Lonely No More

Listen up ladies and gay men alike: French design company Mat & Jewski has a promising solution to lonely night - and it doesn't require batteries. They have created a collection of sheets and mattresses called "Prends moi dans tes bras" (Take me in your arms) and "Ne pas dormir seul (e)" (To not sleep alone) respectively. The sheets and matresses have pictures of um -comment dire? - hot, naked men printed on by ink jet. I bet you'll have to wash these sheets more often than usual, non?

Recto

Verso

Amazuseless

OK this one of the most useless applications I've ever seen. Even more useless than most of the things I write about and I've written about some pretty useless stuff. In fact, I don't even really know what purpose this serves, I think it was created purely as fodder for us bored and aimless bloggers...and obviously it worked. "It" is called Amaztype, and what does it do, you ask? Well I was just about to tell you before you so rudely interrupted me. Amaztype writes out the word of your query (author, musician, director, actor, film, album, book, etc.) with pictures from the Amazon website. Get it? No? OK, if you enter "Harry Potter" and select "book" you will see the words "Harry Potter" written out with pictures of the Harry Potter books. Still don't get it? Jeeze, just look at the example below. Try it out for youself here. For the most popular searches, try the Amaztype Zeigeist and for some other random pictures, try the Amaztype tag on Flickr.

Just One More Thing I Can't Do

So I went to Starbucks today, something I don't do very often (I actually did go this morning, this isn't just a cute little anecdote for the purpose of introducing this blog entry). I ordered a medium latte. The barista gave me a blank stare, blinked a couple of times in an attempt to get me to qualify my order with something like "non-fat" or "mocha" or some other jargon. After an awkward pause he asked "you mean Grande?" Like he didn't know what the word medium meant. That was slightly disturbing. As if ordering a freakin drink at Starbucks isn't complicated enough (for simpletons like me anyway), here's something to make it a little more complicated: Latte Art. Yeah that's right. I suppose this is what you get when you have creative artist types forced to work at Starbucks in order to support their "I make art, not money" lifestyle. CoffeeGeek has some examples of this kind of work. And if you've been sitting in your parents' basement for the last five years with your milk frothing machine, honing your latte art skills to the point where you can achieve the perfect Rosetta with your eyes closed, then fear not my desperately lonely friend, there is a place for your kind. It's called Seattle. More specifically it's called CoffeeFest Seattle and they have a Latte Art Competition where you can finally prove to the world that you are the virtuoso that you've always know you were.




So pretty, you almost don't want to drink it...


...but you will cause you're addicted to caffeine. Yeah, that's right, I know who you are.

Keeping A Promise About A Secret

So way back when first wrote about PostSecret I promised to give regular updates on what I thought were the best postcards. It would seem that I lied. It was truly my intention to do so all along and I have been checking PostSecret every week, but alas I have not kept my promise to you, dear readers. So, in a effort to make good on a forgotten promise, here are a couple of good ones from PostSecret. But let us be honest for a moment, do you even care? I didn't think so.

You need to get a new job.

No, it wasn't me.

Change Is Good. Or Not.

OK, now this time I really truly want comments. For serious. I just changed the design of my site (you know, with my fancy HTML skills) to make it look a little cleaner and nicer and less likely to give you a mild seizure. You may remember that the previous background looked like this:

Now this isn't too difficult: do you like what you see now or do you prefer the pretty green circle pattern? This is your chance to have a say in something really important. Well ok, no, but for the love of god let me know what you think. I'm dying over here!

