| date | URL | japan stuff | other |
| 08.14.00 |
weird japanese car names a really great list. a few of my favorites are absent:
from renegadelibrarian.com. [thanks, Chisato.] midget II speaking of japanese cars. please look at the bizarre little Midget II. Daihatsu Move Hello Kitty the ultimate hello kitty fetish object--the kitty minivan. includes:
not available in pink. history of the John Deere trademark The redesigned deer is bounding into the new millenium. the new logo is nice, the old logo was very good as well. oh, here's the press release about it: "This evolution of the John Deere trademark symbolizes that world leaders are progressive and agile..." what? which world leaders? weird. oh my god, and they actually say that it's leaping into the new millenium. i was being facetious, thinking that "bounding into the new millenium" was the cheesiest, most obvious possible thing to say about it. Often, your ideas coincide with the marketing department's ideas, at the intersection of 'your dumbest' and 'their best.' |
vampire christmas card a new artifact. i forgot about this--a japanese christmas card featuring a vampire. holiday cross-over fun. hampster christmas card another off-season's greetings artifact. cuter than any american christmas card. also weirder. tomato if you're thinking about opening up a pachinko parlor, or a restaurant, or a gas station, or a bar, or a place to play mah-jongg, and you're in Japan, you might consider naming it "Tomato." Tomato is apparently an appropriate name for all of the above establishments. |
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| 08.13.00 |
pilgrim photos nice exhibit of photographs of pilgrims from vbureau. some normal photos, then some weird ones, then some kinky ones, then some creepy ones. who can resist a kinky pilgrim? |
Auld Lang Syne isn't really a new year's song in Japan. (I don't know what is; I do recall a bunch of women singing Cyndi Lauper's "Girls Just Want to Have Fun" on TV on New Year's Day.) Auld Lang Syne is what stores play when they're about to close for the night. |
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| 08.12.00 |
planet of the apes doin' it So great: the studio is squabbling with Tim Burton over a human-ape bestiality scene slated for his remake of Planet of the Apes. Burton is threatening to walk if he has to cut it. The best part is that the grounds on which Fox executives oppose monkey-love are financial: the scene would likely give the movie an adult rating which would hurt action figure sales. I would love to hear just one of the meetings or cell phone calls about this--regarding toy sales, artistic vision, and human-ape copulation. What to do when Children are Afraid of Clowns advice by and for clowns, on a topic that clowns know all too well. [via Kestrel's nest.] |
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| 08.11.00 |
Ernest McGhee, The Texas Legend Like so many personal math tutors/musicians, Ernest McGhee is s full-fledged living legend. and he's not at all embarrassed to toot his own horn about it. this is a great picture: a violet-clad ernest mcghee deep in thought, 'neath a plastic tree. this too: puppetbot01--especially because the image file is named puppetbot01. [thanks Emjaybee.] VinylVideo records low-rez video on vinyl. i don't think it even needs to be said that this is the coolest thing on earth. here are a bunch of screengrabs of VinylVideo footage. and from the shop page, you can check out realplayer videos of a bunch of the work. lots of interesting pieces--i thought some of the best was from the HGB Leipzig art school. also, here's a short history of vinylvideo. Donald Roller Wilson awesome awesome awesome. beautifully rendered paintings in the classical style featuring lots of monkeys and dogs doing people things. so good. like this: COOKIE, NOW KNOWING IN HER HEART A ROSE OF ANY OTHER COLOR WOULD SMELL THE SAME. and this: COOKIE AT SIXTEEN YEARS OF AGE.... also i want to note how totally perfect it is that someone who paints like that would use all 3 of his names and that the middle one would be unconventional. how to build a chair out of discarded bicycle tire rims [thanks, chisato.] sputnik graphix the funky 802 logos at the very bottom are pretty fun. nicely designed posters from an exhibition in Osaka that I missed and am now angry about missing. japan photos from ernie some good, huge pictures of Tokyo and some others of Shikoku, which might be of interest if you like looking at big pictures of places in Japan. Also lots of pictures of English teachers who are working for JET which are likely to be of much less interest unless you know these people personally. (With the exception of this picture of "ben and mike, representing like always," which is of general interest, as much as any Steven Spielberg movie.) Ernie also does zaa zaa furi pita, which is good, but he's been too busy to update since moving to Japan. Plus Japanese customs agents mangled his computer. Fresh Pork: Just for Kids Taste E. Pork. Come on. i think we, as media-consuming public, are pretty much done with character names that use a first name combined with a middle intial of E to create an adjective. the postcards rule too. The porkchop valentine is too weird for words. Plus, what's Taste E. doing in China? oh, also, a tip for Armour porkchop kid's page people: the pork trivia quiz is fun for no one. who thinks that's fun? no one. no one thinks that's fun. no more pork trivia quizes, please. [Thanks, Don.] celebrities videobob has met. the celebrities are mostly from the heavy hitters of heavy metal camp. the gwar picture's pretty good. also, is it at all odd and worthy of note that all 4 members of black sabbath were doing a signing at a blockbuster in irving, texas? seemed like it to me. but i don't even know anymore. maybe ozzy is doing late night infomercials for car care products now. what do i know? 2 things about videobob:
hotdogs Danish hotdogs. The dogs (Danish) kids love to bite. ebay art commentary not on the funny ebay items, themselves, but on the compositions of the photos of the items. brilliant. [via boingboing.] obscene interiors the basic formula is this: amateur porn, minus the porn part, plus pithy commentary on the interior design which i guess you're usually not supposed to notice the interior design because of the overwhelming eroticness of the foreground. funny. an excerpt: "This room looks like it would have an odor, and not a pleasant one." from justinspace.com, where the above entry came from as well. |
salons i'm not sure how the japanese economy supports the number of hair salons that there are here--like one salon for every 3 Japanese citizens. lots of hair salons. yup. |
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