TOP 10 MOTIFS YOU SHOULD NEVER PUT ON CANVAS OR WHY IS NOTHING NOT A GOOD THING

5. fruit

Unless you suffered a major stroke you should be able to summon enough inspiration to paint something other than a bowl of decomposing apples and decaying oranges. No, even if you immortalize bananas with cream and a cherry on top it won’t matter. It’s lame, lazy and lackluster and that makes you a LLL uncool gay, which is not a thing to rap about. You have no excuse wasting paint and canvas on things meant to be touched, smelled and tasted. We sense nothing. Nothing! Well, unless you paint with raspberry syrup on chocolate canvas. We’d dig that. With spoons.

I'm not boooring, I'm not boooring!

4. babies

Without all the screaming, crying and defecating, those precious sugar-buns lose all their allure. We do understand that exactly your child is the epitome of beauty and the avatar of goodlookingness. You are blessed. We are annoyed. And anyway, you should be tending to its diapers and photographing him for your new Facebook profile pic. Meanwhile, in the real world, everyone will agree your heir is nothing special. Nothing! And put some clothes on it please. There are children around.

The artist in the future known as Prick.

3. furniture

Okay, so you’ve been imprisoned in your atelier for too long and inhaling paint fumes and staring at the hauntingly blank canvas is starting to take its toll. Chairs and armoires start to look majestic. That’s your next bestseller! Uhm... not. Even seeing modern and truly originally designed furniture in real life is at most a short oh-that’s-cool-moving-along moment. No amount of fiddling with the abstract and transformation can make those shelves look interesting. We even hold a grudge against Dalí on this one. You can't make a pie from manure. Well, you can, but then you'd have, well, your painting. Even if you paint your wrinkled grandma in her masterfully crafted rocking chair we will experience nothing. Nothing! Just ask grandma to bake you a pie. See what flavor you get.

Miraculously, IKEA doesn't stand for
Impressive Kickassy Extraordinary Art!

2. yourself

It’s hard to really know yourself. Having a distinctively artistic mind is also not helping. But that can’t hinder you from splashing your sickeningly unobjective view of yours truliest onto the canvas. You apply all the undereducated tricks to transfer your emotions and torments of the soul via every line on your self-obsessed face. And still it remains just a face. And not a pretty one. We stare down your eyes and into your soul and find nothing of importance or interest. Nothing! Well done if you wanted to scream to the world “I’m boring”, but ironically – that’s boring. Next time add a hatchet in your forehead. Or a rope around your neck. Amuse us commoners, oh beautiful and divine you! Just remember: A self-portrait is not a sell-portrait.

Hello purrty!

1. nothing

That canvas containing only one blue uncentered dot or a single line adorning your masterpiece in purposely imperfect golden ratio is the result of a long and hard process of transferring your unorthodox philosophical views via symbolism onto canvas. Surprise – we see nothing. Nothing! How would you like a minimalistic football game report: “Victory. End.” Or a weather forecast: “So-so. Mostly. End.” We won’t use our imagination if you refuse to do the same. If you don’t give - we don’t give. A crap. End.

In your face, Degas!!!

SONNY, LET ME TELL YOU ABOUT MULTIPLE SCLEROS... UHM, IMAGE RESIZING

What the what: find a freeware capable of resizing multiple images (.jpg and .png mostly) so that their width becomes 500 px and their height keeps the aspect ratio. (This sounds boring...)

Why the what: so I can use those images in a photo gallery, making the "next" and "previous” buttons remain in the same place. You know, to achieve overall sexiness. (No, still boring.)

How the what long: less than 5 minutes. 2 minutes to download and install it and 3 minutes to take a quick look at the options, then click "resize all images to my bidding, you pathetic plebeian byte-midget". (Will you be berating people?)

How the what: Mr. Google will help me when I say something like "mass image resize free". (Hey, I like Google too! Maybe I should read on.)

What the what do I expect: a simple, easy to use (I just want to resize my images, not go through Adobe-sized pile of options which I, like any sane humanoid, can’t and don’t want to understand), nicely designed, quick, little piece of software, without any pop-ups, trojans, or other evils. (Is this going to be a tl;dr techno babble? I’m warning you!)

Here the what we go:

Fotosizer

  Oh. I see now why it's free. It allows me either to resize them one by one (wow, that's a stretch of a word mass-resize) or get randomly resized images, with their dimensions based on the keep-aspect-ratio of the first image! Good. Damn those other images. I call upon “prima imago”, the right to virtually fornicate with any image named 1.jpg, 01.png and such. Awesome! And by awesome I mean unjustifiably retarded.

