Daily View, 6/30

• The RCA is still going strong: a talk-to-yourself machine for agoraphobics


• Predictions for the urban world in 2050.


• This seems crazy to me. Poor Bruno!


• Maybe Bruno should've rounded up a pack of 14 friends and gone on a spree of kickass revenge like these lions...


• The Marcos Chin illustration in the background makes this even better: Express Train 6/28 (if you don't know Travis Ruse's photoblog, he takes amazing daily pix of people on the subways—check him out)


• Quikmaps is supposed to be a great new mapping tool, but I see myself doing some serious procrastinatory damage with this thing. I'm already the nerd who screenshots GoogleMaps and tailors the views to suit my traveling purposes—I even put them on my iPod. Now you give me the capability to scribble and pinpoint right on the interface??? It's no wonder I never leave the house...


• I just can't condone the Star Wars belt buckles. Is nerdneck a word? It is now.


• Um, speaking of nerds, this conversation is right up there in the ranks: "Superman's Kryptonian biological makeup is enhanced by Earth's yellow sun. If Lois gets a tan, the kid could kick right through her stomach. Only someone like Wonder Woman has a strong enough uterus to carry his kid. The only way he could bang regular chicks is with a kryptonite condom."


• I love that thirtysomethings are so crazy to meet people and blow off steam that they band together and play kickball.

Daily View, 6/29... again.

Shaddup...

• Nice idea, but does it work? Must test this capsule bag thing if I get a chance.


• This is my fave kind of illustration—I still have my Nursery Friends from France book with drawings done in a similar style. Screw the modern age.


• The global warming mug.


• Am so psyched for Krrish. Wish I lived in India just so I could see it. Hrithik Roshan rocks my little world... so... very... pretty (even though he does have two thumbs on his right hand. I know, eww!!). I've got a whole Bollywood post coming on, I think...


• Design Observer is really pissing me off lately with their elitism, but I still need to remember to check out this list of the 100 best music videos.


• Um, WHAT?? I am definitely a geek, despite never having bitten the head off a chicken.


• This old rant against low-riders made me laugh... then made me weep for the current state of journalism (Slate's redesign looks like shit, btw).


• That's a pretty cool fishbowl.


• I must defend sane cat owners everywhere (yes, we exist) and say that not all people with feline companions would dream of watching a cat reality show.


• Yeah, that is a nerdy shirt. But as someone who deals with broken links for a living, I have to admit it IS kinda funny...


• I have always loathed Captain Kirk. Later, I came to despise Matt Damon. How perfect that, via a Kirk-Damon union, I may have the opportunity to channel my hatred into one potent lash. Very convenient, Hollywood. Thanks.


• Hm. This actually kind of makes me want to go to Germany. Have never... EVER... felt that urge before, even though they do have lots of legos and that cool ass castle that sounds like the name of Neufchatel cheese. Which is more embarrassing to the German abroad, Hitler or Hasselhoff? Scoff if you may, but I'd be hard-pressed to choose. Sure, one man's crimes are larger than the others, but there is a case in both instances. Ok, I'll shut up.


• Yeah, we really are generally courteous, contrary to the stereotype.

Whew!!

Daily View, 6/29

(really 6/28, part deux, but who really cares)

• If you must wash dishes, why not wash them with this kickass skull sponge?


• Pirate packaging gives a whole new meaning to Good Night, and Good Luck.


• Totally want to live on a boat at some point. What movie did Carrie Fisher live on a boat?? It's driving me crazy. Was it... can it possibly be... yes, I believe it was Drop Dead Fred. Possibly the most obnoxious movie I have ever truly truly loved. Rik Mayall, where can you possibly be now? Oh. There you are.


• Gawker Media recently launched Gawker Clips. Because it's not bad enough that the internet has turned me into the gossip rag reading nightmares I always sneered at in the supermarket checkout line... now it's got to steer me towards daytime television and the like. Jaysus.


• Christ, the Coreys reunite. Surely this is a sign of the apocalypse.


• Is nothing sacred? Star Wars meets Monty Python with only lukewarm success.


• Those kids at the RCA sure know how to work a concept. However, as was clearly obvious to me when I visited the school in January, they very rarely bother to execute a finished product that works as nicely as the original idea. I want to see the Natural Deselection machine in action, damn it.


• This Mario Bedroom is much better than the black and white checkerboard I made my dad paint on my bedroom walls in junior high. Sigh.


• Wow. What the... But hey, it's true, the subway is filthy wrong and maybe a goldfish finger puppet would indeed manage to somehow improve the situation. ??


• I have to say, I dig this weird caravan birdhouse.


• Photoshopped Merit Badges. Great idea. Too bad *g and I already had a business plan for it. GRRR.


• Some surprising choices from directors listing the movie they've seen the most. Jake Kasdan, you're my new hero.


• Dude, this is so damn cool my head is spinning. How I would love to cruise with the sharks... in a shark of my own!


• And speaking of the murky deep, these knit nautoloids are too cute not to mention. Totally useless, but damn cute.

Believe it or not, to be continued... at some point...

Daily View, 6/28

I have so many links stored up to post that I'm going to have to break this up into installments... sigh.

• Peter Benchley died???


• "Dear diary, why do they always focus on my early work?" Um, because the early work was better (ahem, Blade Trinity??? WTF was she thinking? She's lucky her Party Girl star has remained untarnished, for chrissake). Poor Parker Posey.


• John Cusack is not 40. I refuse to accept it, regardless of documentation. Show me some ID, Lloyd. Sigh. (Actually, Lloyd is not my favorite Cusack character. I think I prefer Hoops—though, I admit, it's been a while since I've viewed the Hughes-era catalogue and have been in a position to properly choose).


• Transformers: The Movie is generating lots of hype and resurrected viewing opportunities. Personally, I loved Transformers, but not as much as I loved Voltron. Come on, trucks that turn into robots is not nearly as cool as multiple lions that turn into one giant robot with bishies AND a princess inside?? No contest.


• Glad the 80s are resurfacing in every way possible—even Tab is back in a new supercharged form. (Did I ever drink Tab? No. But did I imagine myself drinking Tab someday when I was grown up and sophisticated and out of my parents healthy hippie house in a world where soft drinks flowed freely? Absolutely.)


• A trail of rainbow fire, eh? Superman must've just flown over. Yeah, ok, that was catty and wrong, but c'mon, Superman is totally gay. That said, that's the coolest rainbow I've ever seen (and I am something of a connoisseur—on planes, especially. Is rainbowspotting a word that can be used in a straight context? Probably not, alas).


• Why Religion Must End. Oh, and I Believe In Science, in case you didn't already know.


• Goths, get thee to the Magic Kingdom...


• I just like the word zoomorphic. But the animals are pretty damn cool too...


• As a night owl, I dig this shirt. But not enough to shell out all internationally inflated cash for it. My trusty mug will have to do me.


• Hm. If I grilled (and I do not), this would be my grill of choice. Why? Because it's pretty. Fuck off.


• Now why couldn't they have bothered to invent the magic Ramen cap when I was in college and actually living on the stuff?


• I love that Christopher Walken can scare even children who had bit parts in Underworld:Evolution. He rocks my world, even if he does love Jesus.


• Damn it, Darwin's tortoise has died. Seriously, this is like the last living Confederate widow of the animal kingdom. I actually choked up when I read this the first time. Sigh.


• More spam poetry: Light me with your little candle,At the doorways of the West-Wind,Go to wait and watch beside it;V... And the best spam subject line I've ever received: 'Ay, after her!' cried the vulgar women below, carried suddenly into.


• Nice idea. Now give me a round trip shirt that doesn't involve Chicago, for chrissake. Nevermind, I'll just make my own on Spreadshirt. If I'm ever that motivated, which I probably won't be.


