Lamb testicles anyone?

Our Vancouver Opera ad's are generating a lot of interest and debate. And when I say debate I mean complaints. "Are you out of your mind over there to think that this is in any way funny or effective or anything but the most infantile, distasteful ad I've ever seen in any publication for all of my life?" being one of those. Man! That's harsh. We just thought they were kinda funny. Fortunately so do the Opera and the target audience seemingly. They are part of a series just launched in an effort to raise awareness especially among younger people who think of opera as stuffy and inaccessible. Vancouverites proclaim that they'll try anything once so the challenge is out there should you choose to accept. 

Google not so analytic

A rather worrying trend has begun to appear in my google analytics with reference to this blog. Concerning search terms like "drunk girls let loose", "easy ladies drink captain morgan", "brilliant swear words", "pregnant and homeless street girls", "love jennifer love hewitt big boobs" seemingly reveal or suggest my blog as the result and therefore source of all this debauchery. 


Some of these I can understand, hence the linkage to the supposed offending articles, but others are just plain bizarre. This makes me wonder if I'm not portraying the utterly adorable picture of myself that is so obviously the reality and which has always been my intention. 


So in order to counteract the image of a drunken, bisexual homeless prostitute I seemingly so vividly painted allow me to tell you how charmingly multifaceted and adorable I am.


Here goes, when I was little I felt so strongly that all of my stuffed animals had feelings (thanks mam), that I kissed all of them goodnight and then placed them in a more comfortable position on my bed than even I, so they could sleep well. I also implemented this rotating schedule of who got to be my main sleeping companion (sort of like now but with men.... JOKE!) so that none of them felt left out or unloved. An indication of how fair I am I think. I may or may not (depending on how you judge me) still have a very special stuffed animal in my very bed to this day as an adult. Written out, all this better illustrates my childhood OCD tendencies than my wholesomeness.


Speaking of OCD, this was exactly how I protected my whole family as a child. I had this routine involving light switches and steps that was clearly warding off all evil and basically keeping my entire family safe throughout our formative years. You're all very welcome.


This whole post isn't exactly going to plan as I write on. All I seemed to have managed to successfully established is that I was a weird, neurotic child. 


Let's move on, and concentrate on my recent notable loveliness. In my college years I made friends with this old man who lived on his own at the end of my street. We'd talk most days. He told me one day he was lonely and sad so I and used to bring him biscuits and sometimes make tea. Most importantly I'd go to the post office for him. Isn't it funny how often old people need to go to the Post Office? There's nothing funny about this story though. That's the end. I heartlessly moved to Dublin and the community nurse took over. I hope he's still getting his pension.


Erm, what else lovely do I do?.................
There's this homeless old man on Dunsmuir and Seymour that I give $5 bucks to nearly every Friday. We have this game we play where I pretend I believe he's done this pencil sketch he's holding. He then offers to sell it to me for $5. Then I say it's beautiful and give him the five bucks but allow him to keep it so he can swindle more money out of other passers by. I appreciate the effort he puts in and he seems like such a nice old man.


Wait. I'm beginning to see a trend starting here too: I'm slightly neurotic with a weird soft spot for old men.  This whole post is becoming redundant. I actually dread to think the search results this posting will come under, necrophelia anyone? 


I'm just going to counterbalance everything I said with keywords that will attract a more suitable audience: Wholesome, lovely, nice, good person, NORMAL, nice to children and animals and old men (evidently). Loves animals, dogs especially (not so much cats), friendly. Friend. Person who shares, sharer, carer. Wonderful, hugs, nice, kind, sunshine, rainbows, bunnies. Does charity work*, saves universe*, noble peace prize*, tee-totaller*. Sober, very very sober.* Did I say kind and lovely and lovely and kind.


Ta da. Plan implemented. Now step up google or chrome, or firefox or bing and start advertising me and this blog in the appropriate rose tinted light I prefer. Let's make my blog synonymous with all things nice and wonderful and not Jennifer Love Hewitt's large breasts.  
*not necessarily fact.

Thrilling outdoor*

Our new BC Casino’s outdoor campaign. 

