Stuff from May, 2008
This is the archive of tumbledry happenings that occurred on May, 2008.
Pull Cord
This is the archive of tumbledry happenings that occurred on May, 2008.
Chris launching his special miniature plane (good flier, very pointy).
The return of Dean Allen’s blog, Textism, has been heralded by some folks as a big deal. I loved the clean aesthetic on my first visit to his newly reopened site, but it took a little while for the quality of his writing to sink in. Case in point: one of the items from a recent list-styled entry entitled “My father is visiting,” reads:
Kasabian’s Club Foot will ROCK YOUR FACE OFF. Heck yes. Happy weekend, everyone.
UPDATE: Black Rebel Motorcycle Club’s Shuffle Your Feet will also rock your face off, possibly more so than the previous song, simply because it features hand-clapping.
Chris launching the ultra-colorful ridiculous plane.
Another look at the ultra-colorful ridiculous plane.
Check out a bit of a plot summary for this movie Wanted:
25-year-old Wes (James McAvoy) was the most disaffected, cube-dwelling drone the planet had ever known. His boss chewed him out hourly, his girlfriend ignored him routinely and his life plodded on interminably. Everyone was certain this disengaged slacker would amount to nothing. There was little else for Wes to do but wile away the days and die in his slow, clock-punching rut. Until he met a woman named Fox (Angelina Jolie). After his estranged father is murdered, the deadly sexy Fox recruits Wes into the Fraternity, a secret society that trains Wes to avenge his dad’s death by unlocking his dormant powers. As she teaches him how to develop lightning-quick reflexes and phenomenal agility, Wes discovers this team lives by an ancient, unbreakable code: carry out the death orders given by fate itself.
Target for plane throwing (split the uprights, under the rubber band).
A featured picture on PhotoshopDisasters shows a provocatively posed model in the magazine Maxim. But what’s this? The picture has been retouched? Shocking! The repeating nature of the background of the image clearly reveals where the retoucher tucked in the sides of the model, enlarged her breasts, or both. The glaring hack job is comical on first sight.
In what is probably my favorite news story this year, we learn about The world’s first bionic sea creature: Winter. Early in life, this wild dolphin was injured in a crab trap and found floating with no tail. She healed up in captivity, but was in need of a prosthetic. So, after over a year of prosthetic fitting and work to restore functionality, she got a new tail!
This is Mykala’s new bike! We will go for wonderful rides.
My Mom listening to her card on Mother’s Day.
This video of an insanely detailed replica of R2-D2 dancing with little kids makes me happy to be able to spread the joy of things like this over the internet. If you’d like to know more about this amazing remote-controlled R2, check out Chris James’ website, artoo-detoo.net.
Neo: “I can publish content to the internet.”
Morpheus: “Show me.”
For $8, the Super Soaker Bottle Shot by Hasbro is one of the neatest toys I’ve seen in a while.
The Super Soaker Bottle Shot is a pump-action water blaster that allows you to choose how much ammo you want. Nearly any standard water or soft drink bottle attaches with a twist to the blaster!
It’s a sad weekend at the movies when we’ve got the formulaic What Happens in Vegas (40 at Metacritic) and what is apparently the really shiny turd of Speed Racer (36 at Metacritic)… and not much else. I wouldn’t condemn either of these films before seeing them, but things are not looking up. For those looking to see a good film, here are some I’ve been hoping to catch (all on limited release):
It just hasn’t gotten warm this year, so spring has been slow to… spring.
I take a picture like this just about every year, each time a little different. I love grass and sunsets, so here you are.
In this lovely classic Sesame Street video, Kermit sings about how to tell if something is alive. The song is great and the concept is rather timeless, but I implore you to watch and see what the Sesame Street version of a cow looks like. For some reason I think it’s hilarious.
On a recent walk with Mykala.
There’s something about this video of panda babies that makes the little ones look animatronic or something. Don’t get me wrong, they’re astoundingly cute, but they look like youngsters in suits or something. It could be that their movements resemble toddlers so much that it looks odd.
Lighting provided by a street lamp — good job, street lamp!
The lighting was perfect in the yard a few houses north of here.
This American Life tackles the sub-prime housing market. I’ve read economists writing about this crisis… and it’s rather difficult to understand. I mean, all this talk of AAA overrated paper, etc. — I got a vague idea of the topic, but I wanted something more. Soo, I read a glowing recommendation of This American Life’s coverage of the topic. A quick summary:
Again, a tree above was providing some fantastic diffuse lighting, which really helped soften this shot.
