Helloween 3: Gypsies, Tramps, and Botched Abortions

Helloween 3: Gypsies, Tramps, and Botched Abortions
A few horrible Halloween costumes, and this:

gizmag Article: ZORK NOT CORK – it was only a matter of time

gizmag Article: ZORK NOT CORK – it was only a matter of time

New resealable wine cork replacement. More upscale than scew tops, less spoilage than cork.

Cocktail of the Week: Halloween Edition

Cocktail Times | Halloween Cocktail

- 2 oz Whiskey
- 3 oz Orange Juice
- 1/2 oz Triple Sec
- 1/2 Lemon Juice
- Garnish: Olive
Stir in collins glass with ice. Don't forget to carve your olives.

Several Halloween Drinks from drinkoftheweek.com, including:
- Jack O' Tini (vodka martin with splash of pumpkin liqueur)
- Brain Hemmorage (shot using Bailey's, peach schnappes, and grenadine to give it that bloody brain look)
- Vampire's Kiss (high octane bloody mary variation)

A Party Punch from Emeril via Food Network:
Spellbinders with Devil Eyeballs
- 1/4 cup blue curacao
- 3/4 cup galliano liqueur
- 1 1/2 cups coconut rum
- 2 quarts pineapple juice
- 2 quarts seltzer water

Spooky Ice Cubes:
- Food coloring
- Water

Special Equipment: Novelty ice cube trays

Devil Eyeballs:
- 20 maraschino cherries
- 20 chocolate chips (white or dark chocoale)
- 20 lychee nut fruits (canned and pitted)

For the Punch:
Combine all ingredients in a large glass punch bowl and mix well.

For the Ice Cubes:
Color water with desired food colorings and pour into ice cube trays. Freeze until firm.

For the Devil Eyeballs:
Remove the stems from the cherries. Insert a chocolate chip, point side in, into each cherry to make "pupil" of the eye. Stuff cherry into pitted lychee nut fruit.

Wish there was a picture of the Devil Eyeballs.

Cheers!

el baile de yoda - Google Video

el baile de yoda - Google Video
Yoda Poppin and Lockin yo!

Fan wins $1 million by making 50-yard FG

ESPN.com - MORESPORTS - Still kickin': Fan wins $1 million by making 50-yard FG
The best part is that he started with kicks of 20, 30, and 40 yards for lesser prizes and missed them all. Can you imagine being in the stands watching and rooting for the guy, then saying screw it, I'm heading to the concession stand before he kicks the money winner?

Wired 13.11: The Mystery of the Green Menace

Wired 13.11: The Mystery of the Green Menace

The full story of the New Orleans based chemist/connoisseur who has successfully recreated Absinthe and demonstrated that it won't make you crazy. Now, to figure out where to get some.

BR: Spooky Weekend Art Events

Friday night at Oculus: Hunter Roth "The Loss of Innocence"

Reception 7-10pm, Show runs through November 16
Hunter's works include: steel sculptures, paintings, wood-cut prints, papier-mache and more, but his theme is the same: political mockery of American history. The show also features collaborations with: Charles Barbier, Clark Derbes, Ryan O'Malley, Jeremy Grannan, and Craig Roth. The reception will include music by Brown Leaf Vertigo, a country Misfits cover band.

Saturday Night at the Alfred C. Glassell Jr. Exhibition Gallery (Shaw Center) : Edie Tsong "Making Contact"
Closing Reception Saturday, October 29, 6-8pm

Saturday Night at the Baton Rouge Gallery: Movies and Music on the Lawn (Last show of the season)
Featured this Halloween weekend will be Pathe films The Red Sceptre. It may not be a horror movie by today's standards, but it was pretty scary for 1903. Full of camera tricks copied from George Melies’, a terrible demon in a cave shows off his magic in full color. Also showing will be The Fall of the House of Usher (1930), Pathe'’s The Pearl Fisherman(1904) and the science fiction serial The Power God (1925). This is your last chance this year to experience this truly unique event which combines silent vintage films with talented local musicians.

