You gotta give it to the Russians for having cool winter gear…
I had some down time at work and checking out some winter duds. I sorta want a new winter coat like the Russian Military trenchcoat I wore for 4 winters.
So I was scoping out some gear. Goddamn, I want this sweater. *gets out credit card*
http://www.sovietarmystuff.com/detail.php?product_id=409
Shelter Gig recap
The gig at Shelter Friday went down pretty slick. I had a great time even though turn out wasn’t as much as expected. The DEVIOUSone played a killer set and enjoyed working in the space. Unfortunately, after the gig I was reminded how much I dislike the downtown scene. Barfly just isn’t my thing, but the Shelter is pretty cool. I suggest you go. This is probably one of the cooler lesser know music scenes around the Twin Cities.
Anywho, pictures from earlier in the evening below thanks to Jesse and Katie. Word.
Amazing Alan Moore Video - Thanks Miki!
My buddy Miki sent me an amazing Alan Moore video today on the Facebook. I watched it on an off over the workday today and have to say that I think it jolted me back on to my path I seemed to have strayed from. I have never known a whole lot about Alan Moore aside from that he wrote the original comics for that piece of crap movie “League of Extraordinary Gentlemen” and that he resented the film adaptation of “V for Vendetta”. I guess I blew him off as a comic cook like Frank Miller has seemed to become. However, this video changed my mind about that… and reminded me a wee bit of who I used to be.
Meme(me)
I dunno what this is about, but fudge it.
Via Rich Klein…
1. Take a picture of yourself right now.
2. Don’t change your clothes, don’t fix your hair…just take a picture.
3. Post that picture with NO editing.
4. Post these instructions with your picture.
@Shelter Painting Live with the DEVIOUSone Friday
Check out the post in MNVibe
Doing anything Friday night? Venture into downtown Minneapolis to drink,dance, listen to some awesome djs, and watch me paint live at the Shelter on the 4th floor above Barfly. Word on the street is the DEVIOUSone is a killer dj so get your groove on Friday night. I have a crazy plan which will result in one of my biggest paintings yet, so if you dug my piece at Convergence last Summer, you’ll love this one!
NYC Travellers Under Stricter Surveillance
I would otherwise say “this is New York’s problem”, but a grant to the St. Paul/Minneapolis Police Department for the RNC enabled them to buy numerous surveillance cameras for downtown areas. I wonder what will happen to those now that the RNC is over and people elsewhere resume forgetting the Twin Cities exist? I am not a fan.
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Operation Drivway - Lessons Learned
I have not written lately about my adventures in the lizard bricks. That doesn’t mean I have not been working on them. However, today I think I came to the realization that I need to start over. The key issue is that the limbs keep breaking off, even with the concrete. This is mostly due to the joints being to narrow compared to the depth of the bricks. This would be fine in application since the interlocking nature of the bricks will displace the weight of a vehicle, etc. However, the breakage occurs when removing the bricks from the mold.
So, the plan is to start over from scratch with a new clay version bigger than the original to make wider limbs. I am anticipating the end brick will be twice as large. This will have the benefit of covering more area, resulting in fewer bricks being made. Either way, here are some lessons learned:
Goods:
- The proof of concept is valid - this can work.
- The “level” version I made works slick and will prevent stubbed toes. I need to remember this when making the next one.
- The mold and the concrete accurately capture the detail of the clay version. I could put a wee bit more effort into the next version to make it more detailed.
Bads:
- Premixed concrete is not the way to go since it has too many big rocks. My best bet is to buy pea gravel, portland, and sand and mix it myself. I did this in the final trial and it worked slick.
- Hardening time : I am probably going to need to let each brick harden for a week or so to give it the proper strength to be removed from the cast.
- With the above said, this drastically cuts my production time down and I probably need multiple molds to compensate (I would like to eventually get this driveway done).
- When making the mold, I need to not be stingy and try to fill gap areas with empty space (such as beer bottles). This is more of a pain in the butt and potentially leads to a weak mold - especially if I switch to a softer polymer.
- Softer mold : I also probably want to use a softer polymer. Due to the shape of the bricks, the limbs probably count as “under cuts” and thus I need to use a less ridged mold to prevent breakage when pulling them out.
- I probably need to match the size of the brick with a container that I will use as the cast to get the optimal size of the mold. Preferably, a round container… perhaps a cardboard concrete pillar mold or something more hexagon shaped.
