Qustionable Judgement

Yesterdays shoutout for extra authors for the site has been met with surprise enthusiasm. In what could possibly be the worst decision since thinking it’d be cool to have a pony tail in college, Mr. Brian J. Pinero will be taking over the site for the next few posts in order, ostensibly, to prepare for the launch of his own site drinkingwithcapitankirk.com (long story). Please keep in mind that what you read here in the next few days  doesn’t represent the views of myself, my family, the state of Texas, my ancestors, the dude asking me for change on the street or anyone else but Mr. Pinero. God help us.

Slowness

Apologies for the lack of content of late. Keeping up with work with a reduced staff and running a side business has been a bit of a time vampire of late. I tried to sign Pinero up as a guest writer but he said he’s apparently got better things to do like obsess over espn.com.

Expect your regular bursts fo hippy-rage to return to their normal schedule next week.

NPR in Sichuan Province

I don’t have a lot of kind things to say to most journalists these days. The fourth estate has failed us badly over the past eight years of patriot acts, wire-taps and torture policies. But as always there’s an exception. Melissa Block and Robert Siegel were in China’s Sichuan Province covering other stories when the earthquake hit. The reports they’ve been filing are both incredibly compassionate and professional, painting a picture with their words and ambient audio that the talking heads on CNN could never come close too. 

Follow their blog or find your local NPR station. 

15th Street Sunset

The iphone camera isn’t half bad and surprisingly easy to use while driving…

The Babe Rally

The Big-Apple to Big-Easy Rally is technically defined as an ‘American Banger Rally’. The goal– to take a car who’s total cost/value is no more than $250 and drive it from New York to New Orleans over Memorial Day weekend.

The vehicle must cost less than $250. If you did not purchase the car you must provide a signed witness statement from someone stating that they feel $250 is on the expensive side as a valuation for your car. An accompanying photo of them laughing themselves senseless upon first site of the car is a plus.

Ed Hillary

It is not the mountain we conquer but ourselves. – Sir Edmund Hillary.

The self-described bee keeper, philanthropist, and first person (along with Tenzing Norgay) to climb Everest, back when no one was really sure if it could be done, died to day at 88. Here’s hoping there’s some type of climbing and exploring fun in the afterlife.

Clickable Geek Fun

In my continued efforts to not leave the site alone for more than a month at a time, I’ve created an unholy marriage of two javascripts – the random image puller, and the lightbox script – so that I now have random lightboxed images in the banner of the site.

Useful ? no. Cool ? Probably not. No Idea what the hell I’m talking about ? Me neither, just click the pretty picture at the top of the page, fun things should happen.

Redbull Air Race

This could be the coolest thing I’ve ever seen.

The Air Race is not just about speed – precision is crucial to success because any mistakes incur penalty points which are then added to the pilot’s time. Flying low to the ground at speeds that can reach 400kph, while attempting difficult turning manoeuvres, requires immense skill that only a certain number of pilots in the world possess. That is why the pilots are hand selected based upon their expertise and experience. These pilots are at the top of their game. They have to be – the Air Race exerts huge demands on their flying abilities and they have to withstand forces of up to 10G. There is no room for error.

More badassedness available here, with additional YouTube fun here.

This American Life

I’m a long-time fan of This American Life, but hadn’t seen the Showtime adaption of the radio series until now. Extremely well done. You think we’ve solved racism in America ? Think again.
(FYI – this is pretty PG-13 in terms of language – it is on Showtime after all )

Flugtag

What’d you do this Saturday ? We (ill-advisedly) stood in the lake and watched people fling themselves off a two story ramp, wishing (particularly given some of my previous projects), that we’d gotten in on the fun. Sponsored by everyones favorite form of legal, liquid crack. See the photos here.