Random Breaking Free

Do people have romantic visions of living a corporate cookie-cutter life?...

Breaking Free [Demo] from Matador Network on Vimeo.

I'm certainly not one of those people... BREAK FREE!

(from MatadorNetwork)
Harnessing the power of the Matador Network, the world’s largest independent travel community, BREAKING FREE explores the lives of real-life Americans who have dared to live their dreams. Ditching routine, comfort zones, and their own personal fears, they have sought and found vibrant, purpose-driven lifestyles to inspire viewers of all ages. Filmed in diverse locations around the world, each hour-long episode investigates how these remarkable people started over, understanding the unique challenges, goals and passion that allowed them to follow their heart. BREAKING FREE is about their journey, their lives, and the possibilities for each and every one of us. READ MORE

Random End Of Days?

When it finally happens, I imagine the Apocalypse will look something like this...



Sadly, these are real pictures of something that just happened...



Hopefully this isn't the beginning of the end. I got shit to do!

(from MailOnline)
When all hell breaks loose: Lightning tears the sky apart above the glow of the Chilean volcano
Flames reach up to the heavens as lightning flashes criss-cross the sky. These extraordinary images show the full force of Mother Nature as a Chilean volcano erupts for the first time in 50 years. Ash has been thrown six miles up into the sky and the South American government has ordered the evacuation of thousands of residents. Winds fanned the ash toward neighbouring Argentina, darkening the sky in the ski resort city of San Carlos de Bariloche, in the centre of the country, and its airport has also been closed. The eruption in the Puyehue-Cordon Caulle volcanic chain, about 575 miles south of the capital, Santiago, also prompted authorities to close a busy border crossing into Argentina. It was not immediately clear which of the chain's four volcanoes had erupted because of ash cover and weather conditions. The chain last saw a major eruption in 1960. READ MORE


Spotted @ NewzJunky

Random HiiiPower

I've never heard of this guy but I'm a fan of the song...



If that doesn't make you wanna throw up the black fist... you're probably not a black person, and that's okay too.

(from Wiki)
Kendrick Lamar is a rapper from Compton, California. His music is influenced by Tupac Shakur, Jay-Z, Nas and DMX. He is a member of Black Hippy along with Jay Rock, Ab-Soul and Schoolboy Q. He released an EP in 2009 titled The Kendrick Lamar EP, an acclaimed mixtape in 2010 titled O(verly) D(edicated) and plans to release his debut album Section 80 in 2011. READ MORE

Spotted @ TheBook

Random California Adventure

Operation San Fran to Los Angeles was a success...











The California coast is as beautiful as you assumed it was and I highly recommend taking the drive if you can spare the time.

Thanks to Rachie (co-pilot)!

Random Story Corp

Everyone's life is a story...

Germans in the Woods from StoryCorps on Vimeo.

(from StoryCorp)
StoryCorps is an independent nonprofit whose mission is to provide Americans of all backgrounds and beliefs with the opportunity to record, share, and preserve the stories of our lives. Since 2003, StoryCorps has collected and archived more than 30,000 interviews from more than 60,000 participants. Each conversation is recorded on a free CD to share, and is preserved at the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress. StoryCorps is one of the largest oral history projects of its kind, and millions listen to our weekly broadcasts on NPR’s Morning Edition and on our Listen pages. LISTEN

Thanks To Rachie for the link!

Random Great Depression

Television made me believe that the world before 1960 was actually black and white...







Thanks to these picture released by the Library Of Congress (and of course the ineveitable realization that I was probably a silly child) a little bit of color has been shed on the historic world.

(From DailyMail)
In the bleak light of the Depression: Rare colour photographs of the era that defined a generation
It was an era that defined a generation. The Great Depression marked the bitter and abrupt end to the post-World War 1 bubble that left America giddy with promise in the 1920s. Near the end of the 1930s the country was beginning to recover from the crash, but many in small towns and rural areas were still poverty-stricken. These rare photographs are some of the few documenting those iconic years in colour. The photographs and captions are the property of the Library of Congress and were included in a 2006 exhibit Bound for Glory: America in Color. The images, by photographers of the Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information, shed a bleak new light on a world now gone with the wind. READ MORE

Spotted @ Drudge

Random Milky Way

Earth is an amazing place...

The Mountain from Terje Sorgjerd on Vimeo.

(from HuffingtonPost)
Time-Lapse Milky Way Video Captures Nature From A Unique Perspective (HD VIDEO)
This time-lapse video of the Milky Way will blow your mind. Terje Sorgjerd is on a roll. After capturing some amazing footage of the Aurora Borealis recently (though not the famous footage out of the plane window) he's back with this incredible video that looks like something out of Planet Earth. His time-lapse shots of the Milky Way show a stunning sky, backlit with an incredible aura. It really makes you feel small, and in awe of the universe. The time-lapse footage was captured between April 4th and 11th, 2011, from atop El Teide, Spain's highest mountain. At one point a sandstorm blows across, which rendered Sorgjerd unable to see the sky, but left his camera with some stunning images.

