Friday, March 28, 2008

He was just a little green blob of clay...

...GUMBY!!

I'm not sure I should be admitting this, but at some stressful point in my life (grad school, I think) I rented (yes, paid money for) videos of old episodes of The Gumby Show. It was claymation from the 1950s by a fellow named Art Clokey.

I appreciated some of its surreal aspects. I remember Gumby's mother asking Gumby's father to wake him. He stepped into his son's room, and there on the bed lay his boy, but a moment later he morphed into a bat and ball, and then a saxophone, followed by a few more transformations. Father turned to Mother and said, "Aww, I can't wake him now--he's dreaming!"

The theme song has stuck with me, too:

He was just a little green slab of clay... GUMBY!!
But you should see what Gumby can do today... GUMBY!!
He can walk into any book
With his pony pal Pokey, too.
If you have a heart,
Then Gumby's a part
Of YOU!!!

And since that's the song that's stuck in my head, you get to hear about it.

A couple more links for the Gumby-curious:

Sunday, March 23, 2008

Peeps on the brain

This morning I found out that there was a 24-hour contest over at DP Challenge for photos involving Peeps marshmallow candy (you may wish to turn sound down before following this link). Soon I had a couple ideas, and we stopped at Walgreen's on our way back from brunch. We were too late; there wasn't a fluorescent marshmallow left in the store. A quick trip to the next Walgreen's brought success (and a half-price discount). Then unreasonable amounts of time spent on staging and lighting. Peeps seem to bring out the sadist in many people, but I was resolved to play nicely with my mute marshmallow models.

So I posed them for a swimsuit shot:


I swear it was an accident.

Monday, March 03, 2008

Irish Blog Awards


Well, I didn't win at the Irish Blog Awards on Saturday, but I was pleased as could be to have been nominated. I made the short list for Best Use of Irish Language in a Blog. That honor went to Blag Ghael gan Náire; I intend to start reading. I was also nominated for Best Photo Blog-- see the third photo? That's one of mine.


Conn of An tImeall live streamed the awards show online. I had to reload a number of times, but I was able to follow along and heard my blog's name read aloud, which was satisfying.

This was the 4th year for the Irish Blog Awards. It seems to be well run, and proceeds from the awards ceremony go to charity. And by all accounts, the people attending feel the same kind of delight at finally getting to meet the people behind the words that I've found when I attend conferences for our web community at work.

Saturday, March 01, 2008

Remembrances of things past

One of the photos in Red Mum's post from her trip to work reminded me of a cold wet night years ago in Strasbourg. I was coming home on my bike late at night. I stopped at a red light and while I waited, I glanced up at the pedestrian signal (they were not done up in LEDs back then). That's how I happened to notice it when it changed to Walk. I nearly fell off my bike; someone had anatomically corrected the cheerful little man; he was now very cheerful indeed. I take no responsibility for the selectivity of my memories.