I have a flurry of comments to return but hey, I’m catching up – as usual.
I need to announce that I am selling 5 domains. Please if you are interested have a look. And, as a result of that, I only have 15 domains! I’m happy about that – I moved some fanlistings around, moved some projects around. Visit Georgie.nu to see what I’ve moved around!
It might not stay at 15 for long, because I am planning to get a few more domains possibly for hosting and a new portfolio. AND speaking of hosting, I have bought a reseller from Holdfire to host people on.
Two days ago, I received a package in the mail. Very exciting. I completely forgot that Laura was sending me a package. This time a friendly reminder from Dayna told me not to rip open the package straight away but to take photos!
Laura is from New Zealand and she told me to expect a sheep in the mail.
I opened the package and woohoo… there was indeed a very cute sheep! I did blog about this on my photoblog at Indecisively.me and showed a few photos but I thought I’d show the lot here!
She got me a pen, and a figurine of one of my favourite Pokemon, Starmie. What’s your favourite Pokemon?
It’s funny that the pen makes me want to write more now, even though I use a computer most of the time. I’ve told people this boring story a few times, but in high school shortly before I did my HSC, I developed a huge cramp in my wrist. It was so bad that it hurt to write, and I was holding my pen in a fist to write during a few of my exams. My hand blew up to twice its size, and it was so huge that when my hand finally healed, the skin was dry and saggy because it had stretched so much.
Though I can’t say that it compares to Lilian’s ganglion; she had to get a freakish operation to remove the… “big ball” in her wrist; let’s just say. (Since I’m sure most of you won’t bother looking up ganglion, but I just linked you to Wikipedia. )
Laura also gave me a panda badge (hmm, Lilian will like that!).
I also went shopping the other day and bought clothes. My mum was pretty angry because I spent $80 on a shirt and jacket. Ugh, big deal. She thought it wasn’t worth it because the clothes were “ugly”. Hello. Plaid is not ugly. She further ranted about my appearance and how I look like an idiot when I dress in black.
She never said anything when I dressed like that in high school. I always dressed in some grunge gear, or like a rock chick, or like a punk.
Here’s the jacket. I didn’t get a picture of the shirt… but anyway. I love the jacket because it looks like Ben Jorgensen’s cool shirt…
Oh and I killed a spider today. It was a red-back, a really scary one. I posted a photoblog with a picture. I didn’t want to post it here in case some people were scared… But I used deodorant spray (James’s idea), camera flash and a shoe to kill it.
That’s it from me; tell me of your encounters with bugs and arachnids.
Do you ever notice that the tiniest things annoy you? Or some important things are so little, you don’t want to bother with them?
How many times have I woken up in the morning and not bothered with breakfast? Thankfully not too many times, since I look forward to miso soup most mornings (waiting for it to cool down sucks, though). But after jumping out of bed and making my bed (yes, I like making my bed) I do not want to brush my teeth. It comes to that point where I do not want to spend three to five minutes exercising my hands to make my teeth less yellow than they already are.
I just want to jump out the door and be done with it. But of course, who goes out with stinky breath?
This one time when I was in high school, I ran to the bus stop and realised I hadn’t brushed my teeth. The first thing I did was look at my watch. 7:20am. I stopped in my tracks and thought, “Shit”. There was no way I was going to run back home just to brush my teeth.
I rummaged in my bag for any gum or mints… I didn’t have any. I thought, “Fuck…” until I noticed that I had a bag of grapes. I was looking for pretty much anything that would freshen my breath, and upon discovering the grapes, I thought that it was the best thing I had discovered that day.
Apart from brushing my teeth, sometimes I’ve been too lazy to eat, to shower, or to take clothes down from the line. This might tie in with my computer addiction, but sometimes when I’m watching a video or something, I don’t want to get up.
It might also not be the fact that I’m lazy, but it might be because I just don’t want to. So many times I have not wanted to wash my hair because I know it will take a long time to dry, or I just know that I’ll have to part my hair properly and make sure my fringe doesn’t go wonky before my hair dries.
Today I talked to Rachel on the phone. It’s cool because she has Google Voice which allows her to call me for cheap!
We had a little discussion about old singers. Really old singers. Like everyone from The Rolling Stones. I know they’re making a comeback and everyone wants to see how they’re doing after all these years, but Mick Jagger looks like a wrinkled grape.
Speaking of comebacks, Whitney Houston is touring in Australia right now but everyone is very disappointed with her concerts because she can’t sing as wonderfully as she could in the 80s. Come on, she’s older, she’s gone through drugs and abuse – cut her some slack? Maybe she is terrible sounding now but it’s not like she’s doing it on purpose.
