Ah, the end of summer. Time to pack in all those pool parties, the outdoor barbecues, and maybe have one more fling out on the beach before –ugh—school or work starts in earnest in September. Summers are, after all, made for relaxing and not really having a worry in the world. High gas prices? Pschaw! Georgia being pelted by Russian surface-to-air-missiles? Where’s Georgia? (Or where’s Russia?) Democratic Convention starting tomorrow in Denver? Ugh. What a snoozefest. Offshore drilling as a strategy to help the energy crisis? Offshore what? Dude, let me get back to my tunes. Don’t we want to remember this time for all the cool tunes that summers are made for?

There is some truth in this. Every summer does seem to have a song that gets a lot of airplay and seems to blare out of every speaker, window sill, bodega, monster SUV, or requisite poolside. Only now we don’t really say “airplay” too much anymore, now that we are in the MP3 age. That iTunes is the most preeminent venue for consuming music and, in the parlance of the record industry, it’s the place where all the new music “drops” every Tuesday. And given that a lot of young people are home during the summer, what better time to focus on those songs that linger, those tunes that you just can’t get out of your head, no matter how hard you try. Read the rest of this entry »

Your DIEBOLD Vote Hasn’t Counted For a Decade

Are you a lucky lotto winner? I hope so.  With the recent announcement from the e-Voting champions themselves stating that their e-machines are inherently flawed and that they have been dropping votes for years, the chances of getting your vote through and making it count are as slim as they’ve ever been - but for a change, you’re now painfully aware.

The logic error is present in both types of voting machines made by the company: touchscreens and optical scan systems. These machines are used in 34 states (1,750 jurisdictions). For example, in Ohio’s March primaries, it is known that the machines temporarily lost 1,000 ballots.

The e-Voting machines “contain a critical programming error that can cause votes to be dropped while being electronically transferred from memory cards to a central tallying point”.

Clearly the most shameful element of this scandal and recent admission is that Diebold (ahem… now Premier Voting Solutions) has previously denied any malfunction or impropriety in their e-machines, and they have continued to Read the rest of this entry »

The Scenario

So you went a little nuts on your MySpace profile - you posted your age, your interests, some of your funniest home movies and the secret spots you like to frequent on Saturday following your morning dog walk. It felt freeing and liberating to tout your spot in this world and advertise your status to your online “friends”.

And it exploded from there: you started posting in public forums without hesitating to include your full, given name (so you can get credit for your impassioned responses), then proceeded to open numerous accounts on the Facebooks, Friendsters, LinkedIns and Meebos of the world. You even dropped your digits at one point on Craigslist, where they remain cached to this day on Yahoo!. There’s no question about it: you’re now officially “out there”.

But as your friends began to accumulate and as your forum posts became popular (and distributed), your online presence began to balloon to uncontrollable (and uncomfortable) proportions. Personal commentary, asides and intimate information usually reserved for loved ones was now on public display - an inadvertent consequence of your own making.

And with the recent advent of employers checking potential job candidates online before making their hiring decisions, it might be wise for the current job-seeker to Read the rest of this entry »

The Telegraph has disclosed that the British government is pushing ahead with plans for a national road-pricing scheme, including testing “spy in the sky” technology.

Imagine:  having to think about some chilling, omniscient force in the sky tracking (and calculating costs of) your journey to pick up a six pack of Heineken from your market of choice.  Then, imagine having to consider such big-brother monitoring in an environment where you’re already paying some of the highest taxes on the planet, living amongst thousands of always-on CCTV cameras, and being sent letters of disapproval if you use bandwidth-hogging applications on your own PC.

It’s true:  British motorists already pay some of the highest taxes in the world and with government finances under severe pressure, the “pay-as-you-drive” scheme could provide a Read the rest of this entry »

Urban legend or real creature lurking out there somewhere, ready to attack and maim little kids? The other day we brought you the phenomenon of the vampire cats. We now have, possibly, a vampire dog, or something that resembles one.

If you grew up as a wide-eyed kid in a Spanish-speaking household in the US or Latin America, you surely know what the Chupacabra is. This is what your parents told you to scare the bejeezus out of you. You don’t want to go to bed like I told you? Don’t want to eat your veggies? Look out, the Chupacabra is coming to get you in the middle of the night.

For those unfamiliar with what I’m talking about, surely you have heard of urban legends or myths out there. Like Bigfoot. Like the Loch Ness Monster. Societies feel the need to create these ideas as a diversion, as a way to provide constructs of fear. On a practical level, the fact that people choose to spread these beliefs does not suggest they actually trust them. It is in the very dispersion of these fears that someone –usually, a snotty-nosed kid who doesn’t know better—will get so scared that he will instantly change his behavior. We spin these tales, adding a little detail here and there, and they get passed on to future generations of trembling toddlers who misbehave or get out of control.

