Maybe, just maybe, I’ll start using this blog more regularly again since I have become thoroughly disenchanted with the social networking landscape. I used to really enjoy Twitter and Flickr (and tolerate Facebook, etc.), but joining Google+ in June overwhelmed me with social fragmentation. People I care about have splintered into too many social networks. And so now I generally ignore them all, to maintain sanity/memory. Just about the only online activity I don’t neglect is Mascot Mashup, my daily 8-bit art project. Well, I guess I maintain my film ratings and reviews at Filmometer.com pretty well too.

Here is the prevailing sentiment on campus about the latest version of Blackboard course management software:

To make your own nonsense images like this (or, even better, like The RAGE FACES of MARIO BROS. Collection by Eric Foster), visit Meme Generator.

Yesterday I disabled Greasemonkey to unblock Facebook ads for a few minutes because I wanted to test something. Guess whose face I saw in the Sponsored area? You got it. This guy’s, all the time. I guess Caveman Jesus is cycling through Flickr’s homepage too. Bizarre.

Dear LowerMyBills.com and ClassesUSA, what are you doing? Are your target markets enthusiasts of GEICO caveman commercials?

I’m not going to click on your crazy crap, even if Caveman Jesus might be having a hard time paying his bills. Seriously. WTF.

I wonder how many banner ads there are of this guy. I found another one, with extra hairy chest pixels: Calculate New House Payment Caveman Ad. Also, a friend tells me that he’s seen a terrifying animated ad where the caveman’s hair grows.

I’ve seen enough. I hereby decree this an Internet meme. Long live Caveman Jesus!

(Screenshot of the Flickr ad via @chrismessina.)

I’m feeling sadness for Haiti (text “HAITI” to 90999 to donate $10 to American Red Cross relief for Haiti) . . . and also for the following two “trivial” events because they represent and reflect larger cultural issues for me: City Lights Records closing and Conan O’Brien’s last show.

Conan O’Brien

Last night most of America tuned in to watch Conan O’Brien’s last show on NBC. Conan’s grateful closing monologue and “Free Bird” finale was a perfect ending to “The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien.” He went off the air playing his guitar with a huge grin on his face. That guy’s a class act.

Too bad “The Tonight Show” is dead now. Feels like a nail in the coffin. Is anyone really going to watch Leno again? Really? When we have the Internet, Letterman and so many other TV channels?

I was inspired by this quote from Conan’s closing monologue:

“Please don’t be cynical. Nobody in life gets exactly what they thought they were going to get. But if you work really hard and you’re kind, amazing things will happen.”

Dear Internet, Conan is today’s everyman. “I’m With Coco,” yes. (I’m also a little sad that the world is losing Conan’s Super Mario Bros. set backdrop.)

Where will Conan end up? On a late-night talk show on another network this September? On the Internet? For Conan O’Brien’s core audience (age 18-34), “the time slot is being replaced by a URL.” Read more: “Bye, NBC. Hello, Internet?”

City Lights Records

The end is near. I haven’t lived in Pennsylvania for over eight years now, but this is still important to me. My favorite independent record store, City Lights Records (off Penn State campus), is closing after 25 years. It’s sad, but not unexpected. City Lights is (was) State College’s last record store. I spent countless hours there. The closing of the store is the closing of happy memories that I won’t ever be able to revisit physically.

Read local coverage in The Daily Collegian and The Penn Stater (with video).

This comment by a user named Chuck really resonates with me: “I have mixed feelings towards the digital revolution. And it’s obviously here to stay. But there will always be a soft spot in my heart for those stores that influenced my listening habits.”

Late night comedy

Similarly, I have a soft spot for those creative comedians who were funny enough and cared deeply enough to influence my own sense of humor. “Late Night with Conan O’Brien” was a staple of my television consumption during high school and college. Though, during college, my TV watching started to approach zero. I also enjoyed David Letterman on both NBC and CBS for years, throughout my childhood and adolescence.

