04.30.03 Man, I have some weird twitch just above my left knee that's been bothering me since yesterday. And by "bothering" I mean, "bothering the hell out of!!" Anybody have any tips for getting rid of weird twitches?
So with Mother's Day coming up, I should point out a bit of timely news that requests your action (or in-action, as it were). I try to surround myself with people of good taste, so most of you are at least aware of, if not addicted to, the fine web comic, Penny Arcade which comments largely on the world of video games.
Recently, they produced a comic that poked fun at a particular gamemaker and it's propensity to take well known literary works and tweak them into video games that portray those works in a gothic and disturbing (was that redundant?) manner. As you can see here, it did so by referencing Strawberry Shortcake in a hilarious and.... well, sexy manner. (Lord, I never thought the day would come that I be using the words 'Strawberry Shortcake' and 'sexy' in the same sentence.)
Anyway, American Greetings, which owns the rights to Strawberry Shortcake apparently has neither a sense of humor nor an understanding of copyright and trademark fair use rights and has forced PA to take the comic down while they(Penny Arcade) consider their legal options.
Since this is what I'm told in the web comic industry (and indeed the, 'being an American Citizen" industry) is what is referred to as, "straight-up bullshit" there's a movement to boycott American Greetings products for this coming Mother's Day and I heartily encourage you to check out the situation and follow suit. Apparently they would get the source of the message since both their online comment form and their legal council's email had both been slashdotted to hell and back from both PA and Slashdot readers soon after the news started to spread. I think they're getting a good idea of how many people they've pissed off by now.
I've taken an interest partly because I feel indebted to PA for making a funny comic that I get to read three times a week for free, and also because my good friend Bob is their Corporate Development guy (read: Ruthless Task-Master), so if you participated in not buying any American Greetings stuff for Mommy's Day, you would be vicariously helping me by vicariously helping my friend.
Besides, what kind of mother doesn't prefer a hand-made card from her own child, right?
While I'm on the subject of web comics, you'll notice that there's a new web badge up on the left (well for most people anyway, I'm going to be fixing the layout problem this week, so if you can't see it yet, you will) for White Ninja, which is an online comic that I recently came across and have totally fallen in love with. I'm not really sure how to describe it or really that it should be described. (Cue the paragraph that attempts to describe it.)
It's 100% non-sequitur humor, but in a way that's really funny. At the same time, it's occasinally really dark and disturbing... but still funny. It's like it's written by a fifth-grader in the way it's able to wed innocence and cruelty in a way that is totally childlike. You know how little kids can fall off a jungle gym, bust their head open and their friends will just crack up laughing? White Ninja reminds me how to laugh at that kind of humor... as if I ever forgot.
It's absolutely hilarious and in all honesty, you should have stopped reading this and clicked on it by now to see what I'm talking about. I think my personal favorites to date are White Ninja and the magic lamp, White Ninja waits for the bus and White Ninja and the fridge of blood.
You've been advised.
Previous Entries
Review Fukuma Hair Flap at Japanreference.com
| So, I chilled out in Kumamoto over the four-day weekend, thus my late web appearance this week. Actually it was only a three day weekend, but in honor of this weekend's X-Men 2 release, I used my mutant powers of nenkyuu (paid leave) to make it a four-day weekend instead. What can I say, I'm a God damn hero.
