wanting to be all environmentally conscious and switch out your energy & cash eating incandescent bulbs for efficient and longer lasting compact flourescents? good! but you find your still stuck with using incandescent bulbs for any lights on dimmer switches? well, you are stuck no more. greenlite is a canadian company that makes and manufactures a 23 watt dimmable compact flourescent bulb. and there’s also litetronics that makes a 3 watt dimmable flourescent bulb too! they are pricey, but over time they will save lots of money. and use much less energy. link via meta-efficient.
Monthly Archive for April, 2006
note to self: if there is such a thing as reincarnation, i’d like to establish right now that i do not want to come back as a government insect trap. no sir. just wanted to get that out there.
an old post (from 2001) but still a really lovely photo blog of buddhist monks constructing a sand mandala painting of the medicine buddha. the two buddhist monks, who came from the namgyal monastery in ithaca, new york, created the five and a half foot mandala for the ackland art museum’s yager gallery of asian art - located in north carolina. the construction took from february 26th through to march 21st. the detail is incredible. use the links on the top of the page (the dates in green) to go through all the photos, including the dismantling of the mandala.
oh Mr T! why does it hurt me so to watch this? maybe because it’s really painful. at your leisure, please watch stylin’ and get hella schooled by Mr T on how to ‘table the label’ and express yourself. seriously serious fashion tips. & thanks fecal face for the link. now let the cringing begin …
nice little homemade video of a well done lightsaber duel. take notice george! there’s no effortless hopping between rocks floating on lava. and even better, mr. lucas: none of your dialogue! yay! these guys did a great job. my inner-nerd is proud. though it is hard to beat the mighty low tech ferocity of the classic star wars kid. oy!
cool posting on tattooartists.org on some lovely UV blacklight reactive tattoo ink. the tattoo appears invisible on your skin until it’s exposed to UV light. the ink is made by chameleon body art supply and it’s been heavily tested by the FDA. read more on the safety of the UV blacklight ink and also see the MSDS info on the ink. story found via metafilter.
returned from NYC last night. wow. that city is so great. seriously amazing. best city in the USA - without a doubt. many many many thanks going out my friend marco for the amazing hospitality and kindness while i was in NYC. anyway, i’ll be back to posting stuff sooner or later. let the jetlag party begin …
airline snake safety is important.
it’s friday. time to get naked and try to beat the outstanding world record of most naked women in a phone box. yes! and of course there is video (embedded wmv link). though i wanted to hear the benny hill theme, the audio on this is pretty good. so what are you doing with your clothes on? there’s hundreds of naked world records to be broken! NSFW by the way. naked bodies everywhere. human achievement is beautiful.
life is hard for ninjas. just ask ninja-in-training jeremiah ransom. who, while dressed as a ninja and on his way to a ninja-pirate mixer on his college campus, was ambushed and subdued by ATF agents. this should be taken into account: ATF agents hate costume parties. and apparently ATF agents hate ninjas too (ouch with the knee, jackass!). i feel safer though.
can’t remember how i found this link. but i really liked the profile on this incredible animatronic human sculpture / armature and the artist who made it, mark ho. really amazing work. mark ho was working as a director and script writer who later decided he wanted to be a machinist and have more control over his art. the armature is made entirely of bronze and stainless steel. he titled it ZOHO art form 1 and it took over six years to make. the whole article is a great read. and if you scroll to the bottom you can see more images of the armature and how it can be posed and balanced to take on human gestures.
peep the great illustrators and illustration at illustration mundo. i also like their random array of 100 things. for all you talented illustratin’ and drawin’ types, you can register for free on their site and show your art off, let them know when your site is updated, & stuff. very cool! (ps - ‘mundo’ means ‘world’ in spanish, yo.)
going on right after spinal tap, it’s the ace of spades puppet show. check this kid out! his name is callum hickey and his marionette rock group are the pish dolls. so much talent! the clip is from 2002, taken at the edinburgh fringe festival. yet another good find from WFMU’s beware of the blog. video also available streaming from the google and the youtube.
