Faust was here.

Design Philosophy on Graphic Design

2012-01-30T20:17:00.002+11:00

_______________________________________
Never so true.

.

2011-09-18T19:02:00.002+10:00

Gunship Wasp

2011-06-23T03:24:00.002+10:00

It was a great joy drawing this. I'm glad that I'm getting into sketching for the joy of it again. I think I started sketching this at around 10pm, and ended up finishing very late into the early morning. The perspectives aren't perfect, so some of the bits are a little bit skewed.

I wish I was the type of person who sketches a lot in their free time, their mind brimming with ideas. Though I know from experience, that as soon as uni starts, I just wish that my head would be empty and silent.

Zolito Portable Coffee

2011-06-03T15:49:00.004+10:00

I found this packet of instant Coffee sitting at the very back of the pantry. It came with a little take away cup. It was also about 9 months past it's expiry date. Curious, I broke open the shrink wrap and investigated.

The Coffee tasted sour.

Har Gow and Cho Chef

2011-05-28T20:31:00.006+10:00

She came over to cook.

In preparation, I drove to Huntington station to meet her.

She was late.

We went to Springvale for groceries.

Started cooking at 3pm. And finished by 7.

In the process we made 'Har Gow' following a found recipe by Jess Ho

The dumpling skin is hidden under the cloth.
Guts: Tiger Prawn, Pork, Spring Onion, Bomboo Shoots, Rice Wine, Salt, Sugar, Tapioco Starch and

Skin: 1.5 cup Wheat Starch, 3 tea spoons Tapioca Startch, Lard and 1 cup of boiling water for the skin.

In the steamer it goes!

The skin goes translucent after 12-15 minutes.

-----

Things to improve:

Add Blended Prawn into the mixture to hold all the ingredients together.

Chop ingredients more finely.

Skin is too sticky, fix 1.5 cup of Wheat Starch + 3 teaspoons of Tapioca Starch ratio.

Skin must be thinner. More Water possibly?

Green fingers.

2011-05-14T12:47:00.002+10:00

I slept in today. Though I managed to wake up before 12pm. After eating a breakfast of yogurt and muesli, I wandered outside to the garden to attend my little box of spring onions.
I was suprised at how refreshing it was just to squat down next to it and pluck out weeds.
One day, I'll have a better herb garden.

Indian Food.

2011-05-08T12:46:00.002+10:00

During a hectic week at Uni before the submission of a group project. A friend of ours brought over some home cooked Indian cuisine. It was divine.

I don't think I can eat at mediocre Indian restaurants anymore. The complexity in spices in this homemade meal was utterly amazing.

Pear Shape

2011-03-23T10:10:00.002+11:00

Explosure

2011-02-10T19:28:00.002+11:00

ISO:1600 15 F22, 20mm

-------

I miss taking pictures of inanimate objects and clutter.

Negative (-)

2011-02-08T19:26:00.003+11:00

"Hey, I gotta go, catch you later!"
"Haha, okay, see you soon."

With that, I was off.

Whenever I part with these people, it always leaves me with a strange feeling. Nostalgia doesn't quite describe it completely. I just wish I could prove them wrong. Void them of all prejudices.

You seem to be the only completely positive aspect in this very moment of my days

啊草

2011-02-05T17:03:00.002+11:00

貓

2011-01-08T22:42:00.004+11:00

I am blindfolded.

"What do I see?"

"You?" he chuckles, "You see absolutely nothing."

Product Drawing, Final Submission.

2010-10-27T15:06:00.008+11:00

And with that IDE1602 came to a close. Pete Elliot was a fine teacher and I felt really honoured for him to teach me these skills. I'm amazed at my improvement, it's kinda funny looking at the drawings I used to do, how I didn't understand perspective nor the way objects are meant to be constructed on a page.

So far, this has been the most rewarding unit I have ever undertaken.

Pen Sketches

Masks and Helmets
Pen and Marker

Miscellaneous Items

Pen, Marker, Blue Pastel

As a part of our required folio submissions, we were told to grab a Published Marker Rendering, and attempt to mimic it in it's near exact form. Should of picked easier shapes.

Percolator - Observational Rendering
(Left: Original. Right: Marker Rendering

Atari Console Concept - Observational Rendering

(Original Rendering, Bottom Right)

Poetic Products

2010-10-22T23:24:00.015+11:00

This is essentially an extension of the previous IDE1112 Studio Project: "Sculpture". We were told to take the form theory, and philosophy from our sculpture, in order to create a product.

Some students in the class had decided to use the first 10 pages of their initial concept drawing to decide upon what product best suits their form. I, on the other hand, just jumped straight into it and choice to rehouse a Full Automatic Coffee Machine.

As so, I began researching and figuring out components required for such a complicated machine. Admittedly, having a few units of engineering under my belt really did help me figure out a lot of the components. It was probably the most enjoyable part in the process.

Having done that, I began playing with form, attempting to include as much of my cardboard sculpture in the final product as possible. I ended up with two final Concepts

Conception One: Aiming to capture as much of the sculpture into my final product as possible. Taking abstract features and philosophies and making them concrete.

Concept Two: The problem that I ran into with Concept One, was that there was a single element of the sculpture that I couldn't incorporate without disturbing the form. This concept came from the isolated the Sculptures head, and expanding the form focus from there.

We were required to design a lot of the components. I think I over engineered a lot of it.

The soul purpose of this project was to make the Industrial Design students learn to the balance of Form and Function. To learn how things come together to create a product. We were required to submit Layout drawings showing the internals and a general construction of how things came together.

Final Model! Made out of cardboard because Foam was too messy and annoying to source!

IDE1602: First Submission

2010-09-13T19:48:00.009+10:00

I share an interesting love/hate relationship with this unit. I love it because it's purely learning how to draw and aiming to master the skill using common Industrial Design Drawing techniques.

The Class it taught by Pete Elliot who used to work for Ford. His mastery of the skill is brilliant, and I'm honoured to be his student. But at the same time, the amount of homework that he gives us per week make me absolutely dread this class. Not only is it held in the first 4 hours of monday morning, but with a requirement of 10 A3 pages of drawings a week is an absolute hell-bender! Also not to mention the price in which the drawing materials! Markers! Bleedproof Pads!

But all in all, the time and money spent on this unit, to me is most rewarding. It's perhaps the most rewarding unit under the Design Faculty that I've undertaken.

We were told to use drawing in pen and pen alone. The aim was to make us comfortable with our skills and to be conscious of every mark that we make. Learning to control the rip apart the 3D image we have in our heads, and to display it upon paper. We were also told to render with professional markers which come at a hefty price of approximately >$7 each. Worth the price I think, for it allows me to bring form and depth to a line drawing extremely quickly

A few days ago was the First submission of all the work that we had done for this unit. >70 pages were required. I had 75. But in the last week, I drew about 30 pages. It was absolutely hectic, though enjoyable.

Elliot reviewed everyone's work and critiqued them in private. His comments about my work?
"Your colour schemes are odd, perhaps have someone to pick out a combination of colours that work out for you and for others.

Your style is very graphic, almost comic book like. Try not to make your line work as dark, let your markers bring our the form of your objects. I can see that you're most comfortable in doing character and fantasy designs, but do try and draw something more akin the Product Design as it is essentially the aim of this unit.

Oh, and I have to say that I was surprised at the level of your work, I think I gave you one of the highest grades"

Pride Sculpture

2010-08-25T18:18:00.005+10:00

Assignment 2: "Sculpture by the C...block"

This brief we were presented with the list of the Seven Deadly Sins. In groups of 4, we were to pick one of them, and construct a sculpture emphasising form and dynamism out of Card. The group of people I was with decided to choose the word "pride".

It was difficult assigning an emotion to an animate object. It was a lot harder than I expected. But I soon realised that these verbs that we tie to inanimate objects has it's roots in the common human perception of the body language in others. With a solid starting point, I rushed to finish this week long intensive assignment.

I immediately jumped on the theme of Hubris, and took on the old German tale of "Doctor Faustus".

I had aimed to creature a proud looking figure (depicted by a general tapered shape) but I wanted to show the side of regret and remorse that comes after an act of hubris. So the expressions of the figure tend to be sad, the lines slow and fragile looking. His head is completely hollow, with a demon (Mephistopheles) occupying his consciousness. In his long fragil arm coming out from a hunched posture, he welds an axe, a symbol of the brutality that excessive pride can evoke. /bullshit.

Spreads

2010-08-22T22:57:00.005+10:00

This is my 2nd year. Fourth semester.

My university timetable for this semester isn't too bad. 6 weeks in now, and I've learnt a fair bit, gained a few new skills in drawing, a few more insights in all sorts of design philosophies as well as the intricate analysis of stresses in various objects.

I truely do love this Double Degree that i'm undertaking at Monash. I'm receiving all the joys and excitement from the world of Industrial Design. Manipulating form, applying emotions, speed and various other verbs to completely inanimate objects. On the other hand, I'm getting all the explanations into the wonderful book of practical laws. Learning about how things fit together, how things are work in terms of maximizing it's strength without comprising the constant constraint of minimum cost.

All these things are good and well, but these days I've begun to doubt. I see the brilliant mathematical and analytical minds from the Engineering Department. They throw out these extremely elegant solutions and precise calculation from their concise knowledge and understanding of mechanics. Then I see the wonderful, fluid designs full of thought, deep process and profound philosophies. The amount of work that goes into a simple design is most admirable and fascinating.

Then there's me, doing this double degree. Who's torn between the thought processes of both. Engineering for maximum practicability, Designing for the most appealing aesthetics. My fellow double-degree-rs do just fine though. And probably don' share the same insecurities of being spread too thin, and being handicapped in this course (in comparison to those doing the vanilla courses).

Earlier this year, I ran into a fellow doing his Industrial Design at Monash. I found out that he was also a graduate of the same double degree that I was doing. I asked him, "As I'm taking more Engineering units, and gaining more knowledge in that area, I find that...the Industrial Design side just feels so superficial, frail and just fake." He chuckles and replies, "You're feeling that it's bullshit now? Oh man, it only get's worse from here."

That stuck with me.

Actually, he further went on and explained the course outline, and how it's inevitable for you to feel that way. Since you'll be always taking engineering units a level ahead of the units taken under the Design Faculty. Essentially, your course will dictate that you're knowledge in practicality will be so much more advanced in comparison to your skills in controlling aesthetics.

TL;DR: I think I'm spreading myself too thin, and I'm feeling like everything that I know is half-arsed. I'm complaining that the work load means that I don't have enough time and energy in the day to invest general knowledge and research into either degree properly.

"Jack of all trades, Master of None."

Solution: Work harder, be more efficient

Egg Drop

2010-08-11T21:38:00.017+10:00

IDE1112. My first Industrial Design Studio.

Assignment 1: Construct a suitable housing of an Egg that is going to be dropped at >2m. The egg most remain intact through out all the different trials.

My three main concepts:

I eventually settled on the Icosahedron concept because it was one of the ones easier to make, and due to poor time management, it was the quickest thing I could come up with.

Essentially, this was the gist of it. I had a big starry object with multiple pyramid shapes to help it withstand the impact force at 2m and a little bit over. A cradle was constructed inside the outer housing in order to help distribute the force evenly around the egg, and to provide cushioning. Shredded foam core was used to imitate Packaging foam to help absorb in impact.

The complete structure, with the table cleared.

My design passed the 2m test, but failed all subsequent trials. What were the trials exactly? Trial 1: 2m

Trial 2: ~7m

Trial 3: 4 Stories
Trial 4: Thrown at a wall
Trial 5: Thrown at the ground.

Of all the housings made, two survived.

2010-07-04T21:47:00.003+10:00

I enjoy holidays.

Some people use it to catch up with those who they haven't seem for a long while, others use the time to get some extra funds. Some even go to the extent of beginning their co-curricular studies.

Me? I use it to try and find myself again.

451° F

2010-06-20T21:47:00.006+10:00

"Why aren't you in school? i see you every day wandering around."

