Friday, July 28, 2006

MIAMI VICE

80s-1

I'M EXPERIMENTING with different types of gradients. I think the general effect is pretty good. But don't say anything about it not being 100% 80's. That's not the point at all. I was just trying new color combinations that I hadn't done before, and trying to get the gradient meshes right...

IESSO

PS. I'm also having a real tough time sleeping. Don't know why. It's funny; when I care about my work and am passionate about it I can't sleep, and when I don't care if at all I can. So I'm not sleeping now, where as at Cº I did.

Wednesday, July 26, 2006

MUST SEE DESTINATIONS

Places-1
Places-2

NOTES
- These are some places I really want to go to. I probably forgot a few places that are high on the list but slipped my mind.
- I probably spelt everything wrong.
- All images are from Getty, and belong to their respective owners. I take no resposiblity for any copyright infringements.

Monday, July 24, 2006

НЕ ДЛЯ ДЕТЕЙ (NOT FOR CHILDREN)

I WENT TO THE GROCERY STORE to buy some breakfast food for tomorrow (UNG's birthday). I bought bacon, eggs, tomato, juice, croissants, etc etc. I also bought a salami stick to eat on the way home.

RUSSIAN SALESGIRL: "That is spicy. It not for kids."
ME: "Huh?"
RSG: "The salami stick. It spicy. It not for kids."
ME: "Oh, right. Yeah I know."
RSG: "Uh, ... oh. I not mean to insult you. I was jsut saying.... sometimes kids buy... I mean,... ugh...."

She kept looking at me awkwardly and embarrased like.
It was funny. UNG reckons she was hitting on me. I dunno. But it was awkward nonetheless.

I'm Elliott Scott, reporting mundanity again!, signing off.

Sunday, July 23, 2006

A BUSY WEEK

IT HAS BEEN A LONG WEEK, AND NO POST TO SPEAK OF...

A few funny things happened this week, and a LOT of STRESS was endured by me.

_________________________________________________________________

THE WEATHER HAS CHANGED (The story of leaving my job)

I quit my job last week. I was miserable and it was bad. I have a big saga to tell, but maybe stick to some sort of chronological order.

MONDAY: Yelled at by my boss. Given a hard time. Miserable. Counting the seconds till I coulod go home.

TUESDAY: Final day at Cº. It was a bad one. They really made sure I knew they weren't happy. They kept asking if I had a job lined up, and kept telling me not to go to particular companies (which have a reputation for being really good, but they didn't know I knew that). They also made me really nervous about getting the work done....

We went for a beer after the day ended. I didn't want to, and I don't think they wanted to either, but we did anyway. It was uncomfortable, awkward and the beer wasn't very good.

I met UNG after that and she told me something interesting, and shocking... I had an interview at Source (where UNG works)! TOMORROW!

WEDNESDAY: On tuesday morning I had been planning on going to the beach to go swimming with Dermo. And no interview was gonna stop me from doing that! So Dermo came with me into the city and I went off to go to Source for the interview. I was totally nervous, and running late, and hot and sweaty... The interview went great though, the boss asked me questions, I answered, we joked a bit, and it was good. He asked when I wanted to start; "Um, Monday?", I said. "Tomorrow?", he asked.

I ended up going swimming with Dermo in Killiney in the afternoon. It's a really nice area. The beach is pretty long and curves in an arc around the ocean. Surrounding the beach are cliffs with mansions on them. And lots of trees. We went to Bono's house. Sorry I don't have any photo's. UNG are going back next weekend.

The water was COLD! I can't tell you how cold it was. Instant pain. Ringing in your eyes. COLD. But that was fun.

THURSDAY + FRIDAY: Worked at Source. I can't beleive how much BETTER it is. I feel like a totally different person. They people who work there aren't a**holes. They don't yell at you when you ask a question. I haven't heard the sentence: "You're the f**king designer, you f**king work it out!" like I would everyday at Cºmate. An environment I could start to feel comfortable in.

Although I am still a bit shell shocked, everytime people start talking to me a get really nervous and just assume they're going to yell at me.

