Not that this will really surprise you at all, but I have recently created a comprehensive google-alert-feed for the phrase “dogs playing poker”*. This means that anytime anyone ever writes anything at all on the Entire World Wide Web (EWWW) using this phrase, google will send me an email about it; thus placing me on the cutting-edge of the “dogs playing poker” field.

Because I know you care as much as I do, here are some highlights from the past week or so on Dogs Playing Poker (a few of about 30 articles):

February 3rd:

Game Design Essay #1 by “van der beek” (who doesn’t appear to be the actor of dawson’s creek fame, much to my infinite sadness): an attempt to scientifically answer the age-old question “do animals play games?”

February 5th:

Moncton, New Brunswick Classifieds: a local ad in search of a “picture of Dogs Playing Poker in Excellent Condition, Can be framed or unframed”, though it is unclear whether or not this fine-art aficionado would like the painting or a photo of actual dogs playing actual poker. IT IS A MYSTERY!

February 6th:

Dog & Crony Show listing (Pacifica Tribune, Pacifica, CA): Apparently there is an actual band called “Dogs Playing Poker”, and everyone in the SF bay area who also reads my blog, is now officially REQUIRED to go to “Grant & Green” on 2/20 at 8:30pm to let me know if the band lives up to their namesake.

Some kind of enigmatic, possibly-post-modern collection of links to nowhere: blogger Avlsbiogs appreciates linking to the finer things, including “she kick my dog”, “appendicitis symptoms”, “tax incentive solar energy”, “sexing duck” and “top gun fan sites”. (note: I do not recommend actually clicking on any of the links on this page…. unless you want a world of unwanted popups.)

February 7th:

Original Painting Up for Auction in NYC (New York Post) Apparently, the original dogs-playing-poker painting (called “only a pair of deuces” by CM Coolidge will be auctioned off for around $60,000-$80,000. Which is SUCH a bargain.

Today!

Jesus and Dogs-playing-poker: Indianan christian pastor and blogger “gregfish”magically finds a way to incorporate dogs-playing-poker and velvet elvis’ into an online sermon.

**I also have google news alerts for anthropomorphism, my name, pineapple-upside-down cake, and cryptozoology of course.

Not that this will really surprise you at all, but I have recently created a comprehensive google-alert-feed for the phrase “dogs playing poker”*. This means that anytime anyone ever writes anything at all on the Entire World Wide Web (EWWW) using this phrase, google will send me an email about it; thus placing me on the cutting-edge of the “dogs playing poker” field.

Because I know you care as much as I do, here are some highlights from the past week or so on Dogs Playing Poker (a few of about 30 articles):

February 3rd:

Game Design Essay #1 by “van der beek” (who doesn’t appear to be the actor of dawson’s creek fame, much to my infinite sadness): an attempt to scientifically answer the age-old question “do animals play games?”

February 5th:

Moncton, New Brunswick Classifieds: a local ad in search of a “picture of Dogs Playing Poker in Excellent Condition, Can be framed or unframed”, though it is unclear whether or not this fine-art aficionado would like the painting or a photo of actual dogs playing actual poker. IT IS A MYSTERY!

February 6th:

Dog & Crony Show listing (Pacifica Tribune, Pacifica, CA): Apparently there is an actual band called “Dogs Playing Poker”, and everyone in the SF bay area who also reads my blog, is now officially REQUIRED to go to “Grant & Green” on 2/20 at 8:30pm to let me know if the band lives up to their namesake.

Some kind of enigmatic, possibly-post-modern collection of links to nowhere: blogger Avlsbiogs appreciates linking to the finer things, including “she kick my dog”, “appendicitis symptoms”, “tax incentive solar energy”, “sexing duck” and “top gun fan sites”. (note: I do not recommend actually clicking on any of the links on this page…. unless you want a world of unwanted popups.)

February 7th:

Original Painting Up for Auction in NYC (New York Post) Apparently, the original dogs-playing-poker painting (called “only a pair of deuces” by CM Coolidge will be auctioned off for around $60,000-$80,000. Which is SUCH a bargain.

Today!

Jesus and Dogs-playing-poker: Indianan christian pastor and blogger “gregfish”magically finds a way to incorporate dogs-playing-poker and velvet elvis’ into an online sermon.

**I also have google news alerts for anthropomorphism, my name, pineapple-upside-down cake, and cryptozoology of course.

In another episode of “crocodile fanatics making less-than-wise decisions regarding proximity to wildlife”, dr. brady barr took a crocodile head, a canvas/metal reptile-camouflage garb smeared in hippopotamus poo, and frolicked amongst his crocodile-brethren.

