The Consumer Category
We bring you the chic and unique, the best and most bizarre shopping offers both online and offline. We offer you tips on where to buy, and some of the less mainstream and crazy, individual and offbeat items on the internet. Anything that can be bought and sold can be featured here. And we love showcasing the best and worst art and design.
The hairy chest one-piece swimsuit exists
Women can turn heads in this Sexy Chest swimsuit.
Spotter: JWZ
Posted: 12th, June 2017 | In: Fashion, The Consumer | Comment
Why Hunter S. Thompson typed out The Great Gatsby & A Farewell to Arms word for word
Learning to write is hard. Leaning to write well is a grind. Hunter S. Thompson put in the hard yards, typing out whole pages of Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby and Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms. He did this “just to get the feeling,” writes Louis Menand at The New Yorker, “of what it was like to write that way.”
Johnny Depp told The Guardian:
“He’d look at each page Fitzgerald wrote, and he copied it. The entire book. And more than once. Because he wanted to know what it felt like to write a masterpiece.”
Josh Jones adds:
In a 1958 letter to his hometown girlfriend Ann Frick, Thompson named the Fitzgerald and Hemingway novels as two especially influential books, along with Brave New World, William Whyte’s The Organization Man, and Rona Jaffe’s The Best of Everything (or “Girls before Girls”), a novel that “hardly belongs in the abovementioned company,” he wrote, and which he did not, presumably, copy out on his typewriter at work. Surely, however, many a Thompson close reader has discerned the traces of Fitzgerald, Faulkner, and Hemingway in his work, particularly the latter, whose macho escapades and epic drinking bouts surely inspired more than just Thompson’s writing.
Spotter: Open Culture
Posted: 11th, June 2017 | In: Books, Celebrities | Comment
The fidget spinner butt plug is on sale
The fidget spinner butt plug is now on the market at Etsy. Ranging from $30 to $55, the butt plug fidget spinner is available in three sizes.
Seller GlowFyourself says: “That’s right, help combat ADHD and get stuff done with your very own booty spinning adventure toy!”
With a following wind* the butt plug fidget spinner can go for hours.
*Beans not included.
Spotter: Pink
Posted: 11th, June 2017 | In: NSFW, The Consumer | Comment
Fabulous playing cards inspired by Karina Eibatova’s bird art
We love a beautiful set of playing cards. This set designed by Karina Eibatova with LUX Cards features her birds and feathers drawings.
You can buy AVES here. And you can learn how to play at the online casino at RedBet.
Posted: 9th, June 2017 | In: Money, The Consumer | Comment
Saudi censors turn woman a in swimming pool advert into a ball
Saudi censors have been busy adapting an advert selling a swimming pool. The man is dressed. The children are ready for school. And the woman’s been turned into a Winnie the Pooh ball:
Spotter: @omar_quraishi
Posted: 6th, June 2017 | In: Strange But True, The Consumer | Comment
Vladimir Putin is playing things by the book: this book
Is Vladimir Putin following a book, namely The Foundations of Geopolitics: The Geopolitical Future of Russia by Aleksandr Dugin, aka “Putin’s Brain”. You can read it on Wikipedia:
The book declares that “the battle for the world rule of [ethnic] Russians” has not ended and Russia remains “the staging area of a new anti-bourgeois, anti-American revolution.” The Eurasian Empire will be constructed “on the fundamental principle of the common enemy: the rejection of Atlanticism, strategic control of the USA, and the refusal to allow liberal values to dominate us.”
The United Kingdom should be cut off from Europe.
Ukraine should be annexed by Russia because “Ukraine as a state has no geopolitical meaning, no particular cultural import or universal significance, no geographic uniqueness, no ethnic exclusiveness, its certain territorial ambitions represents an enormous danger for all of Eurasia and, without resolving the Ukrainian problem, it is in general senseless to speak about continental politics”.
The book stresses the “continental Russian-Islamic alliance” which lies “at the foundation of anti-Atlanticist strategy”. The alliance is based on the “traditional character of Russian and Islamic civilization”.
Russia should use its special services within the borders of the United States to fuel instability and separatism, for instance, provoke “Afro-American racists”. Russia should “introduce geopolitical disorder into internal American activity, encouraging all kinds of separatism and ethnic, social and racial conflicts, actively supporting all dissident movements — extremist, racist, and sectarian groups, thus destabilizing internal political processes in the U.S. It would also make sense simultaneously to support isolationist tendencies in American politics.”
Spotter: Kottke
Posted: 6th, June 2017 | In: Books, Politicians | Comment
After London Bridge: the geezer who ran with his pint didn’t spill a drop
After the London attack: Geezer Watch:
People fleeing #LondonBridge but the bloke on the right isn’t spilling a drop. God Bless the Brits! pic.twitter.com/ceeaH0XxeX
— Howard Mannella (@hmannella) 3 June 2017
At £6 a pint, who can blame him?
