Photographs of Israeli soldiers by German artist Daniel Josefsohn from his series "Jewing Gun."
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Japanese firm [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=snPQ1z5FoqQ] Japanese American Jake Shimabukuro does a ukulele rendition of Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody." It's certainly much more awesome and listenable than my karaoke version.
Someone please send me a translated copy of this issue of American Police. I will pay shipping. Thanks.
While New York City manhole covers are potential deathtraps, in comparison the Japanese use them as a blank canvas upon which they create beautifully carved and painted scenes, such as this one seen above.
Excerpts from a Japanese manga (slightly NSFW) adaptation of the film JAWS. Does not feature T-Pain on a boat. Here's part 1 and 2.
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A provocative and informative essay by Lisa Katayama for Boing Boing that tackles the question--"Why do so many love to gawk at this mysterious, foreign "other" that is Japanese culture?" --changed the way I read the Internet and provided some context to what I see. I highly recommend it.
One important premise of Japanese popular culture is the commitment to have fun and not take offense. Japanese humor works on many different levels and its nuances can be hard to explain to people who didn't grow up with it.If you're one of those people who watched our wedding video between the man and his DS girlfriend and said things like: "He's such a loser" "He takes it too seriously LOL" and "God help this poor soul" — not to mention the racist comments about Japs and nukes and one-inch dicks — you just don't get it. You're not in on the joke. You're the one taking it too seriously, and you might be imposing your own biases and hang-ups on someone else's situation.
Being majime (too serious) is not cool in Japan; likewise it is important for voyeurs of Japanese culture to recognize that most everything pop-culture-y that is exported to the West comes at us with a wink. If you're all up in arms about it, then maybe the joke is on you.
From the book "101 Unuseless Japanese Inventions: The Art of Chindogu," here's a way to put your crawling baby to work!
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Create over 2000 different Japanese "kaomoji" or emoticons with this stamp. $51 here. You can get a good explanation and examples of kaomoji here.
Amazon is currently giving away two mp3 albums, "I Love the '70s" and "I Love the '80s" featuring classical music from the 1770s and 1870s for the former and the 1880s for the latter. Get your allegro on.
Sean Johnson's "Love Seat" at Howard House gallery in Seattle.
A couple weekends ago I bolt'd over to DC for Clay's birthday party. Here are a few photos from that weekend.
I got to Clay's house a little late on Friday night. I awoke in the middle of the night because I was a little chilly and just blindly grabbed what I thought was an extra blanket. In the morning, Clay informed me (to my excitement) that what I had in fact used was his fiancee's leopard print Snuggie. It was my first experience with one and I am sold: Snuggies are fantastic.
Rocking out on Saturday afternoon to a fun dance game for the Wii.
Here's Clay going head to head against his cousin.
Later that night, people took a swing at the birthday piñata.
William Stone's pun-ish "[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNQXAC9IVRw] This boring and dull clip was the first video uploaded on YouTube. Co-founder Jawed Karim posted it on 8:27 pm on April 23, 2005.
According to his Wikipedia profile, before YouTube, he also designed and implement as chief architect "many of the core components of PayPal, including its real-time anti-fraud system." And if you're reading this while pondering your next step in your career, let me add to your depression with this final bit of tidbit: Karim enrolled in grad school (Stanford for computer science) after he founded YouTube. When Google acquired YouTube, he received 137,443 shares of stock, which is worth as of today $74,837,713.
I think staying in on a Saturday night really worked out in the end for him. His mom however isn't a fan of YouTube: "There are too many crazy things on it. I would wish it was 95 percent science and 5 percent silly stuff, but it's the opposite." I think by crazy she means awesome.
Hayato Matsushita. You're so money.
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Esquire's recommendation on "how much of any given color should appear in your closet in any given time."