According to the International Programs Center, U.S. Census Bureau, the total population of the World will hit 6,666,666,666 people on may 10th, 2008. that’s tomorrow!! go breeders! that’s six billion, six hundred and sixty six million, six hundred and sixty six thousand, six hundred and sixty six people (please do correct me if i’m wrong on reading that number). right now as i type this at 01:31 GMT (EST+5) the world population is at a projected 6,666,648,651 people!!! wow. oddly, my car is about to hit the 66,666 mile mark too. awesome!
giantmonster’s favorite resident space alien and (and sometimes dedicated office worker) glergg was in full effect at the super fun how weird street faire last sunday in san francisco. making friends & busting out the freshest dance moves is what glergg is all about! thanks how weird! on an inter-galactic scale, the people, food, art, dancing, and music of how weird 2008 were all great great great! there are additional glergg pics posted below & they were found by culling flickr for pics tagged ‘how weird’ (thanks everyone for snapping photos!).
i am amazed and inspired each time i watch this video titled Qigong Demo with John Chang. it was sent in from brit and i’ve since found it (along with other great material & insights) on the sites martialdevelopment.com and also mind-energy.net. the videos posted below are of john chang (’dynamo jack’ & also John DiJang) demostrating his remarkable chi energy that he has developed over the course of his life through a deep & ancient meditation practice. john chang is a healer and lives in java. he is also the subject of a book titled The Magus of Java: Teachings of an Authentic Taoist Immortal. truly amazing. beginning my meditation practice right now …
Qigong Demo with John Chang
John Chang
check out this video titled Head Tracking for Desktop VR Displays using the WiiRemote. it’s quite impressive! you can watch the whole video and see how the virtual reality & headtracking is accomplished. or let the video load and skip to the 2:30 mark to see the vast difference between a normal display and a virtual reality headtracking display. amazing! excellent work & video by johnny lee! & thanks goose for the link!
The Power of Now written by eckhart tolle is a very wonderful, powerful, and transformational book. books find you in strange ways. i am grateful that eckhart tolle wrote it and grateful to my father and then my friend mike murnane for introducing me to it. without the messages and insights gathered from that book, i do not know where i would be right now. i imagine less aware, less awake, less alive, less loving, less caring, more reactive, more negative, and more afraid to be who i am. open up and begin reading The Power of Now at any point in the book and you will get some great insight, simplicity, and wisdom, as well as pathways to peace, stillness, and understanding. i found this is also true of eckhart tolle’s second book A New Earth. soundstrue has a great interview with eckhart tolle and also has several great videos of eckhart tolle lectures and speeches. i’ve posted two of those videos below. one is titled Not Reacting to Content and the other is Your Pain Body is Very Seductive. i feel that the consciousness of human beings on our planet is changing. it has to in order for our world to survive. thank you very much eckhart tolle for putting you thoughts and ideas out into the world and for your work and insight!
Not Reacting to Content
Your Pain Body is Very Seductive
the mighty catbus that made its plush yellow furry debut at burning man 2001, making me and so many other folks very happy, seems to be up for sale for the low low price of $2,900 too! quoting the best craigslist catbus for sale post:
IM ONLY ASKING 2900 FOR THE CATBUS BECAUSE ITS REALLY FURRY AND SOMETIMES PEOPLE GET SICK ON IT.
so now you know. additional shot of pristine catbus from 2001 included below. more catbus pics via flickr too.
nothing says it’s friday like the yummy-ness of a colossal squid autopsy! yes, the folks at wired have a delectable photo slideshow of a big huge squid autopsy. i believe this particular squid was the same colossal squid caught off the coast of new zealand in february of 2007. and the colossal squid is technically bigger than the giant squid - just in time for breakfast too! enjoy!
mmmm … delicious!
as if there wasn’t enough going on this weekend already, the 2008 how weird street festival is happening this sunday may 4th from 11am to 6pm. and it’s big! nine music stages & over seven city blocks big! this years how weird faire is a benefit for the non-profit World Peace Through Technology Organization. djs, music, dancing, art, food, jewelry, and all sorts of creative & crazy goodness located at & around 2nd & howard streets in san francisco. see you there!
