Brant's Blog of Awesomeness

Maze Fun!!!!

I'm getting to leave for "vacation" tomorrow!  "Vacation" is when we leave the beaches and palm trees of tropical South Florida and go to central Illinois!

I just made this "Save Your Cat!" maze!  Just click on it and play!  Give yourself a 20 second time limit!  A fire truck is bearing down on your cat, and you've got 20 seconds to save it -- that's it!  Any more than that -- too late!

It adds drama!  I LIKE drama!  I made this for my son, Justice, whom I miss, who's already in Illinois! 

Have fun, boy! 

Justice was a Monty Python fan by age eight!  It's weird how these things happen!

Ladies: Look What You'll Be Wearing

I think this is pretty awesome.

"This model wears a creation by Jefferson de Assis during the Sao Paulo Fashion Week in Sao Paulo."

It's cool because Jefferson de Assi is clearly a friend of women everywhere, designing practical, everyday wear for the woman on the go.   It's also cool because apparently, "Sao Paul Fashion Week" is held in "Sao Paulo".  I like the tie-in. 

And it's cool be because this woman maintains a look of elegance and attitude, despite being, you know, sucked into a tuba.

I'm told haute couture designers' creations rarely become, in toto, street wear at the consumer level.  Rather, distilled, less-dramatic versions reach common fashion.  So this particular outift may not make it. 

I think we can expect, for the fall, women to wear outfits portraying an attack by smaller brass instruments, like the French horn or, obviously, sousaphones.

I Have a Business Idea

Dear Business-Loan-Person-at-Some-Bank or Whatever;

I hope to secure financing for a new venture.  I believe the time is now.   It will be a showplace.

There will be a frightening band -- an assortment of gigantic animatronic animals.  A horrifying gorilla will play keyboards.  A disfigured mouse, dressed in a green cheerleader costume, will stand beside him. 

There will be a character named "Uncle Klunk", who advises children to "Don't smoke Crayolas!"  No one will understand what he's talking about.

There will be one (1) animatronic dog in a space suit.  I will also feature a "bird", with only its head visible, sticking out of -- obviously -- an oil drum. 

The showplace will dispense "pizza", but filth will be the order of the day.  The pizza-like substance will slathered with factory-farmed hog byproducts.  Children will be given pitchers -- buckets, really -- of corn syrup, then dispatched to slobber-filled game rooms. 

Lights will be dimmed to inhibit squalor assessment.

Any existing lights will be blinking.  There will be unending beeping and buzzing.

To further disorientation for adults, a disco ball will be used.  There will be zero (0) air circulation.

"Skee-Ball" will be played, in exchange for "tickets", redeemable for plastic spider rings at the rate of 1,000,000 (one million) tickets per spider ring.  Nicer prizes will be displayed, but will remain unattainable.

The customer's only discernible hope for human connection, the only apparent presence of responsibility, our lone "employee" in the building, will be crammed into a sweaty Rat costume. 

The Rat will symbolize us.

Reality itself will be thrown into question.  Young patrons will grow up and become disaffected, searching, "post-moderns".  Inexplicably, they will attempt to smoke Crayolas.

Thank you for funding this business plan,

Brant Hansen

If I Were Marketing a Food, I Would Not Choose a Mascot that Was that Food

If I were marketing a food, I would not choose a mascot that was that food.

This is my opinion.  It is my opinion because of my quirks. One quirk is not wanting to snack on self-conscious beings.  "Twinkie the Kid" is a good example.  Hostess has unwittingly presented me with a dilemma I'd rather not confront. 

He's clearly a "self", a Twinkie-in-full, engaging in autonomous decision-making, and -- I think we can presume this -- even engaged in a career arc.  Twinkie the Kid uses his lasso to rustle up other twinkies.  He smiles.  He makes fashion choices.  He even engages in questionable moral behavior.  (As a winner of the evolutionary lottery for arms and legs, does he now have license to "round up" other, armless Twinkies?  Also problematic:  One cannot choose boots, but remain pantless.  I've learned this the hard way.)

Consider, as well, the "M&M Guys".  Clearly capable of friendship,  they truly seek to know, and to be truly known.  They demonstrate loyalty, and a brotherly "phileo" love, and possibly eros.  They are alive, sentient, and other-centered.  All this, and the Mars Company merely assures me they will not melt in my hands.

I struggle mightily with this.  Briefly.  Their taste pleases me.

If I were marketing a food, I would not choose a mascot that was that food.  I would design a talking, bipedal rabbit that desperately wants that food, but is -- for reasons we cannot fathom -- not permitted to eat it.