Repeating Patterns Corel Painter

June 28th, 2009

As promised here is the Corel Painter tutorial on how to create repeating patterns. I think after this I will show how to incorporate all of the repeating patterns tutorials and various programs to create something really special. Though I may just do a quick tutorial next week on how to take various scans of a large image and piece them together in Photoshop as I have a painting right now that has been drawn out and is right at that step in my process. I figure I might as well get some of my own work done while I am sharing various tips and strategies in the digital art world.

Anyways let’s start with a piece of artwork that we want to turn into a pattern. Here is a piece that I created a long time ago with some Dover clip art and some painting.
originalpattern

First let’s open up the patterns window, to do this go to Window, Library Palettes, and Show Patterns.
showpatternswindow

Now use the selection marquee tool to select the image, it looks & works exactly the same as Photoshop’s selection marquee tool.
selectpattern

From the pattern window click the little triangle to the right and select capture pattern.
capturepattern

A dialog box opens up with several options for your pattern and a preview.
capturepatterndialogbox

By adjusting the horizontal or vertical shift you can see how it changes your pattern.

You can adjust your patterns the same way in Photoshop by opening the cloned source window and changing the horizontal or vertical offset.
photoshopclonesource
adjustpatternphotoshop

Now in Corel from the patterns window you can scale your pattern down or up and control the horizontal or vertical offset. I scaled it down.
adjustpatternscale

From the brushes dropdown menu, choose cloners. So now that you have any cloner brush picked (and you can adjust the settings of your brush however you like), and your pattern picked in the pattern window you are ready to paint with your new pattern.
paintwithpattern

Now I felt that this pattern should have been a tiny bit bigger, so I adjusted the scale in the patterns window and then painted this.
finishedpainting

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Raster vs. Vector

June 21st, 2009

Any of you might have tried drawing an ultra cool logo in MS Paint and then went to have it blown up really big for a poster graphic only to find a big ugly pixilated mess. You might have complained to the people at the poster printing place only to hear the words, “Dude learn when to use a vector graphic.”

This is something I encounter regularly, the misuse of raster vs. vector graphics. They both have appropriate uses and times when they should be avoided at all costs. I even occasionally run into people attached to various printing establishments who don’t know the difference between the two and thus the ignorance on raster vs. vector graphics has become one of my personal top pet peeves.

So lets start with what each is;

Raster: This graphic is made up of tiny little pixels. Those pixels are little squares that each hold a color value. Now you can determine how many pixels/squares are in an inch and this will give you your dpi or dots per an inch. This is important information, as your computer monitor is displaying at 72 dpi so any graphic made for your computer monitor only needs 72 dots per and inch of information to display correctly. All print media generally has a standard of 300 dpi in order to print nicely. You will see that print media has roughly 4 times as much information as graphics made for computer display. On a side note black and white line drawings to display clearly need a resolution of 600 dpi or more. Below is an example of enlarging a raster image. This is a spot illustration that I did of a whale and petunias from Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy.
enlarging-raster

Vector: This graphic is made up of mathematical equations. Now you don’t need to know the math that makes the images, but it helps to have a general understanding. This all goes back to geometry. Remember how two points connected together makes a line segment? Then we can connect various line segments to make polygons and such? Also with a little bit of tweaking on the slopes equations of the lines we get curved lines. All this is used to create vector graphics. For example a square is made up of four points or vertices connected with line segments. Below is an example of enlarging a vector image. This is a logo that I created using vector graphics with raster effects.
enlargingvector

Now lets explore some of the misunderstandings that people have with various raster and vector graphics. Go back to the very first example of drawing and ultra cool logo in MS Paint. All graphics made in MS Paint are 72 dpi raster graphics, which look fine on any digital media. But when they are printed and blown up they look terrible. The reason is when you enlarge any raster graphic the computer has to guess about any unknown information. It doesn’t know what color to make all the extra pixels as the image gets larger so it tries to guess through averaging all the colors. Thus the bigger that raster graphic is enlarged the more pixilated and distorted it becomes.

Had that logo been created using Adobe Illustrator or any other vector graphic software it wouldn’t matter how big or small that logo got. Regardless of the size of a vector graphic the math creating it stays the same, so clarity of the image remains just as clear at half an inch as it is at 50 feet in size.

Finally you might be wondering, “How do I know when it is most appropriate to use a raster graphic vs. a vector graphic?” There are several things to consider: How big will my files be? What will be the final output of the files? Are photographs necessary? Do I have any typography? Now in many cases you might use a combination of both raster and vector graphics, though I will answer each of these questions below.

