Life changing coffee…. thing

Dear Puffin

My world has been rocked by new coffee technology:

Coffee Joulies work with your coffee to achieve two goals. First, they absorb extra thermal energy in your coffee when it’s served too hot, cooling it down to a drinkable temperature three times faster than normal. Next, they release that stored energy back into your coffee keeping it in the right temperature range twice as long.

This amazing feat of thermodynamics happens thanks to a special non-toxic material sealed within the polished stainless steel shell. This material is designed to melt at 140 degrees Fahrenheit, and absorbs a lot of energy as it melts. This is how Joulies cool your coffee down three times faster than normal. Once it reaches this temperature, the special material begins to solidify again, releasing the energy it stored when it melted. This is how Joulies keep your coffee warm twice as long.

I have been rendered speechless by the sheer awesome of this idea. If these work even half as well as they say then my life will be totally changed. It is well known that I cannot maintain an acceptable level of civilized behavior without my coffee, so the prospect of perpetually hot coffee fills me with the glee of a stoner with a medical marijuana card.

I must own these, pronto

MacGuffin

Indecorous Uterus of the Day

Dear Puffin

Todays’s asshole uterus of the day comes from the Florida state government where Rep Scott Randolph (D- Orlando) has been reprimanded for using a dirty word on the house floor. The word? Uterus.

House GOP spokeswoman Katie Betta: “The Speaker has been clear about his expectations for conduct on the House for during debate. At one point during the debate, he mentioned to the entire House that members of both parties needed to be mindful of decorum during debate.

“Additionally, the Speaker believes it is important for all Members to be mindful of and respectful to visitors and guests, particularly the young pages and messengers who are seated in the chamber during debates. In the past, if the debate is going to contain language that would be considered inappropriate for children and other guests, the Speaker will make an announcement in advance, asking children and others who may be uncomfortable with the subject matter to leave the floor and gallery.”

Um ………………….what? Yes, as a lady I find it very very disrespectful when people refer to a part of my body by its correct anatomical name. Seriously guys, show some respect for the vajayjay. Rep Randolph’s actual comment was to suggest that his wife should “incorporate her uterus” as the only way protect her reproductive rights. I think he makes a very very good point. On the other hand, I also see the GOP’s perspective in this. I mean, government regulation is the only hope if we are to be saved from the hordes of unregulated uteri that lurk around every street corner. Beware the impending uterus invasion guys. Its just one short step from recreational abortions to weaponized wombs marching the streets of America, terrorizing the populace. Suddenly I see why people are afraid of feminists. Cause that was totally our plan guys, and the only thing stopping us from taking over the world is the brave men and women of the GOP, valiantly trying to regulate us and prevent us from making any trouble. Like, you know, me making my own choices about my uterus. Did you hear me? UTERUS!

This reminds me of a great scene from Boston Legal

All together now, uterus, uterus, uterus, UTERUS! (That is definitely one of those words that becomes stranger the more you say it. Like spatula. Seriously, say spatula to yourself 20 times and see).

Also, as we all know, the Dodge Ram logo is just a stylized uterus. Don’t believe me?

Inappropriate I say, inappropriate! I hereby demand the removal of all such pornographic depictions of lady parts from America’s automobiles!! Never again shall our children (or our congressional pages) be terrorized by the specter of an aggressive sheep-womb charging at them on I-95!!

Be afraid Puffin. Be very afraid.

MacGuffin

Footwear fears founded on flipper phobia

Dear Puffin

These shoes are amazing. Kobi Levi makes them as a form of ‘wearable art’ but frankly I don’t think I could ever actually wear them. I’d rather put them on my bookshelf and giggle.

 

And best of all

Gumshoe! Geddit?

Although I admit, I would wear these, cause they’re actually super stylish and would remind me of you, Puffin, although they’re actually a Toucan.

While I’m on the topic of crazy footwear, there are also these, based on the design of the Lamborghini Gallardo, with carbon fiber heels, and I WANT THEM. Altho I’d prefer an actual Lamborghini. I suspect that Lamborghini pumps have an even shittier resale value than an actual Lambo. Unfortunately they don’t actually exist. The only Lamborghini shoes you can buy are butt fugly.

