Author: Sue

I have been writing in various forms since I was a child. I write about what is going on in my life, what I enjoy, and the struggles of dealing with chronic illness and mental health issues. I love live music, football (Scotland and Dunfermline Athletic), reading, Formula 1, Stock Cars, and eating lots of vegan crap.

And this is my angry face

~ Sue ~ 1 Comment

I am so pissed off.

I wish I could say why I was pissed off, but I can’t. I just feel so strained, and that everything I am doing right now is forced. Like I have to try so hard to do anything. Sitting here, in this call centre is one thing, that takes the most energy. The air conditioning is just recycling dead air, and it is suffocating and gives me headaches. And when I get a headache I really cannot be bothered with the telephone at all.

Is it odd to say that my own head is suffocating me, because that is truely what it feels like. Its like whatever I do, there is some force pushing against me, willing me not to continue. That in itself is a strange concept, and not something I am used to feeling. It leaves me feeling really drained.

Uber Stresshead

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So, here I am sitting at work, and I could really do without being here for 5 hours, answering the phone to people who think I am thick as shit.

I still have a big gap of research to do for both my Graded Unit and Art & Design Project, and I can’t do any of it, whilst I am here. Not even when its quiet, I would need to be able to put my pen drive in the pc, to save images, and I can’t do that. Mostly because the ‘powers that be’, seem to think i will steal data from the pc. Which is understandable, I guess, if not a little over cautious.

I got my photograph taken in the photography studio at college, which was exciting. It was taken by students, but it was still cool. Never really done anything like that before. We were told we would get a copy of the photos, which would be cool. I need some full shots of my self, as I have never felt more comfortable about my body. I think that has to do with the fact, that for the last few days I have been forcing myself to look in the mirror every day. Mostly because I need to love my self. I know it sounds stupid, but I’m sick of being told that I am wrong for the way that I look. I have always been large, and its time for me to be happy for that.

Sunday= meh

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Well, hello there.

Been awful distracted of late, hence the lack of blogs.

As a bit of an update, been doing college work, going to work  and sleeping. Yeah, so very exciting, which as usual is mostly due to lack of funds. I have been doing very little bar frequenting various forums.  But I got paid on Friday, so went on the usual pay-day high. I spent £45 on comic books and booked myself a new tattoo.

I have been sitting in front of my laptop, struggling to find the momentum to finish my Graded unit research. I am very lax with it at the moment. There is just no motivation there at all. I am going to have to force myself to get it done, as I have to hand in the work for grading tomorrow.  Total dreading it. This is the project which decides where I get my grade for my course from. So I am making a lot of effort that it is done right, but doing it all tidy and clean, is making it very monotonous to do. It does look pretty mind you. Just I am regreting putting all my work together in Photoshop. Its just a lot of extra work *sigh* I just hope it pays off, which my tutor believes it it will, because it looks nice. Uch. Its giving me a headache too.

Also. Mr Benjamin Madden, kind of knocked the breath out of me a bit.

I mean ‘hello’. Still not happy over the fact that Ellismania 5 is happening on my birthday. And all Jason Ellis can say to comfort me, is that Benji is a ‘dead cert’ to win’. *rolls eyes* Something tells me he said that just to shut me up. lol. But I am confused, and its something that has been playing on my mind. The fight is MMA, and Benji and Rikki are different weight classes. I heard that they were attempting to get Rikki up to Benji’s weight, but he just couldn’t bulk up. So Benji has been downsizing, to fit Rikki’s weight class. Benji still looks heavier than Rikki, but he is very close to being in his class. Uch, Benji you had better win, since you decided to fight on my birthday.