This program will be free for residents of New Orleans (with a picture ID.) Admission is $5 and free for Gallery Members. Concessions will be sold and popcorn is free. Please bring picnic blankets and/or parade chairs. The back lawn will be sprayed for mosquitoes, but bug spray is still recommended. Films will be held indoors in case of rain.

Failure

1. go to google
2. type in failure
3. Click "I'm Feeling Lucky"
4. Chuckle

Probably been around a while, but I just found out about it.

Thanks Janet and Amelia.

If Fox News Had Been Around Throughout History

If Fox News Had Been Around Throughout History


Many More

Via essays & effluvia

IsraCast: THE CAR THAT MAKES ITS OWN FUEL

IsraCast: THE CAR THAT MAKES ITS OWN FUEL

And if it looks like that, even better! An Israeli company has designed an engine that creates it's own source of hydrogen by heating water around metal coils that will bond with the oxygen. The metal oxide waste can be recycled for further use by the metal industry.

Cocktail of the Week: Amore Dolce Follow-up

Just had to follow-up on the Amore Dolce cocktail from Friday. It is by far the best cocktail of the week that I had not tasted before I decided to post it. I did adjust the recipe somewhat to cut the bitterness of the Campari. I went with a 2part raspbery vodka to 1 part Campari mix, with a splash of soda to top it off. It is a crisp cool drink, that will remain in my repetoir. I might also try it with tonic instead of soda if in the mood for something a little sweeter.

Do They Know It's Halloween? Video!

Do They Know It's Halloween? Video!
Now the video is available in Quicktime format. Follow-up from this post.

Again Via Waxy

Miss Cocktail's Bubbling Brew - cocktail.com

Miss Cocktail's Bubbling Brew - cocktail.com
Also stumbled onto this advice for making a bubbling punch for Halloween parties. According to Miss Cocktail, it's safe to put dry ice into punch, but not into glasses that people will drink from. If you get food grade dry ice, it's the same carbon dioxide as in soda fountains, so it's not doing any harm. As the dry ice bubbles and breaks down, some of the dry ice may become covered in regular ice and float. You don't want that to end up in a glass and into someone's mouth. Some dry ice will sink to the bottom and you don't want that either. Best not leave the punch bowl unattended. Maybe you could put the dry ice in the bowl first, cover it with a collander or strainer, then pour the punch over top?

Forget it, don't do it.

Cocktail of the Week: Amore Dolce

Amore Dolce Cocktail Recipe | In The Spirit

When I lived in Cincinnati, I used to make regular trips to the party store to keep the bar well stocked. The party store (the actual name was party source I think) was like the wal-mart of liquor stores, with everything you could possibly imagine in terms of exotic cocktail ingredients, wines, beers, party foods, decorations, etc. I used to make it a point of buying something new and different each trip (or at least on most trips as the budget allowed). So, I've had the same bottle of Campari for a few years now. Whatever drink I used it in the first time was awful and I haven't been tempted by it since. This cocktail looks like a potential winner and I have all the ingredients on hand.

• 1 shot campari
  
• 1 shot Raspberry Vodka
  
• 3 spoons Caster Sugar
  
• 1 lime
  
• crushed ice

Place several thin slices of lime in an old fashioned glass. Add the sugar (I don't really have Caster Sugar, but I'll be trying splenda anyway). I'll probably muddle this a little, but not too much. Then add the Raspberry Vodka and Campari. Stir, then top with crushed ice.

In looking for a cocktail for this week, I stumbled upon a personality quiz that said I'm an orgasm:

""Which cocktail are you?""
brought to you by Quizilla

Amusing, but I doubt I'd like the cocktail much. The recipe is combine equal parts of Irish cream liqueur, white creme de cacao, triple sec and vodka.

So I searched for more quizes and found that I am indeed Whiskey:

You Are Whiskey

You're a tough drinker, and you take it like a man That means no girly drinks for you - even if you are a girl You prefer a cold, hard drink at the end of the day Every day, in fact. And make that a few.

What alcoholic drink are you?

