clo_again

Hello! I was supposed to do a 'hai I've moved in this is my pretty view yay' post and haven't. Yet. I will, probably, if only to collect all the random pictures I've taken over the last two weeks. There'll be more random pictures on Monday though; we're picnicking our way through a local horse-racing meet in the next village so I'm sure there'll be some pretty pictures from that. If it doesn't rain. Which judging from today is doubtful. What the hell British weather? Did you just decide to make us suffer on a whim last weekend?


Anyway, because I currently am working hard at being the least productive person on the planet I spent all most of today following the trend of remaking A Softer World strips using figure skating or tennis pictures (possibly there've been remakes using other pictures but I haven't seen them. If you have, please point them out! I love these remakes!)

Originally this started because I love some of the remake versions but they've been designed to be quite fuzzy and the print quality wouldn't have been very good, so I wanted to make some versions without the fuzz so I could print them out. I... mostly stuck to this. Sometimes a little fuzz makes things prettier. Also I wasn't sure how much I cheated with using multiple pictures... then I decided some of the orignals do and therefore I didn't care. ;-) Some worked better than others but there's only a couple I actually like. It's more difficult than I thought it'd be to pick the right pictures! But it's fun trying. :D




So ( have eleven (oops missed one in the first post!) Softer World remakes, five tennis/six figure skating, with complimentary icons )




That was a marvellously fun waste of a day. I shouldn't do it too often but I would like to practise to get better at them. Choices choices! To waste time or not. At least messing in Photoshop is better than aimless surfing. I could almost call it productive. *cough*

I would comment on tonight's Doctor Who but I found it pretty disappointing so I can't really be bothered. It mostly wasn't bad, just...dull. And kind of depressing. Blah. It's a sad state of affairs when Spartacus: Blood and Sand is the best thing you've watched all week (not that Spartacus isn't worth watching! It's full of wonderful lulz and stylised violence and mostly-naked people! It's just not the most tightly scripted show on television, you know?)

Going to watch the final scores of Eurovision now. Lots of hilarity this year, nearly all due to Graham Norton's commentary. Twelve points to him!

I'm going home tomorrow (but I don't get home until the day after! Fun times!). *sadface* It's close enough for me to check the weather for when I land on Friday (it's barely 15 degrees over the next few days; I was expecting at least up to the twenties from what I've been hearing about crazy weather back there wtf?) and my 'rentals want my flight details and you know, I have less than no money left so it's good I'm going, and yes I know I've been complaining about hostels and repacking my backpack for the forty millionth time but... that was when I wasn't two days from going home. There's still stuff I haven't bought! There's still stuff I haven't done! Except the Rod Lave arena tour which we're planning to do Thursday as one of my Last Day Things so I can giggle at the locker rooms and spend too much in the little shop (I don't know if they have a little shop but I'm guessing they do. If backpacking has taught me anything, it's that everywhere will have a little shop).

irradiatedsoup we're planning on heading in for the tennis centre tour at 1pm, then do the acquarium after (the tennis tour should finish around 2:15-2:30pm) so you can come do the tennis tour with us or just the acquarium or whatever. :) I have my phone but don't have any credit left, so let me know on the interwebs tonight or just text me where you are tomorrow and we'll come find you.

And that'll be it.Which is weird but you know, home will be nice. And I'm only there a week before I head to Newcastle & London anyway, so it's not like I'll have time to get bored. It's just oh, Australia. Why do you have to be so far away?

But anyway right now I have some time to kill so have That Icon Meme, gacked from kindoftrouble:
( icon meme! )


If you want me to pick some of your icons, you might be waiting until Saturday because tomorrow night I'm spending almost twenty-four hours travelling and then at least eight sleeping that off. I won't have forgotten! It's taken me five days to finish this post though. Um. Maybe make that Sunday.

Later I have to pack for the last time. Mmmm, that cannot be over soon enough.

