Ubiquitous Tidepools

Funomenal Tutorial

2010-11-06T11:51:00.000-07:00

He needs:

a larger ground crew
a collapsible ladder
hedge clippers (but not for the tree)

El Maestro de Mi Corazon

2010-09-10T03:11:00.001-07:00

Absurdifusion

2010-05-18T20:11:00.000-07:00

You'll say, "Uh oh, this is not good..," then you'll say it sucks.

2010-04-24T15:34:00.000-07:00

Don't get us down, cuz we be happy, happy peeps

2010-04-24T14:20:00.000-07:00

Revolting Cocks indeed.

2010-04-24T02:38:00.000-07:00

Rafe Sweet, born to live up to the name he was born with

2010-04-24T00:48:00.001-07:00

listen here:
rafesweet.com
and here:
myspace.com/rafesweet

2010-04-23T15:40:00.000-07:00

- Sandra Bullock wants to have sex -

2009-12-03T23:14:00.000-08:00

psycho-killer

2009-11-07T09:18:00.000-08:00

Gene Summers - "Taboo" (1959)

2009-10-29T16:06:00.000-07:00

Faith No More - King for a Day

2009-08-26T00:15:00.000-07:00

Tila Tequila’s Dating Tips

2009-07-25T15:46:00.000-07:00

Tila Tequila’s Dating Tips (as posted at Celeb Jihad):

Tila Tequila might seem unattainable, but deep down she’s just a regular girl…a regular girl with a dad who fucked up real, real bad. We recently caught up with the sexy star of A Shot at Love and asked her for some frank advice about modern dating.

Ladies, having standards is important, but make sure they aren’t too high. Remember, the “perfect man” is just a fairytale, like Bigfoot or HIV.
Guys, nothing kills a date faster than bad manners. Not offering your date a Valtrex isn’t just thoughtless, it’s downright rude.
Speaking of bad manners, if you don’t open doors for me, I don’t open my legs for you…unless you have money. Then it doesn’t really matter.
Guys, if you’re at dinner and the waiter starts to flirt with your date, calmly stand up, smash a wine glass on the table, hold the shards of glass to his neck and demand that he respect you. Anything less and your girl will think you’re a pussy.
If you smell raw fish and we’re not at a sushi restaurant, DON’T comment on it.
Ok guys, you’ve already paid for an expensive meal. Now it’s time to go the extra mile. Offer to hold back your date’s hair as she regurgitates her food in the parking lot. Extra points if you have a mint waiting!
Ladies, he’s there to make you feel special, so don’t be afraid to order a side of “balls in your mouth” at dinner.
Remember, you can’t buy your way into a girl’s bedroom. Try using coke.
Guys, when you’re on your first date and the girl starts blowing you, don’t push down on her head. That’s way too forward and could make her gag and vomit on your cock before she’s ready to.
No condom, no problem! Remember girls; no one ever had a butt baby.
Ladies, isn’t it annoying when you’re on a date with a guy and he asks you where he should “finish”? He knows we’re just going to scoop it up and eat it regardless of where it lands, so why does he ask?
Exploring bi-sexuality is a great way to broaden your horizons. It’s also a great way to say “fuck you” to your dad for not buying you that pony you wanted when you were nine.
Don’t assume that just because a girl is bisexual she wants to make out with your gal pals…unless your gal pals wear cherry chapstick and have tight labias. Then you can assume whatever you like.
If you do find yourself attracted to someone of the same sex, don’t be ashamed. Curiosity is perfectly natural, just like fisting or being raped by your uncle.
My biggest rule for any date is to be yourself…unless of course it’s “sweeps week” and Mort from Viacom’s marketing department tells you to be more of a whore. Trust me, he might look out of touch, but that heeb knows how to pull in the 18-to 25-year-old demographic.
Remember, you can take the girl out of the third-world prostitution ring, but you can’t take the third-world prostitution ring out of the girl.

The Cramps: Naked Girl Falling Down the Stairs

2009-07-23T19:01:00.001-07:00

Headless Chickens: George

2009-07-07T19:28:00.001-07:00

Planet Racer

2009-07-03T16:26:00.000-07:00

Hint: Bet only as much as you can afford to lose, and only win each race by as much as you need to win by without wasting afterburner fuel. The little circle in the upper left of the race screen shows how much further each racer has to go to reach the finish. You can upgrade your car by buying parts or winning other cars and selling off your worn and extra parts. Use the afterburner as much as possible - you can refill it each time you need to by clicking on the afterburner fuel bar on the garage screen, which is also how you make other repairs. Stick with the cheaper planets until and lower bets until you accumulate more money.

Cool in the Cool Way by the Invasion of the Hipster Bodysnatchers

2009-06-19T12:50:00.000-07:00

Madsen Cycles, Urban Cargo Bikes

2009-06-17T13:37:00.000-07:00

What's a three letter word for "electric motorized unicycle"?

2009-06-16T10:51:00.000-07:00

Originally posted at The Examiner on June 15, 2009

A couple of years ago a young man from just outside of Toronto, Canada went on a trip to China, and what he saw there inspired the coolest, greenest motorcycle yet to be invented. Ben J. Poss Gulak observed congested urban streets, where thousands of small vehicles filled the air with smog.

“The entire time I was there, I didn’t see the sun once; the skies were perpetually covered in smog,” he recalls. “Looking back,” he adds, “I guess I’ve always had an interest in eco-minded transportation technology.”

Gulak’s Uno was designed on the idea that one wheel would be easier to maneuver through crowded streets than two, but what he eventually went with is more comparable to a Segway than a unicycle: two tandem wheels provide more stability, creating a dicycle, which allows riders to intuitively navigate left and right as each of the two wheels adjust to compensate for the shift in weight.

The Uno has two microgyros (the Segway only utilizes one), one for front and back stability, the other for side to side. The only instrument on the machine is the on/off switch; everything else is controlled by the rider’s movement, which makes for an interesting first ride, to say the least (Gulak’s first spin ended in a serious crash). Not to worry, though: the Uno has since been made safer and easier to control.

The technique is simple enough – lean forward to accelerate, lean back to slow down. By sitting upright a rider can easily balance in one spot. But, as utilitarian as it is, it has the look of a crotch rocket, and, if the prototype wasn’t orange, it could easily be something driven by the Green Goblin.

Gulak has already demonstrated the Uno on Tonight Show with Jay Leno, who is also a cycle enthusiast. He also won the “most marketable award” at the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair, and made the number one spot in Popular Science Magazine’s “Top Ten Inventions,” which included a cover photo. In an ironic twist, Gulak invented the Uno while being waitlisted for MIT. He has since enrolled, however, and is expected to graduate in 2012.

The young entrepreneur was heavily influenced by his grandfather, “Opa” Werner Poss, an inventor himself with a complete machine shop in his house. When Poss died, he left his entire workshop to Gulak, which has facilitated the younger inventor’s work and ambition.

The Uno runs on wheelchair motors, and is entirely electric. Gulak had some trouble with the electrical aspects, resulting in a few fires, and elicited help from Veltronics, Ltd., an electrical engineering company in Brampton, Ontario, on the circuitry. He also received some assistance from Trevor Blackwell, inventor of the Eunicycle, which incorporates a gyro control system to stay upright.

One of the key values of the Uno is its virtue of extreme accomodation. Weighing a mere 120 lbs, it can be carried indoors, and even into elevators. It can even be charged from a regular plug-in outlet.

As urban areas like San Francisco, where scooters are already a hugely popular substitute for cars and public transportation, become more and more densely populated, it’s safe to say alternative vehicles like the Uno will become more and more common in the metropolitan landscape.

So, where can you get one? Nowhere just yet, sadly. Gulak is focusing on his school work at MIT, and who can blame him? The fundamental tech is figured out." he says. "It just needs the right people to tweak it." It's clear that the young talent prefers to focus on increasing his knowledge of the mechanics, and let someone else worry about sales and distribution. Good for him.

Still, I want my Uno ASAP, and will follow up as soon as the Uno has been made accesible to the public.

