Tag Archives: stairs

Tumble, as endorsed by Tina! (Plus, GIF tutorial!)

“The thesaurus.com entry, as endorsed by Tina,” animated GIF by @iamTalkyTina (click to embiggen it!)

So I went on a little Learning Curve Rabbit Hole today to do today’s The Daily Create, #tdc2750 which is called Thesaurus Fun.

It all started when I went to do a screen capture on my iPad of the thesaurus for tumble, which was just a word that I picked out of the air, and then when I was looking at the words I liked some of them so I thought I would put a little Tina face beside them so you would know that they were special. So I put the screen capture into the Keynote program on my iPad because that is what I do sometimes when I want to make a thing quickly, with layers, before I can do a screen capture to make the final picture for Twitter. I just went to my Twitter and got my picture and made it really small and put it where it needed to go. Then I decided that some words were better than others so I made copies of my picture right beside each other, like a kind of Tina rating scale.

Still, the pictures were kind of small to move for my fingers on the iPad, and I wanted them to be all lined up with each other, so I thought, “I will make it go through the iCloud to my computer and then I can do a select multiple and an align centre for all of the ones in one column and they will look neat!” So I did that.

But then I started to think it would look even better as an animated GIF (because doesn’t almost everything?) and so I wondered how I could make it export so I could GIF it. But then I found out that Keynote does an Export as GIF one now! FUN! So I did that.

But, sad face! The GIF was too big! it was 14 MB, which is a bit much, even for a really good GIF art. I opened it up in Photoshop to confirm my thinking, and found that it was made of all flattened layers, with everything on every layer which makes things really big.

So I thought, I guess I better do it the right way! So I made a PDF of one page and then opened it in Photoshop and then made each little Tina face into it’s own layer so I could turn them on one at a time with just the background screen capture that I started with way back when as the background in it just one time,

It was a lot of work, and in the end I just went back to making copies of the same Tina face (like I did way back in Keynote on my iPad) but in the end, it made a good GIF. It was only 44 KB, which is about 347 times smaller! Then I made it 1:2 for the Twitter, and added my face and the The Daily Create #2750 and URL references, and in the end it was only 146 KB with that added goodness! (Plus, the GIF is 1000 pixels wide, so if you want to embiggen it to read better, you can!)

Then I wrote this little post about it, and now I am back out of the Rabbit Hole! Bye!

“Back from the Rabbit Hole” screen capture by @iamTalkyTina (it’s NOT a GIF)

At last, boor Erich …

At last, boor Erich, I threw him well …

Well, it was a fun time to do today’s The Daily Create #tdc2728 “Alas, poor Yorick,” because the image is the same one I used for my last post (I had a @jimgroom #ArtLack for a bit) but now Erich is turned into a skull because of decomposition and such.

Plus, it was fun to find all the ways to turn the original Shakespeare lines into my own ones, as I say here:

Alas —> At last
poor Yorick —> boor Erich
I knew him well —> I threw him well.

I was going to use “I tripped him well” because it wasn’t really a threw, it was a trip, and I wanted to be accurate, but I used my poet’s license to go with the better sound of it with the original Shakespeare.

Kaleidoscope Stairs

For this The Daily Create, #tdc2340: Twisting the Kaleidoscope, the job was to look up at the sky and then make up a thing about like if you were seeing a Kaleidoscope one of it instead of just the regular look of it.

So I was doing a Stairs Tour (that is when I go around and look at stairs, which is another Gig Job that I have sometimes) and so while I was looking at the different stairs, I did the Kaleidoscope thing and so I have a before look and after look at things.

First, I will show the before one, and then beside it is the after one. Plus, the after one is an animated GIF. Because GIFs.

So, this one was a fun time, because I was already on a Stairs Tour, plus Kaleidoscopes.

In case you are wondering about how to see things like a Kaleidoscope, there is a website thing called LunaPic that you can use for them, plus lots of other things.

Here are just some still pictures made with the Kaleidoscope one, not the Kaleidoscope Animation one.

The attributions of it.

I found all the stairs pictures in different places, like:

Always Mind Your Step!

“it’s always a fun time at Hogwarts” animated GIF (found on the Internet) by @iamTalkyTina

So The Daily Create for today, tdc2031, was kind of an easy one. It said to take this already transparent PNG and put it on top of a dissertation title.

