Nature Is Awesome

Now, this here is how to play with nature. And I love chipmunks!

Packing like a Pro

I swear I'm going to try this for Summer. Amazing!

Randy Pausch Last Lecture: Achieving Your Childhood Dreams

This guy is pure inspiration. You may think it's a bit trying to sit and watch this entire lecture on-line, but you'd be surprised. Randy Pausch is an amazing speaker, and with two months left to live he has such a positive outlook on life. This is what a fulfilled life is all about- if you set out to achieve your childhood dreams, you basically will. As Walt Disney said, "If you can dream it, you can do it", and what Randy shows is that if you do it, you're fully capable of being happy with your life even if it's cut dramatically short. I'm reading the accompanying book at the moment too, and strongly recommend it.

Seriously, I know it's an old message but live your life to the full. Don't have regrets. And it will be AMAZING

Sooo, my list? From what I remember, here we go;

• Be a published writer (hmm Tearaway doesn't count. Imma write a book!)
• Be a recognised artist (this may be hard...)
• Save peoples lives (yup, very vague. I'll be a surgeon...)
• Become a rock-star (may have to redefine this one!)
• Completely design my own outfit (hahaha yup, I was a weird little boy)

I'm sure there would have been more sooo work in progress yah!

Recycle Design

Isn't this suitcase chair just beautiful? It's certainly something I'd love in my place :)
There are so many creative options in the world we can choose for recycling old "stuff"- chairs like this should act as an inspiration to really try and give everything a second life. This has got me thinking about how I've recently been trying to get my wide-angle camera lens fixed (somehow I've jammed the autofocus). I find it really sad that it will cost me less to buy a whole new lens than to get my current one fixed- we're living in a terribly wasteful society and it's such a breath of fresh air to see people making things like this!

Childrens Drawings... Revisited

I've always loved the artwork of children because of its fascinating lack of boundaries- what kids draw is completely limitless. But sometimes it's really hard to actually picture what they're showing because it totally defies any laws of reality. Korean artist Yeondoo Jung is truly unique, setting out to turn the drawings of 5-7 year old children into reality in his photographic series "Wonderland". The results are amazing...

"Afternoon Nap"

"Fox's Magic Trick"

"He Didn't Sleep For Three Days"

"Rabbit Family Hopping Around"

"Three Brothers Riding The Rainbow Waves"

You can find more here on Yeondoo Jung's website. It's worth having a cruise around his other stuff too!

Keep cool people :)

Slash Still Rocks

When Slash released his self-titled solo album earlier this year, everyone sorta guessed the guest vocals list pretty well with the likes of Iggy Pop and Alice Cooper. But what people didn't guess- and were very quick to criticise- was an appearance by Fergie. And at the end of the day, everyone had to take a second listen because she has straight-up amazing rock vocals.

This here would be the new video clip for Beautiful Dangerous with Fergie.



It's a pretty cliche rock-star video clip to be honest, but it's still Slash. I'm allowing myself to post it simply because I'm celebrating that he called off the divorce with his wife.

The guy is frikkin AMAZING.

The Future Is In China

This time lapse shows the construction of a 15 storey hotel in under 4 days. Quite frankly, china is absolutely amazing and inspirational.

Oranges!!

I'm crazy.

I was over at my girlfriends the other day and she gave me an orange. It was absolutely lovely. So I went home and literally ate every orange in the house (there were probably only six but it sounds cool). Anyway, it just got me thinking how great fruit is! I'm now committing myself to eat more in-season fruits around the year as it can only be good for you. That's not exactly speculation either, science has already shown that eating in season does have health benefits. And in a world where global warming dominates the contemporary consciousness, buying local and seasonal fruits means less transportation and less energy wasted on artificial growing. So, here's to oranges!

By the way,
It should be compulsory to watch Clockwork Orange at least once in your life...

I could now go on about other things Orange but ABSOFROCKINLUTELY did a fantastic job of it.

