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Soft Self-Portrait of Salvador Dali
12.08.2013
03:05 pm
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image
 
Max Bialystock’s advice from The Producers, “When you’ve got it flaunt it!” was never more apt for an artist than Salvador Dali. Like Mel Brooks’ fictional character, Dali was a showman, a performer who loved money, fame and success. Unlike Bialystock, Dali was good with his finances. As his publisher Peter Owen once told me, Dali wandered around playing the mad man until the issue of contracts and money was raised, then Dali dropped the pretense and became lucid for the duration of any negotiations. As Owen noted, “Dali was a notary’s son.”

Dali’s need to show-off often eclipsed his genius as an artist. His appearances in public often attracted more attention than his art, it was something he willingly indulged, once addressing an anarchist rally with a loaf of bread tied to his head; at the opening of the 1936 London Surrealists Exhibition, he wore a deep sea diving suit; and he was put on trial by his fellow Surrealists after he issued a public apology for attending a party dressed as the murdered baby Charles Lindbergh Jr., his wife, Gala dressed as the killer. It wasn’t the dressing up that offended the Surrealists, but Dali’s apology - “sorry” seemed to be the hardest word for Breton and co.

The Surrealists dismissed Dali as a grubby money grabber, but it is more likely they were jealous of his talent and envious that Dali had a sponsor, Edward James, a British millionaire, son of an American railroad magnate. James sponsored Dalí for a number of years and was repaid with his inclusion in Dali’s painting “Swans Reflecting Elephants”.

Dali’s need to show-off came from a greater need than just a love of money. Throughout his childhood, he fought against the memory of another Salvador - his older brother who had died in infancy. As Dali later wrote in his autobiography:

All my eccentricities I habitually perpetrate, are the tragic constant of my life. I want to prove I am not the dead brother but the living brother. By killing my brother I immortalize myself.”

Originally made for French television Soft Self-Portrait of Salvador Dali (1970) is a brilliant and beautiful film that captures the artist in fine fettle as he delights in performing for the camera. Here’s Dali indulging in his trademark mix of showman, clown and serious artist: hammering out a tuneless miaow on a cat piano (Dali associated pianos with sex after his father left an illustrated book on the effects of venereal diseases atop the family piano as a warning to the dangers of sexual intercourse); or sowing feathers in the air, as two children follow pushing the head of a plaster rhinoceros; or, his attempt to paint the sky.

Directed by Jean-Christopher Averty, with narration provided by Orson Welles.
 


Dali Salvador A Soft Self Portrait by le-pere-de-colombe

 

Posted by Paul Gallagher
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12.08.2013
03:05 pm
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InvisibleGirlfriend.com: For all your fake girlfriend needs!
12.08.2013
12:31 pm
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Fake girlfriend
 
It starts with small fudges. It’s 8th grade, one frenemy accuses another of sexual inexperience. Inevitably someone ends up saying, “I met her at camp; she lives in Canada; you wouldn’t know her.”

As it gets more severe, this syndrome—known as “living a lie”—will inevitably result in a grand dinner party in which the bishop ruins everything by bringing in the canapés at precisely the wrong moment. And there you are, holding a cockatoo in the conservatory with your pants around your ankles. I feel like we can all relate.
 
Invisible girlfriend
 
Is inventing a fake girlfriend the new closet? Notre Dame linebacker Manti Te’o became a national object of ridicule last year (today he plays for the San Diego Chargers) when it was revealed that his recently deceased would-be girlfriend had actually been invented by a scurrilous friend without Te’o's knowledge. Earlier this year Tara introduced DM readers to the art of the fake girlfriend selfie.

By Valentine’s Day 2014, the startup InvisibleGirlfriend.com will, purportedly, supply users with concocted evidence of the made-up significant other in their lives. The packages come in three tiers—“Just Talking,” “Getting Serious,” and “Almost Engaged” (!)—and to read the list of offered services is to imagine any number of Three’s Company or Frasier plots come to life: “interactive SMS Texts,” “Facebook Relationship on Profile,” “Real Voicemails,” “Custom Girlfriend Characterization,” “Premium Gifts Available.”
 
