Freakin' Ray Gun

Leave it to the American military to actually turn one of sci-fi's greatest concepts into reality. Apparently the military has developed a working "Ray Gun" that will presumably be used to disperse dangerous crowds or what have you in conflict zones. I've no idea how it works or what it utilizes, but CBS has a hilarious video teaser for a segment that will air this weekend on 60 Minutes. The reporter likens it to being covered in boiling water and he can hardly stand the beam for more than a second. oh and of course the freakin' laser is invisible, so you can't see it coming.

Birthdays

I'm quickly approaching another bday - a big one. Without getting too philosophical, I'll just post the invite to the party, the 7th flyer in the make if funky series. Hope to see people there!
Speaking of bdays, it was my sisters today, Happy Birthday Sis!

Traff-tastic!

Haleilujah, today was a day for good news. I was reading a local blog, LA Observed and learned that there are some changes in store for the traffic that makes up my daily commute. Apparenly as of today, hundreds of stoplights in the area i traverse to and from work, are officially syncronized.

With this new Mid-Wilshire Signal Sync System in place, commuters who travel in and around the 12-square Mid-Wilshire/ Hollywood area will experience improved travel times and a reduction in traffic delay of up to 15%. As part of the effort to help motorists identity the areas that are synchronized, Mayor Villaraigosa will have new "Signal Sync” signs posted at 200 major corridors and intersections.
“We are offering a tool for commuters to identify which traffic lights have been synchronized, and which ones have not,” said Mayor Villaraigosa. “From now on, each new light sync project will be marked with a “Signal Sync” sign --- and over the course of the next yearand a half, every synchronized light in the city will display this mark.”

They are claiming it will help ease traffic by 15%. Hmm, I'll be the judge of that.

Sugar free = Fat flush

Its now been proven that eating sugar free foods full of sugar substitutes actually helps people gain weight (sorta). A press release (it's from the American Psychological Association, c'mon dont doubt me!) shares laboratory evidence that when artificial sweeteners are consumed, it messes with your body's natural functions. Disruptions range from a difference in metabolicly raised body temperature to the body's lesser known activities when it prepares to consume lots of food. Now, the majority of these cited experiments took place in lab animals, but there is some seriously interesting and compelling evidence linked to many other human studies.

-Im not a health expert of a real reporter, just sharing thoughts that you may find interesting.

(my lawyer made me write that)

Web Genius for 2.25.08

I heard about this a while ago, but this is the first time I've seen the local news coverage and have had the pleausure of being introduced to 'weiner poopie'. The best part and I mean the part that really drove me off my chair with spasms of laughter, is the ending. "it wasn't... it wasn't..."

Once

By far and away the best moment from the Oscars tonight was the stirring performance by Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova. Its a good song to begin with, but when in comparison to all the cheese from whatever Disney movie had all the nominations, it truly stood out.

Falling Slowly - Glen Hansard & Markéta Irglová

If you haven't seen the movie Once, its phenomenal. It was filmed in 3 weeks in Ireland for $100K. Marketa's do-over speech after at the awards hammered home the message of hope defined by the reality of that moment. Part of the enjoyment was watching the ceremony with my friend from Ireland, who has known and followed the Frames for the last 10 years and was able to relate the success story behind the band. You can find more in The Frames here. Hopefully the site survives the crush of people that will be checking it out after Glen won the Oscar. I urge you all to go buy the Once soundtrack too.

The eyes don't lie...

An article in the LA Times I read gave me one of those, "holy crap, scientists can do amazing things" moments, immediately followed by a "damn, there is so much going on in our body that we are totally unaware of" feelings.

Essentially, scientists can very accurately date the age of people buy looking at their eyes. There is a layer on the surface of the eye that you form in your first year of life, as you open your eyes and see the world for the first time. This layer is influenced by the amount of carbon-14 in the air, something that is measurable and always changing. So, looking at this layer and having this index of carbon-14 levels gives you a very accurate birth year.

Incidentally, from 1945 to 1960 there was a huge spike in carbon-14 because that was the age of nuclear bomb testing. Let this be a sound rejection (aka, fuck you) to the (mostly) religious non-believers of global warming who state that we are too meager to influence god's world.

On a lighter note, Maze, I for, one definitely support both your experiment with on-line dating and then spilling yer bean and giving us the juice. I think Honeyspider will agree...

Today's Celeb Sighting

Danny Bonaduce at the deli by my office. Classic!

-posted by maze

The Airborne Toxic Event

My friend is in this band and they are great and she's really nice, so I'm supporting them. I saw this video today, which covers a residency they had at Spaceland in LA. They have a show at the Troubadour on Tuesday, March 3rd! Let me know if you want to go!


UPDATE: show is on Monday, March 3rd. see you there.
-posted by maze

Welcome Kush!