Custom Content

So here's something neat (one day I'm going to start a post with "Here's something deathly boring, whatever you do, don't read/play/look at/listen to/do this"): a couple of dudes (Daniel Scheibel and Ferdinand Weinrother if you need to know) at the University of Applied Sciences Augsburg in Germany created something called The Unseen Video for their term project in the Department of Design. They took the song "You Make Me Feel" by Mike Milosh as the soundtrack to a video they created. The kicker is that the video changes depending on the geographical position of the user. The variables are based on sunrise/sunset times, temperature, wind speed, P.O.P. and a couple of other things that I don't care to list here. The position of the user is determined by his/her ISP (I assume) and based on the information from the nearest weather base (no seriously) the video adapts to the environmental mood you're situated in. Neat! Man, that's some fun stuff - I'm obviously going to the wrong school. This is what I call custom entertainment people! Here are a couple of shots of what my video looked like. Go here for your own.

Flickricious

I don't know what took me so long (actually I do, but that doesn't really matter) but I've finally joined the ranks of People Who Think Their Pictures Are Good Enough To Show The World, that is to say, I got me a Flickr account. I'm in the process of uploading neat pictures I've taken (which is about 1 out of every 627) from my trips to Europe, Cuba, Israel, Mexico and just around this old town. A word to my trips mates and friends: most of my pictures are faceless. That is to say, you're not in them. So no angry emails about me violating your privacy by posting pictures of you online, please. Another thing I won't do is post artsy pictures of my feet and stuff like that. I hate people who do that. Check out the nifty little link to my Flickr pictures in the sidebar of this site (a little lower...lower...no you past it...it's right there dumbass!) or you can just go here. Leave comments about how I'm "such a poser wannabe artistic photographer" and how I suck, or you could just drop the attitude and tell me you like my pictures. God you're a bitch. Also, if you have a Flickr account add me to your friends list so it looks like I have friends. And if you don't have Flickr, then I don't have anything to say to you. Goodbye.

Look Ma, I can make screencaps!

Jellyfish Fridays IV

Lots going on here at Jellyfish Fridays so let's get to it. I'm pleased to announce that we have our first reader-submitted jellyfish encounter. This is Carole's (yes, that Carole) roommate Dan with his very own jellyfish (well I don't know if he actually owns if but for the purposes of this blog we'll just say that he does).


Awesome, keep those submissions coming. And here's our choice of jellyfish for this week. Don't know what it's called but there seems to be a general consensus between everyone here at Jellyfish Fridays (ok, me) that it bares a striking resemblance to...

Mushroom Boy from Mario Brothers. Thus we shall christen this jellyfish Jellyshroom. Rock on.

Eavesdroppings

I've been meaning to post this one for a while but I suppose I got side-tracked by jellyfish and Grandmasters of origami and playdough oranges and the like. You know how it is. Anyway, this is a site called Overheard In New York where people (presumably from New York) can go to write a transcript of funny bits of conversation they've heard and where people (presumably from anywhere) can go to read these funny bits of coversation that New Yorkers have had. Now one has to assume that most of the stuff on there is the truth (or an approximation thereof). I suppose any one could write anything cause there's no real way of verifying it but if you do that then you're a really big loser and you need help/a life. Most of the quotes seem to revolve around sex, bodily functions, racial issues, drugs and relationships. Here's a good one: Girl #1: My friend Chandra thinks she's still a virgin because she's only had anal sex. Girl #2: How do you know this girl? Girl #1: She goes to my church. --NY Public Library, 5th Ave & 42nd St. And here's one that is equally entertaining: Dumb teen: Hey, look at this! It says "Train for jobs in beeyotch." Smarter teen: Fool! That word is biotech. Why you gotta be ignorant all your life? --1 train

Fun With Words! (Loser)

ADDICTION ALERT: The following contains information to a highly addictive game that may cost you your job, family and/or friends and threaten to take over your life. Do not read the following if you have high blood pressure, diabetes, a heart condition, a history of mental illness. Playing Weboggle while pregnant may harm your baby.

Whoa, who said that? Anyway, Weboggle is like Boggle, only on the web - clever huh? I remember playing this Boggle when I was a kid, and I was really bad at it back then...

