Lars Andersen: Archer Extraordinaire

Remember When Myth Buster's Busted My Beloved Kevin Costner's Slick Split An Arrow Trick?

Enter Lars Andersen: Scholar, Bad Ass, Archer, Jumper, Expert.

Lars Andersen Began Letting Loose About Ten Years Ago. He Realized That Quivers Suck Big Time For Carrying Your Arrows Around When You're Oot And Aboot Romping Thru The Woods. He Also Noticed That Quivers Were Really Slowing Him Down And Was Like "THE FUCK???" So He Consulted Thee Book On Archery And Rediscovered The Olds Ways. G'Bye Quiver.

And That Was Not The End Of Lars Andersen's Historical Upgrades. Because Archers Of Yore Weren't Lighting Up Primary Colored Targets In The Yard The Didn't Have All The Time In The World To Get A Shot Off. Ancient Syrian Archers Were Expected To Be Able To Loose 3 Arrows In 1.5 Seconds
Chicka-Waaaaaaaaa
So Fast
My Boy Lars Andersen Lets Loose To The Tune Of 3 Arrows In .6 Seconds
AND THE CROWD GOES WILD
O M G
Back It Up And Watch It Again
O M G
He, And They, Were/Are Able To Shoot So Fast By Improving Their Efficiency. Lars Andersen Noticed That In Ancient Texts Archers Are Consistently Depicted Holding Additional Arrows In Their Shooting Hands,Effectively Turning Themselves Into Automatic Weapons. Bows And Arrows Become A Close Combat Game Changer When An Archer's Efficiency Of Movement Allows Even The Closest Target To Be Hit In The Blink Of An Eye, 3 Times.
Lars Anderson Also Noticed That Ancient Archers Shot From The Right Side Of The Bow. Again Efficiency Dictated That Arrows Were Shot From The Same Side Of The Body Where They Were Held, In Hand, At The Ready.

Lars Andersen Took The Historical Improvements And Practiced And Practiced And Mutha Fuckin' Practiced.
Practice.

LARS ANDERSEN HAD ANOTHER ARCHER SHOOT AN ARROW AT HIM AND LARS ANDERSEN SHOT THAT ARROW IN HALF WITH A BOW AND ARROW.

🐐

jv

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King Tut's Beard

The Horror!

To Where My Feelings Began; Egyptian Art Has Always Been Important To Me. Prolly Ever Since I Saw Stargate, That Shit Was/Is/Always Will Be My JAM. Hieroglyphics Are My Ol' Reliable Inspiration. As I've Gotten Older The Enduring Awesomeness Of Egyptian Art Has Been A Reliable DayDream Generator When I've Been In Times Of Need/Boredom/Awe.

My First Semester In College I Took An Art History Class. We Started From The Bottom. The Venus Of Willendorf And Onto Mesopotamia And Then Finally To The G'Damn Reason For The Season, EGYPT. The Pyramids Are Cool. Hieroglyphics Are Bomb. AND KING TUT'S DEATH MASK IS THE GREATEST SINGULAR PIECE OF ART IN THE HISTORY OF HISTORY. I Had Seen The Death Mask More Times Than Counting Could Count. Everyone Has. That First Art History Class Finally Allowed Me To Feel All The Feels I Hadn't Been Able To Explore And Express And King Tut's Death Mask Was Always The Most Special To Me. Its So Fucking Dope. The Yellow Gold, His Expression,The Headdress, The Big Ol' Ears, And His Beard.

The Death Mask Is The Epitome Of Art. I Dunno If Everyone Feels This Way, I Have Great Respect For Art That Seems Beyond Me. I Love Painting And I Love Drawing, Always Tho, Because It Seems Within My Reach, They Seem Possible, I Can't Fully Give Myself Over To Them. Great Painting And Great Drawings Of Course Reach This Next Untouchable Godly Level. The Death Mask Is Godly. Its Perfect, OR AT LEAST IT WAS!

