December 5, 2008
November 10, 2008
November 9, 2008
September 9, 2008
I'm having a little problem with Fancy Nancy...
Fancy Nancy's hilarious half-hour program Fancy Nancy's Funny Hour takes you into the apartment and life of the childlike Fancy Nancy, whose real name is Faryl Millet. Reminiscent of Pee-wee in Pee-wee's Playhouse, the fresh-faced hostess introduces you to her friends: Four Year Fred, a sassy stuffed bunny; Hula, a dancing doll; and The Source, her plastic horse who answers all her questions like a Magic 8-Ball. Fancy Nancy dances around in pajamas, cooking and laughing, perpetually on a search for her signature red glasses. The show is produced, written, conceived, filmed and edited by Millet, and the low-tech production adds to its charm. "I have a camera, and then I put the camera on stools and sometimes stools on stools! It's precarious, to say the very least," she says. Music from her and her boyfriend Nick's iTunes- collection -- Leonard Cohen, Kraftwerk, Disney tunes -- makes up the soundtrack for the "dance breaks."
Millet is a graduate of NYU's Experimental Theatre Wing. Like Sacha Baron Cohen when portraying Borat, Millet will only respond to you in character. She has lively MySpace and YouTube pages, and replies to any fans who send her an e-mail (she gets hundreds of them). She especially loves to be invited to parties. Keep an eye on Fancy Nancy -- you never know what she might do next. Fancy Nancy's Funny Hour airs Mondays at midnight and Wednesdays at 10:30 p.m. on MNN.
Drew Elliott from PaperMag.com
Marc Horowitz Improves America
SF Artist, Marc Horowitz, on one of his many stops on his 'Improve America Tour.'
AMA!
From Crackle:
AMA!
September 3, 2008
August 28, 2008
Toothbeef Sandwhich! by Jimmy Joe Roche
From the music video director of Dan Deacon films(including Ultimate Reality)...
Frighteningly Refreshing!
AMA!
Frighteningly Refreshing!
AMA!
August 10, 2008
July 28, 2008
July 27, 2008
Evan Hick's Dad!
Ev's Dad gets a shout out from UCI's Kathyrn Boyd!
http://www.uci.edu/images/2008_08_04_hicks4_c.jpg
Ecology & evolutionary biology professor
‘WALL-E’ and the professor
Biologist James Hicks plays a behind-the-scenes role in Disney/Pixar’s popular animated movie (07.23.2008)
For three years, ecology & evolutionary biology professor James Hicks kept his colleagues, friends and even his wife in suspense about a top-secret movie he was involved in with Disney/Pixar studios. Was the project related to the tanks of young alligators Hicks keeps in his lab, they wondered? Something to do with his pythons, perhaps?
When the movie premiered June 23, they finally got their answer – and it was something of a surprise. Hicks worked as a consultant on “WALL-E,” an animated love story featuring not alligators or snakes – but robots.
Given that Hicks studies the cardiopulmonary systems of air-breathing vertebrates (he’s studying alligators because their hearts have four chambers instead of the standard reptilian three), one would think he’d be better suited to consulting on a remake of “The Jungle Book.” Instead, “WALL-E” producers sought his input on a different scientific topic: the long-term effect of microgravity, or weightlessness, on human physiology.
In the movie, humans have literally trashed the Earth and they’ve been floating around in a spaceship – a kind of zero-gravity Carnival Cruise – for 700 years.
“You have to consider that microgravity results in the loss of 1 percent bone density per month, and 2 percent muscle mass per week,” Hicks says. “From that, you can extrapolate the effects on human beings after that long a period in space.”
His scientific conclusion?
“They’d look like blobs,” he says.
Hicks happened to mention as much to the movie crew, and how humans in a weightless environment would have atrophied to the point that they could hardly lift a finger without the help of robots. When interviewed recently on National Public Radio, “WALL-E” director Andrew Stanton said Hicks’ analysis influenced the film’s portrayal of humans as bloated babies.
Hicks, whose name appears in the movie credits under “Special Thanks,” landed his plum assignment “by happenstance.” In the fall of 2005, the producers called Adam Summers, associate professor of ecology & evolutionary biology, who served as a technical consultant for “Finding Nemo.” Summers figured Hicks would be the better resource, knowing he was interested in the effects of gravity on the circulatory system.
“They didn’t want the No. 1 expert in the field, they wanted someone knowledgeable who could distill the information,” says Hicks, who delivered a two-hour plus lecture to the crew – a role he’s used to as a UCI professor.
When he saw the finished movie, Hicks gave it two thumbs up – but he couldn’t help but critique it with a scientist’s eye. He noticed, for instance, that the spaceship did not have a completely zero-gravity environment – because people fall off their chairs.
“But they could have had an artificial gravity device,” he reasons.
Since the movie’s release, Disney/Pixar has called on Hicks again, asking him to defend the studios against some filmgoers’ complaints that the movie ridicules obese people.
“The atrophied limbs and weight gain are just a response to not being able to move around,” Hicks says. “We didn’t even touch on what would happen to humans who were exposed to cosmic rays for 700 years.”
That’s a topic for another movie.
— Kathryn Bold, University Communications
- - - - -- - - -- - - -
Looks like KB has a crush on our old friend...
http://www.uci.edu/images/2008_08_04_hicks4_c.jpg
Ecology & evolutionary biology professor
‘WALL-E’ and the professor
Biologist James Hicks plays a behind-the-scenes role in Disney/Pixar’s popular animated movie (07.23.2008)
For three years, ecology & evolutionary biology professor James Hicks kept his colleagues, friends and even his wife in suspense about a top-secret movie he was involved in with Disney/Pixar studios. Was the project related to the tanks of young alligators Hicks keeps in his lab, they wondered? Something to do with his pythons, perhaps?
When the movie premiered June 23, they finally got their answer – and it was something of a surprise. Hicks worked as a consultant on “WALL-E,” an animated love story featuring not alligators or snakes – but robots.
Given that Hicks studies the cardiopulmonary systems of air-breathing vertebrates (he’s studying alligators because their hearts have four chambers instead of the standard reptilian three), one would think he’d be better suited to consulting on a remake of “The Jungle Book.” Instead, “WALL-E” producers sought his input on a different scientific topic: the long-term effect of microgravity, or weightlessness, on human physiology.
In the movie, humans have literally trashed the Earth and they’ve been floating around in a spaceship – a kind of zero-gravity Carnival Cruise – for 700 years.
“You have to consider that microgravity results in the loss of 1 percent bone density per month, and 2 percent muscle mass per week,” Hicks says. “From that, you can extrapolate the effects on human beings after that long a period in space.”
His scientific conclusion?
“They’d look like blobs,” he says.
Hicks happened to mention as much to the movie crew, and how humans in a weightless environment would have atrophied to the point that they could hardly lift a finger without the help of robots. When interviewed recently on National Public Radio, “WALL-E” director Andrew Stanton said Hicks’ analysis influenced the film’s portrayal of humans as bloated babies.
Hicks, whose name appears in the movie credits under “Special Thanks,” landed his plum assignment “by happenstance.” In the fall of 2005, the producers called Adam Summers, associate professor of ecology & evolutionary biology, who served as a technical consultant for “Finding Nemo.” Summers figured Hicks would be the better resource, knowing he was interested in the effects of gravity on the circulatory system.
“They didn’t want the No. 1 expert in the field, they wanted someone knowledgeable who could distill the information,” says Hicks, who delivered a two-hour plus lecture to the crew – a role he’s used to as a UCI professor.
When he saw the finished movie, Hicks gave it two thumbs up – but he couldn’t help but critique it with a scientist’s eye. He noticed, for instance, that the spaceship did not have a completely zero-gravity environment – because people fall off their chairs.
“But they could have had an artificial gravity device,” he reasons.
Since the movie’s release, Disney/Pixar has called on Hicks again, asking him to defend the studios against some filmgoers’ complaints that the movie ridicules obese people.
“The atrophied limbs and weight gain are just a response to not being able to move around,” Hicks says. “We didn’t even touch on what would happen to humans who were exposed to cosmic rays for 700 years.”
That’s a topic for another movie.
— Kathryn Bold, University Communications
- - - - -- - - -- - - -
Looks like KB has a crush on our old friend...
July 17, 2008
This one is for Tim Mosunich!
Via: Fecal Face!
I don't understand why the host has an alternate personality that not's quite rock, but not cheesy lounge hip-hop when he puts on his glasses.
AMA!
I don't understand why the host has an alternate personality that not's quite rock, but not cheesy lounge hip-hop when he puts on his glasses.
AMA!
July 15, 2008
Daytrotter Session: Panther
It looks like Daytrotter Session is acting like La Blogtheque.
Panther- No Control(Driving a Car)
Panther- No Control(Driving a Car)
KXLU Show List (Revised)
Concert Calendar: July 14-July 20
Things don't look to amazing...
Wednesday July 16:
• Rolling Blackouts, The Monolators, The Growlers, Spider Problem @ The Echo
•
Friday July 18:
• Wolf Parade @ The Henry Fonda
• Earlimart, The Movies, Hocus Pocus @ Spaceland
• Jon Brion @ Largo at the Coronet
• White Rainbow, White Fang, Lateral Hyetography, Tom Watson, David Scott Stone, Rob Walmart @ Echo Curio
• NAS @ The Roxy
• Whitman @ The Smell
Saturday July 19:
• HARD Summer Music Festival @ Shrine Auditorium
• Wolf Parade @ The Henry Fonda
• The Long Winters @ Spaceland
Sunday July 20:
• Feist, Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings, Pacifika @ Hollywood Bowl
• Download 2008 @ Gibson Amphitheater
• A Hawk and a Hacksaw @ Echoplex
AMA!
Things don't look to amazing...
Wednesday July 16:
• Rolling Blackouts, The Monolators, The Growlers, Spider Problem @ The Echo
•
Friday July 18:
• Wolf Parade @ The Henry Fonda
• Earlimart, The Movies, Hocus Pocus @ Spaceland
• Jon Brion @ Largo at the Coronet
• White Rainbow, White Fang, Lateral Hyetography, Tom Watson, David Scott Stone, Rob Walmart @ Echo Curio
• NAS @ The Roxy
• Whitman @ The Smell
Saturday July 19:
• HARD Summer Music Festival @ Shrine Auditorium
• Wolf Parade @ The Henry Fonda
• The Long Winters @ Spaceland
Sunday July 20:
• Feist, Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings, Pacifika @ Hollywood Bowl
• Download 2008 @ Gibson Amphitheater
• A Hawk and a Hacksaw @ Echoplex
AMA!
July 13, 2008
Furthermore...
"The fact is that one moves through life like someone moving with a lantern in a dark woods. A bit of the path ahead is illuminated, and a bit of the path behind. But the darkness follows hard on one's footsteps...We are, toward the end of our lives, such different people, so far from the childhood figures with whom our identity links us, that the bond to those figures, like that of nations to their obscure prehistoric origins, is almost irrelevant."
George F. Kennan, Memoirs 1925-1950
George F. Kennan, Memoirs 1925-1950
July 12, 2008
"Step Away from the Insulin."
Stomp, urinate, and burn your history books like you're an autistic kid repulsed by the sensation of clothing touching your skin.
Like a grown man living on nothing but oh-so sweet otter pops, modern culture has grown inert and lazy. Our culture is in a diabetic coma.
It is time to defile what we hold so dear to us: History. The Past. Nostalgia.
Dependence on our predeccessors' success. Faith in past-influenced structures.
Every generation deserves the right to practice, excercise, and explore alternative forms of human organization and communication. It is crucial that we break away from any association with history as a pillar of our national and individual identities. We need to solve historical problems with our own current knowledge because they are our own unique burdens.
A rant by: AMA! 07.12.08
Like a grown man living on nothing but oh-so sweet otter pops, modern culture has grown inert and lazy. Our culture is in a diabetic coma.
