Well, that's freaky.

It was exciting, making a fool of myself on purpose! The class seemed to enjoy it, too. I'm not sure that mine was the best, though...I think the comic strip about Jack Kirby's life was slightly better. But it was really cool to get to see what the rest of the class thought was fascinating and inspirational. Really cool.

But this is freaky: right after I got home, I found this on a website I frequent:



Freaky! Blue Man Group. Who'd have thought?

Serendipitous? I think so.

Final Project

Well, today's the last day of class, and I'm about to make a huge fool out of myself. Making an idiot of myself on so large a level is something I've never done before, and honestly, something I am kind of excited about.

I'm in blue face paint and black clothing, and I'm about to go all Blue Man Group on you.

I just hope I don't get a rash.

inspiration

I was in St. Louis, MO, over this past weekend, and went to the St. Louis Science Center as my gallery. Though it may seem less than a true gallery, perhaps these photos will change your mind:


The photos are of a Marbleworks-style large scale ball track that overwhelms you the moment you enter the facility. Partially kid-powered and partially electrically powered, the system sends croquet-sized balls around any of about ten different paths that spin, rotate, bounce, and flip different elements. It's a sublime blending of the low and the high tech, and it certainly sets the tone well for the building you're about to enter.

There were other inspiring elements, as well. A floor panel (sadly unphotographable by virtue of losing all effect when you did) showed an image projected down from above, which kids could step on, causing water to "ripple," glass to "break," and bubbles to "pop" as a result of the infra-red scanner above them. It was a lot of fun.

And I got an idea.

A kid-controlled electrical ball track. The screen that they step on will sense their presence, allowing them to wave their arms around, pushing virtual balls toward a virtual chute, which will trigger a real auger that will pull real balls into the air. Another screen will sense their arms' motion and decide which paths they are sent down into. As the balls roll back down into the reservoir beneath the first screen, it will be dropped back in to the virtual reservoir on the screen, which can take the shape of any number of things; perhaps a factory, a game court, a field, et cetera.

Unfortunately, I have neither the resources nor the knowledge to be able to put this together. But it would certainly be fun!

Happy Bliss

Ever since my sister Bethany moved into an apartment upstairs from mine, she's been asking for a cat. All her life, she's had one; my mom has been a cat lover for as long as I've been alive, and probably longer. Ripping her away from the ones in the home we grew up in was like torture, if you believe the way she was asking. But the building we live in charges extra for apartments with cats, so the decision was a difficult one for her and her roommates.

Her birthday is on the Thirteenth, and so her roommate Natalie (my girlfriend) cooked up a plot, and involved me. We planned it for Friday (the best day for everyone involved). Once she got home from work, we packed her up in the car and drove her up Michigan Road. She had no idea where we were going until the moment my girlfriend handed her a litterbox comb. Surprised and disbelieving, it didn't quite sink in that she was getting a cat until we actually pulled into the Humane Society.

The first one she met was the one she fell in love with. We looked at all the others, but her heart was with Elwood from the very beginning.

That's right; Elwood.

No, not that one. Elwood is a four-month-old, golden colored kitten. He's a very talkative kitten with the typical kitten energy, able to race back and forth across their apartment at frightening speed.

When he came home, it was obvious that he understood their apartment as his new home. He took to the litterbox like second nature, he began playing with everything that dangled or moved, and he got into every open box he could (and some he couldn't).

My "bliss" assignment was going to dinner with my girlfriend and her family on Saturday night. But I think what I found still more enlightening about bliss and its effects on productivity wasn't my own.

Everyone involved got bliss from the same event: the cat's adoption. But it was for much different reasons. Elwood was mostly happy to have a place to run and a person to pet him (though you could tell how he bonded with Bethany immediately), while Bethany's happiness came from having a soft, squishy, furry companion to watch as he darted about the apartment, attacking feathers and dust. Natalie's was in watching Bethany and Elwood find one another and be happy with finally getting what they wanted.

I'm ordinarily a pretty happy person. In fact, this was one of the toughest assignments for me- not because I couldn't do anything that made me happy, but because I didn't know what I could do that would make me more happy than usual. My "bliss time" was watching my brother perform in a marching band competition, and then dinner with my girlfriend and her parents (wonderful, fun people). Nothing out of the ordinary, really, but very de-stressing and blissful time. But watching the kitten and his new owner really brought me full circle.
(Elwood, October 11, 2008)

What tнe #$*! Dө ωΣ (k)πow!?

In a sense, the movie is correct; reality is truly what we make it. We shape our perception and ideas of the way the world around us is until it becomes what we want it to be.

