Lunch - Average is Awesome

Bored with your life? Thinking it's too average? You may feel a bit better after you read a few pages of mylifeisaverage.com. Here, people post their very everyday adventures - or non-adventures - always using the "Today ... MLIA" format. Some examples:

The other day I went shopping for a new bed. I made up my mind by choosing the lower bed so there was less space for monsters to hide. MLIA

Today, I briefly considered getting car insurance, before realizing that I didn't want to deal with it at the moment. Then I had some trail mix. MLIA

After reading several stories on MLIA about people getting sick after licking their iPod touches, me and a few of my friends decided to try it. 3 of them got a mild flu within 2 days and the other 2 had colds. I am the only one who did not get sick and I am officially convinced that I am immune to iPod touches. MLIA

Pretty average, all right. If you're still feeling too ordinary, though, the next installment in the My Fave YouTube Videos series may help ... or it may just depress you slightly. It's worth a watch, though. Remind Me, a music video by Royksopp (no, I've never heard of them either) is an animated day in the life of a female big-business worker in the city (I believe she's supposed to be somewhere in the UK.) Each event (the burger bought for lunch) is analyzed and leads to a series of images, (burger meat is made from cow; cow produces fresh milk; cows being milked; milk goes into milkshake) always leading back to our heroine (she's drinking a milkshake.) The music is pretty unremarkable, but it's more of a background to the intensely detailed vid. Well, enjoy this array of averageness!

Disclaimer: I do not advise licking your iPod Touch!

Snack - What About Lol Lemonwire?

Well, I was honestly trying to put up an Appetizer or Dessert today, but Blogger was being uncooperative and not loading on my ol' 'puter so y'all will have to settle for another nighttime snack.

Anywayz, take a look at this bizarre/cute Flash animation - it's basically an endless loop of the lyrics "Do what you want 'cause a pirate is free, you are a pirate/Yar har, feedle-dee-dee, being a pirate is all right to be, do what you want 'cause a pirate is free, you are a pirate." This tune, which is likely to get stuck in your head and cause you to completely lose your wits, is accompanied by somewhat messily written lyrics and then a row of dancing pirates underneath the words "LOL LIMEWIRE." Now apparently, Limewire is a peer-to-peer sharing system that's often illegally used for - you guessed it - pirating. Well, that would explain the idea behind the animation, but not how they could neglect the other citrus fruits. Poor Lemonwire and Kumquatwire never got off the ground!

Snack - Playin' in the Park

And here's another late-night snack - the wee hours (well, I suppose they're not yet wee - they'll be there in a few hours, though) seem to be my favored blogging time. Early-to-bed types: please don't judge me.

In any case, I was recently at a Beacon, NY, park with my trusty camera (actually, it's not too trusty - it often deletes things with no provocation) and took a few pics of the playground equipment. The first photo we have here depicts part of a playset thingy - you know what I mean by "a playset thingy" if you've ever been to a playground. Our second image is a top view (or as top as I could reach my camera - I'm rawther short) of one of those tall climbing spirals. I gave that one an old-fashioned effect on picnik.com, a very fun and fairly user-friendly editing app. And if you look very closely, you can spot my toes poking through the spiral rungs!

Dessert - The Great Post-It Note Waterfall

Got a Post-It Note obsession? Well then, you'll love the next movie in the My Fave YouTube Videos series! Extreme Sticky Note Experiments is over 3 minutes of a couple of guys conducting increasingly complex and cool studies with sticky notes. By using those pads o' stickies that are attached in an accordion pattern, they're able to create fantabulous slinkys, rolling pinwheels, and color-changing waterfalls. The whole vid is done in a very cute style, and the Eepy Bird website and/or Facebook page (everything's got one of those now) are worth checking out as well - I haven't watched many of their other movies, but I did see a rawther impressive Diet Coke/Mentos explosion experiments video. But back to the Post-Its, for a moment, please - at the end of the film, it is proclaimed that 280,951 notes were used in the making. The eco-activist within me can only hope that they recycled those ...

