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To put things in perspective, I want to share a quick story: read more

wolke7: Simple Is Beautiful. (via onpaperwings)

Hearst announced today that CosmoGIRL! is folding; its last issue will be this December. Even though it is being consolidated with Seventeen magazine, CosmoGIRL! defined much of the bedtime reading of my youth, and I’m sad to see it — and print in general — crumble with falling ad sales. In particular, CG!’s end hits a [...]

breefield: Why is halloween gonna suck? This is why.

I'm taking a short break from a dreaded Machine Learning homework to let all of you know the great news. I passed the WPE (Written Preliminary Exam)!! I took this 3-part exam in September and had been waiting for the results since then. Thankfully, I passed all three parts of the exam. This marks an important milestone in my PhD progress. The next steps are now finishing the required classes (I should be done by Fall of next year) and the Oral Examination (which I hope to do in Spring '10). If all goes well, I'm on track to finishing by 2012. The date seems far away, but passing the WPE just made it feel much closer.

When I look at my single left thumbnail with glitter nail-varnish painted over pink, I think of Stanley, the dorky but straightforward counter guy at Duane Reade who told me I was very pretty with a "Miss." This led to my leaving the makeup aisle in a hot flush, and peering round the corners of other aisles before entering one.I hate how when I'm cold, I think I'm hungry. So I buy a meal, take it somewhere warm to eat, then realize I'm actually full... But have to eat it anyway as not to waste it.Now that i think about it, I'm kind of surprised that 'the 3 Musketeers' called me today - the Italian, the Brit, and the White-jap boy. It didn't matter that they were stone drunk when I found them - so much so that the Italian and the Brit fell into a bush; I feel most myself when I'm hanging out with them. Not like with the Indian, the American, the Filipino, and the Indian-American. I don't mean to be racist nor 'nationalist'. I just don't want to mention names, and the whole Mr. A, Ms. B, Mr.C thing is so old.After a night of physical and mental maneuvering, lemon pound cake with melt-in-the-mouth icing, many group hugs, and finding myself in that in-between situation again (lamp post can?), I walked back to my building on the far far side of the sea of parking lot. I looked up to see the brightest star winking back at me, and then... Wham! The rest of the family was there too. The depth of the night sky made me suddenly feel very very small... Who was I really, in comparison to the agelessness of the stars?And suddenly, I really felt like holding someone's hand.. To have a special someone with whom I could share these occasionally overwhelming feelings. He would understand.. Or not. He could tease me if we're that comfortable with one another, or nod his head in mock understanding just to comfort me. The most disconcerting part of that lovely, lonely day-dream was that a person's face came to mind almost at the same time I imagined all this. I was shocked by myself. He wasn't just any person I dated recently either... I wouldn't even have considered him on a conscious level. I somewhat despise him now, because he did not live up to his promises. Or was I hoping too much? No. To some people, a promise actually means something. Anyhow, you're not the same person I fell in love with. Just to set things straight.

Let's hope the Hokies take advantage of the week off, as they'll need lots of motivation, endurance and good coaching to finish out a tough ACC schedule. Though there's not game this weekend, Virginia Tech faces Boston College away next week, followed by an away game at Florida State. These two matchups are crucial. BC doesn't look bad, and the Seminoles are probably the toughest ACC team VT will have to play (until the championship game, if they make it there, where they will likely face Wake Forest if all continues as it has been).To finish out the season, the Hokies face Maryland on what should be a very loud Thursday night home game Nov. 6, followed by Miami away before mauling Duke and Virginia at home in Lane Stadium. Maryland shouldn't be a problem, as they've been surprising this year, but then sputtered in a nonscoring game against the atrocious Virginia Cavalier squad. Duke is of course better this year, but that's not saying much. The Hokies need a strong win in Chesnut Hill, followed by what will probably be a squeaker at FSU. If they can win those two games and avoid any fourth-quarter upsets against Miami, they should be well on their way to the title game against what will likely be the Demon Deacons of Wake Forest — a Wake team that had a close, but great, game against the Clemson Tigers this Thursday, the same Clemson team that started the season in the top 10 (ah, rankings, how you fail us).

Never thought I’d say this, but I’m too old to be going out on Thursday nights. (And if we recall, I’m only 19.) Post-club, I fell asleep in my roommate’s bed within the 10-minute span that the pizza was in the oven and woke up disoriented at 7 a.m. to write a paper (which I [...]

al pacino 1961 carrying a concealed weapon

Jimmy Hendrix 1969 drug posession

branduponthebrain: Music Video of the Day: Bob Dylan - Subterranean Homesick Blues" "This is a segment from D. A. Pennebaker's film, Dont Look Back (a documentary on Bob Dylan's tour of England in 1965). In the film, Dylan holds up cue cards for the audience with words from the song on them. While staring at the camera, he flips the cards as the song plays. Interestingly, there are intentional errors throughout the video. For instance, the song's lyrics say "eleven dollar bills," but the poster says "20 dollars". The video takes place in an alley behind The Savoy Hotel in London where poet Allen Ginsberg makes a cameo appearance." one of my favorite music videos, but fan of bob dylan

sid vicious 1978 murder of nancy spungen, drug overdose caused it to never go to trial

franki valli (if you like the oldies, you'll know who he is) 1965 skipped out on hotel bill

onemoretimewithfeeling: Polar Bear attack. Click through for more.

