Hey folks.

Once upon a time, at our school, not too long ago . . . our English class was ‘gifted’ with a relief teacher, who the entire class liked because he didn’t really expect anyone to do any work, instead he just spent the lesson answering every personal question about his age and hygiene products that the giggling girls of the class could throw at him. Gawd, get a grip girls, he’s young alright, not that young . . . disturbing.

Anyways, one of the tasks he gave us, which everyone didn’t really do except me, was to choose a picture and write  up a story about it, I chose

this picture here, because it reminded me of photos that I’ve seen of my grandparents in their childhood, the stories that they’ve told me about their childhood, along with the old flickering home videos of a time that will no longer be. A place that seems just so happy, it’s a pity that it’s been taken away by bogans, smog and untrustworthy twits. The world that you could leave your door unlocked as you popped down the shop, has turned into the world where you have to have the door locked at all times, even when you’re at home. Or is it just some myth, like most myths are, about a happy beginning that turned bad because of our actions… sound familiar?

So, I chose the photo of the family in front of the house and following the instructions, imaginatively we had to come up with Who is in the photo, What is in the photo, What happened before and what happened after the photo was taken. I came up with this.

Who?

• A Family of 5
  • Albert Donnovin
  • Christine Donnovin
  • Maggie Donnovin
  • Matthew Donnovin
  • James Donnovin

What?

• The Donnovin Family is standing outside their new house; it’s a house in the suburban town of Coldwood, a completely different scene to the countryside of Whitewater of which they came from.

What happened before?

• Before the photo was taken Albert Donnovin, (the man) pulled the “For Sale” sign out of the crisp front lawn, he walked over to his car, pushed a silver button centered on the boot of his smooth dark car, after placing the sign in the boot, he closed it, smiling over at the rest of his family. “I’ll be back in 5 minutes, just have to drop this sign back off to the relaters,” he said, grinning at Maggie, then nodding at Christine (the woman).
• Maggie, the little girl on the right, smiled at Albert and exclaimed, “Bye, bye daddy! You be back now!” as the old-fashioned car pulled away from the footpath and drove off with a gritty purr. Maggie turned around and hugged Christine’s leg, holding on tightly like monkey clinging to a branch.

Shortly After, Albert returned to the house, he nearly hit his head on the roof as he exited the car. But he had better things to think about, he smiled whilst gazing across to the new arrivals which were pulling up along the footpath further down the street. Aunty Mary and Uncle “Speed-runner” Robin (the nickname “Speed-runner” was given to him last Christmas camping trip, where while doing his business in the bushes, swore he saw a Tasmanian Tiger running towards him. With his pants half down he bolted back to the campsite, it turned out it was their dog Trixy who had gone for a little walk earlier that night on the hunt for possums,) got out of their convertible and walked over to the Donnovins outside their new house. After catching up with all the info on the new house, and hearing about journey from Whitewater, the Donnovin family all stood in front of the camera as Aunty Mary called out some smile triggering phrases with an especially high-pitched voice to get the attention of the youngest Donnovin, Maggie.

What happened after?

• The moment the flash went off, Maggie started crying because the bright light from the camera startled her. Where as everyone else melted away from their photogenic posture as if they were wax sitting under the hot sun. Aunty Mary soon came over to comfort Maggie, apologising and saying, “Oh it’s alright, it’s only the camera. Are your eyes okay?”

That’s what I came up with in the 50 minute lesson. What do you think? Should I continue the Donnovin story?

It just makes you think of that time, I wasn’t even born then, I’ve just come up with my perception, my version from all the stories and pictures that I’ve been shown. Is what I think the world was, just an empty echo? Something that never was?

*Sigh*

Well, That’s me for another post, catch you later people!

Thanks,

Ben.

Isn’t the rain relaxing?

Other people hate rainy days, I mean who wants to sit inside whilst cold droplets of water pour down all around us making a terrible racket? I’ve heard heaps of people complaining about the weather, “Damn rain, go away!” and such, but I want to know why. Is the rain really that terrible?

I personally believe that the sound of rain is the most pleasant relaxing sound in all of existence, it’s so calm and soothing, when it’s bucketing down outside I feel so encouraged and energized, care free and ready to take on the world from indoors. But when it’s a sunny bright day outside I just feel tired and really just can’t be bothered doing anything. So what is it about rainy days that everyone hates? Do you hate rainy days? Comment and let me know your thoughts on them.

I mean, I can understand that perhaps because it’s dark and gloomy, grey and droomy [Shhh, thats a word . . .] that maybe the colours make them feel sad, depressed even. These dark grey clouds looming over, blocking out the yellow golden light of the sun, which normally keeps us warm and lifts our morale. This would make sense, because light and colour does effect our emotions quite considerably, I mean the whole reason that McDonalds, KFC and Hungry Jacks use the colour red in their logo is because red is a colour that triggers apetite, makes you hungry, it also looks pretty posh when you put a burger in front of it. I just thought about Mexican bullfighters while talking about the colour red advertising food . . . don’t know why (giggles).