As a piece of entertainment and thought provocation, it becomes very successful. I've found myself thinking about the Caribbean natives who "couldn't see" Columbus' ships on the horizon - a historical myth, in fact, but an interesting thought nonetheless - and as a result, have tried to see things I can't see in the past several days.

Seeing Sideways, so to speak.

No alien Columbus sailing in on his space-Nina, though. Sadly.

Pienar?

My "sixth sense" is Pie Sonar. It's a strange gift, characterized by the ability to sense pies anywhere nearby, by composition, taste, and even texture.

When I first woke up on Sunday the 5th of October, I discovered a strange little niggling in the back of my mind. It called me forward, into the kitchen, where a lemon meringue was sitting on the counter.

As I went about my day, I felt the strange niggling pulling me in all sorts of directions - and, somehow, the taste of pumpkin would slide in to the left side of my mind, the taste of boston creme to the right. I decided I wanted some Pecan Pie; my Pie Sonar directed me around a corner and into a pastry shop. Just as I suspected, they had a pecan pie; I purchased and ate it. Twas delicious.

It was distracting for a while, but as I went about my day, I learned to tune out the sense I had developed that morning. It was much easier to sleep than you might expect; the tastes were actually rather soothing.

This just makes me wonder...what use could this sense possibly be?

Odditory

I like music, as anyone who knows me knows about me. So for the Auditory sense, I mashed together some bits of fifteen of my favorite songs.

The mixmash is here.

The songs included are:
AFI's "Miss Murder"
Electric Light Orchestra's "Mr. Blue Sky"
Billy Preston's "Nothing From Nothing"
Maroon 5's "Won't Go Home Without You"
Anberlin's "Never Take Friendship Personal"
38th Parallel's "Hear My Cry"
Sergio Mendes' "Mas Que Nada"
Nickel Creek's "Ode to a Butterfly"
OK Go's "Here It Goes Again"
David Crowder Band's "...neverending..."
Massive Attack's "Teardrop" (Theme from House)
FreePlay's "The Esteemed Professor"
Futurama's "Theme Song"
John Williams' "Imperial March"
Inspector Gadget's "Theme Song"

This was a lot of fun.

I can see!

It's amazing to me just how wonderful a gift the visual sense is. With it, I can see my lovely girlfriend (pictured, left) or a beautiful space scene from the NASA archives (pictured, right). No matter what I see, it triggers a reaction of some kind: whether it is a reaction as simple as simply moving to one side in order to avoid colliding with a wall, or running to gather a loved one in my arms, or stopping to look up at a beautiful starscape, the vision I have is one of the things I am most thankful for.

On Friday, I had time to go to the Library, and I made a concerted effort to notice the things around me that caused me to act:

After the front doors of my apartment building, the street I had to cross, and the cars on it, the first thing I noticed was the IndyGo bus which took me down Meridian Street. My reaction was to board. I got on and noticed people all over the place. My reaction was to find a slightly less populated place and stand. I noticed St. Clair street approaching. My reaction was to pull the Stop Requested cable.

Once I got off the bus, I noted the Library's location. I noted the street in my way. I noted that there were cars coming. My reaction was to not cross. When I noted that the cars stopped, I went across (from which I realized that we notice not only things, but the motion thereof, when we formulate our actions). I noted the location and entrance of the library, and I moved toward it. I noted that there were stairs in my way, and I climbed them. I noted that I was very near to the door, so I pulled it open.

It's a very pretty place, the Indianapolis Central Library. I like it. Plenty to see there.

Feeeelinggggs....

The Tactile Sense.

On Thursday, I went to my dance class. If there were anything more suited to the tactile sense and expression thereof than dancing, I don't know what it is. It it truly a fascinating sensation: the touch of clothing to skin, the touch of hand to shirt to back, hand to sleeve to arm, and hand to hand, the touch of feet to socks to floor...it's all very interesting.

After a while, I started to play around with it; to see if I could feel every sensation on every part of my body. I found that, with some effort, I could feel the clothing on my skin (especially when I was moving). I could feel the hair on my head, and I could feel my body interacting with itself (such as on my armpits); however, try as I might, I could not feel the touch of skin to air, except when I moved rapidly.

It made me think, though: is it really a sense if we don't sense anything with it? For instance, deaf people don't have the sense of hearing. So do we lose the sense of touch if we're not touching anything, and get it back if we ever do touch something again?

Existentialism makes my head ache.

Delicious.

Most people, if not all, have experienced earworms in their lives. It's when a song gets stuck in your head, and you can't get it out of there, dang it!

On Tuesday, I had a rather bizarre earworm - might call it a mouthworm, as nasty as that sounds. See, I love the chili at Steak n Shake. And at one point in the morning, I unfortunately thought about it - and it was stuck in my mind all day. I could taste the chili in my mouth all day long, until I finally got a chance to eat some that night - it was truly an agonizing experience!

