The ABC have launched a new site, Winged Sandals this week. A friend of mine who worked on it sent me the link. The site is excellent - I love the design (there is an html version and a Flash version) and I love the animated stories. The one about Perseus and Medusa, in particular, made me laugh.
The site has been a collaborative effort - I recognise the work of Nathan J amongst others. It's well worth a look.
Thieu and I attended the Graduate Screenings of the Animation and Interactive Media students last night. There were some great pieces, including one that made me laugh a lot about a pair of socks who become separated in the washing-machine. Sensei made the speech this year, and did a marvellous job, despite insisting that he'd set the microphone to "mumble". La Spin looked glam, and was proudly talking about her students' achievements. "It's like having 17 children" she said.
The AIM screenings signals the start of summer to me, and the recent burst of sunshine is helping with this too. Summer starts officially on Monday, and this is also the day that my essay is due. I've also got some things to get ready for Sleepy Brain by then. But after that, the pressure is off for a bit, especially as I'm deferring next semester. Roll on Monday, I say.
In the meantime, I'm finding it increasingly difficult to do anything much except play with these online versions of eighties games. I always wanted Simon as a child, but now I'm not so sure. I can only get up to stage 11 before I forget the sequence.
Well, I survived the second day of the colour correction seminar. There were less printers yesterday, and more photographers. It was supposed to be a "hands on" session, in the Mac labs at RMIT, but the photographers had so many questions to ask that I think I clicked on maybe five different buttons in Photoshop the entire day.
The most exciting thing was when someone's colour test stuffed up. "Come over here and look at this noticeable artifact!" said the seminar leader, waving his arms excitedly, and we all crowded around to look at a smudge. A kind of blueish smudge. I whispered to T. "That's the most impressive noticeable artifact I've ever seen" and he whispered back "I'm going to write to Colour Correction Quarterly about this. They'll be very interested."
The lunch was good, however. T. and I startedd at opposite ends and slowly ate our way down until we met in the middle.
I had trouble sleeping, possiby because I did most of it during the day. Thieu, also, was restless and at about 1 am got out of bed, saying "I've left the Liquid Amber tree outside."
In March we went to the St Andrew's market and bought a tiny Liquid Amber from one of the stalls. The tree had its autumn leaves but about a week later, they were all eaten off by the voracious possums that terrorise our apartment block. So then we had a stick in a pot for 6 months.
But now it has its new leaves and even to me they look tasty. Light green, fresh-looking. Thieu has been putting it outside during the day so it can do its photosynthesis thing and then bringing it back inside at nighttime. "Some people bring their cats in, I bring in the Liquid Amber tree" he said, as he headed out to rescue it. "You should train it to come when you whistle" I said, snuggling back under the covers "Then we could just open a window let it hop through."
T and I spent yesterday at a seminar on colour correction. I was initially excited by the prospect of getting out of the office, learning something new, but the session brought no joy. Everyone else in the room was a hard-core printer and the content was geared towards a level of technical expertise which far surpassed mine. There were lots of beards, beerguts and an impressive array of bum bags. T and I, without a beard or a bum bag between us, were both completely out of our depth and I found most of what the speaker said entirely incomprehensible. "Despite what you might have thought" he said, "Metamerism is our friend." The room was warm, and dark, and there was a distinctive hum of airconditioning. "It's best not to rely on an eyeball-based calibrator" he said, and my eyeballs began to callibrate the inside of my skull.
I started doing that embarrassing thing that you see people do on trains, where their heads start to fall forward until they jerk themselves awake. I was in grave danger of ending up in the lap of the burly printer beside me, or, even worse, resting my head on his bum bag. So I spent the rest of the session doodling in my notebook to try and remain conscious, and staring at T's orange ankles.
In the break, we sat outside, trying to wake ourselves up with fresh air. "Why are your ankles orange?" I said. T looked down at them. "My girlfriend and I had some free vouchers for spray on tans. We had it done on the weekend" he said, "Are they really orange?" "Yes" I said. "They are really really orange. Though perhaps it's because your sneakers are so white."
The worst part is, it's a two day seminar, so we have to go back today. At the end of the session yesterday we were told "Most of you probably won't be able to keep up with the tutorial tomorrow." Which is great. I'm really looking forward to it.
On the way home, a particularly upbeat little girl got on the tram with her mother. "I'll pick the seats" she said, while her mother bought the tickets. "Can we face each other, mum?" The mother said ok. The little girl burst into song (one of her own composition, I suspect.) "We're going to FACE each other. WE'RE going to face each other. We're going to face each OTHER."
The mother returned with the tickets. She sat down next to her daughter. The child nearly exploded. "No! We're going to FACE EACH OTHER." "Oh yes" said the mother, moving to the opposite seat, "I forgot."
A little later in the journey the mother leant over to the child and said, quietly, "When you go to Bali, please don't buy me any statues." The little girl said "Why not?" "Because I don't need any more statues."
There was a pause. I wondered about the mother's statue collection. How many does she have? Are they all from Bali? Is Bali known for its statue making?
The little girl said "Can I buy you some Bali lollies, then.?" "No" said the mother "I don't want any Bali lollies either." The little girl sighed. "But you should at least try some Bali lollies. They taste different over there." "Ok" said the mother, "You can buy me one sort of Bali lolly. But not too many."