How big will my files be? Generally vector graphics are always smaller than raster graphics. For example a little pink 1” square at 72dpi raster graphic (jpeg in this case) is 368 bytes. The same little pink 1” square as a vector graphic (eps in this case) is 76 bytes, which is quite a bit smaller. Now say we want that pink square to be 3”. The raster graphic becomes 854 bytes and the vector graphic remains 76 bytes. So we can see that simple shapes and type should always be in vector format to keep file size small and photos should remain in raster format to keep clarity of the photo. As search engines get better and better at reading vector graphics I foresee vector graphics becoming a staple in web design, due to their small file size and fast loading times.

What will be the final output of the files? If all you ever plan to use the image for is to show on the internet you can just leave everything rasterized at 72 dpi. If you plan to print, you’ll definitely want any simple shapes and all type to be in vector format and any photos at 300 dpi.

Are photographs necessary? Generally you will always want your photographs in raster format. Take your pictures with a higher dpi to begin with if you are unsure as to whether or not you will be printing them later. You can always make a raster image smaller, but when making it bigger remember the computer is making the image up and you get distortion. There are ways to turn photographs into vector images, but this is usually not desired, as your photograph becomes more like a poster instead of a photo and I’ll show that in a tutorial sometime in the future.

Do I have any typography? Always make your typography a vector graphic. There is absolutely no reason why typography should be rasterized. Typography displays better on screen as a vector and it displays better printed as a vector. Typography is easier to manipulate as a vector as well. Now should you want effects on your typography like drop shadows, blurs, glows, ect, you can achieve those results by applying raster effects to vector graphics while retaining the vector graphics. I will go into more detail on this in a later tutorial as well. Just keep this simple rule in mind: TYPOGRAPHY SHOULD ALWAYS BE A VECTOR GRAPHIC.

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Repeating Patterns Illustrator Tutorial

June 14th, 2009

By now you should all be pros at making repeating patterns in Photoshop and are probably wondering why should I ever learn to make patterns in Illustrator. There are several reasons you might want to make a repeating pattern in Illustrator instead of Photoshop. First you can make your patterns from vector images, (which I know I still need to go over that, maybe I’ll do that next week and then the following week show you how to make repeating patterns in Corel Painter) instead of raster images. Next you can make very precise patterns quickly with less work then it is to make a precise pattern in Photoshop. Third you can utilize making a pattern swatch in Illustrator to use over and over again in various vector shapes that will never get pixilated or loose definition regardless of how big or small your final image may be.

So let’s get started.

First in illustrator draw a square with the rectangle shape tool. By holding the shift key while dragging the mouse you will create a perfect square. Now we are going to draw some guides to that square. Go to the menu and hit view rulers and snap to point.
showrulers
snaptopoint

Now from the rulers on your screen click and drag the mouse out to a point on your square, the icon will change when you are on a point. Release the mouse button and you will see a new guide perfectly lined up with your square. Do this for all four corners.
guidetopoint

Next let’s scale down your original square while holding the shift key to make it smaller. Let’s turn it into a rhombus.

Rotate the square 45 degrees by either using the rotate tool rotatetooland holding the shift key while rotating or going through the menu transform rotate and typing in 45 when the option dialog box opens up for you.
transformrotate

Now I know this is diamond and not really a rhombus. No problem first reset the bounding box.
resetboundingbox

Now select your diamond and scale it, hold the alt key while you scale from one of the sides. You can now make this a true rhombus.
alttoscaletorombus

To start making the pattern we will need to be able to select the individual corners on our rhombus so hide the bounding box for a little while.
hideboundingbox

When the mouse hovers over a corner the icon changes to look like this: hoveroverpoint

Select your rhombus by the left side corner while holding the alt key and move the object till the left side corner is right on top of the right side corner and release. You now have two rhombuses side by side.
alttocopypastecopypaste

Hit Cntl D (Option D for those of you using a Mac) and you will see more and more rhombuses starting to line up. (You can also perform this transform by going through the menu and object, transform, transform again.
transformagainorcntrld

Now select your row of rhombuses and grab from one top corner and put another row beneath it.
copypastmultiple

Here you have a repeating pattern! You can do this with any shape in any kind of fashion; now let me show you how to create a pattern swatch with it.

