"In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act." - George Orwell

We started with dumplings (a metal steamer of juicy, shu mai-like pork dumplings were the best, though there wasn’t a batch that disappointed). It was on to rice noodle wraps stuffed with tender mushrooms and crisp water chestnuts. They fell apart when we picked them up but were good eating all the same. Glutinous rice balls filled with black sesame paste were like chewy, savory bonbons.

The girl couldn’t hide her expression when we ordered chicken feet.

My friend asked her name.

“I Don’t Know!”

I Don’t Know paused before continuing, “And if you knew me I’d be the weirdest girl you knew.”

Read more here.

[Thanks Chris!]

1. Jude/Jim Sturgess is adorable

2. It's all Beatles music

3. It's a visual cornucopia

4. It's mostly set in New York

5. Bono sings I am the Walrus

6. It will make you smile

7. Because all you need is love

Front Cover (Censored)

Back Cover (Censored)

Inside (RAW)

This is the next project up from Dumhi Productions.

Haj had originally started up a little contest to decide on an artist for his new album, but I guess he decided to give me a shot.

After a few setbacks, I was finally able to deliver for him... but I feel I could have done a better job were I not preoccupied.

But what we do have looks nice, and it's a very dope album.

I doubt my man will change the game with this, but it's a super solid entry into this year's collection of indie hip hop projects.

I went to see The Dark Knight last night.

**Before I go on, if you are scared of clowns or very scary clowns, you may not want to view the photos at the end of the post. They're so cool that I have to post.**

Going to see movies on opening weekend is so much fun in New York City, not only because everyone gets so hyped up about them and tickets sell out days if not weeks in advance, but because most of the plot usually takes place on the very ground we're sitting on.

Or in the case of last night, on the very ground we were 10 stories above (in a very fictional sense, as it's actually Gotham City). The theater we were able to get tickets to (my 4 girl friends and I) was in Brooklyn, exactly 1/2way between my place and their place (and Jenn, the odd woman out had to come from New Jersey -- the other 3 are roommates).  But it actually works out quite well to have the Brooklyn Heights/Park Slope area as a 1/2way point between our apartments because it's SUCH a nice area. It's where all the editors at work live and where rich people stroll along wide, brick-laden sidewalks. And of course, since it is still Brooklyn, you can walk 2 blocks in a particular direction and be in the ghetto.

So we got to the theater exactly 40 minutes before the show, which was very necessary. 5 minutes later there was a crowd of 200 out the door slamming forward to -- I don't know why everyone has to push, it's not like we were going anywhere at first! We finally were let through the gates and I thought we would be let into the theater, but no. We had to take about 10 flights of escalators up to wait in yet another huge line. Then after chatting away with my friends for a while longer (no problem) they led us to a different floor, yet again, and we got into a third line. And finally, got into our seats. There were definitely several people sitting on the floor by the time the movie started.

And I'm sure they didn't mind too much because this movie is GOOD. I won't give anything away, I hope, but it has several very intense moments of action, emotion and laughter. They really pack it in with the special effects, and the acting of Heath Ledger is phenomenal. He has that crazy thing down to a tee. 

Speaking of Heath Ledger, there are several moments where they have a specific way of portraying the character where you can see beyond the caked or dripping (depending on how excited Joker is) makeup to the personable and lovable actor from 10 Things I Hate About You (teen classic). It made Julianne and I very sad at a couple points in the movie, but I think it's good that if he was going to pass away, at least he ended with a commendable role (do we think awards?)

Side Note: There's one thing that made me really upset that night though. As we were in the area of Cobble Hill that can be a little more low-income shall we say, there were at least half black people in the theater (I didn't really think anything of it, although I did notice) And let me first say that a person's color doesn't matter to me. But I have seen several instances of rude and/or stupid behavior in my life from Black and White people. It all just depends on the type of person, and there are definitely low-quality types of both. Anyways, there was a scene in which people had to evacuate the city of Gotham. They had one huge cruise-ship-type boat of inmates, who happened to be mostly black, and another boat of "civilians," who were probably 100% white and the boats both just sat on the river off shore. The joker gave them each a bomb trigger to blow up the other boat, and said if neither had blown the other up before the hour's end, he would blow up both the boats. Well, as you can imagine, it was a pretty intense scene of back-and-forth decisions and arguments on each of the boats, whether to do it or not. At one point, the civilian boat was about to pull the trigger to blow up the boat of inmates, and this black girl behind me said "You got the wrong boat" and her friend a few seats down repeated "You got the wrong boat" snickering. I'm sorry, but when did it become okay to be openly racist?! Or racist at all... I mean, I know we all have our prejudices (that I wish were not there, but don't deny everyone has them), but don't be outright hateful and mean. Unless you think they could be talking about something else? I really don't. It was pretty obvious what they were saying. I mean, come on! 

