I’ll admit it: Since I was a kid, I loved watching Japanese taiko drumming. The beat. The movement. The booms.

You name it. It has everything a person would want out of a musical art.

So when I heard that The School of TAIKO would perform on Friday at Uwajimaya in Seattle, well, I made sure that my family and I were there.

They were performing as part of the market’s Japanese outdoor summer festival – and there’s another performance scheduled for 3 p.m. on Saturday, Aug. 28.

Drop by if you’re in the neighborhood. Or just have a look at these video clips.

I had never heard of this particular group before. But one glance at the musicians showed that they’re a sharp, precise group.

The school is lead by Ringtaro Tateishi, who apparently has performed throughout the world including at Walt Disney World for seven years.

I’m just glad that my family and I had an opportunity to be in the audience.

Even now, as an adult, I could watch these clips over and over.

By the way, if you want to see more videos of The School of TAIKO, the group has its own YouTube channel.

There are drumming videos posted, as well as a few of Japan playing in the World Cup.

Over on Vimeo, Les Fitzpatrick has posted some great clips of another Seattle taiko group – Seattle Kokon Taiko.

I’ve been busy with a few odds and ends recently. But certainly, a flying car – in 2010 – will catch my attention.

The people at Terrafugia are the brains behind this flying vehicle, the Transition, which has received much online and television attention.

I should note that while it captures human attention, there was another flying car from Moulton B. Taylor of Longview, Wash. It was called the Aerocar – and yes, newsreel cameras captured it flying in the 1950s.

The Aerocar is on display at The Museum of Flight in Seattle. And I will say this about the Terrafugia Transition – it is inspiring.

Oh, yes. You also can own a flying hovercraft, if you like.

I’ll get to more blog entries as soon as I can. I know there’s much to talk about these days.

The June weather in Washington state – and specifically, the Seattle area – has been sufficiently cloudy enough that I thought I’d post a stop-motion experiment I conducted during my vacation.

What you see above in the stop-motion series is a bevy of gray clouds floating across the Pacific Ocean and the Kalaloch area of Olympic National Park.

The question is, though, are clouds compelling enough to stop and watch for an extended period of time?

I’d argue that yes, when they’re floating in like slow steamships in the evening. I was in the area on a short vacation with my family and parents.

In fact, the people you see in the bottom part of the photographs are my mom, wife and son. They’re having a blast, building a castle – out of sand.

All of this reminds me – and I’m speculating a bit – is that when you see a weather pattern on a radar, it might look like a large white swoosh over land or water.

But when you sit beneath the clouds, especially at the Pacific Ocean and when they’re rolling inland, you’re so close that, well, you stop and notice.

At least I did.

If I saw this sight on a daily basis, I could care less.

I like looking at my experiment – and I hope you do, too. But if you want a video showing moving clouds that is sharper, have a look at Ben Wiggins’ work - good stuff.

It looks like he used a tripod and a higher-quality camera, which he let roll for long periods of time. I used my entry-level digital camera and kept taking pictures.

My knees served as my tripod, which explains why there was the movement in the photographs toward the end. Basically, my knees moved.

But you know, as long as I can remember, I’ve always enjoyed being out in the field.

Yes, during our trip, the weather cleared up for a sunny day. We pursued more beachcombing.

I’ve only seen a handful of waterfalls in Washington state. But Sol Duc Falls in the Olympic National Park has to be one of the most impressive I’ve witnessed.

I’ve posted three video clips – the other two are after the jump – which total more than three minutes. Really, I could watch this waterfall for more than three hours.

We humans are a pretty brilliant bunch of people (in most cases). If you didn’t see, but IBM has created a supercomputer, Watson, which will compete against humans on Jeopardy!

But I doubt we’d ever have the wherewithal to duplicate the beauty, freshness and clarity that Mother Nature has created in this valley of the Olympic National Park.

