It's not very good \o\
Candidates campaign in your neighbourhood /o/
*jazz hands jazz hands*
You know, I'll almost be sad when the election's over, because it'll mean an end to all these wonderful spoof videos that have been coming out of the woodwork.
Like this wonderful rap battle between Gordon, Dave and Nick
After weeks and weeks and weeks and weeks, I finally finished that drawing meme.
The final request, made by Nick, was for a picture of cheeky gardener, Sonia:
Who's the heart for? I will let you fight it out amongst yourselves, because I can't remember if it was Nick or James who she had the hots for. Maybe it was both, you lucky boys.
At first, I found this request quite hard, because the last time I saw Sonia was 4 years ago, so it was quite hard to remember what she looked like. But then I made a fortuitous discovery and found that I have 230MB worth of video of Sonia gardening on my computer, all with Steve's dry commentary.
One of the commentary highlights:
"You can see some cars in the background. It shows you what a busy street this is. Only the hardiest of gardeners can be prepared to take on such an environment."
- Yup. That Sonia. She was hardcore.
This picture was sketched out very quickly on my tablet, which explains why it looks so bad XDDD One day I will master the use of a tablet for drawing, but not today!
In other news, it's time for...
Best conversation of the day
At work, we got to talking about what would happen if the one ring, in the Lord of the Rings, was actually a Prince Albert. Suddenly the whole story has a different aura. And it makes Gollum talking about 'his precious' rather... interesting
BONUS SECTION: SONG OF THE MOMENT
It's old, but it's good. I'm not sure, but this may just be my favourite song ever.
I spent nearly the whole day cutting and sticking today :D
Why bother with any of that 'old documents' rubbish when you can make things out of bits of coloured paper! But the reason I'm doing this is so that I can make these things with a load of children on an open day in just over a week's time. I've never worked with children before. Hopefully it's not too difficult D: D: D:
In other news, I found out today that I've just been published for the first time! Woo!
Ok, so, I didn't write the book (ok, list; it's more technically a list in book form). It was written years ago. But I did help overhaul the previous edition, including a whole lot of proof-reading. (In fact, it was quite hard to restrain myself from proof-reading the final volume as I was looking through it today!) So I'm down as a joint-editor, and I'm jolly chuffed with that.
In other news, I am well late, but have some general election fun:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u0QsSoV0SRo
(I didn't see the first debate myself, but I hear that this was exactly what happened.)
Do you remember that unicorn game?
Earlier in the week, I decided to draw a unicorn game/gundam 00 fanart, which I think is overwhelming proof as to why I should never be allowed any days off work, ever.
Click below to see it!
Hay guys,
Have you had a nice Easter? I've had a pretty good time so far, and I've also got the next couple of days off work too, which I am going to use for important things like sleeping and playing Phoenix Wright.
I went to Cambridge with Theresa on Saturday for her birthday. We went punting! Which seemed to consist mostly of crashing into the banks of the river every 2 minutes and trying not to fall into the water. GOOD TIMES. Then we had a look around one of the colleges.
Cambridge looks a lot like Oxford when all's said and done, although that's not really that surprising. Here, have a look at the photos what I took.
SOME COLLEGE BY THE RIVER. They all look the same. I think it's Kings? (EDIT: Actually, I have no idea which college this is.) Also, that tree tried to eat us later, because David kindly steered us right into the path of its branches.
PUNTING
The ducks on the river are absolutely fearless. They love tourists. This one has probably been caught in a million tourist photos. What a camwhore.
I think this might be Kings College as well >_> Shhhh. I can only remember the name of one College.
EDIT: Actually, it's St John's College orz
Hello pretentious photo of stairs :D
And then, later in the same day, I took the train to London to go see Deborah get baptised and confirmed. I didn't actually realise this before I went (because my knowledge of Catholic ceremonies is not so great), but this meant that we went along to the Easter Saturday evening vigil service. Which lasts for TWO AND A HALF HOURS D:
Luckily, it didn't seem so long in the end because there were things to keep me occupied, like singing, and bells, and candles! You have to admit, these Catholics know how to give their services a bit of a spangle. (We'll not talk about how I got wax all over my coat - Who thought it was a good idea to give me a naked flame anyway?)
