Project: Bench faux toes

As promised, I was able to get some pictures of the benches. Behold, the unfinished product:

Friday Lynx, 2009-11-20

Not much happening on the internet this week (hah!), so just a couple:

• First, and most important: If you haven't heard about the Manhattan Declaration, you really ought to go check it out and seriously consider signing it.
  
• Secondly, something for my in-laws, you know, the gun-crazy ones:
  

Sorry, no YouTube video this week. More internanity next week. Enjoy your weekend!

Character Sketch

I enjoy role playing enough to do it a couple of times a week during lunch breaks at work.

For the past couple of weeks, I've been working on a character sketch for a sailor character, and thought I'd share the final result:


The image was created in Inkscape, which is currently my favorite open source graphics editor.

The frizziness of the hair was created using a filter in Inscape which gave the shapes a 'crumpled paper' texture. The pattern of the shirt was created using another filter to give it the faded/bleeding/rumpled look. I also took and applied a couple of different gradients over the hair to give it the sun-bleached/darkened look.

I traced three individual images to get the final result: I started with a picture of some random dude on the internet who had the general musculature and posture I wanted, then took a picture of myself making the expression I wanted for the eyes, and then looked through a Google Image search for 'portrait' to find a nose that looked interesting. The 'final result' (as in, I may add more stuff to it at some point) is what you see.

Ideally he's supposed to have a bunch of tattoos, trinkets, charms, etc. because he's a superstitious character, but I haven't gotten around to blinging him out. But over all I think the sketch does a good job painting his as a wind-tossed, no-nonsense type of person who has a decent idea what he wants and how to get it.

Either too much red, or not enough.

Warning: The following contains a...unique picture of Sean Connery. Be prepared to avert your eyes

It's been a while since I've done one of my thrice-weekly Cetera posts, so here we go:

Cowboys, Indians or cowboy Indians?

No, not that kind of Indian. I heard a blurb on NPR today about a new occupation in New Delhi: Cattle Wranglers. Apparently the city administrators are getting fed up with the Brahmas clogging up the thoroughfare, so they have started hiring brave young men to round them up, put them in carts, and take them to farms in the countryside. These cowboys have to deal with a) bulls with Really Big Horns (at one point one got mad and injured 20 people), and b) people who worship the bulls.

The head wrangler they interviewed said that they had removed about 100,000 bulls from the New Delhi area, which leaves about 20,000 to go. (The article above sites lower numbers. It is probably more correct, but I like the idea of hundreds of thousands of bulls wandering around the capital of India. Probably I just heard wrong.)

Talk about a load of bull.

Indian Cowboys: 2 sneezes

My eyes!!!

A co-worker and I were discussing this and that and, of course, Sean Connery came up. I wanted to find a picture of him in all his finery from the movie Sword of the Valiant, but when I did a google image search I couldn't find a good one. I did, however, find this gem.

Beeteedubya, if you happen to find a good picture of The Green Knight and his Holey armor, send me a link.

Sean Connery having the chutzpa to wear that outfit: 3 sneezes
Sean Connery actually wearing that outfit: 1 sneeze
Me actually seeing a picture of Sean Connery wearing that outfit: Blue Nostrils

Rhett & Link

And finally - and because no Cetera post is complete without at least one video - here's a vid of Rhett & Link giving you a message your friend just couldn't deliver

I also heartily recommend the Fireworks song and the Cornhole Song.

Rhett & Link: 3 sneezes!

A measurement mnemonic, an interesting picture, and the next big thing from the land of Haiku

Let's see, there's four quarts in a gallon, and two pints in a quart...

From a conversation tonight:
Wife: Two tablespoons would be an eighth of a cup, right?
Me: Um...I dunno. I know there are three teaspoons in a tablespoon.
Wife: Hmm...Oh yeah! Because a tablespoon is an eighth of half a cup!
Me: ...uh...so...an eigth of a half a cup is easier to remember than a sixteenth of a cup?
Wife: Yes.
Me: Why is that?
Wife: Because butter comes in half-cup sticks, and the sticks are divided on the wrapper into 8 sections, each of which is a tablespoon.
Me: ...You know, that actually makes sense.

For all you globetrotters out there

Someone generated this by charting flightpath information:

(found on drawn.ca. Check it out.)

Pecha Kucha

Pecha Kucha is the PowerPoint version of Haiku. Basically you have 20 slides, and you get 20 seconds for each slide. Another example of the Japanese packing as much as possible into every package. (My wife says that modern poetry consists of saying everything you want to in the least possible words. Who know you could mix PowerPoint and poetry so.)