Car Tray Trick

After my friend Ultra got in a nasty car wreck that totaled his Gran Prix, he had this shitty Kia Rental. A friend of a friend told him that since the car has only front-wheel drive, he could slip restaurant trays (you know, for carrying your food) underneath the back tires. Then if he put on the parking brake and accelerated, the car would spin around like crazy.

So we did. It worked, to my surprise. We were screaming with excitement, much better than a roller coaster, because we coulda flipped over and died. Eventually, the trays melted and flew out, as seen in the video.

Not sure how illegal this is, but it sure wasn't good for the tires or brakes. It wasn't exactly safe, especially since I refused to wear my seatbelt. The trays were from a cheap Hispanic restaurant and were easy to obtain. Worth the effort, this was really fun.

Hope you learned something.
-M. Tekel

Schizophotography

I invented a new type of photography. Kinda. I'm not sure if this counts to you, or even to me. Not as an "invention". I coined the word at least.

I call it "SCHIZOPHOTOGRAPHY", which is:

"A portmanteau of schizophrenia and photography, schizophotography is deliberate disassociation with reality through photographic expression. Redefining "point and shoot", "snapshot". If the aim of photography is to remember then the aim of schizophotography is to remember what no one remembers. Mindless self-indulged photos. Beyond candid. Never posed, never using a tripod or straight angle. Forget focus, apertures, rule of thirds."

I wrote the entry on Urban Dictionary.com. Before that, I searched Google for many variations of the word, no results came up, period.

I don't know if you think this is original or crazy or stupid or not. But it's just something I've been working on in my spare time. It's better than nothing. I experimented when I was in Catalina Island and took 478 photos.
I will delete/hide the album soon. Then I will go through and actually edit the photos. This is mostly an experiment.
Some of the photos don't fit the definition. Oh well. I don't expect you to browse through them all. Or like most of them. Or understand why I did this. I'm not concerned.

I don't think schizophotography is original because many people take horrible photos of nothing (though not on purpose). I've been doing it all my life. I just coined the term, when I was going through old photos I've taken in my life and found some of my curtains. I have to admit, that picture said so much more about my childhood and personality at the age of eight than any stupid portraits I had or even most candids. I have an entire shoebox of similar pictures. Nothing and everything. And I treasure them.

I think that's the point. To explore my environment over myself.

---x

You can view my results here. Nothing is edited:


http://viewmorepics.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewPicture&friendID=24277312&albumId=1669556

Urban Dictionary entry:

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=schizophotography

Introduction

Hello, I'm Mene Tekel and welcome to Extra Extra Credit (or ExExCred).
This is a new blog, created by me and a couple friends, devoted to making your life more interesting, easy-going and meaningful. Some of the information provided here will be dangerous or illegal but it's all in good fun. That said, not all of this should be taken seriously, especially the illegal bits. This will never be a complete blog, because there is so much information available to make your life better. Therefore, I apologize in advance that we can not include every page of some self-improvement book or everything awesome you may already know.

Some of the material on this blog will also be art related, especially new and experimental art. Sometimes there are great ideas to make new forms of art that fail and some that succeed. ExExCred can be a place for progressive artists to collaborate ideas with one another and make new art more focused.

Feel free to submit your own ideas and work to us. In fact, we'd love it.

Some quick posting guidelines:
1. Do no submit anything directly violent. Manufacturing harmless explosives is one thing, manufacturing nitroglycerin is another.
2. Be patient for a response.
3. Be detailed in your description. Let us know if you've tried it and if it worked. If it didn't work, that's still OK! Just let us know what went wrong.
4. Nothing common knowledge.

Again, welcome to ExExCred.
Hope you learn something.

Love,
Mene Tekel