Tuesday, July 29, 2008

ICI Cabinet

I just finished this cabinet for a friend of mine:
I went together nicely after being expertly cut by a friend in Maine. The top is painted Starry Night Blue to reference the evacuation route signs in Boston. The sides of the closed structure are Foil Gray and the rest is left as raw birch (waxed). The biggest difficulty I had was finding hardware in Providence. Cabinet building/builders is not the circle I run in down here. I asked around RISD and the advice I got was "Lowes or Home Depot". It seems that everyone orders online down here. Oh, well. Lesson learned.

Thursday, July 24, 2008

A Few Randoms

Recently, it occurred to me the large number of actors that got their start on 90210. It's funny that it seems that only the bit part actors went on to do anything. Hilary Swank is arguably the best known but I had no idea that Nate Fisher (Peter Krause) from Six Feet Under was on in the early years. Just for one or two episodes but he was on it none-the-less.
And then this guy showed up:
I'm pretty sure that this was very early on in his "career".
My other fun game is to find where the boom mic enters the top of the screen in each episode. Really, after 3 seasons you still can't hold that thing up out of the way? Or even, say, re-shoot if it does? The show was clearly a success at that point and money was being made. Let's look professional, eh?

On an unrelated tangent, I went with my international friends to see The Dark Knight at the IMAX theater last night. And I feel it safe to say that it's incredible. It is beautifully shot, well written, and extremely well cast (with the exception of that Batman voice). Heath Ledger was amazing. I vote him for awards for this.
But the most amazing parts were the clips that were shot with the true, 2:3 IMAX film. The first scene in the film had us all gasping at the crispness and "real-ness" of giving the feeling of diving off of the top of a building. I'm not sure how to describe it...My only complaint is that it's odd to keep switching between 2:3 IMAX and 16:9 aspect. For the most part it's pretty seamless, but there are a few points where it's just too obvious.

Thursday, July 17, 2008

Rarely Do I go This Route...

"Goodbye from the world's biggest polluter." --George W. Bush, in parting words to British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and French President Nicolas Sarkozy at his final G-8 Summit, punching the air and grinning widely as the two leaders looked on in shock, Rusutsu, Japan, July 10, 2008.

I heard this on Wait Wait Don't Tell Me and thought it was one of their jokes. Turns out it's fact.

How much longer?

Monday, July 14, 2008

Fusion Arts


Well, the summer here at RISD has begun. The students have been here for a week and we've had a first day away in Boston. Above in a conversation that took place in the first few days about the idea of home and what it means to students. We visited with some really great people there including a gentleman that is part of a company that is developing multi-user interactive touch screen tables. Pretty amazing and fascinating.