Your daily dose of awesome

No no no no no, I assure you that this is not a joke.

I repeat,
not
a
joke.

Real.


Fill in the blank: If I had my own hover craft, I would ______________________ .

Why Living in Colorado is Cool

This past weekend was quite a success. Let me explain.

Picture a plot of land nestled in the foothills of the Sangre de Cristo mountain range. Add some cabins, a cook house, four natural hot springs, one eighty foot pool, a suana, sand dunes, and a bunch of naked hippies in an alternative state of mind and you get the Valley View Hot Springs. My pal Jess and I brought along two guy friends, a couple cases of beer, and wha la! A successful weekend is born.

We arrived late the first night and as a result the gatekeeper turned us away, so instead we broke camp in a dirt parking lot down the road and libations were consumed. Let's just say, to keep everything PG, that we stayed up for the sunrise the next morning. We spent next day in its entirety at Sand Dunes National Park, which I must say is one of the most beautiful I have ever seen. Think about the scene in Aladdin before they break into the cave to steal the lamp. One step on the grounds and you are surrounded by sand cornices and white peaks that rise up behind the dunes. I wanted to sing Arabian Nights at the top of my lungs once we reached the highest dunes, but there were other activities planned for the weekend and we needed to get back to Valley View stat.

The rest of the trip was spent sans clothing, a lot of soaking, and involved some fascinating conversation with the regulars. I have never come accross people who were so comfortable with their bodies, or had so many interesting tattoos. If you have never visited a nude colony, I highly suggest it. Everyone is incredibly jolly, and most likely you will come accross aboriginal musical intstraments being played in the wee hours of the morning. Believe it or not, the sound of a didgeridoo can be soothing whilst soaking in 104 degree water and a views of snow capped peaks are exploding all around you.

Overall, Valley View Hot Springs is a destination not to be missed. If you ever come to Colorado, make sure to hit up Vail and all the ski resorts (obviously), but also add nude hot springs to your list. Your trip is bound to be sucessful!

The Post-Halloween Roundup

Hi all, I hope you all had a fabulous Halloween weekend over which you found yourselves making good decisions and correct choices across the board. I thought close out the week with a list of my top five favorite* costumes from yesterday:

5. The kids from LAIRE**: If you haven't seen Role Models, it's worth it just for the final battle

4. Holy Cow: A cow costume, complete with angel wings and a halo. Smart, right? I mean... I thought it was, you know, clever.... God, I'm lame.

3. Greenman: I saw a number of people in the now iconic green spandex wreaking havoc wherever they went. Upon further consideration, I felt as though my behavior might have eclipsed theirs should I have ever donned the suit. If you were wondering, you can buy your very own Greenman costume for begreenman.com.

2. Tommy Pickles: That's right, folks. Imagine a large, hairy man dressed in nothing but an adult diaper and a baby blue t-shirt. Yeah, I wasn't mad about it either.

1. Hot Dog Dog: I saw a short-haired daschund dressed up as a hot dog and burst out laughing in the middle of the street. Seriously, I couldn't contain myself. He wins the 2009 costume contest.

For those of you who were wondering, I dressed up as Where's Waldo? Needless to say I spent the entire evening being stopped in the street by strangers who would then proceed to scream "I FOUND YOU. Hey guys! Come here, I found Waldo!" Did anyone else see or have good costumes?

* An honorable mention goes to my contributing blogger Nick Wing. He got himself some skinny jeans and a really good wig and rocked DC as Aldous Snow-- Russell Brand's character from Forgetting Sarah Marshall.

**Live Action Interactive Roleplaying Explorers

The Fun Theory

Volkswagen Sweden has spearheaded a public initiative* aptly titled "The Fun Theory"-- the premise being that positive behavioral change can be implemented by having fun. To test the theory, VW put three experiments in place, and in each case found that fun does, in fact, have the capacity to change behavior for the better:

Experiment #1: The Bottle Bank Arcade

Experiment #2: The Piano Staircase

Experiment #3: The World's Deepest Trash Can

As cool as the experiments are in and of themselves, the best part about VW's campaign is that it's success as a viral video has prompted the company to host a Fun Theory competition. If you can identify a problem and then find a fun way to fix it-- ta-da, you could be up $5,000. That, my friends, is marketing genius. You can bet that there will be some awesome concepts that'll come out of this and who's going to get the credit for prompting it? Kudos to you, Volkswagen.

