Posts from — October 2009
Welcome to Wrongsville, population you.
Another actual vintage ad I found online.
I have to admit I was gobsmacked by this one…
Yep, you’re going to prison now.
October 23, 2009 1 Comment
Worst shoes EVAR
I stayed up late painting last night. Again.
Which can seriously play havoc with your judgment. So when I found this last night, I didn’t post it. Looking at it again this morning though, I realise I am right.
I have found, quite possibly, the stupidest shoes in the world.
In the beginning (of the end), there were Crocs.
We bitched about how these shoes were the stupidest, ugliest shoes ever and made anyone who wore them look like a garden gnome, yet they only increased in popularity. Somebody actually wears them. For something other than gardening or washing the boat. A whole lot of somebodies.
There was also the fad that confused almost every Australia – Ugg boots as shoes.
Ugg boots have been around in Australia forever. Just not as shoes. As slippers. You wear them in the dead of winter, in your own home.
Wearing them outside to collect more fire wood, put out the garbage or check the mail box is acceptable. You may also, on a rainy Sunday, say, wear them to the corner shop when you’ve run out of milk for tea.
And that’s all.
You may not wear them on a train, you may not wear them in the rain! You may not wear them into town, you may not wear them to the mall. You may not wear the upside down, you may not wear them out at all!
Then, tragedy struck, and Crocs fell in love with Ugg.
And they had a baby.
Ladies and gentleman, I give you:
THE CRUGG BOOT!
Everything you hate about Crocs and Uggs in one seriously unsightly package.
And sadly, these aren’t the only WTF shoe hybrids available at the moment.
Take the Ugg boot, a ballet slipper, a wedge heel, mix them with ripstop fabric, suede, and glossy patent leather, then add a twist of Nike Air technology:
It’s scary stuff.
And somebody must be buying these. Hopefully as a gag. Hopefully nobody thinks this is a good idea…
Of course, there’s always the chance that one of you out there own a pair of these. If that’s the case, I’d like to apologise for making fun of them.
I’d like to, but I just can’t. So I offer my sympathy instead. After all, you’re the victim here. It’s ok. Everything will be ok.
October 23, 2009 Comments Off
Roses
I never used to be much of a fan of roses, but as I’ve gotten older I’ve started to like them mostly because of things they remind me of.
In particular, of my grandparents on my mum’s side – they’ve always had a rose garden, and while I hated it when I was little (if you were playing silly buggers on the lawn and fell in, it bloody well hurt!) now I like it just because it reminds me of being little and being with my grandparents.
Lavender on DeviantArt.
I like lavender for the same reason – it reminds me of my grandmother on my dad’s side. And mandarins, despite the fact we grew them in our backyard when I was little, remind me of my grandfather on my dad’s side. Every time he came around in the summer time he’d pick and eat a mandarin, always asking me “Would you like one, toots?” first.
I never did. I hate eating mandarins (probably because Laurie and I spent more time throwing rotten ones at each other then ever eating them), but now I like the smell, just because I think of my grandfather.
It’s funny, but as I get older, I find myself liking less things because I just like them, and more things because of what they remind me of.
Anyway, because of this, I was particularly excited as I was mowing the other day to find a small, tiny tiny rose bush has sprouted in the middle of the lawn. No taller than a hand, and with a tiny tiny rose bud on it.
I mowed around it very carefully.
Lots of fun things like that spring up in our yard. An older lady used to live here (also called Amy, funnily enough) before it was a rental property, and she must’ve loved her cottage type flowers. The place went to shit with previous tenants, but given a chance to grow, lots of rose bushes have sprung up. As well as a whole bunch of different types of purple flowers (I’m guessing purple was one of her favourite colours?) and two beautiful purple jacaranda trees which litter the yard with purple flowers.
Jacaranda St by poenie123 on DeviantArt
In the past, I think I would’ve just rolled the blades right over that little rose.
But now I can’t bring myself to do it.
October 22, 2009 Comments Off
What an idiot
It’s really hot in this front room today. Unbearably so.
I opened the window with the fly screen on it to let the breeze in, but I was still too hot, so I went in search of our column fan.
Figuring we’d probably put it in the garage when we moved in, I searched out there. Couldn’t find it.
Well, maybe Seth has used it since we moved in. I search his studio area. No luck.
