El 4 Ojos!

El 4 Ojos!, originally uploaded by ideateller.

The nearsighted luchador.

4 eyes.
1 heart.
Can¹t lose.

El 4 Ojos!

El 4 Ojos!, originally uploaded by ideateller.

The nearsighted luchador.

4 eyes.
1 heart.
Can¹t lose.

Regina, drink, awwwwww

Big thanks to Erika for taking a bunch of us to Regina Spektor. What a great voice (love the trill/hiccup thing).

Had 3 beers before the show, and then on the way home broke my new rule and got a bottle of wine and drank half of it before going to bed. Ack. Bad me.

Woke up early this morning and have been looking at puppies available for adoption. AWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW. It's semi-pointless to look without a new place that accepts dogs, but it helps keep me motivated to find a new place, so I signed up for an auto-update of available dogs via email.

ok. time to take a shower and put on my Halloween costume...

Superheroes Anonymous in NYC

So much better than the Burning fuckhead's notions of helpfulness:

From The NY times

She calls herself Street Hero, says she is a former prostitute, knows martial arts and takes to the city’s underbelly to protect women who work the streets. Her uniform includes a black eye mask, a black bustier and black knee-high boots.

A Brooklyn man who calls himself Direction Man prefers helping lost tourists and locals. He wears a bright orange vest, a pair of thick black goggles and has numerous maps spilling from his pockets.

Then there is Red Justice, a substitute teacher from Woodside, Queens, who wears red boxer briefs over jeans, a red cape made from an old T-shirt and a sock with eyeholes to mask his identity. He trolls the subways encouraging young people to give their seats to those who need them more.

They call themselves real-life superheroes, and they were just a few of the do-gooders who gathered near Times Square yesterday for what was billed as the first meeting of a group called Superheroes Anonymous. They all declined to give their real names because they said they wanted to protect their identities.

The meeting was part news conference, part documentary film shoot and part patrol duty. There were locals and out-of-towners, most were in uniform (don’t dare call them costumes) and all said they were serious about helping make their respective communities cleaner, safer and kinder places.

The 13 or so who gathered yesterday are part of a growing community of activists across the country and beyond who use the Internet to communicate.

Chaim Lazaros, 23, a student at Columbia University and an independent filmmaker, founded Superheroes Anonymous to bring to New York as many superheroes as he could for interviews and to record them for a documentary he is making about the movement.

“I found these people on MySpace,” Mr. Lazaros said, referring to the social networking Web site, “and I knew I had to tell the story.”

Shortly after noon yesterday, Mr. Lazaros stood at a lectern in a park on West 48th Street where the attendees gathered before going on patrol in Times Square to pick up litter and hand out crime prevention literature.

“This is a serious job,” Mr. Lazaros said. “We are out in the streets fighting crime in a legal way. But most of all we are fighting the worst crime of all, apathy.”

What is fuckhead from Burning Man up to?

From the Reno Gazette Journal reports:

Suspect in Burning Man arson arrested
JORDAN ROBERTSON
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
Posted: 10/29/2007
Modified: 10/29/2007
STORY CHAT(read or post comments)

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A San Francisco performance artist charged with prematurely torching the Burning Man festival’s namesake effigy in August has been arrested on suspicion of trying to set fire to the historic Grace Cathedral, police said Monday.

Paul Addis was taken into custody on the top steps of the cathedral around 11:40 p.m. Sunday with an ammunition belt of small explosives strapped around his waist, said San Francisco police spokesman Sgt. Steve Mannina.

Police were tipped by a caller who said they overheard Addis talking about a plan to set fire to the church, Mannina said.

No fire was set and there was no damage to the church.

Transparency is not mindless

So, I've been drinking way too much lately. That might not be apparent to all of my friends, because no one friend is catching the whole picture.

Meaning no one is calling me on partying too much, because there's no way of any of my current friends noticing how far gone I've gone.

