Saturday, August 31, 2013

Political Guessing At Its Worst

Political Guessing At Its Worst

Whenever the news reports that a political candidate is up a certain % in the polls, it always infuriates me to a personal level as a journalist because it represents the resurgence of election prediction as a kind of journalistic nutra-loaf.


Something like "Hispanic 20-somethings would have voted for Hillary Clinton if we'd held the election yesterday" is not a useful piece of information for anyone except the campaigns themselves and really don't need to be reported on. The election will still be in November or whenever and the day after any single one of us will be able to call the result with the same pin-point accuracy as Nate Silver himself congratulations, I guess.

But Silver and the whole Cult of Wonk have reimbued it all with a veneer of respectability and relevance and now people just cannot shut up about it. Like, I guess you could make the argument that people who follow politics are tribal anyway and might as well be considered active campaigners. But I refuse to believe that there's people out there chomping down their Lucky Charms thinking 'welp, guess I better get out there and talk to some Presbyterian single moms!"

And even if they do, there's little to no consideration of how policy might inform preference. I guess I'm being willfully naive. In general, people who find joy in following the minutia of political horse races gives off the same vibe as people who really like to collect Nazi artifacts, as any reasonable person would look on those subjects with horror rather than earnest fascination.

Friday, August 30, 2013

Shhh, A Super Secret Spy Rocket Went Into Space

Shhh, A Super Secret Spy Rocket Went Into Space

On Wednesday in the land right above Santa Barbara a super secret launching of a rocket happened. It looked a little something like this;



It's like that moment in Contact when Jake Busey blows up the trillion dollar mile high space machine and then we all learn that there's another identical trillion dollar space machine on the other side of the world. Only in this case it's a space launching system that we only thought was in Florida and surprise surprise, we have one in California.

This place really is big if we could hide something like that from the masses in this big chunk of land. Though I'm pretty sure that the whole "trillion" aspect of it is probably dead on in the cost. And we all paid for it.

But yes, this super secret, please don't tell anyone, why did we give out a press release for this launching rocket was blasted off into space carrying a secret payload of a spy satellite. Because if there was one thing that America is short on, it's intruding on private matters.

It's a little odd that they did this with a sort of hidden action, yet did have it get pressed around. Which I guess was going to happen when you launch something like the biggest rocket into the sky in wine country. Not all the people will fall for the "I must have drank too much of my own vineyard" excuse.


Thursday, August 29, 2013

Boyfriend Tracking

Boyfriend Tracking

Much like how Spider-man's Uncle Ben told him that with great power comes great responsibility, with the advancements and convenience of technology comes many opportunities to abuse that power and exploit that weakness. In many instances it just comes across that the ease to do something shouldn't justify actually doing so.

Take for example what is happening in Brazil with a GooglePlay app that could track your boyfriend if you feel he's cheating on you.
When it comes to the cloak and dagger effort of catching philandering lovers, all high-tech weapons appear to be fair game — at least to the tens of thousands of Brazilians who downloaded "Boyfriend Tracker" to their smartphones before the stealthy software was removed from the Google Play app store last week, apparently in response to complaints about privacy abuses and its potential to be used for extortion or even stalking.

"Brazilians are a jealous people, what can I say? Of course it's going to be popular," said Marcia Almeida, a 47-year-old woman in Rio whose marriage ended seven years ago in large part because of what she said was her husband's infidelity.

"It's a different type of spying," she said of comparisons to the NSA surveillance program. "You're checking up on somebody you know intimately, not some stranger."

The app, called "Rastreador de Namorados" (Portuguese for Boyfriend Tracker), promises to act like a "private detective in your partner's pocket."

Functions include sending the person doing the tracking updates on their partner's location and forwarding duplicates of text message traffic from the targeted phone. There is even a command that allows a user to force the target phone to silently call their own, like a pocket dial, so they can listen in on what the person is saying.
Jesus. That's some hardcore stuff right there. It's also really not a healthy relationship situation to have to worry about this. In fact, it flat our sucks.

You really have to question your own happiness and your own self worth when you feel like your partner is cheating on you. But at the same time, worrying about this isn't going to do anything but draw them closer into the other person's arms, or at the very least even further away from your own.

I have to wonder what's even the purpose of all this? If you suspect that your partner is cheating on you or no longer cares for you, then walk away. Walk away and realize that they aren't going to fight to keep you. So why are you fighting to keep track of them? At best you're going to find out some harsh truths on your own, and really, finding out on your own and letting that information stew in your head is far worse than actually having the person just admit to the affair. At least then you can get the bigger picture on what the truth of the matter and why it happened.

It's easy for me to say to just walk away. I know. I've been in that situation. But I also realize that it's damn difficult when you still love that person. But we're not talking about that stage of the potential fixing and making ti work part. We're in the "I believe he's cheating on me and I need piece of mind by catching him in the act" sort of shit and that will drive you crazy and if not, will destroy your relationship with them.

This also goes to show what I have been saying all along and why I do not want to date anyone from Latin America. Because while they have this fire filled passion, that passion cuts both ways. In that if you do them wrong, that passion just acts as a double edged sword and you're going to get equal amounts of hate and scorn. Holy shit, you do not want to cross the paths with someone who has been scorned like that. Let met tell you.

No bueno.

The flat out truth is this. If you suspect your partner is cheating, you either need to confront them and address the issues or just walk away from it. Seeking these answers through private eye or even private future 1984 dystopian means of thought police is not going to help, and is probably going to equally hurt your relationship as the act of cheating itself.

The moment you resort to these, the trust is gone. And once that is on the out, then rebuilding it is a long journey that many are not willing to go down because you're not with someone who created the very same baggage that you are dragging on with not being able to trust someone.