• Damn, so very, very true: "There is no movie more overrated in recent history than Napoleon Dynamite; it's to cinema what the Doors are to rock and roll, a thing blindly and inexplicably championed as if it were a religion above being blasphemed by nonbelievers." But poor Jack Black: ""he rivals Will Ferrell in his desire to use his man tits to elicit cheap titters." (Nacho Libre stank, btw). All from the Village Voice.


• If I used a doormat (and I do not), this would be my doormat of choice. Why? Because I like bunnies. Fuck off.


• This is wrong. Though in these days of Britney, maybe it's passable. Yuck, though.


• The Gilded Moose is rocking my world lately (maybe because they've finally toned down the perplexing Gyllenhaal worship): see here (it's true, the house was the best part of both What Lies Beneath AND Something's Gotta Give), here, here (Maybelline is always right on), here, here, here, here, and here.


• More on the new Ether thing...


• I swear I saw the words Billy Joel Shampoo.

To be continued...

Daily View, 6/15

Am exhausted. Have a mess o' links backlogged to post... arg, not enough hours in the day...

• Wired sex columnist Regina Lynn takes a frank look at Rogue's dilemma and recommends some ways the X-Men can broaden their sexual horizons. Actually, I don't think this is that off. I mean, come on, did Rogue reeeeeeally have to give up her powers but maybe not because hey, then there'd be no sequel (even though they said this was the last one) and Magneto maybe got some back in the end do what she did when all she and Bobby needed was a remote control? (Though, to be honest, the thought of Anna Paquin poorly acting her way through a sex scene makes me shudder—and not in the good way.)


• Backpack is finally getting a calendar!! Am pretty excited about this nerd development. Woo!


• I go through phases. Sometimes I think, "Hey, if you have to have a toaster, why not have a fun toaster..." And then sometimes the sight of stuff like this fills me with revulsion as I morph into an extreme minimalist. I guess I just need two houses: one bursting with color, the other stark and spare... maybe with a Scandinavian thrown in for fun.


• Again, I'm torn. Part of me thinks mathematically relevant wedding vows are completely awesome. Another part of me just vomited a little bit. Sigh.


• Ratatouille appears on the radar. This will mark the first official Disney-absorbed-Pixar venture, and, frankly, I'm a little worried (even if it is Brad Bird). I also find it mildly depressing that they have to explain how to pronounce the title, but then... we do live in a country where the average adult reads on a third grade level (yeah, you read that right). Third grade=age 8. Rat-a-too-ee. Sigh.


• WTF. Thank goodness I can hear the tone, otherwise I might be officially old: the mosquito cellphone ring (or teen repellant, which I actually think is kinda brilliant... so maybe I am a bit codgerly after all)


• Free stuff for the NYC summer. I mean well, and so post this so I can find it again... but secretly I doubt I'll make it to anything because I'm just a loser who likes to stay in and watch bad movies. Sigh.


• Gates is leaving MicroSoft... maybe MS will go out of business without him and Apple will finally rule the world.


• Hmm, I think I may just have to read this: Douglas Coupland's JPod


• This digital photo frame is a great idea... if you happen to have an old laptop lying around ready to be taken apart... ????


• Ether. Cool idea—I'll start charging my friends for advice. LOL.


• Ok, that reunion scene in LOTR is weird, I admit (I've always been creeped out by Elijah Wood in slow-motion, and when Merry and Pippin start flailing like dolphins on the bed I felt—and still feel—a twinge of embarrassment), but was the moaning voiceover treatment really necessary?


• The award for best award acceptance line ever goes to his purple fabulousness, Prince. I told a friend about this and his response was, "I didn't know you followed Prince." As one might follow cricket, perhaps? Or the stock market? I'd just like to say that I do not actively "follow" Prince, but I'm always happy to see him (though it was a little weird when he was smiling mysteriously from cover of the Vegetarian Times a few years ago.


• Sure, I'd kick Bush's head.


• Damn. Awesome. Nunchuck pillows. (And yes, I'm coming to terms with the fact that real grown-up men of the non-Chuck-Norris variety will probably never take me seriously. Blech.)