Even though I didn’t watch much of “The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien” until January of this year, I am eager to know where Conan will land next and will probably tune in (if only on Hulu or similar). It’s strange how all this controversy between millionaire entertainers and network executives created such a genuine outpouring of support from the American public (working class). Strange that it even caused me to watch a network television show for the first time in a long while, if only for two weeks. But, I have to say, it was really fun, enjoyable television.

Michael Ian Black argues that Conan O’Brien has inexplicably become a modern representation of Norma Rae—someone who stands up and does the right thing in the face of corporate injustice. I think most of America feels that way. An unlikely hero, sure.

Digital revolution

As for independent music stores, if Penn State University and State College, PA can’t even manage to support one small basement record store anymore, then I can no longer deny that the halcyon days of rifling through stacks of obscure CDs (and vinyl, for some) and discovering new music via artwork and physical forms have ended. Those days ended years ago, of course. Plastic discs are a dying medium.

I can’t remember the last time I actually bought a music CD. I always hated how much physical space my huge music collection took up. But I also have such fondness for these days gone by. Each collected disc was potentially precious and meaningful. Albums mattered. Today I have more MP3s than I know what to do with. It’s hard to give any artist or album the proper amount of attention . . . and the gigabytes of MP3s continue to grow. The solution is to keep buying bigger hard drives on which to store all of this music and figure it out later.

I guess right now I’m feeling a little nostalgic for the illusion of simpler times. (And I’m starting to veer off topic.) I’m thinking of days before presidential administrations agreed with the RIAA and openly supported “file sharing damages of up to $150,000 per track.” The time we live in is certainly a transitional period for all media industries and entertainment products. But so long as independent artists are able to survive this cultural turmoil and continue to inspire our lives, we’ll come out all right. I could ramble some more about these issues, but instead maybe I’ll give one of these MP3 albums a second or third listen.

See you in September, Coco.

Chiquita bananas

Every weekend I buy a bunch of bananas. I usually choose organic, and normally select them based on ripeness level and the presence of bruises. But sometimes these criteria can (apparently) be expanded to include marketing stickers. Yes, stickers. (Yes, I am 30 years old.) My distaste for crass commercialism and sleazy marketing can in fact be overridden by charming, clever graphic design ideas. (Plus, I don’t mind manipulating children into wanting to eat fresh fruits and vegetables. Let’s put cute stickers on all fruit!)

Here’s the question: How can anyone resist Mexican wrestler stickers on their Chiquita bananas? You can’t. It’s not possible. You just have to buy the bananas.

Behold the new selection of Chiquita banana stickers:

These 24 new stickers can be found on the Chiquita Banana page on Facebook. You can also design (Mr. Potato Head-style) your own custom stickers at EatAChiquita.com. And there is a Twitter account called ChiquitaChatter.

So, if you were sick of Carmen Miranda (the inspiration for the Chiquita Banana lady), now you have a Mexican wrestler and many other goofy options. Makes me a little nostalgic for Strong Bad.

Star Wars and Star Trek

What if Star Wars characters were on Facebook?  I enjoyed this from College Humor: 5 Star Wars Status Updates.

And I liked this absurd Star Trek parody: Happy in Paraguay. Apple juice!

Graphic design and architecture

I haven’t gone through this design list in detail yet, but it looks useful: 50 Totally Free Lessons in Graphic Design Theory.

Lastly, this is awesome: Underground Home Designs – Swiss Mountain House Rocks. The underground house is a collaboration between the Netherlands architects at SeARCH and Christian Muller Architects.

Follow me on Twitter for more interesting items between blog updates.

• Cullman Liquidation is the 5th local commercial of the I Love Local Commercials series. And it is epic.

Music torture

In music torture news: “Musicians blast using tunes to torment.” Here’s a quote from the article: “a spokeswoman with the National Security Archives says acts whose music is known to have been used covers the musical gamut — from AC/DC to the Barney theme song, Marilyn Manson to Neil Diamond, Tupac Shakur to Sesame Street, Limp Bizkit to Christina Aguilera.” You know, putting the ethics of torture aside for a moment, some of these music selections really make sense.

Literature-related

This project sounds cool: “The Year’s Most Important SF Anthology Is Out Now.” The When It Changed anthology pairs scientists and science fiction authors.