Dinner - Phantastic Photos OR Perfect Pics

Photographers, Photoshoppers, and the rest of the masses, gather round to hear my tales .... um, click my links. First give a look to these piccers of the Impossible Scenes That Actually Happened. Well, they didn't actually happen, per say, but they happened over several hours. These images are made by layering lots o' different photos over each other to create scenes like 9 planes stacked up high in the sky or a bunch of tourists all snapping a building at the same time. Some are cooler than others, but each is worth at least a glance. Next check out this set of creative photos. These are elegant and artsy images like a haircutting scissor placed next to Chinese (or are they Japanese? I'm not too educated in the Oriental languages) characters constructed of snipped locks or a thermometer made of a matchstick. Some may take a few seconds to "get," but they are quite neat and sweet overall. These two pic links may inspire you to get acquainted with Photoshop or to seek out the cute and witty things in life - or at the very least, they may compel you to trim your hair.

Snack - Have Your Cake and Eat it Too!

Today was my birthday and I was hoping to find some interesting cake-related link, but apparently all the cake-maker games on teh internetz are rather stupid. So instead I present you with this iPhone app. Obviously, if you do not possess and iPad, -Phone, or -Pod, this is n/a, but the app is so cute it may inspire you to buy an i product - or at least steal a friends. In Cupcakes!, you get to ... well ... make a cupcake. In some cases, this would be nothing to write home about (if you're not already home) but the app lets you choose the pan liner, choose the batter, choose the baking time, shake your device to get your cake out of the pan, and then frost, decorate, fill, and "eat" your cuppercake. And it's all in pretty photorealistic (possibly made from actual photos) graphics. The only problem? The app provides instant cute 'n' cupcakey fun and will entertain you for about 15-40 minutes total, but after a few runs, you'll probably get a bit bored with it. It's just not addicting - well, only at first. So is it worth the 99¢ fee? Debatable - but probably, if you're an avid maker of real-life cupcakes like I am. Will it make you want cupcakes? Yes. Is that a good thing? Only if you have access to them!

Appetizer - Forget Norway!

Thinking of planning a trip to Africa? This video, the ... let's see ... ninth installment in the My Fave YouTube Videos series will convince you to. Kenya, another video by 'Tuber mrweebl (previously mentioned in "Narwhals and Dugongs and Giraffes, Oh My!") is done in the style of an advertisement for - you guessed it - Kenya. It's basically 47 seconds of very cute animated graphics of lions, tigers, and other wildlife, accompanied by a singer who pronounces that there are lions and tigers and Kenya, that you should come see them, and that Norway is lame. There are also flashing announcements ("AMAZING OFFER!! LIONS AND TIGERS AVAILABLE FOR VIEWING NOW!) and a graphic that shows exactly WHY Kenya is superior to Norway. Well, enjoy the vid and enjoy your trip to Africa, but don't let this set you completely against poor Norway - after all, they have a sad, sad lack of lions and tigers.

Dinner - Bandied About

it was pretty neat to see the different layers of color I had added

Recently, I noticed that my rubber band ball, which was made purely of bands and was rawther large, was starting to rot (YECH!) The rubber was just sort of disintegrating and coming apart. So I decided - why not? - to saw it in half with a kitchen knife. I was sort of picturing that I could knife it in half without it falling apart and then I could have a perfect cross section, sort of like a cut-in-half cabbage - it didn't QUITE work that way, but it was still very neat. Here's a pic while i was still just approaching the core. And to the left over there you see a close-up of the final product - a mass o' rubber bands. So the moral of this story is: make yourself a rubber band ball, wait a few years until it begins to putrefy, and then saw 'er up. Don't use those animal shaped Silly Bandz bracelets, though - those are much too fashionable. Well, actually, they're kind of ugly, but in a fashionable way. Apparently, this pup on the s-bandz' Facebook page thinks they're the cat's meow, though. Er, the dog's bark. Er ... whatever.

Snack - 100 Coins for the "Skanky Herring"

If you're interested in fishing but don't have the necessary gear (rod, bait, pond, stupid-looking hat,) give Fisher Girl a try. Basically, this relaxing game follows the plot that a shark has stolen your angler boyfriend - a small, Pokémon-ish creature - and you, the fisher girl (same shape, different color,) must rescue him. Apparently, catching a bunch of fish - Tuna, Flounder, and Skanky Herring (huh?) among the smaller ones, will save your beau, so that's what you must do. Fisher Girl operates on the same concept as any other angling game - cast out, earn coins, get rod and bait upgrades - but its elegant design and cute graphics make it rise above the others. And no stupid-looking hat is required!

