Maybe We Could Make a Tree House Sub-Division?

That last post reminded me of this:

This is another by XKCD.

I have this exact same phenomenon, I just have all these awesome (at least I think they are) ideas. I wonder if there are zoning laws concerning tree houses?

I want to Live in This When I Grow Up

I mean seriously, How awesome is that?

I think for mine i'll use Airstreams, and maybe get some rope bridges, covered connecting awnings, and a small crane with a rope pully elevator, It'll be so cool.

P.S. it looks like they used shipping containers to support the trailers as well as steel posts. Recycling, and extra storage space.

Mine Cart Madness Was My Favorite Level in Donkey Kong

Here's a really strange Mine cart Toilet I found with almost no context, while looking for something on Wikipedia. Better make sure the breaks are on before you sit Down.

Engineered Spirituality

The Endless Knot, is a Tibet Buddhist Motif, and one the "Eight Auspicious Signs"

It Symbolizes "Interplay and interaction of the opposing forces in the dualistic world of manifestation, leading to their union, and ultimately to harmony in the universe."

I found this interesting though, it's an explanation on how to draw an Endless Knot with Engineering Nomenclature and specificity. Ancient Traditional Symbolism, through mathematical Distillation:

Drawing an endless knot:

Plot the vertices A, B, C, D of square ABCD. Plot E, the midpoint of line segment AB. Plot F, the midpoint of line segment BC. Plot G, the midpoint of line segment CD. Plot H, the midpoint of line segment DA. Plot I, the midpoint of segment AE. Plot J, the midpoint of EB. Plot K, the midpoint of BF. Plot L, the midpoint of FC. Plot M, the midpoint of CG. Plot N, the midpoint of GD. Plot O, the midpoint of DH. Plot P, the midpoint of HA. Draw line segment AI. Draw line segment IN but with leaving a gap in its middle. Draw line segment NG. Draw line segment GE but leaving a pair of gaps at 1/4 and 3/4 of the way between G and E. Draw line segment EJ. Draw line segment JM but leaving a gap in its middle. Draw line segment MC. Draw line segment CL. Draw line segment LO but leaving a pair of gaps at 1/4 and 3/4 of the way between L and O. Draw line segment OH. Draw line segment HF but leaving a gap in its middle. Draw line segment FK. Draw line segment KP but leaving a pair of gaps at 1/4 and 3/4 of the way between K and P. Draw line segment PA. Erase points D and B, and the drawing is done.

Financed Self-Control

I found this interesting over at GOOD Magazine:

"Quit smoking without a patch.

Committed Action to Reduce and End Smoking is a savings program offered by the Green Bank of Caraga in Mindanao, Philippines. A would-be nonsmoker opens an account with a minimum balance of one dollar. For six months, the client deposits the amount of money she would otherwise spend on cigarettes into the account. After six months, the client takes a urine test to confirm that she has not smoked recently. If she passes the test, she gets her money back. If she fails the test, the account is closed and the money is donated to a charity. MIT’s Poverty Action Lab found that opening up an account makes those who want to quit 53 percent more likely to achieve their goal. No other antismoking tactic, not even the nicotine patch, appears to be so successful. "

Point, Counter-Point.

Point:


Counter Point:

Blogging While Paid.

So it's a friday afternoon, and the store is empty, and there hasn't been a customer in a while.

There is however news:

The worker who I like least in all the world put in his 2 weeks, and is moving to seattle, so i won't even have to deal with him in the greater community at large, which is where our animosity began.

The worker who is the friendliest put in what effectively is his 3 weeks notice, but he says he'll still come by to play.

And lastly apparently the other workers, specifically 2 that don't come as much surprise, make a habit of talking about me behind my back.

All in all i don't know what to think, but none of it comes as a big shocker.

Bill Watterson Will Be the First Patron-Saint of My New Religion

I mean seriously, does anybody ever sit back and marvel that Calvin and Hobbes was printed in a news paper funny page, it seems like Voltaire being printed on the back of cereal boxes. Ok maybe thats an exaggeration, but how awesome would that cereal be?

In any case, this is taken from a part of a Sunday Strip, but I've long held that this is what mine and Annie's art would look like if they had Babies:

Official Titles and Torqued Iron

I found out today when checking my newwork email account that when set up, they filled out my signiture line already.

