I ended up finding an article through Stumble Upon about web animation. The journalist has interviewed Mike and Matt Chapman - the creators of one of my favourite web animation sites Homestar Runner as well as Jonti Picking who made strangely appealing, but incredibly irritating Badger/Mushroom animation. I also discovered Odd Todd - rough but interesting animations about an unemployed man hanging around the house in his dressing gown.
After reading about Stumble Upon in Jill's blog yesterday I decided to sign up. The stumble upon button sits in your tool bar and randomly takes you to sites that might interest you (you select a number of categories when you join). So far nothing I've seen has really amazed or astounded me, or they've been sites I've already visited, but I suspect that it takes some time to really get a feel for it. It is, I must say, quite addictive to just keep pressing the button to see what comes up next.
I'm diligently wearing my mouthguard each night, (or "clench restraint" as I saw it was called on the instructions). The only problem is that I'm still taking it out in my sleep. The other morning I found it half way across the room - presumably I'd flung it there during the night. Mostly, however, I just find it in the bed, although the other morning it was pressing into the back of my neck. It's quite a feat to bite the back of your own neck, I think.
My books from the HQ competition finally arrived yesterday. Seven paperbacks:
Broken Song by Barry Hill The Submerged Cathedral by Charlotte Wood In the Gutter... Looking at the Stars (eds Many Sayer and Louis Nowra) Slow Water by Annamarie Jagose Whatever the Gods Do by Patti Miller Swan Bay by Rod Jones The Mindless Ferocity of Sharks by Brett D'Arcy
The only one I've seen before is Swan Bay (and even then I might be mixing it up with something else.) Still, it's nice to have a fresh pile of reading material and if nothing else, I can give them away as gifts.
As a chronic evesdropper and appropriator of other people's stories I was most excited to find this site - a collection of tales from other people. I've I've enjoyed what I've read so far. I'm curious about the authors, however, who all seem to work in television or be writers of miniature books. New stories are published every Tuesday.
Howard Read is one part of a comedy duo - the other half is an animated character projected onto a screen. I saw him (them?) last night on the teeve as part of the Melbourne International Comedy Festival. It's an interesting concept; I'm not entirely sure that it worked for me, but the live audience seemed to enjoy it so perhaps it was just that something was lost because of the screen-on-another-screen set up. I would be quite interested to see the live show, just to see what it's like live.
Normally I go to a couple of shows in the festival but I've yet to organise anything yet. I haven't even read the guide. I'm too busy, I think, packing up my house. To make the process more interesting yesterday I started to imagine that my possessions were contestants on a reality tv show. The new runners quickly and scornfully nominated the crusty old runners that I've kept, for some reason (shoelace donors? emergency pair) and they were subsequently swiftly removed to the rubbish bin. The pink t-shirt which I bought several years ago when I felt, fleetingly, that my wardrobe was too dark and sombre, was also nominated by all the dark, sombre t-shirts. It made it through to storage though, yet again. There are those that are predicting that the pink t-shirt is a very likely candidate for winning the series altogether, especially now that the year 11 English assignments have, after 15 years, was finally sent to the bin as well yesterday.
