The best of September 2008, according to the Back of the Cereal Box:
Okay, so it was a slow month.
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Twenty-Two Was Twelve
More links of interest. Click and enjoy.
As always, you can see my Google Shared clips or even subscribe to the feed if you so desire.
- The Thsrs, the program that gives you shorter synonyms (Ironic Sans)
- Nineteenth-century ghost scrolls. Amazing. (Pink Tentacle, via Bri)
- Theory: Ice cream is an igneous rock (Boing Boing)
- Why it's remarkable that Maureen McCormick protested Ben Stiller (Culture Kills... Wait, I Mean Cutlery)
- Best of grotesques and gargoyles (deputydog)
- Lightning in slow motion (Quiddity)
- All about ligatures and their role in type (P22)
- Captain Rainbow investigates Birdo's gender issues. (Nintendo Wii Fanboy)
- Sabrina the Teenage Witch apparently takes a crash diet. (Easy Fiend)
- A theory about why HAL sings "Daisy" in 2001. (Fanboy, via Neatorama)
Monday, September 29, 2008
Levitate Me
A note to readers: Yes, the country is in a sad state now. I’m expecting the government to tell me any moment now that money doesn’t exist anymore and there’s a terrifying chance that the logical choice to be the next American president won’t get elected and in his place will be a very old man who doesn’t know how to use the internet and whose his second-in-command would lead the country like a babysitter would a daycare full of five-year-olds. (“Because I said so” as presidential policy. Expect it.) Sometimes, I wonder if people who read this blog note that I don’t really talk about anything of consequence, unless it’s something-of-consequence couched in terms of something-not-of-consequence. (Comparing Sarah Palin to a robot mermaid would be a good example of this, I suppose.) But please understand: My job, generally, forces me to care about serious things. Some of them I’d care about on my own, some of them I only care about after I force myself to learn about them. I read news, frequently and often, and, when I decide to take time to write here, I’m more inclined to unload my mind and enjoy the verbal equivalent of a milkshake instead of a wheatgrass shot. I am worried about the United States and my place in it. But I’ll in general be expressing that emotion elsewhere. I care, but I also intend to keep this the type of sugary and frothy that I need from time to time.
Go Soak Your Head City
What’s bad: Trader Joe’s makes a moisturizer called A Midsummer Night’s Cream.
excuse the almost illegible cell phone photography,
performed in the dry-handed birthday girl’s dimly lit bathroom
What’s worse: Trying to Google said product will only result on pulling up the porno of the same name. The tagline? “What (horny) fools these mortals be!”
excuse the almost illegible cell phone photography,performed in the dry-handed birthday girl’s dimly lit bathroom
What’s worse: Trying to Google said product will only result on pulling up the porno of the same name. The tagline? “What (horny) fools these mortals be!”
Sunday, September 28, 2008
Isn't It Gorgonic?
You doesn’t have to try too hard to prove that what early video games put in their instruction manuals didn’t always match up to what appeared on screen. Nonetheless, I was surprised at how very off-model Nintendo’s take on Medusa was when her appearance in Kid Icarus’s instruction manual is compared against what she looked like in the game.
As the concept art puts it:
And her two in-game sprites, neither of them approximate what the instruction manual promised:
The glaring, wall-sized face of death is how she first meeting the player. The swooning, toga-clad woman appears when Missus Big Face crumbles away. Maybe the instruction manual blended the two into one? Wall face or not, this two- or three- or ugly-faced woman is the first-ever female big bad in a Nintendo game, unless I’m mistaken.
There’s no big conclusion here — just a little thought that I had the time to post.
As the concept art puts it:
And her two in-game sprites, neither of them approximate what the instruction manual promised:
The glaring, wall-sized face of death is how she first meeting the player. The swooning, toga-clad woman appears when Missus Big Face crumbles away. Maybe the instruction manual blended the two into one? Wall face or not, this two- or three- or ugly-faced woman is the first-ever female big bad in a Nintendo game, unless I’m mistaken.
There’s no big conclusion here — just a little thought that I had the time to post.
Friday, September 26, 2008
The Princess Screams
Below is a reproduction of an actual interaction that occurred on the comment boards of my newspaper’s website. Not only does it epitomize the level of discourse that our paper’s readers engage in, it also occurred beneath an article that Roommate Aly wrote. It was for last week’s issue, which focused on the Santa Barbara music scene. That makes it even better.
Every time I think about this, I start laughing. That’s probably because I read the bottom comment — the “stinky Binky” one — in a quiet, high-pitched simpleton voice.
The weird thing is that I think they both have a point.
Every time I think about this, I start laughing. That’s probably because I read the bottom comment — the “stinky Binky” one — in a quiet, high-pitched simpleton voice.
The weird thing is that I think they both have a point.
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Massive Luxury Overdose
I don’t watch America’s Next Top Model, but I do read the blog fourfour, which recaps episodes of the show in a way that makes me happy. Blogger Rich also makes some kickass animated GIFs from the show. The most recent post had the best of them so far: Tyra Banks, wearing a princess crown and dribbling apple bits out of her little model mouth.
Just keep watching it. Let the dribble bits draw you into Tyra’s world.
Assorted other pop culture minutiae:
Just keep watching it. Let the dribble bits draw you into Tyra’s world.
Assorted other pop culture minutiae:
Link Submits
Years of following video game blogs have have taught me that some people perceive Link, the protagonist of the Legend of Zelda series as gay, not so much as a result of his pretty boy elfin appearance as for his apparent disregard of the vast harem of viable female characters who seem to be in love with him. (Foremost among them, Princess Zelda, followed my Midna, Malon, Marin, Saria, Ruto, Medli, and quite a few others lady characters with names that sound like nice cities to live in, not to mention that obvious tranny Impa.) Idly browsing about online and stumbling upon a scan of the instruction manual for the Nintendo Entertainment System title Zelda II: The Adventure of Link, I saw the below piece of official Nintendo concept art, which illustrates Link’s fate after having succumbed to too many attacks by the bad guys.
Not to be crass or anything, but it at least seems that Nintendo is directing the viewer’s attention to a specific area. Good advice, really, in the text above: “We know how you feel. You want to go quickly to your goals, the palaces, and the lands you haven’t been before, but hold back. Take it in stride!” Indeed.
Counterpoint: He does not look all that happy about it.
Legend of Zelda, previously, here:
Not to be crass or anything, but it at least seems that Nintendo is directing the viewer’s attention to a specific area. Good advice, really, in the text above: “We know how you feel. You want to go quickly to your goals, the palaces, and the lands you haven’t been before, but hold back. Take it in stride!” Indeed.
Counterpoint: He does not look all that happy about it.
Legend of Zelda, previously, here:
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Marine Video Game Controller
Pictured below is a combed jellyfish that is among the treasure trove of previously unknown marine species that scientists researching Australian coral reefs reported as having observed last week. I am fascinated.
New York Daily News has a cool, if not wholly comprehensive, photo gallery.
New York Daily News has a cool, if not wholly comprehensive, photo gallery.
Ruth the Robot (a.k.a. Sexy O'Sullivan)
Search results that have resulted in disappointment (for them), amusement (for me), and unexpected visitors (for Back of the Cereal Box).
- how to panic gracefully
- fossilized ejaculate 1
- shrimpy nit
- birdo and yoshi are gay (literally)
- Godspeed, Centipede lyrics
- Supercuts application ever been convicted
- dina ruiz eastwood pervert 2
- "the man who fell asleep" fanfiction
- milton moorehead in the movie
- amateur facials mindy full name 3
- giraffe with a crooked weird true & freaky 4
- coney island disco palace
- kero kero fighting korea
- thinks too much, and is therefore unfeminine
- can you legally have a pet anteater? 5
- rambo kiwi
- humoresque of a little dog slow
- what does ebo gogo mean? 6
- sesame street monster that imitate clock sounds and the phone sound 7
- judy tenuta sarah palin
- scary hallway games
- unmoving black cereal bugs
- goleta satanist
- sebastian new york jacket coat
- mae west's children 8
- Lalavava
- Princess Poo poo li's Papaya
- Number one hit!
- Number one hit!
- I heard it's actually "Melinda."
- ... and dead.
- Two better questions: Why should you not you have a pet anteater? And when am I getting mine?
- I no longer know, but I'm certain it's not the same as "Yebo gogo."
