Terminator Salvation

So here is the movie I have been waiting most of my life for! Finally a Terminator movie that shows the story in the future! Not only that but John Connor will be played by Christian Bale! This makes me giddy like a little school girl! Weeeee!

Dark Knight

There is a ton of hype surrounding the new Batman movie. I too have to say this movie is incredible. What was even more incredible was Heath Ledger role as the Joker. I've been guilty in the past of thinking he was an overrated actor. He did have a few ok roles. He was always likable though. Now I have to eat my words though. He is a phenomenal character actor. The charisma projected from his character is so believable, I don't think that it could have ever been the same without him. So don't go watch this film just because everyone says to. Go watch this film because it is the best re-telling of the Batman comics ever and because it is a celebration Heath Ledger's final masterpiece.

House of Cards

Check out the new video for Radiohead's House of Cards from In Rainbows. Using an incredible new technology utilizing laser imaging, they created a 3 dimensional video.

Fall of a Legend

George Carlin passed away June 22, 2008. He was a comedic and philosophical genius that changed the face of comedy and pushed the societal envelope. He will be missed!

Independence From a Broken System

To really prove that he believes in the people Barrack Obama has announced that he will for go over $80 million public financing given for the general election. Instead for the first time in campaign history he wants his campaign paid for by the people. Not special interest groups. Not lobbyists. You! So if you are willing to stand up and believe that you really can make a difference, make a donation. Even if its only a dollar that you were going to spend on an extra soda you really don't need. Make a difference and help make this country great again. Good changes are coming my friends, greet them with open arms!
Independence From a Broken System

I'm Voting Republican

Ok not really and here is why...

Télépopmusik

You might recognize this band from tv commercials. They one of my most favorite bands. Here is "Breathe" by Télépopmusik..

Emily Loizeau

More from France! Here is some electro-acoustic from Emily Loizeau. The song is called "L'autre Bout Du Monde" or "The Other End of the World".

Alizee

Another French Connection for you to take a look at. Alizee is basically the French version of Brittany Spears only a million times more attractive. I had an unhealthy obsession with her for many years. Watch this delicious video and you will see why. Now granted she is pop which I detest, however, I still find her music catchy and interesting. So I have put up the video "Jen Ai Marre" or "I'm Fed Up" in english. Try not to drool too much...

Emilie Simon

Continuing my series on French electronic music, I give you another one of my favorite French performers Emilie Simon. If you follow that link you will find a really cool cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity". For now check out the cool video of "Desert". This is the French version but you can also find the English version on youtube. Enjoy!

M83

So for the people that don't know me well, I would like to tell you I have a fetish for French electronic music. So I have decided to showcase some of my favorite French bands. Here is a video of the song "Teen Angst" by M83 who have just released a new album "Saturdays = Youth". I hope you enjoy them as much as I do.

Red Light, Green Light

So over the years I have been called all sorts of things. "Mr. E." and "Uncle Stinky" are among my more lovingly collected labels. Every now and then I run across someone that calls me a conspiracy theorist. Like the time that I insisted that North Dakota didn't really exist. Basically because I've never seen any real tangible proof that the state exists. For example I have never met anyone that lives in the state nor have I known someone that knows anyone from there. In all my life I have only seen one license plate from there not long after talking with someone about my theory. I think its a cover up by the government to make the country look bigger than it is. Alright so its my dumbest theory and I guess it would be a conspiracy-like.

Now one theory that I have always stuck with is that our government doesn't really do anything unless someone can make money off of it. Thats why our public schools are in a state of total disarray and textbooks cost ridiculous sums of money. It is also why you see most law enforcement handing out speeding tickets at "speed traps" just to match their quota. And one of the reasons why it costs 10 times as much to get a divorce as it does to get married. Now if that isn't enough hard proof then take a look at this article by the National Motorist Association.