"Oh, they don't miss me," she said. "I'm anti-social, they say. I don't mix. It's so strange indeed. It all depends on what you mean by social, doesn't it? Social to me means talking about things like this." She rattled some chestnuts that had fallen off the tree in the front yard. "Or talking about how strange the world is. being with people is nice. but I don't think it's social to get a bunch of poeple together and then not let me talk, do you? An hour of TV class, an hour of basketball or baseball or running, another hour of transcription history or painting pictures, and more sports, but do you know, we never ask questions, or at least most don't; they just run the answers at you, bing, bing, bing, and us sitting there for four more hours of film-teacher. That's not social to me at all. It's a lot of funnels and a lot of water poured down the spout and out the bottom, and them telling us it's wine when it's not. They run us so ragged by the end of the day we can't do anything but go to bed or head for a Fun Park to bully people around, break windowpanes in the Window Smasher place and wreck cars in the Car Wrecker place with big steel ball. Or go out in the cars and race on the streets, trying to see how close you can get to lamp-posts, playing "chicken" and "knock hip-caps". I guess I'm everything they say I am, all right. I haven't any friends. That's supposed to prove I'm abnormal. But everyone I know is either shouting or dancing around like wild or beating up one another. Do you notice how people hurt each other nowadays?"

-Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury

On the 11.29pm Train home.

2010-06-19T00:58:00.010+10:00

Rickshaw

___________________________________________

I really enjoy watching people, and drawing the interesting and beautiful strangers that I see. I should do this more often. It seems to revitalize my soul.

The 11.29am Glen Waverly line from the city. A delightful couple looking tired after a night out. I couldn't finish the wife's face before they got off at Kooyong station.

I had spooted this couple when I was casually looking around me. He was in a full tux with brown outer jacket. He caught my stare, I nodded in approval with a smile, and he smuggly winked back. I love old people.

12.09am, Got off at Mount Waverly Station. Woolen black jacket, flowing black dress, helmed with a delicate black lace. Light cream heels, black handbag with thing leather cross body strap. Gold accents in jewelery.

I find it really hard to draw young people, and present them in a way to retain their beauty. Old people are easy to draw, their wrinkles and lines guide the form and structure. Young people with their elastic tight skin have little imperfections for my graphite to transfer on to paper.

I'm not a creep.

Model Making

2010-06-12T18:48:00.028+10:00

ze plans

So this is what I've been working on for about 2-3 months. At university, I was required to undertake this Model Making Class (IDE1502) where we were to build a aesthetic model of a drill (or equivalent) with the university workshop equipment and learned skills.

I had decided to make a Nail Gun.

So, there it was, every spare moment throughout my week, I would hop over to Caulfield to utilise their facilities until they close. It's amazingly fun, but utterly time consuming. On any given week I would spent around 21hrs in the workshop machining each piece, and making sure that they are to the level of required perfection.

The process starts with some initial concept drawings, working out appropriate dimensions (given a bit of room for error), drafting sketches before we head into the machining process. In laymen's terms, we get blocks of wood and shape them with band-saws, sanders, mills and lathes.

Safety Prongs, Front Guard, Barrel (13 pieces)

Central stock and Front Housing (8 pieces)

Handle and Trigger (14 pieces)

Back and Vents (19 pieces)

After everything has been machined and sanded, we prepare for the painting stage. Oh exciting. Priming each piece and applying automotive paints. Then polish till it's as reflective as a coloured mirror.

I share an interesting love/hate relationship with this stage. Priming and Painting makes all your pieces of wood look absolutely presentable. But paint is less forgiving then wood. If you ruin the paintwork, you have sand off the entire layer and start again.

Every time I accidentally dent the paintwork with my fingernail, I have to sand everything back and repaint it. Every time I place it down on a piece of soft cloth, without the previous knowledge that it will leaves marks; I have to sand everything back and repaint it.

Since this week, I have been up to my painting stage. If we factor out all the mishaps and muck-ups, I would of been done by Wednesday. Why Wednesday? Well, because I was putting my last coat of paint on Tuesday in the spray booth at Caulfield. I left it to dry in there, and went off to work on other things. There were plenty of people in the workshop at the time, a lot of third years rushing to finish off their final products. One person came in to prime their work piece. His spray bottle splattered, and I got drops of primer on my drying paint. What to do? Sand everything back, repaint.

In order to avoid accidents that cannot be blamed on others, I decided to set up a workshop complete with spray booth at home, in the garage.

The workshop at home, complete with spray booth, old ruined table tennis table, and absolutely no ventilation!

The spray booth: gotta love the paint fumes.

___________________________________________

It was Saturday when I wrote the majority of this. But I had sanded and repainted that night.

It's Sunday evening now, and apart from cleaning up bits and pieces, polishing it up a bit more. I think I'm finished.

In my boredom and procrastinating from studying for my other exams, I had decided to make a carry case out of cardboard and masking tape. I don't know why, I love masking tape.

___________________________________________

shhhiiiiinnnnnnnnnnnnnyyyyyyyyyyy

Missing Tail

2010-06-06T00:48:00.004+10:00

4th June @ 11:10

The day was cold, windy and cloudy. A perfect winter's day. We spotted this bird on the road, next to a girl who was making a distressed call. Was it a parrot? It was. Green bodied, blue headed and red beaked. It was scared, paranoid and missing a tail. Gentle I picked it up, hushing it, telling that it's "okay". I took it from the gutter and placed it at the nearby tree. Hopefully it'll recover.

What I didn't mention was that it's neck also showed signs of damage, and it looked dazed and traumatized.

I tried to pick it up a second time, deciding that it would probably be safer in in some bushes where it could hide from stray cats, but it squawked at me ferociously and flew across the road.

It's flight was beating it's wings extremely hard, you could hear the tips hitting the asphalt as it went. It didn't even make it over the gutter; though it tried desperately to climb up with it's beak hooked on the ledge.

I went over again in attempt to pick him up, but he again squawked loudly and flew in the other direction, although this time, he made it to a base of a tree.

I was glad that it had enough energy to fly that distance and gain a little more height than before. But from the distance I could see that it was pretty exhausted from that flight.

I feared for it's future.

Bring It.

2010-05-28T04:13:00.003+10:00

reposted from aencre

___________________________________________

So it's about 6:30 in the morning having spent the entire night working on my Design Engineering group assignment. Lots of drafting, bit and pieces of force and deflection calculations, estimating loads, constantly imagining and accessing my design under the criteria of energy and cost efficiency. My head's a bit hazy, everything feels a bit slow. I can feel my heart beating with effort. I'm a little restless and absolutely exhausted.

Life is interesting and amazing. Especially once you realise morning has come with the birds chirping to the sunrise and a soft misty light from the cloudy sky lazily glowing through the blinds.

I go to think: Life is pretty wonderful.

My projects are not finished, there are a pile of assignments yet to be finished. There are exams to study for. But I think. It's time to stop making excuses; and start jumping over hurdles.

Problems fix themselves when your in the deep end, exhausted and struggling to stay afloat.

Good Old Billy Joel

.

2010-05-19T23:11:00.005+10:00

Jacques Brel

“A man should look as if he had bought his clothes with intelligence, put them on with care, and then forgotten all about them.”Hardy Amies

Everything seems to be changing so quickly. The seasons are getting shorter, the clock is ticking faster. Things which I had previous thought were rare, infrequent are becoming increasingly common without loosing it's quality. I never seem to be able to keep track of the time. One week flies past and before I realise I'm already half way through the next. All those things that I push off to the side to do later, have been delayed for more than a year now. It's frightening because everything else has just been increasing in speed.Faster and faster these wheels are turning and churning. There's no brakes of any kind built into this vehicle of life as it runs along the highway.

“Style is knowing who you are, what you want to say and not giving a damn.”Gore Vidal[link]

Old Man

2010-05-17T20:54:00.009+10:00

lamp

I got off the 737 bus and saw this man weaving through the crowd.

It was on a cold winter's night that I saw this man. He stood out amazingly well against the wall of dark cool winter jackets with his canary yellow polo collar protruding from his simple bright red pullover.

He was quite elderly, although surprisingly agile. He ran with this knees bent; thin, fine light brown tweed pants making a soft swishing sound as he ran. The wooden soles of his brown leather soles clicked as he swifty adjusted for the uneven ground. With a hand he pushed a dark brown leather carrier bag to his right. On his left, he used a long black umbrella is a counterweight.

Did I mention his thing wispy white hair waving gentle in the air? It was supreme.

Regina Spektor

2010-05-01T15:58:00.005+10:00

First professional concert of an original artist that I paid for.

I was impressed but disappointed at the same time.

It was amazing that she sounded exactly the same as her studio recordings. Every note, pitch, feeling, nuance.

It was slightly disappointing that I didn't experience anything new.

(They also took my dslr away, damn you honesty)

Note to self: work on smuggling skills.

Fungus Stew

2010-05-01T15:41:00.007+10:00

King Oyster Mushrooms, Red Onion, Garlic

Enoki Mushrooms, Straw Mushrooms, Zucchini

The rest of the Zucchini, Seaweed, Dried Prawns

Fry Garlic, then Onion until brown.

Add water.

Throw in Fungus party.

Boil Boil Boil.

Scatter Seaweed and Dried Prawns.

Salt and Soya Sauce to taste.

Serve.

First time I made this dish, was at a friends house on a hotplate.

Only we used button and enoki mushrooms, brown onion, spinach, seaweed and dried prawns. The taste was a lot cleaner than my second attempt (this one), probably because I didn't throw in as much ingredients, and probably because I didn't over-do the salt. Nevertheless, I'm happy that I've figured out a sweet soup base from scratch.

Lvl-16 Menzies Bld-11. Desk.

2010-04-19T21:14:00.006+10:00

It's been a while since I drew anything.

I had far too much fun drawing this, pity it was on a desk.

2010-03-29T22:07:00.000+11:00

I want this printed on a shirt.

Alcoholic Honey

2010-03-28T00:58:00.004+11:00

This, is a bottle of Mead. It was bought from Tasmania from our last trip in February 2009 from a private, extremely micro brewery "Seven Sheds". The bottle has been standing in our fridge for about 2 odd hears. Brother and I opened it today, because he decided to quit his job, destroy his car, and date a secretary all in the one month.

It doesn't smell particular fabulous. It smells like honey. There is a strong taste of berry, blackberries probably, it's a bit tart. (On the label, it says 'Contains hints of blackberries and pepper berries). It's quite rich in floral flavours, probably towards the rose category. But in all seriousness, it taste like fermented honey water. The finish is quite strong, and a slightly burn is present. Alcohol is immediately tasted at the threshold of your throat.

If you have a sore throat, then this is quite soothing. Best served chilled. Quite different from what you would normally encounter in the alcoholic shelf.

This Old Man

2010-03-11T21:52:00.008+11:00

It's 7:30. There's a bolding old man wandering the university grounds. He has a thick eye glasses and wears a loose shirt with a bright blue tie, grey suit jacket, long gery cotton socks and a pair of neat brown leather shoes. He carries with him a few shopping bags under rolled up sleaves. Every now and again, he would take a moment from shifting through the universities rubbish bins to stare at the setting sun. Sometimes he would test his vision, covering one eye with his left hand, then another. He would stroke his unshaven neck a few times, straighten his tie and pull up his socks before diving back into the bins; searching for a single meal

As I watched him wondering the university grounds from a raised balcony. A middle ages man, loose from a long day at work, stood a distance beside me. He had a beer in his hand from the pub and was outside having a breather. He too saw the wandering old man. I instantly saw a look of pain, despair and inward pity wash over his face.

Serendipity

2010-03-11T21:51:00.013+11:00

09032010

I hate it when this happens.

___________________________________________

It seems as though my life is categorised between Uni days, and non-uni days.

Uni days seem to be days of chaos within the precise order of my scheduled classes and dead lines. Where strangers, friends and people clash with each other in their in their obscure ways of communication; with plenty of things said and done, but with only half of it is ever understood completely.

This puddle of social activity creates impossible combinations, chances and potential mishaps. The ability to bring to friends together without prior arrangement. The ease at which one can misunderstood. The pain which comes with trying to systematically decipher the chaotic chain of events.

___________________________________________

I'm sorry.

"My What happened to your jaw!"

Nothing was heard by the gurgle of blood, spit and sweat.

Analytically speaking, it was quite an interesting experience.

Maximum Entropy

2010-03-04T11:02:00.005+11:00

taken from link

[%]: I loved those determine your own adventure books
[^]: I disagree. I always read them straight through and got all retarded and shit.

