Odorless&Transparent

i'm outta here

2005-11-29T19:30:00.000-05:00

I've grown tired of dealing with comment spam and other stuff on the blogger platform. Plus, since I've just moved to a new physical place (NYC) it just seems time to move to a new online blogging home and blogging MO. Odorless & Transparent will be dark for a while longer, but look for O&T to reemerge with vengeance soon on BeDirty.com.

In the meantime check out this Napoleon dynamite video mash up thing I made today...
Napoleon Dynomite Strip Tease Mash-up.

easy,
erik

P.S. Old style voicemail is back. Barely audible and barely funny clips await those who call when I can't get the phone.

Don't beat a dead darkhorse

2005-09-15T11:32:00.000-04:00

Thank God we can already start betting on the 2008 U.S. Presidential election. I was going to lay 10 british pounds down on a canidate but my pick wasn't actualy listed (hint: his runningmate would be Ursa). Below is in my opinion the top 11 darkhouse candidates left off the bookie's sheet:

1. Christopher Walken
2. Dick Cheney
3. Jesse Ventura
4. Cindy Sheehan
5. Barbara Boxter
6. James Dobson
7. Oprah Winfrey
8. Zod
9. Mike Huckabee
10. Mike Easley
11. Angus MacGyver

atrocity and hope

2005-09-07T02:53:00.000-04:00

Last time I was in New Orleans I was at a business trade show in the convention center. Frisbees, laminates, booths, industry panels, etc. Right now its becoming clearer that the commerce building along the Mississippi was not one blood drop short of Hell on Earth. Anyone reading this probably already has heard tales of the misery, but if not, this story from Nola.com describes the nightmare convention center from a National Guardsman's perspective. It is beyond comprehension. As Melville says "Man rebounds whole aeons back in nature."

I suppose I understand if people want to direct their anger at Bush or any other politician, I even probably agree with most of the specific charges. Outrage and demands for action are needed, but I don't honestly believe blaming Bush or anyone else does any good. The truth is that the fault and iniquity spreads wide and touches nearly everyone. If you want to examine why the aftermath of Katrina was so horribly fucked up, you need to look a lot deeper than which incompetent rich crook is presently in the White House or Governor's Mansion or City Hall. It's about race, money, history, panic, fear, and human nature's evil parts in a city that has been hanging on by a thread for decades.

Everyone knew it would happen and everyone sat by. I was part of the "mandatory" evacuation of Hurricane Georges in 1998, eventhough many stayed. It looked like it would be The Big One, but the city was spared. The same year the very tail edge of Hurricane Earl (basically no more than a couple hours of rain) proved too much for the pumps my 7ft below sea level house in Uptown NOLA was thigh deep in storm water for a day. Earlier that year I was also help up at gunpoint by a fucking 12 year old in a catholic school uniform in broad daylight, and then driven around by fucking openly racist cops. I don't know who all to blame for that. Unfortunately, in NOLA many of these problems are deep and institutionalized. They only recently stopped letting ex-cons become police officers. I love that city, but It had some major fucking problems.

I have no room in my heart for petty and cynical politics right now. Sure, there are reasons to be angry, but this disaster is on a scale much bigger than us and we need to be better than that right now. Once the dead are buried and we've at least had some time to mourn, we can start looking at how our leaders and government mechanisms failed us.

The constructive things I personally know to do to help are:

1. Donate where and what you can.
2. Read Renew New Orleans's action list of what can be done to help and forward it on to your congressional leaders and newspaper/media outlets. I trust the opinions of these people I know and that live there. If you disagree with something on the list then edit it or write your own, but I think their focus on what should be done now and more importantly in the coming months/years is important.
3. Volunteer at a relief event or organization in your community. Band Together NC is a great one around NC. These events help get communities and especially corporations to contribute funds, resources, and jobs to the relief.
4. Figure out what we as smart caring tech savvy people can do to set up information and communication systems which will facilitate recovery and better prepare for the next duster. Check out Jeff Jarvis over at buzzmachine, who I think is doing a great job with leadership and info for this mission.

I saw a few things today that gave me some hope for the future of NOLA and my alma mater Tulane. I watched Max Sparber's New Orleans: Pictures from a Drowned World flickr slideshow of NOLA pics from last year and I was reminded of many of the things I love the city. I also saw these photos from college kids in the Uptown area where I lived in the late 90's. The damage was much less than I feared, and I admit some of these pictures even made me laugh. Also the brazen (if perhaps naive) "we're returning ASAP and we're going to do everything we can to help rebuild" spirit on this unofficial database for Tulane students surprised me and though I know the gusto of a few mostly rich mostly white collegiate teenagers may not mean much in the big picture, it does offer a bit of hope to me. They make me proud.

I don't want to hear

2005-08-30T23:06:00.000-04:00

The situation in New Orleans and the Gulf will get much worse before it gets better, and Hurricane Katrina will go down as the worst natural disaster in U.S. history, or at least of the same magnitude as the Great Quake or Great Fire. It is a horrific and worsening tragedy.

So, as long as there are still bodies floating through the flood water, I don't want to hear shit about global warming. I don't want to hear shit about global politics. I don't want to want to hear shit about whether or where to rebuild the city. I don't want to hear shit about people not heading the warnings. I don't want to hear shit about the taxpayer's bill. I don't want to hear shit about the Dutch and their system of levees. I don't want to hear shit about fucking gas prices.

If you aren't talking about donating to the relief effort or trying to help grasp the scope of the tragedy, then please keep your mouth and your online comments shut. At the very least until the drowning stops.

Hurricane memories

2005-08-29T01:58:00.000-04:00

I remember being a young kid, maybe 14 or so. I went with my father and my uncle to board up our beach house in anticipation of a hurricane. We were riding in our quasi-futuristic silver Toyota Previa and we were armed with hammers and for three hours it felt like we were driving into battle. It was even a school night.

I remember being safe in New Orleans at school when Hurricane Fran totally wrecked the beach house and very nearly took out my parent's other house 200 miles inland. When I came back, trees and docks and ceilings had been destroyed. Some friends and I had a great party at the beach house that was in mid-repair. Someone installed a new overhead ceiling light drunk and we played cards on a weatherbeaten table. The hurricane had taken from us a water heater, but its surge had brought us two hibachi's and one exercise bike.

I don't remember exactly why we decided to leave at night, but after many beers we had made a quick, firm, and potentially unwise decision to flee New Orleans in the dead of night. There was a big hurricane coming and our new mission was to head upriver toward Nashville. Some time in the night we almost hit a fallen tree. I was too drunk and tired to know if there had been real danger. We listened to a lot of chris rock CD's. When we reached Vanderbilt University and found a welcoming refugee camp set up on a friend's floor, we felt safe and powerful somehow. We watched the weather channel and saw the storm still headed at our home and we talked to friends who had all fled sooner or later and at that time we all felt that we very well might not have a home to go back to. We did everything we could to share our spirit of freedom and excitement and play our role as the entertaining refugees. Our hosts ensured that we had all the neccessary booze and extreme indoor sporting equipment to stage a memorable refugee party. In the morning we awoke slowly and bruised and watched as the storm turned at the last minute and missed our city. We were all glad, but also a bit disappointed. The freedom of being severed from possessions and school obligations by an act of god was quite enticing. After another day, we learned it was safe to return and we drove back.

I remember walking back from cultural anthropology class to find my ground level apartment thigh deep in water. Cd's and books and clothes floated around in our living room. My roomates had saved the electronics, but the flood came quickly and the house was a disaster and my car was deep in floodwater. We relocated to a second story house and learned how the pumps that keep water out of the city had failed in the tail end of some hurricane which came onshore far east of the city. People water skiied in the streets, canoed to bars in baithing suits and went swimming in former classrooms. We carried around what we could save from our liquor collection and visited friends that lived out of the flood's reach. It was the most fun I've ever had.

The clean-up was brutal and eventually life went back to routine, but I never really recovered. I have no doubt that we all inhaled tons of unhealthy black mold spores or whatever grew in the flood soaked walls. I got appendecitis and had to have a friend carry me against my will to student health. I vommited out the window for most of the ride to the hospital. Later that semester I passed out at the library and had to get 16 stiches put in my head. I withdrew or took incompletes in several course. When I came back the next semester I moved apartments and spent most of my time in the library trying to finish an unholy amount of credits to graduate. I barely barely made it. I turned in my last paper on my way to the Superdome for graduation ceremonies. It was the first time I had been back in the Superdome since I saw a woman fall to her death 2 and a half years earlier.

Now I watch a storm which "represents 10 or 15 atomic bombs in terms of the energy it releases,” bear down on New Orleans, and that same Superdome is a place of last resort for 20,000 or so New Orleanians who had no where else to go. Everyone always said that if New Orleans ever got hit by the big one, the city could be destroyed, washed off the map, reclaimed by the gulf. It looks really grim right now. I tried to watch the web cam ontop of Fat Harry's, a favorite uptown bar with good cheese fries and a great jukebox, but the wind and the rain and lights make it too blurry and abstract and frightening.