To that extent, I'm going to start publishing my drinking stats here, in the hope that you, my fine readers (both of you), will call me out on it.

The biggest problem I've been having is drinking on my own lonesome. For example, Friday night I had 1 1/2 bottles of wine. Alone. Playing Halo 3 online.

Sad.

Followed by Saturday, drinking during the Florida game (a 6pack). Which might've been ok, but instead of cutting myself off and sobering up for the Halloween party at the Korean porno studio, I went to the store and got another 6 pack. Then stayed home again that night.

Sad and unhealthy.

Yesterday was a slightly better day. I only drank a 6 pack on my own, smoked a bunch of pot and watched football and the world series in a haze.

Bleh.

And that pretty much holds true to form for my drinking over the past 4 weeks. That's no good. I've been talking with my therapist about not being mindless, and yet what do I do every chance i get? Yeah.

So, please send me your encouragement and give some tough love. I don't mind going out and getting drunk, as long as it's with you, the folks I know and love. Staying home and getting drunk = not cool.

Thank you,
management

At long last, Call of Duty spot #1

Vladimir Putin gives mixed reviews to the new game Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare.

Does the translator sound familiar at all to you?

So wrong...

Ah, why is India the world's most populous nation when it has birth control education like this? What they need is some good ol' fashioned abstinence education.

There is a God

And apparently, he's really pissed off about something.

Read this story first: From Pit Bulls Kill Miniature Horse Donated To Cancer-Stricken Child

Then look for similiarities to this story from The Onion.

An Active, Purposeful Machine That Comes Out at Night to Play - New York Times

As if I haven't proven all of the following things, especially the infection part.

An Active, Purposeful Machine That Comes Out at Night to Play - New York Times: "Scientists have been trying to determine why people need sleep for more than 100 years. They have not learned much more than what every new parent quickly finds out: sleep loss makes you more reckless, more emotionally fragile, less able to concentrate and almost certainly more vulnerable to infection. They know, too, that some people get by on as few as three hours a night, even less, and that there are hearty souls who have stayed up for more than week without significant health problems."

Emotions Run Amok in Sleep-Deprived Brains - Yahoo! News

In the "no shit" research department: Emotions Run Amok in Sleep-Deprived Brains - Yahoo! News: "Without sleep, the emotional centers of our brains dramatically overreact to bad experiences, research now reveals. 'When we're sleep deprived, it's really as if the brain is reverting to more primitive behavior, regressing in terms of the control humans normally have over their emotions,' researcher Matthew Walker, a neuroscientist at the University of California, Berkeley, told LiveScience. Anyone who has ever gone without a good night's sleep is aware that doing so can make a person emotionally irrational. While past studies have revealed that sleep loss can impair the immune system and brain processes such as learning and memory, there has been surprisingly little research into why sleep deprivation affects emotions, Walker said."

Onion strikes paydirt

(HT: Butters) From The Onion

FAIRFIELD, CA—Lacking the exuberance, spontaneity, and airborne bodily fluids of previous all-night fuckfests, the first orgy since the passing of group-sex enthusiast Brian Hodge was a solemn and subdued affair, heavily lubricated sources reported Monday.

"Spirits were definitely low," said Catherine Davis, who claimed that Hodge's accidental drowning was almost as unexpected as the time Scott Warner reached climax inside her mouth. "We were clearly all hurting on the inside. Especially Marissa, who got double-teamed right from the start."

Interactive LA Fires: Google Maps

Hope my aunt & uncle are safe in San Diego county, as well as my friends Adam & Kelly.

Google Maps

The Shenis, Or, What Happens When Girls Pee Standing Up

A nice video of 4 girls peeing standing up with The Shenis (soon to be available in lightweight technoprene at Patagonia.com).

