CodySechelski.com > MyBlog

Funny Fonts

Thu, 13 Nov 2008 21:06:00 GMT

Ok, so I haven't blogged in a really, really, reeeeaaaly long time, but I haven't seen something this funny on the Internet in a really, really, reeeeaaaly long time, A friend of mine sent this to me and I haven't laughed this hard in a while.

WARNING

This video contains graphical parody of computer fonts and strong font nerdyness. If you are not a designer, typesetter, printer, layout publisher or general font-nerd, you are urged to look away now.

Flash 9 or greater is required to view this video

My Dad's New Website

Fri, 21 Mar 2008 16:58:00 GMT

Okay, so I haven't been blogging in a while. I've just been super busy. For the last several weeks I've been spending most of my spare time building the new version of my dad's website

It took me a while to create all of the graphics and everything, plus there was a lot of code to write. Like this site, it is all database driven and he can log in and edit just about any of the content from within the site.

Check it out and tell me what you think.

It's Sunny in Dallas

Fri, 01 Feb 2008 16:44:00 GMT

Not a whole lot to blog about lately. I did want to mention how great the weather is in Dallas today. The thermometer on my balcony is reading 63º and the sun is out. It's been a pretty cold week and it was 28º when I got up this morning!

I got off work a little early so I decided to sit outside and blaze up a really nice H. Upmann cigar I've been keeping in the back of my humidor, crank up some tunes on the laptop and do some blogginng. I guess I could keep typing, but honestly, the image above took me so long to create that my cigar is finished and I'm going back inside.

Some Art

Fri, 11 Jan 2008 00:20:00 GMT

Clever Title, huh? I can't really think of anything substantial to write about so I thought I would share some art with you.

There are three thing you should know about me when it comes to art.

I'm a big fan of it.
I think anyone with Starry Night, The Scream or anything by Salvador Dali hanging on their wall probably knows nothing about art, but desperately wants everyone to think they do.
People who turn their nose up at American artists are a bunch of pompous art snobs who that wouldn't know a great piece of art if carpooled to work with them.

Now, all that being said, here is a tribute to some of my favorite American artists. These aren't necessarily my all-time favorite pieces, they're just the ones that happened to strike me at the time of writing this post.

Flag, 1954
Artist: Jasper Johns

Stampede
Artist: Frederic Sackrider Remington

Orange and Yellow
Artist: Mark Rothko

New York Movie
Artist: Edward Hopper

Spring in Town
Artist: Grant Wood

Photos Source: AllPosters.com

Review: The New American Gladiators

Sun, 06 Jan 2008 23:49:00 GMT

NBC premiered their new and improved version of The American Gladiators tonight. For those of you who may be too young or too old, American Gladiators was appointment TV for us Gen-Xers. The original show aired from 1989 to 1996 on CBS and was later syndicated on the USA Network and ESPN Classic. The new episodes will be on NBC on Mondays 8/7c. Check out the official website:
http://www.nbc.com/American_Gladiators/index.shtml

The format is simple. Two male and two female competitors compete, not only against each other, but against the show's own Gladiators — charismatic hulks and hulkettes — in various games of skill and athleticism.

So by and large, the new version stayed true to the classic. A lot of the challenges were pretty much the same with only slight modernizations. The new Gladiators are pretty similar to their original counterparts too, just with slightly smaller hair and more tattoos. Some of the chicks are actually kind of hot...in a "she can kill you" sort of way.

Old versus New

The hosts, Hulk Hogan and Lalia Ali, are pretty good too. I was actually pretty impressed at how articulate The Hulk was. Laila seems a little cold and robotic, but maybe she'll get better as the season goes on.

Conclusion
Rating:
I held back half a star because of the little interviews with the competitors between each challenge. They kept trying to trash talk, but they sucked at it. It was a little hard to watch. I docked it another full star because of this crazy Gladiator named "Wolf" (top left in the above image). This guy was just SUPER annoying!

Human TETRIS

Tue, 01 Jan 2008 16:40:00 GMT

Okay, This is kinda cool. These guys over at NotSoNoisy really have too much time on their hands. They have taken stop motion photography to a whole new level by recreating some retro video games with "human pixels". Even the "8 bit" sound effects are human generated.

TETRIS is the fourth video performance of the GAME OVER Project, directed by the Swiss artist Guillaume REYMOND (NOTsoNOISY creative agency).

Who does not remember TETRIS, one of the very first video games? Players had to pile up rudimentary geometric forms on top of each others, in tune with a little Russian music…

Well, the biggest ever game of human TETRIS has in fact taken place on November 24th 2007, as a pre-view of the festival "Les Urbaines", in Lausanne, Switzerland!

88 extras
4 1/2 hours of shooting
880 pictures

NotSoNoisy

Images from other games (click thumbnail to enlarge)

Happy New Year!

Tue, 01 Jan 2008 00:54:00 GMT

Wow, it's 2008! It seems like only yesterday it was 2007. Well, actually it was yesterday, but my point is that this year flew by. It's funny how every year seems to go by faster and faster.

