Skateboarding... Even your old man will like.

Dad's chair.....














Our chair.....















Made by Skate Study House.....

Is there anything you can't do with LEGO's?

I can't decide if this is sad or funny - depending on my mood I can see it both ways. Either way, it demonstrates that with a little creativity you can do almost anything with LEGO's.

Innocent juicer or racist epitaph?

Minimalist juicer or three-dimensional caricatures of Chinese “coolies”.... Read about the campaign to "drop the juicer" here.

You be the judge.

Thank you "culturally concerned anonymous tipster" for bringing this to our attention.

A lost Dawg? Or just a mongrel?

I recently watched the movie Grateful Dawg about one of Jerry Garcia's side projects - a collaboration with David Grisman. Lots of great mandolin, country and cool old americana music. If you're into this kind of think, I highly recommend it.

And then today, I thought I saw a third dawg on the NY Times website! Sadly, the truth of the matter is that long, scraggly white hair and a beard can hide even the ugliest man..... (Radovan Karadzic was caught - a very bad dude, read it here)


Makes you wonder - what did all those old men do that made them hide behind a beard?

Batman(s) & Friends

The buzz is building for the latest iteration of the Dark Night. The movie was pegged to be block-buster even before the tragic death of Heath Ledger and overall, fans of the caped crusader will hopefully be treated to an even more visually stunning presentation than any previous - several scenes are shot in Imax.

I too will be standing in line and can't wait for this movie. To help build the excitement, below are some fun pics of Batman and friends through the ages. See the full 91 images here.

Enjoy and see you at the movies.

That said, perhaps even more fun are the bad guys!

See the Big Lebowski in a new way

Do you know what you're looking at? Every image from the film layed out in succession. A digital thumb print, per se. See the original file here. Very cool - kudos.

And I Rand, I ran so far away........

Ayn Rand, author of Atlas Shrugged and the Fountainhead was also one of the main developers and proponents of a moral philosophy called Objectivism. Disregarded at the time, it was later embraced by conservatives.

In her own words:

My philosophy, in essence, is the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute.
—Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged 35th anniversary edition

However, a more accurate expression may be:

"Objectivism holds that reality exists independent from consciousness; that individual persons are in contact with this reality through sensory perception; that human beings can gain objective knowledge from perception through the process of concept formation; that the proper moral purpose of one's life is the pursuit of one's own happiness or "rational self-interest"; that the only social system consistent with this morality is full respect for individual rights, embodied in pure, consensual laissez-faire capitalism; and that the role of art in human life is to transform man's widest metaphysical ideas, by selective reproduction of reality, into a physical form—a work of art—that one can comprehend and respond to."
— Wikipedia


In an interview from Playboy magazine in 1964, (read the full interview here) we can see the roots of how this philosophy arrives at a "you're with us or your against us" attitude.

PLAYBOY: In Atlas Shrugged you wrote, "There are two sides to every issue. One side is right and the other is wrong, but the middle is always evil." Isn't this a rather black-and-white set of values?

RAND: It most certainly is. I most emphatically advocate a black-and-white view of the world. Let us define this. What is meant by the expression "black and white"? It means good and evil. Before you can identify anything as gray, as middle of the road, you have to know what is black and what is white, because gray is merely a mixture of the two. And when you have established that one alternative is good and the other is evil, there is no justification for the choice of a mixture. There is no justification ever for choosing any part of what you know to be evil.

So you be the judge. Right or wrong? Or somewhere in the middle, unless you're an objectivist....

Live Vampires

Vampire Weekend video's. Pretty good stuff. Love the strings. From Pitchfork archives.

Shine on you crazy diamond!

Very cool promo video for Kubrick, from the BBC. "See the world through the eyes of a master." Very cool.

Bubbles of Troubles

Everyone loves to pop - now you don't have stop... Check it out!

(annoy your office mates....)













thanks D.

Show em' up - pt. 2 (Black Angels)

These guys rock! Keep an eye out - they'll be getting more press than blog chatter soon enough.

If MMJ is big news, big venue (RC), we saw these guys rock in a totally different way. Way out in Brooklyn, at Southpaw. These five rockers from Austin proved psychedelic rock is still alive and well.... With strobes, feedback and screams, they put on a tremendous show.

Deep drums, feedback galore, catchy riffs and a great singer, they left the crowd sweaty and wanting more. Despite only having two albums under the belt, they sure know how to put on a show.

They're on tour now, so check out their website for tour dates and if you can catch em', don't miss em'.

Interested hearing this obscenely loud sound - check out the Futurist.

Show em' up - pt .1 (MMJ)

It's concert season people and I'm doing my darndest to see some great bands. Two shows have been memorable.

The first got a lot of press - My Morning Jacket at Radio City Music Hall.

These guys killed it! And, let me say there is not a bad seat in Radio City. I should know - we were in the third tier, last row..... Literally, the last seats.... And while the band looked a little smaller than I would have liked, they put on a show...

The ticket said doors open at 7 and show's at 8. Hmmm.... No opening band. 8 o'clock show???

Well, I didn't want to be the asshole who shows up late and glad I didn't, because at 8:10 they took the stage. With a few words of hello they tore into what would be four continuous hours of song. FOUR HOURS! No talking, no bullshit - just rockin' out.

From the first note, the crowd was on their feet. And after the four hours of dancin', rockin', drinkin' and smokin' everyone was tired. And I can only imagine how the band felt.... Check out the set list - reads like a 'best of' with the full Evil Urges album sprinkled throughout.

Evil Urges, Off The Record, I'm Amazed, Highly Suspicious, What a Wonderful Man, Touch Me Part 1, Sec Walkin, Golden, Thank You Too, The Way That He Sings, Two Halves, Phone Went West, Aluminum Park, Steam Engine, Smokin From Shootin, Touch Me Part 2

Encore:
Bermuda Highway, Librarian, Wordless Chorus, It Beats 4 U, Dondante, The Bear, Lay Low
Run Thru, Anytime, One Big Holiday