Blamblog - Brett Lamb's Blog

Tuesday, July 31, 2007

The Archie Bunker Font

Is Red Futura Extra Black more bigoted when it has been stretched and squished?

Or less, meathead?

4:46 PM , # , |

Monday, July 30, 2007

"The destructive fixation of the envious English-Canadian mind requires that the highest, happiest, most agile flyers be laid low,'' Black wrote in his 1993 memoir, "Conrad Black: A Life In Progress.''

He called it "a sadistic desire corroded by soul-destroying envy, to intimidate all those who might aspire to anything the slightest exceptional.''

Judging by public reaction to Black's recent conviction by a Chicago jury, the multi-millionaire businessman got that right -- with a vengeance.

Well, not exactly. At the time the poll was taken, Conrad Black was a convicted felon, not an 'agile flyer'. And English Canada didn't 'lay him low', the Yanks did that!

4:47 PM , # , |

Sunday, July 29, 2007

Beauty Tips

Monday got you down? Cheer up by visiting this horrifying photo retouching site [ via reddit]. If you scroll down to the bottom on each page, there's a link to the next sample. It's a photoshopping freakshow!

11:44 PM , # , |

Friday, July 27, 2007

Mr. Fix It

Kinsella was in the news yesterday because he posted a lame photoshop about some nut-job Mike Harris wannabe on his blog. I didn't think it was a completely lost cause, so I've come up with some more appropriate replacement dialogue:

No deer or cabinet ministers were harmed in the creation of this revised image.

2:25 AM , # , |

Thursday, July 26, 2007

Second Rate

Two years ago I posted about what a disappointment Second Life was. Now, WIRED has caught on:

As worldwide head of interactive marketing at Coca-Cola, Donnelly was fascinated by its commercial potential, the way its users could wander through a computer-generated 3-D environment that mimics the mundane world of the flesh. So one day last fall, he downloaded the Second Life software, created an avatar, and set off in search of other brands like his own. American Apparel, Reebok, Scion -- the big ones were easy to find, yet something felt wrong: "There was nobody else around." He teleported over to the Aloft Hotel, a virtual prototype for a real-world chain being developed by the owners of the W. It was deserted, almost creepy. "I felt like I was in The Shining".

9:58 AM , # , |

Wednesday, July 25, 2007

... But Not "Funny Ha Ha"

Psychologists and anthropologists have thus far largely discounted the study, claiming it has the same bias as a 1971 Stanford University study that concluded that many Vietnamese showed signs of psychological trauma from nearly a quarter century of continuous war in southeast Asia.

"We are, in truth, still a long way from determining if Iraqis are exhibiting actual, U.S.-grade sadness," Mayo Clinic neuropsychologist Norman Blum said. "At present, we see no reason for the popular press to report on Iraqi emotions as if they are real."

3:55 PM , # , |

New Pics

Here are a few of the latest pics from my iStock portfolio.

10:45 AM , # , |

Block Game

Statetris [via BoingBoing]

12:33 AM , # , |

Monday, July 23, 2007

Enjoy the Silence

[ via Random Thoughts podcast ]

11:07 PM , # , |

Wastin' Away Again in HarryPotterville

Dead Robot provided moral support for his hubby in line for the book:

See this woman here? She is a cow. She is someone who gets through life cheating and when caught, turns the blame around on other people and never herself. That's right, this is a full grown "adult" who thought it necessary to try to jump the line to get a crappy kids book.

In a 3-parter, Eva investigates 'Potter Science' [1] [2] [3] :

Just recently, another Harry Potter paper came out. This time, Harry has been diagnosed with migraines according to a paper in the journal Headache.

Finally, at Sketch, Jen Gerson spent a night with the book but her wish didn't come true:

I want him to die because there would be nothing funnier than being assigned to cover children crying at the death of their beloved, beleaguered hero tomorrow. I want to write about mock Harry Potter funerals attended by crying babies in wizard capes. That would make for a good photo.

10:23 AM , # , |

Sunday, July 22, 2007

The Oil Drum 'Blacklisted'?

At The Oil Drum, they're wondering if they've been 'blacklisted by reddit & digg. On reddit, this is probably the case because TOD doesn't a post about 'Ron Paul', nor does their URL contain the names prisonplant, infowars or any other wacko crap like that...

3:02 PM , # , |

Promoville

I'm this week's 'featured illustrator' at iStock.

2:35 PM , # , |

Michael Kesterton & the Magical bin Laden Tape

I can't remember the specifics but one day, around the time of the US invasion of Iraq, Michael Kesterton of the Globe & Mail included an Iraq-related 'fact' in his Facts & Arguments feature that was cheap, bullshit propaganda. Peeved, I fired off an email and called him on it and he responded with a howling email complaining about how rude I was and dodged the issue.

