Thanks Matt for telling me that you saw this on the evening news. It's official. I have now made multiple cheetos-related blog posts.
07-29-2008
Grab Your Towel!
Posted by Zach
The wet kisses show they love you!
And, here's a video that I made a couple of years ago. It features cows.
I noticed that this video doesn't reliably play in Firefox. Still want to see it? Go HERE.
07-10-2008
Window Display
Posted by Matt
You gotta check out Zach's window display! It's the shizzy! Seriously, I don't know which is more impressive--the display itself or the sixty hours he spent figuring out how to get it to work as a roll-over display on the website.
Click on the picture to get to the link. At Quimby's all summer long!
05-16-2008
I Live For This
Posted by Matt
I love baseball. This picture was on the cover of Baseball America's website. What other sport is there? Really?
Going by Quimby's the other day, C. and J. came across this nice double-sided pamphlet. Seemed innocuous and charming enough: green paper, insects, smiling girl.
Closer inspection, and it describes a project called "Micro and Nano Electro Mechanical Systems: Technology Engineering Metamorphosis" which is about basically making cyborg insects as micro-surveillance robots for the military.
What seems quite like science fiction is in fact one of the many schemes that scientists at DARPA have cooked up. It looks like this little one sheet pamphlet (and more in a series?) were created by Matt Kessler and Zach Huelsing at Eye Rocket.
A nice combination of science/almost sci-fiction/political commentary, these pamphlets operate in a variety of nice ways.
04-29-2008
ACIPHEX
Posted by Zach
Ok, not much to say here except that some genius came up with a drug called ASS EFFECTS! That is how you pronounce this miracle heartburn drug.
04-29-2008
What's Not To Like?
Posted by Matt
Money, fame, the most hilarious swimsuit spread of all time....
Steroids did a lot for all of us.
Check out the most awesome blog I've ever seen. On The DL collects stories about cheating baseball players and puts them in riddle form. What follows is thousands of baseball groupies trying to guess who's bad, who's got STDs, and sharing their own personal encounters for good measure. Good times!
04-24-2008
Jughead, part 1
Posted by Zach
Anybody who has known me since I was about 7 has known that Jughead Jones has always been my favorite comic book character. Hamburgers? Check! Sleep? Check! Awkward around girls? Check!
I'll go more in-depth with my love affair with this character, but first I just wanted to take the opportunity to point everybody to his or her local grocery store to pick up this treasure. Jughead's Double Digest #138. I haven't bought an Archie Digest magazine in ten years or so, but man has the quality gone to shit! The cover is paper! Ick! And the artwork on the new stories is pathetic. Maybe morale goes down when you screw over all of your artists (Dan DeCarlo). However, somebody at Archie had the brains to put together this issue which not only reprints the first story from Jughead #1 but also reprints 4 or 5 stories by Samm Schwartz! Schwartz may be the best artist to ever work on Jughead, and since Archie would like to pretend that there is no reason to acknowledge the 70 years of talent in their catalog, this is the closest you'll ever get to an anthology of Schwartz's art. They don't even manage to get his name anywhere on any of his stories. Luckily, I've had a thing for this guy's style since I was a kid. I'll post some of his panels soon. Check out the magazine if you can find one.
On another note, Jughead #139 begins the all-new, all-realistic, cutting-edge, in-your-face (again) relaunch of Jughead. I can't even bear to publish an image of it. It's sad and even sadder, Archie tried this before in the 90's. More on that later, folks.
04-08-2008
On The Radio
If you live in New York, turn your dial to WFMU 91.1 FM on Friday at 6 pm ET as Matt and Zach will be the guests on Killing Time with Bronwyn C. We'll be on for an hour discussing Works Cited, Science Fair and the upcoming Diamonds project. If you don't live in New York, you can stream the show online or listen to the archived edition afterwards.
Here are the details:
Matt & Zach on Killing Time with Bronwyn C.
Friday, April 11th. 6 pm ET.
WFMU. 91.1 FM.
02-29-2008
Hot Chicks With Douche Bags
Posted by Matt
This website is exactly the kind of thing Zach knows about for three years and then only mentions to me in passing when he's already over it.
02-26-2008
Pecha Kucha Chicago
Posted by Matt
Wanna learn about some awesome weapon logos DAPRA's cooking up like this panda bear in front of a tidal wave?:
Or this penguin with a turbo booster attached to its back?
