stop-motion fight

This is such a Terrific (capital-T) stop-motion... something about the very end is so sweet.

See, they go through the whole day fighting, and trying to get the best of each other, but gradually you start to notice how much fun it looks like they are having during their outing together... the slides, the pool, the play ground... it's like at the very end they realize how much they really have fun when they are together, and they cherish the whole entire day, even if it started as a fight.

Tony vs. Paul

do you remember your first crush?

this is pretty cute. i love the animals she chose, especially the sharks. animated sharks are just the cutest.

woah- post overload!

what's this all about? i don't post anything for months and the show up with three posts in two days??

Internet People! - The Meth Minute 39



how many are you familiar with? i like their drawing of zefrank best.

i'm so glad i've never posted any real videos online, lest i be made into one of these cartoon renderings.

en em co oo?

NMKY, from finland:



need i really say anything about this??

well, if so i'll just say this- apparently frank zappa was going to record something with this finnish bass player at one point, but it never happened.

whew. good morning everybody!!

greed.

my friend kathleen just shared this film with me, found on youtube. it's by a guy, run wrake, who found some vintage stickers (over 200 or something like that!) and decided to make a film out of them about the nature of greed. it's really amazing. please enjoy:



(i like how it explains how the idol got inside the rabbit at the end. i also looove the nouns floating next to everything.)

Goat ready to laugh.

Today I learned about a genetically-mutated goat that "faints" when over-excited or startled. You just gotta watch. It might be funnier to me because I'm in the room with a sleeping person and mustn't laugh out loud...

God is a Sock.

When I first saw this picture that I randomly stumbled across online today, I laughed. Pretty heartily, too.

Then I noticed he has a bare foot. And it is very wet outside. And he is homeless. And I realized that he is right: God IS a sock.

God is the fulfillment of everything we've ever needed to be loved and home and safe and warm. In fact, I'd argue that God isn't just the fulfillment of those things- God is the very concept of Fulfillment.

To this guy, God is a sock. It is right for him to cry out, "Oh God, where are you now?" What is God to you? Where is God found? What do you need? Ask for it.

The Sufi poet Rumi says:

"The mouse soul is nothing but a nibbler.
To the mouse is given a mind proportionate to its need,
for without need the Almighty God
doesn't give anything to anyone.
Need, then, is the net for all things that exist:
man has tools in proportion to his need
So, quickly, increase your need, needy one,
that the sea of abundance may surge up in loving kindness."


My greatest hope is that somebody gave this guy a sock and in the sock and in the giving, God was found and met and known. It's important to recognize our role in allowing space for God. God is in our giving and our loving, because God is gift and love.

"Drama Chipmunk"

(apparently this short little clip is old news. but it's brand new to me. and yes, i'm aware it's more of a prairie dog, "drama chipmunk" is just what most people refer to it as, or so i hear.)

43 Things

For about the last 10 months I have been a member at 43things.com.

At first I was hesitant about joining another online thing. (I was going to say "online community" but then I realized that at first I didn't realize it was one.) I mean, I've tried friendster, twitter, facebook, vox (which I've had a HORRIBLE time with, they still haven't addressed a very serious problem I had with them), even looked into dodgeball once upon a time, and still have a myspace and flickr* account.

What I'm discovering about 43 things is that it has been a surprisingly helpful, encouraging tool for me in accomplishing my life's goals. Hey- you know what? I think I didn't even really realize I even had goals in my life until I was given permission to list them out there. The website is completely ignorable, but can be set up to email you reminders about your goals if you so desire. There's absolutely no sense of obligation to sign in and check in on it (that sense of obligation is one of many negative feelings I've had with many other "social networking" sites), but when you do, you might be surprised at the completely random people from all over the place who are cheering you on. (To explain- people can "cheer" your goals, and if you've written an entry (sort of like a mini-blog for each goal) people can comment on them, or even just cheer the entry.) Or you might be faced with a friendly reminder that once upon a time you were serious about getting something done on that list.

