Stuff I find, Stuff I like, Stuff I do.
4 notes
Posted 15, April, 2013

Roller Derby: New Minimum Skills testing from a Newbie Perspective.

I passed my minimum skills two weeks ago by finally managing to do 25 laps in 5 minutes, with the help of one of our main league skaters the wonderful Little Miss Mischevil who paced me beautifully. I would’ve in fact got 27 in 5 if I hadn’t been too busy turning around to the player behind congratulating her on her 25 as well at the 26 mark.

And now, technically I’m not minimum skills passed anymore, I should be annoyed, right? I should be down-heartened that I had finally managed to hit that target just to have someone pull it a little further away from me?

Well actually no, I’m quite happy about it. After going through the new min. skills sheet I feel that the WFTDA has taken into account a few things highlighted in a recent derby life article about teaching knee falls. They’re not great on our knees, and since the knee is one of the most complex pieces of kit we’ve got we should probably look after it. Also, for better derby, wouldn’t it be good to see more hitting and less falling? Wouldn’t it be better to have skaters who didn’t instantly react to a bit of imbalance by falling down?

I’m terrible for falling down, I’ve got better over the months but I’m still far from being a super stable main league skater. In a practice scrimmage on Friday during a power jam I was repeatedly swept, the skill I need to work on is obviously my balance.

The new Min.Skills support balance, they’re more about learning to feel more natural on skates as well as how to deal with getting past fallen skaters through tight gaps and taking a beating. I’m looking forward to spending more time getting to know this.

Two Tuesdays ago I passed my minimum skills, two Tuesdays ago I was nervous of skating my first bout and being completely useless and getting in everyone’s way because I hadn’t sorted out my balance yet. Today I’m not technically minimum skills passed anymore and I’m quite looking forward to the opportunity to get better


I can only transition one way, I’ve only just began to manage backward cross overs and whenever we do the London wall drill I try my hardest not to be the one skating backwards. The prospect of becoming a better skater should be one of the main focuses of derby, each time a new Min Skills sheet comes out it’ll reflect the current state of roller derby today and the improvements in coaching and techniques being taught. Every new sheet should be celebrated as a sign that we’re all getting better, even the Fresh Meat who haven’t passed any form of min skills yet.

Brawl Bearings (No. 22)

29 notes
Posted 5, March, 2013

Found this video thanks to a re-blog from Glitterpix which was gifs. Since I’m not a fan of a bunch of animated gifs that try to sum up a situation past their length, so I went on a hunt for the video.

Marina Abramovic is a Serbian born artists based in New York, in 1976 she moved to Amsterdam with Ulay performing out of a bus (which is feature in the video). Twelve years later they decided their relationship was coming to an end finishing off with one last performance. The pair walked the Great Wall of China from opposite ends, meeting in the middle and finishing with an embrace vowing never to see each other ever again.

In 2010 she held a retrospective at MoMA where she performed The Artist is In, for 736 hours and 30 minutes she sat static in silence whilst members of the public took it in turns to sit opposite her. Enter a surprise from Ulay bringing out the rawest of human emotion and hi-jacking her performance piece elevating it to something much more interesting and deep.

Reblogged from simonjefferis  8 notes
Posted 1, March, 2013
simonjefferis: davidclulow: I haven’t added much to the internet recently. Simon Jefferis and I are 5 months into our internship together at Dare and are starting to think about what’s going to happen next. We’ve worked on a number of projects in the “real world” that NUA prepared us for, and Dare has certainly taken us out of our comfort zones and into some testing situations. The demands of paying clients are (obviously) very different to those of a degree course, and trying to keep a relaxed approach to new projects is more challenging when results are needed within days rather than weeks. Despite this, we’re working with a large number of very talented people that have pushed us and moved our ideas towards fruition quicker than we have ever experienced, and this has helped us push personal projects further in our spare time as well. Commuting to London is a completely different bag of crazy. I love the Underground for what it is, but I don’t want to have to travel on that thing for the rest of my life. Perhaps we’ll move to London next, or maybe the Nor-folk were right and you don’t have to be there at all. Either way working in the city is a good experience right now and it seems to be teaching us a lot. I thought 2012 would be a year of massive change, if only for myself. I think 2013 will be a year of big decisions, and some of them are coming up faster than expected. They probably always do that. Here’s to making the right ones. I couldn’t have asked for a better wingman in this crazy whore that is London! Love these guys!

simonjefferis:

davidclulow:

I haven’t added much to the internet recently.

Simon Jefferis and I are 5 months into our internship together at Dare and are starting to think about what’s going to happen next. We’ve worked on a number of projects in the “real world” that NUA prepared us for, and Dare has certainly taken us out of our comfort zones and into some testing situations. The demands of paying clients are (obviously) very different to those of a degree course, and trying to keep a relaxed approach to new projects is more challenging when results are needed within days rather than weeks. Despite this, we’re working with a large number of very talented people that have pushed us and moved our ideas towards fruition quicker than we have ever experienced, and this has helped us push personal projects further in our spare time as well.

