Lilula
Coming soon.
The New Year Also Sucks
I lied about the optimism I promised in the last entry. Anyway, I did say that I have a Christmas surprise in store for my visitors but it’s going to have to wait a little while. So it’s a little belated, rather late than never right? The new year, 2008, fancy that. I could have sworn this year was 2008, and that we were heading into 2009.
What happened this year that I can say has really changed me? I turned twenty and the last Harry Potter book came out, marking the end of my childhood with a tremendous bang. OK, so Harry Potter hasn’t really changed me (not that I’m willing to admit), but turning twenty has in a small way. It’s difficult to think of myself as someone who is not a teenager, and in turn I’m really starting to miss what is was like when I was younger. If I could I would just relive my teen years from sixteen to nineteen over and over!
Golden Compass also came out in cinematic form, also known as the book Northern Lights by Phillip Pullman. The film was very well made, however they cut the last five chapters of the book. Without them the adventure in the film is shallow and predictably linear. The ending is what gave the book impact and what opened up the possibility of sequels. Maybe they wanted a stand alone film, but if they had that wicked ending they would have surely attracted enough people to make the second and third one.
OK, so Golden Compass didn’t really change me either. But I revisited the themes in Pullman’s books and decided to start writing a book of my own based on the concept of multi-universes. It’s coming along slowly, but it’s going. I’m still not convinced by my own characters, and I’m finding them a little similar to one another. And you wouldn’t believe the amount of research I’ve done. Writing is difficult.
University has definitely changed me. I used to be so enthusiastic about my work but now I’ve learnt to just tumble along in complete misery like everyone else. Isn’t life grand? Speaking of university I have a ton of work to catch up with since I’ve been doing nothing but procrastinating on my Wii playing Twilight Princess. It’s engaging and pretty damned fun, but a little draining in that Link just never gets a break. Poor guy.
My plans for the new year are as unpredictable as ever. I never have resolutions because I don’t have any to make and I rather doubt I’d keep them. However there are a couple of things which I believe are feasible. Firstly I’m going to join the gym with my boyfriend and try to keep active. Secondly I’m going to try and get a work placement over the summer within a web design setting. Thirdly I want to get my brain geared for writing, so I’m going to finish my novel and start planning my dissertation. It’s going to be an interesting article to write (and by interesting I mean excruciating). Hopefully my topic of choice can be spread out evenly enough.
What things have changed you over the course of the year, and what do you want to accomplish in the new year?
Comments are offMerry Christmas
Comments are off
Holy Baubles
Welcome to what I like to think is a miscellaneous Christmas orientated rant, whereby I will tell you all a horrible spiel you probably don’t want to read. Other things will be thrown in for the sheer hell of it seeing as I don’t really have a blogging objective today and just feel like typing away as if I have some sort of keyboard fetish. Sounds like optimum reading material, don’t you agree?
I’m pretty convinced I have seasonal affective disorder, in short SAD which is a wonderfully appropriate acronym. For the past three years from about September through to March my body tries to convince me that I should be hibernating. I sleep for about ten hours a day as opposed to my usual seven to eight. Getting up in the morning is absolutely horrific when I never have a problem otherwise. All throughout the day I feel so incredibly lethargic and find it difficult to move or do anything in general causing me to skip university and social events. As I sit here typing all I can think about is going to sleep and it’s hardly four o’clock.
It’s so damned frustrating to find things difficult when usually I’m pretty sharp and on top of things, and it’s really inconvenient seeing as all my major deadlines are in January. Recently I’ve gained around two stones (twenty-eight pounds, y’all) which is probably the reason why this year it’s worse than ever. As a result for the first time in a while I’m going to make a New Year’s resolution - I will get off my fat ass and do something about my fitness. While I’m at it maybe I’ll try being less of a sarcastic, cynical bitch but I can’t make any promises about changing the way I will inevitably be for the rest of my life.
Speaking of being a lardy pessimist, I don’t fit half the clothes I own any more. On top of that I’ve realised that everything I own is complete and utter trash and that I need a totally different look. I don’t know what to do though cause if I buy for my current size then it won’t fit when I’m back to my normal weight. Then there’s the whole argument that I’ll never be motivated to loose weight if I don’t look good but whatever. I want new clothes. I want my sixteen year old body back. Anyone care to give me either for Christmas?
In other news, David posted a rather good entry which explains in better depth what I was thinking about in my last entry - somehow I got sidetracked into phone aesthetics which sort of covered my ranting. Rachael said to me the other day that sometimes she finds it difficult to follow the flow of my blog, and she’s not the first. I put it down to the fact that I articulate like an angry four-year-old. My life should have a director’s commentary on top to avoid any further misinterpretations.