If I had this much rushing water at my house, I’d be in panic mode. But in the outdoors, standing under soaring trees, the context of the fast-moving water which hit rocks was just right.

My family and I visited the area last week. Relaxing hot springs – part of the Sol Duc Hot Springs Resort – with three pools of warm water are nearby. We stayed in the cabins for a night.

But on the morning of our departure, my dad and I decided to drive to the trailhead and walk to the falls. I’m glad we did. It was only the second time I’ve seen Sol Duc Falls.

My memory of the roaring sound and gushing water from my first trip pulled us back for this visit.

I think my dad really enjoyed it. He and I used our entry-level but reliable digital cameras to capture the moment. There was enough mist and rain to make my camera – including the inside screen – wet.

My dad borrowed my baseball cap to keep his head as dry as possible. He said that as his hair gets thinner he can feel water on his head much easier. That’s a pretty logical thought – and an honest one.

But I’m glad the video option worked and I was able to leave with three clips of the roaring water. I’ve posted a stop-motion clip of Snoqualmie Falls, which is east of Seattle. For the Sol Duc Falls, I thought I’d go with pure video and include sound.

The interesting thing that I noticed is that the sound of the gushing water is different depending on where you’re standing. That might have occurred to you – but it struck me as noteworthy.

The clip below is what people typically see and shoot of the falls.

There are only so many viewing areas of the falls – but I tried different angles since I knew I wouldn’t have time to return in the near future.

Now that I think about it, I wonder what type of video or still footage a robotic aircraft with a digital camera (an image is in the middle part of this post) could capture.

Here are three images that my dad and I saw on our walk to and from the falls. It’s an entry-level walk – about less than one mile each way, as I recall.

One fact that I’m proud to say about Sol Duc Falls and my former employer, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, is that one of the top three links on Google about this beautiful spot on the globe is a 2001 article from the newspaper.

Writer Karen Sykes gives all the details and history about the falls, if you’d like to visit.

Back in 2001, paper was a bit more of the king in the media landscape. As you see, only one photograph of Sol Duc Falls was included with the online text.

Certainly, the times have changed.

I do like looking at older photographs, though, to see how one place has changed or stayed the same.

And waterfalls remain a popular destination for hikers in the Pacific Northwest. I need to take my family to see more of them.

If you haven’t visited and plan to go, please have a great time.

If you live on the West Coast or just can’t make the fourth annual NYC Food Film Festival, have a look at this enticing video reviewing last year’s gastronomical extravaganza.

It’s great, especially with last year’s tagline, “Watch What You Eat.” 

You’ll get the idea of what you’ll experience should you attend the festival, which runs from June 23 to 27. If you do go, you can study your favorite food being made and eat samples of it, too! Yes! At the same time!

So what type of food shows up at the film festival? Well, last year, there was buttermilk, including this comment maker Earl Cruze:

You know, I don’t know anything that I can do better for the human race, you know, than to make buttermilk.

The Cruze Farm Girl blog is certainly worth a few minutes of your online time – you would have never thought (or at least I would have never thought) that buttermilk could be such a great blog vehicle.

During last year’s festival, people applauded when buttermilk ice cream showed up.

Also making a cameo in this video clip (drum roll, please) from 2009 - shiitake ice cream.

If you’re seeking a selection of digital photographs of the food, fun and people from last year’s event, organizers have posted them on flickr.

Yes, I should thank documentary filmmaker George Motz for organizing the festival and posting the great videos that you see in this entry.

Motz likes hamburgers. He also has taught a class about hamburgers at New York University.

If you like Brooklyn-style pizza – or rather, watching it being made – have a look at the video below.

The topic of food reminds me: In Anhui province in China, there is the annual bean curd festival, which is held each September.

If you’re interested how I came across this festival and all these great food videos, I spotted a link on Huffington Post about food films.

By the way, I’ve always thought that “Eat Drink Man Woman” was a stellar food film.