kristenisfornerd.tumblr.com

“Ok you clankers, SUCK LASER!” What. The. Hell. I’m watching the pilot of the new Clone Wars series on Cartoon Network, and that actually came out of one of the clone troopers mouths. These guys are clones of the badass bounty hunter Jango Fett, trained in military maneuvers, tactics, and ettiquitte since they were created. Why are they yelling out a ridiculous phrase while recklessly heaving a minigun around? I understand the jokes when the helmets come off, but once the blaster bolts start flying… Don’t even get me started on the droids. If I hear another droid spout off some asanine quip and act like a disobedient, bumbling idiot…these are computers! What moron programmed them to act so incompetent!?! Yoda, on the other hand, is one redeeming force in this. 1. He’s Yoda. After his performance in Attack of the Clones, it’s a requirement to show off some more epic Yoda-Fu, and we are not disappointed. He takes down a battallion of battle droids. 2. He’s Yoda. They actually incorporated some good dialogue from him. Plo Koon. Kel Dor Jedi. Verdict on the second episode: PLO KOON! Best Jedi ever. I think they nailed his voice too. Deep and slightly gravelly, which is right for the mask. Can’t wait to see him in action. Totally makes up for the reappearance of Ahsoka…

(via plannine) more cowbell

I’m going to Connecticut for the long weekend with my mom and uncles, so I won’t be updating again until Tuesday, but there are a few things I have to say before I jet. 1. Connecticut ruled that banning same-sex marriages is unconstitutional, and that now gays have the right to marry in the state! Woo! If by chance I meet the most perfect boy in the world this weekend and we fall in love, I’ll be at the courthouse. 2. I can’t wait to see my mama! She came into the city early today to “get a substantial amount of shopping done” before we leave for the country. Everyone doing their part to help boost the economy… 3. Someone yelled “Peter Parker!” at me on the street on the way home from class today. I hope he was referring to buff, post-spider bite Peter Parker, but I doubt it. 4. Today I got an ID card to access the building I work in without signing in every time, and my picture turned out flawlessly. Finally some karmic payback for the heinous person on my driver’s license. I don’t even recognize that person. He looks like a junkie. 5. Britney’s new video premieres tonight on 20/20. Just expect that I’m going to like it. Maybe I’ll do a review on Tuesday. Probably. Maybe. Probably. Maybe. I don’t know. It’ll probably be awesome. Have a good holiday weekend, kiddies! addthis_url = 'http%3A%2F%2Fwww.lolsam.com%2F%3Fp%3D755'; addthis_title = 'Tidbits'; addthis_pub = '';

Macauly Culkin 2004 drug posession

normal design

ol' blue eyes, frank sinatra 1938 adultery and seduction (yes they were illegal back than)

Mick Jagger 1972 punching a photographer

Larry King 1971 alleged grand larceny

Tim Allen 1977 drug charges

billy gates 1977 reckless driving

petervidani : DVORAK

It wouldn’t be hard to get laid. (Just putting that out there. Pun intended.) There have been times in my life where that would have been just fine. It’s a tactic for feeding the body. It’s also, I know, a tactic for feeling good about oneself, like this is proof that one is desirable, lovable and beautiful. But it is not. Any positive feelings - and, oh yes, there are - evaporate. Battle won. No gains made. Because, it’s not hard to get laid. What is hard it that sustained feeling that one is desirable, lovable and beautiful that only comes from some place else. I wanted to say within, but “desirable” is definitely something that comes from without. I can get “beautiful” and “lovable” from girl friends and gay friends and even my children - still doesn’t quite have the same ring as from someone who would like to knock boots with you. So what is the strategy? I don’t believe in holding out until marriage. I can’t even imagine looking for a soul mate. Not sure if that exists. Tactic = one night. Strategy? More than a month? I dunno.

