it's dark here in the future

In India we reached the year 2008 a few hours back, and I thought I'd take some time here to let those of you lagging behind in on what to expect from the future.

robot car wash revolts.

jet packs AND flying cars.

ill-tempered mutants with prehensile spit.

snortable Tang.

carbonated grapes.

orange flavored watermelons AND watermelon flavored oranges.

talking dogs with monkey brains.

sharp poisonous radioactive fire.

undersea cities.

no money.

nuclear powered segways.

and it's dark. I haven't seen the sun all year.

update: I've seen the sun now.

vintage Disneyland home movies [part 1]

I love youtube, especially for all of the user-generated and uploaded content.

Here are some clips of Disneyland when it was apretty unique place and there weren't 37 of the parks scattered across the globe.



if you look carefully you can see a guy scaling the Matterhorn.



The Osmond Bros. [whenever someone asks me for a good band name I ususally suggest "The New Osmonds", especially if it's for a metal band.]


This ABC documentary isn't a home movie, but I thought it would be interesting to put up here because it shows Disneyland being built.



This last one also isn't a home movie, but it's cool because it shows the Shaw of Iran riding the Matterhorn with Walt.

Space Mountain with the lights on

that last video got me searching for some cool Disneyland clips. I really like the surreal ride-through-scaffolding aspect of this video.

wtf?! [part 3]

wet empty tea cups ride

wtf?! [part 2]

Catholic mom upsert that her son is an atheist. She reminds me of a high school friend's dad -- but she's not as scary.

wtf?! [part 1]

The first in a series of youtube wtf clips.





these guys jump over camels, sort of mid-est evel knievels;


old guys rapping in finnish:

Turkish Star Wars

As a Christmas bonus, I thought I'd post a clip of the Tuskish "remake" of Star Wars.



Splicing together footage from the orignial (that appears to be filmed by pointing a video camera at the tee-vee) with the hero bouncing around the desert decapitating furries with his judo chops, this truly has to be one of the most bewildering, bizarre, and awesome remakes ever.

[Although having heard of the majestic awefulness that is this movie, I found this clip while browsing on cracked]

Satisfaction

physical model of M.C. Esher's "Asending and Descending"

from Dark Roasted Blend.

meat that thinks. and talks.

"They do, but what do you think is on the radio? Meat sounds. You know how when you slap or flap meat, it makes a noise? They talk by flapping their meat at each other. They can even sing by squirting air through their meat."

I just found this (very) short story on reddit. It's a take on how non meat-based alien life might by a little grossed out at our ... um... meatness.

link.

this peanut looks like a duck

www.thispeanutlookslikeaduck.com

'nuff said.

Thug Life in Pie Graphs and Flowcharts

Just how black is Dead Mike?



[link to more aspects of gangstas' life styles quantified.]




Don't remember Dead Mike? He was a founding member of the early 90s rap super-group CB4, along with Gusto and Stabmaster Arson. [There was a time in '92 when I thought I was Dead Mike.]





If I ever adopt three animals together as a package deal (say, three llamas or spider monkeys or star-nosed moles -- or even one of each) I think I'd name them MC Gusto, Dead Mike, and Stabmaster Arson.

Internextperts answer F.A. Questions

Gabe and Max, the internextperts, answer Bing Boing readers F.A. Questions about all of the internets. Pay special attention to their craig's list apartment huntinng tips.

this breakdancer has backwards feet

seriously. check this out.

few things top old men skaters

LOLcats strike to support writers

[ok, maybe they're not LOLcats -- but they are funny youtube critters.]

Astronaut Sex

Research studies on sex in space found that the missionary position is impossible in zero-g without "mecahnical assistance".

Update: it seems snopes has debunked this "study". Still, someone should be conducting this research.

Evel never dies

Evel Knievel died yesterday.




He was trying to jump the Snake River on this.









A glorious death, as predicted in this Evel biopic poster starring George Hamilton.




He didn't limit his daredevilism to motorcycles.



This was one of favorite toys when i was little. I was even thinking about buying one on ebay,


but I had second thoughts because I didn't want to end up like this guy:

daft hands

bear with the slow first 50s or so.

shitlist

L7's shitlist.



I need to watch Natural Born Killers again.

Chick style Cthulu Tract

my new favorite "Laugh-Out-Loud Cats"

by Apelad.

"never go with a hippie to a second location"

advice from Jack Donaghy (30 rock).

