Flower Screensavers Perfect for Spring

Changing seasons have a profound effect on plant life, and winter turning to spring makes for one profoundly beautiful effect. It is the time for renewal of most plant life, and it is the time when the trees and plants grow new leaves and the most beautiful and fragrant flowers blossom. Be it cherry blossoms, hyacinths, orchids, roses, sweet peas, tulips, irises, and birds of paradise, spring ushers in the blooming of a myriad of fantastic and colorful flowers.

Spring makes me wish I had a garden, even if it was only a humble garden in my small backyard or by my window pane. It would have made for nice and lovely springtime scenery, and I would wake up every day with a cup of coffee in my hand, breathing in and out the air of the season and the pleasantness of the flowers.

However, since I don’t really have enough space in the apartment where I live right now, and making and tending my own garden would be next to impossible, I am settling instead for flower screensavers. They bring the beauty of springtime to my desktop, and provide for me a “digital” kind of alternative to the scenery ideal for springtime. Here are some of my favorite floral screensavers:

Inspirational Advice. This is a photo screensaver that features a quote about success by Dr. Norman Vincent Peale: “Four things for success: Work and Pray. Think and Believe.” This simple inspirational passage is set against a beautiful motion background, which boasts of a tapestry of colors, floral patterns, and beautiful nature photos that may have been taken in the most agreeable of springtime days and afternoons.

Easter Bouquet. This flower screensaver runs a photo montage of the most elegant flowers and floral bouquets, with a distinctly Easter motif. And how apt! Easter, after all, just might be the most popular spring holiday, especially to Christians worldwide. In this screensaver, a pink-painted Easter egg serves as a flower vase, and pink dominates the subtle and soft color scheme. Moreover, graphic elements and ribbon patterns are animated with the photos and give them a charming accent.

Exotic Flowers. This isn’t necessarily darker than the previous one, but this nature screensaver is certainly starker – and harder. It’s the light and the photography. Exotic Flowers is also a photo screensaver with close-up captures of exotic, unusual, and colorful flowers that would definitely stand out in soft, gentle feel of spring season. And they stand out even more here, thanks to the dark backgrounds and wonderful shadow play.

Water Lily. This is a cute spring screensaver which features an artistic rendering of a water lily, beautifully colored. It takes on a number of hues, mostly of salmon pink, orange and silk white. Against this background, a slew of blue butterflies make an appearance, all of them fluttering. It may not be the most realistic vision of spring, but this flower screensaver has certainly got the most artistic.

Screensavers Showing Cats and Dogs as the Best of Friends

I still have a hangover from dinner at my friend’s house last night. No, it’s not a hangover from consuming too much alcohol but rather an overdrive of admiration for his gang of house pets that are really quite a sight to behold. It is from this admiration hangover that I started searching for a new screensaver this morning to remind me of his cute and endearing pets.

Arthur, my college buddy who invited me and a couple of our closest friends for his birthday dinner last night, is indeed someone who will never get bored at home. Still enjoying his bachelorhood in his own flat, he often looks forward to spending time alone at his home because he has a bunch of adorable pets to keep him company.

It’s not that Arthur is a loner type of guy. He’s one of the most sociable guys I know and he’s often the life of the party, or any friendly gathering, with his seemingly endless streak of jokes and hilarious punchlines. But I guess having a rare bunch of pets such as he has is enough to turn any party dude to a homebody.

I say that Arthur’s pets are a rare bunch because it’s not common to see cats and dogs live in peaceful harmony under one roof, much less see them cuddling up and playing together as if they were of the same species. Yes, in Arthur’s home, cats and dogs are not natural enemies but the best of friends.

I couldn’t believe it at first when I entered his flat and saw his full-grown two-year-old Labrador sleeping with a Siamese kitten tucked under its paw. I had thought the kitten was a Labrador puppy because they were almost of the same beige color. But when our friend Cliff commented that the sleeping dog and kitten looked sweet together, I did a double take. By golly, it was indeed a tiny kitten cuddled up with the humongous dog!

Before I got over my initial shock, Arthur said that the kitten loved sleeping with Cosmos, the Labrador Retriever, rather than with its own mother, the white Siamese cat Luna. He showed us to the kitchen where Luna was playing with her two other kittens and, guess what, a Labrador puppy!

A full-grown dog, an adult cat, three tiny kittens, and a growing puppy – they not only coexist in Arthur’s home but they amazingly treat each other as one family! I find it truly amazing that Arthur was able to defy his pets’ natural tendency to attack each other and made them cozy up with one another.

