Ambrotype Repair: Part 2

The first step was to run adjustments and curves on the photo. Ambrotypes don't have much contrast in them by nature, so running curves on the photo really allow much more depth to the photo. I also added a desaturation layer to pull out some of the weird colors that came with pumping up the contrast. There was a little rose pigment added to the original on the cheeks and chin of my great great grand parents. I want to leave that in, however I don't want the ugly greens and browns that seep in from the background. Adding the adjustment layer allows me to reduce some of those ugly colors without degrading the original photo.

Ambrotype Photo Repair: Part 1

Mary and Aaron Kinslow were my Great-Great Grand parents on my Grand Mother's side. They had Ambrose Kinslow who had a daughter Ma (Not her name) Kinslow who married a Nunn who had a bunch of daughters. One daughter was Susie Nunn who married Gill Harbison. They had two kids, Kay and David Harbison. David was my dad. SOOOOOO yeah, I'm related to the old folks and I'm going to be fixing this picture. I'll post the progress here.

About the Photo

This Ambrotype was taken around 1840-60. Ambrotypes are a type of photograph that is taken on glass. The light-sensitive chemical compound is put on the glass, then exposed to the light through the camera lens. The actual picture is a positive image that is white. You wouldn't be able to tell much by holding the glass to light. In order to see the details you must put the glass over a dark background like black cloth or paper.
This particular picture was broken and therefore was in many pieces. Since the photo has to be lit from the front, scanning was not an option.
To get the photo digitized I piece the broken picture together over a piece of black cardboard. I put a florescent light directly above the glass at an angle and took a picture of the photo using my Canon 6D. To repair the photo I will be using Photoshop.

Brachiopod 419.2–358.9 million years ago

Devonian, Silurian Period or Ordovician fossil of Frankfort kentucky. Probably found in limestone. Brachiopods were marine animals. Brachiopod wiki
Kentucky fossil Regions

Crinoid 358.9–298.9 million years ago

Mississippian Period of South Central Kentucky. Crinoids and blastoids are echinoderms. There still are crinoids in the present day oceans however over 600 varieties are extinct. The Mississippian period would have been Early Carboniferous which was 358.9–298.9 million years ago.
South Central Kentucky would have been shallow sea with lots of shallow sea plants. Crinoids are the fossil remnants of stems of flower like animals. Carboniferous period
Crinoids
Missippian Period of Kentucky

Syro Hittite Idol: 1180 - 700 BC

Small Syro Hittite Idol 1180 - 700 BC. Sadigh
Ancient Resources Syro Hittite on Wikipedia

Celtic bracelet 400 BC - 600 BC

This celtic bracelet served as both adornment as well as money. Celtic tribes used various items like rings or bells as currency. A bracelet would have served as well.

Sadigh Gallery
Ancient Resources Celtic

Raven Run Hike Lexington KY

Reb and I hiked Raven Run just outside of Lexington Sunday Aug 4, 2013. The hike was mostly covered which was nice. There were some great views of the Kentucky River. There were a few muddy spots but tennis shoes would work pretty good. The paths were very rocky so expect a good work out on the knees. To do the entire loop took about 2 hours. You could probably do it faster and some hikers were even running. It was hilly so expect to go down the hill, then back up. There is a nature center there as well. I was really impressed. From Lexington it was about a 20 minute drive. Will definitely do this hike again.

Dick Contino: An Accordion in Paris

Accordion music from the 60s. French flair. This record has it all. Sweeping strings. The song choices are great and make a fantastic smooth sounding record that just screams for lovers to kiss. I like it.

Two Loves Have I (J'Ai Deux Amours)  2:15  
Mam'Selle  2:59  
The Petite Waltz  2:15  
Comme Ci Comme Ca  2:40  
My Man  2:12  
The Song From Moulin Rouge (Where Is Your Heart)  2:45  
Beyond The Sea (La Mer)  2:55  
Under The Bridges Of Paris  2:23  
Symphony  2:46  
Domino  2:43

Here is some interesting Dick Contino trivia. He was drafted during the Korean War. He ended up fleeing his post at Fort Ord and got labled as a draft dodger. He was jailed but ended up serving in the Air Force and finally getting honorably discharged.
He was born in January 1930 and as far as I know is still living in Las Vegas.

