Vive la dash!

It amazes me how many people do not know the difference between, or haven't even heard of, 'en-dashes' or 'em-dashes'. I too am guilty of not knowing about these until I studied at university. I find it is such a shame that these important punctuation symbols are not taught in school. I often wonder if I'm in the distinct minority of people who cringe when they see the wrong dash being used; it really is something which grinds my gears. All too often I find that a hyphen has been used because of the reason that, "the small dashes look better!" When, in fact, the bottom line is what the grammar police would have to say about it. If it were down to aesthetics, you could argue that one may prefer the word 'shit' over the word 'shirt', simply because the negative space between the 'r' and the 't' is somewhat uncomfortable at times. The point would still remain that a 'shit' and a 'shirt' are very much two different things. Likewise, a 'hyphen', an 'en-dash', and an 'em-dash' all mean different things and therefore should be respected and used for the purpose in which they were created. So I say, bring back the correct use of each dash and celebrate how they enhance our written language!

Two years—tut tut tut!

Two years since my last post! Wow. Either I have nothing interesting to say* or I just don't seem to sit down and write anymore. It's time to revive the blog! First job, find something interesting to journal—that doesn't include the need to write about writing something; damn...

*For someone who can talk the hind legs off a donkey, I hardly think this conclusion is possible.

Contemplation

Blue+, Great Advert From EDF

As followers of my blog may have already noticed, I am a self confessed advertisers dream and I can't help absolutely falling in love with the new adverts from EDF. They have great song choices and such a captivating little character! They should give him away free if you sign up; lets face it, who wouldn't want a cute dancing energy blob! I'm fond of The Big Lebowski style advert in third of the series. I have included links to all adverts so you can take a look yourself if you haven't already seen them.

EDF Blue+ [Part One]

EDF Blue+ [Part Two]

EDF Blue+ [Part Three]

Great Ideas, Great Photography

Just mooching through my friend's flickr account and came across quite a few awesome photographs; I absolutely love these two.

Photography by Jason, Om nom nom! and PAnCakes

A New Adventure

With every beginning there is an end, and we feel the tragic sadness of losing someone extremely dear to us. A life cut short when there should still be many more years ahead. A very much loved husband, dad, son, brother, future father-in-law, uncle, nephew, cousin, and friend. He was the best and I will never forget how much joy and happiness he brought to everyone he met. Until the very last fight, he was brave and still putting smiles on all our faces. He never seemed afraid of his cancer, he said it was a new adventure and was excited about experiencing this new journey in life. Even when you know the end is near, you prepare as best as you can, but you never truly believe that one day the ones you love will be gone. Even if you tell the ones you love everyday how much they mean to you, it's never enough. Now we must start our new adventure very sad that he is not here with us. Life passes us by all too quickly and loved ones can slip away far too soon. We all love him very much and will miss him everyday, but his memory will live forever in our hearts.

Building Websites

I thought it'd be great to get my teeth stuck into building a fully functional website from scratch; so 'Doggy Grooming' was chosen; a brand based upon 'Jem's Pampered Paws' which I had previously branded. This fictitious spin off brand seemed like the perfect target practice. It only took about three working days to build; which for a beginner, I'm hoping is pretty good going. I wanted to keep the layout very simple as it matches with the company branding and it follows closely with the clean and well groomed objective of the dog grooming process. I've take a screen shot of each page through the website. There are still a few tweaks I would like to make, possibly adding a few quirks to the pages, but then I think with most design you never feel like it is truly finished. For now though, I'm ready to start designing and building another website... I think my own is next on the list!