It now reads: Dan Axe -Retail Manager

Nobody ever told me when i went from retail guy, to retail manager, but i guess it makes sense since i'm generally the only retail anything at this point, but still i never expectd an actual title, other than Baron, of course.

Also i found a railroad spike with an unusual double bend in it, either sombody forged it or a train shifted o its tracks a good 2-3 inches, there are no hammer marks, and you can't always tell with iron if it's been reheated to the point you would forge with, like you can with steel, but there are ways of bending metal with simple tongs if you get it hot.

So it's a mystery, anyways i took it home with me.

Tubes One Through Four are Flooded, 3, 2, 1, Gullpedos Away!

These are photos from My B.F.A. thesis Piece from May 2007, I decided to put them up for anyone who hasn't seen them, and so i have a place online to store them, and well because, I'm still really proud of the piece.

for the Nautically Challenged, it's a World War 2 Submarine Rigged with sails.





Gullpedo: Half seagull, Half Torpedo


The whole premise is based on layers of symbolism to the point of obfuscation. The original subtexts and meanings are lost and reordered, it's like trying to write a sentence where the words are what the pieces of the whole symbolize and not what they are. Althougth, ultimately I think I just wanted to make something that was a happy mutant of the ideas in my head.

Idleness is the Mother of All- ...Did He say Cat Grenades?

Can Dan's Art Imitate Your Life?

Interesting photo by the artist Andrea Galvani, Mutant horses are always superior to Thoroughbred.

In other news, I have an oldish electric typewriter that i'm dying to use for art. (either the typewriter itself, or the typed product there of) Anybody who has any good suggestions i'm all ears, preferably somthing that fits the general tone of my artistic style would work better, but some of the best work ive made in the past has diverged heavily, so I'm open to whatever. Also keep in mind I'm not looking for just a single idea.

Rosy The Riveter's Israeli Grandchildren.

This is from Rachel Papo's beautiful images Of women in the Israel Army in the photo essay entitled: Serial# 3817131

The stark contrast is interesting, I could see these images being made by an American artist as some form of comentary, as opposed to documentation.

Another Plastic Brick In the Wall.

These are by one of a collective of 21 artists that did site specific work in a little European town. (Italy?)

No name was given for whichever individual did these in particular, and it might have been several. Still it's just amazing simple little pieces that just work so well. I always apreciate thoughtful yet unobtrusive public art, it's the sort of thing that makes the world a better place to live in.

Of course some people have a differen't opinion of what is considered unobtrusive than I.

Blessed Are The Gilled

Title: Sanctuary, by: Unknown

That little guy is just soaking in Holiness.

I Sympathize With This Song Title

...Athough less than before I shaved.

I found this on another random Youtube search, i think this time it was "hairy" and I can not get over how catchy it is. Plus the outfits are pretty great.

Young and Hairy By Elias and the Wizzkids
I think they're Scandanavian Judging by their names.

It's Ok, I Know What I'm Doing.

So ages ago I made the group Don't Worry I'm a Sculpture Major

I mainly wanted a cool sounding group to invite some of my friends to, and I have extolled the Values of Sculpture Majors many times which include:

-Super Healing.
-Nigh-Invulnerability.
-Higher than average Strength for an Artist.
-All around Handiness.
-The ability to bend Metal with their mind.
-The ability to eat fire as a food group.
-Treat minor cuts, scrapes, splinters, burns, abrasions, etc, as an aphrodisiac.
-A working knowledge of nearly every tool ever. (including the Archimedes screw, the Canadarm, Bull whips, Chopsticks, and Portainer gantry cranes)
-Their sweat is Highly prized by gourmet chefs as a flavor enhancer.
-They know no fear.
-They use Tin snips to cut their hair, and Metal files to shave.
-etc.

Well anyways, the group has sort of taken off on its own, and now has 122 members, from all across the country, as well as members in Belgium, Italy, New Zealand, Vietnam, Turkey, Lebanon, Poland, England, South Africa, Wales, Austrailia, Canada, Mauritius, Japan, Egypt, Paraguay, Ireland, and Croatia. All that and I havent done a single thing to promote it other than recruit 6 friends as the original members.

They're Like If Your Best Friend Was Edible

Mmmm, Ice Cream

And, yet can I really truely enjoy it as much as them, ever?

Title: Flavor Country

Another Great Photo from Toasterfoot.

Somewhere Out There Someone Is Carrying a Foam Bullet With Your Name On It...

