Winter Sunset in Sunny SoCal

Winter isn't so bad here.

News! Most magazines are crap! Severe image manipulation occurs!

images nabbed from copyranter, blatanly

While most of us know this is the case, it's not often you can see how pervasive image editing is in an individual picture.

This site gives a good demo of how crap most of the beautiful people we see are. [from notonlybutalso.typepad.com]

Another good place for before/after rollovers can be found here.

We interrupt this Winter to bring you SUMMER!

It's been over 80 degrees, hot and sunny here for the past two days.

Essentially, winter has been pre-empted by Summer and I love it.
My down comforter is draped over the balcony outside airing out in the blazing sunshine.

Winter, I may miss seeing you but I'm hell glad we don't live together anymore.

2006: iPod 30Gb Video

The new iPod 30Gb with video is cool, in theory. It's slim, sleek and plays video at an impressive rate & quality.

In practice, it's a bit pudgier . Actually getting videos onto the chicklet is non-trivial (and I's gots me a degree y'alls) and the extent to which iTunes (the music store) sells the videos as product is embarrassing. Would someone really pay $1.99 for Jessica Simpson's "These Boots Are Made for Walking Video"? Really?! I must be getting old, cause last time I checked, there were entire channels dedicated to streaming these (bad) videos for free - well if you consider them being interrupted with shiteloads of advertising, 'free'.

In any case, being the tech-ster that I am, I immediately set out to explore beyond the confines of the iTunes (electric)fence. First, I peer-to-peered for files containing 'ipod.video' in the extension. Gorillaz, Madonna, & Jessica Simpson came up quickly. [ed. note - you read it here first: advertising & 'music' videos as we know them are immediately and forever altered as a result of this new means of transmission. Look out for larger, more prominent product placement in the videos themselves, with the plot of the video including/referring/involving said product perhaps.]
If I were (ahem) to have saved them to disk, I would have had a hell of a time actually getting them to show up on the iPod's library. But I didn't, cause.. that would be um, bad, right? Anyway, thing is, the host application for the iPod (iTunes) is not the most intuitive for a staunch PC user like myself. (I'm going back to the IBM PCjr here, kids.) Yeah, I 'added file to library' and yeah it showed up in the library under 'videos' that little icon . But one has to change a number of non-obvious options in order to get the Pod to actually update and possess the desired video. I'm still not sure I've got it right. Each attempt seems to be guided more by luck coupled with praying, sweating, promising God, and cursing than it does via a set series of clicks.

Long story short, I watched Madonna's 'Hung Up' video on the pod the other night while enjoying some wine. It was a warm evening for January -- even in Los Angeles. The effect was pretty amazing. Holding something so small & light in form factor that's displaying full-frame-rate video -- with no feeling of a hard drive spinning outside under the palm trees.. Well, it was..magical to say the least. Borderline erotic, let me tell you.

I still expected to see her waving a teeny weeny can of Coca Cola around or something, though.

Next chapter in this saga: "iPod Porn". Timely, no?

Santino Rice

Santino Rice, the tall sleazy looking (but talented) diva on Project Runway 2 has his own blog. Big fucking deal. Having only scanned it, I can tell he's under contractual obligations not to disclose much about the show. He did make a nice outfit on the first episode though. I'm getting over the histrionic people the mass media is shoving at us.

Happy New Year

I think I've overdosed on Family.

I do love them all, but 2 full weeks of non-stop, hardcore family get togethers, overnight stays, and long drawn out meals has left me a shell of the man I used to be.

In other words, I fell off the Quitted Smoker Wagon.

In my defense, i'd like to say I picked up the first butt upon arriving in New York to a transit strike (what the fuck was that all about?) that was announced while I was in the air. Thanks Union. I didn't get to see my friends because you need to retire at 55. Suck it.

So I smoked. Cause I was stressed out. And besides, everyone in New York smokes. Everyone.

I enter the new year already running to catch up. sigh.

News that's shaping our world

This one wins because it's got all the words crucial for a smashing headline: "dog heads, decapitated, moat". (Kyodo News via Yahoo!Asia)

Christmas Miracle: Turtle Gets Braces

Diapers Clogging Sewer Lines in Iowa

Anger Strategies, Focus on the Family, and Bareback Mountain

Here we go.
Reviewers Call 'Brokeback Mountain' Twisted

by Pete Winn, associate editor

Gay love story carries a high "ick" factor.

I'm not going to link to the site because I deem it 'unacceptable' but go ctrl+C, ctrl+V it into your address bar.
http://www.family.org/cforum/news/a0038874.cfm

It's never pretty when an adult male freaks out over losing something

Trust me I know.

Especially when the object that has been misplaced is one's over-the-ear sports earphones and one has already stretched out and is ready to run along the beach.
And it get's even uglier when one's roommate finds them exactly where they were left by the freaking out adult male.

I'll workshop that while I'm running.
When I return, I'll be blissed out and sorted.

I promise.