Speaking of commentary, I still want to go ahead with an idea I had last year. My neighbourhood is tacktastic when it comes to cheap Christmas décor as many of them have small easily amused rats. Or children. I confuse the two. Anyway, my idea was to do a documentary of the Christmas lights and give them all a review with a little rating. Hopefully Mike will want to go around this weekend and do that with me. He has a warm car, and I have a Thermos. It could be like a romantic outing with me as a sexy Scrooge. I should wear fishnets and mutton chops.
I have some Christmas cards to send which is pretty bad seeing as one was going to New Zealand and the other to Canada, but I blame the freaking SAD for making me procrastinate. If in doubt use a disorder you may or may not have as a scapegoat. If you’re reading, Rhiannon and Mandi, I’m very sorry and I will send you something smashing for the New Year. I feel awfully guilty right about it all.
Hopefully for New Year’s I’ll be going clubbing in Manchester but that has yet to materialise and I’m wondering if perhaps it’s not to be. What is everyone else doing on New Year’s? For those of you who will be sitting at home sipping champagne bitterly with the folks whilst wondering what a pointless life you’ve led thus far, I hold a special place in my heart for you for I very well may be joining you. I want to go to fucking Paris. That’d add a little sparkle to the end of this eventful year.
So how can I summarise this pool of random words? Christmas depresses me with it’s mad consumerism, bad driving and lack of depth so I make up for it with materialism and profanity. At the same time I get brilliant gifts and the food is always wicked so I’m looking forward to all of that. On top of it all, Doctor Who comes back on Christmas day which is awesome beyond belief. You can bet I’ll be blogging soon afterwards squeeing about David Tennant.
Merry Christmas, bah hum buggery or happy whatever your respective faith is. You bet your arse I will be blogging before the New Year. Expect optimism.
Comments are offSilly Project
Trix are for kids! Now that piece of old school pop culture catch phrasing is out of the way let me bore you all once again with my inane bantering on mobile devices and how incredibly dull they are. I’m starting to wonder what the point of this blog based project is and why we have to research a concept that has yet to lift it’s feet off the ground on a mass scale. Yes we all have mobile phones. However beyond them being practical devices, there’s little else we want to use them for.
Since I’m fed up with the whole concept of mobile phone use I’m going to go on to ramble about how pretty they are and what we look for in a phone in terms of aesthetics. What mobile phone defines you as a person? Do we look for mobile phones that have a certain look or do we simply settle for functionality? This is where I regain a little faith in this project because we as consumer’s do look out for mobile phones that aren’t just useful but also visually defined or established as pretty objects.
There are a few conventions of mobile phone design. We have a keypad, and sometimes a few additional buttons for menu browsing. Anything else is superfluous and often an invention of a certain mobile phone brand. Sony Ericsson phones have buttons for their customary music player. LG phones have a couple of camera specific buttons. Nokia phones have buttons that prompt their user to utter expressions like ‘innit’, ‘geezer’ and ‘aight’.
On top of convention we like to have something with a little edge. There are mobile phones on the market that are hot pink, touch screen, high definition, browser enabled or even so shiny that they blind unsuspecting people. My friend happens to have that phone and it’s beyond my comprehension why anyone would want a phone that pisses off others by just existing.
Then there’s the interface which is another can of worms altogether. This has to be highly recognisable, easily learnt and fast as hell. If those things don’t matter to you, go ahead and buy a Hello Kitty mobile phone from Japan. We all look out for conventions learnt from past experiences. An envelope icon connotes it’s the text messaging menu. However, don’t be fooled. The Viewty has an oven icon that does not manifest any culinary products.
For me a phone has to be 70% design and 30% usability. A well designed phone appeals to me more personally than a phone which is simply recognisable or usable. Anything which is difficult initially is easily learnt. What are the most important aesthetic features of a mobile to you? Is it the way it’s physically designed, how usable the interface is or how recognisable the features are?
Comments are offBack from London
Hello Nurse!
I’ve been blogging a lot about mobile phones and the concepts involving them for my DFDD unit. The more I research and the more people I talk to about my concept of creating a mobile community the more I notice that it is a rather silly idea. Mobile technologies for recreational use don’t usually catch on, probably because mobile phones are used simply for convenience rather than for fun. For example the IPhone is advertised as a very handy gadget as opposed to a toy.
