I used to see these around Beijing, particularily prior to major holidays. This is quite the vision.
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Buenos Aires- Inception Park
How do they do it? Black Sheep Films…
Buenos Aires – Inception Park from Black Sheep Films on Vimeo.
Pebble: E-Paper Watch for iPhone
Just ordered my new Pebble….it will be shipping in September 2012….can’t wait!!!
How Ziggy Stardust Opened My Eyes
Way back in the days of Ziggy Stardust, I stood on the floor of the Coliseum in Madison, Wisconsin awaiting David Bowie’s appearance on stage. As we all lingered, Mr. Bowie toyed with us by showing a short clip of the 1929 movie: Un Chien Andalou. I innocently watched this black and white film.
For this who don’t know the storyline, I highly recommend watching this short 40 second film and see Luis Bunuel and Salvador Dali’s most famous scene. Spoiler alert, short as this is, it is NOT for the squeamish and these images could follow you for life. As a young Midwestern gal, I was completely unprepared for what Ziggy was sharing with us. The packed arena groaned at the end of this film. I guess I wasn’t the only one caught off guard.
Now, these many, many years later, Ziggy’s sense of humor [or whatever sensation Mr. Bowie was attempting to teach us] has changed to an aqueous one. For those uninitated to the schematics of our eyes, aqueous humor is basically the fluid that flows in our eyes and also in simple terms maintains the intraocular pressure and inflates the globes of our eyes amongst its many other functions. But how does aqueous humor impact me this week?
Well, it has to do with the narrow angles of my eyes. Without boring you, the space between my cornea and the iris of my eye has narrowed. This, in my Ophthalmologist’s world is called: Narrow Angles, Closed Angle or Angle-Closure Glaucoma and leads me to be at a high risk for glaucoma. Fun times [I'm being sarcastic, for those who don't know me well]. Have a look for yourself, in the image below.
Which means, I’m having some surgery today, wherein the Ophthalmologist will be using a laser to blast a very fine hole into my eye…more precisely my iris. They tell me my eye will be numbed, a sort of contact lens inserted and the laser will blast into my eye.
The whole procedure will go something like this short video.
Being a visual designer I’m actually-as many of us I’m sure are- very in love with my vision, so having this type of procedure done to my eye has given me the very same hibbie-jeebies that David Bowie’s pre-concert flick gave me those-oh, so many years ago. Only this time, it’s happening to me. And adding to the drama, today’s procedure only involves my right eye. I get to enjoy the fun all over again, with my left eye, in two weeks.
Now maybe my Ophthalmologist didn’t want to freak me out, so he only told me the basics of this procedure. His nurse called me and gave me more details and when I signed consent papers she gave me a very basic handout describing the surgery. I went out and researched the above medical video, which brought up those crazy, eye-slitting images Ziggy Stardust embedded in my half-baked, pre-concert brain decades ago.
So, I’ll let the aqueous humor [hee, hee] help me deal with the fears I have leading up to today’s action plan. After my appointment, I’m planning on laying low, administering my steroid eyedrops and hoping for the best. Maybe I’ll even listen to Five Years from my favorite Glam Rocker as I psych up to do this all over again with my left eye. We’ve got five years, stuck on my eyes…
My Right Eye Before: My Right Eye After: Upload to follow
Oh, and BTW that ‘little prick’ you’ll feel-as the Dr. explained-felt more like an industrial, automatic nail gun piercing thru my iris.
Helping With a NOVA Project
This is a shot early morning- working from my computer in Boston- where I am helping with a NOVA project called: Cracking the Genetic Code. This documentary airs March 28th. Can’t wait to see the final project.
Xernay’s 18th Birthday Bash
18th birthdays come but once in a lifetime.
So, in a few steps, I created a little enchantment on our dining table…starting with the bare table, I added color and then layers…
and finally….the cake.
Done with the iPhone and Hipstmatic using the John S lens and Ina’s 1969 film.
An Epic Cake
The goal was to make a chocolate stout cake with butter cream frosting and chocolate ganache topping. My daughter started the process following Smitten Kitten’s recipe.
