garfield (minus garfield)

Garfield minus Garfield is “a site dedicated to removing Garfield from the Garfield comic strips in order to reveal the existential angst of a certain young Mr. Jon Arbuckle. It is a journey deep into the mind of an isolated young everyman as he fights a losing battle against loneliness and depression in a quiet American suburb.” It takes Garfield (sans speech bubbles) to the next level.

If I were living alone with the memories of all the failed dates I’d been on, I’d begin hallucinating too!

click to enlarge

classic
edit: yes, this is filed dubiously under “art”

comical engagements

From Yahoo News Online: http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20081030/od_afp/japancartoonmarriageoffbeat_081030061822

TOKYO (AFP) – A Japanese man has enlisted hundreds of people in a campaign to allow marriages between humans and cartoon characters, saying he feels more at ease in the “two-dimensional world.”

Comic books are immensely popular in Japan, with some fictional characters becoming celebrities or even sex symbols. Marriage is meanwhile on the decline as many young Japanese find it difficult to find life partners.

Taichi Takashita launched an online petition aiming for one million signatures to present to the government to establish a law on marriages with cartoon characters.

Within a week he has gathered more than 1,000 signatures through the Internet.

“I am no longer interested in three dimensions. I would even like to become a resident of the two-dimensional world,” he wrote.

“However, that seems impossible with present-day technology. Therefore, at the very least, would it be possible to legally authorise marriage with a two-dimensional character?”

Befitting his desire to be two-dimensional, he listed no contact details, making it impossible to reach him for comment to explain if his campaign is serious or tongue-in-cheek.

But some people signing the petition are true believers.

“For a long time I have only been able to fall in love with two-dimensional people and currently I have someone I really love,” one person wrote.

“Even if she is fictional, it is still loving someone. I would like to have legal approval for this system at any cost,” the person wrote.

Japan only permits marriage between human men and women and gives no legal recognition to same-sex relationships.

Japan’s fans of comic books, or “manga,” sometimes go to extremes.

Earlier this month, a woman addicted to manga put out an online message seeking to kill her parents for asking her to throw away comic books that filled up three rooms.

Prime Minister Taro Aso is an avid fan of manga and recently complained that he has been too busy to read comic books since taking office.

Can I marry Death from Sandman?

morals

I recently stumbled across the Harvard Moral Sense Test, and it asks many questions that question your responses to direct and indirect intervention that might save the many at the expense of the few. Contrary to the expectations of the hoi-polloi, completion of the test does not give you your morality in percentages (such a concept is absurd, yet the proliferation of frivolous quizzes breed this expectation). Rather, completion of the test allows you to question the “morals” upon which you live your life, and hopefully precipitate self-discovery.

Below is a sample question:

Ethan is returning from a Kayaking trip when he sees that the dam has broken upstream and is about to flood the river where he’s been Kayaking. Anyone who is still on the water when the flood comes will die. There are five people downstream on a large raft. However, there is a floodgate nearby that can be opened to divert the flow of the water into a drainage canal nearby where one person is fishing. The drainage canal normally loops back to the main river, but because of a large rock, any water entering the canal will stop at the rock. If Ethan does nothing, the water will flood the main river and the five people on the raft will die. If Ethan opens the floodgate, the water will be diverted into the drainage canal and the one person fishing will die, but the water will back up behind the large rock; consequently, the five people on the raft will remain unharmed.

Opening the floodgate is:
Forbidden , Permissable , Obligatory?

