otamatone - my latest must-have useless toy

i don't even know how it works really,  most of the instructions that came with it are in japanese. i just pressed buttons and squeezed the mouth and it made a sound.  maybe it's pre-programmed.  maybe i'm just a musical genius. of course it's preprogrammed with tunes.  but really, some enterprising young hongkongers saw a prime shop location and decided to rent it for a couple of weeks to sell something done cheaply at a premium price. in any case it's a waste of money - therefore, fun. otamatone. revival.






anyhoo. i bought one in blue because the pink one is just too obscene.

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Vanishing Point: How to disappear in America without a trace

weirdness!  i was walking down hollywood road trying to digest my lunch when i came across this  exhibition space called "experimenta".  among the exhibits is a map showing locations of usb drives embedded on walls throughout china where supposedly, one can upload or download info (supposedly to hide from the censors) from the usb drives. very spy-like and too gimmicky.  the person manning the space, a susanne burner, then explained the other things on display, images downloaded from the internet and reinterpreted, and spliced together videos from youtube.  my first question of course, was, "is that legal?" either she was really clueless or she just didn't care.  she then showed me this pamphlet (photo, above) that she was selling, which she says she downloaded from the internet and reprinted to sell, and isn't worried about copyright issues because she says even the original author doesn't identify himself. i haven't read it but from skimming through the pages it looks like it's a how-to manual on how to disappear a la jon krakauer.  i'd have preferred if, instead, it's a how to on disappearing from the radar of the numerous websites making money selling personal information of people without consent. the scums.

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one shoot down

finally finished processing all the photos from this shoot (october 2009, lifestyle, indoor and outdoor) in san francisco. there's a couple of unprocessed videos from this shoot but those would have to wait. 

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