Tuesday, November 28, 2006

Reflection Too

Well, this has been a productive evening, or rather morning, I guess.
I can hear Mary Dean getting up and I'm about ready to go to bed.
6:24 a.m. Terrific.

Monday, November 27, 2006

Reflection

Poor Sarah is missing a finger on her left hand. Lucky for her she has an extra on the right.
Wierd how I can see things here that I don't notice on the actual drawing.

Sarah Works On Her Self Portrait

Sarah was messing around with

my camera on Thanksgiving

and trying to take her picture

in the mirror. It's harder than it

looks. I think the two on the left

might make a good diptych.

Saturday, November 25, 2006

Best Place to Watch a Sunset


Fantastic sunset off of the back deck a few days ago, I finally got the pictures downloaded from my camera tonight.
Bosco got his stitches out yesterday so we'll eventually get to go back to the dog park which is the absolute best place to watch the sunset.
He doesn't mind going to the vets' until they try to take him into the back, he knows that can't be good. The receptionists' counter is made of some sort of highly polished stone and when they came to get him he leapt up onto it and slid across it and into her lap.

Friday, November 24, 2006

Homemade Bread

I baked my first edible loaf of bread yesterday (earlier efforts have produced nice doorstops) and I have another one in the oven now. Really very good with a hard crust outside and chewy inside with big holes in the bread. It's very similar to the bread you get these days at gourmet restaurants. I'm thinking of Bang! (the salmon with wasabi cream sauce is incredible), where they serve it with sweet cream butter and I think it comes from Denver Bread Co. It's super easy and quick to put together. You stir together 3 Cups of bread or all purpose flour (I used bread flour) 1/4 tsp. Instant yeast, 1 1/4 tsp salt, 1 1/2 Cup water and then you let it sit for 12 to 18 hours in a bowl covered with plastic. No kneading. You just stir it with your hands and let it sit. It won't look right, it's too stringy and wet and shaggy looking but it will be fine.
After the better part of a day you fold it over on itself, right, left, top, bottom, wrap it in a floured towel, seam side down and let it sit for 2 more hours. My place is a little chilly so I put it on the bed under a quilt. 30 minutes before it's ready to bake put a covered casserole or Dutch oven into the oven at 480 degrees and let it heat up with the oven. After 30 minutes are up, dump the dough into the hot Dutch oven, seam side up this time, cover it with the lid and bake 30 minutes at 480. Remove the lid and bake another 5 - 15 minutes until it's golden brown if necessary (it usually isn't and you risk burning the bottom) and then cool on a cooling rack (I don't have one so I just set it on the burner on top of the stove). This is a link to the video tutorial, not that you need it, it's just to show you that yes, that's really all there is to it.
This is almost impossible to mess up. I've made all sorts of mistakes and it always turns out great.


Here is an update on the no knead that supposedly improves it though I was pretty impressed with the original myself.
http://blog.seattlepi.nwsource.com/devouringseattle/archives/128938.asp

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Thursday, November 23, 2006

Improv Everywhere

This is hysterical. It's called "Improv Everywhere" and it's been going on since 2001. The group does stuff like:
Have everyone go into Best Buy dressed in khaki pants & navy blue shirts (which is what all the employees wear).
Hold a synchronized swimming competition in a public fountain in the middle of New York City.
Check their backpacks into the coat check in a bookstore with their cell phones inside them. Have all the phones with the same ring go off, one after the other. Then one does a solo. Then they all go off at once in a grand finale and then total silence.
Go into a Starbucks and perform a certain set of actions, then do the same exact set of actions again and again, and again, and again.... A time loop.
I guess it's kind of like Candid Camera. Except they don't fess up afterwards and tell people what's happening, they just dissappear.

Wednesday, November 22, 2006

Tessellations & M.C. Echer

Found this site (tessellations.org) recommended in this thread on AskMeFi. It's on tessellations and how to make them. Tessellations are those drawings that M.C. Echer did, the ones with the repeating patterns.Here is a blurb from the site recommending a book on it.
"...One book I would recommend above all others was written by a quilt designer and not a mathematician. She began at the beginning and investigated it all from scratch. As such, it is easy to understand and full of diagrams and lavish illustrations - 'Designing Tessellations' by Jinny Beyer (ISBN 0-8092-2866-1)"
I've ordered it at the library but I think I may try it this weekend from the instructions on the website.

