SS - Returning to the Same Ocean

I miss you.  I miss you so hard. So hard that my insides ache.  I wrap my arms around myself and squeeze, to hold the ache inside of me -- the only proof I have left that you were real. 

Picture of Karachi, Pakistan by Ali Khurshid on Flickr

FF - 5 Interesting Art/Design Websites

I enjoy perusing the web for creative design ideas.  It's one of the ways I procrastinate that actually feels semi-productive.

A few that recently caught my eye:
1. Leaf carvings at scene360.com
2. Chocolate packaging designs at bestdesignoptions.com
3. Papercraft at weburbanist.com
4. Interactive business cards at bestbusinesscard.net
5. Casa Mecano -- a residence in Costa Rica at design-milk.com

At the Bay of Bengal

Despite the burning heat of the sun beating down my back, my eyes remain fixed on the silver sea. It is as if all the steel in the world was melted and poured into a sandy basin, just so waves of liquid metal can dance at my feet.

Getting Nerdy on the Beach

I went to Puri, Orissa for a few days, and played on the beach.  After fiddling with sand for a while, I realized with horror that I'm even nerdier than I thought I was.  Behold!

The Great Serpent from the Wheel of Time:

A weirwood tree from A Song of Ice and Fire:

I wonder if the Old Gods of Westeros are hanging their heads in shame.  Especially since these 'sculptures' are pitiful.

I also wonder whether this post I made about Orissa and the famous Konark Sun Temple adds to or takes away from my nerdiness. Nerdome.  Nerdity?

QS - Illusions and Therapy

I came across this "floating star" on New Scientist.  It's an illusion that was created by Kaia Nao, and works because of something called 'peripheral drift', much the same way as the famous rotating snakes illusion.

The star and snakes appear to move when you don't look at them directly, i.e., when they lie in the periphery of your vision, because of the colour gradients in the images.  The movement is usually from dark to light colours.

There's a bit of a debate over what exactly causes this perception of motion.  It was previously thought that slow drifting eye movements interpret signals differently, depending on the luminance (intensity of light), thereby tricking the motion perception system into thinking that the image is moving.  That is, it was thought that the eyes interpret dark and light colours in different manners as the eyes slowly drift around an image. Recently, an article in the Journal of Neuroscience suggested that it's not the slow movement of the eyes, but rapid eye movements called 'saccades' that are involved.  But it still remains unclear as to why we can so easily trick our brains into perceiving something that doesn't exist.

Following this line of thought, I wondered if illusions could somehow be used to 'trick' the mind in terms of therapy.  Google pointed me to the Oxford Journal of Rheumatology, where I found a couple of abstracts on illusions being used to treat chronic pain.  I haven't had a chance to go through any of the papers, yet, but I am definitely intrigued.  Studying illusions is an interesting insight into how our brains work. And potentially using them for therapy?  Pretty darn cool.

SS - White Birch Trees

I picked up my current wallpaper from the National Geographic album Patterns in Nature: Landscapes.  It caters to both my weakness for patterns as well as my recent preference for backgrounds with subtle colours.

National Geographic's collection of wallpapers is amazing. 

SS - Rand's Women

As a huge Wheel of Time fan, I often look at various artists' renditions of characters and book scenes.  Most of the time I'm not too impressed, but I recently came across the artwork done by Ariel Burgess and love it!

A painting of Rand al'Thor's three women:

They match with what I picture in my head almost exactly, especially Min (the one on the left).  Ariel's also working on an official Wheel of Time poker deck. A few I really like are Egwene, Birgitte and Mat:

Really, really looking forward to the release of the poker deck!  Anyone want to gift it to me, pretty please?  I will shower you with cookies and sparkles if you do.

Ariel's deviantART profile.

FF - Mike Tompkins

Mike Tompkins is a brilliant artist who does a capella covers of popular songs.  He's also made an original song called Stand Up:



A few covers of his that I enjoy:

Demi Lovato -- All Night Long

Rihanna -- Only Girl 

Coldplay -- Paradise

Owl City -- Fireflies

TCT - Wearing Milk

Did you know that cloth can be made from milk? I certainly didn’t.  When I happened to spot an article that claimed milk could be used to make clothes, I thought it was some sort of joke.  Of course, I’m a sad little ignorant.  

Apparently milk fiber can be spun into yarn to make fabric that is soft, silky, and shiny.  Not only that, it’s anti-bacterial as well -- something that made the little OCD-clean hand-sanitizer-obsessed nutter inside of me squee.  

Though this sounds relatively new, it isn’t.  Milk fiber was invented in Italy and America in the 1930’s, and called “milk casein”.  It snaked its way into a lot of household products and garments.  Then, last year, a microbiologist and designer from Germany, Anke Domaske, invented an environmentally friendly, antiallergic organic textile called Qmilch -- a combination of ‘quality’ and the German word for milk.  He reduced sour milk to a protein powder, then heated it and spun it into a fabric.  Google images spit out a number of interesting looking Qmilch garments when asked:

...and now I want one.  Got milk?

An article explaining milk fiber in detail.

Images from:

Centurion Magazine

Chem.info

SS - A Winged Tiger

The tiger is my favourite animal, and I've always been fascinated by birds and by flight in general.  I'm one of those people who have flying as a superpower in their dreams...

And so, I decided to look up images of tigers with wings, and found this gem on deviantART:

It's by `Norke.  Lovely, innit? 

Yes, I am a Gleek.

So shoot me.  Or, rather, push me off a cliff (flying sounds fun!).

Procrastination and Laziness are such comfortable bed-buddies, aren't they?  While it's true that I'm still sorting things out in 'real life', I don't have much more of an excuse to put off writing.  Well, writing more than two-line text messages to friends, that is.

And so, I'm back, after a rather tumultuous time in Oz. (Man, they really hate wicked people there...)

What's this got to do with Glee?  Well, lately, to stay sane, I've been lapping up Glee renditions of famous songs as if they were made of South Indian filter coffee.

I've listed my favourites.  Most just link to the songs on youtube, but if I particularly like a video, I've embedded it here.

Defying Gravity -- from Wicked  I know, shocker, eh?

Firework -- Katy Perry  I don't like the original at all. Don't really care for Katy's voice.

Like a Prayer -- Madonna

Bad -- MJ

Smooth Criminal -- MJ


Bad Romance -- Lady Gaga

Rumour Has It/Somone Like you


We Are Young -- Fun

I Want to Hold Your Hand -- Beatles I love, love, love Chris Colfer's voice!

Ding Dong! The Witch is Dead  Okay...I think I have an unhealthy obsession with the Wizard of Oz...

and last but not the least,
Friday -- Rebecca Black Horrible and awesome at the same time.  It is impossible to feel sad during this song, and then every day feels like a Friday, Friday.  Partyin' yeah, anyone?

Off to Oz

I've decided to put on my pointy black hat and corrupt munchkins with my marvelous Wickedness.

In other words, I'm taking another long break from Teh Internetz in order to focus on things that are desperately vying for my attention.  Things that may or may not have to do with talking Animals, a man behind a curtain, and being green.

Kiss me goodbye, I'm defying gravity.