Disorderly Content

Whether you prefer Kiss This Guy or mondegreens, you just have to love this new entry:

Credit goes to Boing Boing for telling me about this gem.

An overwrought model's post to a photography website about being asked to participate in kitty porn was in fact a combination of poor spelling and overreaction to the situation. But it did introduce me to this, so at least some good came out of the kerfuffle. Click through if you dare, but I warn you that it's entirely SFW...

Thanks to Daring Fireball for the pointer to Font Conference. I do love nerd humor...

Having crossed the threshold of fiftyhood a while back myself, I can both laugh and sigh over the superheros-past-their-prime graphics on Donald Soffritti's blog. Laugh 'til it hurts...

(Thanks to io9 for the pointer.)

The guys at JibJab have taken the awfulness that was 2007 and put it to music. Among the very few bright spots? The iPhone. Obviously I concur.

What do you think? Do I dare introduce our marketing people to these guys?

Leave it to What The Duck to say what we've all thought at one time or another. And you don't have to be a photographer to appreciate the sentiment.

There's a subtle truth to that remark by the incomparable Yogi Berra. How much goes by without comment because we never notice it? Case in point is something I finally noticed recently on a drive I've made dozens of times. On Interstate 880 in Emeryville you can spot a building that's covered in road signs. Since I've taken quite a few road sign pictures for my stock portfolio, I was intrigued when I spotted it driving home from Wine Country. So on Saturday I made it my mission to give it a closer look. Turns out they're in the business of printing road signs, which I guess should have been obvious. I particularly like the one at right; wonder if they sell a bunch of these...

Not Safe For Work (probably), unless you're like me and work from your couch. Heck, it may not even be safe then:

Be sure to stick around for the impersonations.

(Thanks to my friends at The ScapeCast, who on occasion go way off topic.)

Believe it or not, some marketing guy (at least I hope it was a guy) was at work when he came up with the idea of The Armpit Orchestra. Wouldn't you have killed to be at that pitch meeting?

The following is allegedly being sent around the net in email. I saw it on an online forum:

A class of primary children started a class project to make a plant pot to take home.

The teacher wanted to have a plant in it that was easy to take care of, so it was decided to use cactus plants.

The children were given green ware pottery in the style of a clown plant pot.

They painted them with glaze and had them professionally fired at a class outing so they could see the process.

It was great fun. They planted the cactus seeds in the finished planters and they grew nicely.

Unfortunately, however, they were not allowed to take them home.

The cactus plants were removed, replaced with a small ivy plant, and the children were then allowed to take them home.

The teacher said cactus "seemed like a good idea at the time"...

Take a look at the included photo and try not to laugh. Go on, I dare you.

Speaking of iPods and podcasts, I just discovered a new video podcast I have to share with you all. (There are enough of you to qualify as an "all", right?) It's called Mr. Deity, and it's a series of little playlets starring this God person and his minions. Funny, their version of the All Powerful One makes a lot more sense than the version they told us about back in Hebrew School.

My high school chemistry teacher once told us that no experiment is a total loss; it can always be used as a bad example. And no lousy book turned turgid movie either, as long as there are good parodists about. Now granted; I've neither read nor seen The Da Vinci Code; I'm taking its lousihood on faith. But ya gotta love The Norman Rockwell Code, which manages to be more entertaining in 35 minutes than Ron Howard will ever be in two and a half hours. And for those of us who worship at another altar, there's iCryptex. Guess they liked the new New York store as much as I did.

Yeah, I know that's an oxymoron. But hear me out.

I wandered innocently over to Brian Ibbott's Coverville to find some information on a track he played recently for my other blog. But first I got caught up with this music video about our new Fed chairman. Which, despite being in WMV, played fine on my Mac. And which gives me a whole new respect for business school students, both for their musical skills and their political views.

I have to be grateful that no one was following me around with a video camera during my many meltdowns. Sadly, a Student Body Vice President at the University of Spoiled Children (as an alum once called it) hasn't been so fortunate. I'm surprised the walls didn't dribble away from all the heat he was generating. Enjoy.

(Thanks to The Consumerist for this one.)

I was watching the latest episode from The Ministry of Unknown Science in iTunes. This particular episode presents three marketing concepts for Gud, a better God than God. And, well, I really think they have something there with that third concept. Granted, Gud is no Flying Spaghetti Monster. Then again, who is?

A good friend, who swears he never forwards email crap (and in all the years I've known him, he hasn't -- at least to me), sent along a link to a blog posting that he claims was referenced in Silicon Valley's own Murky News. The post, which you can find at www.directionzero.com, describes what happens when the author decides to test out a pocket-sized Taser on himself. It is, I must say, a funny tale.

And probably a crock. As one of the commenters to that blog points out, there's an earlier and not nearly as grammatically correct version out there. And, like the Bible, there are probably a wide range of versions that might lead an enterprising detective to the original. Which was probably as much a work of fiction as the one the Merc found. Still funny, though.

Or maybe both. I speak of Cherub, the vampire with bunny slippers, who is filled with remorse for his evil past but may revert if he ever has a moment of perfect back adjustment. Yes, as you've already guessed, this is a parody of Angel, Joss Whedon's spinoff of his own Buffy The Vampire Slayer. And if you think it sounds like fun, I'm going to suggest that you not watch the trailer. Would that I had received such good advice...

(Spotted on TV Squad.)

When is a blonde joke not a blonde joke?

Please do not follow this link if you are easily offended. Heck, don't go there if you think you might be offended. I debated posting this one; I think it's terribly funny, but have no idea how you'll feel about it.

What am I talking about? It's a site called Galumpia that has what look like thumbnails from hardcore porn images. Except they aren't; click on any of the thumbnails and you'll see that all the obscenity is in your own mind. Visit if you dare...

