“Sorry I’m Late” is a wonderful stop-motion animated film made by Tomas Mankovsky that was shot from above using still camera on the ceiling. Here’s how it was made.
via swissmiss
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Gooberry, a talking plush toy designed by Attaboy that was years in the making, is finally being released and is now available for pre-order through Silver Sprocket.
Each Gooberry has been freshly picked from a secret Gooberry Patch before ripening just for you!
Like a newborn’s skull, their soft skin has yet to be fully formed, so a Gooberry is very impressionable and extra-sensitive to your each and every touch!
Please, please, DO NOT attempt to eat a Goobery, as they taste like strawberry whipped crème.
DO NOT pull a Gooberry’s string, as each pull, although wholly satisfying to you, brings the Gooberry that much closer to a most painful death.
Measuring 12.5 inches tall, the Gooberry squeaks in pain when you squeeze her pinchers, and cowers in fear from your every snuggle.
Truely an interactive experience, the Gooberry is the first designer plush to feature a pull-string sound box and squeakers!
photo by Brian McCarty
The first batch of 45 Gooberry’s will be available for harvest at Attaboy’s “A Touch of Evil” art show on June 13th at POV Evolving Gallery in Los Angeles.
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photo by Scott Beale
The Register is reporting that Wikipedia has banned The Church of Scientology.
In an unprecedented effort to crack down on self-serving edits, the Wikipedia supreme court has banned contributions from all IP addresses owned or operated by the Church of Scientology and its associates.
Closing out the longest-running court case in Wikiland history, the site’s Arbitration Committee voted 10 to 0 (with one abstention) in favor of the move, which takes effect immediately.
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Hulu has just released their new Hulu Desktop application, which is part of their recently launched Hulu Labs.
Hulu Desktop is a lean-back viewing experience for your personal computer. It features a sleek new look that’s optimized for use with standard Windows Media Center remote controls or Apple remote controls, allowing you to navigate Hulu’s entire library with just six buttons. For users without remotes, the application is keyboard and mouse-enabled. Hulu Desktop is a downloadable application and will work on PCs and Macs. It will initially launch as a beta product during which we plan to gather and incorporate user feedback to improve the service.
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guest post by Al Ridenour
So the new Star Trek film made a good at drawing kids into their parent’s (or grandparent’s) sci-fi franchise, but it’s not like Roddenberry wasn’t trying to get with the kids back in 1969. What else would explain this exquisitely ham-fisted jam by the “Space Hippies” of episode #76, “The Way to Eden”, wherein Spock grudgingly breaks out his Vulcan harp for a bit of musical diplomacy.
Of course, the real-life Nimoy was anything but grudging in his pursuit of musical stardom, and these strivings — along with the occasional nod to the breathless rhapsodies of Shatner and other ST notables — are admirably documented at Maiden Wine, with troves of all-but-lost treasures including never-before-seen footage from Nimoy’s notorious “Ballad of Bilbo Baggins” music video.
Naturally, all of this has inspired fans to join the musical chorus in a variety of ways, whether it’s hand-carving “an exact working replica” the aforementioned Vulcan harp. (It’s tuned to a diatonic, dontcha know!), dressing up as the “Mugato” and moshing with Sacramento’s Trekker punks, The No Kill I or recording novelty rockers like “Jim Beam Me Up” with Sacramento’s OTHER rival Trekkie band Warp 11.
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“Luigi Finally Snaps” tells the story of what happens when Luigi of Mario Bros. finally has enough of his older, more popular brother Mario.
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EFF chairman Brad Templeton makes his contribution to the ubiquitous Hitler “Downfall” video meme with his “Hitler Orders a DMCA Takedown” video.
There are 100 parodies of this downfall clip. The studio, Constantin Filims, has ordered takedowns of some of them. In this clip, Hitler is the producer, and his lawyers tell him why he can’t do a DMCA takedown and how the EFF would stop him. He desperately searches for other ways to protect his movie.
