Saturday, July 31, 2004

Colon Cleansing Kit Anyone?

Blessed Herbs' Colon Cleansing Kit can "remove large portions of intestinal debris". Lovely. And they also tell us, "Most people have 5-10 pounds of matter stored in their Colon... According to autopsies, John Wayne had 40 lbs and Elvis had 60 lbs". And whatever you do, don't, I repeat, don't click on that link they have to see more photos of the "intestinal debris". I'm not joking.

Now I know what it's like to have the heebie-jeebies.

OneLook Reverse Dictionary

OneLook Reverse Dictionary: "OneLook's reverse dictionary lets you describe a concept and get back a list of words and phrases related to that concept." [Link via The Presurfer.]

Alternative Guitar Tunings.

An article from Guitar Player Online gives multiple examples of strange guitar tunings. Interesting. Although why this interests remains a mystery since I suck at guitar and never take mine out of the case.

Thursday, July 29, 2004

Morbid? Me?

I'm feeling a little morbid today, folks, so I'm giving you a selection of dead celebrity and dead rock star links.

The Dead Rock Stars Club

The Dead Rock Stars Club. In my opinion, the ultimate dead rock star page. Hours of fun!

Dead Musicians- who died before age sixty

Dead Musicians- who died before age sixty.

List of drug-related deaths

Wikipedia's List of drug-related deaths of notable people.

The Dead Musician Directory

Fuller Up, The Dead Musician Directory: "A Site About Dead Musicians...and how they got that way"

More Death

Rock Star's Digest: "A Database: birth, death, cause of death, trivia, links"

Premature Death of Rock Stars

According to the site, Premature Death of Rock Stars, the average age dying age of deceased rock stars is 36.9.(Warning: religion!)

Find A Death.

Find A Death features more than you'd ever want to know about how celebrities have died. (Warning: some gross photos.)

Life in Legacy.

Life in Legacy"Remember everyone. The famous, the small, the young, the old. History lives in all of us and those who we remember this week are legends in history." In short, well known people who just died.

Dead or Alive?

Dead or Alive?: "This site tracks whether famous people are still alive or whether they have passed away."

Tuesday, July 27, 2004

Beatle Bootlegs

Beatlegs is a Beatles bootleg site that (until lawyers get involved) features around three bootleg .mp3's a month. [Link via J-Walk.]

Gangsters.

I tend to not like modern bands that claim to play ska, they simply don't have a feel for the music. I especially don't like modern bands that claim to mix ska with punk, because these bands tend not to have a feel for either genre. I like my ska older. Either give me some of the original 60's Jamaican stuff or give me the late 70's 2-Tone stuff.

And, speaking of 2-Tone, The Specials in their prime were quite good. [Links shamelessly swiped from the still slightly out of order gmtPlus9.]

The Man Who Broke a Thousand Chains

The true story behind the movie, I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang.

Prison Flicks

This morning, out of the blue, I watched the 1932 film, I Am a Fugitive From a Chain Gang. After doing a little searching online to find out something about the true story it was based on, I found a site called Prison Flicks, where they do nothing but review prison movies.

File Under: Socially Irresponsible.

This looks like a updated online version of The Anarchist's Cookbook. Play nice now.

Sunday, July 25, 2004

Rube Goldberg Invention Convention

Rube Goldberg Invention Convention: "Rube Goldberg was an artist, inventor, engineer, author and sculptor. He is best known for his comical drawings of crazy contraptions and inventions. His artwork appeared in newspapers throughout the United States from the early 1900's to the 1960's. Today, the term Rube Goldberg is used to signify anything done in an overly compicated or round-about manner." [Link via something I saw yesterday. What was that? I guess I should've written it down or something. I'm so busy lately. And disorganized. I wish I had a robot assistant. Yes, that would be cool.]

The ElectriClerk

The ElectriClerk is a vintage manual typewriter/computer hybrid inspired by similar devices in Terry Gilliam's Brazil. [Link via Metafilter.]

The Who London 1965

The Who London 1965: An account of the band, the clubs, their equipment, etc.

Also, a guy named Mike Moore completely restored a '58 Fender Stratocaster Pete Townsend smashed during a Who gig in '68.

Moblog

Is this picture fake or not? Either way, it makes my frog picture look kind of lame.

Saturday, July 24, 2004

Templates

Why do Blogger sites in Persian (Farsi?) always seem to have different templates than regular Blogger sites? And how can I get access to these templates?

Homebrew Lava Lamp

Homebrew Lava Lamp from a wine jug. [Link via my weirdo sister.]

Pulling Satan's Cotton Plug

Pulling Satan's Cotton Plug: "Christian (Baptist) women today can not go into a pharmacy or grocery store without Satan waiving his filthy cotton finger at us and calling for our souls from the shelves. Indeed a trip down the feminine hygiene isle today is more a test of faith than a matter of choice. In fact, there simply is no choice. Any woman who does not use a cotton maxi-pad will burn in the eternal lakes of fire and that is all there is to it. " [Link via my weirdo sister again.]

Website Plagiarism Search.

