Happy NY from UK

Help with Curry

Hey! Anyone free on Tuesday to hang out? Helpwillcome and I were thinking of getting together for lunch or dinner before he heads back to L.A. (claw) on Wed..

Slightly better promotion than a dude in black spandex imitating Octoroks.

For all of you on this Night;

Elder God Porno

Merry Bat-Christmas, Everyone!

Now that Mr. Pony's got me thinking about Batman, here's a bit of special christmas glee from the least grim period of the dark knight's history.

If you can't trust Santa, who can you trust?

Rainbows, Warriors, and Rainbow Warriors

Following up on our dim sum conversation, here's a story from July 27, 2000 explaining how Hawaii football dumped the Rainbow mascot for Warriors.

"Being called the Rainbows, especially for men's teams, left them open to ridicule," Mosley said. "Warriors has a much stronger connotation."

And this from the next day:

But after receiving praise for highlighting native culture in the new design, the university is being criticized by gay rights advocates. That's after athletic director Hugh Yoshida acknowledged the decision to change the logo stemmed, in part, from concerns about how the rainbow has become a symbol of gay pride and acceptance.

"That logo really put a stigma on our program at times in regards to it's part of the gay community, their flags and so forth," Yoshida told KGMB-TV in remarks aired yesterday. "Some of the student athletes had some feelings in regards to that."

If the football team showed some serious interest in studying Hawaiian warrior traditions, I might be more sympathetic. But they have adopted the Warrior mascot merely to be macho in a 21st century American football grunt-shove-growl-and-smile-for-television kind of way. Somehow I don't think King Kamehameha's warriors would have been very scared of these guys.

Stories about Spam fill a slow news day

Barack Obama Snacks on Hawaiian Spam Sushi

President-elect Barack Obama is spending the Christmas holiday Hawaii – relaxing in the sun, playing golf and eating Spam.

On Sunday afternoon, while playing golf with friends at Oahu's Olomana Golf Links, Obama, 47, who grew up on the island, stopped at a snack bar and bought two hot dogs, soft drinks and two orders of a local luncheon specialty called spam musubi – Spam and a fried egg on a bed of rice, held together with a strip of dried seaweed, according to reporters covering his trip.


The snack bar clerk later told the New York Times' Jeff Zeleny the president-elect's tab came to $17.75. Asked how his game was going, Obama answered with a smile, "I'm not that good." He also invited reporters to order a beer and put it on his tab, but none took him up on the offer.

--------------------------------------------



I agree that the sad state of journalism reflected by this article is an issue of concern, especially since it appears even the New York Times is interviewing the snack bar clerk. But even more importantly... can anyone here confirm that the Olomana Golf Course snack bar actually incorporates a fried egg into their spam musubi? Cuz that sounds ridiculous-- or maybe ridiculously good.

Giant Monster in My House

I was on the phone with Galspanic when I saw this giant mosquito (?) flying around my living room. It doesn't look like much now that I've murdered it, but when its wings were flapping, its legs and feeding tube flailing wildly, and with the blood-curdling scream it was emitting (the screaming part is a lie), it was pretty impressive.

Incidentally, does anyone know where I can buy either a very tiny or very giant penny? I think I could take some pretty cool photos if I had something like that.

Hawaii has rednecks!

This story made my day.

HILO, Hawaii (AP) — A Hilo Chevrolet dealer who tried to crush his Asian auto competition found the stunt a little harder to pull off than expected.

Island Chevrolet general sales manager James Severtson arranged for a Chevrolet Suburban SUV outfitted with massive tires costing $5,000 apiece to drive over a Honda Accord.

On the first attempt Friday, the monster truck blew a hydraulic hose and leaked vital fluid while the Honda remained intact and ready for more.

After several hours, the truck was repaired and driver Ryan Kepiki tried again, this time with a Hyundai Excel sedan parked next to the Honda.

Kepiki drove over the cars' hoods, destroying the windshields to the seeming delight of the rush-hour crowd.

Severtson said the dealership had been planning the crush-fest for a while. But he said it was a happy coincidence President Bush approved a bailout for U.S. automakers as the weekend arrived.

"We'd like to send the message that the best way to support your country is to buy an American vehicle today," Severtson said.

Go to the local paper Web site for more detail and PHOTOS.

Dim Sum

Demon is in town. Anyone up for Dim Sum this weekend?

