Work Occuring While Unemployed

I was walking to lunch today and I looked down and saw this…

A glittery sidewalk — ahhhhhhhhhhhh…ohhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

I don’t know if you’re familiar with glittery sidewalks, if you’re not, I’m sorry, terribly sorry that you have not had this joy in your life.

Here, in San Francisco one can find the glittery sidewalk in a wide range of places. They’re found on the highfalutin streets of Noe Valley and Pacific Heights, and in the most depressing and destitute ares of town such as the Tenderloin and Sixth Street, creating myriad of opportunities for social commentary. “These people are so rich, they walk on diamonds” or “This town cares more about the sidewalks than it does the people sleeping on them”

Social commentary isn’t really my forte, at least not today. Rhyme time.

I want to talk about the joy of walking on a glittery sidewalk. You take one step and another and sparkles and more sparkles, and why not, let’s click the heels, just because I’m walking on glitter. And hey, maybe I’ll slow down the pace of my stride and really enjoy the day, becuase I’ve got glitter under my feet and when I have glitter the rest of the world seems so much nicer.

Like this…..

What is this fantastic stuff?

It’s called calcite. It makes up a significant portion of Earth’s crust and serves as one of the largest carbon repositories on our planet. WOW! And calcite is an ingredient in such wonderful items as antacids, agricultural fertilizers, soil conditioners, limestone building materials and gravels!

So next time you’ve got stomach ache, stop a moment, look down, and if you see glitter give it a lick! It won’t make you sick. Rhyme Time.

Today, I’d like to discuss one of my favorite people in the world, David Byrne. You’re probably well aware of who David Byrne is and what he’s all about, but honestly, I don’t care. I’m going to talk about him anyway.

Now for some of us David Byrne is just the front man for one of the best bands ever, The Talking Heads. For those of us who are not so familiar with the quirkiness that is David Byrne, here’s David in his self-interview - a great introduction, should you not know him.

Please enjoy:

What I want to emphasize and highlight in this posting is not the musical talents of either David Byrne or the Talking Heads, though the talents both are vast and wonderful and if you have no Talking Heads albums you should drop what you’re doing right now and buy every single album ever made, becuase they’re all wonderful.

David Byrne, the artist: this is what I want to talk about. I don’t really know anything about art; in all truth I know NOTHING about art. But when I see what David Byrne’s installations and projects, I can only think: that’s art. He’s able to transform a public space into something completely different. I don’t want to describe his projects too much because I think you should just go look for yourself….

Shhh….Sounds in Spaces (“Walk with Me” is my favorite)

Everything is Connected

And if you happen to live in the New York area (though I doubt my readership reaches that far, if it does: Hi Jason and David!) You should go see this before it’s gone:

Playing the Building

10 South Street, New York, NY (Map)
31 May – 24 August 2008
Open Friday, Saturday, Sunday: Noon – 6PM (Free)

I realize all I’ve done is promote David Byrne and his website, but I fully stand behind him and his website! For the past three hours I have been thoughtfully entertained and moved by his art; now, I hope you can share in the same experience.

And he doesn’t just stop at art and music, oh no! He also has published a few books and produced some movies. I encourage you to poke around his website and see what’s happening in the world of Byrne. Also, I highly recommend reading The Journal section!

I’m at work, shocking I know, and I have nothing to write about - no ideas, no nothing. There was a 5.8 earthquake in LA at 11:42am today, but we didn’t feel anything up here in the Bay. I can only wonder when the Big One is going to hit and where exactly I’ll be. I’ve decided that I don’t want to be in the bathtub. Being naked and wet are two obstacles I don’t want to deal with when facing death, but I guess that’s how I faced life, so maybe I’m wrong.

There are some really interesting talks happening on Talk of the Nation right now. Ironically, they are talking about disasters and how people survive them. You should listen, it’s informative and someday this information may just save your life!!!

And since I lack anything of substance to talk about (I know every post previous has suffered from the same problem, but I suppose today I’m feeling less chatty) here is a smattering of earthquake videos! Enjoy!

This one’s (below) my fave!

Ok, if you find yourself in the latter situation mentioned at the beginning of this post, you’re in some serious trouble, theoretically.

There you are, cruising around space. Suddenly, your radar (which detects gravitational fields) bleeps and you notice that there seems to be a planetary body in front of you, at least according to the images on your radar. However when you look out of your space-window, you see no planet. How odd, how very odd…

You keep going forward, assuming there is something wrong with your radar and not with your eyes. You’re going straight for what your radar tells you is spherically symmetric object with a normal gravitational field. Suddenly you split in two, and then those two pieces as well as everything else around you splits into two, and then all of those pieces split into two. This process of bifurcation continues until the split-up pieces of you, your ship and everything around you beome a string of elementary particles. This process is knows as…. wait for it… SPAGHETTIFICATION!

