[teh_funnay] Spot The Error

3314.

In the last week, in as much as Wife™ and me were parched, we stopped at one of the fine purveyors of artificially sweetened, flavored, fizzy water arrayed along the many miles of SE Division Street and acquired a small supply of said beveraginal substance in the cup you are about to see here.

Bearing in mind the time of purchase, I invite you to spot the error.

Go on. Take all the 'time' you need!
 

[liff] For Sale On Los Angeles Craigslist: One Talk Show. Slightly Used. Room For A Futon. Make Offer!

2299.(via Fatboy Roberts on Twitter) You just never know what'll pop up on Craigslist these days.

This slightly-used late night talk show boasts a band that can be sold seperately – but you'll have to honor the Barry Manilow booking next week:

This is a chance of a lifetime to own your very own late night talk show--guaranteed to last for up to seven months!! Really must see to appreciate.

Information for potential buyers:

- Measures 100’ x 100’ x 32’ – plenty of room for a futon!

- Designed for 11:35 but can be easily moved

- Band can be sold separately

- Buyer must honor Barry Manilow booking next Thursday

MAKE ME YOUR BEST OFFER!!!!! (Also willing to trade for Coldplay tickets.)

    * Location: Universal Studios
    * it's NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests

View it at http://losangeles.craigslist.org/sfv/clt/1551463643.html while the viewings good.

[liff] Teh Google, Now Cleaning Up Your Backside

2292.Just when you thought that Google couldn't show up in any more places, comes, (via Weird Asia News), Google … Toilet Paper.

Photo copyright Weird Asia News. My Photoshop skillz aren't nearly that good.

Yep, seriously. Google Toilet Paper. 100% virgin pulp, because nobody likes pulp with a loose reputation. Available in a Vietnam near you.

Nothing else to say about this. What other witticism could possibly compare?

(hat/tip)

Technorati Tags: modren times, teh Google, Google, Branding, Asia, Toilet Paper

[art] Wordnik: A Lexicon For The Impatient

2285Wordnik.com is a place, as commenter pril notes, for the psycho word wierdo in us. And truer words ne'er be spoke.
It's the online dictionary for the impatient. From the "What is Wordnik" section of the About:

Wordnik wants to be a place for all the words, and everything known about them.

Our goal is to show you as much information as possible, as fast as we can find it, for every word in English, and to give you a place where you can make your own opinions about words known.

Traditional dictionaries make you wait until they've found what they consider to be "enough" information about a word before they will show it to you. Wordnik knows you don't want to wait—if you're interested in a word, we're interested too!

Once there, you're invited, via a very spare yet beautiful interface, to input a word. That's all you have to do. It'll come up with everything they can find, right now, including example sentences, the meaning, links to other usages on the web, special featured-lists of words that they are like. They seem to browse news, media, blogs, a whole lot of stuff.

There's also synonyms, antonyms, links to flickr streams containing appropriate pictures (probably looking for tags), comments – this is an edited site, you're not allowed to edit, this isn't a wiki, but participation is encouraged. You can submit words, rate words, even tell them to take this word and shove it if you want.

Not sure where to start? Just go to the front page and clicky on one of the words on the lower part of the screen. You'll catch on soon enough. And sign up it you want to participate (it's free).

That's http://www.wordnik.com, you wordwankers.

Technorati Tags: Wordnik.com, wordnik, online dictionaries

[lit] Cormac McCarthy's Auctioning Off His Manual Typewriter.

2267.Yes, really. According to the New York Times:

Cormac McCarthy has written more than a dozen novels, several screenplays, two plays, two short stories, countless drafts, letters and more — and nearly every one of them was tapped out on a portable Olivetti manual typewriter he bought in a Knoxville, Tenn., pawnshop around 1963 for $50.

Over five million works and a place in American literature, over a period of five decades, and two hugely-selling big-screen movies – out of this:

Photo: The New York Times. Linked.

He won't nod typescriptless though, no worries – he has a replacement:

“He found another one just like this,” a portable Olivetti that looks practically brand new, Mr. McCarthy said from his home in New Mexico. “I think he paid $11, and the shipping was about $19.95.”

Now, that's someone who knows the difference between price and value.

If you're wondering how much it'll go for at auction, it's in the if-you-have-to-ask-you-can't-afford-it category, so I'll just tell you here: Christie's thinks' they'll get $15,000 to $20,000 for it.