It is time to defile what we hold so dear to us: History. The Past. Nostalgia.
Dependence on our predeccessors' success. Faith in past-influenced structures.
Every generation deserves the right to practice, excercise, and explore alternative forms of human organization and communication. It is crucial that we break away from any association with history as a pillar of our national and individual identities. We need to solve historical problems with our own current knowledge because they are our own unique burdens.
A rant by: AMA! 07.12.08
July 10, 2008
African Vintage
this is the preview for a documentary made by a crazy German dj who went to Africa for a few years just to sift through vinyl. if you haven't yet, go peep his ridiculous mixes at http://voodoofunk.blogspot.com/. pretty insane sounds and ridiculous sleeves like the one above
typograffiti
i am pretty sure there is already a prominent graffiti writer named after possibly my favorite sans serif... but all this talk of fonts reminded me about this project i did in like winter quarter of 2005 in school up in seattle honoring my favorite font... i cant find the actual project at the moment, but i did find this picture on my flickr and i wish i still had this stencil... when i was in japan there was this store that sold kinda kooky t-shirts a'la threadless called graniph... and theres this pink hoodie that just says 'helvetica' on it, and even though i think futura is a cooler font, i would sport it... they have it in green for guys now.. heres the girls one... i should have just splurged and paid the ¥5,000 when i had the chance...
frank chimero
i'm pretty smitten with the work of frank chimero... he has a nice organic pen and ink illustration style that isn't lost when its polished up on the computer... clean and simple excecution... classssssy.
i really dig these sweet kind of motivational design graphics... ive been meaning to print this one out that i posted here and put it up on my wall. heck, if i was a tattoo kind of guy id get this tattooed on me somewhere, because it would probably save me from more than a few situations, design and otherwise... i also kind of want the entire garamond character set inked on my back... but i think its kind of late for that... oh well... what font character set would you have on your back? please dont say sand... man i just saw this movie... letters from iwo jima... really good, but what the heck would make you want to use the sand font for the title credits?!
postscript: its really hard to choose just one of his works.. they are siiiiiick... check out his flickr stream too, theres just too much good stuff...
July 9, 2008
lust and likeability (according to eye magazine)
#67 eye magazine recently did a typeface critique of "elegant, chunky, nervy, bookish, perfumed" typefaces. 95 designers were contacted to rank and rate a long list of typefaces, and this is a sample of what they came up with...
(click on the images to enlarge)
(click on the images to enlarge)
Oy-veh. These times are bleak.
A speech by Daniel Cofeen: Professor of Rhetoric at Berkeley
Monday, May 19, 2008
My Speech to the Graduates, v2
I want to talk to you today about pleasure.
Pleasure demands a certain slowness, a lingering, a languoring. You have to savor the complex palate of the tequila, let the emphatic umph of the Uni play across your tongue, lay in bed and nibble your sweetie's nape—slowly, very, very slowly. You need to take the time when you write to find the proper phrase, rhythm, figure. You have to let your mind and prose meander through and around and with an idea. You have to watch the great films once, twice, three times, a dozen times to truly appreciate them. You have to chew your food slowly, lay in the daytime sun, and enjoy your evening cocktail. You have to stroll, not run.
These are the things that are becoming increasingly difficult to come by. The America you inherit is an uncivil beast that moves at an ever more rapid clip, consuming dignity with spite. Take travel, one of the great luxuries of contemporary life. Travel has been stripped of its humanity as lines of people disrobe before disgruntled strangers. And when you question this degradation, this humiliation, you are told it's all for your own good. And, at times, you may actually believe that.
Do you understand what I just said? You actually believe that it is in your own best interest to be humiliated and degraded. This is how far we've come, how degraded we are, how terribly awry we've gone. Our fear has become such that we abandon the very things that make us human, the very things that bring us joy, the very things that make life livable: pleasure, civility, dignity.
Now take this thing we call work, this thing that causes you such great anxiety. And it should—but for different reasons. In today's America, a job demands you be at the office at a given place and time, usually quite early, and 5 days a week, regardless of how well you slept. You go to your inevitably gray cubicle beneath fluorescent lights and situate yourselves in front of a blue screen. This is exactly how I'd describe a prison—a fucking prison! None of this is healthy, physically or mentally. You talk to a variety of people, many of whom are boring, stupid, and incompetent if not cruel, stupid, and resentful. You spend time in meetings ill run at best, hate filled at worst. You grab some overly salted food for lunch, eat it at your computer, and spend the rest of the day dehydrated and bloated with gas. Perhaps you seek the restroom as a respite, a place to pass gas in peace or at least have some solitude. No such luck. The bathrooms are public and so you piss and shit and fart next to your office mates before you head back to your now stinky cubicle, bloated and thirsty.
Work is an elaborate holocaust of dignity.
This used to be a 40 hour a week assignment—40 of your best hours spent uncomfortably gaseous, helping make some moron you'll never meet richer than he already is. This 40 hour exercise in humiliation has become 50, 60, 70 hours long. I'm not making this up. The dot com revolution broke down the line separating work from play—so now you work all day long. You can wear jeans, have your nose pierced, and listen to Black Metal music. Work doesn't care—as long as you work.
You've been co-opted, children. The machine of work realized that it doesn't care if your tongue is pierced or tattoos line your flesh. They don't give a shit; they just want your warm body working. They even give you ping pong and foosball and let you have a beer now and again. And you think you're the one who came out ahead! You're working 60 hours a week and you think you won! The Google campus is hailed as liberation because they serve you lunch! Even prisoners on death row get fucking lunch. We are dead men walking, Starbucks infused zombies.
This is today's America. There's no room for rebellion as every effort to resist gets folded into the machine. All the avenues of resistance have been co-opted—poetry, fashion, music, even drugs as the pharmaceuticals replace the acid labs as the suppliers of your high. Look what's happened to the green movement: Clorox runs ads claiming to be green. We drive so-called green cars. Green cars! That's an oxymoron. You want to be green? Stop driving, you morons!
America is an ugly, cruel beast. Dropping bombs on Arabs is not the disease, it's the symptom. It's time to get creative in our revolts.
But as big and stupid and mean as America is, it's also big. And this gives us some room to operate. Maybe not for long as robotic drones fill the skies, leaving nothing unseen. But, for now, there is room. You don't have to walk mindlessly into this mire. There are options. Consider Alexander Supertramp, who burned his money and his i.d. and headed into the wilderness. Or Dorian "Doc" Paskowitz, a onetime physician who in the 1950s quit his practice, dropped out of the mainstream and raised a family while living a nomadic surfing lifestyle. All 11 people in the family—the parents and nine children—lived in a trailer, ate organic food, roamed the country, and surfed. The kids were home-schooled; they celebrated the Jewish sabbath every Friday night.
That's right, you heard me: these are Jews. And if a nice Jewish boy can do it, you certainly can.
Or take Mike Reynolds, an architect before the Feds stripped him of his license. He builds houses off the grid, that generate their own electricity, have their own sewage, and live off of the water that falls from the sky. He's been harassed and sued and arrested. But he's still going, making it possible to live free of the mayhem. And it's not just that these houses are actually environmentally sustainable, which they are, it's that they make life—your life—sustainable.
You have to get creative in your tactics. You have to demand your pleasure. Because the world you're inheriting is hell bent on disallowing you your life. You have to create the time to savor this life, to deflect the time-soul-life suck of what we call the real world. But it isn't the real world; it's the cruel world. You can make a more palatable real world, a world worth living in, living for, a world capable of sustaining life.
Demand your pleasure.
Posted by Daniel Coffeen at 5:32 PM 10 comments
Monday, May 19, 2008
My Speech to the Graduates, v2
I want to talk to you today about pleasure.
Pleasure demands a certain slowness, a lingering, a languoring. You have to savor the complex palate of the tequila, let the emphatic umph of the Uni play across your tongue, lay in bed and nibble your sweetie's nape—slowly, very, very slowly. You need to take the time when you write to find the proper phrase, rhythm, figure. You have to let your mind and prose meander through and around and with an idea. You have to watch the great films once, twice, three times, a dozen times to truly appreciate them. You have to chew your food slowly, lay in the daytime sun, and enjoy your evening cocktail. You have to stroll, not run.
These are the things that are becoming increasingly difficult to come by. The America you inherit is an uncivil beast that moves at an ever more rapid clip, consuming dignity with spite. Take travel, one of the great luxuries of contemporary life. Travel has been stripped of its humanity as lines of people disrobe before disgruntled strangers. And when you question this degradation, this humiliation, you are told it's all for your own good. And, at times, you may actually believe that.
Do you understand what I just said? You actually believe that it is in your own best interest to be humiliated and degraded. This is how far we've come, how degraded we are, how terribly awry we've gone. Our fear has become such that we abandon the very things that make us human, the very things that bring us joy, the very things that make life livable: pleasure, civility, dignity.
Now take this thing we call work, this thing that causes you such great anxiety. And it should—but for different reasons. In today's America, a job demands you be at the office at a given place and time, usually quite early, and 5 days a week, regardless of how well you slept. You go to your inevitably gray cubicle beneath fluorescent lights and situate yourselves in front of a blue screen. This is exactly how I'd describe a prison—a fucking prison! None of this is healthy, physically or mentally. You talk to a variety of people, many of whom are boring, stupid, and incompetent if not cruel, stupid, and resentful. You spend time in meetings ill run at best, hate filled at worst. You grab some overly salted food for lunch, eat it at your computer, and spend the rest of the day dehydrated and bloated with gas. Perhaps you seek the restroom as a respite, a place to pass gas in peace or at least have some solitude. No such luck. The bathrooms are public and so you piss and shit and fart next to your office mates before you head back to your now stinky cubicle, bloated and thirsty.
Work is an elaborate holocaust of dignity.
This used to be a 40 hour a week assignment—40 of your best hours spent uncomfortably gaseous, helping make some moron you'll never meet richer than he already is. This 40 hour exercise in humiliation has become 50, 60, 70 hours long. I'm not making this up. The dot com revolution broke down the line separating work from play—so now you work all day long. You can wear jeans, have your nose pierced, and listen to Black Metal music. Work doesn't care—as long as you work.
You've been co-opted, children. The machine of work realized that it doesn't care if your tongue is pierced or tattoos line your flesh. They don't give a shit; they just want your warm body working. They even give you ping pong and foosball and let you have a beer now and again. And you think you're the one who came out ahead! You're working 60 hours a week and you think you won! The Google campus is hailed as liberation because they serve you lunch! Even prisoners on death row get fucking lunch. We are dead men walking, Starbucks infused zombies.
This is today's America. There's no room for rebellion as every effort to resist gets folded into the machine. All the avenues of resistance have been co-opted—poetry, fashion, music, even drugs as the pharmaceuticals replace the acid labs as the suppliers of your high. Look what's happened to the green movement: Clorox runs ads claiming to be green. We drive so-called green cars. Green cars! That's an oxymoron. You want to be green? Stop driving, you morons!
America is an ugly, cruel beast. Dropping bombs on Arabs is not the disease, it's the symptom. It's time to get creative in our revolts.
But as big and stupid and mean as America is, it's also big. And this gives us some room to operate. Maybe not for long as robotic drones fill the skies, leaving nothing unseen. But, for now, there is room. You don't have to walk mindlessly into this mire. There are options. Consider Alexander Supertramp, who burned his money and his i.d. and headed into the wilderness. Or Dorian "Doc" Paskowitz, a onetime physician who in the 1950s quit his practice, dropped out of the mainstream and raised a family while living a nomadic surfing lifestyle. All 11 people in the family—the parents and nine children—lived in a trailer, ate organic food, roamed the country, and surfed. The kids were home-schooled; they celebrated the Jewish sabbath every Friday night.
That's right, you heard me: these are Jews. And if a nice Jewish boy can do it, you certainly can.
