Carrie McLaren is a guest blogger at Boing Boing and coauthor of Ad Nauseam: A Survivor's Guide to American Consumer Culture. She lives in Brooklyn, the former home of her… Read the rest of the article: American eugenics movement archives

Carrie McLaren is a guest blogger at Boing Boing and coauthor of Ad Nauseam: A Survivor's Guide to American Consumer Culture. She lives in Brooklyn, the former home of her… Read the rest of the article: Free online archive of vintage TV commercials

I originally scanned these images from yet another old 1970s Popular Science from my big stack purely for aesthetic reasons: these illustrations, out of context, are baffling and oddly appealing.

I was looking at this old video I made with my old comedy group, the Van Gogh-Goghs and thought, "you know who might get a kick out of this? The internet. So I hope you enjoy. Also, it's sorta NSFW, so I'm posting it on Saturday, the Day of No Rules. Thanks!

Carrie McLaren is a guest blogger at Boing Boing and coauthor of Ad Nauseam: A Survivor's Guide to American Consumer Culture. She lives in Brooklyn, the former home of her… Read the rest of the article: India plans reform school for monkeys

Normally, the sign for a driving school isn't the sort of thing that haunts your mind, drawing you deeper and deeper into its depths, trying to puzzle out a narrative from its teasingly specific set of clues. A muffler shop, maybe, but not a driving school.

Ulak-Tartysh, for those of you not familiar with carcass-based sports, is essentially polo played with the headless body of a dead goat. It's popular in Central Asia, and especially in Kyrgyzstan, which is where this fascinating game hails from. This one appears to have been built in 1983, at some state-run electronics factory in the city of Mailuu-Suu. The coin slots say "15 Kopeks," but I think at that time all the USSR satellite states used that denomination.

Carrie McLaren is a guest blogger at Boing Boing and coauthor of Ad Nauseam: A Survivor's Guide to American Consumer Culture. She lives in Brooklyn, the former home of her… Read the rest of the article: Sex Education for the mentally handicapped

Artist Heidi Cody makes all kinds of crazy work using corporate mascots and scenes of nature as portrayed on grocery store packaging. With collaborator Pete Beeman, she currently has this… Read the rest of the article: Artist Heidi Cody and her grocery store mascot mutiny

On my way to my neighborhood auto parts store one morning, I saw a diminutive, shabby, bearded man standing by the side of the road with an armload of papers. As I approached, I saw a sign: "$1 Stories." Excited, I fished a dollar out from my pants somewhere and handed it to him out the window; I think he fanned out his stack of stories to let me pick, but he may have just handed me one at random. I can't really remember, and it doesn't matter, since so far everything I've read of his has been great in its own odd way.

So, here we have President Malcom J. Roebuck telling me, with a look of dead-eyed seriousness, that I can make $25 to $100 per hour by making and selling l "metal pin-back badges" made with his $35 button crimper doohickey. Let's use his own figures here and break down exactly what it would take in the "profitable badge and button business" to make this $25 to $100/hour.

Carrie McLaren is a guest blogger at Boing Boing and coauthor of Ad Nauseam: A Survivor's Guide to American Consumer Culture. She lives in Brooklyn, the former home of her… Read the rest of the article: Monkey suspected in garden store heist

I'm not sure what I like more, that you can get a miniature Bible or a set of Rosaries for 50¢, or that this is owned by a company called "Impulse Amusements". You know, for when you find it impulsively amusing to have the blood of Christ wash away your sins.

Carrie McLaren is a guest blogger at Boing Boing and coauthor of Ad Nauseam: A Survivor's Guide to American Consumer Culture. She lives in Brooklyn, the former home of her… Read the rest of the article: Mexican melodrama spoof "Uso Justo"

Carrie McLaren is a guest blogger at Boing Boing and coauthor of Ad Nauseam: A Survivor's Guide to American Consumer Culture. She lives in Brooklyn, the former home of her… Read the rest of the article: Readings on ambivalent parenting

Wow. Grey's Anatomy, the video game? That would be like if there was a Trapper John, MD video game back in the 80s. Maybe it's because I haven't really watched that show, but it's hard to wrap my head around how something like this would work. Do you shake the Wiimote to… have relationship problems? Push the B button to trigger self-doubt about your abilities as a doctor?

sually when we look back with smug amusement at technology from the past, the size-related thing that makes us chuckle is how large everything was. The old cellphones that were like holding a lunchbox to your face, the Walkmen that were like carry-on bags– but we shouldn't forget the joy that comes from laughing at things that now seem too small.

Carrie McLaren is a guest blogger at Boing Boing and coauthor of Ad Nauseam: A Survivor's Guide to American Consumer Culture. She lives in Brooklyn, the former home of her… Read the rest of the article: Flashback to 1968: Rolling Stone attacks the counterculture

Jason Torchinsky is a guest blogger on Boing Boing. Jason has a book out now, Ad Nauseam: A Survivor's Guide to American Consumer Culture. He lives in Los Angeles, where… Read the rest of the article: A Few Questions

Now, this is confusing for many reasons. Most obviously, why does that gothed-out hotula want me to advertise my church so badly? I swear, she's looking right at me. When you click the ad, you end up here, which is a part of Truth Advertising, a direct-mail marketing company that specializes in churc