How do you stop a runaway bride?

Posted on August 13, 2010 by Rob

Simple. Propose to her when you’ve got a hold of the rope connected to the big metal hook in her chest.

When IAM: Trinket‘s boyfriend proposed to her, that’s exactly what he did.

As the story goes, Trinket decided it would be a fun afternoon to take her boyfriend to Hangman Suspension‘s 3rd annual Twisted Cedars event. Little did she know that when she was in the middle of a pull, her boyfriend had planned some fun of his own. As you can see by the picture, he made sure that there was no way for her to run away when he dropped to his knees to propose.

Luckily for him, Trinket said yes, and they now have a moment they can “hang” on to for all time. The image below shows the exact moment he proposed, “suspended” in time for everyone to see. (I apologize for my horrible use of puns. I don’t know what’s with me today.)

proposal

I’m sure this isn’t the first time this happened. How did you propose/get proposed to? Or even better, how would you propose to your significant other? And I don’t subscribe to the school of thought that says the guy HAS to be the one to propose, so ladies, how would you do the deed?

Looking for a place to hang out?

Posted on August 12, 2010 by Rob

A couple of events are coming up in the next couple of weeks that you may want to check out.

First up, this weekend is the 15th annual South Florida Tattoo Festival. While I can’t vouch for the quality of their website the Sun Sentinel did a great summary of the event if you wanted to check it out.

It’s that time of year again, when the inked, pierced and earlobe-plugged gather to show off their bodily canvases. More than 30 tattoo artists will appear at this event, which will feature burlesque-suspension and fetish shows and appearances by Black Sabbath’s Vinny Appice, Iron Maiden’s Nicko McBrain, ex-WWE champs Titan and the Nasty Boys, and the Broward County Derby Girls. Proceeds will benefit the Joe DiMaggio Children’s Hospital. On Sunday, check out the Hot Rod Car Show from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. It costs $25 to register a ride the day of the show.

Location: Deerfield Beach Hilton, 100 Fairway Drive Time: Noon-1 a.m. Friday-Saturday; noon-7 p.m. Sunday Cost: $15 per day or $30 for a three-day pass Contact: 954-343-5585 or Sofltattooexpo.com

Honestly, I’d be willing to drive down there just to see Knobbs and Saggs duke it out with some locals. Plus they’re giving their proceeds to a kids hospital, so you’d be able to help out some kids and have a fun weekend.

Now while you may not be in the Florida area this weekend, in a couple of weeks SuspenDC is having their get-together Sunday September 19th.

SuspenDC is a flesh hook piercing and suspension event. You can get to feel what it’s like to have temporary hook piercings. You can suspend from the piercings. You can watch or support others in their experience. Piercings are done by professional piercers and suspensions are rigged and performed by experienced suspension teams. hough the event is scheduled to run about 8 hours, space is limited for the number of flyers. If you are going to get hooked, be on time to the event to make sure you can reserve a time slot to be pierced/suspended.

Now I know that the term “hanging out” can be a little vague. So here’s an image of Iamdan showing you exactly the right way to hang out.

suspend

Today’s Iron Chef ingredient: INK!!

Posted on August 12, 2010 by Rob

I’ll admit that I love the Iron Chef. Both the original, and the US version. Heck I even watched the specials hosted by William Shatner. So it should come as no shock that I think this story is pretty cool.

While frat guys have their secret handshakes and makeout parties, the modern-day chef has chosen a little more permanent insignia of their brotherhood: tattoos. This distinguishing feature pops up on plenty of chefs both nationally and locally, bringing a touch of rock-star flare to the back of the house. Tattoos — whether used as a means to cover up scar tissue from years of kitchen work or a means to pick up chicks – are as much a part of today’s chefs uniform as a toque or an apron.

You can check out the rest of the gallery here.

The last time I was in Kansas City, I had dinner at a fantastic pizza place that had some great vegan pizzas. I can’t recall the name of it right now, but I’m sure someone in the comments section can enlighten me. If you do get a chance to hit up this pizza place, I highly recommend getting a pizza with mushrooms, garlic, and roasted potatoes. I’d drive down there again just to eat that pizza.

Any ModBlog readers chefs? Or just someone who likes to cook? Got any tips/recipes to share?

Can get by with a little help from my friends

Posted on August 12, 2010 by Rob

My favorite Aussie newsfeed submitter Botexty sent me in this story of a community pulling together to help someone close to them.

Mrs Hearnden suffered terrible injuries when she fell from a cliff in Dubrovnik, breaking both her arms, her jaw, hip and rupturing internal organs. Her kidney and spleen were removed and she faces many more operations. She and her husband, Gareth, were just a month into a five-month world tour when she fell 14m on to rocks last Monday.

