Ahhh… What?!
Well, he certainty made a good recovery after his original career took a dive. 🤿 …I’ll see myself out 🏊
Jason Statham Competed in Diving at the 1990 Commonwealth Games in Auckland
•August 6, 2021 • Leave a CommentBrilliant Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games Comeback: Sifan Hassan (Netherlands) — Women’s 1500m
•August 5, 2021 • Leave a CommentEthiopian-born Dutch (arrived as a refugee in 2013), Sifan Hassan, fell on the final lap of the 1500-meter first-round heat, but rebounds to win!
Pleanty of cool blink and you’ll miss them moments at the games this year, but that comeback takes the cake. I loved seeing the women’s hammer throw too, the momentum they build before hurling 8.82 lb (4 kg) of metal further than I can throw a tennis ball was insanely impressive. I have to play catch up with many of the events though (downloads here I come).
In other Olympic Games related stuff; seems a lot of athletes love anime, making nods to beloved franchises before, during, and after competitions:
Mexican gymnast Alexa Moreno did her floor routine to the Demon Slayer soundtrack:
Last but not least, if you’ve used Google in the last month you’ve probably seen the icon with the cat? If not, click it! it is a classic JRPG made specifically to commemorate the games in cool pixel style — PLAY — Doodle Champion Island Games!!!
It is a Japanese-style role-playing video game designed to celebrate the 2020 Summer Olympics, 16-bit video gaming as well as Japanese folklore and culture.
Real-Life SpongeBob SquarePants and Patrick Discovered On The Ocean Floor
•August 3, 2021 • Leave a CommentBiologist Christopher Mah was watching a live feed from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) when he noticed two sea creatures bearing an uncanny resemblance to a pair of beloved animated characters:
“If we can bring positivity and we can make people happy by showing them nature,” Mah told NPR. “Well, that’s what nature has always done for us before.”
Unlike their cartoon counterparts however, the Hertwigia (sponge) and Chondraster (starfish) are not best friends.
“In all likelihood, the reason that starfish is right next to that sponge is because that sponge is just about to be devoured, at least in part,” Mah told NPR.
The Dolls With Attitude (2017) [short film] & More Dolls
•July 16, 2021 • Leave a CommentWhile discussing AIR DOLL (2009) with (not Bae Doona) bae, I found by chance this quirky horror-esque short film. Self-contained, funny, and strange, you should watch it:
Writer/Director Naoya Yamaguchi
Oddly enough, a fashion account I follow recently posted several pictures from Moschino’s SS 2021 runway show. It’s certainly different. For no other reason than I saw these related things hours apart from one another; here you go — high-fashion dolls:
Yup… Dudes can be airheaded about things sometimes too you know.
Director Hirokazu Koreeda. Based on manga series Kuuki Ningyo by Yoshiie Gōda
Souped-up Drag Boats of Thailand
•June 16, 2021 • Leave a Comment
I saw a short video on Reddit a few months ago that blew my mind and sent me in a fit of laughter. I’ll post that video first because this guy right here, this guy is living:
Little did I know that it wasn’t just one adrenaline junkie piloting/hydroplaning the rivers of Thailand in his modified riverboat, hitting speeds upwards of 70 mph (112 km/h), but there is a celebrated subculture of speed captains and absorbed onlookers supporting this (unregulated, non-commercial, super dangerous) stupid-fun activity.
Thankful to Chad from CB Media for investigating and sharing his insane motorsports experience:
Hamferð — “DeyðIR VarðAR” …Live Metal Performance during a Solar Eclipse
•June 10, 2021 • Leave a CommentThe song isn’t anything you can rattle your head to, but goodness is it a moody mood:
Definitely got SILENT HILL other-world vibes when the landscape of The Faroe Islands darkened to black 😨🕯️
[This post was prompted by the annular solar eclipse that occurred on June 10, 2021, when the Moon passed between Earth and the Sun. Non acoustic version of Deyðir varðar · Hamferð found here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sOtCrPp7d5w]
“The Universe of Story: Neil Gaiman” #awf21 [F]
•May 16, 2021 • Leave a CommentThis morning I attended the Auckland Writers Festival to spend an hour listening to author Neil Gaiman.
He had some great personal stories to tell and told them concisely. I felt the hour to be rather sparse of insight for any practicing writer however, but I put that to the streamlined conversation being steered by the interviewer and by Neil’s enamoured fans at the closing of the hour. Perhaps I was not so naive to all the advice he had to impart that I just found myself agreeing and not so much absorbing. Was great to hear his stories about his stories, where they had appeared and where they had taken him.
After an unsuccessful Hollywood experience trying to adapt Sandman into a feature film franchise in the 1990s, Neil asked Lisa Henson (then studio head of Warner Bros. Pictures) what it takes to make it in Hollywood and she told him, ‘find a circle of friends you trust and can work with.’ Advice that Neil told the room was to him, the equivalent of a thorn being pulled from the lion’s paw. Please keep in mind that I am paraphrasing, but even if I do not do Neil Gaiman’s words justice, his meaning is understandable enough, no? Working relations are important.
Neil Gaiman gave an analogy of how he thought writing was like ladling soup from a worldly pot of stew. Neil is comfortable with sourcing ideas, or rather, inspiration to fuel imagination from other stories, believing that this is how it is done, and he wanted the audience to understand and believe as he does that it is okay and not to shy away from that. I thought that was a bold approach to creative writing and not one I think is all that important, but I supposed he meant, prolonging the longevity of a good idea in your own words and in your own story is what storytelling (or being commercially successful, because he was very concise) is about. Early in his career it was stew for him, but occasionally Neil would get a potato or a chunk of meat to enjoy, to then toss back into the pot, enriching the stew. A silly analogy I think, but a thought provoking one to be sure.
This is not from one of Neil Gaiman’s books, but page 157 from Chuck Palahniuk’s Consider This: Moments in My Writing Life After Which Everything Was Different (2020).
It was funny to read that paragraph again today, because the first Neil Gaiman story I ever read and owned happened to be a withdrawn book from the local library (thanks dad). Not pirated per se, but free nonetheless.
And what a generous stew it is.
Birds of a Feather Are Iridescent Together
•May 15, 2021 • Leave a CommentPhotographer Christian Spencer has taken some remarkably well timed and positioned photographs of hummingbirds mid-flight in silhouette against the sun. The tips of their feathers have refracted the sunlight, producing an image that captures the multiple colours that each wavelength of light has (which changes depending on how it bends, from the point of view of the observer).
These awe inducing snapshots went onto trigger my thoughts about the shortcomings of human sight and how without photography we never would have known, or at the very least, seen and been able to appreciate the speed of light within the beat of a bird’s wing — I find that quite hummbling:
More: https://linktr.ee/ChristianSpencer_ART
Good nature photography always reminds me of what life truly is.
Did you know that birds view the world in wavelengths that the human eye cannot naturally perceive? Birds have additional colour cones in their retina that are sensitive to ultraviolet range. Here is the science behind it:
Links for more info: https://academic.oup.com/bioscience/article/50/10/854/233996 / https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0065345408601059
STAR WARS x Foo Fighters — “Everlong” [mashup]
•May 4, 2021 • Leave a CommentSo much frenetic energy concentrated into one video, I love it!! Mashups tend to play for comedic effect and are a real hit-or-miss because of that. But this… I like this (full screen)
Michel Gongry’s “Everlong” music video is smart, darkly and always a fun watch, and the song is so damn catchy It makes me wanna jump around and dance every time. I guarantee this five minute love story is one you will never forget:
🎭 