Phantastic Photography!!

Fourth on Lake Austin
Originally uploaded by Stuck in Customs

I want to be Trey Ratcliff when I grow up!

His photo, Fourth on Lake Austin, just won the Annual Smithsonian Magazine Awards in the "Americana" category. Congrats!!

I not only continually run a slideshow of his stuff at the bottom of my page (page down to see!), I've blogged about his Bloggies-nominated photography site "Stuck in Customs" before. And it just keeps getting better and better... Right now, Trey's blogging about shooting Cambodia in his signature "high dynamic range imaging" style!

What's more, a beautiful overview to his work has just been launched at http://www.treyratcliff.com, where you can gaze and marvel at slide shows of his portfolio, subtitled "Yearn," "Aspire," "Hope," and "Dream." Don't miss a single section!!

The Art of Deja Vu

"Minnesota photographer Thomas Allen cuts illustrations from the covers and interior pages of pulp novels and kids' books, turns them into 3D scenes and photographs them." More at Thomas
Allen's "Pulp Fiction"!

This clever online exhibit is not to be missed... but what caught my eye was that I remember the image to the right from my childhood!

It was from that obligatory copy of the children's illustrated Bible that was always in doctors' office waiting rooms at least as late as the 1970s!

(via Boing Boing: Pulp covers turned into 3D sculptures)

2nd Annual Zombie Kickball Game!

I guess I missed the sporting event in Portland this past Memorial Day weekend: the second annual "Zombie Kickball Game"! (You gotta love the timing...)

Coverage of this year's ZKBII is here at Strange Maine.

Group photo of the "Zombie Bleachers" taken by SM's editor Michelle (no relation...)
You can see video taken of this gory group photo here!

Witness all the brain-eating, ball-kicking mayhem from last year in a rough-cut of a documentary which will be screened at the "Fear No Film" Film Festival in Salt Lake City this upcoming June!

(Not to mention the Flickr set... and this year's developing coverage in the Zombie Athletics League Flickr pool!)

Here's hoping that they'll arise again next year!!

Post Script: Wanna be warned if they do? Make "friends" with http://www.myspace.com/zombiekickball!

Hieronymus Bosch Action Figures!

You loved "The Garden of Earthly Delights"! (After all, who doesn't??)

Now you can play with all the characters at home with the "Hieronymus Bosch Action Figures"!!

(via Fimoculous)

What does your birthdate mean??

Your Birthdate: May 29

You have the mind of an artist, even if you haven't developed the talent yet. Expressive and aware, you enjoy finding new ways to share your feelings. You often feel like you don't fit in - especially in traditional environments. You have big dreams. The problem is putting those dreams into action. Your strength: Your vivid imagination Your weakness: Fear of failure Your power color: Coral Your power symbol: Oval Your power month: November What Does Your Birth Date Mean?

Getting Ready for Venice (or Just Summer!): "How To Save Your Wet Cell Phone"

Dropped your phone in the canal? I haven't (yet) in Venice, but my Venetian hubby has! (Of course, he was rowing at the time, so that's a pretty good excuse...)

The good folks at SquareTrade Warranty just sent an email though that seems incredibly useful! Enjoy!!

(Or, should I say, I hope you won't have to!!!)

So you went swimming with your cell phone again, or accidentally spilled Gatorade on it. Hey, it happens, but there are ways to recover from the Red Dot of Death if you're fast enough. Get it out of the water and remove both the battery and the SIM card. Dry everything off, and then wait. And I mean wait... (read more here!)

"The College Prank as Viral Video"

Type 'college prank' into YouTube and you will be greeted with hundreds of videos. Most will be really, really dumb. Many won't even be pranks at all. Some will make you furrow your brow, shake your head, and fear for the future of our country. But a few of them push the art of the prank to new heights...

Check them out here, at the Chronicle of Higher Education!

(via Arts and Letters Daily)

Yes, they are just plain extraordinarily silly... and yet, they're things of beauty and a joy forever!

