Going to get the kitten tomorrow -- right now am fervently trying to cat-proof the house, but I am sure no matter what I hide he will find things to have that I don't want him to have, haha. Am beginning to think it would be better to not cat-proof the house and let him have the lesser of many evils.

In the spirit of the occasion, have a cat macro:

Meme nicked from blowdry

* Post 3 things you've done in your lifetime that you don't think anybody else on your friends list has done.
* See if anybody else responds with "I've done that."
* Have your friends cut & paste this into their journal to see what unique things they've done in their life.

01. I superglued my trousers to my legs and my hand to my trousers, and then had to HACK MY WAY out of them with a pair of nail scissors and then sit in the bath with a scouring pad to free myself. Oh yes!

02. I took the wrong bus and ended up in England instead of at home... making an hour and a half journey into an eleven hour one

03. I once told my teachers my parents were getting a divorce to get out of being in trouble. It worked, until they called both my parents up for a separation meeting at the school... for a divorce they weren't actually having. :D

There's actually a load of random shit I could have put here that I'm pretty sure no one else would have done, or at least only the few who grew up with me, haha but it would mean admitting such things took place ;)

...it sucks to me! Is there anybody here it doesn't suck to be? :D Yeah, we're back from London -- it was both amazing and stupidly bad; hardly anyone showed up to the screening at all, I think most people were pretty bummed that at all that cost and effort it was all for nothing. The rest of it greatly outweighed that, though --

-Double Negative, an effects company, showed up and were really nice people and very honest and generous with their time. They gave us a tour, and I can now say I've seen the establishing/opening shot of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (it's going to be amazing, seriously -- that shot, anyway) and several in-progress effects shots for Hellboy 2. Robots. By the hundreds. All I'm saying :D And they gave Kev a job, which is even better!

-Mairi and I saw Avenue Q. It was just as awesome as it always is -- not the same cast we saw before, but for the most part they were all as good. Also we got Royal Circle seats for £25, which is even better :D

-Generally dicking about with the class in London was a good laugh, as usual spent way too much money in Forbidden Planet (rifle -- looked for you both days but you weren't around) and the staff at Hamleys were so not impressed that none of us had kids.

-The staff at the hostel were obsessed with my tattoo to the point of photographing it, flattering, but awkward XD

-The guys arrived in London and within half an hour had seen the Queen, haha

-Mike and I saw some random woman getting her hair cut in the street

-Mairi and I nearly missed our flight back because the bridge in Bethnal Green was collapsing or generally unsafe and they weren't letting trains through, so we had to grab two randoms and get a minicab to Stansted -- we made it with 3 gloriously sweaty minutes to spare. What I couldn't believe was the number of people standing on the platform (for the STANSTED EXPRESS so they were all going to the airport!) going "Durr, train?".

I basically led the minicab revolution, no one else was going to do anything at all -- these people were businessmen and women, grown adults twice my age, and all they did was LISTEN to me calling my dad to get him to go online and find out if ours was the last flight -- the entire platform went silent, and when I looked up they all shuffled and turned away, haha XD

There was actual sprinting in the airport, too, I don't think I've reached my top speed in years ...

( And now, some photos! )

I didn't take any of those, just thieved a selection of people's bebos :D

Well, here is is.... I get my final grade in t-minus four hours, but I'm more nervous about what you guys think of the film I've been banging on about for a year and a half ;) It's not perfect, but we learned plenty from working on it -- and I'm proud of what we managed to do as a group. Onwards and upwards I say!

The deadline for the film has been and gone -- I graduate in a month's time, and we get our results back a week today. Aaaah!

Last week was hectic, but hopefully well worth it -- the whole last month has been surreal, it hasn't sunk in yet that we're completely finished. There's no sense of closure or happiness yet, to us it was just like crossing one more thing off of the 'to do' list. We finished the film and handed it in with no drama or stress, it was just done, rendered, put on a dvd, and on the edit share all in one afternoon the week before the hand in. I think if we'd been flapping about the night before we might have felt it more, haha. Putting our folios together was more stressful than making the film -- kids, if you do an animation degree, start making your fucking folio at Christmas!

