My cousin has been bumped down to second place and the voting ends tonight. She needs your support. Instructions for voting are here. Go do it, you can make a difference and help improve the world.
All posts by kirsch
Lost finale review
Spoiler alert: do not read more if you haven’t seen and still want to see the Lost series finale.
Play Pac-Man on Google.com
Very cool: Only for maybe today and tomorrow, go to Google and you can play Pac-Man directly on the logo. This is celebrating Pac-Man’s 30th anniversary. If you click on the Insert Coin button (where the I’m Feeling Lucky button normally is, you get to play with Ms. Pac-Man.
La niña más guapa de México
It’s hard enough to juggle my priorities between achieving world peace, curing cancer, and finding a source of cheap, vast, clean, reusable energy as it is; and now I need to add another thing to be responsible for:
After an excruciating selection process, my cousin Yael got nominated as a finalist for the coveted title of La niña más guapa de México” (Best looking girl in Mexico), which is given out by the very important website Quien. The way it goes, those candidates that don’t make this list are bumped down to the next best thing: the Nobel prize candidate list. And as luck would have it, instead of using a panel of experts to pick the winner, they are leaving it to the fair and balanced democratic process of online voting to pick out the winner!
So here’s what I ask you to do:
- Go to the voting page for La niña más guapa de México.
- If you see Yael Sandler, give her five stars.
- If you see someone else, give her one star.
- Leave a comment on The MKX® to let Yael know that your vote has been recorded.
- If she wins, everyone who voted and commented here will be flown to the celebration party in Monaco, where all the other candidates will also be present and sad and vulnerable and looking to make new friends.
Easy enough, right? So go vote!
ACL 2010 lineup
The lineup for the Austin City Limits Music Festival has been announced. It looks good, but not 2009-good. Read more to see the whole lineup, or go see it in the ACL website for yourself.
- The Eagles
- Muse
- Phish
- The Strokes
- M.I.A.
- Flaming Lips
- LCD Soundsystem
- Spoon
- Vampire Weekend
- Norah Jones
Gustavo Cerati in critical condition
Gustavo Cerati, former lead singer of legendary Argentinian band Soda Stereo and the greatest musician ever to live on the planet, suffered a stroke after his concert in Caracas, Venezuela on Friday. The news were all over the place, including a post on his official website downplaying the problem, but now it appears that things are much worse than first reported.
I’m a huge fan of the man (he is one of my three allowed gay-crushes). I hope him a quick recovery from this. Fuerza Natural, Gustavo!
Here are some previous mentions of Gustavo Cerati in The MKX®.
Panini call to help
I need your help! I have now gone through the box of stickers that Corona brought me from Mexico. I have a few repeats but still many missing – 214 to be precise.
If you are collecting the album and can help out, if you want to trade, if you know where to buy the stickers in Austin… please post in the comments. This is my list. It will stay updated as I collect more stickers. The list itself is generated by a simple PHP script that I wrote. If you want the script just let me know!
What is iPad/Newton
The resemblance between the old Newton ad and the new iPad ad is uncanny but not coincidental, a homage if you may. If you think the iPad is futuristic or ahead of its time – or magical even, then you probably didn’t get to play with a Newton when it first came out. My brother owned two and it was the coolest piece of technology. But it didn’t do as well: In it’s five years of existence, 200,000 Newtons were sold. In its first day, 300,000 iPads were sold.
Panini World Cup sticker album 2010
Corona brought me the new album and a box full of sticker packets. I have a lot of work ahead of me, but expect the progress report, just like before, soon. Friends and family (and strangers), start saving those repeats. It’s hard to find people collecting these things in Austin, TX.
On photo retouching
More and more I’m disgusted by the excessive photograph retouching that goes on on a daily basis (also known as “photoshopping”) in all sorts of advertisement. The idea is to turn the already attractive models into beings with biologically impossibly long legs and small waists, while promoting a large dose of eating disorders, self-image problems, and impossible expectations from real people. And all just to sell a little more. I also hate the fact that I am basically being lied to.
A few notes of interest in this front.
1. Kudos to singer Britney Spears, who released the before and after photos of her recent photo shoot for a Candie’s campaign. Here’s a cool animated gif comparing the photos:
2. Kudos to France, who are mulling a law that would make it a requirement to add a warning on any retouched photo, indicating that it was, indeed retouched.
3. Kudos to French magazine Marie Claire, whose April edition was “Photoshop-free”. And the girls still look attractive! They also featured Jessica Simpson both Photoshop and makeup-free in their cover.
4. Part of the problem is that nowadays any idiot has access to a computer powerful enough and software powerful enough to do some serious retouching. Exhibit A: Funny yet sad blog dedicated to retouching gone bad is worth a visit: PhotoshopDisasters.
5. Part of the problem is that nowadays any idiot has access to a computer powerful enough and software powerful enough to do some serious retouching. Exhibit B: The MKX® Photo Central | Digital Magic.
