The Most Awesome Japanese Wig Site Ever!

Hi,

It's a thing of web beauty.

A site that allows you to upload a photo. Then resizes and grades the image so you can add wigs and glasses to a near 3D model.

It's wig-alicious!

Also hours of fun - no kidding.

Travis has never looked more like a washed up Friends actor...

NP Out

P.S. The site is in Japanese so persevere with it. The rewards are out standing

Making People Notice Your Passing

Hi,

My Dad used to work for British Rail in the UK. He would come home with some funny work stories , but would also get quite angry about others.

The worst reaction he ever had was to people comitting suicide by walking in front of busy commuter trains.

According to psychologists people choosing this kind of exit want to cause inconvenience and shock in as many people as possible.

Of late there have been idiots killing themselves in front of a media audience. Either DIY with a webcam, or in front of new crews.

The thing is - the delay to trains was not what got my Dad angry. He got upset because the poor train driver could never stop in time - and ended up feeling resposible for killing someone. Even if that someone was a self involved wanker.

I guess this new media suicide doesn't wreck an innocent persons life. Unless you count the affect on untold idiots who insist on watching the clips themselves.

Personally I read the web-page but never watch the clips. I prefer my dead losers to remain un-witnessed.

I just felt the world get lighter.

NP Out

Rock on!

Hi,

I'm a big fan of computer games and played alot of Guitar Hero II when it came out.

There's nothing like nailing a hard rock track on a plastic guitar with large, colourful, plastic buttons.

It is frighteningly close to doing it for real - minus the huge anxiety at the beginning and the huge exhaustion at the end of a live gig.

Now you've got guitar hero on tour and rock band. Both of which provide multiple instruments (guitars, drums and vocals).

You can rock out with your friends and get a serious pleasure high from nailing hard tracks.

The genre is hit such critical mass that you can even get versions of the game specific to your religious tastes.

The humour involved in christian rock goes up a notch when you watch the video of mid western familys enjoying a hedonism based music scene from their own home.

The more advanced games allow you to start composing your own tracks. Making it possible for people to collborate and create music in a simple and easy way.

But is rock n roll really supposed to be this easy to take part in? Have they finally crossed a line and forced the sound of youth rebellion into a plastic package?

More importantly do you want to play on the plastic guitar, drums or sing into the microphone?

Just one more track man!

NP Out

Pants Wettingly Good Art

Hi,

I do not use this phrase lightly.

Dealing with wet pants is one of those things I still have a problem with in spite of being a dad to a 3 year old...

Alex CF just hit my top 5 artists of all time, and it took just 5 minutes of looking around his website.

Imagine you could buy a specimen case brought back from the Lost World penned by Arthur Conan Doyle...

Or maybe some remnant of the expedition to the Mountains of Madness in antarctica penned by the great H.P. Lovecraft...

Or even the travel case accidentally left behind by Death when he was making a house call...

This artist just blows me away with the detail he puts into his creations. His ability to model and hunt down minor antiques to put the touch of authenticity into his work is staggeringly good.

The fact that his work centres around good books, and myths, that intrigue and delight me just adds to my enthusiasm.

This is the first time I have wanted to rush out and buy an artists work in the last 10 years.

Wow

NP Out

P.S. big thanks for technoccult for yet again pointing me in a direction I hadn't known existed but for some reason felt like I had been looking for - for ages

Americans - Screwed up or Righteous?

Hi,

The verdict - Screwed Up

This product is indeed now available and its mere existence made me laugh so much coffee came out of my nose.

Is it the ultimate act of Democrat denial? These guys don't approve of masturbation or anything short married sex.

Is it stark political commentary? Erm probably not.

More importantly - do you think her husband has one?

OMFG

NP Out

OK now I'm officially old

Hi,

The highlight of my weekend was taking my 3 year old daughter to Te Papa. Which is probably the coolest kid focussed museum I've ever been to. Oh and it's local and free too.

They've recently installed a huge interactive video wall, which lets anyone create an interractive masterpiece from stock images and even pictures and video updloaded to their web-site.

It is great fun to play with and dozens of people can use and interract with it at the same time.

I'm a very technical boy - so my feeling aged wasn't caused by this awesome and easy to use piece of technology.

It took me 2 minutes to work out how so retrieve and display images using a base station and then beam them to the wall. Not too shabby for a late thirties tech head.

All the other adults had to have an expert guide them for the first 5 to 10 minutes. So I was feeling smug.

My daughter was watching me the entire 2 minutes and then asked for a go. Not only did she handle it perfectly straight away but she also used multiple fingers to control the touch screen interface in Apple Mac style. This increased her speed and ability to find cool images and then display them on the wall.

The thing is it never occurred to me to use MAC shorthand on the damn thing...

She's only 3 godsdammit!

Is this the start of a slippery slope? In a couple of years will I be getting her to program the 3DTV recorder for me?

NP Out

P.S. on the bright side my daddy-pride level was huge :-)

Other Election News

Hi,

The US presidential race is occupying alot of press - but right now the Austrian election is holding my interest the most.

Austria has a good electoral system which encourages more than usual 2 horse race (10 parties took part in the latest legislative election). Of course this means that minority governments and coalition governments are the norm.

The current election currently has the Social Democtrats in the lead holding 29.7% of the seats. The interesting thing is that two far right wing parties now hold 29% between them.

That represents a huge swing to the far far right - which has got alot of commentators and European pundits worried.

But this is not the rise of a fascist state. Its the people of a democratic nation voting for the leadership of their country. I applaud the fact that Austrians actually get a choice when they vote on election day and that their choices can bring a radical change to how they are governed.

Part of me is still slightly anxious about this result.

Its just as well the two charismatic leaders of the right wing parties loathe each other and do not agree on anything.

NP Out