| Four-O |
[Jun. 4th, 2009|10:47 pm] |
So, this is the last day of my 30's, huh? Well bring on 40, I say. I'm ready. ♥ |
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| Dawn Patrol |
[Feb. 23rd, 2009|05:25 am] |
3:30am and still working.
A strange thing sometimes happens at this hour in my neighbourhood: it falls completely and utterly silent. Considering I live on the doorstep of one of the nightlife hubs of Sydney, it's surprising when it happens. No noise of traffic or drunken girls falling out of nightclubs, their clop-cloping of heels and jangling of 9 karat gold jewellery providing a percussive beat to their caterwauling. Even the crickets and the frogs in the park outside my window, so busy with their sounds of courtship these last few damp nights, are now strangely silent.
My body clock seems to have slipped back into late night mode in the last week or so, triggered by keeping odd hours to meet key deadlines, or possibly from watching too many episodes of True Blood in a row. I quite enjoy these long, late nights of quiet productivity, but dealing with the rest of the working world come sunrise is a harsh reality I'd rather do without. Still, the work keeps coming and shows no sign yet of drying up, which is something I'm thankful for and certainly not taking for granted.
It's now 5am and the first birdcalls have started. My eyes are tired and I'm done working for the night, but happy I just had an IM chat to ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) sunsmogseahorse who I haven't caught up with for ages. It feels good finishing the night having shared some of the thoughts rattling around in my head with a friend.
Bedtime now. |
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| Domestic travel |
[Jan. 29th, 2009|10:31 pm] |
The past month or so has been an unusually fragmented start to the new year. Christmas was spent with family in Brisbane, Queensland, some of whom I'd not seen for more than a decade. This proved to be both delightful and confronting in equal measure. Then it was back to Sydney for a low-key but perfect New Years Eve, followed by a very ugly week of work deadlines piled one on top another. Then, an escape to Perth to visit my Mum and sister for a week's break was all but ruined by two jobs that, zombie-like, refused to stay dead and buried. It was indeed a strange feeling working through the night, back at the same desk in the bedroom that had been mine 20 years earlier.
So here I am at the end of the first month of a new year, feeling like parts of me are still stuck somewhere in mid-December 2008, trying to catch up. I made a point of only travelling with carry-on baggage for all my flights, yet I can't shake the feeling that there's a lone suitcase grinding around and around on a conveyor belt somewhere, waiting to be claimed.
Image: Dusk over Perth, Western Australia • Music: A Time for Love by Shirley Horn |
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| Meet my doppelgänger |
[Dec. 19th, 2008|12:29 pm] |
Well, not exactly, but as mutleyjames, omenode and Kel said the first time they saw this ad, there's something about his expressions that are eerily similar. Now that I've finally tracked down the ad on Youtube and seen it for myself, I would have to agree. This both amuses and disturbs me for reasons I can't quite explain.
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| Happy 8-bit Thanksgiving |
[Nov. 28th, 2008|11:57 am] |
Happy 8-bit Thanksgiving, my North American friends. Please help yourself to the rasterized Meleagris: it's low on pixel count and calories!
Work is riding my ass hard this Friday, but I'm catching up with some of my favourite LJ peeps over the next couple of days, including the wonderful mikeybill tomorrow evening. Should be the makings of a fun weekend. |
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| What's in a name? |
[Nov. 22nd, 2008|07:43 pm] |
Well, when it comes to butfirst, not a lot actually. About the time that I'd decided to dip my toes in the LJ waters, I'd also come across this amusing bit of fluff on teh internets:
Being stumped for an LJ username that would be the perfect embodiment my dazzling wit, sophistication and intelligence, I settled on the battle cry of the Chenbot for my 'test' account, reasoning that if I took a shine to this journaling thing that I would start a 'proper' journal with a well-considered username. Well, almost two years and one ridiculous innuendo-laden username later, I couldn't be happier.
What's in your LJ username? |
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| An evening with friends |
[Nov. 17th, 2008|03:04 am] |
   
 
curskineville, easy_b_jesus, ishtasm, Kel, mutleyjames, omenode and I all ended up spending an impromptu Saturday evening together at the boys' new place just down the road from mine. The evening was balmy, the mood relaxed and the wine and conversation flowed with ease. Trips were made to the rooftop to admire the view, especially out across Elizabeth Bay towards the Navy shipyard, blanketed in light haze and bathed in the golden light of sodium vapor lamps. We said goodnight to the boys at about 1.30am, I saw Curskineville and Ishtasm off in a cab, then walked the short distance up the street back to my place. Sleep came quickly, and it was blissful. |
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| Tracing |
[Nov. 12th, 2008|04:55 pm] |
curskineville in his Bon Jovi T, on a red background. This is a reworked version of a quick & dirty traced illustration I did for a post of his. Nothing special, but it made for a fun 10 minute distraction from work, and I think the block colours work well.
