Kanye West, WSJ, TMZ, BlogMaverick, TheFireArm Blog, BlogDay2010

BlogDay2010 – 5 Diverse Possibly Alien Blogs

by Amelia G : August 31st, 2010

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So today is supposed to be Blog Day 2010. BlogDay founder Nir Ofir has been doing this since 2005. The idea is for bloggers to post links to five disparate blogs which are culturally alien reads. Each BlogDay post August 31, 2010 is supposed to be tagged as BlogDay2010. Bizarrely, this year, Technorati shows not one single post tagged BlogDay2010. But I’m still going to post a few blogs I think are interesting reads and not what I would usually post.

Kanye West has a disturbingly high quality blog. It is mostly a picture blog, but there is a seemingly unending stream of pics of visually interesting things, ranging from concept cars to collectible caskets. Purportedly Kanye West blogs himself. If he does, he is committed to it and he gets the photoblog format, and is good about including links for further info. If he hired someone else to do it, he hired someone extremely qualified.



The Wall Street Journal has a Life and Culture blog, which strikes me as rather surreal. The top story on there today is “In Japan, Men Vacation With Virtual Girlfriends”.

Also somewhat in the business realm is Mark Cuban’s blog BlogMaverick. The name is not a political reference; he owns a basketball team called the Dallas Mavericks. He made his money in the dot com boom by selling Broadcast.com to Yahoo for stock and then diversifying before the stock market tanked. Some of his more recent activities include guesting on Entourage and starting BailoutSleuth to cover where our taxpayer money is being funneled to and how it is being (ab)used.

You’ve probably heard of TMZ. They are mostly a blight on society, but they are a hard-working and prolific blight. So, if you hear some random water cooler conversation about Paris Hilton mistaking her friend’s cocaine for chewing gum, you always know you can pop over to the TMZ blog to get the details. You can quickly discover that the gallery of Jesse James and Kat Von D getting in and out of vehicles, riding a motorcycle, holding hands, and swapping spit is one of the most popular. Today, TMZ also helpfully posted a copy Guns n’ Roses guitar player Slash’s divorce papers. Apparently, his address was able to be left “confidential” on the Los Angeles court documents. The Los Angeles form also has checkboxes for reason for dissolution of marriage which include incest and bigamy. Go figure.



Speaking of guns, The Firearm Blog is . . .

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Backstage Passes Gets Good Press from Gram Ponante and AltPorn.Net

Backstage Passes Gets Good Press from Gram Ponante and AltPorn.Net

by Amelia G : August 25th, 2010



My Backstage Passes anthology has been receiving some nice press this week, so I thought I’d share. I’m so used to the speed of internet press at this point, that I am chomping at the bit with the turnaround time for print and for a project which requires more in-depth reading for journalists to cover it.</p>

Kitty Two, writing for AltPorn.net, described much of the Backstage Passes book as “extremely enjoyably depraved and romantic”.

Gram Ponante, America’s Most Beloved Porn Journalist, recommends reading Backstage Passes and Douglas Coupland’s Microserfs for a complete picture of life in the 1990’s:

“Backstage Passes,” an anthology of erotica written by and about the types of people you might see alternately sobbing or fighting in the front row of either a Danzig or Dead Can Dance concert, is . . .

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Black Oil Cell Mask (PICS)

Szandora posted to Blue Blood VIP in a set by your truly and Forrest Black called Black Oil Cell Mask. This is the actual mask Jennifer Lopez wore in the movie The Cell. I was going to tell an anecdote about how Forrest and I came to photograph it on Szandora and on Dahlia Dark. But then it seemed boring and trivial to me, so here is a nice photograph we shot anyway.

Tristan Taormino Opens Up – Creating and Sustaining Open Relationships

Tristan Taormino Opens Up – Creating and Sustaining Open Relationships

by Amelia G : August 25th, 2010



I’ve been thinking about fellow Wesleyan alum Tristan Taormino lately because she was the original catalyst for my Backstage Passes anthology. Tristan is very prolific, but one of her most recent projects is the book Opening Up: A Guide to Creating and Sustaining Open Relationships. If you are in an open relationship or considering some form of one, I recommend picking this book up.</p>

I know so many people who really struggle with the lack of a road map for polyamory or swinging. I’ll spare you all my snarky bon mots re: the differences between those who are polyamorous and those who swing and just say that Opening Up is helpful. I’m not the world’s #1 fan of open relationships, partly because I have so many friends who will come up with a special boundary rule (such as he can have sex with other people but not orgasm inside them) and then . . .