- Those would be the Yip-Yips.
- Were sibling-cousins, tragically.
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
Fond Aunt
Included on California School Nutrition Associations list of foods of minimal nutritional value (or “FMNVs,” as they like to call them) is fondant. Not knowing what fondant was, I looked it up. Turns out its sugar cooked into a creamy state. It’s also the filling inside Cadbury’s Creme Eggs. Therefore, its inclusion on the list is a bit of a “duh,” especially alongside marshmallows and spun candies.
So remember, during next Easter or your next trip to England, when you bite into that Creme Egg, you’re not eating amniotic marshmallows. You’re eating fondant.
So remember, during next Easter or your next trip to England, when you bite into that Creme Egg, you’re not eating amniotic marshmallows. You’re eating fondant.
Eleven Was a Racehorse
Notables and worth-your-times from my Google Reader shared clips.
As always, you can see my Google Shared clips or even subscribe to the feed if you so desire.
- The long-lost teaser for Buffy: The Animated Series. (Animation Magazine, via Topless Robot)
- Americans people and British people call vegetables different things, and I am fascinated. (Separated by a Common Language)
- Irrigation porn (deputydog)
- A look at IMDb's two great Dark Knight debates: Is the Joker Sexy? and Is Maggie Gyllenhaal ugly? (The Onion A.V. Club)
- Amazing, functional Donkey Kong Lego set. (Infendo)
- Where the pinkie finger got its name (The Oxford University Press blog)
- How recently were Great Whites near your nearest ocean? Cool tracking site. (Tagging of Pacific Predators)
- Japanese beaches invaded by tetrapods (Pink Tentacle)
- Complete sets of Clue suspect cards over the years and in different countries (The Art of Murder)
- Towson: The Haunted College (Photoshop Disasters)
As always, you can see my Google Shared clips or even subscribe to the feed if you so desire.
Monday, September 22, 2008
Religious Wrong
Sam Harris’s Newsweek essay on Sarah Palin is perhaps the most insightful — and most terrifying — one I’ve read so far.
Fluttering Fleas, But Not Flabby Flannel
I’ve learned something new: There’s a name for something I have wondered about for a long time. Simply put, there’s a tendency for certain letter groups to appear in words that have similar meanings regardless of whether those words have a shared etymology.
The term is phonestheme.
The example first given in the Wikipedia page on the subject is the gl- phonestheme, which occurs in many English words referring to light and vision. (Glitter, glisten, glow, gleam, glare, etc.) An important aspect of these words is that neither the gl nor the letters that follow mean anything on their own. (No such word as itter or isten, for example.) They also don’t necessarily need to appear at the beginning of words. As Wikipedia puts it:
For example, I have the letters ack in my last name, but no one would lump that in with the -ack group. Is it because my ack occurs in the middle of the my last name? And what to make of back and rack and Zack? Why wouldn’t they fit the pattern?
As I said before, I had some idea that phonesthemes existed before I learned what to call them. A while back, the very cool and always informative word blog Bradshaw of the Future put up a post on the etymologies of various words that begin with the letters cl and that also refer to noise. Clack, clip, clap, cluck, and several others. I have always wondered about the fl words, which so often refer to various either quick motion or motion in the air, and I said so in a comment on the cl post.
Some other phonesthemes for your face:
Are English phonesthemes shared by other languages?
If not, why shouldn’t they, if we’re apparently so hardwired to make these associations?
What is it about English, then, that prompts us to make such connections?
Could it be that people recognize the pattern on a few related words and then subconsciously only accept into their language new words that fit that pattern?
Do people even process language in this manner?
What would the advantage be of doing so?
I’m clearly full of questions, but that’s probably because this is the most interesting thing I’ve learned in a long time. I’m not clear on the linguistic definition of icon, which the Wikipedia page on phonesthemes uses in a section under the subject line “Important considerations.”
The term is phonestheme.
The example first given in the Wikipedia page on the subject is the gl- phonestheme, which occurs in many English words referring to light and vision. (Glitter, glisten, glow, gleam, glare, etc.) An important aspect of these words is that neither the gl nor the letters that follow mean anything on their own. (No such word as itter or isten, for example.) They also don’t necessarily need to appear at the beginning of words. As Wikipedia puts it:
While phonesthemes have mostly been identified in the onsets of words and syllables, they can have other forms. There has been some argument that endings like -ash and -ack in English also serve as phonesthemes, due to their patterning in words that denote forceful, destructive contact (smash, crash, bash, etc.) and abrupt contact (smack, whack, crack, etc.), respectively.Interesting, no? There’s a few aspects of this I haven’t wrapped my head around yet, so I feel like I should read more on the subject. (If anyone of you can point be toward good resources on the subject, I’d appreciate it.) For example, I don’t understand why this happens. I would also like to know what linguists make of outliers.
For example, I have the letters ack in my last name, but no one would lump that in with the -ack group. Is it because my ack occurs in the middle of the my last name? And what to make of back and rack and Zack? Why wouldn’t they fit the pattern?
As I said before, I had some idea that phonesthemes existed before I learned what to call them. A while back, the very cool and always informative word blog Bradshaw of the Future put up a post on the etymologies of various words that begin with the letters cl and that also refer to noise. Clack, clip, clap, cluck, and several others. I have always wondered about the fl words, which so often refer to various either quick motion or motion in the air, and I said so in a comment on the cl post.
I've always wondered but have never looked into the English words beginning with fl, which often describe some sort of quick movement, often through the air. Flick, float, flutter, flight, flap, fleet, flee, flit, flash, flea, fling, fly, flip, flurry, flag, flail, flare, flake, flay... There are even more than this. Not all share the association, of course. Flan, flabby, flannel, etc. All generally fun words to say, I've found. Have you any idea what the deal with these is?Goofy, the Bradshaw blogger, responded last week with a post just on fl words, noting their various etymologies. Very helpful, particularly because it provided my first encounter with phonesthemes. Now I’m firing in a hundred different directions.
Some other phonesthemes for your face:
- sn-, referring to mouth and nose goings-on: snarl, snout, snicker, snack, etc.
- sl-, referring to frictionless movement: slide, sled, slick, etc.
- -tter, referring to rapid, uneven motion: mutter, stutter, flutter, patter, titter, glitter, jitter, chatter, twitter
- squ-, referring to eruptive sounds: squeal, squeak, squash, squirt, squawk, squabble, squall
Are English phonesthemes shared by other languages?
If not, why shouldn’t they, if we’re apparently so hardwired to make these associations?
What is it about English, then, that prompts us to make such connections?
Could it be that people recognize the pattern on a few related words and then subconsciously only accept into their language new words that fit that pattern?
Do people even process language in this manner?
What would the advantage be of doing so?
I’m clearly full of questions, but that’s probably because this is the most interesting thing I’ve learned in a long time. I’m not clear on the linguistic definition of icon, which the Wikipedia page on phonesthemes uses in a section under the subject line “Important considerations.”
- If the words aggregated in these groups… were nothing more than arbitrary symbols, rather than being icons, their totally arbitrary nature would preclude any such systematic connections with meaning.
- Although groups of phonesthemes can be identified, this type of iconic sign, in any language, is rather rare.
- Despite [the above rule], there may well be far many more iconic words in, say, the English language, than we are aware of.
- It is also important that not each identified phoneme operates as a phonestheme every time it is used. (e.g., words square and squadron have no connection with discordant eruptive sounds common to the -squ group of squeal, squeak… squall).
- Despite [the above rule], it is very clear that, in many cases, some level of iconic communication certainly does take place in a number of words within any language.
- Although people do seem to spend inordinate amounts of time creating a new word (such as deciding upon a “good name” for a new business), no one has ever been able to produce any evidence that speakers are consciously aware of such (iconic) signaling processes when they create new words.
Sunday, September 21, 2008
Kick Up a Thunderstorm
It’s not easy explaining why I enjoy “Ex-Guru” by The Fiery Furnaces, but this standout track by the brother-sister duo of Matthew and Eleanor Friedberger has nonetheless become my favorite of their work so far. It appears on the band’s sixth album, Widow City, and it appears today as my song of the week.
