Having taken a short sabbatical from the tubes it is good to rediscover them. Often I have found that the internet becomes something of a perverse, personal litmus test for me, a private game of one-upmanship between me and myself comprising a back and forth of “You think that’s twisted, take a look at this!”; and while this game is fine for a while it gets old quickly. Before long your mind becomes one big callous, a mass of dead, scarred neurons impervious to all but the most horrid of visions, and by the time you realize what the sparse growth on your face signifies it’s too late and you’ve become Warren Ellis. At which point what else is there, really?
It was nice then to find this Flickr group whose sole purpose is to bring the world of Gary Larson to life. The Far Side was one of my favorite comic strips as a child. His surreal world was ceaselessly amusing to my young mind and, simultaneously, there was something about “getting” a Larson strip that made me feel wise beyond my years. It also ignited in me a passion for writing small, absurd vignettes for photographs, a device I often employ to help myself write and which I have subjected you poor Ectomites to on various occasions. All in all, a fitting way to come back.
The only mullets to ever pass muster belonged, respectively, to the Goblin King; Kurt Russell; and the two junkie geniuses pictured above. I’m certain I’ve posted this before, but my midnight irritation compels me.
The story of this video, as related to me by friend Aaron Cole, is that there was a sizable budget allotted to special effects, cinematography, and star power. A sizable budget that was reassigned to a sizable H bender, and the trashbag sea and batman moon pulled out at the last minute. The video is better for it.
My graphic designer friends assure me that this is a factual representation of the day-to-day operations of a design office. Mega-Man-esque psuedo-fashionistas in skin-tight leopard-print pants and leather, constantly fighting with rotund corporate overlords in spandex, all of whom have actually been known to don a cardboard box from time to time, depending on their current medication saturation levels.
Granted, these assurances are from the kind of people that would spend enough time in the offices of a corporate graphic design firm to observe these private rituals, so their respective words are already highly suspect.
The life of the discriminating DuJourite is an all but easy one. Sailing the seven aural seas like a musical Magellan, disturbing the native soil of the “undiscovered” lands on which our gangplank makes fall.
All too often a continent becomes an island when we discover that the single song with which we’ve been hooked is simply a fluke. The subsequent disappointment is all the more distressing by dint of seemingly having been decieved. As if the artist has broken the promise made by their own creation.
It’s difficult to quantify what it is about The Rosebuds’ “When the Lights Went Dim” that makes it superior to the tracks with which it shares space on their album The Night of the Furies. I’ve listened through the whole thing on infinite loop for the last several days. Hoping that suddenly it would click for me as it must’ve for others in my position.
Perhaps it’s simply the subtle distortion of the walking bassline or the quietly moody tone the band doesn’t quite seem to capture in their other offerings. Or perhaps the poor bastards were simply doomed by their very introduction. Regardless, they’ve earned the obeisances I’ll later lay at their feet for this song alone.
Years ago I successfully infiltrated the ranks of God’s own Weekend Warriors. The fine folk that travel from one stoop to the next, hoping against hope that the silence of the suburbs subsequent to the approach of the faithbound isn’t the first indication of having been overlooked during their savior’s final draft pick of piety.
As a Jane Goodall-esque figure in the realm of religious infiltration I’m here to warn you that the above is the future to which we can all look forward if the Good News contagion is allowed to spread.
It starts off innocently enough. A sweaty, numbing summer had driven him into a rut. He kept the demons at bay with drink, snacks, and Civilization 2. Any one of us would have done the same.
I had been watching broadcast television, drinking tequila straight from the bottle, and eating chocolate chips out of the bag I kept in the freezer for just such an occasion.
But man cannot live by Civ2 alone. Our hero ventures out and is rewarded by strange beauty.
Into the McDonald’s. The air conditioning was so powerful that I was instantly chilled. There was a young black gal and a roly-poly little white guy behind the counter. The white guy was running the register and the black gal was filing her nails, leaning her hip up against the counter.
“Burp and piss! Shit and fart. Burp and piss and shit and fart. Burp and piss and shit and fart!” It was the white guy. He kind of sing-songed it, clicking out the words with a kind of syncopated beat.
“Ronald, you better cut it out! There’s a customer in the dining area!”
Is it truth? Is it fiction? Is it a dire warning against disturbing Professional Bloggers at their work?
