Colour me Crayola (or Derwent) April 28, 2009
Posted by Olivia McDowell in Art, Blogging, Design, FFFFOUND!, Pretty!, Technobabble, The Ether, Videorama.Tags: Chameleon, Colours, Crayola, Crayon, Derwents, Hex code, Nomenclature, Pantone, Prmary school, youtube
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It’s a generally accepted fact that I am, generally speaking, a tiny bit of a nerd. I like the Pantone scale, chromatic coordination, and whimsical nomenclature.
So it’s no surprise that when I plugged myself into the intermesh this morning, I was tickled pink* to find 120 Crayon Names, Colour Codes and Fun Facts:
Click the pretty picture to see the whole blog posting on COLOURlovers.
But as much as I love looking at the pretty chromatic arrangement (and I do) I love the names even more.
Some read like the Ben & Jerry’s flavour list: Macaroni and Cheese. Neon Carrot.Wild Watermelon. Jazzberry Jam.
Others make me think of a ModCloth catalogue: Unmellow Yellow. Mango Tango. Mauvelous. Wild Blue Yonder. Purple Heart.
Some are eloquently evocative (and evocatively eloquent): Wisteria. Asparagus. Shamrock. Robin Egg Blue.
And others still are so very, very Derwentine: Aquamarine. Cerulean. Pine Green. Raw Sienna. Magenta.
Speaking of which, I was much more a Derwent fan when I was growing up. Oh how we young girls coveted the timber double-tray box of 120.
Oh yeah. That’s the stuff.
It was the ultimate sign of prestige: all the cool kids had a set. We hoarded them greedily in Year 4, waiting desperately until art class when we would put one tray on the desk, one in the under-desk cubby, and one on our laps. It was an unspoken pact among friends that one could borrow no more than 3 colours at a time. “Pressing hard” was forbidden, for fear of snapping the lead (but it was perfectly okay to colour over several times in order to achieve the same opaque effect). And under NO circumstances was anyone other than the owner ever allowed to sharpen the pencil, EVER.
Ah, the social mores of a nascent stationery fiend.
* That’s hex code FC89AC, by the way.
PS. This morning the internet (clearly on a roll with the technicolour awesomeness) also introduced me to this crazy Ray-Ban-fan chameleon:
Chameleons are pretty incredible anyway, but this is one wild child colour junkie.
Hitler freaks out over Comic Sans MS April 19, 2009
Posted by Olivia McDowell in Cinema, Laughing, The Ether, Typography, Videorama.Tags: Black Books, Brilliantology, Comic Sans, Hitler, Monty Python, Typography, youtube
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“THIS IS RIDICULOUS! Comic Sans MS does not make me look friendly or cool! It doesn’t look professional at all! Churchill must be making jokes already! What will you do next? Republish Mein Kampf in Comic Sans MS? You are the worst marketing team I’ve ever worked with!
There is tons [sic] of great fonts to work with and you chose the worst!… You even used it to subtitle this f***ing YouTube video! What will our enemies think? That will [sic] invade them riding Teddy Bears?”
{ by DesignerDaily, via Brilliantology (which is a brilliant blog, and which I think you need to RSS as soon as possible, if not sooner) }
PS. Yes, I am aware that this could be deemed mildly offensive. But then, the most humourous things often are. So just remember how much you laughed at Monty PythonThe Life of Brian, FTW) and Black Books (especially The Grapes of Wrath, where Bernard and Manny kill THE POPE with inferior wine)… and chillax.
DEFINITELY RELATED POSTS: Paperlust survives the Typocalypse
Love thine Word Nerd April 18, 2009
Posted by Olivia McDowell in Grammar Attack, Laughing, Punctuation, Spellcheck, The Ether, The News, Words.Tags: grammar, Grammar Nazi, Linguiphile, Media editors, Richard Glover, Word Nerd
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Richard Glover’s column, Revenge of the Word Nerds, in today’s Sydney Morning Herald (Spectrum section):
The language police have no interest in the content of what is being said; they don’t even have much interest in language itself, in all its slippery, transgressive glory. They just lie in wait, like cats before a mouse hole, waiting for an error to occur.
Then they pounce. And there is much delight in the pouncing…
Full article at smh.com.au (because nobody actually buys the hulking Saturday paper nowadays).
Thank Gaia I know that Mr. Glover’s ire is all in good humour (he’s a very good-humoured sort of bloke). Of course everyone knows that Grammar Nazis never mean to offend, much less condescend. Sports fans will correct you for saying “points” instead of “goals”(or vice versa). Fashionistas love to commentate when people-watching. A tea lover will happily waffle on forever about Buddha’s Tears (if you let them). And likewise, we linguiphiles just can’t help ourselves when faced with something within our very trivial sphere of interest.
SO PLEASE REMEMBER TO KINDLY INDULGE YOUR FRIENDLY NEIGHBOURHOOD WORD NERD: She’s not pouncing, she’s just enjoying the small pleasures in a pedantic life.
(And besides, without a keen editor, every newspaper, magazine, book, journal, and other miscellaneous printed reading matter would have met that great pulp-mill in the sky long ago, condemned to death by the dire lack of media’s two most essential requirements: credibility and readability.)