I remember eating some chicken noodle soup for lunch - it was kind of interesting. The chili taste was still in my mind, and -- well, you know the feeling when you are expecting the drink to be Sprite, but it ends up only being water? It was kind of like that. Shocking at the same moment it was kind of nasty. But the soup was pretty good.

Mouthworms? Bleagh. That sounds disgusting...

Ancient Cabal

Yeah, it's a corny pun. Ancient Cabal, Old Faction, Olefaction...you know the drill.

For the rest of the day, I couldn't think of what to do with the assignment. But then, I went to Penn Station- and what assaulted my sense?

Wow, it was delicious. Freshly fried french fries, tomato sauce, grilled chicken... The bouquet tickled my nostrils...I finally ate, and it tasted great (but that's a different day) - the point is that smell makes you do stuff.

Buy subs. Buy clothes, even. When our sense of sell is engaged, we do things. A lot of times, it's an intentional choice made by shop owners to induce us to spend our money; like steakhouses which use elaborate venting systems to send the scent of their grills outside so that the people outside come in. And who hasn't nearly choked at the entrances to the department stores at the mall, where they place the "best-smelling" colognes and people to attack you with them?

Just try walking into the South Bend Chocolate Company on Monument Circle, and not wanting to buy a chunk of fudge.

Oh, yeah. That's where I went after Penn Station. Delicious peanut butter fudge.

Class Retrospective :: 092208 (or: how to have fun with N people)

Telephone Pictionary = Best. Game. EVER.

Here's how it works:

Gather a group of n people (where n is somewhere between 5 and 10) around, and supply them each with n little index-card-sized pieces of paper (If you're keeping track, this means you'll need n-squared pieces of paper).

Then, round one begins. Everyone participating writes a sentence on the front of their particular piece of paper. It can be sensible or senseless; No worries! Mine was "When I eat skittles, I find that I can fly very, very fast."

After this, Round Two starts: everyone passes their stack of paper (the whole stack) one person to the left. The person reads the sentence, and then draws a picture on the next card that demonstrates what they think it means. Then they put the first piece of paper (the one with the sentence on it) on the bottom of the stack.

In Round Three, everyone passes their stack of paper to the person on their left. This person looks only at the picture- not at the sentence- and writes out a sentence that describes what they think the picture means. They then put the piece of paper with the first picture on the bottom of the stack.

Round Four continues the tradition of Round Two, and Round Five continues Round Three's noble heritage (You can see where this is going).

In Round n, the final drawings or sentences are placed upon the final cards, and the people can then flip the last card to the back. They can then flip through all n pages, laughing hysterically.

After this, they move on to Rounds n+1 through n+n, so that everyone can roll on the floor laughing. In our game, one of the books began "We left all of our t-shirts in the last town," finally concluding with "The queen gets really mad when she can't take a dump."

It's an incredible game. And you have n nonsensical stories to show for it! Who knows which of the cards could have an Academy Award-winning movie idea on it?

Anyway, I loved the last class. We should do it again. More of us. And more often.

For Your Consideration

What if, instead of buses, we rode giant dragons as mass transit?
What if Beth Lykins ate curry for breakfast every morning?
What if "truth in advertising" were enforced voraciously?
What if "truth in advertising" were not enforced at all?
What if the world were exactly the way we think it is?
What if gas went down to $0.10/gal next week?
What if we were all air-powered robots?
What if the value of Pi suddenly became 2.141592654...?
What if the value of pie suddenly became $100/lb?
What if all the ice in the world suddenly melted, and the greatest worry we had was that our lemonade would be warm?
What if parking at IUPUI were actually easy?
What if all our questions were answered by little imps that sat on our shoulders?
What if the word "orange" had a rhyme?
What if sexual intercourse were painful?
What if prohibition were re-enacted today?
What if road signs were designed by 14-year-old girls?
What if road signs were designed by 90-year-old men?
What if everything we needed, needed us instead?
What if McDonald's was considered "haute cuisine"?
What if McDonald's served haute cuisine?
What if we saw death as the beginning?
What if eating made you thinner and exercise made you fatter?
What if everyone got a chance to choose their race?
What if worms really did come in cans?
What if graffiti were admired, and art museums frowned upon?
What if "Fly Paper" was a periodical for insects?
What if someone lived in a self-storage facility?
What if schools had to be underwater?
?sdrawkcab gnihtyreve etorw lla ew fi rahW
¿uʍop-ǝpısdn ǝʇoɹʍ 11ɐ ǝʍ ɟı ʇɐɥʍ
What if most of the world still believed in sorcery?
What if priests' confessionals were also gas chambers?
What if a courthouse included an actual basketball court, in which the loser went to jail?
What if we all took everything literally?
What if ordinary citizens settled their differences with pistols at twenty paces?
What if the internet had existed in the Old West? (Gunfight at the OK/Cancel Corral)
What if video had been available to the ancient Romans? (Edit tu, Brute?)
What if today's political climate had been present during the Baroque period? (Barack me Obamadeus)
What if the ancient Egyptians had had iPods? (Rameses had a Zune)
What if we had the capability to travel back and forth through time at will?
What if Polka were considered "pop music?"
What if we all threw away our clothes once they were dirty?
What if the Civil War had never ended?
What if the Revolutionary War had never ended?
What if the Beatles were still recording today?
What if we already had commercial space tourism?
What if we made first contact with aliens next week?
What if we'd never heard of Wal-Mart?
What if we could swim in ice, walk on steam, and breathe water?
What if the world had developed to look like the "steampunk" sci-fi?