Invisible girlfriend pricing
 
InvisibleGirlfriend.com is the depressing brainchild of Matt Homann, who for understandable reasons has chosen to present the deceitful service as a means to a fulfilled and honest mode of existence: “Once you’ve met your Invisible Girlfriend, you can get back to living your life on your own terms, and not on others’.” Um, right.

At what point does a prospective client of InvisibleGirlfriend.com, in perusing the price categories, stop and say, “My problems go deeper than this”?
 

 
via Lost in E Minor

Previously on Dangerous Minds:
Fake girlfriend guy and the art of the fake girlfriend selfie

Posted by Martin Schneider
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12.08.2013
12:31 pm
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Lewd graffiti from ancient Pompeii
12.08.2013
12:15 pm
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Mosaic from House of the Faun
 
Most folks associate Pompeii with the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD, an event which simultaneously killed an estimated 16,000 people and “froze” the surrounding area in ash, leaving an entire city nearly perfectly preserved for posterity. But though we often project a staid aura on subjects of antiquity, one of Pompeii’s more endearing qualities is its preservation of the less respectable (but more recognizable) aspects of humanity.

Take, for example. the above mosaic of a satyr and nymph, a piece from The House of the Faun, the once opulent home of wealthy Pompeian aristocrats. The ubiquity of erotic art like this was/is representative of the Roman’s affection for worldly pleasures. But if you’re like me and prefer the juvenile smut of the proletariat, you might be interested in the sort of graffiti found all over ancient Pompeii, as listed below, along with the location of the offending scrawl. Remember kids, our history is often merely the bathroom walls of our ancient equivalents. (And yes, there are some sweet, introspective and poetic ones in there too, lest you get a one-sided impression of the Pompeians.)
 

(Bar/Brothel of Innulus and Papilio): Weep, you girls.  My penis has given you up.  Now it penetrates men’s behinds.  Goodbye, wondrous femininity!

(peristyle of the Tavern of Verecundus): Restitutus says: “Restituta, take off your tunic, please, and show us your hairy privates”.

(House of the Citharist; below a drawing of a man with a large nose): Amplicatus, I know that Icarus is buggering you.  Salvius wrote this.

(near the rear entrance vestibule of the House of Menander): At Nuceria, look for Novellia Primigenia near the Roman gate in the prostitute’s district.

(Bar of Astylus and Pardalus): Lovers are like bees in that they live a honeyed life

(Bar of Athictus; right of the door): I screwed the barmaid

(Pottery Shop or Bar of Nicanor; right of the door): Lesbianus, you defecate and you write, ‘Hello, everyone!’

(House of Pascius Hermes; left of the door): To the one defecating here.  Beware of the curse.  If you look down on this curse, may you have an angry Jupiter for an enemy.

(on the wall in the street): Theophilus, don’t perform oral sex on girls against the city wall like a dog

(House of Caecilius Iucundus): Whoever loves, let him flourish.  Let him perish who knows not love.  Let him perish twice over whoever forbids love.

(just outside the Vesuvius gate): Defecator, may everything turn out okay so that you can leave this place

(barracks of the Julian-Claudian gladiators; column in the peristyle): Celadus the Thracian gladiator is the delight of all the girls

(House of Sextus Pompeius Axiochus and Julia Helena; left of the door): Hectice, baby, Mercator says hello to you

(vico degli Scienziati): Cruel Lalagus, why do you not love me?

(House of Orpheus): I have buggered men

(Wood-Working Shop of Potitus): What a lot of tricks you use to deceive, innkeeper. You sell water but drink unmixed wine

(atrium of a House of the Large Brothel): Blondie has taught me to hate dark-haired girls.  I shall hat them, if I can, but I wouldn’t mind loving them.  Pompeian Venus Fisica wrote this.

