- evian Spider-Man – The Amazing Baby & me 2 – YouTube
Weird commercial for Evian featuring Spider-Man and Spider-Baby.
- Collabro sing Stars from Les Misérables | Britain’s Got Talent 2014 – YouTube
This audition from “Britain’s Got Talent” was quite astounding. Not just for the skill of the group, but for the absolute reversal on the judge’s faces from before they started singing to after they finished.
- Death Waltz Synthesia – YouTube
Which doesn’t stop people from trying to play it. Here’s a version of the Death Waltz played on the piano-learning game Synthesia.
- John Stump, composer of Faerie’s Aire and Death Waltz | Lost in the Cloud
A brief blog post about the life and works of John Stump, a musical parodist of a higher order. Many of his works were parodies of musical composition rather than music itself, including the ‘unplayable’ “Faerie’s Aire and Death Waltz”.
- Unusual Black and White Squirrel With Blue Eyes
Man finds rare black & white squirrel outside his office building.
- Drive Recklessly – YouTube
Drive recklessly. Because not every pedestrian is a good person.
Category: x-personal
Random and intermittent postings about life, the universe, etc..
Whatever happened to the tribe of two sheiks?
It used to be that the only hummus you could find in a grocery store here in the US was sold in a yellow and red plastic tub with a drawing of two guys on camels. Then, sometime in the last few years they dropped the sheiks from the package and just started calling themselves “Tribe” which I attributed to the company trying to save sales in the face of rampant Islamaphobia. Now, the yellow and red is gone in lieu of a clear package the lets you look at the hummus before you buy it (in case it’s actually ranch dip and not hummus?). They’ve also taken the opportunity to go way way to cutesy with the ad-copy on the package.
First we have, as
Once you start eating the hummus there’s more screed on the inside.
And finally the entire tub of hummus is MADE WITH LOVE and other actual ingredients.
I don’t think the quality of the hummus has suffered for all the re-packaging but now I’m just less inclined to buy it.
Protected: Throwback Thursday – UB Mural
Throwback Thursday – Scotland
Okay, so this Throwback Thursday thing sounds like a neat way to start sharing some of the videos and photos I’ve taken over the years and never gotten around to doing anything with. So here goes with some videos from our last trip to Scotland, 22 September 2012.
These first couple videos show the looms working on the ground floor of the Tartan Weaving Mill & Exhibition in Edinburgh, Scotland. You can see a few looms weaving away and some men fixing another loom that’s stopped running.
In this video I caught part of a march for Scottish Independence that started somewhere on Bank Street and ended up in the amphitheater in the Princes Street Gardens.
Protected: ♫ On my way to where the air is gray! Can you tell me how to get, how to get to Erie PA?
Recommendations
Two things I highly enjoyed this last week:
1) “A Stranger” by Humbabella – I think this captures the horror of what traveling through time would really be like.
2) Mini Metro by Dinosaur Polo Club – This is a really addictive game that gives you the chance to design your own subway system. You can add extra lines, tunnel under the river, and reconstruct the entire system at a whim – as long as you keep the commuters happy. My record so far is Wednesday of the fourth week.
It’s in pre-release alpha right now so there’s still plenty of features to come but I’m already addicted. You can play in the browser, or download a standalone version for Windows, Mac, or Linux. They’re also in contention to have the game available on Steam.
Delicious Links for 2014-03-10
- Homemade Girl Scout Cookies: Gluten Free Thin Mints | Baking Bites
I made these cookies for my physical therapist after she couldn’t have the cocoa snowflakes I made for the whole office back in December. I think this kind of cookie is well suited to gluten-free versions, the crunchiness is intentional and the mint help mask any flavors left from the bean flour. If you try these start with way less butter in the chocolate, or better yet use coconut oil.
- Photos Of Nude Dancers Show A Very Different Side Of The Human Body (NSFW)
Very powerful and dynamic images. The addition of dust to the photoshoot really helps capture the movement of the dancers.
- The Blood Harvest – Alexis C. Madrigal – The Atlantic
I’d just heard about how horseshoe crabs play a vital part in ensuring the safety of medical supplies when this article came along to fill in the details.
- ThinkGeek :: This is Spinal Tape
This is an absolutely horrible pun, and you really can only use it in very limited circumstances, so why am I so tempted to buy it?
