You see, I’m engaged in what one might well describe as a marathon. A MARATHON WITHIN.
I’m growing a beard. It takes about 5 weeks to get a full beard. I’m in the mid-stages of the operation now, and so it’s a test of my courage as to whether I should give it up and shave all my progress off, or wait it out. Why quit now? Well, it’s not a very good look at the moment – if I go out in public like this, people will be like “Oh, poor guy thinks he’s got a beard”.
The original ghostbusters music video. God yes.
It has loads of celebrities (chevy chase, danny devito etc) singing along, and they’re not even in the ghostbusters film. Weird!
And here’s a naive commercial for ghostbusters toys:
I got Guitar Hero 2 this morning and proceeded henceforth to rock out.
I also got some DVDs, a CD, clothes and some money. We had a massive Christmas meal and now i’m off to make some Swedish Glögg (basically mulled wine with vodka in it! rejoice).
Interesting interview with Gorillaz visionary, Jamie Hewlett
Sir David Attenborough was recently voted greatest living cultural icon in Britain. He has taught us to look around and appreciate the planet. Here’s a clip from Planet Earth – his recent wildly popular documentary series of epic proportions. If you have not heard of this series, I implore you to find it somewhere. It’s full of the most beautiful photography and amazing information, coupled with beautiful original music and of course, the infallible guidance and narration of Sir David.
Fascinating hmm? I’m going to get the Planet Earth series 1 DVD box set (which looks very pretty). The clip from the second series.
The Boston Typewriter Orchestra makes music using… well, what do you think?
Check it out, there are some mp3s for download on their site.
The Big Box of Preparedness
A billboard on I-95 in Connecticut asks, “Does your family have an emergency plan?” Er, no. Leslie Fastenberg, a self-described soccer mom from Old Westbury, N.Y., steps into the breach with a mammoth (and stylish) emergency kit called the ICE-Qube. The 85-pound box is stocked with enough necessities, she said, for a family of four to survive for four days: $850 plus shipping at (516) 650-7690 or ice-qube.com. Over 100 items are within, like toothbrushes, a crank radio, Jif peanut butter and condoms. I wondered about those last two items. “What, do you want the peanut butter from Whole Foods instead?” she said, adding that condoms were a “high-value, small-mass product.” PENELOPE GREEN
From the New York Times
First, check out Mike Libby’s pretty recycled-bug creations from his “Insect Lab“:
Now check out this cool contraption made from bicycle parts which has been taught to dance to Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker Suite!
And the artwork of Theo Kamecke – made from circuit boards!
And here’s something else you might class as mechanical art (or nerd art) – A beautiful scene from Transformers:
Look at this beautiful demo reel of the work of pioneering stopmotion animator Ray Harryhausen. A lot of it is probably familiar to you already!
I saw this “comic” in a linguistics textbook at college and took a picture of it with my camera phone.
It’s funny, right? I lolled.
Here are some fascinating images. Some of the earliest colour photographs. It’s bizarre to see this era in colour.
Great photographs too, even by today’s standards.
An e-friend of mine just made this great find!
Cool statues from all over the world. This one seemed so wonderfully unlikely (to be standing outside an institute of microbiology in GERMANY of all places):
And then I realised that it’s the University i’ll possibly be spending half of my third year at college in.
This short film is so brilliant. The acting and timing (direction, I suppose!) is so subtle and clever.
Enjoy
Started Medieval Dutch today. It’s neat.
Aaand I doodled this on the blackboard before the tutorial:
The world is a better place now
On Tuesday evening the Photographic Society at college had an exhibition at Filmbase, and I had a little wall to myself. The lighting on the pictures wasn’t the best, but it was good enough, and everything else was great. There was cheese and wine and a rather good selection of “music-to-mingle to”. I enjoyed some of my fellow photographer’s pictures too!
I didn’t actually take any pictures unfortunately, except for with my camera phone. They are really bad, and I accidentally deleted the best one when trying to send it to myself. Here they are:
As I walked back from the exhibition, I encountered this strange scene:
A rather nice car, manned by a young boy (or an androgynous lady), was pulled over and surrounded by policemen. The driver looked quite distressed under questioning. Maybe he stole the car, or if it’s a lady, maybe she just took her husband’s car without actually being insured to drive it, or without his permission.
Whatever the case, that was something interesting to think about as I walked.