I read this article from the TImes and thought it oddly hit the nail on the head. The Class War Before Palin By DAVID BROOKS Modern conservatism began as a movement of dissident intellectuals. Richard Weaver wrote a book called, "Ideas Have Consequences." Russell Kirk placed Edmund Burke in an American context. William F. Buckley famously said he'd rather be governed by the first 2,000 names in the Boston phone book than by the faculty of Harvard. But he didn't believe those were the only two options. His entire life was a celebration of urbane values, sophistication and the rigorous and constant application of intellect. Driven by a need to engage elite opinion, conservatives tried to build an intellectual counterestablishment with think tanks and magazines. They disdained the ideas of the liberal professoriate, but they did not disdain the idea of a cultivated mind. Ronald Reagan was no intellectual, but he had an earnest faith in ideas and he spent decades working through them. He was rooted in the Midwest, but he also loved Hollywood. And for a time, it seemed the Republican Party would be a broad coalition — small-town values with coastal reach. In 1976, in a close election, Gerald Ford won the entire West Coast along with northeastern states like New Jersey, Connecticut, Vermont and Maine. In 1984, Reagan won every state but Minnesota. But over the past few decades, the Republican Party has driven away people who live in cities, in highly educated regions and on the coasts. This expulsion has had many causes. But the big one is this: Republican political tacticians decided to mobilize their coalition with a form of social class warfare. Democrats kept nominating coastal pointy-heads like Michael Dukakis so Republicans attacked coastal pointy-heads. Over the past 15 years, the same argument has been heard from a thousand politicians and a hundred television and talk-radio jocks. The nation is divided between the wholesome Joe Sixpacks in the heartland and the oversophisticated, overeducated, oversecularized denizens of the coasts. What had been a disdain for liberal intellectuals slipped into a disdain for the educated class as a whole. The liberals had coastal condescension, so the conservatives developed their own anti-elitism, with mirror-image categories and mirror-image resentments, but with the same corrosive effect. Republicans developed their own leadership style. If Democratic leaders prized deliberation and self-examination, then Republicans would govern from the gut. George W. Bush restrained some of the populist excesses of his party — the anti-immigration fervor, the isolationism — but stylistically he fit right in. As Fred Barnes wrote in his book, "Rebel-in-Chief," Bush "reflects the political views and cultural tastes of the vast majority of Americans who don't live along the East or West Coast. He's not a sophisticate and doesn't spend his discretionary time with sophisticates. As First Lady Laura Bush once said, she and the president didn't come to Washington to make new friends. And they haven't." The political effects of this trend have been obvious. Republicans have alienated the highly educated regions — Silicon Valley, northern Virginia, the suburbs outside of New York, Philadelphia, Chicago and Raleigh-Durham. The West Coast and the Northeast are mostly gone. The Republicans have alienated whole professions. Lawyers now donate to the Democratic Party over the Republican Party at 4-to-1 rates. With doctors, it's 2-to-1. With tech executives, it's 5-to-1. With investment bankers, it's 2-to-1. It took talent for Republicans to lose the banking community. Conservatives are as rare in elite universities and the mainstream media as they were 30 years ago. The smartest young Americans are now educated in an overwhelmingly liberal environment. This year could have changed things. The G.O.P. had three urbane presidential candidates. But the class-warfare clichés took control. Rudy Giuliani disdained cosmopolitans at the Republican convention. Mitt Romney gave a speech attacking "eastern elites." (Mitt Romney!) John McCain picked Sarah Palin. Palin is smart, politically skilled, courageous and likable. Her convention and debate performances were impressive. But no American politician plays the class-warfare card as constantly as Palin. Nobody so relentlessly divides the world between the "normal Joe Sixpack American" and the coastal elite. She is another step in the Republican change of personality. Once conservatives admired Churchill and Lincoln above all — men from wildly different backgrounds who prepared for leadership through constant reading, historical understanding and sophisticated thinking. Now those attributes bow down before the common touch. And so, politically, the G.O.P. is squeezed at both ends. The party is losing the working class by sins of omission — because it has not developed policies to address economic anxiety. It has lost the educated class by sins of commission — by telling members of that class to go away. I think this article directly hits some of the dissatisfaction I’ve felt with the Republican Party. We see it now in our own Washington… billboards posted that loudly proclaim “Don’t let Seattle steal another election!” So, any thoughts?

Take it in.  Smells like Homecoming to me!  I’m off, about to have a fabulous Homecoming weekend.  Hope you all have a fabulous weekend yourselves.  21 more days until Halloween, the fabulous day.  Enjoy.       

A loose affiliation of millionaires and billionaires assembles to agree to provide themselves flexibility and a little less oversight.  An agreement reached not quite in secret, but rather obscurity.  Money changes hands?  The rules change.  Public announcements and verbal handshakes follow. We’ve seen this before. Despite the fact that Bloomberg would like to run again on the [...]

Last change: The Acolyte interrupts Dracht and Ben's reunion.Now change 6!And so begins adventure.Easter Eggs: Change 6 in the plants.Fun Facts: I gave my new 005 a workout, but it seems identical to my old .1 pen. And this one took forever; panels 1, 2, and 5 just wouldn't click. And the final right hand translated weirdly to ink.So that curr, jack kelly, is stirring up all kinds of trouble. He didn't get his first stab at anorexia published, so why did he think "purge," another socially conscious cartoon would fly? Here's the deal: jack kelly's trying to tap into the insanity of this whole eating disorder issue. He even got an appreciative comment from an actual anorexic person for his efforts last time. Revolutionary, I know, using dark humor to highlight an issue. Didn't the YDN--and me, actually (printed on the same page, even)--just recently cover the relevancy of eating disorders? Clearly the issue is present at Yale; Master Haller even had to call out a purger last year who forgot to clean up afterward.I'm usually fine with censorship, but even I think banning the above cartoon is a little much.So instead, you get "naked."I hope this hack gets his way.Some day.Reuxben

he goal is balance. No zen quotes from me here, but I know when I focus on work to the detriment of my body and spirit, things start to suffer, and life is not as fun. Your physical well-being should be sacred.

So here's the deal: I'm busy, get over it.Haha, just kidding. Honestly? I'm having a fabulous time in Germany. I fell ridiculously in love with Marburg, and I'm anxiously awating the start of my new classes this upcoming week. I was also honored because I recently received an e-mail asking to have some of my homework displayed at a Camp Adventure meeting! Cool beans."You can see the story of my life is not very exciting. It gets very boring, as one success is always followed by another.":pLonger letter later.

OK, that was a dirty trick. This has nothing to do with wolves and everything to do with packs. I simply wrote "wolf", because they're inherently cool, like ninjas, spy-planes, and most dinosaurs*.Unless you've been living on Mars, under a rock, with your eyes closed and your fingers in your ears, you're aware that those plastic bags that they hand out- well basically everywhere- clutter roadsides, streams, and parks, get stuck in trees, and fill landfills. You may have also heard that some cities and communities are so tired of dealing with them that they're banning them from grocery stores and drugstores. IKEA and other retailers have begun charging for them, while others plan to discontinue using them altogether.Be the solution. You, the clever Blue Island Almanack reader, can sidestep all of this bureaucratic mayhem, duck the recurring charges, and reduce the stream of trash moving into landfills and everywhere else by carrying your own bag. Skirts, you're way ahead of me on this one. Cats, fear not: I'm not talking about toting the ridiculous "European men's carryall" of Seinfeld and Friends fame. Lots of vendors offer backpacks, rucksacks, knapsacks, and courier bags that are amply manly. (If you're still a little worried, you can grow out your beard, talk loudly about contact sports, or smoke a Stogie or a pipe while you carry it.) You can compound your positive impacts by buying your reusable bag from a vendor that offers environmentally-friendly or fair-trade models.In addition to carrying any carefully chosen odds-and-ends you buy while you're out, this is a great way to bring along your other reusables: your Ka-Bar hobo set (or titanium spork, or lacquered chopsticks), your travel mug or water bottle, and your cloth napkin.When you inevitably become the owner of a plastic bag or two, remember that they can be reused and recycled.*Author's note: Leptoceratops is an example of a tragically uncool dinosaur.Image sources:US Fish and Wildlife ServiceSimple Shoes

