Sunday, November 30, 2008

the key is in laughter, bicycles and music.



A friend of mine has a crafty pseudo-anonymous blog that deals with one of the roots of internet culture: self-centeredness. its1am.com is a beautifully de-personalized collection of thoughts, poems, and moments that are disconnected from their contributors in such a way that the creator's words blend seamlessly into the words of friends and contributors across the globe. here's a poem from which I nicked the title of this post:

the boy i once was
will disappear into the darkness, 
vanish into the night,
and with him will travel,
my blind and rash attitudes on life,
the key is in laughter,
bicycles and music. 



Delicious. So if you're feeling de-personal, or just ambigously poetic, head on over and submit something. Read More......

Friday, November 28, 2008

Well done America! Good Job, Really!

Black Friday Shoppers trampled a Wal-Mart employee to death this morning.

That one really deserves a golf clap. Really. Way to go shoppers, hope you landed that plasma screen TV for $499. that's only $10 an inch!

And I thought I was doing a good thing staying at home and doing homework. Guess we'll have to compensate by instituting Buy Nothing Year.

The American people got nominal bonus points by electing a good president, but their behavior in the face of economic crisis is akin to rats on a sinking ship. I hope they drown, with cheap toxic plastic in hand.

Give the people you love homemade art for christmas. Or secondhand books. Or hot chocolate. Or simply look them in the eye and let them know how much you love them, however you do that best.

I'll be hurtling along, looking for a place on high to sift through the ashes, and all the while craftily avoiding collisions with our doomed excesses. I hope I make it. Read More......

Tuesday, November 25, 2008

Allow me, if you will....

A short Treatise on Privacy, Isolation, and Communication.




We hereby declare the use of sunglasses in non-utilitarian or non-ironic circumstances criminal. Sunglasses may be marginally soothing to your eyes whilst basking in the full heat of a july day, and perhaps once in a while whilst trekking across the snow-blinding arctic, BUT THEY'RE NOT NEARLY AS USEFUL AS THE AMOUNT OF SUNGLASS WEARING WOULD LEAD YOU TO BELIEVE. For me in fact, sunglasses are only useful for losing. Which isn't useful at all.





These sneaky little barriers, creations of the modern metropolis, serve only to alienate us and turn us into distrustful, shallow, and socoipathic creatures of fear.

Eyes are windows to the soul. You may not like the idea of strangers seeing your soul, but the majority of strangers aren't that strange.

Throw down your glasses!

Also:

Cars shall be driven with the windows down, except if:
  • It's really cold
  • You're on the freeway
  • The music's really good.
Read More......

Thursday, November 20, 2008

Comin' Right up! Cranksgiving!

Matt's Cranksgiving Drawing
Matt Delporto did an awesome drawing for the 'cat, but we got it too late for the flyer. Still, mad cool.


Come one come all to the coolest freakin' charity ride out there, alleycat style! get food on some plates and a bit of warmth in your brisk pre-turkey saturday.

Idea and poster stolen from The New York Bike Messenger Association, sorry about the bad photoshopping! Read More......

Tuesday, November 18, 2008

The beauty of creative commons



As part of their annual fundraiser Creative Commons released this video. Read More......

Sunday, November 16, 2008

Step in the right direction...

This is way cool. President-Elect Obama released the first ever Presidential Youtube Address today, which is apparently going to be a weekly thing! Right on track...


The content's a little lacking, not much new but an argument to extend unemployment benefits beyond the first year, but having palatable communication with the country through youtube once a week will be a vast improvement and motivator to keep people involved.

I want to see these huge economic bail-outs cleverly distributed. So instead of handing a check to Ford, which is a terribly managed company completely lacking in foresight, I'd like the check to be mated with mandates that force the company to spend that money on alternative energy projects. Or at least, say, half of it. When a business model is disfunctional and selling crap gas-guzzlers that nobody wants, you don't patch it with cash. You throw out the business model and sell useful stuff. Read More......

Quite Quite


Faith-The Restless Debt of Third World Beauty from Rowan on Vimeo.

Exactly, more or less, the kind of work I want to get adept at.
If anyone knows how to find more music by Fletcher Beadon let me know. Read More......

Thursday, November 13, 2008

Libraries are fun!



Is it more than incidental that 'Focus' backward is close to 'suckoff'?


or am I just perverted? Read More......

Wednesday, November 12, 2008

The nicest rap evar.

Beautiful stuff



check out complete lyrics here.
from Shoplift Windchimes

Thanks to Nicke for the introduction! Read More......

Monday, November 10, 2008

Yeah, but does your President have a blog?

"Oh hi there President Medvedev! That's a very nice arsenal of nuclear weapons you have there! Where can I check them out in action on youtube?"

"What's that? You don't know what youtube is? Oh, and you don't have a blog? Sorry, You're officially off my information radar."

Luckily, President Obama already has a blog, and it's very snazzy:



They've got a ton of different sections, it's more or less designed as a information distribution center for the whitehouse, Web 2.0 style, with the potential to expand into a forum for the American people.



In fact, you can send in comments, which I've already done. Here's a copy of what I wanted to say to Mr. B off the top of my head:

"President Obama,
I am so pleased to see Change.gov up and running, and I eagerly await its implementation and expansion. I'm a 21 year old student, blogger, and videographer from SLC UT and an avid supporter of your campaign. I traveled to Grand Junction, CO to canvas for you and was happy to see the state swing in your direction.

I think forums like this that easily and clearly connect the American people with the goings-on inside the white house are a huge step forward and will be a crucial part of this administration. I'd like to see constant bulletins that update us on what you're working on. I think you should keep the Youtube channel up and running, and do releases occasionally to keep the youth informed.

The best thing that could happen, in my opinion, is that you link the topics on the blog or on the youtube channel with opportunities for active people to volunteer and get involved with specific aspects of specific issues. We're your ground troops still, and we're energized and motivated to enact change. A few days after the election I attended a rally protesting the involvement of the LDS church in the passing of Prop. 8 in California, it was amazing to see so many people activated and socially aware, ready to work to make the country better. For the first time in my life I feel patriotic and politically involved in a non-subversive way, I believe it is in your administrations best interest to capitalize on my generation's capable enthusiasm. We'll achieve great things.

Thank you so much for standing up in this crazy world and daring to become President,
Your constituent,
Davey Davis

p.s. and if you need me to drop everything and become a videographer for a specific project, let me know and I'm there! :)"


The coolest part is, they've already got a place where you can apply for jobs, how neat is that? So maybe my dream of being a cameraman for change can come true! check out the blog and make yerself an active member of the webtubes community! Read More......

Friday, November 7, 2008

Aw yeah

So I don't know if you heard, but WE WON MUTHAAF**!KA! YEAH YEAH OBAMA IN THE WHIIIITE HAUS!

to celebrate:
Read More......

Tuesday, November 4, 2008

One Word Nation

This little page is so cute! After you've put in your response and checked it out, be sure to click the McCain button for a bit of a telling shock. 

Read More......
The New Yorker is filled with excellent and inspiring writings on the election. Check out their website if the regular election coverage rabble isn't to your taste.

From The Choice, the editors' very thoughtful and powerful endorsement of Obama:

On energy and global warming, Obama offers a set of forceful proposals. He supports a cap-and-trade program to reduce America’s carbon emissions by eighty per cent by 2050—an enormously ambitious goal, but one that many climate scientists say must be met if atmospheric carbon dioxide is to be kept below disastrous levels. Large emitters, like utilities, would acquire carbon allowances, and those which emit less carbon dioxide than their allotment could sell the resulting credits to those which emit more; over time, the available allowances would decline. Significantly, Obama wants to auction off the allowances; this would provide fifteen billion dollars a year for developing alternative-energy sources and creating job-training programs in green technologies. He also wants to raise federal fuel-economy standards and to require that ten per cent of America’s electricity be generated from renewable sources by 2012. Taken together, his proposals represent the most coherent and far-sighted strategy ever offered by a Presidential candidate for reducing the nation’s reliance on fossil fuels.



or from David Sedaris' Undecided:

I don’t know that it was always this way, but, for as long as I can remember, just as we move into the final weeks of the Presidential campaign the focus shifts to the undecided voters. “Who are they?” the news anchors ask. “And how might they determine the outcome of this election?”

Then you’ll see this man or woman— someone, I always think, who looks very happy to be on TV. “Well, Charlie,” they say, “I’ve gone back and forth on the issues and whatnot, but I just can’t seem to make up my mind!” Some insist that there’s very little difference between candidate A and candidate B. Others claim that they’re with A on defense and health care but are leaning toward B when it comes to the economy.

I look at these people and can’t quite believe that they exist. Are they professional actors? I wonder. Or are they simply laymen who want a lot of attention?

To put them in perspective, I think of being on an airplane. The flight attendant comes down the aisle with her food cart and, eventually, parks it beside my seat. “Can I interest you in the chicken?” she asks. “Or would you prefer the platter of shit with bits of broken glass in it?”

To be undecided in this election is to pause for a moment and then ask how the chicken is cooked.

I mean, really, what’s to be confused about?

Read More......

Please Godammit Please

I just teared up a little bit...

Read More......

Sunday, November 2, 2008

Opo Terser takes amazing macro pictures of spiders and insects on flickr. They look like CG, very unreal.He also writes in-depth descriptions for each one, including information on the bugs and his methods. Click on any of the photos to see full size shots.

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Read More......

Tag Galaxy

I love interactive Flickr toys!
First you put in your search:


Then you select your choice from the cloud of related results:


Then you choose your image!





Try it out!
Thanks to Zed from saltcycle Read More......

Oh snap! Poor Governer Palin...

Two canadian radio jockeys prank call Palin, pretending to be French President Nicolas Sarkozy. I feel kinda bad for her, but the whole thing is such a mookish move that you'd have to be pretty naive to fall for it. She probably thinks Presidents call each other all the time just to have a little chit-chat.
Read More......

Saturday, November 1, 2008

Party

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Happy Halloween!


We had a good night.


Thanks everyone!
See all the Photos on Flickr. Read More......

Blog Archive

Bye