a lot of stuff and nonsense from eclectech

Oh my, I have somewhat abandoned this poor blog recently. On the plus side, I have been animating. You can see our new piece below, made for the TUC's Rights for Interns campaign.

Labels: flash animation

A new animation. Hooray! This one was started months ago, I just struggled to find time to get it finished with The Techling and work projects taking so much of my time. Fortunately work is finally under control, and with eclectech.co.uk's 9th birthday I had the motivation to get my head down and finish it. It's called Petit Chaton, the song is by The Swings and it was just perfect for animating. Enjoy.

Labels: flash animation, mr and mrs swing, video

Labels: flash animation, open rights group

A short, snappy, funky, punky animation of festive frustrations.



Hmm, looking back over the last year I'm barely managing one post a month. Hopefully I'll get back into the swing of it all again next year. It's been a year of changes for me, so I'll have to see how it settles.

In the meantime I'll just have to keep battling against the plastic tat.

Labels: flash animation

A little something I made earlier in the year with DogHorse, only just released to go online along with the new Worksmart toolkit.

Labels: flash animation

It's finished! An animation for a delightful ditty about the database state from Mr Mushroom.

Watch The Database Rag!

Labels: flash animation, NO2ID, open rights group

So George W. Bush is finally leaving the Whitehouse. I thought we should see him out in style...

Labels: flash animation

I was asked to make something fun about Rubik's Cubes. When the cube came out first time round I battled with it and got so close, but don't remember ever completing it. These days there's loads of information about how to solve it, but I can't be bothered... I prefer to find more interesting things to do with them.



Music by the ever splendid DogHorse at the Audio Mangle.

And yes, the title is a big fat lie. We only got to 53 uses but we'd started using the 101 title and it stuck.

Labels: flash animation

One of the many things I'm enjoying following our move to the country is the local squirrels visiting the garden. I like squirrels and they're providing me with fine photo opportunities, even if they do seem to be stealing nuts and seeds from the birds.

A day after the first squirrel photo op I got an email asking if I'd be interested in creating a Frank Sinatra squirrel and animating to Come Fly With Me. It was a sign! Squirrels are our future! Anyhow, it seemed like the right thing to do.

Sinatra Squirrel - Come Fly With Me!

The llamas, penguins and giraffe are not, I'm afraid to say, currently part of the local wildlife although they are all Scottish. 100% fact.

Labels: flash animation

Motherhood has been on my mind recently, so it seemed appropriate to deal with it in an animation. I also thought that having the audacity to plan making an animation so close to baby's due date would guarantee an early (or at least prompt) appearance but no, so here you go...

Milk Pistols (700KB Flash).

Labels: flash animation

I've not been online much recently, here or anywhere. Off-line life is rather hectic getting work finished up and things sorted in readiness for the Big Day of babytech arriving. I'm hoping to get a new animation out in the next couple of weeks but it all depends...

We have released an animation with Friends of the Earth since my last post. Available through their new site at www.exxon-files.eu or at YouTube, it looks at the approach of one particular oil company to climate change research.

Hopefully I'll have a little free time before baby arrives and be able to catch up with online friends. In the meantime have a very splendid video that you've probably seen before but is currently making me smile. Christopher Walken rocks.

Labels: blether, flash animation, video

... but apparently a bishop in the church of England is claiming that our "moral degradation" is causing the current floods across the UK.

"One diocesan bishop has even claimed that laws that have undermined marriage, including the introduction of pro-gay legislation, have provoked God to act by sending the storms that have left thousands of people homeless."

Oh my.

Floods are judgement on society, say bishops.

In cheerier news they've discovered that there used to be giant tropical penguins roaming the planet. How ace is that? I wasn't sure about the illustration on the BBC article though, so I've made my own.

There's also a giant sized tropical desktop wallpaper version.

In unrelated news I've been getting some of my animation up at YouTube, a bit of an experiment to see how it goes, but it does give people an easy way to embed my pieces in their blogs. It will only be certain pieces that go up, but you can check them out if it's of interest.

Labels: disgruntled, flash animation, news links

I have been making monsters! Rarrrrrrr! Turns out I'm not very good at drawing monsters as I don't think they're meant to be cute, but heh, the song is called Monster Island so the characters are monsters. That's all there is to it.

Monster Island

And now the news.

House eclectech is very happy. A baby is on the way! Oh my!

According to the BBC I'm part of a trend of women who went to uni and put off babies until their thirties. It's been a while since I've been part of a trend, it's rather reassuring in its own way. I wonder if the rest of my pregnant peers are as keen as I am on these hats, which are almost tempting me to attempt knitting.

