Gregory

Just posting a photo for my sister to have a look at. :-D
This is my nephew Gregory playing in my backyard in Dubbo. Isn't he gorgeous! ^_^
I took this a couple of weeks ago when i went home for the weekend... oh, i love my camera *hugs it*..oh and i love my nephew too!! *hugs him too*

Technorati

I think i've claimed my blog. i dont fully understand what technorati is, but im sure i'll find that out tomorrow!
anyways, heres a link to my Technorati Profile.
have fun!

Squiggly Bits, Aesthetics & Interestingness

In MPI104 last week we learnt French! According to Jo the word 'serif' means 'squiggly bits', and 'sans serif' means 'without squiggly bits'. Of course we're talking in means of fonts! For example...

this would be a serif font
whereas this would be a sans serif font

I apologise for the appauling example. i couldnt be bothered changing the fonts and stuff... so i cheated and used italics and bolding. lol.
but hopefully you get what i mean!
According to my year 11 & 12 IT Teacher Mrs McKenzie(just proves that maybe i did pay attention to her raving madness) sans serif fonts are harder to read because they have individual blocks, whereas serif fonts are easier to read because each letter flows to the next.


In regards to aesthetics and websites, I personally like the Bitey Castle . It has a nice opening page, where you click the image to enter. All of the links on the main site are clearly labelled, and down the left column there are animated .gif links, which i think is pretty cool too. There are links to the sites that Adam Phillips, the artist of the bitey animations visits on a regular basis. Considering bandwidth, this site may be a little hard to load, although I am on a slow dial up speed with a crap computer and it still works quite well for me. He's done a smart thing and put each different animation on a different page, so it doesn't take ages to load the page if you're not going to watch the animations. So hes got a big chain of pages that link together (just like a diagram on front page *cringes* i hate that program) which is why i applaud modern technology! lol gone are the days when one must have everything stuck on the one page, and have no exciting colour or pictures- very gross. lol.


Speaking of gross, how about we check out a really badly done website.

For a laugh lets pick on The Worlds Worst Website. And its not a joke, that is the actual title of the website. lol. It just makes me cringe at the basic html that some people use and get away with. This site is good in regards to teaching people lessons! It does actually tell you what is and is not acceptable and what should and should not be done.
This actually brings me to another good site, Lissa Explains its a site that allowed me to steal html codes when i was creating my own websites. This site itself is aesthetically pleasing which is actually quite encouraging to the person who wishes to learn html. "oh this site is nice, it looks like this person knows what they're doing. lets learn from them." well that's kind of how i felt when i was a quivering year 8 student who had never used html before. And it helped too. yay!

Okay, so.... that being said...what makes a good website?
the aim of the website always needs to be taken into consideration, for example, the guys who made The Worlds Worst Website, made it like that on purpose to demonstrate some horrible mistakes people make when building websites, whereas Lissa explains was trying to show off its style to appeal to html and java scripting learners.
blah blah blah websites are so much fun, and they look good and blah.

Writing that is easy to read is always good, for example, if you have bright pink writing on a red background or even a fluro yellow background...it begins to get a bit painful to focus on and one must highlight each word to be able to read it successfully. not good!
Web buttons are pretty nifty and make everything look spiff! That is why i like the Bitey Castle so much, he has made his own web buttons, and has made them animated which heightens the appeal and aesthetics of the site as a whole.

For now, i am over analyzing websites and finding attractive things about pixels. so im going to depart. hope you enjoyed my long and tedious blog.
Thankyou

My 1-3 min Animation

George,
originally uploaded by Pamz0r.

This is going to be the star/main character of my first actual vfx101 animation.
Basically its about a man (this guy) mourning for his dead wife, and the steps that he takes spiritually to overcomethe loss. I have posted many of the details up on the VFX forum for all to see, though i dont feel its appropriate to post my idea everywhere... so for this blog, u only get the basics.
The style is going to be all black and white and sketchy, and im going to hand draw the whole thing. Which sounds quite painful... i havnt even started yet and it hurts! lol.

Australian International Animation Festival.