___________________________________________

Everything is grand and exciting now. Potential knowledge, books and leaves to be consumed. The beginning of a fresh university year with exciting prospects, is most pleasing. I doubt I would be feeling the same once the workload increases, but so far I'm enjoying the prospect of potential new company, and especially the order a timetable gives to me each day.

Hey, you with the face

2010-02-14T22:21:00.003+11:00

Yes you. No, stop glancing around you. You did read right, I am talking to you.
Don't give up. For what it is worth, I believe you will succeed. No matter what setbacks occur, you can overcome it. The easy way out is surrender. No great warrior was lauded for his skills at surrendering. He was immortalized through his perseverance. Just keep chipping away at your hindrance, because success doesn't come cheaply, nor effortlessly. One day, after you have become great, you will look back and smirk at the molehill you inadvertently made into a mountain. Keep going, you got it.

___________________________________________

repost from reddit

Memory

2010-02-14T22:18:00.006+11:00

Memory is a broken camera in our minds.

It's marvellous.

colon space close-brackets

2010-01-29T13:37:00.017+11:00

There are times which are rather ultramarine,

where you ponder a list of woeful achievements and sulk at the things undone.

But then you open the blinds and brave the sun,

like a warming blazing fire

you remember: 'It's all pretty amazing right now.'

(this might take a while to load because I haven't learnt how to use flash yet!)

I'm going to miss living with friends.

___________________________________________

Watering Hole.

2010-01-08T14:41:00.005+11:00

This is a picture of the liquor shelf at my dear friends regular watering hole: Baranows. It's a nice, quiet, classy place on the corner of Glenferrie Road and Burwood Road in Hawthorn. They have the largest collection of exquisite drinks along with one of the greatest bartender I have ever met, to mix my drinks.

This quaint little cigar bar lounge is, in a word amazing. Being outside the CBD allows the prices to remain cheap for it's high quality. Their seasonal cheese platter is delicious as is their selection of whiskeys, cognac, wines and fortified. The import so many things that I believe it's one of the best places to go to entertain your tongue or to seek something new (that is, if you're willing to pay the price).

I really do adore this place. Not only for it's impressive liquor selection at a cheap price; but also because of the accessibility, the local crowd, the familiarity of the bartenders. But the most importantly my friends who go there.

The only criticism of this place, is that every other place I go to now, seems inferior (but only if you're looking for liquors.)

Sometimes I wish our regular watering hole wasn't this classy, it's always nice to be a bit more casual in our outings. To contrast, below is a picture of Sister Bella.

It's a cute little hide-away bar in the middle of the city, down a remote little back alleyway. They have your very stock standard selection of beers and extremely limited liquors (their shelf consists of about 5 bottles of beer, and a handful of liquor). For a casual afternoon drink, this place is near perfect.

There are plenty of more delicious places in the city than Sister Bella, but I don't think I have found anything else so far that's as...'daggy'.

Trios (xii)

2009-12-21T17:26:00.006+11:00

___________________________________________

I have been searching for so long.

What exactly have you been searching for?

Belonging. I have no idea where I am. Or where I'm supposed to be.

What do you mean?

All of this has really got to do with time. It's a very... it's a really interestingly odd thing. You see, things seem to be happening quicker than ever; and I have ocular proof that people have been progressing with there lives. My friends are all doing all sort of things that people my age are doing. I feel as though I should be amongst them.

Let me interrupt you there. I think your main problem is all revolved around self-discovery. You are insecure that you don't know yourself; and thus you don't know what you want or what do expect. You are, confining youself to thing that you know you perhaps enjoy...

...Now, now. I think I'm pretty certain that I am myself. I often probably take the third person view in order to evaluatate in retrospection. But I'm almost certain that I'm always almost myself.

Ok then. If that is the case, then how many things do you feel; but aren't able to put into words.

Surely that is dependent on my ability of expression rather than knowledge of myself?

I dunno Eric, is it? Is it a product of you inability to express what you feel? Or is it something that you're hiding due to insecurities of concrete things. I know you Eric. Once things have been written and properly expressed in an comprehensive language; you know it has been set in concrete. This is why you're afraid of saying anything that you truely mean. You know this. You prefer everything you know to be taken up in abstract terms. You prefer things to be erasable. You prefer things to be able to change. You are constantly in the grip on things; in the fear of failure. You're always treading too carefully, wanting to know the results without taking the plunge. And thus you always miss your chance.

Hyena

2009-12-10T02:23:00.002+11:00

A buffed up version of Toby Gorman,

built like a pit pull, crossed with a wolf.

Essentially a huge killing machine that laughs like a maniac while it tries to bite off your face.

Some people say that they're not that big. My only reference is wikipedia; and they say the spotted kind stands at 80cm. To me; that's huge.

Trios (xi)

2009-12-04T18:48:00.007+11:00

_____________________________________________

I was sitting idley, crossed legged on my bed, staring blankly into the night. Smuck had poked his head through the door.

"What ho, Eric?"

I learned over to the sound system and turned down the tune 'Talk Show Host'.

"Nothing much, just marvelling at the amount of things that can happen in a year."

Smuck unbuttoned his suit front and sat down; a soft velvet chair materialising beneith him as he fell.

"Let's hear it then."

"It certainly feels like I've learnt a lot this year, most things seem to make sense now..."

"I would call that coming of age."

"...but obviously there is still plenty that I don't have a clue about. But I think it's safe to say that I have most of my personal principles and beliefs down; as well as my goals and ambitions."

"This is true, one cannot claim that he knows everything."

A comfortable silence falls between us.

"The start of my first year of university was most frightening.

Everything alien, everything was new.

I feel though I learnt more about myself then anything else.

Which is terrific because I've always been a mystery to me."

"This is good. Very good, mind if I light my pipe?"

"Oh no, go ahead, just open that window." Smuck struck a match on the arm of the chair, and proceeded to the window. I continued, "I've learnt so much! From meeting the exclusive group in my course; to concentrating on giving good impression to Pricilla every drawing class; to building, mending, re-inforcing, present and past relationships; bus trips with Cassandra; to knowing how to study effeciently; to learning how to unwind; to meeting Cho. In hindsight, it seems though every moment has been a lesson by itself.

It's been a terriffic journey. Jam Packed with events, emotional disputes and revelations."

Smuck gives me an amused look. "Did you notice that all your lessons that you have learnt, seem to come from conversations and interactions with people?"

"Why is that worthy of a note?"

"You have often said that you don't like people."

"I don't, they stress me most times."

"Two sides of a bladed sword."

"You know, this world is funny, and full of contradictions and convolutions. And I think i've decided: I like people."

It's not what you know; it's who you know

birds of a feather

Colours of the Rainbow.

2009-11-29T19:06:00.005+11:00

Q: It really frustrates me when people say that there are X number of colours in a rainbow. How do they differentiate where one colour starts and one ends?

A: Crayola. Poorer kids see few colours.

Dear Time

2009-11-18T10:41:00.005+11:00

Dear Time,

Would you kindly slow down? Everything is spinning too fast too quickly. A entire year of uni has been completed, I've learned a lot and cruised along for most of the year, but in the great scheme of things I haven't achieved a lot! My friends seem to be going around, advancing in leaps and bounds! I'm just wishing you to give me a chance, to catch up with the rest of the crowd!

Sincerely, Me

To whom that may concern,

'lol'

Kind Regards, Time.

We complain so much; but life is never as bad as it seems.

Perspective.

2009-10-29T12:45:00.000+11:00

I'm sure they weren't all monsters.

Sorting

2009-10-26T23:06:00.007+11:00

sorted dreams;
devious transports;
chemical inbalance and
words with incomprehensible understandings.
--

The door of the lighthouse was ajar. They pushed it open and walked into a shuttered twilight. Through an archway on the furtherside of the room they could see the bottom of the staircase that led up to the higher floors. Just under the crown of the arch dangled a pair of feet.

Slowly, very slowly, like two unhurried compass needles, the feet turned towards the right; north, north-east, east, south-east, south, south-south-west; then paused, and after a few seconds, turned as unhurriedly back towards the left. South-south-west, south, south-east, east...

Aldous Huxley, Brave New World

Pain is so much more exciting then numbness brought by pleasure and luxurious happiness
Oh Brave New World!

Prelude: Spring No.9

2009-09-30T19:53:00.029+10:00

Spring was just round the corner.
The winter weather was forgiving.

High hopes, radiating heat, sunshine and quick shutter speeds.

@ Rooftop, Swanston

"maddy maddy maddy maddy maddy maddy maddy maddy maddy maddy
maddy maddy maddy maddy maddy maddy maddy maddy"

For the first time in my life; I saw my first split end. Hair is so strange.

Pre-occupied.

Taken by Maddy: Good shot I think.

I should learn to focus quicker. Taking this was so awkward. Sorry Sunni for making you so self aware.

Musician Daniel Chow.

There are far too many shots of of this girl.
--

@ Samurai, Glenferrie

"Papa looks indian here"

Matthew Grey
--

@ home, Kaisman

Foam Dinosaur.
I enjoy taking pictures of tiny things too much, should invest in a macro lens

--

@ Fencing Factory, BrunswickThat kid you see on the far left? I beat him 15-3.

Blacklord's Fencer(Timara) vs Monash Fencer(Derek)
--

@ Monash University, Monash

cho

cho's glasses + me

Me discovering 'young frozen coconut juice drink'
Photo by Cho

"It's good!"
--

@Shanghai Dumpling House, grungy alleyway
The Duke of Dunne, looking his finist.
--

@Art Centre, St Kilda

The play was "God of Carnage". Originally written in French, translated into English. I highly recommended.
General Synopsis taken from wikipedia:

Before the play begins, two 11-year-old children, Ferdinand Reille and Bruno Vallon, get involved in argument because Bruno refuses to let Ferdinand join his 'gang'. Ferdinand knocks out two of Bruno's teeth with a stick. That night, the parents of both children meet to discuss the matter. Ferdinand's father, Alain, is a lawyer who is never off his mobile phone. Ferdinand's mother, Annette is in "wealth management" (her husband's wealth, to be precise), and constantly wears good shoes. Bruno's father, Michel, is a self-made wholesaler with an unwell mother. Bruno's mother, Véronique, is writing a book about Darfur.
As the evening goes on, the meeting degenerates into the four getting into irrational arguments, and their discussion falls into the loaded topics of misogyny, racial prejudice and homophobia

There's nothing like a live performance.

See the man second from the left? That's Hugo Weaving.

Double A Sphere

2009-09-28T11:16:00.005+10:00

I think this photograph perfectly summerises the enjoyment of that night.

Thing that made this weekend interesting.

- Badminton.
- Bridging the Acquaintence-Friend gap.
- Restful Sleep.
- Wearing a Suit that I've been meaning to wear for a while.
- Anxiety
- Driving at 110km/h.
- Pretty Girls
- Skin
- Substance Abuse
- Foolishly Dancing
- Empty City Strolls
- Shallow Lungs
- Long Walks in Soft Rain
- Being Concious for 28hrs.

Money well spent

Fencing

2009-09-20T18:08:00.011+10:00

Tom Foster, reigning Novice Champion.

___________________________________________

The venue was the "Fencing Factory", some old refurnished warehouse in the industrial area of Brunswick. Everyone rocked up promptly at 11am for the beginning and registration of the players. The competition ran as follows:

People split into random pools/groups and had a bout(match) to 5. Total Score is collected and comparied with how well everyone else; thus aligning you with a rank.
Elimiation Rounds ordered in a way to polar the differences in rankings, thus leading to finals and bouts for bronze, silver and gold.

For me, I fenced 3 bouts and won 1. Although I managed to get 4 points of Matt Foster. I was given a rank of 8/13.

In the eliminations; I took 4 minutes to finish off Sam Esler (rank 9/13) with a score of 15-3. Then I was put up against Renier Ackermann. *sad face*

Me (4) vs Renier Ackermann (15)

My Last bout. It was insane. Achermann would twirl his foil in an attempt to bind my blade and rush forward, closing distance, forcing large angles to score points. I was disarmed about four times in the 6 minutes. My attack was often inaccurate and my defence was unconfident. I couldn't really do anything but run away; and look for tiny openings.

Afterwards, I asked Renier,

"How Long have you been fencing for?"

"About 9 months?" he casually replied.

"oh..."

