some things are so sick I just can't get my mind around them...

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actual design post for a change

I had some down time the other week and decided to put it to good use and explore Illustrator some more. I can do what I need to do in it but I thought I'd look up some tutorials to liven things up a bit. I need to do this for Photoshop as well but one thing became very clear with my creative side-trip, I'm a vector girl. I knew this already but Illustrator is just awesome. Like geek-central awesome.

I saw some tutorials that looked interesting on this site.

First off I decided to try this tutorial because I've been pretty sure that you should be able to fit text within any given shape using Illustrator but I didn't even know how to being looking for it in the help. So when I saw this tutorial I was Geek Level 41.37* enthusiastic. Once I'd skimmed the tutorial and found out what I needed to know, I decided to just do my own thing to explore the tools.

Here are some basic things:




But this is almost my pride and joy. I've made my own optical illusion and totally by accident. Which was is the text curving and is it just me or does it look like it gets wider at one end? It doesn't, I know it because I put grid lines in to check, thinking I'd slipped with the old mouse.


Using the envelope distort tutorial, I reckon anyone can make up stuff like this but if there are any questions, I'll endeavour to remember how I did it. ;-)

Then I decided to make some bamboo.


*The scale goes up to 42. We're talking geek scale here people, was there any other number to choose?

go go go

I've had to hit the ground running this week, what with work suddenly streaming in and my boss being away. But I'm not complaining, nope, I've actually been loving it. It's been a while since I've made to stretch my creative multi-tasking skills like this and it's been good. I'll be ready for the weekend though...

Things have been happening in The Life of Aynia.

1- My pocket knife arrived. I don't know if you've been keeping abreast with Lyndon's comments but apparently you can take a blade up to 6cm long on airplanes in NZ and I notice that this came in to place about a year after the twits took mine off me when I went up to Akl. With all the security paranoia here in the UK, I will get no such luck although my largest blade on my new toy is exactly 6cm long.

Knives of any length, composition or description (except for plastic or round bladed butter knives), swords, machetes, and items commonly used in martial arts competitions such as throwing stars.

Pooheads. Still, knifey had arrived and he is cool and I am happy. There has already been much using of the scissors.

2- WE GOT A NEW OVEN! I will not recount my reaction in detail and bore you all with a bow-by-blow account of my paroxysms of delight but suffice it to say that it has a light, a fan and 2 shelves, things which my previous crapola oven did not. I'm still getting used to the fan things but as this involves many experiments in baking, nobody seems to be complaining.

3- My climbing shoes have a hole in the toe! This is traumatic indeed and involves me sending them away to get re-soled. Last night I had to hire shoes and it was a fairly traumatic experience. They're cheapy shoes and I feel like the soles have no traction at all which I know is bollocks but it's psychological so I don't feel happy standing on things. SO fingers crossed my babies are returned to me soon, all rejuvenated and ready to scramble up walls.

holy crap batman!

My friend sent me an email with these images in it and the more I look at them, the more ill it makes me feel...





According to the email:

In Zimbabwe, Africa, you will find the magnificent Victoria Falls at a height of 128m. The location is known as 'The Devil's Swimming Pool'.
During the months of September and December, people can swim as close as possible to the edge of the falls without falling over!
These falls are becoming well known amongst the 'radical tourist' industry as more and more people search for the ultimate experience.
Would you dare?

Umm... NO THANKS! I'm not going that near an edge, let alone a wet, slippery, rocky edge, without a rope tied around me.

Investigating this further took me to YouTube. As one of the guy's at work said, it's like watching Darwinism in action...

you have to love Kiwis...

SNOW!

This was the view from my window when I woke up yesterday morning. Lovely as it was to have snow, it was a bit weird for this time of year. One of my friends equated it to having snow in NZ in October which is pretty close really... A bunch of us were meeting for breakfast so afterwards we had to go to the park for compulsory snow fights and snowman building. Or in our case, because we were very cold by the end, a very little snow lady...

Áine, Aynia, potato, potato

I've grown up knowing that my name was found in a fairy tale book and that I was named after the Irish Fairy Queen of Ulster but I can't believe that I haven't done proper research in to the origins of my namesake before this but I'm quite interested in it now. I'll let you all know what other interesting tidbits I come up with.

From Wikipedia:

In Irish mythology, Áine (pronounced "awnya" in Connacht Irish and "enya" in Ulster Irish) is a goddess of love, growth, and cattle, also perhaps associated with the sun. She is the daughter of Egobail, and sister of Aillen and/or Fennen. In some of the tales that mention her, she is the wife of Gearoid Iarla. In other tales, rather than having a consensual marriage, he raped her, and she exacted her revenge by either changing him into a goose, killing him, or both. In yet other versions of her myth, she is the wife or daughter of the sea god Manannán mac Lir. The feast of Midsummer Night was held in her honor. In County Limerick, she is remembered in more recent times as a "fairy queen".

