Crabby Night Owl

Video: Nature by Numbers. Wow! Just–wow!

Rick — Thu, 03 Mar 2011 15:00:38 +0000

Nature by Numbers from Jeff DeMeglio on Vimeo.

I’m confined to quarters, but at least I’ve got Coffee

Rick — Wed, 16 Feb 2011 15:00:35 +0000

We’re finally getting tile installed downstairs after having lived with bare concrete since August last year. The place is finally turning into a home. The mortar needs 24 hours to set, and then the grout will need another 24 hours, and another 24 hours for the grout sealer to set.

They’ve left a single-tile wide path from the stairs to the back door so we can get out of the apartment if we need to. But, the kitchen’s off limits. I can’t even make microwave popcorn (not too much of a hardship, since I prefer “real” popcorn that you cook yourself in a pan over the stove). I did think to bring my coffee maker into my room, and coffee and filters, so there’s that, at least. And even though I really don’t like to bring food into my bedroom, I brought a couple of loaves of French bread and a bag of Funyuns up here to tide me over until I can get back into the kitchen. I’ll probably pick up some fresh fruit tomorrow morning.

Renovation is a wonderful thing. Now if we can just talk the management into some decent landscaping, and maybe a face-lift for the entire complex… It could happen…!

Image Credits
“Cup of Coffee” by anya-anya
“Curve Steel rods” by asifthebes

Walk Like a Man…

Rick — Sat, 29 Jan 2011 03:45:07 +0000

Many gorillas can walk, and even run, for a short distance on two legs. A bachelor Western lowland gorilla named Ambam seems to be rather more fond of bipedal locomotion than other gorillas. Ambam’s father frequently walked upright when his hands were full, and his siblings also displayed the behavior more frequently than other gorillas.

Ambam lives at the Port Lympne Wild Animal Park in Kent, England. I’d definitely add it it to my itinerary if I were visiting the area.

The following video of him has gone viral, with over 1 million views in two days, so it’s old news by now. I just wanted to document it here, in case any of you haven’t yet seen it. The soundtrack is a little loud, so you may want to mute it or turn down your volume before you watch the vid.

New Roof! Oh…joy… and First YouTube upload!

Rick — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 16:20:07 +0000

They’re reroofing my condo. Lots of scraping and pounding and dropping many pounds of tar paper heavy enough to make my building shudder. I can actually feel the compression and expansion when they drop the rolls of tar paper into position on the roof. It sounds and feels like the end of the world. Just ask my cats. And the smell! Hot, smokey, burning tires. Blekh! But, hey! No more leaks when it rains!

So, I’m uploading my first ever video to YouTube as I type this. It’s a test animation of fractal renderings. I don’t think it’s spectacular, but it does document a successful test. It’s cool, if you like watching animations, especially animations created from mathematical abstractions. This one is of a series of Julia set equations.

It’s 15 seconds long. Now that I know what to expect, I’ll make my next one longer, and also more interesting.

If you like math visualizations, or if you just wanna see a cool colorful animation, check it out.

Toddler Television, pre Tele-Tubbies

Rick — Tue, 11 Jan 2011 15:35:39 +0000

Vision On logo

I was browsing YouTube the other night and I finally– finally– remembered the name of one of my favorite programs when I was a weeling. And, not only did I find the name, I also found some footage, some of which I actually remember watching. What a blast! Watching the clips brought back so many of the cool feelings of my first years of life.

The Program was called “Vision On,” and it was put out by the BBC from 1964 to 1976. It was the brain child of the great English artist, Tony Hart (linked page has sound), and, according to the comments on the various YouTube clips, it has been the inspiration for many artists of my generation.

Remembering “Vision On” was remembering the joy of being three years old again, and the unbridled desire to do all the cool things they did on the show, before I was pressed into perusing my more intellectual and potentially fiscally rewarding interests.

Anyway, “Vision On” was all about art and painting and visual perception, with Pat Keysall helping to bridge the gap between hearing and non-hearing viewers “by addressing the television camera and using sign language as she spoke (Wikipedia).”