I hope the storm weakens before it hits. I hope the levys hold. I hope everyone got out who could. I hope I can go there soon, I miss it.

bring back the ceremonial rock, you pesky seperatists

2005-08-26T11:09:00.000-04:00

As if my fatherland didn't have enough problems with the recent flooding...Floods, stone theft scupper Swiss rock-throwing: "A medieval-style festival of stone-throwing, wrestling and yodelling has been cancelled after floods swamped Switzerland and Swiss-French separatists stole the iconic rock traditionally hurled by competitors."

I'm all about symbolic iconoclastic theft, but there are now several burly Swiss farmers who don't have a rock to throw, and they are getting a bit restless.

End of a pantless era

2005-08-26T09:39:00.000-04:00

I'm headed up to NYC soon, and that means I will be selling my car. I'm looking forward to being able to walk and take the subway everywhere, as driving is the number one aggrivator for my knee. Integra #2 has been great to me, but I can't wait to turn over the keys. This closes a long and fruitful chapter in my life, as I will no longer own a vehicle on which to put an "I'm not wearing any pants" bumper sticker.

I first had them made in 1997 after my spiritual advisor came up with the idea, and since then I have given out over 200 stickers. They now can be found across the country on the cars and trucks of friends, friend's parents, zany businesses, a few 18-wheelers who probably take it literally, and many complete strangers. I remember the first time I saw a bumber sticker on a strange car in the Cafe Driade parking lot. I walked in expecting to know someone, but I didn't recognize a single face. Some person I didn't know had one of the stickers. It was an amazing feeling.

Over the years I've gotten countless honks and stares and laughing points, two newspaper mentions that I know of, a couple crazy people knocking on my window at stoplights (I always have some extras in my car to give out), one really really awkward conversation with an older woman while I was changing into shorts before soccer practice. My favorite story comes from my very own cousin who was worried about what people would think when he went to pick up his daughter at elementary school. So, he glued magnets to the back of the bumper sticker so that it could quickly be removed and replaced at a more socially appropriate time.

I still have a dream that one day in the future I'll be in Minnesota in the middle of winter and I'll pull my car into a filling station. As my arthritic fingers are struggling to pump the $90 a gallon gas, I will look over and see an old gree pickup with snow on the bumper. Hidden behind the snow I'll see a stragnley familiar blue sticker peeking out. I'll drop the pump and hobble over to the pickup. My liverspotted hands frantically brush away the snow to reveal an "I'm not wearing any pants" bumper sticker, and I'll fall dead on the spot, a big smile on my face.

To all the brave and glorious people out there who have risked excommunication by putting a bumper sticker on your vehicle, I thank you and I love you. It means a lot to me and hopefully to the people behind you in traffic.

I'll probably be making another batch at some point, but in a different color. I still have a few of the original batch left if anyone out there wants one.

Toys & Games

2005-08-19T16:55:00.000-04:00

I'm still a little bitter about wasting money on spidey handgloves, but I can't wait to get my Electronic Thing Hands. If they are half as good as Hulk hands, they'll be worth twice the price. They even made Electronic Thing Feet, about which some goulish wound-up fanboy said, "if you really want to waste your money on this do so. but the real Thing from the Fantastic 4 has black boots." I wonder what the purists would say about the ridiculous Human Torch 4-wheeler not to mention the film itself, but who cares. Here's the Fantastic Four Review from Exile.ru, just because I love the site.

Also, here's a tragic love story between Kevin Smith and Prince, it's long but satisfying.

I'm ok about this, really.

2005-08-18T12:11:00.000-04:00

If you've gotten my voicemail recently, you might have been surprised to hear my mumbling voice, and a normal boring message. I'm getting more and more work related calls on my cell phone and I decided to stop leaving weird sound clips as my message. It just confuses people. I know I could have a clip and then say "this is blah blah", but that's just too long. I might change my mind, but for now you'll have to go to The Daily .WAV to hear the funny clips.

If we build it they will eat it/tote it

2005-08-18T10:36:00.000-04:00

Between us, my sister and I have at least 8 of their products. All still rugged and unripped, but thanks to bloomingdale's and mass market hype, not quite as cool and exclusive as when we had to go to the tiny Erflog store on a sidestreet in Basel to get them. Nonetheless, good to see the Freitag crew get so much love and $ for their dream-in-a-garage bags. Even got a piece in Business 2.0. Hope it's not the kiss of death.

Ever since 10th grade chemistry I've had a desire to eat liquid nitrogen ice cream. Fortunately, Blue Sky Creamery is brings this product to me and thus prevents a trip to the emergency room. Doesn't seem to be one in the area, maybe I should start up a local franchise and run those obnoxious cold stone singing yip creamery bastards out of town. Or maybe I should take this as a sign from above to open a food stand that serves pickles cooked with house current

It's just a bit unnatural to be playing god with ice cream. Maybe something will go horribly wrong ala Lima Bean Monster.

Please help me fulfill my utopian dreams

2005-08-11T09:39:00.000-04:00

For some reason yesterday I was giving my email out over the phone and I realized that I hate saying "at" as in "My email address is myname at domain dot com." It just doesn't feel good on the tounge the way "dot com" does, and for some reason people always mishear it...and then I had probably the most brilliant idea of my life. Instead of pronouncing the "@" as "at" we should use the dj record scratch sound effect ("errah"). example "My email is jeffbezos ERRAH amazon dot com."
It just sounds better, right? And something about the @ symbol is graphically reminiscent of the record scratch motion.

According to webopedia, "before the symbol became a standard key on typewriter keyboards in the 1880s and a standard on QWERTY keyboards in the 1940s, the @ sign had a long if somewhat sketchy history of use throughout the world...While in the English language, @ is referred to as the "at sign," other countries have different names for the symbol that is now so commonly used in e-mail transmissions throughout the world. Many of these countries associate the symbol with either food or animal names." My favorites are:

• Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian - In these countries, it is referred to as the "Crazy I"
• Czech - In the Czech Republic, it is called zavinac, meaning "rollmop," or "pickled herring"
• Mandarin Chinese - In Taiwan it is called xiao lao-shu, meaning "little mouse," lao shu-hao, meaning "mouse sign," at-hao, meaning "at sign" or lao shu-hao, meaning "mouse sign"
• Turkish - In Turkey, most e-mailers call it kulak, meaning "ear"

So, in addition to sounding better, adopting the Dj scratch pronunciation of "@" in email addresses will bring world unity one step closer. Hip-hop is the universal music of our generation and the DJ scratch sound effect both transcends international boundaries and gives credit to our generation's ingenuity and spirit instead of some 12th century merchant who needed a quicker way to write "10 hens for sale at a price of 10 pence each".

Please help me make this vision a reality by adopting the DJ scratch convention of pronouncing the "@" symbol when speaking an email address. The world will be a better place.

just dont wreck my barge

2005-08-08T14:25:00.000-04:00

If we were river people instead of road people, I would definitely own a barge, and you could borrow it when you move.

Here's the long time coming music video for one of my favorite off the deep end instrumental songs:
Jaga Jazzist's ANIMAL CHIN

Saw it coming like a blitzing safety shooting through the "two-hole"

2005-08-05T11:22:00.000-04:00

I liked the show. I collected all 6 themed happy meal plastic cars from hardee's even though they were really crappy toys w stickers, but I fully expected this movie to not only suck, but suck at the box office too. Mr. Cranky highlights the unavoidable futility of even discussing the movie:

So what's a reviewer supposed to do? Am I supposed to compare this Bo (Seann William Scott) and Luke Duke (Johnny Knoxville) to their counterparts from the series, John Schneider and Tom Wopat? Perhaps I could contrast the Daisy Dukes: Jessica Simpson and Catherine Bach. Or, better yet, I could strip naked, douse myself in gasoline and run flapping down the interstate in search of the eventual blessed release of "suicide by cop."

Alas, if only they'd had Rosco P. Coldchain instead of Rosco P Coltrane.

*pic and I-40 recon from zoomedin

make love to the machines

2005-08-05T00:24:00.000-04:00

Paul Graham's new essay, What Business Can Learn from Open Source is clear and crisp and meaningful. thank you.

I think the most important of the new principles business has to learn is that people work a lot harder on stuff they like...
There's a name for people who work for the love of it: amateurs. The word now has such bad connotations that we forget its etymology, though it's staring us in the face. "Amateur" was originally rather a complimentary word. But the thing to be in the twentieth century was professional, which amateurs, by definition, are not.

