Matrix Ping Pong
I love playing ping pong and I love “The matrix” movies, so I was thrilled when my friend Shawn sent me a google chat with a link to this spoof video of a couple guys playing ping pong in bullet time. It’s really a pretty amazing bit of choreography!
Twisted Children’s Books
It always cracks me up when someone creates a funny publication cover with Photoshop. It reminds me of “Whipped Magazine” and the idea Roderick and I had for our U.P.I. (Useless Publications International) magazine “Hobo NOW!”.
In that vein, Something Awful has an entire series of Photoshoped up children’s book covers. “Buddy’s Big Surprise” was my favorite, but there are 10 pages of them. Most are safe for work, but not all.
802 - Hip Hop Vermont Style
Long story short, I do not like hip hop, but these two guys who wrote this song about living Vermont did an outstanding job of commenting on life in the Green Mountain Sate. The video was made entirely in Montpelier.
From a distance, Vermont seems like an idealic place that is pristine, progressive and filled with artists and craftspeople. While this is somewhat true, there are other, less attractive aspects as well. Being a rural state, you tend to get a lot of back woods types that are in love with the idea of “protecting” their property from imagined threats with ridiculously large arsenals of firearms and so on. Still, despite their vast differences, the most radical Vermont communist tends to get along fairly well with the most fiercely patriotic Vermont redneck in ways that you would never think possible. It’s a cool state, but not entirely without its annoyances.
Stikfas Ninjas Pwn Stikfas Pirates
I was an only child, so I’ve always been pretty good at entertaining myself. So, when my Stikfas ninjas
Robert Hamburger, in his excellent text Real Ultimate Power: The Official Ninja Book
Between Matt and I we have a LOT of Stikfas ninjas and pirates, so there has been some talk of making a stop motion movie using scripts from Robert’s book. The problem is that most of the scripts end with the ninjas celebrating their victory over the pirates by “whaling on a guitar” and flirting with girls. Since we don’t have any Stikfas guitars or girls, we’re going to have to get some before we can make the movies.
Stikfas, as geeky toys go, are pretty cool. They are very posable, fairly inexpensive, and they have a lot of exchangeable parts. The only real problem is that when you remove the parts from the injection molded tabs, the remaining plastic is sharp and really does need to be trimmed with an Exacto knife. This takes some time, but the result is well worth it.
Area of Safe Refuge
As Courtney and I meandered through the Las Vegas airport with nothing better to do, we stumbled across this crazy door. We pointed, we laughed, and we sat for some time wondering what what in the heck could possibly be in a room marked “Area of Safe Refuge”. Was it a safe room for refugees? Was it a place where one could meditate and regain one’s “center” after a long and disturbing flight? Was it a place where you could run to and be safe if the dreaded police were chasing you? We remained unsure about what the room was used for, but we were 100% sure that we had to have a look inside. We sneaked up to it, and gently and stealthily (at lease as stealthily as you can in an airport full of people) opened the door and looked inside…
A ladder! A lousy, stinking ladder and absolutely NOTHING else! Well, we thought, maybe the last person who needed safe refuge was a roofer and they put the ladder in there to make him feel more at home… Who knows.
Anyhow, once I got to a place where I could access google, I looked it up, and it turns out that an “Area of Safe Refuge” is a place where disabled people can go in the event of a fire of other type of disaster to wait for assistance. They are located in areas that are very structurally sound, fireproofed, and unlikely to be damaged easily or crumble.
The Area of Safe Refuge, according to BS5588: part 8 is: “an area that is enclosed with a fire resisting construction (other than any part that is an external wall of a building) and served directly by a safe route to a storey exit, evacuation lift or final exit, thus constituting a temporary safe space for disabled people to await assistance for their evacuation”.
Hat Tip: Airport-int.com
Sun Happy Meal Card???
So we all know that Sun is a cool company with a great sense of humor, but they really outdid themselves when they named this combination SCSI / Ethernet card Happy Meal!
It’s a pretty old card, and honestly I had forgotten that I had installed it in my test system until I setup REL 3 on it last week. For some reason, the Red Hat installer wanted to remove the device before adding it back in. Luckily I had my camera with me when I saw the hardware detection message pop up.
Essay on Calvin & Hobbes
I’ve been a huge Calvin and Hobbes fan since the comic strip began in 1985, so I was thrilled to find that they have finally bundled up every single strip that was ever published into one gigantic set of three canvas-bound books called “The Complete Calvin and Hobbes”.
