My phone has a new outgoing voicemail message. Like most super hip and misunderstood cool things, It's funny because it's bad.

It's from a collection of "funny" outgoing messages made by the fine people at Tandy Corp. circa 1985. When answering machines were all the rage. You might know the Tandy Corp. by it's common name, RadioShack.

This and other samples from that RadioShack tape can be heard on Tape Findings. Tape Findings is an archive of cassette tapes found at garage sales and thrift stores that have been carefully digitized and made availible for your listening pleasure. Other peices in the collection include young tape recorder salesman testing out a tape recorder with a prospective costumer.

His pitch seems to consist of the phrase "There's no mic to fumble with or stick in someones face because you know, they'll clam up right away." Which can be heard being repeated to several customers. (via metafilter)

I started this weblog shortly before thanksgiving of last year. A lot has changed since then. Mostly for the better I'd say. To you guys who take the time to look at this weblog and download my desktops or listen to our music, have a safe and happy turkey day. Not that I don't want the people who don't look at this weblog to have a safe and happy thanksgiving... I just mean... you know what I mean, thanks.
thanksgiving, see?

In the spirit of giving, I give you a new desktop,
titled: Greetings from 1975!

Drink me:
@ 1600 pixels wide
@ 1024 pixels wide

This desktop comes with a story and a tagline.
The story is this:
Before I met my good buddy Koby at art college, he had a muscle car and a hippie haircut. He took to wearing tie dyed t-shirts and dancing in circles. This was in 1991. Ripe for making fun of, he made the mistake of posting a picture of this time period.

The tagline is this:
clunkyrobot.com, making friends feel shitty since 2003.

and we come full circle.
thanks guys.

As per request of my old and good college buddy Micah, the clown prince of art schoolery, I have placed a *hopefully* PC friendly version of the Bicycle Parallels cover on my server. It should work, although I can make no guarantees.

It is presented in it's full on 300dpi scale, this is to facilitate it's printability. If you remix it, please keep it at this resolution. Although sending me a smaller sized preview image wouldn't be a bad idea.

control-click or right-click to save these files:
The Bicycle Parallels: stuffit for mac (8.2MB)
The Bicycle Parallels: zipit for PC (10.8MB)

interesting compression rates there...

Well, as I mentioned yesterday, I've been busy working on a new book cover for friend and collaborator C.A. Childers of The Ape Infinitum. He's written a new play titled The Bicycle Parallels.

check it out, in easy take-away desktop value size:

@ 1600 pixels wide
@ 1024 pixels wide

The play is, among other things, about television personality Bill Moyers, and a bicycle. A bicycle that when peddled in just the right way allows the rider to travel between alternate dimensions, but at a terrible price.

The image for the cover is supposed to be a da Vinci-esque diagram of the process for peddling the bike between dimensions. A sort of ancient future artifact detailing the mathematics and theories involved. Of note: The Golden Mean.

This cover image like the play itself, which can be read for free here, are both released under a creative commons license. To encourage commercial free distribution and reimixery. Here is a stuffit file of the .psd complete with layers (warning 8.6MB), everything is labeled and ready to be screwed with... if you are so inclined. If you are not on a mac, and really want a zip file of the .psd to remix, I will be more than happy to provide one.

I can't get enough of break dancing robots. Especially when they are transforming break dancing robots.

check it out.

I've been busy working on a new project for C.A Childers over at Ape Infinitum, it's nearing completion. A book cover to a play he's written about bicycles and interdimensional travel. Read the play here. He's looking for submissions for cover art, maybe you'll beat me out.

This is a stencil of a man walking. The images are taken from a 38 frame animation. The artist Timo, put the stencils up in public places then took photographs of them, those photographs were then re-animated back into a final animation. It's life turned into art turned into grafitti, then re-purposed back into an imitation of life. You can pause the playback of the animated stencils to see exactly where in London they've been put up.(via boingboing - via plasticbag)

Today we saw 2 articles about Adult Swim, one in Creative Loafing, and one in the Atlanta Journal and Constitution, that requires you to register, and therefore won't be linked here.