This Friday, Tanya’s cousin and tattoo studio manager, Stacey Todd, has asked tattoo artists at 100 tattoo studios throughout the country to ask clients to donate the cost of a tattoo. She has asked tattoo artists to contribute designs to a book, the online sale of which will help pay the family’s expenses.

Everyone makes mistakes, right?

Posted on August 12, 2010 by Rob

ModBlog reader Brendan sent me this link of a news story NBC posted recently. It seems that a plastic surgeon has invented a “new surgery” that can reverse the process of stretched ears.

When Daniel Bocchino was 16, he started stretching his ear lobes, expanding them until he had an inch-wide hole in each lobe. But by the time he was 19, he was so over the piercing trend known as ear gauging. He removed the thick plugs from his lobes and slathered the holes with all kinds of weird ointments and creams, hoping the stretched-out skin would just shrink back up. But that’s not how it works — once that hole is stretched any wider than 6 millimeters, there’s no going back.

Glatt, a board-certified plastic surgeon in Morristown, N.J., says he’s seeing more people — mostly young people, and mostly men — who started gauging their ears as teenagers and are now joining the military, seeking a professional job or, like Bocchino, are simply over the fad, and are trying to figure out how to fill that hole back up. The surgery takes about half an hour per ear, and costs anywhere from $1,500 to $3,000, which Bocchino paid for himself with the money he makes as a tattoo artist. He says he’s happy about the results — the worst part of it all was probably telling his parents he regretted gauging his ears in the first place.

So it seems the good doctor, and the reporters at NBC have found a way to save all of the people with stretched lobes from the future embarrassment of facing the world when this silly fad is over.

Excuse me while I slam the palm of my hand into my forehead.

Color me shocked that a news outlet wouldn’t do research into a story before going to print with it. Aside from the obviously degrading language being used towards those with stretched lobes, there’s also the fact that the article is claiming that this doctor is the first person to figure out how to “fix” the lobes, and charges quite a bit for the reconstruction. It’s ok NBC. Everyone makes mistakes.

For those of you who don’t feel that your choice of modifications is part of a fad, then kindly enjoy this image of a woman who is obviously upset with her lobes and is regretting ever having stretched them. You can see the sadness in her eyes that tell the story of how the only job she can get because of her lobes is that of a cutlery rack.

forks

Seriously. That’s the saddest face I’ve ever seen. There’s no way I could make a mistake about that. Could I?

How can you mend a broken heart?

Posted on August 12, 2010 by Rob

First things first. Take a minute to enjoy the Al Green. Now think to yourself, how does one mend a broken heart. The sarcastic ones out there will naturally say “bypass surgery”, but to anyone who has ever suffered having a broken heart, there is no one single answer. Some people find solace in food. Others in the company of friends and family. A lot just need the passage of time to help heal their wounds. But for a great many, music is the cure for their ails. If you think about how many songs have been written about lost loves and heartbreak, you’ll spend months trying to finish the list. I’m pretty sure the entire country music industry wouldn’t even exist if it wasn’t for heartbreak.

So when I saw this tattoo in the galleries I thought to myself, what music do I turn to when I’m down? I couldn’t really pinpoint a single song, but I’m pretty sure it’s something loud and obnoxious. For others, it could be a soft pop song from the 80s that John Hughes used in one of his films. I’m sure those who enjoy country music have an ample supply. The point is, everyone deals with heartbreak differently. To mtpchick18, music is what helps her through a breakup.

music

What about you? What music do you listen to when your heart is lying shattered on the floor?

Shazam!

Posted on August 10, 2010 by Rob

I need to say something first before the die-hard comic fans storm my place with torches and pitchforks. I know that the character’s name is Captain Marvel, but dagnabbit, “Shazam!” makes for such a better headline!

Let me share a story with you. A long long time ago, I had to do some form of assignment for my grade 4 class. The details are exceedingly fuzzy, but I do know that Captain Marvel was the subject, and for some reason I recall hounding some guy at a local comic book shop for days, grilling him on everything Captain Marvel related. In the end, I somehow convinced him to come to my class and do a talk on The Big Red Cheese. Since then, I haven’t really given much thought to Billy Batson, other than seeing an image of him here or there in my travels. So imagine my surprise when I saw this image of Captain Marvel in the cartoon tattoo galleries.

shazam

I think what I like most about the image is that it’s closer to Alex Ross’ take on Captain Marvel, as opposed to the traditional “cartoony” feel that is normally associated with him.

It’s pretty interesting to think that there’s an entire generation’s worth of superheroes that never made the transition to modern popular culture. Be it simply because the publisher shut down, or the rights were never picked up by Marvel or DC when they took to the forefront of the industry. All the independent/small scale publishers fell by the wayside over 60 years ago, and anything that wasn’t bought up has slipped into obscurity.