For more info: Watch this YouTube video

Blackfire

2009-06-14T16:36:00.000-07:00

I grew up with these guys, and they are the nicest, smartest, coolest people you ever met.

Jeremiah Johnson fights off Crow killers

2009-06-06T20:36:00.000-07:00

Danzig

2009-05-24T21:06:00.000-07:00

Death After Life: Perspectives on Dying and Reckonings with Mortality

2009-05-23T20:24:00.001-07:00

When bearing down on a topic as deep and broad as Death Itself, and even when sifting through the peculiar particularities of the infinite human reckonings therewith, questions naturally emerge about where or how to even begin, or which of Its ugly faces to deal with first. Among our human legion of earthbound cultures we see that there are numberless demurring intellections of Death, Its significance and meaning, and of the Afterlife, as the religious beliefs of this or that Non-dead demographic defines these ubiquitous psychotic notions.

It is not my purpose to analyze the various Death-concepts posed by the world’s religions, any more than to point out that each belief system, with behavioral virtue on the part of the individual as a condition for its acquisition, provides a potentially positive, even joyful, interpretation of the Afterlife, thereby attempting to bequeath Death an inviting air, and quell the natural fear we have of It.

Nor is it my concern to reveal any ultimately new information, though dredging up forgotten knowledge often imbues old wisdom with new vigor, nor will I attempt to devise a strategy for proactive living by which we may overcome our innate fear of Death and/or live more enriched lives, although such a tactic is for most of us obligatory for the simple purpose of getting out of bed.

My humble yet self-indulgent aim is to obsess a bit within the following paragraphs on the ironic position in which we find ourselves as human beings, at once moved to action and dream under the pressure of Inevitable Mortality as well as petrified by the apparent meaninglessness It would seem to exacerbate in our existence. The Reality of Death is the major motivator, indirectly, for nearly our every attempt at meaningfulness, for all of our efforts to find some level of success in life. But, antithetically, Death casts a shadow of futility over anything we may accomplish, depreciating the certainty of our very daily experience. We are subliminally aware that what we experience, what we do, what we are, just will not matter in a hundred years. This sort of temporality is both a blessing and a curse.

In fixating on the Reality of Death, for us all as well as for the hopeless individual, and in convening on the implications involved in coming to terms with the Juggernaut, unstoppable and nonnegotiable, my only hope is to highlight that most evocative of elements within the human psyche that is most cast into shadow. The Inevitable End is at the core of that which we most often and determinedly attempt to ignore and forget, and at the same time our very incentive for endeavoring to live well, to acquire prosperity, to obtain that to which we attribute value, and to create meaning.

It should also be noted that in referring to Death I am focusing largely on the Western, even American, experience, where our technocratic society conventionally circumvents prolonged candid concentration on the topic of Death, outside of the ever-popular suspense story about a killer, or the always-attractive dramatic death scene in movies. There is a sweetness to the sad, bitter Tragedy we all appreciate, at least a little.

There is a strong correlation between the high value that we as modern world citizens claim to place on life and the equally high value we place on the individual. Often, we indulge in a love affair with ourselves, and cannot bear the idea of one day letting oneself go forever.

I suppose as good a place as any to begin would logically be the theoretical opposite of Death: Birth. Rationally as well as ecclesiastically, Birth is at the same time diametrically opposed to Death in conception as well as nearly synonymously linked. We know as little about the Before as we do the After.

Evidently unique to the human experience as opposed to that of other species is the cognizance of our own eventual Demise. We know It is coming, but we do not know what It is. And, although science can for the most part explain the physical aspects of It, and religion makes innumerable faith-based claims, there are only vague clues as to what lies beyond the initial Darkness the moment the lights go out (occasional near-Death experiences as related by random, often religiously-charged 'witnesses' notwithstanding, who are only slightly more believable than alien-abducted, anally-probed 'innocent bystanders').

This lack of hard data concerning the spiritual realm beyond things has been called in philosophy the “Problem of the Soul.” Are there two realities coexisting in the same place at the same time, the physical and the spiritual? Or are the physical and the spiritual dichotomous aspects of the same cosmos and it's contents? Regardless of one’s personal answers to these questions (and these answers do remain individually-generated; in the swirling masses of human memory, there has never been empirical information sufficient for one person to share with another; only testimonial, sentiment, and the universality of the human experience to allow one person’s experience to influence another person’s beliefs), homo-sapiens are born into a complex system of natural and fabricated corporealities and real and imagined socio-psychologies.

We don’t know why or how we are how we are. We didn’t choose the environment into which we were Born. We begin adapting to our earthly world even before we are born, but we cannot say with any legitimacy that we know from what or whence we have come. The Void, unknown and unknowable.

Edvard Munch, the painter responsible for the now-more-famous-than-ever The Scream (which was stolen a few years ago, btw), dwelt on Death, his interest in the subject probably ignited by the Tragic Losses of his mother and sister to tuberculosis, and later by the Deaths of his father, brother, other sister, and aunt. He had way too many deaths to deal with, for being just one man.

Munch's paintings depict the debacle with Death which he had undergone; he posed little or no affirmative reference to the Afterlife. Rather, he portrayed the angst, fear, trepidation and confusion that comes with Dying, in dealing with the Death of a loved one, or the wrapping of one’s mind around the eventuality of the Ultimate Cessation. In life, Munch engaged Death, conceptually and emotively, until his own Death at the age of eighty. He exposed Death’s cruel irony by juxtaposing near-sacred symbols of life’s sanctity with shadowy, chilling elements in his paintings:

In Puberty a skinny young girl meditates, sitting naked on her bed beneath the threatening form of her own shadow, while in The Voice a young woman, alone in the woods, attends to some inner whisper; these are the

most sensitive representations of woman in Munch's work.

In much of his work, Munch, the Poe of painting, reminds us that Death is still there, lurking in the shadows of our subconscious, contaminating every positive thought and pleasant sensation with dark ephemerality. He emphasizes the irony of life in the face of Death, with paintings like Starry Night, largely devoid of stars and replete with shadows, and Spring, wherein two widow-looking women seem unmoved by the fresh air blowing in the window.

His angst-ridden pièce de résistance comes with a short explanation by the artist himself:

"I was walking along the road with two friends.
The sun was setting.
I felt a breath of melancholy -
Suddenly the sky turned blood-red.
I stopped, and leaned against the railing, deathly tired -
looking out across the flaming clouds that hung like blood and a sword
over the blue-black fjord and town.
My friends walked on - I stood there, trembling with fear.
And I sensed a great, infinite scream pass through nature."

How can the birds continue to sing and the flowers continue to blossom under the overhanging, ever-looming Promise of Death?

There are many in the world who view Death as but a part of the cycle of life, like the familiar diagram of the cycle of water, where we see raindrops turn to rivers turn to steam turn to clouds, etc. The Evaporation of the Consciousness, however, is something that people have also always tried to capture, whether visualized through meditation, drugs, theology or thrill-seeking.

Spiritualists would make the claim that Death ought to be embraced as a sort of graduation to the next level of consciousness. They focus on the apparent relationship between the dreaming mind of the sleeper and the idea of the soul. They may suggest astral projection or out-of-body possibilities. They sometimes imply that all aspects of our individual human lives were chosen by each one of us before Birth, that we, as higher versions of ourselves, somehow had grasped that there were lessons that we needed to learn, and had devised the manner in which we would teach them to ourselves.

This conundrum of enlightened ignorance alone fills me with disdain – that we would know that we need to know what it is that we don’t know, so we therefore might design our lives in such a way that, once our term is over and we are again returned to that Obscure Place between Death and Rebirth, we will have acquired the arcane knowledge which we lacked before we Began. Herein lay layers upon ridiculous layers of insipid delusions, exposed to even the most blinded eyeballs, beginning with the presumption that there is meaning behind our inconveniences, and ending with the vainglorious attempt to somehow give ourselves partial credit for the universe in which we find ourselves living.

