Grease Paint - Literally!

What Happens to My Garbage?

From Mother Jones: Reporters Josh Harkinson and Alexandra Bezdikian follow garbage through the process from garbage can to pick up to the dump. Well worth the 4-minute view!

Wow! 100 Best Movie Lines in 200 Seconds

Surfing for Seniors!

The title says it all.

Latest I'm a PC Commercial

Remember This 3-D Sidewalk Art?

This street art from artist, Edgar Müller, was passed around in e-mails ages ago.

Here's a stop-motion film made of the production of one of his pieces - The Crevasse - at the Annual Festival of World Culture held in Ireland in August 2008.

Mr. T for Mother's Day

Don't Want to Call Mom on Mothers' Day? Outsource It!

Worst Hospital Food in the World

If you weren't sick when you went in, you'll certainly be sick after trying to survive on the food they serve you in these hospitals. A running collection of pictures taken of the worst food from hospitals all over the world.

All About Capitalism

This Cold War-era cartoon uses humor to tout the dangers of Communism and the benefits of capitalism. An early piece from Hanna-Barbera and produced by John Sutherland.

Best Way to Get Rid of a Nigerian Scammer

Proof that Cell Phone Companies are Evil

Kids - don't try this at home!

Horse Legs from Seattle

An idea that started at Kim Graham Studios in Seattle as an art project and started selling beyond their wildest expectations. Just how many horse-people are there out there?

Friday Distraction

This is one cool site with great coding!

Sweet Rendition of Stand by Me

How to Make a Baby

My Last Day Working at Home Depot

Manly Chest Gear

Always wanted a hairy chest? Get your own without having to grow one - complete with gold chain! The hairy bib was a promotion for an Australian lemon soft drink from Cadbury-Schweppes.

Incredible Slo-Mo

What you can do with a 1000 frames-per-second video camera played back in slow motion.


I-Movix SprintCam v3 NAB 2009 showreel from David Coiffier on Vimeo.

Here is the first SprintCam v3 showreel, made for NAB 2009 exhibition.

Mostly 1000FPS shots, made during a recent rubgy competition in the Stade de France, Paris.

Your Life in 3 Minutes

Donuts for Cops

Only in LA - don't try this at home, kids!

The Earth When Reduced to 100 People

There have been a lot of variations on this theme of taking the world's current population and reducing it down to a small number to show the various proportions: Races, religions, gender. The Miniature Earth project recently created a short video clip that depicts the world population as 100 people.

World's Coolest Flight Attendant

While I will personally never, ever fly Southworst again, this flight attendant does deserve the title of World's Coolest:

South Park: How Banks Work

World's Worst Job?

Check out this slideshow on The London Telegraph's site HERE. Nasty.

AIG Commercials: Old vs. New

Wall Street Finance 101: What the Hell are Derivatives?

Heidi is the proprietor of a bar in Seattle. In order to increase sales, she decides to allow her loyal customers - most of whom are unemployed alcoholics - to drink now, but pay later. She keeps track of the drinks consumed on a ledger (thereby granting the customers loans).

 

Word gets around about Heidi's drink-now-pay-later marketing strategy and as a result, increasing numbers of customers flood into Heidi's bar and soon she has the largest sale volume for any bar in Seattle.

 

By providing her customers' freedom from immediate payment demands, Heidi gets no resistance when she substantially increases her prices for wine and beer, the most consumed beverages. Her sales volume increases massively.

 

A young and dynamic vice-president at the local bank recognizes these customer debts as valuable future assets and increases Heidi's borrowing limit. He sees no reason for undue concern since he has the debts of the alcoholics as collateral.

 

At the bank's corporate headquarters, expert traders transform these customer loans into DRINKBONDS, ALKIBONDS and PUKEBONDS. These securities are then traded on security markets worldwide. Naive investors don't really understand the securities being sold to them as AAA secured bonds are really the debts of unemployed alcoholics.

Nevertheless, their prices continuously climb and the securities become the top-selling items for some of the nation's leading brokerage houses.

 

One day, although the bond prices are still climbing, a risk manager at the bank (subsequently fired due to his negativity), decides that the time has come to demand payment on the debts incurred by the drinkers at Heidi's bar.

 

Heidi demands payment from her alcoholic patrons, but being unemployed, they cannot pay back their drinking debts. Therefore, Heidi cannot fulfill her loan obligations and files bankruptcy.

 

DRINKBONDS and ALKIBONDS drop in price by 90%. PUKEBONDS perform better, stabilizing in price after dropping by 80%. The decreased bond asset value destroys the bank's liquidity and prevents it from issuing new loans.

 

The suppliers of Heidi's bar - having granted her generous payment extensions and having invested in the securities - are faced with writing off her debt and losing over 80% on her bonds. Her wine supplier files bankruptcy and her beer supplier is taken over by a competitor who immediately closes the local plant and lays off 50 workers.

 

The bank and brokerage houses are saved by the Government following dramatic round-the-clock negotiations by leaders from both political parties. The funds required for this bailout are obtained by a tax levied on employed middle-class non-drinkers.

 

Finally, an explanation I understand.

X-Ray Art

I remember moving into a huge house with a couple of friends in downtown Toronto in the late 60's. The three-storey house apparently belonged to a doctor who lived there with his famil and ran his practice downstairs. We spent a lot of time exploring this place and among the cool stuff left behind (we never found out what happened to the good doctor and his family) was an old fluoroscope machine. It became a source of amusement for many a party, much like those old x-ray machines that they used to have in shoe stores that allowed Mom to see if your shoes were too tight. That is, until they discovered that too much x-ray exposure was bad for you!

Artist Satre Stuelke created a series of eerie images of everyday items using a CAT scan: food, toys, you name it. Check out his site HERE. Below? A McDonald's Filet-o-Fish Sandwich (WITH sauce, of course!).

One for the Boomers

Incredible Stop-Motion Film Technique

Bathtub IV from Keith Loutit on Vimeo.

One Cool Clock

From the description on YouTube:

The Corpus Clock has been invented and designed by Dr John Taylor for Corpus Christi College Cambridge for the exterior of the college's new library building.

It will be unveiled on 19 September by Prof Stephen Hawking, cosmologist and author of the global bestseller, A Brief History of Time.

The £1 million timepiece, known as The Corpus Clock, has been commissioned and designed to honour the John Harrison, who was famously the pioneer of Longitude and inventor of the esoteric clock mechanism known as a grasshopper escapement.

The clock has been designed by the inventor and horologist Dr John Taylor and makes ingenious use of the grasshopper escapement, moving it from the inside of the clock to the outside and refashioning it as a Chronophage, or time-eater, which literally devours time.

For more information, log on to http://www.corpusclock.co.uk

Panorama Collection

Remember that panorama of Obama's Inauguration Day? Here's one of the best collections of 360 panorama shots online at 360cities. My favorite? The coral reef view HERE. Wow!

What a Way to Take a Dump!

Georgia MAX Coffee decided to take a different approach to promote their brand of coffee at ski resorts in Japan. This is what I call participatory advertising! Read more about it HERE on the Ideas Search Engine.

Another Money-Saving IKEA Idea

With the recent troubles of North America's Big Three automakers, Ikea has announced that it will begin selling cars at a discount. Here's a picture from their latest catalog:



















Of course, some assembly will be required but all tools will be included in the packaging:

Steve Wozniak - Dancing with the Stars

OK - I promise this will be the first AND last time I ever post one of these video clips here. I personally NEVER watch these shows - ever. But this one was special and so bad, everyone needed to see it. Woz - don't quit your day job. Geeks can't dance...



Don't know how long this one will stay up on YouTube.

Nationalized CitiBank Commercial (NSFW)

Don't Throw Away that Old VCR Yet!

Cornstarch on a Speaker

Practice makes Perfect

All I can say is OMFG! And yes - it's really what you THINK it is!

Check out the entire web page to see what simulation-practice-gone wild looks like. And you gotta wonder how many of these are actually sold to hospitals and clinics for practice.

What Kind of Survivor Are You?

Want to know just what kind of a survivor you are? Can you make it out of the most dire of situations? Check out the Survivors Club. And the book by Ben Sherwood is now available on Amazon.

FreeCreditReport.com Spoof

The History of Outhouses

The Uncler: Parody of The Wrestler

Hemlock CGI Short

A fantastic short CGI piece by Tyson Ibele for a competition:

Over 200,000 Hits on YouTube and Still Counting

A Chinese woman has a hissy fit at Hong Kong International Airport after realizing she's missed her flight. Posted just a couple of days ago and already moving into the YouTube Hall of Shame. If this was in the States, Homeland Security would have had her sorry ass in cuffs and hauled off to a back room already.

(Maybe it's just as well we don't have captioning on this video!)

Dancing 101 for Guys Who Don't Dance

In keeping with my 'Chinese Guys Don't Dance' argument, here's a funny and short 5-minute Dance Moves: An Emergency Guide For Men as shown on VideoJug (as much tongue-in-cheek as it is informative). Hilarious!

And Now... Chad after Dentist

OMG When will it all end? Ha Ha Ha!

Beer Bottle Dominos

College students with too much time on their hands...

Crazy Chihuahua

Saw this on America's Funniest Home Videos - the couple won the $10,000 prize for the week and now have a shot for the Grand Prize. Hilarious - hope they win!

Now Christian Bale Takes David to the Dentist

The Commercial They Wouldn't Run on Super Bowl

In case you missed it.

How to Annoy a Telemarketer Parts I & II

Adobe's Creative License

Some very cool coding on this Adobe Demo site HERE. Just drag the slider to get different effect with the cards.

Kid on Drugs: Parts I & II

The live version and the animated followup:

The King: Best of the Best

Forget the idiot selling that ShamWow crap. This guy was The Master:

Time Lapse of a 9-Month Old Playing with His Toys

Why America is Really Not a Democracy

If you don't watch another YouTube video post this year, this 10-minute civics lesson is absolutely the best overview I've seen on governments in general and the American system in particular. A must-watch for everyone, young and old. Almost everyone will learn something new from it.

Today's Headlines

Check out Newseum to see the daily front page headlines from anywhere in the world. Some nice Flash coding!

44 Presidents from Washington to Obama

Tired of Paying $1 for 411 on Your Cell Phone?

This one's been around since 2007 but a lot of folks still aren't aware of Google's free 411 information service. I'm like the rest of you: Sick and tired of those ridiculous fees for calling your cell phone carrier's Directory Assistance service to find a number. Of course, they try to justify it by connecting your call directly for you so you don't have to look down at your phone (like you not supposed to while driving - you know who you are!). Anyway, Google added this service in the Fall of 2007 and it's been very successful because it works! I've had this added to my Speed Dial numbers (1-800-466-4411) for quite a while and I have no idea how much money it's saved me so far.

The Black Hole

Mexican Wrestling

Sponsor an Executive

From The Onion: Lazy Nation Fears Obama Will Create Millions of Jobs

Cool Use for Computers

I'm impressed. The BBC just used a flight simulator program to create a pilot's view video of US Airways Flight 1549 over the Hudson River in New York last week. This is worth the 2 minutes to watch it! Click HERE to get to the BBC video.

650 Million Years In 1:20 min

650 Million Years In 1:20 min

You're Not So Special

Wow! At last someone is bringing out some great, balanced parenting advice! The folks over at JuiceBoxJungle are producing some common sense ideas and videos on balanced parenting. I've long been against the commonly held notion that you have to praise and reward every little thing a kid does just to make them feel good for a moment while not doling out appropriate punishment when they've done something bad. Or rewarding real accomplishments. All you have to do these days is look around at some of the younger generation around us to see the Unintended Consequences.

Clueless ditzes cutting everyone off on the road without a hint of remorse or even any appreciation of what it is they've done - all while driving down the road putting on makeup and texting while they're driving. Idiots arguing with you over trivial points of view that would even make sense to a 6-year old. And my most common retort has always been, "Just because your Mommy told you how smart you were doesn't mean it's true!" (And my all-time favorite: "Just because your Daddy called you Son doesn't mean you're bright!")

Unfortunately, it's not a joke. (One of my favorite comedies of recent times is Idiocracy. My girlfriend hates it but I love the prophetic message.)



A lot of parents today seem to have been brought up praised to death and enabled to believe they can do anything they want. Anything. All without any thought of how it might affect anyone else or even what the consequences might be. And now these people have children. OMFG! Heaven help us!

We've watered our society down to new lows after decades of praising slow kids at the expense of smart kids and now we're seeing the results of those actions. In some ways, the old Soviet Socialist way of testing kids early in school to determine their place in life made some sense. "Young Comrade - your tests tell us you're best suited to be a garbage collector. So that's how we're going to educate you." Let's face it - not every kid can grow up to be a rocket scientist. While we sure don't want to lose that one little Einstein coming up through the system, imagine a kid with an average IQ constantly being groomed as the smartest kid in the world. And of course, his teachers in the school system won't tell him either because they don't want to look bad. But then the kid grows up with low self-esteem and goes postal one day and no one knows why... So we've built a system with little praise for real smarts and advancement while dumbing it all down for the lowest common denominator just to make sure little Johnny never feels stupid. Small wonder a lot of our kids can't read or spell or even make change at McDonalds!

That said, in many ways, some things haven't changed much over the years. It wasn't cool to be smart when I went to school either. You couldn't be too smart or you couldn't hang out with the cool kids. It was a whole, new world when the tech revolution finally happened in the 80's!

Anyway, you get my point. With that, here's an aptly titled 4-minute video from the good folks at JuiceBoxJungle:

For Friday: The Bailout Game

The Longest List of Worst Tech Support Calls

Every once in a while, I get another e-mail with a list of stupid tech support calls. Here's a loo-ong list of the Best of the Worst (probably the biggest collection I've found so far).

What Recession? Japanese Wagyu Beef at Costco

Want to really ring in the New Year? How about 15 pounds of USDA A5 Grade Japanese Wagyu Beef from Costco for a mere $2299.99! While you're at it, check out the vintage Dom Perignon at Costco.

An Oldie but Goodie - New and Improved

I still remember seeing this flash-coded spider-on-a-map site many years ago and spending a little too much time entranced by it. So it looks like they've updated it with a whole bunch of features that include being able to change the color, size and shape of the spider. Check out the site HERE and take him out for a drag!

You Think It's Cold Where YOU Are?

How about Condition 1 at the US McMurdo Station down in Antarctica? (Conditon 3 is considered Normal. Condition 2 is Not So Nice. So you KNOW what Condition 1's gotta be!)

A New Approach to Search

Just watched the cool, new Knowledge Generation Bureau commercial (KGB - get it?) and really enjoyed it. They take a multiple option approach to search and it looks like they just might get a bit of traction if they can pique enough interest. Check out the commercial below the splash page. If their product is as cool and witty as their commercials, they just might carve out a decent niche ("The one on the right's Shinola!" Ha!)

Charles Barkley is Such an Asshole

Well, we've now all seen a lot of the latest drunk driving stuff on Charles Barkley and I don't think a lot of us are especially surprised. So I'm watching IFC this morning and they're showing a documentary from 2004, The Year of the Mao, about Yao Ming's crazy first year in the NBA as their first Chinese player. It wasn't easy for this 6-foot 10-inch rookie to adapt not only to the game but to the American way of life. And he could barely speak English when he first arrived.

The initial skepticism and some of the racism didn't let up for quite a while until he started to find his groove. And even in the documentary, the subtle and often not-so-subtle racism comes through, especially from many of the black players and commentators. Especially Charles Barkley.

So I watched with delight when Barkley lost his bet to Kenny Smith. He bet that Yao Ming would never, ever score 19 points in a game. The bet? He'd kiss Kenny Smith's ass. And of course, it's all up on YouTube. Heh Heh Heh.

I'm Speechless

I post a lot of funny and wacky stuff on this blog. And most of it comes from one of my numerous e-mail accounts. But moments ago, I got this e-mail from my son at work and I'm sitting here quietly savoring it:

"I went to Pike Place Market for lunch today with some people from work, and I found a wallet on the stairs in Post Alley. The wallet had her ID, credit cards, cash and some other stuff but nothing with her phone number on it and it made me feel kind of guilty for going through somebody else's stuff.

I looked her up in the White Pages online, but her number was unlisted. I called the police station asking what to do and to see if anyone had reported it missing. The police apparently don't keep track of such things and told me to either drop it off at the police station or try to get in contact with them myself! I thanked them and said I'd probably just try writing them a letter since I had her ID with her address on it.

At this point, I noticed that the American Express card was for a business account so I Googled the business name. I knew I had the right company since under contact info on their site, she was listed as the founder. I called the business up, she answered and I gave her directions to get to my work. She was really happy and surprised to get her wallet back with all her credit cards, ID, and cash still in it. I tried to turn her down for a tip but she was really insistent on giving me $5 for a latte."

His e-mail speaks for itself.

Who's Smokin'?

A great interactive graphic showing a state-by-state comparison on how many people smoke in each state as well as details such as the cost of a pack of smokes on GoodMagazine.com.

Flooding in Chehalis Video Jan. 8, 2009

Fortunately, those of us in Bellevue and most of Seattle didn't see much flooding... yet!

And for my Environmentalist Friends in the New Year

What Cats Really Do When You're Sleeping

Happy New Year!