Listen at your own risk.-Josh

Today I'm getting coffee with someone I haven't spoken to in months. The reason we haven't spoken isn't just a mutual drifting apart; no, he stopped talking to me. Completely. He shut me out of his life and bitched about me to his friends. A few days ago, he sent me a letter, basically apologizing and extending the olive branch. I suggested that we meet in person.So that's what we're going to do--5:30 at some coffee shop in the East Village. This whole thing feels like meeting an ex after a bitter breakup, and despite the fact that he's straight, I'm almost positive he feels the same way.The problem isn't so much meeting him--it'll be awkward, yes, but we'll get past that--as it is me not knowing what my expectations are. I don't know how close of friends we'll be again, how much we're supposed to say on our coffee date (of sorts), how nice I should be, because this is how I live my life, as though I am meeting a series of expectations, and everything I do becomes a should as opposed to a want to. I take a while to learn to trust someone, and when he (or she, but in this case he) breaks that trust, the damage is almost irreversible. I want to be friends with him again, but I can't make my psyche get over what happened, and I don't know how to balance those two emotions.And yes, this is a big deal to me. He was one of my best friends last year, and I miss him a lot, and we have a lot of common friends so we've often seen--and pretended to ignore--each other. The whole thing escalated, as these things typically do, and became stupid and enormous and a fact of life in our circle of friends, and while I'm happy he reached out to me, I also kind of want to know his motives for doing so. I want to know why he cut me out of his life, what I could have done that was so awful that he no longer wanted anything to do with me. I want to just sit down with him and talk, the way we used to, but I have so many questions that probably don't have easy answers.Blah. I know most of you couldn't care less about this, but after all, this is a personal blog, so there ya go. I guess I'm just confused as to how you can talk to someone while sort of despising him at the same time. Or do you just give it up on the first date and welcome him back?-Josh

East Village comic and writer Chris Sifflet touches on the essentials, including politics, the future of crappy celebrities, Steve Fossett, and what it would be like if Sarah Palin didn’t look like Sarah Palin. 12th Street: At 12th Street we work to promote literature as an engine of democracy, with fiction, poetry, and non-fiction as "oil" to that engine. Where does stand-up comedy fit in? Chris Sifflet: I heard Jerry Seinfeld talk, after George Carlin's death, on Larry King. He was talking about politics and how comedians tell the truth, and he said “comedy is a little truth and a whole lot of lies.” I think now, especially in New York, comedy has kind of taken a shift. I only go for honesty. When I first started it wasn't about that, now I'm totally honest, I talk about stuff that actually happens. 12th Street: So you swing more toward the non-fiction realm? CS: Yeah definitely more toward non-fiction. 12th Street: Do you think stand-up fits in with poetry? CS: I do think it fits in with poetry, I think it fits in with music too. Poetry and stand-up are very much aligned. The both can be improvised: poetry slams, things like that. It just depends on the comic. 12th Street: What would you be doing if you weren't a comedian? CS: I'd be a nurse. My mother was a nurse and my Dad's a doctor. My parents would have conversations at the dinner table, you know, my Mom would be telling my Dad, "Oh yeah, I opened a man's chest today and grabbed his heart and had to pump it, and then his eye starting spurtin' blood, so I had to close that, but then his nose started bleeding so I had to close that." So it was basically like a cartoon where she was plugging holes and blood would keep spraying out somewhere and it hit her face. That was, like, every conversation she'd talk about. Like removing light bulbs from people's— 12th Street: Okay! CS: And that was everyday, man. So that's partly where my humor comes from. The very dark, graphic conversations my mother would have with my Dad. Strangely enough though my Dad's afraid of blood. 12th Street: Your Dad's a doctor— CS: He faints when he sees blood. 12th Street: So what kind of medicine does he practice? CS: Internal Medicine. 12th Street: (Laughs uncontrollably for a few minutes) CS: I know right? He's afraid of needles too. 12th Street: (More laughter) Okay, new subject. CS: Thank god. 12th Street: If Sarah Palin becomes our Vice-President, it will be historic—we all know that. But would her being the first female VP hurt feminism? CS: Um...It will definitely set the bar incredibly low. I don't know if it will actually hurt feminism...I don't know that's a good question, I mean— 12th Street: Well, Hilary Clinton is a very strong female. CS: Oh my god, yes. 12th Street: And she would have been a great president or a great VP. But Sarah Palin is the exact opposite of Hilary Clinton in almost every way. CS: And Hilary Clinton worked so hard to get where she's at. Then this other lady comes along who was invited to the show. There are other more qualified republican women. 12th Street: Okay and this question goes with it. Would Sarah Palin have the coverage or the fame if she weren't attractive? CS: Oh, how hot is she, man? God, she is so hot...she's a knock out. But if she wasn't attractive she wouldn't be as popular and she wouldn't get made fun of so much either. 12th Street: So if Sarah Palin had the same views, talked the same way, but looked like— CS: Mickey Rourke– 12th Street: Yes Mickey Rourke, during his boxing years. CS: Yeah, no one would pay attention, its sad, but it's the truth. There are some people out there who are going to vote for her because she is hot. It was like this older man drove by in a Ferrari and picked up the ditzy cheerleader and took her to a party. 12th Street: Okay. Apparently, and I wasn't aware of this, but there is something in Iraq that we have to win. CS: Hmmm, yes. 12th Street: I hear we're protecting our freedom, but how did our freedom get over there, because I thought it was here, like did it just up and take a flight to Iraq? CS: We're there to win a reality competition and it's yet to be revealed what it is. It's like Lost but with actual people dying, and J.J. Abrams is the only one that knows how it ends. I wrote a blog, it was basically a fake news article. I wrote about how it would be very effective in our exit strategy if the Iraqi government changed the name of Iraq to America, because then we would leave. We don't need to change America, its perfect! 12th Street: When George W. Bush is out of office I think he should be a stand-up comedian. So that being said would you go on the road with "Dubbers" if he asked you? CS: Absolutely, he would kill on stage. I mean, he's already killing...but if he were on stage, it would be accidentally hilarious; he's very naturally funny. Would I go on tour with him? Definitely. Could it be a World tour? 12th Street: I don't think that would go over very well, maybe parts of Canada. CS: No! He should do my favorite reality show, its called Exiled and its my favorite show on MTV, which is a spin off of my other favorite show on MTV called My Super Sweet Sixteen, where those shitty fifteen year old girls become shitty sixteen year old girls, but this show Exiled takes the best of the best of them and sends them to another country to live with indigenous tribes, so I think George Bush should do that. 12th Street: You're familiar with the whole Steve Fossett thing going on right now, yes? CS: That's the dude with the plane? 12th Street: Yeah. A Billionaire adventurer who set a bunch of speed records went missing last year, and they've recently started to find remains of the plane and some of his belongings. So before he disappeared, his next big project was to rocket to the center of the earth via the Mariana Trench in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, kick it down there for awhile, then rocket back up to the surface. Do you think we should still proceed with that experiment? CS: Absolutely, and we should send Zach Efron, Lindsey Lohan, Paris Hilton, Miley Cyrus and The Jonas Brothers...fill it with all those assholes send it down and leave it there. Let them all record their shitty music down there. 12th Street: Live! From the Mariana Trench. CS: Exactly 12th Street: In closing, sum-up the Economic crisis in one word. CS: Greed. Chris hosts the comedy show AUCTION: with Chris Sifflet every other Tuesday night at 7:30 p.m. at Ochi’s Lounge @ Comix on 14th street and 9th Ave.       