Or take Mike Reynolds, an architect before the Feds stripped him of his license. He builds houses off the grid, that generate their own electricity, have their own sewage, and live off of the water that falls from the sky. He's been harassed and sued and arrested. But he's still going, making it possible to live free of the mayhem. And it's not just that these houses are actually environmentally sustainable, which they are, it's that they make life—your life—sustainable.
You have to get creative in your tactics. You have to demand your pleasure. Because the world you're inheriting is hell bent on disallowing you your life. You have to create the time to savor this life, to deflect the time-soul-life suck of what we call the real world. But it isn't the real world; it's the cruel world. You can make a more palatable real world, a world worth living in, living for, a world capable of sustaining life.
Demand your pleasure.
Posted by Daniel Coffeen at 5:32 PM 10 comments
July 8, 2008
Maybe I should just build bikes.
I know I probably dont have the technical proficiency, engineering knowledge or even the physical strength, let alone the money... but I think maybe instead of finishing an undergraduate degree, I should just spend that money and time learning to make bike and repair bike frames. If only my Jewish high school had metal shop. Theres always the United Bike Institute in Ashland, OR... that sounds pretty sick! How cool would it be to be able to make bikes for your friends? Check out this Moyer Cycles guy... he adds all sorts of sick details to his frames...
July 7, 2008
If I had more money, I'd spend a bunch of it on fonts.
So I was in LA today riding around on my bike when I came across a decent free magazine that I'd never heard of before. While flipping through it, I came across an ad for one of my favorite type foundries... House Industries. They have some radical fonts!!! I hope everyone will someday know the pleasure of finally finding a radical font for a job [I think thats the correct technical term? You know, not your job job.] or design assignment. I wish I could just hand letter like that! Although, being a graphic designer back in the time of paste-ups and hand lettering would be way more work there are just so many times when I wish I could bust out some hand drawn type. Limitless permutations of sweet sweet letter forms.
Check out this ampersand sculpture! I hecka want one!
Man, now I feel weird.
Check out this ampersand sculpture! I hecka want one!
Man, now I feel weird.
Graffiti Research Lab
Well, whats up doodz. Check out the radical Open Source project(s) of the inimitable GRL. They have masterminded many a sweet project in relation to public art, graffiti and free speech... g'wan and check it out at graffitiresearchlab.com!
My favorite project of theirs is this killer bike sound system called the Audio Tricycle... not really physical, but audio, graffiti... I've always wanted to do this with a sweet dub mixtape and a bmx bike!!!
I also think this Laser Tagging deal is pretty sick... its been around for a while, so chances are you've seen it... but nevertheless it's a neat DIY movement.
My favorite project of theirs is this killer bike sound system called the Audio Tricycle... not really physical, but audio, graffiti... I've always wanted to do this with a sweet dub mixtape and a bmx bike!!!
I also think this Laser Tagging deal is pretty sick... its been around for a while, so chances are you've seen it... but nevertheless it's a neat DIY movement.
July 6, 2008
LA, OC: The Shows!
Recommended Shows for Los Angeles(07.07-07.14):
(As found on Ohmyrockness, LA)
Mon 7/07, 9:00 PM
Captain Ahab, Brain Sander, Cabinet of Natural Curiosities, Kevin Shields
Pehrspace, All Ages, $5
Mon 7/07, 9:00 PM
Yellow Swans, Black Black
The Smell, All Ages, $5
Tilly & The Wall, Castledoor
The Echo (Echoplex) 18+ $16
Thu 7/10, 8:30 PM
King Khan & The Shrines, The Jacuzzi Boys
The Echo All Ages $12
Sat 7/12, 8:00 PM
Hieroglyphics, Blue Scholars, Knobody, Musab, Prince Ali
El Rey Theatre, All Ages, $20
Sat 7/12, 9:00 PM
RTX, Earthless, Bad Dudes
Spaceland, 21+, $10
Sat 7/12, 8:30 PM
Ratatat
The Echo (Echoplex), 18+, $20
Sun 7/13, 9:00 PM
Tunnelmantal Experimental Assembly, Ape Has Killed Ape, The May Fire:
Spaceland, 21+, free
Sun 7/13, 8:00 PM
Matmos, Wobbly, Dub Lab DJs
The Echo, 18+, $17
Orange County:
Jul 8 2008, 8:00P
Forty Lashes (on tour), Not A Chance, Stupid Flanders...
@ eVocal, $5?
SPECIAL FEATURE:
Acrobatics Everyday Presents: (Call me for more info: 949.683.3228)
TUESDAY JULY 8TH 2008
MUTATORS
METH TEETH
CHRISTMAS ISLAND
PARTY FOWL SPRAWL OUT
@ TBA | 8PM | $5
Jul 11 2008, 7:00P:
Will Koffman opening reception
@ eVocal, Free?
BAH! The Clinic AND Sol Art Gallery Café are both closed for the time being.
(As found on Ohmyrockness, LA)
Mon 7/07, 9:00 PM
Captain Ahab, Brain Sander, Cabinet of Natural Curiosities, Kevin Shields
Pehrspace, All Ages, $5
Mon 7/07, 9:00 PM
Yellow Swans, Black Black
The Smell, All Ages, $5
Tilly & The Wall, Castledoor
The Echo (Echoplex) 18+ $16
Thu 7/10, 8:30 PM
King Khan & The Shrines, The Jacuzzi Boys
The Echo All Ages $12
Sat 7/12, 8:00 PM
Hieroglyphics, Blue Scholars, Knobody, Musab, Prince Ali
El Rey Theatre, All Ages, $20
Sat 7/12, 9:00 PM
RTX, Earthless, Bad Dudes
Spaceland, 21+, $10
Sat 7/12, 8:30 PM
Ratatat
The Echo (Echoplex), 18+, $20
Sun 7/13, 9:00 PM
Tunnelmantal Experimental Assembly, Ape Has Killed Ape, The May Fire:
Spaceland, 21+, free
Sun 7/13, 8:00 PM
Matmos, Wobbly, Dub Lab DJs
The Echo, 18+, $17
Orange County:
Jul 8 2008, 8:00P
Forty Lashes (on tour), Not A Chance, Stupid Flanders...
@ eVocal, $5?
SPECIAL FEATURE:
Acrobatics Everyday Presents: (Call me for more info: 949.683.3228)
TUESDAY JULY 8TH 2008
MUTATORS
METH TEETH
CHRISTMAS ISLAND
PARTY FOWL SPRAWL OUT
@ TBA | 8PM | $5
Jul 11 2008, 7:00P:
Will Koffman opening reception
@ eVocal, Free?
BAH! The Clinic AND Sol Art Gallery Café are both closed for the time being.
Let's Get Serious...(and get a rad mixtape!)
Dear f(r)iends,
It's time to unionize our efforts to resurrect the potential of the internet; however, before we do that, I would like you to participate using our bitter lips and vulgar tongues to curse nostalgaic, diabetes-ridden, East Coast Professors. Our victim this time happens to be: Mark Bauerlein(Emory University, Atlanta).
Please read the L.A Times article(07.05.08) reviewing Baurelein's work, "The Dumbest Generation."I would like to hear your reactions to this topic and for you to also subscribe to this discussion.
In the near future, I will post certain excerpts from this outrageous work, to increase further dialogue. Hopefully, these conversations can inspire to improve the internet, but also improve the potential of this blog!
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
BOOK REVIEW
'The Dumbest Generation' by Mark Bauerlein
How dumb are we? Thanks to the Internet, dumb and dumber, this author writes.
By Lee Drutman, Special to The Times
July 5, 2008
In the four minutes it probably takes to read this review, you will have logged exactly half the time the average 15- to 24-year-old now spends reading each day. That is, if you even bother to finish. If you are perusing this on the Internet, the big block of text below probably seems daunting, maybe even boring. Who has the time? Besides, one of your Facebook friends might have just posted a status update!
Such is the kind of recklessly distracted impatience that makes Mark Bauerlein fear for his country. "As of 2008," the 49-year-old professor of English at Emory University writes in "The Dumbest Generation," "the intellectual future of the United States looks dim."
The way Bauerlein sees it, something new and disastrous has happened to America's youth with the arrival of the instant gratification go-go-go digital age. The result is, essentially, a collective loss of context and history, a neglect of "enduring ideas and conflicts." Survey after painstakingly recounted survey reveals what most of us already suspect: that America's youth know virtually nothing about history and politics. And no wonder. They have developed a "brazen disregard of books and reading."
Things were not supposed to be this way. After all, "never have the opportunities for education, learning, political action, and cultural activity been greater," writes Bauerlein, a former director of Research and Analysis at the National Endowment for the Arts. But somehow, he contends, the much-ballyhooed advances of this brave new world have not only failed to materialize -- they've actually made us dumber.
The problem is that instead of using the Web to learn about the wide world, young people instead mostly use it to gossip about each other and follow pop culture, relentlessly keeping up with the ever-shifting lingua franca of being cool in school. The two most popular websites by far among students are Facebook and MySpace. "Social life is a powerful temptation," Bauerlein explains, "and most teenagers feel the pain of missing out."
This ceaseless pipeline of peer-to-peer activity is worrisome, he argues, not only because it crowds out the more serious stuff but also because it strengthens what he calls the "pull of immaturity." Instead of connecting them with parents, teachers and other adult figures, "[t]he web . . . encourages more horizontal modeling, more raillery and mimicry of people the same age." When Bauerlein tells an audience of college students, "You are six times more likely to know who the latest American Idol is than you are to know who the speaker of the U.S. House is," a voice in the crowd tells him: " 'American Idol' IS more important."
Bauerlein also frets about the nature of the Internet itself, where people "seek out what they already hope to find, and they want it fast and free, with a minimum of effort." In entering a world where nobody ever has to stick with anything that bores or challenges them, "going online habituates them to juvenile mental habits."
And all this feeds on itself. Increasingly disconnected from the "adult" world of tradition, culture, history, context and the ability to sit down for more than five minutes with a book, today's digital generation is becoming insulated in its own stultifying cocoon of bad spelling, civic illiteracy and endless postings that hopelessly confuse triviality with transcendence. Two-thirds of U.S. undergraduates now score above average on the Narcissistic Personality Inventory, up 30% since 1982, he reports.
At fault is not just technology but also a newly indulgent attitude among parents, educators and other mentors, who, Bauerlein argues, lack the courage to risk "being labeled a curmudgeon and a reactionary."
But is he? The natural (and anticipated) response would indeed be to dismiss him as your archetypal cranky old professor who just can't understand why "kids these days" don't find Shakespeare as timeless as he always has. Such alarmism ignores the context and history he accuses the youth of lacking -- the fact that mass ignorance and apathy have always been widespread in anti-intellectual America, especially among the youth. Maybe something is different this time. But, of course. Something is different every time.
The book's ultimate doomsday scenario -- of a dull and self-absorbed new generation of citizens falling prey to demagoguery and brazen power grabs -- seems at once overblown (witness, for example, this election season's youth reengagement in politics) and also yesterday's news (haven't we always been perilously close to this, if not already suffering from it?). But amid the sometimes annoyingly frantic warning bells that ding throughout "The Dumbest Generation," there are also some keen insights into how the new digital world really is changing the way young people engage with information and the obstacles they face in integrating any of it meaningfully. These are insights that educators, parents and other adults ignore at their peril.
Lee Drutman is co-author of "The People's Business: Controlling Corporations and Restoring Democracy."
It's time to unionize our efforts to resurrect the potential of the internet; however, before we do that, I would like you to participate using our bitter lips and vulgar tongues to curse nostalgaic, diabetes-ridden, East Coast Professors. Our victim this time happens to be: Mark Bauerlein(Emory University, Atlanta).
Please read the L.A Times article(07.05.08) reviewing Baurelein's work, "The Dumbest Generation."I would like to hear your reactions to this topic and for you to also subscribe to this discussion.
In the near future, I will post certain excerpts from this outrageous work, to increase further dialogue. Hopefully, these conversations can inspire to improve the internet, but also improve the potential of this blog!
