just a quickie

this is just something i did while bored one night. nothing too exciting, but i can tell you that it managed to eat up a LOT of my time. it is surprising how long it took to create this little clip. not sure i like the stop motion stuff, because i am far too impatient.

you've got mail

so..... i have had the past week off from work, and have REALLY been enjoying the time at home, since i haven’t been here much in the past couple of months. one thing that i wasn’t enjoying, was my inbox constantly “chiming” to announce to me that there was a new email for me. i found myself wishing that there was a way for me to distinguish between email from different people, so i started wandering around the internet once again. (side note : this was the absolute DEATH of my productivity yesterday, since i got obsessed with making this little idea work.) i came across some automator suggestions, and started messing around with different methods of letting me know the difference between when an important email arrived, and when an email that i could ignore for a while came in. i ended up using applescript to make this work, but i suppose automator could help you achieve the same thing. sadly, i can’t show you PC users a video of how this works. you will just have to believe me that this works..... now you Mac users are in luck, since i have the files and instructions you need right here....... the nice thing is, i wrote a little section in the script that automatically pauses iTunes, so that you can hear the message, and then resumes iTunes after the message has been spoken! and i guess it is important to mention that this whole project was inspired by marlo superstar, so a big thanks to her! ps - i have also made another little applescript that will play a sound file for “specific” emails, rather than the same sound for every email that arrives. if you are interested, let me know, and i will send it to you......

it's all in the timing

my friend richard posted a piece on his blog recently, about the definition of time, and he managed to get some excellent responses, aside from the usual "it's the fourth dimension". and i had posted a video last week, which was "time lapse" so, in keeping with this whole "time theme" that seems to be happening, my brain started thinking about the phrase : "time flies like an arrow". this sentence is one of my favourite examples of how the english language is not only complicated, but also how different words can have more than one meaning, yet maintain the same spelling. (homographs). (which SOUNDS like a concept that my friend rich should be familiar with). in the original interpretation of this statement, we are comparing how the passing of time is similar to the movement of an arrow. but there are other ways for this sentence to be understood...... 1. measure time for flies as you would for arrows 2. there is a kind of fly, (called a "time fly"), and it is fond of arrows 3. there are flies that resemble arrows. measure their speed 4. measure time for flies as an arrow would obviously, a couple of these interpretations are not really possible, but i am still fascinated by the different way to read this. what are some phrases that YOU find don't make a lot of sense, or can be interpreted in more than one way?

summer's approach

. last night, i was out playing basketball with a friend, and we were amazed by the amount of bugs flying up to the huge lights shining down on the courts. all kinds of moths and mayflies and junebugs. i found myself marveling over the fact that if they are insects of the night, then why would they be drawn to such a bright object, which will almost definitely cause them to perish? then i thought of the song by jethro tull, where the frontman, (ian anderson), sings : "The leaded window opened To move the dancing candle flame And the first moths of summer Suicidal came." i looked down on the ground and saw this absolutely STUNNING moth, just fluttering around : the photo just doesn't really do it any justice, since the lens isn't meant to do close-up photography, or even high resolution images. it is, after all, just a phone. i found it rather strange that after all the time i have spent outside in the evenings of the summer, that i have NEVER managed to see anything even remotely close to this beautiful insect. off on another part of the court, i found another interesting moth, that looked like a small version of the hummingbird moth, but didn't manage to take any pictures. and just to fill my narcissism quota for this blog, here is a picture of the moth compared to my hand, in order to give you some perspective on size. i measured the distance afterwards, and the wingspan on this gorgeous moth is around 7 cm. edit : i got the measurements wrong. i was a stupid idiot, and measured the wrong span on my hand. while looking at the picture of my hand. i don't think i can get any more stupid than that. i have corrected above as soon as i have managed to identify what kind of moth it is, i will post it right here : edit : 06.07.07 one of the faithful readers of this tiny blog, (Honker), managed to find out what kind of moth i happened to see. it turns out it is the Hyalophora Cecropia well done, Honker. feel free to stop by the comments section, and thank him for helping solve this mystery!!!

how i stay alert

work was a little more boring than usual today. so i decided to fool around with the camera built in to the computer, and see what kind of cool stuff i could do. you get to see me at my most bored. and a couple of times you can see me get incredibly sleepy, and there are a couple of times you can see me giggling. one of them is because i was flicking little balls of tape at my friend marta, through a little opening, (really not funny unless you are tired, like i was). i am pretty impressed with the results. let me know what YOU think! edit : i just noticed, while showing a friend the results of my "time-lapse" movie, that there is a spelling mistake. i wrote "py attention", instead of "pay attention", and it is driving me crazy that i know it is there!!!! edit 2 : i fixed the video ending, for the whiny complainers, (looking at you, dickcherry), that couldn't figure out that the video had ended when it went to black, but music kept playing. but i couldn't be bothered to fix the spelling mistake. it meant i had to re-edit the whole movie. and really couldn't be arsed, since it is just a cheesy video anyway!

