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PostSecret
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Link of the day
- Hits: 1478
A rather interesting site, where people send in postcards with their secrets written on one side. http://postsecret.blogspot.com/
Should a postcard not hold all you have to confess, do a search on Google for "secret confession", you'll find ample forums to share your secrets. I rather like PostSecret, as the images give perspective to the secret. But that's me.
An Animator's World Shorts - CIFF
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Film
- Hits: 1783
My patronage of the Calgary International Film Festival not quite what I'd like it to be, there's only so much time, but last night I made it to "An Animator's World Shorts". Now I quite like animation, I'm thinking here of the Brothers Quay "Street of Crocodiles" (Rent their DVD's at Bird Dog Video), or Jan Svankmajer 's "Faust ", (again, Bird Dog. Most of these can be rented there. . ), but there was nothing here in that league. The opening film, "Saint Feast Day", is an amusing mix of animation styles, and this seems to be the hallmark of the show. Mixed styles of animation, some beautiful (see "Hungu "), others disturbing ("My Town"), some old school and even a CGI offering, "Perpetuum Mobile", which, while very professionally done, comes across as more of a student offering to Pixar than an award winning animation. (Humourously enough, the credits for it were as long as most feature films, and if you took the time to watch you would have been treated to the author crediting and thanking everyone born since Leonardo DaVinci [included] as a source of inspiration. . .). "Operator" is another such clip, a well animated, clever short about a man who calls God with a question. . .
My favorite, "Machine with Wishbone", showed delicate wire machines walking across dream landscapes populated with other machines, the kind of dreams Theo Jansen must have.
Overall, while there was merit in each piece the quality was more that of a graduating class of film school students than a worldwide festival.
Rating: 2/5
Note: If you're an animation fan, try viewing some of the early masters. Who can be found here: http://www.darkstrider.net/gallery2a.html
Lucky Mojo
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Link of the day
- Hits: 1402
In keeping with the theme of lucky, todays link is http://www.luckymojo.com/, a site dedicated towards improving your luck. Of particular interest is their online catalogue which offers almost everything you could wish for to improve your luck, charms, talismans, penis bones. . it's all there. All this said, my humble win was due to persistence alone. . .
I won! I won!
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Miscellany
- Hits: 2206
It seemed somewhat anticlimactic, having made dozens of frivolous purchases at Safeway since the beginning of the month; the impetus their "Lucky Break" contest, prizes include: A new mazda, digital camera, wittnauer watch, lagostina cookware set and dell computer. Now I don't really need a wittnaur watch (but it would make a fine birthday gift), or a digital camera (which would go to the boy), I could use a cookware set, having lost what few pots and pans I had in the move, a computer would be OK (you may have guessed I already have one, but another would be good for debugging websites in IE 6. I haven't found an easy way yet to run IE 6 and 7 on the same PC. Note this want was resolved this weekend, I found an old, working laptop at a garage sale for $2.00. So now I don't need another PC), but I really, really badly need a new car. And so working on the theory that very few people would bother to go to the website to punch in the ticket number (not having won in the instant win option), I saved my losing tickets to punch into the computer later. At first I would punch them in hap-hazardly, when I got them, decieved by the apparent easy odds of winning - after all, there are only 4 prizes that are displayed, I need to match 3, subconciously my mind calculates the odds, should be a prize every few tickets.
Of course that's not how it works. There are X# of prizes, to be given out at random, odds of winning vary directly with the number of people entering, and, what is key, the time of day the ticket is entered. . .rereading the rules carefully it's observed that prizes will be released at certain random times, so if you have several tickets to enter, don't enter them all at once, having lost it's probably 'not your time', save them and enter later.
Innumerable defeats in time would discourage me, but I keep going, I trick myself into believing that I stand a chance at winning a 52 inch flat screen plasma TV. I have no more use for this than I do the watch, or camera, but it's a little more exciting that way. . .
Now I've grown used to the absence of winning, the "try and try again" screen appears over and over. And I keep going, saving the tickets, because what I'm really after is the new car. I need a new car. I have 2 cars, both donated by people who couldn't be bothered to call the Kidney foundation. . .neither of which I can trust to take me across the street, which is fine if reliability isn't an issue, but with children, schedules, vacations (!!! see Idaho. . .), it would be nice to have something reliable. I don't even care that it's a new Mazda, I would exchange it for something humbler and pocket the change. But this morning, entering my ticket, random time decided by a pot of coffee nearing it's boil, a gap between emails, I find there are three in a row. . .all cookware sets. . .
The cookware set is a rare prize, I'm pleased. The only prize rarer is the PC. And, of course, the car, but winning the cookware set should not disqualify me from winning the car. . .
A winning prize form. which I fill in, double check, then submit. And now to wait for that call from safeway, when will it get here? My new cookware set. . .
It seems somewhat anticlimactic, alone, early in the apartment, yelling "I won, I won", there should be someone to grab and shake, staring manically in their eyes. . "I WON!!! I WON!!!". Probably whoever they are they're glad they're not here. . .Time now to make a few calls, arrange a fancy dinner party. . .
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