It's been a little while since we've seen Mimì. But she's back, in a pair of photos submitted by our friend polynominal:
The blue synth is a prototype of a Dutch “Synton Syrinx”, which you can read more about here.
Polynominal has quite a studio of vintage synthesizers and other gear, and he has some new photos, including several of Mimì, on his recently updated website. The site is definitely worth a visit, and check out some of the new musical samples.
For the past three summers, I have photographed Luna basking in the glow of the morning light through our stained-glass window. You can see her previous photos here, from 2005 and 2006. Her new stained-glass photos are below:
These were actually taken on separate days, one in July and one in August, which demonstrates not only Luna's fondness for this spot of colored light, but her photogenic nature. I am very proud of her in these photos.
Weekend Cat Blogging #116 is being hosted by our friends at Belly Timber. I really like the new graphics.
The Bad Kitty Cat festival of Chaos will be held by Pet and the Bengal Brats at Pet's Garden Blog.
The venerable Carnival of the Cats will be hosted at The Scratching Post. I like this “busniess case for kindness” thing…
And of course Friday Ark #153 will be where it always is, at The Modulator.
We were tagged a week or so ago with the “Thinking Blogger Award” by our friend (and fellow mathematics enthusiast) meeyauw. We appreciate meeyauw's endorsement and complete, and encourage readers to check out her other recommendations.
Since the rules are for five recommendations, I decided to break it down using CatSynth's motto:
Cats. We are tagging Megan and the Bad Kitty Cats, for their mix of thoughtful writing and love of cats, and helping to bring our own “Cat Blogging” at CatSynth to another level. Megan also tagged us with a meme recently and I will get on that one soon…
Synthesizers. A slight deviation of the rules, we're spitting this one. Matrixsynth is our starting off point for all explorations synth-related, we've found several interesting instruments and other synth blogs by reading – plus it features Cats and Synths. While Matrixsynth remains focused on its core, Muff Wiggler provides a more eclectic mix of personal commentary often revolving around synthesizers and electronic music.
Music. We recently found a few interesting new-music blogs, including New Music reBlog. The authors add their own writing around music and performances, and follow a lot of the same live improvisation that I do.
Art. I have to give a shout out to Placebokatz for presenting modern art via a black cat. While a lot of the performance or human art is not usually my taste, I expect no more and no less from any real-life art exhibition. Also, pawful, the creator of the visual livecoding Fluxus has at least one page that counts as a blog – I have reported in his projects including Fluxus and Quagmire in the past.
Opinion. Our friend jellypizza combined cat blogging with progressive/liberal political commentary and eclectic references from bygone pop culture and our home in Westchester, New York. We miss Taboo; but we're also grateful for setting this example for the rest of us.
Should any of abovementioned sites choose to participate: please make sure you pass this list of rules to the blogs you are tagging. The participation rules are simple:
1. If, and only if, you get tagged, write a post with links to 5 blogs that make you think.
2. Link to this post so that people can easily find the exact origin of the meme.
3. Optional: Proudly display the ?Thinking Blogger Award? with a link to the post that you wrote (here is an alternative gold version if silver doesn?t fit your blog).
As seen on matrixsynth:
Original source in the “related link” below. We'll keep this post “mosty wordless” for today, and perhaps review the CD/audio samples at a later time.
One of the happier aspects of my increased leisure time is getting to take more trips, some close to home, some further afield. Last Thursday I found myself not to far from home, traveling one of my favorite stretches of highway along the southern edge of the Monterey Bay.
Highway 1 becomes a freeway (as it does in many small stretches), between Castroville and the area south of Monterey. I don't think this section has a name, but I think one appropriate name would be the Castroville-Monterey Freeway. And while there are many more spectacular places along Highway 1, this was one of the first drives I did on the coast, and it is also unique for being a “freeway on the beach”, with sand dunes on either side. Signs of the yellow-diamond variety warn motorists of “drifting sands.” This is most noticeable in the towns of Seaside and Sand City, just north of Monterey.
This photo is from AARoads, one of many great sites we at CatSynth turn to for information and fun on highways.
Also from AARoads, one of the major exits along the beach and dunes in Seaside:
Photo by Pete Sison
I would take my own photos, but stopping along the freeway is prohibited, and doubly so if you look to an over-eager CHP officer like you're photographing highway overpasses for the next terrorist attack, and that if he catches a “suspicious middle-eastern-looking guy” he might get a promotion, or even a medal from W. It's just another sad statement of our times. But we're happy to have resources like the folks at AARoads who publish great photos like these.