Andre Kostelanetz and his Orchestra: Today's Golden Hits

Originally released 1966. Another fantastic symphonic arranged pop record. This record features Michelle (Beatles) Yesterday (Beatles) Help (Beatles) Unchained Melody (Nat King Cole) A taste of Honey (Herb Alpert) and more.
The weirdest rendition is Unchained Melody. The beat is strange and it features odd instrument choices like marching toms and a balalaika.
Overall this is a great little snap shot of hit songs arranged with 60s orchestras.

Andre Kostelanetz and his Orchestra: I Wish You Love

Pop strings. Cake. Champagne Music. Whatever you want to call it this stuff is sugary goodness. Andre Kostelanetz was a Russian orchestral conductor / arranger with the gift of converting pop hits of the day into orchestral pieces. I Wish You Love came out in 1964 and features many hits like Blue Velvet (originally Bobby Vinton), I will Follow Him ( Little Peggy March) I Wish You Love (Nat King Cole) Fools Rush In (Elvis).

Chances are you won't find this on iTunes or Rhapsody because they are symphonic covers to popular 60s songs. Licensing for the originals are hard enough in this digital age, so a cover is just going to get lost in the mix. That is what makes this record so fantastic.

Fear Factory

I could look at these all day. View the Whole Gallery of Fear Factory Photos

Moqui Marbles

The iron oxide concretions found in the Navajo Sandstone exhibit a wide variety of sizes and shapes. Their shape ranges from spheres to discs; buttons; spiked balls; cylindrical hollow pipe-like forms; and other odd shapes. Although many of these concretions are fused together like soap bubbles, many more also occur as isolated concretions, which range in diameter from the size of peas to baseballs. The surface of these spherical concretions can range from being very rough to quite smooth. Some of the concretions are grooved spheres with ridges around their circumference.^[4][5]

The abundant concretions found in the Navajo Sandstone consist of sandstone cemented together by hematite (Fe₂O₃), and goethite (FeOOH). The iron forming these concretions came from the breakdown of iron-bearing silicate mineralsby weathering to form iron oxide coatings on other grains. During later diagenesis of the Navajo Sandstone while deeply buried,reducing fluids, likely hydrocarbons, dissolved these coatings. When the reducing fluids containing dissolved iron mixed with oxidizing groundwater, they and the dissolved iron were oxidized. This caused the iron to precipitate out as hematite and goethite to form the innumerable concretions found in the Navajo Sandstone. Evidence suggests that microbial metabolism may have contributed to the formation of some of these concretions.^[12] These concretions are regarded as terrestrial analogues of the hematite spherules, called alternately Martian "blueberries" or more technicallyMartian spherules, which the Opportunity rover found at Meridiani Planum onMars.^[4][5]

Apache Rewrites to hide variables

I've been absolutely fighting with rewrites over the past week. Why do you want to know about rewrites? You can easily hide variables with it.

Example

 Let's say you want to hide a variable in a clean url. I want http://www.store.com/catfood.html instead of http://www.store.com/product.html?p=1234233

If you are dealing with apache servers then you'll be dealing with the .htaccess file. Here are the steps required to make that example happen.
Step 1: open .htaccesss. If you are on a linux server running Apache you should have one. If it isn't showing then it might be a hidden file. If you don't have an .htaccess file then you need to make one. It should be in the root of your public_html folder on your server.
Step 2: RewriteEngine On   #you need this bit of code to turn on Rewrites
Step 3: RewriteRule PATTERN SUBSTITUTION FLAG and example would look like this RewriteRule ^(.*)?\.html product.php?p=%1$1 [QSA] 