This is the most unwelcoming garment since the chastity belt

And these frankly terrify me.

Given that I can’t even wear clogs without falling flat on my ass I can’t even imagine the carnage I would inflict on Manhattan if I were waddling around in these. (PS, they’re actually a statement about global warming and as such are really quite neat. But I can’t pass up the opportunity to mock stuff. Also I have traumatic memories of flippers)

Love

MacGuffin

CandyPenisLand update

Dear Puffin

I just found more of Rod Hunt’s Penisland Adventure park AIDS awareness thing (previously featured here). Prepare to be blown away by the awesome. Click to make it swell, tumescently, to full size. Also NSFW, in case you couldn’t tell.

This is a full breakdown of the rides and other…. attractions at the place which I insist on calling CandyPenisLand. This information will be invaluable for our board game version. In my mind its a sort of cross between Snakes and Ladders and Candyland, but with more lube.

Yours

MacGuffin

America: you keep using that word…. reprinted compliments of Jim Wright

Jim Wright of StoneKettle Station graciously gave me permission to reprint his epic (epic I tell you!) rant. I’m thrilled that he let me repost this because I gotta say… this is just about the best thing I’ve ever read. I have copied the whole thing, uncut, unabridged, in all its sheer awesomeness. Read it! All of it!

Rant commences:

So, I’m driving into Anchorage this morning.

Along with the usual herd of jackasses who, despite living in Alaska still don’t seem to know how to drive in snow, one vehicle in particular caught my eye.

It was one of those enormous black pickup trucks, with the huge knobby tires and smoked glass windows and chrome roll bar complete with half a dozen giant chrome halogen lights and a ten foot high antenna whipping about in the slipstream  and pipe organ-like exhaust pipes jutting up from behind the cab belching thick plumes of white diesel smoke like the twin contrails of a fighter jet on full afterburner.

The great steel beast wasn’t, in and of itself, unusual for the Glenn Highway at 6AM – or even unusual for Alaska in general, where giant manly trucks full of patriotic manly Viagra-fueled studs are quite common.

What caught my eye were the bumper stickers:
- Proud American emblazoned across a red, white, and true blue Captain America shield;
- In God I trust, In big government I fear. We must protect the country we love!;
- and my perennial favorite: I love my country, it’s the damned government I hate.

Now, to be perfectly honest, those bumper sticker slogans aren’t particularly unusual on the Glenn Highway at 6AM either – and normally, they wouldn’t be enough to rise above my “What the hell?” threshold.

Not by themselves.

No, what caught my eye was the giant Confederate flag treatment in the back window.

Wait, what?

Proud American.

Confederate Flag.

Proud American.


Confederate Flag.

And suddenly I’m the Old Spice guy: Liberals, look at your little sissy Prius. Look at it. Loser. Now look at this awesome RAM truck. Look at it! It gets five miles a gallon. Look at the patriotic slogans! They’re American. Now look at the Confederate Flag! The Confederacy. It’s American. Now look back to the bumper. Back to the Flag! The bumper!  Now I’m a Confederate! Look again, I’m an American! A Rebel! America, hell ya! I’m on a horse…

Proud American. Confederate flag.

I wanted to pull up next him and roll down the window and ask, So, Just to make sure I’m clear on this, you’re a proud patriotic American who loves the United States which is why you display the battle symbol of a long defunct political/military organization that directly and without equivocation attempted to destroy that self same country. Is that correct?

No, strike that. That’s wrong.

That’s really not what I wanted to ask him.

What I really wanted to ask is this: Proud American? Really? What is it exactly that you’re proud of?  You say you love your country? You say you love the United States? Really? Which part? What is it that you love about it? Specifically, what exactly do you love about America?

Because, see, so far as I can tell, people like you seem to hate just about everything that makes the United States what it is.

You hate the President, you call him a Nazi and a socialist and communist and an enemy of America.  You’re embarrassed by him.  You hate his big jug ears and his oh so white smile and his funny alien name.  You hate his politics and his elitist education and his religion and his agenda and the way he speaks. You hate his wife and you hate his kids.  Now, to be fair, you hated the last president too and in fact you’ve got a beef with damned near every president except for Good Ole George Washington and maybe Ronald Reagan. You couldn’t stand Carter or that pig, Clinton, Nixon was a crook, Johnson got us into Vietnam and the best thing that Kennedy ever did was to take a ride in that convertible – too bad he didn’t invite little brother Ted along.  You hate the president all the way back to FDR.  Hell, you even hateTeddy Roosevelt because he was nothing but a goddamned anti-American Progressive – you know that’s true because Glenn Beck told you so (and don’t you hate it when people accuse you of getting your ideas from him? Like you can’t decide who to hate all by yourself).

You hate Congress. You hate the idea of a republic, of representative democracy, where Senators and Representative don’t do only what you want.  It’s we the people goddamnit. They’re all crooks. They’re allliars. They’re all corrupt greedy bastards.  They’re all ineffective. You hate them all.  They should all be thrown out – well, all of them except for your guy that is. What’s that? Oh you hate your guy too? Yeah, that figures.

You hate the courts, especially the Supreme Court.  Oh how you hate that they won’t let you make your hate the law of the land.  You hate the whole damned liberal American legal system. You hate the lawyers, you’d like to line them all up and shoot them first.  You hate that criminals get a legal defense, you hate that people can’t seem to see that they’re guilty, just drop them into a hole and throw away the key.  You hate those groups that keep using DNA to vacate death row convictions, the scumbags are guilty of something otherwise they wouldn’t be scumbags would they – but now they get to go free and collect a big fat settlement and, man, don’t you just hate that?  Of course, you hate paying for prison too, and as long as we’re on the subject you hate that prisons are big country clubs nowadays, what the hell are those scumbags complaining about? You hate those damned judges, they’re all liberal activists, everybody knows it.  You hate the fact that we can’t just string people up in the town square any more, those were the good old days you bet.  You’d like to see more military tribunals, that’s the ticket. Not likethat’s going to happen, and boy don’t you just hate that too?

In fact, you hate the whole goddamned Federal government. You really hate the “united” part of the United States. You say you love the Constitution, and you do – the 2^nd Amendment part anyway – but youreally hate the parts that let other people say what they like and worship religions different than yours and give the Federal government the power to regulate interstate commerce and award citizenship to brown skinned babies and give people you don’t like the same rights as you and make the government a secular organization instead of a Christian one – yeah, you really hate that part.  You hate federal regulations and federal law and federal taxes.  You hate the Fed and the fact that our money isn’t based on the gold standard.  You hate that the government won’t let you sell defective products and contaminated food and unsafe toys coated in lead paint or snake oil that purports to cure cancer – that’s just bad for business.  You hate the idea of anybody other than you getting affordable healthcare or retirement or a home loan.  You hate Social Security, even though you yourself never bothered to save not one single penny towards your own retirement.  You think the military is “broken” and you hate those wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but you hate the idea of ending them even more because then the terrorists will “win” – and you hate that we haven’t yet declared war on Iran and North Korea and maybe even Libya because you hate those bastards too. In fact, you hate the idea of peace all together, goddamned sissy liberals, real Americans love the smell of napalm in the morning you betcha.
You hate the American political system. You hate political parties. You hate those filthy liberals, oh you hate them so much, that’s a given. But you hate the Republicans too, you hate Progressives and Centrists and Moderates and there’s nobody you hate more than those traitor RINOs.