Random Born Wild

I'm such a sucker for these cheesy animal movies...



I'm too much of a wimp to see them in theaters, but I'm all about the NatGeoHD viewing

Official website!

Random Advertisement Doc

"The inception of documentaries"...



Morgan Spurlock, of Super Size Me fame, has made some interesting and thought provoking films/tv shows for a while now and it looks like this one will not disappoint. Well Done Sir!

(from Wiki)
Morgan Valentine Spurlock (born November 7, 1970) is an American documentary filmmaker, humorist, television producer, screenwriter and journalist, best known for the documentary film Super Size Me. Spurlock was the executive producer and star of the reality television series 30 Days. The Greatest Movie Ever Sold is a documentary film about product placement, marketing and advertising which was reportedly itself financed through product placement, The Greatest Movie Ever Sold was shown at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2011. It is due for general release in the USA in April 2011. READ MORE

Random Gadget Drought

One thing getting lost in the devastation of the Japanese Earthquake/Tsunami...



The Japanese are responsible for making and developing most of the world's new technologies. This earthquake could possibly set the world on a different technological course. This'll be interesting...

(from Engadget)
Japanese quake will likely affect the global supply of gadgets
As a tech publication, we're obviously focused on the impact recent events will have on Japan's vast consumer electronics industry -- an industry that has responded with millions of dollars in cash, equipment and services to help with the relief effort. Thus far, Canon, Panasonic, and Sony have each pledged ¥300 million ($3.67 million) in donations. Sony is also matching employee contributions as will Mitsubishi who's donating a whopping ¥500 million ($6.1 million) in aid. On the equipment side, Sony is donating some 30,000 radios to relief efforts while Panasonic is providing 10,000 radios, 10,000 flashlights, and 500,000 batteries. NEC, Kyocera, and Epson are each donating ¥100 million in funds, computers, and telecoms and IT equipment. While it's still too early to quantify the exact impact the earthquake, tsunami, and ongoing nuclear troubles will have on the global tech industry, the scope of the issues is becoming clearer now that the initial chaos has passed. Click through to see how everything from laptop batteries to iPads are at risk. READ MORE

Random 'Human Planet'

Has this aired in the US yet?



If not, when?!

(from Wiki)
Human Planet is an 8-part British television documentary series. It is produced by the BBC with co-production from Discovery and BBC Worldwide. It describes the human species and its relationship with the natural world by showing the remarkable ways humans have adapted to life in every environment on earth. Announced in 2007, the production teams based at the BBC Natural History Unit in Bristol and BBC Wales spent two years shooting over 70 stories in some of the most remote locations on earth spanning about 40 countries. Each episode of the series focuses on a different human-inhabited environment, including deserts, jungles, the Arctic, grasslands, rivers, mountains, oceans, and the urban landscape. For the first time on a BBC landmark series the production has a dedicated stills photographer, Timothy Allen who is documenting the project photographically for the books that will accompany the series. READ MORE

Random Che Zuckerberg

The Egyptian people completed their revolution on February 11,2011...



thanks in large part to social media sites like Facebook... Therefore, Zuckerberg is the new Che?

(from Newsweek)
Inside Egypt's Facebook Revolt
After hundreds of arrests in Cairo Wednesday, some protest organizers have gone missing and are presumed jailed. Now activists are using Egypt’s oldest social medium to keep up the fight.
In the days leading up to this week’s street protests in Egypt, the largest the country has seen since the 1970s, Ahmed Salah was busy spreading the word around Cairo—“in every possible way,” as he put it. A veteran activist who said agitation is his genes, Salah, 45, tapped into his usual network, called family and friends, hit the streets, and posted updates on the Web. “On the 25th, we are trying to give people a bit of hope, and a chance to express themselves,” he said in a phone interview last week. But he said the regime would fight back. Salah had been pulled from demonstrations and arrested in the past. He’d been blindfolded and beaten by police, he said, and staged a hunger strike in jail. He calmly predicted that, this time around, an even worse fate might be in store. “I’m already a burned card. No matter what I do, it’s all the same now,” he said. “We’re all in danger. If I get arrested again, I’m sure I will not come out alive.” READ MORE

Random MVP

Melvin Van Peebles is the man...



This is a fact. And after watching "How to Eat Your Watermelon in White Company (and Enjoy It)," a documentary about his storied life, the fact that he is THE MAN was only further confirmed.



