The Hippy Acid Induced, Cars channeling chaos that is Of Montreal

The unique blend of musical influences that make Of Montreal is quite stunning. You don't know what you are listening to when you first plug in their album "Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer," and it might even take you awhile (as it did me) to absorb, understand and appreciate their style of music.

I downloaded the album on my emusic account last month, and have been trying to listen to it for some time. After much trial and tribulation they eventually grew on me and I love it! I can't get enough! Some of my favorites on the album are Gronlandic Edit, Sink the Seine, Heimdalsgate Like a Promethean, A Sentence of Sorts in Kongsvinger, and Bunny Ain't No Kind Of Rider.

You can listen to Gronlandic Edit below. Try not to pay too much attention to the video. It's a Yellow Submarine, LSD inspired, seizure inducing type of music video.

It gave me nightmares.

This is why it seems impossible to make a living working as an editor

via the Ed2010 Email Newsletter this week...the tear inducing factoids are highlighted in red.

************
Whisper Jobs
************
Ed hears ......that a women's romance magazine based in NYC has an opening for its associate editor position. The associate is responsible for reading all incoming manuscripts, contracting stories, managing all correspondence with writers, and doing some light administrative work. This entry-level position involves a lot of copy-editing, so candidate should have an excellent grasp of the English language and an acute eye for detail. Perfect for a recent college graduate with an English or Journalism degree. The starting salary is $25,000, non-negotiable, with dental and health benefits. Please email cover letter and resume as attachments to gportfolio@dorchestermedia.com. (OK to mention Ed)

For even more jobs, go to http://www.ed2010.com/jobs/whisperjobs or click here.

$25,000 for an Associate Editor's position? How is anyone supposed to pay rent let alone eat, drink and buy cigarettes on that salary? Now I understand why people sell out and become Account Executives.

U.S. Passports, Not Made in the U.S.A.?

"The United States has outsourced the manufacturing of its electronic passports to overseas companies — including one in Thailand that was victimized by Chinese espionage — raising concerns that cost savings are being put ahead of national security, an investigation by The Washington Times has found."

Are you serious? They outsource passports to Thailand? Really?

The Washington Post is doing a three part series on the outsourcing of passports.

You can read the whole gag-inducing tale here.

When did Mitch Hedberg die?

Why wasn't I informed? Mitch Hedberg made my sophomore year of college, how could he die without me ever knowing it happened. What kind of fan am I?

I had discovered his demise from a youtube comment of all things. I thought at first, maybe the commenter was being sarcastic because the clip wasn't some of his funniest lines but then just to be sure I checked his wikipedia page. Sure enough it gave a birth date and death date.

But THEN I thought to myself, Wikipedia isn't reliable. What if someone had changed his info to propagate some sort of prank in which everyone thought he was dead (like tupac and elvis, right?)?

So THEN I went to his website to see his "club dates" and noticed that nothing had been updated since 2005.

It was only until I found the article from the Associated Press about his death that I was convinced.

So I guess I have to concede to the fact that Mitch is dead, and it is sad indeed. Can we all just agree that mixing drugs is a bad business and stay far far away from it?

Image of the Day

Although "Nom of the Day" is more like it.

This is Joseph Gordon-Levitt, he was in 3rd Rock from the Sun and Brick. I've seen him in westwood a few times. Anyways, this is one hot pic and I had to share. You can click on the image for the super-sized version. Go ahead, you know you want to. Or can also see more of Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Claudia Schiffer here.

Oh! Yea, and I also was standing about 2 feet away from James Franco yesterday at Elysee. But that's neither here nor there. Sorry Britta, I didn't give him your phone number.

Au Revoir Stephanie!

So last Friday Boyan and I made the trek all the way to Venice Beach to say goodbye to our dear friend Stephanie, who is moving cross country for bigger and better things in the big apple. Please note that makes 2 friends moving to NYC in one month. No, I'm not bitter. I'm happy for you guys. Really, I am...

We grabbed a drink at James Beach first (I had a Whiskey Highball with Bushmills yum...) and watched UCLA dominate USC in March Madness. Afterwards we headed over to C & O's for some dinner and light political debate (as is always the case with me and Steph). The night ended amicably enough, but Stephanie will be missed.

Now, I know you guys hate my candid photos, but screw you all I think they turned out well.

And Britta, I apologize in advance for the last pic. Love you guys!



