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Santa Barbara is such a cool city. I’ve been there a few times, but I’ve never been there with a camera. Today, I decided to rectify that. Except that today was really grey — almost foggy.

The fog hid much of the charm of the city. I took some photos anyway. I mean as long as I was there and all. I’ll have to go back some weekend when things look brighter.

The food network has a new show called Dweezil and Lisa. Dweezil Zappa and Lisa Loeb are married or dating or something like that, and I guess they’re trying to cash in on the whole celebrity relationship reality TV craze by doing a show where they cook and go to restaurants.

As you might expect, it’s a very forced premise for a show. Still, Zappa always seemed like a cool enough guy, and I’ve always been a fan of Loeb’s music. The first show has her performing in Atlanta, and it looks like such a fun show, I hit the internet to see when she might be coming through LA.

How said am I then to find that there are no scheduled shows. Ah well, maybe I can remember to keep checking back.

Their Circular Live offers an interesting UI for a series of time-lapse photographs. Definitely worth a look.

I am very confused by The Santa Crows’ Gift.. Is it a cultural thing? If I was Russian would it make sense to me? Maybe, but I doubt it. That’s just F’d up.

More (though not as interesting) Russian animations here.

When I go out, I typically order my diet colas without ice. I don’t like the ice melting to make the drink all watery, and since I don’t use a straw, I don’t like the ice bumping around getting in the way of my mouth. Plus, I find that when it’s too cold, you can’t even taste the drink. If you can’t taste the syrupy sweet goodness then you may as well be drinking water.

This morning was no exception. I went out for breakfast, and I ordered my drink without ice. I was pretty much done, and had about 1/4 of the drink left, so I tossed it back with the gusto of a Viking lord. Imagine then my horror when I felt something hard rush past my lips and down my gullet before I could even think to stop myself from swallowing.

I have no idea what it was. I’m hoping a little bit of ice — sometimes the person pouring the drink is in full on robot mode and fills a cup with ice, remembers I said no ice and dumps the ice out. I have this slightly ill feeling that it may have been something far more disturbing — like say a finger or a bug.

Holy crap. This (18.4 MB WMV File) is one of the most stunning performances I’ve ever seen. I know there are all kinds of talented artists out there, but this guy seems so sure and fluid. It’s like these images just appear out of nowhere.

It was a double post over on MeFi. Thank god since I missed it the first time. These kinds of videos tend to go away if too many people start downloading them, so I don’t know how long the link might be good. If it’s not there you might try searching on some of the P2P nets. The file name is sand_sicaf2003.wmv.

Katie Cooke’s Home Grown Portraits over on 28 mm features some amazingly beautiful images. I know flowers tend to be easy photos to take, but this goes so far beyond that. Wow! First rate.

Update: I guess they’re scanned flowers, not photographed flowers. Interesting technique.

I like the use of common storytelling devices in Los dias sin dias. Since I don’t spend a lot of time studying film, I tend to forget that there is this entire language of symbols and accepted editing devices that can quickly convey mood or intent. It’s nice when something simple like this comes along to remind me of that. The ultimate point seems a bit clunky. It’s clearly heartfelt though which ameliorates any potential rough spots.

via

Boy, when I first came across a toilet that flushed itself, I thought I was living in the future. Then I discovered the sinks that turn themselves on (which I still find to be indescribably cool). But, now I see that those were all just old-school tech. Forget about self-flushing. How about no flushing?

The way it works is more involved and interesting that you might expect. I figured it was a vacuum type deal that just sucked it somewhere. Nope, it turns out there’s much more to it than that.

Saturday, I took a quick trip up to the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art.

I originally left my camera in my trunk. I didn’t want to deal with carrying it around since I was pretty sure they wouldn’t be cool about taking photos of the exhibits, and the museum itself isn’t nearly as interesting as the Getty or even LACMA, so I didn’t think there’d be much to shoot.

I went back for it though because I kept seeing images I wanted. I’m glad I did too because I got some shots that I think are interesting. Don’t get me wrong. I know there’re lots of problems here. I’m not paying attention to light or contrast the way I should. The colors are really washed out — I oversaturated a few in Photoshop to try to make up for it. Normally I don’t bother with that, but like I said, while not great they did seem interesting (to me at least at 1 in the morning), so I wanted to save them.

I was trying to shoot in keeping with the theme of modern art, so there are a lot of grid structures and reflected symmetry. A few where the camera got shaky with a long exposure is probably closer to impressionism, but I liked them, so I included them anyway.