This is part two of a personal carpentry project whose stages were recorded on video: building a cat house for our two kittens. Here are the other parts:
In this video, I show the basic frame of the cat house after it’s been put together, and talk about the wood used in its construction.
This is part one of a personal carpentry project whose stages were recorded on video: building a cat house for our two kittens. Here are the other parts:
The materials used are a mix of reclaimed and leftover lumber, insulation and double-pane glass from the renovation of our place. Instead of letting them go to waste, I decided to build a solid shelter that could withstand the cold temperatures of the coming winter and also provide adequate insulation and ventilation against the summer heat.
In this video clip, I show the frame and the joints of the cat house. You’ll also get to see our two kittens.
Christoph Rehage walked through China for a year, on foot, while letting his hair and beard grow. The total distance walked was 4,646 km. He took photos of himself along the way, then put them together in a wonderful time lapse video which you can see below. He also kept a travel log, which he’s been posting to his website.
I bookmarked his video a few weeks back and meant to blog it. Now it’s already making the rounds. If I hadn’t procrastinated, I wouldn’t be in the me-too group…
It’s a great video, and a great achievement. It’s amazing to see Christoph’s face change through his trip. He emerges a changed man at the end, and exclaims as he puts up a photo of himself at the start of the trip, “Who was this man? Was it really me?” Good question.
The Longest Way 1.0 – one year walk/beard grow time lapse from Christoph Rehage on Vimeo.
It turns out Adrian Holovaty, the co-creator of the open-source Django Web framework, also plays the guitar. My wife found a few videos of him on YouTube and sent them to me. The videos aren’t recorded professionally — it’s him in front of a webcam, with a small mike placed on the table close to his guitar, but his music is great. From the looks of the background in some of his videos, it looks like some are recorded in his office at work — when you think about it, it’s pretty cool when you can play guitar at work, right?
Adrian creates his own arrangements for various songs, video games and TV shows, like Duck Tales (which I love, btw).
Adrian Holovaty – Duck Tales theme song
There’s also an acoustic version of the Super Mario Bros. theme.
Adrian Holovaty – Super Mario Bros. theme song
He’s got plenty of serious stuff if you’re not into cartoons and video games. For example, there’s his rendition of Beatles’ “Yesterday”.
Or how about “Hit the Road Jack”?
Adrian Holovaty – Hit the Road Jack
He also did the Monkees’ “Daydream Believer”.
Adrian Holovaty – Daydream Believer
Sometimes he does multitrack videos, like his rendition of Nola, a 1915 ragtime piano piece by Felix Arndt. Here he used the original Les Paul arrangement from the 1950s, where he recorded the lead guitar at half time, then sped it up 200%, to give it the classic high pitched sound.
While I’m on the topic of multitrack videos, he also did a gypsy jazz rendition of the Super Mario Bros. 2 theme song.
Adrian Holovaty – Super Mario Bros. 2 theme song
I love gypsy jazz, which Django Reinhardt popularized. Adrian did a multitrack gypsy jazz version of “All of Me”, which I think is great.
I’m going to close with Adrian’s rendition of Django’s “Tears”. He plays it with four fingers, unlike Django, who played it with two. Did you notice the Django Web framework shares someone’s name? Methinks Adrian is a big fan of the legendary guitarist.
This is a song called “Comfortable” by a West Coast folk/pop band called Frankel. Courtesy of Elliot Glass, who’s been going out and recording various cool bands in their homes, as they play laid-back versions of their songs. There are more videos like this at Elliot’s Vimeo account. Know what else is cool? Frankel’s latest CD is available in vinyl on their website. You can listen to more Frankel songs on their MySpace page.
I like the clarity of the song (voice and music both), and the unexpected twists in the melody. I also like the video’s color grading.
http://vimeo.com/5939849
Frankel – “Comfortable” from elliot glass on Vimeo.
