Glark

Construction Safety Board of Ontario's Campaign For Children's Nightmares

Posted on 16. Sep, 2008 by Glark in Blog

Back in the 1980s the Construction Safety Board of Ontario ran a series of ads showing construction workers getting injured and probably killed in various nasty ways. It was the father of last year’s ad where the cook drops a pot of boiling something or other on her face. Oh the screaming!

These commercials scared the shit out of me as a child. This is the worst one available online:

The one that really scarred me for life featured a guy hammering away on a chisel or something and a piece of metal flies off the chisel and travels towards his eye — in slow motion from the worker’s personal POV — and blinds him all to an other-worldly synth stinger. Goggles people, goggles!

Anyone else remember that? I’d love to see that again to relive the nightmares.

Update: OMGZ I found them all! Check out Eye Protection on this page.

Tags: ads, nightmares, television

How To Embarrass Two People For The Price Of One

Posted on 22. Aug, 2008 by Glark in Blog

Yesterday I did a retarded entry on Videogamey. It was a homage to the site I did back in the 90s called Star Wars Farts. Yeah, that’s right. You can see the content of StarWarsFarts.com (not including the cease and desist letter from Lucasfilm) on Flickr.

Anyways.

Someone on Videogamey suggested I start VideogameFarts.com since apparently even at 36 I can’t seem to shed my 12-year old sense of comedy. I laughed it off at the time but this morning when a 2-for-1 domain registration offer landed in my inbox I thought why not? Even if I never do it I’m not really throwing a lot of money out the window. So I took advantage and registered four domains that will one day be part of the global fart website empire:

• videogamefarts.com
• tvfarts.com
• filmfarts.com
• historicfarts.com

Are you as excited for historic farts as I am? Oh I know you are!

So I placed the order but I didn’t get the discount. Those crumb bums! I had to call on the phone to sort it out with the registrar’s customer support people on the sub-continent.

CS Rep: Hello thank you for calling Network Solutions customer service my name is hard to understand on first listen how may I help you?

Me: Hi, I placed an order with a buy one, get one free code but it didn’t give me that juicy discount I crave like so much crack cocaine.

CS Rep: I am sorry your order did not work out! May I please have your domain?

Me: Ummm. Can I give you my order number or account number?

CS Rep: No sir, sorry sir. I need your domain please.

Me: Errrr. Uh… Videogame Farts dot com.

CS Rep: Video Tarts dot com.

Me: Uh. No. Videogame Farts dot com.

CS Rep: Videogame. Farts? dot com? Farts?

Me: Um. Yeah.

CS Rep: Okay sir! Let me just look that up!

Me: Ok.

CS Rep: Okay sir I have located your order and I need to verify some details withyou. Will that be okay?

Me: Yes.

CS Rep: Thank you sir. So your domain is VideogameFarts.com?

Me: Right.

CS Rep: And also TBFarts.com?

Me: Uh. TV. Not B. V as in victor.

CS Rep: Sorry sir. TVFarts.com

Me: Right, as in television…. television farts… dot com.

CS Rep: You also registered FilmFarts.com. Is that correct?

Me: Errr, yes.

CS Rep: And HistoricFarts.com?

Me: …yeah.

CS Rep: So you ordered VideogameFARTS.com, TVFARTS.com, FilmFARTS.com and HistoricFARTS.com, is that correct sir.

Me: Uh, yes.

CS Rep: Thank you sir and I will now forward you to other representative who will process your refund. Thank you for your order and I hope you will enjoy your domains!

Me: Ok. Thank you.

Tags: awkwardness, farts, history, movies, television, videogames

Hilarious House of Frightenstein

Posted on 16. Aug, 2008 by Glark in Blog

One of the few benefits of having my sleep schedule totally turned around is the rediscovery of one of my favourite childhood TV shows The Hilarious House of Frightenstein which Space is showing at 6am here in Toronto.

The deliciously low budget Hilarious House of Frightenstein stars Canadian under-the-radar legend Billy Van as Count Frightenstein, a pizza-loving green vampire… and then it gets weirder from there. He also played other characters in the show including the Ghastly Gourmet, a hag who brewed up crazy shit in a bathtub in a witch’s kitchen and The Librarian who thought every story, like Dr. Seuss’ stuff, was a horror story and delivered them as such. It’s hard to explain.

It’s also got Vincent Price who came up to Canada and filmed all his material in four days (of a nine month, 130 episode production). It’s got the fortune-telling Oracle who reads kids horoscopes and giant purple monster The Grammar Slammer Bammer who held English usage challenges with castle idiot Igor. And of course the Mosquito!

It’s pretty insane. It’s awesome insane considering it’s a kids show. And, it holds up! It’s still got that filmed at 3am and everyone is getting sleep-deprived and goofy feel to it. There’s no way this would get made today and that’s a shame. There a lot more info at this fan site.

This reminded me of another Billy Van project that I loved as a kid and that was TV Ontario’s educational computer show Bits and Bytes. Billy played the student learning how to use and program of the computers of the time like the Commodore Pet. We watched it at school and I’d watch it again at home when it was on. 7 year old nerd alert!

Yes that was Luba Goy but try not to hold that against the show. Billy Van was the man! If you remember Bits and Bytes from school there’s a good chance you watched this too.

Tags: billy van, bits and bytes, hilarious house of frightenstein, television

An Imaginary Conversation Featuring Objects in the Rental Apartment I'm Staying In

Posted on 06. Aug, 2008 by Glark in Blog

Imposing Black Leather Chestfield: Is ve gone?

Internet Connection: …y.. he i… …on.

Leaky Bathtub Faucet: Bpbb! Blet’s Barbpbty!

Area Rug: Yeah! Party! Wooo! I’m going to ****** you in the ***** until the ***** of ***** ****** with a glacier!

Imposing Black Leather Chesterfield: Vat iz gross.

Area Rug: I cannot help that I am dirty.

Internet Connection: Ha ….a ….a ….h… …a!

Fluorescent Light in Kitchen that Turns On and Off By Itself: HEY GUYS! WHAT’S UP! Wooo! Looks like someone started a par-

Area Rug: Hey, Confusing Air Conditioning Remote what do you say to me and you ******* and ****** when the ******** is around ****** ***** ** yogurt?

Confusing Air Conditioning Remote: Apple sunshine vous ping ping barstool.

Leaky Bathtub Faucet: Bgpgpb! Bpoming Gack!

Internet Connection: …hat?

Leaky Bathtub Faucet: Bgpgpb! Bpoming Gack!

Area Rug: Oh ***** that ******* ****** with the devilishly large ***** is coming back into the  ****** apartment for something!

Imposing Black Leather Chestfield: Everyvody quiet! Put avay vat drink! Shhhhh!

….

….

Fluorescent Light in Kitchen that Turns On and Off By Itself: -TAY!

Tags: apartment, conversations

Atomic Tour Draft Plan

Posted on 08. Jun, 2008 by Glark in Blog

Two-headed Tara is showing you the Atomic Tour map after mapping all the sites we are looking forward to seeing.

As you can see it is westy. We have a couple stops in Ohio then we’re going to spend some time in South Dakota and then figure out the best way to hit all the parks and whatnot down the coast and into the desert. After that we’re into Texas (howdy Omar!) and then onto Louisiana (hello AB!).

We’re thinking of hitting Graceland after that but then we’ve got a huge chunk of America between Memphis and New York without any post-it flags! We’re going to do some research on the best route for this leg but if you have any suggestions we’d love to hear them because the ideas posted in the original thread have been awesome — Americans know America. The only qualifier is that we’re going to bypass Washington D.C. because we’ve been there before and we’ll wait until Linda is there and settled before hitting it again.

We’re going to try to do a short podcast each night about our travels and post it on O+ so we’ll keep the map point details private for now to keep it a surprise.

Tags: atomic tour, maps, tara

I Told You I Was Sick (Warning: Chest Hair)

Posted on 06. Jun, 2008 by Glark in Blog

Tags: rashes, sickness

Help Us Plan The Atomic Tour

Posted on 04. Jun, 2008 by Glark in Blog

Hey Americans! We are leaving soon to squeeze in a road trip we always wanted to do before Tara starts her new swanky job. I’ve always had this idea to drive around your country and see all the tourist attractions of the atomic age — the kind of stuff you’d see on restaurant placemats in a highway diner. We have made a list (see below) but we’d love to hear about anything that fits the bill that we might have missed from the big to the small stuff like the restaurant next to Lincoln’s head at Mount Rushmore that has awesome hamburgers.

A few of these things don’t quite match the atomic age but I’m sure you get the gist:

• Mount Rushmore
• Black Hills
• Redwood National Park
• Yellowstone National Park
• The Alamo
• Arizona Meteor Crater
• Hoover Dam
• Grand Canyon
• Alcatraz
• Golden Gate Bridge
• Roswell
• Four Corners
• Texas Book Depository
• Graceland
• Carlsbad Caverns

Please note Niagara Falls is not on the list as I used to live right next door to Niagara Falls. So, what should we add to this list?

Tags: america, atomic tour, vacation

Today's NSFW Star Trek Video

Posted on 04. Jun, 2008 by Glark in Blog

Tags: booty, star trek, television

Hawaii 2008: Day 9

Posted on 23. Apr, 2008 by Glark in Blog

Sadness! It’s our last day in Hawaii today. Each time we come to Hawaii it’s harder to leave. I’m just going to stay here next time.

Went to Hapuna one last time but it was too calm for boogieboarding (the waves are bigger in the winter) and Tara didn’t want to chance another sunburn just lying on the beach so the excursion was relatively short-lived.

So we had an afternoon to fart around so I suggested to drive into Kona and along the way hit the third and final national park of the Big Island – Kaloko-Honokohau. Alas, the park closes early and we would have only had 30 minutes to get in and out so we decided to save it for next time.

We drove on into Kona where the vog, after three days of clear skies had returned with a vengeance. It was charcoal grey and creepy. We ate at Killer Taco which is oddly located in an industrial mall with furniture wholesalers and grommet makers. Tasty stuff and really cheap for the island.

On the way back I pulled over to snap some shots of a lava tube that the Queen K highway bisects. I don’t know why but the highway drive has been absolutely lousy with goats this trips. Goats, goats, goats! At the condo we stopped in the shops and I remembered to take a picture of Kitty Cafe, a cat house that’s part of a catch-and-release spay and neuter program for the area’s feral cats.

That’s it for this trip. We’re packing up tonight and heading out to Los Angeles for a few days to see the gang out there. If you are going to the Big Island I can’t recommend Hawaii: The Big Island Revealed enough. I wish these guys could have travel books for every place on earth.

Tags: animal kingdom, boogie boarding, cats, goats, hawaii, vog