Stream on Netflix or read more about the movie HERE

Random '7 Billion'

7 Billion, National Geographic Magazine...



(from NatGeo)
By 2045 global population is projected to reach nine billion. Can the planet take the strain?
One day in Delft in the fall of 1677, Antoni van Leeuwenhoek, a cloth merchant who is said to have been the long-haired model for two paintings by Johannes Vermeer—“The Astronomer” and “The Geographer”—abruptly stopped what he was doing with his wife and rushed to his worktable. Cloth was Leeuwenhoek’s business but microscopy his passion. He’d had five children already by his first wife (though four had died in infancy), and fatherhood was not on his mind. “Before six beats of the pulse had intervened,” as he later wrote to the Royal Society of London, Leeuwenhoek was examining his perishable sample through a tiny magnifying glass. READ MORE

Random Animal Voices

"Alan, Alan, Alan, Alan... Al"...





Talking animals is great but the British accents put it over the top

Random Motorola Xoom

In a 2009 meeting at work I predicted everyone would have one device...



The question posed was "Where is all of this going?" (in terms of the web world and how my company fit into it all) and I responded by describing essentially the Motorola Xoom. A one stop device that housed everything you would need (aside from food, human contact, all that other stuff). It will be able to show your email, news feeds, face-to-face phone calls, movies and all that other good stuff, I said... Looking back, I'd say I was right!

Oh and on a side note, I was right about Google and Android too! Fuck Apple!

(from WSJ)
Android’s Users Eclipse IPhone’s for First Time, comScore Says
For the first time, more Americans say they are using cellphones powered by Google Inc.’s Android system than Apple Inc.’s iPhone, according to a new survey from technology-tracking firm comScore Inc. About 26% of U.S. smartphone users said an Android device was their primary phone in the three months ending in November, compared with 25% using Apple Inc.’s iPhones, comScore said. BlackBerry maker Research In Motion Ltd. still held the first-place spot, but its share of users declined to 33.5% from 37.6% in August. READ MORE

Random x-Mas Weekend

Had a great x-mas weekend with the family...



The gifts are nice, but it's the time spent together that matters most.

Random Winter Nightmare

I'm fairly sure god is upset with us...



maybe it's all the masturbation... cut it out you crazy kids!

(from DailyMail)
How a freak diversion of the jet stream is paralysing the globe with freezing conditions
The freezing conditions that have blasted Britain are being blamed on a series of weather patterns that are bringing Arctic temperatures to much of western Europe, California and even Australia. One of the main factors is a change in the position of the jet stream - the fast-moving current of air that moves from west to east, high in the atmosphere. Changes in the jet stream's path can cause massive changes in weather conditions across the globe and may be why Australians are now shivering their way through summer and the current freezing conditions in California. In a normal British winter - when conditions are mild and soggy - the jet stream lies over northern Europe, at an altitude of between 35,000 to 50,000 feet. READ MORE

Spotted @ Drudge

Random Moon Viewing

Space nerd strikes again...



I'm a little too pumped to stay up till 1:45am tonight to watch the eclipse.

(from MontrealGazette)
Solstice-eclipse overlap first in 456 years
This year's winter solstice — an event that will occur next Tuesday — will coincide with a full lunar eclipse in a union that hasn't been seen in 456 years. The celestial eccentricity holds special significance for spiritualities that tap into the energy of the winter solstice, the shortest day of the year and a time that is associated with the rebirth of the sun. "It's a ritual of transformation from darkness into light," says Nicole Cooper, a high priestess at Toronto's Wiccan Church of Canada. "It's the idea that when things seem really bleak, (it) is often our biggest opportunity for personal transformation. "The idea that the sun and the moon are almost at their darkest at this point in time really only further goes to hammer that home." Cooper said Wiccans also see great significance in the unique coupling of the masculine energy of the sun and the feminine energy of the moon — transformative energies that she plans to incorporate into the church's winter-solstice rituals. READ MORE

Spotted @ Drudge

Random Shadyac Adventure

Ace Ventura's director no longer speaking from his ass...



(from SlashFilm)
In the 1990s Tom Shadyac was one of the most successful directors in Hollywood. From Ace Venture: Pet Detective, to The Nutty Professor and Liar, Liar, he was making the kind of huge hit comedies studios dream of. Then Shadyac was in a bad bicycle accident that changed everything. His physical injuries healed but the experience changed his outlook on life. He sold his mansion, moved into a trailer, gave away his money and possessions and began thinking about a movie that would explore how we, as humans, can change the way we live and make the world better. That documentary, I Am, will be out in February. Check out the inspirational trailer and read the plot synopsis after the break. READ MORE