For those keeping score...Well, the boss asked me to redo a graph, derive and type up the equations and write "something intelligent" about the plots. I'll leave it to the reader to guess which one I haven't done today (and will have to do before tomorrow afternoon's meeting).
I know, I know. I haven't updated in months and months.
But anyway.....here is a video I took yesterday.
Lets see if I can figure out how to embed this thing.
Only about the first half is interesting, but I couldn't work out how to edit the video. Anyone have any suggestions?
It took a long time. A few external struggles, a lot of internal turmoil. Forgetting who I was and searching to reclaim it. Losing the center, losing my focus, losing my Zen, away from my chi for what felt like an eternity.
But now I'm back.
I won't be leaving soon.
Thundering Outside...I hate writing up sections of equations. I'm no good at proofs, and even though the page count goes up as I write it, I know I'll have to rewrite later when I actually know what I want to say and how to say it. I suppose I ought to be glad that I've gotten this section half written up, but I think I'll go back to the paper tomorrow. It feels more productive to be working on the real physics than the maths, even though I know the maths is more important.
I just don't feel like I can see the end anymore. I've only gotten one whole chapter and two half chapters written out of seven, and every time I turn around someone is asking me when I'm going to complete. I don't even have all the results for the main results chapter yet. I want to go home.
A while ago I got given a job to illustrate a poster for friends/professional humour-edians Sammy J and Heath McIvor. I’ve done design/illustration work for these dudes before, both individually (this and this) and collectively (this), and they’ve always been really fun jobs, mainly because they give me a lot of freedom and trust me to deliver the goods. Plus they’re also amazing collaborators, and true aficionados of the creative process.
Anyway, they’re currently developing a new stage show together called “Ricketts Lane”. The pitch given to me was basically thus: “Sammy J (a tax lawyer) and Randy (a purple puppet) live together in a house. Sitcom-style shenanigans ensue.” It was described to me as a show containing all the familiar sitcom tropes, but with a darker edge. Actually, here’s a direct quote from an e-mail:
It’s kind of a melting pot of 90’s sitcoms with a HBO twist. Darker than your average sitcom… Tony Danza meets Tony Soprano… Jerry Seinfeld doing time in OZ… Basil Fawlty running the Gem Saloon in Deadwood… Blossom smoking crack in the high rises of Baltimore and then getting fisted by officer McNolte…
The reference to The Wire hooked me and I got to work conceptualising. At first, the job was going to be mainly design-based. There would be little illustration, if any. The guys were going to get a photo-shoot done based on my concept, and I’d put the poster together.
Here are a few of the concepts I sketched up:
The “couch” concept proved a favourite, so I refined it a little and gave Randy a drinking problem:
The next step was to wait for the photo-shoot and then play with the results, but an unexpected deadline arose, and a poster needed to be completed within a couple of days. With a photo-shoot out of the question (Randy the purple puppet was in a crate being shipped from the UK to Australia), the guys decided to go for a fully illustrated poster. The couch concept was still a go, but now there was a matter of determining the style of illustration.
After a few spotty chats over Skype, Sammy pointed to the drawing I’d done of Christopher Walken not long ago as the best direction to head. I decided to sketch up a few different versions of Sammy’s face, to see which way to push it.
There was the more serious, “realistic” direction:
And the more “cartoony” direction:
I was personally pushing for the “cartoony” version, probably because it was the safer, more familiar option to me. Doing a finished illustration in the “realistic” style was a little daunting to me, especially with such a tight deadline.
I decided to rough up the couch concept in the more cartoony style in a hope to win them over to it:
But the realistic direction won them over and so I got to work putting it together.
Here’s the rough I used to base the final illustration on:
I got Sammy’s likeness down pretty well, but Randy was still a little wonky. I refined him in the linework:
Went for a some hatched shading before adding colour:
Here’s what it looked like after some colour:
After finishing the illustration, it was time to put together the poster proper. There were a few options for the title text:
And finally, here’s the finished poster. The wallpaper pattern was designed by me and based on some cool vintage patterns I found online. The carpet was made from a photograph I took of the curtains in my room. Click for a larger version:
The space down the bottom is for show/venue details. The guys are doing a the first run of Ricketts Lane at the Adelaide Fringe Festival, followed by the Melbourne International Comedy Festival. Tickets aren’t on sale yet, but I’ll be sure to post links when they are. I highly recommend seeing these guys live. They’ve got an amazing chemistry on stage which is backed up by really clever writing. In short, funny.
That’s it! Was a great pleasure to work on this job. It pushed my skills further than they’d been before, which I’m very grateful for. Thanks to Sammy and Heath for trusting me to do my best!
They say a picture is worth a thousand words......but I decided this should only count for 500 as I'd have to explain what it means to anyone who wasn't me or Mark.
Been a bit rough today; every word's an effort and I just can't seem to do more than fill in minor gaps in the proofs. They all count, but I don't feel like I've achieved anything worthwhile, not even with two pages and the graphic added.
Guess what? Our application that we submitted for Mashup Australia, Suburb Matchmaker, seems to be one of the favourites. We even got an article in Open Australia and published in the Google blog! We still have work to do but at least we’re getting attention from the public and hopefully people in NSW and other places in Australia will realise of its real potential.
Now, you can help us by checking our application and voting for us. Twitter and Facebook have also been quite useful. Any feedback or comment is more than welcome!
my big blue gorilla posted a photo:
This ended up being our logo for Suburb Matchmaker.
