Amazing. Adam Magyar takes high-speed video of crowds as his train pulls into stations and then replays them at slow speed – creating a ghostly passage through the terminal. He did this in New York, Berlin, and Tokyo. Having just been in Shinjuku station a month or so ago, this one is my favorite.
Next time you are walking through Costco, knowing these secrets may help you with your buying decisions
Price ending in .99 – Full Priced
Price ending in .97 – Discount decided by the manager
Price ending in .79 or .49 or .89 – Discount decided by manufacturer or being tested at Costco. Usually lower than Costco’s price
Price ending in .00 or .88 – Should be the best deal and used to move the product fast
Price tag with an asterisk * on the right/top side – Discontinued item
The longest word I’ve used in actual conversation is: boustrophedonically. However, I just learned another one: floccinaucinihilipilification.
“Her habit of looking at the world with such disdainful floccinaucinihilipilification was always such a downer. I wondered if anything ever really pleased her.”
“Gather the wagons, grab three sturdy friends and prepare to hit the trail. Costumes, silly team names and pioneer spirit are highly highly encouraged though not, we suppose, strictly necessary.”
http://www.oregontraillive.com/
I went down to the Willamette Heritage Center in Salem, OR today to participate in the live action Oregon Trail game. It’s a re-creation of the many adventures of the old Oregon Trail game many will remember playing back in the day as kids.
The day started out by arriving and building your own ‘wagon’ to carry throughout the challenges:
While we waited for the official start, we wandered around the center and looked at many of the funny re-creators:
There was even a saloon:
And a sheriff:
Soon we gathered for the start of the event which was kicked off by a bull-whip cracking minister:
And we were off to compete at 10 different stations based on events of the game. Like the 3-legged dysentery race in which you needed to run to an outhouse and back again:
The buffalo chip toss:
This was simply a demonstration at the center of some guys doing period black-smiting:
Some teams came with their own shirts:
They had a great little bluegrass band playing while you competed. Very talented guys and nice accompanyment:
This was the river crossing event in which your team needed to protect your wagon while the local women’s roller-derby team tried to whack you and the tiny wagon with pool noodles:
Alas, not everyone makes it to Oregon. Here you had to bury your ‘ill-fated 5th team member’ that you made out of paper at the beginning of the event. Points were given based on the quality of your eulogy and the song you sang. The winners sang, “The wheels on the bus” for top prize…
This was my favorite event. You had to drive this guy over a short course while he recieted facts about meat. When you got back to the starting point, he’d quiz you based on what you remembered from his facts.
Some Japanese exchange students were the ‘animals’ in the shooting contest. These actually shot back – and were quite good shots really. We got top marks for our efforts:
This was the ‘caulk and float your boat’ event. You had to use tin foil, plastic wrap, and other craft supplies to protect your wagon from capsizing while fording the two ‘rivers’. Ours passed with flying colors.
Finally, you got the end – the office of the surveyor general. She would give you a little bit of string and you’d go into the yard and ‘stake your claim’. You’d then set up a little homestead. A prize was given for the best decorated homestead.
There was a tie for one prize, and they had to arm-wrestle for top honors in the saloon:
Afterwards, we went over to downtown Salem to Coin Jam brewpub and arcade. They had some AMAZING old machines in here. Even better than Ground Control in Portland:
So, overall, a fabulous time!
Jägermeister party organizers in Mexico decided to dump some liquid nitrogen into a pool to emit a bunch of cool smoke. No problem right? Cool steam effects right?
Wrong – 8 people were taken ill and one left in a coma after the nitrogen displaced the air right above the water and knocked them all unconscious.
That’s why knowing chemistry is important. It could save your life at your next bro-fest.
I went on a battle sail event near Astoria in the mouth of the Columbia last weekend and I got to sail tall ships we shot cannons at each other. It reminded me of the last scene in the movie Goonies in which One-Eye’d Willy’s ship sailed off into the sunset off the Oregon coast. It was an amazing experience and I was very surprised by the maneuverability and agility of these ships. It was great to see the crew in action too.
These events were put on by Gray’s Harbor Historical Society: http://historicalseaport.org/ They maintain the ships and do lots of educational programs. They travel up and down the West Coast doing sailing, demonstration, and battle events just like this. For the cost of a ticket, you too can ride along. There are two ships full of 20-somethings that are all living aboard and spend their days sailing, doing tours, and maintaining the ships. What an interesting lot to say the least.
The entire adventure took 3 hours. We all met at the dock and sailed out into mouth of the Columbia from Ilwaco, WA. While at Ilwaco, I decided to run out and stop at a humorously named location:
This name came (purportedly) from the Lewis and Clark expedition. They came to this cape regularly to look for ships to take either them, or at least their logs, home. Unfortunately, no ships appeared in the many long, rainy, wintery months they spent on the coast.
But back to sailing. We met the ships on the dock. After lining up and picking which ship we wished to ride on, we motored out of the harbor. I chose the Lady Washington – which was a much more period accurate ship.
After heading out to the opening of the Columbia we unfurled the sails and started shooting cannons.
Here’s some of the actual battle sail footage:
After about 2 hours of sailing around shooting cannons at each other, we decided to head home. On the way back, as the sun set, we started singing sea shanties:
Overall, it was a fantastic time. I completely recommend it and it was totally worth the price of admission.
Probably one of the most cool moments had to be when we were in the middle of the battle sail. A large freighter was making its way out of the Columbia River. We’re talking a huge container ship freighter. What in the world must they have thought passing by 1700’s era tiny wooden sailing ships shooting cannons at each other…
Our family has a interesting family tree. On our mother’s side we have a wonderful relative that has been collecting information, letters, visiting home countries, and constructing detailed and far-reaching family trees. Yet on our father’s side we haven’t done as much of that.
