Two shirts today folks. Variations on a theme if you will. A comic book theme. Featuring every single type of comic book character known to man. An encyclopedia of comic book media…
The good guys…
and the bad guys…
Both from Threadless.
This runner up (also from Threadless) features famous authors. 20 of them. Can you name any?
I’ve mentioned GraphJam before. It’s a fun site. It has funny graphs. Now it has a graph that I made. I’m unsure whether I think it’s funny or not. Making graphs for GraphJam proved to be particularly easy. You can do it here. If you do, and send me a copy, I’ll post it under mine. We’ll have a GraphJam jam. If you made a graph about jam we could have a jam GraphJam jam.
Ok, ok, so I might be going overboard with my enthusiasm on the Simon and Garfunkel reunion – but humour me. A toll road is not a bridge. But it’s close.
Have you heard the story about Nick Bolton. He’s the shareholder threatening progress on Australia’s biggest infrastructure project.
Nicholas Bolton - From the SMH
Not to be deterred – or overly concerned about the looming $94 million payment he’ll have to make – Nick is trying to close down the company. He’s almost a majority shareholder – and there are others who are in the same boat.
He’s currently in court. It’s a funny story. Shame he doesn’t listen to Muse. Their lyrics may prove prophetic in his case. Ahh Muse. They’ve got a song for all seasons…
“take, take all you need
and i’ll compensate your greed
with broken hearts…”“Say, it’ll make you insane
and it’s bending the truth
you’re to blame
for all the life that you’ll lose and
you watch this space
but i’m going all the way
and be your slave to the grave”
– Lyrics from The Small Print, by Muse
Bombs can be beautiful. They’re design is often streamlined for aerodynamic purposes which creates a certain aesthetic value. They often feature nice curves, and the symmetrical wings on their tails are a designer’s dream. Perhaps. Isn’t it a shame they’re used for such destructive purposes. Those peaceniks reading this should buy one of these vases to really make a statement.
The armamentophiles (my new term for people who like armaments) out there should buy them to complete the World War II chic decorating theme they’re going for in the bathroom with these – and these beautiful stickers. Bombs away.
It’s 70’s reunion week this week. Apparently. Two of the best duos to come out of the 60s and 70’s (who also both split somewhat acrimoniously) have reformed recently and both have just announced tours of Australia.
Both these duos have been seminal influences on my taste in comedy and music, and musical comedy.
Cheech and Chong – everybody’s favourite stoners – are coming out of semi-retirement for a series of stand up dates around Australia.
And perhaps more importantly – and much more excitingly – Simon and Garfunkel will be touring Australia later this year. They’re playing a show in Brisbane (and a few others around the country) that will no doubt sell out instantly and be exorbitantly priced…
A Modern Day Example – The Power of the Dollar
As time went by, and society progressed, it became apparent to those seeking unimaginable power that the killing of one’s enemies was something that was generally frowned upon. These would be power brokers were forced to look for new ways to demonstrate their dominance over the common man. They didn’t have to look far to find a common currency of power. In fact they only had to look to currency. Power is, as we’ve all no doubt heard by now, money.*
If we take for example, a company, who for the sake of this text I shall just call Microsoft, we see the archetypal modern day superpower. These days the best way to gain unlimited power without raising any significant opposition is to do it legally, corporately and globally.
The story of Microsoft is one that is both inspiring and interesting. Basically, Microsoft started out as a dream in the heads of two young university students who had nothing really going for them. No social skills, no interpersonal communication skills, they weren’t good looking, they were (probably) on the university chess team. In fact all they had going for them was intelligence and a desire to succeed. They saw a hole in the market that they believed they could fill and they filled it. So a worldwide corporate empire is not out of the reach of the ordinary man, or woman.
However, there are plenty of other books and websites for those of you who want to take over the world by making lots of money. This book deals more with the conquest based method of expansion. Even there we can learn something from Microsoft, every time any significant opposition, or competition as the business minded prefer to label it, Microsoft got rid of them. Admittedly the getting rid of usually involved buying the company at a fair price but the result was the same, the other company no longer existed. In this day and age you’re better off buying your enemies into submission.
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*Therefore by syllogism – time is also power, power is a root of evil and power makes the world go round. In fact if you think of any sentence containing the word money, you can pretty much always replace it with the word power, for example, the ABBA song Money would be called Power and go something like this – power, power, power must be funny in a rich man’s world. Again by syllogism we see that if power “must be funny” then power is funny. Neat hey.
Another cool idea from Ji Lee.
These could only be helpful in my quest to earn an Xbox. I’m 15% of the way there I think. Last time I weighed in. Just 8.5kg to go.
