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Facebooking to end Child Abuse
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Miscellany
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There's a rather amusing guide to facebook portraits here: http://www.fastcompany.com/1692957/facebook-profile-picture-flowchart
Amusing because it's not only funny, it's also somewhat true. Spot on, in fact. What it doesn't cover, however, is the use of avatars - pictures that aren't portraits.
That's OK - I can cover that in a few lines:
#1) He/She is wanted by the police or doesn't want to be recognized and identified, which would result in them being wanted by the police.
#2) I'm butt-ugly and would prefer a picture of a potted plant to my actual face. So would my friends.
Now recently on facebook there was a little "viral" campaign that saw a lot of users replace their photos with cartoon characters, ostensively to end child abuse.
I'm not making this up.
Purportedly you were drawing attention to the plight of children all around the world, and marked yourself as someone not only politically correct but as morally superior to all your friends who didn't have a cartoon avatar (obviously pedophiles, every one of them, probably a good time to drop them...).
It gets better.
Fox News (or some equivalent) picks up the story and suggests that the cartoon avatars is just what the pedophiles want, as now they can message their little friends with complete anominity.
Remember, I'm not making this up.
I have something to say about this. What can I say about this? How do otherwise perfectly intelligent people get on board with something like this? Where, exactly, is that leap of reasoning that goes "If I just replace my facebook photo with a picture of a cartoon character that I like it will help to end child abuse..."?
I mean, really?
Probably you have a few friends that did this. Sadly, me too.
Me, I'd just stop communicating with them for a few months, then drop them on the Facebook friend swap.
It really shouldn't need this much explaining.
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Miscellany
- Hits: 2186
4 Paintings this Christmas. "Everyone loves something handmade" I said to myself, the cheap justification, the real reason is that nobody I know needs a bloody thing and I'm kinda broke, we're all at that age where if we want it, we have it, gifts are merely the token junk that simply cycle through our hands on the way to the thrift shop, the obligatory commercial spirit of Christmas.
I can do better than that. I'll make something.
The dogs, 1 to my brother, 1 to my sister, My brother, he was polite and looked interested, promised to hang it on a spot on the wall. There's an art to gracefully recieving the handmade gift and he's got it down. My sister, probably no less graceful but fortunate to be out of town this Christmas, she got lucky in that she can pull a wider variety of faces when she opens hers, I won't be there to see. I wish I was there to see.
Now there's 2 paintings left to finish, Christmas has been postponed at the restaurant, for my friend Milan, until I finish these 2 paintings, and I'm running out of time, out of excuses.
Procrasturbation
There's a sale at Kensington Art Supply
Npw all I need is a palette but I'm paused at the idea of saving money, I need some more acrylics and the prices are good and even better on sale...
It's a tiered sale, meaning the more you spend, the more you save, 10% off to $50.00, 15% off to $100.00, up to 25% off at $200.00, You'll save the most if you don't spend a thing but most customers tend to forget that. It destroys the fun.
Now really, I have more paint and supplies than I'll probably use in a year so with great effort I just purchase the palette, and check (furtively) when the sale ends; maybe I can come back...
My Way
Every artist has their own way of doing things. Me, I look at my subject, count the number of Noses, Eyes, Mouths, Ears, then use that to build up my painting. Not that that's the right way or the wrong way, it's just my way. Every artist has their own way.
Now I notice that the owner's daughter's eyes are crooked. I should have noticed this a long time ago. Still, she has 2 (and here I check my notes: yep, 2 eyes), and even if they look a bit like they're speeding towards her nose (1 nose, yep, it's right in my notes) he should be happy.
Except.
Except that the girl looks like his daughter if she'd been converted into an inflatable sex doll and then painted by me. I removed all the wrinkles, creases from the face, blended the colors into a homogenous mass because that's what little kids are like, all pudgy and blobby and now the painting looks as if I've painted an overinflated sex doll. I make a note, that should be a different series of paintings. And they're cheap models and fun to party with after.
Now there's Milan.
The colors grow muddy on the palette. Bright colors lose their lustre, blues and red mix and form irridescent puddles of purple, at certain moments, when I squint and turn my head from the canvas and catch it out of the corner of my eye I can see a resemblance, but it vanishes when viewed head on. A friend that looks sortof like a friend but mostly like a feared enemy or a red-indian - too heavy on the Cadmium Red, I think, and I take an old sock and begin to rub things out.