Don’t expect its mysteries to be solved by reading the lyrics. Typical for a Furnaces song, the words make vague references to unusual topics that probably wouldn’t make much more sense if referenced directly. Overall, it’s an eclectic mix. (Perhaps just referencing Zues and the DoubleTree in the same song won me over from the get-go. And I have no idea what painting platforms puce has to do with anything.) On paper, the three-line verses seem like they try to cram in way too may syllables, but somehow being sung by Eleanor makes them sound okay.
The interlude — a brief few seconds of cacophony that perhaps get more to the character of the ex-guru herself than any of the words in the song get — presumably represents the ex-guru’s anger and she kicks up that aforementioned thunderstorm. It adds another element to a song that already has a lot going on. When I hear it, I can almost picture the title character raging and fuming on the mesa she apparently owns. (Gurus own mesas?) And this mental image is remarkable, I think, because I otherwise know little about the woman this song is about, save for that she has blonde hair. Notably, David Byrne’s cover of the song adds a few more lyrics in before the trashy part, which itself is shorter and quieter. The end result: not as great of a payoff as in the original.
As for the catchiness of the chorus, I could see some Furnaces diehards arguing that it makes the song sound too poppy and therefore out-of-character for the band. This is true, I guess. The chorus is pretty damn poppy, but I feel like this quality is tempered by the verses’ unusual length and bizarre content enough that “Ex-Guru” never had a chance of becoming a radio hit.
The video for “Ex-Guru” disappointed me, but it’s the simplest way to let you all hear the song, so here we go.
Appropriately strange, I’ll admit, but not in the way I was expecting. And the montage of tree faces during the trashy part disturb me in ways that will likely prevent me from walking through the park all next week.
If any of this all sounds even remotely appealing, then you can buy your own version of “Ex-Guru” — sans horrifying tree faces — at Amazon.com or iTunes.
Previous songs of the week:
Don’t expect its mysteries to be solved by reading the lyrics. Typical for a Furnaces song, the words make vague references to unusual topics that probably wouldn’t make much more sense if referenced directly. Overall, it’s an eclectic mix. (Perhaps just referencing Zues and the DoubleTree in the same song won me over from the get-go. And I have no idea what painting platforms puce has to do with anything.) On paper, the three-line verses seem like they try to cram in way too may syllables, but somehow being sung by Eleanor makes them sound okay.
One of those blonde ladies had a certain hold on meThe lyrics alone can’t give much indication of the song’s goodness, which for me stems in large part from the trashy musical interlude after the third verse and the catchiness of the chorus.
I went to all her seminars by the airport and the DoubleTree
I even let her use my nephew’s seaplane in the Bahamas for free
But she means nothing to me now
I tell myself that everyday
She means nothing to me now
I tell myself every single day
I’m quite convinced I escaped her sway
I burned all my clothes with eucalyptus juice
Ripped out the floors and painted all the platforms puce
And I went so far as to sacrifice a second snake to Zeus
So she means nothing to me now
I tell myself that everyday
She means nothing to me now
I tell myself every single day
I’m still convinced I escaped her sway
But when she mopes in the moonlight on her mesa in March
Does she kick up a thunderstorm
When she thinks of my betrayal?
She means nothing to me now
I tell myself that everyday
She means nothing to me now
I tell myself every single day
I’m still convinced I escaped her sway
The interlude — a brief few seconds of cacophony that perhaps get more to the character of the ex-guru herself than any of the words in the song get — presumably represents the ex-guru’s anger and she kicks up that aforementioned thunderstorm. It adds another element to a song that already has a lot going on. When I hear it, I can almost picture the title character raging and fuming on the mesa she apparently owns. (Gurus own mesas?) And this mental image is remarkable, I think, because I otherwise know little about the woman this song is about, save for that she has blonde hair. Notably, David Byrne’s cover of the song adds a few more lyrics in before the trashy part, which itself is shorter and quieter. The end result: not as great of a payoff as in the original.
As for the catchiness of the chorus, I could see some Furnaces diehards arguing that it makes the song sound too poppy and therefore out-of-character for the band. This is true, I guess. The chorus is pretty damn poppy, but I feel like this quality is tempered by the verses’ unusual length and bizarre content enough that “Ex-Guru” never had a chance of becoming a radio hit.
The video for “Ex-Guru” disappointed me, but it’s the simplest way to let you all hear the song, so here we go.
Appropriately strange, I’ll admit, but not in the way I was expecting. And the montage of tree faces during the trashy part disturb me in ways that will likely prevent me from walking through the park all next week.
If any of this all sounds even remotely appealing, then you can buy your own version of “Ex-Guru” — sans horrifying tree faces — at Amazon.com or iTunes.
Previous songs of the week:
Speaking of Lotuses
Guess what Google suggests you might have meant if you search for the terms “are lotuses narcotic?” It makes the Isle of the Lotus-Eaters seem downright staid.
Saturday, September 20, 2008
A Really Big Sandbox
A few shots from the mostly disappointing set I took at Lotus Land today.
Giant clamshell fountains.
Remains of lotus flowers that, while not wholly unappealing, were sadly the closet thing to intact lotus flowers I saw in the whole of Lotus Land.
A duck.
A pickle patch of cactus that would have been made even more entertaining with the addition of several hundred googly eyes.
A crazy freaky building-height euphorbias that either looked Escherian or Seussian. I’m not yet sure.
Italian-style garden, Moorish-style fountain, random bird caught mid-flight.
Topiary lion with as realistic a mane as any topiary lion could hope to have.
Yes, mermaids as well. By which I mean mermen. By which I mean male baubo sirens. I swear, they’re following me, which is remarkable for a species that lacks feet.
And, finally, an immensely amusing tile.
However, all the strange and exotic plants I saw cannot compete with what I learned from a simple visit to the Wikipedia profile of Lotus Land founder Ganna Walska: Far from the accomplished opera diva that some remember her as, she is believed by many to have been an influence for Citizen Kane, in which the title character’s second wife is a terrible singer.
Giant clamshell fountains.
Remains of lotus flowers that, while not wholly unappealing, were sadly the closet thing to intact lotus flowers I saw in the whole of Lotus Land.
A duck.
A pickle patch of cactus that would have been made even more entertaining with the addition of several hundred googly eyes.
A crazy freaky building-height euphorbias that either looked Escherian or Seussian. I’m not yet sure.
Italian-style garden, Moorish-style fountain, random bird caught mid-flight.
Topiary lion with as realistic a mane as any topiary lion could hope to have.
Yes, mermaids as well. By which I mean mermen. By which I mean male baubo sirens. I swear, they’re following me, which is remarkable for a species that lacks feet.
And, finally, an immensely amusing tile.
However, all the strange and exotic plants I saw cannot compete with what I learned from a simple visit to the Wikipedia profile of Lotus Land founder Ganna Walska: Far from the accomplished opera diva that some remember her as, she is believed by many to have been an influence for Citizen Kane, in which the title character’s second wife is a terrible singer.
A Synonym for “Ladybug,” Then?
Saturday is word-of-the-week day. While previous words of the week have been obscure insults — kakopygian and pismire, for example — or words that express something more often associated with more common terms — grandgore and tiffin, this week’s actually beats out qualtagh for sheer uselessness.
Similar to a previous word of the week, jehu, this one traces its roots all the way back to a very old and very dead man who may never have actually existed. According to classical texts, Ucalegon was a Trojan elder and one of Priam’s friends, who sad, fiery end is mention in the Aeneid. Why he got his name associated with “neighbor whose house is on fire” over the rest of the population of Troy is beyond me, but it exists nonetheless. (This site suggests he was Aeneas’s neighbor, so perhaps that’s why.) Also, some icing for your neighbor’s burning cake: Translated from the Greek, Ucalegon’s name means “doesn’t worry.
Like everyone else you spoke two words or picked up an urn or took off a toga in classical literature, Ucalegon got a celestial body named after him, 55701 Ukalegon. And I found the below illustration of the term on this site, where the artist has drawn up ABCs based on words from Depraved and Insulting English. So there’s that.
Despite references to the sack of Troy, I have the odd compulsion to associate this word of the week with that nursery rhyme about the ladybug whose house burns down. Which, if you think about it, is a damn strange nursery rhyme.
Previous words of the week:
ucalegon (yoo-KAL-e-gahn) — noun: a neighbor whose house is on fire.Great, huh? But also totally useless because having to explain to someone that he or she had become a ucalegon would only result in further burning of personal effects and loss of life. Though I keep misreading it as UCLAegon, I liked this word enough that it actually beat out the amazing pair of uxoravalent and uxorovalent, which, respectively, mean “able to have sex with one’s wife only” and “able to have sex with only people who are not one’s wife.” (“What a different a letter makes,” Depraved and Insulting English notes.)