Verdict: 1 star (It actually is able to do mass resizing,
however craptacular it may be.)

Batch picture resizer

  Ok, if when you go to the toilet, out comes a string of Unix code instead of ca-ca (yes it is hard to differentiate the two most of the time) then this is the one for you, dear iSir. Listen to this. Well, read. You move the .exe file to the desktop and then drag-and-drop your images onto it. What? Miracles didn't happen? Where.the.what.are.my.options? None. Their web site teaches me I actually access the options by renaming the .exe file. I did. To straight2recyclebinUpieceofcrud.exe.

Verdict: no stars (You killed all the constellations
with your epitardedness! Darth.exe!)

Berberus mass image resizer

  Sweet demon of sodomy! I download it and want to install it. Cnet's download.com installer pops out and proudly announces I should download and install the software (uhm, I thought I already did?) Because it's safe, tested and spyware free. Why would you say that unless... Eeek! Away from my hard drive you succubus! I force-close it and google for another place to download this obviously epic software. I download it from brothersoft.com. Brothers are usually good, right? Oh wait. Cain, right? Too late. Again one of those annoying web installers, but wait! Avira pops up! You sons of whorrific whores! You dare? My unsmitable free antivirus will emasculate you and your puny attempts to get my credit card number and the length of my penis (both being huge numbers). TR/dropper.gen you say? Die!

Verdict: -1 stars (Yes, it's minus one,
you bastards owe me a star!)

Multiple Image Resizer .NET

  Oh boy, this one uses Microsoft .NET Framework. You know, the thing you have to have on your PC but never actually use. Or you do, but have no idea when or why. Allrighty, this one not only works well and has all the options I wanted or pretended to want, it also looks very sleek. And does its chores flawlessly. One can only understand my surprise when one goes to the web page of this software. Ouch. Down syndrome meets color blindness. I peek at the source code. Eeek! You use .net 4 which was developed earlier this year, yet you use tables in html coding which are enough of a reason for kids to throw feces at you in the street, you bohemian caveman. Well, I'm not even searching more, this one works perfectly! Oh wait. I take a gander at the image sizes. Whaa? They're more than doubled. ::testing:: Wow, it doubles the size of the image even if I set it to the same size as the original (so actually no resizing takes place). I play with resolution and other indecipherable options. Nothing. Well, good for you, you Mr. Sleek-look-but-don't-care-about-image-size!

Verdict: 4 stars (It is a good software. Good enough
I take that half of a star and shove it up its source code.)

Fast image resizer

  Ok, this one looks and feels like it's from 1979. And funnily enough is the only one that does the wanted job properly. I just set the width to 500 px, height to let’s say 9001px (yes, it's over 9000!!!), set the output folder and voila. Plus, extra mad props for not blowing up the file size. Quick, effective, and ugly. That's how we like ‘em.

Verdict: 4,99 stars (That's how much I care about your ugliness.
You dawg.)

Freeimageconverter

  This is the only one that doesn't have drag-and-drop, which is just gauche. On the other hand it does have the nicely visible and easily findable option to select the resized image quality in percentages. So we can maneuver the file quality/size quite easily. Too sparkling bad it fails miserably at resizing. As if that matters.

Verdict: 0,72 stars (I know you meant well. It's just that
you aren't capable of achieving above-abysmal things.)

Image tuner

  If image resizers were shoe-wearing turds, this one would be the crud on their soles. Visually - very good, practically - think gonorrhea and diarrhea at the same time. Did nothing I wanted. Pretty and useless. That’s how we hate ‘em.

Verdict: 1 super shiny star (Because it has an elephant
for its icon, and we all agree that elephunts are phun.)

The absolute winner:

adionSoft Fast Image Resizer

Get it at: http://adionsoft.net/fastimageresize

The conclusion:
  I'm sure that if I took more time testing these softwares, some of them would turn out to be better, some worse. But that's not the point. I wanted a simple and effective software for an average cheap-camera-wielding joe, not for a nerd that knows what the options like "IFAST DCT method" or "EXIF orientation tag" really stand for. They stand for “I’m resizing these pics of rare rocks from my awsm collection”. That’s fine too. I personally wanted to resize these boobelicious boobs and buttelicious butts I took on the beach this weekend, but yours is a fine hobby too.

