Guys, you simply must see these these. Coco Wang is a Chinese artist who is taking some of the less-reported (outside China, anyway) human interest stories from last month’s earthquake devastation, and turning them into comic strips. They’re clever, they’re well-made, and it’s a huge understatement to say they’re touching. I’m not usually the weepy sort, but these really got to me.

From Coco’s blog:

I am back home in Beijing now. Thousands of heart-breaking stories are happening 24 hours non-stop everyday, some are so sad that you can hardly bear, some are incredibly moving that you just can’t stop crying… I have never felt more proud of my country and people… their love, courage and kindness rock me to my core! I have decided to tell these touching stories by drawing comics. I am going to send you comic strips almost everyday from now on, I hope you could know something about the earthquake in China, although you don’t have to do anything, but I hope you could feel our love and hope.”

There are 12 strips so far, and they’re all superb. It’ll take you less than ten minutes to read through them, and it’ll change your entire outlook. I’ve subscribed to the RSS feed so I can have a bite everyday.

Link, many thanks to Rock Geisha.

I always try to keep an eye on most of the major online photo-sharing services, just to see if anything interesting comes up about Antalya. Flickr usually has a decent selection of photos of our fair city, but today there were a few pictures that really caught my eye, and it turns out they’re all by one James E Petts. He’s got a fantastic collection of 25 photos of Antalya and the surrounding region (including the ruins at Aspendos and Perge), and they were just posted today, so they’re probably pretty fresh shots.

I like these photos a lot more than most of the tourist photos I see of the region, and here’s why: nine times out of ten visitors see Antalya as a scorching, sunny beach resort and nothing else, and this bias is reflected in their snapshots, which are usually taken in July or August. But what people fail to realise is that for three-quarters of the year (September through May), Antalya is completely different— the weather is mild and even cold sometimes, and often the whole city gets this wonderful foggy-mountainy thing going on (as James so expertly captured in the above photo).

That’s what I really love about this place, that the relatively short summer peaks aggressively and then tapers off quickly, and after that we’re graced with a much more mysterious and interesting display from Mother Nature. It seems like James got to see some of that, and it really shows in his photos. There are 25 pictures in the collection, and not one of them features kids building sand castles or half-naked people playing volleyball on the beach. Not that there’s anything wrong with those activities, but it’s nice to see a different perspective for a change, one that is more in tune with what I feel is the real Antalya, and definitely more reflective of my experiences here. Sure, we get more than our share of sun, but that’s no reason to stereotype us. Antalya, believe it or not, is more than just a resort for beach bums. Many thanks to James for sharing his fantastic photo work. Link

If you guys aren’t subscribed to LeahAndMark.com, you need to be. They’re two American adventurers making their way around China, armed with every communication gadget imaginable. Prepare to be immersed in stories, photos, and video that will amaze you. So far they’ve eaten half the food in China, met two-thirds of the people, and even visited a hospital for babies. Now they’ve gotten away from the big city and it’s all about train rides and countryside. The journey is fascinating to follow— if you only subscribe to one new thing in April, this should be it. Link

It’s been quite a while since I’ve promoted a game here, but I’m having so much fun with this one that I felt I had to share it. Boomshine is a simple chain reaction game by Danny Miller. It’s extremely pretty, and easy to play, but difficult to get right. There’s not a lot of explanation I can give— just play a few levels and see how far you get. Apparently less than 2% of players manage to complete level 12; of course I had to sit here and replay that level until I got it.

So there you go, you’re welcome for filling up your lunch hour. Link

Those of you over on twitter may already be aware that for several weeks now we have been in a continual state of support for Susan Reynolds and her gradual return to health. Frozen Pea Friday had replaced our traditional Stripper Friday (if you’ve never been around for Stripper Friday, use your imagination), and we were all on board with our frozen pea avatars. It was the right thing to do, and it was a fun thing to do.

But even fun things need changing up once in a while, and I’m so glad we have people on the task. Sprite came up with the idea of combining Stripper Friday with the frozen pea intention, and the result is Twitter Tits Over America. Booby avatars abound, we’re still supporting the cause, and we get a bit of our Friday stripper action back.

Well, I’m from Texas, but I’m certainly not in America, so as usual I’ve sprinkled in my own flavour and submitted my avatar (pictured left) for consideration in the Texas Twitter Tits of Turkey category. So far there seems to be a positive response. And since I promised that 2008 would be the year of getting more boobs into this blog as well, I thought I’d include you guys in the picture fun, to, you know, help get the word out about the cause in as many places as possible. In the industry, this is what we call “killing two birds with one stone.”

