Drowning…

I’m actually drowning in all the work I have at the moment. I’m not just talking about my 7:30am – 6:00pm job (yes, it’s supposed to be 8:00am to 4:30pm), I’m talking about weddings too. I have two albums to edit and put together and another wedding in a couple of weeks. YIKES!

I am stressed.

Thank heavens it’s a long weekend again in a couple of days. I get to work through my long weekend… yay…

Photos of me...

These are as raw as you're going to get... infact, they're not edited at all, which by the way, is something I never do. But I guess if you're going to read about my life you may as well see who I am under all the make up... I think... Try not to run away screaming...

Me in the morning - at this point I still have make-up on:

Me at around 9pm... As you can see, all make-up has virtually been rubbed off.

I have freaky eyes. The left one has a weird brown patch in it.

I see you! :P Yeah, I know... it's freaky :P

I love Martin Abel's Work

He is an amazing artist. Visit Martin Abel's Website

A LEGAL QUESTION................

Is this STATUEtory rape??

Yeah, I know, it's terribly corny... but there are some emails that you just gotta love. This one made my day :P

Wedding albums galore, it seems...

My first wedding this year was shot on the 8^th of March. Now I managed to get the couple's album to them, including their two mother-of-the-bride albums, which came out quite nice. The bride has now ordered two more MOTB albums. Apparently she is very happy! I've put some pictures below of a few of the laid out pages of the block mount wedding album that I did for the bride and groom.

Must Love Dogs...

There is a statement that I've often made that tends to draw attention to me, attention of the negative kind and that statement is "I don't like dogs." At this point the conversation normally goes like this:

Other Person: *look of horror* Why don't you like dogs? Did something happen to you?
Me: No, I just don't like them.
Other Person: *shocked silence*
Me: *smiles and walks away*

There are many reasons why I don't like dogs:

Dogs smell
Nothing is more putrefying than a wet dog.
Dogs bark
Constantly. I'd rather listen to a baby crying than a dog barking.
Dogs drool
Over absolutely everything! Yeugh!
Dogs have fleas
Totally unforgivable. I detest fleas.
Dogs jump on you
Mud and tears on my clothes are not something I would generally be happy about.
Dogs are stupid
Dogs damage themselves in so many ways purely because they are too stupid to have a sense of survival. No, don't lick the electric fence, it will hurt you... No, doggie... Don't lick tha... *bzzzzzzz* ... Stupid dog.

Man's best friend? I think it's a sad day when a dog is your best friend.

So to round this up, not everyone are dog lovers. There are those of us that do prefer cats over dogs. So please, if we come and visit your home don't be offended if we ask you to lock up your dog because it's chewing on our car tyres, or put it in the back yard because it's barking at its own shadow... the excuse, "he's just a dog" doesn't cut it, I'm afraid.

Apparently...

... I am an angel, with horns ...

Somehow the image appeals to me :P My friends are truly bizarre, but I love them.

Hmmm...

The urge to write seems to be leaving me slowly... I think I would be more motivated to write if I had more time and could relax and actually focus on what I wanted to say, instead of all the words being left to float aimlessly in my head. Not that I'm saying I'm any good at writing, I'm not, but I do get a mild sense of enjoyment out of writing something original.

Yet Another Inefficient Service in South Africa

I'm so gatvol with South Africa's service industry. I paid a small fortune for a parcel to be sent via Speed Services, overnight, door-to-door. Which means that if I sent it on Saturday it should have gotten there Tuesday morning by 10:30am. It is now Tuesday 14:15pm... I called and after being cut off twice and having to hold for around 25 minutes I was told that the plane was delayed and my parcel would only arrive at its destination tomorrow. UUUUUUUUGH! Why did I pay for it to be sent overnight if it wasn't going overnight? I could have sent it normal snail mail and saved myself around about R100. *fumes*

My Life

This month I’ve decided to give my newsletter a miss. What newsletter you may be asking? It’s the newsletter that I send out to my friends and family on a monthly basis, to let them know how I’m doing and what’s been going on in my life. As I’m sure you can see by my previous blog posts, March hasn’t been the most superb month for me, so I thought I’d give the April one a miss.

