Geez. Some days I wish I could be a steampunk or a new romantic or a goth; it would make shopping and getting dressed in the morning so much easier. (actually maybe not a goth though. RiD can pull it off but I don't think I could)

Clotheswise I finally bought a coat for our Europe trip. It's a massive black faux fur thing I found at an opshop, down to my knees I think. I was really happy with it until I realised today that I'm going to have to wear/carry it everywhere. Folded up it's just too fat to fit in my suitcase :/ But it'll probably be ideal if I ever go to live in the UK.

And I finished two books lately! With my attention span this is a *momentous occasion*. Henry VIII's Six Wives by Antonia Fraser (excellent) and Pride & Prejudice & Zombies (only took me since July *headdesk* but it was fun). Now to track down Sense & Sensibility & Sea Monsters! And to motivate myself to actually pick these up, here's the books I own that I haven't ever read cover-to-cover. In fact, there's probably more than this :( 

    
Pandora only cost me $3! I'm starting to dislike Anne Rice as a person more and more (posting rants on Amazon, changing her character's backstories, banning fanfic... she's a pompous jerk IMO), so screw buying new expensive editions of her books. At least her vampires are quite badass. Especially compared to the recent popular 'vampires' >:/
 
Mmm, picspamming. So deliciously satisfying. Probably because I'm supposed to be writing a speech on Andy Warhol right now...

Just because I forgot to post this when it actually happened

I believe it was the great philosopher bellathedork who once said "there's nothing cheaper than free". I got to see Yves Klein Blue for free due to the magic coincidence of travelling to the city on a Thursday the week before last. As Michael pointed out, the building had really good acoustics. In fact I had a much better view and their songs sounded a lot better in the City Beach store than when I saw them at the Gallery of Modern Art. And they really got into it, screaming, leaning over the balcony. Pity they only played about six songs.
I was tempted to stick around for the signing but the teenage private-schoolers would've got on my nerves, methinks. Not to mention I had nothing worth signing besides maybe my sketchbook.
I think I need to dig out their EP again now :D And maybe get a hold of their album too.

I also got cheap ice-skating and coffee, and mochi ice cream! I wish I could eat mochi ice cream every day.

OK, haven't been on LJ, DA, etc. for a few days - been doing a workshop during my uni break ;) That is also why I didn't take the chance to go see anyone. Maybe next time :/

sparklyglampire , bellathedork , I need the help if you lovely people can offer it, basically for my personal logo. I've been through probably 50+ thumbnails and not getting anywhere (except for some nice-looking type). I've whinged about it previously and Charlotte gave me some very helpful links, but I didn't end up going down that road. Our tutor even encouraged us to ask people who know us well about these things, and I didn't for fear or bothering people. Well, the time for fear is past! QUESTIONS 

What word or image would you think of to describe me? What colours or textures? e.g. pastels, neons, dark, light, shiny? Do you think I'm old-fashioned, or more modern, in my interests, the way I look etc? 

Your reward will be to join me singing on a mountain where I will crown you with flowers. Or I could customise a sketchbook or draw a doodle or burn a CD and send it to you. Or in a meme-like fashion, I could just reply to the same questions about you!

So Charlotte and I checked out the American Impressionism and Realism exhibition at QAG. Slightly misleading name since there were Aussie works on display too. Anyway, very fun, but as usual I appreciated the portraits the most. Also, it's always nice to see art I'm really not familiar with. I have an art history class at the moment but obvs. we're studying very famous works that are often European. A lot of the portraits at this exhibit were pretty stunning. Especially since many of them were larger than life.


And now, MEME TIME. My words from sparklyglampire  were Doctor Who, Boosh, Yorkshire, Algernon  and Prince John.