It's a fucked up situation and I wish it upon no one. Not even my worst enemies. It's just something you don't want others to suffer through.

So save yourself the few bucks and data and just go with getting the angry birds app or something else.





Wednesday, August 28, 2013

I'll Tell You How Your Balls Taste

I'll Tell You How Your Balls Taste

Wait, that may have been a poorly worded way to get my point across. You see, this is a bit strange news in the field of science, but your balls, apparently have taste receptors.
Taste receptors — the proteins responsible for our ability to taste salty, sweet, and bitter foods — aren't just present on our tongues.  Recently researchers are finding them present all over the body, from the mouth to the anus. Literally.

Taste receptors have been found in in the stomach, intestines, pancreas, lungs, and brain, the researchers said. But, we really don't know what they are there for, study researcher Bedrich Mosinger, of the Monell Chemical Senses Center told Business Insider in an email:  Read more:

[The] function of taste receptors and signaling proteins outside of taste system is still unclear... [in some areas] they seem to be part of the chemical sensing of sugars or amino acids. For the most part, though, full function of these extra-orally located taste receptors is unknown.

Only those taste receptors lack the ability to detect flavors of sweet and umami. So unlike our mouth, the taste receptors on your balls can't detect anything sour. Which does beg the question, why the fuck is there taste receptors on your balls?!

Well. Not just balls, but on various parts of your body that otherwise can't be linked up to register that with your mind and all that. And since you know that I won't leave you with blue balls on this great mystery, there is some light that has been shined on this great mystery of mysteries.

So researchers at the Monell Chemical Senses Center were attempting to develop mice without sweet and umami receptors for a taste-related study, but they found that the mice lacking those receptors were unable to reproduce. And after conducting further studies, they found that removing these receptors from the testes, and even just blocking their functions, rendered the mice infertile.


It goes to show you that if you have no taste, nature doesn't want you to multiple. Ah, survival of the most selective. Which I guess goes into understanding the reaction for scientist to better understand the interaction of certain drugs with human fertility. It could also lead to the development of a male birth control pill if you could find out how to hack into those shut off switches that not having those taste receptors causes.

Tuesday, August 27, 2013

The Gaucing Truth About the Small Avocados This Season

The Gaucing Truth About the Small Avocados This Season

The avocados this season so far have been pretty small. I mean, really small. Not that it's a bad thing. I generally can't plow through a big avocado in one dish and it usually goes bad or starts to look not so fresh when its been sitting in my fridge. Which is why I typically just make smashed avocado - a sort of guac like texture and put it into an air tight container.

But you probably have been noticing that they've been looking mighty small this season and it's because while they usually weighed half a pound or more, this summer the trees in Southern California are cranking out lemon sized ones due to an unusual growing year that consisted of low winter rainfall in 2012, when they were originally developing from little avocado buds.

The flip side to all this and the more important factor here to take away from it is that smaller avocados means more fruit on the trees. So in the long run, while it may suck for you if you're buying the avocados by the singles, it's good for the farmers because the annual harvest will probably end up weighing in at more than the usual amount.

Then again, you could always take a drive up to Santa Barbara and stop by that one little avocado spot on the way there. Get yourself a solid 10 lemon sized ones for a buck. Best deal around. Also best drive around. 

Monday, August 26, 2013

St. Ides

St. Ides

Summer may be officially coming to an end soon, but that doesn't mean that the heat is letting up. So why not head down to your local bodega... ha, sorry. We're not in the fucking East Coast. What I mean to say was your local Korean owned liquor store and get yourself some nice cold malt liquors, braw.





Awww yeah. That should hit the spot.

Sunday, August 25, 2013

True Blooding It About a the End of the Season

True Blooding It About a the End of the Season

This most recent season of True Blood just ended and I have to say, what the fuck was that? There was that episode devoted to flash backs of Terry and Arline. And you know what, I have to say that looking at the show through their experiences, this is one of the most fucked up shows around for these characters.

Arline has always run the bar so her buying it with the insurance money is the sick payoff. If you watch the show from Arline and Terry's perspective it is the most tragic story of the entire show.

Terry started working at the bar as a cook and was "trained" by Lafayette who shortly left him to run it on his own while he chased voodoo spirits or something. Between the stress of the position and the PTSD it was too much he was constantly on edge and to the limit.

Arline worked as the most senior waitress in the bar with TERRIBLE co-workers. There is really no other way to describe them. Tara thinks she is racist just for existing as a white woman and Sookie randomly skips her shifts without calling in. The owner/"manager" is NEVER around and when he is it is to do something super creepy like run around naked or murder his family members and bury the bodies. On top of all this her husband is a serial killer, she has to watch her kids, and some demon baby doll sub-plot.

This pretty much leaves Terry and Arline to run the bar alone with other "co-workers" occasionally stopping by to insult the work they are doing and steal alcohol. On top of everything they are already dealing with in their personal lives tons of shit goes down with demons and vampire wars like 40% of it happens at the bar. Who do you think has to clean up all the demon guts and orgy leavings? That's right Terry and Arline.

The owner spent half of last season as a fly how much managing can you do as a fly? Not to mention that Sam being the Mayor seems out of character for a guy who just wants to keep to himself and presumably has a partner who's about to give birth. Fuck Sam, the Fly-Mayor of Bon Temps.

Besides this whole fucked up situation with the bar, the whole season was a waste land and really weird because it took away the narrative agency of nearly every major character and just jammed them into some locked down room with nothing to do for half the season besides wear bad prison jump suits and wait to be saved by someone outside. 



Then you have the season ender which felt like the writers just gave up half way through writing it. Oh yeah, we need to do something with Warlow. Oh, fuck it. Let Jason kill him or something. What about Eric? Um.... sure, he gets burned while sunbathing for no reason and out of fucking left field.

