What to expect at my Birthday Party

Tie dye making!!
Here's a test example from the non-toxic EZ dyes that I made over the weekend:

And, here's the Adult Pinata, filled with adult stuff, like tax forms, student loans, medical bills, PT exercises, etc...  JUST KIDDING!  It's filled with tiny liquor bottles, candy and dinosaurs.Because dinosaurs are awesome.  I name thee "Ah, Hell NO Kitty!"

Firesign Theatre: Duke of Madness Motors DVD-ROM review

Because I preordered, I got my copy of Duke of Madness Motors a bit early!  And for only $45, including shipping!

My review on Amazon.com is here CLICK ON THESE WORDS FOR LINK (OBVIOUS, HUH?)

But, Amazon, won't let me tell people where you can actually buy the set (they don't like it when you link to external sites).  They just say that it is not available.  Well, I certainly can do it on my own blog!!
Here's the link to order, so get it NOW!!

CLICK HERE TO ORDER

Below is my full review that I posted on Amazon:

First off, this is not a DVD video. This is a DVD-ROM chock full of MP3 audio files. As such, there is no region code. It can be played on any computer and many DVD & Blu-ray players. This is a little odd, but stay with me; this is the best decision they could make for this release.

And, it comes with a book. But more about the book later.


THE DVD-ROM
This one disc contains over 80 hours worth of mp3 audio files from the radio broadcasts of KPFK-FM. If they tried to put this on CDs it would take almost 70 of them! I don't have enough shelf space for that. It would have cost many times current price to release it, making it unobtainable for many. For this project, a DVD-ROM makes the most sense.

The great thing about this is that I can copy the mp3 files onto my computer & listen to them at my computer, on my iPod, at work, etc. For those without a computer (I'm sure there are a few Fireheads out there without one at the moment), many blu-ray & DVD players will play this disc. My Blu-Ray player, a Sony BDP-S470 3D Blu-ray Disc Player, plays this disc fine. There are five folders, and the folder names do have spaces in them. This *might* be an issue for older players, but I doubt it.

So, why are they making it even easier to 'share files' with other people? Aren't they afraid that many fans won't buy it & 'borrow' it instead from other fans? I don't think so. Here's a few reasons I can think of why that is not the case:

1) Among MANY other things, this set contains the incredibly rare 12 LP set that was sent out to other radio stations. When I could find that set on eBay, it used to go for $100 alone. The 12 LPs originally sold for $225 for commercial broadcast & $110 for closed circuit college stations. And, the 12 LP set is less than 1/4 of the total content. The price is very affordable for the insane amount of material.

2) It comes with a full color book written/designed by Taylor Jessen, with photo collages by Phil Proctor. Taylor's work is incredible. (he's the same person who edited and restored/remastered the audio. All 80 hours of it. Truly a labor of love) The book alone is worth the price.

3) Fans of the Firesign Theatre are on the most part, good-hearted people and realize that the 4 or 5 crayzee guys are not ultra-rich, and certainly are not going to get ultra-rich with the price point on this collection. They are not ripping anyone off here. This is a huge gift to the fan base. Many of us have been waiting for our entire lives for this. Heck, I tried for years just to get the 12 LP collection. This is so much more than that.

So, how does this compare to their other material? The quote on the back of the book by Richard Metzger sums it up best:

"This is comparable to being a James Joyce fanatic and finding not just one notebook where he's working out the themes he'd develop in Ulysses and Finnegans Wake, but an entire crate of 'em... A countercultural treasure of the highest order"

If you are a first time listener to Firesign Theatre, I'd suggest you try out some of their more polished albums first. The most accessible is How Can You Be In Two Places At Once When You're Not Anywhere At All? Just as classic and more accessible to newer audiences is their more recent work Give Me Immortality Or Give Me Death or Firesign Theatre - Boom Dot Bust, which predicted the dot com bust almost two years before it happened.

The most similar album to this collection is Dear Friends. It is an excerpt of this huge treasure trove.


THE BOOK
I mentioned before that this also comes with a full color, 107 page book. It contains the aforementioned photo collages by Phil Proctor (which are really, really great!), an essay about the group, new interviews, and run downs of everything on the discs. These linear notes take up almost 40 pages. The collection is that big.

You can find pieces of the Deputy Dan Coloring Book in here, a cartoon of Bringing Up Father (you already know which one), and did I mention photo collages by Phil? Some of them contain nude images, but I would not call any of them obscene.