Delete some of your rhombuses till you have just a few within your guide lines from earlier.
determinhowmuchpatterninbox

Turn the bounding boxes back on, select all of your rhombuses and scale them till they fit perfectly within your guidelines.
fitpattern

Copy some of your rhombuses so that you have them overlapping each side of your guidelines and color them in a checkerboard pattern.
selectall

Create a box with no stroke and no fill that perfectly fits on your guidelines. Move this box to the back of the artwork.
sendtoback

Select all of the objects including all of the colored rhombuses and the clear box. Go edit define pattern and give a name for your pattern when the dialog box opens up.
definepattern

Now open your swatches window and you will see your pattern swatch there, select it and try making a circle with your new pattern.
shapewithpatternswatch

And that’s it; you can now make vector patterns with ease. There are plenty of great uses for it, remember that ziptone pattern we made with Photoshop, with Illustrator we can make a true precise ziptone with tiny little circles. Here is an example where I used that rhombus pattern with a brush pattern I made (I’ll show you how to do this at a later time as it is a little complicated) to make a pretty text box.
prettytextbox

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Repeating Patterns Photoshop Tutorial

June 7th, 2009

My husband suggested I put up a few tutorials on my blog. I’ve spent the last couple weeks thinking about what kind of tutorials to do and where I should start. I figured the first tutorials should be relatively simple and then later tutorials would build off the earlier simpler tutorials. I still wasn’t sold on the idea of doing tutorials as there are already a lot of great resources of tutorials out there, but my husband thinks that people will like this in my blog. I’m not one for not trying new things so here is my first tutorial. If you like it you can thank my husband.I figured a fun spot to start is with repeating patterns. They can be made in Illustrator, Photoshop, and Corel Painter. They have many wonderful uses, and I wish they could be used in InDesign (though I have up to Adobe CS3 so if they are used in CS4 disregard my last comment). For those of you who don’t have these products you can usually download trial versions for free. Now should you want them but not be able to pay full price, go enroll in some classes at your local community college. Then buy the software at the student price. Then fail the class (or pass it if you really care). You still end up paying substantially less than full price for the software this way.

Back to repeating patterns. Let’s start with Photoshop as this is the simplest way to create a repeating pattern, but take note this pattern will be in raster format. (Damn, I should have started with a tutorial on raster vs. vector format, I guess I’ll go back to that next week.) In Photo shop I wanted to create a halftone pattern that you might use for shading in a comic book the old fashioned way. At one time you used to be able to easily purchase all kinds of halftone patterns called ziptones on clear film that you would then transfer onto the paper like a rub on decal. Now days this is accomplished with a computer with much more ease. Note I am working on a PC, for any using a Mac replace any ctrl button with the option button.

1. Open a new document, make it the resolution that your final piece will be in with a transparent background. I made mine 72 dpi and 1 inch by 1 inch.
newdocforpattern

2. Create your pattern; here I am making a halftone pattern with little dots through out the image.
createpattern

3. Select an area where the pattern repeats.
selectpattern

4. Go to the menu and pick edit>define pattern. You will be prompted to name your pattern.
definepattern

Now you can close the new document, you don’t have to save it or anything. Now that you have your new Photoshop pattern you might be wondering what you can do with it.

5. Open up a new document, use what ever settings you feel like. Mine was 72 dpi and 3 inches by 3 inches with a white background.

6. Select the paint bucket tool.paintbucket At the top of the window you will see a bunch of options for the paint bucket tool. Hit the dropdown menu for the option of foreground and pick pattern. paintbucketforgroundFrom here you can pick the pattern you made earlier. By clicking on the drop down menu right next to the foreground drop down menu. Now use the paint bucket tool and you will see your pattern fill up the entire page area.
paintbucketgetpattern

7. You might be thinking hey this is pretty nifty, but wait there is more. Select the pattern stamp tool, now if you don’t see it click on the tiny arrow at the bottom of the clone stamp tool in order to pick the pattern stamp tool. The icons for these tools are almost identical.
patternstamp

8. Now that you have this tool selected go to the top of the screen where you have all the different attributes of your tool. You will see that it has all the brush attributes and at the end there is a drop down menu to pick your pattern much like the paint bucket tool.
patternstampgetpattern

9. Now you can paint with your pattern that you made earlier. Why don’t you experiment here with your new pattern and possibly make a few more? No need to ever pay for a ziptone again, and now you are limitless on what kinds of patterns you can use. You can see in my example how I used the dot pattern on the edges of the little sprites wings.
halftoneexample

Wow well this seems like a pretty complete tutorial by itself. Next week I’ll do another tutorial on repeating patterns in Illustrator. Repeating patterns in Illustrator are very versatile and they are easier to make them perfectly line up. I’ll show you how.

