A Visit to a Steampunked Home

In Tampa, they've got this thing called Guavaween. It happens every Halloween and it's basically an excuse for about 200,000 deviant, twisted individuals to express their personal sexual preferences by dressing up and parading up and down 7th Avenue in Ybor City (the alternative area of Tampa). Everyone wore something black. But that's not very unusual for these people. They think they're from NYC. They're the kind of teens whose lives are perfect and parents are rich. So when they feel that rebellious teen angst, they reject their suburban existence by dying their blond hair black, dressing in all black and living on the seedy side of town and denouncing their parent's wealth. (At least until rent is due.)

16-year old brainiac eases the guilt of his parent's entire generation

Still not bringing a reusable canvas bag with you when you shop at the grocery store? Well, now you don't have to feel like your laziness is helping to destroy Earth (as much). It seems that, while you were out double-bagging your Pop-Tarts and simultaneously threatening Man's prolonged existence on this planet, a high-school kid from Canada was as home sifting through landfill soaked in yeast and tap water to isolate the bacterial genus’ Pseudomonas and Sphingomonas.

Why the world needs more musicians and fewer 'recording artists.'

The talented singer, Stephanie Nilles, makes a point in her liner notes that bears repeating in this modern world of Copyright and Digital Rights Management issues. She reminds us that, at one point in time, musicians had to actually work for a living instead of recording one hit song and then living the life of a drug-addled jack-ass.

How to screw your satellite or cable company out of $10 a month.

As long-time readers know (are there any of those?), I hate paying AT&T any more than I absolutely have to. (Especially now that the company jacked up my DSL bill just "because it can...") Still, I wanted to get High-Definition programming somehow without paying them another $10/mo. for the privilege...

Dark horse prognost- icators, the Mayans, ask all other religions “Who’s your Daddy now?”

In a stunning—and very unsettling—turn of events, modern scientists have found evidence supporting the ancient Mayan prediction of an apocalypse in the year 2012. Mayan astronomers supposedly predicted that 2012 would mark the calamitous “birth of a new era”—an era marked by the rise of giant, sentient cockroaches, I'm guessing.

by thecroz | February 26, 2010 - 11:59am

A Visit to a Steampunked Home

Bruce and Melanie Rosenbaum started ModVic (Modern Victorian) Home Restoration in June 2007 and have now moved onto steampunk Home Design.

BOOKS

I am America (And so can you!), Stephen Colbert—Sage advice for an ailing nation.
God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything, Christopher Hitchens—The case against belief.
The Fabric of the Cosmos: Space, Time, and the Texture of Reality, Brian Greene—A mind-bending romp through quantum physics.
Adam's Curse: A Future without Men, Bryan Sykes—It's not MY fault, it's my chromosome's.
1984, George Orwell—Who says no one can predict the future?
Nonzero : The Logic of Human Destiny, Robert Wright—It gives you hope for the future.
The Stranger, Albert Camus—Alienated existentialism at its best.
A Short History of Nearly Everything, Bill Bryson—Why aren't textbooks this funny?

POLITICS

Change Congress Help keep Big Money out of politics
Earmark Watch Bringing citizen oversight to congressional spending
Money And Politics Illuminating the connection
Open Congress The real story behind what's happening in Congress
Fortune 535 Find out how wealthy your local politicians are
OpenSecrets Center for responsive politics
Citability Making government accessible, reliable, and transparent
Data.gov Public access to high-value, machine-readable data sets
Public Markup Review and comment on proposed bills before they are even introduced
FedSpending Find out where your tax money is going
The Sunlight Foundation Shining light on money, lobbying, and government
Transparency Int'l. Stop corruption to save lives.
Congresspedia The citizen's encyclopedia of Congress