The Daily Pick

Goodbye Daily Pick

2005-10-30T14:46:00.000-08:00

That's it for The Daily Pick. Thanks to all those who've visited, posted, sent emails, and supported the site. Do visit TomKealey.com, where I'll keep the DP alive in spirit. Rock on.

Found Notes

2005-10-17T22:58:00.000-07:00

And... Jessica points our way to Found Notes. It's just what it sounds like: the weird, the beautiful, the creepy, the not safe for work. Great found notes here.

Found Photos

2005-10-17T17:20:00.000-07:00

Found Photos is updated.

Human Oddities Museum

2005-10-16T20:38:00.000-07:00

Gretchen Worden was the curator of the human oddities museum known as the Mütter. She passed away last year, and there's a terrific article in the NY Times about this strange and wonderful individual and her collection.

This, her friends agree, is how she would want to be remembered: her own Gretchen Worden Room at the Mütter Museum, the College of Physicians of Philadelphia's collection of medical specimens and instruments. It's a small room, in a former storage area Ms. Worden jokingly referred to as "the tumor room." But it has been handsomely fitted out with display cases of polished wood and glass, filled with the kinds of spectacularly grotesque anatomical oddities Ms. Worden spent her adult life explicating as the museum's director and tireless promoter.

Thanks Boing Boing

More Bug Photos

2005-10-15T11:47:00.000-07:00

Scotty Hutchins writes in and asks us to check out Meniscus Climbing Insects. Great photography, and "one really nerdy joke (see Figure 9)."

Do check out the censored bug sex in figure 9, along with my favorites: the water-walkers.

The border between land and water may appear flat to us, but to water-walking insects, there may be significant topography. Here the water measurer Hydrometra treads carefully atop slippery rocks protruding from below the water surface.

Weird and wild

Smurfs Bombed for UNICEF

2005-10-13T17:46:00.000-07:00

"The people of Belgium have been left reeling by the first adult-only episode of the Smurfs, in which the blue-skinned cartoon characters' village is annihilated by warplanes.

The short but chilling film is the work of Unicef, the United Nations Children's Fund, and is to be broadcast on national television next week as a campaign advertisement....

The short film pulls no punches. It opens with the Smurfs dancing, hand-in-hand, around a campfire and singing the Smurf song. Bluebirds flutter past and rabbits gambol around their familiar village of mushroom- shaped houses until, without warning, bombs begin to rain from the sky.

Tiny Smurfs scatter and run in vain from the whistling bombs, before being felled by blast waves and fiery explosions. The final scene shows a scorched and tattered Baby Smurf sobbing inconsolably, surrounded by prone Smurfs."

More here.
Thanks John Jeff Hoffman!

Sarcastic Fashion Photos

2005-10-12T21:59:00.000-07:00

Many fashion photos, plus added sarcastic comments, of both male and female models at Threadbared.com. This site is hilarious.

Thanks Allison J.

Google Maps: UFO Sightings

2005-10-11T22:18:00.000-07:00

Google Maps has taken date from the National UFO Reporting Center and mapped out sightings from September 2005. What's going on in Ohio?

via MetaFilter

Video Game Sweatshops

2005-10-11T11:02:00.000-07:00

1up has a great feature story about the farming and selling of currency within online roleplaying games. Find out how all the World of Warcraft Gold and Star Wars Galaxies Credits are getting on eBay and who is making real life cash.

Austin Kleon: Writer, Illustrator, Library Worker

2005-10-11T10:23:00.000-07:00

Austin Kleon lives in Cleveland, Ohio, where he writes stories and works in a library. He also draws illustrations, such as Ink Pirate, above.

Python vs. Alligator

2005-10-09T11:36:00.000-07:00

Python wins. No, wait, Alligator wins... This photograph is too gross to post on The Pick, but you can see it here. The 13 foot python swallowed the 6 foot alligator, then exploded.

Thanks Christine!

Book LiveJournaled, Discovered by Editor, Published

2005-10-09T11:33:00.000-07:00

Cherie Priest's debut novel Four and Twenty Blackbirds was syndicated on Livejournal, discovered by an editor from Tor, and published. More from Boing Boing.

Old Movies Reimagined with New Trailers

2005-10-09T11:30:00.000-07:00

Boing Boing and others have located a series of re-edited movie trailers on the net. The Shining has been re-edited to seem like an uplifting family drama, Titantic is a ghost story, and West Side Story is a zombie movie. Great edits all.

Chicago Transit Authority Tattler

2005-10-09T11:27:00.000-07:00

I like this site, the CTA Tattler. It's a blog about one individual's observations while traveling the Chicago rail, subway, and bus lines.

I saw my newest sleep posture last week: A 40-ish guy sits by the window, his elbow resting on this knee. His head is turned, tilted down and to the left, cradled gently by his own hand. His mouth is agape, a pink tongue protruding ominously. A least he's not snoring.

Of course, the empty seat next to him is the last to be filled by a passenger. She gingerly say at the edge of the seat.

San Francisco Skiing

2005-10-09T11:23:00.000-07:00

Here's some photos from the San Francisco Chronicle of the ski event on Fillmore Street last weekend. The event dumped tons of snow in the neighborhood.

Wild Gorillas Using Tools

2005-10-09T11:20:00.000-07:00

Well, I guess the human race's dominance is about over.

"Two female gorillas have been photographed using sticks as tools to get through swampy areas, the first time the apes have been seen doing so in the wild, researchers reported on Thursday."

via Backwards City

Community Daily Pick

2005-10-08T17:41:00.000-07:00

Thanks for the howls of outrage. The Daily Pick will return this week, this time as a community board, with around a dozen bloggers. More soon.

Two Headed Tortoise

2005-10-02T23:08:00.000-07:00

Thanks to David Pescovitz over at Boing Boing, who found this photo of a two headed tortoise found in Havana last week. From the People's Daily Online:

A woman holds a baby tortoise with two heads in Havana September 27, 2005. The tortoise was found some days ago on a river bank at the city forest. According to scientists of the local aquarium who inspected the animal, it seems to be perfectly healthy.

