at night, the still meat packing district becomes a blank canvas for the renegade street artist. i love discovering new art each morning on my way to the bus stop.

The east wall of the Meadow Brook Egg Co. West Loop, Chicago.

Seems like LEGO Universe is a great place for fun and games. Seems like there might be several playground items in parks around LEGO Universe. Would there be a swing?

What’s your favorite thing about this piece?
I like the natural combination of the brick and organic material.

What’s happening in the image?
Trees are growing out of the wooden LEGO brick–yay!

Is there anything else you’d like us to know?
Try to imagine a park full of these brick inspired wood blocks everywhere! Now that’s fun!!

Yesterday, was Destination NV at my school. Every year, kids who are graduating from grade 8/9 (depending on the school) and are thinking of going to NV for their high school career, would go to NV with their teachers and then get shown around the school by volunteer tour guides, and informed on a bunch of different courses and programs that NV has. So this year, like last year, I volunteered as a tour guide, and was able to get my middle school as the group I would tour. Being a tour guide, or even any part of Destination NV, you get a free pizza lunch and drinks, and in the end of it all, you get voluteer hours. They used to give out cookies to both the visiting students and the tour guides, but this year, it was just to the visiting students…*sad* the school’s cookies are like the god of cookies! They taste absolutely AMAZING~

Hehee.. okay back to the point… I was able to see my favourite teacher (EVER!!!) and one of my grade eight teachers who was a pretty cool guy. I also got to see some of my friends siblings, and my friends Justin, and a few people who weren’t near the friends catagory… for one, there was a guy that’s my friend’s brother. He’s two years younger than me, and yet he was able to make-fun of me and my friends. Sad. I was bullied by a kid who’s two years younger than me and like five inches shorter… > _ <

In the end, Destination NV was really fun. I heard a lot of stories about my middles school from my old teachers, and my friend Justin, and I even got some cookie~~^^ the things you get from knowing people~

After the awesomeness of Destination NV, I had to go to the doctors and get my H1N1 flu shot. It was fine when the shot was done, but then, hours later, it felt like bricks had been thrown at my shoulder, and I couldn’t move my hand right… I also think the shot either made me WAY more emotional than usual, or I was just shedding none stop tears for no reason. Odd… Plus, today when I woke up, the pain was even worse, but I think it was from both a huge impact to my shoulder from someone running yesterday, plus the shot in the shoulder area that resulted in such pain. I mean, it’s hard to move my shoulder, but I can at least move my hands now… improvement~

Lastly~~ I successfully got a 91.7% on a math quiz. When I saw it, my jaw dropped. My standards had quickly fallen after all those sixties. *still shocked!*

Currently: Doing my math homework, and typing out my history thesis, at alternate times of course… hmm… how much easier life would be if you had like six arms to do different tasks…

Reading: Lock and Key by Sarah Dessen

Listening to: Jenny by The Click Five

Notes:

So far, I love how the characters are talking in this movie. It’s film noir meets High School baby.

Music is reminding me of The Brothers Bloom… same with finding clues everywhere. Close ups are really well done.

Halloween in January Party: couldn’t just call it a masquerade, could they?  Repeat of the black and white imagery.  Oh, I get it, it’s the Obligatory bar scene, where the detective gets to see all of the player-suspects.

End Notes.

It says something that I stopped taking notes on the movie in order to focus on it.  I found out why the music sounds so similar between the two–Nathan Johnson, the brother of Rian Johnson, did the music.

Watching Brick is a lot like watching the old 40s film noir detective mysteries, but is it weird that I feel like I knew a lot of these characters in high school?  Not so much the drug ring aspect, but there were totally drama kids like that at my school or at the very least, band kids.

As it stands, it’s got a really great plot.  People always talk about the dialogue, which is the ultimate mind worm that’ll work its way into your brain and start making you talk like that later.

I recently fangirled to my bud Shannon about how muc h I like Joseph Gordon Levitt, and I mean… c’mon now.  He’s great in this movie, a lot of the time because he has to say these long stretches of weird, noir dialogue and not trip up over them.  He does it beautifully, by the way.