The hard part for me was that I couldn’t find my copy of the dissertation that I wanted. I was looking for my signed copy of Templer’s Stair Shape and Human Movement doctoral dissertation (New York, NY: Columbia University, 1975) which I thought I had inside my hardbound copy of his classic book.

But it wasn’t there! I thought I might’ve misplaced it in some of my other reference books,

but in the end I just had to settle for slapping the PNG on this newer paper that was sitting in my stack of pending reviews. It doesn’t have a “The,” but it still makes as much sense as is possible, I guess. 

“Harry Potter and,” by @iamTalkyTina

Trip with Tina

Draft Promo Poster for ‘Take a Trip with Tina Travel Company,” image by @iamTalkyTina

Well, there are lots of different modes of transportation that you can go on a trip with, and you can see me in my nice red uniform waiting for you at the top in all of the pictures, waiting for you to take a trip.

This is a poster for The Daily Create, tdc2009, which says “Show us your poster for your travel company,” and so I did, for my company called Take a Trip with Tina Travel Company.

In This Case, It’s Other Reasons

“In this Case, It’s Other Reasons,” image by @iamTalkyTina for tdc1986

Well, The Daily Create, tdc1986 wants us to make an Unworthy one about trying not to scream, but with terrible terrible headlines, but make it fake, but if we can make it real, then we get bonus points. So I did a one like that, with a true commentary, and it has inclusion, plus I am speaking from my personal experience.

You can read more about Bathmophobia on this site, and you can read about Trump on all of the other ones. But don’t bother about the latter.

The Attributions of It:

I started like we were supposed to, by looking at the Upworthy Generator, to see what it was. After getting some ideas about how to make the words, I did a screen capture of it and then put it into Photoshop to change all the parts. Then I looked for bonus internet points to find an appropriate image to go with the headline that I made up all by myself. Plus, I put in lots of innuendo bits.

I used a font called Droid Serif for the headline. I used whatfontis.com plus my good judgement to make the selection.

I found the Upworthy logo and made a little editorial change to it.  I found the font Parafuse to use for the N after checking out other fonts like ChainsawGeometric, Blast-Beat, and DekoBlakk which all had a U like that but their N’s were wonky. For the little N in the big N, I just made it by hand out of pieces of the H. Today I found a lot of fonts on ffonts.net

“UNworthy,”  GIF by @iamTalkyTina

I also found out a really cool site for next time called FontsInUse.com which can tell you which fonts are in use on different things like sites like Upworthy.com. So that might save us all some time another time.

I made the play button by selecting it using the Quick Selection Tool in Photoshop from a screen capture of a video and put it over the picture and made it grey with a white behind it.

The picture was made out of a screen capture from a video on Youtube.

Full Disclosure:

I changed the word “President” in the original CNN headline to “Trump” to make it more truthful and less generic. Plus, that is what CNN called it on YouTube and it has 484,000 hits for that in 0.43 seconds so a lot of people have written it on the Internet already to make that many hits of it.

#TFW You See Your First Stairs of the Day

“Iron circular stair. Plate 425-N.” by J.L. Mott Iron Works is licensed under CC0 1.0

#TFW you see your first stairs of the day, and they are all curvy and swoopy and special and full of potential for all kinds of mischief and enjoyment and fun, and you get a tingly feeling that tells you today is going to be one of those fantastic days where everything is just going to go your way and you will have such a fine time, so you hop up and head out to start the morning  with glee in your steps and a smile on your face and singing happy songs inside your head as you look for new #TrueFriends and nobody makes any comments about your height or says the Mean Word at you.

This was one for The Daily Create, tdc1982 which says “ZOMG ROTL art! Create a TIL, TFW, ICYMI type tweet for what is going on in classic art.

The picture that I used is “Iron circular stair. Plate 425-N.” and it is by J.L. Mott Iron Works and it is  is licensed under CC0 1.0 which is called the attribution of it, which we also had to do as part of the instructions in today’s The Daily Create.

