the existence watery

Seen "The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou"? Well you should. Even if you haven't a lifelong crush on Bill Murray you should (i wonder if another lifelong crush of mine, Hugh Laurie, has become a huge love object in the States now, because of "House"... hmmm. tell me I need to know, you people in Statesland...oh god, this is turning into a teenager's blog, except that instead of popstars and dead actors of morango com açúcar... (I CAN'T be horrible about morangos now, really CAN I?) it's full of middle aged men and quirky movies... oh, god....) because it's just lovely.

But the reason I'm writing about "The Life Aquatic" today is that the Brazilian singer playing the Brazilian sailor playing Bowie songs throughout on his acoustic, in Brazilian, Seu Jorge, released the songs from the film as an album... and I bought it. and it is fab. so this week's "pick of the Vits" is this. Seu Jorge. The Life Aquatic.

Don't EVER think that my music tastes are in anyway cultivated, informed or anythinged. My music collection is probably one of the lamest collections in the world... in iTunes terms, I have only 5.6 days worth of music. I'VE GOT 60GIG TO FILL FOR GOD'S SAKE!... anyway, what was my point... oh yeah... so... erm... I was going to say that it's nice to have a blog so I can say out loud "hey, this music is great!" because I can't see the look of pity in your eyes.... (can you tell I'm still scarred from being a teenager/twentysomething surrounded by teenagers and twentysomethings far FAR cooler than me?).

The picture? Me. As a Team Zissou crew member. Wailing/singing in full ocean. In Brazilian.

the life changing machinery, continued, again.

(if any of this is making any sense to anyone, or on the other hand, NOT making any sense to anyone, do say!)

Out Today

Buy it! (as long as you live in Portugal)

Or there'll be trouble.

innit.

a brief intermission

Since it is against the law for we thirtysomethings to indulge in conventional "young person" type fun (i.e. clubbing, dancing, sex, frolicking, farting about, lounging around, playing with our mobile phones, playing with our playstations, getting steaming/pissed and collapsing on the beach) we have to resort to other things.

Well, the new super duperfied updated Continente in Seixal has come up with the goods.



Self Service checkout. I never imagined it could be as much fun.

Later.

the life changing machinery, continued.

(I'll colour it in later! it IS a holiday today, after all... happy 25th April, pts!)



see. told you I would.

and WHY, granny p asks, do we have 25th April off?

well, this is a synopsis (there are no comments as my comment system broke down last year, but honest, I didn't get into any trouble for this post)

.

sometime in the last century...





















to be cont'd...

irrational irritants

Why do perky ponytails that SWING incessantly while the perky ponytails' owners JOG irritate me to distraction? I'm not too keen on ponytails before they start swinging (even though half the time my hair is in one, cos I'm too lazy/my arms hurt putting it up)... but once they get going.... swing swing perky swing swing swing... grrrrrrrr.

This post's comment box (yah-boo-sucks, beardy!) is going to be a census on the blogosphere's irrational irritants.

The results will be collated, filed, transcribed and laughed at.

Go. on. you. can. tell. me.
be anonymous if you want. :)

plum pickings

Over the last few days while I was working like stink, I kept having great ideas for blogging. And yes, I have learnt my lesson and I wrote the ideas down for when I got through with working like stink.

And now I looked at the ideas that I wrote down... and they stink.

So here's my beautiful plum tree.





This blogging is a very strange beast isn't it?

And might I say that I wholeheartedly disagree and at the same time agree completely with Monsieur Pacheco Pereira (that'll confuse the poor thing) about comment boxes in blogs.

Yes, they are full of sad little people who are going nowhere and can only try and scorn the people who DO stuff, scaring off nice commentators and insulting the writers and artists who put their blood and sweat into their... blogs.

But NO, actually, you bitter twisted journo-blogger-beardy, you're wrong, it's actually because you spend FAR too much time reading Portuguese POLITICAL blogs, which for some reason attract grumpy mean spirited saddo stalkers who call themselves things like "conan the destroyer"... where unfortunately is is all too easy to rise to their bait and retaliate (I learnt to my cost a few times, .... hey, I've had my share of saddo mean spirited stalkers. In the end I set the dogs on them) when MOST people who comment in blogs are actually kind, funny, friendly people, who inspire the blogger to carry on, many of them being bloggers themselves. So yah-boo-sucks, beardy!

