Freaky Friday's blog

For now anyway...

Thanks to everyone who participated in the series of cartoon animal faces. There's plenty more animals we can make, but I need a break from them, and I'm sure the gallery could do with a break from them too!

I started them because cartoons are relatively easy to make and collaboration is therefore much easier. Besides, they were cute.

I may make one more, a penguin for cool penguin, but other than that, I'm taking a break from the toon faces.

By the way, as planned from the start, they're now part of an avatar gallery, so if you want a toon face as an avatar, simply go to edit avatar, click on the "Show gallery" button, select the avatar you want, click on the "Select avatar" button then on the "Submit" button to save your changes.

So I'm sitting here sipping some chai and thought I'd might as well share the recipe I'm using.

Chai is spiced tea of Indian origin and one of my favourite beverages, next to coffee.

There's dozens and dozens of ways to make chai, but this is the recipe that I used to make the chai that I'm drinking right now.

This isn't meant to be a strict recipe, I like to vary the recipe depending on my mood, but the general recipe is...

Ingredients for 2 cups

2 cups of water
8 cloves
8 cardamon pods
1/2 to 1 cinnamon stick/quill
4 to 8 black peppercorns
4 tsp sugar
1/2 cup milk
2-3 teabags of good quality, strong black tea

Instructions

1. Add the water and spices to a saucepan and bring to boil, then reduce heat, cover and simmer for 10 minutes.
2. Add sugar and milk and bring to boil then turn off heat.
3. Add the teabags to the spiced, milky water and steep for 3 minutes.
4. Strain, serve immediately and enjoy.

Notes
- Add two pea sized mashed up ginger pieces to water with other spices if you have fresh ginger (I didn't, so I omitted it but it does taste nicer with ginger).
- Sweetness of chai is up to the drinker. If you like it sweeter, use more sugar, if you like is less sweet, use less sugar. Same thing goes with milk (I'm partially lactose intolerant so I don't use much milk in my chai, but it does taste nicer with more milk).
- You can substitute sugar with honey and milk with soy milk (for the veg's).
- I've been told that this is masala chai.
- About chai @ Wikipedia

So I thought I'd write a little bit about a recent artwork, the one with the wings.

I had set up the shanti room with an unfinished snapshot of wings that I had started back in September.

I started the wings then lost inspiration, I took a snap just in case though. I thought it was an easy enough subject to finish in a relatively short amount of time, so I brought it back to life in the shanti room and left it for several hours. I had hoped someone/some people would find it interesting enough to finish it, sadly no. So I did it (mostly) myself, just to get it out of the way.

Just when I was close to finishing, I had to step away from the computer for a few minutes (like the haiku says... "must make time to eat.") and when I came back, it was partly destroyed. Not that I minded so much, it wasn't exactly hard to fix, just set me back 15 minutes or so.

So... one and a bit months later it's finally finished. If I hadn't lost my mojo back then, I probably could have done this in a couple of hours at most. Oh well, we sometimes lose interest in the artworks we make right?

I haven't rated the wings yet because I'm not sure if I like them myself yet. I'll fence sit for now.

Oh yeah, one more thing, this was done from memory, didn't use a picture or reference, although I did look at some wings before I started just for inspiration.

Ok, I'm not using strict haiku rules here... this is just for a little fun...

TheBroth is great fun
it gets very addictive
must make time to eat.

Drag tiles, make artworks
together with friends and save,
no duplicates please.

Making thebroth poems
is enjoyable for me,
I must go work now.

If you've been around TheBroth even for a little while, you may have picked up some of our very own "lingo". There's even been some new words added to the English dictionary.

Here's a quick list of the new words and lingo I've seen used around TheBroth.

Brothing - The act of dragging tiles at TheBroth or using TheBroth web site. eg: "I spend too much time Brothing when I should be working."

Instaban or Maximinus - The act of room owners instantly sending a player to the exile room using one click on the - button in a mosaic room. eg: "Don't make me instaban you..." and "That guy deserved that maximinus..."

Maxiplus - The act of room owners instantly giving another player a full green karma bar using one click on the + button in a mosaic room. eg: "Thanks for helping... here, have a maxiplus!"

Vool - Alternative word for "cool". eg: "TheBroth is very vool!"

Redded - Used when someone clicks on the - karma button in a mosaic room and the resulting red bar appears. eg: "Ok.. who redded me?!"

Greened - Opposited of redded.

Feel free to add to the list...

No sir, no dancin' today...

Song: I Don't Feel Like Dancin' - Scissor Sisters

Great, got the world's most annoying song in my head. Actually, I like the song, but when you have the same two lines running over and over and over and over again in your head... yeah... not so great anymore.