2007 was a good year, I guess. I can't think of any phenomenal that happened in '07, but I can't think of anything bad that happened either. That's a good year in my book.

As far as resolutions for 2008...
I don't know, Blog more often maybe. I've never really been a New Year's Resolution maker. It seems like committing to do something for an entire year is a good way to set yourself up for failure.

And now for some New Year's quotes I dug up on the 'ol Interweb:

"Be always at war with your vices, at peace with your neighbors, and let each new year find you a better man."

~Benjamin Franklin

"New Year's Day: Now is the accepted time to make your regular annual good resolutions. Next week you can begin paving hell with them as usual."

~Mark Twain

"New Year's eve is like every other night; there is no pause in the march of the universe, no breathless moment of silence among created things that the passage of another twelve months may be noted; and yet no man has quite the same thoughts this evening that come with the coming of darkness on other nights."

~Hamilton Wright Mabie

"A New Year's resolution is something that goes in one year and out the other."

~Author Unknown

Happy New Year Everybody!

Merry Christmas

Mon, 24 Dec 2007 22:12:00 GMT

How to Make a Mountain Bike Video

Sun, 18 Nov 2007 13:45:00 GMT

...Or at least my method. I'm not an expert mountain biker, nor am I an expert videographer or video editor. But I have been able to produce some mountain bike videos that people seem to like. I've been asked by several people what kind of camera do I use, how do I mount it, and so forth. So I thought I would share everything in one big post. If you haven't seen the videos, then scoot on over to the videos page to see what I'm talking about.

The Camera
Believe it or not, the camera I'm using cost me all of $120. I'm using a camera called The Flip. I choose this for several reasons:

It's light-weight and fairly rugged
It doesn't require tapes or memory cards
Great quality for the price
It will shoot for an hour on two AA batteries (incidentally, The Flip hold exactly 1 hour of video)
It was inexpensive enough that if I destroy it, I'm onl out 120 bucks.

The video is VGA quality (640x480 at 30 fps), more than enough for posting on the web. I was also pretty impressed with the color and contrast of the video. See Detailed Stats. There is also a Flip Ultra out that look pretty cool, but I haven't used one yet.

The Mount
You'll love this! The mount that I use is a well engineered series of brackets and braces made entirely of electrical tape (nearly as sticky as duct tape, but without the sticky residue). See the images below:

I have played around with mounting the camera in different places, but I find that I like it best when there is some part of the bike in the frame. It gives your eye something reference while the world is speeding by.

Post Production
Lastly is the editing. I use an application called Adobe Premiere. The learning curve is pretty high on an application like this, but I have seen some people do some pretty cool stuff with Windows Movie Maker (Comes with Windows 2000 +) and iMovie (for you crazy Mac people).

And that's pretty much it. I hope this has been informative. If you have any questions, feel free to shoot me an email.

New Design

Mon, 12 Nov 2007 00:50:00 GMT

So by now I'm guessing you have noticed that things look a little different around here. If you don't, then either it is your first time to visit this little corner of the web that I call home, or your powers of observation are so ridiculously poor that I question how you're even able to survive.

Just in case you forgot, here's how it used to look:

It's funny how you can design something and think it's the greatest thing you have ever done only to look back several months later and say "wow, what a lame design." I'm sure I'll be telling myself the same thing about this iteration several months from now.

One new propionate feature of the design is ME! That's right; I'm on every page now. It's like I'm watching everything you do. You're a pretty boring person to watch by the way. No actually I finally slimed down enough that I don't mind having my mug as part of the interface.

Oh yeah, and several people have already asked me why I look so angry. For your information, that is not "Angry Cody," it's "I'm-trying-to-be-serious-but-still-look-mildly-interested-in-what-you-are-saying Cody." Get it right!

I'd also like to mention that the new site is not just a gussied up skin over the old skeleton. I've rebuilt it from the ground up. There are several new features like the ability to sort and filter lists, email articles to friends and an email form that actually works! I also spend a lot of time on the admin interface. It's now so much easier to get in here and post to my blog. So look for more frequent posting.

That's it for now I guess. I just wanted to call out the changes. Please leave some comments on this post and let me know what you think.

The Videos Page is Up!

Mon, 24 Sep 2007 06:15:00 GMT

The videos page is now up! It has taken me a while write all the code and figure out the Flash scripting; not because it is all that complex. I just dont know what I'm doing. HaHa. At any rate, I was able to wrap it up and post some video I took at the drag races this weekend.

The player is in Flash and allows for full screen playback. There is even "embed" code you can copy/paste to your Myspace page or other website. Oh yeah, sorry dial-up people (and you know who Im talking to), the videos are kind of large, but feel free to go check out the thumbnails and dream of broadband.

I made the Dallas News...sort of

Mon, 17 Sep 2007 10:41:00 GMT

I had my 1.5 seconds of fame yesterday. I was at a mountain bike clinic at Erwin Park in McKinney and a local news station was out there filming footage for a story about the city wanting to close the park to bikers. I am the one wearing the black shirt towards the end of the video (0:27 on the counter).

If you would like to learn more about this issue and get involved with helping to save this awesome MTB trail, please visit the DORBA site for more information.