The website is in cooperation with 43people.com (lists people you want to/have already met), 43places.com (lists places you want to/have already gone), allconsuming.net (lists items you are consuming in life, anything from food to books to concepts), and listofbests.com (lists lists people are keeping track of- a little trickier to get the hang of but still kind of cool). Once you have an account for any of the above, you have an account for all and can update all the lists however much or little you want.


Today a girl cheered one of my goals, and so I went to her list of 43 things. I decided to comment on her goal to "delete my myspace account." Below is an edited version of what I said to her about it, it is what lead me to write a blog here at Virtual Stink about how cool 43things.com is.

"I think 43 things is such a way better community than myspace. Any online networking site that is supposed to mimic you real-life relationships so precisely is kind of messed up- if you have it in real life already, why do you need a virtual model of it? It has its coolness, in that I happen to like models a lot- I think they are neat. But people get too wrapped up in it and make it more than a model.

43 things brings people together and into each others’ lives for different reasons. For example, things they have in common that they wouldn’t be as likely to discover they had in common were it not for the internet. It’s a totally unique community experience from real-life and is a network that, due to its uniqueness, has something fresh to offer a person’s life.

For instance, today I felt totally excited that my goal to [x, y, z] had been cheerd ;) (thanks!)- It’s not just a “good stroke,” like, validation for the things I’m interested in and like (which myspace TOTALLY is. I mean, it’s almost indulgent how good it feels to sign in to see the red “new messages!” or blue “new comments!” smiling at you. When you get comments or people tell you they like your pictures- mmmm, you go out commenting other people’s just so you’ll get more yourself), it’s a sense of support- even though I’m still the only person with that [x, y, z] goal, I still feel connected to a new person in a way I never would have otherwise.

Anyway, all this to say- I still have a myspace and check in multiple times a day. I’m not deleting it for lots of reasons. But I wish I could convince everyone I know to try out 43 things. It is so motivating and exciting to be a part of a weird network like this one."

This blog entry here is another hearty attempt on my part to convince people.






*I will state once and for all for the record that I love flickr and have nothing against them at all.

The Other Monster

I have a friend that I met through flickr. (Not actually met, just internet met.) We have been doing challenges- we pick a theme and each other has to go capture our version of that picture. It's been fun. We bonded over the fact that our nicknames are both "Monster."

Anyway, from what I gather, she's a dancer, actress, and does some really fun choreography. Please check out her videos which are all totally awesome:
M.Monster on youtube.
She does these movement improvs that crack me up and inspire me to make better use of my space at home when dancing around to music I love. (I've been wanting to do a video dance to "My Rival" by Steely Dan for a loooong time...)

Here's my favourite of her videos so far:


I really get inspired and happy when I see what she's up to. Thanks Monster!

Goin back to Collage.

Yay!

My friend the Bored Troll now has a website up that features his collage art work. I am inspired by it.

When in New York he treated me and our friend Carleen to admittance to a Harry Smith film (here is an example of his work). It was one of the best parts of the trip, and now he's got animations of his own available to view online. I hope he does more, and I hope you'll take a moment to view his two short animations (short as in literally only a few seconds long, but still so good), which I'm making available here:




Can't wait to see more, BT!

OMG Shoes.

I can't resist any longer.

I have to write a post about Liam Sullivan.

The only reason I even tried to resist is that I'm pretty sure most people already know who he is and have seen "Shoes," at least. I first saw "Shoes" about 2 months ago, and it's just too great not to link to. All his skits are really funny. But I think this is my favourite:

Hard-Hitting Questions


So, rather than write a lot about these funny skits which are self-explanatory, I'll leave you with this final thought:
Liam Sullivan has almost single-handedly made me want to start doing sketch comedy again. I haven't felt this way since The Kids in the Hall in 1994. No amount of MadTV, Saturday Night Live, or even Mr. Show has inspired me so much.

You can watch all Liam's other skits here.