Kenneth Leong vs Renier Ackermann

Brother classified them as "in fighters". People who get close with their pistol grips and stab happily.

Kenneth Leong vs Renier Ackermann.

Kenneth Leong seems to enjoy jumping a lot. The bout was very close. Renier ended up winning 15-14.

Everyone is laughing because he's short. Left to Right: Renier Ackermann , Matt Foster, Kenneth Leong.

Winners are grinners!
I didn't know why I take part in the 4 other novice competitions earlier this year. The game seems to give me a much larger adrealine rush than any sport that i've played before.
___________________________________________
Kenneth Leong is from Melbourne Uni Fencing Club. I didn't know you guys had a fencing club.

Campus News

2009-09-17T18:23:00.004+10:00

There's bathroom graffiti, and then there this:

Written over the walls and appliances: No More Rape; Stop Violence Against Women; Consent is Sexy.

The motivation behind this causes me to be concerned to say the least.

Pursuit

2009-09-15T13:59:00.005+10:00

People are naturally jealous.

When they see something they do not have, something new, different, they automatically desire it. Although what it is that we desire is completely different from person to person; whether that be friends, events, intellectual stimulation, chemical pleasures, materialistic endeavors or even the number of figures in your bank account.

But the interesting thing, is that no matter what we do, with all the things that we horde and collect; the fact remains:
People Never* Change.
___________________________________________
*unless you under go traumatic stress.

Gramps

2009-09-06T14:45:00.004+10:00

"Sometimes, I wonder where my guts were back then.

14 years old; with just a few dollars in my pocket, and a piece
of crumbled paper with a roughly scribbled address.

Leaving McCau, catching the ferry to Hong Kong. Flagging down
a taxi.

I ran two suburbs to avoid the taxi fare.

But what else was I going to do?

Mother, Father, brothers all gone. There was nothing left for
me in McCau.
"

It never fails to amaze me, how far they've gone.

From absolutely nothing to a life of relative luxury.

Charlie

2009-09-05T09:47:00.008+10:00

I take back everything that I said on Fridays. For I think I've realised that I'm now on a different plain.

Halls of giant meat warehouses. Dog's carcasses, skinned, hanging by the hook. Some were screaming at the abusive slippery floor, sticky with life; others were punished: their screams interrupted, by a cruel impalement from below the jaw and through the eye.

We ran from hall to hall, searching for something, something to make my Charlie better. I could feel him going limp in my arms.

"We found it! We Found it!" Our leader exclaimed, he was over the moon, dancing and wagging his tail. So we quickly got to work, covering Charlie with the grey miricle mud. Our skins hurt, burned and sizzeled to the touch of mud. Charlie kept squirming and gasping for breath.

"You, go watch the door." I took a step back and parted from the surgical scene. From afar the scene was atrocious. The floor was covered in blood, screaming Charlie was being slowly muffled as the mud was applied methodically; in the background, deceased dogs watched emotionlessly from their unblinking eyes.

Beyond the door was a great big carven, of blue lit streams and curious beams of light. Wicked crabs crawled and scampered as I came. First they were curious, and then they leaped. The fight was quick, but took precision.

There was suddenly a great chill, that washed over me. I looked back to see a field of summer. A figure in a yellow checkered dress and pink umbrella came skipping over, and introduced herself as 'Jee'. She took my shaking hand and lead me to sacred site. There lay Charlie, in all his glory. Completely different from before, for now he lay under seven inches on concrete.

An explanation was not supplied, for my friends were not present. Jee was blissfully euphoric, and skipped away to tender a group down the hill. I tired to get her attention, but I was left to mourn with Charlie.

I don't like how my dreams play in infinate loops until I wake up. Each a little clearer than the last.

Alan

2009-08-27T22:54:00.003+10:00

Believe it or not, these are quick portraits of the same lecturer.

I guess I got a bit carried away when I pointed out to a friend,

that this man could easily pull of a old school styled joker.

His named was Alan. He was a graduated Electric Engineer that found himself working in Bio-Medicine Research.

He remininced that when he was at university, digital calculators were the hit thing, like what iphones are now.

He said that he was fortunate when he was researching neuro-activity, for he had a electronics background. This was because he himself had to invent a every piece of equipment needed to carry out his research and experiments.

He said that he found that he enjoyed creating these medical instruments more than the actual research.

Alan soon found out that a lot of her peers, other medical researchers, soon requested the use of his equipment.

Being that opportunist that he was, he started a company that created this unique research equipment.

His company blossumed.

After celebrating 20 years of establishment, he sold his company.

And reserved a ticket, to be one of the handful few tourists to fly into space, through Virgin Airlines.

(This is why you should do electrical engineering)

Illusionary Sky

2009-08-24T21:04:00.003+10:00

I enjoy casually strolling around campus.
It was a beautiful scene:
The rains had freshly broken,
the clouds had parted to let the welcoming warm sun the shine through.
The high winds had died down to a gentle breeze;
a lorikeet lay on the face down,
silently screaming into the wet footpath,
blood drooling from it's beak.

There was a loud thud. I looked up to see two black shapes falling from the sky. The library window finiallised it's vibrations subtley. One bird boucned, the other went splat. People turned around to see what was happening, some laughed, some cursed in horror, but everyone kept walking. I approached the scene carefully.

The one that bounced was comically swaying from side to side trying to keep balance. The one that splatted lay in an awefully awkward position, breathing heavily, blood trickling from it's beak. I couldn't keep my eyes off it. The inevitable death that came wasn't gradual. If fact it was quite sudden. It was as if time-space around the mass of feathers, bone, flesh and blood; froze. I paused for a second, and switched my attention to the sole survivor, clearly still dazed beside it's deceased friend.

The people traffic increased.

I picked up the wounded, gently cradling it's soft ripcage. It felt so light, delicate and weak. It struggled pathetically before quickly giving up. I placed it under a bush, away from the mad rush of the footpath. I returned to his fallen conrade, scooped it up, and respectfually lay it infront of it's disorientated buddy.

Groundtakers arrived shortly, and took the survivor into a shoebox to recoperate before release.

I paid my respects and moved on.

Nose Margins

2009-08-19T21:23:00.001+10:00

"Noise Margins all...Gorilla!"

I'm afraid this is all I wrote down for my 5pm lecture on Digital Systems.

2009-08-17T15:04:00.002+10:00

Acoustic Guitars.
Fake Plastic Trees.
Cherry Blossums.
Fresh Spring Breeze.
Fluffy white clouds.
Fragrant flowers.
My favourite transitional season is comming.

My Very First Roll.

2009-08-14T23:26:00.003+10:00

I have decided to shoot in film as a hobby. Although I still think that shooting digital is in all ways safer for special occasions and events.

It was a monday afternoon when I bought my first roll of film from K-mart. ($10:75). An unco-ordinated attempted to mount the film into my dad's Nikon FM caused the film lead to wind inside the canister. So on the Friday afternoon, I bought another roll of film ($10:75), and clumsily, but successfully mounted it. I was happy.

Snap shutter click.

My first shot, Stairs at QV next to Bread Top.

I quite like these tiny, family run, crowded coffee shops. The busy casual atmosphere is most pleasing.

At San Churos. Another Latte.

San Churos dough stick. Dark > Milk > White

I love you too Gabby

This is Wantirna at night. Right outside my grandparent's house.

My Lovely Desk of clutter.

Charrlotte.
--

A total of 18 of the 24 shots were taken. 8 shots were publushed. It seems I had destroyed the first 8 frames while mounting it. To conclude: Shooting film is so much harder. I can never seem to get the correct shutter - aperture ratio, and everything is out of focus. Hat's off to Dad. I now have a greater understanding of the skills invovled in shooting manual.

This is also quite an expensive hobby ($15.95)

Pretty Eyes

2009-08-09T21:40:00.007+10:00

Starring into your eyes leads me to the most marvellous place.
Don't take me there again.
___________________________________________
It was a windy, bright, sunny day with an indecisive sky,
when these pair of wings fell from the sky

Credit to Sunni for leading me across the tar to make this delightful discovery.

"Why College is Important"

2009-07-29T00:15:00.002+10:00

In short: Look at the big picture, think before you speak, be constructive and deductive, don't be a douche-bag, don't have too much pride, have passion for discovery, don't follow blindly, be humble in your knowledge and not so full of cynicism that you can't see the wisdom of these words.

Cakewalk

2009-07-25T16:10:00.005+10:00

I look over to him, he's on all fours, throwing up blood under the tree. Such a pastoral scene, I'd like to paint it - the pale late afternoon sky, the dried green of the trees, the little man bent over like a dog on the ground beneath it all, then the splash of red at the bottom of the canvas, seeping into the soil.

Cakewalk, 'Things We Didn't See Comming' by Steven Amsterdam

I thought it was a rather nice scene too, though I didn't have any paint, and i'm uncomfortable with my colour theory.

I'm quite enjoy this collection of short stories of Amsterdam. They are all very concise and authentic. This collection of stories all seem to be based around different apocolytpic scenarios of extreme weather; tryanic, sparten governments; or a mixture of the two. The characters he conjores are both extreme yet believable. Amsterdam's tales are bold, original and sneakily affecting; a delightful insight into humanity.

Result of an Unchangeable Mannerism.

2009-07-18T16:08:00.004+10:00

It's amusing what comes to mind at 2am in the morning, after a long interesting day.

Cutest?

2009-07-14T01:46:00.001+10:00

Who is the Cutest?

Dgn Philosophy

2009-07-07T18:49:00.002+10:00

Extract of handwritten notes from DGN1001, Design Theory Lectures.

Design in an exercise in truth and narrative, function and reflection on society.
Simplicity we should deal with, subtlety to let us escape from the complexity and chaos

Design is like making a cake. Putting everything that you know and love: peanut butter, grapes, nutella, vegimite, all into a mixer just doesn't work. You must pick one thing that works, and emphasis it by means of compliments and contrasts.

Standards and dimensions, mathematics, rules, fun shway. Things that are solid, ridig, give us a new feeling of freedom. In Design, chaos, random is developed from order. True chaos gives an uneasy feeling of instablility and panic. Federation Square may look random, but comfort can be found by it's mathematical order.

This order, rules and constrants come from the client. It gives direction, purpose, truth. Here is where an artist and a desgiener's differences comes about. Artist create masterpeices; whereas Designs need to expect their work to be abused, modified and manipulated to their clients' wishes without their consent.

Thus, limits and restriction gives harmony, simplicity, both in design and the clients modifcations.

Moths Zombies

2009-06-28T11:43:00.003+10:00

I have come to the conclusion that Moths are Zombie Butterflies. The following are my reasons:

1. They fly erratically and bump into everything, walls, ceilings, shelves, your face.

2. They always have an unnatural craving for light. A moth is passive in the night. But once you present to it a naked flame, it would try to consume it feverishly. Burning itself to death in the process. This is akin to the behaviour of zombies in the presence of humans. Zombies by themselves are very chill, they just lack the brains to crack out deck chairs and cool drinks. But once in the presence of humans? They become deviously bloodthirsty to the state of pure insanity.

3. Butterflies flutter majestically during the day. They come out to flutter, socialise and help pollinate flowers. Moths only come out at night to wreak havoc, and cause all sorts of mischief.

4. You barricade (closing windows and sealing doors) to your house to stop them coming in.

Abandoned Places

2009-06-18T12:55:00.012+10:00

I'm not sure what it is, but I love the look of abandoned places. I think it's the atmosphere, the large amount of dust, the sense of age and history past. Or maybe it's the clutter. Or perhaps it's the feeling that you stepped back to a moment frozen in time.

Pripyat, Ukraine

Credits: Photo by Artgrin

Oradour-sur-Glane, France
Credits: Photo by Curreyuk on Flickr

Gunkanjima, Japan
Credits: Photos by Artsyken on Flickr

I definately need to go these places one day.

Bus Ride

2009-06-17T00:00:00.004+10:00

_____________________________________________

It's a frosty friday night. There's a high school student sitting in front of me on the bus. Still adorned in his dark blue school blazer, he sits alone on the first elevated area of the bus.

At first, he sits down silently, shifiting and figiting until he finds the most comfortable spot. Then he becomes motionless.