Ugg. I take back my previous statement. Britta, could you photoshop my face so that it doesn't look like a pork chop? And maybe paint on a cuter outfit for me?

That's the last time I dress casually to a "dinner-drink" thing for friends. I look like a turd.

I Am Baking Goddess (And you can too!)

Inspired by Nanette, the Cupcake Queen I made cupcakes for our St. Patrick's day potluck. They turned out uber-delicious (although obviously not as delicious as Nanette's) and I thought I'd share them with you!

Some I decorated with Shamrocks, some I added cream filling, some I put extra baileys (yum!) and some I dyed green! Enjoy! I know I did (I ate three, but you know what they say, never trust a skinny chef!)

St. Patrick's Day, Pistachio/Bailey's Irish Cream Cupcakes

You will need:

24 Paper Cupcake Liners, 2 1/2" size

1 Package 18.25 oz Plain white cake mix
1 Package 3.4 oz Pistachio Instant Pudding Mix
1 Cup Ginger ale
1 Cup Veggie Oil
1/2 Cup (or more, depending on how much you like the taste of baileys) of Bailey's Irish Cream
3 Large Eggs
5 drops green food coloring

Directions:

1. Place rack in the center of the oven, pre-heat to 350 degrees

2. Prepare cupcake batter:

-Add together cake mix, pudding mix, ginger ale, veggie oil, bailey's irish cream, eggs and food coloring in large mixing bowl

-Blend mix on LOW for 30 seconds

-After 30 seconds scrape bowl with rubber spatula

-Increase mixer speed to MEDIUM, beat 2 minutes more (Pistachio pudding mix has nuts in it, so the mix will have some bumps)

-Spoon batter into each lined cupcake cup, fill 3/4 full

3. Bake 18-22 minutes, until lightly golden and until they spring back quickly when lightly pressed, Remove and cool

(They will fluff up then fall when they cool--also, when you test them they will be very moist, almost wet looking, this is normal)

4. Cool 15 minutes before frosting

Bailey's Irish Cream Frosting

You will need:

2 Cups Heavy Whipping Cream (liquid form in a carton)
Confectioners Sugar
3 Tablespoons (or more...again depending) of Bailey's Irish Cream

Directions:

1. Wash and dry mixing bowl and mixers, place in freezer for 3 minutes or so until chilled

2. Pour cream into chilled bowl and beat with electric mixer on HIGH until cream thickens, 1 1/2 minutes

3. Stop, add confectioners (powdered) sugar (The recipe called for 2 tablespoons but it was not nearly enough. Start with 2 tablespoons and keep adding and beating until the cream thickens to your preference).

4. Fold in Bailey's Irish Cream, at this time you can also put green food coloring if you want green frosting.

You can also choose to put cream filling inside the cupcake
To do this get a small spoon and press halfway into the cupcake making an incomplete square, lift up the cake put cream inside and press cake back down into hole. Do not remove any of the cake.

Good Luck!

Just Another Way to Exploit Religion for Profit

"Whether yours is a small, big or internationally renowned brand, God's is infinitely larger."

You have got to be shitting me. Really? Christvertising? Thank you Adrants for sharing this bit with me, it's almost too bad to be true.

Just take a look at their homepage.

Click for larger image

Just take a look at the bullshit these people are spewing "If you like your product, so do we, but more importantly, so does God."

Under the "What" category, they tell us their marketing strategy:

"Christvertising takes a whole new approach to marketing your brand. We skip the strategic deliverables. We pass on the matrixes, the payoffs and the metrics. We ignore any viral functionality. [read: we don't plan on helping you make money] We focus on the ultimate end-user: God. [because God is obviously your target consumer]"

Because everyone knows marketers aren't in the business to make money, they are in the business to win the favor of God! Through prayer, they say, they can get God to like your brand. And if God likes your brand then your brand will grow!

So basically it comes down to this: The way it works is you employ this marketing agency(?) and they set their "prayer channel" to work on praying for your brand.

I really hope this is fake, it seems too ridiculous to be real. If not its the most manipulative scam I've ever heard of. A Christian brand marketing agency basically manipulating "God's grace" through paying people to pray for a brand's success. It's got sick written all over it.

If you can stomach it go to the christvertising site and watch some of the videos. Or you could stop by, they have a wide variety of refreshments!

Coffee Snobbery Strikes Again!

Work coffee looks and tastes like poo (you eat pieces of shit for breakfast?), there is no getting around it. So, being the coffee snobs that we are, Boyan and I sprung for this DeLonghi Espresso maker so we can have our Segafredo espresso at work.

Everybody say, "Ooooohhh, Aaaahhh."

We may be imbibing more espresso than is good for us, but who can say no to a nice fresh cup of Italian Espresso?

Not I, my friends. Not I.

Best Blog Title....EVER.

The only change I would have made would to add the word "White" in between Old and Men. Otherwise it's perfect!

Stop, Just Stop with the Awesomeness

Thanks of course to Joan (always joan) I found a new blog to be obsessed with. I discovered the material for the post below (food fight and grinning dog) there and now they've led me to a beautiful artist who does work with water named Zena Holloway. Check her out for yourself, (make sure you watch this video) and while you're at it, check out the blog shape + colour.



Discovery = Happiness

Food Fight

If you have five minutes to spare you have to watch this video called, "Food Fight" it's truly amazing. You can read a list of all the foods and what countries they represent here.

When you're done with that, take a look at this dog.

Indubitably

So I was spell checking the word, "Indubitably" on the google when this youtube video popped up as a search result and had to share. It's Jimmy Durante promoting Crispy Critters cereal. It's Indubitably delicious!

Add one more to the visual bookshelf

I finished another book this weekend. That makes three in March alone, and it's only the 10th! Did I mention I'm 50 pages away from finishing another book? There really is nothing to do in West Covina...

Which brings me to the thought of bookshelf etiquette. What do you think, should you be allowed to display books on a bookshelf if you read them? Or should it be the opposite as Ezra Klein propounds (get it? Ezra Klein propounds....Ezra Pound? Yes? No?...okay, nevermind) that books you read should only be displayed on facebook? Discuss!

Image of the Day

Where have I been all your life?

Not blogging, that's for sure. But I'm an equal opportunity slacker, I haven't even been blogging at work, which is technically (okay maybe not *technically but practically) what I get paid to do.

I don't know what it is, maybe the lack of comments on previous posts (that's right, I'm blaming YOU!) or maybe because I gave up gossip for lent and haven't been prowling the internet as much as before but I haven't been inspired to blog. But here is what I have been doing since my last post on February 15th.

Reading, a lot
Just this week I read three books. It's really kind of silly. Since February 15th I have read:



I Wanted to Write by Kenneth Roberts: The Autobiography of the man who wrote Northwest Passage and Arundel among many other novels.

The Penguin Who Knew Too Much by Donna Andrews: A fun murder mystery that Boyan gave me for Christmas

Interview With The Vampire by Anne Rice

Old Man's War by John Scalzi: A sci-fi book I read online for free as a new member of Tor.com

Chosen by P.C. Cast and Kristen Cast: The third in this mother-daughter writing team's "House of Night" series.

And I am finishing up The Vampire Lestat by Anne Rice right now.

It's all light and fun reading but it has been a nice mental break.

I've also been trying to discover new artists, which brings me to my new musical obsession Neko Case.

You could describe her music as country, but it transcends genre. It's honest and authentic and soulful and it reminds me of my childhood.

A childhood spent in Apple Valley riding horses and singing to old western songs like, "Jambalaya" sung by Hank Williams and "Don't Fence me in," sang by Roy Rogers.


Which brings me to my most recent sad news. A very close family friend Bill Dotta passed away this week. He was a force of a human being, a legend in his own right.

Many of my youthful days were spent at his house with my family and his listening to his stories of being in the Navy during World War II, of his brothers and growing up in Oklahoma. I'd listen to him call my best friend Bando a "Son of a bitch" and my mother "Squaw." Which from him were terms of endearment.

I've never dealt well with death, I tend to go into denial and pretend like it never happened. I don't know if it's my own belief that death isn't something to be afraid of (and I know how easy it is to feel that way when death seems so far off for myself) or my inability to believe that I'll never talk to that person again, or hug them, but I just can't bring myself to think about it. I don't know what to say to people who grieve, how do I comfort someone who is grief stricken when I can't allow myself to accept the reality of death and grieve myself.

Either way, Bill Dotta was beloved by all those who knew him. He was a beautiful, rough and tough human being. I will miss him, but I know he won't be forgotten by me or anyone who knew him. Tales of his tenacity will be told to generations far past my own.