Read about it for yourself. Then pester your doctor. And I'd say that even if I wasn't getting a big kickback from the manufacturer.

It's often been said of various actors that they would be great just reading from the phone book. And in an example of life imitating humor or somesuch, Dateline Hollywood has news of a commotion caused by Joss Whedon's grocery list. No word on who'll play the Raisin Bran in the inevitable made-for-TV movie version.

While the press continues to focus on the disaster around the Gulf, other disasters go unreported, ignored and not paid attention to:

Local Los Angeles residents suffer....

No electricity for 26 minutes. 'This is our Tsunami.'
By Joshua Gates. Actor, Photographer. Victim.

LOS ANGELES, CA, September 12, 2005 - Horror and disbelief swept through the greater Hollywood area this afternoon as a minor power-outage turned the city into a virtual war zone and local residents struggled to deal with the devastating aftermath. The outage struck at 1:35 PM, during L.A.'s busy afternoon coffee and Pilates rush hour. Traffic lights fell dark, local gyms and sushi restaurants were without power for nearly 30 minutes and many businesses were illuminated only by the light of the sun and its blistering 78 degree heat.

"It was horrible," said out of work actor and voice-over artist Rick Shea. "I was in a Jamba Juice on Melrose when it hit and the blenders simply shut down. A woman lunged for my Berry Lime Sublime and after that, well, it got pretty ugly."

In the ensuing panic, local radio stations broadcast conflicting reports as to exactly which local businesses would be offering relief supplies. Almost 100 people flocked to the Starbucks at Santa Monica and La Brea only to find helpless baristas, no hot coffee and a totally meager selection of baked goods. "My mother is 83 years old and we heard on the radio that this Starbucks was going to be up and running. If she doesn't get a venti Arabian Mocha Sanani, I don't know what's going to happen to her, I really don't." said Lucinda Merino of Los Feliz.

To make matters worse, those few people who did manage to get coffee were further thwarted by a total lack of artificial sweeteners on site. "Sugar in the Raw? Are you frigging kidding me?," sobbed local homosexual and avid salsa dancer, Enrique Santoro. "I'm on the South Beach Diet and my insulin levels are going to go crazy if I use this. Why isn't the rest of the country doing something?"

Deteriorating conditions will force authorities to evacuate the thousands of people at local Quiznos, movie theaters and upscale shopping centers, including The Beverly Center, where a policeman told CNN unrest was escalating. The officer expressed concern that the situation could worsen overnight after patrons defaced multiple "So You Think you Can Dance" posters, looted a Baby Gap and demanded free makeovers en masse at a MAC cosmetics store during the afternoon. At least 2,000 refugees, a majority of them beautiful, will travel in a bus convoy to Beverly Hills starting this evening and will be sheltered at the 8-year-old Spago on North Canon where soft omelets with confit bacon and Hudson Valley foie gras was being airlifted in by The National Guard.

Honorary Mayor of Hollywood, Johnny Grant told a group of embedded reporters at a Koo Koo Roo Chicken restaurant on Larchmont that,"The scope and scale of this disaster is almost too much to comprehend. Local carwashes are at a stand-still, the tram tour at Universal Studios has been on hold for almost an hour now and I've been waiting for a rotisserie leg and thigh with a side of greens beans for upwards of 15 minutes. This truly is our Tsunami."

"We want to accommodate those people suffering in the Beverly Center as quickly as possible for the simple reason they have been through a horrible ordeal," Grant said. "We need water. We need edamame. We need low-carb bread," said Martha Owens, 49 who was one of the thousands trapped in the Beverly Center when the escalators stopped moving. "They need to start sending somebody through here."

Along miles of coastline, the power simply surged, causing writers to lose upwards of a page of original screenplay material, causing Direct TV service to work only intermittently and forcing local residents to walk outside and look helplessly at the Pacific from their ocean view decks. "I can hardly begin to put this experience into words," said longtime Two and a Half Men writer John Edlestein . "I was just getting into my rhythm and making some real headway on a scene where Charlie Sheen parties with a busload of female volleyball players when my Power Book crapped out. I have nothing. Simply, nothing."

Delivering his weekly radio address live from the White House, President Bush announced he was deploying more than 7,000 additional active-duty troops to the region. He comforted victims and praised relief workers. "But despite their best efforts, the magnitude of responding to a crisis over a disaster area this sunny and trendy has created tremendous problems," he said. "The result is that many of our citizens simply are not getting the help they need, especially in the Hollywood Hills, and that is unacceptable."

Up to now, my only encounters with Fark.com was having to deal with bandwidth thieves who use my pictures on their forums. That changed this morning when TV Squad linked to a Fark thread full of fake movie posters. Good for a few laughs. Actually, more than a few. I'd pay money to see these in a theater.

Slashdot has a pointer to How It Should Have Ended, which provides an alternate ending to the original Star Wars that presumes not everybody in the Empire is an incredible moron.

You'll need a Bittorrent application; I like Bits on Wheels for the Mac. And once you have it you'll need Windows Media Player; you're on your own for that one. But it'll be worth it.

So let's all go out and show a beaver we care (totally safe for work).

"Help me, Obi-Wan Cannoli. You're my only hope!"

Gotta love them Thai fighters...

Although I normally keep things pretty PG around here, I can't resist sharing this link from a site called College Sex Advice. It consists of cartoon drawings of Tux the Linux penguin and a female friend in various Kama Sutra-esque positions. At least I assume Tux's friend is a female. And a friend. They certainly seem friendly...

One of my Scaper friends sent me a holiday card from the Hallmark website. It had the most honest rendition of a seasonal song I've heard in a while: offkey and with half-remembered lyrics. Starring these guys, who may have been hitting the eggnog a little bit harder than is proper.