Interesting links for April 27th through May 5th:

• Flickr: Norby’s Photostream – Now that's an innovative way of using Flickr. Brilliant!
• Interview with the Mainstream Film Industry – Funny blog post with movie quotes from the Top 100 Movies.
• Black and White Fractals That Capture Creativity – Wow, stunning collection of fractal art!
• Gameboy Timeline – Great overview of the evolution of the Gameboy and other related products. I still own 5 of these!

Around the time when I was 14, I was a bit of a weird kid: I was completely into UFOs, conspiracy theories and anything paranormal or other/outer worldy. One of my areas of interest was cryptozoology: the study of legendary, according-to-main-stream-biology-nonexistent animals, like Big Foot and Nessie (my theory on Nessie is that the Loch contains a hole in time, and all observations of Nessie are just glimpses of the past).

Now a sighting of such a creature has been reported a bit closer to home: the Association of Maritime Research (AMR), a small, non-existent organization, is currently conducting research into possible sightings of suspicious sea creatures in the English Channel. The AMR was created in 1901 in order to promote a better understanding of deep-sea life and the curious phenomena that occur in the depth of the oceans. Their approach to research is to gather testimonials and question scientists specialising in marine research in an attempt to find a scientific explanation for the various sightings. The AMR’s intention is to communicate their findings to the general public and enable them to participate interactively in the continuing research.

The sighting that spun off this whole investigation happened on 20th April 2009. On that day Thierry and Sophie were enjoying a walk at the Boulogne Harbour. Thierry reports: “Sophie and I are passionate about boats and sealife and we were filming all the different types of boats sailing out of the harbour. As I was filming, I suddenly became aware of a large shape which appeared on the horizon. I zoomed in on it and to my surprise I saw a huge, dark, rapidly moving object, which disappeared within a matter of seconds. I know a bit about sea and marine life, if I say so myself, and I knew this wasn’t a whale or shark. I knew I just saw something that was yet unseen by man.”

Thierry decided to contact the AMR who are pursuing further investigations. Subsequently the AMR has collected a substantial number of testimonials from different areas. The strong similarities between the descriptions seem to confirm the existence of a ‘gigantic’ and extremely ‘fast-moving’ creature off our shores.

The AMR’s success in identifying this marine phenomenon is dependent upon the participation of the general public. As the first report came from Dover they have put in place a multimedia campaign calling for witnesses to come forward. This will include the distribution of flyers, radio, press and online communications.

This is a call out to anybody who might have witnessed any strange phenomena in the English Channel to contact the AMR immediately via their website TheChannelCreature.com. A reward is being offered for evidence leading directly to proof of this creature’s existence.

Episode 107: “The Electric Friendship Generator”

I have a love-hate relationship with Facebook. On the one hand I find it really useful and occasionally “fun” to use, on the other hand it sometimes just annoys me to no end. Anyhow, I found this little video pretty funny on how to “behave” on Facebook:

[Watch the video on MissGeeky.com]

Via raxraxrax

Interesting links for April 13th through April 15th:

• Kyle XY writer/co-producer Julie Plec answers questions about the ‘Kyle XY’ finale – Interview with one of the writers behind Kyle XY. She explains what would have happened on the show, if it hadn't been cancelled.
• The Pursuit of Laziness – Post from the genius behind XKCD about reading in bed with a Kindle and how to create the most optimal solution of holding your "book" aloft.
• If We Ran Battlestar Galactica – Huge list of repsonse/review from sci-fi authors/bloggers about the finale of Battlestar Galactica. I still haven't read all of them, but it's great to read the different views of everybody. Pretty obvious, but: SPOILERS for the finale.
• The Top Ten Evil Queens of Fantasy – Evil Queens, yay! The post only sticks to movie queens though; there are so much more brilliant evil queens from fantasy novels that would put all this villainesses to shame.

I came across this little saying on For Me, For You and it’s just so so true:

Wonderful way to always keep positive 😀

Interesting links for March 2nd through March 25th:

• Battlestar Galactica: Watched The Finale? Still Got Questions? We’ve Got Answers! – Interview with Ron Moore about the final episode of Battlestar Galactica. Kind of obvious, but: BEWARE SPOILERS!
• The Cootie-Catcher: Blast From The Past, Glimpse Of The Future – Remember those highschool "games" you used to play? Here are 5 of them. I only know four of the five (not number 5), although we called them differently in the Netherlands.
• Mystery Man on Film: The “Raiders” Story Conference – A blog post about the125-page transcript of the original 1978 story conference between Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, and Lawrence Kasdan for the Raiders of the Lost Ark.
• Long Wavy Lashes – Wow, I've never liked fake eye lashes (wouldn't even know how to apply them), but these eye lashes are in a class of their own. These are art!