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Halcyon Gets Ready for the Playa (PICS)

Halcyon Gets Ready for the Playa

by Amelia G : August 25th, 2010



Watching Halcyon get ready to go to Burning Man is always enough to make me wish they held it at a four star hotel, instead of the insanely hot desert. I’m addicted to hot baths and cool air. Honestly, I pretty much wilt, if my environment gets too hot for too long, although a dry heat is easier. We all have our crosses to bear.</p>

Anyway, despite being on the box for Splat hair dye, I’m pretty sure he still uses Jerome Russell Punky Color (same as me). The blonde sides are just a transitional look, before he goes the full Cupcake Pink distance to go with his Playa outfits.

Halcyon has a philosophical inspirational DVD, called Love More, Fear Less, which he will be giving out (gifting) at the Burn, so . . .

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Facing the Artist: Portraits by John Jonas Gruen

Facing the Artist: Portraits by John Jonas Gruen

by Amelia G : August 25th, 2010



Flavorwire ran a gallery today of portraits John Jonas Gruen shot of his artist peers over the past five decades. Apparently, East Coast artists of his generation spent a lot of time at the beach. Somehow there can be a West Coast notion that the beach is for the superficial and well-adjusted, but that is not bicoastal. Probably because you are more likely to be pensive on a chilly shoreline and more likely to show off a bikini body when the water is warm. The Whitney Museum in New York is currently show retrospective exhibition of portraits . . .

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True Blood Stars Nude on Rolling Stone Cover (PICS)

True Blood Stars Nude on Rolling Stone Cover

by Amelia G : August 25th, 2010



Rolling Stone is known for its decades of quality photography and occasional envelope-pushing magazine covers. The brilliant Matthew Rolston shot Alexander Skarsgård, Anna Paquin, and Stephen Moyer in a variety of menage-a-trois scenarios. I would say some of the inside photos look surprisingly stiff for someone of Matthew Rolston’s caliber, but, in all fairness, Skarsgård has been surprisingly stiff the current season of True Blood. Alexander Skarsgård is one of my favorite actors, and I usually find him immensely charismatic and believable, no matter what the role is. I think maybe he is just really really really not into doing dudes. On that topic, if True Blood is going to have lots of man-on-man action, I wish Nelsan Ellis, who plays goth fry cook/drug dealer Lafayette on the show, looked like he was enjoying the gay sex scenes. But the Anna Paquin and Stephen Moyer sex on that show is still pretty much the best coupling ever shown on television. In the True Blood interviews inside the magazine, show creator Alan Ball is pretty balls out in what he has to say. And that Matthew Rolston . . .

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Busty Corset Vamp Dahlia Dark (PICS)

This is beautiful busty vamp Dahlia Dark's 12th appearance in the Blue Blood VIP.

Other images Forrest Black and I shot of Dahlia Dark ran in Marquis magazine in print, but Blue Blood VIP members get to see complete shoots.

I'd write more about this shoot, but I'm in the middle of cooking a chicken right now. Priorities, priorities.

The Expendables, Inglourious Basterds, and Honey from the Tombs of Pharaohs

The Expendables, Inglourious Basterds, and Honey from the Tombs of Pharaohs
by Amelia G : August 20th, 2010

My refrigerator smells like a hangover.

Thanks so much for all the great birthday wishes yesterday, everyone! I had a really enjoyable birthday and the well-wishes definitely contributed.

I kicked off the day watching Quentin Tarantino’s Inglorious Basterds. I’m a big Tarantino fan, and I think Brad Pitt and Eli Roth are really cool, but, if you’ve ever watched somebody else fill out forms in triplicate or tie their shoes really slowly, then you’ve basically already seen this movie. Creative cinematography, amusing character concepts, good directing, and good acting could not save the dullness of Inglorious Basterds. The flick seemed like it had a host of nifty little Easter egg sort of factoids for film students, but I didn’t find that aspect gripped. Still, I’d been meaning to watch it, so getting to was still a good thing.

Then I learned how to make slow-roasted barbecue ribs. The reason my refrigerator still smells like a hangover is that, after I did the dry rub portion of the process, Jack Daniels figured prominently in the recipe I put together. It was more challenging than I expected to put together a ribs recipe because barbecue is more regionally variable in the United Stats than I had had any idea. According to Amazing Ribs, one of the most useful sites of the many I referenced, there are twelve distinct styles of barbecue saucing and spicing.



