I Can Has Cheezburger CEO Ben Huh’s TedxSeattle Talk
After news broke that Cheezburger Network's Ben Huh was offering to buy the ailing Reddit, it was natural to investigate what role Ben Huh plays and what he did to capitalise on something I'd dare say is phenomenal on the internet: lolcats (cat memes). Reading through his blog, he posted up a talk he did at a Ted conference in Seattle around April about the "19 debts" he owed himself; i.e. his 19 goals he has set himself out to do.
I was really touched by the moment just under 8 minutes in where he choked up, reflecting on his failings and his struggles, most likely for his first start-up after he graduated.
There is nothing harder than waking up in the morning, look in the mirror and seeing a failure.
There is nothing harder to realise that you've let people down, your family down who put money in you, let your friends down who you hired.
But that kind of struggle, getting out of that struggle means that you've become a person with character and moral values and a person who has a centre that can not be shaken.
This is personally one of my biggest challenges and something I always wanted to largely avoid and not be a burden to society. It's that relentless pursuit of making things work, and that determination of refusing to ever take no for an answer, but there are times when the stars align to say "fuck you, not today it ain't". But it is so important to remember that a true test of character and entrepreneurial craftsmanship is when you go through all that and pick yourself up. Pick your fucking self up.
I wasn't a big fan of him, considering he was making money off an idea derived elsewhere, but I do admire the rags-to-riches entrepreneur who recognised the opportunity and brought an idea somewhat wholesome from 4chan into the mainstream which I believe partially makes the internet what it is today. Macroed memes are such a huge part of internet subculture now and some credit is due for Huh to brand it and make it recogniseable.
This entry was written by , posted on August 30, 2010 at 1:39 am, filed under plasmo. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
Spotless – short by Jessica Nilsson
Directed by Swedish director Jessica Nilsson, caught this one at Flickerfest two years ago at a best-of compilation screening. It's pretty morbid, but everything about the pace, the music, the vintage film filter and the fact that it made very little sense made this a crowd favourite. Towards the end there is a cat on a piano. Yes.
spotless
Jessica Nilsson | MySpace Video
It's a good idea to be inspired by your favourite music.
This entry was written by , posted on August 29, 2010 at 3:27 pm, filed under Moving Pictures, plasmo and tagged cat piano, flickerfest, jessica nilsson, short film, spotless. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
Best Coast Boyfriend
This song's getting a few rotations on Triple J and featured on a lot of music blogs. And there's a good reason for that: it's mighty catchy and dreampoppy, reminiscent of a less noisy 80s shoegazer thing combined with a drop of the Cardigans. Combine and picture the following words: teenage yearning, lazy summer, weed & cats, drone. I've an unfortunate gut feeling this is going to be a one-off buzzband, so it' really up to the rest of the album and what they plan to do next; but Boyfriend is currently on a bit of a repeat on my winampz.
Front lady Bethany Cosentino said that listeners can expect the following...
“...songs about summer and the sun and the ocean and being a lazy creep...”
They can be found here as well:
Myspace
Blog
This entry was written by , posted on August 5, 2010 at 12:44 am, filed under Food for your ears, plasmo and tagged best coast, boyfriend, cat and weed, drone, lazy creep, music, summer. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
Plasmo – a 5min clay animation where an adorable alien sacrifices himself to save a planet and declares his undying love for his gf. Epic.
How can so much drama, selflessness, a beautiful soundtrack, poignancy and a silly bit of humour be packed into a 4 minutes and 37 seconds clay animation?
Plasmo, a little alien, risks his life by flying his spacecraft into an oncoming comet to deflect it. In doing so, the core of a certain planet gets filled by a naturalistic/ forest-like utopia. In his last seconds, he sends a photo of himself and Pasty, as a gesture that she was probably the last thing on his mind before he hurls himself and his spaceship into the comet.
To think 4 year olds watch this straight after school and digest it within minutes. Nevertheless, 'epic' still isn't adequate enough a word to describe the density of that episode.
N.B. My blog's name is partially inspired by this series 
This entry was written by , posted on August 1, 2010 at 11:34 pm, filed under Moving Pictures, plasmo and tagged abc, drama, plasmo, youtube. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
Some favourite SDCC 2010 Toy Exclusives
Comic Con; the last stage boss of all pop culture conventions. And like last stage bosses, they contain a lot of pretty neat stuff, like toy exclusives. Picked out the following from a recent emailout.