But after losing about 2 minutes of the movie because I was steaming about it, I got back into the plot for the last hour. Honeslty, the only thing I'd say to critisize the movie is the length. It's well over 2 hours long and the last 1/3 is not quite as gripping as the prior segments. But it's still quite good throughout and well worth paying the $12 to see it in the city (or the 8 to see it in another city).

And one of my favorite parts, and I think pretty much everyone else's in the theater, really was Heath Ledger as The Joker. He was absolutely amazingly psychotic and thrilling. And somewhat of a lovable character, too. Weird, huh? Here are some pics I like:

Marc Lee, The Daily Telegraph
The Dark Knight has plenty of high-speed, maximum-volume action sequences, but it is also one of the most intelligent big-budget Hollywood movies of recent times; and no sympathy vote is required for a cinematic creation as accomplished as Ledger's deranged, demonic Lord of Chaos. It is a genuinely unsettling, brilliantly nuanced portrait of evil.

Its 2 years on and here is how things stand:

100,000+ hits!! (right on the anniversary too)

274 entries into the archive scattered across 500 categories.

491 comments

Lets also not forget YouTubeSkate with 8,000 hits, 46 videos and counting and a year old too!

No money generated.

No Money lost!

Lots of old friends catching up and getting together. Allan Gibson has put out an all call to skaters wishing to ride his Uber-Ramp. Wreckroom skates is putting out boards for three Steam riders, Dan Tag, Darren Menditto, and Bernie O'Dowd. I have a couple pictures going into an HR documentary and I had a cool email conversation with Guy from Fugazi. If you google/image search the word "signature" my name is number 2 on the entire internet(try it, its crazy!!). The 78 ditch is being ridden again by a whole new generation of skaters. Ben Cornish has dusted off his old films (Cant wait to see "Demo" again) I have gotten no better or worse at writing. SteamBoat released an amazing (cant wait to see it) skate film. Jay Henry is still...Well, Jay Henry. The Padulos's have a quarterpipe in their driveway again, for their kids. Mike Pruskowski is a Dad this year. Rinaldi is blogging away. Rodney opened a shop in the lower east side.Bernie is skating and directing creativity. John is sculpting.Tom Groholski chimed in with a killer essay on East Coast pride. Vallely always has great things to say here. Mertz is gonna be back in action as well as making music.  Rocky is spinning, Dennis is fishing. Taylor is blackberrying. 300+ people are trolling through our nostalgic past on a daily basis. Everyone will always miss Weep, JT,Sean, Hula and the rest. Anyway...

So two years ago on July 20th I posted a picture of the Barn on this free blog site. I have not done a thing to change the look and feel of the place since then. I am not sure why I did it at the time, I guess I wanted to throw up a flag and see who would salute. It was dawning on me at the time I had not seen some really important people in my life for over 10 years and I needed to change that. I always took pride in my skate photo album and I felt others took pride in theirs as well. I had hoped everyone would want to dust theirs off and compile it all in one place, The House of Steam  like a wing of the Metropolitan museum of art. So I guess its mission accomplished. The main thing I constantly take away from working on THOS is that we had some great early years, surrounded by cool supportive people and families. We had places to go, places to stay and we made our own decisions. Most importantly everyone seemed to  know at the time how good we had it then and how good we have it now. Life enjoyed/Enjoying life, so far so good.

Thanks to everyone who reads,contributes,comments,emails, sends pictures etc. etc. Also thank you for all the great comments concerning my art over at Http://jasonoliva.com they are always appreciated (keep em coming!)

I will keep this post up for a bit while I get ready for year 3 and everyone can get a chance to drop a comment or even a suggestion.

Well without further adieu here is Ben Cornish's SUPER 8 YOUTH in its entirety...Enjoy!