I was reminded of this, because he did it again in the Focus section of today's Globe. On page F2 in his 'Verbatim' bit, he quotes from "Osama bin Laden, in his latest video message".

The so-called 'video message' has been virtually ignored by the MSM because it's such an obvious piece of propaganda, cobbled together using video clips of bin Laden that are more than half a decade old. But good ol' Chesterton found a way to sneak it in and make it seem like it was something ... real. If you hadn't seen the ten thousand reddit posts debunking the video, his quip might make you think that there was some kind of actual bin Laden tape.

Which would be a remarkable feat coming from someone on dialysis, living in a remote cave for six years.

12:03 AM , # , |

Saturday, July 21, 2007

Monkey Warfare on DVD

Did I mention that Monkey Warfare is now out on DVD? Monkey Warfare is now out on DVD (here's last year's TIFF promo postering). We were just at the video rental place and it was there with the new releases and it was RENTED!

Here's the Star's DVD review:

Writer/director Harkema's prize-winning third feature would be almost too bleak to contemplate if it weren't so funny. It's a must-watch for anyone who has ever used their faded Che Guevara T-shirt as a dishrag or who felt their principles slipping away on a low tide of boredom and unfulfilled intentions.

5:26 PM , # , |

Friday, July 20, 2007

QUACK!

I forgot that I had that CafePress shop still hanging around. I've updated with a new image of Cheney making the sound he's best known for. The pic is high-res, high quality Cheney ... you can see it a bit better here. Makes the perfect Xmas gift for that special fan of over-the-top comic villians.

11:37 AM , # , |

Thursday, July 19, 2007

Eats Out West

Roncesvalles

Amber & Maria were already talking in the cafe when I arrived ...

MARIA: Crap. Here comes the rain again.

AMBER: Falling on your head like a new emotion?

MARIA: New emotion? What the fuck is a new emotion?

AMBER: Oh, I thought you were quoting ...

MARIA: How could you even have a new emotion? What would it be? Franger? An emotion somewhere between Anger and Fright?

AMBER: The way brunch is somewhere between Breakfast and Lunch.

MARIA: But that's not a new emotion. It's just mixing two exisiting emotions together. I don't even know how you could have a completely new emotion.

BLAMB: Are you talking about new emotions.

MARIA: Yeah. How could you have a new emotion?

BLAMB: You could have those old emotions.

AMBER: People should do more with the emotions they already have.

MARIA: I do plenty with my emotions.

BLAMB: Too much, sometimes. Anxiety is a completely overused emotion.

MARIA: That reminds me. I'm going to Mexico City and I'm playing tour guide. What did you guys like in Mexico City?

AMBER: Um, Condessa ...

MARIA: What the fuck are we gonna do there? You walk around for five minutes and you're done.

AMBER: We went there several times.

BLAMB: What about the Zocalo? The Museum?

MARIA: Yeah, we did all that ...

AMBER: You could go to Reforma and sit on the art benches.

BLAMB: You could sing that song while you're sitting on them, Licka licka lick my art bench!

MARIA: Lick my art bench?

BLAMB: Yeah it's that Art Bench song. Isn't that how it goes? The person who wrote it must have been inspired by Mexico City.

AMBER: I don't think that's how the song goes.

BLAMB: You could go to that Liverpool mall, the one with the big Louvre pyramid.

MARIA: [laughing] That mall on Insurgentes?

BLAMB: It's a big mall. You could kill an afternoon.

AMBER: Pfffftt ...

BLAMB: Licka, licka, licka my Louvre Mall!

MARIA: Now it's raining. I gotta ride my bike in that. You gotta watch the traffic in the rain. I have a system, you turn and then you swerve and then you turn ... it's all about flow.

MARIA: Then you get where you're going.

AMBER: Yay, food!

MARIA: Ok, I gotta take a picture of this. Hold on ...

BLAMB: I think I just had a new emotion!

MARIA: What?

BLAMB: Sorry, nope. Just gas.

[ Maria is in Mexico City ]

2:14 PM , # , |

Previously Enjoyed

A couple of animated kitty GIFs from July 2002. For more cats, visit Catmas.

11:19 AM , # , |

Meanwhile, In Toronto ...

Cool QuicktimeVR panorama of the new waterfront park. [ Torontoist ]

Donald Trump gets cut down a notch. [ BlogTO ]

Miller's mixed blessing? [ SpacingWire ]

10:26 AM , # , |

Wednesday, July 18, 2007

Baginas vs. Weenus

Okay, how about providing a second opinion?

Yesterday I added two new files to my stock portfolio: a set of penises and a set of vaginas. In the past 24 hours, the penises have earned 6 reviews ... the vaginas only one. But I think the vaginas are the better set. Is the review pattern sexist? Take a look at the files and see what you think. If you don't like pictures of vaginas and penises, you might want to take a pass:

Penises.

Vaginas.

