Arianna Huffington wants you to move your money: At a recent dinner, a group of us began talking about the huge chasm between the record profits of Wall Street banks and America’s struggling Main Street banks and started discussing what concrete steps individuals could take to help create a better financial system.

Eventually, an idea took hold: why don’t we take our money out of these big banks and put them into community banks? And what, we asked ourselves, would happen if lots of people around America decided to do the same thing?

To help this idea go viral, filmmaker Eugene Jarecki has created a powerful, and inspiring video playing off the classic film It’s a Wonderful Life in which community banker George Bailey is nearly destroyed by the rapacious and predatory banker Mr. Potter.

Check it out, and see why we think you should make it your New Year’s resolution to move your money. Too-big-to-fail banks are profiting from bailout dollars and government guarantees, and growing bigger. Tell us which community bank you use, and why. For more info, go to moveyourmoney.info.

I was just staring at the picture of the phone caller ID. Because I am weird like that, and was just thinking how funny I am, because I am dorky like that. And then, they called back — RIGHT WHEN I WAS STARING AT THE PICTURE.

I thought “OH MAN. Big Brother knows I am looking at this picture and knows I was blogging about them and I am SO IN FOR IT NOW.”
But no, they had a modification to a statement.

BUT STILL, how weird is that? It almost felt like the Scientologists were coming after me.

I haven’t read any scripture yet today, but I will definitely do so when I get to work.  I think I noticed today’s passages are from Haggai.  I’ll let you know what I get from them.  I never got much from yesterday’s readings.  I hope God will show me something this time.

Last night I vented to Lisa like never before.  No, it was nothing directed at her.  It was a great outlet though, I think.  I went on about how I don’t feel like God loves me, and that I just wish he would show himself or do something in my life that would be some kind of sign to me that he is here.  My brain reminds me that he loves me, and that he’s here, but the point is that I don’t feel it.  I also went on about other things and really “stuck it to the man”, I guess one might say.  I really hope God was listening.  It was mostly directed at him.  Think of it as cries of desperation… without the actual crying.

I’m going to try to keep the ‘bad news’ and ‘complaints’ to a minimum today.  I don’t know if I’ll be able to do that all day but I’ll try.  If something really ridiculous comes up, I’ll have no choice but to blog about it.

If you’re reading this through my Facebook, be sure to check out that Metallicats video I favorited on YouTube.  Should show on my FB wall.  It’s really great in a very dorky way.  In fact, you should watch all of the videos that I favorite.  I favorite them for a reason!  If you think they are stupid or funny or boring or whatever, leave a comment and tell me.  They’re not my videos, but I still want to know your thoughts.

Well I better go get ready for work.  I’ve been leaving for work a little earlier each day lately so that I could get some breakfast on the way.  I’ll be adding to my Del Inferno collection.

BTW here’s the little calculator I used to quickly calculate the number of days I’ve been alive (used in the subject line): http://www.beatcanvas.com/daysalive.asp

Step back
I’ll fade into the background
Look at
The ones who want to be found
Tired of lying
My true self denying
This stage just keeps spinning around
And round, and round…

Smile sweetly
Completely
One with the part you’re playing
Act it out
Take a bow
For the public who’re paying
Not me, though
I’m quitting the show
Now it’s my own words I’m saying.

Hello
I’ve nothing entertaining to say
This show
Doesn’t need me anyway
Tired of acting
My mind’s not reacting
I’ve forgotten the lines to this play
Hey-hey, hey-hey…

Smile sweetly
Completely
One with the part you’re playing
Act it out
Take a bow
For the public who’re paying
Not me, though
I’m quitting the show
Now it’s my own words I’m saying.

How about an encore?
They’re screaming, they’re screaming for more
I hope you all know your lines
You’ve read them so many times
Can’t stay to watch, gotta go
I’m quitting, I’m quitting the show.

(2002)

Not really.

