Pat’s Point of View

I was recently reading a post regarding typewriter art, the grand-daddy of ASCII art. If you thought it was arduous in a word processor, imagine the patience you’d need to do that on a typewriter? That’s monk level dedication, either that or you’d die from liquid paper fumes.

This reminded me of my previous post on chalk art and some other unconventional media for art. Perhaps my most favourite is ‘fantasy art’: the hallmark or cheesy fantasy/action movies, heavy metal album covers and Sandman panel vans.

Continue reading ‘I don’t know if it’s art, but I like it’

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I don’t know why, but there always seems to be a bunch of clothes outside the fire escape exit for the building I work in. It’s quicker than taking the lift, so I walk down the stairs, and outside the door, in the alleyway, there are some clothes…with plenty of undies (for you Brits I mean pants!).

Does someone keep losing their stuff? Has some local thief got the worst luck at picking the bag to snatch? Is it some vagrant’s wardrobe? It’s perplexing.

And I bet you’re wondering if I considered, even for a split second, if they would fit me. Despite the abundant selection I think I would have been disappointed. It’s a pity too, since for a while now there’s been a fetching pair of those Pat Rafter type grundies.

Anyway…

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I was recently in the unfortunate position of having to work through the night to complete a project for the next morning. In this case, the work involved writing a fairly long report critiquing a client’s website.

The next day, looking back on what I had written, I formulated the ‘3am writing’ axiom "at 3:00am sentences often sound really, really good—but they’re not".

I found several instances of 3am writing, but my favourite is:

The site is like a novel but what you want is a fortune cookie.

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Man sells faulty laptop on eBay. Buyer tries to get refund. Seller refuses. Buyer discovers hard disk in laptop contains buyer’s personal information. Buyer creates website exposing the weird and scary information. Seller attempts to debunk buyer with a series of ridiculous false personas. Seller becomes the butt of one humongous joke, not to mention the subject of a media storm (Daily Mail to name but one). Buyer receives so much attention he ceases action and calls a truce. Other interested parties continue the campaign against Seller.

And so it goes to show you can’t get away with anything these days. This whole saga is quite amusing, and altogether justified. The half-wit who sold the laptop in the first place should be named and shamed, but I can understand the buyer’s reluctance to continue as it blew out of proportion. The seller seems pretty dodgey and I wouldn’t be surprised if he did something even worse in retaliation. Scumbags like this wouldn’t think twice about trashing your house or getting their friends to give you a good beating. I mean he’s already made some pretty serious [false] accusations against the buyer.

And to think all this because the idiot doesn’t know how to format a hard disk.

See what people are blogging about: laptopguy

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My mid-year’s resolution is to use the response shown in the middle frame below.

Shouldn’t be that hard :)

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Was just reading a recent article in New Scientist, an extract from Daniel Wilson’s “How to survive a robot uprising”. Here’s his advice for spotting a would-be human impersonator:

Humans unconsciously acquire a vast amount of social knowledge, such as how to stand in line, the concept of personal space and why men should wear pants to work. If the guy standing on your porch doesn’t follow these rules, don’t let him inside - whether he’s a robot or not.

Good advice :)

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Some ideas for making the next Commonwealth Games more interesting.

Continue reading ‘Go for gold’

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If ebay wasn’t enough of an innovation for the humble “for sale” ad, this guy has taken to a new level!

Here’s a screenshot in case you miss the auction.

P

See what people are blogging about: ebay, hooters

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I saw this ad at the bus stop this morning, directly across the road from Long Bay prison. How ironic, esspecially considering the recent escapes…

For those who can’t read the ad, it’s for the new channel 7 show “Prison Break”. Must make local residents feel all warm and fuzzy.

P

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Airtoons: making fun of the cartoons in airline safety cards…

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