SOME MUTHA FUCKER FUCKING TOUCHING WHERE HE SHOULDN'T HAVE BEEN TOUCHING TOUCHED THE BEARD AND TOOK IT WITH HIM REMOVED THAT SHIT FROM THE DEATH MASK AND FREAKED OUT AND GRABBED SOME EPOXY GLUE AND SQUIRTED MUTHA FUCKING GLUE ONTO THE MOST SIGNIFICANT PIECE OF ART OF ALL TIME THEN JAMMED THAT BEARD BACK ON THERE AND THEN HE NOTICED HE'D GOTTA A GLOB ON TUT'S CHEEK SO HE TOOK A SPATULA TO IT AND GOUGED THE DEATH MASK NOT TO MENTION THAT YOU CAN SEE A CLEAR YELLOW TINTED GAP BETWEEN THE BEARD AND THE CHIN WHICH IS APPARENTLY PERMANENT.

Because The Death Mask Is The Prized Jewel Of It's Museum They Are Not Letting Out Any Pictures Of The Death Mask, They Haven't Released A Statement. So This Is All Hearsay. I Hope It Is.

I Need To Travel So I Can See All My Favorite Art Before Some A-Hole Squirts Glue All Over Them

:' (

jv

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Oscar Predictions 2K14

Back by request, here are my oscar predictions!

This year, I'm only gonna pick 8 categories that I think are impossibly close and have those as my dark horse picks, instead of all 24. Still trying to beat my record from three years ago of 22 for 24.

This is by far the best oscar race in years, in at least over a decade. As opposed to other years, maybe only five or six categories are really definite. Everything from the best picture battle (Will it be a panic induced throttle into our future in space or a bleak look into a stain in our national past) to the best live short film (all nominees are completely different genres from all over the globe), will basically be up for grabs!

But in the end, I think Gravity will take home the most awards. It will win the technical categories easily, as well as pick up a much overdue Best Cinematography Oscar for Emmanuel Lubezki (Chivo) who has been nominated five times in the last 17 years, and was completely snubbed two years ago for "Tree of Life". Short of Scorcese and his editor Thelma Schoonmaker, Lubezki's collaboration with Alfonso Cuaron is my favorite duo in film and look for them to both take home the golden guy tonight.

But the race between 12 Years and Gravity will come down to Academy voters splitting their votes and giving 12 Years the big award and Best Director to Cuaron.

Best Picture: 12 Years a Slave

   Dark Horse: Gravity

Best Director: Alfonso Cuaron 

Best Actor: Matthew McCanaughey

    Dark Horse: Leonardo Dicaprio

Best Actress: Cate Blanchett

    Dark Horse: Amy Adams

Best Supporting Actor: Jared Leto

Best Supporting Actress: Lupita Nyong'o

     Dark Horse: Jennifer Lawrence

Best Original Screenplay: Her

     Dark Horse: American Hustle

Best Adapted Screenplay: 12 Years a Slave

Best Cinematography: Emmanuel Lubezki 

Best Production Design: Great Gatsby

Best Documentary Feature: 20 Feet from Stardom/

     Dark Horse: Act of Killing

Best Documentary Short: The Lady in Number 6

Best Foreign Film: The Great Beauty

Best Animated Film: Frozen

Best Live Short Film: The Voorman Problem

Best Animated Short Film: Get a Horse

Best Editing: Captain Phillips

     Dark Horse: Gravity

Best Sound Mixing: Gravity

Best Sound Editing: Gravity

Best Costume: Great Gatsby

     Dark Horse: American Hustle

Best Hair/Make Up: Dallas Buyers Club

Best Original Score: Gravity

Best Original Song: "Let it Go"

Best Visual Effects: Gravity

-AM Film

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This is an interactive whale.

Pretty much self-explanatory. Be careful, you might waste hours playing with this.

-jb

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BILLY SHAKES TEES

Hey y'all,

sorry to plug my own product for the moment, but
a) i think it's pretty cool
and
b) you could be part of a national movement.

so, yeah.