World's Smallest Political Quiz

Most my friends know I'm not the most political person in the world. Sure I have some opinions, who doesn't. But I don't talk about politics a lot and don't care much for many politicians, either.

That said, I'd like to share something with you. This is a quiz that I have heard about time and time again online- over 3,000,000 people have taken this quiz to help figure out where they are politically aligned. It is a rather highly acclaimed quiz (many quotes at the page from all kinds of sources exclaiming how good a resource it is). I am fascinated at how many people seem to forget there is more than just "right" and "left," and who seem to think they fall into one political category or another when they actually don't. So, whether you are someone who has never quite known where you are aligned, or you think you are pretty sure you know where you are aligned- whether you talk about politics all the time or could care less about getting into a political conversation, I encourage you to take the world's smallest political quiz. It's painless and takes like 30 seconds, and you might be surprised at the results.

Quiz Here!

Double Dutch

Over the past two days I've discovered two thoroughly amazing things from Amsterdam.

The first was the result of a search for "Free Design" on youtube:
Orchestral Pop Duo Bauer. WOAH. Where have you been all my life, Bauer?? Apparently in Amsterdam, that's where. And also on the web at these convenient locations:
bauer-plaza.com
on myspace
on youtube watch "Save" and "I'm No Prototype", but start watching here, why not!


The second was the result of perusing their website. I found they had listed a link to the visual works of Persijn Broersen and Margit Lukács- mostly video, some other stuff I'm unsure how to describe, partially due to some language barriers (although I'm surprised how much ik kan lezen and understand thanks to German), but also it's just a dense website with so much to explore. But to help, here's a place to start:
pmpmpm.com
Here is something where they removed subjects from newspaper images, just leaving the backgrounds. Very cool.
And I really liked these two music videos. Both take a moment to get into, but it's worth the wait. I think I like the one from 2002 best. Very clever interaction with the song and very well done using just stock footage, as far as I could gather.
Not sure what this is, but it's so beautiful!!

I hope you'll go check out these links! It's the stink of the day in the very best way.

Now You're On Your Own

My first rock show on cello:


By no means a perfect performance, but a fun one- I think it's not too bad, and you can actually kind of hear it on this one. Right now there are two other videos up from this show at Dolour's youtube page. That evening I also played keys, synth (keytar!), glockenspiel, melodica, and sang (none of which can you really hear in the other videos), so I was running around a lot on a tight stage, but it was worth it. We had lots of fun!

i | ichc

Sorry to inundate you with so many posts right away, but ah, what a perfect follow up to yesterday's last post because it's true- i | ichc.

Last night the hubby and I were just watching some teevee, when I remembered something funny he and I had laughed about a while ago- some pictures of cats with funny captions that I'd seen someplace online. I know, I know- sounds like I'm about 40 years old right now, but I'm not. The thing is, these cats keep coming up all over the place when I'm cruisin' the net. Well, last night I discovered they are called lolcats (sometimes lolcatz, with a z) and they can be viewed at i can has cheezburger?

Here's a GREAT example:


After laughing so hard at the first few that we had to pause our DVR, we decided to just turn the TV off all the way, and we proceeded to spend maybe an hour just scrolling through them and laughing together. It was somehow such a better way to spend the evening than watching Southpark. Apparently, lolcatz are becoming more and more widespread, more people know about them. This is good. I want to do my part to spread the word because I laughed so hard and want you to, too.

I was reading one person's thought about "i can has cheezburger" and the success of lolcatz, and their opinion was that by adding captions to animal pictures, we are admitting that we do prescribe personalities to our pets, and we do believe them to be somewhat human- but the unique grammar and spelling of lolcatz' captions implies that if they do act human, they sure don't speak the exact same language we do, and when they try, they have their own way of doing things. I think this is great.

Go explore them, I hope they make you laugh until you cry, like they do for me.

The Whiff of Love- Or, "The Day I learned to |"

|

Apparently this little mark | now denotes "love" in internet lingo?

This is something I just caught a whiff of about three days ago. And now I'm noticing it EVERYWHERE.

I want to know how this kind of stuff gets started. Who came up with that? And who decided it was such a good shortcut that they wanted to perpetuate it? How do you invent a new symbol and get others to know what it means? If I were to write:

I | You! Would you assume it meant love? Because it could mean a lot of things...
Or maybe the first time it was written was at the closure of a letter:

Lots of |,
So-and-so

(Lots of what now?)

You can all thank me later for enlightening you to this new symbol. Go ahead, start using it. Sure, it's less keys to tap than spelling out "l-o-v-e," and yes it's easier than finding the alt + number combo to get the little black heart symbol, and it's mos def less ugly than <3... but really I don't get it.

Oh well, I'm whiney now, but I'm sure I'll be using it before you know it. (I used to hate text messaging, too...)

Alright, | y'all, you |ely |birds,
Gwendo|

Fruity Candies

I've been loving the latest ad campaign for Skittles and Star Bursts. It's like they hired my friends from highschool to create them or something.

Singing Bunny:


Berries and Cream Lad:

(the kick at the end is the best.)

Bearded Man:


Earlier today I found a pretty awesome blog that reviews candy, and does a really great job at it:
Candy Blog!
(Also- takes nice pictures of candy, and they can be viewed on flickr here.)

From Galoob

Micro Machines have come up in conversations twice within the past week. One time I initiated the topic, but the second time was completely out of nowhere by one of the guys in the band I'm playing in these days (Dolour).

Micro Machines are notable to me because I never liked car-type toys as a kid. I liked She Ra and Barbie, My Little Ponies, and Glowworms (even though I could never get the big one to light up because I couldn't squeeze hard enough)...

I secretly wanted the dolls you could turn into a cupcake... I just saw a new version at Walgreen's the other day, brought back all kinds of memories about how I would never admit to liking something so overtly ruffly and girlie (as though ponies and Barbie aren't girlie enough already?).


(I just tried to find a commercial for these dolls, but all I could come up with was this:)


Anyway, so I thought Micro Machines were cool because they made even me want to play with cars. Here's a commercial for them- I still think these are great toys, and kind of want to build a little city and play with some right now.

Silver Jubilee- Jaan Pehechaan Ho

Today I came across this clip by way of the myspace page of a friend named Toshi. I guess it's from a scene in the movie Ghost World, but I have never seen that movie so for me it really came out of left field.

Here's what I like about it:
- I like that it's got a 50s style lead singer, 20s style flapper dresses, surf-music coming from a big band stand with Indian lyrics, and everyone is wearing masks.
(Which, I'm sure all make perfect sense if you understand the language, and have seen the rest of the movie.)

- Haha, the sound that is supposedly coming from the guitars...

- Please note how ungraceful the women's leg movements are- their toes are often turned in for a good knock-kneed effect or just appear sloppily planted for some other reason, and the lead woman's facial expressions are extremely hard to interpret. I like this.

- Ruffle blouses

- Also, yes I realize this isn't western, but from a western standpoint, this has got to be some of the weirdest choreography I've ever seen. And I've seen Starlight Express.

Why do you like it?

Welcome to the Stink.

Recently a friend of mine suggested I blog about things I find on the internet. "But I never find anything on my own," I said, "I am not that original, I always get tuned in to stuff by way of everyone else." He quickly reminded me that that is how anyone ever finds anything on the web. Oh yeah, that's true.

So this is a new blog for putting links to all the stuff online that crosses my path and that I wish to hurl at the path of the rest the world, or at least my friends who come and read here. I may not be the first one to know about all these fun things, but at least I can share my personal "journey of discovery" with you all- the journey I like to call "Virtual Stink."

Expect links to:
- YouTube
- Flickr
- Other blogs
- Websites
- N' other stuff.
- I will probably explain about the things I'm sharing, or talk about why I like or don't like it.

Don't expect:
- To always see things you've never seen before.
- Me telling stories, unless they are somehow related to the stuff I'm linking to.
- Any regular flow of updates. I have no idea how frequently I'll post.