0005 Matinee Soup 'Throw'

0005 Matinee Soup 'Throw', originally uploaded by royblumenthal.

Matinee Soup (Set)

An open letter to my friends (and others) exhorting them to buy my buttons! Now!

Dear [INSERT NAME HERE]...

You are truly, deeply, authentically, one of my best friends ever!

[INSERT NAME HERE] -- I would NEVER think of spamming you!

Having said that, [INSERT NAME HERE], you KNOW how much I love you! (With condoms, of course!) And for THAT reason, I'm just INFORMING you that IF YOU TAKE ACTION NOW, you'll be able to BUY MY BADGES at the ridiculously low price of $3 per badge!!!

Some of them are offensive! And some are kinda okay. Depending on who you are, some will be more offensive than others.

And they're going to be getting MORE outrageous. Cos I'm designing more all the time.

I CAN promise you that I'm aiming at getting onto the hitlists of:

• The Central Intelligence Agency
• The National Rifle Association
• The American Veterans for the Eradication of Leftie Button Designers

In fact, if my buttons are bland, boring, or non-offensive to a democratic majority of people visiting the button shop... well, [INSERT NAME HERE], I will volunteer to suck George W. Bush's testicles, and then sell the resulting stained dress on eBay, and donate the proceeds to the Organisation for the Torture, Humiliation and Other Mild Discomfort of Iraqi Prisoners on American Soil.

So, to that end, I'm going to be blogging my rough designs and asking people like you, [INSERT NAME HERE], to comment on them.

I WANT to know if they're even slightly offensive.

I'd like them to be MORE than that.

But slightly offensive is better than nothing. So leave comments. TELL me which ones 'move' you.

So please add my blog to your RSS feeder so that my new button ideas reach you even in your sleep. Cos that's where they're reaching ME.

The examples here are two of my new ideas for offensive button that'll make it to the shop. They're not designed yet. They're just rough scamps.

That's enough for now, [INSERT NAME HERE].

And remember, I love you!

Like a [BROTHER/SISTER]!

In Alabama.

Behind the trailer.

Blue skies
love
Roy

PS: The button shop is at http://snipurl.com/buttonshop

PPS: Buy my buttons now, you stinking miser!

PPS: Thanks to Shawn Kopel for declaring something like that 'Jesus' line to those two Jehova's witnesses back in 1990. You rock, boy! And thanks to ArtRage for being such an awesome piece of painting software. I'm using it for pretty much all my work.

Outrageous, lewd, rude, liberated badges designed by Roy Blumenthal -- on sale now!

Ah! I'm an excited fellow! That's because my shopfront on the Prickie.com website is now alive and kicking.

When I saw the site, I knew that I was basically a goner. Ideas immediately started flooding into my brain. And thanks to the fact that I have a tablet pc and ArtRage, I'm able to paint up my thoughts. And in fact, every single one of these badges is painted up by hand. I'm a lettering fiend, so all of the typography is painted too.

Just in case you're American and confused, the DESIGNS are hand-painted. The BADGES themselves, the things you purchase, are printed. So just put your lawyer's speeddial number AWAY and go and sodomise an Iraqi prisoner. Thank you. Right. Back to my sales schpiel.

And as a buddy of mine said when I showed him the designs, 'Roy, you have a VERY busy mind. And it's VERY dark in there.' I don't know WHAT he could have meant. Do you know?

If it's not clear to you by now, or if this is the first post of mine you've ever seen, you'll know that I'm a pretty perverted leftwinger. I'm also a commited feminist. One who plays BDSM-BDSM every now and again with willing participants. One who is exploring polyamory as a lifestyle of choice.

Which means it should come as no surprise to you that many of my badges will be overtly political, outrageous, even sick. (And possibly even totally inexplicable.)

You'll also notice the feminist badges. 'My other breast is also a Porsche' is basically meant to be worn on the breast by women who are sick of men not being able to meet their eyes cos they're glued to the cleavage.

My 'Condoms Make Me Horny' badge is a political response to the South African HIV/AIDS pandemic. We're in DEEP trouble.

Jacob 'Laduma' Zuma, who is campaigning to become our next president, and is LIKELY to get elected into that position, declared in court during his controversial rape trial that after he had sex with the woman he knew had HIV/AIDS, he took a shower, because that would prevent transmission of the disease.

See what I mean? We're fucked, aren't we?

