Lorien rambles.

I was checking out a Rihanna video today and glanced down at the comments (I should know better by now, but it's the whole "Fascination with the Abomination" thing) and saw this little gem:

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My problem isn't his/her appreciation for Rihanna's appearance, but with the qualification of her race. Here's a screen grab from that same video:

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If you could do anything you want tomorrow, what would it be?
Submitted by Becca-Pink.

I would have a day of pure indulgence. Wake up without the alarm and bask in the sunlight in my bed for a while. Maybe finish the book waiting on the bedside table. Then a hot shower and jump in my jeans and an old t-shirt, put on my coat (it's a sunny day, but still chilly in the morning) and walk to the café down the street with Mike. French toast, a glass of orange juice, some Earl Grey tea. Sunglasses and grins. Idly decide what to do with the afternoon. It doesn't matter what, just whatever we feel like. Maybe a movie. Maybe go to the river with the dogs. Having the luxury of choice is what matters here. And so the day ambles on, relaxed. Happy.

There is definitely something quintessentially awesome about designing while drinking a fine single malt. This is all I have to say about that!

Oh, and my current malt of choice is the Talisker 10 Year. Which, I have to say, is a little more sour than the Macallan 12 Year that I've been slowly making my way through.

Life is good. :)

Yonks ago, I splashed out and bought three pairs of coloured contacts (it was a special deal and reasonably priced). I had tried the grey contacts and the blue contacts, but found that the shape of them didn't quite suit my eyes and were frustratingly uncomfortable. So I never wore them for more than a few hours at a time and then ditched them altogether.

I found the last pair in the bathroom cupboard, still in their packets, but apparently expired. I figured that it was unlikely that they were rotted, so I tried them on. Once again, the colour changed totally freaked out my boy and he refused to look at me until I removed them. But not before I took a photo of them in! So here is the (almost) original shot:

Violet Contacts

Normally, I would have left it like this, without further embellishment, but I had been looking at some photographers' works and got all inspired to spend a little more time on my images. Not quite airbrushing like the magazines, but not far from it, either. As an exercise, it was fun but it did make me wish that some things would translate from the digital world into the analogue.

Violet Eyes, Touched Up

It's like a conversation with people who are actually interested in the topic. And the diversity of responses is what makes the internet as a forum so unique.

I'm inspired in two ways by this particular example:

1. The participation re-piques my interest in contributing to the blogging world.
2. I now want to revisit my old "crappy" photos.

I have pretty much spent the entire weekend reading about Moleskines, GTD and sketching kits/hacks. I would include a list of all the links that I explored, but it would take too long and I've closed most of those tabs already.

Oh, okay, fine. Start with this link at 43 Folders. And have a look here for creative inspiration for what you can do inside one of these notebooks. (Also, if anyone can tell me where I can get that pen holder clip he's got on the spine of his moleskine, I'll be eternally grateful.) As for the GTD stuff, it's all over the place. Google it.

My other key diversion was sketching in these books. I've already finished one moleskin a while ago and I'm halfway through my second. Plus, I have the larger sketchbook, but I haven't done much in it so far.

So this weekend, I stopped reading about sketching and grabbed some supplies and went to sketch the doggies. I didn't use a pen/pencil at all. It was pure watercolour and I am sadly out of practice. But I guess that's the whole point of the exercise, right?

Sketch Kit

Geeks of Hazzard Podcast

OMG! It's actually going to happen! Teh Geeks of Hazzard are going to start podcasting again, yes! I missed you guys goofing around, I really did.

I went to this month's life drawing session and it ROCKED! It took me a while to get back into the groove, but I'm pretty happy with the progress I'm making with this.

Some people might disagree, but I don't care.

Maya

I used to be an avid reader, mostly science fiction, but I've branched out a little into non-fiction more recently. And by recently, I mean in the last couple of years. I don't have much time left for reading. Even though work isn't school (so no homework), I seem to have even less free time than ever! Anyway, I've taken a couple weeks holiday which I've started off with a decent cold.Part of me was okay with that because it made me rest, spend some quality time at home, watching TV and catching up on some reading. On a whim, I picked up this book from the bookshop:

Witchling

Yasmine Galenorn

So okay, it's not exactly... what is the word I'm going for? Quality? Maybe. I liked the cover of its sequel, but it's not available yet, so I grabbed the first book. (Yes, I do judge books by the cover.) In a brief review, I'll just call it good time-filler. The kind of book you'd buy at the airport. Actually, the concept is kind of interesting, but I found the writing style a little juvenile, full of unnecessary pop references that felt like the advertising you see "slipped into" Hollywood blockbusters and such. Yes, I get that she likes her clothes and spends money like its water, but do we really need to know that she frequents Starbucks and loves Victoria's Secret? That seriously put me off. The plot itself was okay, but the writing didn't flow easily and I noticed it way too much. Hopefully the sequel shows improvement! One sentence summary: Three sisters with magic powers
 fight a big evil. Can anyone say, "Charmed" rip-off?

So yeah, I read that. Took me about 8 hours to get through it, I think. Probably less, but I wasn't keeping track.

On the other end of the genre, I've returned to this book:

Green Mars (Mars Trilogy)

Kim Stanley Robinson

Which is vastly different, packed with science, mostly geology, but a great deal of physics and biology. Not to mention the politics, social dynamics and psychology. The detail is stunning but really overwhelming, especially when you're nursing a cold and aren't at your sharpest. I'm actually listening to the rest of this on audio book and I find myself zoning out during his descriptions of the changing Mars environment. Still, it's a good story and well-written. The concept is thought out to even the smallest of consequences and in relation to very human characters. I'm looking forward to finishing the trilogy before my holiday is finished.

And that's my update for now!

Listening to:

Songs from the South: The Best of Paul Kelly

Paul Kelly

Watching:

Numb3rs - The Complete First Season