Thanks to the wonderful Annie Mole from the Going Underground blog, I won a voucher to make my own book from Blurb. Blurb is a publishing company providing a print-on-demand book publishing service for the public. In other words: you can create your own books! Blurb offers a free downloadable book layout software client, BookSmart, with which you can create your own books with your own text and images. The completed book can then be uploaded to Blurb, and you can order any amount of copies. 

I decided on a photo book collecting all the photos I made in 2008. I first thought I wouldn’t have enough photos, but it’s amazing how many photos I actually made last year. I only went with the photos I thought were ‘worthy’ to be in such a book, but even then there were a fair amount. Later on I even realized I forgot to add all my photos from my Stonehenge trip; bit of a pity, cause there were some great ones in between them. Here’s how it turned out:

I tried Blurb about one and a half year ago to create a photo book of my family’s summer holiday. It turned out to be a great book, but at the time I had a lot of trouble with Blurb’s BookSmart software for the Mac. It was just so slow, it wasn’t nice to use at all. Those are all problems of the past though, cause now BookSmart works like a charm. Plus not only was I able to import iPhoto albums, but also Flickr sets.

Unlike a lot of other photobook ‘makers’, Blurb’s BookSmart has a great selection of layouts and options. You can really play around with each page, choosing different types of layouts to suit the photos. I’m still missing certain layouts though (like one single vertical photo centered), which don’t seem to difficult to add. 

The only problem I had with Blurb this time was the delivery. You pay about £4 for the cheapest delivery option, with no tracking and 10-15 day delivery estimate. I ordered my book on January the 31st and it arrived on February 23rd: that’s more than 3 weeks! (to be fair though: it was 16 working days, so it’s not too bad, but I remember last time it was way quicker than that)

I’m really happy with the way this book turned out and I’m going to try to make one every year for all that year’s photos. I’d love to make some other type of books though, like a cook book with recipes from my Mum, or a book with all my blog posts. Those will take much more time to create though, but Blurb offers great tools to make them!

Interesting links for February 17th through February 23rd:

• Larissa Meek » Shapeways is a Breakthrough for 3D Printing and DIY Addicts. – Ooh, cool idea! If you have any mad 3D modeling skills, you can now get your virtual 3D models as actual real life items.
• Culture Warrior: The Limits of Performance – Great post about what makes a movie performance. Would Mickey Rourke have been nominated for an Oscar for his role as a washed up wrestler who makes a comeback if he wasn't a washed up actor making a comeback? Would Heath Ledger have been nominated for The Dark Knight if he hadn't died? And what makes the performance of Brad Pitt as Benjamin Button?
• The 2009 Hollywood Portfolio – Great photoshoot from Annie Leibowitz with actor and director couplings from the past year.
• Because He Could: Zelda II: Expiditio Linci – Offworld – They should translate more games into Latin!
• Barbie’s Runway: Big Hair & Lots Of Pink – Apparently the first runway show inspired by Barbie (somehow I find that hard to believe. Barbie has been around for ages and this is the first Barbie themed show? Impossible).

I’ve been using Moo business cards for ages now, I sometimes forget not everyone knows what a Moo card is. I twittered about it some weeks ago only to realize a lot of people didn’t know who or what Moo is. So to enlighten you non-enlightened people, I’ll tell you all about them:

Simply put, Moo is a printing company. They’ve got a great range of different products, including business cards, greeting cards and stickers. What Moo does so great (and different from most other printing companies) is that they’re integrated with all these online services you already know, like Flickr, Facebook and LiveJournal. So you can order their products with your own photos or other online content on them. What’s even better is that you’re not stuck to only one image; if you want, you can have a different image on every single item. Cool, right? 

I’ll try to explain a bit about each of their products. I haven’t tried all of them myself yet, but have come across most of them in real life. 

MiniCards

The most common Moo product (most people call them MooCards), they can be used as business cards (that aren’t too businessy) or as gift tags or anything else you can come up with. For the front you can use up to 100 different photos or text designs, imported from other online services (like Flickr) or you can upload them directly. For the back you’ve got six lines, which are more than enough for your basic details (name, what you do, email, website). One pack contains 100 cards and it comes in a nice sturdy recyclable plastic box. 

I love these cards. Practically everyone I know has these for business cards. They’re not that expensive ($19.99/€13.79/£9.99) and the quality which you get in return is just amazing. The texture of MooCards is so smooth and nice, they’re really incomparable to other business cards. 

Business Cards

Since a couple of moths ago, Moo has also started offering normal sized business cards. As with the MiniCards, for the front you can import up to 50 designs from other services or upload the photos directly. The back is a bit more elaborate. For starters, you can upload an image or logo and determine the placement of that image. There are a couple of different templates to choose from, but all of them look pretty neat. Besides that you can also choose from more colors and fonts for the text on the back and you can reverse the text-background color (for instance, instead of orange text on white, you can have white text on an orange background). 

