#20 You Say Party! We Say Die! – XXXX
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#19 Black Lips – 200 Million Thousand
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#17 Drummer - Feel Good Together
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#16 A Place to Bury Strangers – Exploding Head
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#15 Dead Man’s Bones – Dead Man’s Bones
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#14 Animal Collective – Merriweather Post Pavilion
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#13 Atlas Sound – Logos
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#12 Local Natives – Gorilla Manor
#11 Handsome Furs – Face Control
(#1-#10 next week…)
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Tagged: 200 Million Thousand, A Place to Bury Strangers, Animal Collective, Atlas Sound, Black Lips, Dead Man's Bones, Drummer, Exploding Head, Face Control, Family, Feel Good Together, Gorilla Manor, Handsome Furs, Le Loup, Local Natives, Logos, Merriweather Post Pavilion, Music, Top Albums of 2009, XXXX, You Say Party! We Say Die!
I’m off to California for the next 5 days. Going to spend a couple of days in San Francisco and then the rest in Monterey, visiting the Monterey Bay Aquarium. I can’t express how excited I am! I’m totally going to wrangle and ride this Sun Fish.
Have a nice weekend!
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Tagged: California, Monterey Bay Aquarium, Sun Fish
Kell and our friend Jared have started a new podcast, Gentlemen, Scotch, and Song. You can listen as they sit down with a fine glass of scotch, discuss music in a polite fashion and completely rock out. I love the chemistry between the duo, which isn’t surprising since they are such funny individuals.
They’ve posted their first show and another should be up in the near future. So settle in with your own libation and flip your hearing switch into the “hell yeah” position.
You can listen via their site or iTunes.
Below is the playlist from their first show:
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Tagged: Gentlemen Scotch and Song, Music, podcast
There are two things that just baffle me.
1. How can Christians, who say they believe “love they neighbor as thyself”, be opposed to socialized medicine?
2. How can you have children and not become a raging environmentalist?
I’ve been keeping an eye on the Copenhagen Climate Summit and it’s just so disappointing. How do people not understand that we are dooming our own progeny to a bleak existence? I mean, the very best scenario is that they’ll be living in a world where a third of the animal population has gone extinct and rain forest are a thing of the past and cancer levels continue to rise. I don’t understand how anything you can do or buy for your children could be as wonderful of a gift as a beautiful healthy earth. Our governments aren’t going to fix this. Governments want growth.. that means they want to produce and export and import and build and see population booms. I don’t see them ever stepping in to stop this thing that is already spinning out of control. Climate change will eventually cost our countries far more than it would cost us to reduce our carbon emissions to a healthy level now.. but that’s in the semi-distant future and as much as we say that we care about posterity, it really comes down to “as long as it doesn’t cause me discomfort”.
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Tagged: activism, climate change, COP15, Copenhagen Climate Summit, environment
Next Stop Adventure is Matt Gauck, an artist and illustrator from Portland, OR. I want to live in his fanciful world where robots groom trees and albino sperm whales find themselves wedged in tree tops. I think I love the way he makes use of color in his backdrops as much as the images themselves. Also, my friend Jason wanted me to mention that I like the tiny red speckles in the monster painting below. He thinks that I’m retarded and wants the rest of you to know it too.
It doesn’t look like Matt’s site is working, but if you want to own something as much as I want to own this whale painting, you could hit him up on his Myspace or Flickr account.
→ 4 CommentsCategories: Art, Movies, Interests
Tagged: Art, Matt Gauck, Monster, Next Stop Adventure, Painting, Robot, Whale
December is the worst. I hate that it’s dark when I get to work and dark when I get home. I despise wearing socks. Digging my car out from its icy tomb makes me want to take hostages. And if Silent Night were a person I’d punch him in his glasses.
But there is one thing that makes me giddy for this time of year – top album lists! They’re such a great way to be a lazy researcher.. just let everyone else sift through the crap and present the gems. With that said, here’s some of what I was left with after my yearly sift. Starting at 30 and working backwards…
Also I’d love to hear what albums you were crazy for this year!