Posted: 4th, June 2017 | In: Reviews, Strange But True, The Consumer | Comment
The screaming abdabs: Anthony Burgess’s Dictionary of Slang
Anthony Burgess,
Manchester-born writer and academic Anthony Burgess began work on a dictionary of slang – “the home-made language of the ruled, not the rulers, the acted upon, the used, the used up. It is demotic poetry emerging in flashes of ironic insight.”
Entries in A from Anthony Burgess’s lost dictionary of slang
Abdabs (the screaming) – Fit of nerves, attack of delirium tremens, or other uncontrollable emotional crisis. Perhaps imitative of spasm of the jaw, with short, sharp screams.
Abdicate – In poker, to withdraw from the game, forfeiting all money or chips put in the pot.
Abfab – Obsolescent abbreviation of absolutely fabulous, used by Australian teenagers or ‘bodgies’.
Abortion – Anything ugly, ill-shapen, or generally detestable: ‘You look a right bloody abortion, dressed like that’; ‘a nasty little abortion of a film’ (Australian in origin).
Abyssinia – I’ll be seeing you. A valediction that started during the Italo-Abyssinian war. Obsolete, but so Joyceanly satisfying that it is sometimes hard to resist.
Accidental(ly) on purpose – Deliberately, but with the appearance of accident: ‘So I put me hand on her knee, see, sort of accidental on purpose.’ (Literary locus classicus: Elmer Rice’s The Adding Machine, 1923.)
Arse – I need not define. The taboo is gradually being broken so that plays on the stage and on radio and television introduce the term with no protest. The American Random House Dictionary … is still shy of it, however, though not of the American colloquialism ass. Arse is a noble word; ass is a vulgarism.
NOTE: Burgess’s A Clockwork Orange is cited three times in the historical Oxford English Dictionary: ‘thou’, ‘your’ and ‘droog’ which was invented by Burgess in the novel and appears on the first page: “There was me, that is Alex, and my three droogs, that is Pete, Georgie, and Dim.”
Via: The Anthony Burgess Foundation and Flashbak, which has more.
Posted: 3rd, June 2017 | In: Books, Celebrities | Comment
Parent’s Kiss: How to retrieve small things stuck up a child’s nose
How do you get small items from inside a child’s nose, where they’ve become stuck? Beth Skwarecki, You perfore the Parent’s Kiss:
Step 1: Use your finger to close the nostril that doesn’t have the object stuck in it.
Step 2: Press your lips over your child’s mouth.
Step 3: Blow a quick blast of air into their mouth (think back to the last time you tried to shoot a spitball through a straw).
Step 4: get a snake:
Posted: 3rd, June 2017 | In: Strange But True, The Consumer | Comment
How to Draw Facial Expressions: 6 Different Ways
Michigan-based author and illustrator Mark Crilley has a great YouTube channel for anyone who wants to draw better.
Posted: 1st, June 2017 | In: The Consumer | Comment
A red ejector button for your car’s lighter
Be like Bond with this red eject button to excite your car’s bland and pretty useless cigarette lighter.
Spotter: Pee-wee Herman
Posted: 1st, June 2017 | In: Technology, The Consumer | Comment
Liverpool has the friendliest hackers in the world
To the Liverpool One Shopping Centre, England, where hackers have issued a directive: ‘we suggest you improve your security – sincerely – your friendly neighbourhood hackers – #JFt96’.
Spotter: Reddit
Posted: 30th, May 2017 | In: Strange But True, Technology, The Consumer | Comment
Mic Drop: winner declared in New York City’s Post It Wars
When someone wrote the word “Hi” on a New York window using Post-its, two office blocks engaged in a contest. The @Postit war between @havasnyc and @harrisonandstar was on.
And the winner was clear:
Here’s the mic drop:
Posted: 30th, May 2017 | In: Strange But True, The Consumer | Comment
Epic moments in daytime telly: the Rip Off Britain orange juice ‘crime’ reconstruction
Christina Martin – sometime of this parish – spots this man on TV’s Rip Off Britain doing a dramatic reconstruction of the moment he realised his orange juice packaging was smaller. It’s the kid of look we used to see in Stephen Spielberg movies, where the hero spots something no-one else has.
Man on Rip Off Britain doing a dramatic reconstruction of the moment he realised his orange juice packaging was smaller pic.twitter.com/V57Y4mrp2V
— Christina Martin (@christinamartin) May 29, 2017
Spotter: @christinamartin
Posted: 29th, May 2017 | In: The Consumer, TV & Radio | Comment
Thanks to Bic even women can light a candle
@JusteBro quips about this Bic fire lighter for women: “Finally my fragile female hand will be able to light a candle too!”