It is generally accepted among followers of all faiths that there are spiritual guidelines in place, whether subtle or spectacular, to help us to teach ourselves these all-important lessons. The exact nature of these lessons, apparently, unfortunately, remains too mysterious for our pragmatic brains to analyze, being so connected to concepts of God and eternal Truth and all. And of course everything that is thusly connected must remain masked by ghostly fog.

The themes they have in common seem to be those of self-improvement and fulfillment, acceptance, happiness and inner peace. Good for them.

Coincidentally, hoaxes, lies, cons and magic tricks are also similarly coated in obscurity, and often equally entertaining as well.

Geshe Kelsang Gyatso, author of Living Meaningfully, Dying Joyfully, says:

"Dying with regrets is not at all unusual. To avoid a sad and meaningless end to our life we need to remember continually that we too must die. Contemplating our own death will inspire us to use our life wisely by developing the inner refuge of spiritual realizations; otherwise we shall have no ability to protect ourself from the sufferings of death and what lies beyond."

There is a vague allusion that living and Dying badly is something to be fearful of, because it is "sad and meaningless." Suspicious rhetoric in guise of metaphysical insight, but at least he, in classic Eastern religion style, put a noble and positive spin on it. Regardless, his recurring point is that the acceptance of one’s Inevitable Destruction and one’s wisdom to participate in only positive actions go hand in hand. He implies he lives well and so intends to Die well, and that you can too if only you adopt his religious beliefs. It's less of a high road than he thinks, and I don't want what he is offering.

Also, Gyatso uses poor grammar, refusing to use plural possessives: “our life,” “our own death,” “ourself.” Is something lost in translation, or did the writer’s highly specialized training in spiritual and religious atonement leave little room for grammatical aptitude? All kidding aside, the writer, of course, wishes to impart the view that we all share the same existence, i.e. the presence of the Oversoul. I am satisfied saying we all go through the same thing: living as well as we can under the Penumbra of Doom.

Then again, I suppose rejecting religion is my way of pushing atheism, or rather, the agnostic truth. Touché, holy man. Hypocrisy is part of the human condition.

Which brings us to the question posed by the existence of the ethical atheist:

Ought the certain knowledge of the conspicuous absence of any sort of God, Heaven or Afterlife make the enlightened atheist (that is to say, an atheist who somehow learns that his doubts were proven 100% correct over all the religious beliefs against which he has spent a lifetime rebelling) more or less moral in his conduct? Thus assured that there are to be no repercussions, should one be expected to turn to a life of theft and violence, become a marauder, taking what he will, getting what he can while he can? Will he connive and plot to ruthlessly remove his enemies and obstacles in order to expedite the acquisition of heart’s desires? Or will he see the human life experience as being that much more fleeting, and, therefore, that much more valuable? Will he be able to be self-sacrificial, knowing that there is ultimately no reward promised and that he, along with the beneficiaries of his sacrifice, will simply cease to exist one day?

Simon Blackburn, in his little book, Being Good, stoutheartedly engages the constraints of religious beliefs upon the free thinker, and explores the relativist, subjective and dogmatic influences upon our thought processes.

Suppose, for instance, I am minded to do something bad, such as betray someone’s trust. It isn’t good enough if I think: ‘Well, let me see, the gains are such-and-such, but now I have to factor in the chance of God hitting me hard on the ass if I do it. On the other hand, God is forgiving and there is a good chance I can fob him off by confession, or by a deathbed repentance later…’ These are not the thoughts of a good character. The good character is supposed to think: ‘It would be betrayal, so I won’t do it.’ That’s the end of the story.

To go in for a cost-benefit analysis is, in a phrase made famous by the contemporary moral philosopher Bernard Williams, to have "one thought too many."

An interesting question, to say the least. Assuming one can bring himself to resist wholeheartedly any of the religious or spiritual options being proffered from every direction, would one then be able to make a truly honest example of his moral fortitude? Or would he condemn himself to amorality due to lack of code or structure?

Blackburn is quick to point out that, there can be no test a priori of one’s moral position unless he is unfettered by the belief in God or an afterlife, and thusly given to true autonomy without regard for plausible reward for good deeds or punishment for evil ones. Furthermore, Blackburn favors the stance of the Greek Stoics, which insists that Death is nothing to fear, since the self ceases to be and is therefore incapable of suffering, while recognizing that it is the fear of Death that drives people to behave as they do, or generates their desires for glory.

The Stoic would use logic to deduce, ‘it just does not matter that the self Ceases to Exist, because there is no self left to regret, so what does he care.’ He may also reiterate the Symmetry notion that holds that Death returns one to that state or place wherein one may have found oneself before Birth. So how bad could that be?

The trouble with Death, though (resurrection notwithstanding), is that it requires the Cessation of the self. Every sensation, every thought (conscious or subconscious), every change one could possibly have ever experienced, was experienced as oneself, with oneself, through oneself. The idea that you, with the name you know so very well, and the face, the hair, the hands, the body that has continued to change with age before your eyes, the pain and the joy, the hopes, dreams and memories that have always been wholly yours and have amalgamated to form the you you have become, would one day necessarily have to bid yourself adieu forever and all time, is utterly intolerable.

Subjectively, from the control room of your brain, through the windows of your eyes, you have faced the world at large, mano a mano. Meanwhile, behind those closed eyelids, a dreamy infinity has heaved and billowed, intertwining into itself your every moment’s impulse. The analytical mind cannot help but wonder while observing itself, how did this come to be? Why is this happening to me?

Margaret Atwood, in her novel Cat’s Eye, narrates the story of protagonist painter Elaine Risley from a decidedly first person point of view, coaxing readers through her internal self-reflections, inviting them into rooms in her (character’s) mind. Undertones of Death and Dying are abundant:

"I wipe my arm with the coat sleeve across my face, which is wet because I’m crying. This is the kind of thing I should look out for: crying without reason, making a spectacle of myself. I feel it’s a spectacle, even though no one’s watching.

You’re Dead, Cordelia.

No I’m not.

Yes you are. You’re Dead.

Lie down…

…The neatly graveled runner’s path beneath me leads uphill to the distant road and to the cemetery, where the Dead people wait, forgetting themselves atom by atom, melting away like icicles, flowing downhill into the river."

Elaine struggles with the Death’s of her brother and parents, but the Passing of her best friend, Cordelia, has her really reeling. She is haunted by ghosts, but more importantly, she wrestles with the temporal nature of her existence and the bittersweet poetry she discovers in the universe. In the second paragraph above, the author alludes that life is an uphill experience, while Death moves downhill, following the force of gravity and the path of least resistance, returning to some center.

Is there a spiritual side to things, relatively unseen and intangible, to complement the physical world? After all, the real problem with our definitions of life, Death and the self has to do with the nature of consciousness. The abortion argument sits in the pit of this issue, as do the notions of the soul and god-consciousness, the spirit, and the heart as a place where some sacred portion of our inner selves may be found. What we are acutely aware of is that there exists a world outside oneself, abound with diversity and only partially explored, as well as a world inside, similarly brimming with details and also only partly investigated. Does the mind hold a connection to an omni-worldly spiritual realm? Is the blackness behind our eyelids as infinite as that of outer space, or does it only seem so, like the immeasurable depths of darkness observed by a child in his bedroom with the lights out?

There is, believe it or not, scientific backing to the proposal that there lies before us a world which we are unable to see. The secret to its perception lies in motion.

As we know, the Doppler Effect is when a passing train sounds like ‘heeee’ when it is approaching and ‘haaaw’ as it passes and is moving away from us. It also describes the reason a star moving toward us might appear bluish while a star moving away from us might appear reddish. The energy inherent in said train and star do not change because of our observations; only our perceptions of them are altered.

Nigel Calder’s book Einstein’s Universe is a valiant attempt to sum up the developments in physics since the Theory of Relativity first came into the picture, including the conceivable implications of the infamous equation that was the capstone of the life’s work of the world’s favorite scientist.