The other day I went to the doctor’s - bear with me. It was just a routine check up for my pill. I had my blood pressure taken and in less than five minutes I was out with a prescription. It took me more time to travel there than to check in and walk out. It got me thinking about mobile technologies and I thought - wouldn’t it be fantastic if you could text or video call your doctor’s office to cut back on travel and time?
Of course there would be instances you’d need to go in, but it would make the process much more efficient when it comes to things like routine check up’s where you just walk in, chat and walk out. I have the means to take my blood pressure at home and you don’t have to be qualified to use the machine. Why can’t I send a picture message of my blood pressure to the nurse who can then send a prescription to the pharmacy? I also have a peak flow at home so I can very well send to results to the asthma nurse when I need more inhalers.
I know there are major problems such as people sending false information, and since it is so convenient people might book appointments for any thing that irks them from a mild cough to cramps. Naturally there would also be options to video conference online or sign onto a board but would that then cross out the need for the mobile part of it?
Comments are offMini Post
Mobile Marketing
A while ago I posted an entry on mobile phone concepts and how they could be useful or fun. Of course the way I present these ideas and in what context is very imperative because otherwise we’d just have a gadget without a purpose. Although stapling a purpose onto a concept isn’t always necessary if it appeases to people’s interests and hobbies, mobile phone use can be a tricky one. People will want to get involved in mobile phone communities and interactions but they have to be rewarding or very engaging because people pay a considerable amount for mobile phone use.
I found an excellent blog which has a few articles on these sort of concepts and how they’ve been used by advertisers to draw in the general public. I did find something similar to my idea which is called MoBlog. I love how it features blogs, photographs and reviews although it is still rather specific compared to what I have in mind. Bobbi-Lee did say that something similar was done for Big Brother (#), but they must have taken it down since.
On that note here are the best ones I’ve managed to pick up so far. These ideas are pretty nifty if I do say so myself! I’ll start with the most practical one which is Qode. The website is a little unusable and fairly stupid for something that is intended to work on mobile phones but the idea is fantastic.
It’s like a real life search engine, whereby you take a picture of a barcode which is then read by the software you pre-install on your phone and then are led to a page directly related to the product. Key words can also be used which sort of reminds me of the ‘I’m Feeling Lucky’ button on Google but I can see how this would be useful in a real life setting. Firstly it can be annoying to have to sift through 3G pages on a phone just to get to a simple destination, and typing using keys is a nightmare. Does anyone else have problems with predictive text? I find it incredibly frustrating.
Anyway back to Qode. Not only does it direct you to a web page, but it can also let you sample music that is sitting on a shelf, use coupons in a newspaper, watch a movie trailer from a poster, get directions from a billboard, get concert dates from a CD, download ringtones from a magazine, watch adverts from posters, compare prices, enter competitions, and even buy a product from a vending machine (assuming the vending machine has some sort of Bluetooth).
Unfortunately they don’t have much information on the availability of such a product, and who is signed up to them. If they stuck on a few recognised brands on their website as companies that promote goods using their service I think this would be a popular idea.
Hypertag have done something similar, but they have the better name and marketing strategy through the use of interactive medium and detailed campaigns. Their website allows you to take an interactive tour of their product as though you were walking down the street. By simply having your Bluetooth on you receive promotional offers, free music, images and games. It’s on a slightly simpler scale than Qode and doesn’t give the user as much control as they would have reading a barcode of their choice but I like this idea. I encountered it when I went to the O2 stadium in London when I saw Foo Fighters. One of the support acts was giving people free downloads if they switched on their Bluetooth.
Another idea I thought was sort of sweet was one where girls can create ringtones to share with one another. However I think the wrong company took on this approach seeing as it was Tampax. I don’t know about you but I wouldn’t be too keen on having a blaring ringtone advertising which brand of tampon I use. In any case I thought this was a good idea, just the wrong setting. I can see it working for record companies as a mean of self promotion for unsigned bands, or for music orientated websites. Even companies that offer free iTunes could get away with it.
Similarly, girls were also invited to blog using their mobile phones in an effort to advertise the second Bridget Jones film. Of course anyone can blog using a phone, but there were other features to keep users entertained such as prizes and interactive games with secret admirers and love calculators. Great idea, but slightly wobbly out of context.
Funnily enough one of my favourite marketing schemes was the one done by Sony Ericsson in conjunction with Memorable Movie Moments whereby people were encouraged to send in pictures of themselves doing their favourite scene from their favourite movie. The Shining one is particularly good! Things like this that involve the community are great fun, however with only seven pages of submitted content and roundabout seven or so images on each page I think it’s safe to assume that it was a slow and fairly unpopular project. Maybe it was advertised in the wrong way?
