Songs referenced here are "Said The Spider To The Fly" by the Paper Chase, and "Two Cups Of Tea" by Star Fucking Hipsters.
Sunday, January 18, 2009
On Music Tastes
Songs referenced here are "Said The Spider To The Fly" by the Paper Chase, and "Two Cups Of Tea" by Star Fucking Hipsters.
Friday, January 16, 2009
Things To Occupy You Over Break #6: Stores
Lollyphile
They make absinthe, maple bacon and wasabi-ginger lollipops. No one will be "hard to shop for" after you discover this place.
The site itself is the world's most searchable anything ever - search by color, style, price, date, whatever. It makes Google look like the Dewey Decimal System. But the content is what's even more awesome - handcrafted everything, from bags and clothes to paper products to food to toys to whatever. You can even advertise customized things or request something with their "alchemy" tool. My favorite section is "geekery" - check out the jewelry, the steampunk and molecular stuff is awesome.
If you've seen someone with a superawesome, not-cliche'd shirt, chances are good it was a Woot! purchase. Their stuff is irreverent and intelligent, and the way the shop is set up - a daily Woot! only available for one day, plus the ongoing derbies - adds excitement and suspense. Yes, they've made online t-shirt shopping exciting and suspenseful. If only they wrote calc books too. Also, reading their job applications/descriptions makes me want to work for them.
I first found Rise Up! apparel in a store in Moab, a town where Mormons and hippies coexist peacefully. The profits go to charities that help children in third-world countries, which I think is pretty neat.
No, it's not the Discovery Institute's gift shop. It's more t-shirts. If you think conspiracy theories, fundamentalist Bible interpretations, or old-fashioned superstitions are amusing, you'll love these. They also sell SCIENCE! shirts too, which are awesome as well.
I really wanted a cityscape messenger bag for my laptop case, but the price was a little out of my range. Still, her stuff is fantastic (sperm and ovum coin pouch? YES.)
A little side note about American Apparel: A lot of independent t-shirt online stores print on AA stuff. I know some people refuse to buy AA because of Dov Charney's reputation for being a total skeeze, and I understand not wanting to fund such skeezery, but I am torn. AA is sweatshop-free, and their special brand of worker-mistreatment must be viewed as more "voluntary". With Charney's reputation so public, anyone who works there anyway has made a choice to enter that environment, whether or not I think that environment should exist or be tolerated to begin with. So by linking these stores, I am not supporting the AA boycott, because I prefer sexist treatment of voluntary employees to sweatshop labor. I will, however, take this opportunity to say I do not condone Charney's behavior. I also don't like their ads.
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
WOCAM, Inc. update
Causes for optimism in the new year:
Proposed legislation to end drug advertising. Sign the petition here. I'm keeping an eye on this act, expect updates. Studies have found that drug advertising can have a negative effect on consumers and patients - it's been linked to issues like overprescription and patients being prescribed more expensive drugs for no reason.
Eli Lilly illegally marketed the antipsychotic Zyprexa for unauthorized uses and to patients especially at-risk for the side effects. No summary I could give would properly describe just how enraging and wrong many of their actions were, so read the article. It also says that most of the major drug companies are facing similar charges, which means that finally someone is holding them accountable and exposing their dangers.
While this isn't a law, it's a new code from PRhMA that's notably more strict than previous codes and is anticipatory of new legislation that would legally mirror the professional code. Read a shorter article here.
Monday, January 12, 2009
Things To Occupy You Over Break #5: Miscellaneous
bash.org
A community controlled site full of funny things said in IRC chat. Will leave you wishing some people were your new best friend and others would never go near the internet again. Contains racism, profanity, and other not-nice things.
The most ridiculous, bizarre, clueless, or hilarious things posted to craigslist. The game is trying to figure out whether some of them are serious (for your sanity, you will inevitably end up convincing yourself that they are not.)
Some of these make me laugh out loud. What happens when the blind, underpaid and overworked attempt to use photoshop.
Photoessays and photo projects. Under "books" you can learn about a locked mental ward for women in the 1970s, a school for special-needs kids in Iceland, and Indian prostitutes.
Hell is other people, and our generation's Book of Revelation is this collection of angry, aggressive, passive, or obnoxious notes.
I'm not into fashion, but the things Bai Ling wears just make me happy. Other people, with more money than you or me, go out in public like this. And we care. Oh, humanity.
People keep journals (personal, traveling, or community) and then post them on the site. They're fascinating.
Graphs about things we're all aware of. Half are song lyrics or other pop culture references. Similar to indexed, which I've already linked here, but more juvenile.
Mainstream newspaper comics kind of suck. This blog making fun of them is written by that guy who was the kid in your class making snide comments about the lame videos you always had to watch. It's like MST3K for comics.
Saturday, January 10, 2009
Thursday, January 8, 2009
Things To Occupy You Over Break #4: Non-Serial Webcomics
These are non-serial webcomics, meaning each one is funny or understandable on its own. Some of them have consistent themes or jokes and you might gain something by reading beginning-to-end, but it's not necessary.
All of you already read this, but it needs to be here anyway. The definitive webcomic on all things geeky, nerdy, or awesome. Sometimes it is also about sex.
David Malki! has taken old art and recontextualized it to make one of the least self-important, most hilarious things on the web. Some of them still make me laugh out loud even though I know them by heart.
