"It's Called An Illusion, Michael."

Ran across this fascinating tidbit yesterday on NASA's very-good-in-a-kinda-nerdy-way Astronomy Picture of the Day website. Check out the image below:


Would you believe that the two squares labeled "A" and "B" are the exact same shade of grey? Because they are. If you're like me, you probably already looked ahead a little bit and saw this proof:


These images were created by some guy named Edward H. Adelson, and were used by some other guy, apparently for some project at MIT. At least, that's where I got this explanation from:

"The first trick is based on local contrast. In shadow or not, a check that is lighter than its neighboring checks is probably lighter than average, and vice versa. In the figure, the light check in shadow is surrounded by darker checks. Thus, even though the check is physically dark, it is light when compared to its neighbors. The dark checks outside the shadow, conversely, are surrounded by lighter checks, so they look dark by comparison.

"A second trick is based on the fact that shadows often have soft edges, while paint boundaries (like the checks) often have sharp edges. The visual system tends to ignore gradual changes in light level, so that it can determine the color of the surfaces without being misled by shadows. In this figure, the shadow looks like a shadow, both because it is fuzzy and because the shadow casting object is visible."

So, I guess that means our eyeballs and brain are just screwy, eh? Not so, says the MIT dude:

"As with many so-called illusions, this effect really demonstrates the success rather than the failure of the visual system. The visual system is not very good at being a physical light meter, but that is not its purpose. The important task is to break the image information down into meaningful components, and thereby perceive the nature of the objects in view."

Call me fascinated. If you'd like further proof that the squares are indeed the same shade of grey, click here.

Debuting At #20 On The New York Times Best-Seller List.

Scraping into the top 20 for hardcover nonfiction. Way to go, Brian. I guess my sleepless nights really were worth it.

A Good Idea.

If you're looking to kill some time this summer and you've already purchased/read Knuckle Sandwich, I highly recommend this here book pictured to the right, a little sequel from the very excellent Brothers Hafer called From Bad to Worse. Cleverly, this title ties in perfectly with the novel the preceded it, Bad Idea, also an excellent book in its own right.

I do hope I get some sort of title attribution for the sequel. When Bad Idea was released, I was handed a free copy by one of the Hafers at ICRS (boy, were we kindred spirits there, stranded among booths featuring Christian pirates and whatnot. Shudder.) and read almost the entire thing on the plane ride home. So entranced was I by it that I contributed an endorsement to the book that ended something along the lines of: "Here's hoping they have an even worse idea in the future."

Ahem.

Anyway, the Hafers are quality chaps (Jedd was kind enough to submit a delightful endorsement for Knuckle Sandwich that graces its inner pages) and both of their books are capital reads, especially for teenagers and young adults. You shan't go wrong!

But read my books first.

An Assignment: Compare And Contrast.

I recently read two interviews on Entertainment Weekly's website with hyperkinetic director Michael Bay (most recent triumph: Transformers) and famously non-commercial German directer Werner Herzog (most soon-to-be-recent triumph: Rescue Dawn). Here's a sample from each:

Entertainment Weekly: I'm told [Executive Producer Steven Spielberg] worked a lot with the Transformers' screenwriters Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci to bring a certain innocent tone to the film. The motto seems to have been, ''It's about a boy and his car.''
Michael Bay: "Yeah. That was the hook to the movie. But I added a stronger military thing at the beginning to make...the stakes higher. But originally the tone was very suburbia. We kind of changed that and made it edgier. I like the idea of the suburbia. I specifically shot this a little bit more suburbia, meaning, like, I would never put actors at a Burger King, but it's what people do, you know what I mean? Or in [lead character Sam Witwicky's suburban] house. It's not a sexy house. But it's identifiable, and more accessible."

Entertainment Weekly: You did have some commercial success recently with the documentary Grizzly Man. But you were snubbed for an Oscar nomination for the movie, perhaps because you've alienated yourself from a lot of people in the documentary community for the liberties you take in your nonfiction films, like scripting lines for your subjects.
Werner Herzog: "That's okay. We need a new approach to reality. Cinéma vérité is basically the answer of the '60s and, in my opinion, just the accountant's truth. We are in a situation now where there is a huge onslaught on our notion of reality, from reality TV, virtual reality, the Internet, digital effects, Photoshop, WrestleMania — all these things pretending to be reality. Since the early '70s, I've been working towards a new form of dealing with reality, going for something that illuminates us, something that is like an ecstatic truth. Whatever departs from facts is wonderful. I'm not so much into facts."

Your assignment: Check out the complete interviews and find the similarities and (rather glaring) differences between these two very different directors. Post thoughts to the comments section. Links are as follows:
Michael Bay Note: this interview contains mild swearing.
Werner Herzog

The Latest On The Little Man.

As I mentioned in another post, our adoption has stalled in the Ugandan court system because of something like six little words in our ruling that need to be removed. We've been given a favorable ruling, but it contained wording that said, essentially, that we had to come back to Uganda in three years to finalize our adoption, and the US doesn't allow such conditions for adoptions. Until those words are removed, we're stuck in a (very long) holding pattern.

