January 27th 2010

<sarcasm mode>

OMG! Apple are releasing a new product! OMG! I've spent weeks trawling the Apple fansites for tiny scraps of information as though the second coming was predicted. My whole day will be spent in an excited fervour, hopping from one news site to the next trying to find out what it is. Then I'm going to queue for 48 hours outside a shop in the rain just to get hold of one, EVEN IF I DON'T NEED IT!

OOOOOOMMMMMMMGGGGGGGGG!!!!

</sarcasm mode>

Isn't it funny...

I don't have a favourite Ben Folds song. The one I'm happiest to listen to changes depending on my mood. However, there is always one which always appears in the top three or four absolutely regardless of current mental condition.

"Battle of Who Could Care Less" was the first Ben Folds song I ever heard, on the radio back in 1997. It took me more than a year to find that song again, and when I did it changed me forever.

So, there you go - my first, and probably my overall favourite.

Kafer: Super-Mouserer

Our cat, despite appearances, is occasionally a fairly useful thing.

We discovered this evening that she had killed and carefully deposited not one but two mice beneath our bed. Both were gifts, that much is clear - if she's in it for the eating she'll usually take the feet.

But both were fully intact, and killed particularly cleanly, the dispatch achieved in both cases with a clinical bite to the chest, stopping the heart. They were laid out in an almost ceremonial fashion, too.

We're not overrun with small furry things, but they do tend to cause some damage, so well done, Kaf, well done. 

Three recent landscapes and a bit of machinery

Just because it's been a while since I posted any.

Retro!

A quartet of really old CG images. Dwarf is a copy of someone else's thing, drawn to get some graphics tab practice in. Could probably do with crediting someone for that, if anyone knows who did the original about 15 years ago in White Dwarf. 

Nothing of note

Just having a play with CG art, not done any for a while. Not sure this is even art. 

Paris Transport

I took the pictures below on a business trip to Paris last year some time, and they've been sitting in a folder on my computer since. I thought the contrast generated by the juxtaposition of the two is nice.

Female Chauvinism

Yay! The bad old days are, if not entirely behind us, at least dying slowly like a second-rate soap character. Although sexism has not been entirely eradicated, we're not doing too badly.

Except perhaps not as well as I had hoped. You see, and let's be quite frank these are isolated cases, it still lingers on in the hearts of some. My line of work brings me into contact with plenty of 'old boys', whose attitude to women would lead to the bachelor life if they hadn't already subjugated their wives when it was all the rage to do so.

What surprises and annoys me is that a female associate of mine is just as bad as any man, continually stereotyping in a rather strident voice about all the men in her life. It wouldn't be quite so galling if she didn't spend a large proportion of the remainder of her time moaning about how she, as a woman, never gets taken seriously in a male-dominated sector.

Does she realise that if she doesn't give respect she won't receive it? Why should she be treated equally if she's unwilling to extend the same courtesy to others? Hmmm.

Lick the link!

My mind subconsciously inserted the 'c' at first, but it's much better when you realise what it actually suggests...

Perhaps it's a new form of interactive advertising. Mmm, taste the engine oil and the burning rubber. 

A sad, sad day...

News reaches us of the passing of a legend. 

At the age of 5, one of the twin Italian police Lamborghinis is, alas, no more. Adopted by the Polizia di Stato ('Polizia') in 2004, the Gallardos, painted in traditional powder blue with white stripes, patrolled the motorways just for a lark, really. Although it was suggested - through the inclusion of a defibrillator in each vehicle - that there was some serious intent to their existence, everyone knew it was all a massive publicity stunt.

All that came to an end for one of the plucky pair, however, on a dark, wet, treacherous road near Cremona, northern Italy. Though details are hard to come by, reports suggest that the Lambo may have been the victim of carlsaughter: it swerved to avoid a vehicle which strayed into its path, before ploughing into a row of parked cars.

No longer will the Polizia awake to the sight of the Lambo. The garage will remain cold and empty. 

A moment's silence, please, for the passing of a legend...