Well, maybe I put it in the laundry? Could I have put it sideways into one of the overhead cupboards in the hall?
I searched for about 45 minutes, going crazy, thinking we must’ve left it behind.
Turns out it was in the front room with me all along. Right there. Gathering dust. Right under my nose.
God I’m a moron.
October 21, 2009 Comments Off
Maple Syrup
When my dad came back from Canada recently, he bought me back a tin of dark maple syrup.
It’s a fair size tin – 540ml, but I don’t want to waste a drop of it. You CAN get real maple syrup over here, but it’s pretty damned expensive. Usually you get the weird arse fake stuff that’s maple flavoured and actually tastes more like old cork floor tiles than maple.
SO! In order to get the most out of my can of maple syrup, I have been planning very carefully (when I’m not getting distracted reading the french on the side of the side of the can) and think I have arrived at three recipes I can make using my one tin.
And they are:
Baked apples with maple syrup.
Mulled apple cider with maple syrup.
And a Maple Cheesecake.
I must say, I’m particularly curious about the Maple Cheesecake.
I’m not 100% certain yet though. I may swap out the mulled cider for drizzling a bit over my yoghurt, in an attempt to replicate the flavour of the Wallaby Maple Yoghurt I had while in California.
And since I bought that up, I’m very confused about Wallaby Yoghurt. They say it’s ‘Australian style’….we have a style of yoghurt? Funny, since we sure as hell don’t have any maple yoghurt here. I have NO IDEA what qualifies it as Australian-like, but apparently they felt so strongly that it was Australianesque that they named it ‘Wallaby’.
Very confusing.
Anyhow, I SHALL KEEP YOU UPDATED ON THE SYRUP FRONT.
I know you’ll be hanging on the edge of your seats.
October 21, 2009 Comments Off
How to have a bad day
A list:
1. Spend all goddamned day online looking for photo references for the picture you have to start today, and you have to finish by the end of the week.
Find NOTHING useful in hours and hours and hours of searching.
2. Have a computer that is much too slow for the work you do. Shout abuse at it when it takes about 20 minutes to save a photoshop file…
3. Contact a stock photographer whose work might be very useful to you to ask permission to reference (reference, not paste in, reference) their work in a painting, in a way that would probably be recognisable to the photographer at the end.
Have them ask if it’s going to go to print.
Say yes.
Have them ask if there’ll be a run of more than 100.
Say yes, but that you’d be happy to send them a free print of the picture.
Have them say no, no more than a hundred. You can’t use it.
Feel really disappointed, say thanks anyway and move on.
Have them THEN contact you to ask if they can commission you to paint their portrait (when, actually, a portrait shot of them was what you wanted to reference ANYWAY), and but THEN have them say ‘oh yeah, it’d have to be for free because I can’t pay and I give my stock away for free use.’
UH….WHAT? No you don’t! No you didn’t!
Tell them that you WANTED to paint them and send them their portrait free, and they refused.
Have them refuse again, because it’s going to print, but ask you do to it anyway but you can’t put it on your own webpage because they want to own it as theirs and make prints of it to sell which is fair because it was their photo you’re only painting it.
Ask them if they’re actually serious here. Have them tell you yes.
Tell them to shove their stock photography up their arse.
4. Realise you haven’t eaten since getting up, and that your serious bad mood and the shakes you’re getting are probably a result of that.
5. Stomp around the kitchen slamming things, realising you’re going to have to set up the camera and take photos YOURSELF. Why must every picture turn into a photo session as well?
6. Realise you’ve lost a whole day of painting, that there’s no way you’re going to meet the deadline on this one, get angry at yourself for having overbooked your time.
7. Have a telemarketer call while you’re trying to make food, have telemarketer argue with you that you are NOT on the ‘do not call list’ when you inform them you very much ARE, and have been for a while, and double checked you were recently, and where did they get your number from anyway and NO you’re not changing phone providers!
8. Just generally be a bitch.
October 20, 2009 Comments Off
I’m Afraid of Americans
I think the marriage of David Bowie’s unusual voice (it always sounds slightly broken to me) to the distinctive sound of Nine Inch Nails is just perfect.
It’s a shame there isn’t more David Bowie/Nine Inch Nails music about. I know there’s some, but not nearly enough, especially when most of what I find is not so great live recordings.
October 19, 2009 Comments Off