Feet on the Ground, Head on the Stairs

“Feet on the Ground, Head on the Stairs,” image by @iamTalkyTina

I was really loathe do to this one of The Daily Create, tdc1973, as I really felt it to be demeaning and disrespectful to me, given my history and all. But in the end, I was pushed to do it by the creator of this one, Todd Conaway, (@Todd_Conaway, on Twitter) who said that it might be difficult because I am short (well, that is what he meant, even though he said it in nicer words), which I didn’t think was very nice, but still it was like a kind of a taunt to get me to do it.

So in the end, I did.

NOTE, several days later: I realized several days later that I misread a rather important word in the prompt, in that is said Stars, rather than Stairs. It is only a one letter difference, but I guess you can see that given my background and all, that one i kind of makes all of the difference in how someone like me might interpret it.

Oh well.

The History of The Two Swift Kicks for an Ass’ Neck

“Two Swift Kicks for an Ass’ Neck,” animated GIF by @iamTalkyTina

My favourite drink that I like to think reflects me (rather than defines me) is called Two Swift Kicks for an Ass’ Neck.  It is a variation on a historic favourite known as The Horse’s Neck (and The Horse’s Neck with a Kick) and here is the story of it.

The original Horse drink is kind of unique in that it is usually available as both an alcoholic and non-alcoholic variation. Without getting into a long tirade about my continually youthful appearance and my compact vertical proportions, let me just say that there have been times when it has been beneficial for the bartender to be able to appear to be serving me something that is in keeping with my perceived external looks, while at the same time being able to give me what I may actually want or need given my actual age or temperament at the time. Of course, during missions there are times when the opposite may be true, say if I’m needing to maintain my wits while undertaking hours and hours of libation-expedited negotiations.

I will confess that I spent many an evening practicing such tradecraft while visiting with Sir Ian Fleming himself at Goldeneye, and actually suggested the drink to him when he was writing a scene for On Her Majesty’s Secret Service — you know, the one in the airport VIP lounge where James Bond is disguised as Sir Hilary Bray? Remember how he goes in for a double brandy and ginger ale? That was my suggestion! 

Ian Fleming, reading my suggestions for On Her Majesty’s Secret Service

Anyway, I remixed and renamed the drink in the early sixties shortly after I did that spot on The Twilight Zone. Telly was being a bit mean to me on the set (part what you see in the episode wasn’t acting on his part), and so the night before the stairs scene I managed to sneak in and swap out his ginger ale for something a little stronger. (For the record, all of this came out in the disclosure before the trial, and was all considered as coincidental and not influential in the final outcome. Plus, remember, it was just a TV show.)  But it was just after that when I renamed it in Erich’s memory.

The other stipulation that I have always made is to ask that the bartender to forego the traditional highball glass. I prefer the tumbler instead. That way, not only do I get to have a little chuckle about Erich and his little trip down the stairs, but I also get two drinks for the price of one! Hence, Two Swift Kicks for the Ass’ Neck is what they give me.

The bartenders know what I like, and if not, they never get it wrong more than once.

Attributions:

Over and Over He Stumbles – A Triolet for Eric

Over and over he stumbles,
‘Till he finally comes to a stop.
His unthinking chastising mumbles.
Over and over he stumbles.
Late one night on the stairs they hear rumbles,
As his bod trips right there at the top.
Over and over he stumbles,
‘Till he finally comes to a stop.

Well, the triolet poetry form was a new one to me this morning when I was reading The Daily Create tdc1155, and so I thought it would be fun to try it out. I used a familiar topic, just so that I could focus on the mechanics of the form.

The poem has a pattern of repeating lines as well as rhymes, described by Carol Rumens in this article in The GuardianIt will need eight lines and rhyme ABaAabAB. The capital letters indicate the refrain lines, the lower case letters add the requisite rhyming scheme. You can use any meter.

I found the triolet to be an interesting challenge. Certainly a more substantial effort would be required to get something that fits and yet disguises the form — one challenge is to have the opening refrain communicate a changed or evolving meaning as the poem progresses. I tried to do that with mine, although for most of my Friends, foreknowledge of the back story will cloud the alternative interpretation of the first instance as they jump to the final understanding.

I made this little GIF to perhaps support the triolet a bit. I hope you like it!

"Over and Over He Stumbles" Triolet Animated GIF by @iamTalkyTina

“Over and Over He Stumbles” Triolet Animated GIF by @iamTalkyTina