- jwz: Crystal Head Vodka Forensic Facial Reconstruction
A forensic artist took a bottle of Dan Akroyd’s Crystal Skull Vodka and reconstructed the face that went with the skull. A) I’m a bit disappointed it wasn’t actually Dan Akroyd, though I do like the jolly pirate look. B) I wonder if the large bottle and the small bottle have the same face.
- Mini Fashion Designer Creates Amazing Dresses Out of Paper and Tape – Mommy Shorts
Four year old girl starts to create her own clothes out of paper. They started out pretty basic and have since moved onto some very elaborate and inspired designs.
- Robotic Garden Lamps Can Follow Your Guests Around the Party
Really neat prototypes for programmable lanterns atop quadruped legs, designed to walk around the backyard.
- All RGB colors in one image | Joco blog
Thanks AndrewDucker! Programmer accepts challenge to write program that creates images using every single RGB color exactly once. Creates art.
- Everything that’s wrong with the suburbs, in one image | Grist
Basically: meandering streets equals wandering for miles with no access to stuff.
- Mini Metro
So much fun. This little game puts you in control of a growing city’s subway system. Start with three stops and see how far you can get. The online version runs on Unity, but there are standalone downloadable versions for Windows, Mac, and Linux. The game is also in contention for availability on Steam.
Protected: Surgery report!
Delicious Links for 2014-03-05
- German Language Compared to other Languages – YouTube
I know German has an unfair reputation about how scary it sounds, but I still laughed at this video.
- DVE Comedy Festival – Bert Kreischer – The Machine – YouTube
A great story about how this comedian became mixed up in the Russian mafia and accidentally robbed a train.
- Brian Williams Raps “Rapper’s Delight” – YouTube
Jimmy Fallon’s first week as host of ‘Late Night’ provided this excellent gem: Brian Williams “singing” Rapper’s Delight via cut and pasted footage. I suppose this also points out that celebrities, and especially broadcasters trained to speak in a consistent voice, would have an awfully difficult time making use of voice recognition locks.
- Viola organista made by Sławomir Zubrzycki – YouTube
This Polish pianist built an instrument sketched out by Leonardo da Vinci, using circular bows continuously pumped with a treddle. It has the sound of a deeper stringed instrument, plays like a piano, and can sustain a note forever.
- “Just Don’t Go” (Parody of “Let It Go” by Idina Menzel from Disney’s “Frozen”) – YouTube
Cincinnati weatherman parodies “Let It Go”, taking on the bad snow and the people who insist on driving in it.
- Things Cats Do That’d Be Creepy If You Did Them – YouTube
Similar to “Cat-friend vs Dog-friend”, it takes a video where you substitute a grown man for an animal to realize how creepy our pets are.
Halfway up the mountain
* Gill and I decided to take a ride up Mount Doom Diablo today (I still can’t believe we actually live near Mount Diablo. It’s like we’re living in a bad fantasy movie or something.) Anyways, it was fun. Once you get past the super-expensive homes at the base of the mountain, the road into the park itself barely qualifies as two lanes, and the lane up the mountain is right on the edge. There were some great views here, but only a single place to pull over and park right before the gate and the Ranger’s station. We had a great view looking south though.
As you can tell, the slight overcast we experienced on the ground had turned into full-on fog up the mountain, and it only got worse the higher we climbed. We passed several camping and picnic areas, with the fog getting worse and worse, until we finally decided to turn around even before we got to the road leading to the summit. I think we only got as high as 2200 feet before the fog became too thick to continue driving.
On our way back down we stopped at this little picnic area called the “Bridal Nook Picnic Area”. It was literally a half-dozen muddy steps up to a picnic table and grill, but the fog really made it magical.
We stopped again about halfway back to the gatehouse and did a little walking on a trail. Unfortunately, the trails are all hard-packed dirt and had turned into mud with the last several days of rain, but we managed to pick our way over to what would have been a beautiful view, if the fog wasn’t in.
All in all it was quite an adventure. I’m amazed at how green everything was, especially as I can count the number of days of rain we’ve seen since we moved here on both hands (as a sign at the park entrance said “The fire danger today is LOW”.)
* On the way back home we stopped in Danville to have a bit of a walk on the Iron Horse Trail. We also found where the Trader Joe’s, Post Office, and Z Pizza are in Danville, so that’s handy.
* Speaking of Trader Joe’s, we did a brief bit of shopping. The cookie butter is so good but so bad for us. And the freeze-dried unsweetened blueberries are fantastic!