So. I was tidying my room today (ready for operation: repaint and get my stuff from uni out, only three years after graduating) and came across various things. First, two offering from my brother which were GENIUS. The first was, well...
Yes. Brilliant. He made it in Publisher which my computer here does not have, hence the composite front cover and inside crafted on the magic of Photoshop. I think it was for my sister. They particularly have a strong and abiding love for Vanilla Ice. And why not. This was something of a throw back to our early computer days. Just as kids today don't know how to play outside because their games are all far too prescribed, they also don't know how to appreciate crappy computers. We had a trial version of Microsoft 3D Movie Maker. It had two characters, about three sets, two props and one piece of music. We made so much great stuff on that. It wasn't nearly such fun when we actually had a range of characters to choose from. Pride and Prejudice was never as good. Nor was Silas Marner. Anyway, that was already a MASSIVE step forward from our days of movies on PowerPoint. Yes, children, we used PowerPoint and those stick men on clip art. Remember them? I struggled to find one like the ones we had. Nowadays they're so specific. Ballerinas and babies and scoring goals. In my day they just gestured vaguely and you had to re-size and copy them into submission. So. This is what we did. That was until my brother got his hands on a copy of Photoshop. It was a vague and mysterious corner of computer geekery to me back then. It baffled me. Then, on my birthday, he presented me with these:
There is another one but the photo he chose to use of me was even worse than the other two so I have not deigned to share. I do, however, enjoy the unfortunate proximity of my hand to Warrick's ass: he doesn't look particularly impressed. Anyway, I was thrilled. He had printed them on high gloss paper and really nicely, so they looked like genuine photos. He presented them in a brown paper envelope with 'Evidence' written across it. I was in awe.
So, this has all been a long and tortuous set up to the birthday-themed things I did this year.
First came Mum's birthday:
She had requested a printed copy of my sister's novel which she had been writing for years and just finished. My sister and I looked into various printing options and discovered that to have it properly printed was going to cost us a hideous amount so instead, we bought a massive stack of paper, binding rings and a new ink cartridge. While she did last minute edits, I designed the front cover for her. So:
There are a few things that I'd change now, and we were working within the restrictions of not wanting to use too much of the ink on one page, but I'm pretty happy with it. More than anything, I like how the word 'Albuquerque' looks. It pleases me.
So, Mum's birthday done, my brother's came next. He, much as I love him, is a pain. One year he banned an entire genre of presents. We tried to encourage him to take up a hobby that requires massive amounts of stuff that we could buy for him. He bought a ukulele. He has all he needs. Dang. So, anyway, twice a year, my sister and I sit in front of the computer, crying with laughter, trying to find ANYTHING to give him. He has come very close to getting some really odd stuff. This year, however, we were enlightened. We discussed, I used my mad skillz (such as they are) and we created this:
For the refined CSI connoisseur, this is a cinch. For anyone else, it may be a little baffling. The green bug is CSI: Crime Scene Investigation: the original and, at times, the best. They use their green back-lights and their jars of creepy foetal pigs to excellent effect. Congratulations. The blue spiky lumpy thing is the Statue of Liberty, hence, CSI:NY: the third, most enjoyable and most over looked. They, too, have a love of blue back-lighting, but they add lots of glass and steel to it to make it look all cold and shiny. In the first series they also went with a weird Gothic theme. I searched online but couldn't find a picture of the original morgue. It was all tiled and vaulted and brilliant. Finally, sadly, the yellow sunglasses are the train-wreck that is CSI: Miami: it's wrong on so many levels but somehow, I know a lot of people who a) think it's the best of the three and b) largely because it's always sunny. It's not the sun, people. It's yellow back-lighting which, incidentally, spends a lot of time highlighting that the girls really need to brush their hair ( I feel so old). Also, surely the sunny jollity is somewhat tempered by the hideous murder. Is that different to my enjoyment of the CSI:NY team? I like to think so. Anyway, it is my ode to David Caruso and his Dickensesque caricature of himself.
Anyway, we gave it to him. He looked quizzically at it for a second then laughed, put it on, and now wears it often. Good boy. We also spent an entire afternoon crafting this:
The drawing was all my sister. Our scanner, however, is dreadful, so I had to go over the whole thing again before filling in all the colour blocks. Oh, and I did the title.
We based it on this brilliant picture, which is a still from the very beginning of Pixar's brilliant One Man Band. Watch it. It's one of my favourite things. Ever.
Then came my sister's birthday. Needless to say, you might have noticed that this year, there was a royal wedding going on. Maybe? Possibly? Well, actually, there were several (poor Monaco) but one in particular somewhat overshadowed the others. It also, in my sister's eyes, was looking dangerously like overshadowing her birthday as it was two days after her big day. She was not impressed. I'd say, in fact, that she was pretty annoyed. So. For her birthday, I bought her Will and Kate Top Trumps, naturally, although now, post wedding, they are seriously cheaper. Dang again. Anyway, I also made her this:
Thanks to the lovely people at Photobox it came out pretty well. And she was pleased. So I was pleased. Get in. So that was it. Three birthdays. Four projects. A bunch of stuff that turned up while I tried to tidy. A massive amount of tidying still to do. Dang once more.
