this is amazing--tay zonday "chocolate rain" 8-bit covers

i'm in awe of creativity such as this.

Proof of Internet Addiction: Bloons Tower Defense 3

I can admit it: I'm addicted to the internet.

I spend probably my entire day on my macbook pro, alternating between emails, to reading blogs (mostly techcrunch, but others as well), to working with our ad platform, to doing our accounting via quickbooks online, to setting up google docs to do analysis.

Even at home now, Krista and I spend a lot of our time online. I can recall a year ago when we were both laying in bed, side by side, about ready to go to bed, with our laptops open, sending email and reading.

In the same way that couples sit in bed reading, we were sitting in bed surfing the web.

I often get to the point where I literally have NOTHING more I can do online at night--I've checked every email, I've read every post (mostly tech and football), I've updated all the documents, and I have nothing to do. And yet I will still search for more to do rather than go to bed. That's the definition of addiction



And now I've gone to casual games to help feed the beast. As part of research for work (looking at potential business partners), I started playing games on Kongregate and quickly became interested in Bloons Tower Defense 3.

It's highly addictive, and I should really stop. Please help!

*Note: I don't really want to stop my internet addiction, which is a lot of the problem. I do want to stop my casual games mini-obsession (not yet a full-blown addiction).

Legend of Zelda The Movie: Awesome

I can't wait to see this, even though I'm sure they will murder it:



Was that Ganon in the obviously fake green costume? Maybe I'll go as Ganon for Halloween. Or Link. Or Princess Zelda?

A Trip Down BK's Memory Lane Episode 1: Henry Darger and Outsider Art

I was thinking the other day about my pathetic two posts in October (the number, not the quality of the posts, which are very high of course) and decided that I should include some more memories from my past. I think that these types of posts about random memories that stand out for me but are probably unknown to many of my closest friends would be fun to put up.

The first comes from my time doing my Fulbright Research in Madrid. For the first two months, I felt constantly guilty because I had never worked in such an open ended role before. I had no teacher, professor, or boss to tell me what to do. And I struggled greatly with that much autonomy.

"What SHOULD I do today?" I would ask myself. But I never had the "right" answer.

In an effort to feel fully productive, I occupied my time researching interesting things online related mostly to digital music, various artists, writing, and art. I read and listened to a TON of NPR. And I used Skype--which had literally just been released--to talk for hours upon end, at the end of the day and beginning of the day, with Krista and my family. I was ruthlessly homesick.

One NPR article talked about an "outsider artist" named Henry Darger whose art and life had been highlighted in an outsider art museum in Chicago. Below is a picture of Henry, and his art is sprinkled throughout this post.



I was fascinated by the idea of outsider art. As defined by wikipedia:

The English term "Outsider Art" is often applied more broadly, to include certain self-taught or Naïve art makers who were never institutionalized. Typically, those labeled as Outsider Artists have little or no contact with the institutions of the mainstream art world; in many cases, their work is discovered only after their deaths. Much Outsider Art illustrates extreme mental states, unconventional ideas, or elaborate fantasy worlds.

The idea of existing outside the mainstream, but creating great works of art, is an incredibly romantic concept that I loved (and still do).



On top of hundreds of fantastical watercolors depicting transgender fairies battling evil spirits, Darger wrote a 15,145 page novel depicting that same fantasy world.

Just pause for a moment and reflect on a 15,145 page book. The man spent his ENTIRE solitary life (aside from his day job as a janitor) writing the book.



15,145 pages; no recognition, no celebration, no money. Just art for the sake of art.

Here's a trailer for the documentary, which I just discovered and ordered on netflix as a result of this post:



Here's a link to Outsider Art in Wikipedia, Henry Darger's entry in Wikipedia, and the original NPR post.

amazing hand dexterity + daft punk = awesome

I was just browsing through Yahoo Video's list of Memes from 2007 (looking first at a revisitation of Turtle Zombie Boy, which I think might be my halloween costume this year) and happened upon the Daft Punk Fingers guy. If you haven't seen this video before, check it out below. Some people are incredibly creative, and this guy definitely is one of them. How on earth did he think of this?



Also, here's the zombie turtle boy too. It's become a huge viral video success:



Jonathan reminds me a lot of my friend Dave Haase, for some reason.

Behind the scenes from Lambeau

I was just looking at a few videos by fans at packers game, which showed some great packers footage. IN particular, a lot of soulja boy dances by donald driver, the kickoff team, and jarrett (Sp?) bush. Check out this great clip of DD. I could browse for things like this pretty much all day.