Eight minutues and four passengers later, he aruptly rips and ipod out of his inner blazer pocket, alongwith an entanglement of wires. I noticed that he doesn't use the tangle prevention slidy-thing, and his headset's plastic has yellowed with age. Methodically he untangles it all, plugs the jack into it's appropriate spot, and plunges into a world of music. Once again he becomes motionless.

I turned to look out into the night, only my reflection stared back at me in disbelief. I noticed movement in the corner of my eye. Yes, the stduent infront of me was twitching. It wasn't anything disconcerning, but it certinatly wasn't rythmic. It was isolated too. Only his head would nod, a little off to his right. I presumed it was his music, but I heard no muffled beats nor tones from his headphones.

And so it went on. The bus thundered in the darkness, and this boy's head nodded in erractially infrequent intervals. Then suddenly he raises his hand and drops it to his left. His movements were fluid like water, elegant and impressive. He had tired to reach the stop request button; but there was nothing there. His hand lingered pointlessly. He turned his head in suprise, then looked up and realised the button has been relcated above. He pushed it, a bell rang, the bus stopped, he got off.

What a massive tool.

Explaining the Religions derived the Old Testament.

2009-06-14T17:45:00.004+10:00

_____________________________________________

No, Moslems don't believe that Jesus was the messiah.

Think of it like a movie. The Torah was the first one, and the New Testament is the sequel. Then the Qu'ran comes out, and it retcons the last one like it never happened. There's still Jesus, but he's not the main character anymore, and the messiah hasn't shown up yet.

Jews like the first movie but ignored the sequels, Christians think you need to watch the first two, but the third movie doesn't count, Moslems think the thrid one was the best, and Mormons like the second one so much they started writing fanfiction that doesn't fit with ANY of the series canon.

-An Extraordinary Journey.

2009-06-10T18:01:00.010+10:00

_____________________________________________

...is such a zucchini of a brief. THis is what we had to do:

To design an exeriential journey from selected spaces within the Caulfield Campus, Monash University.

Now, it would all sound perfectly normal to you. But e

ssentially they're getting us to create three "emotional intereptations of spaces". (I think it's bullshit, pointless and a bit silly). Although I suppose the main purpose is to get all the design student to think outside of the box, so I guess it works.

As usual, at the beginning of this project, our design tutor fluttered around helping people grap ideas for this supposedly difficult brief. When she came to me, I present my idea. She replied. "I don't even know why I bother trying to give you more ideas. I think you've set the bar of how far you can push the brief everytime."
So here's my concept. The three "spaces" that I took was the university library, the multiple flights of stairs, and the campus cafe 'Mama Dukes'.

The Library, the labyrinth, the maze.

The wacky and tacky Mama Dukes'; which is going to have a cover surrounding it

(The library is hidden in the funny white shroud at the back)

And this is what it ended up looking like. Not exactly beautiful in my book.

But at this time of the year, I really could not be bothered.

The structures that i have made are supposed to represent three required elements of "dynamism, pattern and stablility". It was explained to us the 'dynamism' was the oppoiste of stablility, that at first glace it would look as though the buildig was moving, or unstable or falling apart.

Let me explain this concept. Having reflected that a lot of my design pieces seem to lack a bit of depth, for my reasoning was purely based on aesthetic and humour rather than deapth of thought...I decided to try something different. So I wrote something, a little story behind it all:

The journey begines at the library. The yellow figures are zombie representations of university students, in particular the Art and Design students. They all seek individuality, but the great irony is that they are all push through the same system, the winning formulae to achieve this greater education. It's a commentary on University life, we study the past to become something greater. We are all essentially graded against each other, so that the factory can dish away the rejects and the unsuitable. My extraordinary journey begins at the library, the fountain of knowledge, and leads towards the university cafe, which is cramped, and has a very homely feel to it. There, they are able to re-create, and be themselves and forget about the heinous grading system.

Surely this makes sense no?

Trios (x)

2009-06-02T22:23:00.003+10:00

_____________________________________________

It's a strange feeling floating against the ceiling. You get a two contradictory messages from your head: you're lying on your back, you're going to fall on your face. Though it's especially delightful floating in public places where you gaze gently down, and watch the masses scramble like ants. Up against the ceiling, you get a strange feeling of loneliness mixed, shaken, with a dash if superiority. It is odd indeed.

The ceiling is very different from the ground, for it is mostly void of obstacles; except for the odd occasional light fixture, or pillar. Apart from all that, it's just a large empty space of beauty and magnificence.

Pretentiousness strives up here. Everyone talks is complete sentences, without contractions, slang nor abbreviations. They all hide behind glorious masks, all too scared to relax, too perplexed, too paranoid of the views of the masses. But the reoccurring trend is that everyone on the ceiling seems completely unaware that the masses really couldn't care.

"Eric, what are you doing?" surprised I clumsily nudged the ceiling, turnning myself around. It was Smuck in his snappy suit, cigar smoldering in his mouth, glass of brandy in his palm.

"I dont know." I sincerely whispered. I looked down at myself, i was in a warm hoody and my most comfortable jeans; had a blunt pencil in one hand and a crumpled note in the other. I looked to my left and there were a few friends off in the corner admiring each others classically formal styles and cuts, playing a bridge and talking 'serious business'.
"Come Eric, come join us for a spot of bridge would you?" they invited
I looked back at Smuck. He shrugged and casually tossed his glass over his shoulder, rolled up his crip white sleaves over his jacket, fished out a small fedorer and wore it at an angle. He spoke chirpily, "There's a subtle difference between being stubborn and making a statement." He span, and joined a gang of loud intoxicated youths. "Come devious children, let us bring havoc to this pomposity of the night" he called out with a hungry toothy grin.

Perhaps it's time to loose some altitude, and come back down to earth; where I were born, where I belong.

You were never made, nor can you afford such exquisit tastes. So why delude yourself! Come back down. you know you don't belong there.

_____________________________________________
Scribble, scribble, dot, dot, underline, and the musical tink of fallen wood.

Race

2009-05-29T23:51:00.005+10:00

_____________________________________________
There's a race out in the main road.
Engines; warm and firey.
Life and fuel buzzing through
with more energy and excitement
than ever before.

This is not the finals,
but everything is at stake.
Everything is on show,
everything is at risk.

The crouds are electrifying,
but very few are watching.
Great banners, colours and emblems adorn the walls,
gleaming armour, charming smiles, patterns and trophies.

Green and a bang signaled the start.
They moved forwards in leaps and bounds,
analysing every move, every thought, every word;
but my engine failed to start.

_____________________________________________

No, it's not a poem, just a series of phrases.

2009-05-25T23:45:00.004+10:00

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Everyone bleieves what they do is right and normal. People tend to regard themselves s reasonably intellegient and capable. Therefore, it can be said that it is best to be humbe, respect everyone's opinion, reason and perspective. Being aware of this hypothesis, we can assume that we are pretty much the same as everyone else, that we too believe that we are above the mainstream society in terms of intelligence and taste.

I found this marvellous discussion board: Reddit.

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On a thread about data loss on Reddit a rumour of the electronic phenomenon known as "digital dust"surfaced. Essentially it's a phenomenon which occurs to all forms of electronicQ media: that comptuer files slowly degrade themselves until the become damaged and unreadable. The example of an mp3 file was given. That after a few years, you could really tell the difference. The follow question also surfaced:

actiondan: OMG all my photos are stored as "JPEGS"? i noticed some of the older ones are gettig a bit blocky. what should i do?
nekoniku: First you have to make sure all the pegs are good and tight. If they aren't tight, the digital fabric the jpeg is printed on will stretch, producing the effect you have noticed.

epic troll is epic.
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Also from Reddit, there is a delightful thread made completely out of puns. If i pig loses its voice is it disgruntled? Please, you must read the third post onwards as Mr_Smartypants flaunts out his interlectual wit.

-videotape.

2009-05-21T19:55:00.006+10:00

_____________________________________________

A good friend of mine, who is trying to find solace after an obviously emotional breakup with who she believed was her one true, asked me.

"What on earth do you do with yourself? Don't you just get bored? All I seem to ever talk about is bread, work and fish. What should I do to save myself from memories of him?"

I pretty much ignored her latter question. I believe I answered it at the moment, but my mind was occupied with that single thought. "What on earth DO you do with yourself?"

Eric seems to be in a routine. He wakes up. Gets to uni. Goes to lectures. Sits alone. Goes to tutes. Does the work, alone. It seems as though his only highlights of his current tertiary weekly life is: Fencing, which is relatively social as he gets to befriend and hurt the same people; and his socialable Thursdays, spent with various characters from various areas. There are also lazy friday afternoons where he often enjoys doing nothing at all with a few loved friends. But this is not what Eric is most concerned about.

The real question Eric is pondering, is what on earth he thinks about all day. This good friend of his is suffering from a mixture of boredom, regret, heavy nostalgia and confusion. Before, when she was in happy-sugar-intoxicating-land, she had her other half to think about. But you Eric. What goes on in your head on a day to day basis? Are you not affected by the common trend of pairing up at all? She had asked.

Eric seems to ponder on human interaction, relations with other people, as well as buildings and various other inanimate objects; but only when he's bored. Eric likes to occupy his time watching people walk around campus. It all may sound a little silly, mainly because it's all a lie. For he doesn't do anything, just ambles around until he sees a familier face.

His head doesen't actually contain all that much. In fact it's quite empty. There are no picture frames nor any windows. Just a nice sterdy wooden chair and a old faulty video player. He sits and watches memories of the old playing over and over again.

-smuck.

-baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.

2009-04-23T00:18:00.006+10:00

_____________________________________________

We were told to expand further on our idea. So, more sheep were created.
Sheep are strange creatures. They decided to toy colour, texture and form.

We were given a few constrants and ideas. Two variants were needed, one emphasising the use of colour, the other with incoperation a "found object". Found object, an amazingly broad term, apparently widely used in the Monash Design Community? It means an existing object, that has already been made, modelled for another use; and we first year design students grab it and incoperate it into our work. Sort of like collaging.

It's all very silly in my book. Surely everything is creatured for another purpose then making sheep.
_____________________________________________

You can't really see this one properly. I made the sheep out of clear plastic pockets and stuffed their stomachs with cotton balls. Yes, there is a tree with a tyre swing and a fencing. Do you see? Can you look? At the BAa?
_____________________________________________

Going a little psychedelic with silly last minute inspiration from dear old Dr Seuss and his strange fishy books. Colour co-ordination to differienciate letter from letter. Purple grass because...why not?
_____________________________________________
Sheep sure are strange creatures.

strange shapes, sleep deprivation and the mysterious case of 4am make my photography skillz terrible.

-Odd.

2009-04-08T21:10:00.005+10:00

_____________________________________________

Sometimes, I'm a little worried as to exactly what the first impression is that I'm giving people:

"You should meet my friend, he and you are so much alike. Sometimes I imagine what would happen if I locked you two in a room. You see, what I imagine, is that after an extend period of time, both of you will be wearing lampshades on your head, sitting cross legged on the floor, slapping the group and manically laughing." - Dave

Another one described me as:

"you're twisted.... but it's a nice kind of twist.... like being the only bent straw in the mcdonald's dispenser" - Stephen

I'm quite fond of times when people think I'm a little strange; but at which point should I start being terrible concerned?

.baa-

2009-04-04T20:50:00.004+11:00

_____________________________________________

Ah yes, yet another Design project. This time we were given one week to complete it. Although, thankfully, no background research or developmental sketches were required. So, I dived head first into it.

This project was aptly named "Three letter word". We were to pick a three letter word, and some how represent it in a three dimensional form, using the principle of Letterform and only the use of planar materials. I was stuck with what word to choose for quite a while. But I settled for the bleat of a sheep: "baa".

The told us that planar materials are things that come in flat sheets, ranging from planks of bulsar wood to wire mesh. Me being me, the cheap one who would attempt to do every design project under the tiniest budget, decided to use cartridge paper.

There, Vola! It's done. Three sheep and a strange deranged tree. Do you see the world "baa". Someone said it was a bit far fetched; my excuse is that they gave me one week.

_____________________________________________

Having just been born, I decided to give the sheep a quick roam around the house before cementing their feet to a board.

- 金魚 .

2009-04-04T19:44:00.009+11:00

I have strange goldfish. This one is roughly 13 yrs old.