It's not JUST a political response. Condoms actually DO make me horny. Hehehehe.

Five people so far, out of around 20 that I've shown the designs to, have chuckled at the 'I see your point duo'. The other 15 have looked bewildered, and moved onto the next designs.

The one that seems to be getting the biggest laugh is the 'Breast Porsche' one.

And for some reason, 'Button Pushers of the World Unite' one is getting belly laughs.

I'd love to know which of these (if any!) appeal to you. And which of them are outrageous to you. I do assure you that if none of these are offensive to you, that WILL change.

One of the pairs I've come up with, which I'm busy designing now, has ALREADY caused outrage in a few of the people I've shared the concept with.

They say, 'Roy, do you WANT the Americans to hate you? Do you WANT the CIA to kill you?'

For instance, there's a follow up to 'Hide Erect Nipples'. It's this: 'And Osama'.

See? It's not just Charles Bronson who had a death wish!

Some technical information for you.

• The badges are all printed and manufactured by Prickie.com.
• They're one-inch in diameter.
  
• And they're US$2.99.
  
• I get a whopping 25% of the purchase price.
  
• Which translates to the overwhelming sum of 75c.
  
• So make me wealthy!
  
• Purchase a badge!
  
• Maybe even purchase two of them!

I'm going to issue two warnings to you.

WARNING 1: When you go to the Prickie.com site, be prepared to stay there for at least two or three hours. There are hundreds of badges on there from artists around the world. There is some stuff that WILL blow your skirt back. And that's just MY designs!

WARNING 2: If you're an artist, all you need is a PayPal account and some designs to open a shop on Prickie.com. And I tell you this now so that you can't say, 'Roy, why didn't you WARN me?' -- IF, I say IF you start designing badges, you will be caught in the vice-like grip of insanity. The ideas DO NOT STOP! Have a notebook with you EVERYWHERE. Last night I woke up twice to scribble thoughts down. And they made me laugh. So I didn't get much sleep. Dammit.

Oh... one last thing... the folks at Prickie.com have made it really easy to buy badges in bulk. You'll notice funny icons on the checkout cart. They say things like, 'Free shipping' if you order a specified number of badges. And 'Double your order' when you hit another point.

So if you've got gift shopping to do, and you need to buy stuff for people who have everything (no, Mr Zuma... not YOU; we KNOW you don't have EVERYTHING, least of all HIV/AIDS, a brain, a social conscience, or a reigned-in, 'no-means-no' prick) -- this is pretty much the site to do that shopping.

Oh, a post-last thing... if you click any of these buttons, you'll go straight to the Prickie.com cart on my shopfront page. And you can spend spend spend! Thanks for reading. Now go and buy buttons. MY buttons!

2007-01-14 Chris and Vicky

2007-01-14 Chris and Vicky, originally uploaded by royblumenthal.

Chris came across my photostream some time ago, and asked me if I do commissions. At that point, I did them, but for free. So I said, 'Sure! Email me some source pics, and I'll see what I can do.'

So he emailed me some pics, and they weren't really what I required. And he said he'd mail me some more. And I said I'd look at his photostream, and somehow it turned into a stalemate.

Then I actually WENT to his photostream, and found several dazzling pics of Vicky. But not too many dazzling ones of him. And then I came across one showing them having a picnic.

It's a terrrrrrrible picture to work from, cos their faces and bodies are half-in, half-out of light. The trees are casting dappled shadows over them. So it's reallllly tough to get any sort of detail out of it.

So I used it as a basic placement reference, and used some of the other pics of them to estimate the details. I THINK I've captured Chris quite nicely. And I've got Vicky's basic facial structure. But I'm not entirely certain she'll be flattered by my depiction of her. (Vicky... I apologise in advance!!!)

Hold thumbs with me! Heheheheehe! Cos I'm sending this to them tonight.

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Over the Christmas holidays, and in particular, while I was sick with stomach flu, I pondered this whole issue of payment for my artworks.

As you possibly know, I'm a firm supporter of the Creative Commons movement. And almost all of my recent pics are online on my Flickr gallery at very high resolution. Big enough for them to be printed out on A2 paper with NO loss of sharpness.

So here's what I've come up with.

If anyone asks me to do them a portrait, I'll happily do so. I'll treat it as if it were a paying job. Which means I'll crack it within a week of 'being commissioned'. (I apologise for taking so long with this one, Chris and Vicky.)

