talk freak

Filed under: why are we here? · 0 Comments

no explanation provided:
possibly, no explanation needed

Filed under: all talk, cartography, prison4life, transportation, why are we here? · 4 Comments

Wal-Mart is the cultural center of small town Middle America. In the evenings, Regular Folks Joe The Plumber travels down Main Street to watch the sunset at the Wal-Marts^*.

^*Wal-Marts is singular.

Filed under: sunset, walmart, why are we here? · 1 Comment

And they are pissed!!!

Filed under: gobots, transformers, transportation, tronix, why are we here? · 0 Comments

We’ve been subscribing to KenFlix for 23 days and loving it! Here’s what we watched:

• Juno – better than I expected.
• Saawariya – the first ten minutes were so bad we turned it off.
• Once – we saw it in the theater and liked it. still good, but this movie is best watched once.
• Sopranos – Season 5 disc 4. They all blur together. I can’t watch any more of these for a while.
• No Country For Old Men – Good, but far too violent to watch with Jess and the parents.
• Someone to Eat Cheese With – Much better than I was expecting.
• Planet Earth on Bluray – We got this to test Bob’s sweet new home theater system. The encoding quality was disappointing. The places where you can usually hide quantization noise (foliage, high-freq areas) were encoded very poorly. It was sad to see panning shots across the forest exhibit so many compression artifacts. These guys need to use an encoder tuned to such scenes. Note: don’t ask a video codec engineer to review encoding quality of Bluray discs unless you want to get an earful..
• Be Kind Rewind – Slowish, neat plot but could have been much better.
• Congorama – Whoa. Unexpectedly, my favorite KenFlix so far!
• War – dunno. Only Bob watched it.
• Wave Twisters – Great, but Bob hadn’t seen it, and the DVD wouldn’t play. Oh well.
• Futurama: Beast with a Billion Backs – Disappointing. We had such high hopes!
• Eastern Promises – Very intense. Good, but good thing Jess didn’t see this one.
• Stray Dog – Japanese noir. Kurosawa is always good.
  

14 in 23 days.. I don’t think we’ll be able to keep this rate up once Bob starts work. We’ll probably drop down to about one a week. We’re a long way from the 165 per month theoretical maximum!

Bob & Jess, anything to add? Did I forget any?

Filed under: 4star, bernal, kenflix, video, why are we here? · 2 Comments

(03:32:06 PM) shag: imagine seeing this subject line in your inbox
(03:32:08 PM) shag: You can save 10% on our entire Bagpipe category
(03:32:19 PM) shag: happens to me!
(03:32:25 PM) shag: its not even spam
(03:43:44 PM) rajjj: lol

Filed under: bagpipes, why are we here? · 3 Comments

The Silver Crest is so sketchy. It’s like Sketch Central. I’ve lived next to it for six years and had never been inside. But look at all that great neon! Their sign proclaims: “We Never Close”. We decide we have to go.

Friday night Sam was driving us back from the spaz party at the Li Po Lounge, and we pass the Silver Crest. We’re full of Mai Tais and thumpy beats, but Bob and I have the same thought. We have to go.

We walk in and transported fifty years into the past. There is a bar in the back with a crowded pool table, but it’s 2am and the bar is just closing. We grab a booth in the front. These jukebox things on every table:

It doesn’t work and and eats Bob’s quarter. That probably for the best, since the jukebox is full of with Greek waltzes.

The menu is written on the wall. The food isn’t cheap, but we hope it’s good. The coffee is a ridiculous $2.75. Even for diner coffee, it tastes like crap.

They have these old pinball machines, which mang decides to check out while we wait for the food. There is a sign saying you have to be over 21 to play. We ask the server why, and she says they don’t want to encourage the kids to gamble. Whatever. The kids are all at Li Po, anyway, playing dice for drinks.

The food comes out. I’m surprised by how bad it is, but I don’t know why. I guess I expect shitty diners to have great food. That is not the case tonight. My hotcakes arrive with an entire stick of “butter” on top, which promptly slides off onto the table as soon as the server sets them down.

I’m disgusted but Bob thinks we need to come back. The Silver Crest has donuts, and they might actually be good. Maybe we’ll bring our own coffee next time.

Filed under: diner, excursions, food, san francisco, silver crest, why are we here? · 3 Comments

Wow, I really wanna see this! It’s going to be at the Lumiere on 3/28. More videos over here and more beats over here:

• DJTEE
• IAMISEE
• Peter Miser

Who wants to go?

Filed under: beats, dance, upcoming, video, why are we here? · 3 Comments

Stefan Sagmeister, one of my favorite print designers, is going to be giving a talk at Stanford tomorrow. It’ll be in Pigott Hall (Bldg 260, Room 113) at 8pm. Here’s more on him

Stefan Sagmeister is one of the most influential graphic designers in the world working today. Since 1993 Sagmeister Inc., has focused on all things printed, including posters, brochures, books, and graphics and packaging for music clients…He’s created iconic album covers for Lou Reed, the Talking Heads, and the Rolling Stones…

Also, here’s a talk that he did at TED in 2004 that I recently watched while on the train. It’s called “Yes, design can make you happy.” I don’t know if design always makes me happy but this talk definitely did!

Filed under: design, upcoming, video, why are we here? · 0 Comments

That’s a line from this article of sage advice called How to Road Trip by Leslie Harpold. Leslie passed away last year in December and her site’s been taken down, but I’m glad bits and pieces of her writing still live elsewhere online.

Filed under: leslieharpold, roadtrip, why are we here? · 0 Comments

and on this night
did “PJ” and I go forth:
enrobed, and buzzing:
what would we find?

this cancelled holiday,
some bloody recent past:
this new top-down sanitation:
would it fly?
or, might
a hundred thousand frustrated planners
bust forth,
strutting where they could not ride?

we learned. the streets:
tranquil.
a few of us presented
different faces to the night,
but, mostly,
empty spaces where we once were,
some tourists,
some journalists,
a few mobile “Chicken John Johns”,
lots of cops.

some tentative reaching out -
as if
anything at all could happen,
focused violence or
friendly greetings:
friend or foe, both hidden,
no one could see, fearful,
but, some defied this
creeping numbness:
and happily swept the shrine
for our most honored holiday.
Trick or Treat.

Filed under: chicken john, halloween, hsag, photos, san francisco, trick or treat, why are we here?, words words · 0 Comments

Apparently these two have become inseparable at an animal sanctuary in China!

Filed under: cuuuuute, monkeys, why are we here? · 0 Comments

The KLF is maybe the world’s most enigmatic band. Once known as The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu, their lyrics are filled with references to Discordia, and their crazy exploits are too numerous to mention. When Jimmy Cauty and Bill Drummond retired The KLF, they went out with a bang. They won the award for ‘Best British Album’ at the BRIT awards in 1992, and while playing on stage, fired a machine gun (with blanks) at the audience (the entire British music insdustry), and a few months later left the music biz for good, deleting their entire back catalog. After retirement, they set up the art organization K Foundation, and in 1994 they burned £1,000,000 in a fire on a Scottish island. Although only four people attended (Drummond, Cauty, filmmaker Gimpo and journalist Jim Reid) and all evidence of the event was supposedly destroyed, Gimpo kept a copy of the video. One year after the burning, the K Foundation screened Watch The K Foundation Burn A Million Quid, which chronicled the whole thing. This BBC video, A Foundation Course in Art, has excerpts, and gives a view of the K Foundation mindset.. linky:

Via BB.

Filed under: beats, klf, video, why are we here? · 0 Comments

This article in the NYT a couple days ago is so sad.

“You look around…and the pressures to spend more are everywhere.” Children want the latest fashions their peers are wearing and the most popular high-ticket toys. Furniture does not seem up to snuff once you move into a multimillion-dollar home. Spouses talk, and now that resort in Mexico the family enjoyed so much last winter is not good enough when looking ahead to next year. Summer camp, a full-time housekeeper, vintage wines, country clubs: the cost of living bloats.

To Mr. Milletti, it all looks like a marathon with no finish line.

“Here, the top 1 percent chases the top one-tenth of 1 percent, and the top one-tenth of 1 percent chases the top one-one-hundredth of 1 percent,” he said.

“You try not to get caught up in it,” he added, “but it’s hard not to.”

The only things that give me hope are people like Craig Newmark

Newmark’s goal is just to live comfortably and not become a dot-com multimillionaire…Newmark calls his philosophy “nerd values,” which he explains as making “enough for a comfortable living, at which point you do something fun like changing the world.”

Hooray for world-changing-nerds everywhere! :-)

Filed under: bay area, why are we here? · 0 Comments

Art says:

yesterday, I got the sad news that our remaining Bernal Hill great horned owl was found dead under a pine tree near where this picture was taken on June 16th, concluding the story of the beautiful pair of birds that chose to live by the top of the Esmeralda steps this winter.
Bronwyn and Aaron have taken the body up to Wildcare in San Rafael for testing.

These beautiful wild birds were embraced by the community. They made the hilltop a better place as people gathered to see and talk about them.

Filed under: bernal, san francisco, why are we here? · 0 Comments

why is an interesting animal. He’s a hacker who works on open source projects, including the amazing Hackety Hack, a tool for teaching programming to kids. He wrote the Poignant Guide to Ruby, he draws comics, he plays in a band, he posts funny pictures. He can make code look pretty, even javascript. Just who is this why? He’s got his own wiki page, which provides no answers.

Filed under: inspiration, ruby, why are we here?, WhyTheLuckyStiff · 1 Comment

Peliom made me sign up for FaceBook. I have no idea why.

Snooping around, the first thing that really stood out was the number of people on FaceBook. I’m more used to Tribe, which has like 120 members, all of whom I know personally and live in my neighborhood.

Well, if we take the 2006 census numbers, assume that no one in the suburbs is on FaceBook and that the college students that make up the bulk of the FaceBook membership are all registered as local city residents, then you get these crazy numbers:

Toronto       24.8% (622034/2503281)
Pittsburgh    16.2% (51416/316718)
Santa Barbara 9.0% (8022/89548)
San Francisco 7.8% (57919/744041)
Los Angeles   3.2% (123510/3844829)
New York City 2.9% (240375/8143198)

Filed under: why are we here? · 3 Comments

Bob, Shag, and I made this SkyMaul-inspired remix of this Attribution2.0-licensed image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/nantaskart/61707032/

Hang it in your office!

Filed under: bobslobster, inspiration, lifehacking, why are we here? · 2 Comments

Someone please watch this movie for me and tell me if I should watch the whole thing. Bob thinks the premise is preposterous but I really like cubes.

via boingboing

Update: Shag and I watched it.. it’s good! This version on Google video has some good animation shorts tacked on the end, including Black Hula, which was just as surreal as The Cube…

Filed under: cuuuuube, video, why are we here? · 0 Comments

I love The Knack.. it’s one of my favorite movies. I stumbled upon the Bed Scene while surfing youtube for videos of people playing tetris on the piano.

If you haven’t seen The Knack, be sure to at least netflix it!

Filed under: video, why are we here? · 1 Comment

One of my favorite blogs lately is Don to Earth, written by Donald Crowdis who at 93, is one of the oldest bloggers around. I rarely come into contact with people who are older than 80 in my day to day life so I love reading his thoughts about things. He writes a lot about life and death. You’d think that would be morbid but he makes me laugh and I always come away feeling a little bit more grounded.

• I’m Almost Man Of The Year
• Cannibals All (or: You Eat What You Are)
• What’s Your Herd?
• Attractive Stuff
• We Begin To Die …
• On Packaged Dinners, Etc.

Filed under: inspiration, lifehacking, old timers, why are we here? · 0 Comments

The Wooster Collective blog has a disheartening video that documents the removal of street art in Barcelona.

For many years, if you were to ask us where the “heart” of the street art movement was, the answer we would give was always Barcelona. Not only would artists travel to Barcelona to paint on the streets, but many of them would move their as well just because the city was tolerant to their work.

Barcelona was for us, a live version of the Wooster website. On the walls you would see work from artists from all over the world together.

But then, not too long ago, the city of Barcelona began systematically wiping out the street art scene in the city. Today, the scene in Barcelona is only a shadow of what it once was.

From Chaz comes a link to the video above created by Pas. In 2004, Pas became a fan of The London Police and walked the Raval neighborhood taking pictures of the TLP lads as well as work by other artists from across Europe.

Two weeks ago, Pas returned to stay at Raval. But what he found there was very different then two years before. To show how things had changed, he took pictures of the exact same locations he visited and shot in 2004.

The result is one of the best photographic reportage we’ve seen yet that documents the disappearing street art scene in Barcelona.

Filed under: video, why are we here? · 1 Comment

I’ve just spent the last 4 hours reading about Leslie Harpold. She passed away last week. I don’t know what happened. Just that her mother found her. I never knew Leslie, but I always think of her in December because of her annual Advent Calendar which she’s been doing for many many years, longer than I’ve been making things for the internet I think. I never actually knew what an Advent Calendar was before hers. I’m still not sure I know what it is. My favorite thing of Leslie’s though is the harpold 500 (previously the hoopla 500), a collection of stories and writing snippets, each about 500 words…some true…some not…but usually poignant, or funny, or wise, or all 3…and always inspiring.

Call to Action
California
List Number Thirty Three
Things Andrew Had No Intention of Telling Hannah
#1 Fantasy

Filed under: why are we here? · 2 Comments

As someone who is frequently accused of having her head in the clouds, it makes me happy just to know that something like “The Cloud Appreciation Society” even exists. Could they have existed before the internet?? I dunno, but I certainly wouldn’t have found them. Anyways, they’ve got what looks to be a fabulous book out called The Cloudspotter’s Guide: The Science, History, and Culture of Clouds and a photo gallery of interesting cloud formations submitted by their members. (Kevin Kelly has a great write-up of the book over here.)

Everybody loves stars, but clouds always get a bad rap, so here’s their manifesto

• WE BELIEVE that clouds are unjustly maligned and that life would be immeasurably poorer without them.
• We think that they are Nature’s poetry, and the most egalitarian of her displays, since everyone can have a fantastic view of them.
• We pledge to fight “blue-sky thinking” wherever we find it. Life would be dull if we had to look up at cloudless monotony day after day.
• We seek to remind people that clouds are expressions of the atmosphere’s moods, and can be read like those of a person’s countenance.
• Clouds are so commonplace that their beauty is often overlooked. They are for dreamers and their contemplation benefits the soul. Indeed, all who consider the shapes they see in them will save on psychoanalysis bills.

Here’s to cloudy days!!

Filed under: support, why are we here? · 1 Comment

We got a little tennis in on thursday. We estimated this to be the 13th (mostly) annual turkey day spectacular!
This year’s bonuses:
- no lights
- good weather
- continuous cop and ambulance action behind us
- new rackets
- a special appearance by the folding chair
- a brief stop at wal-mart that yielded this:

See the rest of the pics here. All in all, another success. Of course, it was followed by several hours of great coffee-fueled ideas at denny’s. Feel free to join us next year!

Filed under: rolla, tennis, why are we here? · 0 Comments