Also, I got to see Esha, who I haven't seen for TEN YEARS. Wow. I didn't realise I was that old! We had a good time reminiscing though. Hopefully we won't leave it another 10 years before we meet up again.
At the weekend I went with my parents and my grandma to go visit my grandma's sister. It was nice to have all that quality family time. And we ate out for well cheap and well tasty nomnomnom.
Also, I took the time to go indulge my pastime of looking at old stuff:
SO PRETTY.
In other old stuff news, I came across an old passport today at work. It was from the 1920s and the guy in it had a stern expression and a little bow tie, which amused me to no end :D (Seriously, if you want to distract me, go stick an old photo in front of my face and you're away.)
This is an additional entry for that drawing meme. AC requested that I draw Soma from Gundam00. (I quite like these memes. It means that I end up drawing characters that I wouldn't normally draw.)
I had such a fight with my hardware to get it done though. I'd bought a new scanner, which refused to install properly. And then my old tablet, which I thought worked fine, decided it didn't like my screen resolution. I tried reinstalling the tablet drivers but they crashed my computer in a big big way D:
Now I want to get a new tablet, but I'm not sure if I'll find one new enough to work nicely with Windows 7 (Jesus, Windows 7, why do I have to keep buying new things for you???)
In other news, I just finished watching Bellamy's People. What a brilliant show that is. The characters are so well done, and it's very funny. Here's a clip:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y9CijaMuytA
Just goes to show that Paul Whitehouse and Charlie Higson have still got it. But that's not to detract from the other actors too, because they all of them pull it off wonderfully. My favourite character is this guy, he seems like such a nice old man!
I've just gotten Windows 7 for myself.
Using it is kinda like learning how to write with the wrong hand. There are several times where I've just stared at the screen for 10 minutes saying 'Why isn't the button there any more! Where's it gone? I'm lost! I'm lost!'
Some features are nice though, and the whole thing is kind of shiny and twinkly.
Now, if only there was some way I could find a Tieria-based desktop theme, I'd be all set XD
Songs of the moment
Vampire Weekend - Cousins
How have I not recced this song before now? I LOVE IT. It's so fast paced and happy :DDD
Audio Bullys - Only Man
The riff is so catchy. And don't forget the saxophone! (According to the blurb on YouTube, "Only Man is a throbbing piece of electro disco" I think that deserves an Ooh Matron if you ask me.)
Arctic Monkeys - My Propeller
This is pretty unusual for an Arctic Monkeys song. It took me a while to get into it, but when I woke up singing it one morning, I knew I was a fan. And I have no idea what the lyrics are about, but to my ears they sound pretty filthy. (Is it bad that I think that it sounds a little like the ending from Gankutsuou?)
I always feel like a little bit of a kipper whenever I fall for an internet meme. But, God, I can't stop playing this game and singing along. IT'S MAGICAL.
In other news, I made a discovery of great importance the other day. Somehow, in all my 25 years, I only worked this out now:
The mnemonic used to help kids learn the alphabet, IS SUNG TO THE SAME TUNE AS TWINKLE TWINKLE LITTLE STAR D:
Try singing them one after another and you will see for yourself.
Lordy Lordy! That drawing meme took a long time! And I was rushing too! Still, it was good for me to get drawing again; I enjoyed myself quite a lot.
Here are the finished pictures. Warning though: because they were rushed, some of them are more badder than others.
1. Baby Revive:
2. Lelouch, Tieria and Light:
3. Sherlock Holmes and Gregory House (click for big):
4. Halle and Lyle (click for big):
5. Baby Bring and Baby Devine:
Bonus Picture :D
This one's not from the meme. I just really fancied drawing Rochelle. Do you remember Rochelle? He's Typo's extremely camp and fabulous French vampire. And because he's been alive for a good while, it's a perfect excuse for me to draw him in lots of old-school clothes (click for big).
