Author: Kimliatach

Where to invade next
by Kimliatach

‘Where to invade next‘ is great fun, a tremendous film. Clearly I am not the target audience, being neither american nor ignorant about the success of socialist humanitarian policies in Europe. But I sincerely hope it gains a large audience in Moore’s homeland America as if nothing else this film underscores how far behind and seemingly barbaric many American social policies are.  It glosses over all of the latent problems and social problems in the countries Moore visits of course. But there is a very limited length of time given to each and many topics to cover. Michael Moore has clearly aged hard in the past decade, he now has a shuffling gate and the wrinkled and jowly appearance of a bitter old frog. His humour is still fierce and well targeted and there are number of quite poignant moments in this documentary. Highly recommended.

Daily

A working tour of the school. I spent an hour or so each in four different classrooms within the local public today. Hopeful of some random call ins over coming days.

I’m very happy to have another place of employment available to me even though our departure date is creeping up on us.

Creative

Completed the first evolution sketch card in a week or two last night. Thinking I will revisit the castle or do another evolution card tonight.

ValleyEvo22Humanoid DRAFT SKETCH

 

Links & Bio

Super cool junk birds and insects by artist Edouard Martinet, who uses no welds or soldering in his works. via Colossal 1 & 2

martinet-5

martinet-7

 

Simply incredible macro insect photography by Levon Biss in conjunction with the Oxford Museum of Natural History. Also Via Colossal.

LevonBiss_07

If only…

Anyway two of my captive caterpillars are undergoing metamorphosis. A third I found the other day has just today developed some small but unhealthy looking black spots and may be about to undergo some awesome alienesque wasp larvae chest busting.

Back in public
by Kimliatach

Daily

It’s good to be back in the public system, the difference in staff dynamics is subtle but significant. Today was a pupil free day and a great opportunity to get to know the local staff while completing cumbersome mandatory online training modules. I have another day in the state school tomorrow, likely with some time on class and a couple of days lined up at the Catholic next week. Tutoring was back in full swing today as well and kept me out of the house from 8 until 6:30. A long day by local standards.

Media

The first episode of GoT season 6 was quite the little ripper. Very nice to see them wrapping up loose ends from the books and forging wholly new story lines for others. There is really no telling how the story will play out now that the TV versions is freed from the books.

Started listening to ‘The Long Utopia‘ last night because ‘Religion for Atheists‘ error’d, hopefully repairably for me. I suspect this last Long Earth book is Pratchett only in name and is in fact wholly Baxter’s work but for preparatory conversations between the authors. But it is nice to have at least one more ‘Pratchett’ to listen to all the same. I have thus far greatly enjoyed and been frustrated by the long earth series. The concept has been well developed though I find the well realised consequences of humanities spread across the breadth of the parallel earths discovered on ‘step day’ quite sad. The very believable spread of the extractavist capitalist mindset into the infinite earths is quite upsetting. As exciting as the world they have written is, I’m glad it is just fantasy.

Politics

I have accepted that Sanders has lost his bid for the democratic candidacy. I don’t think that means he should just bow out though and articles like this make a very strong case for him staying in until the convention in June.

Create

As expected nothing much completed last night. Starting late but aiming for a sketched evolution card this evening.

Do doo d d doo d d doo
by Kimliatach

Daily

ANZAC march this morning. F was particularly impressed by the horses.

We went to the local ANZAC march and service this morning. In recent years I have been a bit disturbed at the subtle (or maybe not so subtle) shift towards ANZAC day as a celebration, rather than a commemoration, but there was none of that this morning. For me it has always been a pretty solemn occasion and I usually tear up for at least part of the time. I feel a great sadness that so many men and women sacrificed and were sacrificed, I feel for the families of those who served and never returned, and for those, like my great grandfather, who did return but were never again whole in mind or body, I feel sadness at the horror they witnessed, the horror they were required to commit and that which was committed against them. I am reminded right to my core that war is neither glorious or noble and above all else I think lest we forget.

A photo posted by Nadine (@nadinemmitchell) on

We had to leave the service as F became well at truly out of sorts. I think N has above expressed pretty succinctly our feelings on the ANZAC tradition.

Big day tomorrow, first day at the local public, mostly doing mandatory trainings I believe. Two client afternoon as well.

Finished listening to ‘What If‘ By Randall Munroe which was great fun but unfortunately read by Will Wheaton. As an actor and celebrity sometimes I really like him, as an audio book narrator he drives me bananas, not the first book I’ve listened to read by him, hopefully the last. Started listening to  ‘Religion for Atheists‘ By De Botton. I read and enjoyed about half of this as a library hire early last year, returned it unfished and overdue and am already glad to have picked it up again.