Of course, none of these are ever going to reach me, though if I had to pick one, that Fafi noir one looks pretty neat.
This entry was written by , posted on July 6, 2010 at 9:16 pm, filed under plasmo and tagged Crazy Label, Fafi, San Diego Comic Con, Scott Wilkowski, Sucklord. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
Bill Murray be chill y’all
A few weeks ago I tweeted about a chillwave band (I'm still uncomfortable with using this term, but since it's the only term most people can relate to to describe the genre of music...) under the alias, Chill Murray. I heard about them on triple j when they were talking about their SXSW experience, but hipsterrunnoff has it covered pretty well.
One thing I'm pretty confused about is this: if they are so chill, how come their music is not available? I want to purchase/download it onto my mp3 player and share it with my friends and all, but alas, it's not publicly available other than through a stream through the myspace or muxtape. It is not chill to load a page everytime I want to listen to cool stuff.
And it is pretty clever of them to ride off Bill Murray's awesome branding, because he is the godfather of hipsters. ESPECIALLY with all the little flowers on his beard. Maybe we can expect guys to start wearing flowers in their beards.
The movie which revived Bill Murray's movie career, made Scarlett Johanssen's and gave shoegazer music a new brand and visual representation.
Bill 'Groundhog day, Ghostbusting ass' Murray!
Anyway, irregardless, because "I'm so chill", I'm going to send them some love their way. Also because I have a man-crush on Bill Murray.
N.B. Talking like altbroz and all is a serious craft. I can't keep up.
This entry was written by , posted on May 15, 2010 at 1:40 pm, filed under Food for your ears, plasmo and tagged bill murray, chill murray, chillwave, lost in translation, youtube. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
Ewok Karaoke Video
I shared this on my twitter the other day, but I'm still not over it. There is something fundamentally right about EVERYTHING in the video; the lyrics, the ridiculously cheesy background images/ video, the complete disregard to how uninterpretable it is. Oh and there is a wookie on a guitar halfway through the video.
Celebrate the love!
Yeah, they actually say that. Tear-jerking stuff, eh?
This entry was written by , posted on May 5, 2010 at 12:20 pm, filed under plasmo and tagged ewok, karaoke, star wars, vimeo. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
The Alpha60 Bill Tee
Spotted this neat fella in Angus Black, a little boutique in Fortitude Valley during my recent trip to Brisbane.
Was one step away from getting it until I realised the shirt cut didn't do it for me. Don't you hate it when you come across interesting designs, but poor shirt cuts? T_T
This entry was written by , posted on April 19, 2010 at 2:02 pm, filed under plasmo and tagged alpha60, bill murray, tee. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
attending school in bizarro world
The Pinin team for Supanova Brisbane 2010. Plus Ben who had to leave early.
This entry was written by , posted on April 17, 2010 at 2:00 am, filed under plasmo. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
S4 Shane Jessup Dunny
This entry was written by , posted on December 9, 2009 at 7:44 pm, filed under plasmo and tagged dunny, kidrobot, shane jessup, vinyl toy. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
Nightmare in Jeremyville dunny
One of my impulse buys from Black Friday. I love Jeremyville because it is a very distinguishable style and some of his previous toy designs were excellent. He also has numerous collaborations and in his sessions book he details them all with artists from around the world. Quite a feat!
The dunny also came with a carrot, a comic book and an awesomely designed box. It's currently sitting on top of my monitor.
This entry was written by , posted on December 7, 2009 at 3:22 pm, filed under plasmo and tagged dunny, jeremyville, kidrobot, vinyl. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
There is a horse on your head…
Went to the ABC costume resource centre, where common people like you and me can hire costumes. I do not object to my tax dollars going to this.
It was really cute watching a lot of fathers bringing in their kids to get them costumes for their school plays.
Admittedly most of these photos make little reference to how cool the centre was (which it is!) but I really had to show what the mannequins there were like...