"Bob"

Captain-Obvious States the Obvious

Captain-Obvious's reply to the reddit headline "Robot Canon Goes Berserk, kills 9. No, Seriously.":

"I guess when Robot cannons go berserk they can be dangerous".

Keep the Cat from Escaping

This is a pretty amusing flash game I found on reddit. It's actually not too difficult -- I got it down on the second try. but the game design site does have a lot more games that look worth checking out.

Boris Live in San Francisco

I saw Boris last night at the Independent. Frickin' awesome show. There were a few people recording the show with iphones and whatnot and I found some video on youtube this morning.

Youtuber nixmusicblog posted some great video of the show -- I'm glad you were there!

Here's Boris performing Pink, one of my all time favotrite songs. Everytime I drive to San Digeo I have to put this song on as I start up the grapevine.



two more songs:

Grape Juice Plus

I had this 45 vinyl years ago, but I ended up losing it some how. I think someone borrowed it. Come to think of it, I actually had two of them damn.

Anyways, I wish I good find a better version of this on here.

Fugazi vs. Minor Threat

my friend Sean just sent me this Fugazi video:



I replied with this Minor Threat video:



what do you expect? It's another rainy Friday afternoon.

cat mosh pit

Damn. Has this turned into a youtube clip blog? I sure hope not.



Ira sent this to me.

techno viking

he really starts to get down around 1:25 into the video.

giraffes fighting

I assumed they just spit at each other or something.

amazing Rube Goldberg machine

This is really fantastic Rube Goldberg machine incorportating some things you would expect (golf balls, pool balls, a candle, a slinky) and some items I haven't seen used before (a checkmate in a chess game (not sure how that is doen actually) and text messaging).

stuggle

I heard a story recently about a guy that went to get "STRUGGLE" tattooed on himself and ended up with "STUGGLE". This reminded about the guy in Chicago that tried to sue "Jade Dragon Tattoo & Body Piercing" for tattooing "CHI-TONW” instead of "CHI-TOWN". When that didn't work, a bunch of his friends got similar "CHI-TONW” tattoos to support him.



I can’t find a picture of the “STUGGLE” tattoo, but the word is too good to not be used in referring to misspelled tattoos.

Here are a few stuggles I’ve come across recently:

One of my personal favorites:


Another one I saw on this site:


A couple of foreign language stuggles:

(the following one also found at rankmytattoos linked above.)


David Beckham stuggled his wife’s name in Hindi:


If you have any stuggle pictures email them to me and I will put them up here. Especially if you come across the “STUGGLE” stuggle.

Even better: actually go out and get a “STUGGLE” tattoo.

(Credit where it is due: Mary and Will told me the stuggle story a week or so ago, and Sean sent me the "AWSOME" picture last week. A while back I saw the Chicago Tribune story on reddit, and saw the rankmytattoo link on reddit this morning.)

what America needs

What America needs is fair and unbiased media. like Iran. Here's what the Islamic Republic News Agency is reporting about Ahmadinejad's visit to Columbia University:

"The audience on repeated occasion applauded Ahmadinejad when he touched on international crises.

At the end of his address President Ahmadinejad answered the students' questions on such issues as Israel, Palestine, Iran's nuclear program, the status of women in Iran and a number of other matters."

Other matters? Like homosexuality in Iran?



Yeah -- that looks like a standing ovation there.

added: here's the complete transcript.

for akern

I saw this build-it-yourself-Dylan-SHB-promo-viral-video thing on laughing squid today and I knew that I had to make one for Karen because I know how much she hates the guy.

The joke is is that I always mistype Karen's name, with Akern being the most common variant. Unless I'm trying to mistype -- then I wind up writing it correctly.

When I made this video I actually typed "Karen" correctly four times.

edit: I removed the embedded clip because it wasn't formating right. here's a link to the video I made on the site itself.

how to talk like a pirate

Today is "National Talk Like a Pirate Day". I saw this handy instructional video on Language Log (not the Langauge Log) this morning:

I miss Disneyland

I just went to down to southern California this last weekend, but I did not go to Disneyland and did not film this video:

stuff from India!! who wants stuff from India!!

if you want something form India, something reasonable that is -- I'm not bringing back no five legged cows and/or monkeys -- let me know. um leave a comment on this post and I'll try to bring you something.


That is, if anybody reads this besides the people I force to -- you both know who you are.


you've got two days to tell me because then I am out of here.

my first five legged cow

Today i saw my first five-legged cow. The bad news: I didn't have my camera with me. the good news: it looked just like this




well, without the hat.

to give credit where it is due, i stole this picture from here.