Calder writes:

"Now this is a curious state of affairs, because it means that the energy emitted by a star (or any other source of light) depends on who is looking at it, and on how fast he is moving in relation to the star. It leads us directly to what physicists, including Einstein himself, came to regard as the most important single result of relativity theory. It is the idea that mass and energy are equivalent."

Now, it would be a bit of a jump to say that the soul, the carriage of the consciousness which most religions concur exists independent of the flashy brain, is composed of pure energy and is therefore as invisible, potent and real as invisible particles of light, but science has already proven equally hogwash-sounding facts, like, for instance, the fact that we, as physical bodies, are made up of more space than matter. And, in a universe in motion, where the only constant is change, it stands to reason that Death is not the end per se. After all, neither matter nor energy can be destroyed, only changed in form, and the ability to observe one or another form of matter or energy, and the relative manner in which that form of matter or energy is observed, depends directly on the state of matter or energy of the observer. Right?

Since, as Calder says, “Matter is frozen energy,” we need only speak of them in unison as one thing: the physical component our physical reality.

So then, say we have two potential universes: the physical and the metaphysical. We are still working on our comprehension of the first one, so where do we get off pontificating about a metaphysical universe?

Two reasons: a. out of a sense of responsibility, because it is simply not acceptable for those of us who are alive today to leave it up to the generations of the distant future and the distant past to discover the nature of human existence. And b. out of instinct, because we must follow our intuition, which leads us to suspect that the myriad of amazingly complex cosmic elements about which we continue to learn are fundamentally interconnected, forming one holistic universe. And c. out of convenience, because there is not much else to do besides pontificate about the One Sure Thing until it's Arrival, in the meantime taking any attempts at hard answers with a grain of salt because they all lack evidence. And d. out of a desire to entertain ourselves, because it's fun.

So just what does the term metaphysical imply? The prefix is only suggestive, possibly one of the most flexible words ever created. It connotes change, transformation, a higher state of development, including that which is entered at a later time, post-evolutionary, beyond, transcending, comprehensive. Of course, the word in our postmodern culture mainly refers to that which is considered to be spiritual, and even the supernatural. Here is another word that allows room for interpretation: supernatural can be defined as ‘higher than natural’ or ‘comprehensively natural, more inclusive than a specified category.’

So, since even the definitions of the words we use to describe life beyond Mortality cannot differentiate between energy and ghosts, what are we even talking about? Is there such a thing as the megaphysical, or the superphysical?

Thus we have the theosophist, the atheist, the scientist and the spiritualist in agreement with one another on one point: there is more to the story than we can possibly know.

And the winner is… the agnostic, regardless of whatever portion of the truth was guessed by whoever else.

The reality is that people cannot agree as to what the afterlife entails, nor can they agree on the proper social contract for living life on Earth.

This passage was written by R. Buckminster Fuller:

We have two fundamental realities in our universe – the physical and the metaphysical. Physicists identify all physical phenomena as the exclusive manifest of energy: energy associative as matter or disassociative as electromagnetic behavior, radiation (energy). Both of these energy states are reconvertible one into the other. Because there is no experimental evidence of energy being either created or lost, world scientist-philosophers now concede it to be in evidence that the Universe is eternally regenerative.

Do we become energy when we die? It is a question without an answer, an interesting idea at best. Go forth and seek evidence, young philosopher, but be skeptical about it when yo find it.

Bucky Fuller was a philosopher-scientist, and he was credited with the development of the Geodesic Dome, Geoscope, and Dymaxion World Map, and who was also organizer of the 1967 World’s Fair. Though not yet as well known, he may well be the most versatile genius since Leonardo Da Vinci, spreading his talents and ambitions across the board – physics, mathematics, history, biology, engineering, theology, anthropology, sociology. The list goes on.

In fact, trumpeting the virtues of comprehensivity, Fuller argues in Critical Path that specialization is counter-evolutionary, seeing as those species throughout ecological history who failed to adapt to new ecological stresses generally died off. He surreptitiously invokes F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “well-rounded man," or maybe Bucky never read The Great Gatsby.

He says:

Nobody is born a specialist. Every child is born with comprehensive interests, asking the most comprehensively logical and relevant questions. Pointing to the logs burning in the fireplace, one child asked me, “What is fire?” I answered, “Fire is the Sun unwinding from the tree’s log. The Earth revolves and the trees revolve as the radiation from the Sun’s flame reaches the revolving planet Earth. By photosynthesis the green buds and leaves of the tree convert that Sun radiation into hydrocarbon molecules, which form into the bio-cells of the green, outer, cambium layer of the tree. The tree is a tetrahedron that makes a cone as it revolves. The tree’s three tetrahedral roots spread out into the ground to anchor the tree and get water. Each year the new, outer-layer, green-tree cone revolves 365 turns, and every year the tree grows its new tender-green, bio-cell cone layer just under the bark and over the accumulating cones of previous years. Each ring of the many rings of the saw-cut log is one year’s Sun-energy impoundment. So the fire is the many- years-of-Sun-flame-winding now unwinding from the tree. When the log fire pop-sparks, it is letting go a very sunny day long ago, and doing so in a hurry.”

Conventionally educated grown- ups rarely know how to answer such questions. They’re all too specialized.

My 9^th-grade biology teacher, when faced with students whose parents refused to let them attend his class for the evolution vs. creationism portion of the semester, which, I believe, occurred about the same time as the frog-dissecting, asked me the honest non-rhetorical question, “Can’t they believe in both?”

The answer, professor, is no, they cannot. As we have observed, specialization is the tool of the confederated amalgam, each unassimilated portion tentacling this way and that for the overall purpose of propelling the whole. Specialization by humans can only be overlooked when looked at whollistically, each member of the entire human race is seen as acting separately and distinctly for the benefit of the species, as well as him or herself. What's more, specialization is both involuntary and self-fulfilling; the more somebody follows a particular vein of thought, the more mastery he attains over it, and the more he associates himself with it, disassociating him or herself from the copllective consciousness. Given time, there is so much room to drift about in the cognitive universe that one human may someday be unable to recognize the ideas of another, yet simultaneaously take credit for those ideas as key to his or her core.

It's a mess any way you look at it.

But the religionist would have us believe the world is merely binary, a set of polarized opposites set against each other in a taut and delicate balance. Good and evil. Heaven and Hell. God and the Devil. Believer and Heretic. They may bend so far as to allow for shades of gray, or a thin line to be walked betwixt this side and the other. Whether persecuting or sacrosanct, their systems and archives date back to when the world was flat, and they will be damned if they let up in their candlelight vigilance long enough to permit the shadows of doubt to enter their hallowed heart. So to speak.

Is one who does not know his history doomed to repeat it? This underlying philosophy behind every religious zealot’s reliance on this or that story of creation, this or that example of God’s wrath exposes that he or she wants to use the 'history' found in his or her holy book, be it the Qur’an, the Bible, whathaveyou, to convince you that his or her interpretation of our purpose on this earth is the closest to correct. He or she has the proof, if only you would heed him or her. That, ironically, is exactly what turns so many people off.

Let us not debate the supposed occurrences of long ago, the agnostic might say in response. Let us seek to establish with scientific methods a relationship with our environment that is at least as productive as it is destructive, and derive from that data only whatever clues we may about that which lies beyond. Some things are, after all, more important than the beliefs of this or that demographic, whatever it's size.

“It’s very easy to be an atheist when you’re successful,” said Dr. Maurice Rawlings in his introduction to “To Hell and Back,” a very Christian documentary film recording “bad” near-death experiences, “but it’s very difficult to be an atheist when you’re laying on your death bed." Touché, Dr. Rawlings. But your dogmatic rhetoric has failed to convert me, and what is more I think your solicitous concept of Death has interfered with my understanding of the real information. Thanks anyway.

If I must turn to ghost stories in order to navigate my way between this world and the next, then let it be Richard Adam’s Watership Down. The English writer once said, “The thinker Dies, but his thoughts are beyond the Reach of Destruction. Men are Mortal; but ideas are Immortal.” He also said, “The radical novelty of modern science lies precisely in the rejection of the belief, which is at the heart of all popular religion, that the forces which move the stars and atoms are contingent upon the preferences of the human heart.”