“Calvin and Hobbes” is a comic strip about the imaginative world of a six year old boy named Calvin, and his stuffed tiger named Hobbes, who is not only very much alive within Calvin’s mind, but also his best friend. The strip was created by Bill Watterson, and first published on November 18, 1985. Almost immediately after its introduction, the strip became wildly popular, and it held that popularity until December 31, 1995, when the final “Calvin and Hobbes” cartoon was sent to the printing press.
In 1995, “Calvin and Hobbes” could be found in over 2,300 publications worldwide, and there are more than 18 million published collections in print. This popularity resulted in an incredible following of people who identified with, and cared about the characters. For instance: one series which ran for only a week, involved a situation in which a big dog knocked Calvin down, and ran off with Hobbes. The strip’s readers were more upset by this than Watterson had expected, and they began to write letters asking that Hobbes be brought back safe. The intense interest shown by the strip’s readers shocked Watterson, and he began to realize how important his creation had become to people. He describes reading the comics as “a comforting little ritual to see our favorite characters for a few seconds over coffee in the morning. We care about them when they’re in trouble, and we count on them to look at life with a slightly amusing twist.” This would certainly appear to be the case considering the concern people expressed over the safety of Hobbes.
How was it that Watterson was able to spark such emotion within his readers? What makes “Calvin and Hobbes” so appealing to such a broad spectrum of people
These questions are not easy ones to answer; the mechanisms that make characters believable and likable are diverse and complex. However, by breaking “Calvin and Hobbes” down, and looking at some of the major aspects of the cartoon, we can begin to gain an insight into why the cartoon was able to find a place in so many reader’s hearts.
For this analysis of “Calvin and Hobbes,” we will look at the main characters of the strip, the ways they react to each other, the ways in which the reader reacts to them, and some of the most notable themes and topics of the cartoon. The cast consists of five major personalities, who interact with each other in ways that are usually humorous, but often very deep, and emotional. While conflict is nothing rare in the world of “Calvin and Hobbes,” relationships between the characters are almost always positive. There may be a practical joke here and there, but it’s done in the same way we joke with our close friends or loved ones as a form of affection. This, I believe is a large part of the cartoon’s appeal. People have always been drawn conflict, and when readers see the positive way the strip deals with argument, it becomes harmlessly funny, and people find themselves drawn to it.
The artwork for weekday strips is a slightly sketchy style of drawing, done in black ink, while the Sunday strips employ larger frames, and are done in color. Watterson says that in the early stages of the strip, he used “a cartoony, flat look, in which Calvin’s fantasies looked more realistic than reality.” Later on, however, the artwork became more three-dimensional, which allowed the characters to be drawn from different perspectives. One thing that is particularly notable about the artwork, is how effectively the characters convey emotion. It’s easy to see in their expressions what they are thinking, and the text is written in a such a way that we get a good feel for what’s going on. Loud noises, screaming, and most any exclamations are written in big, bold letters and are often surrounded by a jagged dialog balloon. The calmer language, on the other hand is written in small, uniform letters, which usually appears in a smoothly rounded caption. The mouths are remarkably large, particularly on the children, which gives the reader a feel for how much effort the kids put into getting their points across, as well as helps to show some of the things that are important to them.
The strip’s star character, is of course, Calvin. Calvin is a bratty, six year old boy named after a prominent sixteenth century theologian who believed in pre destination. Calvin spends his days using his imagination to create new worlds and fantasies which lead him to adventure and fun. Since Calvin spends much of the time in the world of his own imagination, it usually doesn’t occur to him that the rules of the “real” world apply to him, and he often ends up getting himself into all kinds of trouble. While Calvin is indeed hyper active and difficult to deal with, he is very imaginative, and tends to ask questions about life’s larger issues, such as human nature or the meaning of life. Watterson says that through Calvin, he is able to explore the things he is thinking about in more depth, and remarks that while Calvin is nothing like him as a child, the character helps him stay in touch with his own immaturity, providing him with a way to “sort through his own life and understand it.” This intellectual curiosity is done in a humorous, but thought provoking way, and I believe it adds to the appeal of the strip, because it prompts people to ponder philosophical questions that might not otherwise come to mind.
With Hobbes, we find ourselves with a somewhat strange situation. To everyone but Calvin, he is merely a stuffed tiger that Calvin drags with him everywhere he goes. To Calvin, on the other hand, Hobbes is not only alive and kicking, but his best friend as well. This leads to an interesting twist within the world of “Calvin and Hobbes,” as none of the other characters are able to grasp why Calvin is so attached to his toy tiger. Hobbes gets his name from the seventeenth philosopher Thomas Hobbes who had a particularly dim view of human nature. This is fitting since Hobbes often shows a quiet, witty, sarcastic attitude as he reacts to Calvin’s outrageous escapades. None the less, Hobbes is Calvin’s best friend, and we can tell by watching his patients, gentle body language, and by reading his thoughtful questions and remarks, that he has a genuine love for Calvin. Watterson says that he created Hobbes, including everything he looks for in a best friend.