Flying Manta Rays

2005-09-30T01:01:00.000-07:00

Wow. These manta rays in the Sea of Cortez jump out of the water and actually fly. A great article with a half-dozen amazing photos.

Thanks Boing Boing.

Daily Show Clips

2005-09-30T00:58:00.000-07:00

Many of the latest Daily Show clips can be viewed at Common Bits.org. Highlights include the John Roberts hearings, Evolution, and much from Lewis Black.

What Not to Do...

2005-09-30T00:36:00.000-07:00

Jeffrey Yamaguchi, over at 52 Projects has a long list of What Not to Do instead of starting your new project.

Do not check your email. Do not go to nytimes.com. Do not decide to organize your cd rack. Do not turn on the television. Do not clip your nails...

Superman vs. Hitler and Stalin

2005-09-29T00:29:00.000-07:00

Dial B for Blog found this great 1940 comic book where Superman flies to Germany and Russia, knocks Hitler and Stalin's heads together, then drops them at the League of Nations. Rock on, Man o' Steel.

via Backwards City

Men's Hands Dirtier Than Women's Hands

2005-09-29T00:24:00.000-07:00

If someone is washing their hands, it's more likely to be a woman than a man, at least according to a new study and survey of American public restrooms. By the way, the absolute worst offenders are fans of the Atlanta Braves. No joke.

Hurry Up Pedestrians!

2005-09-29T00:09:00.000-07:00

The Sneeze.com would like pedestrians to either 1. Hurry up across the crosswalk when a car is waiting, or 2. Pretend to be hurrying up across the crosswalk when a car is waiting. I agree wholeheartedly with this post.

All I ask is the people crossing the street show a little hustle when they know there's a car wating on them. I know they don't have to, but I would like it because the rage I feel while they saunter along is going to give me a coronary.

I'd even be happy with the Coach's Trot-- you see that in sports when the players are all running to their lockers, and the fat old coach just moves his arms around to make it "look" like he's running.

Snow Kiting

2005-09-28T01:32:00.000-07:00

Now that the weather has turned better in Antactica, the British Survey Team is "Snow Kiting," which is a lot like, well, surfing, but with a kite. And on the ice. Lots of cool pictures on the site.

Cyborg Avatar

2005-09-28T01:27:00.000-07:00

You can type your name into the Cyborg Avatar and come up with a cool acronym.

via Karobella.

Back to the Moon

2005-09-28T00:53:00.000-07:00

Apparently the U.S. government has an extra $100 billion dollars lying around, and they're going to use it to send humans back to the moon.

Asia Photos

2005-09-28T00:12:00.000-07:00

I like these Asia Photos from Doug Brown.

Thanks Jaf Project.

Photoshop Frogs

2005-09-28T00:00:00.001-07:00

Methinks that Cathy Schlund-Vials may spend some time on this site. It's Photoshop Frogs.

via Boing Boing.

200 Foot Long Pink Rabbit

2005-09-28T00:00:00.000-07:00

An artists group has placed a 200 foot long pink rabbit on a 5000 foot mountaintop in Italy. Why? I don't know. I'm actually more interested in the 'how?'.

via Bibi's Box

Zombie Philosophers

2005-09-27T00:55:00.000-07:00

Q: Who likes zombies (especially hot ones) more than The Daily Pick?

A: No one.

Q: Who takes the fun out of zombies more than philosopers?

A: No one.

The simplest version of the conceivability argument goes as follows:

(1) Zombies are conceivable.

(2) Whatever is conceivable is possible.

(3) Therefore zombies are possible.

(Kripke used a similar argument in his 1972. For versions of it see Chalmers 1996, 93-171; 1999; 2002; Levine 2001; Nagel 1974; Stoljar 2001.) Clearly the argument is valid. However, both its premisses are problematic. They are unclear as stated, and controversial even when clarified. A key question is how we should understand ‘conceivable’ in this context.

-------

By the way, this image is from Chad Michael Ward, who has zombies, cyborgs, and yes, even winged girls. This site is not safe for work.

President Bush's Everlasting Fall

2005-09-27T00:02:00.000-07:00

President Bush is falling in the polls, and he's also taking an everlasting bubble fall, similar to the bikini-clad woman fall we featured a few months back.

If Mr. Bush gets stuck, you can help him out by clicking and pointing him in the right (left?) direction.

Thanks Presurfer.

Photoblog: The Katrina Cleanup

2005-09-26T00:55:00.000-07:00

Hands On Worldwide has some terrifying and beautiful photos of the Katrina cleanup.

Updates

2005-09-26T00:35:00.000-07:00

There is a new sixth update on the The Winged Girl site, and a new mailbag is up on the MFA Blog.

Too Many Acknowlegements

2005-09-26T00:31:00.000-07:00

The Wall Street Journal takes authors to task for their way-too-long acknowledgments pages.

Author Jonathan Santlofer spent days toiling over a crucial part of his new thriller, "The Killing Art," trying to fit in 58 separate characters, including a wealthy arts patron, a gallery owner, a poet, a psychiatrist and a famous Hollywood actress. He kept adding, deleting and rearranging. Even as his book was being sent to the printer, he begged his editor to make one final change.

Mr. Santlofer's literary challenge: The acknowledgments. "They might be two of the most thought-about pages in the book," he says.

Some of the people on the list were a bit perplexed. Among them was Diane Keaton, thankee No. 46. "I have not contributed anything," says the Academy Award-winning actress, "and I mean zero."

Skate Punks

2005-09-26T00:14:00.000-07:00

Metroactive.com has a great article about the history of skate punks in San Jose, CA.

Thanks Grow a Brain.

What Cute Animal Are You?