_________________________________________________________________

HEH, HEH, HEH, SUCKER (The story of being ripped off by Cº)

Yes, that's right, they ripped me off* The accounts manager at Source asked for my PPS number (a personal ID number) so she could register me with the taxation department. I gave it to her, and she told me that there was no record of me working, let alonf paying any tax. That was weird; obviously I had been working, and paying tax! We came to the conclusion that if I wasn't in the system, and no tax had been payed by me, the tax I had been paying hadn't been going to the government, but to my BOSS! He took a chunk of 500 euros each month, and kept it!

Also even if the money had been going to the government, that still wasn't right. We are entitled to a tax exemption for the first 3000 euro's of tax you're supposed to pay. Which explains why UNG was getting more money than me each month, while actually being on a lower salary. And because things were all screwed up (or me screwed over) I am doubly screwed now because I won't qualify for the tax exemption, even at the new place.

They totally screwed me over. And they still didn't pay me. Good huh? I am supposed to be getting paid tomorrow, but I doubt it entirely.

_________________________________________________________________

¿CQUÉ SUCESO DE S?

So apparently I am Spanish. I was looking for something for UNG's birthday. I couldn't find it so I asked someone who worked there. He was Spanish by the way. He gave me some directions, go down this road, take a left at, etc. I kept shaking my head because i didn't know where he meant. "Are you not from around here?", he asked me, "Where are you from? Spain? You're Spanish too?". Then he spoke to me in Spanish, maybe giving me directions. "Uh, no, I'm not Spanish. Not at all... ". He looked confused. And I left.

Ten minutes after that I was walking down the street with UNG. Someone gave me a flyer. "You'll need this", he said. It was a course in bloody Spanish again, on How to Learn English! What is going on? I'm not bloody Spanish! Am I a trendy arrogant loug-mouth who shouts a lot and wears expensive sunglasses? NO! Leave me alone.

_________________________________________________________________

HOW THE BLOODY 'ELL ARE YA? (Revisiting the land downunder)

Dermo and me went to an 'Australia themed bar'. It was surreal. The place was really weird; in Australia, and probably the rest of the world too, there are plenty of Irish pubs, normal pubs with a thin-coast of tacky ornaments, and crude design. This was just like that, but in reverse! Instead of fake Irish-ness covering an Aussie pub, this was a thin-crust of Aussie on top of what could have been a nice, authentic Irish pub. Funny.

Also, drinking Australian beer was really weird! And expensive! €7 for a VB! That taste, it was so strong, so different from the subtle, elegant beers of Europe. I hate to admit it but the second Toohey's New I had was almost good! and I actually liked the taste.

Lastly; they had lame names on the menu:
- Soup of G'Day
- Evonne Goolagong Goujons
- BLT (Bloody Lovely Tucker)
- Chook Burger
- Roo Stew
- A Bloody Good Steak
- Vegemite On Toast (when available) €2.50

Aus1
Aus2
Aus3

Note the 'authentic' Aborignal dot paintings on the wall behind me. I think they're made out of elbow macaroni and glitter paint. Just like the tribe from the area where Sydney is now, used to do.


_________________________________________________________________

Superman wasn't as bad as Linus said.

_________________________________________________________________

Hopefully it won't be so long between posts! But if not...
I'm Elliott Scott, signing off (IESSO)

Monday, July 17, 2006

Oh yeah....

I forgot to mention:

- At the zoo, they had a DOG! A freakin dog. A labrador. Not some sort of rare African hunting labrador, or even a fine specimen of the pedigree (or however that's meant to be phrased); NOPE! A normal, boring, dog. What's next? CATS! Well they had them too.

- The homeless guy who hangs out in front of the office gave me his lunch.

- Tomorrow is my last day of work at Climateº. Wanna give me a job?

Saturday, July 15, 2006

THE LACK OF POSTS

SOME PEOPLE MAY HAVE NOTICED A LACK OF POSTS in the recent months. Here's why. Once again I've been feeling rather miserable. I was working my butt off, and getting no credit at work for it (actually being officially warned for being lazy and not working hard enough!!) and coming home to exhausted to even think, let alone think of something interesting to write about. Not that I even DID anything interesting anyway...