Like a lot of people i'm sure, I dictionary.com'ed Amatuer and slapped myself ont he forehead:
"[French, from Latin amator, lover, from amare, to love.]"

There it is - so simple. I think it mgiht be the highest compliment that one could say about a product, a work of art, even a science fair project, "It looks/feels like it was made w love"...Someone cared about X and therefore they across time and space care about me. Those are the kinds of things I want to make.

Here are 4 music videos that are made w love (probably via antville):
"Fkcing Happy"
"Ditty Bops" - Adria Petty
"Paris Hilton" - MU
Perhaps my favorite video of all time, seriously

Suburban Legends

2005-08-04T11:57:00.000-04:00

Guardian Unlimited provides the quote of the day in their GTA uproar article Storm in a Hot Coffee cup:

"The inconsistent morality of many of Grand Theft Auto's critics has not been lost on the gaming community. As American games journalist Rob Fahey said, Cohen 'bought a 17 recommended game for her teenage grandson, featuring car theft, shootings, muggings, cop-killing, prostitution and plenty more, but now wants compensation because it also turned out to feature badly animated dry humping, which could be unlocked only by deliberately downloading a patch off the internet.'"

New Scientist has a great article on Why We All Need Pornography (reg required) that provides context for the GTA uproar as well as several cases floating through the court system:

"Consumers eager for a glimpse of skin, but afraid of being found out or of being spotted in a seedy blue-movie cinema, helped drive the demand for more of these technologies. In the process, they are making the internet a more hospitable place for those promoting racial, ethnic or religious hatred, or even organising terrorist attacks. But it will also help political dissidents and whistle-blowers, so technologies created to help porn enthusiasts today are the human rights' tools of tomorrow."

Here's a busted Suburban Legend from Snopes about carjackers that use rear windshield flyers. I am pretty darn sure that there is a high correlation between the people that are alarmed by dubious email warnings like this and people that are upset about the aforementioned blurry dry humping. And I hate to break it to you, Mrs Cohen, but your grandson has probably done a bit dry humping of his own, thank god the internet showed him some new techniques. Don't even get me started about your "lost cat" sign that's been up at the grocery store for 6 months.

Here's some real carjacking prevention tips. Unfortunatley there aren't enough tips about Government Nannies jacking emerging technology. At least there is EFF

Bowl of forks

2005-08-02T07:18:00.000-04:00

I have a special place in my heart for college cafeteria pranks (it amazing how a frogurt machine can easily be "repurposed" with an innocent allen wrench).
Kent Lewis from Anvil writes a great memoir on the subject with Practically Serious:

"The rush I felt upon hearing the crowd roar was amazing. Blood pulsed through my body and pounded in my ears, similar to what Lance Armstrong must feel when he trips and falls with a tray of food. Since I was never good at sports, music, or just about anything in school, it was my first applause, and I'll never forget it."

For a more elaborate and galactic pranks, check the Museum of Hoax's Top Ten College Pranks of all time

Can we think like a plant grows?

2005-07-29T17:20:00.000-04:00

I have no idea when or why I signed up for a Goethean Science newsletter, but Steve Talbott @ The Nature Institute has some great articles. Just read: Can We Learn to Think Like a Plant?.

"Mere sameness is not unity, and it cannot give us
movement. This is why a science based on abstraction, whereby we abstract
from things their sameness -- what they have in common -- cannot deal with
the various sorts of dynamic unity we find in the world's phenomena."

I understand how all this abstraction feels like new-age-occult-nonsense-talk to "hard" scientists, but the whole approach seems to have validity to a "i had blunt head trauma to my left brain" poster child like me. Feels similar to the brain's use of invariant representation and patterns from On Intelligence. And it sounds like some of Goethe's theories have had a resurgence due to some quantum physics findings. Still, I feel awkward with a "Be the plant" science mantra.

"It seems to be a mere image held in our minds. It is more pictorial and imaginative than logical and computational. It does not readily lend itself to the action of gears or levers or transistors. To equate it with any particular physical object is, in fact, to lose it. Can such a pictorial idea manifesting in our consciousness contribute to a genuine understanding of the world?

...Within human consciousness we discover a language for understanding the world. If this were not so, we could only stare blankly at our surroundings. What scientists need to realize is that our conscious (and unconscious) interior is vastly richer than the contentless abstractions playing over the convoluted surface of our brains. We are creatures of imagination, of heart-felt feeling, and of will raying out through our muscles and bones. And to the degree we must call on the full powers of this inner language in order to comprehend, for example, the leaves successively gestured forth along the stem of a buttercup -- to the degree this language makes the world intelligible -- we must acknowledge that the language speaks truly. That is, it reveals the world, which is to say that what speaks in us speaks also in the world."

That all feels right, but I don't see how it is contrast with the dissection of an idea. Sure the idea "dies" in the process, but narratives or gestures are pulled from snapshots all the time. Don't see how "qualitative science" differs really. I do wish "quantitative science" focused on language more.

Here's some Goethean Car Manufacturing

You Can Never Have Enough mouth gouging fiber

2005-07-29T12:19:00.000-04:00

looking for an image of my favorite AARP-sexual tension cereal box, i found this older post : You Can Never Have Enough Good Friends by author Andrea Siegel. Never heard of her before, but it makes me want to read her book, Like the Red Panda.

agents, cuban gold, and ropeplay

2005-07-28T21:35:00.000-04:00

I wish to be cremated. One tenth of my ashes shall be given to my agent, as written in our contract.
- Groucho Marx

Two short flicks try to make talent agents look more like secret agents:

• The long, sloppy but funny Winterbottem Promo never quite seems real enough or take it far enough to really fuck with you, but it's still pretty funny in parts, especially towards the end.

• Shutterbugs - Episode 2 is just brilliant...even transcendent. Wouldn't the world be a better place if all contracts were made with oral ice cream agreements?

My new favorite online music video:
Llegamos Futuro from Cuban director Eduardo Benchoam.

The other Films on his site are great too, especially Palo Monte, a short doc on an afro-cuban religion, Fish Eat Fish, and Bad Dream. All his stuff is edited with an amazing and tight rhythm. Can't wait to see more.

Flashgames
If you're looking for an elegant and completely gayballs way to waste some more time online look at these bonbons from Ferry Halim. My favorite is the one with the squirrel or the one with the samurai.

*Pic from Eduardo Benchoam

team carson

2005-07-18T16:35:00.000-04:00

"I've never had major knee surgery on any other part of my body."
-Winston Bennett

My knee is finally making progress. I'm trying not to be overly optimistic, since I've "turned the corner" before, just to run into a flying tackle of pain and frustration. Still, for the first time in a while I can actually do some things. I've played 2 on 2 bball, jogged for 15 min on the treadmill, and played a little bit of tennis. I still deal w the pain daily (it hurts right now) and driving and sitting sucks, but the pain doesn't have that blowtorch edge anymore. Most importantly I actually believe there might be hope for a full (relatively speaking) recovery. So, thank you Dr. Garrett. Thank you Dr. Gross, PT and thank you Chris Helmstetter. These are all caring, top-notch health care guru's who've really tried to understand why I was continuing to have so many problems. I higly reccomend them. I also recommend swimming and doing a lot of effin squats.

Can I have Bear powers?

2005-07-18T12:50:00.000-04:00

ten video clips that I have enjoyed in the past 6 weeks:

1. Leeroy Gets The Troops Killed
2. Indie dance break
3. Why would a Bear say such a horrible thing?
4. how can you possibly take down a vast conspiracy shadow paramilitary network if you are scared by moo cows and crazy hamer wielding scotsmen, you dirty hippies?
5. daily weather by david lynch
6. Jennings loves ice cream
7. electrifried sausage = try this at home
8. m&m's loves garden state
9. shutterbugs
10. disco apache

icky bonus bodymod photo site:
facial saline injection
heartfelt bonus music video:
Stephen Fretwell 'New York'

Just when you start to think it's 2005

2005-05-26T11:15:00.000-04:00

N. Carolina Cross-Burnings Investigated
I can't believe this is real, but i guess it would be naive to be surprised.

a magnetic pancreas

2005-05-20T14:14:00.000-04:00

I'm tatoo and piercing free, but I have to say that the idea of Magnetic Body Mod does have a certain Posthuman appeal. I worry that it would be a slipperly slope though, and the next thing you know I'd have a titanium gall bladder and 57 subcutaneous LED lights.

Reading the Body Mod article made me remember the phrase "magnetic pancreas" that I wrote in an old writing blog I had forgotten, so i googled it and got this digitally dusty artifact:

He charms and heals with a magnetic pancreas. A black-eyed Ty Cobb of a man, his rugged face says beloved coach and purple-vaned child molester all at once. His name is Oolof, Dr. Ambrose Oolof. He is my Allergist. You haven't really made it as a Rock Star until you have your own Allergist on tour; I tell that to all of the interviewers, but they never include it. Today, Dr. Oolof told me "Esn zoh dikh verem!" In Yiddish it literally means "The worms will eat you!

