Category: strange things!

these things are strange!

Lazy-ish Friday and lazy Saturday

So, Friday I finally got tired of using the trackpad on my Macbook, and decided to scope out an electronics store nearby to buy a mouse. I debated about going all the way to Akihabara just to get a mouse, but it seemed like overkill, plus I wanted to spend a long time at Akihabara. What I did was find a smaller electronics chain called “Yamada” which happened to have a store in a shopping mall not too far away. So, I set out on a short(?) 2 mile walk to an area called Toyosu, which is on some reclaimed land in Tokyo Bay.

It took me about an hour at a leisurely pace, I had the option of taking the Metro but figured I need the exercise. When I got there, after roaming around trying to find the front door 🙂 I went in to go to the 2nd floor. I was amazed to ride up on, not an escalator, but an angled moving walkway, like a moving ramp! I’ve never seen or heard of such a thing, but there it was! It felt weird standing on it, as my feet weren’t flat on a step.

It worked okay, and I got to the top and into the mall proper. It only took a few minutes to find the store, and I got my mouse. On my way out I stopped at a small French bakery, called “Boulanger VAGUE”. At least I think I did… 🙂

After I left the mall I debated about walking back, but foolishly decided to take the Metro, at the tail end of rush hour! It wasn’t as crowded as you may have seen, but it was pretty packed in the station. I only rode one stop, then changed trains and rode another stop to my station. That was the only thing I really did on Friday, so I was kind of lazy, until I did my walking.

Saturday started cold and rainy, and hasn’t improved at all except to stop actually raining, and only threatening. I thought about doing my laundry (I only brought a few shirts and things, enough for 5 or 6 days depending on how offensive I want to smell 🙂 and realized I don’t have any laundry detergent! So, now I have to go to either the grocery store or one of the drugstores near me to pick some up. Also have to get some bars of soap (I’m old-fashioned, never got the hang of the “body wash” stuff) and probably grab something to eat. All in all, a very low-energy, lazy Saturday.

Dubstep pop-and-lock dancers, “Robot Boys”

Screen Shot 2014-06-04 at 9.48.08 PMOnce again, the Dutch pop-and-lock dancers Nick and Jeppe have another catchy robot-themed dance video, where they’re joined by “Poppin John”, another dancer in a routine set to the music composed by Nick and Jeppe. If you’re into this kind of music and dance, this will be the kind of performance you’ll like. If you’ve never heard or seen it before, give it a shot.

Enjoy!

What if aliens are afraid of us?

Screen Shot 2014-01-14 at 1.22.49 AMIf you’ve read any science fiction or watched any movies at all, you’ve come across the idea of aliens invading Earth, for any number of logical or illogical reasons. A human (^_^) named Tom Scott has made a short video parodying a “travel alert” for any alien species that might come near the Earth, warning against any contact with human life at all costs, due to how dangerous humans are. This is not a new idea, but Scott’s take is still funny, in that he describes many aspects of human life and behavior that we assume are good, and reveals just how dangerous many of them could be perceived to be, if viewed dispassionately and unbiased by our own assumptions about ourselves.

The idea that aliens that might potentially contact us are afraid to do so is just one of the thousands of “alien interaction” scenarios that science fiction authors have come up with down through the years. If aliens are only monitoring our audio and video signals (which have now reached as far as 80 light-years away) then if they can interpret them, they have seen that we tend to view contact with aliens as landing anywhere along a continuum from war to benign indifference to nearly messianic salvation from ourselves. If they have snuck in and gotten copies of our written works, they would have found far more scenarios of what contact with them could be like, from our perspective. There have even been many attempts to try to think like aliens, but those are still very much affected by our own biases. I like to think that eventually we will encounter aliens, some fanboy or other will realize “it’s just like X by Y”, and some other person will take advantage of that knowledge and make a fortune.

Come what may, sit back and enjoy this “travel alert” about us “dangerous humans”!

Blue Man Group and Taiko drums – great together!

So, I wandered around Youtube again, as is my wont, and found a really neat collaboration between two of my favorite things, Blue Man Group and Japanese taiko drummers. I think the group is called “Kodo”, but the caption says “Blue Man Group meets Wadaiko”, so I’m not sure. I do know the name of the song is one of BMG’s titles, “Mandelgroove”. This performance is full of awesome percussion, including the largest taiko drums I’ve seen (although there are probably even larger ones), plus it’s got the signature Blue Man Group humor as well as their excellent coordination and peculiar instruments. I would love to have seen this live, but even on a Youtube video it still has the energy and the power of the performance. BMG is an acquired taste for some, but no one can deny their creativity and their ability to make strange and quirky music (and the instruments to play it!). Of course people that know me and come to this site know I’m all about quirkiness!

So, for this video, if you have good bass speakers, crank them up, sit back and enjoy some good good drumming!

ComfyCon 2013! It’s here!

comfycon

It’s that time, boys and girls! Time for the easiest, most stress-free, relaxing, COMFIEST convention you’ll ever attend! ComfyCon 2013 is here! Three days of geeking out your own way, you can watch the panels, host your own panel, do whatever you like, because you never have to leave your computer, or even put on clothes, although if you want to cosplay, that’s fine too, we won’t judge! The convention happens entirely online! No need to pack a suitcase, no need to book a flight, because there’s no place to go!

The brainchild of Randal (“Something Positive”) Mulholland and Danielle (“Girls with Slingshots”) Corsetto, aided and abetted by a bunch of other webcomic artists, the first ComfyCon last year was created for people who couldn’t get to go (or didn’t want to hassle with going) to San Diego Comic-Con. Danielle and the others used YouTube to host the panels live and streaming, with much craziness and pantslessness, at least from what I could see. At any rate, the ComfyCon program is here, at ComfyCon.net, check out all the panels, I can guarantee they’ll be the easiest to attend, and you don’t have to worry about filling up the room or dealing with those horrible uncomfortable chairs (unless you have some yourself, for some reason)! Best of all, no con funk! Unless, again, you have it yourself, in which case…

Update!  Now that the official ComfyCon Vendor’s Room is open, beat feet there and scarf the sweet sweet merch from the artists!  THEY HAVE DEALS!

Maryland Renaissance Festival “Day of Wrong”

I went to the last day of this year’s Maryland Renaissance Festival, which is traditionally the “Day of Wrong”, where people come dressed in anything but medieval costumes, although some choose to dress in a mashup of historical and modern, like the “Scottish Stormtroopers” or the “Iron Man knight”, most are just regular cosplayers (as if “cosplaying” is a “regular” thing! =^_^=). I captured a few of the folks, including some cosplay friends, as well as the general ambience of the place. It was a beautiful day, sunny but kind of cool, perfect for an Autumn day.

And so, hasten thou to ye Faire, and enjoy!

Let the Merriment commence!

Power tools dubstep…

One of my favorite Youtube artists is Joe Penna, the “Mystery Guitar Man“. I’ve posted about him before, he’s a master at taking small video segments and literally “playing” them as notes in pieces of music. He’s also experimented with stop-motion animation, odd mechanical contrivances for making music, recreating old technology, and other unusual things. He’s worked solo and collaborated with other musicians and Youtubers to create short musical video pieces. His enthusiasm about the technology of video and music is undeniable, and he always looks like he’s having tremendous fun creating his works.

This video he made has been out for a little while, but I recently re-discovered it while roaming Youtube. I kind of like some music called “dubstep”, but not in any great way (some performers make pieces that go on for a good part of an hour, and that’s way too long for me). This short clip is kind of an interesting take on the genre. Using only video clips containing the sight and sound from various tools he used while building a sign for the sponsor of this video, he manages to make a very presentable “dubstep” piece.

Enjoy!

Shakespearean “Who’s on first?”

So, in honor of the discovery of the “original” William Shakespeare’s Star Wars, I got it into my head to look for other “original” classics by the original classic. What strange notion caused me to think of “Shakespeare’s ‘Who’s on First'” (which was later performed by Abbott and Costello) I have no idea, but I discovered a pair of actors who perform that very thing!

Verily, prithee direct thine attention hither, that thou mayest indeed partake the wit and flummery of said thespians, as they parlay with merriment and tomfoolery the verbal antics of a pair of ballers of the basest kind!
(apologies for the degradation of the video towards the end, it’s the original uploader’s problem)

Mayhap, enjoy!