My point is; my job was horrible. My boss treated me like dirt. He swore at me. He took out his anger and frustrations and stress on me. He was a general jerk actually. And my co-worker was no better really. It was a horrible, horrible work environment. I can't convey how bad it was.

Did you notice the past-tense? Well, that's because I quit my job. Yep. My boss was yelling at me one day, I thought about it, talked to UNG, talked to my friends over here, talked to my parents, and quit the next morning. So no crazy adventures about me storming out or anything like that, but I did leave with some amount of pride left.

ANYWAY now that I have a bit of free time I'll be working on the folio site, so expect an update of that, as well as some personal projects, so keep an eye for them too.

In the meantime, read below for some moderate amounts of fun. We went to the zoo today! And there are some other photos of dublin with annotations!

IESSO

Zoo

Animals; red panda, lemur, gorilla, orang-utan, ugly penguin, squirrel monkey, snow leopard cub and tapir.



Zoo-ung

1. Japanese posing. ^_^ WAH!
2. "Take that memorial to Irish soldiers!"
3. UNG: Friend to all creatures great and small. Or bronze.
4. "Giraffeses!"



UNG-eating

'Cake'. A follow-up photo series to 'Water/Tea'



Dubl-Mont

1. Window with famous Irish people. Ireland is "the land of Saints and Scholars",
despite the fact they drink, smoke and swear a lot.
2. 'Elliott's Cash & Carry'. Standing out the front posing for the photo
(taken by Dermo), the owner comes over:
MANAGER: "Oh, you must be Elliott, that's why you're taking the photo?"
DERMO: "No, actually his name is Cash & Carry"
3. The old 'crouch-down-next-to-the-car' gag.
4. Hard to see, but there are HORSES and horse-drawn carriages everywhere.
In the the traffic!
5. Viking tour bus. Goes in the river too.
6. Horse drinking trough. In the middle of the CBD.

Monday, July 10, 2006

SWINGIN LONDON

LondonBIT
London

WE'VE BOOKED OUR FLIGHTS! We're going to London over the August long-weekend! I'm totally excited!!! TOTALLY! We're gonna get some Indian food, fish-and-chips, go to the Jewish section, gonna go to all the touristy spots, gets some souveniers and generally have some fun! It's gonna be awesome!

The flights are reasonably priced too! To get there is costing us €19.99 each, and return is a whopping €0.99 ea! AWESOME! Of course the tax, baggage handling and internet booking fee's are on top of that, but the total was €140.00 for the both of us. Which is pretty friggin good.

Does anybody want any souveniers? Let me know and I'll do what I can...

IESSO

PS> Suprisingly no-one has asked for anything yet. Which is odd. Aren't you all hungry for cool things? From cool places? No? Well let me know in case you change your mind.

Tuesday, July 04, 2006

WE ALL SCREAM

BB-Brown

BB-Chocolatey
BB-oldWhite
BB-oldBox

BB-hipBW

BB-colorcounter
BB-colorcounterB
BB-pinkcounter

BB-old
BB-colors

I'M DOING SOME BRANDING FOR A GOURMET ICECREAM COMPANY. First of all don't ALL ice-creameries say they're gourmet? It looses all impact if they do. And secondly I don't know anything about the company. I've tried many-a-times to look it up without any results. Also they gave me a bunch of links to pages of styles they like but none of the links worked! I googled around for a while and came up with a general gourmet icecream mood. It's based more on fancy chocolates, but they're generally the same.

Anyway I would love some feedback on what you like/hate, what's working/failing... etc.

Thanks; IESSO

PS. Happy 4th of July to all my American readers! And to everyone else I suppose who associates the day with something special, not nessesarily, while not ruling out an Independence Day theme. I had a nice long rant to write but really, it's not worth it, it's been said before and by other people more eloquint than me. I'm sure I spelt that wrong; underlining my point.