The Pattern is "^(.*)?\.html" which uses a regular expression to say Any characters before .html. So if someone types in toyota-camry.html it will take "toyota-camry" from the url - what it does with it is explained in the next part

The Substitution says "okay you have toyota-camry as a variable - we'll place that variable in your substitution and on the server we'll run product.php?p=toyota-camry. That means you with this rewrite we can obstruct the variable from view and the end user will just see the clean url. Pretty cool.
So this little .htaccess rewrite handles hiding the variable and give your site a clean looking URL. What this doesn't do is actually process the variable. If you are using PHP you'd need some $_GET methods to process the product id that is being passed to it. That is another lesson all together.

The Flag is [QSA].  There are lots of different flags, but what that flag means is "append query string from request to substituted URL".  This way you can add on additional query items to the newly formed URL.  Basically it means you could have catfood.html?t=wet and it would pass the varible properly without ignoring the variable.

Some other cool things you can do with rewrites:

• You are trying to create dynamic subdomains. Otherwise you'd have to setup each instance in the DNS record. (This one requires adding a wildcard A record on the DNS record)
•  RewriteEngine on
  RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^(.*)\.exampleDomain\.com
  RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://exampleDomain.com/%1/$1 [L]
• You want to hide directories and file structure. http://www.domain.com/gallery.html instead of http://www.domain.com/pictures/gallery1/index.php
•  RewriteEngine on
  RewriteRule gallery.html$ pictures/gallery1/index.php [L]

Additional resources:

This is an absolutely fantastic resource by addedbytes Url rewriting for Beginners

Robert Berger 460 train watercolor

My newest watercolor. A fantastic watercolor if the steam engine 460 of the Pennsylvania line. Bob had some very realistic originals for sale at the Berea Craft festival July13,2013

Berea craft festival 2013

Prehistoric Indian Gorget - Brookville IN

Meteorite sliver. Sweden 800,000 YO

This fine specimen is an Octahedrite meteorite. It gets its' classification due to the crystal patterning of the iron in the meteorite. "Octahedrites are the most common structural class of iron meteorites. The structures occur because the meteoric iron has a certain Nickel concentration that leads to the exsolution of kamacite out of taenite while cooling." --view wikipedia This specific meteorite is probably a sliver from the Muonionalusta meteorite that struck northern Sweden around 800,000 years ago. Here is an awesome link about meteorites in the region, along with pictures of pieces being excavated.

Clay pipe conglomeration 1880s

Purchased in Metamora Indiana Fall 2012 - The pipe is originally from Point Pleasant Ohio. It was discovered in a creek in Clermont County Ohio. Here is a paper over the pipes from that region

Trilobite

Purchased in San Antonio May 2013.

Wrote a Song about being a cat.

Thousands of Spider Babies

Today I was looking at some things that I had stored down in our barn. The barn is more of a storage shed than an actual barn. It has been converted into a sealed off barn that keeps most varmints out however it isn't climate controlled or sealed off from small pests such as bugs and spiders. It came as no surprise when I stumbled across an intricate nest of wolf spider babies. It wasn't so much a web as it was a webby crib of sorts. There were hundreds of strands with hundreds of spider babies just moving around. It was really interesting because the small spiders were almost motionless, however when you breathed or blew on them, they would almost move as if they were a live curtain. It was really kind of creepy but interesting if you could get past the sensation of having them crawl over you. Below is a video I shot of the little wolf spiders.

2012 Meteor Shower

August 11,2012 was supposed to be the most active meteor show this year.  Being the avid stargazer I am I had to try and capture this tremendous event to SD Card.  The biggest problem I face is the fact I live in a city (really big town) and it is hard to get to an area that isn't completely ruined with light pollution.  The solution: try to find someplace out of town that wouldn't get us arrested.  Did we succeed? Sorta.  Did I get the magic pic?  Yeah, Kinda.  But the experience was fun none-the-less.

