Give the right answer, Joe

http://www.hardydetectiveagency.com/ocean/hollow/hollow2.htm

“Right! In your dreams! I’m not a nerd!” Joe jibed his brother good-naturedly.

Had Joe said “I’m a NaN”, he wouldn’t have received the answer he received. What was that answer? Ah, I’ll guess you’ll have to read the story, just as much as Joe should have read NaN! šŸ˜›

ps. in the same story…

“Bye, Nan!” Callie chimed and her slightly high-pitched voice was sounding a little shrill to Nancy’s ears.

“You know something, Drew? You’re like an open book right now.”

heh, it seems that actually Joe was reading NaN XD

Da Vinci Code, the movie: Afterthoughts

http://www.sonypictures.com/movies/thedavincicode/

(…) a secret that threatens to overturn 2000 years of accepted dogma

I wonder if “The Da Vinci Code”, the movie, will ever have a life outside of “The Da Vinci Code”, the book, just as much as I wondered before if “The Da Vinci Code”, the book, would ever have had a life outside of its title. In my opinion, both the bookĀ“s title and its cover design were the true reasons for its success, more than the plot, which albeit interesting was nothing new sub sole (for instance, check Peter BerlingĀ“s “The Children of the Grail“). In this way I would say that I Continue reading Da Vinci Code, the movie: Afterthoughts

Kingā€™s Pupil

The first thing you should know, Iā€™m not a Stephen King fan, but I feel interested by the fact that many of his novels have been taken to the Big screen, though not always with great success. I’ll overlook the sometimes terrible or unimportant adaptations, and the overrated ones (sorry, but I don’t enjoy ā€œCarrieā€ very much).
For a great movie tour around Kingā€™s novels, Continue reading Kingā€™s Pupil

Make a notebook, and make it easy: Pocketmod

http://www.pocketmod.com/

The PocketMod is a small book with guides on each page. These guides or templates, combined with a unique folding style, enable a normal piece of paper to become the ultimate note card.

The interest of pocketmod lies in the way it merges several useful related ideas into a single, solid initiative. There’s a set of handy templates (or mods, as they call them) to choose from; an intuitive application to arrange them into a custom notebook; a way to make this application as accesible as possible (you can either design and print the notebook right from the browser, or download the software and use it offline); a clever folding pattern so that the notebook is quickly made from the printed piece of paper; and a tool to convert previously made documents (in pdf format) to a ready-to-fold booklet (or series of booklets, if needed).

I find that the folding technique leaves too much paper unused (one side, actually), but after trying several alternatives I believe that actually the authors went for the easiest way to get the book ready. Anyway, the forum is a good source for further mods and ideas. Now you can say goodbye to sketching on paper napkins!

ps. Still, if you must use a napkin, remember the folding pattern: you’ll get a notebook as small as it is cool šŸ™‚

Related Article: All you need to make a notebook

Origami Wreaths and Rings

a book by David Petty

In these pages you will find over 100 inventive variations around a circular theme using modular origami

If I were to describe this book in as few words as possible, I would choose these: easy, modular, organic origami. Easy, because the folding instructions are very clear and each of the pieces can be made in a few minutes by people with none to very little knowledge in origami; modular, because you create the models by assembling several small identical units together; and organic, because the result is a whole which looks much more complex than the sum of its parts: actually, many of the spiky stars and rings remind me of living sea stars and urchins. I came to this book after having seen several models a friend of mine had done, and I recommend it to anyone interested in any of the key themes mentioned above, as it will be a pleasing and rewarding discovery.

Update: I just found out that the author has made available several models with instructions here.

Draw with Loomis

Updated 14.01.06

www.saveloomis.org

Art-Instruction Books of Andrew Loomis

My friend Tucho told me that he was using the books featured in this site to improve his technique, and actually I found them all very inspiring, not only for artists as talented as he is, but for everyone whith an interest in illustration. The page is also relevant since itĀ“s hard to find printed copies of the books.

For more info on Loomis himself, you can read his biography here.

[Update] In a recent visit to the site this article points to, I found out that the books are no longer available there due to a letter of removal. On the other side, you can now find the books for sale in various online stores, like amazon.com.

All you need to make a notebook

http://www.incompetech.com/beta/plainGraphPaper/

I cannot anticipate all needs, but the grids below should cover most common ones.

http://www.crbond.com/score_paper.htm

Here you will find a set of Acrobat (*.pdf) files which will print out music score paper on your printer.

Print this over the previously printed grids to finish your empty notebook

šŸ˜‰

http://www.sff.net/people/Brook.West/bind/bindit.html

Make or repair books with this easy technique.

Related Article: Make a notebook, and make it easy: pocketmod