Would any of the above services or games appeal to you in any way, and would you be willing to get involved in them? What would matter the most to you - the prizes to be won, the practicality of being able to access digital information, interacting with a community or having entertainment on the go? What about price? Would you be willing to pay your network rates for sending picture messages or connecting to a 3G network in order to participate in the above?
Comments are offI Hate Designers
A little while ago I expressed how I felt about going to university to become a designer. Funnily enough even with heaps of internet folk trying to reassure me I haven’t felt any better since. No offence to all you lovely people. I did say that this is a personal journey. The answer is trying to unfold before me and I’m not sure it’s what I want.
To summarise I’m fed up. I hate the design world and the people who work for it. It’s an industry full of pretentious, egotistical, sold out, dull idiots who fancy themselves the grand communicators of all time and humanity. I don’t want to be associated with people who protest capitalism by setting up an overpriced shop to promote their design work, talentless teenagers who assign themselves the title ‘web designer’ casually (as one would ‘psychologist’ or any other professional title), web designers who scam their customers into paying £500 for a simple stylesheet, shallow online cliques hell bent on ‘exposing’ websites and not to mention how designers with a different mind set get frowned upon for not being ‘ethical’ or ‘moral’.
The more I look at design the more I realise just how so much of it looks the same, how the thrill it used to give me is just a faint smirk here and there. I’m no longer excited by design, just overwhelmed by it and overstimulated to the point where I feel paranoid about being creative in any way whatsoever. My quest to be imaginative has ended at a point where I feel I can no longer excercise it without feeling guilty or unoriginal. Even my current layout has been said to look like some other freaking layout I’ve never seen in my entire life - that’s just dandy.
I want out. I’d rather deliver milk than fit into some two-faced archetype. At least it’d be much more dignified. Funnily enough I still enjoy blogging tremendously. Do come back y’all.
Comments are offBehave!
Please bear with me whilst I go all Sherry Turkle on your asses. It’s to be expected I suppose, I am a great enthusiast of online identity and post modernism. I also like piña colada’s and getting caught in the rain. I don’t like yoga. I digress from my original point.
The other day I was coming up with essay titles for one of my units at university, and the one that interested me most was ‘how are we expected to behave online’? Long gone are the early days of the internet where hippies sat around toking and claiming how the internet was freedom, peace and love. We all very well know that there are as many social expectations online as there are offline even if we aren’t confined to a single identity.
Within the blogging community I somewhat consider myself a part of I’d say a few people would expect me to have a sensible design with somewhat intelligent or original content - despite the fact that I am a blogging vegetable. Were I to use 8PT text and post about how Chad looked at me in the mall then I’d fall into a completely different circle. I’m not expressing a preference because I’ve never cared about being within particular social circles but stay with me, there is a method in my madness.
How do people fall within different cliques on the internet and what do they do to maintain that status? I don’t just mean within the blogging community either, since bloggers are just a percentage of internet users online. There are also online communities which demand a higher level of involvement, and IRC which can be just as fast paced or even quicker than having a conversation offline.
This would lead to suggest that should any one individual sit inside more than one social circle online then they will behave very differently in each one. I appreciate that this can sometimes be the same in real life, but to what extent? I admit to behaving slightly differently towards different people and different social groups in real life, however I don’t think I vary from person to person as dramatically as one can online.
For example, the same person can be part of a sweet bubbly community such as the Quilting Bee and at the same time be a compulsive gambler on a bingo website. Or maybe they’re taking the piss out of someone online via a review, and emailing their grandparents a friendly e-card. Thanks to tabbed navigation these things can also take place simultaneously, with said individual switching their personality at the click of a button.
Going back to the social thing, perhaps this is a bit extreme but I consider online social groups to be almost like gangs. They exhibit some behaviours associated with gang culture. Most social groups I’ve seen have a ring leader of some sort whom everyone respects or at least fears to some extent. This is often gained through intimidation and threats. Of course I hardly see online social groups going out to knife opposing gangs. Arguably that sort of thing takes place with words in place of weapons. Or maybe I’ve been listening to too much Fall Out Boy.
This might be asking too much since I know not everyone is willing to disclose their personal happenings on the internet for different reasons, but how differently do you behave within different circles on the internet? What are the expectations for acceptable behaviour within these circles? What would happen if you acted outside these norms? Would it concern your friends or would it cause you to be outcast and accepted by a different group?
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