I think Probot or someone has already done this before, but I'm not mad at This LouisXIV video for revisiting the tattooed, pierced, and topless Suicide Girl well. It'd be hard for even Rob Bowman to botch this video, but it's well executed nonetheless. (NSFW) and much better than the standard layered-graphic-heavy indierock video (I like Her Space Holiday - My Girlfriend's Boyfriend though)
from 320 by 240

and on a somewhat related note...I now know someone who has received a "hero" tag on FARK:
Police chief of Topsail Beach, NC will not arrest topless sunbathers(SFW)

hugs

2005-05-18T15:49:00.000-04:00

Everyone needs hugs...
as long as they are not evil lingering hugs.

we are the world?

2005-05-12T09:59:00.000-04:00

this makes me like zach braff a little more NSFW
this makes me like storm troopers a little more
this makes me like kelly clarkson a little more
this makes me like 50 a little more
this makes me like Snoop a little more

can any of us really change though?

Carly Simon will be there

2005-05-05T16:45:00.000-04:00

Check out the International Teaser for the May shows for my improv comedy team Community Bike.

We will be performing May 10th, 17th and 31st at the Skylight Exchange in Chapel Hill. Showtime is 8pm. Showcost is $3.

btw Thom Yorke called this "the sexiest song ever written."...which reminds me:

PodcasterCon

2005-05-04T11:13:00.000-04:00

Looks like PodcasterCon might be happening at UNC in the not too distant future. It's a very grassroots event, and they still need some dough, and as they say, "You don’t have to be a podcaster to come. We’ll help you get started."

If you can spare it, paypal them a few bucks. I will promise to sit beside you and make snarky remarks.

gargleblaster

2005-04-29T18:51:00.000-04:00

Update: Saw the movie. My expectations were too high. There were some truly inspired scenes, but the whole just didn't congeal. Still, go see it if you haven't and definitely, above all else...VOTE Beeblebrox!

Since The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy opens today, I thought I would see if I could find a good receipe to make my own Pangalactic Gargle Blaster to drink beforehand. A Pan-Galactic Gargleblaster is an alcoholic drink which "induces a sensation almost exactly like having your brain smashed in by a slice of lemon wrapped around a large gold brick. Possibly chilled." Unfortunately, the original ingredients are a bit exotic:

Pan Galactic Gargleblaster
Juice from 1 bottle of the Ol’ Janx Spirit
Combine with one measure of water from the seas of Santraginus
3 Cubes of Arcturan Mega-gin melted into mixture (it must be properly iced or the benzene is lost)
4 liters of Fallian Marsh gas
Use the back of a silver spoon to float a measure of Qualactin Hypermint extract
Drop in a tooth from an Algolion Suntiger and watch it dissolve
Sprinkle with Zamphuor
Add an olive

Drink.

I found some more pedestrian approximations online that I will have to attempt.

I even found one article about a bar in munich that server a version which exploded in the face of patrons:

imperialism is good sometimes?

2005-04-29T11:43:00.000-04:00

From RealBeer.com: "Flying Dog Brewery in Denver is brewing a beer to honor the late Hunter S. Thompson. Gonzo Imperial Porter is a 9% alcohol by volume and will carry a label designed by Ralph Steadman, who illustrated much of Thomspon's work and who has created Flying Dog labels for years. " Flying Dog has announced that the beer will be ready in June 2005. Sad? Fitting? Who knows. No Sympathy for the Devil.

This article made me feel worse about, well, everything. While these foreign sites made me feel a bit better:
Beer and Loathing: Strange and disquieting dispatches from Dublin's Pub Scene
eXile: A Moscow Based Alternative Newspaper

On a somewhat related note, recent science findings suggest that alcohol gets the brain hooked by causing the production of MORE nerve cells. When I went to swim laps today, I noticed that they were playing One toke over the line during the senior aquatic aerobics class at the gym

If you had a time machine would you erase the Nelson Brothers?

2005-04-29T11:06:00.000-04:00

Someone just signed me up for the Matthew & Gunnar Nelson official fan newsletter. Since I just watched Primer, I wondered if perhaps my doppleganger from the future sent it to me as a joke. Pretty funny, future self, pretty funny.

I'm still on the fence about the movie though. I fell asleep during parts, but it's really stayed with me, and it had one of my favorite lines in recent memory, "I can think of no way in which this thing would be considered even remotely close to safe".

I was searching for reviews to help me make sense of it and I saw that Christian Answers had reviewed it. I was curious to see how religion dealt with the ethics of time travel. The review was far more than I expected, with no easy answers about the movie or time travel. It touched on everything from Duchamp, Col. Kurtz, and Milton's Lucifer:
"Does the title implicate time as a "primer" upon which we inscribe self and history? The movie suggests that reality is a dynamic palimpsest with a primer covering a previous version even as it prepares to receive the succeeding one, mediating between past and present in a modality that is very much like time travel. "

video breakfast

2005-04-29T10:11:00.000-04:00

Hi, I'm PaperRad, and I'd like to blow your mind with some 4 dimensional psychedelic music videos featuring gumby, puppies, and magic. Bubble Puppy is my favorite.

Check out the shorts and music videos fromAdam and Dave. I can't decide which one is my favorite.

links via Antville

Back in the skillet again!

2005-04-21T11:20:00.001-04:00

Reuters is reporting that KFC will go back to calling itself Kentucky Fried Chicken in the US:

"After 14 years of trying to downplay the image of its food as greasy and unhealthy by calling itself simply KFC, the U.S. chain on Wednesday opened a new restaurant in its hometown of Louisville, Kentucky, under its former name and plans 50 more this year."

The full story is over atReveries.

Does this mean that it's cool to be southern again? Could it mark a new chapter in brand image of the South as a whole? Did the Col. go on a diet? Only time will tell.

According to Snopes it turns out that the real reason they changed their name to KFC in the first place wasn't because of negative health connotations either. Nope, it was something far stranger...and it involves neil diamonds, horses, and weed.

If you can't wait here's a receipe courtesy of The Chitterling Site

1 frying chicken, skin removed if you
want lower fat. I leave the skin on.
3 teaspoons Lawry's Seasoned Salt
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
1 cup all purpose flour
1 cup vegetable oil

1. Season chicken with all seasonings.
2. Roll chicken in flour until covered. Shake off
excess flour. Sprinkle additional seasoning.
3. Simply fry chicken in frying pan until golden
brown. I like it crispy so I cook it a little longer
than most.

You can start out with the oil very hot and then
reduce it later. This seals in the moisture and
flavor, then cooks it.

not what they seem

2005-04-11T10:33:00.000-04:00

"And even today I remind myself with childish excitement that I am really a conjurer, since cinematography is based on deception of the human eye. I have worked it out that if I see a film which has a running time of one hour, I sit through 27 minutes of complete darkness - the blankness between frames. when I show a film i am guilty of deceit. I use an apparatus with which I can take advantage of a certain human weakness"
-Bergman

This video Human by Danish band Carpark North and directed by Martin De Thura is simply fucking amazing. It makes me want to be a better deceiter a better conjurer.

link via antville

Mapping Merce

2005-04-05T16:37:00.000-04:00

Interesting post from Roland Piquepaille's Technology Trends
on a Stanford project that collected data on a Merce Cunningham dancer:
"We're looking upside down, inside out, at the human body," said course director Amy Ladd,, MD, professor of orthopedic surgery. "It's not the way any single discipline would frame the study of movement."

Merce Cunningham Dance

An art process in not essentially a natural process; it is an invented one. It can take actions of organization from the way nature functions, but essentially man invents the process. And from or for that process he derives a discipline to make and keep the process functioning. That discipline too is not a natural process. The daily discipline, the continued keeping of the elasticity of the muscles, the continued control of the mind over the body’s actions, the constant hoped-for flow of the spirit into physical movement, both new and renewed, is not a natural way. It is unnatural in its demands on all the sources of energy. But the final synthesis can be a natural one, natural in the sense that the mind, body and spirit function as one.
-Merce Cunningham

photo by Jack Mitchell

arise and stumble

2005-04-05T12:43:00.000-04:00

A sublime video from Silver Mt. Zion and Kurtis Hough for the already sublime song
stumble then rise on some awkward morning

America is that really you?

2005-03-29T13:42:00.000-05:00

Simple. Honest. Brilliant.
i suppose that technically the academy gave filmmaker Errol Morris his oscar for his amazing documentary film work, but in my book he got the golden statue for his work in championing "The High Life."
We can now fully appreciate his work online:Miller High Life Commercials.
Now, I am prone to exaggeration and hyperbole, but I firmly and soberly proclaim that it is the greatest series of commercials in American Television History. I'll see anyone who says otherwise on Fight Hill.

