Rallies

I regret to say that I am NOT politically inclined. I am an irresponsible American and I'm sorry. However, I absolutely love Jon Stewart's delivery of his political explanations. I'm sure that you all have heard that he is holding a Rally to Restore Sanity on October 30th. He advertises this gathering  as a "rally for the people who've been too busy to go to rallies, who actually have lives and families and jobs (or are looking for jobs) - not so much the Silent Majority as the Busy Majority. If we had to sum up the political view of our participants in a single sentence...we couldn't. That's sort of the point." Apparently, Stewart will also be supplying signs for attendees because clearly, they will not have time to make signs themselves. This is genius! This is the type of rally that I'd like to support, although I can't attend because it's on a Saturday and I'll be in class.

What makes me even more disappointed that I can't attend the Rally to Restore Sanity is that at the same time, at the same place, Stephen Colbert is holding a March to Keep Fear Alive. Colbert uses colorful and calculating verbiage to gain support. His rally is "a call to put the panic back into our panic rooms, and to restore the 'AAHHHHH!!' back in AHH!-merica. Get ready to inadvertently wet your pants, Patriots! It's American to have a little yellow on those Red, White, and Blue undies we all wear. We have enjoyed the spoils of freedom and liberty without being vigilant of our fears for too long, America."

The imagery above, too, is fantastic. And absolutely ridiculous.

Pogs

Do you remember pogs? I was in sixth grade in 1994 when they got really popular. If you're unaware, pogs are circular half-dollar sized pieces of cardboard with random scenes or images displayed on one side. I had about 50 pogs while many of my classmates had hundreds. To play the game, you put a stack of your pogs in the center of some thin, plastic game board, which more often than not had the Yin and Yang symbols or an eight ball on it. Then the person that you're play with takes another game piece called a slammer, which is made of a thicker, weightier plastic, and literally slams the slammer atop your pogs. They get to keep your pogs that flipped over so that the blank, white side is face up. At least I think that's how it was played. Someone please correct me if I'm not getting it right. I wasn't really interested in playing so much as I was in collecting pogs with the strangest images. Here are a few. They're so random.  I wonder who came up with these designs. I like to think that they were students like us, just practicing the pen tool in Illustrator. Anyhow, regardless of how mindless and useless these gems from the 90s may be, they're fun pieces of modern art and I personally find them a little nostalgic.

Bad Food Photography

This is a page out of the October issue of Every Day with Rachel Ray. As with many of the other pages in the magazine, this is jumbled, cluttered, and all over the place. A small text box in the upper left corner reads, "A boisterous bash."  Okay, so I get it. This is a boisterous scene. It's an aerial shot of a table but whether it's a dining room table or a picnic table I'm not sure. There are mismatched teacups, saucers, and dishes of varying sizes and colors. Some are filled with tea. Others are filled with jewelry - ? There are also random pieces of toys, confetti, paper flowers, and sunglasses on the table. It just generally looks rather creepy and very confusing. What's it about anyway? Oh yes, those two less than noticeable ice cream sundaes within all of this busyness. Once I read about the dish with its bourbon whipped cream, I knew it must be delicious. But this picture does nothing for me and surely does not do justice for the Bananas Foster Split.

Good Food Writing

I enjoyed this article in the October 2010 issue of Real Simple. The entire piece is titled "The Power of the Microwave." I use my microwave for heating up leftovers and popping popcorn; I didn't know it was capable of so much! This machine can toast nuts (including coconut), make lasagna, poach salmon, even grill if you've got the right model.  I know what about three buttons on my microwave do. Realistically, that's all I need to know. However, I liked the article about the common buttons found on the average microwave and their functions. I love when complicated subject matter can be broken down and concisely formatted into short little informative tid bits. These are things that I might actually remember when I'm finished reading the article. I can share this information with those around me to demonstrate my capacity for sustaining knowledge. However, as it is with most Real Simple articles, I am intrigued as well as I am 100% certain that I will not incorporate any of these tips into my real life.

Anonymity and Digital Cardboard

You are here.  Thank you for coming!  I'm new to the world of blogging and very intimidated by it.  I generally try to keep my name out of anything world wide, the web included.  I'm from a very small, rural town where everyone knows everything about everyone else and their mothers, their grandmothers, their best friends, their ex-best friends, and all past and present significant others.  So I value anonymity. 

I recently purchased a Mac and am slowly becoming more comfortable with it but I still struggle with the simplest of tasks sometimes.  I've been bothering random acquantances that I have collected over the years that I happen to know own Macs with my inane questions, like how to open up multiple windows in Safari.  I'm not even friends with most of these people anymore.  I'm sure they're probably wondering why I still have their phone numbers.  Anyhow, I enjoy taking my Mac in public.  People look at me like I'm a trendy, well-informed consumer.  In my head, they're saying, "Oh wow, she's one of those tech-saavy young people.  She must have all kinds of impressive projects on that fancy machine."  (Like I said, I'm from a small, rural town.)  Of course, I don't have all kinds of impressive projects on my fancy machine, but I do have some pieces that I find personally fulfilling that I've created playing around in Illustrator and Photoshop.  And iMovie.  I LOVE iMovie. 

I've always been particularly interested in how and why words and images are laid out on the printed page as they are.  When I was very young, I wrote and designed a publication called the Daily Dellava out of construction paper and cardboard.  My mom still has a few issues of it.  At first, I didn't understand why the real newspapers and magazines looked SO much better than mine.  When it was explained to me that machines were used to make them digitally, I got very excited to use what I called "digital cardboard" to enhance my own periodical. 

Well, hopefully I have sufficiently exposed myself for this first post.  I'm really enjoying the Pub Design program at UB and very much looking forward to expanding my skill set and knowledge in this exciting field of digital cardboard.