Things to note about the pink one:
1. Miss Bic – but neither Mr Bic nor Master Bic. Sexism?
2. Is the Miss Bic fire lighter meant as a present, perhaps to go with the hoover or small gift you bought her indoors at Christmas?
Posted: 29th, May 2017 | In: Strange But True, The Consumer | Comment
Travelers: figures trapped in eerie snow globes
Travelers is a series of snow globes by Walter Martin and Paloma Muñoz. Their snow globes features figures trapped in eerie scenes. Martin and Muñoz’s snow globes are yours for a mere $750 each.
Note: It´s in Spain
Posted: 28th, May 2017 | In: The Consumer | Comment
Twin Peaks: the recipe for cherry pie
The Recipe
8 inch Crust: 1-1/2 c. flour, 1/2 c. Crisco, 1/4 c. ice water
Mix flour and Crisco with fork. Add ice water. Mix with your hands. When blended, roll into ball and refrigerate overnight. To roll out: flour both rolling pin and flat surface, split ball in two, roll out 1/2 to fit pan and 1/2 for lattice.
Filling: 3 c. cherries (pitted, sour frozen); 1 c. water; 1c. Baker’s sugar; 4 T. cornstarch; 1/8 t. salt
Thaw cherries at room temp and strain (yields 2 c. juice). Taste for sweetness, more/less sugar may be needed. Add 1 c. water to make 3 c. juice (reserve 1 c. juice for cornstarch mix). Dissolve cornstarch in 1 c. juice, stir with whip. Combine 2 c. juice, 2/3 c. sugar, salt, and bring to a boil. Add cornstarch mix, cook until clear, about 5 min. (if cooked to long, syrup gets gummy). Remove from heat, stir in 1/3 c. sugar (blend thoroughly). Pour mixture over cherries, fold with wooden spoon, cool (stir mix while cooling to prevent scum from forming on top). Pour mix in pie shell. Top completed pie with lattice crust.
Bake @ 425 degrees for 35-40 min.
Spotter: Lynch Net:
Posted: 27th, May 2017 | In: The Consumer, TV & Radio | Comment
Walkers crisps endorses Jimmy Savile and Rolf Harris in epic markting fail
Being the social media manager for Walker’s crisps is a doddle. Just get Gary Lineker to hold up a card and invite crisp enthusiasts to tweet a photo of their head which can be added to the former England footballer’s message. It would form a big Mexican Wave of crisp lovers. What could go wrong? Well, Walkers became endorsed by such lovelies as Osama bin Laden, Josef Fritzl and a bloke with a huge penis. And Jimmy Savile, Rolf Harris, Fred West and more.
Walkers will delete that Rolf harris video I bet so I've downloaded it & uploaded it. No, thank YOU. pic.twitter.com/OUfYm2yfkR
— rob manuel (@robmanuel) May 25, 2017
Posted: 26th, May 2017 | In: Celebrities, The Consumer | Comment
Man takes exquisite revenge on VERY LOUD business meeting in a coffee shop
When people use the coffee shop for business meeting that can be loud. VERY LOUD. One man has exacted revenge:
Posted: 20th, May 2017 | In: Money, The Consumer | Comment
The Pool Floatie jacket – for people who worry when it rains
The Pool Floatie is a men’s jacket, by Christopher Raeburn. If it rains – and I mean really rains – you’ll be ok.
Posted: 18th, May 2017 | In: Fashion, The Consumer | Comment
This Is How We Dot It: the daily lives of seven kids in seven countries
This Is How We Do It by Matt Lamothe features the daily routines of seven children from different countries around the world (Japan, Peru, Iran, Russia, India, Italy, and Uganda).
In Japan Kei plays Freeze Tag, while in Uganda Daphine likes to jump rope. But while the way they play may differ, the shared rhythm of their days — and this one world we all share — unites them. This genuine exchange provides a window into traditions that may be different from our own as well as a mirror reflecting our common experiences.
Spotter: Kottke
The RompHim male romper suit is the stuff of nightmares
Men are in crisis. Following the man bun and undersized jackets that turns young men into Norman Wisdom tribute acts, the latest douchebag style is the male romper suit. Called the RompHim (gerrit?!), this cross between Doris Day’s pastel pyjamas and a baby-gro vomit will turn any man into one of the guys at the frat house.
On Kickstarter, it’s positioned to be the next big thing in frat and post-frat culture. The bros are shot in their natural habitats—drinking beers, going to Coachella, etc.—and in colors close to their hearts. Think pastels, youthful prints, and at least one “America!” riff on the style.
It is, say the creators of this chambray and cotton cry for help , a “revolution” in men’s styling – thus proving that not all revolutions are desirable.
Posted: 17th, May 2017 | In: Fashion, The Consumer | Comment