Majel Barret 1932-2008

more here.

Fugu's peepee inexplicably hardens...

This

ManBabies

A horrible horrible coworker sent me this horrible horrible site: ManBabies.com

wish me luck

going in for a serious procedure tomorrow...

Defiling Lego

The Illinois governor is hurting Lego's image.

Me Myself and Lego

Forgive me for not knowing about the myriad of Flickr sites dedicated to recreating iconographic images from pop culture. . . in Lego. I thought you guys were kinda weird for being all into Lego, but you're clearly not as obsessed as some people out there.

Anyway, as a fan of 90's hip-hop, here is my first Leg0-related contribution to the blog.

Enjoy!

ABC picks up "Fables" Comic

Via MTV

Steven Chu to be energy secretary. Just kidding: Bush to be president for 4 more years!

It's completely unreal. We're witnessing changes so monumentally different than the status quo and so exponentially closer to the direction we should be going that it's like we're living in some kind of Aaron Sorkin film. Either that, or it's all fake...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- President-elect Barack Obama intends to round out his environmental and natural resources team with a Nobel Prize-winning physicist and three former Environmental Protection Agency officials from the Clinton administration.

The Nobel Laureate is Steven Chu, who received the Nobel Prize in 1997 for atomic physics, is the director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (which, under Chu, has been working to develop alternative energy sources), and is a professor of Physics and Molecular and Cellular Biology. This feels unprecedented. We're going to have people up there who like science. 

Wow. I mean...wow.

http://www.reuters.com/article/lifestyleMolt/idUSTRE4B41WG20081205

I dont really want to spoil it. Just look.

A Question from Great Britain

For various reasons (which I cannot divulge) I'm thinking of getting the Grant Morrison run of the X-Fellers. Does anyone have an opinion on its relative worth or disworth?

No wonder we're screwed

SUVs at altar, Detroit church prays for a bailout

Sun Dec 7, 2008 7:00pm By Kevin Krolicki and Soyoung Kim
DETROIT (Reuters) - With sport-utility vehicles at the altar and auto workers in the pews, one of Detroit's largest churches on Sunday offered up prayers for Congress to bail out the struggling auto industry....

Dent May & His Magnificent Ukulele present “Oh, Paris!”

Consider me obsessed.

Ohhh Liiiitcuuube<3<3<3

Hawaii leading the energy revolution?

What? I know. But yes, it looks like it may. If this idea works.

Check it out, here, here and here.

Doctors who terrorize

Fugu has witnessed these horror shows firsthand. To be fair, I have met very nice surgeons. But others are from hell.

Every nurse has a story about obnoxious doctors. A few say they have ducked scalpels thrown across the operating room by angry surgeons. More frequently, though, they are belittled, insulted or yelled at — often in front of patients and other staff members — and made to feel like the bottom of the food chain. A third of the nurses in Dr. Rosenstein’s study were aware of a nurse who had left a hospital because of a disruptive physician....

A survey of health care workers at 102 nonprofit hospitals from 2004 to2007 blames "badly behaved doctors for low morale, stress and high
turnover. ... Recent studies suggest that such behavior contributes to medical mistakes, preventable complications and even death."

Lego Eddie Izzard Death Star Canteen

I hadn't seen this, have you all?

When superheroes are not enough...

A style that's become hot enough to be kickin' in Glastonbury now for a few years, and I didn't know about it, even with my love for superheroes and all things costume!
My accupuncturist tipped me off on this, and I'm ashamed that it wasn't scooped by our own Nihongo beat reporter Odori. What's up slacker? there's this new rage going off and you're not on top of things? For shame Odori! What are you doing? Covering "real life news"?

some geek porn for fuge...

Happy Thunkinger Mongar!!!

Spore brain

There are so many gems in this Q&A with the creator of Spore, I'm reluctant to single any out with a quotation. But here's one anyway as an introduction. Go to the link for more. (Apologies if you've seen this interview already! )

I buy these pins that were designed to help you keep track of your radiation exposure. They kept them in bomb shelters during the cold war. They make great gifts.

Charlie the Unicorn, part two

Bang, and snap.

Google loves me, yes I know

Thoughts on turning your life over to Google.

Next-gen megahightech special effects

I was originally planning to edit out the slight 'visible wire' effect just barely discernable in this piece of highly-sophisticated home special-effecting.

