Well, here is one way of putting straws to crazy use, and as you will gauge from the pictures below, it is not just a crazy straw, it is the craziest straw!
“Instead of giving her more toys I wanted to give my daughter a happy memory. For her 5th birthday, I created a (nearly) 50 meter crazy drinking straw, all over our holiday home. I started building while she was napping on the garden pillows. When she woke up, the straw was hanging in front of her.
It took me a while and when she woke up, it also took her a while to sip from her drink 🙂 but we had a great time. She especially loved tearing the complete construction down.” ~IdeasFromEverywhere.com
20 years ago today (Oct. 10, 1995), No Doubt released their third studio album Tragic Kingdom. I love everything about No Doubt. Their story is interesting and quite special, you can read a good article about it here >billboard.com/no-doubt<
Here is what guitarist Thomas Dumont had to say about the band’s not so tragic journey:
“At the time we were just a bunch of college friends doing what we loved, being in a band together, making songs, recording them, playing shows. Looking back, I remember the fun and the camaraderie, the energy and the friendship. For sure there were struggles as well, everything was not perfect. But what strikes me is that some magic, in the form of music, came out of the tragic. Adrian, Tony, Gwen, and I each put all of ourselves into that album. We crafted the sound of it together, we infused the music with our spirit, and Gwen discovered her own voice as a lyricist. Gwen’s brother Eric left the band before TK was released, but his contributions to both the band and album were significant as well. Our group effort manifested itself in the songs, which really connected with people & resonated around the world, and because of that our lives were forever changed. The whirlwind of world-touring and extensive promoting of Tragic Kingdom went on for two and a half years, and at the end of it we emerged, not only rock stars, but as men and women.” ~ Tom Dumont
I present two distinct interviews dedicated to Edward Snowden and the controversy surrounding his actions, and we will see the difference between an intelligent interview situation and that of an opinion based time-filler/trivia television — both good.
American astrophysicist, cosmologist, author, and science communicator Neil deGrasse Tyson has his own podcast >startalkradio< and as one would expect, his show is quite thought-provoking.
In this episode, Neil deGrasse Tyson chats with whistleblower Edward Snowden via robotic telepresence from Moscow. The two card-carrying members of the geek community discuss Isaac Newton, the difference between education and learning, and even how knowledge is created. They also dive into the Periodic Table and chemistry, before moving on to the more expected subjects of data compression, encryption and privacy. You’ll learn about the relationship between private contractors, the CIA, and the NSA, for whom Edward began working at only 16 years old. Edward explains why metadata tells the government much more about individuals than they claim, and why there’s a distinction between the voluntary disclosure of information and the involuntary subversion of individual intent:
When people are not properly vetted, it can lead to awkward exchanges between the hapless host and their guests. Such was the case with Twitter jokester Jon Hendren who goes by the handle @fart, who was invited via email on to HLN’s ‘The Daily Share’ show to Skype in and comment during a live broadcast interview. Standard enough, only Hendren switched gears halfway through a conversation with Yasmin Vossoughian about Edward Snowden and began talking about Edward Scissorhands instead:
What makes this great is that for whatever reason the host doesn’t acknowledge that Hendren is acting odd at all, even though he’s saying stuff like, “To cast him out, making him invalid to society, simply because he had scissors for hands… people didn’t get scared until he started sculpting shrubs into dinosaur shapes and whatnot,” and “Edward Scissorhands is a complete hero to me.” Surprised Hendren’s Twitter handle didn’t even raise anyone’s eyebrows enough to do some simple background check either lolz.
For anyone interested in the what, who, how and why surrounding whistleblower Edward Snowden and that of the NSA spying scandal, I suggest you take the time to watch the documentary CITIZENFOUR (2014) directed by Laura Poitras.
THE DREAMERS is set against the background of the ’68 Paris student riots, and tells the story of a young American studying in Paris in 1968 who strikes up a friendship with a French brother and sister, Theo and Isabelle, who each share a love of film, and together become sexually entwined.
Bernardo Bertolucci‘s THE DREAMERS is an ode to French New Wave Cinema (La Nouvelle Vague), a term coined by critics describing a group of French filmmakers of the late 1950s and 1960s and their approach to the film form, taking it in more natural and experimental directions and telling stories with more narrative ambiguity; a general break from the conservative paradigm. THE DREAMERS makes reference and homage to many films, and like the novel the screenplay was adapted from (by the actual author), it is like a cinephile’s wet dream.
The film is based on the novel “The Holy Innocents” (1988) by Gilbert Adair (1944~2011), and is about incestuous siblings and the stranger who enters their world. Its themes were inspired by Jean Cocteau’s novel Les Enfants Terribles (The Holy Terrors) and by the film of the same name directed by Jean-Pierre Melville. I have a feeling I may end up reading it some day (both editions).
I used to stay up late during my teen years and watch television well into the early hours of the morning until it lullabied me to sleep, and for some reason, really interesting movies used to play during those silent hours of the night. The story I tell myself is, whoever was working at the television station at the time must have had good taste. THE DREAMERS was one of those films I saw when I was too young to understand much nuance, but resonated with me on a mature level I appreciated. I still think it is one of the most effortlessly cool films I have ever seen, and I say that in a very personal type of way, like, to watch THE DREAMERS with someone else in the room would have ruined its aesthetic emotion somehow. The film is very sexy, and I get a peculiar sense of isolation and longing whenever I watch it.
Ah the reciprocal torment of wanting to be loved — This guy has got it bad:
Footage is from the 1959 French New Wave film “Les Cousins,” directed by Claude Chabrol. / QuarterPastTheHour by “Jack + Eliza” from the album “Gentle Warnings.” / Video edited by DavidDeanBurkhart.
System Of A Down, oh man they bring back memories. As a bonus for the crowd, SOAD brought to the stage Chino Moreno from the Deftones to accompany them on Toxicity:
These guys got me and my friend young, as you will see from the bonus home-movie I have shamelessly embedded at the end of the post, but for now, enjoy SOAD’s full live performance in Rio de Janeiro in all its high definition glory:
S E T L I S T:
I-E-A-I-A-I-O 00:45
Suite-Pee 4:26 (Incomplete)
Attack 5:31 (First live performance since 2011)
Prison Song 8:42
Know 12:32 (First live performance since 2011)
Aerials 15:32
Soldier Side – Intro 19:13
B.Y.O.B. 20:09
Soil 24:32
Darts 27:48
Radio/Video 30:38
Hypnotize 35:05
Temper 38:08 (First live performance since 1999)
CUBErt 41:00
Hilarious. Jake Johnson tries to duplicate the amazing parkour stunts he sees on TV, with mixed results. There are two morals in this short and I can’t decide which one I prefer more; ‘denim changes your entire perspective’, or, ‘Jake it ‘til you make it!’ …Hmmm:
Expectation vs reality can come as a harsh lesson to some, but especially to parkour enthusiasts who insist that free running is nothing but mind over matter…
YouTuber ILikaDa combined Shia Labeouf’s Just Do It motivational rage speech with Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger, and made a music video in the garish style of Web 1.0 optimism — It’s a definite front-runner for the last motivational song you’ll ever need 😂
The film is based on the novel “The Holy Innocents” (1988) by Gilbert Adair (1944~2011), and is about incestuous siblings and the stranger who enters their world. Its themes were inspired by Jean Cocteau’s novel Les Enfants Terribles (The Holy Terrors) and by the film of the same name directed by Jean-Pierre Melville. I have a feeling I may end up reading it some day (both editions).
🎭 