DIRECTOR-EDITOR

ben cornish

CAMERA

dave padulo

dan tag

rocky vertone

others

FEATURING

chris blank

simon curtis

dan tag

rocky vertone

jt murphy

jimmy kane

dennis kane

steve mannion

john ballon

bernie o'dowd

jason oliva

tim cornish

matt padulo

cornish chickens

MUSIC and SAMPLES

dj king weep

apple x

civ

descendents

bad brains

modest mouse

rambling jack elliot

Francesco, one of the sweetest men I have met, actually appeared to be the cute, geeky kid one wanted to talk with at lunch, however that is not the case. His life is charmed to the extreme: what appears to be innocence is actually debauchery! How interesting! That made me fall in love with the idea of getting to know him; the only problem was and remains to be that I am not that interesting. Actually, that is a lie, I am quite interesting, but I would never tell fellow adolescents about my many sexual, revolutionary, scandalous experience (at least, I wouldn't tell them all) -- for what would they think of me? Francesco is a rich kid, son of hard-working upper-upper-middle class Irish-Americans. His friends look like they just stepped out from ads in Hollister, the Gap, Banana Republic (you get my drift). Thus, I can say with certainty and complete admonition, that his is a charmed life, without a doubt.

As much as I wanted to get to know him, a girl who shall not be named, took his attention from me (actually she is one of the duo deemed dorm-mates at the beginning of the blog -- how ironic if one thinks about it). People say it is her personality to be so open and touchy-feely with the guys, however, I clearly demarcated my territory in a very typically French manner and she (purposefully, in my opinion) went against that demarcation and sought his attention. Now she tells me, he finds me fascinating.... hmmm, there is foul play a-foot and I don't like the smell of rotting fish. (To be frank, though, it really IS in her nature and I hold nothing against her... she is much more fascinating than me, so her attitude is quite acceptable and welcomed.)

As far as Francesco is concerned, I will do nothing and say nothing up front because who am I to talk? Although I must say this, I did see him in his boxers and although it was not spectacular, the event is brag-worthy. I promise I did not look. To give you background as to why I would have possibly seen him in his boxers, I will say just that I woke him up one day; he was actually very cute, cuddling his very expensive Blackburry. He looks like a hybrid of Prince William and Prince Harry, but I must say he has the personality of Prince Harry. Harry is daring and rebellious and the fact that Francesco snuck out to get drunk (or not to get drunk, as he says) at a concert is a typically Harry Windsorian thing to do.

Will he be my friend in the next few days based on mutual fascination (as some claim the situation stands)? Will the attention-grabber grab his attention without allowing me to grab anything (yes, yes, that is a sexual innuendo... how could I not include one in here?) ? Is there enough of a foundation in his moral character to withstand a denouncement on my part perpetrated by this very post? -- These are all difficult questions for a hormonal teenager to ponder while doing absolutely nothing, getting bored, watching British sitcoms (My Family to be specific), and getting ready for bed.

Love always,

Miruna B.

P.S.

I am actually in the mood for snooping around, finding the address and zagat-rating of Francesco's father's posh, New York City restaurant and eat there. But if they have the words fish, chips, mashers, or any combination thereof on the menu, I will probably commit suicide. I seriously think that ther is an invasion of Irish culture and it would do the likes of me pure Americans (yeah right) well to reject these silly nick-names for real, hearty food. I feel in such a conniving mood, but it really isn't all conniving, for this too is a hybrid of emotions, conniving + hungry, which is increasingly worse because those two moods make some of us do crazy, crazy things. And no one wants me, of all people, trying my hand at crazy because I am way to good at it.

**VERY IMPORTANT**

Now, with regards to the change in the name, it is quite simple: Francesco was the first to read the blog in front of my very eyes; suddenly he turned red (even redder than his natural Irish hue) because of heaps of embarassment; I am doing a nice thing and changing the name to Francesco... Voila, my benvolence.

Drums and Keytar. Do I really need to say anything else? All right, so Shy Child is two guys from New York City on Keytar and drums making ridiculously fun and catchy songs. It's full of synth lines that just ride the drum-beat into dance rhythms. They simply are so much fun to listen to and, most importantly, I can't really think of any other band that are like them. Their whole album, Noise Won't Stop is worth checking out and definitely worth buying.

They've done a few remixes but definitely check out these two songs, "Astronaut" where the drum beat and the synth parts are just made for each other, and you can't help but start moving and dancing. "Summer" totally encompasses exactly what summer should be about, so if you want a song that spells out summer for you, download it!

