Ohmmmm, ohmmmm

My kind of art.

XP

I'm a little tired today, but I have a good reason. Yesterday I did something rather un-me like. A few weeks ago one of the people on the flyball list sent a message that caught my attention. The book Marley and Me is being made into a movie and they were looking for extras with dogs for an obedience scene. So I sent in a picture of Bleys and a picture of me, and I was lucky enough to get an email back that I was invited to come.

Don't get too excited though, you won't be seeing me in the movie as it was very background extra type stuff, but mostly I wanted to see what a movie set was like. There were 12 or so extras that got to be in the class with the actors, but from something someone said it sounded like they all came from the same obedience class or something. Maybe someone associated with the movie knew a trainer down here? It would have been mega-awesome to be in that class!

Anyway, we had to be there at 6:30 am yesterday, and there was down in Miami. It was quite a hike from here so I ended up leaving my apartment at 5:15 or so. We checked in and got looked over by the wardrobe people. I got a pass on the clothes I was wearing and didn't have to change, which was kind of nice at the end of the day because giving back their clothes added to your wait to go home. After that we sat around until 2 or 3 in the afternoon while the class that Marley was in filmed. It was interesting to watch how they filmed it. I wonder if it will change my perspective on watching movies?

They did provide us lunch although it was a little weird. I'm told that often the extras just wait until everyone else has eaten, which makes good sense to me. But this time they had a separate area with some pretty sad food, which was sitting out in the sun. The food wasn't very good, plain rice, broccoli and corn (that looked like it was a week old or came from a can), and some chicken. They also had some fruit salad which was definitely past its prime and some salad which may have started out fine, but was suffering from sitting out in the sun. Perhaps there was a reason to do it that way, but I sure came home hungry!

I did get to see, but not meet, Jennifer Aniston and Owen Wilson. Both seemed very nice to the people they were working with even though it was very warm and they were being consistently (and on purpose) jumped on and slobbered over by an exuberant young yellow Labrador. They actually had three different labs playing Marley yesterday, I don't know how many they have all together. They were well trained and did very well doing what they were supposed to be doing. I think I only saw one thing they were trying to get the dog to do they he didn't really understand what they wanted. And that was a tough one. To have the dog run away from the trainer full speed, stop on a mark, turn and look back at the camera, and then run full tilt back to the trainer. He would do most of it, except once he got to the mark he sometimes would look around instead of back at the trainer. Or he wouldn't go straight to the mark he would swing wide around a tree. But I think they eventually got what they wanted and I can't even imagine starting to train that sequence with Bleys!

Those of us not in the regular class did actually get to participate late in the day, but like I said it was very much in the background and I doubt it will be very visible in the final movie, if at all. We ended the day at about 7:30 pm and then I drove back back home with one extremely tired dog. All in all it was a good life experience and I'm glad I did it. Although I'm also glad that I could sleep in this morning.

Yay me!

Sometimes on the Photogamer site they pick a photo from all the pictures for that challenge to put on the website. Anne had one a while ago with her picture of Karl and Logan (scroll down to February 14th) for the challenge 'Love.' Today I saw that they picked mine for the 'Bottle' challenge!

Sketch

Drawing of Bleys
Originally uploaded by Sirelroka

One bonus of being at the festival all day was that I got a chance to get this sweet picture of Bleys. A dude was drawing them for free (although he did accept tips). I wish I could sit down and put pencil to paper and have it come out looking like this!

Merry Christmas

Andrea, who is on the flyball team I take classes from sent me this link today. It is a crazy amount of lights and coordination.

Endo

Ever wondered what the inside of a cranberry looked like? I didn't...until I was cutting some up to make Roland some cranberry bread (which turned out pretty well).

Clairstown

Clairstown
Originally uploaded by Sirelroka

Via Anne. Visit my city so I can have a thriving metropolis. Or at least more than one house.

You can also visit Anne's city Wampville.

