Add Me - My Phone Takes Funny Pictures!

I got a new phone recently, the Samsung Galaxy S, which is the Samsung Fascinate for me. Soon after getting it I was taking pictures and was going through the options expecting the same old ho-hum features like sepia or negative art. To my pleasant surprise I found that my phone's camera has some exceptional modes: a panorama mode where it takes awesome wide pictures, a mode where it will only take the picture if everyone in the picture is smiling, and, my favorite, a feature called "Add Me." At first I was confused about what Add Me does. It certainly isn't very intuitive, so I started messing around with it, and realized it is meant to be used to add someone to the shot who was not originally there.

That's the INTENDED usage. Here's a picture of a kid using the Add Me feature to shoot his twin brother, and that's actually the only picture of Add Me I could find after scouring the internet for minutes. Pretty lackluster performance. But I have found a much better usage for this fine feature, as I will describe in this loving  article.

Instead of creating a virtual twin, or adding in people who were too late to the photo shoot, I much prefer to splice together people's faces. Instead of going through the lengthy process of oiling up the bone saw, The Add Me function does all that work for me! Here is an example:

Hubba hubba!

Can you guess who this fine fellow is composed of? That's right, it's the two most obvious celebrities, Gary Busey and Arnold Schwarzenegger! This picture, along with all the celebrity mashups in this article, are taken right off my computer monitor so the quality is slightly questionable. But just roll with it. 

Here's how to make your very own creeper face, sans Photoshop. First, simply select "Add me" from the options:

Whoa, a pic of a phone cam with a phone cam... That's so Inception, dude

Your phone's display will be split down the middle, where you will put half of a face on each side. I like to split the face right on the bridge of the nose. The key to getting the pictures right is matching the faces up right, and getting a very similar-looking background.

We see a transparent Busey in the top half. That is what you will use to match up the faces. Then just take the picture and the program will take care of the rest! Pretty simple, and way cooler than the intended usage. I've taken the pictures of other celebrity duos as well, as seen in the gallery below.

Gary Busey and Helen Hunt. 

Margaret Thatcher and Jim Carrey - yummy ;)

Emiril Lagasse and a guy named Jesus

You can also split the faces vertically (or "hotdog style," if you are in elementary school) but it is a bit tougher to make them match properly.

The best-of-friends, Keith Olbermann and Glenn Beck

Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger. Together, they make Mad Eye Moody!

As an added bonus, I'm also providing some Face-Off pictures a friend and I did a couple weeks ago. As you can probably imagine, it is much easier to get the faces to match up when using real people and not pictures from the internet. Note: These may be more entertaining to people to actually know me and/or said friend.

That is one ugly family.

So there you have it. Hopefully this guide will be an inspiration to millions and I'll start seeing these Add Me pictures pop up. Which seems unlikely considering Photoshop is probably way easier.

Random/Strange/Cool Pictures From My Old Phone!

My friend Lisa gave this site a pretty good plug, so here's likewise: Lisa's blog about random stuff and music. Apparently she'll do arts and crafts for you if you are no good at it yourself. I think I'm going to request a pair of knitted gloves with "LOVE" and "HATE" on the knuckles. And after I just Googled that, I'm a little sad that it is not an original idea. However, I'm pretty sure I could have some Love and Hate gloves that are way cooler that the examples I found.

Actually, heck with that. I think I'm just going to start knitting myself (sorry, LiLu). Why not? There is apparently a decent number to dudes who knit, as can be seen from this site: Men Who Knit. But still... after browsing the gallery, I'm mostly seeing baby socks and standard sweaters and stuff. My new hobby is going to be way manlier; I'm going to knit a grizzly bear, a beer cozy, and a can of WD-40. All while watching Wheel of Fortune with your Grandma.

Another nifty idea would be to make my own knitted Halloween costume. It would fit right in with my last few years' costumes of Quail Man, skin tight Gold Suit Man, and my homemade dog costume. And I know what you're probably saying, "Pics or it didn't happen." Well. That's true. And that may be a post for another day, but this is not the right time for internet humiliation. I normally have to work myself up to that.

No. In this episode I'm simply going to show you guys some pictures I took with my old phone and comment on them. Pretty standard material.

I don't know if it's legal to show some random person's license plate all willy nilly on the internet like this, and I'm too lazy to find out. But this is the baddest ass plate I've ever seen, and I'm not even a Satanist. I saw this while I was driving around town when I was going to school. You're probably thinking it is a vanity plate, but no, Friend, you are wrong; this is what the Kansas vanity plates look like. 