So, I was three years old, and “Vision On” was more interesting than Sesame Street. The show was meant for a slightly older audience, I think, but I was a little ahead of the curve, back then. We young “Vision On” fans didn’t need Pat Robertson’s pal, Tinky-Winky, to take us by the hand and entertain us. We had Tony and Pat, and the Prof to entertain us and teach us about art and being creative.

Anyway, do you remember “Vision On?” Or was there another television program you liked to watch when you were three or four years old?

Links:
“Vision On” YouTube Playlist
“Vision On” Website
Tony Hart (linked page has sound)
Pat Keysall

I claim Fair Use of the Vision On logo and the screen capture from the programme’s intro. So there.

Resolutoions? Meh.

Rick — Sat, 01 Jan 2011 13:58:03 +0000

So, I’m just rambling here, but it seems appropriate for me to say something about my New Year’s Resolutions for 2011.

The very sad fact is that I haven’t made any. I know it’s un-American, and it may well set me apart from the rest of the Western world, but I stopped making New Year’s resolutions when I stopped giving things up for Lent. That was about the time I had an epic multi-part conversation with Jesus in the school chapel after lunch, much to the irritation of Sister Carmelina.

Yes, for about 2 weeks during my Junior year in high school I spent my lunch period, and quite a bit of Sister Carmelina’s morality class, in the school chapel, discussing with Jesus exactly what I was supposed to do with the rest of my life. What, exactly, we decided is between me and Jesus. But, in the end, I changed the channel, shall we say, on the issue of religion.

Oh, but we’re talking about Resolutions. I’ll save the religious talk for an other time.

So, I no longer make New Year’s resolutions. I do, however, delineate a map on my birthday every year. It’s sort of a birthday resolution. My birthday, conveniently, occurs a week before the Gregorian New Year, and the map is a list of things I want to accomplish in the following year.

This year’s map includes–and I’m making this public, so y’all can hold me to it–

bring my understanding of maths to a second-year college level
Stop playing at learning a language and actually learn one
aim my online activities toward earning some money
choose a subject by the first of March to master, and then expend the resources to become an expert in that subject within 3 years
other, more personal things involving relationships and reputation.

So, birthday resolutions, rather than New Year’s resolutions. After all, your year starts the day you did. So, what birthday resolutions (or birthday progress maps) have you made for the coming year?

Happy New Year!

Rick — Sat, 01 Jan 2011 11:15:29 +0000

May you get the best of what you want in the coming year. Or, at least, may you get the best of what you need. May opportunities present themselves to you in ways you can easily recognize, and may you have the presence or mind to take advantage of them all.

Even if you don’t celebrate the Gregorian New Year, may your New Year bring you the best of everything you hope for.

Image Credit: sreecmcm. From Stock.xchng

Silent Monks Sing Halelujah!

Rick — Fri, 24 Dec 2010 06:07:24 +0000

30 Thankful Things

Rick — Thu, 25 Nov 2010 17:00:50 +0000

30 Thankful Things… Not that the things, themselves, are thankful, but that I’m thankful for them. I like the alliteration of the title. This is just a random list off the top of my head. Also, notice how slyly I backdated this post so you wouldn’t notice it was late. Shhh…

A roof over my head.
Family members who care about me.
Friends.
A dog who loves me.
Crisp autumn days.
Good coffee.
Spellcheckers.
Books.
Thoughtful and creative authors.
Music.
Thoughtful and creative musicians.
Comfortable shoes.
Flannel shirts.
The colors green, blue, violet, and crimson.
A beautiful daybreak view of the city.
A beautiful view of the mountains.
Nearby wilderness and park areas.
Hawthorn trees, and oak trees, and Douglas firs.
Raspberries, lemons, and chocolate.
Belgian Waffles.
The nighttime sky at high altitude, away from the city.
Puzzles to solve.
Victorian aesthetic sense and the Steampunk movement.
Teachers who cared.
Fireflies.
Digital cameras.
CD players in cars.
iTunes.
Quiet moments.
Fresh air.

So, what is it that you’re thankful to have in your life? I’m sure you can think of at least 30 things, probably more. If you make a list, and you like it, why not put it in the comments?

Image Credit: Forrest Road by Stefan Gustafsson

“We’re not unreasonable. I mean, no one’s gonna eat your eyes.”