Calvin’s parents are a good depiction of a couple trying to deal with a child like him. They often seem sarcastic, and at their wit’s end, but this is because we only really see them while they are reacting to Calvin. In the early strips, they were criticized for being unloving and cruel. I disagree with these accusations; In fact, by closely looking at their actions, Calvin’s parents appear to love him a great deal. His father shows a surprising amount of trust and tolerance, by doing such things as letting Calvin use the binoculars, or going along with his elaborate stories. We can even see his father’s love in the jokes he plays on Calvin, such as teasing him about not getting any Christmas presents. Calvin’s relationship with his father exemplifies of the harmless practical joking that people seem drawn to.
Calvin’s Mother shows her love in a different way. She displays a kind, motherly quality by doing such things as sticking up for Calvin when his father teases him, or bringing his lunch out to the sand box so Calvin won’t have to stop playing. I think readers are drawn to the funny, but positive way Calvin’s parents deal with him, and any reader who is a parent will probably find that they can relate to them on many levels.
Susie Derkins is a quiet, smart, earnest girl, about Calvin’s age. Calvin’s relationship with Susie is pretty much what would be expected from a six year old boy dealing with a girl, which leads to an interesting conflict. Watterson says that he suspects Calvin has a crush on her, but shows it by intentionally acting outrageous. Susie is a little “put off” by this outrageous behavior, which prompts Calvin to act even more outrageous. This relationship is fun for the reader because it gives off the same awkward feeling that most of us went through as a child when we had a crush on someone. Like the others, this relationship is positive, and it deals with the concept of love, which is important, and heart-warming to readers.
These characters all react to each other in ways that are easily identified with and funny, while at the same time, dealing with larger philosophical issues and themes. The goal of any news paper comic strip is to appeal to as many people as possible, so it is important to stay away from topics that may offend people. “Calvin and Hobbes” does this not by completely avoiding issues that people feel strongly about, but by mentioning them, and letting the readers find the answers for themselves. For instance, in one cartoon, Calvin is lying in bed, wondering why man was put on earth. Hobbes rolls over, gives a sarcastic smile and says “tiger food.” This cartoon deals with creation, which can be a hot topic, but instead of trying to answer the question for us, we are left to make our own decisions about it.
Many “Calvin and Hobbes” strips deal with issues of reality, and when taken with the sometimes complex language, it becomes clear that the cartoon is working on many different levels. A good example of this, is the subjectivity of Hobbes’ reality. When he is drawn from the perspective characters other than Calvin, he appears as a stuffed tiger. When drawn from Calvin’s perspective, however, he is animated and alive. Even then, however, it is not always this simple. As we can see in one strip were Hobbes is dizzy from having been washed and then put in the dryer, the issue of the tiger’s reality is sometimes blurred even for Calvin. Another example of this blurring of reality is a cartoon in which Calvin is imagining that he has traveled to another world and is being approached by an alien monster. As the monster nears, we see that it is holding a sandwich and a drink. When the monster finally gets to Calvin, we see that it is really his mother, bringing his lunch to him. This undefined reality allows us to relate to the strip on any level we chose, and I believe it is a major reason for the strip’s success.
Bill Watterson seems to have struck the right mix with “Calvin and Hobbes.” He’s created a world that is inhabited by believable, likable characters, who deal with a rich variety of issues in a convincing and humorous way. I think that inside all of us, we can see a little of each character, and this makes the strip fun and easy to identify with. As we read, we become involved in the lives and thoughts of the characters, and because of the sometimes complex topics covered, we are able to grow from the cartoon. In the final “Calvin and Hobbes” strip, the world is covered with snow, and Hobbes is carrying a toboggan. Calvin remarks “It’s a magical world Hobbes ol’ buddy? Lets go exploring!” The two friends then slide away from us on their toboggan. I hazard a guess that most “Calvin and Hobbes” fans felt a lump in their throat that day; I know I did. For me, however, it wasn’t a sad feeling. I was left with the feeling that Calvin and Hobbes were still active behind the scenes, and that the two friends have only started to explore. This feeling indicates to me that Watterson was able to do with his creation what many cartoonists spend their entire lives trying to accomplish. He was able to create an entire world in which “Calvin and Hobbes” could exist.
Cartoon Examples.
All images the property of Bill Watterson.
