Quote of the 'Week'

"Men will always be mad, and those who think they can cure them are the maddest of all."
Voltaire
Discovering that someone has commented on one of my blogs is such a joyous feeling. Hint, bloody hint!

Friday 30 April 2010

This Is A Poem

I’m going to write a poem
I’m going to make it snappy
It’s going to be a jolly jape
That makes its readers happy.

I always start with short lines
They’re better – it’s been tested,
And an ABCB rhyme scheme
To keep them interested.

And then I make lines longer
And the rhyming becomes stronger
And they hunger for a pause
Of course I’ll punctuate the verse
But first, the verse idea has got to go
For this, dear reader, is harder and deeper
And verses are needed no more.
Furthermore, the lack of a split
Is a handy addition; it helps me to fit
More of it on the page, which is really
Really good.
Especially if you’re going to print it out.
In fact, you could say that I’ve done you a favour
I’ve given you one more spare piece of printer paper
Than I would have done had I continued
With the stanza break
But those are minor logistical technicalities
That don’t really require elaboration
In fact, it doesn’t really have any place
In this poem
But I thought it looked quirky
And professional
To include enjambment
At random
Intervals. And the illusion
Of a train of thought
That this poem resembles
Works better when the text
Isn’t broken up by stanzas
But it could be argued
That I’m just not trying any more
And I’m just typing words
Which poses
The question
At what point does intelligent
Esperimental poetry
Become structureless
Pointless
Drivel?

Saturday 24 April 2010

Ramblin'

Now, I'm not a raving, chemical-toilet kicking environmentalist or anything, but I do think that those who say that the Earth is 'part of us' have a point. A good one, at that; in this incredibly technology-dependent age, everything boils down to the effective transferral of information. In this sense, we rely quite heavily on the Earth. Right down to the words we use.

Right, let's imagine the unimaginable. We knacker the planet. I mean, properly bugger up. And not only do we have to evacuate (if we can), but the actual planet itself is destroyed somehow (I'm no scientist, but I'm sure you can find some crazed boffin with a theory so complicated and intelligent-sounding that it's completely watertight against the moronic, uninformed arguments we dribble in cynicism, about how our blatant disregard for our planet could indirectly make it explode). The planet Earth, third planet from the Sun, sixth from Pluto, ninety-seven thousandth from The Almighty Lord Our Capitalised Creator, is gone. Completely and utterly. And the thought of our lost home sends us into spirals of depression.

Say we manage to restore the internet, wherever we end up - after all, it has become the backbone of modern society. What do we replace 'www' with? The first 'w' doesn't  quite seem right. Sure, 'world' doesn't specifically mean 'Earth', but that's what you think of when you hear the word, isn't it? We won't want to hear the word 'world' all the time, because it will remind us of the incident. So that will have to go. I expect they would replace it with another word that has been known to have the suffix '-wide'.
All I can think of is 'nationwide'. The Nation Wide Web. I'll be honest, that sounds crap. Besides the point that it only refers to one group of people at any given time, it needs three identical letters; hence, 'www' worked. It was almost catchy. Well, as catchy as an acronym can be without spelling out BOLLOCKS (how about 'the Battalion Of the Loving and Listening Omnipresent, Creationist Killing Supermen', which certainly lives up to its acronym).
Furthermore, whatever word replaces 'net' in order to make the acronym consist of the same three letters should be roughly synonymous with the meaning of the original word. 'Net' was used to describe the mass of signals, criss-crossing all over, from lots and lots of different computers, like a web (hence 'web' - duh). So it should be some sort of complicated, intricate construction, preferably from the natural world.
So the template is:
1. A word to represent humanity as a whole, possibly in the possessive if we're going to be intergalactically social in the future
2. A word to demonstrate the sheer scale of the internet. The internet wasn't that big when the terminology was coined, so 'wide' initially sufficed. The destruction of the planet Earth would be a good chance to update the term to suit the massiveness of the modern internet (which, by the way, will be even bigger in the future).
3. A word to replace 'web' (see above paragraph).
Here's my idea.
'Humanity's Humongous Hive'.

There you go. Food for thought there.
Bye bye.

Sunday 18 April 2010

Late Night Blogging

Mister Ross Milnes and I have started work on a new project. It's basically like a podcast, but animated, and it's a blatant rip-off of the Ricky Gervais Show.
On an unrelated note, here is a picture of a thinly-disguised plug.
I honestly think this project will go somewhere. I have so many other projects that I have shelved over the years, because my dedication to an idea rarely exceeds past a weekend.

There's my homage to Dr Seuss: 'Who's the Greatest Pie-Eater?' Asks Poom-Pa-Nom Peter, a story I finished writing, but stopped illustrating six months ago, five percent of the way through; a portrait commissioned by two friends (on the rare chance that at least one of the two people reads this and knows that this deliberately-vague mention is directed at them, I am so sorry for not getting it done - I'll try to get myself to continue it) and countless other animations that I simply don't have the drive to continue. I think there must be this constant, underlying depression, droning on in the very back of my mind about how pointless these projects are but frustratingly capable of controlling my motivations.

However, I'm really enjoying making this cartoon, so I'm optimistic (I'm currently at my mum's, away from my home computer and my animating software, and I'm getting withdrawal symptoms).

