The Art Con

Mygazine: a place where you my gazine. Or it’s a place where you read magazines online, for free (I’m not going to go on about something that you have to pay for now am I?). I hope it lasts considering all the copyright issues, because it is pretty useful. Anyway, so they don’t have every single magazine on the planet – I’ve gotten nada on some searches – but they’ve got most of the popular ones. It relies on people scanning in every page of the magazine (yes, there are people who can be arsed to do that). The quality’s not half bad, at least for the ones I’ve read. Everything’s readable, pictures are fine. And it means I can read magazines that I don’t want to pay for, or have never heard of, or that just don’t sell over here.

Stripes.

Sometimes I check when The L Word is showing over here in the UK. Last year, they showed season 4 at around midnight/1-ish in the morning-ish on LivingTV. I didn’t bother watching it then. Maybe, sometime, in the future, I’ll actually watch it properly on a TV. But the times that they air it are getting even more ridiculous. I mean, 3am? Like I’m really going to stay up til 3am to watch a show. I don’t think so. Mind you those are just reruns so maybe the new season will get the lucky time of something like 2am.

I’ve always wanted a Polaroid camera. You take a photo, and it comes out instantly. What’s not to love about that? It’s magic. Now we have boring modern technology where you can use your fancy little USB cables and hook the camera up to the computer, then transfer the photos on to said computer, and then photoshop them or upload them on to Facebook as you please. And where’s the fun in that? It doesn’t make the same clicking and whirring noises as a Polaroid camera now does it?

I watched Juno the other day. It might just be a tad bit overrated though. It’s a good, nice little sweet movie and all, but that’s it, it’s just sweet. Candy cane pie sweet (not that I’ve ever heard of, or eaten candy cane pie. Because I haven’t).
The Harry Potter movie (whatever the next one coming out is called) is coming out next summer instead of later this year. Something about it being because of the writer’s strike. But they’ve already finished making the movie so I don’t see what it has to do with that.

Countrysides are weird places. They’re very…clean. Not as clean as places like Singapore (that’s cleaner then any country should be), but still very clean. There’s the blue skies, green grass, rolling hills, the whole shadoodle. As I stood outside and looked at this I half expected a start button to appear on the bottom left corner of my field of vision. It could happen. It could be the new Windows 3D OS. But no, the countryside wasn’t as advanced as that quite yet.

Tegan and Sara are coming out with a video for ‘Call it Off’. Didn’t expect them to choose that song to do a music video to, but meh, hopefully it’s coming out soon.

Never agree to help carry a TV (unless it’s a portable one). They are heavy. Very heavy. Especially those big 100 million inch screen ones.

I don’t know the meaning of mashed potato cakes either. I never even knew they existed until today. I don’t even know what they are. Why call them cakes? They can’t look that much different from just ordinary mashed potatoes can they? You just mould it into the shape of a cake and hey presto there you have one. Or are they completely different then that? Or is it something stupid like mud pie where it’s called ‘mud pie’ but there isn’t really any mud involved. Heck, it’s hardly a pie either. It’s a cake. What’s wrong with normal mashed potatoes anyway? You don’t have to go and make them into cakes. Chocolate cakes are just fine. It’s not like a 5 year old kid is going to say, ‘I want a mashed potato cake for my birthday!’ No, I think mashed potatoes should just stay the way they are. No need for this ‘cake’ business.’

So my being away on holiday (no one’s noticed yet right? Ok, good. I don’t know why that’s good. I just felt like saying good) has caused me to fall behind on everything. Everything. Everything from every day news, to reading everyone’s blogs and board going ons on here, to drinking juice, to eating chocolate, to feeding my sea-monkeys…oh shoot, I haven’t fed my sea-monkeys. When was the last time I fed them? Oh well, I’m sure they’ll live. They’re super sea-monkeys. That’s what I’m calling them.