Now get on it and do it every day! Pick up this DVD & Book collection today!

Enjoy Burning Man from the Comfort of your own Home!

I got this off of a Burning Man mailing list. If anyone knows the original author, please let me konw so I can give proper credit!

The original author is unknown

* Tear down your house. Put it in a truck. Drive 10 hours in any direction. Put the house back together. Invite everyone you meet to come over and party. When they leave, follow them back to their homes, drink all their booze, and break things.
* Pay an escort of your affectional preference subset to not bathe for five days, cover themselves in glitter, dust, and sunscreen, wear a skanky neon wig, dance close naked, then say they have a lover back home at the end of the night.
* Stack all your fans in one corner of the living room. Put on your most fabulous outfit. Turn the fans on full blast. Dump a vacuum cleaner bag in front of them.
* Buy a new set of expensive camping gear. Break it.
* Only use the toilet in a house that is at least 3 blocks away. Drain all the water from the toilet. Only flush it every 3 days. Hide all the toilet paper.
* Set your house thermostat so it’s 50 degrees for the first hour of sleep and 100 degrees the rest of the night.
* Before eating any food, drop it in a sandbox and lick a battery.
* Mail $200 to the Reno casino of your choice.
* Make a list of all the things you’ll do different next year. Never look at it.
* Search alleys untill you find a couch so unbelievably tacky and nasty filthy that a state college frat house wouldn’t want it. Take a nap on the couch and sleep like you are king of the world.
* Shop at Wal-mart, Cost-Co, and Home Depot until your car is completely packed with stuff. Tell everyone that you’re going to a "Leave-No-Trace" event. Empty your car into a dumpster.
* Spend thousands of dollars and several months of your life building a deeply personal art work. Hide it in a funhouse on the edge of the city. Hire people to come by and alternate saying "I love it" and "this sucks balls". Blow it up.
* Cut, burn, electrocute, bruise, and sunburn various parts of your body. Forget how you did it. Don’t go to a doctor.
* Walk around your neighborhood and knock on doors until someone offers you cocktails and dinner.
* "Downsize" last year’s camp by adding two geodesic domes, a new sound system, art car, and 20 newbies.
* Lean back in a chair until that point where you’re just about to fall over, but you catch yourself at the last moment. Hold that position for 9 hours.
* Don’t sleep for 5 days. Take a wide variety of hallucinogenic/emotion altering drugs. Pick a fight with your boyfriend/girlfriend.
* Set up a DJ system downwind of a three alarm fire. Play a short loop of drum’n'bass until the embers are cold.
* Have a 3 a.m. soul baring conversation with a drag nun in platforms, a crocodile and Bugs Bunny. Be unable to tell if you’re hallucinating. Lust after Bugs Bunny.
* Spend a whole year rummaging through thrift stores for the perfect, most outrageous costume. Forget to pack it.
* Read "Dhalgren" by Samuel R. Delany. Read "The City Not Long After" by Pat Murphy. Cut off the bindings, throw all the pages up in the air, and shuffle them back together. Reread "The City After Dhalgren" by Samuel Murphy. Burn it. Read the ashes.
* Listen to music you hate for 168 hours straight, or until you think you are going to scream. Scream. Realize you’ll love the music for the rest of your life.
* Spend 5 months planning a "theme camp" like it’s the invasion of Normandy. Spend Monday-Wednesday building the camp. Spend Thurs-Sunday nowhere near camp because you’re sick of it or can’t find it.
* Bust your ass for a "community." See all the attention get focused on the drama queen crybaby.
* Get so drunk you can’t recognize your own house. Walk slowly around the block for 5 hours.
* Tell your boss you aren’t coming to work this week but he should "gift" you a paycheck anyway. When he refuses accuse him of not loving the "community".
* Ask your most annoying neighbor to interrupt your fun several times a day with third hand gossip about every horrible thing that’s happened in the last 24 hours. Have them wear khaki.
* Go to a museum. Find one of Salvador Dali’s more disturbing, but beautiful paintings. Climb inside it.

Blog After my own Heart

And you know the quickest way to a man's heart is his stomach (or rib cage if you're the violent type)

Insanewiches

Example of the type of sandwich you might see there:

My Vacation in Colton so Far

Here's my inspirational photo for the day:




By the time I got to the end of the walkway, the beginning was already snowed over.