Check out their Myspace.

MP3| Astronaut - Shy Child

MP3| Summer - Shy Child

-Erick

Actually, that's not how I literally ended up with the blue polo shirt. The general manager couldn't find my shirt around the basement offices so he called up another Staples, "V*, this is B*. I'm gonna need two shirts, medium and x-large. Wait, make that a medium blue and x-large red." He got off the phone and turned to me, "You wanna go on a field trip?"
Twenty minutes later V* approached me and my "co-worker" with two packaged shirts in hand. "I can't believe B* sent you here" were the first words out of his mouth. About two other people commented on this field trip in the same manner. (BTW, I ended up with a small size that's longer than most of the dresses girls wear now-an-days.)

For once I have mostly positive things to say about something, but training sucks harder than a prostitute. The daily couple of hours I spend on the computer taking "training" tests are useless when I get put on the floor. I just wish they wouldn't throw me in a pool and expect me to learn how to swim without wearing a life-jacket first. The machines were broken yesterday so I just stood around, but today I made copies and bounded spiral notebooks before I stood around.
It's incredibly awkward when there's a line of people and I'm forced to just stare back at them since I'm utterly useless without repeated direction. My mom and a random customer told me that it's obvious to detect since I had that "deer in headlights" look. A lot of it has to do with the fact that the copy center is incredibly unorganized so I can't even find completed orders let alone fail at ringing them up.
A girl approached me with a bunch of random papers in hand, including stapled receipts and other crumpled pieces of paper. She was having trouble operating the self-serve machine and made this trip twice to state her lack of progress before asking for us to do it. Like most people who walk into any copy center or similar store set-up, they expect the employees to stop EVERYTHING they're doing and cater to their needs THAT instant. I tried to explain that we're behind on orders so it will take two hours. "It doesn't take a genius to make copies," says the person who couldn't make copies on the self-serve copier. I guess it takes a genius to detect hypocrisy.

Good bye, grad school*. Hello, the rest of my life... yikes.

What I'm most excited about is the fact that I'm working for an organization whose methods and ideas I fully support. My unofficial title is "Recruitment Associate Extraordinaire". I'll just call myself an RA - like in college; except not. Anyways, I haven't started yet, but I'm pretty sure my job involves the recruitment of their fellows (I love self-explanatory job titles) among many other tasks. Fun stuff.

I start on Monday. We go to North Carolina on Thursday to meet the new 2008 Fellows. Then, who knows...

I am so ready to start making money. I'm also looking forward to vision and dental insurance.

AND, on top of that, I can start saving for my move to New York City. Booya.

--------

* My grad school still hasn't mailed out diplomas (I only graduated almost 2 months ago), so I guess I'm not really done with it.

The Dark Knight's Ghastly Joker: Heath Ledger Touted for an Oscar

Handsome is as handsome doesn't in The Dark Knight. Of the three male actors who dominate the movie, it's Heath Ledger with his face hidden behind twisted clown makeup, whose perfect features are never seen, who has proven to be the most memorable. Heath Ledger's portrayal of the Joker in The Dark Knight is both a demonic creation and three-ring circus of one. Ledger died in January at the age of 28 from an accidental overdose, after the principal photography of the film had concluded. His death could have cast a paralyzing pall over the movie if his performance were not so alive. Ledger's Joker is a creature of such ghastly life, and his performance is so visceral, creepy and insistently present that the portrayal pulls you in almost at once.

Ledger's performance is so intense and lasting in part because, despite his insane mask, it's a subtle and nuanced performance that is so powerful it almost erases all memories of the handsome Australian actor behind the Joker's mask. The makeup seems to have liberated Ledger. Ledger's body movements are flexibly agile, he's expressive with only his eyes and his voice has oscillating surges of irony, mockery and psychopathology. Ledger's performance as the Joker in The Dark Knight is an essay, in a way that he's never shown before when playing straight-faced characters, in pure magnetic charisma.

While Hollywood's Academy Awards are still more than six months away, the late Heath Ledger already is being touted for a supporting actor nomination for his terrifying performance in The Dark Knight. Ledger's performance is so mesmerizing and daring as Batman's clown-faced arch enemy that it's possible he might become the first performer since Peter Finch (in the 1976 Network) to receive a posthumous Oscar.

