A 6.1 earthquake hit Southern Iceland today. We’ve talked with some of our friends and everyone seems to be fine. Since Iceland is a geologically unstable island, they tend to be more architecturally prepared than we do. Even so, all the residents in Hveragerdi¹ and Selfoss were told not to go back into their homes until authorities are sure that they are safe.

Our friend, Daddi, said that he was at the studio packing up for an expo here and that he and Hannis felt it, saw the lights shaking and headed outside. The quake lasted long enough that they got all the way outside before the tremors stopped. He also said that the weather is perfect today, so that most people are just pitching tents outside and planning on camping while things get sorted out. ²

If you click through you can watch footage of the quake from different parts of the country, including parliament. Does business stop? No. I love the Icelandic spirit.

And I’m so grateful that everyone is okay.

1. Hveragerdi has the hot river where we spent summer solstice. [↩]
2. Given where they live, they don’t have to worry about trees falling on them. [↩]

This is a viral ad. Why am I showing it to you? It uses Brains, one of the characters from the Thunderbirds, and combines puppetry, CGI and motion capture to good effect. What I love about it is that, though are a few things that a marionette can’t do, ¹ it doesn’t violate the rules badly and it takes advantage of the fact that it’s puppet by doing things that a person simply can’t.

But what’s even better is the behind the scenes footage. It showcases the work of Ronnie LeDrew (who did the giant marionette Levi’s ad) as the head puppeteer on this one.

Spotted at PuppetVision.

1. The very fast spins, in particular, but otherwise, most of it is possible [↩]