Yes, after seeing the clip above, the only thing I’m waiting for is an actual online video game in which a person can go to Google maps (or some version of them), pick out a car and drive it (virtually) in a city just like this great video from Honest Directors.

Such a video game might actually exist. But you know, I’m a bit old school. I might be out of the loop.

Ah, yes: Google maps. You can do much with them these days. I actually still have paper maps of China, if you can believe that.

In fact, the whole online world has created a cavalcade (if you will) of online information that can inundate and wash over someone or something rather quickly.

A minor point: TechCrunch is certainly a leader in online news and blogging, especially with that AT&T news. But, um, the image used with this post is somewhat dated. I like the idea and understand it. I also like the old no matter what form it takes.

But the uniforms and equipment are much more modern. There’s also a huge push for more modern buildings – in some areas and in some cases, that has created, well, some discussions.

You know: Out with the old. In with the new. Or something like that.

I gotta run. And if I could merge reality with the imagined – or the layers and ideas between those two realms – I’d do so in a car which zooms down the street on Google maps.

Since I don’t get back to China as often as I’d like, I plan to watch construction, as projects develop, with the help of, yes, Google maps.

As a side note, I like color, too, especially the lucky color of red. And fun is good, as are serious topics.

I stumbled upon this interview of Chris Anderson of Wired talking about the economics of Free – which is the title of his book – and I thought: I think I’ll pay attention.

We’re all actors in one way or another in the free market. Mainstream journalists, in recent years, have been grappling with the idea of free in the context of money in a full-on way - since, well, economists talk about covering costs and earning profits for business survival.

As we know, low advertising dollars have created a churn in which thousands of people have left the industry. Mind you, this is in the context of people growing more and more used to – and in some way, expecting – free online content.

So, how do you pull in enough money to avoid a free market failure in the context of an increasingly online world when people know they have an option to not hand over greenbacks?

Well, the legendary Anderson offers up some ideas in this interview from Geek Entertainment TV (which has a video about the Pez Museum). By the way, since I posted the interview and, um, didn’t pay anything for it, I’d like to say thank you very much for posting this at YouTube and for letting others embed it.

Anderson, who helped propel the idea of The Long Tail into the online consciousness, talks about giving some of your product for free and asking people to pay money for other portions of what you’ve created or have.

That makes sense, though in this interview with WNYC, he discusses how some talented bloggers are not paid but have their work posted on commercial outlets. The benefit for them, he says and as I understood it, is that others will recognize their work.

The only catch that I see is that if you’re a doctor and run a great blog on a commercial site, then you have one economic sector (medicine) subsidizing another (online news, information and content).

I came across the interview you see above after I glanced at an interview with Apple co-founder Steve Jobs on The Wrap and realized that its founder, Sharon Waxman, had talked with Anderson. That led to the YouTube page which had other Anderson interviews, including the one with Geek Entertainment TV.

The idea of something for free has long been fascinating, I think, for all of us.

Free ice cream cone? Free car wash? Free cup of coffee?

We’re there, we’re there, we’re there.

Free round-trip airplane ticket to Paris?

Our response: How many can we get?

I’d like to bring my brother-in-law’s parents and their brothers and sisters. 

Months ago, I talked about how the idea of free would work very well – and across the board – in an autonomous commune. In fact, one study revealed that billions of people want free online content.

But in a free market in which there are financial costs, well, that might have some obstacles.

You could keep your costs low. But that would mean trimming much, including what you own and labor and expertise that you might have as an employer.

I noted the idea of lower costs when I talked about a new “American price” – meaning anything considerably lower than what you’re used to paying.

Disruptors to traditional media have a point that prices might be too high for items in the free market. But dropping that price to zero will only work if grocery stores, gas stations, hospitals, car dealers and banks also embrace giving what they have away for free, too.

So, for traditional media, the idea of the paywall has been bouncing around for months.