[wpvideo aDiKkzbL w=460]

The Dark Knight (Official Movie Trailer)

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Interview with Heath Ledger about The Dark Knight

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Director Christopher Nolan: Producing The Dark Knight

You can read more about what I've written earlier about Heath Ledger here and here.

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We came, we saw, we conquered. Nu-Soul Magazine, Soul Union and the Bloom Effect made history by bringing our Strictly Social monthly to NYC for a one-time event. We are happy to say that the night was a rousing success. Not only did we have close to 300 people show up on a Wednesday night but thevibe was just right, perfectly capturing the scene we have created in LA for a New York audience.

We also are getting lots of press and publicity fo our hard work. Urb Magazine posted a story on their site. Click here to read

The event photos are up at Village Slum.com

We'll have more for you in the coming days so stay tuned!

At any rate, here's some funny things I noticed:

1. Tax is horrendous here. Except for clothing; no tax on all clothing < $100. Que suerte!
2. If you have any name other than an "American" name, give up on finding a keychain for yourself. The closest thing they had for Sey was Stacy, I think. So give up.
3. Go to a Halal stand with a lot of people there (the gyro/kabob stands); the one near Times Square like on 39th and Broadway is by far the best. Any other places are probably shit.
4. Is that an iPod nano that you see for $75 in an electronics store? Chances are it's the Chinese ripoff.
5. Don't wear your BoSox hat in any of the boroughs; chances are NYPD will arrest you for disturbing the peace.
6. David Letterman is actually funny live.
7. Remember that downhill = streets decreasing in # (I forgot this wayyy too many times)
8. If the souvenir shop is not wider than your bedroom, it's not worth it (most of the time).
9. Souvenir + electronic shops suck.
10. If there's a whole family waiting for you in aforementioned shops, get out.
11. There's nothing on Little Brazil Way, as far as I saw.
12. The McDonalds between 39th and 40th on 8th avenue is full of shit. No refills AND you can only be there for twenty minutes.
13. If you have money to waste, take one of those bus sightseeing tours. Otherwise, walk. It'll burn the fat that you gained from eating those hot dogs.
14. My dad says that Central Park hot dogs are way too small. And my dad is never wrong.
15. Central Park Zoo is a GREAT little zoo. Just don't go when the school groups are going.
16. The Naked Cowboy looks scarier in person.
17. Koreatown is really nice now; before it was kind of nonexistent.
18. A-Rod actually does look spiffy in person.
19. If you see a tremendously nice car driving around NYC, chances are good there's a celeb inside one of them.
20. Dogs pee wherever they want, not just on fire hydrants.
21. Don't call people, text. You can't hear for shit, seriously.

That's all I can think of for now.

Btw, I'm finally 1/3 done with the book. Not that all of you care.

good show at a lame spot. joe's pub is for people who like to pay too much for drinks and are too old to stand. PRE GAME IT.

It's that time again, the Siren Music Festival will be this Saturday at Coney Island from 12 noon to 9pm and its FREE! So you might as well go. The line-up is pretty good and it should be a fun time. Go out and enjoy the summer; listen to some good music! If you miss the festival don't worry we are going to have Lonely Hollows reps there and we will give you a nice summary with some photos on Sunday. Here's the schedule:

Cheers from all of us here at Lonely Hollows.

I woke up the other day to five or six new bug bites - two on my elbow, three on my thighs. Since then, they've swollen to the size of golf balls, about 2-3 inches each in diameter. Even the scars from past bug bites look like bruises on my legs, meaning I now have to carefully choose my outfits for fear of looking like I'm in an abusive relationship (which is actually impossible because Max is in Europe). My body attracts mosquitoes like a pro (i.e. I once got 33 bug bites in two hours in a field), but reacts horribly to the subsequent lovebites. Hm, sounds like I could be talking about dating?

In any case, I've discovered the wonder that is Benadryl - yay antihistamines and chemicals that help me sleep well (I should get paid for this endorsement)! And since I'd rather not end this post with a lame (and scary) close-up of a mosquito, I'm posting today's Undercurrent danceparty so you can smile and laugh at my corny moves. Yes, I'm wearing shorts, but it's too blurry to see my poor, bitten legs clearly. As for the danceparty song, Sam's right - it's a Kylie Friday!