I think it might require a separate viewing really, in order to notice all of the little details and string them up to make a beautiful line.  On the whole from one viewing, I enjoyed it.  It’s really great to watch, whether you are hankering for a new film noir or for the great goal of Build a Better Teen Movie.  On that note, I might be seeing all of these similarities between my high school friends and the characters in Brick just because teen movies from the past decade are just so far off when it comes to portraying teenagers accurately.  Just a theory.

Submitted by: dunno source via Submit a Kludge!

Favorite Comment: Fixer That Guy says, “I love how the solution to overloading the third stair (at some point in the past) is to shift the load onto the second stair, because it could never happen again, right?”

Paramore – Brick By Boring Brick

It pretty much means when you see someone in your class at uni, at your workplace, on the train, in the coffee line, complaing about all those goddamn skateboarders and are amused or intrigued by something they say, you develop a bit of a crush. Not a romantic crush, but more of an intellectual one. It’s less of a ‘I-want-to-take-you-somewhere-and-devour-you-crush’ and more of a ‘you-seem-extremely-facinating-and-I-forsee-us-getting-on-famously-so-let’s-bypass-the-getting-to-know-you-awkward-bullshit-and-hang-every-day-crush’.

And if there is one filmmaker I am desperately friend crushing on at the moment, it has to be Rian Johnson.

My new best friend

It all started last year when I finally got my hands on a copy of Brick, Johnson’s 2005 film. Originally I was intrigued by actor Joseph Gordon-Levitt, definitely a crushcrush and known for his roles in tv show 3rd Rock From The Sun, teen masterpiece 10 Things I Hate About You, Greg Araki’s unsettling Mysterious Skin and most recently non-rom-com (500) Days Of Summer. Yet on viewing the film I realised that Levitt was only one aspect of its appeal.

Levitt plays Brendan Frye, student at a southern Californian high school who receives a call from his ex-girlfriend asking for help and then finds her two days later lying dead in a sewage tunnel. Set in the world of a teen flick but with the tone of film noir, Frye is a modern-day Bogart trying to decipher the mysterious death. Sucking the audience into a world where students speak their own language, vice principals are kept in the dark by their pupils while drug-lords and their customers sometimes share glasses of milk with unsuspecting parents.

My very favourite moment from 'Brick'

Inspired by the hard-boiled writing style of Dashiell Hammet and influenced by noir films from his youth such as The Maltese Falcon and The Glass Key, Johnson wrote the script in 1997 pitching it around Hollywood for ten years before being greenlit. A deeply personal film whose visual style is reminiscent of spaghetti westerns while following a plot similar to Chinatown, the mix of genres and styles makes for a unique film going experience. Sometimes high school feels like you tackle issues that are so much bigger than adults give you credit for and it is personified in this piece. School politics, social groups and general hierarchy are all given the weight they deserves without mocking youth, while the shots are elegant and simple – inspiring for those getting into film and for those who feel awash with seemingly trivial responsibility.

Which brings me to Rian Johnson’s latest offering, and reason I ’want to go to there’, The Brothers Bloom. If Brick gave the audience a snapshot into Johnson’s somewhat lonely but intriguing adolescence, The Brothers Bloom is a fascinating look at the quirky, unique and oh-so-fun man he has become.  

Rian tells the cast to buckle up

Centred around two brothers (Mark Ruffalo as the elder Stephen and Adrian Brody as the most likely unintentional but nevertheless extremely good-looking younger) who are shuffled around from different foster homes as children in an adorable montage of quick-witted humour and delightful child acting. The boys develop skills as con-artists and spend their lives living out the fantasies older Bloom writes. Younger Bloom however, wants an ‘unscripted life’ yet is roped into one last con on gazillionaire Penelope played by Rachel Weisz, in yet another role with an annoying fake accent.

