A Sith Facelift

Our favourite Dark Lord has been given a makeover recently by some inventive, ingenious and outright imaginative artists.

The Vader Project is presented by Master Replicas, and curated by Dov Kelemer of DKE Toys, one of the largest designer vinyl and art-toy distributors in the world, exclusively representing over 50 companies, artists, and designers. Kelemer gathered the hottest underground and pop surrealist painters, artists and designers and gave each artist a Master Replicas 1:1 scale prop replica of the Darth Vader helmet used in the Star Wars films. Each helmet served as a blank canvas for each artist to paint, design, mash up and customize in their own unique style.

The event ran from May 24 to 28th, 2007 at Star Wars Celebration IV , a landmark event being held at the Los Angeles Convention Center to celebrate the 30th Anniversary of Star Wars. From what I've seen in these pictures from Metroblogging: Los Angeles contributer David Markland, the creativity knows no boundaries whatsoever.

Check out the pictures David collected. Some are just simply amazing and no amount of praise can do them justice.

Pointless Nostalgia Part Six: Nostalgia In Action!

Wow!

A brief hiatus, and then two Pointless Nostalgia posts in a row! What a wonderful treat for my faithful readers, or those who've just clicked the "random blog" button and have stumbled upon this past times pine-a-thon. A treat nonetheless, I'm sure.

As you know, I live alone, save for my thoughts, which are often incoherent and hungry. My bachelorhood, although exceedingly awesome and valuable to me, often creates a perpetual state of boredom whilst alone, so I often try and find activities that will at least take up some of my spare time before I go to sleep. I've gone through a wide range of attempts, but so far, have been unsuccessful, with most activities either sad, boring or illegal. I just couldn't release my grown-up mind from it's maturity shackles, so I ended up with lame one-person games, like "timed newspaper reading", "guess the smell in the oven", to "blindfolded balcony beer bottle-tossing". Every attempt I conjured up fell flat and crumpled, much like a passer-by being hit with a beer bottle. Then, a revelation inspired by my trip to Vegas: Escorts! Then, a better revelation: build a fort.

Building a fort isn't a new idea, it's been around for centuries. When we were kids, we'd sometimes go at great lengths to build intricate vestiges of solitude out of the only supplies we had readily available. Namely, beds and couches, and all that's a part of them. Building a fort was a way for children to escape to a fantasy world, where instead of their parents holding court over them, they would be the rulers of their most sacred lands. They'd enter their kingdom and be swept away in a sea of unbridled imagination. The fort was their special place. For me as a child, it was a wonderful gathering point for all my toys and dreams. The Transformers could spend some precious moments going over world-saving techniques with the G. I. Joes. He-Man would wax poetic about Eternia, but nobody else knew where that was, so they made fun of his furry bikini bottoms. Ewoks happily ran rampant across fields of cotton sheets bearing their likenesses. And I was the overlord, the great deity. The best part was being in your world, and then after a while, you'd open up the sheets, or move some pillows, and you'd get that blast of cold, fresh air. It was nirvana.

The fort would then be the solution to the doldrums, and my couch would be a great start. So there I was, staring at my striped sectional in my living room, dreaming big, sweeping thoughts about the world I could create, and what awesome name it would have. I did have some help for the initial prototype design, to which I will perfect over the coming months. My friend Maria, who's creative inspiration is indispensable, suggested the ageless "tunnel" fort design. The fort design itself has to work with the materials presented. Since I have a sectional, L-shaped couch, a tunnel design works quite well, and it provides a two-pronged fun approach: one, it allows for a centre courtyard, for conversations about sweet anythings. This area can also allow for a small peephole to see the TV, and therefore catch some NBA playoffs. The second bonus, is that it allows for trips from one end to another, perhaps as a guide for going back or forward in time, if one so wishes. I myself have just travelled to the Renaissance period and back by going from the end by my stereo table to the end by my reclining chair, then vice-versa. That period is crazy, let me tell you.

So my suggestion for eliminating unpleasant rainy days, or days off of work that just don't seem to have the right amount of make-believe, try building a fort. It doesn't matter what it looks like, just as long as you built it, and you fill it with pillowcases full of awesome. Sometimes, if you just come up with a theme, the fort will fulfill that theme, no matter how far-reaching. My next fort will be "Makeout Room".

