Pancake Fanatic

If You Love Pancakes, You’ll Love This!

Cranberry and Corn Pancakes (makes about 8)

• 1 Cup all-purpose flour
• 1 Egg
• 1 Cup whole milk
• 1 Tablespoon light brown sugar (or substitute white sugar)
• 1 Teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 Teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 Teaspoon salt
• 1 Cup fresh cranberries (give or take)
• 3/4 Cup frozen corn
• 2 Tablespoons butter

1. Beat the milk and egg in a bowl. Combine the flour, sugar, baking soda, baking powder, and salt in a medium-large bowl and make a well in the center. Add all the milk/egg mixture at once and gently whisk, turning the bowl as you go so that the sides spill a little more of the dry mixture into the wet. Once mixture is completely blended, and there are no lumps (about 4 minutes), add the corn and cranberries.
2. Heat a large frying pan. Once hot, turn heat to medium and lightly brush a stick of butter in a circle in the center of the pan. Pour one ladleful of the batter into that center. Let cook without turning or touching for about 2 minutes, or until air bubbles have just begun to form in the center of the batter. Check underneath to see how golden the bottom of the pancake is, and if desired color, flip. Cook on opposite side about 2 minutes longer, and transfer to a plate. Repeat with the rest of the batter, and serve immediately (with optional toppings like maple syrup, butter, whipped cream, etc.).

Yum! Enjoy National Pancake Day with style.

Celebrating Pancake Week

Despite its no-nonsense name, Pancake Week inspires its share of eccentric behavior.

• The small town of Olney, England has been holding its Pancake Race every year since 1445. According to the lore, it began when an Olney housewife was cooking the family’s traditional Shrove Tuesday pancakes. The church bell began to ring, summoning the townspeople to service, and the woman was so anxious to get there on time that she ran outside still holding her skillet–pancakes and all. This moment is reenacted in the town’s annual Pancake Race: contestants line up, skillets in hand, waiting for the “pancake bell” to ring. Then they toss pancakes in the air, catch them in their skillets and race 400 yards to the church. When they reach the finish line, they must toss their pancakes one more time. After the race, everyone attends church services and then enjoys a community pancake party.
• Determined not to leave all the fun to the Brits, the town of Liberal, Kansas has been competing with Olney in a good-natured transatlantic Pancake Race rivalry since 1950.
• In Russia, the pre-Lenten pancake feast is known as Maslenitsa, and is celebrated by eating thin buckwheat crepes called blini, accompanied by caviar, honey, jam, sour cream or butter. These little symbols of the sun–golden, round and warm–signify the end of winter and the coming of spring. Bonfires, fireworks and snow games round out the festivities.

Via allrecipes.com

Banana Pancakes

• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 tablespoon white sugar
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 egg, beaten
• 1 cup milk
• 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
• 2 ripe bananas, mashed

1. Combine flour, white sugar, baking powder and salt. In a separate bowl, mix together egg, milk, vegetable oil and bananas.
2. Stir flour mixture into banana mixture; batter will be slightly lumpy.
3. Heat a lightly oiled griddle or frying pan over medium high heat. Pour or scoop the batter onto the griddle, using approximately 1/4 cup for each pancake. Cook until pancakes are golden brown on both sides; serve hot.

YUMMY!

Post Inspired by @TomFelton on Twitter, because I wanted pancakes after he posted… “happy pancake day! i feel like i have happy pancake day far too often! send me photos if you make some :)” So here you go, Tom!!

ART through and through

Much of Haiti’s cultural legacy is lost in the rubble. CNN’s Christiane Amanpour reports.

Via CNN.com

This goes to show that even a large scale catastrophe cannot stop art.  The people in the worst conditions need somewhere to turn to take there minds off the turmoil and strife.  Art is the best possible medium to escape to, whether it be digital or not. Therefore Art comes out through Loss.

On the otherhand CNN.com’s John Sutter demos two test products at the Googleplex, including “Liquid Galaxy.” which is a 3D immersive universe that lets you enjoy the Earth as if it was a virtual game.  Some may call this a huge advancement in Google, but I see this as Art.  You can use this new technology to a whole new level of seeing the World.  Therefore art comes through technology.

Via CNN.com

PARSONS DANCE is committed to building new audiences for contemporary dance by creating American works of extraordinary artistry that are engaging and uplifting to audiences throughout the world. The company tours regionally, nationally and internationally.

In addition to choreography and performance, Parsons Dance positively impacts children, students, and communities through student performances, lecture-demonstrations, master classes, post-show discussions and more.

Parsons Dance has a company of ten full-time dancers and maintains a repertory of more than 70 works choreographed by David Parsons, twenty of which feature originally commissioned scores by leading composers and musicians, including Dave Matthews, Michael Gordon and Milton Nascimento. Parsons Dance has collaborated with many other leading artists, including Julie Taymor, William Ivey Long, Annie Leibovitz, Donna Karan and Alex Katz.

