Entries from September 2005 ↓

“The important thing is not to stop questioning.”
– Albert Einstein

Rows of ellipses appear to move horizontally. An anomalous motion illusion.

Source: A. Kitaoka

Hot day in SoCal today, and here we go again.

The first Santa Ana winds of the fire season fanned eight brush fires across Southern California on Wednesday, burning at least one home and several outbuildings near Chatsworth and threatening communities in Moorpark and in the hills above Redlands.

Andreas took the following photos from his house, on the Mullholland ridgeline facing WNW towards Chatsworth.

Photography by Andreas Wettstein

“Nothing is a waste of time if you use the experience wisely.”
– Auguste Rodin

Last night my wife and I caught Dead Can Dance with Orchestra at the Hollywood Bowl. A great way to spend a late summer evening, enjoying emotionally atmospheric world music beneath the stars.

The show was great. There’s the review.

What’s truly blogworthy to me here concerns not the show itself, but the band’s name, which is something I’d always appreciated as a fan of the English language.

=continued=

Source: A. Kitaoka

“The Internet is a great way to get on the Net.”
– Bob Dole

Concentric grey circles appear to be spirals.

Source: A. Kitaoka

“Pure mathematics is, in its way, the poetry of logical ideas.”
– Albert Einstein

The floor appears to bulge out, even though all the squares in the figure are equal in size. There are no curved lines.

Source: A. Kitaoka

A friend of mine was in New York City on 9/11 this year, and went out on the Hudson River with camera in hand. Below are the pics, along with the photographer’s notes.

↑ The new twin towers of the Time Warner Center up in Columbus Circle.

↑ Looking roughly northeast towards the Empire State building, with the Chrysler building just poking up to the left.

↑ The World Trade Center area and the World Financial Center buildings. The WTC towers used to be right there in the middle.

↑ There she is.

↑ They relit the twin light beams for the anniversary, just visible next to the moon on the blurry long exposure. The boat made it difficult to hold the camera steady. We’re back up the river, looking south down towards the tip of Manhattan. The red, white, and blue lighted object to the left is the Empire State building.

Photography by Andreas Wettstein

You know those bright orange sticky flysticks that you hang from the ceiling? I had two in the backyard area, each hanging off the eaves of the house and garage.

The scene: I’m working in the garage, and the dogs are outside running around, entertaining themselves. The usual. A nice ocean breeze is blowing in from the south-southwest.

All of a sudden, I hear Vive squeal. I turn to see what’s going on, and he’s running around in a circle, attempting to escape a bright orange object that has grabbed on to his tail and won’t let go. The poor guy was horrified, running under the barbecue. A vain attempt at finding cover from the brightly colored assailant.

The wind had apparently blown the flystick off its hanging place on the garage’s eave, and he tried having his way with it there on the lawn. I only wish I had video footage of what I didn’t see. From the evidence, he must’ve gotten into quite the wrestling match with this thing. He had the sticky adhesive on his neck, up his chest and belly, all up the insides of his hind legs, and his tail was wrapped around it.

I immediatey started freaking out, as I wasn’t sure if the flystick was poisonous. The first thing I did was throw him into the bathtub and try shampooing it out. About four times. No avail.

I take him out to the yard to dry off, and I remember that we had a spare flystick in the cabinet. I run to grab it and read the label in order to have a closer look at the ingredients.

To my relief, the adhesive is not poisonous. It’s just glue, along with the maple syrup I added to the reservoir.

The instructions stated: To remove adhesive from hands, use paint thinner or any oil, like baby oil.

I grab Vive, take his little sticky body back to the bathtub, and grab a bottle of baby oil. Applied generously, massaging it into the affected areas. It dawned on me that, at that precise moment, I must’ve been the only guy on the planet pulling flystick glue out of my dog’s ball hairs.

Who said life is boring?

Anyhow, the oil worked great. Keep that in mind. Got glue stuck in your dog’s fur? Grab the baby oil. Works like a charm.

*A word of caution: Use discretion when applying the oil. If you do it too good, the dog will like it enough to attack flysticks more often.

**As has been said before, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Take extra care when hanging your flysticks. Those u-shaped nails work nicely.

“God always takes the simplest way.”
– Albert Einstein