Erm, Doctor Who. Strangely enough I was just watching some of series 4.
Doctor Who is probably the major series I like at the moment and have done for the past few years. I did get sick of the companion/shipping wars, but on the other hand I like the amount of geeky discussion this show generates: like one throwaway line can reveal layers of meaning or foreshadow whole episodes, or prompt people to write essays, or provoke heaps of theories. Perhaps it's strange, but I also like that the show's fairly casual approach to relationships and sexuality basically means many, many pairings are possible. It's a shipper's dream! So there's good and bad sides to the fandom :D
As for the series itself, I like Doctor Who for its heart and intelligence. Which sounds cheesy but whatevs. It's such a perfect balance of comedy, romance, sci-fi and tragedy, and friendship, too. It is so well-written that it can be a thrilling adventure one moment and have me in tears the next, and except for Futurama and Torchwood I can't think of any other show I react to in the same way.
Also: Ten's hair. You know you love it.

Boosh, teehee! I think it was my introduction to truly surreal comedy. Everything before then I'd seen, like Little Britain and the Fast Show, had been slightly weird but hadn't featured talking foxes, spontaneous songs about llamas, Mod poofs and Bryan Ferry vacuuming the jungle floor. I actually heard the radio show first and felt like I was on drugs because that was even weirder than the telly show.
It's been pointed out before, but I'll say it again: the lame side is that originally people who liked Boosh could immediately be identified as someone awesome: my friends liked it, people I knew to have good taste liked it. Now even people I work with who talk about parties and not much else are Boosh 'fans' :/
I really liked that The Mighty Boosh also extended my musical and comedy tastes. It's fair to say I wouldn't have listened to Gary Numan, Robots in Disguise, IAMX or Sneaker Pimps without the Mighty Boosh. So most of my current listening, then.

Yorkshire. I like Yorkshire puddings, they're delicious (and not sweet). A bunch of my relatives live there. Other than that, I don't remember that much. Baildon, Bradford, Leeds, Saltaire, the moors. Erm, Guiseley, if that's Yorkshire? I actually feel more Australian as a person now (though maybe not interests-wise; not a fan of sport, fishing or Aussie telly). The chunks of my childhood I remember are mostly Sydney and Hervey Bay, and I know more Australian geography than British I think? Though tbh my memory isn't great. It feels like I should have more memories than I do. Moving on...

Algernon is my cat! He is my pudgy manbearpig. Also, I've been so happy to have him around because I still miss my cat Jack who died last year a heck of a lot, and I know it would be worse without a cat around at the moment.  I think basically I need the company.
In other news, the two main characters of The Importance of Being Earnest are named Algernon and Jack, Algernon is French for "bearded or wearing a moustache", and I like poncy boy names.

Prince John is a hottie. He is so hot he burns down churches. THE END.

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Oh, sod it. I've been doing an ActionScript class for 4 weeks or so and have an assignment due tomorrow, and I don't understand ActionScript 3 at all. It may as well be Klingon or Elvish. I can follow along in class but what we're doing and why makes no sense to me whatsoever. Worse, I can't even memorise and use the stuff I need because I don't know what it is.
I'm cool with failing the class because I never ever want to do this coding crap again. I just hope I can enrol in another class next year rather than repeating, because I can't imagine getting my head around this even if I had a million billion years to do so. I feel stupid. But also justified; I sat watching and coding along to tutorial videos yesterday and I've Googled tuts but it just doesn't click inside my head. In summary, I'm screwed.

Some things that have inspired me lately. No coincidence that I've just finished watching series 2 of The Tudors.  

I didn't have to read much on the internet about Anne Boleyn to find out she was much more intelligent and her story was much more interesting than what was shown in the series. I wouldn't mind downloading some docos about her. I'm not sure I'll give The Tudors a rewatch because it was such a soap opera. The costumes were great though, and the hairstyling for the ladies made me drool. So many elaborate braids and soft curls. Except they're totally historically inaccurate: it was immodest for a lady to show her hair in that time period. They all wore veils. Nice job, Showtime!

