Last year when we were in Florida, I posted some photos of McGuire’s Irish Pub in Destin, including a video of the creepy double-decker bus parked out front.

This year took a trip over to the original McGuire’s Irish Pub in Pensacola and I shot a few photos while there as well. Both locations are home to “Feasting, Imbibery & Debauchery”, including great Irish food, a brewery on site where they make amazing beer and tricky bathroom signs.

See Previously: Creepy Double-Decker Bus at McGuire’s Irish Pub in Destin, FL

photos by Scott Beale

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McGuire’s Irish Pub, Pensacola, FL

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Here’s a KTVI news story on Chuck Kalert, the guy who has changed the light bulb on the top of the Saint Louis Gateway Arch each year for the last 15 years. The top of the Arch is 630 feet above the ground.

via The J-Walk Blog

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Changing The Light Bulb On Top Of The St. Louis Gateway Arch

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Apartment Therapy Los Angeles has posted a great series of photos by John Olson featuring 1970’s rock musicians at their parents homes that they discovered while going through the amazing LIFE Magazine photo archive.

via WFMU

photo of Frank Zappa and his parents by John Olson

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Photos of 1970’s Rock Musicians at Their Parent’s Homes

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A time-lapse video of a giant wall painting in Berlin recently completed by Blu.

See Previously: MUTO, Amazing Animation Painted on Public Walls by Blu

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Time-Lapse Video of Blu’s Giant Wall Painting in Berlin

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“Star Wars Vs. Star Trek” by D. M. Phoenix

via Nowhere Else

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Star Wars Vs. Star Trek

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guest post by Charlie Todd

Earlier this month a massive group of pranksters led by members of The Yes Men and The Anti-Advertising Agency printed up and distributed copies of a spoof New York Times. The paper featured the headline “Iraq War Ends” and 14 pages of unbelievably good news for any left-leaning reader. The paper, which was also reproduced online, also included some very clever fake advertisements for real corporations, including the De Beers ad above. While the real Times called the prank a “Grade-A-caper”, De Beers did not find it as funny.

Matt Zimmerman of the Electronic Frontier Foundation explains:

Not surprisingly, the corporate targets of the parody were not pleased. Now, in what is becoming an all-too-familiar trend, one of those corporations has attempted to shut down the site by putting pressure on what is often the weakest link in the online speech chain: the domain name registrar. Stymied by the First Amendment and other legal impediments, those who don’t appreciate critical commentary and other “objectionable” online content have found intermediaries — providers of indispensable technical services like domain name registration and web hosting — much easier to intimidate.

This time, the complaining (and overreaching) party was the South African diamond conglomerate De Beers, the target of a critical fake ad on the web version of the New York Times spoof announcing that diamond purchases “will enable us to donate a prosthetic for an African whose hand was lost in diamond conflicts.” Miffed by the criticism, De Beers responded not by confronting the authors (whose parody is protected by the First Amendment) but instead by threatening their Swiss-based domain name registrar, Joker.com. De Beers has demanded that Joker.com disable the spoof website’s domain name or face liability for trademark infringement.

You can read the EFF’s letter to De Beers, attached at the bottom of their coverage.

I’m reminded of the nastygram Laughing Squid received last holiday season from Best Buy.

See Previously:

- Fake New York Times Distributed With Headline: “Iraq War Ends”

- Best Buy Cease & Desist Letter For Blog Coverage of Parody

image via nytimes-se.com

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De Beers Threatens Legal Action Against Fake New York Times

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guest post by mikl-em

We’re In Your Thanksgiving Parade, Rolling Your Rick

As David Crosby said Everybody’s been burned. And okay, maybe not everybody has been Rickrolled, but earlier this year SurveyUSA estimated that 18 Million people in the US have had the video for Rick Astley’s 1987 pop gem Never Gonna Give You Up foisted upon them by a surreptitious href.

For anyone who is unfamiliar this phenomenon, I won’t bother explaining. But instead suggest you check out the trailer for “Wench Patrol” the awesome Jennifer Aniston / Paris Hilton heist flick directed by Quentin Tarantino shot entirely in IMAX. Go ahead take a look. We’ll be waiting.

