That Reena Girl

• Um, who is this again?

01-05-12

Midweek Awesomeness: The Return

Silicon Valley Ryan Gosling

Ryan Gosling has a special message for the ladies of technology: he loves you. In the spirit of F*** Yeah Ryan Gosling, RG gives words of wisdom, encouragement and support for those of us dealing with TPS reports, web development and code, startups and funding, search, social media and anything else that goes on in good ol’ Silicon Valley. This is my happy place today. Here are some of my favorites:

One man, 100,000 toothpicks, and 35 years: An incredible kinetic sculpture of San Francisco

You read that right. 100k toothpicks. 35 years. I barely have the attention span to beat the next level in Katamari Forever (I will defeat you Star 7!) let alone spend multiple years of my life on the same art project. The artist Scott Weaver obviously has some serious patience. When he wasn’t spending time on his sculpture –an estimated 3000 hours in total—he was collecting toothpicks for it from around the world:

“I have used different brands of toothpicks depending on what I am building. I also have many friends and family members that collect toothpicks in their travels for me. For example, some of the trees in Golden Gate Park are made from toothpicks from Kenya, Morocco, Spain, West Germany and Italy. The heart inside the Palace of Fine Arts is made out of toothpicks people threw at our wedding.”

Check out the full article; it has a lot of great close ups of the sculpture. Oh and if you want to see it in person, it will be at the American Visionary Art Museum through September 2012.

Steampunk Laptop

Oh and while you’re here, a little shameless self-promotion. Somehow, I convinced Sony to let me have a steampunk artist trick out one of their laptops for their online show SGNL. I’m still a little shocked since this was my first segment idea and let’s face it, it’s a little out there. But the end result is pretty badass. Oh and even with all that wood and copper, it still works! Check out the video:

Fun fact: the computer used (the VAIO F Series) is the same one I use every day. I affectionately call it The Beast.

12-19-11

Beginning of the Week Awesomeness

As I mentioned earlier, I have become obsessed with Battlestar Galactica. I actually feel that there is now a void in my life since finishing the series. And yes, I cried at the end. Not the full on, hysterical kind of cry, more of a soft weeping. Sigh. But apparently I’m not the only one. Portlandia knows how I feel. I think I really need to be watching this show.

And last, but not least, I will leave you with my favorite holiday YouTube mashup: Hey Ya Charlie Brown!

12-05-11

Beginning of the Week Awesomeness

It’s kind of like a prequel to Midweek Awesomeness…

Just when FOX News’ super investigative reporting on how The Muppets are brainwashing kids to be anti-capitalist was making me lose all faith in humanity, I saw this:

A friend of mine shared this link on Facebook and I felt that it was too cool not to share so I’m dusting off the old blog. Long story short:  Illustrator Dave DeVries has created The Monster Engine; an on going art project where DeVries takes children’s artwork and adds color, texture, depth, etc. to create amazingly detailed pieces from their original doodles. Forgot the art of Tim Burton, these creature creations are even better. I wonder if I can submit some of my work from the early 90s…I’m sure my mom has some real gems saved.

Here are a couple more. To view the whole gallery: The Monster Engine

If that wasn’t enough, LucasFilms put together a slideshow of all their holiday cards from 1977 to present day. Spoiler Alert: After Jedi was released, it was all Ewoks for several years, not that I’m complaining. I was lucky enough to actually get one last year. Nothing completes your holiday home decor quite like the image of Darth Vader releasing a peace dove. It really tied the room together. Here is this year’s card:

As if that wasn’t enough to get me through this ordinary Monday, io9 decided to post some amazing Battlestar Galactica fan art. This is what BSG (the 2004 reboot that I should point out I’m currently obsessed with) would look like if it was turned into an animated series. These were created by Otis Frampton, who has also given the animated series treatment to other sci fi favorites like Firefly. Check out his DeviantArt page for more.

06-22-11

Midweek Awesomeness

I think I’m going to keep this was a weekly entry moving forward…

Have you ever noticed how some pop songs sound so similar? That’s because they are. No really, there are countless pop songs that use the same chords. Don’t believe me? Allow me to introduce you to The Axis of Awesome. They will prove it to you:

From pop songs to personal spacecraft, this video is pretty ridiculous. I was shown this in a meeting yesterday. What a cool, inventive use of a pocket camcorder! Not sure what brand they sent up there, probably a Flip, but holy science project Batman! It actually made it to outer space! Can you imagine if this is what you entered in your school science fair as a kid? Talk about instant notoriety…mixed with some mega nerd points for all the precise calculations involved.

Homemade Spacecraft from Luke Geissbuhler on Vimeo.

The sci-fi geek in me can’t help but wonder…what if they weren’t the only ones looking down on earth? I distantly remember another story about a weather balloon crashing down in New Mexico about 60 years ago…

Dun dun duhhhhhhh!

UPDATE: Just came across this: Muppet Game of Thrones!

Very well done. Love this. See the rest at the link above. Who else from Game of Thrones would you like to see as a Muppet and which one would they be?