I did do quite a bit of baking today, though.  First, lemon poppy seed muffins.  Little sister gobbled them up! There are only 3 out of 12 left. Next up was falafel “burgers” from The Vegan Table; it’s definitely my new favorite cookbook. It’s so diverse and easy to follow and colorful. It’s divided into sections based on the type of entertaining you’re going to do which range from two-person romantic dinners to large family holiday feasts. The recipes are even divided into recipes for each season and include suggested menus.

falafel "burger" on whole wheat pita with spinach, tomato, and amazing cucumber dill sauce

For my job, I volunteered to test some gluten-free cake recipes at home. I started with the gluten freedom vanilla cupcakes from vegan cupcakes take over the world and I made a quick chocolate cream cheese frosting for the top. They’re alright. The quinoa flour tastes a littly funky in a cupcake so I think I’ll try sorghum flour next time if I can find it.

gluten-free vanilla cupcakes with chocolate cream cheese frosting

I overstocked my fridge a bit. The Global Foods Market is my weakness. I picked up so much awesome stuff:

purple potatoes, thai red hot peppers, thai basil, yellow tofu, four different kinds of curry paste, fresh dill and parsley, soft tofu, japanese bean cakes, a tub of peeled garlic that was taking over the aroma of the fridge, wheat pita bread, tahini, lemongrass, baby eggplant and coconut milk.

I stopped by my grandma’s house afterwards and found out that she grows herbs! I came home with a couple stalks of sweet basil.  Basil and dill are my favorite herbs.  I should have a herb garden, really.

Backyard and community gardens are awesome. I was sad that I missed my chance to get something growing earlier this year. As a vegan, I’m dependent on things that are grown. However, it doesn’t mean that I’m an advocate of mass agriculture, especially not genetically modified “food.”  Commercialized agriculture not only displaces animals, but destroys entire ecosystems when forests are cut down to make space for farmland (and animal grazing land) and prairie topsoil is plowed up, used up, and can’t quickly be replaced.  Agriculture has also been the grounds for great devastation for culture and human rights through imperialism, slavery, the rich and poor gap, hunger.  The distribution of food is also to blame for the last two issues. America and other affluent wealthy nations consume far more food than is necessary. It doesn’t help, either, when imperialist nations (USA) create their empires and exploit tiny countries and strip them of their resources, leaving them even more poor and even more hungry.

Although, I give agriculture it’s faults, I’m not jumping on the “well, it’s okay to eat meat, then” train like others have such as Lierre Keith and Derrick Jensen.  Eating meat doesn’t solve anything. I believe that only when civilization has entirely collapsed and that we become just the other animals in the ecosystem that hunting would be necessarily for survival.  Just because you advocate for civilization’s collapse, it doesn’t mean you should start eating like it has, or pretending that you have all the answers.

This brings me to my next idea that’s been on the brain. Some people, such as Derrick Jensen, and a friend of mine, have been advocating that it isn’t our fault that corporations are destroying the planet and that changing our lifestyles aren’t doing anything to help.  I’m going to copy and paste a response from facebook, that I made on a friend’s page, to wrap up this post:

See, my problem here is the logic. You’re saying it’s not our fault that these large companies are destroying the earth, but it is our fault. It is the fault of the consumer, as the mass number of consumers is the reason for the companies “success” (in monetary terms). If everyone could drop off the grid overnight and stop buying into it, the companies would fail and it would be the end of their constant destruction. The flow would cease and all that’s left would be the repairs. I think most activists with a brain know that what they buy is not the solution, but it’s a step in the right direction. Change doesn’t happen instantly, it’s a slow process.

So, end point, you can’t stop the oil industry if you keep buying into it. There’s no other way to stop them. Blow up buildings, they stumble, and build more buildings. They cannot be stopped unless you stop buying it and until there is the option for everyone to stop (society isn’t set up in a way for that to work), small things, like buying fair trade, or buying local, or building with renewable materials, are the first step. I’m not supporting corporate greenwashing, here, though. Those products don’t fucking count. I mean like CLOROX greenworks? Sweatshop-produced brand new organic cotton? No thanks. I’m done.

Oh, wait. One more thing: Yes, I do recognize the inherent contradiction created by shopping at a global foods market full of foods imported from places many miles away.

