Mark Frauenfelder at 4:40 pm • 
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Cartoonist Jess Fink, creator of the erotic Victorian-era robot graphic novel Chester 5000-XYV has a new memoir out called We Can Fix It: A Time Travel Memoir.
It's got a premise that reminds me of something Nicholson Baker would come up with: Fink invents a time machine and travels into the past to visit younger versions of herself to warn herself not to do things that she ended up regretting as an adult. She visits her college-age self and tries to stop her from taking a drug that gives her a bad trip. She tells her high-school-age self not to make out with an unsavory boy. She tries to save her elementary-school-age self from a scary encounter with her mentally ill, violent father when he goes on a rampage with a crowbar. She intervenes dozens of times, but does it do any good? I'll let you read it and decide for yourself.
Unlike Chester 5000-XYV, there's no nudity involved in We Can Fix it!, but it does contain a fair number of scenes in which Fink has sex with versions of herself, and many of the incidents are about Fink's sexual encounters as a teen and young adult. Despite some of the heavy subject matter, Fink tells the story with charm and a light heart and renders it with appealing art.
We Can Fix It: A Time Travel Memoir
Mark Frauenfelder at 9:25 am • •
(UPDATE: They've jacked the price up to $25 $29!) I don't have a WikiReader so I don't know if it's any good or not, but I love the idea of a $10 hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy. I ordered one just because it has a "Random" article button. If you have one, please let us know what you think of it in the comments.
- Palm-sized device contains the entire English Wikipedia
- Pre-loaded content, no internet connection needed
- Ready to go right out of box
- Touchscreen controls and keyboard
- Uses 2 AAA batteries
Get in the know with the WikiReader. This palm-sized electronic encyclopedia contains the entire English Wikipedia covering 3 million topics -- equivalent to more than 1,000 volumes. No internet connection is required, it comes preloaded with the entire Wikipedia and is ready to use right out of the box. Easy touchscreen controls and touchscreen QWERTY keyboard allow you instant access to a world of knowledge. Never be out of date, either, as the content can be updated quarterly via online download or via MicroSD card. Runs on 2 AAA batteries which will last approximately 1 year.
UPDATE: I'm going to do
this when I get mine.
WikiReader Pocket Wikipedia $10
Mark Frauenfelder at 6:03 pm • •
Joe Sandor is looking for $13k on Kickstarter to fund his Pirate Pancake griddle project. It's a beaut. (I wrote about Joe's successful cast iron crepe pan Kickstarter last year).
Pirate Pancake griddle project
Mark Frauenfelder at 1:09 pm • •
It took a day for our cat Louie to fall in love with his Hepper cat bed. After assembling it (5 minutes) Jane tried to push him into it, but he backed out and ran away, eyeing it with suspicion. The next morning he was like a peanut in its shell. Now he spends hours a day in it. I wish it were big enough for me.
Hepper Cat Bed $110
Mark Frauenfelder at 11:52 am • •
Volcano Dust is a brand of powdered bhut jolokia chili peppers. Also known as ghost chills, bhut jolokias are mind-bendingly hot. For example, an average jalapeño pepper measures about 5,000 on the Scoville heat scale; a bhut jolokia measures 1,000,000 Scovilles.
The manufacturer of Volcano Dust sent me a box of samples, and I carefully tried them out. They are certainly the hottest powdered chili peppers I've ever tasted, but I like them. A slight dusting of the Hot Italian Blend on my easy-over eggs or chicken soup turns them into an exciting culinary experience. Here's to blown-out capsaicin receptors!
(I gave Cory a jar of the pure powdered bhut jolokia when he came to visit a couple of weeks ago. Hopefully he'll share his thoughts on it.)
Volcano Dust
Mark Frauenfelder at 10:37 am • •
As I've said before, I've been a fan of Bob Staake's illustration ever since David and I stumbled across his ABC and 123 books at SF Moma in 1998. Bob's art is appealing in its simplicity, but it's also sophisticated and wry. No surprise that he has illustrated quite a few New Yorker covers. He does all of his illustration work using a pre-OS X version of the Macintosh operating system and Photoshop 3. He doesn't use a stylus, and instead does everything with a mouse.
It's with great pleasure that Boing Boing gets to premiere the trailer for Bob's new book, Bluebird. He's been working on it for 10 years, and it's a mind-blowing story aimed at 4-8 year olds. It's told without words, and it's about a boy, a bird, and some bullies. I don't want to spoil the story so I'll stop there. I agree with Kirkus Reviews assessment: "Like nothing you have seen before." Is it Bob's magnum opus? I'd say "yes.. so far." Who knows what he'll do next?
Bluebird
Mark Frauenfelder at 9:55 am • •
From Joe Rogan's website, Onnit.
Mark Frauenfelder at 1:44 pm • •
After you've purchased 4 or 5 of these iPhone cases, why not buy a Toot Toot case from Twig?
Amaze your friends and tantalize your neighbors with an incredible case for your iPhone that is over 7 feet tall and shoots multi-color sparks! You control it as it flies around your living room! See through your hand with its built-in X-ray eye, then take a secret picture like a real spy! Only you know its secret! Create a scene wherever you go as you leave everyone in stitches!