8:51 PM , # , |

Pix

One of my stock characters has been picked up as the mascot at Cringe Videos.

11:00 AM , # , |

Tuesday, July 17, 2007

Missed opportunities. [ bikeToronto ]

4:31 PM , # , |

hypePhone

Maddox rips into the iPhone, comparing it with a competitor (side-by-side comparison chart at the bottom of his post):

When the iPhone was first announced, CEO Steve Jobs spewed enough BS to cover a football field full of babies 3 feet deep in bullshit, which sounds cool because he could have potentially murdered a football field full of babies, but he passed on this opportunity by introducing the phone instead. He claimed that the phone was three devices in one: an iPod, a phone, and an "Internet communications device." Oooh, an Internet communications device?! AWESOME!

...

There's no such thing as an iPod. The word "iPod" is a marketing tool for a hard drive with software that plays mp3s. Yeah, doesn't sound so sexy now, does it you chimps? And an "internet communications device" is officially the douchebaggiest way of saying "it has a browser." So actually it's just a phone that plays mp3s and has a browser. SNORE.

2:55 PM , # , |

Friday, July 13, 2007

This is My Cat on Drugs

Chloe, high on catnip.

11:13 PM , # , |

C64

C64 laptop!

11:42 AM , # , |

Thursday, July 12, 2007

Honest Sandwich

This sandwich is looking at a photo of the time we met Honest Ed. It was the last day his restaurant on King was open.

11:32 AM , # , |

Wednesday, July 11, 2007

NDP Challenge

Ian King has a 2-part post challenging NDP supporters to defend Jack Layton's postion of withdrawing Canadian troops from Afghanistan:

If you think that Layton is right on Afghanistan and has been a good leader, tell me why he's right on and convince me of such. If you think he's erred but should stay on as leader, tell me where he's right, where he's wrong, and why keeping Layton is better than tossing him. If you think that Jack's gotta go, spill your guts.

11:18 AM , # , |

Gut Feelings

Al-Qaeda doesn't actually have to kill people to cause terror, especially if we're doing their PR work for them. They don't need to actually land any body blows if we keep falling to the canvas every time they fake a punch.

10:28 AM , # , |

Tuesday, July 10, 2007

Challenge

Here's a challenge, if you're up to it:

Take a song with 'obscene' lyrics and transform it into a 'nice' song about your pets. I have a dog named Zack and a cat named Chloe and here's my song:

All you dogs hug your pussy like this
Wag your tail, don't stop, don't miss
All you dogs hug your pussy like this
Wag your tail, don't stop, don't miss
Just do it, do it, do it, do it, do it now
Hug it good, hug the pussy just like you should
Right now, hug it good
Hug the pussy just like you should
My dog, my cat
Hug my pussy and my Zack!

[ chorus ]
My dog, my cat
Hug my pussy and my Zack!
My dog, my cat
Hug my pussy and my Zack!

First you gotta put your arms into it
Don't stop, just do, do it
Scratch the dog all night long, hug the cat back to the front
Then hug it gently til I smile and laugh, doggy
Make sure I keep huggin soft kitty
All over your face and stuff
Furry cat show me so much love
The best hugs comes from a dog
The dog good dog, big and fun
Slow huggin til the crack of dawn
On the edge makin faces n stuff
Through the night, huggin so much fun
Dead sleep when the sun comes up

So, hug it now, hug it good
Hug the pussy just like you should
Right now, hug it good
Hug the pussy just like you should

[ chorus ]

You might roll poops, you might have pees
But use the littler box, kitty, please
A dog likes stinkies, scoop what you sees
Dog owners know what I mean
At the park so fresh, so clean
Hoes hatin' dogs watchin' me
So hot in the summer, on green
With a plastic bag in my pocket, so mean
I gotta pick up the poop I need
Put it in the trash, satisfies me
Try doin that, I'll make you see
I'm careful, aint got shit on me

[ chorus ]

Original nsfw lyrics here.

9:29 PM , # , |

Week in San Francisco

Here are a few more pics from our trip to San Francisco ...

The view of the city from across the bay (taken after we walked across the Golden Gate Bridge).

That was the day we met up with Lynette. We had lunch in the Haight-Ashbury district and were serenaded by buskers ... buskers with horns! Horns and accordions.

The 'counter-culture' style of San Francisco is kind of funny, especially considering how expensive the city is. On one of our first days there, we saw a crowd of stinking, dirty, unshaved hippies lined up on the street and we thought they were trying to get tickets for a concert but it turned out they were waiting for the iPhone. Okay, if you're lining up for a whole day to buy a $500 phone, I don't think you should be dressing like Che Guevara.

