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Jul 22


Aw hells yeah.

When you’re having a good week, you’re having a good week. (Interestingly, John McCain visited the same base last year and was handed the same basketball. It spontaneously self-deflated in his hand.) 
10:49am

Jul 22

Jacques Kaplan, 83, Bold Furrier, Dies.

“People used to say, ‘Jacques, you can’t be serious! Edible fur? Do you mean fur you can eat? Have you been the recipient of a blow to the head? Are you clinically insane?’ And I would always tell them: ‘Ha! Not only fur you can eat! Your bourgeois lack of imagination sickens me, because I envision fur that can be drunk like a milkshake, pressed into bar form and sweetened like a Chunky, or semi-liquified into a kind of paste or gel that can be easily transformed into any number of cunning shapes and shipped in huge containers of liquid nitrogen to every point of the compass!’ And if it hadn’t been for the timorousness of the FDA and the National Furriers’ Association and some of my other enemies who I may not name here, my dream would have become a reality! And then I would have ruled… THE WORLD!!!!” (Interview for unpublished biography by writer Ron Givens: 1996)
10:39am

Jul 17
Fabulous (fully functional) USB drive. Via Gearfuse.
Fabulous (fully functional) USB drive. Via Gearfuse.
7:52pm

Jul 13
Mo’s Bacon Bar. Insouciant yet persnickety, this new entrant into the bacon-candy derby is unable to cross the finish line a winner. An overweening top note of salt obscures the smoky unctuousness of the bacon, while a bland enrobement of milk chocolate fails to impress. (Note to confectioners/baconers Vosges, Ltd: When formulating a bacon-based candy, dark chocolate of at least 65% cacao is the only stuff up to the task.) A worthy experiment, but one which this weblog can regretfully recommend only to the least discriminating pork-and-sweets fancier. 


Mo’s Bacon Bar.

Insouciant yet persnickety, this new entrant into the bacon-candy derby is unable to cross the finish line a winner. An overweening top note of salt obscures the smoky unctuousness of the bacon, while a bland enrobement of milk chocolate fails to impress. (Note to confectioners/baconers Vosges, Ltd: When formulating a bacon-based candy, dark chocolate of at least 65% cacao is the only stuff up to the task.) A worthy experiment, but one which this weblog can regretfully recommend only to the least discriminating pork-and-sweets fancier. 
8:40pm

Jul 11

Combining the nightmarish man-puppets of the 1970s with the garish, migraine-inducing user interface of the 2000s to create maximum incomprehensibility... for YOU, the home user!

An idea so transcendently bad on so many levels that it almost achieves the status of art: Sid & Marty Krofft come to MySpace.
3:51pm

Jul 9
In the summertime, when the shameless self-promotion is high: The world’s worst brand extensions, at Fast Company. 


In the summertime, when the shameless self-promotion is high:

The world’s worst brand extensions, at Fast Company. 
2:13pm

Jul 9

Via Laughing Squid, a fantastic kinetic sculpture at the BMW Museum in  Munich. One interesting note: Shortly after this clip was shot the sculpture achieved autonomous self-awareness, the disembodied German voice shifted from a murmur to a mesmerizing scream, and the now-living artwork annexed the state museum of Czechoslovakia. Neat!
10:20am

Jul 8
“Among the cliffhangers: Two crooks throw Batman, arms and legs thrashing, off a roof. Three crooks toss Batman, arms and legs thrashing, down an elevator shaft. He drives a car off a bridge. He gets trapped in a fire he sets. Worse, he gets outpunched by two criminals or even one criminal. I’m talking ordinary guys in suits and fedoras. You think: What’s the point of putting on cape and cowl if you can’t take one guy? Isn’t that a little embarrassing?”
Over at HuffPo, Erik Lundegaard begins a seven-part review of the “Batman” serials and movies that preceded “The Dark Knight.” First installment: Columbia’s 15-part serial, from 1943.
4:01pm

Jul 8
8 Aesthetically Awesome Abandoned Theaters. (Via Coudal.)
8 Aesthetically Awesome Abandoned Theaters. (Via Coudal.)
12:27pm

Jul 8

It continues to seem unimaginable that, face to face in a general election campaign, Barack Obama won’t eat this guy’s lunch. But I’ve been a Democrat a long time, so I have a healthy respect for my party’s ability to screw up a sure thing. (Via TPM.)
12:19pm

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