Toot Toot iPhone case
Mark Frauenfelder at 1:45 pm • •
Last year I ordered a few Lego limited-edition Moleskines. The "limit" must be very high, as they are still available on Amazon. I don't care, because I never intended to keep them as collector's items anyway.
This month, Moleskin published a limited edition Mickey Mouse Moleskine. It has an embossed Mickey on the cover, and includes a pull-out guide to drawing the famous rodent.
Moleskine Mickey Notebook Plain Large $16.32
Mark Frauenfelder at 7:30 am • •
Michael Pusateri recommended the comic book Resident Alien on an episode of Gweek last year. A few days ago I received a review copy of the paperback anthology that collects the first four issues and loved it.
Resident Alien Volume 1: Welcome to Earth! is about an alien who crash lands his spacecraft on Earth and must interact with human beings in a small mountain town. The alien can uses his formidable mental powers to block his appearance so that the townsfolk see him as a human (with one interesting exception). But as readers, we see him as a purple skinned, bug-eyed, pointy-eared spaceman.
In the afterword to the anthology, writer Peter Hogan explains how he came up with the idea for the series:
I blame Elvis Presley. Many years ago, I edited a book about the man, and got fascinated by Alfred Wertheimer's photos from the early days of his career. He showed Presley in everyday settings like diners and hotels, traveling on trains and hanging around in stations –- and the truly remarkable thing about them was the fact that all the other people in those photographs were completely ignoring Elvis, despite the fact that he looked nothing like anyone else in the room (or on the planet, for that matter). It was like there was a Martian in town, and they just couldn't see him.
The alien is friendly. He is fascinated by human behavior, and when the town doctor is murdered, the mayor asks him to step in as a temporary replacement until they can find a permanent doctor. He agrees, somewhat reluctantly, because he is still unaccustomed to the ways of humans, but his curiosity wins out. The story develops into a good old fashioned murder mystery, with the twist that an alien disguised as a doctor is involved. Steve Parkhouse's art is excellent, and I'm looking forward to the next volume, which will be called "The Suicide Blonde."
Resident Alien Volume 1: Welcome to Earth!
Mark Frauenfelder at 10:42 am • •
Two new items in the Boing Boing Shop! Moleskine ruled Cahier journals: Beetle and Critter $5.95 each.
Take a look at all the items in the Boing Boing Shop
Mark Frauenfelder at 4:19 pm • •
New in the Boing Boing Shop -- messenger bags featuring some of our favorite artists' work, including Ape Lad's Unizilla illustration and Mark Pawson's Demolish Serious Culture logo (which always has its intended effect on pinks, cage dwellers, mediocretins, norm-worms, glorps, and other dupes of the Conspiracy).
Get them in the Boing Boing Shop!
Mark Frauenfelder at 4:02 pm • •
Quarterly.co is a subscription service for wonderful things. People can subscribe to a curator (such as Joel Johnson, Veronica Belmont, Tim Ferriss, Joshua Foer, Gretchen Rubin and others) and pay $25 per quarter to receive a box of items selected by the curator.
I'm a curator and my most recent mailing includes things to stimulate your sense of vision: a length of EL wire, a tiny microscope, and a black light flashlight. Take a look at what people are saying about my latest mailing on Twitter.
Mark's Quarterly subscription
Previously:
Quarterly Co. interviews Mark
Sneak peek at my Quarterly.co package of Fantastic Plastic gadgets and novelties
Mark Frauenfelder at 11:38 am • •
I saw Jenny Ryan's Instragram photo of her new alarm clock, and I had to get one. It replaced our guest bedroom digital alarm clock, which is ugly and suffers from the "what does this button do?" syndrome that's common in electronic gadgets. I counted five buttons, one 3-position switch, and one 4-position switch.
The Kikkerland, on the other hand has one button (the large and intuitive alarm button) and two dials: one to set the time, and one to set the alarm. That's it. With enough training, even Pescovitz will be able to operate it when he spends the night.
The clock is quiet (it does tick softly) and uses 1 AA cell. The alarm chime is a loud piezoelectric pulse. The hands are luminous. And it's only $15.
Kikkerland Retro Alarm Clock
Lew Frauenfelder at 10:55 am • •
The Aeroccino 3 is a sleekly designed product about the size of a can of peaches that heats and froths milk to super fluffy consistency in about thirty seconds making for perfect cappuccinos, lattes or macchiatos.
The frother has a clever frothing mechanism consisting of a ring magnet rotor that fits over a vertical post inside the unit and spins rapidly in the presence of a rotating magnetic field, which is created in the stator coils embedded in its base.
What I like about it is that there is no waiting for steam to build up, no messy clean-up, no spatters on the counter top, no plunging a mechanical frother, etc. Just simply put the frothing rotor on the little post inside the vessel, pour in the milk to the graduated mark, press the button momentarily for warm froth or hold the button in for two seconds for cold froth. If you want warm milk with no froth, put on the non-froth rotor, pour in the milk and press the button. Voilà!
Aeroccino 3