So instead, I’m going to do a quick catch up here…

I have the flu, which I caught at last weekend’s disastrous wedding. I can’t seem to shake it though, and I hope I’m completely over it by the end of the week as I need to get going with editing. I can’t edit with a stuffy head, it just makes me feel nauseous.

I’ve been playing Sims… a lot. So much so that I think I need to give the Sims a break for a while because I’m starting to feel like I’m part of my Sims family. I’m just really enjoying the new expansion pack Free Time, which not only opens your Sims up to new career paths and new hobbies, but also allows you to set second aspirations, and make wishes with a genie in a lamp. It’s a fantastic expansion.

Guitar lessons are going ok, although John seems to have abandoned us, but he assures us he will be back. I think Lee likes to rotate his teachers to give us the opportunity to benefit from all of their strengths. At the moment we’re learning Sea to Sea… yes, it’s as corny as it sounds, no it was never a chart topper :P Apparently it’s one of the songs written by the Berkley school of music (don’t quote me, I’m not sure) to learn scales. It’s one of those “ta ta ta ta taaaaa” songs :P

Other than that the only other couple of things that I have got going on this month are Emma’s birthday party on the 19th and next weekend we get to see Walt (Ramjet) for lunch. I love seeing Walt, but I get bored because the other people that will be there are gamers so I’d say 95% of the conversation will consist of gaming (PC gaming which, other than Sims, I don’t do), 4% will be music and movies, and 1% will be something interesting, like photography… Add to that, I have a very short attention span so I become bored and restless quickly.

Anyways, I’m afraid that’s it for the news… Hope ya’ll are keeping well 

x

Cat and Mouse - The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus

I couldn't find a proper Cat and Mouse video by The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus, so I thought I'd post this one with Pon and Zi...

*softly we tremble tonight...*

The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus

Currently one of my favourite bands, Red Jumpsuit Apparatus know how to rock. Lead singer Ronnie Winter is too gorgeous.

A bit of info on the band from Wikipedia:

The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus started out as a local band in Middleburg, Florida, which is south of Jacksonville, according to The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus' official website. The name, "Red Jumpsuit Apparatus", was chosen by placing random words on a wall, and then blindfolding one of the members and choosing three words. The band was started by Ronnie Winter and Duke Kitchens in high school, where they meet in a Musical Theory class, when Ronnie Winter was a senior and Duke Kitchens was a junior.

The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus released their demo, The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus in 2005. They then released a demo tour EP with "Ass Shaker", "Justify" and "Face Down" demo versions.[8] Later in 2006 they released their first LP, Don't You Fake It with the singles "Face Down", "False Pretense", "Your Guardian Angel", and "Damn Regret", which was certified gold on November 27, 2006 by the RIAA for sales shipments exceeding 500,000 copies.[9]In the summer of 2006 lead singer Ronnie Winter married his girlfriend of seven years, Staci, in Las Vegas while the band was on the Vans Warped Tour. Staci now sells merchandise for the band on tour. As of February 2007, The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus took part in the US Take Action! Tour organized for the prevention of youth suicide, along with bands such as My Chemical Romance and Rise Against.[10] Their song "In Fate's Hands" (which is a remastered version of "Ass Shaker") is featured in the video game Madden NFL 07.

The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus Don't You Fake It Deluxe Edition (CD/DVD) was released on April 3, 2007. The CD features the album and two exclusive songs, an acoustic version of "Face Down" and a never released out of Australia bonus track "Disconnected".

In a 2007 interview with the Florida Entertainment Scene, The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus teamed up with Virgin Records to raise funds for the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence. They also headlined the Take Action! Tour which sponsors awareness against teen suicide and against animal cruelty.

As of June 2007, according to Billboard.com, The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus have begun work on a second album that should be released in the summer of 2008.[11] The band pulled out of their confirmed appearances at the Australian Soundwave Festival Tour 2008 citing recording commitments.

On 29 March 2008, the band began their latest tour during the University of Texas at Arlington's annual Springfest. Bassist Joey Westwood was taken away by the university police after crowd surfing, following the conclusion of the concert.

Check out Face Down by The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus

Sims

I thought it's about time I introduced the family I'm working on :P
Meet the Corr's...

This is Misha, posing for the camera :)

Misha and Josh got married and had TWINS!

Misha is a top notch cook, and won this cooking competition with her famous Grandma's Comfort Soup

Oh, this is Misha in her teenage years. She was a pretty good dancer :)

The twins in their sleigh cots

Lindy is a little older than Kevin, who is just about to grow into a child in this picture :)

Misha is "in the zone" which means that she's reached the top of her hobby enthusiasm, and is now able to do all sorts of things with her hobby. In this pic she is blogging about cuisine. Yes, I said blogging :P

Lindy is wearing one of the new dresses that came with the Free Time expansion

Lindy as a teenager. Again, she's wearing one of the new outfits that came with Free Time :)

Misha was bug hunting (another new hobby) and was attacked by BEES!

Oh dear... Josh spent too much time sunbathing and got roasted!

Local Haunts

The Pond is one of the few forums that I visit, and only recently have actually started posting on it again. I left for various reasons (see: members) but I figured that it was time that I made an appearance again. The Pond has moved to a new home, and you get the link to it by clicking here >> In the Pond II

A few other websites I frequent are:

And more recently:

Yay for Memory!

My 4GB memory card arrived today... with Ducati Branding? Uh what? Apparently I bought the Sandisk Extreme Ducati Edition memory card. I'm not complaining, I just hope it's what I ordered...

Check it out
J

TGIF

Yay for Friday! All I HAVE to do this weekend is put together 2 mother-of-the-bride albums, which is 50 pages in total, and post off 3 albums. THAT'S IT! :D
The rest of the weekend is going to be a collection of sleeping, church and Sims... YAY! :D

Yeugh

I truly hate the look of the NAG forums. It's like they took a can of ugly, sprayed poo-brown/red stripes on it and stuck white stickers with black writing on it. It's ghastly.

Super Sized Memory

This last wedding I shot was a bit of an eye-opener for me, in the sense that I realised that 4Gigs of memory cards just isn't enough when shooting bigger weddings on RAW.
(RAW is the highest quality image on your camera, as the imaged isn't compressed by the camera's software)

So I've super-sized my memory card collection by purchasing a 4GB Sandisk Extreme IV memory card from ORMS in Cape Town. They deliver, thankfully.

The cost of the card is R1000, which isn't bad at all, considering I paid between R550 & R750 for my Sandisk Extreme III 1GB memory cards.

Normally I would say, DO NOT BUY A 4GB CARD! RATHER BUY 4 x 1GB CARDS, however, it's getting a bit ridiculous carrying the number of cards that I do around, and also the technology has improved since we first started buying these things, so hopefully it will be a stable card and I won't lose all of my pictures. Of course, when shooting weddings I'll use the card as my last card, to shoot the reception, which isn't a train smash if you lose the images ;)

Current State of Mind

Confused; Exhausted; Unhappy :'(

Scars by Papa Roach

I tear my heart open, I sew myself shut
My weakness is that I care too much
And my scars remind me that the past is real
I tear my heart open just to feel

Drunk and I'm feeling down
And I just wanna be alone
I'm pissed cause you came around
Why don't you just go home
Cause you channel all your pain
And I can't help you fix yourself
You're making me insane
All I can say is

I tear my heart open, I sew myself shut
My weakness is that I care too much
And our scars remind us that the past is real
I tear my heart open just to feel

I tried to help you once
Against my own advice
I saw you going down
But you never realized
That you're drowning in the water
So I offered you my hand
Compassions in my nature
Tonight is our last stand

I tear my heart open, I sew myself shut
My weakness is that I care too much
And our scars remind us that the past is real
I tear my heart open just to feel

I'm drunk and I'm feeling down
And I just wanna be alone
You shouldn't ever come around
Why don't you just go home?
Cause you're drowning in the water
And I tried to grab your hand
And I left my heart open
But you didn't understand
But you didn't understand
Go fix yourself

I can't help you fix yourself
But at least I can say I tried
I'm sorry but I gotta move on with my own life
I can't help you fix yourself
But at least I can say I tried
I'm sorry but I gotta move on with my own life

I tear my heart open, I sew myself shut
My weakness is that I care too much
And our scars remind us that the past is real
I tear my heart open just to feel

UGH :(

Noez!

I have the flu L I hate being sick... just hate it. I feel like someone rode over me, backed up and rode over me again... then pooped on my head.
I just feel horrible L