Yule and the Telemetrics

Poster for an upcoming gig for Yule and the Telemetrics that I put together at short notice. Shazaam!

IIIIIIIIIKKKKKKKKKEEEEEEEAAAAAAAA

Oh man. Oh man. OH MAN OH MAN OH MANOMANOMANOMANOMAN.

I <3 ikea so much. SO MUCH.

We went today and I was so happy I hyperventilated a few times. The range of stuff! The excellent storage solutions! The wee setups that they have to show you things you could do to your house! The KITCHENS. Gah.

We left before I broke down and hid myself in a whole heap of pillows so I'd never have to leave.

We're going back next week.

Catching some flicks

On the plane over to Brisbane, DJ and I flew Pacific Blue which was cheap and frill-free. $3 for water anyone? Mmmmhmm. We rented one of their inflight entertainment thingummys that cost $20 and came with two pairs of headphones. BRING YOUR OWN HEADPHONES. These were easily the shittest headphones I've ever had the displeasure of putting in my ears. Sigh. The movie selection was fairly decent though and we decided on Toy Story 3 seeing neither of us had seen it.

It was excellent! Man, sad and nostalgic and funny all at the same time. The characters, both old and new, were vibrant and interesting, and the storyline was entertaining and suspenseful. DJ and I both had a wah a couple of times during the film (which is always a wee bit awkward on a flight which is a daytime flight. If it's at night and everyone's asleep it's far less shameful)

So yes. Go see it if you haven't, it's pretty radpants.

We started watching Cemetery Junction which was alright and just starting to get interesting when the flight attendant came and took it off us because we were "just about to land". 20 minutes later we landed. That cheeky bitch.

My sister, who I am staying with, and I both were humongous fans of the Tomorrow When the War Began books by John Marsden when we were teenagers. In fact, they were easily my favourite books. Nothing compared. I was madly in love with them. I even wrote John Marsden a fan letter which I was too much of a chicken to send which means it's at home somewhere. When I decide that I'm in need of some public embarrassment I'll post it in all it's fawning glory.

Anywho, we went and watched the film adaptation yesterday and as much as it was not as good as the book, it was still totally enjoyable like watching Home and Away on steroids with guns and a better budget. Some of the acting was just naff as fuck, but the key characters pulled through alright - my hope is that they decide to make the whole series of books and through that process, the acting will improve and some of the depth that Marsden put into his characters will become more apparent onscreen.

Has anyone else been along to see it yet? Thoughts?

Posters

Oh hai! See, I still exist! Lately I have been mostly hanging with the cool cats of my flat and playing far too much League of Legends which is free, addictive, and awesomely abbreviates to LoL. So if you've been wondering where I've been hiding, that is where. My user name is Moreconi - if you decide to give it a go, look me up and we can gank some n00bs together.

As well as ganking n00bs I have been fighting with our cat Dingding over whether I have the right to rub his tummy or not, making delicious soups, planning a trip to Brisbane to see my little sister, and trying to keep on top of all the new release movies that come into Marbecks. I have also made a couple of posters, so here they are! I am quite keen on blogging more again. However, it will mostly be inane dribble. You ought to all be used to that by now though eh!

Overheard by the vinyl bins

"Everyone knows Brian Jonestown Massacre are just a tryhard Dandy Warhols"

Erm, yes posturing teenage boy. With your posse of awkward accomplices and your muttered throwaways about "how overpriced vinyl is these day" despite the fact that vinyl had more or less gone out of circulation at the time of your birth in 1990.

I'd almost rather have an afternoon of rude old classical customers than have to restrain myself from coming over and slapping you for being SO YOUNG.

Almost. At least you make me laugh in a snorting kind of way.

Spectacles

I love getting new glasses, even more so, I love getting cheap glasses because I am a notorious scrooge when it comes to parting with my precious pennies. It's called being thrifty alright? No point paying way more than I need to eh.

