Sakura of DOOM

Does anyone have favorite Illustrator tutorials? Bonus points for things that are insanely easy and yet possibly unintuitive to someone used to Photoshop. I.e. when you have a ton of outlined shapes and just want to select one shape, how do you select just one when clicking with the black arrow selects everything? Why do I not have a nice box-y select tool? (Or do I?)

Also, general tips and tricks for vector graphics highly appreciated.

(Basically, I opened Illustrator, played with a file, then promptly freaked out and closed it, which seems to be the way I react to all Adobe products I meet for the first time.)

Does anyone use full-spectrum lighting to combat SAD? If so, what do you use and how effective have you found it to be?

I'd particularly love something that I can use as a reading light, something compact, and something that automatically turns on at whatever hour of the morning so I don't have to buy one of those switch plug things that does it.

Help! I was looking around a DVD store here to scope out what dramas are out on DVD (contemplating buying Dal Ja's Spring if I can figure out if there are English subtitles), and I discovered a company that seems to put out a lot of non-US, non-standard-anime animated films on DVD. I snatched up Kirikou and the Sorceress and Kirikou and the Wild Beasts like that, given how cheap the former was comparatively ($15 vs. $30) and how the latter isn't available in the US. I am definitely going back to get this, as it has Ocelot's Azur and Asmar, which is also not available in the US, and the non-Asterix ones look interesting as well. (Or will I like Asterix too?)

But they have a whole catalogue of stuff I've never heard of! I randomly spot-checked, and most don't seem to be available in the US. So before I get carried away, if anyone's willing to go through lists and pick out the English titles, let me know if you've seen any of them?

I'm particularly wondering about Escape from Carthage, which looks like the first Tunisian animated film; Gin-iro no kami no Agito; Little Longnose, despite the 1990s Disney-esque animation; and Tristan and Isolde, also despite the 1990s Disney-esque animation.

Anyone? Bueller?

Hi! I am in the mood for Gothic shoujo manga crack, but I am also trying to do 50books_poc. Sadly, I am having a very difficult time finding non-manga, POC-authored Gothic crack, and since all knowledge is contained on LJ, I figured I would throw myself at your mercy.

By Gothic shoujo manga crack, I mean Yuki Kaori, Vampire Knight, Cantarella, and etc. Bonus points for POC protagonists, though I'm mostly looking for POC authors right now. Extra special bonus points for ice-cold heroines, thieves, assassins, courtesans, any combination of the above, clones, twins, twins who turn out to be clones, or people who have been disguised to appear as the dead come back to life and are actually undead in the final reveal.

Does anyone have recommendations for happy YA chicklit starring POC and/or by POC?

Qualifications:

I have read half of Dana Davidson's Jason & Kyra and got bored by the prose and descriptions of what everyone was wearing, I know about Melissa de la Cruz, I've read Does My Head Look Big in This? and liked it, may check out First Daughter soon, read half of Born Confused and got bored by the prose, just read Whale Talk and will probably blaze through Crutcher's backlist, and read a few pages of The Fly on the Wall and got bored. I've also read Justine Larbalestier, Nnedi Okorafor-Mbachu, Susan Vaught, Nancy Farmer, Tamora Pierce, and am planning on going through suggestions here. (How is Virginia Hamilton on the depressing scale?)

I also want books, not manga or comics.

I know about the imprint Kimani TRU but haven't read anything of theirs, so thumbs up or down are appreciated.

1. I want happy. As in, I am tired of scanning summaries of books about POC and going "gang, unwanted pregnancy, gang, violence, gang, OPPRESSION, gang, racism, gang, abusive boyfriend, gang, historical oppression, gang." (if you can't tell, please no more gangs!)

2. I am thinking of something sort of like Fresh off the Boat or Does My Head Look Big in This?, or like Maureen Johnson. Sarah Dessen works too (I would prefer interior angst over GANG). I tend to like girls who are not ashamed of their culture and/or race, interesting prose, and romance, but romance isn't required.

3. The book has to star a girl, or at least have her section of the story comprise of at least half.

ETA: 4. The book has to have a POC protagonist (not a secondary role, no matter how cool) or a POC author.

5. Fluff is good! Just to give you an idea... the last three books I have read were about hazing, Japanese internment camps, and physical and emotional abuse. I think I need to read something light and happy and fluffy before going there again.

I have a new computer! It arrived a day earlier than expected! I am now busy trying to customize the hell out of it!

I'm also a little intimidated -- I switched over to Mac (please no gloating, Mac users).