Curious Sofa

I love this website, especially the magnifying glass. The items are great but it's the design of the website that is just enchanting me. It's called Curious Sofa. I like the accordian music.
I think the name is from an Edward Gorey story.

Tuesday, November 21, 2006

Gethuman.com

Gethuman.com will tell you how to bypass many automated answering systems

The Met - Working for a Safer London

I love following threads online. I clicked on a link in a story about Jack the Ripper, they've gone through old reports of witness descriptions of him and have come up with a sketch. Anyway, The link took me to the London Metropolitan Police website. I bet they have one for Scotland yard as well. It just never occurred to me to go poke around on websites in other countries. Duh.
On further research The Met and Scotland Yard (really New Scotland Yard) are the same thing. Scotland yard, according to Wikipedia, is the headquarters of the Metropolitan Police and was originally located on Great Scotland Yard Street, thus the name.

Metropolitan Police Service Headquarters
New Scotland Yard Broadway London
SW1H 0BG
Telephone: 0207 230 1212 (switchboard)

Also interesting is how often, these days, I am directed to Wikipedia when I type something into a search engine.

Monday, November 20, 2006

Instructables How to Make..........

Found another website I like and spent another evening wandering around looking at stuff. This one is called Instructables and tells how to make things.
Another site where anyone can post. Some very interesting things here. Great learning website. I've tried the Paperless Paperclip (ugly, but it works) and the Folded Paper CD Case (also works just fine, not so ugly) and I really want to try the Very, Very Cool Lamp Shade. I need to collect a bunch of empty milk jugs to try it.
How to make a Paperless Paperclip
Folded Paper CD case
Orgami CD case
Use a microfiber dust cloth instead of a tack cloth
Folded Paper Envelope
Solar Sun Lamp out of a jar
Very, Very Cool Lamp Shade
Dixie Cup Spherical Dodecahedron
Flashlight in a Tic Tac Box

Sunday, November 19, 2006

Portrait

I love this picture of Bosco. Such a hansome guy.

Saturday, November 18, 2006

Chew by Numbers and the Gum Tree

Here is another take on paint by numbers at Perpetual Kid. I really thought I was reading it wrong at first but yes, it is Chew by Numbers. There are two choices: a Tulip or a Face in an apple with big red lips. A picture made out of chewing gum. Keeps it from getting stuck under the table and then transferring to your knees, I suppose. They don't show real life examples, too bad. I'd like to see what it looks like but not in person, over the internet would be close enough.
OK, now I've found a website called Gum Art by the creator of the chew by numbers kit. Many, many pictures rendered in chewing gum. Very, very strange. I think it would qualify as one of those presents that you get for the children of people you don't like, or for the ones that gave your child the drum set. My jaw hurts thinking about it.
Here is a line from the artists mission statement: "...hundreds of people to donate wads of chewed gum to my palette. I've learned that almost everyone loves gum so I give the sweet, chewy stuff to anyone wanting to re-experience the joy of chewing. Of course, they have to give it back when they're done." It just gets better and better. Can you imagine the child of your target friend approaching delicatessen waitresses, people on the street, or the ticket taker at the movie theatre and asking: "Please, may I have your gum for my chew by numberts art project?"
There used to be a gum tree at the old Eliches. It was this huge tree right in the middle of where the line for the old Wild Cat Roller Coaster was with hundreds, maybe even thousands, of pieces of gum stuck to it. They made you spit your gum out before you got on the Wildcat so that you wouldn't swallow it and choke while you were screaming. It became tradition to stick it on the tree instead. I wonder what happened to that tree.
I heard from Sarah this past weekend that they are closing the big, new Eliches. I always hated that they moved it, sold out to Six Flags and "improved" it. I wonder what will happen to the old wooden rollercoaster. It just isn't the same without the gum tree though.

Friday, November 17, 2006

Fluffy Mackerel Pudding

Supernaturale is definitely my new favorite blog. It has lots of cool stuff and links to cool stuff. This is one of the best. It's a bunch of weight watcher recipe cards from the 70's that someone found in her parent's basement. Read the little story and then start with the first card (Cabbage Casserole Czarina) and keep hitting the arrows at the bottom. Be sure to read the commentary to the right of the cards, seriously funny. My favorite has to be "Fluffy Mackerel Pudding". On top of everything else there is no nutritional or caloric information. I think the idea of the diet is that you could only eat so much before your gag reflex kicked in.
If you enjoyed that you may as well click on the link for Cates Garage, then go to "Romance Novels". Cates Garage consists of printed materials that Cate finds at garage sales with commentary similar to the sidebars for the recipe cards.