I think this isolationa-nism is making me a tad bit loopy inside my so called cranium. Pronounced crane-ee-um. I’m sure some medical professor can correct me on my terminologoy. But moving on…

Even though my lack of communication to the outside world has been minimal, I did manage to catch the opening ceremony for the Olympics. And a thought occurred to me while people were flying around like the monkeys from The Wizard of Oz and all these fancy TV screens were popping out like daisies (daisies I tell you, daisies), I’ve never watched an opening ceremony of the Olympics before. Heck, I’ve never even watched the Olympics before. I never realise they’re happening until it’s ended. So my aim for this year, watch some of it. I’ll try and catch the tennis if I can. That’s the only thing I’m willing to watch…I think. Whether I remember or not, well, that’s up to my brain.
Like many other blogs have stated I’m sure, the opening ceremony was ‘Wow, wow. Gee whizz. Golly olly oxen. When is this going to end?’ Well, maybe that last bit was just me. I think the whole of China was in that ceremony, people were coming in left, right, and centre. It was crazy. I like how the commentators had to point out every thing that the Chinese created. They did this, and invented that. I’m surprised they didn’t mention how they were the first people on the moon, or how they started the Renaissance. There are books and websites on these things. I was told about it by my older male sibling (otherwise known as a ‘brother’, ‘hermano’, ‘bruder’ or ‘frère’ to some), he will explain it to me one day.

So since I am away on holiday, I have to watch a movie with my family basically every night. We first watched Memento. Never have I had to think so much while watching a movie before in my life. Remind me never to do that again. It’s a backwards movie. No, they don’t talk backwards. Nor do they walk, jump, or do hopscotch backwards (NB: No hopscothching in the movie). Anyway, the point is, it’s a confusing movie.

Tegan of Tegan and Sara will be on This Just Out with Liz Feldman (AfterEllen) tomorrow (Monday). I’m still hoping both of them will show up. You never know. Pigs can fly…if you put them on an aeroplane that is.

Sunshine, lollypops, and rainbows, da da da bla bla bla bla. Hmm, hmm, hmm…ok I don’t know the rest of the words. Why do I know that song? I’m thinking it was from The Simpsons.

Dinner time! Eating food. Drinking drinks. Sounds about right to me.

BBC launched a social media music chart: Sound Index.
‘Every six hours, Sound Index crawls Bebo, MySpace, Last.fm, iTunes, Google and YouTube to track which artists people are talking about, listening to, watching, and downloading. The results are compiled into a top 1,000 list presented on the site with a nifty CoverFlow-style animation. The index is currently analyzing over 23 million comments, posts, plays and views’ (@ReadWriteWeb)
Britney Spears is currently at the top of the ‘Artists’ section, while Leona Lewis’ ‘Bleeding Love’ is number one in the ‘Tracks’. Can’t say I’m very surprised. But it’s weird, no matter how many people slander Britney on her personal life, her music’s still popular. I failed to see the fascination of her when I was younger, and I still do now. Maybe her music is still good enough for some people regardless of what else she gets up to.
And I think it’s safe to say, I’m more or less out of touch out of all the ‘most popular music’ that’s being released. I’ve hardly heard of any of those artists let alone songs. Nice to see Sara Bareilles there though. She’s the one who sang ‘Gravity’ for the movie ‘Loving Annabelle’.

StumbleUpon’s got 5 million users and I’m one of ‘em. I’ve been using StumbleUpon for quite a while now. It’s a nice little way to find random sites when you’re not looking for anything in particular. With that, and Diigo, I’m all good to go to surf the web. Not literally though. I’ve never tried surfing. Maybe I should say skate the web. Either way, I’d still probably end up on the floor.

If you’re like me and have more then two e-mail accounts then you should seriously consider getting Windows Live Mail if you haven’t already. It supports Hotmail and Gmail (and Yahoo if you have a schmancy premium accounts). If you’re a bit iffy about it, don’t be. Give it a go. It saves a hell of a lot of time then having to constantly sign in and out of different accounts. There’s also always the alternative in Mozilla Thunderbird. But for some reason I never warmed to it – user’s preference as always.

