Irony is... 

...arriving at the vet's, cat carrier under arm, and waiting in line behind two people (one of whom spoke English) who had their dog's name wrong on the system (like WAY wrong), three (wrong) addresses and contact names listed, and needed to show that yes, this was the dog they operated on last year so they could het his eye looked at....

...Thinking, wow, how disorganized are these people...

...Then getting to the counter and realising that Tanja brought the cat in previously, but I couldn't remember if if was before or after we got married (so not sure what surname they had),  seeing they spelled "Magrat" as "Margaret", and that they had me in the system, but from my address 4 years ago.

So yeah.

Gah! I'm all sappy!

After looking through my blog-stalking list, I found the following entries. And thewy made me feel all clucky and broody and sappy and emotionful:

"Zoe" by Neil Gaiman (from his Journal on neilgaiman.com)

"The Owl of Bryant Park" By Kevin "Johnny Johnny" Gamble (from Naked Sponge)

"In My Own Image" by Annika Barranti (from Through The Looking Glass)

And just a cute one, "Eight Months" by Stephanie Whalen (from Four of Two)

Costanza'd

So this week is sort of planned out for Tanja and I. I'm on 1:30-9:30 shifts, and we're planning our barbecue on Sunday. So Tanja made a huge spinach pie/quiche thing, with the intent that it can be my lunch and her dinner over a couple of days (Monday & Wednesday). I was to make chilli on Tuesday, which would be my lunch and her dinner for Tuesday and Thursday. Also, at some point, I was to take down the skeletal remains of the pagola in our backyard, and also make a trip to Dan Murphy's to pick up booze.

So this morning, Tanja takes the mince out of the freezer so it'll be defrosted by Tuesday. then goes to work, reminding me of the schedule on the way out. I get up, have my breakfast and coffee, loaf around a bit watching Avatar, then decide, "Okay, time to take down the pagola". It goes relatively smoothly, with me not having to hacksaw anything, and only one of the pieces dousing me in liquified rust. I get finish, wash all the grease & crap off my hands and glance at the clock. It's 10:41.

"Oh no," says I. "I need to get the chilli on the stove. It takes an hour to cook, and if I still want time to eat it, I'll need to start right now!"

So I do. I prep the vegetables, get the spices, get the onion simmering, then take the mince out. It's frozen solid. "Stupid fridge!" says I. "It's almost like it hasn't been out of the freezer more than an hour!" So I use the microwave and a hot knife to break it into pieces.

I get the chilli simmering, realising it'll finish at 12:30, and that'll only leave me like 10 minutes to eat. I make my sandwich, and wrap it up. I go to put the lettuce back into the fridge when I see the spinach pie. And realisation hits me.

I call Tanja and explain that I'm an idiot. She really agrees.

So now I'm putting the chilli in Tupperware as soon as it finishes, wrapping up some Spinach pie, and having that today.

Also? Today being Monday? I start at 1, not 1:30. So I'll have like 10 minutes to get to my train.

For I am Costanza, Lord of Idiots.

The New Year, and Resolutions of Same

I told myself (and Tanja) that this will be the years I monetise & business-ise (that's not a word, but I'm making it one) my t-shirt operation. I've been looking into getting a t-shirt press, and essentially starting to print my designs off the computer. This way I have greater detail control over the designs, and it becomes astronomically easier and quicker to print shirts (especially large orders). This press, bought from a wholesaler, costs over $1000. You can get cheaper ones from eBay for between $300 and $400, but if I'm going to be doing this right, I want to be able to afford a good one.

This lead me to the consideration that if I'm going to be spending this much (plus changing the cost structure of my enterprise from stencils, paints & brushes to sheets, ink cartridges) I need to think tax-wise. To do that, i need to be able to claim stuff and write receipts. For that, I need an ABN.

I tried to do some reasearch into this the other day and got depressed (this is partially as Tanja meantioned trademarking, copywriting & intellectual property. This tweet was my response: http://twitter.com/lokified/status/7477505890).

I need to stay focused. I've had thoughts toward buying one of the cheap shirt presses and using that as I do shirts now to get together the money to get the good press.

I've also been thinking about marketing. I think doing the Paddington Markets or whatever may not be the way to go. My thought was towards a site something like TeeFury, wherre I'll have a selection of shirts for sale. I'll continue doing the custoemr stuff, by appointment.


...

I was just about the write more, and then stopped to let my thoughts whirl around for a moment. I haven't a clue what I'm doing, or planning to do. I have tons tof ideas, but no way to actualise them.

Result of hypothesis? Further study is needed.

Wierdness=creativity

I feel weird. I blame the weird-feeling on my screwing-up of my normal routine. I woke up, had cereal, went to the gym, then came back, had juice and two cups of coffee (I usually have juice and coffee with my cereal, THEN go to the gym). So now I'm shaky, my head is pounding and I'm dizzy. I was taking a shower, trying to clear my head, but all I could think about were random geeky and obscure references I could put on t-shirts. The first one?

 

[Silhouette of man's head with long curly hair] = [silhouette of shapely female form]

(taking off on the line from the Wog Boy about "having the curls to get the girls.")

 

Then I started thinking about Roadhouse and the ideas exploded:

 

·         [Silhouette of a man in blue with his right foot illuminated in red, possibly with a cutaway showing the razor in the toe of his boot]. On the back: RIGHT BOOT.

·         PAIN  ≠ HURT

·         Two separate Euler circles, not intersecting, one marked "MY WAY" the other marked "HIGHWAY".

and finally

·         "TOO STUPID TO HAVE A GOOD TIME"

 

If and when I make these, I'll have to send a bunch to the Rifftrax crew.

 

Tanja has just brought me a turkey, red kraut & cranberry sandwich, so I must eat. Hopefully I'll feel better.

