Day: December 19, 2003

Google Directory on Barbie-centric social activism- including the “reverse shoplifting” done by the BLO, the Barbie Liberation Organization.

They bought talking G I Joe and talking Barbie, then did “Surgery” on them and reversed the talking electronics. Then they replaced the dolls on the shelves for customers to buy…
Web link of note: Barbie Liberation
(At http://directory.google.com/Top/Society/Activism/Media/Culture_Jamming/%C2%AETMark/Barbie_Liberation_Organization/)

Free CD!

Complete with cover art, stickers, etc….

They have a unique approach to distributing their work- much like the Barbie Liberation Organization, they reverse-shoplift it (“droplift”) into mainstream record stores.
Web link of note: Droplift
(At http://www.droplift.org/)

A bit like “I don’t care about the air” – a guerilla activist thing where you put bumper stickers on SUVs to heighten awareness on how driving habits are literally making it impossible for people to breathe, and destroying our atmosphere.

“I’m changing the environment- ask me how!”
Web link of note: guerilla SUV stickers
(At http://www.changingtheclimate.com/)

“OOglies” (not a typo) are possibly the worst-executed toy ever. They came out about 2 years ago as an answer the the “Furby” toy.

A misguided friend who knew nothing about toys or gadgets gave me an OOglie for a holiday gift a few years ago. Super bad toy. I’m giving it to a toy drive.

• it makes giggling noises constantly
• it requires 3 AA and 3 AAA batteries
• you tap its head, and the LEDs that are its eyes spin around inside its head, mounted on motors
• supposedly it does tricks, like telling fortunes, but it’s so irritating I never got to that feature
• They all are made out of sculpted plastic, spray-painted different colors. For some reason I got the ugliest one (the OOgliest one?), which looks like a football. On purpose. It’s like the sports-themed one.
• Unlike the Furby, it does have any networking, or “learning” capabilities, nor any animation besides the eyes rotating

I hope the kid who gets this doesn’t hate it as much as I do.

• Adapting OOglies for disability switches
• The Furby Wannabes Page lists OOglies

• Hack Furby
• Furby Autopsy
• other Furby hacking pages
• Anti-Fuby pages