Got Green Goo?

"Why, yes, I did know you made a batch of granny smith / pear / spinach juice with the new juicer you got for Christmas, but I honestly have no idea what happened to it"

The End Flickr Set

Here's an interesting set of "TheEnd"s from various movies and TV shows. As always, I'm fascinated by this sort of collection. Click the pic to see the full set.

(Thanks to boingboing.net for putting me on to this, and thanks to DillPixels for putting up the set!)

A flickr meme

Here's a neat little flickr meme: You type your answers to the questions below into Flickr's search engine and choose a picture from the first page of results to make an image board with. Copy the urls into mosaic maker and voilà, an instant blog post with very little thinking required! The result is presented at right.

1. What is your first name?
2. What is your favorite food?
3. What high school did you attend?
4. What is your favorite color?
5. Who is your celebrity crush?
6. Favorite drink?
7. Dream vacation?
8. Favorite dessert?
9. What do you want to be when you grow up?
10. What do you love most in life?
11. One word to describe you?
12. Your Flickr name?

Flickr video

So flickr has added videos, but with a 90 second limit. They're billing it as photos that move. Interesting choice. I think I like it. There was no way they'd compete with youtube, so this positions them as the repository for videos from digital cameras - and provides the opportunity for a sort of "twitter for videos". The restriction placed on it may just provoke new creativity. I for one am looking forward to seeing what happens.

World Famous photographer

The title of this post refers to me. Yes, one of my photos has been published in a newspaper in Japan! Better still, the photo is of a work of art created by... me!

A few weeks after I posted the pic of my first turnip-carving to flickr, I was contacted by someone from a japanese freebie newspaper who wondered if they could use it in their paper. They agreed to restrict use of the photo to a single use, give me credit for the photo,and send me a copy of the paper when the issue came out. Well, my newspaper arrived just before thanksgiving, but I've only just got around to taking some pics of it. Check out the images above right:

Now I just need to know what it says. Is some part of this my name? Which part? Can anyone help me out with a translation? (close up of the text here).

Incidentally, I quite enjoyed the graphics in this little paper. I'll include a mosaic in the post - click the mosaic to see the full-sized pics, and my comments.

Decorations in ABC of Cookies

I don't even recall where I picked up this little cookbook - 61 pages of cookie recipes, with a short rhyme and an illustration for each letter of the alphabet. Both the illustrations and the 'poems' are charmingly dated. I love the 'way to a man's heart is through his stomach' vibe on the poem at right. And now I wonder if our cookie press is sufficiently chic. I smile every time I flip through this book. I've posted the whole set to flickr as a set:ABC of Cookies Have a look!

PS: As I noted in the flickr set, these illustrations by Ruth McCrea are from the 1961 book "ABC of Cookies" from the Peter Pauper Press. I don't own the rights to these. If you do, and wish me to remove them, just let me know! I've listed these in flickr as copyrighted to head off inadvertent copying, but I do NOT own the copyright to these images. The book appears to be out of print. Thanks!

Onanism

I've been passing this sign on the way home from work for several weeks, now, and I laugh every time I see it. For those who don't know, Onan is mentioned in a story in the bible related to some ancient jewish marriage practices. Onan didn't follow them, and god killed him. The kicker is that the way in which Onan opted not to follow these practices led to a version of his name (onanism) being used as a synonym for masturbation. I imagine this scene playing out...

"Onan Place Condos? I'd never live there. Those people are a bunch of jerk-offs."

I wonder why, after deciding on a name for their projects, people don't just google it. Maybe I could start a company offering that service. About to give a name to your housing development, your child, or your pet? For a small fee, I'll research the name and provide you with possible embarassing associations with that name. Let's say $100 for simple search, or $250 for something more in depth. Any takers?

Science Tattoos

Recently, I've been thinking of getting a tattoo. Trouble is, after a few months, I get bored with most graphic images, and tattoos are notoriously difficult to remove.

Anyway, whilst surfing today, I came across this flickr set - science tattoos. Some pretty neat ideas. Maybe a molecule tattoo! Now why didn't I think of that? But which molecule? Or more likely, I'll just go with a Trogdor tattoo (with consumate Vs!). More likely yet, I'll chicken out and never get one at all. Well, it's nice to think about anyway.

Tattoo suggestions welcome in the comments!

Chain of Interest

So today at lunch, I was starting to hit my standard links on the web, and I noticed this odd little pic in the "Everyone's Photos" bar. It's the one at left (or maybe not exactly that one, but one like it. Intriguing, no? I pulled it up, and started looking around at the other pics of 'Maxim Northover'. There were a bunch of interesting ones... the one at right, for instance.
Well, that lead me to search for more info on the guy (it's not stalking, if you only do it on the internet, right?) eventually leading me to this website, Sensitive Materials. It's kind of an interesting concept. I'll let them describe it:

Sensitive Material is a new platform for photographers working in the medium of moving image, designed to offer work that sits in the gap between video-art and cinema an opportunity to be formally screened.

I'm mesmerized by the photos, already. I only hope that some of the submissions will be screened on the internet. I want to know more!

Cliffside park

I spent part of the morning wandering around Cliffside park in Racine county this morning, getting muddy and shooting pics. I found all manner of things... unidentifiable wildflowers (what is that three petalled yellow one in the mosaic?), butterflies(the little guy in the top row of the mosaic was fearless, repeatedly landing on me, and letting me take macro shots from an inch away!), fossils (clusters of fossilized shells), and tracked down the rusted out truck again (noticed some old grafitti on it: "I kissed Kim Unrein here 3-26-81 6:22"). I took a load of pics, check out my flickr account for the full set! Best of all, I got home just as it started to rain. Nice timing, eh?

24 hours of flickr

Neat little flickr event coming up: 24 hours of flickr. The idea is that you document your day in photos and then select the best photo and contribute it to the flickr pool. A caveat: you will be giving whoever is running this event the right to use your photo in a commemorative book. They promise more details about this are forthcoming. Even if I don't contribute to the pool, I plan to photograph my day. Sounds like a fun experiment, no?

See here for details, and to join the flickr pool.

(If you don't already have an account at flickr, don't worry. Basic accounts are free and very nice, although somewhat addictive. Pay accounts are even better and more addictive - though, last I checked, only a couple of bucks a month)

The Girl's New Class

The Girl started a new class last week, and I love it! It's a drama class that's offered through First Stage. This installment is something about asian myths. She's gone to two so far, and is definitely digging the class. She got to be one of the Tigers as they worked on the story about how the tiger got it's stripes. The Girl informs me, based on a related unit at school that it is a 'Just So' story. Huh. I thought those were fables. Go figure.

But from my point of view, the class and her enjoyment of it are only a small part of the fun. Why? Because, the class meets int he Milwaukee Education Center's building on the border of the Schiltz Park and Haymarket Square neighborhoods. Which means it's just across the river from the Brady Street area! So, while she learns more about drama (and she's already filled with drama, if you ask me), I get to hang out in my post-college neighborhood again! An hour at Rochambo here, an hour shooting Photos in Schlitz Park there, maybe throw in lunches with The Girl at my favorite little hole-in-the-wall restaurants (Abu's, for instance!), and you've got yourself a happy Fishmonger!

Ayrie's Masks

This flickr set has photos of some amazing carved wood masks. They're stunning - beautiful and powerful. Have a look, the thumbnail (assuming I can manage to load it) won't do it justice.