Cocktail Jen: Diabolo
Been pretty busy at work lately, so I'll just point you to a different take on the Diabolo and also highly suggest Cocktail Jen's whole blog. She's working her way through her Mr. Boston's Guide one drink at a time and photographing her "work" along the way.
Cheers!
jimmy's cocktail hour: Mixology Monday IV: Aperitif Wrap-up
Wrap up of this Monday's Mixology Monday blog-a-thon, with the subject being apertifs I did not participate. Reading the descriptions and seeing the pictures makes me want to try some. I won't be trying the one developed at the Art of the Drink which features Unicum (the blogger of Art of the Drink won't be making it again either), but it does remind me of a story.
I didn't start drinking until I was 20, on a trip to Europe. I've always disliked beer, so I just didn't bother. While in Europe, we (LuRu and I) made a picinic one day in France and bought some wine, just because we thought we should. It was pretty good and certainly made us feel tres chic. Forward in the trip a few weeks and we find our selves in Budapest. We arrive early Sunday morning and we just wanted to spend the day on our way to either Prauge or Vienna (can't recall the exact order). We only stopped because it had been a long ride from Rome. We exchange $50 for the day (this was 1992) and wandered throughout the city. Well, Budapest was cheap, and lots of things were closed on Sunday, so we found ourselves with a ton (to us at the time) of money at the train station, where we could eat McDonald's food, get tattoos, or buy liquor. Even the McDonald's didn't put a dent in our funds. We bought 2 or 3 bottles of wine, a bottle of champagne, and a bottle of Unicum, because of the bottle. We pile into the midnight train and it's packed. After hunting through several cars, we luck into the last 2 seats in a 6 seat compartment. Our traveling companions happen to be a pair from England and a pair from Scotland, so some form of english all around! The 2 pair had the same issues with excess cash to burn and had spent similarly. The train was hot and uncomfortable, but the companionship was excellent and bottles were opened and passed freely. Eventually we squeezed in 2 Canadians who had great stories of sleeping in a train station in war torn Yugoslavia. As bottles were drained we finally had to try the Unicum. No one tried it more than once. I only recall it being nasty. The Art of the Drink describes it as making Yeagermeister look like a girls drink, so I figure that's about right. We left the bottle under the seat and forgot about it. I hope it didn't cause a bomb scare.
polanoid
Assembling the largest collection of Polaroid instant photographs. Lots of flickrish features with tagging and commenting. Here's a shot from 1980:
There is also a great gallery of the tools, highlighting photos of the different cameras with a little history. Here's the "Swinger" from 1965:
There's also an X-posed section where you have to register and be over 18, so I assume it includes some naughty bits. Registration is free.
the theatre
Originally uploaded by photobotic.
Not exactly sure what is going on here, must be from some sort of performance, just love the picture/costume
LILEKS (James) The Dorcus Line of Menswear
Bad fashions past
I forget which blog pointed this out first, sorry for the non reference.
Speedboat Race and Volleyball Videos from Hollywood Beach.
Some short digital camera videos from last weekend.
Amazon.com: Classic Cocktails: Books: Salvatore Calabrese
I just bought this new book of Classic Cocktails by Salvatore Calabrese. It is gorgeous with a nice mix of cocktail history, trivia and recipes. It's also nicely illustrated with vintage ads and photos. This is where I found the Golden Dawn, winner of the International Cocktail Competition in London in 1930.
equal parts:
-gin
-apricot brandy
-Calvados
-orange juce
Shake with ice, strain into a cocktail glass and add a dash of grenadine to produce "the effect of a glorious sunrise."
Cheers!
ESPN.com - E-Ticket: By Hook Or By Rook
Last October I blogged a snippet about Chessboxing. I didn't have much to go on, but now ESPN has a big article with video. Inspired by a European comic book, chessboxing alternates 4 minute rounds of chess with 2 minute rounds of boxing. The winner is determined by checkmate, knockout, offical's decision, or taking too much time in the chess rounds.
"...the sport combines elements of the complete man, one who is prepared for any eventuality, not a pure brute, not a hopeless nerd."
Taipei Times - archives
Budweiser is the offical beer sponsor of the cup and when hundreds of Dutch fans showed up wearing orange lederhosen that were given away free with Bavaria beer purchases, they were forced to remove the offending garments, resulting in many watching the match in their underwear. Thank goodness they weren't kilts.