I've had typewriters like this. Some of the basic models don't have margin or tab stops. You use the unshifted-L for the numeral 1. It used something called … ahh, what was it? Oh, yes … paper.

They used to have stacks of used typewriters at Goodwill.

Wow.

Technorati Tags: cormac mccarthy, typewriters, manual typewriters

[liff] Ken:By Request Only - Finally Hear What's Behind the Awesomest Album Cover Of All Time!

2260.He's Baaaaaaack …

Ken. By Request Only. The Awesomest Record Album cover of Time, Space, and Dimension. It will never leave the Intartubes:

Have you ever wondered exactly what Ken's song styling sounds like, though? This album is said to have fetched north of $150 when auctioned off at eBay, but what sort of melodic tuneweaving can Ken Snyder do?

Wonder no more.

Click this link to listen to the album on YouTube (or click on the album cover above), where some brave soul has posted the tracks as a playlist.

Not wholly unpleasant, as it turns out. Corny, mawkishly-charming soft songs about sweet things and nice feelings and God and Jesus and stuff. Not Grammy-material, workmanlike but passionate effort, not mad skillz … but not untalented either.

(H/T to Garrido who left this link in the comments to the article at the end of the first link, and found me via some web search apparently. I have no connection or relation to the fellow otherwise)

Technorati Tags: Ken Snyder, Ken By Request Only, Internet Memes

[liff] Neologism Of The Day: Hangoversight

2249.Another new work for y'alls:

hangoversight (n): The factfinding process a drinker puts themselves through analyzing (as best as they can) the things they might have done to prevent the horrible way they feel the morning after the night before. Assaying and measuring the dog that bit you regardless of the hair that it grows.

"Man, Gina really tied one on last night, but after a bit of hangoversight she decided that next time, there will be no mixing that tequila and that rum. Bad mojo on her part!"

Technorati Tags: Neologisms, teh funnay, ZehnKatzen

[tech] SCO To Darl McBride: "You're Fired!"

2238.The Linux world has reason to celebrate today. Darl McBride, the master brain cell behind The SCO Group's "Sue 'em Into Oblivion" strategy has been deposed. Ars Technica:

McBride was the architect and public face of SCO's misguided campaign against Linux. He claimed that the open source operating system infringed on SCO's copyright and included a significant quantity of code stolen from UNIX System V. On the basis of this claim, SCO threatened to sue a multitude of corporate Linux users and demanded hefty licensing fees. During the ensuing litigation fiasco, an internal SCO memo was revealed which indicated that SCO's own internal code audits of Linux found no actual evidence of infringement. The courts eventually determined that SCO never even owned the relevant UNIX copyrights in the first place.

Even after SCO's deception was exposed and the company effectively lost its case, Darl McBride continued to insist that the company has evidence of System V code in Linux. No such evidence has been presented and McBride's argument directly contradicts testimony given by other SCO executives. McBride's stubborn detachment from reality has made him a subject of ridicule in the Linux community.

The SCO Group will, oddly, continue prosecuting its lawsuits (one envisions zombie lawyers), but while the mene mene tekel upharsin of the company hasn't yet been written on the wall, buzz I'm reading is that SCO is not long for this world.

This is  a bit off topic for my state-of-the-blog, but I've been following this for a while, and one of our machines has Ubuntu on it, and I like Linux, and I like my friends who run Linux. So, even though SCO hasn't given up on the litigation, this can't be any but good news … if only because teh Darl has gotten a well-deserved comeuppance.

Technorati Tags: SCO Group, Darl McBride, Linux

[liff] TEOTWAWKI Follies: The World Won't End On 12/21/12, Says A Real Mayan

2235.Says an actual Mayan tribal elder:

Definitely not, the Mayan Indian elder insists. "I came back from
England last year and, man, they had me fed up with this stuff.

I know you you feel, fella.

But why believe him when you can believe a non-Mayan who acts like they know it all?

Technorati Tags: Mayan Calender, 2012, Dec 21 2012, TEOTWAWKI

[pdx] More Proof That PDX Is Unicorn City, USA

2234.Via Twitterer BlazersEdge, we find even more evidence of Portland's privileged position as being built atop an ancient Unicorn burial ground: we attract bball players who are actual Unicorns. Here is a picture of forward Jawan Howard, recouperating from a successful horn removal:

Now, as righteous as it is that Portland is on the site of the Unicorn burial ground, it'd be positively awesome to say that you actually were a Unicorn.

