Today while thinking of Arlen Specter, two trains of thought did quite a bit of rambling from place to place: first I began to wonder if he was bald, then eventually my thought train got to the concept of a hypothetical future where baldness is in fact the sexiest one could get. This made me think of marketing bald caps to those who want the sexy bald look, but dont want the hassle of constant upkeep (shaving your head daily is a pain in the ass.)

These convergent thought trains eventually came together in a spectacular collision and all at once I had one of those glorious "eureka" moments. You know the kind, where something becames startlingly clear?. See, I've always had an interest in alien visitation phenomena, so I'm constantly thinking about "greys" in the back of my head and today was no exception. In a blink of an eye, I suddenly had the answer to all the similar sketches people from around the world have drawn of "alien" visitors: Phil Spector in a bald cap.

Visual aid:

EDIT 5/18/07: I realized I spelled Phil's name wrong, making the number of hits this is getting somewhat miraculous. Maybe now that the trial's in the news and I've spelled his name properly, more people may come this way.

It seems as if Charlotte Church and Wilford Brimley brought along a guest on their recent trip to an unnamed beach. Based on photographic evidence, that guest appears to be Natalie Portman. This photograph, which was taken with the disposable camera Wilford Brimley brought along to document his adventures with Charlotte and Natalie, was given to me by a source that wishes to be unnamed. "Anonymity is the right thing to do," was my sources only reply to my request for permission to name him.

Click to Enlarge

It is unknown whether Natalie was introduced to Wilford by Charlotte, or to Charlotte by Wilford, but one thing is certain: the trio were nearly inseparable throughout the course of the long weekend. Much time was spent in the cabin the three shared, while Cabana boys reported demands for pot after pot of boiling water to be brought to them. The only clue as to the use of the boiling water is perhaps the box of "hot grits" (manufactured by the company Wilford gained most of his public notoriety being the spokesman for) being held by Charlotte as Wilford snapped this photo.

UPDATE: Has Wilford sewn his oats even further?

UPDATE AGAIN: Holy moly! Wilford seems to be crankin' out baby-mammas like they're going out of style!

A week or so ago, while listening to one of the (many) crappy pop radio stations in town, I heard an ad for half-price laser hair removal.

"Pshaw, stupid vain pop radio listeners going to get laser hair removal," thought I. "Why would anyone ever go do that?"

Then I thought of a reason. I immediately began to get excited at the thought of half-price laser hair removal, and began to mentally plan my session.

"I could blog it! Take pictures! Take video!"

The excitement waned a little bit when I realized that the area that I wanted to get the removal on wasn't really as dense as I was imagining, and began to worry. Then I found out that you have to shave the area yourself first, so that they know where to target the laser.

"Excellent," I thought. "This way I can try it out beforehand to see if it will even work, and if not, pray for the old wives' tale of the hair growing back denser every time you shave it."

Well, tonight I tried it out. Sadly, I think my only option is to hope for the old wives' tale. One ray of sunshine: I did somewhat document my efforts tonight, and I share them with you now.

Here it is after I finished the stenciling and shaving. Sadly I forgot to get a before shot, showing that while it may not be dense, it is widespread.

Here it is after washing off the outline. Note to people trying this in the future: when you do the test to see if the ink will wash off easily, make sure you let it sit for a little while and then try to wash it off. Chances are it will set and then be very, very difficult.

Here's a final closeup. I need denser hair hair for this to work. My one hope is that the wives' tale is true, meaning that the area that I shaved off will be denser, so that I can eventually laser a negative image into the hair, leaving a naked bat symbol in the middle. That'd be so damned cool.

Defined tags for this entry: art, batman, body modification, geeky, laser hair removal

I need a little help.

See, this picture of Natalie Portman's bald head has accounted for over 32% of all my traffic in the last week. I don't want to disable the ability for people to link directly to the things I post, but I have to say that this irks me just a tad. It isn't even a good picture! I posted a much better one, they should be linking to that.

In any case, I've decided to replace that image with something hilarious that might make viewers question the morality of the person posting the image. Any suggestions? I'm currently leaning towards this:

but I'd love to see what anyone else suggests.

UPDATE: Hello NataliePortman.com visitors!

I recently learned that my great great great grandfather was a travelling snake-oil miracle-cure potion salesman who had some mild success in his declining years. It seems that people trust you more when your hair and beard are mottled with white. In any case, I was going through some of his things in this old steamer trunk that I was sent after he passed away and discovered a poster for one of his most successful campaigns. I hope you don't mind me sharing it with you, but please check out the high resolution version by clicking on it as I he spent alot of time on it.

Click to Enlarge (pun intended)

This is a crappy quality visual aid that I cranked out tonight for D's speech class. This was all done with my mad thumb-on-trackball skills, since I was too lazy to hook up my Wacom tablet.

Tonight I got creative and made the bumpersticker I've been wanting to make for a while:

This is printed on a "window cling" transparency and then adhered directly to the white paint of my car. Hopefully it doesn't rip off my paint :).

If you want to print out your very own, here's a large .png that should print perfectly on a standard 8.5x11 inch sheet of paper.

Cinematical is having a Photoshop contest to 'help pick a new James Bond'. Since Quentin Tarantino came up with the idea of remaking Casino Royale in the first place, the natural pick is a Tarantino star. Just a minor change to the title is necessary.