Shot by Philip Jarmain and retouched with Stephen Kirby at The Image Lab

*No more puns, promise

Feeling the thrilled*

Thanks to the lovely Pete Riski for making this ad for us, being the first Finnish person I know, showing me that I want to visit if not live in NewFoundland but most importantly for teaching me how those tiny little ships actually fit inside those glass bottles. I'd always wondered. I still like to imagine it's a magical technique preformed by an adorable gentile old man who whiles away the hours working meticulously in a sunbathed dusty attic, not disimilar to the one in Bettle juice but with more charm and fairy lights. In my feature film mind Richard Attenborough plays the somewhat autistic old man and Betty White, his adoring wife, who brings him jam sandwichs and mugs of hot tea while marvelling at his progress. Wouldn't that be a lovely, if somewhat boring movie. You are totally welcome, universe. What do you think? Am I onto something? 


Sorry, where was I? Oh yes, this ad. Get down to the casino everyone. It's so fricking exciting it'll make your hair stand on end. True story.

 *sorry couldn't resist. 

Sharing is caring.

Apologies for my conspicuous absence from this blog - it's starting to look a bit dusty and unloved on here - like myspace. In my defense those episodes of Jersey Shore and Teen Mom aren't going to watch themselves. 

I've been busy being fabulous, of course. You know, doing crazy stuff like getting the sky train, eating ready made meals for one (joke, Mammy I promise I'm eating vegetables) and being in work all the time. Actually I'm just back from the cinema, Drive is awesome by the way and Ryan Gosling.... not at all difficult to watch. I consumed approximately 4 litre of diet coke. My teeth hurt and I had to wee for 75% of the movie and now I cannot even construct a sentence without heading off on another tangent, aspartame is a food group, right? 

So to my main point (I sort of have one), here's the brief,* Lauren my bff came to visit me. She's one of five potential people who actually read this blog (another one being Rachel) and one of the others being a robot spammer who left me a message suggesting retirement villages options in Australia. (I'm actually interested, retirement sounds perfect for me). Sorry this sugar buzz is too much. So for some strange reason both Lauren and Rachel are somewhat obsessed with the coverage they receive on my hugely popular international blog. Lauren's issue of contention however lays in the face time Rachel has received. And mainly the fact that she's never even been featured. After this post she may hark back nostalgically to those days. 

Many may be surprised to learn that Lauren and I spent the long weekend in BC, the outdoor pursuits capital of the world, essentially drinking but Ta-Da... we did. Having someone like Lauren come visit BC was heaven on earth. She's lazy as sin, love to drink wine and is so laid back she's horizontal. Sure we did stuff, but we did it with the least amount of energy we could possibly exert. Besides we were exhausted, those wine glasses we're going to lift themselves. Boozing in the sunshine, getting freckled and sun burnt is tiring. One could also argue that we'd too much to talk about having not seen each other for months upon months. Lucky for Lauren I'd saved up all my chat and proverbially vomited all said chat onto her. Proverbially, what a pretentious word. Chuckle. 
Impressively, with the little effort exerted we still managed to accomplish the following: Shop, chat, drink, chat, shop some more, chat, eat dinner in rosemantic spot over looking the water and city, walk approx. 27 miles. Chat. Get a sea bus. Chat. Travel up a mountain on a gondola, spy wolves from said gondola. Chat. Have a lesbian sit beside us on our romantic journey. Don't chat. See real life bears, be really impressed with said bears. Chat. Happen upon a bird show, be less impressed, decide to have some wine instead. Chat. Walk past a wood chopping show, feign interest, decide on more wine. Chat. See the whole world (or Vancouver at least) from top of mountain. Take photos. Go disco-ing like in the olden days, snog a Canadian. Slur. Hiccup. Chat. Get out of bed after little sleep and haul ourselves with the other peasants through public transport to an island on a ferry whilst still experiencing fragile effects from copious wine consumed. Don't chat. Be continually subjected to loud American's almost everywhere. Listen. Scoff. Try on hideous second hand attire. Laugh. Scoff. Buy said hideous vintage attire. Flirt with hot half Irish half syrian concierge (some of us were better at that than others) and be courted by a dubious Canadian hipster with a penchant for English accents, Kate Middleton look-a-likes, and saving the whales. Laugh. Be talked out of planned whale sight seeing trip not because concern for environment nor whales but rather potential disappointment we might experience from not actually seeing whales and therefore not being able to drink more. Laugh. Be on a ferry again, see a volcano. Chat. Fat app ourselves, laugh. There was a lot of eating in there too but I don't like think about that.
All our chatting lead us to an sauvignon blanc induced epiphany: I have way too many feelings and Lauren is actually dead inside. I feel like these feelings were a result saturn being in venus and sauvignon blanc being in our glasses. Amazingly after 8 yrs of friendship I managed to break Lauren down and open the flood gates to year and years of repressed emotions. Sharing is caring Lauren and I'm happy to say I sent her off on her merry way. Back to single-dom in NYC where she'll probably die alone or at the very least be such an old bride she'll be wheeled up the aisle by one of these "bridesmaids" who apparently "won't be me", which is fine as I'll probably be 6ft under by that stage anyhow and you'd have me in a hideous dress regardless. 
It's been lonely since Lauren left. All my feelings are getting stored up again. It's time for Rachel to visit now. Come soon though, otherwise the Maylee's in for a very long skype. 

