New Photo Album Posted

So why would a 4-day trip back to snowy Colorado be blog-worthy? Well, because it was jam-packed full of everything from family-time to mad-skiing to saloon-frequenting to turkey-eating to winter-driving to deer-feeding.

The only thing we missed out on was a little Pearl Street time, I'll hit that next time over Christmas. Stay tuned for details on Keeler's Pre-Birthday Ski Trip!

Update: eBay has put the item back on! Remember last week, when someone attempted to sell a grilled cheese that looked like the Virgin Mary? The latest bid is sitting at $28,000; Looks like someone is gonna make a ton of money off of this one.

Latest E-Bay auction, bid here, bid now, bid high!

CNN posted a newstory about it here!

Jumphook.com helped break the story: read the original blog post here

Source: Molly, thanks for the followup!

Creating Quite A Buzz

Newspaper advertisements congratulating the 16-year-old girl who won the latest "Australian Idol" competition made an embarrassing mistake -- directing fans to a gay porn Web site.

Newspaper Ad Mistakenly Directs Readers To Gay Porn Web Site

A suspected shoplifter caused quite a buzz when he used honeybees to extricate himself from a sticky situation at a local K-Mart store.
Security personnel followed a shoplifting suspect into a bathroom. But when they opened the restroom door, they were overcome with about 100 buzzing bees.

Source: Jumphook News, fark.com

Never ever ever let me get drunk and get this tattoo. aww geez. If you don't know what HTML is, just right click on the page and click 'View Source' and you might see how geeky this tatt is...

Source: boingboing.net article

Thanks to everyone that is continuing to make this blog successful! I really appreciate that people care enough to check on the page now and then -- shown by the number of visits steadily increasing over the past year. I'll do my best to keep things interesting ~ Darin G.

For the Record: Already 24,255 hits in November!

Aww yeah you do:

This book attempts to teach you the skills that can help you to have lucid dreams — dreams in which you know that you are dreaming. Lucid dreams have been scientifically proven to exist. Being aware that you are dreaming, and still remaining asleep, can give you the ability to control your dreams. Lucid dreaming truly can be a fantastic experience. See the introduction for more details on what lucid dreaming is.

Read the complete online and free textbook on Lucid Dreams by clicking here.

Browse other online textbooks at wikibooks.org! Awesome website, all sorts of free textbooks out there!

www.casa6ipanema.com

Here is the hostel we are staying at for 6 nights in Rio (Brazil). The trip is coming up in February, so we didn't have much time to spare! It is a pretty good deal - $225/person - with the only downside being the tight sleeping arrangments (triple bunk beds). I imagine this place is none-too-big, but for a group of budget travellers during the peak tourist season--it's perfect. Thanks to Tom for helping me hunt online and ultimately finding this gem, and thanks to Joe for fronting the cash that needed to be wired down there to secure our reservation!


Brazil Political Update
(bottom left picture) Hmmm here's something I found surfing the web, looks like it will be OK for me to go to brazil even being from Texas:
Courtesy of sorryeverybody.com -- a website dedicated to showing pictures of folks apologizing for electing Bush to another 4 years of office...

Update: eBay removed this item from its website hours before the auction ended. The last bid was at $22,000; but eBay pulled the sandwich off the auction floor before the auction closed. CNN posted a newstory about it here! - Thanks Kee!

Ebay Auction selling grilled cheese sandwich burned with the image of the Virgin Mary

THE VIRGIN MARY, OR GOD, WHAT EVER YOU BELIEVE IN YOU'LL BELIEVE NOW..........THIS IS AN ORDINARY REAL GRILLED CHEESE SANDWICH THAT I MADE ABOUT 10 YEARS AGO. I WENT TO TAKE A BIT OUT OF IT AND "THE VIRGIN MARY" WAS LOOKING BACK AT ME..........I HAVE PLACE HER IN A PLASTIC CASE WITH COTTON AROUND HER............SCARED THE HELL OUT OF ME.........AND EVERY YEAR THAT GOES BY SHE KEEPS GETTING STRONGER.........I DON'T KNOW WHY SHE CHOICE ME BUT I WANT TO SHARE HER WITH THE WORLD............I FEEL SHE WANT TO BLESS THE PEOPLE THAT SHE TOUCHES..........SHE NEEDS TO BE OUT THERE IN THE PUBLIC SO SHE CAN BLESS AND TOUCHES EVERYONE..........I WILL MISS HER, SHE HAS GIVEN ME A LOT OF COMFORT OVER THE YEARS...........I WONDER SOMETIMES WHY SHE CAME TO ME...........TRULY TRULY AUTHENTIC

Bid now while supplies last!

