chibimuse

Happy New Year!
It has been a very big year for me, in both ups and downs. The lowest low was the end of my short lived marriage last February, and the highest high was graduating from University in March with a bachelors degree in Industrial Design.

Some other big achievements this year:
-Learning to play the Ukulele, and performing a Ukulele duo on stage for 300 people!
-Performing in a ton of burlesque shows, and creating a bunch of numbers that I am very proud of. They all had incredibly geeky themes, including a farscape Chiana number which made the few other people in the room who knew what the fuck this was about very happy.
I also sucked a friend into become a boy-lesque performer! He is having lots of success, it makes me very proud.

It was a long hard year of pulling myself back together and putting my life back on track, and I'm excited for a new year with new challenges and new joys. Also, 2013 includes my life long dream trip to Japan (April 2013!)I hope you all have a wonderful New Years Eve, and I wish you the best of luck in the coming year.

This is a fantastic Community vid that highlights a bunch of great moments from the series in a very well-timed cut with fantastic use of bits of sound from the clips in addition to a great song choice. If you haven't seen the show Community you should definitely check it out.

Time To Begin by Man is Evil

http://youtu.be/IIQQOPkXTwc

 Do any of you have a Tumblr? I'm always on the lookout for cool people to follow on Tumblr, because I currently only work 14 hours a week and am always  happy to do anything else other than those 14 hours of work.
Mine is http://www.tumblr.com/blog/kiwisprinkles
It's a mix of nerdy fandom and the occasional vintage fashion.

We have adopted an adorable pair of beige tabby kittens!

Bismarck is named after Otto von Bismarck. Bismarck is the darker orange kitten. He's an adventurous and outgoing little guy, but he needs a lot of cuddles and is very clingy. He has an adorable but strange habit of suckling my shirts.
Parnell is named for Charles Stewart Parnell, who was the 19th century Irish politician who invented the Boycott. Parnell is calm and friendly, and a little bit skittish. He is much bigger than Bismarck, and has very cool ring markings on his sides.
They are currently 14 weeks old.
More adorable photos under the cut!

( Kittens, being adorable )

My core class in university this semester is based around electronics and human interactions with objects. We are exploring new ways to use sensors and electronic output (such as motors, lights, and sound) to create a unique and meaningful 'interaction'.
Or as Phnelt re-interpreted the assignment: what can you look at and think "this could be more sonic!"

For our first mini intro project we made a rudimentary lego mindstorms robot crocodile that opened it's mouth and eyes when someone waved a hand in front of it, wagged it's tail when it heard sounds, and snapped it's mouth shut when a button it it's mouth was touched. Very cool, but not particularly original or creative as far as the application of electronics go.

So now I've got a very basic understanding of how sensors and digital output programming works, and no idea what to do with it.
Our class brainstormed a bunch of ideas, but it came down to the fact that there are very few situations where I'm not already interacting with electronics, and I don't really want to add more electronics to my life. Ever seen those TV adds for gizmos that automate something that really didn't need it, like scissors? DO NOT WANT. It just makes things more complicated, annoying, and dependent on batteries.

Lots of the ideas from our class were focused on medical technology. Last year someone made a waist belt that vibrated in specific spots depending on where sounds were coming from, for Deaf people to have an improved awareness of their surroundings. Another was a prototype of a pair of rain boots that lit up different colours based on whether they were in water or not.

The best route seems to be making our interactions with things that already involve electronics more "sonic" somehow. Does anyone on the flist have a deep need for something in their life to be more sonic?

Merlin's dialogue could have been taken directly from a high school romance drama, with Gaius playing the comforting father. "Someday that boy will see you for who you really are!"
Merlin and Arthur's love is so true.

I am excited for new vids this season, and that crystal heart is so going to be used as a metaphor for Arthur's love. Also, apparently Arthur is too sexy for his shirt.
Can't wait for the next episode!

