and the whatnot of sorts

cool stuff happening at the MIT Media Lab

• an excellent short film-- La Revolution Des Crabes
• another Yann Tiersen song-- Rue Des Cascades

• Great post over at Temple of the Seven Golden Camels-- Blood and Posture
• Drawings/photos of Vancouver over at Splinter In Your Eye

I just got back from seeing the movie Coraline with some friends from school.  It was a really amazing movie that you should see and hear and experience also.  If I wanted to be nitpicky-- which I do, since otherwise this post would be rather short-- the last few minutes of the story up to the conclusion didn’t contain the sheer wonder that the rest of the movie had.  To be completely honest though, I have no idea if the conclusion could have been better-- conclusions are tricky things because the story must come to some sort of ending ( or conclusion).  Taking the time to tie every story point shut may be boring but leaving story points dangling may leave the work feeling unfinished.  Anyways, it was very very (very) good.

some Coraline related links:

• trailer for the movie
• Art of Coraline panel ( video ! )
• just a few of the amazing artists who worked on Coraline: Jon Klassen, Shane Prigmore, Shannon Tindle, and Dan Krall

In unrelated news, here’s possibly the most geeky thing ever:

… I made it awhile ago for a Scientists Valentine’s Day Card thing.  I regret nothing and everything at the same time.

• An album called Dark Was the Night
• voice drawing
• turn your handwriting into a font
• personal life update: scanning in a sketchbook and then sleep!

Check out this wonderful short film-- here or here

I’ve never been able to listen to music and do much of anything else at the same time.  My next few weeks are going to be made inefficient by Andrew Bird’s new album, Noble Beast, and also by an excellent band called The New Pornographers.  A somewhat hesitant thanks to my brother, Scott, for the heads up about this music.

The National Film Board of Canada has a website with a bunch of their films-- some shorts, some long stuff, some different things, some great stuff.  None of the videos are working for me right now, but hopefully they work for you.

Some recommended films ( some I’ve seen and some I want to see )

Carts of Darkness: A documentary about the Grocery Cart racing subculture in North Vancouver.

The Cat Came Back: animated short about a cat that came back… the very next day.  Based on a folk song I think.

Blackfly:  I saw this on PBS when I was little and absolutely fell in love with it.  Once the NFB website is working for me, I hope to fall in love with it again.

The Great Toy Robbery: Santa meets the old West

Here’s some cool photos and animations that my brother made over winter break.  Once again, it was awesome seeing everyone!

There’s an interesting article over at New Scientist.  Whatever the practical implications of this research is, I’m trying not to let it affect me too much.  Tonight I may just stay home and eat chips though… because the world might be a hologram!!!!!!!!!!!  Oh no Oh no Oh no, now is a bad time for this.