Am changing webhosts in a few days’ time, and hiccups are rather inevitable so expect a little less of this standard inane rambling. If everything behaves well, I will buy Toto, win and stay in Japan for a year.
Move completed, it seems. Lost two entries and a couple of comments. A bit fail, but bleah.
Sports anchor: “I think wrestling warm-ups are probably the most homo-erotic thing I’ve ever seen.”
Sports director: “It’s like a poor man’s Cirque du Soleil.”
Editor: “This guy’s name is Donald Fries. He’s making me hungry. Like that lady in that other story named Hamburg.”
(from here)
Indexing the internet, part #some-funny, some-silly.
A tad old, but so true: AdVerbatims
Overheard in New York, Overheard in the Newroom, Overheard in the Office. Hmm, try googling for “Overheard in _________” and you will probably get a relevant result. Ah huh. Some are hilarious, some are boring.
Of course, lolcats (and loldogs!). And the hipster equivalent: lolbook
No gloating here.
Papercuts: Layoffs and buyouts at U.S. newspapers in 2009
AngryJournalist.com
AngryWebDesigner.com (erhem, not me)
In certain parts of Eastern Asia, particularly in Japanese culture and Vietnamese culture, a sneeze without an obvious cause was generally perceived as a sign that someone was talking about the sneezer at that very moment – a belief that is still depicted in present-day manga and anime. In China, Vietnam and Japan, for instance, there is a superstition that if talking behind someone’s back causes the person being talked about to sneeze; as such, the sneezer can tell if something good is being said (one sneeze), something bad is being said (two sneezes in a row), or if this is a sign that they are about to catch a cold (multiple sneezes). (from here)
I’m quite inclined to believe that for now, because my room is not that dusty.
Anyways. Have been suppressing the most recent bout of wanderlust by browsing photography sites. They aren’t necessarily all about travel photography (none were, actually), but since a good deal of photography takes place in countries foreign to the one I reside in, I shall be unreasonable and regard them as such. By the way, what’s the defining distinction between travel photography and a photo essay (all serious artistic and/or journalistic connotations included) on a place/country/region? Not to say that the former isn’t serious, or harbours no artistic cred at all, but I do think that most people do not view travel photography as having as much clout as say, a photo essay on Bilgoraj even if the photographs from the two series might essentially be of the same subjects, etc. Intent? Exposition? And that photo essays are usually the result of continual visits to the same place, and the result of an accumulative understanding of its people and culture? Hmm, if we are to place travel photography on the other end of the spectrum, it would be rather disparaging and inaccurate. no? Maybe, I should just let them be. Digression ends.
Well, but it was a digression that started me on looking at photobooks anyway. Have been browsing the online stores of several photography sites and Amazon, and it is an increasingly uphill task of refraining from clicking the Add to Basket button. Why are photobooks so expensive? Why are the ones I want out-of-print? Why! Previous nights have, yes, been punctuated with moments like those. Why! 368 pounds! Currently unavailable! Out of print! Rare! Buy it now at 199! Whatever! Discouragement likes company. Reality is harsh.
This is extremely cool and incredibly neat. Perform a virtual knee surgery! Very educational as well. This reminds me of this cartoon called Once Upon a Time… Life I used to watch when I was a kid. Loved it. Youtube is your friend:
Patrick Star’s previous incarnation?
(Screencap from linked video, image of Patrick Star from here)
Cake Wrecks - the name of the blog just about says it all. But the pictures say it better.
And the next one totally cracked me up.
(All images from Cake Wrecks)
And, fail.
Chinese New Year can get boring, and reading is much more satisfying than conversing.
Mirror, Mirror on the Wall – Head photo editors from AFP, AP and Reuters and their pick of the photographs they feel best represents the Bush administration. I like this and this.
From Seeing Eye to Eye:
While The Civil Contract of Photography’s value has been damaged as a result of such bitter tendentiousness, its argument remains breathtakingly inspirational: “The citizen of photography”—for instance, that vicious photo rapist the AP photographer—“enjoys the right to see because she has a responsibility toward what she sees.” It has always been my pride to feel responsible as I raise the lens to my eye in situations of misery and urgency; it has been my duty to feel, refine, and transmit that misery and urgency when it expresses itself to me in the archives of others. But although I believe in the Golden Rule, without reading this book I would most likely never have formalized what my photography ought to strive for: “When a photograph turns into a grievance, whoever articulates it becomes its civic subject.”
From here: “More powerful than the march of mighty armies is an idea whose time has come.” – so true.
So this is kinda my way of bookmarking. I can’t believe the CNY holidays are almost over. And yet, my plan to clean up my room remains strangely unfulfilled. Spring cleaning is almost certainly irrelevant to people who live in the non-seasonal tropics. Why bicker with dust? Why fight against the all-so-natural descent into chaos? I want new Billy bookcases though, and that isn’t going to happen unless I throw my old ones out. And that won’t happen unless I throw a lot of stuff out. And that won’t happen until I buy a pack of trash bags and put things into them. There should be a ‘Clear All’ function I can write.
function resetRoom(whose:Name) {
var thisRoom:Room = this[whose];
for (var i=0;i<clearThese.length;i++) {
thisRubbish = thisRoom[clearThese[i]];
if (thisRubbish.useful ==1) {
thisRubbish.arrange();
}
else {
thisRubbish.remove();
}
}
Real life is hard, but I feel much better after visiting here and here.
An(other) interesting profile on NYT’s One in 8 Million feature: Melissa Dixson, a former painter turned taxidermist. “[...] taxinet. It’s basically like ebay for taxidermists.” Heh.
I’ve always found taxidermy fascinating though a tad morbid (and watching Taxidermia didn’t help that a bit). There’s just something about how perfect taxidermies are/look that unsettles me a little, but it is probably that same something that interests me. Quite like creatures made realistic by their lifelikeness, but rendered fantastical by the impossibility of existence (under that specific skin, at least). La di da.
Still on the topic of taxidermy, Danielle van Ark’s The Mounted Life is a great series on the topic(ish). None of the photographs are posed, by the way. And therein lies the charm, at least for me. My favourite is this.
(Image from the NYT profile)
Of course, there has to be one: the Obama action figure. Comes with three (3) pairs of interchangeable hands. The suit is not fitting him very well though. (link via Jeansnow.net)
Despite my nose being a leaking faucet, I managed to catch most of the inauguration last night. What for, I guess some might say, well, it just seems unreasonable to blame the damn economy, the damn wars, the damn anything-that-is-wrong-with-the-world on a certain country and not be concerned with who’s governing that same country. Even though the inauguration is, well, just an inauguration. It was fun to watch, and I couldn’t help but snicker (cruel as that might sound) at Dick Cheney.
I was actually more impressed with CNN.com. Was watching the ceremony online since ten p.m., and the streaming was smooth as hell. Only until a little before midnight did the live video start to break a little (and then I just took over the tv outside). Why should I be impressed then? Considering the amount of traffic the site was getting, I was surprised I could even get to see any video. So maybe low expectations are the key to pleasant surprises, but for someone with a shitty internet connection (apparently, this computer gets the poorest signal among all the others at home), it was a very pleasant and welcomed surprise.
You will need Silverlight, but this is kinda cool. I wonder how many people will download Silverlight just to view that.
M1 Singapore Fringe Festival is on till Sunday. I first saw Phillip Toledano’s Days with My Father a few months ago, and thought it a wonderfully moving series. Quite to my (pleasant) surprise, I found out that the photographs are now shown as part of the Fringe Festival. (Image from artist’s site)
The Museum of Broken Relationships looks interesting as well.