Class Retrospective :: 9/15/08

This was one of the most fun class discussions we've had yet.

Main Entry:

sub·vert (\səb-ˈvərt\)

Function:

transitive verb

Etymology:

Middle English, from Anglo-French subvertir, from Latin subvertere, literally, to turn from beneath, from sub- + vertere to turn — more at worth

Date:

14th century

1 : to overturn or overthrow from the foundation : ruin

Subversion is a lot of fun. I thought that discussing ways of breaking rules without breaking them was very interesting. I also thought it was good to recognize that the only way to successfully subvert the rules is, in fact, to know them and know how to follow them first. It's only through knowing the purpose for the rules that you can break or bend them while they still have the same effect. In essence, it's why looking both ways keeps jaywalking from killing us!

But now, I can't think of anything else when I'm on the road: How can I go straight through the red light without stopping?

It's About Time

I find something delicious in the fact that I used "Back to the Future" in a project about time.

Oh, and this indeed is my submission for the "It's About Time" project.

Thoughts on Time

This isn't my submission. I just wanted to toss down some thoughts on time.

Take a look at your reflection in a mirror. Is that you? Right now? Are you sure? Maybe you changed a fraction of a second ago, and the light just hasn't reached your eyes yet. You're always looking into the past.

It's kind of ludicrous for me to think I can comment on the current status of the world. As soon as I've finished typing this sentence, things may have changed entirely! Once this post is up, the world might be gone! As soon as we're back in class on Monday, the Large Hadron Collider will have been activated; maybe it will have created a black hole and ended all life as we know it. You should probably refresh this page to make sure.

These words still here? Good.

Light from the sun takes eight minutes to get here. If the Sun were to wink out right now, we'd not have the foggiest notion for long enough to watch a viral video. Twice.

Scientists say that time travel is impossible; but we're always looking into the past and we move into the future at one second per second every day of the week.

So what is my project going to be on?

Good question.

uo!sנaΛu! + sweנб!qwe

Gibberish? Actually, no. If you'll invert your computer monitor (or just take a screenshot and rotate it 180° in Photoshop) you'll be able to read the title of this post (that is, if you have Cyrillic and Hebrew encoding available on your machine). Why? Because I read the page in The Art of Looking Sideways ostensibly numbered 245.

Huh?

Here's the deal: the page is umop ap!sdn - so I decided to do the same, and flip this blog post upside down. Or, at least the title.

Now, if you don't have Cyrillic or Hebrew (or maybe you're just too lazy), the title of this post is "ambigrams + inversion" - so what is an Ambigram?

Again, assuming you're too lazy to click this link, I'll tell you. An ambigram is a word or sentence that can be read the same upside down as right-side up. Obviously, the title of this post is NOT an ambigram, as it can't be read right-side up (and barely so, upside down). But the one to the left of this post, the 20th anniversary edition of the Princess Bride DVD, is. Go ahead, flip it over!

Ambigrams fascinate me. So much so that I created my own:

Okay, so you have to sort of squint and imagine lines where there aren't any, but if you look closely, you might see that it says "ilinamorato"!

Not bad for an experiment, I'd say.

The Egg Project

This image was a lot of fun to create. I was thinking about the idea of becoming an egghead myself, and I decided that my little egg - Romeo Omulet (his wife's name is Juliet Scramblague) - was a silicon valley magnate in the video game industry. So here it is!

Even without looking too closely, you can see several little puns. Puzzles designed to "Crack your shell," for instance; my little guy's name being Romeo "Omulet" (I blame my roommate for that one) -- even "Egghead" magazine. I hope you got these puns. I'm just yolking with you.

Now this post is over (easy). I can email you the full size image if you ask for it; just comment with your email address.