when politics collide with my hard wired sense of star wars nerdy-ness, magical things can happen. the battles and infighting between our next president barack obama and former first lady hilary clinton can best be summed up in this awesome clip titled the empire strikes barrack. totally laugh it up fuzzball - it’s good stuff! i feel oddly compelled to watch the empire strikes back again. thanks brit for the link!
the super fun and super exciting maker faire is fast approaching! how fast? well, the maker faire is this weekend! saturday may 3rd and sunday may 4th at the san mateo county fairgrounds (map)! the maker faire is a metric ton of fun! you should definitely go! here are some pics from 2007’s makers faire to entice you. see you there!
if you have just shy of 7 minutes to spare you may enjoy watching this amazing youtube clip titled Ants! and that’s what it’s about - ants. more specifically, the vast subterranean ventilation system and structure of an ant colony. it’s very fascinating. the researchers poured cement into the openings of the ant colony to create a casting of how the ant tunnels looked. that process took 3 days and over 10 tons of cement! excavation of the casting took over a month! now as a former ant, i can say that having cement poured into one’s home is really jacked up. but the end result is quite amazing.
it’s friday and list-of-the-day has an excellent post archiving the fine art of photobombing - the act of inserting yourself into someone else’s picture. very good stuff. i can only hope to see more of these. much much more.
the swiss chemist most noted for discovering LSD albert hoffman died this last tuesday, april 28th, of heart failure at his home in switzerland at the ripe old age of 102. seems like only yesterday we were celebrating LSD’s birthday. albert hoffman was born january 11th, 1906. rest in peace, mr hoffman!
the makers of the fantastic & inspiring film One Giant Leap are coming out with a new film titled What About Me? the first chapter of the movie is titled Bombardment. the entire chapter (spanning 15 minutes) is available to view on the whataboutme website & even better at dailymotion as well. this movie looks to be as moving and as powerful as their first project, with a wonderful message that we all have & share many more similarities than we do differences. the project creators use music & song as a common thread to connect artists & musicians from around the world along with interviews with people like eckhart tolle, noam choamsky, timothy “speed” levich, and more. take a look when you get a chance & thanks claudine for the link!
… just launched his new website featuring new art, paintings, photos, & past art too. congrats ethos! nice site!
brain scientist and neuroanatomist Jill Bolte Taylor spoke recently at the TED conference. the speech she gave is available on the TED talks site. what she talks about it is very fascinating, beautiful, and moving. from the TED talks website: One morning, Jill Bolte Taylor realized she was having a massive stroke. As it happened — as she felt her brain functions slip away one by one, speech, movement, understanding — she studied and remembered every moment. it’s friday and it’s time to enhance your brain and perspective on your life, your mind, and your world. please enjoy Jill Bolte Taylor: My stroke of insight. it’s great!
something to be said for taking the stairs. here’s a nightmare of a story about a man named nicholas white who was trapped in an elevator for 41 hours. no joke! 41 continuous hours!!! damn! poor guy! the elevator security cameras captured the entire ordeal. watch the time lapse video below and see almost 2 days pass before your eyes in under a few minutes.
introduced by representative barney frank (democrat - maryland) and co-sponsored by ron paul (republican - texas), maurice hinchey (democrat - new york), sam farr (democrat - california), and dana rohrabacher (republican - california), the bill HR 5842 - the Medical Marijuana Patient Protection Act - has been introduced in congress. the bill proposes to reclassify marijuana from a Schedule I drug (which cannot be prescribed) to a Schedule II drug, recognize the medical value of marjiuana, and bolster states rights by protecting state run medical marijuana dispensaries from DEA raids & federal prosecution. NORML has a web page submission form where you can email your representative in support of this legislation.
time to fight cancer! how? well, oddly enough through the power of jacking off. no really. researchers in australia have concluded that men could reduce their risk of developing prostate cancer through regular masturbation. wow, who knew? & giantmonster is happy to report we are cancer free! set aside some special time & help fight cancer today - you deserve it!