Ta-da…..here it is:
This is no ordinary cake. THIS, is an epic cake. It weighs 5+ pounds, it is 3 layers, each layer is smeared with butter cream frosting and the whole thing is laced with chocolate ganache. That’s right, I said 5+ pounds of cake here.
It began as these simple ingredients measured by the pounds. And this doesn’t show the 4 cups of four [that's 2 pounds] and 4 cups of sugar [another 2 pounds] required to create such an epic cake. Are you getting the image of a serious pound cake slathered with buttery, cream chocolate frosting?
This image doesn’t not include the additional ingredients I purchased-see below
What really makes this cake epic, are several things.
- First and foremost, our oven’s temperature isn’t working quite right. So, the cake was popped into the oven and after 10 minutes the cake started to crack. After multiple attempts to continue the internal cake baking process, I pulled the cakes from the oven and dashed to the nearby kitchen supply store to buy an oven thermometer. My daughter left for an appointment to work out at the gym and I watched the oven temperature rise and fall as I tried my best to get the oven to stay at an even 350 degrees. Once I reached that goal, I put the cakes back in to finish baking.
- Second, I dropped the cake. That’s right, during the additional baking, I was pulling a cake layer out of the oven and it literally slipped out of my hands, hit the counter [which contained most of the shattered cake layer bits] and the rest splatted onto the floor. After much swearing, scrapping and clean up – buttery rich cake batter is a real b***ch to clean up.
- Third, I ran out to the store to buy more ingredients: butter, chocolate, aluminum cake pans [as ours were partially full of half-baked cake #1], more beer and sour cream.
- Fourth, I didn’t really read the recipe properly and accidentally added a little too much salt. I don’t know, someplace between the frantic dropping of the first round of cakes and trying to find the recipe [on my daughter's computer]… I mis-read the quantity of salt and added a bit too much.
- Fifth, we needed LOTs of friends to help us eat this cake. A single slice was easily divided by 3 people. I couldn’t even finish half a thin slice myself.
What have we learned from making this Epic Cake? Well, get the oven temperature to it’s proper degree. The thermometer helps. A newer oven would help even more. Have extra ingredients on hand and ALWAYS read and re-read the recipe.
Oh, and I kinda like that little salty hint mixed into my 5+ pounds of chocolate stout cake. While I’m not sure I would make this cake again, I am sure I will continue baking.
29 Ways to Stay Creative
TO-FU, [love that name] a motion graphics studio in Japan, compiled this video of suggestions to staying creative.
29 WAYS TO STAY CREATIVE from TO-FU on Vimeo.
Take note of these ideas…anything they missed?
Unstuck
Unstuck from Unstuck on Vimeo.
Here’s a fun little app called Unstuck that was built to help you get ‘unstuck’ when you are working on a project or idea. After logging into the app, you are asked some questions concerning where and what you are stuck in. Just as one would do creating an online course this tool is broken down into objectives and steps. Unstuck is helping you get your game on and map out possibilities.
This is me looking into Unstuck
By determining how you are feeling in this stuck moment, this little app discovers the type of stuck moment you are in. In my test I was a ‘Deflated Doer’ another time I might be a ‘Perplexed Planner’ or a ‘Fuzzy Forecaster’. Once you’ve gotten this step complete, the app asks what type of stuck you are in and who it involves. You are then asked to type in an answer to the cause of your being stuck. [The app even gives you some prompts to help you.]
Then there is a fun little step where you sort through a deck of cards to figure out what you are thinking about with this issue and you are also asked about what 3 things you are doing-in this stuck moment. The final step is to answer a list of questions pertaining to the things you are doing because you are stuck.
The app then analyzes your issue and offers advice. Read through what Unstuck offers, this is the fun of the app. I liked reading my ‘Stuck Report’ which helped me understand why I’m acting the way I am in this moment. It evens compares you to the Unstuck community.
I think this app is probably as helpful-maybe more so- than randomly browsing websites or other procrastination tactics I might indulge in. Try it for yourself. It’s nicely put together, fun to work with and might just help you.