Despite being one of the more 'liberal' cities in the US, it's still a bit more uptight that we're used to. Maybe it's all that money. There were lots of little culture shock moments when the Americans displayed their trademark tenseness ... such as when we were asked to preclear our credit card before ordering dinner at a greasy pub on our first night. One of our favourites was the talking crosswalk advising us that cars might not stop. Yeah, but they might. We were left shaking our heads because we're from Toronto and we're the ones who are supposed to be uptight ... dude!"

The city is known for its cable cars (left), but they also run old PCC cars (above) on a semi-touristy streetcar line.

That line runs along the city's waterfront where an elevated highway used to sit until it was damaged in an earthquake. They tore down the expressway and replaced it with a beautiful boulevard. It's similar to what we've got with the Gardiner expressway here in Toronto ...

... so, I guess we need an earthquake. Mayor Miller seems to have completely forgot about expressway removal ... he's not turning out to be the 'quake' we're looking for.

We stayed at a well-located hotel (above), right in the heart of the city, a few steps from Chinatown (left).

If you visit, the only thing you might want to be wary of are those Napa Valley Wine tours. The one we went on was a money-sucking letdown. Our guide started us off on the wrong foot by announcing that everyone on the tour from Texas was lucky because -- unlike California -- their state knew how to apply the death penalty. Remember the scene in Star Trek: Whales when Bones calls the 80s-era San Francisco doctors, "barbaric"? Exactly.

At one winery, we were taken on a discount "tour" (a $30 value!) that consisted of standing at the bottom of some stairs staring at some wine vats and then looking at the bottling floor for five minutes. Our guide ... er, ambassador ... on that portion was a jokster buffoon who, when asked how many bottles the winery produced per year, said, "That's not my area of expertise!"

A $30 value.

We had a great time in San Francisco, it's a beautiful city. Go visit.

11:57 AM , # , |

Up on the Moon

The former Annex Gleaner editor -- who we only met once at that party that one time -- moved to Nunavut and is reporting on Iqaluit life on her groovy blog. Her doone ... er, dude just joined her and started his own arctic Baffinblog. Lots and lots of awesome photos, go check 'em out!

12:03 AM , # , |

Monday, July 09, 2007

Poll

I flubbed my Monday poll. Instead ... do this one.

4:24 PM , # , |

Sunday, July 08, 2007

Fresh!

Cucumber Pepsi! [Hollywood North Report]

11:36 PM , # , |

You May Already Think You're Carrie Bradshaw

The know-nothing columnist is someone who does away with reporting of any substantive sort and instead draws upon the details of their social circles and sex life to flush out some of their ninny-brain observations. These columnists love to coin phrases, be the first to report on a new way of dating or to inflect their work with the voice of the aforementioned Bradshaw as though that alone would lend their work a gravitas beyond mere diary writing.

11:21 PM , # , |

Saturday, July 07, 2007

Sandwich 15

Seems like just yesterday we were celebrating the 10th Sandwich Anniversary ... now it's fifteen.

9:36 AM , # , |

Friday, July 06, 2007

The Rock

A Trip to Alcatraz

On Tuesday, we took the ferry out to Alcatraz prison.

The Warden's mansion burned down back in the 70s when the island fell into ruin.

The cellblock where notorious prisoners like Al Capone were held.

Amber, behind bars!

2:00 PM , # , |

Put Your Hands Up in the Air

Like You Just Don't Care

At the end of this video about microbes, Eva is captured gesturing by hidden camera:

Easternblot

10:56 AM , # , |

Thursday, July 05, 2007

Previously Enjoyed

Three years ago this month, I posted a fullscreen photoessay about our bowling afternoon in Perth, in that ol' busblog style.

But now, everyone's switching to them newfangled widescreen monitors ...

11:58 PM , # , |

There are two things that never seem to get mentioned during the debate about dogs in Toronto's parks. This is the first.

For most of the year, city parks are empty and for a good chunk of time they're frozen wastelands. During that time, nobody cares about the issue because the parks are empty. If you're a dog owner, it's difficult to adjust in the spring when the spaces you're used to having to yourself are suddenly occupied by crowds of people. Because of that, the city should be busy at the start of the spring enforcing good dog owner manners as people and dogs are meeting up again. A solid blitz at the beginning of the season would save everyone much grief over the summer.

[Toronto dog issue links at Spacing Wire]

8:28 PM , # , |

Golden Gate Walk

San Francisco

We spent the past week in San Francisco, enjoying the great weather. The other day we met up with Lynette and walked across the Golden Gate Bridge.

There were lots of people on the pedestrian walkways and it was crowded up to the halfway point. The crowd thinned after that as people gave up and turned back.

Of course, one of the most important sites on the walk was the future site of Starfleet (left), where many a Klingon will become upset over various diplomatic disputes. Oh, those Klingons.

The harbour was busy (below) with boats and windsurfers who would jump the waves kicked up in the wakes of the largers ships.

It's a great walk with some fantastic views. Well worth a visit.

More photos coming up ...

Next: Alcatraz.