The Library: it’s a jungle out here

I’m at the Brisbane Square Brisbane City Council Library today (wow that’s a mouthful, I might just shorten it to a really long acronym instead: BSBCCL).

I came extra early at about 8.45am because I could. However the library doesn’t open til 9am I was informed.

When the library is shut it’s barred and bolted up with steel- BlueScope Steel I’m presuming. So it is literally closed. Except you can see through the steel so on one side you have people waiting for the library to open and on the other side the security guards.

You know how in the old days, I think in the depression era (don’t ever quote me), people use to wait outside the gates to be employed, they use to just wait and fight for a job through the steel gates? Yeh well, that’s how I felt waiting for the library to open. Except I wasn’t waiting, or fighting for a job (minor difference there).

Anyway, before long there was a large flock of people waiting outside the library. At exactly 9am, the security guards walked towards the large steel doors to unlock them. I stood there and watched people climb over each other (slight exaggeration), trying to be the first to get in the library. It was like watching people outside a department store flooding through the doors to try and be the first to get all the great bargains at a sale, except there’s nothing on sale at the library.

I have really great comparisons.

People were actually running to get through the doors. I just thought, why are they all running? It’s not like there’s not enough books to go round. It’s not like there’s not enough computers to search for your book on the library catalogues. It’s not like the library is only open for 10 minutes.

Anyway I just found that amusing so I thought I’d blog about it.

Feeling Pez-imistic?

What do YOU do with all your empty Pez dispensers?

Stole this pez-tastic picture off Poppytalk
Ps. Not sure about the relevance of this post’s title, it just sounds catchy

The iPod Nano Case-ette

Whoever thought the old cas-sette would now simply become a case?
A Vancouver-based multidisciplinary design firm recycles cassettes and 7″ vinyls into iPod cases.
You really can make money out of anything these days.

Check out: Digital Meets Analog – it’s pretty cool

A rainbow of literature

This picture first caught my eye in some stranger’s blog: How About Orange.
It amazes me how something as simple (… perhaps not so simple in this case) as rearranging books, can have such an incredible effect.

Installation artist Chris Cobb’s “There Is Nothing Wrong In This Whole Wide World” (pictured) involved rearranging the 20,000 odd books of San Francisco’s ADOBE Books by colour. Apparently Chris and his team of 20ish volunteers stayed up all night (10 hours, several pizzas and 30 bottles of water) arranging all the books by hand.

Part of the lyricism of Cobb’s project at Adobe came from the fact that the artist has neither added nor taken away anything in the bookstore, but merely rearranged what was already there to create a completely dreamlike space.

It was also quite interesting that the following was observed: blue-colored books sold the most, brown books were most often stolen and red books tended to remain on the shelves. There were more white books in the store than any other color, whereas very few books were colored yellow.

Chris Cobb said this in an interview of about the installation, “You don’t have to know anything about art in order to understand it. That’s one of my favorite things about this.” Hmm… I don’t know, but my interpretation of that would be, “There’s no REAL meaning/point to this art piece, I just felt like rearranging some books by colour because it looks cool”.

You no longer knead an oven

On a typical day at work, you park your car in the hot Australian sun all day- it’s sitting there, stinking hot… much like an oven, except you don’t have to pay for it.

SO, Why not take advantage of Queensland’s summer heat? Bake cookies, the natural way!- Using your car.

Man, this is insane!!

Cool beans

I saw Hot Rod today- it was HILARIOUS! Better than Blades of Glory.

I recommend it to anyone who appreciates really.. intelligent.. comedies ([cough] mei goh)

Ten Questions: Tina Wong

Tina Wong is the FUNNIEST person I know.

1. What is your full name?
Tina Wong – and if I had a middle name, I would’ve liked it to be Gertrude.

2. When and where were you born?
I was born when my mum’s waters broke. I was born in Vietnam and NO! i am NOT Vietnamese – i was only born there and the only thing Vietnamese about me is that i eat pho.

3. What are you doing with your life at the moment?
I am helping to advance the legal drug dealing trade in Australia. More importantly, I am helping to populate heaven cos I think the more, the merrier it will be!

4. Describe yourself in 10 words.
I am somebody who prefers to be described in eleven words

5. Describe what you’re wearing this very second as you’re answering this questionnaire.
A blue drug company polo shirt that says, “Is there a generic alternative to your prescription medicine? Ask our staff.” They get a walking advertisement and i get a free shirt, so we’re all happy. Oh and I’m also wearing a black skirt and the appropriate undergarments – the colour of which I shall not disclose.

