Friday movies

And for once something actually about fonts.

What does a font say about the person using it? Lars Willem Veldkampf takes a shot at answering this minutes-old question in a series of images

I'm hoping they're being ironic when it comes to Comic Sans...

Those who have been to see Wall-E will have seen the new short film from Pixar, Presto. If you haven't, go look at it here. It is one of my favs to date, there ppl are ingenious and, in the spirit of Wall-E, no dialogue is necessary.

This is incredible:


The highlight of this is the cats at the beginning:


Not a movie but still amusing:


for the OCD within:


crazy breakdance

lentil trauma

TRAGEDY HAS STRUCK!!!
This morning I took a lentil concoction out of the freezer, put it in a plastic bag "to be safe" and then put it in my bad to take to work for lunch where I promptly forgot about it. I also put my sketchbook in my bag as I wanted to scan in some black and white stuff I'd done before I coloured it in. I forgot about all of it until I went to get my bag ready for the gym and when I pulled out my lentil bag, I noticed it was dripping. It has somehow got through the plastic bag and emptied an unholy amount of water into my sketchbook which was behind it. I mean they're only doodles but hours of OCD have been poured into them, they are my babies.
It isn't too bad really although some colour or patterns have leaked between layers/pages and there were some near misses- phew- but now my poor battered book smells vaguely of lentil...
So as an emergency first-aid measure, I put paper towels between each page to soak up the liquid and aid recovery (drying out). It is currently sitting on top of my magazine archive and looks more like a ragged pile of paper towels than my dear darling sketchbook.

stress doodling

It seems that I have swapped stress baking for stress doodling. Around late June, I decided that I needed to start doodling- something creative to get my mind working and my hands used to doing something again without the stress of drawing 'real' stuff. There's no real stress in making patterns but there is a challenge in making them look cool. So I started doodling a little bit in a book/notepad I'd been given as a promo thing from a picture library but I wasn't really doing that much. And then suddenly, it seems to have just taken off. I hadn't even really realised it was 'stress doodling'- I just do it in front of the TV (till very very late...) but the other night, as I sat down with pen and paper, Sean looked at me and said, "Aynia, are you stress doodling?" I looked down at my pad, said "No?", looked up at him, looked down at my pad, which was full of a pretty darn intricate and OCDesque pattern and said, "Oh no. Yes?" I've heard there are studies about how you can do psych analysis-typed stuff on what people doodle and I can well believe it. My doodles vary depending on my mood, both in nature (colour or black&white) and also content (whether they're more picturey or more pattern-based with lots of intricate and repetitive details). Here are some samples-

Some I think are quite crap:

Some are just plain weird:

And others I'm quite happy with:

Avast!

Happy International Talk Like a Pirate Day to ya my filthy bilge rats!

So I had to take a personality test to see what type of pirate I am and this is my result:

You are The Quartermaster
You, me hearty, are a man or woman of action! And what action it is! Gruesome, awful, delightful action. You mete out punishment to friend and foe alike – well, mostly to foe, because your burning inner rage isn’t likely to draw you a whole lot of the former. Still, though you may be what today is called “high maintenance” and in the past was called “bat-shit crazy,” the crew likes to have you around because in a pinch your maniacal combat prowess may be the only thing that saves them from Jack Ketch. When not in a pinch, the rest of the crew will goad you into berserker mode because it’s just kind of fun to watch. So you provide a double service – doling out discipline AND entertainment.
What's Yer Inner Pirate? brought to you by The Official Talk Like A Pirate Web Site. Arrrrr!

I must say, it's a bit accurate really. I know for a fact that many of my friends enjoy winding me up just to see me get on a rant. Hmmm....


And although I know I've bogged this before, here it is again. My Pirate Name

My pirate name is:

Captain Anne Rackham

Even though there's no legal rank on a pirate ship, everyone recognizes you're the one in charge. You have the good fortune of having a good name, since Rackham (pronounced RACKem, not rack-ham) is one of the coolest sounding surnames for a pirate. Arr!