The AIAF, started on friday and will end today. There were 3 international programs, and some other special stuff, like Siggraph highlights and the Australian Panorama, and today we'll be watching the digital panorama.
My personal favourite thus far, based upon story and upon style would be Little Dog Turpie. It was simple, yet effective... although i think there were a couple of scenes where the background took your focus away from the animation itself because there was no contrast between the two.
Also in the Australian Panorama i really liked "Fraught", it was just excellent.
Amoungst the animations we're watching, the vast majority i feel, were disappointing, like they had potential to go somewhere...and then the typical "and then they wake up, and it was all a dream" because they didnt know how to end their animation. Take "stilt walkers" for example was brillaintly animated, and then the child wakes up...but oh wait- the stilt people are walking out the door! so maybe he didnt dream it after all? Que the mysterious music.
Another animation worth mentioning was an animation by Clemens Stiger "Not The End" it reminded me greatly of hitch hikers guide to the galaxy.
En Tus Brazos was also another one that i likeed for its style and storyline.

Now, i will leave you all with a rather creepy film clip, by Tool. "Prison Sex".


Will leave you an update about the final screening of the AIAF later :-P

Junk Food vs Healthy Stuff

I sit here in my mild daze, dwelling on the fact that my sister(aged 27? & mother of 2) weighs less than i do. Yet, here i am enjoying the delicious taste of a vienetta!...lol, yes..a whole one to myself!! Perhaps i should start a new diet.. or my first diet in the history of time so far.
The problem being with the whole diet thing...i HATE vegetables... they're gross and should all spontaneously combust and DIE!. I dont mind fruit, but theres the whole preparation thing... washing it, peeling it...perhaps cutting it? and then eating it.. its such an effort... junk food is so easily accessible! In one quick move of your hands a bag of fresh potato chips are ready for your eating pleasure! mmmm.

My bf's brother was wearing a shirt that said "Stay Fit, Eat Well, Die Anyway" of course he is quite a large guy... so perhaps this motto fits him.. its pretty funny i think lol.
But i want to actually feel better than how junk food and no exercise makes me feel. So im going to try exercising, whilst still on the junk food... if no improvement i think i'll slowly wean myself onto healthy yuck.

________________________________________________________________

Steering away from the boring food debate (despite the fact that its the title of this blog)
I went home on the weekend to support my friends band,SIX at the Rock Up, Battle Of The Bands in Dubbo! which, was absolutely awesome! Six Won! They'll be playing at the regional finals...uhh dont know when it is.. but they'll be there!! Good luck to you guys!

I also visited my mother for mothers day, and the day after i got back I was informed that I'm an aunty- again! number 4. lol, it seems everytime i go home theres another child born! My newest nephew, Jared Victor Readford! cute name, i got sent a pic- i still havnt spoken to my brother yet!
Heres the list so far (by age)
Gregory James Cook
Chelsea Grace Readford
Mitchell Edward Cook
Jared Victor Readford

(they have different last names obviously because they're from different parents :-P, just incase u didnt work that bit out)

Right, well thats my blogging done for today..
i should have my animatic online tomorrow night.. i'll post it up if i do!

RSS, XML...and my tribute to Wikipedia

What is RSS you ask?
well... im a bit fuzzy with it too... shall we wikipedia it?
"RSS is a family of web feed formats used to publish frequently updated digital content, such as blogs, news feeds or podcasts."
I love the way it puts it so simply!
Heres one i prepared earlier (at the bottom of this page), its hosted by delicious.
Click here to read the Wiki entry on it!

XML... also a bit fuzzy, but thanks to good old wiki i understand it a little more.
"The Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a general-purpose markup language.[1] Its primary purpose is to facilitate the sharing of data across different information systems, particularly via the Internet.[2]"
Aaaannnddd... the link to the wiki article!!
Of course Wikipedia is supposedly a horrible site to use for anything 'university', but at least it gives an understandable definition. I think i'll be forgiven? *smiles sweetly*

Assessment#1 Blog Post

Well, Its time to hand up my Mpi104 assessment one! Oh gnoes!!
I have created an Online Identity for this subject, through Flickr, De.licio.us and this blogspot site.