Billy Shakes is a fictional milkshake shop with a very real and very awesome teeshirt/mascot, which is a picture of William Shakespeare that I copied, pasted into Microsoft Word, and onto which I drew a milkshake. You can see it illustrated on my friend Cam's shirt below (I am pointing at it):

Me and Billy (kid on the right, the co-founder of Billy Shakes) are selling them for $15 a pop. No worries, I won't be offended or cry if none of y'all want one, just figured i'd put it in all the places that I know the hip kids hang out....

BUT. 

Just know that a Billy Shakes shirt today may mean a free milkshake tomorrow!!! or something dramatic like that!

thanks erryone and if nothing else just tell yer frandz about it and spread it around, any color is available as long as it's sold at Wal-Mart or Michael's so the sky's the limit. Except heather gray. Fuck heather gray.

Peace Love Billy Shakes,

jb

Mad Mad Mad Mad Men

Thank Netflix for Netflix. I mean, how else would I be able to catapult myself into Mad Men being 5 Seasons behind. 5 Seasons, y'all! And now I'm caught up. And so's MikePirog. And we're loving it.


Coming from NJ and having HBO, we are both long time fans of The Sopranos and recently watched the entire series over again and I swear on all that is good and holy, if Mad Men ends in the same way I will hurl my dog at the TV. Suffice it to say though, I've learned to become a VERY careful watcher of TV shows by Matt Weiner because this dude LOVES DETAILS. The significance of Tony Soprano eating oranges is not lost on me. (Its partly a shout out to the Godfather, which was shouting out the troubled Medici family of Renaissance Florence)

Enough of this. There's a shit ton of Mad Men theories flying around right now.
Such as, Megan is already dead, Megan is GOING to die, the COUNTLESS Bob Benson options,

So here's my 2 cents:

1. I'm NOT giving up on the Dante connection. We open the season with Don on a beach (paradise) reading about Hell (Dante).


But, Dante is going through Hell to come out on the other side and find his Beloved Beatrice. Don loves no one, really. And belongs in almost every level of Hell except murderers, maybe? If Don's going to die (or get to heaven) he's got to endure a crapton, or have a Virgil by his side to guide him?

2. Pete's going to die.
What does Pete have left? His mom who hates him (Because he really is a twerp, I mean...)? His wife who keeps his daughter away from his philandering? His shitty brother? He's got Peggy. And Peggy knows she deserves better.

There's that old quote from Chekhov, "If there'a a gun on the wall in the first act, it's GOT to go off in the second act.".....

Campbell loves that rifle. Because he bought it in defiance of Trudy to show that he's a man and he can buy whatever he wants because he's a man. And Bob Benson's leg nudge was totally about manhood, right? Maybe Pete's manhood is called into question or threatened....Either way, that things going off.

3. I want Peggy and Stan to be BFFs forever. Like....forever. I want them in character, hosting the Golden Globes next year.

There's even a tumblr for it. Also, I wish I was close enough to a dude that we could have a code phrase meaning, "somebody's in my bed right now."
Also, sidenote - is Jay R. Ferguson Ron Swanson's little brother?

                     

Sorry, I got lost in Stan Rizzo's blue blue eyes, I gotta go.

Enjoy y'all, happy watching.

-fp


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Don't Tap the Glass

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Last night was an amazing event where the Boston Bruins came back down 3 goals to win a deciding game 7  against the Toronto Maple Leafs.  If that means nothing to you think of it as 20,000 drunk hairy freaks going from wanting to knock someone out to a scene on Bear Week in P-Town.

Inside Info: The post game show is literally located where 80% of the fans pour out from the Garden out onto Causeway St. to fill the bars surrounding the Garden and this studio.  I personally have smoked a joint right outside this building outside of a Pink concert.

Lights, Camera, Action:

Post Game Show Where Fans Take Over

I love the slow progression and how it throws the hosts off their game. It gets worse and worse as the production go on eventually causing Felger to accidentally drop an F Bomb coming back from commercial.  (Taken down from internet but will be back up soon)



What was that glass made of? Thunder sticks?  In the audio they played on "Toucher and Rich" a morning funny sports morning show in Boston, the noise gets so loud it messes with the sound waves coming out of the Felger's mouth.  Its like hes being patted on the back while hes talking.

