Word of the Day, Day Three

There are those of us in this world who are PC People, and there are those of us who are Mac people. There are also those of us who are indifferent, but you will find some very strong opinions on either side.

My boyfriend, Trevor, is going to school for Computer Networking. He works at a computer repair store & he takes any opportunity he can to pick on Apple products. He is a PC person.

I am going to school for graphic design. I work at a sign shop and a janitorial supply company & I take any opportunity I can to show off my Apple products. I am a Mac person. Which brings us to today's word of the day.

Word #3 - Apple
There are two major companies named "APPLE" - One I'm sure you're very familiar with, & the other maybe not so much. But we've gotta start at the beginning of the story to get to the end without getting terribly lost along the way. ...And on that note -

Apple Records was a company founded by The Beatles (you know I'll throw in Beatle trivia anywhere I can fit it) in 1968, under the umbrella of Apple Corps. Other divisions of the company include Apple Electronics, Apple Films, Apple Publishing, and Apple Retail.

Apple records :)

The company mostly put out former Beatles' records, along with some Frank Sinatra, James Taylor, & Badfinger but it hasn't released anything non-Beatle since '74. (See the discog here.)

In '71 the Elastic Oz Band released the single "God Save Us" backed with "Do the Oz" on Apple Records. I'll leave you with that image. Moving on!

Apple, Inc. originally Apple Computer, was founded in 1976 by Steve Jobs & Steve Wozniak. Eight years after Apple Records, which was in its golden day at the time (remember how I said they haven't put out anything besides former Beatles' since 74?) but slowly fading. There are many legends floating around the internet as to why it was named the way it was. Here we will explore the top few.

Steve Jobs & Steve Wozniak, windowtowallstreet.com                                 First Apple logo 

Hypothesis #1 - Steve Jobs was trying to rip off Apple Records.

A normal accusation to be thrown out, but somewhat unlikely in my opinion. This theory is widely disputed.

Hypothesis #2 - Steve Jobs was just feeling fruity.

Some rumors I've read say that Steve worked at an orchard. Others say he & Woz were driving along the freeway and he saw some orchards as they cruised. But Wikipedia had this to say -

"According to Steve Jobs, Apple was so named because Jobs was coming back from an apple farm, and he was on a fruitarian diet. He thought the name was "fun, spirited and not intimidating".^[170]"

^{- Wikipedia}

Hypothesis #3 - They wanted to think different.
It's no secret that in founding Apple, the Steves wanted to be different than the other cold, hard computer companies at the time. Perhaps they wanted to go with something softer, or more friendly.

All of this apple talk brings us to an important question. Are you a pc person or a mac person?

So there you have it folks.
On a side note, do you think Gwyneth Paltrow regrets naming her daughter Apple?

 Join us tomorrow for more words. Have a good evening!

Word of the Day, Day Two

Today's word of the day was inspired by the movie "Scott Pilgrim VS. The World." I don't want to spoil the movie if you haven't seen it before, but I actually really recommend it, especially if you like old school video games :) The movie is chock full of crazy 8-bit music and graphics, obscure classic game references, and neon hair color.
Anyway, there's a scene in the movie where Scott meets the girl of his dreams, Ramona Flowers, at a party. Wishing to impress her with his vast knowledge, he tells her the history of the naming of the game of Pac Man. She is unimpressed, but I was pretty interested in the facts he had to share. So I decided to do a little research of my own. (Have I mentioned research is like, one of my favorite things ever?)

Word #2 - PAC MAN.
It turns out the game was made in hopes of attracting females to the dirty, smelly man caves arcade centers were at the time. "so it would become cleaner and brighter." says the creator of Pac Man,  Toru Iwatani.

You may have heard the story about how a pizza with a missing slice inspired Pac-Man's design. But it turns out the game was designed entirely around food. "I thought about something that may attract girls," says Iwatani. "Maybe boy stories or something to do with fashion. However, girls love to eat desserts. My wife often does! So the verb 'eat' gave me a hint to create this game."

That theme continued with the game's name. In Japanese, "puck puck" is akin to the U.S. saying "munch munch". So the original name - Puck-Man - translated as "Munch man". (A savvy Midway Games official changed it to Pac-Man when the game hit the U.S. to discourage vandals from shaving off part of the "P," thereby creating an obscene word.)