In short, this is summer filler for a reason. You don't want to consider this anything more than a fluff show at best. 

Saturday, August 24, 2013

Fuck You, Boston

Fuck You, Boston

This weekend marks the meeting between The Los Angeles Dodgers and the Boston Red Sox. A time when those fucking lawwwwsers in bean town flood into Dodger stadium and you hear those god awful accents. I can't wait to hear the endless questioning about... 
What Aaaarrrrrrrrrr Yaaaaaa!
For those of you who don't speak moron, Bostonians love to ask what ethnic background you come from. They're pretty awful in general. Just look at what the Onion has to say about them;
Boston, large northeastern American city of 650,000 people, each of whom, regardless of class or socioeconomic status, is a humongous asshole. Founded in 1630 by English Puritans fleeing persecution and seeking a place to practice their religion as free assholes, Boston has evolved into a center for education, medicine, and telling one another to shut the fuck up. Common cultural activities include being physically assaulted by the working-class assholes of South Boston, dodging the thousands of college-student assholes as they stumble from the city’s many asshole bars, being looked down upon with withering contempt by the obscenely wealthy blue-blood assholes of Beacon Hill, and talking about their overpaid baseball team of assholes. Despite a tangible racial divide, Boston’s diverse citizenry crosses all color boundaries to form the most irritating and insufferable group of people in the United States. (See Philadelphia)

In any event, what an opening game to the series it was. In fact, it was so much of a game, that it wasn't that long. A simple two hours and seven minutes it took to whoop on some Bean eating Bostonians asses. I'm pretty sure that Carl Crawford was telling the Red Sox about how they couldn't wait to get rid of him. Do youse remembers? And what about how about how the Red Sox got rid of Hanley Ramirez.

It was about a year ago when the Dodgers and the Red Sox made a really big 9 player trade. Adrian Gonzalex, Josh Beckett, Carl Crawford and Nick Punto came to Los Angeles. The Dodgers gave up James Loney, Allen Webster, Rubby De La Rosa, Jerry Sands and Ivan DeJesus.

As of today none of the players that were sent to Boston are still with the team.

But again, this 2-0 shut out was the shortest game the Dodgers have played this season and was the shortest since they kicked some Atlanta Braves ass in a 2-1 victory back in 2008 when it was an easy two hour game time. For baseball that's fucking quick. 

But hey, back to talking shit about Bostonians. If you've ever wondered why they play sweet Caroline at Red Sox games, it's very simple.



It's a song that is played because it's a popular song among drunks. And if there's one thing that Bostonians are, it's fucking drunks. 

Boston drunks who simply can't say anything. You hear things like "Lets read all tha bumpa stikaaz!" and "I lost Mai khakis at dodger stadium"

So yeah, fuck you, Boston. Whaaat Ahhhhhhhhhh yuz?! A buncha bittah soah loozahs?! 

By all means, let's get these hashtags flowing.
#LAstronger
#FuckBoston
#BostonSucks
#BostonWeak
#SoGoodSoGood
#Whatarrrrrryousanyway
#BatmanfromBoston
#SouthieBatman


In any event, an even better news piece about all this talk about kicking some Bean Town Bunch of idiots at a game is the news that Hall of Fame Announcer Vin Scully, the voice of the Dodgers for the past 64 Dodger seasons, is coming back for another one despite being 85 years old.

He's made it a point to say that as long as he's healthy, he'll be back to be the voice of the Dodgers. That and as long as his wife gives him permission. But that's sealed it for me. I've been dreading that news every year that it would be his last year. 



 

Friday, August 23, 2013

Daft Punking It Up

Daft Punking It Up 

By now you must know that I have this love for Daft Punk. Then again, it seems to be the trending thing to do. Though I do still have my Alive 1997 album and the included Daft Punk membership card, in the event that you were testing my street cred.

In any case, here's two videos that take to the fans to create something utterly amazing from the music;



This second one was filmed on the streets outside of Chapman University during their semi-annual undie run. So at the very least you'll be able to enjoy Daft Punk's music while also looking at college aged girls in their underwear.



That is all.

Thursday, August 22, 2013

Hitting the Bulls eye with the Arrow

Hitting the Bulls eye with the Arrow

The CW isn't always known for great shows. Typically it's the stuff your teenage sister and her friends watch. But last season one show busted out and it was amazing in a very unconventional way. It was a show about Green Arrow of the DC comics.

Yes, the comic character that is based on robin hood and has a really cheesy mustache/beard. In any event, this show kicked a lot of ass and was one of the best things on television at the time. It had plenty of action and well, was awesome to watch.

It's coming back in a little bit, but to tide you over and excite you - potentially to the point of giving the last season a shot, here's some of the best stunt takes on the show. Enjoy.






Wednesday, August 21, 2013

GTA - You Have A Friend in Me

GTA - You Have A Friend in Me

Another content light post for you, but don't worry, this one had me in stitches due to the use of some childhood film character mixed in with some hardcore history of violence video game.



And here's a bonus one of Crash

Tuesday, August 20, 2013

Arrowhead is landing a bulls eye on Aussie TV

Arrowhead is landing a bulls eye on Aussie TV

Say, do you like Science Fiction? You know, like space travel and barbaric crazy shit. That sort of space age fun with a vintage feel? Well then, do we have a production for you. Arrowhead: Signal was originally set to be a film but then it was picked up by an Australian Television network to run on there.

Arrowhead is the tale of survival set amongst the distant stars. Kye is a prisoner of war caught between two armies that he doesn't believe in. When offered an opportunity for freedom, Kye sets out on one last rescue mission, only to become stranded on a desert moon when his ship.- The Arrowhead - crash lands. Kye has to learn to survive when he discovers a new life form that will challenge his very body and soul.

