Since moving this blog, we’ve gotten a lot more, well, random information and pr coming in, and it’s becoming harder and harder to figure out what’s cool and what isn’t. There is so much amazing stuff happening every minute, and luckily we have Twitter, Facebook, SquareSpace and LinkedIn to tell us all about it. But it is getting harder to figure out what’s the REAL coolness – the true cutting edge of visionary consumption — and what’s just clogging the old pipes. In the spirit of discovery, we offer you three things that have been offered to us as cool — we’ll leave it to you, the reader to VOTE upon which is actually cool. And please feel free to defend your answer in the comments:

CONTESTANT #1: The Winter Olympics Biathlon!
Gallery-2010Olympics15
The 2010 Winter Olympics may be over (one of the best ever) but the eternal appeal of women wearing lycra, skiing around and shooting things will linger with us for a long, long time. A timeless mixture of sex, violence and endurance that speaks to that it mean to be human and living in a nordic climate. BONUS: Canada’s TRON-inspired uniforms!

Contestant #2: PLASTIC BEACH
Gorillaz
New Gorillaz album streaming at NPR. Damon Albarn supplies music and friends (Snoop Dogg, Bobby Womack, Lou Reed, Mos Def, Super Furry Animals’ Gruff Rhys, Little Dragon, The Lebanese National Orchestra) while Jamie Hewlett supplies the visuals and band. “Plastic Beach” is a bit more tuneful and elegiac than the last two outings and has already spawned some nifty toon videos.

Contestant #3: BIG BANG THEORY T-SHIRTS

Bigbang

Apparently there is a website where you can buy the t-shirts worn buy Sheldon and other characters from the Big Bang Theory, the CBS sitcom about super-genius nerds who strive to fight their own alienation and become functioning members of society, meaning they can go to the local bar without being laughed at. Many of these t-shirts achingly capture the isolation of modern man, as he is both emboldened and imprisoned by technology.
You Read My Tshirt

And now it’s time to VOTE!


1 COMMENT

  1. The Biathalon is cool… cross country skiing and rifle shooting…

    I’m thinking… snowboarding with paint guns? Biathalon with hashing? (Drinking AFTER the shooting, of course) Or maybe a winter version of the decathalon or triathalon… cross country skiing, ice skating (speed and programmed figure), luge, and snowboarding.

    Hmmm…. can one snowboard off a ski jump? Perhaps landing in a heated swimming pool? YES! Snowboarding + ski jumping + high diving!

    Here’s another cool What If: S.S. Disney Disneyland in/on a supertanker.

  2. Torsten — I was having a similar conversation the other day about the arbitrary coupling of events that make up the Olympics, such as the ski jump/cross country ski.

    We decided the best possible combo of events would be a long cross country ski, punctuated by a few ski jumps (the trick variety, not the distance ones), and the skiers would have to shoot at targets whilst spinning in the air off the jumps. And then at the end they could go curling.

  3. The Winter Olympics is a tough one for me. That crippling vertex where ice meets gravity may for some provide a sense of thrill and rush, but in the end all I can think is that these people are just falling somewhat more gracefully than the rest of us while trying not to die.

    I think if you were to expand beyond the biathlon, you’d want to add events along the lines of winter hunting, the basis for the bi. Fur-trapping, log splitting, and bear wrestling.

    Basically what I am arguing for is a merging of the Winter Olympics and Stihl Logging Sports Competitions.

  4. A Winter Triathlon that included skiing, shooting, and bear wrestling would replace curling in my heart as the king of all winter sports!

  5. “…and the skiers would have to shoot at targets whilst spinning in the air off the jumps.”

    Extra medals for taking out spectators?

  6. Biathlon ick.

    First you ski, then you shoot, then you ski.

    Why?

    Why not play half a soccer game, throw javalins for a while, then go back and play the rest?

    or why now like swim a few laps with a bow on your back, shoot some arrows while treading water, then swim some more laps?

    Or how about bike a few miles, wrestle, then bike a few more?

    Mashing together two unrealated sports does not make a new one. Plus since when is shooting athletic? If it was bows that’s fine, pure muscle power but allowing machines into the olympics defeats the point!

    And why are men’s shooting and women’s shooting segregated? Since it’s a ‘sport’ with no athletic component shouldn’t it be gender neutral?

    So no to the biathlon.

  7. I think biathlon is cool. I like seeing sports with obvious real-world antecedents.

    Gorillaz fired Del. Not cool.

    Buying a t-shirt worn on TV is the second most pathetic thing in the world, after commenting online about buying a t-shirt worn on TV. Not cool.

  8. Wow… Just read the Wikipedia article on the biathalon, and there’s a primitive version: snowshoes and muzzleloaders. (Actually, ski archery would be just as primitive.)

    The coolest “bi” sport? Chess-boxing. What’s this all got to do with comics? Chess-boxing was invented by Enki Bilal (featured in Cold Equator, part three of the Nikopol Trilogy).

    Kid…. how about playing team handball while swimming? (And the biathlon does have a sport component: cross-country skiing.)