But we can see how that'd get in the way on the court. It's best this way.

They grow back, anyway.

At least, I think they do.

That's what I hear.

Good luck on the season, Jawan.

Technorati Tags: PDX, Portland, Portland Trail Blazers, Juwan Howard, PDX Unicorns, PDX Unicorn Burial Ground

[liff] Literally Giving Of Yourself: Donating Blood

2230.Latterly I, for the first time in my life, donated blood.

As someone who is always critically short of funds but wanting to do at least something good and altrustic, I try to find ways I can give of myself. When you donate blood, this is literally what you're doing. And you hear a great deal about how giving blood helps, but I found some nifty figures that tell you exactly how your blood donation might help:

• One blood donation can help save up to 3 lives.
• You can consider yourself elite: only 3 percent of the US population who can, does.
• If you do it twice, consider yourself doubly elite: less than 30% who give once give again.
• Donated blood has a shelf-life of about 42 days.
• Every 2 seconds someone in America needs your gift.
• You can give blood up to 6 times a year.

If you just want to do something selfless, and would give scads of money to worthy causes if you only had it, you can give blood at any income level and whatever politics you play, whatever creed you follow, whatever color your skin is, no matter how smart you, no matter what you think.

My blood type is O+. It's the most common blood type in America (about 38% of the populus carry it), and if you think that having a "common" blood type makes you unremarkable, that ain't true, kiddo; since more people have it, more people need it. It'd be bragging rights to have a rare blood type, but this is one place where you're even more important if you're Everydude. You also do more for everyone as Type O, because every blood
type can accept Type O (especially Type O-, which they call the
"universal donor" and is actually about the rarest, so, yeah, you can
brag about that one mah dawgs).

Strangely, the stats I checked tell me that where almost 40% of Americans are Type O+, almost fifty per cent of Saudi Arabians are. Things that make you go hmmm, yes?

Anyway. Everyone has blood. Almost everyone can give blood. It's as easy as going to the Oregon Red Cross and finding out where to do it (or they can direct you to the nearest blood drive – just click on where it says Give Blood). If you prefer not to do it via the webby thing, the Oregon Red Cross headquarters is located over near Emanuel Hospital, at 3131 N. Vancouver Avenue. Call them on the ringy-dingy-thingy at 503-284-1234.

I now wear that little plastic blood-drop with the Red Cross logo on it with offical ZehnKatzen Smug Pride™, which I think you're entitled to if you know your donation is going to save up to three people's lives.

This is something every human being who can, should do.

Technorati Tags: Red Cross, Oregon Red Cross, Donate Blood, Charity You Can Afford

[design] Hardcore Prepress Artists Get Tats With Crop Marks

2224.(Yes, I've moved off count again, meaning that there are at least three duplicates down the stream there. Ah, well).

How do you know you're hardcore prepress?

How do you tell the world that you'll quit electronic layout when they pry your Mac from your cold, dead hands?

How does a hardcore designer represent?

With ink, of course:

Photo via The Font Feed. Copyright belongs to them.

Via Jurgen Siebert at The Font Feed:

Long time Adobe InDesign product manager Will Eisley is so dedicated to his job that it has gotten under his skin – quite literally. Will recently had his initials tattooed on his inner forearms, together with the regis­tration marks, crop marks, and colour and grayscale bars which are part of InDesign’s printing marks.

I think they're beautiful, even though the color and grayscale bars happen inside the crop marks, which will cause trouble when his arms eventually do go to press, but that's what you get when you don't sign off on a press check, even I know that.

Find another better picture and what Will wants to have tattooed next at The Font Feed. Also a few snarky comments. My favorite:

The dude has his color bars inside his crop marks… He might be a quark user, or even worse.. corel..

Oh, snap!

(from a RT via @Extensis on Twitter. Love Extensis.)

Technorati Tags: InDesign, Adobe, Tattoos, Ink

[packaging] I Can Haz Canned Cheezburger Naow

2218.We are not entirely unfamiliar with the efficacy of canning food to make it travelable and extend shelf life, and although the idea of finding imported Heinz Treacle at the Hawthorne Fred Meyer (that has to be boilt in the can before being eaten) is note completely bizarre to us (though it is a bit alien), there are some things that take it a bit far.