You can watch the original short that is the basis to this television series right here;



Director Jesse O'Brien turned to Pozible.com to help originally raise the $40,000AU needed to complete the film. He describes the story as a bit of Jekyll and Hyde meets Robinson Crusoe. You see, Kye somehow becomes infected with an alien virus that hinders him from becoming a peaceful person. Or at least that was how Jesse original envisioned it. But then again who knows what has changed since he originally shot that rather impressive short. 

Monday, August 19, 2013

The Speech

The Speech

If there's one speech you need to hear, it's this one.



That is all.

Sunday, August 18, 2013

Good By, Matt Smith, And Thanks for all the Fish Fingers

Good By, Matt Smith, And Thanks for all the Fish Fingers

By now you've all heard that Doctor Who will no longer be Matt Smith come after the Christmas special. He is no more and the new guy replacing him... Well, you know what. Let's not even get into that just yet. We need to enjoy Matt as the zany doctor in the 50th as well as the Christmas special. But since he's leaving, let's take a moment to just let him say thank you.



Now that's a class act Doctor who I will miss greatly. Thankfully we do still have that impossible girl with the really short red dress to occupy our thoughts.




Saturday, August 17, 2013

Breaking Star Trek

Breaking Star Trek

Last week on the season premiere of Breaking Bad, good ol' Badger laid out his fan script for Star Trek. The following is an animated version of it that was cranked out the next day.



Bravo to Breaking Bad for such an awesome original badass Star Trek moment, but as well as the artist to crank out an animation of it so soon after.


Friday, August 16, 2013

Anne Hathaway ,Oh Anne Hathaway

Anne Hathaway ,Oh Anne Hathaway

This is going to be one of those no content type of days. But on the flip side, here's a lot of pictures of Anne Hathaway in a little black dress.











Yup... very low content, but man, can you not turn away from it.

Thursday, August 15, 2013

Star Wars Fan Fiction Animated

Star Wars Fan Fiction Animated

So Patton Oswalt's Star Wars filibuster from Parks and Rec got animated.




Brides Are Really Getting Out of Control

Brides Are Really Getting Out of Control


A wrote a piece a little bit back about a Canadian fella who met some really strange shit when he gave a gift basket for a wedding gift and how the couple chewed him out. Well, it seems like it has happened yet again. And thanks to social media, we know this other story of a bride going fucking crazy with expectations.

Last weekend I attended a wedding of a not-close friend with my boyfriend and as a gift we gave $100 cash. This was generous considering my financial situation. I just finished university with $40,000 in student loans, and have only found part time (12-18 hrs per week) minimum wage work. I gave as much as I could and attended to show my support.
Today I received a rude and condescending message from the bride via Facebook messenger: "Hi Tanya, how are you? I just want to know is there any reason or dissatisfaction of Mike's and I wedding that both you and Phil gave 50$ each? In terms of the amount we got from you both was very unexpected as a result we were very much short on paying off the reception because just for the cocktail + reception alone the plate per person is 200$ (as per a normal wedding range with open bar is about) and Mike and I both have already paid for everything else including decor, photography, attire etc and didn't expect we had to cover that huge amount for reception as well. As I know you both live together and work, so I did not see any reason for that amount, when it comes to your wedding hopefully you'll know what I mean. I hope for the best as from what we receive is what we will give back. Anyways, good luck on everything." [all sic]
It's infuriating that she had the nerve to make assumptions about my finances, and assume that I or my boyfriend had an extra $400 lying around. Those $100 were hard-earned and she didn't show an ounce of gratitude for what she did receive. That money didn't grow on a tree. If she had a minimum gift requirement, she should have specified it...or asked everyone for income statements before inviting them.
This growing trend of mocking and pointing out those who give us gifts at these sort of events is really disturbing.


There is a disgusting trend emerging where people are not only passing judgment about the gifts they receive, but they are verbalizing it -- even on the Bravo show 'Newlyweds,' they showed one of the grooms mocking guests on TV for being 'cheap with gifts.' It's classless and tacky."

Wednesday, August 14, 2013

Pacific Rim Godzilla Style

Pacific Rim Godzilla Style

By now you've probably watched Pacific Rim at least once or twice. Well, here's a slightly different way to look at the trailer and all that came from it.




Which is a little odd considering that Pacific Rim has more connections to Neon Genesis Evangelion than Godzilla. Though I guess that has some draw to it. Either way, it's Del Toro's love letter to that franchise in general of giant mechas fighting monster beast that wreck shit left and right.



Tuesday, August 13, 2013

Failure - Tis Be Defined By This

Failure - Tis be Defined By This

Oh Failure. Complete and utter failure. This is it defined.





Breaking Myths

Breaking Myths

With the new season of Breaking Bad starting up in a couple of days, there's one more thing to look forward to...  Myth Busters is doing an entire episode on the series and the many instances that a myth should be tested. 



And as much as Myth Busters has not been relevant for the last half decade, it still means that this show is going to draw in a lot of eye balls because of the Breaking Bad connection.

Monday, August 12, 2013

Somethings Don't Need a Simulator

Somethings Don't Need a Simulator

While the Xbox's next generation system Juan has been announced, I guess I should make some gaming news or something. Maybe then I'll get back into E3, you know, if that even mattered anymore. In any event, I don't play many video games these days.

Exactly none. And why is that? Because they're not all that fun any more. This, on the other hand, made my day.



It just goes to show you that not all things need a simulator to recreate the actions of. If only all of life was so easy....




Yes, somethings just don't need a simulator for.

Sunday, August 11, 2013

Broke Bad

Broke Bad

During Comic Con a couple of weeks ago, this little sizzle reel came to light to pimp out the newest and last season.

Enjoy



A great lead up to the premiere tonight.

