Mark Twain Google Doodle

Google is celebrating Samuel Langhorne Clemens aka Mark Twain's birthday with this awesome Google Doodle, which totally looks like a scene out of a Tom Sawyer/Huckleberry Finn adventure.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MARK TWAIN!

It's time

I'm a huge supporter of the LGBT community and am thankful to count a handful of these amazing people in my close company of friends. I cannot understand the hate towards people who want nothing more than to love and to wed. THEY JUST WANT TO HAVE BABIES AND BUY HOUSES AND THEY'RE NICE HUMANS OKAY? 

Anyway, here's a sweet and simple PSA calling for the end marriage discrimination in Australia.

This is such a beautiful and adorable video. After watching this short PSA, hopefully you’ll agree it’s time to end marriage discrimination all over the world.  

MOTOWN X NICKELBACK

I cannot imagine anybody who actually counts Nickelback as one of their favourite musicians / bands / artistes / people things / etc — but I also cannot imagine anyone who doesn't know at least one song by them. Awesomely bad would be the most apt way to describe them.

Personally, Yvette & I like have our days where Nickelback just SPEAK to us with their deep lyrics. But most days, I'm like NO GO AWAY GET OUT OF MY LIFE. Most recently, the city of Detroit managed to gather over 50,000 signatures in a petition asking half-time show producers to reconsider Nickelback as half-time entertainment during the NFL Lions-Green Bay game on Thanksgiving Day. Because obviously, Detroit's national image was at stake.

Guess what happened? Nickelback developed a sense of humour, and released a Funny or Die video in response to the petition, acknowledging the fact they're probably the world's most hated band.

BUT THAT'S NOT THE POINT. The point is this:

The Sensational Scott Bradlee  joins forces with Andrew Baron Roland (vocals), Adam Kubota (bass), Allan Mednard (drums), Steve “The Saxuation” Ujfalussy (tenor sax), and Tim Kubart (tambourine) to offer Detroit a more Motown-appropriate alternative to Nickelback: Motown Nickelback. 

Amazing. It's like American Idol Season 123012831. 

Girl with a Pearl Earring

Just a guy drawing a spiral... Wait, what?

Check out this awesome video of Singapore/Germany-based illustrator/art director Chan Hwee Chong recreating Johannes Vermeer's masterpiece, the 'Girl with a Pearl Earring'. This is really just a promo showcasing the precision of Faber Castell Artist Pen, but it is really amazing to watch Chan transform swirly lines into a legit portrait. 

Kinda reminds me of a thumbprint or the rings of a tree. What do you think?

Click read more for other portraits in this series drawn by Chan Hwee Chong.

Community: Beetlejuice , Beetlejuice , Beetlejuice

I'm a really huge fan of Community (and all things Joel McHale), so when I found out that NBC is pretty much pulling the plug on this amazeballs series, I did all I could in my power to stop this from happening. I whined about it on Facebook.

Writer and casts reaction to the news — featuring catch phrases. THIS FUCKING CAST OKAY. 

Everyone knows that the show is just full of incredible Easter eggs, and it seems that someone had found what is possibly the best one ever.

So it seems that the writers have been sneaking the word “Betelgeuse” into the script of a single episode each season. (Are all great shows doomed to only last three seasons?! See: Arrested Development.)

Check out what happened when the word was uttered a third time during the show’s Halloween episode, “Horror Fiction in Seven Spooky Steps.”  Pure brilliance.

If you didn't get it: Look behind Annie — because if you say his name three times, he appears.)

And no, I didn't misspell Beetlejuice. In the movie, it was spelled Betelgeuse on his tombstone and his calling card, which was why Alec Baldwin had a bitch of a time trying to pronounce it. I LOVE POP CULTURE. 

Street Style

More street-style inspiration from THE LOCALS.

Be Curious

IDEO (pronounced “eye-dee-oh”) is an award-winning global design firm that takes a human-centered, design-based approach to helping organizations in the public and private sectors innovate and grow.

Ideo currently works with various Singapore government agencies on issues such as fertility, health care and entrepreneurship. I don't know when they were engaged but for sure, government social units like SDU (Social Development Unit) needs serious re-branding because no one takes them seriously.

Their vision reads:

"The vision of SDN is to promote marriages and nurture a culture where singles view marriage as one of their top life goals."

Right! I'm pretty sure that's a way to convince people by putting a bunch of #ridic words together.

I recently read from an interview with Mr Paul Bennett, chief creative officer of Ideo and he has this to say regarding our govt's "give us more babies" efforts:

"You can't ask a citizen to procreate because the country needs it. You have to ask a citizen to live the life he needs or wants to live."

Wise words, my friend.

Mr Paul is an interesting man and I stumbled upon his blog called The Curiousity Chronicles

From his blog: watch this to see KIT KAT in a way you never would have thought of:




KITTO KATSU!

Chinese old people cover Lady Gaga's Bad Romance

I found this video while scrolling through Accidental Chinese Hipster and thank Odin that I did because it is GLORIOUS. I love old people. Except when they fart. Old people farts are the worse. Anyway. This strange video is full of old Chinese people, or if you're Singaporean 'ah-kongs' and 'ah-mahs', who sing Lady Gaga's Bad Romance with in Chinese.

I don't understand the song in Chinese (because I'm a fail Asian). I don't understand why they're singing to each other in a....  fake house thing? And I don't get why it turns into the Summer Lovin' bit from Grease at the end with the boy and girl verses. Then there are ballerina girls playing instruments in boots? WHAT IS GOING ON?

Even though the old people are amazeballs, with their enthusiasm and arteritis dance moves, this video definitely is up there when it comes to things which are bizarre.

WATCH ITTTT.

Frock Paper Scissors

This is a basic post to do nothing more than pimp my magazine, Frock Paper Scissors — an annual fashion magazine celebrating Brisbane and its wonderfully creative inhabitants.

Frock Paper Scissors is a free publication that hopes to be your source of local fashion, culture, beauty, lifestyle, great yarns and pretty pictures. Personally, I feel like this issue is the best yet. And if you're not in Brisbane, you can flip through the magazine online here.

We also have a pretty banging website, with tons of content that are all different from the magazine — something we're pretty proud of. Who wants to read the same story or look at the same photo shoot twice?

Honestly we're just a bunch girls hanging out who happened to produce a smashing publication. Throw us a like if you're feeling nice, and you can follow us on Tumblr as well.

End of plug. LOL. 

Spread of the world's population.... If we all lived In one city

Here’s an interesting infographic that shows what the world population (all 7 billion of us) would look like if it was all squeezed into various cities at their current densities. This was done up by the folks at Per Square Mile, which is a blog about density aka "what happens when people live like packed sardines".

So the density in Singapore is cray cray, but not buttfuck insane like Paris or New York. Phewwwww!

Suitcase beds for cats

No matter what people may think, I truly believe cats are the kings and queens of the world. As it is, they're already the rulers of the Internets.

And all royalty deserve a pretty place to rest as they look down on and over us humans. Like an Upcycled Suitcase Pet Bed.

Made from vintage suitcases (lol duh), it also comes with a removable fluffy cushion. Which is most important cos Her Majesty.

If you're keen, or if you cat is currently holding you at gunpoint, you can purchase them from etsy seller AtomicAttic.

Madly In Love With: How Sweet It Is

I'm here to torture you with this absolutely delicious dish:

Oven-crisped parmesan and sage truffle fries. 

 I've not slept all night, and have instead spent those hours salivating through How Sweet It is. She's my favourite blogger now because she's hell funny, and there's food involved. We should be friends, Jessica. Only good things would come out such an arrangement.

I'm going to run around the city looking for affordable truffle oil before I fly back to Singapore in two days. Food makes me weak in the knees.

DIY Wolverine Claws

At JKT we know nothing says homemade like a pair of do-it-yourself Wolverine claws, so using this kid's work as an example, we're are going to teach you how to make you can make your very own non-adamantium face shredders!

What you need:

• 6 x ice hockey blades
• 2 x wooden poll things (about 1/2 an inch wide and 3 inches long)
• ........uhhhh

Okay I don't exactly know what kind of work or what actually went into this, but you can check it out at indesctructables. 

The whole process is actually pretty fucking sweet. It definitely makes me wish I was had power tools and what not. But mostly, the whole dude wielding a blowtorch thing is...... kinda hot.

Samuel L. Jackson Blames You

Samuel L. Jackson has had enough of you putting the damn blame on your mom and the whole damn world, so here he is yelling about who you should be putting the blame on instead:

It's yourself, if you didn't catch it. 

Intense anti-gun violence PSA is intense. The amount of reports of violence on the streets is crazy, so this is appropriate right now. Or always. We can always count on Samuel to tell it as it is.

Painted Antlers

While I've never been a fan of throwing antlers on the wall, these incredibly pretty ones might just change my mind:

Since deer and elk shed their antlers naturally each year, what better way to make use of them then to dig our your paints and turn them into pretty print art? That's exactly what Milwaukee-based artist Cassandra Smith. DIY + Nature = super hippie.

Honestly, I would be at a bit of a lost as to what to do with them but they are really nice to look at — and I'm a child, so that's good enough for me. If you don't have the privilege of having elks roaming around your area, you can buy them from her etsy store. 

ASICS X NYC MARATHON

This is a pretty sweet outdoor installation interactive advertising piece featuring QT marathon runner Ryan Hall. ASICS set up a 60 foot video wall that allowed passersby to challenge top the US Marathoner in a short race

This was set up as part of its campaign for the recent New York City Marathon. The concept for this was conceived by creative agency Vitro, and the wall video display depicted long distance runner Ryan Hall sprinting at marathon speed across a tunnel in NYC’s Columbus Circle subway station. The wall featured a countdown, which allowed passersby to get in position and then see how they fared racing alongside the athlete.

View the video above to see Ryan Hall challenge Ryan Hall. Lulz.

Earth from Space

My friends and family would know that I am a major geek for Earth / nature / animal / etc documentaries. Just the other day on Facebook, I questioned why I wasn't David Attenborough. (My friends reminded me that my dislike for birds, and the fact that I am neither a man nor possess a British accent were major possible factors — though really, I just blame the birds. Birds ruin everything.)

My point is — take a look at this holy-crap-amazing video of a time-lapse view of our gorgeous planet from space:

Our world is so beautiful it makes me want to cry.

Dinosaurs by Andy Council

Bristol-based artist and illustrator, Andy Council, is badass. I'm not just saying that because my imaginary penis gets hard when I see anything dinosaur related, but I actually reckon his style is really unique and I love it. 

Dinosaurs are Council's trademark, and he quite cleverly constructs them out of inanimate objects and structures. The amount of detail that goings into the shape of search dino is also incredible. My favourite is his crayon triceratops aka Rayolatops.

Click read more to check out his home appliance T-Rex.

Find a healthier you

This ad moved and impressed me so much that I had to look it up and share it immediately.

Such an awesome concept that was well executed. What would you do if you met a healthier version of yourself?

Friend Of Mine

I've been working at/on a fashion magazine since arriving in Brisbane in July, and it's been an amazing experience. Aside from finally learning more about what goes on on the other side of the fence (having come from a PR background), I've discovered tons of amazing Australian fashion houses — and Friend Of Mine has been one of my fave finds:

I am really loving their Spring 2012 collection: mainly because it's black, white, clean.

Lovely palette/prints, clever slits, perfectly tailored, mixture of fabrics — and most of all just so simple. Clothes like this make me wish I were skinny and rich. LIFE IS SO HARD.

Flowers In A Can

Who doesn't like getting flowers? I love it. I love flowers so much I often buy them for myself like a sad lonely cat lady. I bought a beautiful bunch at the supermarket earlier today for only $5 and the dude at the cashier gave me a look as if to say "Are you okay, doll?" Of course,  I'm okay. I have cider bottles of flowers sitting on my window ledge I'M FRIGGING AWESOME.

I digress. What I was trying to say is that I love flowers, and these flowers in a can are such a great idea.

All you have to do is pop the top, add a bit of sunshine and water — and before you know it, you'd have grown yourself a pretty bouquet! Of flowers! In a can! I need them all.

Pillow Fight

All you sissy pants having pillow fights with feather pilows and soft silk cushions — listen up because you guys suck.

And a certain Mr Bryan Ku has officially level-ed up over the whole world. I especially love the crooked lightsaber.

Magic Mountain Lodge

When looking around for accommodation when I travel, I try my best to stick to a pretty basic criteria list:

• Covered in rainforest moss and vines
• Volcano-like structure that spews water instead of hot lava
• Only accessible by a monkey bridge

Apparently, not many hotels meet those requirements, which honestly astonishes me. That needs to change. Thank God southern Chile got their act together and decided to gift the world with Montaña Mágica Lodge.

Montaña Mágica Lodge, also known as Magic Mountain Lodge, is located within Huilo Huilo, a 232 square mile natural reserve in southern Chile. Honestly, just the name and how it looks is enough to blow my mind. But it gets more magical and surreal. 

There are out also hot tubs outside, carved from hollowed out tree trunks, which provide amazing views of the surrounding nature and wildlife. All that's missing is me. MAKE IT HAPPEN, WORLD. 

A pool in a house in a city

Hey guys, we've not known each other long but could I ask for a favour? Do you have $10.5million lying around that I could borrow. Because what's behind this door is what I could kind of use right now.

A FRIGGING POOL IN THE LIVING ROOM. No biggie, just 30,000 gallons of water instead of a couch.

Yes, this Manhattan townhouse has a living room with a swimming pool. This kind of reminds me of this classic E-mail From An Asshole except it's better — because it's real.

Also, there's a swing in the middle. Surely that alone must be worth all the money?

Madly In Love With: Sara Applebaum

COLOURFUL. EXPLOSIVE. PSYCHADELLIC. BRILLIANT. AMAZING. TRIPPY. YOUNG. FUN.

Aka work by San Francisco artist Sarah Applebaum:

Sara's installations and sculptures are made from afghans (don't even think about it), vintage blankets, felt, and yarn — a crazy mish mash of recycled items which make fall in love with them even more.