Month: August 2012

On The Other Hand

13 August is “Left Handers’ Day,” and since Friday the 13th comes on a Monday this month, it means a whole week of bad luck – but only for those of the dextral persuasion.

My first inkling that things were not equal, at least handed-wise, was with the q-shaped school desks. Occasionally there was a single p-shaped desk per classroom, but that was a rarity, so us lefties adapted without complaint.

Later on it was penmanship, where part of the grade dismissed content and replaced it with “neatness.”  To further embarrass us non-dextralites, they made us put little green plastic thingys on our pencils and pens as if we didn’t now how to grasp them properly. As late as 4th grade, Mrs. Mikulski grabbed and twisted my hand because I was “hooking” in order to write in cursive with the proper slant.

And all this happened in Public School. Continue reading “On The Other Hand”

12/8/12 8:12:8

Didja miss it? We didn’t. Day/Month/Year; Hour : Minute : Second.

REDTRUNK

The hills of Western Hungary, after a flood of toxic red sludge from an alumina plant engulfed several towns and burned people through their clothes.

Nope. Not a Photoshop.

[Found here.]

Saturday Matinee – Vietnamese Coffee, One Small Plate For Man, Virtual Choir 3.0 & Buster Keaton

“How To Make Vietnamese Coffee.” (Hint: Step 1. Go to Vietnam.)

Neil Armstrong’s “That’s one small step for man…” could be translated “Un petit pas pour l’homme,” and the title of the film is “Un petit plat pour l’homme” can be  translated as “One Small Dish For Man”

3rd year animation project (assigned subject “Kitchen”) from Charron/Onectin via email. Very cool.

Eric Whitacre‘s Virtual Choir 3 is awesome and kinda creepy at the same time.

His call for the Virtual Choir 3.0, which included a purpose-built website to make video collection easier and more uniform, set a new record. It included 3476 videos from 76 different nations, including one from Vanuatu. That is the video you see above.

[Found here.]

Buster Keaton’s 1926 comedy The General is based on a real event. In April 1862 a group of Union volunteers hijacked a Confederate train in Georgia and led the rebels on an 88-mile, six-hour chase through the state, tearing up tracks and cutting telegraph lines as they went and releasing cars behind them to slow their pursuers. The conspirators ran out of fuel just short of Chattanooga, their goal, but the Union awarded a Medal of Honor to most of them for the exploit.
…
“I was more proud of that picture than any I ever made,” Keaton said in 1963. “Because I took an actual happening out of the … history books, and I told the story in detail, too.”

[Found here.]

That’s probably enough stuff to keep you out of trouble for a while. Have a great weekend, folks, and hope tomorrow is cooler.

The .Gif Friday Post No.240 – Pondering Sloth, Godzilla Madhouse & Catbox WTF

[Found here, here and here.]

We modified all three animations. We don’t take credit for resizing, only for looping/reversing/stitching and other modifications, and we link to the sources where we found them.

A Faux Ignosecond

Yeah, smells like photoshop. How many flaws can you spot?

[Found here.]

Oops

No idea if that photo was staged, but it doesn’t matter because it made me smile. [Found in here.]

Stalking Stalkers

“Here. Hold my beer. They gotta be out there somewhere.”

[Tip o’ the tarboosh to K. Wolff.]

Catbox Triptych

Definitely NOT a Skogkatt.

[Found here.]

Freyja & The Skogkatt

From Snorri Sturluson’s Prose Edda:

Freyja is the most famous of the goddesses. She has in heaven a dwelling which is called Fólkvangr, and when she rides to the battle, one half of the slain belong to her, and the other half to Óðinn… When she goes abroad, she drives in a wagon drawn by two cats.

I’d say those two cats have some nice penmanship, but there’s more to them than that. They were huge, mean and they loved to draw. They were The Skogkatt.

[More here.]