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
A reminder for you animal people out there
It only takes a second and costs nothing, but clicking the ‘click here’ button daily you can help keep animals in shelters alive by providing food and shelter.
I’ve got the page sets so it loads in a tab every time I open firefox. It literally takes seconds to click it when I fire stuff up, and then I forget about it until the next day – it couldn’t be easier, but it makes a difference.
October 17, 2009 Comments Off
Another winning vintage ad!
Naww mister, you go right ahead!
October 16, 2009 Comments Off
Um…
Disturbingly, that company DIDN’T go bust. It’s still around, selling group showers. You know, as you do.
October 9, 2009 Comments Off
Sick and actually working from home. Properly.
Bugger. I’m sick.
Though I’m hardly surprised – I was having sinus issues BEFORE the dust storm, and since then nothing has been right. In fact, at night as I settle in to sleep, I can feel and hear stuff in my sinuses cracking and shifting noisily.
It’s painful and revolting.
And now I have an awful pain in my ear which seems to get worse if I smile or swallow by causing some sort of suction and makes whatever the hell it is feel like it’s going to pop my ear drum. Oww.
Looks like I’ll be spending the day working with a heat pack on my shoulder to rest my ear on.
But the good news?
Stuff is going better than I could ever have imagined after diving back in to working from home.
My current major client not only has me working on a fantastic project I wake up feeling excited about most days, but has given me enormous creative freedom and is a lovely person and a dream to work with to boot.
I met up with her again in Sydney over the weekend to discuss the next phase of the project (there are a few parts to it), and the whole time, sipping hot chocolate in the Mecure Hotel Lounge, I had to keep saying to myself “holy crap, it’s real. This is REALLY happening.”
Working with her on her project is a delight, and I can’t wait until I can finally show you guys what we’ve been working on!
I’m also picking up additional clients who need one off jobs, which is keeping me busy every single day – a very good thing.
And the work is varied enough that I can switch between jobs to keep myself feeling interested, and, lucky me, all my clients have been LOVELY to work with. A real delight. To the point where I want to do my best work to send them because they’re such nice and people and they deserve my 100% best.
It’s a great way to work.
And now, on a day where I’m in pain and feeling awful, where am I?
Holding down a checkout, a chilly breeze blowing into my ear making my sinuses feel like they’re about to shatter? Head first in a freezer, trying to count that…burrito? Or has some idiot thrown a pair of socks in the freezer again? before my fingers become too cold and numb to work the keypad?
Nope.
In front of my computer in the sunny front room, enjoying my beautiful view of the mountain, hot coffee by my keyboard. Yes, I have a lot of work to do, but I’m keen to get going.
It’s funny, I keep realising how well this is working and thinking “Oh my god, it’s happening! I’m doing it I’m doing it!!!”
I suppose it’s like learning to juggle or riding a bike for the first time – you’re not sure how to do it and suddenly – WOAH! – the oranges are up in the air or the bike is sailing along and you’re not quite sure what you did to make it happen, but it’s awesome, and you’re afraid that if you stop to analyse exactly HOW this is all taking shape, suddenly you’ll interrupt the flow, the complexity of it all will overwhelm you and you’ll realise you don’t know how you’re making your arms or legs do that, actually, and the oranges will land with a splat on your cat and the bike will dump you unceremoniously into the smelliest bit of the creek where all the frogs go to do a shit.
Somehow, it’s all working. So well that I’ve even turned some work down.
It amazes me, but there you go.
Pinch me. No, wait. Don’t.
October 6, 2009 3 Comments
Vintage Ad Friday! (or, a photo of me working from home)
October 2, 2009 Comments Off
A good morning
For the first time in…well, I don’t know how long, actually…I woke up today feeling rested. And at 7am, no less.
Night before last I slept for 12 hours (I needed it, I’ve been short on sleep for some time) and STILL didn’t feel like I’d had enough. So last night I was in bed before 10pm and – bing! – 7am.
Wide awake, ready to go.
Now it’s 9.30 and I’ve already had a bit of chill out time reading in bed with the cat (she likes to rest right up against my eyes so I can’t read my book, the sod), had a coffee, watered the garden, unloaded clean dishes from the dishwasher, loaded dirty ones in and hit wash and started work on my painting for the day.
And aside from a nasty mishap where I got confused and mistook a scrap of leather for a tasty bit of chocolate (I realised before I swallowed it, don’t worry) all has gone swimmingly.
Well, I’m choosing to see in that way at least.
The house is a pig sty (there’s all sorts of random packaging and papers and crap everywhere), and to walk about you have to dodge and weave and step. But if you think about it, people PAY to do that sort of stuff at fitness boot camps, right?
So maybe my house is just a boot camp fitness obstacle course. No, I’m not in great shape, but imagine the shape I’d be in if I tidied up and no longer had to contend with random obstacles in the hallway in the dead of night!
So, really, all that crap is there for my health.
Similarly, the drifts of paper that threaten to bury the cat are there so as to lessen the burden on the recycling centre.
Yes, I’ll put it all in the recycling bin, but later. If that much paper hit the recycling centre at once, they’d be overwhelmed.
By storing it on my desk (on my floor, on my cat, across the bed, over the chair) I can recycle tidy handfuls at a time, thus providing the centre with sustained, steady work. Providing job stability for their workers. Allowing them to take out mortgages to house their families, providing paychecks to send their children to private schools and university, providing not only their family but the whole of Australia with a better tomorrow.
I hold my nation’s future in the shit all over my desk. I must act wisely. A hasty clearing up session could wreak havoc upon god knows how many citizens.
September 30, 2009 Comments Off
