Well, he does... 01-01-04-Whether he's portraying the final boss in Matt Barney's Cremaster 3 or griping about how little people appreciate his humongous, inconvenient, and ugly art, it's the fine art world's worst-kept secret that Richard Serra is a total dick. This piece of temporary snow-graffiti on the Serra piece in front of the Carnegie Museum is probably the sole incident of a member of the public being engaged by a piece of Serra's public art. Click on the image for a bigger picture, with more of the sculpture visible. Old Weekly Photos And you thought Max's extreme fascination with his mother was the only Freudian overtone in Dark Cloud 2... 06-18-03-I got to a very pivotal point in the PS2 game Dark Cloud 2, when the characters were activating this big, important ancient monument, and all of this dramatic music and stuff was playing...then you see the fully formed monument. It's totally phizzallic, yo! This box must contain something not only physically fragile, but also emotionally delicate... 09-21-02- This box was found at Yum-Wok, a more reputable Chinese place that the aforementioned ChopSticks. For those of you who can't read small portions of low-resolution versions of photos, that gleaming red and yellow sign screams "EMERGENCY!" What an appropo spot. 09-13-02-This the the restroom of the laundry room of my building. And the glaring yellow rectangle isn't just a sign that screams EMERGENCY! at whoever plans to go to the bathroom, it's actually an EMERGENCY phone, so I guess if you have any toilet related EMERGENCIES, you can call campus police for help. Click on the photo for a bigger, more legible version. Delicious black fungus... You know, I think we had an outbreak of black fungus back home in Cleveland. It grew on people's basement walls, and when they inhaled it, they died, or got cancer, or something. 08-30-02- The other day myself and a few friends celebrated Satan's birthday at ChopSticks, a Chinese food establishment selected for the fact that it was the only Chinese place open. In addition to the various empty microwave boxes and real authentic sumi-e-style drawings, the ambience was truly set by a small speaker placed directly above my head that used an Atari 2600 sound chip to play such mystical oriental tunes as "Raindrops Keep Fallin' on my Head" and "Theme to Godfather." Along with the aforementioned evil fungus, the menu also featured a wide variety of foods such as Bong-Bong Chicken and Ocean-Flavored Chicken (and you thought amphibious stoner chickens were only a myth...). Look what I won from the fine folks at Adult Swim! A vanilla-scented life of guaranteed happiness! 08-16-02- Thanks for entering the First Ever Adult Swim Lifetime of Guaranteed Happiness Sweepstakes! Enclosed is the key to your happiness - a one of a kind Master Shake Air Freshener! Now you can enjoy the benefits of having a real detective in your life...including his aroma! By warding off your enemies and protecting you from evil, Master Shake will bring you a joyous life full of happiness forever. Enjoy the bliss and keep watching Aqua Teen Hunger Force...only in Adult Swim on Cartoon Network. Wow! No wonder the return address said this was from the Cartoon Network fulfillment center! Ah, a high-quality Spiderman costume, just like the one the real Spiderma- Wait a mo... Why in God's green trousers are the gloves sold seperately? 08-09-02-Okay, what are these guys trying to pull? They sell you the costume, but not the gloves... I'd say they're trying to squeeze every spiderpenny out of you, but a.)I already used that in the picture's clever alt tag, and b.)They could have just as easily included the gloves, and sold the whole thing for $56. It's not that big a difference in price. And as if this whole thing wasn't insane enough, it's not even the whole glove they're selling! Look! Look at the photo! Three-fourths of the effing gloves come with the body suit! They're selling you the last two quarter gloves seperately! DWA! DWA DWA DWA!!! nn d ; knbn;khilbihgselihnbbn;lintsl°nolnijbrtn lmnhjnn So, CMU's School of Industries used to teach courses in bricklaying... Suddenly it all makes sense.... 08-03-02-In the hallway to ol' Skibo in the CMU University Center, there are a number of photos illustrating CMU's illustrious history. One of these frames contains a series of photos captioned as containing "Students of the School of Industry," the center photo showing a bunch of guys in a class making chimneys. By itself, this image is a bit absurd, especially with regards to CMU's present techy atmosphere, but in light of othe recent events, it has a whole new meaning. She's got HUUUGE...tracts of...cuffs... 07-28-02-A small child (not a young child, mind you, this individual is about a year older than I, just unbelievably small...) at my school arrived at class with pant cuffs big enough to hide a moose one day. I mean...look at 'em! They're BIG cuffs! I guess he was born at some point...I was just fairly certain that happened a long time before months were, you know, invented... 07-20-02-Saw this on a wall. Evidently the Prince of Lies had a birthday. And someone on my campus saw fit to wish him a happy one. I guess that was nice of them. Actually, to tell the truth, this photo is a bit out of context, and may cause some confusion. This photo was actually taken on May 10th, which is really Satan's birthday, not July 20th. Sorry about any confusion. Wow! This kid's just as happy as anything now that he has his fantastic new Game Keeper 07-13-02-While enthusiastically perusing an 10-year old issue of Video Games and Computer Entertainment magazine, I came across this ad, and immediately wished I had this product. I mean, just look at the before and after pictures. Prior to acquiring the Game Keeper, this poor tyke had to simultaneously manage chewing on his favorite game, stuffing an NES connector cable into his right pocket, and attempting (valiantly, I might add) to play his game boy, despite the fact that he is holding all of its batteries tremulously in his hands. And after getting his Game Keeper, he is, as you can see, MUCH happier. Insofar as I can tell, only one thing can describe the child's expression in the second panel; the ad must simply neglect to mention the overt doses of Zoloft laced with crack the little grey box is injecting into his leg (yes, only Nintendo would have access to Zoloft almost a decade before it was developed...bastards...). Evidently, frats celebrate 'Mardi Gras' on a Wednesday. Hm. 07-08-02-Took this photo of some frat's ad psoter during rush week. The 'Mardi Gras' celebration is on a Wednesday, if you'll note. For those of you without the tiniest mite of French knowlege, Mardi Gras is Fat TUESDAY. Having it on a Wednesday is a bit suspect. No. A bit stupid. An average ordinary day in front of the CMU college of fine arts. Except that there's a MASONRY CONTEST going on on the front stoop... 06-29-02-A while back, I headed up to the ol' CFA to work on a project when what to my wandering eyes should appear, but a bunch of guys trying to lay brick faster than each other under big tents while onlookers cheered them on. I'm not sure why, but for some reason, a bunch of masons were having a competition in front of the art school. Rather surreal. In this photo, you can see that the contest is being held by the International Masonry Institute, which sounds like a really fake name for an institution who's true purpose is to confuse the poop out of students by having 'masonry contests' conspicuously taking place in front of their academic buildings... "Whack and unwrap", eh? Maybe that's an appropriate course of action when it's not a blistering 80-90°F... 06-21-02-I'm a big fan of the Chocolate orange, a candy only made better by the fact that almost noone else will try to take it from me and eat it, as it strikes people as 'utterly gross.' The traditional way of initiating consumption of said candy is to "Whack" it to seperate the segments, then "Unwrap" it to keep from eating the foil, as evidenced by the packaging of the special Easter novelty egg-shaped orange pictured above. However, they fail to mention the disastrous consequences of following these simple directions during a period of ungodly heat. The second photo above demonstrates those consequences. My quaint, segmented egg transmogrified into a fused, lumpy mass of orangey chocolate as soon as I made the mistake of "Whacking" ("Smooshing", really) it against my knee... Did I mention that I'm not a big fan of sunny, summery, hot, gross weather? Pirate's Booty...a rather silly name for mini rice cakes, wouldn't you say? 06-14-02-This bag of snacks was lying (untouched) on the floor of the studio during final projects week. It just seemed a rather silly name for a snack, particularly some bland, rice-based puffy thingummies. The silliness is only compounded by the mighty pirate's thought bubbles. He seems to enjoys repeating to himself in his mind such savagely piratical phrases as "Yo ho ho!", "Shiver me timbers!", "Crunchy!", and "Thar be good!" ("THAR BE GOOD!?"). Click on the photo to see the packaging in full, giant detail. This was the pillowcase my roomate this year had...he was not a 'her,' incidentally... 06-09-02-I saw this sitting on my roommate's bed fairly early in the year, and took a photo, as it struck me as kinda silly that said bed would contain a flowery 'hers' pillow, as, following convention, my roomate was of the same gender as I, namely, male. Yeah, it's lowbrow, but its still a kinda funny sign. 06-02-02-Hur a-hur hur dee hur hur... The sign says 'Butt,' get it? It's hilarious. I wonder how many calls they get for people asking for a good deal on a good butt, in a nice neighborhood, with vinyl siding. A newspaper ad, featuring some prices which are quite evidently NOT the prices of the items for sale. As for the actual prices... 05-25-02-Newspaper ad in a Sunday copy of my Cleveland Plain Dealer from a li'l while back. It struck me as funny that such an emphasis was placed in what arbitrary costs were NOT assigned to the sale items (as demonstrated by the big green Xes), but nowhere in the ad did it mention the real list price of any item. This store has great ambience, but such a limited selection... 05-18-02-I don't know who Mack is, but these guys are selling his 'stache. This was another neat shoppe I passed on my way to the serpent mound. Rural Ohio was full of oddly labeled places, most of which I unfortunately didn't have a camera ready for. I'd like to report one of those abandoned refrigerators that a little kid can crawl inside, get trapped inside, suffocate and die...It's in my kitchen. 05-11-02-I passed this thing every day this last semester on my way to 3-D Media Studio. It's just sitting there in the sub-basement of Doherty Hall, not even plugged into anything... Just waiting for me to crawl inside, pretending it's a toy time machine sold to me by Dan Ackroyd, and slowly suffocate. Shame... Of course, the perfect gift of the holiday season, Bananas... 05-03-02-Saw this when I was actively not drinking coffee in a coffee shop, and it pleased me. Probably because bananas please me, and the thought of a fancy-lookin' "Need a Gift? ...BANANAS!" sign prompting some soul to buy me a banana pleases me also. ...ready for what? Kinda vague, kinda creepy. It's an effing weird fortune. 04-26-02-Got this fortune the other day. Yup. Not so much a fortune as an anonymous, unexplained order. Just in case you needed reminding, which my floormates evidently do, the microwave is not for cooking metal... 04-19-02-This sign is on the microwave of my dormitory's communal kitchen. I go to Carnegie Mellon University, a school which evidently has superior engineering and technical schools. And yet the students here need big, garish reminders that they shouldn't be microwaving the flatware. Criminy. The Brew Thru: your one-stop DUI shop! 04-16-02-We went to see the Great Serpent Mound for my Concept Art class. This mandated a 5-hour bus trip into Ohio, my state of origin, and a state I evidently know too many factoids about, according to quizmaster professor Lance Winn. In any case, our lunch stop was made right by this fine establishment, the Brew Thru. A big, yellow, drive-through liquor store. Kinda funny, and stereotypically congruous with the rural area we found ourselves in. The cuuuute way to tell that slobbering mouthbreather to stop stalking you this Valentine's Day! 04-05-02-On one of my recent CVS-type runs, I spotted this in one of the aisles of ultra-cheap post V-Day V-Day stuff. It's a cute little Valentine's bee with a rather frank message. To add to the surreal factor, if you squeeze the thing, it says "Bee my honey!" Which, in addition to being an awful double-pun, also sends a distincly contradictory message to that written on the bee. Yeeps... There is such a thing as too much Froot Loops, Sam... 03-29-02-I was visiting the Carnegie Museum of Natural history with a friend, on her misson to 'borrow' some highly endangered rainforest ants. The Hall of Birds was pretty amazing. Every specimen was painstakingly stuffed, preserved...and tossed into the display case on its back. The exhibit looked sorta like all the birds in it had somehow flown into the glass of the display case from the other side, and just dropped to the ground dead where they were lain. In any case, the dead toucan perched tastefully next to a box of Froot Loops was perhaps the creme of the proverbial dead stuffed bird crop. This is the opinion Bruce Campbell and I hold of those who contest the intrinsic artistic value of Bakana. And yes, I do look like an ass, but Bruce's coolness cancels it out. 03-22-02-Bruce frikkin' Campbell recently came to CMU to give a guest lecture. In addition to being amazingly witty, entertaining, and, of course, grewvy, he stayed after to schmooze with the nerdy clientele of CMU. He signed my copy of If Chins Could Kill, and I got this trrrrendy photo op, too. Quite a nice way to spend a Monday afternoon. Old Photos, Pre-Weekly 02-22-02-Until last Thursday, my pal Kelly was 100% utterly certain of the fact that I was French (which I am indeed not). If she had mistaken me for someone with down syndrome, or something, I could live with that, but for a frenchman? I'll never live it down. 01-26-02-Paper kills... Wait... 01-25-02-Note to self: Patent the coffee maker at the school coffehouse, before the BUNN corporation gets around to it, then sue the BUNN corporation. 01-24-02-The evil force living in the wall evidently has conflicting feelings regarding my (neat) professor Lance Winn. 11-16-01-I'd no idea that my Media Player was so...catastrophic. 11-07-01-Geez, louise. You sit in front of two creepy femmes in art class while watching Christopher Walken's Brainstorm, and there's no telling what kind of nonsense they'll do to your head... 09-13-01-On the plus side, college doesn't suck at all. On the minus side, America (including, evidently, a field kinda near Pittsburgh here) is under attack. Also, Jay Jonah Jameson is a flaming homosexual. Not necessarily good or bad, but news nonetheless. Back.