Posted in Design & Illustration, Graphics Tutorials | 1 Comment »

I suck at DDR 1

May 24th, 2009

So I was invited to a party where they might end up playing DDR 1 for the wii. Now I used to play DDR 1 all the time for my daily exercise but for the last few months I’ve been playing the sequel. I figured I should get DDR1 out and do a little practice so that I wouldn’t look like a complete idiot playing DDR1 as all of my friends know that I play DDR on a daily basis. Did I mention how much I love this game/exercise routine? Oh yeah, DDR is awesome.

Anyways, I put the game in and start to get excited about these old songs that I haven’t played to in several months. I can see all my high scores and how I have A, AA, and AAA on almost all the songs and in all the difficulty levels except expert. I feel so uncoordinated in that I can’t even come close to my old expertise. I was lucky if I could get anything better than a D. Yup I went from an AAA to the same consistency of many community college students D grade. I don’t know what has happened. I’m stronger and more fit now then I was back then, I have faster reflexes, and I look cuter in a skirt now then I did then (I’m not sure how that would help me but whatever).

I don’t know what has happened. I’ve been starting to play DDR2 on expert mode, maybe that is what has messed everything up? Have I started to become so godlike at this game that earlier easier versions of this game no longer can keep up with me? Man I’d love to be a DDR god with light coming down from the heavens every time I step out on the dance mat and angels from above sing along with Ushers “I’m so caught up” as I pound my godly DDR feet to the rhythm of the music. I could then sprout wings and have my DDR wings carry me off into a disco burst of holy glory.

Oh and I promise to post more regularly. My brother just got married and I have some fantastic pictures to share after I get them all organized.

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So I got a heart rate monitor

May 3rd, 2009

Recently I’ve been gaining a little weight. Being that I am a woman, the second I gain more than 3 pounds is cause for concern. The thing is that I shouldn’t be gaining any weight. I work out regularly 5-7 times a week playing DDR (Dance Dance Revolution) on the Nintendo Wii for a little over a half hour per a play session. DDR is a great game for exercising. I’ve been playing it for about 2 years, though recently I’ve been playing DDR2 which I think is better as it has more arm movements, and in that time I have lost roughly 40lbs and I now have legs that are very muscular from my calves all the way to my hips. If any of you are thinking about DDR as a fitness routine, please remember to contact your doctor as I would hate to find out one of you had a heart attack while pushing yourself to get 100 combo points.Now during my DDR time it tells me how many calories I’ve burned when I play in work out mode. I play mostly in the difficult and expert settings and it usually says I burn about 800 calories per a session. With these numbers it should be close to impossible for me to be gaining weight. So this is why I went and bought a heart rate monitor. I figure before I go to see the doctor about this I should get some accurate data on how many calories I am burning compared to how many I am eating. Who knows maybe I am just being a little piggy?

I looked at several heart rate monitors. I also had a little help from a co-worker who was also interested in heart rate monitors send me website links with more information. First I looked at the GoWear fit Lifestyle and Calorie Management System as well as the Body Bug as I was intrigued by a system that would count how many calories I burn all day long as well as telling me how much sleep I was getting, how many steps I was taking, and give me spreadsheets on my progress. Further exploration of these devices showed me that I would have to buy a watch display device to go with the arm band if I wanted to look at my stats while away from a computer, and I would have to pay for a monthly subscription to use their software to track my progress. These devices are expensive, between $170 and $200, add to that the cost of the watch display device, around $70, and then add to that a monthly subscription and the costs start getting a little ridiculous. I don’t even have a gym membership as I find it to be very stupid to pay for something I can do for free, I’m definitely not paying for all this stuff. One thing I did notice while reading many reviews on the GoWear and the BodyBug was that people were testing their accuracy with Polar products.

Polar F11

Polar F11

I then began to look into various Polar heart rate monitors. I’d like to say it was easy, but the Polar website is very very very slow. Did I mention how slow it was? I was tempted to just not look into a Polar monitor, but this is my health and it is really important for me to figure out what is going on. Not only that, the more information that I can relay to my doctor (should I have to visit) the easier it will be for them to determine what is wrong. After painstakingly going through the Polar website I found the F11 model that seemed to be the right model for my uses. I went and checked reviews on the model and of the few complaints out there, most seemed to be about batteries. These complaints didn’t seem to bad and so I finally decided on what hear monitor I would buy and I drove out to Sports Chalet and picked one up for the same price that was listed on Amazon so I didn’t even have to wait for shipping. Also this monitor records all my stats that I can view anytime for free without any monthly subscription.