The New York Observor recently quoted David Remnick of The New Yorker as backing a pay model to cover the journalism and writing that the magazine publishes in print and online.

Here are two quotes from the Observor article.

First:

I was going to be damned if I was going to train 18-year-olds, 20-year-olds, 25-year-olds, that this is like water that comes out of the sink.

Second:

Remember the days of information wants to be free? …So therefore the only thing that anyone with any brains could do with a magazine like The New Yorker is to put the whole thing online and give it away. Give it away! And if you were against that in some way or you said, ‘Wait a minute,’ you were–wait for it–clueless….I opted for clueless.

The other issue is that the model of free online content might actually drive more people to search out words, music, audio interviews and videos that have no cost.

That was one premise put forward by author Bill Wasik in an interview with comedian Mo Rocca on CBS News.

Yes, as you’ve seen, I’ve run this blog at no financial cost to visitors since last year.

So, how can I talk about the importance of covering costs while I’m giving information and analysis away for free?

Well, I also pursue freelance writing. This is one way that I’m letting people know of that service.

It is similar to Anderson’s strategy of giving some of your product or services away at no cost and charging for a more specialized, custom-oriented project.

This blog enables me to stay connected with current events, interesting topics, history and the beauty of experimentation.

I mean, you have seen my stop-motion clips, haven’t you?

And staying connected with the world also lets me post a video clip about an author and editor talk about this whole idea of a free ride.

It is tempting to post a consecutive string of stop-motion clips of various sights because, well, they’re so fun to make.

I was ready to move on to other types of postings since I made stop-motion clips of a larger-than-normal chess match and Snoqualmie Falls in the past few days.

But then, I spotted a pretty big jar of kimchi at a local Korean grocery store. We’ve bought seaweed salad, seasoned squid and kimchi there before. My wife suggested that I buy more kimchi. This $10 jar seemed to fit our needs. We didn’t have any and it was an easy move to replenish our supply.

I know there are some seriously rocky sectors remaining in the U.S. economy. Of course, I hope the country’s economic picture picks up. At the store, I looked at the jar kimchi and thought: Yes, a $10 jar of spicy, garlicky Korean-style cabbage really is a solid investment – at least for us.

I did say that my wife is fighting a cold. Right?

I’ve written about kimchi in the past – including a woman in South Korea who has invented an odorless version and a delicious tuna, tofu and kimchi dish. I first ate that kimchi dish back in 1998.

So, kimchi in and of itself is not new at TofuWatch.

But combining it with stop-motion photography, I thought, might be something different.

I mean, in a strange way, I thought a spinning, moving jar of kimchi would be compelling.

Then again, I like food – especially from Asia.

I know my parents and older sister (and yes, my wife, too) might think that I somehow have too much time such that I can make a stop-motion clip using a big jar of kimchi.

Well, my answer to that would be this: If life lacks fun, humor, memories and meaning, well, then it’s just a series of connected events that unfolds before you.

Life is kind of leading you.

You take each step. You go through the motions of eating and living but if you can’t appreciate it or smile, then, well, you’re kind of missing out on the good stuff of life.

My other answer to having too much time would be this: Yes, I do find time to post blog items. But these days, I also have access to more technology.

Plus: In life, nothing can be something.

And don’t the stop-motion images of the jar of kimchi remind you of a robot? Or is it just me?

I’ll post more serious topics soon.

I hope everyone is enjoying Memorial Day.

As I type this, the sun is appearing over the Seattle area – or at least that I can see. It is a sight to be welcomed, especially since this is late May 2010.

But it rained Saturday. So, my family and I looked for one of the best places to visit when water drops to the ground – Snoqualmie Falls, which is about a 20-minute drive east of Seattle.

The water drops about 270 feet.

If I could only manage to have the mist from Snoqualmie Falls emerge from your computer screen, that would be truly spectacular.

As I watched water this water flow drop and turn into cascades and mist and fill the air with the sound of a steady, pleasing crash, I thought I’d try another stop-motion experiment.

When it rains, I thought, seek a waterfall. Just as I said months ago: When you’re hungry, seek mapo tofu.

Tourists and Seattle-area residents also flocked to Snoqualmie Falls. That was understandable.

The site is home to apparently the world’s first underground hydropower plant. This hour-long documentary from the utility, Puget Sound Energy, gives you more background.

This place of cascading water also is a sacred site for the Snoqualmie Indian Tribe – which members consider to be the tribe’s birthplace.

In 2003, I attended one of the tribe’s ceremonies, talked with members and learned something new.

One tribe member told me that the mist are kisses from their ancestors.

Oh, yes, as someone states in that documentary, this is falling water. There is another location that incorporates the concept.

And falling water, I thought, would be a good balance to water that shoots into the sky – something I saw earlier this month in Seattle.

It might be easy to criticize many U.S. suburbs for lacking a central public square – where you can sit, people watch and enjoy the type of civic life that other cities offer.

But in the Seattle suburb of Bellevue, there is one place that’s worth visiting – Crossroads Bellevue, a mall that offers a large, boisterous food court with plenty of offerings, a stage with live music and a great larger-than-normal chess board.

Yes, it is not a grand square that many European cities have and it’s not a central place such as Tiananmen Square in Beijing.

The mall is close to Microsoft’s headquarters. So, since Microsoft has been able to attract top talent from around the world, you’ll see the same type of representation in the people who play chess and gather for meals.

But it is a place that has a vibrant pace to it – and that’s what suburbs, as well as big cities, need.

It’s safe to say that on any day, you probably have people from Europe and Asia (both east and south), as well as long-time Seattle area residents and others from different parts of the globe who gather at the mall.

The larger-than-normal chess board has always attracted me since I’ve lived in the Seattle area.

When I saw these two men playing, I decided to mix their contemplated moves with stop motion.

What struck me, as I looked at the stop motion series of images, is that it looks like one player seems to be shuffling, as in dancing (though he really isn’t).

What the faster speed doesn’t allow you to see though is the contemplative pauses that each player took before making a move. There could be a few minutes of people just sitting and watching.

Then, one player would move and sometimes take another player’s chess piece. Almost instantly, the other player would return the favor.

Strange as it may seem to say this but it is good to see people using their brains and just hanging out over an old-fashioned game on a Saturday evening.

For years, there has always been that emphasis on going out to bars and trendy restaurants to enjoy the nightlife. That’s great if you like that.

But there are people who enjoy doing other things.

When I lived in Berkeley, Calif. for a summer, I would visit all the great bookstores – sometimes three to four on a weekend evening – and just sit and read what was there. Then, I’d leave.

Of course, I often would head to Blondie’s Pizza for an inexpensive slice of cheese pizza.

What the camera didn’t catch at Crossroads were tables of other people playing chess (on much smaller boards) or cards.

We showed up at Crossroads because we were heading home and needed to grab some dinner.

As I saw the two chess players, as well as all the people who were watching, I thought: Yes, watch chess – in addition to tofu.

In a way, the Saturday evening chess match also made me happy in a way – that people were pursuing a game that requires some thought and on a weekend night.

Years ago, when I was in graduate school, I always wondered if my study group and I were out of the ordinary when we were spending our Friday and Saturday evenings to finish our problem sets.

There were some Friday and Saturday evenings in which we couldn’t find seats in the libraries – yes, plural – to study.

As I took the photographs of this chess match, a boy stood next to his dad. The two analyzed each player’s move. Wow, I thought, people really do like this game.

When I later showed my son and wife, they liked the match, too.

UPDATE: Speaking of chess, if you didn’t see this third-grade student from Seattle play against 16 of his classmates, have a look at this video from The Seattle Times. By the way, he won all the matches. I’m impressed.