Indeed, Arthur’s birthday dinner last night was memorable not only for the food, the booze and the conversation we had but also for the delightful presence of his amazing pets. The experience had a long-lasting effect on me, one that made images of friendly cats and dogs running through my mind before I fell asleep last night and had me searching for cute screensavers of cats and dogs the moment I sat in front of my computer this morning.

I found two free screensavers featuring cats and dogs, the animal screensavers called Puppies and Kittens and Cuddly Kitties and Canines. The first one shows a slideshow of puppies and kittens sleeping together and playing with each other while the second one shows adorable pictures of dogs and cats posing on backdrops of valentine flowers and pink pillows.

I’m choosing the Puppies and Kittens screensaver because it reminds me more about Arthur’s pets. Just looking at the cute photos of those young dogs and cats together makes me want to visit Arthur’s flat again if only to play with his lovable bunch of amazing pets.

Dog Screensavers as the Happy Counterfeit of Modern Love

Ah! The pleasures and pains of modern love! Last week, my eight-year-old nephew Anthony lost one of the great loves of his life, a French poodle by the name of Igloo. What a story. Anthony was five years old when he acquired Igloo, and since then he had been petting him with as much care as he could give. They were almost inseparable (almost, because school and churches didn’t allow pets), and they went on weekly morning walks in the public park, and it seemed as though nothing could separate the two. That’s modern love: a child loves a pet, a pet loves a child, and in each of their worlds, nothing was lacking.

Except until recently, when Igloo suddenly stopped eating. Now, the particular breed of dogs to which Igloo belonged typically have this anorexic look on them: skinny legs, skinny torsos, emaciated jaw structures. Like a cartoon. But this one, this Igloo, he was in a really bad way, and Anthony could not do anything and felt utterly helpless in his attempts to force his beloved pet to eat something, anything, a bit of bone or a cookie to give him at least a tincture of energy to last him a day, each. Unfortunately, Igloo never recovered from whatever ailed him. To Anthony, it was a loss best described as devastating.

What my nephew did next was supremely touching. He buried Igloo in his backyard, threw in a suitably arranged wreath of unbelievable flowers, and said a silent prayer. Then, he moved on – not by forgetting, mind you, but by remembering. He remembered by way of downloading animal screensavers that pay tribute to the kind of dog Igloo was: adorable, cute, cheerful, reliable, obedient, photogenic, athletic, and loving.

Initially, Anthony ran Dog Days, a screensaver that featured various photographs of dogs doing what dogs do, such as enjoying a car ride, hiding under a blanket, and waiting for someone to come home. To Igloo, Anthony was that someone. It was a beautiful montage in monochrome and sepia, and Anthony, I believe, with his eight-year maturity, shed not just a few tears viewing that dog screensaver.

Another dog screensaver that Anthony downloaded in honor of Igloo and of modern love is this one called All Puppies. This makes him cry fewer tears, as there isn’t a single French poodle in the montage, but the free screensaver is nonetheless a desktop reflection of what Igloo meant to my nephew’s life. Modern love, in this case, is a slideshow of cute and cuddly puppies bringing an element of aw-shucks to his computer: one dog has humongous ears, another tiny one looks ready to box, and a trio sleep right beside each other, thus forming a hill of black fur.

Some days, Anthony just leaves his computer turned off. And he goes to the park walking by himself, but not exactly, not essentially alone. Beyond pet screensavers, he keeps memories of Igloo with him, and that’s when it seems that not even death can ever separate the two modern lovers.

Funny Screensavers Reflect Stella’s Personality

Meet Stella. She works as one of the account managers in the office. She’s a very busy woman, always with a calendar that’s full to the brim, and most days she works out of the office and on the field, calling on clients and running off to business meetings and appointments. I haven’t seen enough of Stella myself, but when she’s around – well, I’ll know it. We’ll know it.

Why is that, you may be asking. Well, Stella simply has to be the funniest employee in our company. We are always crying with laughter when she is around, because there is simply never a dull moment. Stella is notorious for regularly letting out rib-tickling – and occasionally evil – quips that leave all of us in the ROFL position: rolling on the floor, laughing. She could be a stand-up comic in her next lifetime; she exudes every characteristic required for that profession. And not only that: even her free screensavers are funny, too – as we found out this week.