Similar to a previous word of the week, jehu, this one traces its roots all the way back to a very old and very dead man who may never have actually existed. According to classical texts, Ucalegon was a Trojan elder and one of Priam’s friends, who sad, fiery end is mention in the Aeneid. Why he got his name associated with “neighbor whose house is on fire” over the rest of the population of Troy is beyond me, but it exists nonetheless. (This site suggests he was Aeneas’s neighbor, so perhaps that’s why.) Also, some icing for your neighbor’s burning cake: Translated from the Greek, Ucalegon’s name means “doesn’t worry.
Like everyone else you spoke two words or picked up an urn or took off a toga in classical literature, Ucalegon got a celestial body named after him, 55701 Ukalegon. And I found the below illustration of the term on this site, where the artist has drawn up ABCs based on words from Depraved and Insulting English. So there’s that.
Despite references to the sack of Troy, I have the odd compulsion to associate this word of the week with that nursery rhyme about the ladybug whose house burns down. Which, if you think about it, is a damn strange nursery rhyme.
Previous words of the week:
Friday, September 19, 2008
Splash Woman (Not Daryl Hannah)
Ever since Capcom announced it was making Mega Man 9 in the retro graphic style of the series’s earlier installments on the Nintendo Entertainment Systems — in case you’re counting, that’s four systems generations previous to the Wii —information has lowly been leaking out, giving people like me some clue as to what this pseudo-flashback will actually play like. As I’ve said before on this blog, included in the pre-release buzz is the decision to make one of the game’s bosses female.
The presence of this gynoid-among-androids simultaneously is and isn’t a big deal. For what it’s worth, she’s an assemblage of pixels and therefore lacking in true gender. Beyond that, her pixels are assembled into a robot formation, meaning that even if video game characters could have gender, this one doesn’t. On the other hand, it means something to lifer gamers that a series that has previously pitted Mega Man against set after set of all-male Robot Master bosses finally admitted that a ladybot could give Mega Man just as hard of a time. (A few blogs have even noted that Capcom had initially planned to include two Robot Mistresses, but scaled that plan down in order to make Mega Man 9 seem like not too great a departure.
Capcom released her concept art this week. It’s below, and when you see what’s attached to the lower half of her body (robobody) you’ll see why I was compelled to write about this.
And here she is as she will appear in the actual game.
As you can see, this waterborne villainess (robovillainess) is a mermaid (robomermaid) who dresses in a vague musketeer fashion. On her head (robohead), she wears a crash helmet with a flapper adornment, as all gynoids do. The fact that the first ladybot lacks legs doesn’t bode well, I guess, but I’m glad they didn’t try to make her look especially cute or sexy, especially since cute and sexy don’t translate well to eight-bit-style graphics. (The closest she came to that, so far, would be the below screenshot from the game, which shows that singing is included in her attack plan.)
On the right of the concept art, you see that the weapon Mega Man gets upon defeating Splash Woman is her electrified trident. I’m thankful it wasn’t, like, a gun that shoots hearts or something, but the fact that the “Laser Trident” is basically three electrified phalluses is a little amusing.
So let’s see: a record first of a woman doing something that only men had previously done, she enjoys wielding a phallus weapon, she has a distinct fashion sense, and she’s pure evil. Is Splash Woman Sarah Palin?
The presence of this gynoid-among-androids simultaneously is and isn’t a big deal. For what it’s worth, she’s an assemblage of pixels and therefore lacking in true gender. Beyond that, her pixels are assembled into a robot formation, meaning that even if video game characters could have gender, this one doesn’t. On the other hand, it means something to lifer gamers that a series that has previously pitted Mega Man against set after set of all-male Robot Master bosses finally admitted that a ladybot could give Mega Man just as hard of a time. (A few blogs have even noted that Capcom had initially planned to include two Robot Mistresses, but scaled that plan down in order to make Mega Man 9 seem like not too great a departure.
Capcom released her concept art this week. It’s below, and when you see what’s attached to the lower half of her body (robobody) you’ll see why I was compelled to write about this.
And here she is as she will appear in the actual game.
As you can see, this waterborne villainess (robovillainess) is a mermaid (robomermaid) who dresses in a vague musketeer fashion. On her head (robohead), she wears a crash helmet with a flapper adornment, as all gynoids do. The fact that the first ladybot lacks legs doesn’t bode well, I guess, but I’m glad they didn’t try to make her look especially cute or sexy, especially since cute and sexy don’t translate well to eight-bit-style graphics. (The closest she came to that, so far, would be the below screenshot from the game, which shows that singing is included in her attack plan.)
On the right of the concept art, you see that the weapon Mega Man gets upon defeating Splash Woman is her electrified trident. I’m thankful it wasn’t, like, a gun that shoots hearts or something, but the fact that the “Laser Trident” is basically three electrified phalluses is a little amusing.
So let’s see: a record first of a woman doing something that only men had previously done, she enjoys wielding a phallus weapon, she has a distinct fashion sense, and she’s pure evil. Is Splash Woman Sarah Palin?
Tableland by Annet
Menu sign mischief:
Not that I have any idea what it means. I suppose it could be an interior decorating service based out of somewhere up on the mesa. That person’s name is Annette, but she dropped the duplicate letters in an effort to sound more hip and stylish.
A better one next time. Promise.
Previous menu sign adventures:
Not that I have any idea what it means. I suppose it could be an interior decorating service based out of somewhere up on the mesa. That person’s name is Annette, but she dropped the duplicate letters in an effort to sound more hip and stylish.
A better one next time. Promise.
Previous menu sign adventures:
Thursday, September 18, 2008
Fifty Years of Sucking
You may remember a post earlier this month in which I had reason to mention Chupa Chups, those lollipops that came into fashion in the United States in the 90s, not-so-coincidentally around the same time as the rise of rave culture, when young people clad in day-glo suddenly had reason to protect themselves from the dangers of jaw-grinding. Spencer directed me to the official site of the Spanish lolly company, with the recommendation to sit through the flash intro. I was not disappointed.
The current Chupa Chups site celebrates the brand’s fiftieth anniversary. Along with the strange slogan “Fifty years of moving your world” — apparently in and out of your mouth in a rhythmic, sucking motion, it would seem — the site also includes a retrospective of world events, both historical and pop cultural, and all styled with a lollipop theme. It’s aesthetically pleasing for what it is.
Here, for example is a shout out to the “Lolling Stones.”
And here’s a reference to Forrest Gump, racing past a White House inhabited by a giant, dark-haired Bill Clinton, who, notably, is the only politician depicted in a sequence that appears on all of the various language versions of the site.
Here are grotesque, finger puppet-like depictions of The Spice Girls, who, if I remember correctly, had some sort of advertising thing going with Chupa Chups for a period.
And, just past the DNA helix comprised of lollipops, is something close enough to Harry Potter but unlike him enough that the wrath of J.K. Rowling won’t fall upon Perfetti Van Melle, of which Chupa Chups is a subsidiary.
But what easily stand out most in the fifty-year flashback is the transition from the assassination of John Lennon to the introduction of Pac-Man. Yes, that’s right: Some Flash programmer charged with looking at history through the lens of candy saw fit to recall the fact that John Lennon was shot to death. It’s odd and jarring, at least to my eyes.
Here, oddly comprising the bulk of the sequence’s notice of the 70s, is the cartoon hippie, looking a lot like a hybrid between a Simpsons character and a South Park character and waving cheerfully in front of a peace sign. He doesn’t necessarily look just like Lennon — the Mick Jagger stand-in bears a closer resemblance — but it could easily be him. I mean, look at those glasses. Also, the fact that he’s showing up just at the end of the 70s instead of in the 60s, where a generic hippie would make more sense, makes me think this is indeed Lennon.
But what’s that? Oh! There’s a little gun pointing at our pseudo-Lennon!
The gun doesn’t fire a bullet — only a “bang” flag. The hippie, however, disappears, to be replaced immediately by a Pac-Man ghost version of him.
And then, of course, the next historical landmark we hit is indeed Pac-Man, which actually debuted in Japan a few months before Lennon died.
