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August 31, 2005
Dashboard Jesus
Trailer for Sarah Silverman’s Jesus Is Magic (Offending for the offendees)
From UnPopArt: God Bless Our God. Art by Charles Krafft
“Hong Kong Gone Wrong Pictures” presents Kung Fu Jesus
Obscenities Uttered by Jesus Christ: "Dad damn you!"
The Lord’s Prayer on a head of a pin
Production Error Jesus - Rare, Factory Mistake Jesus Action Figures. Also from Archie McPhee: "God Bless Our Home" Fiber Optic Picture. When the glory of fiber optics meets the glory of Mary and Jesus the results are simply dazzling
The list of people who have said that they are gods consists of those notable human beings who have made statements about being a god or being God
A Tokyo subway station ad for Passion of the Christ
Photo above from ”Super Frankenstein”. (Great news! The Super Frankenstein Singers have been invited to perform at the assassination of Hugo Chavez!) More Unusual Links About Jesus and Other Strange Spiritual Links Here
August 31, 2005 in Jesus | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack
August 30, 2005
But First, a Message From Our Sponsor
"False perspective" space in a Quaker Oats commercial directed by Errol Morris, and starring magician Ricky Jay
Last week's New Yorker hits the bright red bull's-eye on advertising chutzpah with an entire issue containing only one advertiser - The middle-brow big-box retailer, Target. Hey, that's just what New York needs: Buildings with targets painted all over them
The old Hank Makes it Flat site from last year was actually a viral campaign by a company called Digital Oxygen that sold Motorola cell phones. I prefer the new ads for Motorola’s Video phones
Telephone ads through the decades
Dandruff and other memorable campaigns by Leo Burnett
Neil French, The Man Who Wrote Too Much. (From Ernie Schenck)
As part of the nature/culture division, we see numerous representations of stupid women in popular culture. The division of the world into the male symbolic realm of culture and the female domestic realm leaves women as intellectually inferior. In popular advertising this trope is expressed in visual senses—as women’s faces are composed in such a way as to suggest stupidity—as well as linguistic senses—women are seen saying stupid things or being portrayed as unable to think for themselves without assistance of a man. 2,500 more images about Gender and advertising
Bumvertising™, the use of sign holding vagrants to advertise
(This is post No. 1600). A Large Collection of Unusual Ads Here
August 30, 2005 in Advertising | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
More & More real estate blogs (The List)
First of all: “The market is booming! How come real estate agents aren’t getting rich?” An illuminating Slate article that illustrates my old points: No. 1. The average agent sells only a few homes a year, and No. 2: The median annual earnings of real estate agents were $30,930 in 2002. That’s a shame – Would YOU let a person earning $31,000 / year handles your biggest asset?
The historic homes blogger, a new blog by Realtor Frances Flynn Thorsen of Bethlehem, PA, who is organizing the Real Estate Blog Squad. There are now about 30 Realtors / bloggers who are planning to cover the NAR convention in San Francisco next month, including Craig Newmark, founder of Craigs list (and responsible for the Craigslist Effect). So, if some local readers of Grow-a-brain wish to get together, email me. The convention will take place October 28-31. I’ll probably be hanging around, looking for the old places I knew when I lived in the city in 1986-1990…
John Mudd of Tampa Bay, FL, one of the very first real estate bloggers, wrote an article for this month’s Realtor Magazine of how to build a successful blog. Worth reading -
From Todd Carpenter of “Lenderama”, a new Mortgage Industry Forum
A good blog from The Affordable Housing Institute
The rat and mouse, “estate agent” blog from London
Taro Akasaka’s Japan Real Estate Digest
Michelle, Organic Realtor from San Francisco
From The Columbus Ohio Real Estate Blog: “Columbus Ohio is the 78th most liberal city in America” - ?!
