After two years....

Two years and no further posts.....

a blog that turned out to be like so many others...

Post a lot for a few months....

Then you randomly loose interest after putting so much work into drawing in traffic.

Now it is cyberspace. I have a new blog... Art school took over my life.
Maybe that is why this blog died. Perhaps. I am not to sure. Last post....Nov. 17, 2007.

I never wanted to turned into that, but I did.

Visit my artist blog to see what I have done since at

http://www.kathleenmcgiveron.blogspot.com

There is nothing wrong with Windows Vista

There is nothing wrong with Windows Vista. What is with all this “Vista Death Watch” and stuff. Why does everyone put down Vista? Personally I love the program, it is far better than XP. XP is so plain… that horrid blue background which color I want to change but can’t… The graphics are boring, colors are boring, themes are boring. It’s the Windows ME but had rounded edges on the boxes, and you can change the colors. Oh how exciting…

Vista on the other hand…. Is gorgous. The Windows gadgets is totally fun, the transparency of everything is a master piece aspect, and the graphics of this thing! Oh baby I love it. I don’t really get the point of the 3D window scroll thing… it’s cool but I don’t use it really… BUT THE BEST THING ABOUT IT is that when you put your mouse over a window on the bottom, it’s in motion, and stuff….way cool. I’m not good at explaining this very well but I want to voice my opinion. I’m sorry.

And that who “Access and Deny” crap… wow did Apple ever blow that out of proportion. It hardly does that, and how hard is it to press “Allow”. Like god, 0.5 seconds of your life to press that little button. What ever shall I do.

Oh and the color scheme on the first opening page before you choose your account…..WAY NICER!! It and the start menu are aesthetically appealing. It’s true.

I would like to ask, why are people ‘converting’, proud to get on the Mac Train, proud to be a follower so that one day apple takes over the god damn world. They’re making MP3 Players obsolete, everything is refered to as an ‘ipod’. You know what, I hate my Mini (it’s not really that small anymore is it?). It hardly works, and I’ve had to send it in for repair for countless times and they take FOREVER as in MONTHS to fix the god damn thing. Oh and then they get smaller and turn into a nano, so that if you accidentally sit on it, it snaps in half. Yay!
Back to the converting… I would never convert to a Mac. I hate Mac computers. Almost every student at my university has a Mac. I feel so weird with a black lap top… everyone else has their white or silver Apple computers. I don’t get Macs. I’ve used them my entire educational career at school and they are so horrible to use. Their boring looking. They aren’t even computer looking. I don’t get any aspect of it. I don’t see how Mac is so good.
Oh what, you can’t get a Virus? Big deal, I don’t get Virus’ on my PC, and I download a lot of stuff (shhh). Just get a free version of AVG and Spydocter off the net and your fine. They clean up your computer real good.

I guess you are either a PC person, or a Mac person. It’s like being a Pepsi or Coca-Cola Person. Either you like Pepsi, or you like Coke, THERE IS NO IN BETWEEN. Sure some places only have Pepsi, or they only have coke, you’re not going to not order a cola. Still you’re a fan of only one. You’re not going to be like “Oh today I like Pepsi, and perhaps next month I’ll like coke”. That’s like saying “Oh I think I’ll be a bully today, and tomorrow I’ll try myself as the nerd, I think I’ll go get my head flushed down the toilet”, or “Today I’ll be with Yoda, next century I’ll be with Vader”. Either your with one, or against one, converting is being a traitor like Peter Pettigrew. Are you a rat? Yah you probably are, most are converting to Macs… I guess I’m the only one sticking with Harry Potter aren’t I? Actually I’m more of a Draco fan, but that wouldn’t be proving my point…

Anyways I’m just confused about this whole Mac epidemic and why they are better, and what is honestly so wrong with Vista?