Get your own pirate name from piratequiz.com.
part of the fidius.org network

So get out there and shiver some timbers me hearties!

stress baking

My flatmates were telling me last night about a woman at their work who had recently had a miscarriage and has taken some time off work and has taken up baking. Apparently this is a woman who previously had never even bought a bag of flour because she never baked but she has now worked her way through a whole Delia Smith cookbook. Sarah thought maybe the lady was nesting and was pregnant again but I just shook my head and said, "She's stress baking."

Stress baking is something I have only recently encountered- or more accurately only recently labeled. I've always baked, I love baking. I bake when I have to, when I'm bored, when I want to, any time really. But when I've got a lot on my mind and am feeling a bit stressed out, that's when things really get going. When I suggested that this aforementioned lady might be stress baking and that I do it too, Sean looked at me and said, "Oh my God! You DO!" I still laugh at the memory of them coming in one night and Sean taking one look at a kitchen table filled with biscuits and me standing over the oven and he just said, "Put down the gloves down and step away from the oven!"

I'm not sure exactly what it is about baking that calms me down but my stress baking differs from I'm-bored or I-wanted-to baking in one vital aspect: volume. There is a rhythm to baking for stress. Stress baking for me almost invariably means cookie or muffins- something relatively quick to make and bake because it means as one item is in the oven, you can be preparing the next one and the cycle can just go on until someone pulls you away or you run out of ingredients- I've had to stop before because I ran out of flour. I think baking soothes me for several reasons:
1- I'm doing something which keeps my brain otherwise occupied
2- the smell
3- I'm creating something which always makes me feel good
4- better yet, I'm creating something that will make other people happy because it tastes good so they will like me because I'm cool and make yummy stuff*

And I am not alone. My sister, pre-taking-off-on-adventures has apparently filled up my parents' freezer with baked delights as well as having items farmed out to family and friends. I thought maybe it was genetic but some poking around on the web has proved me wrong. This blog entry and its comments show I am not alone, as does this.

So for those who will live with me in the future know this- I will bake when bored and I will bake because I like to so don't be worried to enter the house to the smell of freshly baked deliciousness. But if you walk in and see a lot of it? Well make sure you try some first and tell me how wonderful it tastes and how amazing I am and then ask what's wrong. ;-)

*anyone notice the list?

Eeeek, it's been a week

Once again I've been collecting links and hadn't noticed a whole week slipping by. It hasn't been the best week really. Not that anything's gone disastrously (or even moderately) wrong but ever since my tendinitis came back, I've been feeling slightly off form. I don't know if I've been fighting off a cold or what but I've been lacking in energy and motivation for a while now. Then on Wed night I had my Thai massage (I'm a case study for a girl at work who is doing a course) and tree-hugging as it may sound, I think it really cleared out my energy lines because going home from it, I felt much more tension-free and yesterday I went to the gym at lunchtime for the first time this week (and usually I'm an every lunchtime girl) and came away feeling heaps better.

Despite this, I still tried to cancel climbing as I was sure Friday was going to be a sick day and I was intending to scoff copious amounts of popcorn and watch Pride and Prejudice* one more time before I finally ship it away to Oz but my climbing buddy Steve guilted me in to going and thank God because it was one of the best nights I've had in ages. I pushed myself really hard, the shoulder felt almost back to old form and the boys were, as usual, hilarious. I came away with that buzzing feeling of endorphins combined with feeling physically shattered that I thrive on but haven't had in ages. I sincerely hope I can find a similar bunch of nuts to climb with in Brissie. I mean these guys are Australian so clearly their type exists, I just have to hope they haven't all buggered off overseas.

But as for those links I've been filing away:

I'm not the only bigsmall fiend out there!


You all need to check out these amazing doodles. I can't put in a pic as it's a flash page but they're colourful and fun.

I have a fascination with the miniature. I don't know exactly why but I think it's amazing when people make small things, I love macro photography (which is making the small look huge), maybe it the attention to detail.


Crazy metal sculptures


I know this may walk the fine line of garden kitsch for some people but I have a deep love for fantasy and if nothing else, there sculptures are amazing works of art and imagination.


And this one just appealed to my quirky sense of humour.


Another cool add, another cool doodle.



*the BBC mini-series version. There is only one Mr. Darcy and that is Colin Firth. Don't get me started.