Thank you!

Watership Down is a rabbit tale. It begins with the rabbit story of Creation. As you might imagine, the rabbits, whose leader was named El-ahrairah, began to multiply.

The Creator warns:

Prince Rabbit, if you cannot control your people, I shall find a way to control them.

El-ahrairah was proud, as were all the rabbits. So the creator blessed each of the princes and princesses other animals with special gifts: the desire and specialized abilites to hunt and Kill the rabbits. And there came the Black Rabbit of Death, to steal the life from those rabbits who were caught in the hunt.

But the Creator blessed the rabbits too:

All the world will be your enemy, Prince of a Thousand Enemies. And whenever they catch you, they will kill you…

But first they must catch you.

The protagonist’s name is Hazel. The antagonist, the one-eyed General Woundwort. Hazel has a brother who is a runt, small and weak, but who has the gift of clairvoyance: like Cassandra, he sees doom approaching, but few will believe him. So Hazel takes him and a small band of brothers on an exodus to find a high, grassy place, and along the way they liberate some female rabbits from the oppressive General Woundwort, who meets his well-deserved Bloody End. It is a story of enduring (violence and adversity), faith (in one another), hope (for happiness), and acceptance (of Death).

The end of the story depicts autumn leaves falling from the trees as Hazel looks out across the grass. He had successfully escaped those who would kill him, but still the Black Rabbit of Death came to see him. He beckoned him to follow, gentle and inviting. Hazel, however, looked back at his loved ones with concern, but the Black Rabbit of Death consoled him that they would be fine, and that there would soon be thousands of them.

Then the Black Rabbit of Death said, “If you’ll come along, I’ll show you what I mean.”

Cold War Kids - Hospital Beds

2009-05-19T21:03:00.000-07:00

Freaks Have a Friend in J. Tithonus Pednaud

2009-05-11T11:46:00.000-07:00

The Human Marvels is a site that showcases some of the most unusual and abnormal people in history, who are, in fact, revered, respected and held in the highest esteem for the unique challenges they have faced. People of all sorts are given hero status for the simple victory of being themselves in a cruel world. Mr. Pednaud tells their important stories, and gives us all the chance to experience the strangest wonders of humanity.

TW Time

2009-05-10T23:19:00.000-07:00

Ben and His Djembe-Playing Friend, Burning One Down

2009-05-10T10:29:00.000-07:00

Frank Chu, On 16th St. and Mission

2009-05-06T18:12:00.000-07:00

This is a well-recognized SF street character. I have seen him several times myself. He's nuts, but resourceful and motivated.

Top 10 Reasons My Faster-Than-Light Car Rules:

2009-05-04T02:41:00.000-07:00

10) Stephen Hawking always wants to carpool.
9) Breaking the laws of physics is only a misdemeanor in most states.
8) Traffic enforcement is pretty much limited to cops with Ph.D.'s in Quantum Physics.
7) Bugs - they never see you comin'.
6) I can get to the good hookers before Charlie Sheen.
5) I made a fortune selling pizza with the slogan "It's there before you order or it's free!"
4) I sleep until noon and still get to work by 8:00am!
3) I'm never in the car long enough to hear an entire Madonna song.
2) My cigar butts don't land in the back seat, they land in last week!
... and the number one cool thing about my faster-than-light car is ...
1) I get a license plate that reads "ME = MC^2"

-from Science and Supermodels

QualiaSoup's Open-Mindedness

2009-05-04T02:37:00.000-07:00

After watching this most reasonable and entertaining video from QualiaSoup, I was dismayed to discover the loads of crap clogging the cranial tubes of so many of the people who offered comments. There were 1113 comments total when I offered mine: "Jesus Christ! Science is based on questions and answers, while religion is based on faith and storytelling. Figure it out already!" I was not the only one to make the obvious JC reference, and much of the input was favorable, but many of the two-centers made irrational (dumb) arguments to counter the very clear, concise and fair breakdown offered by the narrator (who sounds a lot like Hugh Grant). His logic was more or less inarguable, and he was even delicate with the religious issues.

It is a struggle to remain tolerant of religion, not that I have a choice.

Sexy science fiction miniskirt

2009-05-04T02:25:00.000-07:00

It is what it is.

UFO - SHADO - Lt. Gay Ellis - Sexy science fiction miniskirt

What?

Video: Virtual Ride-along to Orbit Aboard the SpaceX Falcon 1

2009-05-04T02:20:00.000-07:00

Watch Pay-Pal's Elon Musk's SpaceX Falcon 1 rocket take off from a small island and reach orbit. It's a Falcon's-eye view!

It's the first commercial achievement at this level, and Musk's 4th attempt, but now, especially since NASA plans to discontinue the space shuttle in 2010, and replace it with the moon lander Constellation in 2015, and since there will be a 5 year gap there during which NASA will be obliged to rely on the Russians, Japanese, and other nations and [especially-hopefully] commercial agents to reach the International Space Station folks, Musk hopes to get involved with NASA missions very soon.

Sometimes these things don't go as planned:

Muffaletta's Reddit Widget

2009-05-04T01:51:00.000-07:00

originally posted Tuesday, November 11, 2008

Browse these articles and vote up the ones you like.

Apartments and Anchovies

2009-05-04T01:12:00.001-07:00

originally posted Sunday, April 13, 2008

It's time to move. There are 2 1/2 weeks left before we and all our shit gotta be outta here, with pug in tow, and we haven't found a place to move into yet, much less saved up a secure number of dineros for anything even modestly considered to be decent. Ah hell, nothing like the impending deadline to light a fire under your ass, no?

What we DON'T want:

to live in the Outer Sunset, Outer Mission or the Tenderloin, or any of the other subdistricts within the relative vicinities, unsafe and/or too far out.
to live in a shared rental, because my girlfriend has certain needs that go beyond my own.

Add to those criteria our need to find something affordable and which will accept Romeo, our beloved troll-of-a-pug-dog, and you may see what I see, an increasingly stressful scenario, problems identified, needs isolated, but solutions... to be discovered. It is one of those times when I have to tell myself, don't worry, there is a door opening somewhere, we just can't see it yet. There is also a skeptical voice in my head, however, that keeps reminding me that I do not have much faith, other than that in the sincerity of my own motivations. Just thinking and saying that there is a solution, a door, a plan, whatev, does not mean that there is actually one of the above available to us in anything resembling a timely resolution.

When we first moved to the City a few years ago, I was immediately made aware of the potential consequences of failure: the homeless peeps all around us. We were trying to live among a new peer group, single professionals sharing a warehouse-turned-apartment complex in SoMa (none of whom we still know today), who were all surfing on the relatively easy money of the newly-deceased dot-com era and other highly successful tech-business endeavors, while we were trying to actualize our earned-degree-implied careers, for essentially the first time, on money we had only just recently accumulated by selling all our shit, and our Jeep CJ5 - a beast of all hard steel, all primer-gray, soft-top-roof, removable doors, one-size-too-big brand new tires; the Jeep with a V8 that dripped gas and flipped off environmental realities; the Jeep that could tell Jeep Wrangler owners who may have incidentally pulled up beside it at the red light, "You are just never going to get it. kid." Wrangler owners are not in the know, but it's not there fault. The Jeep Company is to blame. They ceased production of the CJ series after the CJ7, I believe.

It was noted by many, including my girlfriend, that I seemed to be overly driven, even obsessed, with making money. My urgency is more appropriately described as a fear than a drive. There is a fine line between great success and the most dramatic of failures, especially in urban places like SF, Manhattan, etc. I gave change to hardy street people every day on my way home from my jobs, which, at first, I wasn't sure were ever going to happen. But they did.

If this blog was food oriented I might reference food here. Anchovy, mushroom and garlic pizza with red wine. You could make it yourself, like I sometimes do, or order it, like I also do, living like next door to Giorgio's. The pungent flavors and alcohol will be enough to pull your concentration into the moment, and separate you for that moment from the many things you need to be doing in order to leapfrog your life to the next positive stage, and to remove, for a moment, the fear of failure, and the unreasonable fear of jumping straight into a pile of shit when you take risks.