This entry was written by , posted on at 8:21 am, filed under plasmo and tagged ABC resource centre, costumes, mannequins. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
Hello Kitty 35th Anniversary LA Fashion & Arts Bash
Mimozine, the media division of Mimobot (Mimoco), covered this interesting event celebrating the 35th anniversary of Hello Kitty (Three Apples). There was a red carpet, with the chief designer present,Yuko Yamaguchi and artist collaborator Simone Legno (tokidoki).
Some of the concepts featured was fascinating, especially the artist renditions of Hello Kitty. I'm not a huge fan of Hello Kitty itself, but I love mashups!
This entry was written by , posted on December 2, 2009 at 7:48 pm, filed under plasmo and tagged Hello Kitty, Mimoco, vimeo. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
The Magic Portal
Before SOS (Shorts on Screen), SBS's Saturday night short film digest was called 'Eat Carpet' and was ... much better curated. But that's besides the point. A 16 minute sci-fi was featured on it one unsuspecting night called The Magic Portal and what made it so neat was that it was made of Lego.
This is the one of the most brilliant Lego stop motion animations ever made, and arguably the first. It was made by Lindsay Fleay, a guy based in Perth and you can find more information about him here.
"The Magic Portal is a short stop motion film that uses LEGO®, plasticene, cardboard and pixellated live action, made between the years of 1985 and 1989 on good ol' fashioned 16mm film. The story concerns the strange fate of a LEGO astronaut called L, who discovers the Magic Portal on board his giant spaceship. The Portal takes him to a strange and surreal LEGO world where he has a close encounter with a Monster and barely escapes with his life. His report to Captain Paranoia only gets him to trouble and his friend and shipmate P, doesn't believe him. However, the Portal has a mind of its own, and reappears to upset the cosy world of the giant spaceship and its crew to reveal weirder worlds more peculiar than the last..."
This entry was written by , posted on December 1, 2009 at 5:15 pm, filed under plasmo. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
Do you remember the Windows 95 startup sound?
You know you want to download it and set it as your new default startup sound!
My life flashes before my eyes everytime I hear this.
Also, apparently Brian Eno composed this!
This entry was written by , posted on November 25, 2009 at 4:12 pm, filed under plasmo and tagged brian eno, sounds, wav, Windows 95. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
Very calculated ‘getting-hit-in-the-groin’ prank
If you want to hurt your friend's groin, at least do it in style!
This entry was written by , posted on November 17, 2009 at 12:15 pm, filed under plasmo and tagged groin, hilarious, prank, youtube. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
My customised Munny
My friend Dittman bought me a DIY Kidrobot Munny when he went to visit San Francisco. It was used for Fei's customised birthday wishes.
Later on, I bought my own (this was a year ago) and didn't get around to it until today. This is my first one so please don't judge!
I used several artists as references, off the top of my head Jon Burgerman.
It was a nice change from all the dry work I normally do.
This entry was written by , posted on at 4:03 am, filed under plasmo and tagged kidrobot, markers, munny, vinyl toys. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
Fei and the Dinosaur
It was a really really intense moment. Some drinks were spilt.
This entry was written by , posted on November 13, 2009 at 3:11 pm, filed under plasmo. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
Gloomy Bear 8″ Dunny – simple & sexy!
Gloomy Dunny
8-InchVinyl
Mori Chack's adorably lethal creation looms larger and more violent than ever in this super limited Dunny version of his evil icon.Gloomy Dunny is 8-inches of vicious vinyl, ready to maul your entire collection. Beware of the bloody rare chase!
Only 1500 pieces worldwide.
Limit 1 per customer.
$75.00
I'm expecting this in my Christmas stocking! (more...)
This entry was written by , posted on November 11, 2009 at 3:56 am, filed under plasmo. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
Shop Cat vs Intruder Cat
Don't we all love small business politics? Especially when cats that hang around the National Geographics and computer books sections get involved. The battle continues between Shop Cat and Intruder Cat.
Found in Gould's second hand bookstore on King St.
Intruder cat... likes sitting... near the National Geographic magazines and the Computer Books section. When we eject him from the shop and shout "Bad Cat", thinks it is just the most wonderful games, and comes in again so that the fun can continue.
This entry was written by , posted on November 9, 2009 at 5:43 pm, filed under plasmo and tagged adorable, cats, small business politics. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
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