Commuting to London is a completely different bag of crazy. I love the Underground for what it is, but I don’t want to have to travel on that thing for the rest of my life. Perhaps we’ll move to London next, or maybe the Nor-folk were right and you don’t have to be there at all. Either way working in the city is a good experience right now and it seems to be teaching us a lot.

I thought 2012 would be a year of massive change, if only for myself. I think 2013 will be a year of big decisions, and some of them are coming up faster than expected. They probably always do that. Here’s to making the right ones.

I couldn’t have asked for a better wingman in this crazy whore that is London!

Love these guys!

Posted 15, February, 2013

A Question to the Future

Just now on my lunch break I was walking back to the office when I encountered a small van at a pelican crossing, now this in itself is not an unusual or blog worthy experience but there was something strange about the van. I didn’t quite realise what it was until the van went past me.


It was completely silent. This van was obviously a new greener vehicle, which is a big positive, but it’s complete lack of sound threw me off guard. It was only doing somewhere between 15 and 20 miles per hour so I couldn’t work out if it was slowing down to let me cross or not, the hesitation in this decision proved wise - they weren’t.


But it did make me wonder, did the people who designed this van take other people into account? As a pedestrian with all my senses I avoided any injury but say a blind person who is not used to this area of London? Could there have been different results? Even though the driver could’ve stopped in time they probably would’ve registered their annoyance and startled someone who couldn’t see them.


It’s just an honest question and a thought really, you’d think that people would possible take this sort of thing into account. Considering that apple gave the iPod a fake clicker noise on the wheel to improve user experience you’d expect maybe a major vehicle manufacturer to add some sort of noise to this van.

(Saying that I only recently found out the US doesn’t have any measures for the blind to be able to tell the difference between their bank notes thanks to Tommy Edison which just strikes me as bizarre in this day and age. Canada has braille, the UK has different sizes… it isn’t too difficult.)

9 notes
Posted 15, February, 2013

You Are the Droid I’ve been looking for!

I’m not really a big fan of Valentines day, not in the whole “Blah Blah it’s a hallmark holiday” I just don’t feel the need to go all out and crazy about it really.

Recently as a member of a couple we’ve started making each other pisstake cards, me being the ‘Creative’ one I feel a lot of pressure to produce something that looks like maybe 3 years at an Art School wasn’t a total waste of government money. I’m actually quite proud, in the last few months Dare has unlocked my ability to draw which is really quite exhilarating.

Reblogged from hideouslyfascintating  1 note
Posted 4, February, 2013

hideouslyfascintating:

Not really hideous, in fact quite beautiful. A wonderful take on how to deal with areas for illegal immigrants in captivity, where they are not on the same line as criminals but instead a hazy blob somewhere around that area.


Wonderful consideration for their space and well being as well as their anonymity.

Re-blog from my building obsession blog.

Posted 28, January, 2013

So the Diet Coke hunk is back after being absent from our screens for a couple of years, possessing ovaries and being obsessive about my hair you’d expect the advert to directly target me and make me want a cool refreshing Diet Coke.


Well no, Diet Coke has the most revolting after taste, it’s like something bitter has been delicately plonked into thinned down normal “full fat” coke.

But my main question is this, does anyone else think that there’s a lot of sexism in adverts nowadays geared against men? You can’t say anything sexist about women so lets just target the boys? I’m really beginning to feel like because men still get paid more in most professions and have always been top dog that they’re now open to be mocked in advertising to make women buy the product.


Boots, Glade, both adverts gear towards how stupid men are, how they can’t look after themselves and need a women to sort out everything in their lives. The truth is probably more that if the room stinks a guy would just open a window instead of spending £5 to make the room smell like Dark Orchid, Jojoba and Sea views. A man would probably just buy their deodorant and paracetamol when they’ve definitely ran out and whilst buying their weekly food shop instead of making a specialist trip to an emporium of fine fragrances and branded painkillers.


I’m just wondering why it’s acceptable, as someone who doesn’t really consider themselves much of a feminist, to treat men like dumb idiots that are only worth oggling when you can’t do the same to women? Equality is a two way street.

Anyone else think it looks like he’s being attacked by Tubgirl? (Don’t know it? Don’t google it.)

Way to lower the tone… I’ll get my coat.

(also what happened to the whole “Just for the taste of it…. Diet Coke” I liked those adverts.)

1 note
Posted 25, January, 2013

An amazing montage of 80s video footage from SmashTV haven’t made it through the whole 50 minutes but am planning too. Absolutely beautiful, really shows the bright hopefulness that 1980s advertising monopolised on along with the fast progression into computer generated graphics.

Absolutely gorgeous, the graphics for some reason make me want to go and play on Quartz Composer again - which I shall do this afternoon if none of my current briefs progress. No down time, got nothing to do? How about learn something new.