Rick — Wed, 17 Nov 2010 14:31:59 +0000

I express some maudlin sentiments in this post, so if you want happy, maybe you should skip reading it.

Yeah, sorry for not posting in such a long time, to either Crabby Night Owl or The Varo Edition. It’s been an interesting few months.

I promised my sister I wouldn’t get into the details, since she doesn’t want anyone to know how bad things actually were. But picking up the pieces after my mom’s passing has been the most emotionally challenging process of my life.

Personally, I’m fine. At least the cause of her passing has no direct connection back to any decision I personally made, unlike with Margie or Dwayne. My mom was sick, and she died. I’m okay with that. One of my most haunting fears is that my parents would outlive me. Grand parent, parent, child. That’s the natural order, the sequence of passing. Yes, the world is still a savage place, and young ones too often beat their ancestors to the grave. But, barring sickness, accident, or murder, it’s the elder family members who lead the way into what comes after this life.

I didn’t plan on staying in Las Vegas after my mom left us. My next stop was Albuquerque, New Mexico. After I spent as much time with my mom as I had left to spend, I was going to move to “The Q” to stage the rest of my life.

My mom asked me specifically to take care of her cat. I’ll do that. But she decided not to move to Phoenix with me because my sister didn’t want to move. My mom hated it where she lived, and I wanted her and my sister to move to my apartment complex in Phoenix. She would have loved the the landscaping, the trees and the fountains. But she wouldn’t leave my sister, and my sister didn’t want to leave where she was. (My mom and sister have lived near or with each other my sister’s entire life.) So I came to Vegas, a city I said I’d never live in.

Well, now, I’m living in Las Vegas, jobless because I wasn’t planning on staying, trying to take care of my sister. She has some serious problems that I don’t know how to solve or work around, and that she isn’t seeking help to deal with. So, lots of unaccustomed stress for me, yessirree. Most of what I’m dealing with I promised my sister I wouldn’t talk about, because she doesn’t want the people who know her to know what’s really been going on with her. She’s got her story all planned out, but there’s no way I can keep up with the details of what she’s been telling people. So, I stay mum, more or less.

I’m kind of in zombie mode, right now: only half-here, and in search of brains. I just spent 3 days in a bid to escape. In three days, I managed to watch, via hulu.com, the entire season of FlashForward, and season 1 of both Sliders and Dead Like Me. Lots of “what-if’s” and “what-might-have-been’s” in those shows, which got me thinking.

It’s like back when I was mixing music tapes, unscripted and live. You could tell exactly where my mind was at the time by listening to those tapes. If Boston’s “More than a Feeling” popped up on the tape amid a sea of Alan Parsons Project, Genesis, and Toto, then I was definitely thinking about my first love, Mary Ann, at the time. That happened more than once. Dio, Devo, and R.E.M.? The Yucca Valley Days. Those tapes were a clear window into my soul at the moment I was recording them.

The same may be true with my recent hulu binge. My playlist seems to be telling me something. It could be that Hulu’s offerings are still a little sparse to my taste, and that’s all I found that was interesting. Or, it could be something else, entirely.

Whatever.

Back to the purpose of this post: I know I’ve been away, and there’s really no excuse. Sorry about that. The reason, though, is that aspects of my personal life are rather overwhelming at the moment, and I’ve promised I wouldn’t tell anyone my sister knows about the details. If you’re reading this and you happen to know her, go with whatever she says. Let her spin whatever reality helps her cope, and give her your support.

And I, having convinced you to come along with me wherever my Crabby Night Owl blog takes us, do hereby promise to give you something at least once a week, or so, regardless of whatever else is going on in my life. Ah, but since CNO is a personal blog, maybe I’ll take you along with me.

Links
re: Your Brains. The Jonathan Coulton song that inspired this post’s title.
Jonathan Coulton. The above-mentioned musician’s website.
The machinama video by Spiffworld of the above-mentioned song.
Spiffworld‘s YouTube channel.

FlashForward: The Complete Series
Dead Like Me: The Complete Collection
Sliders – The First and Second Seasons

Image Credit: zombie face by embepe. From Stock.xchng.