What the person will get for free is the high resolution image. They can then make prints of it, put it on t-shirts, mugs, bedroom ceilings, whatever. That's their business.

And here's how I can possibly make a little income from doing the stuff I love...

I will happily make A2 prints on acid-free art paper, using archival quality inks, and sign the print. This will be part of a limited edition. I'm not certain how many prints I'll limit each edition to, but I'm thinking 50 prints on art paper, and that's the end of the edition.

The person who'll do my printing is Dennis da Silva at Silvertone Fine Art Photography Printing. HIs international artist clients include an acquaintance of mine, the extraordinary photographer, Roger Ballen.

I'm thinking of pricing my prints at around R1 500 per print plus shipping, in an edition limited to 50 art prints. That's approximately US$215, GB£110, EURO170.

How does that sound? Please leave comments, and let's start a conversation on this. I'd love to know if this sounds realistic to you. Or if it's complete lunacy. The market must speak to me!! Heheheheeh.

This painting was made in ArtRage 2.2 on my beloved Toshiba Tecra M4 tablet pc, over many days, in different coffee shops all over Johannesburg.

2007-01-13 Illustration Friday -- Eighties

When this Friday's topic for Illustration Friday arrived in my inbox, I knew EXACTLY what I wanted to do.

The topic is '80s'. (Note to Illustration Friday... there's no apostrophe in '80's'. The apostrophe indicates the possessive. Not the plural or collective. It's simply '80s'. See?)

My interpretation of this was to hunt for someone in their eighties, and paint that person.

So I did what any self-respecting supporter of the Creative Commons movement does...

I went to the web, and found pics that are released under the CC 'Attribution' license. I did this by using the beta version of the 'Flickr Photo Finder'.

I typed in my keyword, which was 'elderly' (click on this link to see the results). And found the pic of my dreams.

It's titled 'Christian Nursing Home', by sheilaz413. (That's top left in my composite pic.)

That's an old woman, an Altzheimer's sufferer. She's tied to her bed with a sheet so that the nurses can administer her medications. Wow.

Part of the beauty of the original photo is that Sheila has soft-focussed the woman's face. And if you squint, you can see her youthful beauty. This old woman was one unbelievable hottie in her day. And it's still there in her face.

I've made two versions of the pic...

There's a painted colour one (click on each of the pics to see the full-sized original), which for me is very atmospheric, and really captures something fierce in her face. And the crazy knot around her wrist! Sheesh.

I purposefully worked in purples and blues for the room and bedclothes, with a washed out brownish palette for her skin. I wanted to indicate the emotional coldness of the space. And the life-force still in the old woman.

And there's a line-art version, which is deeply unsettling for me. It looks like one of those 'Tails From the Crypt' illustrations. I'm kinda expecting the old woman to rip herself free from the bed and tear people apart.

I remember my dad's mom when she was in an old-age home. I was around 11 or 12 when she went in. And if I visited her four or five times, I'm probably bloating that number. The place stank of piss and rubber. Old people were playing rummy and farting. And my bobba was babbling in Yiddish, cos she couldn't speak English anymore. And my dad babbled back, but she didn't know who he was.

My lineart version brings that back to me quite vividly.

My usual style is to start my pics with strong lineart, proceeding to the colour beneath that. In this case, when I did the linework, it looked strong enough as a standalone. And when I started colouring, I realised that the colour work was quite haunting without the lines. So I simply used the lines as a kind of brush guide, and then switched that layer off entirely. Only at the very end of my colour work did I decide to actually take the linework further.

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Under the terms of Sheila's Creative Commons 'Attribution' license, I (and anyone else) may:

• Use the photo commercially and non-commercially.
  
• Copy it freely.
  
• Distribute it freely.
  
• Modify it freely.
  
• All as long as I give clear attribution to the originator of the pic, and insist that anyone else downloading the pic also makes that attribution.

In other words, if you like my versions of the pic, and you want to do something with them, you're going to need to attribute it to both me and Sheila. Something along the lines of:

'My pic is based on Roy Blumenthal's modification of Sheilaz413's original photo.'

Something like that.

All of my paintings are released under a Creative Commons 'Non-Commercial -- Attribution -- Share-Alike' license. Which means you can basically do whatever you like with my pics, as long as you don't make money off them, and as long as I'm attributed.