2005-09-25T00:49:00.000-07:00

If you could be reincarnated as a cute animal, what cute animal would you be? If you care about such things, and who doesn't?, then take the Cute Animal Quiz, at cukeducky.com

I was hoping to be a monkey, but I ended up as a pony. Yet another of life's dissapointments that I will have to, somehow, bear. Sigh.

Bad Album Covers

2005-09-25T00:22:00.000-07:00

This album cover of recovering addicts is just one of the many strange covers at Museum of Bad Album Covers.

Via Bibi's Box, via The Crime In Your Coffee

And also... Bibi has collected over a dozen links to other album sites on the web. Thanks Bibi.

Ulimeyer

2005-09-25T00:02:00.000-07:00

Ulimeyer has started a new illustration blog. There's a number of hilarious PG-13 rated spoofs of famous animated movies here. Along with his regular illustrations. Terrific work.

Via Drawn!

Solimon Lawrence Photographs

2005-09-24T00:39:00.000-07:00

I like these photographs from Solimon Lawrence. They can be found at the Kelly Writers House on the UPenn site.

Doctor Grammar

2005-09-24T00:28:00.000-07:00

Now I finally understand (sort of) the difference between affect and effect. If you've got a question about grammar, Doctor Grammar has probably answered it already. And, he's answered it, to my observation, clearly and directly.

Thanks Presurfer.

The Groovy Age of Horror

2005-09-24T00:02:00.000-07:00

The Groovy Age of Horror features great movie posters and essays about monster movies from the mid 20th century.

Thanks Bibi's Box.

The Burst Bubble

2005-09-23T00:56:00.000-07:00

Johnny Depp did okay after 21 Jumpstreet. What happened to the rest of the cast? What happened to other 70s, 80s, 90s bands, actors, and others? Check out The Bubble Burst.

Thanks Presurfer.

Green Tea Effective Against Alzheimers in Mice

2005-09-23T00:20:00.000-07:00

An ingredient in green tea has prevented Alzheimers disease-like brain damage in mice, researchers report. The compount, called epigallocatechin-3-gallate (EGCG), decreased production of the protein beta-amyloid, which accumulates in the brains of Alzheimer's patients and causes nerve damage and memory loss.

"If beta-amyloid pathology in this Alzheimer's mouse model is representative of Alzheimer's disease pathology in humans, EGCG dietary supplementation may be effective in preventing and treating the disease," Dr. Jun Tan said.

Photoblog: DYSWIS

2005-09-23T00:18:00.000-07:00

DYSWIS is a cool photoblog from Montreal.

The New Orleans Flood in Your City

2005-09-22T00:24:00.000-07:00

What would the New Orleans flood look like in your city?

"Most individuals across the country have no idea the magnitude of the disaster and the enormous need and help that is needed. Using the maps below, individuals can accurately imagine the size of the disaster by comparing their city. With the "hitting home theme" more individuals may be inclined to help or support relief efforts."

via Presurfer and Idle Type.

From the Archives...

2005-09-22T00:18:00.000-07:00

Conversation During Lobotomy -- http://thedailypick.blogspot.com/2005/05/conversation-during-lobotomy.html

Surviving with Wolves (and other animals): FeralChildren.com -- http://thedailypick.blogspot.com/2005/05/surviving-with-wolves-and-other.html

McSweeny's Open Letters -- http://thedailypick.blogspot.com/2005/05/mcsweeneys-open-letters.html

Highest Paid College Graduates

2005-09-22T00:01:00.000-07:00

Chemical Engineers were the highest paid college graduates in 2005. The rest of the top ten is here.

Underdog Nation: Obscure Sports

2005-09-21T00:37:00.000-07:00

Friend of the Pick Ben Peterson writes...

My friend Josh Davis just had his book (Underdog Nation) come out. He has a fun website heralding all of the world's most obscure sports. He competed in several of them and writes about them in the book.

How to Win at Carnival Games

2005-09-21T00:20:00.000-07:00

RetroCrush interviews former carnival workers about how carnivals cheat at games, and how you can beat them.

"Wanna win that 'throw the ball in the basket' dealie? Throw the ball at an angle (ie: at a basket a few doors down from the one in front of you). The ball will rotate around the basket wall before coming to a stop. Some carnivals won't let you do this, and have notices posted. Some don't, so you either win and collect your prize, or get into a knife fight with a carnie."

Thanks Cynical-C.

Voices of 9/11

2005-09-21T00:02:00.000-07:00

The San Francisco Chronicle has many of the transcripts from firefighters and others on 9/11.

"I just felt like the darkness the loneliness and being alone was the worst thing I ever experienced in my life and not being able to breathe. There was no air. Whatever this explosion was simply sucked all the oxygen out of the air."

Also, some additional photographs from 9/11 are here.

Imphead Illustrations

2005-09-20T00:32:00.000-07:00

Illustrations from Imphead.

Via Drawn!

Grasshopper vs. Parasitic Worm

2005-09-20T00:12:00.000-07:00

The parasitic worm wins this fight with a grasshopper, but what's interesting is how the worm wins. Apparently, it brainwashes the grasshopper into a suicide death dive. No joke. From Cynical-C.

A parasitic worm that makes the grasshopper it invades jump into water and commit suicide does so by chemically influencing its brain, a study of the insects’ proteins reveal.

The parasitic Nematomorph hairworm (Spinochordodes tellinii) develops inside land-dwelling grasshoppers and crickets until the time comes for the worm to transform into an aquatic adult. Somehow mature hairworms brainwash their hosts into behaving in way they never usually would – causing them to seek out and plunge into water.