And note to my students... don't get any wise ideas!! (LOL)

UPDATED - Back in Business: A "Sinking Feeling in Venice"

Ah, long time no blog... But it's getting to be that time of the year again that my blogging need not be taken up by all my classes, and I can actually do some stuff that's recreational! YAY!!

For example... According to the China Post from earlier this week...

Sinking feeling in Venice over glass and steel bridge:

It has been called "the world's longest bridge", not because of the distance it should cover -- 94 meters, but because of the time it has taken to build -- 11 years and counting.

Now, a planned glass and steel bridge over Venice's Grand Canal is also threatening to cause irreparable damage... Experts have calculated that the 52-ton structure will create a downward force of 1,500 tons, equivalent to 75 large lorries. This weight could sink the sides of the canal, which have been built on a soft, muddy floor..." (read more here)

Uh, oops... As if Venice doesn't have enough problems already!

UPDATE (5/15) - From yesterday's "Buongiorno Venezia" newsletter:

"Drawn by continuing disputes about his 'creature', Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava arrived in Venice last week to view the situation in person. His inspection of the area where the bridge's foundation is being tested to determine whether it meets requirements proved to be, for him, very satisfactory. 'The bridge is wonderful and perfectly in conformity with my plans. I make bold, but not unsafe bridges. The delays and the increased costs certainly aren't attributable to me because I'm only the designer. The blame is on Italian legislation, which calls for the cheapest, not the best, firms and suppliers. In a special town such as Venice, the municipality must be free to choose the best.'"

Forget the "Da Vinci Code"! Learn about the "Waffle House Code"!!

Waffle House is a beloved southern institution.

Open 24/7, its cheese eggs and raisin toast were what got us through our all-nighters in College. (Even if we did - pretty uncharitably - call the place "Awful House"!) In grad school, it was a like a cheery oasis where I once ate breakfast on a lonely drive home on Christmas morning.

But at a short-order establishment where you can order everything in myriad combinations ("scattered," "smothered," "covered," "chunked," and "topped," just to name a few!) what arcane mysteries allow the waitresses and the cooks to keep it all straight?

The truth revealed by Boing Boing: Condiment codes of the Waffle House kitchens!

Mashuped Michelle!

Anybody who's bothered to talk to me about music over, say, the last year or so knows that I'm mad over mashups!

There are a huge number of compilations out there at the moment (which - cuz of the genre - may just not be out there the next, like "Best of Bootie 2006" at right!) Snap 'em up with you can!!

I'm particularly likin'em while working out these days. Both, sooner or later, give you the sublime moment! As they say down under and over at Mashuptown,

You are about to have what I call a "Mashup Moment". It's kind of like when you see a beautiful woman from away.....you're not too sure if this Sheila is a winner.... but you eventually get close enough to say to yourself "Wow - there is a God" (please reverse gender if you are female, or a gay male). Now with Mashups it's a bit different. You see the artists involved in the track and think to yourself "hmmm this might be interesting - I dig those bands" but you are still a bit skeptical. Then you start the track. Familiar beats and hooks give ya the warm fuzzies. Familiar memories rush in and take you back in an instant to a time and place in your life that bring back good time feelings. And then.... you get blown away. The track just keeps getting better and better. You think to yourself "How on earth could these tracks be mixed together to sound so amazing?" "How is it possible for someone to poses that much brilliance and talent to be able to figure out and calculate the endless mixing permutations to make the music sound as one?" In an instant your life is better. Your mood is enhanced. You think to yourself 'Life is Good'. And you can't wipe that f*cking smile off your face. That my friend is what I call the Mashup Moment. It is the reason we do what we do here at Mashuptown.

And, yes, there is a God! Mashuptown is my daily purveyor of musical miracles, keepin' me stocked and keepin' me stoked!! :-)

Keep up the jammin' work, blokes!!!!

Newsflash - "Tiny duckling has rare mutation: 4 legs"

I've got just one word for you... CONFIT!! :-)
Plus, the "teabag quote of the day":

Wisdom steeps in youthful moments. - Numi Organic Teas

Happy Valentine's Day!!