#30 The Raveonettes – In and Out of Control
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#29 Telepathe – Dance Mother
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#28 Portugal. The Man – The Satanic Satanist
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#27 Flaming Lips – Embryonic
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#26 Washed Out – Life of Leisure
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#24 The Shivers – In the Morning
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#23 Matt and Kim – Grand
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#22 Crocodiles – Summer of Hate
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#21 Smith Westerns – Smith Westerns
(#20-#11 next week…)
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Tagged: Crocodiles, Dance Mother, Embryonic, Fever Ray, Flaming Lips, Grand, In and Out of Control, In the Morning, Life of Leisure, Matt and Kim, Music, Portugal. The Man, Raveonettes, Smith Westerns, Summer of Hate, Telepathe, The Satanic Satanist, The Shivers, Top Albums 2009, Washed Out
If they do things like what they’re doing in this video… you bet your ass they can. JAZZHANDS!!!
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Tagged: Christmas, Robot, Synchronized Dance, video
San Antonio artist, Jennifer Khoshbin, is the creator of these fabulous paper resin deer heads. I know, I know.. you won’t get the thrill of killing a shy peaceful creature from 100 ft away with your technologically advanced weapon, but it’d still look pretty awesome against a dark accent wall. You can purchase her work at her Etsy store, Ruby’s Lounge.
→ 2 CommentsCategories: Art, Movies, Interests
Tagged: Antlers, Art, deer head, Etsy, Jennifer Khoshbin, Resin, Ruby's Lounge
I’m so stoked to catch We Live in Public (by Ondi Timoner) tonight! This documentary takes a look at dot-com millionaire, Josh Harris, and his incredible social experiment of the 1990’s, Quiet: We Live in Public. The 100+ artists who participated in Harris’ party lived completely free in a New York capsule hotel but agreed to do so under complete video surveillance (which was streamed into the other hotel rooms). After Q:WLiP, he and his girlfriend completed another 6 months living under 24-hour online surveillance which documented and helped to facilitate their breakup and his mental breakdown.
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Tagged: Documentary, Film, Josh Harris, Ondi Timoner, Sundance, We Live in Public
Okay, so I totally have mixed feelings about aquariums and zoos. On one hand, they pull animals out of their natural surroundings and cage them in small, sometimes miserable quarters. On the other hand, they serve to educate and hopefully inspire people to take an active role in protecting animals from becoming endangered. Further, they provide a place to preserve species who have become extinct in the wild and many, like the Monterey Bay Aquarium, are leading the way with their conservation programs.
For better or worse, there are few places that make me as happy. Here are 3 aquariums located in the U.S. that I’ve read about which seem pretty amazing and I’d like to see. Any other recommendations?
The Georgia Aquarium claims to be the world’s largest aquarium with over 100,000 animals housed in 8.1 million gallons of fresh and saltwater. It is the only aquarium outside of Asia to exhibit whales sharks (of which it has two males). Other notable specimens include great hammerhead sharks, beluga whales and manta rays. The aquarium also has a 100ft underwater tunnel as well as the world’s second largest viewing window.
The Monterey Bay Aquarium contains a 33 foot high, 350,000 gallon tank which holds the world’s first man-grown kelp garden as well as housing California coastal marine life such as leopard sharks and wolf-eels. The aquarium also boasts a 1.2 million gallon tank which is large enough to allow tuna to reach speeds of 18 miles per hour. Sometimes when I’m feeling particularly nerdy, I like to check out the otters on their webcam.
The Oregon Coast Aquarium is a hop, skip and a jump from my brother and his cute little family, so now I have two excuses to make the trip! The main attraction here is the acrylic tunnel which allows you to be surrounded by sharks, bat rays and rockfish without ever getting wet.
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Tagged: Aquariums, Atlanta, bat rays, beluga whale, California, Georgia, Georgia Aquarium, great hammerhead, leopard shark, Manta Ray, Monterey, Monterey Bay Aquarium, Newport, ocean, Oregon, Oregon Coast Aquarium, rockfish, shark, Whale Shark, wolf-eels
