The Arcane and the Obvious

NetherCraft Statuary has some beautiful, original medieval styled statues, fountains, and scultpures that look as though they're made from stone. A lot of the work is available for sale. I wish more of it was.

It's a little creepy, but so ephemeral. Magic little vignettes created in 3D. Take a look at the art of Ray Caesar.

Link via BoingBoing

Pirate Mod.

Admit it. You've always wanted to tie up the maiden...

These come pre-converted in the Windows Media Video format, at a resolution of 320 by 240 pixels. They're designed for your Portable Media Center or your Pocket PC running Windows Mobile.

Portable Media Center Movies

Yes. Yes, I do have X10 controllers in my home.

And I'm going to get more. They've got some cool stuff I didn't know about at SMARTHOME.

http://www.mocom.ru/Wallpapers/ibm.htm

Link via Thinkpads.com.

Gosh, I'm not really sure how this tiny little entry ended up at the top of Google's list for Thinkpad Themes, but I figured I would fix the URL since I went recently looking for a new source myself.

Lenovo doesn't *seem* to be as interested in the user community as IBM appeared to be.

God Bless the Russians for fearlessly hosting everything.

Also:

OEM Wallpapers

Just found out about Topdeq from a link on Gizmodo. If you're into clean lines and spareness in design, take a look.

While I know that anyone who is clever could come up with something similar on his own... It's good to know there are professionals!

http://www.hiddenpassageway.com/

Link via Neil Gaiman

In one of my lives, I work in a large corporate reseller of media. The hook is books. Lots of them. But we have CDs and DVDs, periodical literature, and some sundry merchandise which we gather under the catch-all category of "Gifts and Stationery."

One such "gift" is a replica of a light saber. Lots of people (children especially) are amused by them. Fans of Star Wars know immediately what they are and play with the demo model in the store. Other people seem peripherally aware of them without knowing specifics.

One such customer played with the demo model for a few minutes before joining her companion at the register. She like so many others is shocked that such a thing might cost more than a hundred dollars. Shocked even though it lights in a way that mimics the special effects of the late-70s Science Fiction movie, and sounds like the foley effects--in response to an embedded motion sensor. It's a very cool toy, and a very accurate replica.

Yep. I own one. Specifically, it's the model Anakin Skywalker used while he was a Jedi. The one Obi Wan gave to Luke in the first theatrical release (Episode 4). You know... with the blue blade. There's also Darth Vader's, Luke's own (that he made during his Jedi training), and there is a Darth Maul model. If you buy two of the Darth Maul models, you can lock them together to make a double-ended saber just like the one in Episode 2 (I think it was that movie).

There are groups that have come in to buy out our entire stock in order to use them to stage mock fights.

To be sure, those 'saber replicas have a certain allure for the geekiest among us.

It was that geek in me that was really disheartened to hear that customer tell her friend about the light saber from Star Trek.

I gave a light-hearted whisper to her saying simply "Star Wars..."

To which she responded by correcting herself, then announcing to me that "I'm not much of a Trekkie."

Ooof.

I had nothing more to say to her. I knew explaining the multitude of ways that her response was oh-so-wrong would just fall on deaf ears.

I think I just blinked.

"Trekkie," echoed through my brain. I felt wounded.

I've been experimenting with putting photos online. Experimenting in the sense of low-cost alternatives for sharing photos.

Flickr is one photo sharing service that has a lot of cool features. One, called "pools," lets you join groups of people who share specific types of photos or photos of specific subject matter. Another feature is "tagging," which lets you add labels or descriptors to your images.

You can search for images based on a photo's name, comments on a photo, descriptions of a photo or tags. Or you can browse through pools of images on a topic or a subject.

I uploaded three photos I took of my car, to share with friends who don't live close by.

Later I tagged them with descriptive terms. I joined groups and submitted them to pools specifically for Cadillacs and created my own group with a pool specifically for DeVilles.

In a related development I ran across some GM blogs. I've been working on another site so I've been surfing a lot of auto industry sites lately. One of the GM blogs called FYI invites you to tag your images with the string "gmfyi." They pick an image of the day from photos posted to Flickr with the "gmfyi" tag. Any photo of any GM car is eligible. I tagged my photos just in case. ;)

And today, they picked one of my pictures of Ginger.

Pardon me while I swell with pride.

Presenting: Ginger's Hood Ornament on FYI

Heh heh...

I *love* this video. I know, you have probably seen it yourself by now. If not, take a gander: Web 2.0 ... The Machine is Us/ing Us

I love the idea that technology, on the whole, is positive and beneficial—so I get a little choked up at the end.

I chose this theme due to the featured snack food. Um, and the colors and layout.

I mentioned to my friend Michael that it was my favorite snack food of all time, just today, when he complimented me on the theme.

Tonight watching TV we happened on a show called "Good Eats," which happened to be all about popcorn. Mostly stuff I knew, but I like the way the show was put together with cute skits and vignettes and a fair amount of comedy to convey the history of popcorn, a little science about what happens when corn pops, and ways to prepare it maximizing the number of popped kernels.

Right after that show, Rachel Ray was flitting about Chicago on a budget. She ended up at the Navy Pier and made a bee-line to the Popcorn Palace. She mentioned they do mail order and what do you know I pulled them up from a web search. I ordered a catalog.

I figured by now the universe was trying to tell me something, so I popped and ate a big old bowl.

Mmmmm....