Saturday, August 10, 2013

Crafting Beer

Crafting Beer

If you think this is some sort of new movement, it's not. Craft beer has been with us for a long time and you just didn't really know about it. For shame, you could have been drinking good beer like and with the rest of us all along. It's not too late to start now. But here, enjoy this little video about the art behind it.



Oh yeah, you can see Nick from New Girl with a Craft Beard and the hot Olivia Wilde on demand on Drinking Friends.

Friday, August 9, 2013

Bad Has Been Broken

Bad Has Been Broken

As the final season of Breaking Bad starts up this weekend, I think it's well worth it to once again post this little montage of the seasons thus far all in one music video montage that is well worth watching over and over again.


Thursday, August 8, 2013

A Paleo Life is a Lie

A Paleo Life is a Lie

Something has always bugged me about the Paleo diet. Well, I guess the first thing is that it's a fad. The next part of it that bugged me was the whole notion that we should do anything like our ancestors. I mean, they caught a bad cold - or even a cold that is a sort of 24 hour sniffles to modern day us and they were as good as dead.

That's the luxury of, you know, modern technology. We don't need to go out and hunt for our food. But it does bug me some when you hear a paleo dieter go on about how they're eating all Paleo and they order something like eggs with avocado and salmon along with some protein enriched milk smoothie. Like, how lucky for that cavemen to live so close to both a fish source, avocado trees, cows and chickens. Yeah, I don't think that's very realistic.

But it turns out that the paleo diet and that lifestyle along with is really aren't based on any science.


Our maladapted ancestors
The paleofantasy is a fantasy in part because it supposes that we humans, or at least our protohuman forebears, were at some point perfectly adapted to our environments. We apply this erroneous idea of evolution producing the ideal mesh between organism and surroundings to other life-forms too, not just to people. We seem to have a vague idea that long long ago, when organisms were emerging from the primordial slime, they were rough-hewn approximations of their eventual shape, like toys hastily carved from wood, or an artist’s first rendition of a portrait, with holes where the eyes and mouth eventually will be. Then, the thinking goes, the animals were subject to the forces of nature. Those in the desert got better at resisting the sun, while those in the cold evolved fur or blubber or the ability to use fire. Once those traits had appeared and spread in the population, we had not a kind of sketch, but a fully realized organism, a fait accompli, with all of the lovely details executed, the anatomical t’s crossed and i’s dotted.

But of course that isn’t true. Although we can admire a stick insect that seems to flawlessly imitate a leafy twig in every detail, down to the marks of faux bird droppings on its wings, or a sled dog with legs that can withstand subzero temperatures because of the exquisite heat exchange between its blood vessels, both are full of compromises, jury-rigged like all other organisms. The insect has to resist disease, as well as blend into its background; the dog must run and find food, as well as stay warm. The pigment used to form those dark specks on the insect is also useful in the insect immune system, and using it in one place means it can’t be used in another. For the dog, having long legs for running can make it harder to keep the cold at bay, since more heat is lost from narrow limbs than from wider ones. These often conflicting needs mean automatic trade-offs in every system, so that each may be good enough but is rarely if ever perfect. Neither we nor any other species have ever been a seamless match with the environment. Instead, our adaptation is more like a broken zipper, with some teeth that align and others that gape apart. Except that it looks broken only to our unrealistically perfectionist eyes—eyes that themselves contain oddly looped vessels as a holdover from their past.

Even without these compromises from natural selection acting on our current selves, we have trade-offs and “good enough” solutions that linger from our evolutionary history. Humans are built on a vertebrate plan that carries with it oddities that make sense if you are a fish, but not a terrestrial biped. The paleontologist Neal Shubin points out that our inner fish constrains the human body’s performance and health because adaptations that arose in one environment bedevil us in another. Hiccups, hernias, and hemorrhoids are all caused by an imperfect transfer of anatomical technology from our fish ancestors. These problems haven’t disappeared for a number of reasons: just by chance, no genetic variants have been born that lacked the detrimental traits, or, more likely, altering one’s esophagus to prevent hiccups would entail unacceptable changes in another part of the anatomy. If something works well enough for the moment, at least long enough for its bearer to reproduce, that’s enough for evolution.

We can acknowledge that evolution is continuous, but still it seems hard to comprehend that this means each generation can differ infinitesimally from the one before, without a cosmic moment when a frog or a monkey looked down at itself, pronounced itself satisfied, and said, “Voilà, I am done.” Our bodies therefore reflect a continuously jury-rigged system with echoes of fish, of fruit fly, of lizard and mouse. Wanting to be more like our ancestors just means wanting more of the same set of compromises.

When was that utopia again?
Recognizing the continuity of evolution also makes clear the futility of selecting any particular time period for human harmony. Why would we be any more likely to feel out of sync than those who came before us? Did we really spend hundreds of thousands of years in stasis, perfectly adapted to our environments? When during the past did we attain this adaptation, and how did we know when to stop?

If they had known about evolution, would our cave-dwelling forebears have felt nostalgia for the days before they were bipedal, when life was good and the trees were a comfort zone? Scavenging prey from more formidable predators, similar to what modern hyenas do, is thought to have preceded, or at least accompanied, actual hunting in human history. Were, then, those early hunter-gatherers convinced that swiping a gazelle from the lion that caught it was superior to that newfangled business of running it down yourself? And why stop there? Why not long to be aquatic, since life arose in the sea? In some ways, our lungs are still ill suited to breathing air. For that matter, it might be nice to be unicellular: after all, cancer arises because our differentiated tissues run amok. Single cells don’t get cancer.