So here is the idea. You have a camera attached to the lights at an intersection. When someone runs a red light you take a picture of their license plate. You then send them a lovely ticket in the mail. That way people actually pay attention to the light. Sounds like a good idea especially here in Salt Lake City since all the good Christians like to blow through stop lights. However, since governments are inherently corrupt, greedy and evil. They ignore public safety lower the yellow light time to say three seconds so that they can send out more tickets. So far the National Motorists Association has found six cities that where caught lowering the light time. There are bound to many more cities doing the same thing. So keep that in mind next time you run a into a quick yellow light.

Update: After talking with my favorite extremely talented server from the Piper Down I discovered that she is from North Dakota. So the bases for my whole existence (the belief that the state of North Dakota is a mythical place) is completely blown. So if you have any suggestions for a better conspiracy let me know!

Abstinence-Only in Florida

Kudos to Amelia for sending this gem to me. Because of their abstinence-only sex education program Teens in Florida believe that drinking bleach will prevent you from getting HIV and that drinking the magical viscous fluid "Mountain Dew" or smoking pot will prevent you from getting pregnant. You can read the article here.

Which brings me to my next point that people in Florida should abstain from having sex simply because they are dumb. Not only do they live in a severe hurricane zone that is full of crocodiles and can't seem to vote without cheating, but they put dumb legal shit on their websites.

Like this: "Copyright 2008 by Internet Broadcasting Systems and Local6.com. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed."

If they do not give permission for the article to be "published", "broadcast" or "redistributed" then why do they have a links to email and post the article to newsvine, delicious, digg, facebook and reddit. Not to mention the fact that the story comes from the Associated Press and was posted before April 2nd. You can read a better version here.

Anyway I'm going exercise my right to fair use. Suckas!

The Adventures of Mr. Sock

So my little nephew Brendon, being the creative one that he is, was bored one day and came up with this. I'm trying to talk him into doing a series of them. I thought this one was quite neat. So I give you Mr. Sock.

Pssst! Its a Secret

post secret

Year Zero part Duex

If you haven't read my post "Year Zero" please do so now. For those that have you might find it interesting to know that the folks at CERN have been slapped with a lawsuit. Apparently some people in Hawaii believe that if the Hadron collider due to start operations in July is turned on it can create a black hole or other strange particles. In theory one or both of these things can start to devour all matter and pretty much eat the earth. Also in theory there is Hawking radiation that sort of keeps these things in check. Either way it brings to light my original assumption that scientists love to play with things that they don't understand. Thats the whole basis of science, to find things out. But that definitely does not mean that just because we can that we should. You can read more about the lawsuit here.

New Miracle Weightloss Diet!

So now that Easter is finally over and everyone has gained about 10lbs from eating too many Cadbury Creme Eggs. Its time for you to lose some weight! Now there are several ways to do this. You could simply not eat. Probably not an option for most people unless you are from a third world country or are an experienced yogi. You could run 10 miles a day. If you can run 10 miles a day you probably aren't fat. Or you could simply wear your sunglasses... Well they have to be blue tinted of course. Studies show that blue food is unappetizing. So in theory if you wear a pair of blue sunglasses whilst eating it will trick your brain into not wanting to eat it. Of course this wouldn't work in anything yellow like Twinkies. Although a green Twinkie sounds pretty nasty... Of course you will need to order your glasses from Japan because they are the only ones weird enough to sell them..

Bigfoot, Gay Aliens, Zombies, and More!

So some of you old fogy's like me will remember Kids in the Hall. For the rest of you go check out the kids over at Dutch West. I spent the better part of my morning laughing my ass off! They do a lot of film parodies and make fun of how stupid commercials are. Enjoy!
Zarnia from Dutch West on Vimeo.

Death Cab for Cadbury

The folks over at Pimp That Snack! have a wonderful how-to for making the worlds biggest Cadbury Creme Egg. Now thats a delicious death! Cheers to Amelia for the link.

Must Have Product!