I listen to folk music daily; it’s just part of my very unorganized routine. A couple days ago, the song “Hallelujah! I’m a bum” by Utah Phillips started playing and the little lightbulb came on and I changed these original lyrics:

Oh, why don’t I work like other men do?

How the hell can I work when the skies are so blue?

Hallelujah! I’m a bum, Hallelujah bum again,

Hallelujah! give us a handout and revive us again.

into this:

Oh, why don’t I eat like other men do?

How the hell can I eat when the cows are so blue?

Hallelujah! I’m a vegan, hallelujah vegan again,

Hallelujah! give us some tempeh and revive us again!

I know, I know. It’s far from genius but I like it. It’s not the reason I started this blog, though. I’ve wanted to start this blog for a few years now but I never had the right feel, y’know. I mean, I created several blogs. On blogger. On wordpress, etc.  I never made any posts on them because the rest of it was all wrong.

So what makes this one any different? The inspiration for the title: radical folk music. Keyword: radical. Look forward to: talk about food that I make and issues surrounding food (ie: the industry of food and how fucked up that is), socio-political banter, and rants (because apparently being a veganarchist, vegan + anarchist, makes me a domestic terrorist and that’s lovely and you will know how lovely it is). Hallelujah!

Note: Photos of food will be here shortly. I’m working on getting a camera in good, working condition.

Sometimes Yahoo! Answers comes up with something amazing. This is one of those times. Kat Atreides, a student at a private school asks the following question:

I go to a private school that is rather strict. Recently, the principal and school teacher council released a (very long) list of books we’re not allowed to read. I was absolutely appalled, because a large number of the books were classics and others that are my favorites. One of my personal favorites, The Catcher in the Rye, was on the list, so I decided to bring it to school to see if I would really get in trouble. Well… I did but not too much. Then (surprise!) a boy in my English class asked if he could borrow the book, because he heard it was very good AND it was banned! This happened a lot and my locker got to overflowing with the banned books, so I decided to put the unoccupied locker next to me to a good use. I now have 62 books in that locker, about half of what was on the list. I took care only to bring the books with literary quality.

We need more students like this! Interestingly, one of the banned books is Twilight, but she doesn’t want that “polluting [her] library”. Some (but not all) of the books she currently carries are:

• One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
• The Picture of Dorian Gray
• Slaughterhouse-5
• Lord of the Flies
• Bridge to Terabithia
• Catch-22
• East of Eden
• The Brothers Grimm Unabridged Fairytales.
• Candide
• The Divine Comedy
• Paradise Lost
• The Godfather
• The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy
• A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court
• Animal Farm

The entire question, as well as the answers, are here:

Is it OK to Run and Illegal Library from my Locker at School? [Yahoo! Answers]

[via Laughing Squid]

I’ve known for a while that the newest Xbox 360 software supports streaming video from a computer running Window Media Center. What I didn’t know is that when Microsoft added the media center capabilities they decided to use someone else’s media server standard; UPnP to be precise.

This is really exciting because this means that anybody who implements this standard can stream video to an Xbox over the network.

I run Ubuntu Linux and discovered that there are several programs you can install that will setup a UPnP Media Server, the one I picked to use is uShare.  To install ushare I opened a terminal and ran:

sudo apt-get install ushare

After that I had to edit the ushare configuration file saved under /etc/ushare.conf

If you don’t feel comfortable editing the file you can run to help you setup the configuration file.

sudo dpkg-reconfigure ushare

Here is how I setup my file (I’ve removed the comments from the file for readability):

USHARE_NAME=Ubuntu_Media_Server

USHARE_IFACE=eth0 (the name of which ethernet adapter you’ll send the data over)

USHARE_PORT=49153

USHARE_TELNET_PORT=1337

USHARE_DIR=/home/slayton/Desktop/Shares (any dir will work just put your media there)

USHARE_OVERRIDE_ICONV_ERR=yes

ENABLE_WEB=no

USHARE_ENABLE_XBOX=yes (the USHARE_ is missing in the file you need to add it)

ENABLE_DLNA=no

uShare automatically starts a daemon upon boot, I don’t like this so I kill the daemon after boot with:

sudo /etc/init.d/ushare stop

Then I start uShare when I need it with:

ushare -x  (-x is for xbox compatible mode)

Start up your Xbox scroll the Video Library, select Ubuntu_Media_Server (or whatever name you picked) and begin the streaming goodness!

