1 Million Free & Legal Music Tracks – Main.HomePage
Via Boing Boing again. Wheeeeeeee.
July, 2004
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1 Million Free & Legal Music Tracks
July 30, 2004 by Collin
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Oooooo that smell.
July 30, 2004 by Collin
“This week’s barnyard breezes have been brought to you by the Little Britches Rodeo, conveniently located at the Penrose Stadium in Colorado Springs.
“Little Britches Rodeo: Working hard to turn your children into the cowboys, cowgirls and rodeo clowns of the future!”
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Kids will be the death of me.
July 29, 2004 by Collin
I was reading Tricia’s blog the other day. The post about how her sister got a piece of crayon stuck in her nose when she was a child reminded me of a couple of experiences with my son (now 11) when he was an infant. Things that I planned on posting about if I ever ran out of ideas. But then I forgot because, let’s face it, I’m me.
The first was when he got a Skittle stuck in his nose at the age of three.
The problem with a Skittle in a person’s nostril is that it’s a hard shelled, oval candy with a not-so-soft, chewy center. It’s not like an M&M which, I would imagine if it had to, could melt in a kid’s gooshy nostril. A Skittle will just get harder as time passes. And the slick mucus coated shell really doesn’t give the tweezers something to latch on to.
I have no idea how long I sat there, tweezing inside that boy’s head, trying not to wedge the candy even further in, or slip, leaving him looking like a disgraced mobster while he sat there sobbing and saying he was sorry. Eventually I was successful and he was relieved.
I showed it to him and said, “Okay, now which hole does the candy go in from now on?”
He pointed to his open mouth.
I patted him on the head and tossed the Skittle in.
I’m kidding. I threw it in the trash. I’m not that nasty. Although then he cried about me throwing the candy away. Sometimes there’s just no pleasing people.
And that’s not the only thing that has been trapped in there. He loved to put things in his nose. It got to the point where if I couldn’t find my keys I would check his nose.
Okay. Not that bad. But man, the stuff that went in there that shouldn’t have would make quite a list if I could remember it all. Anything he could reach that he could fit in a nostril, he did.
Why did he do it? I don’t know. Maybe it was because his shorts didn’t have pockets and he was afraid of losing things. Kind of like the way a hamster stores extra food in its cheeks. “Oooh! A Skittle! Hmmm. No pockets and I’m not quite hungry just now.” *SHLURP* Up the nose it goes “for later.” Never mind that it will take dad and pointy bits of metal to retrieve it. It’s a good idea at the time to a 3-year-old, I’m sure.
The second thing I was reminded of was the incident where, at the age of two, he nearly managed to kill me. This is a quicker story because it happened really fast.
I was alone with him, and he was all happy and smiling while sitting in his jammies on the floor.
He looked so cute. I picked him up, lifted him high over my head and said, “You sure are a happ*ACK!*” and then I proceeded to gag and choke. Luckily, I didn’t drop him.
You see, unknown to me he had a penny in his mouth. When I was holding him up and smiling at him, he smiled back. Not having any teeth to KEEP the penny in his mouth, it fell with perfect accuracy into my open mouth while I was talking and hit me in the back of the throat. There it did its best to end my life. But no dice baby! I’m tougher than a penny!
I quickly lowered him to the floor and gagged until the penny fell free while my son sat in front of me smiling away. He was still cute through the tears in my eyes. Bless him.
So the lesson that I learned from that incident, for all you new parents out there (Mark), is to NEVER trust a baby above the level of your head. There’s no telling WHAT may fall out of them. Stuff you never even saw go IN them.
Also, if you are missing something small, check the baby.
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Levitated | Levitated Daily Source, the good source
July 29, 2004 by Collin
Levitated | Levitated Daily Source, the good source
Nice, downloadable source code for artistic thingies. And stuff. It tickles my art geek brain.
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SUPER MARKETING: Ads from the comic books
July 29, 2004 by Collin
SUPER MARKETING: Ads from the comic books
Found at Boing Boing (again). If you like this kind of stuff as much as I do, and I know a couple of you do, check it out when you have time.
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Wired News: Bloggers Suffer Burnout
July 28, 2004 by Collin
Wired News: Bloggers Suffer Burnout
Probably old news for most of you, but I found it interesting. Thanks to Lost Blogs Home for the link.
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Fizzle & Pop – Storytelling Game Round 8: Old style.
July 28, 2004 by Collin
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Parody site.
July 27, 2004 by Collin
Thanks to Boing Boing for the link.
This may or may not be around long. Enjoy it while you can. Here is the background at Boing Boing.
I love Boing Boing.
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Cover Comparisons.
July 27, 2004 by Collin
Sometimes I feel more like a technician than an artist. I go through the motions; work the machine; build the ad; collect the paycheck. But once in a while my artistic side will emerge and ravage Tokyo. Or whatever else happens to be handy.
A couple (few or so) weekends ago Heather and I were in a huge used bookstore here in downtown Colorado Springs. For the longest time it was called “Four Corners” and I bought all my books there. Then a while back (like… years) they changed their name and for the life of me I can’t remember what they changed it to. And this keeps happening.
