Photoshop: Partial Face Transplants

Freaking News has the results of a Partial Face Transplants Photoshop contest, where entrants were asked to combine the left half of one famous face with the right half of another. I particularly like the Queen/Elton John combo. Try to guess who the celebs are before looking at the captions. (Apart from the Queen/Elton John one, which I've just ruined for you.)

Worth1000 had Evil Celebrity Clowns.

Meanwhile, Something Awful has Grindhouse Breakfast Cereals.

And if you want to appear happier in your photos, look to the left.

Beverages: Guinness

Put these countries in order of Guinness consumption: Ireland, Great Britain, Nigeria. (Answer)

YouTube: Stevie Riks

British musical impressionist Stevie Riks has a wealth of material on YouTube. Some highlights:

• Alvin Stardust (including the line "You must be out of your tiny minds" from his Green Cross Code ad)
  
• Barry Gibb and Christopher Walken (with Ian McNabb out of the Icicle Works - really! - as Walken)
  
• Gilbert O'Sullivan
  
• David Bowie singing Simon & Garfunkle - probably his best impression
  
• Elvis Costello
  
• Marc Bolan
  
• Freddy Mercury, window cleaner
  
• Miscellaneous shape-throwers
  

Music: Who Are You 2

Robb adds the National: "I'm the new blue blood, I'm the Great White Hope. I won't fuck us over, I'm Mr. November." (MP3 here.)

Which reminds me of the Killers, "Open up my eager eyes, 'cause I'm Mr. Brightside." Coincidentally, there's a great cover by Paul Anka.

Internet: Moan My IP

Want to hear a sexy voice moaning your IP address? MoanMyIP.com is for you.

Music: Wilco In Swedish

Nice, slow, live Swedish cover of Wilco's "Jesus Etc.". Using this online translator, going from English to Swedish and back again, "turning your orbit around" becomes "phrases your banana around".

Music: Who Are You?

I'm looking for songs in which an introduction is made. A name or nickname must be present. Contractions are okay. First, second or third person is valid. Metaphors and similes are invalid.

Acceptable: I am the Walrus (valid only if "the Walrus" is an authorized nickname)
Rejectable: He's a real nowhere man
Acceptable: I am Iron Man
Rejectable: I'm a real wild one
Rejectable: We're the kids of America
Rejectable: Please allow me to introduce myself, I'm a man of wealth and taste
Rejectable: We are the World (metaphors not allowed)

Robb has unearthed a good one.
"My name is Sue" A BOY NAMED SUE by Johnny Cash

Here's an obvious entry:
"My name is...Slim Shady" MY NAME IS by Eminem

Animals: Camels

Shell brought this news story to my attention: "Australian woman killed by pet camel". The camel "knocked her to the ground then lay on top of her in what police suspect was mating behavior". The Sun, predictably, uses the headline "60-year-old humped to death". The victim, according to The Courier-Mail was a "jillaroo".

Back in April, a Florida woman was also killed by a pet camel. They were "being filmed by a local television station on Sunday when the camel kicked her and sat on her during a break in filming".

How long before Stephen Colbert replaces bears with camels on the Threatdown?

Music: Gingerbread Patriots

Gingerbread Patriots claim they sound like "rice crispies popping. not the first fierce ones but the soggier ones that suprise you because you thought they had all long since drowned" (sic) but they actually sound like Grandaddy. Listen to "Donna Mills" and tell me I'm wrong.

By the way, can we declare a moratorium on songs named after actors and actresses? "Michael Caine" (Madness, 1984). "Julie Christie" (Stephen Duffy, 1986). "Julie Christie!" (Spearmint, 2005). "Tom Courtenay" (Yo La Tengo, 1995). "Peter Lorre" (The Jazz Butcher, 1986). "Clint Eastwood" (Gorillaz, 2001).

(I'm talking about song titles that consist of only the actor's name - so "Robert DeNiro's Waiting" or "Gonna Dig Up Alec Guinness don't count.)