Hell, I’d be hitting the ceiling now if Armor For Sleep made a comeback. I’m glad Ben Jorgensen is still around. And on that note, I’d like for you guys to visit Neverfly.org. It’s my newest project, and it’s just a little collective/shrine for Armor For Sleep/God Loves A Challenge fanlistings and icons. I’m really proud of the domain and the layout.
And my domain count sits at 18. I got rid of two in the past week and I’m happy.
This calls for a celebration. Why? For many reasons.
Firstly, it’s James’s and my two-year anniversary today. I’m so happy. We’ve made it this far, and I feel sort of proud about that too. Yesterday he was feeling a bit down (read his post on Fire The Arrow?), but I’m sure he’s a lot happier now.
Also, his dad comes back from Hong Kong. He’s been gone a year, nearly. But I’m sure he’ll be welcomed back.
We won’t be able to celebrate this week but hopefully next Sunday on Valentine’s Day we’ll be able to go out or something.
In a previous post I went into detail about what happened with our car. Our car door broke, it got fixed, polished inside and out, and we got it back yesterday.
But then today, in a stroke of bad luck or… well, I don’t know what… my mum had an accident with another car. The car’s really badly ruined, apparently (she just called me). And we’ll have to wait another two weeks or so to have it fixed again. My mum’s alright, thankfully, but it sounded shocking and serious.
A small part of me is annoyed because this means I will have to catch the bus and walk everywhere again. I know I shouldn’t be pissed, though. My brother Brandon was so angry when the car broke the first time. It takes him nearly two hours to go to school every day when he has to completely rely on public transport. He was swearing like a nutter; I don’t know what he’s going to be like now.
Going back to good news; I got my laptop back. I was discussing with my mum about jobs and hopefully finding something to replace my current one. My job at the publishing company ends today. In fact, today, sadly, is my last day. There might be an opportunity to work again later on in the year, though.
My mum returned my laptop and told me to go job hunting online. I found a lot of web/graphics designer positions but they all required experience in Flash and other skills that I do not possess. I found one job in print production and web design – I applied for that – I guess I’ll see how it goes.
Hopefully I have my laptop for good! I sort of annoyed my mum this evening and she growled, “Do you want me to take your laptop again?”
I immediately became polite and listened to her. I knew I couldn’t live without my laptop!
But, from that, I have learned a lesson. My sites really do drag me down a bit so I’m going to cut down. I know I’ve got too many domains and there are a few sitting around, so I’m going to get things moving! Also, I have a lot of fanlistings, some which need a layout update.
I wanted to get back to my ballet principal about teaching, but I guess I can’t for a few weeks again because of the car. It’s too much trouble to catch a bus and since it’s at night, a lot of the buses have stopped by then. I also don’t want to take a taxi as it’s too expensive and I can’t trust taxi drivers (hearing scary stories about rape and kidnapping is scary), and, finally, it’s much too far to walk.
Well, hello world. Just then I was about to write a rage blog, but my mum calmed down. But gee… it’s tough trying to squeeze in time online. Most of the time when I actually get time online, I just want to chill because site work often feels like a chore.
And worse still, I’m on holidays now, but I wish like hell that I was back at university for the year. Because whenever I’m home now, and because I’m on holidays, my mum knows I don’t have work to do. It’s just not freaking fair that she doesn’t let me have a break when it is my break.
I made an update today though, and wrote a film review on the film 9. It’s a wonderful film (animated) and the review is pretty lengthy. I actually typed the whole thing on my iPhone, believe it or not. My mum was using the computer at the time.
I have a lot of fanlistings to make, seeing as I adopted them. Head on over to my fanlisting collective if you wish!
I had a freaky dream the other day that I was pregnant. It’s funny when you have a dream and it feels so real, or you even feel like it’s telling you something. Perhaps it was the bloated feeling I was feeling after new year, after eating so much chocolate and junk food, that made me have this funny dream.
I don’t intend to get pregnant for a while, obviously… and definitely not until I’m married. This dream reflected much of my true inner feelings. I remember feeling scared in the dream. I remember feeling worried, aching, and overall, not good.
I don’t really believe that dreams come true. I don’t really believe that they tell you a message, either. I recall my dreams as I wake up, but they’re that vague that I can’t really remember them for much longer than a minute after waking up.
I went to work today. I don’t have work again until Monday – hooray! Hopefully I’ll be able to catch up on my site. If not, well, such is life. This isn’t my only website and I do have many others.