See Previously: Hitler Downfall Mashup Video Meme Über Alles
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guest post by Burstein!
photo by Tod Seelie
The Swimming Cities of Serenissima are art boats that are quite literally made out of junk down to their Mercedez 240 D diesel engines. A merry crew of artists are sailing these pieces of art to the Biennale in Venice, which is a fancy contemporary art show that is just perfect for crashing. Here is an update on the trip from Chicken John:
I’m in Italy. We are traveling in little canals, but the bridges are low and we keep getting kicked out of the canals and sent back to the Adriatic. Sea. The Adriatic Sea. It’s the ocean. It’s huge. It’s not like a big lake. This ‘aint Camp Tipsy. We are piloting ocean-going vessels in serious swell on boats made of bullshit. It’s pretty amazing. Everyday I simultainiously fall in love and a few hours later I feel like I’m wasting my time. I’m totally confused. It happens when you spend too much time with vegans. The crew are 30 art-types who are all totally great on their own but as a collective they are impossible and the logistics are maddning. The boats aren’t even done, really. We are building as we go. We were underway and Steve was welding a muffler pipe. It’s stupid. I watched someone cut a piece of wood in half with a leatherman yesterday. We are cutting steel with a hacksaw. We’ve got a welder, but it’s 110. We’ve got a grinder, but it’s 220. Half the tools are 220. Everyones cell phone is deep 6ed. My tools are gone, eaten by the sea. We had a few problems with drive shafts and sheer pins, but we stopped in a little fishing town and a adorable old Italian man fabricated us a sleeve to protect the vibration and we havn’t had a problem since. He worked for 12 hours and charged us $160. People give us fish. The curiosity is very reserved here. Italy is kinda fancy. I’m in the North. It reminds me of Palm Beach.
photo by Neiltron
They are going to arrive at the Beinealle soon where they are going to put on a show. For those folks in the region, it takes place June 4th-6th at Isla Certo sa Vento di Venezia Hotel.
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guest post by Burstein!
The World Air Sex Championships is like the US Air Guitar Championships, but with less fake guitar and more fake orgasms. The Air Sex 2009 Tour kicks off on June 6th in Austin traveling to 15 cities in 21 days with a competition at a The Independent in San Francisco on June 24th.
Never been to an Air Sex show before? Here’s what you need to know: it’s a lot like Air Guitar, but instead of rocking out with an imaginary guitar, you’re making sweet and/or filthy love with an imaginary sex partner. You choose a clip of music, you show up in whatever sort of wardrobe you like, and you come up on stage and show everyone how you do it. Or how you wish you could do it. Or how you once had it done to you, and oh my god was that a bad idea and while it’s embarrassing to show that act to a room of strangers, you know that you need to do it now in order to make sure that no one else falls down the same rabbit hole you got stuck inside. Or, you know, just do it however you want. The only rules we have are the laws laid down by the state we’re in. Since the Alamo serves alcohol, you can’t get naked. And since we serve food as well, all orgasms have to be simulated (or at least arguably so). Other than that, you’re free to do whatever it takes to impress the judges, the audience in the theater, and the world!
photo by Alamo Drafthouse Cinema
via Violet Blue
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A features Dance Dance Immolation by Interpretative Arson from last month’s How to Destroy the Universe: Part 6 event at NIMBY. DDI is a spoof of the arcade game Dance Dance Revolution, but with flamethrowers pointed at the participants.
The episode is hosted by Aaron Muszalski (SFSlim) with video by Eddie Codel.
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Panic, the guys who make really great Mac software like Transmit, Coda, CandyBar, and Unison, are having a big 50% off sale. Check out their hilarious infomercial.
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guest post by Burstein!
Imaginism Studios is a great little group of artists that all seem to have engaging, cartoony and playful styles. The art of Bobby Chiu is especially engaging to me as it has a specific fantasy-world-appeal that I find akin to Hayao Miyazaki at times.
Also on Imaginism Studios is Kei Acedera, an artist with a clear affection for dragons and fairies. I personally agree with her that the bay needs more families of dragons.
Other artists include cartoonist Stephen Silver, the caricatures of Jason Seiler. Be careful, there is so much fun stuff on their site that you can easily waste an hour just looking at the pretty images (like a image described as “creatures with giant blisters on their heads that are filled with cheese”).
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guest post by Burstein!
photo by Andrew Storms
The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) is a Hindu nationalist organization in India that is venturing into the soft drink industry. While that may not be notable, the fact that they are undergoing laboratory testing for a soda made from cow urine is. Considering that the RSS often decry the influence of westernization on their culture and that drinking cow urine is considered healthy in some parts of India, it is an interesting bit of cultural reclamation to promote a very Hindu beverage.
The flavor is not yet known, but the RSS said the liquid produced by Hinduism’s revered holy cows is being mixed with products such as aloe vera and gooseberry to fight diseases such as diabetes and cancer.
