Bacon Rocket ..

I love bacon. I know that bacon is a sin .. in so many ways bacon is a sin .. but bacon is such a good sin. Rockets are fun .. they're so much fun .. So when these two blokes combined bacon and a gunpowder to form a bacon rocket, then a must repost .. enjoy

What do you get ...

What do you get when you combine Star Wars with Winne the Pooh? .. Pure Adorable Awesome!

Most likely lose it anyway ..

Link: Shirtoid

Nice Wookie ...

According to Freshness.com, Adidas and Lucas are introducing a new line of fan clothing. My favorite is called the "Wookie" jacket. The jacket doesn't so much remind me of Chewie, the endearing pal of Han Solo and star of the Star Wars Holiday Special fame, but rather the type of jacket worn by the rebels on the ice planet, Hoth. It's just not that the jacket look great and comfortable - it has a "Wookie" logo in the Star Wars font embroidered on the right breast. No word if it comes with Chewie's ammo belt.

Normally I would be very hush - hush about this and wait until my very own jacket came in before I said anything. However, since I live in the desert (right now the temp is running around 110 fahrenheit / 43 celsius) and I'm hardly ever too cold, I thought I would throw out this friends who are true Star Wars fans and who probably already know about this jacket.

The next Star Wars clothing item I think is kind of cool but I'm just not cool enough to wear em -  "C-3PO + R2-D2" tennis shoes. Once again, according to Freshness.com, these Adidas shoes will hit the market come this fall/winter 2010. It is all R2-D2 on the left part of the shoe and C-3PO on the right. It's like getting two Star Wars in one package. The shoes are stamped with the word "Droid" in the Star Wars font. I think these bad boys are good enough to wear to church. 

Need more info?

Wookie Jacket - Freshness
Droid Shoes - Freshness
Geeky Gadgets

Tumblr Away!!!

I'm now linking this site with Tumblr - My new Tumblr gig is:

Tumblr: Elvis in my basement

Have not done much with the site yet. I'm also establishing my Twitter and Youtube pages. I should have a stable link to those sites soon.

Elvis the Tree Frog - Green Ninja

His name is Elvis and he is the Green Ninja. From the time Elvis was a tadpole his instincts were that of a pure killer. The crickets of Petco feared him - he was a silent and deadly. In this rare footage we see Elvis in action. Watch his mystical - graceful attack. It is so quick and stealthy, he almost drowns in his own wading pool.

I think I'm addicted

I think I've become a camera porn addicted. I never thought I would be one of those guys who carries around a camera bag or God forbid a camera around my neck. I don't know what it is? There's something addicting about getting the perfect shot. I just hit the hundred dollar mark of total money spent on a film SLR camera. The Olympus OM-1 cost me 15 dollars. The flash cost me 10 dollars and the new lens cost me 75 dollars. This is not including film. Film is expensive.

I've decided to purchase a DSLR by this Christmas. Everyone I talk to says go with Canon or Nikon. Certainly there is a lot of quality and technology in both cameras. But as you can see with my sad and pitiful film camera purchases, I don't like to do what everyone else does. That is why I've almost decided to go with the Pentax K-x (white); affectionately called, "The Stormtrooper".

Pentax cameras are completely backward compatible with its lenses. The price of the camera can't be beat and it has most of the features that expensive Canon and Nikon cameras do. It even has Hi-Def video. It has a 12.4 megapixel CMOS image sensor with image stabilization - Anyway there are a whole bunch of reasons really.

What has happened to me? I think it might be old age.

 

Meet The Stormtrooper

Awesome PhotoBomb ..

I love photbombing .. especially when it is done well. I think this is the best photobomb I have ever seen. What makes it so great is that it is a perspective photobomb.

Source: The Daily What

Here are some other photobombs I really enjoy.

Jump in
Loser

**Update**

When you got to Pisa, you have to do the "holding up the tower perspective shot." The whole place appears to be packed with frozen mimes. Anyway here is my Pisa Tower Shot - at the time they were trying to make sure that the Tower leaned but did not fall over. This is truly the world's most famous mistake.

More Picture with Old Cameras

My daughter and I went to the Cactus Garden at Ethel M's in Las Vegas. It's not very big but it is a beautiful and simple garden, showing some of the local plants and cacti. The factory itself is two medium room with all sorts of mixing, baking and sheeting equipment. They do not produce the any of the famous Mars candy, but rather specialty and designer chocolate. Really just another excuse to charge more money.

The factory tour takes about ten minutes. Walking through the garden you could spend an hour. One little piece of advice - if you see several tour buses in the parking lot .. then go back at a later time.

I took this picture with an old AGFA Optima 200 and an Olympus OM-1

Playing Halo with Elvis

The Mighty Kmuzu has commissioned work of fine art for the kingdom. It is called, "Playing Halo with Elvis". It is a masterpiece - is it not. The artist is Andre and his the new hit smashsation on the internet. You can see more of his stuff at Photobucket.

Kmuzu / Cram holds publication rights to the artwork. All original copyright is maintained by the artists. 2010

Elvis on the hunt

Elvis - the Indonesian Dumpy Tree Frog goes out on his first hunt. I setup the cage .. got the water bowl, fake plants and (of course) the ceramic pirate skull all in place. The humidity levels were perfect .. temp was okay .. put Elvis in his new home and nothing .. He just kind of crawled behind the skull and hid there. So, I thought I would give it a day to let Elvis get used to his digs.

