via videosift.com

Just an okay song, but crazy talent to have done this in one take. Give it a minute to build.
 
 

via videosift.com

I can easily relate to this video. Kabu, I’m talking about you!
 
 

via videosift.com

This is what my parent’s house, in Georgia, looks like right now. (My kids are visiting their grandparents!)

Kuroshio Sea – 2nd largest aquarium tank in the world – (song is Please don’t go by Barcelona) from Jon Rawlinson on Vimeo.

Expand this one to fill your screen.
 
 

If you have a computer, you likely have seen this video in the past two weeks. This video has had over 1.3 million YouTube views. It’s a fun video. But what I find interesting is that the couple used Chris Brown’s song Forever, without permission and, using logic uncommon in the record industry these days–ie., instead of suing or having the video taken down–Brown’s label opted to add a link to buy the track to the page. And made a truckload of money.

I hope Chris Brown has visited Jill and Kevin’s website and donated to the charity they have chosen to benefit from their new-found fame.
 
 

Origin II from Keith Loutit on Vimeo.

I am a big fan of Keith Loutit’s miniaturized, time-lapsed videos.

There’s just something about this news article that strikes me as funny:

“I couldn’t believe what had just happened. I’ve never seen anything like it in all my life. The poor cat was just minding its own business when the seagull swooped and grabbed the back of its neck with its beak.”

Mark Bittman is one of my favorite food writers because every recipe he publishes is so simple; easy to do, and yet inviting with a new look on the usual ingredients. He has published a list of 101 Simple Salads for the Season on his NYTimes blog Bitten.

Here are some samples (left to right in the above photo):

56. Salade niçoise, sort of: On or around a bed of greens, make mounds of olives, cooked new potatoes and green beans (warm or at room temperature), good tomatoes, capers, fennel slivers, hard-cooked eggs and good quality Italian canned tuna. None of these is crucial; you get the idea. Serve with vinaigrette or aioli.

7. Grate carrots, toast some sunflower seeds, and toss with blueberries, olive oil, lemon juice and plenty of black pepper. Sweet, sour, crunchy, soft.

42. Trim crusts if necessary from day-or-two-old bread (or even three-day-old bread), cube and marinate in black olive tapenade thinned with more olive oil. Add chopped capers and toss with tomatoes, basil and mozzarella. (Anchovies optional.)

49. Toss greens with walnuts, blue cheese and raspberries; drizzle with a simple vinaigrette. Sell for $14 a serving.

95. Mix cooked couscous or quinoa with orange zest and juice, olive oil, maybe honey, sliced oranges, raisins or dried cranberries, chopped red onion and chopped almonds. Serve over greens, or not.

13. A red salad: Combine tomato wedges with halved strawberries, basil leaves, shaved Parmesan and balsamic vinegar.

It is tempting to treat these salads as a daily treat and make them all, one by one.

If cooking is not really your thing, and the economic downturn has you thinking that maybe it should be your thing, and you only want a cookbook or two, you cannot go wrong with his two popular cookbooks:  How to Cook Everything and How to Cook Everything Vegetarian.

Living in Nantucket, this should be an indispensable skill. Your dinner guests deserve such a show. Click here for a step-by-step guide.

(credit)

Here’s this one guy. Kinda geeky looking. Playing all the parts of Boston’s Foreplay/Long Time. And doing an amazing job of it.

Homeopathic A&E

Train vs Tornado. Guess who wins.

Human Skateboard Animation by PES

Last week the NYTimes published an interesting article about fireflies. Or Lightning Bugs, as we called them in Georgia. Or Photinus greeni. Since the backyard is lit up, frustrating the photographer in me since I cannot catch the display in the camera, not in a meaningful way, I found it interesting to learn that the fireflies flashing in the air are all males. Down in the grass, the females are sitting and observing. They look for flash patterns of males of their own species, and sometimes they respond with a single flash of their own, always at a precise interval after the male’s. In a one acrea area, there will be hundreds of males, competing for 2 or 3 females. And this whole dance and lightshow only takes place in their last two weeks of life.

A photo of the synchonous fireflies of the Great Smokey Mountains, since I am unable to captue our local ones. (Credit)

UPDATE:

Got a picture at Surfside, at dusk. Long exposure:

From an email I got today:

Hello Sir/Madam.

I am Mr.Ismael Zuma I am working with the national reserve bank of my country,I and my second colleague in my department have just discovered some files which belonged to a non indigenous contractor.He executed some contracts which were not paid for during the second replublic the contract involved supplies of some water treatment equipments to the ministry of works and urban development in 1989.He has since left the country since the contract was awarded through the back door.Now my government is paying off all local and foreign contractors who have succefully completed thier projects without receiving payment.

After carrying out an investigation about the contract file and the contractor’s profile,I discovered that he was then hired by our then minister for works and urban development who is now dead,I therefore want to present you as the surviving relation of the main contractor who supplied these goods so that you could be paid this contract sum for $14.3 Million.I and my colleague will help you with all logistics required to put you in place as the true person who executed this project since the man who awarded the contract is now dead.If you are willing to collaborate with us,you will benefit from the deal with the sum of $5 while I and my colleague will share the rest.

The commencement of all the contract payments will start from the beginning of next week running till the last quater of the fiscal year 2009.You will not appear before any commission or panel as we will use our strong mercinery to obtain all necessary papers in your favor through a competent lawyer here.You can contact me on this phone number +254735196963 if you so wish to discuss this issue more further.

Thank you in advance for your anticipated co-operation.

Mr.Ismael Zuma
Nairobi-Kenya