Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right…

So, what is it about cats and hollow things, like boxes and sinks and hamster balls?  I mean, sure it looks like fun, but what about your friends all looking at you like you’re crazy and running away from you, when all you want to do is chill out in your sphere and play with your tail and feet?

Oh, and I listened to this song a lot in high school, never figured one day it would be appropriate for a cat video.  Of course, at the time I didn’t even know there’d be videos, much less cat videos…

Cat Eastwood vs. Lee Van Woof

Classic showdown:

Background music from a game called “Touhou”: “Bad Apple!!”

I’ve never heard of this game, but then I’m not a gamer, but this is really neat traditional-style Japanese music, played with authentic instruments on a traditional stage.

 

“Jimmy Carter is the best-case scenario”

I really like reading and watching Stephen “Vodkapundit” Green, he pulls no punches and makes you laugh while he does it.  His latest take on “I Wonâ„¢” and the dawning realization that he’s not enough of a leader to even be another Jimmy Carter: “Jimmy Carter is the best-case Scenario”
Continue reading ““Jimmy Carter is the best-case scenario””

Tilt-shift experiment number 2

Now that I found a good tutorial on it, this may work out better. Adjustment layer, clipping mask, gradient fill and gaussian blur for the win! I did this in 1/10th the time it took the previous version, and I think it works a little better.

second tilt-shift simulation experiment, crowd looks like little toys

Oh no, Russian guy mauled!

Mauled by CUTENESS, that is!

 

Just a little Photoshop experiment on an Otakon 2011 picture…

Thought I’d try out my Photoshop “skills” (as if I had any!) to see if I could take a photo from my set of Otakon pics and try to simulate the “tilt-shift” effect.  True tilt-shift involves a fancy $1000 lens, but since I’m not going to have one of those in the near (or even distant) future, this should be the next best (cheapest!) thing.

This should be a small image, clicking on it should bring up the full-sized one, if this works right.

tilt-shift experimental image

99 year old grandma, video game pro!

99 year old Umeji Narisawa plays her favorite videogame while her family watches
Way to go, Grandma!

So cool!  Umeji Narisawa of Sendai, Japan, 99 years young, plays her favorite videogame, “Bomberman”, like she has every day for 26 years!  In Japanese, videogames are called “famicon” (ファミコン), which is Japanese shorthand for “family computer”, because it’s the computer that the rest of the family plays with, as opposed to the all-business PC (personal computer, pasocon, パソコン).

Narisawa-sama first started playing the game after she saw her grandchildren having so much fun, so she tried it herself.  Now, she plays about two hours every day, and she says it keeps her mind sharp and her fingers nimble enough to be able to thread a needle (see the video link, don’t worry about not understanding the Japanese, just watch the faces and hear the audience reaction).  She has played so much, she can easily beat the game, getting to level 50 sometimes twice a day.

Now, if you do the math, she’s 99 now, and she started playing 26 years ago, so that means she was 73 when she started!  She’s proof that you don’t have to stop trying new things, just because you think you’re “too old.”  It’s just a state of mind, and if you keep a young mind, you won’t really get old!

Here’s the video:


bombergran [jprobe] by peakfloods