Copyscape is a search engine designed to track down plagiarised web content. (I've wanted one of these for awhile.) [Link via The Presurfer.]

Whistling Records

The Online Guide to Whistling Records is the type of thing that makes me glad I don't have a broadband connection. Dammit.

Weirdo Music!

Weirdomusic.com features "exotica, lounge, easy listening, outsider music, and more!" Check out the .mp3 and audio stream page; it's stuff like this that really makes me wish I had a frickin' broadband connection. Dammit!

Thursday, July 22, 2004

I Can't Explain.

Pete Townsend's equipment overview features every type of guitar ever played, or smashed, by Mr. Townsend. Unfortunately, the stupid page was down the last time I checked. AARRGGHH!! [Link via Guitarz!.]

Update 07/22/04: The site's still down! AARRGGHH!! I swear it's a real site, you gotta believe me! I've seen it. And it's great, too. Lots of pictures. Really.

Sonic Youth Guitar Tunings

Since you now know all about Sonic Youth's equipment, you might as well know about their tunings as well: The Official Sonic Life Guitar Tunings v1.0.

There's also The Unofficial Sonic Youth Guitar Tunings List.

I guess the fun thing to do would be to compare both of these and look for inconsistancies. Actually, now that I think about it, that wouldn't be that fun at all. Forget I mentioned it.

The Sonic Youth Gear Guide

Curious about virtually every guitar ever used by Sonic Youth? No? Oh, come on! Why not? Anyway, I thought it was interesting.

Tuesday, July 20, 2004

I See Dead People.

The recent death of former New York Dolls bassist Arthur Kane makes four members of the Dolls that are dead: Billy Murcia, Johnny Thunders, Jerry Nolan, and Arthur Kane. Which brings me to today's question: What rock band has the most dead members?

At least four people who were either present or former members of the Grateful Dead are dead: Pigpen, Keith Godchaux, Brent Mydland, and Jerry Garcia.

At least four peole who were either present or former members of the Allman Brothers are dead: Duane Allman, Berry Oakley, Lamar Williams, and Allen Woody.

And at least four peole who were either present or former members of Lynyrd Skynryd are dead: Ronnie Van Zandt, Steve Gains, Allen Collins, and Leon Wilkeson.

So there can't possibly be a rock band with more than four dead members, right? Right? Wrong.

There's at least six former memebers of the Byrds that are dead: Gene Clark, Micheal Clarke, Gram Parsons, Clarence White, Kevin Kelley, and Skip Battin. Hell, the Byrds had so many members over its seven or eight year existence, there may be a few other dead members I've overlooked.

So the Byrds win the dead member contest, unless, of course, any of you can think of another rock band with even more dead members.

Friday, July 16, 2004

Infrared, Part II.

Yes, more point-and-shoot infrared stuff. Bear with me.

I have two digital cameras, the one I took the shots I posted yesterday is a good snapshot camera and my other one is a glorified webcam that I paid $25 for. (I've seen it on sale for $10.) I decided to see how well the $25 piece of junk took infrared photos. The results surprised me. Even though the images produced by this camera are small, pixelated, and somewhat distorted, they ended up coming out far better than the pictures taken by the more expensive camera: 1, 2, 3, 4.

Later, I found out how to make a infrared filter using two layers of exposed color print film. I decided to test this new filter against my earlier one. I can't decide which I like better: 1, 2, 3, 4.

This morning I decided to try one layer of exposed film. Surprisingly, even though the filter passed visible light, the vegetation had that "infrared look": 1, 2.

Then I tried the combination of red filter, linear polarizer, and circular polarizer. The results seemed to be closer to color infrared images I've seen: 1, 2.

Thursday, July 15, 2004

Infrared.

A couple of weeks ago I read something on taking infrared photos with point-and-shoot digital cameras. I took a few shots after cobbling-together a red filter and two polarizers as a makeshift infrared filter. The results, while sort of interesting, weren't really infrared as far as I could tell. (The photo was brightened considerably using the Levels setting in The GIMP.)

Yesterday, purely by chance, I found myself looking at a site on using subminiature cameras. Oddly, there was a piece on making your own infrared filter by using combined red and green filters. I put a couple of my glass filters together, but that didn't seem to block much visible light. Then I got out my Roscolux filter pack and cut a square from #27 Medium Red and a square from #90 Dark Yellow Green. These two combined were almost black. I taped the stacked filters to the front of my cheap digital camera and the results were surprisingly good: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.

The dark circle in the center of each photo is the only real problem and I don't know how to remedy that because it always pops up when I use really dark filters with this camera.

Tuesday, July 13, 2004

Wild Kingdom.

Over the years I've seen wild turkeys around here many times, but I've never seen any baby turkeys until this morning. So I got my Nikon out and shot a few pictures and then I decided to try my luck shooting through my binoculars with my cheap digital camera. The results, while not great, surprised me: 1 , 2 , 3

Monday, July 12, 2004

Digging Through the Junk.