Here are only a few of the lines that we have heard her say: “Let me tell you something about limitations. Until you spread your wings, you’ll have no idea how far you can walk.” Or: “You don’t need that poster, babe. Nothing says ‘you’re a loser’ more than having a motivational poster about being a winner.” And: “25 random things? I didn’t even want to know 1 random thing about you. Now scram and go back to work.” She means this in jest, of course; Stella loves everyone in the office and everyone in the office loves her back.

Two days this week, she has been out. But we didn’t miss her humor – she didn’t us let us anyway. Typical Stella: first, she left a funny screensaver in her office called Make It To Friday, for us to look at and enjoy whenever we had to slip in a note or place some files on her table. The animation of this screensaver showed the lovable and hapless stick figure getting pounced on by the letters of the days of the week, from Monday to Friday. He takes a pounding, but makes it at the end of the work week – alive and breathing. Sort of describes our working lives really. We – including Stella – work hard, but that is exactly how we are able to get on with our lives. So the screensaver, I guess, is Stella’s way of helping us see that funny but very important truth.

The other day she was out, Stella was not working. She took a day off, had herself pampered, went to the spa and then the mall. We learned that when we walked into her office only to see the hilarious Doggie Chic screensaver running on her computer screen. It’s an animal screensaver that shows tampered-with photos of an upscale hairless Chinese Crested who has a big lifestyle, posh sensibilities, a sassy attitude, and fresh words of wisdom to share, like: “In the beginning there was light, so we can have clearance sales at the mall.” Stella wouldn’t object to being likened to this dog, and that’s probably only because they both have funny bones.

Bunny Screensavers for Easter

“What’s up, Doc?” is a line that perhaps defines what I would remember most vividly from childhood, if only because I used to watch Looney Tunes and Bugs Bunny all the time. I had spent hours every single day taking in those animated shows and laughing out loud when the famous rabbit pulls a prank on one of the other characters. I mean, even now that Easter is approaching, there’s no other character that I could think of except Bugs Bunny. All this talk about Easter Bunnies and chocolate bunnies, and there is but one face, one rabbit, that comes to mind.

This might change soon – especially now that I have downloaded several animal screensavers that feature the soft-furred, large-eared, rodent-like burrowing mammal, a prominent symbol come Easter time. Don’t worry: they’re not Playboy Bunnies, as I’d like to keep my Easter screensavers in the spirit of the season, thank you. And I don’t want to receive off memos anyway for having NSFW stuff on my computer; that has happened to some of my co-workers before, but I shall not be the next one in line.

The screensavers that I have, rather, are of the wholesome kind, cute and cuddly, with animation and graphics that shall score high on anyone’s Aw-Shucks Scale. They’re of the kind that you too, no matter what age you are, can download.

Take this one called Silly Lily Bunny, for example – a rabbit screensaver that comes equipped with laughter-provoking sound. The animation features a silly little white bunny who must have overdosed on caffeine, and now hops up and down, through a field of lilies, chuckling and laughing and giggling all the way – and not without showing its two enormous front teeth, of course. If we’re talking about energy here, then Bugs Bunny might have met his match.

Another bunny screensaver that I have recently downloaded is Everything Easter. I got it because it was in my mind that the religious holiday is fast approaching. This sweet picture screensaver features more than just bunnies; its slideshow also displays captured images of Easter chicks, with eggs, Easter baskets, daffodils, and violets in the background. While this one doesn’t come with sound, it’s still a very appropriate screensaver to use during Easter. It’s like flicking through an album of the finest Easter moments.

Last, but certainly not least, is the animated bunny screensaver called I Love Easter, in which a formidable-looking bunny artist paints masterpieces on an enormous Easter egg. In the background, the sky is blue green in springtime and the clouds are rolling ever so slowly and gently. But it’s the artwork that captures the viewer’s main attention. Rainbow colors, Easter quotes, sweet lines and patterns, self-portraits, even the Mona Lisa: the bunny puts his talents on display as he sprays all kinds of shades and things on the oval canvas before him.

Thanks to these three screensavers, I now have new big-toothed idols all of whom can do more than just eat carrots and jest.

Scary Screensavers For Those Who Love the Supernatural

My cousin Jacques believes all too readily in folk tales and supernatural claims. He nurtures this severe fear of ghosts and spirits, and lives his everyday life rather clumsily because of the superstitions to which he adheres. On the other hand, his appreciation of the universe that’s beyond the scientifically visible is unmatched. Ask him about any supernatural phenomenon, or about supernatural themes used in popular culture, and he’d be sure to be able to answer your questions. And I’m sure he knows every folk tale, tall tale and myth in the book.

