She also gave me a Durian fruit. The durian features hundreds of sharp points, and it’s heavy — at least as heavy as a watermelon. If someone dropped it on you from a height of ten feet, it would really hurt, and possibly send you to the hospital.

I sawed the durian open with a large serrated knife. On the inside the durian is separated into several chambers, and each chamber features large seeds covered with a creamy, custardy delicious flesh. It tastes like a pineapple-fig custard.

Durian is most famous for its smell though. I did stink, but it wasn’t repulsive. It sort of smelled like a rotting fruit.

It’s rather amazing — it features the logos and mascots of 100s, maybe 1000s of brands.

Japan: Dog washing machine.

Japan: Heart Shaped Doritos in Japan.

Art: Women are heros is a massive art installation that covered walls and bridges in Paris with pictures of women.

Funny or Die: FOD’s Presidential Re-union. Jim Carey does a great Regan.

Japan: Photos of over 100 Kit Kat flavors.

Batman: Batman on Life magazine.

Japan: Domo Kun, Olympic Host.

Video games: Zero Punctuation review of Bioshock 2. Funny and money saving.

Marketing: Using Sex to sell lawn mowers.

Nature: Creaturecast features short but informative and entertaining videos (so far) about sea creatures.

Nature: Moray eels have two sets of jaws, just like the creatures in the Alien movies. Eels boy! Eels!

Prehistoric nature: A fully intact baby Mammoth. Pretty cute. Can we clone it?

Apple: A Mission:Impossible style theft of Macs. Ninjas love Macs.

Snow: Topless snowlady in NJ. Nice snow globes!

Google: Google Responds To Privacy Concerns With Unsettlingly Specific Apology.

Google: It’s the Google monster!!! Cool illustration!

Tax: 13 Weird Taxes (and tax breaks) from around the world.

Frogs: Frog Cardigan. Not for everyone, but if you like frogs….

Cars: A “Green” Porsche.

Tech: Learn about people just by pointing your phone about them.

Modern problems: Texting more likely to cause crashes than DWI.

Twitter: Little known twitter search commands.

Nature: A squirrel thinks it’s a kitten!

Eats: Yelp Sued For Offering To Bury Bad Reviews In Exchange For Ads.

Drinks: 8 benefits of red wine.

Web: IE6 Funeral. Time to have a funeral for Internet Explorer 6.

Rat Bastard features the exploits of Roscoe Rat a human-rat hybrid & private detective. If memory serves me, Rat Bastard takes place in the future when human-animal hybrids are common place, people ride flying motorcycles and giant cat robots are a problem (my brain just ran out of writing juice).

I enjoyed reading the original Rat Bastard comics, and I’m sure I’ll enjoy the web version as well.

Japan: Rootop urinals in Japan.

Star Wars: George Lucas frozen in Carbonite.

Dr. Who: Dr. Who promo. Promo for the new series.

Cars,blogs: Cars in Bars! Photos of dilapidated cars in and around barns.

Cars: Cars in the 1970s. Apparently there were lots of pretty ladies in car adverts in the 1970s.

News: Cracks in the shark tank!!!

Squirrels: Squirrel Fishing!!!

New Jersey: Toll Collectors Gone Wild. You might go crazy to if you had to sit in a box 8 hours a day and take dirty money from Goombas.

iPhone: Get the Mighty Boosh Decider app, for those moments when you need to make a decision and you’d rather defer to a mad Moon.

iPhone: WFMU iPhone app.

Retro: Bad Mags features 1960s and 1970s exploitation magazines.

Art: luzinterruptus is an artist who makes art installations using lights.

Food: Ramen noodle reviews.

Pikachu: Pikachu crushed ice machine.

Comics: Superman comic sells for $1,000,000.

The album was recorded as part of the 2010 RPM challenge, so it had to be competed in the month of February of 2010, and it had to be 10 tracks of original music. I recorded the album after work on weekdays and on weekends — it might have taken 100 hours to plan, write, record, mix, edit and review.

Early reviews:

Baggsy says: “I freaking loved this album. It sounds like a space rock Kenneth Anger soundtrack about Horis sinking all of Earth’s submarines.”

Leif from }Hexdump{ says: “Long-time friend and super-genius Dan Century (aka The Milkshake Daddy) has a freshly minted new album that just hit the Intert00bz called “Aquatic Ape Hypothesis.” Listen to this and you will yearn for halcyon days of public television soundtracks and fuzzy, low-fi acid rock guitar. It is weird and awesome and you should download it now.”

Here is the track listing (links go to the songs):

1. Light Dispelling Darkness
2. Convexagon
3. Aquatic Ape Hypothesis
4. Cathy
5. Curiosity
6. The Fifth Instar, Parts 1 & 2
7. Neil Degrasse High, Parts 1 & 2
8. Super Sloppy Space Junk
9. SakanaYasha
10. The Luddite

The tracks I think are the best are:

Light Dispelling Darkness by Milkshake Daddy

Aquatic Ape Hypothesis by Milkshake Daddy

Super Sloppy Space Junk by Milkshake Daddy

I’ll post more information tomorrow. Now I need some rest.

Apparently I’ve made an album of science fiction soundtrack music, and 1970’s sexy-time music.

Part of my problem is I only record music once a year in February, as part of the RPM challenge. The rest of the year I become a passive consumer of music and entertainment. Practice makes perfect, and I don’t practice. I watch a lot of TV, drink Ouzo, eat snacks, lay on the beach, make crazy videos, go to rock shows, go to parties, take naps — but no March to January music practice.

I don’t practice playing music, I don’t read manuals, I don’t read blogs or forums, and I rarely ask friends, many of whom know how to record music.

I own two drum machines, and I don’t even know how to program them — I play them manually, beating out rhythms with my fingers.

My biggest struggle is recording the music and actually making it sound listenable — and I don’t mean the songs themselves — I mean recording without distortion, clipping, brain-peiricng screeches and muddiness. Distortion, screeches and muddiness, for some people, are considered a good thing, and they definitely can be when recorded properly (no one considers clipping good). Electric guitars, cranked to 11 or tuned down to a muddy D can sound great, if the person recording them knows what they’re doing. I don’t know what I’m doing.

Perhaps I should take some time and read about recording music; read up on GarageBand; learn how to EQ out ear-maming frequencies; get Pro Tools; talk to my friend who owns a music studio. Perhaps.

Other than making the my music listenable, another issue that confounds me is why my recordings sound so different through different speakers. What sounds great on my Mac through headphones, is full of distortion and clipping on my Dell at work, and muddy and quiet in my car stereo. Frustrating. It does help to listen to your recordings on multiple devices and stereos — it helps you find flaws and get ideas for improvements — that is the one trick I’ve learned.

Much respect to people who have the time and patience to learn and master the art of recording music. Hats off to ya!