Source: fark.com, Jumphook News

I mean honestly why the hell does Greeley have to pay when Bush visits? $30,000 is a lot of money in that town. I bet total slaughters this week went way up. With an upslope or (plug in weather term here) that smell will make it to my house!!!! http://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/3911704/detail.html

Deanna keeps sending me emails about the benefits of coffee, so I figured I would help make the case for coffee on my blog as well :)

Barbara Quinn On Nutrition

So, when did you start drinking coffee?" I asked our youngest daughter after she had worked on a guest ranch in Colorado for a year. "When I had to start work at 6:45 in the morning and there was 8 inches of snow on the ground and the temperature was five degrees," she said.

Good answer. Coffee is the most abundantly consumed stimulant in the world. But it was not invented by a modern sage named Starbuck. According to registered dietitian Amy Brown, "Coffee was probably discovered in Ethiopia around the 3rd century A.D. when an Arabian goat herder named Kaldi noticed that his goats became particularly frolicsome after eating certain berries." Coffee berries, or beans, do have some perks. They contain caffeine, a central nervous system stimulant that increases mental alertness and temporarily fires up metabolism. Caffeine can enhance athletic performance by helping the body burn fat for energy during long bouts of exercise. In fact, the International Olympic Committee considers more than a moderate amount of caffeine in athletes a "doping agent."

Excess coffee can create a "latte" problems. Caffeine arouses the heart to beat faster and raises blood pressure. It stimulates stomach acids and can disturb your sleep. Too much coffee mixed with too little calcium in your diet can pour the strength out your bones. Strong discussions continue to brew over coffee. Some evidence links coffee drinking to a lower risk for type 2 diabetes. Other studies find that coffee and caffeine raise homocysteine levels -- a risk factor for heart disease.

The issue grinds down to this: How coffee affects you depends on how much and how often you drink it. Most experts recommend we keep our intake of caffeine to less than 300 milligrams a day. Here's the breakdown:

Brewed coffee contains the most caffeine, about 140 milligrams per cup. Instant coffee contains about 80 milligrams per cup. Tea contains 40 to 50 milligrams of caffeine per cup. Cola drinks contain 40 to 100 milligrams of caffeine per 12-ounce can. Energy drinks like Red Bull contain about 120 milligrams caffeine in 12 ounces. Caffeine-free coffee is not... entirely. Most decaf coffees still contain about 3 percent of their original caffeine content.

If you're healthy, one or two cups of regular coffee a day should not pose a problem and may even have some beneficial effects. Be cautious with coffee and other caffeinated foods if you have high blood pressure or other heart ailments.

Source: Deanna, no link to original article

Clearly the best place to run in Austin is around Town Lake; not to toot my own horn or anything, but I ran about 4.8 miles this morning around the lake. If you live here, you gotta come try it out sometime. You run along the Colorado River and cross various bridges in order to shorten/lengthen your trip. You can also rent kayaks and row the river, rock climb on the nearby greenbelt, or take your bike around the lake. It passes by some of the nicest rec areas in Austin. And it's all within sight of downtown (and sight of my apartment).



Here are the mileages for the town lake trail:

Town Lake Trail Guide

BRIDGES	MOPAC	LAMAR BLVD	1ST STREET	CONGRESS AVE.	IH-35	LONGHORN DAM
MOPAC	-	2.9	4.1	4.5	6.9	10.1
LAMAR BLVD	2.9	-	1.5	1.9	4.3	7.5
1ST STREET	4.1	1.5	-	0.8	3.1	6.4
CONGRESS AVE.	4.5	1.9	0.8	-	2.8	6.0
IH-35	6.9	4.3	3.1	2.8	-	4.0
LONGHORN DAM	10.1	7.5	6.4	6.0	4.0	-

Look no further than jumphook.com for your news story surfing needs! I have now integrated zFeeder in order to provide an aggregated news page that is updated hourly (automatically).

Read Jumphook News: www.jumphook.com/news

Let me know any constructive criticism for the page, also comment to this note if you know of any other informative/interesting/funny RSS news feeds that I can add to the list of news! Enjoy jumphookers!