I’ve worked through the checklist and I think that I’ve got a lot of it completed. I've tried to make all these accounts as interesting as possible, i've played with the colours, fonts, i've added pictures and links and made it all quite busy.
There are a few things which I don’t think that I’ve done- perhaps I have, and its just worded in a way that I don’t understand it on the checklist. I havn’t heard anything about this “technorati” that is on the blogger checklist. I did have a counter working, but it seems to have gone on holidays- I should fix that.
In del.icio.us, I’m not sure what ‘subscribing to tags’ is…. But I have been using tags. In my del.icio.us account I have created a network, I have added friends from Mpi104 to my network, I have bookmarked both my flickr and my blogspot and also my myspace. I have also included the link roll at the bottom of my blog, and have shown others how to do this also, all my appropriate links are tagged mpi104-2007.
I have been a little lazy with my flickr account, though I think I have good reason as to why- I don’t have my old computer and I don’t have a camera, as mentioned in my blogs previously…the fire took care of that.
I believe I have done all that is required of me by flickr actually… considering I left quite a lot of it til the last minute. I must apologise for my lack of images, these are the few I could find on what was left, and I am only on dialup speed and it was taking foreverrrrrr!! And I do want to go to bed at some stage during the early morning. I havnt linked all my images with the ‘mpi104-2007’ tag, I only tagged relevant images.

I have left comments on the metablog about my flickr and del.icio.us accounts, and left the links to posts also.

All of my profiles should be up to date and have display pictures. I have tried to keep my user names the same throughout these accounts, and the name I have chosen is “Pamz0r”. That is my nerdy nickname :-P it is actually based upon leet.. or “1337” as those in the know would call it.

I quite enjoy this subject, although I can see now why I should have kept it up to date all along. I hope what I have done is sufficient, and I hope Joh will find it in his heart to give me a good mark :-D

Before

Before,
originally uploaded by Pamz0r.

This was our flat, before the fire. our nice clean pillows, our comfy lounge, our old microwave and jug and...pillows.... i miss the pillows! The big huge bright red one had a lot of history with me and my friends... and now i dont have it anymore. its sad. :-(

After

After,
originally uploaded by Pamz0r.

This was our kitchen/dining/lounge area after the fire and after the windows had been borded up. (which made it so hard for us to sort out our things- no electricity and no windows lol)
After the fire, we had to sort through our things, and work out what needed throwing out and what didnt. Beaux did this by himself while i was at uni... when i went to help after uni- he was covered from head to toe in black. i barely recognised him.

The Car.

The Car.,
originally uploaded by Pamz0r.

Also known as the "commodore candle" as i once called it.
This is the thing that caused our flat to catch fire and me to be without computer/televison/furniture/anything for my first term at uni.

My Sob Story, "The Fire"

On the 28th February...My first week of uni and the day my bf Beaux was supposed to start work, we were woken up at 2.30am by a cracking popping a sizzling sound...
In our flat in Tolland, we were sleeping on mattresses under the air conditioner, which was in the main kitchen/dining/lounge area....Because we're too poor and unorganised to have offorded a bed at the time, and it was much cooler being under the air conditioner..as u would expect.(this was while it was hot lol)

So...the cracking, popping and sizzling sounds were coming from outside...we both woke up and saw a red glow through the blinds... at first i associated this with aliens....you know- the stereotypical glow behind the blinds, there must be an alien there!... so in a half asleep daze i said "What the? a UFO!!"... But to my suprise,... it was not a UFO at all... it was our neighbours car, in its allocated spot...which happened to be just outside our kitchen window...Yes.. the car was on fire.
So Beaux grabbed the telephone, called the fire brigade... Our kitchen window then exploded inwards at us.. and the blinds all melted- it looked soo cool. We were soo out of there despite how cool it looked....but first, we must grab something... growing up- your always taught to get something important and take it with you. Beaux grabbed his PSP, and i grabbed my two teddies, Snuff and Frederick... lol so sentimental I am... Beaux grabbed his psp, because its a hacked one and you cant get them that good anymore... lol, at least he had some logic.
25 mins later, the car was almost completely out- thanks to the Mount Austin Fire Brigade!
Apparently the petrol tank on the car was expanding, if the fire brigade were slow like most other places we would have had a bigger problem on our hands.