This is how I got my verizon contract cut down by one year!

I signed a new contract back in January so I was locked in with verizon for 24 months (until Jan 2011).  I get discounted service through my work so I called up verizon to apply the discount. To get the discount however, the contract needed to be in my name (it was previously under my wife’s name). It was an easy switch to make, I had to provide social security number and and verbally recognize that if the bill doesn’t get paid its my credit that gets hit.

Here’s the trick, because I made the change over the phone I wasn’t able to sign a paper contract, rather I agreed to a verbal contract.  Verizon will only sign a 1 year if done verbally. My 2 year agreement got cut down to a 1 year agreement! My contract that should have expired Jan 2011 now expire April 2010.   I don’t qualify for a free phone until Jan 2011 but my contract is up May 2010!

If you want to do the same its simple, get someone who trusts you to accept the contract in their name. If you have a family plan like i do just switch the primary account holder to another person on the family plan!

I have 2 computers a home computer and a work computer. I do a lot of work on both of them and being able to access files on one from the other is essential.  To do this securely I use SSH.  The only problem is that I can only SSH from my home computer to my work, but I can’t SSH in the other direction. I’ve done some reading around and it looks like comcast either blocks all incoming traffic that isn’t http related or actually has me sharing an IP with several people. Regardless, a lot of people have been having problems accepting incoming SSH connections with comcast.  I figured out how to get around this problem. All it takes is a little bit of reverse port forwarding, or reverse tunneling.

Here is how I did it.

I figured that I could create a connection from my home computer to my work computer and then tell my work computer to forward data down that connection back to my home computer.

This isn’t ideal as I have to initiate the connection from home but it will work until I get a better ISP, or figure out something better.

The solution is fairly simple to execute and it only requires two simple commands. The first one I must execute from my home computer before i go to work.

On my home computer I run:

ssh <work_ip_address> -R <work_port>:localhost:<home_port>

When I do this SSH creates a connection between my home and work computers, but this connection is special because any data that arrives on <work_port> (I chose 21080) gets automatically forwarded to <home_port> (22) on my home computer.

On my work computer I run:

ssh localhost -p <work_port>

SSH then tries to open a connection with my work computer on port <work_port> (again 21080) but because of the existing connection from my home computer that connections gets forwarded back to my home computer on port <home_port> (22) where my ssh server is listening for incoming connections.

The exact commands I use with port numbers are:

@home:ssh work_ip -R 21080:localhost:22

@work:ssh localhost -p 21080

UPDATE:

SSH eventually times out and closes the connection if no data is being sent over the connection so after I connected to my work computer from home I ran top. This means a constant stream of data and that SSH won’t timeout.

Just found out that Soft Skull Press, an independent press that i “interned” with for a few months at the end of last year, is losing Richard Nash, the head of the two person outfit. He gives vague reasons for his departure, but in the end it seems to be boil down to the difficulties of an unstable publishing world… especially for independent publishers. How do independent presses maintain themselves and their independence? For small guys like Soft Skull, it will always be hard to balance staying afloat and publishing the off-beat material that makes them so vital.

Maybe the buy-out by Counterpoint a few years ago, which saved the company from financial ruin, just didn’t allow for that kind of creative independence that Soft Skull was accustomed to. Maybe the safe business arrangement just didn’t allow for the small imprint to flex its post-punk and DIY roots. (One of the small details that I learned while there is that before being bought up, interns and volunteers often designed their own book covers and take on their own projects.)

I’m sure Soft Skull will miss Richard Nash, but I’m also sure that it’s not the end of the man’s work in publishing.

This sickening video of a cop tackling an unsuspecting cyclist in a New York CriticalMass ride makes me ill every time I see it, which is three times now. But it will be used to indict the cop for assault and falsifying records. That video really makes me feel violent.

Thanks for the remind PlanetSave

If you have a finance fever then the only prescription is more cowbell – Guess what?!  Harley-Davidson Financial Services (HDFS) has got COWBELL, and when they’re done we’ll all be wearing gold-plated diapers.  NOT!