Four Questions: Interview with Frank Feijen of Happy Palace

2005-09-19T01:22:00.000-07:00

Frank Feijen is the webmaster of Happy Palace, a collection of some of the most unusual, strange, and lovely images found anywhere on the web. On some days you'll find two new pictures, on other days you'd find a dozen new additions or more. It's quite difficult to categorize or summarize the images. To say that is an eclectic mix is a vast understatement. On a page from this past week I found a book cover for "Les Femmes Docteur" (a buxom young doctor holding a syringe, with a patient strapped to the table in the background), a movie screen from a drive-in theatre illuminating a vast field of hay and grass, and a screen cap from a movie titled "Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things." Frank is definitely a fan of the 1950s, and you'll find many images from this era. "Happy" seems an appropriate adjective in the title of the blog. There's a playfulness to the images selected, and Frank is a fan of bright colors, stark black and whites, and interestingly, people smiling in a strange combination of the artificial and the sincere. Happy Palace provides commentary on many of the images, plus links to many of the sites where the images first appeared.

Tom Kealey: I wonder if you could articulate your web surfing experience in some way. It's almost beyond my comprehension how you have found, and continue to find, such a variety of surprising and strange images. Where do you start from? And where does that take you? What would an average "thread" of your day of surfing look like, and where are one or two of the most odd places you've found an image for Happy Palace?

Frank Feijen: Well I do find a lot via other great web searching sites like yours (and Grow a brain, Look at this, PCL linkdump, Cynical-C, Agence Eureka to name but a few) of course, and there are a lot of those. Another thing I like to do is use Google Image. Just type in a word (any silly word will do really) and you get page after page after page of images (and links to related sites) and all you have to do is look hard and start clicking away. It’s a lot like going through a flea-market really: you see a lot of junk and stuff not worthy of closer inspection, but you may stumble upon some real interesting stuff too, and even, occasionally, on some Treasures. And some days you’re really lucky and it’s Bingo all the time and some days it’s just tiring. But fun. What happens a lot too is that when I am searching for one thing, via Google or Answers.com, I find something else. And I scan a lot of stuff too of course – love those vintage National Geographic’s (and other found magazines or books)!

Tom Kealey: I did my best to explain your interests in the intro, but I fell short. What in an image catches your eye? What themes do you think run through Happy Palace? Horror movies and pulp fiction come to my mind, as well as 1950's advertisements. But these would account for only a portion. What other categories, specific or general, does Happy Palace embrace?

Frank Feijen: Phew that’s a hard one because it’s true I do like a lot. Love scientific images, old photos, found photos, snapshots, X-ray photos, ephemera, design, vinyl sharity, art, retro stuff etcetera, but I think if there is one thread, although this might sound cheesy, it’s about embracing life and celebrating life and all of the good stuff life has to offer. Knowing very well it’s often pretty hard to embrace and celebrate life, and there is a huge amount of stuff around that needs a good butt-kick or acid-like criticism - but maybe that’s exactly why I decided I wanted to be on the positive, happy site, so that’s where I usually am.

Tom Kealey: Your previous site was called One Man Safari. One day in June or July, you decided to delete the entire blog. This wiped clean somewhere in the neighborhood of a thousand posts. How did that decision come about? It's one of the cleanest breaks I've ever seen on the net, as far as not only leaving one project, but destroying it and then immediately starting anew. What did you hope to achieve in that break, and have you?

Frank Feijen: I am not sure if I can explain that step, because it was really an split-second kinda decision/impulse, though I did feel a bit burned-out/burned-up I guess. I just thought that if I could start a blog just like (finger snap) that ( because that’s how it started, I was just curiously clicking and suddenly Hey, I had a blog too!), I could end it too, just like (finger snap) that. And I wasn’t even completely sure I would restart again – what tempted me though was coincidentally finding this pretty template the next day that I am now using. I do believe, however, I must say, that destroying, or to put it more mildly: starting a-fresh is part of every creative process and is sometimes really refreshing (and even: necessary). And yes, it did re-fresh me and energise me – but I promise will not be so bold (and brutal, leaving no notes) again.

Tom Kealey: Following that up, your first post on HP is "So there you are. Happy palace. I am glad to have found you. I think you look kind of pretty and inviting and I think I will enter." It's interesting, in the sense that you have found something, yes, but you are also creating it. Creating something to find, or finding something to create. Can you speak to the creation process, both at the beginning and ongoing, and about the discovery process how you are finding something, not only on the Web, but -- I'm speculating but I think I'm accurate -- within yourself?

Frank Feijen: I must say I firmly believe in Instinct, and Intuition and Gut feelings. I like the human brain a lot, and am in awe of it’s accomplishments of course and for sure, but there is a lot to say for Feeling instead of Thinking too, and to just Follow – or even better and best probably: to combine the two and do the Feeling and Thinking at the exact same time. It’s like picking your clothes in the morning (if you don’t have to be in uniform or something): you just Act, pick something. Or like when you’re painting (a picture) : why did you decide to put that black against yellow there (or that red next to that white or whatever)? A lot of times you don’t know, and you don’t really care to know too.

Photoblog: 86.net

2005-09-19T00:35:00.000-07:00

I think that girl is going to hit that boy in the head. But that's just my opinion. You find this and other great photographs, including many of flowers, at 86.net.

Etch-a-Sketch Art

2005-09-18T00:05:00.000-07:00

Is this real? Apparently so. Amazing, to my mind at least. Lots of great etch-a-sketch Art at Shaking Up The Art World.

via Jaf Project.

Weight Watchers 1974

2005-09-18T00:00:00.000-07:00

Christine Texiera writes in with the 1974 Weight Watcher's Recipe Cards. The food here, including the above "Snacks on a Stick" don't appear to be very appetizing or very helpful in watching the weight.

Earth's Population

2005-09-17T00:30:00.000-07:00

Grow a Brain features a great post about the study of Earth's human population:

If we could turn the population of the earth into a small community of 100 people, keeping the same proportions we have today, it would be something like this:

61 Asians
12 Europeans
14 Americans (from North and South America)
13 Africans
01 Australian (Oceania)

50 women
50 men

The Best of Flckr

2005-09-17T00:02:00.000-07:00

The Best of Flckr features sites like cyrenaic's photos and much more.

CG Awards

2005-09-16T00:10:00.000-07:00

The CG Society has named its award-winners for digital photograph and creative computer graphis, and many of the winning images are posted on the CG Talk site.

