Mer-chan: technocuddly, cute, arty, geeky stuff from Asia and beyond

New Year, New Office

merchan — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 13:05:58 +0000

I just want to thank all of you otakutes for putting up with if not putting out for me. I was going to do a whole post toasting Mer-chan’s favorite crap from 2008, but honestly, I tried to stay in the (drunken) moment so I don’t remember that much right now. Let’s just hope 2009 is filled with many more beautiful memes like ball jointed dolls, Nerdcore, The Shiba Inu 6, Legobeesten, Nanjing Road and Girlbots. Oh damn. I just listed some of my favorite things. I’ve had regression therapy!

The interns will be sporadically blogging while I’m setting up the Dubai office. Look for me in Dubai in one hot week!

Quit Whining, Start Wining

merchan — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 13:57:49 +0000

Now that New Year’s is rolling in, what do you do with that cheap bottle of wine that’s hiding in the basement? You serve it up for wining and dining. But first, you make your cheap wine taste like a fine vintage. Passing poor red wine through a field of high-voltage electrodes will quicken its aging and improve the quality. Perhaps we can produce a similar effect by simply storing wine next to a wireless router. Alternatively, you purchase a bottle directly from Suntime Winery. The Chinese company employs a series of electric fields for customizing wine to a variety of strengths and a variety of periods of time. Cheers!

Poodle Training

merchan — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 10:04:06 +0000

Mariko Takahashi’s Fitness Video for Being Appraised as an Ex-fat Girl is a short film by Nagi Noda. In her artist’s statement, Noda said she arrived at the poodle concept after noticing that the dogs’ hair cuts resembled muscles. It might not go multi-platinum like the Doggie Bounce, but if you faithfully follow her workout routine, you’ll find yourself in puddles of poodles.

Google Reader Gets Helveticized

merchan — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 08:39:06 +0000

Helvetireader is a free add-on that pares down Google Reader to the bare essentials. Get all MCM with your RSS! Translation: go mid-century modern/minimalist with your Really Simple Syndication web feed.

Holiday Folds

merchan — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 13:53:43 +0000

Are you a krampus …

In the Alps, Krampus was a sinister little critter that accompanied St. Nick around during the holidays. Krampus’ chief responsibility was stealing the gifts of bad folk and replacing them with coal. If children where bad enough, Krampus might even kidnap them away…

If you want a bit of fright this holiday season, you can now fold your own Krampus. The template is available for free from Macula Art. They also templates for holiday elves. So make your choice, and fold away!

… or and elf?

Old Skool Nerdcore

merchan — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 15:00:08 +0000

We’ve posted a few good nerdcore tracks on this blog, and it’s time for a few shout out to the ancestors. Musical Geek Friday #16 drops a wonderful early track from 1992 called “Don’t Copy That Floppy.” The song is part of a longer video, and you can watch the entire service announcement here. But be warned: if you copy… it just might mean the downfall of the computer age!

What words give away

merchan — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 14:20:42 +0000

The Gender Analyzer will tell who who is writing the web. According to the provided explanation, the bot has been trained on blogs written by men and women. Using this knowledge, it applies an Artificial Intelligence logarithm to determine whether a homepage is written by a man or woman. It places the Mer-chan homepage as 97% female, and the Mer-chan blog as 56% female but “quite gender neutral.” I wonder how the logarithm computes the term “technocuddly.” Techno = male + cuddly = female… Error, error, does not compute. Yet another reason that computers need a soft side.

Something a little odd

merchan — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 15:00:49 +0000

Shredding the orange peel!

Slinkachu is a street artist who places little people in tiny installations all around London. They are a cute little reminder that the rest of us are not so big after all. And there is even one in which a McDonald’s container poses as a UFO. Locate all the little people on the blog and organize a London walking tour. Or discover the Slinkachu story on the official page. What have little people done for you recently?

Puppies Galore

Katy Chang — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 14:13:55 +0000

Puppies are getting Internet famous so fast these days. One day they’re young shiba inu’s crawling all over each other and licking whatever bits are near their faces and the next, they’re getting their own tribute pages on YouTube chronicling their short, adorable viralness. And what about the dog who rescued a dog that got struck by a car on the highway? The hero dodges traffic and pulls his buddy to safety! Can you say publicity stunt? Just kidding, I love those two attention whores. You have to watch their amazing story.

And let’s not forget these puppies who saved a boy in the woods from freezing by their cuteness. And they nuzzled up against the kid to keep him warm. Puppy love saves lives!

Zip to My Lou, Sweet Mario

Mercury Zootcracker — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 15:48:16 +0000

When I was young, if life was really going grand we would say “sometimes life is just like the movies.” But that was long before virtual reality… and now I am equally fascinated with making life just like a video game. And even better when that video game is Mario Kart. Ready, set, go!