Microsoft… I love Vista…
(Send me something free… you know… so I can continue to support you? Not that I’d switch anyways)
Bill Gates- I’m watching you. (in a non-stalker like manner)

I leave you with this quote (HAHA…I can’t find a quote supporting Microsoft. WHY!!?? WHY is my argument a failure!! HAHA):
"There are people who don't like capitalism, and there are people who don't like PCs, but there's no one who likes the PC who doesn't like Microsoft."-- Bill Gates

Love you lots!
Miss-I’m-with-Microsoft-(sorta?) Kathleen

Tundra Gear: Hats brought to you by the winner of Survivor Exile Island!

TUNDRA GEAR!

Hey, do you guys remember Aras from Survivor: Exile Island? Okay so I don’t, I stopped watching survivor after its second season. Maybe you did remember it. Either way you’ve probably heard of Survivor Exile Island because of the ads on T.V. Well back to Aras…. Ever wonder what he did with that million dollars he got for winning the show?

Well he started a hat line (is that what it is called?). Possibly the warmest hats in the world… They come in plain colors… Or you can get ones with your NFL team logo on it for those cold days in the stadium where your head is freezing, your ears are falling off, and if your ears are pierced that metal is giving freezer burn to your flesh… There are ones with NHL team logos on them, but they only make them for Canadian teams… I guess it’s colder here haha!!

There are lots of these hats on the market, I know… But these hats are great quality, and they price is pretty sick. Sick as in good. Sick as in $29.00!!! Then for the team pins it’s a couple bucks more…

If your interested in the hats, I personally like the Snow boarder hat the best. Its half as much fur, the fur looks real, it’s nicer looking, and it’s not as bulky…

Yah, that’s faux fur. I couldn’t believe it, I thought it was real… It looks so incrediably real… But that is my favourite hat… I wanted one for a while but everywhere I’ve gone, they’re about $35.00 for a plain hat, and if you want real fur covering the whole one (the faux fur is so scratchy on all the ones I’ve found, cheap faux fur…) its about $60.00 which is a ridiculous price for a hat in my opinion…

These hats are becoming an international crazy, and the response to them is great! People in Tokyo even wear them (is it cold there!?!). Soon to come on the site is their Resource page, and their Custom Orders page. GET INTO THE RUSSIAN HATNESS WITH THIS HAT!!!

And because I’m awesome, I read every page of the site and found at the bottom of one page how to get you guys FIVE DOLLARS OFF YOUR PURCHASE! A November promotion only, which means the hat is $24.00 which is a super sick price!!!

CUSTOMER PROMO:

$5 OFF on all hats in November: Promo Code - TGSR

So yah, I advise you, if you’re needing a hat (which everyone does with our upcoming ice age like in the movie ‘The Day after Tomorrow’) to save your money and buy it somewhere trust worthy…Tundra Gear.

LINK TO TUNDRA GEAR IS ON A LIL BLUE BANNER ON THE RIGHT MENU!

Love you lots!!!

Miss Kathleen

Do the Batty-Bat with your friend, The Count!

I must be the last generation to enjoy the original Sesame street... Almost 20 years ago, before Cookie Monster eating cookies "only sometimes"... he ate C is for cookies like there was no tomorow. Bert and Earnie arguing and bert with his rubber duckie.... Oscar the grouch in his can.... And of course, who couldn't remember that spooky yet lovable character, The Count?

The Count. Who else would send himself 2 bags of mail simply to count the number of letters he sent himself because he loves to count so much. "1...2...3...HAHAHAHA....4....5...6...HAHAHHAA....."

I remember as a child singing the batty bat song. I remember it all.... I can still mostly sing along to the song.... I watched Sesame street when I was 2 till about 5 I would say (it was amazing back then...."Sunny days, sweeping the ...CLOUDS Away! On my way, to where the air is clean! Can you tell me how to get, how to get to Sesame Street!") and It was my favorite show. Actually now that I think about it, my mom limited me to what shows I was aloud to watch... Urgh that sucks.....

But anywase, the batty bat. You must know it. You must have (depending on your age) danced or seen someone dance along to the song. Either way, you know this song, you can't deny it. IT'S IN YOUR SOUL!!!

So without further delay, I present to you....

The Batty Bat

I leave you with this quote: "Rubber Ducky, you're the one. You make bathtime lots of fun. Rubbery Ducky, I'm awfully fond of you." ~ Ernie


Love you lots!!!!
Miss Kathleen

Men and Cars: Why do they love them?

