Archive for the ‘satire’ Category

Fat suit for Barbie (UPDATED)

Thursday, July 15th, 2010

I believe this is originally from Buzzfeed, discovered via Alice Taylor’s Wonderland blogPresented without comment, but heaps of admiration.  Comments below…

Update:

Jessica just mentioned that she’d shown this to a coworker, who in turn showed it to her hyper-Christian friends, who were shocked by the “nudity”.  My impression was that they were more disturbed by the relative anatomical correctness of the Barbie fat suit.  Granted, all this one has that the stock Barbie is missing are nipples, but whatever.

Then I started thinking about anatomically correct dolls and how they’re used.  I’m imagining a sort of “Law and Order: Special Victims Unit, Toy Story Edition” scenario…

Cop (indicating the fat-suited Barbie): “Go ahead, show us where Twinkie the Kid touched you.”

Victim (sobbing): “I can’t!  I have type two diabetes!  He said that if I ever told anyone he’d come back and give me type three diabetes!”

Cop: “He can’t ever do that.  You’re safe with us.  Not to mention there’s no such thing as type three diabetes.”

Alright, I realize that some researchers are trying to categorize certain Alzheimer’s characteristics as “type three” diabetes, but this is all just a bunch of bad jokes about a fat doll, after all.

Also touched inappropriately by Twinkie the Kid

Also touched inappropriately by Twinkie the Kid

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TIM clock is both useless and wonderful

Tuesday, May 18th, 2010

Via Boing Boing, here’s the TIM (Time Is Money) clock.  The inventor claims to have been inspired after enduring mandatory four-hour meetings.  That’s nothing.  I used to work for an IT training organization which had two week-long meetings per year, mainly to justify our managers’ existence.  That’s two weeks a year listening to lower management read upper management’s email out loud.  At the end of each week we’d have a “team-building” exercise which included:

  • Human foozball
  • Bowling
  • Laser tag
  • Go-cart racing

The other fifty weeks of the year management shoved their hands back down their pants and fantasized about the Malcolm Baldrige Quality Award.  I shit you not.  Think of the cell phone company you least want service from and you’ve probably guessed my former employer’s identity.

See also:

Freelancer’s Taxi Meter

How to fail with Power Point

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Dale Cooper likes canned coffee…

Wednesday, May 12th, 2010

Via i09, here are four 1993 Japanese commercials for Georgia canned coffee, featuring part of the Twin Peaks cast and directed by David Lynch.  Several of the i09 comments were surprisingly negative, alleging Lynch debased his masterpiece for profit.  I’m a huge Lynch fan — I know more about him and his work than anyone outside of film school ought to — and I think these commercials are totally consistent with the spirit of the series.

Think about it — these are Japanese commercials for canned coffee.  The premise is both joke and punchline.  It’s brilliant.  I have to assume the Lynch purists missed the extremely dark, absurdist comedy that made Twin Peaks great.  Lynch’s best work is always a mixture of comedy and horror.  C’mon — Frank Booth!  Who else could make a nitrous-huffing rapist/murderer simultaneously terrifying and hilarious?  Well, Dennis Hopper also deserves a lot of credit.  When you finally realize that Lynch’s version of Dune is really a comedy these commercials will make perfect sense.

The only valid criticism I can imagine is the gratuitous use of the Log Lady, whose character had become emblematic of the series (and therefore the brand), even though she was a relatively minor part of the story.  It’s true!

I’m going to have to watch all of Lynch’s commercials, now.  I had no idea he’d worked for Michael Jackson, Nissan, and Sony.

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Coined a term: Thread + meme = “Threme”

Sunday, April 11th, 2010

All hail me, unless someone beat me to it — which is a long way of saying “First!”

Special credit goes to Cory (KSJW) for his prodigious Twitter output and relative lack of filters.

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Weird Al’s grammar lesson

Friday, April 2nd, 2010

Via the Consumerist:

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Topeka: World’s top search engine

Thursday, April 1st, 2010

I’ve mentioned the Topeka, Kansas strategy of changing its name to Google for a month in order to attract attention and become one of Google’s broadband test communities. Today Google has responded by changing its name to Topeka.

Topeka (the search engine) has posted some helpful advice on how to properly use its verb form in everyday conversation. Well, by “everyday” I mean today, the first of April, but using proper terminology is critical.

Vanity Update: I was a little amazed to discover that among all of the big-boy blogs I follow only Boing Boing posted about this before I did.  Even more surprising was that the author wasn’t Cory Doctorow.  He’s based in London and has a serious time zone-advantage.  Granted, I have that whole sleep-disorder thing going for me, but he’s freaking Cory Doctorow.  I think he’s actually developed the ability to follow RSS feeds telepathically.

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The Weird Al sex tape

Wednesday, March 3rd, 2010

I was planning to submit this without comment (it really needs none), but this Boing Boing commenter summed up my experience:

*hold breath*

*click*

Oh, thank god.

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The freelancer’s desktop taxi meter

Friday, February 26th, 2010

Via Core 77:

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Don’t just shorten your URL — make it shady

Friday, February 26th, 2010

Their tagline is “Don’t just shorten your URL, make it suspicious and frightening“.

When I ran everythingrightiswrongagain.com through it I got this:

http://5z8.info/-OPEN-WEBCAM—START-RECORD–_l3l1v_trojan

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Television (BBC, a decade ago)

Wednesday, February 10th, 2010

I’ve become a TV-watcher again — at least until I run out of things to watch — on the intertubes, of course.

I wandered away from television a few years ago and haven’t really missed it at all.  I recently discovered a bunch of UK-series, though, and was driven to hunt down every episode of every series.  Amazingly good stuff:

Next are Nathan Barley, Green Wing, and The Smoking Room.  Suggestions are welcome.

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