Which is why I was super pumped when DJ introduced me to Zenni Optical a few years ago. These guys have prescription glasses starting from $8US including the frames and the lenses. Shipping is a flat fee, and they have a mammoth range of glasses.

I'm thinking that this week I'll get my prescription updated and then order myself these! Yuss!

Fingers crossed they'll suit me and fit my ginormous head because this style is available in white, red, and tortoiseshell. Gotta catch 'em all!

Phantom Tollbooth + Thundercub

Whipped this up the other night for Dougie J's band Thundercub, and Chloe's band Phantom Tollbooth. Man. It's quite fun doing a poster in a night - when everything just comes together really nicely straight away. Huzzah!

T-post

T-post is a concept - kind of like the 12club at Threadless where you get mailed out tshirts on a regular basis but with the added point of interest of each of the tshirts having an illustration designed in response to an article which is printed on the inside of the shirt.

The above t-shirt is for an article about some of the stuff people get up to while asleep - you can read it here.

renovating...

...this blog.

need to brush up on some web lingo so the blog will jive the way it want it to daddio. hopefully will have this baby running smoothly asap. in the meantime, yellow! whee!

Tono and the Finance Company

So, the other day I took some photos for Tono to use to promote his new ep Fragile Things.

The weather was atrocious so I suggested that instead of going out to take photos, we stayed in. So we did!

Refusing to stop reusing

I helped some chappies out lately with some illustrations for a council funded website informing people on how to get rid of all kinds of stuff without just throwing it away - expanding the lifespan of the item, giving it another life/purpose, what-have-you. As well as being a directory of places that will deal with your refuse/junk, it's also a directory of places who'll give you stuff like horse poo, bokashi... that sort of stuff.

So I did three icons - one for organic waste, one for inorganic waste, and one for community groups. Here they are:

Here are all the icons outside of their little clusters, including some of the ones I made but didn't end up using. I particularly liked the t-shirt.

Old dream

My friend Andrew used to have a blog with all his dreams on it. They were really interesting dreams and he didn't try and force narratives on them which pleased me so I told him one of my dreams, and via the medium of facebook, he reminded me of this dream and gave it back. So I'm giving it to you!

I woke up this morning and went to radio1 to do breakfast show (by the way, I actually did have to do this because Hawkins' called in sick - which is probably why I had this dream) and when I arrived in the studio, all the equipment was gone and yet there was still music. I was very confused and wondered if someone had stolen the stuff. Just then I heard noise in the corridor and went out and saw three random boys in the production studio which had turned into a long hallway.

I said "who are you and have you stolen the radio1 computer stuff cos I need that to do my show" and they said nothing and stared at me like emos. So I said "what are you doing here?" and they said "we are playing on air at 9" and I said "oh, so you are the sneaks" and they said yes. I then asked the tall one how the trip down had been and he said "horrible" and then had a cry and I gave him a hug. While I was hugging him, he backed away and became two people.

I went back into the studio and the equipment was back as well as a boy who was crooning into the dj mic making a helicopter drone. I told him to stop that, I need to play proper music and he did.

Then I went into the office to get the weather info but there was a tea party happening to celebrate the live-to-airs happening all week. Phoebe Smith was there eating grapes and pistachio nuts. I had to crawl between everyone's legs to get to the computer and no-one offered me food except Phoebe who threw grapes at me and shouted nonsense.

Then I woke up and it was 6am and I realised that I still had to go to Radio1 and do a show.
END

Ding-ding!

Oh man! I love his little face! And how he sometimes gets all chatty in his high-pitched querulous wee voice! How he makes puddings on anything fluffy and the the next minute he's flipping out and eating flies (ew). How he growls whilst eating fish and is THE clumsiest cat I have ever encountered.

Ding, you make my heart explode. 

Kings of Convenience

A few months ago a friend of mine, one Ian McKinlay, emailed me asking if I could do a poster for a gig that was coming up in Hong Kong that the company he works for was putting on. I agreed instantly because I like Ian and I like making posters.