one thing good about this non stop rain party is getting stay inside and catch up on movies or re-watch rad ones. in this case, wet hot american summer is one of those rad ones. so i am highly recommending it. seriously dumb good funny. do not rent it if you don’t like to laugh a lot though. directed by david wain and written by both david wain and michael showalter (from the state and stella). stars lots of funny follks including michael ian black, janeane garofalo, molly shannon. not overhyping it here. but it is a really funny movie. or, you have no sense of humor.
bob ross, master painter, simply rules. you will see and you will know. i loved his show the joy of painting. watch this great youtube video of bob ross doing his thing. so cool! the sound of his creamy, friendly voice … so … soothing … i am lulled into a calm tranquil world of happy beautiful birch trees. and owls. enjoy!
UPDATE:
bummer! video pulled due to copyright violation filed by Bob Ross inc. darn.
i’ll be in NYC starting this saturday. gonna be there for a little over a week. staying near washington square park. very excited! so if you have any suggestions, tips, or hints for ‘must do’ things in NYC, art spots to check out, places to go, whatever, holla & lemme know with comments or just use the contact form. thanks!
warning: clowns are heading into nursing homes to feed upon entertain the elderly. send help now! what? don’t believe me? well, thanks to wmfu’s beware the blog there’s proof. bear witness to the end of sanity and watch clown ministry video 1 and then, yes, clown ministry video 2. i’ll let the dialogue from the video speak for itself:
when you’re ready to launch out into the unknown, possibly the best place to begin is in a nursing home, or a care center for the elderly. one reason is simply this: the elderly really receive you quite well. i think it’s because they already know how vulnerable they are. they’re lonely, and longing for touch. so as clowns we take seriously what jesus said in matthew 25 …
also, halfway through the first video, there’s some very good advice on the “clown clustering” phenomenon:
when you enter the nursing home, do not stand there with your group in a large cluster of clowns. clowns can look rather intimidating if you see a lot of them in one place.
so true. so very, very true. i remember a traffic-stopping clown party on geary and 23rd ave in SF about 3 years ago. dozens of country clowns and hillbilly clowns. there was a pie fight too. soo scary.
just realised i’m gonna miss the APE con this weekend - darn it. APE stand for Alternative Press Expo (& the con stands for convention). if your not outside today planting no less than 12 five gallon-size boxwood shrub bushes in your yard, you should check it out. there is always some really great art at APE. great prints and books. plus it’s a chance to meet the artists and creators themselves! i’m pretty sure my friends rhode, jamie, oliver, and derek are going. i may try to get there on sunday. getting there is easy. how to not spend a ton of cash on all the cool art books, zines, & illustrations is the real dilemma.
it’s still friday darn it. 11pm-ish. i can still post something up in time for friday! what to post? i’m gonna default to music on this one. please exercise your right-click-save-as skills if you wish. i’m just posting up some songs that have been on heavy rotation at the luxurious giantmonster corporate headquarters these last few days. enjoy!
download:
giantmonster-friday-random-music-medly-1.zip (35.7 megabytes)
ye mighty track listing:
Gary Newman - Cars
Giant Drag - Everything’s Worse
The Pixies - Hey
Beck - Missing
Cat Power - Cross Bones Style
Broken Social Scene - Shampoo Suicide
The Skatalites - Guns of Navarone
Billy Nayer Show - Mama Hen
The White Stripes - The Air Near My Fingers
Turbonegro - Imorgen Skal Eg Daue
this was sent to my by derek a long, long while back. for anyone who loves bad movies (really bad) there’s the good badmovies.org website. so much love and goodness has gone into this site. archiving and chronicling all the bad cheesy shitty movies your mind has tried to block out. or won’t block out - can’t block out. seriously. 
they’ve got video clips and sound bytes too! i have to recommend the review for the buddha fist - classic kung-fu cinema. don’t miss the buddha fist video clip either! then there’s the star wars holiday special (still better than episode 1), matango: attack of the mushroom people, xanadu, 
the rowdy roddy piper visual opus hell comes to frogtown, santa claus conquers the martians (peep the movie clip of the lameness), raiders of wu tang (more kung-fu!), and lots more. wow. painful. perhaps brutal. but worth a visit i say. and, i’m not sure, but did someone say C.H.U.D.?