With credit markets in the deep freeze, financial details are starting to leak out on how HDFS aggressively went after a “lower-quality borrower” to gain market segment share against other lenders.  Sound familiar?  Ever hear of WAMU?  According to new reports between 2003 and 2006, the percentage of HDFS borrowers paying 15% or more in interest — an indicator of credit risk — increased from 8% to 19%.  In addition HDFS’ share of Harley’s operating income grew to more than $200 million or about 15% of the company total, up from 7% in 2000.

Then loan delinquency rates started to rise where they are now more than 4%. The simultaneous reduction of motorcycle production and continuation of chasing marginal borrowers are problematic for Harley.  Remember the “Stick it to the Man” campaign in 2007? An offering of zero money down and teaser interest rates as low as 2.99%.  Everything’s “golden” as long as HDFS could package loans and sell them as securities to investors.  But, in the first quarter of 2008, HDFS was forced to keep $54 million in loans as very few investors would touch them. Then in Q2′08 even fewer buyers stepped-up as loan delinquencies kept rising.  As a result, Harley’s finance arm has increased loan collection staff and is making more calls on weekends and evenings to chase down deadbeats. With credit being nearly “inaccessible” to marginal borrowers, HDFS has eliminated its no-money-down financing offers, reserving them for the most creditworthy customers.

So how will Harley raise capital to fund this business going forward?  They either lack the ability or were unwilling to recognize that the entire economic infrastructure of the U.S. was being undermined by the housing crisis.  As a result producing more and more motorcycles that are being financed by a self-serving organization in a false, paper economy bites you in the butt.

Full disclosure: I own zero HOG stock.

Via: Monster Children

Having endured a long thirteen years of required schooling, I feel like I have earned the right to say that education is not what it should be. On a lighter note, I can say that I learned more than what was necessary for my educators to teach me. For example, I learned quickly that many teachers aren’t cut out for the job, but that doesn’t stop them from barely trying. I also learned that even the most creative teachers are usually uninspired by lesson plans that revolve around standardized testing. Also among my lessons: a student can barely try and still succeed. (This is a lesson I’m recovering from in college. It’s a hard habit to break.)

As you can tell, my view of education is pretty dim. But alas, I’ve chosen to enroll myself in a university, so I must have some faith in the system. Here is what it comes down to: I love the freedom that college promotes. I can choose what classes I want to take. I am encouraged to wander out of my safe zone, whereas in high school, we had strict guidelines we were “encouraged” to follow. (Although, I will say I do believe this is because the more time that I waste, the more money the college will make off of me.) In high school, I never strayed from the recommended curriculum. I took four years of English and math, three years of Spanish, three years of social studies, three years of science. I hardly took the classes that actually interested me. Looking back, I would say the thing I regret most about my class choice is neglecting the opportunity to take art. I felt that because I was in choir, colleges would look down on me if I was enrolled in two “blow off” classes. I never would have taken an art class as an opportunity to slack, though. I genuinely wanted to learn how to create art. I missed my chance, though, and all because of the restraints I felt were imposed on me.

That’s the thing about high school: any free will that a child is afforded is discouraged. I found it difficult to really take advantage of my education when there were so many guidelines. It all seemed pretty pointless to me. So I’m here to stick it to the man. I realize that when I’m a teacher someday, certain things will be expected of me. I will meet those requirements, but I fully plan on implementing lessons that really light a fire for students. I chose my blog title (Make it EPIC) based on the goal of encouraging students to take learning into their own hands. My current classes inspire me to the point that I walk away with mental lists of everything I want to learn about that is beyond what is required of me. I can hardly keep up! Learning has become exciting. It has become an adventure. It has become mine. I hope to teach high school students this concept someday.

In the meantime, I will be griping about one of many issues that I believe stifles this enthusiasm toward learning: the dreaded standardized testing. It seems as though teachers do not have enough time anymore to teach about the things that really matter because they must conform to the limits of standardized tests. This is a blow to intellectual curiosity of both teachers and students.

