Day: December 22, 2006

I recently posted about our failed attempts at DIY screen printing, but I also mentioned that everything did actually work out in the end. So the question everyone probably wants answered is: “what happened in between!?”.

Following guides such as (the very loud or excited) “HOW TO SILKSCREEN!” No Media Kings’ “How to Silkscreen Posters and Shirts“, we decided that we had to get ourselves some photo emulsion. I won’t repeat the steps involved in using the emulsion here (as they are explained in both linked articles and in many other places as well), but here is the end result:

Now that‘s a nice screen. Looks great doesn’t it! Much better detail and much less effort than what we tried before! Keep reading for more photos and descriptions of the actual printing process.

Continue reading “DIY screen printing (success!)”

Every now and then I stumble across something on YouTube that seems to have a huge group of followers… that nobody else knows about. I previously posted about Ramady’s Michael Jackson dance lessons, Pui City Basement’s beatboxing tutorials, YouTube community in-jokes, and Terri Naomi and the number of covers of her song “Say It’s Possible“. I think all these groups really reflect the sort of interactions that a personal Internet can create.

One community that really struck me was the group that formed around MadV, an illusionist and entertainer who seemed to capture the imaginations of a lot of people looking for something amazing. He wears the same stylised Guy Fawkes mask as the character V as portrayed in the V for Vendetta movie (based on the comic by Alan Moore).

MadV left YouTube over six months ago (to pursue a career in television) and a lot of fans mourned his departure. Recently, he returned to start a “One World” video contest in which people wrote messages on their hands and submitted videos of themselves showing their hands to the camera (“speak to the hand!”)… not sure it did much for me… a little too melodramatic. Anyhow, the response was impressive. Here’s a video compilation of his videos that he uploaded as a goodbye message to his fans:

A number of people have tried to pick up the MadV mantle. A lot of people replicate his floating card tricks, but few try new things with the same style. The most prominent is probably MadVapprentice (he wears the same mask, but a black hoodie instead of a grey one). He seems to have a similar flair, but I haven’t found his tricks as appealing. This card trick (labelled “one of the best card tricks today”) is a little too obvious to me. This ring trick is neat though. I look forward to more from him in future.

I have a huge list of draft posts that I have never gotten around to completing. I’m going to try to post something “from the backlog” each weekend… so expect regular personal thoughts on news that is most likely grossly out-of-date!

I’m also going to bust out a few posts today before taking some time off for the holiday season. See you all online again late next week!

Probably to curb initial problems with broken wrist straps, flying remotes, and the resulting property damage, Nintendo Australia is replacing Wii remote wrist straps. Apparantly this only affects people who got one of the first batch of consoles released in Australia. That means… me and Jason!

I know that the remote that came with my Wii has one of the older (thinner… more flimsy) straps, because it really stands out when placed side-by-side with the Wii remote that came with Wii Play. In fact, it looks pretty much just like the picture in this screengrab of the strap replacement information website:

Guess I’ll be asking for a replacement… or I’ll just not bother. I still don’t have my replacement XBOX power supply (on account of my inaction… I always turn it off at the wall anyway).