Yes, guys, it's the same pictures over and over. You either get it or you don't.
The kind of thing that makes you wonder why you didn't come up with the idea, then realize you could never do exactly what they do. It's a bittersweet, bizarre, intelligent sort of thing that leaves you feeling very human and wanting to express that in a similarly beautiful way.
If you ever need to remind yourself that you are a bad person, read this. It is so not funny, but it is hilarious. It is so wrong but it feels so right.
Often hopeless, dirty, explicit, or all three, it's a political cartoon drawn by a guy from Baltimore who seems like he would be fun to hang out with. What can be funnier or more interesting than the cartoons themselves are his blog-like "Artist's Statements."
Another "why didn't I think of that?" sort of idea. Norman wrote a program to pull random photos off Flickr, then he puts funny captions on them. They are awesome and funny and proof that us young people won't necessarily use the internet just to coordinate suicides or look at porn, but sometimes to find photos of other people and write silly things about them.
A grad student writes things on a chalkboard, then takes photos of them. They are wise and amusing.
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
Greek Riots
Random update time! Whee!
In December, Greek riot police shot a 15 year old and now anarchist groups based in Greek cities are violently retaliating. It's a story not many of us have heard about, and I think it's interesting (both the lack of coverage and the situation itself) because you rarely see such organized and focused anarchist activity in America and when you do, it's portrayed as mindlessly violent and never sympathetically. But the way the Greek situation is playing out is a little different - note how the police seem to recognize that they have to walk a line too and respect the protesters (before all this started the anarchists had a "fortress" area of a city where police avoided, and the police aren't allowed onto some of the university campuses). Reports have the Prime Minister responding to the protesters by committing to a fight against social injustice and possibly "reshuffling" the government to move away from its current conservatism. (Compare this to the claim that public horror at the 1968 DNC riots was a large factor in Nixon's election.) The policeman who shot the boy is being charged with murder and held in prison while some other higher-ups in charge of the police offered resignations.
Also note how and where this is being reported - Google "Greek Riots" and the first two links you get to current reporting are the BBC and the Christian Science Monitor - it's not exactly a big story in mainstream American reporting. Here's the story:
And for kicks and giggles, check out the Fox News report, which includes quotes from the Socialist party, which is in opposition to the current Prime Minister, saying that the country "is no longer being governed." It seems to more strongly condemn the Greek government for not cracking down harder on the protesters and regaining control - because, you know, when people rise up against a government and demand change, the government's responsibility is to make them sit down and be quiet. It also quotes from the policeman's defense lawyer, saying that the ("not yet complete") ballistics report "proves irrefutably" that the fatal shot was a "ricochet" and that the death was therefore not the officer's fault.
Keep in mind that the protesters have big issues with the current government and the police, and I'm not saying that police or government sentiment in response to the riots is anything close to utopian - I'm just pointing out subtle differences between this situation and how it might play out differently here in America.
Sunday, January 4, 2009
Things To Occupy You Over Break #3: Serial Webcomics
These are all serial strips, meaning they have storylines that require the strips to be read in order. In some cases this will take a very long time, since the archives go back years. I've linked the main page of each of them, so to start reading, click "first strip" or go to "archives" and start at the earliest. Treat them like novels - if you have to leave partway through, just bookmark the strip you're at and start again from there.
This strip isn't for everybody. It starts with an abortion joke and the black humor never lets up. That said, it's one of my absolute favorites, because the characters are well-developed and the punchlines are always hilarious but still feel like dialogue. R.K. Milholland does a great job wrapping up each arc while maintaining a consistent mood and canon. If it's your thing, you'll be captivated by the immense amount of archives, so be careful. If it's not, you'll be bummed out by the misanthropy. Give it a shot, and you'll know soon enough whether you're a fan.
There's not much to this strip but it's consistently lovable and a lot of them are pretty funny. It's one of the most popular serial webcomics out there (or it's the one with the most vocal or social fans). It's a character-driven story about a bunch of 20-something hipsters who are all really neurotic. I like the art.
This starts out FANTASTIC and gets kinda awful, but for a long time it was a big influence on my character writing. The world and the characters are incredibly engaging and reading all of the archives will be very satisfying until you get to about mid-2007, at which point it kind of jumps the shark. But the beginning is very worth it.
Two boys grow up as best friends, then fall in love - but the comic is not about a "gay relationship" but rather, just a relationship. The chemistry between Fox and Collin is unique and the rest of the characters are great as well. It's quirky, funny, sweet, strange, and tied with Something*Positive for my favorite strip.
I can't decide if this goes under Serial or not, so I put it here because I'd recommend reading it from beginning to end. It has a very strange vibe to it and some of you might hate it, but I think it exposes some little sliver of our humanity that is very often ignored. It sometimes addresses the themes of madness and faith (my two favorite themes, yay) from a really different, gentle and interesting angle.
If QC took itself less seriously and did more drugs, it would be Octopus Pie. Some of the arcs are rather forgettable, but the reality of the characters never wanes (even when they seem like they should feel like caricatures) and they're all lovable all the time, even though you know you'd hate them in real life.
At first glance, it's the comic equivalent of every zombie movie ever. But the art is fantastic, and if you poke around the site you see that the artist has put an immense amount of planning and effort into creating that world. It has a very LotR feel - an encyclopedic creation of a fantasy reality that doesn't overpower the main story but enriches it.
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