Showing posts with label odd Internet stuff. Show all posts
Showing posts with label odd Internet stuff. Show all posts
Thursday, August 01, 2013
Monday, December 31, 2012
Bunny Slippers
In a rather entertaining example of "blogging is an odd business", here's how this post developed:
In researching the trope of aliens arriving to chastise humankind I wandered over to the Wikipedia entry for the old Twilight Zone broadcast "To Serve Man" (because I vaguely remembered this as a TV trope from a long-ago viewing of the Simpsons spoof Hungry Are The Damned
Okay, so; having got that far, in the footnotes of the Wiki entry I stumbled across a reference to the whole "tasty, tasty humans" thing as a slogan on the unit patch of the 509th Bomb Wing, the USAF unit that flies the B-2 bomber.
I then ran down this patch, which does, in fact, have an aliens-eating-people connection but doesn't quote "To Serve Man" verbatim. Instead the motto on the unit patch is "gustatus similis pullus", very doggy-latin for the English phrase "tastes like chicken".
Are you with me so far?
The pursuit of this, then, led me here: to a small collection of oddball funny USAF patches. I like all of them, including the 22nd Military Airlift Squadron, whose motto is pretty direct: NOYFB is an acronym for "none of your fuckin' business" which is, one assumes, the attitude that the C-5 jockeys who "...deliver classified aircraft from aerospace plants in Southern California to testing facilities around the country." routinely give when asked what they do for a living.
Which, then, led my mind back to this patch:
Which, when you get past the existential horror of nuclear holocaust, is pretty funny. There's a certain humor value - midnight-black humor, mind you - to the notion of Capt. Joe or Maj. Molly shuffling to the control console in their b-robe and fuzzy slippers, coffee in hand, to put an end to life on Earth.
As an aside, I wonder if there is something about the youthful nature of the USAF that produces these funny patches? Certainly the Army had it's silly slogans and catchphrases but in my experience they tended to be unofficial at best and secretive at worst. We would never have been willing to openly chuckle at ourselves the way these patches do. I have been hard on the USAF in the past and will be in the future, but this is an aspect of that service that I can and do appreciate.
They have a certain perspective of themselves that my own service conspicuously lacks.
So, anyway, there's the destination of all this Internet wandering; tasty fried humans - not as a centerpiece for an alien Thanksgiving but as a result of our own inability to figure out how to solve our differences without a bow and spear.
Not exactly an original thought, but perhaps one to stop for a moment and curl a lip at on the last day of the year.
In researching the trope of aliens arriving to chastise humankind I wandered over to the Wikipedia entry for the old Twilight Zone broadcast "To Serve Man" (because I vaguely remembered this as a TV trope from a long-ago viewing of the Simpsons spoof Hungry Are The Damned
Okay, so; having got that far, in the footnotes of the Wiki entry I stumbled across a reference to the whole "tasty, tasty humans" thing as a slogan on the unit patch of the 509th Bomb Wing, the USAF unit that flies the B-2 bomber.
I then ran down this patch, which does, in fact, have an aliens-eating-people connection but doesn't quote "To Serve Man" verbatim. Instead the motto on the unit patch is "gustatus similis pullus", very doggy-latin for the English phrase "tastes like chicken".
Are you with me so far?
Which, then, led my mind back to this patch:
As an aside, I wonder if there is something about the youthful nature of the USAF that produces these funny patches? Certainly the Army had it's silly slogans and catchphrases but in my experience they tended to be unofficial at best and secretive at worst. We would never have been willing to openly chuckle at ourselves the way these patches do. I have been hard on the USAF in the past and will be in the future, but this is an aspect of that service that I can and do appreciate.
They have a certain perspective of themselves that my own service conspicuously lacks.
So, anyway, there's the destination of all this Internet wandering; tasty fried humans - not as a centerpiece for an alien Thanksgiving but as a result of our own inability to figure out how to solve our differences without a bow and spear.
Not exactly an original thought, but perhaps one to stop for a moment and curl a lip at on the last day of the year.
Friday, April 06, 2012
DIY BDSM
Hmmm. Turns out that home improvement really can be fun. It just seems to require the right tools.
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
State of my 'Net Union
I just couldn't face up to hearing the former junior Senator from Illinois explain how he was really, truly a moderate Republican. So I spent the evening with the family and looking for interesting oddities on the Interwebs.
Like this one: a woman in New Zealand is paralyzed by a hickey. Go Team Edward! What the hell was her inamorata thinking? Romance safety tip; when women say "Oh, my little snugglebottoms, you're so scrumptious I could eat you up!" she is speaking metaphorically. Do NOT attempt this.
Over at the ever-reliable Pink Tentacle, a collection of Japanese postcards from the turn of the last century to the late Forties. I was intrigued by the large number of "kewpie" variations, from kewpie as the Monopoly guy, kewpie soldiers, kewpie sumo...kewpie everything. The "kewpie doll"; talk about a monster fad that has been almost completely lost to memory.
I followed that lead from PT to various Web entries for kewpies and from there to a short article on the woman who created the little images, one Rose O'Neill, who once said that "Kewpie philosophy takes the unwieldliness out of wisdom, puts cheerio into charity and draws the fangs of philanthropy. I have put all of my love of humanity into this little image."
Well alrighty then.
She was a pretty terrific artist, as the illustration below testifies, in the Edwardian style. Very Whistler and Sargent, Arrow collars and picture hats, the tag-end pf the Gibson Girl days. Look at the delightfully scathing expression on her debutante; the woman could solid fucking draw, even if she turned her gifts to the Dark Side of Extraordinary Cuteness.
Still, cute or no the kewpie story has a fairly unhappy ending. When the dolls and other kewpienalia fell out of pop culture in the mid to late Thirties the poor woman lost her shirt and died in what was then known as "straitened circumstances". Not what you'd expect for someone who put the cheerio into charity. And all that's left is the empty grin on the face of the doll. Rather a glum little story.
Although, personally, I think this 1940 card is much, much sadder. Being the daddy of an adorable little Asian tyke I couldn't help getting a bit chokey at the sight of this little Japanese air-raid warden with bright augite eyes, her fire bucket and mop, and her little "smoke resistant" headscarf. The characters on her bucket read "Bring It On". Really. That's what the Japanese thought was bravado at the beginning of WW2. A little girl with a "Bring It On" bucket against a sky full of B-29s pregnant with fire.
Yeah. Fire raids.
Who knew?
Just sad.
Here's something a bit more cheery; "Better Book Titles". My personal pash is the improved title for Kafka's "Metamorphosis": "A Bug's Life". Although "Ghost Dad" isn't bad for Hamlet. And then there's this one;
Okay, c'mon, admit it. Who doesn't love a love story?
For one of the more entertaining manga love stories on the Web, check out "Red String". Definitely the spunkiest, romantickest, most fun arranged-marriage-forbidden-love-tales-of-Tokyo-youth-written-by-a-woman-from-Voorhees-New-Jersey going. Check it out.
It doesn't hurt that the artist has a nice touch with the 少女漫画 (shojo manga) style, either. Here's a nice example featuring Miharu, her main character. Pretty, neh?
And while I was chasing down references to the shojo genrve I ran across the fella who did this wonderful work back in the Thirties; Katsuji Matsumoto (松本かつぢ)
Here's a page from his Nazo no kurōbaa (（なぞ）のクローバー) - "The Mysterious Clover", one of the early shojo manga, from 1934. What's amazing here is the craftsmanship' the varying perspectives, the clean lines and attractive shapes, as well as the effective layout that pulls the eye along the story.
Nice!
There's always something worth a look over at deviantart.
This made me think of my son's latest obsession; Battlefield Heroes. This easy online shooter game has a loopy cartoon sensibility, and the game is easy enough for a kiddo to enjoy but challenging enough to keep him wanting more. But I just liked the artist's appreciation of the incongruity of the tank commander with the sword (don't laugh - you see stuff like this in the steampunky sorts of fantasy gaming like Warhammer. Seriously. I shit you not)
Forgotten about the damned politics already? Great! Then my work here is done.
See ya 'round the Net!
Like this one: a woman in New Zealand is paralyzed by a hickey. Go Team Edward! What the hell was her inamorata thinking? Romance safety tip; when women say "Oh, my little snugglebottoms, you're so scrumptious I could eat you up!" she is speaking metaphorically. Do NOT attempt this.
Over at the ever-reliable Pink Tentacle, a collection of Japanese postcards from the turn of the last century to the late Forties. I was intrigued by the large number of "kewpie" variations, from kewpie as the Monopoly guy, kewpie soldiers, kewpie sumo...kewpie everything. The "kewpie doll"; talk about a monster fad that has been almost completely lost to memory.
I followed that lead from PT to various Web entries for kewpies and from there to a short article on the woman who created the little images, one Rose O'Neill, who once said that "Kewpie philosophy takes the unwieldliness out of wisdom, puts cheerio into charity and draws the fangs of philanthropy. I have put all of my love of humanity into this little image."
Well alrighty then.
She was a pretty terrific artist, as the illustration below testifies, in the Edwardian style. Very Whistler and Sargent, Arrow collars and picture hats, the tag-end pf the Gibson Girl days. Look at the delightfully scathing expression on her debutante; the woman could solid fucking draw, even if she turned her gifts to the Dark Side of Extraordinary Cuteness.
Still, cute or no the kewpie story has a fairly unhappy ending. When the dolls and other kewpienalia fell out of pop culture in the mid to late Thirties the poor woman lost her shirt and died in what was then known as "straitened circumstances". Not what you'd expect for someone who put the cheerio into charity. And all that's left is the empty grin on the face of the doll. Rather a glum little story.Although, personally, I think this 1940 card is much, much sadder. Being the daddy of an adorable little Asian tyke I couldn't help getting a bit chokey at the sight of this little Japanese air-raid warden with bright augite eyes, her fire bucket and mop, and her little "smoke resistant" headscarf. The characters on her bucket read "Bring It On". Really. That's what the Japanese thought was bravado at the beginning of WW2. A little girl with a "Bring It On" bucket against a sky full of B-29s pregnant with fire.
Yeah. Fire raids. Who knew?
Just sad.Here's something a bit more cheery; "Better Book Titles". My personal pash is the improved title for Kafka's "Metamorphosis": "A Bug's Life". Although "Ghost Dad" isn't bad for Hamlet. And then there's this one;
Okay, c'mon, admit it. Who doesn't love a love story?
For one of the more entertaining manga love stories on the Web, check out "Red String". Definitely the spunkiest, romantickest, most fun arranged-marriage-forbidden-love-tales-of-Tokyo-youth-written-by-a-woman-from-Voorhees-New-Jersey going. Check it out.
It doesn't hurt that the artist has a nice touch with the 少女漫画 (shojo manga) style, either. Here's a nice example featuring Miharu, her main character. Pretty, neh?
And while I was chasing down references to the shojo genrve I ran across the fella who did this wonderful work back in the Thirties; Katsuji Matsumoto (松本かつぢ)Here's a page from his Nazo no kurōbaa (（なぞ）のクローバー) - "The Mysterious Clover", one of the early shojo manga, from 1934. What's amazing here is the craftsmanship' the varying perspectives, the clean lines and attractive shapes, as well as the effective layout that pulls the eye along the story.
Nice!There's always something worth a look over at deviantart.
This made me think of my son's latest obsession; Battlefield Heroes. This easy online shooter game has a loopy cartoon sensibility, and the game is easy enough for a kiddo to enjoy but challenging enough to keep him wanting more. But I just liked the artist's appreciation of the incongruity of the tank commander with the sword (don't laugh - you see stuff like this in the steampunky sorts of fantasy gaming like Warhammer. Seriously. I shit you not)
Forgotten about the damned politics already? Great! Then my work here is done.See ya 'round the Net!
Saturday, February 13, 2010
What IS the Internet for?
I'm thrilled that my little guy is getting excited about playing soccer.
He's slowly getting the fever from me, and he's all atwitter after finding me filling out his application for this year's Timbers Kid's Club.
So we're in the process of trying to find him a soccer club. With luck, the coach there can stop him toe-punching the ball. Lord knows I can't, and I've tried since he was a toddler and should have been old enough to know better.
But just as an observation and not like I was actually looking for it, but why the hell is it so easy to find tentacle rape porn
on the Internet and so friggin' difficult to find contact information for a U-7 soccer club in St. Johns, Oregon, especially since I know there is one, it's listed on the OSA website but the "link" leads you to some sort of useless dead end?
Dammit, maybe the internet really IS for porn.
I mean, your search engine can turn up about forty zillion places to find the most bizarro perversions imaginable - not that I'd knocking bizarro perversions; each to their own is my philosophy, so long as nobody gets hurt and everybody involved is a consenting adult - but finding something as simple as the phone number, address or contact person for a group of people in charge of a kid's soccer club?
It's like finding the Seventh City of Cibola.
I know, I know, "The Internet is for porn". Sigh. And let's not even go into "Tentacle Grape".
I suspect there's some sort of deeper economic and social observation to be made here, but my mind is so stunned by the whole Tentacle Grape thing I honestly cannot encompass it.
I'll have to go to Chinese New Year and check back in later...
He's slowly getting the fever from me, and he's all atwitter after finding me filling out his application for this year's Timbers Kid's Club.
So we're in the process of trying to find him a soccer club. With luck, the coach there can stop him toe-punching the ball. Lord knows I can't, and I've tried since he was a toddler and should have been old enough to know better.
