New haircut

It’s been a few months already but anyway, here’s the new haircut:

Now that’s branding

From York University sociologist Steve Penfold’s folkloric history of donuts in Canada:

By 1979, the Greater Toronto Area had a Donut Corner, Cave, Nook, Tree, Hole, Haven, Place, Shop, Shoppe, Plaza, entre, Fair, King, Queen, Duke, Master, Hut, Shack, House, Inn, Castle, Factory, City, World, and Galaxy.

CRAP! A federal judge has ruled that the Federal Trade Commission overstepped its authority in creating the national ‘do-not-call’ list against telemarketers.

Bernard Manischewitz whose kosher foods company was renowned for sweet wine and matzo, died Saturday at his home. He was 89.

This article is more than a year old, but it’s a nice one – just sort of defining the movement of “Photoshopping” – even the emergence of the term. Whereby people use digital image editing software such as Photoshop to mess with a celeb photo, a product label, etc. I think there’s some amazingly creative and provocative stuff coming out of those communities.

Well, I dutifully followed their rude instructions and of course, this came back seconds later. I guess you can’t forward them the message in question because it will be rejected as spam as well. Nice system design, folks.

The email you sent to on 09/18/2003,
09:12:30 AM, with the Subject: It’s not spam – Fwd: Sender Notification
- Spam has not been delivered as it contains text that triggered our
anti-spam policies. (Reason: ) If you regard this message as valid
business email, please forward your contact information, the message you
want delivered AND the reason it is valid business email to
das.admin@verizon.com. We will review your email and contact you as
necessary.

Verizon Security
MMS irv 3

Verizon can bite me

I know it’s just an error message, but hey, it was written by a human.

The email you sent to on
09/18/2003, 07:51:54 AM, with the Subject: Undercover Digest V10 #316
has not been delivered as it contains text that triggered our anti-spam
policies. (Reason: ) If you regard this message as valid business
email, please forward your contact information, the message you want
delivered AND the reason it is valid business email to
das.admin@verizon.com. We will review your email and contact you as
necessary.

Verizon Security
MMS irv 2

Coastside Beaches & Preserves – here’s where we’ll be enjoying the sand and water after our upcoming move!

We are currently hiring 5-8 African American Males for an October bar promotion. Applicants need to be outgoing, energenic and (HERE’S AN IMPORTANT ONE) knowledgeable of the card game–SPADES. Samplers will be playing games of spades with various bar patrons while informing them about a new product. This is going to be a fun one w/ great pay!!

Alpacas By The Sea is right by our new house. I just love this picture:

I saw a sneak of Lost in Translation last week and it immediately become one of my favorite films, ever. It’s written and directed by Sofia Coppola (remember Virgin Suicides) and deals with two people who are in Tokyo (the Park Hyatt, specifically) and don’t really want to be. It’s just an immersive film, you get drawn deep into the lives of these people, and it’s just brought off so well, so emotional, so touching, so real, so incredibly well acted, I just can’t say enough about it. I hope Bill Murray gets an academy award. It’s his most finely realized role that I’ve seen – he pulls out that ironic look that is a staple of his earlier work, but also the world-weary riff that is his later work’s hallmark – and both together make something greater than the sum of the parts.

This should be the most popular film of the fall, but of course, it won’t be.

A lot is being made about the recent release Thirteen – saw it the other day and was not impressed. Histrionic, no one to like or even root for, and cliched. Typical distorted POV footage to suggest that the main character is high. Etc. etc.

Save your time, ignore the hype. I recommend one of my favorite movies, Whatever a much more subtle, gentle, thoughtful character study. It’s a coming-of-age film, not exactly affirming, but not nauseating or horrifying either (as Thirteen strives to be). The girl is a bit older, and the time period is the 80s. Great film.

The other night we were flipping channels and stumbled on a 1957 black and white drama called Zero Hour. Quickly we realized this was the original source for the “Airplane” movies. The pilot is “Ted Stryker” – a fighter pilot who must take over when the crew is struck down by food poisoning. But he’s guilt-ridden over past losses in combat and keeps flashing back at critical moments to horrific crashes and sqadron disasters. He sweats badly in these scenes, while down at Air Traffic Control, they are smoking like chimneys, talking in clipped tones, and rolling up shirt-sleeves. It’s pretty funny to see.

I see that it was written by Arthur Hailey, who then went on to write the Airport movies, those we most directly think of when we think of Airplane!

Tags: airplane, airport, parody, ted stryker, zero hour

Alpaca.com
Purchase alpacas from the comfort of your home.”

Badtoonrising.com is a pretty cool site for a quick look. Amateur artists doing their versions of cartoon characters, from memory. It’s kinda neat to see what people come up with. It’s not a “look how crappy other people are” because of course it’s not like most of us could do any better.

Also interesting from a semoitics (is that really accurate, or is it too early in the AM) point of view – what are the visual elements of a Mickey Mouse (gloves, suspenders with big buttons, etc.) that need to be in there….

This is a Yogi….