The Chupacabra, which literally translates as “goat sucker”, does not have the long history of Bigfoot or Loch Ness; it’s a thoroughly modern and Latin creation. First reports of its sightings –if, in fact, you believe it to be true—date back to 1990, and there have been reports of people seeing it in places such as Puerto Rico, Chile and the US Southwest. There has been no real agreement as to what species the Chupacabra is. Farmers have
taken
pictures of
unclassifiable dog-like creatures
that attack livestockFarmers have taken pictures of unclassifiable dog-like creatures that attack livestock, but some of these have been found to be coyotes. Others believe the Chupacabra is a reptile-like being, about 4 feet tall with gray scaly skin. And it hops. You can clearly see how these legends can get spun a bit awry. A hopping reptile? A mangy coyote? What is it exactly and why can’t anyone provide real up-close proof that this thing really exists?

Well leave it to none other than the news authorities at CNN to provide this footage of what they call the Chupacabra. In it you can see this odd-looking coyote-like animal running. It certainly looks Read the rest of this entry »

The ratings for Friday’s opening ceremonies at the Beijing Olympics set a record for NBC, capturing a 37.3 Nielsen rating, and watched by an estimated 35 million Americans. Those are huge numbers, and in the words of some analysts, the numbers were “American Idol” level. And why wouldn’t they be? NBC’s oppressive hype virtually ensured that we would rush to our TVs and basically surrender our evenings to the massive spectacle, with all of those commercials and promos for the fall TV season (“Follow what happens to Jim and Pam on September 25!”). In fact, we were probably the only country in the world that did not watch the opening ceremony live.

NBC’s desire to aggressively package all the proceedings into a prime-time slot ensured that we would be (literally) a captive audience. If you were in Canada, however, you would have been awake at 4:30 am –as many did—to watch it all on CBC, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. Not the US. We had to deal with 13-hour “delay”.

And, yes, it was a spectacle of lights, fireworks, music and of course, the parade of nations. Everything was perfectly rehearsed and executed with perfect precision: this was China’s moment to shine. As everyone marched with their flags in front of the crowds and an estimated 80 world leaders (including three generations of Bushes), it was a bit hard not to get Read the rest of this entry »

This has to be one of the oddest and most haunting things I’ve heard this summer –and it’s not necessarily something you’d play outside at a barbecue.

Remember the 1984 chestnut “Footloose” –the movie and its soundtrack? Kevin Bacon moves to right-wing, uptight town where dancing and rock and roll music are outlawed by a morally-correct minister (John Lithgow), and then bags his doe-eyed daughter (Lori Singer), all of which culminates in a rousing dance number, indeed a metaphor back then for freedom and, uh, breaking the rules. 24 years ago indeed, and it made a star out of Bacon and was a so-so film. Need a refresher from the movie itself? Come on, you know you want it (video below).

Of course, this being the 80s, all those musical films had their own soundtrack. “Footloose” contained a lot of singles, among them the title track by Kenny Loggins (he who would make a career out of schlocky soundtrack tunes). Also, you can’t forget the bombastic wonder that was Bonnie Tyler and her “Holding Out For a Hero”, “Almost Paradise”, a duet with the girl from Heart and the lead singer from Loverboy, the enormous pop hit “Let’s Hear it for the Boy” by Deniece Williams (you remember the scene in the movie, come on!) or even the kinda silly Read the rest of this entry »

Vampire Cats

Have you ever witnessed a vampire cat? Hardly discernible from the standard tabby mix (other than the extremely sharp teeth), vampire cats are a special and rare breed indeed — known mostly throughout the scientific community by their Latin-derived nomenclature: Vampirus Felinus.

These blood-sucking felines are found mostly in the outer regions of Nishinomiya Japan, on Mount Kabutoyama, a monadnock of an extinct volcano thath was last estimated to erupt about 1,200 years ago. This mountain is in the Kabutoyama Forest Park.

Not only do vampire cats typically keep a nocturnal life cycle, but they supplement their daily diet of cat food with the blood of their brethren felines. Odd as this may seem, vampire cats have managed to Read the rest of this entry »

Ever fancy living like those little blue creatures you used to watch on Saturday mornings? A certain faction of people in Kyushu, Japan are doing just that. And if you thought styrofoam was reserved only to house your cup of morning coffee, read on.

Habitat For the 21st Century

The designer of the 480 domes at Aso Farm Land resort village in Kyushu was certainly thinking outside the “box”.

These igloo-shaped structures built from snap-together wall sections (175 lbs each) are made of 100% expanded polystyrene foam (styrofoam). Now this may seem unconventional, but the company lists a number of advantages that styrofoam has over traditional materials.

