Cuff-Daddy Cufflinks

Just the other day, I was offered a bribe to post about cufflinks. I have a fairly strict policy about advertising on The Grumpy Owl. It has to be worth my while and it has to be for a decent product. These two things tie in because the bribe is typically in the form of the product. The offer from Cuff-Daddy Cufflinks was no exception. For a pair of cufflinks, they wanted a post. They’re getting one. And I’m getting two pairs.

At first, I wasn’t sure that I’d do it. I didn’t see anything I liked on the front page of their site. Then I looked around and stumbled into these.

How could I refuse?

Aside from the crystal-eyed silver owls, I also liked the smiling fishbones. (I actually wrote about these a while ago. For free! Like a sucker!) There were quite a few other pairs that I liked, including the bullets, but I have it on good authority that someone is buying me these as belated birthday gift. Some of the others, I may have to buy myself.

Having looked through their site, I’d have to say Cuff-Daddy has a good selection. They’re not hamstrung by a theme. They basically carpet bomb the cufflink world. I wouldn’t say that it’s one stop shopping — nothing is– but it’s about as close as you can get. They offer novelty cufflinks, gold cufflinks and silver cufflinks. If I found something I like, you’re almost sure to find something you like.

If you can’t, they offer a style that you can personalize at home.

Some of their selection is, of course, not to my liking. This is, more or less, as it should be. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Cufflinks are about self-expression. They’re the only part of a suit that is properly permitted to speak directly to the person wearing it and not to the logic of the suit itself. I don’t like most people, it only stands to reason that I wouldn’t like most cufflinks.

But Cuff-Daddy does better than average.

Owl Pellets

Letter: Robots Taking US Jobs: Some letter to the editor. People like this drive me crazy. They always see a threat, never an opportunity.

Robots Serve Up Fiery Cocktails in San Francisco: Here’s some robots who want to take my job. They can have it.

Waiter Rant, Iron: But those iron men will need iron souls.

Post Apocalypse Fashion: Urban Security Suit

When the post-apocalypse gets here, we humans will only have one concern: Fashion.

It’s not enough to survive, we will also form tribes based on clothing. Rap music has taught me that in parts of California, where the post-apocalypse has already appeared, people are killed over wearing the wrong colors. If Toronto took things that seriously, we could really be a fashion capital.

But someone in Holland is finally taking post-apocalypse fashion seriously. Tim Smit has designed the “Urban Security Suit.” Doing away with the dated look of Mad Max, he had decided that post-apocalypse style need not be cobbled together out of old football equipment. It can be elegantly designed.

His suit is made from neoprene and body molded kevlar. There is a handy pocket for your gas mask — a definite do — and a handsome hood to help obscure your identity from anyone you may be killing, robbing or raping. Come the post-apocalypse, you’ll want to be seen — briefly — in this.

Modern Alchemy Candles

I dislike manufactured scent.

Fresh coffee, honest sweat and the tears of a kicked child; these are the sort of odors I enjoy. I dislike the stink that I routinely find in my shampoo. The smells that you can buy for their own sake are cloying and revolting. The people who wear them even more so. The only thing lower than a woman who wears too much perfume is a man who wears too much cologne.

There is nothing worse than some gelled up douchebag, dress shirt untucked and unbuttoned, blazer worn with jeans and jeans with dress shoes, stinking like a regency fop while strutting about the street in an alcohol-induced, sex-mad stupor. Colognes have an awful smell and men should not wear them. Men should smell like smoke, booze, leather and sweat. Like a drunken cowboy. Or a leather daddy.

If there is anything worse than a cologne-wearing man (I am not so bold as to suggest that there is) it would be the scented candle. They usually reek of fruit and often smell worse than the fecal stink they were designed to mask.

I cannot understand or sanction their recreational use.

Burning candles to relax in the bath is the sort of eccentricity one must occasionally tolerate from a woman. (It’s just the sort of stupid bullshit that makes them so lovable.) But a man has no business doing this. If you ever catch yourself sniffing candles at The Body Shop, you should hand in your testicles at the door. The Body Shop actually has a booth for that.

Having said all this, I must confess — I like the look of these Modern Alchemy Candles. “Speak Easy” promises to smell like gin, pipe tobacco and wood. Basically my living room. “Tincture of Winchester” is wood stock, 19th century lacquer and smoky gunpowder. And, if you fancy yourself as an intellectual, you could always go for “Ex Libris,” which is leather bound volumes of handmade paper and parchment.

They’re still scented candles but they beat the hell out of lavender. Anything would.

Ryan Oakley is Going to the Moon

Sadly, the meat and bone that reacts to that name is staying on Earth. I put my name into this “Send Your Name to the Moon” thing. I’m a child. Maybe you are too. They give you a certificate you can print so that’s cool. Right? Anyone? C’mon . . . Your name on the moon!

Cut My Hair

I hate hair. It’s disgusting to grow dead protein out of the top of my head.

Although I’m not going bald and — given my unfortunate family’s hairlines– will never go bald, I finally got fed up with the little bit of hair that I have. It was making me think. I had to wash it, bryl cream it, comb it, wear a hat because I hate it and then routinely go to the barber and have him deal with it.

I just don’t have the mental energy for all that.

So I did what any sane person would do. I pulled out my old clippers. Fuck you hair, I thought, and set to work. You’ve bothered me for too long. And I shaved that shit right off my head.

I quite like it. A shaved head is my natural state. It’s very neat and tidy, requires no thought and little effort. People can’t grab it and don’t want to touch it. It removes the little bit of friendliness that life has not yet kicked off my face. It’s logical.

Robots Will Eat You

I’ve been interested in human-eating robots for quite some time now. This phenomenon occurs in many of my tragically unpublished novels. A robot eats a human and, like in cannibal folklore, absorbs them.

I think the idea is weird enough to be right and that eating is information transfer. The foodchain is nature’s internet. And people said I was crazy. They said the same thing about Jeffery Dahmer.

Now scientists have made a robotic mouth that chews.

While this is still a good distance from chewing the human, analyzing its info, building a mental construct of the creature within an operating system and using its meat as a costume, we can all agree that it’s an important first step. Towards what exactly is anyone’s guess.

pic nicked from here

Owl Pellets

“The Ecstasy of Influence”: A Plagiarism: A good essay about copyright and all that sort of thing.

Another Grumpy Owl: A picture of another grumpy owl.

Canadian Government Wants Army of Iron Men: We’re spending $200,000 to get an exoskeleton for soldiers.

My Birthday Party Solved Racism Forever

Some of you have probably been expecting a birthday party post. There really isn’t much to talk about.

People touched me. I hate that. Since I’m now thirty, I don’t think I should have to put up with it. But I’ve been saying that since I was ten. No one listens. But could everyone just keep their fucking hands off me?

I only received two gifts. A couple of bags of Turkish Coffee from Melly, who was in Israel but came all the way back to Canada. I can only assume she did this for my birthday. And I’m going to keep this coffee around to just prove that, even though I grew a Hitler mustache and have a Nazi fetish, I’m no anti-semite. That coffee is like joining the NDP or dating a minority. I must give a shit. It’s a get out of jail free card.

And look — there’s a Jew and he’s touching me! You can see my great love of his people in my eyes.

Well, coffee and hugs aside, I probably am an anti-semite. If it makes you feel better — and it shouldn’t– I hate your group too. Even if your group is anti-semitic.

Judaism seems about as ridiculous as everything else. Like Islam or Christianity, Buddhism or the Hindus, I disapprove of their rituals, holidays and superstitions. Basically, everything they believe is wrong. And their hats are silly. Every religion seems founded on goofy headwear.

But I do like that they killed Jesus. That guy was a loudmouth.

I also received some cinnamon rolls baked by Danielle. But she’s white so these were useless and I ate them. Although they were tasty, they failed to prove anything about what a great, open-minded guy I am. I can already say whatever I want about white folks. They’ve been trying and failing to disown me for years.

The feeling is mutual. I can’t stand their hats.

Remember that jester craze? Well, that’s when I first tried to divorce these assholes. (Irreconcilable differences.)  And watching Bush speak makes me feel something like how a black guy must feel watching Fiddy rap. It’s embarrassing to even be associated with these nuts. They don’t seem to realize that some of us have to go about our lives and would like to do so without being judged by their lunacy.

But, I will say this for the crackers, they can bake good cinnamon rolls. Danielle’s were quite tasty.

Electricity Generating Artificial Muscle

Just the other day I was wondering where all our cut hair went. It seems wasteful to just throw it all out. Can’t it be used for something? There must be piles of the stuff, just doing nothing.

But this story has nothing to do with that.

In California, researchers have built an artificial muscle that can heal itself and generate electricity. Of course everyone keeps talking about charging their iPod with the thing. That makes sense. Like, you’ll be built out of artificial muscles but the fucking iPod won’t be obsolete.

Via Nanoarchitecture.Net