Friday, April 30, 2010

Morning Jukebox


A bit off the beaten path here, but I've been kinda diggin' on the 2008 album Elephant Power from MC Yogi, who fuses Indian devotional songs with hip-hop beats and breaks. Even if you're the kind of person that says "I hate that 'rap' stuff", give a listen. It's all very positive stuff and there are some greak hooks within. Here are a couple of tracks you might like.


MC Yogi - Rock On Hanuman (feat. Krishna Das)




MC Yogi - Krishna Love (feat. Jai Uttal)

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Thursday, April 29, 2010

You can't spell "odd landscapes" without 3-Ds


One of a number of sculptural paintings by London-based artist Patrick Hughes that really mess with your sense of perspective. Crookedbrains has a whole collection of videos so you can experience the vertigo of "Reverspective".

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Morning Jukebox


The Past Didn't Go Anywhere is an album by folksinger Utah Phillips and singer-songwriter Ani DiFranco. It was released October 15, 1996, on Ani DiFranco's label, Righteous Babe Records.

The album consists of recordings of Utah Phillips telling stories at concerts that have been set to musical background by Ani DiFranco. There are no songs as such on the album, and DiFranco only provides background vocals on the first and last tracks as part of her remixing efforts.

"Holding On" is the last, and in my opinion best track on the album.

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The blades on the chopper go round and round, round and round, round and round...


Camera shutter speed (or is it frame rate?) synchronized to the rotation of the helicopter's blade frequency. Freaky. Also known as the stroboscopic effect. (via Neatorama)

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Wednesday, April 28, 2010

32 Degrees of Separation


As you may (or may not) remember from your high school physics class, water is unique in that it is one of the few liquids that actually expands and becomes less dense when it freezes instead of contracting and becoming more dense. This is fortunate for us here on this water-filled planet, for if ice acted like other liquids, as it froze it would sink to the bottom of the lake or ocean, away from the heating of the sun. At least some (all?) bodies of water on the planet would eventually freeze solid from the bottom up.

So... What happens to water if it’s not allowed to expand when frozen?

Also, you might be surprised to learn that we still don't really know why ice is slippery!


Does drinking ice water really burn calories?


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Morning Jukebox


Mates of State - Fraud In the 80s

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Tuesday, April 27, 2010

To the time machine!

Make any webpage look like it was made by a 13 year-old in 1996 with The Geocities-izer. (via In4mador!)

Here you can witness the craptastical transformation of Information Nation, replete with eye-melting backgrounds and too-loud and unasked-for midi music!

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It's complicated


The world's most complicated Chinese character.



The most complicated radio contest ever?




Some of the world's most complicated highway interchanges.

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Sunday, April 25, 2010

Di-di-di-di-di-digital Gli-gli-gli-gli-gli-glitches


The Umbilical Brothers are an Australian comedy team whose act blends mime, slapstick, and vocal sound effects. Here they are on the Australian variety program The Sideshow. Americans might recognize them as the stars of the short-lived children's show on Nick Jr. The Upside-Down Show, which is still aired (all 13 episodes) in reruns.

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Saturday, April 24, 2010

I'm not buying it


Seen on a manager's wall in one of our county parks, a clock courtesy of Just One Bite rat poison. Either their marketing department are geniuses, or they should be immediately fired. I'm not sure which...




The dumbest promotional products ever? (via Promotional Products Blog)

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Thursday, April 22, 2010

Morning Jukebox


R. Crumb & His Cheap Suit Serenaders - "Get A Load Of This"

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Wednesday, April 21, 2010

Morning Jukebox


Girl Talk - "In Step"

In any given Girl Talk track there are dozens of samples. One fan made videos for each track in his 2008 release Feed The Animals. Wikipedia has a list of all the samples used in each track.

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From the Sky, Detroit Looks Like Sarajevo

Depressing yet accurate story about Detroit as it seems to be going through its dying throes.

From the Sky, Detroit Looks Like Sarajevo

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Let's do the time warp again!


“Reopening of the South Fork Bridge after flood in Nov. 1940. 1941 (?)”

It’s the short description for the photograph shown at the virtual Bralorne Pioneer Museum, from British Columbia, Canada. The image can be seen specifically on this page (scroll down to the middle), among other items of the online exhibit. Did you notice anything out of place? Or perhaps, out of time?

The man with what appears to be very modern sunglasses seems to be wearing a stamped T-shirt with a nice sweater, all the while holding a portable compact camera!

Internet people reached to the obvious conclusion: it’s a time traveller caught on camera on 1940! Finally, we have proof!(?)

>>Read the rest at forgetomori>>

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Get a hummingbird all up in your grill


It's a hummingbird feeder. That you wear. On your face.

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Tuesday, April 20, 2010

Morning Jukebox

Ahoy, and welcome to another installation of Morning Jukebox. We've got a theme today of "Weird Science". Please to enjoy.