Has something changed in your life? Do things just not look right? Want things back just the way they were? Then Neuticles is for you! "With Neuticles. Its like nothing ever changed."

Country for Sale by Original Owner

Ok kids, its time for a new economic structure. One that is not solely based around greed and corruption. I'm a bit sick and tired of all these economists and financial executives pretending that they didn't know what they were doing. How they Alan Greenspan thought sub-prime mortgages were somehow a fantabulous idea. Here is the bottom line. I'm not a wal-street financial wizard or a some economist from Harvard or the CEO of some mega-corp or on the board of directors of some world bank but I could have told you that if you loan a fuck load of money to a person that can hardly afford to pay for their cell phone bill every month you are eventually going to have a problem.

Back when I purchased my house I spent a lot of time trying figuring out how much money I could spend. I looked at a few websites. Did a few calculations and with an interest rate of 4.5% came up with a comfortable number for my income at the time. That amount was $900 a month. At the time it was a reasonable amount, I purchased a lovely 100 year old Victorian house on just under half an acre for $140,000 no money down. Now the ONLY reason I was able to purchase this house was because the interest rate was 4.5%. I with my simple little mortgage calculator knew that if the rate was at 7% it would jack up the monthly payment to $1135 a month. Thats an extra $235 a month. A car payment. It was really simple to see that I wouldn't be able to purchase a house at that price. It was simple COMMON SENSE. So of course I still had another option though. It was called an ARM loan. Its basically is a loan were I start out at a low interest or interest only payment or an allotted monthly payment rate then after 3 or 5 years depending on the type of loan my interest rate will become variable. Oh a knight in shining armor! So the idea is that you can purchase a $250000 house for "the same price as renting an apartment". I'm sure that you have heard that little catch phrase a million times over the last 7 years or so. Remember that little saying that your mother always told you, "If its too good to be true then it probably is...". Well for all you loan officers that got rich a few years ago and are playing dumb out there this is one of those too good to be true moments. Lets do the basic math. You have your introductory monthly payment and since my current rent is $700 a month we will go with that. $700 a month is do-able for most people. Even for some that are making a low wage. Well hell a $250000 house for $700 a month thats great! My dream of purchasing a home will finally come true. Well lets see though... That price is only good for 5 years what happens then? Well a $250000 loan at a variable rate that went up to 7% during that 5 years makes my monthly payment somewhere around $2027 a month. Of course with all my 50 cent raises I'll be making more money by then. Housing bubble? No, there will never be a housing bubble. So since I am not a complete idiot, like 1/5 of all of you dip-shits that blindly trusted your loan officer and didn't take the 30 minutes to figure out how much you can afford, I purchased my humble house with no money down and a fixed 4.5% rate. 5 years later I sold it for $200000 and made about $50000.