(How scarily convincing am I as a fatty? )

So if you were wondering what I’ve been doing instead of blogging, there you have it.
*Never believe me when I say I'll be brief, I'm basically incapable of this.

Love me everyone.

This week I guest blogged on stimulantonline.ca . Go me. No biggie, but the shameless self promotion did increase my blog stats on ilikecreative ten fold (for a day or two. People tire of me quickly evidently). World domination here I come. That is all.

Jedi mind trick.

Every now and again I like to make lists of things I've actually already done. This is an excellent form of procrastination and also gives me a smug sense of self achievement. I typically add these to the huge lists of tasks I actually have to do and rather than that list depressing me I trick myself into thinking I've loads done. Try it, it works. 

So....

So, I'm living in Vancouver now. I would apologise for the lack of blogging but it would probably be annoying to read and even more so for me to write. So I digress. Now that I've been living in Vancouver for just over 4months I feel I am a somewhat qualified to comment on some things Canadian, from a foreigners perspective. Here's the tiny morsels of wisdom I can give you thus far.

This won't be news to some of you but Canada is MASS-HOOSIVE. Seriously. So all those maps out there depicting Ireland as this small quite legible country in the Atlantic are lies, lies I tell you. It's microscopic. It took me a day to get to Vancouver Island. Incidentally this is the size of Ireland and then some. A day. Donegal to Cork takes 8 hours. Anyhow, I just thought I'd tell you we were all being fooled and if you ever think you can take a trip to Vancouver Island and still be back in time for an interview the next morning then you'd be wrong. Plan ahead.

Canada is every bit as beautiful as all those pictures tell you. Just walking around here makes you happy. I recommend soundtracking these walks to some Paolo Nutini to achieve ultimate elation. I'm actually being sincere.

It RAINS here. You know how in your head you somehow don't connect real life and living abroad and you have this wild exceptions of sunshine, rainbows and unicorns. Welcome to the real world which also exists in foreign lands. Vancouver has it's fair share of rain but it's the Californian coast in comparison to other Canadian cities so really it's hard to complain. If you're Irish you'll still give it a good go. Vancouverites have promised me an "awesome summer" and all I can say is that I hope for yer sake it materialises otherwise there will be a wyle bit of whinging done. 

Which brings me to my next point. Canadians are a happy bunch. Their enthusiasm amazes me and sometimes it knows no bounds. Sincerely, even the crappiest most mundane task/ thing ever, seemingly delights them. Case and point:

Coffeeshopguy to me (excited): "Heeey, how's it going?" 

Me to coffeeshopguy (deadpan): "Grand, how are you?" 

Coffeeshopguy to me: (smug) "Pretty fricking awesome". 

Me (thinking) Maybe I should work in a coffee shop.

Mostly I think this is great and an absolute pleasure but sometimes, just sometimes I think a good dose of Irish cynism is called for. *At least that's how I like to justify my mood swings. 