From Jezebel

The Shenis, Or, What Happens When Girls Pee Standing Up


After hearing about the Shenis, a 12-inch-long, hollowed-out penis that enables women to pee standing up, it was clear what we needed to do: Order a few and engage in a pissing contest. [These ladies are my heroes. -Ed.] Yesterday afternoon, four of us gathered on a rooftop in Brooklyn, where we chugged beer, wine and water and then assumed the male pee position. Above, a video of our urinary escapade, made with love by Alex Goldberg, and after the jump, stills from the session.

We put the Shenises in our pants and pretended to be male porn stars.

Girls's Costume Warehouse - CollegeHumor video

MMMMMMmmmmmmmmm. Sexy Mustard.

I got nothing for Halloween but a retread of my El 4 Ojos Mexican wrestler costume.

We're welcoming suggestions.

Swearing at work boosts team spirt, morale: research - Yahoo! News

Fuck yeah! This swearing shit sure works.

Swearing at work boosts team spirt, morale: research - Yahoo! News: "Swearing at work boosts team spirt, morale: research Wed Oct 17, 8:58 AM ET LONDON (AFP) - Regular swearing at work can help boost team spirit among staff, allowing them to express better their feelings as well as develop social relationships, according to a study by researchers. ADVERTISEMENT Click Here Yehuda Baruch, a professor of management at the University of East Anglia, and graduate Stuart Jenkins studied the use of profanity in the workplace and assessed its implications for managers. They assessed that swearing would become more common as traditional taboos are broken down, but the key appeared to be knowing when such language was appropriate and when to turn to blind eye. The pair said swearing in front of senior staff or customers should be seriously discouraged or banned, but in other circumstances it helped foster solidarity among employees and express frustration, stress or other feelings."

dreamlines....

I'm still a little cracked out from Saturday's festivities, but this has proved to be a nice distraction today. (Hat tip to k8 for finding this):

dreamlines.... - tribe.net: "okay, this is pretty fun to geek out to, as evidenced by amount of time that i have been sitting in front of the computer entering keywords and watching the magic unfold...

www.solaas.com.ar/dreamlines/index.htm

'The user enters one or more words that define the subject of a dream he would like to dream. The system looks in the Web for images related to those words using a google search, and takes them as input to generate an ambiguous painting, in perpetual change, where elements fuse into one another, in a process analogous to memory and free association.' This is what happens when you dream of pornj. You can download the source code (not that I would know what to do with it) which makes me wonder if you could edit the code to redirect where it searches....google searches are fun, but i think a flickr search would make cooler drawings...."

The Shroom at Decom

LA Decom 408, originally uploaded by Damaradeaella.

Me out drinking

Me out drinking, originally uploaded by ideateller.

I know, I know, redundant, redudant.

Woof! The dog search begins

I'm planning on getting a dog in the beginning of the year. Today was the first day of looking around the internets for a pup. And also the dawn of the realization that I better get a new place before I go searching for my dog.

Plans: 10-25 lbs, male puppy, preferrably not from a breeder.
Live: probably more West LA-ish.
When: Beginning of year.
Who: Echo f'n Caballero, that's who.

Scorching Chicago Marathon leaves 1 dead - Yahoo! News

Marathons are crazy to begin with...Marthoners even more so.... ;)

Scorching Chicago Marathon leaves 1 dead - Yahoo! News: "CHICAGO - In a race run in scorching heat that left one man dead, Kenya's Patrick Ivuti won the Chicago Marathon by a fraction of a second Sunday. At least 49 runners were taken to hospitals and another 250 were treated at the site. The 88-degree heat and sweltering humidity were so draining that organizers shut down the second half of the course four hours after the start. Ivuti leaned at the finish line to edge Jaouad Gharib of Morocco by 0.05 seconds. Ethiopia's Berhane Adere rallied to successfully defend her women's title. Chad Schieber of Midland, Mich., 35, collapsed while running on the South Side and was pronounced dead shortly before 1 p.m. at a Veteran's Affairs hospital, the Cook County medical examiner's office. An autopsy was scheduled for Monday."

we(heart)handclaps

We're refiring on all blogging cyclinders, now.

I've switched mp3 blogs from AgainAgainMixCD.blogspot.com (awkward and kinda long...) to the simpler and more evocative "we(heart)handclaps". Which, undeniably, we do.

New design for that site to come, and it's going to be listed on The Hype Machine. So, I'm going to try and be a little professional about updating, editing and writing creatively.

Go download the Rumble Strips bouncy single, "Girls & Boys in Love."

Thanks for reading.

we(heart)handclaps: "we(heart)handclaps the sounds of two hands clapping"

Is Master Chief really Jesus?

Think they'd be even more effective if they used Call of Duty 4: Modern warfare. Also, I like the suggestion at the bottom of the story.

From Thou Shalt Not Kill, Except in a Popular Video Game at Church

First the percussive sounds of sniper fire and the thrill of the kill. Then the gospel of peace.

Kevin Moloney for The New York Times

Across the country, hundreds of ministers and pastors desperate to reach young congregants have drawn concern and criticism through their use of an unusual recruiting tool: the immersive and violent video game Halo.

The latest iteration of the immensely popular space epic, Halo 3, was released nearly two weeks ago by Microsoft and has already passed $300 million in sales.

Those buying it must be 17 years old, given it is rated M for mature audiences. But that has not prevented leaders at churches and youth centers across Protestant denominations, including evangelical churches that have cautioned against violent entertainment, from holding heavily attended Halo nights and stocking their centers with multiple game consoles so dozens of teenagers can flock around big-screen televisions and shoot it out.

The alliance of popular culture and evangelism is challenging churches much as bingo games did in the 1960s. And the question fits into a rich debate about how far churches should go to reach young people.

Far from being defensive, church leaders who support Halo — despite its “thou shalt kill” credo — celebrate it as a modern and sometimes singularly effective tool. It is crucial, they say, to reach the elusive audience of boys and young men.

Witness the basement on a recent Sunday at the Colorado Community Church in the Englewood area of Denver, where Tim Foster, 12, and Chris Graham, 14, sat in front of three TVs, locked in violent virtual combat as they navigated on-screen characters through lethal gun bursts. Tim explained the game’s allure: “It’s just fun blowing people up.”

Once they come for the games, Gregg Barbour, the youth minister of the church said, they will stay for his Christian message. “We want to make it hard for teenagers to go to hell,” Mr. Barbour wrote in a letter to parents at the church.

But the question arises: What price to appear relevant? Some parents, religious ethicists and pastors say that Halo may succeed at attracting youths, but that it could have a corroding influence. In providing Halo, churches are permitting access to adult-themed material that young people cannot buy on their own.

“If you want to connect with young teenage boys and drag them into church, free alcohol and pornographic movies would do it,” said James Tonkowich, president of the Institute on Religion and Democracy, a nonprofit group that assesses denominational policies. “My own take is you can do better than that.”

PostSecret

PostSecret gets to me sometimes. Ok, most of the time. But this really touched me.

I feel so alone sometimes and i'm not sure i do a good job of showing it or asking for help. I think everyone that submits to PostSecret is doing something courageous.

From Knowing someone cares

DSU student posted phone number online; got calls
By Jill Callison

MADISON - It can be a lonely feeling when the phone doesn't ring.

And even though, yes, you could pick up the phone and call someone, sometimes you just need someone else to reach out first.

Ryan Paulson knows that feeling. Even though he's busy with classes at Dakota State University and a part-time job at Daktronics in Brookings, even though his parents only live a few miles away in Colman, even though he has - as of Saturday - a fiancé by the name of Cassie Moeller, sometimes he would look at his cell phone lifeline and just wish it would ring more often.

That's why a postcard posted Sept. 23 on PostSecret.com resonated deep within Paulson.

It said, "I bought the coolest phone on the planet - but it still only rings as often as my old phone did."

PostSecret is a Web site that bills itself as an art project. People are invited to send in homemade postcards that reveal a secret they've never shared before.

