Puff and Cellith

January 26th, 2009

Puff and Cellith

Commentary on an Email forward

January 22nd, 2009

Australian Flag

So, I received this email from my cousin…

You know you’re Australian if….

Oh dear, it’s one of THOSE emails.

You know the meaning of ‘girt’

I learnt it once, but I couldn’t tell you now.

You believe that stubbies can either be worn or drunk

…Worn? You mean like shorts? O.o

You think it is normal to have a Prime Minister called Kevin

Yeah, don’t get this one. Kevin isn’t exactly a weird name.

You waddle when you walk due to the 53 expired petrol discount vouchers stuffed in your wallet or purse

We have a new-fangled thing called an Everday Rewards card at Woolworths now.

When you hear that an American ‘roots for his team’ you wonder how often and with whom

Yeah, this one is funny. For those that don’t know, ‘to root’ someone is to have sex with them.

You understand that the phrase ‘a group of women wearing black thongs’ refers to footwear and may be less alluring than it sounds

Yep.

You pronounce Melbourne as ‘Mel-bin’

More like… Mel-b’n.

You pronounce Penrith as ‘Pen-riff’

I hate people that don’t know how to pronounce ‘th’.

You believe the ‘L’ in the word ‘ Australia ‘ is optional but either way, the ‘ia’ is pronounced ‘ya’.

True.

You can translate: ‘Dazza and Shazza played Acca Dacca on the way to Maccas’

Highlight to view answer: Darren and Sharon played ACDC on the way to McDonalds.

You believe it makes perfect sense for a nation to decorate its highways with large fibreglass bananas, prawns and sheep

They have nothing else going for them!

You call your best friend ‘a total bastard’ but someone you really, truly despise is just ‘a bit of a bastard’

I don’t call anybody a bastard, I’m more likely to call someone an arsehole and only under my breath.

You think ‘Woolloomooloo’ is a perfectly reasonable name for a place

It rolls off the tongue! “wool-a-ma-loo”!

You believe is makes sense for a country to have a $1 coin that’s twice as big as its $2 coin

Neither are as heavy as a £1 coin so it’s all good. 50c coins, however…

You understand that ‘Wagga Wagga’ can be abbreviated to ‘Wagga’but ‘Woy Woy’ can’t be called ‘Woy’

I guess so…

You believe that cooked-down axlegrease makes a good breakfast spread

…Is this supposed to refer to Vegemite?

You believe all famous Kiwis are actually Australian, until they stuff up, at which point they again become Kiwis

I only view those who live in Australia as Australian. Like Russell Crowe. And when they “stuff up”, I don’t care. I never idolised them in the first place.

You know, whatever the tourist books say, that no one says ‘cobber’

WTF does ‘cobber’ even mean?!

You know that certain words must, by law, be shouted out during any rendition of the Angels’ song ‘Am I Ever Gonna See Your Face Again’

I only learnt this one recently. Highlight for answer: “No way, get fucked, fuck off!”

You believe, as an article of faith, that the confectionary known as the Wagon Wheel has become smaller with every passing year

It has! Seriously!

You still don’t get why the ‘Labor’ in ‘Australian Labor Party’ is not spelt with a ‘u’

Indeed.

You wear Ugg boots outside the house

Actually, I found that people in England are far more prone to do this than here. It’s bizarre and dumb, it’ s not like uggies are very good shoes. I always viewed them as slippers.

You believe that the more you shorten someone’s name the more you like them

I’ll have to agree with this one. Sadly I only know a couple of people whose names I shorten – one is my sister and the other doesn’t like it :(

Whatever your linguistic skills, you find yourself able to order takeaway fluently in every Asian language

Um, no. I know “hello” in Mandarin.

You understand that ‘excuse me’ can sound rude, while ’scuse me’ is alway polite

Yeah.

You know what it’s like to swallow a fly, on occasions via your nose

:-(

You understand that ‘you’ has a plural and that it’s ‘youse’

GTFO, I hate “youse”.

You know it’s not summer until the steering wheel is too hot to handle

*nods*

You biggest family argument over the summer concerned the rules of beach cricket

Beach yawn, more like.

You shake your head in horror when companies try to market what they call ‘Anzac cookies’

Yeah. They’re biscuits!