The characters are wonderfully loveable; zany Penelope who collects hobbies, calm and controlled Stephen who is cocky but never annoying, hang-dog Bloom who can’t seem to find happiness even in the simplest of things and best of all Bang-Bang played by Rinko Kikuchi who manages to steal the show while only uttering three words throughout. The set of exotic locations, the swoon-worthy costumes, and the timeless setting make for an intoxicating romp. The plot has more twists than Agatha Cristie smashed at an open bar, but as the film winds up, the plot doesn’t really seem to matter as you genuinely like all the characters. There are no bad guys, there’s only misguided steps and the best intentions.

The Brothers looking mighty fine

Although The Brothers Bloom doesn’t pack the same emotional punch as Brick, it still thoroughly charmed me, making me fall for Rian Johnson even harder. Apparently his next film is about time travelling hitmen set in Kansas and I am putting it out there, I can feel it will be mind-blowingly awesome.

(CFD.net.au – Contract for Difference, Share, Forex, ETFs, Commodities Traders) – Qantas says it is working with the manufacturers of the Airbus A-380 to fix a flight stability problem with one of the super jumbos it has on order. The airline’s fifth A-380 was due to arrive at the end of this month but its arrival has now been put off until December.

Qantas says the delay is because it is discussing flight trim issues with the manufacturer.

The flight trim system keeps the plane flying straight whether it is operated manually or on auto-pilot, but Qantas says any suggestion the plane cannot fly straight would be incorrect.

Steve Purvinas from the Australian Licensed Aircraft Engineers Association says it is not a safety issue, but the aircraft becomes less fuel efficient.

“A trim system on an aircraft is designed to keep your aircraft flying straight through the air, when you’re travelling along a path you want your aircraft lined up like an arrow rather than flying through the air like a brick,” he said.

“What can happen is the aircraft can start to oscillate in a figure eight pattern, but you try to avoid all those things with your aircraft having an effective trim system.”

Three A-380s have already been grounded this year.

One plane has had to have its fuel tank re-lined, while there were nose-wheel problems with another.

Source: Qantas talks straight on Airbus problem

Finalmente acabou a espera pelo clipe de brick by boring brick! Só achei os efeitos do clipe mal feitos, principalmente quando a criancinha cai no poço, lamentável. Mas assistam ao clipe mesmo assim.

Clique aqui para ver o clipe

Lizzie was our next AOA senior and we had a great time  photographing her!  We did a lot in Elkins Lake, and then went to the downtown Huntsville square area.  Here are some of my favorites:

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It’s always fun to have a friend with you on a shoot!

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what’s a girl without her phone?

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Then we moved from Elkins to the square…

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and created a legacy … you’ll have to ask Lizzie about that…

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and I’ll end with one of my favorites … just really sweet …

www.k2images.net

Thanks Lizzie!  You’re beautiful!

yellow

hows it all hanging people?

my toes are cold, but other than that the end to today has been like a fairy tale. Paramore’s Brick By Boring Brick video. wowy. I wants it on my pc right NOW!

im realy, REALY cold right now… brrrrr… not quite sure why I had to make a sound effect to emphasis that…?

I feel like having a bit of a rant so if you don’t feel like reading it, stop… NOW!

something that realy, REALY pisses the shit out of me… junk mail/spam. something that pisses me off more than that, and i’m not realy to sure what the correct terminology is for it… porn mail.

why? what makes people think I want to receive this bullshit?!

even more annoying, the people that send it arn’t even getting my sexuality right. GRRRR! they arn’t even close! I mean, if they sent me the right stuff, id probably be still just as pissed, but maybe a little bit less… who knows.

one thing that realy confuses me, and I realy, REALY would like to know peoples oppinions and shit on this, is something to do with straight porn… here goes…

so, in the emails i get, they normally put videos and stuff and from what little ive seen, it seems like straight porn actually has more naked man in it than woman, and it seems to focus a lot on what the mans doing… this made me wonder, does this turn straight guys on? cuz im thinking if i was straight, i wouldnt wanna see quite so much penis…

and another thing… does this realy make it straight porn?… i mean… isn’t it actually Bi porn?