Thank you Errol. Thank you High Life

peep show

2005-03-23T14:19:00.000-05:00

in my heaven there will be peeps all year round

peep jousting
more than you would ever want to know about peeps...including poems

add has its benefits

2005-03-23T10:46:00.000-05:00

My generation is so add that it is not enough to listen to one song at a time, we have to take multiple songs and mash them together. most times it sucks, but every once in a while...well, it's not like we are going to listen to it again or even be able to sit through the whole track without skipping ahead on the ipod. Anyway, here's some mash/bootleg sites that don't suck.

GHP
Hearing Double
Beatmixed

Big thanks to beatmixed for turning me onto an amazing but loong article in the LA weekly on the current state of the music biz...A small new future:
"The record industry discovered some time ago that there aren’t that many people who actually like music. For a lot of people, music’s annoying, or at the very least they don’t need it. They discovered if they could sell music to a lot of those people, they could sell a lot more records.”
—T-Bone Burnet

"Here is the moral of our story: In a music industry filled with Cynics and True Believers, they say the good men die like dogs, and the bad men make out like bandits. “Good men” has always been code for the True Believers, people who actually like music. Well, it’s about time the Cynics start watching their ankles. Some of those dogs have grown teeth. And they might turn out to be pit bulls."

Rise and Fall

2005-03-22T11:00:00.000-05:00

Come check out the Startup.com flick and co-founder Kaleil D. Isaza Tuzm at UNC this evening. the film contains perhaps my most favorite scene in any documentary film. Free itunes song to the first person who knows what it is or can guess.
UNC News release -- Dot-com rise, fall examined in March 22 screening,
panel

tradeoffs

2005-03-16T11:09:00.000-05:00

My headphones have been playing a lot of London's Xfm and we funk radio recently.

it aint about a wordlock

2005-03-15T17:18:00.000-05:00

The Economist has an article on "The future of innovation" coninciding with a new book by the head of MIT's User Innovation Project - Eric Von Hippel.

The book, Democratizing Innovation will be available electronically via a Creative Commons license, and "looks closely at this emerging system of user-centered innovation." It's great that big business is finally realizing that this is a real force, even if they don't really understand the customers who are contributing, but from what I can tell, everyone is still looking at the end result rather than the process itself. I'm excited that von Hippel's book may finally start addressing some of these "ancilliary" benefits...it'll be interesting to see how far he goes.

The number one rule for any of these projects is that the project should be worthwhile even if you take away the end result/product/concept/etc. If a company is eyeing ROI from such a project, then the project should already be worth commiting the resources even if all the customer "innovations" are garbage. The real value is the process itself, the conversation between company and customer, not in any "new idea" that is spawned. The totally lame and lazy metaphor at the end of the economist article, "Either way, some firms are starting to believe that there really is such a thing as a free lunch," shows that unfortunately the "creative consumer" is still being looked at through dusty 19th century lenses.

update: full book now online here

poopy in training

2005-03-15T15:16:00.000-05:00

I don't know if muppet understands cockney, but i'm thinking about enrolling in school with
this guy. I think muppet would make an excellent on ball defender.

cant knock the hustle

2005-03-11T13:14:00.000-05:00

I'm not sure what to think of the trailer i just watched for
Death of a Dynasty. Is it possible for anybody, much less image conscious hip-hop moguls to pardoy themselves "in the spirit of This is Spinal Tap"??? Damon Dash could always have some surprises up his sleeve, but the trailer isn't encouraging (to be kind).

ye ole AI waffling

2005-03-11T09:35:00.000-05:00

I'm listening to the mp3 of On Intelligence (which i higly recommend), so I got interested in a fun but disjointed and academic discussion over at Edge entitled THE PANCAKE PEOPLE, OR, "THE GODS ARE POUNDING MY HEAD" started by avant-guarde playwright/etc Richard Foreman:
"But today, I see within us all (myself included) the replacement of complex inner density with a new kind of self-evolving under the pressure of information overload and the technology of the "instantly available". A new self that needs to contain less and less of an inner repertory of dense cultural inheritance—as we all become "pancake people"—spread wide and thin as we connect with that vast network of information accessed by the mere touch of a button."
...lots of smart famous people respond.

redline

2005-03-10T19:34:00.000-05:00

Paul Graham, author of solid gold Hackers & Painters, writes a great column on How to Start a Startup. Thank you.

Here's some of my fav cuts:
" I can think of several heuristics for generating ideas for startups, but most reduce to this: look at something people are trying to do, and figure out how to do it in a way that doesn't suck."
"If you work your way down the Forbes 400 making an x next to the name of each person with an MBA, you'll learn something important about business school. You don't even hit an MBA till number 22, Phil Knight, the CEO of Nike. "
"Hackers are so used to computers that they have no idea how horrifying software seems to normal people. Stephen Hawking's editor told him that every equation he included in his book would cut sales in half."
"If you want ideas for startups, one of the most valuable things you could do is find a middle-sized non-technology company and spend a couple weeks just watching what they do with computers. Most good hackers have no more idea of the horrors perpetrated in these places than rich Americans do of what goes on in Brazilian slums.
"It's easier to make an inexpensive product more powerful than to make a powerful product cheaper...It's very dangerous to let anyone fly under you"
"Great things happen when a group of employees go out to dinner together, talk over ideas, and then come back to their offices to implement them. So you want to be in a place where there are a lot of restaurants around, not some dreary office park that's a wasteland after 6:00 PM. Once a company shifts over into the model where everyone drives home to the suburbs for dinner, however late, you've lost something extraordinarily valuable. God help you if you actually start in that mode.
"
"My final test may be the most restrictive. Do you actually want to start a startup? What it amounts to, economically, is compressing your working life into the smallest possible space."

real and surreal

2005-03-10T12:38:00.000-05:00

Check out Apple's behind the scenes look at Gunner Palace with filmmakerMichael Tucker for some fascinating background stories and apple realted tech talk:
"In the heat of it all, he says, soldiers kept in touch with friends and family using modern technology — unprecedented in wartime, but often making the separation feel even greater. In a diary entry from September, 2003, Tucker wrote, “Nothing is more bizarre than watching a soldier argue with his wife about which bills to pay as a firefight plays in the distance. The irony is, all the technology in the world can’t bring them home. You feel close, but in reality, you are further away than you thought.”

It was this constant juxtaposition of real and surreal, along with the soldiers’ attempt to cope and survive in the face of growing hostility, that made Tucker realize he had to tell their story to the world. “For the soldiers, it’s really validating that someone tried to capture what they’re going through,” says Tucker. “That’s probably what I’m most proud of — that to them it feels true.”"

Also, the Hitchhiker's trailer we've all been dreaming...complete with lots of meta-trailer references and Adam's-esqe humor.

more drink coasters?

2005-03-10T11:08:00.000-05:00

Today Alcatel CEO Serge Tchuruk makes some pretty damning statements about the DVD at some forum or another in Paris:
""The DVD will be short lived," said Tchuruk. "This kind of video was a passive exercise. Today things need to be much more interactive."
Alcatel isn't a disinterested party in these waters, but they have some strong evidence and market indicators to back it up.

On his blog The New Normal VC Roger McNamee serves up some very nice incites and future glimpses on a post-DVD world. Even the comments section warrants a thorough read.:
"Imagine how interesting the web would be as an eBay-like marketplace of creator/sellers of content. Imagine how much damage would be done to the equity market value of content distributors who fail to understand the change and modify their strategy to benefit from it. "

links via /.

Coventry Cathedrals

2005-03-09T14:59:00.000-05:00

I'm reading Gladwell's Blink, and so far it has met all expectations. though i doubt it will infiltrate language and minds the way Tipping Point did, Blink is an even better read. Sure some of the anecdotes don't really contribute to a neat and coherent theory the way some readers might like, and I wouldn't be surprised if he's simplified neuroscience a tad, but the man can write. Its fun to sit back and enjoy ideas and stories in the hands of a virtuoso.

I started checking out the archives on his site and randomly poking around his New Yorker archives. This article on Group Think stuck out...SNL, Tubingen philosophers, and Café Guerbois in one swoop:

"We are inclined to think that genuine innovators are loners, that they do not need the social reinforcement the rest of us crave. But that's not how it works, whether it's television comedy or, for that matter, the more exalted realms of art and politics and ideas."

His name is Muppet and he dances on the floor

2005-03-07T13:19:00.000-05:00

my parents got a new puppy and i fashioned him a cape from a red dish towel.

I LOVE SPACE, Babies!

2005-03-04T17:24:00.000-05:00

mustard

2005-03-04T13:54:00.000-05:00

Money where your mouth is

2005-03-04T13:15:00.000-05:00

Simple and "complete crystalline pure" effective...3M Security Glass Ad at Signal vs. Noise. link via b3ta

I have a lot of movies to see.

2005-02-12T05:20:00.000-05:00
2004 World Poll - Part 1: 36 "best of the year" lists from all over the world and all over the Cinema vs. entertainment spectrum.

hole in the bucket

2005-02-11T18:43:00.000-05:00
swisscheese - flash movie gold

#76 on the German Charts

2005-02-11T15:35:00.000-05:00
It doesn't get any better than this people...they're pirates, they're thugs, and, well, they like to hold hands a lot. Get ready to have your shores stormed...I give you...Double P.!!!

espn spot from DGG

2005-02-08T13:42:00.000-05:00
Now that football is over, we should ask ourselves...so what are you gonna do in the off season?

2005-02-03T11:17:00.000-05:00
Great article from Fast Company - Swimming Against The Tide about the brains behind Cartoon Network's Adult Swim. "'These are shows that make the audience uncomfortable,' says Mike Lazzo, the network's senior vice president and the founding-father-cum-father-figure at Adult Swim. 'Our most basic philosophy, which we ripped off of [legendary network programming chief] Fred Silverman is, 'Look at what everyone else does, do the opposite.' "

multiplicity of universes

2005-01-31T22:36:00.000-05:00
I recently listened to the audio version of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. I hadn't read it in ten years, and it was every bit as funny and amazing as I remembered. I started reading the eulogies and articles on Douglas Adams's death and came across Douglas Adams' speech at Digital Biota 2:"is there an artifical God?" He asks some big time questions and proves that charm and humor and creative metaphor can contribute to any field, even science and religion.

There are some oddities in the perspective with which we see the world. The fact that we live at the bottom of a deep gravity well, on the surface of a gas covered planet going around a nuclear fireball 90 million miles away and think this to be normal is obviously some indication of how skewed our perspective tends to be, but we have done various things over intellectual history to slowly correct some of our misapprehensions.

we are the stories we tell

2005-01-28T17:09:00.000-05:00
The trailer for Iraq war doc film Gunner Palace went online today. I absolutely hate "preach to the choir I have a hypothesis and because i'm so smart and i'm going to tell you what to think and how to make sense of it" documentaries, which are a dime a dozen these days...but this one looks great. The trailer comes right out and says it..."This is Not About the Politics...This is About the War from the Inside Out...Told By the Soldiers Caught in the Middle". I'm sure people will see what they want to see in the film, but at least from the trailer it looks like it will tell a story instead of shout from a non-linear editing soapbox, and that's an admirable feat.

it's ok, i played beer pong after watching it

2005-01-28T15:39:00.000-05:00
Byron Woods and theindy reviewed my dance short, Glacier Knocks this week: "I'm not certain whether to blame cinematographer Joseph Weinfield or a string of bad electrons in uncalibrated equipment for the far too murky visuals of Glacier Knocks, Erik Martin's film with Winston-Salem's alban elved dance company. In this viewing, little more could be discerned than the fact that parts--and possibly all--of the film appeared to show extremely low-lit movement footage of various company members in reverse."

...can't really get mad at the critique (other than the butchering of the cinematogrpaher's name, but perhaps that's for the better). The film was shown so dark and in the totally wrong aspect ratio, you could barely make it out, not to mention the sound problems. It hurt to see everyone confused by the barely descernible images onscreen, but nothing i can really do about it. It was pretty darn dark to begin with, perhaps it was too risky of a piece for them to show. that's the rub with film though...you can't really tailor the show to the venue, audience, mood, etc. like you can on stage.

teensy consolation

2005-01-27T15:02:00.000-05:00
from BuzzMachine: If I were you, VW, I would hold a contest to get people to create the best damned VW commercial anywhere and promise to spend big bucks to air it on, say, the Oscars. You don't have to pick the terrorist commercial. You'll be making clear that the thing was not made by you. At the same time, you will learn a lot about new messages that truly resonate and reverberate from your customers -- because your customers are creating them. How's that for market research?

...hmm. I once tried to start a company to faccilitate this very thing. It was called noodle&spark. My partner was a sharp and debonaire research Psychologist. It never got off the ground. The year was 1999.

two vids

2005-01-26T15:53:00.000-05:00
I didn't really want to like this video for one of my favorite Postal Service songs. Its by Napolean Dynamite director Jared Hess. I liked the movie, but i just didn't see how kitsch could do this song justice. I was wrong, it's outstanding.

Conversely, I wanted to like the new Spike directed Bjork video for Triumph of a Heart (check it out on bjork's site) but it feels a bit flat to me. Spike's new Luda video has grown on me, maybe this one will too.

god bless the internets

2005-01-24T12:12:00.000-05:00
i recently encountered an error in Final Cut Pro that was making me freak out a bit. I tried all the normal tricks and things i could think of...no effect. I started playing disasterous scenarios in my mind. I googled the error message, and quickly found out what my problem was. Illegal characters!

I felt joyous and stupid at the same time. I should know better than to use a "/" in any computer file name, but I was freaking out so bad, I didn't even think about checking the file names. Gotta remember the first rule.

Anyway, thank you 2-pop forums: Capture error problem (FC3.0)!

channel sci-fi

2005-01-21T12:04:00.000-05:00
last night i dreamed an entire sci-fi story...

It centered around a nasty new drug which leapfrogged high grade H, but was effective only if it was partially metabolized by someone with extremely close DNA to the user. The more DNA overlap the higher the drug made you.

The story started out with a mother feeding the drug to her young daughter and then making her vommit into a baggie.

The dashing buddy cops combating this scourge wore matching red and blue designer bullet proof vests. They were (of course) fraternal twins.

Knights of Columbus, That Hurts!

2005-01-18T19:36:00.000-05:00
This was 18 years ago. That fact makes me feel pink and winded. I still know the tricks though, not sure how that makes me feel.

Reexaminations

2005-01-18T13:41:00.000-05:00
Hurrah. Errol Morris has put his Reexaminations back online. My favorite is reason #2 for "Why It Makes Sense to Bite the Hand that Feeds You." "Preemptive bite. Hand is ready to do something. Just look at it. You've got to protect yourself, don't you?"

matching Kangol is too tight

2005-01-18T11:07:00.000-05:00
Samuel L Jackson seemed a touch snooty when he turned down a role in amazing director Jim Sheridan's next film, because he didn't want to share billing with 50 cent. apparently he has no problem sharing the screen with Ashanti, or doing a movie for a director whose last project was a TV show called "Hack" if he gets top billing.
Thankfully, Mr. Cranky is there to take him down from his toadstool. I'd rather see the Martin Lawrence inspirational basketball coach movie anyway.

Coach Carter:
Every single scene drips with the predictable syrup of the eventual resolution that everyone knows will take place. We already know it's not about the winning and losing. It's about how you play the game and the game in this film is life. Through discipline, exercise, and good language, Coach Carter teaches these kids how to win at life.

Unfortunately, all "Coach Carter" taught me was that I can actually scratch the first four verses of Revelations into the back of a theater chair with my fingernail in a little under two hours.

Animal Reviews

2005-01-18T10:43:00.000-05:00

Imagine if when all the little animals were going 2x2 up the ramp to Noah's Ark, a panel of cheeky brits was rating them. let there be Animal Reviews. My favorites are the Cat, Ocelot, and the Jellyfish.

One Soft Infested Summer

2005-01-11T10:07:00.000-05:00
I've been listening to The Boss this morning.
Born to Run was the first album I ever owned. It was a gift from my dad. The first album i bought with my own $ was Liscense to Ill. I think my music collection has been playing catch-up ever since.
Eventhough its in eye-torture white on red text, this 1975 review of "Born to Run" sums up the Boss's storytelling power for me: Springsteen’s heroes and heroines face terror and survive it, face delight and die by its hand, and then watch as the process is reversed, understanding finally that they are paying the price of romanticizing their own fear...You may find yourself shaking your head in wonder, smiling through tears at the beauty of it all. I’m not talking about lyrics; they’re buried, as they should be, hard to hear for the first dozen playings or so, coming out in bits and pieces. To hear Springsteen sing the line “Hiding on the backstreets” is to be captured by an image; the details can come later. Who needed to figure out all the words to “Like a Rolling Stone” to understand it?
I remember sitting in my beat up car in the driveway of my shitty college apartment which had just been completely flooded by a hurricane, listening to Jungleland. I was depressed and planning to drop out of school. I watched a big rat walk across a telephone line and I listened to that tape over and over. I'm still not sure what the words mean.

