Enthusiastically Ambiverted Hopepunk
Stuff I find around the web that interests or amuses me.
Okay, I’ll admit it. I’m impressed.
According to Google I am the # 7 most important Matt in the world. When I reach the top of that list I’m going to take my website down.
And would you look at that — he actually did it.
iTunes: “Zoo Station” by U2 from the album Achtung Baby (1991, 4:36).
Not having been a fan of Garfield since my age hit the double-digits, I can’t really say that I was terribly surprised by this look at Jim Davis’ marketing-centric approach to producing the Garfield comic strip.
The model for Garfield was Charles Schulz’s Peanuts, but not the funny Peanuts of that strip’s early years. Rather, Davis wanted to mimic the sunny, humorless monotony of Peanuts‘ twilight years.
[…]
Garfield‘s origins were so mercantile that it’s fair to say he never sold out—he never had any integrity to put on the auction block to begin with. But today Davis spends even less time on the strip than he used to—between three days and a week each month. During that time, he collaborates with another cartoonist to generate ideas and rough sketches, then hands them over to Paws employees to be illustrated.
I’d heard rumors before that Davis didn’t even bother drawing the strip anymore, but this is the first time I’d actually seen a printed reference about that.
(via the Something Positive LiveJournal)
iTunes: “God’s Little Joke” by Soho from the album Goddess (1990, 2:22).
Owners of a New Jersey swim club are paying one million dollars to settle a lawsuit against them for denying access to “black” and “brown skinned” people.
The ACLU of New Jersey also represented Philip and Annmarie Giordano of Bloomfield, who scheduled their daughter’s June 2002 birthday party at Le Terrace Swim Club, where Annmarie Giordano and her daughter were members. Patrick Nardone demanded a list of guests and asked whether the guest list included any “brown-skinned” or “black” children. When told that her child did have Asian and African-American friends who were guests, Nardone informed her that those children were not welcome at the club. He thereafter rescinded the Giordanos’ membership.
It amazes and saddens me that things like this still go on.
(via Mike)
iTunes: “Will I Get Out of Jail?” by Lo-Fidelity Allstars from the album How to Operate With A Blown Mind (1998, 6:18).
What happens when a family of ducks takes a walk through the city?
In this case, an unfortunate (but amusing) tragedy.
iTunes: “ToriMix v2” by Various Artists from the album Difficult Listening Hour (1999, 46:37).
Former Microsoftie Will Parker has an interesting post about the Microsoft Mac Business Unit’s work on a generally under-appreciated aspect of software publishing: the packaging.
Our study team handed a fresh, unopened Office X box to the subject and asked them to talk a bit about their work habits, their plans and expectations for Office X, and a little bit about the box design. They then asked the subject to open the box, install Office on their machine, and do some work.
One result of this study was a painfully funny Office X Blooper Reel — five straight minutes of people trying to get that damned plastic pack open and get at the CD, by any means necessary. Scissors tended to bounce right off of this thing, so Improvised Opening Devices were the order of the day – pocket knives, steak knives, paper trimmers, teeth, staple removers — even screw drivers made an appearance. Our research team lived in fear of blood spatters.
Not being an Office user, I never had to deal with this, but I’ve certainly dealt with enough other horridly packaged items to be able to put myself in these poor people’s shoes all to easily. Shrink wrap, and its many variations, is evil.
iTunes: “3 Floors Above You” by Meat Beat Manifesto from the album Actual Sounds and Voices (1998, 5:00).
I’m jealous — while the public isn’t allowed in just yet, there was a “family and friends” night at the EMP‘s new Science-Fiction museum last night, and Thumbmonkey has the details…
My friend Larry is a curator at the Sci Fi Museum here in Seattle- and last night I got a sneak peek at the “Family n’ Friends” opening. Let me just say I was really looking forward to seeing what they had done, but also skeptical that it’d be good. I was blown away. It’s a small museum, but gorgeously made…it’s in the EMP which looks like a space blob anyway so it fits right in.
(via Pops)
iTunes: “Red Towers” by Anal Solvent from the album Secret Broadcast – Pirate Radio USA (1998, 3:20).
How many petals around the rose?
I figured it out in under a minute (my first guess was half right, three subsequent rolls allowed me to fine tune and confirm the answer).
If you know the answer, please don’t spoil the fun for others. Let ’em figure it out for themselves. ;)
Related: Bill Gates and Petals Around the Rose at a 1977 computer conference. Memorizing dice rolls. Fascinating.
(via MeFi)
A “panel of experts” (beauty and fashion editors, make-up artists, model agencies and photographers) has just released a list of the top 100 most naturally beautiful women. Here’s the top 10, in reverse order (just pretend the numbers count from 10 to 1 instead of from 1 to 10, HTML can’t do reverse-ordered lists [why not, dammit?]…oh, and the links are to Google Image Searches, and may not be worksafe):
I don’t agree with all of the list (Liv Tyler at #2?), was pleasantly surprised at some of it (hooray for putting Cate Blanchett in the top ten — while I’ve often thought that she’s gorgeous, she has a somewhat odd [angular?] look that some people I’ve talked to don’t appreciate as much), but putting Audrey Hepburn in the number one spot?
