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Ham-let

Brian Cox teaches an adorable child the soliloquy from Hamlet

It’s awesome time!

This clock is actually an LED screen looping a video of the designer manually redrawing the hands every minute and hour in real time for 12 hours.  The clock is part of a larger body of work by Maarten Baas called Real Time, which includes several really unique and amusing takes on time keeping.

You got servoed

A whole new world was revealed to me recently, the world of RC dancing robots.  Did you know there are people who not only spend time building robots, but also perfecting the ability to make them dance via remote controls? There are even robot dance competitions.  This is awesome on many levels.  For one, I now feel like I have a life, but also because I am sure there are many people out there who have gone too long without the means of living out their dreams of seeing a robot do the robot, and now those people can die happy.  I know I can.

Unless you like rejection…

Times are tough and people are looking for new ways to make money.  The more entrepreneurial of us are constantly trying to come up with million dollar ideas to pitch to venture capitalists in the hope they’ll get money to develop their idea, and if you’ve ever seen shows like Dragon’s Den in the UK and Canada (among others) or Shark Tank in the US, you’ll know that some people have some seriously bad ideas that they think are completely awesome and for which they fully expect a billion trillion dollars.  They call these people “lunatics,” but even at their worst, their foolish ideas aren’t as bad as some of the saner ones.  So I’ve decided to see how bad the ideas could get, and came up with my own list of horrible product or business ideas. Enjoy.

• 10. Used dog toys
• 9.  Hybrid speculum/cork extractor
• 8.  Home Dentistry Kit
• 7. 811–A number people can call to tell someone everything is going OK today.
• 6. Hypodermic needle recycling
• 5. Steel wool bath puffs
• 4. Tiger Balm Lube
• 3. Do-it-yourself Circumcision kit
• 2. Squid leash
• 1. Vinegar and baking soda douche

Suck it, backwater NY hicks

Dear parents and potential parents, or even people who don’t think they will ever be parents but might change their minds at some point in the future–naming your child is serious business. I mean it. So, please, do not express your sense of humor through your child’s name. Naming your child something funny only ensures that he or she will be the butt of the same joke for what will, to him, feel like an eternity. He may cope, and yes, the adversity could make him stronger, but it’s more probable that he will resent you, change his name, eventually disown you, and, after a lifetime of ridicule and humiliation, kill you in your sleep then burn down your home to hide his crime. If this happens, you have only yourselves to blame.

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Nooooo! YAAAAYYY!

The biggest emotional roller coaster you’ll ride all day comes in the form of the best possible outcome to a mother’s worst nightmare. CCTV footage captured an Australian woman standing on a train platform losing control of the baby carriage holding her 6 month old child.  She’s forced to watch in horror as the carriage falls onto the track and is almost instantly hit by a train.  I know, you’re thinking “OMG, LILY DON’T TELL ME THIS!” But guess what!  The baby is fine!  This afternoon awesome is brought to you by the defiance of all odds and the number 7!

“I’m at LEAST two”

Last night I was mindin’ muh business, perusing Facebook, when an update appeared from my friend Rev. Random. The Rev usually has something interesting, insightful, or hilarious to say, so my natural inclination was to click the link.  I did, and that’s when all reason left me and I was unable to function or form words for the next several minutes.   What she linked to was this: A story about a Louisiana Justice of the Peace who refused to marry an interracial couple. After reading the first few sentences I twitched, I spasmed, I twitched again and grunted, then finally I let out a stream of expletives that only stopped when my brain shut down in either self-defense, or what might be the first documented case of Tourette’s Overload.

Note: I know many of my friends are in interracial relationships, or as I like to call them, relationships, so you might want to tape your head before reading.

In the article, Justice of the Peace Keith Bardwell states, “he refused to issue a marriage license to an interracial couple out of concern for any children the couple might have. ” and that “it is his experience that most interracial marriages do not last long.”

That’s where I started twitching, but it wasn’t until after I tried to wrap my mind around his declaration that he wasn’t a racist that my brain broke. He said:

“I’m not a racist. I just don’t believe in mixing the races that way,” Bardwell told the Associated Press on Thursday. “I have piles and piles of black friends. They come to my home, I marry them, they use my bathroom. I treat them just like everyone else.”