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
BOOK REVIEW
'The Dumbest Generation' by Mark Bauerlein
How dumb are we? Thanks to the Internet, dumb and dumber, this author writes.
By Lee Drutman, Special to The Times
July 5, 2008
In the four minutes it probably takes to read this review, you will have logged exactly half the time the average 15- to 24-year-old now spends reading each day. That is, if you even bother to finish. If you are perusing this on the Internet, the big block of text below probably seems daunting, maybe even boring. Who has the time? Besides, one of your Facebook friends might have just posted a status update!
Such is the kind of recklessly distracted impatience that makes Mark Bauerlein fear for his country. "As of 2008," the 49-year-old professor of English at Emory University writes in "The Dumbest Generation," "the intellectual future of the United States looks dim."
The way Bauerlein sees it, something new and disastrous has happened to America's youth with the arrival of the instant gratification go-go-go digital age. The result is, essentially, a collective loss of context and history, a neglect of "enduring ideas and conflicts." Survey after painstakingly recounted survey reveals what most of us already suspect: that America's youth know virtually nothing about history and politics. And no wonder. They have developed a "brazen disregard of books and reading."
Things were not supposed to be this way. After all, "never have the opportunities for education, learning, political action, and cultural activity been greater," writes Bauerlein, a former director of Research and Analysis at the National Endowment for the Arts. But somehow, he contends, the much-ballyhooed advances of this brave new world have not only failed to materialize -- they've actually made us dumber.
The problem is that instead of using the Web to learn about the wide world, young people instead mostly use it to gossip about each other and follow pop culture, relentlessly keeping up with the ever-shifting lingua franca of being cool in school. The two most popular websites by far among students are Facebook and MySpace. "Social life is a powerful temptation," Bauerlein explains, "and most teenagers feel the pain of missing out."
This ceaseless pipeline of peer-to-peer activity is worrisome, he argues, not only because it crowds out the more serious stuff but also because it strengthens what he calls the "pull of immaturity." Instead of connecting them with parents, teachers and other adult figures, "[t]he web . . . encourages more horizontal modeling, more raillery and mimicry of people the same age." When Bauerlein tells an audience of college students, "You are six times more likely to know who the latest American Idol is than you are to know who the speaker of the U.S. House is," a voice in the crowd tells him: " 'American Idol' IS more important."
Bauerlein also frets about the nature of the Internet itself, where people "seek out what they already hope to find, and they want it fast and free, with a minimum of effort." In entering a world where nobody ever has to stick with anything that bores or challenges them, "going online habituates them to juvenile mental habits."
And all this feeds on itself. Increasingly disconnected from the "adult" world of tradition, culture, history, context and the ability to sit down for more than five minutes with a book, today's digital generation is becoming insulated in its own stultifying cocoon of bad spelling, civic illiteracy and endless postings that hopelessly confuse triviality with transcendence. Two-thirds of U.S. undergraduates now score above average on the Narcissistic Personality Inventory, up 30% since 1982, he reports.
At fault is not just technology but also a newly indulgent attitude among parents, educators and other mentors, who, Bauerlein argues, lack the courage to risk "being labeled a curmudgeon and a reactionary."
But is he? The natural (and anticipated) response would indeed be to dismiss him as your archetypal cranky old professor who just can't understand why "kids these days" don't find Shakespeare as timeless as he always has. Such alarmism ignores the context and history he accuses the youth of lacking -- the fact that mass ignorance and apathy have always been widespread in anti-intellectual America, especially among the youth. Maybe something is different this time. But, of course. Something is different every time.
The book's ultimate doomsday scenario -- of a dull and self-absorbed new generation of citizens falling prey to demagoguery and brazen power grabs -- seems at once overblown (witness, for example, this election season's youth reengagement in politics) and also yesterday's news (haven't we always been perilously close to this, if not already suffering from it?). But amid the sometimes annoyingly frantic warning bells that ding throughout "The Dumbest Generation," there are also some keen insights into how the new digital world really is changing the way young people engage with information and the obstacles they face in integrating any of it meaningfully. These are insights that educators, parents and other adults ignore at their peril.
Lee Drutman is co-author of "The People's Business: Controlling Corporations and Restoring Democracy."
July 2, 2008
Olde English: Are we doing R. Kelly Again?
Superdeluxe.org has some great comedy troupes really making interesting, spastic programs!
The following is a bio, found other the website...
Olde English is a comedy group based in New York City.
In four years of performing, they have produced over a hundred short videos, and have performed at the U.S. Comedy Arts Festival in Aspen, the Chicago Sketch Comedy Festival, and the San Francisco Sketchfest. Their work has been featured on Good Morning America, MSNBC, and Entertainment Weekly's "Must List."
Olde English is Caleb Bark, Ben Popik, David Segal, Adam Conover, and Raphael Bob-Waksberg.
ø øø ø øø ø øø ø øø
Pretty Fun.
Good play on absurdist plays...
Another fun one!
The quality is a bitty shitty, but it has a nice Frisky Dingo feel to it...
The following is a bio, found other the website...
Olde English is a comedy group based in New York City.
In four years of performing, they have produced over a hundred short videos, and have performed at the U.S. Comedy Arts Festival in Aspen, the Chicago Sketch Comedy Festival, and the San Francisco Sketchfest. Their work has been featured on Good Morning America, MSNBC, and Entertainment Weekly's "Must List."
Olde English is Caleb Bark, Ben Popik, David Segal, Adam Conover, and Raphael Bob-Waksberg.
ø øø ø øø ø øø ø øø
Pretty Fun.
Good play on absurdist plays...
Another fun one!
The quality is a bitty shitty, but it has a nice Frisky Dingo feel to it...
Take that Cat Ladies...
Celebrities: If they were ugly...I mean Oklahomans...
Olsen Twins
B. Spears.
Can anybody guess who he is?
Olsen Twins
B. Spears.
Can anybody guess who he is?
July 1, 2008
i-D magazine and KAWS
KAWS guest edited this month's issue of i-D magazine and oh does it look good.
via kitsune noir
via kitsune noir
June 27, 2008
The Nature of the Beast
The Nature of the Beast- Stop Frame Animation, Music by Iain Woods
Directed by a talented man named James Dawe.
Click the title to see some other, non-animated works!
¡AMA te AMA!
Directed by a talented man named James Dawe.
Click the title to see some other, non-animated works!
¡AMA te AMA!
June 25, 2008
Reign on me!
Sorry, I haven't had access to a decent computer in about 2 months!
Can I make it up to you? Here's a zip file of one my now favorite djs, performers:
Kingdom- Club Vortex Mix 05.08
I am thinking of opening two new blogs:
-First, a diary of cultural theory
-Second, mixtape madness and eZ e.ps!
AMA!
Can I make it up to you? Here's a zip file of one my now favorite djs, performers:
Kingdom- Club Vortex Mix 05.08
I am thinking of opening two new blogs:
-First, a diary of cultural theory
-Second, mixtape madness and eZ e.ps!
AMA!
June 21, 2008
MUXTAPE.COM
cool site that lets you upload songs to mak eyour own streamable mixtape... check out mine!
June 14, 2008
June 11, 2008
Words from the funniest man I haven't met...
From Patton Oswalt's Website...
A WORD TO THE GRADUATES
5.25.2008
On June 18th I'm giving the commencement address at my old high school. They're located twenty minutes outside of Washington, D.C. They've got access to museum docents, Senators, Congressmen, political reporters and The Greaseman. But despite this deep pool of wisdom to draw from, they thought, "Let's get that fat dude who tells dick jokes to drunks."
I am truly flattered.
I've been knocking around what I'm going to say. I mean, I'm 39 years old. I'm lucky enough to count people like Michael Penn, Harlan Ellison and Carl Gottlieb as friends. These are people with true, hard-won wisdom slung from their gun belts. I'm armed with the equivalent of a cheap, Turkish Taser.
My wife, who's a year younger and eons smarter than me, found a transcription of David Foster Wallace's commencement address, which he made on May 21st, 2005 at Kenyon College.
I'm not going to reproduce it here; you can easily find it online. I've printed up a copy, and I carry it with me.
I'm suspicious of the phrase "life changing". I think people are a little too loose with that term. People like me. I used to be so aggressive about epiphanies, that I'd chase down the false, glittery ones and strangle 'em, while the true, shabbily-dressed spiritual kicks-in-the-head crept away in the background.
I did manage to trip over and fall into a few true ones, and I keep them close. Ross McElwee's film Sherman's March, as well as Hirokazu Koreeda's Afterlife. Stories like Harlan Ellison's "The Deathbird", John Collier's "The Chaser" and Wilbur Daniel Steele's "How Beautiful With Shoes". That week in the summer of 1991 when I first opened for Bill Hicks at Charlie Goodnight's. My first, disastrous set at the Holy City Zoo in the summer of 1992. Van Gogh's The Night Cafe. The Wire. Elvis Costello's This Year's Model. Erik Satie's Gymnopedes. My first meal at Aquavit in New York. Galway Harbour.
But David Foster Wallace's commencement speech has truly changed me. I think about it every day. Like Bernstein thinking of the girl on the ferry in Citizen Kane. It's changed me for the better.
I don't want to get too rapturous, since it's also caused a heap of panic and worry in me. Couldn't my wife have found the goddamn thing AFTER the speech I have to give?
"You have a guitar recital next week? Good for you! Hey, have you ever heard anything by Jimi Hendrix?"
Here's my rough draft, so far:
"Students and faculty of Broad Run High School, I greet you. I have been on television and in movies and been driven around in a limo and I have 'Weird' Al Yankovic on speed dial, so what I say is smart and helpful. You will listen now.
When you go out into the world as an adult, the first thing you must do is find the biggest, meanest adult and either punch him unconscious or stab him. In front of everyone. This will establish dominance and prevent you from being 'punked out', which you should have learned about in either calculus or AP English.
Having done this, you will be free to carve out your own destiny, a violent new map whose borders will be your blood and whose continents will be the ivory dust of your foes' powdered skulls. You might think you're working quietly at some cubicle in a Fairfax office park but I assure you, that cubicle is a raging necropolis where bony phantom hands reach through the tear-soaked carpeting to peel your soul into ribbons. Fashion a spiked club from a broom handle and a golf cleat and wade into the tomb-legions like a rebuking finger of righteousness.
You must also take a mate. Men, find a woman who is broad of hip, thick of calf and who possesses unctuous, swaying paps with which to feed your warrior-spawn, to strengthen them for the coming bone-storm. Women, should your man be of spavined chest and womanly fetlock, smother him on his fainting-couch, and use his rib cage to build a lantern, his fat as candle tallow, and his ligaments as a wick. Leave that lantern burning outside your door, to attract a lone wanderer, whose murder-mask and pelvic-cracking back muscles will assure you a brood of myrmidons.
Parents and faculty! Prostrate yourselves under the war-wheel that is this new generation, and let what few drops of life are left in your wasted, fly-blown hopes and dreams grease the engines of the future!
Seven faces in the jungle! The statue that walks! Who peers from out the shunned house?! An archway of bone! The skin on the old man's kettle drum has a face! The sleeper awakes! Amok! Amok!
(Patton tears off his robe, revealing himself to be naked, and wearing only a waist-belt studded with inward-facing nails. He tries to flee from the stage but a wound-like rift shudders open in the air beside him, and a monstrous, child-hand with eyes for fingernails reaches out and pulls him into the howling portal. Atonal piping music can be heard, then an ancient laugh, and the portal is gone.
The graduates throw their mortarboards into the air)
A WORD TO THE GRADUATES
5.25.2008
On June 18th I'm giving the commencement address at my old high school. They're located twenty minutes outside of Washington, D.C. They've got access to museum docents, Senators, Congressmen, political reporters and The Greaseman. But despite this deep pool of wisdom to draw from, they thought, "Let's get that fat dude who tells dick jokes to drunks."
I am truly flattered.