In the meantime I think of alternate titles for it:
"Definitely not Milan" and I try to gloss over it's many imperfections with lines like "It sure took a lot of paint" or "I'll bet you don't have anything like this" but I have a feeling those just might be his lines as well, and I've got to leave him room for something to say.
It really shouldn't need this much explaining.
Meal in a Box
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Miscellany
- Hits: 2153
"I'll come around for dinner" he says, and I'm taken a little by surprise, I seldom entertain other than the children. I think quickly of some excuse...
"I have to paint" I say, which is true, "And run some errands this afternoon..."
"That's OK. I'll be there around 5:00. I'll bring this meal I got, it's real good..." but I'm not listening, I'm wondering how this happened and if it means I should clean, but only briefly. The cleaning instinct is one I can resist. I never entertain. Never, Ever. I'm the guy people have over to their place in a moment of weak compassion and then swear never to have back again; me, entertaining?
"I'll pick up some beer...maybe you could pick up some..." and he stops, he can see here from my expression that I'm picking up nothing - "Forget it, you're busy, I'll get it all...."
He shows up at 5:00 sharp, he's got this meal in a box, it's a small box, about 4 inches square, he bought it off a lady at some farmers market, "Completely Organic" he assures me, but I don't really care. "It's really good....cost me $16.00".
It's a small box for $16.00 and I'm a little skeptical that it will feed us both and watch while he assembles the meal.
He turns on the light above the stove. This annoys me, I hate it when people know how to use my kitchen better than I do. He opens the box. There's a small bag of rice, and assorted spices in a separate bag.
"Add 1 1/2 cup of water to the rice in a pot..." he begins.
And the meal progresses. It's a basic Thai coconut curry, the seasonings are in tiny presealed pouches, for $16.00 he's bought himself roughly a dollars worth of groceries, I have all of the ingredients myself, enough for a hundred curries, in my cupboard, but I watch as he proceeds to pull forth meat from hi bag (sold separately) and chop it, slice vegetables (sold separately), add coconut milk (sold separately) ...
It's inspiring, this, the fact that you can sell people a half cup of rice and tablespoons worth of "spices" for $16.00 and call it a meal and they'll happily cough forth the rest of the ingredients, the meat, vegetables, broth, and not even include these in the final price of the meal....
And for some reason I have this sense of dejavu, I know this game and I puzzle and puzzle and finally it comes to me: It's Stone Soup.
Facebook Friend Swap
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Ideas & Questions
- Hits: 1855
Now this is just an idea, but take a look at the "average" facebook user and you'll see that they have 100, 200, 300 or more friends.
More friends than one could ever possibly keep in touch with on anything approaching a meaningful basis. But there's a sort of prestige to this social networking thing, defined by your number of friends, so people keep on collecting them despite the fact they never chat, see each other or in anyways meaningfully communicate. I'll ignore this though as it's irrelevant to the purpose I'll describe.
This is it: Once a year - We'll call it "Facebook Friend Swap Day" (or "FFSD" as the internet loves acronyms). On that day facebook will automatically send you a list of friends (and a simlar list to your friends, and all users) that you/they haven't communicated with for, say, 6 months.
6 months is arbitrary, depending on how the idea takes hold we can adjust this. It's 6 months for the sake of argument.
Now with this list is a letter suggesting that they or you perhaps recommend to them friends more to your/their tastes. And so you drop them and take on a new friend request - someone with whom you'll doubtless have a little more in common with. It doesn't even have to be a "drop", which by implication is negative (and who likes to drop or be dropped?), it could simply be recommendation to a new friend, the acceptance of which constitutes a "swap".
Single people (Note the bare-chested profile photos of "Men interested in Women") will certainly benefit, as obviously they weren't doing so well if they're still single and they'll have a whole new cadre of unsuspecting suckers friends to try their charms upon. Those not single will benefit by having new friends possibly a little more to their tastes. And everyone will have a chance to make new friends and to exchange (without seeming rude) those friends they've very little in common with.
Facebook Friend Swap Day. I should start a group.
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