I believe this is originally from Buzzfeed, discovered via Alice Taylor’s Wonderland blog. Presented 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.
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.
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.
I wonder if the one-way sign figures into the message somehow. Also, I’m intrigued by the use of the term “gayness”, rather than any number of much more insulting homophobic slurs.
If you know any homophobes who hang out near 13th and Edmond, ask around, then let me know if there’s a subtext I’m missing out on. Although this sort of stop sign vandalism is hardly clever, this particular graffito is damned near polite. I’m imagining someone’s grandmother standing on a kitchen chair, shaking a can of blue paint.
UPDATE — From the comments:
codemenkeysays: “there’s only one way left to stop gayness”?
My reply:
But, if there’s only one way left, what’s it supposed to be? I want to go back and add a [CITATION NEEDED] tag.
After looking at the style closer, I have to agree that his wasn’t the first sign tagged with this message. It isn’t sloppy and the paint isn’t drippy or stuttered, like it is on the underline, meaning the person knew about can control. Plus, from teenage experience I know that writing with a can is different than handwriting. It takes practice to get a legible word out with spray paint.
My Reply:
You need a Daily Show-style ERIWA commentator title. My first thought was Resident Youthful Indiscretion Expert, but I’m reserving that title for myself. Maybe something involving the phrase “Statue of Limitations”? Naw, I’d better hold onto that one as well.
This weeks brings a bigger edition, but mainly because I’m including a couple of ‘toons I skipped last week. I’ve reconsidered and decided they ought to have made the cut. Remember to click the images for the full-sized ‘toons, author commentary (in some cases), and sweet, sweet advertising.
Lulu Eightball:
Big Fat Whale:
Toothpaste for Dinner (x2):
Matt Bors, addressing the fake controversy which lead to the hilarious Boobquake Experiment:
Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal (x2):
Spleenal (site is frequently NSFW, funny as hell):
Oy. I hate it when some VINO (Vegan/Vegatarian In Name Only, of course) commits to structuring a tortured rationale to justify eating certain animals. I’ve seen it over and over again. It’s intellectually dishonest and uncomfortable to watch. The only way it gets worse is when they also falsely claim to be a Buddhist (BINO). That’s enough hypocrisy to literally make one choke.
You know who I respect a lot more than VINO’s? The folks over at Meatpaper. They totally own their carnivorous nature and are a hell of a lot less judgmental than your average BINO.
New from Adult Swim Games — it’s Tofu Hunter! Select your weapons and go after the tofu bucks, seitan birds, and tofu dogs while avoiding the tofu does. Remember to pick off the soy milk containers for more time.
Tip: If you have a pen tablet, try using the pen instead of the mouse. I find this greatly increases speed and accuracy in Flash-based shooters, while easing wrist stress.
My daughter’s going to love this, minus the scanitly-clad camo-babes who pop up occasionally. I’m sure she’d happily replace the rottweilers in Quake with tofu bucks. And yes, she really does play Quake.
Update:
Whoops — forgot to include the disclosure-thingy. This might count as some sort of review and I don’t want to get caught up in the Greedy-Soccer-Mom-Craven-Dumbass dragnet which yet looms over bloggers.
I was out running errands on the ol’ bike and saw this sign. It’s a relatively new addition to a little corner property which seems to change hands on a pretty regular basis, but is mainly occupied by automotive businesses. I once bought an old Volvo 850 wagon from a previous tenant. The last tenant, an auto detailer, moved their business across the street to the site of a long-defunct pawn shop where I bought my first snare drum and first electric guitar in the mid ’80s.
Note the totally ballsy appropriation of Mad Magazine’s mascot, Alfred E. Neuman. Mr. Neuman historically represents incompetence, obliviousness, and fundamental denseness, albeit in a humorous context. A number of explanations for this scenario occurred to me:
The proprietors have no idea who Alfred E. Neuman is.
The sign designers have no idea who Alfred E. Neuman is (or how to create transparent layers — note the bite taken out of the left side of the wrench by the capital “P”).
The sign designer either doesn’t understand or doesn’t care about trademarks.
This shop is actually owned and operated by Mad Magazine.
I sincerely hope the last one is true, because it means these guys are my new mechanics of choice. I’m looking forward to getting my oil changed, then chuckling over the Sergio Aragones cartoons printed in the margins of my bill.
I have a bad, voyeuristic habit of looking at my Twitter followers’ followers to see who pops up over and over again, as well as to see how promiscuous my followers are. One follower’s follower is a local IT company which links to its web site from its Twitter profile. Being an IT guy myself, and curious about a local company I hadn’t heard of, I visited the site and saw this:
This piqued my curiosity, so I told Firefox to show me the source code. There was so much code that the scroll bar’s scrubber shrank into a virtual singularity and it was actually a little difficult to grab with the cursor. I copied the code into Word, asked for a word count, and got this:
That’s 352 pages of code and no visible content. Holy crap.
Update:
