Googol: So Big

OK, so Yahoo Design Week was last week ...not that I got to go to it or anything. Instead I went to Google's carnie picnic where I got free french fries, satay and anything else I could snatch with my grubby meat paws. There were thousands of people packed into that Ampitheater including a live animal show (not that kind of show), acrobats, jugglers and even a slew of Google Idol contestants in Google shirts, in addition to their text message voting fans.

I know a cult when I see one. Based on Dr. Emeril Lazarus' site Start Your Own Cult here is the evidence:

• "the proper location can mean the difference between operating for years without hindrance and being busted in a week by the forces of Evil". Exhibit A: Mountain View.
• "Use a mood-enhancer like ecstacy so everyone is in a loving mood and all together for support and courage."Exhibit B: Free beer.
• "You'll need to find someplace 'up there' that your members will look forward going to, when the time is ripe."Exhibit C: Google, or Googol, is 10 to the power of 100, a number greater than the number of atoms in the observable universe.

Survival Against all Odds

Hmmm....I get the idea that the online DIY/maker camp has broken into two separate groups: The Hobbyists and The Survivalists - as seen in this checklist of emergency supplies. It's just like that time that the early Sumerian religions formed separate factions between the Hasites and the Kasites, or that time my cousin had a no alcohol/vegetarian wedding and all the men ran away to sneak burgers and beer from the TGI Fridays.

Painting

For a year I've been storing my underpants in a laundry basket on the ground. Last week I found myself a street dresser sans pee. I thought I'd gussy her up with some sanding and wood oil.

WHAT I'VE LEARNED AFTER 6 HRS: Non-toxic paint remover is like humping a mound of bricks. It requires an immense amount of effort and it hurts. I am convinced I just bought canola oil. My hands are bleeding and I think my lungs are full of lead paint flakes. Plus my street bureau still has another layer of paint underneath the first two.

I'M SORRY: Oh Mr. Buttons, I've missed you. Don't worry, mama is back home on the internets and she'll never leave you again.

Hey, We're Not Boring Anymore!!! Really!!!

After a long dry spell, we embarked on a random act of buffoonery at Saturday's Tour de Fat bike and beer event in Golden Gate Park. Sponsored by New Belgium Brewery (makers of Fat Tire beer) we met up with friends, caught a bicycle burlesque show, squared our age-old rivalry with the carnie caravan and tore some knee cartilage while hauling ass up a bunch of big hills. With proceeds benefitting the SF Bike Coalition, how could you not zip on a one-piece? Thanks to Joe and Jane for a stellar costume design and sweatshop party. With any luck, we'll join the likes of Kanye West and Evel Kneivel will sue us. I freaking love Kanye.

ME ME ME

We has a web presence: Danaoshiro.com

Child Terrorist

On June 24, Timberline High School student Josh Glazebrook sent an email to his principal telling him he was going to blow up the school. The kid not only used a detection scrambling software to get the cops to track the messages back to a computer in Italy, but he had the gigantic balls to set up a MySpace group about the bomb threats (It's already been taken down). But, according to a comment on this weird emo-kid's sci-fantasy MySpace page, Josh is 15-years-old and is being held on 7 bomb threats, 2 counts of identity theft and one felony. I've incorporated Josh's image into my comic today. Notice his blinged out razor phone, oversized shirt and how he is throwing up a gang sign - is that the Timberline Valley Assassins? Oh no wait, that would be the gang I'd start if I lived in Lacey Washington. I see Macaulay Culkin playing Josh Glazebrook in the television movie. All of this net-terrorism has me thinking. Schools in Washington State must be pretty good. When I was 15 I couldn't even figure out how to hide my cigarettes from my mom. Anyways, my basteeya is burning (cinnamon + chicken + filo + powdered sugar= AWESOME). I must go tend to it.

Crazy Crazy Crazy

Oh God. 2 hrs sleep & 18 straight hours of my mom's family with no sign of it ending. I'm about to commit hara-kiri only I'm positive I would do it wrong and bring shame upon my family. Note to self: I am shit. (Shit is expected to sit somewhere quiet and out of the way - Yes!)

Grandma

My grandma just died. She was 94-years-old and her name was Chieko Koyama. She was born in Wakayama Prefecture in Japan (Near Nara). She married my grandpa (a fisherman) in an arranged marriage and moved to Canada. They had 4 kids. After grandpa died (about 5 years ago), grandma told me all about the internment and gave me a camera - a 1940 Kodak Six-16 Junior. During the war she refused to give up her camera despite the fact that the law called on the Japanese to turn over their potential spy equipment. It wasn't that she was a rebel, or that she'd planned to document the war, it was just that the camera had cost her $12, was brand new, and she wanted photos of her kids. It's strange for someone as blasphemous as myself to make an old broken camera a totem for my grandparents.

SOMETHING ELSE BLASPHEMOUS
I doubt you know who she is. I'd never heard of her before, but I just saw her book and needed to know more about it. Michelle Malkin, Asian-American US conservative pundit, wrote the book, "In Defense of Internment: The Case for "Racial Profiling in World War II and the War on Terror". Whoa. I haven't read the book. I probably won't read the book, and quite frankly, I REALLY feel sorry for her grandma.

DMV: BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!

I'm on hold with the California DMV. After 9 months of visiting the SF office and Cal Highway Patrol on a monthly basis, they finally approved my registration on May 27. It expired on June 14. I paid $200 (not including about 15 hours of work leave) to be registered for less than 30 days. Sweet. I've called 3 numbers and listened to the same loop of Carly Simon songs waiting to get my renewal letter. Every time she sings, "Nobody Does It Better," I want to reach through the phone to the late seventies and punch her fringe vest off.

Link: History of Licensing Before the DMV
The choice of language is so jaunty. The writers were so pleasant pre-DMV.

Japanese School Girl Inferno

Kazumi Nonaka, animator of Odenkun - a series featuring fast food cart characters (WeinerKun and Takoyaki nurse) who spread joy via their saltiness, recently came out with another great oddity: Japanese School Girl Inferno. This practical Japanese fashion album features a history of eccentric styles in addition to the "How-To." Retailing at $12, you too can attempt to become Gwen Stefani's pet.

Zombies- What Else?

I don't like surveys or cute add-ons. When I want to get to know my friends I call them over for dinner. The only exceptions are when the surveys refer to ninjas, pirates, monkeys, robots or post-apocalyptic zombie scenarios (PAZS). I've got a Facebook zombie application you can join AND a cadaver-calculator that outputs your posthumous corporeal worth. My body is worth $3725; however, I suspect if I stood next to an older distinguished man at the Vegas tables I could barter for an additional bucket of nickels and a $7 buffet voucher.

It insists upon itself

It insists upon itself...this is unequivocally the best line the Family Guy's Peter Griffin has ever delivered. Don't get me wrong...I guffaw mean-spiritedly at people who quote pop culture to make up for their own lack of charisma, but this one is different. It's poignant.

Why don't you like the $10,000 plastic chair next to the vodka luge? It insists upon itself. Why won't you wait in line for that cigar and whiskey bar? It insists upon itself. Why don't you like that feature-length, silent, avant-garde film? It's too fucking long and boring...and it insists upon itself.

I am starting a movement. One where heavy-handed intellectualism, material elitism and inane hipsterism is called out and bitch slapped in the street. I know "keepin' it real" is an early 90's concept and that we're still focussing on the late eighties; however, there's nothing wrong with being an early adopter.

SOMETHING THAT DOES NOT INSIST UPON ITSELF:
Based on Yasutaka Tsutsui's 1993 novel, the film Paprika is an awesome visual orgy and I command you to see it.