Waylaid by Art

Cartographical exploits

Spent far too much time over the weekend doing the first bit of art (for a certain value of ‘art’) I’ve done in ages. A hand drawn map of London.

The idea (you can’t just draw something, you need to have an idea behind it for it to be real ‘art’) was to replicate half pages from the A-Z (the London street directory par exellence) by hand and then paste them all together. As each panel would be drawn without referencing the others the end result would be a fragmented, patchwork view of the city – kind of an exquisite corpse map – with roads, rivers and rail-lines fractured or just coming to dead stops. Close up it’s a mess, but zoomed out it’s still recognisably London.

(I suppose I could come up with some art-wank about it representing the tourist’s view of the city as a collection of disconnected enclaves surrounding tube stations, but that’s just a little too pretentious, even for me :))

The end result can be viewed here. Well, sort of the end result as after I scanned it I added another panel to the lower left. But you get the basic idea.

I was inspired to create the map by Londonist’s hand drawn map exhibition.Β  I’ve submitted it – guess we’ll see if they like it.

Trololololojan

Trololololololololololol

Spent the last two days battling to free my work computer from the grips of a number of really nasty viruses that managed to slip in via a compromised website I visited looking for the lyrics of Eduard Khil’s trolololo song. I think it’s all clean now, I’m running a final scan in the background to make sure.

Not fun. Mr Khil has a lot to answer for πŸ˜‰

Pun Unintentional

Talk about ideas that suck

So, they’re apparently making a Buffy the Vampire Slayer movie.

Hmmm, didn’t they already do that? And it sucked?

(While we’re on the subject of awful Vampire movies, I meant to say a while back that I didn’t think there was any way to make the Twilight movies worse, but that the makers of Vampires Suck seemed to have somehow managed it.)

Micturition

You know it’s bad when the most authentic version featured Ted Danson…

Saw a preview for Jack Black’s version of Gulliver’s Travels this week. It’s kind of ironic that the only bit that looks authentic to the book is the one bit everyone would assume isn’t in the book.

(If you don’t get what I mean then go out and read it you phillistine!)

Renaissance of the Geek Underclass

The special extended edition.

Well, I’ve at least accomplished something sort of worthwhile with my week off, a complete rebuild of the Tales of the Geek Underclass. The old site was so badly laid out as to be almost completely unreadable, so I’ve revised it into something that doesn’t make me want to puke. I’ve also started work on revising the content, since some of the writing is as almost as embarrassing as the layout. I may even get some more tales written – stay tuned!

Went to the Dentist on Friday. They said that I might as well not bothered coming, my teeth are in such good shape. They couldn’t even find anything worth cleaning, although they did a clean anyway since I was there. Good to know at least one part of my body seems to work πŸ™‚

The midnight screening of Harry Potter was fun. There were a good number of people in costumes, and the movie was reasonably enjoyable. I’ve always had a problem with the Harry Potter movies in that on the one hand I know the books so well that I immediately notice all the bits they miss out and change, but on the other hand can mentally fill them back in, making the movie seem more complete than it actually is, so I’m an awful judge of whether a given HP movie is any good or not. But overall I had a good time, so that’s what counts.

(Why didn’t they have to say “I didn’t kill you” at Grimauld Place? Why didn’t Harry liberate Mad-Eye’s eye? Why didn’t Voldemort turn up at Godric’s Hollow? Why didn’t they put in more Tonks? Why don’t they ever put in more Tonks? I’ll shut up now :))

Back to work tomorrow. Bah.

Later: The link to the Tales was pointing to a file on my desktop. How does someone do that after 10 years as a web developer? I has an embarrassment! (it’s fixed now).

Back to the Drawing Board

The Week of the Wyrm!

I’m having a particularly busy week, which is kind of strange since I’ve actually taken it off from work.

On Saturday it was up to Fabes’ place to catch up with Matt, who’s recently (and briefly) returned from the mysterious country of the Helvetians (Switzerland to those whose classical education is lacking). We hung around, played some Munchkin and ran through a highly derivative dungeon hack adventure I’ve been mulling over for a while. Everyone seemed to have a good time, with the possible exception of Ryan who went out on his bike to get food and subsequently got lost. We actually sent out a search party to look for him (he had his phone switched off), which returned in under two minutes since he’d actually recovered his bearings and was only a few streets away.

Then on Monday I went and got my tax for the last two years done. I have to admit I’m usually fairly slack with tax. I justify this by noting that I always receive a pretty big tax return, so if I’m late getting it in the Government is at an advantage, since they’re earning interest on money that’s rightfully mine (I somehow doubt they’d see it that way though). In fact while I was getting my papers together for my accountant (I like saying “my accountant”, it makes me feel all grown up despite the fact that the only time I have anything to do with them is when I get my tax done) I discovered a letter from the tax department asking where the hell my tax was and threatening fines and jail time. But it’s all sorted now so I’m good. I hope.

Then last night I went and saw Carrie Fisher’s show Wishful Drinking with Justin, who was the only one of my mates interested in going. I could write up a lengthy review but I’d basically just be repeating what every other review has said, which is it’s an absolute riot (did you know that George Lucas founded ILM solely so they could change his facial expressions? True!).

(By which of course I mean not true :))

While waiting for Justin to arrive I ran into Katie, who was also attending the show (before anyone invokes the previous paragraph to infer that I don’t consider Katie a mate, I would like to point out that I pretty much consider her a sister). She was hoping to get Ms Fisher to sign some of her books, but unfortunately it’s not something that she generally does, having been hounded by hordes of lonely Leia fanboys for decades (believe me, there were a bunch of them hanging around the stage door). This didn’t stop Katie shouting out “Please sign my book!” at the start of the performance, which seemed to throw Ms Fisher off for a few seconds – which is an achievement at least πŸ˜€

After the show we (that is to say Justin, Katie and Myself) adjourned to the Subiaco Hotel for dinner, which we finished up at about midnight.

To continue the trend tonight I’m going to a midnight screening of The Deathly Hallows Part One with Paula and her friend Bec. Then on Friday I’ve got a dentist’s appointment. I’m probably also going to have to fit in a trip to the doctor’s to get some prescriptions refilled. I tell you it’s all go go go at the Wyrmcave!

There was also a rather interesting development last night. While waiting for the show to start Katie introduced me to a couple of friends of hers who were also attending. I instantly recognised one of them as the redhead on the train who I’ve been crushing on for ages.

Subsequent conversation revealed that she’s a big geek, we’re around the same age, she’s an artist (always a plus) and that in addition to knowing Katie she also knows my brother. Sounds good no? Well the conversation also revealed that she’s in a committed relationship with the other of Katie’s friends attending, who also happens to be a girl.

Bah! πŸ˜€

Oh well, back to the old drawing board πŸ™‚

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