How's that for a waste of time on a Friday before quitting time?

Cheers!

information aesthetics

information aesthetics
A new to me blog covering creative information visualization with so many interesting entries. Here are a few recent highlights:

Common Census Map

Visualize the spere of influence of cities across the country. Contribute your personal opinions of your region to better define the map.

swarmfest collaborative sketch

Draw 100 pixels worth of line in a sketch whose topic has been chosen via search engine, then vote on the opacity of the lines of others. You can watch animations of the whole process and see how the collaborations emerge.

pixelfest group art

Similar to the sketch above, but instead add one pixel to a grid per day. No voting, but the will of the group wins out over time.

Found information aesthetics via Future Feeder

Monolithic Dome Institute

Monolithic Dome Institute

Monolithic dome structures in the hurricane ravaged parts of the US fared much better than their more traditional bretheren. They're also cheap, easy to build, energy efficient, and beautiful.

Via Inhabitat

New Comment Spam Feature

FYI, I know at least one reader other than myself has been disappointed by the recent infiltration of comment spam. I've just added a verification feature so if you want to leave a comment, it will now ask you to verify a word from an image (in hopes that only a person can do that and not a bot). We'll see if it helps. I do appreciate comments.

I've also added a trackback/backlinks thing as well. If anyone has their own blog, please try it out just so I can see it work.

ExtremePumpkins.com - Extreme Pumpkin Carving

ExtremePumpkins.com - Extreme Pumpkin Carving

Here's the site that first opened my eyes to the rather simple suggestion that we should use a jig saw to carve our pumpkins. I have never more thoroughly enjoyed pumpkin carving. We carved 3 or 4 pumpkins in about 30 minutes and they were the best looking that we'd ever carved.

The site includes loads of other extreme pumpkin ideas, like this Carrie inspired pumpkin with flowing blood, and that you can preserve your pumpkin with WD-40 (or better a generic knock off brand from the dollar store). And, be sure to check out the World's Fastest Pumpkin Carver in the Other New Stuff Section. Here, the extreme carver has built a one swipe pumpkin cutter (think cookie cutter on an axe handle) and successfully carves a pumpkin instantly (with QuickTime video).

Ballooning into the Sky

Ballooning into the Sky

Taking flight using clusters of helium filled weather balloons, with how to instructions and lots of pictures.

Welcome to MusicBrainz!

Welcome to MusicBrainz!
Do you have mp3 or other music files on your hard drive/portable player that you can't figure out what they are/who performed them/what album they came from originally? I do. MusicBrainz can help. Download the app (windows or mac) and let it go to town on your music files. It will compare your file to files in it's database and add/fix info in the tag fields. I haven't used it yet, but plan to once I'm home.

Cool Hunting: Alcoholica Esoterica

Alcoholica Esoterica

It's a coolhunting find, but it suits me so well I had to pass it along. Random facts about Booze history for around $14.

Art Dorks News

Art Dorks News
Blog pointing to lots of great art. I really liked most of what they put up. Just a nice image and link, enough to get you to explore?

Cocktail of the Week - Floridita

the cocktail chronicles: Easy Does It

Too bad I didn't stumble on to this fine sounding drink before last weekends trip to Florida.

• 1 1/2 ounces white rum
  
• 1/2 ounce lime juice
  
• 1/2 ounce sweet vermouth
  
• 1 dash grenadine
  
• 1 dash white creme de cacao

The Cocktail Chronicles blog has many interesting recipes with stories/descriptions.

Cheers!

BR: CULTURECANDY.ORG

CULTURECANDY.ORG

CultureCandy.org serves as an umbrella organization for several large scale projects each of which contribute to the development of the Art, Music, Dance, Literary and Collector Communities. Our current projects include the Baton Rouge Art Car Parade, Art Tasting, Permanent Wave and the Baton Rouge Artist Network.

New group we're getting involved with. The site features a little more info on the mission and projects. There's also a calendar where you can submit your item, and a hopefully growing list of local artists of all sorts (really all sorts, I included myself). Join Us!

