Heart of Coal

There were a bunch of men going around my uni today. Dressed in white & talking in French.

Hmmnn....ok, just wanted to get that out of my system (it just looked a bit hallucinatory at first. After-all, its not everyday you walk into a bunch of men dressed in white, talking in French. Unless you are French, and simultaneously belong to a cult group which dresses in white).

If you know who they were, PLEASE TELL ME. I don't know why, but I keep getting the feeling that I was hallucinating, so I want to confirm that I am not going crazy. Also, I like French people [really, I do], so naturally I am curious where they came from, and if there are any more mass shipments of La Franciais [note: I made that phrase up] coming here.

I have also started eating the typical American breakfast: coffee and doughnuts.

=__=

Bad, bad, bad, bad, bad.

High sugar + high caffeine = HOLY COW!  

 via link

Note: if you are American, and you feel offended by my stereotype, you are more than welcome to call me a cunt, and tell me to fuck off [in the comments].

Also, I managed to do my Discovering Logic essay with only ONE GRAMMAR MISTAKE.

Hallelujah!

Unfortunately, I got ONE mark cut off for that mistake, otherwise I could have had full marks

T__T

On a similar note, I have decided for sure that my semester presentation for Discovering Logic will be on Dadaism. Mainly because I love surrealism to death, and Dada is the grandfather of surrealism, therefore I love Dada to death. Also because, the professor won't let me talk about paradoxes. Tsk tsk tsk.

But any-who, it should be an interesting combination of my whimsical art obsession and Computer Science class.

I just hope that my end message is not among the lines of "fuck logic. Lets go mental". That would make me a terrible Computer Science student. 

On a happier note, I am so overloaded with work, that to entertain myself I sort out my Calculus folder by stapling everything in order.

Sorry, did I say "happier note"? I meant "psychopathic note".

That's all for now, hopefully on Thursday I can update about something interesting, rather than my anti-social stapling habits.

Blah 6

You can be anywhere in the world, but insurance companies will always be the same.

Because for every Doodle, God made a Flippy.

I'm so worthless, and stupid, I think that the only good that will ever come from me is if I am taken out in an open field and shot in the head. I suck at everything. I thought I was good at things, but I'm as worthless and dumb as a pile of straws.

It's like my head is filled with mud, with a skull as thick as lead. NOTHING goes in, I might as well get it trepanned for all the good it will do. I feel disgusted with myself. I have absolutely NOTHING to offer to anyone at all. No wonder some professors think I am stupid; because I am.

Anyways...enjoy some artwork by Nick Bantock (AND SOME OF THEM ARE SEMI-NUDE, YOU PRUDE):

Check out his entire gallery, his artwork is really really awesome. I would have loved to put all of his work up on my blog, but then it would make the post so long, and then it would be like all meh, and blah, and flippy.

Blah 5

Hello, my name is Mr. Hoodli-doo-dum,

I live in your basement, and feed on the rats. 

At nightfall my head turns into a box of forgotten images,

And I can feel my eyes starting to fire up,

From this spiky abandonment of dust and despair,

To the wild images of red grass, grey sea and flying fish.

Mr. Moolan (i.e. What is logic but a series of nonsensical statements?) *

.

What's in my head?

So I have been thinking about certain things (because between midterm exams, applications, etc I have nothing better to do); and those things are best discussed in a later post, because I am too sleepy to write anything.

So instead, just enjoy some music:

Random Musical Musings (well not exactly musings, I am just trying to be fancy)



This is a remix by Smooth Tracks of the original song from the movie Pakeezah (1972).

Oh, and the model is Sonali Rosario (according to the all-knowing commentators on YouTube). How pretty is she?

 via link

Here is also this song, Out There, from the Disney movie Hunchback of Notre Dame. I was looking for the Australian TV show, but found this instead.
Please listen to it. It demonstrates the metaphorical conversation which goes on in your head when you have to go and see a professor after you fail an exam:

ANNOYING adverts/trailers

Most of the time, I am a Media freak. I lap up adverts, television, and pulp culture like cockroach crawling though sticky ice-cream boxes in the bins.

But some things are just way too annoying. Mainly THESE:



Dear Katrina Kaif,
I am sure you are very good-looking, and hot, and ALOT of men fancy you and everything;
but please stop advertising for mango-falvoured drinks in the fashion of mango-flavoured condoms.




Oh dear God, Twilight Twilight twilight. How I hate it all.
I remember when the trailer for New Moon was released, and it was ALL OVER THE PLACE. Unfortunately, for me, it was also the time when I was trying to find the trailer for the awesome movie Moon, but only NEW MOON stuff would come up.
This is like that all over again.

In fact, by blogging about the trailer, I am just adding more fuel to the fire. It's like a never ending cycle of viciousness and despair. *Sigh*

Random Images

by Philip Burne-Jones Bt.(1897), link

A Galvanised Corpse (1836), link

I randomly stumbled across the last image via GoFugYourself, and I just found it so hilarious. I think its a cartoon from a wacky science newspaper column, about the experiments of making the muscles of a dead body contort by directly applying electrical shocks to it.

But I forgot to bookmark it, so I was looking for AGES to find it again so that I can post it up.

In the search process I typed up so many random gruesome keywords like:
corpse awakened by electric shocks; electrocution of dead bodies; vampire; awakening the dead; electrocution; shock therapy; walking dead people; muscle spasms; scientific zombies...

If anyone ever looks up my search history, they will probably think I am a deranged psychopath.

But suddenly I randomly yelled out "it's called GALVANISATION!",
and then I was able to find the image.

Good-bye then

Yeh, thats all I have to say.
Actually, I could have said that without using an entire subtitle.

*I was thinking of picking "Dadaism" as the topic 
for my presentation in Discovering Logic [uni course].

What do you think?

I hope I don't get thwacked over the head, 
for promoting anti-logic movements. 

Look Sideways. There is a wolf sitting next to you. Watching.

If you must lie next to corpses before you sleep, 

make sure your eyes are closed, or else their hands start moving.

Extra [fucked up] note:

I was looking for an image to go with this post, and typed in "corpse" into Google Images. 

I stumbled upon this website, offering the service to make your suicide memorable. 

Their services include: "from method, location and fashion consultation to suicide note editing and final-state photography".

Guarantee: "your suicide will be an event that nobody will easily forget" 

Yeh obviously, if you are lying about looking all blue with a noose tied somewhere, dressed in fucking Valentino, and some wanker has taken an expert photograph of you with blood pouring from your nose, then I doubt anyone will forget your suicide. 

Such a random creepy world we live in, from designer suicide notes to platinum coated snuff-it ropes.

What is the meaning of life?

I remember once when our English teacher (11th grade) asked us to write a speech on "What is the meaning of life?", to present to the rest of the class.
Most of us wrote that we want to die before the age of 30 [!]

"The problem with the youth of today 
is that one is no longer part of it" 

- Salvador Dali

Online Drawing Tools

Here are some cool online drawing tools you can play around with. Subtitle text links to the page with the drawing tool.

Harmony - Procedural Drawing

Even an idiot like me can make some cool sketches using this. It's highly addictive, I've been playing with it for an hour. See one of the things I made:

Okay, it was supposed to be a beautiful buxom femme-fatale. But I sucked so badly at it, that it turned into a bearded-spider-lady.     =__=

link and article via Drawn!


Flame 

This really is fantastic (and this time no bearded-spider-lady, I promise). It uses Java (I think) to create flame-like effects by simply pressing your mouse across the screen. You can choose the colour palette and the brush size.

I guess you can do similar things in Photoshop, but then it would take ages, and then you will inevitably choose a wrong layer, and Photoshop will not allow you to undo that step, and then you will take another step, which will make your flames look like a penis, then you will get frustrated and call the people who invented Photoshop a bunch of wankers, and then you will sit down and cry for an hour, and... you get my point.

Look what I made using this:

Yeh, I don't know what it is either. It was supposed to be Spongebob, but...yeh...

On a plus side, you can use this as a way to make Desktop wallpapers for yourself. This barely took me two minutes to make:

And then, like if your friend asks where you got that wallpaper from (as friends obviously do), you can be all cocky and say that you made it yourself.

link and article via Drawn!

The same guy who made Flame (Peter Blaskovic), has a ton of other fun stuff you can play around with. All the different links are available on his website here.

Some of my other favourites are: Fluid Painter, Fire Fluid Simulation (try burning some virtual wood), and the Water Fluid Simulation.

Links, Ahoy!

Many times I am randomly browsing around the internet, and I come across a cool webpage, or some random thing I like, and I bookmark it in a folder to share on my blog.

But now I have ended up with a massive pile of links which are just SITTING there like haunted tapestries, stopping me from organising my bookmarks.

So here is this post, dedicated to regurgitating all those bookmarks to you:

Painting with the Big Bang of Genesis via YouTube  (JudyReyWesserMan)

I thought this video was so beautifully made, and it inspired me to paint something. Although, its another thing that I DIDN'T actually paint anything, except you know, doodling on MS Paint.

PJ Harvey - Hardly Wait via YouTube 

Awesome song by PJ Harvey.

IBM Special advert  via YouTube 

An advert by IBM. I thought it was really good, one the sole basis that it contained a song by The Kinks.

The Kinks - I'm Not Like Everybody Else via YouTube 

The original song by The Kinks used in the advert above.

Here are another bunch of absolutely delightful old adverts by IBM, featuring a Charlie Chaplin theme. If you are nostalgic about old vintage computers, then you will love these:

Spot IBM

IBM Chaplin Road Cross

IBM PC AT

IBM PC 5150

IBM JX

Moss Side Stories: I felt his breath, then all of a sudden it faded away via TheGuardian

A short video about the death of the UK artist Lawrence Higgins. I tried looking him up, but can't find any of his works or any website dedicated to him. I would love to know more about his work, he sounds fascinating. Such a shame he died so early, so much talent lost for no reason.

The Dark Side of the Internet via The Guardian

An interesting article on the massive piles of information on the internet which is not very openly available to most of the public, because web crawlers don't reach it, or most people never bother to look beyond the first page of search results.

Inverse Graphing Calculator

Check this out! This is so so so cool (in a VERY nerdy way). You know how, when you were younger, you used to try and write out something on your calculator by typing in the number and then turning it upside down? (My name, so freakishly long, could NEVER be written in that way. Until I got a scientific calculator.)

Well, this is like that, but even cooler. You can write anything you like, and it graphs it, and produces the equation that graphs the text.

Nick Banton Original Fine Art

An awesome artist I found while randomly browsing around (like the zombie that I am).

I think I will do a special post about him sometime in the future, but in-case I don't, you can check out his work yourself. My favourite is the "North African Collages" gallery. (Note: if you are squeamish to nudity, or if your mum is somewhere in the vicinity, some of the work is semi-nude.)

Bloody Hell Tony *

Conversation in my head to myself:

Shan (angel): 

Shan, you didnt do your turn to take out the garbage this week. So  be nice and do your roommate's turn for today.

Shan (devil):  

[looks at the MASSIVE pile of overflowing garbage in the bin]
Fuckin' hell, I'm not taking all that garbage out.

Shan (angel): 

Yes, but it's your fault you didn't do your turn on Tuesday. So you have to take it out today.

Shan (devil): 

Stop being such a fooking fugly wanker.
Its their fault they throw in so many pizza boxes in the bins. There is no way I'm picking up pizza boxes, which someone probably licked, with my bare hands.

Shan (angel): 

You are being so immature and lazy.
And who licks pizza boxes?

Shan (devil): 

You do, you friggin' fairy.
And I'm not lazy; my head is swirling, I feel weak and I might faint any second. Plus I need to wash my dishes and pack up for the weekend. Its not my fault they always let the garbage pile up. And bullocks to the concept of "taking turns to take out garbage". I barely ever even use that bin.

Shan (angel): 

Your selfish and immature. I mean really...


Shan (devil): 
Yeh? Well then, go toss off, and stop bothering me.

This week was again pretty bad. I think I am catching the flu or something, because this whole week I had one massive headache. In the end I just gave up and slept all day on Wednesday (and I missed my Concepts of Mathematics quiz and homework due in time. There goes 5% of the grade down the drain, and for such a silly reason).

I somehow managed to blunder through the Calculus and Java quizzes. Surprisingly, they went quite well (especially the Java one, thanks to the AMAZING FLOATING HEAD IN THE LIBRARY who helped me understand some concepts).

Anyways, have a good weekend, and remember to brush your teeth, and drink your milk.

*a character I have always imagined in my head. 

Sort of like a cockney crooked street bitch

Carey Mulligan Oscar Dress / If you don't believe I am a girl, then you are a bastardly robot

How cute is Carey Mulligan? So cute, in fact, that I am going to blog about her dress (yeh, its not like I have homework to do or anything):

via GoFugYourself

The dress is so adorable, and makes her look her age. Even the weird cut at the bottom doesn't look Fug (as the FugGirls would say); it actually makes the fitting look so much more fun, compared to the usual train of cloth which is stitched onto most Oscar gowns.

The sequins on the bodice look perfectly spangly, and at the same time not overdone. And guess what? The sequins are actually [cuter-than-cute] tiny little scissors, spoons, knives and forks:

And the earrings perfectly compliment the dress too:

I know most people liked her look, but complained about the shoes, as they look a bit too plain and weirdly formal. But I don't think its worth putting her in the worst-dressed lists just for that. She looks perfect, and the shoes are not that bad (it's not like she wore something like this)

I just wish she had not switched to blonde hair, as she would look so much more adorable in her brownish-red hues.

OK Go - This Too Shall Pass

I blogged a few months ago about a video released by Ok Go for their song WTF.

Ok Go unveiled another awesome music video on Monday via YouTube (this time they managed to surpass EMI's evil plans to disable embedding). So here it is, for their new single This Too Shall Pass:

The timing is just so perfect and the overall look is colourful and cheerful. It looks like a cool college-student version of that Honda commercial.

The whole thing is called a Rube Goldberg machine, which is an all en-compassing term for machines which consist of an incredibly complex arrangement of mechanical tasks to accomplish a simple thing. It uses really precise timing and a lot of physics in order to work so perfectly with the song.

You can read the Wired article about the making of the video here.

Here are also links to the making of the video, by the band itself:

The Making of This Too Shall Pass (Part 1)

The Making of This Too Shall Pass (Part 2)

The Making of This Too Shall Pass (Part 3)

The Making of This Too Shall Pass (Part 4)

The video is really cool and amazing, but then what am I about to complain about? It's the song itself.

Its not bad, and unlike WTF (which was impossible to listen to without irritating my ears), it is listenable. But its still not that good, and not catchy, unlike songs from their first album. Which makes me wonder if Ok Go is focused more on their music videos rather than the music itself. 

I think that the song would be good, if they didn't digitally alter the vocals to sound all broken, high-pitched and weird like that. They did this in WTF as well, and to a much greater [more annoying] degree, which is what stopped me from listening to the song. If they had just used normal vocals, then this song would be much much more enjoyable.

Are you a man, or are you a mouse? *

Many people complain to me, "Shan, we see you randomly walking around, and we say "hi", but you never reply to us, or even acknowledge that we are there. Why are you being so rude?"

Here is my answer:

I am usually out on a walk, without my glasses. And if you know me, than you should know that without my glasses I am like a blind man without a walking stick, walking into a dark basement located in the middle of a blackhole.

Hence: I CAN'T SEE YOU.

Edit: I don't wear my glasses when I am out on a walk because, I want a break from those bloody things. They give me a headache and make my face feel weird.

And I can't wear lenses because I am scared that one day I will fly too close to the sun and under the heat they will melt on my eyes.

*** *** *** ***

Spring Break, alas, has also come to an end. T__T

I didn't even manage to get a hair cut, OR update my other blog. At least I managed to be nice to my parents and get a LITTLE fit (eating fruits, veggies, light exercise, bla bla bla...).

So have a good weekend, and in the mean time, enjoy some Velvet Underground:

Edit 2: Also enjoy some Stooges:

* Monty Python joke

Hmn...

Fancy some Bollywood?

Seems lame, but I wish someone would sing to me like this:

Because this life, is a life, is a life, is a life...

If you want fashion, you need to stop breathing

Sorry, this is a moany, bitchy post. 

Ok, here goes:

WHY IS EVERYONE WEARING SKINNY JEANS???!!! 

$%^%$*%^@!#$^&

I mean, christ, this is just getting silly. I went shopping with my humble self the other day, and all you can find is skinny jeans. I don't care if people wear skinny jeans, I mean, obviously they are not that comfortable, but I really don't care how you feel about them. But seriously, enslaving EVERYONE into wearing these things?

Jesus, even men wear them now *cringe cringe cringe cringe*. If you are a man and you wear skinny jeans, then you had better be either a punk rocker or an emo kid, otherwise: STOP MAKING YOUR LEGS SUFFER.
Look what skinny jeans did to Vince Noir:

 

The Mighty Boosh, Season 3, Episode 6

Every single shop only had skinny jeans. I got so tired in the end that as soon as I walked into a shop I asked the nearest salesperson if they had NON-SKINNY jeans anywhere. Most of them pointed me towards the formal office wear section.   =____=

Anyways, in one shop I clashed into a normal pair of jeans, by some miracle of god. Usually I would be choosy to the point of death, but I bought these straightaway (a bit like a hungry bitch-pup lapping up milk).

*********************** End of bitchiness ***********************

I also watched all the three Lord of the Rings movies again, because I am so dorky that way. I love those movies, even with all the cheesy "We will return to The Shire" emotional bits.

Which made me think: I wish we had more mainstream movies about hobbits. I mean, seriously, it would be way cuter than all this vampire-werewolf things going on, don't you think so?

 ***********************End of dorkiness ***********************

Because the world is the world, is the world, is the world

Found THIS funny map, comparing Europe (during the Cold War) to Middle Earth from J.R.R Tolkien's books:

I love how Switzerland and Austria are "Dwarves". Although, I always imagined Britain as "Rohan", rather than the Scandinavians. And, of course, the Soviet Union is MORDOR.

Also reminded me what a HUGE Lord of the Rings dork I was. I even cried when I finished reading the last book in the trilogy, even though I had pretty much skimmed through most the story. But you can't blame me, I am a hippie, and hippies love Lord of the Rings (if you don't believe me, then look it up).

I loved the movies as well; I used to have half a mind to pack up and go to New Zealand, because it looks so so so so beautiful in the movies.

And speaking of the movies, whatever happened to Elijah Woods? He made such a good hobbit, he just seemed to have disappeared into thin air.