Thursday, November 16, 2006

Animal Hospital

Bosco and I went to stay with Sarah while her Mom was out of town. Bosco has hurt his leg again and Angel got hit by a car when she made a break for it out the garage door. It was like an episode of Animal Hospital. Total slapstick with Bosco hopping around on three legs and Angel banging into everything with one of those Elizabethan doggie collars she has to wear because otherwise she picks her stitches out with her teeth. They are both so stupidly cheerful. I kept forgetting to open the doors far enough to accommodate both Angel and the collar but she just kept wagging her tail, plowing things down with the collar and knocking others over with her tail.
Sarah (in the photo) is wearing the Porky Pig pajama pants she found when we went to the thrift shop on Saturday. I can't believe she liked going to the thrift store with me. Cool kid.
I'm sure Bosco injured his leg chasing squirrels. He's obsessed with them. He goes blasting across the yard and then does this heavy pawed, bouncing stop at the base of whatever the squirrel has run up. He looks like a mountain goat. I'm thinking that's when he came down on the sharp lawn edging and cut his leg. He gets his stitches out next Friday. $450 worth. For now he chases them down on three legs.
The squirrels, not the stitches.

Wednesday, November 15, 2006

Tree House

I love this "spherical tree house". Hung by ropes in the old growth forests on Vancouver Island they look like big eyeballs. Via Supernaturale. Tom Chudleigh’s rock-a-bye shelters are about the size of a 12 x 12 room. I want one.
This is also very cool. Another article at Supernaturale, stuff made out of cardboard. A new kind of lawn chair. You place the cardboard chair on the lawn, fill the spaces with dirt, add seeds, water and you have your own chia chair. Definitely makes me wish I understood physics.
Temporary shelters at The Paper House.

Tuesday, November 14, 2006

The Leonids

The Leonids are coming through on Friday. This is usually the best meteor shower of the year, at least it has been for me. They say this year should be good so I hope it's a clear night. I should go see what phase the moon is in. Here's the little blurb I heard it from. On Metafilter When the Earth passes through the remains of the this coming weekend, the peak of the Leonid meteor shower this year will be this coming Friday night. This year, however, on the and long before the moon rises. While not as exciting as in some other years it should be a great night for a meteor shower. I checked on the moon phase. : waning crescent with 9% of the moon's visible disk illuminated. As long as the skies are clear it should be a good night for shooting stars. Here is a link for the phases of the moon on any given day. http://aa.usno.navy.mil/faq/docs/moon_phases.htmlIt is on the US Navy Observatory Site which has a lot of good information in general.
http://aa.usno.navy.mil/

Friday, November 10, 2006

Bread in a Rice Cooker & How To Fold a T-shirt

Here's a recipe for cooking bread in a rice cooker in a Japanese Anime video. Very weird. Reminds me of that Japanese video on How to Fold a T-shirt.

That was the one I was thinking of but here is another one that is good too, for someone that has a lot of T-shirts. It's a t-shirt folder made out of cardboard. The video shows how to make one. Pretty slick.
I love the internet.
When I tried the first example before, I couldn't get it to work, but I'll try again. There are several different versions. Maybe one will make more sense to me.
This one is from a different angle and looks promising. I wish they'd slow down. Maybe it doesn't work unless it's done quickly.
OK, here's another that is really speaking to me Maybe it's just that I've watched like, six of them, but I think I may actually be able to do it with this one.
Yes! We have a winner. I still need practice (or possibly a newer T-shirt that isn't all stretched out of shape). The secret, for me anyway, is that you have to reach over the T-shirt to the side opposite you. I was trying to do it on my side. It really is pretty slick.

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Wednesday, November 08, 2006

Found it, found it, found it, found it.

I first heard about these Candy Kalaidascopes years ago but could never find them before. Of course that was before the internet. I'm so thrilled.

Intriguing Color Illusions

I found this very cool site of illusions via this thread in AskMeFi, tons of them. I'd like to try a painting using this type of color juxtaposition to create the illusion of intensity.
This website is from the psychology department of a Japanese University in Kyoto.
I also liked the Vanishing Circle Illusion and Roulette.
Intriguing.
These can take a few seconds to load.

Sunday, November 05, 2006

Showing Off

Bosco showing off because Penny and Louis were here. He was trying to be as cute as possible becaue I was petting Lou.

Apparently cute is exhausting.

Who links to me?
Who links to me?