I'M EITHER returning to my old methods/styles because I'm creatively stagnant and running out of ideas, or I genuinely in love with the look. I can't decide. ALSO; working at the uni this week on the new silver book (remember the space book from a month ago, yeah, it's back, and worser than ever!)
IESSO
WENT FISHING ON MONDAY with UNG. It was a lot of fun. We didnt actually catch anything, but when you don't use any bait you kinda expect that. But it was still a lot of fun. I kept getting caught on seaweed (as pictured) and the tiny amount of bait we did have kept getting washed away in the current, but again, it was fun. I didn't really want to catch anything anyway, I don't want to kill the poor fishes. They never did anything to harm me.
Anyway I got a nasty sunburn on my back and arms and feet, and have turned at least 2 shades darker. And probably 3 shades pinker. You know the color of blush on fake-tanned skin... well .. i can't really imagine it, but it'd probably be like what my arms are.
And lastly and an odd detour from my usual self-deprication; I look pretty cut in that photo. More than usual. Maybe I'm not the horrible monster I think I am. Although I do need to lose a bit of weight around my tummy. I weigh 70kgs now! I used to be 62kg this time last year! So that's a fair amount! If you think I'm crazy, don't judge me on this photo. I am so insecure that I actually photoshopped out some of my flaws I'm most sensitive about. AND what's worse is: I do that to all my photo's. Pathetic isn't it?
Okay, sorry about that. I'm Elliott Scott, flabbily signing off.
I BOUGHT AN OLD-SCHOOL BIKE TODAY, it's totally awesome. It's unfortunately a Bratz brand bike (like the girls dolls, yes) but with some modifications it shouldn't be too embarrasing. BUT if that still doesnt convince you about how awesome it is, think of the price I paid for it: $30! Yep, thirty dollars! No typo's! I'm not sure how or why it'd be so cheap, but that's how much it was! It's funny too, I went to a bike store before I went to K-Mart, and they were selling an extremely similar bike, in a different color, without the sparkles, for 10X the price! So it was totally awesome!
Best. $30. Ever.
THE IMAGES: Top image is the bike itself, after I changed the horrible, horrible purple velour seat and metallic paint. The middle is me dorkily posing on the bike in my living room. But I didn't like the photo so I stylised the sh*t out of it in photoshop and illustrator. Maybe a bit over the top... but it was a horrible photo.
The bottom image is a screenshot of the product description I found on ebay when I was looking for a new seat. Couldn't find the seat, but this image is a laugh! Designed for 7-8 year old girls! HAHAHA
IESSO
PS. Sorry about the lack-of-posting this last week. I have been distracted and preoccupied, and I ... uh... forgot.
I'M TRYING to redesign my portfolio to make it easier to update and easier to understand at a glance for the NY crowd. But I'm having some major trouble with it. So I am putting the burden on you guys. What (if anything) of my designs and style do you like and recommend me using as a design? Vector graphics? Sketchey, hand-drawn styles? old-timeys? Any advice on the matter would be muchly appreciated.
IESSO
Got back from Sydney last last night. Here are some photo's I took on my digital camera. I also used my phone camera (with suprisingly good results) and my polaroid camera and will upload those photos soon. In the meantime, have a look at these ones. I haven't really written captions, but I don't think we need them. You're all intellegent people. 
MONTAGE: Sydney Opera House + Harbor Bridge
MONTAGE: Wandering the streets of the CBD
MONTAGE: The same streets at night time (Not very many because we were so tired at night...)
MONTAGE: Various parks and resting places (we walked a LOT!)
MONTAGE: Museums + Galleries
(Top to Bottom rows: Powerhouse Museum, Art Museum of NSW, Museum of Contempoary Art, Powerhouse, Art M of NSW)
MONTAGE: The UNG on the shuttle bus to the airport. (Our final glimpses of the city)
MONTAGE: The domestic airport on the way home
MONTAGE: Photos taken on my cameraphone on the first day. Sort of in sequence. Sort of.
IESSO
LINUS AND I went on a mini-epic-roadtrip today. He came by at 12 and we went up to Mooloolaba to see the fake dinos at Underwater World. Hilarity and tragedy ensued.
Firstly the trip up to Mooloolaba takes a good hour and a half from my house, but being us, it took more like 3 hours! We got lost along the way, and had to stop for lunch as well. It's actually really difficult to get from the GC motorway to the SC motorway, who woulda thought! They built this like big city thing in the middle of the path! CRAZY!
Anyway we finally arrived at UW just a bit past 3, and went through pretty quickly cuz we didn't really care THAT much. The fish were pretty cool. You can't see very well, but there was this car made into a fish-tank! It was cool! There was also an Axolotyl which was a 'flamboyant' salamander, so we personified him as this gay hispanic salamander defending his lifestyle and trash talking the other amphibians. It was funny. To us. Because. We. Are. Dumb.
And we went in the tunnel, which for those of you who don't know is actually a tunnel which goes through the middle of the aquarium, which is actually pretty cool. The fish and sharks and rays and stuff swim above you and all around you. Which is pretty awesome when you think about it.
And then we saw the awesomely pathetic fake dinosaurs! They were pretty cool. Except the dinosaurs teeth were soft rubber and squishy so it kind of broke the fourth wall a bit or whatever. Crushed the dream. I tell ya, if and when there really is a for-real Jurassic Park, I am so there! Like, for serious! Anyway the dinos were pretty cool. And actually pretty good with the scientific accuracy. I was expecting all sorts of error in bone structure and whatnot, and the old-school Brontosaur instead of the new-school Apatosaur that they had so I was impressed.