John A Keith’s Boston real estate blog
Jacques Coquerel’s real estate investment pro from Atlanta, GA, and Kevin Kingston’s The Real Estate Investors Blog
David Porter’s Pacesetter Mortgage Blog and Interest.com Mortgage Blog
Snow Home Properties, about Colorado's finest ski and golf homes
Linda DeVlieg’s Albuquerque MLS Blog
Joeann Fossland’s blog “Relaxed”
Jay Hollander’s Real Estate Law Weblog, “From Bricks to Clicks”
I am getting my new home built in the White Gate area of Riverside. Photo above is of the lot after ground breaking. House warming party should take place around New Year’s Eve. You are warned. The complete List of Real Estate Blogs as well as Grow-a-Brain’s Extensive Real Estate Archives are Here
August 30, 2005 in Real estate Blogs | Permalink | Comments (11) | TrackBack
August 29, 2005
The End of The Fall
Opulent living & working - The Emirates palace in Abu Dhabi
FatwaIslam - The most comprehensive online Islamic Fatwa guide
Western advertising under Islam. The visual culture of the Middle East is a mixture of the socialist realism and emerging consumerism
Starlets in chadors. Iranian postcards of western actresses in Muslim attire
Security officials in Kuwait have banned the import of Iraqi watermelons amid fears the fruit could be used to smuggle explosives
Jamaica in the desert. Rastafarians in Kibbutz Rastafarian
Flights of the Imagination: Banksy vs. The West Bank
Many video clips of Israel under the British rule, many from British Pathe Archives and many from after 1948. (In Hebrew only) - ארץ ישראל בתקופת השלטון הטורקי
I used to keep track of all Iraqi Blogs, until better services came about. There are now up to 154 blogs counted there. The anonymous Riverbend was not heard from since July 15, 2005
- - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Here’s another poem by my favorite poet, Dalia Rabikovitch. It is called “The End of The Fall” -
If a man falls from a plane in the middle of the night
Only God can pick him up.
God shows himself in the middle of the night
And touches the man and eases his suffering.
God does not wipe his blood
Because blood is not his soul,
God does not indulge his body
Because man is not of flesh.
God leans over him, lifts his head and watches
In his eyes the man is a child.
As he gets up heavily on all four and tries to walk
And then he feels that he can fly.
The man is still confused and does not know
That it is far better to float that to crawl.
God wishes to caress his head
But he waits, because he does not wish
To scare the man
With signs of love.
If a man falls from a plane in the middle of the night
Only God knows the end of the fall.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Many More Unusual News from the Middle East Here
August 29, 2005 in Middle East | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBack
August 28, 2005
Akbar And Jeff
Kingsmill Resort's Dagwood Sandwich. Named after Dagwood Bumstead, a character in the "Blondie" comic strip, this extremely thick sandwich is piled high with a variety of meats, cheeses, condiments and lettuce
A gallery of comic book covers featuring big giant hands. (From ”Gravity Lens”)
Scans (some not very clear) of many Life in Hell panels. Also, the parked & unused Matt Groening website
Jeremy Banx, creator of Mister Bignose, The Many Deaths of Norman Spittal, Turkeys of doom, more
The deviant Mr Wiggles. (From ”Everything isn’t”)
Interactive Killer
Buddhist cartoons - A Wandering Monk's Tale; The Adventures of Ohmiomyo and Karma
Farmer Tan Tanning Beds by Stan Makowski
The art of Vera Brosgol
(I don’t remember where I saw the graphic above?!?). Many More Unusual Comics and cartoons Here
August 28, 2005 in Comics & Cartoons | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack
August 27, 2005
Dial M
Hitchcock's "elevator story" as told by Peter Bogdanovich
Hitchcock at War. Despite being unfit for active military service, Hitchcock was very keen to contribute to the war effort, especially after a snide comment by his former producer Michael Balcon about "plump" British directors going to Hollywood "while we who are left behind short-handed are trying to harness the films to our great national effort"
IMDb rating of Hitchcock’s 53 movies
Joe Bob Briggs interviews Tippi Hedren
Film still collection from all movies
Alfred Hitchcock Presents - Episode guide, including air dates, cast and crew, and plot synopses, 1955-1960
Grab a graphic to link to Grow-a-Brain, the No. 1 Google result for Who we’all honorin’ here today?