Different people have different guiding principles... For example, one of my favorite individuals is personally beholden to "harmony". For myself, if there's any such principle for me, it'd be love. Life is too short not to love all you can... That's why this is one of my favorite days of the year!

Maybe the more cynical might think though that it has more to do with this quote from Robert Frost than anything else: "Love is an irresistible desire to be irresistibly desired."

But I think Shakespeare summed it up best!

Let me not to the marriage of true minds

Admit impediments. Love is not love

Which alters when it alteration finds,

Or bends with the remover to remove:

O no! it is an ever-fixed mark

That looks on tempests and is never shaken;

It is the star to every wandering bark,

Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.

Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks

Within his bending sickle's compass come:

Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,

But bears it out even to the edge of doom.

If this be error and upon me proved,

I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

Newsflash: Mega-Concert this summer in Venice!!

"NEWS. On Thursday, 8 February, the tenth edition of the Heineken Jammin' Festival, the most important rock music festival in Italy, was officially announced in Milan. This year, the event will take place from 14 to 17 June at S. Giuliano Park in Mestre, facing Venice's northern lagoon. The programme will include famous rockers such as Iron Maiden, Pearl Jam, Aerosmith, Smashing Pumpkins, as well as Italian performer Vasco Rossi. Attendance is expected to reach 250,000 people from the whole of Europe. "With this kind of event," Mayor Cacciari said, "we wish to show that the notion that Venice is a dying city of no interest to young people is completely false. The festival is not only important musically but culturally, as well." (via Buongiorno Venezia)

Stuck on "Stuck in Customs"!

Okay, I admit it... I don't handle obstacles well. Or maybe I do... I guess it all depends on your perspective!

First, I "work the problem," then I "overwork the problem" and finally, barring any success from that, I just go ahead and bulldoze any remaining roadblocks. :-)

Case in point, this morning: I've just discovered a wonderful travel photoblog called "Stuck in Customs," and I wanted to add a slideshow of its breaktaking images to my sidebar here at MMC. Easier said than done! Two hours later I had to strike a compromise... the sidebar proved too much for me, so now it's at the bottom. (Scroll down and click through!)

The photographer, Trey Ratcliff, specializes in High Dynamic Range photography. He writes,

HDR enables the photographer to create a color and light palette that goes beyond the normal aperture and shutter speed of the basic shot.In my judgment, a well-executed HDR image is evocative of the actual scene itself. When a human eye is actually on location, it is constantly moving, adjusting the pupil size, allowing in more light in some areas, less in others, and the visual cortex actually works to build a patch-like vision of the scene. That is what we remember in our mind’s eye: an idealized super-realistic memory of the scene. HDR appeals to those people that actually see the world like this.

HDR normally involves multiple exposures of a scene at different stops (i.e. +4, +2, 0, -2, -4). These images are then processed and tone mapped for contrast and luminosity settings in sort of a techno-custom-software-darkroom until a light balance is achieved.

Technobabble? No, it's pure magic! Just wait until you see the results!!

I first discovered "Stuck in Customs" because it's been nominated for one of the 2007 "Bloggies" Awards. Best of luck, Trey!!

UPDATED: Links for Friends (Plus, AAIIIEEE!!)

At left... Oh yeah, that helps! Yikes!! (Thanks, Presurfer!! :-)

More on evil clowns in medicine previously on "Michelle's Mental Clutter"!

And now, our weekly (or so) links for friends...

Firstly, for all the guys, The social norm of leaving the toilet seat down: A game theoretic analysis (Hey, I'm cool with it, but you never know who isn't!)

For Vippy-Zippy, Theoretical Economics: An Open Access Journal in Economic Theory & Get Hostile: The Online Stock Trading Game.

For myself & Marky-J, Cute Otters: The Website! (If we're good, maybe next life...)

Plus, for both the philosopher and language-nazi in him, I thought he'd enjoy "Beg the Question"? Get It Right!

Lastly but not leastly, for Doctor Beth, Guinea Pig Rescuers! Sounds like the name for an exciting new reality show, huh? :-)