World of Tomorrow interlude

aww, this stuff makes me sooo happy! This is a little featurette from the Seattle World's Fair that focuses on the telephones of tomorrow :)

Thank You TCM

For unearthing and sharing this lovely time capsule: travel bumf for Victoria and Vancouver from 1936 -- almost 75 years ago!!

Smashing!

Regular readers will know I am a fan of Cakewrecks and also of destruction so it shouldn't be a surprise that for my birthday, I asked for and got this:

But it still surprised most of the guests -- aside from my unbridled laughter and Hubby's crazy-guy noises, there was a moment of stunned silence. I think a few people thought Hubby had finally lost it. Instead, it was carefully planned right down to where we bought the cake (Costco -- we HATE their cakes. Eww icky, eww) but Hubby didn't tell me exactly what he would do. Unfortunately, it did scare one of our youngest guests (my sincere apologies to her and her parents -- we really didn't expect her to have a front row seat to the craziness). In the end, we enjoyed a very yummy Ben & Jerry's ice cream cake, some cheesecake, and other yummy treats.

But I think it will be a while before I get the last of the marischino cherries out of the lawn...

these make me smile

This video:

(found via Mental Floss -- the post includes other examples, too.)

This artwork by Kirsten Chursinoff:

It's fabric, it's west-coast and it features sea anenomes!


This History of Garden Gnomes -- especially after having recently received a triumphant text from Hubby that said simply "Gnomes!!" -- meaning he had found some suitable for zombification, adding to his rabbits and ducks.

Which reminds me, this zombie rabbit comic Hubby whipped up makes me smile too:

Sad song, decent video

The one problem with William Shatner's album Has Been is the lack of music videos. Thankfully, people have taken the situation into their own hands... here's a nice machinima* video for my favourite track off the album, "That's Me Trying"



Like it? Buy the album -- it's pretty much all that good.

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*machinima is apparently the term for this Sims-like animation. Now you know, too.

Celebration and organization.

Interesting (long) weekend. 

Friday was my first flex day of the year and I used the morning to pack up Christmas, at last. In the afternoon, I spent some time with my Mother-in-law. Later in the evening, we had friends over, doing some last-minute editing for what we would premiere Saturday.

Saturday morning we went out for a nice brunch at Floyd's Diner 2 after dropping bottles off for Kiddo's bottle drive then, on a whim, decided to renew our Costco membership. Then spend a chunk of cash on bulk buys (actually a third of the bill was for a variety of fresh, frozen and canned seafood). Saturday night, we celebrated a birthday -- this is the year when most of my friends hit 40 (and I will, too). To honour our friend, four of us conspired and conscripted many others to make a video (it's now on YouTube). It was well received (and I have to hand it to Hubby who managed to get the local morning show hosts to participate, albeit unknowingly).

Today started quiet and then I got a proverbial bee in my bonnet. By the time I was done whirling through the basement, I had cleared out or stowed about a dozen boxes, organized, and rearranged enough to be able to vacuum most of the carpet.

Now I'm settled in, watchching the largely surprise-free Golden Globe awards. Though I am now convinced I will have to see Slumdog Millionaire; I already watch the show that seems to be taking home all the awards, 30 Rock.

Effing Funny.

Regular reader(s) will know I am a fan of Gordon Ramsay. I also watch an unhealthy number of hours of cooking shows so, unlike the "normal people" in this video, I could read between the lines and figure out what Mister Ramsay was getting at. Still, this is a really effing funny video (full of strong effing language -- consider yourself warned):



The recipe they are trying to follow is this one for Brussels sprout and goat’s cheese souffles which -- I'm sorry Chef -- does not sound the least bit appetizing even before these geeks got hold of it.

Science in Song

This made my day. I expect this video has been making the rounds and so it should!! (For the record, I found it over at the Brain of Shawn) It's a rap video about particle physics.

No, really.

If you like Bill Nye , Beakman's World, Daily Planet or Mythbusters, or if you have any interest in physics or science education, this video is a must see.

And if you like it, check out the Large Hadron download page with links to the lyrics, video, and mp3 single. :)

And if that isn't enough geeky music fun, go check out these videos:

She Blinded me with Science -- Thomas Dolby (classic 80s synth pop)
Weird Science -- Oingo Boingo (the lead singer is Danny Elfman, best known for his many collaborations with Tim Burton)
The Elements Song -- sung by Tom Lehrer with LEGO animation and effects by David White
The Science in Me -- song by Outbox, X-Files montage by XFRachgaz
The Device Has Been Modified v2 -- CyberCat (music video inspired by and using footage from the game Portal)
Fire on Babylon -- song by Sinead O'Connor, Babylon 5 montage by Hubby :)

Little Amusements

Today, I got this message in my email box:

[Flickr] You are Barack Obama's newest contact!

Tee hee. I love that the Obama campaign has a Flickr account (of course they've also been using Twitter and Facebook and every other Web 2.0 widget to great effect -- just go to BarackObama.com and check out "Obama Everywhere" in the lower right column for all the links).