Here are my best pics.

My only Meteorite

Took forever to capture this pic.  I saw many meteorites, but this was the only one I got a pic of.

The Big Dipper

This was just a pic of the constellation.  Nothing crazy.

The Towers

This was just a cool pic of towers.  We star gazed on the backside of the airport.  We only got in a little trouble when a security guard stopped because of our parked car. Cool pic though (That streak is an airplane)

METEORRR - wait, hellicopter

This was just another cool pic.  This of a helicopter from my back deck.

2012 Meteor Shower

Justice

“It is more important that innocence be protected than it is that guilt be punished, for guilt and crimes are so frequent in this world that they cannot all be punished..But if innocence itself is brought to the bar and condemned, perhaps to die, then the citizen will say “Whether I do good or whether I do evil is immaterial, for innocence itself is no protection.” If such an idea as that were to take hold in the mind of the citizen that would be the end of security whatsoever.”
John Adams, 2nd president of the United States

VC240 is Off the HOOK

It's Monday and everyone is so excited about being in class! HOORAY!

Missle Robot Sketch

Ant Sketch

tap tap revenge maybe my downfall

Totally pulling a 'naked man' right now. Wait that didn't sound right. #howimetyourmother

At the beer festival ...1st impressions...lines lines lines lines lines

Headin to Orlando

This was our flight out of Lexington. Left around 7:20. Was a good flight

Just hit the ground in the big o. I still love you all

Just boarded the plane...hoping for an uneventful flight to orlando. If it is eventful 'i love you all'

Mind the bird...twitter? derby

I know you were awake. I could hear you singing 'night cheese'

The mentalist is amazing. Definetly worth a watch. He's a modern day sherlock holmes

Today was pretty uneventful...kinda makes me wish I was 20 again back when april twentieth had some meaning

I love man vs food. I feel I invented this show years ago..but without the camera.

Iron barley in st louis... I want to go to there

Farley eats cereal

Farley Ferret, relaxes at the skirt of the bed, eating his cereal. Painted for my Aunt 4-4-09

Ralph goings is a bamf

At tumbleweeds rockin some .99 cent margaritas . FTW

People want to be told what to do so bad theyll listen to anyone

Had a fantastic night at lynaughs watching the best weezer cover band; 11 years at Harvard. Checkem out

#ukcoach wonders who will be brave enough to step up.

Little cardio. Little west wing. Hope I can tackle the rest of the day with the same ferocity

@frazison you sure look pretty sittin next to me at the journal banquet. I'm very proud of you

Just finished disc 1 of Mad Men...this show is boss. I'm hooked

Tshirt...Celebrating a silver anniversary of hope and life..relay for life

Ask me what I'm doing. My twitter is shy.

Is 'an ass straight up' according to his student reviews. Wow...how observant.

Listening to Alela Diane ...opened for Blitzen Trapper. Really folksy if you like that thing

Just finished dinner hoping to feel better tomrrow...nizite

Joyland bowl 2.50 dom 3.25 imports 3.50 - 5 mix

Mercy lounge Dom 3 imports 4 mix drinks 5

On the road to nashville..then off to mercy lounge

Hananoki 2.75 bud coors miller bottles 4-7 mon-fri 2.00

Trying to rock some client work out

There is nothing more evil than the .docx file format. Some will blame "Original Sin" I blame MS OFFICE

I'm in love with my meal at puccinis..chicken venitzia..frigin amazing...best 11 bux ever

Mellow mushroom: 1.60 pabst 6.50 pabst bucket 5 2.75 miller bud coors...3 - 6 imports/microbrews

Just got pulled over helping a disabled man out of traffic. Yay me!

Dalee susan brooks iz in da hizzee.!?!!? Fer realz

Is officially an uncle...