In other news
My laptop has just decided to give up on me. I can still use it (as you can see), but it's not really going to be a viable set-up for long. Please excuse me while I panic.
In other other news
I just added a link to Cynn Corvus (the Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell fansite run by the lovely Emma) on the links page. It's an interesting site and well worth a visit if you've read the book. And if you haven't read the book, WHY NOT? YOU WILL ENJOY IT I PROMISE.
You were the sweetest little cat. You will be missed. Greatly. But at least you're not suffering any more.
Why is everyone dying this winter? It's goddamn hard.
As for all of you that are waiting for fanart. I am working on them! Once I've done the laundry.
Not sure if there'll be any takers but, I stole a drawing meme :D
The first five people to comment with "MEME!" in this post get to request that I write a drabble or draw a doodle of any pairing/character of their choosing. In return, they have to post this in their journal, regardless of their ability level. (I'm being nice, so you don't have to repost this anywhere if you don't want to.)
<3
Contents
1. Four Lions - a film to be released later this year
2. Mother Tongue by Bill Bryson - a history of the English language
3. A Fraction of the Whole by Steve Toltz - a novel
1.
I am incredibly excited about Four Lions, a new comedy film from Chris Morris.
In case you've not heard of him before, Chris Morris is the guy who brought us the Brass Eye paedophile special and Jam, so it's not too surprising that the subject of Four Lions is also a little dark. I have to admit that when I found out the film was going to be about Muslim terrorists, I was a little uncertain, but this clip from the film suggests that it's going to be a very funny film indeed.
2.
I just finished reading Mother Tongue by Bill Bryson, which was utterly fascinating. I could hardly put it down!
In the book, Mr. Bryson gives a potted history of the English language, including many interesting fact, such as:
- 'merchant', was apparently once pronounced 'marchant', and that, back in the day, most words containing 'er' were pronounced with the 'ar' sound. Nowadays, it's only words like 'clerk' and 'Hertfordshire' that are still pronounced that way.
- 'see you next tuesday' never used to be considered very offensive at all, and was used about a million times by Chaucer in his Canterbury tales (how filthy of you, Chaucer! I hope you wash your mouth out with soap and water!)
The problem is, the book only really skims the surface; I'd love to read more about the history of the language, but I don't know where to start looking D: D: D:
The other problem is that the book was written about 20 years ago, so it's quite dated now. NOT ONCE DOES IT MENTION THE EFFECT THE INTERNET HAS HAD ON THE USE OF ENGLISH. Which is a shame, as lolspeak is clearly the mightiest achievement in English to date.
3.
I also just finished reading A Fraction of the Whole by Steve Toltz. Thanks for lending it to me, Herr. Forward!
It didn't necessarily make me feel good while reading it, but the story was certainly interesting. Most of the time, I felt compelled to find out what was going to happen next, even if I didn't actually want to. And the turns of phrase that he uses are really quite novel and interesting. I loved the part where he was describing a boy with rather delicate features by saying that 'he had a face like a pianist's hand'. Awesome.
I think this is a lesson in why I shouldn't be allowed to read Susanna Clarke's stories, 18th century novels and watch Bakeneko all at the same time!
Title: Little Bitterley
Rating: PG
Word Count: 7254
Summary: An attempt to set a Mononoke arc in 18th century, rural England (while shamelessly, and unsuccessfully, trying my hand at Susanna Clarke's glorious style)
So, having a crazy conversation about Ribbons from Gundam00 wanting to be Lady Gaga, led to the following embarrassing pieces of innovade/Lady Gaga fanart.
First, I pointed out that Regene would want to be Lady Gaga just as much as Ribbons would (if not more).
And then I decided that Bring and Devine should get in on the action.
But the pièce de résistance is the big dance number in which the innovades dance to Bad Romance. But there are 8 backing dancers, so who gets to be Gaga? Well. (Click for big.)
I don't know what to believe any more.