mindplunge

The other day I was reading about this German product: cheeseburger in a can. I was thinking: Dude! who would eat this? Today a new story appeared on Reddit. Some guy bought the can and posted pictures on the internet. OMG!

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29 new benches are added to the gallery! Most of them are found in downtown Santa Rosa (4th Street). One bench near the Santa Rosa creek is occupied by a homeless guy. It looks like he made it into his permanent home and I didn’t want to be a ‘home invader’. Hopefully with the present rain he will move soon so I can document ‘his’ bench. I think these are all the benches near my house

I got an email back from ArtStart and they were thrilled about me documenting the benches. They are trying to update their website with locations of the benches themselves but for now I’m on my own. Soon I will also include the artists name and my next goal is to implement the pictures on Google maps so people can find the benches when visiting Santa Rosa!

related entries:
http://mindplunge.com/2008/01/20/santa-rosa-ca-art-bench-project/

Bench project:
http://mindplunge.com/santa-rosa-bench-project/

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For those who remember UB40. Ali Campbell calls it quits after 30 years

UB40 have today confirmed that they have parted company with lead singer Ali Campbell after a thirty year career together, following Campbell’s wish to focus more time on his solo career. Ali’s final dates with the band will be in Australia, New Zealand and Uganda in February 2008

Lead singer Ali Campbell had embarked upon a solo album project (Running Free) last year and throughout the course of this album, his time and commitment to the band began to conflict with his recording work, promotional commitments and his own corporate shows. Ali Campbell has taken the decision to focus on his solo career and in doing so, could not give his full commitment to UB40. The other band members of UB40 are naturally disappointed and saddened after being together as a band unit and as good friends for almost thirty years. A decision on replacing Campbell has not yet been made by the other seven band members. The bands next studio album – 24/7- which was recorded with Ali Campbell will go ahead as planned for release in May on the bands own REFLEX MUSIC record label.

Read complete press statement

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Y Combinator has a news section were users can submit stories, articles and even questions. More about Y Combinator later but I found this post about a guy moving from LA to the Bay Area. He wanted some advise on where to live. There was a wonderful response from a person who lived all his life in the Bay. His tips for fun are so true! Read his response:

It really depends on how much money you have. The Burlingame, San Carlos, San Mateo corridor is nice; consider renting (in this market, at least). Access to the stores you’re talking about but about 15-20 mins from The City and with enough culture to tide you over. Within reach of 280, which is a better way to go south than 101.

A few other FYI tips, just for fun:
People up here don’t use ‘the’ in front of freeway names the way you do in LA. It’s not “the 101″, it’s just “101″. No harm in using “the” but you’ll tag yourself as an ex-LA guy immediately.

• San Jose is pronounced “sanno-ZAY”, despite the proper spanish pronunciation.
• You say “Santa Cruz” the way you say “Santa Claus”. Emphasis on the Santa.
• “Concord” rhymes with “conquered”, rather than “con-CHORD”.
• If you don’t want to sound like a newb, don’t call San Francisco “Frisco” or “San Fran”. Locals routinely call it “The City”, or sometimes “SF”. No one will think you’re talking about San Jose or Oakland.

It’s more outdoorsy up here (despite LA’s surfing/skating reputation). Marin and the East Bay (hey, that’s Pig Latin for “beast”!) have huge regional parks. Mountain biking was invented here (in Marin, north of the GG bridge). So was cafe culture (in SF).

Go to Pier 39 once. Locals don’t go there. (Hell, I’ve never been to Alcatraz, and I’ve lived in NorCal my whole life.) Cool, insider neighborhoods in The City are Potrero Hill, Noe Valley, Cole Valley, among others. SOMA is still dicey, however hip its reputation.

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Aleisha is getting a new phone. It’s the Blackberry Pearl and it makes me jealous. I shouldn’t because I have a great phone myself! Still… So to give me that ‘new’ phone feelin’ I played around with the home screens available for my Motorola Q. Took me a while to fine tune it but now I’m happy again. Complete with a personalized ‘mindplunge’ logo. Funny how a simple change can make your day!

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People are emailing about the Japanese retailer in NYC. Well, it’s Uniqlo and their website is pretty nifty: uniqlo.com. Originally a division of Fast Retailing Co., Ltd., on Nov. 1, 2005, UNIQLO Co., Ltd. was born of corporate restructuring, and now exists as a 100% consolidated subsidiary of Fast Retailing, which is listed on the first section of the Tokyo Stock Exchange. UNIQLO is Japan’s leading clothing retail chain in terms of both sales and profits. The company also operates in China, Hong Kong, South Korea, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

In 2006 they opened their flag store in SOHO, NYC. Here some pics:

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Today I started on one of my projects. Since moving to Santa Rosa last summer I came across all of these painted benches throughout the city. I had a feeling that this was a city initiative and tried to look for it online. I found the ArtStart website:

Artstart is an award winning privately incorporated 501(c)3 non-profit educational arts organization serving all of Sonoma County. Our mission is to provide job training, mentoring and fostering life changing breakthroughs by way of a stimulating work experience in the arts for all of Sonoma County youth, while creating public art for our community.

There was no information about the benches or a list were I could find all the benches. Well, a project is born. I will try to document all the art benches in Santa Rosa by the end of the year. I contacted ArtStart and see if they have additional information. You can follow the project here, or scroll to the bottom of the page and look for Santa Rosa Bench Project.

You can help as well! If you live in Santa Rosa and you know a bench that hasn’t been displayed in the slideshow yet let me know! Leave a comment with the location of the bench. Street name and closest intersection would be enough to track down the bench and add it to my project!

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We just got back from San Jose and the exhibition was fascinating! The bodies are all human specimens but they don’t look ‘real’ due to preservation. Almost like a plastic mold but when you study it close up you really can tell that it used to be a real person. Kinda creepy as well but none the less interesting. Photography was not allowed but I didn’t know until some one told me this. So I only have a few photos to share.

If you around San Jose, CA this week it’s worth to pay the Tech a visit!

To achieve the preservation plastination is applied. Plastination is a technique used in anatomy to preserve bodies or body parts. The water and fat are replaced by certain plastics, yielding specimens that can be touched, do not smell or decay, and even retain most microscopic properties of the original sample. More about Body Worlds can be found here

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Me and Aleisha have a day trip planned to Body Worlds 2 in San Jose, CA. Body Worlds presents the complexity and the beauty of the human body, preserved through Plastination the groundbreaking method of specimen preservation invented by anatomist Dr. Gunther von Hagens. More than 200 authentic human specimens offer visitors profound insights into the form and function of the human body, wellness and disease, and the mysterious world of the brain.

Body Worlds 2 at The Tech
Official Body Worlds website

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I can’t believe this. The other day I read an article about artists on iTunes who take credit for great songs. They are actually a cover band and somehow got the song and artist name displayed as the original artist. I though: which dumbass is gonna fall for that? Well, that dumbass would be me… I wanted to download Little Steven and the disciples of soul – Forever (see YouTube vid). I searched for artist and song. Little Steven came up and I clicked ‘get song’.

Came back from lunch, popped up the headphones and… WTF? This isn’t Little Steven. It’s some New Jersey Douchbag trying to sing a great song but raping it instead! Dude… I got ripped off. Read the reviews first before getting a song. Advice for iTunes: change this kind of behavior or you are forcing me to go back to my torrents or p2p software… biatch.

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