Robot Action Boy

i’m not a big fan of the oscars, especially when i haven’t even heard of half the movies nominated. however, i suddenly become more interested when you have the chance to win a mutant sock monkey by predicting the winners. via scrubbles.

old russian posters. the site calls them propaganda posters, but quite a few of these look like film posters to me and not outright government propaganda. but regardless, some really cool posters here. via neurastenia.

yesterday i hurt my back. i’m not exactly sure how, all i know is it started hurting yesterday afternoon. it got so bad, that i could barely sit down. so i called peter and he came home to take me to the chinese doctor.

this is only the second time i’ve ever been to the chinese doctor. when we arrived they took my health card and as they were scanning it the power went out! so we had to wait for an hour while they they got that mess sorted out(for some reason they were reluctant to start the generators up – and they couldn’t or wouldn’t process paperwork without the computers).

then i went in and saw the doctor and then after that the masseuse. this time he used these glass suction things on me. i’m not sure what they are called, but they are to suck all the bad stuff out of your system. the ones on my legs didn’t really leave much of a mark(they’ll often leave brown or purple marks depending on how sick you are), but the ones on my back did. i guess my legs are ok, but my back is not. i can’t say i feel all that much better yet. if i try to turn over or get up while laying down its extremely painful. i feel like mr. magoo hobbling around. if i sit in one place i seem to be ok though.

of course this couldn’t have come at a worse time. i’ve had to cancel classes for today, and may have to do so on monday as well. there’s 5 more days of classes next week, and then it’s 7 working days with no class(and no pay). well, as long as my back is hurting so badly, i’m not able to splurge on cds and books.

the 50 most loathsome people in america(via scrubbles). can’t say i disagree with much of this, or the wonderfully evil punishments. reminds me of when on new year’s eve we’d make a list of celebrity death predictions not to be opened until the following year to see if they’d come true. the only one i made that i can still remember is for the freakish death of jean-claude van damme. of course he’s still alive(and seems to be on tv all the time here lately).

discovering second hand bookstores that carry english books may just be my undoing. tonight my classes were cancelled, so off to one of these i went and picked up the following:

• maurice by em forster
  
• where angels fear to tread by em forster
  
• the human factor by graham greene
  
• brideshead revisited by evelyn waugh

i also saw a book on charles schulz, but it was a bit more expensive so i passed on it. i also passed on a book of essays by eisenstein – that i’m wondering if i need to go back for. hmmm.

audioscrobbler has added a cool new feature that now gives you weekly charts of what you’ve been listening to. as you can see both by artist played the most and by tracks played most. apparently i’ve been in a bit of a lucky dragons mood this last week.

the eye of the goof gives us jungle larry’s safari.

the cinematographe lumiere:

In 1895, on December the 28th takes place the first public paying screening of the Cinématographe Lumière,in the Indian lounge of the Grand Café in Paris. Here are ten digitized films who composed the First screening.

via coudal partners.

last night i finished reading jack stevenson’s desperate visions. it’s basically a book of interviews with john waters and the kuchar brothers. it’s a wonderful book of course. but then i tend to enjoy any interview i’ve read with john waters. there’s an interview with divine where he talks about going to china in 1986. was he performing there or did he go as a tourist? i can’t imagine him performing as divine, but you never know. i mean things were becoming more open there, but somehow i don’t think that open.

in the book there’s a section about thundercrack! and how it was never released on video and all. it may never have been officially released on video, but there were definately bootleg versions of it as that’s how i saw it. according to this site, it will be coming out on dvd in the future. sadly, it looks like most of the kuchar brothers films aren’t out on dvd. i suspect they may be available from one of those places that specialize in bootlegs of out of print films though.

the debut issue of jpg magazine is out:

The inaugural issue of JPG Magazine is 52 pages of visual goodness, including 31 photographers’ interpretations of the word “origin.” In addition to all the amazing photographs, the issue also includes a letter from the editors, an interview with Emilie Valentine who may just be the first photoblogger, and a special spread by featured photographer Noah Grey on his chosen origin.

i love the idea of this sort of thing. but due to space considerations i usually want to take a look inside a magazine of this nature before deciding if it’s something i really want to purchase. now if it was devoted to toy cameras i’d probably be plunking down my cash without a thought.