Top 5 Reasons to Express Yourself Artistically

5. Money

 You have the talent, your hands are golden, your style is impeccable, people like your hair. Okay, but great art takes a lot of time and effort and psychologically drains you. And that’s not a whole bunch of dandy. How about mass-producing 20+ paintings a day, like a possessed printing machine? And then enjoying when people still think your art is beyond great? You just took a different approach. You just went into another direction. Clearly and obviously you are now progressive and contemporary and original. As far as their fat wallets know.

You don't get rich writing science fiction. If you want to get rich, you stART a religion.

4. Testosterone overload

 You could go and beat up someone. Weaker, of course. You could go to a gym and pump some iron and look awesome in your magenta leotard. But you decide to pass on that and brush-slap the bejeezus out of that canvas that’s been provoking you from the corner of your shady den. You decide to punish that piece of marble, which you’ve been using as a laptop stand for too long, with your ebay’ed Mjolnir. You decide to carve that piece of wood that laymen call a dining table with your enchanted +2 katana. That’s nice. Just be sure to have a medikit handy. Or just bleed across the canvas. People appreciate and admire true passion.

This...is...spARTa!

3. Pain

 The worst thing about pain, according to some obscure schools of philosophy, is that it hurts. Luckily, art has an amazing therapeutic effect. Inhaling paint fumes has proven to be a great ache suppressant, while also being (in medical terminology) groovy. Squeezing and stroking the clay with your fingers eases the tension of your sore muscles. And by clay we do mean clay. Chiseling a piece of stone has a soothing effect on your nervous and auditory systems, similarly to classical music like Cradle of Filth. What about genital pain? Well, you be the (stroke) artist.

I don't deserve this award, but I have ARThritis and I don't deserve that either.

2. Drunken stupor

 Did you hear the one about a sober artist? Me neither. Art has a funny characteristic of presenting itself to its author as being much more genius when the aforementioned author is heavily intoxicated. That’s one of life’s little miracles. Not so funny thing is that when you sober up, your creation doesn’t look so awesome anymore. Luckily, artists came up with a brilliant solution: not sobering up. Ever. Reality is overrated anyway.

When you invite the whole world to your pARTy, inevitably someone pees in the beer.

1. Piss people off

 It’s not that every true artist hates people, it’s just that he doesn’t like them. A lot. Or at all. Anyway, those intolerable fools deserve to be taught a lesson. A lesson of tolerance. There are numerous weapons at your disposal. You just need to know the irritation domain of your potential piss-offees. Bodily fluids splatted on the canvas? Check. Religious characters ridiculed and desecrated? Check. High-pitched noise constantly wailing from your über-progressive installation? Check. Sodomy, child abuse, racism? Check, check, check. It’s better to be despised than unheard of.

I tell you, we are here on eARTh to fART around, and don't let anybody tell you different.

LIKE ME OR ELSE A.K.A. TOP 10 TIPS TO FACEBOOK GR8NESS

“Find me on Face”, said the female I was wooing half-efficiently and more-than-half-drunkenly in this loser-infested hell-pit often referred to as the night club. My first thought was “What the what?!” Give me your land-phone-number, you common floozy, if you intend of having any chance of indulging in this Apollonic body in the yet-to-be-determined-by-me near future. But, I pondered what-the-crap - maybe this old geezer will be introduced to some kind of a new utopia there. I mean boobopia.

See you on the book. The face? Whatever...

So, it has been a month, I have 170 friends, most of them are people I’ve never met and know nothing about except that they possess a baby or a significant other from the clan of the ugly and deformed and still think their photo is a wise choice for their avatar. The rest are my acquaintances, whom I need in my life like I need murine typhus. Nice. But, wait! Everyone is posting, liking, poking, LOLing and doing other digital indecencies, while I lurk and think “whaaa?” OK, I try to understand the rules of the game and join this retardapalooza. So, it seems, if I want to be cyber-awesome, I need to be doing the following:

1. Proudly announce to my beloved virtual community that I have managed to cook lunch. Or I have an itch in my left shoulder. Or my cat fell into a boiling vat of water. That makes me unique. Like every, miserable, real-life-deprived else.

2. Share a Youtube link of an ear-desecrating hit, like Hotel California or Umbrella, because people can relate to the familiar. Originality and alternativity are frowned upon, as it is a clear attack on the community’s lethargy and is considered over-pretentious. And that would result in zero “likes”. And we can’t have any of that.

Options.

