30 Photos of a Chinese Sex Toy Factory
Wormhole
When I lived above that chocolate shop on Haight Street, it was impossible to receive a package or a repairman. I had to be at home at the exact moment the doorbell rang, then I had to tear down the hallway, around the stairs, and fling myself outside before it was too late. Often the delivery man had such poor luck with this building, (s)he wouldn’t even ring the doorbell. Which was great. I’d stay home all day, waiting, and emerge at dusk to find the “Sorry We Missed You” slip right there, taunting me. Nine times out of ten I had to take public transportation 20 miles out of town to pick up the package.
Now I live two blocks away, one block off the Haight, and my apartment complex has this awesome, fancy doorbell system that calls my cell phone to buzz open the lobby door. When I see the right number calling, I answer the call, press “9″ and in goes the delivery man. It works great.
So a few days ago I had my iPhone in the back pocket of my jeans and, oh!, it fell in a coffee shop toilet when I sat down to pee. After a couple days of the rice trick failure, I surrendered myself to fate and late last night I ordered a refurbished iPhone from AT&T.
Just over 12 hours later it dawns on me: I need a cell phone if I’m going to buzz in the delivery of a cell phone.
Offer: Elmo toy
Posted to the Dubuque Freecycle list:
Chicken Dance Elmo. A little dirty, but works.
Sent from my Verizon Wireless smartphone
Los grumildos
Low-tech mechanical puppets on the fringes of society. They have the size of a Barbie doll, and everything moves.
Gracias a Tom Sale.
Captain Beefheart’s Ten Commandments of Guitar Playing
4. Walk with the devil
Old Delta blues players referred to guitar amplifiers as the “devil box.” And they were right. You have to be an equal opportunity employer in terms of who you’re bringing over from the other side. Electricity attracts devils and demons. Other instruments attract other spirits. An acoustic guitar attracts Casper. A mandolin attracts Wendy. But an electric guitar attracts Beelzebub.
(From WFMU’s Beware of the Blog. Via Brian Beatty.)
from the comments
And I should point out that the Lego Technic sets that I had as a kid are still actively developed, you just wouldn’t know it walking down the lego aisle at your local toy store.
And that brings up an even bigger point, which is that the internet has freed the long tail to go live in cheap ecommerce space, rather than cutthroat toy store shelves. If there’s a particular brick you need, there are official and unofficial places to get it. Whole communities of people online trade designs for their new transmission gearbox.
I’d argue that there’s never been a better time to get your kid interested in legos, male or female.
Viva la Sauna Svedese (Mah Nà Mah Nà)
Ponder this if and when you view The Muppets.
headline of the day
THQ Maintains It Knows Exactly Where All Its Dildos Are
Duly Noted
On Saturday night, Jill, a blogger and founder of Feministe, flew from Newark airport to Dublin. After spending Sunday recovering from jetlag, she unpacked her bag on Monday morning and found a special message scrawled on the official form from the TSA. “GET YOUR FREAK ON GIRL,” it read.
“Guess they discovered a ‘personal item’ in my bag,” she tweeted. “Wow.”
kill comic sans
I
a dull yet cathartic first-person shooter for the casual type geek
Misery Bear Goes to Work
Thanks, Jenny.
The entire series is pretty great/sad, especially Misery Bear: Dawn of the Ted.
headline of the day
Lady Gaga Wore Prosthetic Penis at VMAs
Artifice and foam rubber
In fact, so much artifice and foam rubber is often used to create the sexually alluring woman that it’s sometimes difficult to know where the lady ends and the foam rubber begins.
Via dangerous minds by way of Roger Ebert.
The Kite Man
Apparently, this video is a rare piece of Portland history, only now available on the internet:
read my lips
I’m waiting for the elevator in a medieval-themed hotel in Fort Mitchell, Kentucky, when the elevator doors open to reveal a heated exchange between a bald man in a Hawaiian shirt and a puppet shaped like a toucan.
The opening account of a trip to a ventriloquist convention.
Also, I need to go.
(via the browser)
Oscar Mayer. It doesn’t get better than this.
Oscar Mayer Sandwich Combos are one of the five unique varieties of Adult Lunch Combos.
Cindy tipped me to this, and I have been snorting ever since.
But it exists…
The hoverbike:
Thus far, it has done little more than hover three feet while tethered to the ground.
quote out of context
Ducks spill like candy from a piñata.
Disney applies for ‘Seal Team 6′ trademark
The Walt Disney Co. has applied for a trademark on the name “Seal Team 6,” the name of the unit of specially trained Navy SEALs that killed Osama bin Laden in a raid in Pakistan earlier this month.
(Eh, thanks, Allen.)
just wood and glue
The cogs, wheels and frame are made from birch ply. Ironwood – an oily wood – is used where moving parts meet. The pedals and handlebars were made from an old broom handle.
There’s no chain. Instead there’s a 128-tooth cog that links the chainring and the gear on the rear wheel.
Maybe Deron can make me one.
Storywoods
(Thanks, Alison.)
The Seriously First Gaga
I read that Lady Gaga may sue an ice cream parlor for naming its breast milk ice cream Baby Gaga. She did not invent that name. Sister’s first baby doll was called Gaga a half century ago.
Baby Gaga The First did not have an easy start. One night the doll was left outside. She was found dirty, her frilly dress torn, a foot mangled. “Dogs or a varmint,” Mother speculated.
Sister, who had been a volatile little one, cleaned and bandaged Gaga, placing her in a bed fashioned from a box in the dining room. Silent little patients soon lined the wall in the room where Sister had committed many mealtime tantrums, throwing herself on the floor screaming while the family pretended not to notice. When not busy with doctoring duties, Sister tirelessly made us “register” on a pad of paper each time we passed through the room.
With time, the doll hospital faded away. As a grownup, Sister worked for a doctor, administering EEG’s. She married her high school sweetheart, became a government bureaucrat, and had a child. She kept getting promoted, but didn’t like the work and retired in her 40s. After a couple of years, she took a parttime job at a hospital to keep herself busy, working with patients going into day surgery, their families and the medical professionals.
She was in demand, working more than she intended. But she has been happier than I’ve ever seen her. The lesson, I think, is that early passions sometimes can be the most enduring.
Baby Gaga is still with us. Sister’s first patient rests in a home filled with antiques not far from the hospital. The doll is dressed in a soft gown and reclines in a vintage wooden cradle at the foot of a winding staircase. Most of the time, her mutilated foot is covered by a fine blanket. Her expression is serene. And her name is her own, forever.
A Girl and Her Rat
In which my image is featured in a Flickr gallery devoted to . . . girls and their rats.
Clusterflock goes disco.
Are you familiar with “Barbra Streisand,” the odd little surprise hit from the DJ duo known as Duck Sauce? Well, get familiar with their latest smash, sure to be hot in the clubs: “Clusterflock.”
iPad Letterpress App!
Remember when I posted about Hatch Show Print and their amazing old-fashioned letterpress art? Very soon, you’ll be able to create your very own cool art prints using traditional letterpress techniques . . . on your iPad. (This might be a reason for me to BUY an iPad.) Check out LetterMPress and consider backing this project:
