I'm sorry my post is so late. I've had a rough day and I hope you understand. Not going to bore you with it.



Today, I'll feature one of my favourite pencil artists. Allison Henline, also known as ayaspiralout on DeviantArt, creates some of the most magically realistic pieces I've ever seen with mechanical pencils.

Her first piece to capture my eye was this one: Tori Amos 5

Juuust look at it. The hair is absolutely stunning, for one, but the lips... lips are extremely hard to draw (Da Vinci spent seven years on the Mona Lisa's lips), but Allison has made Tori's look so lush and shiny and soft. Absolutely stunning.

Now, looking at the rest of her gallery, I realize that she's also a highly talented digital artist, shown in another ASTONISHING portrait of Tori Amos.

All I can say is: Wow.

Stay safe,
Alan

Today is...



Ah, no longer a school kid, you say? You used to hate English class? Well, guess what?

I don't care.



On today's agenda is... poetic devices! One of my favourite subjects. What I'll be doing is posting some common or uncommon poetic devices and explaining them, with example.

First off, what is a poetic device?

In all forms of poetic or melodic writing, writers use certain tools or phrasings to enhance aspects of their poetry. Basically, they're like frosting. They make it sound pretty!

The exact definition, from Deal a Poem, reads:

Poetic devices, techniques, gimmicks - whatever you want to call them, there are "tricks" that make poems "work."

Simple enough, eh? So, here we go.

1. An onomatopoeia: Basically, it's the written form of a sound. You find a lot of these in descriptive writings or poems depicting nature.

For example: The whoosh of the wind, the clank of the chains.


2. A personification: This means that you've given a human behaviour to an inanimate object.

For example: The waves greeted us gently.


3. An alliteration: The deliberate repetition of a consonant sound (any letter except a, e, i, o and u) for a strong effect.

For example: The caw of the crow collapsed all constraints.


That's just a small sample of the numerous poetic devices. Have fun flourishing your writing!

Alan

Drumroll, please. Today is....



Yay! I love whacky, weird, fun stuff!

Because I have a love of odd USB devices, here's today's funny find:



The Fundue!

Yeah, they have some odd ones! What I wouldn't do to have this at school with me. It even comes with its own recipe book and is only $29.99! What a bargain for endless an endless array of blue LED'd, chocolaty or cheesy dipped stuff! Yummy. Also the fondue sticks are colour coated so you don't pinch your co-worker's drool. Yahoo.

There's even a recipe featured on the website (the link is in the title and I'll put it in at the end, too) for the Ultimate Desktop Fondue.

* 2 Packets of Chinese Soy Sauce
* 1 Packet of Ketchup
* 1 Packet of McDonalds BBQ Sauce
* 1 half and half packet
* 4 Slices Of Kraft American Cheese

Seems they left out one of the ingredients. It's up to you to be adventurous!

Once again, you can buy it here.

Alan

Alright!

First order of business, thanks for reading up to post two! =D You're officially awesome!

My first musical post is about Ani DiFranco.



The lovely and talented Ani DiFranco, guitarist extraordinaire, amazing musical composer and lyricist and creator of Righteous Babe Records.



Born in Buffalo, New York, I guess Ani is well known for her crazy style, feminism and songs dealing with bisexuality (for example, her song In or Out is about her bisexuality, while Little Plastic Castles is about discriminations made about her and her girlfriend). She's been on the scene for quite a few years, releasing her first album, self titled, in 1990. Since then, she has produced at least one, oft times more, albums per year, totaling 32 (unless I miscounted). In that regard, she is highly prolific.

What I like about Ani, personally, is the no matter how you're feeling... no matter what's going right or wrong in your life, you're almost guaranteed to find a song of her's to suit your mood. Her writings are very real. Here's my favourite example, taken from her song Marrow.

I'm a good kisser, and you're a fast learner
And that kind of thing could float us for a pretty long time.
And then one day, you'd realized you've memorized my phone number
And you'll call it and find it's a disconnected line.
Cuz I got tossed out the window of love's El Camino
And I shattered into a shower of sparks on the curb.
You were smoking me weren't you, between your yellow fingers
You just inhaled and exhaled without saying a word.

I think it speaks for itself, don't you? Who hasn't felt that? Abandonment. When you love somebody and they stop loving you. they don't care... only to wake up one day and want you, but you're gone. You've grown. Alan likes.

I'll leave you with one final lyric and a video of what I believe to be one of her most fantastic performances.

"And I loved you first, girl
and I would prefer
if she didn't empty her syringes
into your arm."

Well, well. I find myself blogging! I hope I won't be totally neglecting this. Surely, I won't. Or my adoring fans will hit me with rocks.

Uhm, yeah right.

What I'm gonna do is try and make up cutesy names about what I'll be doing each day of the week. These might change and I might skip days. I might also include other stuff, but I'll try to keep that in separate posts. Let's stay organized, people! Much like my desk! I swear. It's spotless. (humoristic exaggeration)

Holy crap, I almost pooped just then. I thought I'd lost my page.

Anyways, here is the cutesy list with cutesy fonts and titles and stuff. I got a new Photobucket account juuuust for this! Enjoy, I made them myself.



Mario Monday. Just because I'm a total dork. Anything interesting I find, facts about existing or new games, merch I buy, etc, will happen on Monday!



Tuesday's Tunes. I live and breathe music, so I'll be posting awesome instruments, new bands, bands I've just discovered, profiling favourite artists and all that pretty stuff.



Weird Wednesday. I believe it speaks for itself.



Teacher Thursday. As I'm a fan of all things intelligent (even if I don't always fit the criteria), I'll be posting facts about poetry, poems, common mistakes, new words, odd words... all things grammatical!



Fine Art Friday. Be it professional, historical, amateur or just plain odd, I love art. So, on Friday's, I'll be posting some of my most favourite pieces.



Savoury Saturday. Now, I love to eat (my waistline will agree). Any recipes or fun food facts I find, I shall post on Saturdays.



Scenic Sunday. Far off places enchant me. If I had the means, I'd go around the world. So here's my take on it. Pretty places, lush areas...


Well, that's it. I hope you enjoy! My next post will be reflecting on Tuesday's Tunes!

Alan