So if you’re on twitter, change your avatar to one featuring cleavage art today (man boobs are eagerly accepted), and join us in the fun. If you’re not on twitter, where the hell have you been? Better hurry and sign up.

After months of being asked to find an easier way to distribute bazaar shirts, and weeks of hard work getting it all ready, the TurklishTees.com store is finally open for business! Now if you want to buy shirts and other items featured on the weekly bazaar, you no longer have to deal with the nightmare of the Turkish postal service or the inconvenience of international money transfers. You can get your Turklish fix direct from the online store and save all the hassle. Easy!

What you see in the store right now is only the beginning— as the weeks go by there will be new designs, weekly specials and limited edition designs, and even contests where you can win free stuff. There’s also the opportunity to have your favourite bazaar shirt made into a custom one-of-a-kind design— just contact me for details.

The store ships worldwide, so everyone should be able to get any item they want easily. As soon as possible I would like to open up additional regional branches, especially for those in Australasia and Europe, just to make shipping even more straightforward— if anyone in those areas is aware of a good local distributor please let me know.

Thanks for your patience while I got the store ready— I wanted it to be everything you asked for and I hope I’ve hit the mark. Happy shopping!

While browsing around for something unrelated today I ran across this Flickr stream from the Beastie Boys, covering candid shots from their latest tour. Much to my surprise, the most recent photos (dated June 21) are taken in Istanbul! I particularly love the one of Fredo in the Kapalı Çarşı, but all the photos are good, even the ones not taken in Turkey. I’m definitely going to follow this stream as it progresses; I wish more bands we’ve heard of and care about would do this. Link

This morning I was reading this article on Sortipreneur, and although the point he was trying to make had to do with something else entirely, the thing that I personally got out of it was that there’s more to Turkish social networking than I realised. In the article I discovered links to both Yonja and Mondus, two Turkish social networks I hadn’t been aware of. I went and signed up for both— if you’re at either of the sites, please feel free to friend me: my Yonja / my Mondus

Incidentally, if anyone is a Mondus expert, I’d be interested to know how to personalise the url for one’s profile page. It was easy enough to change on Yonja, but my Mondus profile has this ridiculous url that no one can ever be expected to find, much less remember, and I can’t work out how to change it into something more reasonable.

Also, please let me know in the comments if you know of other Turkish social networking sites, because I’m thinking this would be a good opportunity for me to practice my written Turkish.

I’ll admit it, I love lolcats, and lolpresidents, and every other variation you could possibly come up with. Sometimes stupid-funny annoys me, but other times it just catches me the right way, especially when there’s an opportunity for the virus/meme to spread in such a way that it allows for either (A) clever captioning with a pop culture reference you either get or you don’t (see photo above, my current favourite lolpresident), (B) creative photoshopping (see also: Worth1000), or both.

But over the past couple of days, I’ve been thinking a lot about how so much of what I experience daily in the English-speaking internet community doesn’t really translate into Turkish. I live with three Turks, two of whom have very limited English and one (Emirhan) who has excellent English language skills, but like the other two has limited knowledge of western pop culture. And the language jokes, even if they don’t involve pop culture references, are still difficult to explain sometimes. For instance, Emirhan almost always understands why the items from the bazaar are funny, but he doesn’t always get the captions I write, especially if a particular caption plays on a tricky grammatical problem that sounds funny to native English speakers but wouldn’t necessarily seem odd to people who speak English as a second language (I have many more thoughts on this issue which I will address in a separate post tomorrow). Sometimes I can explain the joke, but other times it doesn’t translate at all and I’m met with a blank stare.

So I guess what I’m trying to get at is that although the four of us live together and share group jokes of our own, the three of them have Turkish jokes that I don’t get, and there’s certainly a huge part of my social life (namely the meme-infested English-speaking internet community) that they can’t really participate in on any meaningful level. Lolcats, for instance, is one of those things you either understand or you don’t, even if English is your first language, and once you start trying to explain it to someone, you’re already overexplaining and the joke loses a lot. There’s an element of timing that’s necessary when it comes to clever one-liners. I’m curious to know if this sort of thing exists in the Turkish-speaking online community; I know things like blogging and podcasting are just barely getting started here, but the Turkish have a very well-developed sense of humour and it wouldn’t surprise me if they have their own little funny memes community that I’m not even aware of, and that I wouldn’t find funny anyway.

Darcy is a strong newcomer on the Turkish blogging scene.

Darcy is a proud, unpleasant sort of man.

Darcy is a Catholic living in a Muslim country.

Darcy makes witty and sometimes caustic remarks on everything from politics to art to everyday Turkish life.

Darcy talks about himself in the third person.

Darcy’s web site is highly entertaining, and you can find it here.