So yeah I think it's a great idea and if anyone can think of a way to make picking up dog shit fun, let me know. I'll split the five grand.

Check out the official fun theory website here, the competition guidelines here, and the jury bios here.

* viral marketing campaign.

I wanna be Taylor Swift for a day.

So the makers of Guitar Hero have made their own version of Rock Band (appropriately named Band Hero), but they have Taylor Swift on their side.

Yeah, they win.

The world's greatest product

You know those products that you never knew existed but now that you know you can't live without it? My freshman year in high school, it was the iPod. Post-grad, my interests (as you can see in my profile) have gravitated towards things other than digitizing my musical collection.

Enter the Moskito-Finito-- a hand-held, mosquito-zapping badminton/squash racket hybrid. My father received one for his birthday in July and until recently I had not been privy to the Moskito-Finito's full range of mosquito-killing talents. Rest assured, they are unbelievable*. Check it out here**.

*The sound of a mosquito hitting the racket is a thing of beauty. A zap followed by a prolonged and sadistically satisfying fizz. Oh, yes.

** This is the only one I could find online, but I'm told ours was purchased at Restoration Hardware.

John Wayne au lait, s'il vous plait

I know I'm supposed to be the "Film Guru" but this was just too good to be true:

Once upon a time in a small town, in an undisclosed location, a certain French-Canadian (who shall remain nameless), jeopardized American freedom as we know it. Let's just say it wasn't pretty. From this point on, I, a proud and true American dedicated to the ways of freedom, was convinced that all French people, Canadian or otherwise, were in one way or another attempting to dismantle American freedom. Today, ladies and gentlemen, I was proved wrong.

Here is the article I came across after googling John Wayne. Yes, I was googling John Wayne. No, I'm not going to tell you why.

Please read.

- Hock.

Film things to follow... eventually... when I muster up the funds to go see some good stuff.

In case you were wondering...

Today was a raisin filled day. I had Raisin-Bran Crunch for breakfast. At lunchtime, I enjoyed a few Sun-Maid goldens. Shortly thereafter I snacked on some chocolate and yogurt covered raisins. Later still, I was offered some regular old, run of the mill raisins. Weird, I know, but do me a favor and stay with me for a second.

Amidst this onslaught of raisins, two facts came to my attention: 1) regular raisins are made from green grapes* and, 2) golden raisins are approximately 562% better than regular raisins**. As per usual, I set out to explore this knowledge.

Now, I may have been extremely naïve or uninformed, but before today, I'd always been under the impression that regular raisins were made from purple grapes, and golden raisins from green ones. This, of course, is far too simple and logical an explanation.

As it turns out, both traditional raisins and golden ones are made using the same variety of green grape, the Sultana. The difference of the dried fruit's color the lies within the method of dehydration. Traditional raisins are sun-dried, and thus owe their darkened color to sun exposure. Golden raisins are treated somewhat differently. In order to preserve the light color, the grapes are oven dried, and then treated with sulfur dioxide. This also makes for a meatier raisin***. Or so they say.

Other things I learned in my quest to know more about raisins:

• Zante currants are not made from currants but rather from black Corinth grapes. I want to know why they don't just call them Zante raisins. Stupid, is what it is.
• Grapes and raisins can be toxic to canines. I found this particularly upsetting because I often share grapes with my dog****.
• Between the 16th and 19th century, there existed a game called Snap-Dragon, in which raisins were extracted from a punch-bowl of flaming brandy. It's unclear what they did with the brandy once the raisins were removed, but it can't have been particularly responsible.
• The Sun-Maid girl does yoga.

* I discovered this on the back of the big bag of Raisenets.

** I estimated this by applying my deep knowledge and keen understanding of correct choices and percentages.

*** This makes sense. If you leave a person out in the sun for a while, he/she makes the same transition as a grape does to raisin; turns brown and dry and wrinkly. Furthermore, the apparent reason for which golden raisins are so exponentially superior to the traditional variety is that golden ones are treated with chemicals. Like McDonald's. And outdoor music festivals.

**** I'm not that worried about it, though. He once at 1 kg (2.2 lbs) of Swiss baking and semi-sweet chocolate, which is many times the lethal dose for a dog his size. Armed with this evidence, I'm fairly certain he's indestructible by any means of gastrointestinal sabotage.

Likes & Dislikes

I have a few themed posts around (In case you were wondering..., Words to live by), but I thought of a new thread that I've dubbed Likes & Dislikes. I'm going to give you all the benefit of the doubt and explain it no further than that.

