August 4, 2006

Kitchen Sink

I'm utterly swamped at work right now, which means by the time I get home, I'm too exhausted to think, much less continue working on the computer. So, the template tweaks are undone (I know the sidebar shows up way low on the page on the test url ... depending, that is, on which browser you're using.)

So, I've collected some fun links for you to amuse yourself. First of course, is the happy new t-shirt:

Next, Cap'n Platy from the Platypus Society wanted to know if my Red Monkey was moonlighting as the driver of a 4x4 ice racer ... I have to say it certainly looks like my Red Monkey, but he didn't tell me he was accepting an evening job ... hmmm ... I'll have to look at his contract again. Thanks for the heads-up, Cap'n!

Last, I ran a search for t-shirts the other day and found the t-shirts from hell. Seriously. Check them out. They are politically incorrect, offensive as ... well, offensive as hell, and most of them are downright funny as hell, too. An example of politically incorrect (and just downright wrong ... as a Texan I'm offended): Don't Mess With Texas ... it's not nice to pick on retards (See, I told you ... politically incorrect ... mean ... and yet, despite the fact that I HATE the word retard, I laughed when I saw it.)

Now, it's 5:20 a.m. here and I have to head in to work. I'll probably be there another 10 hours today. And if I don't get a crapload done today, I'll probably be back there Saturday and possibly Sunday as well. Oooo, it's the weekend! NOT.
*sigh*

oh yeah ... here's the link to Monkey Kickoff ... actually my best score was 4733, but I've lost that link now.
MONKEY KICKOFF

Posted by Red Monkey at 3:02 AM | Comments (1) | People Say I Have ADHD, But I Think - Hey Look, A Chicken | TrackBack | Stumble

August 1, 2006

WWJD

I heard someone the other day mention there should be separation of church and hate ... and well, those of you who are a bit touchy about religion might not like this so well, but it's what instantly came to my mind upon hearing those words.

Get your WWJD: Separate Church and Hate shirt now!

And a close up:

Hopefully I don't get too much hate mail for this one. :)

Posted by Red Monkey at 4:02 PM | Comments (10) | People Say I Have ADHD, But I Think - Hey Look, A Chicken | TrackBack | Stumble

June 30, 2006

Smaug's Hoarde

Okay, so several people commented that the picture of 14 monkeys constituted a collection. Maybe for most people that would ... but not for me. In general, I collect toys. Also, books. Within those two large collections, there are subsets. For example, I collect the pre-1990 Fisher Price Little People. The last time I attempted to catalog and count just the peoples, I had well over 400 of the little guys. I would guess right now that I'm in the 500-600 range just in the people. I think I now have every Fisher Price Little People base piece as well. That means the brown house, the yellow and blue house, the McDonald's, the Nifty Station Wagon, the castle, the Sesame Street buildings ... and the list is way longer. Most of those sets, I have all the little pieces for. A lot of this stuff I got at garage sales and thrift stores, but some of it I bought off eBay and Fisher Price swap meets. In fact, one year I got to go to Toy Fest in East Aurora, New York ... home of Fisher Price.

And, because I enjoy working with my hands and re-creating nifty things, I even did this to an old beat-up Fisher Price Little People village building:

(Click to go to the post about this building set)

This takes up an entire 12' bookcase ... and spills over a bit. My plan is to eventually have a nice little outbuilding where I can set up a Fisher Price Little People museum. The intent is to set up a town kind of along the lines of a model railroad set-up. I already have sections of this town kind of set up in my head ... and a plan for making the cars and such move around the town ... it'll be awesome if I can ever find the money and space to do it.

So to me, THAT'S a collection.

Then there's the Fisher Price Adventure People. I've got all but one set, there, I think. That's about a decade's worth of a toy line. Then there's Star Wars ... divided into Original Star Wars toys ... and New Star Wars toys. Then there's a smattering of Batman stuff ... mostly playsets so that in one of the rooms of my toy museum I can build this awesome freaking batcave that I have planned out in my head. And, of course, to populate that, I have nearly every figure from the Batman: The Animated Series lines.

