having. We’re nearing the completion phase of a paper that includes quite a bit of my work (and also a lot of other people’s contributions), and I’m also swamped with PhD classes (two weeks to go). Also, one of my bosses has assigned me another project which I’ve yet to tackle, and I got to help my colleague with a poster as well.

I’m very happy to write that I got a second drawing from firekitty! I liked the first one but I like the second one better. Now I’m just waiting for too to show me the character designs he has made… I hope he manages to scan them quickly as I’m rather anxious to see them… For now, enjoy the new unfinished sketch. I’ll probably try to write more of the novel this weekend.

As the post says, I’ve uploaded a new snapshot of S.T.E.A.L., finally closing a part that had been open since last summer, and hopefully paving the way for the big things to come for the rest of chapter 4. As usual, the most current version can be downloaded from the links on the sidebar.

Finally some news in the S.T.E.A.L. front! First of all one of the artists I asked confirmed his commitment (he’s first busy with higher-priority company commissions), and a second one just gave me a preliminary sketch here: steal/yumiko.jpg I’m way happy to see that finally the characters are taking life from words to drawings!

After about six months of inactivity, I finally got myself to write more (thanks also for WINE so I can use a dictionary on Linux), and this takes form of a new snapshot of the novel. Changes are mostly in the last part, and include some paragraphs adjusted and rewritten from scratch (I didn’t like them at all). Plans are to complete the next part of the chapter soon (more action packed).

Today I thought I was going to move from my current location (LITA building, University of Milano ) to the new one, the CISI. However I didn’t think up that some stuff (including the arrival of 3 new people at our laboratory, Sarah, Guya and Alessandra) would have held me back. I won’t relocate till next Monday. In the mean time I spent the day testing out some procedures and creating a draft proposal for the new laboratory’s network structure, and getting the equipment to put that in place.

Some things strike me as being really odd. Regarding the [commission post]({{ site.url }}/2006/01/05/drawing-commissions/) I made: it’s not the first time I try doing this. After I realized that asking for free was not really going to help (because many people don’t have time, or the will to do such a project) I already tried in the past about offering money. And in the past I didn’t get any responses. Perhaps I chose the wrong channel of communication?

The few people who know me may have heard of one of my pet projects, [S.T.E.A.L.]({{ site.url }}/interests/), whose draft PDF is available [here]({{ site.url }}/steal/steal.pdf). I’ve been trying for ages to get an illustrator to do some b/w art for it (a la Slayers), but always with bad results. I’ll be trying to commission it, now that I can afford it, let’s hope I can get some results done at least with money…