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All the Cats Join in

Here’s a great segment from Disney’s 1946 “Make Mine Music”: All the Cats Join in.  It’s fabulous.

The background is very minimal.  It’s drawn in place as the characters need it.  This piece is very much about how the characters convey the excitement of the music, some hot Benny Goodman jazz.  The enthusiasm of these kids is positively contagious, as they rear back and fling themselves from point A and go skidding and scrambling while overshooting point b every time.  And great non-rotoscoped dancing.  I dig it.

Angers

Just a few pictures from Angers. A house with 3 testicles?

ANGERS

Get A Personal Brain, Morans

Get A Brain Morans! Teeshirt I’ve been playing around with a little software app called Personal Brain.  Stop laughing at me, dammit.  You can use it for brainstorming and organizing… something.  There’s a free version, a $200 version, and I suppose you can get the ole’ five byte discount if you catch my drift; but I think the features on the free version are good as it is.

Christoph Willem Appreciation Day

He’s tall and lanky, with long hair and clunky glasses.  He has really really white teeth.  And his voice is so high, people think he’s a girl.  Maybe that’s why Christoph Willem is such a big hit, particularly with the younger kids. It’s nice that not all popstars have to act like toughguys.


Christoph Willem — Jacques a dit (acoustic)

Jacques a dit: “Jacques said”, a game not unlike Simon Says.

“French” Butter Dish

Or a Butter Crock or Butter Bell.

French Butter CrockThere’s really not much French about it, other than the fact that it is attributed to a French inventor.  I bought this one last year in Naumburg as a gift for Julie’s mom.  She seems to remember her grandparents having one, but I have yet to encounter anyone else in France who knows what these things are.

That’s a pity because every kitchen should have one.  You pack a stick of butter into the top section, and pour a little water into the base.  The butter is stored upside down at room temperature, and the water creates a nice airtight seal. Voila, fresh spreadable butter every time! The result is that you use less butter than you would with hard, cold butter (unless you are like me and just skip the butter altogether if too hard, in which case you eat a hell of a lot more butter.)

I could go on, but there’s more here:

http://www.webexhibits.org/butter/crocks.html

Frickin Laser Printer

Having finished writing her thesis, but needing hard copies for proofreading and revisions, it became quickly apparent that the old inkjet wasn’t cutting it. The pricey ink cartridges ran out fast, something like 100 pages. Or the heads got clogged, the cleaning of which also consumed ink. Or, enough to make you spitting mad, the printer refuses to print black-only if the color cartridge was empty.

So, last week I went out and got Julie a laser printer. I went with the
Samsung ML-2010. We couldn’t be happier with the little guy. I had to look around to find a decent price for it, though.

Often in Paris you will find certain areas to have a cluster of shops dealing in the same kind of wares. For computers the place to go is Rue Montgallet, just three stops from here. There are rows of little shops run mostly by the Chinese, I believe, with all their prices in the windows. At the bottom of the hill is the giant Surcouf, a chain, who is also the most expensive of all these. Unfortunately, Surcouf is also the only one of those that maintains a catalogue and prices online, thus giving the whole shopping experience a need for a bit of legwork. I was having none of that, though. I ended up going to yet another place, a “store” called Grosbill.com. This “store” is really just an extension of their website: you order online, either from home or from one of the dozens of computer terminals at their location. Then there are two machines where you put in your login name and pay either by card or cash. Then there is a cordon, and then a counter where some lanky IT student hands you your booty. I’m not in a huge hurry to go back, but their prices were low, as long as you remember to opt out of the 2 year extended waranty that they automatically add to every item you order.

Nonetheless, happy with el printo, as we’ve named our imprimante laser. The Toner will cost more than the printer itself, however, what with the third-full cartridge included having a life of 1000 prints, it’s easy to see how they are already much more economical. And it’s much faster, and quieter.

The Baby Pigeons update


Pigeons reaching adulthood on Flickr – Photo Sharing!

You can see it here: they are nearing adulthood. They resemble the adults in all but size. Still not able to fly, but soon no doubt.

Nikipedia

8 Best: Non-Wikipedia Pedias

Did you know that “snot vampire” is slang terminology for the Anzati species? Of course not. No one did.

RIP UTAH Phillips

YouTube – “Moose Turd Pie” by Utah Phillips

Nicole’s Anniversaire

Saturday will be Julie’s mom’s birthday, so I made her a little card. She has four cats: Söcki, Larsette, Justin, and Cajou. Nicole never intended to have cats, certainly not so many. But that is exactly how it turned out. Each of the cats was found abandoned, or is the offspring of a cat that Nicole rescued. Söcki is the oldest, and is actually Julie’s cat. She moved in with Nicole when Julie came to Dresden, but as it turns out, she is much more happy living at a home with a large garden rather than a Parisian apartment. She said as much. Justin, or Shere Khan, was named by Julie’s brother, is the second oldest. He is also five, but was fixed only last fall. He is very laid back for a cat but never got along with Söck. He is the son of Grisette, who was run over last year. His grandfather, Marco Polo, has not been seen in years but is very possibly still alive. He lived up to his name.
Larsette, Justin’s half-sister, was originally called Lars until they found out that he is a she. She has very pretty blue eyes but is no one’s favorite cat. You could say she was the Jan Brady of the litter.
The youngest cat is Cajou, with two years. He was found as a week-old kitten abandoned in a box on the street. Nicole didn’t want yet another cat after already just having Söcki move in, but he meowed so much that she gave in. He has a very handsome coat and looks like a musketeer. He is also a romantic type and when you pick him up he puts his paw on your cheek. He and Söck are good friends, and he likes me the best of all the people. But he can be a selfish little bitch sometimes too.
Minichat was a fifth cat, also abandoned as a kitten. It was always hoped someone would answer the ad at the grocery store to give her a new home, so she was never properly named, thus “minichat”. Cajou was very fond of the tiny kitten and we didn’t mind too much that she wasn’t house broken and had the kittyrhea. We were all sad when finally after a month somebody answered the ad and took her with them. But we didn’t mention the housebroken thing, either.