remember to blink

I’ve just come across the incredibly bizarre, but actually quite impressive, work of Mari Kasurinen, and in particular her My Little Pony customs. Having a four-year old daughter I’m more familiar with the My Little Pony brand than I ever thought I’d be, and these seem…well, a bit wrong. But very cool at the same time.

I can remember, when I was about 10, me and my Dad making some really cruddy stop motion sequences with our camcorder and some Star Wars figures (I’ll have to get them online one day, if only for posterity). We’d been inspired by the AT-ATs sequence in The Empire Strikes Back; of course, these days, hardly anybody uses stop motion any more - everything’s pure CG (much to the annoyance of the Godfather of stop motion, Ray Harryhausen). But this guy is (along with the likes of Nick Park, of course) taking stop motion to a whole new level

Great series of retro book covers, designed by Mitch Ansara as part of his ‘Make Something Cool Every Day‘ series on Flickr. Loving the attention to detail, like the ageing sellotape holding the spine of the ‘Shaun of the Dead’ novel together

So Liverpool’s year as European Capital of Culture officially comes to a close this weekend, as they hand the mantle over to Linz in Austria and Vilnius in Lithuania.

Having spent most of 2008 living in Liverpool (and then moved to North Wales over the weekend of La Machine, therefore missing the whole thing - doh), I would say that the general consensus is that the year was a fairly major success. It’s a shame that so much of the city was essentially a building site for the entire year, particularly the Pier Head, but I think events like La Machine and Go Superlambananas (a particular favourite in our household) more than made up for it.

Let’s hope that the city can now keep the momentum going, and continue to be an invigorating and inspiring place to spend time. I think it speaks volumes that this weekend’s closing celebration is being called Transition, which will aim to celebrate the city’s revival and look towards the future, instead of just marking an end to its status as Capital of Culture.

Some nice PhotoShop work - sorry, evidence - here that the world of Star Wars is actually real. And not only do Darth Vader, Chewbacca et al actually exist, but they walk among us, here on planet Earth