Month: March 2009

Austentatious

I’ve never been a Jane Austen fan. I have no desire to relive the Elizabethian era or glamourise a time where a man in posession of a fortune may be in want of a wife. Unless of course the glorification of said time were a gorification – complete with brain eating zombies. Everybody loves a brain eating zombie romance. It’s what made Shaun of the Dead so appealing. From memory it was marketed as a Rom-Zom-Com – a Romantic Zombie Comedy. 

I was no doubt scarred as a child playing too much “Horror Zombies From the Crypt” (download from abandonia) on the Amiga. 

But what’s all this about zombies you ask? Particularly because I started off talking about Jane Austen. Oh yes. If you would prefer Pride and Prejudice retold with the awesome upgrade package – namely zombies wreaking havoc throughout the plot – now you can. Thanks to ThinkGeek.

March 28, 2009

A bunch of links – March 28, 2009

March 28, 2009

UrbanTrend: Beerdometer

Ever wanted to track how many beers you’ve had. Ever. And how many you’ve doled out to others. Perhaps you’ll need two of these. One for you, and one for your friends.

March 28, 2009

Our daily Fred: Ice is nice

Some ice is nicer. Like ice made in these – click the image for the link.

And if you want an ice cold shot – but don’t want to cram your shot into a shot glass larger than 30mL you might want to try this:

March 28, 2009

A bunch of links – March 27, 2009

March 27, 2009

Invention fail

Being an inventor is such a glamourous career path. Coming up with new and exciting things seems so noble – every one of the products I post here as an inventor or designer.

Sometimes inventions go bad. Sometimes they kill their creator. Here’s a list of people killed by their inventions courtesy of list repository “Listables“…

A couple of my favourite dead inventors…

Franz Reichelt

He invented a parasuit – a parachute in a suit. It didn’t work.

William Bullock
In a bizarre accident, Bullock was killed by his own invention. On April 3, 1867, he was making adjustments to one of his new presses that was being installed for the Philadelphia Public Ledger newspaper. Bullock tried to kick a driving belt onto a pulley. His leg was crushed when it became caught in the machine. After a few days, gangrene set in. On April 12, 1867, Bullock died during an operation to amputate the leg.

And now, some of my favourite lists from listables:

List of words you should never, ever say.

Fonts most used by designers.

List of words only journalists use.

List of words containing the letter x.

March 27, 2009

I believe I can fly

If you’re a mad keen Asterix fan you’ll no doubt want a set of these head phones designed for a Nokia competition. A competition to design Headphones inspired by your favourite song. This guy’s favourite song was I believe I can fly.

Other winning entries are photographed here.

March 27, 2009

Hot plate

Little sister number two suggested I should check out designbloom. I did, but didn’t think much of it. Until another site sent me to these awesome plates that aims to do away with any other cooking appliance. Except perhaps a weather forecasting toaster…

March 27, 2009

Shirt of the day: Invisibility cloak

Anyone who uses Photoshop regularly will no doubt appreciate this novel approach to removing unsightly stains…

The Invisibility Shirt – get yours today – you won’t see them tomorrow…

March 27, 2009

UrbanTrend: Let the word dwell in you

This post will no doubt see me excommunicated by the Southern Baptists. Oh well. I’ll drink to that. From my awesome bible flask.

March 27, 2009

Our daily Fred: eye want candy

If you’re not convinced that Fred and Friends are the producers of the coolest range of product range available on the interwebs then maybe you should take a lolly from this bag jar, and sit back. They just get cooler from here.

But all that lolly munching will be costly to your teeth – so you’ll need to go to the dentist. Who’ll no doubt be storing their own stash in something as innocuous as this… sweet tooth.

March 27, 2009

A bunch of links – March 26, 2009

March 26, 2009

Mr DEEDs

The Bligh Government has just released its new public service structure. They’re “streamlining” 23 departments. One super department is the Department of Employment and Economic Development. Which will no doubt become DEED. Andrew Fraser as minister for that department will from now on, in these here parts, be referred to as Mr DEEDs.

That is all.

March 26, 2009

You can take the girl out of the country

But as it turns out – you can’t take the “ladette” out of the girl. Despite what TV might attempt to teach you.

We watch Ladette to Lady. It continues to be one of my wife’s favourite programs… so we watched the reunion special the other night. What we didn’t see – but what those staying at the hotel the girls were reunited to did – was this:

“A hotel source confirms the ladettes drew at least a dozen complaints after having a topless romp in the hotel swimming pool at 1.30am, throwing objects from windows and trashing a hotel room, resulting in a cleaning bill worth several hundred dollars. “

The SMH story also demonstrates that the Herald’s sub editing department has an issue captioning people with just their first names… see below

The Australian Ladettes ... students (from left to right) Nicole Skye, Emily Krisyn, Bianca Maria, Sarah Zoe, in class with teacher Mrs Liz Brewer.

The Australian Ladettes ... students (from left to right) Nicole Skye, Emily Krisyn, Bianca Maria, Sarah Zoe, in class with teacher Mrs Liz Brewer.

March 26, 2009

Adventures in TV

We caught Lawrence Leung’s Choose Your Own Adventure last night on the ABC (post Gruen Transfer). It made me laugh until I cried. It’s Safranesque – and produced by the Chaser team.

If you missed it you can watch it here thanks to the magic of iView.

Very funny. I’ll never be able to pick up a copy of the Queensland Presbyterian newspaper, New Directions, again without catching subliminal messages.

One of my favourite bits was when his mum told him what he was doing (trying to track down the object of his grade 3 affections) was creepy.

Here’s the trailer. It uses lego. He’s also a Rubiks Cube master. And used that to get a girl’s phone number. Chicks dig guys with skillz.

March 26, 2009