2 in one day, it almost seems... planned.

"Like now, instead of getting only one AFI T-shirt at Hot Topic, you can get five AFI T-shirts, and to me that's awesome growth." -- Joel of Good Charlotte (via viceland)

*dies*

Here is a story that our unhappy Midtown Resident can take great joy in.

The New York City Council recently passed new Legislation to amend the administrative code in relation to improper placement of stickers. This law penalizes offenders with a $500 fine per sticker plus the cost of removal. In addition this law will broaden the scope of the how one can be charged for a graffiti violation. Under new legislation one can be brought to court based on the content of the sticker.

It used to be that you could only be held responsible for the graffiti if you were caught actually doing it. Now you can be taken before the court because your name appears on an improperly placed sticker.

That's where All City Council comes in.
All City Council is a group of graffiti artists who've taken pictures of the New York City Council from their website and converted them to ascii art, the text used to make the ascii is from the new law itself, they then place those stickers around town.

Now since you can be taken to court becuase your name or image appears on a sticker, All City Council asks, "What happens when the City Council members show up on a sticker?" (via boingboing)

Now that the first ever clunkyrobot.com freetrade program is over (we'll have another one soon), and we survived my surprise birthday party (first surprise party ever), clunkyrobot can finally get back to business.

Before I took off for the weekend on friday I got an email from Sujan who runs a website devoted equally to herself, and her dog Hamachi. I'm a fan of people who are huge dorks about their dogs.

Anyway, her website wasn't why she emailed me, we sort of found that on our own.

She was spreading the word about ouchthewebsite. The website is a promotion for Tylenol, but don't hold that against it because Tylenol has put up the money to have some really nice promotion pieces produced.

Ron Rege jr. designed some vinyl toys for the website, that they are giving away for free. Ron has done comics like Yeast Hoist, and Skibber Bee-Bye for years. The toys were made by Critterbox, who've made toys for Tony millionaire's Maakies and Tim Biskup's Helper. Critterbox makes some really nice toys.

The toys for ouchthewebsite come in three flavors, Twin Boy, Twin Girl, and what they are calling "The Mysterious" Agitator. The runs look to be pretty limited, but you can get them for free. Check this page on their website for details about how to get your free toys coming this month.

Sujan said she'd send me some images of the toys soon, so I'll post those when I get them.

Australian Tim Tams + Secret "better than cookie" formula from Jeremy.

So there is it. Jeremy is the proud new owner of a hand made clunkyrobot.com duct tape wallet, and the winner of the first ever clunkyrobot.com trade-away. I just couldn't resist the mystery of the secret formula, plus Jeremy's email was pretty funny.

Come monday the wallet will begin it's long journey across several oceans. Once it reaches it's destination, it will live out it's years in relative peace and harmony with it's new owner, and their back pocket.

I would sincerely like to say thank you to everyone who sent in offers for trade. The decision was really hard, I was waffling right up until the last minute. I really wish I had enough time to make wallets for everyone who offered trades. While I can't do that, I will be offering another handmade wallet for trade as soon as I finish the next one.

And now, if you'll excuse me, tomorrow is my birthday, and it's friday, I have some celebrating to do.

thanks again!

I just got another trade offer from The Land Downunder. Jeremy sent me a funny letter detailing his trade offer which includes a box of australian cookies, and a mysterious hand written secret formula for altering the cookies into something even more enjoyable.

So now the standings are:
- An Apple Cube (non-working, in pieces) from Meska
- A small Plastic Hermit Crab from Razooll
- An iThong (as seen on gizmodo) from Evan
- A pair of custom made hand knitted socks from Maxi
- A jar of delicious all-natural pumpkin preserve also from Maxi
- An Iron Becky Prize Pack (stickers, and 30 custom 1" clunky buttons!!) from Becky
- A Mix n' Match assortment (yes that's an old school Mac+) from Troy
- A box of Australian Tim Tams + secret "better than cookie" formula from Jeremy

There's exactly 12 more hours to get your trade offers in. Send them here. And here's info on the wallet.