Dinner - Mosaic Madness OR Collage Craziness

It's time for a mosaic-ful supper! I'm Talya, and I'll be your server tonight. Our eatables tonight are both of the "bunch-of-pictures-put-together" fashion. For the first course, take a look at the Starry Night Mosaic, a replica of Van Gogh's painting. At first glance, it just looks like ... a replica of Van Gogh's painting ... but if you zoom in closer, you'll see that it's all made up of what the site claims is 1.500,000,000 little photos. It's certainly a sight to behold. The second course is a this rather entertaining game. Guess-the-Google. The program creates a collage of images, and it falls upon your shoulders to guess what Google Images search would return them. With its attractive interface (lime green color scheme!) and creative concept, it's definitely a good investment of 5 or 10 minutes. Well, I hope you have enjoyed your meal! And I hope you left a tip. Actually, a tip widget on this blog site wouldn't be a bad idea!

Brunch - Facts From the Throne Room

So does everyone know and/or read Uncle John's Bathroom Readers? If not, check out this here website or that there Facebook page. For those uninformed, the Bathroom Readers are basically compilations of random trivia, short essays, and interesting facts. Although the topics are occasionally gruesome or creepy, the majority are rawther funny and entertaining. Here's a collection of snippets from Uncle John's Unsinkable Bathroom Reader, which I have right here in my very own bathroom -

Alaska is the only state whose name can be typed on a single keyboard row.

In 2007 the Edmonton Sun interviewed a 70-year-old woman identified only as "Maggie" who claimed she devoured the Edmonton Sun every day - literally. For the previous seven years, she'd cut the newspaper into strips and eaten it because, she said, it "tastes good." The woman decided to come forward after doctors removed a massive ball of paper that was lodged in her esophagus.

... excerpts from real church bulletins:
"The church office will be closed until opening. It will remain closed after opening. It will reopen Monday."
"Please place your donation in the envelope along with the deceased person you want remembered."

It takes 300 pounds of pressure per square inch to break a macadamia nut's shell.

Well, that's it for now, and I hope you were in the bathroom when reading these Bathroom Reader excerpts - and hopefully you did not drop your computer in the toilet!

Late-Night Snack - Glowin' in the Dark

Christina, Michelle, and Jess playing with fire

This is a pic I recently took at a wedding; the bride and a couple others twirled these flaming wicks-on-a-string in figure eights, loops, etc. It looked extremely cool in the dark.

On the theme of lights in the night, this glowy spiral was a decoration from the aforementioned wedding. Basically, I think lights or flames in the dark = cool photo. (You can try proving this equation yourself - it's more entertaining than algebra!)

Appetizer - Don't Eat the Paint!

Here are the next installments in the My Fave YouTube Videos series: the very neat Tony Vs. Paul, and this speed painting - in the medium of Vegemite on toast. The first is basically a long sequence of two guys fighting, but it's in stop-motion, so they slide smoothly across grass, are buried by self-moving sand, etc. The Vegemite painting is one piece of a collection of art in odd mediums by the talented 'Tube user EclecticAsylumArt. More of their paintings shall follow in the Fave Videos series! Enjoy - but don't let the latter vid inspire you to taste Vegemite. I've heard it's disgusting.

Snack - Got Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder?

I just found this here blog-ish page, Things Organized Neatly. It's just what it sounds like - a collection of pics of things organized neatly. If you prefer chaos, avoid this site, but it's kind of satisfying for us slightly OCD types.

Brunch - Shadow Art

Lend an eye (don't literally take out your peeper, please) to this way cool Shadow Art. It's all ... er ... art made with shadows. For example, two furry thin-tailed rats in love, shadowed on a wall by a pile of junk configured to block the light in just the right way. Even cooler are the silhouettes of faces or bodies made from li'l building blocks on the surface of the shadow area - it appears that they streamed enough beams of light on them to create intricate designs. Or maybe they just made a cut-out of someone's face, held it above the shadow target area, and tossed some blocks around, but that would be cheating, and that wouldn't be very nice!! Hmph!

Dinner - Veggie Music and Cows With Guns

Take a look at the gallery at oddmusic.com, a long list of bizarre musical instruments! I haven't yet viewed them all, but so far I believe I'm partial to the Viennese Vegetable Orchestra, a group of musicians that plays their tunes only on veggies, including the carrot flute, the cucumber-phone, and the leek violin. Be sure to listen to the clip of them in action - it's kind of a wind-instrument-y wail with a background of bongos. Neat. And speaking of eatables, here's the next installment in the My Fave YouTube Videos series - Cows With Guns. It's the epic story of a herd of cattle who refuse to be turned into burgers, very empowering for us vegetarians. Well, actually, I'm a pescatarian, but, y'know.