Wednesday, November 28, 2007

ADVENTURES IN THE DESIGN WORLD™: R2-D2 "Soy Source" Bottle vs. Sherwin Williams "Cover The Earth"

So I had a moment of weakness (or was it sheer, soul-crushing boredom?) and I decided to visit TheForce.Net for the first time since Darth Vader let loose with his barbaric yawp. And what do I find? Something actually honest-to-gawrsh entertaining: an R2-D2 soy sauce bottle being sold in Japan, whose marketing collateral's english text declares it a "Soy Source Bottle." Priceless. I particularly like how in the above image, the soy sauce is almost (but not quite) lined up with the hurricane on the planet below, so it almost-sort-of looks like the soy sauce is being poured directly onto the planet and making ripples in the clouds. It reminds me of Sherwin-Williams' "Cover The Earth" -- one of my all-time favorite disturbing logo designs:

Surely nothing strikes eco-terror into the heart of Al Gore like the sight of Mama Earth being coated in blood-red gelatinous house paint. You can just hear the screams of the world's multitudes as their bodies are frozen into Pompeii-like statues of bonded resin and pigment. A timeless classic!

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HASSELHOFF HOTNEWS™: Back Where He Belongs


• Hasselhoff and Russo on board new "Rider" [Yahoo News]

How fitting that this story should come as a tip from none other than our own Michael Knight?

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Tuesday, November 27, 2007

FOUND OBJECT SHOWCASE™


"Gingeriffic" featuring Rachael Ray
Photographed outside a Dunkin Donuts in the Chicago Loop

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Monday, November 26, 2007

FOUND OBJECT SHOWCASE™


When God Closes a Door, He Opens a Window.

Photographed on Highway 281 near Grand Island, Nebraska, November 2007

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Saturday, November 24, 2007

JERRY TAFT, WEATHERMAN VS. CRAZY GUY WITH A LENS: A PHOTO ESSAY

It's a brisk night outside Chicago's ABC7 public newsroom studio. Weatherman Jerry Taft is preparing his forecast, unaware that somewhere outside, in the dark, a madman awaits.


Jerry is engrossed in low pressure systems and tries to avoid eye contact with the crowd outside his window. He wonders why he spent all that money on meteorology school just so he could end up working in a cage.


Crazy Guy With A Lens approaches his prey stealthily, positioning himself behind a flatscreen monitor so he as the observer himself is never observed.


But the nefarious ploy proves unsuccessful. Suddenly, Jerry spots Crazy Guy With A Lens and begins his frustrated attempts to entice Crazy Guy With A Lens to leave.


After muttering a few things to himself, Crazy Guy With A Lens gets down to some serious weatherman watching.


Concerned that Crazy Guy With A Lens has gotten all up in his grill, Jerry uses his hand to openly mock the size of Crazy Guy With A Lens's lens.


Inspired by all the extra attention he's getting, Crazy Guy With A Lens begins observing Jerry even more vigorously than before.


Jerry flashes the universal gesture for "I feel as if I am a victim of my own celebrity."


Thinking quickly, Jerry returns to work.

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PICTURES OF PEOPLE TAKING PICTURES™







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Monday, November 19, 2007

FOUND OBJECT SHOWCASE™


NeckPro®
found on The Internet by Dartanjal

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ENTERTAINMENT DROPPINGS: QUEEN GUITARIST NOW OFFICIALLY CHANCELLOR OF WE WILL ROCK U.


Queen Guitarist May Named University Chancellor [Yahoo News]

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Wednesday, November 14, 2007

ENTERTAINMENT DROPPINGS: British Cat Mystery Deepens

Lukewarm on the heels of this previous British cat story comes the story of Sgt Podge, with a headline that makes me wonder if this particular piece of feline reportage is meant to be a distillation of the experience of every cat owner throughout history...

Cat's Daily Routine Baffles Owner [BBC News]


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Friday, November 09, 2007

THE TOP 75 CELEBRITIES WHOSE EXISTENCE SO OFFENDS ME THAT JUST LOOKING AT A PICTURE OF THEM MAKES ME WANT TO COMMIT RANDOM ACTS OF VIOLENCE™

#45: Dane Cook

Maybe I'll get complaints that this guy isn't higher up on the list...I know there has been some controversy over my ranking sometimes. Because I know for sure that there are many others out there who, like me, feel like playing frisbee golf inside a china shop when they so much as look at a picture of Dane Cook. I don't give a damn how many MySpace friends he has, it's still a known fact that his existence is an abomination to the entertainment industry. I mean, not even putting Jessica Alba in Two Buck Chuck or whatever the hell it was called made it any more enjoyable for the American viewing public.

And if I ever were to see him make his annoying little hand gesture in person, I swear to god I'd find the nearest mail box, bust it open with a crowbar, and systematically tear every single envelope inside of it in half!!

Holla.

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Thursday, November 08, 2007

"CHICAGO TREASURE" JIM BELUSHI REVEALS INNER DOUCHEBAG TO ADORING HOMETOWN AUDIENCE


It's not just every day you get to see a bona fide legend in the flesh.