Via ParsonsDance.org

We experience new forms of art everyday, whether it be through the television, radio, or even your own body.  Dance, however, is the icing of the cake.  Dance brings many forms of art together, visually and emotionally, and it touches the strings inside our soul that makes us want to move our bodies in dance.  It truly is extraordinary.  Therefore art comes through dance.

DataMoshing

It’s called datamoshing, as experimented by paperrad, explored by Takeshi Murata, and theorised by Sven König. (Yeah, teraflop and Pronoiac, it’s basically about key- and delta-frames.
Via: MetaFilter

Two is a trend: Kanye West’s video for Welcome to Heartbreak uses the same video compression technique used in Chairlift’s Evident Utensil. The videos were done by two different directors at around the same time, which probably means that neither originated it. Does anyone know what the Patient Zero is for this technique? This Radiohead video for Videotape comes close but doesn’t use the compression artifacts to cleverly cut between scenes…which is the real artful moment here. (thx, andrew & demetrice)

Update: Here are a few candidates: Takeshi Murata, paperrad, and Mark Brown. (thx, matthew, simon & justin)

Update: Aha, the technique is called datamoshing. (thx, daniel)

Update: There’s a bit of datamoshing in this 2005 David O’Reilly clip and even more in a 2005 video made by Kris Moyes (Moyes briefly uses the same technique in this 2008 video for Beck). In 2004, Owi Mahn & Laura Baginski madea video called Pastell Kompressor in which they manipulated the compression keyframes in some timelapse videos. Sven König’s two projects, aPpRoPiRaTe!and Download Finished! originate around the same time (2004/2005). The technique itself seems pretty simple…just ignore the compression keyframes during playback. (thx, philip & sven)
Via: Kottke.org

For more examples check out : http://jdcommtech2.blogspot.com/

All and all, I find datamoshing a new way to create art out of a regular video or an image.  On the other hand, it is starting to be used along the lines for entertainment purposes.  I know of an artist that has been using datamoshing for about 4 months now, and it is truely a creative and unique way to move forward in the digital arts.  Complex and Dynamic, yes, but a large step forward towards the art of tomorrow.

Best Excuses

A while back, I would say about two years ago, I was once 17 years old.  My best friend, Brenna JoAnn, and I were on our way to Columbus, Nebraska, and we decided to write up an excuse book for the future, and possibly get it published in 30 or 40 years from now.  I came across the list and decided to make it public for those who are in a dire need of an excuse.  These are quite comical in the end, but we never once regret any of them.

The Best Excuses To Use by Brenna Jones and Brandi Boden:

1. the best excuse to use when your leaving town and going two hours away and you cant ask your mom cuz you know the anwser will be NO!

“Hey mom im going over to ‘insert friends name here’ to watch movies”

OR, Hey mom im gonna go to ‘insert town thats like 30 min away’ to go to the mall and hang out with some friends that came into town.

2. When you have a curfew and you know that your not going to make it home in time, when your mom calls either you ignore the phone call (this is only if your parents arnt crazy and arnt gonna the the cops and have a amber alert for you) or just shut off your phone, OR you could also just anwser the phone and use the excuse ‘insert friends name here’ is having a super bad day and needs me to stay to talk to him/her (sometimes that one will work)

3. When you leave town and staying in a diffrent town when your parents told you “No”, just simply say, hey mom im gonna go over to ‘insert friends name here’ and watch movies and prolly stay the night, sometimes itll work and then when the parents keep calling to check up on you, just wishper and say “hey i really cant talk at the moment were watching the movie”,

4. When you decide to ditch school and your parents find out about it (or just one class) simply blame the teacher and pull the classic “well the teacher dont like me” or “i was like 3 min late and they already took count of who was there”, or “i was in the batchroom cuz i didnt feel good” or the classic “i was there i dont know why they didnt count me ill talk to the teacher tomrrow and figure it out”, and thats when the parents drop it.

5. Or when you have the days and want to just play hookie and get out of school, pretend to feel supppper sick and dont act like your usaule self, and for the girls just act like your getting your period and your suffering from hardcore cramping and cant move, and tell your mom you need a crap ton of midol and a gun to shoot yourself with. and then most of the time the parents will call you in (just dont over use this excuse they will catch on)

6. When you forget your homework (ok you just didnt do it) and the teacher asks for it, just pull the whole sad looking face and say your cat (or anyother animal) had died and you and your family were very upset about it, or just say that you had a super bad day and just didnt get it finished and you’d have it in by the next morning, also you could say that you forgot it in your car or you think your sister (or whoever) must of grabbed your paper insted of theres and you’ll get it to the teacher asap, (that means you better wish you have a study hall to get it done or your fucked)

7. If you go to a party and end up getting a MIP and your parents have to come get you and start yelling at you pull the whole fake tears and then the “mom i wasnt drinking i swear the cop just didnt like me cuz of dad” ?(thats only if your dad was once a cop and got fired cuz no one liked him) and then she’ll believe you (=

just make sure your super good at lying and your attorney will fall for it (=

8. Oh if you need a pack of smokes and your super broke, just call your mom or dad which ever one favors you the most and pull the whole “insert sad voice and face” daaad i dont have any lunch money tomorrow for school do you think i can have like 3 or 4 bucks so i can get lunch, and then BAM you got smokes!

