Stray Hawkeye

So, walking home from work today, I saw a man walking his dog.  This struck me as a little odd, because he was walking across a crosswalk downtown, and it occurred to me that I never see anyone walking their dog downtown.  This obviously isn’t really odd enough to merit a post here.  But, then I noticed that the dog had a perfectly defined red circle around it’s eye:

Yep, I saw some random guy was walking the Target dog around downtown today.  The dog’s not really a puppy any more, he’s a full grown dog.  (okay, so there’s probably several of them, but this one was a full grown dog)  The really wierd part was that not only did he have the Target logo on the side of his face, it was absolutely perfect.  Not smudged or anything.  Filled in over the eyelid and all.  At first I thought it was a tattoo.  Then it occurred to me that dogs have hair, and that would probably cover up a tattoo, or at least make it look fuzzy.  Plus, where would one go to tattoo a dog’s eye with a corporate logo?

Okay, I know the answer to that one, Uptown.

Is it wierd that I’m more star struck seeing the Target dog than I would be seeing pretty much any movie or TV star or Top 40 recording artist?

The other odd part was that you can generally pick out the people that work at the Target Headquarters pretty easily.  They all have their ID badges hanging out, but much more so, they’re fashionable.  The rest of us, well, we’re Minnesotans, we’re just trying to stay warm.  Or cool.  Depending on the season.  Mostly warm.  This guy didn’t look Target HQ at all.  He looked like a little more of a LA/NY trendy bohemian corporate look.  I have no idea what that means, but it’s how he looked, and that’s not Target headquarters.  No Target ID badge flopping around.  (No entourage either, just a guy and a dog, but again, we’ve covered that I’m disproportionately star struck here.  But still, seems like you’d send 2 people out with that dog.  At least 2.)

All this leads me to wonder… is the Target dog a consultant?  Have we resorted to outsourcing our corporate logos incarnate?  How many of these perfectly tattooed/painted canine PR minions are there out there?  Just waiting to infiltrate our gift cards, to star in our commercials, to smile and run away?

(actually the war paint on this dog looked better than the one in the clip above)

It just now occurs to me, perhaps the dog is from the same consulting agency that did the Spuds Mackenzie spots for Bud Light back in the 80′s:

Same breed.  All white except a patch over the left eye.  I wonder if the red eye patch is like a nicotine patch for recovering doggie alcoholics?

Hmmmm.

PS – No negative comments about Target now, they don’t like that.  I love Target.  Don’t you love Target?  We all love Target.  (Please don’t sue me Target.  Please?)

From The Onion: Potential Employee Uprising Quelled With Free Pizza

http://www.flickr.com/photos/wvs/2752528484/sizes/o/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/wvs/2712383388/sizes/o/

Interesting article on how Russia’s changing economy has affected the behavior of the stray dog population there:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121123197068805001.html

Bonus points for identifying the obscure cultural reference in the title of this post (aside from the parallel of stray dogs and stray hawkeyes of course :) )

Photos of some strange science fair projects.  So a few of them are photoshopped, but they’re still great.  If nothing else just for the reminder of how ragingly awkwards kids that age are.

Because people actually take the time to write posts like this to mock it.

It doesn’t necessarily need to be cleaned, until you look.

Giant inflatable dog turd artwork blows away and takes out power line, breaks window.  Title of the exhibit: Complex Shit.  More detailed article here.  More (ahem) detailed pictures here and here.

There are so, so many cracks (pun intended) one could make about this that I don’t even know where to start.  But I’ll try…

Mainstream press takes 12 day to notice a house sized piece of shit flying through the neighborhood.  When questioned, they claim they failed to notice anything unusual about the situation, due to having spent too much time lately covering politicians campaigning for the upcoming elections.

-OR-

From a nearby motorist: I just passed a turd so big it took out power to the whole neighborhood.

-OR-

Sudden breaking wind shoots shit 200 meters, exposes inability to pass gas in emergency situation.

-OR-

See what happens when we cut funding for the arts?  Our great sculptural geniuses have to use sub-par mooring for their giant inflatable copropheliac master pieces.

-OR-

…

With the general destruction, there has to be a rectum joke in there some where too, but I’m not sure how to phrase it.  Thoughts?

Does anyone else remember the 80′s movie Real Genius?  Well, looks like the military finally caught up to Hollywood:

http://technology.newscientist.com/channel/tech/dn14520-us-boasts-of-laser-weapons-plausible-deniability.htm

Excuse me while I go stock up on popcorn.

No matter how many times I watch this video, it still makes me smile every time.

link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8Z-DIAthbM

The Sesame Street version is also pretty cute.

link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9fciD_II7NI

The repetitive counting to four then makes me think of a (rather improper) take on another Sesame Street video.

link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-Wd-Q3F8KM

I never claim to think in straight lines.