Presented for your delectation, the Trek'N'Eat Cheeseburger in a can, designed for those who spend a lot of time in the outdoorsy, presumably miles away from the nearest fast food dive. Contained within a can of indeterminate size (but appearing to be about the same size or perhaps a little bigger than your standard can of tuna fish), the burger is prepared by heating the can in a hot water bath, removing said can, opening the lid, and then (and this is the important step) enjoying your cheeseburger.

And if this isn't nifty enough, the foodstuff (for what other word could perforce apply) has a shelf-life of about a year.

But my unease really has nothing to do with the idea of a cheeseburger in a can, having eaten my fair share of freeze-dried Mountain House food during my time as a Boy Scout, but rather the illustration, nicked from the Trek'N'Eat site and decorating this very post. Look at that burger. Do you, for one minute, think that it came out of that can? Do you, you cynical consumer of culture you, need to be reminded that there's such a thing as food stylists?

I cannot believe there is one chance on this good green Earth that such a perfect looking cheeseburger came out of that can. Now, note that I'm not saying that whatever comes out of that can isn't edible or even delicious. But the marketing, while skillful, is a little hard to believe.

But man, I'm curious as to what that thing looks like and tastes like. You bet.

Technorati Tags: Canned food, package design, strange foods, outdoor foods

[liff] LOL Otter Can't Hear You!

2204.Thanks to the KGW's Live@7 Twitter pilot @TheSquare for the basis to this picture:

What can I say, I needed a cheer-up. This is kind of a PDX Unicorn Chaser. It's a simple equation really: TheSquare finds an otter, and I LOLize it.

Thanks, Live@7 Twitterpilot! I feel better!

Technorati Tags: KGW, Live@7, TheSquare, LOL Otter, Otter Chaser

[media] C'mon, Academy … Do It For The Flavens

2203.New York Observer cartoonist Drew Friedman makes an excellent case for giving a lifetime achievment Oscar™ to Jerry Lewis.

Jerry liked it so much, he invited Drew to appear on the upcoming MDA Telethon, so, hey, he's got that workin' for him.

Technorati Tags: Jerry Lewis, Oscar, AMPAS, Boing Boing

[pdx] Life's A Sign That Gets Stolen From A Nonprofit

2197.I think that there should be a space reserved amongst perdition's flames for people who would steal from feminist non-profits:

Bitch magazine (http://bitchmagazine.org) is a non-profit, feminist media and advocacy. Go to thier site and read up on them. Just like every decent non-profit, they have to scrape for every dollar and penny, and that highly-excellent sign (photo screenclipped from the blog posting's pic, in the interest of publicity) was donated to them.

If you see this sign, kindly remove it from the possession of the cloaca that claims it as their boon and return it to the smart and passionate people at Bitch, who need this about as much as they need a hole in the head, yes?

Oh, and read this blog posting too. Put yourself in their place. Imagine something you care about gets damaged this way. How would you feel.

The fact that this is a cool design and that it's kickass typography enters into it for me, I won't lie. I am a self-made typographer and actual-trained designer, after all.

Technorati Tags: Bitch Magazine, PDX, Typograhy, signage, vandalism, PDX Asshats

[liff] Closed Captioning Gone Wild: Maybe They Should Get A Room Then. (NSFWish)

2191.ProbablyBadNews.com (via Twitter, the incredibly Twitter-savvy KGW TwitterPilot at TheSquare) shows us what happens when the Closed Captioning second-string shows up for work – you get what can only be described as a CC FAIL.

Ew. Just eww.

On the other hand (sorry), you've got to admire the intense concentration that would allow you to accomplish such a deed. I think.

Best to move on, yes. Nothing more to see here, yes.

Technorati Tags: Closed Captioning, CC FAIL, ProbablyBadNews

[pdx] Una acte gratuite

2185.The exploit in guerilla gardening ending, not with a bang, but a sense of resignation by the employee sent to remove the garden.

As David Loftus details here, he was on the scene at 8 AM on Monday, and by 8:15 AM, the garden was gone, removed by an employee of City Center Parking/Downtown Development Group that comported themselves with something resembling a sense of honor.

The plot was apparently planted by some college sociology class that was trying to make a point in some way somehow. How they were going to do that by planting a boulevard-strip garden and stepping back to let whatever happen, happen kind of escapes me, but remember, I'm a prole. Sometimes I just don't "get" these sorts of things.