6. What’s your favourite:

• Food (at the moment) Steak
• Word Superfluous
• Sound My own voice
• Place My bed at my folk’s place, where my darling teddy, Brucey awaits me
• Thing My sister, Lucy

7. What gets you out of bed in the morning?
Mother Nature’s call

8. Share something that you’ve discovered recently.
That the best way to get a firm bottom is to do squats – this requires you to imagine that you are about to sit down on a public toilet, but you hover above it instead because you are a germaphobe and don’t wish to acquire a TSTD (toilet seat transmitted disease)

9. What was your childhood dream?
To be a TV star on Home and Away

10. What are you looking forward to?
The next questionnaire! Only kidding. I am looking forward to Christmas! Bring on those Christmas carols!

Ten Questions: Christianne Tham

1. What is your full name?
Christianne Tham MeiWan

2. When and where were you born?
2nd november 1988 at brisbane (forgot which hospital, haha)

3. What are you doing with your life at the moment?
Enjoy? Don’t know leh.

4. Describe yourself in 10 words.
a person who eat too much, lazy and a procrastinator!

5. Describe what you’re wearing this very second as you’re answering this questionnaire.
CCM shirt and board shorts = pyjamas ha ha…

6. What’s your favourite:

• Food (at the moment) roti canai, cheap and filling!
• Word lousy
• Sound sound of ocean waves
• Place mamak
• Thing sneakers <3

7. What gets you out of bed in the morning?
The urge to pee everytime I wake up

8. Share something that you’ve discovered recently.
Sean wants to dye his hair silver

9. What was your childhood dream?
To play RPG games forever and work at a game company. Seriously.

10. What are you looking forward to?
For holidays!!! Don’t you dare forget about our date! ;D

Ten Questions: Jien-Mae Tan

1. What is your full name?
Jien-Mae Rebecca Tan

2. When and where were you born?
00:23am, 25th May 1987. QE2 Brisbane

3. What are you doing with your life at the moment?
Painstakingly going through many years of university study, to build my career, which all in all – is temporary

4. Describe yourself in 10 words.
God fearing girl, indecisive, loves to cook, eat, laugh, sleep.

5. Describe what you’re wearing this very second as you’re answering this questionnaire.
My pyjamas. What? Li asked me to do this when I’m about to go to bed

6. What’s your favourite:

• Food (at the moment) Lemon-yoghurt cake that I make
• Word “please”
• Sound Laughter
• Place The kitchen
• Thing Lucas pawpaw ointment

7. What gets you out of bed in the morning?
The sound of my alarm clock. Knowing that if I don’t get up, I will miss my taxi service – my dad

8. Share something that you’ve discovered recently.
That the iPod Touch is a good-looking piece of technology.

9. What was your childhood dream?
To be a doctor, a surgeon, working in a hospital with kids, seeing the healing power of my God in the kids I would treat.

10. What are you looking forward to?
Going to the Justin Timberlake Concert with my sister on the 28th of October. Owning an iPhone.

Movie review: Stranger Than Fiction

After watching plenty of Will Ferrell movies, I thought I knew what to expect– the typical “cringe-factor” comedy with a handful of ultra hilarious moments, however over-powered with juvenile, distasteful and often vulgar “jokes”. Surprisingly, Stranger Than Fiction didn’t follow Ferrell’s cinematheque that I’ve become accustomed to. As they say, “don’t judge a book by its cover”, I now say, don’t judge a movie by the name Will Ferrell.

For all the designers/graphic/motion-art enthusiast’s out there, this movie will more than satisfy you. The 3D and animated “infographics” shown during the opening sequence of the film were incredible! Truly impressive:

The movie is about a lonely IRS agent (Will Ferrell) who starts to hear a voice narrating in his head. Turns out the voice belongs to eccentric novelist Karen Eiffel (Emma Thompson- brilliant actress in this movie by the way) who is on the verge of killing him off, not realizing her main character is real. After reading this short outline of the movie’s plot, you may reconsider seeing the movie. It sounds like a pretty pointless, unrealistic movie. I was astounded by how cleverly put together this movie was

To avoid another unnecessarily long post, I’ll stop here. I recommend this movie to anyone who enjoys a good movie that makes you think, keeps you guessing, gives you the occasional tasteful laugh, inspires you to write, leaves you to marvel the creativity of writers, makes you feel like cookies and milk (you’ll see why if you watch it).

 

Li’s Rating:

5 out of 5 kernels of popcorn + it is now on my list of favourite movies.

 

 

Endnote: you may have noticed the interesting, seemingly “smart”, perhaps irrelevant choice of vocabulary I’ve used throughout this post (many thanks to the MacBook Widget’s Thesaurus). This movie has inspired me greatly. It fascinates me how writers…write. So that was my attempt to be an artist with my words. Sorry if I’ve flummoxed (or confused) you.