That is all.

honestly.

this blogging lark.

can you tell that I'm a bit of a nervous wreck today?

and NO, I'm NOT PRE-MENSTRUAL!

In a nice way.

by the way, please read andré and vaughan´s newish blog, humdrum.

It is VERY humdrum.

but VERY funny.




oooh.


I appear to have blogged myself.

my head hurts

I've had a headache all day while finishing off yet more boring stuff (which, thankfully, is all done now.... back to fun tomorrow after I zonk out mentally for the rest of the day... switching on autopilot as soon as this is posted.... )... let me just say... I HATE JARGON! right, that got that off my chest.

So, for your picture today, you get a sneaky peaky at this month's Atlântico cover, wot i done, cos I'm too much of a zombie to do anything else. And this is the Atlântico blog. Obviously, it helps if a. you like reading interesting stuff about stuff. and b. you can read Portuguese.

technorati tags: illustration

Let me count the ways...

Oh Corel™ Painter IX.5 © and Wacom™ Intuos 3™© how do I love thee?

Seriously. I love them love them love them especially on days when I won't get to use them cos I have to finish some translation work (snore) and all I want to do is paint. hurrumph. Never mind, I have mad mexican folk music to cheer me along today. "And in our capacity as mejico, xiocolata, la vida y we clearly feel the responsibility to our cumbia del mole...." hmmm. maybe some Elgar would be better. It's wordless and jolly well English to get me in the English frame of mind for my English translating.

If you think that when I have to paint, all I want to do is translation... then you're WRONG WRONG WRONG.

wa-HEY!

I love finding wonderful things.

I've probably been hiding in the non "mexican/american folk-musicians-who-bear-an-uncanny-resemblance-to-Frida-Kahlo" box, but today jumped out of it (see, jibberish still thickly spread after two years in blog school) to discover Lila Downs and her latest album... which I've been listening to all day after I impulsively, but downright rightly, bought from iTunes (I swear I don't know why people think iTunes is bad for the music industry... I've spent a good couple of hundred quid on music that I would never have bothered shopping for in a music shop... maybe I'm an oddity, I dunno... maybe I'm doing some bloke who makes square CD cases out of a bit of money, but hey, less plastic can only be a good thing, right?)... she's a very clever girl with a voice like smoked paprika and a soul as deep as the depths of bunkum that I plumb here.

...she is a lovely exotic mixture of Mexican, native Mexican, American and Scottish I think... wow. I wanted to draw her or me all mexicanned up (she really does look very like Frida... how I long for those beautiful mexican clothes.... until I got bored and yearned for a pair of trousers and a pair of campers again)... but I've been drawing other stuff (Atlântico Maio, Kulto 47, if you really want to know) today and think maybe the mexican might influence some distinctly NON mexican things.

Ah well, maybe another day... and maybe when I've listened to La Cantina a few more times I'll be able to understand Sung Mexican Spanish a bit better (I can't for the life of me understand Spanish Spanish...for even though it looks so very much like Portuguese, it AIN'T the same... dear british people who really think I speak SPANISH IN PORTUGAL!)

technorati tags: Art, illustration

3 days on and my prophecy is on target

Give me another three days, you won't be able to see it.

And if you ARE an IKEAfanatic like me, you might like to see Positive Fanatics (from the people who brought you Moleskinerie.com), an IKEA dedicated blog. Heaven.

Thank you for all the blogday wishes and parabens for daddy-o. I'm trying to persuade him to send me an MP3... but he's claiming non-techie-ness (er... was this not the same daddy-o who turned me into a techie??????.... GET OHN THER and make us an MP3!).

Later, daddy-o and dudie-o's.

What a cool daddy I have!

Look for the pepper... and if you bought the Times today, look in the Books section.

What a proud Vit I am!

er... er... erm...

inauguration of a new work table

Caught in the act of staring out the window and drinking an inaugural cup of coffee while sitting at my brand new work table that I assembled with the help of Ikea and a screw driver... while it can still be seen, before it is lost under a pile of watercolour paper, ink bottles, pens and brushes, cups of cold coffee, cables, ipods, card readers, speakers.... I could take the dark damp corridor/office no longer, nor the kitchen table, nor the coffee table, nor the floor ... so I've hijacked the lightest part of our house until I build my studio in the backyard. And it's all mine.... except for the parts five centimetres to my left, right and back, which seem to have suddenly become very popular with a certain 4-year-old and 6-year-old... I'm expecting a certain history professor to arrive any second now, saying ooh, ooh, what a nice work space you've got, I think i'll stay here...

oh well. they go back to school next week.

technorati tags: ikea

a year ago today....