At a recently family gathering, a few relatives on that side were reminiscing. In the course of the discussion, it was revealed that one of the branches lead to family that lived in Portland, OR. An aunt remembered they were buried in a cemetery ‘overlooking the Willamette’.
Well, there are a lot of cemeteries that could fit that description, but we felt odds were good we could find them with some internet searches. Turns out, however, they were not listed anywhere I looked. Instead, a cousin managed to find them at the Wilhelm Memorial Mausoleum – made famous partly by Chuck Palanuck’s book “Fugitives and Refugees: A Walk in Portland, Oregon”. Unfortunately, when I had looked them up via their online search page – they weren’t listed. A testament to the fact that not all information is on the internet.
I have had some time off the last few days, so I called them up and went over just before closing time. The mausoleum buildings were very nice and somewhat extensive on the ridge of the hill in the Sellwood district of Portland. Yet, like an iceberg, this was only the tiny visible tip of a much, MUCH larger structure. The greeter gave me a map and told me where I could locate them. I was buzzed into the crypts and went to find them.
First off, the place is MASSIVE. There are at least 5 floors that extend through the hillside. Room after room of crypts.
I finally arrived at The Hall of Apostles – where I was told they were buried.
And here they are:
One of my aunt’s remembered that Claude had said he would be buried in a spot where they could overlook the river – and sure enough – this was the view.
Have you ever messed up so bad that someone named the foul-up after you? Well, it certainly happened in anime.
Anime started picking up in Japan in the 90’s. The quality had been going up and up; and many considered the 90’s the ‘golden age’ of anime. However, with so many studios opening something of a bubble started to form in which it was difficult to find good animators. Schedules were as tight as the fiercely fought for advertising dollars.
Now say you are an anime studio in this competitive environment and you’re spinning off a new series called Lost Universe after working on a very successful series called Slayers. Good right? You have plenty of work now that you’re right at the beginning of airing and creating this regular TV show. But now, right around episode 3 – in the middle of crunch mode – a fire breaks out and destroys most of your work. The show must go on – so what happens? You contract off the work to anyone with a spare pencil and ink. In this case, a Korean company. But you don’t even have enough character sketches or time to really educate the company about what is supposed to happen in the episode. In fact, they mix up the characters from one scene to another. Still images stay onscreen for up to 15 seconds because you didn’t have enough time to make the moving versions. It was so bad that the company actually had to pull the episode and re-do it for the DVD version after the one and only airing of the episode. Unfortunately, the rest of the series never really recovers and wallows in a low-quality quagmire that dooms the series to infamy.
Here’s Lost Universe’s episode 4 – titled Yashigani – which demonstrates just how bad things can get (see especially the amazing smooth motion at 3:20 for example). This clip shows the original along with the re-done version side by side so you can see how bad it got.
This wasn’t the only fumble in the anime world, but the episode 4 of Lost Universe episode became so infamous that drops of quality like this were simply called Yashigani’s from then on. Ouch.
See this link for more examples of them.
As a 3D graphics software developer, what attracted me to the field was always the fact that you could create images and scenes of the mind. There were no physical laws other than the ones you created when generating visuals.
Mr. Div is a designer that has captured much of what I have always hoped to do. He communicates unique experiences and ‘feels’ via strange and unique graphics/animation. I find myself drawn to the 70’s era style of his work that was present in the very first days of 3D graphics. Even though it’s not the highest rez/most realistic graphics, and the tools he uses are simple off-the-shelf variety – it’s the output and imagination that’s amazing. It’s exactly this kind of stuff that makes me excited to be in this field.
[Updated on 5-3-2013 after contact with Potato’s owner – see the comments section below]
I was watching Laika’s new movie Paranorman when I got a surprise.
Laika studios is based in Portland and the office is only 3 blocks from my house in our quiet little neighborhood. I got about 10 minutes into the movie when our young protagonist Norman is walking down the street and passes a seemingly innocuous little sign:
You’ll notice poor Potato is missing. And a $5000 reward. But would you be shocked if I told you this sign was hanging in our neighborhood about a year or two back:
[5-3-2013 update] Actual owner of Potato saw this posting and said that poor Potato just went missing and has yet to be found. It was not contractors, etc but I include that original posting here since that’s what I first heard. If you’ve seen her, do drop him a note or post here.
[This original information was disproven by owner – more proof that even in a tight neighborhood you shouldn’t listen to what every ‘neighbor of’ or ‘friend of’ has said.] Even more strange is the fact that I recently ran into folks in our neighborhood (who also owned a cute bulldog) that were friends with the owners of poor missing Potato and told the strange tale. It seems that some contractors were working at the owner’s house over several days. The day they finished, Potato went missing. The owners plastered the neighborhood with signs and a $1000 reward. Then $5000.
The owners grew to suspected the contractors whose stories didn’t quite jive when asked about the last day of their work. (Something similar happened to another house in our hood in which a house was ‘accidentally’ left unlocked on the last day the contractors were there. Right after the contractors left it was completely stripped in under 2 hours – even though it had set for weeks untouched. Convenient huh?). Apparently when the $5000 reward came out one of the contractors claimed that they came to work and Potato had fallen into the pool and died. The contractors buried Potato ‘somewhere else’ to cover up the accidental death. The owners were never convinced, and Potato never found. The owners are convinced he was stolen by the contractors. (Something I tend to agree with after a friend’s pug was stolen and only recovered when the family who took him was caught at a Petsmart when they ran the ID chip in him and it didn’t match. The people weren’t even remorseful about it at all. They were angry at the Petsmart guys and tried to forcibly take him back.)
If you have information about Potato, please post it here and the original owner should see it.