Even assuming we could agree on a time to hark back to, there is the sticky issue of exactly what such an ancestral nirvana was like. Do we follow the example of the modern hunter-gatherers living a subsistence existence in a few remaining parts of the world? What about the great apes, the animals that most closely resemble the ancestors we (and they) split off from millions of years ago? How much can we deduce from fossils? People were what anthropologists call “anatomically modern,” meaning that they looked more or less like us, by about 200,000 years ago, but it’s far less clear when “behaviorally modern” humans arose, or what exactly they did. So, trying to deduce the classic lifestyle from which we’ve now deviated is itself a bit of a gamble. In his book Before the Dawn, science writer Nicholas Wade points out, “It is tempting to suppose that our ancestors were just like us except where there is evidence to the contrary. This is a hazardous assumption.”

You might argue that hunter-gatherers, or the cavemen of our paleofantasies, were better adapted to their environment simply because they spent many thousands of years in it—much longer than we’ve spent sitting in front of a computer or eating Mars bars. That’s true for some attributes, but not all. Continued selection in a stable environment, as might occur in the deep sea, can indeed cause ever more finely honed adaptations, as the same kinds of less successful individuals are weeded out of the population. But such rock-solid stability is rare in the world; the Pleistocene varied considerably in its climate over the course of thousands of years, and when people move around, even small shifts in the habitat in which they live, going from warm to cool, from savanna to forest, can pose substantially new evolutionary challenges. Even in perfectly stable environments, trade-offs persist; you can’t give birth to large-brained infants and also walk on two legs trouble-free, no matter how long you try.

Incidentally, it’s important to dispel the myth that modern humans are operating in a completely new environment because we only recently began to live as long as we do now, whereas our ancestors, or the average hunter-gatherer, lived only until thirty or forty, and hence never had to experience age-related diseases. While it is absolutely true that the average life span of a human being has increased enormously over just the last few centuries, this does not mean that thousands of years ago people were hale and hearty until thirty-five and then suddenly dropped dead.

An average life expectancy is just that—an average of all the ages that the people in the population attain before they die. A life expectancy of less than forty can occur without a single individual dying at or even near that age if, for example, childhood mortality from diseases such as measles or malaria is high—a common pattern in developing countries. Suppose you have a village of 100 people. If half of them die at age five, perhaps from such childhood ailments, twenty die at age sixty, and the remaining thirty die at seventy-five, the average life span in the society is thirty-seven, but not a single person actually reached the age of thirty hale and hearty and then suddenly began to senesce. The same pattern writ large is what makes the life expectancy in developing countries so shockingly low. It isn’t that people in sub-Saharan Africa or ancient Rome never experienced old age; it’s that few of them survived their childhood diseases. Average life expectancy is not the same thing as the age at which most people die. Old age is not a recent invention, but its commonness is.

The pace of change
If we do not look to a mythical past utopia for clues to a way forward, what next? The answer is that we start asking different questions. Instead of bemoaning our unsuitability to modern life, we can wonder why some traits evolve quickly and some slowly. How do we know what we do about the rate at which evolution occurs? If lactose tolerance can become established in a population over just a handful of generations, what about an ability to digest and thrive on refined grains, the bugaboo of the paleo diet? Breakthroughs in genomics (the study of the entire set of genes in an organism) and other genetic technologies now allow us to determine how quickly individual genes and gene blocks have been altered in response to natural selection. Evidence is mounting that numerous human genes have changed over just the last few thousand years—a blink of an eye, evolutionarily speaking—while others are the same as they have been for millions of years, relatively unchanged from the form we share with ancestors as distant as worms and yeast. The pages to come will explore which genes and traits have changed, which have not, how we know, and why it matters.
What’s more, a new field called experimental evolution is showing us that sometimes evolution occurs before our eyes, with rapid adaptations happening in 100, 50, or even a dozen or fewer generations. Depending on the life span of the organism, that could mean less than a year, or perhaps a quarter century. It is most easily demonstrated in the laboratory, but increasingly, now that we know what to look for, we are seeing it in the wild. And although humans are evolving all the time, it is often easier to see the process in other kinds of organisms. Humans are not the only species whose environment has changed dramatically over the last few hundred years, or even the last few decades. Some of the work my students and I have been doing on crickets found in the Hawaiian Islands and in the rest of the Pacific shows that a completely new trait, a wing mutation that renders males silent, spread in just five years, fewer than twenty generations. It is the equivalent of humans becoming involuntarily mute during the time between the publication of the Gutenberg Bible and On the Origin of Species. This and similar research on animals is shedding light on which traits are likely to evolve quickly and under what circumstances, because we can test our ideas in real time under controlled conditions.

Over the last decade, our understanding of such rapid evolution, also called “evolution in ecological timescales,” has increased enormously. And studying the rate of evolution also has practical implications. For example, fishermen often take the largest specimens of salmon or trout from streams and rivers. Fish usually need to reach a certain size before becoming sexually mature and capable of reproduction, after which growth slows down. Like other animals, fish show a trade-off between large size and time of reproduction: if you wait to be large before producing offspring, you probably will be able to produce more of them, and having greater numbers of offspring is favored by evolution, but you also risk dying before you are able to reproduce at all. But where overfishing has removed a substantial portion of a population, the average size of fish is now substantially smaller, because the fishermen have inadvertently selected for earlier reproduction, and evolution has favored fish that get to the business of sex sooner. It’s not just that the larger fish have all been taken; it’s that the fish are not reaching such sizes to begin with. The genes responsible for regulating growth and size at sexual maturity are now different because evolution has occurred. To bring back the jaw-dropping trophy fish of decades past, scientists say, people will have to change their ways.

