Master Pickler Alex Hozven

Occasionally, my past rises up and startles me.

I knew Alex back in The Day, when I was a free-range bohemian living in a VW bus in Bezerkeley.

Now, she's a master pickler, her shop is called the Cultured Pickle Shop. I wish she had her shop in Portland because I love real cultured veggies. I'll let the video speak for itself, great stuff.



Enjoy your blasts from the past,

Bp

[via the Good Reverend John Nathan B.]

Movits! -- Swedish jangly groove/swing dance pop

You know, it's hard to describe music without just making a list of other music.

This is a video by Movits! A Swedish dance band (see Aurgasm's note on them here). Check these guys out, catchy as all get out, fun band.

Got to love Swedes in vests playing banjos anyhow, right?



Enjoy groovy pop when you can stomach it, I'm sure it's good for you,

Bp

[via my faithful Canukistani operative "Yuri"]

National Do Not Call Registry -- Register Your Cell Phone Now

There is an email circulating that claims all our cell phone numbers are about to be distributed to telemarketers. This doesn't appear to be true. But the rest of the email is true -- it gives information on the National Do Not Call registry. Below is the information to get your phones put on that list:

Call this number: 888-382-1222 with the phone that you want on the list and register on the National Do Not Call registry.

Or you can go to the National Do Not Call Registry to register multiple numbers at once. I think I'll be doing both... you know, just to be safe.

Enjoy opting out,

Bp

[via Richard and T.]

Free books online, no joke

The Burgomeister's Books is a site where you can find scads of books for free.

The terms are completely reasonable. You can only download 5 books in a two week period. And when done, you nuke them from your hard-drive.

It's a free service, but the kind host does appreciate donations to keep it going.

Enjoy public access to goodies,

Bp

[via Canukistani Kate, illustration is The Librarian, by Guiseppe Arcimbolo, via Wiki Commons]

Saturday (almost) Morning Awesome: Best Wedding Walk Evar

Just in case you are living under an internet rock, you may have missed this viral video. It's only been a few days, so I hope I catch some of you as "first timers."

It's worth watching the whole way through. Some of these folks have got the moves.

It's a bit cute, I will warn the cynics in the crowd.

I think the groomsman who enters at around 1:12 is my favorite person today.

Oh, also The Wife mentioned, and I agree, that the sunglasses are a nice touch.



Enjoy crying to wedding videos of people you don't know,

Bp

[via too many places to name in this short piece of text, thanks everyone]

Jobs that actually exist: Pedestrian Decoy

How'd you like to get paid to walk across a street (repeatedly) that's known to be dangerous to pedestrians so cops could catch crappy drivers as they nearly hit you?

The job exists, see this Blogtown post about it happening here in Portland.

Oh and as "entrapment-y" as it sounds... look at the details of the situation: tons of signage (4 signs on this site), and tons of cops in the open, right there, waiting. This is catching folks who REALLY aren't paying attention while driving.

Hell of a job -- wonder what the training was, dodgeball?

Bp

[photo credit in linked article]

Family saved from burning car

I don't watch television, so I miss stuff like this. Here is another side of humanity that reside in this country (in contrast to the last post I made).



Enjoy seeing what it looks like to do the right thing,

Bp

[via Neatorama]

This is America...

... yeah not much to say here. I don't normally post unattributed material, but I felt this was poignant. I do believe this encapsulates much of how the world views the U.S. at this point in history.

Bp

[via Dani Boynton Photography]

Paxil Back -- parody of Timberlake's Sexy Back

I can't believe I haven't posted this yet. One of my favorite parodies. A big hit during the old study group days.



Enjoy musical humor,

Bp

A Softer World hits again

A Softer World is a hip web comic that I keep up on. Occasionally, it hits and gives me a good laugh. Here is an example, remember you can click the image for a larger version:



Enjoy a good laugh when it presents itself,

Bp

Missed Dave Chapelle, Free, last night

So I heard this rumor -- Dave Chapelle was going to do a free show downtown last night at Pioneer Courthouse Square. At midnight.