3. The times of sharing intelligent quotes are over. Them letters are hard to read. But not if you choose a barely legible font in eye-raping color and smack it across a random background. Ooooh! Pwetty pictuwe! Me “like”! Also, it has become incredibly gauche to care whose quote it actually is. Well, somebody said it. And now they’re dead. Or maybe they didn’t say it. And now they’re dead. Did they post it on Facebook, like me, who am alive? No. That speaks volumes.

Who said what?

4. Sigh, lament, complain and fret. My belly hurts. I’m tired. The goose ate my eyeballs. Alrighty, so FB is a support group? Should I share my scrotum rash with the World? Just wait while I send a friend request to my mom. She’d dig that. Mooom! Why don’t you “like” me??

5. Share photos from my vacation. Let them plebeians see how good I got it goin’, poor, unwashed inhabitants of loserVille! Yes, that’s my gut hanging on the beaches of a tropical island you never heard of. And you better “like” my pink thong.

That's right. Ogle!

6. Click “like” on all and every opportunity without the obligation to even read, listen or understand. “Likes” are like the bubonic plague. They spread if there are enough rats running around.

7. Join every group, follow every blog and click “attend” on every event imaginable. Then never engage in conversation or ever read a single post. This will make me seem like a strong-silent type, who supports good causes and enhance the overall perception of my incontestable grandeur. I just have to remember to click a “like” or two every now and then so my comrades would remain relaxed and feel safe under the gaze of the almighty overseer.

Vrrrrr!

8. Post images of random puppies for adoption. Only the most despised imps from the deepest depths of Hell don’t like puppies. This is my ticket to eminence. Also, if I see someone else use this mischievous strategy, I will always take a higher ground by a compulsory “like” and an aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaw-I-wish-I-had-room-for-ONE-MORE-of-these-sugar-fluffies-in-my-infinitesimal-flat comment.

9. Post vague status updates, like “and then there were one” or “can’t not do” in hope that it will intrigue and force into conversation my styleless socialites. This will institute me as a mysterious, suffering, over-sensible, majestic creature of the online prairies and arouse the emo-infected society as I pounce them with expressions like “Weltschmertz”. Also I must remember to make grammar and capitalization mistakes on purpose or I could be labeled as a grammar-nazi or an overcalculated prick.

10. Allow random apps to do with my personal information as they please. This will trick them into believing I actually have a life. Also, I must religiously torment my FBuddies with countless game and event requests. That’s the soul and essence of efficient networking and a proof that I have nothing to hide, instituting me as an honest, hard-working person, worthy of cyber-respect.

I'm pointing at me. You know that. Yes you do!

So, what does this all have to do with art? Well, an artist (funnily, the female from the beginning of this charade being one) is a lonely animal. He lurks from the shadows. His web page is so horribly designed, you are forced to escape the moment you open it, feeling lucky you hadn’t had an epileptic seizure. So we search for the artists in their natural habitat. They’re pretty tame there.

YOU SHOULD BE ASHAMED FOR BEING ONE, NOT FOR HAVING ONE

How awesome is being a demigod? You are stronger and more skillful than those puny humans and not being a hundred percent god gives you the right to run around the Earth butt-naked, waving your demigodhood around, unhindered by the feeling of decency or scruples that every respectable deity cherishes. But what do you do when a comrade demigod grabs your private parts? You feed him to his own carnivorous mares, of course. This, despite being frowned upon by the powers residing on Mt. Olympus, ironically became an Olympic sport and was descriptively named WRESTLING – “Wedgie Retaliators Exploring Subtle Tactics Lying In Nether Grabbing”. And so began the era where virility is best displayed by wearing spandex unitards.

Hercules and Diomedes, Florence, Sculpture of Vincenzo de' Rossi

The harder they are, 

the more tears there’ll fall.

Let me show you my unbeatable 

Diomedes-death-lock!

Once upon a time in Italy, there were no shopping malls, hair-dressing salons or cafes where women could gather and share their philosophical views or exchange relevant information on aesthetics. So they gathered under the mighty crowns of trees. And because intellectual discourse and constructive debate is known to rapidly burn calories, where better to hold these meetings than under a fruit-bearing tree? This specific fruit has plenty of vitamin and is designed, by the providence of nature, to perfectly fit into a woman’s sensual mouth. Mouth!

The Massa Marittima Mural in the Town of Massa Marittima in Italy

Don’t know about you girls, 

but I’m dying for a throbbing piece of fruit.

It's called passion fruit.
For real!

