The Megaphone : A Debate Blog

I realise this post is a little belated, being that lent is already three days in, but I shall continue anyway.

I am not a religious person in any way, but I have decided to give something up for lent anyway. Sarah is giving up crisps and apart from that one slip up which I have already forgotten about she has done it perfectly. I have decided to give up something that I should never have started in the first place, and that is watching crap TV.

I know what you’re thinking… Ryan that is not possible.

I spend loads of time watching rubbish stuff like Corrie and Eastenders because Sarah wants to watch it and I’m not just going to go in the other room and never see her, so I watch it too… or I stare into space just beyond the TV. Or those times when you know there is nothing on until like 9pm, so you just channel surf, hoping and praying there will be an episode of Friends you’ve never seen on or something… which there never is, and then before you know it it’s 9pm and that thing you wanted to watch is on.

So what I intend to do is do something else when that rubbish stuff is on. Like draw / design or read or make something. I have been doing this already and am finding it very fulfilling and productive.

So what are you giving up for lent this year?

I love Lego. It brings back many happy memories of a budding creative Ryan as a child building away into the wee small hours.

So to celebrate this momentous occasion I thought I would share the absolutely unbelievably good Michel Gondry music video for the White Stripes song Fell in Love With a Girl, enjoy…

Oh and contrary to what Jack White might have you believe in videos like this, there is absolutely no CGI* … it is all pure lego and childlike genius of my hero Michel Gondry.

* Michel Gondry said so in his DVD

In yesterday’s post I mentioned that I had started a new blog… and I wasn’t kidding. I discovered the most amazing thing ever for lazy blogging mofos like myself. It’s called tumblr. I’m not very down with the technology as I’m sure you’re all aware by now, so it’s probably old news… but I only just stumbled across it and I love it, so I’m going to tell you about it.

Tumblr is a way of keeping a tumblelog which is like a blog of really short posts about stuff you discover on the web, or overhear or want to say. It’s a bit like keeping a blog of stuff you’d normally submit to delicious, digg, stumble upon, clipmarks and twitter.

So anyway you can check out my new tumblelog, brown boxes here. Let me know what you think. If you already have a tumblelog, then let me know the address and I will check it out.

I would advise that everyone starts one, they are really easy to update and a good way of looking back over stuff you discovered online, but might otherwise forget. If you’re a lazy blogger like me then it really is the perfect tool for you. Oh, I forgot to mention, the default design is really nice too.

Ok, so I got the idea for this post while watching Elektra on five the other day. Electra is a Marvel Superhero (hottie) who has been transmorphed from the pages of comic book illustration into a real human in the movie version, played by Jennifer Garner.

This got me to thinking… who is the sexiest superhero of all time?

Read the rest of this entry »

So I’m sure you are all aware of this news story. Radiohead are selling their new album In Rainbows at the amazing price of… “whatever you’re willing to pay for it”… That can even be £0.00 (just a 45p credit card handling fee).

I have been trying to work out if this is a good or a bad idea. At first I thought it was going to make a massive loss, but I believe it is download only, so there is no postal cost.

Read the rest of this entry »

Dear Steve Jobs (CEO of Apple Computers Inc.),
You and your team of trusty employees are pretty good at designing stuff, so I have a challenge for you. The conventional supermarket trolley still seems to be the worst designed thing in the universe ever. You have already made mp3 players work really well, so why not stop improving them further and make a supermarket trolley that does all of these things:

• Has all 4 wheels on the ground at the same time
• Rolls along silently, and does not sound like the clean, smooth supermarket floor is made of gravel
• Goes exactly where you intend it to
• No matter how many times you touch it… it never… ever sends a bolt of lightning coursing through your body

With today’s technology, it really can’t be that difficult.

Dear Jodie Marsh,
I have a strong distaste for you.

Dear Sky,
Please could you sack the wise-guy who came up with the idea to use corporate blue as the colour of making the top and bottom letterbox elements bright, distracting, eye-catching blue… damn you. This is just a way of punishing those of us not fortunate enough to have a new-fangled widescreen TV. I am sending you negative energy as we speak.

EDIT - Since I originally wrote this, the problem has been resolved… wow this blog has got some power, I hadn’t even published the post… Dear Shannyn Sossamon…

Who would you like to write to today and what would you write?

Ok so this post is a double whammy.

Point the first is does anyone actually buy Spam, the meaty treat any more? They did go for a bizzare and widespread TV advertising using the “Spam up” strapline, whatever the hell that means. When I see Spam fritters in the shop, I don’t actually know what the are, but they sound wrong. With every supermarket under the sun offering value luncheon meat, I can’t believe there is a thriving business for Spam, but there is never any talk of them losing profits.

Anyway the other thing I wanted to talk about is spam emails, like this one I received just a few hours ago.