Strange, no? And a little tasteless? I suppose it would have been better had the sequence recalled other downer moments between 1958 and 2008 — and there were a few, I feel — but it just included this one.
Check out the site for yourself. It’s amusing. And appalling. And perhaps you haven’t yet been simultaneously amused and appalled today. Crank up your speakers, too, because you won’t grasp the full effect without the musical accompaniment. It’s grating, but it’s actually a lot more tolerable than “We Didn’t Start the Fire.”
Two other times I paid too much attention to web promotions:
The current Chupa Chups site celebrates the brand’s fiftieth anniversary. Along with the strange slogan “Fifty years of moving your world” — apparently in and out of your mouth in a rhythmic, sucking motion, it would seem — the site also includes a retrospective of world events, both historical and pop cultural, and all styled with a lollipop theme. It’s aesthetically pleasing for what it is.
Here, for example is a shout out to the “Lolling Stones.”
And here’s a reference to Forrest Gump, racing past a White House inhabited by a giant, dark-haired Bill Clinton, who, notably, is the only politician depicted in a sequence that appears on all of the various language versions of the site.
Here are grotesque, finger puppet-like depictions of The Spice Girls, who, if I remember correctly, had some sort of advertising thing going with Chupa Chups for a period.
And, just past the DNA helix comprised of lollipops, is something close enough to Harry Potter but unlike him enough that the wrath of J.K. Rowling won’t fall upon Perfetti Van Melle, of which Chupa Chups is a subsidiary.
But what easily stand out most in the fifty-year flashback is the transition from the assassination of John Lennon to the introduction of Pac-Man. Yes, that’s right: Some Flash programmer charged with looking at history through the lens of candy saw fit to recall the fact that John Lennon was shot to death. It’s odd and jarring, at least to my eyes.
Here, oddly comprising the bulk of the sequence’s notice of the 70s, is the cartoon hippie, looking a lot like a hybrid between a Simpsons character and a South Park character and waving cheerfully in front of a peace sign. He doesn’t necessarily look just like Lennon — the Mick Jagger stand-in bears a closer resemblance — but it could easily be him. I mean, look at those glasses. Also, the fact that he’s showing up just at the end of the 70s instead of in the 60s, where a generic hippie would make more sense, makes me think this is indeed Lennon.
But what’s that? Oh! There’s a little gun pointing at our pseudo-Lennon!
The gun doesn’t fire a bullet — only a “bang” flag. The hippie, however, disappears, to be replaced immediately by a Pac-Man ghost version of him.
And then, of course, the next historical landmark we hit is indeed Pac-Man, which actually debuted in Japan a few months before Lennon died.
Strange, no? And a little tasteless? I suppose it would have been better had the sequence recalled other downer moments between 1958 and 2008 — and there were a few, I feel — but it just included this one.
Check out the site for yourself. It’s amusing. And appalling. And perhaps you haven’t yet been simultaneously amused and appalled today. Crank up your speakers, too, because you won’t grasp the full effect without the musical accompaniment. It’s grating, but it’s actually a lot more tolerable than “We Didn’t Start the Fire.”
Two other times I paid too much attention to web promotions:
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
Dudley Nightshirt
And then one time, this person, they found my blog, and it was weird.
- very hairy video pauline
- is indigo removed from ROYGBIV 1
- fleet foxes elves 2
- borned racist su-chin
- grimace beetroot mcdonald
- the purple thing on the happy meal box 3
- grandma may rides the train today aneas family
- bloofer lady definition
- subtle racist expressions 4
- "men plunder" meaning
- rabbit scream
- melfull merelda midori
- Smoking cigarettes is unhealthy essay
- jinkies and its etmology 5
- auto window stencils saint jude
- a clamhead is
- who was the first female video game heroine? 6
- lily allen pits
- toy story+what kind of cereal does woody dump his head in when the sun is burning it?
- miso pronounce 7
- Clearly not, otherwise his name would be Roy G. Bv. Explanation here.
- The number one hit.
- Oddly enough, these two ended up at my blog within minutes of each other, from different sides of the country.
- You are terrible.
- The number one hit.
- I'm actually still unclear on this one myself.
- Unfortunately, just as one would if saying "Me so horny."
Sunday, September 14, 2008
Candelabras in a Wonderbra
For better or for worse, my generation as chosen to associate The B-52s more closely with “Love Shack” than with any other their greater songs, Peter Griffin’s acoustic cover of “Rock Lobster” notwithstanding. It would make sense, then, that a person from my generation — namely me — would see a major similarity between “Love Shack” and “Funplex” — this week’s song and the debut single from the band’s first album in sixteen years.
That similarity: When you think about it, a “love shack” isn’t really all that different than a “funplex.” A funplex could just be a tamer version of a love shack — or, in my mind, a slightly more grown-up version. And the latter would make sense, given the nineteen years separating the release of the two songs. (Other things that a love shack could become in nineteen years: a speed dating plaza, a friendship space, a backrub annex, a swingles bar, an in-laws unit, a conjugal visit trailer, or a mediator’s office.) Also, the videos for both “Love Shack” and “Funplex” feature cameos from RuPaul, so perhaps the similarity wasn’t lost on The B-52s themselves.
Perhaps what’s great about “Funplex” is that the song manages to combine the band’s signature sound with a tone that makes it palatable for today’s indie rocker on the go. In fact, if you’re listening to the track for the first time, the fact that it’s by The B-52s might not occur to you until you hear Fred Schneider’s signature kindasung lyrics. (Gems: “Faster, pussycat! Thrill! Thrill!” and “Private property / Hippie be quiet / Your peace sign t-shirt could cause a riot!”) Granted, Schneider may not have learned to sing any better than he did twenty years ago, but lead lady Kate Pierson has never sounded better. Cindy Wilson is also there, which is nice of her.
Pay no attention to the below video, unless you already express unquestioning love for The B-52s. It’s not great and kind of seems like something that was made in Britain, perhaps by someone who used to make parody videos for Smack the Pony.
Interested? Stoked despite the video? Then get “Funplex” online, either through the Amazon.com MP3 store or through iTunes.
Previous songs of the week:
That similarity: When you think about it, a “love shack” isn’t really all that different than a “funplex.” A funplex could just be a tamer version of a love shack — or, in my mind, a slightly more grown-up version. And the latter would make sense, given the nineteen years separating the release of the two songs. (Other things that a love shack could become in nineteen years: a speed dating plaza, a friendship space, a backrub annex, a swingles bar, an in-laws unit, a conjugal visit trailer, or a mediator’s office.) Also, the videos for both “Love Shack” and “Funplex” feature cameos from RuPaul, so perhaps the similarity wasn’t lost on The B-52s themselves.
Perhaps what’s great about “Funplex” is that the song manages to combine the band’s signature sound with a tone that makes it palatable for today’s indie rocker on the go. In fact, if you’re listening to the track for the first time, the fact that it’s by The B-52s might not occur to you until you hear Fred Schneider’s signature kindasung lyrics. (Gems: “Faster, pussycat! Thrill! Thrill!” and “Private property / Hippie be quiet / Your peace sign t-shirt could cause a riot!”) Granted, Schneider may not have learned to sing any better than he did twenty years ago, but lead lady Kate Pierson has never sounded better. Cindy Wilson is also there, which is nice of her.
Pay no attention to the below video, unless you already express unquestioning love for The B-52s. It’s not great and kind of seems like something that was made in Britain, perhaps by someone who used to make parody videos for Smack the Pony.
Interested? Stoked despite the video? Then get “Funplex” online, either through the Amazon.com MP3 store or through iTunes.
Previous songs of the week:
- The Budos Band, “His Girl”
- CSS, “Music Is My Hot, Hot Sex”
- Men at Work, “(Land) Down Under”
- She & Him, “Why Do You Let Me Stay Here?”
Saturday, September 13, 2008
Beer as Brains
Ever since I realized I was in no hurry to make a full alphabetical loop with my words of the week, I’ve been more okay with repeating a given letter. Here’s another “T.” Thank Dina, who emailed me about it.
How Dina came across it: “So I’m playing Scrabble and I get 27 points for toby. Wondering what a toby is, I stumble upon this amusingly specific definition.” Really, that’s what online Scrabble is for. Why else would we know words like adz and vita?
