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After The Great Pumpkin didn't appear for yet another Halloween, Charlie Brown tells a disappointed Linus "Well, don't take it too hard, Linus. I've done a lot of stupid things in my life, too."
Today I realized...Charlie Brown is a total dick.
In his office at home Haruki Murakami has the above "photo of himself looking miserable while finishing his fastest marathon ever (1991, New York City, 3:31:27)."
Ate well this past weekend. More photos 
Unwind from your Monday with these tidbits I shared over at Sundance Channel's SUNfiltered. Some will amuse, others astound, and one that made one of you ask me if watching it would either give you nightmares or pee your pants. I can neither confirm nor deny.
- Archive of classic video game title screens in all its gifness.
- 12,235 tin soldiers.
- Wim Delvoye’s X-rated, X-rayed stained glass.
- Must watch short film with a wild ending that only M. Night Shyamalan dreams of coming up with now.
- Personalized scary movie generated by your Facebook account that may give you nightmares or pee your pants.
The Internet is wondering if this injured Libyan rebel musician is the same one that was spotted in this earlier photograph.
In case you missed it, here is a recap of some of my posts for Sundance Channel's SUNfiltered. If you don't read them, I'm going to put you in a headlock like the Human Centipede wrestlers above.
- Patrick Krzyzanowski’s hilarious professional wrestling paintings.
- Vinyl mash-ups cut and paste from other albums.
- 50 no-handed bicycling moves. The "MGM Lion" is my fave. ROAR.
- Some of the coolest collages I've ever seen.
- Photographer visits North Korea with a Polaroid. Some North Koreans had never before seen a photo of themselves.
- If you think you can dance better than these bros, then step up.
- Remember VHS cassettes? No? Here are 200 of them.
- Design your own $100 bill. No, not you. We mean, designers who actually know what they're doing.
- Ai Weiwei. Activist. Artist. Expert Jumper.
And if you already read SUNfiltered, then thank you a thousand times. And let me know in the comments over there. It's a very easy way to get a free Pork Slap Pale Ale from me.
On that note, goodnight room. Goodnight moon. Good night cow jumping over the moon. Goodnight New York Jets playing on Monday Night Football although I wish you lost by eighty-three points. Goodnight cars entering the Lincoln Tunnel. Goodnight Central Park horse drawn carriages loudly making your way to your stables. Good night exhibitionist in the apartment across from me. Good night readers.
I've actually been meaning to jump on my soap box here or on Twitter and express a mini rant about the new sitcom "2 Broke Girls," but the latest issue of New York Magazine and its Approval Matrix beat me to the punch. I circled in red above, which reflected exactly my outrage about the show, which is: Really? A show about hip people in Brooklyn in the 21st Century and you're still going with the accented neutered Asian guy? The Magazine similarly wrote:
2 Broke Girls has an "Asian guy who can't pronounce his R's" character in 2011. Did Herman Cain write this show?
I would hope the show's writers and some of the executives, many who are of my generation (I know, I'm getting old), wouldn't need to rely on such cheap ignorant tropes for laughs. I'm really disappointed in them. It seems we can never escape the ghost of Long Duk Dong.
Libyan rebel urges on his fellow fighters with his guitar in this photo by Aris Messinis. "Cool song bro, but why don't you pick up that bazooka."
[Hat tip @mrkamoji]
[Thanks Tony!]
Photo by Anis Mili of "an abandoned VIP stairway seen on a road at the airport in Sirte, one of two remaining bastions of support for the deposed Muammar Gadhafi." A similar "stair car" was the primary vehicle of The Bluth family.
Surreal photo by Philippe de Poulpiquet of "an armed rebel kicking a soccer ball as flames engulf Muammar Qaddafi's Bab al-Aziziya compound in Tripoli on August 23."
Reminds me of the famous truce between German and British soldiers during World War I where they stopped fighting, emerged from their trenches to exchange gifts and play soccer against one another on Christmas.
[Via]
Photo from Apple's Keynote speech announcing the iPhone 4S a day before Steve Jobs passing.
Steve Jobs, one of the heroes and visionaries of our generation and certainly mine passed away today. I reminisced over the phone with Kaizar, a fellow Apple fanboy who was in the trenches with me back when everyone gleefully rubbed their hands as Apple looked headed towards bankruptcy. Our friendship formed in college around the topic of Apple or rather our love of Apple. There are not many people in our generation or younger that have roots with Apple as a consumer that goes as far back as him and I. I make this point because what I always found so inspiring and admirable about Jobs wasn't his success as steward of the booming and ascendant company that it is today per se, but that he achieved this despite all his failures. He wasn't always the frontrunner that he is today where if you don't use one of his devices, then people look at you like you're crazy. I remember a time when it was the very opposite. He had his failures and challenges. He had people tell him he can't. He shouldn't. He wouldn't! He did not care. He had a vision and he stuck with it. We are lucky he didn't listen to us along the way.
I hope there's an inspired kid out there who will be the next Steve Jobs of figuring out how to get rid of cancer. Fuck that shit.
(Posted from Macbook Air)
This news is a bit dated of course, but a few weekends ago while killing some time in Columbus Circle I stopped by the fire sale taking place at the Borders in the Time Warner Building. It was a depressing experience.
These big box chain stores always received a bad rap for supposedly pandering to the lowest common denominator, but I'll always have fond memories associated with it from spending hours at the Borders back home in Alaska while growing up especially before broadband Internet was widespread. For a bookworm it was a wonderful place filled with comfortable couches and easy nooks, interesting employees, and a cozy cafe. I discovered and picked up many novels and albums (my first Wilco CD was purchased here) from its wide catalog.
[Via]
In one episode of The Simpsons (you know, that one episode), the town drunk Barney borrows some of Homer Simpson's "adult" magazines. Such a brilliant joke.
I've been hearing and reading about people complaining about the lack of mainstream news media coverage of the Occupy Wall Street protests. Some have postulated that this is due to the protest's lack of a singular cohesive message or demand that's easily digestible for the press. Others have chalked it up the press's inherent institutional bias out of self interest to not report the protests. There's some truth in all this, but one truism we've seen throughout modern history is the impact and power on a movement of a single photograph to open the eyes of the masses. As a marketer, I can't help but think the organizers of Occupy Wall Street need to apply the old adage "dress for the job you want, and not the job you have," or in this case "dress for the media coverage you want, and not the one you have." Most people I've seen at Occupy Wall Street are dressed no differently than you and me, but of course the journalists and their editors covering this event will gravitate towards the one individual dressed like the part that neatly fits their normative "plug-and-play" framework of what a protester "looks like" for their Mad Libs-style reports that gets piped into the average American household. Occupy Wall Street needs to hack this predictability of the media. For instance, look at the photo above taken by Spencer Platt for Getty Images and reprinted in The Alantic Monthly's photo round-up of the Wall Street demonstrations: Imagine how much more powerful as a counter-narrative this photo would be if all the protesters were dressed like the man in the simple black suit. Such a scene would be irresistible for photographers. They'd be lured to it like the way The Sartorialist is to three-layered outfits and rolled cuffs. A sea of people dressed as if they were on their way to a job interview would be doubly impactful: One, as a strong visual reminder that they're protesting economic inequality, and second, it would also make it much more difficult for the mainstream media to generalize a movement by isolating their focus on a handful of stereotypical demonstrators, which makes it that much easier to dismiss as a fringe tantrum by a bunch of hippies. I strongly suspect that passive viewers would relate more to someone dressed like they're on their way to a job fair than someone wearing a Guy Fawkes mask. The former conveys a broken contract with the working and middle class due to systemic failures of our government and corporate institutions, while the latter reminds us of Halloween and a mediocre adaptation of a (pretty awesome) graphic novel.
Occupy Wall Street needs to realize that it's not about the idea, but the execution of the idea that will get them the media coverage they seek. They need to replace the masks and the top 10 selling shirts on Threadless, and instead co-opt the uniforms of the power elite. In the words of Barney Stinson, "Suit up!"
Is this article the first instance of a New York Times article with an emoticon in the headline?
Web Economy Bullshit Generator: Useful for when you're working on that pitch deck that will "redefine revolutionary networks" and "transform synergistic mindshare" and ultimately "grow cross-media vortals."