Kottke wrote a bit about the Pioneer probes this morning, and it got me reading about them elsewhere. A cursory introduction: the Pioneer space probes 10 and 11 are among the furthest man-made objects from Earth. They both exceeded their missions by spectacular degrees (staying in radio contact far longer than anticipated) and returned extraordinary amounts of information about our solar system in the process. For example, there is Pioneer 10, which was launched in 1972. And then, over 30 years later:
The two of us, before heading out for a nice evening.
Kathleen Connally’s picture of an orchard in the springtime is particularly lovely now that we finally have some blossoming spring buds of our own here in Minnesota.
Irn-Bru is a Scottish carbonated soda pop drink I’ve never heard of. It sounds a bit like Dr. Pepper, in the “hard to describe the taste” department:
The formula for Irn-Bru is a closely guarded trade secret, known only by two of Barr’s board members, with a written copy held in a Swiss bank-vault. As of 1999 it contained 0.002% of ammonium ferric citrate, sugar, 32 flavouring agents (including caffeine (though caffeine is not listed as an ingredient on the Australian labelling) and quinine) and two controversial colourings (E110, E124). It is advertised as having a slight citrus flavour, but many have differing opinions of the exact taste of Irn-Bru.
Irn-Bru has long been the most popular soft drink in Scotland, outselling Coca-Cola, but recent fierce competition between the two brands has brought their sales to roughly equal levels (perhaps leaning to Coca-Cola).
I read a single sentence today which struck me as an expression of an idea that is not usually written out. First, a bit of an introduction: I frequently search out conversations online that are carried on by thoughtful, considerate people. I can tell you from experience, you will not find such comments at the following places: Engadget (or any site owned by Weblogs, Inc.), Gizmodo, any site that is part of a “blogging network”, any newspaper website (these are particularly bad), ESPN, corporate blogs, and on and on. As such, I still use these websites for information, but I consciously force myself to avoid the comments — they’ll bring nothing but strife.
In the garden outside the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam.
Note the leaning houses; they lean forward so the hoist hooks at the top can be employed to move furniture in through the windows — the inside stairs are too small to move large furniture. Most every place in Amsterdam has these hoist hooks.
Amsterdam is absolutely covered in bicycles.
Uganda Skateboard Union’s Video Preview:
Please take a look at the talents of Uganda’s original skateboarders. The Uganda Skateboard Union has been successfully operating in a suburb of Kampala for over a year now. The organization is fighting idleness and boredom by introducing skateboarding to disadvantaged youth. The skate park shown in the video is the first and only park in the country and it was built entirely by hand by the youth of the community.
I had a wonderful weekend with Mykala: we celebrated my birthday Friday night with a little dental school shirt shopping and Cheesecake Factory dinner. It’s almost warm enough to eat outside — summer is still struggling to get its act together. I pretended to be warm for the duration of our meal out on the restaurant’s patio… but I somehow don’t think I was fooling anyone. If Mykala asks though, I was perfectly toasty — I have to maintain some masculine bravado, even if it’s only in the realm of temperature tolerance.
The Wikipedia entry on Stanford’s tree mascot is an excellent piece of work. Some excerpts:
The Stanford Tree is the unofficial mascot of Stanford University. Stanford’s team name is “The Cardinal,” referring to the vivid red color (not the common song bird as at several other schools), and the University has never been able to come up with an official mascot which adequately conveys the fierceness and sporting prowess it had hoped to symbolize with that particular shade of sanguine. This fact creates a void not typically found at schools with less-abstract symbols for their sports teams, and into this unfulfilled void the Stanford Band has insistently thrust what is one of the United States’ most bizarre and controversial college mascots.
Attention Richard Roche. Please come to think tumbledry link desk. ISO50 - The Visual Work of Scott Hansen — ISO50 Obama Print Out Now == mega awesome graphic design. I love the palette, typography, and the perfect little pieces of text at the bottom.
Here’s a fun bike; pretty typical for those stylish European riders.
In case you might be curious, tumbledry is going on the road for a while! I’m off to Amsterdam and Barcelona for a wonderful week with my family. It should be grand. I’m taking the camera with, so naturally I’m hoping for some fantastic shots. However, I will settle for mediocre shots that are foreign-looking.
Lots of elegant little details in a city as old as Amsterdam.
This gives a good idea of the lean of the row houses in Amsterdam.