Photo Blogging

Some years ago, maybe more than a handful, there was a very friendly community of people using a site called TextAmerica - TA, for short. Pre-MySpace, TA was a 'first generation' site. It's sole purpose was to do something quite uncommon at the time; place photos and text together online, from your phone! Soon, TA added video and "vlogging" became an option as well. Many photos of pets, brewskis, dinner plates, and local landmarks later, here's a picture of my cat, as this nostalgic reminiscence of newness gone stale comes to an end. It's worth remembering how we got to here and considering the who what when where and why of it all. 'Tis the will of Samson Kitteh.
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

Fun with #ChangeLoveToLubeSongs

I don't spend a lot of time on Twitter. I like Twitter. I appreciate Twitter. However, short bursts of communication only get us so far. Fortunately, I'm a huge fan of well-done short-form works. Limericks, Haiku, bumper stickers, T-shirts, and Tweets can all be extremely funny, thought provoking, controversial, and even important and/or meaningful forms of word-play. This post, as you might have gathered from the title, is focused primarily on humor. As with many humorous endeavors, there can be found a grain of truth, or a spark for waxing philosophic.

Tuesday night, while checking in on Twitter, I took a look at the Trending Topics. Hashtag #changelovetolubesongs was at the top of the list. The idea is to change the word Love to the word Lube in song titles. Thus, The Beatles' "All You Need is Love" becomes "All You Need is Lube".

Seems simple enough, but I found many of these to have layers of meaning waiting to be discovered. Much of it depends on what your mind brings along, much like in Tuesday's episode of Glee; in which the naíve school counselor chooses the song "Afternoon Delight" as a wholesome tune for the Celibacy Club to perform - because she thought it was about a refreshing snack on a 4th of July afternoon. So you see, "All You Need is Lube" by The Beatles is funny, but might be funnier still if one's mind is "polluted" enough to include masturbation euphemisms derived from the band's name. It was in my neurons! LOL

OK, so, I LOVE word games and couldn't resist following the hashtag for a bit. A lot of titles are obvious and get repeated often. Other ideas just aren't very good. I wasn't impressed with the majority of posts I found, and at the same time, I had a few of my own ideas, but was unwilling to participate (I was at work, signed in on my work account - one should at least attempt a professional demeanor). On the other hand, I wasn't willing to let this fun find go un-noticed, so I posted a Tweet about #changelovetolubesongs and how funny I thought it was, knowing it would serve as a reminder to me later. And yet, I couldn't wait until later...

I started scrolling through the song titles on my iPod and found a lot of gems. I also found that I had some duplicate songs as performed by different artists. This led to the realization that the artist/group performing one of these songs could either add or detract from the humor in various ways. Consider any Love/Lube song as performed by The Cars ("Looking for Lube" & "This Could be Lube"). Cars require lubrication. It's not even a dirty joke any more! And, the twist can still put a smile on your face. :-)

Because of the recent Valentine's Day, and my personal inclination toward the romantic, there happen to be a lot of Love-titled songs on my iPod. Below is the full list of songs actually on my iPod when I found the hashtag. All are funny, some hilarious, a few awkward items, others downright philosophical, and some that might be gross. I now leave my list and the meme in your capable, and possibly slippery, hands:

All My Lube - Led Zeppelin
All You Need is Lube - The Beatles
Beat Out My Lube - The Cramps
The Book Lubers - Broadcast
Can You Feel the Lube - Candy Flip
Crazy Lube - Van Morrison
Crazy Lube, Vol. II - Paul Simon
Creatures of Lube - The Talking Heads
Crimson & Cluber - Joan Jett & the Blackhearts
Dominated Lube Slave - Green Day
Double Shot (of My Baby's Lube) - The Swingin' Medallions
Exotica/Voodoo Lube - Martin Denny
Forbidden Zone: Lube Theme - Danny Elfman
Genius of Lube - The Tom Tom Club
Get Down, Make Lube - Queen
The Glory of Lube - The Dukes of Dixieland
Good Old-fashioned Luber Boy - Queen
Hello, I Lube You/Touch Me  - The Lettermen
Hold on to Your Lube - Neil Young
I'm in the Mood for Lube - Jackie Gleason
I Can't Believe that You're in Lube with Me - The John Buzon Trio
I Lube You (Miss Robot) - The Buggles
I Need Your Lube - NRG
Indian Lube Call - Slim Whitman
Isle of Lube - Martin Denny
It's the Lube - The Tasties
Lay All Your Lube on Me - Information Society
Little Thing Called Lube - Neil Young
The Look of Lube - Billy May
The Look of Lube - Dusty Springfield
The Look of Lube - Susanna Hoffs
Looking for Lube - The Cars
Lube Catalog - Bassomatic
Lube Dance - Les Baxter
Lube Goddess of Venus - The Ventures
Lube is Stronger than Justice (The Munificent Seven) - Sting
Lube on a Farmboy's Wages - XTC
Lube Theme from TRON - Wendy Carlos
Lubefool - The Cardigans
Lubely Head - Goldfrapp
Luber - Richard Marino & his Orchestra
Lust to Lube - The Go-Gos
The Magic Piper (of Lube) - Edwyn Collins
Message of Lube - The Pretenders
Moments in Lube - The Art of Noise
My Lube - Paul McCartney & Wings
Mysteries of Lube - Julee Cruise
Native Lube - The Enchanters
Our Lube is Here to Stay - Dave Grusin
Pool of Lube - Les Baxter
Sea of Lube - The Honeydrippers
So in Lube - K.D. Laing
Space Age Lube Song - A Flock of Seagulls
Talking 'Bout My Lube - James Hunter
This Could be Lube - The Cars
This Guy's in Lube with You - Gene Chandler
What is Lube? - Deee-Lite
What the World Needs Now is Lube - Burt Bacharach/The Posies
When a Man Lubes a Woman - Percy Sledge
When Lube Comes to Town - U2 with B.B. King
Who Do You Lube? - The Woolies
Who Do You Lube? - George Thorogood & the Delaware Destroyers
Wicked Lube - Bassomatic
Xtabay (Lure of the Unknown Lube) - Yma Sumac/Les Baxter

TRON Assault on MCP board game 1981

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

Holiday Season with The Flash

Reminding us of the craziness this time of year can bring. Slow down and enjoy time with friends and family.

The Ghosts of Hauntfests Past (my Boo-N-Brew photo galleries)

The Oregon Historic District/Oregon Arts District in Dayton, Ohio has been host to the famous Hauntfest Halloween Party (formerly known as Boo-N-Brew) on the stretch of East Fifth Street between Patterson Boulevard and Wayne Avenue for many years.

Late October weather in Dayton is quite fickle. Hauntfest has seen all kinds of weather. We've lingered in the street sporting costumes with short sleeves and we've wished we had on thermal underwear while watching a KISS tribute band perform in the snow. I can't tell what weather will face us this year, or what my costume will be, yet, but I'll be out and about with my camera, once again recording some of the fun and adventure.

2010 marks the 25th Anniversary of this (in?)famous event. My friends and family have enjoyed many of them, many more than are represented in the photos below.

If you find yourself in any of these images please let me know in the comments here or in their Picasa galleries. Enjoy!

2009 - 2008 - 2007 - 2006 - 2005 - 2004 - earlier

Internet Disappoints

Recent stories about financial investments by Google and the CIA in a company called Recorded Future have spawned no comparison that I can find, as of this writing, to Hari Seldon's science of psychohistory as described in Isaac Asimov's science fiction novel "Foundation". I'm rather ashamed of you, Internets.

Foodies, you may never see your meals the same way again...

http://insideinsides.blogspot.com/

Inside Insides is a small collection fruits and vegetables rendered as black & white animated .gif files created from Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) scans.


These images are amazing, beautiful, disturbing, and thought provoking.
To me this project seems, in some way, kin to the photographic motion studies of Eadweard Muybridge.

Together, they could be used as a Rorschach test for the 21st century!
The humble tomato becomes nuclear plasma, watermelons are fractal generators, broccoli as migraine optical effects, and more.

Some are hypnotic. A few appear to have been positioned to achieve some small artistic effect. I only wish they'd been assembled in a way that alleviated the little visual jolt at the beginning/end when each animation loops. Despite any alleged "flaws" I may think I perceive, these things are mind-blowing. Do not hesitate to check them out.

Enjoy!!!