Twenty years ago today, in a small Ohio hospital, another guy was born. That's right, your very own Tim Stiffler-Dean was released into the world to do as much damage, I mean bring as much joy, as he possibly could. You didn't realize I was so young, did you? Of course, I am open to accepting any gifts that you may have (gotta take advantage of the moment, right?) and will gladly send you my paypal information if you just ask. Or, if you are a software developer and just want to spread the birthday love, I could probably find some use for some of the projects you've worked on. ;) Anyway, this all means that I won't be blogging today, or answering email too much either. Just have way too many things that need doing before my little event this afternoon. Oh, and if you don't have any money or gifts, a comment will do just nicely below.

Every now and then, I like to offer a little journalism advice for the aspiring writers out there. Of course, these tips are great refreshers for veteran journalists as well when speaking and writing for the news media.See the very first J-Tip here.Today's tip is something that really bothers me when I see it because it was reinforced so much at the journalism school I attended. I see plenty of newspapers use this one all the time, too. The Roanoke Times does it, the Herald-Dispatch does it, the Washington Post does it, and even the New York Times does it. But none of that makes it the right thing to do.Don't hold meetings! Meetings weren't held! Quit holding meetings!From Dr. George T. Arnold, the authority on journalistic writing and author of the Media Writer's Handbook:"Although some mass communicators are not bothered by the use of hold, held or holding when reporting about meetings, conferences, parties or conventions, other writers and broadcasters think such use is...silly. A person can hold another's hand, a fork, a baby or any number of other objects, but how does one hold a meeting?"Please, for the sake of the English language and for the sake of not looking silly, start saying that organizations will meet or that an event takes place. You're welcome.

BIG NEWS!!: Nobel Prizes schnobel prizes... now THIS is innovation!

HOW TO TICK PEOPLE OFF: thedvsangel: 2. In the memo field of all your checks, write "for sexual favors." i love this list...

The Evolution of National Flags: onemoretimewithfeeling: "When Alaska and Hawaii were being considered for statehood, people sent in more than 1,500 new flag designs to President Eisenhower. One of the designs was submitted by a 17-year-old high school student named Bob Heft, who first created it as a school project. He got a B- for it (for "lack of originality"), though his teacher agreed to change his grade if his design was accepted. When Bob's flag design was chosen, his teacher changed the grade to an A!"

This is wonderful: Obama also said he was surprised some of those attacks weren’t brought up by his opponent at the debate Tuesday night at Belmont University in Nashville, Tenn. “I am surprised that, you know, we’ve been seeing some pretty over-the-top attacks coming out of the McCain campaign over the last several days, that he wasn’t willing to [...]

