"I'm so cute and cuddly! I help you pee!"

Warning: Aaaaaaaaaahahahahahahahahahahahaha!

Available on a T-Shirt here, along with the rest of their fantastic lineup.

Afraid of the dark?

Warning: This post contains graphic makeup. And bugs.

Photography buff blog Sooth Brush posted some time last year about the delightfully chilling work of a certain Joshua Hoffine, a man obsessed (possessed) with childhood fear art photography. The brilliant composition and art that goes into the pics is just as impressive as the fact that they aren't photoshop edits, but straight shots with only colour adjustments and tweaking done by computer. The rest is all family & friends, a bunch of free time and an artful eye, resulting in vivid images that shock in their contrast of stark gore with symbols of purity & innocence.

Check out Joshua's site to buy signed prints - or even a brooch version of the beasty below. Or just give him blog love.


Props to Rodney for the linkage.

Tim is blacked out: Stand up against "Guilt Upon Accusation" for New Zealand.

http://creativefreedom.org.nz/blackout.html

Don't Stalk Me

Warning: This post knows where you live.

Last Sunday I moved flat - my 3rd place since coming here in 2006, and a reversion back to living alone after the shambles that communal living deteriorated to in my last place (having my laptop stolen by my flatmate and living with people who never washed the dishes after they ate and built duvet-forts in the living room where they camped out and never slept in their bedroom are what I term "shambles", FYI). I have a Kiwi neighbour, an American and a few Japanese but I have the room (spacious but old) to myself. Much as I loved the previous place for its social factor, things like safety and general hygiene are vastly improved for having moved into a new place.

Looking it up on Google Maps, I clicked too far and suddenly found a remarkably high quality photo of the outside of the apartment block.

I know everyone got into Google Map's Street View quite some time ago, but when it first came out it was extremely limited (ie. certain parts of the States), and I never imagined they'd manage to make it all the way around to my side of the world.
How wrong was I?

Not only can you see my place in Osaka (above), the supermarket down the road and other wonderful parts of Namba, but it appears they've got New Zealand covered too. Not that you can see the whanau's house (it's down a long driveway), but still, the neighbourhood is there:
Driveway
Ferry Road and a view of the bay
The wharf near sunset
Still, they haven't made it into the countryside in Japan, nor anywhere in China from the looks of things. But the progress is almost scary. I just hope people only use it for good - like that story of the cop who found the girl kidnapped by her grandmother by using the GPS on her phone and Street View to find the motel they were at - rather than for the forces of evil -like a dude who might find a girl to kidnap and take to a motel, or (worst case), realising the political scenario of 1984...

Height (by Randall Munroe)

Warning: This post is in logarithmic form.

This excites me (click to enlarge):
Image Source: xkcd.com
Thanks Randall!

"Enclosed is a paper clip, a drinking straw and a rubber band. Please save my son."

I made this from a beer keg and a baby's bottle.
Warning: This post can also be used to stop international bad-guys.

Don't try these at home.

What bemused Facebook user are you?

Warning: This post contains painfully obvious multi-choice questions.

I'm sure any user of Facebook is aware of how utterly irritating some of the third party applications kicking around can be. They're like the "FWD this and your crush will fall in love with you!" emails of the networking world. Ones that get my blood rushing to my face (and book) include any "Am I a hottie?" apps, gift giving apps, and those heretical "Vampire vs. Zombie (vs. my patience)" ones. Why oh why do I want an egg that will hatch into a can of soup? Maybe in real life, especially if its a nice biske. But not as a tiny picture on my already cluttered profile.

The quizzes kicking around remind me of Cleo magazine and the whole "will your relationship stand the test of time" or "is this just carpet burn or should I see a gyno" multi-choice garbage they used to sell at your local dairy. For all I know they still do.
But recently, these quizzes appear to have gotten a little out of hand. What started out as "What animal are you?" or "What kind of kisser are you?" has now exercised its statistical parameters and has moved into slightly more concerning territory, seen below:


I'm sorry, but "want the US and France to get out of Lebanon"? Yes, that reflects my personality to a t. I'm so glad I wasted my time on this.

Personally, I'm looking forward to quizzes such as the following:


See also:
- Which MJ are you?
- What Starbucks coffee are you? (brought to you by Starbucks coffee)
- Which natural disaster victim are you? (Answer "A" for every question and you'll get "Mariah Carey concertgoer")

Bizarro

Warning: This post wants you to buy stuff.

So a friend has approached me to try to find this guy a sales market in Japan.
Dan Piraro has apparently been writing Bizarro comics for 22 years. That's over 10,000 panels. His manager tells me he's read all of them. "It takes a while."

His strip appears in newspapers across the world. It's quite entertaining. Certainly beats the printed crap out of Hagar the Horrible.

I can see Bizarro t-shirts being popular (Japanese love random shirts as much as the next person), and posters and that might work, but we'll see. Village/Vanguard's "Exciting Book Store" might be keen. They lap that stuff up.

