Zoe Zombie

it’s beginning to FEEL a lot like Christmas

// August 14th, 2009 // Comments Off // humour

My family used to go ALL out for Christmas. Ever since I was born, I would always look forward to lots of presents from them and the rest of my family. I was spoiled, yes. But before you think my family are a bunch of bible bashers – we’re not. We just buy into the American style Christmas – all about gifts, nothing about Jesus. Just the way we like it.

Knowing that I had a lot to look forward to on Christmas day, I used to get so excited that I basically couldn’t eat or sleep in the days leading up to the ceremonial gift giving. Or sometimes I would eat so much because the feeling in my stomach felt like hunger – but I couldn’t tell.

Anyone close to me will tell you that I have wanted an iPhone since they came out. I am not an Apple fangirl. I’m not one of those douchebags who are like, “Ooh Windows sucks! Apple is the best! LOLZZ!!”. No. Windows does suck. But so does Apple. ALL computers suck. But. BUT. I love the look, functionality and style of the iphone. Most of all, I loved that I could have my ipod and a phone in one. Perfect.

Every time I have went to get one, it’s almost as though it has been snatched away from me. Or maybe I have just bought too many clothes. Either way, I have just never been able to get my hands on one. On Tuesday I thought – fuck it – here I go, I’m gonna get one. And I did. And then I thought – I have to WAIT until Friday to get it. What an anti-climax.

I had this weird feeling of not being able to sleep, either not eating or eating too much, feeling as though there were a thousand butterflies in my stomach, all ready to burst out. And I stopped. What was this feeling I was experiencing? I hadn’t experienced it since… Christmas ..when I was a little girl. My god. It felt as though it was Christmas, sometime between 1989 to 1994. What. The Fuck.

See, I’m old now. And I just do not get that excited about anything anymore. Not even my own birthday. Not EVEN Slayer and Megadeth on the same bill (I know – shame!). I’m excited about an inanimate object that will serve me no real purpose, other than to make a phone call. How worrying.

Mid Morning Diabetes.

// July 27th, 2009 // Comments Off // opinion

Whilst food shoping over the weekend, I encountered some new packaging from Coca Cola for their soda cans. Whoopdie doo – they were smaller. Only an idiot would buy them because they think they are somehow new and awesome as well as not making them fat because it’s only 99 calories.

As I turned the corner into the health food isle (that’s right – coca cola right next to the health food isle) I noticed something quite insane on the box. “Mid morning snack”. I had to take a picture and run – it was just too funny.

I work in a place where people are cracking open their coke cans at 8:30am and the vending machine is empty by weeks end. So it seems like the whole idea of having a can of coke or fanta for a “mid morning snack” has been around forever. This is a scary thought, but no one really said anything about it. All the coke ads have people drinking it sometime in the afternoon on a beach with some grandma because they think that this will make their product look awesome. I was always brought up to think that soft drink was a ‘treat’ and that it’s ok to have it once a week but that was it. Seemed and still seems fair to me.

Then as I was driving home yesterday, I saw a billboard advertising the new Cadbury Chocolate size – 100 grams or something. Either way, it was a smaller version of the biggest blocks and the picture consisted of an opened packed of the smaller Cadbury block and underneath it said “Perfect for on the go.”. Who the FUCK eats an ENTIRE block of chocolate while their driving to work, or picking their kid up from school? I’ll tell you who. The same person who buys fucking 9 cans of fanta because they’re in a new size and are only 99 calories. Plus, the packet said they were good for a mid morning snack.

When did it become ok to factor “snack sized” junk food into every aspect of our lives? I understand that these companies have to make money, but they are also the ones who are enabling the dickheads who don’t think for themselves or have no brainzzzzzzz.

We are slowly, but surely on our way to equalling the USA food consumption. I’ve been to the land of USA and I have seen their “serving suggestions” and they are enough to feed a whole family. Here’s to Australia’s future – full of obesity and diabetes. Go team!

Posted via web from Jessicatron’s PREposterous thoughts

Web Design: 16 ways to piss me off.

// October 6th, 2008 // 1 Comment » // humour, web design

Monday started off like any other – I get to work and the first thing I do is check my google reader. The only thing that was different is this – for the first time in two years I felt like I was going to burst out in a rage. Why is that? All of the titles I saw looked something like this:

15 high quality premium-like wordpress themes
370+ Free photoshop actions for everyone part 1
33 beautiful border and corner brush sets
5 beautiful penstyle fonts
16 web based handy web designer tools
10 useful articles about database design
6 vector food tutorials
25 refreshingly blue website designs
50 more amazing 3d typography works
11 free and helpful web based tools that every designer may want to know
30 beautifully blue website designs
22 free fonts from myfont
45 rules for creating a great logo design
103 really cool advertisements
35 essential jQuery tutorials, code chunks and plugins for designers
35 photoshop tutorials inspired by apple

Let me ask you something. Did you read all of those? If yes, then you were like me about a year ago. Keen on reading and learning everything I could about my trade. If you said no, then you are me today – tired and frustrated with the endless crap that is put out there on the interwebs.

Lists are something that get people interested because they present an easy alternative to reading a whole block of text that people get turned off by. It is an ongoing trend that should have seen the light of day yesterday – yes I want to read things now and if I want to learn something I want to learn it now. I want to read things that people really have to say, their advice – not in a list. I want to be able to get in depth information on it because if I want to learn something, I will read whatever is there so I do.

Sometimes I question the integrity of those who do write lists – their posts are mostly unoriginal. It is unoriginal information or screen shots that have been seen all over. I think it’s great that many will love a design or technique but is there a need to regurgitate something that’s already been seen many times before?

I have been guilty of writing lists but realized straight away it is a gimmick. It’s not natural to write an article in such a way unless you’re writing a step by step or a plan. They’re just cheap shots at getting some undeserved traffic – believing that compiling huge ridiculous lists will get them the visits they want from people who don’t know any better.

I hope in the very near future this fad will die out and people will start writing articles like they used to – with integrity and originality. Really offering something to their visitors other than just regurgitated crap. Is tomorrow too soon?