OK So I borrowed the title from boingboing.net, but that is the funniest headline I've ever heard. The Vatican has published a new pamphlet entitiled "It's a Sin Not to Do It," endorsing masturbation for married women and in general more sex for Catholics.

Forty years ago, the Vatican published a notorious set of guidelines for courting Catholics that outlawed even French kissing before marriage.

The pages of It's A Sin Not To Do It, however, feature a frank interview with Cardinal Ersilio Tonini in which he emphasises that "the Church is not an enemy of the flesh". He argues that Vatican doctrine has always defended the "nobility of sexuality", which is regarded by the Church as a "treasure" of humanity.

Another chapter likely to raise eyebrows unearths theological justification for post-coital masturbation for women who fail to achieve orgasm during intercourse.

boingboing.net, Link to Article

Cause we all need a laugh now and then :). Click Here to Watch this Clip.
(There's audio there too that's funny)

Source: Bob P, Link to Original

Click here to Disuss Gas. I recently got an email from Jennie L. telling me to 'strike' by not buying gas on a certain date. I will attach the contents of that note. My question is, wouldn't this just hurt small town gas stations and not the big wig oil outfits it is geared to attack? I find it hard to believe the trucking industry will pass on gas for one day out of the year.

Don't buy gas on May 19th IT HAS BEEN CALCULATED THAT IF EVERYONE IN THE UNITED STATES DID NOT PURCHASE A DROP OF GASOLINE FOR ONE DAY AND ALL AT THE SAME TIME, THE OIL COMPANIES WOULD CHOKE ON THEIR STOCKPILES.

AT THE SAME TIME IT WOULD HIT THE ENTIRE INDUSTRY WITH A NET LOSS OF OVER 4.6 BILLION DOLLARS WHICH AFFECTS THE BOTTOM LINES OF THE OIL COMPANIES.

THEREFORE MAY 19TH HAS BEEN FORMALLY DECLARED "STICK IT TO THEM" DAY AND THE PEOPLE OF THIS NATION SHOULD NOT BUY A SINGLE DROP OF GASOLINE THAT DAY.

THE ONLY WAY THIS CAN BE DONE IS IF YOU FORWARD THIS E-MAIL TO AS MANY PEOPLE AS YOU CAN AND AS QUICKLY AS YOU CAN TO GET THE WORD OUT.

WAITING ON THIS ADMIINSTRATION TO STEP IN AND CONTROL THE PRICES IS NOT GOING TO HAPPEN. WHAT HAPPENED TO THE REDUCTION AND CONTROL IN PRICES THAT THE ARAB NATIONS PROMISED TWO WEEKS AGO?

REMEMBER ONE THING, NOT ONLY IS THE PRICE OF GASOLINE GOING UP BUT AT THE SAME TIME AIRLINES ARE FORCED TO RAISE THEIR PRICES, TRUCKING COMPANIES ARE FORCED TO RAISE THEIR PRICES WHICH EFFECTS PRICES ON EVERYTHING THAT IS SHIPPED. THINGS LIKE FOOD, CLOTHING, BUILDING MATERIALS, MEDICAL SUPPLIES ETC. WHO PAYS IN THE END? WE DO!

WE CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE. IF THEY DON'T GET THE MESSAGE AFTER ONE DAY, WE WILL DO IT AGAIN AND AGAIN.

SO DO YOUR PART AND SPREAD THE WORD. FORWARD THIS EMAIL TO EVERYONE YOU KNOW. MARK YOUR CALENDARS AND MAKE MAY 19TH A DAY THAT THE CITIZENS OF THE UNITED STATES SAY "ENOUGH IS ENOUGH"

To briefly elaborate on the WalMart Society we live in, the whole 'consumer attitude' in this country is part of a more fundamental problem that goes way beyond politics -- consuming whatever big corps throw at us makes us lazy and unable fend for ourselves in the modern world. Consuming mass produced everything stunts our collective creativity and decreases our productivity in the long run. This problem forces the US population to meet the stereotype that we currently face (US folks are fat and lazy).

I'm worried that much of america has become enslaved to the cheapest, mass-produced solution offered. I love being a part of this society in the past 50 years: Ingenuity and Creativity and Success have been integral to our collective character. I don't want to see it change because we all start buying the same blender at Target and it starts us down the slippery slope of lazy consumerism. Help USians to not lose our creative ingenuity in this mess; buy your blenders elsewhere.

