Category: Post

More Candy Mosaics

September 8, 2004

     Marvel comics have released a series of edible mosaics, called “Snerdles.” Anyone who knows me knows four things:

  1. I love mosaics.
  2. I love candy.
  3. I love comic books.
  4. I love the shit out of combinations of things I like.

     Based on these facts, it should be clear that Snerdles are the greatest thing ever.

snerdles

     I’d love to see a behind the scenes of how these things are made. I’m assuming it’s automated, and if that’s the case, just think! ROBOTS that make MOSAICS out of NERDS. No, wait – ROBOTS that make SUPERHERO mosaics out of NERDS, FOR NERDS.

     Update: There are examples of other, less geeky varieties of Snerdles here and here. Snerdles appear to be produced by Au’some Candy Company. I emailed them about the production process, but haven’t heard back yet.

     Other, more detailed snerdles links: here, and here.

     You can buy Marvel Snerdles in bulk here.

     I was also recently alerted to an article on Jellybean mosaicist Peter Rocha, which ran in a recent issue of ‘Stuff’ magazine. Jelly Belly has a (creditless) gallery of his works here. There are a few photos of additional works here. Unfortunately, Mr. Rocha is no longer around to bask in my e-preciation (Thank you, 1999!). From the article:

     “The artist, who immortalized such celebrities as Laurel and Hardy and Queen Elizabeth in his Jelly-bean portraits, died on April 20 at the age of 65. Each of his portraits used about 15,000 beans, and his Ronald Reagan piece hangs in the Ronald Reagan Library.”

JBreagan

Update (2/2010): Looks like snerdles are coming back in a new Super Mario Bros. themed series. I recently heard from an employee of Ausome, the manufacturers of Snerdles – further reenforcing my theory that if you want to know the answer to something, put the question in a blog post and leave it up for five years or so, and eventually someone will answer you. Here’s the tiny bit of information they were able to share about the process:

“There’s a machine which you run sheets of fruit snack through. There are stencils for each color candy bits and they’re laid onto the sheet with a glue (syrup).”

Hooray!

Repurposing Gameboy speakers

September 7, 2004

     Looking for an easy way to amplify the signal from your iPod for under $2.00? Not finicky about sound quality? Sounds like you’re in the market for a NUBY GC-7, only $1.85 from All Electronics! Operates on a single 9V battery (Not included), or using an aftermarket 6V DC power supply. Act fast! Only 941 available!

     Disclaimer: the iPod in the photo below is propped up on several teabags – the two don’t fit together nearly as well as the photo might lead you to believe. The speakers were manufactured to fit the original gameboy, so they are significantly thicker than the iPod.

nubyipod

Print Media Excitement!

September 6, 2004

     My bottlecap mosaic is mentioned in the Fall 2004 issue of Venus Magazine (Le Tigre on the cover). The mention is on page 73, in an article discussing craftster.org. Site originator Leah Kramer chose some of her favorite projects from the site, and apparently my mosaic was among them:

     “Some projects on craftster are way more art than craft. In this project, Adam Kempa pays homage to his late brother Chris by creating a mosaic of Chris’ likeness made entirely out of different types of bottle caps. It’s an unbelievable technical feat and a touching expression on Adam’s part.”

     Wow! Super nice, and Exciting!

venus4covers

MP3 of the Week: Lyrical Palindrome

August 30, 2004

     I know almost nothing about this song, besides the fact that it is a lyrical palindrome (Not a musical palindrome, as I initially typed. I’m sure that some composer must have explored palindromic music, and if you are better informed than I in this department, I encourage you to enlighten me). It comes from a compilation of two-minute songs that a previous band of mine participated in: ‘I Am Shorter Than You Are Taller Than Am I,’ which appears to be available via the Kelp Records page. The liner notes reveal only that Big Fish Eat Little Fish was a band from Ottawa, Canada. As always, I THIRST for further examples of palindromic lyrics / music.

Big Fish Eat Little Fish – ‘Word Awk’
From: I Am Shorter Than You Are Taller Than Am I

[audio:Big%20Fish%20Eat%20Little%20Fish%20-%20Word%20Awk.mp3]

     Another great example pointed to in the comments is ‘Bob‘ by Weird Al Yankovic, suggested by Andy Baio. I should probably clarify and say that the lyrics to this example are palindromes in the classic sense, whereas I was describing the lyrics of the Big Fish Eat Little Fish song as palindromic. If one were to write the lyrics out, they wouldn’t be a palindrome, per se. This is making no sense. Perhaps an illustration is in order:

     A bit of the lyrics to Yankovic’s ‘Bob:’

I, man, am regal – a German am I
Never odd or even
If I had a hi-fi
Madam, I’m Adam
Too hot to hoot
No lemons, no melon
Too bad I hid a boot
Lisa Bonet ate no basil
Warsaw was raw
Was it a car or a cat I saw?

