tech@vedella

Today on Boing Boing tv we reprise our ongoing SPAMasterpiece Theater series featuring author, PC, and minor television personality John Hodgman. His new book, MORE INFORMATION THAN YOU REQUIRE was released just a couple of weeks ago. Hodgman himself describes this series as the dramatization of "true tale[s] of romance, adventure, infamy, and low-cost prescription drugs, all culled from the reams of actual, unsolicited emails, received here by us and people like you -- what we call SPAM." Today's installment: V1V4 M3X1CO., in which we explore supply chain management solicitations with the help of luchadores, mariachis, beautiful black-n-white señoritas from the silver screen of our abuelitos, and GIANT NARCO-KITTEHS WITH UZIS. A note from our musical director: The adaptation of Jean-Joseph Mouret's "Rondeau: Fanfare" (1735) which opens today's episode was remixed in flagrante 8-bit by Hamhocks Buttermilk Johnson. Link to Boing Boing tv blog post with instructions on how to subscribe to our daily video podcast, and here is the direct MP4 download link. Also: a special and hearty thanks to the talented and generous Ehrich Blackhound (previously boinged here) for creating our new, typographically-correct opening slates for this parody series. Previous SPAMasterpiece Theater episodes on Boing Boing tv: * SPAMasterpiece Theater, Vol. I * SPAMasterpiece Theater, Vol. II * SPAMasterpiece Theater, Vol III And more Hodgman on Boing Boing tv: * More Information Than You Require. This is not a book trailer, part 2. * More Information Than You Require. This is not a book trailer. * More Information Than You Require....

Here's the first paragraph from the always-wonderful and surprise-filled Harper's Weekly email newsletter. Democrats were outvoting Republicans in all nine states that track the party affiliations of early voters, indicating a likely election victory for Barack Obama. "It's gonna get nasty," Obama told a crowd in Missouri. Republicans claimed that Democrats were coercing dementia patients to cast absentee ballots, and fliers posted in black neighborhoods of Philadelphia falsely warned that voters with unpaid parking tickets would be arrested at the polls. It was reported that Obama's half-aunt Zeitun Onyango lives in a Boston housing project and is an illegal immigrant--a detail likely leaked by the Bush Administration against the procedures of the Department of Homeland Security. Evidence emerged that during the Senate Ethics Committee investigation of the Keating Five scandal in 1990, John McCain allegedly committed perjury and illegally leaked details to the press that made himself seem innocent and his colleagues seem guilty--actions that had they been exposed at the time, could have resulted in McCain's expulsion from the Senate. Novelist John Updike endorsed Obama. "I am so much for Obama," said the author of "Terrorist," "it would be hard for me to cook up a character who was for McCain." Dick Cheney endorsed McCain, and two white-supremacist skinheads were arrested in Tennessee for plotting to kill 88 people, behead 14 African Americans, and assassinate Barack Obama while wearing white tuxedos and top hats. Author Erica Jong told an Italian interviewer, "If Obama loses, it will spark the second American Civil War. Blood will run in the streets, believe me. And it's not a coincidence that President Bush recalled soldiers from Iraq for Dick Cheney to lead against American citizens in the streets." Madelyn Dunham, Obama's 86-year-old grandmother, died of cancer, and a man leaped to his death from the Spaghetti Bowl, in El Paso, Texas, leaving behind a note that read, "Obama take care of my family." To subscribe to Harper's Weekly, send an email to join-harpers-weekly@pluto.sparklist.com....

Here's a gallery of great old ads from comic books. The companies that advertised their shoddy, misrepresented products to gullible children should be commended for teaching the youth of America that there were people out there ready to lie to them in order to get their hard earned, paper route dollars. The new "Testimonials" section containing "stories of sadness sung by the stung" looks promising. Here's one: A neighbor and I sent away for the "Monster Ghost". "Make him obey your commands even when you are secretly hiding as far as 100 feet away" "A real terror, giant sized---" which, when it arrived, turned out to be... A white balloon A white garbage bag Two glow in the dark circles A string. SUPERMARKETING: ADS FROM THE COMIC BOOKS Previously on Boing Boing: • Man's account of ordering a live monkey from comic book ad • Funny/Creepy old comic book ad • Small gallery of old comic book ads...

Our great guestblogger John Hodgman is out there fondling touchscreens today, and he asked me to post this final BB guest blog post on his behalf. Thank you so much, Mr. Hodgman -- it's been an honor and a pleasure having you here on the blog these past two weeks. Video: FAREWELL BOING BOING....

I'm very happy to welcome a longtime friend of Boing Boing, and a personal pal, to the Boing Boing guest blog -- writer and blogger Susannah Breslin. She'll be joining us here for the next couple of weeks, reprising her long-ago role as a guestblogger in Boing Boing's old guestblog, circa, what was that, 2004? Remember the little column on the far right hand corner? Anyway. She's back, she's wonderful, the photo above isn't her but it expresses her inner writerly glamoury angstiness, and here's her bio: Susannah has written for Details, Newsweek, Harper's Bazaar, Radar, Salon, Variety, Slate, Wired News, The New York Post, The LA Weekly, The San Francisco Chronicle, The Vancouver Sun, The San Francisco Examiner Magazine, Playboy.com, Nerve, Arena (UK), and Max (France). She has appeared on CNN, FOX News, Playboy TV, "Politically Incorrect," and the UK's Channel 4. She is the author of a short story collection: You're a Bad Man, Aren't You? She is at work on a novel, based on her experiences in Porn Valley. She is represented by Endeavor. She is 6'2"....

For more than a decade, industrial music pioneer Genesis P-Orridge, of Throbbing Gristle and Psychic TV, and his wife Lady Jaye Breyer P-Orridge were in the midst of an extreme experiment to merge their identities into a single "pandrogynous" being. They went as far as getting multiple cosmetic surgeries to look more similar. Then tragically, almost exactly a year ago, Lady Jaye suddenly died of heart failure. The pandrogyny project continues though, and hearing Gen talk about it in this video interview is quite moving. Looking Like Your Love in the United States (Thanks, Gary Chong via Richard Metzger!) Previously on BB: • Lady Jaye Breyer P-Orridge of Psychic TV, RIP...

Wear this fine t-shirt to advertise your addiction to Chew-Z and Can-D, the fictional (?) hallucinogens featured in Philip K. Dick's novels The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch. Chew-Z: "God promises eternal life. We can deliver it." Dave Gill has the ordering details over at Total Dick-Head. Chew-Z and Can-D t-shirts...