incredible! myaspartameexperiment.com is a very detailed website of an extensive experiment conducted by a private citizen on the effects of the artificial sweetener aspartame (nutrasweet). in short: stop using anything with nutrasweet/aspartame today! the experiment was conducted by victoria inness-brown, MA. inness-brown put a group of rats on a steady diet containing nutrasweet for 2 years and 8 months. the aspartame received daily by her rats was equivalent to two-thirds the aspartame contained in a 8 ounce can of diet soda (meaning it was less than the human equivalent of the Acceptable Daily Intake (ADI) for aspartame as set by the FDA). the results are startling -the rats fed nutrasweet developed tumors, eye diseases, bone disorders, and eventually died. quoting the website for the basis of the experiment:
“I did my aspartame experiment because my family was addicted to diet soda. After researching the effects of aspartame, I strongly believed the artificial sweetener might one day lead to their illness and even early death.”
hey - foodies! if you love food (and drinks, yes, can’t forget drinks), or try to keep up with what good restaraunts and good food & foodie events are taking place in san francisco & bay area, follow foodie gossip, or all of the above, then you will really like tablehopper. you will. the culinary swashbuckler that is marcia gagliardi writes fantastic food reviews and food related articles. i highly recommend it. thanks marcia!
finally, a non-lethal weapon that is fun at parties too! introducing the LED Incapacitator, a flashlight-like device that emits a nauseating strobe light to the effect of making its targets throw up. that is correct: we have a barf gun! point this flashlight in the face of an attacker - or even a friendly work acquaintance or loved one - and the blinding light combined with the continuously changing colors and pulses of the LED capacitator will make them temporarily sick and vomit! great for parties, boring powerpopint presentations, and halloween. i’m ordering 4 right now!
on a trip from san francisco to new york back in october of 2007, i took the opportunity to fly the then new virgin america. the cabin interior is really great - very slick and very comfortable (as in roomy with great seats & well lit). each seat has a touch screen kiosk with a wired remote control/mini-keyboard in the back. with the kiosk system, you can watch videos, buy food, text/chat with other passengers, play video games, and all that. very convenient and very cool! shortly after take off, my kiosk froze up (very highly possibly due to my spazzing out on the typepad) and had to be re-booted. when the startup scripts where running, i got to see that virgin america uses linux to run their in flight kiosk system. i liked that too! with the kiosk now up & running, i cued up a big daddy kane video and ordered some drinks. thanks virgin!
meet the world’s largest wind turbine! it’s the enercon E-126 made by enercon. this beast is gigantic! The length of each rotor blade measures 413 feet (126 meters)! the first E-126 wind turbine was setup near emden, lower saxony, germany in november 0f 2007. though it’s rated to generate 6 Megawatts of power, it is expected to go much higher - up towards 7+ megawatts (20 million kilowatt hours per year). with those figures, enercon expects one e-126 wind turbine to generate enough power for 5,000 households of four in europe. awesome!
do you sometimes attempt to feel slightly better about yourself by rejoicing in the embarrassment and/or failures of others? well, you are not alone. serving up slices of fail pie are these three photo blogs that will darken or brighten your day: the fail blog, shipment of fail, and doing it wrong. failing never felt so good.
it’s friday and giantmonster would like to provide a clear example of how to ruin a billboard. it’s simple, as seen in these pics from the las vegas mccarran international airport baggage claim area. just place the words ‘carrot top’ and ‘fantasy’ right next to each other. you look up and read ‘carrot top fantasy’ and your mind will almost immediately shut down. carrot top and fantasy are words that should NEVER be used in the same sentence, much less follow each other in the same sentence. yet in vegas, such horrors exist. why? so scary. you are warned. please travel safe! previous carrot top horrors unleashed here.
though it’s not coming to any victoria’s secret shop anytime soon, it does make smuggling contraband so much more exciting and sexy! yes, it’s the plunderbra - as in to plunder, steal, or loot (click the pic to the left for a more detailed image). very inventive & ingenius. this custom made bra was used to smuggle $195,540 (£100,000) of cocaine into Britain. special! one can only wonder of the undetected plunder brought in prior to the plunderbra’s final blunder. yes …
the 2010 winter olympics in vancouver canada will have a rad sasquatch mascot named quatchi. this pleases me. the use of quatchi as a mascot will hopefully send a signal to all sasquatches, yowies, yetis, bigfoots, and skunk-apes to stop leaving giant footprints and just come out of hiding. or it will bring a massive lawsuit filed on behalf of all sasquatches for illegal appropriation of celebrity likeness. awesome mascot design by meomi design. quatchi mascot info via the very funny blogfoot (thanks blogfoot!).
for those of you who have embarked or are embarking into the magical world of raising a baby, giantmonster salutes you. and we would like to help by pointing you in the direction of some very handy parenting flash cards. from c00lstuff.com comes the awesome do’s and don’ts with babies. print them out and paste them all over your house for quick reference. some of the guidelines are posted below. enjoy & happy parenting!
the fantastic visionary director michel gondry will be appearing at the stockton street apple store in san francisco this monday january 7th 2008 at 7pm. gondry will be there to promote his new movie ‘be kind rewind’ and probably discuss how the film was edited using apple’s final cut pro software. i know this will be crowded but i’m gonna try to make it. all of this information via slashfilm (thanks /film!).
think you’ve got roller skating skills? how about limbo-skating? check out the article on daily mail titled the amazingly flexible boy, 6, who can limbo-skate under cars. it’s about aniket chindak, a boy in india who holds the unofficial world record for ‘limbo-skating.’ aniket is training to break his own world record of skating under 57 cars in 45 seconds.
while the quest for an even more hi-res version continues, giantmonster would like to thank one of our 13 readers - 10nito - for sending in the larger and more complete image above of the very mighty & sought after star wars awesome poster previously posted on giantmonster. ps - the poster was originally created by hugh fleming. thanks 10nito!!
1. a break or interruption in the continuity of a work, series, action, etc.
2.a missing part; gap or lacuna: Scholars attempted to account for the hiatus in the medieval manuscript.
3. any gap or opening.
4. what giantmonster has been on for a while.
yeah - sorry. it happens. and will happen again i’m sure.
i am very much enjoying the illustrations created by artist christoph niemann. very clean, narrative, playful, and bold. you may recognize some of his work from the new yorker. f you have a moment, please check out his website.
what doth life, you ask? well, sunday night november 4th at midnight on adult swim (and soon after, a bittorrent site near you), it’s highway to heaven meets wondershowzen meets billy jack meets jeff spicoli meets half-life with six-nipple goodness! yes, it’s xavier: renegade angel. the weirdness and humor of xavier renegade angel happens so fast that you’ll wake up ten years from now finally getting phrases and punchlines that were too clever and sophisticated for your limited 2007 brain to comprehend. so stock up on futuristic weirdness while you can! props to the kids at cinematico for all their hard work!
this is pretty damn brilliant. and funny. it’s a simple contest: Who could come up with the shittiest mix-tape mix ever? there were two contestants. each contestant would pick five of worst songs they could find. whoever had the least shitty five song selection would be then be deemed the loser. the loser would then have to walk around the streets of NYC carrying a boombox blasting all 10 of those shitty songs. aziz ansar of azizisbored.com lost that bet. and below is the video. enjoy!
ever been in a situation where you were bitten a lot by mosquitos but your friends around you were never bitten? me too! turns out i’m hella flavorful to mosquitos. no really. be sure to read the post titled Why some people are prone to mosquito bites on the telegraph.uk. quoting the article: Specific cells in one of the three organs that make up the mosquito’s nose are tuned to identify the different chemicals that make up human body odour. To the mosquito some people’s sweat simply smells better than others because of the proportions of the carbon dioxide, octenol and other compounds that make up body odour. awesome! this research will more than likely lead to developing a new generation of repellents that stop or prevent a mosqito’s nose from ever smelling (and thus detecting)a human. wow.
meet my new hero. his name is paul addis. tuesday morning at 2:45am-ish he set the burning man effigy on fire (4 days before the scheduled burn) and was arrested and charged with arson. gotta love the irony! and great mugshot picture too! i think it’s officially time to form a new festival of radical self-expression. extensive coverage over at laughing squid. you can contribute to paul’s bail money fund over at freepauladdis.com. i picked a hell of a year to skip out.
really liking the video for the song ‘ding’ by the german reggae/dancehall band seeed. it features some really nice stop motion animation. honestly, what is not to like about a red hairy ape in a top hat drinking & dancing at a club?
i just read this story titled drug czar gives warning: federal official calls marijuana growers dangerous terrorists. terrorists? i have to do a double take on the use of the word ‘terrorists’. really? are you serious? yes, i guess you are. John P. Walters, the director of National Drug Control Policy in the US states is noted as saying ‘the people who plant and tend the gardens are terrorists who wouldn’t hesitate to help other terrorists get into the country with the aim of causing mass casualties.‘ wow. that is pretty heavy. so marijuana growers are classified as terrorists? i have yet to see any pot growers bomb embassies or fly planes into buildings. but he must know what he’s talking about. Mr. Walters, directing a message at marijuana smokers & users, is also quoted as saying “Don’t buy drugs. They fund violence and terror.” really? okay. i agree on that - funding violence and terror is a bad thing.
“Don’t buy drugs. They fund violence and terror.” i love the irony of our federal government. really. it’s fantastic! take the profit out of pot and legalize marijuana already. this war on drugs is just idiotic.
if you are not interested in shelling out $12 or more for the next bad movie that comes out, then you may want to visit omgfreemovies. it’s exactly what you think - free movies, streaming online. how this is done, i am not sure. it can’t last, that i am sure. but getting to watch the giant turd fantastic four: rise of the silver surfer without paying made the movie a bit more tolerable. do it!
UPDATE:
the omgmovies website is down and/or gone entirely. rest in peace, omg free movies. luckily, there’s the site nosubscriptionrequired that lists free movie sites. thanks robert!
a really funny video by mikey day and andrew friedman titled what am i? what am i? see, it’s tommy’s birthday. and his big wish is that is stuffed dolls come to life so he can have someone to play with. wish granted! not quite a pixar movie. watch for laughs. please be sure to crank up the sounds too so your co-workers can hear all the swearing at the end. there, that’s better.
wow. hats off to this brave canadian fellow and his very heroic dose of salvia divinorum. i mean that. and good that his friends are looking out for him too. salvia divinorum is a plant and it’s perfectly legal. it grows in parts of mexico. the name salvia divinorum literally translates to “sage of the seers”. it is a plant with a sense of humor and known for it’s shamanistic qualities. salvia divinorum contains a powerful psychoactive called salvinorin A. you can purchase salvia divinorum as an extract where the potency is increased 5X, 10X, 15X, and even 20X. oh boy. be warned though, it’s a rough ride (peep the video). there an informative salvia guide at sagewisdom.org that goes into more detail about the mighty plant. and the youtube clip is a good way to show that salvia is not a party drug. sometimes fun, sometimes not so fun. it’s always an interesting experience, but not a party drug. no. oh no.
ever been in a situation where you were bitten a lot by mosquitos but your friends around you were never bitten? me too! turns out i’m hella flavorful to mosquitos. no really. be sure to read the post titled 
i just read this story titled 