The time had come for me to test out my heart rate monitor against DDR and see just how accurate DDR was. I inputted my weight, height, age, and gender into my new powder blue F11. I took the standard assessment test with the F11 and was told that my resting heart rate, though not excellent, was very good. So now I have actual data to support my heart & lungs getting healthier, and not just me saying I feel stronger. I put the chest strap on, which was very comfortable for me as it was very similar to any bra strap. I then played DDR how I like to play it. The Final conclusion: I do not burn as many calories as DDR is saying I burn, but I still burn a lot. DDR says I burn 800 calories, but thanks to my F11 I know I am actually burning only 500 calories. Though burning 500 calories a day, and 2500 calories a week I would have to eat an excess of 6000 calories a week in order to gain a pound. I still should not be gaining any weight.

I’ve decided to spend the next week with a food journal and really take a tally to see what in the world is going on with my body. As well as testing my heart rate doing some daily activities like drawing and such so I can get a really good idea of calorie expenditure during the day. Hopefully I have just been absentmindedly pigging out lately. I don’t like the prospects of having some health condition that turns me fat. Isn’t that terrible? I could have diabetes or something and I’m more concerned with getting fat. Being a woman is hard.

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Bunny Surprise Cookies

April 14th, 2009

bunnyrackbunnycreamcheesebarrierSince Easter just came around I decided to make some cookies. First I started off with simple sugar cookies and a bunny cookie cut out. I placed them onto the cookie sheet with the little bunnies facing each other, as if they are blowing kisses to each other. You can see in the picture that I line my cookie sheets with foil, the reason why is that I’ve only got 2 cookie sheets, so I can quickly remove the foil and cookies while baking and line with new foil and put the next batch of cookies into the oven immediately after the one cooking comes out. If I had 3 cookie sheets I wouldn’t need the foil as the cookies would cool enough between coming out of the oven and me needing to get another batch ready.

bunnyraspberriesbunnysandwitchNext I whipped up some cream cheese icing which was made from cream cheese, powdered sugar, lemon rind, and a bit of lemon juice. I wanted this icing to be thick for my master plan. I then took a cookie and built a barrier of cream cheese icing on the flat side of the cookie around the perimeter.

I then made a raspberry coolie with frozen raspberries (I used black raspberries), lemon juice, and sugar. I just added sugar until it was at a sweetness that I liked. I blended it all in the blender until it had the texture of a smoothie. I then filled the area that was barricaded by the cream cheese icing with the raspberry cooler.

icedbunniesI then took another bunny cookie that was facing the opposite direction and sandwiched it on top of my first cookie.

After tasting one of the cookies it wasn’t tart enough for my tastes so I got started making lemon icing which consisted of powdered sugar and lemon juice. I iced the tops of my bunnies.

bunnynoearsNow you might be thinking that this sounds like a tasty cookie (and it is), but quite a bit of work for a cookie. Why would anyone go through so much trouble for a cookie and the answer is in the surprise and the wonderful name that I gave my cookie. See when a person bites down into my bunny surprise cookie they can have the satisfaction of not only biting the bunny’s head off, but seeing the dark red guts on his inside! I always thought that animal shaped cookies were a bit morbid and now we can all appreciate the full morbidity of it!

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April 9th, 2009

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I don't need glasses

March 31st, 2009
Entertainment Weeklys The Must List Party

Well a couple of nights ago I was watching American Idol. My husband was walking by to get a coke (I’m not supposed to say I made him watch it with me) and he notices that Randy Jackson is wearing a huge watch. I’m putting a picture here where Randy is clearly very proud of his huge watch. Unfortunately It doesn’t come any smaller than this and I’m not sure I like that ad right there, though it’s not like I have enough readers to be selling ad space anyways. I began to wonder why anyone would ever want such a paper weight on their arm and it occurred to me! I don’t need glasses!

I’m going to be rich with this idea. It’s a product for everyone in denial about their eyesight. It’s several products. I’ve already come up with prototypes! All I need is to get Billy Mays to yell about it and I will sell millions.

idontneedglasseswatch

idontneedglassesreading

idontneedglassesdriving

Order now and get all three devices for 2 easy shipments of 19.95$ plus shipping and handling. PATENT PENDING, PATENT PENDING.