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Now that Hubby is approaching the finish line for his Cthulhu sculpture, I have suggested that his next undertaking resemble something like this zombie sculpture -- Kiddo said we need to have one on the front lawn to "scare off riff-raff" (yes, she did use those words exactly). She also said we would need a gravestone to go with the zombie.

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And, finally, if you haven't already seen it, take a look at the (almost) finished version of the stop-motion animation that Hubby and Kiddo made the week before our road trip:

Regrets...

This video is wonderful on several levels. Found via BoingBoing and well worth seeing (more than once):



It was created by searching Google for "my biggest regret" and using some of those words to illustrate the artist's song.

Donkey Rhubarb?

Yes, those two words do go together, if only in the title of this Aphex Twin track that I found via Nerd Litter (a blog I'll be re-visiting). The video features some disturbing bright-coloured teddy bears with grinning idiot human faces.... and yet, I couldn't stop watching it....

Mike's Big Four-OhhhhhhhhhYeah!

As the title implies, yesterday was Hubby's 40th. The morning started with gift-giving -- he finally got something he'd wanted for a long time:

Yep, robotic LEGO -- the foundation for his robot army.

For lunch, with family, we went to Don Mee's for dim sum (mmMMMmmm).

The big deal for the evening, though, was the pub-crawl and related merry-making. It was a challenge to figure out how it was going to play out -- apparently aging gen-xers don't really have anywhere to party in Victoria...

Just before we went out, Hubby received a birthday wish by video which has now, happily, been posted on YouTube for the world to see:



That put us in a pretty good mood as we walked to the first stop -- The Tudor House in Esquimalt. From there, the party moved to Bartholomew's where we were actually the youngest crowd in the house. After that, we wanted to see what had become of Hubby's beloved former hangout, the Old Bailey, which had been re-modeled into Smiths. It was kind of eurotrashy, but it served its purpose.

After that, we had some great debate about where to go. Several people headed for home but Hubby and I wanted to find somewhere with a dance floor. After a few attempts, we ended up at Hush (formerly Rumors) on Government street. It was a $9 cover and featured some of the lamest DJs I've ever suffered through. Honestly, the music was fine, but they had no control over the floor -- the music kept crashing into itself or slowing to a beat that ended up clearing the floor. Really, really lame. Sigh. We stayed about an hour, and just after midnight called it a night... but a good night.

Flickr Flap

Earlier this week, Flickr launched video capability, albeit limited (only Pro users may upload videos and only up to 90 seconds each), but a large part of the community doesn't seem to want it there at all:





There are, of course, groups: We Say NO to Videos on Flickr and NO VIDEO ON FLICKR!!

Personally, as much as I love Flickr, I am ambivalent about this move. I probably won't use it, since I already use YouTube, and when my Flickr Pro account comes up for renewal this month, I will pull out my credit card and ante up as usual.

On a lighter note...

.. much lighter....



This SNL skit, featuring Pete Schwetty (Alec Baldwin), the owner of Season's Eatings, is one of my favourites. The best part about it being on YouTube is that you can actually listen to it in the background, as if you were listening to NPR, and the jokes are just that much funnier.

Too cool not to share...

Honestly, I haven't cared about Douglas Copeland's writing since Microserfs (which is one of my favourite books, btw) though I will admit I haven't read J-Pod. His art, on the other hand, amuses me and makes me think. In Hey Nostradamus! there is a photo of one of Copeland's art installations called Tropical Birds (2003) which basically illustrates the disarray in the cafeteria following the Columbine High School Massacre. It's called Tropical Birds because of the "birdsong" created by all the cell phones and pagers "chirping" in the backpacks strewn around the cafeteria. Very haunting.

This little video clip, commissioned by Randomhouse.ca according to the small print, made me want to find out more about The Gum Thief and/or Glove Pond.



As it turns out, Glove Pond is the novel within the novel The Gum Thief, Copeland's latest. Glove Pond is written by a bitter would-be novelist who is stuck working at Staples. I shall have to read this book as I do have a soft-spot for that kind of metafiction.

Halloween Link-O-Rama

1. Etsy's Costume Contest (this was only open to Americans. Sigh.) -- Winners did show off some very clever costumes; my favourite is probably the shrimp costume for an infant. [Another great/simple costume idea: be a LEGO brick.]

2. Skeletal Looney Tunes Characters on display; not nearly as impressive as the 3D Looney Tunes skeletons by Hyungkoo Lee, but still amusing.

3. Best use ever for an old Mac: Mac-O-Lanterns. (Yes, I do think it's better than the MacAquarium, because it takes less maintenance!)

4. Has Al Gore got to you? Some thoughts on how to go Green for Halloween.

5. Feeling the need for something creepier? Here's an easy way to put a head in a jar and a sea creature that is likely to give me nightmares... or at least make me less likely to put my finger in the touch-and-feel tank at the aquarium.

6. Last but not least, please consider watching this educational video on How to Survive a Zombie Attack: