Paul, the wine guy, presents his Flickr set Understanding art for geeks. My first impression was a big shock, and I asked to my buttons: what the hell? After three of four images, my artsy side went to walk and my geek side started laughing of the hilarious (explantions) combinations. Paul explains classic paintings using (classic) expressions and commands of geek knowledge. He chose a classic Napoleon by Jacques-Louis David for All Your base are belong to us, a Gerard Dou painting for RTFM, Second Life explaining Hieronymus Bosch's "The Garden of Earthly Delights", and there it goes. (via MetaFilter)
GAME OVER is a brilliant video performance project created by the Swiss artist Guillaume Reymond, using stop-motion (pixelation) technique to visually reproduce classic arcade games, pixel by pixel.
It consists of a series of collaborative animation movies which revive some of the very first video games. The pixels are replaced by a group of real human-beings that are moving from seat to seat in a theatre during about 4 to 6 hours. Each "pixel" has its own rules and decides what s/he wants to do for each picture. Once all these pictures are turned into a short animation movie, a giant human-scale video game unfolds "live".
The project started with video performance of Pong. The second video was Space Invaders on June 24th 2006, followed by Pole Position on February 11th 2007, and Tetris on November 24th 2007. The videos demanded a lot of time to be shoted, planned, and the result is great. However, two more reasons to watch them: the special effects and the soundtrack all made with voices only. Watch Tetris bellow.
The Spanish blog Recortables shares papercraft models with political criticism, created by Sento Llobell, comics illustrator, and Toni Vaca, "speciallist on wasting time". There are papercraft caricatures of George W. Bush - El Carnicero Global, the king of Spain Juan Carlos I - El Campechano, Bin Laden - Ex-guerrero de la C.I.A., the pope Bendicto XVI and few others.They are available to download directly, as zip archive, or using eMule. (via Paper Forest)
The animated short film No Quarter it's a light-hearted comedic view on the devastating consequences of overwhelming greed. The animation, by Mike Trent, was created as his conclusion project for 3D Animation program at Vancouver Film School. I enjoyed very much the aesthetic, including the colours, the characters and the humour presented on it; all those elements help to create an old-time atmosphere. (via CGTalk)
Posted by Bibi on January 16, 2008 10:57 PM in Animation, Fun, Fun||
Doug Savage is known for his humorous cartoons Savage Chickens drawn on post-its. The Savage Chickens is daily cartoon with an acid humour, and for your enjoyment has a feed available. And I must say that just now I've got a decent attitude to subscribe to it (yes, I know, I should do it before).
The sometimes-slow-creature-here noticed this neat cartoon due to Doug Savage had won the Laura Veirs and Saltbreakers music video contest. The stop-motion video was made to the song "Phantom Mountain". The contest rules were simple: made a videoclip for any of their songs and send it until August 31th. He tells about his video experience on the page Behind the Scenes. Some of the Phantom Mountain Fun Facts:
There are about 500 sticky notes in the video, including a butterfly and 4 or 5 stunt butterflies.
There are over 1500 photos in the video. I used a digital camera on a tripod, which I had to sort of crouch over. My back was killing me!
I drew so many cartoons that I actually developed a callus on the inside of my left thumb from drawing too much. Towards the end, I had to get up and shake out my arm every few minutes.
The old clock radio on the table used to belong to my great-grandmother.
And finally, the winner music video bellow (3 min). Great work.(via Koreus)
Once more it's time to celebrate the International Talk Like a Pirate Day. And I will do it on my way, sharing links, since I don't have any pirate costume.
Catster and Dogster users are also participating of this special day, submitting the pictures of their furry fellows dressed as pirates, with the tag "pirate", on Dogster and Catster.
Post Like a Pirate is a pirate translator which also posts directly on Twitter, Myspace or send by email the translated text.
Réunion de piratesses: a collection of illustrations created by several artists to a contest created by the French illustrator Delfine, on her blog, which theme was "fille de pirate" (daughter of pirate). Take a look at the illustrations and on the Hors concours illustration of the contest if you speak French.
The Pirate Pin UpArrr Mates, the Sexiest Pirate Pinups 'n the Seven Seas. Sexy picturs of pin-up dressed as pirates, or something like that. The picture on the top is from one of those girls, Molly Roger.
The YouTube profile Offcial Wench hosts 23 videos of Cap'n Slappy and Ol' Chumbucket. The last video added, Pirates of the Burning Sea, introduces the video game, "Pirates of the Burning Sea" for the release party in Seattle, Washington on September 19th. You can watch their video Pirates And Ninjas bellow.
Pictures of The Pirate zombie pin-up model. As a good pirate she has a parrot.
Musicotherapie is a funny schizophrenic French animation presenting the director of a mental institute neurotic with all kind of noises. To make it worse, the insane patients start to compose a music with noises and fuss in the kitchen. This very well done short-film was realised by Amaël Isnard, Manuel Javelle and Clément Picon, students of SupInfoCom Arles. The film music (and noises) was composed by Nicolas Baloche and Benjamin Fournier, FX Musik - Tambour Battant. (via NicoSite)
A suggestion of blog to subscribe: Gribouillblog, the illustration blog of Marie Margo. The posts, with pretty illustrations and cartoon sequences, about events and quotidian situations, are quite funny. But some French is required.
After the Bunny Suicides, comes the Monkey Suicide. It's present with those words: This site is all about monkeys. In sticky situations... That's true. I would also said it's about monkey toys and black humour, the one I like. Until now 205 monkey were sacrificed. Help to increase this number uploading your monkey picture. (BB-Blog)
There are directors that like to say that remakes are homages. My experience shows that those "homages" are a way to spoil the memory of a good film, in general. A few cases are exceptions. Nosferatu: Phantom der Nacht and Shadow of the Vampire are good examples of what a remake or a homage film should be - both for the same film, Nosferatu. Another example of homages is parodies. I think parodies are usually better than usual remakes, presumably because they don't take themselves too seriously.
I also enjoy when the director pay a "small" homage to a classic in a scene, specially when the reference is subtle. This isn't the case of The Battleship Potemkin. The Odessa Steps sequence is one of the most reverenced sequences in the film history. That wonderful scene was re-enacted several times, in almost every gender of film, and that made it so well known to us. Unfortunately, that's also the reason why it loses its effect when quoted.
All this talk of scenes, homages and parodies is but a way to introduce a hilarious film: De Düva, also known as The Dove. Don't be fooled by the title: it sounds Swedish, and "duva" really does mean "dove / pigeon" in Swedish. However, it's an American film. The film, directed by George Coe and Anthony Lover in 1968, was all made to look like a Bergman's film. It's a brilliant parody with strong references to The Seventh Seal (Det Sjunde Insegletand) and Wild Strawberries (Smultronstället).
The film is silly and fantastic. It has the tabus, which Bergman masterfully worked; it has a joke with the chess match scene from The Seventh Seal; it starts like the Wild Strawberries; the mise en scène looks like a film directed by Bergman; and it sounds Swedish. I bet the screenwriter had a lot of fun making up words.
The dialogue, seemingly in Swedish, is actually a Swedish-accented fictional language based on English, German, Latin, and Swedish, with most nouns ending in "ska".
That's probably what makes it so funny and why I highly recommend it. The quality of the video on-line isn't the best, but since the video is rare and isn't available in DVD, it is worth it. Madeline Kahn, better known for her films with Mel Brooks, made her debut in the cinema with this film. Watch it below, or at Videos with Bibi (bigger video image), or directly at Google Video. (14 min)
Posted by Bibi on July 28, 2007 08:53 PM in Cinema, Fun, Fun, Video||
How pretty or cool is the not found page of your blog / site? I'm ashamed of the layout of 404 pages of my blogs: they are boring normal. I wanted some funny image, as the several images collected by 404lounge.net. The gallery has almost four hundred screenshots the most funkiest, freakiest and funniest examples 404 pages.That's just the begining.
The 404 Research Lab has a huge collection of links to 404 pages divided by category and themes. There are no screenshots, but they worth the visit, at least the categories I checked. They also have: a do-it-yourself 404 tutorial, with good reasons to build it and step by step with the technical information; pages with tips to fix your pages with errors;news; and the history of 404.
There are posts that need a special moment to be written. This is one of those: that's the moment.The last video uploaded at TED is a hilarious presentation by the storyteller, writer and slam poet Rives called "Is 4 a.m. the new midnight? Enjoy the next eight delightful minutes.
Folding history into a series of coincidences surrounding that most surreal of hours, 4 o'clock in the morning. This elusive hour, both very late and very early, appears often in art in literature as a way to describe the most extreme states of affairs. Rives -- aided by a nimble mind and extensive online research -- reveals 4 a.m. as an iconic moment, drawing hilarious historical connections.
It's Sunday - a not blogging day, almost lunch time and I'm tired, just because I had been blogging since yesterday. I'm going to have a break to sleep, and maybe enjoy the rest of this sunny day. However, I have more links of silly stuff to keep you busy:
- I Want One Of Those is selling the perfect gift to some of my friends: a RoboGirlfriend. "She" cames in three models: Jolie, with a large assortment of 'babies' (activation optional), Ritchie - a smaller model designed for easy storage, or for the vertically-challenged human boyfriends, and Spears - features a number of pre-recorded dance routines, ideal for lovers of the club scene.
- MAKE: Blog announced they have decided to relocated the offices from California to Easter Island. The post Easter Island here we come! explains the idea and shows the cover of the new magazine edition.
- Yahoo!'s Yodel Anecdotal announced a new initiative that explores America’s fringe cultures with reporting brought to life with original songs and music: Yahoo! Underground. With videos, photos, slideshows, and blog posts about the world of the weird, the strangely compelling, the land of “who are these people?”
Wow, Google announced two new services today. Google TiSP, a free in-home wireless broadband service, and Gmail Paper. At the Official Google Blog there is a brief note about Google TiSP, also called "Project Teaspoon". A Press Release of it is available at the Google Press Center, but the page of the product have all the information you need it, including the explanation of How TiSP Works with images and a FAQ. And in case of any doubt, contact the Google TiSP Groups.
How can Google offer this service for free?
We believe that all users deserve free, fast and sanitary online access. To offset the cost of providing the TiSP service, we use information gathered by discreet DNA sequencing of your personal bodily output to display online ads that are contextually relevant to your culinary preferences, current health status and likelihood of developing particular medical conditions going forward. Google also offers premium levels of service for a monthly fee
The second great news from Google came from Gmail. They developed the free service Gmail Paper, to you receive in paper all your e-mails, including the photo attachments, which will be printed on high-quality, glossy photo paper.There is no limit and no environment problem, because Gmail Paper is made out of 96% post-consumer organic soybean sputum, and thus, actually helps the environment. Now you just need to find some space to archive your Gmail Paper.
PS.: I have one question: Google Writer is a joke too, right? It doesn't sound real, but they didn't classified as April Fools Day.
For many times I said to Chris, from Cynical-C Blog, to change the layout of his blog, because it looks too much a guy's blog. He never gave much attention to my words and kept the guy-not-coloured-layout. Maybe the problem was that he was afraid of the final result of a cute layout with his blog content.
Chris, you don't need to worry any more. With this new cool tool called Mashup Reader I created a Cynical-box blog. I also try a mix of the content of this blog with Cynical-c style, but the result of that Cynical Bibi wasn't so good, as I imagined.
That's a good way to test somebody else's layout or your favourite site's layout with your blog's content before you stole borrow its layout. Mashup Reader is invented as a brand-new RSS feed reader to mashup blogs in a smarter way. Don't wait: go try it now, because the service will close in April 1 24:00 GMT.
The fantastic on-line geek store ThinkGeek has a tradition to release their most incredible products at April 1st. I remember when they showed for the first time the PC EZ-Bake Oven to make tiny cakes while you are using the computer, the Fundue, a desktop USB Fondue Set and Buzzaire - Metered Dose Caffeine Inhaler, that would be perfect now.
This year they highlighted seven new products: The ThinkGeek WiiHelm to fit your Wii control and let you hands free to eat cereal while you play - with a very illustrative video-; The ThinkGeek 8-bit Tie, to all the guys that miss the 8-Bit video games; a set of Piranhaz - R/C Battle Fish, with two battle fish, equipped with their own laser cannon; SurgeStix - Inhalable Caffeine Stix, a kind of cigarette with coffee in the tobacco's place; and the damn useful The Lonely Guy Dream Vacation Digital Photo Frame, all you need to make your friends stop to encouraging you to take a vacation.
My honourable mention goes to two of them. The first is the SnūzNLūz, a Wifi Donation Alarm Clock, is brilliant. It connects via WiFi to your online bank account, and donates YOUR real money to an organization you HATE when you decide to snooze! That's what I call a very efficient alarm clock, that deeply motivates you to wake up. The tagline says everything: Wake up to the smell of...Animosity...
And the second honourable gadget is the Vilcus Plug Dactyloadapter, which allows anyone to quickly and easily test the working condition of any wall socket. Really useful and it's much easy than try the kids technique - search for things that could fit at the wall socket. This ingenious product was developed by the Russian design studio Art Lebedev specially to ThinkGeek customers enjoy the health benefits of finger contact with high-voltage electricity.
Check also the other amazing products announced by Think Geekthrough the years. BTW, I made a screenshot of their main page in the case of some of you miss it at April Fool's Day.
The winners of AniBOOM Awards 2006 were announced weeks ago. Among the 1,700 entries from 70 countries submitted to the contest there are many so-so works and there are also some little pearls that worth the visit. A good way to start exploring the site is checking the winners:
- Beton by Ariel Belinco and Michael Faust won the prize for best drama. The day to day life of a military world is disturbed by the appearance of a black kite behind its high walls. The army annoyed by the existence of this kite in its clear blue sky, decides to solve the problem. It's brilliant.
- Chaos Theory by Conspiracy was the winner in the experimental category. "One Constant Remains." An up-tempo, high-energy journey through various representations of entropy - all compressed into a 64 kilobyte executable.
- Mr. Fortune by Eric Lerner won in the category Music Videos. It's another beautiful day in the life of Mr. Fortune, an example to us all of how to live a zen existence. With music by Ariel Einfeld, Eric Lerner used the 3D animating program Maya together with Digital Video.
- The Grand Prize went to the excellent silhouette style animation Bendito Machine by Jossie Malis. It's a modern tale about power, religion, sex and money.
- The winner for the category funny was Humans! by Three Legged Legs. I talked about it before, but it's never enough say that it's a wonderful animation.It's a 60 second global awareness PSA sensationalizing the excessive, all-consuming nature of the human being. This cute and naïve Earth stands no chance against such an insatiable parasite. Witness its utter demise in a fun and sickening kind of way.
- They had also curious category named crapy, which winner was Back In Bush!, a parody of AC/DC's "Back in Black" by Anita Drieseberg. Rock on with George Bush and lead guitarist Dickie C as they try for a record THIRD term in office! Don't underestimate it, it's really nice if you don't agree with Bush's politics.
The Angry Alien bunnies attacked again. This time the "victim" was the last two Spider-Man films with Tobey Maguire as the main character. Maguire is good, but not so good as the bunnies that had only 30 seconds to re-enact Spiderman. As usual, it's hilarious and very well done. That's a good motivation to watch the films again and the trailer of Spider-Man 3, while you wait for it.
Cat to Exit: a crazy 3D animation feature by an orange cat the stole the fish of table of two old Japanese.
Chimpanzee Washing Cat: a vintage video of a Chimpanzee using a towel to clean a Siamese cat. If that was my Siamese cat, the monkey wouldn't survive so long.
Couscous the Cat: A sleazy cat on the prowl faces a new reality after he has been de-sexed.
From ExpertVillage, Cat Training & Obedience Techniques: twelve short videos with tips to try to train your cat. I watched all and discovered that the techniques just will work better if you start soon with your cat, as a kitty. This means that almost nothing can help me anymore.
NBC's Saturday Night Live: Laser Cats. There are two things that everyone loves, cats and lasers!
The Dirty Birdy: an annoying crazy bird, Purdy, fall in love for a blue cat, Fergurina, and do everything to get her attention. Non-sense funny animation with cartoon violence. (Uploaded by Nicosite)
Red Tango is a neat short animation with two cats dancing. Animation by Scotty Arsenault, to the site of his friend Cynthia Petrovic, that also directed it. BTW, don't miss her beautiful illustrations of cats.
Wiskas Russian Ad: a nice commercial of a cat walking in the snow. Just this.