Judging by Prince Phillip, Duke of Edinburgh, Great Britain has to be one of the friendliest countries in the World. This will be made even more apparent when they host the Olympic Games next year and greet with open arms (well, palms at least) visitors from around the globe. Their hospitality and friendliness go way back and extend even beyond the boundaries of our planet. Aliens flying over the beautiful hills of Dorset are immediately welcomed by a very enthusiastic art work. No nonsense crop circles that would only confuse our weary visitors. Just a firm, benevolent symbol of ecstaticness by our dear guests.

The Cerne Abbas Giant cut into the hillside near Dorchester in Dorset

I'm so happy to see you Mr. Alien!

pa' 'oH ghobe' Daq pxawpa!
[There is no honor in circles!]

Top 10 Reasons to Buy/Own Art

10. You actually are able to enjoy art. Whoa! Hold it right there Mr. Fake Dickhead! Why are you even reading this? Shouldn’t you be haunting the art galleries? Trying to complete your collection of one-item-for-every-country-in-the-World? Every. You gotta own them all. By catching them. That’s called art evolution. And it’s usually stored in balls.

9. Art is not cheap in the eyes of all them commoners. So by owning pieces of art you appear to have cash. Which makes you loved and popular. Which brings new opportunities to you. Which means more cash. Which is then NOT wasted nonchalantly on art, but rather on life’s simple pleasures. Like panda hunting. That’s called art opportunism.

8. Your nephew is getting married and moving into a new home with his bride and you’re too broke to get him a decent present and too proud to go cheap. Grab a random painting from your wall and sell him the story (uncles are ALWAYS smarter than nephews) about this majestic masterpiece, the last one the mad-genius artist created just before he kicked the bucket. And by bucket you mean drowning in his own vomit after indulging in indecencies which would make the city of Sodom look like a kindergarten at nap-time. That piece is now priceless. And your walls were crowded anyway. That’s called art transferal.

       Art is interesting. Now excuse us while we collectively
                  ignore this gargantuan painting.

7. Buy a piece of art which is obscenely expensive. Get it insured. Sell it. Replace it with a cheap-ass replica (just e-bay “fine original art”). Pay local druggie to burn your house down while you’re out of town. Ka-ching! Rinse and repeat at will, preferably not in the same country. That’s called investing in art. Insurance fraud is such a gauche word duo.

6. You need to keep your stash hidden. Hollow busts, cannabis-woven or LSD-glazed canvases, double frames, you name it. The police are scared of art, and you know it. Wanna lick my Warhol? I meant the one on my wall, not in my boxers. Sicko. You’re so not smoking my Picasso. That’s called art exploitation.

5. Empty walls are creepy. And they make you colorblind and insane. That’s a proven scientific fact. Visit local lunatic asylum if you are of St. Thomas’s descent. Spilled wine on the wall? Go get a hammer. True art is the art of artistically covering your tracks with art. That’s called art tautologism.

Art huggers are everywhere. Beware.

4. Caps and hats hate being folded, crushed or wrinkled. Good thing you bought that statue which was until now used only as a dust magnet. What’s a statue without a hat anyway? Well, a decent umbrella-ella-die-already-ella stand. That’s called art incorporation.

3. If you had an anatomy poster a la J. Jameson or P. Anderson hanging on your wall, you’d be considered as an immature, perverted pig. You shouldn’t give up on enjoying these fine lines and forms. Just put a similar thing on your wall, but this time make sure it’s on canvas and framed. Or buy a big naked statue. No one minds naked statues, as they are reminiscent of the ancient Greek culture. And Greeks never had money for clothes anyway. Now, that porn hanging from your wall is called art. And additionally, canvas has more absorption power than paper. Think about it. That’s called art translation.

2. 90% of people you hang with know nothing about art. Well, isn’t that convenient, you obnoxious, over-pretentious, know-it-all, been-everywhere-seen-everything, impossible-to-defeat-in-a-dick-fencing-contest, beautiful you? Plebeians will respect and fear you for your passion and knowledge of the divine and humbly demand that you grace them occasionally with an advice. That’s called art tutelage.

            Nothing says "artist" more than wielding a blowtorch.

1. By owning art people will make a judgment error of you not being a highlander/hillbilly that you are. You will ironically appear as actually having a soul. And never be confronted with what irony actually is, because a tender-souled specimen like you can’t be bothered with petty definitions. Or multi-syllable words. There’s nothing funny about hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia. That’s called art connoisseurism... uhm... I mean art awesomeness.