PunkClown Daze

Hens Night

The Good Looking One is at a hen's night tonight...her baby sister is getting married to the mad Irishman Paul in February, and I'm sitting here at the computer instead of having fun go-cart racing (that's right) because I had to work, just finished a little while ago...Damn it! I hate being a shift worker sometimes - like on a Saturday night when you should be having a bit of fun with your brother-in-law to be and the rest of the boys! Then, at other times I really appreciate it, like when I see the roads in grid-lock at peak-period with the poor 9 - 5ers) Now - what to do...The place sure feels empty, the kids are at their grandparents...my beloved is hopefully having some good clean fun....hmmm, there's a beer in the fridge... 

Collecting sketches...
and gradually posting them here on a new page at my other site "occupied" ~ Today I have initially scanned and uploaded two of my drawings that I did in my 20's. I had a collection of blank out of date diaries which I used to draw in (as well as generally fill the rest of it full of emotional angst, surrealistic stream-of-consciousness, testosterone driven fantasies and of course, punk poetry)...I will add more drawings from that era that I think are relatively amusing or entertaining, or just plain relevant to me...as well as posting my current sketches and drawings as well, as I have been inspired to continue to draw by Danny Gregory whose book I received in the mail with great delight today and which I have practically devoured already.... 

An attempt at a passionate stance?
Stavros the Wonderchicken said this: ...in his entry On Writing, or Of Tits and Medicated Monkeys in relation to what he had written earlier in his blog about post-punk and blogging (well, to be honest that doesn't describe it...it was about a whole lot of stuff...you have to read it really, I'm not going to re-invent the wheel) ~ It makes for interesting reading and provokes me to ponder on the blandness of my entries...Does anyone really care if my DOM objects work with a javascript fade function?...I mean, really? MORE PASSION is needed, but it has to come from the heart, otherwise it's not going to resonate...or is it? Can an adopted (invented, created) passionate stance, treatise, work of art, music - what have you - be just as artistically and intellectually valid, as good (that subjective qualifier that means ...what??) as something heartfelt? How do we know if someone truly means what they say these days, if what they say comes from their guts and what relevance does that really have on the content of what they put across? In these political times of passionate righteousness based on questionable intelligence and motivations? In these times of reality programs, where reality means having a camera in your face all the time and you are going to act real? What is real, what is truth? What does it all mean? Do you or I care? Do we just want to be entertained? Have I just wasted you, the readers time or have I raised valid questions...?  

Slideshow via megs blog


test...OK, I've worked it out meg, it was a coding fault on my behalf. The script didn't want to share the body onload with another statement that I neglected to remove ~ one that basically told my "latest thing" DOM object image to be invisible on load, but as it's parameter is set to visibility:hidden anyway I think it wasn't needed...just going to check that in a couple of other browsers beside IE!  

Here is my Slideshow I couldn't get it to work in the blog proper*, my images weren't loading so I put it on a separate page...
*this is of course, no longer true, as you can see by the next post up. My mistake... 

Apophysis
Let me just say that I would be posting this purely because of the name of the program I am going to talk about briefly...It's an awesome name. Today was very sunny, just a perfect day, as Lou Reed would put it...we walked in the sun, played in the park and went to the Library Bus where I borrowed yet another speculative fiction book to read. In fact I shall be retiring to bed to read beside TGLO very soon...just wanted to pop in and talk about fractals for a minute. Love 'em or hate 'em they are fascinating and often quite beautiful. There is a freeware program called Apophysis which generates some wonderfully aesthetically pleasing images...all created through some clever mathematical magic. Above is an example...it may be just me, but I can spend hours playing with stuff like this... 

One day...
perhaps, I'll stop being such a sook. T.G.L.O. and I had just finished watching "About a Boy" and neither of us cried in it even once...but then we started talking about how cute our children were, and how my eldest daughter was very matter of fact (as only five year olds can be) about how my Dad wasn't around..."He died" as she stated...but then I looked at his photo on the mantlepiece and thought about how he would really really have loved to have known his grandchildren and my wife...(he liked red-heads) and I sort of got a bit teary for a while...I mean it has been 16 years, but I still miss him and always will...I don't know what I'm trying to say here. I think what I want to say is don't dare waste a minute of the day feeling shitty about things if you can help it. Don't miss an opportunity to tell those you care about that you love them, don't forget to dance, skip, whistle and sing at any given moment, just because, just on a whim...don't forget to live, and take part in your own universe, your friends, your family...even those that pass through your life briefly. I suppose that's very much part of the message the film gives too...No one knows when their own universe will come to an end...it is inevitable, so make the most of the time that is given to us...sorry, I'll stop with the maudlin philosophy now... 

Cool for The Shoe Project
Congrats to pix, as The Shoe Project makes Yahoos Pick of The Day (for the 19th Jan) See? I said these kind of projects were a good idea! I'm glad to be a small rubbery part of it all.... 

ACLS...
 

accessible?
Michelle of Mandarin Design has this article on her site: Accessibility is Boring! ...it has gradually dawned on me that my blog probably wasn't all that accessible (hopefully not too boring however!) So I have spent the good part of today attempting to make it more accessible for say, visitors who have less-than-perfect vision...I have addressed the text size issue mainly. Most browsers I know have text size adjustment capabilities...sometimes Ctrl and the Mouse-Wheel will change the size of the text. Getting all the elements on the page to not look too jumbled on a page like this, which has graphics as well, wasn't easy for a non-web designer like me. Remember, I just do this stuff in my spare time, I am really a nurse by profession...and nurses don't study a lot of web-design during their education, or job...having said that I do know of one nurse who resides in Melbourne who does a smashing job of web-design. He works on a Mac...I am starting to think that all Mac owners have inherent talent for design stuff...
anyway I am using this new template...with text at medium (on IE) it should be readable enough, but if needed the size can can be increased. (Testing it now it seems if the text size is anything less than medium you can't read it at all...) I have changed this so that the sizing changes are actually less dramatic across the board by specifying the initial font-sizes as percentages rather than ems. Anyway ~ Let me know how it works for you, or if it's completely rubbish... 

First sketch in 2004's sketchbook
I was pleased that I hadn't completely forgotten how to use a pencil! Just a simple study of innocence asleep, whilst awake...well, perhaps not so innocent! Starting on my sketchbook project as inspired by the people mentioned in the last post...A larger version of this sketch can be seen here... or you can click on the image itself... This sketch drawn with a Cumberland Derwent Graphic 2H Pencil @ 1445hrs today. 

Everyday matters...
 

My old runners...
I found out about the Shoe Project via metamorphosism and thought it looked like fun. I have formed an opinion that it is a very good idea to focus on one aspect of reality and concentrate a project dealing with just that topic/subject...there's something simple, yet fascinating about the idea...full of possibilities, yet with a set of fairly clearly defined parameters about what is going to be shown/discussed. People checking in would know what to expect! There would be little room for distraction, diversion, circumlocution or just plain rambling off topic as this blog often does. Cool...I think I may contribute my runners (sneakers)...now all I have to do is think of a good story to go with them!
addit: Thursday...Cool! Pix has placed my runners in the shoe project alongside some fascinating company that these old sneakers have never seen the like of! My Runners at the Shoe Project! 

Playing with cross-browser DOM objects
I really missed my "Latest Thang" - I had a thing about it...sure, the random image script above is ok, but it's too small for my taste...I like BIG GRAPHICS, but they screw up the layout of the page somewhat...("You call this page layed-out?" I hear you cry...ah, yes...point taken...) So...I forced myself to look into this Document Object Model thing and code some into my page...so now I have this little thumbnail of a latest graphic thang, be it a photo or artwork of mine - which you can click to get the larger picture up on page, as the thumbnails don't really have the potential to show much do they? Click on the thumbnail to toggle the large image on/off, or you can just click on the large image itself to disappear it...at the current time the image is of some graffiti I photographed back in the late 1990's, which adorned a concrete retaining wall on the west bank of the Yarra River, along the bike path between Bridge Rd and Victoria St. This particular artwork was approximately 2.5 x 3.5 metres in dimension. In the old days the good-looking one and I lived almost opposite this great example of urban graffiti, over on the other side of the river...we did a lot of bike-riding and walking along that bike path back then...
Anyway, we don't live there anymore, and the last time I checked, this graffiti had gone, which is a shame...does anyone from Melbourne remember this artwork? Better still, does anyone know who created it? 

Movie mania...
I found this link on a friend's Live Journal site I thought the results were sufficiently amusing to post, with some modifications, as I'm not a L J user and didn't want my characters to be preceded by little-head icons... 

Shadows...

I have made use of a variation of the css div style on my blog title, the application of which meg of Mandarin Design shared in her post here recently. I notice it works in IE, but not Mozilla...the text looks jagged with the filter on my browser...This shadow filter also works in IE if you wrap it around an image as seen here (example of an image with the shadow filter css div style applied)...
addit: Meg has kindly been checking the jagged look of the text on a few different boxes, and the jaggies are there for the IE 6 Browser it seems...I also tried a few different fonts, but still got the jaggies. I will experiment more when I have the time....does anyone know if there is an anti-alias filter style definition? That would be nice! I have removed the shadow filter from the title now, but left the title colour which is: #B1B128 for those who like that lime-greeny look! BTW ~ *Important note: In css style and HTML etc. my English/Australian taught spelling of colour won't work...it must be spelled COLOR. Another note: The "softer grey" shadow color I used with the post tilte and the images below is #5A5F64.
The nice fellow who repaired our piano last year is back this morning to fix a recalcitrant D key... 

Playing with 3D renders...
The 3D rendering program Bryce is a strange beast, which is probably why I like fiddling with it...Here's a little project I've been playing with lately (click on the thumbnail...) It will take you to a larger version of the image at a different site of mine...click on the back button to return...or the image itself as it has a javascript.history.back link-thingy wrapped around it...) 

Too tired to think...
and too tired to write anything intelligible about today. Suffice to say the monitored area was rather constant with a steady flow of potential myocardially infarcted or otherwise compromised patients, all of who had the unfortunate timing of developing symptoms this afternoon whilst I was on shift...I mean, the cheek! side note: I love it when patients relatives say "Good Luck! He's so hard to get an I.V. (intravenous cannula) in, everyone has trouble!" and you get one in first go! 

Blasts from the past...
Sunday in Triage...busy, busy, busy, despite the rain outside (that often encourages people to stay at home) Ah well, one bright spot was catching up with an old friend of mine, Meliza who I used to share a house with (along with a couple of other people and assorted drop-ins) in the hazy, crazy days of my youth (well...20's) The tart hasn't aged at all! ...*heh* Those were the days! We all used to take turns drawing and writing prolific stream-of-thought stories and random mumblings in my diaries, which when reread the next day in the cold harsh light of sobriety we couldn't even understand half of the time! We had fun though! Hi Mel! 

Thank you...
Well now I have confirmed that has worked, I would like to thank everyone for their holiday wishes. I would also like to thank Maritta, Mitzie and also James and his family for visiting my site and leaving recent entries in my guest book! I also want to thank (some time after the fact, but better late than never) Colin and Graham as well who visited and signed in last month...Thanks People! ~ Yeah, I know, I'm sure sometimes I sound like I'm making an Oscar acceptance speech - it's just I'm continually amazed that anyone visits my little node in the vast web at all! *grin* Work tonight was fairly pedestrian and seemed to consist mainly of people who had broken various bones in their upper limbs, the poor souls... 

Testing...
 

New Years Day and Goodbye Lenin!
Work this morning wasn't too bad, a few people sleeping off hangovers in the department, but it was quite civilised!
In the evening, the good-looking one and I went to the Cameo (see previous entry on the opening of the Cameo here) and saw Goodbye Lenin in Cinema 3.
This film is very touching and speaks volumes on the power and hidden pit-falls of love and white lies. It is produced by the people who brought us the excellent Run Lola Run. Set during the tumultuous time when that saw the fall of the GDR in the late 1980's it revolves around one Mother who was in a coma during these events due to suffering a heart-attack and subsequent oxygen deprivation to the brain. Eventually she surfaces from the coma, but is not to be subjected to any great stress or shocks, so the doctor tells her son and daughter, for fear she may suffer from another, potentially fatal, heart-attack. So follows the imaginative efforts of her son Alex to shield her from the changes that occurred to his mother's beloved socialist state. Often very funny and with many poignant moments as well, this film was very enjoyable and I think deserved the awards it garnered: Best Film – European Film Awards 2003, Winner of 9 German Film Awards, Best European Film – 2003 Berlin Film Festival.
addit: Before the film we met Eddie Tamir (the owner of The Cameo and also of The Classic Cinema in Elsternwick) personally, a friendly and polite fellow (Mrs P.C. was impressed because he was old-fashioned enough to shake our hands and introduce himself) He must have thought I was a bit of a weirdo, because in my sleepyhead state I had first rudely asked him "if he was Eddie", and mumbled something about how I had reviewed the opening of the cinema on my site. Melbourne Blogs published my Initial review of the opening too, but without the photo...Incidentally, I can cheerfully report that the new sound system in Cinema 3 of The Cameo was just as good as the one in Cinema One ~ Excellent acoustics!