Unlike traditional wood and metal structures, styrofoam dome homes won’t rust, rot or attract wood-gnawing termites. They’re also highly resistant to earthquakes and typhoons given the aerodynamic shape. And surprisngly, the walls, which are treated with a flame retardant, emit no toxic fumes in a fire. Read the rest of this entry »

Tell me you have not wanted to poke your eyes out every time you saw or heard the inescapable commercial or jingle from FreeCreditReport.com. You know which one. The one where this curly-haired slacker and his band, dressed as pirates, have taken to working at a poor man’s Red Lobster (if there is such a thing) seafood joint, “serving chowder and iced tea” to “tourists” in what is clearly a low-paying, dead-end job. Or the one where the same dude is bopping his head as he sings again –same melody, slightly different lyrics—this time in a beat-up old Geo Metro, pulling up the stoplight while a carful of babes in a new convertible next to him are laughing at him –and his Read the rest of this entry »

The much ballyhooed “Espresso Gone Wild” may have brewed its last drop of joe — at least in the city of Belfair in Mason County, WA.

County officials have decided the scantily clad baristas at a this infamous espresso stand are simply “erotic entertainers”, and nothing more. And if the women don’t cover up, they’ll be forced out on their barely covered hinnies.

Apparently, the stand opened about a month ago and received complaints at a meeting of the Mason County Board of Commissioners. So the commission sent the owners a letter saying the coffee stand is not zoned for erotic entertainment. The owners said they didn’t expect the negative vibe and will comply with any regulations put forth.

“Almost all of our customers love us, even our women customers,” Porter said. “I personally have not had anybody come up and say anything mean or negative to me.

“I do it because its fun. I’m sure there are some people who would have a problem with that. Sex sells. I guess we’re trying to raise the bar, you could say.”

Kathryn Porter, 24, a dental hygiene student from Puyallup, has worked at the stand for two months. Porter, Read the rest of this entry »

I was going to write an open letter to Kathy Hilton, she being Paris’s mother, responding to her brief commentary she put up on Huffingtonpost.com over the weekend. She was somehow bothered that John McCain, in an idiotic ad last Friday, suggested that Barack Obama was being treated as a celebrity in the same way as her daughter Paris. (And Britney Spears.)

I was going to call her a hypocrite and that no Hilton would ever turn down any publicity, no matter how unsavory, and that she was just asking for more attention. I was going to challenge her to do the unthinkable: simply say or do nothing and thus not dignify what was, even among many Republican circles and pundits, a superficial ad. Reaching farther still, I was going to blame her for raising the one person who has perhaps singlehandedly glorified the meaning of celebrity and all of its vapidity. I was going to say that Paris, the talentless heiress who became superstar famous for a sex tape and for Read the rest of this entry »

Here’s a little fun with Adam West, and timely indeed given the recent media stir created by The Dark Knight.

Can you guess which of the following quotes — provided by Philadelphia sketch group, Secret Pants — belong to our president, George W. Bush, and which belong to Batman from his 1960s TV series?

It’s harder than you might imagine…

[Via ComedyCentral]

Technology has certainly come a long way in bringing us together.

In the past couple of decades, we’ve seen the proliferation of the Internet and e-mail, advanced cell phones and their associated features: MMS picture and sound messaging, SMS text messages, advanced voice mail features, voice calls, Myspace pages, the Twitters of the world, and others.

Although, even with the advent of these readily available technologies, there is still the small percentage of us who enjoy our anonymity, our sense of privacy - our hands-off, unplugged, Zen-like lifestyles.

And for those of us who fit into this latter category, this MobileSphere company would like to provide us with a new tool to Read the rest of this entry »

I suppose it’s very difficult to explain a childhood fascination I had with the Topps Company’s “Wacky Packages”, a selection of stickers you’d collect inside a package of bubble gum. Just like trading baseball cards, which was what Topps did primarily, you could open up your wrapper and behind the long, flat stick of bubble gum you’d find a small piece of cardboard paper on which you’d find the latest clever creation: a sticker that mocked a popular consumer product like Tide detergent (Tied), Rice-a-Phoni (for that San Francisco treat) or Hawaiian Punks (for Hawaiian Punch).

All I know is I used to go wild when I’d see a new one when I’d go after school to 7-11 and wait to open up a new set of stickers.

Out now is a collection of these Wacky Packages, written almost as a history, from when the idea started in 1967 through those glorious 70s when Read the rest of this entry »

Eager to post missteps or flub-ups designed to embarrass the Obama campaign each day on his gossipy website, Matt Drudge of the Drudgereport managed to find a doozy yesterday. Apparently, rapper Ludacris, aka Chris Bridges, has released a new song called “Politics: Obama is Here”. It’s, not something the Obama people will be happy about, and this despite the fact that their man revealed once in an interview that Ludacris, one of his favorite rappers, was also on heavy rotation on his iPod. Take a quick listen to this uplifting, inspiring and certain future Grammy Award-winning track and don’t forget to follow along with the deep, socially responsible lyrics:

I’m back on it like I just signed my record deal

Yeah the best is here, the Bentley Coup paint is dripping wet, it got sex appeal

Never should have hated

Never should’ve doubted him Read the rest of this entry »