Archives for the month of: August, 2011

Gets a little Eye of Sauron at the end – beware!

by Kim Pimmel

I combined everyday soap bubbles with exotic ferrofluid liquid to create an eerie tale, using macro lenses and time lapse techniques. Black ferrofluid and dye race through bubble structures, drawn through by the invisible forces of capillary action and magnetism.

via io9

My friend Deirdre has a posterous dedicated to her mom and the gems she sometimes says. It is fantastic.

Mom: Ah men, you can’t live with ’em and you can’t live without ’em. Well, you can, but it is harder. They can do so much of the crappy stuff so you don’t have to, like move pianos and concrete lions.

Please enjoy these delightful videos from my friends over at Lost Moon Radio. The subject: those great Americans, Meriwether Lewis and William Clark.

(Also Sacagawea)

update: featured on Attack of the Show!



Can’t…stop…laughing…

via Hamburgers and Sonic Screwdrivers

Waaaait for it…

via ThinkGeek via Eric

be sure to rollover ‘notes’ to see photo captions!

Mom, Dad and I finished packing, then spent the morning across the street from our hotel, at the Royal Botanic Gardens. It rained a bit, but we found some trees to stand under and it passed by in a few minutes. We saw lots of pretty sub-tropical plants and flowers. Then we noticed – that racket? It was hundreds of fruit bats in the trees. EVERYWHERE. It was CRAZY. We also saw an eel following a duck around a pond (sorry, that duck won’t fit in your mouth) and found out that they drain the pond every once in awhile but the eels repopulate themselves—rangers have seen baby eels crawling over the lawn from Sydney Harbour!

Dad went back to the hotel and Mom and I went across the other street and looked around the Museum of Sydney’s forecourt. There is an archaeological site under the flagstones, and metal markers in the stones showed the boundaries of several buildings that used to stand in that spot. There was even a little window down to the dig so one could glimpse the old walls and foundations.

We watched a little of the Olympics, then went to the airport. We said our goodbyes to Aunt Pat and Uncle Denny, then promptly found out our flight had been pushed back seven hours. We hung out in the airport and used our meal vouchers. Finally our plane came, and we settled in for our 13 hour flight. I slept a little, but not well; I watched a couple movies to pass the time. We got popsicles as treats! More airlines should do this; it was completely delightful.

Once we got into LAX, Mom and Dad got standby for the next morning’s flights to Chicago, and when I left them they were heading back to the Qantas desk to get a hotel. I couldn’t believe I was back in LA—it didn’t feel quite real and I kept expecting to blink and find myself back down under.

be sure to rollover ‘notes’ to see photo captions!

After breakfast, Mom and I went up to the pool on the 31st floor and checked out the view of the Opera House, bridge and rest of the harbor. We met a nice English lady up there who had a lot of historical info and a very plummy accent.

We went on a city tour and saw Mrs. Mcquarie’s chair, King’s Cross, Woolloomooloo, Nicole Kidman’s former home in Darling Point, and Bondi Beach. We had a little time to buy souvenirs (I got a SLSC hoodie, one for Clayton for his birthday, and a great t-shirt for Maria) and Mom took a stroll down to the water’s edge. We saw a lot of examples of Pennington lace – a style of iron work – on Oxford Street and saw the Queen Victoria Building on George Street.

Mom, Dad and I did a tour of the Opera House which was very cool. The engineering and design was impressive and the lines and angles of the interior were beautiful. We met up with Aunt Pat and Uncle Denny and took the ferry to Manly. Mom, Dad and I walked to the Oval, saw giant spiders and a nice lawn bowling green. Then we relaxed with a beer (Fat Yak) and chips and watched the boats go in and out of the harbor.

That night we had dinner at Caminetto, an amazing Italian place nestled against the stone wall of the Rocks, where I had probably the best pasta of my life.


A graphical representative of how the known alien solar systems stack up against our own Solar System.

via Space.com

be sure to rollover ‘notes’ to see photo captions!

After probably the worst drive to SF ever, I got to Eric’s new place in Oakland and he had beer and probably the best burger I’ve ever eaten waiting for me. His new place is great, and the neighhborhood is really pretty. We played L.A. Noire and the Incident until 1am.

The next day Eric made awesome breakfast burritos and then his new GH1 was delivered, so we went to Best Buy to get filters, case, tripod, etc. We drove up to Mt. Tam to test it out. Hiked a little around the summit and took photos of the fog rolling in and some patient little lizards. We stopped in Stinson Beach for dinner, then went back to Eric’s for video games and comics.

Got up early and read comics and snacked. Hit Homeroom for mac n cheese (sooooo good!) then checked out the Escapist, a comic store in Berkeley. We picked up an ice cream pie from Fentons then went to Mike and Tiffany’s to meet up with them, Mike’s brother, and Emma and her boyfriend for dinner. Mike and Tiffany’s condo is amazing, and Mike made some fantastic pizzas on the grill. We all ate and drank until we could barely move, then rolled ourselves to the movie theater to see ‘Tree of Life’. Afterwards we went back to Mike and Tiffany’s for ice cream pie and coffee/tea.

Breakfast at Café Trieste, picked up food and supplies at Retronyms, then headed to Golden Gate Part for the Seek ‘n Spell meet-up. Had a great time enjoying the sun (had to go all the way to NorCal to see any) and eating and chatting. I got a sunburn though – I was sure at any moment the fog would roll in and it would be freezing and gloomy so I skipped the sunscreen! Took a nap, ate leftover hamburgers and cookies for dinner, watched the finale of ‘Game of Thrones’ (INSANE), played some ‘Red Dead Redemption’, read more comics. The next day Eric and I had breakfast at Café Trieste again, then I dropped Eric off at the BART and drove back to LA.