To all of the 6 readers that come to this site, you guys are the best. Tonight, I have a special surprise. I invited my buddy Kush to join as a contributor to Up Late Thursday. So now there will be even more interesting items for your reading pleasure. Please give a warm welcome Kush.

-posted by maze

Eyak

There was a really nice article in the economist recently. An obituary for a woman named Marie Smith. Strange right? Marie Smith, or as she was originally named, Udachkuqax*a'a'ch (no joke) was 89 when she died. What is interesting about Marie is that she was the last living Eyak speaker. The Eyak are a native people from Alaska. Eyak was their spoken language. It was the type of language that has 32 words for ice and no words for apples or oranges. Where stories of the world's creation involved magical loons and tiny people. It has particular interest to me because I studied Native American creation stories and they are some of the best I've ever come across. Sadly, many of those stories are gone, along with Marie's. According to the economist, half the planet's languages will disappear in the next 50 years.

Makes you think...

-posted by maze

MOMA San Fran

Now on display on the top floor...

jargon

today brought me this gem,

"To save cycles, let's quickly vet that through respective teams to poke holes, then we can flesh it out and run it up the flag pole."

seriously?

Sunday evening

At the beach...

Nerves (dotcom)

I'm coming to the realization that it might be time to try online dating. I haven't ever done it. I'm usually too nervous to even post a picture, much less go and start a conversation with a total stranger, but as they say, desperate times...

So as I'm preparing to reveal my inability to decifer the relationship status of attractive people and desire to think about at least the possibility of someday changing my relationship status (im looking at you myspace/facebook, if you can last that long) to the greater metropolitan area, I'm reminded of an earlier time.

Back in the old days (right around the turn of the century), I was living with my friend R. We would take morning runs around the neighborhood scouting curbed furniture (ended up outfitting a good portion of our place with it - tho we have since upgraded). One day we came across an old school typewriter and adopted it. It quickly became a outlet for observations on our trials and tribulations as single dudes new to the area. Everything was fair game, from utter embarrassment to random, surprising successes. There were some phenomenal entries that are lurking somewhere, though I haven't seen them in years.

So i've toyed with the idea of tracking my virtual dating foibles here and have not yet landed on a decision. On one hand, it would be hilariously fun for me. On the other, it would be hilariously fun for everyone else (at my expense). Plus, I'm still getting used to the blogging thing, where anyone can land on this page and read about me. Originally, I never mean to talk about personal stuff. I only wanted to share what I thought was cool and interesting, but that lead to things that were cool and interesting that happened to me and viola, conflict.

more to come...

Tix have arrived

Thanks to EH I was on the ball and got my tix early this year. Cheapest ever! The official package arrived today. Here are the 2008 burning man tickets in all their glory.

Valentine's Day

Its right around the corner and I'm sure a number of people are planning fastidiously to woo their partners. Me? I've got the day open, will probably do some drinking with a friend that's visiting from home. There's a bar down the street from me that has awesome anti-Valentine's Day parties. That should be fun, not because Im 'anti' Valentine's Day, but because I am and always have been 'pro' any sort of themed parties.

But if you are looking for that proper way to say "I love you" nothing says meaningful like a well thought out ecard. My favorite place, where I find cards for all types of occasions is Someecards.com, for instance...

I swear I'm not bitter, it just made me laugh.

Celebrities!

Had a good celebrity sighting tonight out in the neighborhood. it was actually cool for me because even though i dont really buy too much in the celebrity thing, this sighting actually had some significance. I felt like i identified with him in some strange way. Maybe identify is the wrong word, i think i took a little bit of pride in the fact that i had something in common with him. anyway, without further adieu,

yes, a soccer playing super famous dude. he was at magnolia, a few blocks from my home, with a group of friends having some drinks. As i said earlier, the 'wood is full of surprises...

Gum wall

Across from the alibi room, Pike's alley, Seattle WA

Seattle pics

Im in seattle this weekend. Here's some pics from the day which included a trip to mecca (flagship REI store), the experience music project (lame) and many seattle streets.

Stopping Time

This (apologies, for some reason the video will not embed) is the coolest thing I have seen in a long time. It's also not the first time I have said that about improveverywhere. I spent most of the week in a relatively new town and wish I had seen this before I arrived. It would have changed the way I experienced things over the past few days. Its so perfect that this happened in NYC tho, a city full of constant stimulation. I would have loved to be there when it happened, not knowing what was going on. How surreal. The fact that so many minds and so much preparation came together to execute this adds to the magnitude of it. It makes me reassess how I go about my life and consider what human interactions should be like. That's probably one of the obvious goals of the group, but still, it’s compelling. Shouldn't this be what meeting or observing people on a daily basis should be like? Shouldn't daily experiences be a source of awe and fascination? Watching people an exercise in discovery? Simply walking down the street an opportunity to view once in a lifetime occurrences? Ok, now I’ve gone too far.