With Friends Like These...

A few years back I saw 'news' report on a mini-phenomenon call Real Doll. I'm guessing I had the channel set to Showcase - but I digress. I remember having 4 reactions to the story:

1. That artist/inventor has done something amazing!
   
2. Ummm.... those dolls are kinda hot! Do they really, you know, work?
   
3. Who is so lonely that they'd shell out $5000 for one of those?
   
4. So, is there a website?

In the final analysis, my thinking has been that Real Doll is a fascinating (albeit, dark) corner of Western culture - but the members of that community must be among the most pathetically lonely people on Earth.

I was wrong. I pray this business isn't making money, but I'm probably wrong about that, too.

Evidence!

Tree Mouth Exclusive! This grainy photograph was smuggled out of the London Police Force's heretofore secret basement forensics lab; home of their shadowy Paranormal Investigations Group (aka PIG).

So here's a shout-out to the Freeps, Macleans, NatPost, and the Enquirer. There are more where this one came from. Let the bidding war begin.

My Sixth Sense

I see trees with faces.

Well, not faces exactly; more like mouths. Big mouths. Up in the branches. Smiling with big, toothy, reddish-lipped, kite-eating smiles ripped straight from a Charlie Brown nightmare. Why are they in London? Why now?

So far, there's one down at the Forks of the Thames keeping watch over the playground and splashpad. I've also seen one near the railway overpass on Wharncliffe near Horton.

Am I the only ones who is seeing these? Why is the media ignoring this? I must get a picture of these twisted cousins of the Ents. I'll post one here if I can.

I see trees with faces. Do you?

Chaos in the Blogosphere

Weather is choatic, but climate is not. That's all there really is to Chaos Theory, and that's how I've always kind of perceived this thing called the Blogosphere.

While the Net continues to grow and morph with every passing second, at any moment it's fixed in space, time, and capability. And within this somewhat fixed system there are approximately a gazillion blogs percolating in a gazillion dark little corners (with a gazillion minus 100 known only to friends and family).

The Blogosphere is this roiling, chaotic 'thing' that seems wholly unknowable; even as it's 15 minutes of fame passes with every breathless media pronouncement on how important (or not) this all seems to be. To me, it's much ado about nothing. Blogs exist for the simple reason that they're an effective way for people to share/reach out/have a voice/show-off/wank off. It's Speaker's Corner for us all (the good kind, not CityTV's).

So to hear that there are actually Canadian Blog Awards really blows me away. I had no idea this exists. I had no idea of the depth and breadth of blogging in Canada. I have no idea how the whole thing works.

I was not nominated.

But my virtual friend Sheena was, and that's cool. Congrats Sheenster, I hope you win!

Ok, This is Cool

In my previous post (about a decade ago) I mentioned that I'm loving Robot Chicken these days. The jokes are hit-and-miss, but what really fascinates me are the mechanics of the whole thing; how the tedious process of stop-motion animation can produce subtle and meaningful body language that adds so much to character and storyline. Robot Chicken has it figured out.

Natch, my fascination with stop-motion is nothing new. As a kid I was drawn to the likes of Gumby and Pokey. Back then, it was pretty amazing stuff. I even grokked Davey and Goliath, although I admit that I secretly longed to see Goliath go all medieval on Davey's ass once in awhile. And don't even get me started on all those wonderful Rankin/Bass El Cheapo Christmas masterpieces involving Rudolph, Kris Kringle, Snow Miser, Herbie the Elf, and all the rest of 'em. Burl Ives was meant to play a snowman, okay? MadTV has even done some pretty good stuff in this genre.

So..... it was Monday afternoon, and I had nothing but time on my hands. Somehow, I ended up on a website that talked about do-it-yourself stop-motion photography. I swear I did not intend to go there. Have you ever sat in your car, in your driveway, and wondered how the hell you just got home from work? It was kinda like that.

Anyways, I was on this site and - quite by accident - found some open source ware for doing stop-motion photography. Long-story short - I experimented, and it worked. I'm hoping to interest the kiddos in having some fun with this. In the meantime, I offer 14 seconds of diversion. Oh, and the answer is "yes, it's my hand in there". I'm so proud.