mayeb its just me, i dont know, but to me, if it was realy straight porn, id expect it to be 95% focused on the woman, not the man?… but to me, from what ive seen in my emails, it seems more like its focused on 80% of the man and the woman makes up just a very little part of it.

confuzzling.

at least with the gay stuff you know what you’re getting, and its so much easier to label, and figure out, and shit like that… its not trying to be something its not… well, in some ways anyway.

ok so rant over, back to normality, kinda… the kinda normality that only resides inside this tiny wooden skull of mine…

Most of the time, you’ll need a circle. Other than using the ” Circle Script ” by XlegoX, you can do this. It may not ” Feel ” as realistic, but It uses a lot less bricks.

Get a brick, or a part.

A Part.

Then,  Insert a Cylinder Mesh.

To do this, go to Insert, and press CylinderMesh.

And… YOU’RE DONE!

We had heard rumors of another house built like ours. At least out of the same brick, by the same guy that built ours although none of them look the same. We think this is more of a garage than anything. I think we have located six now.

ONE businessman’s vantage point explains why Barack Obama ran into a Great Wall last week when he tried to persuade China to let its currency rise…. From The Australian. Full story

This site may contain information about: china map. For a different topic see here. The blog is also related to: china zip code.

oakville, indiana

another bergman moment for me. too bad i didn’t think to  take it in b&w .

more harvest pictures coming soon…..

Finally! A confirmed UK release! Probably in May. Which is ages away. And the DVD is already out in America. I’ll wait. Because I want to see it on a big screen first time.

The Brothers Bloom is the second film from writer/director Rian Johnson, the creator of Brick, my favourite film in the whole wide world. It is a con-man/heist film starring Mark Ruffalo, Adrien Brody, Rachel Weisz, Rinko Kikuchi and Robbie Coltrane.

Wait, what? Why has this only just been confirmed for a UK release, you ask? Why has a film with a bankable mainstream star like Mark Ruffalo that cost a decent amount not been pushed here? A film that stars two Oscar winners in Adrien Brody and Rachel Weisz, plus another (Maximillian Schell) and a recent nominee (Rinko Kikuchi), from a critically acclaimed writer/director, whose first film made more money in the UK than it did in the US?

What the hell, Summit?! Too busy with your little vampires to spare a thought for the rest of us and find a UK distributor?

This really has me puzzled. Is this merely an issue of UK audiences, or the producers focussing on the Twilight movies, or what?

In other news, Johnson has also created a tumblr for his next film, a sci-fi/gangster flick called Looper. There’s some interesting bits and pieces about Looper floating around, not least the little quotations and images on the tumblr account. I’m excited already!

David

Sem delongas: “A Ponta de um Crime” (Brick, de 2005) é uma pequena jóia cinematográfica. A celebração de um gênero na forma de cinema puro, em todos os sentidos. O roteiro escrito pelo estreante Rian Johnson, que também assina a direção, propõe uma releitura do cinema noir (policial americano da década de 40, como “O Falcão Maltês”, de 1941; “Pacto de Sangue”, de 1944; “A Dama de Shangai”, de 1947; “O Terceiro Homem”, de 1949; entre tantos outros) para os dias de hoje, construindo uma narrativa que, desde a composição do primeiro quadro, joga o suspense e o clima de mistério para o alto e os mantêm equilibrados de maneira exemplar, como um exímio profissional em excelente forma de exercício de linguagem.