going for a family theme on some video links here. so, for your daddy, there’s the ’70s porn flick tribute single who’s your daddy from benny bennassi. & yes, the song has that same sweaty fresh “snorting cocaine off the hood of your lexus” sound as his previous uber-throbbing single satisfaction (yes, that’s the hot construction worker chicks video).
next up, there’s your mama! for your mama all i’ve got to give is the ridiculously catchy song who’s lovin’ your mama? (i am, i am) by kennedy. high disco fever ’70s element (with hot chicks) going on here too. good times ahead.
yo yo yo, evolution in da’ house!!! what’s up everybody? my name is tiktaalik roseae, but my friends call me croco-fish. i’m roughly 385 million years old, about four to nine feet in size, and i have lots of hobbies! i enjoy walking up from water to land, hanging out in canada, learning about evolution, developing bone structure and a skeletal system, and secrets! and some say that i blur the boundry between fish and land animals. what can i say, dudes - it’s all true! so if any of you other single devonian period tetrapod-like ladies would like to get together and take that first step, call me! i’d love to hook up!
there’s a great flickr photo set by funkandjazz featuring no less than 1,604 photos on san francisco graffiti. always good to document that stuff ’cause it’s ever-changing. lots of good color and lovely mural and tag pics. thanks funkandjazz! but there’s more! check out some of funkandjazz’s other photo sets, such as east bay graffiti (547 photos), los angeles graffiti ‘05 (49 photos), and graffiti from other places (95 photos). good stuff! get to browsing!
the style and art mavens at fecal face posted a great link to rbally dot net featuring mp3s of cat power live in paris. very nice! thank you fecal face!! and that link also provides more mp3 goodness with links to birdmonster, pavement, robert pollard, beck, portastatic, more robert pollard, the replacements, los ovidados, and lots more as well. so an even bigger thank you to rbally!! wednesday nights are for downloading.
my friend rafael introduced me to the best damn coffee place in SF a few weeks back. it’s more of a coffee stand than a place. regardless, there’s always a line out front. and now probably more so that orange magazine wrote an article on it. blue bottle coffee is pretty damn fantastic. very tasty coffee & espresso drinks. granted, a $3.00 latte should come with a back-rub, serious make-out session, or hand job to condone such a fee (for realsies people - it doesn’t cost that much at all to make a coffee drink, yo). but sans hand jobs & back-rubs, blue bottle’s latte is the best tasting latte i’ve had in a long long time. yes, dare i say it’s better than ritual. both places go for the fancy lil’ foam/espresso arty finish, which i think adds another 25¢ to the drink. check it out when you can.
i missed the shepard fairey art show opening last weekend at the white walls gallery. but luckily the folks from laughing squid managed to snap pics and post them up on their shepard fairey art show flickr set. and doubly lucky is the white walls shepard fairey show image gallery featured on the white walls website - wow!! all lovley stuff. thanks people!
what the heck is a counter rotating ring receiver reactor recuperator, or CR5 for short? it’s an invention in the works with a whole new way to make hydrogen to power automobiles and homes. created by inventor Richard Diver, the CR5 invention splits water into hydrogen and oxygen, using a two-step thermochemical process. plans for a prototype CR5 are in the works. original link via treehugger.
my dentist never offered this kind of hands-on service. that’s the full treatment. i wonder if the rates are different? this should be filed under ‘logos you get for just $5.’ sent in from the rad nica via i hate design.
been meaning and wanting to keep up on posts and move that perfect penis entry down the page a bit more. & thanks for the comments and emails on that by the way. & yes it’s real. ugh. anyway, my internet connection has been less then reliable lately. so i fixed that. and now i have re-caught the same crappy cold/flu i had last week. awesome. but being bed-ridden may help me to find some things to post up. sleep now & blog later.