You hear that, Mr Andersen?

Birthday, GenPets, The Shat

Okay, my ever-longer absences from the blogodome suggest that I should try for shorter, pithier but more frequent updates. I shall see what I can do.

Let's see, what's happened recently? Well, I've acquired a few more weird and exotic alcohols -- walnut liqueur, cactus liqueur, and "Hot Pepper" vodka ("Hot Pepper" being some sort of Danish candy). I'm definitely going to have to rearrange my cabinet; I may have to do something radical, like exiling the brandies, sherries and cognacs (well, cognac, singular -- that stuff is expensive! :) elsewhere.

C and I have finally started to make a stab at Season 2 Veronica Mars, as well as getting into Eureka, and a bit of the first season of Justice League. Yeah, we're living the high life, all right. :)

Oh, and it was my birthday last Thursday -- so I'm pretty much completely 33. I got a number of nifty things; for example, I've been wanting a soda siphon for some time now, and C made it a lot easier to justify by paying for half. :) (What? A nifty squirter thing that can be added to any 48-Hour script for Instant Comedy, plus good for cocktails? The real question is, how did I resist for so long? :)

There were a number of other gifts, too -- one sister gave me some neat square mugs, the parents gave me floppy bakeware, one of my brothers & his wife gave me a wine-bottle cooler, and a flatmate got me some red, fierce-looking eggs. That's not "fierce" in the metrosexual sense... well, I guess they are that as well, but I meant to convey that they have angry faces on them. :)

But don't worry that I didn't invite you to my birthday -- apart from a family thing, I haven't had a party yet. Maybe someday, when I'm feeling organized. :)

* * *

I've told people about GenPets in person, but I thought it was worth pointing to them in my blog. There's some background about the project and artist, but in some ways it's a lot more interesting than the recent art exhibition, because it's so... well, plausible. This is the kind of thing that people who make glow-in-the-dark fish will eventually aim for -- pets being even more commodities than they are now.

And yet... and yet... if what people like is kittens, why not give them cats that never grow up? Toy dogs are presumably often fulfilling a desire for a perpetual puppy, so why not cater to that? Is it inherently more disturbing than bulldogs or pitbulls? If we don't forbid breeders to try and do something, should we forbid genetic engineers, especially if they can get there quicker and with fewer false paths?

(Genetic engineering of large animals doesn't bother me much, on a "danger to my health or the environment" level -- it's a lot easier to control who they breed with than with plants, and I doubt they'll magically be made poisonous, even if I accidentally eat one. But why do you want me to eat puppies, you fiend?! The morals of growing things purely to entertain me, on the other hand, is slightly more complicated... then again, I'm not going to condemn flower gardens, either.)

* * *

Speaking of clever:

Agency: TBWA\Hunt\Lascaris, Johannesburg in South Africa

Brief:
Discourage customers from buying pirated DVD's and encourage people to donate to the Anti-Piracy Foundation, the organisation committed to fighting the crime.

Solution:
Sell our own pirated DVD's and distribute them along the regular illegal channels. The campaign was launched with South Africa's most pirated DVD called Tsotsi. The only noticeable difference between our copy and an illegal copy was simple - our version stopped soon after the start of the movie and thanked them for their donation towards the efforts of anti-piracy.

Results:
Hundreds of people who support piracy have now donated thousands of Rands to fight it. The net profits raised from the sale of our DVD's will be used to further enforce anti-piracy laws in South Africa. By flooding the market with our copies, people have become hesitant to buy pirated discs as they might fall onto one of ours.

* * *

Okay, to round out this missive, how about some random links? Like, for example, the Flavor-Flav alarm clock -- so you'll always know what time it is, boyeee!

There's also the now obligatory links to YouTube... how did we ever live without it? Anyway, there's How It Should Have Ended's version of Superman; a cosplayer in a pretty impressive General Grievous outfit performs "You'll Have Time"; and in the pick of the bunch, the ever-luminous William Shatner gets a chance to croon to George Lucas.

There, that should keep you busy for a little while.

Posted by svend at October 5, 2006 8:26 PM