More Unusual Hitchcock and Unusual Chaplin Moments Here
August 27, 2005 in Cinema - Hitchcock | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
History of American candy
Vintage Candy advertisements of Brach's Confections
Confectionary Timeline. 1854 - The first packaged box of Whitman's chocolate debuts. (Both links from “McGuffin”)
Cupcake cook-off of a graduate pastry chef. Click on his graduation photos on flickr
The PEZ collector
How Atomic FireBalls candy is being made
How Krispy Kremes Work, how the Raleigh, NC, "factory store" transforms raw ingredients into "original glazed". (From ”Sciatica”)
Ice Cream Ball. With “ Play & Freeze Ice Cream MakerTM”, you can make ice cream anywhere! You don’t need electricity, just add ice and rock salt in one end and ice cream mix in the other end–then have a ball as you shake it, pass it or roll it
Lobster Ice Cream at Ben & Bill's. (From ”A full belly”). Also, chunky bacon ice cream and other outrageous flavors
Cluster of sweets on flickr
Many More Unusual Sweets and Unusual Chocolates Here
August 27, 2005 in Food - Desserts | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
The Panda's Thumb
Chinese Fish of the week
Painted beehive panels from the Museum of Apiculture in Slovenia
Bad feather day. Photographed by Bill Hilton Jr., of Hilton Pond
Cats in Sinks is about cats. And kittens. Who like sinks. And basins. And that's it
You're always typing.
Well, let's see you ignore my
sitting on your hands
More Cat Haiku
Re-post: Albino Tricolors
Trained goldfish rings the bell when hungry
Baby pandas. From the National Zoo - Panda cam
Cluster of animals on flickr
Been all over: Praying Mantis Vs. a hummingbird
Many More Unusual Animal Stories Here
August 27, 2005 in Animals | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
August 26, 2005
The production of too many useful things results in too many useless people
W.T. Wallington's The Forgotten Technology. This retired carpenter is constructing a Stonehenge Replica by himself, without any high-tech equipment. See the Video
Rob Cockerham’s Power Harness. (One of Cockeyed.com Extremely Classy Historical Gallery of eBay Curiosities)
Official Letters Patent: 1850 – present. The official certificates for patents granted by the Patent Office have changed over the years
US Patent No. US00808897 granted in 1906 to Willis H Carrier, for the invention of “Air Conditioning” – One of Gallery of Historic Patents
Air curtains, or “Energy Saving Air Barrier”. (From a discussion of Why stores turn on the AC full blast)
The new Gen Pets
Troy Hurtubise is an inventor and conservationist noted for his bizarre, yet functional, protective creations that he tests on himself in incredible and at times dangerous ways. Examples: Firepaste, Angel light & God light
Inventor of the Week Archive at Lemelson-MIT-Program
Many More Unusual Inventions & Discoveries Here
August 26, 2005 in Science & Inventions | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
August 25, 2005
Who’s Riley Keough?