Great and unusual (and a little freaky) work here.

Mike Brown's Interview with the New York Times

2005-09-16T00:08:00.000-07:00

Here's that New York Times interview with former FEMA chief Mike Brown. Lots of important insight here into the disaster following the disaster:

When he arrived in Baton Rouge on Sunday evening, Mr. Brown said, he was concerned about the lack of coordinated response from Governor Blanco and Maj. Gen. Bennett C. Landreneau, the adjutant general of the Louisiana National Guard.

"What do you need? Help me help you," Mr. Brown said he asked them. "The response was like, 'Let us find out,' and then I never received specific requests for specific things that needed doing."

The most responsive person he could find, Mr. Brown said, was Governor Blanco's husband, Raymond. "He would try to go find stuff out for me," Mr. Brown said.

Governor Blanco's communications director, Mr. Mann, said that she was frustrated that Mr. Brown and others at FEMA wanted itemized requests before acting. "It was like walking into an emergency room bleeding profusely and being expected to instruct the doctors how to treat you," he said.

Photographer Matt Hoyle

2005-09-16T00:02:00.000-07:00

More haunting photos like this one at Matt Hoyle's altpick.com site.

When You've Got to Go, You've Got to Go

2005-09-15T18:01:00.000-07:00

This photo was part of slideshow from Reuters last week. The caption read: "U.S. President George W. Bush writes a note to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice during a Security Council meeting at the 2005 World Summit and 60th General Assembly of the United Nations."

But a closer inspection shows us what the note read: "I think I may need to take a bathroom break. Is this possible?"

Thanks Rachel Richardson!

Suzanne G: Photographs and Other Arts

2005-09-15T01:03:00.000-07:00

Suzanne G is a wonderful photographer, artist, and webmaster. Her site is a self-proclaimed "Drawer full of all things weird, grotesque, bitter-sweet, embalmed and fortean." She features a lot of great artists, comic books, poetry, moving images, and audio. The link to her Flckr site has a memorable set of portraits and macro photography.

Rock on, Suzanne!

50 Euphemisms for "Doin' It"

2005-09-15T00:38:00.000-07:00

Chickenhead has the Worst 50 Euphemisms for Doin' It, including:

-- Alphabetizing the Coupons
-- Filling the Emotional Void
-- Paying the Visa Bill
-- Convening the Subcommittee
-- Staying Late for Extra Credit in Math

Post Secrets

2005-09-15T00:21:00.000-07:00

Post Secrets is updated.

Monstercake

2005-09-14T00:54:00.000-07:00

Yeah! A great site from Chicago's Eugene Smith: Monster Cake. A new monster every day.

"A cast of the odd, misfortunate, and downright horrible, brought to you daily."

Via Drawn!

Photoblog: Life Kapptured

2005-09-14T00:22:00.000-07:00

Life Kapptured shoots in both analog and digital and does a wonderful job with both. Great portraits here especially.

Winged Girl, Take Four

2005-09-13T16:43:00.000-07:00

The fourth installment of The Winged Girl is now up.

Killer Whale vs. Seagull. Killer Whale vs. Dolphin.

2005-09-13T01:07:00.000-07:00

In our continuing series of Animal vs. Animal, we bring you Killer Whale vs. Seagull. This is really fascinating. Apparently this resident of Marineland has learned to chew up his fish, spit it out to the surface of his tank, wait for a seagull to land, and then wham!, tasty seagull snack.

And that's not even the most incredible thing. He's got five tankmates, and he's taught them how to do the same thing.

The capacity to come up with the gull-baiting strategy and then share the technique with others — known as cultural learning in the scientific world — was once believed to be one of those abilities that separated humans from other animals.

And, while I was looking for a photograph, I stumbled upon Killer Whale vs. Dolphin. Sorry Dolphin.

Ninjas!

2005-09-13T00:56:00.000-07:00

Friend of the Pick Matt Pitt writes:

Now, without further ado, here's the Ninja site I mentioned last time. It's http://www.realultimatepower.net, and it's a great parody site allegedly written and maintained by a 12-year-old boy named Robert Hamburger. He claims to be an expert on ninjas, having studied them for "several weeks" and watched a lot of movies. Here are the facts about ninjas, according to Robert:

Facts:

1. Ninjas are mammals.

2. Ninjas fight ALL the time.

3. The purpose of the ninja is to flip out and kill people.

The site is chock full o' hilarious insights about the behavior and activities of ninjas, all written in the voice of a rabidly hyper young boy. Hamburger also instructs his browsers on using a frisbee to commit Seppuku, "the ancient art of killing yourself if you get super pissed and can't find anybody else to kill."

What I really love about it is that it's the kind of site Andy Kaufmann would've come up with had he lived to see the Internet boom. There's a Hate Mail link featuring letter after irate letter supposedly penned by people who find his site appalling and want him banned from the Net. There's even an "MSNBC link" to a lawsuit he claims to be involved in: http://www.realultimatepower.net/index4.htm

High Speed Photography

2005-09-13T00:47:00.000-07:00

This is a photograph of a lightbulb getting smashed. It's one of over a hundred high-speed, macro, experimental, and 'flying insect' photographs on the photoblog Fotoopa.

Thanks Geoff Brock.

Interview with Rich Vogel of Found Photos

2005-09-12T10:23:00.000-07:00

From time to time on The Pick, we'll be featuring a project called Four Questions. It's just what it sounds like: four questions posed to webmasters doing interesting, original, strange, and/or important work. This is the first in the series.