Anywho, talking about MMA stuff, UFC? UFC113, is in May. I am all split over it for having Koscheck Vs Daley. I really like watching those two guys fight and it sucks that they are gonna be against each other. I do think Koscheck might win it, but I really want Daley to do well. Oh well

Today I’ve been listening to:-

WMG to back out of streaming

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Having a look through the internet, just browsing for things of interest, and found this:

www.trustedreviews.com/mp3/news/2010/02/10/Warner-Music-Ditches-Streaming–Strands-Spotify–Last-fm–Napster/p1

Yep, WMG ( Warner Music Group) is pulling out of online streaming. That means artists like Madonna, Avenged Sevenfold, Fall Out Boy, Hootie and the Blowfish, Killswitch Engage, Lostprophets, Linkin Park and a ton more, will no longer feature on streaming sites, like Pandora (now US only), Last.FM, Spotify and Napster.  And I feel that they are attacking the normal, honest music fan, who uses the internet to quench their thirst for new bands.

This has really bothered me, because I use both Spotify and Last.FM a lot. WMG is one of the big four music companies (the others being Sony, EMI and Universal), and having them pull out of something, is surely only the beginning of the end for streaming. People may scoff, but be aware that Warner was the first studio to pull out of Toshiba and HD-DVD. Its whether the other studios follow suite or, Warner just falls behind.

People were becoming powerful in the music industry, no longer were we force fed music on Radio 1, and told what is good music. Now, people can go onto Last FM, and listen to streaming radio full of recommended artists.  People can make their own decisions. And more people are listening via streaming, then buying legal downloads.  If you take away peoples abilities to listen to the free music they want, illegal downloads will just increase. Whilst people are being more adventurous with music, they are still unwilling to pay for something they have never heard.

I felt that the music industry was moving forward, but someone says ‘its not profitable’ and it goes back to square one. There are more suited millionaires running the music industry, than there is with the currupt banks. The Music industry has always been about making money, but radio was how people learnt about new bands. To the average user, streaming has no difference from listening to the local radio station, except no dud songs. And people started to use streaming sites, to try before they bought an album. And, myself, as an honest music fan, would then buy a cd/record or download the album off emusic or itunes. But if you take the ability to listen to music before they buy, they will just flock to torrent sites and download what they want for free. This way, if the album is weak, then they don’t lose out on anymoney, and can just delete it. But this person is criminalised, because, they have stolen the album, they have now deleted.

Is this right? I don’t think so. Streaming keeps people happy, people can preview music, and they aren’t downloading illegally to get their taster. Music companies don’t like the word ‘free’. Everyone has to pay for what they use, I understand that. But if a free listen, ends up in a purchase, is that not better for the industry, rather than downloading off Limewire, and keeping it.

The music companies are pushing their audience further and further away. And they won’t see it, till its too late. The damage will have already been done, and noone will respect music at all, because the industry’s lack of respect to its customers.

Blogging Vs Social Networking

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So blogging is apparently now losing out in popularity to social networking sites, especially Facebook.

I’m still awful stand-offish about facebook, I like something that I can express myself freely, and you can’t realy do that on Facebook. I mean, most people I know, go on it to play the games. Its gimmicky. And I don’t like that.

I pour my heart and soul into my blogs, and recently, with my anti-depressants being taken away, it helps me sort things out in my head a bit. Ok, they have status updates on facebook, but that’s why I use twitter. And to be honest, its easier to ignore annoyances on twitter. I mean I have 104 requests to look through on facebook, and I just can’t be bothered.

It shouldn’t have to be such an effort. You should be able to go on to sites, and use them freely and comfortably. And its not just the Social Networking thing, cause I was on bebo a lot, and after 5 years I still love Myspace. Its just Facebook.

I can use it ok, but I am bored of spending ages on it, playing all the wee games, and checking everyones status updates, and bitching about each other. I mean, people are bad enough getting the message through text messages, let alone facebook. I have seen people block me on facebook, because they didn’t like the way I said something(actually, it’d be the way that they read it). Saying that, not had that issue on twitter yet, and I do talk to a lot of people on that.

The good thing about social networking sites, is when they start to work together, like Myspace shows my tweets and my lastFM, in fact just about all sites, bar facebook uses twitter problem free.