BR: Art and Hip Hop Tonight

Ann Connelly Fine Art
10/14/2005
through November 12

Ann Connelly Fine Art present

Still Life
Opening tonight from 6 - 9

whereby 100% of the proceeds will benefit
“The Hurricaine Katrina New Orleans Recovery Fund“
through The Baton Rouge Area Foundation.

Select works by:

Robert Bean, Lisa diStefano, Clark Derbes, Amy Dixon, Jill Hackney, Robert Hausey, Libby Johnson, Kelli Scott Kelley, Bernard Kilchmann, Janet Link, Dede Lusk, Jamie Meeks, Joseph Poche, Karoline Schleh, Saliha Staib, James Vella and Donna West

Red Star

Paintings and Photographs by Rick Dobbs

LSU Union
Some kind of event by the LSU Hip Hop Coallition at 10pm. This comes via a comment on the BR Gallery website, so there's not much info, but it might be worth a look/listen.

Esquire Magazine: My Outsourced Life

Esquire Magazine: My Outsourced Life
Funny article about a freelance writer/editor who hired personal assistants in india to help with his professional and personal life. They were so good, they even stopped him from putting his foot in his mouth with his wife. Starts with an email from the author to his assistant Asha:

Hello Asha,
My wife got annoyed at me because I forgot to get cash at the automatic bank machine. . . . I wonder if you could tell her that I love her, but gently remind her that she too forgets things — she has lost her wallet twice in the last month. And she forgot to buy nail clippers for Jasper.
AJ

I can't tell you what a thrill I got from sending that note. It's pretty hard to get much more passive-aggressive than bickering with your wife via an email from a subcontinent halfway around the world.

The next morning, Asha CC'd me on the email she sent to Julie.

Julie,
Do understand your anger that I forgot to pick up the cash at the automatic machine. I have been forgetful and I am sorry about that.
But I guess that doesn't change the fact that I love you so much. . . .
Love
AJ
P. S. This is Asha mailing on behalf of Mr. Jacobs.

As if that weren't enough, she also sent Julie an e-card. I click on it: two teddy bears embracing, with the words "Anytime you need a hug, I've got one for you. . . . I'm sorry."

Damn! My outsourcers are too friggin' nice! They kept the apology part but took out my little jabs. They are trying to save me from myself. They are superegoing my id. I feel castrated.

Julie, on the other hand, seems quite pleased: "That's nice, sweetie. I forgive you."

Via Waxy

Top 100 Artworks of the 20th Century

Top 100 Artworks of the 20th Century
Survey of art history books to decide the top works based on references. Possibly flawed methodology (are some works easier to obtain copyright? did the author use enough/the right books?), but not completely subjective. Maybe useful for my art appreciation teaching readers. Several dead links, but you can easily google the titles.

Marcel Duchamp
Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2
Clocks in at #4

Chessboxing

Chessboxing

I think this is for real. Boxing rounds and chess rounds alternate to find the ultimate chessboxer. I can't locate any scoring details, but the Wu Tang Clan is down with it and they just held their European Championship on Oct. 1.

Via Deadspin

Got Swank? I Do! Mister Swank dot com

Got Swank? I Do! Mister Swank dot com

Learn to Do the Hustle by listening to a record? I don't think so, but it makes for a pretty amusing listen. I've been downloading a bunch of out of print albums in mp3 form lately, mostly exotica. Most of the sources are via PCL Linkdump in a roundabout way. Here are some other sources:

Pinicchio´s Easy-Listening- & Instrumental-Corner

MMM Esquivel

Oddio Overplay
with lots of sources in the Sharity part of the site.
Also has a 2disc set of halloween songs to download.

Finally, Basic Hip

Posting one album a week. I'm digging Apricot Brandy and Albatross by John Bunyan's Progressive Pilgrims, has some Vampyros Lesbos feel to it, though not as raunchy.

Pirates and Emperors

Pirates and Emperors
Schoolhouse Rocks style cartoon/song pointing out the imperial leanings of the good ole U.S. of A.