Or maybe you'd like to learn about some actual weapons like these binoculars that attach to a soldier's cerebral cortex:
Come see Matt's presentation about DARPA at Pecha Kucha Chicago. March 4th. 8:00 pm. At Martyrs 3855 N Lincoln Avenue. Be there at 8:00 pm sharp! Matt will be the very first presenter.
02-22-2008
This has been on the news lately...
Posted by Matt
...and it's pretty funny.
02-13-2008
Congratulations UNO!
Posted by Matt
Good showing this year at Westminster, UNO! Eye Rocket was behind you 100%
02-04-2008
Awesome Couch!
Posted by Matt
Still looking for that perfect Valentine's Day gift? Search no further. On craig's list you can buy this awesome pink couch.
Thanks to Clare for showing that to me! Good luck topping this one on your crafts night!
01-24-2008
Moo & Oink
Posted by Matt
I don't know if this is one of those things that everybody's already seen, but Jon showed it to me when I was at his apartment the other week and I can't stop watching it.
PS- BAD JON! for showing Zach that damn 2 women, 1 cup video. Yuck!!!
01-19-2008
Nunchion
Posted by Matt
If there's a joke I'd like to never hear again, it's the one about what to call the meal between lunch and dinner. Is it linner? chuckle, chuckle. Or is it dunch? har har. I've finally found the word that will shut this joke down forever. Rejoice, the speculation is over. It's nunchion.
01-14-2008
BM?
Posted by Zach
I'm a Slave for Poo? Poops I did it Again? Yucky Star? Crazy For Poo? Everypotty? Poo Blue? Toxic?
01-12-2008
All Hail Princess Lisa n Prince Paul x
Posted by Matt
It's hard to argue with true love.
01-09-2008
STEWBREW
Posted by Matt
Zach picked up Stew Brew at Quimby's a couple weeks ago. It's easy to see why it grabbed his attention. The cover art is striking and it's part of an inventive, economic package design. Laser copied on thick paper, the image reproduction value is high. The cover does not look like some crappy little thing that was run off on a library photocopier. It looks crisp. And it probably only cost them about twenty cents per unit to produce. The cover stock is then cut and glued in back to fold in like an envelope. I don't know their print run, but I can imagine it took them hours to cut and fold all these. I really appreciate that type of attention to detail.
Inside are two comics-- Coot's Day and Meet Erin. They're both funny and they're really different from one another. Max Clotfelter, who drew the cover, made Coot's Day. I really like his drawing style. The comic is a funny account of a day in the life of slob metalhead Coot. Booze, bongs, barfs and Star Wars. It's definitely a little light on text, though. Meet Erin, by Kelly Froh is a very different comic. Her draftsmanship tends to be a little sloppy. It's not a distraction, though, as she produces some very funny results. Her narrative skills are strong, which is a big plus. She tells a funny story about an annoying girl named Erin who works at a retail stand. Good stuff.
I get really excited when I see low-cost productions with high-quality design and content standards. This definitely fits the bill. And for three dollars, it's economically priced. I appreciate that a lot, too. You can buy Stew Brew online at their website or at Quimby's Webstore.
I saw this segment about the New York Doll Hospital on CBS news recently. I don't know how to embed it on the blog, but here's the link. It's really funny. But you gotta watch some stupid commercial.
I'm in a fast race with myself to post the least substantive blogs that I can come up with. This entry, some little Lorus named Maki. I swear, comic stuff coming in the new year.
12-20-2007
Sheet, Cheet!
Posted by Zach
From the Urban Dictionary.
12-16-2007
Fifty Awesome Years
Posted by Matt
This is the fifty year anniversary of subliminal advertising. Listen to this radio report from NPR program On The Media about its history.
12-05-2007
Harry Reid? A Good Vote? Really???!!!
Posted by Matt
Today's New York Times had front page articles about Al Franken's senatorial bid, a study about why the flu is more prevalent in winter, and a large article about a movie that is about to be made about an African-American Texas university from the 1930's called Wiley. Page 5 had an extensive article about the slipping popularity of Gordon Brown. There were many articles about the campaign trail. You'd have to troll all the way to the third page of the Business section (C3) to find this article: SENATE VOTES TO APPROVE TRADE DEAL WITH PERU.