Settin at itt talkin shop

Coke ad firm is a bunch of hippy acid addicts

Friends and company 6.50 dom pitchers and 2.00 dom pints

I am tiki... I am number 1. I shoot you all. Even the kids

Champs 2.75 bud lt draft 3.50 bottles

It soooooo butt frozen cold

It is so butt cheeks frozen cold

Test for Ping FM in . . .3, 2, now

Winchell's Restaurant in Lexington, KY

"Best Rueben in Lexington KY" is a pretty bold statement, but I believe it to be true. Winchell's Bar and Grill is one of those little jewels of Lexington that only the locals know about. It isn't a chain, and it isn't owned by some mega-chagillionaire corporation. It is local and boy is it wonderful.

The menu is straight up Americana, and the beer is draft macrobrews. The atmosphere is 'local-sports-pub' and the specials are magnificent.

If you ask a Lexingtonian when they go to Winchell's you'll hear "Sunday Brunch" most of the time. This restaurant is noted for it's breakfast foods, but I say to give it a change for dinner. The Country Fried Steak with gravy is amazing, and so is the pulled pork dinner, but my fav of all fav's is the Rueben Sandwich with fries.

The Rueben is a delectable heap of corn beef on rye with thousand island and sweet vinegar slaw. The magic is in the slaw which substitutes most standard kraut. Does it make it bit different from a traditional rueben? Sure, but it doesn't matter, Reuben lovers and non-Reuben lovers will love this sandwich.

Winchell's is located on the very eclectic Southland Dr. of Lexington. It looks like a small shopping center eatery, but when you get through the doors it really is larger than it looks. If you go on Sunday, get there early, because it usually is packed.

Winchell's really is an elite Lexington Eatery and Bar. Check out prices and pictures of Winchell's as well as information on Lexington's Bars

Bar Reviews on Boozemonster

Hello world!
I, Solidoxygen, have just started a new blog. It is called "Bar Reviews by the Boozemonster". It is a little supplement to my favorite past time; drinking. The bar review is a way to post quick reviews of bars and grills that I've been to. The site will be sorta casual and fun with real reviews from a real person. You can check out the Bar Review on Blogger.

Molly Malones Covington

I was up in Covington recently. I had the opportunity to drop into the great irish pub, Molly Malones. It was an excellent time. The bar is located in downtown Covington, located on 4th street. They have an excellent selection of draft beers. They also have a full menu, full of great Irish fare. The bar is relatively new.

Check out pictures of Molly Malones as well as other Drink Prices for Covington KY.

Get this widget!

Get this widget!

my new kitteh Cali. She's a handful. A handful of nuts.

Bitches be crazy!

Animoto-ing the world

This here is an excellent piece of stuff

Save the Earth or something

Ever since I saw the "How it all Ends" videos (Thanks Jason) I've been thinking about how to actually make a difference.  Amazingly it is rather hard to find resources, but I did find a few things that I could take away, so below are my findings.  I would also like it if the few people who possibly read this , to comment on this blog with any resources they have found.

First up is the "GREEN MOVEMENT"... we've all heard about it, but when I tried to think about actual ways of going green I was stuck.  Well, I found a site with 10 ways to "Go Green" >>go
I'll post the abridged version here:

1. Re-route your commute.
2. Buy used.
3. Buy local.
4. Compost your food scraps.
5. Change the thermostat setting and install energy saving devices.
6. Skip the bottled water at the grocery or convenience store.
7. Make your own cleaning supplies.
8. Think twice about new electronics.
9. Add one meatless meal per week.
10. Use your local library and other public amenities.

I was a little surprised at a few of the ways.  I would never have thought about the "Meatless Meal" but it makes sense.  Let's look at a few others ones.  Reroute your commute is pretty obvious.  Buying Used is good, however most people won't.  My thing is I just don't buy often, so I suppose my small income is making me enviromentally friendly. Buying Local is a great thing.  Composting my food scraps - Don't really do that, but most of the time I throw bad fruit and veg in my back yard and we recycle.  The thermostat setting is always a little high in the summer and low in the winter. I do need to insulate more.  Don't buy bottled water much. 7. making your own cleaning supplies is a tad too hippy...8.  Wow.. I've got trouble with this... however I don't really throw my old stuff out.. If I were to I'd just donate them. 9. Meatless meal... hmmm.. I could do that. 10.  I got the internet.. what more do I need?