As a subset of the Batman figures, I think I have just about every single modern Robin action figure that's been made. Even the really stupid re-paint versions. Hey, I'm a sucker for the little sidekick. In fact, there's a shot of the 8 Robin figures I have in my office here.

Then, there's a sub-set of action figures I collect as well ... kids. The girl from one of the Jurassic Park movies, the kid from Lost in Space, the Captain Planet kids, Space Academy, etc.

Umm, yeah ... I collect stuff. :)

Some people think I'm nuts or a "hoarder" for having all these toys. Eh, I prefer to think of it as fun. I enjoy getting new pieces, getting them fit into the collection, setting up dioramas ... and I really, really, really look forward to the day that I can actually set up my little toy museum.

But the monkeys a collection? Eh, not so much. At least, not for me.

But, something occurs to me now ... several people have commented on the toy posts I've made in the past. Would anyone be interested in my starting a toy category and perhaps posting one of my toys and its story once a week or something? Drop me a comment and let me know what you think.

Posted by Red Monkey at 4:28 AM | Comments (2) | People Say I Have ADHD, But I Think - Hey Look, A Chicken | TrackBack | Stumble

June 27, 2006

More Monkeys

Okay ... this should be the last time I bring up photos of the monkeys ... but after showing off pictures of my office, several people asked about the red monkeys and if I collect monkeys. The deal is that I do not actually, actively collect monkeys, but when I see one I like ... well ... this results:

The funky "convict" monkey in orange is actually one of the little dog's most favouritest toys (hence, no eyes). Stitch is here as an honourary monkey ... cuz he may be an alien, but we all know he's a crazy li'l monkey at heart. In the back are "the" 3 red monkeys. (Story of the red monkey here.) The littlest one is usually atop my monitor at work - I brought him home especially to take this monkey picture. The other large monkey is Davin Michael ... from the Build-A-Bear Workshop.

So that's the monkeys.

Oh yes, others have asked about the red monkey icon on the page. That's a vector graphic I drew in Adobe Illustrator which is based on the Fisher Price Little People monkey which came with the circus sets. There is no "real" red monkey which looks like that ... I simply blended my Ty Beanie Baby red monkey with the drawing of the Fisher Price monkey.

Oh ... and then I put it on a t-shirt at GoodStorm.

Next post: something of substance. :)

Posted by Red Monkey at 2:20 PM | Comments (9) | People Say I Have ADHD, But I Think - Hey Look, A Chicken | TrackBack | Stumble

June 21, 2006

Suffering From Delusions of Adequacy

Ahhhhhhhhh, the smell of parody in the morning ... is there anything better?

Ever since I was warped by Rocky and Bullwinkle, I've loved sarcasm, parody, dry humour and general smart-ass-ness. The concept of taking something familiar and re-thinking it ... generally in a really warped way ... was just utter brilliance to me. Naturally, when I discovered Monty Python, I thought I'd found the height of comedy (well, for some of the skits anyway).

Sure, it takes talent to create something new, whether it's a novel, a painting or a song. But it takes another kind of brilliant creativity to come up with really good parody.

When I was in high school, we had a poetry test every Friday, followed by a discussion of the previous week's poetry readings. I hated it with a passion. It just about ruined Fridays for me during senior year. I've never been one much for poetry and have been known to say on more than one occasion: "Poetry is like a bodily function. You don't mean for it to come out, it just does." (Sure, you can quote me ... just trackback or otherwise attribute it to me :) )

So, despite being in Honours English, my teacher wasn't overly impressed with me as I ran through the poetry and the tests as absolutely quickly as I possibly could in order to minimize the pain. And then, after two weeks of hurrying through the test quickly so I could then write a parody of the poem we were supposed to be analyzing and showing them to my friends, I finally said, "screw it," and started turning those parodies in along with my exam.

The teacher was frustrated and yet, still amused. What was funny to me, though, was that she seemed to assume that I couldn't analyze the poetry because I wrote parodies. I'm not sure why the two things were mutually exclusive, but there it was. When I did make a "brilliant" analysis of one poem (her word, not mine), she began discussing it in class after handing back the exams. It was hysterical to watch her flounder with the author of this "brilliant" analysis. First, she was sure that Kyungah, our valedictorian, was the author.

"Well, this person thought that 'Mr. Z' must be a reference to the fact that black people during this time period were considered last and lowest."

I almost laughed outloud. Let's see ... black ... poem about oppression ... this seemed like a no-brainer to me. Evidently this was not obvious to the rest of the class (I wish I remembered the name of the poem so I could look it up). The teacher quickly ran through the top brains of the class, but no one claimed the interpretation. As the teacher got more frustrated trying to remember, I finally said that this had been my idea. She looked pole-axed. Despite having a class FULL of smart-asses, she'd tagged me as a harmless, lazy and not-really-bright student. She'd pegged me as a B honours student with no new ideas. I didn't really care what she thought, actually, but I did find it interesting how she viewed parody and intelligence. After one particularly brilliant parody (my word this time), she told me after class that she'd started showing the parodies to some of her college professor friends who thought I was really talented. But, she hastened to add, I was not -- say it with me now, folks -- "living up to your full potential."

Because, of course, parody is essentially a waste. At least in the eyes of people like that instructor.

I'm not sure why parody and intelligence are not more closely linked to more people, but I was the kid with the parodies, not the kid with the brains. Ah well.

My life is brilliant, your life's a joke, you're just pathetic, you're always broke

While attempting to catch up on blog reading yesterday, I discovered Capn Platy's Depressing Link-o-Rama which included a reference to Weird Al's new free MP3 download. It's a parody of James Blunt's "You're Beautiful" ... a song that I love even though it really doesn't make much sense. Weird Al has done one of his most stellar jobs since "that Anakin guy" version of "American Pie."

You're suffering from delusions of adequacy

Check out Weird Al. You'll love the song. It's brilliant.

Posted by Red Monkey at 5:09 AM | Comments (4) | People Say I Have ADHD, But I Think - Hey Look, A Chicken | TrackBack | Stumble

June 19, 2006

The Airsoft Update

I still cannot get Darth Vader to fall over.

I am sad. I am depressed. I can shoot the two Pez dispensers from across the room and topple Grievous and the Death Star (sometimes with a single shot, if I get the angles just right). I can kill the little Storm Trooper, no problem. But no matter how many times I drill Airsoft BBs at Darth Vader, he stands resolute. I would say he's an immovable object, except that with each BB that strikes him, he moves further and further back, retreating beneath my onslaught.

But he never falls.

Yeah, umm, I had four hours of sleep last night.

I had intended to write something today about Juneteenth ... but with four hours of sleep, my brain cannot seem to rise above the obsession with shooting Darth Vader in just the right spot to knock him over. Maybe it was the fact that I read Betrayal last night when I couldn't sleep. (A Star Wars book ... really good if you like the concept of Star Wars. Good enough that I'm going to have to find some of the others by this same author.)

and then ... then ... THEN ...

I've been freaking tagged. :(

I normally do not do them because they are evil spawn of satan. But ... just to prove why I should not be tagged, I'll do this one.

five things in my fridge
milk (2%)
diet Vanilla Pepsi
sliced cheese
jalepenos
Goldschlager

five things in my closet
not me!
skateboard helmet
cowboy hat
stage sword
neon green sleeping bag

five things in my purse
my WHAT????

five things in my car
gas
transmission fluid
oil
brake fluid
air

five people to tag:
the sun
the moon
the stars
the trees
the internet at large

:)

Posted by Red Monkey at 9:46 AM | Comments (2) | People Say I Have ADHD, But I Think - Hey Look, A Chicken | TrackBack | Stumble