Beta's Eyes

2009-05-04T01:09:00.001-07:00

originally posted at ScenarioLand November 23 2008

At some point in the not-so-distant future, somewhere on planet Earth…

Beta Bogdanovsky’s Italian Cācio-model translator spoke with a decidedly male monotone, and had the vocabulary, albeit in 13 languages, of a 3rd grader. Her dog’s translator was nearly as well spoken. Then again, Tóse was a smart dog, an Illyrian sheepdog whose eyes expressed more care than those of most people, and he almost certainly had the capacity to communicate on levels beyond the short sentences programmed into his collar.

“Iz vee NEH tuh,” she said in Bulgarian to a rotund bearded man blocking access to the window seat next to him. A roundish silver and gold box hung from a beaded chain around her neck, and a small bas-relief profile of the Roman god Mercury spoke the Greek, “Syghnomi.”

Excuse me.

The man’s posture shifted to make way even before he looked up, and when he did lift his head he was eye to eye with Tóse. Expressionlessly he made a symbolic attempt to scoot his plastic bags out of the aisle, and Beta sided into the seat, setting her gear on the floor between her feet. Tóse sat on his haunches in front of them both. Beta wondered why it was that people could not seem to rein it in in crowded public places and on trains.

As the ARMA Speed Tram pulled away from the passenger bay, the lights in the tramcar faded slightly as they always did between stations, and Beta closed her eyes and relaxed her neck, as she always did when she was commuting. Bitoli was five stops from the sea, as the tram tunneled through the Korab and Pindus Mountains, and then there were six more on the other side of the water before reaching Monopoli. This trip would be an opportunity to shut her eyes for approximately 2 hours, which was a very good thing, because Beta’s eyes were very tired.

Since teaching English in Albania had become inadequate to bring in enough money for her to get by anymore, Beta had signed on with an American marketing firm called Seer2Peer TechMarketing Inc. to do demographical research. She would not have to do anything: they would pay her simply to go about her normal business while her prescription iLenses received their satellite signal. She was contractually bound to watch advertisements in English for a minimum of 2 hours per day, with her eyes open or shut. She could earn extra money by watching them for longer, and was in breach of the agreement if she let the contacts’ battery charge run out. That was not a problem though, because Beta wore the solar-cell-equipped sunglasses that had come with the iLenses, and which also had earpiece speakers, pretty much all the time. She did not like people to know she was plugged in.

In addition to receiving a satellite signal with the ads, the lenses monitored brain and retinal activity, and returned a signal. To somewhere.

Pelegrino. A Legacy of Living.

Beta relaxed, soon oblivious to the other passengers. The person sitting beside her was replaced twice before they reached the sea, but she did not look. The lanyard connecting her to Tóse remained slacked. He was always well behaved. She kept her eyes closed and her neck relaxed, but she repeatedly told herself not to fall asleep. She was afraid the American company would steal her dreams.

Coup d’Etat Livingry Design. Grace Your Space.

Her friend Diana had said she was lucky. She did not even have to have a job, per se, and she had enough money to live on. So what if she felt shiftless and without direction? What was the point of comparing herself to a bee in a hive, an ant on a farm. A cognitive cow giving away the special perspective that was her legacy, the legacy of women, or her countrymen, or gypsies, or whatever, away, like so much dairy milk to some faraway corporate conglomerate. And they call us consumers, she thought.

Make a Move That Will Move You. Move to Vega. Luxury staycation homes aboard the Atlantic cityship, starting at $27,500 per month.

Beta counted stops with her eyes still closed, by the lights fading up and back down on her closed eyelids, like lights behind a movie screen, and knew the tram had reached the sea leg of the trip where it crossed underwater from Vlorë to Lecce, a heavy drone dominating her ears. She turned up the volume on her cell.

Innovation doesn’t happen overnight. BMW was first founded on flight. When you strap into the new Jasta 12, you will feel over 100 years of engineering. BMW. The Ultimate Flying Experience.

She opened her eyes. Through the tram’s transparent roof the passengers could see upward and outward through the blue, blue water of the Adriatic Sea. Schools of colorful fish and a few beaked whales paid no attention to the Trans-Otranto Tube or the trams that bulleted through. The stunning oceanic panorama became a backdrop for the commercial laser display.

Live a celebration with the world’s oldest and cleanest spirit. 100% pure vodka essence, bottled in 100% recycled styrene resin. Vodka 360. Feel the Rapture.

Beta touched an earpiece and the advertisements ceased. The thrum of the underwater tram returned. Her field of vision became a vast blue plane of opacity. She looked over at Tóse, and he met her gaze, as though he had been waiting all this time for her glance. The man currently occupying the seat next to her was dressed in the protective uniform of a rescue worker, it’s yellow and silver smudged with grime. She reached into her jacket pocket and retrieved her cell, sliding an index finger across the screen.

…claiming unacceptable voting irregularities. A representative of the Macedonian chapter of the NLA has confirmed that the current peace agreements will be upheld as further investigation continues. This is the BBC News.

Beta turned off the radio function. As the tram approached the other side of the Tube the blue water was replaced by the grayish purple of coral reefs. A few white jellyfish were visible near the steep rocky incline, and it took a moment for Beta to realize they were mechanical. Then the blackness of the tunnel swept the sea from view, and moments later the blinding white light of day upon the surface. The din was gone.

As the tram sped along the coast, Beta thought she could not remember the last time she had seen so much jubilant green vegetation. Grass and flowers waist high spread across fields and meadows to far-off mossy trees. She thought of her friend Diana, with her pet pygmy hippo, Bambino. She reached down into her travel pack and pulled out her elliptical lens case.

Everyone's a Chef

2009-05-03T23:55:00.000-07:00

originally posted Monday, January 7, 2008

It wasn't long after I moved to San Francisco, where one chef put it, "chefs are treated like royalty," that I began to realize that my culinary experience in no way made me special. In a world rapidly becoming populated by self-proclaimed "foodies," (as well as those whose interest in food has yet to lead to such sort of self-characterization), much like an invasion by body snatchers, you can't throw a pork chop without hitting someone who knows 6 ways to cook it and a couple dozen options for sauces, sides and seasonings. The City is a foodie capital, and that's saying a lot, since, as far as I can tell, foodyism is an international phenomenon.

What is a chef anyway? Prescriptivists demand that only the cook who is in charge of all of the aspects of a restaurant's performance is a chef, or the "chief." The French word means just that, after all, and the French translation of the song "The Leader of the Pack" goes, "le chef de la bande."

Of course, contradictorily, those same prescriptivists might also argue that anyone who has graduated from culinary school has earned the title. And what about personal chefs?

I take the word pretty loosely. Like the word punk, as in punk rock. I grew up with some pretty hard line punks who insisted that bands like Green Day were definitely NOT punk, thereby graduating the word from a noun to a qualifying adjective (i.e. "he's more punk than me"). To me, chef is like that. If you demonstrate cooking prowess, I may not say that was very chef of you, but I will refer to your chef-like qualities by nicknaming you "chef." Ironically, because of my personal rebellion against the brigade system in professional kitchens, I prefer to refer to actual professional chefs by their first names.

As consulting chefs for ChefsLine, the Culinary Hotline, my colleagues and I take a certain amount of cheesy pride in our slogan-promise, "We bring out the chef in you."

And look at that TV show "Take Home Chef." If that guy owns a restaurant or keeps an executive chef position somewhere, I don't know about it. On that note, however, I guess it's fair to say that most of the celebrity chefs on TV can indeed be linked to at least one successful restaurant. Or magazine? Or whatever food and cooking organism qualifies to have an executive chef slot to fill (Cat Cora is executive chef for Bon Appetit Magazine, for instance).