Vancouver much like Montreal (apparently) has some very attractive peeps. Never has the statement "the ole Irish head on him" resonated so much. You can normally spot us from a mile off. The girls in particular are infamous and if your Irish and male your in luck. I can only conclude that they're over indulged in too much PS I love you and Colin Farrell fantasies ( though I am guilty of that one myself). Having an Irish accent on a man in Canada is the equivalent to having a rippling six pack, a Porsche and the ability to cure sick puppies while galloping majestically on a white stead. Use this power wisely. An Irish accent on a girl in Canada is the equivalent of having a beard. That won't be your biggest obstacle in your attempts to snare a Canadian boy though. Unlike Irish men who wear their lack of rhythm and questionable fashion choices as a testament to their heterosexuality, Canadian men dress well, are polite and often carry man-bags. Your first task is sorting prospective guys from the gays. Secondly, being able to have “the craic” (usually mindless vandalism, borderline alcoholism and language that would make a sailor wince) isn’t something most Canucks look for in a potential life partner. Thirdly, see point 2. 

And finally and perhaps most notably for me, not all Canadians will find you as hilarious as you believe you are. My humor has been described European (read: not funny), when in fact we all know that I'm hilarious (read: European). 

The Budget...

It's D-Day in Ireland as the Budget will be announced this evening. It's been a cause of distress and anguish amongst the whole country these past few weeks. Much speculation has surrounded it as we await our fate. Here's a press ad I just completed that ran as a full page ad in today's paper. It's for our clients, The Irish Examiner.

"We" time is the best time.

This weekend was designated to Rachel and I indulging in some "we" time. "We" weekends can really lead to day's evaporating into a haze of beatific nothingness. Before you judge us too harshly I'd like to point out the Dublin is currently experiencing epic snow fall and therefore it practically forced us to sit in front of the fire for 15 hours straight, gossiping, guzzling wine and gorging on chips. It was amazing. Every month should have a "we" weekend. With the snow being so treacherous we managed to eliminate all guilt we may normally of had from not experiencing day light whatsoever. Sure wasn't there only about an hour of it anyhow (please nod along when reading that last line).
During this fifteen hour telly-thon we learned many things that are important for one to know in order to fully enjoy a snow day and some "we" time with one's own friends. Please  allow me to education with some of our morsels of wisdom. 

1. Applying make up and getting dressed is a waste of time, energy and resources. Far better you concentrate on what's in the fridge and not fool yourself into pretending you've contemplated venturing out. Here's what you should wear.
2. A small fire place can sure use a lot of fuel. Please ensure you have at least twenty logs, a fire bag and three buckets of coal to maintain adequate heat in the room. It's also a good idea to put on the heating and boost it every two to three hours in order to maintain that sauna like existence you've become accustomed too.
3. Bagel's work for both breakfast, brunch and lunch. The trick is to have a little variety in every meal. We used eggs and coronation chicken (not together). One should eat as often as possible throughout the day to ensure you keep your strength up. Chilli Doritos are also nutritious and delicious.
4. It is strangely easy to consume six pots of tea in one day and yet still not feel like you've had any tea. Make sure to stock up on milk and tea bags otherwise you may have to go to the local shop. God forbid.
5. 5pm is an excellent time to begin drinking wine and not have guilts of your alcoholic tendencies due to early day time drinking. 
6. 5pm is much too early to begin drinking wine and not expect to be quite intoxicated come 9pm.
7. Having consumed wine all men on television, even the inappropriately young ones become incredibly attractive. 
8. Singing men are incredibly attractive. Falling in love with X factor contestants is inevitable. Don't fight it. You'll come to your senses in the morning. 
9. Bacon is good for you. Please watch this clip over and over and over again to reassure yourself of this fact.  
10. Sometimes chicken nuggets for breakfast can sound very appealing.
11. Mario's chippy in Harold's cross to exceptionally tasty chips. We can recommend the curry sauce and the taco sauce but never together.
12. When drinking wine it is possible to spend €100 on call credit and yet still maintain deep conversations with the person beside you. Rachel's bank manager would never recommend this however. 
13. Drinking wine and eating chips can make you giddy and hilarious. Why not share that hilarity with the rest of the world. They should really know how fantastically funny you and your friend/s are and what your up to right now. You've heard about chatroulette and think it's probably fun. Why not, if nothing else it's an immediate audience and it's probably like going to a bar without having to get up from the couch, right?
14. Wrong. People on chatroulette don't actually want to chat at all. They probably only want to see your boobs or in our case toes. 
15. Sunday's can make "we" time look like a dark polluted swamp of drink, debauchery, bad food, bad TV and lots and lots and lots of laughing. Counteract any fear or dread you might have by never ever being alone and watching repeats of 16 and pregnant in order to feel better about one's life.