I really can’t see how spam emails are successful. Are there really people out there who purposefully go into their junk folder and think “oooh I wonder if there are any good deals on Viagra today”?

Yet these emails never seem to slowing down, and with a high profile Viagra scam on the news recently it doesn’t seem like they are going to go away. I also heard that Viagra is like the second biggest selling drug in the UK at the moment (I don’t know if that is factual). They are designed so badly too… they are really not enticing.

So does anyone buy stuff off spam? I just can’t imagine anyone buying anything off a spam email. What do you all think of Spam of the email and meaty variety?

EDIT: Maybe if spam emails looked like this people would buy that stuff…

Found at CR

So on Sunday night I watched an ace programme on BBC4 about the dispute over whether or not Steve Ditko is deserving of being called Spiderman’s co-creator.

For those of you who don’t know (shame on you) Stan Lee is the incredibly famous writer and widely acclaimed “creator” of the Spiderman comics and head honcho over at Marvel comics, home of such greats as X-Men, The Incredible Hulk and The Fantastic Four. Steve Ditko is the artist who originally artworked all of the Spiderman comics before walking out after a man row with Stan Lee.

Stan Lee’s Side of the Argument…
It has been said that Stan Lee will “take any credit that hasn’t yet been claimed”, and with this mentality to this day he made no effort to hide the fact he believes he is the sole creator of Spiderman. Stan lee believes that because he came up with the concept of Spiderman he is therefore the creator.

Steve Ditko’s Side of the Argument…
Steve Ditko believes he should be considered the co-creator of Spiderman because the instantly recognisable appearance of Spiderman we all know and love to this day was completely dreamed up by Steve Ditko.

Before Steve’s departure from Marvel Stan did write Steve a letter saying he considered him to be co-creator of Spiderman and said he could show that to whoever he wanted. The letter really was written in a kind of “yeah right” manner and Steve was not happy. Soon after Steve Ditko left Marvel and had a relatively un-successful career writing politically conservative comics which were not popular with rebellious comic reading teens. He also voiced his opinion on the matter with a comic he produced which showed on the left Stan Lee’s contribution to Spiderman which was a paragraph of text and then on the right, his contribution which was a beautifully illustrated image of Spiderman swinging on a web trough the city.

This dispute continues to this day. Although on the Spiderman movies’ opening credits Steve Ditko does get a mention. Most people including the man hmself believe Stan Lee is the creator of Spiderman.

What do you guys think? Does Steve Ditko deserve the title “co-creator of Spiderman” or does that honor belong to the legend that is Stan Lee, as it was after all his idea?

Leave your comments in the box…

I found this while scouring the web. This is a spoof of the logo for Microsoft’s iPod called the Zune.

I guess this explains why the zune is brown.

So to randomly throw in a question, do you think this will be better than the iPod?

It does have a pretty cool sharing facility, but with the new iPod touch out now… wowaweewa… my biased vote goes to Apple.

If you’re into keeping your blog up to scratch with Web Standards and Mr XHTML Validator over at The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), but every time you embed YouTube and Google video in your blog it really messes everything up… I’m here to help.

So to embed valid XHTML YouTube and Google video in your blog just copy and paste the code below, change the url link to the video you want to show and you’re good to go… you’re welcome.

<object type="application/x-shockwave-flash" data="INSERT URL HERE" width="425" height="355">
<param name="movie" value="AND INSERT URL HERE" />
<p><a href="http://www.adobe.com/go/getflashplayer"><img src="http://www.adobe.com/images/shared/download_buttons/get_flash_player.gif" alt="Get Adobe Flash player" style="border:none;" /></a></p></object>

And it’s as simple as that.

First off let me apologise for the lack of postage this week. That doesn’t mean I haven’t been working on the blog, the new theme I have been working on for what seems like forever now is almost complete. The comments are currently very default… but enough of this geekery and onto business.

Today I have been mostly thinking about the size zero.

There is much debate in the fashion world at the moment regarding this matter, with some designers carrying on regardless and others banning size zero, but using… I dunno, size one or something cause they still look uber thin to me.

So who is responsible for constructing this image of size zero being the most attractive thing since sliced brad? It’s a bit of a chicken and the egg thing, did the skinny women come around first and then the magazines told us this is what you should find attractive, or did women see skinny women and want to be like them by any means… don’t look at me, I don’t know any of the answers… I’m not a magic 8 ball.

I have to say I do find the Kate Moss…

Sienna Miller…

Lily Cole…

…Sarah types of this world incredibly sexy. As a designer I know it is important your work is shown exactly as you want it to be seen, so therefore if designers want to use size zero I think that is their choice.

What do you think. Should designers be allowed to use whichever models they want? Or should they be forced to use models nearer your average woman who walks down the street?

Also, do you think these models types are hot or not?