It’s common for people talk about how we were “meant” to be, in areas ranging from diet to exercise to sex and family. Yet these notions are often flawed, making us unnecessarily wary of new foods and, in the long run, new ideas. I would not dream of denying the evolutionary heritage present in our bodies—and our minds. And it is clear that a life of sloth with a diet of junk food isn’t doing us any favors. But to assume that we evolved until we reached a particular point and now are unlikely to change for the rest of history, or to view ourselves as relics hampered by a self-inflicted mismatch between our environment and our genes, is to miss out on some of the most exciting new developments in evolutionary biology.
 So I guess I'm going to go enjoy some of our modern day non-paleo inventions. It just goes to show you that the paloe diet isn't the best thing to happen since sliced bread.


Wednesday, August 7, 2013

Breaking The School Play

Breaking The School Play

With Breaking Bad just so soon coming back that you can already taste it on the tip of your mouth, isn't it about time you see what this epic story of a straight laced chemistry teacher turn drug empire ruler as performed by a bunch of corruptible children at a school play?

I think it is. So here you go.



But the question is if they just spoiled the ending here. WTF, Man. Hank arrest Walter? Not in my world.

NOT.IN.MINE!

Tuesday, August 6, 2013

Colbert About To Get Lucky Tonight

Colbert About To Get Lucky Tonight


A little ways back last week Colbert came on to the Jimmy Fallon show to this little background music, danced and then shuffled off back to the world of the back stage;


Which was clearly a little nod that he was getting in those two electronic gods Daft Punk to come on his show soon. Well, tonight is the night.

Daft Punk will be making a guest spot on The Colbert Report. It'll be their first appearance on TV since they released their newest album Random Access Memories back in May. They'll be on Colbert's as part of the "Colbchella" series.

Simply put, this sounds like something amazing and I'll be watching.

Monday, August 5, 2013

Hot Pockets Getting All Fancy And What Not

Hot Pockets Getting All Fancy And What Not

Yeah, the title to this post could be more witty, but it seems that in an attempt to boost the low sales, Hot Pockets are getting a face lift to their hotter than the sun on the outside, but frozen like ice on the inside terrible meat pies. In fact, it seems that they're going with a more Foodie friendly option.
The new Hot Pockets include ingredients like hickory ham, angus beef, and white-meat chicken inside a variety of seasoned crusts, including “crispy buttery” crust, croissant, and pretzel bread.
Over the past two years, the brand exec’s have been working with chefs and bakers, visiting New York City restaurants, and asking cosumers about the foods they’re into, most notably young adult males, who make up 60% of Hot Pocket consumers.
I don't think that the contents not being snobby enough for my disconcerting taste was the motivation to NOT buy hot pockets. It's just the fact that it's some really gross food that you only eat if you're in a trailer park or your work place has nothing more than that completely grossed out and covered in gunk crappy microwave in the break room. And even then you have to second guess ever turning to the comfort of some awful hot pocket for calorie intake.
Hot Pockets is following a broader trend by going after consumers who are drawn to the appeal of fresher, healthier, higher-quality ingredients. In recent years even fast food restaurants like McDonald’s, Burger King, and Taco Bell have tried to capture this shift in consumer tastes, having been pushed in that direction by so-called fast casual restaurants.
The problem here is that fast food is actually more time consuming, and in many ways is actually more fancy than fucking Hot Pockets. It only takes a couple of minutes to nuke one in the microwave before you're faced with that hotter than lava insides of questionable origins. 

And really, that's the problem with this whole marketing of Hot Pockets. It doesn't address the real issues. That the insides being spun to be this gourmet stuff is like jamming something great into something that looks like road kill or post concert puke. 

It's this silly, that even I, a child of the 80's and 90's, who was a latchkey kid and had to cook his own meals when getting home tried to avoid hot pockets, breakfast pockets or even lean pockets as much as possible. I could never master the art of cooking it without it coming out really burnt, cold on the inside or just flat out wrong on all levels. I'd rather eat the sodium enriched goodness of Ramen.

But hey, it's not like they haven't tried to increase the image of their shitty product by tapping into that hot rapping community to get this motha fucka selling and pocket it like its hot.



I think the problem with this is also, if you're touting the whole Angus beef and white meat chicken... the only people who will care about that shit are those who aren't poor and don't have to depend on hot pockets to provide them some basic survival food. Do you honestly think someone who knows what angus beef taste like and can afford it will buy hot pockets? Ha! Just seems sort of insulting to those who can't afford that in their daily life. May as well make a lobster flavored hot pocket.

Well, with that I'll leave you with the most impressionable commentary on Hot Pockets that could ever exist. 



Sunday, August 4, 2013

Making Yummy Pancakes

Making Yummy Pancakes

It's one of those days. Got too much to do anyway, so here's a no content goodie.


Saturday, August 3, 2013

Drinking Friends, Craft Beer and Craft Beards

Drinking Friends, Craft Beer and Craft Beards

So a new drinking movie that centers around the world of Craft beer is coming out and as if that wasn't great news in itself, it has Olivia Wilde in it. Instantly I'm going to watch this. But hey, here's this trailer if you need to have the hard sale on it;



At first this looks like a film that will do to craft beer and microbreweries what Sideways did to wine. Or at the very least what Sideways did to Merlots. Oh the poor, poor Merlots.

Second off, no fucking fair. I call shenanigans. There's no way that Jake Johnson could have that many amazing looking hollywood hook ups. He has Zooey Dschanel on New Girl and even with a fucking Craft Beard he gets not only Anna Kendrick AND Olivia Wilde? The dude won some sort of lottery. That's the only way that all of this could be explained away without citing some sort of pack with the devil that he made.

How else can you explain one man getting both of these;



Jake, let me tell you, you have one hell of an agent. That man deserves a bonus come Chanukah. Anyhow, when does this movie come out? You ask, preparing to get a nice couple of cold ones ready in the fridge? Good question.


This gets an iTunes and On demand release of July 25 and theater release of August 23. Welp, I don't know what the person who decided that was drinking, but they were clearly spending too much time chugging back beers at the Chicago breweries that this film was shot around.