After the initial wave of awesomeness hits me like opening a hot oven, I notice that this is on a green, 90's Saturn. Not to be stereotypical, but I really like to think that the person who owns this is either an old lady, or just someone who wants nothing to do with a "666 BAD" license plate. "What do you mean I can't trade in my plate for a new one? Can't I trade with that guy? But I volunteered to drive on the church field trip!" 

The Engineering Library at KU is dedicated to this guy:

He was pretty freakin' smart, but damn... When I was completely slap-happy from being up super late studying, this guy's picture did not do me any favors. 

During my senior year a buddy and I watched a few episodes of The Joy of Painting with Bob Ross. He makes painting look so easy, so I got it into my head that I could be a master painter right away. I got online and ordered a Bob Ross paint kit so I could start bringing in the cash. The kit came with one episode of his show, which a friend and I followed along with. This was my first painting.

A happy little mountain

Apologies for my drunky face. A few weeks after my painting debut the sky near my parents' house got really pretty right before dusk, so I took a picture of that so I could paint it.

I never painted it.

I like to try new things, mostly with food. So when I heard about Mcdonad's McGangBang, I didn't need much persuasion. What's that? You've never heard of a McGangBang? Well, friends, let me explain how you can get your very own McGangBang. The sandwich consists of a Double Cheeseburger, with a McChicken patty split between the two patties of the burger. When ordering at McDonald's, simply ask for it by name; they will probably know what you're talking about. I know it sounds like a practical joke, but I swear it worked for me. This is what I got:

I ate it, too. It was awful.

I worked at a grocery store, Price Chopper, after I graduated while I was looking for a job more suited to the schooling I just put myself 10 years in debt for. The job search took a while, and Price Chopper wasn't ultra fun or anything, but it was easy, plus I liked my coworkers. Besides, if I hadn't worked at Price Chopper I never would have found this gem:

I'm not sure how this picture, of all the pictures of cats on the planet, got chosen to represent Always Save's cat food. Considering the bag costs a whopping $2.39, there are a few possible scenarios: 

1) They took the honest approach. 

Marketing Guy: "No, guys, you don't get it. Our cover cat needs to represent the feel for the cat food! Let's just snap a reaction shot of one of the taste-tester cats after he takes his first bite!"

Cat: *Eats bite, looks up* "You fuckers." 

2) They got lazy.

Marketing Guy: "Ok, so the boss needs a shot of the new cat food. He says it's not a big deal cuz the stuff is only like 2 bucks a bag and kind of people who will buy it aren't buying it for the artwork."

Marketing Girl: "Well, my grandma has a stuffed cat."

Marketing Guy: "Perfect."

3) It was all they could afford.

Marketing Guy: "Scott, put all the potential cover cats on that table so we can pick the best one."

Scott: "Well, here are the cats that showed up to the shoot..."

Marketing Guy: "......"

Marketing Girl: "My grandma has a stuffed cat."

Marketing Guy: "Perfect."

Long, Random Post!

It has been some time since I posted a blog, and it's not because I hate you guys (I only strongly dislike). It is because I have been involved in numerous other sources of entertainment so after work I had to carefully allocate my time, and most of that time has been given to Veronica Mars. Yes, the same Veronica Mars that has been cancelled for 4 years and was probably mainly marketed to girls. Don't let that cloud your opinion, that show is intense as shit. Plus... Kristen Bell. Just Sayin'.

I've also been deep into Under the Dome by Stephen King, which I discussed here. I spend about 2 hours a night reading that crazy book, and I can read about 50 pages in those 2 hours. The book is 1074 pages long. So if my math is correct, and after some rounding, this book will take me 43 hours to read. And I'll tell ya, I'm gonna enjoy all 43 of those hours, even though I may absolutely hate some of the characters at the moment.

I figure in this post I'll just kind of fill you in on what's been going on while I've been ignoring my blogging duties. This is going to be very random. First off, there is a dead cat on the side of the road that I guess some car has hit. It's been there for about a week, but tonight when I drove home I noticed some of the nice kids have spray painted it blue. I know it was spray paint because they left the paint can sitting next to it, obviously proud of their work. These kids are our future, people. Actually, I take that back; the only person to make it big from Arkansas is Bill Clinton, and well... Yeah.