---

Windows Live: Keep your friends up to date with what you do online.

More good deeds.

Playing inFamous again, I was killing time and roaming the city, avoiding a story mission that was frustrating me. I wandered into a part of the city I had previously passed and heard shots. Thinking this to be an enemy encounter, I ran over. Now, in the game, you can run police missions that gain you territory and reestablish police presence in the city (which then help you attack enemies when nearby). The city also has defensive machine gun turrets at certain spots. The shots I heard were coming from one of these turrets being manned by a cop. He was shooting at nothing, so I figured it was either a glitch, or there was an enemy on the other side of a building he was aiming at. So I healed a few people that had got in his way and went to leave. That's when I noticed that the cop was purposefully aiming at the pedestrians, mowing them down. I continued healing. The cop began to target me. I avoided the gunfire, but was nearly killed. I decided "Okay, that's enough." I got behind the turret and knocked the cop down with a kick. He got back up and ran back to the turret, resuming his shooting spree. I eventually had to stick a grenade to the turret, killing the cop.

This gained me negative Karma, if you can believe it.

But wow. An NPC cop in a ruined city, having a mental breakdown and shooting civilians?

That's too heavy for my Sunday morning.

Apropos is a good word.

Apropos and as a follow-on to my previous post about Photography and people blocking shots with their hand (Oh, I'm not going to link to it, just look two inches down the page), I add this: On Thursday, Gonzo, while sitting on the other side of the pod from me as I was trying to organise something at my desk, held up his fancy schmancy digital SLR and started snapping photos without looking into the viewfinder. I, being extremely busy as well as annoyed by other things, held up my hand to block him. He then cited the blog entry, saying "Don't you hate people who do that?" This gave me pause, but in my head I can up with an answer. He was not taking photos because he found what I was doing interesting. He did not think I looked good. He was not even looking at the pictures he was taking. He was using the camera simply as a tool to annoy or provoke a reaction from me. This then gave me the right to block with my hand.

I read on someone's Twitter that smart Twitterers and Bloggers were part of the "Douchenozzle Offset Program". This made me smile.

"Oh, don't take a photo!"

I’m finally taking a stand.

 

I hate, hate, HATE people who:

 

1.   A) flinch away, or try to block their face with their hand when you try to take a photo

 

-or-

 

2.   B) people who, upon seeing a perfectly fine-looking photo of themselves that you just took, will exclaim “Oh, God! I look ugly/fat/stupid! Delete that!”

 

Seriously, I’m over it.

 

As someone who takes a lot of pictures (nearly 4000 this year alone), nothing frustrates me more. This is especially bad when I’m trying to take a candid photo to actually capture a funny or interesting moment that I feel would make a good and well-composed picture. That candid photo is ruined when the person becomes a cringing blur as they exhibit behaviour A. Yes, I know that everyone’s image is their own business and that I shouldn’t be taking photos without permission, but come ON. Behaviour B seemed to be more of the ingrained body-conscious insecurity that’s drilled into people (of which I myself am an occasional victim) in which we must automatically downplay ourselves as ugly for fear of being considered arrogant and conceited (or worse, actually believe that we are unattractive and dismiss ourselves out of hand).

 

In any case, it comes down to this:

 

1.   I am a photographer and therefore (for better or worse) am an artist (of some sort).

2.   The pictures I compose and attempt to compose (for better or worse), are art (of some sort).

3.   Therefore, the people and objects in the picture (for better or worse), are part of that art (of some sort) and are worthy/interesting.

4.   Therefore, shut your face about it. I think you look good/interesting in this photos and that’s that.

 

These thoughts were kicked into action by a farewell I was at last night, and two friends of whom I took a candid photo of two people I know sitting by a wall and laughing at what a person standing nearby had said. The candid photo was natural and looked great. They then noticed I was taking photos and got quite embarrassed saying “Oh, delete that, I’m sure it looked terrible.” Despite having not seen the photo. I tried to downplay the situation by saying “Well, if you don’t want me to take a bad photo, let me take a good one.” (my mantra of sorts), and they posed. Then viewed the picture. “I look terrible in that one,” one said. “Take another.” They posed again. Repeat times 5. In the end, I just walked away. When I looked at the results, the two best-focused and best-looking photos were the first two I’d taken. Also, after putting the photos on Facebook, I got a narky comment about the candid one, stating “When did you take this, how dare you, I’m going to kill you when I see you next OMG.”

 

I can’t win. Frankly, I miss my old camera-phone, where you could take a picture without making a shutter sound, so people wouldn’t know (though, the camera was no good, and I know they auto-enabled the noise to stop locker-room shots and such).

 

So yes, if you’re one of the people like Craig and Stevie and Ted, of whom I can take many many photos and just love the attention, then I salute you.

 

 

Lucas Brown | Proxy Champignon
Master of Brainthinking

 

Funny Aneurism Moment

I was playing InFamous this morning and had an odd moment. I had taken a side mission involving a poison vat atop a water tower, defended by bad guys. I defeated the mooks, then approached the tower, which was on top of an apartment building. As per the game's morality system, I was given a choice: use lightning to overload the tower from a distance, thus sparing myself from the poison, and causing the poison to flood the water tower (that's bad); or using a shockwave to explode the tank close-up, which aerates the poison, saves the water, but doses me fairly severely (that's good, I guess).

So I chose the second option. I got close, let off a shockwave & destroyed the tank. I was dosed with the poison, but in an unforseen consequence, the canister exploded, knocking me off the tower and the building. Mid-plummet-to-my-death, a legend appeared on the screen: 

"Congratulations! Your actions have made you slightly more Good."

Legend disappears. I continue falling. 

Splat.

I feel gooder already.