We adopted a little boy kitten yesterday!
His birthday was March 21st, 2009. He's only two months or 7 1/2 weeks old, and he is so tiny!
phnelt  is running a poll for his name over at her dreamwidth. please vote!
phnelt.dreamwidth.org/19978.html
we've narrowed it down to four options;
Pickwick
Inigo
Bismarck
Tribble

( kitten photos! )

I firmly believe that the song "The Fool on the Hill" by the Beatles would make an amazing Dr.Who vid.

( the man of a thousand voices )

I posted a few of my sculpture assignments from last semester on my deviantart!
They have such titles as: Colossal squid in a jar, Pony in a ball, and The Glorious Revolution! Check them out?
phnelt  is particularly fond of the pony in a ball, and she is fully responsible for the orange/pickle thing, her history nerdy-ness is always inspiring. I'm really proud of how my wooden squid mobile turned out. Download the video!

http://chibi-muse.deviantart.com/

I intend to continue posting my art from last semester, so I'll post a note here when I post more art.

Trip to Edmonton for Thanksgiving!
Happy times, I miss my e-towners all the time.
Shout out to all y'all e-towners on my flist: I less than three you!
Yay for turkey and mystery (how many sausage/sex metaphors can we squeeze into each sentence?). And we stayed with Regina who we haven't seen since we moved, she's the sweetest lady around!
Michael made a tasty cookie and survived a surprise encounter with my mom! (as did Regina and her family unit)
Britt, silly pictures are impending I swear.
I hung with most of my family peeps for a while, good to see how they're all doing. Breakfast with my Bro was awesome, the blue plate diner grills a mean cornbread. No time for a full-out post right now, maybe I will get back to it.

This past weekend was the opposite, drugery and anxiety and stress over a mountain of homework! It got to the point of Phnelt and I trading homework. You know it's sad when you're procrastinating doing your homework by doing other people's! But Nina came over and was reading in solidarity with us.

And last friday Nina, her roomies and I all went to the midnight horror double feature at the Rio! Oodles of fun, with raffles and a "horror comedian" in zombie-like makeup who made so many awesomely bad jokes all with the punchline "It's not easy, being creepy." The movies were both black and white, 30's old! First was "Freaks" which had an amazing dwarf actress and was horribly creepy at the end. Apparently 30 minutes of it were censored and lost, I wonder how scary it would have been with them...

Second was the first Dracula movie! Pretty terrible, and filled with uncomfortably long shots of Dracula making buggy eyes in dramatic lighting. I fell asleep halfway in and woke up near the end to find Nina curled up on the seat beside me and her two roomies gone. XD
I clearly don't have the stamina for being out at the movies until four in the morning! I don't even feel compelled to watch it for the parts I missed, it was really bad.

The rest of my week will be crazy homework combined with the fact I desperately need a haircut and a doctors appt to refill the monthly pills.
 

Just a quickie to say: look I'm alive on DevArt too! Check out the link:

chibi-muse.deviantart.com/art/octo-loli-98764530

I want an octopus dress, this would be so fun to sew!

I'm in desperate need of practice drawing backgrounds and using colour, so this evening I did some work on this digital painting I've had on the back burner for a while. I like the general light/dark contrast, but I'm not really happy with the colour yet (especially the girl). Maybe I'll look up some reference photos.
http://chibi-muse.deviantart.com/art/colour-background-experiment-95425062

Alan Rickman is shmexy even with a mustache and Eliza Dushku (Faith from Buffy) is hot like burning, so the movie Bottle Shock is destined to be sexy and awesome due to the combination of these two forces.
It's based on the 1976 Paris Tasting that "rocked the wine world". It looks fabulous from the trailer anyways, french/british "snobbery" combats american "wholesomeness".

http://www.bottleshockthemovie.com for the trailer.

