Oh … my … goodness. I WANT ONE!

I was browsing through photos from the Neverland estate auction, feeling sad and a little like a voyeur, when I noticed a selection of artwork that Jackson has apparently commissioned. The art was clearly an indication that Michael had a little bit of an enlarged ego, but it was also very playful and exceptionally well executed. After a little Internet search I came up with the name of the artist and found a link to some of his work online, along with a personal statement on Michael’s death. The site linked here has the personal statement, but only displays small images of David Norhahl’s work and you need to register to see anything larger than thumbnails. Unfortunately, a Goolge search didn’t reveal much more.

Kelly sent me, perhaps, the funniest site I’ve seen in years: cakewrecks.blogspot.com. Their tag line is, “When professional cakes go horribly, hilariously wrong.” I absolutely LOVE this site! Most of the cakes they feature are hilarious disasters, but some of them are unusual successes. When you visit their site, make sure not to miss the Star Wars cakes (here and here). Also, make sure to look for cakes designed after Star Trek, Harry Potter, Lego, ovaries, and sonograms! Woo-hoo!

“Clear” can refer to a condition achieved by Scientologists, the appearance of your urine, or a circumstance where no obstructions are visible. It can also refer to a new brand of mobile Internet service with an interesting Flash animation on its website. Check it out: www.clear.com

At the end of every episode of “The Big Bang Theory” (which is the funniest show on TV), the producer inserts what’s called a “vanity card”. It’s merely a screen filled with text of his own personal ramblings, which only appears on-screen for about one second after the credits. If you don’t have a DVR, you’ll probably not be able to read them. However, they’re available on www.chucklorre.com for your reading enjoyment. You’re welcome.

It’s not working in Canada and it won’t work here. After dating a doctor for several years, I believe that government-run health care would result in increased taxes, long delays in care, lack of specialized care, and most likely, a higher degree of errors in care. The government runs the Dept. of Motor Vehicles, the IRS, the Federal Reserve, and a host of other entities that are often mocked for their poor management and/or poor customer service. With such a poor track record of management, why turn over health care, which is the most important service most American’s will ever need, to the government? Government-run heath care is a terrible idea.

As I progressed through college, working toward my degree in Digital Design, I occasionally heard the comment that the power and availability of computer-aided special effects would either destroy the medium of motion picture storytelling or it would elevate it to an unimaginable level, where the average person could conceive and portray their wildest dreams on film. I usually subscribe to the latter viewpoint. But, then I see a video like this, and once again I’m not sure if this technological advancement is actually a good thing. However, as you can see, I’m posting it, so it must have some level of value as either entertainment or a discussion piece on the dangers of putting babies in roller skates.

This low quality video shows the view from my patio overlooking the pond. That tiny dot in the center of the frame is a crane, which visits from time to time just so he can catch fish in the shallow pond. This video shows the crane washing the fish (which was still alive), which he would do after he beat the living daylights out of it on the bank. He just went back and forth, spearing the fish and thrashing it on the land, then returning to the water to wash it off. After doing this about six times, the fish finally died and he ate it.

This is the view of the pond from my patio, where I routinely see fish jumping every evening. I caught one jumping on video tonight. The fish are about ten to twelve inches long, are gray/blue on top and have a little bit of bright orange on the belly. There is a large crane that occasionally will land and eat a fish or two. I have some low-resolution video of the crane which I may post later. In this video, you can see mud that gets swirled up by the fish several times before it actually jumps. The jump occurs at :42 seconds. Try watching this in HD!

I’ve been a faithful paying member of Flickr’s service for over four years; becoming a paying member only a little more than a year after they launched in February 2004. I’ve also purchased several accounts for family members. Today I logged into my account on Flickr to discover that my account had expired and I had received no warning! I check my email several times a day, and I also check my junk mail because I’m concerned that I’m going to miss an important communication. The “pro” account provides the user with much more storage space than the free account, and since my account had expired they deleted all of my photos that exceeded their free account limit! They also altered the meta data on several of my photo sets so that my old sets now appear to have been uploaded much more recently! I’m furious with Flickr! There appears to be no grace period, not even for longtime paying customers! If I’d seen any warning at all from them I’d have renewed my account immediately. Flickr SUCKS! I hate Flickr and I’m not going to be paying them another dime. What a terrible way to treat faithful customers!

A former ILM employee has posted a video of home movies. If you’re a fan of special effects, ILM, Star Wars, movie production, or Hollywood history, this may be of interest to you. The video is on Vimeo, which doesn’t seem to allow embedding of their content on other sites, so I’ve provided a link to the video here:
http://www.vimeo.com/5494280