Music: Love Comes Running Up That Hill Quickly by Placebo vs. Pet Shop Boys vs. Kate Bush |
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| Beard |
[Nov. 9th, 2008|11:46 am] |
( another here... )
( ...and here. )
Well, November's here and things are getting kinda hairy, and that's actually a good thing. Movember, an Australian initiative which has spread internationally in the last few years, encourages men to grow their facial hair for the month of November as a fund and awareness-raising activity for men's health. Funds raised here in Australia are in support of prostate cancer research and men's depression, both important and worthy causes which I'll be contributing to again this year. As a substantial bonus, Sydney gets exponentially hotter as guys who were previously clean-shaven transform into stubblier, then hairier versions of themselves: it's like Chia Pets meets 70s Colt.
November I discovered is also Beard Appreciation Month or No Shave November in the United States. That, and the beard meme floating around LJ at the moment has prompted me to share some shots of mine. The red is definitely the Scottish side of my heritage showing through, though there's no real consistency to any of my hair colour elsewhere. |
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| Painting with light |
[Nov. 4th, 2008|04:04 pm] |
Click through to the larger version
This is a painterly adaptation I was inspired to do of an original photograph by the talented mondragon. You can see his original photograph on his post here (NSFW). I was struck by how much the beautiful light & shadow he'd captured reminded me of a Caravaggio or Rembrandt. Generally, I'm no fan of 'artistic' photo adaptations of the photoshop-watercolour-filter-over-a-picture-of-a-basket-of-kittens variety, but I felt that both the subject and the lighting here lent themselves well to a hand-worked adaptation. That, and I needed to take a break from retouching endless resort & bikini pictures for the next issue of Vogue, as beautiful as they may be.
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| It was poison! |
[Oct. 26th, 2008|11:05 pm] |
If you remember Quincy M.E., you may just get a kick out of this:
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| Previously, on 24... |
[Oct. 25th, 2008|11:53 pm] |
I caught up with Paul and Amy last night for dinner and drinks at the Bayswater Brasserie. We ended up ordering multiple selections from the entrée menu and sharing everything tapas-style, which was delightful. Clicking through the picture will take you to the heavily-annotated picture in Flickr of exactly what we had, if you're in the mood for some food porn. Drinks were had at Hugo's Lounge afterwards, but we were all ready to call it a night by about 1.30am after our respective working weeks. In case this is all sounding like some massive night out, I will hasten to add that both venues are across the road from each other, and both are exactly two minutes walk from my front door. I often joke about how I rarely live my life outside my postcode, but it's not that far from the truth.
Got up for a magazine client meeting at 10 this morning, then managed to do not much of anything in particular until guilt got the better of me and I started work on another advertising retouch job that I need to have finished by Monday morning. A combination of sloth and deadline concerns kept me from heading out tonight to catch up with curskineville and ishtasm at Club Kooky, although they were voicing the possibility of staying in as well. Sloth I've found can be a virulent condition, and can be passed from friend to friend in the course of even a short phone conversation.
Now it's back to work for me, hopefully to catch up with some of the Erskinehurst crew tomorrow for an afternoon break and a few ales. Sorry if this reads a bit like a laundry list of my activities in the last 24 hours but hey, at least I actually managed to post in the last 24 hours. As Brenda would say, kudos me. |
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| The family crest |
[Oct. 24th, 2008|08:08 pm] |
This impressive tattoo belongs to Mike, a friend of Paul's and mine. It's apparently of his family's crest, which is I think a brilliant thing to get a tattoo of, assuming that (a) you actually have a family crest, and (b) it actually looks any good as a tattoo. Fortunately, Mike's super lucky on both counts. Well, that and being well over six foot tall, handsome and having very impressive shoulders doesn't hurt either.
The only crest I can lay partial claim to is our clan crest on the Scottish side of our family. Whereas other clan crests featured a mace or quiver of arrows, from (dim) memory ours features what appears to be a hand holding a tiny dart. This I have always suspected was while others were to be found on the field of battle, our kin were to be found down the pub, beer in one hand and launching darts at the dartboard with the other. This would go some way to explaining my ability to maintain fine motor control even after a few. |
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| Things that were, things that are |
[Oct. 23rd, 2008|11:50 pm] |
I just got back from a party at the swanky, newly renovated Beresford Hotel to celebrate the 4th Birthday of the Magazine that I used to work at full time. I'd quit a year and a half ago, but they're one of my retouching clients now and it was nice to be invited. It was great to catch up with crew I used to work with and swap war stories – independent fashion publishing can be a tough world.
While it was actually a very enjoyable evening, I also really missed the people who weren't there, lovely talented people who perhaps didn't have the good fortune to leave the company on good terms. So much of their hard work is why the magazine has survived and thrived. I raised a glass to them. Preview copies were given out, and it really is a fine looking issue. The new printers they're using did an excellent job, and I was as much relieved as anything.
So now I'm home. I'm full, tired, a little fuzzy-headed but content. Bed sings it's siren's song of slumber and I can not resist. Bliss. |
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