2001 Glossies: part 1

 Uncategorized  2 Responses »
Mar 062011
 

Many years ago, I bought a copy of Piers Bizony’s “2001; Filming The Future” in a used book store. Tucked inside the book were 8 glossy promotional prints from 2001. I have not the slightest clue where they came from. The prints themselves seemed new, and were cetainly in good shape, but the images themselves… well, they weren’t the best quality. Still, they were interesting.

Some years later I moved to Utah. The prints ended up in my shop. And as I found out real quick, the shop is not as waterproof as I might’ve hoped. Along with losing all the printed issues of the initial run of APR, a lot of other things got wet when rain worked it way in. Included in the list were the glossies… the water did a fantastic job of gluing them together into one inflexible mass. They stayed that way for some years, up until a month ago when I decided to experiment. Turns out Windex helps to soften them up and allows them to be peeled away from each other. Not intact, not without noticable flaws, but better than nothing. So, not having anything better to do with them, I scanned them, and here are the first two of eight:


Moonbus.

Dave Bowman lookin’ all serious and stuff.

 Posted by at 2:28 pm

Whence Came “Raedthinn?”

 blather, cats  2 Responses »
Mar 062011
 

The question has been asked in comments several times, and answered in comments several times, but the comments are not as easily searched as the main body of posts. So, to answer the eternal question”Where in the name of Odin did the name ‘Raedthinn’ come from, I hearby present the answer:

When I first got him as a kitten he Would Not Shut Up. Thus, a name based on “chatty” seemed appropriate. I looked up the Icelandic for “chatty” and got ræðinn and skrafhreyfinn. I went with the first one (“Raedthinn”) , being slightly more pronouncable (though I’m almost certainly pronouncing it wrong anyway).

Of course, skrafhreyfinn has sorta come back in the form of Scruffy.

Raedthinn, just to be difficult, soon became a very quiet cat. He said pretty much all he wanted to say when he was a kid.

 Posted by at 1:44 pm

The Very Best Water

 blather, cats, photography  9 Responses »
Mar 042011
 

Living out in farm country, I have well water rather than municipal water. So it’s assumed to be pretty vile. Thus it’s repeatedly filtered prior to drinking or food prep.  Unfiltered, who knows what all manner of horribleness is in it.

The cats get the filtered water in their drinking bowl.

Raedthinn, of course, prefers water from *other* sources. Like, say, the bathtub:

I guess it just tastes better.

Neither of the other cats will do this, though both Fingers and Buttons think the toilet flushing is just fascinating. Also fascinating: watching Raedthinn bolding going forth into the Place Where Wetness Happens. Fingers is terrified of the tub, Buttons wary… but he’ll happily watch Raedthinn drink from the tub faucet.

 Posted by at 9:17 pm

“Are you here to help me?”

 blather, critters, dumbassery, news  5 Responses »
Mar 032011
 

One of the more made-for-TV bits of jackassery in the past few days has been brought to you by Luis Moreno,  a Colombian soccer player. In a recent match, the opposing teams mascot, an owl, made the mistake of landing on the field during the game, and was unlucky enough to get hit by the ball. The refs stopped the game, at which point Luis Moreno decided it would be a humorous jape to walk up to it and kick it.

[youtube DrKmKSF3qLQ]

Getting hit by the ball apparently broke the birds wing. Getting kicked did it no good either. Soon after, it died… apparently from stress due to all the humans fretting over it. Moreno has been suspended, fined, and now the death threats are apparently pouring in.

Dude. It’s Colombia. What, did you think pissing the people off there would be a safe thing to do? As Michael Vick found out, sports fans think it’s a hoot (get it? A hoot? Bah. Screw you guys, I’m crankin’ out comedy gold here) when athletes try to tear each others heads off… but they start howling for blood if athletes abuse critters.

The story is sad on it’s own. But what kinda gets me is a brief instant in the video above. The camera zooms in on the bird after it’s been hit by the ball, and it’s just sitting there on the field looking kinda stunned, holding it’s wings out. As Moreno walks up to it, it turns its head to look at him. And it just looks to me like the bird is asking if Moreno will help him.*

The answer, clearly, was “No.”

* Yes, yes, that’s unwarranted anthropomorphism. It just looks like the bird is asking for help, is all.

 Posted by at 11:34 pm

Test Stand

 awesomeness, blather, models, science fiction  7 Responses »
Mar 022011
 

The trio of X-42’s require a trio of stands. I had some ideas  on the design and materials; but rather than charge ahead with all three and potentially do something stupid, I’ve been taking it a step at a time. And the first finished stand is not actually for the X-42s, but was a slightly smaller test article to make sure it all works right. Instead of a painted ID plate, a decal or “trophy shop” plate, I made one using very clear resin and text cut on a digital vinyl cutter. The letters are actually suspened about midway through the plate, which gives it a different look.

Overall I think it came out well. Only two real issues I have with it are the surface finish (I’ll have to do something different for the X-42 stands) and the rubber “feet” are overly thick for this stand.

What do y’all think?

So, what’s this stand for? Well… this:

Yes, yes, I know…

 Posted by at 6:17 pm

Let The Right One In Again

 bachelow chow, blather, cats, photography  2 Responses »
Mar 022011
 

Today Scruffy showed up on the deck begging for food, and tried to shove his way in the door:

At the same time, Mark also showed up… and a black cat I’ve seen from time to time. The black cat is really quite feral and has no use for humans. This is the closest I’ve ever been to the black cat, and this is the closest I’ve ever seen Scruffy and Mark get to each other without a fight breaking out:

What the photo does *not* show is why this is quite possibly the last time you’ll ever see the black cat: he’s only got one eye. From the looks of it, he transitioned from binocular to monocual vision within the past few days… it looks really quite horrid. Infection and whatnot might well do him in. Being one-eyed around here won’t help him, especially crossing the road. But there’s no chance of me catching him, thus no chance of me getting him to the vet. And I doubt there’s anything the vet would do with him apart from putting him down. So… while I’m sure Raedthinn thinks he has a hard life, there are other cats quite nearby who have a *really* hard life. As messed up as this feller is, it didn’t stop him from swatting Scruffy when he got too close while eating.

Also not visible in the photos are some rather shocking changes in Scruffy. Before winter, if you fed him he’d let you pet him for four seconds (I counted) before he turned on you and tried to claw your arm off. At the time, those few seconds were enough to show that he had a thick coat… and thick musculature. He was a *burly* cat. But now he has a very thin coat of fur with bald patches, and is really quite skinny. I guess the hunting has not been especially productive this winter. And given his violent and anti-social nature, he probably doesn’t get many opportunities to get human-provided chow.

 Posted by at 5:37 pm
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