A French artist creates a mutant rabbit.

A brief overview of why I no longer sleep.

Chinese Weightlifter Sets Five Records in a Day
116 pound Yang Xia, of China, lifts 220 pounds in the snatch event, and 275 pounds in the clean and jerk. Incidentally, I have difficulty not only with lifting my own body weight, but with actually lifting my body itself (From off the couch, for example).

Simon Whitfield Wins Gold, Acts Like a Nut
I assume you’ve all witnessed Whitfield winning the gold medal and subsequently acting like a nut. Top marks for spiking the finish-line tape into the ground. Where can I buy cereal with Whitfield’s face on the box?

Attractive Swimmers Advance to Final
Joanne Malar and Marianne Limpert have both advanced into the 200-metre individual medley finals. I understand that training and competition keep you fairly busy Joanne, but if you happen to get a chance, my address is matt@enjoypei.com.

Canada Decimates Kazakhstan
The Canadian Women’s Waterpolo team improved their record to 1-0-2 after defeating Kazakhstan by a score of 10-3. In an earlier match the Canadians had been up by three goals on the Americans but ended up settling for a tie. Canada plays the Netherlands at some point tonight when I should really be sleeping.

Thanks to Don at IslandEdition.com for the kind words in the Island Web section of the latest issue (and it is a fine issue, as usual).

<sarcasm>
It’s good to see that we still control the media even with Kirby gone.</sarcasm>

The smart folk at IslandEdition.com put it nicely, comparing the spread of ‘blogs’ to a bad genital rash:

“Done well, blogs can be a refreshing, quick read. Done badly, they’re indulgent and dull.”

Blog. I hate the word. Maybe that’s what this site is, and maybe denying it is like The Moffats saying “we are not a boy-band”, but I still loath the term.

One final note: However hip/cliché it may be, the proper capitalization is silverorange. Not SilverOrange, Silverorange, or Silver Orange. We artists are picky about that.

actsofvolition.com access may have been somewhat intermittent for some of you over the last week or two. We apologize for the annoyance. Things should get back to normal this weekend.

At least we are not the only ones; Both zeldman.com (alistapart.com has been down for weeks) and k10k.net are having similar problems.

I’m as skeptical of the Olympics as the next steroid-scandal-weary member of my generation but while watching the CBC’s typically brilliant coverage of the opening ceremony of the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney, I was weak.

It was a ceremony so fine, it was easy to forget that the Olympics have been bought and sold by Coke and IBM.

Read a well crafted description of what was “…by far the most technically advanced and artistically sophisticated opening ceremony ever…” by Gary Kamiya of Salon.com in his article Already Gold.

Speaking of defining oneself with material goods (as I was a few posts ago), I have found my dream vehicle, the Audi A2. The Audi site calls it “Discreetly distinguished – not attention-grabbing”. Just like me.

The A2 combines the smart and sleek lines of the 2000 VW Jetta with the practical form factor of the hideously american PT Cruiser.

While I’m on the topic of new car form factors, what’s up with the Pontiac Aztek? It looks like a bad prop from Judge Dredd. They could have at least spelled it correctly.

I recently was shown a site which has an AMAZING ability. It’s not in english, but cows don’t speak english anyway. It’s not hard to stumble through. This jewel of a site amazed me for two reasons. First of all, it’s amazingly cool to watch the quality claymation cows rock/hiphop/disco around as you design a music video for them. But if you look at the interface, it’s very slick. Nice easy drag and drop onto the timeline (Premiere users don’t mock me, I think it may be called a timeline), and easy to preview the samples before throwing them on.

Background information: If you have not been already, visit FuckedCompany.com. Next, if you are not already aware of the auction of FuckedCompany.com, read about it here.

All of that information is required for simply to set up one of the better descriptions of Ebay that have read. The following is quoted from the FuckedCompany.com newsletter for Wednesday, Sept. 13th:

You might notice I took the auction down. Ebay was created in 1995 to
auction Pez dispensers. And it’s really good for auctioning Pez dispensers. If you’re interested in buying the site, drop me an email.

After stomping all over Apple in a previous post for what I maintain are completely stupid problems with their website and receiving a flood of angry emails* from Apple fanatics drunk from the broth of marketing genious, I will grant Apple these points:

• They do have beautiful and large product photography.
• Putting a handle on a laptop is absolutely brilliant.

Apple fanatics are almost to the point where I wouldn’t want to be seen using a Mac for the same reason I wouldn’t want to be seen in a Porsche. The reason being that people would natually assume I use the product in an attempt to project certain stereotypes. In the case of the Porsche: I’m a cocky rich bastard with more money than I deserve. In the case of Macs: I’m a fancy-pants graphic designer and I went to @$%#ing art school.

For the record, I am not above lusting after after material goods or using products to impress people. For example, I want a Silicon Graphics 550 and an Audi A6 so people will know how smart and sophisticated I am.

* Only one nutty email was received and it was from someone I already know. I also received one positive email.