And then disaster struck. No wait, then we left and ate dinner at a Tibetan resturant. We had goat curry. It was good I guess but the thought of it made me sick. And it looked kinda of gross, the meat we cooked, but it looked raw. It was REALLY pink. It might have just been the lighting but it looked sort of gross. Tasted good though.
THEN the disaster struck. Nope, sorry, forgot about the icecream. We had Baskin Robbins icecream. Lino got a banana split, but in the hilarious Linus style, instead of a banana he just got a pile of marischino cherries, with the icecream, whipped cream, fudge and another cherry on top. I got a bowl of cherries on the side! SUGARY-SWEET!
THEN the disaster struck. We left and everything was relatively fine untill after we went through the city. We got lost again. This was the third time! Or maybe the fourth if you count our mini getting-lost adventure when we left the highway went around a roundabout and got back on the highway instead of turning around because we were already lost. Anyway we somehow ended up in a hillbilly town watching the train go past at a dodgy gas station. Which actually just turned out to be Coopers Plains and although we weren't on track, we were far from lost.
I finally got home. And um.. yeah that's about it. It was kind of a cross between a mini-road trip and a man-date, but lets assume it was the former. Anyway yeah, it was a lot of fun and funny, but being the horrible story teller I made it sound highly boring. Linus will no-doubt correct me, retell it, and actually make it sound cool. And not dorky like I made it sound.
ALSO being on the road for 6 hours, we got to see a lot of funny car signs. The best one:
"Exotic African Chocolate". That's not so funny untill I saw a black guy driving and joked that it was a sex-service rather than a confectionary company. Ok, so that might sound racist or something, but seriously; Africa isn't exactly famous for its chocolate treats. ... or is it?
IESSO
PS. I might bother with the image descriptions, but probably not. They're pretty self-explanatory.
I HEARD BACK from Hannah Cutts, the founder and creative director of Cutts Creative, my favourite design studio in Brisbane. I wrote to her about a month ago asking if I could go in and talk to her about my folio (she reveiwed it and gave me the mark I got) I was also going to talk to her about some freelance work after I finished Liveworm and before I left to Dublin/NY. I wrote to her a while ago, but she's been out of the office in the UK, and will be out untill the end of the month, but she got my email, and here is her reply.
hi...
your folio was brilliant and i'd love you to come in for a chat.
However, i'm in england until january 21st so if you email again after that
we can sort something out.
hannah
So that's pretty positive. I am totally nervous about meeting her though. I'm redesigning the folio, and want to impress her with the new one. Maybe i can get some work. That'd be awesome! It'd be some good experience.
IESSO
LET'S BEGIN with my life. That's the first error, and the first bit of humour. Ha ha ha.
Yesterday was a funny day, funny in it's trajedy! I spent the whole night awake watching 5 hours straight of Will and Grace, pun definitely intended mo-fo! And you know how when I watch too much of a single TV show it warps my mind? Well it does! and did! I had to urge to call everyone 'Honey' all day, but luckily I could suppress it.
Anyway left for the city at 7am, caught the bus, got to the city, all normal type dealie. Actually now that I think about it, yesterday was pretty mondayne!
I had to go to Liveworm to pick a few things up, but the security gaurd wouldn't let me in. I didn't have clearance to the studio. Only one person could be trusted enough; the UNG. So I had to wait an hour or so for her to arrive before he'd let me in. In the meantime I made Tanner call me on his video phone, because that's always fun. He said he had $70 worth of calls to use, so it didn't really matter. Unfortunately video calls AREN'T included in that $70, so our conversation actually ended up costing about $30! DAMN.
When UNG arrived I got into the studio, got what I needed and we left. We went shopping for a bit, and everything was normal. I got a new backpack which was needed to cart the GIANT laptop around. A shoulder bag is a bit too small and poorly balanced for long-time carrying. Anyway it only ended up costing $15 which is totally awesome! Normally they're on sale for ~$120, but I traded in the laptop sleeve, and it was 50% off! So woohoo for me.
Blah blah blah, we hung around in the city for a while but I started falling asleep in the park so we left.
I caught the 4.05 train home. I was feeling REALLY tired and started drifting off. I woke up in a panic fearing that I missed my train! But luckily we were only at Kingston. The train had broken down! I heard on the loudspeaker the driver say "Yeah, uh, the train is having some problems. We don't know when we'll fix it." No apology, no estimation on when it'll be fixed. We started moving again at ~5.00 and I didn't get home untill 6. Hooray! Hour long delays rock!
So ok, maybe that wasn't the most interesting of posts, but gimme a break, I am lazy. And I felt guilty for not posting much, so the hum-drum mondaynity of my life shall get put up on the interweb for all to see!
IESSO
PS. Elvira gets her blog back on the LINKS section for FINALLY posting something new! Good to have you back!
UNG and I bypassed the usual stress, hassle and ordeal involved with New Years, New Years parties and New Years drunkenness and watched the new year roll in front the comfort and quiet isolation of the sixth floor of the Marriot in the city. We were hoping the Story Bridge, which we had a great veiw of was going to have some fireworks set off from it, but that didnt work out. We did see the firework displays in teh distance, and it was nice. A welcome change from previous years. A happy end to an interesting and overall good year.
This next year is going to be a challenge:
- Life: Hoping to move to New York, look for a job, get a job, find a place to live, get some money.
- Love: Hoping UNG can come with me to NY but we're not sure if she can work there or not, so we'll see how we go. I'm going to the US Consulate in Sydney next week to find out.
- The Rest: Hoping my mental health improves. I'm so much better than I was last year, but have a way to go to be 100% back to normal.
Any resolutions: Stop waiting for things to happen. Try to be more proactive in my approach to life. Also, I will lose 5-10kg's before the years end. People tell me I'm thin, but really, I'm not. I've got some excess weight, and I want to get rid of it!
IESSO