It's been sitting in the corner of the tank like that for three days now.
_____________________________________________

This didn't happen today, but we have no moved our fish tank outside. I admit that I'm pretty disconnected with these goldfish. I don't even feed them. But they manage to survive. It's a little crazy, starting with 12 fish, now down to the final 4. Some of them have mutated a bit.

As a child, I had a little ordering system with these fish. I went and labeled each fish with a member of the Yuen family, though because we were a small family, not all of them were named. They were the exciting times when the fish tank was completely full. But they all slowly died, one by one. And only the on named Grandma is left. If I recall correctly, think the fish that I labeled as Eric went first.

Grandma and Mutant
(mutant only has one googley eye, the other one is missing. It's...just a socket)

Cheeky. Because he's fat.

Unnamed. He's not dieing. He's just lazy.
_____________________________________________

It's a bit sad I think. I've had these goldfish for so long. They never do anything, though rationally, it wouldn't make a difference if they went. Then again I'm not very rational person.

Murti-Bingism

2009-04-04T16:30:00.007+11:00

The Captive Mind - Czeslaw Milosz.
Translated from the polish by Jane Zielonko
Published in 1953
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I've been attempting to read this book for a while now. I found it in the european literature section of the university library. It's a fascinating social commentary on the society and people of Warsaw, Praque, Bucharest and Budapest. It attempts to explore "how the human mind functions in the poeple's democracies." Anyway, here's a few extracts:

_____________________________________________

From "The Pill of Murti-Bing"

Let us admit that a man is no more than an instrument in an orchestra directed by the muse of History. It is only in this context taht the notes he prouces have any significance. Otherwise even his most brilliant solos become simply a highbrow's diversions.

We are not concered with the question of how one finds the courage to oppose the majority. Intsead we are concerted with a much more poignant question: can one write well outside that one real stream whose vitality springs from its harmony with historical laws and the dynamics of reality? Rilke's poems may be very good, but if they are, that means there must have been some reason for them in his day. Contemplative poems, such as his, could never appear in a people's democracy, not only because it would be difficult to publish them, but because this writer's impulse to write them would be destroyed at it's very root. The objective conditions for such poetry have disappeared, and the intellectual from whom I speak is not one who believes in writing for the burea drawer. he curses and despairs over the censorship and demands of the publishing trusts. Yet at the same time, he is profoundly suspicious of unlicensed literature. The publishing license he himself receives does not mean that the editor appreciates the artistic merics of his book, nor that he expects it to be polular with the public.

_____________________________________________

From "Looking to the West"

Men tends to regard the order he lives in as natural. The houses he passes on his way to work seem more like rocks rising out of the earth than like products of human hands. he considers the work he does in his office or factory as essential to the harmouious functioning of the world. The clothes he wears are exactly what they should be, and he laughs at the idea that he might equally well be wearing a Roman toga or medievil armor. He respects and envies a minister of state or bank direct, and regards the possession of a considerable amount of money as the main guarantee of peace and security. He cannot believe that one day a rider may appear on the street he knows well, where cats sleep and children play, and start catching passer-by with his lasso. he is accustomed to satisfying those of his physiological needs which are considered private as discreetly as possible, without realising that such a pattern of behavior is not common to all human societies. In a word, he behaves a little like Charlie Chaplin in The Gold Rush, bustling about in a shack poised precariously on the edge of a cliff.

His first troll along a street littered with glass from bomb-shattered windows shakes his faith in the "naturalness" of his world...
...Farther down the street, he stops before a house split in half by a bomb, the privacy of people's homes - the family smells, the warmth of the beehive life, the furniture preserving the memory of loves and hatred - cut open to public view. The house itself, no longer a rock, but a scaffolding of plaster, concrete, and brick; and on the thrid floor, a solitary white bathtub, rain-rinsed of all recollection of those who once bathed in it. Its formerly inluential and respected owers, now destitute, walk the fields in search of stray potatoes. Thus overnight money loses its value and becomes a meaningless mass of printed paper.

He finds he acquires new habits quickly. Once, had he stumbled upon a corpse on the street, he would have called the police. A crowd would have gathered, and much talk and comment would have ensued. Now he knows he must avoid the dark body lying in the gutter, and refrain from asking unnecessary questions. The man who fired the gun must have had his reasons; he might well have been executing an Underground sentence.

"If somethign exists in one place, it will exist everywhere"

_____________________________________________

I find this book so amazingly dense. I've had it for a week now, and i'm only 20 pages in. But I find that I'm reading every paragraph twice, and picking up so many new things along the way.

When someone is hostely 55% right, that's very good and there's no use wrangling. And if someone is 60% right, it's wonderful, it's great luck, and let him thank God. But what's to be said about 75% right? Wise people say this is suspicious. Well, and what about 100% right? whoever says he's 100% right is a fanatic, a thug, and the worst kind of rascal

- An Old jew of Galicia

_____________________________________________
I wish I was european, they're names are so beautiful.

.Triptych-

2009-04-01T21:11:00.011+11:00

This is not a picture of a rag. This is a picture of my paint cloth. It has a title thankyou very much.
_____________________________________________

My very first design project at Monash University. I was excited to begin with, but it got a bit tedious in the end.

We were given two objects and a word: Stapler, A pair of headphones, and the word 'vague'; and told to represent them in some way. So with these objects, I added a little magic.

the headphones
( THANKYOU SUNNI)

the word: vague

the stapler.
_____________________________________________
S: Balser wood is a planar material. It's also very malleable
E: *facepalm*...why am i around these people
_____________________________________________

I handed in this project today, along with a sort oral presentation on our ideas and concepts. My work seems so shallow and superficial. Everyone else seemed to bring a meaning to their project, deeper thoughts and concepts. Everything of mine I do, because it looks cool, or because I think it would be amusing.

I was tired today, having rushing this project when it was due the night before (good time management eric!). I ended up sleeping at like 4am, after painting for 5 straight hours. So thus therefore, I have establish a relation between the level of fatigue and my tolerance of people. I don't think I can stand the people for much longer, I'm such a snob.

_____________________________________________
p.s. I should get off my ass and study more.

Trios (iix)

2009-03-22T15:38:00.006+11:00

_____________________________________________

"I want to be normal."
"Why on earth would you do that?" Smuck scornfully ask as he curlled up on a soft felt arm chair with a steaming cup of tea.
"Well," My ceramic cup tinked against the tiny delicate saucer. "I want to be socially accepted everywhere I go."
"Remember that theory you had back in year six? About making friends?"
"Yeah, 'Be yourself and friends will flock to you.'"
"There was another one wasn't there? Something about the environment..."
"Oh that's right, 'Change your environment to suit yourself, don't let your environment change you'?"
"Surely they they have been successful in the reciepe of friend making? Look at all the lovely people around you."
I lay my teacup on the window sill and took a good look around. The room is awash with lazy warm light. A fire place in the corner, a kettle on the boil. Groups of people gossipping, couple snuggling away from the winter chill. Laughter, happiness and glee seemed to be suspended right across the entire ceiling; twirling around the chandalier. I sat by the open window.
"I guess these people aren't too bad."
"I say that you've gotten to where you are by generally being the, admittedly...eccentric person that you are. So why are you complaining?"
"You see thee all these people in this room?" I nodded at the mass of people who have all decided to join in the festivities of butchering a pinata.
"Yep, they seem to have having fun."
"See all the people out there?" I indicated out into the ice cold street down below, with a nod of the head. The busy noise of the city, as cars rushed by in inconcievable haste, honking and blaring their way through the jungle. People swearing and voicing their concerns openly to the public. People are struggling to get through the day. People releasing their stomach contents unwillfully onto the streets. People loosing ounces of blood. People passing out in the gutter. Superficial relationships, garbage conversations, reckless loitering. "I want to get into that."
"You're an idiot."
"I know. But surely I'm sicking with my own motto, changing my environment to suit myself."
"You and I both know that's not what you meant by environment."
"Yeah..."
"And No. No you don't know. You really are an idiot. Take that piece of advice from your suffering grandmother: 'There are some things that if you do, there's no turning back.' She's told you the stories, of the kids being forced into gangs, kids being assaulted, right in the middle of the street. How nobody dared to intervene, just watched on. It it through your fucking skull boy, why the fuck would you pick up shit?. Just don't do it."
"What happens if I do?"
Smuck leaned back in his chair looking exhausted. "See these people here?" Indicating the joyful people in the room.
"Yeah?"
"They won't know you anymore."

Frydays

2009-03-21T16:56:00.006+11:00

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G: I need feeding, let's go hunting!
E: You can't hunt. You forage. Because you're a woman

_____________________________________________

Fridays seem to be my highlights of my week. Uni always tends to flop over, and fall unconcious at around midday; leaving me plenty of time to commute to the city in an attempt to rendezvous with some long lost but never forgotten friends. It always seems to be wonderfully joyful and merry, as these people that i'm around never fail to bore me.

It's interesting though, I find I'm learning more and more about the few people I call friends every time I meet them; every moment seems to be a new experience. Though admittedly I'm finially starting to become that little bit sharper; yet at the same time, I've become blunter.

_____________________________________________

Mark: Ah you see, Maddy's construction is classic I-beam structure; which means half the material but equal in strength.
Eric: But it's not an I-beam. That would be a square bracket structure. I-beams look like I's. That doesn't look like an I. It's a square.
Maddy: Yeah, Eric would know, he is doing structures after all.
Mark: ...
_____________________________________________

Yaarrrgggghhhhh!!!!
_____________________________________________
Roll me another, and let's hit the road again.

Flash Flash Sparkle Dance

2009-03-07T22:06:00.007+11:00

_____________________________________________

Smoke, booze, sweat and heat.
The vibrations shake the ground, tremble my feat, beat my heart.
At first, the people just stood around. But the sounds get stronger, they couldn't resist; their limbs started twitching. And soon, all those who could dance or thought that they could; were jiving at full throttle. Most people didn't mind. Most people turned up tipsy or drunk.

_____________________________________________
"This club is shit, there are two many guys"
_____________________________________________

I guess that's the joy of clubbing right there. Loud music, a intoxicated carefree attitude, and complete lack of personal space. Idealy it would be an extremely pleasurable experience with a large group of friends. Although all in all, dispite the massive groups and the up beat atmosphere; it's possible to feel amazingly alone. It certainly is a strange experience, being stuck in a croud, who all seem to be twitching to a particular beat, but very little words are ever exchanged. In fact, every word needs to be projected with strenuous force in order to cover the four centimeters of space between you vocal cords and an acquaintences drum.

_____________________________________________
I think you're right, things I enjoy tend to be a bit more subtle. Does that make me an old man?

Old Rocks

2009-02-24T01:29:00.008+11:00

_____________________________________________

There's something new about the happen. I'm a little anxious. Change is good; though this new pool is a little different than the last. For the members of this pool, already have their roots firmly planted into their ground. They have all sprouted strong limbs and trunks. They have been trimmed and scarred. Some of us will walk in with partners and familiar faces. Some of will walk entirely alone. It would be an interesting and a most introspective experience.
_____________________________________________

Don't be weighed down by old rocks; but always hold on to the rare handful of people who you can truly talk to. It is afterall, the Old Rocks are the ones which give you all your support and strength to reach out, and expand.

Tasmania

2009-02-23T21:17:00.009+11:00

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For the Past two weeks I've been in Tasmania. It's a really beautiful place. It's feels like absolute wilderness. Yes there are farms, a multitude of sheep and cattle; grapevines and fruit, seafood and cheeses. But the national parks there are amazing.

The atmosphere is tranquilic.
The air sees like crystal.

The water is the blue-ist i've ever seen.

The weather is eratic.

The sheep are in abundance.

_____________________________________________

What are you going to do in Tasmania?
Witness erosion.
Isn't that like watching paint dry, or watching grass grow; but over thousands and thousands of years?
Yep.

I thought....

2009-02-07T17:48:00.004+11:00

_____________________________________________

... I should leave on a better note. It's something like 2am. I have a James Squire I.P.A next to me. Everything is relatively packed. Mum's cooled down from her tyrant grip and seemingly heated actions of issuing orders, supervising and critiquing packing techniques. Truth to be told, I think i'm going to enjoy Tasmania. Although I think as a family we're a little overpacked. We even decided to bring a wooden table; though we didn't bring the kitchen sink, just a yellow tub.

