Saturday, July 31, 2010

Saw this weirdly cool-ass-motorcycle somewhere in the low 100s today on the westside.

Anybody seen anything like it?

If I wanted to own a vehicle again (and still lived in LA) I'd totally want one of these.

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Just got out of "Inception" and gotta say I hated it. My #1 problem: Didn't care about anyone or anything.

But there's a lot to dislike about this movie beyond the complete lack of interesting characters or emotional resonance. The entire plot was a contrived mess with no clear elements to grab on to as an audience member. With no antagonist and an ending so predictable and cliche you'll swear you've seen it before (because you have).

There are a few neat visuals for sure, but ultimately this is simply not a well made film.

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Friday, July 30, 2010

#HolyCrap! Pilot ejects an instant before CF-18 fighterjet crashes (AMAZING photography!)

Ian Martens / Lethbridge Herald / CP via AP

Ian Martens / Lethbridge Herald / CP via AP

Pilot Capt. Brian Bews ejects as his a CF-18 fighter jet plummets to the ground during a practice flight at the Lethbridge County Airport on Friday, July 23 for the weekend airshow in Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada. "He is alive and we believe right now that his injuries are non-life-threatening," Canadian Forces Capt. Nicole Meszaros told CBC News.

There's also a video.

Yeah, I'd say this does NOT fall under that old saying "Any landing you walk away from is a good landing."

I'm very glad to know that the pilot was OK, though I am curious what happened.

Either way, the F-18 has always been my favorite fightercraft and it's sad to see one meet its end.

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Listened yet? @JayThePal and @KayThePal host this week's podcast from @Hucklebugdotcom! Yeah!!

Sunday, July 25, 2010

Hucklebug Episode 195

Hucklebug Episode 195: ThePals are in town!, RIPs, Shout-Outs, movies (Hell in the Pacific, Julie & Julia, Fido, Red Sun, Surrogates, Sherlock Holmes), Lowlights & Highlights, Fuck offs & You Rules, The World if Puppets Really WERE the overlords.

Music: “The Hucklebuck,” performed by Otis Redding, Lee Rocker, and Frank Sinatra, Siskita, Kay ThePal, a little Jay mixed in…

Listen now and be sure to leave a comment so you can get a shout-out from regular hosts Bet & Stennie on next week's Hucklebug (which records tonight!)

And don't forget that @Siskita and I guest-hosted last week's Hucklebug! Check it out:

Sunday, July 18, 2010

Episode 194

 

Hucklebug Episode 194: The new human Overlords take their kingdom, RIPs, Shout-Outs, movies (Siskita & Pete: Toy Story 3, Departures, 50 Worst Movies Ever Made, Wasabi/ ThePete: Space Adventure Cobra, Battle In Seattle/ Siskita: Karate Kid), Lowlights & Highlights, Fuck offs & You Rules, Favorite Hucklebug Moments.

Music: “The Hucklebuck,” performed by Otis Redding, Lee Rocker, and Frank Sinatra, and others…

We all had a great time hosting, the Hucklebug!! Almost as much fun as we have listening to it week after week :)

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Tuesday, July 27, 2010

Monday, July 26, 2010

Watching "Pillars of the Earth" on Netflix Instant Watch. Historical dramas are fun but this feels rushed.

The production values remind me of "Spartacus: Blood and Sand" but it's shot like "The Tudors" with acting somewhere in between.

Did you see "Pillars"? What did you think?

http://www.thepillarsoftheearth.tv

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12 hours ago, 70 in NYC--now, 85. Let's hope the heat wave has broken!

Fingers crossed!

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Sunday, July 25, 2010

Friday, July 23, 2010

Big Ole T-Storm rolling into NYC!

From last week: One of BP's lesser offenses: Photomanips easier than real Photo Opps. #WTF? #BPOilDisaster

Hit that AmericaBlog.com link to read more about this story--which is totally proof that BP is made of stupid.

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Most surreal time to be dressed as zombies--during a car accident. Heard about this on "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me"...

"Zombies" crash on I-84 near Lloyd exit

Credit: ODOT

Emergency crews had various lanes of eastbound I-84 shut down as they investigated the crash.

by Justin Burton, KGW news staff

kgw.com

Posted on July 9, 2010 at 11:38 PM

Updated Saturday, Jul 10 at 9:20 AM

PORTLAND, Ore. -- A car full of people dressed as zombies crashed on Interstate 84 near downtown Portland on Friday, causing initial confusion by people who witnessed the crash.

Portland Police said the car was swerving in the eastbound lanes of the freeway just east of the Lloyd District just after 9:30 p.m. when it rolled over and crashed onto its top.

Emergency crews took five victims from the crash to area hospitals with non-life-threatening injuries.

Police said that in their investigation they learned that the people inside the car were dressed as zombie costumes and they were headed to a party at the time of the crash.

Sgt. Greg Stewart said people who witnessed the crash initially thought the victims' injuries were much more serious, because of the zombie costumes.

"We're glad that everyone is alive, despite being 'undead'," Sgt. Stewart said, referring to the costumes.

While everyone in the car was taken to the hospital, Stewart said crews are investigating the possibility that more people were in the car at the time of the crash but fled the scene on foot.

The crash halted traffic in the eastbound lanes for about an hour, reducing travel to just one lane.  All eastbound lanes were opened at around 11 p.m.

I laughed and laughed after hearing about this. It was the stomach-hurting, eyes-tearing-up kind of laughing. Then I imagined being an EMT on the scene and having the brief moment where they, no doubt, actually thought they were facing zombies. Then I laughed harder.

Ahhhh, good stuff...

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Whoa--I pick up my Kindle 2 for the 1st time in 2 months and look what happens... :/

Wouldn't you know it:

Damn casing shatters around the plug! What, is Amazon getting it's cables from Apple or something?

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Wednesday, July 21, 2010

Now CHINA has an oil spill, too! Time to learn a lesson here, people!!

screencap source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-10710888

So, nice that we're already seeing headlines that say "worse than thought."

Hopefully, the Chinese are learning from BP's mistakes.  Here's the caption for the video shown above:

Efforts to clean up an oil slick are continuing in China, amid fears strong winds have dispersed the pollution more widely than previously been thought.

Shipments of oil from the north to the industrial belt in the south have been disrupted since the accident.

The oil spilled into the sea in North East China after two pipelines exploded on Friday night.

The environmental group Greenpeace says the spill is China's worst in recent memory.

Yeah, but Greenpeace says EVERY spill is the "worst in recent memory."  ;)


But seriously, if this isn't ANOTHER good example of why we need to cut back on oil, I don't know what is.  How many spills will it take before we start to seriously minimize our use of the stuff?

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ThePhlog: 5 minutes of the A Train tonight. (Damn, the dog was quiet suddenly)

Monday, July 19, 2010

Ballpoint Adventures for March 8, 1999 Barbie's not impressed with Billy's time machine...

Read more Ballpoint Adventures at http://thepete.com/ics

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Is it wrong for me to be entertained by this?

Look closely now...

Yep! It's four whole ice cubes connected together! How often do you see that?

I think I'm too easily entertained.

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Sunday, July 18, 2010

At the new #TraderJoes by 20th and 6th Ave. Sooo much bigger than the one on 14th!

Look at all this space!

Compared to the 14th st store it's like the countryside in here!

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Tonight's Entertainment: "Hell in the Pacific" starring Lee Marvi and Toshiro Mifune directed by John Boorman

This is an awesome film with a crappy ending. Make sure to watch the alternate ending. It's much better and fits the sad poetry of the film much better than the ending the producer slapped on to the film after the director finished working on it. (Yeah, that's a pretty lame thing to do, huh?)

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Saturday, July 17, 2010

The MacBook Pro has arrived!! In fact, I uploaded these pics OF it FROM it!! WAHOO!!

THANKS EVERYONE WHO HELPED OUT!!

But thanks mostly to my awesome wife whose idea it was to do crowd source this in the first place!!  I LOVE YOU, SIERRA!!

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80 degrees F at 3AM in the Big Apple.

I hope those idiots who get snarky about Global Warming when ever it snows are paying attention to this!

This suuuuuucks.

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Thursday, July 15, 2010

Whoa--the My Word of the Day from MyDictionary.com sounds dirty today: "Furbelow". O_O

And I have a feeling it's origins are quite dirty:


furbelow [FUR-buh-low]

noun

  1. A pleated or gathered flounce on a woman's garment; a trim or frill.
  2. A piece of showy ornamentation; something showy or superfluous.

Or maybe I just need to get my mind out of the gutter!

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I think there really should be someone at the wheel over at Google News--just look at these two caps:

For several moments I was trying to remember who Socres was. Maybe a soccer player?

Look at what Google News thinks is, not just a "Top Story," but more important than BP Oil Disaster news:

I understand how Google News is supposed to work, but, who considers this "working"?

Hey Google! How about a "no more stories with XYZ in the title" option?

That would save me a lot of eye-rolling for sure...

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I think there really should be someone at the wheel over at Google News--just look at these two caps:

For several moments I was trying to remember who Socres was. Maybe a soccer player?

Look at what Google News thinks is, not just a "Top Story," but more important than BP Oil Disaster news:

I understand how Google News is supposed to work, but, who considers this "working"?

Hey Google! How about a "no more stories with XYZ in the title" option?

That would save me a lot of eye-rolling for sure...

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Wednesday, July 14, 2010

Bleaching my hair pics...

Bought at Ricky's NYC for under $4:

Progress:

Result:

It's never been quite this light. I dig it!

Don't know if whiter would work, though...

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Monday, July 12, 2010

As if the BP Oil Disaster, itself, wasn't enough, the stress caused by it is taking a toll

Screencap source: http://us.mobile.reuters.com/mobile/m/AnyArticle/p.rdt?URL=http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE66A0B820100711

"Gulf Coast native Kindra Arnesen is so anxious about the effects of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill she is packing up her family and leaving town."

You may remember Kindra Arnesen from a YouTube video of her explaining to people at some kind of townhall meeting how she had seen firsthand BP screwing the clean up royal. I guess seeing what their behavior in- person really made her (understandably) worried.

The article continues:

"'Stress? Dude my clothes are falling off me (because of weight loss). The level of stress here is tremendous. My husband has aged 10 years in two months,' Arnesen said on Friday as she loaded possessions into a van outside her trailer home in Venice.

"Fears are growing of an increase in stress-related illness and mental health problems from the BP Plc spill. Anecdotal evidence abounds but mental health officials say they lack data about the scale and scope of suffering.

"Arnesen recently set up the Wives of Commercial Fishermen network to respond to pressures in the community. Two days ago, a friend told her he was so upset about his failure to get hired by BP's cleanup program he was considering suicide.

"Arnesen has her own worries. Her husband cannot work as a shrimper because authorities have closed swathes of Gulf waters to fishing and her children and other relatives have fallen sick from what she believes are airborne toxins from the leak."

Stressed? What do these people have to be stressed about?

>_
Ah the better things the USG could be spending tax-payer dollars on, instead of Iraq, Afghanistan, an imaginary war on terror...

Therapy for the entire Gulf region... After all, it's the USG that is responsible for making sure oil companies know what they are doing.

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ThePeteToys: “Gulfy” the custom toy--go vote for it: http://thepete.com/a/mmgulfy #oilspill #bp

Please go vote for this piece here: http://thepete.com/a/mmgulfy (you’ll need to scroll down to find it—or just “ctrl-f” to “thepete”). If it’s after July 14, 2010, then check out the flickrset or just read below:

more info: toys.thepete.com

I looked around the other entries and didn't find any others that made any statements about the BP Oil Disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, so I think mine might be the only custom toy design to have taken on the issue.

Click through to that toys.thepete.com link to read more about this piece or hit the flickrset link to see progress shots.

Don't forget to vote for Inside Voice, too! http://thepete.com/a/mmiv :)

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Moratorium on deepwater drilling in the Gulf of Mexico rejected by courts, sanity of judges questioned (by me)

Screencaps below from: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/09/us/09drill.html?_r=1

"The moratorium was struck down by a lower court on June 22 by a federal judge who found it arbitrary and economically ruinous to industry."

OK, this is proof our leaders are completely corrupt. When you put economic interests in front of the environment you harm the thing that IS KEEPING US ALIVE.

Stupid judge...

"The appeals court found that the Interior Department failed to show the federal government would suffer 'irreparable injury' if the moratorium is lifted while it appeals the trial court's decision."

OK, this is proof our leaders are batshit insane since the moratorium isn't about keeping the federal government safe, it's about keeping the offshore rigs safe.

The appeals court logic is about as sound as telling a mother she can't protect her daughter because the danger to the mother hasn't been established yet.

The logic off this argument is so amazingly unsound I reread it several times just to make sure I wasn't getting it wrong.

Apparently, these judges are completely crazy...unless I really am missing something.

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BP fails miserably at providing what it promised and no one seems to care...

I know, I know--big flippin' surprise...

Screencap source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/05/AR20100705029...

"In the 77 days since oil from the ruptured Deepwater Horizon began to gush into the Gulf of Mexico, BP has skimmed or burned about 60 percent of the amount it promised regulators it could remove in a single day."

Shouldn't the UK be revoking BP's corporate charter at this point? Come on, you fricken Limeys! Step up and shut these losers down!

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BP Oil Disaster Headlines from 7/9/10's DemocracyNow...27k abandoned wells, BP's huge toxic release BEFORE spill, more

Saturday, July 10, 2010

It is HOT at the 96th 1 train station...what we call "fan weather"

Stuck on the 1 Train by 125th--so glad we switched to a car with AC

We need to jump off at 110 but because of track maintenance we're stuck going down to 96th. Then we get to take the uptown train back up to 110. Yippee...

Or we could walk to 110. It's not THAT hot today... :\

Still better than paying for car insurance :P

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