Marmoset

Marmot

Some friends were describing the writing assignment of 250-word short story. I tried one, and thought I’d share it here:

Barbara

Wiping the beads of perspiration from her wrists and eyebrows, Barbara stared down at her feet, humming to herself. The past few moments had been interesting, very interesting. She was up at least six or seven inches, and she could remember oh so very clearly being an inch, and if she really thought her hardest, she could remember her feet both firmly planted on the ground. She giggled at the memory, and the high-pitched vibration she emitted seemed to lift her higher still.

It�s not like she had regrets, certainly she had worked harder than most to keep both on the ground, the floor, the carpet, the adobe tile. Her so-called mother had always instructed her about this, but that praying mantis of a woman hadn�t a clue. Not a clue, she repeated to herself, grinning at the thought.

Barbara hummed more, increasing her volume to mask the humming in her head, the low trilling noise that seemed to be coming from everywhere, inside, outside, and nowhere. She could barely see her floor, the grout turning to ants, the people turning to ants, the ants turning to ants. The wind tickled her toes, the humming now thrumming, now throbbing. High above the atmosphere (and Barbara absolutely knew the importance of atmosphere), a final whoosh as she crossed the threshold, into the hold, the doors swished shut, the ship � the mother ship � engaged the engine and away, away, she was off, away, with mother, off to home, her home, away.

The leading expert in air travel is named Terry Trippler. Really.

G-FORCE!
Check out some Battle of the Planets video snippets here and here.

Okay, there’s a televangelist named Creflo Dollar.

Honda’s walking robot Asimo (apparently the name comes from the Japanese word for legs, not simply a contraction of Asimov as I had always assumed) is upgraded. Story here.

NYT article about adjustable eyeglasses, targeted for Africa. (free registration required)

Spam of the Week
Sorry But Your Friends Are Saying Your Teeth Are Yellow

Okay, I admit it. I have a near-addiction to hotel soaps. They’re free, for one, and they are often appear to be of a high-quality. It’s that pleaure of the travel-sizes in the drug store - small soaps that you can sample without the committment of a 10-pound bar of ivory. Plus, if you still in a hotel for a few days, you can accumulate a fair number of soaps. I would come back to the room to find that they had taken away a bar that had been used once, and replaced it with a fresh one. So I started bringing travel soap dish along to keep that soap in. Then I found myself stowing the brand new one in the luggage, and pulling the hidden, slightly used bar back out again. At the end of the trip, I’d have a large number of brand new bars of soap (two sizes and flavors, usually, the sink, and bath) and one very very slightly used bar.

Not surprisingly, I pretty much exceeded my storage capacity at home for soap, so I’m trying to bathe more at home and be judicious about what I snag from the hotels.

I don’t know why I liked this phrase, but I did “Smaller stones ere commonly used for making octopus lures, playing games, and rubbing the singed hair off of pigs”

We saw these words at an interesting preserve/ancient temple on Maui, along the road to Hana.

A followup to my Meary piece from a few months back:

Well, the product must be successful, because it’s being knocked off. Here are Funny Eyes (or as the body of text refers to them, Fanny Eyes). The instructions read:
Prepare your favorite thing. (Remove stains and oil from the surface in advance.) Put the pair of FANNY EYES seal on it. You can make various expressions with them. Put them afer thinking your favorite expression. Remember you can’t stick them twice. And you finish your own work.

I purchased this at:
Maido
33 Town and Country Village
Palo Alto, CA
650-330-0284
but they do not stock Meary.

A source for Meary in the US might be
K Bond
Los Angeles, CA
(323) 939-9779

Have you tickled Elmo today?

Hey, check this out - vote for me for the Fast Company 50! Rate this high!

This could be the best title for a seminar: CHI2003 Workshop on SUBTLE EXPRESSIVITY FOR CHARACTERS AND ROBOTS

Charles Dupuis, a pioneering Belgian publisher of French-language comics best known in the United States for introducing the blue-hued, hedonistic animated characters called Smurfs, died on Nov. 14 in Brussels. He was 84.

An influential editor, he published other popular characters, including Lucky Luke, in his comics magazine, Spirou, named for the cartoon about a mischievous bellboy. The company he founded sells more than 10 million comics a year, a third of the French-language comics market.

The magical, gnomelike Smurfs were created for Spirou in 1958 by the Belgian cartoonist Pierre Culliford, who signed his work Peyo. A Smurf fad swept the United States after they were turned into a Saturday-morning cartoon program by Hanna-Barbera in 1981.

At the peak of the Smurfs’ popularity, there was a break-dance-style step called the Smurf, as well as the catchphrase “feeling Smurfy,” Smurf mugs, figurines, baby rattles, cigarette lighters and a Smurf computer game by Atari. In the 1980’s a trio of diminutive wide receivers for the Washington Redskins were known as the Smurfs.

Dressed identically in white trousers and caps reminiscent of mob caps from the French Revolution, the Smurfs are only “three apples high.” They live in mushroom houses and are led by a bearded, 542-year-old patriarch, Papa Smurf. Their nemesis is the evil wizard Gargamel, who macabrely wants to make Smurf stew.

They are known as Schtroumpfs (a nonsense word coined by their creator to mean thingamabob) in Belgium, as de Smurfen in Dutch and as die Schl�mpfe in German. The program ran on NBC for more than 250 episodes over nine seasons, and is currently seen in 30 countries.

Mr. Dupuis published the first issue of the children’s magazine Spirou in 1938 at the age of 20, for the printing company founded in 1898 by his father, Jean Dupuis. The elder Dupuis felt that Belgium needed its own comics magazine to compete with the cultural imperialism of a certain American rodent in Le Journal de Mickey, published by Disney.

Charles Dupuis selected the Flemish team of Robert Velter, who signed his work Rob-Vel, and his wife, Davine, who created the character of a red-suited bellhop named Spirou. In his homeland, Spirou is as much a multigenerational hero as his countryman and rival, the tousled teenage adventurer Tintin, created by Georges R�mi, known by the pen name Herg�, in 1929.

Mr. Dupuis had a nose for discovering cartoon talent. Lucky Luke, a taciturn American cowboy who could draw a six-gun faster than his own shadow, was created by Maurice de Bevere, known as Morris, for Spirou in 1946. Lucky Luke’s sidekicks include his horse, Jolly Jumper, who can talk, cook and play poker, and a dumb dog named Rin Tin Can.

Lucky Luke has been translated into 30 languages and has sold more than 30 million copies worldwide.

Under the guidance of Mr. Dupuis, the family owned company expanded into animated films and television. Mr. Dupuis retired in 1985, when the family sold the business to Groupe Bruxelles Lambert.

Spirou, which has been in continuous publication except for a 13-month interregnum during World War II, celebrated its 3,000th issue in 1995 and sells more than 85,000 copies a week.