I've been loged in this problem with my artwork. Should I continue doing the vectors, what I've been doing forever that has a unique style, or the gradient meshes, the souless, 3D looking things?

I found this article on the Wall Street Journal website about how personalities vary from state to state by Stephanie Miller (I think). Here's the complete article: -------- Certain regional stereotypes have long since become cliches: The stressed-out New Yorker. The laid-back Californian. But the conscientious Floridian? The neurotic Kentuckian? You bet -- at least, according to new research on the geography of personality. Based on more than 600,000 questionnaires and published in the journal Perspectives on Psychological Science, the study maps regional clusters of personality traits, then overlays state-by-state data on crime, health and economic development in search of correlations. Even after controlling for variables such as race, income and education levels, a state's dominant personality turns out to be strongly linked to certain outcomes. Amiable states, like Minnesota, tend to be lower in crime. Dutiful states -- an eclectic bunch that includes New Mexico, North Carolina and Utah -- produce a disproportionate share of mathematicians. States that rank high in openness to new ideas are quite creative, as measured by per-capita patent production. But they're also high-crime and a bit aloof. Apparently, Californians don't much like socializing, the research suggests. As for high-anxiety states, that group includes not just Type A New York and New Jersey, but also states stressed by poverty, such as West Virginia and Mississippi. As a group, these neurotic states tend to have higher rates of heart disease and lower life expectancy. Lead researcher Peter Jason Rentfrow, lecturer at the University of Cambridge in England, said he was startled to find such correlations. "That just blew me away," he said. Psychologists unaffiliated with the study say it's intriguing but limited. There's no way to unravel the chicken-and-egg question: Do states tend to nurture specific personalities because of their histories, cultures, even climates? Or do Americans, seeking kindred spirits, migrate to the states where they feel at home? Maybe both forces are at work -- but in what balance? Another issue: The personality maps may reinforce stereotypes and tempt us to draw overly simplistic conclusions, said Toni Schmader, a psychologist at the University of Arizona. Knowing Arizona ranks low in neuroticism, Ms. Schmader said, she might conclude that sunny weather makes for sunny dispositions. But if the data had turned out the other way, the sun could just as easily be blamed for high neuroticism -- for driving Arizonans stir crazy by keeping them cooped up in air conditioning. "We tend to reject information that doesn't agree with our stereotypes," Ms. Schmader said. Cross-cultural psychology was all the rage in the 1930s and 1940s, driven by a craze among anthropologists for comparing child-rearing practices in modern and pre-industrial societies. But the discipline fell out of favor, partly because of concerns that the comparisons were driven more by value judgments than standardized assessments. In the past decade, the field has been reinvigorated by the development of a 44-question personality test that evaluates five traits: extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism and openness. Some psychologists disagree with this matrix; others would add traits such as honesty. But the assessment, called the Big Five Inventory, has been widely used in scientific research. Mr. Rentfrow came to the field full of questions gleaned from a life spent hop-scotching across America. Why were his neighbors in Texas so relaxed, so courteous, so obsessed with sports? Why did New Yorkers seem so tense and inward-focused, often brusque to the point of rudeness? Eager to dig deeper, Mr. Rentfrow turned to a huge collection of psychological tests administered online from 1999 to 2005. The assessments were linked to each respondent's current residence, so there was no way to tell if a New Yorker was a New Yorker born and bred, or had just moved from Kansas. But that suited Mr. Rentfrow's purposes. He wasn't trying to gauge how life in New York had shaped any one individual. His goal was a psychological snapshot of the state, and for that he needed to include even recent migrants -- who may, after all, have been drawn to New York because the big-city bustle suited their personality. Mr. Rentfrow said his sample was proportionate to the U.S. population by state and race. Though it underrepresented the extremes of poor and rich, that shouldn't skew the results, he said. While the findings broadly uphold regional stereotypes, there are more than a few surprises. The flinty pragmatists of New England? They're not as dutiful as they may seem, ranking at the bottom of the "conscientious" scale. High scores for openness to new ideas strongly correlates to liberal social values and Democratic voting habits. But three of the top ten "open" states -- Nevada, Colorado and Virginia -- traditionally vote Republican in presidential politics. (All three are prime battlegrounds this election.) And what of the unexpected finding that North Dakota is the most outgoing state in the union? Yes, North Dakota, the same state memorialized years ago in the movie "Fargo" as a frozen wasteland of taciturn souls. Turns out you can be a laconic extrovert, at least in the world of psychology. The trait is defined in part by strong social networks and tight community bonds, which are characteristic of small towns across the Great Plains. (Though not, apparently, small towns in New England, which ranks quite low on the extraversion scale.) The findings pleased Nebraska Gov. Dave Heineman, who said it was nice to have scientific proof that his state is super-friendly. "That's the Nebraska I know," he said. But Las Vegas Mayor Oscar B. Goodman can't understand how Nevada got ranked so low in agreeableness. "We're probably the most agreeable folks in the world, because we have to treat visitors with a great deal of kindness ... to get a big tip," he said. In Florida, meanwhile, tourism official Dia Kuykendall groped to explain her state's high "conscientious" ranking. She was having trouble reconciling that with, say, the party scene on Miami Beach. "Conscientious of how they look?" she wondered. The research did give Ms. Kuykendall an idea for a new Florida tourism pitch: "Come visit us, we're not neurotic!" Social scientists suggest other applications for the research as well. In the Northeast "stress belt," health officials might consider programs to help folks relax. In the Midwest, a dutiful state like Kansas might look to woo more innovative personalities, perhaps by nurturing an artists' enclave or encouraging young chefs to start restaurants, said Richard Florida, an economic development analyst who has written extensively on geography and psychology. "Most cities are still trapped in the idea that they can recruit a call center or build a big stadium" to spur revitalization, Mr. Florida said. "This is a big wake-up call for policy makers." It's also a wake-up call for proud residents of the great state of wherever -- some of whom aren't fond of the findings. Mr. Rentfrow said he's had to help some of them feel better. Yes, North Dakota and Wyoming rank quite low in openness to new ideas. But why label them narrow-minded and insular? Say, instead, he suggests, that they value tradition. New York may be neurotic, but he offers another way to put it: "It's a state in touch with its feelings." Or take a cue from Ted Ownby, who studies Southern culture at the University of Mississippi. His state came up highly neurotic -- and he suspects his neighbors would be proud. "Here in the home of William Faulkner," Mr. Ownby said, "we take intense, almost perverse neuroticism as a sign of emotional depth." -------- Pretty interesting huh?

