The Wired Jester

Pimpage Linkage

A couple of friends of mine have updated their weblogs with some interesting entries – first of all, the mighty “Darloboy” (personally, not a fan of the whole 3rd person thing, but I am bound not to reveal my friend’s real name in case…. well…. his arch nemesis or Lex Luthor or whoever finds him). Names aside though, it’s another thoughtful and carefully written entry from him, with a nice BitTorrent link at the end, too. Find it all here.

Secondly, my brother, currently sashaying his way across the globe, (Thailand to Cuba via lots of obscure islands in the South Pacfic), has just updated his “Buddha Marx and Me” weblog:

“When we left Bangkok on the way to Kanchanaburi we happened to fall into conversation with a couple of mind numbing 18year olds.
Mind-numbing Girl: So you’re going like, around the world?
Richard: That’s right.
M-n G: Are you going to Bali?
R: No we’re not, but we are going to a couple of South Pacific Isla-
M-n G: (interrupting) but I thought round the worlds went to Bali.
R: (puzzled) well I don’t think you have to.”

Full entry here.

I’m a stickler for imperfection, nonsense and gibberish

Another link purloined/leeched/half-inched (your choice, whether you’re
dandy, geek or geezer) from the super-trendy (at least, I assume he is,
judging by the cool stuff on his weblog) Josh Rubin.
Apparently London
based, Imperfectionist are interested in the “premise of collision and
binary opposition.” Which is something I happen to be interested in
too! What are the chances of that… Some nice mashes and arresting mix
ups in the designs, including the party scorpion below. Not cheap
though (“£35!!” I can her my Grandad shouting now), and I have a
sneaking suspicion it’s a little bit too-cool-for-school, too… Link.

Pic: Imperfectionist

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Russell Crow: “I’ve got a beak!”

Still
feeling a bit ill, so something that always makes me smile – Russell
Crow’s “official” website. Russell the Crow, I should say. Don’t want
to make the same mistake as those (almost too) unbelievable hicks and
loonies in the guest book. Drawn by a friend of mine, the cartoons are
ludicrously surreal and breathlessly silly in the best possible way,
and yes, the guestbook is worth a look. They also do t-shirts! Link.

Pic: Russell Crow

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MonsterMonsterMonster

No-one does monsters like the Japanese (Godzilla, Hello Kitty etc.) so it’s no surprise that Japanese folk-lore is full of creatures who could give the Bros. Grimm pantheon a good beating (now there’s an idea for a Streetfighter-style videogame…)

Anyway, Neo Kaiju is a project that sees American designers re-making traditional Japanese monsters as collectible toys-cum-pop art. They’re in the same vain as the sort-of popular Qees (explanatory link), and they look just as cool – more than they first appear, tiny and intriguing, like little optical illusions. Plus the monster below reminds me of one of the disguises Hannibal from the A-Team used (the one in the pilot ep that was used in the opening credits). PlayLounge, which is just off the recently redeveloped Carnaby Street complex, sells a lot of this kind of stuff, and makes for an eye-opening visit, if you’re in London… [via Boing Boing]

Pic: Neokaiju.com

Sometimes, London gets to you.

RRRR. Barclays just charged me a £30 penalty, and I’ve incurred a £50 fine for not paying my congestion charge (I thought you could pay it up to 24 hours afterwards, but it’s only till midnight). And it’s raining. And I’m ill. Woe is me, woe is me, etc., fade music, curtain.

How could they make the Optio S4i better?

…By
adding an X! The coolest letter of them all. Although that’s not
all they’ve done – Pentax’s Optio X is tiny and is probably the first
digi-cam I’ve seen that makes a decent go of the twisting body design
concept. It’s 3x optical zoom / 5x mega pixels. Given it’s tiny
dimensions (11cm by 5cm approx), it’ll be interesting to see if it can maintain the image
quality of the S4i, which I love so much. Speaking of which, Pentax are also updating it, so
that it becomes the 5
megapixel S5i. [All this via excellent French Japanese gadget news
site, Akihabara News and more here at DP Review]

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It was another sign from the Church

Another Church motto sign, like the one I posted yesterday. This is a photo I actually took myself. It’s from Toronto, when I was there for a couple of days, and (as you can see) it was snapped just outside the Hyatt hotel. It’s a good quote – with or without the religious connotations.

It was a sign

This pic comes via a whole bunch of places I’ve noy seen before (a nice-looking place called Midnight Revue and then they got it from the weird-ish A Moveable Beast),
but the message is good. It’s from one of those billboards churches in
the US tend to have outside, trying to tempt roadside sinners
inside…

Pic: A Moveable Beast

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Super Brain Panic!

Now that I am older and wiser, I have seen anime like Laputa and Spirited Away and realised that don’t giant robots from the future are not integral to Japanese animation (technically, Laputa does have
robots, but they’re sort of organic and…) Still, it was Ghost In The Shell that got me hooked on anime in the first place, and there’s still few things on celluloid quite as enjoyable as giant Japanese-drawn robots stylishly blowing things up. Terratag has some fantastic anime-inspired t-shirts, which combine, in their words, "ultimate machines and typographic force." Great gallery of concept art too.

I spent the summer wasting

Well, I didn’t actually… but while there’s still some summer left, I’ve posted a couple more photos taken over the last few months, showing just how *nice* the capital looks when its streets are filled with sunlight. This is because I, like millions of Londoners, live in fear of the terrible shade of grey all the concrete turns as soon as Autumn comes and it starts raining…