Modern Vespa

Well before they were the Wiggles, two of the Wiggles were members of this group, and the ex-lead singer is now the Wiggles' manager.

The band took its name from an obscure nom de plume favoured by The Rolling Stones during the 1960s.

The Cockroaches, a favorite of Tracy Turnblad.

This American painter is best known for his landscapes of sweets, ranging from the somewhat peaceful to the semi-apocalyptic. He draws inspiration from what he sees as an overblown consumer culture in which advertisements don't necessarily sell a product so much as desire. In the past decade, he has begun inserting nude and semi-nude women into his tooth-rotting scenes, though oddly enough, I think the pre-women paintings are more carnal and sensual...putting in the nearly naked women seems thematically redundant and a bit of an easy sell.

Well that would be Will Cotton, who had to have parents who were in to Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass.

Well after wading though some of Cotton's work (it really was quite the visual overload of cotton candy goodness in GIS's new layout), I have to say while they were quite appealing, they really weren't my style.

Call me suicidal, but I like a girl with a little more of an edge to her.


(note: this tag is *NSFW&K, so you might want to filter this one)
(*Not Safe For Wife or Kid)

A site I hadn't heard of until today...suicidegirls.com..."a website that features softcore photos and text profiles of goth, punk and indie-styled young women (although styles reminiscent of the 1940s and '50s pin-up models are also incorporated) who are known as the "Suicide Girls". Suicidegirls also features interviews with people from popular and alternative culture, user submitted news articles, and an online merchandise store. Access to most of the site requires a paid membership" - (as I quickly found out). (Wiki.)

This should be an easy one for those who've glanced my Facebook activity these past couple of days...and if not, well, it's not exactly a hard search.

Introducing the world's most expensive and potent beer ($765 a bottle, 55% abv)...housed in the body of roadkill. Only twelve bottles were made and have already sold out. According to the brew masters' web site: "The impact of ___beer name____ is a perfect conceptual marriage between art, taxidermy and craft brewing. The bottles are at once beautiful and disturbing - they disrupt conventions and break taboos, just like the beer they hold within them."

As a craft beer lover, I'm mighty curious as to what this brew tastes like...though not $765-a-bottle curious.

That would be The End Of History, brewed by Brew Dog

Well a couple of posts back you said it, now go find it.

That new Peugeot "Junk In The Trunk" Top Case is insane!

This 2005 documentary featuring just about every comedic heavyweight imaginable is devoted solely to "the dirtiest joke ever told." Steven Wright likened this largely improvisational gag to a secret handshake among comedians, and while the movie itself is entertaining enough to see way various comedians put their own spin on the same formula, it does feel a little too one note after an hour and a half.

That would be The Aristocrats, a 2005 documentary film about the famous dirty joke of the same name.

It was conceived and produced by comedians Penn Jillette and Paul Provenza.

It also starred this American comedian, writer, actress, singer and musician, who sometimes goes by the nickname Big S.

(source credit Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

The Tag That Never Was IS

(turns on little girl voice from Mrs. Paul Minced Fish Commercial)

What you call yourself a Photoshop Master and you couldn't make this picture work.

PM it to me with a "what you could have done".

PLEASE

Placement, You ever heard of placement.



(turns off little girl voice from Mrs. Paul Minced Fish Commercial)


Now go find it, you know where it is.

Tailpipe.

(This guy also apparently likes vacuum cleaners.)

Along the same lines as the previous Wiggles tag...

Although this show - now airing on Nick Jr. - was created for young children, it has gained a sort of cult following among college students and retro / indie parents...partly because of the hip guests and indie bands it often features, and partly because it plays out like a 30 pot and/or acid trip. According to wiki, the show was developed by two Southern California dads with no previous broadcasting experience who were simply disappointed in modern kids' television. They were certainly on to something. My daughter enjoys it for the bright colors and dancing...though I have to say it gives me the munchies.

That would be Yo Gabba Gabba, children's television show currently airing on the Nick Jr. cable network in the United States. Hosted by a character named DJ Lance Rock, the series features a mix of live-action segments featuring cartoonish costumed characters - Muno, Foofa, Brobee, Toodee and Plex - and many short animated sketches and musical numbers.

(source credit Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

So I was listening to NPR this morning and it seems that National Trust in the UK has grown and installed ten of these in different countryside locales and towns to get people lazing around outside instead of in.

Hmmm, seems like a cool idea, maybe I need one in my yard.

Cheech and Chong heard the term "grass sofa" and came running.

Some months ago, one of my Facebook "Random Facts" was about the origin of the word "avocado," which comes to English via the Nahuatl (aka, Aztecan) word ahuactl, meaning "testicle." Though as I was sitting here just now eating one of these large, fuzzy edible berries whose common name comes from a flightless bird native to and national symbol of New Zealand...well, I couldn't think of a food more befitting a risque testicular etymology. Sorry, avocado.

ya know I could take this to soooooooo many levels.

(and most of them would be low)

Haha. Exactly the spirit in which it was written.

That would be the Kiwi Fruit.
(We don't really need a Wiki post on this, right)

In 1961 this artist asked the owners of The Rendezvous Ballroom if he could use the building for dances. There was opposition from the owners and some difficulty with the City of Newport Beach

But he gained the necessary permits (under a set of strict rules, there was to be no alcohol sold or consumed on the premises and a dress code would be enforced).

But on (July 1, 1961, he made his first appearance and thought the first night was disappointing, four months later he was playing to sellout crowds.

And a new genre of popular music was born.

Surf Music.

It has two major forms, the largely instrumental style, with an electric guitar or saxophone playing the main melody, pioneered by this man and the vocal pop, including both ballads and dance music, often with strong harmonies that are most associated with The Beach Boys.

The craze and the careers of almost all surf acts, was effectively ended by the arrival of the British Invasion in 1964, with only the Beach Boys being able to sustain a career. But the 1994 movie Pulp Fiction brought about a revival with the use one of this artists song, as well as other surf rock songs in the soundtrack. New groups of bands were formed, including Man or Astro-man, The Mermen and Los Straitjackets.

And the son of a friend of mine, who's band Jason & the Juggernauts out Charleston, South Carolina, played here in town last night and ROCKED THE HOUSE.


(source credit Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

Dick Dale, who took up surf ukulele after stumbling across my custom tenor GTV at NAMM.

You can't have surf music without surfing...and you can't have surfing without thinking of sharks...and in the past two decades or so, many people can't think of sharks without thinking of this annual Discovery Channel event airing right now.

That would be Discovery Channel's Shark Week

So how's your German?

This German musical was an adapted from an 18th-century English ballad opera opened on August 31, 1928.

Despite an initially poor reception, it became a great success, playing 400 times in the next two years. At least seven productions have been mounted in New York, on and off Broadway. The first being 1933, though it was short lived.

It is an early example of the modern musical comedy genre. The score is deeply influenced by jazz and mandates a fifteen-piece jazz combo. Its opening and closing lament, a creative emergency resulted in what would become the work's most popular song. Covered in English first by Louis Armstrong, but best know by the Bobby Darin version.

This tag is from the cast album of the nine-month Broadway run in 1976, so you'll be looking for the English title.

(source credit Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

The Threepenny Opera.

A fossil for this genus of long extinct lobe-finned fish was discovered in Canada in 2004. Known for its weight-bearing front fins, which show the beginnings of wrist bones and simple fingers, Paleontologists purport that this "fishapod" provides the missing link (or rather, might be the distant cousin 10 million years removed from the actual missing link) between fish and early tetrapods (ie, amphibians).

Now you knew this one wasn't going to go well for you. Right?


That would be Tiltaalik , a genus of extinct sarcopterygian (lobe-finned) fish from the late Devonian period, with many features akin to those of tetrapods (four-legged animals).



(source credit Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

Well after the week I had, I think I'm going to rent this 2007 black comedy film that is an adaptation of a video game, though the film draws more heavily from the sequel.

That oddly enough had Gary Coleman in it. (the game sequel, not the movie)



Random Fact
The computer game developing company is named after one of these check boxes that was on your kindergarten permanent record. You know the one right before "Doesn't Play Well With Others".

I gotta say, I hadn't heard of the movie Postal before today. Worth the rent despite what seems to be bad reviews?

Riffing on the popularity of stuntmen like Evel Knievel, a comedian with a relatively famous last name came up with this character (and here I'll pilfer from the wikipedia entry, which somehow manages to sap all the comedy out of the bit), a supposedly "accomplished" stuntman who rarely succeeded when performing the stunts depicted onscreen. His signature is to perform outrageous daredevil stunts which invariably go awry and result in grievous bodily injury.

Though I haven't seen any of his shows or specials since the late 80's / early 90's, as a kid I thought he was hysterical. The actor's appearances on the almighty "Arrested Development" are absolutely classic.

That would be Super Dave Osborne , who is a character created and played by comedian Bob Einstein. The character is an inept, greedy and self-absorbed stuntman who is frequently injured when his stunts go wrong.

(source credit Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

Well even though you had not heard of the movie Postal before, in your travels you had to run across a mention of this central character.

The Krotchy Doll, a central plot-point in the movie Postal.

This self-proclaimed geek and foodie know-it-all is the star of multiple shows and specials on the Food Network, including one that found him and his crew motorcycling across America exploring the "history of eating on the move." Although I knew he lived in Atlanta (where his primary cooking show is filmed), I was surprised to find out via Wiki that he graduated from my alma mater with a degree in drama, and worked on R.E.M.'s video for "the One I Love."

That would be Mister Good -Eats himself, Alton Brown who is quite the interesting fellow.


Some Random Facts

Bon Appétit magazine named him "Cooking Teacher of the Year" in 2004.

He was named "Best Food Guru" by Atlanta magazine in 2005.

He worked as a steadicam operator on the Spike Lee film School Daze.

In 2008, he guest starred on Nickelodeon's TV series SpongeBob SquarePants in the show's sixth season episode, "House Fancy".

He is a motorcycling enthusiast, owning a BMW R1200RT.

He is a connoisseur of Beer, cheese, vinegar and an avid knife collector.
(He even designed series of Shun cutlery, called Alton's Angles)

He has at least two tattoos, a honeybee on his left shoulder and a skull with a crossed knife and fork with the inscription "MMVII" (Roman numerals for the year 2007) that he got during the filming of Feasting on Asphalt.

And lastly but certainly not least he has a pet green iguana named Spike.

(source credit Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

Well this writer's mother was a poet and father was head of the philosophy department at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. He is best known for his memoir that spent four weeks on the New York Times Bestsellers List in 2002. In 2006 a film adaptation was released starring Alec Baldwin, Annette Bening, Joseph Cross and Gwyneth Paltrow.


And it (the book) is also the name of the computer game developing company that released Postal.