Yes, the disastrous Free Trade Agreements were expanded yesterday to include Peru with a 77-to-18 approval vote. And, guess what, the media is barely discussing it. These Free Trade Agreements are killing the American middle class and are only beneficial to corporations. Period. According to an article released by watch group Public Citizen, "not one U.S. labor, environmental, Latino, consumer, faith or family farm group supported the Peru free trade agreement." That's a pretty healthy array of political viewpoints. Furthermore, "both of Peru’s labor federations, its major indigenous people’s organization and its archbishop called on the U.S. Congress to oppose the deal based on the damage it is projected to cause Peru’s small farmers and environment." Likewise, I was in Costa Rica during the CAFTA vote and the citizens there were extremely unhappy about it. This is a lose-lose situation for everyone involved.
Why are people so unhappy about this? Again, from Public Citizen: "The Peru NAFTA expansion replicates many of the CAFTA provisions that led most Democratic senators to oppose that pact. This includes: foreign investor privileges that create incentives for U.S. firms to move offshore and expose basic environmental, health, zoning and other laws to attack in foreign tribunals; bans on 'Buy America' and anti-offshoring policies; limits on food import safety standards and inspection rates; and NAFTA-style agriculture rules that are projected to displace tens of thousands of Peru’s Andean farmers and thus increase coca production and immigration. The pact also contains terms that could subject Peru to compensation claims for reversing its unpopular Social Security privatization, the same system Democrats fought against at home."
These Free Trade Agreements are unmitigated disasters for everyone. For the record, Obama and Clinton supported the passage of this bill. Edwards, Dodd and Biden opposed it. None of them voted, however. (Edwards couldn't). The voting record is posted online. The usual good guys--Leahy, Feingold, Byrd-- opposed it. Harry Reid opposed it. Of the Republicans, only John Kyl opposed it. Schumer and Durbin voted for it and I'm very disappointed about that.
"This site is intended to facilitate the gradual release of confidential documents pertaining to a top secret exchange program of twelve US military personnel to Serpo, a planet of Zeta Reticuli, between the years 1965-78."
12-03-2007
Yowsa! These Drawings Are UGLY...
Posted by Matt
My boss Denise caught me drawing at work the other week. She's a huge Clay Aiken fan and so my punishment was that I had to make her some Clay Aiken Fan Art. Proceed with caution.
Clay Loves Kangas. The title says it all.
Want another masterpiece? Behold the Clayngaroo:
Don't say you weren't warned.
12-01-2007
And It's Free?
Posted by Matt
I'll be at The Center For Intuitive and Outsider Art in January for the upcoming Henry Dargerexhibit. This will be, as far as I can tell, an exhibit of Darger's work and a replica of his apartment/studio. It will be shown in conjunction with an exhibit of his paintings at The Smart Museum Of Art at the Univeristy of Chicago. (Is that the last name of a donor or just really catchy?) They have no information posted yet.
Wow! This is the back cover to Love and Rockets number 14, November 1985. Looks like somebody improved over time. This should serve as an inspiration to all of us budding Hollywood types.
If you're in Chicago this weekend, you should go by AV-aerie and check out the display and all the other fun things there.
11-28-2007
Here's Looking At You, ASSHOLE
Posted by Matt
In a rare display of interest for consumers, FCC chairman Kevin Martin (Republican) proposed a new set of regulations on cable companies that aimed to decrease the cost of cable service by opening up the industry to new competition. In addition, Martin hoped to make leases significantly less expensive for independent programmers with the hope of providing a wider variety of options for viewers. Sounds good, right? After an intense lobbying effort between cable company executives and White House officials, including White House chief of staff Joshua Bolten, the cable industry successfully killed this bill. How? Look no further than ass-wipe Jonathan Adelstein (Democrat, fan of the Grateful Dead). After avowing his support for the bill, Adelstein changed his mind at the last second and thus created a final vote of 3-to-2 in favor of the cable companies. Why would he do such a thing? Mostly likely, as the New York Times speculates, because his term expires next summer and he wants another nomination. What a fucking asshole.
Tonight PBS replayed the Spying On The Homefront episode of Frontline. The entire program is available online. I urge you to take 15 minutes to watch chapters 4 and 5. The whole episode is good, but chapters 4 and 5 are outstanding. In 20 minutes, the program does a tremendous job of exposing the government's techniques of gathering digital information on individuals. It's scary. Did you know that there are 199 data mining projects in over 50 government agencies that use internet phishing companies like Acxiom? One of the most distasteful misuses of data-mining is by the federal agency DARPA (the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency). Chapter 5 shows video footage the agency used to advertise its TIA program-- The Total Information Awareness System-- which operated under the conceptual framework of predictive data mining. This is a method the government uses to collect as much data as possible, much of it via digital transactions. It collects this information on as many individuals as possible irrelevant of presumed suspicion. Subsequently, it uses this information as a means to officially presume suspicion. Although TIA is now defunct, a number of its operations and the information it has found have been transferred to other agencies.