...the trick is, die of old age before it finds you.

Made in China

By Populardemand I'm posting this here as well, since a couple of my friends have asked. My Mom showed me this, also from Clifvic's Blog.

The Chinese State Circus Does Swan Lake

You have to watch it to believe it, It is just plain unbelievable.

Dancing Makes Anything Better...

...Gang violence, Prison, Zombies, the Streets, and apparently Directing multimillion dollar jet-powered weaponized Aircraft.


Funny videos

I got this from cliffsvic'c Blog

In The Imperial Navy!

This is a pretty great video about fleet week in San Francisco. Mostly just shots of the ships sailing into harbor or in the back ground.

Sounds like Art

So I was looking for a different way to login, that didnt involve logging in to gmail first and i found out i already have a shared blog that I have long since forgot about.

This is from a class I took 2 years ago that was an alternative media Studio art course, that was about exploring the use of audio in art.

I never actually put any of my stuff up there, and it certainly hasn't been updated in a while.

There was a lot of interesting stuff in that class, and I don't know how much of it made it on the site, but it's worth a look.

http://sound3850.blogspot.com/

Vienna is For Wierdos

or so I hope.

Annie left for Vienna today.

I hope she has a great time, and if she ever starts her own Blog-contraption-thing, I'll let everyone know.

In the mean time she will be missed by me and all her friends.

Misogyny is Ok If Your a Woman.

...especially if your Wonderful.


Panel is from an original WonderWoman comic.

Ah, The Golden Age of Comics!

Ladies and Gentlemen of the Press...

I don't know if anyone else has read anything about the supposed dead big foot found recently, but Big Foot himself would like to clear the air:

This is from a Canadian illustrator by the name of Graham Roumieu.
He has a website here

it's some pretty funny stuff, kind of New Yorkerish

Giant Monsters Go Rawr.

There's a game soon to be released called Monsterpocalypse. It comes with giant monsters of a variety of flavors, Godzilla lizards, Cthulu Beasties, Martian Walkers, Glowing Mutant Karate Men, Robots, Flying Saucers, and the list goes on all humongus. They even come with little buildings to destroy and hurl your opponent monsters into. All on a city streets map/board.

So anyways the game designers set up a blog but took the interesting step of not talking about anything in the actual game itself, instead the blog is entirely devoted to the giant monster genre as a whole,and it's pretty interesting.

If you like the idea of giant things smashing other giant things, while horrified populace run screaming about, check it out:

http://giantmonstersattack.blogspot.com/

Something to see

These are two trailers to two amazing looking movies about Art,



Has a whole collection of different artists in it. including Barry McGee, Shepard Fairey, and Terry Richardson, among a bunch of others, should be pretty great as a sort of general non-mainstream art world movie.

and then there's:



Which is a documentary about a Specific street artist who went by the name of Roadsworth. Even if your not normally into tagging, you should take a look his work is pretty clever, and it's just unexpected.

I know it's alot of videos today, but if your interested in Art these are two movies to watch out for.

Just Chillin

I know this isn't something I should condone, but I'm not gonna lie, the guy just looks the Definition of awesome.

And All This Time I've Been Doing It Sans-Bag.

These are bags for you to wrap your sandwich in so you can cook it in the toaster. I, ahem, may have already been doing this for years, without such bags, much to the chagrin of my parents.

I haven't really done such things in a long while, but years back before i was shown how to use the oven, i was a wiz with our top loading toaster, i used it to cook the things that weren't designed to be microwaved, like chicken fingers at times, or the occasional Grilled Cheese.

What Time is it?

Ben pointed me towards this:


This is Sculpture Canadian artist David Altmejd. He makes strange semi grotesque semi mirror finish metal sculptures.

you can see more here: http://io9.com/5036350/everything-thats-wrong-with-nature

The thing that really pulls it all together for me is the little digital wristwatch. It was kind of neat before but when i noticed that, i was sold. It's tiny details like that, that make a sculpture like this interesting. How in instances like this something so utterly normal and common place becomes the absurd solely by comparison.

It's a Bird, It's a Plane, It's a Super-Battleship

So the series is Long since over but i find the images pretty interesting. And theres alot of underlying subtext to the show.

