Fortunately Gone II

Ten ideas for Fortune Cookie texts:

• 'You will receive a fortune intended for someone else. This is that fortune'.


• 'You will understand how Galileo felt. You poor sap.'


• 'By the time you have ducked, it will be too late'.


• 'Something will happen on Sunday. If you're reading this on Sunday it won't be today it'll be, like, next Sunday'.


• 'Your significant other will ask you to bring home a grocery item and you will write it on your hand as a reminder. Later it will smudge, but allow you to enter a night-club for free.'


• 'You will be compelled to scratch it. Don't.'


• 'A seemingly minor and innocuous discussion will have a significant impact on every aspect of the rest of your life.'


• 'You will be presented with an opportunity to use the word "Gadzooks." Embrace it.'


• 'Avoid.'


• 'You will eventually comprehend the chilling significance of the following words: "Elevator", "Styrofoam" and "Telegraph."'

I'm a believer in the collective consciousness

However, I think that if you obsess over an idea, inevitably it will leak into this collective pool of human thought. This is why similar ideas and inventions occur simultaneously across the world. The key is: if you have a good idea and you don't want anyone to rip it off, it's best not to think about it.

Those odd movements

Screencaps from the Trailer of Jonathan Demme and Talking Heads' film Stop Making Sense. Engiffened.

Koala note

An iPhone note using this.

The story of my life...

...Sometimes.

File under: 'Conceptual', 'In-Joke' and 'Stupid'

My idea for an album cover IN REAL LIFE. An in-joke for iTunes users.
UPDATED IDEA: Replace all record covers in a music store with this graphic. Leaf through them. Preferably LPs.

Stands in

Cymbal stand descriptions via ebay on the iPhone.

The sounds of survival

I've blogged about Dead Rising Chop Till You Drop before, and the problem with that post is that it's a little too zombie-heavy. It doesn't show the other side of the story - the side of the survivor. After playing CTYD for a while now, I've saved a number of people from the zombie outbreak and have them safely housed in various rooms of a security area. The player can enter these rooms and (at a really basic level) communicate with the survivors. The survivors also talk to you if you just stand around and their comments build, overlay and compete. Listen:

Dead Rising in-game sound - Survivors [1.5MB .mp3 file]

There's a whole spectrum of emotions between these people - sometimes simultaneously! Anguish, gratitude, rage, depression, resignation - it's all there. With your character standing in a room with them going through their established responses and basic animation loops, you feel like you're in an installation. In fact, a lot of the game kinda feels like a large-scale installation.

Or maybe that's just me...

Did you mean?

logging
boodling
boldline
ibogaine
albuginea
bluetongue
obligant
botulin

"BLOGGING". InDesign CS3.

The future?

An obvious sign we are doomed as a species

An entire 'Special Interest' rack devoted solely to the works of André Rieu (and one copy of 'Never Been Kissed' on DVD).

ENOUGH. SAID.

Gursky Grad

A couple of my studio associates introduced me recently to Andreas Gursky. I was leafing through the a book of his work produced in conjunction with a Düsseldorf show and I saw an image where he had photographed a work by Jackson Pollock.



At that moment, I knew I had to build it in vectors and gradients. The horizontal lines were so mathematical and an incredible contrast to Pollock's work. Here's what I did:



It seems a bit Rothko-esque, but the process felt nice and a little transcendental. I should use Processing or something to develop the Pollock painting technique.

With apologies to everyone.

The Pleasures and Pains of Novocaine

"I here present you, courteous reader, with the record of a remarkable period in my life...."

Yes, I made it through my dentist appointment. In fact, I kind of enjoyed the experience. It reminded me of when I was a kid I slept on the top bunk and occasionally one of my legs would fall asleep. I used to enjoy jumping off the bunk and landing on my numb leg and collapsing to the floor. True story.

Little did I realise, this was a precursor to Numb Chucking:



I've had one local anaesthetic before, but this time got three hits and was numb-er than I've ever been. Not necessarily a bad thing.

(With apologies to De Quincey)

LAST POST BEFORE I GET SOME FILLINGS

Five fillings. One sitting. An experience occurring in real-time.

I'm re-reading UBIK by Philip K. Dick at the moment. Last night I saw the above text and thought to post it. Decay. Ice. Bulblike swellings. Subjective reality.

TO THE DENTIST!!!

Zen and the Zombie Zeitgeist

[Screengrab from the SNES version of Zombies Ate My Neighbours]

I recently picked up a copy of Dead Rising Chop Till you Drop on the Wii and have spent the last few days squeezing in rapturous moments of shopping mall-based zombie carnage. This game came out on the XBox360 some time ago and (so far) has been the only title that has interested me in said console. The Wii version is a little flawed and takes (naturally) a graphical downgrade from the XBox version, but is still a lot of fun.

Most enjoyable to me is that CTYD is almost, almost like a video game adaptation of George A. Romero's classic Dawn of the Dead - a film very close to my heart. There are moments in the game where it's like 'I can't believe it's not Dawn of the Dead'. The soundtrack is good with some great elevator-musicesque moments, but it's nowhere near the incredible soundtrack to Romero's film by prog-rock legends Goblin. Check it out here.

Here's an alternate take of the opening theme:
Goblin - L'alba dei morti viventi (alternate take) [6.2MB .mp3 file]

And here's a bonus track for extra feeling:
Goblin - Zombi (The living dead's voices!) (Bonus Track) [2.6MB .mp3 file]

Forgivness in advance

Letters seem backwards on my screen until I do a double-take. Then they seem forwards.

Do not reply to this msg

Text message from the Victoria Police, received this afternoon. I didn't subscribe to this service and seem to have got it randomly. No one else I know got one.

Is the weather tomorrow expected to be that crazy!?

UPDATE: Everybody in Victoria with a mobile got one. Allegedly.

Usual Suspects

The Mona Lisa as interpreted by the font 'Webdings'. Additional 'metal' gradients. Drop Shadows. Enigma.