yewknee.com

Six Weird Videos - May 16th, 2008

A few notes:

• The MUTO short is beyond impressive.
• Batman on Drugs - you just need about 15 seconds of this one but the head bopping is mesmerizing.
• Not Today... courtesy of CMikesell. Best 9 seconds of video existing on the Internet today.
• O'Reilly Remix: Don't watch this if you're not into vulgarity, over reactions and hot dance beatz. If you've not seen the original, please go here. Mayor of Jerkville, USA. But I did die laughing at the remix.
• Treadmill Kittens: Please let this be the next Internet meme.. I could watch it all day. Watch it here since the owners disabled embedding (lame).
• Baby Fight - good concept, average execution.

Also, if you've not seen this video from The Bird and The Bee you are missing out - just from a technical standpoint it's impressive. Musically... they are destined for the next Zach Braff helmed project soundtrack.

Have a great weekend.

If you're still reading, this video is too crazy for words.

NSAG featuring TIOM

Nashville's Smallest Art Gallery (or NSAG, natch) now has the details up about the Ryan Hale show - so go check it out. There are even online exclusive pieces!

I've been a big fan of Mr. Hale's work for a long time and it's great to see that he's still consistently making great stuff. How someone can make little chairs so alluring is the stuff of magic.

Autolux - Audience No. 2 (followup)

Even though I've already posted about the new Autolux track I would be remiss if I didn't inform you that the band is offering the track up in uncompressed WAV format for free (or pay if you want to send them a few dollars) over on their site.

Flash Player 10

Lots of details about Flash Player 10 are starting to emerge from Adobe lately. This sneak peek shows off a few of the new features - including better multi-language support, depth manipulation (rotationZ!) and custom filters. And if that weren't enough apparently there is a P2P engine built in to the player - making it possible to download files across a distributed network into Flash. What all this will mean for future application development is still yet to be seen but it's exciting that they're able to keep adding new features.

111 Minna Gallery

Ferris Plock and Kelly Tunstall got married last week (congrats!), making them the coolest and most talented couple that I know. For proof of this statement please visit the gallery show over at 111 Minna and take in all the goodness of the collaboration between the two.

Tyler Lang / Graphic Designer

I'm loving everything I'm seeing from Tyler Lang. The portfolio contents are top notch and the site presentation is undeniable as well. I'd say more but the work really speaks for itself... Link via Jon B.

Modern Amazement

If I could make this stuff up I'd be a millionare:

• Japanese Hooter Pudding - pretty much entirely non work safe and inappropriate but incredibly awesome at the same time.
• Family lives with corpse for 2 months - why? Because they were told the body would return from the dead by the local Bishop.
• Hedonism Judge - made the baliff rub her feet and cover her with blankets for naps. Hilarious.
• Top Ten Angry On-Camera Meltdowns - this should be reserved as a Friday video but it's too good to wait on.

Nerding Out

I spent a good chunk of time browsing through the contents of Superheroes-R-Us yesterday. I knew Duncan had put this together some time ago but I'd never read through it, assuming that it was all about developments in the comic book universe that I am completely ignorant of. However, it turns out that's not all it is. The site covers all sorts of movie news, design and illustration and other crafts - all vaguely comic book related.

Get in the PEVZ

The Positive Energy Vibe Zone is a repository of good things found on the web. The basic idea is to showcase things extolling Positive Energy - pretty simple, right? The best part is that you can contribute simply by tagging things with "pevz" and feeding their aggregation into the site. Maybe it seems hokey because this is the Internet and positive 'energy' is often available only in sparse doses but if it works, it will be a great place to drop by every so often. Via Jed.

John Gall: Book Designer

There's a nice little featurette on book designer John Gall. It goes through the process he experiences when putting together a cover (inspiration is everywhere, be thrifty with typefaces) and showcases quite a bit of his finished products. I love all the stuff he's done for Murakami and the "Lolita" series of covers is perfect as well.

Thanks for the heads up to Janet!

Nothing Scarier Than Nature

There are few things scarier than what Mother Nature is able to conjure up on her own. Take, for instance, these photos of a volcano erupting in Chili creating a "dirty thunderstorm." Absolutely incredible. Via JB.

GTA IV vs Real Life

The similarities between Liberty City in Grand Theft Auto IV and New York City are rather impressive at times. Check out this flickr set comparing the two. Often uncanny. Via that guy.