December 1st is here.

So Hello Canada, I'm coming. Here's my drawing of what I expect it to be like. I hear it's so cold the bears wrap up and talk- that's nothing to do with cold though. I'm so fricking excited. I have only 18days left in Dublin. Then I leave for Canadia one month later. Expect much more bears/ deers/ moose's in my drawings to come. 

"Righter Writing", thats right.

Friday past I attended a copywriting course in the Guiness storehouse (see attached pics). The course, "Righter Writing" was hosted by the lovely Patrick Collister of Creative Matters and previously every agency in the UK it would seem. Impressive CV.

It was a mortifying experience for an Art Director clueless in copywriting, particularly because I stupidly and naively sat at the front. I guess the same set of rules of stand up comedy shows apply in lectures. Don't sit at the front if you don't want to be picked on and most importantly- if you're an idiot. I got both wrong.

Our first task was to write ones own obituary. What a hideous task. We had five minutes. I drew a coffin with a grim reaper sobbing over it. A speech bubble from him said "She was so so young. It was an accident". The drawing was shocking. Underneath it I wrote 1982-2010. I then sat for two of three minutes and wondered what the 25 strangers in the room were writing. Everyone seemed to be diligently scribbling away. Shit, better put something down so I wrote 'Annie will be missed very much by her friends and family because if she's not she will come back and haunt them till the end of time.' 

Time was up. Momentary relief for me as we put our pens down. I never expected my idiocy to be exposed. Can you imagine my utter humilation when Patrick said "so....what have you written?". Sheee-it. Was he talking to me when he stood in front of me, looking at me asking that question? Surely not! Incrediously I looked left, then right and said "who me?". My inner monologue did a series of panicked f*ck, sh%t and cr@p's. I spluttered that I didn't have anything. Phew. Anyone else might have sensed I was a cretin and moved on, but Patrick perservered and encouraged, saying things like "come on, I seen you writing" and "don't be afraid, it's good to share. We're all learning here." Undeterred I persisted that I had nothing and I clung to my notepad as though I would reveal the 3rd secret of fatima were anyone to see it. I was prepared to eat that piece of paper before I'd share with the group. Eventually Patrick realised and moved on. Halleluia. This is what my obituary should have said:

Annie, female, aged 28. Died mortified. Suffered from horrendous congenital stupidity. 

I can't help but feel my erratic behaviour set a precedent for the rest of the talk. I spent ages wondering if he thought I was an idiot, asking myself why the hell didn't I just say it and get it over with and a substainitial amount of time mentally slapping myself in the face. 

In between all the self torture I was doing I managed to pick up quite a few tips. None of which I've implimented here, which is great. He's actually really smart so please don't let my writing be a reflection of the day.  

Although not strictly just about copywriting and more about concepting I found his suggestion of approaching advertising from seven key points to be quite helpful for when you've hit a creative block. He broke down those seven types into key points. 

1. The Presenter

2. Demonstration

3. Problem/ Solution

4. Analogy

5. Inversion

6. Slice of life (observation)

7. Borrowed interest.

You can approach any brief  by looking at one or all seven of these themes. It's a clever way to think in terms generating thought starters for when you seem to run out of steam.

This isn't all the information I took from the day, it's just some simple pointers that help you over the hump. I'd have to write a dissertation or include the actual presentation if I was to go through everything. If you ever get the chance to see Patrick speak I'd highly recommend it. 

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas.

I've just finished shooting the eMobile Christmas ad. eMobile is a mobile service just launched in Ireland in October. It primarily targets the 35+ age bracket. In this ad we aimed to reiterate our simplicity message by stating there's a phone for everyone at eMobile stores. The charachter Nick is an extension of the theme eMobile rolled out from launch in which different personalities from eMobile aim to make your life easier. 


Here's some 'behind the scenes shots'. I had a particular fondness for the old man. He was just so jolly. (the whiskey before call time probably helped). 