But just as an observation and not like I was actually looking for it, but why the hell is it so easy to find tentacle rape porn
on the Internet and so friggin' difficult to find contact information for a U-7 soccer club in St. Johns, Oregon, especially since I know there is one, it's listed on the OSA website but the "link" leads you to some sort of useless dead end?
Dammit, maybe the internet really IS for porn.
I mean, your search engine can turn up about forty zillion places to find the most bizarro perversions imaginable - not that I'd knocking bizarro perversions; each to their own is my philosophy, so long as nobody gets hurt and everybody involved is a consenting adult - but finding something as simple as the phone number, address or contact person for a group of people in charge of a kid's soccer club?
It's like finding the Seventh City of Cibola.
I know, I know, "The Internet is for porn". Sigh. And let's not even go into "Tentacle Grape".
I suspect there's some sort of deeper economic and social observation to be made here, but my mind is so stunned by the whole Tentacle Grape thing I honestly cannot encompass it. I'll have to go to Chinese New Year and check back in later...
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Random Images from Around the Internets...and More...
I am a sort of beady-eyed packrat of the Internets, scampering about with my whiskery nose all a-twitch finding images I like; some pretty, some odd, others awful, but shiny and glittery to my rodent mind and dragging them into my midden of a folder on the laptop. Every so often I paw through them, muttering "Preciousssss...my preciousss."
I figured it was time to dump out the picture folder and give you a look.
Let's start with this one: it's a hat.
Well. Shit.
I knew we'd overlooked something in the pre-Cana counseling. How do we explain Mom's execution to the kids..?
Ah.
Very few actresses - very few women, I daresay - managed the insouciant charm of Audrey Hepburn.
This lovely graphic is by someone called "Phobs", whose page over at deviantart has some gorgeous and fascinating - and some truly disturbing - stuff in it.
This is a part of an image that I believe is meant to represent Poland in the 1940s, but looks to me more like the story of St. Elizabeth of Hungary and the roses. Do you know the story?
Well, St. Elizabeth, then merely Elizabeth of Thuringa, was taking bread to the poor, in contravention of her stern husband's orders. He suspected her secret charity, and had her watched, but could not catch her in the act of largesse. Finally he managed to apprehend her coming from the castle bakery; he halted her, frowning down at her full apron from which the smell of fresh-baked bread emanated like a good deed in a sinful world.
"What have you there, woman?" he rasped. She replied; "I have been in the garden, lord, and I have cut the roses for my chamber."
"Roses!? Let me see them, these...roses...then." he sneered.
So Elizabeth slowly opened her apron...and the roses tumbled out, spilling down her dress and across the paving stones red as, well, as roses; fragrence sweet as love, blooming fresh as life, petals soft as a kiss.
Your National Guard - the Modern Minuteman; Defender of the Homeland, Bulwark of Democracy...
...circa 1992. Try and find the fire direction chief in the middle of this elite strike force. Ahem.
Yikes.
Just...yikes.
Yeah, I know, I haven't forgotten the Rape of Nanking, either. But if you have a moment check these fascinating images of Bakumatsu and Meiji Japan of the 1890s and early 1900s...
...by enigmatic photog Enami Nobukuni. Intriguing glimpses of a world in some ways as vanished as Knossos or Technoctitlan.
Anybody else love "A Hole Is To Dig"?
One of my favorite books from my childhood - a kids book that I actually loved as a kid.
Well, THAT explains a lot...
"Called the “Nice Cup In Bra,” the lingerie consists of a grass-green top that, when removed, conveniently unfurls into a 1.5-meter-long putting mat."
When the user sinks a putt into one of the cups, a built-in speaker pumps out a cry of “Nice shot.”
I know that Japan is a very different culture and all, and that the Japanese have their own ideals of value, but this is...is...it just makes me glad I don't golf.
Is this cool, or what?
Apparently it is, or is going to be, called an "asperatus" cloud, a type of cumulus congestus (I think). Scary looking, neh?
Oh, yah, fail.
Yes, I play videogames with my son.
But not "Grand Theft Auto".
Found this one at The Bins.
I've been reading this on the can and enjoying Fr. Kelly's advice.
My personal fave was his suggestion on your basic can't-miss method of selecting a bride: "There is much to be said for the wisdom of the man who laid a broom across his threshold; the first four women who entered stepped over it. The fifth picked it up, and he married her."
Father, forgive me, but...WTF???
Ooh. Epic fail.
Came across this one sorting out old photo albums.
