Art Thievery Friday, Feb 29 2008 

Oseike's Posts , , Oseike 6:21 pm

So, not that long ago, my roommate was subject to art thievery. I don’t want to steal her thunder, cuz she had a lot of fun ripping into him on her post, so please go read hers. It’s really fun!

On the subject of art thieves: I don’t care who you are, how horrible or good of an artist you are. Stealing is wrong, and everyone knows this. It doesn’t matter that what you are stealing is up on the net for anyone to look at. We put it up there. What matters is whether or not you acknowledge that artist as the originator. You can’t say that a piece is yours if it isn’t. You don’t know what that picture means to the artist, how much time was spent completing it, how much pain and work and emotion went into creating any particular piece. It may be that the artist took five minutes to do something; it may be that it took them hours and hours. But even that doesn’t matter. What matters is that they did it, not you. It’s THEIR child, their progeny, a product of their mind and heart and imagination, and you have no right to step across the boundary into that world of theirs and rudely claim it as your own. I do not steal art. I also don’t steal candy bars from the supermarket. I can only imagine that the former is worse, so if you do steal art, then I’m going to assume you don’t really mind to steal things from stores, either. At least that’s something that’s easily replaceable; there are a million others of any given candy bar, and I doubt the maker cares if you possess one and claim it as your own (cuz it would be…if you bought it). A piece of artwork isn’t something I can replace, and you get a copy, once you claim it as your own I will hunt you down. I put all my work on the internet with the assumption that if you wish to use it somewhere else, you will have the courtesy to link back. Or, if you lose my URL or whatever, at least have the courtesy to mention that it is NOT yours, and that you took it from somewhere but can’t find where again.

And I say this in relation to people who DON’T do this kind of art as a living.  If this were their job, this would obviously be much more important yet.

That said: if I find you doing so to me, what my roommate says of him will pale in comparison to what I do to you. ^__^<3

Ok, rant over, go have fun listening to her story!!!

 

Crazy Caramelldansen Friday, Feb 15 2008 

Oseike's Posts , , , Oseike 7:10 pm

If you watch forums or other such things for anime/manga, it’s almost inevitable you come across this…caramelldansen…thing. It was originally a Swedish song, apparently, and somehow has become this…um….thing. That people animate dancing characters to. THIS dance, to, actually. Just this. Some are really bad, some are good, some are cute, but mainly, they’re just repetitive.

But this guy’s on more crack than any of them, cuz he actually merged his 3-d animation to a real-life scene. With motion. I mean, really…wtf?!

…I wish I had as much time as he does.

 

Arthur’s Seat Wednesday, Feb 13 2008 

BRose's Posts , broses 11:49 pm

If you ever go to Edinburgh (Scotland), you should climb this amazing mountain-like thing called Arthur’s Seat.A group of friends and I decided that we would wake up early and climb to the top to see the sun rise over the great city of Edinburgh. Problem one: none of us are particularly athletic. Problem two: lack of direction.We got lost twice. The first time, we spent at least half an our huffing and puffing our way up what we thought was Arthur’s seat, but learned, to our deep sadness when it began going down, that it was not. We decided that we had climbed Arthur’s Footstool instead, and complained deeply all the way up because, heh, when you’re climbing a mountain at 8am, what else are you going to do after finding out that you went the wrong way?  We huffed and we puffed. We toiled up these incredibly uneven steps, pausing everyone once in a while to avoid oxygen deprivation, we looked out over the city that grew farther and farther away and watched the clouds and the storm swirl in the distance over the land and the shining, dark blue-grey sea. The wind tried to throw us from the cliffs, or into the rocks. At one point the wind was so strong I stretched out my arms and the wind against my coat acted like a sail that pushed me up the cliff face.  My shoes were horrible. I was afraid I was going to get my coat drenching the kind of mud that doesn’t come out and my water bottle and umbrella (good luck charm against the rain clouds that threatened on every side) made my shoulders so tense they hurt. But then we reached this smooth glassy area before the last cliff to Arthur’s actual seat, and it took my breath away. On every side, city. One one side, stretching reaching hills painted in living colors by the early morning sun. On the other, sea as far as you can see, gleaming in the sunshine, shadowed by the storms that crouch. And right where we were, the rock and the grass and the wind seemed to be everything that the world needed, and everything it ought to be.That was the best part of my trip to Edinburgh. I would do it again, because there is nothing so amazing as climbing that and seeing everything below you, feeling the wind push you into the ground or fly you up the sheer rock faces or change the pressure around your face so much that it feels like your eardrums are going to pop.I must say though, I felt very unathletic. As we were struggling up that last little piece of mountain to the highest point of Arthur’s Seat, two fit hikers in spandex moved past us , bouncing up the jagged, pathless rock edge like two young mountain goats. I, in contrast, was the wounded water buffalo. But whatever kind of animal you personify yourself as, the experience is amazing. I wanted to stay at the top for hours. Summary: I climbed an extinct volcano in Scotland, was carried like a sailboat in the wind and looked out over the world to see storms pass on every side but not over me. And that is something worth writing over for a long time to come.

 

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