_____________________________________________

This comic strip is brilliant.
(click in enlarge)

_____________________________________________

I'm supposed to wake up at like 5am, to finish off packing and head for the Port Melbourne. Despite all that I'm missing out for the whole fortnight that I'm away, I think I'll enjoy Tasmania. I've always had a love for wonderful scenery, although a MAJOR problem is that I've noticed some terrible distortion in the 18-135mm variable lens for my camera. At a wide 18mm, objects on the horizontal extremes are stretched. Making them look sorter and fatter. Grrr! But, it's hardly noticeable.

I think I'm going to enjoy Tasmania.
I think I'm going to enjoy Tasmania.
I think I'm going to enjoy Tasmania.

if i say it enough it might actually happen

Shoebox.

2009-02-05T01:45:00.003+11:00

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There's a little Shoebox under my bed. It's made of cheap composite cardboard. A simple mass produced box made for temporary storage.

Over the years, dust had has gathered, and anchored itself into the once smooth surface of the lid; rendering it like poorly kept velvet. One corner has been crumpled by a heavy landing. Another corner in perfect condition; but has been tainted by the recent floods.

It's not a very exciting shoebox. It's construction is simple. A rectangular shoebox, three quarter's it's length making it's width. Everything is double layered for durability and strength. The base is cut to be collapsible for easy shipment. The lid is simple. It's merely the same rectangular shape, just a tad larger in both length and width, and exactly one eighth of it's base in height. The lid is double layered too.

The entire shoebox is tied with a long piece of decorative ribbon. The sight of this ribbon will remind you of Christmas. It's base colour is red, with a centre of green running through , and two gold stripes running parallel beside it.

The ribbon is actually tied quite affectionately to the battered old shoebox. The ribbon is first balanced at the top, carefully aligned at the centre. The two ends then drape over the sides, and converge against each other at the base. Once the full length of the ribbon has past each other they are twisted together: one heading north, one heading south; using each other as an anchoring point. The ribbon then runs back up to top, and runs under the starting point, meeting it at ninety degrees. Then, and only then, does the ribbon form into a bow. Where the two loops are larger than the ends; where the left loop is seventeen percent larger than the loop on the right.

There's nothing too important in the Shoebox. But it cannot be lost.
There's nothing too delicate in the Shoebox. But it must not be damaged.

There's nothing too embarrassing in the Shoebox. But it cannot be shown with pride.

There's nothing in. The Shoebox.

Yuen Family Gathering.

2009-02-02T18:12:00.010+11:00

I never really understood those trees. Why are they there?

_____________________________________________

The entire Yuen family gathered today. Grandpa, grandma, my two uncles and aunties and all my cousins, all gathered in old Melbourne town. It is a tradition after all; for the family to drop everything and go home to spend the New Year; although we're a little slack. Our last full gathering happened three years ago. Grandfather was over the moon over all his sons gathering for the new year; and I was eager to see my cousins too. They had driven down from Sydney, and were living at my grandfather's house for a week (17th Jan - 24st Jan).

And Because they were staying at my Grandfather's house, they will never be an ill supply of food. Asian parents are like that I guess, especially if they've gone through a war. To put it into context, my cousin Brian, said that he was absolutely stuffed, but continued to eat out of politeness. And he's the one that can eat a 2kg of Sarah Lee Lasagne in one sitting by himself.

I have to say that the week really went by like a blurr. It was the first time in my life in Melbourne that I had gone and done something full every single day of the week. It's amazingly tiring but enjoyable.

Sunday was a trip to Melbourne's CBD, walking along swanston street, Royal Arcade, Block Arcade. I love Melbourne's strange desire to have more café in it's alleyways than it can hold. The Sydney kids agree too.
I don't remember what happened on what day anymore. All I know is that we went to the beach once, and I got burnt. We went bowling once, and I got a score of 48; though i beat my cousin at pool. We watched Role Models which was surprisingly enjoyable and witty. We finished two bottles of 10 and 12 year old Scotch Whiskey between 4ish people. We went iceskating. We went indoor Rock Climbing. It was a jolly good time.

As usual, we took a complete family photo:

And less formal ones were taken too:

_____________________________________________

I dunno, I like my photographs a little darker, with softer colours. Dad thinks it's unacceptable. What do you think?

Excavating

2009-01-14T21:49:00.007+11:00

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You sure do find lots of interesting stuff when you're cleaning up the godforsaken store room; ruthlessly ruled by the Dust King. For he, as he strokes his long elegant ears and scratches his twitch nose, commands and gathers his minions to take over, invade and cover every square inch of area possible. He is truly a horrid king.

_____________________________________________

_____________________________________________
My cousins from Sydney are down to stay in Melbourne from the 17th to the 24th. Grandparents are over the moon and jumping around all foodstuff outlets from Springvale to Dandenong for the freshest produce available. It's going to be a complete family gathering, it's been a while since we've had everyone together. I think last time it was in '98. Busy busy busy!

Hanging Rock

2009-01-07T23:01:00.008+11:00

_____________________________________________
'twas a pleasant day, the sun was shinning high in the sky. A day of opportunity ahead. And also 170km of roads to cover.

It was a family outing to Hanging Rock, one of many uniquely Australian rocks. The drive there was long. I was driving, so it was very exhausting. Especially in a fully loaded 7 seater Japanese van with a silly 2.0 litre engine. It was an interesting journey. Lots of roads which went up and down like the waves of an ocean, and I believe the little van I was driving left a trial of angered drivers due to my variation in speed.

For example, there was a stretch of road heading towards Eltham. It was an 70km/h zone, but because of the wave like nature of the road, I had to accelerate the car just before it hit the enormous incline. You see, if I was to be a good citizen and maintain my speed limit, I would be hitting 70km/h as I descended the slope (dragging the brake notoriously), but once I hit the incline; the engine would quickly kick to 2500 revs, and slow down to about 50. That would cause everyone behinds me to swerve, or to kindly indicate and overtake. Thus, therefore, for the ideal safety of my passengers and my car; I decided to let gravity accelerate the car as it thundered down hill. Giving momentum a gentle nudge at the bottom of the slope would kick the car to 75-80, which causes my incline to be a bit more acceptable race of 60-65.

Oh but there's worse. On the 110km/h country side roads, an incline would kick me down to 80. Now that's BAD and awfully frightening with thundering 10 tonne trucks roaring behind.

Anyway we safely arrived at Hanging Rock. It was a bit of a disappointment.

But there were lots of strange rocks to climb and conquer.

But I must point out the wonderfully amusing faces;

which happened to be formed out of coincidence.

The rock on the far left looks a bit missplaced in Australia though.

And being silly with my brother is always glorious fun.
brrrrmm!

-2009.

2009-01-02T21:26:00.004+11:00

No pictures today.
New years began with me running down a flight of stairs to get my bottle opener.

_____________________________________________

I never liked being organised. There's nothing like watching chaos folding up nearly in front of you. With no restrictions and no boundaries. Decisions being signed, waxed and sealed without second thoughts. When things are done this way, people tend not to be disappointed or left with an empty feeling, for there were no hopes or desires there to begin with; just a giant white canvas, and a whole lot of paint.

_____________________________________________

Happy (belated) new years to all.
Hope you all have a merry time with bellies full of laughs
and
healthy livers.

Christmas

2008-12-25T19:38:00.019+11:00

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E: MERRY CHRISTMASS !
S: im not christian so that's technically pretty offensive
S: it should just be "happy holidays"

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.23rd - Upon the merry 23rd of the lonely month of Decemeber, a bunch of kids (I included) decided to run along with a bag full of munchies and five dollars to attend the rehearsals of the traditional annual "Carols by Candlelight" held every Christmas Eve. I think.

In the gates we went to the sounds of a terrible rendition of Ave Maria, blasting out of the Myer Musical Bowl. But the sky was blue with not a cloud in sight. The sun was shining and everyone seemed to be infused with the Christmas Spirit. One couldn't help but smile.

These were the rehearsals, so they did redo, and redo certain songs and acts over and over again, all of which didn't get far too annoying. Which in mainly because each rendition were separated by lack of carols and music all together. It was overall generally uneventful, and sometimes we (who love music at our ears) cringed in pain as the little choir boy's voices seemed to conjure a cheese grater, and as the sounds wafted over the hill, the grater began it's journey up and down the side of your face.

Ok, it wasn't THAT bad. I just found it annoying.

An indiscriminate amount of time passed, then suddenly there was great a upheaval, and the cocky hosted announced that there was going to be a special surprise appearance from Hi-5! I hate them, I really do. I was hoping that they would invite the Wiggles, because they ARE generally better in every way, shape form. Sadly, they didn't appear in their big red car. Humphrey the bear turned up though.

B: Why doesn't Humphrey ever talk?
E: Because they cut out his vocal cords when they chained him as a dancing bear.
W: That's horrible.

And now the terrible atrocity! Humphrey with his muffled sound, indicated that there was a giant present sneaking it's way onto the stage. The silly Hi-5 members enthusiastically ran towards the box. The suspense was great. Mother lead their little children closer to the stage. "We have a special visitor" the crew exclaimed! Then, with the full attention of the audience, the giant box opened, and out came Santa! Or at least that's what the Hi-5 crew exclaimed. What everybody else saw, was a little different.

It's pictured below.

Seriously. Why would you do that?
Fair enough it wasn't a dress rehearsals, but if you're letting the public in, many who have brought along little toddlers and children, you could at least keep the great lie a secret to their young minds!

The day moved onto night. Glow sticks were broken out, Candles were lit. I spent the rest of the night flirting with fire. Thus the header.

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.nativity - About two weeks ago, a friend of mine approached me and asked if I could help with the nativity scene a church. Whole heartedly I agreed. I was given a brief, an example, a style to folloand a deadline. I had a week to do it. And because of it, I was forced to cancel a nice would of been trip to Chadstone to bowl. Pity.

The concept that I was given was terrific. I thought it was brilliant. There were two illustrations that were to be done. One side, was a nativity scene of the modern day world, homeless gathering for a Christmas party around a fire. The other was of the traditional nativity scene. Now, these two scenes, were to be stuck against each other, back to back. The modern side faces on audiences, and the traditional side faces away. Behind this illustration, is a mirror.

Another friend, Alan, was given the job of illustrating the modern scene; I was given the ancient nativity scene:
The concept was intended to illustrate the love and joy of Christmas. The meaning of the Christmas tradition in the modern do world. What we see first is the homeless gathering at the shelter with a couple of dogs. But if we look closer, into the reflection, we see ourselves standing amongst those present at the ancient nativity scene. Although obviously, this concept all sounds better in writing, in practice, not so much.

This was how it turned out:

The little angles at the top were done by the children in our parish with colour pencils and markers.

my work, in ze refleztionz
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MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Trios (ix)

2008-12-20T23:25:00.009+11:00

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I kept flicking through all 26 channels of programmable static. There was nothing but trashy sit-com's, sports and recycled news on the moving picture box. I kept flick through the channels, click click click.
"Who are they?" Ice cubes tinkled in the bourbon glass as it was brought up to the owners lips.
"Who?" I didn't even bother to look around, I knew Smuck had decided to pay me another visit. I continued to stare into the endless rhapsody of television static.
"Those monster's banging on the window" he replied. His voice quivered near the end.
I sighed and turned my head around to look at him in his clever suit. I followed his out stretched pointing hand.
"Just some old ghosts." I grunted.
"They look angry"
"I'm not at all surprised"

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funny, that looks like Alana's house.

Passing Time

2008-12-19T14:11:00.015+11:00

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Time is made for it

It's been a while since I last blogged. I have to say I haven't done much with myself. There were many days spent sitting in front of the computer, running away to strange enchanting worlds with the sole purpose of making the sun rise and fall quickly. There were only a few days which were spent around friends. They were merry; brief, but recharging.

.interviews - These were supposed to be much more important to me than my exam results; for whether or not I get into my course of choice: industrial design, is compeltely based upon . So armed with my little arsenal consisting of two folios from two subjects and a scaled display model (right) placed in a rather large orange fruit box, I confronted my first opponent: Swinburne.

