Tuesday, November 4, 2008
CNN’s “holograms” are too funny. All the new “upgrades” are hilarious.
How crazy is it that so far it looks like McCain is winning? If that keeps up, and he actually wins tonight in the most long-shot success ever, how many Americans are really going to believe the election was real? How many people around the world. Oh the suspense!!!
One of the things that’s hard for kids is finding videogames that are suitable for the younger ages. Very little is made for the five year old bracket… Today we picked up Little Big Planet, a mix of puzzle game, platform scroller, doll builder, and physics sandbox, and it’s both fun for adults, and intuitive and amusing enough for Nefarious as well. I definitely recommend it if you’re looking for a first videogame for ages five and up (and like I said, any age should enjoy it).
I made a delicious supper today… broccoli and zucchini and garlic and fat udon noodles with a sauce made of lemon, balsamic fig, and soy sauce (I’ve been using the dregs of everything lately to empty my fridge), with tilapia in a ton of butter. It’s no wonder Google keeps serving weight loss ads to me.
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
Caitlin plays Brain Age and those sorts of games on her DS to exercise her brain and can whoop me mentally in most categories. Today I decided to tape a mic to a camera tripod and try singing and playing guitar in Rock Band. I’m a genuinely terrible singer so I was quite pleased so see that I could make it through playing guitar on HARD and singing at EASY… I think I’ll up the levels and see how many boos I get. But seriously, if you haven’t tried doing this, try it — it’s a ton of fun and may well be a mental workout.
I’m definitely looking forward to seeing the election results tonight… I saw that the McCain campaign has been circulating a memo telling people to “ignore the exit polls” because they “veer to the left by 15%+”… Hmm… If you could “veer” the election 15 points to the right via voting machines, you just stole yourself an election. Interesting that this little statistical abnormality only started to show its ugly face once Republican electronic voting machines became popular.
I mixed up the palette for the new painting…
- Micaceous Iron Oxide, Carbon Black, Burnt Umber
- Red Oxide, Transparent Brown
- Raw Sienna, Golden Orange
- Iridescent Deep Gold, Yellow Oxide
- Cadmium Red Light, Transparent Yellow Oxide
- Primary Yellow, Titanium White
They each also have retardant mixed in (a necessity because it takes forever to paint these with a tiny brush), as well as a dash of opium (seriously). Just for fun… Two years ago I did an Easter Egg scavenger hunt for Nefarious in which the final “prize” included a whole bunch of Play-Doh — I saved the containers and now they’re being put to good use. Because they’re small, and relatively airtight, they’re perfect for the application of mixing small batches of custom colours.
Other than that, I saw an amazing idea on Treehugger about green retrofits for skyscrapers, essentially attaching windmill/greenhouse structures to the sides of buildings so that they’re both power generating stations and vertical farms — taking old, expensive buildings and updating them so they produce all their own power and food. Pretty amazing idea.
And this list of the most expensive accidents, which is rather USA-heavy, is missing the most obvious “oops” — the Iraq War, which has now cost about $600 billion and is expected to pass $1 trillion when it’s all done. Sorry! Hopefully that mistake starts to end tomorrow.
I forgot to reset my alarm clock, and of course Nefarious’s internal clock has not reset either to the daylight savings time change… So we were both up an hour earlier than we needed to be. We both worked on our latest paintings — what a lovely face she decided to make here… Posterity thanks you.
My new project, The Opium Den, is very busy. I’m not yet sure how I’m going to paint it, but I’m leaning toward a monochromatic — shades of browns and ochers — with one or two features done in bright vibrant color (a la the Guitar Hero painting). I finished sketching it this morning.
I love all these videos and smear emails going around that are dipped in paranoia that Obama is going to get elected and then be like “Surprise! I’m a Muslim extremist!” as if he’s some sort of super sleeper cell. That said, I do actually think he’s lying about his religion… Personally I suspect he’s essentially an atheist, but that’s unacceptable in American politics so people pretend to be Christians. Maybe they go to church at times, but the reality is that it’s a social event more so than some sort of literal belief… I have a lot of trouble wrapping my head around the idea that a guy as bright as Obama could actually believe something as patently ridiculous as Christianity (or any any other mythology).