You still think of Kylie as ‘that girl off Neighbours’

I’m a bit young for this one. I think of her as that annoying woman that is clearly English now, and Australia should stop trying to claim her because she hasn’t even lived here in forever.

When returning home from overseas, you expect to be brutally strip-searched by Customs – just in case you’re trying to sneak in fruit

I’ve never had a problem with Customs in Australia. America on the other hand…

You believe the phrase ’smart casual’ refers to a pair of black tracky-daks, suitably laundered

I hate tracky-daks.

You understand that all train timetables are works of fiction

Yep. Not dissimilar to British Rail.

When working at a bar, you understand male customers will feel the need to offer an excuse whenever they order low-alcohol beer

Unfortunately, yes.

You get choked up with emotion by the first verse of the national anthem and then have trouble remembering the second

Who the heck gets choked up from the Australian national anthem?! It’s true that a lot of people don’t remember the second verse, but that’s because the anthem gets boring after the first verse. Nobody cares about it.

You find yourself ignorant of nearly all the facts deemed essential in the government’s new test for migrants.

Most likely.

You will immediately forward this list to other Australians, here and overseas, realising that only they will understand!!

No, I will only post it on my blog, ’cause I don’t like clogging up peoples’ inboxes.

Logo and Business Name!

January 21st, 2009

My Web Business has been on the backburner for a while, purely because it scares me. But, with the NEIS course less than one week away, I need to get on with it. So, tonight, I decided upon the name I came up with earlier, and created a logo:

Site Flight Web Design

I am very proud of it. I created it with the free illustration software Inkscape.

The most important things I need to do from here include:

  • Register business name
  • Get ABN
  • Storyboard the website
  • Create the web packages/templates
  • Work out pricing
  • Purchase domain and hosting (Servage, as well as being susceptible to hacking, does not offer .com.au domains)
  • Make the website

And that’s not even taking into consideration the actual business side of things. Guh.

Puff! First Tech Demo Released!

January 20th, 2009

PuffI didn’t openly publicise the platform game I’ve been working on recently, though I did put it on my Projects page. Basically, Puff is a video game to go with the comic book I’m working on. After spending time playing Sonic games, I just had an overwhelming urge to play around with Game Maker. Playing around turned into utter smittenness. Therefore, I present to you the first tech demo of Puff!

Puff! First Tech Demo on Yoyo Games

If you install their player, you don’t even have to download and run it locally. Unfortunately, it only works with Windows.

The controls are: keyboard arrow buttons for left and right movement. Up arrow for flying upward, down arrow for ducking while on the ground. Space bar for flame breath attack, Enter for pause, Esc for Exit Game.

Do let me know what you think of it! It took a lot of work to get it the way it is (I had to develop controls, attacks, object behaviour, even where to stop falling – let alone all the different graphics for character poses and tiles. Game Maker is NOT for the faint of heart!).

In Other News

January 18th, 2009

Awful hacking business aside, I got into the NEIS program, meaning on the 27th of January I am to begin my six week course to build my business plan. If I pass, I will then be funded about $450 a fortnight for 12 months while I get my business earning profits, and in the meantime I can still be working part time at Woolworths!

And as well as that, on Thursday morning I obtained my full driver’s licence! This means I no longer need my green P plates, plus my BAC is allowed to be above zero (I can eat a liqueur chocolate if I want, or have a beer a couple of hours before driving), I have more points on my licence and I can drive up to 110km/h (speed limit controlled, obviously). Oh, and my licence lasts five years before I need to renew it. Hurray!

1337 Haxx0rz

January 18th, 2009

So I discovered tonight that my host, Servage was hacked, with nasty code of some sort added to each index.php page I have. My first indication came yesterday, when I was in my NEIS interview. My interviewer loaded my portfolio and tried to access Parallelax, my webcomic. It failed to load. So this evening I went to investigate. Turns out that the code the hack inserted declared some function twice, which crashed the PHP. I am glad of that, since it allowed me to find this out.

I’m really, really pissed off at this. I trusted Servage for security, but it can be so easily hacked on such a wide scale?? I feel that I should take my business elsewhere…

Shark Attack

January 12th, 2009

Shark Attacks Snorkeller at Windang

Close to home much? I live one suburb away.

shark attack

There goes any desire I had to go to the beach this summer…

Web Design Business

January 9th, 2009

Today, I signed up for NEIS, as well as its prerequisite, Newstart Allowance; the same dole I was on when I first returned from my travels. But it was a means to an end. The New Enterprise Incentive Scheme is funding for a year as well as a six week course in business planning.