Got it?

But until Thanksgiving Day 2008 (the American one not the Canadian one) few if any people had been Rickrolled live by the real Rick Astley (who hereby joins the ranks of The Real Roxanne and The Real Slim Shady as individuals whose reality must be explicitly asserted). Astley, who has said of this fad it’s a bit spooky innit?, popped up on the Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends‘ float at the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade and chortled those immortal words A full commitment’s what I’m thinking of, amongst others, for the assembled masses (up to a quarter million live plus however many on the TV & youtubes).

Online predecessors of such bait-and-switchery include Goatse.cx (which we of the mirthful squid have chronicled in its many forms) and napster bombing which was invented by squid-pal Evolution Control Committee as a way to broadly distribute their audio offerings thinly disguised as more mainstream songs. Offline predecessors include surprise parties and walking in on co-workers making out at the company Christmas party.

And on an entirely unrelated point, have you seen these Hilarious Muppets Bloopers?

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Rick Astley Does Live Rickroll At Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade

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Ariel Waldman has just launched the new website Spacehack, an online community for space exploration, covering topics such as competition, data analysis, education and open source.

Spacehack is a directory of ways to participate in space exploration, interact + connect with the space community and encourage citizen science.

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Spacehack, An Online Community For Space Exploration

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guest post by Todd Lappin (Telstar Logistics)

If you haven’t already seen it, the Applied Kinetic Arts Show is on display at the Y2Y Gallery in San Francisco until January 23. The work is great, and the show is well worth a visit.

This is a lil’ video from the show I threw together last night: “Electric Motor Man,” by Mark Galt, remixed with the theme from the “Dick Van Dyke Show.” (Rest assured, Motor Man doesn’t trip at the end.)

video by Todd Lappin (Telstar Logistics)

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Electric Motor Man at the Applied Kinetic Arts Show

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Steve Rhodes shot some photos and video of last Sunday’s North Beach unveiling of “The Language Of The Birds”, the new sculpture by Brian Goggin and Dorka Keehn.

More Coverage:

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- Dave Golden

- Matt Armstrong

See Previously: Brian Goggin & Dorka Keehn Unveil The Language Of The Birds

photos by Steve Rhodes

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Photos & Video of The Language Of The Birds Unveiling

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Chickens have the uncanny ability to keep their head stable while their body moves around. Here’s Destin, a mechanical engineer and missle tester from Priceville, Alabama, demonstrating this unique phenomenon with a family chicken.

via Waxy

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Demonstration of Chicken Keeping Head Stable As Body Moves

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Video: The Guild Season 2 Trailer

Season 2 of “The Guild” (see my previous post), created by and staring Felicia Day, has just begun. Here’s the trailer. Season 2 will be exclusively distributed by Microsoft via MSN Video, Xbox Live Video Marketplace and Zune Marketplace.

Yesterday Felicia did an interview on NPR where she talked to Alex Cohen on “Day to Day” about creating “The Guild” and why she decided to work with Microsoft to distribute the series.

See Previously: The Guild, The Adventures of a Group of Online Gamers

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The Guild Season 2

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Lori and I are having some R&R in Destin, Florida. Tonight we walked down to the beach to catch the sunset on the beautiful white beach.

photos by Scott Beale

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Sunset Over The Gulf of Mexico In Destin, Florida

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be safe and have fun...

Survival Research Labs (SRL) turned 30 today. Congratulations on an amazing three decades! Founder and director Mark Pauline writes:

30 years ago today, I started Survival Research Laboratories. I had come up with the idea of machine performances a few weeks earlier, and when the owner of a local free magazine, “Boulevards Magazine” heard my spiel, and learned that I was thinking of forming SRL as a company, he offered me, a free, full page ad space in his November issue.

I started working on the first SRL machine “The Demanufacturing Plant” the next week. It appeared in the first SRL show “Machine Sex” staged on St. Patrick’s Day in 1979.

More Coverage: Boing Boing

image via Survival Research Labs

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Survival Research Labs Turns 30

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