Rich Vogel is the brains behind Found Photos, one of the Pick's all-time favorite sites. There are thousands of photographs - mostly portraits - that have literally been found, mostly online. The photographs range in era from 2005 all the way back to the 1950s. The current update features a woman drinking Jim Beam in celebration of New Years Day 1995, a cookout complete with rusted barbecue grill and couches pulled out onto a dirt road, two young men in a light sabre duel, and two men in drag DJing a party. The photographs are mostly of family and friends (presumably), celebrating, playing, arguing, living. There's a real warmth and humor to the photographs, and Vogel has even grouped some images into themes, including mirrors, kissing, and the very popular middle finger. Here's the interview with Rich Vogel:

Tom Kealey: Can you give us an idea of some of the sources of these found photographs? By that I mean, where do you normally find them, and where are some of the strangest places you've found them?

Rich Vogel: Almost all of the photos are found using P2P programs, like Soulseek, Limewire, Kazaa and all the rest, which are filesharing programs. Few have been found in the tangible real world sense. Since it all happened on accident finding them in the first place, it was a lot of trial and error making efforts to find more of them. There are a slew of file extensions and prefixes for digital camera photos, and these prefixes and keywords are what i'd use to find them. At one time I had a printed list taped to the side of my monitor - around 50 different search strings that would turn up different results. In the beginning it was incredible what a keyword might bring up, hundreds if not thousands of photos available. This was the case for months and months, in the beginning it was hard to choose what to post -I was posting an archive a day for quite some time, sifting through thousands of photos (many of them painfully boring) but finding strange gems all throughout. Over time I think people have either been more careful of what they share, or not sharing at all. The same search strings I used six months ago to find photos bring up close to nothing. It's a lot harder now, and the updates aren't as frequent but they're still coming!

Tom Kealey: I'm a real fan of the site design. It's very easily navigated, and a surfer can switch to theme or thumbnail galleries quite easily. The photos are posted almost right on top of each other, and this creates a sort of random and informal feel, which I think is appropriate to the 'found' theme. What do you think are a few keys to designing a good site, and what were your goals when you began the Found Photos design?

Rich Vogel: When I first started I wasn't sure how to display them and gave a little thought to using some of the pre-designed web gallery software out there, but I never really liked their interfaces. You always seem to be stuck with the forward / back button style or just a previous / next picture link to click on, which gets annoying to me after a while. The first archive of photos that I put up were dragged out of a folder and onto the page more or less, no resizing (and messy looking -http://www.10eastern.com/foundphotosfirst.html)

What I did change was the order of the photos. Somehow when looking through a set of them there seems to be a beginning photo and a few photos that look best in series, some great accidents (somewhere in archive 109 the top of someones head at the bottom of a photo looks to be coming out of the head of the photo below and other accidents are all througout the pages) and there almost always seems to be a best final photo. After sorting through the 1000's of photos that make an archive they are inserted alphabetically, and I rename them (usually just adding a 0 or a letter before the picture name) to create the order that seems best. Sometimes they fall just right.

Originally it was a lot of work to create the navigation for the archives, each one had to be added to a large table by hand and took much longer to finish. The new system (thanks to the help of a close friend) utilizes PHP and SQL to database the photos and it automatically creates an entry for the main table when a new archive is created. With the php version it's easy to switch between thumbnail and full size mode, which tends to be an issue with lower bandwidth connections. There are still a bunch of things i'd like to do with the page - commenting for photos and rating system (for photos and archives) and a viewer submitted archive, since many people contact me asking how to add one of their photos.

Tom Kealey: I'm sure it's hard to choose, but can you offer a few of your favorite photographs? Where did they come from, and what do they, to your eye, show?

Rich Vogel: There are so many, it's really hard to pick just a few specific ones from them. I just went through and picked a few from random archives:

-- this one of a grandmother with a bandana doing some gang style pose

http://www.10eastern.com/images/FoundPhotos/archives/archive68/grandma.jpg -

--I can't tell what is going on here -

http://www.10eastern.com/images/FoundPhotos/archives/archive71/p1010001.jpg

-- photos that aren't what they seem -

http://www.10eastern.com/images/FoundPhotos/archives/archive75/cimg0486.jpg

-- terrible wounds -

http://www.10eastern.com/images/FoundPhotos/archives/archive79/100_0108.jpg

-- not sure what is happening here but it makes me laugh everytime -

http://www.10eastern.com/images/FoundPhotos/archives/archive80/DSC01602.jpg

-- ridiculous setups like this one -

http://www.10eastern.com/images/FoundPhotos/archives/archive82/DSC02360.jpg

and so so many others, it takes quite some time to go through them all.

Tom Kealey: I was going to say that most of these photographs were taken in the U.S., but on closer inspection it occurs to me that these could be from many, many places in the world. No matter where they're from, what do the photographs, as a whole, say about how we live and interact with one another as human beings? What aspects or emotions do you see again and again, and what is the site (I see it this way) a historical record of?

Rich Vogel: Many of the people using filesharing programs live outside the United States, in fact it seems like most of the photos I find are outside the US. It's difficult to pinpoint where a photo was taken, without any unique language in the picture (road signs or writing on a piece of paper, etc) you have to go on facial features and the surroundings. It's fun to try and guess where geographically a picture was taken, it's not easy for me since I haven't travelled much outside the United States. I really see the same things I see everywhere around me here in facial expressions, I can feel the same sort of emotions I feel from looking at a photo from my own life - people transmit so many things through a picture. Some of them subtle and some very obvious. I am especially attracted to photos that portray something I can relate to in some way. And sometimes just the opposite attracts me, something about a photo that draws me in that I can't put my finger on. The composition, the accidental over or underexposure, people doing something fun and especially strange. What I see the most in the photos I come across are people capturing the things they really care about - whether it's an impulsive spur of the moment sort of thing, or a thought out composed snapshot, people take photos of their friends and family, their pets and houses, architecture, themselves, their surroundings and everything in between. I think the Found Photos are a visual representation of the kinds of people utilizing digital technology today.

The majority of people sharing photos share a wide variety of music and artwork, sharing many different things, each having very different and unique interests. If anything it's an archive of moments from the lives of people who support the sharing of music and things they've found along the way, and branching out to one another.