That's my mum,' says Banksy. He's pointing at a googly-eyed stencil portrait of an old lady. ‘Don't tell her I gave her funny eyes, though. It's not her most flattering portrait.' Before I continue, I should clarify: officially this man isn't Banksy. But unofficially, he's so Banksy I want to slice off his face and put it on eBay. From my past encounters I'm 99 per cent sure it's him. He's the only man in this dirty, poisonous little road beneath London's Waterloo Station that nobody refers to by name. They just come up to him, ask a quick question and then scuttle off. He's tall and well built with slightly shabby hair. His voice has a slight West Country twang lurking behind an otherwise London tone. We met before, back in 2006, when Banksy was flogging his art to the Hollywood elite for six-figure sums at an LA show that centred on a live painted elephant. On that night I shared a urinal with Keanu Reeves, had my G&T pilfered by Jude Law, chatted to Brad about where Angelina was going to put their new Banksy statue, and crucially helped stop the four-ton Indian elephant creating the biggest Hollywood bloodbath of all time. Having been fed 50 bags of M&M's and a few litres of Red Bull, Nelly was understandably tetchy at being blocked out of his ‘luxury elephant trailer' by Banksy's broken-down lorry. In one of the most surreal hours of my life, I helped the artist move his stricken truck, before giving his crew a lift back to their hotel in a convertible Mustang I'd hired. From that point I was ‘in'. Which is why I'm here now. ‘It was great fun out there,' he laughs about our time in LA. ‘OK, there's no elephant this time, but in a way this is much bigger, the biggest thing we've ever done. It's so vast, and every time you walk to the end you notice that something else has changed.' He's covered in paint, yet claims not to be working today. When he speaks, everyone listens. Point a camera near him and he runs. Looking askance at my photographer, who's lurking, he politely reminds me, ‘No photos.' That's fine. We're not here to blow his cover. Described as Britain's Andy Warhol, undercover graffiti guerrilla Banksy is not only our most important working artist, but one of the world's most elusive criminals. In January, a wall defaced by his spray can sold for £208,100. Everyone from Jude Law to Brangelina has his politically charged stencils on their walls - and I'm spending a morning watching him create his latest masterpiece, an entire London street graffitied in secrecy and not due to be unveiled until tonight. Despite countless attempts by the police, his fans and the media, Banksy has somehow managed to keep his identity under wraps since he first became famous around eight years ago. The story goes that his real identity is so secret even Banksy's parents don't realise who their son is; his agent tells me, ‘They think he's a painter and decorator who's done very well for himself.' I'm not sure if I believe that, but I do know the cat-and-mouse game he plays with those trying to find him is both perfectly executed and as tongue-in-cheek as some of his wittier artworks. The New Yorker, the BBC, Esquire and London's Evening Standard have all attempted exposés on him, and all have failed. When the LA Times tried to find out who he was, Banksy unleashed stand-up comedian Simon Munnery as his ‘lawyer' to confuse matters. This, despite the fact that Munnery had been drinking heavily all night. His 30-minute rant baffled them enough to make them give up on their scoop. Proof of just how far the artist is willing to go to guard his secret. His agent and right-hand man Steve Lazarides once told me even he isn't 100 per cent sure of Banksy's identity. Alarming, considering Lazarides owns the artist's website and gallery and controls all access to him - if you want to buy a £60,000 Banksy-defaced Mona Lisa, Steve is the man you call. ‘I get a note telling me which B&Q car park he's going to leave his latest box of his canvases in,' Lazarides once told me. ‘I collect them and leave him a cheque in their place.' Though he wouldn't tell me who the cheque was payable to, he was deadly serious, convincingly baffled by the arrangement himself. Considering Lazarides was previously a West Country chicken-plucker who took photos of Bristol's graffiti scene in his spare time, it's not a bad deal, and one he'd be a fool to blow. It was Lazarides who arranged for me to be part of this top-secret paint-bombing. No other member of the media even knew about it, let alone got asked to attend, and my invitation was suitably mysterious: just a two-word text reading ‘Leake Street'. Having met Banksy before, I know this means I have to get to Leake Street immediately. It's 5am. I find the kind of place urban foxes go to die, filled with junkies and litter. To be honest, I'm a little nervous. This, after all, is the man who unleashed 164 live rats on art critics at his 2005 show in London's Westbourne Grove. On arrival, I see Banksy's publicist, who I met in LA, loitering in front of what looks like a building site. A sign on a blue plywood temporary barrier reads ‘Transport for London: road closed for vital maintenance work'. It's a fake sign. In truth, Banksy has rented the entire road for six months, and has created a monster behind the faux barrier. I'm itching to see what it is. As the publicist bangs on the plywood to be let in, she hands me a piece of paper On it there's a note from Banksy himself. It says, ‘Graffiti doesn't always spoil buildings. In fact, it's the only way to improve a lot of them. In the space of a few hours with a couple of hundred cans of paint, I'm hoping we can transform a dark, forgotten filth pit into an oasis of beautiful art - in a dark, forgotten filth pit.' Fantastic. A chain rattles, a padlock is removed and a 6ft, bald security guard swings the plywood barrier open. I'm in. Beyond the temporary tarpaulin doors, the entire street is rammed with dozens of the planet's finest stencil vandals, all busy at work. Paint is dripping off every wall. Stencils of rats and Boris Johnson litter the floor; men in hoods are hanging off ladders with cans. The fog of aerosol fumes is enough to give me an instant migraine. Every great stencil street artist on Earth is here. Someone tells me Banksy simply posted out first-class plane tickets and an address to 39 vandals around the world. That was three days ago. ‘Most people couldn't make something this amazing work in three days, but everyone came,' the London-based graffitist Pure Evil tells me. If the police were to burst in, they'd have a field day - these are some of the most prolific vandals in the world. Notorious ‘steampunk' artist Paul Insect rushes past me, Portugal's Vhils is autographing walls and a slightly scruffy-looking bloke in his mid-thirties is hiding his face behind a black-and-white scarf. I walk up to the main man and thrust out my hand in a hopeful sort of way. He smiles, shakes it and then yanks up his scarf even more. Banksy's role in what he's calling the ‘Cans Festival' is more executive than anything else, as he moves around directing various pieces. I have interrupted him at work on a sculpture called ‘CCTreeV' involving dozens of fake security cameras. Before that, he was busy putting a Noddy car up on bricks. When he arrived at Leake Street, Banksy's biggest worry was the homeless men living there. ‘I didn't want to just kick them out,' he says. ‘Firstly it was their home, and secondly they were quite scary. ‘We offered to put them up in a YMCA, but they just said, ‘Don't worry about it', and moved on to somewhere else. ‘We've got this for six months, at which point Eurostar have told us they want it returned in the exact state we got it. So we'll have to go find those guys and bring them back, I guess.' They'll also have to painstakingly urinate on the walls and bring back all the used needles. It seems a shame, to say the least. ‘This street must be worth millions now,' I point out, remembering that earlier this year one of Banksy's quick urban paint jobs sold for £950,000 at Sotheby's, New York. But the point of the Cans Festival is that it's not for profit; this time, nothing is for sale. ‘We're only flogging programmes for £3, and we'll be very lucky to break even,' Banksy states proudly. ‘It's been quite an expensive project - we've flown artists in from 11 countries, and it's not cheap to rent a road! ‘We could have put prints up for sale and made a fortune, but that's not what this is about. We wanted people to be able to come here and have a go themselves.' And when they've finished, they're invited to take away whatever they like. ‘We did a show where we gave away free canvases to kids a couple of years ago, and this is just a progression from that. We're giving away a piece of wall instead of the canvas.' I ask if I can have a go at stencilling. ‘Yeah,' he says. ‘Are you any good?' I'm not. My graffiti skills were wisely retired after I sprayed ‘M Khan is bent' on a skateboard ramp in my youth. But there's one empty patch I have my eye on. I ask if I can have a go with one of the ‘emulsion hydrants' (fire extinguishers filled with paint, used to create giant splatters to stencil upon). Sadly, that patch is being reserved for French graffiti legend Blek le Rat, who won't arrive until tomorrow. Banksy is a huge fan. ‘Every time I think I've painted something slightly original, I find out that Blek le Rat has done it, too,' he says, ‘only Blek did it 20 years earlier.' At this point he starts to look twitchy. My photographer is struggling to resist taking photos and is edging ever closer. Even more worrying, the world's media are knocking at the door. Time to leave... ‘You're coming to our party tonight, aren't you?' Banksy asks as I shake his hand and say farewell. I'd only been half-invited to the grand unveiling up until this point, but now I'm definitely coming. ‘Great,' he says. ‘I'll see you later.' He won't. As I walk out, the mass of journalists who have now descended is suffocating. The Sky News helicopter is chopping overhead, eager hacks in suits and jaded art critics in hemp trousers are craning their necks and a CNN reporter thrusts a camera in my face. ‘Can you go live in five minutes?' asks the CNN man, as his sound lady starts feeling up my jumper for suitable spots to pin a radio mic. Me, live to the world? Dear God, no. ‘Just tell them what you've been creating in there,' he says, and it dawns on me: this man thinks he's got the art-world scoop of the century. He thinks I'm Banksy. Meanwhile, I see the real Banksy hugging the few hooded men who are still painting, and then he just walks out - fast, but bold as brass. He won't be returning to the scene of the crime. By the time I come back to Banksy's street later that night, it's huge news across the planet and has turned into a private street party. Invitation-only, of course, and we're still the only media in there. Unlike past Banksy parties I've attended, this one has nothing to do with flogging paintings to overly rich people. Nothing is for sale, kids are swinging on smashed-up cars and family and friends make up most of the numbers. But there are also a lot of ‘London cool' types sneering at the pieces. I'm not sure how or why they got in. You can sense the huge popularity of their former favourite is getting to them, and they're clearly unhappy they can't buy the pieces this time around. ‘I tell you what,' laughs Banksy's publicist, ‘if a grenade went off in here, there'd be a hell of a lot of dead a*******s.' She has a point. Ten o'clock the following morning is much more in the Banksy spirit. The ‘a*******s' are gone and the street genuinely comes to life. By the end of the three-day event, 28,500 people will have entered the street (queuing for up to an hour in the blazing heat), 691 of them bringing their own stencils and adding to the art, just as Banksy wanted. Blek le Rat is here and busy at work - spraying an image of a homeless man in a style so familiar you'd be forgiven for thinking it's a Banksy. He's less political than the Englishman, but just as talented, and arguably more important on the street-art scene. I take the opportunity to buttonhole him. ‘Banksy is a very angry man and I love that,' explains Blek as he sprays, in a soft Parisian accent. ‘People say he copies me, but I don't think so. I'm the old man, he's the new kid, and if I'm an inspiration to an artist that good, I love it. I feel what he is doing in London is similar to the rock movement in the Sixties. London is the most exciting city in the world, and it's because of the revolutionary artists transforming your city. You are very lucky.' Ironically, Blek says he arrived late due to the huge popularity he's now enjoying, thanks to Banksy. ‘People want to know me now... I have a major book deal with the biggest publishers in the world. I have waited 30 years for this. It's only today that my street art has become big news, and that's thanks to people saying Banksy is inspired by me.' As Blek and a few dozen others concentrate on their painting, the rest of the punters seem hell-bent on destroying the place. Pieces are kicked, moved, stolen - and security encourage it. You certainly don't get that at the Tate. ‘They'll be here with angle grinders in the end,' says one of Banksy's people as I catch his eye near the end of the three-day extravaganza. As I consider hiring one myself, I recall Banksy's words about promising Eurostar they'd return the street in the exact state they'd found it. That already seems like a promise London can't let Banksy keep. Be it due to angle grinders or Banksy's scrubbing brush, it'd be a tragedy if this new Leake Street vanished. Once the dirtiest corner of central London, it has been transformed from a street nobody dared walk down into the most talked-about stretch of Tarmac in Britain. What's more, it hasn't cost anyone (apart from a petty criminal from Bristol) a single penny. Love or hate Banksy's art, you've got to respect that. I return to Leake Street a few days later, when the camera-phone-clutching hordes have vanished and the tramps have moved back in, their grubby old patch of pavement now one of the most valuable properties in the capital. I reach into my pocket and pull out a scrunched-up piece of paper. It's Banksy's note: ‘I'm hoping we can transform a dark, forgotten filth pit into an oasis of beautiful art - in a dark, forgotten filth pit.' For a second I think it's rather poignant. But then a hugely depressing realisation hits me: if only I'd got him to sign the thing, it'd be worth a fortune... Lee Coan: Mail Online