Then I was inspired by Dean Learner, producer of the classic Garth Marenghi's Darkplace:

An eagle-eyed viewer might be able to see the wires. A pedant might be able to see the wires. But I think if you're looking at the wires you're ignoring the story. If you go to a puppet show you can see the wires. But it's about the puppets, it's not about the string.

If you go to a Punch & Judy show and you're only watching the wires, you're a freak.

LCB Freighter Gesha

LCB Freighter Gesha
Originally uploaded by Jerrec

Posted mainly for Fugu and for his love of industrialized spacecraft. Jerrec built the green one with an ingenious use of this piece. The other colors are variants made with my favorite image making program, Photoshop.

Kikaida is coming!

Kikaida (or Ban Daisuke at least) is coming!

WoW and the office of the President

President-elect Barack Obama appointed Kevin Werbach and Susan Crawford as his FCC transition co-chairs. Aside from being a professor of legal studies and business ethics, he also happens to be one of the Horde:

What does this tell us about him, as a person, as a gamer, as a government official? I will attempt to translate all the dorkese.
1. - CULTURAL RELATIVISM

Every player in WoW belongs to one of two warring factions, Alliance or Horde. Werbach is Horde. Children often choose to be Alliance because they perceive them as "the good guys", but students of history (both ours and Azeroth's) recognize that Alliance culture is based on medieval European culture and Horde culture is based on the indigenous cultures that were supplanted by the West.

Werbach is a Tauren (a minotaur), which basically makes him a Native Kalimdorian. The Tauren revere nature, living in wigwams near giant totem poles. As a Shaman (see below), he could also have chosen a troll (blue-skinned Jamaican-like monster) or an orc (green-skinned Klingon-like monster), so there must be something about the cow-man that appeals to his liberal guilt.

From the Boingboing.

Somalia Travelogue

So, I was reading some article about those Somali pirates who captured a thousand-foot-long oil tanker (that's equivalent to one thousand foot-long hot dogs laid end to end), and I thought to myself, "I wonder if anyone travels to Somalia." Like, for tourism. A quick google rewarded me with two splendid links.

One, the wikitravel page on Mogadishu. Following the glib format of wikitravel's other pages, with imperative-case headings like "Get In" and "Buy," the actual content basically says over and over, "Are you fucking kidding? Leave! Leave NOW! You are going to D-I-E!"

Further googlage led me to this delightful article from the Economist, about Somalia's decidedly unbusy tourism minister. Minister Osman provides several moneyshot quotes, including: "I'm sure tourists would leave Somalia alive and I'm hopeful they wouldn't be kidnapped."

쓰레기

Good morning!

Christianist Watch

The Christianists are policing how we shop.

Focus on the Family wants shoppers to know which retailers are naughty and which ones are nice - at least when it comes to holiday lingo. ... Those on the Christmas-offensive list use secular phrases such as "happy holidays" and have "apparently abandoned" the use of the word "Christmas," Focus said. Christmas-negligent companies "marginalize" their message by using "Christmas" in some cases and "holidays" in others.

Incidentally, a drop in donations is prompting Focus on the Family to cut its workforce by 18 percent.

Uh-oh

I'm not sure if Obama should prosecute the sadists who trashed 230 years of U.S. policy (yes, going back to George Washington!) that Americans must treat detainees with dignity. I can understand both sides laid out in this story. But our government needs to investigate who decided we should torture terror suspects and how these people were able to get away with it. We should also find out which Democrats knew what Bush/Cheney were doing, but declined to stop it.

Also, beware of sneaky moves before Jan. 20:

Whether Bush will protect his top aides and interrogators with a
pre-emptive pardon - before they are ever charged - has become a hot topic of
discussion in legal and political circles in the administration's waning days.
White House deputy press secretary Tony Fratto declined to comment on the
issue.

Early 90s-tastic comics! With analyses!

Hey, check out the
40 Worst Rob Liefeld Drawings.

I'd never heard of him, but as soon as I looked at these images I was back in high school, being met with the creeping realisation that in spite of their 2000 new spin-off mags, nothing interesting was going to happen to the X-men ever again...

Apologies, my friends!

For what it's worth, I am sorry for sharing...

July 4, 2009

Hey, look; the fake news page thing reaches its logical conclusion--an entire fake edition of the New York Times from the future, filled with a creepy level of optimism. I heard they passed out papers in NYC, too. Real papers, made of paper.