Pointless Nostalgia - V

So here I am, back from a self-imposed three week hiatus. I needed to take a little break, considering I had no ideas. Nothing. Well, nothing funny or interesting anyways. I just want to really define myself as a writer who cherishes quality over quantity. I don't want to be that blogger that posts everyday with mundane, trivial information about the goings-on in their pathetic, shrink-wrapped lives. I want my posts to be thought-provoking, controversial, enigmatic. I want people to read my posts, and when they're finished, they'll sit back and cock their heads upwards and while their eyes unfocus, they'll stroke or scratch the chin/neck area, while muttering, "Ah, yes. A fine point. Well played, sir".

With that being said, here's a post about shitty candy.

I've long grown out of the candy obsession every kid goes through growing up in our western culture, but there was a time where candy was the currency of the youth. Kids would buy and trade other kids for the latest sweet concoctions of store-bought wonderment. Bullies would offer protection for a full package of Bottlecaps and Gobstoppers. The best soccer-baseball players would be snatched up by teams who could offer the most candy cigarettes (not the chocolate kind, but the gum ones that blew fake smoke). The daily summer pastime would be to ride your bike with your friends down to the 7-11, or its bastard rival, Red Rooster (now Reddie Mart), and gorge yourselves on whatever treats you could purchase with your allowance or birthday money. For me, there was one candy item that was too good to pass up. It was blatant in its offering of a no-frills sugar high. It's promise of 'fun' seemed so brazen and cocky, that one couldn't pass up the chance to see whether that proved true. The candy of note? Lik-m-aid's Fun Dip. The powder-like substance you can board an airplane with.

Who were the marketing geniuses who thought of this? I want to shake the hand of the person who came up with the idea of a "no style, just substance" candy. Somebody knew that all that the kids wanted was an edible item that was sweet and made them really hyper for a short while. No frills, no stupid gimmicks. Just fucking sugar. So what do they create? Sugar. In a package. With an applicator stick, which is also edible. There is no difference between Fun Dip and sticking your freshly-salivated wet finger in a sugar bowl or restaurant package. I once read an article that remarked that Fun Dip is like edible sand, but that almost gives it personality, and the promise of being able to make glass with it. And then some dumbass kid's going to want to eat that glass. It's just sugar. That's fucking it. Sure, it's coloured sugar but even that's giving it some credit. It barely resembles the fake-ass flavours that entitle the separate chambers it's in. Is it simple? Yes. Is it fun? A test should answer that.

My friend Maria brought the latest edition of Fun-Dip for us to try, and I was immediately disappointed to see that they had replaced the fat kid licking his lips on the package for three kinds of coloured dish soaps with faces. It seems somewhat hypocritical to change the mascot. The fat kid was an apt mascot, because he was true to the spirit of the candy: No lies, no false pretense. It's just sugar, and if you eat lots of it, you'll get fat. I understood it, but apparently putting fat kids on candy is too cruel, or something. I was, however, happy to see that the flavours (Orange, Cherry, Grape) hadn't been given some stupid candy powerup to become Outrageous Outstanding Rock Star Orange, or something equally as moronic. That's in keeping with the "what you see is what you get" theme. Good for them!

We decided to share one package, as I felt I was out of shape sugar-wise to handle a full, large-sized Dip for myself. We unwrapped the edible sticks of chalk, gave them a saliva bath, and dove into the first flavour. The first taste didn't exactly bring about waves of memories of summers and innocence gone by, but it certainly made me feel a bit younger, maybe dumber. After a couple of dips, I couldn't really figure out what made this dip so "fun". So Maria and I decided that we'd challenge each other to down whatever sugar was left in the pouch.

And that's where the fun comes into play. The "fun" in "Fun Dip", isn't the dipping, it's the daring your friends to see how much straight powder they can handle all at once. The fun is seeing your friends face, once smug and confident, become a collapsed, puckered implosion. After what seemed like an hourglass was opened into my mouth, I understood what the attraction was about: If your mom never let you eat sugar straight from the packet or bowl, this was the next best thing.

And you got to eat that stick! Bonus!