Facebook has got its good points. I mean its great if you wanna check how someone is doing, and its seen a lot of action reconnecting old friends. Maybe its me, and I’m bias because I love Myspace, I dunno. Myspace was the first thing where you could be ‘friends’ with bands you admired, and it really opened up a lot of gateways. I would say, somewhat grudgingly, that I now feel that LastFM is more relevent in music terms. But, that could be that I am always looking for new bands, and LastFM always recommends bands, depending on what you have been listening to.

But its all trends, I guess, one day it will all come back round, where blogs are ‘cool’ again. Saying that, by the time that happens, I might be at the age where blogging is deemed more relevent anyway.

Oh well.

Picks of the bunch

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I spend a lot of time on the internet, as you probably already know, so I thought I’d post my ‘finds of the day’. Its basically a way for me to bookmark what I like, and what I may not like. It seems like a good idea, but I always find interesting things, then forget where I found them. This was an idea I thought of, on my way home from work, tonight.

Draw!

http://drawn.ca

This site features various types of illustrations and cartoons. It has been created as a collaboration blog, where more than one person can update the blog, and post things. A quick scroll down the main page shows the variety of the work on show here. The blog is updated, usually, every few days, and this keeps the site fresh and up to date. It is a good site for browsing through when you are looking for some much needed inspiration. As a person, who works both in traditional media, and digitally, I find the range of creations on this site very broad, and the site seems to have all bases covered. I highly recommend this site to anyone with an intrest in art.

Last FM

http://last.fm

LastFM is a site that I use a lot. It is a ‘social music network’, and I use it to find new music. You can use the site in a number of ways. The way I tend to use it, is by allowing last.fm to note what songs I listen to on either iTunes or Windows Media Player.  It does this using a technique called ‘scrobbling’. It works by installing an ‘add-on’ to your music player of choice, and keeps a note of each song you listen to, and sends it to your page on the main site. This then creates a library of the artists you listen to, and the site recommends you some artists, which are similar to what you already listen too. The site also enables a user, to listen to ‘radio stations’ online (available via subscription in some countries). As well as having pages for listeners, bands and artists can create their own pages, where they can upload their own tracks and promote themselves. This is one of my favourite websites, mostly because it contains a lot of music, which is what I am personally interested in. I have discovered 9 bands in the last 2 days, and these are bands I would never have heard off (Russian Punk, anyone?). The site has seen a reccent rush of upgrades, as it made a deal with Microsoft, for the LastFM radio service to be available through its Xbox 360 console. This has opened the site up to a wider audience, and has proven to be very successful for the site.

The Casualties- We Are All We Have

A hardcore punk band from New York City, The Casualties are a huge influence on me. They have been one of my favourite bands for a few years now. I love the energy that they pile into every song, it blew me away the first time I heard them. They are one of the bands I haven’t seen live yet. This is the type of music which influences me most.

Brand This.

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I have thought a lot recently (wow). About how advertisements have become a huge part of our everyday lives. I mean every thing which has a logo, is there to identify and promote that product. Whether it’s the electrical company branded television in your front room, or the badge on the grill of your car. It is all advertising that product to other people, to get the name stuck in your head.

I mean I can tell you now that I am typing this blog on an HP keyboard, and viewing it on a Compaq monitor. Companies have always wanted their products to be identified as their products. Now, in this simplified form, it makes sense. If you put a product out into the public domain, you want people to know you made it.

So this comes down to everything, from buses to pencils, from microchips to microwaves. A brand name is there, to provided easy identification of a product or service. What ever you use has identification of some kind branded on it. On things like televisions, the branding tends to be just off the line of vision, as although your eyes aren’t focused on it, your mind still absorbs the information. This is a popular tactic with logos, apply them in places which will it noticed. This is why you have branded clothing labels and tv channels, with the small symbol in the corner.

Because these logos, are something which are not actively promoted, there is no conscious thought process involved, and your brain takes in a lot more than you think. This is why logos and branding are so important to get right. Logos are the most important parts of advertising, get it wrong, and it shows your company in a negative light. Get it right, and it could become as well known as McDonald’s ‘golden arches’.

So as a designer, you need to be aware of what kind of message, the company in question, would like to convey. This is as relevant as the shape and colour of the logo, effects to how a person percieves the logo. A representation of one thing, goes as far back as the 17th Century, where a Coat of Arms, was used to classify a person. This was was a way of identifying one person from another, which is why people use logos for, for identification.

The main thing, which is needed when designing a good logo, is communication with your client. This makes sure that whatever you design, conveys the desired message. Its not doing what they say, its colaberating on it.

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Welcome to another week, coinciding with me being ill and not able to face going outside at all. So been lying in my bed, making screen caps and just doing nothing. *sigh*

The meds I’m on are supposed to stop me feeling like this. My mum and dad, think its something I ate, which made me ill, but I have a feeling its all cause I work myself up into some kind of stupid state. I mean I try to think, that I’ll be ok, and its just the ‘blues’, but ignoring the feeling don’t make anything any easier. I can’t face work, but I risk losing my job if I phone in sick. So I just end up making myself go to work, ill. And that’s not good for anyone. So do I risk my job by staying off, or by going in and end up crying at the first negative thing a customer says.

See, I am stressing over something, I shouldn’t have stress about. Plenty of other people don’t give a shit about work, and I make my self more ill thinking about having to take time off. I do my head in completely.

So I sat and listen to music today

Up and at’em.

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Well I’m up anyway.

I’m sitting here, still trying to get this design theory done, and what do I do? I decide to open up a website. I was sitting around last night, and I was thinking that I need to do something different, get an actual piece of the internet, that’ll represent me completely.
And that’s when I thought of Psychobabble. The word itself means, something that may only make sense to one person. And that’s kind of representive of me in general.
The word itself came into my head, when I was walking home after a dead end shift on Kana, which is the Sky Help Centre, where customers can email in, rather than phone. It was everything from, ‘you bastards for not refunding me for a box office i never watched, but never told you there was an issue till now’, to ‘I am 18 and want a job in your Uddingston call centre in Glasgow’. But it was a nice break from ‘my sky isn’t working cause there’s snow on the dish’. Ugh. SO anyway..,I was thinking I need a way to get out of this job, so really need to jump on the whole freelancer, lets get my own work thing.

And thats when I started thinking about what kind of website I would like, well it would be slightly crazy and bright. The reason I am starting on the website is because whilst I have limited knowlege on building a website, I have no idea how to get a domain name, etc. So that’s the main point of this. I learn more when I just work through things myself, so thats what I’m attempting.
See how it goes.

Its something I have NEVER done before, so it may all go dramatically wrong. But I’ll never know if I don’t try. So wish me luck.
In the next coming days, the logo will be done, and I’ll be getting hosting and domain name sorted, hopefully.

Progress…..kinda

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Well I am still writing this god forsaken essay on the history of Illustration. I know what it is I need to write, and what I want to say, but after 5 days, I have two paragraphs. So its getting there, but I think a snail has a faster pace than this essay.

Sooo, giving up for a bit to do the work on the artists. Because I think that will hold my attention more, as I have a thing about talking about artists. So hopefully that will go a bit better. *fingers crossed*

So the movement and artists. I am focusing on two artists per movement.

Art Nouveau- Henri Toulouse-Lautrec & Alphonse Mucha

Arts & Crafts – Eric Gill & Walter Crane

Bauhaus- Paul Klee & Wassily Kandinsky

Futurism- Wladimir Burliuk & Gino Severini

For my essay.
As I have already said, I am doing illustration. So first of all I am going to do the history of illustration, which I am currently working through. I need to mention two movements which were of importance to illustration. And then pick two artists from each movement, and why they I view them as important to illustration, and its progression through the ages.

Kind of confused with which I should do. So I’ll do my artist work for my sketch book first. And then take it from there.
*crosses fingers*