...or does anyone fear another depression like that of the Great Depression?

Business talks are saying that the market isn't looking all that good...

...and boy did Texas get it. Then Ike came up and dumped over 15 inches of rain in Oklahoma, and guess what? I lost the internet up until now because of it. The flooding did all sorts of minor damage here and there, but at least we're all ok. Ike may have knocked me off my internet, but I still had power, so that means I still got stuff down. It's just that it didn't get updated right away....

I'm back in force now...

Well, since things need humor right the moment, what character do you think is the best one that I ever created? I'm going to create a few more, and then there won't be any new ones for a long time. Anyway, just tell me which one is the best one ever made:

AJ the Black Dragon (my fursona-whatever)
Ericka the Black Dragoness (dragon)
Ashley the Bat (bat)
King Rothgar (dragon)
Ryan Collis (wolf)
nava-GATOR (navigational/war robot)
Katie Kroc (green croc)
Kristie Kroc (sea-green croc)
Grizelda (black croc)
Cindy Piper (fox)
Tara (hyena)
Annie Swellow (swallow or Swellow)
Clera O'Donnell (wolf)
Darla Mare (zebra)

These characters below are newcommers or ones who never got a full profile, or are comming soon:

Jordan McCloud (dragon)
Elise the Blue Kitsune (kitsune)
XR (war robot)
Cleaner X5000 (cleaning robot)
Kyle (green croc)
Sirius (black croc)
Ike "Iggy" (hyena)
Alex (hyena)
Lord Clyde (zebra)
Robert Radclife (bat)
Esmerelda (?) This one's a surprise...
Maple (Pixie Pony)

Also, I'm dumping the Helveca franchise for good. I was going to make it into a graphic novel, but I just couldn't find the time for it anymore, so everything for it is soon going to be dumped and removed completely from the internet, since there's no reason to hype people up for nothing. So the only worlds left are the Kroc Sisters, Robotica, the Savanah, Fan-version Starfox, The adventures of AJ the black dragon, and the little guys like Cindy's Quests and Robot Vixen. No more new main characters are going to be created. Minor and guest characters will still appear, but as of now I WILL CREATE NO MORE NEW CHARACTERS.

Wow, this election has gone crazy. Possilbe black president, a female vice-president elect, yet lots of screaming from each side that "I'm better than you are!" type BS. But you know what? There's a solution to stop the McCain Train and the Obama Rama:

DON'T VOTE! BECAUSE IT WILL ONLY ENCOURAGE THEM!!

Why should you vote for someone who gets to sit in a nice, comfy mansion? Do you get a nice place like the White House? Heck no! Think the Obama Rama is all talk? DON'T VOTE DEMOCRAT! Not interested in fighting in Iraq or dealing with $5 gas prices? DON'T VOTE REPUBLICAN! Why should the everyday citizen have to put up with this? Health care is in the toilet, everyone's getting lazier, kids are getting dumber, and the media is being blamed for over half of it...

But in places like England and Japan, Parliments are fixing over half of those problems. And how about Scandinavian countires? They have democratic governments, yet they also have SOCIAL MEDICAL CARE! Sure, it means higher taxes, but hey, if it means that you can see the doctor free of charge, why whine?! But of course, when we think of this, we instantly think COMMUNIST! No, everyone can benifit in this, not just some few. And lets also bring back the president's excersises while we're at, so that we no longer get called "Fat lazy Americans". And lets do something about the books, music, games, and movies getting blamed for stupid BS while we're at it, and let's do our best to improve education.... BUT NOPE!