- The mold probably needs to be cut into pie-shaped chunks to more easily remove them from the cast. This might be a non-issue with softer mold mix and a larger cast. However, it is something to consider.
Other:
- I might want to use barn nails to reinforce the joints like re-bar.
- Using mold release on the concrete casts is probably a good idea, however I doubt this would have solved my problem with the breakage.
- The original probably should be slightly tapered so that it is narrower at the top so there is less resistance pulling out the mold. Again, since the limbs protrude outward horizontally, this probably isn’t going to solve the breakage issue either.
Anywho. I might try this again very soon since I still want to be making bricks all winter. Assuming the bricks are twice the size, then I probably only need 250 of them. If I have 5 molds, it will take me 50 pouring sessions to do it. If I need to let the casts harden in the mold for a week, I am looking at another year of this or so. These are just estimates, but off the top of my head, it looks like maybe the driveway will be done Fall 2009, which is only slightly longer than I was expecting anyway. Radular. Anywho, wish me luck 
Dane Cook - Please Stop Making Movies…
Does anyone know why people are still casting Dane Cook in roles other than in those new waves of farce movies (Meet the Spartans, etc?) In order to watch tonight’s episode of the Daily Show online, I was forced to watch a trailer of his new romantic comedy … three times. I can already tell the plot structure:
- Guy 1 has girlfriend
- Guy 1 does something dumb and looses girlfriend
- Guy 2 swoops in and woos (ex) girlfriend
- Guy 2 has wild monkey sex with ex (girlfriend)
- Guy 2’s dad - who also happens to be the Green Goblin… err.. wait. I am getting all these movies mixed up…
I’m not mad at Dane Cook, he is just a commodity. I am more so mad at people who are willing to spend money on this drivel. Go see a play. Watch YouTube videos of people getting hit in the nuts. Anything… yarg.
Who Doesn’t Want Palin in Office more…?
I pose the question, “who doesn’t want Sarah Palin in the VP Office more - Democrats or Republicans?” After listening to her speech at the RNC just now, you have to wonder. She pointed out how she wants to go after the big oil companies, (of which the government gets a lot of money from). She also made a point to note how she cut costs in her own offices by laying off her personal driver and selling the governer’s personal jet (which was originally purchased by the previous Republican governer). This isn’t very “Rebublican” of her, unless you mean Ron Paul style “Rebublican”.
The other thing I noted about the speech is that she spent most of her time defending herself and the rest of the time blasting Obama. She repeatly posed a question to the affect of “What is Obama’s plan?”. I ask, what is her plan? She spoke very little of what she stood for. For what I understand her to stand for, I would think she would have brought those things up to rally the Rebulicans more.
I think I do have a soft spot for her with the whole “small town” thing she is playing up - and rightfully so. She is saying that she is a “Washington outsider” and is not playing the politico game. She claims she wants smaller government and other things I agree with to an extent.
However, it will just be interesting to see how this pans out. I just feel like McCain/Palin ticket will divide Rebulicans far more than they thought her as VP would divide Democrats. I forsee a lot of economic conservatives and otherwise hardcore conservative strongly dissapproving of her for what she brings to the table. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.
Learn something new all the time - Variegated and Chimeras
I was looking up growing Ivy last night and ran across the word “Variegated” in the context of describing types of Ivy. I initially assumed this was a typo of “variated” as in “colors may vary”. But, my inquisitive mind decided it was worth googling. Wow, neato.
Wikipedia says:
Variegation is the appearance of differently coloured zones in the leaves, and sometimes the stems, of plants. This may be due to a number of causes. Some variegation is attractive and ornamental, and gardeners tend to preserve these.
One cause for this are “chimeras”
Chimeras (or “chimaeras”) in botany are usually single organisms composed of two genetically different types of tissue. They occur in plants, on the same general basis as with animal chimeras. However, unlike animal chimeras, both types of tissues may have originated from the same zygote, and the difference is often due to mutation during ordinary cell division.
I just found this interesting. Especially, considering invasive species. If you look at the Liger (yes a real animal of lion/tiger mix), the male of one species and the female of the other has genetic size limits imposed. However, when you breed the others the limits do not get passed on and the resulting offspring can grow larger than either of the parents. I’m sure this practice has been in use for a long time, but it is hard to imagine the new invasive creations that exist. I suppose this is just part of evolution too. Think of all the new bacteria and viruses that are discovered all the time. Strain 121
is pretty interesting as well, even though it isn’t a chimera.