So, Mac users, tell me your favorite shortcuts!

So far I am enjoying the hot corners, and I finally figured out that cmd+arrow was the same as ctrl+home/end on my PC. On the other hand, I'm annoyed that my home and end buttons seem to do absolutely nothing on Mac. Can I change that?

ETA: what LJ client do you use? I've been using Semagic, which I like, but there doesn't seem to be a Mac version.

I still haven't decided what music to get yet! I'm trying to listen to everything and pick what I like.

So... Does anyone have more recs for happy, bouncy music by women of color? I looked at my music library, and it is embarrassingly white.

Aka, I do not want to study for midterms. Entertain me!

1. Someone mentioned in the comments of IBARW 2 that it may be a good idea to promote it outside of LJ. To which I went, "Oh yeah. Duh." Except I singularly hate promoting stuff and I have no idea where to start. So I would be forever grateful if people pimped IBARW (on LJ and off)! I am not sure if I will have time to set up a site or something for it (see above re: midterms), but hopefully there will be a del.icio.us link collection going up. Someday. Really.



2. I blame this all on yhlee, who came up with the idea of lolrats! Unfortunately, I should not be fiddling around on Photoshop now, but I have an entire gallery of rat photos and I bet Google Images has a ton too. Clearly the lack of lolrats in the world must be remedied! I leave the idea in everyone's capable hands (esp. since I suck at thinking up good slogan things).

1) So... does anyone have examples of sf/f books with third-culture kids, or anything resembling a third-culture kid?

A third-culture kid is basically someone who is born into one culture, raised in another, and then returns to the first culture or moves on to different cultures, thereby creating a "third culture" that is a mixture of the first two. Or something. The difference between a third-culture kid and an immigrant seems to be that last step of returning to the "original" culture and finding it foreign as well.

My one example so far is Temeraire, and that's a sort-of example.

2) Also, any examples of movies in which a white man goes into a non-white culture and saves it or somehow one-ups it? Or basically, movies set in non-white civilizations that still end up focusing on the white guy.

My current list:
- Last Samurai
- Dances with Wolves
- Kingdom of Heaven
- Glory
- Cry Freedom
- Blood Diamond
- Constant Gardener
- Geronimo
- The Last King of Scotland (critique + example of trope? Haven't seen it)
- Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee (from current casting reports)
- Wind Talkers

Having forgotten to go to the library sale yesterday, I went twice today (once for first picks, once for the bag sale). I now have even more books.

In between, I sauntered about the library looking for even more even more books, woefully handicapped by the fact that I couldn't access LJ for recs (all the internet computers were being used). I managed to actually talk to real people and ask the librarian at the Teen Zone (new one, not same one from knitting) for recs for YA books by people of color, preferably women. She thought I was a high school or college student for a bit, hee hee. I got several nice lists from her, checked out The House on Mango Street and browsed the YA section, but I figure LJ knows all.

So, anyone have recs for good books by and/or about people of color? My general preference is for books by and/or about women of color, preferably YA, preferably fantasy. I have read Stormwitch and Zahrah the Windseeker and loved them both, and I already know about Maya Angelou, Alice Walker, Amy Tan, Maxine Hong Kingston, Gus Lee, Marjane Satrapi, Geoff Ryman, Nalo Hopkinson, Gail Tsukiyama and Kyoko Mori, although book recs for Hopkinson, Tsukiyama and Mori would be nice.

What I really want is something like Stormwitch or Zahrah the Windseeker. I want something about girls of color kicking ass and growing up. I randomly browsed through some adult books by Asian Americans (I accidentally wandered into the Ch section -- Chiu, Choi, Chu, etc.), and I put most books down despite really wanting to read more about people of color. I don't really feel like reading a sad, depressing story about people dealing with hate and race relations and the difficulty of being a POC; I know that stuff. I don't mind those elements in the book, but I want the story itself to be about kicking ass and taking charge, about women and girls finding power within themselves and changing things.

I don't mind books about female POC written by white people, though I would prefer that the books not be centered around whiteness and white people dealing with race (ex. Han Nolan's A Summer of Kings, which I may read some other time but am not in the mood for now).

All POC are good, though bonus points for Latin-American (as opposed to Mexican or Chicano), South-American, African, Middle Eastern and Southeast Asian including Indian fiction, as I have read much less of those and not seen much of those recced at all.

Uh, so do these books I am hankering to read actually exist? Where can I find them? What have you guys read?