Koko has a blog

2005-01-10T15:46:00.000-05:00
Koko has a blog and she really likes Pesto pizza. Her friend Ndume really likes Chayote Squash. Gorillas and I have similar taste in food. I am happy.

bewilderment and persistence

2005-01-10T10:23:00.000-05:00

Amazing NY Times article from Anne Dillard about the impossibility and beauty of writing.Write Till You Drop: "One of the few things I know about writing is this: spend it all, shoot it, play it, lose it, all, right away, every time. Do not hoard what seems good for a later place in the book, or for another book; give it, give it all, give it now. The impulse to save something good for a better place later is the signal to spend it now. Something more will arise for later, something better. These things fill from behind, from beneath, like well water. Similarly, the impulse to keep to yourself what you have learned is not only shameful, it is destructive. Anything you do not give freely and abundantly becomes lost to you. You open your safe and find ashes."
via mefi

The last time i felt this way about lotion i was 14

2005-01-06T14:59:00.000-05:00
I'm really feeling the video and song lotion.
It's straight up resplendent.

I wish it was on the criterion edition so I could watch it in full res.

via ethan

Takin' Big Cable to the mattress

2005-01-06T14:36:00.000-05:00
More evidence for TV's impending death. One of the latest nails comes from Tivo, no surprise that they have gotten tired of having to deal with the dinosaur cable companies, but the other nail comes from Big Media whore, Microsoft of all people. The tornado to content diaspora Oz may arriver than we thought. via Jeff Jarvis

videos of the world i summon thee

2005-01-03T18:18:00.000-05:00
I am in love with Yahoo!'s new video search. It's the new GIS. I needed some clips of vultures circling the other day to see how easy it would be to composite them into a scene. It took about an hour using google to find a workable clip. today I tried using the yahoo video search and found the same clip and more in about 2 minutes.

i like to pretend i'm on The Wire

2004-12-26T17:23:00.000-05:00
been trying to figure out a way to record conf. calls when we use VOIP. figured it's gotta be possible. dina shows the way.

we like our salami

2004-12-23T08:54:00.000-05:00
Man fined for hiding his salami
With the new airport screening practices, this fellow Swissman should have hid the salami in his pants. Seriously, a little contraband salami never hurt anyone. In solidarity with young Dylan Pascal Graves, I shall remove the phrases "the air of forbidden fruit" (which i use often) and replace it with "the air of forbidden meat". I ask that you do the same.

Last Minute Gifts

2004-12-20T23:44:00.000-05:00
If you're still scrambling for a holiday gift for that special person on your list, here are a few looney things that just might do the trick:

Kiddie gimp suit
Art of Brandon Bird
Caffenated hot sauce

Or, you could always make something. Gifts made with love are always more meaningful. for example, I'm going to try to make a Squirrel launcher for my pops.

menja be, caga fort!

2004-12-19T01:09:00.000-05:00
I got the book Everybody Poops for Christmas one year. It was my favorite gift that year, I was 22 years old.
I can't believe I had never heard of it before, but I saw this brilliant act of cultural curiosity on the wikipedia front page today: Caganer: "The Defecator". The reasoning for this bizzare addition to some Catalanian nativity scenes is given as:

1. The Caganer, by creating feces, is fertilizing the Earth. Thus, he is considered a symbol of prosperity and luck for the coming year.

2. Some Catalans consider it to be funny.

Perfect message for the holidays, right? Rusty Cundeiff said it best: "When I doo-doo is my shit not brown
it’s a universal thing we all flush it down"

God bless us, every one.

holiday cheer in apperitif form

2004-12-17T12:05:00.000-05:00
Thanks to NOLA.com: Food and Recipes i was able to track down a apporx recipe for one of my favorite drinks of yesteryear:
limoncello

I'm going to try to whip up a few batches for the holidays. Just thinking about it brings back good memories of Europe and bad memories of Diesel Grain alcohol, which fortunately is not available in these parts.

Makes a little over 2 quarts
8organic lemons (untreated)*
1liter Diesel Grain Neutral Spirits, 190 proof* (original recipe calls for 1 quart alcohol, 180 proof)
2 ½cups sugar (original recipe calls for 14 ounces)
1quart plus ½ cup bottled still (non-carbonated) water (original recipe calls for 1 quart)

Peel the lemons, leaving a little white attached to the peel. (Reserve lemons for other uses.) Place lemon peels in a large glass or ceramic container with the alcohol; close container well with a lid, or seal with a layer of plastic wrap, then a layer of aluminum foil. Leave in a cool place for at least four days, preferably a week, gently shaking a couple of times a day. The peels will lose their brilliant yellow color over time.

On the fifth day or later, prepare a syrup by heating together the sugar and water, making sure the water never quite boils; let slowly simmer five minutes, stirring until sugar has dissolved. Let syrup cool.

Strain the lemon-scented alcohol through gauze or a strainer, and mix alcohol into the syrup; shake liquid well before pouring into pretty bottles with caps or corks. Let the limoncello sit for two to three days before serving cold in tall shot glasses or liqueur glasses; it will last indefinitely in the refrigerator or freezer.

opportunities to give

2004-12-15T23:18:00.000-05:00
Short notice, but still time to give to a couple good causes. Give (even if its 10 bucks) to Spirit of America blogger challenge, a web-based humanitarian project.
And if you're in Chapel Hill give a few minutes and a pint or two to the red cross blood drive. Thursday, December 16th, from 10:00am-2:00pm you can drop by the UNC Wellness center at Meadowmont, otherwise find a blood drive near you here.

inspirato

2004-12-15T15:01:00.000-05:00
trailers make me happy:
batman begins
charlie and the chocolate factory

film premiere

2004-12-13T15:32:00.000-05:00
Just got word that my short dance film glacier knocks will be having its premiere on January 22nd @ midnight, Carolina Theater in Chapel Hill, as part of the Choreo Shorts Festival.

I'm happy with the way that piece turned out and The Carolina Theater is a great venue. I can't wait.

anyone want a couple cartons of Kools?

2004-12-08T15:34:00.000-05:00
New research shows that Cigarette Smoke Is A Culprit In Poor Healing And Increased Scarring. This discovery shouldn't surprise anyone. But now that it's official, and powerfully described in some of the best science writting I've seen in a while, I am staying away from smoke, whether it's 1st, 2nd, or 5th hand. In recovering and rehabilitating from this last knee surgery scar tissue is the great satan:

"Wound healing is a highly choreographed, biological drama of clotting, inflammation, cell proliferation and tissue remodeling. It features an exotic cast of clotting and growth factors, specialized cells and structural proteins, each of which must time their entrance and exit perfectly. Nothing messes up this timing like cigarette smoke. Clinical studies have consistently shown that individuals exposed to cigarette smoke – whether “first-” or “second-hand”– heal poorly and are more likely to develop scarring and associated diseases."

Picture book

2004-12-05T18:08:00.000-05:00
Photographer and martini maven Joshua has just launched his new website, and it's five star. He presents photographs in sports, auto, portraits, and editorial...

A young runner stretches her quad as an unreal suburban neighborhood darkens around her. A perky car waits in an empty parking lot for someone or something. In front of grand clouds and blue sky, a bearded man dares you to mock his scooter.

On a previous incarnation of his website Joshua offered great stories and comments about the making of each picture. And while I still miss those quick personal hits, I think more than ever his work his work takes the viewer to a place where they can't help but dream their own stories

the original original thirteen

2004-12-04T22:24:00.000-05:00
Check out the old school homeland getting a shout out as the wikipedia featured article of the day: Old Swiss Confederacy

#406

2004-12-04T06:20:00.000-05:00
I know they picked "Lose yourself" as the best hip-hop song of all time in their latest top 500 list and I know they cook up sensatinal news stories when skin or crap like this isn't selling enough issues, but Rolling Stone appears to have eaten too much of their own oatmeal shitpoo this time.

There's been a lot of censorship stories out there to froth about recently:
cupid's wang
we are people too
and of course "no advocating allowed"
But the Rolling Stone absurdity's a particular thorn. We expect this kinda crap from SC legislators and other cowardly media execs, but from Ralph "No matter how paranoid you are, what they're actually doing is worse than you can possibly imagine" J. Gleason and the sometimes home of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson - it hurts, no matter how low they've already sunk.

Don't worry though, just listen to cool calming voice of FCC chairman Michael Powell saying Baby, everything's gonna be OK.

Yup, afraid the good doctor was right, "The last half of the 20th Century will seem like a wild party for rich kids, compared to what's coming now. The party's over, folks."

just to see what its like

2004-12-01T23:23:00.000-05:00
Rope (1948) has always been my favorite Hitchcock film since my aunt showed it to me way back in the day. I couldn't decide if I wanted to be the two Ivan Lendl ice-cold murders trying to get away with their "experiment" or if I wanted to be Prof. James Stewart who had to unravel their perfect crime.

In this article fromAnvil, Joel Gunz analyzes some of Hitch's classic endings:

"Hence, I believe that these quick exits are Hitch's way of telling the audience: "Okay, you came, you saw, you got your thrill, now run along home." They also help to implant the tangy aftertaste of unresolved disquiet that is characteristic of his films."