David took a few pictures and handled it with utmost aplomb.

Why do it, even though the removeal of the garden was essentially a fait accompli? Well, as David says at the end of his article:

To paraphrase Tertullian's line about faith, I acted because it was futile.

In a world full of powerful interests hoping to make us all into consumers and spectators, it's essential to act and speak.

Otherwise, you're not learning and growing; you're just opening your mouth for someone else's spoons.

Capisce, my friends? This is kind of what it could mean to be an actual human.

Your next responses to your own reality are left as an exercise for the reader.

Technorati Tags: David Loftus, guerilla gardening

[pdx] Guerilla Gardening Showdown In The Shadow Of City Center Parking

2181.David Loftus is a local writer and performer who, while I've not seen him in performace, I've read his writings sometimes in The Big O and found them most nifty. Also, he's a habitue of the Harlan Ellison message boards, where he writes with a dry yet gentle wit.

Not too long ago, he noticed that someone had, in a strip between a pay-parking lot and the sidewalk near his downtown home that had been a collection point for urban detritus like "weeds, trash, and dog poop", some enterprising fellow downtowner had actually started to grow garden plants. Like tomatoes – chili peppers – eggplant. Food plants.

The tenablilty of the impromptu garden seemed doubtful, so he decided to give them a bit of a hand. Thus, guerilla gardening:

I decided to help 'em out. I borrowed a key from my building's maintenance guy and filled a pair of my own buckets, repeatedly, at one of the exterior spigots along the outer walls of our building, and repeatedly walked diagonally across an intersection to get to the parched greenery. It took five trips, with 2-1/4 gallon buckets, to water them all -- maybe a total of 22 gallons.

With that, an help from other anonymous gardener-American insurgents, the plants actually started to stand a fighting chance. Which, of course, attracted (as it is wont to do) the roving eye of The Man, who has stated that he/she/it will remove the garden – which we must assume has either proved to be either a public health hazard or perhaps has actually assaulted someone – by tomorrow, Monday, 3 August 2009, if the plants aren't transplanted before then.

For his part, David has promised to take a folding chair, a cool drink, a digital camera, and something to read and wait for 'em. He hopes you'll stop by and visit: It's on SW 10th Avenue between Columbia and Clay streets. Get your picture taken with the condemned plants – or help win them a reprieve, who knows?

I mean, c'mon folks – they're vegetables! These are supposed to be good for you! Five servings a day! Work with us here!

Technorati Tags: PDX, Portland, Portlanders, Portland Style, liff in PDX, David Loftus

[misc] Fotomat To Go Away Completely

2178.In the last missive, I mentioned Fotomat, the one-day photo finishing service that sprouted like blue-and-yellow weeds throughout America from the 1960s through the 1990s, when one-day photo service was equivalent to the speed of light, commercially.

While data on the ebb and flow of this former consumer photo giant is scanty at best, the trajectory is pretty easy to infer: As one-hour photo services became popular, Fotomat's one-day service became less and less popular, in the same way that traditional photo finishing of any type is being driven into extinction by digital photography and home-photo printers.

Fotomat didn't entirely go away, though, they relocated to the Web, offering Kodak-brand photo finishing and photosharing with a toolbar assist. But, as it's turning out, with services like Flickr and Picasa, even that model isn't working anymore. So Fotomat is, at last, going away itself:

On September 1st, 2009, Fotomat will be closing its online Fotomat photo printing and sharing service and all current accounts will be closed. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause you. All Photo orders placed prior to September 1st, 2009 will be honored. In the coming weeks, we will be sending out email updates about the closing of Fotomat.com to our Fotomat customers.

All Fotomat customers who maintain their photos locally on their PC through the "My Fotomat" feature with the Viewpoint or Fotomat toolbar will be able to continue to maintain their albums as before. However, all features that connect to Fotomat.com such as ordering and sharing photos will be discontinued.

We sincerely appreciate your patronage as a Fotomat member. We're recommending that all our Fotomat customers start transitioning their photo servicing needs to Kodak Gallery.

Sic transit gloria Fotomat. Another icon of the 20th Century dwindles away. It was a good run, Fotomat.

Technorati Tags: Fotomat, 20th Century Commerical Icons, obsolescence