July 28th - Simpsonized

simpsonized me
Originally uploaded by cherubichomer

A couple of days ago, while I was watching Fox Major League Baseball, they showed an ad for free Simpsonization. By submitting a closely cropped picture of someone's face to www.simpsonizeme.com (and, as I figure out later, www.simpsonizeme.co.uk) the little program will turn this person into a Simpson-esque character. It's a tie-in to the new Simpson's movie that opened today in North America. I took the .png's that you can save and added me (the guy on the left of Homer), Guy (the naked guy), and Sabrina and Narv (far right) onto a picture of gonch-Homer I found by "the Google". The program is impressively accurate. Below are the actual pictures I submitted and close-ups of the Simpsonizations the website kicked out. Unfortunately, there are a few bad thing about the site. One, it doesn't do kids well (my 20 month old niece comes out as a 30ish Chinese Pipi Longstocking double) and, due to high traffic, the site is hard to get on to and when you do get on, it's very, very excruciatingly slow.

July 6th - Kwik E Mart

Woohoo!! With the eminent arrival of The Simpsons Movie on the 27th, Fox decided to convert 12 North American 7-Elevens into replica Kwik-E-Marts and they opened on July 2nd. Thankfully, rather than having the only Kwik-E-Mart in Canada open in Toronto, Montreal, or Calgary, those corporate Fox brainiacs put it in a small suburb near Vancouver called Coquitlam. (1198 Lansdowne Drive.) It's truly amazing, too. We waited in line for thirty minutes to get in, which was a kick in the pants but it was probably worth it for the hardcore Simpsons' fan. Not only does the outside of the store look pretty close to Apu Nahasapeenapetalan's in Springfield, it also contains cool signs inside and out reading slogans that you could very well imagine being found in the real store. The store was to carry some exclusive products, including Pink Kwik-E-Mart donuts, and Squishees but by the time we arrived they were far and away sold out of the more interesting items, such as Buzz Cola and Krusty-O's cereal. We were able to come away with six donuts ($1.29 for two) and 2 Squishees ($2.29 each). Plus, I double-cupped the squishees so I got four of the cups, which are made of plastic and arenneat-o souviners of my visit to the Kwik-E-Mart. I was crazy inside with people carrying around loads of Squishee Cups and one guy actually bought 48 donuts. (He was a little on the portly side and I was actually wondering if he was the real world Comicbook Guy.) Here's a picture of me outside of the Kwik-E-Mart with my Squishee and my pink sprinkle donut. (I really need to get a hair cut.) You'd think that the Kwik-E-Mart stuff would be exclusive to Kwik-E-Marts but Norm and I were a little surprised to find the same stuff at the 7-Eleven we stopped off on our way home. Not only did they have the Squishees and pink donuts but they had the Buzz Cola and the Krusty-O Cereal in stock, which was sold out at the actual Kwik-E-Mart. So, note to all those that want paraphenalia but don't want to get lost in scary Coquitlam looking for the Kwik-E-Mart, you can go to pretty much any 7-Eleven and find the goods. As I mentioned before, there are 11 others in North America besides this one in Coquitlam. They're in:
- Bladensburg, Maryland
- Washington, DC
- Burbank,California
- Chicago, Illinois
- Dallas, Texas
- Denver, Colorado
- Henderson, Nevada
- Los Angeles, California
- Mountain View, California
- New York, New York
- Lake Buena Vista, Florida
- Seattle, Washington
Now, bring on the movie!
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