the crucible in oakland, california is hosting its amazing fundraiser & fire ballet for 2008 titled Firebird (a more intense take on stravinsky’s firebird)! it looks fantastic! tickets generally sell out. performances on Wednesday April 16th & Thursday April 17th are $55 and the gala performances on Friday April 18th and Saturday 19th are $150 (though saturday’s show is now waitlist only) . it’s a great way to support a non-profit, the arts, an amazing creative community, and see a great performance! here’s a link to the event flyer. see you there!
neato! this slow motion vid clip totally makes me wanna slap someones face! oy! i had no idea getting slapped could look so cool. squaaaash!!! thanks jamie!
if this track below by the transcended cool cat from san rafael named astarius doesn’t stir something up inside you, then you’re probably very sleepy or perhaps dead. ‘i invoke and dream awake the full current of ascension in every cell of my being …‘ that’s good stuff. press play below & listen to the sound of your mind cracking open. i dig it!
i dream awake by astarius
just letting you know: if you like bluegrass music, atlas cafe in san francisco has bluegrass thursdays every thursday night from 8-10pm. so there!
sexy is so many things.: security - with just a dash of daring, confidence - with a just brief hint of vulnerability, raw power - with a scant wiff of innocence, sharing, eye contact, charm, interesting hobbies, music, and yes, perhaps black speedos too? is that possible? yes, all of those things! it’s friday and we know sexy when we see it. yup. extra additional hotness on the fail blog too.
the cardboard institute of technology presents welcome to cardburg. welcome indeed! cardburg is an amazing art installation going on at cellspace in san francisco. an entire city - built all in cardboard - with magic, myth, and lore all its own. amazing! and you should see it! opening night was April 3rd, 2008. There’s another opening/show tonight, April 10th at 7pm, and a final show next week on friday April 18th at 8pm. you can read the hype on sfgate or read the great post on extreme craft (& flickr set too!) but go! good art can be hard to find (but actually, in SF, not lately. lotsa goodness out there!). is SF ready for a ducksquatch? yes!
the bright minds over at luxim have created an incredible new light bulb that is the size of a small pill and turns out 140 lumens per watt. that’s pretty damn amazing!!! quoting the post on treehugger about the luxin plasma bulbs: “At 140 lumens/watt, these pill-sized plasma light bulbs by Luxim are a pretty awesome contender for “light of the future”. They are almost 10 times more efficient than traditional incandescent light bulbs, twice as efficient as current high-end LEDs, and they also beat CFLs, most of which are around 50-80 lumens/watt.” that is great! mass produce them now please!
sometimes reading a good/funny review of an incredibly bad & god-awful movie can actually make you want to take time out of your life and watch that aforementioned awful movie. case in point, the wretched movie roadhouse is reviewed by iamsheamus in such a way that i now find myself bumping up Roadhouse to the top of my netflix que. having seen roadhouse once too many times before, i remember this being a less than pivotal role for patrick swayze. i also distinctly remember mentally labeling roadhouse with the phrase ‘never ever again.’ yet thanks to iamsheamus, i’m ready to immerse myself in the mullet-fueled lameness that is Roadhouse. ugh! read the magic and find out for yourself. trailer below for your, um, horror. thanks iamsheamus!
my friend james cotner is no stranger to awesomeness. in keeping with this trend, mr. cotner, channeling the awkward power of garey busey, has landed the coveted role of FBI agent Angelo Pappas in the mighty play Point Break Live. according to sfgate, point break live is not to be missed! so check it, brah! now! it’s playing at Xenodrome in san francisco this April 11th, 12th, 18th, 19th, 25th, & 26th. buy tickets via theatermania, dude! surf’s totally up! way to go james!
excuse the lack of a post & comments on comments. just got back from a lil’ road trip to santa monica/LA/hollywood. very good to be away from a computer though. anyway, i got some dumb posts to spew out, so let’s do this.
mr t hasn’t got time for comas. actually he does, in the sense that he once brought a kid out of coma. true! quoting the news article titled Mr T brought boy out of coma: Former The A-Team star Mr. T once stunned a sick child’s family by bringing him out of a coma - after doctors begged the actor for help. The poorly kid fell unconscious in Detroit, Michigan in the mid-1980s - and the only physical movement he made was in response to hearing Mr. T’s name. rad!