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Unintentional Comedy

ESPN.com Page 2’s Bill Simmons presents the Unintentional Comedy Rating scale, “those moments when something or someone cracks you up … even though that wasn’t necessarily the original intention.” This is so much funnier than I can describe; take a look at the page for a comprehensive rated list of comic moments that weren’t supposed to be funny but are!

thanks to Ulana for the link
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Optical Illusions

Ampan optical illusionAkiyoshi’s illusion pages are chock full of optical illusions, anomalous motion illusions, and more. In case you’re wondering, that’s not actually a spiral to the right, but a series of concentric circles. Check out the site to see a larger version of that and other illusions.

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Absolut Stella

As usual, Absolut Vodka’s latest marketing campaign is pretty cool. This time, they are presenting a virtual “hotel” along with fashions by Stella McCartney, including “room service” with vodka drink recipes, among other things. There’s a lot to explore, and their main site is chock full of even more neat stuff. Of course, I’m a little biased, as I’ve been collecting their ads for over 10 years now, amassing over 600. Yeah, I get a little obsessive about some things [*cough* ‘80s music *cough*], but I think it’s fun, so that’s all that matters. But I’m not rationalizing, really. 😉

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Pete Townshend on Kurt Cobain

Townshend reviews Kurt Cobain’s Journals in The Guardian. He has a unique perspective from which to comment on these journals, and not only because “in the middle of one of his rants against the rock press establishment,” Kurt Cobain writes, “I hope I die before I become Pete Townshend.” From what I’ve read and heard, it sounds as if Cobain’s entries reveal much about his tortured psyche, one that perhaps contributed to his talents but which ultimately doomed him to his sad fate. Townshend writes:

We find it so hard to save our own, but must take responsibility for the fact that the message such deaths as Cobain’s sends to his fans is that it is in some way heroic to scream at the world, thrash a guitar, smash it up and then overdose.

Read this book to see that the human spirit, even at its most sublime, can effect monumental damage on itself and its fellow souls if addiction enters the story. I mourn for Kurt. A once beautiful, then pathetic, lost and heroically stupid boy. Hard rock indeed.
Kurt Cobain Journals - link to amazon.com
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Disacknowledgements

“Christopher Todd Brown will try to get the U.S. Supreme Court to grant certiorari in an effort to establish what he considers a basic constitutional right – the right to write "Fuck You” to university administrators in his master’s thesis in a “Disacknowledgements” section in place of the traditional “Acknowledgements.” Wow, I wish I had thought of that. Oh wait, I guess I need to have written a master’s thesis to have thought of that. Oh well, I say stick it to The Man!