I have to say, that sounds a little mild for my kind of style but suitably quirky. Rape me and I'll turn you goose then kill you. Be warned. Having a feast held in my honour sounds right down my alley really.

done

I went for the 'climber' in the end. It has more features, it's cheaper, I might as well. I'm fine with having a semi-bulky set of keys so it's done. I had help, I have to admit, I had drawn out on a piece of paper the two sizes and laid my keys beside them and then asked my boss for her opinion. She was without a doubt in the more-bang-for-your buck camp, or maybe it was the bottle opener that swayed her... ;-) And I've gone for classic red, you can't argue with classic and as a bonus, the red will make my knife go faster. (Don't ask.)

tough decisions

On my way to Egypt, I had my swiss army knife taken off me at the airport because, for the first time in 4 years, I forgot to put my keys in my suitcase and my pocketknife lives on my keyring. As makes sense. (By which I mean having it on my keyring makes sense. Forgetting to put it in my suitcase is just plain stupid.) So now I need a new one but cannot for the life of me choose exactly what I want. I have a list of things my knife must have and things it'd be nice if it did have and no knife seems to have everything on it.
must have
scissors (I use these the most)
tweezers and toothpick
knife blade
would be nice if it did have
can opener
bottle opener
corkscrew (spot a theme here)
nail file

But instead my choices are:

rambler
Length: 58mm
Layers: 2
Features: 9
* Thin Blade
* Nail file
* Bottle Opener
* Magnetic Philips screwdriver
* Wire stripper
* Flat blade screwdriver
* Keyring
* Tweezers
* Toothpick
* Scissors
Bottle opener good, scissors good but I'd really like a can opener and I know from experience that the blade on this one is pissy and small. I like a solid knife.

minichamp
Length: 58mm
Layers: 3
Features: 11
* Thin Blade
* Nail file
* Nail cleaner
* Cuticle Pusher
* Flat Blade Screwdriver
* Ruler
* Letter Opener
* Emergency Blade
* Orange Peeler & Scraper
* Bottle Opener
* Magnetic Philips screwdriver
* Wire stripper
* Keyring
* Ballpoint Pen
* Tweezers
* Toothpick
* Scissors
This one has more stuff but really more of the things I want and again, pissy little blade.

executive
Length: 74mm
Layers: 2
Features: 7
* Large Blade
* Small Blade
* Nail file
* Nail cleaner
* Flat Blade Screwdriver
* Orange Peeler
* Keyring
* Tweezers
* Scissors
This is the one I had and, in all honestly, will probably be the one I get again. I'd just really like if they'd put a bottle opener or can opener (in fact the two can double up) on there instead of the stupid orange peeler. I mean WTF?! The larger blade is okay though.

sportsman
Length: 84mm
Layers: 2
Features: 8
* Large Blade
* Corkscrew
* Can Opener
* Small Screwdriver
* Bottle Opener
* Large Screwdriver
* Wire Stripper
* Reamer & Puncher
* Nail File & Cleaner (short)
* Keyring
* Tweezers
* Toothpick
Here we are moving into what they call the 'large knives'. This looks like it has it all except WHERE'RE MY BLOODY SCISSORS?!!! Dickheads.

climber
Length: 91mm
Layers: 3
Features: 11
* Large Blade
* Small Blade
* Corkscrew
* Can Opener
* Small Screwdriver
* Bottle Opener
* Large Screwdriver
* Wire Stripper
* Reamer, Puncher & Sewing Eye
* Hook
* Scissors
* Keyring
* Tweezers
* Toothpick
Really, this one seems to have it all (except the nail file which I can cope without) except it's just too big to go on my keyring (I'm starting to feel like a MacGyver version of Goldilocks and the Three Bears...) and would totally doiminate things. I think there's an irony that my almost perfect knife is called the 'climber'...

So what's a girl to do? The climber is cheaper than executive which I just don't understand, even though it's nearly 2cm longer and a layer deeper. ARGH! Help! I just can't choose!

once upon a time...

My friend sent me this:

haikus are easy
but some times they don't make sense
refrigerator

It made me smile because there was a time when I was doing jujitsu that me and the only other girl there were making up haiku, usually on our 'conditioning' evenings, where we were quite often the only consistent attendees. I mean what else is a girl to do to distract herself and she tries to do chin-ups and tricep dips...? And all these years later, a training buddy sees a haiku and thinks of me. I cannot ask for more. ;-)

I want I want I want I want I want I want I want

Is this not an object of beauty?! I want it bad. But I also think I could make something similar if I put my mind to it and then I'd love it a gazillion times more than this glorious thing because I'd made it myself.


I'm also in love with this owl fabric. Cute, funky and just generally hilarious. I have decided that the Etsy Shop is a dangerous place and I'm lucky that I don't live in the States as at the moment, international shipping costs are a pretty good deterrent.

vexed and puzzled

After talking to my Dad at the weekend about my verdict on Jumper the movie, I found I had a hankering to read the book again. Partially because it's a good book but mainly to get rid of the movie stuff in my head and reaffirm characters and events as first seen in my mind's eye. So naturally I head along to ye olde trust local library but it wasn't there. Not phased (because it's a small library and it's easy enough to interloan between different branches in my borough) I hopped on to the catalogue only to find that it wasn't there. As in they don't have it. I consider this a crime in itself but it just gets down right weird when you find out that they do have Reflex, the sequel. I think you will join me in saying, "WTF?!" Now I'm annoyed because I want to read it, and in typical fashion, now that I can't get it I really want to read it but I don't want to buy it because Dad has a copy in Oz so it would be like doubling up. So annoying.

I will, at this point, direct you to one of my Dad's blog entries which kinda relates to all this in that it's about reading. If I were to brutally sum up, I'd say it's about how your environment effects what you read and personally I think it's a pretty interesting thing to think about. Why do we read what we read? Sure, partially it's personal but saying that it's influenced by how we were brought up and what books our parents like and what mood were were in or what stage we were at in our life when we came across a book is indeed a major factor. I know that my sci-fi/fantasy predilection arose because my Dad just so happened to be the one who seemed to recommend books to me and it's taken off from there. I don't know why the sci-fi/fantasy genre isn't more popular really because when you're a kid, it's all vivid imagination and fairy tales so surely it's easy to slip in to that genre. Sure, it seems that there are more of that genre around for younger children these days (Harry Potter, Spiderwick, Lemony Snickett, even maybe His Dark Materials) but I don't remember ever having a shortage of it growing up although the only 'young adults' sci-fi/fantasy I can think of right now is Diana Wynne Jones... As far as I'm concerned, Robert Jordan, Terry Brooks, David Eddings.. they're all more heading towards teenage reading as opposed to hitting kids around 8-12 when they should be reading for themselves but need something maybe not so heavy. Actually I can't believe I'm writing that because I know that I at least was an exception to this rule. I'd read The Chronicles of Shannara by the time I was 9* and probably the first two series of David Eddings'. Once I got in to reading there was pretty much no stopping me. By age 10 I had read most fantasy books my friends only seemed to be coming across in highschool. That sounds like I'm bragging which is totally not the case, just probably a combo of 'habituation' and my own OCD personality. Ooh Jane Yolen was also good and I only came across Anne McCaffrey in my first year of highschool. But I digress. A point I wanted to raise in relation to this is that due to Harry Potter's popularity, more children are (apparently) now looking towards other books in the fantasy genre and this probably wouldn't have happened before.

Another case of people influencing you to genres you may never have looked at before is (and here I have the good grace to hang my head in shame) the romance genre. In my 2nd year at uni, one of my flatmates discovered Joanna Lindsay and before we knew it, the three of us were cycling them around the flat. I can't remember my first Mills and Boon but I think it was when I was staying at a friend's place when we were housesitting for her parents. Her Dad reads M&B but she had never previously touched them, being of the opinion (rightfully) that they were literary trash. Well one night I had run out of books so and glancing along the shelf saw a M&B. Having already started the slippery slope down the romance 'novel' path, I picked one up out of curiosity. When my friend saw me reading it I got no end of hassle and I didn't really bother to defend myself apart from saying that they were light and fluffy and more than slightly laugh-at-them funny. And because of me, a few months later, my friend confessed to having gotten hooked. Another case of circumstance and people leading someone on to a genre they would never have glanced at twice.

And when you think about it, it happens all the time really. We read books that people recommend, even if they're not what we might normally read because we know the person and respect their opinion so are willing to 'give it a go'.

And that's all I have time for now. Ciao.



*I have clear memories of huddling up in the middle of my parents large bed. (Their bed because my sister was probably asleep and because they were probably watching tv and I like reading in quiet but also because their bed because it's comforting and to be honest, some parts of those Shannara books scared 8yr old me shitless. Didn't stop me though...)

Dahab

This is just going to be a glorified photo caption post because DIVE's on deadline but I wanted to get some piccies up for people to see. I'll write properly about my trip later... This pic is me at the top of the very large steep hill behind my hotel.


This is the view of Dahab from the top of the aforementioned hill.


I fell in love with these disused street lamps.


Taken in Dahab looking towards the mountains. I am totally, utterly and insanely in love the these mountains. They're such amazing shapes and just suddenly jut out of the flat desert and they look brilliant at sunrise and sunset.


The view from my hotel room every morning. So beautiful. No wonder I woke up in a good mood every day. God I miss the sea.


More arty shots, this one is on my balcony looking to the left.

And that's it for today. Ciao.