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[ Comments Off ]Posted on October 12, 2008 by admin in Popular Media
Sunday, October 12th, 2008Do you want flies with that?
The disturbing video at left is from “Pseudo Anonymous Artist” Banksy’s latest creation, The Village Petstore and Charcoal Grill (do you want flies with that?). The first time I saw Banksy’s work, I cynically thought “Cool. Just what the world needs. Another celebrity graffiti artist”. I’ve sinced changed my tune; his resistance to claiming his fame is kind of admirable. I was especially amused that he chose an Emo Phillips quote for the latest manifesto on his web site: “When I was a kid I used to pray every night for a new bicycle. Then I realised God doesn’t work that way, so I stole one and prayed for forgiveness”. Emo should go into politics. Although the Pet Store & Grill will be open from 10am until midnight every day until October 31st, you probably won’t make it to New York to see the exhibit, so Banksy has graciously created a YouTube page with videos of most of the “menu”. You know, I always had a hunch as a kid that there was something that they weren’t telling us about fish sticks.
Retinal Torture For Fun And Profit
[ Comments Off ]Posted on October 10, 2008 by admin in Popular Media
Friday, October 10th, 2008Choosy mothers choose animated GIF’s
The image at left is disturbing enough on its own, but viewed this way (don’t click that link before your morning coffee or after too many drinks), is likely to tangle your optic nerves. The gallery of animated image backgrounds in that link was created by James Koehnline, a Seattle artist whose work grew mostly out of the ‘zine culture and groups like the 1980′s Chicago gallery/meeting space Axe Street Arena. He mostly works with cut-and-paste collage work, but clearly has some talent with digital design. This image in particular creeps me out, but I can’t stop looking at it.
There’s Always Time For Internet Porn!
[ Comments Off ]Posted on October 3, 2008 by admin in Popular Media
Friday, October 3rd, 2008You’ll be snuggly warm in your blanket of shame all day.
Since I work at a computer up to 14 hours a day at times, people occasionally make the mistake of thinking I know how to fix them, and then they make the additional mistake of thinking I want to do it for free. Honestly, would you ever say to your neurosurgeon friend “my brain’s completely screwed. Can you come over and operate on it tonight? We can open a nice Pinot I picked up today.” Anyway, a couple of years ago, I noticed that the same kind of person was always having problems with porn pop-ups, homepage hijacks, and viruses on their computer. Can you guess the demographic? If you guessed “MEN”, you guessed correctly. It got to the point that when people called with a problem, I’d jokingly ask them (in a total deadpan, in the middle of a bunch of dull technical questions) “Is there a male, age 13-87 in the house?” I also bought the domain AllPornedUp.com (SFW, but just a layout prototype) as a result. So it’s always amazed me – when it’s SOOOO obvious how many men look at porn daily – how many women are SHOCKED when they find it. So check out the informative video at left, it’ll leave you, as the video says “…snuggly and warm in your blanket of shame all day…”
Spit Or Swallow?
[ Comments Off ]Posted on September 26, 2008 by admin in Popular Media
Friday, September 26th, 2008Get your mind out of the gutter. I just cleared my throat…
That’s a question I occasionally ask myself when I clear my throat as I walk down the sidewalk and no-one’s around. The PSA at left takes the other twist on “Spit Or Swallow”, with a less obvious punchline than you’d expect. That PSA reminded me of this Trojan ad from Europe, which also put a pretty funny spin on a pretty serious topic. And it’s funny how this extremely sexist Mercedes ad offends so few, while drunk driving ads like this or this are deemed too offensive or too “intense” for the American airwaves.
Alien Robot Children Invade Internet
[ Comments Off ]Posted on September 20, 2008 by admin in Popular Media
Saturday, September 20th, 2008Is Suicide The Ultimate In Self Editing?
If you haven’t already seen the video at left, I feel pretty safe in saying it will be the most peculiar thing you see on video today. Be patient, it picks up at around 25 seconds and really gets going by 45. Art of Noise actually sort of went into this territory with Close to the Edit back in 1983, but not with the same weird, verité quality. In the same vein, check out the quirky but brilliantly edited Amateur by Lasse Gjertsen. He brings new meaning to the term “play with yourself”. This solitary performance and editing lifestyle may explain why Lasse appears to have later died in an unfortunate Decuple Suicide, as documented here. R.I.P., Lasse, that looked pretty uncomfortable.