I keep hearing this in the chorus...

Don't feel like dancin', dancin'
do-ba-do-ba-do-ba-do-ba-di-do

Which I just found out is meant to be...

Don't feel like dancin', dancin'
Even if i find nothin' better to do

Reminds me of the hilarious lyric versions of Song 2 by Blur.

etiquette [et-i-kit, -ket] a prescribed or accepted code as to social behaviour.

TheBroth has a motto: Be nice and have fun.

This is only a guide. It was created to help clarify some of the "unwritten" rules to better enjoy yourself at TheBroth.

Etiquette for tile dragging

When you join a room where an artwork is already being made...

1. Don't destroy other people's work. This isn't really etiquette, it's a rule, an important one.
2. Use the chat to ask if you can join in, especially if you don't know the other people in the room.
3. Let other members know what you're doing via chat.
4. Don't work on the exact same area as someone else. Pick an area to work on where no one else is dragging tiles.
5. Keep an eye on on the chat. If you're doing something that others don't want you to do, someone will let you know via chat. Take note, and STOP. Ask for clarification of why if need be.
6. Don't go in and move tiles just one pixel in an effort to increase your contribution on the snapshots.

Etiquette on taking a snapshot

Thank you to rhain who first put this into words in the forum.

Etiquette for deciding who takes the snapshot are as follows:

1. The person who owns the room.
2. The person who started the picture.
3. The person who has done the most constructive work on the picture.
4. A person as decided amongst the group. For example, if there is a new member who hasn't taken a snapshot, the group may decide to let that new member take a snapshot, just for the experience.

Communication is the key to success

TheBroth has an integrated chat in each room to facilitate collaborative art making. While it's sometimes not necessary to chat to be able to join in, it certain helps to know what others are doing, and to let them know what you are doing.

So remember... be nice, and have fun! :-)

What I like about abstract art is that it's up to you how to interpret what is being presented to you. Some times the shapes are just pretty to look at, but some times there's a particular "story" to tell, a deeper meaning.

In my two abstract pieces, although unintended, a story evolved as I was dragging tiles around and placing them where I feel, as opposed to where they should go.

The artworks in question are:

So here's my interpretation of these two artworks. Be warned, it involves yoga... *gasp* (Gee, who woulda thunk?)

With these two pictures, I (personally) see the the illustration of "yoga", a term derived from the Sanskrit word "yuj" which means join, yoke or union.

So what do all these yoga practitioners look to "join"? There's several answers to that question. These people could be looking to form a union between their body, mind and soul. They could be looking to yoke with "God" (whoever, and whatever that may be for them). Or they could be looking to join their self, and their true self (self realisation).

The last description is what I see in the two artworks above.

So the first picture illustrates the state most of us are in, where our self and our true self, or atman, are not united but are connected.

The second picture illustrates what yoga can achieve, self realisation through the unification of one's self and true self.

I didn't intend to create anything in particular when working with these two artworks. It goes to show what can come out of a person when you let go and just make what you feel.

Anyway, so enough of my fluffly, spiritual, hippy talk. Go drag some tiles people.

I've been asked twice in 24 hours, so I thought I'd share with the masses how the name of Freaky Friday came about.

It's not so exciting. It was a Friday and I was having a weird day, hence Freaky Friday. I think we were testing the change name feature that we use to have ages and ages ago. The name kind of stuck and I started being known as "freaky" and "ff". I didn't want to confuse people so kept the name.

Similar sort of story with my avatar. He's Fluffy, destroyer of worlds. I'm sure some people would recognise this little pup. I pretty much picked a random picture from my hard drive, cropped it, added the letters "ff" and uploaded it. Took all of 2 minutes. Haven't changed it since, and I'm unlikely to do so... again, people recognise Fluffy as my avatar and I'm not one for confusing people, or myself.

And yes, I do realise Freaky Friday is a movie. I've seen it too, several months after the name was picked. I can't claim that the movie name didn't have an influence on my username here, but I wasn't thinking about it when the name was picked. I did, however, watch the movie just because it was named Freaky Friday.

So there you have it... now y'all know. Whether y'all care is another matter :)

I wouldn't mind knowing how everyone got their name, if they're willing to share.

Inspired by Zaphod's post, I've always wanted to put these together.

Left: http://www.thebroth.com/art11584.html
Right: http://www.thebroth.com/art11583.html

Left: http://www.thebroth.com/art11861.html
Right: http://www.thebroth.com/art11860.html

Definitely a unique concept by sbob7.

sbob7: If you prefer to have this post in your blog, I'd remove this one, just let me know.