The $100 House

James Mathis has a problem. He's lives in Idaho, just landed himself a job in TN (quite a distance) and can't seem to sell his house. So, he can't move his family and start his new job / life until that's taken care of. In order to be proactive he has started the $100 House Essay Contest. You write a fairly short essay about why you deserve the prize and send him $100, after 2500 entries are received he will pick a random winner and give them his house. Not bad.

Overall, it's a clever idea but it's not going to be anywhere near easy to get that many people to sign up, send money and send an essay. I do not envy the process Mr. Mathias is going through but I commend him for trying something different in order to get the ball rolling.

So even if you have zero interest in entering the contest or winning someone elses house, give the man a Digg or maybe a link on your site. He is good peoples.

UPDATE: Turns out selling your house this way is illegal in Idaho - so, scratch all that you just read. No go.

iPhone 2.0 Wishlisting

Blankenship gives the heads up on the Powazek iPhone 2.0 Wishlist - a nice list of improvements that could be made to the device. I've run across a few myself:

• Ditch the EDGE network immediately. Never look back.
• Have Safari remember the last page I was on. This doesn't always happen but occasionally if I come back into Safari the last page I was looking at attempts to reload, very annoying when I find myself in an area with no signal.
• Give me the option to set the iPod to always be random. When I start playing music in Quick Mode it always plays the songs in the same order and I have to manually go in and Shuffle Songs. Not exactly "Quick" for a quick mode.

Any other insight I have could be handled by some 3rd party software and they are already well on their way to having that field open up.

XBMC vs Front Row

Apparently the XBMC (a hacked out piece of software that made the original XBox into a full fledged home entertainment system) has been ported over to OSX and now has a beta release. So, yes, that means that there is now a program to be commonly referred to as OS X XBMC - quite a mouthful. It's meant to serve as a replacement to Front Row and from what I can see of the features offered it certainly gives a load more options than Front Row does. Not that more is better but sometimes the uber simplicity of Front Row actually gets in the way (i.e. how do you define a poster frame for a movie without re-saving the whole thing? Can't I just associate a jpeg like I do in iTunes?). I'm not entirely convinced because the XBMC does have some fairly gross looking menu's and their logo is downright atrocious and what is a Mac fiend if not a design snob? That being said, the inner menu's look sleek and easy to use.

So, for the 2% of you out there that have an OS X based media center, if you're feeling adventurous you can now check out an alternative to the standard software and see if it treats you any better.

Great TV News: Shows Don't Exist Yet

The best TV news I've read recently is in regards to shows that have yet to be made. First up, the new Bob and David collaborative effort, "David's Situation." The Onion AV Club has a great review of the pilot taping and what to expect from the show - assuming that HBO wants to pick it up.

Secondly, AMC just announced that they will be producing a second season of their original series Breaking Bad. This is great because season one was far too short thanks to the writers strike and the story had much room to grow. If you've not watched this one yet I suggest you start scouring for it now.

Dropbox

Thanks to Daniel I've been checking out Dropbox this morning - a new web program that is part software application, part web interface and all file storage. The name says it all, you drop files into your drop box and it creates a copy online that you can easily access from any other computer (or sync with another computer). I can see loads of benefit to this and the easy-to-use interface certainly makes it a more desirable tool to take advantage of. I can see using up the 2 gig of storage pretty quickly if it were treated as a web backup but they're still in beta, I'm sure that capacity will grow over time.

RATATAT - Shiller

Gorilla vs Bear has the heads up on the latest from RATATAT, "Shiller." The latest 7" from the band takes one song from two upcoming albums, LP3 and LP4 - the first of which is set to be released in July. If anyone runs across the b-side "Mahalo" - let me know please... I am away from my record player for another couple weeks.

Brian Brown Illustration

Not a ton to see in the portfolio of Brian Brown but everything that is available is quite enjoyable. The pictured piece and the geometric smattering piece are certainly among my favorites. Link via Jeremy.

Donnie Darko 2: Samantha Darko

Duncan gave me the heads up on this news that a Donnie Darko sequel is in the works. S. Darko, supposedly, picks up with the Darko family seven years later and follows Donnie's sister Samantha (Sparklemotion) on a roadtrip with 'bizarre visions.'

I guess the Director's Cut of the film wasn't bad enough and any semblance of goodness left to be associated with Donnie Darko should be dragged through the mud. Some sequels just shouldn't be made.

Visioneers

Zach Galifianakas stars in the new film Visioneers as George Washington Winsterhammerman, a level 3 corporate schlub that fears he may soon explode - literally. The trailer is as odd as you would hope a movie starring Zach Galifianakas would be but certainly not completely inaccessible - just weird. There's no release date or information regarding availability but there is a trailer and that should tide you over for awhile.