- Yahoo! Games

Ha! I don't know about you but I feel more knowledgeable already. Here are some more Pac Man facts for you.

• The ghosts that chase Pac Man are named Blinky, Pinky, Inky and Clyde.
• In 2005, Guinness World Records named "Pac-Man" the most successful coin-operated game.
• Hanna-Barbera produced a Saturday morning "Pac-Man" cartoon on ABC from 1982-84.
• Just this year, Guinness named Pac-Man himself as the most recognizable video game character of all-time with 94 percent consumer recognition.
• "When you play the game, it might seem as if the four ghosts are actively chasing you. That's not exactly true. Iwatani intentionally avoided programming them with that purpose, since that would have resulted in Pac-Man zipping around the screen with four ghosts always right behind him."

The last bullet point brings me to a funny story. When my uncle Kurt was younger, like in the early 80's, his favorite hangout spot was the local arcade.  He has one of those minds that video games just make perfect sense to, like my younger brother Ben. He had the high score in all of the games at the arcade, he was like a local legend. When my aunt tried to tell people that her brother was the infamous "ACE" (ahahha, remember when we all had to come up with three letter acronyms for our usernames?) no one would believe her. Anyway, Pac Man was one of his favorite games and he actually says he memorized the paths of the ghost and could beat the game almost every time. Ahh the good old days of simple video games.

Join us tomorrow for more fun with words! 

Word of the Day, Day One

I really, really, really, really like words. So I've decided that for this week, I'm going to do a feature on words we use in modern society, and where they came from. One word for every day of the week, starting today. Are you ready kids? I can't hear you!

Anyway.
Word #1 - FACSIMILE.
At first glance, facsimile doesn't sound like a word we're all familiar with. But when you take it apart and think about the syllables, you get the word fax... does this one ring a bell? Now you might be reminded of the 90's in this situation, and your first instinct will be to yell at me "I thought you said MODERN society." But I argue that I use a fax machine almost every day at the office. And seeing as I just found out about the word a few days ago (when someone faxed over a memo that said facsimile at the top), I was so excited I had to share it with the world. Anyway.

fac·sim·i·le

   [fak-sim-uh-lee]  noun, verb,-led, -le·ing, adjective

noun

1.

an exact copy, as of a book, painting, or manuscript.

2.

Also called fax. Telecommunications .

a.

a method or device for transmitting documents,drawings, photographs, or the like, by means of radio ortelephone for exact reproduction elsewhere.

b.

an image transmitted by such a method.

3.

dropout ( def. 5 ) .

from dictionary.com.

Anyway, like I said. I found it interesting. Here's a picture for your viewing pleasure. You know how much I love old advertisements.



Join us tomorrow for more fun with words!

making cards

Did you miss my cards? :) Did you miss my cards? :) Here are some I made this holiday season

  

HOW TO MAKE CARDS

with limited supplies

 all i had to work with were scissors, tape, white paper & markers.

:) hope you liked them!

twenty-two.

Well today's my twenty-second birthday. Which is just strange to type, I barely got used to being twenty-one! And now today I'm like an old fart, I'm 22. Ridiculous. So anyway, here are some highlights from the year 2011 / the year I was 21.

• The first full year that Trevor & I dated.
  We started dating August 2nd, 2010 and 2011 was the first year we were together for the whole thing. :) On August 2nd of this year will be our two year anniversary! And after that, hopefully many more. Over there is a picture of Trevor & I at the Thayer company Christmas party this year :)
  
• Got my violin fixed!
  My beauuutiiifulll violin which I got in like...2006? I think, broke on Easter Vigil in 2010. I was devastated - the bridge cracked and the soundpost was rolling around in the violin. I was really broke and the time and couldn't get it fixed. :( But my boss, Chuck, bought me a brand new violin to use in the meantime!! I played it all summer long but then finally decided to get my real violin fixed. I teared up when I first started tuning it, missed it so much. <3

• Went to Colonial Williamsburg!I got to go with my whole family (minus my brother Rob) to Williamsburg in Virginia, where we had a whole week full of history & fun :)