(atrium of the House of Pinarius): If anyone does not believe in Venus, they should gaze at my girl friend

(Brothel of Venus; on the Vico dei Soprastanti opposite the Vicolo del Gallo): May Love burn in some lonely mountains whoever wants to rape my girl friend!

(vicolo del Panattiere, House of the Vibii, Merchants): Atimetus got me pregnant

(vicolo del Panattiere, House of the Vibii, Merchants): Figulus loves Idaia

(Bar of Hedone (or Colepius) on the Street of the Augustales; on the corner toward the lupinare): Hedone says, “You can get a drink here for only one coin.  You can drink better wine for two coins.  You can drink Falernian for four coins.”

(House of Caprasius Primus): I don’t want to sell my husband, not for all the gold in the world

(Eumachia Building, via della Abbondanza): Secundus likes to screw boys.

(the Lupinare): I screwed a lot of girls here.

(the Lupinare): On June 15th, Hermeros screwed here with Phileterus and Caphisus.

(the Lupinare): Sollemnes, you screw well!

(Vico d’ Eumachia, small room of a possible brothel): Gaius Valerius Venustus, soldier of the 1st praetorian cohort, in the century of Rufus, screwer of women

(Vico d’ Eumachia, small room of a possible brothel): Vibius Restitutus slept here alone and missed his darling Urbana

(corridor in the theater): Methe, slave of Cominia, from Atella, loves Chrestus.  May Pompeian Venus be dear to both of them and may they always live in harmony.

(above a bench outside the Marine Gate): If anyone sits here, let him read this first of all: if anyone wants a screw, he should look for Attice; she costs 4 sestertii.

(in the basilica): No young buck is complete until he has fallen in love

(in the basilica): Chie, I hope your hemorrhoids rub together so much that they hurt worse than when they every have before!

(in the basilica): Let everyone one in love come and see.  I want to break Venus’ ribs with clubs and cripple the goddess’ loins.  If she can strike through my soft chest, then why can’t I smash her head with a club?

(in the basilica): Phileros is a eunuch!

(in the basilica): If you are able, but not willing, why do you put off our joy and kindle hope and tell me always to come back tomorrow.  So, force me to die since you force me to live without you.  Your gift will be to stop torturing me.  Certainly, hope returns to the lover what it has once snatched away.

(in the basilica): Take hold of your servant girl whenever you want to; it’s your right

(in the basilica): The one who buggers a fire burns his penis

(in the basilica): O walls, you have held up so much tedious graffiti that I am amazed that you have not already collapsed in ruin.

(in the basilica): Love dictates to me as I write and Cupid shows me the way, but may I die if god should wish me to go on without you

(Inn of the Muledrivers; left of the door): We have wet the bed, host.  I confess we have done wrong.  If you want to know why, there was no chamber pot

(House of Poppaeus Sabinus; peristyle): If you felt the fires of love, mule-driver, you would make more haste to see Venus.  I love a charming boy; I ask you, goad the mules; let’s go.  Take me to Pompeii, where love is sweet.  You are mine…

(House of the Centenary; in the atrium): My lusty son, with how many women have you had sexual relations?

(House of the Centenary; in the latrine near the front door): “Secundus defecated here” three time on one wall.

(House of the Centenary; interior of the house): Once you are dead, you are nothing

(triclinium of a house): Restitutus has deceived many girls.

Nuceria Necropolis (on a tomb): Greetings to Primigenia of Nuceria.  I would wish to become a signet ring for no more than an hour, so that I might give you kisses dispatched with your signature.

Herculaneum (bar/inn joined to the maritime baths): Two friends were here.  While they were, they had bad service in every way from a guy named Epaphroditus.  They threw him out and spent 105 and half sestertii most agreeably on whores.