What it's like in New York City

My friend Annie lives in New York City. Yesterday, in a meeting I attended virtually by hologram, Annie offered her artistic take on the hypothetical Hawaii presentation of various and sundry foods and beverages. She belittles her own artistic skill, but if we were playing Pictionary, and the answer was "eating Spaghetti by the pool", I'd totally get it. Anyway, here is how Annie gets to work, on the days she bothers to show up. This is what it's like in New York City.



(With various and sundry apologies to Steve Ditko. Really, I'm thinking of sending him a card telling him how sorry I am.)

And thus I have now died of cuteness.

Once upon a time... from Capucha on Vimeo.

UFO. UFO.

Attention Paultard:

At Rebuild the Party, users can submit (and vote for) ideas for revitalizing the Republican Party. The top ideas aren't all insane--but the real reason I'm posting this link is so you can check out the new suggestions, which fill me with joy. See them all here and bathe in the spectrum of intriguing to conflicted to evil to deeply retarded.

The kind of thing I would have made...

Had I stuck it out like I should have with animation in college. Gawd Demmit.
Particular interest to me is Mr. Dangermouse's shirt sporting the Atari logo. I have that same shirt! Yay!

Congratulations: you have won a raised eyebrow and a concerned look.

Cats win at life.

For y'alls perusal...

This. I found it mildly interesting, so I post it here! I wish it was more constructive and less vague, but oh whelz. It sorta feels like the editorial you might find at the back of a Smithsonian Magazine that makes you stop and say "an article on games? no wai!" then you read it and it leaves you mildly disappointed.

The hard hitting investigative journalism I expect from AP!

Did you know at full growth these guys can bite a dude in half?

Super Obama World

Hey kids! Now you too can fight the evil forces of Sara Palin—lipstick pigs, Saks employees and more... Help the president-elect run and jump across the frozen wastelands of Alaska on his road to victory. Read about it here, or just play it here.

Huzzah!

It still seems too good to be true that so many normally apathetic citizens got off their collective asses and said "Let's go win this fucking thing!" with old-fashioned hard work and effort.


After being on the losing side of many political campaigns, I've become a cynical, apathetic bastard with respect to electoral politics. Of course I always vote when election day rolls around, but as far as phone-banking, door-to-door canvassing, fundraising, etc. goes, well I thought those days were behind me.






Then Obama comes along and for two years pulls off the unbelievable-- not just a resounding victory in the polls-- but energizing young people, old people, the most cynically jaded and lazy among us to do something extra. The man is amazing. So the least I could do was volunteer for the week before the election.




Because CA was considered in the bag, the Obama folks sent all of us L.A.-based volunteers out to Nevada, the closest battleground state. It felt great to be active again, trying to make a difference in a place where not everyone already agreed with you. Sometimes you get complacent living in a liberal enclave like San Francisco or L.A.

The scary thing is that the future is still pretty bleak and uncertain. Obama is going to have a hard time trying to deal with the steaming pile of shit that Bush is leaving behind. Success is going to be that much harder to achieve.

Mother Jones Beat me to it

I was all set to post this observation, realizing that I've been getting a serious Senator Palpatine vibe from Senator Lieberman that goes beyond their physical similarities, but, like the McCain-Tigh thing, someone beat me to it. Glad to see, though, that behind-the-scenes machinations and betrayals aren't quite so super-effective without Jedi mind tricks and force lightning and stuff.

Minifig Costume

My sister (the one who you'd find in Chinatown on Halloween) saw this in Chinatown, on Halloween.

J. Tribama

Mr. Pony said...

Yes, we have a bit of a history of this sort of thing.

November 5, 2008 9:55 PM

Greetings to Hawaii

Nice one, hawaiguys! 72% for Obama/Biden, woo-hoo!

Bye-bye

Click here for a photo retrospective of the Bush years.

State of the Nation '08

I CAN HAS COUNTRY BAK?

Ghost Ride

In order to not focus on the election too much, here is a video compilation of people getting out of their moving cars. It is a fad, apparently, among the youth. Just so long as you vote, youth!

Internet = win

Here's why

Pushing Daisies

Might be too TLDR for some folks (including me), but just in case someone out there isn't watching the show, the punch line is this: Watch this show.

Unlike Heroes and all the other crap on TV these days, I think the fact that it's up-beat (in a tastefully surreal sort of way) is a hell of a bonus. It apparently takes giant kahones these days to have a witty, well written series that isn't tragic and depressing or an over-the-top comedy.