I put our 'Making Of' up on youtube, one of the many requirements of the degree was showing what everybody did on the film --



Music by Craig :D his myspace.

I'm not going to put the film on youtube or anything, I'll link to the degree show site when it goes up though so you can all see it and the others :)

Every year the University does a sort of press-release thing, written up by the exhibitions department -- I was one of the ones who was asked to do it. My phone wasn't working properly apparently, so I didn't actually get the message about it for weeks -- when five voicemails all arrived at once saying "Hi Laura, it's Jenny from the exhibitions department, I just need to set up an interview..." hahaha.

So I finally caught up with them, having given up trying to reach them on the phone ("Hi Jenny it's L, guess you're not in your office today either..." "Hi Laura it's Jenny..." "Hi Jenny it's L..." voicemail tag!) and spoke to them about the film, and this is what they actually released about it -- syntax theirs:

Along with classmates Mairi Steele, Shaun Gordon and Arthur Cook, Laura has produced a humorous, hand-drawn animation. The romantic story, entitled 'Chasin Tail' follows a street mutt with his eye on a glamorous lady. Slapstick antics occur as he traces her through the streets but there is a twist in the tale with a surprising finish. Laura hopes to become a concept artist, developing characters for others to use.

First of all, Arthur's last name is Crook, not Cook, and secondly... a street mutt?! I said he escapes from his garden to chase her, and one of the stills we gave them was a picture of the dog in a kennel! Hahahaha, never mind the grammar -- I guess they wanted it to be gritty, as well as... slapstick? Haha, you can see the full page of them here.

I should have more time now to take part in things like gear_shift and post drawings and ... stuff. Watch me not do it now, hahaha!

The film is finished! All we need to do now is render off a fully uncompressed version of it, which we're going to be doing tomorrow. Deadline is Monday at 12 :D

In other news, I got hired, whay! I'm going to be a jr artist at a games company in Dundee. This is good for many reasons, not least of all because it's full time/permanent :D. I'll be doing some concept stuff for an upcoming project which'll be fun, and probably loads of monkey work ;) but that's okay, money for doing things that aren't retail related!

The lj spellchecker seems think I've misspelled 'monkey'... I really don't think I did...

( w00t! )

The end draws near! :D Degree show is starts May 16th and lasts the week after that, haha,if anyone would like to come :D

Have you guys heard of this Orphan Works bill? I'm trying to stir up some more info on it, but aside from an audio interview and that article the rest of them are 2 years old.

I'm posting just to be contrary about the 'strike', so have some photos of our studio space at university for the 'Chasin' Tail' project :D I posted 'em on devart aeons ago, but not here...

( Strike breakin' crossposted pictures! )

I've no idea what order any of these go in and the recent ones where whichever jpegs I had handy, but here's a sort of then-vs-now of my drawings, to make me feel better slightly XD

( woop )

I did this on friday night -- fanart of whatever happened to be on TV. The rules were I could only spend the duration of the episode drawing and no references except what was actually on the tv... we have Law and Order SVU, CSI Vegas, and The X-Files.

( Doodoodoodoodoodoo )

hahaha amazingly, Warrick and Nick probably came out best. This is amazing because the first 3 times I drew Warrick he looked like a cross between Ru Paul and Ronald McDonald. The X-Files is the one I'm least happy with... that one's on the latest so it's more cartoony cos I was knackered, but even so it's a bit balls XD they are harder to draw than I thought they'd be.

I enjoy this one, haha

1. Pick 10 of your favorite movies.
2. Go to IMDb and find a quote from each movie.
3. Post them here for everyone to guess.
4. Italicize and bold when someone guesses correctly, and put who guessed it and the movie.
5. Looking them up (and then posting your answers) is, of course, cheating.

( w00p )

1 to go people!

well this killed 30 seconds or so...

1) Name/username.
2) Left or right handed?
3) Favourite letters to write.
4) Least favourite characters to write.
5) Write "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog."
6) Tag 5 people.

( Read more... )

This, my friends, is a lesson in ALWAYS making sure you have the address correct before you send your mail...

A while ago I got a letter through to my address (not just to my house number, but a very specific location -- which floor it was on, which side, rather than giving the flat number). It wasn't even addressed to a full name -- just a female first name, let's say it was Crystal (it wasn't).