• Richard Griffiths has a Tony. Somehow, that makes the world a better place.


• Sigh, another explanation of pwnd for the grannies. Meanwhile, this copy editor says go ahead and kill the comma.


• This kind of hate crime bullshit is what happens in this current conservative climate.


• Yeah, yeah, yeah, World Cup. If you are like me and don't really give a flying football about this event, yet feel the need to be somewhat steeped in what seems to be general knowledge, trusty Wikipedia has a nice overview.


• Oh, come the fuck on, Japan...


• This cat rocks my world. If he's anything like my cat (and physically they do seem to be quite similar), he's got that bear in check via simple force of grouchiness.


• Cool. Creepy. Optical. The Spanish Castle.


• So right from an environmental standpoint. So wrong in every other way: the shower monitor


• I had a bad moment on the subway yesterday—Patagonia came up in discussion and I suddenly blanched, realizing that I wasn't 100% positive about whether or not Patagonia is a country, a region, or some sort of romanticized colonial fiction. As in, does it exist beyond overpriced clothing and the "he's now living like a king in Patagonia" line from the Princess Bride? Always preferring to get the facts straight (and a little paranoid about spouting off on the subway ever since I was heard wrongly swearing, somewhat emphatically and audibly, that Timbuktu is in the Himalayas), I'm now happy to report that Patagonia is the southern region of the South American continent and includes sections of Chile and Argentina. Whew.


• If you haven't accepted the fact that we could all be obliterated at any time by a meteor, this charming simulation might persuade you. Thankfully, no Affleck to be seen (and bonus—he'll be charred to bits like the rest of us).

Daily View, 6/8

• Cool turtles at BibliOdyssey.


• "We meet because of destiny. We also create false promises." LOL. Indian Beatles kick it in some strange old-school Bollywood way that is thankfully now only present in zombie movies.


• Gross. Flip-flops with built in bottle opener... I guess the average frat boy is too riddled with STDs to notice that he's also caught hepatitis, worms and various levels of bacterial infections. *shudder*


• Sadly, they could have interviewed me for this piece. Today all I ate was a couple bowls of cereal, some jello, and some bad Chinese. What New Yorkers really eat.


• Academic backlash: Shakespeare can't lay claim to all those aforementioned clichés.


• I agree with the kiddies. My iPod is much better than beer.

Daily View, 6/7

• Magnets in our fingers... sure.


• I love these old chem illustrations...


• Jew York. That's not right.


• WWII photos taken by soldiers.


• My neighborhood gang is/was called the Jheri Curls. I'm some how totally down with that, though the Jheri curl was the bane of my existence back in my schooldays (curl juice EVERYWHERE. That shit stains).


• Yoda backpack!! Sick and wrong, but hilarious.


• I would totally do this... well, maybe if they weren't monkey pellets. But I'm all for the dinner in pill form.


• What an ignorant flasher. I got flashed once. It was disturbing but made for a great story. I was working in a movie theatre box office at the time—guess the guy thought he was safe since there was a wall of glass between me and what was underneath his trenchcoat (nothing much). Maybe he was on a dare—he was way to0 stereotypical (trenchcoat, black socks) to have been a creatively independent flasher.


• An interview with Kevin Dresser, who runs the awesome Brooklyn Bunny site.


• Wooo! The Pee & Poo Shop is finally open for business!


• Fantastic!

Daily View, 666

• (666 themed link in honor of today's date: 6/6/06) Apparently the 666-6666 telephone number gets lots of calls from babies.


• Am totally looking forward to Idlewild. André 3000 rocks my world.


• I fucking hate Design Spotter's web masthead. That creepy possessed girl, the box that is too large and pushes all the content down below the window... sigh. But they showcase good stuff, and I love this radio.


• More creepy. DIY Mona Lisa (as in, with your own face... *shudder*)


• Woo, another 666 themed link! Tonight there is a big party in Hell.