As principais características que constituem um genuíno noir estão presentes: um crime a ser solucionado, a atmosfera negativa, o protagonista amargurado e obsessivo, a femme fatale (personagem feminina que faz uso do charme e sensualidade para manipular os homens, e geralmente tem papel efetivo no crime), os nomes sem sobrenomes e os apelidos (Brendan, Laura, Dode, “The Brain”, “The Pin”, Tugger), as roupas enquanto parte da personalidade (repare que o protagonista nunca troca de jaqueta, chegando a usar fita adesiva para concertá-la), as reviravoltas na trama, que acontecem até o último segundo; Johnson segue a cartilha à risca e cria uma estrutura narrativa exemplar, digna do melhor romance de Dashiell Hammett ou Raymond Chandler. Já na abertura (um exemplo de cinema puro, cuja premissa é transmitida apenas através de cortes e símbolos visuais), o diretor encurrala o espectador em um canto, deixando-o sem saída senão prestar atenção na trama que se desenrola: Joseph Gordon-Lewitt (“Mistérios da Carne”, “500 Dias com Ela”) é Brendan, um estudante que vai atrás do paradeiro de Emily (Emile de Ravin, a Claire do seriado “Lost”), sua ex-namorada, mas é levado a caminhos tortuosos após um acontecimento inesperado.

O roteiro poderia muito bem ser publicado na forma de um romance policial da década de 40, não só pela trama em si, mas pelas soluções criadas por Johnson para os percalços que surgem durante a busca do protagonista, que se isentam ao máximo de qualquer contato com a atual tecnologia (Google, mensagem de texto, e-mail e coisas do gênero – ele usa o celular uma vez, mas só), e igualmente inteligente é a maneira como o mesmo se salva de diversas situações: seja pelo poder de persuasão, através da persistência, ou mesmo na base do raciocínio rápido – é o caso da excelente perseguição pela escola ou o jeito encontrado por ele para iluminar o ambiente em determinado ponto do filme. Aliás, a fotografia criada por Steve Yedlin é outro grande mérito – na verdade, um noir não seria nada sem suas sombras espessas. Os corredores abandonados do colégio e os pátios sempre vastos, com suas folhas secas dispersas pela superfície, cobertos por uma paleta de cores frias, que, somados a uma captação dos cenários em planos abertos, cujo intuito é o de mergulhar os personagens em um total clima de desolação, ajudam a injetar uma forte dose de melancolia e negativismo – como se, independente dos caminhos seguidos pelo protagonista, o resultado será qualquer coisa, menos feliz.

É interessante observar também a consciência de Rian Johson diante do cenário em que encaixa a sua trama e, partir daí, arrancar alguns momentos inspirados de um humor peculiar – como a refeição com leites e biscoitos, pós-encarceramento, servidos pela mãe de um traficante, ou mesmo a piada sutil com o fato de os personagens usarem a mesma roupa durante toda a trama. Assim como a maneira com que conduz o filme, ao utilizar uma linguagem que, apesar de remeter ao cinema que tanto homenageia, nos entrega sequências excelentes que integram em si alguns artifícios da linguagem contemporânea (cortes rápidos, plano-sequência, câmera na mão, etc). Outro ponto positivo do filme é o elenco, com destaque para Joseph Gordon-Lewitt, que praticamente carrega todo o longa nas costas, e não faz feio – apesar do cabelo jogado no rosto ajudar bastante. Mas a sua composição de personagem é muito boa, cheia de gestos calculados (repare como ele sempre guarda os óculos quando pressente algo), e sorrisos escassos.

Para uma estréia, Rian Johson se saiu muito bem, como podem observar, e sua obra com certeza honra os trabalhos de atores como Humphrey Bogart, Peter Lorre, Fred MacMurray, Barbara Stanwyck, Rita Hayworth, entre tantos outros cuja imagem foi imortalizada em preto e branco.

Photo of the day, taken behind the S-T:

Click on image to order prints on Redbubble.

Confetti

617 // November 20, 2009

I love when I find great examples of usage for unnecessary quotations. Wait, maybe that is an oxymoron.

Anyway, if you haven’t seen, them please visit this hilarious site: The “Blog” of “Unnecessary” Quotation Marks.

Wythe – brick wall thickness, one brick wide wall is 3-3/4″ thick for standard brick.  Bearing walls will have two to three wythes.  Only one wythe is used to face a concrete, wood or metal stud frame wall.

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wythe and http://www.gobrick.com/BIA/technotes/t26.htm  for more information.

- Fran Loyd, Woodrose Academy