you sick liiitle monkeeeey!

.. don’t fix it. Today, I passed by a Duane Reade and noticed their logo had changed completely. To something really ugly. What was wrong with their old red and blue logo? This new one is very anemic and doesn’t stand out at all. It’s white on grey or grey on white. I forget which.

An About.com guide says it looks like Radio Shack’s logo and I agree.

The 3 readers of my blog may remember the first stupid sign I posted.

This one is for a new internet cafe/phone card vendor/next failed business opening up in my neighborhood. This used to be a short-lived, terribly-named flower shop called Your Florist, now turned into the next doomed business venture. This shop may be yet another front (there are a few of them in my neighborhood. I don’t think this store even has a name.

This is just a guess, but I think the people running this ain’t too bright.

In this age of cheap and easily available residential broadband access, I don’t see much profitability in an internet cafe.

In Japan, it’s another story. Internet cafes there have self-serve drink machines, with soda, coffee, and even corn soup. All of them have loads of manga and you can go there and rent a little booth to relax in. Some have TV’s, PlayStation, and even a couch. One nice one in Ikebukuro (Tokyo) even has a shower. I forget the price, but staying there overnight is something like $30! Beats getting a motel.

Pioneer’s new plasma TV line is called “Kuro”, which means “black” in Japanese. Deep, true black has traditionally been a problem for LCD’s and plasmas. Unfortunately, “kuro” sounds exactly like “culo”, which is Spanish for “ass”.

Culo!

It has been at least 3 years since I’ve borrowed anything from the library. With funding being cut endlessly by the federal government, they don’t get many new books, especially when it comes to fast-changing industries like the IT sector. The library has made some technology upgrades however, that are encouraging, including public access to the internet, and open wireless.

I’m typing from my local branch. I gulped down my coffee before coming in, only to see a Snapple machine right in the front of the reading section. And lots of noisy kids. So much for no drinking and being quiet in the library.

“A teenage schoolboy was pulled around his classroom on a lead and spanked by a stripper after a birthday surprise blunder.”

Awesome!

Wow! I don’t know how South Park keeps getting away with stuff like this! :) Their ’sodes are already controversial and offensive enough (if you’re the victim of their jokes, that is), but this one goes for broke with potential copyright lawsuits. There are just so many characters in these episodes that I’m amazed they don’t get sued 50x over. Making their appearance are:

Care Bears
Totoro from Hayao Miyazaki’s anime
Ronald McDonald, also in a Saving Private Ryan parody
beasts from Maurice Sendak’s “Where the Wild Things Are” books
Optimus Prime from the Transformers
Aslan from Chronicles of Narnia
Frankenstein
Flash Gordon
Freddy Krueger from Nightmare on Elm Street
Jason Vorhees from Friday the Thirteenth
Orko from He-Man, Master of the Universe
the Alien from Aliens
Q-bert from the 80’s video game
Snarf from Thundercats
Headless Horseman from Sleepy Hallow
the Predator from Predator
Luke Skywalker, Darth Maul, Stormtroopers from Star Wars
Pinhead from Hellraiser
Goro from Mortal Kombat
orcs possibly from Warcraft
Sagat and Akuma from Street Fighter
Dr. Fu Manchu (I think)
Mario and Wario (except their hats say E and V)
The Joker from Batman
Strawberry Shortcake
characters from Tron
Green Goblin from Spiderman series
Morpheus from the Matrix
Wonder Woman
Popeye
assorted Greek and Roman mythological creatures and deities, including Zeus, the Minotaur, Medusa, Cyclops
Jesus

There’s just so many in here! It’ll take hours of freeze frame fun to sort them all out. Some are really obscure.

.. or IV or V. I lost count. But anyway..

I forgot I had this on my old dead Fujitsu laptop. I made it shortly before coming back to NY to use as the graphic for a group I created on Hi5.. yet another social networking site. For some reason, a lot of Japanese people are on it, even some of my former h.s. students, but none of my friends have heard of it here in the US. Hi5 is pretty much a has-been (if it ever was anything else). It’s not popular, it’s not fun to use, and it’s not pretty.

That’s supposed to be a super genki Japanese guy with an Afro, a reference to the trendiness of hiphop music and fashion in Japan. There’s a famous cartoon character named Afro Ken (”ken” means dog) that sports a rainbow Afro. That thing in his head is an Afro pick/fork.

I don’t know if I kept the PSD for this. The effects seem pretty cool and I don’t remember how I originally made them.

These are some fugazi batteries my dad bought. Can you guess which one is the real brand?

“Super Extra”… super extra what?

The real batteries are quite hefty and heavy to the touch. The fake ones feel hollow inside. Chinatowns and grey markets all over the developing world are full of stuff like this, where dodgy manufacturers try to trick people who can’t read speak English by blatantly copying the packaging of the original product. Some people like my dad, I think, knowingly buy these knockoffs, because there’s no way in the world the real item costs so little. The pack of 16 AAA batteries above costs $1.59.. a deal if I ever saw one!

I’ve seen:

• SQNY batteries
• a Homda motorcycle
• a PolyStation (which is an 8-bit Nintendo disguised as a PlayStation)
• the Nintendo Vii
• now a Mini PolyStation 2

…and even a fake Qoo softdrink. Man.. that just looks so crap and freakishly retarded, like Dr Mephisto’s little monkey guy Kevin on South Park. The real Qoo, which came with my real bottle of Qoo is pictured below, attached to a Kingston 1GB USB drive. This guy has more niseimono on his blog (Japanese only). Stuff like Caca-Cala, which doesn’t sound very appetizing at all!

The real Qoo… all smudged up from being carried in my pocket.

..and lastly here something I’ve been meaning to photograph for a long time. I have no idea where it came from. I think it’s been in my house since I was a child.

Here’s me holding a “Chiaopi The Dog” bookend.

I wish these counterfeiters continued longevity if only to serve as a source of comedy.

While we were out on Friday, my friend Monica saw one of these newly decorated flower cabs rolling down the street and said she hated them. She thought they were just ugly. I do too. This is the work of an art project called Garden in Transit. For months and months, I passed by their studio on 32nd Street on the way to work, peering in to see groups of school kids painting flowers on the floor.

It’s for a good cause (kids with disabilities). I’m not knocking that. But does it have to be all flowers and ugly? They should just be able express themselves and draw some unique art, instead of following templates of daisies and such. All the taxis look the same.

photo hotlinked from International Herald Tribune

Beijing is trying to whip its public image into shape in time for the 2008 Olympics, instituting public education campaigns and fines to curb spitting, cursing and other uncouth behavior that is likely to cause embarrassment. The Chinese government is even trying to correct some of the horrible English that appears on billboards, like the one above… although I would enjoy some pleasanty surprise of groping.