Let's make our warriors more aggressive!

If troops returning from Iraq and Afghanistan are having a hard time adjusting to life back home, imagine what the veterans of the future may face. This is from an article about some of the military's new research:

The authors studied the outer reaches of the field of “human performance modification”—including brain-computer interfaces, neuro-pharmaceuticals, and “brain plasticity”—in search of advances that may have military applications.... the authors note that research on remote-controlling future soldiers, or stoking their aggression by implanting electrodes in their brains, looks promising in rats.

Imagine boosting the aggressiveness of U.S. soldiers and Marines by implanting electrodes in their brains! These warriors would never "win the hearts and minds" of the country they are invading/occupying. I also can't imagine any soldier or Marine would emerge from that experience emotionally healthy. I forsee great demand for psychologists and mental health counselors if this technology is ever developed and used. Hopefully we won't go there.

The original study can be found here. (I haven't read the original.)

Something I was weirded out by in Denver, and continue to be weirded out by.

This.

Can't Wait

Crystal Defenders Square/Enix is producing a new tower defense-type game set in the world of Final Fantasy.

God I love my iPod touch!

Sad Robot

I know you all have lives and stuff. And new babies - congrats!

But it makes this robot sad that you are not all as addicted to Spore as he is.



That is all.

hrmmm...

what do you guys think?
Babies make Galspanic tired.

Don't forget to vote!

Face Visualizer

Electrical impulses stimulate muscles in time to music. Article here.

Why??

This

UNIQLOCK!

Ladies: The Fall Line!

(Be sure to turn on the Fantastic Plastic Music)

Human evolution

Hey! Check out this artist's vision of how our bodies could evolve to accomodate modern consumer choices. This woman has an extended shoulder for holding a phone.

The above link has more photos. A preview:

Other proposals include a ridge in the nose developed for wearing glasses, ears moulded to accommodate earphones, a thumb with an extra joint for sending SMS messages more efficiently and a foot adapted to create the same posture as wearing high heels.

Diarrhea Tracker

AHOY. This is not about INSECTOID MURDER and/or WORM JIZZ. All I seem to do is take pictures. This is an ok one.



I will run the NYC Marathon on November 2 -- you may also follow my (lack of) progress by using their intertube and entering my race number -- 20277. If I should seem to stay in one place for longer than 15 minutes, you can be sure I am diarrheaing the sidewalk.

BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEES

!

when a wasp is first spotted, about 100 worker bees hang out by the hive opening and keep it open, thereby luring the wasp inside. Once the wasp has entered, 500 bees, who were lying in wait, swarm the wasp and latch onto it in a bee ball as seen above. The bees then begin to buzz and flap their wings, raising the temperature inside the ball to 47 degrees celsius. The bees can tolerate the temperature just fine, but the wasp has already reached its fatal limit at 45 degrees. The bees literally cook the invader to death.

116.6 degrees fahrenheit, bitches!

No wai!

Not quite the horror slug worm attack, But still impressive.

Hey, Unconnecty!

Horizontal HDD Stage Rack for Bare SATA Drives

Excellent storage solution. Horizontal orientation maintains uniform inertia across the HDD platter, equalizing strain on the motor and spindle, leading to fewer errors over time.

Amazingly enough...

Mr. Pony turned me onto this! best thing Blizzard has done so far in my opinion. Well, that and haircuts. Fugu! Get in there for me!

HDD Stage Rack for Bare SATA Drives

Mentioned this to Fugu the other day. Good storage solution for people with a lot of old SATA hard drives lying around. (I am one of these people.) You pop them in and out like game cartridges. Feels very SuperNES. Works just like you think it should. Found it here.

Mr. Pony Made my baby take a dump!

I'm just sayin'.

why I fucking love Jemaine Clement...

I mean, like in a sexy way. Maybe it's just me.

Velvet worm

From Ugly Overload.

I heart lobopods! Though it sucks that the coolest things in nature tend to be the smallest.

Demitri Martin

Hey, anyone? Demitri Martin's been on the Daily Show some, and has a super-retro website here. He's a little like a younger Steven Wright, who; from time to time, becomes hung up on how much younger he is. Seriously, though, he's funny.

Saw this at that fish taco place started by the family of that girl that my brother used to date.