Entries from February 2009 ↓

Fellas, sometimes words just aren’t enough, and with Valentine’s Day upon us, you may still be searching for just the right gift, expressing just the right sentiment.

LoveIsLame.com may be exactly what the doctor ordered. Their “Shit Bitch Bear” lets that very special, certain someone know how much they mean to you; that, in your opinion, verb tenses are fluid; and that, hey, you feel comfortable calling them a bitch. At $12.99, the fact that it’s only 6″ high may be the least of your problems.

Needless to say, I can only imagine the cataclysm that would ensue were I to bring this under my roof…and my wife is, indeed, fine.

Also available, right, in innocent polar white!

Gangsta Babies dolls proves it’s never too early to model crass materialism for your tykes. Plus, those Exorcist eyes should have the little ones completely captivated.

As the site says,

Comin straight outta crib-town! Each of these 10-inch hooddlers is A-Listing in the play ground. Rockin fabtastic clothing and so much baby bling that other rug rats can only catch their vapors.

“Pookie,” above, is

the green-eyed baller. But dont make him cranky… ya wouldnt like him when he’s cranky. Featuring a thermal shirt, t-shirt, dew rag, ring, and pimped out pacifier necklace.

Don’t hate the baby. Hate the crap.

Thirty-two-year-old Londoner Emily Cheetham, founder of handbag proprietor Cheet London, never studied design in school. As she says, on the excellent Handbag Designer 101 blog, “I worked in media & PR and studied Art History and Italian at university, so my skills are largely self-taught!”

She taught herself well, indeed: Her $175 Wallace Clutch, above, fashioned irresistibly in mint from lambs nappa, catches the eye with chroma, only to soothe it with classic styling and details. Perfect for the lady—or perhaps the First Lady!—in your life…wouldn’t you say?

Check out this lovely portrait of Kahleefawnyuh Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, taken after waking him from a twenty-year sleep.

In fact, it’s an entry in FreakingNews.com’s “Beards Pictures,” part of their ongoing series of advanced Photoshop pictures contests.

Continue reading →

As Moth said on Missbehave, “There is something really familiar about the new Pepsi logo,” left, “but I can’t quite put my finger on it.”

Me, either, but every time I see it, I wanna run for President.

I’m not clear on the cause of this optical effect, but talk about subliminal messaging.

That is, was it just me, or, when you look at this completely unretouched video still of Amy Goodman, above, host of news show Democracy Now, from yesterday’s broadcast, does she have a halo encircling her head?

By now, you’ve seen a billion pictures of Barack Obama. But if you’ve got a good eye or visual memory, you’ve already noticed something unusual, something familiar, about this one, above.

The image, by photographer Mannie Garcia, was, as he notes on his blog, taken of

then Democratic Senator from Illinois, Barak Obama, when he was with actor George Clooney at the Press Club in Washington, DC in April 2006. They talked about human rights and Darfur.

But the association with Clooney, or Darfur, is not what makes this image special, or unique. Or controversial.

This is:

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By employing astounding technique, colored pencil artist Don Simon deftly visualizes a mournful and demoralized world. It’s one where man’s increasing industrialization of the biosphere has not only pushed humans and animals into ultradirect contact and competition, but where the natural landscape has begun to frustratingly morph into the mechanized metalliscape. As a New Jersey native, where some of the nation’s most gorgeous terrain borders some of its most hideous, he knows of whence he speaks.

In “Industrial Forest 1,” above, for example, from his Unnaturalism I series, deer dart between and attempt to hide amidst a thicket of silver metal pipelines. (The grove’s absolute density becomes more clear in the triptych from which this image is taken.)

By mankind literally doing to the creation what Simon does figuratively, “We are forcing other species to deal with compromised, damaged or destroyed ecosystems,” says the artist.

Yeah, well, as U. of Texas prof Robert Jensen reminds us, quoting a friend, “Nature always bats last.”

[via Paper ‘n Stitch]

Devi Kroell’s “Bubble in Shiny Mango with Gold Bubbles” shoe, above, adds a freaky, dreamlike psychological element—gilt champagne bubbles ascending the back of its heel—to an already sexily teetering pair of platforms.

Working extensively in python, the Austrian-born designer, right, also fashions boots, like the one below, and handbags, a lot of them in styles that, like these designs, are completely inappropriate for the office, but that definitely let ’em know whatcha workin’ wit’ up to a light-year in any direction.

Says her bio,

As the daughter of an ambassador father, Kroell spent her childhood in Indonesia, Philippines, Singapore, Switzerland, Israel, France, and Italy, among other locales. As a result, her signature styles are easily suited to a variety of backdrops and tastes.From her original python hobo bag to her crystal-studded wooden clutches and avant-garde heels, all of Kroell’s impeccably crafted designs feature sleek, effortless shapes fused with lush, tactile elements.

Tactile, yes. I’d like to touch that.

[via Handbag Designer 101]

What’s way cooler? Is it this February 2009 cover for MAD magazine, above, titled, “Obama: The First 100 Minutes,” revealing a hyperperplexed new president in a classic “What? ME WORRY!!!!” pose, sucking down nicotine sticks by the bushel, gurgling Pepto-Bismol, and grabbing his cranium for even a moment’s sweet relief?

Or is it this dry March 2009 Vanity Fair cover, right, pushing forward a dignified, confident, fossilized, stuffy Obama, complete with bland taupe background, shot in a style that seems as dated as Obama’s presidency is fresh?

As even the fastest walk-run past a newsstand reveals, everybody’s sticking Obama on their covers, even if they have absolutely no reason to do so. I can hardly wait to see Expert Bowler Today, Black Mother Magazine, and Stutterers Digest get in on the action.

And speaking of getting in on the action, how mega-lame is it for Vanity Fair to front a front by using the exact, same, leftover shot they ran back during the American Express RED Africa, 20-person multiple cover back in July 2007? And how come The Huffington Post, raving over the cover, didn’t notice this? Tih-zired.

Mad: 2. Vanity Fair: You get nuh-ting!.