English Lessons

English phrases to know in case you get mugged by George Costanza.




Added bonus: jazzercise while you learn!

"Unicorns are the new Chuck Norris, but Hobos are the new Unicorns"

Hipster Olympics! saw this this morning on Laughing Squid.

and in this corner...

I’ve enjoyed being a spectator to the flame was between the Language Log and the Freakanomics blog this week – alright, so it hasn’t quite risen to the level of a flame war, but it has been entertaining, even if both sides have been friendly and good-humored about the whole affair.

It started when Stephen J. Dubner from Freakanomics came across a semantics abstract while googling for “They Might be Giants” and “bellybutton lint.” Unfamiliar with the terms of art from the linguistics community, he took author David Beaver to task for obfuscation and a veiled swipe at the field of linguistics, suggesting that such research, while amusing, doesn’t amount to much.

Well, someone tipped off David Beaver to the blog post and he responded on the Language Log, after which Dubner concedes defeat (imho).

I mean, really: who hasn't read Karttunen?

Good Bye YouTube

The user created content and the communities that arise on the site are the most interesting aspect of YouTube, imho.

Here’s something where I feel like I walked into the middle of an awkward situation and I have no idea what is going on, but I'm intrigued nonetheless. This appears to be a farewell video from a frequent YouTuber living in Mexico City. He's leaving his YouTube community because he received threatening phone calls from individuals that seem to know quite a bit about his and his family’s daily habits.



I really like the fact that I have no context in which to place the video (not unlike how I felt the first time I went to a conference on formal semantics). Is he for real? Overreacting? Seriously in Danger? I really can't tell, but this guy clearly doesn't buy it:



Others take him at his word and are clearly pissed at the people threatening him.



I gather from the comments on this and related videos that supexcellency has been participating in youtube debates on religion and other touchy subjects, and somehow this activity, in his mind, has drawn the wrong kind of attention. He asks that you leave comments so that YouTube will take action, but if these threats hves something to do with the Mexican Mafia, as he seems to imply, I really don’t know what he expects from youTube. If this guy really is in danger, I feel bad for him.

It will be interesting to see how this develops. He posted his video about 18 hours ago and says he will leave it up for about 24 before deleting it. Does anyone know more about this story?

Update: it looks like he already pulled the video, but there are plenty of "Re: Good Bye YouTube" videos replying to it.

Friendly reminder:

Rescue Me is the best damn show on tee-vee.



If you're not watching this show yet, get you on it -- it's on season four already, for crissakes.

Finland = Winland

Many of my friends will tell you that I am fascinated with all things Finnish, so it really shouldn't be a surprise that I couldn't resist reposting this video of Gregorius after seeing it on Boing Boing.



disclaimer: I blatantly stole "Finland = Winland" from the youtube comments.

I love google reader

Google Reader is awesome. Not only will it pull together RSS/Atom feeds from various blogs, it will display your reading trends.




it looks like I do most of my blog reading at lunchtime -- and I'm okay with that. Now if only Jor would update her blog occasionally, I'd be happy. And I can't believe that Bruce Sterling doesn't have a feed for his wired blog. That must be a deliberate choice to force readers to visit the site instead of reading it via RSS.

Bad move -- that just means I probably won't be reading it much. I think providing feeds will actually increase traffic; for the blogs I do read through google reader, I often visit the site to poke around more.

edit: All of my post titles and labels started showing up in Devanagari and i don't know how to turn it off. Damn the google!

new edit: I figured out how to turn it off.

getting to the bottom of unexplained monthly $10 charges on my bank statements

I was looking at my bank account online and noticed a $10 charge that I didn't recognize from something called "reservations rewards". Looking back over my transactions, it seems I've been charged this $10 every month since December. Turns out it is a company that scams people by opening a discount window when you buy stuff from particular websites. I think it got me buying movie tickets online. Here's the thing, you don't have to type in your cc number for them to get you. This is how it works:

• You buy something online from a site that you trust.
• A window pops open telling you can get a $10 coupon for the site you just bought something from, you just have to give them an email address.
• The fine print says that putting in an email address is equivalent to an electronic signature and that you are agreeing to allow the site you purchased from to send all your cc info to Reservations Rewards.

It gets better:

• Reservations Rewards sends you an email stating if you don’t cancel they will charge $10 a month from now on (and it doesn’t appear that you even get anything for this ten bucks).
• Even better, your spam software will most likely filter out this email so you will never see it.