In real-life 'news', I worked for five hours straight before my break the other day and then had to do training on how to move properly to not get injured and stuff. The end result being me practically brain dead from boredom with legs like rubber and sore feet from standing on the cold concrete at the back of the store. I'm getting desperate for a new job, and hopefully emailing resumes out soon. The corporate crap doesn't help either. For example if we sign in too early for our shift we have to sign forms and things to fix it up, which to me is a load of wank. Scanning rates, rewards cards, that stupid jingle, it's all conspiring to make me hate my job and feel like a corporate tool. It's certainly not the hardest job, but it's bloody boring. But it'll all be over soon enough, fingers crossed!

Ok, so it's becoming more and more popular to create viral marketing sites where you enter your name/details and they *magically* appear in a photo, video, site layout, etc. But I was pretty damn impressed by this viral marketing site for the UK horror show Dead Set. Enter your name, press play and a terrified Big Brother contestant writes your name on a wall in blood and begs you to help them.
FYI Dead Set is a 5 parter about a zombie apocalypse in the UK, while the current Big Brother housemates are still in the house and totally oblivious. I've seen the first episode. Layers of humour (the power cut to the BB house is interpreted as a 'task' by the housemates) but definitely a horror series. I didn't have the stomach for more though, it was pretty gory! One of these days. Maybe when SBS gets around to showing it.

Hmm homework time now. Maybe.

Why is it so hard to sit down and create something? I wanted to do some illustration things, like book covers and jazz. Not worrying about style, just focusing on ideas, communicating something. It's easier that way. I haven't got past gathering stacks of reference though. And then sitting around not doing anything. It's like being paralysed by anxiety, but I'm not sure why... I just wish I could produce something that's clean enough to print and look professional. I've done vector work for uni but it looks fugly when I try to create people or clothing or whatever.

Urgh I hate stressing about these things. It doesn't help that I'm taking a folio class and my tutor's prodding us all to get organised and get a job. I won't be done til next year! And I've been looking for jobs, it just seems like creative industry jobs are vague, hard to describe and hard to find. I need a fail sticker.

 The fahzah is saying lately that I look like Crystal Tipps, a cartoon character from the seventies.

Okay, so my hair isn't grey-purple. On the other hand, she has big curly hair, a pet with a poncy name, and she doesn't talk. So maybe a slight resemblance.

I've got to animate an interactive music video thing. With Actionscript 3 *weep* I did find this awesome stop-motion done with post-its when Googling for research though!

Cakewrecks and TV Tropes are enabling my procrastination habits. Cakewrecks is a blog about cakes made of sponge, frosting and fail. Though there are some glorious works of art too. For example, my fave so far below. In the unlikely event that I ever have a child, this is the cake that will get made.


As for TV Tropes, it's like a glorious blend of Wikipedia, sarcasm and geekery. So much info about so many shows, films, comics, manga etc. with lists of the tropes that apply to them and some deliciously biting wit. (also they hide spoilers) The first quote on the Foe Yay page made me squee. The Robin Hood page is also rather good.

Shopping today, and went to UQ with the youngling because she might study there. It wasn't a campus, it was a surburb. There's a hairdressers there and everything. I seriously do not think I could've coped trying to find my way around there. On the other hand it's really beautiful, and has a good reputation I think? It's pretty neat.

The blisters on my feet have blisters :/ Damned beautiful new shoes! I've worn them once and the skin on my ankles still hasn't healed.

I kind of wish I was living in a new house already... because I want more wardrobe and shelf space. I don't read 'proper' books as often as I should but the magazines, art books, CDs and DVDs are stacking up. Also I want more clothes, then I might be able to find something actually nice to wear. I'm getting so sick of jeans, to fit my hips they have to pool around my ankles. It is time for leggings and tights, I do declare. Is it wrong to want to be in debt but fashionable? I think I've been reading StyleBubble and skimming through Facehunter too much lately. Chain mail gloves aren't practical! I don't have the money or space for pairs and pairs of tights, shorts, or shoes!

Oh well, my money's draining away as it is. Partly because I bought myself a new bigger tablet that is black and sleek and lovely. It eats lineart for breakfast, and doesn't switch itself off randomly. I got Patrick Wolf's new album too!