* The best adventures are usually the result of intrepid ignorance

* I really want RJD2 and Aesop Rock to collaborate on a full length album

A web flier for a record shop in Bordeaux

-TitaniumDreads

Alright Kong-Rey let’s see what you’ve got!

For those who don’t know, I currently reside beach-side on the little dot on the map marked Guam.

-The Velvet Ninja

In honor of the fact that I find out Tuesday whether I’ll be spending the summer rocking out in northern California with Dustin, here is a devastatingly beautiful photo of the San Francisco airport.

After this, I think might make a post which isn’t simply an image~

– mrgordon

These all metal business cards cost up to five dollars a piece (!) and are made by Plasma Design, which also makes business cards for the United Nations and Homeland Security. Now we know where all that taxpayer money went…

– mrgordon

{WHOA! via Email thanks Ben <– this is a link to bens myspace music page, scope it}

So that’s a link to a video that rocks a lot of statistics, most of them aren’t adjusted for useful per capita analysis. For instance it compares the R&D budget of nintendo to the governments r&d budget for education as a way to show that the US needs to spend more money on education. Correct conclusion, incorrect reasoning. A comparison between the money spent developing new video games isn’t germane to research on new ways to educate a populace for at least 4 different reasons.

Another zinger is

“If myspace were a country it would be the 11th largest on earth.”

But myspace isn’t a country and it probably never will be. So what’s the point? And then there is some stuff about exabytes of information and how knowledge is becoming obsolete by the year. NOT TRUE! don’t buy it!

still it may be worth watching.

–Posted by TitaniumDreads

A strange first post perhaps, but I love this picture!

– mrgordon

Not that I would eat at Burger King but I applaud the decision.

:: Good Nytimes Article via Email {thanks Amanda!} ::

{thanks Ian!}

I’ve been playing this out discreetly for the last week or so. Everyone loves it and no, it’s not dj shadow :P

Also, I got hardcore deja vu while posting this. I had a really intense recurring dream about one of the images about a month ago.

UC Santa Cruz has a very cool bike coop that teaches students to build and maintain their own bicycles. It’s also a good place to hang out and meet people. Here’s a sticker that they gave me (I love stickers, please hook me up if you have any)

from my flickr photostream

The sticker serves ultimately as way to inform the student populace, especially incoming first years, about the bike coop. An important task considering that so many people never ride bikes simply because they don’t know where or how to get one that optimizes price and quality. The sticker scores high on the graphic design front with a sweet logo and good visibility of the name. However, it fails to mention the location of the bike coop which is tucked discretely yet conveniently into a little corner near the student center. It doesn’t mention a website either. Any information that gets put out into the world should necessarily provide the viewer with a way to get more information about the subject. Word of mouth is particularly crucial in this case. Even if the the primary viewer doesn’t want or need a bike they may be able to inform a friend who is in the market.

The Takehome Message:
I think it’s helpful to consider stickers, flyers, posters etc as a pointer to something bigger. Not putting a physical and web location on the sticker is like a pointer without an arrow.

the sticker lies on top of my biology of aids final study guide. Pictured are various proteins that are critical to the successful reproduction of HIV.

This is the first official blog post with my new MacbookPro, which is the sweetest computer EVER! Here’s a photo I took with the built in camera.

This may be a good time to juxtapose in a trenchant comment about vista from Robert Peston of the BBC

I, on the other hand, feel great!

On the Cool Pile:

Three wind turbine blades have been successfully installed on the Bahrain World Trade Center, a twin skyscraper complex. This is the first time that a commercial development has integrated large-scale wind turbines within its design to harness the power of the wind. The three massive turbines, measuring 29 meters in diameter, are supported by bridges spanning between the complex’s two towers. Through its positioning and the unique aerodynamic design of the towers, the prevailing on-shore Gulf breeze is funneled into the path of the turbines, helping to create power generation efficiency.

::: Global Warming Will Still Get Us via Treehugger :::

And this is a hilarious letter and response from a prospective MIT Student, nubs up.

Update: I got a scholarship to do research in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Ostensibly, Im supposed to be interviewing people about their feelings on government legitimacy and the current trials against the military. However, my real reason for coming is to learn Spanish. Which is sort of working.

So, Buenos Aires is really weird. Like, it seems very cosmopolitan, but deep down inside, its pretty insidiously sexist. Its been bothering me a lot recently. Its subtle: when you go into a restaurant, the guy you’re with is expected to taste the wine; in my classes we did this exercise where we were supposed to list what men wanted from women; guys think its OK to say youre pretty while in youre drunk in the taxi. OK, so maybe its not so insidious, but its definitely hard to deal with.

Of course, this has nothing to do with the title of this post. So, here’s my story.

