Nathan Sawaya, a former 33-year old attorney, is now a famous LEGO artist. His impressive works were detailed in this “CNN slideshow”:http://www.cnn.com/interactive/entertainment/0705/gallery.lego.art/frameset.exclude.html and is discussed in this “CNN article”:http://www.cnn.com/2007/SHOWBIZ/05/31/lego.artist/index.html. From a “giant banana”:http://www.brickartist.com/banana.html to a “_Starry Night_ replica”:http://www.brickartist.com/starry_night.html, his LEGO sculptures and mosaics are nothing short of LEGO-licious. His “official site”:http://www.brickartist.com/ has a lot more to offer, specifically his “huge gallery”:http://www.brickartist.com/allgallery.html. And in case you were wondering, eight same-colored 2X4 LEGO bricks can be arranged in 8,274,075,616,387 configurations, at least that’s what “Wikipedia:LEGO”:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LEGO says.
Interested in other unique artistic mediums? Check out what’s happening with “gummy bears”:http://duenos.net/article/221/13lbGummyBear, “JELLO”:http://duenos.net/article/222/JelloSanFrancisco, and “chalk”:http://duenos.net/article/64/chalk-art-by-julian-beever.
Photo is “Lego Untamed”:http://flickr.com/photos/starycat/461380473/ from Flickr user “Starcat”:http://flickr.com/photos/starycat/
Category Archives: Uncategorized
An aquatic canary
Coal miners used to carry canaries with them down into the mines as a sort of warning device of bad air quality. Because canaries are so much smaller than humans, they would die from breathing the toxic air way before the miners were in any danger. That served as inspiration for artist “Marei Wollesrsberger”:http://marei.co.uk/ whose “BioSafe Habitat”:http://www.we-make-money-not-art.com/archives/009608.php concept involves aquatic plants or fish serving the canaries sacrificial function. In reading about the project, I discovered a fascinating (and patented) species of fish called “GloFish”:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GloFish. These modified zebrafish literally glow when exposed to water contaminants. They’re also the only genetically modified organism to be legally sold as a pet.
Pictures courtesy of “the artist”:http://marei.co.uk/biosafety/page4.html and “Wesley Tyler’s”:http://flickr.com/photos/wesleytyler/ “Flickr stream”:http://flickr.com/photos/wesleytyler/539704323/
Evidence of super-penguin found
According to the Discovery Channel “website”:http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2007/06/25/giantpenguin_ani.html?category=animals&guid=20070625120000&dcitc=w19-502-ak-0000, there has been new evidence found in Peru that 5 ft tall “super-penguins” lived there over 32 million years ago. These human-sized aquatic birds apparently had very large beaks and less paddle-like flippers than modern species of penguin. The above picture shows these newly discovered penguins next to today’s Emperor and Magellanic penguins.
Save Money- Canceling Credit Cards
With the average American having eight credit cards in their wallets at a time, you might think it’s OK to have stacks of plastic. Also, you’ll always hear people saying that canceling unused cards will lower your FICO, but they’re not giving the full story. Thirty percent of your FICO is calculated using a ratio of your total statement balances divided by all your credit limits. If too high (you’re near maxed-out on all cards), your FICO drops because you’re at risk of going bankrupt. Still more, having an excess of unused credit cards lowers your FICO, too. The happy medium is to have sufficient credit limit to have a statement you can pay off in total every month that gives you a good ratio of “≤30%”:http://credit.about.com/b/a/000019.htm. These four articles give the skinny on “what to watch out for”:http://www.fool.com/investing/small-cap/2004/08/30/beware-of-canceling-credit-cards.aspx, “good reasons to cancel”:http://www.fool.com/personal-finance/credit/2004/05/18/dump-your-duds.aspx, “how to cancel”:http://www.bankrate.com/brm/news/cc/20020102a.asp, and “getting that FICO up”:http://biz.yahoo.com/pfg/e35score/art021.html.
Check out “other ways”:http://duenos.net/category/money/ to save money –a topic I am madly in love with.
Powdered Alcohol
Dutch students over at “Helicon Vocational Institute”:http://www.helicon.nl/content.jsp?objectid=12290 have invented a powdered alcoholic drink mix for a final school project. Since it’s in powdered form, it circumvents prohibitive tax and age-limit laws and therefore can be lawfully sold to minors. These Dutch students are quite the entrepreneurs, I guess. In case you’re curious, this powered mix is most likely an “anhydrous”:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anhydrous mix with a touch of lime. Yummy! I found this article through the “oddly enough blog”:http://blogs.reuters.com/category/themes/oddly-enough/ through “Reuters.com”:http://www.reuters.com. Read “this article”:http://www.reuters.com/article/oddlyEnoughNews/idUSPAR64994620070606 for more specific information.