Create

I disassembled and cleaned one of the circular saws I bought for $2.50 each at auction. Began preparing pieces of ply and timber with which to fashion myself a temporary saw table.  In order to use the Skilsaw for this purpose I had to remove its blade guard, a benefit of having done this is that it will likely allow the 7 1/4″ saw to take a slightly larger blade.  At some point I plan to invest in a new saw and a Triton or similar saw table.

Speaking of Triton tools, I’m pretty happy to have scored an older model of this for $5

Last night I completed a terrain card sketch and retired early, as for tonight well, there is this thing I want to watch…

 

 

 

An awesome thing.

 

 

Super Party
by Kimliatach

Daily

L’s early super hero birthday party went swimmingly. Limited party games, a huge costume box, good food and lots of cousins.

N acted as primary photographer and I’m sure some images will be shared socially soon.

Costumes, cooking, activities and eating consumed the day.

Edit: Including this shot from N’s Instagram

Link

By far my favourite political cartoonist at the moment David Pope.

Create

I got nothing done last night, in the end I almost fell asleep at my keyboard watching Youtube instructionals on how to make a saw table. Aiming for some sketch progress this evening, right after part two…

 

 

Auction
by Kimliatach

N’s uncle’s retirement shed auction today. A really amazing collection of tools and oddments auctioned off over about 6 hours.
I missed out on a couple of the key items I was hoping for, but I did grab a couple of bargains. My $35 haul below includes a portable saw horse vice, two circular saws one Black & Decker of pre logo update vintage and one Skilsaw (bundled for $5) a saw guide/mitre attachment an old wood plane in need of a sharpening and a set of traffic alert triangles for the car boot.

auction-haul

auction-haul1

I had my eye on a drill press, electric plane, board thicknesser, Angle grinder and a whole lot of Lego that went in a big lot with highly sought after tin toys all of which went for good prices beyond what I was allowing myself.

Creative

A lot of cut and pasting later the Spiderman pinata is ready to be beaten to a pulp tomorrow. I should have documented the build as I was pretty happy with the wheatpaste mix I made and the resulting mache has good structure.

 

pinata

I kind of doubt we will get this kind of response. But if we do I’m prepared to resort to brain surgery out of sight of the children to retrieve the sweets.

Working on the logo or the castle card tonight.

 

Edit: Should probably make mention that it is Earth Day. Not much of an event locally but still one of the more important such ‘events’ in the year.

 

Show Day
by Kimliatach

Two rather expensive and kind of socially required trips to the local show.

A rather impressive fire work display this evening.

Party preparations continue, paper mache this morning and honey joy’s baked this afternoon. Though I will need to make another bath of them tomorrow because ah yum…

Best in show. #chicken and clearly uncomfortable #duck highlights of the #Cobar show.

A photo posted by @liatach on


The boys rode expensive mini trains and L has his first ever show bag. L has been really getting into Gonoodle which is great.  Side effects include having had this mind worm stuck in my head all day.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1pW5_ZfAkt0

Link

Speaking of paper mache, I found this incredible paper mache dragon blog while looking for something today. I am pretty sure I had a book by him as a child, Gremlins, Gargoyles, Goblins or something.

Everything looks like a screw
by Kimliatach

#blue #paint reflection selfie

A photo posted by @liatach on

Daily

After many errands and $900 down the family car is finally registered in NSW. Going to have a hectic couple of days ahead of us. Our nephews are in town until Monday so we have decided to have an early birthday party for L while his cousins can participate. He wants a ‘Super Hero Party’ in keeping with his ongoing obsession of course. Pinata, costume and honey joy production will consume much free time prior to the event on Sunday morning. We also have social obligation to fulfill in attending the local town show tomorrow as well as a relatives shed clearance sale at which I must restrain the desire to buy all the things on Saturday.

Massive gear upgrade arrived for me today. Early present from my father who has looked with disdain on my drill for too long. My recent projects have been build entirely with a single 18v Milwaukee drill. No longer will I ever have to swap bits every time I want to drill a pilot prior to sinking a screw.

 

drills

Creative

Put the second coat of enamel paint on the bird bath dish today. It has come up lovely but needs another to be called done. Progress on the logo design

Basic font with kerning adjusted

vale monstrum logo progress

Cleaned up and solidified

vale monstrum logo progress4

A little bit more tweaking still to do before the next phases. I’ll be making two semi final drafts based on combinations of yesterdays ideas and the cleaned up vector work I’ve done today.

 

My google alert for Magic Leap finally yielded something more interesting than investment news.

Vale Monstrum
by Kimliatach

 Creative

I am pleased to announce that the Half-Monster Games project I have been illustrating for has transitioned from its working title ‘Though I Walk Through The Valley’ to its new name ‘Vale Monstrum’. Rough mockups of possible logo layouts completed last night and today below. The text at top left is a slightly cleaned up (kerning and fill) version of the same font chosen for titles throughout the game. Let me know which you like.vale-monstrum-logo-mockups1-

‘Great Apes’ my new movement activity game for L has undergone first round mini prototyping. Much more to follow.

 

Daily

After wading through yet more layers of bureaucracy today with two children in tow our car is still not registered in NSW. Green slip and blue slip and tare weight are all sorted but as the car was in N’s maiden name transferring to NSW as well as changing name is apparently to much for the system to deal with in one go. We will try again tomorrow.

Tonight I’m going to attempt to clean up my Chrome bookmarks which are frankly a complete mess of nestled folders and dead links.

 

Politic

As widely anticipated Clinton and Trump won New York. I am disappointed, another climate shrugging*, neoliberal, war monger is not the worst thing that can happen in the US but it is a long way from the radical progressive option that Sanders is pushing. I hope the movement can maintain steam and continue to pull the Clinton camp to the left. But I fear the wave of disillusionment washing through millions of young Americans this evening is going to seriously stymie the chance of meaningful climate action during Clinton or Trumps first term in this, Decade Zero. I say ‘or Trump’s’ for a reason. I don’t think Hillary has this in the bag, in fact when it comes to debates and this elections critical ‘establishment vs outsider’ status she is at a serious disadvantage. It is going to be long months before either nightmare plays out.

Widespread allegations of voter suppression and fraud in parts of New York state are particularly disappointing because it makes this an unclean win and therefore bound to be revisited in the courts.

I finished ‘This Changes Everything‘ today. A must read. I’ll review it at a later date. I am waiting on N to listen to it as well in order to formulate a response that suits us both. For now I am beginning to put my text and graphical skills to work on infographics in preparation for the Double dissolution Australian Federal election now confirmed for July 2nd. Register!

 

* “Stop calling me resilient. I’m not resilient.
Because every time you say, ‘Oh, they’re resilient,’
you can do something else to me.”

-Tracie Washington, New Orleans-based civil rights attorney

This Changes everything. Naomi Klein 2014 p361.

 

Tue 19th
by Kimliatach

Politic

I’ve found myself increasingly caught up in the candidacy battle going on in the US. Fiery exchanges and the possibility of a non-neoliberal candidate keep me coming back to the politics subreddits. With the New York primary happening tonight local time. It seems up to 60000 democrat voters have mysteriously disappeared from the electoral roll in Brooklyn and many more in wider New York state have had their affiliations mysteriously changed topping it off the Clinton campaign has been accused of violating campaign finance rules.

In local politics it seems more and more likely that our present government of ‘moron flavoured biscuits‘ may actually lose their ridiculous will they, wont they, oh they will, Double Dissolution on July 2nd. The Turnbull government has flailed and flip flopped on decisions big and small and clearly appears to have no coherent strategy for tackling the ridiculously long (74 Day) election campaign they just bought themselves.

 

Creative

Made some solid progress on the Castle card last night. Still tons of elements to deal with but a substantial improvement from the flat image it has been for weeks.

castle-progress-8

 

Invented a movement activity game with N while driving this afternoon. We were trying to think of fun ways to develop L’s coordination and instruction following abilities. We came up with a board game involving actions that I think I will call either ‘Monkey See, Monkey Do’ or ‘Great Apes’. Going to prototype it tomorrow.

Tonight I’m taking a break from the castle to have a go at some logo sketching as we appear to have settled on a name for the game. Hush hush until settled but sketches maybe forthcoming tomorrow.

 

 

A Run
by Kimliatach


Spent the afternoon completing online mind numbing mandatory trainings all built around some descendant of Adobe Shockwave player. All using a chuck by chunk page reveal that assumes a pretty mediocre reading speed. All of which could have been done by jumping straight to the assessment were it allowed. I am now certified for the NSW education departments own brands of WHS, Emergency first aid theory and Anaphylaxis management.

In part in inspired by the brilliant transformation N’s very old friend KT has undergone in recent years I finally got off my arse and went for my very first run in many years this morning. Oh my aching calves.

4 weeks to go…a good point to reflect ?! Thistimeican.wordpress.com

A photo posted by KT Ridge (@ktmems) on

 Creative

Very productive Skype business meeting with the games creator ate into painting time last night. Back to it this evening.

Link

Quite touched by this remembrance of T Pratchett: http://journal.neilgaiman.com/