So for those who think fans don't play a role in live entertainment, let this be a lesson to you.

-RDK

Get Outta My Friend's Blog

How did Plus1Press become so plagued with automated comments and shit? Eff you, Blogger.

In any case...you are FUCKING WELCOME.

www.actresseswithoutteeth.net and www.actorswithoutteeth.net . Some of them are REALLY hard to recognize without teeth at first.



Somehow, she still looks good.

Perfect sweater, RyGuy. Did you know this pic was going to happen?

 - fp
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Oscar Predictions 2K13

As per requests from the V's, here is my prediction for quite possibly the tightest and best Oscar race in my lifetime. Trying to beat my record set two years ago of 22 of 24.

Tough categories were Best Director (still going back and forth between Lee and Spielberg for the past two weeks), Production Design (between 3 period pieces in 3 different countries, all taking place in the 1860s) and one of the greatest Supporting Actor races in Oscar history between 5 nominees, whom have all won in the past. 

Best Picture - Argo

Dark Horse: Lincoln

Best Director – Ang Lee

Dark Horse: Steven Spielberg

Best Actor in a Leading Role – Daniel Day Lewis

            Dark Horse: Hugh Jackman

Best Actress in a Leading Role – Jennifer Lawrence

            Dark Horse: Emmanuelle Riva

Best Actor in a Supporting Role – Robert De Niro

            Dark Horse: Tommy Lee Jones (Possibly Christoph Waltz as well. So close)

Best Actress in a Supporting Role – Anne Hathaway

            Dark Horse: Sally Field

Best Original Screenplay – Quentin Tarantino (Django Unchained)

            Dark Horse: Mark Boal (Zero Dark Thirty)

Best Adapted Screenplay – Chris Terrio (Argo)

            Dark Horse: David O. Russell (Silver Linings Playbook)

Best Cinematography – Claudio Miranda (Life of Pi)

            Dark Horse: Roger Deakins (Skyfall)

Best Film Editing – William Goldenberg (Argo)

            Dark Horse: William Goldenberg (Zero Dark Thirty)

Best Production Design – Anna Karenina

            Dark Horse: Les Miserables (Lincoln maybe as well. Tough call)

Best Foreign Language Film - Amour

            Dark Horse: Yeah. It’s just gonna be Amour.

Best Animated Feature – Wreck it Ralph

            Dark Horse: Brave

Best Costume Design – Anna Karenina

            Dark Horse: Les Miserables

Best Makeup and Hairstyling – The Hobbit

            Dark Horse: Les Miserables

Best Live Action Short Film - Curfew

Dark Horse: Death of a Shadow

Best Animated Short Film - Paperman

            Dark Horse: Adam and Dog

Best Documentary Feature – Searching for Sugar Man

            Dark Horse: The Gatekeepers

Best Documentary Short – Mondays at Racine

            Dark Horse: Inocente

Best Visual Effects – Life of Pi

            Dark Horse: The Hobbit

Best Sound Editing – Zero Dark Thirty

            Dark Horse: Life of Pi

Best Sound Mixing – Les Miserables

            Dark Horse: Skyfall

Best Original Score – Mychael Danna (Life of Pi)

            Dark Horse: John Williams (Lincoln)

Best Original Song - Skyfall

            Dark Horse: Les Miserables

-AM Film

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Animal Update

Hi ho, here, it's Fisti with your Animal Update for the beginning of 2013.

Every single weekday, without fail, my husband will spend at least a half an hour of his workday searching through NBC's, Yahoo's, and NatGeo's Animal Photos of the Day or Week. He will then, without fail, compile these images into a special e-mail for me that usually gets to me by 2PM that day of all of my favorite critters.

Its great. Its like, "Hey, did some kid spit on you? Here, look at this otter playing basketball." Seriously everybody look at this otter:

Also, I'm exploring tumblr right now (I know I'm late to the party but I brought chips so...) and I found Birds with Arms. Some of them ain't so great, but some of them are funny as shit.