Interestingly enough, TD wanted to take me to a swingers club back in Colorado. For various reasons, it ended up not happening. And I was a little relieved. However, last night, I got to see the real deal out here in BA.

How it happened: A friend of my roommate is a freelance journalist. He lives the sweetest fucking life. He came over last night, and we had some wine. He was telling us (me, my roommate and her nonboyfriend) how he has to write a story about monkeys for Natl Geo. I dont know exactly how the sex club got worked into the conversation, but it did. He was telling us how he now had a “semi professional” reason to go to this place. And his previous attempt was unsuccessful because he wasn’t wearing the right kind of shoes.

In the whirlwind of talking about the sex club, we all end up deciding to actually go. I was under the impression we were going to go later. Maybe for the weekend or something, but no. We were going tonight, RIGHT NOW. So, the journalist tells us to get dressed up nice. I put on a miniskirt (finally! somewhere I can wear it). Btw, its like 3 am. Thats how the Argentines roll.

We hop a cab to the journalists apt. to get some cash and the proper footwear. I do most of his blow.

We get to the sex club and they tell us its going to close soon because there’s not a lot of people there. My roommate gets a little irritated.The journalist and I decide to go on up and see whats there, and report back.

What its like: When we get up there, they ask if we have cameras or anything. We say no (interesting story, I normally have camera, but my purse was stolen last weekend. So no more camera, passport or debit card). Im told to check my purse. We get a drink.

There’s small dancefloor, and some middle aged fat couples standing around the bar. The music is really bad. Like, 70s porn music. The journalist decides this is fine and goes back downstairs to get my roommate and her man. As Im waiting, a couple starts getting dirty on the dancefloor (no sex, just some mad groping and kissing)…But they’re pretty unattractive, so I look away.

The journalist brings everyone else upstairs, and he was incredibly excited. “Theres two really hot chicks over there! Im not a pervert. This is part of my job.” We move to go get more drinks, and in the process some old guy tries to get with me. He was passing by the group, and slithers his arm across my waist. I freak out and run away. I bitch to the journalist about someone touching me. He says, “Youre in a sex club. Lighen up.” I hiss, “I am not here to have sex.”

We finish our drinks, and decide to have a look around. I didnt realize that people went somewhere else to have sex. But apparently, theres other parts of the club. The dancefloor is solely for dancing. So we venture upstairs, and theres a little cubby area at the top of the flight of stairs, and some curtains. Youre allowed to pull the curtain and watch the couple inside going at it. It was pretty intense and not at all sexy. I freak out a little bit.

We go downstairs and theres another area where people are getting freaky. We walk into this dark room, and the first thing we see is this girl bent over a couch and this fat guy doing her from behind. On the couch, another couple is going at it. Theres a doorway behind them, and we walk over there. Theres some showers, and we see a couple putting their clothes back on. The guy says something to us, but I didnt quite catch it.

We move back to the place with the couches, and the journalist is like “Well, I should watch this, because Ive never seen it before. This is what I came to see.” So we sit down, and Im finding none of this very interesting. The fat guy and the girl move to the couch. We leave to get another drink and then come back. Theres a couple behind us, sort of hidding away, and they are having some pretty wild sex. We all sit and watch them, and Im reminded how I havent had sex in a really long time (but my boyfriend is coming to visit on Tues). I get slightly jealous. But not horny.

Something about watching real people have sex is just not appealing. At all.

While we’re all watching this couple, the staff tells us (and the couple) that its closing time and we have to leave. So we get up, go downstairs, and hail a cab back. The journalist is fairly drunk (as they are), and insists on going back to our apartment. He’s going through a bit of a lonely time. We talk, and he takes his clothes off. This might sound sort of sketchy, but for those that know TD drunk, its really not. The journalist taking his clothes off in a drunken stupor was much like TD. I get awoken at 11 in the morning because the journalist left his clothes in my room, and fell asleep naked on the couch.

Good times!

+++ Note: This is a blog post from Kimpossible ++
Usernames will be posted as soon as I get the new design up :) -TitaniumDreads

No, no it’s not….

Me: Dun da dun duh duh… With a blanket with novely sized
Nick: what did you just say?!?
Me: ummm nothing….

yeah, and this video is fucking brilliant

From: *******@stanford.edu
To: *********@law.harvard.edu
Subject:

From: *********@law.harvard.edu
To: *******@stanford.edu
Subject: re:

You may be familiar with the widely advanced theory that Democracies do not go to war with eachother, which therefore justifies starting wars to spread democracy…. This notion is frequently expressed by the mustachio’d little twatburger Thomas Friedman in his gushingly pedantic artices in the NYTimes. Here Cecil Adams of The Straight Dope delivers a trenchant repudiation!

The rest of the article is quite good too.