In the them of virtual worlds and games, today I present a slide show of photos from World of Warcraft.  All of these photos, except the first four are all of a single build, called Ulduar.  It is quite the complex both in size and detail.  I love the amazing mix of styles that can be found, one right next to the other.

For your viewing pleasure, I present a tour of Ulduar:

Transcription can be found in the comments. You can click on the image below to make it bigger (and slightly more readable).

(Why in the comments? Are you reflexively reading my typed text first? For many they do.)
(Normal typewritten posts will be returning shortly.)

Follow up on my previous handwritten post.

Also, I can add, after transcribing the first post, editing is much easier in the digital form, and length seems more apparent when measured in pages.

Ok, Eric started this meme, and PurpleCar got me thinking, so it is time for me to join in.

What is this meme? Well since I can’t just link it here I’ll tell you. Write a blog post. No, not type, write. And now you can see my fine hand

So a few thoughts popped up when I read PurpleCar’s post.
1) All fo my fountain pens were dry. Shows how much I write.

2) If google can’t scan and index this is this a way to have a private chat?
(and can google really not scan this – I am reminded of evernote.)

3) The difficult in providing links in a graphical post, andhow on my old websites I used image maps.

Of course if you are reading this (unspellchecked) post in its original you both can see and are good at deciphering handwriting. The text to speech converters won’t work on this, and it pr is a slower read, just as it is a slower write.

Goldie

Of course I can link in the transcript, so I will. ]]> http://goldiesgabs.com/2008/06/untitled-handwritten-post/feed/ 0 http://goldiesgabs.com/2008/04/video-photos-and-fun/ http://goldiesgabs.com/2008/04/video-photos-and-fun/#comments Fri, 11 Apr 2008 18:34:00 +0000 Goldie http://goldiesgabs.com/?p=116

It is fun watching as video evolves on the net and how many different ways video can be served up.

The latest in that genre is “A movie is a moving photo” – the 90 second videos on Flickr. There are quite a few folks playing with that and I’m having fun with that idea too. What would a picture look like if it could move. Or if you were making a snapshot of life rather than a movie. There is lots of potential with the idea. Sometimes imposing ridiculous limitations actually brings out more creativity.

Here are my first “Moving Pictures”. I’d love to see yours.

Over on Kyte TV I uploaded some pictures of the Valley of the Fallen, which is located in Spain, to the North West of Madrid.

I first visited Spain when I was 7 and that was when I first went to see the Valley of the Fallen. If you look at the pictures you can see the incredible scale of the building and the sculptures. The reference person in some of those pictures is me at my current height of 5′ 4″. It is meant to be an emotionally impressive place and it is.

So what is the Valley of the Fallen? After Francisco Franco won the Spanish Civil war he decided he wanted a monument and thus he had the Valley of the Fallen built. He used the captured prisoners from the war to build this massive building. How is it built? It is built into a mountain side. The interior shape is in the shape of a cross. In the center is a chapel area and in the floor of the center is where Francisco Franco is buried. To the sides of the cross are crypts with the “fallen” of Franco’s soldiers.

If you look at panorama outside photo you can see the hint of the sculpture that is above the door. It is a sculpture of the scene of Mary holding Jesus after his removal from the cross. If you could look up (and it was snowing slightly less), above this incredible place built into the mountain is a cross, 3 football fields high and 2 football fields wide. At the base of the standing cross are yet more impossibly huge sculptures.

The work that went into the building is amazing. That it was forced “free” labor adds more to the impact and more to the meaning – a civil war, who’s outcome is etched into the mountainside writ large.

My view of Spain as an American is no doubt one of an outsider, but as I grew up staying for short periods of time with families I always feel a close connection to the country. I was there while it was under the last years of Franco. I was there as the struggles ensued as power was transferred to King Juan Carlos. And I remember coming back to a quite transformed Spain which had seemed to in 4-5 years to have gone from a reserved somber country seemingly in a 1940′s/50′s time frame to the present which at the time was the mid 1980′s. I often wonder what Spaniards think of the Valley of the Fallen with its brutal past and austere physical beauty.