I've been knocking around what I'm going to say. I mean, I'm 39 years old. I'm lucky enough to count people like Michael Penn, Harlan Ellison and Carl Gottlieb as friends. These are people with true, hard-won wisdom slung from their gun belts. I'm armed with the equivalent of a cheap, Turkish Taser.
My wife, who's a year younger and eons smarter than me, found a transcription of David Foster Wallace's commencement address, which he made on May 21st, 2005 at Kenyon College.
I'm not going to reproduce it here; you can easily find it online. I've printed up a copy, and I carry it with me.
I'm suspicious of the phrase "life changing". I think people are a little too loose with that term. People like me. I used to be so aggressive about epiphanies, that I'd chase down the false, glittery ones and strangle 'em, while the true, shabbily-dressed spiritual kicks-in-the-head crept away in the background.
I did manage to trip over and fall into a few true ones, and I keep them close. Ross McElwee's film Sherman's March, as well as Hirokazu Koreeda's Afterlife. Stories like Harlan Ellison's "The Deathbird", John Collier's "The Chaser" and Wilbur Daniel Steele's "How Beautiful With Shoes". That week in the summer of 1991 when I first opened for Bill Hicks at Charlie Goodnight's. My first, disastrous set at the Holy City Zoo in the summer of 1992. Van Gogh's The Night Cafe. The Wire. Elvis Costello's This Year's Model. Erik Satie's Gymnopedes. My first meal at Aquavit in New York. Galway Harbour.
But David Foster Wallace's commencement speech has truly changed me. I think about it every day. Like Bernstein thinking of the girl on the ferry in Citizen Kane. It's changed me for the better.
I don't want to get too rapturous, since it's also caused a heap of panic and worry in me. Couldn't my wife have found the goddamn thing AFTER the speech I have to give?
"You have a guitar recital next week? Good for you! Hey, have you ever heard anything by Jimi Hendrix?"
Here's my rough draft, so far:
"Students and faculty of Broad Run High School, I greet you. I have been on television and in movies and been driven around in a limo and I have 'Weird' Al Yankovic on speed dial, so what I say is smart and helpful. You will listen now.
When you go out into the world as an adult, the first thing you must do is find the biggest, meanest adult and either punch him unconscious or stab him. In front of everyone. This will establish dominance and prevent you from being 'punked out', which you should have learned about in either calculus or AP English.
Having done this, you will be free to carve out your own destiny, a violent new map whose borders will be your blood and whose continents will be the ivory dust of your foes' powdered skulls. You might think you're working quietly at some cubicle in a Fairfax office park but I assure you, that cubicle is a raging necropolis where bony phantom hands reach through the tear-soaked carpeting to peel your soul into ribbons. Fashion a spiked club from a broom handle and a golf cleat and wade into the tomb-legions like a rebuking finger of righteousness.
You must also take a mate. Men, find a woman who is broad of hip, thick of calf and who possesses unctuous, swaying paps with which to feed your warrior-spawn, to strengthen them for the coming bone-storm. Women, should your man be of spavined chest and womanly fetlock, smother him on his fainting-couch, and use his rib cage to build a lantern, his fat as candle tallow, and his ligaments as a wick. Leave that lantern burning outside your door, to attract a lone wanderer, whose murder-mask and pelvic-cracking back muscles will assure you a brood of myrmidons.
Parents and faculty! Prostrate yourselves under the war-wheel that is this new generation, and let what few drops of life are left in your wasted, fly-blown hopes and dreams grease the engines of the future!
Seven faces in the jungle! The statue that walks! Who peers from out the shunned house?! An archway of bone! The skin on the old man's kettle drum has a face! The sleeper awakes! Amok! Amok!
(Patton tears off his robe, revealing himself to be naked, and wearing only a waist-belt studded with inward-facing nails. He tries to flee from the stage but a wound-like rift shudders open in the air beside him, and a monstrous, child-hand with eyes for fingernails reaches out and pulls him into the howling portal. Atonal piping music can be heard, then an ancient laugh, and the portal is gone.
The graduates throw their mortarboards into the air)
May 28, 2008
May 27, 2008
Absolutely. Terrifying.
This was just posted on the AV Club...It's Ireland's entry in the Eurovision Song Contest. It's absolutely terrifying.
May 22, 2008
May 21, 2008
I went to high school with these people
as proof I'll give their names. From left to right, Anita Leung, Maggie Tran, Samantha Ngo. I don't remember the guys names because they were lame, but I think the one on the bottom is Eric.
Boardshorts as outerwear! Jean capris! Jean short tan lines! Foam flip flops!
I first found this picture on someones myspace which might be whatever but that person lives in Chigago and all of these guys still go to school in California. That was.. three years ago. Now, in 2008, I find the picture again on another persons page
Am I right? Is this crazy?
as proof I'll give their names. From left to right, Anita Leung, Maggie Tran, Samantha Ngo. I don't remember the guys names because they were lame, but I think the one on the bottom is Eric.
Boardshorts as outerwear! Jean capris! Jean short tan lines! Foam flip flops!
I first found this picture on someones myspace which might be whatever but that person lives in Chigago and all of these guys still go to school in California. That was.. three years ago. Now, in 2008, I find the picture again on another persons page
Am I right? Is this crazy?
May 20, 2008
Superdeluxe Sweets!
NBA Champion Ripoff...Pretty Good!
D.J Dogpound in the Mix: Poundcast FOUR!
AMA te AMA
D.J Dogpound in the Mix: Poundcast FOUR!
AMA te AMA
May 18, 2008
May 15, 2008
To borrow words from 'King of Queens'
"All fat guys love Neil Diamond" (from King of Queens)
If that's true, then U.S America must be in a diabetic coma...
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
"Week Ending May 11, 2008: Diamond Tops Dylan As Oldest Living Chart-Topper"
Neil Diamond this week becomes the oldest living artist to land a #1 album in the 52-year history of Billboard's weekly album chart. Diamond, 67, achieves the feat with Home Before Dark. The old record was held by Bob Dylan, who was 65 when he last topped the chart in September 2006 with Modern Times.
Only two other solo artists have had #1 albums past the age of 60--Louis Armstrong, who was 62 in 1964 when he topped the chart with Hello, Dolly! and Rod Stewart, who was 61 in 2006 when he rang the bell with Still The Same...Great Rock Classics Of Our Time."
Does any body have some spare insulin?
¡AMA te AMA!
If that's true, then U.S America must be in a diabetic coma...
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
"Week Ending May 11, 2008: Diamond Tops Dylan As Oldest Living Chart-Topper"
Neil Diamond this week becomes the oldest living artist to land a #1 album in the 52-year history of Billboard's weekly album chart. Diamond, 67, achieves the feat with Home Before Dark. The old record was held by Bob Dylan, who was 65 when he last topped the chart in September 2006 with Modern Times.
Only two other solo artists have had #1 albums past the age of 60--Louis Armstrong, who was 62 in 1964 when he topped the chart with Hello, Dolly! and Rod Stewart, who was 61 in 2006 when he rang the bell with Still The Same...Great Rock Classics Of Our Time."
Does any body have some spare insulin?
¡AMA te AMA!
May 14, 2008
May 12, 2008
May 1, 2008
April 26, 2008
Computermusik
fucking awesome jam paired with nerdiest/ raddest vintage computer montage
"Bach For Bachelors" Carlos Futura
"Bach For Bachelors" Carlos Futura
April 22, 2008
Jason Anderson!
Hey guys! Public service announcement!
I saw Jason Anderson again tonight (this makes...three times?) and let me tell you- just as great every time.
If you get the chance, go do it!
I saw Jason Anderson again tonight (this makes...three times?) and let me tell you- just as great every time.
If you get the chance, go do it!
April 19, 2008
April 18, 2008
hi my name is seth, i dont make alot of money, im a nice guy so i dont expect alot of honey
hi, i backhandedly snuck my way into this shredtastic blog by way of my little brother doran. blame him. but i will prove to be an invaluable asset, i swear! im wrapping up my 9 month stay in tokyo, with only like 18 more days to go... its pretty awesome out here, and im kinda sad to have to temporarily go back to live in my parents house and live in my little brothers room... man thats depressing... you live outside for 7 years and its not even our old room, just his. oh well... no need to stay down! lets get stoked!
heres something i made earlier this semester for a class... i still cant believe i got away with it... but getting stoked is my number one priority these days, so i could talk it up pretty enthusiastically... basically it all started out when i was hecka stoked on this one saturday.. well let me back up, i was in a kinda winter funk, feeling really isolated and depressed in japan, even though i go to an american university and have friends and stuff... but anyways... drinking super heavily... missing seattle and my seattle crew (midtown top ranking!) and my family in irvine, and my dog and all that... so this particular saturday, i get up... its freaking gorgeous outside (uncharacteristic of tokyo in my experience) which, you know is going to stoke you out anyways, but thats not all... i wake up to a gorgeous day and i wanna go take photos... i set out for weekly brunch (oh man, 2 consecutive brunch mentions by the walots... jeez) and mid-brunch my tomodachi (thats friend to all you english speakers) calls me and is like "dude, lets go out and cruise around and take photos!" and my spirit just gets shot upwards to the clouds... i...am...totally...stoked!!!!! so i jump on the subway and get my camera... and im just so pumped, i forget what i was listening to, but im like walkdancing down the street, huge goofy grin and all, through the train station... and if youve ever walked around tokyo... or maybe any large metropolis... japanese people on the train, when they arent hecka drunk (if you are a salaryman, its probably pretty often), are really solemn and have melancholy expressions... and im getting all these stares from all these people... anyways it was a good day... but then on monday my friend, erm ともだち, is retelling his anecdote about smiling in the train station... and i was like HECK YES!! GET STOKED!! so then while not paying attention in japanese class i doodled my proudest creation... POSI KAT! so then i also coincidentally had an art project due soon, so i made the first (and currently only) posi kat... and so here it is:
yeah, so stay stoked. i also just finished a zine called awkwardly dashing #1. you can download it from this link.
ill leave you all with these 2 incredible videos, that blow my mind... i wanna be that kid in the red sweater freaking out! i hope these kids all know how incredibly blessed they were to be on the set of sesame street that day... incredible performace, and too darn funky!! oh yeah everyone needs to go out and get the pigeon john lp pigeon john and the summertime pool party, super rad, super posi party rap. if anyone has a spare early 70's stevie wonder horn section with additional trombone around, please let them follow me around.. or a mariachi band
ok. im out
get stoked/stay posi/get stoked!
heres something i made earlier this semester for a class... i still cant believe i got away with it... but getting stoked is my number one priority these days, so i could talk it up pretty enthusiastically... basically it all started out when i was hecka stoked on this one saturday.. well let me back up, i was in a kinda winter funk, feeling really isolated and depressed in japan, even though i go to an american university and have friends and stuff... but anyways... drinking super heavily... missing seattle and my seattle crew (midtown top ranking!) and my family in irvine, and my dog and all that... so this particular saturday, i get up... its freaking gorgeous outside (uncharacteristic of tokyo in my experience) which, you know is going to stoke you out anyways, but thats not all... i wake up to a gorgeous day and i wanna go take photos... i set out for weekly brunch (oh man, 2 consecutive brunch mentions by the walots... jeez) and mid-brunch my tomodachi (thats friend to all you english speakers) calls me and is like "dude, lets go out and cruise around and take photos!" and my spirit just gets shot upwards to the clouds... i...am...totally...stoked!!!!! so i jump on the subway and get my camera... and im just so pumped, i forget what i was listening to, but im like walkdancing down the street, huge goofy grin and all, through the train station... and if youve ever walked around tokyo... or maybe any large metropolis... japanese people on the train, when they arent hecka drunk (if you are a salaryman, its probably pretty often), are really solemn and have melancholy expressions... and im getting all these stares from all these people... anyways it was a good day... but then on monday my friend, erm ともだち, is retelling his anecdote about smiling in the train station... and i was like HECK YES!! GET STOKED!! so then while not paying attention in japanese class i doodled my proudest creation... POSI KAT! so then i also coincidentally had an art project due soon, so i made the first (and currently only) posi kat... and so here it is:
yeah, so stay stoked. i also just finished a zine called awkwardly dashing #1. you can download it from this link.
ill leave you all with these 2 incredible videos, that blow my mind... i wanna be that kid in the red sweater freaking out! i hope these kids all know how incredibly blessed they were to be on the set of sesame street that day... incredible performace, and too darn funky!! oh yeah everyone needs to go out and get the pigeon john lp pigeon john and the summertime pool party, super rad, super posi party rap. if anyone has a spare early 70's stevie wonder horn section with additional trombone around, please let them follow me around.. or a mariachi band
ok. im out
get stoked/stay posi/get stoked!