Posted in General Life Observations | 2 Comments »

More from Charter

March 14th, 2009

I know you may have come here to see my “I don’t need glasses” idea come to life. But alas a real life event happened in regards to one of my other posts, so the “I don’t need glasses” will have to wait till next week.

So I recently got an email from a Manager of Communications at Charter regarding my previous post about the awesome items I could redeem my points for in the “Live it With Charter Program”. Apparently there were some features that I missed. So I went to check them out. First there is a catalogue where you can buy stuff at a discount with real cash and a few points. Points are worth five times as much here according to charter. I quickly went to see if there was anything I wanted as I have finally convinced my husband to ditch our cable for Fios and Tivo. So I have till Tuesday to spend these points. There seem to be some decent items here, but I was wondering if there really was any discount, so I started some comparison shopping from Live it With Charter to Amazon.com.

I started by looking at things that would cost me out of pocket less than $25. First I looked at a Lexar 256MB Memory Card from Charter was $17.48 plus 155 points. Normally I would add in the costs of points, but today I’ll ignore it since I got my first 3,000 points for free. The cost of the same memory card from Amazon: $7.64. Unless I get a lobotomy it doesn’t look like I’ll be buying this from the charter site. Let us compare a few other items under $25. How about a Farberware 2-Qt. Whistling Tea Kettle in Red for $18.48 and 164 points. Amazon has the newer Farberware model for $18.99. So I can buy the older model for 50 cents less than the newer model. I tried the celstron 8×21 upclose binoculars at $18.16 and 161 points. At Amazon: Again like the Farberware a much newer nicer model for $20.00. I’m starting to see a trend in the under $25 group. It all looks like stuff that possibly a liquidator bought 1-3 years ago and is still trying to sell at the prices this stuff was at 1-3 years ago.

I figured I’d try price comparing a few higher ticket items. Now note there are a ton of items on the Charter store and I have no intentions of sitting here all day looking at all of them. So I’m just going to pick a few randomly that I might like to purchase either for my self or as a gift for one of my friends/loved ones. I like cameras and have wanted a new one for a while. On Charter the Camera I wanted costs too many points, but it is the Canon 10.1 Megapixel Digital Camera with 18-35mm Lens in Black at $515.75 and 4584 points. At Amazon: $609 with an accessory kit. Though with that points cost after my free 3,000 points I would have to spend another $150 to get that Camera, and the one from Amazon is a better deal at that point. I then looked at golfing stuffs as my father in law likes to golf. From Charter: A Callaway Big Bertha Stand Golf Bag Carrier in Black $104.26 and 926 points. From Amazon: $100, so not only am I paying more at Charter, I also have to pay points on top of that. Last I checked for a camping tent as my husband and I would like to go camping. From Charter: Coleman 9′x7′ Sundome Tent $39.27 and 349 points. From Amazon: $69.99. So after spending an hour looking around on this stupid store, I finally found one thing that was actually a deal to buy. When my husband wakes up I’ll ask him if we can purchase the tent. As these points will turn into a pumpkin come Tuesday.

There was a charter mall, that if I shop at other stores I get points for dollars spent there, roughly 4 points per a dollar. But as we have seen from my previous post, the redeemable rewards are not really worth it. I can get special discounts at image.com, but most printing places already give these special discounts without any affiliations. For example Vista Print is always offering free printing and you can get your picture on all kinds of stuff like mugs, magnets, tee-shirts, etc. I have my picture on everything at home so my husband can tell what is mine and what is his. There is a link from the Live it With Charter sight to play games on GSN. Note to Charter, MSN Games are much better and they too are free.

Last with the Live it With Charter program there are sweepstakes. Currently there is a sweepstakes to win the ultimate “man cave”. As a woman I find the sweepstakes name retarded. It does have a decent prize, pretty much a huge entertainment center for your home and $500 in home depot cards. It costs 2000 points to enter. So if I spend $200 at Charter then I can enter one of there sweepstakes. This doesn’t seem entirely on the up and up to me. I know that it is illegal to hold sweepstakes in the U.S. that requires people entering the sweepstakes to pay money or purchase anything to be in the sweepstakes. I guess Charter is circumventing the legalities by converting those dollars into points and then using the points for the sweepstakes. Since I have to use up my points by Tuesday I’ll probably enter, as clearly there isn’t much else worth spending my points on in the Live it With Charter program.

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