The Jersey Shore Comeback or Get out of my Face Jersey Shore

You either love it or hate it but either way the Jersey Shore is coming back for another round , this time from Italy. I didn't really get as much of a kick out of the last season but I just came across this video and it's just way to awful yet hilarious not to share. I apologize in advance for posting and tainting our blog with muff cabbage

Click here for the real Jersey Shore Season Four Italy Trailer. My eyes just watered. I'm embarassed.

Jillicious
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The Amazing Spiderman Official Trailer

Comic-Con is almost upon us so all sorts of projects hoping to appeal to the geeky masses are releasing footage. The Dark Knight Rises trailer played before Harry Potter. Hunger Games has a new poster. And now the official trailer for The Amazing Spiderman is online. The reboot has a new director, new actors and a darker vision, that is reported to include more practical effects as opposed to CG effects, which makes the last 30 seconds of the trailer a little unfortunate, as they look more like a videogame than the excellent and low-tech exploding cafe scene in Inception. But I have faith. Mostly because how can two talented, good looking, super human beings do wrong?

See for yourself:


What do you think?

-av
ps. Ryan Gosling is willing to lift anyone over his head as long as they'll do their part in the lift. Even Al Roker.
pps. yes, I included that link just so I could have as many of favorite lables as possible on this post. in fairness, that man cardigan is sick.
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ISHABAMI

In 2009 I drew a picture and tried to write SHABAM! underneath the picture and to be fancy I was going to put an upside-down exclamation point at the beginning of the word. I drew the word from left to right starting with the upside-down exclamation point and working my way over to the regular one on the other side. I messed up and put another upside-down exclamation point at the end of the word. "ishabami" I liked the way the picture looked though, so I hang the picture anyhow. The next day when BJK came over he saw the picture and said "ishabami?" and the word sounded right. Since then I have adopted it as a nonsense word that can mean anything or nothing at all. And I began to write it everywhere along with a bunny. I began a blog a few weeks ago to have ownership of the word on the internet. ISHABAMI.BLOGSPOT.COM I have added a bunch of painting and pictures, some from 2009 and a few that are more recent. Here are three samples.

-jv
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WPA Artwork

The Federal Arts program lasted from August 29, 1935 til June 30, 1943. As a part of the Works Project Administration the Federal Arts Program employed artists to provide art for non federal buildings.

I learned about this in maybe Mr. Haren's 11th grade history class and more recently Wikipedia then had not really thought about it. I occasionally would come accross a mural and then I noticed my boss's calendar which has different national parks as drawn by WPA artists. My favorites are the Sequoia National Park

  and Yellowstone.

Also everyone should go see HP7.2 it is amazing. Horrible Bosses was also very funny.
-jv
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Lets discuss HP7

If you haven't seen Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2 yet........like, what?  Seriously? It's been out for almost 16 hours now. Get off your ass.

I am bursting to discuss it. So, I'd like to propose that IN THE COMMENTS SECTION of this post, we discuss what we saw, heard, experienced, and lived for for the last few days, weeks, months and 13 years.

****BE ADVISED: SPOILERS WILL BE IN THE COMMENT SECTION!!! DON'T READ IT, IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN IT******

-AM

P.S.  This picture is brilliant.

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Fleet Foxes - Montezuma

I love this song. I think the guy on the left has the best job ever.




-bjk
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Jimmy Fallon deciphers Celebrity Whispers

I've probably already tried to get you to watch Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. He wears great suits, his house band is the Roots, and there's a whole slew of terrific running bits. From impersonations (my fave is Robert is Bothered) to show parodies (Jersey Floor and Late (lost)) to weekly bits like Late Night #Hashtags and Thank You Notes, the writers at Late Night are doing work to make the show super awesome and current.

It just got nominated for a few Emmys so now seems as good a time as any to start watching.

Here's a clip from a recent show. It's called Celebrity Whispers, they voice over video of celebrities talking to each other without mics.



Just DVR a few episodes and see what you think. You won't regret it.

-av

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Gangs of New York Riots

On July 13, 1863 riots broke out in New York City. The rioters were protesting the draft of citizens into the Union Army to fight in the Civil War.  The riot lasted for four days and included the burning of the Colored Orphan Asylum, the children were evacuated before the fire was set, and the lynching of at least twelve African Americans.

More information can be found here and here.

-jv
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Turquoise Jeep Records

I hope that by now everyone has seen this. If not, you must watch before reading any further.

The screenshot alone should be enough to get you to watch this.

Young Humma and the Turquoise Jeep Records team have been coming up with these amazing 1990's ghetto-ass songs for about a year. One day, they were too broke to fix their torquoise Jeep, so they created some YouTube videos to hopefully make enough hits that someone would notice them, help them get Internet Famous and then, they wouldn't be broke anymore.

It worked.

Rappers on their "record label" include such amazing names as DJ Tummiscratch and Watchamacallit performing classic songs like:

Shuyamouf (Just say it out loud)

Fried or Fertilized 

Their entire record is available for download on iTunes. I highly suggest it.

Now, IMHO the only actually talented guy to come out of this is a man named Flynt Flossy. He is a rapper/beat artist that has the sweetest dance moves I've seen in a long time. Wish I had those skills. This is his single, I Like to Dance and he has an actual dance instructional DVD coming out this year.

-fp

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Sookie Supercut

I have been waiting to find this video ever since the first time I heard Bill say "Sookie". 

-jv
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Red Hirst Chili Peppers

Damien Hirst is wicked cool and so are the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Damien Hirst designed the cover for the new Red Hot Chili Peppers album, titled "I'm With You", that comes out August 30th. 

  

Also, Happy Birthday to the bikini.
-jv
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The America Flag - Past and Future

As today is one of 7 particular days of display for the American flag, let's look at the different designs of previous flags, and take a glimpse at the possible future flags. 

Another flag in use from 1777-95

War Time Flag

New Englanders are pretty familiar with the flag that Betsey Ross probably didn't sew, but not only was there a different flag in use during most of the American Revolution, but thereafter at least four other flags were in use for the next 18 years, until two more state were added to the Union.

 The thirteen stripes have only been altered once, with the addition of the first two states after the colonies, the flag featured 15 stars and 15 stripes. After this it reverted the 13 stripes and the number of states for the number of stars.

Over the years there have been no less than 24 flags as states were added. Most maintained the stars in lines, but some had the stars in a circular of star shape.

Initiated with Colorado's statehood

In use 1837-45

At present there are designs in place for up to 56 states. So should DC or Puerto Rico ever be granted statehood, Congress is ready to update the flag. 

Last, ever wondered how to fold the flag? Here you go:

 -av
Girl Scout Troop 1021

ps. Nobody does the Star Spangled Banner better than Marvin

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The Civil Wars

This morning I was watching REAL Sports with Bryant Gumbel and when that was over I ended up at the VH1 Top 20 Video Countdown. I tried to remember the name of the VJ who did the Countdown when I was really watching it alot. Probs the summer of 2003ish. All I could remember was it sounded like "Aamer Alleem" Google was smart enough to tell me it was Aamer Haleem.

The song "Barton Hollow" by the Civil Wars, who I had never heard of and instantly respected because of the cool name, was number eleven on the Countdown. The song is awesome, totally more then enough reason to turn off the Countdown and attack YouTube and Wikipedia.

I found out that The Civil Wars are made up of Joy Williams and John Paul White. They got together in 2008 in Nashville. The band was featured on Grey's Anatomy in 2009 and has been on the rise for a while. I like how their videos are them in Jack White costumes, and I mean that in a good way I love Jack White.

This is the song that was featured on Grey's Anatomy "Poison and Wine"



And this is number eleven itself "Barton Hollow"


And this is "Falling Slowly" by Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová because its amazing


Also, while I was watching REAL Sports with Bryant Gumbel I saw a story about Ann Wolfe who is known for delivering what might be the most devastating knockout punch ever.

-jv
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Google+

I'm ready to get excited about Google+
Its the new social network that Google is about to launch.

Some things that Google+ has promised to have:
1. "circles" so that I can group my friends, maybe I can do this on Facebook, I don't though
2. "sparks" which seems to be like your interests on Facebook only Google+ uses your sparks to suggest things to check out that they know you will like
3. "huddle" which seems like a way to have a google group chat

Unfortunately the doors on Google+ are closed right now. You can get on the wait list here and then check out this breakdancing gorilla while we wait to get invited into the cool kid club.

-jv
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Five Facts About Whitey Bulger

James Joseph "Whitey" Bulger was born on September 3, 1929.
"Whitey" was an inmate at Alcatraz from November 2, 1959 til November of 1962.
"Whitey" won the lottery in the summer of 1991 and split a prize of 14 million dollars.
"Whitey" was recently arrested on June 22, 2011 after having been on the lam since 1994.
Dave Quigley was mentioned in the Globe because he made a t-shirt about "Whitey".

"Whitey" is in orange.

-jv
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4th of July

What's up everyone? Our nations Independence day is approaching soon and as much as things are wrong with the world and our respective political parties there is still  one thing we can all agree on; fireworks=awesome. I'm not talking about the Katy Perry song but the actual explosives. So to get everyone hyped over something that doesn't involve epic Hogwarts battles here is a video of some slow-mo shots of explosives blowing up a jar of mayo and some jell-o to name a few. Enjoy the vid and make sure to be a true blue American come the 4th and enjoy some stellar fireworks while enjoying a bratwurst, a hot dog, a cheeseburger, and a steak all on the same plate!





 - sf

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Dear Photograph

Hi all,

Here is an interesting Tumblr I came across. it called Dear Photograph, I always thought it would be cool to do this, lo and behold the internet beat me to it;

-bjk
Senr Tumblr Advisr

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Pottermore: more of what exactly?

By now you've probably heard about Pottermore, JK Rowling's latest project. It was shrouded in mystery and steeped in anticipation and now that we know what it is, we still don't really know what it is.

According to the site: "Pottermore is a free website that builds an exciting online experience around the reading of the Harry Potter books."

According to JK herself:



But what does all the mean? Here's what we know:
-The site goes public in the fall, for now you can submit your e-mail address and wait
-UNLESS you get selected to be in the preview stage this summer
-Pottermore will have the only way to get official digital e-books and audio books of Harry Potter
-The books will release one at a time, will gaps between them
-Some content will be user generated, hopefully more stuff like the awesome curling paper in the above video
-Rowling will use the site to share more secrets of Harry Potter, like Dumbledore being gay, etc.

I submitted my e-mail address. You probably should too. And if anyone gets in the site this summer, TELL US!

There's also a twitter account that is spewing updates. Apparently the first three chapters are going into preview tomorrow. And on July 31st, aka Harry's birthday, they're will be an opportunity to win early access.

Also JK Rowling is the most powerful person in the world that she can get people jazzed up about three chapters from a book that came out 14 years ago.

-av
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Another SHARK!

The shark in this video gets air while leaping at a surfer. The shark misses.


Also, check out this other amazing video of someone being way to close to a shark. 

-jv
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Arnie's Hometown

When I left for my year abroad in Austria back in September, Johnny V. asked me to visit Arnold Schwarzenegger's hometown and take pictures for him. It got cold real fast back in the fall, so I decided to wait until the spring to have nice weather and enjoy the countryside more. I drove out Friday with two friends and it was awesome. There was Arnie love all over the little town, it was too cute. Now don't get me wrong, the national opinion of Arnie has really shifted since he became a proponent of the Death Penalty some years ago (even changing the name of a Stadium in Graz that had formerly been named in his honor...). The recent tabloid coverage of his personal life also makes the people here just groan and exclaim that they "don't want him baaaaack". But, his hometown was sweet and proud in a very simple way, which I think is the right way to be, since let's get serious here, we may all laugh about Arnie now, but he's still the man. and the terminator.

I put a bit of footage we shot of our visit into a video (rough cut) to show Johnny a preview of the awesome place our favorite Austrian body builder/actor/governor came from. There's about...13 more minutes of footage to enjoy once I get home!

-lab
 p.s. Johnny, I took a lot of photos too

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