Dearly old sWINburne in Kew and allocated the interview at 4:30pm. I rocked up in a nice dark suit, grey and light blue 3mm striped black dress shirt, with no tie and pointed shoes. Went up the escalator to the interview room, and examined the competition. What can I say? I was happy, nicely overdressed and throwing adding an extra hit of fear into my neighbours. Overall the interview went smoothly. The people seemed impressed with my work, we spoke overtime, and I was leaving, the man (who introduced himself as the faculty head) said, "I think this course is perfectly suited for you, hope to see you next year". I was over the moon; pity swinburne is numbered 6 on my perference list.

Next up in line was Monash University. This is the most exclusive univesity, as they only take in a small class of about 20, in comparison to RMIT's 90 or Swinburne's 60. I also like them more, because they're facilities seem more professional, cleaner, more organised, and the work their students design seem more mature (in my opinion). Anyway, dressed in the same suit, with the same arsenal, crossed my fingers and hoped for the best. This interview was set at an early time at 11:20. But they were late, and ended up coming to invite me into their office at 11:35. So i was sitting there alone in a rather bleak office, with a Mac book pro sitting on the desk, and some scattered stationary. The rest of the room of blank. It was a rather interesting conversation, as we did speak overtime, but not only did I speak of the course, my work, but we side tracked onto discussing literature, especially on Roald Dahl's wonderful stories of turning the trivial and ordinary into a twisted wonderful gripping work of art. I thought it went rather well, I left with the last words from the faculty head saying, "It's obvious that you've put a lot of work in this." Which I presume is a positive thing. The terrible thing that happened was that I completely forgot to show him all the awards and certificates I got during school. GRRR!

Unlucky last was RMIT. They placed me at a very silly time of 5:30. You know, nap time. What they also did, was pull their interview of 200+ kids over two days straight. I happened to be the last applicant, on the last day. Everyone was anxious to leave and go home. So i was sitting there waiting in line in the interview room. Two of the five interviewing couples stretch and left, voicing their joy of finally completing their mammoth task. "Are we finished? Oh, one more," I head one of them groan. So I sat down and presented my things, folio and such and answered the obsecure questions that they asked. For example, "What can you say about design, given the example that in 1980's a man married his television?" Since they were looking tired, uninterested and wanted to finish quickly, I gave a silly answer: "I can't really say, there's a hospital for people like that; it is quite perverse afterall." They chuckled, and I gave them a serious answer. Overall the interview was short, the man merely glanced and quickly flicked through my folio. I walked out feeling crap.

.results - I came out with is very content; but i was more surprised, and humbled at my successful interviews! For all three universities! It's a nice position to be in.

.passing time - So now that everything's out of the way, I'm left sitting around twiddling my thumbs until the first-round offers for my course comes out (on the 20th of Jan). I must find something to do. So I've been passing my time watching a bunch of films that I've been planning to watch, slowly plotting through a list of reading material, and exploring the deranged perverse jungle on the interwebs.

I find myself ridiculously enjoying myself in the company of my friends. I find we don't usually end up doing anything, but loiter. It's terrific.

Trios (viii)

2008-11-27T00:01:00.006+11:00

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"Nice to see you again"
"Christ! Can you not do that everytime we meet?" I exclaimed as my pencil bounced off the desk and went hurling across the room.
"Sorry do what?" Smuck apepared in a smart snappy double-breasted suit with a french collar.
"Jump out on people at the most unexpected times."
"Oh..." Unphased he took out a pipe and procceeded to pat his jacket for a lighter as he sat down on a spendidly uphostered chair that i didn't own.
Silence washed between us, though it was quickly banished by the scratch of a match being lit.
"Jesus Eric, exams have finished for 15 days now and you're still idling at home." He paused and eyed my desk. "And what the hell are you doing at a desk with a pencil? Where are your friends?"
"They're away, enjoying themselves as they should."
"Why are you still here?"
"I have those silly interviews, you know, 20 minutes that can make or brake me!"
"I guess with that, you wouldn't of had much peace then."
"Let's not talk about it ok."
"Sure." Abruptly he stood up, "Let's go!" he said and snapped his fingers.
There was no blinding rays of light, nothing faded in or out, nothing exploded, but everything just appeared before me.
"You like hanging in the city don't you? I hate it." I cut in before he could react. "Well, I don't hate it, I just find it annoying because I have no idea where everything is. And the fact that I couldn't find any twine! Stop looking at me like that, it looks like you just saw something horridly sick!"
"Possibly because I think that you are, have you ever looked around you yet?" I stared ahead and saw the sky. I looked at my feet and saw the city below with it's networks of streets and roads, cars flowing like the stream, people crawling like ants. People were everywhere. Pouring of trams, coming out of shops. All talking, mostly smiling, looking joyful and generally happy.
"What on earth did you need twine for?"
"I found some brown wrapping paper...and I got a bit excited and carried away." I glanced to my side and saw he was shaking his head. "What?"
"Oh nothing, just thought you had put a tad too much effort into it." His expression quickly switched, swiftly morphing into something sinisterly devious. "Now to do what we came here to do!" He grabbed my arm tightly and led me to the opposite edge of the building. "Hush." Smuck pointed at a proud figure standing on the edge some distance up ahead. He had his hands on his hips, head high in the clouds, standing tall and ambitious. Smuck's footsteps became lighter; though his wooden heels shoes still clicked loudly on the floor.
"What are you doing?"
"Pouncing."
"Let an old pro show you how it's done"
Smuck shook his head in disbelief as he gestured me to lead. "I can't believe you just referenced the Lion King."
I bent my knees and proceeded slowly and steadily forwards, focusing more on shifting my weight and balancing then the direction in which I was heading. "So why are we doing this?" I whispered
"His name is Omega. Just go and surprise him." Smuck smiled gingerly. I wasn't convinced. "Look, we'll just get to him, and I'll do the talking."
I nodded in agreement.
As we got close, I realised that the figure was a lot shorter than he appeared. His green shirt was dirty, stained and scuffled. His pants was of a disgusting mustard yellow and his shoes seemed to be missing. And he had a strange repugnant scent.
I tapped on his shoulder.
He turned around. He had the friendliest face. The most innocent and pure smile I had ever seen. Happiness seemed to flow out of him. He grinned at me. But then he eyed Smuck. Omega's face began to crumble in disgust. His glow diminished. Omega looked power hungry, evil, mad, insane. Hatred leaked from him and polluted the environment like transmission oil spilled on the carpet.
"Suprise!" Smuck exclaimed in a cheerful voice and pushed him off the edge.
Omega raged.

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An endless seek of satisfaction and adrenaline.

Mission Complete.

2008-11-14T21:26:00.005+11:00

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Exams. They're done, finished gone. Isn't that brilliant? I'm officially not a high school student anymore. Sad. Most of the exams that I've done, i have to say that I definately didn't put 100% in. I probably should of been a lot more stressed about it all, but being me, it didn't happen. Why? Mainly because i'm a lazy worm. And also because the course that i'm aiming for at university doesn't REALLY need an Enter at all. Rather it relies purely on interivew and folio submissions. Currently I have for Swinburne (Product Design) on the 24th, 4pm; an admission test for RMIT (Industrial Design) 26th, 11am; and an Interview for Monash (Instrial Design) 27th, 11:30am.

Anyway, I enjoy myself far too much today. I'm totally Pro-Loitering. I should do it more often with friends. It's nothing like bumming around doing absolutely nothing with the company of those you love and enjoy. Oh but yay! Now that I have absolutely nothing to do, there shall be plenty of opportunities to drag people out of their houses for my selfish amusement and entertainment.

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I like taking pictures of food. And yes, this thing taste as good as it looks. Appearance IS reality for once.
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I had a "Pleasure Dome" today. It's wonderfully delicious. It's a complete overdose of chocolat-y goodness and sugar. I high recommend those who lust for chocolate, but this recommendation does come with a warning. If you are anything like me, you wouldn't want to eat another peice of chocolate for the rest of day. So all in all, I guess it's perfectly sufficient for forfilling your dairly chocolate dose. You wouldn't want anything thing again!

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Now that I've been completely liberated. I've starting to miss my school friends already. I think I even miss all those other people I found unpleasant during my high school days as well.

Finally. Graduated.

2008-10-24T01:25:00.003+11:00

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It has officially ended now. The past few days have been of an emotional roller-coaster ride. The distressing robbery of our last final day of school, which would of meant so much to me; the Media and it's manipulations of the truth; the rumours, the terror, the darkness, the pain. To me, I think the truth has been lost in the torture committed by the raw wave of emotion that swept across the year level. I won't deny that it was stupid, we ultimately got what we deserved, the events are most unfortunate. But hey, we made the most that we had, and made Valete night absolutely brilliant.

Yes, it was a formality. Though it was still good. It finally concluded what felt like a cliff hanger as we hang by a spaghetti thread of flesh between the school days, and swotvac. Nevertheless, it was brilliant. I can't deny that it wasn't emotional, but everyone was wonderfully united because of the recent events, it seemed as though in the hall of over 700, everyone knew better than what the media reported.

The school was wonderful, they gave us wonderful gifts to bid us farewell. As my own celebreation, I went and congradulated myself with an ice cold Coopers Pale Ale.

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We got an exclusive Ignatius issue reflection book, certificate vertifying our graduation, life long membership to the community of Old Xaverians, standard Old Xaverian issue tie, the 2008 graduation year book, graduation plaque, year level photograph, Class of 2008 wine glass, Certificate for amount of community service hours: numbered 273

Dad-cut

2008-10-19T20:56:00.006+11:00

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Personally, I don't like haircuts very much. But at the same time, I don't like having very long hair on the basis that I end up looking like a girl. On the other hand, I'm too lazy to walk down to the hairdressers and pay for a mediocre haircut. So, I resort to the pain, the ambiguous and uncertainty of a Dad-cut.

My father has always taken pride in cutting his own boy's hair. Since I can remember I have been getting haircuts from my father. They usually end up like a bowl, but surprisingly he manages to do it without using a bowl or any bowl like implements at any time during his campaign on my head.

One year, because I love my father so much, I decided to get it cut outside. I came back, and told him the skills and techniques which I had observed, and told him that he could try it out on my brother, or on me in the near future. That was last year.

This is now, the future, and this is my haircut.

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I look like a pageboy.

It's Here

2008-10-16T17:38:00.002+11:00

The pressure is on...

...but I'm not feeling it

Is this bad?

In other news. I got owned:

Fuck you seagate.

Large Revolving Doors

2008-09-28T16:01:00.003+10:00

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typography

Get a large ball of wool, and slowly unwind it as you walk the road

I don't know why, but writing down every word that comes to mind spontaneously is so amazingly fun.
I guess I got a bit carried away with the typography...

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Anyway, these are my childhood friends.
Hush Puppy. Last remainder of the three ViewSonic birds. Indian Ink. Elmo. Mr Happy. Foam dinosaur. Kekero. Sharky. Piggy. Cow.

Not sure why the bottle of ink is there.

Bach, Pooh and Chocolate

2008-08-26T18:53:00.006+10:00

These are becoming increasing harsh times. People are stretched, squashed and are being battered from all sides as we all run through the final leg of the VCE gauntlet. People have started biting now; lashing out absent-mindedly. I sit in hope that my wall is thick enough, though armour is starting to squeak now.

Silly Season is approaching. So it's a time for some silly joys.

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I'm totally hooked on Bach's Cello Suite. The House at Pooh Corner is so wonderfully welcoming after a stressful day. It's brilliant as I plunge down into it's old frail pages and admire the simple yet complexity the writers style, structure and adorably vocabulary. Pre-Disney Pooh is SO much cooler. And, who could go past a block of Chocolate <3

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here's a silly comic that I drew today.
get it? get it? get it? get it? get it? get it? get it?
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My brother said that the video wasn't THAT funny. But I laughed so hard when I first saw it at around 1:54

I can't decide

2008-08-05T19:14:00.009+10:00

Ok, there's the dilemma. Open days are insane. I'm going insane. Everyone is insane. I'm indecisive. I'm lost. I don't like it. I have a problem, I don't know what to do any more.

So many stories of the Youth, aspiring a life in the arts, disillusioned, blinded by their own glory, then upon realisation, falling and failing.

I don't want to be the next Paul Crabbe.

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Me. My Fantasy. My Façade. My Drive. My Guide.
My Conscience. My Pollution. My Insignia. My Treads

I like that monkey. I think he's funny. He is Block Monkey. He is cool.