Richard Williams' "The Animator's Survival Kit"

I've been hanging around the 10 Second Club lately, and everyone has been recommending this book, The Animator's Survival Kit by Richard Williams. I already own Preston Blair's Cartoon Animation and Shamus Culhane's Animation From Script to Screen, and I've read numerous other books on animation that I recommend whenever anyone asks, but I had to see why this book comes recommended so highly, so I checked it out from the library.

It's a great book. I've learnt new things, and been reminded of things I'd forgotten. His writing is clear, instructive, and doesn't get muddled down too much in archaic or obsolete terminology or methods. An old-school animator who has a clear love for his animation mentors, masters of the art who are no longer living, Williams acknowledges and embraces the modern ways of doing things. And of course the principles and tips are universal to any animation medium, whether modern or old-fashioned.

There is a large and detailed section on how to animate a walk. Preston Blair showed many different walk and run cycles in his book, but Williams doesn't just show you how, he shows you why. This book has given me an understanding of walks that I didn't get from Preston Blair, or even from having animated many walks in my own experience!

Anyway, it looks very useful, and I think I need to get my own copy. I probably won't get rid of my Preston Blair book, but I don't think I'll have much occasion to refer to it anymore.

Wildly inconsistent Pepsi prices

A couple of days ago I was thirsty, so I went to the nearest convenience store with my X-treme Gulp 52-oz insulated beverage mug, and filled it with Pepsi for about 99¢. Personally, I was expecting to pay less for a refill, especially since 52 oz is around 1.5L, and a 2L bottle of Pepsi cost 89¢ at the store last time I was there. So today I went to the store, and found that 2L Pepsi was on sale for 78¢, so I bought 2 of them. At the register, I noticed in the little refrigerated section they had some 20-oz bottles of Pepsi. Now, I've long known that 1L bottles of soda generally are priced nonsensically higher than 2L bottles, but the 20-oz bottles are much smaller -- only 0.6L...and yet they were selling these 0.6L bottles of Pepsi for $1.80, in the same store where they were selling 2L bottles for 78¢. I got 4L of Pepsi for less than the cost of 0.6L.

It has to be the refrigeration. I never see 2L bottles in the refrigerated section. So the extra cost must be because it's cold. Of course, this doesn't explain how sometimes I see Dasani or Aqua Vita being sold for more than the same size of Pepsi or Coke. It's the same filtered water as they use in their sodas, just without the syrup and carbonation -- and they price it higher for this.