Well, we have some tangential good news. Because our entire case has been so screwy, the orphanage started taking their adoptions to another court located in Jinja, which is where the orphanage is located, instead of Kampala, which is the capital city of Uganda. So they had some favorable rulings through the Jinja court, which was good, but those rulings had the same wording ours did, which was bad.

Now in our case, we asked the judges to remove those words from the ruling, and they got very upset with us. In Jinja, however, the lawyer asked for the words to be removed, and the judge was kind about it and actually did it. So there are now two (I think--maybe three) adoptions going through. The rulings have been modified, and the kids are on their way home.

So I think this bodes well for us, in that I can't foresee the high court, who holds our case, wanting to be outdone by a lower court. Of course, I'm thinking logically, which is a mistake when it comes to the Ugandan government. These people love their children, to be sure, but have a difficult time seeing that it would be better for the orphans to be united with their families.

Please keep praying for our adoption. Pray that God would change the hearts of these judges. And pray against child trafficking, which is suddenly very rampant in East Africa, which is causing a lot of these judges to take extra caution in their rulings. And if you think about it, pray for the plane ticket(s) we'll eventually need to purchase to go pick up the little man once our adoption has been granted.

Not Your Typical Beach Reads (But Worthy Of Your Time This Summer).

Michael Chabon has long been one of my favorite authors, ever since I read his Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay. So it was with great anticipation that I looked forward to his latest alternate history tale, the genre-bending The Yiddish Policemen's Union.

Though the delicious plot speeds up to the point where it starts to run off the rails in the final pages, Chabon is still an immaculate writer who knows exactly how to use his copious grasp of the language both to dazzle readers with amazing passages and to deepen his characters. He's so good that we the readers don't even realize what he's doing. Consider the following, lifted from page 2:

"According to doctors, therapists, and his ex-wife, Landsman drinks to medicate himself, tuning the tubes and crystals of his moods with a crude hammer of hundred-proof plum brandy. But the truth is that Landsman has only two moods: working and dead...When there is crime to fight, Landsman tears around Sitka like a man with his pant leg caught on a rocket. It's like there's a film score playing behind him, heavy on the castanets. The problem comes in the hours when he isn't working, when his thoughts start blowing out the open window of his brain like pages from a blotter. Sometimes it takes a heavy paperweight to pin them down."

I mean, come on. It goes on like that page after page after page, with passages veritably screaming to be read aloud. My wife got so tired of me tugging on her sleeve and saying, "You gotta hear this."

If you can only read one book this summer, please make it Knuckle Sandwich, which is, in fact, your typical beach read. But if you want something that makes my book look like fiction along the lines of Danny and the Dinosaur, you'll do well to investigate Chabon's latest. (Note: This book is intended for adult readers only. There are no sex scenes, but there is some violence, and a few bouts of swearing. Also, the book is written in present tense, which originally felt a little off-putting to me, though I got used to it a few chapters in.)

Another book that doesn't really gel with beach reading but that is worth your time is Save Me From Myself by Brian "Head" Welch. I had the privilege of working on this spiritual memoir and found Brian to be truly, genuinely in love with Jesus. He isn't flaky like so many celebrity Christians are--he's legit, and he's very determined to stay that way. He was great to work with, and I think writing the book helped him exorcise a lot of demons from his past.

At first I thought it would be a pretty high-concept paycheck for me, but the more I worked with Brian, the more I developed a passion for telling his story. It can seriously change lives, and for that, I feel really proud for the work I did on the book. It's a definite recommendation for anyone who is or was a Korn fan, or for anyone who wants a sneak peek into the world of rock-and-roll stardom and all it isn't cracked up to be.

And I'd be lying if I didn't say working on this book was the perfect primer for Knuckle Sandwich. But I gathered you guys had already figured that out.

I Smell A (Quite Lovely) Rat.

This summer has already included the shockingly good Spider-Man 3 and also the surprisingly hilarious Ocean's Thirteen, and while those pictures pretty much met my expectations, I had really high hopes for Ratatouille. I expected a certain awesomeness, what with it being a Pixar picture and being written/directed by the ever-brilliant Brad Bird (he wrote and directed The Incredibles, which is not just one of my favorite animated films, but one of my favorite films ever).

Every Sunday night in our house is Family Movie Night, where we cook up a pizza and sit down to watch something together. Lately, we've been working our way through the fantastic series Planet Earth, but we decided this weekend to take the fam out for Ratatouille. I cannot begin to articulate how delightful the movie turned out. It's moving, it's thoughtful, it's elegant, it's funny, it's inventive, and it contains absolutely zero jokes about flatulence, bodily fluids, or someone getting kicked in the crotch.

Thirty minutes into it, my five-year-old son leaned over to his fifteen-year-old sister and asked her, "Ask Daddy if we can buy this movie on DVD." When it was over, my eight-year-old daughter said (I quote roughly), "I. Loved. That movie." In fact, she later told me that, when we got the DVD, she didn't want to watch it too much because (again, rough quote), "If you watch really special things like that too often, they become, you know, common."

Nevertheless, we'll see it again. I hope you see it for the first time soon.

