Racism will not be tolerated!

And neither should typos.

Thanks for your help, TFL

An Ode to the Fiddlers

Here is a little song I wrote about the MPs expenses scandal.

The sound quality’s not ideal, and the washing machine raging in the background sounds less than professional, but other than that I hope you will enjoy.

10 ordinary things I really must start doing

1. Drink water
2. Keep the front door locked
3. Wear a helmet whilst cycling
4. Wear matching underwear
5. Write a shopping list
6. Drink wine
7. Eat vegetables
8. Exercise
9. Clean the windows
10. Water the plants

Royal Rainbows

On a recent visit to the Science Museum, Chi and I stumbled across ‘Social Lite’, a piece of interactive artwork by New York artist Scott Snibbe. It allows you to manipulate shadows to reflect laser beams and create rainbows. This is our video which I dubbed with a cheery little ditty from The Beatles.

New website header

As you may remember from my post back in November 2008, I really disliked the header on my website that came with the WordPress theme I had chosen. Unfortunately, uploading a new header was not as simple as I had imagined it would be because the header is split into three separate image files.

Here’s a reminder of what the site looked like before:

This weekend I spent hours, literally hours, learning my way around Adobe Illustrator.

I then bought an illustration on iStock from a designer called -M-I-S-H-A- whose illustrative style I love and used Adobe Illustrator to modify the illustration to fit the header space.

Considering my lack of design skills, I was thoroughly pleased with the result. It still needs a lot of tweaking until I’ll be entirely happy but it’s a vast improvement on the stock-like imagery that was there before.

See my new header here.

On the needle – update

Getting better. Slowly.

Guess you all know what you’re getting for Christmas.

On the needle

Last night I taught myself to knit.

After a disappointing start (half an hour to find the end of the yarn), I finally worked out how to tie a slipknot and cast on a foundation row:

My second attempt was a little more successful:

My third and final attempt for the evening was actually pretty darn* good:

OK. “Good” was a bit of an overstatement.

*Terrible pun. I am ashamed.

What’s in a name?

I’ve recently grown very uncomfortable about my internet privacy, or lack thereof.

Facebook. Twitter. MySpace. YouTube. Bebo. LinkedIn. Friends Reunited. Face Party. Flikr. hi5. LiveJournal. WAYN. Yammer. I’ve signed up to them all at some point.
Banking. Council tax. Bills. Food shopping. Loyalty cards. Video rental. I manage these all online.

All of these accounts! All of my personal information dancing around the intertubes! I’m an open book! An eBook, if you will.

In fact, “uncomfortable” is an understatement. I’m concerned. I’d like to go back in time and set up an entirely new online alias. All of my details, opinions and insults, would become theirs and Amy Daynes? Well, she’d just be ‘that girl with the curly hair’.

I am a copywriter working in digital advertising, so I am keen to advertise myself online and make use of all new digital technologies. And so I have. But the difficulty lies in the crossover between my professional presence on the web and my personal one.

“amy daynes” currently returns 394 results on Google and, rather alarmingly, “amydaynes” returns about 364,000. The latter is my username for almost everything and so Google will return every action I have made on these accounts in the past. That’s not cool.

I don’t mind people knowing I’m a copywriter and seeing my work. But if people can just search “amy daynes” and read my comments and opinions on different subjects, all spread across various blogs, forums and sites, well that’s perturbing.

I am a stalker’s dream. Just look at Facebook photos for a visual and visit my site to find out where I work. I’ll even give you regular Twitter updates in case I deviate from my usual routine.

Hmm. I think this digital alias thing may not be a bad idea.

Our House

This is for you, mum and dad: a little tour of my flat and my first attempt at video editing.