dirtyskydub: Futura 2000

dirtyskydub: UNKLE - War Stories/3D

banksy in NYC, i'm def going to see this

everymomentnow

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12seconds = Micro-vlogging to go along with Twitter’s micro-blogging! Um, and the embed code won’t work with WordPress (what’s new) so you’ll just have to click through to see my mini-vids. Office Shenanigans on 12seconds.tv       

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Software Use as little software as possible. Use software that does one thing well. Do not use software that does many things poorly. Do not use software that must sync over the internet to function. Do not use web applications that should be desktop applications. Do not use desktop applications that should be web applications. Do not use software that isn't made specifically for your operating system. (You'll know it when you see it because it won't look right or work correctly.) Do not run beta software unless you know how to submit a bug report and are eager to do so. Use a plain text editor that you know well.  Not a word processor, a plain text editor. Do not use your text editor for tasks other than editing text. Use a password manager. You shouldn't know any of your passwords save the one to your primary email account and the one to your password manager. Do not use software that's unmaintained. Pay for software that's worth paying for, but only after evaluating it for no less than two weeks. Thoroughly delete all traces of software that you no longer use. Hardware Do not buy a desktop computer unless your daily computing needs include video/audio editing, 3D rendering, or some other hugely processor-intensive computing task.  Buy a portable computer instead. Do not use your phone/smartphone/PDA/UMPC for tasks that would be more comfortably and effectively accomplished on a full-fledged computer. Use a Mac for personal computing. Use Linux or BSD on commodity hardware for server computing. Do not use anything other than a Mac at home and Linux/BSD on the server. The only peripheral you absolutely need is a hard disk or network drive to put backups on. Buy as large an external display as you can afford if you'll be working on the computer for more than three hours at a time. Use hosted services in lieu of hosting on your own hardware (or virtual hardware) for all but the most custom applications. File Formats Keep as much as possible in plain text.  Not Word or Pages documents, plain text. For tasks that plain text doesn't fit, store documents in an open standard file format if possible. Do not buy digital media crippled by rights restriction technologies unless your intention is to rent the content for a limited period of time. These are my rules and they make me happy.  I hope they make you happy too.  If you have computing rules of your own that make you happy, I encourage you to publish them. via: Alex Payne

Here are two of those commercials I just wrote about. The first one features Hillary Duff, and the second features Wanda Sykes. What do you think? Do you think these will actually make young people stop and think? I think these need to be running on MTV, VH1, and Bravo non-stop. And it wouldn’t hurt to run them during The O’Reilly Factor, either. (NB: Wanda Sykes’ character got married to Julia Louis-Dreyfus’ character on The New Adventures of Old Christine this season.) addthis_url = 'http%3A%2F%2Fwww.lolsam.com%2F%3Fp%3D753'; addthis_title = 'Here+they+are%21'; addthis_pub = '';

Growing up we were all taught to "Never take candy from strangers." I was told that if I took candy from strangers I would probably end up a windowless brown van on the way to some creeper's house in the woods. I feel that I am big enough not stolen by someone, so I can flex the rule every now and then. HUGE Mistake. I was working in the Aero Design Lab, making a sick...

"Get ready for high highs and low lows, and practice keeping yourself in the middle or you'll never get [in to shape]." Motivation = Decision before Action — Before the first step in the ten thousand mile journey, you must first decide to begin the journey. Time: Pay yourself first. Take 90 minutes, same time, same place every day, and work out. RescueTime says you are only working 9-10 hours anyways. Don't kid yourself, you have a lot of time to work out. Type of Exercise: Run, Bike, or Swim — lifting is a cop out, and work out outdoors. Equipment: Trust your training, and trust your equipment. Buy from a local shop, where they are experienced and will remember your name.

October 14, New MacBook Pro?:   Apple has begun to send out its invitations to an even to be held on October 14th, and judging by the obvious photo on the invite it will be about the notebook side of Apple's...

So, here at San Jose State, Thursday is considered the beginning of homecomign weekend.  Please help us all celebrate by drinking excessive amounts of alcohol and pretend like you actually care about the football game.  Enjoy… Buckwheat Lets the Cat Outta the Bag One day the little rascals were sitting in school. The teacher walked in, and said, "good morning class. Today we are going to play word games. I'm going to give you a word and I want you to put it in a sentence for me." She said "Spanky you're first. Your word is football." Spanky stood up and proudly said " I threw the football," and sat down. The teacher said "very good Spanky." Then the teacher said, "Darla, you're next. Your word is pretty." Darla stood up and said, " I think I'm very pretty!" Then she sat down. Then the teacher called on Buckwheat. She said, "Buckwheat, you're next. Your word is dictate." Buckwheat stood up looked at Arial, and said, "Hey Darla! How'd my dic tate las nigh?       

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