I was bored out of my mind this morning, so I decided to take a trip to Goodwill to dig through the garbage. I so enjoy picking through the detritus of other people's lives. Anyway, I hit the vinyl albums first this time. Typically I don't dig through the vinyl because it takes a long time and there's rarely anything interesting in there. Once I found some belly dancing albums. I stupidly bought only one of them. I went back later to see if they were still there and, of course, they were all gone.

Today wasn't any different from any other time I've looked through the vinyl. Lots of dreck; little of interest. I thought I hit pay dirt when I found a copy of Booker T and the MG's Hip Hug-Her. I pulled the record out of the battered sleeve and it was something else entirely. Something stupid. I don't remember the title. It got tossed it back into the pile and I kept searching.

I don't know why I dig through old records. I guess I hope that one day I'll find something really cool or rare, like maybe an original printing of a Velvet Underground album, the Yardbirds, a Robert Johnson 78, or something, anything, but all I ever see is stuff like Mantovani, Andy Williams, and Leo Sayer. (Did anyone who bought a Leo Sayer album ever keep it?) I did once find a rare copy of the Weirdos' Who? What? When? Where? Why? That was an odd thing to pop up in this town. And that's also the best thing I've ever found digging through thrift store vinyl, I think. That's sad.

Thursday, July 08, 2004

Wig-Out!

American Merkin Company, "Handcrafting merkins for over 150 years!" (Not safe for work, by the way.)

3 Dev Adam!

3 Dev Adam is a bizarre, low-budget Turkish movie where Spiderman is a murderous bad guy. Really. It also features Captain America and the Mexican wrestler, Santo. I'm serious. [Link via some new links blog I saw yesterday that took forever to load because it had tons of pictures and I'm stuck on a dial-up connection out here in the boondocks and it really got on my nerves so I didn't write the URL down out of pure spite. So there.]

Monday, July 05, 2004

What Is That?

Dog Toy or Marital Aid? [Link via Monkeyfilter.]
Paint-Cam.

One of the most intriguing things I've seen online recently is artist Daniel Rozin's Paint-Cam. It's a Shockwave based application that allows the user to paint with colors that are various live webcams from around the web to make photo-montages. Very clever and strange.

Rosin is the same person who did the wooden mirror a lot of people were linking to last year.
Jet-Powered Firetruck.

Last month, at a local airshow, I got to see the Hawaiian Fire Department's jet-powered firetruck. (The website's missing some images.) Don't ask me why someone would get the bright idea to mount a pair of jet engines in a 64 year old firetruck, but I'm glad they did. You don't often get to see a firetruck race an airplane down a runway and win. The truck's also is in the Guinness Book for holding the record as fastest firetruck (407 mph). (Why they need a category for fastest firetruck escapes me. Why not a have a category for fastest washing-machine?)

And speaking of the airshow, I really should get off my ass and get those three rolls of film I shot developed.
Try and Read Them All!

Implementation is a novel that's "[...] printed on sheets of stickers that are being distributed in monthly installments. [...]" People have been sticking them on things all over the world.
WHOOOSH!!

Sparkler Bombs. Have fun when the FBI shows up.

Saturday, July 03, 2004

Middle Age Riot.

Radio station KCRW had Sonic Youth live in the studio for a performance and interview. You need the dreaded RealOne Player to see it. Oddly, even though I'm on a dial-up connection, I was able to listen to this nearly forty minute streaming media file without interuption. And it didn't sound like it was under water either. The "video" (for lack of a better word) was of a truly crappy quality unfortunately. [Link via Metafilter.]
Belly Dance!

Radio Bastet features cover galleries of vintage belly dance albums and has a radio show of nothing but belly dance music. (You need the loathesome Real One Player, sorry.) [Link via Tales of the Two-Headed Mermaid.]
The Montage Art of Winston Smith.

One of the things I always liked about the early Dead Kennedys albums was the artwork of Winston Smith.
Too Much Time on Your Hands?

A gallery of Japanese dog clothes. (Warning: midi music!)

Thursday, July 01, 2004

Search Request Stupidity.

Over the past couple of months I've been accumulating oddball search requests that led hapless web surfers to my humble blog.

when i shower with girls my vagina gets wet is this ok
I'd be more worried if while you were in the shower your vagina didn't get wet. You know, because of all of that water. (Oh, god, my life is so empty.)

hillbilly racing mules
Just because I live in the South people automatically start making assumptions.

Turtle erectile disfunction
There's no greater tragedy in all of nature.

phobia of lobsters
Lobsters: scary, but tasty.

male raccoons don't have nipples
I've never checked, but since the Virginia raccoons have rabies, I'm going to hold off despite my sudden curiousity.

conservative woman bikini photos
They're wearing really big bikinis.

what can i use to remove a homemade tattoo that is inexpensive and you can do it at home
Cheese grater? Sandpaper?

sideburn templates
My barber needed a set of these this morning. She shaved my sideburns off completely even when I specifically said not to.

large volume enema
Doing a little spring cleaning, are we?

ant-thing goes anime porn
I don't know what that is, but if you find it, could you please let me know; I'm more than a little curious.

=exercises porn stars uses
Insert lame comment about picking up coins without using their hands, feet, or mouth.