Lame Tech Issues and Big Issues

Ok – so I have been a bit quiet with the blogging of late – this is due mainly to ‘technical difficulties’ as the cliche goes. Firstly, as I posted a couple of weeks back, my wee boy threw my iPad into the sink which, of course, destroyed it. So, my girlfriend kindly lent me her wee netbook – I was just getting used to this when that boy of mine, again, did something to it and rendered some of the keys useless – fortunately there is the onscreen keyboard so all was not lost – unless I wanted to type more than a couple of words. So now, I am typing this on my girlfriends old laptop – windows XP, K plastic key missing and battery goosed so it has to be plugged in all the time. It works and I have net access so I should thank the grace of circumstance. At this rate next week I’ll be typing on a ZX Spectrum wired up to a steam engine.

There are, of course, worse things happening than my stupid comp problem. I am still reeling from the shock of America’s latest mass shooting. Words are feeble in such times. Most of what has happened is beyond my understanding. I am utterly bewildered by gun culture – Perhaps some kind American can explain to me the whole ‘right to bear arms’ thing – it’s moral and logical basis escapes me. The whole thing kind of made me stop in my tracks over the weekend – I didn’t do my usual #FF tweets, didn’t Facebook and even avoided the news as everything I heard seemed to be worse than the last.

I’ve written enough for now – I didn’t intend for this to take a depressing turn but it was unavoidable in a way. When I’ve sorted out some method of camera/software/posting I may actually bring some art to the table.

Photo Posting Experiment

Ok, so the iPad is goosed – so I’m using windows live photo thingy to see how this works. This is a painting sketch I framed for a wee exhibition at college. It hasn’t been cropped  or enhanced in any way but this is just an experiment.

Death of an iPad

I am typing this on Madelene’s netbook as my wee boy took it upon himself to launch my  iPad into a sink full of water. Although it was traumatic at the time, it really got me thinking about being so dependent on technology. I felt like my whole life was on the iPad – which, of course, it wasn’t. There is nothing on it that will make a huge impact on my life by losing it. What I do miss is my virtual footprint – the Tweeting regularly, the occasional blogging and the rare Facebooking. The friendly glow that comes from the unseen, unknown people that I’ve made acquaintance with is what I really miss. Of course, I can do all this on here but it’s the intuative ease of use that the Apple product allows that made life so much more easily – I’ve already tried to load photos from my memory card but Windows (curse it) is asking me to format the card first therefore losing all data on it – no thanks. So now I will have to dig out a camera cable and see if that bears fruit. I do realise this is very much a first world problem and there are worse things going on in the cosmos but iPading was such an integral part of my existence. On the plus side, I seem to have done more creating since its demise – yesterday, in college I did four big (A1 size) paintings – not fantastic stuff but big loose abstract work that was a joy to do. Perhaps my loss will prove to be a disguised positive.

The iPad is currently residing in a bag of rice in the vain hope that it may make a recovery.

Playing With Fire

I’ve beef fooling around with worked cardboard, a candle and some handy flame-killing snow. And this is an attempt to rescue a page that I had a major ink spillage on.