Therefore, when I visited him last week, the screensavers that he had on his computer screen didn’t come as a surprise to me. In fact, they were actually quite cool.

The last time, Jacques put on a screensaver called Ghosts and Phantoms, which may have been more apt for Halloween. Well, perhaps to my cousin, every day is Halloween. In this aforementioned screensaver, a full moon illuminated the bare trees of a dark forest, revealing in the process a bunch of ghostly shapes and images through the mist. Like a dancing white lady. Like a flock of phantom doves. The animation was impressive, and I wondered where Jacques got the screensaver from.

Last week, however, his computer screen displayed a different set of images and animation. Of course, these still had something to do with his obsession with the supernatural. The first was called Forest Fairy, a charming and cute screensaver that seemed to have been spliced from a cartoon film for children. The animation showed a tiny bright fairy emerging in the pre-dawn darkness, from one tulip among many. She fluttered in the shadows of the forest and brought sunshine and color along the way, awakening the world that surrounded her. At least this one was lighter and more positive than the scary screensaver Jacques used to use.

“You mean Ghosts and Phantoms?” he asked. “Tell you what, cousin, I got something a lot scarier and cooler than that.” And that was when he showed me a new 3D screensaver he had downloaded, called Haunted Halloween. It was eerie alright, but nonetheless beautiful. In fact, it’s probably one of the most beautiful screensavers I’ve ever seen – and it was only a little over 8 megabytes. The cool screensaver took the viewer to a scary stroll up to a haunted house. Among the elements that appear along the way were: a No Trespassing sign, a locked, gated area, a flock of black birds, dark clouds and thunderstorms, a forbidding owl, and an entrance door that wouldn’t make anyone – not even Jacques – want to enter.

“Yes, that is scary,” I told my cousin Jacques. He smiled at the comment. After all, if the world in which he believes can’t be seen in real life, then at least now he can enjoy an experience of it from the comfort and safety of his own computer. And he’d be assured, too, of neither ghost nor phantom popping out of the screen.

The Same, Different Sky Featured in Nature Screensavers

No matter where we are, we are all under the same sky. The view from where we are looking is what makes it different. Don’t worry; I am not about to go philosophical. It’s just that the thought occurred to me while I was running and zigzagging around the office last week and noticed nature screensavers in different computers all featuring the sky, but with varying interpretations of it.

Claude, for example, a graphic design artist who has skillfully designed many of our most creative print ads, was running a nature screensaver that fit his passion and personality: art. He had on something called Cloud Patterns, the animation of which was very relaxing to the eyes. Set perhaps at sunset, the camera panned to the right of Claude’s screen and showed gentle and serene images of clouds and the shadowy trees below them. These movements were artfully fused with graphic elements: subtle white swirls and patterns as well as birds soaring in the sky. If one were to imagine Rembrandt today with a job as the creator of nature landscapes screensavers, then this one just might be how his work will look like. The clouds in this screensaver look like images painted by a masterful visual artist.

Ella, a copywriter, downloaded a free screensaver that had a different interpretation of the sky, and this interpretation is best described as religious, or at least inspirational. It was of course to no surprise, as Ella is perhaps one of the most devout practicing Catholics in the office where I work. Her inspirational screensaver, called This Is The Word, features beautiful nature scenery and skies, as well as simple moving graphic elements, all of which combine to serve as the background for a series of Gospel quotes taken from the Bible. Everyone appreciates this screensaver of Ella’s – and not just because we respect religious diversity in the office. If her desktop themes inspire her enough to write stunning, strategy-aligned copy, then we won’t mind one bit.

As for Richard, a metrosexual art director who knows a lovely garden when he sees one, his screensaver is of the sort that combines photography with moving graphic elements. And it features the sky in yet another different light. It’s called Spring Blossoms, a 3D screensaver that runs a montage of spring scenery, with the charmingly-hued sky as the background. The flower blossoms are in full view at the lake where the geese are floating and the butterflies are fluttering, and – in the next scene – the sky turns beautifully violet in the background of a tree where a small birdhouse rests and cradles. It’s a nature screensaver that best typifies Richard’s sensibilities.

“In the sky, there is no distinction of east and west,” so goes a well-know Buddhism quote. “People create distinctions out of their own minds and then believe them to be true.” With these three different nature screensavers which I have stumbled upon at the office, then at the very least one can appreciate such distinctions.