Dina also included a link to what she and everyone else should refer to as a “vaguely terrifying example.” It is below:
Wikipedia’s example photo is no better:
I can’t imagine why people would want to make it seem like they were drinking brains, but I suppose it wouldn’t necessarily strike everybody that way. (It certainly didn’t to the people who designed my mother’s Christmas punch bowl.) Dictionaries aren’t much help for where this term came from. Most entries for toby are actually just entries for Toby, the nickname for Tobias. Which I think we all knew. However, the etymology doesn’t interest me so much as the knowledge that such a specific term exists.
Now mind how much you drink, lest you end up looking like a toby.
toby (TOH-bee) — noun: a drinking mug, usually in the shape of a stout man wearing a large three-cornered hat.I can hear you saying it now: “Oh, that toby.”
How Dina came across it: “So I’m playing Scrabble and I get 27 points for toby. Wondering what a toby is, I stumble upon this amusingly specific definition.” Really, that’s what online Scrabble is for. Why else would we know words like adz and vita?
Dina also included a link to what she and everyone else should refer to as a “vaguely terrifying example.” It is below:
Wikipedia’s example photo is no better:
I can’t imagine why people would want to make it seem like they were drinking brains, but I suppose it wouldn’t necessarily strike everybody that way. (It certainly didn’t to the people who designed my mother’s Christmas punch bowl.) Dictionaries aren’t much help for where this term came from. Most entries for toby are actually just entries for Toby, the nickname for Tobias. Which I think we all knew. However, the etymology doesn’t interest me so much as the knowledge that such a specific term exists.
Now mind how much you drink, lest you end up looking like a toby.
Thursday, September 11, 2008
Two Takes on Super Mario Bros.
I nearly let this one slip by, but the fact that I experienced the two things I’m writing about one the same day, within just a few minutes of each other, prompted me to think it was important enough to write about.
So I write about Super Mario Bros. here with more regularity than most people who write on blogs that aren’t solely dedicated to video games. Sometimes I feel I’m pegging myself as a geek for doing so — it’s deserved, I’ll admit — but then other times I see other people also taking old video games and discussing them, reexamining them and putting them in odd new contexts and I feel a little less awkward about it all. This week, two different sources released creative products based specifically on the original Super Mario Bros., and I figured I should mention it here.
First up is Seth MacFarlane, creator of Family Guy, who debuted his new Burger King-sponsored, Burger King mascot-haunted online series of shorts, Seth MacFarlane’s Cavalcade of Cartoon Comedy. As many reviews have noted, the shorts don’t seem to depart drastically from his standard method of joke-telling. If the Super Mario Bros.-inspired debut is any indication, these shorts will basically function as slightly longer versions of the “cutaway” jokes that Family Guy has become known for: strange little pop cultural riffs that have no bearing on the plot of the episode in which they’re embedded.
Here’s what he did:
Pretty standard MacFarlane stuff, really. I don’t think it’s all that funny. The internet seems to disagree. I wonder what drives the humor more, for the people who enjoyed it: mapping cynical human emotions onto flat, undeveloped eight-bit video game characters or the kicker at the end, where Mario basically says “Fuck this bitch” and lets Bowser eat Peach. Could be both or either, depending on who’s doing the laughing. Overall: I say “meh.” But this guy’s next joke could work as well as this one didn’t. That’s the thing with Seth MacFarlane.
Just a few minutes after I saw the Cavalcade of Comedy clip, however, I stumbled onto Stereogum and read about a new single by The Mountain Goats and Kaki King, “Thank You Mario But Our Princess Is in Another Castle.” Along the same lines as what MacFarlane did, the song attempts to give human motivations to a fairly static Super Mario Bros. character: Toad. Fucking Toad, of all people! The result: Still not totally successful, but interesting, and something I’ll probably remember longer than the cartoon.
Basically, Toad narrates his experience of being held captive in level four of whatever Super Mario Bros. world he’s stuck in. It’s dark, scary, and full of fire. But eventually Mario shows up and frees him and that makes everything better.
What makes the song work better than the cartoon, I say, is the fact that the writer managed to turn Toad into a decent metaphor for the shittiness of being in a bad place — probably not a literal one — and needing someone to pull you to safety. If a person just listened to the lyrics without hearing the title of the song, they might not even realize that it was in any way inspired by Super Mario Bros..
See for yourself, below. (Or, for that matter, listen for yourself.)
So that was my moment of weird: Feeling validated by seeing these stupid games that I’ve come to love popping up into pop culture and into online media — and independently of me, no less. People can make of either of these what they want. In the end, I’m just happy these assemblages of pixels mean something to people besides just me.
So I write about Super Mario Bros. here with more regularity than most people who write on blogs that aren’t solely dedicated to video games. Sometimes I feel I’m pegging myself as a geek for doing so — it’s deserved, I’ll admit — but then other times I see other people also taking old video games and discussing them, reexamining them and putting them in odd new contexts and I feel a little less awkward about it all. This week, two different sources released creative products based specifically on the original Super Mario Bros., and I figured I should mention it here.
First up is Seth MacFarlane, creator of Family Guy, who debuted his new Burger King-sponsored, Burger King mascot-haunted online series of shorts, Seth MacFarlane’s Cavalcade of Cartoon Comedy. As many reviews have noted, the shorts don’t seem to depart drastically from his standard method of joke-telling. If the Super Mario Bros.-inspired debut is any indication, these shorts will basically function as slightly longer versions of the “cutaway” jokes that Family Guy has become known for: strange little pop cultural riffs that have no bearing on the plot of the episode in which they’re embedded.
Here’s what he did:
Pretty standard MacFarlane stuff, really. I don’t think it’s all that funny. The internet seems to disagree. I wonder what drives the humor more, for the people who enjoyed it: mapping cynical human emotions onto flat, undeveloped eight-bit video game characters or the kicker at the end, where Mario basically says “Fuck this bitch” and lets Bowser eat Peach. Could be both or either, depending on who’s doing the laughing. Overall: I say “meh.” But this guy’s next joke could work as well as this one didn’t. That’s the thing with Seth MacFarlane.
Just a few minutes after I saw the Cavalcade of Comedy clip, however, I stumbled onto Stereogum and read about a new single by The Mountain Goats and Kaki King, “Thank You Mario But Our Princess Is in Another Castle.” Along the same lines as what MacFarlane did, the song attempts to give human motivations to a fairly static Super Mario Bros. character: Toad. Fucking Toad, of all people! The result: Still not totally successful, but interesting, and something I’ll probably remember longer than the cartoon.
Basically, Toad narrates his experience of being held captive in level four of whatever Super Mario Bros. world he’s stuck in. It’s dark, scary, and full of fire. But eventually Mario shows up and frees him and that makes everything better.
What makes the song work better than the cartoon, I say, is the fact that the writer managed to turn Toad into a decent metaphor for the shittiness of being in a bad place — probably not a literal one — and needing someone to pull you to safety. If a person just listened to the lyrics without hearing the title of the song, they might not even realize that it was in any way inspired by Super Mario Bros..
See for yourself, below. (Or, for that matter, listen for yourself.)
I waited here all by myself(The guys in blue robes, by the way? Magikoopas. Magikoopas being references in a pop song. I’ll be damned.)
The room was dark and it smelled like sulfur
I heard the screams from way down in the darkness
Felt pretty sure my life was over
I kept my hat on just for luck
Sang simple tunes the whole night through
I wondered if I'd wake to find myself in flames
As I waited here for you
Yeah, when you came in
I could breathe again
I saw some guys dressed up like sorcerers
Blue robes that flowed above the ground
They came and went and I was frightened for my life
I tried not to make a sound
Just when my solitude was closing in
I heard a howl like screeching tires
And I told you the one thing I know how to say
Through the bright ringing drone of eight-bit choirs
Yeah when you came in
I could breathe again
So that was my moment of weird: Feeling validated by seeing these stupid games that I’ve come to love popping up into pop culture and into online media — and independently of me, no less. People can make of either of these what they want. In the end, I’m just happy these assemblages of pixels mean something to people besides just me.
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Apocalypse Postponed
The Doomsday Machine was successful in failing to bring about doom. Which is why you’re able to read this now.
In case you saw today’s Google logo re-styling and were confused, today marks the first successful launch of the Large Hadron Collider, known to some as the Big Black Hole Machine and to me specifically as the Large Hat Iron Collisioner.