I finally plucked up the courage to call my dance principal yesterday. I was so scared to pick up the phone and just ask about my results and how I would go about teaching ballet this year. It was so nerve-wracking. On the phone she seemed a bit distant. Probably because I was so n00b about it. Hey, this is something to be nervous about!
She didn’t have my final exam certificate with her. But she said I did well. I hope that means I aced it with honours! Still, I’m impatient and I want my result.
But this year, I’ll have to voluntarily come in on Fridays, regularly, to teach. I’m a bit scared, because I’m usually shy around the people at my dance school. But nothing wrong with coming out of my shell, right?
Final note: Vote for the best icon at Tiffany’s site! My icon is in there somewhere. I’m not allowed to tell you which one it is, because that would be cheating. But get active and vote!
Hmm. I wanted to bring up something a little more web-related today. I haven’t had anything interesting happen in the past few days. Apart from going with my mum late at night for a drive to pick up my brother from a school disco where some girl was present who is supposedly his girlfriend but he won’t tell us who, and because my mum can’t drive all so well at night, and my dad works night shift so we had to take him to work as well. Joyous, no?
Well, we all know the issue with celebrity images being “illegal”. And I probably started that shit. First off, yes, it’s wrong to take someone’s images without permission. The fact is that everything on the internet is copyrighted. Whether you like it or not.
Don’t talk crap with me about that, because it’s what learned at university from my old lecturer (yes, she’s old, been in the industry for a while, wrote many books, so she’s knowledgeable). It’s content that is published. On the internet. So it’s not necessarily free to use.
But some people offer images for you to use for free, and you can edit them how you like, but you have to give credit for them and not claim them as your own. Fair enough, right? So basically, if you want to take something and edit it, make sure you have permission, especially if you’re going to be displaying it somewhere public too.
I know I’ve been a bitch telling people off to use celebrity images. But now I’m going to say how I currently feel about the issue.
I think that the main reason I was being so tight and bitchy about people using celebrity images is because I see the same celebrities all the time. Zac Efron, Vanessa Hudgens, Selena Gomez, Demi Lovato… the same people are in layouts. And usually people use the same base image.
And worse, you don’t see people crediting for it. “Thanks to Google for the images”. Google is a search engine, that allows you to search content indexed on the web – not an image source. Zarking fardwarks. Notice how they link to other pages where the image is posted? You should, at the very least, give credit for what you use. You don’t want me saying “a website” for using your brushes, do you.
Then we come to fair use. You think you’re not gaining profit or using images for commercial use for a layout. You’re gaining visitors, perhaps, but it isn’t monetary gain.
Look, all in all, be original. You can use images of models and whatnot, but I’m sick of seeing the same shiz all the time.
Why am I saying this? Because, when I started this round of crap and was bitchy to everyone about it, I made an effort to contact the administrators about the use of their images, particularly on the Poets Of The Fall website, where I wanted to use the images of the band for a fanlisting. They mentioned that it was fine and just not to make the site look the same as theirs.
And now I want to apologise for being a bitch to people about it. I’m sorry. And I’m sorry for being a bitch. But since Armor For Sleep broke up I just wanted to make icons of them and Ben Jorgensen. I wanted to show you the bunch I made because I think I have improved.
I hope you don’t all go hating on me because I’ve changed my mind or you consider me a hypocrite now. I was planning to use these on my fanlistings, because after all, I have been using other people’s images for them, but crediting.
In the end, what I’m trying to say is that do what you want to do, but give credit for other people’s work that you used, and try and be original. That said, to the people copying my current typography layout, please try and be original. Typography can be done many different ways – I don’t like being directly copied.
I did blog about this on my photoblog at Indecisively.me and showed a few photos but I thought I’d show the lot here!
I’ve told people this boring story a few times, but in high school shortly before I did my HSC, I developed a huge cramp in my wrist. It was so bad that it hurt to write, and I was holding my pen in a fist to write during a few of my exams. My hand blew up to twice its size, and it was so huge that when my hand finally healed, the skin was dry and saggy because it had stretched so much. 
(Since I’m sure most of you won’t bother looking up ganglion, but I just linked you to Wikipedia. 
)
It was a red-back, a really scary one. I posted a photoblog with a picture. I didn’t want to post it here in case some people were scared… 
But I used deodorant spray (James’s idea), camera flash and a shoe to kill it. 
I’m so happy. We’ve made it this far, and I feel sort of proud about that too. 
I know I shouldn’t be pissed, though. My brother Brandon was so angry when the car broke the first time. It takes him nearly two hours to go to school every day when he has to completely rely on public transport. He was swearing like a nutter; I don’t know what he’s going to be like now. 