...and I'm still bad at this one now! Last time I placed 77th, out of 80 players. But man is it addictive. It's one of those "just one more and I swear I'm done" kinds of games. For those of you who are unfamiliar with Boggle, it's a really simple concept: you get a bunch of letter and you gotta make words with them. Sounds boring I know, but it's not. Think of it as the bastard love child of Scrabble and Wordsearch. One day Wordsearch said he was going out for a pack of smokes and never came home leaving Scrabble to raise Boggle all by herself on a minimum wage salary. Boggle never took well to authority and despite Scrabble's best efforts, Boggle ended up down and out, in and out of half-way houses, only thinking of where his next fix would come from. Poor Boggle never stood a chance in this world. Play here.

Weboggle: Oodles of fun until you get fired!

It Pays To Have A Blog...And Friends

Thanks to my good friend Carole from Montreal, I am now the proud owner of one of these:


I guess she likes me a little. She is also the biggest supporter of this blog - whenever I get lazy, or my content is too generic for her liking she calls me on it. She also reminds me to do Jellyfish Fridays. If I ever become a famous blogger (which, you know, is likely to happen), she'll for sure be my manager. You're the best Carole!

Movie [Heart] Movie

What happens when a movie catches the eye of another movie from across the room, a little film flirting ensues and they ultimately end up back at one of the movie's apartments? Another great Photoshop contest, that's what! Brought to you by the fine (as in sexy!) people at Worth1000 (the same people who brought you the Plantimals contest in July), Mate A Movie has some great submissions by readers who have combined the themes of two movies to make one movie poster. Some of the entries include The Catwoman In The Hat (Catwoman + Cat In The Hat), Shrulk (Shrek + Hulk), Office Space Balls (Office Space + Space Balls) - yes I felt like I had to spell them all out for you just in case you're, you know, dumb.

Via GeekLikeMe.

Can you guess this one all by your self?

This one's a bit of a toughy.

Do I Have Friends?

OK so if I switch from MSN Messenger to Google Talk, who's gonna come with me? No really, is anyone going to come along or will I just be sitting there all alone talking to myself (yeah, that sounds about right). If anyone else is planning to attempt an escape from the ubiquitous clutches of Microsoft, please let me know. Download the beta version of Google Talk here.

Hello? Talk to me. Please?

I Have Friends

So you may have noticed, but very likely haven't, that I've added a new section of links to the options on the right hand side of this blog (that's over there <----). It's called "People I Know In Real Life" and it links to sites belonging to...all together now: People I Know In Real Life. Here's a rundown:

• Camille DePutter - Food & Fiction: Camille is a friend of mine from U of T. She loves food and writing so she has combined the two to create a blog about recipes for some great dishes (even more great when she makes them for you). She is also a Food columnist for BlogTO.
• Matt Nish-Lapidus - mn-l: Matt, husband of Camille, makes music. Computer music to be exact. On his site you can find information about his tunes, his shows and his reviews.
• Luke Lutman - Luxy: Luke, friend of Matt (everyone knows everyone), makes...well he makes lots of stuff. His website features some of his work including videography, photography, web and graphic design. That reminds me: Luke, can you make my blog not so ugly? Thanks.
• Katelyn Lutman - Makeup Artist: Katelyn, wife of Luke, tries her darndest to make ugly people look presentable. No but seriously, Katelyn has an awesome website (probably designed by her husband) that features the work she's done on photo shoots, films and bridal parties. Need your makeup done? Give her a call.

I actually know more people than that in real life (for real), but they either don't have websites or they have websites that I don't know about. So if I know you (in real life) and you have a website, let me know so I can put it up here and expose you to all (four) of my readers.

Like Harry Potter, Only With Cards

Bryan Berg has his Master of Design Studies from the Harvard Graduate School of Design. Some of his classmates surely went on to be architects and designers and professors, but no Bryan. You see, Bryan was a "special" boy with "special" powers. Magical, even. He had the power to make incredibly detailed scaled-down replicas of existing buildings and structures entirely out of playing cards. That's right. No glue. No tape. No gum. Just cards. It isn't for naught that they call him Cardstacker. No really, that's his title. Kind of like the Grandmaster of Origami. I don't know which one is cooler. Check out more pictures here.