Apparently, the first run went off without a hitch, if by “hitch” you mean existence being erased and time stopping. I wrote about such a turn of events only jokingly, but other people took this threat quite seriously, to the point that they were attempting to obtain an injunction against it being operated until its safety could be assured. Even worse, a girl in India allegedly killed herself after she watched news reports about the contraption because she feared being sucked into a black hole. (She ingested insecticide tablets. Have to wonder if that would have been an easier way out than being crushed into the same molecule as her family, her house, my house, Cindy Crawford, Bill Cosby, all giraffes and flightless birds, shoes, dust flakes, pancakes, picnic tables, and the few other things that exist.)
What I think actually happened, however, is that the Large Hadron Collider made a blackhole so large and fast-enveloping that we now exist on the other side of it — not dead at all but continuing life in a parallel dimension that has only that works pretty much like the old one but with one or two significant differences. What those are is anybody’s guess, and half the fun will be figuring them out. My guess: Cigarettes are now good for you and apples are poison.
In case you saw today’s Google logo re-styling and were confused, today marks the first successful launch of the Large Hadron Collider, known to some as the Big Black Hole Machine and to me specifically as the Large Hat Iron Collisioner.
Apparently, the first run went off without a hitch, if by “hitch” you mean existence being erased and time stopping. I wrote about such a turn of events only jokingly, but other people took this threat quite seriously, to the point that they were attempting to obtain an injunction against it being operated until its safety could be assured. Even worse, a girl in India allegedly killed herself after she watched news reports about the contraption because she feared being sucked into a black hole. (She ingested insecticide tablets. Have to wonder if that would have been an easier way out than being crushed into the same molecule as her family, her house, my house, Cindy Crawford, Bill Cosby, all giraffes and flightless birds, shoes, dust flakes, pancakes, picnic tables, and the few other things that exist.)
What I think actually happened, however, is that the Large Hadron Collider made a blackhole so large and fast-enveloping that we now exist on the other side of it — not dead at all but continuing life in a parallel dimension that has only that works pretty much like the old one but with one or two significant differences. What those are is anybody’s guess, and half the fun will be figuring them out. My guess: Cigarettes are now good for you and apples are poison.
And With a New Woolen Sweater, Too
Amusing advertisement promoting New Zealand tourism, from Noam's blog.
Click image for bigger, more readable, more charming version.
Click image for bigger, more readable, more charming version.
Tuesday, September 09, 2008
Ducto Redux
I was surprised as anyone to find that Ducto, the Chair of Tomorrow, was featured on Pixcetera's list of Amazing Uses for Duct Tape.
Sunday, September 07, 2008
I Am a Crazy Crane
My cousin Melissa writes about food on her blog, Melissa Good Taste, the name of which makes me think of some Bond Girl that Ian Fleming might have created on a day he was feeling rather unsubtle. Bond Girl or not, she recently wrote about the Monterey Greek Festival, the post for which included some photos.
Here's one that caught my eye:
I'll assume it takes its name from the town of Vergina and not some Greek approximation of one of the two English words it sounds like. Until I read Melissa's post, I'd never heard of this beer before. I assume they've had some troubles marketing it abroad.
Here's one that caught my eye:
I'll assume it takes its name from the town of Vergina and not some Greek approximation of one of the two English words it sounds like. Until I read Melissa's post, I'd never heard of this beer before. I assume they've had some troubles marketing it abroad.
The One I Choose Is Music
The song of the week comes to us from the great nation of Brazil, a nation where singers named Lovefoxx can sing a neat song about how music is lots of things. (In order, straight from Lovefoxx’s mouth, music is simultaneously her boyfriend, her girlfriend, her dead end, her imaginary friend, her brother, her great-grand-daughter, her sister, her favorite mistress, her beach house, her hometown, her king size bed, where she meet her friends, her hot hot bath, her hot hot sex, her back rub, and, finally, where she’d like you to touch.) That last one, about the touching, helped make the song “Music Is My Hot, Hot Sex” famous, as it prompted Apple to use it in a commercial for the iPod Touch.
But don’t hold that against it.
Despite the ubiquity that follows being featured in an iPod commercial, the song is actually quite good, bested in the Cansei De Ser Sexy catalogue perhaps only by the more danceable “Let’s Make Love (And Listen to Death From Above).” And I feel it’s been long enough since it was being pumped into our ears every forty minutes that I can suggest you listen to it now.
For this song-of-the-week post, however, I’m not just recommending the song. I’m also trying to solve an unanswered question that’s been bothering me from some time now. Back at the beginning of July, I posted a list of the odd ways people find the blog when they choose to enter search terms in the form of questions. One of these, "what are they saying in portuguese in music is my hot hot sex?", lingered because I was actually a little curious to find out what CSS’s words meant in English. I mean, the song as a whole is a little nonsensical anyway. (“Yeah, Lovefoxx, when you said you were inviting me to your beach house, I assumed it was a physical beach house and not just music, expressed metaphorically as if it were a location. Now I’m going to take my bathing suit and go home.”) Nonetheless, it occurred to me that Cynthia, the nice Brazilian lady who works in my office, actually speaks Portuguese and could feasibly translate it for me. So she did. And here it is.
And, in song-of-the-week fashion, here’s the video.
So, on that note, answer me this: Is music your beach house?
Previous songs of the week:
But don’t hold that against it.
Despite the ubiquity that follows being featured in an iPod commercial, the song is actually quite good, bested in the Cansei De Ser Sexy catalogue perhaps only by the more danceable “Let’s Make Love (And Listen to Death From Above).” And I feel it’s been long enough since it was being pumped into our ears every forty minutes that I can suggest you listen to it now.
For this song-of-the-week post, however, I’m not just recommending the song. I’m also trying to solve an unanswered question that’s been bothering me from some time now. Back at the beginning of July, I posted a list of the odd ways people find the blog when they choose to enter search terms in the form of questions. One of these, "what are they saying in portuguese in music is my hot hot sex?", lingered because I was actually a little curious to find out what CSS’s words meant in English. I mean, the song as a whole is a little nonsensical anyway. (“Yeah, Lovefoxx, when you said you were inviting me to your beach house, I assumed it was a physical beach house and not just music, expressed metaphorically as if it were a location. Now I’m going to take my bathing suit and go home.”) Nonetheless, it occurred to me that Cynthia, the nice Brazilian lady who works in my office, actually speaks Portuguese and could feasibly translate it for me. So she did. And here it is.
Clearly that, yesKeep in mind that Cynthia gave me the translated lyrics with the note that she had tried her best to make sense in English of something that didn’t necessarily make sense in Portuguese. Compare Cynthia’s translation that which I got from the Google translation service:
I was a girl scout
Direct from school,
Did not go to smell glue
Nor basketball, foosball
What I like is not for free
What I like is not fake
There is guitar, drums, sound from the computer
Some says that the sound is louder than a hurricane
Close to him I could sit down
I left its eye and I arrived in me
Seated of its side
I wanted to lean
I would make the earthen bowl until the sun to come in sight
Underneath of the sheet
He moaned in flat reverse speed
I was tense
But it was all good (all good)
He is everything but I know that I am too.
For sure,So that’s that. When I looked online earlier, I could readily find a translation, so hopefully now is subsequent people search for such info — say, maybe by searching something along the lines of “css translated to english” or “music is my hot hot sex portuguese translated to english” or something, hint hint, Google — they’ll arrive her.
I was a good scout girl.
Straight from school, no,
I wouldn’t gonna sniff glue,
Neither do basketball, nor "pebolim."
What I like is not for free,
What i don't like is farse.
Got guitar, drum, computer with sounds.
Some say louder than a hurricane.
Near him I could feel.
It comes out of his eye to reach me.
Sitted by his side,
I wanted to touch.
I would do him till the sunrise.
Under the covers,
He would moan in E tune.
I got tense,
But it was okay,
He is rad, but I know I am too.
And, in song-of-the-week fashion, here’s the video.
So, on that note, answer me this: Is music your beach house?
Previous songs of the week:
Saturday, September 06, 2008
More Than a Muffin, Less Than a Puffin
A short one for the letter “T” — and one that’s fairly appropriate given the fact that the homonym for this letter.
There exists a Tiffin University, which tragically does not specialize in training in the preparation of light meals, and a Tiffin, Ohio, which also doesn’t appear to be specifically snack-focused. Something that does appear to be related to the tiffin that is the subject of this post, however, would be the tiffin confection, which consists of biscuits and raisins covered in chocolate.
