On February 22, 2006, John Martz created a hilarious TTC (Toronto Transit Commission) Subway Map with each station’s name as an anagram. The map, inspired by a similar anagram map of London’s Tube, was an instant hit among Toronto’s online community. Within a few days though, a TTC lawyer sent a cease and desist letter to John citing intellectual property laws and threatening legal action if he didn’t pull it from his website.
In the years that have followed, I’ve noticed this thing popping up all over the place (including the original author’s site). It looks as though the TTC has cooled its jets (literally and figuratively), and it also looks like the original London anagram-map has inspired many others…
Hasbro is selling a one-hundred dollar limited edition Cloverfield monster that apparently isn’t suitable for children under three. My son will just have to play with the solid gold bust of Spiderman until he gets older. You can read all the details at HasbroToyShop.com.
Cloverfield Monster Features:
* 70 points of articulation and incredible life-like detail
* Authentic sound
* 14” tall
* 10 parasites
* Two interchangeable heads
* Statue of Liberty head accessory
* Special Cloverfield collector’s edition packaging
The Cloverfield monster is available exclusively through HasbroToyShop.com. Reserve your Cloverfield monster today to have the opportunity to receive it when it ships later this year. Limited quantities are available. Includes 3 “AAA”Batteries.
Bill Gates capitalizes on the ongoing writer’s strike by employing the best script writers to actually make himself appear cool. For a few minutes, in a short movie about his Last Day at Microsoft, the ‘Chairman’ is seen at his self-depreciating best. The premiere at CES 2008 features cameos by the likes of Matthew McConaughey, Bono, Hillary Clinton, Guitar Hero, Barack Obama, Steve Balmer, Al Gore, Steven Spielberg, George Clooney, Jon Stewart, and Jay-Z. Gates is typically self-conscious at the end of the short when he states, “I really don’t think it’s an accurate representation of what’s likely to happen [on my last day] but it was fun to put together.” That’s just in case we think the movie is real, right Bill?
Looking for a piece of art for your home, office or car? Simple! Select the colour you’d like. How much you’d prefer to spend. The dimensions of the space you have. And Ta Dah! Boundless will spit out a list of objet d’art that match your green curtains or lilac bed sheets.
It sounds like a good thing right? It gives minor artists exposure to a public that prefers to be told what to like. You can get a painting that matches your curtain pattern. It’s as easy and painless as only Web 2.0 can be.
Then why do I find this service quite horrible? Perhaps it’s too many years of liking art.
Inspired by Dick Bruna’s Miffy, The Politically Incorrect Alphabet was supposed to just be a cute little one-off creative joke created by one Mark Jones to taunt his wife (who just happens to be a kindergarten teacher). Of course, ‘project creep’ sunk in and the effort snowballed.
As an online alphabetic flash-card set, it’s equally offensive, cute, fun, inspiring, stupid, useless, awesome, and completely politically incorrect (hence the name, duh). Most of the illustrations were inspired by suggestions culled from the site’s various forums (one for each letter).
It doesn’t look like it’s been updated in about a year, but I guess that’s what happens to weird stuff like this on the web - sooner or later, anyone can discover and ‘explode’ it.