Trash Drawing

2005-09-12T01:10:00.000-07:00

This is a funny site about Rubbish Drawings. And, it makes a good point too.

Thanks from Geisha Asobi Blog.

The Painted World

2005-09-12T00:17:00.000-07:00

The Painted World is a site where photographs are painted a little or a lot, and it's all part of the zaniness going on at Square America.

Octopus Covers

2005-09-12T00:12:00.000-07:00

Apparently Octopi have taken over Bigfoot in popularity on the Daily Pick.

Check out Octopus Pulp! Great covers of attacking eight legged creatures.

via We Make Money, Not Art

Best Freeware

2005-09-12T00:01:00.000-07:00

Freeware is software that you get for free. Like, totally free. Tech Support Alert lists the top 46 Best-Ever Freeware available on the net. I downloaded Abiword 2.2 (which is like Microsoft Word) and it works great. Check it out.

9/11 Memorials

2005-09-11T10:56:00.001-07:00

New York Newsday has a slide show of still-existing September 11th Memorials.

Never Forget?

2005-09-11T00:55:00.000-07:00

What happened to "We'll never forget"? I realize that the country is facing a disaster of perhaps even greater proportions, but I'm finding it difficult to locate much significant 9/11 anniversary coverage. What's alarming is that it's not Katrina coverage that's pushing September 11th off of newspapers, it's things like the Roberts hearings, or NFL football, or new movies being released. As I find them (if they're out there), I'll post appropriate links on The Pick. I'd encourage readers to post any links in the comments section. I'll move them to the main post.

Ashley Wood Illustrations

2005-09-11T00:40:00.000-07:00

Great illustrations from Ashley Wood.

Aerial Photographs of Mexico City

2005-09-11T00:14:00.000-07:00

Is that how you spell aeriel? I'm not sure. Though I am sure that they are quite marvelous, and these shots of Mexico City were brought to the Pick's attention by Cynical-C.

From the Archives...

2005-09-11T00:03:00.000-07:00

Organic Farm Star Wars -- http://thedailypick.blogspot.com/2005/05/organic-farm-star-wars.html

The Milgram Experiment -- http://thedailypick.blogspot.com/2005/05/milgram-experiment.html

Bigfoot Returns (As does Wildboy) -- http://thedailypick.blogspot.com/2005/05/bigfoot-returns-as-does-wildboy.html

Overheard in New York

2005-09-10T00:56:00.000-07:00

Overheard in New York is a wonderful site, and it's just what it sounds like: Quotes from New Yorkers and visitors on the subway, sidewalks, nightclubs, restaurants, taxis and elsewhere.

Girl: Oh my God, you guys. I still have my Friday panties on.
Guy: You'd better hurry up and get home; there are only two hours before it's Sunday.

--Union Square Regal Cinemas

(Via a blog called White Noise, which I can't find at the moment. If anyone runs across it, I'd appreciate if you could leave the URL in the comments section. I'll post it here. Thanks.)

Wide Angle.ca

2005-09-10T00:31:00.000-07:00

I'm not actually sure what kind of fishies these are. But you can find them on WideAngle.ca, today's featured photoblog

Top 500 Blogs

2005-09-10T00:28:00.000-07:00

If approximately 792 other blogs would link to the Daily Pick, we could make the Feedster Top 500 Blogs. I'll keep you posted.

The Joseph Henry Jackson Award

2005-09-09T19:09:00.000-07:00

I won the Joseph Henry Jackson Award for my stories "The Boots" and "Coyotes." This is an award from the San Francisco Foundation and Intersection for the Arts. Cool. Here's the beginning of what the judges had to say:

"The Boots" and "Coyotes" are well-written, strange, and highly original stories. They inhabit very different worlds but are united by the author's unique style - a style so strong and compelling it could easily sustain a compete collection of stories. There is an appealing spareness and abstraction to the stories. The reader doesn't know exactly where or when they take place, and there are no highly detailed physical descriptions of the characters. Rather than leaving the stories dry or undeveloped, however, this technique brings out the details and images that remain...

I wrote "Coyotes," in part, based on the above photograph from Mary Ellen Mark.

1400 Miles on One Tank of Gas

2005-09-09T01:06:00.000-07:00

These two dudes drove for 47 hours and almost 1400 miles. On one tank of gas. What kind of car? A hybrid of course.

Thanks to Brian Spears for the link.

And here's how hybrids work.

Personal Finance Blog

2005-09-09T00:20:00.000-07:00

The Blueprint for Financial Prosperity is "a personal guide to financial security and independence."

Basically it's a blog for saving, making, and being smart with money.

Quake is Next Katrina?

2005-09-08T18:00:00.000-07:00

A major earthquake in California could be equally or more devastating than Hurricane Katrina damage.

More than 900 hospital buildings that state officials have identified as needing either retrofitting or total replacement have yet to receive them, and the state recently agreed to five-year extensions to hospitals that can't meet the 2008 deadline to make the fixes. More than 7,000 school buildings across the state would also be vulnerable during a huge temblor, a state study found, though there is no firm timetable for upgrading the structures.

And four Los Angeles Police Department facilities — including the Parker Center headquarters in downtown — worry officials, because they were built to primitive earthquake standards and might not survive a major temblor. Only two of the LAPD's 19 stations meet the most rigorous quake-safe rules.

"We could be dealing with infrastructure issues a lot like New Orleans," Jones said. "Our natural gas passes through the Cajon Pass…. Water — three pipelines — cross the San Andreas fault in an area that is expected to go in an earthquake." Railway lines are also vulnerable, she said.

The Transit Series, from Viner

2005-09-08T12:49:00.000-07:00

Viner posts some terrific paintings, including a Transit Series that "explores the vulnerability, anxiety, and strange beauty one may encounter while utilizing public transportation, subways in particular."

Thanks Bibi's Box.

