Friday, November 11

Priorities.

And on the eleventh day, God said “Let there be Skyrim!” And it was so, the skies fell with Bethesda’s highly-anticipated RPG sequel. And God saw that it was good, if a bit buggy.
-Genesis  2:3.5

Yes, today Skyrim is released and gamers will rejoice. Not me though, I don’t really care. I also don’t care about Modern Warfare 3, another big game released only a few days ago.

Now I don’t want to get too preachy or ‘uncool, maaan’ but let’s not forget that 11/11/11 isn’t just the day where fantastically new games are released. Or when Facebook users can shove down our throats the idea that “OMG!! ITS 11.11.11.11.11!!!!?!! THIS WON’T HAPPEN 4 ANUTHER 100 YEARS!!!”. No, it’s also Remembrance Day/Armistice Day/Veteran’s Day and let’s not forget that.

What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?

Thursday, November 10

Arty Stuff - 10/11/11

Right-o, last art update for this bloody horse picture. After quite a few attempts at finishing I've realised the desired outcome will never be possible. Part of this is probably down to my own skill, but also because the painting is too damn small! You can't get much detail when you need a brush approximately 1 hog's hair thick!

Anyway, here it is -

Finished study. Acrylic, ~35 mins, 10/11/11
Overall I think it's ok. I'm liking the background less and less, but it's too much hassle to try and correct it properly now. It'd be easier to start the whole thing over again if I were to do that. Nonetheless, it was still a nice piece to create, I just hope the final, proper horse painting I'm going to do will be more successful. Though, because I'll be doing it on a larger scale, it should be.

Let's see...

Picasa Web Album

Monday, November 7

Arty Stuff - 07/11/11

Not much arty stuff today at all I'm afraid. In fact, it's only one piece - the horse thing from a while back which I'm trying to finish.

Background filled in but still messy, plus some more details on the legs - 4/11/11
I finally added in a background and I quite like the use of the brush strokes for the planks of wood. However, I never seem to learn that leaving the background until the end, or at least after a while is the most annoying thing EVAR! Now I've got to neaten up all the edges of the horse.

Minor tweaks - 6/11/11
Yesterday I didn't make any major changes, just as it says - 'minor tweaks', particularly to the legs and the rider. Although looking at it now, her nose looks like the size of the child snatcher's due to the shadow of that hat. Must fix that or else I'll be creeped out by it...

Friday, November 4

Something about time, or productivity, or nerds? I don't know.

I often wonder where all the time goes. Where all those seconds, minutes and hours flow to after they’ve passed your conscience at varying speeds. It’s annoying that time has such power over people, and can often nay frequently alter the perception of other people. Although what I’m about to describe is a fairly niche idea surrounding time, considering scientists are pondering about the qualities of time and its relativity plus much other hoo-har, I’d like to think it’s something a number of people go through and understand.

Time is a strange little thing, or big thing, or not a ‘thing’ at all. For example, the effect of it comparatively between two people could vary wildly. In a situation where myself and another who happens to really like creating databases are creating databases, the time will inevitably drag and linger and outstay its welcome  for me  (I mean , I only offered it the use of my bathroom and now it’s staying here for dinner), but not for the other guy who really likes creating databases.

Good for that guy, where would we be in a world without databases? Dead I presume, in some sort of terrible Y2K incident where the robots and motherboards and circuits revolted against us cruel and “just turn it off and on again/just give it a little whack”-ing humans.

Time is often demonstrated or analogised as water (see second sentence), yet often people can fall in this water and start to drown. Reflecting this back into the real world, it would equal something like spending all day browsing the internet doing nothing at all in general. In a zombie like fashion, you tab in and out of websites such as Reddit and YouTube, absorbing everything and producing nothing – i.e. being unproductive. As you’re ‘drowning’, the water around you is passing but you’re stuck under the current helplessly flaying around trying to move to no effect. What this equates to it that you come off the internet realising it’s now 8:00pm when only a little while earlier (according to you), it was 2.00pm. Damn, where did the time go?

Let’s compare the above effect with other types of people – people who I despise because I can’t be like them, or at least find it difficult to. Instead of drowning in the river of time, they are beautifully bobbing along with it. Imagine the Lady of Shallot but not dead. They realise the time, move with the time, use the time to their effect and crucially realise the organisation of time. Once again, in reality this would relate to, well, just organised people. Organised in any sense of the word.  It doesn’t have to be academically, you wouldn’t have to be writing essays, painting masterpieces or composing orchestras every day. No no, to some folks it could be putting the washing out, going shopping, creating their next dolls house piece of furniture.

And sometimes I am like this, other times I am not. I swing from one end of the spectrum to the other, throwing consistency out of the window. Annoyingly, I could be super productive one day, feeling great and accomplished, then use that one day of productivity to subside the next day’s – “oh, well I did a lot yesterday so it doesn’t matter.”

Therefore, the way time can alter people’s perception of one another is through its use between two different people. I know someone who is constantly out and about, never in his room and doing stuff and who therefore views me as a lazy, good for nothing that should straighten up and fly right.

In some ways this relates to this blog, although overall I have been impressed with the way things are going. I realise this week has been a bit terrible but there are reasons for this (let’s just say the work experience didn’t work out, hence the lack of Day 2, 3, 4 and 5). But it also relates to the days of the weeks and the weeks of the year. I don’t want to be doing nothing, so I’ve got to be doing something. Routines can work, sometimes (usually for the first day, statistically) but it’s a start. I mean, it worked a bit for this blog so hey, there we go.

Enough of this elusive rambling, it’s just I enjoy rambling so much. It doesn’t require any true structure or cohesiveness – it can be anything. Marvellous!