These are from a 80's era anime known as Space-Battleship Yamato. The story is something about invading aliens wiping out most of earth's population or some such. When all hope seems lost, another alien race sympathetic to our cause transmits the plans for a futuristic power generator and interstellar engines. But time is running out and with so much already destroyed theres no suitable hull to place these in, let alone build from scratch. Some how the decision is made to raise the wreck of the battleship Yamato Sunk during World War 2 by intense aerial bombing. the ship is presumably fixed up and made somehow space worthy, they escape and space hijinks ensue as they explore and continue to battle the bad aliens.

Irreverance is on My Mind... ....Or is Reverance Not on My Mind?

My Money's on Lefty

There are some pretty great photos by a couple of artists under the name Toasterfoot.
(more Toaster Goodness)

I'll post some more later on.


http://toasterfoot.houseofsprouts.com/

Does Dan Ignore Reality, or Does Reality Ignore Dan?

Naval Gazing

I broke open, seperated, and sorted over 1200 WW2 Warships, planes, and submarines, none of which was longer than 7 inches.

and then i had to do the same with an equal number of corresponding cards.

All by myself, excepting a couple hundred cards right at the end.

but, to be clear i'm not complaining, it just seems like an odd way to spend a Monday.

Boom De Ah Dah. Boom De Ah Dah.

I Love The Whole World


I Love this Video. Many of you may already be aware of that. I like to think of myself as an overall optimist with predilictions towards cyncism at times. But in general, i think the world's a pretty awesome place.

http://xkcd.com/
A web comic I read for it's own merits made it's own version, but i don't know if it makes sense without having read the series for a while. Still now's a good time to start reading, good plain Geeky fun.

Consider this an Official Pneumatic Toaster Endorsement.

The Single Most Influential Anything in My Entire Life.

LEGO.

Seriously, I would not be an artist today, not have an interest in Architecture, and Probably be a more grounded and rational person. (Heaven Forbid!) Spaceships, Pirates, Dinosaurs, Tall Ships, Planes, Trains, Star Wars, Harry Potter, Pulp Adventure, Submarines, Bi-Planes, Castles, Ninjas... I mean honestly, What they Haven't covered that I love would probably be either impossible or inappropriate for LEGO.



So on that note i give you this. (you can click on pretty much any image i post to see them bigger by the way) It's a multilayered onion of awesome. there are so many tiny details, like the ninja vs. pirate rivalry in the ships rigging, or The Feral Jar Jar Binks & co. charging some (French?) Riflemen.

Toasters Give Me a Warm Feeling

Bout time i did a toaster related post, I looked but couldn't find any Pneumatic models.

From The Toaster Museum:



I wonder if they get sick of toast after a while.

Check them out: http://www.toastermuseum.com/

Hydraulic Spectacles, are They the Pneumatic Toaster's Karmic Twin?

"Adaptive Eyewear" is a fascinating program out of the UK. By injecting various amounts of fluid into the lenses of thick glasses, then removing the syringes on either side once the correct vision is achieved. That makes it possible to ship one set of glasses to thousands of people instead of trying to send out a variety of lenses to match all needs — not to mention allowing users to dial in their own prescription.

It sounds like the project has been around for several years. The company reports that thousands of pairs of glasses have been distributed by U.S. peacekeeping forces. Newer, lighter models are in the works. Fantastic stuff.

It's going on 2 +/- some years that i've needed to replace my broken glasses. Maybe these?

Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying...

Continueing the theme of apocalyptic Happenings, This is a photo of a United states MIRV (multiple independently targetable reentry vehicle) intercontinental Ballistic Missile reentering the atmosphere. This was part of a demonstrative test firing, but in practice each one of those beams of light would carry a Nuclear warhead.

It's so abstractly beautiful, it's hard to really fathom the horror unleashed if they were ever actually used.

Mutual Assured Annihilation Will Keep Us Together

colour-coordinated wooden parakeet people sing about bananas

so i often search youtube for just random phrases and see what comes up. this time i was feeling momentarily melancholy so the phrase was "good day" which led me to both ice cube, and Tally Hall, and the rest was history.

Randomness like this should be bottled and sold as life-improving supplement, like vitamins, except they fortify your soul and not your bones.

*Edit: i just noticed if you look at the right place in the video you can see a person holding a memo marked "Banannual Sales"

Professional Courtesy

Luke Skywalker was a Terrorist, and Leia an Enemy Combatant.




an auspicious Juxtaposition.

A Zebra, A Marxists, and The Pope Reading His own Obituary

Normal on the outside. Surreal, amazing, Unique on the inside.