On the back, it had a thick sticker on it that read "CONTENTS CHECKED AND SECURITY SEALED."

I get a lot of mail that isn't mine. It's all sitting in a massive pile at my door, I am terrible about remembering to repost it. This one stuck out because it wasn't addressed to the previous owners of this place (Nick, if you're out there, I have your exam results and your car has been recalled). I apparently tossed it to one side and didn't put it in the pile, because I found it next to the newt tank earlier this evening. Having rubbed the dust off it and scrawled 'NOT AT THIS ADDRESS' on it, I got to thinking that the Post Office wasn't ever going to find who it belonged to. There was no return address, not even a last name. They hadn't even written a post code.

Now, I am a curious person of little moral standing... so I opened it. In the name of science, and in the vague hopes of finding out who it belonged to or a return address. It certainly wasn't the previous owners of this place, and I've been here for years now.

Inside were five loose-leaf sheets of lined school-jotter paper, covered with handwriting...

...detailing how best to make your very own bondage dungeon! Complete with little organised lists of itinerary needed to set it up. There are even little illustrations to go along with it -- if ever I need to build my own turn table to tie a slave to, I've got the instructions right here!

Some highlights of the lists include:

You can get:-

Rope
Chain
Shackles
R Clips

A saddlery for:-

Rubber horse bits
Stirrup leathers (good for waist straps)
Wallrings for Hay racks are good for fixing slaves to

Reigns for riding your slave!

Also, from the little diagrams:

arm straps (dog collars)
Leg straps (large leather dog collars?)
Rings for nipple clip chains
Ring for cock clip chains

Hahaha I could post so much more, but I am pretty sure Jim (probably not his real name, and not the fake name he used in this letter, either) wouldn't be too pleased to find it on the internet. I do not see how anyone could build a fetish dungeon in a flat this size, though- I don't even have room for a proper-sized sofa, nevermind a place to clip a slave to a hay rack wall-ring! I'd have to sleep on the turntable myself when it wasn't in use, and if I had a guest they would have to spreadeagle themselves on the wallmount -- not practical, not in the least.

This probably means that somewhere in this very street there is a dominatrix with a load of plywood and rope and no idea of how to use them, too, hahaha. Maybe she'll visit BnQ and consult their DIY experts.

75 words

free Touch typing

I used to be above 80... alas!

I took part in yuletart this year and they just posted the one someone did for me (they're all still anonymous) -- go look, it is the best thing ever:

Indiana Jones and the Incredible Ghostbusting Mission of God of Brisco County Jr vs the Army of Darkness before Christmas!

hahahaha XD I love it!

The bottom two are gearshift ones I'm posting there later today. All are from my little sketchbook, so most of them are actual size... I think the Evil Dead one is a tiny bit bigger than it scanned, but only maybe an inch.

( tally ho! )

Will be posting those and some other things to artses later today... once I get my arse in gear and organised XD

The Book Meme
1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the next four to seven sentences on your LJ along with these instructions.
5. Don't you dare dig for that "cool" or "intellectual" book in your closet! I know you were thinking about it! Just pick up whatever is closest [unless it's too troublesome to reach and is really heavy. Then go back to step 1].
6. Tag five people.

Mary Read, was to the last degree uneasy and anxious, for the fate of her lover; she would not have had him refuse the challenge, because she could not bear the thoughts of his being branded with cowardice; on the other side, she dreaded the event, and apprehended the fellow might be too hard for him.

When love once enters into the breast of one who has any sparks of generosity, it stirs the heart up to the most noble actions; in this dilemma, she showed, that she cared more for his life, than she did for her own; for she took a resolution of quarreling with this fellow herself, and having challenged him ashore, she appointed the time two hours sooner than that when he was to meet her lover, when she fought him off at sword and pistol, and killed him on the spot.

- from A General History of the Robberies and Murders of the most Notorious Pirates - by Captain Charles Johnson.

Haha I'm using it extensively for my dissertation... but I decided to only post TWO sentences since damn, that man was wordy!

I tag... mell_o_drama, missnickers, sitonmywall, revyrie, and zen_child :P