Labels: blether, flash animation

... but I can't write about them online yet as I haven't got my act together and told all my offline friends. I am officially rubbish, but not quite rubbish enough to send a mass email round to my oldest friends with a pointer to a blog post so, in the meantime, I provide a quick blast of disco cats and run away again.



You can prod them and poke them at The Revo site, a fun project I've been working on recently.

I hope all is well in the wider bloggy world. Back soon! Love e.

Labels: dance, flash animation

... but I decided to focus on the one on his way out with my new animation, My Way (the Blair version).

I expect this is my last animation featuring Blair. As you can imagine I'm welling up.

The really disturbing thing for me at the moment is that I'm not sure what I want the result of the current elections to be and I suspect I'll be making the final call about who to vote for in the voting booth.

Possibly holding my head in my hands and sobbing quietly to myself.

This year our voting papers are rather reminiscent of the Life of Brian and the Judean People's Front / People's Front of Judea silliness. We have two socialist parties (bickering publicly in their leaflets), two Christian parties (one of which delivered a very offensive leaflet) and two nationalist parties.

On the plus side at least I can still vote the proper way and head over to a local polling booth and make my cross on a bit of paper. Very unsure about electronic voting, and the fact that everyone I know with knowledge about how such things work refuses to use them makes me think I have a point.

E-voting as secure as an insecure thing
Doubts raised over e-count system
Vote early, vote often
Government cancelled e-vote schemes amid security fears
Hacking the online ballot box

Some other news stories that have been of interest recently...
US war on terror is a war on tourists, too
No medals for UK Government over London Olympics security
Kid wrongly imprisoned for bomb threat - error due to Daylight Savings Time

And before I head away I realised I missed Blogging Against Disablism Day 2007 this year so time to pop over to the Goldfish and catch up.

Labels: disgruntled, flash animation, news links

Life is busy at the moment. Lots of exciting things going on, but offline rather than online so blogs posts and pictures and other new stuff is scarcer than usual. That said, I have made a new thing of moving pictures. It has a little scribbly babbling man going for a walk and some nice music by Mr & Mrs Swing.

All The Time Like (1MB Flash).

Labels: flash animation

Greenpeace have launched a report today, Carving up the Congo.

Mr DogHorse and I have made a shortened, slightly quirkier version if you want to dip your toe into the topic without embarking on the full report.

What a carve up! (700KB Flash).

There's also a video version over at YouTube.

In other news I've started animating palindromes. No reason other than someone suggested 'a dog, a panic in a pagoda' and it seemed like a good idea. So far I've only made 2 (the other is evil olive) but any suggestions of fun palindromes welcomed.

Finally, interesting lecture by Jeffrey Sachs on the radio today (the Reith Lectures), downloadable for the rest of the week from the BBC.

Labels: flash animation, neat links, silly joke

Enter his world.

Taste his grooves

Marvel at his glittery balls.

I have been animating the foremost German composer of 1970's erotic film scores. Oh yes. Flares, moustaches, glitter balls and glamour girls.

And some damn fine groovy tunes.

Klaus Harmony, Rear View Lover. 280KB Flash.

Labels: dance, flash animation, klaus harmony

Now, I don't really "do" Valentines Day but I like an excuse to make something silly and a new tune from DogHorse seemed perfect for a topical animation. I give you...

One Heartbeat (1.5MB Flash)

It stars Jack Java (the monkey of lurve), a couple of penguins and some pants. The song is just a little bit rude. Well, very rude in places.

We've also got a new animation for Greenpeace online, if you like your moving pictures to have a bit of a point. Stop the Horror (500KB) is part of a campaign to stop illegal timber and help save the lovely orang utans and other affected creatures.

I must mention a topic that I'm afraid amuses me far too much for terribly low reasons. As Jess points out in the comments of my previous post Gillian McKeith is in trouble again and is now banned from calling herself a doctor in her adverts. What a shame eh?

A Menace to Science, Guardian article by Ben Goldacre
Previous bit from me about Ms McKeith.

Other things that have entertained me recently include this fine campaign from Sir Montgomery Cecil of Spurt via Beau Bo D'Or and this fantastic photography project; Running From Camera. I'm not quite sure why but this appeals to me very much.

Oh, and if you do want to send someone a special message today* you can always say it with pants!

Enjoy!

*Or, in fact, any day... which is much nicer really.

Labels: flash animation, flash toy, neat links, poo woman

True to my word I have made a festive animation. I have tooted on the kazoo and have made some cartoon reindeer and at least one person cover their ears in horror.

Jingle Kazoos! Merry Christmas!

Labels: flash animation, humph, jeremy