When I went back and watched Rope recently I was surprised by a few things: the acting was amazing, the main characters were obviously gay, and the ending didn't feel right. Something just didn't fit for me. Gunz's explination of this ending helps me understand and appreciate the ending for what Hitch was trying to do, esp. with the long unscored soundscape.
""Rope" is like one long exhalation. Then it comes to a still, motionless end." Hitchcock, in first color film made an "experimental one-shot" adaptation of a stage play with Nietzsche-Superman driven homosexual murderer protagonists and a fiitingly bold ending. genius.

scoped

2004-12-01T11:05:00.000-05:00
Carson is dead!

Here's a picture of me pre-operation. Can you tell I've already been doped up? I don't have any pictures post-operation, b/c by then i was in the exclusive (and camera-phone free) five-timers club recovery lounge...the lap of luxury.

Doc said the surgery went well, and as was the case before little bands of scar tissue were the cause of all the pain. They used local nerve blocks this time instead of general anesthesia and i was still unsedated enough to watch them do the nerve block in my leg, which was very cool. The surgery resident made out the painkiller perscription to himself and screwed up the antibiotics perscription as well. Despite this glaring disregard for details, I feel pretty good.

Now its time to start the rehab and keep that scar tissue hydra from coming back. 48 hours of ice and elevation and watching the wire to kick things off.

high noon

2004-11-30T09:16:00.000-05:00
Carson is going under the knife in a few hours. This time I'm burning the body and cutting off the head.

why? because we can.

2004-11-19T13:33:00.000-05:00
Resident Evil 4 Chainsaw Controller
The Tickle-Tron
all the kitties are sleeping

via B3ta

I saw DIG! last night

2004-11-19T10:17:00.000-05:00
It's sad that when a "documentary" like F911 sells out theaters, a real documentary like DIG! can't even get 10 people in the theater for a weekday evening show. It got love from the critics, including grand jury at sundance. My favorite review soundbite comes from the LA Times: "The movie, which was seven years in the making, plays like a mid-'90s Amadeus." Still, the sparse audience was somehow a fitting environment - no overwhelming gasps or laughter to socially color your reactions and a sea of empty seats to remind you that both the film and the bands (brian jonestown massacre & the dandy Warhols) it chronicled will never really got the attention/success that they merrit.

DiG! belongs in the same breath as other great recent narrative documentaries like startup.com, american movie, and hoop dreams. But just like these amazing films, DiG feels somehow flawed. The director's mission to tell the essence of the story, yet remain honest to the details stretched out over years, 1,000 of hours of footage and evolving perspectives is an inherent contradiction. Making such a film over time changes both subject and filmmaker, at least if it's done right, and no virtuoso editing feat nor objective stomach can change that fact. Unlike in Hollywood (or the Michael Moore variety of "documentary"), the cards we are dealt in real life and the emotions we have to handle them are much stranger and more complex than can be summed up in 120 minutes. So, the documentary filmmaker has to offer us glimpses, impressions, and moments. Many of my favorite films are fiction, but almost all of my favorite film moments are from documentaries, and DiG! has plenty of honest and radioactive moments that transcend time, space, and grainy VHS.

so old and busted

2004-11-18T12:03:00.000-05:00
this shouldn't surpise anyone, but its funny. A German PC magazine has uncovered an obvious case ofmicrosoft piracy:
"A quite dishornoring evidence against Microsoft, while they recently announced to act against pirated versions of Windows XP. A statement has not been given yet by Microsoft."

do you want more

2004-11-17T16:37:00.000-05:00
The Grey Video makes me happy.
update: mirror here

5-timers club

2004-11-17T13:00:00.000-05:00
I never really liked Penny Hardaway. I guess I was a UTEP two-step Tim Hardaway fan and figured it would be unreasonable to like both players of the same name. Plus, his score from anywhere athletic game was not really something I could even think about imitating on the court. 5 knee surgeries later Penny, now comes off the Knick's bench with limited but consistent impact.

As of 11am today, I have knee surgery scheduled for Nov. 30th. The DOC looked at the MRI and thinks that he can remove the scar tissue lodged under my knee cap which is giving me so much pain. As i was walking out of the orthopedic office this afternoon, the RN said hopefully, "Third times a charm". It'll be my 3rd surgery with this doctor, 5th overall (or 6th depending on how you count). I hope she's right. It's hard, but I hope.

KG, Baron, AI, Rasheed, much love to you guys, but Penny is now my favorite NBA player. Here's to his shot at 6th man of the year, and here's to 5th knee surgeries being the last.

OMG...shoulder blades

2004-11-17T08:54:00.000-05:00
In the wake of yet more fake puritanical outrageJeff Jarvis defends us yet again:
I'm going to start a site that allows all us sane, normal, red-blooded Americans send thank-you notes to the networks -- and the FCC -- every time there's a hint of sex or colorful language on broadcast...And as for your prudes who are making it your lifes' work complaining and getting stupid ass media to talk about it: Get a life.
"Get a life" is right. I used to have some asshole neighbors that would complain about everything that happened in our little apartment community, noise, agressive parking, cats, etc. I'm a nice guy and tried to be considerate for a while, addressing their complaints as I could. It took me a while to grasp it, but eventually I realized that they complained because they had boring boring lives - Low octane drama queens. I felt sad for them, and eventually tuned them out. I hope our media can do the same thing. Fuck the John Winthrop wannabees.

Magnetic Screw

2004-11-16T15:06:00.000-05:00
I had another MRI, for my knee. it's gotten much worse. New Physical Therapy might help eventually but it hasn't helped with the pain yet. I can do just about anything (well, relatively), I can go up stairs, do free weight, even shoot a few hoops. But no matter what I do or don't do, it lights up when i drive or sit, even for a few minutes. They don't seem to know what's going on - hence the hour I spent in a radioactive metal coffin today. Hopefully, the DOC will have some good news tomorrow, or at least news that doesn't involve scheduling quality time in the O.R.

On a positive note, I saw a new ending for PIEHOLE while i was crammed in the MRI tube. I've had a few moments like this before, when I see a movie scene or something. it's always been when I was doing a big editing job and i saw scenes which never existed as a daydream. If i can communicate what I saw, i think it'll be a good ending. I hope so at least, I hadn't been happy at all with any of the endings i've crapped out so far. Could the MRI machine and all the radioactivity and loud electronic drumming have helped the creative process?...maybe. it'd be nice. though, i'd much rather it help in the getting my knee to stop fucking hurting process.

first lance now indie rock - what else?

2004-11-11T15:59:00.000-05:00
Somewhere in The Crying of Lot 49, Thomas Pynchon has forseen this bizarre sponsorship story...The Postal Service -w- The Postal Service

Though the specifics seem unbelievable, somehow it should not suprise us that The national mail carrier and indie rock should become bedfellows. It's been said before and proven yet again, our upandcoming generation of artists don't necc view corporate (or even goverment) sponsorship as some sell-out kiss of death, it's just another means to support your music. nice to see that Cliff Claven and Co. realized the opportunnity here instead of just knee jerking and litigatin. still, if i think about it too much, my head hurts.

Having no apparatus except gut fear and female cunning to examine this formless magic, to understand how it works, how to measure its field strength, count its lines of force, she may fall back on superstition, or take up a useful hobby like embroidery, or go mad, or marry a disc jockey. If the tower is everywhere and the knight of deliverance no proof against its magic, what else?
--The Crying of Lot 49, Chapter 1

for those of you in chapel hill

2004-11-09T16:03:00.000-05:00
mark's university massage story

"University Massage. That's the one for me, I thought, can't get much more respectable than the university. Might be a bit cold and clinical, but no worries about having a twitch of the ear misinterpreted as the secret sign for "can you just move the stiffness elsewhere ?"

Onionhead goes solo

2004-11-09T10:08:00.000-05:00
Just heard that ONION HEAD MONSTER creator and Raleigh, NC artist Paul Friedrich has his first solo show at the Bickett Gallery. Go check it out! better yet, hit up the opening reception:
"the opening reception is saturday the 13th from 7pm to midnight. come for the art, stay for the bar. tell your friends about either one.
in a feat not seen since the days of houdini, paul friedrich is goingto attempt to fill up the entire space of bickett gallery with newpaintings, new watercolors, new xmas ornaments, new bottles, new t-shirts, comic books, flower pots and a bunch of other stuff!"

and i was all like i want to make the table light up and 45 min later...i'm a turdburgler

2004-11-05T16:38:00.000-05:00
watch the cheeseball director of ELEKTRA describe in used car salesman detail how he goes about butchering my favorite comic book storyline. What a dumbass. go back to directing mancuso, fbi and baywatch episodes.

how do these people get jobs you ask? by sucking.