This is from some damn miniature golf place on the Jersey shore about 20 years ago. That's me on the right with She Who Is Always Known As Pre-Mommy. Kind of sad, this being the highlight of the vacations the six of us used to take in that time. The other truly screwy thing is that all three couples (the husband of the woman on the left is taking the snapshot) are now divorced. Bad luck coming in threes? Poor premarital counseling? Men are assholes?
Who knows.
Odd, nonetheless.
Hmmm. I've heard it said that everything is sexier in Paris.
Seems to be the case.
Bye, now.
I figured it was time to dump out the picture folder and give you a look.
Let's start with this one: it's a hat.
Well. Shit.
I knew we'd overlooked something in the pre-Cana counseling. How do we explain Mom's execution to the kids..?Ah.
Very few actresses - very few women, I daresay - managed the insouciant charm of Audrey Hepburn.This lovely graphic is by someone called "Phobs", whose page over at deviantart has some gorgeous and fascinating - and some truly disturbing - stuff in it.
This is a part of an image that I believe is meant to represent Poland in the 1940s, but looks to me more like the story of St. Elizabeth of Hungary and the roses. Do you know the story?Well, St. Elizabeth, then merely Elizabeth of Thuringa, was taking bread to the poor, in contravention of her stern husband's orders. He suspected her secret charity, and had her watched, but could not catch her in the act of largesse. Finally he managed to apprehend her coming from the castle bakery; he halted her, frowning down at her full apron from which the smell of fresh-baked bread emanated like a good deed in a sinful world.
"What have you there, woman?" he rasped. She replied; "I have been in the garden, lord, and I have cut the roses for my chamber."
"Roses!? Let me see them, these...roses...then." he sneered.
So Elizabeth slowly opened her apron...and the roses tumbled out, spilling down her dress and across the paving stones red as, well, as roses; fragrence sweet as love, blooming fresh as life, petals soft as a kiss.
(Wasn't true, mind you; they tell the same story about some saint in Portugal, and as far as we know Elizabeth's husband was all in favor of her charity.)But it's a wonderful little story, isn't it?
Your National Guard - the Modern Minuteman; Defender of the Homeland, Bulwark of Democracy...
...circa 1992. Try and find the fire direction chief in the middle of this elite strike force. Ahem.Yikes.
Just...yikes.Yeah, I know, I haven't forgotten the Rape of Nanking, either. But if you have a moment check these fascinating images of Bakumatsu and Meiji Japan of the 1890s and early 1900s...
...by enigmatic photog Enami Nobukuni. Intriguing glimpses of a world in some ways as vanished as Knossos or Technoctitlan.Anybody else love "A Hole Is To Dig"?
One of my favorite books from my childhood - a kids book that I actually loved as a kid.Well, THAT explains a lot...
"Called the “Nice Cup In Bra,” the lingerie consists of a grass-green top that, when removed, conveniently unfurls into a 1.5-meter-long putting mat."
When the user sinks a putt into one of the cups, a built-in speaker pumps out a cry of “Nice shot.”
I know that Japan is a very different culture and all, and that the Japanese have their own ideals of value, but this is...is...it just makes me glad I don't golf.Is this cool, or what?
Apparently it is, or is going to be, called an "asperatus" cloud, a type of cumulus congestus (I think). Scary looking, neh?Oh, yah, fail.
Yes, I play videogames with my son. But not "Grand Theft Auto".
Found this one at The Bins.
I've been reading this on the can and enjoying Fr. Kelly's advice.My personal fave was his suggestion on your basic can't-miss method of selecting a bride: "There is much to be said for the wisdom of the man who laid a broom across his threshold; the first four women who entered stepped over it. The fifth picked it up, and he married her."
Father, forgive me, but...WTF???
Ooh. Epic fail.
Came across this one sorting out old photo albums.
This is from some damn miniature golf place on the Jersey shore about 20 years ago. That's me on the right with She Who Is Always Known As Pre-Mommy. Kind of sad, this being the highlight of the vacations the six of us used to take in that time. The other truly screwy thing is that all three couples (the husband of the woman on the left is taking the snapshot) are now divorced. Bad luck coming in threes? Poor premarital counseling? Men are assholes?Who knows.
Odd, nonetheless.
Hmmm. I've heard it said that everything is sexier in Paris.
Seems to be the case.Bye, now.
Saturday, September 12, 2009
The stuff you find on Facebook...
...includes this guy.I'm not sure which is more intriguing; the little story of his peregrination told in the guy's video, or the fact that the Chinese government was OK with this guy wandering all over their fairly secretive country...
(h/t to India, who, aside from being a very hip urban mama caught this on YouTube)
(h/t to India, who, aside from being a very hip urban mama caught this on YouTube)
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