Tuesday, May 27, 2008

Freddy Takes a Silly Break

Freddy Benstein's head is spinning. After recently deciding to put a bit more effort into his Cafepress store, Freddy has been trying to learn all about promoting websites, blogs, search Engine Optimization and more. Freddy is just overwhelmed at the moment and wants a little break. Luckily, Freddy was reminded by an article in yesterday's newspaper that it is that silly time of year when the Eurovision song contest is held. Freddy thinks he first learned of this event maybe three years ago, when Lordi of Finland took home the top prize. As hard as he tries, Freddy cannot take Eurovision seriously and he questions whether any non-Europeans can at all. Watching the various entries, Freddy feels like he is in the middle of a Christopher Guest mockumentary and is expecting to see Spinal Tap among the names of the entrants. Anyhow, it's obvious from the article Freddy read yesterday that Germany places the song competition at the same level as at least the Olympics. The article was telling about Germany's big disappointment at not get any votes for their entry this year. Nothing, zero! "Why does everyone like us not?" Freddy sees that they even took the "sex sells" angle by entering three attractive young ladies in form fitting outfits. (You know, on a side note, Freddy was once told by a friend that the most effective ads feature sexy pics, dogs or kids.) Here, Freddy is embedding Germany's 2008 Eurovision entry for your enjoyment.

Germany's 2008 Entry

And of course, Freddy must include one of his all-time-favorites, the UK entry from 2007. Scooch performing "Flying the Flag" or something like that. It is a culmination of silliness with the performers dressed in Azure, low-cut flight attendant uniforms, slinking around on stage sliding up and down service carts as they push them around in choreographed dance moves. The climax of the song comes as the male attendants offer you a complimentary drink, or some salted peanuts.
UK entry 2007

And of course, Freddy cannot leave out Lordi, the group that first sparked his interest in this contest:


Anyhow, Freddy enjoyed his silly break and now it's back to selling T-shirts at Cafepress. Should you be interested in bad rock music (or musik) or things European, Please have a look at Freddy's Spinal Tap Tees and German Language Tees at his Cafepress store.

Saturday, May 24, 2008

Procrastinating

Seeing as how Freddy Currently resides in Japan, perhaps it is appropriate to write a bit about putting things off. As it turns out, Japanese are some of the best procrastinators in the world. Just check out this article in Slate.com. Anyhow, sometimes Freddy has times when there is actually little to do other than procrastinate and he has found a new way to do that. The answer is Yahoo! Answers. Now Freddy things the whole concept of Yahoo! Answers is rather silly. Freddy was/is not all that impressed with Wikipedia, and Freddy thinks that Answers is likely even more dangerous. Freddy even thinks he remembers reading something about this in Slate.com. Anyhow, for those who are smart enough to not take the Answers community too seriously, it can provide some fairly enjoyable time wasting. Freddy thinks the average age at the Answers community must be around 12. At least based on the answers given and quesitons asked. Freddy would include the bad grammar used in the questions and answers given, but Freddy has spent time working in a high school and is aware that these days, bad grammar does not necessarily indicate any particular age, sadly.

Looking for T-shirt ideas, Freddy found an interesting stereotype about learners of a few European languages. Freddy posted a question asking for funny words in German, French and Spanish. Interestingly, the German words given to Freddy were often long words, having to do with philosophy, history, music and so on. Nearly 70% of the Spanish and French answers were curse words, or insults. Freddy needs to say no more. Still, Freddy is pleased to offer German, Spanish, Latin and Japanese inspired T-shirts at his Cafepress shop. As soon as he finds suitable French, he will add French designs.

In the meantime, Freddy will continue to provide stupid answers to stupid questions in the Yahoo! Answers community. Look for Freddy and become his fan.

Monday, May 19, 2008

Entropic Tees T-shirt Blog

Freddy says good morning to all his readers. Freddy has great pride as he announces the launch of his very own t-shirt blog. Freddy has an interesting history. You can read all about it at his website for his company: EntropicTees. Freddy also has a cafepress shop where you can see the latest designs of Freddy's quirky T-shirts.

Freddy is always scouring the web for new ideas and he often comes across strange websites and people. For example, once Freddy was searching for pictures of bunny rabbits and somehow, he stumbled upon a website dedicated to a Japanese farting fetish. There were just pictures of girls' butts in underwear and underneath were detailed descriptions of their farts, including aspects such as sound, smell, length, loudness and so on. Freddy would post a link for you to follow, but that was many years ago, and contrary to what you might think, Freddy did not immediately add the site to his bookmarks. Furthermore, Freddy does not want to perform a google search for "Japanese farting fetish." However, if any of Freddy's readers feel inclined to do so, and would like to share their findings, Freddy says, "go right ahead."

Freddy has gotten off topic, though. As he was saying, Freddy often comes across strange parts of the Internet, and will share these discoveries with you. You can also watch Freddy's blog for new T-shirt designs, stories about t-shirts, guest writers from Freddy's intellectual friends (or maybe not so intellectual?) and on occasion, Freddy's random streams of consciousness.

For the time being, Freddy bids you farewell. There are some farts that need to be evaluated.