Friday, August 2, 2013

Man am I Tired of hearing about Boston

I'm Sick of Hearing about Boston

Here we are months after the tragic incident where two insane brothers decided to use shit you could buy at a bed bath and beyond and blow up the finish line of a marathon. This is a tragedy, don't get me wrong. But the fact that only 48 hours after that incident half of the town of West, Texas was leveled in a literal shit explosion. I mean that. Look at this;



The explosion was caused from a fertilizer plant blowing up, and ended up killing 15. Five times more than what Boston suffered in deaths through the bombings. And yet the explosion in West, Texas. got less attention. You can say that the explosion in Boston was man made and caused by 'terrorism', but then again, the explosion in West, Texas was caused by the failure of regulations and inspections.

This doesn't include the estimated two hundred men, women and children injured with broken bones, burns, wounds and head trauma. There were 75 homes damaged beyond repair as well as 50-unit apartment complexes reduced to sticks and stones. This means, more than a hundred families were homeless because of this. And yet there wasn't any reports or news coverage on how many were children under five years old who do not have the safety and security of their home and family because of poor inspections. 

Perhaps that's why we didn't pay attention to it in the media. We didn't want to look at our ugly selves in the mirror as the cause of a tragedy that leveled a good portion of a small town. But we poured all this attention to Boston. And let me just say that Bostonians came out of this incident looking like the biggest fucking babies in what is a dictionary perfect picture of First World Problems.  


A couple of weeks back Rolling Stones got a lot of shit because their latest issue would feature the surviving bomber on the cover. People were going to protest and boycott the issue because it was suggested it would glorify the dude. Well, I'm laughing my ass off right now since the sales numbers came in and all this whiny about being insensitive and that it was going to be boycotted worked in the complete opposite
So much for a boycott. Sales doubled for Rolling Stone's controversial July issue featuring Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the alleged Boston bomber. 
The issue sold 13,332 copies since July 19 at 1,420 retail stores -- nearly double the magazine's 52-week average of 6,541, according to MagNet, a magazine sales tracker. 
July's cover featured a self-portrait of Tsarnaev with the headline: "The Bomber: How a Popular, Promising Student Was Failed by His Family, Fell Into Radical Islam and Became a Monster."
Rolling Stone quickly came under fire by critics, who included Boston Mayor Thomas Menino, who said the cover glamorized a man accused of setting off two pressure-cooker bombs in April that killed three and injured more than 260 others at the Boston Marathon.
Great job at the boycott, fellas. The only thing to come out of this was showing that Bostonians were a bunch of fucking babies. Want more proof? Hey, remember when the Toronto Maple Leaf's held up the sign "Toronto Stronger"?

A fan at Air Canada Centre on Monday night made himself the center of attention on social media when he arrived to cheer on the Toronto Maple Leafs carrying an offensive sign mocking the "Boston Strong" slogan that has become prevalent since the deadly bombings at the Boston Marathon.
The Toronto Maple Leafs fan came out to cheer on his team in Game 3 of their playoff Boston Bruins with a sign displaying that phrase "Toronto Stronger."





Amidst the outrage, one Bruins fan shared an image of his own on social media to show how he felt about the sign.


You mad, bro?

I have been to Boston and to be honest, if there was ever a place that deserved a tragedy, it's there. Talk about the most racially insensitive shit hole filled with bigots who constantly give a shit about what you are. Instead of hello you're asked 'What-are-you?'  'You-polish?' 'You-Mex-i-can?' It's filled with people who give a shit more about what you are and where you are from than anything else. It's fucking insane to think that they are altogether or 'as one'. They just rally around stupid Boston Strong t-shirts.

The only place less welcoming than Boston is New York. And what is funny is that there's even a rivalry between the two places. Honestly speaking, both of those places are the exact same thing. They fucking deserve each other. Both are filled with the most uncultured masses who believe they are in the center of modern day Rome. That all roads lead to and from there.Every time I have met someone who was from New York, I can rest assure that within 30 seconds, that fucker is going to tell me that they are from New York. As if it means anything to anyone. Especially here in L.A., a place that is a melting pot and filled with transplant. 

Hint, we don't give a shit.
Every time I turned on NPR the last few weeks, it constantly had something dealing with Boston. Be it the surviving bomber going into court and some stupid story about how some one who couldn't get to Dunkin' Donuts that day that the city was locked down felt that he needed to go down to the court and stare him down.

I just gave up on it after a while. Especially when I was waiting for news on the Trayvon Martin verdict and it was just filled with news about the Boston bombing how many months past the incident? I could barely find any stories about West Texas then. Fuck if you hear anything about the recovery of it now. But shit, you'll sure hear about how some Bostonian is still suffering from fear - which is odd since to suffer from this tragedy you would have potentially had to run a marathon. I'm not sure all those Sam Adam chuggin' Baked Bean consuming folks would have ever been apart of.

It's not that I'm losing interest in human's lives and the suffering of other people. Because again, the Boston Marathon was a tragedy. But it's not one that should overshadow others and just because it was in Boston doesn't mean that it is more important than others. So much so that it dwarfs the coverage then of situations like West, Texas fertilizer explosion. Most of all of the racial injustice done in Florida.The Boston Bombing had a billion hits on Google News while the Texas explosion got a bit over a hundred thousand hits. Thanks to the media coverage of one and not the other.

Though this shouldn't come as a surprise. How many people die at the hands of the American drone program every day compared to those that die here on U.S. soil from 'the enemy'.  But hey, Boston, keep on being such a butt hurt little bitch.

Thursday, August 1, 2013

Breaking Bad - Ozymandias

Breaking Bad - Ozymandias


 Returning on August 11th, this is just perfect. As to how I feel and how I see the final season to come about as.



It's going to be a salted earth type of season.