French private health insurance co Groupama  (grooooooupama/ toujour toujour là/ pour moi) has pulled it’s third advertising coup in 3 years.

Just a year ago, they reinvented their brand heroine, Cerise, (fr. Cherry, not a “real” name) from a frantic Amelie-esque thiry-ish girl…

To a graceful blonde in a green polka dot dress.  She pops up when you least expect it.

It’s not hard to see that the newest Cerise has a certain something that the second one lacked, namely, she’s way hotter. But seriously, ladies, do you really want your insurance company sending her to your home when you least expect it? No. I think Doc agrees with me on this one: we liked the second one better.

And was it ever about time at that. On two counts: the first being that I’ve needed to get a new wallet since at least a year ago (Julie gave me my last one as a present shortly after we met 3 years ago).
And the second being that I have been dying to try my hand at making something out of fused plastic since I first heard about it about two years ago.  Killing two boids in a single shot, I made a wallet out of fuse plastic. 

Fusing plastic bags in concept is simple enough: you cut and flatten out about five layers of plastic bags, either the thin produce kind, or trash bags or whatever.  You heat them with a hot iron, keeping baking paper between plastic and iron.  Crack a window, Space Ghost.  More at Etsy.

From my fused plastic I cut a piece a bit larger than A4 and followed the instructions for a paper wallet.  With the following changes: in step four, I only cut out the diamond.  Also after folding the tabs on the ends I fused them shut with the iron.

Hackszine.com: Evaporation fridge

This solar refrigerator, invented by Emily Cummins, is a brilliantly simple solution for keeping food cool in a hot, dry environment. It’s basically a metal cylinder surrounded by wet material, surrounded by a mesh sleeve to hold it all together.

Cookin’ With Google

Cookin’ With Google allows you to provide a list of ingredients (what’s in the fridge?) and get back a list of recipes that Google finds for you.

Results may vary. Putting in “Jack and Shit (and we’re fresh out of Jack)” might not be helpful, although it seemed funny at the time at least.

I am trying out 2Pad. You give it your email login info and it downloads all the attachments, which you can then browse as an online gallery. How ’bout that.

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.

Watch hundreds of films online for free at NFB.ca » Drawn! The Illustration and Cartooning Blog

NFB.ca launched tthis week. NFB.ca is the National Film Board of Canada’s new online film site that puts hundreds of animated films, documentaries, and experimental films back in front of the people that created and paid for them.

Gnarly. Here is one of my favorites, I saw this one over ten years ago and I still sing the song to it now and then. The Cat Came Back

Today is the birthday of writer Gérard de Nerval who inspired the surrealist movement, and also had a pet lobster, Thibault, whom he rescued from a lobster net while on vacation in La Rochelle.

Where ya house at?


Daniel pointing out his house using the map on the label of a bottle of wine from Île de Ré. 
The Island is famous not for its vinyards, but for its salt farms.  And rightly so: the wine tastes like rock salt.

Why not? A quick bunny wallpaper.