Faulty Logic, Irresponsible Reporting, and the Dumb Ass Govenator

Note to the writer who wrote the caption to this photo: protesting the murder of an individual at the hands of the state does not de facto mean support of the individual on Death Row. It may be a gesture of protest against the Death Penalty. This seems to be a variant of the appeal to motive fallacy and is irresponsible on the front page of a major (albeit shitty) newspaper.

Some people just think that regardless of who may be electrocuted, injected, shot, hung, stoned, starved, etc. by the government - it's plain wrong to kill people even if it's intention is to teach citizens a lesson about crime and punishment.

Damn, someone found out about this

So now I am forced to update it, keep it sharp, and produce compelling entries.

Thanks, doc.

December is here

and with it a renewed sense of purpose.
After another slip off the non-smoking wagon and the subsequent re-detox - which is marked by binge eating, rage blackouts, and general snippiness - i'm back to clean living for good this time. No more cheating. It's lame.

Now when I find myself nurturing that deep-seated urge to smoke a butt, I visualize mouth cancer. Something along these lines but much worse:

Harsh I know, but it should help.

Everyone out of the pool

This news story is somewhat disturbing. They've caught some little 'male' fish who display signs of intersex..That means they had girl parts in their boy parts. This is suspected to be due to pollutants from plants and treatment facilities contaminating the water.

I'm glad I find the Pacific Ocean too cold to swim in. I like my testes just the way they are, thanks.
No ovarian tissue for me!

Everything you ever wanted to know about Barebacking but were afraid to ask

via Queerty -

Not sure how I feel about this site [probably NSFW now that I think about it. Unless you are a hustler.] "Sero-Sorting instead of condoms"? That's a pretty hot potato now, innit? Regardless, this weird public-health information site enlightened me to things I've never known. Like how to shave one's junk properly or the benefits of [anal] douching before a date. My friend DRMack'n will love it. She's soooo into barebacking these days. From a research standpoint, that is.

Haha.

Shirtless Guy

I don't know which is funnier - the article itself, or the fact that it's #2 in the LA Times "most emailed today" sidebar...

Anyway, this smells like a fake (viral) or something along the lines of BlackpeopleLoveUs.com, but if it's true it's funny.

This weird dude just walks around college shirtless and he's got a support group/fan club and all. My favorite quote - and the one that makes me believe this is bogus - is

"I think if it weren't for the Shirtless Guy," Kohelet
confessed, "I never would have had the courage to
unbutton the second to the top button on my shirt
and walk around showing a little chest hair."

You go, Shirtless Guy.

Bizarro World

Remember Bizarro, the anti-Superman from the Legion of Doom? He was basically the antipode of Superman, Truth, all that we know as sound and just.

So last evening in another installment of "Trying to Lead a (somewhat) Clean Life", I stayed in last night, split *1* bottle of wine and watched 'The Aviator' starring the recently-excised-from-Gisele-Bündchen, Leonardo DiCaprio.

About 20 minutes into the feature I became distressed and vocal about it. Something wasn't right, yet I couldn't quite pinpoint what off. Then in a flash it became clear: the editing was atrocious. I thought to myself, "perhaps the director had a friend or a cousin who needed some work and had a crack of Final Cut Pro on their machine or something" 'cause the editing SUCKED. Then my viewing partner reminds me that this is a Scorcese film. "No fucking way" I think to myself as I watch continuity flaws occur in almost every cut of the scene we're watching. [Note: I'm referrring the sundae eating antics of the 15 year old girl Howard Hughes takes out on the town. For starters.]

The film has it merits and I did learn a bit about H.Hughes, aviation of the time, etc. but the next morning the shittiness of the editing is still bugging me. So I google "Aviator bad editing" and the returns bring me to learn that the Aviator won the Academy Award® FOR BEST EDITING in the 77th Annual Academy Awards®. At that moment, everything I knew to be true and right was wrong.

Bizarro I tell you.

Betty & Veronica go goth

This is a nice time waster. The guy's blog seems an interesting mix of personal and professional I might add. Those canadians...

We cheered me up

My recent bout o' the blues was assuaged somewhat this evening by that unlikely pick-me-up: the We channel. That's 'We' as in Women's Entertainment but whatever...

So right there in the middle of my 'i'm totally lost in my pre-middle age, what the hell am i going to do' subroutine when Jake Ryan pops up on my desktop. Such a well complected young guy, ain't he?

Madonna Offers Nothing Innovative - Still Huge Media Construct

"Hung Up" is boring. So are her suspiciously timed snatches at headlines.
I wish she would prove her relevancy.
The photo sightings outside the Roxy are a nice juicy touch though.

[Music] Free, fresh, fat beats

Shut up.
I'm finally getting back to music and no matter how you slice it, i'm still a fan of the trancier/ progressive/non-vocal/electronic sort. Is that too particular and/or retro? Tough.

XTC Radio streams great high-quality trance/prog house.

In iTunes it's Radio->Electronic->towards bottom of list of streams.
It's also available on the web.

I like it.