As I said before though, I actually like the rain, it’s so . . . reposing, and it looks so elegant as it splashes against the windows and builds up a sort of ‘waterfall/snowball’ effect, then clinging onto it’s comrades as it slides down the transparent crystal surface to drip down onto the ground. The whooshing sound of the rain gurgling down the guttering, the rain hitting the roof with a magical whisper and beat.

It’s things like the rain, that just make my day.

This is where I ruin the mood of the entire post, because I reveal to you why this post is called The Lavatory and the Rain . . . well, thank god I’m typing this, watching me try to explain this in person would be a bit awkward. No I’m kidding it’s not that bad.

Have you ever gone to the lavatory, sat down, done your business and then just sat there. Occupying the bathroom for no reason other than to just sit there and, sit. [no pun intended] Just sitting, thinking, whatever it is. For some people it may be texting or whatnot, whatever it is, humans seem to want to have a silent resting moment after a long day, and a long  . . . sit . . . [no pun inte . . . oh nevermind]

During this moment I didn’t think, I just . . . relaxed. The rain outside showering against the window, a calm breeze could be heard blowing outside, along the chirping song from hundreds of bugs and wildlife playing in the cool nighttime air. A natural orchestra, playing a song of pure life. Calm extravagant life. I know that I’ve been trying not to say this word again in this post, but it’s the only word to describe it.

Relaxing. It’s lovely and magical . . . and doesn’t cost $500+

Then I looked down and said, “Oh s____”

JOKING! Gees . . .

Well, catch you later. May your toilet-seated dreams come true . . .

Thanks,

Ben

It’s passed it’s use by date, it’s finished, no longer associated with the purpose that it was created for, now a depressing wasteland of ‘wannabes’ and dreams. Facebook is the network that use to be a cool little place where you and your friends could catch up, talk, post photos and excite each other with the comment notifications. But now Facebook isn’t like that anymore, this was 2 years ago, before the user-base suddenly jolted into the 500 millions and every school-kid left MySpace to clog up Facebook’s arteries.

Now there is so many people on Facebook, that there’s no longer anything social going on, the social sponges that live their life in their little huddle of popularity, get along just fine with their gang of 20, 25, despite the fact their friend count reads 1000+. But for those that want that easy going friend-hangout… Well you’re time has come and gone, now Facebook grants you access to more people than you want to acknowledge. It doesn’t matter if you don’t add heaps of people, if your friends have heaps of people on their list then you’ll be lucky to hear anything from them at all. With the news feed clogged up with statuses and quiz games from constant-Facebook-accomodants you no longer get to see anything from you’re actual friends. Because we’re all adding people we know these days, but not the people who we actually KNOW.

I used to be rather happy when I got a notification telling me  that someone has posted to my wall, now I just delete the email and forget about it, because the only rubbish that’s ever posted on my wall is, “John answered a question about Ben! Click here to find out what he said!” how ridiculous, if you were to click on that stupid box then you’d open up the app, allow it to access your personal info and then answer questions about each of your friends 10 times before being able to read what the ruddy question was. It’s a stupid luring trick designed to get more people using their app, and people are that stupid to use it that we’re all getting, ‘…answered a question about you!…’ posts on our wall. I haven’t had an actual person post anything on my wall at all, probably for the past 4-5 months, just ‘question about you’ apps, viruses designed to trick ignorant monkeys and the occasional: “Jeff sent you s@#& in farmville!”

Hmmm, why do I keep using names that begin with a ‘J’ for all my examples?

To say the least, it ‘sucks.’

I don’t go on Facebook as often anymore, because if anything it just makes me sad. Just saying that line sounds like a Play School host asking kids questions about their emotions, but then again, Play School never insists on answering hundreds of questions about friends in order to get one answer about you in return, which turns out to be: “What is Ben’s favourite colour?”,”dunno.”

Yeah, yeah, okay, so I tried it once, but now I ignore just about anything on facebook that ‘offers’ me something, because they’re all the same.

Where was I? Oh yes, Facebook makes me depressed is depressing, it’s just bland, nothing ever happens on there that actually makes me feel happy anymore. I feel better when I’m not on Facebook, or when I don’t bother looking at it. My friends hardly post anymore, it’s just a constant clatter from all those people that just sit on Facebook their entire life, just posting whatever comes to their mind, in a short space of time…[No, I’m not changing this post into a Dr Seus book] and I said in my post Activities of the Lively, these people then tell me that I don’t have a life, simply because ‘I do nothing’ and I’m ‘not social.’

Here me now, Facebook is no longer social, I’ve been more social on Nation Of Design than I have on Facebook, ever since Nation Of Design has it’s own mini-social-network, but it’s not clogged up like Facebook, it has a nice home-styled community of really great people, no stupid questions to answer, no farmville to chip-in, just doing what we love, graphics and art.

Facebook is just a big long list of people saying: “backstabbing slut”, “feeling prime for the weekend” and “like for a like”. It’s all boring useless rubbish.

And I’m sick of it.

Yours Ever So Truly,

Ben