Election Diet!

"Deadlock" By David Maitland

Elitist Sloppy Joes with Right Wings…

Right Wings

Raspberry Mary mother of jams, finally it will be over tomorrow, less that 24 hours to the finish line. And if you are in the mood to celebrate or comfort yourself there is always food. Seriouseats, ran an article on election food for a broad spectrum of emotions. It’s better than just wonder bread or beef jerky or insert <something that is healthy but tastes awful>, it’s food you can eat.

Courage Causes Cancer – True Fact!

Triple Snuff Chocolate Treat!

SNL’s Death by Chocolate is killer – totally psycholicious.

Mother-of-All Boat Sushi Places

This is a YO! Sushi restaurant in London. BTW, if you are interested they have one in Terminal 3 of Heathrow Airport, just in case you are traveling and find yourself there.

Wall Street Journal’s South Asian flavor

I have to admit, I am totally impressed with Adel, a drag queen who goes by the name Leila. He was recently featured in the journal under the title “Dancers Cheer Islamist Defeat In Pakistan Vote”. While it’s easier being yourself in San Francisco, it takes a lot to do that in the North Western Frontier Province of Pakistan. NWFP is a place where non-conformists have a short shelf life, and forget being a drag queen, even listening to music was banned under the Taliban. Leila is illiterate and dancing is how he makes money. Not just that, he enjoys it, and beliefs that the recent defeat of the Islamist administration that had cracked down on the arts in general, would help revive his career.

Vodpod videos no longer available. from online.wsj.com posted with vodpod

Nothing Magical about Staring at the Chewbacca guy

The highlight of last weekend was of course WonderCon, the comic & pop culture mega conference. I got there by noon, in time for the last ten minutes of Q & A with Steve Carell & Anne Hathaway promoting “Get Smart”. I couldn’t take my eyes off Steve’s nose, that nose is the size of a sandwich triangle, wow. He did mention that he just put in some quality jury duty time, and that he is incorporating that in the new episode of “The Office”. The only other star sighting worth mentioning was Gillian Anderson & David Duchovny, they were there to promote the new X-files movie in the making. It was mildly disappointing that Seth Green couldn’t make it for the new Robot Chicken Star Wars spoof, but their pre-taped Q&A wasn’t too bad.

While last year, I über loved the alien costume, this year it was this guy. But the truly weird moment I had was sharing a moment of extended stare with Peter Mayhew, the guy who played Chewbacca in Star Wars. It was too late before I saw the sign above his head that read “I know you love me, but don’t stare at me”. Too late. Since that was fresh in my memory, I avoided staring at the Darth Vader guy or the original Hulk. The day ended with watching the world premier of the new Justice League movie, which wasn’t really great, but wasn’t a bad way to kill an hour either.

I almost forgot to mention the guys at Haunted Memories, who convert regular portraits into “spooky changing portraits”. The fun part is they sell their portraits in sets, a normal portrait and a spooky version of it. So you frame the normal one and hang it on your wall for a while and when people are used to the portrait swap it with the spooky changing one. They do custom work and just when I was plotting a prank, I was told the cost would be $500 per face for custom work, dang. But off the shelf they start at around $25.

Crawly, Squiggly & Cute

I hate worms, especially caterpillars as they tend to be weird even by worm standards. But this Japanese Tea commercial is cute as hell.

Vodpod videos no longer available. from www.seriouseats.com posted with vodpod

Miru Kim & Urban Exploration

It’s surprising how you find something totally precious when you are not even looking for it. It happened to me last weekend right across the street from where I found Bubble Tea on Castro st. I was waiting at Louie’s Barbershop while Kingsley was getting a haircut. I was sitting on a broken barber’s chair and I decided to kill time going through some Esquire magazines and that’s when I came across Miru Kim.

She is 26, petite, creative and completely fearless. I am saying this because even though her medium is photography the dangerous lengths to which she goes to find the right picture is something else. Miru is an urban explorer. She takes naked pictures of herself in “hard, cold, sharp, and dirty (urban places where), everything is in ruins”. She goes on these missions completely unarmed, not even pepper spray, however, he feels her own nude body is her defense. In her words “If you think about it, if you see some woman naked in an abandoned building, it’s kind of scary”. I thought about and I have to agree.

Apart from having found a dead body once, things have been mostly eventless. She does mention an incident in an abandoned train tunnel, involving a squatter. “She came across a cool-looking section that she wanted to photograph, but the problem was there was a guy there who was taking up that particular space as a residency. He was sleeping and she didn’t want to wake him up, so later on when she went back — again by herself — to that exact spot and he was no longer there, she set up her tripod, camera, took her clothes off, and started taking nude photos of herself, and “he came in while I was doing this, he came in while I was taking photos of myself. I was totally alone, and this guy just completely walked in. I was so scared. That was probably the scariest moment. I saw a figure coming through the tunnel, and he didn’t have a flashlight or anything, so it was completely dark. So I see this dark figure coming toward me, then I saw that it was just this old guy who looked pretty harmless, he just lived there. So I dressed up and explained to him what I was doing — ‘I’m doing an art project, sorry to bother you’ — you know? Because it’s like his house, you know? So I told him, and he didn’t say much; he was just standing there like, Okay. So I took off my clothes again and did it in front of him and he was kind of sitting in the picture, so I was like, ‘Do you mind moving forward out of the picture, please?’ And he was just sitting around watching, so I did my thing, then dressed up. It was really filthy in there, real muddy, smelled like urine, and I was wiping off with baby wipes, and the guy was like, ‘Do you want my shirt to clean off?’ He looked probably sixty or so, I’m sure he’s younger than he looks, and really skinny. He was really nice. Afterward, we were sitting around talking about his life. He kept on talking about Rikers Island, and that he likes it down there because it’s quiet. I told him I liked that, too. And then he was like, ‘Let me walk you out.’ He thanked me for treating him like a regular person.””

Here’s her short film.

Tom Cruise approves this message.

You may have already seen the Tom Cruise Scientology video, if not here you go. Disclaimer: you will be asked soul searchy questions like “either you’re on board or not on board, okay, which is it?” and “Have you met as SP?” This video is right on top of the list of videos that made me pause and Google constantly, which in this case was also entertaining, it’s like a gift that keeps on giving. Once you are done watching the original, go ahead and watch the parody below. Trust me you will not be disappointed.

Vodpod videos no longer available. from www.funnyordie.com posted with vodpod