Vegas Man

Firstly, I need a new camera! I know that, I'm working on it. I picked this up from a thrift store in Las Vegas, in fact they had about 10 different variations and left me puzzled. I would have bought them all if i had the room. this one had no glass, so was most suited to a suitcase!.... and also had the best person! they all featured a photo of a house/ houses and had a portrait floating in the air. At first I just thought it was people and their homes, made sense..... but then i'd see a photo with several houses,  then i got to this one, well that is not a man and his house! What are they??? I wondered if they were real estate agents, but it didn't quite fit. Who knows! I do know i like it, it's cool and it in my house.... oh and he will no doubt appear in my work at some stage! Vegas Man.

Ice Haven

I love this dark, funny little book.

Willy Vlautin

Here's a great album i can highly recommend, especially if you like a good story, I've played it a lot. Willy Vlautin is a member of the band Richmond Fontaine and a great songwriter. He also writes great books and one of them, The Motel Life has recently been made into a film featuring Stephen Dorff and Emile Hirsch. I really enjoyed the book, nice and bleak!... so I'll be interested to see how the film compares. Northline has to be my favourite book of his though and it came with a great instrumental cd,  a perfect mood setter. I used to sit and read it with the cd on a loop... and happily lose myself in it all. There's also a great spoken word cd called A Jockey's Christmas, which i love, again pretty bleak and a catalogue of misfortunes fall upon the young jockey visiting his family for Christmas. For now though I'd start right here with The High Country.

Life's Regrets

I was reading these from a link on Saul's fine blog, How to leave work, and thought I'd just share the key points. They were collected by Bronnie Ware on her blog Inspiration and Chai . She was a palliative care nurse and these were the 5 most recurring regrets of those nearing the end of their lives. Go read the fuller points on her blog. There's something we can all take from these. On point 4, I'd like to tell my good buddy Craigio out in Thailand, that a package will be on it's way to you soon! Go live your lives, don't just pass through it.

• I wish I'd had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me
• I wish I hadn't worked so hard
• I wish I'd had the courage to express my feelings
• I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends
• I wish that i had let myself be happy

TV Adverts - The State Of A Nation?

I've been meaning to do this post since returning from America in January. I have to say i was pretty shocked by some of the adverts on the TV there. A relentless stream of medication/pills,  health insurance (and food.. generally how much you could get for so little money). I had touched on this in a post after returning, but now i want to pick it up again. Over on Tracey's blog recently she was using hulu (not available outside the States..yet!) the adverts on cable were getting too much and she was..

"frustrated with cable programming to the point where we hardly turn on the TV anymore. When we do all there is to watch are ads selling you drugs, talk about drug pushers, the network TV companies are the biggest pushers ever"

Anyway, she got me thinking again. TV adverts are a pretty good insight into the habits and problems of a Nation. I decided I'd keep lists of adverts at various times. I'd be interested in getting some other lists from elsewhere. I'd like to see what you're getting, please comment and list them or email me. This was from a 10.15 pm slot during a movie on Channel 5.

• Pay day loans
• Supermarket fuel/grocery deal
• Laundry soap
• Chocolate bar
• Action movie trailer
• Wood preservative
• Vacuum cleaner
• Home Insurance
• Air freshener
• Emergency cash
• Cider

..so what's it say? Hmm. It's more of a 'compare and contrast' project, so we'll see. I really don't mind crap adverts just flogging their product, i can turn myself off to it all. It is what it is... BUT i just can't handle all these 'ordinary people being honest about products/services'... fuck them! ha. It's such bullshit, it infuriates the hell out of me. I shall have to figure out which one tops my list and post it here. You know it's all fake becuase they always have to say "..actually." at the end of their dumb spiel, just to convince themselves it's a real thought and not them just spewing out their lines for money. Like i said, fuck them! ha. Your turn. Over and out.

This Is Water

I saw this over on another blog, The Tiny Life and thought I'd share. There's also a book of the same name, which i first read a couple of years ago. It's by David Foster Wallace, a writer who sadly killed himself, in 2008 aged 46, after many years of depression. There are some interesting thoughts about how we live and respond to the world around us.

Coming Soon

Wish List, the animated version, is now complete! Griff's done the sound (with great voices provided by Steve Furst) and finishing touches and it's all good to go. He's done an amazing job, it looks great and i can't wait for you all to see it. Stay tuned and I'll be sure to let you know.