Looking from above, one can see the freeway, and some surrounding development, is indeed right on the beach (click the map to enlarge). This includes not only the highway and some resort hotels, but also a huge shopping center, an “auto row” of car dealerships, and indeed much of the commercial development for the town of Seaside. It turns out Seaside is actually larger than Monterey, something I only found out about a year or so ago, and has a lot of the commercial development in the area not directly related to tourism.
More perpexing in some ways is the aptly name town of Sand City. It is an incorporated city, but has a population of under 300. I could never quite figure out what it was about, i.e, why it was a separate town. It's main feature as seen from Highway 1 is a huge shopping center, which I have generally avoid. Sand City's boosters suggest that it is a small but very hip oasis with artists in old industrial buildings, like one might find in trendy sections of New York or San Francisco.
The southern Monterey Bay seems to have had its share of nasty development, despite its current reputation as a resort- and environmentally-conscious area. In addition to Seaside, there were major military installations in the area, and of course the early-20th-century industries in Monterey made famous by John Steinbeck. The area is still recoving in some ways from those scars. One place that seems to be a successful recover project is the Marina Sand Dunes, slightly north in town of Marina. I often stop here on trips when I have some extra time; the sand dunes are quite different from the rest of the mostly-rocky coastline:
click to enlarge
Yes, those sand dunes are actually on the coast. One just was to walk over a small rise for a spectacular view of the dunes and the bay:
click to enlarge
If you look really hard, you might be able to see CatSynth HQ beneath one of those hills across the bay.
Indeed, the area now seems to focus publicly on its coastline and the bay, with the center of gravity moving to institutions like the Monterey Bay Aquarium, itself on the site of a former factory/cannery. This makes for an interesting mixture of retro-industrial architecture and sea life, both of which rely on simple structures and geometry, and thus great for photography.
Of course, the main attraction at the aquarium as well as area wildlife preserves are the otters. No one can resist otters. No one.
But otters are more than just cute and furry. They're also very informative and entertaining.
Janis Chaffin in MBA's Basta Basura is seen here as Ollie Otter and Freddie Fishie. I believe Basta Basura will be ending its run at the aquarium soon, but I hear they will be available for bar mitzvahs and weddings starting in September.
Gonzo has made a few appearances recently, and we thought this early photo would be great for our next Caption-the-Cat contest:
SImilar to our original caption-the-cat contest, all you have to do is leave a comment with your captions, whether in LolCat dialect or not. There is no prize per se, but we will post some of them over future weeks.
Have fun!
Well, that's certainly the headline the NFL would be wise to avoid after this story. Now that accused animal-abuser Michael Vick has plead guilty, maybe he will be quickly banned and his many supporters shamed. From an AP article yesterday:
RICHMOND, Va. – Michael Vick agreed Monday to plead guilty to federal dogfighting conspiracy charges, a deal that leaves the Atlanta Falcons quarterback facing up to 18 months in prison and puts his NFL career in jeopardy…That would be a higher penalty than is usually recommended for first-time convicts, and reflects an attempt by the government to show that animal abusers will receive more than a slap on the wrist for their crimes, the official said.
You can read my full commentary here. Needless to say, I take a very dim view of animal cruelty and the people who commit it. And beyond that, it bothers me how we (in the US, at least) have a conniption over drug use or performance-enhancing chemicals, totally out of proportion, while those who abuse animals or family members often face little or minimal punishment…
There are a lot of exciting things coming up here at CatSynth. We have two tags/memes, three travelogues, a CD review, current events, and of course more cats and synths. Unfortunately, we're too tired for any of those today, so here's another fun highway interchange instead:
This is the junction of I-490, I-590 and NY 590 in Rochester, New York. My first-hand knowledge of western New York pretty much ends at Ithaca, so this is all second-hand for me. It was originally featured on Empire State Roads as an “interchange of the week”:
I-490 runs left to right. I-590 enters at bottom left, changes to NY 590 at the double overpass (center), and leaves at top right. NY 96 (East Avenue) runs from bottom right to top left, passing over I-590 and under I-490 simultaneously…The brown line is the CSX railroad mainline…This interchange is familiarly called the “Can of Worms”, a name first applied to the original interchange at this location (see bottom photo). This was completely reconstructed between 1987 and 1991, resulting in the configuration shown above.
Those who are interested are encouraged to visit the original article for more details and history.