Things I Like:

• Celebrities that have real dogs*
• Futurology
• Christian evangelist scandals
• Ben & Jerry's ice cream**

Things I Dislike:

• Anything with more than four legs***
• Scandinavian words with too many letters and too many consonants in close proximity to each other. (example: begravningsentreprenör = mortician, uppehållstillstånd = housing permit)
• Skin cancer
• Mercedes-Benz

* By real dog, I mean any dog that is not puntable. Sarah Michelle Gellar's Akita weighs in at about 100 lbs and is, all in all, a baller (see photo). Ashley Tisdale's Maltese weighs in at less than 7 pounds and I could probably kill it by staring at it too hard. I understand that they're cute and good companions and practical but I'm sorry, if I can dropkick it, it's not real.

** All flavors except Chunky Monkey. The fact that Ben & Jerry's would soil the most delicious of all delicious treats with something so filthy and disgusting as a banana is a hideous scar on an otherwise unblemished record of deliciousness.

*** This does not apply to sea-dwelling crustaceans (shrimp, lobster, crab) that are dead and prepared and in or about to be in my mouth.

Shark Week

I held off on this post because I thought maybe Abbie might mention it, but if I wait any longer, I'm pretty sure that I'll risk spontaneous combustion. Why? Because the Discovery Channel's 20th annual Shark Week began tonight at 9 p.m. EST with this:

Shut up.

I have goosebumps.

And since you were clearly about to ask, the Shark Week website is, well, fantastic.

Obviously.

So go.

Gogogogogogogogo.

Responsibility is key

Grolsch and Apple are trying to promote responsibility in people who live in a culture of unnecessary and excessive drinking. Good for them.

Here's the advertisement for the application, coming soon to an iPhone near you.

Hey, I'm just a concerned citizen.

Five hundred visitors and a puppy

Today, tweedle dee tweedle dom got it's 500th visitor. It's not much in the real internet world, but I feel like it marks some kind of milestone. Anyway, I was looking for a video that might be appropriate for a 500th anniversary. I didn't find any. But I did find this-- and its both completely irrelevant and really, really cute:

That clip subsequently led me to this one. I wasn't mad about it. I don't think anyone who clicks it will be mad about it either.  

So thanks. And enjoy. 

P.S. Just a bit of advice-- never, ever look up puppies on YouTube if you have things to accomplish in the foreseeable future. 

Daily Dose of Hotness

Thought I would start off everyone's day with this correct choice. I stole this picture from Chelsea Handler's blog, (who I happen to think is hilarious) and I'm not going to repeat what she said about him because I think both Dom and I agree that we'd like to keep things PG (and employer friendly), but I can't think of any other perfect way to start my day... Also, go see the Hangover if you want a full dose of Bradley Cooper hotness.

Cheer up!

I'm having a great day today. It's the kind of day where I'm finally hearing back from employers and scheduling interviews and finding apartments after weeks and weeks of telling myself none of this was ever going to happen. All of this life-changing growing up stuff with which I've been dealing makes me want to kick back and listen to music, so I thought I would celebrate my good day by sharing some happy ear candy with y'all. 

The first is the kind of song you listen to when driving and really really want to turn up but are scared because you don't want the people stopped around you to judge you. But there's no way you can listen to Noah and the Whale and not crack a smile, even if you only listen to it once. The band reminds me the most of Belle and Sebastian, and is made up of mostly dudes and some contributing female singers. I'm not sure how I feel about the video. It feels a bit adrift at times, but the song, itself, makes me want to go slide down a rainbow and land in a pot of gold.

Find the actual video here.

While my awesome mood is still in full force, remember this? If Noah and the Whale doesn't make you jump for joy on your bed, then I'm sure Len will do the trick. Circa 1999. Enjoy yet another correct choice.

Find "Steal My Sunshine" here.

Love.

Quick Note: Abbie

Welcome to Abbie, my resident excellence advisor. What is an excellence advisor, you ask? Why, someone who is aware of all things excellent, all things that increase or decrease excellence, and who is equipped with the excellent tools that enable her to, more often than not, make the correct choice. Obviously.

Her advice is truly without comparison, and you all should feel blessed to have it bestowed upon you. For example, in her very first post, she has informed us that driving stick shift makes you 20% hotter than driving an automatic. Thus, manual transmission are, by definition, more excellent than automatic transmissions. Duh.

Check back often for more such important statistics.