RELATED POSTS: Being a Snark (and some shameless self-promotion)
The Mad TEA Parties of 2009 April 17, 2009
Posted by Olivia McDowell in Blogging, Etcetera, Laughing, Obama!, The Ether, The News, Words.Tags: Acronym, Alice in Wonderland, Earl Grey, tax, Tea party, teabagging, Tenniel, Twitter, World Bar
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{ The Mad Tea Party in Alice in Wonderland. By Sir John Tenniel, via Victorian Web }
{ The Boston Tea Party in, er, Boston. By Currier & Ives, via Rhapsody in Books }
{ Woman With Pig On Head in Dallas, Texas. By Matt Slocum/AP, via Yahoo News }
A Tea Party is…
a) A civil gathering of acquaintances, for the purposes of sipping Earl Grey and nibbling cucumber sandwiches (Mad Hatter optional).
b) A drunken gathering of revellers, for the purposes of a big night out at World Bar.
c) A historical gathering of American revolutionaries, for the purposes of throwing tea chests into Boston Harbour, in protest against The Tea Act of 1773, which (surprise, surprise) imposed a tax on said tea.
d) A controversial gathering of ‘radical’ anti-tax protesters, for the purposes of condemning taxes in general (and government spending, and Barack Obama, and Liberalism, and all that jazz).
e) A purple-haired afternoon stroll with Lady GaGa, apparently.
I’d never heard of Tax Day Tea Parties until, well, today. Apparently, it’s a big thing in the US, inspired by the original tax-related tea party [see (c) above]. From what I can gather — unless the media is somehow presenting a subtly skewed perspective (NO! NEVER!) — The Tax Day Tea Party phenomenon is promoted by FOX ‘News’, tainted by allegations of astroturfing, and frequented by rabid conservatives, believers in The Communist Conspiracy Theory, people who like to dress up like lunatics, and remarkably partisan dogs / small children.
On the other hand, the TEA in Tea Party is actually an acronym for Taxed Enough Already, and we know how much I love a clever acronym.
But on the OTHER other hand, my government just “stimulated” my bank balance to the tune of $900, so the chances of me being anti-tax and anti-spending are slimmer than slim.
So, to sum up, I love actual tea, but TEA sounds mad to me.
More on TEA (for noobs like me)
- “2009 Tea Party Protests” on Wikipedia (Caution: Information may change rapidly…).
- Official Tea Party Online HQ: (watch the national deficit rack up before your very eyes AND IN SCARY RED FONT TOO!!)
- Salon.com Guide to Teabagging (Caution: May contain sensible/liberal sentiment).
- #teaparty is trending on Twitter like there’s no tomorrow (and there might NOT BE, IF THE GOVERNMENT KEEPS SPENDING LIKE THIS)
Periodic tables: a Periodic update April 10, 2009
Posted by Olivia McDowell in Art, Blogging, Design, Etcetera, Pretty!, Technobabble, The Ether.Tags: Christoph Niemann, Game Consoles, Periodic Table of Metaphors
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Okay, so a couple of weeks ago I exposed the recent obsession — mine, and the blogosphere’s — with witty Periodic Table variations.
Well, they just keep coming. And while at one a mere ‘UPDATE’ seemed sufficient, I just found another Periodic redux by Christoph Niemann (yes, I’m excited too! Keep reading…) and I think that justifies a whole new blog post. If it keeps on like this I may have to start a whole new category (gasp!). (Click-thru images for full size and detail)
1. Periodic Table of Game Controllers
{ Pixel Fantasy via Gizmodo.com }
2. Periodic Table of Metaphors
{ in case Christoph Niemann wasn’t already cool enough }
Stay tuned for more!
RELATED POSTS: Periodic Tables of Everything
Vegetarian develops insatiable addiction to Savage Chickens April 9, 2009
Posted by Olivia McDowell in Art, Blogging, Etcetera, Grammar Attack, Laughing, Punctuation, The Ether.Tags: Actionise, Addiction, grammar, Grim Reaper, Jargonify, Monty Python, Savage Chickens, Semi-Colon, Timmy Tofu, Twitter, Verb, Vocabulous, Yoga
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A flow chart of my relationship with Savage Chickens:
Discovery: “Oh cool. I like Post-its. I like Pythonesque, punilicious quips about Hot Yoga/The Slim Reaper. I like tofu.”
↓
Dabbling: “I’m not going to be able to stop until I’ve seen the entire back archives, am I?”
↓
Addiction: “Just one more…”
↓
Obsession: “Sure I’ll eat/sleep/study/work/listen to my lecturer… after I’ve finished trawling the archives.”
↓
Closure: (days later) “Done!… More please?”
↓
Subscription: “DING! You have ONE new Savage Chickens email.”
↓
Twitter: *Tweetdeck ‘new tweet’ chirp*
More blog-appropriate proof (v.) that these Post-it-icisms are truly brilliant:
Hellvetica (and the fundamental interconnectedness of all things*) April 7, 2009
Posted by Olivia McDowell in Art, Blogging, Design, Etcetera, FFFFOUND!, Helvetica, The Ether, Wisdom.Tags: Dirk Gently, Douglas Adams, FFFFOUND!, Helvetica, Holistic Detective Agency, Holisticism, Interwebs, Metallica, Reblogging, Twitter, Yann Serandour
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“Helvetica as Metallica”, by Yann Serandour, via The Triumph of Bullshit, via FFFFOUND!, via Any Given Name, via VVVORK.
Severally reblogging like this really puts the “inter” in interwebs.
“Rather than connecting all things eventually, the Internet makes us realize that all things are, by nature, interconnected”
— @fadereu**
* “The fundamental interconnectedness of all things” was how Douglas Adams defined holisticism in Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency. It’s such an apt summation that whenever I encounter the word “holistic” all I hear/read is “the fundamental interconnectedness of all things”. It’s like a special breed of babel fish, translating regular words into the more lyrical phraseology of Douglas Adams.
**Incidentally, I first saw this lovely iota of wisdom as a retweeted retweet via @wildmonkeysects, via @BinarySeed.