• I fully support the bring-your-own-bag concept, and am appalled to learn that my canvas bags may not be legitimate. However, until they offer an alternative that is less hideous than this (I'm sorry, but I can't carry my groceries in the same fashion in which natural mamas sling around their babies), I'm at a loss. The original link about Posch from (arg) Design Spotter. Meanwhile, I think I've totally lost my mind because it occurred to me as I looked at that ass modeling the Porsch bag (appealing to the male audience??) and holding the watermelon that the photo had subtly racist undertones. Just call me Martin Lawrence in Boomerang.


• Shakespearean clichés


• What a dumbass. Lions acknowledge only their own divinity, dude.


• We live in a world where there are both phone thongs and lingerie mice... all I can say is a hearty WTF.


• LOL make ugly people become beautiful thanks to the wonders of Photoshop. Horrible, horrible...


• Um... is there really a market for heinous hairy hamster shoes???


• Ok, last one, I promise: Satan the Ninja

Daily Weirdness, 6/4

So I just got a phone call from an old retail job. Someone I'd never worked with (but who I know works there now—it wasn't totally illegitimate), asking me this one baffling question: "How do I turn on the cash register?" I told her, she thanked me, we hung up. I haven't worked there for nearly 4 years—glad to know my phone number is still on the wall someplace. LOL.

Daily View, 6/2

• I love the new Adidas Oki-Ni Wilhelm Bungert. Too bad it's leather and way 'spensive.


• Billy Connolly is in town. I hear his standup is fantastic, though I'm not really a fan of that sort of thing. He seems an all-around odd man... I'm sure seeing him live would be an experience (of some kind).


• Winona? Bane of my existence. Simon Baker? Dreamy. Alas, they are teaming up for the upcoming Sex & Death 101. On a much lesser level of collision, Julie Bowen (sweet, genuine) and Dash Mihok (beefy, forgettable, worst actor on Felicity, which says quite a bit) also star. Note to Winona: Just give up. You will never get it back.


• Come on, is Anthony Kiedis's voice really THAT bad?? Slate on the Chili Peppers. Love the phrase "titans of their instruments"...


• I am nothing but a sucker: the iPod/Nike thing.


• We are... dundunnaDA... Super-Organisms!!!


• Watching this kitten attack a laptop makes me exceedingly pleased that 1) I never knew my cat as anything but a grouchy adult, 2) he now outweighs my laptop by about 15 pounds and 3) is too fat and lazy to do anything but rest his sleeping head on its humming warmth.


• Again, I'm a sucker, but in an alternate universe I throw a helluva party and these would be cool (I'm thinking Legend of Zelda theme?): ice jewels


• While recently visiting friends in Boston, the alcohol quite got the better of me and I started babbling about the musical glory that is Abba singing Abba songs in Spanish. I know, I know, I cringe just reading that sentence. But it's true, and I'll even admit it sober: I LOVE ABBA SO FUCK YOU! (Inspiration for that Tourette's-style outburst can be found on Cinephilia—her post about Team Jolie made me laugh out loud this morning and I'm still basking in the afterglow). Anyway, in drunken confessional mode I told the assembled Bostonians the story of how I found Spanish Abba in the first place... and, much to my astonishment, the brief Amazon review that I wrote in 2001 (which somehow details it all) is still on the product page!!!! (scroll down)


• Let the musical horror continue: I have my 4000-song-strong iTunes library on random repeat, and Bootylicious by Destiny's Child just came blasting full force out of my speakers. Well do I recall the first time I heard this song—it was in a car, driving with a friend (who will remain unnamed) around deserted downtown St. Louis looking for the cook-your-own vegetarian buffet. This friend said, "Omg, have you heard this? This is over the line. They're talking about their jelly!" in prim, youthful tones that I'm sure she will refuse to acknowledge (you know who you are!). Of course, my eyes glazed over and I got distracted by my own adolescent booty trauma (little did she know). Growing up it was everywhere. I had none in a world full of burgeoning African-American beauties, and therefore developed an adolescent complex that is still with me on some level (the two biggest social lessons of my childhood: 1) white girls don't/can't/shouldn't dance and 2) white girls have no booty). My other booty memory: when I was a camp counselor in college, two of the girls in my cabin had gleefully discovered the Beastie Boys and ran around all summer exchanging this dialogue at the top of their lungs:
  
  Ann: "Hey Professor, what's another word for pirate treasure?"
  