inspired by an unstable character with destructive tendencies

when i was younger, i was obsessed with scaring people. i loved to make people jump out of their skin. i think that this was mostly because i was such a coward myself. (in fact, i am still scared of dark basements, since i am convinced that all manner of scary things lurk there). there were a couple of times i REALLY managed to freak my poor brother out. (sam, if you are reading, i am mostly sorry). the first time, he and i were watching a horror movie that had literally MILLIONS a creepy crawly insects all over the place. sam, (the poor bastard), happened to be laying on the floor watching this movie, and was resting his head on a cushion. i quietly crawled up behind him and gently tickled his ear in the manner an insect might do it. i have never seen anyone leap that high off of the ground before, as he tried to wipe off all of the imaginary bugs that his terrified mind assumed were crawling all over him. oh man, how i laughed!!! the second time, was far worse. we both had these creepy looking clown masks, that i believe we wore one year for halloween. i thought it would be funny to try and scare my brother in some way, so that he wouldn't like the mask any longer. my plan worked a little too well. i put the mask on, and then went to find the biggest kitchen knife we had in the house. i then came creeping up the stairs, brought the knife out in front of me, and peeked my eyes around the top of the stairs. when i was fairly sure that my brother was confused by what exactly was going on, i moved the knife into a threatening posture, moved my clown-mask-head fully in to view, and made this awful noise, which in my memory, sounded like a demented goat. sam's face contorted, and he started to cry instantly. he tried to climb backwards, in order to escape this demon that had come to claim his soul. i instantly felt bad, and quickly took the mask off in order to remove the fear he was experiencing. so i guess i am not ENTIRELY evil. what is the worst fright YOU have ever given to someone? ps - i realise that i probably didn't write the above story very well, but i am at work, and my attention keeps getting distracted by stupid work stuff......

bizarro world

so i finally got a couple of days off, after two BRUTAL weeks of work. and i have done absolutely nothing. except get drunk. which is probably a bad thing, but in my defence, it wasn't exactly like it was a mission of mine. i didn't say to myself "i am going to be drunk lots this weekend". it just kind of happened by accident. especially yesterday. now i feel gross. and unrested. and now i have to go work for another week. damn. i truly believed that i was going to have a really productive weekend. the only thing that i managed to produce was waste. i am a terrible human being.

it ain't easy, being green

so i was messing around with the camera in my phone the other day, and managed to capture a really neat photo of myself. i projected some light on to my face, and switched the camera to "negative" mode, (which is how i take MOST of the photos with my phone), and the result was, to me, pretty impressive. then, while working on a client project, i was messing around with a specific style of dissolve for their logo, and came up with an interesting dissolve technique, and i decided to use the same approach with the photo i captured of myself a couple of days previous. as always, no manipulation of the photo was done after it was stored on my phone. here is what i ended up with........

search string

as many of you know, i am absolutely fascinated with the english language, and especially the origin of the words we use. i am constantly trying to find their etymologies and derivations. i have many books and dictionaries at home that help me find this information. i also have several dictionaries on my computer that i refer on a regular basis - greek, latin, and so forth. when i am at work, one of the ways i kill time during a boring meeting, is play a type of word association game in my head, where i try and see if i can guess the synonyms of a word that one of presenters just used. quite often, presenters use the wrong words for what they are intending to say, and i am not sure if it is because they lack the vocabulary that is necessary to convey what they intended to, or if they are just distracted by what they are trying to say, that they often just get their words mixed up. one of the presenters today said something like "the libraries are RIPE with information", and although the image that comes to mind when you hear this seems to suggest that it is the correct word, i had a feeling that the presenter meant to use the word RIFE. so i looked it up. in the definition, it suggested to see the "note" at the word PREVALENT. it is normal for a dictionary to suggest synonyms for any particular word, but it was unusual to see a reference to a note of a different word. in addition to that peculiarity, there was a substantial note attempting to clarify the subtle differences between synonyms. very odd. it seems as though the lexicographers had a particular pet peeve for the usage of this word. here is the note that the dictionary referred me to........... Wildflowers might be prevalent in the mountains during the spring months, but a particular type of wildflower might be the prevailing one. Prevalent, in other words, implies widespread occurrence or acceptance in a particular place or time (: a prevalent belief during the nineteenth century), while prevailing suggests that something exists in such quantity that it surpasses or leads all others in acceptance, usage, or belief (the prevailing theory about the evolution of man). Wildflowers might also be abundant in the valleys—a word that, unlike prevalent and prevailing, is largely restricted to observations about a place and may suggest oversupply (: an abundant harvest; indications of decay were abundant). Plentiful, on the other hand, refers to a large or full supply without the connotations of oversupply (: a country where jobs were plentiful). If wildflowers are rife, it means that they are not only prevalent but spreading rapidly (: speculation was rife among the soldiers). If they're copious, it means they are being produced in such quantity that they constitute a rich or flowing abundance (: weep copious tears). What often happens, with wildflowers as well as with other beautiful things, is that they become so abundant they are regarded as common, a word meaning usual or ordinary (: the common cold). Like prevalent, common can apply to a time as well as a place (: an expression common during the Depression). But neither abundant nor common connotes dominance as clearly as prevalent does. here are some other words that came up today and caught my ear : - boolean - abstention

just because

. i haven't posted in over a week. why? well the last video i posted, i made while i had a fever. and the fever got worse, so i spent the next few days lying in bed, trying to get better. and then work happened. (as well as a bit of laziness in between, where i wasn't feeling very inspired). so where does that leave you and i? well that leaves you with nothing very exciting to read, and me trying desperately to find something to post here, that people will actually want to read. and now i am suffering from writers' block. it sucks. and this post is all that there is to show you. how sad.