Photo found at Spiegel's world cup blog
Via Days that end in a Y
Warhol's silver wig sells for $10,800 - Yahoo! News
Who cares about that $130M Klimt
Kinetic Sculpture Race - Home Page
Racers and sculptures are judged on a set of criteria encompasing engineering, art, speed and their ability to "Ace" the course. Read the criteria, they are a hoot, but mostly check the photo galleries:
Pitchfork Feature: 100 Awesome Music Videos
All available via youtube. Pitchfork gives brief take on why it's in the list and embeds the video right where you can see it. Potential huge time waster.
Here's Air with Kelly Watch the Stars
Via Waxy
Local10.com - News - Heat Victory Parade Will Be Friday In Downtown Miami
I'll have to see how this compares to the LSU/Southern University dual college football national championships parade from a few years ago.
NPR : 'Greetings from New Orleans': Postcards as Art
Back in September, I posted something about this art project where LuRu and myself were photographed by a stranger who turned out to be my graduate advisor's son. He took the photo (and several others), turned it into a postcard, "lost" it around the city (prior to Katrina), and waited to see which if any of the cards arrived at their intended destination in Ohio. The stories on the back ranged from mundane to bizzare and dark. The series is currently on display at the New Orleans Contemporary Arts Center through July 9, then it will travel to Martha's Vinyard for the Vinyard Gumbo Festival July 17 through 22. The festival is a fund raiser for New Orleans non-profits.
The link above goes to an interview on National Public Radio where Lundgren describes the project and the results.
Here's our postcard:
Click here to read the back.
Via boingboing
FX Networks: It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia
I can't wait for next Thursday's premier of season 2. They just added all of season 1 to iTunes, with one free episode, so if you haven't checked it out, try that. You can also see clips of the new season at the site. I wondered what was up with this show. I found it late last fall and Tivo'd it with high priority. Then it was gone. Now I find out the people just made it up and there were only a few episodes. I saw all but one and got that one from iTunes so I'm geeked for next week's premier. It's very painfully funny, similar feeling to the Office, but the setting is much better.
Beware: Coppertone Sport Continuous Spray
A rare product reviw here at experiment33, be very careful if you try this spray on sunscreen. Having lived at the beach for 5 months now, we decided to try this sunscreen so we wouldn't have to rub sand into our skin every time we reapply. I burn fairly easily, but have been very careful since we moved. I've been out in the sun tons though. I've been burned twice and each time I was fooled by the spray on sunscreen. The problem seems to be that the stuff feels cool as you spray it on and I think I'm covered. I've got the wierdest burn line right now. If you try this, have someone else spray you, preferably someone who would feel awful if you got burned, maybe they'll do a better job. Even though I could go this route, I'm going back to the lotion.
Daily Show - Donkey Showdown
As brilliant as the Daily Show is, this had my jaw dropped from about 2 minute in, until the end
Dont' know if Comedy Central tries to pull this stuff off of youtube or not. You can find it on comedy central's website, but they make it really hard to blog. If the vid leaves, go and find it. I really can't find words.
I'm totally in favor of settling all disputes with spin the bottle from now on!
BBC NEWS | UK | England | Southern Counties | Empty plinth sidelines sculpture
New article with picture of the rejected sculpture and the accepted plinth and piece of wood:
The article also has a link to an audio interview with the artist who appears to be taking it all in stride.
Via boingboing
I forgot, but this same situation happened to LuRu's uncle. I may get some of the details wrong, but as I recall he got into making metal sculptures of dinosaurs. He decided to make a bird and enter it into the state fair. He spent a ton of time and when he was done he decided the bird needed a place to be, so he whipped out a tree very quickly. The tree was accepted, the bird rejected, and he quit sculpting after that.
Art gallery loses its head, displays plinth - Yahoo! News
The Royal Academy displays pedestal and wooden steak that were intended to hold up a sculpture of a head that was sent in a separate container.
"Given their separate submission, the two parts were judged independently," it said in a statement. "The head was rejected. The base was thought to have merit and accepted."The head has been safely stored ready to be collected by the artist," it added. "It is accepted that works may not be displayed in the way that the artist might have intended."
LAPTOPBATTLE.ORG
Last Saturday night we checked out the first Miami Laptop Musician's battle at Churchill's Pub. The battle is set up tourney style with competitors limited to about 3 minute sets head to head, one winner moves to the next round. The idea was great and the music had it's moments. I hoped for more visual interaction, but it was the first time and I sure as heck couldn't do what they were doing. Highlights included:
fake scratching a real record in time witht he laptop scratching, followed by breaking the record
neat wolf mask and indian dancer
they guy who rapped about liking vagina and set his laptop up then joined the crowd
Lowlights:
slam dancing, didn't this go out already? is it ironically back? laptops and slam dancing?
pee on the women's room floor/and elsewhere (via report from LuRu)
Check out the video from the Seattle Laptop battle to get a taste.