"Last Stop: This Town" is a 1998 single from the album Electro-Shock Blues by Eels.




"Where's Your Head At" from Basement Jaxx

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It's what's inside that counts

Jason Freeny is a digital graphics artist that specializes in imagining the inner anatomical structure of everyday things. Samples of his charts for a gingerbread man and a Gummi Bear are below, but then you should go check out the rest of his brilliant galleries.





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This seems like a sound plan from start to finish, and nothing could possibly go wrong

This insanity from Metro (UK):



Dominic Deville stalks young victims for a week, sending chilling texts, making prank phone calls and setting traps in letterboxes.

He posts notes warning children they are being watched, telling them they will be attacked.

But Deville is not an escaped lunatic or some demonic monster.

He is a birthday treat, hired by mum and dad, and the ‘attack’ involves being splatted in the face with a cake.

‘The child feels more and more that it is being pursued,’ said Deville.

‘The clown’s one and only aim is to smash a cake into the face of his victim, when they least expect it, during the course of seven days.’

If the boy or girl manages to avoid the ‘hit’, they are given the cake as a birthday present. Well, that’s alright then.

The frightening fun can be stopped at any time, which is handy for parents who have second thoughts and don’t fancy the cost of child therapy.

Deville said: ‘The clown will never break into a residence or show up at work. ‘It’s all in fun and if, at any point, the kids get scared or their parents are concerned, we stop right there.

‘But most kids absolutely love being scared senseless.’

Deville set up his Evil Clown service in Lucerne, Switzerland, after being inspired by some of his favourite horror films – possibly including Stephen King’s It and Killer Klowns From Outer Space.

The idea is unlikely to be popular with sufferers of coulrophobia – the irrational (irrational?) fear of clowns.

But Stephen Vaughan of Clowns International, said scary clowns could be as funny as their red-nosed counterparts. ‘I think what Dominic is doing is a great idea,’ he added.

‘Bringing a little bit of life and laughter into kids’ lives is what we are all about.’



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Monday, April 19, 2010

Morning Jukebox

A two-fer from The Style Council, which was formed in 1983 by ex-The Jam singer and guitarist Paul Weller with keyboardist Mick Talbot. The first video, "A Solid Bond In Your Heart" is from their debut album, 1984's My Ever Changing Moods (outside the US titled Café Bleu), which was chock-full of very upbeat and impossibly hook-filled tracks.

The second video is from their followup album Internationalists (outside the US titled Our Favorite Shop) closed the album with the track "Walls Come Tumbling Down".






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Sunday, April 18, 2010

Oh she may be weary. Them young girls they do get wearied.


The Commitments (from the 1991 film of the same name) with a great vocal performance from the then 16 year-old Andrew Strong.




A great scene in Pretty In Pink where Duckie (a young Jon Cryer) channels the spirit of Otis Redding in the Trax record store for Iona (Annie Potts) and Andie (Molly Ringwald). Why Andie picked the spineless and personality-free Blane (Andrew McCarthy) over this cat, I'll never understand...





If you are concerned that your soul music has a little too much... uh, soul, you just may find the string-encumbered Jack "I'm So Hip I Have Trouble Seeing Over My Pelvis" Webb version a little more to your liking.

Webb, you may recall, starred in the 60's TV detective show Dragnet ("Just the facts, ma'am") and loved to "get down" with the kids of today in a funky-fresh way. His jaw-droppingly square version is here at The Silver State Chronicles, if you dare.




The man himself, Otis Redding, on tour in Europe 1967.



PS. I looked in vain for an hour trying to find a video clip of the scene in Bull Durham where "Nuke" LaLoosh (the Tim Robbins character) dreams he was pitching in the major leagues wearing garters and little else while "Try A Little Tenderness" plays on the soundtrack. Anyone know where I can find it?

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Hey there, pal! Turn that frown upside-do... Aaagh! No! I changed my mind! Keep that frown alone!


A deliciously creepy video example of The Thatcher Effect, a phenomenon where it becomes difficult to detect local feature changes in an upside down face, despite identical changes being obvious in an upright face. It is named after British former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher on whose photograph the effect has been most famously demonstrated.



Photographer Brandon Voges's latest series of portraits, "Upside-Downy Face", were taken while the subject was hung upside-down. Eyes reddish and bulging, a look of discomfort on the part of the subjects, the effect is subtle but you can still sense that something is just a bit "off". (via Divine Caroline)
Images copyright Brandon Voges & Bruton Stroube

The Making of Upside-Downy Face:




A disturbing/hilarious collection of celebrity faces Photoshopped upside-down.






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Morning Jukebox



The Vapors - "Turning Japanese" (1980)

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"Use The Force, Steve... I mean Luke! Wait, can we shoot that again?"


The Star Wars: Uncut web project has broken down Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope into 473 pieces of 15 seconds each. They are inviting everyone to choose up to three of these segments and film their own version in a style of their own choosing. When they're finished, the results will be stitched together for a shot-for-shot recreation of Star Wars of, by, and for The People!

Each segment has a different approach, and each varies in look, acting skill, budget, and so forth. Actually, just to say "they vary" is an understatement of orders of magnitude. Kind of like saying that Star Wars was "sort of popular. You know, for a science fiction movie."

Submissions are still being collected, but you can view the trailer here:

Star Wars: Uncut Trailer from Casey Pugh on Vimeo.

(via mental_floss)

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Saturday, April 17, 2010

Morning Jukebox


Geoff Muldaur - "Wild Ox Moan". That blues yodel that caps the end of each line gets me every. Single. Time.

As British folk-rock master Richard Thompson was quoted as saying, "There are only three white blues singers, and Geoff Muldaur is at least two of them".

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Friday, April 16, 2010

What's up, Chuck?

When I was younger I used to be a total trivia nerd (Editor's Note: Okay, who the hell am I kidding with this "used to be" stuff?) and was constantly reading and re-reading those factoid-filled behemoth-like books such as The Guinness Book of World Records, The Book of Lists, The People's Almanac series (of which there were at least three enormous volumes), and this book: Felton & Fowler's Best, Worst and Most Unusual.

One of the more bizarre and disgusting pieces of trivia from the latter that I still carry in my cranium to this day some 30-odd years later is their entry for Worst Love Scene in Literature, which luckily(??) for us is viewable via Google Books (below, scroll down to the bottom of page 18). Bon appetit!



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"We've got company!" is the new "I'm getting too old for this s**t!"


A by no means exhaustive look at an overused movie line. (via The Presurfer)

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Morning Jukebox


The Knack - Good Girls Don't (the radio-friendly version -- yes, I know the one with the racier lyrics is cooler, but this is an all-ages blog)

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Tuesday, April 13, 2010

Wrappers Delight


Iowa high school student makes her prom dress (and her date's vest) out of gum wrappers.




Gary Duschl holds the Guinness World Record for Longest Gum Wrapper Chain. At 63,802 feet or just over 12 miles in length (19.44 km), it contains over 1.5 million gum wrappers and weighs almost 900 lbs (400 kg). Click to see a video of Gary giving a tutorial on how to make a gum wrapper chain.

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Monday, April 12, 2010

Triple Word Misunderstanding


Easrlier this month there was a big kerfuffle amongst some of us Scrabble fans when news broke (NPR, the Telegraph, and lots of others) that the makers of the popular word game were changing the rules for the first time since 1948. No longer would proper nouns such as Wordsworth or Letterman be verboten. (See what I did there? With the Wordsworth? With the Letterman? Hah?)

Supposedly the rule change was made to "shake up" the stuffy pastime for brainiacs and afford Joe Sixpack and Sally Housecoat the incentive to wade into the wordy waters by being allowed to rack up points for spelling out Beyonce and McGriddle and the like. Not so surprisingly, this did not sit well with us rock-ribbed Scrabble purists.

But, just like, oh, pretty much every single episode of Three's Company, it all turned out to be one big crazy misunderstanding! No rule changes are being made to the original Scrabble game.

In reality, Mattel, which owns the rights to Scrabble outside of North America, is introducing a game this summer called Scrabble Trickster. The game will include cards that allow players to spell words backward, use proper nouns, and steal letters from opponents, among other nontraditional moves. The game will not be available in North America, where rival toy company Hasbro owns Scrabble. Hasbro, I'm told, has no plans for a similar variation.

Phew. (via J-Walk)

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Thursday, April 08, 2010

Just like Rachael Ray, only a little screamier


If this was on the teevee, I would watch 3-year-old Zaylee Jean's Yippity Yo Cooking Show all the time, though I'd venture a guess that she might not be quite as enthusiastic cooking poached salmon with a dill sauce as she is with these chocolate chip cookies.

No language issues, unless you are offended by "son of a biscuit" (2:51).

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Tuesday, April 06, 2010

Click


Taberinos is a simple yet addicting billiards-like game where you must shoot your ball into the lines to make them disappear. Be judicious, though, since you only have a limited number of shots.

The background tango music is perfect. (via kottke)

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Saturday, April 03, 2010

File under Misc.


Happy Easter.




Llama Slug?
Alpacapillar?




So to summarize, if you see someone drowning, LOL, eat bacon, then call 911.




They really should have seen this one coming.

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Thursday, April 01, 2010

The First Google Street View?


Yay for fan-created content! One of my favorite Air songs, "La Femme D'Argent" from Moon Safari, backed with footage filmed from a San Francisco streetcar traveling down Market Street in 1905, just months before the devastating San Francisco Earthquake of April 18, 1906.

Note the lack of traffic control, both vehicular and pedestrian. I can't tell if there are any sidewalks, but if there are, nobody seems to be using them. Cars, pedestrians and other streetcars are constantly cutting willy-nilly across the path of the streetcar we are viewing this from. It looks like slow-motion chaos.

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