A man named Frank Warren started the site in 2005. About 20 postcards are put on the Web site each Sunday, and Warren's fourth book of postcards will be released next week.

Earlier this year he began accepting reader comments on the week's postcards.

Paulson's response was put online the same day the postcard appeared.

Paulson wrote, "I feel the same way. I often wonder why I even have a phone because I rarely receive calls."

Then he offered a metaphorical ear.

"If there was a way we could contact each other, that would be cool. My phone number is 605-212-7787."

A few hours later, his phone rang. It was Warren, checking to see if Paulson had submitted a real phone number and truly was willing to talk with a stranger.

Paulson said yes, and his response was on line by 7:30 p.m.

Then his cell phone started ringing.

"Within five, 10 minutes of putting it up, I'd already had a couple phone calls," Paulson says. "I was like, OK, a few people will call and maybe the one person who put it up there."

Little did he know.

Within the first couple of days, Paulson received 250 calls, so many that his voicemail told countless other callers that it could accept no more messages.

He has talked to people in almost every state, along with calls from Colombia, Scotland, England and Australia. He's talked with soldiers stationed in Iraq.

Paulson spoke for more than two hours with cousins conducting a conference call from North Carolina and Georgia. He spoke to a 45-year-old nontraditional student who shares his interest in art. He talked with a woman who had just put her children to bed.

And he learned he's not the only one out there who sometimes just wants to feel like someone out there cares.

Paulson, unknowingly, tapped into fears that many of us share: that in a busy, crammed-full life, no one remembers us; that our answering machines never flash because we simply don't matter to anyone; that in an era when communication with others is easier than ever before, we are communicating less and less.

Sensing that, Paulson took as many phone calls as he could, juggling them between his classes and his job. He also has tried to return the messages left on his phone.

Even though the original postcard and his response left the PostSecret Web site on Sunday, the calls keep coming.

While a few people warned him against what he was doing, and a few others just called to see if it was a truly private number or just a gimmick, most people just want to talk.

"The vast majority of people I talked to felt the same way: 'I know exactly how you feel, and I'm really supportive you sent in your comment because it gives me and the original sender a feeling that there's somebody out there,' " Paulson says.

Few of his friends know about his response to PostSecret, he says. He doesn't mind that.

"I don't want to talk to my friends and have them be like, 'Hey, why would yo do that?' and answering all these questions and stuff."

Paulson hasn't heard from the one person he really wants to talk to, the man or woman who wrote, "I bought the coolest phone on the planet - but it still only rings as often as my old phone did."

At least, no one he talked to identified themselves as that person.

"It's very possible they could have called and not said that was who they were," he says. "In a way I can understand them not wanting to disclose who they are further, but I think it would have been really cool to talk to the person who wrote it in the first place."

Paulson does hope that someday he will talk to that person. He wants them to know how that postcard spoke to so many people.

He thinks it has changed and affirmed the lives of total strangers.

"I wasn't thinking of trying to change all these people's lives when I put that up there," he says. "I was just trying to say, 'Hey, I feel just like you do.' "

IMG_3545

IMG_3545, originally uploaded by ideateller.

why is Sarah Silverman in my Jens Lekman review/pre-order?

Am I the only one starting to get annoyed with the Sarah Silverman ads on all of my favorite indie-cred blogs?

Every time I read about say, the new Jens Lekman album, or Arcade Fire/LCD Soundsystem tour, there's Sarah saying something horribly wrong in an innocent way. And I ignore her, b/c of the ubiquity! (Sorry, honey. I still love your joke about being raped by a doctor.)

It was one thing to have American Apparel ads everywhere (their brand is supposed to make you feel hip, but a little skeezy, but yet butressed by the sense that only legal immigrants were manufacturing your clothes). But now, what's next?

Viagra ads on EDSBS.com? Pornj fabric ads on the disorient pubble?

Just asking.

End new rant... Now. New posts to follow at a most-plentiful pace, I hope.