I Tip My Hat To Vanilla Ice
This may stun you, but I never liked Vanilla Ice’s music. That said, I got a real chuckle out of this bit he did for E!’s comedy show The Soup, where “reinvents” himself as a hipster indie rock musician. I suspect I’ll never be a fan of Vanilla Ice (even ironically), but I tip my hat to anyone who can poke fun at themselves. Check it out here.
Custom Avatars by Charles Dowd (CDowd)
To quote his website, Charles Dowd is “a Baltimore, MD based artist and illustrator specializing in the darker, surreal side of fantasy art. He is also the creator of the all ages graphic novel Lilith Dark, about a young girl with a wild imagination who discovers that evil beasties live in a tree in her backyard.”
He’s also offering custom-made avatars for use on various social media sites (Facebook, Twitter, Google+, etc.). A crisp $20 bill (delivered digitally, that is) gets you a custom avatar from a really fantastic artist / illustrator.
I suspect that Mr. Dowd will capture $20 from me somewhat soon. Here’s some of his work.
Charles Dowd's Avatar for Wil Wheaton
Charles Dowd's Avatar for Author Bracken MacLeod
PS … In addition to having the most Scottish name possible, Bracken MacLeod is a fellow beer geek, tattoo geek, and horror geek. Visit his Google+ page here. And like me, he is a dues paying member of the Baldy Bearded Guy Union (New England Local 154). We met at Camp NECon in 2011.
Just Because I Like Stirring the Pot …
I thought that this article was very interesting: Low IQ & Conservative Beliefs Linked to Prejudice. I suspect that William F. Buckley Jr. is the exception to this research (well … Buckley post late 1960s). This pull-quote sums up the article:
“As suspected, low intelligence in childhood corresponded with racism in adulthood. But the factor that explained the relationship between these two variables was political: When researchers included social conservatism in the analysis, those ideologies accounted for much of the link between brains and bias.”
Low IQ & Conservative Beliefs Linked to Prejudice
Blame Thomas Dolby for that Annoying Nokia Ringtone
You’ve heard it and cringed … Nokia’s default ringtone titled “Gran Vals.” It’s not a bad bit of music, but it is annoyingly ubiquitous. To whit … it’s installed on nearly 2 billion phones worldwide.
What a lot of folks don’t know is that technophile musician Thomas Dolby (yes, Mr. She Blinded Me with Science), did the polyphonic arrangement for that tone (but didn’t write the actual music). Actually, though Dolby is still making and producing music, he’s also been making a fair amount of side money creating ringtones. Fair enough. It’s better than playing 3rd rate nightclubs in Vegas.
Thomas Dolby
Yeah, I know. I’m a master at random bits of useless knowledge.
That’s it for this week.
Cheers,
John Harvey