Honestly, I probably know like three of the whole mess of people who read/post here (or will in time, wishful thinkin'). But still, let me tell you a secret about myself.
Last year, I took this urban studies class. I convinced myself that this was my calling. I planned on taking these architecture art history classes and pictured myself finding these internships, but alas, it was not to be. However, I spend a lot of time still reading Dwell magazine and their website. Dwell makes me dream of getting a real soul-crushing job someday, maybe even going to law school or something, entirely so I can spend my weekends with my cute artist wife and our three year old son installing recycled tin onto the rooftop of our small but beautiful second home in some hip gentrified neighborhood somewhere. We will line the walls of the bedroom with mahogany that we found in a dumpster and discuss the benefits of cork versus bamboo flooring over brunch and the Sunday New York Times. Don't even get me started on the backyard. Indeed, I am the sole inspiration for Stuff White People Like. Adrian is totally 3000 miles away, cursing the fact that he even invited me to post on his blog, you guys. I think I just gentrified the internet.
But yeah, so Dwell magazine (and ReadyMade magazine).
Look at this barn. Look at those freakin' windows. 48 windows. That's so pretty. I will shank anyone who denies the artistic power of architecture and design. Here's the article that goes with it.
So earlier this afternoon, I went to an artist talk. Denzil Hurley (who actually taught here at Hampshire College back in the day) totally gleams the cube. This image doesn't do it justice like his slides did.
Most of these artist talks piss me off. I don't have the patience to sit and listen to some douchebag ramble on about how he changed the face of modern art and caused natural disasters with the flick of the paintbrush. I respond really well to the people who come and show us their work humbly, who work over long periods of time and make natural progressions and make beautiful things on their own terms. Look at that house and look at that painting and I hope you are inspired like I am.
The other great artist lecture I saw this semester: Robin Mandel. His website is really accessible and fun and he does these cool things with light and movement. Ironically, his most static work is also my favorite, I think:
Last year, I took this urban studies class. I convinced myself that this was my calling. I planned on taking these architecture art history classes and pictured myself finding these internships, but alas, it was not to be. However, I spend a lot of time still reading Dwell magazine and their website. Dwell makes me dream of getting a real soul-crushing job someday, maybe even going to law school or something, entirely so I can spend my weekends with my cute artist wife and our three year old son installing recycled tin onto the rooftop of our small but beautiful second home in some hip gentrified neighborhood somewhere. We will line the walls of the bedroom with mahogany that we found in a dumpster and discuss the benefits of cork versus bamboo flooring over brunch and the Sunday New York Times. Don't even get me started on the backyard. Indeed, I am the sole inspiration for Stuff White People Like. Adrian is totally 3000 miles away, cursing the fact that he even invited me to post on his blog, you guys. I think I just gentrified the internet.
But yeah, so Dwell magazine (and ReadyMade magazine).
Look at this barn. Look at those freakin' windows. 48 windows. That's so pretty. I will shank anyone who denies the artistic power of architecture and design. Here's the article that goes with it.
So earlier this afternoon, I went to an artist talk. Denzil Hurley (who actually taught here at Hampshire College back in the day) totally gleams the cube. This image doesn't do it justice like his slides did.
Most of these artist talks piss me off. I don't have the patience to sit and listen to some douchebag ramble on about how he changed the face of modern art and caused natural disasters with the flick of the paintbrush. I respond really well to the people who come and show us their work humbly, who work over long periods of time and make natural progressions and make beautiful things on their own terms. Look at that house and look at that painting and I hope you are inspired like I am.
The other great artist lecture I saw this semester: Robin Mandel. His website is really accessible and fun and he does these cool things with light and movement. Ironically, his most static work is also my favorite, I think:
So I think I kind of forgot that I planned to post here! Better late than never. Hope that California weather is nice, we've had some quality porch weather out in Western Mass this week. 80 degrees tomorrow! Take that, 74 in Irvine (small victories)!
I thought I'd share with you guys some of my friends' blogs. They vary in purpose.
http://junktrunkonabunk.blogspot.com/
This is my friend Ellen's new blog. She just started finding little oddities she found cute, funny, or cool and doing research about them.
http://thegoldenbearsofficialblog.blogspot.com/
That's the official blog of the Golden Bear. He lives next door to me. We work at Admissions together, too. He and his friends have professional wrestling alter-egos. They have a feud going with some other writers. Sometimes they get drunk and fight and I watch. They all have fun blogs (linked to on the side of TGB's blog). I'd recommend looking at a couple of them for a more well-rounded experience. THE GOLDEN BEAR...(thegoldenbear)!
http://shredcitizen.com
My brother's still in Japan (for another couple weeks). He just went to a penis festival.
I thought I'd share with you guys some of my friends' blogs. They vary in purpose.
http://junktrunkonabunk.blogspot.com/
This is my friend Ellen's new blog. She just started finding little oddities she found cute, funny, or cool and doing research about them.
http://thegoldenbearsofficialblog.blogspot.com/
That's the official blog of the Golden Bear. He lives next door to me. We work at Admissions together, too. He and his friends have professional wrestling alter-egos. They have a feud going with some other writers. Sometimes they get drunk and fight and I watch. They all have fun blogs (linked to on the side of TGB's blog). I'd recommend looking at a couple of them for a more well-rounded experience. THE GOLDEN BEAR...(thegoldenbear)!
http://shredcitizen.com
My brother's still in Japan (for another couple weeks). He just went to a penis festival.
April 17, 2008
Rad Nerds
a sweet video of some rad nerds
video description says "arabesque oriental electronica with Smadj and Mehdi Haddab on electric & acoustic oud and laptop with the cover version "The Chase" from Midnight Express score
(live 2003 at Bern Jazz Festival, Switzerland)"
video description says "arabesque oriental electronica with Smadj and Mehdi Haddab on electric & acoustic oud and laptop with the cover version "The Chase" from Midnight Express score
(live 2003 at Bern Jazz Festival, Switzerland)"
April 14, 2008
Softlightes- Microwave Song
Softlightes- Microwave
Directed by: Youtube
As Found on: Soflightes Myspace Bulletein, KMOYES.com
There's a bunch of decent music video's on:
http://www.kmoyes.com/
for bands such as: cut copy, presets, sia, architecture in helsinki, etc.
AMA!
Directed by: Youtube
As Found on: Soflightes Myspace Bulletein, KMOYES.com
There's a bunch of decent music video's on:
http://www.kmoyes.com/
for bands such as: cut copy, presets, sia, architecture in helsinki, etc.
AMA!
April 8, 2008
Water, water everywhere
Following Adrian's green footsteps, I just wanted to share with you my write-up to pitch an article about bottled water during my internship with GOOD Magazine over the summer. It's long because I got really into researching facts...but hey, skip read it!
How do you like your water? Fruity, salty, earthy, silky, or gritty? For something that is a universal solvent, we have attached high standards to how we want our water to taste. But surprisingly, taste is not the reason why we choose our bottled water brand favorites. Only 7% of consumers purchase bottled water for its flavor; 35% claim that they buy bottled water because they worry about the health safety of their tap water.
And yet the National Resources Defense Council conducted a 4-year study on bottled water industry that ended with three particularly astonishing results:
1) EPA's regulations on municipal tap water are more stringent than FDA’s regulations on sold water bottles,
2) ¼ of the 1000 bottled water tested were contaminated at levels violating strict enforceable state limits (for purposes of this test, California's state limits were used)
3) ¼ of the bottles in the market are sourced at the same place where we get our tap water
So essentially when we buy bottled water an Aquafina (PepsiCo owned) or a Dasani (Coca-Cola owned) in the supermarket, we're really just paying for packaged tap water.
And on top of it all, we tend to forget (or deliberately ignore) the environmental damage those seemingly friendly and recyclable plastic bottles create. Last year, we spent more on Poland Spring, Fiji Water, Evian, Aquafina, and Dasani than we spent on iPods or movie tickets—at $15 billion —for bottles that use approximately 20 million barrels of oil per year in manufacturing. The amount of oil used to distribute the $15 billion worth of water bottles is equivalent to the gas 37,800 18-wheelers would use up.
And of the 14 billion water bottles that were sold in the United States in 2002, 90% were thrown in the trash, even though most of them were made of recyclable PET plastic.
Here’s a case study worth remembering: a Fiji Water bottle that holds 1 liter requires 5 liters of water in its manufacturing process (this includes power plant cooling water). Other wastes include 81g of fossil fuels, 720g of water, and 153g of GHGs (greenhouse gases) per bottle delivered to the US from Fiji. But all of this damage is worth it when considering that the cost to produce and deliver a bottle of imported water is only $0.22, leaving $1.28 profit per Fiji water bottle for the manufacturer and the retail store. Unfortunately, most people who quench their thirst with exotic water from Fiji don't realize that half of Fiji’s population don't even have access to safe drinking water. Neither does 1/6 of the world’s population, and yet we keep buying more and more fancy bottled water from obscure places rather than packaging your tap water in the morning.
Sure, buying bottled water may improve the downsloping economy, but not by much. In Charles Fishman’s words: “Bottled water is not a sin. But it is a choice.” And if you choose to be good, please start using canisters for water. You save money while saving the world's oil and air. Killing two birds with one stone has never been this easy.
Sources:
1. American Water Works Association Research Foundation, Consumer Attitude Survey on Water Quality Issues, p. 19 (1993)
2. Fishman, Charles. “Message in a Bottle” Fast Company Magazine, July 2007, issue 117, p. 110
3. Harper’s Magazine July 2007
Water bottles in United States from Patricia Franklin, "Letter from the Executive Director," Container and Package Recyling Update (CRI, Arlington, VA), summer/fall 20003, p. 2;
4. Kalyan Moitra, "Recycle Onus on PET Producers, Says PCB," Economic Times of India , 27 June 2003; Container Recycling Institute, Bottle Bill Resource Guide, at www.bottlebill.org.
5. Pablo Pundit http://www.triplepundit.com/pages/askpablo-exotic-bottled-water-002401.php
6. WHO Factsheet 2004
How do you like your water? Fruity, salty, earthy, silky, or gritty? For something that is a universal solvent, we have attached high standards to how we want our water to taste. But surprisingly, taste is not the reason why we choose our bottled water brand favorites. Only 7% of consumers purchase bottled water for its flavor; 35% claim that they buy bottled water because they worry about the health safety of their tap water.
And yet the National Resources Defense Council conducted a 4-year study on bottled water industry that ended with three particularly astonishing results:
1) EPA's regulations on municipal tap water are more stringent than FDA’s regulations on sold water bottles,
2) ¼ of the 1000 bottled water tested were contaminated at levels violating strict enforceable state limits (for purposes of this test, California's state limits were used)
3) ¼ of the bottles in the market are sourced at the same place where we get our tap water
So essentially when we buy bottled water an Aquafina (PepsiCo owned) or a Dasani (Coca-Cola owned) in the supermarket, we're really just paying for packaged tap water.