So it was pretty much just every day last night when Psychictoad and I attended the "Chicago Treasures" on-stage interview with "popular actor" (as it said on the evening's program) Jim Belushi.

Much to our shock and awe, not only were there more than fifteen people in attendance, but the decent-sized theater inside the Chicago History Museum was very nearly full! Who knew just how many fans of The Belush walk among us? Psychictoad immediately began making demographic notes, guestimating less than 40% of the crowd were holding GEDs. I, on the other hand, decided to focus on the superficial Body/Mass Index, and determined that it was quite possible The Belush was a role model to everyone from the mildly chubby to the morbidly obese.

When Dean Richards, local media reporter for WGN, came onstage and spouted an Inside The Actor's Studio joke, we thought we might be in for something other than mindless ego-stroking of a D-list celebrity. However, this was not to be the case. Richards repeatedly described The Belush as a Chicago Treasure, fawned as he repeatedly made reference to his "breakout" role in About Last Night, and even feigned admiration as Jimmy described his ill-advised courting by Dan Ackroyd to join him as a replacement for his dead brother on the Blues Brothers church festival tour circuit.

And oh did the spectre of The Belushi With The Talent weigh heavily on the evening. Jimmy's repeated mantra that "John was the family hero, so I had no choice but to be the family anti-hero" almost made him sound like he knew what he was talking about; that was, however, until about three quarters of the way through the evening, when suddenly the topic turned to the relatively unknown third Belushi brother. If John was the family hero and Jim was the anti-hero, he declared, what family role was left for the third brother to play? "Well, he could do the gay thing," he said, to riotous homophobic laughter. Yes, the gay-bashing was fast and furious throughout the night, from disparaging talk of his gay brother to the revelation that he feared his wife holding his four and a half year old son for too long would turn him into a "sissy," to his declaration that we always have to follow "our women" as they will lead you to the place in life you need to be, to his vehement protests that the character Andy on According To Jim is NOT gay even tho the writers have written him that way and he was gonna go back and tell them that people in the audience in Chicago think he's supposed to be gay so hopefully they'll stop putting that shit in his show. It was entertaining watching Dean Richards (well-known local supporter of the LGBT community and tireless HIV activist) pretend that he wasn't offended by the turds falling from The Belush's mouth.


However, the most interesting topic of the evening turned out to be the brand-spanking new writer's strike in Hollywood. Jimmy revealed that According To Jim is sitting on five unshot scripts ("more than anybody else in town because our writers are so good") which they're planning on filming during the strike. They can legally shoot them, he said, they just can't revise them at all, and usually by the end of the shooting week he claimed the script changes about 30%. So to solve this creative conundrum, The Belush revealed that he has resigned from the Writer's Guild (a membership he's held for over twenty years) so that he can "use his improv skills" to improve the five unshot episodes.

It's not writing, he claims, it's just "tweaking." So he's not being a "scab," he's just being a "dick."

And when asked for his opinion of the strike, Jimmyboy chose to contextualize it only in terms of the success of the writers on his show, all of whom make enough money to have bought a house, have a kid, maybe have another one on the way, you know, they're doing pretty good already, but they want more. He also described the producers' side of the argument as similar to when people buy a home: you pay other people to build it, and when it's finished you own it, and you don't have to re-pay the people who built it for you if you sell it. Which sounds rational enough, but when you realize that joke writing is hardly as lucrative (or secure) as construction work, it kinda doesn't ring so true, and unless you've paid contractors to build you a gut rehab in a ghetto that suddenly has a rapid turnaround in property value, you're not really selling your house at a massive profit -- you're lucky to get what you paid for with a modest increase for inflation. Whereas Hollywood producers who stick writers' work on DVDs and the internet are reaping schmillions from advertising revenue and giving nothing back to the writers who "built their houses." It's like if you pay a contractor to build you a house, then you wave a magic wand and turn that one house into like a million houses and make a profit on every one of them. Seems fair to me.

The best moment of the evening, however, had to be about ten minutes in, when The Belush busted somebody in the front row for videotaping him. "Is that a video camera? Are you recording this? No no no no no, you can't do that in here. Turn it off. No, turn it off. You can't do that." I really, really hope they don't edit that out of the recording NPR made of the evening.

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Wednesday, November 07, 2007

AT LAST, THE WAIT IS OVER. THE NIGHT OF THE BELUSH IS NIGH!

What could be more exciting than the above-embedded clip from Jim "James" Belushi's 1987 hit retread of the "teacher with his own problems brought in to the toughest school in town to turn it and himself around" genre The Principal? Well, if you're me and Psychictoad, it would be the chance to actually meet The Belush in person tonight! It's no small wonder I had a special bout of insomnia last night...whose heart wouldn't be racing at the thought of spending an hour and a half of face time with the man himself? I just hope I can stay awake tonight long enough to get a picture with him.