Icon meme from scoobydumblonde and kindoftrouble:


1.Reply to this post, and I will pick three of your icons.
2.Make a post (including the meme info) and talk about the icons I chose.
3.Other people can then comment to you and make their own posts.
4.This will create a never-ending cycle of icon squee!

(Note: if you want to ask about any of my icons, use my insane journal icons over here, because that's where they all are now.)


scoobydumblonde asked about:



This one has a quote from Red vs Blue, a hilarious Halo-based series that Wikipedia explains far better than I could. I originally came across it through the quote "Time...line? Time isn't made of lines! It's made of circles. That's why clocks are round." which appeared on an icon I found and have since lost from this computer. Such a genius quote demanded Googling, which brought up Red vs Blue, which made hill2k burn some of to DVDs for me and happiness was had all round.

I think for this particular icon, I wanted something with a quote on it because I'd been seeing all these just-text icons around and though they were nifty. Knowing the awesome of RvB, I checked out IMDb's quote list for it, picked this one because I liked the sarcasm and... that's about it. It's been on and off my icon list for a couple of years until I got the extra icon space on IJ and reuploaded it. I don't have much occasion to use it but I like it and one day I'll need to be really really sarcastic about something. And when I do, I have the exact icon for it.



I originally typed 'this icon doesn't need as much explaining as the first', only to realise that it did. A few years back, Guinness made a stunning advert as part of their 'Good things come to those who wait' marketing angle, involving surfers waiting for the perfect wave. It was then, and still is now, my favourite advert ever but it took me a couple of years to think to Google it, which is when I found it on this website (click on 'Quicktime and credits: Guinness: "Surfer" under the pictures to play the ad). It was duly screencapped and I made quite a few icons but this is the one that stuck and has stayed for a few years now. I love the image of the surfer with the surf-horses poised over him. It's beautiful and like fantasy and at the same time, a really neat trick. Plus the advert has quotes from Moby Dick. It's so random and yet so apt, I never get tired of watching it.

I'm not too keen on the slightly fuzzy effect I had a liking for back when I made it though. I think it's time to be hunting out those old screencaps.

You can also watch the ad (and all the slightly varied versions they showed of it, just search 'Guinness surfer') on youtube.




Compared to the last two, this icon is a totally newbie; I only made it a couple of months ago. I realised I didn't have any just-Roger icons anymore which made me sad, because he is still my favourite tennis player even if I'm not so good at keeping up the tennis right now. I knew I wanted a more introspective Roger icon because he'd been having a tough month or so and everyone was shouting about the Great Federer falling from grace, while I wanted to say well you know, you've built him up and up and really, he's just a person underneath, he's not the shining image he can be made out to be. The picture was easy; I've been collecting Roger pictures for years. The quote is from an Evanescence song 'Breathe No More' (lyrics) which I haven't actually heard. I don't even like Evanescence all that much anymore, because I find them a little whiny, but when looking for icon quotes I go through various bands that I know have lyrics to suit the kind of icon-mood I'm aiming for until I find something to fit. This time Evanescence said it exactly right.

I am so very happy with this icon, unlike the other two which are old and were made back when I was still only half-competent in Photoshop. I like the colours and the sharpness and the font. The only thing that annoys me if that I had to make 'the difference between' so small to fit that it's just edged into unreadable but in those cases I tend to go with it and use it as keywords, so those who want to know can look it up. Weirdly, it's also one of the six icons LJ kept for me after my paid account expired even though I didn't use it all that often.


I also really really love this icon because doing this post, it reminded me Andy was playing Roger and I hadn't checked when. Went to the TV, flicked to the sports channels - and their match was literally just starting. So. Much. Love.

~~

So there you go, ask about my icons and you will get essays. You get a cookie if you made it this far. ;) Now ask me to pick your icons! Pick more of mine for me to essay about! The world needs more icon squee.

And now I am off to watch Andy vs Roger. :D If this is too long, let me know and I'll cut it.