BLOGGING IS FOR OLD PEOPLE!

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Sean Delonas is an idiot savant... or at least an idiot.
Last week's comic was a little subtle by his standards, so I punched it up for him:

See how much clearer that is? I'm surprised his editor didn't catch that.

"The sidewalk melted, the street melted, just everything"
You can watch the classic Blue Boy episode of Dragnet titled "The LSD Story" on Hulu.



It's just wonderful. There outta be a law, as they say.

This is my new favorite video of all time:



"Dana is off tonight..."

Danço do Quadrado is Portuguese for Acid Trip

Korean Drummer is a superstar

On this day in 1994, Kurt Cobain put a shotgun in his mouth and pulled the trigger.

Here's 15 year old Frances Bean Cobain casting off the outmoded values of her parents by appearing in a fashion spread for Harpers Bazaar.

By the way - How much is the fish!?

Also, this really sounds like he's saying "transforming the jews! We Need your support!"

One year ago, I took issue with Micheal Pollan's assertation that there is something wrong, harmful, or unfortunate about the "limited" number of species we eat. Pollan argued that since 2/3rds of our calories come from 4 species (soy, corn, wheat, and rice) and humans have 80,000 species to choose from (who knows where Pollan got this number), we aren't eating enough species. I rebutted, based simply on intuition:

Most tribal people probably ate less than 100 species or plants and animals, and excluding the animals, I wouln't be surprised if an even higher percentage of their plant calories came from even fewer sources than in our diets today. We get wheat and rice and corn, but until 500 years ago, each of those crops was the sole staple of different regions. Mayans ate corn, probably a lot of it, and Japanese ate cart loads of rice, and Europeans subsisted on bread. Yes they also collected weeds from the field, but as a source of nutrients a cartload of rice and a cartload of weeds add up to a diet based almost entirely on rice.

Therefore, I propose that despite the radical indutrialization of our food supply, we eat a more diverse number of plants than ever before in human history. Only 100 years ago, no human had ever eaten a mango and an avocado on the same day. And yet I eat those all the time. Plus cherries and blueberries, and sometimes dragon fruit and kiwano melons.

Now there is some scientific research into the subject. Interesting stuff. They write “that a single (BIG MAC) meal contains about 20 species is impressive, given that some human societies – those that are largely unaffected by current globalization trend – commonly include only 50 to 100 plant species in their entire diet.” But they also touch on the importance of not decreasing our existing range of food choices.

I agree with Pollan's concern for eating a wide variety of plants, but in general, I think we already are.

Ironic Plane Crash Kills 20

In 2003, by a vote of 314 to 152, the residents of Bolinas, California, passed Resolution G which read "Vote for Bolinas to be a socially acknowledged nature-loving town because to like to drink the water out of the lakes to like to eat the blueberries to like the bears is not hatred to hotels and motor boats. Dakar. Temporary and way to save life, skunks and foxes (airplanes to go over the ocean) and to make it beautiful."

(The United States of Arugula uses this fun fact as a foot note to explain what Bolinas is in the most concise way possible. Notice on that wikipedia link that, Bolinas, a town of 1200 people, has at least 35 notable current or former residents with their own wikipedia articles, most of them poets or other artists.)

Wouldn't we all?

At the end of the event, a man yelled out to Obama that he will be a better president than George Bush. Obama responded, “So would you!”

Toklas Brownies
A helpful footnote in the badly named but well written United States of Arugula points out that the original edition of the best selling Alice B. Toklas cookbook was padded out with recipes contributed by her counter-culture friends including one for "Haschich Fudge" contributed by surrealist painter and William S. Burroughs collaborator Brion Gysin. Toklas, unfamilar with the drug, published Gysin's Dadaist prank-recipe and writeup unaltered, mentioning it "might provide an entertaining refreshment for a Ladies Bridge Club"

Pardon my French

"(Julia Child) lights up the scene briefly, as (she) did the day before yesterday when with her bare fingers, she snatched a set of cannellini beans out of the pot of boiling water with the cry, ‘Wow! These damn things are as hot as a stiff cock.’”

-from letter written by Child's husband, as quoted by David Kamp in his excellent but stupidly named history of food in America "The United States of Arugula" (pg 52)

Archipiedia

I wish there was a user-edited site for compiling info about the contents of the thousands of Archie comics published in the last 65 years. There are sites out there that attempt to list the story titles in each comic, but that's not helpful enough. I want to do a single search for the word "Feminist" and get a list of every issue where that was a topic or where the topic is of interest from a feminist perspective even if that word wasn't used, like in Pep 282's "Equal Time",. How else can I easily find out in which issue the Archies band gets bankrupted by illegal file sharing? (Archie #577) or every issue tagged goth besides Archie and Friends #106? When does Archie's Black friend Chuck first appear? And more of whatever the hell this is?

This all may seem trivial, but surely it is less trivial that the already extant Tamagotchi Wiki.

Awesome Filler Item website searches Amazon for you to find the cheapest items that will push your total over $25 and activate free shipping. I love you internet!

Pa Pa Pantsu Man Da!
OMG this Japanese toilet training cartoon is better than drugs:

(Archie's Joke Book #214, 1975)

The story of Elizabeth Eckford of the Little Rock Nine, posted without comment, except perhaps to note that to be a hero is to suffer.

Flying Spaghetti Monster rewards faithful, appears in bag of candy

Those who would doubt the divinity of his Holiness the FSM and his noodley ways by claiming him to be some sort of "fad" or "overplayed joke" were struck down Wednesday evening when his Divine visage appeared on a bag of candy at a Grocery Outlet in Pleasant Hill, California.

Pastafarians rejoiced at his miraculous appearance, and touted the candy wrapper as further proof of his divinity.



As of press time, the holy item's value on eBay had yet to be determined.

And now, a word from my sponser:

Read a Book!

Here's the artist's website; it streams 3 non-crunk songs.

Reminds me of The Tick's nemesis the Human Ton and his literate sidekick Handy, but alas there is no youtube of that.

A classmate, knowing my affection for Banksy, alerted me that this week's New Yorker has a long article about him.

Silver Rush!

Today at a fundraiser for the college jewelry department, they were selling a bunch of broken tools and such, and I bought this jar of "junk silver" for 50 cents!

I showed it to Josh in my next class, and he offered to use his skills as a Metalworking TA to refine the stuff. That sounded great to me, and we agreed to split the loot 50/50.
The jar had about 3.5 pounds of gravelly black metal rocks and dust in it, but there was no telling exactly how much silver could be extracted from it. Why would the professors and students price the jar at 50 cents if they thought there was any real use for the stuff? But we were optimistic.
Josh (l) and newly enlisted metalworking classmate Tyler (r) melted down the rocks with giant blow torches while I helpfully watched.

Then, with most of the impurities removed, they did their best to pour the liquid silver into bar-molds.

After that, they gave each bar to me to file off glass impurities and flatten as best I could (using a hammer and an anvil), making them suitable for running through a press that can smash metal into sheets.
After all was said and done, we had 19 ounces of silver! Success!

Silver is selling for about $13.50 per ounce! It took us about 2 hours to turn the 50 cents of dirty metal gravel into $200+ of silver! I gave half to Josh (who gave a bar to Tyler) and kept 9.5 ounces for myself. I offered the silver to the other jewelry students at $10/ounce, and sold 3.7 ounces for $35. I still have a big 4.4 ounce bar and a 1.4 ounce nugget, but mostly because people didn't have cash on them. Next week I expect to sell the bar and maybe keep the nugget, just so i have something to illustrate this story (besides my nifty new jar!).

Supposedly there was another 50 cent jar of this stuff sold earlier in the day, but you can't win them all.

Subdivision is a Crime Against God


I took these pictures earlier today, overlooking the "Gateway" housing development aproximately 1 mile from Oakland, Ca near the Caldecott Tunnel.This pristine valley is being flattened into 250 homes for a bunch of Rich-Fucks.

Oh well.

Cick to enlarge!

Competing Memes

Kyu Sakamoto Performs on Japanese television circa 1963

This isn't the best video I've ever seen, but something must be said for the internet's ability to provide a vast and ever increasing array of previously lost media.

Jump to minute 1:10 to skip the host's intro and go straight to Kyu lip-synching "Anoko No Namae Wa."



Kyu Sakamoto's "Ue o Muite Aruko," renamed "Sukyaki," was the first and last Japanese song to hit number 1 on America's Billboard charts, and "Anoko..." was the b-side to the American 45, although it was one of a long string of hits Sakamoto had in Japan.

In it, Kyu sings that he sees a beautiful girl, so he calls out different names, hoping she responds to one of them causing her to turn around. Unable to guess her name, a flustered Sakamoto discovers that the beautiful girl is in fact a mannequin.

Sakamoto died in 1985 in the deadliest single aircraft disaster, JAL flight 123 which killed 520 of the 524 people onboard. You could probably learn a lot more by watching the approproiately titled Japanese television drama Kyu Sakamoto Monogatari (The Legend Of...) which someone uploaded at least 11 parts of onto youtube, although only part 1 has been fan-subbed:



Enjoy!

Swedish Rounding on Wikipedia

Dutch band Shocking Blue's recording of their song Love Buzz, which was later covered by Nirvana for their first single. Awful yet intriguing. I kindof like it:

Quick Quiz! Cursed-to-live-in-interesting-times edition: is it The Onion, or The Washington Post?

The White House wants to appoint a high-powered czar to oversee the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan with authority to issue directions to the Pentagon, the State Department and other agencies, but it has had trouble finding anyone able and willing to take the job, according to people close to the situation.

The Cabinet-level position, to be known as Secretary of the Nation, was established by an executive order Sept. 2, but has remained unfilled in the intervening weeks.

At least three retired four-star generals approached by the White House in recent weeks have declined to be considered for the position, sources said, underscoring the administration's difficulty in enlisting its top recruits to join the team after five years of warfare that have taxed the United States and its military.

Among the new secretary's duties are preserving, protecting, and defending the Constitution of the United States, commanding the U.S. armed forces, appointing judges and ambassadors, and vetoing congressional legislation. The secretary will also be tasked with overseeing all foreign and domestic affairs, including those relating to the economy, natural disasters, national infrastructure, homeland security, poverty, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

To fill such a role, the White House is searching for someone with enough stature and confidence to deal directly with heavyweight administration figures such as Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates.

Bush said the creation of the post directly addresses the increasingly complex and sometimes overwhelming challenges facing the executive branch in the 21st century. Although he acknowledged that the tasks facing the new appointee will be extraordinary, Bush ended his announcement on a positive note.

"As your president, it is my duty to see this nation through any crisis, no matter how severe. And as your president, I pledge to you that I will find a man capable of doing just that," Bush said. "I will not—I repeat, I will not—let you down."

and the answer is...Both!
Onion, 2005
WaPo, 2007

"YOU'RE STUPID! AND YOU"RE GONNA TO BE STUPID AND DEAD!"

- I strongly suggest you check out this classic 1996 comic based on the video game DOOM.

(my front yard)

Convited Ex-CIA and Watergate conspirator E. Howard Hunt, admits role in JFK assassination.

A retired Fireman-hazmat-arson investigator told me today about the Fire Department's "Blue Canary Test" where they determine the safe distance to be from a chemical spill by setting up a perimeter at 1200 feet and then watching cops run straight past their perimeter to investigate the spill up-close. The distance from the spill where the cops pass out from the fumes creates a blue circle that you know you shouldn't enter without suiting up into your full biohazzard suit.

He also mentioned the time that he had to repeatedly intervene to stop fellow fireman and cops from walking up to a spill of hydrochloric acid that was eating through the asphalt, sticking their bare finger into it, and tasting it.

Superboy stars in Subtext? What subtext?

Swarm! Swarm!



Oh, nevermind. It's just the vice-president.

Friday Cat Blogging, now daily

List of American Cities ranked by Liberal-ness.

Kansas City is more liberal than Sunnyvale, while Detriot is #1, and Provo, Utah is #237.

My cat's evolutionary advantage is his incredible cuteness, and yet, I've had him neutered to prevent his reproduction. Discuss.

Listen to the irrate "Message 1: Pilotless Drone"