Herculaneum (bar/inn joined to the maritime baths): Apelles the chamberlain with Dexter, a slave of Caesar, ate here most agreeably and had a screw at the same time.

Herculaneum (bar/inn joined to the maritime baths): Apelles Mus and his brother Dexter each pleasurably had sex with two girls twice.

Herculaneum (on the exterior wall of a house): Apollinaris, the doctor of the emperor Titus, defecated well here

 
Via Professor Brian Harvey

Posted by Amber Frost
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12.08.2013
12:15 pm
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Candy Darling and a drunken Tennessee Williams make for an awkward press conference
12.07.2013
09:25 am
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Tennessee and Candy
Candy Darling and Tennessee Williams
 
While many Warhol fans know about Candy Darling’s significant part in the Tennessee Williams play, Small Craft Warnings; many of them don’t know that Darling was cast looong past the golden period of Williams’ career. After the death of a beloved ex-boyfriend from lung cancer in 1963 (a man who Williams had cared for from diagnosis to death, despite their recent break-up), Williams’ life was marked by alcoholism, drug abuse, and depression. He never reclaimed the success of his earlier career, and was often strung out, even in public.

In the clip below, (an excerpt from the slightly low-rent, but super-informative A & E special, Tennessee Williams: Wounded Genius), you can watch a moment from the play’s infamous press conference. While Williams slurs and fawns all over his actors, Darling looks on in what appears to be obvious discomfort. Small Craft Warnings opened off-Broadway in 1972 to lukewarm reviews. In a painful blur of art and life, Williams actually took over the role of an alcoholic doctor practicing medicine without a license—a change he made in the middle of the play’s run.
 

Posted by Amber Frost
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12.07.2013
09:25 am
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The Pizza Underground: Macaulay Culkin’s pizza-themed Velvet Underground cover band
12.06.2013
08:27 pm
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Good for him: After years of being accused of having a junk habit, Macaulay Culkin decided to tweak his reputation a little by covering the druggy anthems of Lou Reed and the Velvet Underground… but with a twist: all of the lyrics have been retooled to be about pizza. Culkin contributes vocals, kazoo, and primitive Moe Tucker-style “percussion” pounded out on empty pizza boxes to The Pizza Underground.

So far, The Pizza Underground have only put out one song—a “demo” medley on Bandcamp featuring “Papa John Says,” “I’m Beginning to Eat the Slice,” “Pizza,” “I’m Waiting for Delivery Man,” “Cheese Days,” “Pizza Day,” “All the Pizza Parties,” “Pizza Gal,” “Take a Bite of the Wild Slice.”

The Pizza Underground have done just one gig. Their demo was recorded live at Macaulay Culkin’s house on November 11, 2013 . Sure, it’s essentially one joke milked to death, but hey, I laughed!
 

 

 
Thank you Adam Starr of Los Angeles, CA!

Posted by Richard Metzger
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12.06.2013
08:27 pm
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James Bond movie posters in the style of Saul Bass
12.06.2013
06:53 pm
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poster
 
A lot of concept art inspired by a specific artist completely fails to capture the spirit of their work, but I’ve been in love with Saul Bass’ aesthetic ever since I saw the opening credits for the 1963 Audrey Hepburn thriller, Charade, and these James Bond posters are dead-on. From the groovy color palette to the abstractions of geometry and scale, artist Alain Bossuyt really knows his Bass.

For reference, check out the video at the bottom for the opening credits of Charade.
 
poster
 
poster
 
poster
 
More after the jump…
 

READ ON
Posted by Amber Frost
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12.06.2013
06:53 pm
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The foodies have invaded our fetishes with pretentious sexual cookbooks
12.06.2013
05:44 pm
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cookbook
 
I spent a decent amount of time trying to debunk both Natural Harvest: A Collection of Semen-Based Recipes and Semenology: The Semen Bartender’s Handbook as satire, but to no avail. The author appears to be totally earnest, as you can see in this Reddit AMA, which contains the somewhat unexpected line, “My shift at the hospital is starting and I need to get to work.”.