(Hint- 2:13 is the best part of the whole thing)

You are not cool because you made it through pledging. No one cares how many beers you and your boys killed last night... or how many $9 tequila shots you threw down at a club. You don't sound like a pimp when you brag about how many "bitches you slayed" last weekend, you sound ignorant. Pull your shit together and try to form an identity that's more than your boy posse, "high tolerance" to alcohol, and the greek initials you plastered so proudly on the back windshield of your Audi A4.

I did one quasi-touristy thing while out here in Vegas. I walked a part of the strip with the tourists and had dinner in one of the hotel restaurants. Walking the strip was fun, strange and surreal at the same time. It was fun being around a lot of people, especially when they are from the four corners of the world. It was strange seeing parents bringing their young children (under the age of 5) to Sin City. I know that the city does its best to recast itself as a family friendly destination, but it is kinda hard to do when there are advertisements all around the strip telling you that a desirous female can be in your hotel room in less than twenty minutes for $35. Let me explain.

There are individuals that will have cards, magazines, and other pamphlets advertising this on various street corners along the Strip. However, they cannot talk to you directly about it to you. All these hard working ad men can do is make a shuffling noise with the cards or smack them against their wrists or wear a frame that hoisted the picture of the woman of your dreams (or the flavor of the week, day, or moment) above their heads. If you are interested in said exchange of services for cash, then you are expected to ask for one in a non-verbal manner by holding your hand out as to receive one. Now, this would work great if the ad men and the recipients of this advertisement all spoke the same language. Yet, the men and women (God bless America for its equal opportunity to peddle smut!) who were assigned the wonderful task could not speak a lick of English. Most of them appeared to be Hispanic in origins, whether they were here legally or not, I don't know or care. Just when you thought it could not get worse about how blatant these guys were peddling the wares of these ready and willing concubines, it can. There are vehicles that hold large pictures advertising the same thing. That's right my friends, there are vehicles that roam the Vegas Strip advertising prostitutes for your immediate consumption. Hell, I don't think Domino's thought their ad model would be bastardized in such a manner. Yet, they do share some similarities. The product is hot, delivered to you in less than 30 minutes, and more than likely will gone in a similar amount of time.

While I am on the subject of these “Hooker Cards” (a quaint term coined by M & J), what is the point of putting a star, a heart, or some other insignificant item hiding the woman's naughty bits? Do they really think that placing these items in these strategic locations that it mutes the message of the cards where no one would really know that they were peddling? Come on people. What is really funny is that M & J have a nice collection of these “Hooker Cards” going and they are starting to build a collage out of said cards.

We were heading to the Diablo, a restaurant / bar along the strip. Along the way, we passed through New York, New York. It is a hotel modeled after the city of New York. It has a mock Statute of Liberty, a mock version of the Empire State Building, and other assorted things that remind people of NYC. Riddle me this, Batman. Why would someone want to go to Las Vegas just to stay in a place that looks like NYC? If you wanted to go to NYC, then go to NYC! How hard is that people? The only cool thing about New York, New York was the roller coaster that they have built into the hotel. However, why in God's name should you have to pay $6 dollars to ride a roller coaster when you are staying at the hotel? I understand making other people pay the $6, but not the patrons of the hotel. Anyhow I digress.

The Diablo was a cool place. Good food, good house beer, but the prices were designed with one purpose in mind: to rip tourists off. I could have gotten a burger and fries of similar quality at another restaurant with the beer for $24. Yeah, you heard me right, the burger alone cost me $24. This is why I wanted to do the Anti-Vegas vacation because I knew if I did what all of you expected me to do, then I would be in the poor house in grand style. Sorry, I would like to break even or have a little bit of an estate when I die. I know that this capitalist part of me does not set well with the liberal friends that I have, but to quote the Atlanta Rhythm Section, “I ain't going to let it bother me tonight.” What the Diablo lacked in good deals on their food and beer, they sure as hell made it up with the hotties that worked there. It took all of my will power not to completely distracted and maintain a conservation with M & J. Plus, it didn't help that there were three MLB games going on the TVs at the same time. Wow, I am becoming that crass. Oh, well. On to more mundane things, such as the weather.

