Super Punch

Snake-Kitty: super long, adorable plush by Jenni Bryan

Posted: 09 Jun 2008 01:10 PM CDT

More photos of the Snake Kitty here.

Threadless T-Shirt: Monstrous Unicorns

Posted: 09 Jun 2008 01:07 PM CDT

Black Magic and Unicornz - Threadless, Best T-shirts Ever

Artist site.

Video: Anthony Bourdain visits Oregon's Voodoo Donut

Posted: 09 Jun 2008 12:39 PM CDT

See him sample (and enjoy) various bizarre doughnuts, including the Bacon Maple Bar:

Here's Voodoo Doughnut's official site. Via.

Threadless T-Shirt Design: Emancipate Your Mind

Posted: 09 Jun 2008 12:04 PM CDT

Emancipate Your Mind - Threadless, Best T-shirts Ever

Double Fine Action Comics by Scott C. (the book)

Posted: 09 Jun 2008 08:46 AM CDT

Scott C. says:

Volume 1 will include the first 300 of my comics. Plus other things like a board game, a pin up, a making of, a commentary, and a foreword by TIM Schafer (whose words are world famous). .. all kinds of things that will make you super psyched.

You can preorder it at Amazon.

Venture Bros. Club T-Shirt #2

Posted: 09 Jun 2008 08:35 AM CDT

Order it here.

Concert Poster: The Features by Tom Burns

Posted: 08 Jun 2008 09:53 PM CDT

Link.

Worm Hole Republic t-shirt

Posted: 08 Jun 2008 09:36 PM CDT

Available at Woot.

Book Review: The Dante Club is ... okay

Posted: 08 Jun 2008 02:36 PM CDT

I just finished Matthew Pearl's The Dante Club for my book club. In a nutshell, real-life writers Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., and James Russell Lowell and publisher James Thomas Fields, are friends set on translating Dante's The Inferno into English. They love the poem and are convinced that the publication of an English translation in America will be an incredible moment for literature. However, the head of Harvard believes The Inferno is barbaric and will stop at seemingly nothing to stop the translation from being completed. Meanwhile, someone is killing Boston's elite in gruesome ways mirroring the punishments described in The Inferno. Lowell, Holmes, Wadsworth, and Fields set out to stop the killings.

Overall, reading the book was a chore and I can't recommend it. The pace is glacial, the writing is cumbersome, and I had trouble accepting the central conceit of the book - - that the publication of an English translation of The Inferno was a huge deal:

"I worry though, with the inflated prices printing a book such as this . . . I must ask, can your Dante overcome whatever Manning and Harvard plan to put in it's way?

Green's hands shook as he raised them in the air. "If it were possible to convey an accurate idea of Dante in a single word, Mr. Houghton, that word would be power."

On the positive side, the book did a good job of making Longfellow (pictured above) seem like a pretty cool guy. I learned more about Boston in 1865 from this book than I ever learned in school (and I doubt I'll forget this knowledge right after an exam). And I really became fond of the four main heroes. At one point Lowell expresses a wonderful sentiment:

"Believe that once I am a man's friend I am always so - - nor is it so very hard to bring me to it. And though a man may enjoy himself in being my enemy, he cannot make me his for longer than I wish."

If you really like murder mysteries or historical fiction, you'll probably like this book. You can find it at Amazon. If you're interested in what books I do like, I most recently enjoyed Un Lun Dun, and you can see a list of some of my other favorites in the Amazon widget in the sidebar.

One other complaint, and stop reading here because this is a spoiler. The various villains in the book are the head of Harvard, the police, Union soldiers, a priest, a judge, and a wealthy man. I am so tired of books that express that message. It's pathetic that so many popular movies, books, etc portray the most successful people as the most evil.

Movie Trailer: Steven Seagal is "Cockpuncher"

Posted: 08 Jun 2008 02:23 PM CDT

Unfortunately, just a small part the straight to dvd The Onion Movie.

Disturbing Pickle Sculpture

Posted: 08 Jun 2008 01:59 PM CDT

By Terry Border.

Desktop Wallpaper Project

Posted: 08 Jun 2008 01:50 PM CDT

Bobby Solomon:

The Desktop Wallpaper Project is a project based off the of the Radiohead desktop wallpapers I created in 2007 in honor of In Rainbows coming out. But this time around, I decided to write all of my favorite artists and designers, many of which you've seen featured on this blog, and see if they'd contribute a wallpaper. As it turns out, my favorite artists and designers happen to be some of the nicest people out there, and so many of them were more than happy to help and be a part of this project.

Here's the plan: I'll be releasing one desktop wallpaper every Wednesday morning (California time) until I run out of wallpapers. They'll be free to download, and come in a multitude of monitor sizes, as well as iPhone and PSP versions just for the fun of it. I hope you enjoy them all!

Lots of great wallpapers.

My very first vinyl toy, upgraded

Posted: 08 Jun 2008 01:12 PM CDT

My first vinyl toy was a robot called Mad Hurricane, which I got when I was about 8 years old. It stood out as dramatically cooler than the other toys at Toys R Us, but it's actually fairly silly looking: