The Fist Bump Heard Around the World

The night Obama won the Democratic primary, he gave his wife Michelle an endearing "fist bump". I let out quite an audible "awww" when I saw it.

Michelle and Barack would make the cutest first couple ever. Let's make it happen!

Check it:
Barack Obama

Go Team Obama!

Go team Obama!

Check it:
Barack Obama

Hello Summer!

Hello Summer!

Finally ... I can just about say with confidence that all of the nonsense that I've been dealing with has come to an end. I've been very bad with postings due, in large part, to my move into the lovely neighborhood of Ballard (in Seattle). My old apartment had been recently bought out by a new property management company, who blind-sided most of the tenants with a $500 increase in rent. According to my informant, the company did this to drive the tenants out ... no joke. And of course, no one who got the rent increase stayed. I would ultimately love to flame the property management out, but I will hold off here, since the person who actually managed the day-to-day activities of the building still works there, and he was the only one who showed any empathy and care for the tenants. He told me today that my apartment, after renovations, is expected to rent for $1700! One word: Suckers! Who in their right mind would move to the Magnolia neighborhood and spend that much money on a 1-bedroom apartment, nearly twice the average rental rate in that area. I wish the company a rude slap in the face.

Anyway - I'm rambling. So I moved, and I love my new apartment and living in Ballard.

Tomorrow I will be leaving for the summer, spending the bulk of the summer months in the Midwest with my partner-in-crime, Mark. I'm excited by my summer break, but equally excited to have my life back and time to blog, travel, listen to music, and work. So more to come on Sprampblog.

I Love

Team Obama! Go Portland! The image says it all.

Unite!

Partners-In-Crime

Ours is not a perfect relationship, and heck, we're probably as innocuous and boring as most straight couples, but we're probably in it for the long-haul. My long-time partner-in-crime, Mark, and I are big fans of having options and civil rights, so it comes as great news that things-are-a-changing in this country of ours, namely the overturn of the ban on same-sex marriages in California. It's a great day to be gay! Yes, we can!

A big thank you to all the amazing people that fought and struggled to get the ban overturned!

Read it:
California Court Affirms Right to Gay Marriage, New York Times (May 15, 2008)

Over and Out: Robert Rauschenberg

Jasper Johns (l) and Robert Rauschenberg (r)

Woke up to the news that Robert Rauschenberg had passed away at the age of 82. He and Jasper Johns were my postwar modernist idols back in the day - they still are, to some extent.

Robert is survived by his son, Christopher, and his companion, Darryl.

Save the Narwhals!

(Source)

The narwhals (a.k.a. the corpse whales) are the unicorns of the sea! Global warming has placed the narwhals on the most vulnerable list, even surpassing the polar bears (according to a recent study). Let's unite to save the narwhals! I think they're just as cute as polar bears - their horns are magical.

The narwhal, a whale with a long spiral tusk that inspired the myth of the unicorn, edged out the polar bear for the ranking of most potentially vulnerable in a climate change risk analysis of Arctic marine mammals. (Source)

Take a listen to The Weepies tune off Hideaway, "Antarctica," which I think is a fitting anthem for the narwhals. And yes, I know the narwhals live in the Arctic waters - the song still fits.


Check it:
Narwhals [Wikipedia]
The Weepies
The Weepies [MySpace]

Chicken In-A-Tube

(Source)

PETA is offering $1 million dollars to anyone who can produce and sell chickens without having to kill them ... (think "test tube"). Sound strange? I think it's brilliant, actually. I totally want to see it happen!

Animal rights group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (Peta) says it will give the prize money to anyone who grows the meat and sells it commercially in at least 10 US states by 30 June 2012. The meat will have to pass a taste test after being cooked to a fried chicken recipe and given to a panel of 10 judges. (Source)

I'm all for in-vitro chicken!

Check it:
PETA

Why I Love Seattle: "Oh, Those 43rd District Dems"

Obama Super Tuesday Happy Hour at the Showbox
Originally uploaded by jan

I just read the following from this week's The Stranger (the local, alternative rag here in Seattle). The article reaffirms why I love Seattle as much as I do. Folks in Seattle are a rare but fun breed of people - perhaps "wacky" is a better term.

Oh, Those 43rd District Dems
Notes from the Caucus, Round Two
by Eli Sanders

I sat through about four hours of the April 5 legislative district caucus in Seattle's 43rd District—the invocation by a local Buddhist, the laughs at the die-hard Kucinich supporters, the yawns, the shouts, the period of American Idol–style campaigning for those coveted spots as a state convention delegate. It was all very long, but very interesting, quite well attended, and, of course, a little nutty.

This particular legislative district caucus meeting was held at the former Lincoln High School in Wallingford. When I showed up, the gymnasium was overflowing with precinct delegates who had been elected at their precinct caucuses on February 9—and with what seemed to be an even larger number of wannabe alternate delegates. So much for the idea that all those young, energized, newly involved Democrats wouldn't show up for the next step in this process.

After registration was done, the energized Democrats listened to speeches delivered from a half-darkened stage in a nearby auditorium. (How many Democrats does it take to turn on a spotlight? Apparently more than the 1,000-plus in the auditorium, because the spotlight never came on.)

There was a portion of the program devoted to surrogate speeches, and Obama's surrogate, state senator Ed Murray (D-43), stood at the rear of the stage (where the lights were actually on) and pronounced: "I have been coming to these meetings since the mid-1980s and I have never seen anything like today." The numbers were a very good sign, he said.

Hillary Clinton's surrogate? He was very, very late, causing a lot of grumbling from the crowd, which was overwhelmingly pro-Obama. When he finally did show up he was... Sean Astin??? Yes, the man who played Samwise Gamgee in Lord of the Rings had flown up to rally the Clinton troops. Which made very little sense, given that the type of people who show up for legislative district caucuses on a Saturday don't really need a celebrity (or semicelebrity) to motivate them to take political action.

Astin's speech was most memorable for this line: "Should Obama get the nomination, I will become a massive Barack Hussein Obama supporter."

Hussein? Eyebrows shot up. Brows furrowed. Heads turned. A friend in the audience texted me: "Hussein!?" I'm not sure what Astin was up to with that line, but someone probably should have told him that Seattle's 43rd District is the last place in the U.S. where subliminal messaging around Obama's middle name is likely to move Democrats toward Clinton.

Further proof of this: There was some time to kill as multiple tallies of the delegates and alternates were done, and when the time killer of taking audience questions had run its course and the idea of telling jokes had been nixed, someone suggested doing the Pledge of Allegiance to pass the time.

At the mere mention of doing the pledge, there were groans and boos. Then, when the district chair put the idea of doing the Pledge of Allegiance up to a vote, it was overwhelmingly voted down.

There were to be 67 delegates to the state convention apportioned at this legislative district caucus, and the end result was no surprise: 14 for Clinton and 53 for Obama.

(Source: The Stranger: April 10 - 16, 2008)

Check it:
The Stranger

What I'm Reading: The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

Yuppers, my mission to bring back "the novel" in my life continues. I was really pleased to read that Junot Diaz (author of the short story collection, Drowned) won the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for fiction for his debut novel The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. I had read Drowned years and years ago, and quite enjoyed the stories. I haven't actually started reading his new novel, but will do so soonish. The New York Times wrote a glowing review of it months ago. My favorite line from the review:

Junot Díaz’s “Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao” is a wondrous, not-so-brief first novel that is so original it can only be described as Mario Vargas Llosa meets “Star Trek” meets David Foster Wallace meets Kanye West. (Source)

That first sentence, alone, sold me.

Lungless Frog

Frog Without Lungs (Source)

Isn't that the cutest little thing? How bizarre - scientists have found frogs without lungs in Boreno! It absorbs oxygen through its skin. Nature is totally fantastic.

Janus Reincarnated

Indian Baby Born with Two Faces (Source)

Born March 11 in India, this girl was born with two faces. Apparently, she's doing just fine. Her parents have no plans to do any corrective surgery. According to the news article that I read, both faces seem to be functioning.

Roh Roh

I got this update from "Bit Shifter" concerning the really cool "Around the World" mix that was attributed to Laromlab that I posted about awhile back. Thanks "Bit Shifter"! How lame of Laromlab. Boo!

The cover of Daft Punk's "Around The World" (attributed here to Laromlab) is actually the work of another chipmusician, Ikuma; Laromlab has been passing it off as his own for some time.

As it turns out, this is only one example of Laromlab's large-scale appropriation of other peoples' music, passed off under his own name. He has recently publicly conceded that all of the material on his recent full-length was in fact done by various members of European music group YM Rockerz. Tracks were lifted wholesale and unaltered, sometimes without even changing the original title.

Laromlab's admission and apology:
http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=3823699&blogID=372987131

Laromlab's now ex-label Mushpot Records has posted a summary of the situation:
http://mushpotrecords.com/news/?p=37

For those who enjoyed the hijacked music, YM Rockerz' homepage is at
http://www.creamhq.de/ymrockerz/
where more info and music can be found, and the MySpace profile for Ikuma, responsible for the Daft Punk cover above, can be found at:
http://www.myspace.com/ikooma

A more comprehensive detailing of the situation, tracking Laromlab's stolen off-album and live-performance music, can be found here:
http://technopolitan.se/~crazyq/dontcopythatfloppy/

Yes We Can!

"Yes We Can" (Source)

I'm a believer in faith in the possibility ... I love this creative collaboration! For those of us in the U.S., let's take that important step to our future, mindful of our past achievements but always staring confidently forward. Let's vote wisely!

Check it:
Barack Obama Official Website

Excuse the Dust ...

Experimental Portrait #2 (Source)

As some of you might have noticed, my posting have been quite infrequent (to say the least). I do have a legitimate reason. There's a lot of exciting things happening "behind the scenes." Here's a little hint: a redesign is in the works. In fact, I'm almost done with it. So it shouldn't be too long before SprampBlog gets spramping again. So stay tuned, check out some of my other fave blogs while you wait:

Palms Out Sounds
The Yellow Stereo
Made In Brazil
Pink Is the New Blog
Towleroad

Ciao ciao ... jan

Spramp Hodgepodge 5

"Under" (Source: jcb, 2007)

Once I stopped playing Moola.com this afternoon, I had won $40. Woot woot! And then I was off to dinner with Dr. Paul at the oddly-located upscale-chain restaurant, Palomino. We had a swell time - happy early B-day Doc! I am now officially full but hankering for some decaf coffee. I'm wiped, and yet I have a stack of essays to grade staring at me in the face. What to do? What to do? I think I shall do decaf before I do anything that requires me to think. Enjoy the hodgepodge!

• India Surgery on Many-Limbed Girl, BBC News (November 6, 2007)
• Malaysian Police Raid Gay Sex Party at Gym, Arrest 37 Men, Towleroad (November 6, 2007)
• Get More From Credit Card Rewards [Credit Cards], Lifehacker (November 6, 2007)
• Top 10 Least On-Time Airports, The Consumerist (November 5, 2007)
• Apple Tablet Is Real, On Its Way, CrunchGear (November 6, 2007)
• PayPal is Rude in the Lunch Line, New York Times (November 6, 2007)
• Architect Gehry Sued by MIT, AP (November 6, 2007)
• Anderson Cooper And Jeff Corwin Insanely Homoerotic In HD—But Not In New York [Eco-porn], Gawker (November 5, 2007)
• Rebel, Disgraced, Tries to Pull Off Rebound, New York Times (November 7, 2006)
• NBC Universal's Green Week on TV, Treehugger (November 6, 2007)