Around the corner in the dining area was a wild haired older white guy. He had thick aviator frame eyeglasses, and his mad scientist fro was held in partial check by a red white, and blue terrycloth sweatband. He was wearing cut-off jean shorts and penny-loafers without socks. He was holed up in the far back corner, hammering away on a beat-assed old Toshiba laptop big enough I imagined it being powered by factory reconditioned lead acid motorcycle batteries. On the back of the display, where I could see it, was a bumper sticker. It read “ROSS PEROT FOR PRESIDENT.”
In the table across the aisle were three black kids - boys in their early teen years. They were giggling to themselves.
Mumbling to himself, Laptop Perot picked up his Big Mac. In unison, the three boys mimicked picking up invisible Big Macs.
Laptop hurls down his burger and growls. Three invisible burgers are hurled down and the boys growl.
“If you hooligans had been properly educated, you would know better than to stare. I have critical work to do here.” LP waves an angry finger.
In some circles this represents perhaps the greatest of all possible Christmas gifts; the Platonic Ideal of Yuletide moments if you will. It is only in the the closing moments of the clip that reality steps in and imposes its harsh will upon the scene.
Meathook Mk3 was a vast improvement over the Mk1, featuring almost-articulated joints, highly dexterous dental pick hands, and Dr. Smock’s patented Teenyfeets™ ambulatory system. The Mk3 was displayed at the 1900 World’s Fair in Paris, where it was met with polite applause.
Well, it’s not like we could have avoided it forever. This Thursday marks that most expensive of holidays; the day some celebrate an imaginary person’s birthday by giving each other presents and some celebrate an imaginary person breaking into their home to leave gifts for them. Truly, it is the most magical time of the year. In the spirit of such activities, Ectomo presents a small sampling of the plethora of Christmas themed animated specials that have littered the airwaves over the years. We hope you enjoy or, at the very least, do no retch.
• A Charlie Brown Christmas: For the two or three people who haven’t seen this the plot is as follows. Charlie Brown, not understanding the meaning of Christmas, is enlisted to direct a Christmas play but is stymied by everyone’s desire to dance repetitively. He then buys a horribly stunted coniferous tree for the play and everyone laughs. Then Linus quotes the Bible. The End.
• Freakazoid!: “In Arms Way” What other cartoon would have a villain named Arms Akimbo?
• How the Grinch Stole Christmas: Chuck Jones animated version of the Dr. Seuss story with voice work by Boris Karloff. That’s all you need to know.
• Mickey’s Christmas Carol: Back when Disney produced animated cartoons of quality they made this, perhaps one of the best adaptations of Charles Dickens’s classic tale. Consider it the condensed version. The animation in this one, like the above entry, is simply top-notch.
• He-Man and She-Ra Christmas Special: I…I really have no idea. At some point in the 80s He-Man and She-Ra had a Christmas special. This makes my brain weep.
• Monkey Dust: Season 3, episode 2 in which the Paedofinder General interupts a school nativity play, Ivan Dobsky has a “most terriblest nightmare” in which he receives a Playstation for Christmas — likening its complexity to “pong, but with three bats” — and “The International Revolutionary Jihad for the Liberation of the Islamic Republic of Great Britain” prepare to blow themselves up in the middle of a shopping center. All this, and more, in another twisted episode of Monkey Dust.
Lastly, [adult swim], while not allowing anything as convenient as embedding because they are jerks, has a section with all of their Christmas themed episodes in one place. So, if you are looking for your fix of Sealab 2021, Venture Bros., Aqua Teen Hunger Force, Robot Chicken, etc.this is where you want to go.
The Antikythera mechanism has fascinated both scientists and people with a singular obsession with brass and the idea that aliens held architectural design workshops for the ancient Egyptians, since its discovery in 1901 in a wreck off the Greek island of Antikythera, between Kythera and Crete. Dated to about 150–100 BC, the mechanism has been described as the first mechanical computer, and calculated the position of the Sun, Moon, and other astronomical information such as the location of other planets as well as allowing for rudimentary spreadsheets and solitaire.
Here Michael Wright, of the Imperial College London and noted Antikythera devotee, demonstrates his working model of the mechanism, gleaned from years of study and x-ray imaging. It should be noted that Wright was unable to reconcile all of the known gears found in the mechanism. Solitaire enthusiasts take heart, for Wright remains on the case with the help of The Antikythera Mechanism Research Project.
In sheer defiance of the World Wide Web Consortium's will, Ectomo was designed using a non-web-standard font. Luckily, it is included in the excellent font pack released by the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society, which can be freely downloaded in Mac and PC formats here. Ectomo should still look fine without it, though.
