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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Other
- Hits: 1952
Yeah, what happens on the mountain, stays on the mountain. I just watched 4 seasons of this so you don't have to.
Imagine a "reality" "adventure" "prospecting" show that was created expressly created for the Weather Network and you'd have this. Exactly this. "DRAMA", meaning the scripted overreaction to predictable weather - "SURPRISE" - and the escalating weather conditions over 4 seasons - from rain and lightning in episode one to "ThunderSnow!!" (I'm not making this up, I swear, and I didn't Photoshop the screen-capture above...), to Tornadoes. (Cut to Stock Footage of Tornado), Escalating threats of VIOLENCE with Claim-Jumpers (by episode 2 characters are carrying GUNS), the "Love Interest" (last husband died, one year later she finds new one, they get tattoos, happy, by season 4 he's disappeared and unmentioned in favor of a cute female California miner), people painfully reciting obviously scripted lines, obviously scripted rockfalls, dramatizations, reenactments, boring, incorrect and occasionally outlandish "factoids", "Experts" a'la Antiques Roadshow or Storage Wars, over-valued finds, families, people of every level of competence and success...
Fuck I'm glad it's over. I mean, for every 21 or 43 minute episode I could maybe get 2 or 3 minutes of good, new information. The rest, all complete and utter bollocks...
But I can imagine for the Weather Network this is perfect filler, and it's proven surprisingly popular, people rooting for their favorite miner to get ridiculously rich, praying for the Christian family (that prays together before mining), they're living the American Dream after all, Seniors trapped in their houses by adverse weather buying every scripted, edited and preposterous minute as fact..."he's still down with his injured finger....wasn't able to make it up to the claim...", the show's still finding it's formula, mixing up the characters, as TV goes, reality or otherwise, it's bollocks...but a lot like prospecting, in that, in all the bullshit and drama, irrelevant and inaccurate factoids, occasionally there's a bit of good information you might be able to use...never very much, and youtube has far better resources, but it's over now and I can move on...
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Other
- Hits: 1761
An intriguing short documentary about a living outsider artist, who draws imaginary maps and cities according to random rules he's laid out upon a deck of cards. Curious.
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Other
- Hits: 1784
Now in the past whenever I wanted to paint I'd run down to the art store and spend $20, $30 a tube and $30 to a hundred dollars on canvas, another couple hundred dollars on brushes and I'd be set. I had read all the books on the properties of materials, the fugitive colors, pigments, qualities of the various mediums, and was perfectly prepared to create a masterpiece.
...In all respects, of course, excepting for talent. and while it was certain the quality of materials would ensure my masterpiece survived it was also certain that by the time I was done I'd just lavished an awful lot of money on something that most definitely was not a masterpiece. My talent was clearly not equal to my vision...
Now, the rediscovery of disposable paints, a dollar a bottle, every color imaginable with names like "flesh tint", "expresso" and "blue", I find that for hundreds of dollars less I can create perfectly shitty paintings bound for the garbage, a hundred paintings for a fraction of the price I was formerly wont to spend.
I have entirely legitimate reservations about the quality of materials, the permanence of the colors, but given how seldom it is I'm pleased with my efforts this seems the perfect way to acquire the skills, an abundance of bad paintings made for the same price I once would have spent on a single bad one. And, presumably, I'll be getting better along the way, learning to mix and harmonize colors, at two or three dollars per painting it's cheaper than a course or degree at ACAD and allows for infinite experimentation. Now only to find the time...
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Other
- Hits: 2018
YouTube Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-BGA4wNTljY
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Read More Here: http://www.nytimes.com/2000/09/16/arts/he-was-crazy-like-genius-for-henry-darger-everything-began-ended-with-little.html?pagewanted=all
An interesting video, if it's your thing check out Emery Blagdon & Marwencol,
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Other
- Hits: 3021
I've decided in all fairness to review Dollarama products as I've been so damning with The Source and I don't want anyone to think I'm playing favorites.
First of all, the needles, really thin, maybe a hundred in a pack, they're sharp, I poked myself on one, so we know they're dangerous, and they're impossible to thread. The holes are far too small...If I was to design a sewing needle it would be in the shape of a badminton racket. Which is probably why I haven't been hired to design sewing needles.
Second, the thread. 2 Loose ends, one mid-roll, the other on the top in "The Hook" in the spool where they place it. Neither unwinds the spool. You have to pry the thread off the spool, and from the resulting knot gather the length you need and cut it.
But, hell, it was only a dollar. If I'd bought this at "The Source" it would have been $10.00, and another $5.00 for the extended warranty that would replace it with exactly the same spool of thread after a wait time of 4 weeks...