I decided I wanted to use honey as part of my recipe. Some years ago, I used to take honey in my morning iced latte, and I bought some really delicious raw gourmet honey. I eventually cut it out, because I was trying to lower my calorie and sugar intake, but I still had most of a container sitting in the fridge. The honey still smelled as delicious as the day I bought it and it looked the same. So I asked the internet how long does honey keep before it goes bad.

Barroom trivia question: What is the only food which never ever goes bad? Answer: You guessed correctly, if you assumed from context (or already knew) that the answer is honey. People have been able to enjoy eating (and successfully digesting) honey from 5,000-year-old pyramids.

It is a really good thing I’m not obscenely rich. I always make resolutions around my birthday and around New Years. If I had no responsibilities, I would totally dedicate the next year of my life to getting to taste the honey deemed worthy for the afterlife of dead kings. The ancient Egyptians apparently believed that the dead needed good snacks and honey was felt to be such a perfect food offering that many mummies were entombed with a honey jar next to their final resting places. Well, final until Egyptologist archeologists and pyramids grave robbers came along to taste their snacks and take their treasures. Supposedly, honey made in the 1800’s can still be purchased today and tastes quite different from modern honey, but I haven’t successfully found any available online yet. (All links to such sources are very welcome.)

So, after learning all about barbecue and honey, and making ribs, then it was time for cake. I had triple berry cake and princess cake (and walnut wheat bread) from Sweet Lady Jane, which is, for my money, the best cake in Southern California. (Although a book club I’m in did get cupcakes from somewhere else earlier this month, in honor of my birthday, and they were pretty delicious too.)

I topped off the evening watching Sylvester Stallone’s The Expendables in . . .

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Beautiful Bald Luci Soaking Tub (PICS)

There is just such a positive sexy free energy shooting in the Pacific NW, especially with a free spirit like Luci. Like me and Forrest Black, she was just passing through town, and we coordinated via email. I want to have this soaking tub in the office. Like now.

Whole series in the Blue Blood VIP.

Dear Time Warner Cable ISP, This is why you suck

Dear Time Warner Cable ISP,

This is why you suck. So my On Demand service still does not work since the most recent "upgrade" to the Time Warner On Demand interface. So I got into chat yet again. Of course, this was after it would have been nice to use On Demand. I don't have a lot of times I can take a break in this economy and the whole point of On Demand is for it to be there for the asking when I actually do have that time. If Dish Network offered good high speed internet, I would probably already have canceled your service.

I do like that you have added chat support. I am well aware that the problems are nothing the customer support people have done. I actually think a lot of TW customer support people are remarkably good at their jobs, given how many people loathe your terrible service. It is still difficult to listen to an angry voice and not feel bad, even if the person is not yelling at you, so I think it is much more humane to have chat available. Plus I dislike talking on the phone, so kudos on that. But the kudos end there.

When today's pleasant-but-unable-to-magically-fix-TW support person told me there would be a brief survey on the chat after we were done, I told him:

Half the time, the survey works. The other half the time, it times out anyway. Which means either TW's survey is defective or TW's cable internet service is.

Here is what I wrote in my survey about what TW could do better (after checking Very Dissatisfied):

Have your systems work. Consistent television and internet service would be, ya know, what I am supposedly paying for. My internet is intermittent and my On Demand doesn't ever seem to work when I want it. And your reps in chat seem to try, but they just can't fix all your technical problems. It would be nice also if paying on the phone wasn't a ridiculously long and annoying interface with misleading and inaccurate account info on the automated end and extra charges on the human side. I also know there is a 50% chance this survey form is going to time out and nobody will ever read what I've written.

So of course, when I hit submit on the survey, this is the error message I receive:

Microsoft OLE DB Provider for SQL Server error '80040e57'

String or binary data would be truncated.

/sdccommon/inc/db/dbcommon.inc, line 254

I'll probably send this to your Twitter because whoever runs that seems more on-the-ball than whoever put together your chat survey. But, yeah, if you are wondering if you should keep chat, you should; not having to have those annoying conversations on the telephone is one of the only things I like about your service at the moment.

In the current economy, people are thinking more carefully about where their entertainment dollar goes, and Time Warner is really failing to delight the customer. If you all need some consulting, let me know. Whoever is setting your priorities now could clearly use some help.

Mathematics (PICS)

Photography by yours truly and Forrest Black + modeling by Crash + couture by Antiseptic Fashion = a really hot and very surreal set for Gothic Sluts. Hope y'all like it.