Save Money – AmEx Mortgage Rewards
For the first time ever, credit card mogul “American Express”:www.americanexpress.com offers a card that can be used to pay a mortgage while earning points. However, this credit card can only be used with mortgages through “American Home Mortgage”:https://www.americanhm.com/ or “IndyMac Bank”:http://www.indymac.com/, at least for now. With a start-up/membership fee of $395, you’re on your way to start earning, if you’re super careful, I suppose. I caught wind of this news from the “Wall Street Journal’s”:ttp://online.wsj.com/public/us “podcast”:http://feeds.wsjonline.com/wsj/podcast_wall_street_journal_this_morning, but there is also a great “CNNMoney.com”:http://money.cnn.com/index.html “article”:http://money.cnn.com/2007/05/23/pf/amex_mortgage_charge/index.htm?postversion=2007052314 on it as well. Wanna start racking up those points? Unfortunately, this is by invitation only for now and’ll probably be for a while until or if it’s proven successful. Having trouble with credit card debt? “Start here”:http://beginnersinvest.about.com/od/creditcarddebt/Credit_Card_Debt.htm for a butt load of useful information.
Check other “duenos”:www.duenos.net ways to “save money”:http://duenos.net/category/money/.
Threadless T-Shirt design
Hey everyone. I’m still traveling around Europe, mostly without internet access. Still, I’d like to ask anyone who reads this website to go to my friend’s submission at “Threadless.com”:http://www.threadless.com/submission/120749/Avian_Flew and vote for it. If you didn’t know, Threadless is a t-shirt site that prints and sells more artsy t-shirts that are über-popular. I’m in Germany now so the keyboard actually has an “ü” button! Threadless tees have been featured everywhere, most famously on Zach Braff in “Scrubs”:http://imdb.com/title/tt0285403/. Though this is not an imitation site of “Wikipedia”:www.wikipedia.org like “Wookieepedia”:http://duenos.net/article/267/WookieepediatheStarWarswiki or “Conservapedia”:http://duenos.net/article/261/MoveOverWikipedia, the “Wheel of Time Encyclopedia”:http://encyclopaedia-wot.org is an equally vast cornecopia of information in a similar format. As I am a fan of “Robert Jordan’s”:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Jordan “Wheel of Time”:http://www.tor.com/jordan/ series, I understand how hard it is to keep up with everything. This crafty site has assembled information on all of the “characters”:http://encyclopaedia-wot.org:8008/characters/index.html, “chapter-by-chapter summaries”:http://encyclopaedia-wot.org:8008/books/index.html, and even an “inventory on all items”:http://encyclopaedia-wot.org:8008/items/index.html in the books. Though this site isn’t really that useful to you if you haven’t started the series, it’s a good resource for all those out there who have. I highly recommend reading these books, but fair warning, Robert Jordan has been diagnosed with “cardiac amyloidosis”:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cardiac_amyloidosis which might not give him enough time to finish the 12 book series that began in 1990. However, he is posting encouraging monthly status reports at his “official blog”:http://www.dragonmount.com/RobertJordan/ that everything is on schedule. Theme songs. Couples have them, high school sports teams have them, even (and especially) bad ’80’s sitcoms have them. Why don’t you have one? I’ve always wanted to have a song play when I enter a room but could never pick a logical choice. Should I be off-beat and soulful (“Bert Jansch”:http://www.last.fm/music/Bert+Jansch), casually sophisticated (“Dave Brubeck”:http://www.last.fm/music/Dave+Brubeck) or plain James Bond sexy (“Nina Simone”:http://www.last.fm/music/Nina+Simone)? The best place to look for your theme song is obviously the pop charts and what better song to choose than the number one song on the day of your birth? For me that’s the timeless classic by ’80’s super-band “Wham!”:http://www.last.fm/music/Wham%21, _Wake Me Up Before You Go Go_. Now that I think of it, nothing says Alex Herder like George Michael singing:
This entry was posted in Original Duenos, Uncategorized and tagged art, fashion on .
Wheel of Time Series Encyclopedia
What's your theme song?
??You take the grey skies out of my way??
??You make the sun shine brighter than Doris Day??
??Turned a bright spark into a flame??
??My beats per minute never been the same??
Curious about your theme song? “Look it up”:http://www.joshhosler.biz/NumberOneInHistory/SelectMonth.htm. (Thanks Rachel)
Permafrost no longer
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/27/us/27newtok.html?ex=1337918400&en=7e93b110d8fc61d0&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss from today's New York Times highlights one of those towns on the edge, Newtok Alaska. Newtok used to be just another small Arctic outpost but now it's an island, cut off from the mainland by erosion. The residents of Newtok have an important story to tell about what it's like to live on the edge. It's a story we should hear.
Photo courtesy of "Greenpeace":http://www.greenpeace.org/international/campaigns/climate-change.