Phil Are Go!: September 2016

9/30/16

Spot the Joke! - The Saturday Evening Post

Today we present a challenge to the Phil Are GO! Joke-Getting Assault Squad (JGAS), our hand-picked group of the most charitable and sympathetic staffers. Their task? To figure out why these are comics. It sounds easy, but man, nothing could be harder or less funny. Do you think you understand why these comics are comical? See if you can Spot The Joke! The JGAS's analysis is posted after each "uncomic".

Both of today's joke challenges come to us from the August 10, 1968 issue of The Saturday Evening Post.

Theory #1 - The weight and fortune telling machine, by necessity, has the power of prescience. It is concerned for the man's feelings, because he is about to bowl the worst game of his life. This is funny.

Theory #2 - The weight and fortune telling machine has information about an imminent terrorist attack on soft targets, such as bowling alleys. This is funny.

Theory #3 - The man found the card in his pocket. It is from his wife, who wants him to be home in time for dinner. The machine is non-functional. The reader is left to assume he got the card out of the machine. This is funny.

Theory #4 - Knowing that bowling alley managers dislike unsanitary lanes, the machine has warned the man to avoid them. It did this because the dark spot on the machine indicates to us that the man has just urinated on it, thinking it is a toilet. This is funny.

Theory #1 - The woman cannot tell if the man is the Burgermeister Meisterburger, or the Heat Miser, but definitely a Rankin-Bass character. This is funny.

Theory #2 - The woman is wondering why the man is out jogging, and not in a grocery store, warning people not to squeeze the Charmin. This is funny.

Theory #3 - The cartoonist's name is "Shipu Ji Ji". This is funny.

9/29/16

Old Forester - This is Formula 1?

Seemingly, every whiskey wants to be "Old Something". As Alert Readers will notice, it's child's play satirizing the "old + n" Whiskey name formula. This one is old forester. What's that got to do with Formula 1? They found a way. "This is Formula 1".

Since this is Advertisingland, we can probably assume that the team that won is celebrating with a snort of Old Forester. However... since when does winning any kind of F1 race find your car in the weeds, nowhere near the track?

Looks like The Stig's Rather Drinky Uncle is having an Old Forester kind of day, which consists of an Old Forester kind of morning, and and Old Forester kind of lunchtime, and an Old Forester kind of mid-morning-early-afternoon, and... etc.

Well, at least he's got that nice lady to hold him up.

9/28/16

Forge/LTD Menswear - Accost magazine.

9/27/16

Merriam-Webster, 1934 - The superlative Yuletide remittance for the plenary extraction!

Popular Science of December 1934 knows you haven't started your Exmess shopping yet, and they want you to get on that shit post haste, baby! Dictionaries for everyone! Wooooo!

If you'd have asked a dictionary company what makes a great Exmess present, turns out they say "Dictionary, idiot!", which is strange, because it could have gone either way, you know? Maybe they'd say ""A nice croquet set!", but nope... dictionary.

To show you how great life could be with a dictionary under everyone's nose, they include little serving suggestions of the whole family holding books (presumably, dictionaries) really close to their faces, to make sure they can be seen within their little bubble. That was downright felicitous of them!

Everyone in your family should have an abridged dictionary - Miss Crabtree, Clark Gable, Teenage Jane Krakowski (Mee-yow!), Boy, and Mickey Rooney!

Limp Pigskin. Man, that band was annoying. I was so glad when I heard they broke up.

If, for some reason, you think you can't go another Yuletide without clip arts of these faces, we've got you covered, for some reason. Right click these easily amused family members onto your hard drive, if that's what you're into.

You know the drill: click each to big each. You're welcome, I guess!!!

9/23/16

Road America Fall Vintage Fest 2016 - Part number last. One sixtieth... is a magic numberrr. Yes it iiis. It's a magic number.

Today we wrap up our brutal coverage of Road America's Fall Vintage Festival. If you can't wait to see how it ends, scroll down to see how it ends. But if you do, you're sure to miss how it starts! What's to be done???

The rest of the tracking shots...

I'm unsure what the car is, but it was the lead car for this whole practice session, at least. I am pretty sure the wheels are Enkei RPF1's.

This car was the best sounding thing at the whole event. It was an impossibly deep grumble that carried through tunnels and over trees. Note the blue velocity stacks! Cool!

At this point, I finally got the shutter speed pretty much perfect - slow enough to make the background a long blur, but still fast enough that I had some hope of keeping the car in approximate focus. 1/60 of a second is the magic number. I need to write that down... or just do this often enough to remember. Derrr.

A Lola that I've seen several times at other vintage events. Actually, one year, I helped push it onto the starting grid, which was momentous for me. I'd never touched a Lola before! It felt all tingly.

Man, every car should have a snorkel.

Number eighty-five simply humiliated the porta-potty in practice sessions.

9/22/16

Road America Fall Vintage Fest 2016 - Pt. 4

The continuation continues continuing today with some tracking shots! This is the part of the day where we make the long walk over a few bridges to the part of the track they call the "carousel". The course comes out from under a bridge and goes around a long, sweeping turn that's just over 180 degrees.

This is a good place for tracing shots, as the cars follow an arc around the camera, and as they pass, their distance from the lens changes less than it would if they were on a straight.

These are hard to shoot. First, you need a long lens and a tripod that's not locked down. You use a longer exposure than usual, like 1/60 of a second. This blurs the background as the camera rotates. You focus manually on the tarmac at the point you plan to hit the shutter button. Then, rotate the camera towards where the subject is expected to enter the frame. As it comes in, try to follow the car perfectly as you release the shutter. Hopefully, the car will be in sharp focus and the background will be a horizontal smear.

It would be easier to just use a fast shutter speed and freeze the action, but the cars would look like they're simply parked on the track. Very lame. Properly done tracking shots capture the excitement and speed of a racing car. They also result in a lot of throwaway images. My average "keeper" ratio is about one in five, but I'm getting better.