  Jan: "Well I think it's booty (wick), booty (wickywickywick) booty—"
  
  Ann: "That's what it is."
  
  Those girls had promise, man. Too bad they eventually discovered weed. Meanwhile, the other gem quote from that song is "Don't touch me... 'cuz I'm electric... and if you touch me... you'll get SHOCKED." Ye-ah. At any rate, the point is that all this has made me realize that I don't hear the word booty quite as often as I used to, and I'm feeling a bit hopelessly vanilla right about now. Booty.


• Cool idea, stupid price tag, juvenile spelling instincts: the Scrabble key thing.


• Trebuchet!!


• This guy does some wicked things with his Moleskine (PK, I swear I'm not stalking you!).


• The New York of Tomorrow... crazy, though not quite Jetson enough for me yet.


• "Apple’s Great Glass Elevator As Buggy As Willy Wonka’s"


• Again, sucker: Specktone retro iPod speaker dock thing


• Check out the GAME section... and then just try to walk away: Flash Forward contest winners

Spam Poetry

I've started noticing the paragraphs of random keywords that are appearing in my spam... The average one says something about christian mortgages or penis enlargement and then launches into three stanzas of, for lack of a better term, spam poetry:

---

bathe hobo fief invertebrate asylum daphne congressmen respire travis cleat fantod shareown tempestuous cinder downstate psych reef whimsey notice sphinx blather gavin indemnify iranian biltmore intuitable vortices

bought breathtaking aforementioned vaughan tweed cbs courthouse midband s benign paintbrush brock permissible suffragette circumcision squatted competition eyebright bystander dolomitic variable masterful yeoman acute

inexhaustible bespoke cochran bridgeport mcgregor tektite tome courtroom agreed converge woven intake emperor seersucker focussed monotonous janeiro city creep apposition piazza mug transcendent cosh acreage bully donor supplementary maddox plug

---

predecessor tweeze apricot acronym cadmium protuberant deadhead kennel pouch purge aztecan moneywort navigate habitant influent ingratiate automatic burnout stomp bowen bantu corbett intestine yardage phosgene implementation ambulant

shipbuild draft michelangelo judith heady impeller incalculable dade oil benjamin runyon dolores billion garden navy mohammedan standish bronchial dialectic astarte leghorn tighten

hacksaw bilabial cosmos bullseye hydroxyl dowling tenant fmc eyed woodbury associate drudge latent derelict matsumoto asteria chief sorority hades assimilate ut cuddly forborne hew pal almond shaffer cantonese

---

tour clobber coxcomb io arctic dextrose crusade disputant purpose bench kleenex circumcircle gnaw mudguard koch aureomycin

alfred entrepreneurial civic iv overhang buckskin ratiocinate snowshoe crux cheek solemnity remembrance ban amity await incestuous foolhardy bolton churchwomen medford drapery strait stealthy absentia browbeaten consummate divisive ant diachronic waterproof

z curia mcgrath integrity monotreme kelp accentuate depository amity carolyn macromolecular dobbs hindu

---

and from one with the subject line "ambrosia machismo itself":
gagging extricable credent goldberg libya bridge cylindric attempt candle bathroom exception nymphomaniac stratton drake bunkmate amanita gm despotic place israeli pogo edible boatyard voluptuous shelve

elijah alliance bidden dusenberg episodic extort clannish bloodshot offstage dispensable astrophysical poultry chapter

lymphocyte dietary cotangent spurn debbie have ouagadougou inlay marjorie rudolf designate bed ascription embargo avail astronomer canis cupful hindsight

---

Of course, I am not the first to do this... not in the least. A new genre...