I must see this when it comes out.

the National Film Board of Canada created some real animation gold back in the day.
I remember these cartoons so fondly that I have been searching for them since they stopped airing on saturday mornings on the good old Canadian Broadcast Corporation, and FINALLY here they are! For those of you from Canada, these may be a little slice of childhood.
For anyone else, this is a little insight into what we grew up with.

The Log Driver's Waltz
http://rowdy45.multiply.com/video/item/197/Logdrivers_Waltz

I even sufficed with having a bad midi of this song when I couldn't find a real version of it. Now don't go thinking this means I frequently saw log drivers on the north saskatchewan river, even when I was born this was a rather historical little ditty.

The Cat Came Back

http://rowdy45.multiply.com/video/item/198

I can always remember the refrain of this (it's not exactly hard) so it turned into one of those annoying repetitive songs kids sing on field trip buses. I saw this in a museum after it stopped airing, and I've been looking for a copy ever since.

Black Fly

http://rowdy45.multiply.com/video/item/196/Black_Fly

Phnelt remembers this one, but I don't think I ever saw it. Anyone else remember it? Maybe its just because I was an Albertan.

Also, any non-Canadians should check out some molson Canadian commercials on you-tube, classic.

I've been doing research for design and trying to get a little more immersed in modern design, whatevers new and current, so I've started going to some design blogs. Most of the stuff is hypothetical. There's only one, made by the designer as a sample, and the chances of it being put into production are pretty slim. But some of them are awesome ideas, so I'm going to try and post some of the cooler ones. (at least that way I will be updating my LJ more often!)

Yanko Design: Get your Buckle on
This is one thing I really liked
It's a pretty cool idea, but it's kind of been done already. Really, it's two big couch cushions buckled together. Or, if you want to get really fancy, its like those kids foam matresses that are attached on one side and fold up. I could totally make one of those out of some couch cushions and sewing supplies! You could even make some really nice cushion covers and make it custom with pretty fabric. I'm tempted to make one just to prove it can be done.

It wouldn't really be any more comfortable than sleeping on a couple of couch cushions though! Even if they used their shnazzy designer foam. It would be fun, if you have room for a comfy armchair and have overnight visitors pretty often, or if you don't have room for a couch.

Apartment Therapy: Mahjong Sofa
The Mah Jong sofa from Roche-Bobois is a more advanced version of this, but I think it detracts from the idea, it's too complex. Might as well have a couch!

4th week of university! AHG!

So far, still overwhelming. I have a project due on friday which I have no idea what to do for, based on Kafka's the metamorphosis, and now I am running out of time to do anything sculptural so I think I may have to take the easy painting road. It is stressing me out.

Also, creating a scultpure of a line drawing using only paper/bristol board is really difficult, I've made like three different versions and none of them really look right. On the other hand, I handed in my essay on tuesday an I think I did pretty awesome on it!

I'm getting way better at cooking! I'm really enjoying the cookbook MB gave me, everything I make using it turns out better than the things I make with other recipes. I've made chicken fingers and fries in the oven, a very tasty pea pod and beef stir fry, and a frankenstein-ed version of their lasagna and mac n cheese.

Today I had a day off and was SUPER productive. I got the package Maigen sent us from the post office, bought a tension rod and put up the curtains I made with it, hung the beaded curtain in front of our closet door, and cleaned the dead moths off of our light fixture and replaced the missing bulb. ALL in addition to baking casserole! WHOO I feel accomplished!

http://www.ljbook.com/

If you're on a mac backing up your LJ is a bit harder, most of the programs are designed for windows, but I searched and found this one which works for both formats! It turns your LJ into a beautiful pdf file, arranged by year and month, with all your comments and even your pictures which are just resized.

I think this is perfect for windows also, and it is so simple compared to some of the other things I've looked at! They often require complex formatting and extracting things and such, but this is perfect.

I was really proud of my grad dress, which I sewed myself, but I totally forgot to post pictures of it! Time to remedy this. BIG pictures, and a long winded explanation of how its made, so be warned.

( Better late than never )