Generic-looking American State building That I Don't Know The Name Of.

I bet this makes all that hard work worth it.

Animal Skulls Put To Good Use

Look at me, I'm writing about art again! I'm a veritable art critic over here. Except not. I'm not even sure this qualifies art. But it certainly is...what's the word I'm looking for?...gross? Well it's not exactly gross, it's more like, creep. OK words are failing me today, just look for yourself ok? Jessica Joslin is her name and creepy animal skull metal trinket creatures are her game. Right. I've really never seen anything like it.


Sometimes pictures defy captions. Kind of like right now.

Cats and Rats

To all cat lovers and cat haters alike, I implore you to set aside your differences come together this Monday morning and delight in the dumb things that cats do:

Oh man that's some funny shit. As The Streets once said "We could settle wars with this," although I think they were talking about drugs.

By the way, this video comes to you courtesy of the one they call Ratface, although I'm pretty sure that's not her real name, but since I don't actually know her, it very well could be. Not only did I steal this video from her blog, but she also showed me how to do it. Awesome.

Maybe He Can Draw Me A Jellyfish

Dylan Sisson is an artist from Seattle. He draws and paints, just like you would expect from, you know, an artist. His website features some of his work. Who cares what I think? But just in case you do: I think his stuff is really neat. He draws these crazy creatures and people and things that are a little cute and a little sad and a little icky all at the same time. As his website says, he makes things "that are at once compelling and repugnant, things that scribble outside of desire and disgust." Right, that's what I said. Actually his stuff kind of reminds me of something out of a Tim Burton movie. And that's definitely a good thing.

Jellyfish Fridays III

Still here by not-so-popular demand, our third installment of Jellyfish Fridays. Do you like how I switch to the royal "we" whenever I write the Jellyfish Friday segments? Yeah, me neither, but I think it's beyong my control, sorry. OK, check out this wide load of a jellyfish. I mean, if jellyfish were edible (are they?), this one could feed a small tribal village for approximately eight weeks. It's like four times the size of that scubadude in the background there! I would tell you what it's called and stuff but I don't remember what website I ripped it off so I'll just have to name it the Large Marge jellyfish until someone can give me the real name. Happy Friday!



Holy jellyfish Batman!

Next Stop: Art

Not only is public transportation good for the environment, it's pretty too! Well depending on where you live, that is. Metro Bits, a site devoted to the world's subway systems and all things of a subwayish nature, has compiled pictures of incredibly beautiful subway stations from all over the world. And some of them are unbelievably nice. Much nicer than your SUV! It almost makes me feel better that I have to sit on the subway for over an hour every day, except that none of the stations I pass through are nice. At all. So it doesn't. Make me feel any better, that is. Sigh.


Olaias Station. Lisbon, Portugal

Yonggwang Station, Pyongyang, North Korea

Fake Plastic Blogs

The wisdom of Weezer's "We Are All On Drugs" becomes more apparent to me the more I write this blog. A dude from New York (where else?) has a site where he details the day-to-day trauma of living with a stalker. OK. Except his stalker is Thom York. From Radiohead. Like, the singer. With the fucked up teeth. Yeah. So this guy writes about how Thom just randomly shows up everywhere he goes and makes strange remarks. It took me a little while to realize that everything Thom is saying are actually Radiohead lyrics. Heh.

Reality Gum

There once was a dude who chew a lot of gum and made portraits of reality TV stars with the chewed gum. Don't ask question people, we live in a society of mass consumption where anything goes. Even, um, this. His name is Ben Harben and Bubblegum Society is his kingdom. This is supposed to be some sort of subversive social commentary on how disposable popular culture has become but since all my dear readers are so intelligent, I don't feel compelled to discuss it. Instead just go here and look at all the pretty pictures. It actually kind scares me that I recognize most of the people in the portraits.