So those were some good tips.  I really like the local aspect.  It really does help out everyone to buy local.  Not to mention the health benefits of eating fresh produce.  I just need a good local brewery  and I'd be set.

That was my resource for going green, but what about the stuff I don't want to give up . . . like my electricity.  I spent some additional time looking for info about solar panel systems and other alternative resources.  Again I kind of hit a wall.  The best site I could find for solar power kits and tips was Backwoods Solor Systems >>Go.  They have some really good tips for moving to alternative energy systems, not to mention the access to actually start building and acquiring solar panels etc to get started.  Looks like you can start building systems for as low  as a few thousand dollars.  A really great resources on the site is the recommendations for appliances (refridgerators and such). Ever wanted an energy efficient refrigerator >>Go here. 

So I've found some good info.  I even found some cool gadgets to help you go green.  The "Solio™, is a Universal "Hybrid" Charger powerful enough to charge all of your handheld electronic products at home or on the move, anywhere under the sun. "  Check it out >>. 

I'm not a tree hugging hippy that would die for and owl.  I love living in a psuedo city (Lexington) that has mostly suburban housing with the amenities of a city.  I love having neighbors I can walk to, bars I can walk to, groceries I can walk to and everything else.  I like driving 3 minutes to work and being able to do what I want in a 10 mile radius, but I also like the thought of doing it without killing the Earth and Environment at the same time.

I'm not much of an activist and I'm not a zealot, but I thought about some ways I could make a difference without really giving up my lifestyle.  I think I found a few answers and most importantly I educated myself for when I need to buy a new appliance or possible ways of switching to alternative power.

Let me know what you guys are doing, or ways you've thought of that you can make a difference withouth sacrificing your lives.

Drink Prices in Lexington KY on Drink Prices.com

Just found this awesome site that lets you see the prices of beers around Lexington KY. The site is called Drinkprices.com and it just launched. The site is just starting out, but I can tell that it will really be handy for college kids and any one who likes going out but not spending a bunch of money. It is nation wide but there aren't prices for all cities, but the good news is that anyone can register and post prices. You can check out Lexington, Ky drink prices here, and Chicago, IL drink prices here. CHEERS!

Web Design Tips from a graphic designers lips

Web Design Tips from a graphic designers lips

I've been writing up some tips for graphic designers that help them learn how to deal with problems that clients might create for them. SO far I have 4 new tutorials on everything from illustration problems to how to prepare a work for a client that will ease problems. I really hope to have more tutorials soon.

Later

Things I would like to acquire

This is lame, but I'm going to post a link to some things that I would like to acquire in the future.. I'm not exactly coveting these articles.. just listing them out. Yeah.. totally lame.
Cool shoes.

Bape Ape Sta Blue / Light Blue w/ White Trim Bathing Ape Logo on the rear




A really cool bass amp for recording


Tech 21 SansAmp



a rather reasonable guitar

Ibanez Artcore

Bicycle Hubcaps , Stephen and Americas' Next inventor

Stephen the crazy bicycle hubcap guy surprised me when he didn't take a dump on the stage of America's next inventor. I don't think I have ever seen anyone on a reality tv show quite as crazy as Stephen the hubcap guy. This guy was absolutely nuts. He stayed on the stage for way too long after they dismissed him. He's crazy. I really thought I would have to watch George Forman punch the guy in the Clavical. Anyways. Check out Fried Crispy.com for more crazy shit.

I need to blog more

What have I been doing? I wrote this really long thing about what I've been doing, but I think it would be inappropriate to post on the net. Not that I've done anything bad, it's just that it's got a lot of things about people that I wouldn't want to post without their consent.

