Thursday, July 28, 2011

Watching Letters Fly By

A quick post about fonts and flicks...

You see common Kinetic Typography when movie credits zip by as you sit in a darkened theater. btw, Its much more difficult to add floating notes during the film itself, like those sliding rules in 'Zombieland'. (a fun movie, if you can stand gooey gore.)

Below is a narration enhanced with active letters.

{99 sec}

A person named Chris did the kinetic typograph above,
using the villian's speech from 'V for Vendetta';
a movie w/ Hugo Weaving & Natalie Portman, kinda
'Black Swan meets the bad guy from The Matrix'...



This next flight of word & letter fancy is

{2 min}
called 'X versus O', by

Reminds me of those Sesame Street bits, but for adults.


* Hope you've enjoyed these very moving letters... ;-)




for TT's 'letter' day
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Thursday, July 21, 2011

Into The Woods

Walk among Redwoods... in the middle of the Pacific ocean.

An experiment 95 years ago led to a forest on the slope of a volcano. Someone decided to see if these California trees could survive in the relatively cool temps of Maui's upcountry, 5000+ feet up on the non-lava side of the Haleakala crater.

Now they're over 100 feet tall and still growing.

Redwoods in Hawaii

Looking up in Poli Poli State Park, Hawaii.


{30 sec}

Normally I'm not in favor of adding non-native plants to the Hawaiian islands, but if redwoods can survive where no native plants could grow, it seems okay.
Any botanists want to weigh in?

fyi: If you go hiking on Maui, remember to refer to any area uphill of the town of Haiku as 'upcountry' - you'll sound a bit less like a tourist.

But as your burnt skin peels like a banana,
you're still gonna look like one.



for TT's 'country' day
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Wednesday, July 20, 2011

Fun On A Boat With Your Chum

And look, a new pal drops in...

J A W S !

I have an irrational fear of 'Jaws', so this week's shark news gave me the creeps. Some researchers had a 9 ft, 1000~pound Great White Shark breech next to them, and then fall right into their boat. Yikes.

But in the end it did more damage to their pride than their persons.

And so, after they got over the shock, the crew ended up helping it back into the water.

What nice shark chums.
Wish one of them had a video cam...

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Friday, July 1, 2011

Make A Sparkler

Here are two simple 4-item recipes:
1. For this fireworks sparkler you need:

Potassium Nitrate - 6 parts
Granular Magnesium - 4 parts
Charcoal - 1 part
and a starch or sugar 'binder'

Mix, and coat a wire or stick.
This guy uses -marshmallows- for his binder.

{6 min}

Or, if that sounds too messy...


2. You can mix up a Bond Street Sparkler.
blackberry puree,
St.Germain elderflower liqueur
Fresh Mint
and a quality Champagne...

{2 min}


For a simply fun July, I might make both.

For TT's 'simple' day
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