On a similar vein, I'm terribly sorry about the tent, Sam. One parent is a dithering idiot (it seems to be hereditary) and the other is constantly busy, so I haven't had the chance to rein one in and force them to take me to your place of residence for retrieval.
If you're not Sam, you won't understand that last bit. Well sucks to be you, and not Sam, then, doesn't it?

Anyway, I must go now because my back hurts. The only place I can currently get an internet connection is on my mother's kitchen window-sill, so I'm currently sat on the draining board, my back twisted ninety degrees to the left. I think my ribcage is squishing one of my kidneys. And I like my kidney. So bye.

Friday 16 April 2010

A JibJab Video

I found this a couple of hours ago. You can customise the videos with your own photos, and it's brilliant.


Personalize funny videos and birthday eCards at JibJab!

Friday 9 April 2010

A downright pedantic little whinge

Right.
I was perusing Google Maps, gettin' my Street View on, when I noticed something about the KFC sign on Nettleham Road, in Lincoln.

As you can see from this picture, the face of Colonel Sanders is obscured. Now, this seems reasonable - there is clearly a piece of software used by Google to identify faces (and car number plates) and obscure them to retain the anonymity of whoever happened to get snapped by the Street View camera. This software recognised the KFC sign as a face and blurred it. Fine. I totally get that.

But then I took a look from the other side, the north-facing side of the sign. For some reason, the software decided not to blur the good colonel this time.
Taking this, and the similar signs in the background, into account, one can only assume that the software opts not to blur your face if you're a posterised southern colonel who is facing north.

So cover your face in talcum powder, put on a pair of glasses and a fake moustache, face Scotland and say 'cheese'!

Sunday 4 April 2010

An Insight into the Inner Workings of my Brain

Hello.

Yes, the title is the same as the blog's name. This is because, for once, I am genuinely providing an insight into the inner workings of my brain. It does exactly what it says on the tin.

Anyway, I have been feeling a little low lately. I won't go into detail about the ins and outs. The thing is, this down period has been really very fruitful in terms of creativity. Annoyingly, my brain is usually far too active for a single train of thought to develop into something more focused (this is why I have countless unfinished animations on my hard drive). The plasticity of my mindset means that I rarely return to a project without regarding it as old hat and somewhat pitiful, which, in the long run, is infuriating for me.
But it's interesting; when something gets me down, my rapid-fire mind becomes blinkered. It shuns any superfluous postulations and becomes rational and linear, without losing its flair for eccentricity. As a result, most of my best creative work happens during these moments. And this moment, this low moment, has been especially creative.

One of the problems I have as a result of my creative hyperactivity is that I struggle with plots. I find dedicating my brain power to developing a stoyline for one set of characters in a given scenario extremely difficult; I will suddenly think of another plot idea involving completely different characters, and the whole beastly thing starts all over again (again, hence the unfinished animations). This is a slight problem as an animator, and a major problem for an aspiring independent filmmaker. Being an aspiring independent filmmaker who specialises in animation and is also considering a career in writing, this is a developmental hiccup of galactic proportions.
You see, animation is like the flesh and the muscle of an animated film, and the storyline is like the skeleton. The animation can be beautiful and fully-formed and pleasing to the eye, but without a storyline, it collapses under its own unsupported weight into an inintelligible mess. My animations are mostly beautiful, unintelligible messes.

But every now and again, when my idiosyncratic sunny demeanour is dented by something or someone, everything focuses on a single idea - in this case, a story - and I am given the rare opportunity to run with it, distraction-free. I have thought of a wonderful, thought-provoking storyline (I'll keep it secret for now, just in case it doesn't amount to anything), and this is great because it serves as creative 'scaffolding' for an animation to build up around.

If I was near my home computer, I would start animating right away. But I'm not, so I can't. Typical, that is.
Anyway, never mind. I felt like reporting this on my blog as much as to have a personal record of this moment for myself as to provide you lot with some reading material over Easter.

Don't eat too much chocolate.

Will

Friday 2 April 2010

A Posthumous Apology to Baird and Farnsworth on Behalf of this Televisual Atrocity

This is depressing.
I don't expect that the makers of Deal or No Deal are ever going to apologise for what they have done. As a result, I have decided to take on the responsibility of apologising to the late John Logie Baird and the late Philo T. Farnsworth, inventors of the television as we know it.
It has nothing to do with me, but somebody's got to do it, for all our sakes. Nobody in Britain is getting into Heaven unless we are forgiven for Deal or No Deal: Easter Madness.

To Mister John Logie Baird [deceased] and Mister Philo Taylor Farnsworth [deceased],
I am so sorry. On behalf of Noel Edmonds, Deal or No Deal, Channel 4, modern television and the viewers of Great Britain, I apologise solemnly and resolutely for the frankly baffling spectacle of Noel Edmonds and a handful of unfortunate people, dressed up as characters from Alice in Wonderland, negotiating, through sheer luck, life-changing amounts of money. The revolutionary work you did was worth more than this.

The very least I can ask is that you pull some strings with the Big Man up there (if he exists, but that's besides the point) and ensure that Noel Edmonds, and Noel Edmonds only, gets judged for this in the afterlife.

Again, I am so very very sorry.

Yours sincerely,
William Wivell, Loyal Television Watcher
I write like
Cory Doctorow

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!