I made these paintings using ArtRage 2.2 on my Toshiba Tecra M4 tablet PC, while listening to Elvis Costello and Joseph Arthur.

Tags: illustration friday, illustration, altzheimer's, elderly, flickr, roy blumenthal, royblumenthal, blumenthal, art, creativity

0004 Matinee Soup 'Baby'

0004 Matinee Soup 'Baby', originally uploaded by royblumenthal.

It's now around 1am. I've JUST finished the finishing touches on this pic that I estimated would only take me ten minutes. Hehehehehehe.

A bit of ye olde perfectionsim kicking in? I dunno.

Regardless, here is the latest Matinee Soup, hot off the press.

(On another note... soon you'll be able to get an even deeper glimpse into the sordid busy-ness that happens in the subterranean chambers of my brain. I've been writing, designing, and painting a bunch of lapel badge designs. Some of them are outrageous. Some of them will possibly get me onto a CIA hitlist. Or worse... The American Rifle Association hitlist. Think of my badges as the 'T-Shirt Hell' of badges. That'll give you an idea of some of the stuff I'm cooking up. (Do NOT visit T-Shirt Hell if you are easy to offend. DO NOT. I've WARNED you. Repeatedly. Okay? DON'T DO IT! IT WILL OFFEND YOU!) And remember... It's not guns that kill people. It's NRA members. Yeah... that'll be a badge.)

This painting was made in Artrage 2.2, on my Toshiba Tecra M4 at La Concorde restaurant in Norwood, interrupted by a date with Gabrielle, joined later by her cousin Vanessa. All in all, a lovely evening.

2007-01-12 Roy by Gabrielle and Roy

2007-01-12 Roy by Gabrielle and Roy, originally uploaded by royblumenthal.

I'm sitting upstairs at La Concorde in Norwood. While I'm writing this piece, Gabrielle is reading WHAT'S THE MATTER WITH AMERICA? The Resistable Rise of the American Right by Thomas Frank.

I was about 10 minutes away from finishing today's episode of Matinee Soup when Gabrielle arrived for our date. And she was really keen to try her hand at making art on a tablet pc.

So I shifted out of the artist's seat, and became her model for an hour or so.

She worked a few layers above my cartoon strip.

The portrait is by both of us, only cos I dabbled a bit in creating some background colouring and highlights. The rest is all Gabrielle's. Apart from Matinee Soup, of course.

We made this painting using ArtRage 2.2 on my Toshiba Tecra M4 in La Concorde, where the service is... uh... discreet? (In other words, we have to go downstairs to find a waiter. But hey. Who's perfect?) The babe factor is a full five out of five stars on the Roy-O-Metre, thanks to Gabrielle's presence.

2007-01-07 Illustration Friday -- Buzz

2007-01-07 Illustration Friday -- Buzz, originally uploaded by royblumenthal.

Finished this painting late last night. Took me a good 10 or so hours of dedicated work in MUGG & BEAN, Cresta to make it. Got kicked out around 9:30, and worked into the small hours of the morning.

The Illustration Friday topic this week is 'buzz'. My contrarian brain immediately rejected 'bees', 'snoring', 'flies', and anything kinda tame and mild.

I started hunting through my little brain vault for thoughts. And found one. I thought.... 'Hmmm! How about painting a chainsaw warrior!!!?'

So... uh.... lacking a warrior to pose for me, I did the posing. In my lounge. Wearing a purple sarong. And holding a tube of roled up paper as my chainsaw-surrogate. Cos... uh... I don't own a chainsaw. In fact, I've never even SEEN a real one. I searched the web for a pic of one, and found a lovely model in some online catalogue.

And... uh.... lacking gigantic muscles and ultra long, flowing, warrior-locks, I kinda beefed myself up to some extent.

The only thing that I CAN say about this pic with any degree of certainty is that I'm truly capable of pulling EXTREMELY ugly faces. I can make small children burst out crying in terror. Although sometimes they burst out laughing.

This painting was made using ArtRage 2.2 on my trusty Toshiba Tecra M4 tablet pc in Mugg & Bean, Cresta.

Matinee Soup 'Wait'

Matinee Soup 'Wait', originally uploaded by royblumenthal.

As promised... the third of my Matinee Soup cartoon strip.

Now I've gotta scurry and paint a few more, so that I don't put myself under any performance pressure. Hehehehe.

Do leave comments!

You can see all of the Matinee Soup cartoons on my Flickr Gallery at: Matinee Soup (Set).

My other cartoons are also on Flickr: Cartoons (Set).

This painting was made in ArtRage 2.2 on my Toshiba Tecra M4 tablet pc. No sticks were harmed in the making of this cartoon.

Roy Blumenthal's 'Virtual Surf Report' rides the waves again with Jon Gericke on SAfm

Friday, 5 January 2007
If you've got the time, I've got the inclination!* World time clocks to keep you from second-guessing.

Photo: Claire

A bunch of tools to help you with your multinational time-management.

Firstly, there's the freeware/shareware application, Qlock. It sits on your desktop, and is hugely configurable. So you can see what time it is anywhere in the world. You can set alarms for any of those cities. And you can hide or show the clocks with a click of your mouse.

Next in the list is a site for people who don't have a need for a clock on their desktops 24/7. If you have an occasional need to check times, this is the place to go... WorldTimeServer.com. This site also offers you a free widget to add to your blog... you can pop an analog or digital clock to your site.

And if you want to customise a countdown, and see the time displayed as days, hours, or seconds, head for TimeAndDate.com. As of this very second, I'll turn 50 years old in exactly... 382 363 170 seconds! Send me a birthday present. You've got time!

*Said the Leaning Tower of Piza to the Big Ben.

Links:

• Qlock: http://www.qlock.com/
• World Time Server: http://www.worldtimeserver.com/
• Time and Date: http://www.timeanddate.com/
• Podcast of this final episode of this year's Virtual Surf Report: WorldClocks.mp3
  

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Thursday, 4 January 2007
The fine art of dusty car windows -- meet Scott Wade, dust artist extraordinaire

When I first came across the work of Scott Wade, I thought it was a prank. But a quick Google of his name yielded dozens of sites showing his work. He seems to be real!

He's an American artist who works in a particularly transitory medium... the dust on car windows.

He waits for dust to accumulate, and then hacks at it with paintbrushes and such to remove bits of dust to make masterpieces.

Links:

• Scott Wade's Home Page: http://www.dirtycarart.com/
• Scott Wade's Dirty Car Art Gallery: http://www.dirtycarart.com/gallery/
• Footage from K-EYE 42 of Scott at work on a 'dirty picture': http://keyetv.com/video/?id=8499@keye.dayport.com
  
• A Google search that shows how wide-spread the dirt: Google search terms: 'Scott Wade Dirty Car Art'
• A story about Scott on Autoblog, which has some really cool pics: http://www.autoblog.com -- scott-wade
• The podcast of this episode of the Virtual Surf Report: ScottWade Dirt.mp3
  

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Wednesday, 3 January 2007
Toddler-friendly videos online that'll 'blow your baby's mind'

Jeremiah McNichols has a brilliant blog called 'Z Recommends'. Z is his two-and-a-half year old daughter. And the blog is about the stuff that she likes and loves in the world.

In this case, Jeremiah found animations by unusual or forgotten artists, and showed them to Z. And ranked them. Each artist gets a detailed description on the blog, and you can watch the videos yourself to make sure they're good for your kid.

Thanks to the editors of Drawn!, a blog 'devoted to illustration, art, cartooning and drawing'.

Links:

• Z Recommends: http://zrecs.blogspot.com/
• The five stories in the series, 'Innovative Filmmakers Who Will Blow Your Toddler's Mind':
  
• Part 1: Yuriy Norshteyn
• Part 2: Jiri Trnka
• Part 3: Norman Mclaren
• Part 4: Art Clokey
• Part 5: various music videos
• Think In Pictures: Adventures in Visual Education: http://thinkingpictures.blogspot.com
  
• Drawn!: http://drawn.ca/
• Podcast of this episode of the Virtual Surf Report: Aaaaaaargh! It DID record. I SAW it recording. I made SURE it was recording. And then when I pressed 'stop', the file disappeared. Dammit. Sorry about that.
  

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Tuesday, 2 January 2007
Track your progress and boost your success on 'Joe's Goals'

The second day of 2007, and you've probably got some New Year's resolutions that you're still committed to. Here's a free online tool to help you do the things you want to do. Joe's Goals is a website that let's you define your positive and negative goals, and then track your progress. When you do something towards a goal, you click on the goal. And the online software keeps count.

There's also a Joe's Logbook option, which is really a goal-tracking tool for a particular project.

For me, one of the best things about the site is that you can set it up to email you a reminder if you haven't updated your goals for a while. It really helps you to be mindful.


Links:

• Joe's Goals: http://www.joesgoals.com/
  
• Joe's Logbook: http://www.joeslogbook.com/
  
• Joe's Blog: http://blog.joesgoals.com/
  
• Podcast of this SAfm insert: Joe'sGoals.mp3

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Monday, 1 January 2007
Resolved to get out of the rat race? Get some inspiration from 'Escape From Cubicle Nation'

Happy New Year! May it be filled with learning, loving, and laughing!

And if one of your resolutions is to remove yourself from a job you hate, and to get into the wonderful world of entrepreneurship, then Pamela Slim's 'Escape From Cubicle Nation' is the blog for you.

Crammed with resources, ideas, inspiration, and interviews with successful escapees, you'll certainly find it useful.

What's more, the comments threads form an amazing network of people all set on the same course. International networking for the new entrepreneur. An instant mentor network, if you like.

Links:

• Escape From Cubicle Nation, the blog: http://www.escapefromcubiclenation.com/get_a_life_blog/
• Escape From Cubicle Nation, the free podcast: http://escapefromcubiclenation.libsyn.com/
• Info about Pamela: http://www.escapefromcubiclenation.com/about.html
• My podcast of the SAfm broadcast: Aaaaargh! It didn't record. Or, if it did, the file evaporated. Sigh. I apologise.
  

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Friday, 29 December 2006
A free graphic novel online -- SHOOTING WAR -- my favourite read of 2006

Written by Anthony Lappé, drawn by Dan Goldman, SHOOTING WAR is a tangy, vicious, sexy, gritty, frighteningly-realistic depiction of a near future.

In this gripping graphic novel, the main character is a guy who, using the video camera on his phone, accidentally vid-blogs a bombing. He's then catapulted to fame by a tv network who gets hold of his footage. They make him an offer he can't refuse... to go to the Middle East and vid-blog the ongoing war there.

Beware... if you START reading this, you WILL spend several wonderful hours absorbed in the story!

Links:

• Shooting War: http://shootingwar.com/
• The First Chapter: http://shootingwar.com/chapters/chapter-1/
• Anthony Lappé's blog, 'The Bunker': http://anthony.gnn.tv/
• Dan Goldman's site: http://www.dangoldman.net/
• Podcast: ShootingWar.mp3

*Update: The original MP3 recording of the show was corrupted so badly that I was unable to open it. I did a search on the internet, and found a piece of freeware that completely solved the problem. It parsed through the corrupt file, removing the bad portions. What was left was about three-quarters of the material, so I just edited out the gaps, and worked it into a coherent podcast. The freeware is called JFileRecovery. Download it at: http://filerecovery.hostyourself.net/

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Thursday, 28 December 2006
Two views of a superpower... the left-wing 'Huffington Post', and the (obviously) right-wing 'Right Wing News'

In the interests of transparency, I have to state up-front that I'm a leftie. So I'm biased in favour of leftie things. That said, I'm also very much a 'devil's advocate'. I'm MUCH more interested in a balanced, well-argued opinion than I am in a one-sided opinion. So... to today's Virtual Surf Report.

We're looking at two news sources covering politics in America.

I'm a fan of The Huffington Post, a left-wing journal that takes an in-depth look at many of the issues facing Americans today. I find their opinion pieces to be very cleanly written, well-researched, witty, and clever. When I finish reading one of their articles, I come away from it with the feeling that I'm not being fed some kind of propaganda angle.

I'm NOT a fan of Right Wing News, which is an online journal dedicated to 'Conservative News and Views'. I'm n ot a fan because I really just wish they would ARGUE their points sanely and rationally. I don't really get any sense of balance from their articles. I'm left with a feeling that I've been smacked over the head with a hunting rifle. They sneer at the left, instead of answering their concerns. However, it's deeply important to get acquainted with 'the other side'. Their fears are real. Their concerns are real. Just because they don't argue them well doesn't mean they should be dismissed.

Two fascinating reads. Enjoy being caught in the middle! And make up your own mind.

(And for some help in being able to make up your own mind, you might want to read an article from one of my favourite books on thought hygiene. The book is called STRAIGHT AND CROOKED THINKING by Robert H Thouless. It appears to be out of print, but the article on the web is the core of it. It's titled 'Thirty-eight Dishonest Tricks Which Are Commonly Used in Argument, With the Methods of Overcoming Them'. A must-read.)

Links:

• The Huffington Post: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/
• Right Wing News: http://www.rightwingnews.com/
• 38 Dishonest Tricks: http://www.246.dk/38tricks.html
  
• Podcast: Right and Left Wing US Politics.mp3
  

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Wednesday, 27 December 2006
The quirky humour (and marketing savvy) of GapingVoid

Hugh MacLeod's GapingVoid blog is one of those must-reads. His quirky business card cartoons are a treat, and you can insert a widget onto your website to feed them to your own viewers.

Read Hugh's blog if you want to:

• Be more creative.
• Become a better marketer.
• Have wine and suits shoved down your throat via the eyeballs.
  
• Laugh.
• Groan.
• Nod your head in agreement.
• Change your mind.

Links:

• GapingVoid: http://www.gapingvoid.com/
• Hugh MacLeod's marketing manifesto, The Hughtrain: http://www.gapingvoid.com/Moveable_Type/archives/000823.html
• Hugh's inspiring manifesto on 'How To Be Creative': http://www.gapingvoid.com/Moveable_Type/archives/000932.html
• Get the cartoon widget for your site: http://www.gapingvoid.com/widget/
• Podcast: GapingVoid.mp3
  

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Tuesday, 26 December 2006
Print a better present for yourself with Flickr and Creative Commons

Someone gave you a present you don't really WANT? Replace it with something that works for you!

Enter Flickr, the photo sharing site, in collaboration with Creative Commons. You can browse through around 26 million photos that are licensed under one of the Creative Commons variations that allows any user to download the photo, take it to their favourite photo printing outlet (where you would take your digital pics to be printed), and make an art print to adorn your walls (or even a t-shirt, if you're adventurous).

Links:

• Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/
• Flickr's Creative Commons search section: http://www.flickr.com/creativecommons/
• My own Flickr gallery of digital artworks that you're welcome to download and print: http://www.flickr.com/photos/royblumenthal/
• Flickr photo finder: http://www.wynia.org/experiments/phpflickr/interesting.php?
  
• Podcast: Flickr_and_Creative_Commons.mp3

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Monday, 25 December 2006
Change This

This is a site dedicated to challenging the way ideas are created and spread. In their words: 'We're on a mission to spread important ideas and change minds.'

On the site, you'll find free, downloadable manifestos on a whole host of topics. Here's their definition of a manifesto: 'It's an argument, a reasoned, rational call to action, supported by logic and facts.' My definition of their manifestos is this: 'Interesting, fascinating, entertaining, thought-provoking knowledge-snapshots.'

One of my favourite manifestos of the moment is The Power of the Marginal by Paul Graham. You'll find all sorts of useful topics too.

Links:

• Change This -- http://www.changethis.com/
• Change This Newsletter -- http://blog.changethis.com/changethis_newsletter/
• 'Best of 2006' Change This manifestos -- Change This: Reflecting on 2006
• Change This Frequently Asked Questions -- http://www.changethis.com/content/faq

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Every Christmas, Jon Gericke runs a midday special for two weeks, focussing on holiday fun. And I'm one of his regulars.

Every weekday for the two weeks from today, Monday 25 December through to Friday 5 January, the show runs from 12 noon till 1pm. The show is on SAfm, which can be found in South Africa on 104 to 107 fm, or on the web via streaming audio at Safm / Streaming Audio (hosted by Ant Farm).

I'll generally be on during the closing minutes of the show, cos Jon figures that we've had a long enough radio relationship (around 5 years or so, if my brain is estimating correctly) for him to cut me off fairly abruptly if he runs out of time. And he's right. I have no hassle with it. And anyway, I structure my chat with him in such a way that the important stuff is in the beginning, with embellishments coming in at the end. So I'm ready to shut my mouth at any time.

In this post, I'll give links every day to the sites I talk about.

I'll also be podcasting as many of my slots as I can... I recorded today's, but due to an 'operator error', only the first few seconds actually recorded. (Yes... I was the 'operator'. No idea what happened. It recorded five minutes of program BEFORE my bit. Then when I came on, it got jinxed. Blah.)

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