Recipe for cerebral hemorrhage : 1 part confusion, 1 part slack jawed awe at the absurdity, 2 parts anger, stir.

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And speaking in tongues

Occasionally a product comes along that you know is destined for greatness. This, dear squeers, is one of those products. It’s not often we stamp our giant Thundersquee! Squeel! of approval on something. We are some picky bitches, but try as we might, we can see no downside–except maybe that it has a portmanteau for a name, but if we can forgive Lewis Carroll, we can forgive this product.  After all, what has Carroll done for us lately? So without further ado, we introduce to you the Sqweel Oral Sex Simulator (batteries are even included). I wonder if we can get a Thundersquee! branded version…

Remember when the M in MTV stood for music?  Yeah, we do too. Fuck MTV for taking that away from us.  We still love music videos as an art form, and wish MTV would come to its senses (or at least have the decency to change its name).  However, it’s doubtful they’ll return to the music video driven format any time soon, so we will attempt to help keep the concept alive. To that end, here’s a list of the 50 best music videos ever.

These choices have very little to do with the songs themselves; these are videos that either  made the medium better through innovation, or made the songs better by capturing something or adding another dimension to it or to the artist. We allowed ourselves only one video from each artist or group because certain artists tend to be more video oriented. That made it much more difficult, and keeping it to 50 nearly proved to be lethal, but we made it!

Here they are, in no particular order. We hope you have as much fun with them as we did. Let us know what you think. What would you add to the list to make it more definitive?

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The voice of a new misogyneration

By "tap" they mean "that ass." AMIRITE?

UPDATE ALERT: See the full article for the addendum.

Are you an awkward young male who is pathetically dependent on corporate driven pop culture for advice on how to achieve social success?  Then Pepsi has the iPhone app for you! In order to promote their AMP energy drink, Pepsi recently released an iPhone application called “AMP Up Before You Score.”  In essence, it’s an encapsulated version of the Jack Jericho character in The Pick-Up Artist (sans inevitable change of ways and subsequent emotional and moral redemption), replete with electronic bedpost notching capabilities and handy directions to the nearest bed–an electronic idiot’s guide to scumbaggery.

The gist of the functionality of the app is this: You “identify her stereotype” from a handy list, and the app returns a profile of that type.  The profile is basically a quick study guide to that type’s interests, along with links to more info and a list of lines that might work on her.

Yeah…

One has to assume Pepsi either doesn’t know women drink its products (doubtful), or lacks even a modicum of giving-a-shit-that-women-do (more probable), because there are so many offensive elements to this app that it’s difficult to know where to begin. In order to keep this diatribe from becoming a missive to be nailed on the doors of Pepsi HQ during the Great Soft Drink Reformation the cola corp is surely precipitating, here’s a quick rundown of the most repugnant facets:

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Although, let’s face it, it does most everything for you…even that

Handy tip in case your boss catches you playing Herd It.

Science has spent its entire existence making your life easier, and now science is asking for your help. Oh now, don’t give me that “I work 100+ hours a week while raising 42 children and don’t have  any brain power left to devote to anything else at the end of the day” look. Science wants to meet you at the door with a sweet smile, your pipe and slippers, and a glass of single malt, and it has gone to great lengths to ensure it’s fun. I’d even go so far as to say it is coyly batting its eyelashes at you, and how can you resist such wiles?

You see, some FoTs (Friends of Thundersquee!) at University of California at San Diego are doing research to make your life a little easier and they need your input. In loose scientific terms they’re “Collecting data to associate semantic concepts with acoustic properties of the music.  This data is used to train a machine to generalize the acoustic/semantic associations to new songs.” Which roughly translates to “They’re trying to make it easier for you to search for music you actually like, and they’ve created a game for you to play to aid their research.”  They’ve even used Cait’s bowmchickabowmbowm playlist as inspiration.  Here’s the skinny.  Did I just say “skinny?”

