Some of you may have gathered from my fear of the outdoors (bears!) and knowledge of technology that I’m not the world’s most rugged athlete. Being the son of a former professional lifeguard, I’m not sure where my complete lumpy disdain for physical exertion comes from.

As this photo of my older brother that I ran across will attest, not ALL of the apples in our family fell far from the tree. It’s an older photo, to be sure, but when we pan the camera back a little, who’s that in the window on the right?  Cue sad trombone sound

Okay, now I’ve heard of Takashi Murakami.  Fifteen million dollars for a sculpture of an anime character masturbating.  I know it’s an incredibly sexy sculpture, but fifteen million seems like an awful lot…

1) I took this photo over at my friend’s desk. Which means he stole the sign, in direct violation of the ordinance on the sign itself. Some unaware fool has undoubtedly been eaten as a result of my friend’s negligence.

2) There’s no need for the “Denali National Park” note at the bottom. The central message of the sign is universally applicable to the outdoors, as evidenced by this photoset.

3) Missing from the list of potential punishments for entering a closed area ($500, six months in jail) is “being eaten by a bear.”  Which I feel should be the first item on the list.

• DriveWater.com
  I AM! I AM sick of high gas prices. I’m going to convert my car to run on water!!!!
  (tags: scams bullshit trickery shenanigans lies fraud false dubious unlikely)
• Chocolate Covered Bacon for sale in Santa Cruz
  Troubling… sent in by friend of the jonsonblog, chuck
  (tags: bacon chocolate chocobaconlate)

• Ork Posters! City Neighborhood Posters
  (tags: posters art neighborhoods cities america)

So, I’m reading a review of Speed Racer in the local alt-rag, LA Weekly, and it occurs to me I have no fucking clue what the reviewer is talking about.  A lot of made up words, obscure references & excessively showy language to basically say that he didn’t recommend the film.  This paragraph in particular was awesome:

The futuristic, multihued skyscrapers seem a figment of Kenny Scharf’s imagination[I DON'T KNOW WHO THAT IS]; the glazed female leads might be Jeff Koons sculptures [I'VE HEARD OF HIM.  IS HE A SCULPTOR?  I DON'T GET THIS REFERENCE.  DOES HE GLAZE HIS SCULPTURES A LOT?] sporting Takashi Murakami [WHO?] accessories. And that’s just the “Sunday Styles” stuff. Once the various gizmobiles accelerate to warp speed on roller-coaster racetracks seemingly conceived by Dr. Seuss [YES!!!!], the screen reconstitutes as a Bridgett Riley vortex [SHE MAKES VORTEXES, I ASSUME] or a mad geometric abstraction of Kenneth Noland [NOPE, SORRY.] racing stripes.

Thanks, J. Hoberman of the L.A. Weekly.  I never knew how little I knew until you came along.  I will say this for you - after diligent analysis, I was able to discern whether you liked the movie or not:

But love, hate or ignore it, The Matrix proposed a social mythology. (Just ask Slavoj Zizek. [SERIOUSLY NOW, WHAT THE FUCK?]) Speed Racer is simply a mishmash that, among other things, intermittently parodies the earlier film’s pretensions.

You go to hell, J. Hoberman.  You go straight to hell.

As a parent & a geek & a former teenage boy, today’s Penny Arcade perfectly sums up my thinking on the ready availability of nudity that the internet has graced young teens with.  This next story is kinda gross, but 100% true.  As a 14 year old, if I wanted to see a naked woman, my best (only?) option was to ride my skateboard past the UCLA fraternity houses on the outskirts of Westwood & hope that they had thrown out a used copy of Hustler that I could sneak into the house.  I probably only found two or three during my entire early adolesence, but they were like sacred relics, to be guarded & treasured & hidden & studied like the Rosetta Stone of vaginas, answering so many questions (”hey, a six is a like an upsidedown nine.  I wonder if that’s why they call it that?”) while posing still others (”why are these pages stuck together?”). 

When I was in 8th grade in England, the paper ran an article about the dancers at the Moulin Rouge in Paris, and actually printed a photo of the ladies all showering after a show, with as many as 5 (FIVE!!!) visible boobies all soaped up.  I swear to you that I’m not joking when I tell you I stole that page of the paper & hid it in my room for the entire 8th grade year.

I adore my daughter & wouldn’t change a thing, but sometimes it’s not just that I’m happy I had a girl as much as that I’m relieved that I didn’t have a boy.

• All of Inflation’s Little Parts - The New York Times
  interactive map of consumer spending
  (tags: economics visualization infographics money finance nytimes)

Consider yourself lucky if you don’t know what this Camera looks like to me.  Found @ The Disney Store, it’s “Mickey’s Digital Camera” and it retails for $59.99.  Bowling pin not included.

• Musée des Plans-Relief - a set on Flickr
  (tags: miniature models france)
• Galeries de Paléontologie et Anatomie comparée - a set on Flickr
  (tags: museum flickr france anatomy)
• moscowwalks.ru » Blog Archive » Макет центральной части Москвы
  Scale model of Moscow, comissioned by Kruschev in 68 & then lost for 18 years
  (tags: russia models moscow miniature)
• vintage_ads: Porn Posters from the 1960’s
  (tags: illustration art design retro vintage porn ephemera advertising graphics posters)