29. November 2009 by admin.

Now that Black Friday has come and gone and the official commerce-countdown-to-Christmas has started, I feel it’s appropriate to offer some holiday music.

I discovered that a band I am a big fan of, “The Dandy Warhols”, has done their own version of “The Little Drummer Boy” in 1994, and I’ve included the video below in case you’re looking for some Christmas music that rocks (and who isn’t?).  You can download the mp3 file of the performance for free from their site.  Next to the version by David Bowie and Bing Crosby, I think it’s hard to beat.

And here’s another great video by the group, “Godless (Massive Attack Remix)” that rocks pretty hard all year ‘round.

Posted in Uncategorized | Print | 1 Comment »

26. November 2009 by admin.

File in the ‘things I didn’t know I needed to know’ file.

According to a study conducted by researchers at the University of Leeds and reported on by the London Telegraph here…

Women who revealed around 40 per cent of their skin attracted twice as many men as those who covered up.

However, those who exposed any more than this also fared worse. Experts believe that showing too much flesh puts men off because it suggests they might be unfaithful.

Psychologist Dr Colin Hendrie, who led the study, told the Daily Mail: “Any more than 40 per cent and the signal changes from ‘allure’ to one indicating general availability and future infidelity.

“Show some leg, show some arm, but not any more than that.”

The study, published in the journal Behaviour, found that the most popular women combined the 40 per cent rule with tight clothing and provocative dancing. The 15 per cent that combined all three criteria were approached by 40 men each.

Now, if it were up to me,  the next study should focus on what constitutes ‘provocative dancing’ and how much of it is too much?

Posted in Uncategorized | Print | 1 Comment »

25. November 2009 by admin.

It’s a “HeadTime” head massager from Kinatech, a South Korean company (thought it might be more interesting if it were a NORTH Korean company—neuro-enslavement of Western Infidels etc.). 

IHeadTime is a gigantic silver helmet equipped with 29 silicon balls, 34 ceramic balls, and speakers.  It can give you a robotic head message (with heat, if you’d like) and soothe you with the sound of birds chirping and waves crashing piped into your Headtime hat (to quote Huffington Post’s piece on this).

Anyway, if you saw the picture posted some time ago and were wondering what the picture was of…now you know.

Posted in Uncategorized | Print | 1 Comment »

24. November 2009 by admin.

It would be funny to run this ad now, post a URL as part of the message, and see how people responded…

Posted in Uncategorized | Print | 1 Comment »

24. November 2009 by admin.

I came across this picture of a Magnavox “Odyssey 2” game console from 1980.  Quite an evolution to today’s Xbox 360 and Playstation 3, no?  Look at the controllers off to either side…

and, of course, Atari’s…

Posted in Uncategorized | Print | 1 Comment »

16. November 2009 by admin.

I could tell you, but it’s probably not as interesting as what you could come up with…

Posted in Uncategorized | Print | 1 Comment »

16. November 2009 by admin.

You have to wonder what our society has come to when the ad council advertises for kids to go out and play for an hour a day.

I don’t know about you, but when I was a kid no one had to tell us to go out and play—the questionn was if I would be home in time for dinner and not whether I would find something to do outside for an hour or two or 5…but that was also before there were video game consoles, the consumer Internet, mobile phones, etc.

Anyway, here’s the ad…

Posted in Uncategorized | Print | 1 Comment »

13. November 2009 by admin.

Fight the Power.

This isn’t a Republican or Democrat thing…or a Liberal or Conservative thing…this is a survival and common sense thing.   We need to change the way our food is manufactured (and I use that word purposely, because ‘growing’ is only a marginal part of the food creation and delivery process in our country today), and go back to actually eating things that come out of the ground and don’t first go through a factory.  We need to stop subsidizing corn production to enrich large food processors, and start subsidizing (if we are going to subsidize at all) organically grown produce that can give nutrition to our children who need it.

There are only a handful of companies that manufacture food in this country on any scale and they basically control the supermarkets’ 40,000+ products.

Monsanto has patented corn that it has genetically modified, and has succeeeded in getting virtually every farmer in the U.S. to grow corn using its seed.

U.S. taxpayers subsidize farmers to grow and sell corn and soy at below-market prices to food producers who in turn sell the food relatively cheaply (but still make a nice spread at the taxpayers’ expense) to the consumer.   Unfortunately for all of the kids heading towards type II diabetes, the corn-rich food (and that’s most mass produced food and drinks, by the way) is high in empty calories, sugar, etc. and is cheaper than fruits and vegetables, which are not subsidized by the taxpayer.

Poor families often have to choose between the dollar menu at a fast food restaurant that can feed a family of four and produce at the grocery store that can barely feed them for the same money…guess which they choose?

Watch the movie “Food, Inc.” and then tell others about it so they will watch it  It’s not a very pleasant film to watch and it will make you mad, but important if you care about what you put in your mouth. 

It will show you what’s really going on with food production in the U.S. You can see all of the factory-raised chickens, pigs and cows living their whole lives standing in their own excrement, and pumped full of hormones and antibiotics so that they can grow more rapidly and be slaughtered more rapidly.

If you’re already buying food locally and eating organic, then you’re already on the right path.  If you’re buying processed foods and meat, watch this and then change what you do—but only if the idea of eating Frankenfood is repellent to you.

Here’s the trailer.

Posted in Uncategorized | Print | 1 Comment »

13. November 2009 by admin.

Here’s some music I’ve been liking lately…

You’ve probably heard this already so it’s not a new discovery, but I still can’t get it out of my head.  I heard Chris Martin play it live at the Bridge School Benefit Concert at Shoreline late last month and I haven’t got it out of my head since…

“Stranger” by Hooverphonic, a great Belgian band…a little slower in this version than on the album, but still worth checking out…

The always-reliable Dandy Warhols, with “Godless (Massive Attack remix)

One of the greatest rappers/Hip-hop stars, Lyrics Born with Lateef, dropping “Last Trumpet”—listen to the lyrics of the song—definitely relevant to what’s going on in the world…

And, finally, one of my favorite bands, The Crystal Method, with “Blunts and Robots”—only one of many great tunes…no video but you can hear it here…

http://hypem.com/track/848453/The+Crystal+Method+featuring+Peter+Hook+-+Blunts+Robots

and this by the Crystal Method as well—“Divided by Night” the title track from their last album…

Posted in Uncategorized | Print | 1 Comment »