October 2nd, 2021
Hello! This is the first post to my new blog, and I'm pretty excited. I coded this website in about twelve hours, with breaks and distractions included. I'm not really new to HTML and CSS, but I'm a bit rusty. I'm also not too familiar with the "proper" way to do things, so that my code is legible to others or is up to the standards set by other people. I wish to learn these things, as I kind of want to become a web developer one day, but right now I'm just kind of dipping my toes into the water to see if it is something I really want to do.
I made the background and little queen ant pixel art too, and I'm pretty pleased with how they turned out. They're based off of images of Crematogaster cerasi, the species I suspect my colony is. I made them using Aseprite, a paid program available on Steam. I think it is really good for doing pixel art, as that's what it was designed to do specifically, and I love a lot of the features it includes. My favorite feature is the indexed color palette thingy (I don't know if that's the right word for it), where you can place a color and if you want to change it later, it changes all the pixels you have already placed down. It is good if you struggle with indecision! I really recommend it for anyone looking to do pixel art, even if it isn't free. Well, maybe figure out if pixel art is something you're going to be doing often, then buy it. I don't use it that often, but I've used it enough that I feel I've gotten my money's worth with it.
Anyways, I made this blog to kind of stretch my web development and design muscles. I recently decided that maybe becoming a web developer of some sort may be a good path to go in my life, and if I decide that it isn't for me, at least I've learned some new things! I've been interested in web development since I was a little kid, playing Neopets and designing my pet pages. Neopets had a pretty good HTML tutorial if even I was able to learn from it, haha. Outside of Neopets, I've taken a few courses in school on web development and design. I'm thinking of taking some sort of class to learn Javascript to up my development game.
I suppose I should give a little more information about myself... I already wrote some information down on my "about" page, but I feel that I can give a little more.
I go by kmcallah here on the internet, but you can call me kmc, km, callah, but never allah. I'm in my mid-twenties, or I almost am, because my birthday is on the twenty-fifth. I identify as non-binary, and I use they/them, she/her, and he/him pronouns, with my preference being in that order. I'm an aromantic demisexual, not 100% sure on that, but I do know that I'm not that interested in dating anyone.
I don't really like to call myself one, but I suppose I am an artist. I enjoy drawing creatures, especially dragons and dinosaurs. I'm a member of a few Art Roleplaying Games (ARPGs), as they help with my motivation and give me ideas and prompts on what to draw next. I have trouble coming up with my own ideas, I guess you could say. I like drawing anthropomorphic characters, though I don't really consider myself a furry. I'm not too active in that community, though I do think it would be fun to make some more friends of any kind.
When I'm not drawing, I'm often sleeping. But if I'm not sleeping or drawing, I often find myself watching videos on Youtube and occasionally streams on Twitch. Right now my favorite things to watch are gaming videos like the Hermitcraft crew and people's runs in The Binding of Isaac: Repentance. As I write this, I'm listening to one of Kitboga's VODs. I really love his content, I feel like he is doing a service to everyone by exposing how scams work and providing entertainment to the masses. (I'm watching a full stream of him getting scammers to use Windows Really Good Edition. It's very funny!)
I don't only enjoy watching people play games, but I love playing them myself! My favorite games at the moment are Minecraft and The Binding of Isaac: Repentance. I'm not very good at either of them because I play them pretty casually, but as long as I'm having fun I think that doesn't matter. Although, I would like to achieve Dead God one day... One day... Other games that have really imprinted on me are Team Fortress 2 and Skyrim. I've played many more games, but I wouldn't say that they've made as big of an impact on me as those two games. Right now I'm playing Cookie Clicker since it released on Steam last month. I've pretty much had it running non-stop since I bought it, and I've challenged myself to not use an auto-clicker since I feel it kind of makes the game a little too easy/fast.
I want to share some information about my pets, too. I currently have a ten gallon aquarium with a fish, some snails, and a few cherry shrimp in it. I used to keep betta fish, but I always get sad when they die so I decided to stick to invertebrates (not that I don't get sad when they die, too, they're just a little easier to detach myself from).
My aquarium in full, on a good day.
I really like this picture, it's a bird's eye view of some of my plants and shrimp.
My bearded dragon, Clay, is another prominent part of my bedroom. I got him shortly after my first bearded dragon, Mick, passed away. He was four months old when I got him in late August of 2020, so I reckon he is about a year and five months old now. He was a small boy when I got him, but now he has become a large man. He was much more expensive than my first beardie, but I hope he will live longer as he came from a breeder rather than a pet store.
Clay loves to look out the window, observing the birds.
Sometimes it gets hot in his tank!
My most prized pets, though seemingly insignificant, are my ants. I keep three colonies at the moment, though I'm trying to rehome two of them. The colony I really love and want to keep are my Crematogasters. I named the queen "Creme" after I figured she was here to stay (I have bad luck raising ants... this year was a little different though!).
This was the most exciting moment for me, looking in Creme's test tube and seeing her first workers walking around with her.
Not to say that seeing this wasn't exciting! This is an older picture from a couple months ago.
This is a picture from today, it looks like there are less workers but there is a ton of brood. It is cooling down here though, so soon they'll be put into diapause. I'm going to miss them until next year!
Another picture from today, but of Creme's outworld. Just some gals being pals, hanging around the watering hole. I know, I need to refill their feeder.
Anyways, that's all I can really think of for now. I hope you enjoyed this long post, and don't expect all my posts to be this long. This was just kind of an introductory thing, maybe I'll add some of this information to my about page, or maybe I'll keep it as a little hidden goodie for people who look at my older posts. I'm probably going to see if I can learn some more stuff about web development, and see if I can apply any of what I learn to this site. Thanks for reading!