So back to our economy. We have a very unique system here in the US. Our economy is built around consumer spending (thanks Franklin D!). Basically its an engine. The more people spend the more it grows. Sounds great! And it worked for a while. Got us out of the great depression. But then this interesting thing started to happen. Instead of families being able to afford a nice house and a nice car on one income and having a nice retirement to look forward to, both husband and wife had to work. Benefits got stripped away. People were spending so much of their income just to LIVE that they needed to borrow money. And of course the cocaine of business is to make money off of money. There really isn't a more corrupt system than that except for may be insurance which is probably the meth of business. So people get into debt, greedy rich people get richer and everyone else gets poorer. But there is an underlying infection in this system its called the stock market. You see big businesses these days are tied into the stock market. They are required to keep their stock holders happy. Otherwise people won't invest and/or they may potentially sue you. So corporations are under a lot of pressure to increase profits so shares go up and stock holders and investor make more money. The idea being you invest your money to help this business grow then after a while you cash in your stock and you get paid for investing. It sounds great in theory (just like communism does) but in reality its not sustainable. Why you ask? Because there are basically 2 ways you can increase profits in a business. One is the long way. Which is making a good QUALITY brand of products that people will want to purchase and continue to purchase. Its making a long term investment and making decisions that take time but are ultimately rewarding. Like planting an apple tree and nurturing and pruning and treating all parts of the tree with respect so that you will have bushels of fruit for years to come. Just like how little baby Jesus taught people how to fish. Well in this day and age that takes too long. People don't have the patience or the attention span to put that much time and energy into something. So that leads us to the other way, the quick way. You start with a good product and market the hell out of it so tons of people buy it. Then you decrease expenses so that you increase profits. So you buy your apples from the store and hope that you have enough money to keep buying apples. So thats what most businesses do these days. Lets say you get drunk one day and decide to start a company that makes and sells oh lets say something that lots of poor suckers will pay too much for. Say, bottled water aptly named Purest Tap Water on Earth. Its great you are off to a good start, you have a strong brand and people are hooked. Thats great for a few fiscal quarters. Now what? Well since you are a hard hitting top CEO that graduated from Harvard you know what to do. Its easy you trim some fat and hold back supplies to increase the price. Great you are making more profits than your share holders can shake a stick at. For a few more quarters at least. So use that brain of yours whats next. Lean up the employee benefits a bit and may be source a cheaper product. Thats great! You are brilliant. The board of directors loves you. So whats next? Well we could just move our production over to China, layoff most of our employees, but first cut back on benefits some more so some of those people quit and we won't have to cover their severance. Well that worked ok but our stock is level and is actually going down a bit. Oh what now it tanked almost overnight you will have to sell this business off. Well its a good thing you won't be held accountable. Well just move on to the next company..... So what happened? Well its quite simple. The quality of your product goes to shit people stop buying your product, it too expense since consumers don't have any money because all of your college frat buddies running businesses down the road whom they work for took away their benefits and jobs just like you did. See corporations seem to forget that there is a system to the business. Employees are not just an expense. They are the engine that make the business run. They don't just make your product a reality they also control the quality of the product and also consumers of those products. A business is just like spokes on a wheel. Yes you can make the tire cheaper by removing the spokes of the wheel but take away too many your tire is flimsy and will eventually fall apart. Even a child without an MBA from Stanford running a lemonade stand understands that. So this is what our economy has become because of the greed of the stock market and greed of the rich. A flimsy tire. The quality of the US is literally going down and getting more expensive. We have outsourced our jobs and cutback on benefits. We have put people into so much credit debit that the businesses loaning the people loaning money are selling off their businesses. Unemployment is starting to go up. The gap between the rich and the poor is widening. People are treating the US dollar like it has herpes for the first time. Its time for a new system folks. Read and understand the next sentence very carefully... It is "too good to be true" to have a sustainable economic system based solely on increasing profits. It is simply not possible, just like communism failed so will consumerism. Its because people are greedy. And because of the greed of the nation soon we will have to sell off America. Any buyers? Better brush up on your Mandarin.

Barack Obama

For those of you that have yet to experience Barack Obama please watch. I truly believe that this guy is the real deal and could potentially be one of the best greatest presidents this nation has had since JFK.

A History of Evil

Here is a cool little animation about the history of evil by Ole-Magnus Saxegard called "A History of Evil".

Silent Speech

So the folks over at a company called Ambient Corporation have developed a product called Audeo. Its a device that you wear on your neck that can pick up nerve signals from your vocal cords. So with a little training and practice you can talk on the phone without actually speaking. Why didn't I think of that! Here I am using up energy breathing like a sucker. Check out the video.

Freedom of Speech

Take a gander at this website Wikileaks.org. Its a site that refers to itself as "an uncensorable system for untraceable mass document leaking and public analysis". They facilitate anonymous, encrypted uploading of documents that the general public was never meant to see. Such as the offshore banking practices of swiss banks and all sorts of goodies about the inner workings of Scientology. And subsequently they have been shut down and censored illegally by all sorts of evil corporations and our untrustworthy government on several occasions. So take a peek before corporate America finishes wiping their asses with the Constitution and flushes..