On a side note, the same chef I mentioned above, who said San Francisco treats chefs like royalty, told me that Bon Appetit magazine and the Bay Area-based Bon Appetit catering company used to be managed under the same roof, but shortly after their mutual inception their link was reduced to the name only. [shrug]

I define chef as fancy cook, plain and simple, even if said chef only graduated from, to quote another chef I know, "the culinary school of hard knocks," and has never even actually been in charge of an outfit. As for me, I have been in charge of a few restaurants and bakeshops, but I never went to culinary school. I learned everything I know about cooking on the clock, and at home, and have opted instead for a classical education in letters and literature.

Good thing I still got my day job. { ; ~ o >

Homemade Ginger Ale: Refreshing, Healthy, and Easy

2009-05-03T23:50:00.001-07:00

originally posted at ChefsLine 5 Sep 2008

Summer has finally made it’s sultry self known here in the City by the Bay, after the standard ocean-induced foggitude. By now most of the rest of the country has already drowned it’s thirsty palate in iced tea, lemonade, Gatorade, soda pop, and ice water, but many of us San Franciscans are just getting into the summer swing of things.

There are teas, energy drinks and vitamin drinks aplenty, but sometimes the best things are made with good old raw ingredients right at home. Lemonade is easily made by the glass, and it’s as good for you as it is refreshing.

But another beverage that has real health benefits and is also yummy, but which gets less recognition, is homemade ginger ale. It’s easy to make:

Ginger Water (prepared ahead)
5 cups water
2 cups fresh ginger (finely chopped)
Boil the water, add the ginger, and reduce the heat. Let it simmer for a few minutes, then remove the mixture from the heat and let it cool for about 15-25 minutes. Pour the ginger water through a fine mesh strainer and discard the boiled ginger.

Simple Syrup (prepared ahead)
2 cups water
2 cups sugar
Simmer until clear and transparent.

Ginger Ale, by the glass
Ginger Water
Simple Syrup
Club Soda
Lemon Wedges
Fill each glass 2/3 full with ice, and add 1/2 cup of ginger water, 1/2 cup of club soda, and 1/4 of simple syrup (or more to taste). Garnish with lemon wedges.

And if it’s a cool summer cocktail that beckons you, you can always add a bit of quality whiskey, vodka or rum to the ginger ale, or you can add the ginger ale’s components (namely the ginger water, or even a ginger simple syrup) to champagne, a martini, or a mojito.

Three Spring Cocktails

2009-05-03T23:48:00.000-07:00

originally posted at ChefsLine 21 Mar 2008

Chef Adam Cutsinger has hand-picked three of his favorite cocktails to pair with yummy snacks AND to compliment the [hopefully] warm and sunny long weekend.

First stop - perfect for an Easter Brunch - is the Russian Punch. This beautiful punch is perfect with blinis . Although blinis are traditionally topped with caviar, you can substitute sour cream, ham, lox, some other kind of fish, or place a dollop of orange marmalade on top each blin, er, silver dollar sized pancake.

To keep warm through the early evening hours - well, when is the last time you’ve sipped a negroni? The Negroni is a classic, also known as The Martinez. An old school cocktail which came into existence around 1906 and which has taught Mr. Martini a thing or two about proportion. Chef Adam suggests bruschetta with just about any kind of Italian inspired topping as a great compliment to this classic.

And Chef Adam’s favorite Spring cocktail (this year at least) is the Blue Marlin, which looks like the ocean on a sunny day (which his foggy San Francisco has just revealed!). Garnish with orange wedge, orange twist or cherry. Serve this festive drink with boneless chicken wings roasted in citrus-ginger sauce and dipped in creamy wasabi dressing. Yum!

Concoct a Cocktail @ Cortez Restaurant’s Cocktail College in SF

2009-05-03T23:47:00.000-07:00

-as seen @ Vivanista April 04, 2009

Mixology is cooking too.

Take a trip to the TenderNob and attend a celebration session with Cortez Restaurant and Bar’s lead mixologist, Brandon Skaggs, located in the Hotel Adagio. Drink and mingle a little or a lot with fellow party pupils for a pre-class social, then attempt the tricks and techniques of cutting edge creative cocktails. Tips include edible garnishes, classic formulas and innovative new twists. These monthly events occur every third Thursday, and each monthly class is devoted to a particular spirit. This month it’s Grey Goose Vodka, next month Jim Beam and Maker’s Mark.

And, believe it: the roughly 1½ hour class is free (although drinks before and after are full bar prices), so it’s recommended to RSVP, but the word on the grapevine is that you could almost certainly just show up at the last minute too. You’ll try your hand and sample signature drinks, then let your own creativity flow while you invent new libations out of the master mixer’s collection of bottles, fresh ingredients and utensils.

Cortez was recently awarded kudos from SFWeekly and San Francisco Magazine for having simply the most fun cocktail menu around, with such enigmatic epithets as the Industry, the RV, and the Sommelier.

But Cortez also features Cellar Select Mondays, with half priced bottles from the wine cellar that will have you saying TGIM! Their top-notch Spring Menu is dubbed Dine About Town, and don’t miss the Chef Jenn Puccio’s Five Course Tasting Menu offered Sunday through Wednesday.

Four Favorite Holiday Drinks

2009-05-03T23:46:00.001-07:00

originally posted at ChefsLine 21 Dec 2007

by Chef Adam

ChefsLine’s guide to Holiday Cooking & Entertaining includes articles, recipes, and step-by-step instructions for the most popular Holiday dishes. You’ll also find some of our chefs’ favorite appetizers and drink ideas.

Here are top picks for delicious last minute cocktails that will help ease you into the spirit of the season from the guide.

Holiday Drink Recipes
Tom and Jerry
Champagne Cocktails
Hot Buttered Rum
Swedish Glogg

See all of the recipes > >

Diet Pepsi, Spaghetti Sauce, Mustard; Business, Science, Psychology; Malcolm Gladwell, Everybody...

2009-05-03T23:44:00.000-07:00

Vital Valentine’s Day Nightcaps

2009-05-03T23:42:00.000-07:00

originally posted at ChefsLine 16 Jan 2009

Heads up, guys: 30 days until Valentine’s Day. Don’t let it sneak up on you, because you can bet your girlfriend remembers, or that girl you have a crush on who comes into the coffee shop every morning. Good planning can be as essential for a pleasurable Valentine’s Day experience as it is for Christmas, birthdays, or anniversaries.

Whatever sort of plan you come up with, whether it’s dinner out, a romantic meal at home, dancing, what have you, it might be good to keep in mind that, ideally, the night ends with your lover in your arms. So I would like to share a couple of dessert cocktail ideas with you that make you feel as good as they taste.

These drinks include phytonutrients proven to boost overall health and well-being, and which also offer the promises of increased libido and improved sexual performance.

The trick is to plan ahead, so when you catch a cab home from the couples slow dance marathon you already have the ingredients ready for your Valentine’s Day ’09 nightcaps. You’ll also be planning ahead for the next morning, when you won’t be hung over.

Fresh Ginger Blueberry Champagne Cocktail:
Ginger contains blood-thinning and belly-calming elements, and prevents nausea. Plus it’s got a wonderful zesty spiciness that leaves just a touch of a burn after each sip.

Blueberries are a ‘superfruit,’ containing tons of antioxidants, dietary fiber and micronutrients, most notably manganese, vitamin B6, vitamin C, and vitamin K. Together the ginger and blueberries create a remarkable cocktail with beautiful color.

To prepare this cocktail, make a simple blueberry syrup by combining 1 cup of water, 1/2 cup of sugar and 1 cup of blueberries (fresh or frozen) in a small saucepan and bringing it to a rolling boil for 2-3 minutes. Then press the syrup through a screen strainer with the back of a spoon and allow it to cool. Extract the juice from the fresh ginger root by putting it into a garlic press or grating it and then pressing the grated pulp in a screen strainer with the back of a spoon as you did the blueberries. For each cocktail, combine 4 tsp of the blueberry syrup, 1 tsp of the ginger juice, 1 Tbsp orange juice, and 2/3 cup of champagne. Serve in a champagne flute.