...as I'm floundering for time to blog this week, I drew this drawing. And it is still as relevant today as it was then.

Put it away!

Even young, small things who would be quite a nice shape who should know what they're doing cos they're working in the clothes shops (why that should be a license to STYLE knowledge, I don't know, but hey, it should) are wearing such ridiculously low-cut trousers that their minor flab (as opposed to my major flab) is extruded out over the top. ick ick ICK!

Sigh. Ikea.
Did Ikea yesterday. Only thing keeping me sane.
Did the checkout three times. My visits to Ikea are very complex.

Tomorrow is Vitriolica Webb's Ite's second birthday. As I haven't got time to throw it a decent party, would you please bring along a couple of cans of Special Brew and a pack of Benson and Hedges and we'll have an impromptu virtual digital knees up.



technorati tags: fat, tummies

favourite words. number one: ANORAK

It is something I wear and something I AM.

What are your favourite words?



technorati tags: Anorak,

a great way to chill down or calm out

It's very easy for me to sit in front of my mac all day, drawing, writing bollocks, working, mucking around, buying stuff off iTunes... all day and every day. But I get a bit strung out after a while. So I need to do something that destrings me, but still doing something with my hands... my hands like to be occupied ALL day... otherwise they might start wondering where the ciggies went (I wonder if you realize that this blog's existence is almost entirely thanks to my giving up smoking two and a bit years ago... idle hands and all that).

What better way to relax than a boobie jar made out of a glass juice bottle and a load of fimo? I wonder if there are any fimo psychopaths out there, like me?

(and here they are aGLOWING!)

technorati tags: fimo

CHAPTER 14....

is UP, written by dear Ashitaka.... (one day I'm going to remember to ask you WHY "ougado"!)

today I woke up thisaway

I hate teenagers.




I also hate young people, old people, middle aged people, twenty somethings, thirty somethings, forty somethings, children AND puppies.

And, no, I'm not pre-menstrual.

A brave thing to do

O Acidental is coming to an end...on Saturday... though I can't see the acidentais keeping quiet for too long...

Still, it's a big step to (...gulp... I.... can ...hardly ... gulp ... say... the... words...) ... close... a ... aaaccchh.... blog.

You may get to see one last Vitriolica pic n'O Acidental if you pay close attention. Well, not that close.




technorati tags: Art, illustration

if clarice cliff...

... was sitting looking out of my window on this lovely windy wet day with the bright colours of my garden and and the village beyond, she might design a plate.

on the other hand, she might not be interested in plates if she was around today. She might be more of a playstation 2 kinda chick.

mmmmmm.


technorati tags: Art, illustration

just a scribblin'

Sometimes I get a nasty urge to add a noise to my posts. It would be really funny if from time to time I could add "BOO!" to a drawing, watch you jump out of your chair as you opened up we poor unsuspecting unkemptwomen. But I'm not that mean, really. Cos I regularly get freaked out by opening up a blog or a website (and yesterday, even an email) because music starts playing a few seconds after ... and I can't for the life of me work out where it's coming from... until I realize it's coming from my not too powerful-hence-a-bit-distant-sounding integral speakers ... very spooky. And I don't like being freaked out, especially late at night, when I do most of my blog visiting, so I guess you don't like being freaked out either. So I won't add "BOO!"


Sometimes I wonder what the hell this blog is about.

Any ideas?

who needs bike lights...

There are an awful lot more bikes on our not very quiet and fairly bleedin' lethal suburban roads these days. Which is nice. But almost no-one uses bike lights in the dark, trusting instead the hard shoulder, the pavement, god, and the careful driving of the average portuguese car driver.

This bloke was alright, though. He had a nice shiny bald head, so every time he passed under a street lamp he was just about visible. Clever.

i found a very old photo today...

what the hell do you think is going on?

:)

In other news; I don't know if this is toothachingly cool or indicative that the internet is a sicko's paradise and should be avoided at all costs, but if you google "modern torture techniques" this blog comes up in the top ten.

cool.

and finally; I'm a little blogxhausted. I'm going to bed.