Super Punch: July 2008

Thursday, July 31, 2008

Desktop Wallpaper: Colorful Airshow

Download the high-res version here.

*Find a near endless supply of desktop wallpapers here.

The Spirirt - - Art School Project

Here's some highlights from the press release:

Lionsgate, a leading next generation filmed entertainment studio, today announced that it will partner with nine prestigious art schools nationwide in THE SPIRIT Art School Program, which will present nine student-designed advertising campaigns for the upcoming film THE SPIRIT.

The college-level facilities participating in THE SPIRIT Art School Program are: The Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandise in Los Angeles; School of the Art Institute of Chicago; The Art Institute of New York; The Art Institute of California – San Francisco; The Art Institute of California – San Diego, Miami Ad School; The Art Institute of Washington; The Art Institute of Philadelphia; and The New England Institute of Art. The schools were provided with creative assets from the Lionsgate marketing portfolio, and were given wide artistic latitude in interpreting THE SPIRIT to design a campaign that was pertinent and unique to their cities. The program is spearheaded by Danielle Della Corna, Director of Media and Promotion for Lionsgate.

The first poster, seen above comes from The Art Institute of California - San Diego. Via.

*Previously: The Saw movie posters look scary even when the feature donuts.

*Over 20,000 movie posters at eBay.

Preorder J.K. Rowling's "Tales of Beedle the Bard"

Available in two flavors:
Regular
and
Jewel-Encrusted.

Heck, the more expensive one might be worth it just to finally have a Potter story without a godawful cover.

*Previously: Harry Potter ends, Sopranos style.

New Green Goblin action figure looks terrific

You can see the rest of the figures in the Spider-Man Trilogy Wave 3 set here. (That's one horrible looking Carnage.)

*I thought this figure looked familiar. As Geoff points out, it sure looks like it's just a repaint of an old figure (scroll 2/3 down).

*Previously: Green Goblin vinyl toy.

*Buy Green Goblin action figures at eBay.

I'd love to spot this in the stairwell at work

Via.

Art gallery show featuring state of the art holograms

This show August 13 at the Gnomon Gallery in Los Angeles sounds intriguing:

The Grand Opening show "RabbitHoles" will launch 12 editions of breakthrough artwork by 10 renowned industry artists. The pieces are printed in the amazing form of RabbitHoles state-of-the-art digital motion holograms, which display 1280 frames of full-color, 3D imagery with up to seven seconds of fluid and seamless animation on a completely flat surface.

The jpeg is a photo of a hologram by Meats Meier that will be on display, called the "Siggraph Animation Mother."

Why are Aquaman's shoulders bigger than his head?

The sculpt on the new DC figures is absurd. (Although the costume's from the only Aquaman story I ever enjoyed.)

*Buy DC Direct action figures at eBay.

Best two sentences I read today

Paul Boutin for Valleywag:

If you're not familiar, Adbusters is a fun, angry, Starbucks-hating publication whose credo states that we've all been brainwashed by advertising and mass media into an orgy of overconsumption that lets the American Empire destroy the rest of the world to feed our fat faces. I buy it at Whole Foods.

Up to 90% off at Entertainment Earth

Big blowout sale at Entertainment Earth.

Orson Scott Card sure is angry about gay marriage

Here's just a taste of his op-ed criticizing the legalization of gay marriage:

Already in several states, there are textbooks for children in the earliest grades that show "gay marriages" as normal. How long do you think it will be before such textbooks become mandatory -- and parents have no way to opt out of having their children taught from them?

It's a badly written opinion piece, full of lots of empty words like "obvious" and "absurd." But it reminded me of something I wrote last year: The little boys sure do take their clothes off a lot in Ender's Game.

Yahoo is offering coupons for free mp3s to make up for closing its music store and servers

More information here, doesn't sound like you need to show proof of purchase to get the coupons.

Los Angeles's police chief charmingly explains the paparazzi problem in LA

or actually describes why the paparazzi hasn't been much of a problem lately:

If you notice, since Britney started wearing clothes and behaving; Paris is out of town not bothering anybody, thank god; and, evidently, Lindsay Lohan has gone gay, we don't seem to have much of an issue.

Video here. (Bratton's already responded to criticism by pointing out his support for gay rights and the fact that his sister is gay.)

Wednesday, July 30, 2008

Impressive demonstration of Soul Calibur IV's character creation engine

Super Mario, Mystique, Solid Snake, Raiden, Blanka, Chun Li, Dr. Doom and more:

Via.

"Original Illustrator file of Myst island"

My computer doesn't seem to have the software needed to open the file, but, apparently if you go to this link at Robyn Miller's blog, you can download the original Illustrator file of Myst island, in editable high resolution form.

*Previously: Photos of Robyn Miller's grandfather's workshop.

DVD featuring pretty (fully dressed) girls just staring at you

According to this site, the dvd is called "Miteiru dake (Just Looking)," and the idea is that socially retarded men can use it to practice making eye contact and speaking to women. Here's a sample:

I actually once read a hard-boiled crime novel by T. Jefferson Parker called "Silent Joe," which explored a similar theme - - the protagonist had a horribly scarred face and used to pay models to simply have a cup of coffee with him so that he could look at their faces. I found the character so compelling and sad that I actually stopped reading the book a third of the way through. If you're intrigued, it's available at Amazon.

Via.

Umbrella Academy PVC figures

Coming from Dark Horse, and the card says price and date tbd. Direct Flickr link to the photo, and there's more photos of these same figures here and here. These just jumped to the top of my wishlist. Spaceboy's the coolest.

*At Toycutter: Custom Umbrella Academy action figures.

*Buy Umbrella Academy comic books and collectibles at Amazon.

Desktop Wallpaper: August 2008 Calendars

Lots of great choices here. The cyclopean octopus is by Regina Silva.

*Click here to see all the previous wallpapers I've posted.

Fidel Castro/Astroboy mashup

There are an awful lot of bizarre t-shirts for sale at redbubble.com. This one is by Oran.

*Previously: Astroboy fan art, desktop wallpaper, anmated gifs, icons, and live action movie footage.

*Buy Astroboy toys and collectibles at eBay.

Animated Gif: Boba Fett/Cylon mashup

Found in this Fark photoshop gallery, by Farker crucial taunt. (There's an animated Red & Jonny gif also.) (Well, mostly Red...)

*Find Star Wars Happy Meal and cereal toys at eBay.

Threadless T-Shirt Design: "This is not a tee"

I'm always up for a Magritte joke. Vote for or against the design by clicking on the voting widget:

Here's the artist's site.

*Previously: Star Wars/Magritte mashup.

*12 t-shirts for $12 each at

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Hamlet, written as a series of Facebook entries

"Hamlet (Facebook News Feed Edition)" by Sarah Schmelling for McSweeney's. Here's a sample:

Polonius says Hamlet's crazy ... crazy in love!

Rosencrantz, Guildenstern, and Hamlet are now friends.

Hamlet wonders if he should continue to exist. Or not.

Hamlet thinks Ophelia might be happier in a convent.

Ophelia removed "moody princes" from her interests.

Hamlet posted an event: A Play That's Totally Fictional and In No Way About My Family

The king commented on Hamlet's play: "What is wrong with you?"

Read the whole thing.

*Previously: "Shakespeare hates your emo poems" t-shirt.

*Buy Hamlet posters at eBay.

Some Olympic athletes are tested to make sure of their gender

Tests aren't done on every athlete, just the ones (usually women) whose gender is "in doubt" (think East German weightlifter). Tests in the past have involved physical inspections, but are now genetic tests.

Yes, some athletes have failed the test and been stripped of medals, as described here.

While I'm talking Olympics, here's video of Vince Carter jumping right over Frederic Weiss's head and dunking:

*Buy Olympic posters at eBay.

Cool Robot by Andre Gribble

Made for his two-year-old son's birthday (lucky boy). High-res version here, and click here to see the robot Andre drew for his boy's first birthday.

*Previously: Robot panhandler.

*Buy vintage tin robots at eBay.

Tuesday, July 29, 2008

Super-Skrull Yoka

Some recent posts at my action figure, miniature, and vinyl toy customizing blog include:

-Evil Ryu Dunny.

-Warhammer 40k Space Marine Munny.

-Super-Skrull Yoka.

*Buy designer vinyl toys at Fugitive Toys.

Photos of Doktor A's Mechtorians vinyl toys

I'm looking forward to these blind box toys. More photos from Comic Con here.

*Previously: Customized Hot Wheels van by Doktor A.

*Buy Doktor A art toys at eBay.

Flint, Michigan trying to find corporate sponsor for its surveillance cameras

You can sponsor a big logo for $30,000, but they're also willing to put smaller logos, or even names for smaller donations. Supposedly, there's going to be a Paypal link at the city's homepage, but I couldn't find it. Via.

TSA can now look into your psyche

Clearly CNN has embraced its role as the new Onion. Here's a straightforwardly presented video about the TSA's new specially trained officers. They're called "Behavior Detection Officers," and TSA Spokesperson Andrea McCauley explains: "We're not just looking for things anymore. But, we're looking for actual people."

This post at the official TSA blog ads a bit more information about these specially trained "BDOs" and offers this example of their success:

Just recently at the Cincinnati Northern Kentucky International Airport, (CVG) two of my fellow BDOs spotted behaviors on a passenger and conducted secondary screening. They were unaware at the time the individual was an undercover “passenger” involved in covert testing. The concealed item was an unassembled weapon in a carry-on bag. The BDOs caught this right away, and when the testing was over, it was revealed that the passenger also had plastic explosive simulants in the cups of her bra. This was an excellent catch, and proof the behavior detection program works. If this were the real thing, we would have caught it.

Uh, kudos, I guess? Via.

Is this ad homophobic?

This ad by Wieden+Kennedy for the new Nike Hyperdunks seems unobjectionable to me, but Nike has abandoned the billboard campaign due to assertions that it was insensitive to gay men and African-Americans. Via.

Meanwhile, here's Wieden+Kennedy's new commercial for Coca-Cola (and the Olympics) featuring Lebron James and Yao Ming. Looks cool to me, but with a little imagination, I'm sure someone can work up some mock outrage. I mean, just look at all these stereotypes:

*Find Nike posters at eBay.

Scary: Mostly insiginificant earthquake knocks out cellphone coverage in Los Angeles

You may have heard that there was a 5.4 earthquake in Los Angeles around lunchtime It caused almost no significant damage, and no damage to the cellphone service providers. But cellphone usage spiked enough to disrupt cellphone service (my Verizon phone showed full bars, but calls simply didn't go through). A disturbing reminder of how unprepared companies are for emergencies.