I DID however find a great grocery store to shop at! I may have mentioned how my favorite place to shop was Price Cutter, which is in the next town over. So if I wanted to get a few things I'd have to take a 20 minute drive to do so. Or I could just shop at Walmart which is right near me, but who wants to shop there? Not this guy. Then I found a wonderful store, Harps, which is much, much closer to me! I actually think they're owned by the same people, but this store is far superior, in a they're-not-superior kind of way! It reminds me of the small-town store my hometown used to have when I was little, Buy-Rite. Just imagine Arkansas. Like, stereotypical Arkansas. Now imagine going to a grocery store in the place you just imagined. This Harp's is that place! I went there tonight to pick up some supplies for a Taco Lasagna I plan on making, and it called for a green pepper. I go to the green peppers. I got to choose from a selection of 5, and those 5 were really more sea-green peppers. It was awesome. I took some pictures, but they might be kinda blurry cuz I took them kind of quickly. I was getting some looks from the bumpkins, me with my fancy cell-yoo-lurr phone.

The milk coolers had no lights, or if they did they were burnt out

The entire produce department, plus half of the floral

A dining area, but I saw no deli

Beautiful Bentonville. Woulda been better without all the trucks

In fact, there were two moving trucks in the parking lot, from two different companies. I can only assume that Harp's saves money on shipping stock by renting their own trucks. I also love Harp's because my cashier looked like he was straight from prison. I am almost surprised I didn't see a teardrop tattoo on his face, and his breath reeked of booze. I was so excited! Clearly, this is my new grocery store.

So, I will make that taco lasagna sometime this week, and I hope it turns out good, but here is my last attempt at cooking:

Don't judge a meatloaf by it's elephant-man-like cover

It looks awful, but actually tasted pretty good! If you can't tell (and I'm sure you can't) it is meatloaf. And although it ended up tasting okay, I wouldn't eat it while looking/thinking about my dog. 

In other news, I've had a lemon since the day I moved to Arkansas, 3 months ago. I never used it, and it just kind of lounged on my counter. It got all dry and shrively.

It's still good, right?

Instead of doing the normal, mature, I-just-moved-away-and-got-my-first-big-boy-job thing by throwing it away, I decided to dissect it, which proved to be much more fruitful (haha puns). The inside wasn't super exciting, but it DID smell just like Lemonheads candy. Win!

Grab me a Corona!

After the experiment, I went to Macadoodle's. It was a pretty common trip until I was leaving and noticed a Truck in the parking lot with an interesting license plate. At first, the graphic around the plate is what grabbed my attention; it's not everyday you see a dog on a plate. Then I read the vanity plate and had to laugh.

Don't sit on that seat

FAP!? Hahahaha, oh man, that's amazing. I don't even know if it is intentional, but between the FAP license plate and the sticker of Calvin having bodily fluids sprayed in his face by the wind... Well, it's just classic. If you don't know why "fap" is funny, you are probably either too old, or too popular and aren't online as much as I am. Explanation. 

Hmm, what else... I went to a thrift store and saw a lifesize cutout of basketballer, Dr. J.

The picture turned out blurry and his hands and feet are cut off cuz the camera operator is a noob. But the cutout was $20, a steal in most cases, especially considering Mr. Julius Erving played in the 70's and 80's, so this thing had to be old. But his arms were being supported by tape and paint-mixers. He's obviously out of practice if he has to use arm splints just to hold a cardboard basketball. Sheesh. 

So, over the weekend a friend came down and we bought a video game called Amnesia: The Dark Descent. It is a horror/survival game which got pretty good reviews, getting praises such as "scariest game ever," or "I pooped my pants." The usual. Well, I love horror movies and have played every Resident Evil and Silent Hill, along with Dead Space and all those kind of games. I'm pretty used to these kinds of games, and am familiar with most of their scare tactics. Well, Amnesia is different. For one, you don't have any weapons, but there are monsters. And they're fast as shit, too. 

Oh sweet God, get it away!

And the screen goes blurry if you look at the bad guys too long, which makes it even creepier. Your guy is combating insanity in this game, so it makes sense I guess. I have never screamed out loud during a video game until this game, and that was while playing with a friend, but it was okay when he was here. But when he left and I played it by myself. At night. With the lights out? Good Lord. At one point I was at a foggy location with suspenseful music, and so I was wide-eyed and looking at the screen, and I guess I leaned forward because the chair squeaked. Shitballs, man... I about pooped my pants. The review was right. Also, being 25 years old I haven't had a nightmare in years. My brain is smart enough to not worry about house creaks and what not, but not that night. I actually had to get up and watch funny videos online for a while before I could get back to sleep. Yikes.

Ok. You should be about caught up now. I did get some good stuff at the thrift store, but that will have to wait for another day. In the meantime, keep on fappin'.