Overheard in New York: The Voice of The City

Overheard in New York: The Voice of The City
Humorous, random snips of eavesdropped conversations

Bookchick #1: I had to go and see a circumcision yesterday. Any mother who does that to their son is evil and should burn in Hell.
Bookchick #2: Yeah, but it's much more hygienic.
Bookchick #1: So? Your labia gets dirty too.

Little girl: Mommy, that guy has a puppy in his car!
Mommy: How many times do I have to tell you that is the first temptation to kidnap you, stupid!

Thanks Sean

TGI Fridays Menu Prank

TGI Fridays Menu Prank

switched for

The story and the small print at the site.

Atkinz Soda, described as "Iced Sparkling Beef Bouillon with Sesame Seed Oil and Tabasco� Sauce. Contains no animal blood*.

TOUCHING PEOPLE - Our Top 10 Outsider Videos

TOUCHING PEOPLE - Our Top 10 Outsider Videos

short, weird videos, not made by high college kids, at least as far as I know.

Crash Testing: MINI Cooper vs Ford F150

Crash Testing: MINI Cooper vs Ford F150

Same test, 40mph into brick wall. I'll take the cooper please.

Friday Cocktail - Anna's Cherry Breeze

Heading to the beach for a long weekend, so no more posts today. Last night Anna stopped by to pick up the keys so she can take care of Zandra and I made this cocktail up for her. She liked it, so we had to name it. The breeze on the patio last night was heavenly and she felt the hint of cherry brandy made the drink, so here it is, Anna's Cherry Breeze:

• 1part vodka
  
• 1part cranberry
  
• 1part soda
  
• splash to 1/2part cherry brandy
  

Mix in highball glass with ice.

Cheers!

Groups Say Mardi Gras Will Go On - Yahoo! News

Groups Say Mardi Gras Will Go On - Yahoo! News
Damn Right!

Survivor Toyland

Survivor Toyland

Pretty funny time waster.

Via PCL LinkDump

memory game using flickr images

:: PIM PAM PUM :: memry
Enter a tag for flickr images and a quick flash memory card game is generated.

Now for some Bad Costume Pictures

Courtesy of retroCRUSH, The Worst Halloween Costumes of All Time

Look it's Bob Loblaw


Nice Mask


Thank goodness they put her name and slightly more realistic picture on the costume.

Many more at the site.

Pinhead Costume Picture in The Tigerweekly

Haunted Houses to hit this month

Janet's Pinhead costume for the 13th gate haunted house was featured on the cover of the Tigerweekly campus magazine. The article covers all the coming Baton Rogue Halloween fun. Janet made the costume only, not the make-up and somewhat cheesy chest wounds. They probably look better in the dark when you're scared anyway. You can see two more pictures in the costume section of her website www.luruart.com.

The Sands Mechanical Museum

The Sands Mechanical Museum

A museum of "mechanical wonders" thoroughly researched and documented. I particularly like the section on coin-op and pinball machines. The pictures above and below are of the Confucius Say rotor pinball game. When it's the other players turn, the game rotates under the glass, so you don't have to get up, or spin your drink over to your partner. This would go so well in my bar.

New Scientist News - Television shows scramble forensic evidence

New Scientist News - Television shows scramble forensic evidence
Real forensic scientists can't quite deliver the simple and clear message to jurors that the CSI type shows have led them to expect. All science is based on observation and probability, two inherently difficult ideas to explain. Possibly similar to why people voted for our idiot president over the eggheady challenger, forensic scientists believe that jurors aren't geting their message because their message isn't as succinct as on the tv. I find it a little amusing that this article is just speculation/straw poll, and not a report from a study itself.

New Orleans seafood safe to eat again - experts - Yahoo! News

New Orleans seafood safe to eat again - experts - Yahoo! News

Not oysters, but everything else, as long as it's properly cooked. Tests showed bacteria, but not dangerous levels of chemicals.

That's good since we went cajun dancing yesterday afternoon at Angel's in Whiskey River and ended up at Pat Huval's for seafood dinners.