She blows, she blows! Oh baby when she chews, she chews!"

Do They Know I'm Gonna Download This Illegally?

So this is awesome (I think I need a new word don't you? Like maybe "cool"?). The bitches at Vice Records (I don't actually know them but they seem like they would be bitches) made a spoof of the 1984 Band-Aid song "Do They Know It's Christmas?". It's called "Do They Know It's Hallowe'en?" by something called the North American Halloween Prevention Initiative which is just code for "Big Group of Really Kick-Ass Artists Singing A Song Together." The artists include The Arcade Fire, The Postal Service, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Feist, Beck, Rilo Kiley, Sonic Youth and more. Yeah, I know, craziness. I heard about five seconds of the song and it sounds pretty promissing. Listen to it here.

Six Careers, One Exciting Game!

Hey girls! With Selchow & Righter Company's What Shall I Be? (The Exciting Game of Career Girls) boardgame, we now have a grand total of six careers to aspire to. Yes, that's right, six! To win, you must be the first player to become either a ballet dancer, an airline hostess, a nurse, a college teacher, an actress or a model. According to Bradley's Almanac, some of the subjects necessary to become a career girl are Proper English, Hairstyling and How To Use Make-Up. Sweet. I have none of those skills. The game also gives you helpful hints like: If you are a slow thinker, you are not cut out to be an airline hostess or a nurse and if you are overweight, becoming a ballet dancer or a model is out of the question. Sucks to be a little girl in 1966.

Via Boing Boing and Bradley's Almanac.

Where's the card for Professional Blogger?

Stuff+Cats=Pretty Good Idea

Now I don't have a cat, but if I did, I'd definitely be participating in this, erm, project. Actually, I'm thinking of getting a cat just to be a part of this. The people at Stuff On My Cat sound like my kind of people. Their slogan is "Stuff+Cats=Awesome." That's pretty funny folks. But not quite as funny as some of the submissions they get. The name kind of says it all. People send in pictures of their cats with...stuff on them. So simple, it's genius. The categories of "stuff" range from Food to Creatures to Naughty Stuff. The pictures are hilarious and most of the time the cats seem to be pretty indifferent to the stuff being piled on their bodies for the sake of communal internet humour. Here's a question for all you cat owners out there: is this a common practice, putting stuff on your feline friends? Or is it a strange pleasure enjoyed by a marginal few? Just asking. If you want to participate, and god bless you if you do, the information is here.

Thank you to Parker for this awesome find. Mucho appreciated.


Do you think they ordered all that pizza just to take this picture?

This isn't considered, like, abuse, is it?

He Better Have Been Prom King

OK, this guy is awesome. He made a completely functional tuxedo for his prom, bow tie and all, entirely our of Coke cans. Now I don't know many people who could make that work. I suppose it doesn't hurt to have that Napoleon Dynamite quality about you. He even made a matching corsage for his date. That's the cutest couple I've ever seen. Man did my high school suck. See the entire process here.

Captain Koons For President

I'd like to say thank you to the people who have nothing better to do than make up elaborate internet hoaxes with no decernable profit or gain to the perpetrator other than modest attention in certain internet circles. Whatever floats your boat I guess. But really, these people make my day. Someone out there went to great lengths to make it look like Christopher Walken has announced his candidacy for the 2008 presidential race. In spite of his recent questionable roles (see Gigli, Kangaroo Jack), the prevailing opinion seems to be "getting christopher walken for president would rawk! He was like sooo awesome in that music video!" Right. The "official" website is pretty funny, complete with information on his party affiliation (he has none) and snazzy campaign slogan (It's time to get America back on track). Nicely done.

Move Over Broccoflower, There's A New Crossbreed In Town

Enlighten me. Am I the only dumbass who didn't know ligers are real? No, seriously. I read it on the National Geographic website and they're not allowed to lie. Apparently when a male lion gets busy with a female tiger, it makes a freakin liger! Heck yes! I mean who knew that this:

looks like this in real life? Certainly not I!