We're running in the competition with other mashups here mashupaustralia.org/mashups/suburb-matchmaker/
If you have a chance visit the link and cast your vote :-)
Worked up about the Festival of Gemma...Had a lovely lunch at David's restaurant on Sunday (followed up by leftover pizza for dinner tonight *grins*), and watched tv with mum afterwards. Tonight we're curling up with our knitting and NCIS, so she can perve on Mark Harmon some more. Tomorrow's the big day, so I better remember to wrap her present.
I'm starting to wonder if I haven't set myself enough to do for the month, if I can write ~900 words a day on good days. We'll see what happens tomorrow when I have to spend some time working out the theory behind this stuff so I can explain it.
I just came back from the OpenAustralia Hackfest, which took place at the offices of Google in Sydney. Honestly I went there expecting very little (I’m quite busy at the moment finishing papers at Uni, looking for job in a few countries and planning a relocation of continents). Daniela, a good friend of mine, met me a few weeks ago trying to figure out what project to do, so at the end we thought the database of NSW Crime would be an interesting good mashup. Well you won’t believe that, but we met a few guys over there and ended up with a quite robust database and a prototype and we won the first place. Yep, just like that, everybody liked it because Raul (a Spanish-speaking, how funny is that?), the guy presenting it, suggested using the database to find the best suburb to get a girl (since now we can filter by age, income, sex, marital status, education, and population size).
There is a contest that finishes on Friday, we’re going to be working on the project now that we know we have a chance. And even if we don’t win I think is good way to start using that data for monitoring the level of security. I’m (unofficially) in charge of the data mining, I’ve been merging information lot of information in a consolidated database (more than 1.7 million records so far). So it looks good so far, keep on this frequency and I’ll keep you updated about the progress.
my big blue gorilla posted a photo:
Unfortunately it's something like extra-extra large, anyway more Google souvenirs. Man, I should really apply for a job with those guys.
my big blue gorilla posted a photo:
This world is all about efficiency and multitasking. Who would have thought that a few minutes in the toilet can solve some of your problems with Java GC?
my big blue gorilla posted a photo:
The offices of Google Australia are quite refreshing from the visual point of view, such as this wall.
I can't see the screen anymore...Well, it's Friday and so I'd better update on progress. I think the introduction of the paper is closer to being properly first-drafted now, though I haven't really gotten the overarching narrative together yet because I can't quite find the story I want to tell. But there are words talking about the book the story resides in which has to count for something. As you might be able to tell it's time to move away and let it percolate in my brain for a bit and figure out what needs to go in the other sections.
My Philosophy..."That we are all small, and the world so big. No matter how much we grow, there is always something bigger than ourselves, and our lives collect the detritus and clutter of our past to shape our future. Ever present is a clock, ticking away our seconds and pressuring us to move forward with our lives, too fast sometimes to even notice the destruction we've become.
"A hug becomes a kiss and becomes too clingy, and soon another person is swallowed in the ever growing katamari of our life."
-- The Book of Leon
Joy... Rapture...Spent much of today seeing dentists and x-ray peoples and all the rest. Haven't got the specialist's opinion yet, but it's very likely that I'm to have my wisdom teeth out as soon as I can get an appointment. Because they're so nestled, I'll need to get a general anaesthetic, which terrifies me to pieces. The only good thing is it can all be done in my Mum's building, so she'll be able to look after me when it's over. Naturally I'll try and see if I can keep them as a souvenir.
This will bring my total of professionally removed teeth to 20.
ally. posted a photo:
Coolest cat ever. Super laid back and happy. I want to keep him.
Flickr pro account expired and I'm still unemployed and have no money to renew it... so that's a bummer.
Okay then...So, while most everyone I stalk online is either participating in NaNoWriMo (one of these years they're going to fix the name) or moping that they don't have time for it, I've realised that I need bullying and encouragement to make it even a little bit of the way through writing my thesis. After much procrastination I decided that I'll be unofficially participating in InaDWriMo instead, with a goal of 10,000 words of thesis and my paper written.
This does mean I'm going to be boring and not posting much aside from word counts for a month, but you can deal with that. You are all clever people, after all. And this will hopefully keep my mind of other crap in my life at present.
So, bring on the encouragement. Nag me if I'm slacking on posting (I'll try and do it every four days), and I'll admit my many flaws. I'll also try and figure out a good way to include equations in the count, since my thesis is full of them.
my big blue gorilla posted a photo:
Our neighbour on Willougbhy street has one of the geekest mailboxes ever!
my big blue gorilla posted a photo:
A stunning design part of the Sydney Living Colour 2009. This one is in front of St. Mary's Cathedral.
my big blue gorilla posted a photo:
Taken from my room in Epping. I liked that there was sunny and light on one side and the heavy clouds were coming from the other side. I guess such is life!
Got me a new set of coloured pencils (Faber Castell 24’s) for my birthday (thanks, girlf), so I don’t need to scab them off my housemate any more. Been keeping up with the drawing, which is great.
Here are my new pencils in a recycled pasta-sauce jar:
Here’s a zombie I drew and coloured in at the behest of my girlf, who was tired of me using one colour for each drawing:
Here’s a detail so you can take in all the good pencil-on-paperiness:
A monkey:
And here’s Christopher Walken:
Later!
Last updated:
November 20, 2009 11:22 PM
All times are UTC.
Powered by:
![[RSS 2.0 Feed]](rss20.png){kind=small}