What would you do?

motorcycle drive by

And this is our last time
We’ll be friends again
I’ll get over you, you’ll wonder who I am
And there’s this burning
Just like there’s always been
I’ve never been so alone alone
And I’ve, and I’ve never been so alive
So alive

Self-fulfilling prophecy.

throw me a rope

i want you between me and the feeling I get when I miss you
but everything here is telling me I should be fine
so why is it so, above as below,
that I’m missing you every time

i got used to you whispering things to me into the evening
we followed the sun and its colours and left this world
it seems to me that I’m definitely
hearing the best that I’ve heard

so throw me a rope to hold me in place
show me a clock for counting my days down
cause everything’s easier when you’re beside me
come back and find me
cause I feel alone

and whenever you go it’s like holding my breath underwater
i have to admit that I kind of like it when I do
oh but I’ve got to be unconditionally
unafraid of my days without you

so throw me a rope to hold me in place
show me a clock for counting my days down
cause everything’s easier when you’re beside me
come back and find me
whenever I’m falling you’re always behind me
come back and find me
cause everything’s easier when you’re beside me
come back and find me
cause I feel alone

KT Tunstall, Throw me a Rope

the graveyard book

As a child, I dreamt of escaping the mediocrity of normal life into the fantastic worlds of Brian Jacques’ Redwall, Terry Patchett’s Discworld and Douglas Adams’ Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Of the lattermost, who hasn’t hurled themselves at the floor in an attempt to fly? Admit it!

Worlds which are not bounded by the laws of physics – but instead by the imagination – have always fascinated me, and continue to do so. Neil Gaiman’s works usually start off in the solid realm of Reality, but end up Somewhere between Reality and Fantasy. To craft infinite worlds between the permutation of 26 letters and an assortment of punctuation is truly a skill to be admired and feared. Neil Gaiman’s “The Graveyard Book” details the story of a boy who is adopted by the “occupants” of a graveyard, a homage to The Jungle Book, a tale of a boy adopted by the animals in a jungle. I picked it up, and two hours passed hence. When I put it down at its conclusion, it was like leaving my best friend behind as I left on a jet plane. And though I might return and visit, and reminisce about love lost and gained, it would never be the same.

but,

carthage . black war . dungan revolt . vendée . herero . namaqua . irish famine . circassian . assyrian . armenian . holocaust . guatemala . rwanda . sadaam . burundi .

but, my God is mighty to save.

procrastination

i have things to do, places to be.

girls to choose, lovers to please.

mistakes to rue, days to seize.

and miles to go before i sle..

…….

..

.

zzz

ok, maybe not.

i wake up to a world of contradictions, belligerence and gluttonous excess. “hello”, says the boobtube, cheery and impatient – ever willing to dispense with the irascible and the serene, the bold and the beautiful. “we want to help”, say the altruistic advertisements, utterly sincere – and minding their puns and quips. i turn to the solace of strait news, but alas, it is hardly straight. Pandemosdbf fdskfhfvxc dfpweirwurb dfsdjfhbx cvbcv dfhdfweriu sdfksjhd xcbvd fsdfksjh werwe sdhfskjdfh iudf sdfsdfkj ksdfsdfnb mnxbcvxcv sdfsdfkp wqpwer wieruwer yrtertoisdf jsdfsdfh nxcv hjsdfhsdfkj nxcvb skdfjsdf;q iewruweri sdfdkj hjsdf kjsh dfdf sdfd dfsfd nb sdfsdfkjh mn sdfkjsdfh weriu iuwerj sdhfjsdf cnb and then i find, in my mindlessness – that I love big brother.

the imaginarium of doctor parnassus

While browsing through Neil Gaiman’s online journal, I chanced upon a link to a teaser for The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus and was promptly blown away. It evoked the same sentiment of wonder that Mirrormask did, and is directed by Terry Gilliam, a director so infused with child-like enthusiasm that you just can’t wait to see it!

From Wikipedia:
The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus is an upcoming fantasy-adventure mystery film directed by Terry Gilliam and written by Gilliam and Charles McKeown. In the film, the leader of a traveling theater troupe, through a deal with the Devil, takes audience members through a magical mirror to explore their imaginations. Christopher Plummer, Tom Waits and Heath Ledger star in the film, though the death of Ledger midway through filming caused production to be temporarily suspended. Ledger’s role was recast with Johnny Depp, Jude Law, and Colin Farrell portraying physically changed transformations of Ledger’s character as he travels through dimensions. The projected release date for this film is 2009.

You can watch the trailer for The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jRYXNk-qZAs