WarGames is coming out with a remake. You can watch the trailer here. Wired led me to believe that it was a sequel. Which I think I could of been happy about. But no. It’s a remake. And by the looks of the trailer, a bad remake. Why oh why do they have to do this to movies like that. It’s fine just the way it is. Next thing you know they’ll be wanting to remake Hackers as well. Naa, they wouldn’t. Would they? Uh oh.

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So I’m debating whether or not to go out.
Go. Don’t go.
Which is the equivalent to: Work. Don’t work.
I can’t decide whether or not I have revison/homework to do or not. Whether I can leave it till last minute or not. Knowing me, I probably can. But also knowing me, I’ll get back home and realise that I have some essays and a billion practice papers to do. Because that’s what teachers like doing you see. Instead of teaching, they like to give their students practice papers. They’re tired to by the end of the year. So that’s what they do. And then to make it even easier on them, they give you the mark scheme afterwards so you can mark it yourself, or they ‘go through it in class’ so they don’t have to mark the billion practice papers.
Meh. I’ll probably end up going. Could do with some Krispy Kremes, what with all the ‘hard work’ I’m doing.

You’re might be wondering what a hydralectacappala nynexghidralamapalc tusitricalafalfa is. It’s an animal found along the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, which only appears during the week of 30th February. It eats crocodiles and sometimes flies. It doesn’t like chips with ketchup. Sometimes it has wings, depending on the temperature. If you look at it from a certain angle, the patterns on its side look like Elvis Presley’s face. From time to time it jumps out of the water in search of a Range Rover, but nobody knows why. And it has very sharp teeth.

Guess who’s getting more RAM? That’s right people. Me. So once it’s installed and ready to go I’m going to find me some more freeware games.
Came across a neat little ‘Web Design Blog’. There’s a couple of vector designs on there which are pretty impressive.

There’s 2 Tegan and Sara blogs worth checking out if you like them: T&S Banter and T&S Live. The titles are pretty much self-explanatory. It’s just a bunch of video clips of their concerts. Don’t think they get updated very often, but it’s easier then browsing through YouTube.

If you haven’t played The Impossible Quiz yet, then where have you been all this time? You’ll either love it or hate it, think it’s genius or think it’s really stupid.

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Uh Huh Her’s album release date has been pushed back. Way back. Which makes me kinda bummed. But only kind of, because even though I have to wait until August now, it’ll be after my exams so it’ll be less of a distraction. Anyway, what it also means is that I made another video for the little competition of theirs.

I used to read Beano when I was a kid. Back when it was around 40p and came with a drumstick (the sweet not the meat), or some equivalent fun free little gift. Now, last time I checked (which was a couple of years ago), it was 80p. It might even be as much as £1 now. What is this madness? I stopped buying it because through the years I could notice how they were slowly raising it by 5p every time I went to buy it. Honestly, exploiting little kids like that. I wasn’t going to fall for it.
One thing I miss the most though, is the Funday Times. Which has turned into some website I think. I refused to go on it after it stopped being printed. That was a very sad day. What would the Sunday Times be without the Funday Times? Nothing, I tell you. Nothing.

Tigger was the best character in Winnie the Pooh.
Piglet takes second place.
And Woody was always better then Buzz.
And…
Hakuna Matata.

Do you listen to any podcasts?
I regularly listen to The Planet: The Podcast for L Word Fans and the Showtime one for The L Word (have you figured out that I’m an L Word fan by now?). I’ve downloaded some of The Interface one as well (it’s easier to search it on iTunes then click on the link) because it featured Uh Huh Her, Tegan and Sara, and KT Tunstall. They’ve got quite a few podcasts (some video, some just audio) so go and check it out in case there’s a band that you like on there. There was a RENT podcast somwhere abouts, but that hardly ever gets updated – there’s 1 or 2 clips of the 10th anniversary on there.

