PRETTY MUCH EVERYWHERE - ITS GONNA BE HOT

March 31, 2008 | Filed Under funny haha, god bless the internet | Leave a Comment 



RECENT SEARCHES - no.8

March 26, 2008 | Filed Under god bless the internet, lists, poetry, recent searches | Leave a Comment 



RECENT SEARCHES - no.7

March 25, 2008 | Filed Under god bless the internet, lists, poetry, recent searches | Leave a Comment 

((  recent searches - nos.1-6  ))



LIST

March 22, 2008 | Filed Under god bless the internet, lists | 1 Comment 



KELLY KLEINSCHRODT

March 19, 2008 | Filed Under art, friends, god bless the internet, photo | Leave a Comment 

 Old friend Kelly Kleinschrodt is a photographer / filmmaker in los angeles who I know from Alabama days.  I just got the link to her portfolio, {via zach sierke} and I’m super impressed.  Zach also sent along a bunch of Kelly’s ((really great)) newer photos not yet on her website, so keep an eye out for updates.



Time to get some new reading material

June 12, 2007 | Filed Under god bless the internet, reading | 1 Comment 

Apparently, McSweeney’s distributor filed for bankruptcy a while back, and now they’re feeling the crunch. Everything about this company is worth supporting — from their faith in their writers and artists, to the writing workshops they do for those city-kids, to all the other great here-and-there things (Believer, Wolphin, McSweeneys.net). Everything they do is wonderful. It’d be real sad shame if they had to stop because of financial burdens.Here’s what they posted today that clued me in:

As you may know, it’s been tough going for many independent publishers, McSweeney’s included, since our distributor filed for bankruptcy last December 29. We lost about $130,000—actual earnings that were simply erased. Due to the intricacies of the settlement, the real hurt didn’t hit right away, but it’s hitting now. Like most small publishers, our business is basically a break-even proposition in the best of times, so there’s really no way to absorb a loss that big. We are committed to getting through and past this difficult time, and we’re hoping you, the readers, who have from the start made McSweeney’s possible, will help us.

This is not a huge company, and it probably is a textbook case in which every little bit helps. So check out their store and buy some stuff. Oh! and EVERYTHING is on sale - some stuff at steep discounts. (English as She is Spoke for $4.50?!)They’re auctioning off rare and cool inventory things, too, like books with little doodles in them by the authors, and the like — Obviously, a lot of that is expensive, but the regular stuff isn’t.I picked up the Collins Library Bundle and What is the What (which I’d been meaning to get for a while now anyway) for not much more than it would’ve cost to buy only What is the What at Barnes and Noble, and this way I know I’m supporting a fine cause.This is the kind of company that truly deserves success. Isn’t it our responsibility to help them get there? They have a lot of cool stuff up for grabs, for cheap — so It’s a pretty win-win situation, if you ask me. And in case you don’t know how to read, they even have some cool t-shirts. So no excuses. go forth! Save McSweeney’s!



The Most Dangerous Catch

June 6, 2007 | Filed Under funny haha, god bless the internet, politics | Leave a Comment 

I’ve been getting a kick out of Michael Scherer’s coverage on Salon.com of the GOP debates - he does a run-down of the important bits “so you don’t have to watch yourself.” I have been watching them though, and he does a pretty good job of summarizing the main points while throwing in some pretty funny observations and the odd jab at Wolf Blitzer:

22 minutes. The microphones are squelching. Rigid Blitzer says, “If you are hearing some sounds out there, it’s lightning.” Lightning, of course, doesn’t make sounds. Thunder makes sound. But lightning can cause electronics to belch noise. Blitzer, who appears to be built partly from electronics, is an authority.

… 67 minutes. Blitzer announces a break so chairs can be set up onstage. CNN cuts to Anderson Cooper and Larry King. Blah, blah. The Discovery Channel is showing a rerun of “Deadliest Catch.” It’s a good one. “Busted buoys, broken pots, and a blown engine have put the Northwestern more than a week behind schedule,” reads the teaser.