I just don't get it. Am I out of touch with the rest of America? How could the US put Bush back in for 4 more years? How could the majority of the country be in favor of consersative social values and unecessary wars? I'm sick and tired of being associated with a country that doesn't align with my thinking. While travelling, I'm tired of explaining that I don't agree with nearly every action our republican government takes. I'm tired of seeing environmental protection dissappear.

Are these the types of Wal-Mart buying consuming Americans that are left in this rural areas of this country? Who are Americans - do they like wars and big military cause they like kicking ass? Do they like having Christianity shoved down their throat and the throats of their children by the highest governmental officials? Are they afraid of peace? Afraid of change?

I think it is sad.

I got an email this morning from a friend in Norway that was empty except for a link to a site for getting visas to live/work in his country. It is tempting... The blurring of the line separating church and state really scares me. The separation of church and state is one of the principles built into our government that helps us be united and strong. Bush will probably appoint several supreme court justices. Their approval will be easier than ever since the Congress is even more heavily Republican now. For those of us who aren't evangelical, and consider religion and spirituality a private matter like Kerry does, these justices will produce many years of aggravating rulings. Roe v. Wade could be at risk, etc. What will be scary is if the democrats make adjustments to try and win and incorporate evangelical Christian "values" and neo conservative foreign policy into their party. Like the Republicans, Democrats will be trying to tell people how to live their personal lives. They'll be for spreading democracy throughout the world at gunpoint. The democrats have given up on gun control, the death penalty, etc. How will they become distinguishable from the Republicans if they lose every last liberal ideal? They won't, and democracy will be dead. I'm trying not to get too depressed about this election. The good news is that our community, Travis County, is pretty friendly to our viewpoint. 56% voted for Kerry here.

Oh well, I guess I didn't explain why Bush won the popular vote. Here comes the really jaded analysis:
1. People are dumb and therefore had a closer psychological link to the president who is also dumb. I mean, don't say he's not dumb. Looks dumb. Talks dumb. *IS* dumb. Just like the multi-billion dollar pro-wrestling industry.
2. Latino votes for Bush grew big time because of the evangelical Christianity of Bush.
3. Uneducated people are afraid because they don't understand terrorism and Bush exploited that fear effectively by bringing up 9/11 all the time and claiming we would be all be killed if Kerry were elected. New Yorkers were the ones attacked and killed in the 9/11 attacks, and therefore would have the best excuse for being afraid, but who did they vote for? Kerry. Because they have educations. Lot of them have degrees. Who gave Bush big landslides? All those states that rank low on education scales and voted 90% to prevent gays and lesbians from having civil unions. All those red rural states? Uneducated fools that couldn't even follow Kerry's eloquent talk about his faith.
4. Money. Bush gave like $1000 to every voter in 2001 with his tax break and people liked that. Like dogs given scraps or junkies given a free fix. Ironically massive #s of people who make minimum wage and could have benefited from Kerry, who said in the debates that he would raise the minimum wage a buck or so, voted for Bush because they are uneducated and therefore followed analysis points numbers 1 and 3 above.

In an unprecedented cry for attention, today Darin submitted his webpage for inclusion in not 1, not 2, but 3 blog webrings. You can click on them in the left bar just below the Categories block. When questioned earlier today about this desperate plea for people to comment on his trite, banal weblog entries, he had this to say: "My friends won't write comments, so damn it I'm gonna get web traffic that does write comments [and get wasted tonight]." - AP News Exclusive

"Aqua Teen Hunger Force, number one in the hood G."

New Photo Album Posted

What a crazy Halloween, Check out the pictures in the Halloween Photo Album. Our costumes were a huge hit downtown, we couldn't walk from bar to bar because of so many people wanting pictures. Matt had girls throwing themselves at Master Shake, Meatwad (Ryan) was a big hit with the ladies, and me (Sir Frylock) well I was more preoccupied w/ Leila from Futurama to be honest... And to top off the excellent night on the town, we finished 2nd (IMHO) in a $500 costume contest at the Galactic concert at Stubb's -- 2nd place winning us nothing by the way. All that hard work payed off, it was a load of fun. We're gonna send our costume picture into Cartoon Network and try to get it on TV -- wish us luck!