The First Calvin & Hobbes Cartoon >
The Last Calvin & Hobbes Cartoon >
Mysterious Earwax Gene
Did you know that earwax comes in two types, wet AND dry? Neither did I, and quite honestly I never really thought much about it. Some Japanese scientist did though, and now they’ve figured out more than I ever thought I’d know about earwax. No… REALLY! These guys published their findings in the latest issue of Nature Genetics.
The wet form predominates in Africa and Europe, where 97 percent or more of people have it, and the dry form among East Asians. The populations of South and Central Asia are roughly half and half.
My genes say I should have wet earwax, but that WAS a personal matter, and I preferred not to make it public knowledge! Good job guys Now everyone will be able to extrapolate their neighbor’s earwax type. Is nothing sacred?
Apparently by comparing the DNA of these two groups, these scientists were able discover a lot about the gene determines the type of earwax found in your friend’s ears.
The switch of a single DNA unit in the gene determines whether a person has wet or dry earwax. The gene’s role seems to be to export substances out of the cells that secrete earwax. The single DNA change deactivates the gene and, without its contribution, a person has dry earwax.
As fascinating as all this DNA switching, earwax wetting trivia is, I was truly interested to learn a bit more about genetics. The gene which affects earwax is known to geneticists as the ATP-binding cassette C11 gene. This is found in a long strain of DNA containing three other genes that have very little variation from one person to another. Apparently this is important because the lack of variation in DNA usually indicates that the gene is very important to the survival of the organism. In this case, however, earwax just seems to be “biological flypaper“, and really not all that critical.
Lack of variation in a sequence of DNA units is often the signature of a new gene so important for survival that it has swept through the population, erasing all the previous variation that had accumulated in the course of evolution.
Thank GOD that there are people out there contributing to the greater knowledge of earwax.
Funny Koi Quote
My fish do not like helicopters.
Found on the Koiphen forums… In context it’s pretty reasonable, but out of context it’s pretty darn funny!
It was a reply to a post about someone’s koi being scared by the noise of the snowplow. I check the Koiphen forums sometimes, but I’m really more of a Koivet kinda guy.
South Park Katrina Media Spoof
For good reason, the media has taken a beating for over sensationalizing their Hurricane Katrina coverage. Since then, a number of internet clips have come out poking fun at them for it.
This is a little South Park cartoon that makes fun of the media’s coverage of a flood in the town of Beverton Colorado, and I especially like the way it ends with a group of suits blaming the flood on George Bush, and a group of redneck hillbillies blaming it on Terrorists… Very funny.
I’m really sorry the clip is a WMV. I try really hard never to link to them, but I found it at a site run by Neo Conservatives, and we can’t really count on them to have the common sense to encode things in Quick Time.
World’s Angriest Woman
There are a lot of angry people in the world, but I’m pretty sure that the lady in this video ranks pretty near the top by any measure. It’s a movie of a woman in a parking lot screaming at a group of skaters for no apparent reason. Or at least no apparent reason that makes sense to any sane person.
Exactly why she is so angry is unclear, however it would seem that she is convinced that the kids are not the innocent skaters they claim to be, but rather evil photographers who come around “every couple of years” and are out to get her. She nearly blows out her vocal cords as she threatens to call 911 and demands their names, cameras, film, and calling cards.
Again, it’s hard to say why she is so furious, but it is quite clear that she:
- REALLY REALLY hates photographers
- REALLY likes calling cards
- Has absolutely NO understanding of the law
- Hates “illegal photographs”
- Likes the name “Norma kay”
- Is “tired of being beat up by photographers”
- Is OK with the idea that one of the skaters is actually named Jeffery Jefferys
- Is convinced that having been yelled at is a good reason for someone to leave
The only thing Al could say is: “she’s so unreasonable”, which I think is the understatement of the year! Zach suggests that this story should be called “Finally Someone More Angry Than Me”. For my part, all I could do was cry laughing. I do, however think that this video belongs in Zach’s “World’s Big and Tall” series under “World’s Angriest Woman”.
Bush Takes a Vacation
Apparently all the touring of disaster areas and blaming of local governments has made poor Bush tired. It seems he and his father had to take a mini vacation and do some fishing in the Gulf Coast flood waters.
Seriously though… I love it when people get creative with Photoshop, but the reality is, George W. Bush takes an amazing number of vacation days… All told, nearly 20% of his presidency has been spent on vacation.
According to the Washington Post:
The August getaway is Bush’s 49th trip to his cherished ranch since taking office and the 319th day that Bush has spent, entirely or partially, in Crawford — nearly 20 percent of his presidency to date, according to Mark Knoller, a CBS Radio reporter known for keeping better records of the president’s travel than the White House itself. Weekends and holidays at Camp David or at his parents’ compound in Kennebunkport, Maine, bump up the proportion of Bush’s time away from Washington even further.