9. And then when your in your room doin the dirty and your mom knocks on the door, just throw on sumthen that is close and anwser the door and just say mom we just making out i swear on my life (LOL)

and then tell her that your sorry and make the dude leave (hes a peice of shit anyways)

10. When you want to leave town and neither you nor your friend can go, you both just pull the “hey im staying the night at so and sos house tonight” and then you guys can go. oh and then when you run out of gas on the interstate DONT panic call your kool kick ass brother (= he will save you.

11. When you go out and get super trashed and have a little hangover and go home and your parents ask whats wrong just say that you stayed up all night over at whos ever house you were staying at and got no sleep and that you just didnt feel too good during the night. OR if your allergic to some kind of animal just say that they had a cat and it irritated you a bit (= same if you get super high (lmao)

12.  When your in desperate need of chash pull the whole can i BARROW (key word) some money and just never pay them back (only works with parents)

13. When theres that one annoying person that wont leave you alone and keeps asking you to hang out and you really dont want too just pull the whole “my mom said i cant tonight maybe someothertime” or “hey i cant hang out tonight i have to leave town cuz my grandma got super sick” and just never call them back and just avoid them as much as possible

14. When you have that one sneeky boyfriend that lives out of town, and you two make plans to see each other and he pulls the “hey i cant hang out i have a wedding to go too” ignore it and just go anyways and then youll catch him in the act of whats called cheating or trying, just make sure you make contact with the other chicka at first and set up a place you both can meet and wait for the worthless peice of shit to show up (its fun)

15. Sqouija

16. Pretend you can hear voices in your head… nuff said…

17. When a state trooper pulls you over and he asks if you have any drugs or weapons in the car.. just say no!

18. AND if he forgets to ask you if you have drugs or weapons in the car remind him and reasure him that you do not!

19. OR when he asks you if you were smoking dont anwser, and if he asks why do you smoke just simply respond with the “cuz i smoke”

20. When you go into your kitchen and see a energy drink in the fridge and your drink it and your mom comes home asking where it went blame it on the foster kids.. or loopy

21. OR when theres cookies sitting there and you eat them and everyone asks where they went blame it on Zach

22. When you want to sneek out or be supppper late for your curfew and you know that your parents are sleeping just make sure your super chill with your brother hell let you in the house at 4am…

23.

Not entirely finished, and not entirely appropriate for some, but you get the gist of it.

Apple iPad

All of the built-in apps on iPad were designed from the ground up to take advantage of the large, Multi-Touch screen. And they’ll work in any orientation. So you can do things with these apps you can’t do on any other device.

A large, high-resolution LED-backlit, IPS display. An incredibly responsive Multi-Touch screen. And an amazingly powerful, Apple-designed chip. All in a design that’s thin and light enough to take anywhere. iPad isn’t just the best device of its kind. It’s a whole new kind of device.

Copyright © 2010 Apple Inc.  All Rights Reserved.

-Technology has gone this advanced. I know that in the past Microsoft has already come out with touch screen computers, but now, the Apple company has topped any chance of bettering it. The future is here! Where are the hover boards?

Her Morning Elegance

Relates to the assignment that we are working on in class as of right now.  A motion of the human body, stop motion, flip book.  This also appeals to me, because of the dream theme.  Seeing the world in dreams.

Shattered

My life was completed the moment I heard this song.  I was youtube-ing for something, I do not remember what, and I came across this…  so therefore I took time to listen to it, and voila!  My life was complete.

Shattered by Trading Yesterday

Worst of the Best

Worst “Movie” I have seen so far this year = The Lovely Bones

It drags on and on, and I know that it is based off of the novel, but in all reality, this movie didn’t deserve to be more than 2 hours long.  On the other hand the best movie I have seen so far this year is a tie between two…

Sherlock Holmes

Daybreakers

That is all.

The reasoning behind this Lovely Bones being the Worst, it is also the Best.  I have been inspired by some of the CG in the movie to stretch my imagination of my art.  I am currently working on a piece for my Visual Literacy Color class that ties in very well with the movie.  Although, the drawing holds everything dear to me, and is based on my best friend, so it is an original.

“I was in the blue horizon between heaven and earth. The days were unchanging and every night I dream the same dream. The smell of damp earth. The scream no one heard. The sound of my heart beating like a hammer against cloth and I would hear them calling, the voices of the dead. I wanted to follow them to find a way out but I would always come back to the same door. And I was afraid. I knew if I went in there I would never come out.” -Susie Salmon

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0380510/quotes

DREAM LIKE STATE

Cinderella Story

Dream In The Real World

Ophelia

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