Toyota recently updated its' artistic interpretation of Hatsune Miku with a design that's a little less manly. The design still feels a bit off but it's a step in the right direction perhaps. On a related note, the first Miku concert in the USA is this Saturday in LA at the Nokia Theater. I've got my ticket but with a media ban--I don't know if I'll be able to cover the event at all. We'll see what happens later.
The latest strange news to come out of Japan is something that I hope is an elaborate joke / satire. Basically the story that's being told is that a Tokyo sewage company is saying they have a ton of the brown stuff and want to know if they can do anything useful with it. A few researchers in Okayama have responded to this call for action and have evidently devised a method to make hamburgers from your toilet brownies.
Researchers apparently spent a bit of time analyzing dingleberries to determine that they contain a large amount of bacterial protein (from the bodies of the bacteria themselves). Then they devised a method to isolated and grow the good stuff from the stink which in the end yielded them poop steaks. The researchers say they're delicious as long as you don't realize / find out where the brown beef came from. The cost to produce these fudge patties is about 30 times more than regular meat but the researchers hope to bring down the costs through a large-scale operational ramp-up. Lets hope this never gets big, please spare me.
I'm hoping for the "It's a hoax" updates to arrive.
Attended a friend's wedding over the weekend and volunteered to shoot some video of the proceedings. It had been a while since I last made a video so I figured I could use the practice and because I wasn't asked to film there was no pressure. However, nobody knew that I was volunteering my efforts so hopefully no one was presumptuous about what I was doing. It was my first time shooting a wedding and it went Ok.
Video is below:
Strangely, the video is unfortunately un-viewable in seemingly a few hundred countries due to licensing issues.
Got back from watching JJ Abrams' latest film 'Super8'--making reference to the old Super8, 8mm film cameras. The trailers for the movie don't give up that much information but having enjoyed his most recent sci-fi thrillers, I had been looking forward to this movie for a while--and it doesn't disappoint.
The movie has a great atmosphere and the suspense build-up is superb. JJ's style of heavy anamorphic lens / flare usage is prevalent and I really enjoyed it (see image above). Everyone is saying the film has a feel of goonies meets ET meets cloverfield and I'll have to agree and add that the combination is amazing. I can't wait for Abrams' next movie.
Today I got some help with life-casting, basically trying to create a casting of my head--The reasons for which will slowly be released over time. Basically the day's agenda was to create a copy of my head to ship off to my BFF in Brooklyn where the next phase will commence.
Wasn't sure what to expect having never done anything like it before so I was pretty excited. Thankfully I'm not really claustrophobic, otherwise this project would be impossible. The first steps involved prepping my head for creating the mold. This involved donning a bald cap followed by coating my entire head / neck with this thick greasy Vaseline-like substance which acted as a mold-release cream.
Popped in some ear plugs and the coating began starting from the back and working forwards to minimize the amount of sensory deprivation time. What is sensory deprivation? I'll tell you, it's horrible. Thankfully after the rubber mold and plaster shell were placed, I could still hear 'some things' while being blind, mute, and slightly immobile. If I couldn't hear anything I'd probably have gone crazy. Sensory deprivation is an actual form of "humane" torture--when the senses are deprived your mind and body create their own in the form of hallucinations, vertigo, etc. It's quite bad. I held out ok although I kinda freaked out a little while the plaster shell was being laid down--I felt a tiny bit of resistance to my breathing and with me being slightly sense deprived I felt like I was going to suffocate and die. It's not the most fun feeling, maybe music would help next time, or more talking / communication. Silence is the mind's enemy.
After everything was completed, the plaster shell was separated and a seam was cut along the back of the neck to pull the mold. Everything released quite well except for some sideburn hairs, an eyebrow, and an eyelash. The mold came out a little on the thin side but its good enough for a first go at life-casting. I mention that the mold was a little thin because after rotocasting, a quite large dent was imprinted into my plastic replica head due to the rubber mold not having enough strength to hold its form. All in all it was a fun learning experience and only the start of something bigger.
