Wednesday, August 25, 2010

Spacetime's Finest


From etsy retailer deantrippe, comes this print of "Spacetime's Finest", described as a "reproduction of the best comics team-up that never happened, between The Doctor [...] and Batman & Robin...".

Make this story happen internet.

Monday, August 16, 2010

Jamaican Club Sandwich

I laugh at your KFC double down. Friendly's Grilled Cheese burger is but a crude reflection of what could be. Behold the Jamaican club sandwich. A traditional club with turkey, bacon, cheddar and tomato but with Jamaican beef patties replacing the bread.

I would also like to see a club sandwich baked into a Jamaican patty.

This and more like it are from Insanewiches.com

Thursday, August 12, 2010

Matrix Warranty Shirt

In an attempt to make a cool Matrix styled t-shirt, a clever graphic designer grabbed some readily available Japanese text and arranged it as the familiar "falling code".

But what, ultimately, does it say? Enter Tian, editor of the "Hanzi Smatter" website. While Engrish is the mistranslation of English by those in the far East, Hanzi Smatter is dedicated to Western misuse of Chinese characters. Readers send in suspicious tattoos and Asian-themed products, and Tian attempts to make sense of it all.

Among the many entries of regrettable body art, was this spiffy looking shirt. What does it really say? It says that the graphic designer grabbed the warranty information for an IBM computer. It adds a level of irony to an already cool shirt if you know it says things like "In the case that a malfunction should occur, only repair service will be offered." or "We do not accept orders by FAX."

Unfortunately, we don't know where you can buy such a shirt, but if you find on,e feel free to sound clever about what the shirt actually says.

[Hanzi Smatter: IBM Support Tee]

Saturday, August 07, 2010

5 things about Inception you probably already know

  1. The musical cue used to warn the dreamers of an upcoming kick is "Non, Je ne regrette rien" by Edith Piaf. In English thats "No, I regret nothing," a fitting theme for the film, and Marion Cotillard who played Cobb's wife Mal won the Best Actress Oscar for her portrayal of Piaf in "The Passionate Life of Edith Piaf".
  2. Hans Zimmer uses the Edith Piaf song, and the time distortion from the dream state as a key to the films musical score.
  3. The Ellen Page character is named Ariadne, after he daughter of King Minos of Crete in Greek mythology. In the story, she gives a sword and a ball of red fleece thread to Theseus so he can find his way out of the maze of the minotaur. In Inception, she wears a lot of red, in addition to her maze making and hero leading.



  4. Christopher Nolan reuses imagery from his Batman movies. Posters from both Inception and The Dark Knight are painfully similar.



    Also Cillian Murphy does seem to spend a lot of time in the back of vans with a bag over his head.


  5. The stolen kiss between Arthur and Ariadne is the kernel of a thousand works of fanfiction.


    INCEPTION - Tilt by *YoukaiYume on deviantART

Thursday, August 05, 2010

Wednesday, August 04, 2010

Ultimate relaxation

Source: http://heypais.livejournal.com/69475.html
In our house the dangle paw position is called "longpaws" after the Jeff Goldblum episode of Friends.

Tuesday, August 03, 2010

Wybie mask from Coraline film

A year ago I made a replica Wybie mask from the film version of Coraline. While I believe the original prop was designed from a 1950's welding mask, I started with a very similarly shaped industrial face shield, with the clear plastic replaced with thick black sintra. The side crank is a replica replacement Porsche window crank.

Test fit of crank on Wybie mask

I stenciled the skull pattern on the front then painted it in, leaving the welding mask rectangle gap. The original prop was designed to look like a camera three lens turret, which I could not afford to pillage, even from the depths of ebay. I created a replica turret with more sintra, PVC fittings and paint. I wanted the crank to spin the turret, but I realized that since the original prop was from a stop motion film, it didn't have to spin, so neither did mine.

Painted Wybie Mask

With it all assembled I wired in some green ultra bright LEDs and it looked great. I made plastic lens diffusers out of some packaging plastic, sanded to turn the LED dots into glowing lights.

Finished Mask, lights on

One year I will actually wear this for Halloween. I have used it as part of the 52 Weeks of Video project, when I featured it in a short, surreal film.

Monday, August 02, 2010

Cheap photography tricks

Last week I took some pictures in downtown Calgary. This one looked good on the camera preview, a nice contrast between the landmark Calgary Tower being dwarfed by newer office buildings. But still being a noob camera owner, I didn't really get the exposure right.

Towering

So I opened the picture in Picnik and tweaked the saturation and contrast until it looked interesting.
Towering

Then, employing the cheapest design trick of them all. I added some text in the most acceptable font of them all: Helvetica.
Helvetica

Now you know a dirty, cheap photography trick: don't be a hack like me, be original.