So, this is the biggest step I’ve taken this far into making my Web Design Business. It’s terrifying, to tell the truth. But, I’m okay for now.

I’ve been kind of pushed along by my Dad, which I have mixed feelings about. Time will tell if I am ready or not to go through with this. For now, I still feel like a directionless child. I’m thinking it’s psychological, because I know intellectually that I am pretty mature and capable. I guess it’s just my past motivational issues coupled with my huge problem with people. I’m just crap at talking to people… for the reasons detailed on yesterday’s post about teasing. Yes, primary school people that teased me, it’s largely your fault I am this way. I trace most of my problems back to school years 3-6. The kids at Laguna Street absolutely vilified me. I was one of the major targets, besides Chris and Cameron. I never knew what I could have possibly done to invite such relenteless teasing. But I digress.

So, I’ll obviously continue to update you on developments. The next stage for NEIS is an interview, and I’m supposed to hear from them in the next few days. If I don’t get through, I may actually be a little relieved. But, it’s not like I want to stay working ten hours a week at Woolworths.

Also, last night I came up with the name “Site Flight Web Design”. I wanted to tie it in with an owl motif, since I collect owls and all. So “Site Flight” is the best I’ve come up with so far.

I’m not going to ask for suggestions (if I can’t even think of a name I’m pretty useless), but I would like to know what you think of it.

Back to Work

January 8th, 2009

Ah yes, it felt like I’d never left. Unfortunately.

That’s right, today I went back to work for the first time since I broke my foot, back on the last Friday of November. I was given the all clear for my foot on the fifth. It, however, has s ome discomfort now that I have been on it for work. It’s a slight worry, but the doc said it would heal itself. It’s been near on six weeks now, which is how long it was supposed to take, but clearly it hasn’t healed entirely yet. It’s not really posing a problem, though.

I guess this kind of hails the end of my good times. Well, I don’t want to think of it that way. I should think of it more as “back to the routine”. The past week or two has been pretty lazy for me. I have spent a lot of time playing Sonic games. An unhealthy amount of time, even. I have also been spending a lot of time browsing the forums of Sonic Retro, as I came across their Sonic 2 HD project, which looks utterly tasty. Sonic the Hedgehog 2 is the first game I ever loved. It started while watching my eldest sister Kelly’s boyfriend (and now husband) Glen playing it on his Sega Mega Drive. The Sonic 2 HD project will be the same wonderful game, just with updated, beautiful graphics which are based faithfully on the original sprites, just High Definition. Example:

Sonic and Tails

Forgive my geekitude, but I just CAN’T WAIT for them to make this game. Despite my current projects, I’m toying with the idea of contributing, if I can get their “uber” art style down.

Anyway, that’s it from the world of Natalie today.

Playful Teasing = Social Skills?

January 8th, 2009

Reported in yesterday’s Daily Telegraph: New research has found playful teasing develops social skills.

Just what the kids needed, a new reason to be a bully. Just where is the line between “playful teasing” and bullying anyway?

I am pretty much the opposite of what this article describes.

New research has found playful teasing, and being called names such as “ranga”, could be good for young people because it helps them bond and develop social skills.

Not in my case. From my experiences, I may never be able to “bond” with anybody beyond distant friendship.

It may even make “victims” more likely to take on leadership roles in the long term.

Again, not in my case. I have terrible anxiety now. Leadership? Never. I will do what others ask of me grudgingly, but I can never tell others what to do. It is part of my problems that I can never let anybody see me as authoritative for fear that it will translate as seeming mean or unlikeable.

“They learn how to respond to playful criticism … that can be useful in later life,” she said, adding that teased kids could end up in leadership roles – and became strong enough to come back with witty comments.

My response to any kind of criticism? Offense. Embarrassment. Shame. Blow to my self esteem. Takes me right back to my days in the playground. Intellectually, I can tell what kind of criticism it is and how I should respond, but I just don’t.

This is terrible advice. This article is dangerous. Really, really dangerous. Take it from me, I am utterly effed up.