If you like interesting interior design, give this a look.

i think i may try to make my own chalkboard room.

Vanja Pointed me toward this:

"Home & Garden
Far From Conservative
Gavin Jackson/Arcaid for The New York Times
Published: 20080807
It may look buttoned-up on the outside, but the director Roland Emmerich’s London town house is far from frumpy inside."

http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2008/08/07/garden/20080807-EMMERICH_index.html?partner=permalink&exprod=permalink

But Home is Where the Heart is, So Your Real Home's in Your Chest

Some of you have seen this already probably but it's amazing.

Joss Whedon + Musicals = Win.

best Quotes ever

Freedom Will Set Me to Work

Holy self-Censorship Batman

(this post has been edited)

I don't think it would have been an issue but i'd rather not face criticism from my readers over what is ultimately a non-issue.

In other news it's been a slow day and it's raining which i like, so i'll just have to leave on a happier note:

By My Baby Speed Dub @ Yahoo! Video

Now with slightly less one-sided Diatribe!

so just to let anyone who's curious know if you'd like to post but don't have your own blog:

hit Comments under the bottom of any interesting/offending post. type your comment, and then under that select name/URL, type in your name (the URL isn't mandatory) and presto change-o comment ready to post.

or if your feeling sneaky/vindictive you can just pick anonymous.

There are Better Uses for Volcanos than Magma Storage

I started out going to school for architecture, and i still love it, there is something beautiful about a well designed funtional space. Now the realities of the actual practice of architecture and the limit's of comfortable collective imagination brought alot of that crashing down. Well That and the temptation towards that sinister and amorphous siren: Conceptual Art. (parents talk to your kids about conceptual art before someone else does)

in Any case i've continued to doodle in a semi-architectural manner, though almost always of a fantastical nature. Like say a cloud factory that purifies and vaporizes the sludgy river Des Peres into pretty clouds, or The giant Cannon that fires locomotive sized Artillery shells at West County. (yes harmless doodles, pay no attention to the 12 story tarp)

side note: i wish i had been better at documenting my work.

the Point of all this was to say i found something cool:

Mr Jesse van Dijk is a conceptual artist and illustrator from The Netherlands. Project Indigo is this huge project creating a ficticous seaside vertical city, and its pretty amazing stuff.

heres one of my favorites:

....Wherin Our Hero Learns the Truth of His Upbringing, and Its Terrible Cost...

I've led a charmed life, and I'm never one to complain excessively about how i was raised, but at a certain point i have to come to a realization, that no matter how i try to justify it I'll never live up to my true potential having never learned to play tennis on the top of a biplane in midair.

or is that Badminton, this is how bad my upbringing was, i just can't tell.

Tiny but obsessive compulsive

So i learned an interesting fact about one of the games i play today. Its just a simple WW2 historical naval game w/ little pre-painted ships. kind of dumb but a fun way to kill time.

somebody with more time and inclination than i (and if i have learned anything it is that there are always such individuals on the Internet no matter the subject) compiled a list of actual measurements of the ships in the game and compared them to the lengths of the pieces.

Lo and behold every single ship with only 3 exceptions out of 120 is an accurate 1:1800 scale within a 2% margin of error.

This is amazing to me, this is a game which i thought paid only lip service to any actual accuracy, e.g. big ships bigger, small ships smaller, furthermore this astounding accuracy is utterly superfluous. (and not in the sense that any board game in all reality is more or less superfluous, haha) The game itself uses squares on the board and only two ships no matter how big or small can fit in a square, distance is only ever measured by squares.

maybe this doesn't interest anyone else as much as me, but i just feel better knowing that someone out there, or more likely a team of someones spent countless hours making something to an exact specification for the sake of there own amusement, and never proclaiming this feat of microengineering anywhere at all.

Blogging against the machine! ...with a machine powered by machines built by machines, and only ever visable through machines!

For want of sharing some of the things ifind interesting in life with others (whether they want it or not) i give you: The Pneumatic Toaster.



A place to hide the things i find, mutter uselessly in an homage to the crotchety old man i look forward to becoming, occasionally post art (mine and others), stay in touch with those that can't, and lastly just to jump on the proverbial blogwagon.



i hear the phrase humble beginings thrown around as a positive an awful lot so i'm going to begin with proof that no matter how good i was or am there will always be someone out there doing it better...



and they probably live in France: