Wondermark Understands Me

I read this comic the other day and felt like David Malki was describing two different sides of my own personality...

Wildfire Retreat: Allison, with Fire Staff

See the whole set here.

Fire Hoop

Click here to see the whole set.

Fingerpainting (Footprint)

See the whole set.

I-Movix SprintCam - 1000 fps

I found another awesome video.

This was made with the I-Movix SprintCam, a camera that shoots at roughly 1000 frames per second. Typical video, by contrast, is viewed at or around 24 fps. The additional frames allow you to slow down the video for some astonishing detail, (pay particular attention to the 47 second mark. That's my favorite part):


I-Movix SprintCam v3 NAB 2009 showreel from David Coiffier on Vimeo.

Hawks!

No, I'm not cheering for St. Joe's, though I should also give a hearty congratulations to my cousin Kevin for his ever-approaching graduation from said institution of higher learning.

Instead, I'm linking to an amazing slice of urban wildlife. Nestled in a windowsill of the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia, there is a nest constructed several months ago by some honest-to-god hawks. A live streaming web-cam was installed on the inside of the window to sneak a peak at this marvel of nature. The chicks have hatched now -- apparently, the hatching process was quite amazing -- and are now adorable little piles of fluff who stumble about and try to eat scraps of food that are bigger than they are. It is worth glimpsing, even for just a minute.

http://www2.fi.edu/hawknest.php

The world we live in is amazing. Not only that these birds are able to nestle into the city that grew up around them, but that we are able to watch it, live, from wherever we are.

Technology is neat.

Take That, Flash Freeze

This is in response to Mooney's post from a few days ago. This is the actual footage, with the actual music:

Turns out, it was from a T-Mobile commercial event called Life's For Sharing filmed in Liverpool Street Station, England. It took eight weeks of preparation and rehearsals, including several nights of rehearsing at 2am in the station. It involved 400 people, down from the 10,000 people they auditioned at the outset. Quite frankly, I think this is one of the greatest things ever. To see more, including rehearsal process and crowd reactions, check out the behind the scenes video.

Election Day: Watching the Vote

It's game time.



...And PA polls, for me:

Keith Olbermann Special Comment

Wow.

More links. Watch this. Now. (11 minutes combined).

* Keith Olbermann - part 1
* Keith Olbermann - part 2

"And sir, if you have any hopes that next January 20th will not be celebrated as a day of soul-wrenching, heart-felt thanksgiving because your faithless stewardship of this presidency will have finally come to a merciful end, this last piece of advice--"

Everyone should see this...

It's educational. It's entertaining. Mostly it's just pretty.

It's sort of long, but do watch it to the end. That's where it gets good.

http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/260.

Response: Founder's Day

In regards to Justin's post, I whole-heartedly agree. We will need a T-shirt. I will also voice my stern opinion that those Candyland kids are scary as hell -- as I put it to Justin earlier, "they remind me of the kids of one of my old high school teachers... They were frightening children-of-the-corn type kids..." -- but as no other ideas have yet been suggested, I've done the initial tracing:

(Click for full size)

God, those kids are creepy. It is just me, or does the black and white make them look like they're wearing prison jumpsuits? Also, keep in mind that this isn't quite stencil-ready; I couldn't get it to work in my head, so you should all feel free to chop away at it until it works.

Or, (please, dear lord), suggest something different. I was thinking a stencil of one of the Candyland game pieces, (you know those little plastic 2-D figurines?), but I can't find a good image. Or hell, it doesn't even have to relate to Candyland, per se, (though it probably shouldn't be about Brisco Country Jr. or something quite that far off. Much as I like a non sequitur, that would just be weird).

Ben Franklin, Ed Rendell, and A Dozen Eagles Cheerleaders

On Wednesday, I proudly stood in several lines, dripped vegetarian sandwich sauce on my pants, took off my belt for the metal detectors, and giggled gleefully like a little girl all for the sake of being in the studio audience for the Colbert Report in Philly.

...Or, as it has been officially dubbed, Stephen Colbert's Doritos Spicy Sweet Pennsylvania Primary Coverage Live from Chiladelphia, the City of Brotherly Crunch.

And it was amazing. I sat in the second row right at the corner of the stage. I saw how a TV show is filmed. I got to slap Colbert's hand. Benjamin Franklin made reference to French prostitutes. One of the Eagles cheerleaders smiled and waved at me. I got to slap Colbert's hand again. The only thing that could have made it better would have been a delicious Philly cheesesteak slathered in Whiz presented to me by a tuxedo-clad waiter riding a velociraptor. Unfortunately, we weren't allowed to bring food into the theater, or I would have been all over that, too.

...And just to prove it, here is a an actual screen capture from the show that aired at 11.30pm on Wed. April 16. Let's play a little game of "Where's Waldo," shall we?

Can you locate all the important characters in the above photo? Give up? Here are the answers:

All in all, 'twas a wonderful day. I'm thinking next time I go up to NYC, I should really try and get tickets to The Daily Show. You know, complete my experience of the Comedy Central dynamic duo; the dream ticket; the late-night political power hour.

In the meantime, I'mma go vote in the Pennsylvania Democratic primary, which is being hailed as "the first time since 1976 that Pennsylvania will play a major role in a presidential nomination." Take that, Bicentennial.