Do you have a tattoo or something else related to an obscure comic/cartoon/other? Send it my way.

The mind can play strange tricks

Posted on August 10, 2010 by Rob

108

The first thing you’re going to notice about this post is that the image is behind the “read more” button. There’s a reason for that, and I’ll get into it momentarily.

ModBlog readers and BME members alike are very familiar with the human body. Every day we see an image or hear a story about someone pushing their body to the extreme. The surgical and hard galleries are a prime example of this. It’s safe to say that the average ModBlog reader isn’t really the squeamish sort with it comes to modifications, which is why the majority of us have no problems looking at images of all sorts of mods.

The image you’ll see below would hardly be classified as an extreme image. In fact it’s pretty tame compared to most of the “Guess what?” images that get posted (especially today’s), but what the image lacks in it’s overt graphic content, it makes up for it the viewer’s mind.

What I suppose I’m getting at here, is that no matter what images we see on a day to day basis, the mind can always come up with something that goes beyond the content of the image. Often times the images on ModBlog are the “after” or “during” photos, where we get to see the process and the end result of the subject matter. In the image below, we’re seeing what is potentially a “before” image. It’s these images that the mind can have a field day with. You can see the potential outcomes, and it is your mind that fills in the blanks.

Like the image I posted last week of a girl moments away from suspending, this image has captured a moment in which the anticipation can be felt. The moment where you know something is about to happen, where you hold your breath and the adrenaline begins to flow. That is precisely what this image says to me. And while I look at images daily that would make a surgeon cringe, this is probably the first image I’ve come across that really made me put my mind in the place of the person who took the picture. I was right there, in the moment, and my mind went into overdrive producing exactly the type of reaction one would have in a moment such as this. I held my breath, and braced myself for what was about to happen. Of course it didn’t, but in my mind it sure did. Which of course made me want to share this with you, the ModBlog reader.

Now as you can probably assume by now, the image definitely has genitalia, so I’ve placed it behind a link so those of you browsing at work won’t get into too much trouble. So without further ado, the image in question…

scissors

So as I said, the image itself is pretty tame compared to most ModBlog images, but the anonymous uploader has really captured a great moment in his frenum piercing play. It’s interesting because I know in my mind that if it had been any other object placed in the piercing, I wouldn’t have thought twice about it. With the scissors though, you can guess where my head (ha!) went.

What about you? Does the image do for you what it did to me? Or am I just a big wuss?

I wanna do bad things with you

Posted on August 10, 2010 by Rob

I’m 100% positive I’m not the only True Blood fan that reads ModBlog, as evidenced by the following photo uploaded by Gabriel Cece. I just finished watching last Sunday’s episode when I saw this image had been uploaded to the fantasy tattoo galleries, and I immediately had the urge to re-watch the entire series from the beginning all over again.

trueblood

I have a feeling that the comments section will probably be filled with comments about the show, so while I can ask that nobody posts spoilers from the most recent episode, I can’t guarantee it won’t happen. So consider yourself warned.

To those of us who have also read the books, what are your thoughts on the differences between them and the TV series?

Who needs an iTouch when your body can do the same job?

Posted on August 10, 2010 by Rob

I think it’s safe to say the following story can be filed under the “That’s so freaking cool” category.

It seems a design firm has started to make headway into what can best be described as interactive tattoos. The theory behind the tech is that the electronics are printed onto a person’s skin (in the form of a tattoo design) and the body’s energy fuels the devices so that you can essentially turn your body into an interactive computer. No need for a cell phone when you can tap your arm and it will make the phone call for you.

The DNA Tattoo, or Dattoo, could include printable input/output tools such as a camera, microphone, or laser-loudspeaker – it would be up to the user, as would the Dattoo’s aesthetics. Most intriguingly, it would capture its wearer’s DNA, to ensure an intimate user/machine relationship. This meant that the body itself would need to become the interface, and would supply the required energy. Because Dattoos would largely replace three-dimensional tools such as smart phones or laptops, the environment would be spared the costs of producing, transporting and disposing of those items.

Despite evoking creepy Matrix-like images of permanent implants, Dattoos would actually be temporary and minimally-invasive. They could even be applied to clothing or other objects, instead of the skin. At the end of the day, they would simply be washed off. The next day, depending on what the user planned to do, they could order up and apply a new one.

The long term goal of the project is to be able to incorporate LED screens into the designs so that your body will completely replace your cell phone and laptop.

I have a bit of mixed feelings on this one. While on one hand this looks really cool in theory, in practice, I’d be a little scared to be linked to a computer through my DNA when SkyNet goes live and judgement day hits.

What about you? Would you be willing to use a stick-on tattoo design computer if it meant you could replace all your portable technology?