You hate your neighbors, you do, you hate them. You hate the niggers and the spics and the chinks and the gooks and spooks and hajis.  And, man, there’s nothing you hate more than when they call you a racist and a bigot. You hate all those minorities with their whining about equal rights and political correctness and affirmative action. You hate that they get a free ride.  You hate how they can’t take a joke. You hate the greedy Jews. You hate the terrorist Muslims. You hate the child-molesting Catholics. And you just goddamned hate those atheists.  You hate anybody who wasn’t born again. You hate that guy with the long beard and the red turban who runs that store you hate downtown.  You hate those people who can’t speak English without an accent.  You hate having to dial 1 for English, my God how you hate that. You hate the fags in their little Speedos, demanding the right to wed just so they can mock your third marriage.  You hate immigrants, and not just the illegal ones either. You hate the idea that those dirty, diseased sons of bitches come here to this country and take all the good jobs.  You hate that your daughter is dating one of them. You hate that one of their kids can become president when there are plenty of good God fearin’ naturally born white men around – speaking of which, you really hate how white men have become the most persecuted minority in America, it’s shameful is what it is.  You hate the poor, the lazy bastards should just lift themselves up, stop being poor. You hate the rich, the ones born with a golden spoon full of coke in their noses and the ones who robbed their way to the top.  You hate feminists, those damned dyke bitches, and you hate that they think they should own their own reproductive organs.  You hate city people, the ones from New York and Los Angeles who think they’re better then you.  You hate those ignorant country bumpkins too, those pig shit covered farmers and their subsidies always sponging off your tax dollars.  You hate those college boys, those elitist snobs with their law degrees and science majors.  You hate people from the East Coast with their old money and blue blood, you hate them almost as much as you hate the fruits, nuts, and flakes from the West Coast, and by God, how you hate those crooked bastards from Chicago. You hate single mothers and women who breastfeed in public.  You hate fat people, those glutinous slobs taking up more than their fair share of the space.  Of course, you really hate it when that America hating Michelle Obama suggests that your kids eat right and maybe get some exercise so they don’t end up overweight, how dare she, how dare she, ifyou want to be fat, by God, you’ll be fat and no hate-filled bitch is going to tell you what to do. You hate kids with long hair and tattoos.  You hate old people, the Greatest Generation of assholes, always complaining about how much better things used to be, why can’t they just die already and quit sucking on the Medicare tit? Speaking of Medicare, you hate that too, even though you yourself can’t afford health insurance for you family – besides, the emergency room is free. Right?

You hate the environment. You hate the flora and fauna and the terrain of the great American landscape.  You hate the polar bears and the snail darter and that stupid spotted owl.  You hate saving the Redwoods for generations to come. You hate those national parks and the bureau of land management. You hate clean air and water that’s safe to swim in. You hate that you can’t just shoot every deer and dip-net every salmon.  You hate catalytic converters and lead free gasoline.  You hate the fact that the fascist EPA won’t let you dump toxic waste into Love Canal or strip mine Utah. You hate carbon and separating your paper from your plastics. You hate blowout preventers and containment booms and hearing about theExxon Valdez – honestly, hasn’t Exxon suffered enough?  Drill baby drill that’s what you’re talking about.  You hate the word “Green” and you hope Al Gore burns in hell for all eternity because you hate that commie fucker more than anybody else – well, except for maybe Obama, but that just goes without saying.

You hate public education.  You hate the Department of Education, you didn’t used to, but you sure do now.  You hate it because it’s not in the Constitution – the Constitution which you hated having to learn about in school, in that government class you so hated. You hate the school board and school administrators and the school principal. You hate schools, you hate having to pay taxes for a new roof so the kids don’t get rained on and you hate having to buy classroom equipment and you hate those afterschool programs – well, except for football, that’s OK.  And, by God, you hate the damned teachers, you hate those lazy, greedy, selfish bastards.  You hate that the arrogant pricks laugh at your poorly spelled TEA Party posters and you blame them for your ignorance. You hate that you have to pay them a living wage, you hate the idea that the modern world means that teachers have to be highly educated professionals instead of some chalk scented school marm who was good enough for your great grandfather. You grandfather didn’t need to learn about computers or technology or world events or funny looking people in countries that don’t matter, and you hate it when people tell you that your kids aren’t living in that world anymore.  You hate that your kids might have to learn about actual science, oh how you hate that they might hear about evolution or global climate change or plate tectonics or that people didn’t, in fact, live with dinosaurs and that the world is actually a lot older than 5000 years despite what you learned in Church last week.  You hate the liberal colleges with their long haired professors and their weird ideas – and you sure as hell hate how higher education tends to make people more liberal, not less.