I look up at the new name above the door as I enter the building and say to myself, “Oh yeaaaahhh!”, then I buy a book or three, leave and five minutes later I’ve forgotten the name. I think it’s “First…” something. I tell myself that this is a sign that I don’t really care what the name is, but I really fear it’s because my brain is hardening and I’m becoming more resistant to change, “In MY day…”.
How was THAT for a tangent?
So anyway, we were in THE bookstore just browsing around and found ourselves in the Horror section. I’m pretty sure we walked there, but I really wasn’t paying that much attention to where we were going. My eyes were running over the covers and my mind was having it’s little artsy thoughts, “not bad…kinda cool…I LIKE that…that’s crap…not too bad…” and Heather was talking about how good Peter Straub’s work is.
I looked at the books she was referring to and one of the covers just leaped out at me! Not because it was good necessarily, or – you know – haunted and thirsting for my blood like you might expect, but because it looked very similar to one of the other covers I had just glanced at. Similar enough to trigger that feeling of instant recognition.
I quickly looked back across the shelves until I located the other book and then did a side-by-side comparison. I launched into total art geek mode before Heather’s laughing eyes. She was totally impressed by the amount of crap I droned on about. That’s what I’m telling myself. Leave me alone!
I suggested that I should get the books, scan the covers and blog about it and she agreed that it was a fun idea. So. Having fun yet?
I bought the crap one and Heather already owned the Peter Straub book and was willing to loan it to me for this post. Here they are. Time to get my geek on.
“Ghost Story” © 1979 by Peter Straub, published by Pocket Books, first printing April 1980. No artist named.
“The Ghost of Veronica Gray” © 1985 by Ken Eulo, published by Pocket Books, first printing August, 1985. Cover artwork © 1985 by Lisa Falkenstern.It really should be obvious to anyone which cover came first. The one that doesn’t look like it was done by an intern. I do have to say this: after a google search for Lisa Falkenstern I discovered that she has illustrated far more book covers than I have and some of the ones I was able to look at weren’t bad at all. So… Good for her.
Maybe this was an early cover and I’m being horribly unfair. Perhaps it was even the fault of an art director that had been with Pocket Books for decades and won’t let go of the past. I know what that’s like (not our current art director; someone from my previous job). Or it may have had a rushed deadline.
Now I’m feeling guilty. But will it stop me?
Nah.
Let’s begin the autopsy.
They both share the same title font. In ‘Ghost Story’ the illustrator extended the ‘Y’ to accommodate Peter Straub’s name and the ‘G’ has a tail. I’m not sure how typesetting was done in the early to mid 80′s. I’m not really a graphic designer. I don’t get all giggly over fonts. Just suffice it to say they are the same as far as I care and we will go from there.
Moving outward we get to the outline on the letters, which also ties into color usage. On ‘Veronica’ the outline is black which isn’t too far from the violet that was used for the upper half, and the letters were kept white. Pretty snoozy (to use a phrase our current art director uses). In contrast, the artist for ‘Ghost Story’ used red, which against the dark blue background totally lifts the title off the cover and calls attention to it.
Moving to the background colors now. ‘Ghost Story’ uses dark blue and silver (looks grey, but is silver ink). This gives the scene a bleak feeling. Good idea for a horror novel. ‘Veronica’ uses violet and cyan with a tinch of magenta. This gives the scene an Easter feeling. Okay, I’m being a bit flippant there. What it doesn’t scream though is horror. Horrible, sure, but not horror. Although, I will say the bad color choice is what first drew my eyes to that book, so there’s something.
Let’s talk lastly about style choice. The unknown artist for ‘Ghost Story’ went with a graphic feel. All flat images. Stylized house and tree. No other scenery details. No shadows. Knife-edge hill and sky separation. Very consistent within itself.
‘Veronica’… damn. This is going to take a bit.
Okay, it seems as though Lisa liked the graphic style and wanted to improve upon it, but didn’t really have an idea of how to do it. Instead of the gradually sloping knife-edged hill she went with a knife-edged semi-circle (and you can’t see it but the circle continues on the spine). Why? I don’t know. I can’t even guess really. I’m baffled.
Then, having decided on a flat graphic feel for the background she puts a photographic house at the tip of it. Like a nipple with shutters. And tosses on one of the stupidest drop shadows under it that I’ve ever seen. The thing had to be put there because she felt there needed to be a shadow, but couldn’t determine what it should look like. It doesn’t even match the light source that would be needed to allow the OTHER stupid shadow in the picture to exist.
Which leads to the other source of shadow on a flat graphic style background: the running girl. She doesn’t look scared so much as misshapen. And about to fall off the side of the cover. And her shadow ends in a point. It was like Lisa realized she was going to run out of ground for the shadow to fall across after she passed the hem of the dress and figured, “Fuck it. It’s a paycheck. I’ll just turn it into Cheech the Wizard’s shadow.”
Baffling.
