Category: Art

Ladies and gentlemen, you are looking at the future

This came out of the fabricator at work. I found the file on the internet, sent the link to me colleague, and we were getting rid of that toner anyway because it had been recycled too much, and here you go.  It is sitting on a dvd so you get some idea of the scale.  Robof9 made one for himself, too.  I had a long talk with the manager who ‘owns’ the fabber, and he allayed my fears as to my robbing the company – it was a trivial amount of toner and no big deal in terms of wear and tear on the machine.  The machine itself has saved the company a couple of hundred thousand dollars since we purchased it.dodecahedron.jpg
Me very very happy.

Katies here

Both of the Katies were here last night… Katie K was only too happy to collect a massage on my NEW MASSAGE TABLE and daughter Katie had to be talked into it. I made shrimp salad for dinner and then daughter Katie worked on my leftovers.   I think all the way around everybody slept better last night. I woke up at 7:40!!! Now I have to jet or I will be late for work.

I light a candle for my granny, who is poorly (not, I hasten to add, mortal poorly) and for my mOm, whose back is owie, and for people experiencing unexpected and unhappy making breakups.

Persepolis was wonderful, see it if you can, unless you hate movies with subtitles.

Oooh, a Lego Ezra Pound

Man, he was hotter than a two dollar pistol when he was young.  And yes, he was a foul racist blatherer sometimes with skewed up ideas about economics, but he was a damned fine poet.  I can’t remember where I scanged this from.
ezrapound.jpg

I’m off to see Persepolis this aft with Keith, and afterwards I’m calling daughter Katie and dragging her over here for a massage.  She sounds beat, baffed, bent, bewildered and entirely tharn. 

A turtle that does tricks?

I saw the video on CNN.com.  It rolls over, plays dead and shakes a claw. A behavioural psychologist spent ten years training the reptile.
When I was a kid we had a tortoise named Torpid.  He did two memorable things.  He shat all over my Mary Poppins Pop-up Book,  and he ran away.  Yes, we put him outside to stretch his legs and he was a bit better at it than we thought.

So much for copyright!!!

If the copyright notice is so small you can’t f*cking read it, that’s not much protection. Anyway, this panel from Terry Moore’s Strangers in Paradise was an immediate favourite of librarians everywhere. Too bad you can’t tell it’s his. I just emailed him, partly to give him a heads’ up, and partly because I wanted to vent about how the large size digests I want to buy are no longer available anywhere and instead there are the dinky and uselessly tiny paperbacks.  Grrrr.

Salmon Chanted Evening

Well, that was entirely a slice of life. I mean, how many women in Vancouver had a date last night that included:

  • a threat to be serenaded – on triangle? (He plays well; he even has an album credit!) He plays other percussion instruments <<<--- wOOt, Catherine!  and pennywhistle too. I wants me some triangle loving from Ward's Music now. Actually today I'm buying a snare head and brushes but that's another story.
  • a listen to the album, which is lively English trad tunes?  To preserve his privacy, no link alas.
  • a trip upstairs to view…to view not etchings, but Shuffle Demon videos? Like, more than one. I got to watch Out of my House, Roach! (more than once, I loved it so much) and Spadina Bus, and there were more yet. I countered with the Dudley Moore Beethoven Sonata version of the Colonel Bogey March, which is brilliant (I think rOn sent me that link). For the life of us we couldn’t find an audio of the Peter Cook Coal Miner/Judge skit but we found the text. He countered with the Shirt Sketch from early John Cleese Graham Chapman days. And there was some other stuff in there but it was jolly good fun, like his Morris dancing road trip picture.
  • Double Chocolate Stout beer? Quoth he, I don’t know why I got given this, I never touch beer. Well I did in a rather total war kind of way, and it was yummy…
  • Leftover Chinese food from a splendid meal at Angel on Fraser? (Except the soup, the soup bit sand). Quoth he, I don’t like leftovers.  Hmmm.
  • A wonderful hour poking around books from the thirties about engineering marvels and archaeological digs?

I am now contemplating moving furniture some more and then Keith’s going to come over and we’re going to shop and try to find the Serenity DVD (director’s cut/special edition).  Tomorrow, Kopper and I will hang out.

At some point I have to figure out what the hell I’m doing for New Year’s Eve.  I have six different prospects, but I want to do stannomancy at the Dalai Jarmo’s again, and the folks say they are up for having me…. it’s also the closest.  Always a consideration.

Victoria II

I am currently reading the Happiness Hypothesis by Jonathan Haidt.

It’s an excellent book, and it makes me very happy to be a Unitarian.  Not because the author is, but because the ideas expressed in it are so amazingly and repeatedly Unitarian that the whole bloody book comes off as nothing so much as a strikingly amazing Unitarian sermon or group of sermons. 

Also, LTGW at work keeps saying, “You have to read Cialdini‘s Influence, you have to read Cialdini’s Influence” and now that I’m reading the Happiness Hypothesis I guess I’ll have to because Haidt cites it constantly.

The metahypothesis is that science and emotion don’t have to conflict.  This is actually the big scrap between Faith and Reason right now, or as seen by the religious types, Big Satanic Soulless Violent Freedom Hating Science and Poor Put-upon Faith, or by atheists, Rationality vs. Whiny Ass Crybaby Hyperemotional GodWalloping.

Anyway, I’m havin’ a lovely time laying about reading and hanging with the folks.  Jeff just turned up… I’m going to see if I can get him to run me out to the mall.