Rock on
x

Social Networking

Sooooo I had to do some writing on why Social Networking is a good thing for Tearaway. It's not actually that easy to argue! I was on a word restriction and it was a debate-like piece with another really cool Tearaway writer called Tommy, who lives in the Hawkes Bay. We had some fascinating phone calls though most of the stuff we discussed never quite made it into the debate. Here's my rather horrid, typical-teenager side of the writing. I swear I really do usually write better...

"Social Networking, plain and simple, is a truly advantageous tool of the modern age. The bottom line is that despite how much I like to fault it- as most people do- I’ve still got my Facebook. So what is it that keeps us stuck on it? In all honesty, just using some specific examples can underline its usefulness, and although I admit that they may come across as cliché, there’s very valid reasoning behind them becoming so.

Firstly are international friends. My parents were awesome this year and let my brother and I have our pre-ball get-together at our house. Inevitably, lots of photos got taken of everyone dressed up. The next day Mum got an email from a very close family friend who moved to France to live a good number of years ago, saying how lovely we all looked. What the?! Oh, Facebook! For a friend on the other side of the world to get a smile from still being able to watch us grow up, that’s quite magic.

I’ve got another draw card on its way now. My seventh form year has been filled with absolutely wonderful friends (aided by none other than, you guessed it, Facebook), but as we all leave school everyone’s going in literally all directions. Whether it’s elsewhere in New Zealand or even around the world, there are a lot of people to be missed and I’m positive this goes for everyone. Social Networking is going to make it so much easier to keep up with all these people- it’s something our parents never had and in the future it will lead to a very strongly connected world indeed. Already it’s proven its worth by keeping us in touch with friends at other schools, and this can only continue as we begin life in the larger world.

What’s more, there has never been such an efficient and easy way to market ourselves as we go into the workforce. Whether we set our profiles up to accentuate our strengths or use it to keep contacts who may be useful in the future, there isn’t a doubt that the ‘tool’ of online social networking, in this day and age, is quite indispensible. It almost seems that if you do without you’ll fall behind, but if you use it you can very much propel yourself through the world. 

Now, it’s coming up to exam time and I had conformed to the current trend by deactivating my Facebook account in order to concentrate. By the way, that’s another positive- if it all gets too much you can remove the distraction without deleting it. Anyway, preparing for this piece I needed to talk people into doing the Vox Pop. Reactivating my account, all of ten minutes later I had the three responses and snapshots seen here with almost no effort on my part."


In other news, here's a great vid my friend found:

Strunz & Farah - Bola

At the moment, Rodrigo y Gabriela have kinda secured the popularization of contemporary Spanish guitar meeting world music. But before Rod y Gab, there was Strunz and Farah. This Costa Rican and Iranian duo play some of the most chill and shred-gasmic world music that demands respect and awe from causal listeners to professional musicians alike...

Moving Music

So, last night for Guy Fawks my brother had a huge group of friends around to watch the display in Wellington Harbour and have a few drinks/ mini party. Having been concerned leading up to it, I was madly impressed that a few of them were talented musicians! We took my guitars and keyboard from my bedroom to the living room and had a mean jam which reminded me how fun it always was to have a band. Oh why did I stop this year!?

Anyway, the dose of music got me thinking about talented and/or quirky guitar playing and inevitably Tommy Emmanuel. This song is gold...

 

Headless

Headless, originally uploaded by Zaaane.

We kinda maybe somehow smashed a head off these nuns. I think Mum was dusting or something...

Anyway, sooo captivating to take photos of! I love how it totally changes the perfection these porcelain ladies would otherwise have :D

Photography Exhibition

Yay my photography's going up in an exhibition opening this Saturday!

The new mayor of Wellington, Celia Wade-Brown, will be launching it which is ultra-cool too :D

'Junior' 2010 Media Studies Film

A short film made by my friend Max for a Media Studies assessment.
In my opinion there's a bit that could be changed but he had a heck of a lot more ideas and it was a pity we were beaten by the time available :(
But here it is anyway!

Adventure

Adventure, originally uploaded by Zaaane.

From a Friday afternoon stalking the streets of Wellington with Alasdair and Loulou, starring Loulou's legs...

Green!!! Makes you love living here :)