JACK SPARROW

Lastly, in an attempt to go to obscure and crazy-fun stuff like the Iowa State Fair, MP and I are working on attending the Tri-State Basset Hound BoardWaddle. Its a convention of basset hound owners who get together, day drink, and make their dogs do stupid shit. But then, they're bassets so the dogs AND the owners get lazy as hell. Full report.

That's all the animal news for now, my fine feathered friends.

Wannabe ASPCA Member,

fp

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Amy Started a Blog

Amy started a blog. She is a good writer. Its about women and the things they can do. There are boobs. Women to Woman

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~T. Clap

Paperman

Disney just released this new short yesterday. It features a snazzy new technique for combining hand-drawn and computer generated animation which is cool and all, but more importantly, it's adorable and perfect for the pre-Valentine's season. Quick people, start riding trains and carrying papers around again. An iphone smacking me in the face might not have quite the same effect.
 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aTLySbGoMX0&feature=youtu.be

(The video is unlisted, ie only those with the link can view it and I'm prevented from embedding it prettily into the blogger interface at the moment)

-LAB

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Noah St. John - Storyteller

This year's NPR Snap Judgement Performance of the Year. Needless to say I shed sloppy tears on my laptop watching this.

-av
Lover of Love


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Great Teacher, Greater Message

Haven't posted anything in a while then I came across this.

It starts out as this wonderful story about this High School physics teacher who does great demonstrations and interactive lessons with his class (they show a few and they are awesome) but then shifts into this really incredible lesson/message he gives all of his students. It is quite the beautiful message and well worth watching.

Peace & Love,

 - sf

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You GOTTA Try My Sweet & Spicy Nuts

These are the best candied nuts ever.

 

Ingredients: 

1 lb bag unsalted roasted mixed nuts (Trader Joe's makes a good one)

3 tablespoons salted butter

1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

1 teaspoon cayenne pepper (or more)

1/2 cup brown sugar

2 tablespoons of honey or agave nectar

3 stalks fresh rosemary leaves, cut fine

1 stalk fresh rosemary (whole)

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 250 F.
2. Add butter to a large saute pan and melt.
3. Add dry ingredients and honey/agave, stir and add the nuts.
4. Stir for 10-12 minutes over medium/low heat. Watch the heat as sugar can burn; you can always finish cooking in the oven.
5. Remove from saute pan and spread on a cookie sheet. Bake at 250 F for about 10 minutes to reduce oils and then leave out to cool.
6. Once cool, store in a large ziplock and add another large sprig of rosemary (whole) to add to the aroma.

Snapchat: A Parent's Worst Nightmare

Hi y'all.

Introducing Snapchat, this adorable little app that lets you take pictures and send them to your friends who can view them for only a few seconds and then the pictures vanish. POOF!

Now, as an adult, I understand that "vanish"ing on the Interwebs is a relative term. That shits stored somewhere, right? We all know it is. But I teach and mold the minds of youths. Who have no fucking clue where the internet came from and how to use it for anything besides sex and illegal music.

Snapchat has become my personal hell. And if I was the proud owner of a Sex Trophy (aka, my own child) I would toss their phone out the window at this point. Basically all of my students either use Snapchat to take pictures of goofy faces they make and send them to friends. But more likely than not, they take pictures of theirs or others junk and send it and then the pictures "vanish." Its become a competition to see who can snap a photo of balls quicker and send it to their friends - who get the picture, open it for 1-6 seconds, shout "GROSS! What was that!?", and then put their phone away. DURING CLASS. IN THE HALLWAY. AT HOME. WHILE DRIVING.

Truly, its become the new come-on for girls to send dudes pictures of their tits under their shirts during class.
Attention all Dudes: When/If you have a daughter, remember to tell her that she's incredible and pretty and that you love her very much so we don't end up with shit like that photo above.

In other news, there's CinemaGram, an app that lets you animate photos is wicked cool ways. I actually love this one.

