Little Movies, Big Movies and Beatboxing to a Cockroach .

I had to get this typed up before I forgot to post this.  I've been working on the Whale this morning, and to keep the screeching of 9 year old beginner flute students out of my room I decided to watch some TED Talk videos.  I love TED videos.  I watched a few this morning and one of them was more of an educational video for students than an intellectual thought provoking statement of facts/ theories.   So the video is kind of awesome, this guy uses various instruments to record the neuron impulses from a cockroach leg and teach students about neurons and electronic impulses.

The title really caught my eye, The Cockroach Beatbox. Curiosity got the better of me and it turned out to be really interesting... and gross.  The link will take you to the TED Talks webpage should the video above not work.  I'm not sure if the guy on stage is trying too hard to connect to today's youth or if he genuinely wanted to use a beatbox guy to prove a point.  He probably could have used a big drum or another deep booming instrument to get the same effect.
Anyway I ran across another video of the accomplished and very awesome Aimee Mullins (link will take you to the video since I can't seem to get the embed code for it).  If anyone took a sculpture class at MICA or the Puppets and Prosthetics class you would have watched her in Matthew Barney's The Cremaster Cycle.  Cremaster Cycle was filmed in the Guggenheim Museum if I remember correctly and was a series of short stories that all fit together in some form or another.  A lot of repetitive movements, problem solving and wonderful prosthetic and costume work.  The concept was really way out there but I highly recommend finding a copy just for the experience.  Back on track, Aimee Mullins is an amputee, she's missing the bottom half of her legs just under the knee joint.  She's pioneered prosthetic limb construction and has provoked thought over what beauty is for a woman who's missing bits of herself.   I loved how she talked about how her legs could give her extra inches of height.  Who wouldn't want a few extra inches right?  Her conversation on the subject was really funny and the reactions of the people in her life are really interesting to hear.  I started wondering if, god forbid, I ever lost my legs, I'd want to be like her.  I wouldn't want to wallow in misery or try to get people to pity me, I'd want to do something awesome like her.

Keeping to the video trend for this post, I stumbled across this set of videos on music.  I don't particularly care about the music, although it's super helpful for finding new things to listen to, I love the people in them.  They're crazy!  This guy in the first video is just really likable and funny.  I'm eagerly waiting for the next video to come out cause I really like the attitudes and humor of these guys.

If I ever end up in London I want to see this shop. It looks like a chill place to go to for music.
Well it's about 2:30p and I need to go meet up with Marina to see John Carter.  This should be fun.

It's now 10:10pm, John Carter was ok.  It was fun and the guy who plays Gambit in X-Men was hot... and yeah.  I need to add the John Carter books to my ever growing reading list so that I can have a comparison, but overall I enjoyed the movie. 

Monster Strawberry!!

Oh man I had strawberries for breakfast today.  I took a photo.  It was huge!  I had to split it into 4 pieces in order to take civilized bites!  

Udon!

Yesterday I was at Mitsuwa Asian Market in Edgewater with Dory and Mae.  We had lunch there, I got chicken Udon noodle soup.  Next time I'm getting the ramen bowl cause it looked super tasty.   We spent some time wandering the book shop and did some food shopping.  I got pocky for the first time in a couple of years.  So tasty :3. 

It's finished, and there was much rejoicing.

So I guess I'll wrap this post up with the promised photo of the new cape.  I'm not gonna bother finishing it right now, cause frankly I'm not thrilled with it. It's just a little too puffy.  Commence with the re-patterning.

Good night and See ya'll later!

Hogs, Women and the Man Who Sings Like Them.

Happy Groundhogs Day... I think. Never was much of a Holiday person, and I feel like we can't even include this one as a holiday. Who came up with the idea anyway? A groundhog will determine whether or not spring comes early? Most people would rather poison them to get them off their lawns. Quick!! To the Internet!! Wikipedia will surely know the answer. Yeah, I did look that up just to prove a point. Anyway, not much happened today. The resin castings still need to finish curing, according to the directions it'll take 72 hrs from the initial pouring. So about 9pm tomorrow they should be ready to pop out. Ended up watching a bunch of youtube videos and reading all day. I watched Horror movie reviews on Reel Creepy's blog.

The guy giving the review on the video is Zak, he's a friend from college. I really enjoy the reviews, not only does it save me some money from watching crap-tastic movies, but his dry sense of humor amuses me greatly. This also gives me the opportunity to hear about all the awesome indie horror flicks that are straight to video. So one of the reviews (the video above) is for a movie called The Woman. It's pretty messed up but according to Zak a pretty awesome movie. I had interest in it before but couldn't seem to find it in the local library or Best Buy(my two sources for movies since my computer is a p.o.c.) . Well I got curious into the origin of the movie, found out it's based off of Jack Ketchum's books. Apparently there's 3 books, Off Season, Offspring and The Woman. The movie Offspring is the first two books and The Woman is the sequel movie. So now I'm super interested, so I ran over to the local library to find Off Season. So I look up the book and I locate the appropriate shelf and there's no book. The computer system says it's been checked in and in virtual reality it exists. But after 15 minutes and two librarians it clearly is no longer on the shelf... or in the library. But they had the second book Offspring, which takes place 10 years after the first book. I'm about one hundred pages in and it's not a difficult read. Goes pretty quickly too. Anyway, when I first asked for some help, the librarian clearly thought I was a teenager, since she took me to the 'teen books' section and proceeded to ask me where I saw the book. I blinked a few times turned around and pointed to the other end of the library where the adult horror fiction books are and said, "the other side of the library." It still bothers me that people think I'm still in high school. I should wear a sign or something, like: "I have a Bachelors degree... No, I don't want to order from the kids menu." And while I'm on the subject of teenyboppers, a friend posted a link of a rather lovely cover of Katy Perry's, I kissed a girl and liked it.

It definitely changes the meaning of the song, and overall I like the music better. The voice of this guy is soothing in comparison to the notes Katy Perry (almost) hits.
Other than that I worked on the Brain a little (started a new ball of yarn!) and had an epic poking war with my sister on facebook. Tomorrow will be more interesting.
See ya!