Maru's Mun Journal

Wolves seem to be the ultimate accessory for a fashion shoot this autumn.

Exhibit 1:



((from here))

Exhibit 2:



((found here originally, also here))

I think this is the modern digital-photographic equivalent of what conscientious restorers of museum objects have been done for decades: when you put a Greek vase or a medieval garment back together for display, you use some contrastingly neutral material for the parts that are missing, plain grey linen among all the tyrian-purple-and-gold, or some white clay for the parts of the delicate red-figures vase that remains missing. If broken statues have hands, but not arms, they get steel bars or thin pieces of concrete.

This is what you do when you want to photoshop the background out from a candid picture of a celebrity and make a point of how honest you are, and that you're not 'shopping' the picture: you roughly outline the real object of the picture, then invert the selection and blur the rest. Roughly enough to leave that odd halo-like margin of in-focus background, but still well enough to focus solely on what you want to show.

I must admit it looks odd, but I guess we'll get used to it.-



Of course, Christina Hendricks looks stunning as always. And if this new principle gives me an excuse to repost the picture of her which I found it on, all the better...


[[From here]]

Because the German football team was playing the Australian one tonight, the Nazgul and I went to the Australian pub around the corner, hoping to see blood. Or at least some creative crowd control measures.

We ordered a Fosters each and waited, metaphorical popcorn at the ready.



There were these two sad Australian hipsters right in front of us (cut out of this picture because, honestly, taking pictures of perfect strangers with the express purpose of mocking them online is not nice) that first had their drinks taken away again (because somebody else had ordered the same combination first, it seems) and then sat there, earnestly sharing a portion of potato wedges. The bloke had taken out a little plush koala with that sort of grabbing mechanism and put it on the lapel of his shirt as a sign he supported Australia. The rest of the Australian supporters were these people in yellow shirts.



However, everything went perfectly peacefully. There was no blood, nor any sort of enmity. Only glumness, as the poor Aussies didn't want to be seen being sore losers. After the German team had scored the first goal, a camera team with a big professional-looking TV camera came to film some Australian fans being unhappy, which they achieved when the second goal was scored. Luckily, only a single person in the whole pub had one of those infernal vuvuzelas. But the droning sound from the TV was unlike any other football noise before.

essayel had said in thread earlier that Aristophanes compared the sound of bagpipes to a wasp farting in a bottle. A stadium full of vuvuzelas sounds like a million of those wasp-farts.

And no, having only one and blowing it from time to time is pointless. The point is to have many and create the wasp-fart effect, or more correctly, drone.

Somebody ought to have told that to whoever it was who kept on forlornly tooting his vuvuzela through the sound of heavy rain that we heard after we came back at half-time and made dinner. Whether the TV team scored any footage of bawling Australians, we don't know. At least the rain precluded all noisy victory celebrations.

In unrelated news, my cats are snoring.-

In other news: Woody Allen has completely lost his f***ing mind!!!

And not just because I am a disappointed fan of that woman. I mean, all movies she has been in so far have been soft porn at some time in the late eighties!

Seems that at the moment there is so little happening here (with everybody still gone for holidays), the newspapers have SERIOUS problems filling their pages.

Headline in the provincial newspaper some old guy was reading on the train when I went to work:

"Fish Attack At Bathing Lake! Little Boy's Toe Bitten!"

Follows a colour picture of some ugly whingy seven-year-old brat sitting on a meadow in his bathing trunks showing his foot, which to me looks perfectly healthy, and a long-ass article.

Because some kid went swimming and fish nibbled on its toes! That is NEWS in early September in rural Bavaria!!

In other news, Vernon Dursley is running for parliament in Munich. Pictorial proof later, when I'm at home at my computer and can upload pictures.-

In a fit of its usual dementia coupled with mindless patriotism, Germany's leading conservative tabloid, 'Bild' (also known as 'Die Bildzeitung), triumphs mightily about the German cardinal Ratzinger being elected pope, filling its title page with 6 inch high letters proclaiming:



This translates to :

"WE ARE POPE!"

I knew about Palpatine, but the Borg as well???

And yes, it sounds just as silly and inappropriate in German...

ETA: Der Spiegel, the magazine/news site wiebke refers to, actually has a picture of the title page, complete with a hand so the fearsome size of the letters becomes apparent:



ETA 2: Telepolis is already mocking that title page as well. Sorry, those last two links are in German.

This just came to my attention.

The bright red writing on blue-patterned background will make you see-sick within seconds...

(And score music as background picture!! And that ridiculous moving globe!! Arrrggghhh!!!)