Good luck out there,
fp

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Slenderman...I'm Rull Sorry

I am rull sorry to be the one to post this. I am NOT a scary-things person. If you're not, just forget this.
Maybe you've heard of this. I had not.

Today I had an old person moment. Two students of mine were raving about building their own version of this game called Slender.
Student: "Profe, you know Slenderman right?"
Me: "UH...wuh?", she mumbled, looking up from her balanced checkbook and responsibilities.
Students: "Profe...you don't know Slenderman? Its Slender!?"


So, doing a quick Wiki search (because my students told me that its a horror story game, and I don't stand for that shit) I found that Slender is a computer game. I had seen the app dozens of times and noted how even the app picture looked creepy, so I just ignored it and scrolled on by.

See what I mean? Creepy.

I come to learn that it is an internet sensation. Its a first-person survival horror game and basically you can scare the pants RIGHT OFF yourself. The downloadable game was taken off the Internet because it crashed after being offered for free.

The game haunts you with The Slenderman, an image/icon/character started by SomethingAwful.com.  He is always depicted as being tall and thin and able to stretch his appendages to whatever size necessary. Necessary for what? For kidnapping children, that's this Boogeyman's MO. Something Awful sponsored a "paranormal pictures" contest and asked users to manipulate old photos to create a fakelore story. A man named Victor Surge created these two images with the backstory that after these photos were taken both the photographer and 14 children went missing.





KIDS?! TALL CREEPY GUY?! TENTACLE ARMS?! OLD PHOTOS?!

Ladie and gents, THIS is my Kryptonite. I like to READ about American Horror Story - not watch it. NO no no. So, Slenderman has been occupying most of my Wikipedia searches. Trying to understand how something like this gets big and gets to be one of iTunes top apps. Just TRY Googling this shit and your computer will blow up with information. Information about a FAKE story about a mythical creature.

What the fuck is WRONG with people,
fp

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Tryptophan: An Investigative Report

Cheddar Cheese Has Twice As Much Tryptophan As Turkey. Postprandial Somnolence Is The Technical Term For Being Rull Sleepy After Eating. Postprandial Somnolence Occurs When Our Parasympathetic Nervous System Perks Up To Deal With The Food We Just Ate. Our Parasympathetic Is The Other Side Of Our Fight Or Flight Response Coin Which Is Powered By Our Sympathetic Nervous System. The Parasympathetic Nervous System Wants To Sit And Digest And Rest. Glucose Is Sugar And Everything is Sugar When We Eat Sugar Insulin Does Work So Our Blood Can Keep Doing Its Thing In The Mean Time All Sorts Of Amino Acids From Our Food Are Finding A Spot To Chill. Tryptophan Is An Essential Amino Acid With No Place To Chill So It Keeps Floating Until It Gets To Our Brains Where Our Brain Does Magic And Makes Tryptophan Into Serotonin Then Magics That Serotonin Into Melotonin. Serotonin Makes Us Happy And Melotonin Puts Us To Sleep.

-JV
Investigative Wikipedia'r

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Bob Ross: Hardass

As Google delightfully pointed out, today would have been Bob Ross's 70th birthday. I f-ing love Bob Ross. Such an amazing painter (also good animated, and especially good auto-tuned).

But apparently Bob wasn't always such a laid back guy. He used to be in the military. BOB. ROSS.

“I was the guy who makes you scrub the latrine, the guy who makes you make your bed, the guy who screams at you for being late to work,”' he told the Orlando Sentinel. “The job requires you to be a mean, tough person. And I was fed up with it. I promised myself that if I ever got away from it, it wasn't going to be that way any more.”

Unreal. 

Meanwhile there is a happy little tree going by my window.

-SD
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Iron Man Three

Has Everyone Already Seen The Iron Man Three Trailer? I Just Did. Its Awesome. RDJ Can Do No Wrong The Red White And Blue Suit Look Ssick And Every Superhero Needs Some Time In The Snow. Come On April

JV
Fan
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