That is so, so, so absolutely perfect.
(Swoon…)
Personally, though, I’d knock Liv entirely off the top ten and put Nicole Kidman in her place. Part of what caught my eye about this story, though, was seeing it posted on Fark. Each link submitted to Fark gets a small category tag associated with it — “amusing”, “asinine”, “boobies”, and the like — and the tag assigned to this story was “unlikely”.
Unlikely?
My lord.
Reading the comments on Fark, I was quite gratified to learn that I wasn’t the only person to take umbrage at that “unlikely” tag…
(leans out of van, grabs poster by lapels, pulls him into van)
Okay, nodog, drive, drive!!
(turns to poster)
Just shut up and don’t scream and you’re going to be okay.
(lights cigarette)
Lissen, you. My friends and I just wanted to take you for a little ride so you could clear your head.
Now what exactly is your problem with Audrey Hepburn?
(smacks poster)
Hey! Don’t you f*ckin’ turn away from me when I ask you a question! I said, WHAT IS YOUR F*CKING PROBLEM WITH AUDREY HEPBURN?
(looks at poster)
What, are you going to cry now? You scaaared?
Well, you should be scared. Running around town with no taste whatsoever, you gonna get in big trouble someday, punk.
(draws on cigarette)
How old are you, kid? 30, 31? Don’t you know anything?
You dare sit there and badmouth Audrey and what do you bring to the table, huh?
(searches pockets of poster, looks at what he’s found)
This is your ideal of a beautiful woman? BRITNEY F*CKING SPEARS? And what’s this? ARIA GIOVANNI? What are you, f*cking ten?
Listen, I’m going to tell you once, so you listen good. Audrey Hepburn, Ingrid Bergman, Kim Novak. Before you were a f*cking squirt on a towel these women ruled the earth. Raquel Welch, Grace Kelly. GRACE F*CKING KELLY.
You get me? Don’t you ever–and I mean ever–bring your taste for dried up, pre-fabbed, over-hyped, no-talent, unattractive coozes around here again.
(flicks cigarette in poster’s face)
Now get the f*ck out of here before i do something you regret.
(throws him out of the moving van).
— LarsThorwald
iTunes: “Earth Chakra” by Azukx from the album Return to the Source: The Chakra Journey (1996, 8:21).
Another good online time-waster: a version of Breakout that actually manages to put a new twist on the game by giving it a circular playfield — Plastic Balls.
Rather than running your paddle back and forth across a plane…well, you know those bright yellow plastic funnel coin collectors where you drop a coin down a trough and watch it go spinning in circles down the funnel? Put bricks around the outside edge of the funnel, put your paddle rotating around the funnel, and let the ball bounce between your paddle in the center and the bricks on the outside.
Very cool, and the extra level of pseudo-dimensionality adds a nice new touch to the gameplay.
(via Collision Detection)
Two years ago, in a rather ridiculous display of small-minded stupidity, the town of Blue Springs, MO earmarked \$273,000 of their education budget to combat Goth culture.
“Goth culture” in Blue Springs, Mo., may be in for some tough times.
Thanks to Rep. Sam Graves, a Republican who represents the Kansas City suburb, \$273,000 out of the Department of Education’s fiscal 2002 budget will help the Blue Springs Outreach Unit take on a perceived problem for local youths.
“It is my hope that this funding will give the officers in the Youth Outreach Unit the tools they need to identify Goth culture leaders that are preying on our kids,” Rep. Graves said in a press release announcing the appropriation last month.
[…]
“It was really a community need, and they really weren’t able to satisfactorily get money at the local level,” Mr. Patek said of the Blue Springs project to combat Goth culture. Some parents and law- enforcement officials are concerned that, beyond the dark fashions and music characteristic of that subculture, some “Goth” teenagers are drawn into potentially dangerous behavior.
The program is meant to help train police officers, and help schools and families with children involved in Goth culture, according to the announcement from Rep. Graves. Drug abuse and self-mutilation are among the troubling behaviors Goth culture fosters, Mr. Patek said.
He stressed that the effort will not be limited to Blue Springs. “I know this was a good project,” Mr. Patek said. “And it’s a finite amount of resources. … We’re not talking about an ongoing federal commitment.”
This was so unnecessary. We must protect our children from those evil people who wear black, and listen to all that wierd music! Ugh.
Thankfully, word comes now that the project essentially went nowhere, and more than half of the money is being returned (and, hopefully, put to better use in the future). The best part? Rather than “combatting” Goth culture, the people involved ended up realizing that it’s not such a horrible thing, and just another aspect of how some people choose to present themselves.
The Goth grant is over.
Goth acceptance and tolerance is now in.
…plans for the grant never unfolded, and Blue Springs has returned \$132,000 of the money unused. Officials concede today they never found much of a “problem” at all associated with the Goth culture, and instead have developed a new understanding and acceptance.
A little good news to start the day, for once.
(via Jesus’ General, via Atrios)