Liger? For serious? Heck Yes!

Jellyfish Fridays II

Whoa, I almost forgot about Jellyfish Fridays. Again. But here I am! So, behold the angelic beauty of the Medusa jellyfish. C'mon, altogether now: Jellacool.

Rubik's Boob

Excuse me but I can't help but notice that you're having trouble with that Rubik's Cube over there. Well obviously you're a dumbass. Allow me to help. Here's the solution. It's an "annotated practical guide" which means there are colour pictures for all the morons out there. Do you think you can figure it out now? How long did it take you? The shortest time for solving the puzzle is held by Shotaro Makisumi of Japan, at the California Tech Spring Tournament in 2004 with a time of 12.11 seconds.

He also holds the record for the shortest time for solving the puzzle blindfuckingfolded at 2:57. I can't even pick my nose blindfolded.

Actually it's supposed to look like this.

Grandmaster of Origami

Now I'm not sure, but this might just trump the aforementioned playdough orange. This is an origami phoenix. Get it? It's a pheonix made entirely of paper.

And the second one? It's origami Gandalf! (well on the site it's just a generic wizard but I like to think it's Gandalf. He's got the staff and everything). They were both made by a 21 year-old dude named Kamiya Satoshi. The origami world (yes, they have a world) is hailing him as the next Grandmaster of Origami (the former Grandmaster of Origami, Yoshizawa Akira, died earlier this year at the age of 94). Now that's a sexy title if I've ever heard one. Imagine putting that on your business card. I wonder what kind of perks the Grandmaster of Origami gets. Like, do you get to sit in the V.I.P. section of the hottest clubs if you're the Grandmaster of Origami? Any information would be appreciated.

Watch out for my lethal papercut Saruman.

Hitchhiker's Guide To The Google

A little laugh from our friends at Google (everyone loves Google) for fans of Douglas Adam's Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: type (or just copy and paste, you lazy bastards) "answer to life the universe and everything", sans quotation marks into the search box. Heh. If you haven't read the book, then, um, you won't really be impressed.

If Only It Could Make Juice

Hiya kids! Today we going to learn how to turn this:

into this!

Now of all the playdough oranges I've seen, and believe me I've seen many a playdough orange in my day, this is by far the biggest, um, waste of time? No seriously though, let's discuss this for a moment if you will. Someone please explain to me why, why! anyone would take the time to create such an elaborate imitation of a fruit...out of playdough! I mean this thing has a fucking textured peel, individual wedges and that white stuff in between. WTF? Correct me if I'm wrong but the only people that would realistically be interested in dough-fruit (other than me) are between the ages of 3 and 6. Somehow I feel that the painstakingly elaborate design would be lost on a first grader.

Ctrl + Alt + Fckt

My friend Danielle sent me this. She found it very amusing. So did I. What does that say about us?

Did you check your TCP/IP settings? Enable cookies?

That's Not True, Is It?

If you love me - or even like me a little - you'll buy this t-shirt for me. Thanks, you're the best!

Jellyfish Fridays I

Hello and welcome to the first installment of Jellyfish Fridays. By a vote of 1 to 0 in its favour (thanks Nav), Jellyfish Fridays will become a regular segment on your favorite site in the blogsphere (no, I mean this site right here). Every friday I will post a picture of a crazy-ass jellyfish. This post looks like I wrote this on Friday, but today is actually Saturday and I just changed the date on Blogger cause I forgot about Jellyfish Fridays yesterday. Sorry. I'll be better next week. Audience participation is also encouraged, so if you find a picture of hellacool jellyfish over the course of your daily internet wanderings, please pass it along to me and we will determine whether or not it meets the standards we have here at Jellyfish Fridays. So, for your viewing pleasure, behold the Rhizostone Jellyfish. Jellacool.