The weather out here is quite warm. It has been in the high nineties since my arrival. Yet, the humidity is quite low from about 5% to 30%. In Georgia, one of the many things that makes the Georgia summers intolerable is the humidity. You cannot sweat well in Georgia because the first three layers of sweat are stuck to your body. Out here, you sweat, but it evaporates very easily. I found out the hard way. M & J have a patio, and I have spent a good bit of my vacation out there reading my books. I would stay out there for about an hour, at first. I would come in and then crash on the couch and be out for about two hours. What I did not realize was that I was sweating profusely and was getting dehydrated. Other than that, the weather out here has been quite good, even though it rains everywhere in Vegas, but in the part where I was staying. It rather cool to see a a rainstorm going on in the distance. You can see the rain swirling through the air on its way to the parched earth below. Yet, an ½ to an inch of rain can cause flooding in this area. You know why? There is no drainage plan for this town. None. I have not seen a sewer grate or a manhole cover since I have been here. What the Fuck kinda of city planning is this? So, I am really grateful that the weather has been nice, and the M & J's place is on the second floor.

One of my goals for this vacation was to hang out at the places where the locals go, and be treated as such. I have succeeded in said goal. Last night, M and I went to a bar called the “Dive Bar.” It was in a shopping center next to an abandoned or vacant Wal-Mart. There were a lot of people there, and they would have fit in nicely in Lenny's in Atlanta or at the Double Down. Tats, Betty Page look likes, girls with glasses from the 50s, and dudes wearing t-shirts from the Creeps, Suicidal Tendencies, etc. Again, my kinda of place to hang and drink beer. When we got there, there was band called the “Voodoo Organist.” The music was a cross of lounge music meets punk meets rock. It was quite good. The singer and organist was playing a tune about if he can get a witness. Now, there were a few people waiving their hands in the hair to respond to the singer's call. I wanted to yell out “Amen, brother! I'll be your witness! I'll testify about the wonders of the Lord Rock and how he has touched the very bottom of my soul and saved me!” Still, alas, I did not. I thought that if I did and just have gotten there, I would have looked like a tool and an idiot. M and I ordered some beers and sat at the bar. We had idle conservations with the locals, and then one of said locals asked us something that was quite amusing.

Yet, let me set the scene as to this local. I will call him, Mr. C for reason that will become quite apparent. Mr. C is a white male, mid 20s, about 5' 10”, and 150 to 180 lbs. Random tattoos are on his arms and I believe one was on his neck. He was wearing dark jeans and a black shirt with some writing on it in white. He was wearing a hat similar to a fedora, but smaller and fuzzier. Mr. C was chatting with M, and then asked us if we had some “Yugi.” Both M and I were a little puzzled by this request, but I blew it off and continued to drink and watch Jessica Biel in the last incarnation of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Mr. C told M that “Yugi” was cocaine. M said politely that she did not have any and did not do drugs. Mr. C was accepting of this fact and went back to drinking his beer.

The “Dive Bar” lived up to its name. It was dark, it was hot, the beer was either in cans or bottles, it was a cash only place, there were so many punk rock stickers on the walls that the original paint could not be seen, and most importantly, the bathrooms were utterly disgusting. It ain't a true dive bar unless when you go to the bathroom, and your feet stick to the floor due to the muck, the mire, the urine, the dirt, and whatever the hell else is on that floor.

I know that I have not posted pictures from my cell phone or taken a lot of pictures while I was here. I am not bothered by it. I came out here to enjoy myself, to rest, to relax, and not to try to have a vacation that lived up to other people's expectations.

Anyhow, tonight, “THE DARK KNIGHT.” I am stoked about this movie. I cannot wait to see it.

The demonstrators remained peaceful even after the Dalai Lama's public address finished and throngs of people in traditional Tibetan outfits poured onto the streets, at which time 40-50 police were brought in including 6 on horseback to control the group of thousands who were now surrounding the demonstrators.

Police erected metal barriers to push the crowds back. Some of them had to be physically restrained and forced to the ground as the aggressors began throwing objects, including bags of coins and bottles, spitting at, and yelling at the demonstrators.

The demonstrators remained contained, cooperated with police and agreed at the suggestion of the police to be evacuated with escort from the area while 6th Avenue was blocked off for 20 minutes during rush hour. They were told by police that this was necessary as it would have taken many hours to disperse the crowds.

Kelsang Pema, spokesperson for the WSS, says, "If this intense reaction and mob mentality is the result when a few people publicly question the Dalai Lama's actions on American soil with police present and western laws, imagine how difficult it is for these people to speak up against their unelected leader in the Tibetan community in exile. I hope that the western media will investigate."

From Prweb.com