More from Ji Lee – the ultimate in sustainable greeting card production. Who wants to spend more than 50 cents on a card anyway…
Zombies eat brains right? Human brains. So we should totally eat zombies. But they don’t really exist. So they should be eaten in cake form.
But if you want to have your cake and eat U2. Or it too. Or eat something a little more human themed and realistic.
Mmm. Cake. The making of is incredibly detailed – and pretty spectacular.
Here’s a sample.
This “Subservient Chicken” will do just about anything you ask it to. Provided you use words that can be generally applied and don’t want him to adhere strictly to a literal translation of your instructions.
It’s clever. And an ad for Burger King. Tell him to punch himself in the head. I did. And was pleasantly surprised.
Dear feed readers – do youseselves a favour ay and check out the all new design of the still amazing and cool http://nathanintownsville.com.
I don’t want to brag, I made it myself. By myself. Using a piece of nicely designed design software called artisteer and then doing some coding stuff myself. Oh, and if you happen to use artisteer without buying the real version it’s pretty easy to remove the “trial” watermark they put all over your site.
You’ll also notice that I’ve moved to a two column design and now my much more frequently posted “oddities” from around the interwebs will appear on the right hand side only. Keeping the more serious stuff on the left.
This is because my wife told me she was sick of trawling through the odd bits to get to the good bits. Other people no doubt only read me for the odd bits so hopefully I’m keeping you all satisfied.
I like good clocks and I can not lie… well I can actually lie, but I do like good clocks. They are both functional and aesthetically pleasing. I especially like clever clocks. Like these:
The Redundant Clock
It’s by Ji Lee who works as a designer for google. He famously designed this cool business card:
And this one… the one I like to call…
The Personal Doomsday Clock
The mechanism has been slowed down so that every number is a year.
The rule of the church
Empires built around the strength of a nation are only half the story when it comes to effective global powers. For an empire to stretch across borders it needs to appeal to the hearts, nay the souls, of the larger global population. For the best example of an ideology driven empire you need look no further than the papal rule during the Crusades. The Crusades, or the Holy Wars, involved armies from many nations, often nations who had unresolved conflicts with one another, uniting under the common banner of the church and marching on the infidels. Nothing has the power to encourage violent passion in a man like a good bout of religious fervour. The guarantee by the church that any sins a man committed while on the Crusade would be forgiven was just an added bonus.
For many years the nations, who could justifiably claim to be the world powers of the time, had their political agenda dictated by the church. The church even tried to dictate the personal lives of monarchs, King Henry the 8th being a prime example.
Religion is still a powerful tool for world domination today. Unity that stretches across national borders is perhaps the most effective way to establish an empire. However, since God is probably not in your pocket as you seek to become a global leader you may have to look past religion for something to forge this unity.
The Aeroplane Flies High
As far as military technology went there were very few developments until the early 1900s. Weaponry until that time had developed along a theme rather than anything new being created. Chariots became tanks, bows and arrows became guns and swords gradually became obsolete. In the early 1900s, I’m not sure exactly when, and this isn’t the sort of book that requires copious amounts of research, the aeroplane was developed. Smart people quickly saw its potential as a piece of weaponry. Dropping things on your enemy from a great height has been a military tactic for generations. Being able to actually fly above the heads of your enemies had, until that moment, been simply a pipe dream, akin to pigs flying, except that the pigs were humans.
The aeroplane is a modern day miracle. Keeping thousands of tones (well maybe not thousands) suspended in the air is a triumph of modern day physics (who would have thought that grade 12 math would serve a purpose after all). It didn’t take long for the purity of this new invention to be soiled by someone with a thirst for power. Without planes World War 2 could still be going today. What a horrible thought.
The technology doesn’t stop there, scientists and military minds are now working on the theme of sending things very high up in the air, and either keeping them there, or having them crash down on thousands of innocent civilians. That’s how wars are won. Never mind the “collateral damage”* just blow up as much of the other side’s stuff as possible. The United States, at the time of writing, are pursuing the ultimate in aerospace technology, the Star Wars program, spaceships that blow up other people’s missiles. To think that all this was born because two brothers were sick of walking around and wanted to fly instead.
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* Since the second Gulf war, otherwise known as the “liberation of the people of Iraq” Collateral Damage has been the term employed by the media to describe unexpected civilian casualties. Liberation too has undergone a process of redefinition. Liberation now means to leave the civilians in a worse state than when you found them, sometimes dead. “Liberation” and “Collateral Damage” go hand in hand.
Mainstream media makes funny April Fools Day joke #678