Interestingly we fake snowed this whole ad and Dublin is now covered in about 5inches of it. It's so pretty and such a novetly. I wonder how long it will last. We walked home on Saturday night in it. Check out some of the scenes from my iphone on my dailyography

Focus Ireland

I meant to post these sooner. Some work I've just finished with photographer Liam Murphy for Focus Ireland job. See my previous post for an unprofessional look at our lovely model Ciara

Nerd happiness

I'm currently experience a euphoria I can only describe as tragic. A blog post of some notebook sheets I found on etsy and shared has just went viral. In the space of a day 1,600 people have visited my blog. My wee dashboards having a coronary. My anayltics, previously guilty of flat-lining have went into anaphylactic shock. And I feel strangely proud. I mean, it's not my work that's going viral, but I'm reaping the rewards- how cool is that. I now owe the universe something. Please accept the dinner I concucted last night from left over fajita's mix and a potatoe and two peppers. It was ok, someone somewhere would be thankful. I'll put it in a portal I call the fridge and throw it out in two days time if none-one wants it. 

I should say too thanks to you RetroNaNa for coming up with this super fabric and making the blog word love it but mostly thanks to myself for being a serial shopper and discovering it on the ever fabulous etsy. Todays a good day.

Ps: 1,670 since I started writing this post.

United we're useless.

The Social Network has re-inforced our inferiority complex. I speak for us collectively, when it's probably only me. My friends are equally inferior (heck that's why we're friends) so they should have felt it too, even if they didn't. Trust me on that. No-ones been near Harvard.  

Anyhow, rather than go home and do something constructive having seen it, we went to the pub. On one hand, it further endorsed our fruitless existence, and on the other Mark Zuckerberg did actually come up with the genius 'facemash' when smashed (see what I did there) and I was willing to investigate my own intelligence when intoxicated, in the interest of social science of course.

Unfortunately the only talent we did reveal was that of the hipstamtic's atmospheric capture lens and Ciaran's creepy ability to appear dead. All is not lost though, we managed to convince Phil (below) into wearing tights for Hallowe'en as an evil (gay) jester, and harrass Will into organising tickets for a post house Hallowe'en bash, which none of us we're initially cool enough to get a personal invite too. Productive evening after all, take that Zuckerberg.

Ps: It's a cool film, very well cast. Go see it. 

MINI Countryman launch

Some outdoor work Phil and I created for the launch of The new 4 door MINI countryman. 
This is the first bit of MINI business Chemistry have created since winning the pitch last month. 
I am in love with this car. Not least because I've been staring at it all day everyday for the past couple of weeks but also because I've never taken an interest in any car as much as this. I have a very indepth knowledge of this machine. For example, it's got four doors and it's silver, it's really shiny and cute and it's got a 1.6L 4cylinder with twin-scroll turbocharger, direct fuel injection and fully-variable valve management based on BMW group's valvetronic technology. Yip. I just don't really know what that does. Did I mention it's cute?
What I can tell you is that I'll be taking this on a weekend test soon and I've promised the mammy we'd be cruising in style round our wee town. Windows down, beats on. Now all I need to do is continue my harrassment of client services to make this dream happen. 

Brrrrr it's cold outside.

Here's some MINI cuteness. MINI's are a bit like a puppy or a kitten. They're already so lovely, accessorising them just accentuates this- here's further proof if you need it. 


To recreate this 'look' you'll need a giantantic ball of yarn, a free month of your life, some superb knitting skills, and last but not least your very own MINI. 


Alternatively cheat like me, and befriend some excellent retouchers. hey presto! Instant cuteness.

Barnados charity

Photo submission that raised €775 for charity. Way-hey

What I've been up too...

Loads. That's what. True story. I've just completed our launch campaign for the new MINI countryman which means I can now concentrate all my efforts trying to weasel a weekend test drive on the new Countryman. Mammy, watch this space! We'll be cruising in style yet. I've also completed our advocacy campaign for Focus Ireland (homeless charity) and it's looking swell if I do say so myself. You can get a little taster on the attached shot from my iphone, but don't let that put you off. I worked with the very talented photographer Liam Murphy. I'll update both campaigns soon.


I've also being working away in the background on ilikecreative.com. It's beginning to really take shape. It's averaging 100 hits a day but given that it really only started as a way for me to bookmark and share and has naturally evolved, I'm kinda proud and kinda happy. It's a terribly nerdy happiness but happiness nonetheless. A comparison I can make that other nerds will appreciate is when receive a personal response on twitter from one of your idols or as I call them- people that I stalk.


Oh and I have quite a few doodles completed that I can share soon as well as a new photography project. But for now, slan x