If you can imagine all the smoke from a flaming car, all the melted plastics, burning oil, rubber etc.... and imagine it all in one spot... you'd be imagining our flat... Yup... it was covered in thick black stinky toxic smoke.
It was declared a crime scene by the Wagga Wagga Police, and nobody was allowed back into the flat. Well, Beaux and i were, just to grab some clothing and our phones...speaking of which, I was using my phone to help me find my way around the flat to get my clothes and things for uni...and i accidently called Val... which i didnt realise. Val had been woken up by this call, and was going to ignore it but had a bad feeling in her stomache...so she called me back...so i told her what was going on...and blah...

Thankfully, two fluke-ish things happened....

1. My car wasn't parked next to his where it was meant to be. Infact I kept reversing into the fence when trying to get out of my parking spot.. Though you can't really blame it on bad driving... You try and reverse out of that driveway! its hard!!!! So i learnt my lesson and didn't much like reversing into the fence, so i learnt to park my car around the other side of the flat...which is where it was when the car caught alight.

2. Insurance. Yes, I paid for our contents insurance cover note the day before the fire.... So all fire damaged things, which is mostly everything except my tv and stereo cabinets... are getting replaced...including anything up to the value of $25,000...


But... other than the fire... Uni has been awesome.
My university course involves a lot of animation watching.. which is good because anyone who knows me knows that i love watching tv... mainly movies and various other things...
Kiah, my uni buddy has been soo awesome... she has lent me her portable dvd player, some socks and a can opener, not to mention some dvd's! Thanks Kiah! :-D

It has been over 2 months since the fire, and we still have seen no sign of insurance money, or anything besides a fridge and microwave(that we had to beg to get) Although- because my computer was destroyed in the fire, I'll be getting a new one! a laptop to be precise... a rather good one. Toshiba A200/400 which is quite an upgrade from my previous desktop comp. the only thing is i have to pay a whole $83 extra to get it. wow. $83 for a laptop... lol cheerin!

As you can tell i had a great first week of uni.
I will post some pics from flickr of the results from the fire.

Assessments & VFX101 Stuff.

Well Well Well...
Here we are in week one of second term. Already.
I must say, looking back on my original walking wooden man- i have made vast improvements. I'm quite proud, though im still not overly happy with the way its working. I think I should slow it down a little bit, not only his walk- but also the foreground. Have a look and see what you think- and perhaps leave me a comment?
Here is a link to my Animated Walk Cycle
I'm very nervous and excited about our 2 minute animation (assignment 2 of vfx101), we have the freedom to do anything that we wish. But the thing is- with that much freedom- where do i start? I have had idea after idea, and i dont seem to be getting anywhere with them. Im thinking of doing a stop motion animation and using the hidden room up the stairs. But... im still kind of unsure. Perhaps I could draw it? But that would take a lot of patience...although i suppose thats what animation is all about. patience.
Theres a really great poem that my boyfriend has written- it actually got published in a poetry book. Its called "death personified". I want to do an animation for it. it is just excellent. But its such a good poem, i dont think i'll do it justice if i attempt it for my first animation. I should perhaps have a chat to Andrew about it.

I'm so stuffed for vis101. I havnt started my essay yet. I think i will ditch work this weekend and cram cram cram. I'm told that its bad and i shouldnt do it that way. I agree completely, I'm a fool. But as long as i pass- i'll be happy. *please let me pass* I blame it all on procrastination!!

Mpi104 is due tomorrow and this is it~! :-O
I'm actually quite happy about it, because i have been blogging over the break, and i feel like i actually have a chance of getting pretty damn good marks in something. lol. its probably the only chance i'll have. lol.

Online Identity

I have a couple of different site identities, these are as follows:
Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/pamz0r/
Del.icio.us:http://del.icio.us/Pamz0r
Blogger: http://pamsjibberish.blogspot.com
Gmail: subliminal.llama@gmail.com
These should be sufficient for Mpi104. I shall also be updating it with the latest on my animations, and other things. lol.