So I’m going to call my bank when I get home tonight (and it is business hours in the US) and get them to dispute the charges. From what I’ve read, it’s better to have your bank or cc company dispute the charges instead of calling the company directly as this will cost the scammers an extra $25.

I feel foolish for taking this long to recognize the scam. Obviously you should check all the charges to your account, and call your bank about anything suspicious. And it’s probably a good idea to disable pop-ups too.

Here’s a link to a consumerist.com article about the scam.

You can search for Reservations Rewards online and fine a lot more information as well.

double postings are lame...

…but i'm doing it anyways. some of the posts that i'm posting here i've also posted on a blog i share with karen and alex, two friends that I'm over in Bombay with.


i'm double posting for a couple of reasons:

(a) I'm lazy;

and (2) i figure that that other blog will die out once we all come back to the US, and i'd like to keep some of my more obnoxious posts around to haunt me. or something.

it's still worth reading both of them because alex is clever and karen is clever and cute, and this site will continue to have my more bizarre ramblings whether they stem from boredom or psychosis.

or both.

or either.

you decide!!

beanbags!

beanbags!
Originally uploaded by subschool

i created a flickr group dedicated to documenting the Bombay beanbag phenomena that I previously posted about.

i wish I had something more clever to say about that, but I’m tired and going to bed now.

link to the flickr group

I thought the weird malaria pill induced dreams were over...

…but I was wrong. Today I was telling Karen and Alex that I had a really strange dream that I had read some graffiti on a wall and I woke up in the middle of the night and wrote it down. I forgot all about it until the afternoon when we were in the office, and I was curious what i actually wrote. Alex said he heard somewhere that people can't actually read in their dreams, but they only think they do, and then we were trying to figure out if there is an actual difference between the two. So I was really curious if what I wrote was actually words that made sense, or just babble.

When i got home and looked at the paper it said: "usho gandesha asho gundecha."

Well that answers -- hold on!! That’s not the paper I wrote on last night! That’s the name of the guy that owns the hotel. (I wrote down his name a while back because he had the bellhop call me up and invite me to his daughter's wedding reception which is another strange story.) When the person cleaned my room they must have moved the papers around. There it is, underneath the guy's name.

This is what I wrote in the middle of the night, what I remember being written on a wall in my dream:

"Under pursuit it can be understood that I am a dangerous learner.

6th June, 2006
Mark Fink"

what the...?

oh, I almost forgot -- on the wall in my dream this was written upside down, like this (from flip via reddit):

ɹǝuɹɐǝl snoɹǝƃuɐp ɐ ɯɐ ı ʇɐɥʇ pooʇsɹǝpun ǝq uɐɔ ʇı ʇınsɹnd ɹǝpun


I have no idea if Mark is a dangerous learner, under pursuit or otherwise, but I do know on that particular day I went to a metal show with Priya and Rick.

my abs0lute new favorite thing on the internet for today

game, game, game and again game is surreal. I just beat it, and now i'm going to go back and play it again.

it's a burroughs cut-up novel slash video game poem slash hallucinogenic angel diarrhea slash animated fever dream from the sporadic imagination of a retarded autistic genius schizophrenic 4-year old.



i wish i invented this. this -- this is what Al Gore invented the internet for.

i saw this on reddit titled "WTF."

exactly.

26407383 for life

one of the first things you notice after a few days of driving around over here is that all over the city "beanbag" or beanbags" followed by an 8 digit telephone number will be spray painted all over the place.



on our usual routes between the hotel and the office we see the above number mostly -- the other expats can tell you I'm fond of shouting out '26-40-73-83!" a couple of times during our drive. sometimes we see, 32668802, but that's rarer. when we took a trip last weekend down by the gateway, we would see other numbers painted on the walls.

so I got to thinking what these numbers mean. it's obvious they are phone numbers, but why? and why bean bags? you see them sprayed usually on or near construction sites, or on the temporary metal siding walls put up around construction sites. so I wondered if perhaps beanbags were a byproduct of construction here. Like, maybe they have to dig a lot of holes, and they fill the bean bags with the gravel.

and then I thought that perhaps it is the case that these numbers are marking gang territory. you often see it where one bean bag number will be crossed out and replaced with a rivals'. makes sense, especially coupled with the fact that different numbers show up in different neighborhoods.

so I wondered out loud what it really meant and Gina said "what? they sell bean bags".


right. it's that's simple.


well it seems that it is that simple. This afternoon Godwin (the AP version of Daniel) was riding with us to go look at an apartment, so I asked him what the deal was. He says they sell beanbags. “you want me to call them? I’ll call them.” So I give the number I’ve memorized by now (26-40-73-83!) and he calls them up, asks them where they are (West Bandra next to the stereo store, which is about as precise as addresses get over here), how much the bean bags cost (Rs 2000), and if we can stop in and see them (sure, but we didn’t).

