Hasta de Luego!

Ah, my dear, dear blog readers. How will you satisfy your deep addiction to the Beckstar while I'm off in Mexico this week? How will you re-enter the new year without a tip of the hat from the only thing keeping you going from day to day?

I know, it's hard for me too. Let's all be brave together.

I'll be back on December 31st, may even slide in some posting before my newly-tanned hide rips Vancouver a new party hole (okay, that metaphor is kind of grossing me out) for New Years, and will be back in full force before you can say 'I wonder what Gabrielle Carteris has planned for 2007".

In the meantime - explore the archive. 2006 was a fun year on the Beckstar!

Word!

I am basically Corey Feldman.

Disagree? Then how do you explain the Metro's coverage of me at the Karyo party last week, where I share the page with not one, but two Coreys.


I estimate myself to be about eighteen months from international blogging fame.


Bottom-left: Beckstar. Top-right: Coreys. All this page needs is Corey Hart and it would be pretty much the greatest demonstration of human talent since the first Greek Olympics.

Huge big ups to Warren Frey, social eyes editor and himself a consummate blogger - freyburg.com is always worth a read.

Beckstar Reviews Animated Gif's of Cats!

I really really love this one. It's all 'broke down the fourth wall' conceptual metafiction, where the cat is all like 'meow! I'm in the computer!'.


I like the attention that the designer of this gif paid to the full cat face - movement in the ear hair in particular looks great. However, I can't say the same about the 'making it twitchy and kind of creepy' part of their vision.


I wish this animator had pushed herself a little further with the gestures. See No Evil Cat looks more like she's smelling her eye.


More awesomeness! Look carefully to see the movement in this animation. When you find it, try to get rid of the somehow dirty feeling it leaves you with. This is pretty much the exact visual going through people's heads when you hear them say "Yeah... I don't know what it is, I just find cats kind of creepy"


Seriously man, did you hear that? Oh shit, five-o is totally on our tails. No for real, did you hear that? Okay man, stay cool. Hold it together. Just play it cool. Aw shit, I know you heard it that time. Scrappy? Scrappy, you still here? I'm freaking out over here man!



I thought this one was weird-looking and kind of cool at first. Then I listened to it with Backyard Betty by Spank Rock, and I'm pretty much convinced it's the greatest thing ever. Check it out yourself by clicking the link!


Yeah, this is what I'm talking about. Tigers be some badass bizness boi!


Seriously people, be nice. The woman that made this is in the unfortunate metaphysical position of having a joyless, lonely life full of Winnie the Pooh stuffed animals.


Fluffy! Kiki! To your seperate corners. No cats need that much "grooming".


And my number one favourite cat gif of the all:

W. T. F.

It's my D**k in a Box

Reason to love Justin Timberlake #6210:


This is seriously one of the funniest vids I've seen in ages. Also, a great last-minute gift idea!

Reason to love Justin Timberlake #6211:



Reason to love Justin Timberlake #6212:

Beckstar Makes Holiday Party!

So Thursday was Karyo's client christmas party, where, in a nutshell, we serve fabulous food, torture our clients with some kind of public game, and watch [some of] them get drunk.

Personally, I thought this year's game ruled. Anytime you have a group of professional people sing

“Rudolph the stone-cold gangsta- Will you be my baby daddyyyyy?” you can pretty much guarantee ridiculous things are at foot.

We wrote eight of these ghetto christmas carols, so, read the full lyrics, and laugh your ass off. At least we did when we were writing them.

Some photos from the night, which continued for myself and friends, very drunk and soaking wet, at Chambar, where it was Amy's birthday.


Sometimes birthday girls wear tiaras...


...sometimes party girls wear tiaras.

Fear the nerd revolution...

I love, love, love nerdcore rap, and nerd culture in general. Who doesn't?

So how excited was I when I found this trailer for a documentary about nerdcore rappers?

Most of the people featured in this video are also on the Rhyme Torrents website, where of course they have their music available for free download, as diligent nerds would. Awwww!

On a side note, if you've got an hour and half to kill, be sure to watch one of the greatest films in the history of mankind - Revenge of the Nerds, here in full on Google Video.

Betty: Are all nerds as good as you?
Louis: Uh-huh.
Betty: How come?
Louis: Because all jocks think about is sports. All we think about is sex.

Classic!

We party long time! [Random December Saturday edition]

All I'm saying is, if you start the night off at a fun place drinking tequila, you get crunked at an Appleton Rum sponsored party, you dance for hours at an after party, and you end up with these photos on your camera, which unfortunately tell but a fraction of the story... it was most likely a fun Saturday night.


Here you can see me reckoning Joni to be 80% pirate.


Omigod! I was totally sexy dancing with Egyptian sun god ra ⊙!


I have no memory of making a phone call. Good sign!


Wow, this phone booth is pretty awesome! Let's see if we can fit all our new friends in here!


And here we see Randy expressing what we all felt for this starry delight of a girl. Mika and I are kind of trying to hunt her down, so if you know her, holla!

Deep Sea Magic!

Ah, scientists. How much they add to our understanding of the universe.

Today's episode of Why the Beckstar Has a Nerd Fetish focuses on the oceans, where an attempt at making a full census of marine life by 2010 is already producing strange and awesome data.

How about, for example, the multitude of never-seen-before species found in the Antarctic, including strange jellyfish and other gelatinous organisms that thrive without light?

Or, how about the yeti crab, a new species found near Easter Island?


Hi, I am hairy and pretty.

Or the "Jurassic Shrimp", believed extinct for 50 million years, and now found near Australia?