I enjoy this word, which may be one of the few words of the week so far that I might have reason to actually use, pompous though it may make me sound. And in the spirit of this light meal, I think I’ll end this post sooner rather than later, maybe so you can have time to go enjoy a light meal.
tiffin (TIF-in) — noun: a light midday meal or snack; a luncheon.This delight, this word that sounds like exactly what it means, comes to us from The Superior Peron’s Second Book of Weird & Wondrous Words. Though dictionaries identify the word as being chiefly British, the Wikipedia entry for tiffin claims it as being used mostly in southern India, where restaurants sometimes advertise themselves as being “tiffin ready,” which is charming. British or Indian, the term comes from a shortening of the gerund tiffing, from the verb tiff, meaning “to sip” and apparently not the noun meaning “a petty fight.”
There exists a Tiffin University, which tragically does not specialize in training in the preparation of light meals, and a Tiffin, Ohio, which also doesn’t appear to be specifically snack-focused. Something that does appear to be related to the tiffin that is the subject of this post, however, would be the tiffin confection, which consists of biscuits and raisins covered in chocolate.
I enjoy this word, which may be one of the few words of the week so far that I might have reason to actually use, pompous though it may make me sound. And in the spirit of this light meal, I think I’ll end this post sooner rather than later, maybe so you can have time to go enjoy a light meal.
Friday, September 05, 2008
Desolation Hatchback
Things I didn’t expect to see in the current issue of Rolling Stone: a letter from Dina Eastwood, the wife of Clint known previously as Dina Ruiz. Under that former name, she was the anchorwoman for KSBW, the local news station I grew up watching. Now she apparently writes letters, which is a good hobby, I think. This one is in response to the previous issue’s Jonas Brothers cover.
The letter:
The letter:
My 11-year-old daughter and I saw the Jonas Brothers in a venue that held less than 100 people. being marries to Clint Eastwood helped me hook up a “meet and greet.” At the risk of sounding like a hormone-laden 43-year-old pervert, I gotta tell you: I saw them again last week, and it was the best concert I have ever been to. The Jonas family is a gold standard for great music and good livingDina Ruiz Eastwood, of course, is not to be confused with Dina Dina, who also doesn’t have anything better to do than write letters but has so far failed to do so.
Dina Eastwood
Monterey, California
Thursday, September 04, 2008
Don’t Call Him "Spooky"
As I mentioned last month, I got to interview Chris Carter, creator of The X-Files. I guess this means I just need to interview David Lynch, Rob Thomas, and J.J. Abrams before I can say I’ve spoken to the people responsible for my favorite TV shows. But that’s a long-range plan. For now, I’m happy with this. It’s in this week’s paper.
Don't Call Him Spooky
Chris Carter Talks Santa Barbara, Surfing, and the Future
For those who followed The X-Files close enough to think that the people working behind the scenes were as heroic as the show’s mystery-solving, ghost-chasing, alien-spotting protagonists, the notion that series creator Chris Carter is actually a seemingly normal and not especially creepy guy is not news. Countless interviews mention this fact, as if the show’s dark tone must necessarily mean that Carter himself should be brooding and sinister. (It’s an odd association, when you think about it. Should the creators of Murder, She Wrote have been especially homicidal? Should the creators of Dallas have been especially oily?)
What X-Files fans who have occasion to read The Independent may not know, however, is that Carter happens to be a rather nice, remarkably un-spooky man who has resided in Santa Barbara for more than 20 years. That, even to this X-Files buff, seemed surprising. Sure, quite a few Hollywood notables call the Santa Barbara area home. But to hear that Carter had lived here part-time for so long struck me as odd if only because the sunny afternoons and blue waves so often associated with Santa Barbara never appeared on The X-Files.
“My wife and I came here over 20 years ago, and we’re here for all the obvious reasons: That it’s a beautiful place and that it’s away from the business that either of us trafficked in,” he explained before adding, “And, certainly, surfing was a big draw.”
That’s another part of Carter’s life that never cropped up in The X-Files. Carter—a native of Bellflower, California, who finished his journalism major at Cal State Long Beach 1979 and began writing for Surfing magazine—is an avid surfer. Though some Mulder-as-Big Kahuna episode would surely have sent X-Files fans into spitting rages, it seems curious that surfing would have never figured into his work, especially considering how extensively the sport bleeds into the lives of some lifelong wave-riders.
“I’ve been asked to do surfing movies over the years and offered several opportunities,” Carter explained. “I just felt that if I were to do one, I’d have to do the perfect surfing movie. And I don’t know if that exists because surfing is such a personal thing. [Some surf movies] get wrapped up in contests or drama that is often beside the point.” He admitted, however, that he enjoyed John Milius’s Big Wednesday (which, incidentally, screens for free outside of the County Courthouse on September 17) as well as Jack Johnson and Chris Malloy’s Thicker Than Water.
“I think the good ones are the ones that sort of capture what I’d call the spirit of surfing,” Carter said. When asked if this sublime aspect could have edged into his work Carter seemed to nod toward the philosophically minded scripts he’s written for his various series, saying simply, “Maybe an appreciation for the more sublime aspects of surfing.”
As to whether he’ll ever incorporate his experience in Santa Barbara into his work—to his knowledge, he hasn’t yet—he offers only this: “It remains to be seen.” However, his current project is Fencewalker, a film reportedly shot around Los Angeles that marks a departure from his best-known work by virtue of its lack of any supernatural elements. Though some online sources claim that Fencewalker was filmed in part in Bellflower, Carter denies that the film will be autobiographical. “It’s a very personal project … We’re still working on it. But because I financed it myself, I have the ability to refine it,” he said.
Because Fencewalker’s future is uncertain, Carter was reluctant to discuss it at length. “I don’t know if it will ever see light of day, to be honest,” he said at one point. It reportedly will star rapper Xzibit, who played an FBI agent in this summer’s X-Files theatrical feature, I Want to Believe. Carter did, however, give some hint as to the film’s content. “It represents for me the reflection of the difficulty for a person … ” he said before trailing into a superficially unrelated thought that nonetheless probably has some bearing on the film. “I’m a big fan of Barack Obama. I think he carries a heavier burden and is held to a greater and higher standard than other candidates … I think there’s a large, large portion of this country that feels disenfranchised and marginalized by the political process.”
Carter also spoke frankly about I Want to Believe and its reception at the box office. As of the printing of this article, the film has grossed just over $60 million. Relative to this summer’s blockbusters, it didn’t exactly clean up, but Carter posited that such comparisons weren’t necessarily the most accurate. “We came out against The Dark Knight, which was made for $180 million, and [I Want to Believe] was made for about $30 million,” he said, noting that his film has already surpassed its costs. In Carter’s view, he intended for the film to have few special effects and instead keep in line with the heart of The X-Files: a well-written scary story that aims to be meaningful to both the characters and the audience.
Asked whether Mulder and Scully would once again live on-screen, chasing down all manner of monsters in the shadows, Carter said he hoped they would, depending on how the box office gods shine upon him. He also mentioned an after-the-credits scene in I Want to Believe that features a rowboat-paddling Mulder and a swimsuit-clad Scully, waving to any audience members who lingered in the theater. “We made the movie knowing full well this might be the last time,” he said, explaining that if this was the case, the last sight of the characters would be them waving goodbye.
Of course, no interview with Chris Carter should avoid the subject of general weirdness, normal-seeming though the man may be. When asked to name the strangest thing about Santa Barbara, Carter paused for a moment and then delivered a thoughtful answer befitting the man who created one of the most influential TV series ever: “Last summer, the Zaca Fire had been burning for six weeks or so and was right behind Montecito Peak. I looked at that as a huge threat but people seemed to be walking around like there wasn’t a fire back there. There seemed to be—and I say this in a fond way—a happiness here in Santa Barbara that exists in spite of the real threats of things like fire and off-shore drilling in this place I would call a paradise found.”
Whatever the future holds for Chris Carter, his fans can hope that he’ll continue to revel in all things odd—at least on screen. And those fans who live in Santa Barbara can be glad in knowing that he shares their affection for this city.
Will Carter ever turn his lens onto Santa Barbara? Would that be too weird? Maybe. And maybe that’s exactly what we want.
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