I “ordered” a pack of these with a free LinkedIn offer and they look pretty great. I like that the back is much more customizable than with the MiniCards and that you don’t have to crop the photos you put on them (one of the reasons why I use wallpapers on my minis instead of photos). As business cards though? I prefer the MiniCards, because they’re so… mini. While these Business Cards look great, they are larger and the box is still a pain to drag around. Plus at $21.99 (€15.09/£10.99) they’re more expensive and the pack only contains 50 cards (as opposed to 100 for the Min

Stickers

These are just so cute! Moo produces sticker booklets with up to 90 different photos or designs (15 sheets of 6 stickers). Each sticker-sheet has a perforated edge so that you can easily tear it out and share it with someone else. If you’ve every held one of these in your hands before you’ll notice how well they are designed. You can get them from $9.99 (€6.89/£4.99).

Cards (Post Cards, Greeting Cards, Note Cards) 

Now these I’ve never tried out myself; I’m not the card sending type anymore. Just like the previous products, Moo allows you to print whatever you want on them. The difference between them are the shapes and type of card.

For starters, the Post Cards are, well, simple postcards. You can make a set of 20 (for $19.99/€13.79/£9.99) or a set of 60 (for $49.99/€34.24/£24.99) and you can personalise the front and back with different designs.

Then, the Greeting Cards are standard sized cards. A pack of 10 with 10 different (or the same) images on them is $24.99 (€17.49/£12.99). You can add a message to the inside of the cards and add a photo or logo on the back.

With the third option of Note Cards, you get square cards with a special flap on the side to make them stand upright. These come in packs of 16 cards (again if you want with 16 different images on them) and they cost $21.99 (€15.09/£10.99).

Besides the three that I mentioned above, Moo also offers Christmas and Holiday Cards during the Christmas season. These are the same size as the standard Greeting Cards, but come in larger packs (of 25 for $41.98/€28.34/£20.99) and with different Christmas designs available.

Overview

Here’s a quick overview of all the different type of products Moo offers and how much they each cost:

MiniCards (100 cards) from $19.99/€13.79/£9.99
Business Cards (50 cards) from $21.99/€15.09/£10.99
Stickers (90 stickers) from $9.99/€6.89/£4.99
Post Cards (20 cards) from $19.99/€13.79/£9.99
Greeting Cards (10 cards) from $24.99/€17.49/£12.99
Note Cards (16 cards) from $21.99/€15.09/£10.99

If you’re interested in ordering any of these products (and have never ordered anything with them before), I’ve got two discount vouchers to give away. Just email me at melinda@missgeeky.com and the winners will be notified on February the 28th.

New York Became My Canvas:

I wanted to make my mark on America before I left. And I wanted the world to see it.

Day 1

In a few weeks time I leave New York.
I’ve had some good times here. Met some cool people. And some real jerks.
I’ve seen a new President take office.
I’ve seen the Jets blow it again.
I’ve seen more movies than I can remember.
And I don’t believe I’ve cooked myself a meal more than once.
America has made its mark on me and I really want to make my mark on America.

Day 2

As I looked out of my window on the 57th floor of the Empire State building inspiration struck me. I know what I must do.

Day 3

I’ve spoken to some friends back home and a lot of them want to help me pull this off.

Day 4

We’re on. This is going to happen. Greg is flying in tomorrow with the tech gear.

Day 5

It’s all going to be in the planning now. It’s all very well me saying, “I¹m going to do this” but now I’ve got to put the hours in. I’ve got to get the maps and overhead shots sorted out by the time Greg gets here. Shouldn’t be wasting time typing.

Greg has landed. No problem getting equipment through customs -he looks so trustworthy.

Day 6

Route planned. Up most of the night with a jet-lagged Geordie drawing and then re-drawing about it.

Cops turned up at one point. They stayed outside our block for ages. Really scared me. Thought someone had been monitoring me. Turns out there was a domestic across the street.

Greg had brought everything around with him. We were told it would be a doddle but we don¹t have a clue what to do with it.

Had to Skype Benjamin in London. Thank God for geeks. He may know a little more about Star Wars than is right for grown man but he makes anything simple for simple folk like me.

Day 7

Plans all in place now: we know the route we’re taking, we know when we’re doing it, and I even know which button to press.

Greg managed to sort out a helicopter. Was amazing to look down on the city one last time totally amazing perspective. Made me realise how incredible what we’re about to do will be.

Need to get a good night’s sleep if that’s possible. My heart is racing and my brain feels like I’ve had twenty quadruple espressos in the last five minutes.

Will put Hunky Dory on and see if I can drift off.

Day 8

D-Day. I can’t really believe that this is happening. I won’t have time to write today. I hope it goes to plan. It’s going to take hours but as long as the satellite stuff works everything will be fine.