Client brainwave comments

This is a list of the most annoying comments I get from clients on my design work.

"Can the animation in the Flash file be a little smoother?"

No, it can't. I'm using 100% Ease on that tween, in a program with the most advanced animation tweening available on the net. The text is set specifically for animation, and the motion is calculated to within 0.01 of a pixel (with anti-alias smoothing), at 24 frames per second.
"Smoother" is not the word you're looking for.

Why does this upset me? Because it's insulting. It's like me telling an architect that the wall he just constructed is not vertical, without me having used a protractor and/or a spirit level to measure it. I'm just going on what my untrained, unarchitectural eyes are telling me, and I'm using terminology I heard somewhere along the line as relating to architecture, to try and show that I know what I'm talking about. Pants to that - the architect in question would hit me with an invoice for work done thus far, and leave me to find someone else to finish the project.

The sound of music not in my headphones

So i'm trying to be more sociable and not have my headphones on in the office all the time. This means listening to Radio-Mid-40s and every hit from the last 100 years once a day (yes, I'm that lucky - they have a no-repeat guarantee. Between the hours of 9 and 5 of every new day. I don;t have the memory of a goldfish, you know). It also means I can't escape the godawful lyrics of some of those hits, condoned by so many around the globe I have to wonder if I'm the one who has no intelligence. Take Biffy Clyro's genius physics-lesson-in-a-nutshell:

When we collide we come together
If we don't we'll always be apart

 Someone was listening in class! I hate the radio. I hate it so much I even prefer Rihanna singing:

I didn't mean to hurt him
He could have been somebody's son

I prefer it, because I can skip the song. I can choose the next song. And I DON'T have to LISTEN to ADVERTS. Stinking, brainless, goddamn adverts! I really shouldn't be in the advertising industry with this attitude. But I am. And I get enough marketing crap to produce on my screen without having to have another of my senses assulted by it.

I used to love the radio. As a teenager I couldn't get enough of it. I don't know where I used to file all those ad breaks so I hardly noticed them, but I wish to God I could regain that skill.

The sound of words in my head

I just noticed something this morning. Or, more accurately, I have always noticed it, but inexplicably payed it more attention this morning than before. When I read certain words, they make sounds in my head - not just the sound of the word, the way we 'read aloud' in our heads when we read. Certain words are accompanied by other sounds - almost without fail when I read them. The word that caught my attention this morning was:

"building blocks"

The word "blocks" often triggers a similar sound, but this combination is particularly strong. It sounds like wooden blocks I used to play with as a kid in my gran's house. Also the sound her parquet floor makes when you walk over a slightly loose block. There it is again... I can even smell the air in her house when I think about it and repeat the word a few times. It goes away when I try to force it though.