Science, Mad. And some movies.
I met this guy (Sanjay Patel) at APE and bought his book, “Little India.” It rules! You can see the illustrations on the web site.
Web link of note: Ghee Happy
(At http://gheehappy.com/)
We went out last night to celebrate my birthday again (on Tuesday we went to Chez Panisse), this time to a Japanese restaurant run by Chinese people- some of their sushi rolls were really out of control.
Everyone was incredibly stuffed, so we ambled over to Toys R Us, and saw The Boohbahs, which may be the worst thing in the universe. They are basically living plush pustules, larval forms of Teletubbies which look like a cross between a breast implant and a penis in freezing water.
They had the dancing ones there- we amused ourselves by activating lots of them at the same time. For the rest of the night someone would randomly make the “booh-bah” noise and then everyone else would hit them.
The Boohbahs, five magical atoms of power, light and fun travel in their Boohball around the world, from child to child. Fifteen countries are visited throughout the changing title sequence.
A comic book title put put by Dark Horse Comics
Web link of note: The Goon
(At http://www.thegoon.com/)
Extremely bizarre approach to SUV safety. Here’s a question for you- if they are so unsafe, why is it legal to drive them on the freeway? Shouldn’t there be a special license you have to get, like a commercial driver?
Web link of note: Esuvee
(At http://esuvee.com/)
Do you ever wonder where that paper money in your pocket has been, or where it will go next? This is the place to find out.
All you need to do is enter the denomination, series, and serial number of any US dollar bill, and your current USA ZIP or Canadian Post Code in the box below.
Web link of note: Where’s George
(At http://www.wheresgeorge.com/)
Greg Brown is a Palo Alto-based artist who specializes in whimsical murals- I had grown up seeing his work downtown without putting together that there was a reason these aliens and burglars seemed sort of similar.
Brown specializes in a technique called trompe l’oeil (“fool the eye”) which basically equals super-realistic shading and detail- murals so realistic that according to legend someone called the police department on the burglars Brown painted above a University Avenue storefront.A few years ago I saw a exhibit he did called “Unlikely saints,” in which he painted some everyday characters as Orthodox saints, complete with gold leaf background halos- a barista, a landscaper. It was pretty cool.
You corporate whore!
Web link of note: The Logo Game
(At http://logogame.com/)
I’ve only seen like three of these broadcast- my favorites are Cleaner Girl and the one where the girl ignores her friend drowning…
But what happened to “I learned it from watching you!!” or “No one says I want to be a drug addict when I grow up.” ? What happened to “You’re a smart kid Timmy.” ? These are the classics, man. Anti-drug commercials from the late 1980s.
Ah well. Maybe they were part of another campaign and therefore not archived? Maybe I need to start my own archive.
Meth. oooh meth!
Web link of note: Anti-Drug Commercials
(At http://www.mediacampaign.org/mg/television_archives.html)
Time for a quick history fix! I’ll be reading this at lunch for the next couple of weeks…
Web link of note: History House
(At http://www.historyhouse.com/)
I was surfing randomly while watching The Jayne Mansfield Story– which I hadn’t realized had Loni Anderson and The Governator in it. Bizarre.
At any rate, I saw this toy I used to have, “Mr Machine,” made by Ideal. It was a wind-up plastic clockwork man. You could wind him up, and he’d whistle and wheel around. When I owned Mr Machine, I used to wonder how he worked… you could see his gears inside.
But today I found out just now that he was the lamer, “safer” version of a even cooler version of Mr Machine- the earlier version you could take apart! He came with directions and was over 160 pieces.
I am so jealous. Some of these memories online are pretty funny though- recollections of taking him apart and not being able to put him back together again. I don’t think that would have been me- I had almost every “Zoid” ever made up through the early 1990s, and we kept them in pieces in a giant bin, ready to be reassembled.
Oh crap, looks like once again, I can buy things to overcompensate, this time a reproduction from Robot Island. A mere $89. Yikes. Also, here’s the commercial!
Someday we will figure out how to efficiently generate energy from plastic. And then people who live on landfills will be RICH!