There were many disturbing portions of tonight's episode. John Yoo, in particular, was distasteful.
The most disturbing part, though, (again, Chapter 5), was the following quote by Robert Popp, former deputy of DARPA. He says in an interview, explaining the logic behind predictive data mining programs like TIA , that "if one could imagine that we had an eye in the sky, and we could truly get all the transactions, all the things that that group did to conduct that plot, to conduct that attack... our thesis is that that set of transactions over space, over time, and by some number of people will be a unique signature."
What bothers me so much about this quote is his use of the word signature. Presumably, he intends the word to mean a unique identification, like a thumbprint, that only one individual can produce. Also, I believe the action of signing is important to his word choice. As in, a signature is occurring which can be predicted by the second letter and properly identified before its completion.
His use of the word signature is particularly disturbing, however, because, on top of all his intended meanings, Popp is also implicitly articulating the agency's desire to translate all physical actions into a codified linguistic system. This database of actions--which they presumably define laterally like words in a thesaurus-- will then be mapped onto future physical actions as, one must assume, a justifiable means of taking legal action. Thus they might conceivably arrest you because of the occurrence of Actions A, B and C, which according to their database, also signify Future Action D, a punishable offense, which is one that, although you haven't yet committed, you certainly will. By definition. Not only does this clearly reveal the agency's intention to strip the individual of legal autonomy, it also exposes its complete disregard for the notion of individual autonomy. Period. And, what's more disturbing still, is that Popp uses the word signature to make this argument, and in doing so, unknowingly inverts the historic sense of the word -- signature-- the name of a person written with his or her own hand as an authentication of a legal document presented by that person to the Baron of Exchequer.
Amid volatile and rising prices for natural gas, the Bush administration has unveiled new efficiency standards for home furnaces and boilers.
But there are problems: After six years in development, the new national standards will barely result in any energy savings - and won't take effect for another eight years.
Under the new rule, the US Department of Energy (DOE) in 2015 will require nonweatherized gas-fired furnaces - the kind most used for home heating - to be 80 percent energy efficient. That's up from the current mandate of 78 percent...
But that slight uptick won't have much impact on natural gas use since 99 percent of furnaces sold are already at that level, industry data show....
Under the DOE's new efficiency standards, consumers will save $700 million and prevent 7.8 million metric tons of carbon dioxide from wafting into the atmosphere, over 24 years, DOE says. Had DOE instituted a 90 percent standard, consumers would save at least $11 billion and prevent the release of 141 metric tons of CO2 over the same time period, according to separate analyses from the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy as well as Dow Chemical and the Natural Resources Defense Council.
I was going through my notes this morning and I came across some funny quotes I jotted down from the pretty bad Brian Wilson bio Catch A Wave. These both refer to events from my favorite Brian period-- the late 70's to early 80's.
"When louche punk rocker Iggy Pop showed up to the party, he was at first entranced by Brian's charisma and fell happily into one of the complicated, multipart sing-alongs of 'Shortenin' Bread' Brian loved to lead. What Iggy didn't know was that once a coked-up Brian got started with Shortenin' Bread, he could go on for literally hours on end."
This one's about Brian's inability to perform at concerts.
"The fact that the group's onetime leader could barely hit the piano keys in time to the music, let alone be bothered to play the correct chords, didn't seem to matter. ('I play in the key of BW' he shrugged one night to a roadie.)"
11-21-2007
I don't care what you haters say...
Posted by Matt
Jim Davis is funny to me.
I just wish he'd bring back Lyman.
11-20-2007
Merry XMAS???
Posted by Matt
I'd like to own this. Only $1400.
11-20-2007
Blog Online!
Posted by Zach
More real soon, real often. Matt and I will use this space to point each other to things we find on the web or in real life that entertain us (or annoy us). Recent stuff that should be on here ranges from Fleischer Popeyes, Dan DeCarlo, Los Bros. Hernandez, Asian chicks having sex en masse (with asian dudes), Basil Wolverton, and whatever Dan Clowes is trying to do over at the New York Times.
