I propose smaller humans

So I recently heard about miniature pigs - micro-sized pigs bred as pets (check out: http://lancashiremicropigs.co.uk/ amongst others...), and immediately wanted a miniature cheetah for myself.

But I was lying on the beach, staring at sun through the pine trees overhead, so I carried on thinking. What if we found the gene that makes humans grow into adults, and knocked it out? Like, if we stopped growing physically at age 10. So we breed a new generation of smaller, shorter humans - suddenly the world would be big enough for everyone again! We'd need less space for ourselves, our cars, our houses. Our carbon footprint would become more manageable...

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.

Sea Change

It was really only a matter of time before I discovered that the constant torture in the back of my mind was prompting me to start flooding the stagnant sketch paper in my abandoned 'study' with graphite and charchoal and paint.

I had completely forgotten that I was a riverbed for a powerful source of liquid art to flow over, that the promises of my youthful explorations with the medium lay captured behind a dam wall of time and online marketing banners and anti-creative clients and all the other mundane computer work I do to pay the rent.

Once I opened that dusty old pathway for the first trickle of drawings and dabbings, I could not restore the balance. The river was coming down.

My mother

When I face a door that won't open, I think of you. I see myself in younger shoes, looking at you, childishly embarrased at your unwillingness to accept that the door is closed, looking for another way in. Shouting through the door to anyone on the other side - it makes me cringe because I feel lame, calling through a door that clearly will not open. As if it were me calling. And then the door opens. And someone friendly is smiling and welcoming us in and showing us the way.

So now I too, stand at closed doors and shout, rather than turn away. But not before I've thought of you.

Sound on the air

As ever, music comforts and embraces my life like a soundtrack. A thundercloud of change looms overhead, and I smell the dark air apprehensively. Half thankfully. My drum is not broken - it is overflowing with a deep bass noise. Static. Like a resting pause on the bars. The next beat will come on time, and the overture will turn like a river into me.