Chocolate Chile Rumtini:
It should be no secret that chocolate stimulates. It increases circulatory and brain activity, and triggers heightened sensitivity and feelings of euphoria. If you attribute the spicy burn from chiles to powerful nutritive effects, then your instincts are spot on. Chiles (chili peppers) contain capsaicin, a cancer-fighting anesthetic that also acts as an anti-inflammatory and kills the bacteria that cause such health problems as stomach ulcers.

To make a Chocolate Chile Rumtini:
Gently simmer 3-4 small dried red chiles in 3/4 cup of cream and 1/4 cup of sugar. The longer you keep it heated the hotter it will get. Gently melt 8 oz of dark (bittersweet) chocolate in a double boiler with 1/4 cup of sugar. Remove from heat. Swirl together the chocolate and chile cream so that you get a defined swirl shape and pour the mixture into ice cube trays. Freeze for at least an hour. Pour 1/2 cup of vodka and 2 Tbsp chocolate liqueur over ice and shake or stir thoroughly. Pour the alcohol over the chocolate chile crème “ice cubes.” You may substitute rum for the vodka, and may garnish the rim of the glass or drink with cocoa, mint, cherries or cinnamon.

So this Valentine’s Day, or any time you want to make the most of a cocktail celebration, try either or both of the above cocktails. You’ll thank me in the morning.

For more on healthy cocktail combos, check out this Women’s Health article. And have fun cooking something up for V-Day.

Faith Fighter: Controversial Video Game of the Gods

2009-04-28T12:51:00.000-07:00

You can go to GameSheep and play God. But you'll have to fight other gods for the title.

Faith Fighter

Take a moment to check out the special moves.
And you may notice that they have a tabbed section designated "FOR GIRLS." How thoughtful.

Open Source Government and Flights of Apéritifs and Hors d'œuvre

2009-04-19T00:45:00.001-07:00

originally posted Thursday, October 23, 2008

I suggest an open source government. A true democracy that will automatically adhere to the design developed by anyone willing to actually participate. Real time amendments. Laws popularly accepted. Illegitimate choices immediately corrected by multitudinous declaration and reason.
Conflicts between points of view create violent reactions and harmful chasms between people when all that are required, or desired, are really just healthy analyzes of cause, effect and the perspectives of the sum of individuals, in order for society's government and the social contract that government is set up to uphold to continue to function productively.
It's a truly pluralist tack, for a decidedly pluralist populace. And it is potentially very stressful, because of the contradictions, hypocrisies, and inconsistencies that, like foam, rise to the top of every creed and system of beliefs.
So, like a family holiday gathering, where people who didn't necessarily choose to be in one anothers' lives are obliged to spend time together and make the very best of it, let us do it potluck-style. Bring a wine and/or a snack, and let us set them all up together, symbolic of our diversity, but also of how the distinctions, when viewed (and consumed) en todo, create a party. The real kind, not the political kind. Dig in. It's your party.

San Francisco Valentines Day Pillow Fight 2009

2009-04-18T21:09:00.000-07:00

The Arctic Monkeys' "Fake Tales Of San Francisco"

2009-04-18T21:06:00.000-07:00

Two Watchmen Parodies: One Acted, One Animated.

2009-04-18T20:59:00.000-07:00

Mash-up Alert: Star Trek vs. Simpsons, Live

2009-04-17T21:55:00.000-07:00

"Dwarfed" Punk

2009-04-14T16:31:00.000-07:00

Smash up- Daft Punk's "Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger" with Snow White & the Seven Dwarves. Grumpy says: [watching the Dwarfs washing themselves] Next thing you know, she'll be tyin' your beards up in pink ribbons and smellin' ya up with that stuff called, uh...”perfoom."

Johnette Napolitano on SNL Way Back When.

2009-04-14T13:21:00.000-07:00

This minimalist performance builds up gradually.

Antony & the Johnsons Make Depression Rock

2009-04-14T12:50:00.000-07:00

I like this video because the animation speaks of poetry, loneliness and desolation, while fashion is usually all about going places and being seen there looking fabulous.

I thought I would include this video because it's a great cover and because it was my introduction to the band. Everyone I shared it with loved it too.

Yes it's gay as hell. I don't gotta problem with that.

The Angst of the Omelet: the Unofficial Diary of Jean Paul Sartre Writing a Cookbook

2009-04-07T18:06:00.000-07:00

October 3.
Spoke with Camus today about my cookbook. Though he has never actually eaten, he gave me much encouragement. I rushed home immediately to begin work. How excited I am! I begin with the omelet.

October 5.
Still working on the omelet. There have been stumbling blocks. I create them, one after another, like soldiers marching into the sea, but each is empty, hollow. I want to create an omelet that expresses the meaninglessness of existence, and instead they taste like cheese. I look at them on the plate, but they do not look back. Tried eating them with the lights off. It did not help. Malraux suggested paprika.

October 6.
I have realized that the traditional omelet form (eggs and cheese) is bourgeois. Today I tried making one out of a cigarette, some coffee, and four tiny stones. I fed it to Malraux, who puked. I am encouraged, but my journey is long.

October 8.
Frustrated, I taped two fried eggs over my eyes and walked the streets of Paris. I ran into Camus at the Select. He called me a "pathetic dork" and told me to "go home and wash my face." Angered, I poured a bowl of bouillabaisse into his lap. He became enraged, and, seizing a straw wrapped in paper, tore off one end of the wrapper and blew through the straw, propelling the wrapper into my eye! "Ow! You dick!" I cried. I leaped up, cursing and holding my eye, and fled.

-Original author unknown (but definitely probably not Jean Paul Sartre).

Kutiman: Recycling Lost YouTube Vids into Montage-Medleys

2009-04-04T16:08:00.000-07:00

There’s been a lot of clutter. YouTube is a regular pack rat's nest of back street recordings. Just about any song you can type up in a search will give you a cacophony of civilians giving their best rendition (alongside the original artists’ uploaded stuff, of course). Most of these videos are little more than entertainment for friends and family of the amateur performer, or perhaps audition material, but Kutiman has been injecting new life into them and, more impressively, creating awesome tracks composed by piles of peeps who’ve never even met. The band still does original songs, but has joined the ranks of such artists as TV Carnage, Animal Charm, and TV Sherriff in the new medium of the mash-up.

Random Awesome Mash-up

2009-04-02T14:43:00.000-07:00

Go Fugly and listen to Nine Inch Nails vs. Ray Parker Jr., i.e. The Ghost That Feeds remixed with the Ghost Busters theme.

Then go to NIN REMIXES and listen to a ton of other weird remixes of Trent Reznor's iconic tracks.
It's raining mash-ups.

"Rain rain, go away, come again some other day..." (Hardcopy episode from the '80s: Nine Inch Nails: Trent Reznor: Pretty Hate Machine: Down In It)...

Apocalyse Forever: Take a Moment to Remember a Movie about a War

2009-04-02T11:46:00.000-07:00

Watch the original four-minute trailer below, because it's easier than watching the re-edited two-and-a-half-hour full length feature. Again.

KC gave me a used softcover copy of Heart of Darkness last night as a gift. Half of the book is reference material; the actual story only fills the middle 99 pages of the nearly 250-page book. But that's cool with me because I love reference material.

I don't have to buy lefthanded guitars anymore.

2009-03-27T10:59:00.000-07:00

Death is weirdly powerful in the way it can affect us (and ESPECIALLY ME, as narcissistic as that is to say, because I kind of obsess about death, and dwell on the people I have lost, and am rocked by death themes in movies, literature and music), and my heart goes out to a young Krist Novoselic, who lost his original Nirvana bandmate (and ironic world sensation) Kurt Cobain (notice the huge ad right next to Kurt's face on "The Cobain Memorial." WTF!), and Dave Grohl who joined a few years later.
Christ Krist! You are looking way different. Kinda like how Billy Joel transitioned into an old bald guy.
Why does that make me happy?

maxo destructo

2009-03-22T02:44:00.000-07:00