And on top of it all, we tend to forget (or deliberately ignore) the environmental damage those seemingly friendly and recyclable plastic bottles create. Last year, we spent more on Poland Spring, Fiji Water, Evian, Aquafina, and Dasani than we spent on iPods or movie tickets—at $15 billion —for bottles that use approximately 20 million barrels of oil per year in manufacturing. The amount of oil used to distribute the $15 billion worth of water bottles is equivalent to the gas 37,800 18-wheelers would use up.
And of the 14 billion water bottles that were sold in the United States in 2002, 90% were thrown in the trash, even though most of them were made of recyclable PET plastic.
Here’s a case study worth remembering: a Fiji Water bottle that holds 1 liter requires 5 liters of water in its manufacturing process (this includes power plant cooling water). Other wastes include 81g of fossil fuels, 720g of water, and 153g of GHGs (greenhouse gases) per bottle delivered to the US from Fiji. But all of this damage is worth it when considering that the cost to produce and deliver a bottle of imported water is only $0.22, leaving $1.28 profit per Fiji water bottle for the manufacturer and the retail store. Unfortunately, most people who quench their thirst with exotic water from Fiji don't realize that half of Fiji’s population don't even have access to safe drinking water. Neither does 1/6 of the world’s population, and yet we keep buying more and more fancy bottled water from obscure places rather than packaging your tap water in the morning.
Sure, buying bottled water may improve the downsloping economy, but not by much. In Charles Fishman’s words: “Bottled water is not a sin. But it is a choice.” And if you choose to be good, please start using canisters for water. You save money while saving the world's oil and air. Killing two birds with one stone has never been this easy.
Sources:
1. American Water Works Association Research Foundation, Consumer Attitude Survey on Water Quality Issues, p. 19 (1993)
2. Fishman, Charles. “Message in a Bottle” Fast Company Magazine, July 2007, issue 117, p. 110
3. Harper’s Magazine July 2007
Water bottles in United States from Patricia Franklin, "Letter from the Executive Director," Container and Package Recyling Update (CRI, Arlington, VA), summer/fall 20003, p. 2;
4. Kalyan Moitra, "Recycle Onus on PET Producers, Says PCB," Economic Times of India , 27 June 2003; Container Recycling Institute, Bottle Bill Resource Guide, at www.bottlebill.org.
5. Pablo Pundit http://www.triplepundit.com/pages/askpablo-exotic-bottled-water-002401.php
6. WHO Factsheet 2004
Quick 'Green Tips.'
Below is a quick list of things that might be applicable, easy to do without attacthing solar panels onto our heads...
It was found in the Weekend America(National Public Radio) website in their ongoing coverage of 'Sustainability'!
...
1. Buy Organic and Local- When possible buy organic or fair trade. This will ensure that the food was grown in an eco-friendly way, and if it's locally grown, it didn't have to travel that far. This also goes for going for coffee and eating out. Coffee and foods in restaurants often have a large carbon footprint because of the distances they had to travel to get to the restaurant and how they were produced. Try eating at restaurants that service locally produced or seasonal foods. Lisa promises that the food will taste great and you will enjoy your meal knowing that you are being nice to the environment.
2. Pay Attention to Packaging- When you go out shopping, try to go to stores or co-ops that keep packaging to a minimum. For example, you may chose to buy the loose tomatoes than the tomatoes that are boxed or in the crates with plastic wrap over them. Also, try and take reusable bags to the grocery store. Even though the plastic bags you receive are better than paper, they are still not that great. A cloth tote bag would be better.
3. Ditch Bottled Water- Bottled water has a huge carbon footprint because of its packaging and the fact that it is bottled in one place and shipped all over. Try buying a reusable water bottle or canteen for your water. Also, a lot of restaurants have made the move from offering bottled water to using in-house filtration systems and where the water quality is good enough serving tap water. Although most folks recycle their plastic water bottles, the footprint is still pretty significant because of the shipping.
4. Upgrade Your Home- Check around the house and make sure that all of your windows close properly and that the attic in your home is properly insulated. This can control how much heating and cooling you will need to do and might save you some money. Also, if you keep your heating and cooling systems properly maintained and try not to use disposable filters when possible. One easy thing you can do is change your light bulbs. Most of the light bulbs we use are incandescent. Try switching to compact florescent lighting. They have made a lot of advances in florescent lighting, and it's not as bad as we think. Compact florescent light bulbs use about 75 percent less energy than our normal light bulbs and last much longer. It will be an investment in the beginning, but should pay for itself in the way of lower energy costs.
5. Go Native- When landscaping around your home or business, try and buy local plants. They will probably grow better in that particular environment, and they had to travel a shorter distance to get to where you are. Also, use organic soil when planting: it was made in an eco-friendly way and uses less resources. And remember, green plants are a good way to offset carbon, so plant something--it helps.
6. Window Shop- If you have to buy, try window shopping or browsing first. This will ensure that you are only buying things that you really need or really want and not just impulse buying. Remember, everything has a footprint, so if we are conscious consumers, we can reduce our footprint and the overall footprint of our nation.
7. Take a Direct Flight- If you have to travel by airplane, try and take a direct flight when possible. You will reduce your impact if you only have to take one flight as opposed to hopping on a couple of those jumbo jets to reach your destination.
8. Switch it to Vacation Mode- Most water heaters have a setting you can switch to when you are going to be away from home traveling for an extended period of time. Switching the water heater to the vacation or away mode will still keep the water warm, but will not use the energy it takes to keep a tank full of piping hot water. You will enjoy that trip more knowing you are using less energy and saving money while you are away.
9. Unplug It!- Unplug appliances that you don't use frequently. Most electronics have a standby mode that sucks energy even when not in use. Things like cell phone chargers and laptops should be unplugged when you are not using them. You will save energy and money with this simple step.
10. Keep Your Car- These days the temptation to buy a hybrid or electric vehicle is great. However, if you are driving an older model car that is in good condition, you may be better off sticking with that. Even hybrids have a footprint, so before you go spend money on a new car, with its own footprint, consider driving the car you own for a little while longer. Also, try incorporating other more eco-friendly modes of transportation when possible.
11. Chuck Your Microwave- Okay, maybe that is a bit drastic. But this speaks more to those convenient frozen dinners we rely on from time to time. Keeping frozen foods is actually more energy intensive because it actually costs more to freeze foods, ship them frozen, feature them frozen in the grocery store and then keep them frozen in our homes. So, while the modern convenience of the microwave and the microwave meal is more enticing, it is a little bit more resource intensive. When you can, you should cook fresh foods in bulk and then eat them throughout the week. You will use less frozen foods and eat out a bit less too.
12. Use Cold Water- No, not in the shower, but maybe in the washer. Try washing things that don't need to be cleaned in hot water in cold. It takes a lot of energy to heat hot water to wash with; multiply that by the number of loads, and that's a lot of energy. Most of the major detergent makers make cold water soap so you get the same cleaning power you would with regular soap. Try washing those mixed loads in cold water and save money while you do.
13. Have the Family Over- Lisa says that family gatherings are a good way to spend some quality time with the ones you love with very little carbon impact. "Carbon freebies," as she calls them, are things that we can do that do not really add to our impact and they are usually enjoyable.
14. Block Out Time for Errands- Most us try and run errands in between work and other commitments. Lisa suggests that we try and bundle errands together so that we take care of everything in the same area of town all at once. Going back and forth to the same part of town on different days to run errands uses more gas than if you planned out your errand trips and did everything in the same area all at once. And if you really want to make it a "carbon freebie," try carpooling and running errands with a buddy.
15. Remember to Reduce, Reuse and Recycle- It seems basic but in a capitalistic society like ours, sometimes we lose sight of just how much we buy. Try buying less and reusing things when you can. Your pockets won't be as light and you will be doing your part to save the Earth--oh, you know what I mean.
AMA!
It was found in the Weekend America(National Public Radio) website in their ongoing coverage of 'Sustainability'!
...
1. Buy Organic and Local- When possible buy organic or fair trade. This will ensure that the food was grown in an eco-friendly way, and if it's locally grown, it didn't have to travel that far. This also goes for going for coffee and eating out. Coffee and foods in restaurants often have a large carbon footprint because of the distances they had to travel to get to the restaurant and how they were produced. Try eating at restaurants that service locally produced or seasonal foods. Lisa promises that the food will taste great and you will enjoy your meal knowing that you are being nice to the environment.
2. Pay Attention to Packaging- When you go out shopping, try to go to stores or co-ops that keep packaging to a minimum. For example, you may chose to buy the loose tomatoes than the tomatoes that are boxed or in the crates with plastic wrap over them. Also, try and take reusable bags to the grocery store. Even though the plastic bags you receive are better than paper, they are still not that great. A cloth tote bag would be better.
3. Ditch Bottled Water- Bottled water has a huge carbon footprint because of its packaging and the fact that it is bottled in one place and shipped all over. Try buying a reusable water bottle or canteen for your water. Also, a lot of restaurants have made the move from offering bottled water to using in-house filtration systems and where the water quality is good enough serving tap water. Although most folks recycle their plastic water bottles, the footprint is still pretty significant because of the shipping.
4. Upgrade Your Home- Check around the house and make sure that all of your windows close properly and that the attic in your home is properly insulated. This can control how much heating and cooling you will need to do and might save you some money. Also, if you keep your heating and cooling systems properly maintained and try not to use disposable filters when possible. One easy thing you can do is change your light bulbs. Most of the light bulbs we use are incandescent. Try switching to compact florescent lighting. They have made a lot of advances in florescent lighting, and it's not as bad as we think. Compact florescent light bulbs use about 75 percent less energy than our normal light bulbs and last much longer. It will be an investment in the beginning, but should pay for itself in the way of lower energy costs.
5. Go Native- When landscaping around your home or business, try and buy local plants. They will probably grow better in that particular environment, and they had to travel a shorter distance to get to where you are. Also, use organic soil when planting: it was made in an eco-friendly way and uses less resources. And remember, green plants are a good way to offset carbon, so plant something--it helps.
6. Window Shop- If you have to buy, try window shopping or browsing first. This will ensure that you are only buying things that you really need or really want and not just impulse buying. Remember, everything has a footprint, so if we are conscious consumers, we can reduce our footprint and the overall footprint of our nation.
7. Take a Direct Flight- If you have to travel by airplane, try and take a direct flight when possible. You will reduce your impact if you only have to take one flight as opposed to hopping on a couple of those jumbo jets to reach your destination.
8. Switch it to Vacation Mode- Most water heaters have a setting you can switch to when you are going to be away from home traveling for an extended period of time. Switching the water heater to the vacation or away mode will still keep the water warm, but will not use the energy it takes to keep a tank full of piping hot water. You will enjoy that trip more knowing you are using less energy and saving money while you are away.
9. Unplug It!- Unplug appliances that you don't use frequently. Most electronics have a standby mode that sucks energy even when not in use. Things like cell phone chargers and laptops should be unplugged when you are not using them. You will save energy and money with this simple step.
10. Keep Your Car- These days the temptation to buy a hybrid or electric vehicle is great. However, if you are driving an older model car that is in good condition, you may be better off sticking with that. Even hybrids have a footprint, so before you go spend money on a new car, with its own footprint, consider driving the car you own for a little while longer. Also, try incorporating other more eco-friendly modes of transportation when possible.
11. Chuck Your Microwave- Okay, maybe that is a bit drastic. But this speaks more to those convenient frozen dinners we rely on from time to time. Keeping frozen foods is actually more energy intensive because it actually costs more to freeze foods, ship them frozen, feature them frozen in the grocery store and then keep them frozen in our homes. So, while the modern convenience of the microwave and the microwave meal is more enticing, it is a little bit more resource intensive. When you can, you should cook fresh foods in bulk and then eat them throughout the week. You will use less frozen foods and eat out a bit less too.
12. Use Cold Water- No, not in the shower, but maybe in the washer. Try washing things that don't need to be cleaned in hot water in cold. It takes a lot of energy to heat hot water to wash with; multiply that by the number of loads, and that's a lot of energy. Most of the major detergent makers make cold water soap so you get the same cleaning power you would with regular soap. Try washing those mixed loads in cold water and save money while you do.