TFK's New album coming September 18th!

Thu, 13 Sep 2007 22:40:00 GMT

Thousand Foot Krutch is one of my favorite bands right now. If you've never heard of them, they are an awesome Christian rock band. You can use the widget above to listen to some of their new tracks.

Mueck at The Modern

Sat, 01 Sep 2007 23:09:00 GMT

I had a chance to go to the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth this weekend. I wanted to get out there and see the Ron Mueck exibit. If you have never seen any of his work, he is a sculptor that creates hyper-realistic human sculptures. The sculptures are all done at an un-natural scale either really large or really small. Seriously, except for their scale, these things are so lifelike that you expect them to get up and start walking around. When you get up next to the sculpture entitled "Big Man" and look him in the eyes, you almost expect him to start talking to you. It's pretty freaky.

The exhibit will be going on until October 21 so if you have a chance, you should really go check it out.

I didn't bring my camera, but here is a pretty good video on some of his sculptures. Part of the music is in another language and there is some artistic nudity.

MTB Ramp Jumping

Wed, 25 Jul 2007 14:07:00 GMT

Finally, we are seeing some blue skies in Dallas. The rain has left the forecast for a few days and the MTB trails are drying up. I went down to ride Lake Bryan this weekend. Alex and Rob built a ramp and we spent a good part of the weekend jumping it.

We took some video and cut it together with some music. I have not had a chance to get the video piece integrated into my website yet, but you can take a sneak peak of the video at a temporary location

View Video

Stupid, STUPID Rain!!

Fri, 13 Jul 2007 16:35:00 GMT

Wow! I have completely lost count of the rainy days here. There are only small windows of time when the rain stops and the sun almost never shines. It is getting to be pretty ridiculous. Of course the dirt biking trails are all still flooded. However lately I have actually learned not to hate riding on the concrete trails so much. I recently took on a 33 mile jaunt on a pretty nice paved bike trail that runs through Plano. It took me two and a half hours to complete. Fortunately, there was exactly two and a half hours of sunshine that day. Unfortunately it was 98 degrees and 90 percent humidity. The next time the sun pokes its head out for a couple of hours I am going to try a 50 mile course.

I recently hit the internet hard, looking for some dry off-road trails to ride. The closest I could find are in Aransas! Even still, I am thinking about taking a road trip up there to ride. I am going to head south this next weekend though, and try to ride the trails at Lake Bryan. As of now they are closed due to mud, but I am hoping they will be dry enough to ride by then.

Well, thats about all the blogging I have time for now. Hopfully, my next post will be to report that the rain has left Dallas and all of you mountain bikers, fishermen and women and golfers can get back to enjoying the summer.

Stupid Rain

Mon, 25 Jun 2007 19:59:00 GMT

Ok, so just to follow up on my last blog post. I have been riding my bike almost every day since I bought it, and I am getting in noticeably better shape already. I have found that I dont like riding on the road that much. I prefer to rider the dirt trails. Its just more fun and it seems a lot less like a workout.

The problem with riding dirt trails, is that there are no dirt trails in Dallas here lately. There are plenty of mud trails, or there used to be some dirt here, but now its a full on flowing stream of water trails. It has rained 11 days out of the last 15! Not only are muddy trails no fun to ride, you end up tearing them up if theyre too soft and the trail steward, or park manager will kick you out. So my biking excursions have been relegated to some very congested concrete trails at Arbor Hills Nature Preserve.

There have been a few small windows in the weather where a couple of trails are open for a day or so. I recently rode Oak Cliff Nature Preserve. It is a fairly new trail, and it was a blast to ride. There were narrow bridges, crazy steep hills, a lot of trees to avoid, jumps and rocky descents. I wish I had taken some pictures to post here. The problem is I dont want to risk damaging my good camera. I guess I could use my camera phone, but I need to go out and buy a littler point-and-shoot. Ill try to do that soon so I can start posting pictures of all of the rides I go on.

My New Bike

Tue, 05 Jun 2007 13:24:00 GMT

So I bought a new bike yesterday. After a lot of consideration, I opted to spend a little more for a Trek, rather than buying another Wal-Mart special; they just dont last. So I found a good deal on a Trek 4300 at a local bike shop. It is actually rated for off road use, unlike most of the cheaper "mountain" bikes that you would find at Wal-Mart. They may have front suspensions and knobby tires, but they are actually only rated for street use.

Anyway, the plan is to start riding some of the trails around Dallas. There are over 20 places in the Metroplex that have riding trails that are maintained by a local group, the Dallas Off Road Bicycle Association (DORBA) [website], and Im sure there are many more around. Hopefully, taking the bike off road will provide me with enough excitement that I will keep it up. We'll see.

FedEx Flights

Fri, 01 Jun 2007 11:08:00 GMT

Click the play button

This video was made from the radar tracking information from every FedEx flight over a 25 hour period. Notice the traffic flowing in and out of the 3 domestic hubs (Newark, NJ, Memphis, TN and Oakland, CA).

I want this!

Tue, 29 May 2007 11:36:00 GMT

Cool spider car