I Saw A Squirrel: "In The News"

Side note: This was inspired by an actual news story from Dec. 2007, starring a dude in Wenatchee, Washington. No joke. You can read about it from the local Wenatchee World article; or, even better, here's another write-up from metro.co.uk, (be sure to read all the way to the last paragraph).

A More Perfect Union

Once again, I must apologize for presenting you with a political post. It is not my intention to influence anyone's voting or ideal candidate. But if you didn't catch Barack Obama's speech earlier this week, or if you haven't seen any of the hundreds of videos posted on YouTube, I urge you to seek it out. Forget the politics. Forget the campaigns. Forget the Democratic nomination. I simply encourage you to experience his speech as a human being living in America in 2008.

I realize that this video is almost 40 minutes long, so if you don't have that kind of time, then track down a "greatest hits" montage on YouTube; I'm sure it's out there. But if do have the time, or can make the time, do watch this:

Also, the transcript is available on Obama's website if you're interested in reading along.

St. Patty's Day!

Happy Saint Patrick's day to you all! May your cup (read: pint glass) runeth o'er, and your day be full of th' luck o' the Irish. It was a beautiful day in Philly, though I spent most of it in a car driving to a piano repair company because the keyboard we're using in Sweeney Todd died yesterday. And I have another 3 hr. rehearsal tonight. But hopefully I'll be able to finish my night in my most favorite of dives, Buckets Tavern, which has been fully decorated since Friday. Here's hoping they went all out and got some Magners Irish cider for the evening; if not, it'll have to be a traditional Irish whiskey night!

I was thinking we bloggers should track down some multimedia for this festive occasion. Music, videos, music videos, etc. For example, here's a little video from the Official Saint Patrick's Festival of Ireland website:

Ah, that brings me back. Who remembers St. Patty's Day, 2006? I hope I still have my Irish flag/cape around here somewhere... And Ricky, you'd better still have that cap! Anyway, in the spirit of the day, I'll post a bunch my pictures from Ireland 2006 on Flickr, (don't worry, nothing too incriminating).

Here's one more video, for the road:



Éirinn go Brágh!

I prefer cherry pi...

Happy Pi Day, everybody! At 1:59:26pm today, I expect you all to be doing something meaningful and/or delicious.

Some links for your edification:

• The Official Pi Day Website
• Wikipedia's Pi Day entry
• The Exploratorium (I don't know, blame Google)
• The first 1,000,000-digits of Pi
• Pie recipes from PastryWiz.com
• There's also a National Pie Day sponsored by The American Pie Council, (I bet you didn't know America had a Pie Council, did you?)

Yellow Tulips

This seems like as good a place as any to advertise my Flickr photos, especially when I'm feeling good about them.

Recently, a friend of mine posted a couple of photos of a bunch of yellow tulips on a table. They were a nice touch of color compared to pretty much everyone's recent cold, gray winter photos, and I liked them a lot. Then, a few days later, what should appear on my own kitchen table but a vase of yellow tulips. As it happened, this was also on a day that I woke up with the sun at 8am, a time of day I have not seen for months. I immediately thought "photo response" and ran for my camera. The results can be found here.


These photos became part of a larger series of photos taken around my house. My parents recently decided to redo the plumbing in their bathroom, hiring some guys to come in and rip the room apart. Literally. Sink--gone. Toilet--gone. Floor--gone. Which, knowing me, became a veritable treasure hunt for things to photograph. Pipes, wires, etc. It's way more interesting, in my opinion, to take pictures of things you don't see every day. I think most people would agree. And it isn't every day that you see the gutted remains of a room that is usually clean and -- well, usable in some way. Something about looking through the hall closet and seeing the knobs of the bathtub faucets suspended in the void that used to be a wall is a very unusual perspective. It sort of brings me back to the days when I was young, my imagination was overactive, and I would pretend to be a superhero with x-ray vision. (Not that I don't still do that now, I'm just more subtle about it these days).

This Just In: "Hillary Clinton Is A Monster"

...That is, according to Samantha Power, Obama's most prominent ex-foreign policy adviser. Excuse me, ex-unpaid, volunteer foreign policy adviser.

The big news story came yesterday when Samantha Power spoke her honest opinion about Hillary and her recent ruthless and underhanded campaign strategies. During an interview, Power blurted out that she thought Clinton was "a monster" willing to "stoop to anything." (Oddly, the issue of whether Power was "off the record" or not made almost as big a headline as the actual remarks she made; read the Washington Post's story here).

In the end, Power apologized and resigned her post almost immediately after the initial outrage from the Clinton camp, another swift response from the Obama campaign. Which is too bad, considering all the nasty things a whole load of people on the Clinton bus have said about Barack. None of them have been asked to step down, let alone have done it of their own accord. I just hope Samantha Power takes this opportunity to say whatever she wants.

Re: Short and Sweet

Swampy posted a link yesterday informing us that Gary Gygax, creator of the game Dungeons & Dragons, passed away.

Each of us deals with our grief in a different way. The good folks at woot.com, as always, put faith in the healing power of laughter.

EDIT: And here's a tribute from xkcd.com.