More Crocodile-Disguises:

* Roger Moore, in the Bond Classic “Octopussy“, uses a one-man crocodile-submarine to cross a croc-infested lake in India.

* Next time, THIS guy will entire the crocodile lair:

* Crocodile-skin-clothes, eww. Maybe if the woman below (in a Dolce & Gabbana, croc-skin-lined coat) were also wearing these shoes, this belt, and this crocodile-clutch, she could also be confused for the real thing.

* Sadly, though they are the first two people you might think of, neither Steve Irwin (The Crocodile Hunter) nor Paul Hogan (Crocodile Dundee) technically fit within this category.

* Perhaps only tangentially relevant, I have to share the first photo result from a google image search of “man dressed as crocodile”:

/GUI / Graphical User Interface/: a “re-presentation of the Adobe Photoshop interface within 3-Dimensional space” (or photoshop in a shadowbox).

/Jan Robert Leegte - Scrollbars/: “exploring the sculptural properties of internet browsers”.

/Google Paintings/:

“Google” Oil on canvas (100 * 81 cm.) 2001.

“Google Braille” acrylic on canvas (130 * 89 cm) January 4 2006.

*I had planned on making a smarty-pants reference to Isaac Newton in the subject, something about how these artists give virtual spaces mass/gravity, and are thus affected by the laws of mechanics… But I accidentally Newton-John’d it instead, apologies all around.

/GUI / Graphical User Interface/: a “re-presentation of the Adobe Photoshop interface within 3-Dimensional space” (or photoshop in a shadowbox).

/Jan Robert Leegte - Scrollbars/: “exploring the sculptural properties of internet browsers”.

/Google Paintings/:

“Google” Oil on canvas (100 * 81 cm.) 2001.

“Google Braille” acrylic on canvas (130 * 89 cm) January 4 2006.

*I had planned on making a smarty-pants reference to Isaac Newton in the subject, something about how these artists give virtual spaces mass/gravity, and are thus affected by the laws of mechanics… But I accidentally Newton-John’d it instead, apologies all around.

/GUI / Graphical User Interface/: a “re-presentation of the Adobe Photoshop interface within 3-Dimensional space” (or photoshop in a shadowbox).

/Jan Robert Leegte - Scrollbars/: “exploring the sculptural properties of internet browsers”.

/Google Paintings/:

“Google” Oil on canvas (100 * 81 cm.) 2001.

“Google Braille” acrylic on canvas (130 * 89 cm) January 4 2006.

*I had planned on making a smarty-pants reference to Isaac Newton in the subject, something about how these artists give virtual spaces mass/gravity, and are thus affected by the laws of mechanics… But I accidentally Newton-John’d it instead, apologies all around.

Google-talk (gchat) offers a menagerie of animated emoticons… it will rotate your smiley-faces and make them wink, turn your less-than-three into a pink heart, etc. But one animation has left me entirely mystified:

:(|) = [colon, open parentheses, pipe-key (shift+backslash), close parentheses] which is then rotated 90-degrees clockwise and filled in pink.

WHAT IS IT???

Perhaps we should observe each frame of its animation individually…

Stage 1: Directly after typing it in.

Stage 2: beginning rotation, at 45-degrees

Stage 3: end rotation, color-ized.

Hmm. Entirely unhelpful. Similarly, a google search of “:(|)” yielded zero results.

Using visual cues only, I can see a few possibilities:

• a clam with eyes
• a monkey
• a vagina with eyes
• a jim-crow-era minstrel illustration (let’s hope it’s not this one)
• some combination of the above: a monkey-clam, a blackface-vagina, etc.

Now, don’t get all “eureka! it’s a monkey-clam!” just yet… These options would seem feasible, that is, until you think about the meaning of the word “emoticon”.

According to wikipedia:

an emoticon is a small piece of specialized ASCII art (usually two to five characters, always on a single line) used in text messages as informal markup to indicate emotions and attitudes that would be conveyed by body language in face-to-face communications.

Trim away the definition-fat, and you get “an emoticon is a digital facial expression”.

When, we might wonder, would it be wise to respond to someone with a clam-face? or a monkey-face?

Friend X: “hey! how are you?”
Me: [makes a monkeyface]
Friend X: “ohhh…would you like a piece of my banana?”
Me: [makes monkeyface, again]
Friend X: “huh, you want me to groom your scalp for lice?”
Me: [another monkeyface, but with frustration at its inability to accurately and specifically express how I feel]
Friend X: “alright, we can watch Project X again!”

I am completely stumped. Help?