Attention, troopers! It’s been a powerful long time since I’ve given you a mission. Well it’s time to quit your lollygagging and put down that back issue of Miniature Donkey Talk magazine, because you’re about to get your marching orders—straight to the Photoshop icon!
First, a little back story: My fierce and bloodthirsty co-host on This Week in Fun, the wicked Sarah Lane (yes, I know that outwardly she appears fun and bubbly, but a dark, acidic ichor runs through those veins, a substance so caustic I once saw a drop of her saliva—not even blood—burn clear through the hood of a 1986 Buick Regal), and I took a whole mess of photos last week. No, we weren’t on one of our legendary birding expeditions, but rather in front of a green screen. See, the idea is to have our animator pal Eden Soto use the photos to construct an eye-popping graphical intro for This Week in Fun. A graphical intro that we’ll start to use once we begin publishing our show in video format—hopefully in the very near future!
And now that you’re caught up, I thought we’d launch into some digital horseplay. Below, I’ll post three of these photos. Being that they’re against green screen, it will be easy peasy for even the most fledgling Photoshop users to place Sarah and me in a world far away. Will we be feasting at an elaborate Hindu wedding? Smelting iron ore in pre-Solidarność era Ukraine? Embroiled in some sort of a madcap caper (involving a gondola and pudding) that we simply don’t know how we’ll ever make our way out of? The answer is only limited by your imagination (and Photoshop skills [and rather narrow range of photos I’ll be providing you])!
When you’ve finished, send your handiwork to martin at twit dot tv and I’ll post them in an upcoming entry, maybe even flash one on the show (we’ll do more of this once show is full video).
Ok, then, go! Photoshop ‘til you drop!
(Large Size Here)
(Large Size Here)
(Large Size Here)
You want to know why I haven’t written anything up in here in such a long while? You want the brutal, unvarnished truth? Without any of my usual, cockamamie stories about crossbow-wielding, parched self-discovery journeys through the desert lands to the south, weakness from honorable hunger strikes with the sole intention of giving some poncy Internet hotshot a well-deserved comeuppance, or nightly, tortuous visitations by The Skinwalkers, leaving me too broken to write?
Okay, then. You asked for it. The truth is I’ve been working day and night, for months, on a Time Machine in my basement. But wait, no, not that kind of a Time Machine. My creation is literally a machine that tells time! Well, I shouldn’t really say my creation, or at least not my invention, because I’m building my time machine, or “clock,” from a kit I bought on Internet for $9.99. Check it out!
My Time Machine looks like a racecar with another racecar in the rearview mirror trying to pass it! So you can understand how busy I’ve been, and why I’ve had no time to blog. Oh, by the way, I’ve also been writing a book, which is also somewhat time-consuming. But more about that in a later post. For now, I need to get back down into the basement and continue working on my Time Machine! Another post tomorrow, I promise.
Some heroic news out of Thailand today. An autistic boy, scared at his first day of school, crawled out onto a third story ledge and refused to come back inside. When fire fighter Sonchai Yoosabai learned of the boy’s love of superheroes from his frantic mother, he ran back to the firehouse and changed into a Spiderman costume he would often wear to liven up fire drills and safety presentations for children. When he returned to the scene of the crisis he told the boy “Spider-Man is here to rescue you, no monsters are going to attack you and…walk slowly towards me as running could be dangerous,” prompting the boy to immediately stand up and walk into Mr. Yoosabai’s outstretched arms. The full news story is here.
What struck me about this story is that in my long career of analyzing Internet phenomena, it’s the first time I’ve ever come across someone who actually put a Spiderman costume to good use. In every other instance the result is shameful, nauseating, tragic or a combination of the three. Allow me to prove my Internet Spiderman thesis by example. In a preponderance of cases, men who don Spiderman costumes are far too obese. This is spandex, not sweatpants. They don’t look like they’ve been bitten by a radioactive spider, but rather like they’ve bitten into every donut, taco, hamburger and pizza in the Marvel Universe. Consider this man:
He proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that grown men should not wear Spiderman costumes, especially men who have grown to the size of an elephant seal. He does, I suppose, evince some degree of superpower by merit of the fact that his legs do not buckle under the weight of his upper body when he assumes that web slinger’s crouch. Perhaps he ate a radioactive Cheetoh when playing that Nintendo lying behind him or when watching a selection from his video library, which appears to consist of every animated movie ever made. More likely, though, his superpower can be attributed to one thing: fat strength. Men like our abovementioned friend should, again, never wear spandex. But be thankful that he did, for other obese Internet Spidermen have opted for an even more form-fitting costume: body paint.
Though at first one cannot help but instinctively think that this man’s fashion crimes will always outweigh any crime fighting he accomplishes, upon deeper consideration you cannot help but tip your cap, as his nastiness will surely prevent the likes of The Green Goblin, Dr. Octopus or Venom from daring to come anywhere near him. He is literally untouchable. Other obese Internet Spidermen who deserve honorable mentions include Fat Male Camel Toe Spiderman
and Fleshy Hip Hop Spiderman
At risk of offending my bigger fans, I should also note that scrawny, saggy-assed Internet Spidermen can be equally despicable. Observe:
There is no dearth of pitiful video of Internet Spidermen. There is of course
Italian Spiderman, Spiderman Will Make You Gay, Spiderman Has Boobs, Carnage Rapes Spiderman, and this, which is sort of the reaction most people would have upon watching any of these videos. But I will leave you with a true classic that effectively sums up the failure of Internet Spidermen. Thanks for reading, and share any horrific examples I neglected to mention (there are many more) in the forum below.
We put out the call to all talented bards in the vast TWiF fandom to let fair Euterpe pluck at their heartstrings, record the results, and send their sweet-sounding opuses to Sarah and me for inclusion in the show. And one of these, we declared, would carry the high honor of becoming the official TWiF anthem.
And you heard us, Team TWiF, you heard us and responded as admirably as we knew you would. Your job? Let us know which of the following submissions you like best. Also, there’s still time to submit your own. And finally, we still very much would love to see your graphic submissions, as we feel, even though we both look damn beautiful, the two shot of us in the lower third is a bit distracting. I guess we’re just too beautiful…
Thanks so much for your continued support of TWiF! Join us every Friday at 3pm PST at http://live.twit.tv and please tell your friends. And perhaps most importantly, let Leo know how much you like the show and that you’d love to see a downloadable version as part of the regular TWiT lineup.
This Week In Fun by Dan Leuders
TWiF by Pauly Wood a.k.a. Paul Minshall
And Pauly Wood also submitted a Tweet Beat theme
Cast your vote below!