You hate the media.  You hate CNN and MSNBC and ABC and the Washington Post.  You harbor a special hatred for Arianna Huffington, a hatred that flares as brightly as a burning deep water drilling rig.  You hate Hollywood, you hate how it’s controlled by the Jews or maybe the Bilderbergs and their New World Order or perhaps it’s really secretly controlled by the Illuminati or the Muslim Brotherhood. Whoever is in charge out there, you hate how every movie seems to have gay people in it, or blacks, or an Arab.
You hate American capitalism – oh, you love Capitalism with a capital C, but you hate what those greedy conniving Wall Street fat cats have done to it.  God, how you hate those sons of bitches, the ones like Bill Gates who built his business from the ground up and became for a time the richest man in the world, and then – and this is the part you really hate – he started giving his money away.  Of course, it’s all a lie, he’s just giving it away for the tax break and how you hate that too, don’t you? And you hate those pricks in management, those prissy white collar MBA’s who have never done an honest day’s labor in their privileged lives.  Ah, but as much as you hate the executives and the management, that’s nothingcompared to how much you hate labor. You hate unions. You hate that middle class Americans enjoy a living wage in safe working environments at a reasonable number of working hours per week.  You hate that they’ve thrown in together, bargaining collectively so that they might have a bit of leverage against those fat cats and greedy corporations you also hate.  You call them socialists and communists and you hate it when somebody points out that in far left socialist and communist countries workers have no rightswhatsoever (and didn’t in America either, until the unions came along). God how you hate being confused with facts by liberal Nazi Commies who dare to question your cognitively dissociative reasoning.

In point of fact, other than the flag (the American one, not the Confederate one – though that works too, I guess), there doesn’t seem to be much about America you do like.

So, when you say you love America, what is it exactly that you love?

When you say you’re a proud American, what is it that you’re proud of?

Because, I’ve got to tell you, I’m just not seeing it.

Rant ends

For Old Time’s Sake

MacGuffin,

Thirty-two years ago, this day, the worst nuclear mishap in American history (to date) happened – the partial meltdown at Three Mile Island. It occurred to me, after reading this, that I suffer from a particular kind of nostalgia. I miss Cold War Paranoia. Yes, that’s right, I miss the good old days. Back then, we knew (more or less) who our enemies were. They lived behind an Iron Curtain a few thousand miles to the east. And were ever encroaching on our western borders, thank God for Seward’s Folly, or they’d be in our back yards! We stood united with our allies in western Europe and we won.

It’s not just the Us vs. Them (when they were outside), the Good vs. Evil that I miss. I miss direct unease and fear. Today, we’re afraid of way too  many things. And they aren’t always the things that kill us outright. Back then all you really feared was that the nuclear war would kill us all. Let’s be honest, we never elected anyone (with the slight possibility of Carter) who would have allowed a peaceable end to an all out conventional war with the Russkies. We would have bombed them, they would have bombed us, and that would have been it for humanity. Here’s a keen little video I found about all the testing we did back then!

 

Don’t worry, we Americans were a crafty bunch and had solved the problem.

No doubt, I’m writing to a much more sophisticated crowd than the 1950s school children who were taught that. But, then again, who could possibly believe that duck and cover would protect them in this eventuality?

 

 

Well, my time is running short, I think I’ll come back to this again, I imagine. I hope this finds you well.

 

-Puffin

Photos from Earth Hour 2011

Dear Puffin

OK, I meant to get back to work, I really did, but then I came across these before and after shots of Earth Hour, over on TheAtlantic. Which I had to visit because it was totally relevant to my work. Click to embiggen, or head over to TheAtlantic to see the transitions animated.

Sydney:

Beijing:

The Acropolis:

Hong Kong:

These last ones really blow me away because of the way the focus shifts once the lights go out. In Vancouver the water is suddenly visible, rather than being obscured by the reflected lights, and in NYC the trees magically appear once the bright object is the background is gone. I think this is really neat.

Vancouver:

New York City:

And, just because I love it, the Sydney Harbor Bridge:

Earth Hour is awesome

MacGuffin out

Awesome poster art roundup

Dear Puffin

My recent radio silence has been the unfortunate result of thesis related insanity. (That video pretty much sums it up). So I have prepared a quick roundup of posters that caught my eye, while diligently working surfing the blogosphere.

Nota bene: I am aware that not everyone is as captivated by alternate movie posters as me, but suck it up, it’s my party and I’ll cry if I want to.

First I found another set of gems from the always amazing Brandon Schaefer. Incidentally, he does commissions. Do you think we can raise enough money to commission a Buckaroo Banzai poster?

There is also this from Stanley Chow. Its BatHamm and SuperHamm!