My mum once said to me that she downloaded the BBC podcasts so she could listen to them if she were to get stuck in a traffic jam on the way to work. After I had my little moment of laughter I asked my mum, ‘Well isn’t that pointless?’
This is what confused me: if my mum were to do that then she’d just be listening to days, maybe even weeks old news. And that doesn’t really work out now does it? But, in general, if you were to listen to a new podcast every day you’d have to be pretty on the ball. Making sure you download the latest one and actually listen to it on the same day. You might as well just watch on TV in the morning/evening as people tend to do. Hey, now there’s a thought.

I find video podcasts quite inconvenient. Being on the bus, staring intently at my iPod for long periods of time attracts a few worrying looks in my direction. I’d rather not waste my battery watching a video anyway. Besides, it’s hard to watch a video podcast at the same time as playing Zelda on the DS. My multi-tasking abilities don’t stretch as far as that.

A new Indiana Jones poster is out. I don’t know whether or not I’m excited about this movie coming out. Haven’t really bothered to read up on it yet. But I just looked it up on IMDb and Cate Blanchett’s in it?! Pretty cool if you ask me.
Temple Of Doom’s gotta be my favourite (I’ve only watched the other 2 once though), mainly because I love the little kid and basically everything he says in that movie. The heart thing always – and still does – creep me out though. Oh, and the voodoo doll.

Anyone watch the BBC musical-type X-Factor show? At first I was completely against it, because I didn’t want some untrained amateur in the West End. People have really worked hard to get where they are (but I guess you could say the same for shows like the X Factor). But then I can’t miss anything to do with musicals so I watched. (As a side note: another thing I love are musicals. Ruthie Henshall (Women In White, Chicago) and Julie Atherton (Avenue Q) are by far my favourite people)
Back to the shows…
First year was Maria. Everyone and anyone knew that Connie was going to win. She was trained. And she was up against Helena in the finals. Helena – in case you haven’t guessed I didn’t particularly like her. Siobhan was by far the hottest ‘Maria’, and she improved a a lot as well. Didn’t really like many of the others though.
On to Joseph. Again Lee Mead -> trained -> blatently going to win. Keith had the best voice. I loved Daniel, his exit was by far the best, who can not like that little riff at the end? He’s now starring in Avenue Q. Ben and Rob – most improved. And Ben’s currently in Hairspray playing Link Larkin (the Zac Efron part for those of you who don’t know).
Now it’s time for this year’s show: Oliver. Cameron Mackintosh will be helping out as well, along with John Barrowman and Denise Van Outen (I saw Denise in RENT, and I have to say – she can sing) again on the panel. They’re going to find a ‘Nancy’ and 3 ‘Olivers’ (works the same way as Billy Eilliot having 3 Billy’s).
It starts this Saturday (15th March), 19.30 on BBC1 for those of you who will watch.

My latest music craze: Tegan and Sara.
Seriously, go buy their latest album – The Con. Comes with a DVD as well, all for the price of £1.99!!! (prices are subject to change). Honestly, I don’t know how much it costs. But I have it! And you should have it to.
Now I sound like their advertising manager or something. Well let me tell you this, if I was I would be making more money then I am now. And I’d probably be older to. With my own house. And a car. A nice car. Oh, and a dog. Because I like dogs. Anyway…

We (as in me and classmates) were burning Wotsits in chemistry class today. Except replace ‘burning’ with ‘eating’ and that’s what we were really doing. Those were yummy. Tad bit cheesy. But I guess you really can’t be that picky. What can I say, we were hungry.

Did anyone else feel the earthquake last night/more like this morning. I sure did. It was around 1am and I was lying around in bed, minding my own business, then next thing I know the whole room starts shaking. I thought I was going crazy. Literally crazy. Then I began to think, ‘It’s the end of the world!’ But really, I didn’t think that at all. Because then you would call me crazy. Anyway now I can say ‘I’ve survived an earthquake!’ Someone needs to get me a T-Shirt that says just that.