But I’m still finding the whole thing difficult to swallow (come on, I had to). It’s not the practice of consuming semen that leaves me skeptical, but the level of pretension being applied to a sexual fetish. Be a freak, of course, but must we put on airs about it?

Perhaps it’s because I’ve always been more gourmand than gourmet, but I just refuse to believe that ejaculate-based cooking is an actual cuisine. It’s more of a past-time, really. And I refuse to acknowledge ejaculate as an ingredient. It’s a garnish, at best! And since the recipes all appear to be pretty classic and relatively straightforward, couldn’t I just buy a regular cookbook and add one more final ingredient? See below for a cocktail demonstration.
 

 

Posted by Amber Frost
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12.06.2013
05:44 pm
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Holy Watusi, Batman! The Bay Area Batman-themed nightclub from the mid-1960s
12.06.2013
05:31 pm
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Wayne Manor
 
From the start of 1966 to the late spring of 1967 (if not longer), a period coinciding with the run of the groovy Batman TV show we all know and love, one of the hottest nightclubs in the Bay Area was a Batman-themed joint called Wayne Manor in Sunnyvale. According to the Chicken on a Unicycle website (love the name), “The club was decorated like the Bat Cave, and dancers were dressed like Bat Girl or Catwoman.” LIFE Magazine mentioned Wayne Manor in its March 11, 1966 cover story on the Batman-mania sweeping the nation.

The owner of the club was named Joe Lewis, and after attempting to run the nightclub as a South Bay branch of LA’s Whiskey à Go Go, took the advice of his 11-year-old son Garth—an addict of the DC comic books—and went with the Batman theme for the venue. Some have presented the two events as a mere lucky coincidence for Lewis, but I’m skeptical—the Batman series debuted on January 11, 1966, and the music listings on the Chicken on a Unicycle website go back only as far as February 1966—smells like good old-fashioned opportunism to me.
 
Wayne Manor
The (Fremont) Argus, Feb. 16, 1966
 
Musical acts would usually book for an entire week at a time. The roster of performers included such notable musical acts as The Music Machine (who played there in Oct. 1966), Dobie Gray (Dec. 1966), and—this will blow your mind—Sly and the Family Stone (a week covering the end of March and the start of April 1967 and virtually every day in May 1967).

Chicken on a Unicycle has an exhaustive collection of ephemera about the club, although most of the images are frustratingly small. However, it’s still very valuable in persuading people (me, for instance) that this actually happened.

There isn’t any video of Wayne Manor on YouTube (why would there be?), so instead we offer you all 14 window cameos from the original TV series:

 
via Messy Nessy Chic

Previously on Dangerous Minds:
Filipino Batman and Robin: The crappiest and funniest caped crusader film ever!
POW! Roy Lichtenstein’s ‘Batman’ TV Guide cover, 1966

Posted by Martin Schneider
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12.06.2013
05:31 pm
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Sonic Youth, Stereolab & Jarvis Cocker love her: America meet artsy French singer Brigitte Fontaine
12.06.2013
04:01 pm
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Although I’ve long been aware of Brigitte Fontaine, it was more like I’d read about her but never really heard her actual music. I was curious, but it was never put right there in front of me. This was remedied yesterday as I was running errands and listening to her album, Comme à la radio, which came in the post via Superior Viaduct, the San Francisco-based record label that specializes in high quality reissues on vinyl and CD of unusual artists (like Tuxedomoon, Glaxo Babies, Monitor, etc).

Comme à la radio hit me like a bolt from the blue. I was truly astounded. As in the “WOW, you’ve got to be fucking kidding me”/grinning from ear to ear type of payoff that a music snob gets when he or she hears something fucking amazing for the first time. There’s nothing like that hit and I got it from Comme à la radio in a big way driving around Los Angeles yesterday.