Up next? Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Rescue Dawn, The Simpsons Movie, and the other summer movie I've been salivating over, The Bourne Ultimatum, which has a newly released trailer.

So, what do you guys think? Favorite summer movie thus far? Biggest surprise? Biggest disappointment? Most anticipated? Sound off in the comments section.

Yay, summer!

The Bean Is A... Beannette!

If I had a photo, I'd post it here. However, we have unearthed a magnificent fact: The Bean is indeed a girl, or "gel" as they like to call them in the UK.

At this point, The Bean is 15 inches long from head to heel, and is scheduled to be released on September 17, just a few days before Good Luck Chuck and Resident Evil: Extinction. Time will tell, but I believe The Bean will have a greater box office impact in the long run.

Now Available For Your Reading Pleasure: Knuckle Sandwich.

It has been released! Amazon.com has it! You can start the purchasing procedure by clicking right here! Be the first on your block to tell everyone how awesome this book Knuckle Sandwich is! Goes great with Kosher Dill Pickle Chips and a Grape Soda! If you like it, say something nice about it! If you don't, please keep it to yourself! I'll do better next time! I'm tired of exclamation marks so I'm going to end this post!

How I Made $150 At A Michael W. Smith Concert: A Tutorial.

Boy, the time slips away. If anyone read this, they would be clamoring--clamoring, I say!--for updates. But, as this blog is read, apparently, only by me, my agent, and that crazy cat over at Miscellaneous Creativity, the Clamor Klaxon has not sounded at Dregs HQ.

Nevertheless, I promised a story long ago, so a story I shall deliver!

So Michelle and I got free tickets to see one Mr. Michael W. Smith at a megachurch here in Tulsa, where I happen to lurk. He supposedly wanted to meet with some of the area worship leaders, a title which we can claim, for some purposes of his own design, and, since the tickets were free, we decided to take him up on it.

We did this for two reasons and two reasons only:
Reason #1: to say we met Michael W. Smith because, hey, we could.
Reason #2: to give him a copy of my book Knuckle Sandwich in the hopes that he would say something nice about it.

We did not do this in order to make $150. I cannot stress this enough.

Okay, so we get to the concert, and it turns out that the "Meet 'n' Greet," as they like to call it (yes, the concert organizers swallow the "and" so that it misses the "a" and "d" entirely, leaving only those apostrophes as residuals), is to take place a half-hour before the concert. Good thing we got there early. The whole procedure involves a pair of actual tickets and a pair of fibrous stickers that you attach to your person as proof that you belong backstage.

We slapped on the stickers and headed toward the unmarked door where we were to be ushered backstage along with other worship leaders from our area. When we got to the door, however, we were told the proceedings would be delayed fifteen minutes or so. Having no intention of attending the concert (we had, oddly enough, a worship meeting at church that night to attend), Michelle leaned over to me and said, "Bro, we gotta get rid of these tickets."

First things first: I had to autograph the book for Michael. I wrote: "Michael--Thanks for reading! And thanks for all you do. Love, [random circly thing I draw that indicates my signature]"

Then, it was off to the Will-Call window in the hopes of getting rid of our tickets. As we approached the line, we ran into a friend standing in it and had the following exchange:

Me: What are you doing here?
Friend: Hoping to go to the concert.
Me: You need tickets?
Friend: Yeah.
Me: How many?
Friend: Two.
Me: [Taking tickets out of my pocket] Here you go. We got these free 'cause we're supposedly VIPs and aren't going to use them. You can have them. They're probably good seats.
Friend: [Fishing money out of his wallet] Here. Let me pay you for them.
Me: [Looking at Michelle, wondering if we should take the money]: Nah.
Friend: [Forcing money into my hand]: I already budgeted. Here. Fifty dollars. They're twenty-five apiece.
Me: [Taking money awkwardly]: Okay. Thanks!
Friend: [Walking away happily]: Thank you!

So, that's 33.33% of our earnings for the night, boom, just like that.

As I pocket our fast cash, a dude with semi-slicked-back hair and one of those shiny shirts with a fiery design that people wear at the World Series of Poker walked up to us. He pointed at the fibrous sticker affixed to my chest.

Dude: You guys have those Meet 'n' Greet passes? (Yes, he swallowed the "and," too.)
Me: [Wondering what he's getting at] Yeah. (I turned it up at the very end to make it question-ish, but not enough to merit a complete question mark in print.)
Dude: You're gonna meet Michael?
Me: Yeah.
Dude: [Producing a manilla folder with writing on it and a small Sharpie marker attached to it with string] Would you mind getting something signed for me? I'll give you a hundred bucks.
Me: [Looking at Michelle and communicating wordlessly with her]. Sure thing.

So there you go. We took the guy's item (it was a photo of him and Michael W. Smith, blown up to 8x10 size) backstage, got Michael to sign it, and brought it back out to him for a pocket-sized portrait of Benjamin Franklin.

Not bad for a night's work, eh?

Oh, and we got to meet Michael W. Smith and get a copy of his new worship song on CD. He really would like for us to perform it at our church. No word yet on how much it's worth to him.