Real-Life Derek Zoolander
Since leaving the desolate wasteland of PHPNuke for the bountiful fields of WordPress, I have become quite a fan of the software, and regularly visit developer Matthew Mullenweg’s site “photomatt.net” to see what’s going on with with WordPress development. So, you can imagine my surprise when instead of going to photomatt.net, I mistakenly went to photomatt.org and discovered a real-life Derek Zoolander.
For those who have seen the movie “Zoolander” the hilarity of Matt Blalock’s headshots will become instantly apparent. For those of you who have not, Derek Zoolander is a dumber-than-a-stump male model character played by Ben Stiller who has names for all his “looks” and wants to build “The Derek Zoolander Center for Kids That Can’t Read Good”.
Apparently poor Matt is having a “phase” and has had to take down his old site due to some male model frustrations. He says:
Sorry to disappoint you all, but I’m currently going through a bit of a “phase” and I’ve pulled down all of the material that was on this site in order to bring you something that I actually enjoyed. Yes, I enjoyed the last site just fine and dandy but I want something different. So please bear with me while I get it all redesigned and reuploaded.
But luckily for all of us he has kept his photos up for a “Special Someone”.
For a special someone…my photos are still on the site…click the smileie!!
WOW, Matt! That person must sure be special for you to go all the way from tearing down your website because of a tragic “phase” to “my photos are still on the site”! Hopefully you get through your “phase” without too much trouble.
Then he says:
Here ya go….all for you. My photos. Sorry they’re not all small and stuff, that takes work and you know how I’m crunched for time these days. However…I think you deserve them since you asked.
Don’t worry Matt… We understand how rough it can be to thumbnail images for the web. We’re just glad the pictures are still up.
Unlike Derek Zoolander, Matt has not named his “looks”, so I have taken the liberty of naming some of the better ones for him. Feel free to comment if you have better names than the ones I’ve come up with.
Smug Iceman >
Ponderous Fusion >
Notable Intensity >
Cold Fission >
Icy Hot Killa >
How long until we see the “Matt Blalock Center for Kids Who Can’t Compose Photos Good”, or the “Matt Blalock Center for Hilarious Headshots”? I can’t wait!
Matt Writes Internet Deletion Script
Matt over at BorkWeb has cleverly written a script that will:
traverse the ENTIRE internet (regardless of security) and delete everything. We’re talking images, video, text documents, pdfs, security files, EVERYTHING. It took me a while to code, but I believe it will work.
Since I work in IT, I’m always laughing about the interesting way people put things. We’re always hearing questions phrased in ways that convey the point, but utterly fail to demonstrate a complete understanding of computing technology.
- “I can’t log onto the Internet… Is the server down?”
- “Can I download this Internet to my floppy disk?”
- “How many megahertz is this hard disk drive?”
- “Can I install the Internet onto this computer?”
- “Could my computer be clogged up with too many files?”
- And so on.
I really like Matt’s script, because it will give people yet another amusing thing to add to this list.
Duck Invasion
Earlier this Spring, we decided that since we have a pond, and a big yard, we would head on down to the hardware store and get three Mallard ducklings. We thought it would be nice to have some quacking around and the thought of them eating slugs and pests out of our garden would be a welcome treat. Little did we realize, ducks can become very friendly…
Over the weekend I made the monumental mistake of showing our web-footed friends how to get up on our back deck. For the next few days they followed me up there, and wandered around begging for food until they grew impatient and waddled down to the pond. This was more or less harmless, and we didn’t really mind… Harmless, that is, until yesterday.
Since we allow our cats to come and go as they please, we always leave the sliding screen door slightly opened for them while we are around. Keep in mind, this is just a slit. Our cats are very thin and the screen door was only open about five inches. None the less, the three stealthy ducks managed to slip through this gap yesterday afternoon, and infiltrate our living room where they proceeded to carry our their nefarious black op mission of pooping on our floor!
I have no idea how these fat ducks were able to get through this tiny gap, but they had no intention of leaving after having worked so hard to get inside. They ran, quacked, flapped their wings and generally resisted ejection to the best of their duckly abilities until finally being ushered back outside where they belong. Even then, the quacks of protest could be heard for some time and they re-adjusted to outside life.
Cleaning up the mess was a fairly easy prospect, and the trouble of it was well worth the hilarious story. It would seem that I now must focus my attention onto the development of an elaborate duck security system capable of thwarting the invasion efforts of these winged masterminds… Most likely a small bit of mesh.