Herd It is a new game on Facebook that is all about music.  Music fans are connected in real time and form a “Herd.” You listen to great  tunes–we have pop, rock, blues, hip hop and electronic (more genres coming soon)–and quick minigames quiz you about what you hear in the music.  Score points when what you hear agrees with the rest of the Herd.

For example, will the songs from Thundersquee!’s bowmchickabowmbowm playlist put you and the Herd in a baby-making mood?  Think you can tell a tender tune from a melancholy melody? Play Herd It and find out!

So please, for the love of Squee! and science, play Herd It today, and maybe, just maybe, science won’t have to get all huffy and take back toilet paper.

[Cartoon image courtesy of Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal... because we're not thievy dooshes.  Except when we are.]

The most interesting movie mix all week

John Landis is turning Dr. Hot Who and Shaun of the Dead into grave robbers. David Tennant and Simon Pegg will now have more in common than one too many letters in their last names.  John Landis is set to direct them  in the starring roles of a dark period-comedy called “Burke and Hare.”

The movie is based on a true story about famous graverobbers, Burke And Hare, and follows the exploits of two men (Pegg as Burke, Tennant as Hare) as they fall into the highly profitable business of providing cadavers for the medical fraternity in 19th Century Edinburgh, which was the center of medical learning of the day, and was always short of bodies–bodies Burke and Hare often helped expedite into becoming cadavers.

Since reality dictates we have to be patient for some sort of clip or preview, here’s a Tennant fix after the jump to keep you edified.

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(Even if it’s belated.)

A certain Squee(Kat) kept her birth date a secret from us, but the jig is up, the news is out and we can’t let it go by without recognizing it.  So, happy belated birthday, SeaKat! You’ve added cleverness, wit and poignancy to the comments, lent your fellow squeers! and hags a whole lot of support, and often infused moments of insanity with intelligence and common sense.  So today, let us take down a census taker for the fine young SeaCannibals’ dinner while you relax and bask in our adoration.

Remember when the M in MTV stood for music? Yeah, me too. I still love music videos as an art form and wish MTV would come to its senses, or at least have the decency to change its name. However, I doubt they’ll return to the music video driven format any time soon, so I will attempt to help keep the concept alive. To that end, here’s my list of the 50 best music videos ever.

My choices have very little to do with the songs themselves; these are videos that I think made either the genre better through innovation or made the songs better by capturing something or adding another dimension to it or to the artist. I allowed myself only one video from each artist or group because certain artists tend to be more video oriented. That made it harder on me, hell, keeping it to 50 nearly killed me, but I managed to make it! Thanks to Lisa and Koudelka who made suggestions and allowed me to bounce ideas off them.

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Happy Birthday, lava!

Today is Squeer! lava’s something-something birthday.  She said she didn’t want a fuss, just money, but currently our pockets are overflowing with fuss, but contain very little cash.  So please join us in a rousing round of happy birthday, and break out your best breakfast wine to toast our dear lava.  I should also mention she accepts checks.

WTF!? Edition

Thanks to a tip from AdmittedlyAddicted, we bring you a pole dancing doll, because your daughter needs to learn to be sexually objectified at the earliest possible age. Hey! Great idea just in (my head).  You could buy her a Glutton baby too, and she could pretend like the flowers on the bra are pasties while she emulates a pole dancer on the playground jungle gym!

(Free self-esteem issue with every order. Ages 3 and Up, batteries not included, call today. Operators are standing by.)

Because even the proletariat (we mean Janet) have to be born Edition

We hags understand that celebrating in style requires more cash than most grad students have on hand, but we still want Janet to have the best birthday possible, because she is awesome.  Realizing that Gwyneth Paltrow is a veritable font of advice on economically minded elitism, we felt certain she’d have a few ideas to make Janet’s day of revelry more enjoyable. So we headed to the internet with only one question in mind: “What would Gwyneth do?”

After an exhausting 10 minutes of thoroughly studying The Way of Paltrow, we feel eminently qualified to dispense the birthday advice we are sure she would give Janet if she weren’t contemptuous of her relative poverty. So, here it is.  May it make your day a little brighter, Janet.

Gwynnie’s Guide to Living Large without Much Large

Fine Dining: Dining out at top ranked restaurants can be expensive, but killing and eating a top ranked chef is free. It’s like there’s a Michelin Star in every bite.

Note: This can get a little messy, so you might need to buy a box of those things the lady who cleans things uses to put things we don’t want in. Whatever they’re called…You know, the big, plastic bag type things the big truck takes away. Anyway, I don’t think they’re expensive because she buys them, and I pay her so I know how much she earns, and she doesn’t seem to steal from us, so how much can they actually cost?

Fine Arts: Obviously poor people can’t afford to go to the ballet, but I think they at least know about it, right? Do you know about the ballet?  If so, you could pretend you’re at the ballet, or pretend you’re a beautiful ballerina. SO thin…SO pretty…I do this all the time, and I’m not even poor!

Personal fulfillment: Whenever important people (anyone richer than you) are around, ignore the little people (anyone less rich than you), and make jokes at their expense. Social climbing is almost as fun as Kabbalah.

And finally I’d like to leave you with my personal philosophy: “Condescension is always free.”  May it carry you as far as it has carried me.

Happy birthday, Janet! All joking aside, may it be the best ever, or at least in the top 5.

Replied Fu Hu, eff you, too, foo’

Not actual exploding juice.

Chinese immigrant Fu Hu, who runs a drink bar in Auckland, New Zealand, sustained a serious eye injury when a bottle of Keri juice (a brand owned by Coca-Cola) exploded in his face. The 2.4L bottle of  juice had apparently fermented, even though it was within its use-by date, and exploded when he went to open it, leaving him visually impaired and with little hope of recovering his full vision. The accident also cost him about $5000 and the Accident Compensation Corporation had only covered part of the cost of treatment, he said.

Mr. Hu confronted the Coca-Cola Company about the problem, and while the drinks giant agreed that the juice was indeed fermented before its use-by date, they claimed they are in no way liable. As an apology, they offered Hu a case of Keri orange juice and $200 in coupons, because, like th rest of us, Coke knows that what someone who has been injured by your product wants is more of it.

In addition to their “not our fault” statement, the Coca-Cola Company also stated that this was not a public safety issue.  So let that be a lesson to you, juice drinkers, if you’re attacked by a rogue exploding, fermented bottle of juice, you have only yourself to blame.  The company who produced it and who is responsible for the product’s integrity is in no way responsible for the product’s integrity.  Got that?  No?  Shut up. Here’s some coupons.

Don’t feel bad, Fu Hu didn’t get either.  He’s considering legal action.

Author’s note: Here’s a bit of trivia for you. This entire story works as a giant in-joke for Jews on two levels. 1) The word keri literally means “contrary” in Hebrew, and 2) It figuratively means “seminal emission.”  I also feel the need to confess that I only read this story intially because a dude getting hit in eye with “Keri juice” made me giggle.

Another bit of trivia, Keri Russell is of Jewish heritage, opening up the possibility that her parents intentionally named her “Seminal emissions” Russell.  She should probably avoid Israel.

IYKWIMAITYD

(That was for you, baby fish mouth.)

Sometimes a girl (or guy) just needs a good old-fashioned vampire dicking, but until now they’ve been relatively difficult to come by (no pun intended), and most often involved a Twilight novel, an active imagination and a feeling of emptiness (every pun intended).  If only there were jiggly, silicone replicas of vampire phalluses available for purchase, these moments would be so much more fulfilling (or just filling). Alas, such things do not exist –until now!

Yes, that’s right, the wait for a Twilight dildo is over, and you can finally put a little sparkle in your, uh, love life. Tantus has added The Vamp to its product catalog. (WARNING: The link contains a product image and is not safe for work.) It’s sparkly with a “deathly pale flesh tone reminiscent of the new moon’s glow,” and guaranteed  to add more “reality” to your imaginary sex life.

A Robert Pattinson poster is not included, so here’s a Twilight video hack set to The Lonely Island’s Jizz in My Pants to help you get the party of one started.

Thanks person who passed along this link, but probably doesn’t want his name mentioned!