Cheney Receives Expletive from Passerby

2005-09-08T11:48:00.000-07:00

Vice President Cheney, visiting storm-wrecked Mississippi, called the relief effort "impressive" and the progress "signficant," then immediately received a counter-opinion in the form of an expletive ("bullshit"?) from a passerby.

While Cheney spoke, a passer-by hurled an expletive at the vice president. "First time I've heard it," Cheney said, when asked if he was hearing a lot of such sentiments.

Most of the people Cheney met with were friendly. Lynne Lofton, whose house further down the street was completely destroyed, was an exception.

"I think this media opportunity today is a terrible waste of time and taxpayer money," she said. "They've picked a nice neighborhood where people have insurance and most are Republicans."

Update: The Expletive was "Go F_ck Yourself Cheney!" The Daily Kos has the video links, plus this conversation from CNN commentators:

Cafferty: "Didn't he say that to Patrick Leahy on the Senate floor?"

Blitzer: "Yes."

C: "So how could this have been the first time he heard it?"

B: "First time he heard it in this area."

C: "I'm sure it won't be the last."

Photoblogging Rules and Suggestions

2005-09-08T07:33:00.000-07:00

While visiting some great photoblogging sites like Mute, and a few other sites that I chose not to feature on The Pick, I came up with four simple rules for photobloggers. I am quite sure that any photobloggers who don't follow these rules don't really give a d@mn about my opinion, but here it is anyway.

Photoblogger Web Design Rules, from The Daily Pick:

1. Nobody cares about Micromedia Flash. It takes too long to load, and while we're waiting, we can't see the photographs. While we're waiting, we move on to another site. Start with a photo on the main page.

2. I know that photobloggers take a lot of care with their photographs. I respect that, and as someone who visits sites often, I really appreciate it. But is it necessary to post photographs on a site in such a high resolution that they take thirty seconds to load? Call me short-attention-span person if you will, but while I'm waiting, well, see above. Much better if they are in medium resolution and then, if I click on them (and I will), I can see them in the resolution that the photographer intended.

3. This really should've been #1. I want to be able to navigate a site easily, so please include a "previous," "next," and "current" link on all pages. Most importantly, place these links at the top of the page, not the bottom. If surfers have to scroll down to move on to the next photo, after they view each photo, then they'll likely be moving on to the next site.

4. This is maybe only relevant for bloggers. If webmasters can't "copy" a photograph from a site, then we can't feature it, with a link, on our sites. I understand that artists, including me, don't wish for their work to be stolen and used without permission. That said, this is the world wide web, and if we jump in the pool, we're going to get wet. And, we'll likely meet some cool people in the pool. Allow us to spread the word about a photo site, and the best way to spread the word is to include a photograph on our site.

I linked to Mute on this post because 1. The photographs are marvelous, and 2. It's a smartly designed site. If you're thinking of designing or re-designing a site, do consider using it as a reference.

Much thanks to all the wonderful photobloggers out there. It's a great hour in my day when I can spend it surfing your sites.

Mute

2005-09-08T00:47:00.000-07:00

I feel like we might've already featured the photoblog Mute on the Pick already. Oh well. Check it out if you didn't the first time.

Coeds with Colds

2005-09-08T00:32:00.000-07:00

If you get porn spam (spam porn?) in your inbox like I do, (thanks a lot, Yahoo, correction: not Yahoo!, but Webmail), then you're used to seeing emails like "Coeds Take It Hard," or "Naughty Coeds" or "Coeds with Friends." Well, now there is the parody site "Coeds with Colds." It features models who "love to take their medicine" and "blow their nose." Very funny. Safe for work.

New Interviews on The Daily Pick

2005-09-07T10:16:00.000-07:00

We'll be starting a new feature on The Daily Pick next week. It's called Four Questions. Basically I'll be interviewing individuals who are doing interesting, original, strange and/or important work on the web. We're going to start off with Rich Vogel, who is the founder and webmaster of Found Photos, one of my favorite sites.

If you have a favorite site, especially though not necessarily previously featured on The Daily Pick, do let me know. You can leave a suggestion below in the comments section, or you can email me directly. Thanks.

DeviantART and Natalie Shau

2005-09-07T01:04:00.000-07:00

Natalie Shau is just one of the many artists featured on the mega-art-site DeviantART.

Sell the Ranch, President Bush

2005-09-07T00:36:00.000-07:00

Since President Bush has been so concerned about Hurricane Katrina victims, this site is asking him to sell his beloved ranch and donate the proceeds to those recently without ranches or homes.

Sell the Ranch. That's right, sell your ranch in Texas, and donate the money to the victims of this horrible tragedy. I realize you love your ranch; you've spent almost a year of your presidency there, doing important things like clearing brush, eating pretzels, and taking naps. But that's exactly why you need to sell it. So many people have lost their homes; the least you can do is give up ownership of one of your many residences for their benefit to show that you have some trace of compassion. Think of it as a symbolic gesture that you're finally ready to stop running away from the responsibilities of the Oval office, and you're ready to meet head-on the full duties of the highest office in the land.

Thanks Cynical C.

Penguins Visit

2005-09-07T00:16:00.000-07:00

Those are penguins. Thousands of them. They came across the ice to visit the folks at 75 Degrees South in Antarctica. They got a lot closer than that. Check out the great photos and journal.

So Many Books

2005-09-07T00:01:00.000-07:00

So Many Books has lots of great quotes, articles, and reviews. One of the latest is "Five Tips to Avoiding Total Disaster as a Novelist from a Poor, Wretched Fool Who Had to Learn the Hard Way." Great insight in this article and throughout the site.

Winged Girl, Update 1

2005-09-06T14:11:00.000-07:00

I'm rewriting sections of my novel, The Winged Girl, during these next few weeks.

Every few days or so I'm going to post excerpts of the re-write on the winged girl weblog. These may be in order, and they may not be, but hopefully they'll be at least as interesting as corn growing.

The opening to the novel is up now, and soon I'll have sections from later chapters.

In any case, you're welcome to visit. If you leave a comment I will write faster.