Fame

In the category of interesting things you learn when you have sitemeter. I sometimes like to look at from whence visitors came, and today I found out that Bleys is more famous than previously known. He can be found here (2/3 of the way down), although I apparently should be embarrassed that I made him that costume. And he can be found here as an example of a well restrained pooch, although for most shorter trips I prefer the safety of a crate. If we are driving over 1,000 miles though I sort of feel bad stuffing him in there for days at a time.

Tricky

Bleys is pretty good at his Buster Cube, maybe it's time to graduate to some more difficult puzzles?

La-Ti-Da

You know those Target ads that have been on lately? Well, the song feature in them is by a band from Grand Rapids! Who know who we will be hearing next...Skatey-Eight perhaps?

Pilfered

Check out this animation short.

Via DrJ.

I wish

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Originally uploaded by Sam Bennett

Hopefully there will be an actual blog post coming along soon, what with all the diving and eating and whatnot, but until then check out this dude's flyball pictures. I especially like this one and the one of the Brittney Spaniel. I only wish I could take pictures like this!

Regal

One of the people from the flyball team I've been taking classes from and making a website for invited some of us to a dinner that the Boca Raton Kennel Club was putting on. It was interesting and nice to get out. But, by far, the coolest thing about the meeting was this other dude who was there. He is actually from Michigan, soon to be moving to Palm Beach. He does portaits of people and dogs and stuff and he is REALLY good. I mean I totally want one of these...can't you just imagine one of Bleys sitting on some poofy pillow?

Storm Riders

A while ago I made a prototype website for the nature center I sometimes volunteer with. I made it because their current website is atrocious and very '1.0' (according to Anne). We are talking about a site made with Frontpage with frames, that contains very little useful information, about a trillion animated gifs, and hasn't been updated in forever. Long story short, they didn't care. I offered it to them free, with the ability to pull it down at any time when they got a better/professional one. Not interested. So not interested that they didn't even take the time to look at it. I was, admittedly, a little disappointed.

Life moves on. During the making of that website I learned a cool css trick for having the main content of your website look like it is on a frosted pane over your background. I thought it was pretty sweet. So when the flyball team Bleys and I are taking classes from wanted to update their site, I made another site that uses the same trick. It looks like the flyball team might actually use the site I designed too. You can check out the original site here, and my version temporarily located here. Mine is still in the working phase, so there are some links that don't go anywhere, and some (quite a few) pictures missing. There is still an animated gif and they would really like there to be sound as well. Both of which I would leave out if it were up to me.

Flavors

I was in the pet store a while ago to get some new toothpaste for Bleys (I think we are on to poultry flavor this time) and saw a new toothbrush. Not being particularly satisfied with his current tooth brush, I decided to give it a try, being a whole new design and all. I have to say I'm impressed. I actually have a scaler (like the dentists use on your very own teeth) that I use when I have to, but with this new toothbrush the amount I have to use it has gone down dramatically. It's hard to tell, but I think I'm seeing improvement over time as well. I think it is actually taking down some of the old tartar buildup. All this is pretty sweet since he already has a heart murmur and doesn't need any help from tooth decay.

Muggles Misunderstand

Maybe he was just trying to deliver something.

Nerd Fighters

Thanks to Brotherhood 2.0 for pointing me to Threadless T-Shirts. My favorites would be this one (suprising since orange isn't my usual choice) , this one (that Hank was showing off), and this one (very sad that it is out of stock). I also liked this one.

River

I sort of want to try out some different shoes. I ran across these and these and wanted to see if they really do improve posture, and ease up on the knees. The good news? There is a store that sells them not 3 miles from our apartment. The bad news? For a girl who buys her shoes at Payless and Target prices I don't think I can even go try them on.

Random

While crusing around the intarwebs I found a couple of things that are cool. One, going back to my food related silicone fascination, are these silicone muffin liners. The other is just cute. I just wish they came in sets of two different styles, not the same one twice.

This and That

For your entertainment (thanks to Dethroner).

Do you know someone who looks like thier dog?
I hope to heaven I never see a pair of these walking around, but considering where I live, it doesn't look good.
Maybe we could afford a house like this?
Fun with ping pong.

Post It

Inspired by some random anonymous Trogdor art, some folks over at UCSC have made an homage to Donkey Kong that is made of awesome.

Tarquin

A number of years ago I read a book called the Golden Compass. It turned into a trilogy of young adult literature (His Dark Materials) that I enjoyed immensely. It seemed to me a bit intense for some younger readers. It was a well crafted parallel universe which touched our world in certain places and that contained some very interesting differences. One of these differencs is that people in Lyra's (the main protagonist) universe have Daemons. Daemons come in the from of animals (usually of the opposite sex of their person) who change shape when their person is a child, but then settles into one shape as that person grows up. I was truly captivated by these three books and recommend them heartily.

There is now a movie of The Golden Compass due out in December of this year and I'm a little nervous about it given how much I enjoyed the books. In the mean time Anne recently found that at the movie's website, you can find out what form your Daemon would take.

Pods

So for some reason I can't discern, a while ago, I began to want poached eggs. I thought about getting a pan, but what I really wanted was for Calphalon (the kind of pans we have) to make an insert that would fit in one of the pans we already own. Negative Earth Bird. However, Roland found a super alternative. Very handy and heat safe to a whopping 675 degrees - you can even bake in them! I tried one out this morning and I'm impressed. The egg was cooked perfectly, with a little spray of olive oil before adding the egg it came out with no problem, and clean up was a breeze (also dishwasher safe). The folks that make these also have some other interesting and sometimes odd food related silicone items.

Natural 20

Ok, so someone liked my picture of a husky at the dog park on flickr. So I trotted over to check out their pictures and found this!

Attention

My picture of the soup I made was the first one taken for all recipes and so now if you go to find the recipe...viola, there is my picture!

Tube

I thought this video was well made.

Belated

In our stockings for Christmas my sister and I both got a bookworm. I really love this idea and some of the others are really awesome. My current favorites include:

White Blood Cell (leukocyte)
Giardia (Giardia lamblia)
Sea Sparkle (Noctiluca scintillans) - I actually experienced these during a night dive, very cool!
Sleeping Sickness (Trypanosoma brucei)
and
The Pox (Treponema pallidum) or Lyme Disease (Borrelia burgdorferi) - they are pretty similar, both being spirochetes.

Snappy

I'm liking these. They would be awesome for a craft room. I don't really need the four-shelf one which is clearly for scrapbooking paper, but the others would be perfect for organizing and hiding your stash.

Marketing

Do you have a hard time waking up in the morning? Is it too easy to just hit snooze one more time? Well, check out Clocky!

The answer to your *ahem* dreams. Hit snooze once? No problem. Hit it twice? Clocky will jump off your bed stand (up to 2 feet) and go find someplace to hide, beeping and flashing all the while.

I find this highly amusing, thanks Dad.

Infinitesimal ballet

DrJ does it again. I can't help but link to this. Which, as she blogged, is a biology geeks dream.

Dijon Ketchups

Someday....



Drooly McDroolersons.

Sebastian

I recently got an email from a mail order nursery that I bought some plants from (for the house in Grand Rapids). It showcased this awesome black bamboo (Phyllostachys nigra).



Alas, it wouldn't survive in the heat down here, it's wicked expensive, I have no place to plant it, and this is a running bamboo so I wouldn't plant it anyway. A better choice would be Bambusa lako. It's gorgeous though isn't it?

If I had

I think these are cool and I would want one if it wasn't so expensive.

Fun with treadmills

Thanks to Dr J and her friend Bugsy for finding
this jem.

Re-imagine

Some music fun for you:

Star Wars
Mario Brothers (click on Music from the Mushroom).

Science = Fun

As a former science teacher I would like to share this with you, courtesy of Anne. I could never justify this demo as biology teacher, but for those of you who don't know, fun things happen when you add Mentos to diet soda. If you are feelin' like giving this a try and you value your possesions, try it outside. Trust me. Well, these intrepid scientists do the only thing that could be done with this knowledge. Viva Las Vegas!

Love at first bite

I want this.

The ultimate in whimsy

There once was a Very Sad Tree in Seattle. In the fullness of summer it sported just a few meager leaves and when winter rolled around...forget about it. So, this poor pitiful tree needed some love, and a kindly neighbor named Erika was compelled to give it. I absolutely cannot look at this picture and not smile. She provides the pattern on her blog, so if you feel so inclined you too, can share some love with a Very Sad Tree in your area. She also has a hat that speaks binary, and through her site I found the perfect thing for all you zombie knitters.

I'm afraid I can't do that, Dave...

I got a kick out of this today. I like how the dude who made it thought about making the paint look like it had been used in a desert, and that it is street legal in California. Plus, who could resist putting the flame thrower in the back? I found it via WWdN:IX and probably like it more because I used to have an Escort (albeit a light blue mini station-wagon), and one of the people* in SK88 works on modding cars to be like KITT on Knight Rider. For all you fans out there, last year sometime there were rumors that David Hasselhoff was going to revive the series (possibly as a movie), but I haven't heard anything of it since then.

*Heya Dan, I miss you!

Rubber ducky, you're the one

As you may or may not know one of my favorite shows is Good Eats with host Alton Brown. In some recently seen episodes (I'm not sure when they were originally aired) he has had an awesome soap dispenser in his kitchen. I don't know why, but I absolutely love this thing. I totally want one for my kitchen (even if it means I will have to MacGyver some place to suction him to). The colors on the site don't seem to sync with the ordering choices totally, but I think I would get the blue one because our plates etc. are blue.

And while at that site I also found this which cracks me right up. I want one of those too!

More than meets the eye

This is all I feel up to today. Some funny (some of you may have seen these all ready):

http://www.ebaumsworld.com/matrixpong.html

and because I always wanted one, but never got one:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=dut6jxCiakg

and I wanna start a throwie campaign!

http://www.graffitiresearchlab.com/

Nostalgia Heidemann Style

Over yonder you can read about the crazy fun that was Showbiz Pizza. However, in my family we didn't go to Showbiz. For one thing we would have had to drive an hour to get to one (the joys of living in a small town which is actually the largest town in it's area) and for another I think my parents would rather have walked on hot coals than have to suffer through a dinner there. Don't get me wrong though there was still fun to be had with pizza. When we went out for pizzertainment, we went to the Roaring Twenties Pizza Parlor, but it was still an hour drive so we only did so if we were already in Grand Rapids for something else.

If you drive down 28th street a bit west of Patterson Street you will find a strip mall called 'The Roaring Twenties Plaza' on the North side of the street. The reason it is the Roaring Twenties Plaza is that the Damon's there used to be the Roaring Twenties Pizza Parlor (which in turn became Good Time Charley's). Inside was pizza (of course) and...wait for it...a theater organ! As you dined the organ would dramatically rise up out of the floor and an organist would play for you. This included all sorts of bird sounds, trills, and bubbles. It was pretty sweet, and my dad really enjoyed it. Now that the Roaring Twenties is gone that particular Wurlizter can be seen and heard at the Public Museum of Grand Rapids.

Now perhaps some of you can see why there was absolutely no way I was going to turn out normal.

1/17/2006
Update: Apparently Damon's is now closed. I was chatting with my mother the other day and she was at Erika's (which is in the Roaring Twenties Plaza and is home of some of the tastiest food anywhere) at noticed that it was no more.

Meep Meep Me Meeeep

Once again Anne finds something totally cool. If I was still at the HSKC I would see about trying it there. They already have a sound system in place and it would a sweet experiment. Of course I would have to set it up all scientific like and be a complete nerd about it, but hey that is part of the charm of me. I bet a lot of the people there would think it was cool too; Shannon, Alicia, and Veronica for a few. Oh, just think of the edumacational havoc we could wreak on the unsuspecting public. I'm seeing tri-fold presentation boards, timers (there would have to be timers), clip boards and maybe some safety goggles and pocket protectors. Go ahead revel in the geek-itude.