Month: June 2010

Cease and Desist

Recently, Snork emailed me a .jpg image of the infamous Unicorn Meat (as shown below left). Here is the full advertisement from Think Geek:

The Unicorn Meat advert went semi-viral after it was posted on April Fools’ Day this year. But there’s an update to the innocent prank.

I’d never heard of the National Pork Board, but apparently they sniffed out a clear case of trademark infringement. On 5 May 2010, the international law firm of Faegre & Benson faxed the owners of the Think Geek website a 12-page letter, excerpted below.

“This law firm represents National Pork Board in connection with its intellectual property rights.

We are writing to you in connection with your activities at the website http://www.thinkgeek.com, wherein you have been marketing a product called “Radiant Farms Canned Unicorn Meat” using the slogan “Unicorn- the new white meat.”

See, NPB owns the trademark “The Other White Meat” in the U.S., Canada, and the European Union. Unfortunately their lawyers didn’t realize that Trademark Infringement does not extend to parodies, and that unicorns don’t really exist. [Full story here, via here, and crossposted here.]

Hot Links of the Sarcophilus harrisii

Jack Harrison, the last survivor who participated in The Great Escape of WWII passed away on 4 June 2010. There’s an interesting interactive illustration of one of the tunnels here. [h/t to Wheels.]

Albino Raccoons.

Who is the Horseboy?

Disgusting prank is disgusting.

Awesome invention by a Ham radio afficionado that fights cancer.

Cadillacs and Album Covers here.  Two more here.

Google is getting so full of information it occasionally collapses under its own weight.

Need a chemical suit? Lookee here.

Live webcam in Amsterdam with sound here.

Speaking of sound, the Zambelli Family is awesome.

Amazing staring contest back stage at the Webby Awards. [via The Presurfer.]

What’s your American dialect? Here’s one test and here’s another.

The Sci-Fi Airshow has an online guided tour. I’m going next week. [via]

Saturday Matinee – The Clarks, Dan Akroyd, Eubie Blake, Tandy & Randy Newman

The Clarks! Tip o’ the Tarboosh to coldwarrior.

Dan Akroyd plays James Cotton‘s version of Ike Turner‘s Rocket 88.

Eubie Blake was awesome. He was 95 in 1978 when this interview was recorded.

During the break there’s  an advertisement for the troublesome RadioShack TRS-80 computer system, using magenetic tape cassettes for data storage. Only cost $599! That’s about $2,000 in today’s dollars. Later on, after users complained about problems with the cassette drives, Tandy eventually offered an awesome 5MB hard drive accessory, about the same size as a PC today, for $1,500 – a whopping $4,900 today.

Okay, 1978 was probably the peak of the (gag) disco phase, and the birth of R&B pop love anthems. There is absolutely nothing that ranked in the top 20 that I’d post here, except for maybe for the Stone’s “Miss You.” Worst song they ever did IMO.

On the other hand, this song made No. 41, and Randy Newman gets kudos for writing the most misunderstood song of the year:

Have a great weekend, folks, and meet me back here tomorrow.

The .Gif Friday Post No.133 – Needlepoint Dog is Awesome

Front view animation.

Spiderdog, spiderdog, does whatever a spiderdog does…

Fourteen different needle point designs went into these animations, and there are many more awesome works at the links below.

[Found here and here.]

[Corrected image count]

She’s upset because you won’t hug him, you selfish bastard.

C’mon now. Her beetle needs loving, and you just don’t care, do you?

G’wan, hug it. Its name is “Sirpaul.”

[Found in here.]