There’s a tool called Tiltshiftmaker online that let’s you fake Tilt-Shift photography. I would love to play with a real lens sometime but for now I’m happy to have the chance to fake it. I do want to know though the optic science behind why a simple blurring suddenly makes object appear to be toy like. Odd, and yet so magical. Oh and make sure to click on the photo to get the full effect.

I’ve been lucky. I’m 34 and it wasn’t until 8 yrs ago that I lost my first grandparent. Since then my Grandma has lived a pretty lonely life. 8 years without her sweetie, and 2 days ago that ended.
I haven’t been close to my Grandma for a few years, since it became increasingly difficult to get her to understand who I was as times. She didn’t have dementia, she just didn’t have stimulation, and I think her mind atrophied a bit. I loved her as you would expect very much, but due to this long period without my Grandpa, it’s interesting that I remember him almost better than I remember her. He died relatively quickly after a brush with death on the operating table. So my last memories of him are almost more lively since I knew him only when he was still active.
Grandma I remember very little of sadly, other than her recent years. I do have a few memories though that I cherish from when I was a child. Being the biggest Baseball fan I knew, she constantly would be at my baseball games and with animation that only a Grandma can muster, she would scream out “GO SLUGGER”, at the top of her lungs. My teammates loved having her around as she raised everyone’s spirits!
Fast forward a few years and I find myself in a short and uneventful attempt at basketball. Dribbling down the court one game, I almost lost the ball as from the sidelines comes a bellowing voice, “GO SLUGGER!”
Everyone had a good laugh at this, and I realized that Grandma was my biggest fan no matter what!
Grandma I’ll miss you, but you know, I love you and will never forget you.
ryan

Last night we had some friends over for my birthday. To start out we decided to try some Flavor Tripping, a fad going on around the culinary world right now. If you haven’t heard of it read this. I’ll be doing a full post on Catavino but for now I just want to say the tomatos tasted best, in my opinion. If you don’t know what this is check it out, it’s cheap and lot’s of fun. The basic idea is that a “miracle fruit” when allowed to disolve on your tongue, flavors that were sour are now sweet and bitter is not as obvious. Needless to say it’s a “trip”. Afterwards we grilled a bone in Pork loin and a Bone in Beef loin. Damn I love grilling food. Happy friggin birthday to me!

I’m not the most organized person. Most people will tell you they wonder how I know what are in my ever growing “piles”. I tell them I can sense stuff. That said sometimes I excavate the piles to find things I can’t explain. Today I found an old business card with this written on the back:

“Prey of Iberian pig to the aroma of thyme with Potatoes bakers”

————

“Porridges of Hooters”

It had me baffled and like a good archaeologist unearthing the path I looked for clues. None came at first, but with time my mind began to understand. This was a menu, I believe one from a trip to FENAVIN two years ago, where a dinner menu tried it’s best to be bi-lingual. 

Now to unravel the mystrey behind the cusine, what are the dishes in question? The porridges can lean to a softporn conclusion or a Christopher Robbins tale gone bad. While the pig seems to be part of some sort of musical ensemble riffing on chefs who specialize in spuds.

Who knows, all I can say is the lack of a good translator by this restaurant has led to a fun evening two years later. Note to wife, the “piles” can be healthy, that is if laughter cures all!

Cheers,

Ryan

La MoDa Mix Tapes.

I’m tired of LastFM, Blip, Pandora, Spotify and all the others…this site does what we used to do back in the day: Mix tapes for friends. The new sites, while fun, just don’t have that authentic mix tape feel with odd combinations being the best part of most! Generally funky, electronic with an eclectic vein that runs from here to there. Most of the mixes are downloadable, and the songs are great. Check it out…