So instead. Here is a picture

White Chicks and Gang signs

It's been awhile: Invoicing and hardship

For the past 3 days I've been preparing and invoicing my company's client. I would never had thought it would take such time to simple billing. It has been absolutely horrindous... that isn't spelled right,but oh well. I've had to make spreadsheets and doc files for everything. Then spit it all out to pdf. I emailed all of the clients and notified them all. I imagine it will get faster since I just started doing it, but I bet there are hundreds of small businesses out there that could really use some help.

Small Businesses. I feel for you. I hope my company can come up with a software solution to save you time and money.

Google Calendars. I like it. I didn't really have a use for it until now. I'm using it to schedule invoice dates. I think it will work out for me.

I could also use an email system that could retain html templates. That would be handy. I'd love to personalize all of my business emails with html.

Notification and contact with clients is soooo important. Everyone likes to be notified of a payment deadline or an acknowledgement of payment. Those little flourishes really solidify the professionalism of your business.

I can't wait to solve some of these issues with web applications and webware.

Later

EvC Forum: Does randomness exist?

Just found this and was very intrigued. Smarter people than I respond in this forum. It has been quite some time that I have read something that I went, "Hmm, I'm pretty dumb." I found this forum by looking into the golden ratio or 1.6183:1 . I hadn't seen this number or even thought about it in 10 years, where I had seen it in a disney film in Geometry class as a Sophmore.

As a graphic designer, I could really learn something from this rather attractive number. Human beings find it beautiful since its ratio is so "correct". The ratio is seen every where in the natural world; found in subjects like flowers and shells that humans find beautiful. It would only seem natural that a designer, whose main purpose is creating beautiful layouts for clients, should add the golden ratio into his arsenal of creativeness. It would at the very least speed my creative process along.

Whatever the case, it is imperative that I learn more about it before trying to execute using it.

Ah well, it would be nice to be 18 again, and KNOW EVERYTHING!

European Adventure

Just got back from Europe. A bit fried and reeally tired. Thought I would notate the date in history. ... Also got lots of catching up to do in the work department.

I wonder why Google stripped the blogs page rank. I love some google, but that sux none the less. I want my 2 page rank back

Helloooooo

Bonnaroo 06

The artist list looks fantastic. I bought my tickets about a 2 weeks ago. I'm excited cuz It will probably be the last festival I go to. I'm a little weary cuz I'm not a big "camping out doors" type of guy and I don't exactly handle the hot very well. I can almost promise it is goint to be a scorcher this year.

I'm crazy

Waste Basket Vol. XI No. 7: Contractors Gone Wild

Waste Basket Vol. XI No. 7: Contractors Gone Wild

Wow... This is unbelievable. Makes me want to get a government contract. Screw some tax payers.

Interesting posters and art stuff

Flatstock Poster Convention

Cricket Press
Cricket Presses Blog
Wrfl 88.1

The Flaming Lips: At War With Complacency

MTVNews.com: The Flaming Lips: At War With Complacency happens to be a great article on the adventures of The Flaming Lips at the SXSW festival in Austin TX.

I have to admit I have just half heartedly followed the Flaming Lips, but I have never once over looked their influence on music. So check out the article if you feel a little like looking at some legends. I especially like the part about starting a parade- (The lips started a parade after their show because there was too many people at the concert for the tiny venue to hold - so rather than disappoint- they started a parade through Austin- much to the dislike of the local police and security). Great tale. You can't make this stuff up.

DMZ

I have just gotten back into comix and here is the really freaky part; I'm actually reading them. I picked up a handful of comix the other day to try out, and DMZ happened to be one of them. DMZ is written by Brian Wood who is obviously a household name when it comes to comix. It is a wicked awesome read and anyone over the age of 13 would enjoy it. Love the graphix and everything. I'm going to try and pick up the rest of the issues ASAP. Just thought I would spread the love.

Chukker

Chukker