Spaghettification is what happens as you cross the event horizon of a black hole (the point of no return) and move toward the point of singularity, where all matter, all time, all space, becomes zero and infinite forever.

So there you have it, if you’re going to stray from your path do it on earth not in space. That is unless you want to be spaghettified!!

All my quicksand facts were taken from this article. I found a blackhole in wikipedia….

Check back later today for a fuller and more enjoyable post.  God speed!

As I was leaving work the other day I noticed the Maximum Occupancy sign for my building; it read 367. This got me thinking, how do they figure out this whole maximum occupancy thing? Obviously, it’s got to do with the amount of square footage each person needs to, I guess, be, stand, work, in said structure.

I arrived at work today eager to research what exactly the guidelines for Maximum Occupancy are. Yeah! What a fun day! Look out world! I found out some things, some WONDERFUL things. Firstly, and another obvious observation here, the maximum occupancy for buildings is set by the Fire Inspector and takes into account things like how many exits exist, what the space is used for, and of course, how much non-obtsructed (by pillars or other non-movable features) square footage there is.

So after some light research, I found that a good office work space is 100 square feet for person, a space in which people congregate like a music hall or concert venue usually allows 7 square feet per person and a space that is used by a lot of people, like maybe a lunch room or library allows 15 square feet per person. I know. You’re floored right now…

Then i got to thinking, “well gee what’s the square footage of earth’s surface area? No, just the land mass? and how many people live on earth? Are we at maximum occupancy?”

Then I got to calculating…. I decided to use the 15 square feet per person to start off, just because that’s kind of in the middle… kinda?

Okay there are : 6,712,220,919 people in the world multiply that by 15 (square feet/person ) and you get

100,683,313,785 square feet needed for all in habitants of the world.

And that’s just enough space for everyone to sit down read a book, maybe play some cards, and go around and chit-chat with each other.

Ok so that’s the space we need — 100 billion square feet… well it turns out we’re in luck! The earth’s land mass has a surface area of 148,940,000 square Kilometers which converts to 488 billion square feet! (Of course that’s including places like Antarctica which is 27 million square feet and pretty much completely uninhabitable).

Now, is there enough room for everyone to have a little more space, to you know do some work, or some streching, or just whatever they want? Let’s see 671,222,091,900 square feet for everyone to have a nice hunk of space… Oh no, oh no, oh no, well this is just horrible, we’ve run out of space here people. Damnit.

Is the apocalypse on the horizon? Are we just going to start falling off into space? Actually that would be kind of cool, if you had an oxygen tank and some warm clothes….

Well this obviously is overly simplistic and really doesn’t prove anything other than I still have mean division and conversion skills!

I saw a bad movie a couple of days ago: I Am Legend. It’s your usual “I’m Will Smith and I handle situations” movie. In this case the situations are people who have turned into rabid vampires due to a mutation brought on by a cure for cancer. I know; It COULD happen! Anyway the movie is all right for about the first half. It’s dark, a little scary, and visually it’s pretty good looking, but towards the end it gets schmaltzy and loses it’s pacing and story. And speaking of the end, it’s complete crap. Will Smith sacrifices himself to save two other survivors. These two survivors (a woman and a boy) are able to make their way to the survivors colony in Vermont thanks to Mr. Smith. Gah!

After expressing my dislike to one of my friends, she informed me that indeed, the movie was supposed to end a different way, and after the original ending tested poorly with test audiences, they changed the ending to the cheesefest that I saw. I wanted to see that ending, so I asked god (google) and here’s what I found….

I still believe this movie sucks despite having a better intended ending, but one thing I Am Legend did do for me was peak my interest. How many movies have I watched not seeing them the way they were intended to be seen (god I sound like an asshole)? It turns out… quite a few. Here’s a small sampling…

I’m going to start with what I think is one of the saddest and most disappointing cases — Little Shop of Horrors. It turns out that the intended ending was far darker and, in my, Director Frank Oz’s, and most of the cast’s opinion, far more enjoyable than the theatrical release. (But of course, the test audiences had the final word and did not like the original ending)

In the original ending, EVERYONE DIES! Both Audrey and Seymor are devoured by Audrey II, and Audrey II realizes his (its?) goal — little Audrey IIs find a place in every residence in America! The final scene features a sweet musical number playing over images of HUGE plants attacking cities and people.

The ending is posted below in three parts. It’s kind of a time commitment, but believe me it’s worth it!

Next, is the third installment to the beloved Evil Dead Trilogy: Army of Darkness. In the theatrical ending, Ash winds up back where he started, working at S-Mart. The movie ends with a fantastic fight scene between Ash and a Demon who just happens to show up. The original ending is little more drab, but still quite funny. Take a look, it’s only four and a half minutes long….

Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story originally had a much better ending. We’re all way too familiar with the “rag-tag team overcoming obstacles to win the big game in the end” storyline, and Dodgeball is well aware of this. The original ending is wonderfully tongue-in-cheek and far more hilarious than the theatrical ending. Enjoy!

Also, did you know that in the first draft of When Harry Met Sally Harry and Sally were not actually supposed to end up together? But as we all know, Harry, in a great moment of realization, runs to confess his love to Sally and they live happily ever after… right.

Finally, one of my all time favorites and arguably one of the best movies ever made: Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. The original ending of this movie consisted of a full blown custard pie fight in the War Room. Kubrick decided to change the ending because he found it “too farcical and not consistent with the satiric tone of the rest of the film.” Unfortunately, it is impossible to find this footage (on the internet), so I’ve posted some pictures taken from the original ending. Apparently the only screening of the original ending took place during Stanely Kubrick’s funeral in 1999.

And just for fun here’s the Dr. Strangelove Trailer!

Makes you wonder what other great endings we’re missing out on….

Yes water, the sweet elixir of life, could any of us do anything without it? No, I daresay we could not. And so, in tribute to water, and because I lack a coherent segue, I have decided to dedicate this blog to the Berenstain Bears.

We all remember them, that loveable family of bears that taught us how to live peacefully and happily as a family. They taught us the importance of sharing, the danger of strangers, and most importantly, they taught us how to love.

So to pay tribute to these wonderful bears, I have decided to take a trip down memory lane and highlight my favorites below:

One of my all time favorite Berenstain stories!

Papa Bear and Brother Bear set out to find the fabled treasure trove of Honey. Following a random honey bee, Papa Bear convinces Brother Bear that the honey must be close. Hours of bee stalking pass, with Brother Bear growing ever restless at the lack of honey, but Papa Bear continues to assure Brother Bear that Honey is just moments away. The minutes tick by slowly and Brother Bear starts to notice his father changing. No longer is he the happy-go-lucky bear that he once loved and trusted, Papa Bear’s eyes have grown red, his fur has become matted and drenched in sweat. When Papa bear speaks, his voice quivers with madness, and he can only speak of one thing — honey. Brother Bear begins to worry, and as his fear of his father’s madness mounts, he can only rationalize one method of escape… murder.

Ok, I don’t want to ruin the ending, but this is one Berenstain Bear book that you’ve got to check out!!

In this installment of the Berenstain adventures, Brother and Sister Bear learn the importance of a hard day’s work.

Things aren’t looking so good for the Berenstains. Mama Bear turns to her old vices and Papa Bear, being recently laid off from his construction job, moonlights as a bear gigolo. Unable to make ends meet, the Bear parents are forced to ship their children off to “Camp Clothestitch”. Hilarity ensues when Brother and Sister Bear lead a revolt against management, ending with the Camp’s director in stitches!

And finally, my favorite Berenstain’s Bear book is The Berenstain Bears’ Trouble with Money.

I think the cover for this one speaks for itself. I don’t want to give too much away, but I will say this — I’ve learned a lot from the Berenstain Bears, but the most important lesson I’ve learned is: always keep a tarp handy.

For a complete list of Berenstain Bear Books look HERE

Do you ever have those days? Those days where you just have an “I might die today” feeling, or an “everything’s going to change today” feeling? Today is one of those days for me.

First, I get up, out of bed, shower, dress and head out the door. I water my Bonsai and head to work on my lovely red banana. I’m cruising down the street (in the bike lane on the right side of the street) at my regular pace, and there, in front of me, is a red SUV with a baby on board suction sign on the back of the window. I notice the car begins slowing down, however the right turn signal is not blinking, so I think perhaps this baby-driver is just scouting for parking. Then out of NOWHERE he hooks a right, thereby forcing me to turn (it’s either right or death and I chose right), I scream “Please don’t squish me!” but he pays no attention and continues on his merry way.

Then I arrive at work, put my red banana in its proper place and go the coffee shop. I give the man a 20$ for my coffee and when I receive my change, he hands me two one dollar coins! I exclaim with excitement, for I love coins that aren’t change! Maybe I won’t die today, maybe today will be the day that everything changes! Maybe today will be the day when finally, after many years of neglect and disgust, the dollar coin will garner its rightful place in currency-dom, alongside the hundred, the twenty, the ten, the five and the one! Welcome home dear coin, welcome home!

So while I was stumbling through the internet today I came across this blog. I remember the Weekly World News, I never read them, but now I wish I had. I know that for most of us, we visit The Onion when we want satirical silly news, or we’ll catch up on our Daily Show or Colbert Report . But seeing those wonderful covers of the Weekly World News took me back to simpler times, times when satirical news wasn’t so mainstream. A time where instead of often focusing on political issues or American culture the fake news focused on the utmost absurd and wonderfully creative.

So now, I would like for us all to take a moment and visit The Weekly World News. Sadly, the print editions are no longer available, but their website is up and running! Enjoy!