These canidates are too busy trying to slam each other for no dang reason. So if you can't decide, don't. Just sit back and see what happens, and if things don't look good, there's a WHOLE WIDE WORLD to live at!

I'M A NON-VOTER. SINCE EVERYONE ELSE CLAIMS THAT THEY ARE RIGHT AND I AM WRONG, I LET THEM MAKE ALL THE DECESIONS FOR ME. WHAT HAPPENS TO THEM THEN CAN'T BE BLAMED ON ME.

-This is AJ, and I approve of this text.

You may wonder why I haven't put anything that I've done on DA up here, it's because I put A LOT up on DA. Just oodles and oodles of artwork, most of them replacing stuff that already exsists in the Anthro Zone. So I'm going to create a new area just for the new stuff, and eventually get rid of the old gallery. Maybe you'll see some familar and new things while I am at it...

Roughly over 5 years ago, our nation was under attack and New York City lost not only the World Trade Center and some 30,000+ lives, they also lost their idea of jokes about attacks on New York and America.

Now read this article about some idoits who thought it was funny to make a space invaders game with the World Trade Center involved:

----

Art exhibit angers 9/11 families

"Disgrace Invaders," thunders the NY Daily News

By Mike Smith

A controversial art exhibit on show at this week's Leipzig Games Convention in Germany depicts the World Trade Center towers under attack from Space Invaders characters.

"It's very, very distasteful," said Zachary Fletcher, an FDNY firefighter who lost his brother in the 9/11 attacks. "Aliens are not going to attack the World Trade Center. That makes no sense at all," he told the New York Daily News this week. Another relative of a 9/11 victim labeled the exhibit a sleazy attempt to profit from the tragedy.

The installation, Invaders!, which was on display at Europe's largest annual video games trade show, is a two-player, motion-controlled spin on arcade clas-sic Space Invaders, and sees players defending the iconic towers from a never-ending assault of aliens. Next to the screen, a second display shows clips from American movies like Taxi Driver, Die Hard, and Air Force One blended with shots of a flight suit-clad George W. Bush, and John Wayne toting a gun. The official Games Convention web site describes it as "an articulated and critical commentary about the current war strategy."

Art exhibit at Leipzig (Source: AP)

Created by French-American artist and researcher Douglas Edric Stanley shortly after the attacks in 2001, Invaders! was making its Leipzig appearance in celebration of the original game's 30th anniversary. Stanley called the reaction "overblown," saying in a Twitter posting: "I'll let this thing play out, and reply when everyone's calmed down."

Away from New York, reactions to the installation have been more measured. Noted video games blogger Michael McWhertor, who played the game in Leipzig this week, described it in a Kotaku posting as "unsettling, with its blending of archaic gameplay and modern day catastrophe, but it's also an impressive accomplishment in that it delivers complex messages via simple means."

Taito, the Japanese company behind the original Space Invaders arcade game, presumably finds the exhibit less impressive, and is reportedly considering taking legal action against Stanley.

---

Well I hope you learned your lesson idiot, you've just offended over half the US and gave more people worldwide the reason to look at games through the nose. Thanks ****

(Some text was edited for problems with java script)

Well, since I have nothing better to do at the moment, I'm going to create a week's worth of drawings and scan them in for use on the computer. I need to create some more scenes, some of thoses battles, some other characters for litterary uses, production sketches of elements for SSB Mayhem, and some special things just for the hell of it.

As for my music, I've got some covers to clear off, like an acutally decent version of the music from Back to the Future (After what I heard, Mr. Silverstri would probably be wallowing in shame), some more pokemon and starfox music (some still not completed!), and fix some "Broken" files.

I'm also going to rebuild the Music banners to update them and help clean the order up so that I can have the following sections: Mario Bros., Pokemon, Earthbound, Starfox, Various Nintendo, and Third Parties (it will have Snake, Spyro, and Sonic in the banner people! Finally, you'll be respectful of my franchise span! :p).

Of course, the anthro zone got some upgrades done to it and pictures will come as I get them created and such. The SF Fanfic will also be worked on (I seem to get distracted and carried away when I try to work on it).

Yeah, that's what I plan to do on my free time, which is usually between 8:00 p.m. and 2:00 a.m....

Well, thanks to the successfulness of my parents' divorce and having the option of "California only" colleges that I am allowed to go to, I am unable to get started with my college path this year. Now my parents want me to "get on with my life", but you know what? My only option for a place to live.... California! There's nothing wrong with that except that it's REALLY EXPENSIVE to live there. Yeah, my other family members are going through a lot of **** right now, but do you think that I'll be able to be successful there? I'd wished I'd be allowed to live in the nieghboring states like Nevada, Oregon, Washington, Utah, or Arizona, but nope! It's either Cali or nowhere.

Apart from everything else, my sibilings are going to school now, both of them! ^u^