Poe pwns Balloon Boy: “The first great balloon hoax.” The Heene family aren’t the first to come up with a balloon-based con: Edgar Allan Poe did it in 1844, writes Aida Edemariam. Awesome.

Video games

A friend who knows that I like David Lynch and Alejandro Jodorowsky a lot has recommended three videos games to me, which he calls “Lynch in game form.” He says that director/writer Goichi Suda (AKA Suda51) has been called the Lynch/Jodorowsky of video games. My friend has played the first two titles below and loves them (to bits):

• Flower, Sun, and Rain (PS2, DS)
• Killer7 (GameCube, PS2)
• No More Heroes (Wii)

He hasn’t played the third one yet, but has heard good things. I probably need to check these out. If they’re good, there are even more titles that Suda51 has written and directed. I’ve seen Killer7 before and it looked awesome, though I remember thinking the gameplay seemed strange and difficult. More like I wanted to watch someone play it than play it myself. I didn’t know the other two. Hmm.

Also, what a strange little game: Wavives (Age Zero). It’s a freeware 2D arena shooter.

Here is an amusing/interesting Wii gaming-related article: “Nintendo Helping Furries To Communicate.”

Design and art

Very cool art, from Fast Company: “‘Reverse Graffiti’ Artist Paul Curtis Shows Us How Dirty We Really Are.”

Awesome hexagon grid: “How the Victorians Imagined An Ideal London.”

Neat design objects: Dieter Rams pool on Flickr.

Technology, home and business

Rethinking GUI: “10/GUI: Fascinating Multitouch User Interface Design.”

You may find this eSATA hot-plugging tool for Windows useful: HotSwap!

This book looks perfect for learning how to make some nifty upgrades to the house: Smart Homes For Dummies by Danny Briere and Pat Hurley. Team up your PC and your home security system.

Nice article on startups: “So You Want to Start a Startup? 5 Places to Start.”

Need to make an org chart? There’s a nice, free site for that. LucidChart is an online collaborative flow chart application.

Web development

I am using this CSS technique in one of my web projects: CSS Round Corners with line layering. It’s JavaScript-free, image-free and backwards compatible! The round corners tutorial also has some nice links to other similar approaches.

I’ll end with this 404 error page: A ninja stole this page.

Now I can tell my nemesis from my archenemy. Excellent. Also: “The Joker was Batman’s nemesis, but—ironically—­his archenemy was Superman, since Superman made Batman seem entirely mortal and generally nonessential.”

Animated music videos

• “Horse Mountain” by The Buddy System
• “Wraith Pined to the Mist” by Of Montreal
• “Brush Brush Brush – Yo Gabba Gabba” by Of Montreal & Kangaroo Alliance

Also, here is a 30-minute behind-the-scenes video of Nine Inch Nails’ “Closer,” narrated by Romanek: The Making of the “Closer” Video.

Funny videos

• School Answering Machine: Great answering machine message from a school in Australia
• When the wife don’t listen: A mean gun trick
• Sesame Street: On a Boat: Bert and Ernie plus The Lonely Island featuring T-Pain! This is the YouTube video description: “Oh sh*t! Get your rubber duckies ready, it’s about to go down.”

iPhone, design and art

This looks neat: Autodesk SketchBook Mobile. It’s a painting and drawing application that “extends your digital sketchpad to your Apple iPhone or Apple iPod touch.”

Oh my: On a Boat Comes to I am T-Pain iPhone App.

This seven-minute Wired cover design presentation is kind of charming: Wired’s Creative Director Scott Dadich on Design.

Also, some charming art by Benjamin Hubert: Final Frame: Edit Undo Eraser (pencil eraser utilizing keyboard shortcuts for undo).

Corvallis, Oregon

Nice article from National Geographic: “Want to join the new economy? Get wired in, in Corvallis.”

This is a somewhat terrifying video from The Valley Library on Oregon State University campus on October 1: OSU library Flash mob. Makes me think: “Counting bodies like sheep to the rhythm of the war drums.” Also, swine flu . . . we has it.