It is now Day 4 of the great Duct Tape Wallet trade-away!!

Things are heating up with an entry from my favorite improv and sketch troupe out of Canada, the one and only Iron Cobra. It's getting harder and harder to lean towards a clear winner, and this contest may come right down to the wire. But however cool the entries are so far, once and for all a winner will be picked Friday Nov. 5th at 5:00pm EST. The contest is still wide open.

The updated entry list, in the order I've recieved them:
- An Apple Cube (non-working, in pieces) from Meska
- A small Plastic Hermit Crab from Razooll
- An iThong (as seen on gizmodo) from Evan
- A pair of custom made hand knitted socks from Maxi
- A jar of delicious all-natural pumpkin preserve also from Maxi
- An Iron Becky Prize Pack (stickers, and 30 custom 1" clunky buttons!!) from Becky
- A Mix n' Match assortment (yes that's an old school Mac+) from Troy

Thanks everyone for your trade offers so far. While there can only be one winner for this contest, I appreciate you taking the time to be a part of it. There will be another similar, if not exactly the same, contest soon. So don't worry if you don't win. If you haven't yet, send me your trade offers.

scroll down for details about the wallet.

In an effort to disctract myself from constantly clicking refresh on the cnn.com election results website...

Welcome to Day 3 of the great Duct Tape Wallet trade-away. And while I cannot say I have been "inundated" with trade offers, I have received a few and they are all very interesting.

The trade is still completely up in the air, and a winner will not be picked until Friday Nov. 5th at 5:00pm EST. So please, send your trade offers to me.

The entries so far are:
- An Apple Cube (non-working, in pieces) from Meska
- A small Plastic Hermit Crab from Razooll
- An iThong (as seen on gizmodo) from Evan
- A pair of custom made hand knitted socks from Maxi
- A jar of delicious all-natural pumpkin preserve also from Maxi

As a reminder, and because some people might be too lazy (like me) to scroll down and look at the previous post here is some information about the wallet:

(click for bigger)

info about the wallet:
When folded the wallet is 4.75 inches X 4.5 inches. The front is "emblazoned" with the clunkyrobot.com logo. Inside there is a main billfold for holding money, on the left side there is a half pocket as well as an "ID" window. On the right side are 3 pockets designed to hold credit or business cards.

for greater clarity, here is a black and white diagram of the wallet layout.

Also the wallet will be packaged with a few extra clunkyrobot.com stickers and lots of tender loving care. So seriously, it's going to be awesome. Offer me a trade.

This weekend, amidst the halloweeners and the pumpkineers, I made another duct tape wallet. This is arguably the best one I've made to date. (and also the third) I gave the first 2 away to friends and loved ones. For the third I thought I would try to trade it for somthing cool from you guys, yes you.

(click for bigger)

So here is the deal:
Starting today Monday Nov. 1st, and ending Friday Nov. 5th at 5:00pm EST I will be accepting offers for trade. I am trading a handmade clunkyrobot.com duct tape wallet. What you offer for trade is completely up to you, I reserve the right to pick the best offer.

For privacy's sake you can email me your trade offers here. I will pick the winner Friday and post their name and their offer for trade here on the website. I will arrange for shipping of the wallet, it is your responsibility to arrange for shipping of whatever you are trading to me. Local trades (ATL!) can be done in person, if you are not too creepy.

Now get to trading!

info about the wallet:
When folded the wallet is 4.75 inches X 4.5 inches. The front is "emblazoned" with the clunkyrobot.com logo. Inside there is a main billfold for holding money, on the left side there is a half pocket as well as an "ID" window. On the right side are 3 pockets designed to hold credit or business cards.

for greater clarity, here is a black and white diagram of the wallet layout.

If you have any questions about this trade, or the wallet itself, please ask them in the comments section, and I will happily answer them!