Lance Armstrong & other close-ups by Stern’s photographer Martin Schoeller
Christopher Walken in “The Mask”
Whose lips are sexier? Jolie leads Novak by narrow margin
From the Esquire Cover Gallery: The Beautiful People/ Campus Heroes for 68/69
Carrot Top Gets Buff. Carrot Top is a comedian, actor and former spokesperson for 1-800-ATT commercials
It’s Top 50 time again! 50 people most in need of a vicious beating. For example, No. 47 - Facts are Pat Robertson's kryptonite. He hates them more that Jews, Gays, and Muslims combined
The Faces of Bob Hope at The Library of Congress, including a Dali-like surrealist Painting. (From “Jaf Project”)
Celebrity Interviews for Cisco professionals: From Elizabeth Hurley On the Cisco 2600 Series to Alicia Silverstone on ISDN. Router Gods for Ubergeeks
Celebrities in Sand by the people at Sandscapes
A list of famous people who've managed to get ahead with missing fingers. Including Jerry Garcia, Django Reinhardt, Boris Yeltsin & Daryl Hannah
Modern Renaissance 5 - Modern celebs in old art, from “Worth 1000”
Michael Jackson and Lisa-Marie Cleaver - A Tim O’Brien painting. Another scary sentence – Here’s Elvis Presley’s granddaughter
The Great Queers of History. (Now, that is an old-fashioned term). Elsewhere, Iraqi Constitution Snags on Gay Marriage
Paris Hilton vs. Macaulay Culkin
Forgotten pictures of popular people. Also there, Famous kids and teens
Hollywood Is Calling. Now for the first time ever you can have a real celebrity make a live phone call to someone you know for just $19.95
World's Ugliest Dog now has a blog
Many More Unusual Stories About Celebrities Here
August 25, 2005 in Celebrities | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
August 24, 2005
“Pride”
One of my favorite Hebrew poets, Dalia Rabikovitch committed suicide 2 days ago in Tel Aviv, after battling a life long struggle with depression.
אפילו סלעים נשברים אני אומרת לך
ולא מחמת זקנה.
שנים רבות הם שוכבים על גבם בחום בקור,
שנים כה רבות,
כמעט נוצר רושם של שלווה.
אין הם זזים ממקומם וכך נסתרים הבקיעים.
מעין גאווה.
שנים רבות עוברות עליהם בציפייה.
מי שעתיד לשבח אותם עדיין לא בא.
ואז האזוב משגשג, האצות נרגשות, והים מגיח וחוזר,
ודומה הם ללא תנועה.
עד שיבוא כלב ים קטן להתחכך על הסלעים
יבוא וילך.
ופתאום האבן פצועה.
אמרתי לך, כשסלעים נשברים זה קורה בהפתעה.
ומה גם אנשים
- - - - - - - - - - - - -
"Even rocks break, I’m telling you,
And not from old age.
For many years they lay unshielded in the heat and chill
So many years they seem peaceful.
They don’t move, and that’s how cracks are formed.
Like pride.
Many years they lay there waiting,
The ones who were supposed to praise them, did not show up,
But the moss thrives, the sea weed agitates, and the sea attacks & retreats
While the rocks seem secure in place.
Until a young sea lion snuggles against them
And then leaves.
And suddenly the rock is shattered.
I told you that when rocks break, it happens without warning
And more so with people -"
Many More Unusual News from the Middle East Here
August 24, 2005 in Middle East | Permalink | Comments (9) | TrackBack
August 23, 2005
Cheerleaders of The Philadelphia Eagles
The Cheerleaders of The Philadelphia Eagles
Holy Crap! This is my entire wrestling figure collection from the mid 1980's to today
Rankings of the top eaters on the International Federation of Competitive Eating circuit. See for example, No. 13 - Allen Goldstein; Achivement - Bologna: 2.41 Pounds Pork & Chicken Bologna / Six Minutes. Nice T-shirt, Allen!
Nike’s balloon bowl
Portland Adult Soapbox Derby 2004. (From ”Danny’s Land”)
Freeboard explained - Snowboarding on the Street. (May re-size the browser, sorry)
Kris Holm’s unicycle catalog
Learn to Skydive - Get started in 5 Steps. (From Drop Zone. Serving the skydiving community for more than a decade)
Re-post: Joe Jennings - Skydiving Reel
Bike Sutra - All the Cycling Links you'll ever need. (Mostly for John at ”Information Junk”)
Many More Unusual Links of Extreme Sports Here
August 23, 2005 in Extreme Sports | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack
August 22, 2005
“Too loud, too large and too banal”
01010100 01101000 01101001 01110011 00100000 01110000 01101111 01110011 01110100 00100000 01101001 01110011 00100000 01110111 01110010 01101001 01110100 01110100 01100101 01101110 00100000 01101001 01101110 00100000 01100010 01101001 01101110 01100001 01110010 01111001 (Trick from ”Blogging LA”). Update: A fun thread on Monkey Filter. I'm sure there will be many more...