Dennis Catron :: Guitarist :: Designer
6 glorious pages of Hot LP cover art
and one more
Via Eye of the Goof
NikeID Sneakers - a photoset on Flickr
Last june I designed some sneakers at nikeid.com but I never ordered them. Since I lost my good sneakers in the move, I decided to go back and try again. Here's the design:
To design the shoes, nike has a nice flash application where you pick the style first, then colors for different parts. It all materializes right before your eyes. You can save designs and try different variations. This was about my third try. I ordered the shoes on May 23, and they arrived in a beautiful package on June 8.
And here they are:
The red and gold are both a little brighter than I expected, but overall, I'm very pleased. I also can't believe how fast they arrived. Two and a half weeks for custom sneakers!
Note, the E33 stitched in gold.
The Spirit World - Hibiscu-tini
My stumbling upon the mixology monday has opened up a ton of new cocktail blogs. This one is from the well fed network and looks great.
follow the link for the recipe. See the note at the bottom about getting dried hibiscus in the herb section at Whole Foods.
The Unstabalizer
Like a stock exchange for setting drink prices in a bar. Interactive, cocktail, geekery.
Via Saving the world, one drink at a time
The Monkey Chow Diaries
This guy is eating nothing but monkey chow for a week and cataloging his experience at the above link. He's also blogging about it.
Via boingboing via neatorama via j-walkblog via exploding aardvark who doesn't say where it was found
Kaiser Penguin: Mixology Monday III Round-Up
A group of cocktail and food bloggers have started this project where a theme is chosen and then the bloggers have a few weeks to select a recipe or two to share by posting it to their blog. A different blogger hosts the event each time and writes a summary. It's open to all and I'll probably participate in the future, though the next theme: apertifs are not something I've really ever dealt with. Lots of tasty mint recipes from this past monday summarized by Kaiser Penguin. I'm particularly looking forward to Kate's Thai Mojito which uses coconut rum, mint, basil, and ginger for that classic thai twist.
Cheers!
AP Wire | 06/03/2006 | Pilot finds snake stowaway inside cockpit
Just months before the summer movie blockbuster of the year "Snakes on a Plane" we have this true story from the Associated Press.
While maintaining control of the single-engine plane with one hand, Coles grabbed the reptile behind its head with his other.
Top 20 strangest guitars
Title speaks for itself:
Picaso Guitar
Birdfish
More pictures and descriptions at the site.
Via Eye of the Goof
DataNumerics - Reliable Statistics
Real looking fake statistics page generator for whatever you want to see shown. It's funny because it hurts. Check out the sample pages.
City Link Magazine: Rock You Like a Hurricane
One of the Local weekly entertainment zines posted a list of 13 drinks "to help you weather the storms, power outages, gas lines, cold showers, television withdrawals, price gougers and every other aggravation hurricanes bring." All of them have a dry wit about them and some sound tasty. Click on the link to the photo gallery to scroll through each drink recipe. Picture is of the Category 5
Speaking of pictures, I actually made last Friday's Pop Rocks Martini and took a photo:
That's our friend Lenore in the background. I didn't find any Mango Fruja Liqueur, so I used Xtreme, which is one of those oddly colored French fruit Cognacs (like Hypnotiq). The Xtreme gives it the pink color and I chose it because it did list mango as a prominent flavor. I added a couple of raspberries and blueberries to the glass. The cocktail was very good overall. The pop rocks were fun, but not necessary. I did manage to make the first round in the kitchen by myself, so everyone was surprised. The clean up wasn't as bad as I feared.
Cheers!
DailySixer.com Videos: Casual Sex Fridays
Anyone looking forward to Friday?
Via YesButNobutYes
TagLines
Amazing river style visualization of flickr tags over time. The date is displayed at the top of the page, and scrolls from left to right starting at June 4, 2004 to September 16, 2005. Popular photo tags stream by from right to left with the size indicating popularity. Thumbnails appear. Clicking on a tag stops it momentarily and adds a few pictures with the tag, more clicks yield more pictures. Overall the tag sizes grow over time with the expansion of flickr overall (or at least that's what I think is going on). You can see special events popping up like holidays, and lots of geekfests, as well as different memes over time. Notice the controls at the bottom. You can pause, jump by months, change the speed, and change the visualization to something more static and easier to follow (but not as mesmerizing).
Via Information Aesthetics
Panasonic Online Video Fest
Easy to enter, focus on humourous flicks under 5 minutes, which is burried in the rules, it's ok to enter older videos as long as they are yours.
Via Alfie's Blog, though his slant is more about the impications of YouTube partnering with Panasonic