Utah's Brilliant Legislature

So if you haven't heard already. Our wonderful law makers have made it so that wine coolers and Mike's Hard Lemonade are sold only in liquor stores. They did this under the guise that these drinks are a gateway for teens to drink alcohol. This comes as no surprise as a majority of our leaders are Mormon. However what they didn't tell you is that by doing this it changes the scheduling of the alcohol so it is now taxed as hard liquor. So what we really got was a tax increase in sheeps clothing. Good job Utah. While we are at it we might as well make beer sold only in the liquor store as well. That way we can ensure that teens are not stealing that as well. May be then they can use the tax increase from that so they can do something useful like buying back main street from the Mormons. Utah, Life Elevated!

Site Outage

Well it looks like my blog is down, probably for maintenance. If you can read this post then its back up!

Witches of Eastwick

So here is an interesting article about a woman that was convicted in 1944 (not 1844) for witchcraft in Scotland. During the war she held a seance in which it was revealed that a warship had sunk. The government was holding back this information as a matter of national security. Since she didn't break any laws, the government used an old law to get her put away. So she was tried and convicted of witchcraft. Now the case is being presented to Queen Elizabeth to hopefully review and pardon. Read the article by Scott Horton of Harpers magazine here.

Toilet Smurf

So what is luckier than being born into a rich family? May be being born in a toilet. Yeah thats close.. How about being prematurely born in a toilet on a moving train falling through onto the tracks and still surviving? Now thats luck!! Well that is what happened to a baby girl in India. Read the full article here.

Human Simulation

So do you remember that movie "The Matrix"? Where everyone is hooked up to a life support system and is living in a virtual reality. Yeah, so you think that is actually science fiction? It may be more real than you know. Now before you think I am some conspiracy theorist understand that what I am about to tell you comes from the minds of many prominent scientists. Like Nick Bostrom of Oxford University. Not some vague website (like this one). he he he... So here it is. There is a greater mathematical probability that you are computer simulation than that of you existing as a human being. So here is how it works. Computer technology basically doubles about every 2 years or so. If things continue at that rate and assuming people advance beyond a stage one civilization (ability to harness star energy or fusion etc.), then virtual realities could be so advanced that the characters in them (thats you sucka) wouldn't even know that they are not real. You could be a simulation of someone that actually existed in the past. Or you could just be a bot that someone lovingly programmed. Yes my friends this universe is much stranger than you can even possibly imagine...

Year Zero

So this year when some crazy naked person comes to your door and tells you that they are a cyborg and that they have traveled through time to protect you. You might want to think about letting them in. Yes, the year of our lord 2008 could very well be one of the coolest years in history. It could be considered to be "year zero". I'm not talking about the NINs album, that was last year. I am talking about time travel geek jargon. Year zero is referring to the first year that it might be "possible" to see strange cyborgs from the future. The reason being because, as some theorize, in order to travel back in time you would need some sort of wormhole. A door if you will, to be able to travel through. Well it just so happens that the largest particle accelerator ever built is going to be turned on this year. Like all things in science that we don't really understand that well we of course have to create and tinker with. The same tinkering that caused people in Utah to get a nice dusting of radioactive fallout back in the 50's. When the Hadron Collider at CERN gets turned on some scientists believe that it might possibly create wormholes or black holes. Now granted full blown naked cyborgs probably won't start appearing in dark alleys but may be particles from future experiments could show up. May be even messages could be communicated in some strange particle morse code. None the less weird shit will ensue. The real one to watch for will be the ITER fusion reactor that will be turned on in 2014. When it goes live it will be creating gases in an excess of 1 million degrees. Be sure to get your sun screen out and a good pair of shades, you are gonna need them....

Stop lights? We must be in Mexico...

So lately I have been noticing that it has pretty much become the norm for people to run red lights. I'm not talking about hitting a yellow light and it turning red whilst being in the middle of the intersection. I'm talking full out blowing through painfully obvious red lights and just pretending like nothing happened. Just like in Mexico were the lights might as well not even exist because they don't work.

The question is, where the hell are all the cops when you need them to actually do something? Apparently not giving out tickets for traffic violations, nor giving tickets to the plethora of j walkers jutting out into traffic, nor giving the all the juvenile dumb ass taggers bathing every open wall with a lovely coat of krylon. Probably out beating up grandmas for not watering their lawns... Well I guess what will happen eventually is that some douche in his BMW will mosey on through a red light and run over a j walker with a backpack full of florescent paint which will spray into the wind dusting a Trax train with a light mist which will upset the UTA. In turn they will raise Trax fare another 50 cents to cover the cost of repainting the train. Outraged by the death of a pedestrian the state legislature will spend thousands of dollars and a year debating over a bill to institute a whole new light to the rather dizzying array donning the intersections, and absolutely nothing will change except for the amount of money being sucked out of our pockets by greedy politicians that want to siphon as much as possible away from Salt Lake City so that the Mormons can kill the scant city nightlife that is left on main street taking back control of downtown...

So the moral of the story is quit running red lights you assholes before someone loses a grandma...

Synesthesia

syn-es-the-sia n. Physiol. Sensation produced at a point other than
or remote from the point of stimulation, as of a color from hearing a
certain sound (fr. Gk, syn = together aisthesis = to perceive).

Today kids we are going to talk about one of the coolest phenomena in human existence "synesthesia". Why is this one of the coolest phenomena in human existence? Because this is my blog and I say it is. So what is it? Synesthesia is an involuntary joining in which the real information of one sense is accompanied by a perception in another sense. So for example you may hear a sound and actually perceive it as a taste. This additional perception is regarded by the synesthete as real, often outside the body, instead of imagined in the mind's eye. Its reality and vividness are what make synesthesia so interesting, as its a violation of conventional perception.

For me this is really interesting do to my love of the quantum mechanical aspects of the human mind and its effect on perception. One could argue that synethesia is a form of quantum non-locality (get ready for the mind melting definition), which is the enforcement of correlations between separated parts of an entangled quantum systems across space-like separations. In other words you have multiple realities in which something exists simultaneously (well sort of). I theorize that with perception your brain functions like a quantum system in which you exist in an unlimited amount of realities or dimensions. Thus giving you the ability to remember things. You are simply making a connection to a different reality to retrieve information.

Your brain can function as a quantum system because of the size of many of the synapses of your neurons (in order for something to fall under the effects of quantum physics it has to be under about 10 microns in size). At some point when the conditions are just right quantum physics take effect rather than classical physics. "Strange" things can happen. Strange things like "quantum entanglement". This is where one object works in lockstep with another object. Think of this as sort of like having two twins that all of a sudden are being controlled by one brain. So a thought might become entangled with another thought in a different reality. So a piece of another reality sort of bleeds over causing an unusual effect. An example would be deja vu, you experience something that has happened already in another reality. The memory spills over, and usually is remembered as being slightly different but familar.

So with respect to synesthesia. There is a condition that exists in the brain in which an entanglement of more than one reality in which the normal perception of a sense is completely different such as tasting sound or seeing noise. This might not make much sense but you have to remember that with quantum systems you have have an unlimited number of possible outcomes. So somewhere in the universe you are actually a three assed, purple furred, cyclops, cat-human that tastes food by looking at it. This my beloved children is absolutely one of the coolest phenomena in the world. And by the way, your face looks like the taste of feet....

Welcome to Brain Cough!

Welcome to my blog, this will be a place for my brain dump. I have many great things to show you and hope to spark a few thoughts in the dark recesses of your mind. So tucker down and enjoy the ride!