In France, Brigitte Fontaine is a deeply respected artist—a singer, actress, novelist—who has worked in the public eye for decades and changed styles many times along the way, from an initially poppy chanson sound to more of a modern Bjork-like thing she’s been up to in recent years (I’ve been giving myself a crash course in Brigitte Fontaine. Much to explore on YouTube). Post-May ‘68, she began to restlessly explore more avant-garde sounds and recorded two superb albums back to back: Brigitte Fontaine Est… Folle (“Brigitte Fontaine is crazy”) with Serge Gainsbourg’s arranger Jean-Claude Vannier and Comme à la radio recorded with members of The Art Ensemble of Chicago and her longtime collaborator and husband, Areski. Both come out on LP and CD next week from Superior Viaduct for the first time ever in America.
 

 
Brigitte Fontaine Est… Folle is a quirky, special album that all fans of Histoire de Melody Nelson must hear. It’s got a certain cabaret theatricality and dark humor whimsy that makes it very unique. I am a huge fan of Jean-Claude Vannier, so hearing Brigitte Fontaine est… Folle was indeed a great pleasure, but it didn’t prepare me for Comme à la radio which is one of the most far out things I’ve ever heard. It’s a fucking masterpiece, make no mistake about it. The album in various places (and even in the same song) brings to mind everything from Flowers of Romance-era Public Image Ltd. (I’m being quite serious) or later Can to The Master Musicians of Joujouka. Because she does a lot of “talk singing” and whispery spoken word en France the Serge comparison is difficult to avoid as well. (Comme à la radio stands up to the best of even his work. It’s that good. On that level.)

But The Art Ensemble of Chicago!?! To employ their unique talents to realize her bohemian Beatnik musical vision—a kind of wild, arrhythmic, Arabic free jazz—was a stroke of genius and fortuitous right time/right place luck—The Art Ensemble of Chicago and Fontaine were performing at venues across the street from one another in 1969 and decided to do a number of shows together in 1969 and 1970. That this album exists is nothing short of a minor miracle. There’s nothing else like it. Nothing I can think of.

At this point, I need to stop typing and you need to hit play on Comme à la radio‘s magnificent 8-minute-long title track. Turn it up loud.
 

 
If that didn’t move you, I can’t do anything else for ya.

“L’ Homme Objet” (about a “boy toy”) from Brigitte Fontaine est… Folle

Here’s a video—I love the way they shot this—of Fontaine, Areski and The Art Ensemble of Chicago performing Comme à la radio‘s “L’été l’été” in 1970:
 

 
Previously on Dangerous Minds:
Avant psychedelia: The Art Ensemble of Chicago show up in French hippie movie ‘Les Stances A Sophie’

Posted by Richard Metzger
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12.06.2013
04:01 pm
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Christmas Tinner: 3-course meal in a can for gamers
12.06.2013
03:18 pm
Topics:
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The Daily Mail (natch) is reporting this 3-course meal in a can for gamers—by artist Chris Godfrey—as a new (and real) thing. I, however, have the sneaking suspicion that this is just a clever viral hoax as there’s nowhere to actually buy this 9-layered vomit feast online. You know the drill: You can’t give someone money for something? It probably doesn’t exist.

According to the Daily Mail (don’t hate):

The Christmas Tinner has been trialled in the Basingstoke store, and the firm said it plans to sell it in stores across the country if there is enough demand.

Research from Domino’s Pizza recently found that gamers will do anything in order to carrying on playing.

Almost half of male gamers admitted they have turned down sex to continue playing, while a fifth of female gamers said they’d missed weddings and hen dos.

If this is believed to be true, then it’s the perfect stocking stuffer for that certain special immobile couch potato gamer in you life.

BTW, we’ve blogged about Godfrey’s puketastic 12-course meal in a can earlier this year.
 

 
Via Nerdcore

Posted by Tara McGinley
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12.06.2013
03:18 pm
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