I blew it off, but sure enough he did arrive.

Here is a video -- just him chatting. But it's proof that it happened.

Apparently he only told 3 people he met, randomly, that he was going to do this. A nice little experiment in electronic media information dispersal. [sorry about the weird spacing, the embed code is huge and bizarre and I couldn't fix it]

Dave Chappelle at Pioneer Square

Enjoy knowing cool stuff happens, even if you aren't there,

Bp

[via Mercury's Blogtown]

Shooting clay pigeons with a bow

What can you say more than... this is a guy who can shoot clay pigeons with a bow. I mean... wow.

He is using a compound bow, otherwise known to traditional archers as a M.A.L.D. -- "mechanical arrow launching device." Despite the high tech bow, it's impressive stuff.



Enjoy listening to dexterous folks try to talk about why they're so spot on,

Bp

[via my faithful Canukistani operative, "Yuri"]

D.C. police chief denounces ‘cowardly’ iPhone users for monitoring speed traps

A wonderfully subversive idea -- use mobile internet devices to tag and warn about photo radar sites. The cops calling folks who use these apps "cowardly" is even better. I love it.

It does help folks avoid drunk driving stops as well, however, which isn't awesome in my book.

Enjoy the complexity of being amused,

Bp

[via Uncle Ted, photo credit in Mac Daily News article]

Saturday Morning Awesome: House of Pain's "Jump Around" in Irish Gaelic

Des Bishop covering House of Pain's "Jump Around" in Irish Gaelic. [for those of you not familiar, here is the original]



Enjoy musical covers,

Bp

[via my faithful Canukistani operative "Yuri"]

A Final Hit, by Leftfield

Ran across this on Pandora and thought some of ya'll might enjoy it.

The video is fan-made, so pretty simple, but the music has a great strolling gait to it. More than ambient but not too much jangle for a good coffee morning wakeup.



Enjoy electronic strolling gaits,

Bp

Total Randomness -- Blog Label Re-Invigoration Program

Some of my blog labels don't get enough use, or are slowly somehow losing their potency. In this case, it's a little bit of both.

So for this session of the BLRIP I present an alligator chasing a radio-controlled boat:



Enjoy tightening up the ship a bit,

Bp

[via Blame it on the Voices]

A very good excuse why the blog slowed down a bit

I'll pick it back up, promise.



Bp

[picture via my very talented Sister]

Fantastic Eye Candy -- Scintillation by Xavier Chassaing

"This is an experimental film made up of over 35,000 photographs. It combines an innovative mix of stop motion and live projection mapping techniques."

Just watch it.

SCINTILLATION from Xavier Chassaing on Vimeo.

Enjoy being totally harnessed, visually,

Bp

[via Dani Boynton Photography]

Ant mega-colony takes over world

Ok, I lifted that blog title directly from the BBC Earth News article, but it was so awesome I felt I had to.

The Institute of Jurassic Technology does tend to talk about the whole invasive/non-native situation in biology. It's an interest of mine. So this article really caught my attention -- as Argentine Ants are spreading world-wide, reaping havoc on local bug populations, like the Reavers of the insect world.

On to the study. In short, researchers pitted ants from different colonies around the world against each other in single ant-on-ant combat. This, of course, was couched in the guise of research but we all know it's exactly the same as fighting spiders in the schoolyard in dixie cups.

The ants from the largest colonies around the world refused to fight. They rubbed antennae and acted like old buddies. Meaning -- they are from the same colony.

This is intense, because that means that this is probably the largest expansion of one cooperative species on Earth outside Humanity itself.

Like humans, Argentine ants show a wide diversity and adaptability in their diet. According to this UC San Diego paper, they switch from being vicious predators to "farmers" of aphids and scale bugs once they are established.

Genius! Come in strong, settle down and start farms. Sound familiar? Like -- oh ancient Rome maybe?

Go Ants!

I mean -- how terrifying.

Enjoy seeing other species succeed using human-like tactics, even if it is kinda evil,

Bp

[via my faithful Canukistani operative "Yuri," photo credit in BBC Earth News article]