If it works my goal is to get Randall at xkcd.com to get me to market his raptor shirts. Then I can retire happy.

Techno

Ah, so true.

Disclaimer: Illustrations by Randall Munroe @ xkcd.com

Dwarf sliding on his face

Disclaimer: This brief post features brutal honesty in the header.

Got this from another random blog:

I cannot stop watching this.

The internet, the world even, is a fucked up place.

No More Scrabulous?

Sure I'm winning, but it's his turn...
I wonder if the health insurance ad is a sign Google thinks
I'm going to need depression meds after Greg kicks my ass?

Man, I'm really sick of the words "copyright infringement".
Scrabulous, the addictive scrabble-knock-off that is consuming all my free time at work has come under threat of lawsuit by toy giants Hasbro & Mattel for violating copyright laws(article here).
What I find surprising is that it seems they want the game removed, rather than asking for a percentage of profits from advertising, though they may have and Reuters might have left that out.

Scrabble is a classic game that is undergoing a Renaissance at the moment thanks to the beauty of online gaming. I can only see the game boosting sales of the live board version, as it grows a new young audience who might like to play in real life. I'm sure Microsoft's Internet Hearts never brought ire from playing card companies. Just feels like a bit of tall poppy syndrome. The first thing I'd be thinking if I owned the rights would be "alright, lets make ourselves some money off this thing."

FYI, my best bingo so far was SATIABLY for 92 points. I've played 6 games without loss (though Greg here threatens that), and am currently winning 4 of my 5 active games. Scrabulous is fun, by far the best game application on Facebook, and you'd hope Hasbro & Mattel aren't going to spoil the party just because they weren't invited originally.
If you're on Facebook, I'm up for a game when you are.

Intarweb, I heart you so

My email was down at work today. This is a regular occurence in China, apparently. Someone decided to send me a 4mb picture, and my computer spent 6 hours (and 4 failed attempts) trying to download it. I hate Outlook because you can't choose what emails you want to download. If someone decides to forward their work to the whole company (a regular occurence), then I have to download and sift through steaming piles of useless email.

So, no email = no work here at the moment, so I had to kill most of the day looking busy while not getting bored.

The Top 5 Websites I Visit While Bored At Work (while trying to look busy)
1. Wikipedia ("Geek's Paradise")
2. Yellowfever.co.nz
3. About.com
4. Isohunt
5. YahooXtra

Number 5 is to keep up with news at home, fullstop. Number 4 is to *gasp* download shit at work! I know this sounds naughty, but for all the strict rules run at my company, one thing they don't do is monitor net traffic. The connection is far from lightning, both here and at the Osaka office, but I can get most of an ep of 24 at work, to get the rest and watch it that night. Fabulous.
About.com, which I have been neglecting of late, is to learn Spanish (why else?). "But shouldn't you be learning Chinese, Timothy?" I hear you inquire. Firstly, it's Tim, please. Secondly, Spanish is an awesome language, my girlfriend speaks it, and I'd like to add another notch to my language belt, if only to have private conversations with her. I have far more motivation to learn Spanish, but that's the way my whole life has been run: every major decision I've ever made was decided by a girl. It's worked out so far (well, sure there's hiccups, but all in stride).
Number 2 is the fansite of the newly born Wellington professional football team, the Phoenix. I don't really do board posting, but I think I may have finally found a board I am willing to share my opinion with. Sure, there are other boards that share my interests, but techno music boards just aggravate me because everyone is slightly arrogant over how much they love their electro.
Wikipedia, which would be dethroned by YouTube if I had access to sound at work, is the most fabulous invention utilising the net ever. Freedom of information on a mass scale. YouTube is the most entertaining site, but Wikipedia is the most interesting by a long shot. Maybe its just cos I'm a geek. I even use wikipedia regularly as a work reference, and for translation research. So you can imagine it completely busts my balls that you you can't access Wikipedia from China. I mean, that kind of attitude can make a guy hate a country in a heartbeat. Or at least hate the guys who run it.

I thought it was awesome that the last 3 days I've been unable to access my blog from the net here (as in, I could edit it, but I couldn't view it). I thought I'd been censored nationally for my comments on the nation. As it turns out, the net was just screwing up. Sad; here I was thinking I had a fairly impressive impact factor.

I'm a postmodern and popculture whore - sure, not as much as Chris, I can't stand Britney or Good Charlotte and I won't buy a Louis Vuitton wallet, but I love me my movies, gigs and fashion, yay I do's. So here in Anti-diverse-culture Central, where sure there's ads for Coke and make-up, but I'll be damned if I can find a film festival or drumnbass gig, the net is worth its weight* in gold.

*Wikipedia says the net weighs a mere 35.24 metric tons**.


**Of course it doesnt. Or maybe it does. How the hell should I know - I'm NOT ALLOWED TO LOOK IT UP.


~~Oh, you weren't laughing at the question, just the colour of my shirt~~