Turns out it was for Kings of Convenience, one of my favourite bands despite them sounding like "elevator music" as one of my former flatties put it. I prefer to think of them as the Scando version of Simon and Garfunkel (who were one of my favourite bands when I was 12). Worth checking out eh.

Anywho, Ian sent me through the rejected design from the previous designer so I could see what had already been done:

I thought it was really clunky (obviously, so did UNTITLED seeing as they got me in to do a new one) and while I liked the photo, I didn't think it was really all that attention grabbing... and I really, really did not like how the text was being treated by cramming it in boxes with some kind of bland Arial font.

So I decided to start from scratch. I wanted to do soem kind of sweet illustration but I get freaked out doing posters sometimes and the photos they supplied were really cool so I decided to just do a fairly straight edge poster. This is the first version I submitted:

Too much negative space and the information needed to be bigger. Ok. Let's try it again... and again using a different picture... and again with slightly different elements... (you can click on them to see larger versions)

The last option was their fave, so I tweaked the logo layout and the blend of the solid background into the photo and voila! Finished!

Hopefully I'll be working with these cats in HK more in the future. I'll be sure to keep you posted :)

OH MAN, I really ought to be filing CDs right now...

Worst blog writer ever.

It's quite high on my list of priorities to start writing a blog on an "at least weekly" basis. The problem is, my other priorities are "go to work on a daily basis", "relax post-work on a daily basis", "play heaps of netball", "do some design stuff", and MOST importantly, "get the house to a liveable state of tidiness".

It's actually the messiest I have been since I was 10. No shit. My mum used to say my room looked like a bomb had hit it and I'd be offended but the reality is that if she were to say it now, I'd be forced to agree.

On a total tangent, here is a really awesome doodle tool - called harmony. I do suggest you try it. Below is one of my doodles. Sweet!

Twenty ten eh?

Hey! So Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!! Gosh it's been a busy start to the year so far.

Working Christmas Eve in a retail store that sells some of the most common Christmas presents (CDs, DVDs, and books as well as gift cards) is a really crazy experience. At the end of the day when we closed the doors and tallied everything up, I figured out that we made a sale every 30 seconds. From opening to closing. I mean, obviously there were slow times when we'd get to kind of tidy up the chaos and get a drink of water, but there were also insane times where we were doing fifteen sales a minute... Nuts!!

But also really fun. People were quite nice, probably because they knew that the chaos was more their fault than ours seeing as how they'd left their shopping to the last minute.

After work I went round to my Aunt's house for some extended family love and promptly fell asleep in the massage chair in the study. Rosey sure knows how to appreciate the finer things in life. When I woke up, everyone was leaving but Champ and I stayed and introduced Rosey to the wonders of Battlestar Galactica. Yuss.

Christmas day I woke up early and went to my dad's house where we ate a fantastic breakfast that my stepmum Monique had made (eggs benny with bacon! coffee! champagne!) and watched the twins rip into their presents although Zach only wanted a Wii game and ran off with it as soon as he found it.

After that we went round to Mum and Paul's wee house on the hills above the peninsula for lunch with them and their pals Sandra and Dieter. It was PHENOMENAL. Here is photographic proof of the nomness of that lunch. It was the best roast chicken I have ever had in my life.


After lunch Dj had a wee catnap, much like my favourite chum Pusster who is so lovely. And old. He's about 21years old now. Gee whiz!

When Dj woke up, we went for a wee stroll. Below is a photo of Mum's partner Paul, and a lovely foxglove. Their garden is seriously cool - it's such an idyllic cottage garden.

I visited the neighbour's goat. This is a wacked out goat. Wants to be in the exorcist I reckon.

Then we went into the shed (it was really hot in there) and checked out Paul's rolling ball sculpture which is pretty excellent. I tried to photograph it, but it didn't turn out so good. So here is a photo of Paul talking to Dj about the mechanics of the sculpture.