Here’s the link to article about last night’s debate, and here’s the one on the second debate; (I don’t think he wrote one for the first, and I’m pretty sure this “format” is reserved for Republican debates only.)



Time is going by really, really, really, really slow

May 25, 2007 | Filed Under funny haha, god bless the internet | Leave a Comment 



I didn’t make this, i just think it’s funny

May 22, 2007 | Filed Under funny haha, god bless the internet | 1 Comment 



ok… ready? hang on. ok. ready? ok.

January 13, 2007 | Filed Under friends, funny haha, god bless the internet, video / film | 1 Comment 

I found this really awesome website the other day called Long Awkward Pose. It’s run by Katie Dippold, who is a comedy writer for MadTV and an improv performer for UCB Theatre; she also plays “Byte” in Gemberling, which is how I stumbled on her in the first place. Evidently, she’s a genius.Long Awkward Pose has a pretty straightforward and brilliant premise. From the site:

It’s simple, really. People look foolish when posing for a picture. So tell your loved ones you would like to take their photo… then secretly videotape them the whole time. 

That’s it in a nutshell. It’s a bunch of videos of people who think they’re posing for a picture. It’s hilarious. She posts a lot of videos of her coworkers at MadTV and her family members, but she also takes submissions. So far I’ve submitted five videos. I don’t know if she’ll put ‘em up, but I’ll link mine below so y’all can see. It’s a really fun joke to pull on your friends, so I imagine I’ll be doing more soon, and I’ll post them here… at least until I run out of unsuspecting friends.For now, check out the website, and here’s what I got so far:

Zach in my living roomwhile watching Legend of the Hidden Temple: Sean and Brandy at 97 Estoria:

Ian and Niki at 97 Estoria:

Christa in my kitchen:

Paul and Sheena in my living room:



Backpack Shenanigans

December 7, 2006 | Filed Under god bless the internet, good lord | 1 Comment 

This is a pretty funny example of the hypocrisy of the religious right - and also the influence they have on less-informed people who are totally oblivious to the fact that they are being manipulated into being hypocrites.Evidently, the hilariouisly named Liberty Counsel, (a religious-right legal group (scary) affiliated with Jerry Falwell), sued Albemarie County in Virginia for discrimination for not letting some students at Hollymead Elementary School distribute flyers inviting everyone to Vacation Bible School. The lawsuit, believe it or not, actually persuaded the school to change its policy, and the kids were allowed to send the flyers home in every student’s backpack. Alright! Great!But, wouldn’t you know it, those pesky Pagans wouldn’t leave well-enough alone. A Charlottesville Unitarian-Universalist Church sent its own flyer home with the students:

“Have you ever wondered what ‘Holidays’ refers to?” reads the flier. “Everyone knows about Christmas – but what else are people celebrating in December? Why do we celebrate the way we do?” The flier invites people to “an educational program for children of all ages (and their adults), where we’ll explore the traditions of December and their origins, followed by a Pagan ritual to celebrate Yule.”It concludes, “Come for one or both parts and bring your curiosity.”

Pretty awesome. Now, of course, a bunch of parents, Christian bloggers, and religious leaders are all pissed off because another group is trying to exercise the “freedom” that they only really want for themselves. I especially appreciated this quote, from a Christian blogger/parent who noticed a disclaimer on the Pagan flyer:

“They [the school officials] aren’t endorsing or sponsoring this? Then it shouldn’t have been included in the Friday folders. The Friday folders have never been used for any thing other than school work and school board and/or County sanctioned/sponsored programs.” She then fumed that a “pagan ritual” is “an educational experience my children don’t need.”

Here’s the article.



Take it to the Limit

December 1, 2006 | Filed Under funny haha, god bless the internet, mysterious, time travel | 1 Comment 



Christmas Components

November 29, 2006 | Filed Under big ideas, god bless the internet, good lord, politics | Leave a Comment 

“A lovely thing about Christmas is that it’s compulsory, like a thunderstorm, and we all go through it together.” — Garrison Keillor“If they could, secularists would cancel Christmas as a holiday. That’s how much they fear the exposition of the philosophy of Jesus.” — Bill O’Reilly

Bill O’Reilly and Garrison Keillor certainly and obviously hail from opposite sides of the tracks - but believe it or not, they actually share a tiny little piece of common ground. Sort of. Garrison, of course, is the voice of reason and wisdom to Bill’s raving lunatic, but apparently they both want to keep Christmas in the world.There are differences to their approaches, not surprisingly. Bill’s solution to end the “War on Christmas” would be to force all non-christians to willingly defer rule to christianity and christian symbolism in public, without any “equal time” for other faiths, essentially because “we were here first,” and any entity proposing a compromise that might omit the word Christ must be economically boycotted. O’Reilly sees any adaptation motivated by a sense of political correctness as a religious persecution against Christians, and the fundies love him for it.So what about those of us libs who also happen to really like Christmas? This is where Garrison Keillor chimes in today on Salon:

“Whether or not you believe that the Creator of the Universe came to earth in the body of a child, the day itself is an enormous gift.

There are people who feel “excluded” by Christian symbolism and are offended by the manger and the angels and the Child, but there have always been humorless, legalistic people. Complaint is an American art form, and in our time it has been raised to an operatic level. To which one can only say: Get a life. When you go to France, you don’t expect a stack of buckwheat pancakes for breakfast or Le Monde to print box scores. You’re in France. Now you’re in America. It’s a Christian culture. Work with it.”

His argument, (also against the over-compensation of the p.c.-minded), is more about recognizing the fact that the religious component of Christmas is actually a pretty small fragment of the already long-since secularized “Christmas season”. He says there’s plenty of room for non-christians to enjoy Christmas, and that the trappings of the season, with all the food, nostalgia, and carols do not require an adherence to any particular faith to be enjoyed.Basically, his much more rational point of view is that, in our current society, it’s true that Christianity was here first. Pretty early on, however, the Christmas holiday extravaganza got firmly established in the secular world and was commercialized in a million films, songs, and store promotions. There’s all this great food, pretty lights, and kids love Santa Claus. It’s a very American, capitalistic, and in the past 100 years, a hugely secular thing. I think what he’s saying here is that if you’re not Christian, or even if you’re not religious at all, you can still eat the cookies and watch the rudolph special, and even still feel some goodwill towards men or something.None of us, Garrison included, would ever want to live in the near-theocratic society that Bill-O’s followers dream of. I don’t think Garrison is suggesting that Christianity get any special treatment at Christmastime, or that any other religious holiday should be silenced, just that the reality is, there’s a whole Christmas culture that a lot of people feel sentimental about and are really fond of, and he doesn’t want it to disappear into a politically homogenized fog.Politics aside, the majority of Garrison’s piece is really about elucidating what’s beautiful and wonderful about Christmas in the first place; why it’s something that so many people care about at all. I particularly love how he first observes the season through the eyes of a little girl and then later, as an adult full of the pain of life - and the moment during Silent Night on Christmas Eve when all your Christmases meld into one.If nothing else, at least we know Garrison Keillor can beat Bill O’Reilly at poetics.

/// 

Another Christmas-related item: The Sufjan Stevens: Songs for Christmas box set is out now. Last year, I blogged about three of these five E.P.s, as they weren’t available to buy, but you could find them online. (Now the links go to this page.) I listened to them a lot and they’re really great. I guess the story is that he does a Christmas E.P. with his friends every year as a tradition. I think the ones that were online were the first three years, ’cause the way Pitchfork writes about the more recent ones sounds like something I haven’t heard yet. I would ask for this set for Christmas, but that doesn’t really make sense… I want to be listening to this in the car on the way home, you know? Guess it’s going on my grocery list. 

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Finally, while doing all this Christmas themed googling today, I came across this:Not very secular, especially for characters that most people consider pretty secular, but I bet Garrison Keillor still likes it. And that Vince Guaraldi music is really something. Might be going on my grocery list also. 



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