     Each line is a palindrome. In the case of the lyrics to ‘Word Awk:’

Ment Face De Self Such With Live You Can How
Space My In Self Your Cing For
By Place Word Awk Such In Me Put You
Lone A Me Leave But
Ly Lite Po This You Tell To How Know Don’t
I!
Don’t Know How To Tell You This Politely
But Leave Me Alone
You Put Me In Such Awkward Place
By Forcing Yourself In My Space
How Can You Live With Such Self-Defacement?

     The lyrics are palindromic in a broader way, in the sense that the entire song is the palindrome, as opposed to being made up of a series of palindromes. So you see, if one were to treat each WORD in ‘Word Awk’ as a LETTER, THEN it would be…(Head Explodes).

     Another of the links posted in the comments references a book I’m trying to read right now: Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid. This is a good book to read if you like music, math, and art; and don’t mind your head exploding occaisionally.

(Mariokart Double Dash)^8

August 17, 2004

     One of my current places of employment, the Ann Arbor District Library, had a pretty great event this past Saturday. As part of their Axis Teen program, they’re sponsoring a five-month long Mario Kart Double Dash Tournament. Tournament play takes place once a month, and judging from the reaction Saturday’s event was met with, each month’s proceedings will draw more kids into the library.

     Eight Gamecubes were networked together in a LAN, and the S-video outs of each station were taken to a Video Toaster rig, which in turn had its output fed to a projector. This displayed the view of the leader of the race in progress, intercut with live video of the players and bracket information – all on a large screen in the center of the room.

     8 players (16 in team mode) were able to play simultaneously on dedicated screens.

     The Ann Arbor News wrote a story on the event, and I have some ridiculously shaky footage of the room in action from my camera.

mkcubes
mkstations
mkplay

Six degrees of Jon Brion

August 16, 2004

     Fun on The Jellyfish mailing list:

     “We are in the process of digitizing all our CDs so that we can share
’em all over the house via the wireless hub. I was reading in [the liner notes to] The
Wallflowers’ “Bringing Down the Horse” that Jon Brion played on it, and I
started thinking… what hasn’t that guy been on?! Well, since Kyle
loooves the 6 degrees of Kevin Bacon game (and he is sickeningly good
at it) I thought… why not a 6 degrees of jon Brion game? i bet it can
be done. He has worked with a fairly wide variety of musicians and
with some really famous ones… on this record alone he is credited
along side Sam Phillips, T-Bone Burnett, and Michael Penn. Not to
mention the Roger Manning connection (he’s been on lots of stuff too)
Spilt Milk is like the JFK of the Kevin Bacon game… “

     The game hasn’t really kicked off on the list yet, but I can’t wait, so I’m issuing a challenge. If we get stuck, you’ll probably want these workarounds for the recently redesigned Allmusic. I worked out Jon Brion to Kevin Bacon, via movies (In two steps!):

  • Jon Brion was in “Boogie Nights” with Burt Reynolds (Brion played ‘Awards Ceremony Band Member’)
  • Burt Reynolds was in “Starting Over” with Kevin Bacon!

     The challenge is to get from Kevin Bacon (Who records music with his brother as ‘The Bacon Brothers’) to Jon Brion, in six steps or less, using only albums they’ve worked on. It looks like the Bacon Brothers have had some high profile guest appearances (ie Jon Bon Jovi), so it should be doable.
Incidentally, in piecing this entry together, I googled for six degrees of Kevin Bacon a bit. Given the state of geekery on the web, I’m AMAZED that no one has attempted to write some sort of Kevin Bacon Game php script using the imdb php class. So I guess that’s a bonus challenge. Write that.

     UPDATE! I don’t know how I missed the Oracle of Bacon on first googling, but I did. So yes, someone has written such a script.

Dinosaur Eggs!

August 9, 2004

     I was grocery shopping a few days ago, and I happened upon a bin full of “Dinosaur Eggs.” Clearly, these were not actual dinosaur eggs, but some weird crossbreed fruit, renamed to attract the fervent interest of five year-old boys. As five year-old boys and I share many of the same interests (video games, dinosaurs, robots), it should go without saying that I bought some.

     A bit of google, liberally applied to the nagging question of their origin reveals that they are in fact “Pluots” – plums crossed with apricots, and they are DELICIOUS. I’ve also found reference to them being called ‘Apriums’ and ‘Flavor Grenades.’ ‘Flavor Grenades’ would probably be equally effective in the ‘Incite five year-olds to nag mom for this fruit’ department.

dinoplum

     That night I dreamt that the world was being invaded by dinosaurs who turned people into crazy, bloodthirsty zombies by biting them. Good times.

MP3 of the Week: Andy Thompson – LP of my Eye

August 3, 2004

     Andy Thompson is an insanely talented pop mastermind who used to live in Ann Arbor and recorded the last Pop Project album for a pittance. He now lives in Minneapolis, where he writes songs, symphonies, and plays live. This is an older song about loving the shit out of vinyl. He recorded it himself, and played every note you hear. He writes on the sleeve – “Please excuse the midi drums.”

Andy Thompson – ‘LP of My Eye’
From: LP of My Eye Mini-CD (2002)

[audio:Andy Thompson – LP of My Eye.mp3]