13. Have the Family Over- Lisa says that family gatherings are a good way to spend some quality time with the ones you love with very little carbon impact. "Carbon freebies," as she calls them, are things that we can do that do not really add to our impact and they are usually enjoyable.
14. Block Out Time for Errands- Most us try and run errands in between work and other commitments. Lisa suggests that we try and bundle errands together so that we take care of everything in the same area of town all at once. Going back and forth to the same part of town on different days to run errands uses more gas than if you planned out your errand trips and did everything in the same area all at once. And if you really want to make it a "carbon freebie," try carpooling and running errands with a buddy.
15. Remember to Reduce, Reuse and Recycle- It seems basic but in a capitalistic society like ours, sometimes we lose sight of just how much we buy. Try buying less and reusing things when you can. Your pockets won't be as light and you will be doing your part to save the Earth--oh, you know what I mean.
AMA!
April 7, 2008
¡Oy, Sos SUCIO!
I've recently started researching Buenos Aires Cumbia for a research paper, after months of interest on the subject.
This DJ's set really stood out among of a lot of talented musicians, djs and acts that can be found on the marvelous...
WWW.WHATSUPBUENOSAIRES.COM
So with no further ado, Sucio's Mix (2008.01.11)
(Just click the link* and dl the set, please!)
[URL=http://www.zshare.net/audio/1019021964b34089/]total 2008-01-11.mp3 - 45.77MB[/URL]
¡AMA!
¥ ¥ ¥ ¥ ¥ ¥ ¥ ¥ ¥
*For future reference, Zshare is great way to upload music without creating an account.
This DJ's set really stood out among of a lot of talented musicians, djs and acts that can be found on the marvelous...
WWW.WHATSUPBUENOSAIRES.COM
So with no further ado, Sucio's Mix (2008.01.11)
(Just click the link* and dl the set, please!)
[URL=http://www.zshare.net/audio/1019021964b34089/]total 2008-01-11.mp3 - 45.77MB[/URL]
¡AMA!
¥ ¥ ¥ ¥ ¥ ¥ ¥ ¥ ¥
*For future reference, Zshare is great way to upload music without creating an account.
April 6, 2008
Comedic Gods!
Who's down to go!?!!
Sat 4/19
8:00 PM
Sarah Silverman, Foreign Born, Tim and Eric, Thomas Lennon (Reno 911), Patton Oswalt
Troubadour (South Toward Home Benefit) All Ages $25
As found on http://losangeles.ohmyrockness.com/ShowList.cfm...
AMA!
Sat 4/19
8:00 PM
Sarah Silverman, Foreign Born, Tim and Eric, Thomas Lennon (Reno 911), Patton Oswalt
Troubadour (South Toward Home Benefit) All Ages $25
As found on http://losangeles.ohmyrockness.com/ShowList.cfm...
AMA!
April 5, 2008
April 4, 2008
Yahoo. com Top Searches at 11:53/4.4.08
Yahoo Top Searches - Updated Hourly
1 Jamie Lynn Spears
2 Pregnant Man
3 New Kids On The Block
4 Naomi Campbell
5 American Idol
6 Wayne Frosty Freeze Frost
7 Battlestar Galactica
8 Obama
9 Jerry Seinfeld
10 Iran
I hate the U.S. or is it the internet?
How can anybody find Jerry Seinfeld interesting STILL!?!!
AMA!
1 Jamie Lynn Spears
2 Pregnant Man
3 New Kids On The Block
4 Naomi Campbell
5 American Idol
6 Wayne Frosty Freeze Frost
7 Battlestar Galactica
8 Obama
9 Jerry Seinfeld
10 Iran
I hate the U.S. or is it the internet?
How can anybody find Jerry Seinfeld interesting STILL!?!!
AMA!
April 1, 2008
It's one of those tv clips....
It's one of those t.v clips that stays in your mind, popping up to the surface from time to time.....
After originally seeing the clip at my friend's Jumpei house in first grade, who had a good collection of japanese power ranger vhs. I can't believe I actually got to see this again!
AMA!
After originally seeing the clip at my friend's Jumpei house in first grade, who had a good collection of japanese power ranger vhs. I can't believe I actually got to see this again!
AMA!
March 24, 2008
March 18, 2008
March 16, 2008
March 11, 2008
More Dance Lessons
this's been posted just about everywhere- still, I thought i'd share this gem and a half. such crazy dance moves these people are busting!
March 7, 2008
March 6, 2008
Susumu Hirasawa
Why do I feel like Susumu Hirasawa is Japan's Kraftwerk?
Paparika OST: Susumu Hirasawa- Girl in Byakkoka
I dunno about that...
AMA
Paparika OST: Susumu Hirasawa- Girl in Byakkoka
I dunno about that...
AMA
Port O' Brien
Port O' Brienplayed Noise Pop this year, but I betchya didn't make it...
So this is a good recreation of the show for our non-SF based forum...
Port O' Brien - I woke Up Today
This is probably more realistic...
¡AMA!
So this is a good recreation of the show for our non-SF based forum...
Port O' Brien - I woke Up Today
This is probably more realistic...
¡AMA!
March 5, 2008
March 4, 2008
Google Maps 'Bike There' Feature Request Petition
"Google Maps, Lemme Bike There, Feature Request Petition
Below is the petition to Google!
----------------------------------
To: Google, and the Google Maps team
We would like a 'Bike There' feature added to Google Maps - to go with the current 'Drive There' and 'Take Public Transit' options.
The feature would take into account actual bicycle lanes from the locality being mapped, and it would automatically plan a route for a bicyclist, possibly even providing the cyclist options for either the most direct route, or the most bicycle-friendly (safest) route. The Google Maps-based third party site, byCycle.org (http://byCycle.org/), provides these features for two metro areas - Portland, Oregon and Madison, Wisconsin, and there are countless other mapping initiatives around the world aimed at accomplishing the same goal. We hope that Google will consider building this feature into the core Google Maps service.
There are many reasons why this feature would be a wonderful edition to Google Maps. Among them, some of the most influential would be to:
* Make bicycling safer for millions of bicyclists around the world.
* Empower world citizens to better adapt their lifestyles to face the challenges of global climate change.
* Help Google realize its core mission of 'organizing the world's information and making it universally accessible and useful.'
By implementing the 'Take Public Transit' option, Google and the Google Maps team have shown themselves to be concerned and capable world citizens; a 'Bike There' feature addition to Google Maps would be the ultimate statement in support of sustainable development.
For more information on this feature request please visit the Google Maps 'Bike There' website (http://GoogleMapsBikeThere.org/).
Thank you, Google and the Google Maps team! And thank you, petitioners, for joining us in attempting to realize this very important goal!
Sincerely,
The Undersigned
-------------
Thanks for signing it, guys!
AMA!
Below is the petition to Google!
----------------------------------
To: Google, and the Google Maps team
We would like a 'Bike There' feature added to Google Maps - to go with the current 'Drive There' and 'Take Public Transit' options.
The feature would take into account actual bicycle lanes from the locality being mapped, and it would automatically plan a route for a bicyclist, possibly even providing the cyclist options for either the most direct route, or the most bicycle-friendly (safest) route. The Google Maps-based third party site, byCycle.org (http://byCycle.org/), provides these features for two metro areas - Portland, Oregon and Madison, Wisconsin, and there are countless other mapping initiatives around the world aimed at accomplishing the same goal. We hope that Google will consider building this feature into the core Google Maps service.
There are many reasons why this feature would be a wonderful edition to Google Maps. Among them, some of the most influential would be to:
* Make bicycling safer for millions of bicyclists around the world.
* Empower world citizens to better adapt their lifestyles to face the challenges of global climate change.
* Help Google realize its core mission of 'organizing the world's information and making it universally accessible and useful.'
By implementing the 'Take Public Transit' option, Google and the Google Maps team have shown themselves to be concerned and capable world citizens; a 'Bike There' feature addition to Google Maps would be the ultimate statement in support of sustainable development.
For more information on this feature request please visit the Google Maps 'Bike There' website (http://GoogleMapsBikeThere.org/).
Thank you, Google and the Google Maps team! And thank you, petitioners, for joining us in attempting to realize this very important goal!
Sincerely,
The Undersigned
-------------
Thanks for signing it, guys!
AMA!
Oh Baby
Hey guys,
I'm still not sure what this blog is about but since it's pretty determined that we all enjoy online videos, here is one I still find amazing even 10 days later:
Asian Baby Sings Hey Jude - Watch more free videos
On pitch and on beat! This kid sings better than I do.
Lately I've been watching a lot of videos online of Asian babies, including my nephew, who one of these days will probably make it onto this blog. Sorry for the creeper status.
I'm still not sure what this blog is about but since it's pretty determined that we all enjoy online videos, here is one I still find amazing even 10 days later:
Asian Baby Sings Hey Jude - Watch more free videos
On pitch and on beat! This kid sings better than I do.
Lately I've been watching a lot of videos online of Asian babies, including my nephew, who one of these days will probably make it onto this blog. Sorry for the creeper status.
March 3, 2008
beeeeeiiiirruuut
okay, okay, i joined adrian :P
i've been lying in bed sick all day today, just watching videos on blogotheque. so, here's my first contribution...beirut and blogotheque amazingness...
also, A i know you claim that you don't like vampire weekend anymore but i know you love them so go to www.blogotheque.net and watch their videos. sooo great!
hugs :)
shaun
i've been lying in bed sick all day today, just watching videos on blogotheque. so, here's my first contribution...beirut and blogotheque amazingness...
also, A i know you claim that you don't like vampire weekend anymore but i know you love them so go to www.blogotheque.net and watch their videos. sooo great!
hugs :)
shaun
Insane Vocal Stylings
white hats, mustaches, and achordian -like box things that rest on the ground... looks like the james brown of Qawaali...
Ustad Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan "Sanak Sanak Jaey"
March 1, 2008
Grizzly Bear - "While You Wait For The Others" (Live on KCRW Morning Becomes Eclectic)
A new song by Grizzly Bear. It is quite good. They are playing tonight with the LA Philharmonic Orchestra at the Walt Disney Concert Hall. I am greatly envious of all who are attending.
(from Stereogum)
(from Stereogum)
Frisky Dingo
Finally, the continuation of the 2nd season of Frisky Dingo has arrived! If you aren't familiar with the show you should be. And "I don't have cable" is not an excuse.
Click here to see the new episode in all of its streaming glory! (adultswim.com)
(I would suggest watching past episodes if you haven't seen the show as it is has a very linear structure.)
In other Adult Swim news, The Venture Brothers will be returning for a Third season in June. In HD! Hooray
February 29, 2008
Uganda Skateboarders
http://current.com/items/88840051_uganda_skateboard_union_s_video_preview
go there asap
go there asap
Style 4
Taken from here.
J.D. Emmanuel
"I have an extensive background in spiritual and metaphysical studies. This is another influence in how I compose and perform my music as I also look at my music as an Electronic Meditation. ... My music is very similar to a mediatation in that the mantrum is the cyclic, poly rhythmic music foundation that I use to set the theme of the composition. The leads and rhythms are my meditations based on the mantrum foundation.
Not only is my music for general listening, it can also enhance the ability of the mind and the spirit to go beyond what is considered the "normal" boundaries of the five senses to the "Source of One's Being" for work with creativity, increase spiritual awareness, mind expansion or to just have a nice time being there to refresh the Soul. My music is wonderful as background when working, reading or studying to help focus for better retention without getting too tired, as well as used for relaxation or during a massage to release tension better for deeper body work."
Search his website for some pretty insane mp3's his put up...
February 28, 2008
Shitdisco(UK)- Ok (Music Video)
This seems like a more progressive 'Daft Hands...'
As found on Sonic Monks:
Shitdisco's Myspace
¡AMA somos Todos!
As found on Sonic Monks:
Shitdisco's Myspace
¡AMA somos Todos!
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