Glendale's Forest Lawn cemetery: To live in LA is often to die in LA. Still, even eternal slumber doesn't excuse you from the SoCal obsession with wealth and looking good. Mel Blanc’s grave. (From ”Beneath Los Angeles”)
Temple Crosswalks Receive Facelift
Murders in LA County “by” Sheriff Lee Baca. (From ”Citizen of the Month”)
Grandma Prisbrey's Bottle Village in Simi Valley
How do you pronounce the new L.A. mayor's name? Hear how Antonio Villaraigosa explains how to pronounce his name
Los Angeles From an "Auto", a tour guide printed in 1906 by an old electric car tour company called California Auto-Dispatch Co. (From “Boing Boing”)
A Morning in Chinatown. Photo essay by Mark Dixon
Many More Unusual Links About Los Angeles and Orange County Here
August 22, 2005 in Los Angeles | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
August 21, 2005
I’ll be at this corner reading for the next few weeks -
In my efforts to spend less time online, I drove to Orange this afternoon, to The Bookman store, and asked Dave, the owner, to recommend some randomly great reads. Here are the books I walked away with:
The Professor and the Madman by Simon Winchester. "A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of The Oxford English Dictionary"
Mario Puzo’s The Godfather - Saw the movies dozen of times, never read the book
Peter Biskind’s “Easy Riders, Raging Bulls” - How the Sex-drugs-and Rock 'n' Roll Generation Changed Hollywood
The Pillars of the Earth - I never read Ken Follet. Apparently, this is a story about building of a Cathedral in Kingsbridge
Larry McMurtry’s Lonesome Dove - Never read any of his books either
Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman
Tama Janowitz’s A Cannibal in Manhattan
So, I’ll see y'all later, ok?…
Elsewhere -
The idea behind Altered books: Cut the bindings off of books found at a used book store. Find poems in the pages by the process of obliteration. Put pages in the mail and send them all around the world
Fans from around the world have contributed to this scanned collection of over 650 Philip K. Dick book covers
3 Wishes.com offers Sexy Adult Fairy Tale Costumes. Only women costumes. (From ”The Daily Pick”)
So You Want to Write a Book? A Guide for New Authors, from O’Reilly
All 190 volumes of The Hardy Boys - Adventures since 1927
Leonardo DiCaprio as played by Earnest Hemingway
As I Lay Reading. Oprah Winfrey announced that her Book Club would be embarking on an ambitious program called "A Summer of Faulkner." Faulkner? Oprah? Really?
Many More Unusual Literary Links Here
August 21, 2005 in Books & Literature | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBack
August 20, 2005
Every Body is a Scared Mirror
On Thurday at 6:00 pm, a bunch of people got together in DeCafe to reenact Leonardo DaVinchi's "The Last Supper". It was trully spectacular ...Afterwards, things got silly. Ever seen Jesus with rabit ears?
David Douglas Duncan’s portraits of Picasso
The Chapel of Sacred Mirrors. Alex Gray tells how his painting "Gaia", which he painted in 1989, somehow predicted the 9/11 attack. (Watch the video tour)
An ice cube’s chance in hell - Summertime art that should have lasted more than a day
Paintings by Maciej Cegłowski, (Better known as the writer behind ”Idle Words”)
Paint by Number: Accounting for Taste in the 1950s. Although many critics saw "number painting" as a symbol of the mindless conformity gripping 1950s America, paint by number had a peculiarly American virtue. It invited people who had never before held a paintbrush to enter a world of art and creativity
Joseph Seigenthaler’s Noggins
Tara Donovan’s Cube of Toothpicks. (From ”Blanketfort”)
What happens when an artist becomes a mayor? The city becomes his canvas
Aquarela, a blog about watercolors
Many More Unusual Contemporary Artists Here
August 20, 2005 in Modern Art | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack