The Hollosphere

I’m excited that the tipping point for electric cars may be finally approaching. The Tesla, the Volt, and the Aptera, to name a few, are all getting flurries of blog attention, as is alternative fuel technology in general.

San Jose-based Green Vehicles has been popping up in various tech and auto blogs lately, seemingly out of nowhere. Who are these guys, anyway? Reviewers are generally of the opinion that the company’s fully electric three-wheeler, called the Triac, is huggably cute.

I couldn’t agree more and I totally want one. Actually, I like the Microwat model, too, and may be hard pressed to choose between it and the Triac. One of each? Hmm, with reported prices approaching twenty G’s, I might have to restrain myself to just one. Well, that and my suspicion that my 6′5″ sweetheart wouldn’t be able to fit so much as a shoe inside any of these little cutsie-poos. Oh, well.

Be sure to have the sound turned on when visiting GreenVehicles.com so you can enjoy the shiny happy noises that serenade your every click and mouse-over.

Surfing around reading various news sites and blogs on the ‘net, like ya do, I stumbled across Stephen Fry’s blog. Mm-hmm, you read that correctly, Stephen Fry has a blog.

Yes, the delightful British actor of stage, movies, and television. Who, for example, played Oscar Wilde. And had a hilarious show with Hugh Laurie, oh so many years ago. And played the painfully funny Mybug in one of my favorite movies, Cold Comfort Farm.

Okay, so maybe it’s not such a big deal that he has a blog. Heck, I have a blog, for goodness’ sake. But wait, it’s not like that! Mr. Fry, apparently, is a longtime tech geek and gadgetophile. Who knew? I enjoyed reading his blog articles with titles such as “Social networking through the ages,” and especially (since I have been doing a lot of camera research lately) “Compact cameras have arrived at That Stage.” I didn’t find any earth-shattering news, just entirely fun stuff with an across-the-pond twist, particularly when read using Mr. Fry’s haughtiest inflections in your head. Trust me on that part.

For what garden-variety Yankee can resist a slyly snide phrase like “barely sentient” and the completely nontechnical yet highly enjoyable “far more capacity than could ever be sanely used” when spoken in snooty British comedy show tones? Americans don’t talk (or, God knows, blog) like this, and thus I found the content to be only half the fun. The language alone kept me reading. And laughing. Case in point:

What is wrong with that Ixus I bought three years ago? That old Pentax Optio will see me through to my old age, won’t it? No! No, you crazed enemy of freedom, you wild-eyed anti-capitalist, you deranged luddite. Haven’t you heard of Face Detection Technology? Smile Capture? Best Shot Automatic YouTube Uploading?

If you’ve enjoyed Mr. Fry’s work, do follow the Wikipedia link (oh dear, have I just lapsed into a fake accent?!). I did not know how multi-talented a guy he is, nor how much difficulty he has coped with in his life. It just helps me appreciate him all the more. Indeed.

The genius of Peter Callesen’s paper art caught my attention courtesy of an email from my painting teacher, Joni. Many of Peter’s creations are made from a single sheet of paper.

Not all his works are small. Check out the big stuff. Life-sized stairways made of paper??! Wow.

Some of Peter’s thoughts on his work with standard (A4) paper:

“I find the A4 sheet of paper interesting to work with, because it probably still is the most common and consumed media and format for carrying information today, and in that sense it is something very loaded. This means that we rarely notice the actual materiality of the A4 paper. By removing all the information and starting from scratch using the blank white 80gsm A4 paper as a base for my creations, I feel that I have found a material which, on one hand, we all are able to relate to, and which on the other hand is non-loaded and neutral and therefore easier to fill with different meanings. The thin white paper also gives the paper sculptures a fragility which underlines the tragic and romantic theme of the works.”

A bit of browsing through Peter’s various installations and performances makes me smile. Peter is my favorite kind of artist: one who challenges my assumptions about my world in completely new and arresting ways, not just visually and aesthetically, but culturally, socially, emotionally. Some of his stuff pushes my buttons and makes me real uncomfortable (OMG, now he’s scaring the kids!). I love art in that role ~ poking at my assumptions and making me think and question and rethink. And smile.

Courtesy of Lifehacker, I am now enamored of the Napkin Folding Guide. In order to wow my dinner guests I just need some of those thick, deluxe napkins and a can of fabric starch. I especially like the ones that are folded so that the silverware nestles into the napkin. They look so snuggly in there.

There is just one wrinkle (ahem). I have no dinner guests. Oh, wait–I have no dinner table, either!! Sigh.

Bored? The Wordsmith Anagram Server will deliver hours of delightful entertainment. Try your name. Seriously, this is the most fun you’ll have all day. Use all your names to get the widest variety. Use the advanced filtering features to narrow the results for maximum hilarity. My full name returns some doozies:

• Acridly Holy Moron
• Nomadic Holy Lorry
• Lordly Mocha Irony
• Yo Anchor Dorm Lil
• My Lord Loony Chair
• Dryly Moronic Halo

And my personal favorites of the moment, in light of my vocal performance leanings:

• Moldy Choral Irony
• My Old Choral Irony
• Lyrical Hydro Moon
• Yo Lordly Harmonic

It goes on and on. An unrestricted search yielded 52,752 results. If you skim your initial giant list and pick out especially funny or appropriate words, you can use the advance filter to ask the server to only show you results that include that word.

Don’t stay up too late playing with it! (I already did.)

p.s. Sorry about the post title. Apparently, I can’t resist adding -orama to the end of words. Hey, I could have named my blog Hollorama! Dang.