This morning I went to Petco and purchased some crickets - hoping that maybe he would be hungry a little later on. I purchased about twenty and decided to put the whole bunch in the cage - Where else was I going to store crickets? I thought it might take Elvis some time to notice the crickets and then to be hungry enough to eat one.

That was not the case. As soon as the crickets hit the moss - this big frog eyeball pops up above the skull. I barely had time to get the video camera situated before Elvis was on full hunt. It was a little spooky to see this frog that hardly move a bit .. start aggressively stalking these poor crickets.

All I can say is that I'm glad Elvis is like two inches .. any bigger and he'd be dangerous to humans. I present the following video for your viewing pleasure.

(It happens real quick .. so you might want to play again)

Elvis is in the House

I wanted to introduce you to Elvis, my Indonesian Dumpy Tree Frog. His house is all set up .. he's got his microphone ready and all he needs is some blue suede shoes.

I just purchased him from a local pet store called Pet Kingdom USA. They're a really friendly store and all the pets we've purchased from there have been in really good health. I wanted to get a pet that you didn't have to feed anything larger than a cricket or a meal worm to.

I'm thinking about putting a live camera feed on him .. we'll see how that works out. Until then you're going to have to enjoy these pictures.

Elvis' Crib ..

Escape to Vegas Mountain

I couldn't take the heat anymore so I escaped to a local mountain called, Mt. Charleston. I took along all three cameras - the fisheye, multilens and the Olympus (old school) OM-1 35mm. Here are some pictures from all three. I present them for your enjoyment.

The weather up there was great - I was at about 8,000 feet and the temperature was around 80 degrees. There was a light wind and you could hear it rustle through the trees. There was the smell of pine and I could actually hear animals. Sometimes living in the city - if it wasn't for the color of money, I forget what the color green looks like. - NOTE - I did not see Elvis.

Now for a bit of the Strange ..

I've always been attracted to strange and weird stories. I watched a lot of the Twilight Zone and Tales from the Dark Side. Although I don't believe in ghosts, demons, angels, UFO's or the human face on Mars, I like reading speculative science stories.

A few years ago I purchased a book called, "Cryptozoology, A to Z", by Loren Coleman and Jerome Clark. It is a fairly thorough account of the major mystery animal stories of the last century. Of course it covers the holy Trinity of Crypto - Bigfoot, Loch Ness Monster and Abominable Snowman - but there are tons of other really cool mysterious creatures and monsters that I had no idea existed.

One of my favorites is the Teh-Lma ("That There Little Thing"). The book describes the creatures as ".. the smallest of the several kinds of Yetis reported from the Himalayas. These animals are generally said to be three feet to four and a half feet tall, with hunched shoulders and a sharply pointed head that slopes back from the forehead. They are covered with thick reddish-gray hair."

The book goes on to say these creatures inhabit the jungles regions of Nepal. Now to me this creature has a striking resemblance to another small, hairy humanoid from the planet-moon of Endor. Come on is this not the Ewok of Star Wars fame? Think about it? - Ewoks are little Wookies and Wookies are just thinner, better smelling Yeti's. What exactly did George Lucas know about these creatures - the Teh-Lma? Even the name, "Ewok" is derived from the Miwok, an Indigenous tribe inhabiting the Redwood Forest or North America. I think George Lucas knows a whole lot more about the Yeti and Bigfoot. I'm on to something don't you think?

The Beast of Gevaudan is believed to be the first written account of a werewolf. The creature terrorized south-central France in the 1760's leaving the body parts of many men, women and children. The book describes the creature as, "'much higher than a wolf, low before, and his feet armed with talons. His hair is reddish, his head large and the muzzle of it is shaped like that of a greyhound; his ears are small and straight; his breast is wide and grey; his back streaked with black; his large mouth is provided with sharp teeth.'"

According to the author, the creature could not be killed with knife, lance or bullet and that eventually, King Louis XV had to send a cavalry of soldiers to take care of the situation. Finally the beast was killed by a silver bullet.

What I like about the book is that it goes on to speculate on other theories from an escaped hyena to the coverup of a serial killer.

Cryptozoology A to Z also covers the investigators and scientists involved in the field. One interesting person is Tom Slick, a Texas oil millionaire who convinced his friend Jimmy Stewart to help him steal the Pangboche Hand from monks in Nepal. The Pangboche Hand was thought to be the severed appendage of an Abominable Snowman.

 If you like this kind of stuff, Cryptozoology A to Z is a must have book. It gives you a great overview on all kinds of creepy, strange and mysterious creatures. Also, this is a great book to put on your coffee table. No matter how snobbish the guest, everyone picks it up and looks through it. It is a great conversation starter.

Cryptozoologoy A to Z

Pixar and Dreamworks

There's plenty to be said about the genius of Pixar and the miserable failure of Dreamworks. While some companies have learned from the successful elements of Pixar's animation and storytelling - like Universal Studios', "Despicable Me", Dreamworks remains defiant in producing more and more crap.

It's just not the animation and physics that is below average - it's more about the cheap jokes, adult humor, misconceived plot and total lack of respect for the characters, the artists and most importantly the audience.

But enough of what I think. I present the following video for your snarky humor.





** I will write a small critique about the successes of "Despicable Me" when it's not Sunday. **

Links:

Pixar / Dreamworks comparison.