So, in conclusion. I’m glad to see that the quality of Lisa’s work has improved over time, and everybody has to start somewhere. I have no doubt that the creation of this cover was surrounded by circumstances that I am unaware of. I can tell that it was obviously inspired by the cover of Straub’s book, and since Pocket Books published both books there is no real harm done, but it didn’t improve upon it in any way whatsoever. It’s almost the level of ‘okay’ fan art. A fan that missed the point. If it had been me I don’t think I would have put my name on it for fear of something like what just happened happening.
One thing that she can say to me however that I absolutely cannot argue with is that she is getting paid to do one of the things that I have always wanted to do. Even if she did it badly. K’Ching!
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Afterward: Okay, no fault of Lisa. ‘Veronica’ is not a compelling book. I figured since I bought it I may as well read it. Yargh. It *might* get better, but I’ll never find out. And in fewer pages than I gave ‘Veronica’ to grab my interest, ‘Ghost Story’ has totally managed to intrigue me. I will be reading it to the end, and possibly seeking out more of Straub’s work.
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Another stop on the Lazy-Ass Posting Tour of 2004!
July 26, 2004 by Collin
“For when life sucks”
Now why couldn’t I think of something like this? Of course, if I had I wouldn’t have abbreviated “advertising campaigns” as “add campaigns”, but there you go. We all have our faults.
And the web poll that mistake is in? It’s just opinion. They never really answer with anything like a fact. Although it seems that kittens and the elderly are tied, perhaps due to the fact that they are often found around one another. But teens are in the lead which would have been my guess.Also, at the bottom of the page is a button that says “Click here if you would like a website like this one!” I didn’t dare. Not even as a joke. They might mean it and have ways of making it happen.
Oh, and one flavor of the KissStick (which is GUARANTEED to improve your kissing) is Anise (Black Licorice). Good God NO! Just the thought of it makes me want to spit. And I don’t see how that would help kissing. Blech! Gag.
*ahem*
So. There you go.
I was going to follow another link they have called “Teen Victory” and it said that it couldn’t open the page because Safari couldn’t connect to the server. And now none of the links are working, even the one I was just at (KissStick).
So either I just blew their bandwidth for the day by looking at two pages (sad), or they have a detector that lets them know when someone is poking fun at them (I need that). Either way, I hope it’s back up before long so you wonderful people can have a look around. If anyone can find out what the Teen Victory link was about, please let me know.
UPDATE —
Okay, they appear to be up and running again and holy CRAP! They are in Denver Colorado.
It turn out that Teen Victory is a non-profit organization devoted to help teens stop smoking. Not as funny as I had hoped. But the endorsements for the Life Sucker™ are:
(taken a smidgeon out of context)
“The Life Sucker is a great device for oral stimulation. …”
-Irwin M Cohen. D.M.D., P.C Pediatrics Dentistry.
(That could be handy when you need to orally stimulate something in a hurry)“Our family recently purchased the Life Sucker and found it fun and satisfying. … I also noticed one of my sons using his quite a bit…”
-Nancy Hyde, musician, piano teacher.
(You know, the one we beat with piano wire. The twitchy one)“I pulled my L.S. out in math class to chew on during my final exam. It made me relax.”
-Brett Hymer
(And it tickled my brain in all the right places! Now I am the GOD of MATH!)“After I suck on the Life Sucker, I don’t need a smoke.”
-Christi Frederick
(Unlike after I have sex. So the Life Sucker™ is BETTER for you than sex!)—
The instructions for use:“Whenever the urge to smoke hits you, put the balloon-shaped end of the Life Sucker™ in your mouth and suck or chew on it. Suck it with the indented part on your tongue, or suck it with the indented part towards the roof of your mouth.
(Okay, really, how many other ways can there be to suck on this thing?)
“Tickle the roof of your mouth.
(heheheee!)
“Or chew or inhale on the narrow end of the sucker.”
(They later warn you that it is possible to choke on this thing so I have NO idea why they advise you to inhale on it. It might seem safer to suggest light puffs on the narrow end to simulate smoking, but actually inhaling… doesn’t seem wise to me.)And a business opportunity from their order page:
“If you are 14 or older and would like to become a Suckcessful Sucker Salesperson by selling Life Suckers™ over the web, please e-mail us.”
(Can they think of anything more gay to call their sales reps? I mean really. Take a moment and say it out loud. There is no way to say that title without emphasizing the first “Suck”. Even if you CAN do it, you will still be thinking it. And as long as they are running with the “suck” motif, why not call them Suckcessful Sucker Suckpeople? If you are going to play with the spelling of one word you may as well play with them all. God’s already not amused.)If this all really works then fantastic. More power to them. I just think they could have come up with a better name than Life Suckers™ and KissStick. I mean a brain sucker sucks out brains. So what does that tell us about a life sucker? How about Kicker Tit. Or Psychedelic Psucking Pstick? Hell, I don’t know. If I were creative I would have thought of this first.
So just remember, “Instead of grabbing a beer, a cigarette, chew, or screaming at someone you love, suck on the Life Sucker™. Medical research proves that sucking is soothing “
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