Godwin says they send people out in the middle of the night to spray “bean bags” and their phone number all over town.

turns out Gina was right. But that just leaves us with a new mystery: how is this effective advertising? And if it is, THEN WHY DO ONLY BEAN BAG STORES DO IT?!!

It makes no sense to me. But I’m glad that in our (hopefully) new neighborhood I see 26407383 on the walls.

____________________________________________

UPDATE: i just googled "bombay beanbag" and I found my number.



_____________________________________________

UPDATE AGAIN: i started thinking how cool it would be if 26407383 was prime. turns out it wasn't so i googled "26407383 factor" to see how it factored. what i got instead was this page advertising dolphin beanbags (control-F 26407383 to find it on the page):

Do you want to relax -- Dolphin bean bags are available in exotic colours and materials and a variety of sizes. They are ultra lightweight and sturdily built with triple stitches. The bean bags are made of high density polystyrene beans and are 100 % washable. They come with a unique three years warranty. Dolphin bean bags have a style to suit everyone from kids to the not so young. Available at leading furniture malls. Delivery possible all over India. For bookings, contact 9820439364 / 26407383.




....i think I'm on to something big here.


_______________________________

now...now I'm starting to get obsessed.

here's a couple of other beanbag numbers, one of them being the rival 32668802 number. I'm totally starting a flickr photo pool for these numbers.

new pics

i just added some new pictures to my Bombay flickr album. come take a peek.

rainy day

it seems like a cold, rainy, overcast day perfect for listening to some mellow music, the rain against the window, and laying down with a good book. in actuality, it's a hot, rainy, overcast day in Bombay perfect for listening to some mellow music, the rain against the window, and laying down with a good book. The AC will fool you.


either way, sun kil moon is the perfect music for now. I think "ghosts of the great highway" has got to be my favorite album right now; I must've listened to it 19 times since i've been here.

and again, i feel like an idiot for not listening to the red house painters years ago at kyle's urging.

don't let the bastards grind you down

sometimes there's nothing like some good ska to get you skanking at your desk.



the toasters rule!!!

and so do the rulers, of course.

george washington was a pimp

"women dug his snuff and his gallant stroll,
ate opponents brains and invented cocaine,
he's coming, he's coming, he's coming,
washington, washington,
six foot twenty and weighing a ton"

this is what made america awesome. pocket full of horses, indeed.

thanks Alex!!

missing houdini and daydream nation

I love the fact that I'm living and working on the other side of the planet in Bombay. downside: i'm going to miss the melvins playing the complete houdini album, and sonic youth playing daydream nation.



if you get out to either one of these shows tell me how they are.

a letter from cousin arlo

Tuesday is Tuesday. And today is Tuesday. And so is yesterday. And so is tomorrow. And so are the days after that, I suspect. Here at Camp Happyland everyday seems to be Tuesday lately. Every Tuesday we play volleyball. Today we played volleyball, too.
It seems that life at Camp Happyland is a lot simpler than what I’m used to. I mean, than what I’m conditioned to. I don’t have as many synonyms for the words around me. I mean the things.
I used to wonder, “what was Wednesday like?” but it seems so far away now. What would we do if we didn’t play volleyball? They won’t tell me how long I’ve really been here, but I’m sure that I arrived before Thursday.
I heard a rumor in the showers that the day after tomorrow might be Monday. And if not, then probably the day after. I hope so, because, Lord’s nose, I’m getting a little tired of volleyball, thank you.

a knock at the door survives the echo of the knocking

“You eat steak? Sorry to bother you, eat steak?” He wears a jacket black and green, sneakers. Looks around, twitches. I stare from my hastily donned jeans and cracked door with uncomprehending eyes.
“Do you eat steak? Chicken? Fish? Do you eat meat?” My head shakes no with its own accord, meaning I don’t understand, what are you doing here at my door asking these questions? Are you with the census? Are you selling something poorly? Shake no, I don’t understand, he’s a tweaker I think, robbed a butcher maybe.
“Do you eat meat? You don’t eat meat? You don’t eat meat.” I stare. He glances across to number forty. “There’s nobody here.” He runs back down the stairs and I clumsily climb back to bed.