The Venus of Urbino is one of the first images portraying beauty as a nude female. The male obsession of their desired woman body soon showed up in many portraits and images, turning the image of the nude female into a symbol of beauty and love. The female body is found in many forms of art throughout history with a similar shape: full breasts, slim waist, wide hips, and an elongated form. I noticed that this desired form is also revealed in men’s design of cars when I came across a photo of a 2009 Camaro in my room.

No historian has deciphered the true meaning of Titian’s Venus of Urbino, but theories have been produced and altered with time. Some of them believe that the theme of the painting portrays disapproved love, but others believe it symbolizes marital love and fidelity. Modern theorists believe that the Venus of Urbino reveals sexual intercourse in marriage. Unlike Giorgione’s closed eye, dreaming Venus, Titian’s Venus is awake and observing her observer, almost purposefully seducing him. The dog represents faithfulness, and the pot of myrtle in the background symbolises constancy (Adams 303). To me, it looks as though it is playful, raw and beautiful love that comes with marriage. The nude Venus portrayed in Titian’s portrait is a beautiful living organism, with gentle curves, flawless and delicate flesh, and an elongated form with a face and silky hair that only a true goddess could have. In Titian’s Rape of Europa, he portrays erotic excitement through the pose of the woman through her gesture. The curves of her body make her the ideal women figure and aid in exaggerating her emotion. Titian’s uses similar figures of the women in both portraits are forms of what he believes a goddess would look like which is the figure of the ideal woman (Adams 304). Giorgione, Botticelli, and Titian all used similar, attractive women who have elegant, elongated, and curvy forms instead of obese or thin women. They are perfect and portray what a goddess is- that is, from a man’s perception. These women are defined as beautiful, and this beauty is what makes men obsess over the female form.

I question, what is beauty? What is it that men find aesthetically appealing? The dictionary claims that beauty is “the quality present in a thing or person that gives intense pleasure or deep satisfaction to the mind, whether arising from sensory manifestations (as shape, color, sound, etc.), a meaningful design or pattern, or something else (as a personality in which high spiritual qualities are manifest).” Beauty is the process of one willingly looses their mental control to an exterior form or object. For someone viewing something beautiful, the experience is intense in the sense that it leaves an impression on his or her mind and makes them soulfully feel for the form. The deep emotion leaves an imprint on the viewers mind and remains there as a memory. Beauty fascinates the viewer by enhancing their flow of feelings (Schjeldahl, Beckley 53). Beauty is the erotic sensation and pleasure of the mind. Beauty co-exists with other words to describe one’s personal taste or sex appeal. Beauty, however, is unique for everyone, but the majority of men and many women do classify delicate, curvy women (such as Venus’ and the Virgin Mary) as ultimate beauty. Beauty is a quality that may point to an aesthetic content, but is only occasionally related or used with the theory of art (Schjeldahl, Beckley 62). Theories of art differentiate from aesthetic notions of beauty where formal and material contents are concerned. In our modern era, we put form over content thus the meaning of art depends on knowing which cultural contents inform the form (Welish, Beckley 64). Beauty is recognised through form and repetition. Men are aroused by certain images. With the Venus of Urbino, one could say that it is a product of male conditioning, male determining, and male possession. If that were its true meaning, the painting would not have lived, so the Venus is an image of sexuality, and is not just a painting about arousal (Freedberg, Beckley 114). In western society, we look through male eyes in the sense that we visually accept before we accept the content and the overall piece. We look at the aesthetics before personality and heart.

Designing cars is a difficult art because cars arouse passion and emotion far more than any other product. Car design is primarily based on emotion. However, cars are a machine, thus they must work, and keep their owner’s safe. This proves a difficult task when designing a car to look aesthetically appealing because it must be functional as well. The car designer’s task is to create a car that will set off emotion. Cars do not only take you to an incredible speed and transport you faster than a horse; they take you to impossible dreams and fantasies (Lewin 12). Cars influence us physically and psychically. They are an outstanding example of form and function. A good car design succeeds in aesthetics and visual presentation; the designer must give the car a soul. If designing for a company, such as Nissan, the designer must create a unique car, but also must maintain certain traits relevant to the family of Nissan cars (Lewin 25). A car’s form should follow content, and a great car design exceeds in both of these, and it is what makes a car timeless (Lewin 28). The Elise is a car of extreme aesthetic view and is a great example of elegant, elongated curves (Lewin 36). Some “bodies” of cars produced by people like Ferdinand Porsche and Enzo Ferrari have become a fine art. The basic shape and body is what attracts our attention first (Kimes and Goodfellow VIII).

Few men can say they are proud to drive a Van, but the majority would love to say they are proud to be driving one beautiful car, such as a 1937 Bugatti type 57SC Gangloff Drop Head Coupe. What makes a beautiful car? What is aesthetically pleasing to the primary customer of exquisite cars? A light, elegant, elongated, curvy frame is the answer. The base of this frame is the same of that of the ideal women, and it is this frame that causes men to feel that deep emotion, to always remember, and to obsess over. The highly expensive and respected cars have the curvy frame of the Venus of Urbino. If men had the means to purchase a car of that form, they would without question spend up to one hundred thousand dollars or more on a single car. Car designers have transformed their obsession of the fragile, elegant curves of a beautiful woman into the seemingly delicate, polished, and symmetrical curves of a machine. This causes other men who have the same desires as the designers to idolise such machine and obsess over their creation. The Venus of Urbino is a symbol of eroticism, and this symbol has been incorporated into their cars, so that the same passion can continue. Men love the female body, and it is built in their mind to love it. It is natural for them to create according to their obsessions, which are the desirable parts of a female body. These desirable parts create an erotic reality, and this is aesthetically pleasing to a man. Because the car has the same curves and elongated, desirable form of that of the woman, it makes the car female, and makes them obsess over the machine. The obsession of the ideal woman figure has been kept the same in both the Venus of Urbino and desirable cars like the 2009 Camaro. In reality, the male mind has not really changed much through history. In my research, I found a hint that my claims of the body of the automobile being similar to that of female curves. It was an interview question to Ralph Lauren. “People speak of the womanly curves found in certain cars, and of course these same vehicles are often collected and driven primarily by men. Any thoughts on this?” Ralph Lauren replied that he never connected that design to sexuality before, but he did agree that cars are a ‘sexy machine’ (Kimes and Goodfellow XVI).

Men’s interpretation of beauty has passed through history since the arrival of art, and more so, The Venus of Urbino. Men un-intentionally create according to their obsession of the divine goddess, and produce vehicles such as the 2009 Camaro. The elongated, delicate, curvy body of high-end cars are adapted from this original, historical form of the ideal woman. Ultimately, cars like the 2009 Camaro are the beautiful, mechanical form of the Venus of Urbino




Works Cited:
Adams, Laurie Schneider. “The High Renaissance in Italy.” A History of Western Art. New York, U.S.A.: McGraw-Hill. Page 94.

Adams, Laurie Schneider. World Views: Topics in Non-Western Art. New York, U.S.A.: McGraw-Hill.

Beckley, Bill. “Beauty and contemporary Sublime”, “On Perfection, Coherence, and Unity of Form and Content”, “Venus Unveiled: De Kooning’s Melodrama of Vulgarity”. Uncontrollable Beauty. New York, U.S.A. Allworth Press. Page 3

Kimes, Beverly Rae & Goodfellow, Winston S. Speed, Style, and Beauty. Boston, U.S.A.: MFA Publications, a division of the Museum of Fine Arts. Page VII

Lewin, Tony. How to: Design Cars like a Pro. St. Paul, U.S.A.; MBI Publishing 2003. Company. Page 10

Sim, Stuart & Van Loon, Borin. “The Psychoanalytic and the Unconscious”. Introducing Critical Theory. United Kingdom.: Icon Books Ltd. Page 60

Love you lOts!!

Miss Kathleen <3

"beauty." Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1). Random House, Inc. 10 Nov. 2007. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/beauty>.

Race a Psycho chick and WIN!

Some people are psycho to the extreme. I was driving down Kingsway in my awesome Nissan Sentra 2003 (which has no power....the only nice thing about my car are the tires. I polish them. They're shiny. That's it.) and a challenge was thrown my way as I looked into the left lane on the road and into the window of another car. "Lets race!!" were the words mouthed by the insane female earthling.

Now this was ridiculous. I just looked away but she took it as a yes. I didn't care, I wasn't going to race her. First of all, we were on Kingsway. Now this is a highly congested road with tons of traffic and the fastest you can go at anytime is 50 km/h. We were the first at the light so I guess we were racing to the next light which was 2 blocks away!? (there are lights every few blocks....)

I turned back and looked at the girl as the lights turned yellow for the other direction.... she was like, having epilepsy or something, bouncing up and down in her seat and making crazy hand gestures at me and opening her mouth wide like she had rabies. I think this blond chick was cracked out. I thought I was weird, this girl was just messed up.

Then suddenly our light turned green. I just drove normally because I'm not starting anything with an Economy car, on Kingsway (where there are lots of cops), and with a cracked out female. I looked beside me and I didn't see her. I looked in my review mirror and she had stalled her standard in the start. What a moron. Who does that!?

The rest of the drive she kept trying to weave through traffic, but she was a horrible driver and it took her forever to get around me... but then she was just beside or behind me the whole time so I had to pull out my awesome driving skills. I veered into the bus lane and stepped the peddle to the ground and shot (not really, It made lots of noise but I looked down and I was only going 70 km/h hahaha, I just like to think I'm ridiculously awesome) up the bus lane and passed a pile of people (okay maybe 5 ....) and then pulled back into traffic before I got stuck behind a bus (I had tons of time now that I recall this adventure....)

So yah- to win against a psychopath, do nothing. Just drive normally because chances are that they are too cracked out to even get themselves going.

I leave you with this quote: “When men attempt bold gestures, generally it's considered romantic. When women do it, it's often considered desperate or psycho.”

Love you lots!!!!

Miss Kathleen

Have a good night with $44 and a white flag

What a deranged night. The world ditched me. I was stuck- I paced my house from 12AM till 10PM looking for something to do. I never did make plans, I just assume people are going to do stuff with me... BUT THEY DIDN"T. And that extremely pissed me off. I mean seriously, I'm home two days out of the week and no one wants to see me? Fine.
At 10PM I finally get a call. My best friend finally came home and were going to go to another friends house.

My stomach was growling and they don't have a lot of food at their house and I don't want to eat because that's rude, and I didn't want to just sit there so we went to my best friends house (lets call her Bob.... it's a common name for anonymously naming someone) and we grabbed Monopoly Disney and then got in the car and left.

Next stop! Safeway. Entering Safeway with extreme craving and cheapness on our minds, we grabbed a buggy (you have to pay to use a buggy!?! What is this?!?) and started on one side of the store. We were going to mine sweep it to insure we wouldn't forget a thing.

After finishing the sweep, we bought:

1) A Loaf of French bread ($2)
2) 2 pomegranates (2 /$4)
3) 5 cases of no-name pop (5 /$10)
4) 3 boxes of chips (3 /$5)
5) Jar of Olives ($4)
6) Pack of gum
7) Case of Dole grapefruit drink stuff ($4???)
8) Cherry blasters candy (?????)
9) Mandarin Oranges ($5)
??????????????????????

Okay so I forget the rest. I don't know how it came to 44 dollars now that I think about it. Oh well. But you get the point- It was variety. We had stuff from around the world. We ate everything -well... the candy, 2 bags of chips, oranges, pop, the whole jar of olives (uhhhh), one of the pomegranates, half a loaf of bread....

After 4 hours of Monopoly and still no progress on who was winning, that and it was nearing 2AM, we decided to all wave the white flag and count our money and mortgages on our houses.

I lost by a couple thousand dollars.

I leave you with this quote: “I think it's wrong that only one company makes the game Monopoly.”

LOVE YOU LOTS!!!

Miss Kathleen