Ad I did for the wonderful MaxFunCon. I’m going, won’t you join me!?
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On pride and Pringles
The pride in products:
Fredric Baur invented the crush-resistant canister in 1966 and was so proud that he said he’d like to be buried in one. It remained a family joke for years, but when Baur died last year after a battle with Alzheimer’s, his children stopped at a Walgreen’s on their way to the funeral home, bought a can of Pringles, and buried a portion of their father’s ashes in the bright red can.
“My siblings and I briefly debated what flavor to use,” Larry Baur told Time magazine, “but I said, ‘Look, we need to use the original.’”From newfangled beginnings to endurance.
Ten flavors of Pringles, in decreasing appropriateness for use as an urn:
- Original
- Salt & vinegar
- Paprika
- Barbecue
- Sour cream & onion
- Pizza
- Jalapeño
- Prawn cocktail
- Loaded baked potato
- Mexican layered dip
The last post from my old blog! A pixely 14 MUNI.
I just posted a new article on the Sleepover blog: Metagames and Containers. Check it out, let me know what you think! It was fun to write and a pain to code.
I feel like Ed Emberley deserves more cred. His instructional books on how to draw were a huge part of my childhood. But there was one book of his that I would always flock to during library time: Wizard of Op. It’s packed with trippy, gorgeous, black and white illustrations and optical illusions. Check out more Wizard of Op on Flickr.
Click through for excerpts from A Boy’s Treasury of Things-to-do, a gem in my library of vintage instructional material (a fetish I believe I share with absolutely nobody). Activities include “Canteen”, “Semaphore”, “Soup to Nuts”, “Blow It Home” and “Schnozzola.” This page is one of my favorite things of all time.
Like the famed cherry blossoms come with the Japanese springtime, Babysan came with the Occupation — and it is hard to say which brings more color and charm to the small Far Eastern country. One is inclined, however, to steak his yen on Babysan; she is in bloom all year ‘round.
Published in 1953 (a year after the American occupation of Japan ended), Babysan is a series of one panel cartoons accompanied by a few paragraphs of explanatory condescension.
The backstory is that Babysan was a young child in 1945 when the Americans first came. That’s when she fell in love with them, you see, because servicemen would pass out candy to the curious children. Creepy!
The cartoons walk a peculiar line: Babysan is a flirty Japanese pin up but she’s also foolish, duplicitous, greedy and generally unpleasant to be around. Check out more Babysan on Flickr.
She may not go so far as to become a blonde but she knows that there are many ways to attract a man. She realizes that occidentals from Brooklyn and any point west often admire lush curves. In the Jane Russell department Babysan is slightly understocked. So are many Japanese girls. But there are some western ideas that can be used without adaptation to enhance chisai chichi — chisai means small, and even small chichi are better than no chichi at all.
She tries a western innovation and she succeeds — a little awkwardly perhaps, but the jump is hurdled. A girl just doesn’t step out of a wooden, toe-revealing geta into soaring, high-heeled shoes without wobbling a little, and she doesn’t shed a kimono for a skirt and a sweater without looking a little “artificial.” But on Babysan, the boyfriend insists, even “falsies” look good.
5 Questions Answered by the Guide to Police Duties by A.J. McIntosh, Chief Constable of Dunbartonshire, Scotland, Original Edition June 1936.
Q. Can a dog be used on a public highway for the purpose of drawing or helping to draw any carriage, etc.?
A. No; that is an offence under section 8 of the Protection of Animals (Scotland) Act, 1912, and the Cruelty to Animals Act, 1854.
Q. What must be painted or affixed over the door or gate of a knacker’s premises?
A. The name of the knacker together with the word ’Knacker.’
Q. Is it an offence for an animal to be slaughtered in sight of another animal awaiting slaughter?
A. Yes.
Q. Can a person import or keep a Musk Rat?
A. Not unless under license. Musk Rat Importation and Keeping Regulations, 1932. All licenses have now been revoked.
Q. To what do the Diseases of Animals Acts apply?
A. Diseases known as Cattle Plague, Pleuro Pneumonia, Foot and Mouth Disease, Sheep Scab, Swine Fever, Glanders, Rabies, Anthrax and Parasitic Mange.
Q. What must the finder of a stray dog do forthwith?
A. Either return it to the owner or take it to the nearest police station.
Q. What Act deals with this matter?
A. The Dogs Act, 1928.
Interview with Paul F. Tompkins « Mission Mission
Hey, I interviewed one of my personal idols: Paul F. Tompkins! The funniest dude alive also happens to be performing here in San Francisco this weekend and you should come see him. He also touches on his new podcast and collaboration with Tom Scharpling (one of my other idols).