Maybe I'll bring along a DVD of Animal House for him to autograph, too!

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Tuesday, November 06, 2007

TWO DAYS TO BELUSHI!


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Monday, November 05, 2007

THE BELUSHI COUNTDOWN BEGINS NOW!


Three days and counting...

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THE TOP 75 CELEBRITIES WHOSE EXISTENCE SO OFFENDS ME THAT JUST LOOKING AT A PICTURE OF THEM MAKES ME WANT TO COMMIT RANDOM ACTS OF VIOLENCE™

#46: Jay Leno

This is particularly painful for me. I mean, back in the day, I used to think Jay Leno was actually funny. But ever since old people have been saying things to me like "Did you hear what that Jay Leno said about Monica Lewinsky last night?" I've wanted to walk into a natural history museum with a baseball bat and see how many dioramas I can ruin before security wrestles me to the ground.

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Sunday, November 04, 2007

ENTERTAINMENT DROPPINGS: Unfortunate Headline Editing


"Blanchett and Aguilera Pregnant" [BBC News]

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Thursday, November 01, 2007

NATIONAL NOVEL WRITING MONTH - excerpt 1

NOTE: So November is National Novel Writing Month, which is something I've thought about doing for awhile now. And I was bored last night so I signed up. I probably won't even come close to finishing what I'm writing but I figured I'd post an occasional out-of-context excerpt here and there to try to embarrass myself even more than I normally do. Of course, because I only think of myself, it's going to be more than semi-autobiographical. This first scene isn't the scene that happened to me that gave me the idea to write something, but it's something that really happened back in Milwaukee. I hope you enjoy all the swear words. They really help up the word count. I'm up to 1,397 so far and it's only 5:30am!

PS. - The whole "Jesus H. Christ" thing is totally made up, btw. Not only do I frequently say Jesus H. Christ, but my dad never said "hand me the fucking wrench." He has much better parenting skills than that. Remember, this is still FICTION, folks.


Chapter 1

It was really fucking windy out. One of those winds where your eyes tear up right away and can’t even fucking breathe and when you walk it feels like you’re not going anywhere because the fucking wind is pushing you back and you feel like you’re in one of those bad dreams where you’re running a marathon and your legs stop working just when you finally get in sight of the finish line.

Jesus Christ, he thought. Jesus F. Christ.

He hated the whole “Jesus H. Christ” thing and refused to say it because he didn’t understand what it meant. He remembered asking his dad what it meant once.

“Shit, I don’t know,” his dad said back to him. “Probably means ‘hell’ or some shit. Hand me that fucking wrench. Oh, sorry, I’m not supposed to swear in front of the kids. Could you hand me that goddamned wrench, kid? Thanks.”

The wind was blowing leaves and dust and twigs and Subway sandwich wrapper bags and all kinds of other shit around the street. He’d just left his apartment and was trying to decide if he should drive or take the train. He walked up to his car, got out the keys. There was a fresh-looking cigarette butt on the ground next to the driver door. Who the fuck stands in the street and smokes? he thought. Oh wait, they probably threw it out their car window. Still. Kinda weird.

He just about had the key in the door when he noticed the piece of paper stuck under the windshield wiper. At first he thought it was another one of those goddamn pizza places who’d sent out some kid to leaflet all the cars in the neighborhood advertising their great fucking pizza, so much better than every other fucking pizza place in the goddamn world until you actually order the fucking thing and it takes forever and a goddamn day to show up (especially if you actually have guests over and they’re hungry and you all want your pizza like RIGHT NOW and it shows up like two hours late) and then it tastes like fucking cardboard when it finally fucking gets there. Except this wasn’t yellow paper like those pizza things usually are -- yellow, the universal color of asshole businesses who stick shit on your car and make you think you’ve got a fucking parking ticket until you open it up and realize it’s just a fucking pizza place’s fucking ad -- or even plain white paper like they are sometimes. No, this was a piece of loose-leaf. Fucking loose-leaf paper. Like we’re back in the fucking third grade or some shit, he thought.

He reached over his car’s broken sideview mirror, kind of awkwardly so his butt was sticking out and for a brief moment he worried that some asshole was gonna drive by and ram into his ass with their fucking SUV. Don't laugh, it actually happened to a friend of mine, except it was a bus not an SUV and it was her car door and not her ass. But still. It could happen.

He grabbed the folded over piece of loose-leaf. It flapped all around in the wind like some weird origami swan in a nightmare. He unfolded the thing and finally spread it out on the top of the car so he could read the fucker:

NEXT TIME WHY DONT YOU PULL YOUR CAR 
FURTHER UP SO THERES MORE CARS FIT HERE

YOU KNOW, TWO CARS


What the fuck, he thought. Who actually writes a note like that? I park in the same goddamned spot every fucking day and no one has ever fucking complained before. Okay, yeah, I could’ve maybe pulled up another foot and a half or so but so what. Jesus Christ, it’s the end of the fucking world to some people.

Well, that settles that, he thought. I’m taking the fucking train.

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