Still, I like the Gingerbread Patriots, if only for their self-description as "evenly statured", with a horizontal line on their photo to prove it. And their slowed-down cover of When In Rome's "The Promise" is nice.

Wedding Receptions: Newman-Simpson

Now this sounds like a great wedding reception: A.C. Newman of the New Pornographers and Christy Simpson of Matador Records. And a great quote from the groom: "That’s love, wanting the same person to win on a reality show."

YouTube: Soundboard Pranks

I'd never heard of these "soundboard pranks", but there sure are a lot of them on YouTube. This Judge Judy one made me laugh - there's something about the repetition of "Judge Judy" asking the poor bill collector, "How old are you?", that is very, very funny. Too bad you really can't hear the bill collector.

Here's a teenage boy using Dr. Phil when an angry mother calls to complain about him putting dirty pictures on her daughter's MySpace.

If you want to make your own prank calls, here's a Christopher Walken soundboard.

Music: Rhyming Artist/Song

Thinking caps on. Can you name an artist or band whose name rhymes with their best known song?

I've just got one to start you off: "Give me the beat, boys, and free my soul..."

Music: Christian Kjellvander

Charming video of Swedish singer-songwriter Christian Kjellvander playing a song on a banjo in his car, with birdsong in the background. Was it really filmed on a cellphone? Seems awfully good quality.

YouTube has more of his videos, including "Drunken Hands", "Drag The Dirt In", and "Days Of Black (Nights Are Lights)" by his old band, Loosegoats. (The Loosegoats early EP, "Small Lesbian Baseball Players", shows up on a web store that specialises in baseball-related items.)

(Via swedesplease, purveyors of the best in Swedish music.)

Album Covers: Children 2

Robb says I blew it by leaving out "Ceremony" by The Cult. "The band was sued for US$61,000,000 by the parents of the American Indian boy, named Eternity Dubray, pictured on the album cover."

A poet named Robert references the child in his poem "Freedom":

Eternity Dubray ceremony child
Did you get the green leaves? Did the (sic) last your parents and family a while?

The poem ends: "Rock music is sexy…"

I don't know if he got the green leaves (the $60 mil?), but apparently he graduated last year with a "One Year Certificate in Entrepreneurs". (The first name on the list is "Afraid of Lighting, Trivia D." - what an awesome name.)

And he contributes to the Dems.

Album Covers: Children

Whither the children who graced the album covers of yore?

The baby on Nirvana's "Nevermind" is Spencer Elden. He's 16 now, and has appeared on another album cover.

The boy on the cover of U2's "Boy" and "War" albums (and a slew of other U2 releases) is Peter Rowan, who is now a professional photographer. (He spells his name "Rowen" to avoid confusion with a bluegrass musician.)

The Rave-Ups' album "Chance" had a picture of the lead singer's son, Chance. Chance is the nephew of Molly Ringwald, and therefore the grandson of jazz pianist Bob Ringwald, who has a newer photo. Here is a letter the father wrote for his infant son. I really enjoy that album.

The most controversial child on an album cover has to be the girl on the cover of "Blind Faith", the self-titled album by the Eric Clapton/Ginger Baker/Steve Winwood/Ric Grech (who?) supergroup. She is now (if we can trust the internet) a massage therapist and shiatsu practitioner.

Sadly, the little angel on the cover of Van Halen's 1984 died in 1997 from lung cancer.

Music Video: Bat For Lashes

As seen on You Ain't No Picasso, a great video for Bat For Lashes.

YANP also has a piece on Melora Hardin, who plays Steve Carell's sometime love interest on the US version of "The Office", and is also a singer. There's an MP3 for "Dial O On The Little Pink Telephone".

Music: A Camp

Great news out of Sweden! Nina Persson is making a new A Camp album! Not sure about the shift away from the country sound, but the Adam Ant influence could be interesting.