Many Hindus consider cow urine to have medicinal properties and it is often drunk in religious festivals.
The drink will be called “gau jal,” the Sanskrit word for “cow water”.
In light of the recent success of the urine-to-water test conducted by the astronauts on the International Space Station, maybe Tang might have some competition for being the beverage of choice for astronauts.
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guest post by Burstein!
photo by Sarah Atwood
In an amazing Yahoo Answer, Kat Atredies (most likely a pseudonym) a student at a private school asks the question “Is it OK to run an illegal library from my locker at school?”
Let me explain.
I go to a private school that is rather strict. Recently, the principal and school teacher council released a (very long) list of books we’re not allowed to read. I was absolutely appalled, because a large number of the books were classics and others that are my favorites. One of my personal favorites, The Catcher in the Rye, was on the list, so I decided to bring it to school to see if I would really get in trouble. Well… I did but not too much. Then (surprise!) a boy in my English class asked if he could borrow the book, because he heard it was very good AND it was banned! This happened a lot and my locker got to overflowing with the banned books, so I decided to put the unoccupied locker next to me to a good use. I now have 62 books in that locker, about half of what was on the list. I took care only to bring the books with literary quality.
The books on her list include, but are not limited to, the following:
- One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
- The Picture of Dorian Gray
- Slaughterhouse-5
- Lord of the Flies
- Bridge to Terabithia
- Catch-22
- East of Eden
- The Brothers Grimm Unabridged Fairytales.
- Candide
- The Divine Comedy
- Paradise Lost
- The Godfather
- The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy
- A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court
- Animal Farm
Kat is bravely ensuring that her fellow students have access to some very fine literature. She is also taking her librarian duties seriously by keeping a log book with due dates and even curating her collection: “Twilight is banned also, but I don’t want that polluting my library.”
via Neatorama
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guest post by Burstein!
As part of our continuing coverage of the Swimming Cities of Serenissima, we have obtained some lovely mail art from embedded artists Spy Emerson and Moses Grub. They have been mailing back improved postcards from their travels as part of an ongoing fundraising effort that included the speakeasy raid at Ritual Roasters because “being an art marauder does not pay.”
The piece above is from the coast of Slovenia. This means that the Swimming Cities are getting closer to their ultimate mission – crashing the extra-fancy Venice Biennale on June 7th. There is much more adventure left, so there is plenty of time to get an original piece of mail art for only 10 bucks.
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phreakmonkey made a demo video of him using an antique 1964 Livermore Data Systems “Model A” Acoustic Coupler Modem to connect to the Internet at 300 baud.
photo by phreakmonkey
via Waxy
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Back in 1997 and 1998 our friend Warrior Girl organized the epic 24 Hour Community Spacewalk through San Francisco’s Mission District. Since then she’s taken it to Los Angeles and now she’s bringing The 24 Hour Community Spacewalk to the streets of Detroit from noon on June 13th through noon June 14th.
The 24 Hour Community Spacewalk is a twenty-four hour long creative adventure. It takes place in a participating area of a city and incorporates the local community, artists, restaurants, non-profits, and churches. The Spacewalk festival begins at noon in a designated location with a collective event. Then, with program and map in hand, Spacewalkers begin their own odyssey. Spacewalks conclude with another collective event in a particular location with the focus on contributions, for example, in-kind donations by restaurants to feed the local needy, or cleaning the streets, where needed. The Spacewalk creates an opportunity for individuals to work, create, collaborate, organize and celebrate as a community team. It encourages the individual to take on the responsibility for their own ideas and how they can interact within and affect their community.
See the Spacewalk website and Facebook group for more info on how to participate.
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Plants vs. Zombies is a super fun Tower Defense style game made by PopCap.
A mob of fun-loving zombies is about to invade your home, and your only defense is an arsenal of 49 zombie-zapping plants. Use peashooters, wall-nuts, cherry bombs and more to mulchify 26 types of zombies before they can reach your front door.
Each zombie has its own special skills, so you’ll need to think fast and plant faster to combat them all. But be careful how you use your limited supply of greens and seeds… as you battle the fun-dead, obstacles like a setting sun, creeping fog and a swimming pool add to the challenge. And with five game modes to dig into, the fun never dies!
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Andy Baio shows what popular Internet memes look like with their backgrounds only in his series “Meme Scenery”. Kind of leaves you with an empty feeling, eh?
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