These are clever as all get out

There is also this from Eric Canete, which I adore.

And to conclude, these Superman posters by Justin Van Genderen are stunningly lovely

But this might actually be the most purely beautiful movie poster I have ever seen

Aside: Puffin’s response to these was “Buy prints@!!!@#@!@#!” So I guess I know what I’m getting him for his birthday.

Love

MacGuffin

Dr Who Prequel

Macguffin,

Despite the word prequel being sullied by the efforts of one George Lucas, this is still very exciting.

It is very reminiscent of first season two part episode with the children in the gas masks. That is to say it’s rather creepy.

Enjoy,

Puffin

The Big Lebowski board game you knew was coming is here!

Dear Puffin

Urgent! Input is needed for R&D on the Big Lebowski monopoly game!

On the wonderful circuitous paths of the internet we often meet the most extraordinary people. Today I met Sam Klass, a musician from Ontario. Sam is the great-nephew of JRR Tolkein and has an album coming out soon.

But lets get down to brass tacks Puffin. Sam made this fantastic thing which required a full days work during his lunch break.

ITS BIG LEBOWSKI MONOPOLY PUFFIN! (Higher res version coming later, and Ill update when it arrives) All my wishes have come true, between this, Arrested Development Clue and the CandyPenisLand board game and theme park we featured the other day.

There is currently a sweet brainstorming sesh going on at Reddit, where people are amusing themselves by figuring out the nitty gritty of the game, like the Community Chest cards and stuff.

Sam says:

I need help brainstorming for the following info-

(Note from MacGuffin- these are sort of culled from a lot of different versions. Sam’s list on the Reddit thread is much more complete with a lot more detail about which cards were introduced when. Also there’s room for more than one option on some of these, because some of the cards repeat. There are at least 2 school tax cards, for example. )

Chance

1. Parking Fine: $15
2. Pay Poor Tax: $12
3. Pay School Tax: $150
4. You Are Assessed for Street Repairs: $variable
5. Your Xmas Fund Matures: Collect $100
6. Bank Pays You Dividend of $50
7. Elected Chairman of the Board: Pay Each Player $50
8. Advance token to the nearest utility. If unowned you may buy it from bank. If owned, throw dice and pay owner a total ten times the amount thrown.
9. Advance token to the nearest Railroad and pay owner Twice the Rental to which he is otherwise entitled. If Railroad is unowned, you may buy it from the Bank.

Community Chest

1. You are Assessed for Street Repairs-if this happens you only repair YOUR properties
2. Your Xmas Fund Matures
3. Grand Opera Opening, Collect $50 from each player.
4. Grand opera Night – collect $50 from every player for opening night seats
5. Life Insurance Matures – collect $100
6. Receive for services $25

I think they should break down thusly:

Chance

1. Parking Fine Your “thorough” physical had a $15 copay.
2. Pay Poor Tax Get antibiotics for infected marmot scratches $12
3. Pay School Tax Purchase a blow job from Bunny Lebowski: $150
4. You Are Assessed for Street Repairs Shell out cash to put the fucking ‘showdog’ pomeranian in a fucking kennel. $variable
5. Your Xmas Fund Matures Turns out Marty will pay you to attend the dance recital. Collect $100
6. Bank Pays You Dividend Fuck with Jesus (faptastrophe’s idea). Collect $50
7. Elected Chairman of the Board The League fines Walter for pulling a gun (even though it wans’t league play.) Pay Each Player $50
8. Advance token to the nearest utility. If owned, throw dice and pay owner a total ten times the amount thrown.
9. Advance token to the nearest Railroad and pay owner Twice the Rental to which he is otherwise entitled You have to go see the dance recital. Advance to the nearest bus stop aka railroad

Community Chest

1. You are Assessed for Street Repairs-if this happens you only repair YOUR properties You discover how much it will cost to get the bowling ball dent in your bathroom floor fixed.
2. Your Xmas Fund Matures You capture the marmot and hold it hostage. Collect $100 from the nihilists.
3. Grand Opera Opening, Collect $50 from each player.
4. Grand opera Night – collect $50 from every player for opening night seats
5. Life Insurance Matures Donnie’s life insurance matures– collect $100
6. Receive for services $25

Input?

Love

MacGuffin