• Went on my first business trip :)I went to Toledo, OH to the headquarters of Spartan Chemical Company to learn about their program, CompuClean. Yes, I work in the janitorial supply business. But along the way Dulcie & I got to explore the city! We shopped and went to the art museum there :) Great memories!!! To the right is a picture of all the people at the seminar. Needless to say, I was the youngest. :P
• Turned 21!
  Ok this one's kind of obvious. Like, duh I turned 21. But what happened as a result of being 21 is that my tastes, as far as alcohol goes, matured greatly. I got really into beeeeer this year. Before I just drank whatever, whatever was cheap and available. I had no idea what a lager vs a pale ale vs a pilsner or what. So I learned a lot as far as that's concerned. The beer I had last year on my 21st was a Blue Moon Belgian White; that was first time I drank it and it's still a favorite to this day.
  
  
• Learned guitar (kind of)
  I always dabbled a little when it came to guitar, but 2011 was the year that I really worked on it. It's a good instrument to carry around with you so I'd bring it to the beach! It was a great instrument to learn because I found a songbook of Beatles and then a Simon & Garfunkel book in my mom's music, and brought them EVERYWHERE with me. This is one of my favorite pictures from this year, me playing guitar for my little cousins on my Grandma's deck.

• Became friends with 65 people?
  According to Facebook, I gained 65 new friends in 2011. That's not counting the people I met who I didn't end up adding on Facebook of course :) but this new timeline thing makes it really interesting to look back on the past year of your life!

Also, this is the year I started this blog! I've been at it for about seven months now, and it gets better every post I'd say.

So looking back on the year, I'm content. I've had a 21st year filled with family more loving and more fun than any I could ever ask for, friends who fill all my spare time with awesome memories, and a boyfriend who is always there for me, no matter what. And I am so grateful to have another year to spend with all of them :)
Happy birthday to me! Thanks for everything.

Bokeh In Advertising

I've gotten into adding bokeh into my photography lately, it's a nice effect and since my camera isn't usually able to capture it, I've been adding it in later.

duclie & i in toldeo

the very first bokeh edit i ever did.

whitney & julia :)

But it would appear I'm not the only one interested in the bokeh effect, because I've been seeing it a lot in advertising a lot lately. Do you use Pandora?

pic from my iphone

I work at a janitorial supply company.. here's an booklet for air fresheners we carry.

And some air fresheners we sell on our website.

Even McDonald's picked up on the bokeh trend -

my co-worker's morning cup o' joe

And watching television at my boyfriend's dad's last night, I saw quite a few ads with bokeh in them. Here's one for KIA:

So anyway I just think it's interesting that this trend seems to have exploded everywhere.

These are the thing my mind notices everyday. And I felt the need to document this. If it's interesting to me, it might be a little interesting to somebody else, right?

and don't forget!

Check out the colorful clare Facebook :)

I put an ad out on Facebook so it's getting a little more attention, now I need some ideas! thanks, everybody!

the new year post

It seems like time goes by faster, the older I get. Last night at midnight we rang in the year 2012 at my house with Dick Clark, party poppers and a champagne toast. (classic) We then proceeded to stay up entirely too late, acting more and more ridiculous with each passing hour. Today is the day we spend recovering from all the drinks & goodies we consumed last night.



I do want to talk about one thing we did, which is this board game, Quelf.

Maybe I'm behind on this, but I've never heard of it before and it was nuts! 

The game has you do some crazy things.

This is my cousin Liz, after she picked a card that said any opponent who messed up her hair got to move forward two spaces.

My brother Ben, and his character Mr. Lugnut.

Rob, who had to go find a tie, knot it in a square knot, and wear it for the remainder of the game or suffer the penalties (good thing he likes ties). Luke is in the background acting like a weeping willow because Rob rolled a four, the result of a 'rule' card Luke had drawn.

Me, and Trevor. Yes, I am wrapped in toilet paper. I drew a card which said I must be a mummy until someone rolled a certain number.

All in all, it's a great game that I'd recommend to anyone. The box says 12+ but I don't think it's possible to be too old to play this game! You just can't be afraid to be crazy.

And I happen to like crazy. :)

On another note..

In honor of the year 2012, here are some desktops for you to download :)

time & fireworks

1920x1080

&

1024x768

happy party hats

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&

1024x768

I hope you enjoyed your New Year's celebration :)

Don't forget -

LIKE!

Thanks, and happy new year!

-clare.