50 million years in the making. Coming soon to a barbecue near you.

They've also found that life is thriving in some really inhospitable locales - next to extreme heat vents and in areas of the ocean that never see light. We knew this before, but the abundance of life is impressive and unexpected.

But my favourite thing in marine biology has to be the deep sea creatures. They've found hundreds of new ones in this census, and believe that the under-studied deep sea ecosystems may play a crucial role in regulating global climate. Go science!

Deep sea creatures are just so different than any form of life we see up here on the carpet. They look positively extra-terrestrial. These illustrations are of a mild sampling of the lifeforms we've already documented, and there are clearly many more. So, so, so, so awesome.






All images from this site, which is in Japanese but still really cool

Or just check out this vid. It's about 10 minutes, but trust me - it's worth it.


Absolutely fascinating BBC documentary on deep sea creatures

Federally mandated daily quota of Beckstarian content

My room - 10:47 pm:

I did a crystal meth-related project last year. While sourcing images, I found one of the most disturbing/heart-breaking photo essays I've ever seen - Children of Meth. Sadly, I was reminded of it when I looked upon my current living conditions.

Same room - 1:04 am:

For this achievement, I'd like to thank Jesus, my parents, my fabulous agent Jenny Levine, and the fantastic film Dark City.

Yes, you saw that right.

The other night, in a hungover bout of laziness, I invented this 't-shirt pillowcase' because the last clean pillowcase reeked mildly of booze. Chew on that Martha Stewart, you hapless bitch!



Bonus! Fur hat photo shoot!

Save Santa! - the Santa Liberation Front

In a last desperate act to save the planet from the clutches of global warming, the Santa Liberation Front (SLF) has been forced to exploit the most wholesome of children's icons: Jolly Nick himself.

Don't wait - start today!

"That's great Steve"

This thing is funny from first frame to last. It's a viral video about creating viral videos... don't think too hard about it, just watch.

6 of the 50 Greatest Ads of the ’80's

So Giant Magazine has put together a long shortlist of the 50 Greatest Commercials of the 1980's. Awesome.

There are quite a few to get through, so I've pulled my six particular favourites here... enjoy!


Sadly, the My Buddy campaign, as I remember it, was used mainly to tormet less popular kids. Along the lines of 'Who are you going to the dance with? Your My Buddy?'


Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. Nintendo + Terrible Product Rap?


On a 'creepy scale' from 1 to 10, this ad came in at 30, raped numbers one through four, and has the rest of them chained to its radiator.


Early cell-phone ad... You've got the whole world in your hand... which can only move about three feet from your car. And costs $800. See? They've been marketing to me 1988, and I still refuse to own a cellphone. I am the last unicorn.


The joke's on you, mustache dad. I'm not totally sure why a dad that smokes pot himself would be so aggro about his child's use, but hey - it was the 80's. Things didn't make sense.


Uh... hello? Shatner plus the Wonder Computer of the 1980's. And it was only $300. Take that Hundred Dollar Laptop crew.

Am I the only one...

... who looks at these images of Pete Goldlust's carved crayons, and thinks 'man, this guy really needs to get laid.'?


Each crayon here represents, I estimate, 10 hours that would have been better spent pleasing a woman. Or man. Or whoever - hey, like Digital Underground said... dowhatchalike!


Some of his polymer clay work. These look less like turds than a lot of his other work in this media. Pretty, ethereal turds... but still...


From a 2005 collaboration with artist Julie Hughes, entitled Turned Out and Doubled Over

Virgin Mobile - Yours to Keep

Say what you will about animated universe ads, but throw in a catchy song, polka-dot elephants and a trippy flower explosion, and they're pretty watchable.

These are, I believe, the Christmas 2006 campaign for Virgin Mobile that ran in Canada. The song - Yours to Keep - is by Teddybears, and it features Neneh Cherry (seriously, remember her?) on vocals.


Take that GloboChem! Hey... isn't that from Mr. Show?


The last scene is for sure I would have been doing if I'd worked at Enron.

I was about to be a complete bore, and mention the contradiction between the pro-environment subtext in these ads and the environmental impact of the cell phones they promote.

But after checking the brand-spanking new Greenpeace Electronics Guide, I see that several companies are trying to make them more earth-friendly. Motorola in particular gets the "Most Improved Camper" award, moving up the list from a 1.7 rating to a 6 in the last three months.

Maybe I can justify that Gold RAZR I'm coveting...

Detroit = Destination for Art?

Now I'm not really an architecture nerd or anything, but as someone who's seen her share of urban centres, I knows what I likes and I likes the new Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit, which opened in October.

As much as I can appreciate the bright, shiny, modernist building designs that seem to be the standard way to revitalize urban areas, I think there is something truly visionary in Andrew Zago's experimental approach to the museum's design. As he explains,

I didn’t want to romanticize it but the city had a depth of character, a real substance and integrity. And while you want to do away with the problems, you don’t want to lose that quality.

It really, really works.

The space is a converted car dealership, and the design incorporates all the grit and decay of the space into its aesthetic. Kudoes to you Andrew Zago, kudos to you.


Barry McGee, graffiti art darling, did a graffiti installation across the outside.


Not only that, but supposedly this little dude is one of McGee's mechanical mannequins. I repeat: mechanical mannequin. I know. Awesome.


Architect Andrew Zago.


Nari Ward's White Flight Tea Bar 2006, currently on display.


Christopher Fachini with his sound installation called The Rock Box Sound System plays the Mental Machine

More about the museum in a NY Times architecture review, or you can just go visit it.

I mean seriously what else are you going to do in Detroit???