I realize that standardized tests have their perks. Schools can get more money if their students are performing better. But what kind of system is that? Shouldn’t the role of an educator be to teach a child so that the child may excel, rather than to teach the child so that the school might? It all seems pretty twisted to me. I am aware that schools also need to make sure students are measuring up to their peers. If that were the sole reason for giving students standardized tests, I would be much more sympathetic. That’s not the case though.

To continue my case against standardized testing, I will staying up-to-date on news related to the issue. I have subscribed to several RSS feeds, which as as follows:

The Washington Post (education section only)
New York Times (education section only)
Google News Query: Standardized Testing
Academic Search Premier

Feel free to rant and rave along with me! This is only my first of many. Now tell me how YOU feel.

With (unapplauded (clap-trap)) strap-lines coming (humming ? Sh(h !)) out(ing) of my ears, I realise (with my reel-eyes) that it is no (known or unknown)  false (teeth) truth that I need a strap-on………. camera with which to film my foolish fingers.

~     I wanna stick it 2 my head 2 STICK IT 2 “The Man” an’ digitise this dudelette’s doodles      ~

I can remember sitting in the basement, as a teenager, surrounded by thousands of records (that’s vinyl LPs, none of these new-fangled CDs the kids are all talking about), listening to my Dad give me a speech he had practiced to perfection with my older brother.

“How many records do you need?” “Have you ever calculated how much money you’ve spent on these? That’s money you could have in the bank right now.” “When are you ever going to even have time to listen to all of these?” I don’t remember the speech verbatim, but those were some of the highlights.

This is not a conversation that was unique to my home. I suspect that parents all across the country were having some form of this conversation with their children.

But one thing my Dad said to me in those frequent conversations really stuck with me. I’m sure he didn’t intend for it to be memorable. And it certainly wasn’t the main thrust of the discussion. However, it is relevant to me today in a way I don’t think anyone could have guessed then.

He made the point to me that music and owning records just wasn’t that prominently a part of culture when he was growing up. Kids weren’t judging or being judged by their music tastes, the size of their record collection or their ability to sing along with the latest hit. Music didn’t define people then the way they do now.

The numbers bear this out. In 1960, there were 600 million records sold. In 2007, there were 1.3 billion units sold (and remember that sales have been on the decline since the masses began downloading music, as an alternative).

Further evidence can be seen by turning on the television and observing how much coverage musicians get these days. They even have several of their own stations. Following musicians and music is just far more important to pop culture now than it was 40, 30 or even 20 years ago. Music-making programs are standard on Macs and common place on the computers of most music fans. Making music is at our fingertips like never before.

Music has always been very important to me… to who I am. But, I suspect there was an aspect of my insatiable need for a new record rooted in some form of rebellion against my parents – if not general good teenage behavior.

Fast forward to 2008, and now I am the parent with a four-year-old daughter. At this point, there’s been plenty of coverage of what Gen X is doing with their kids. Essentially, as the premise goes, the children of Gen X parents are seen by their parents as a way to show everyone how cool they are.

Gen X parents get their kids into their music (the very music they used to piss off their parents before them), dress them the way they dress and generally play out their displays of individuality on the playground – their kids’ playground, that is.

As it relates specifically to music, I’m not sure that my daughter is ever going to get the “you own too much music” speech from me. In fact, I have to plead somewhat guilty, at least, to indoctrinating my child with alternative music from the 70’s through to now. I’m not sure it’s forced. She definitely appears to love it and has a great time singing and dancing. And my main motivation is to share with her a passion of mine.

But my generation never listened to the music of our parents. Not really. To my Dad’s point, it just wasn’t important enough to them that they’d make an effort to share it with us – Gen X. Sure, some parents did, but they were fewer in number then than they are now.

So, my question is, when my daughter is 14, how is she going to rebel? Somehow, the exclamation “Turn it off, Dad! I don’t ever want to hear another note of music in my life! I hate music… ALL music! And I hate you!” just seems a bit too ridiculous (especially the part about hating me… I mean, who could?). If the Gen Xers like me keep up with music the way we seem to be, and thus we end up listening to the same music as our kids, what music will they call their own.

If it’s possible that we have any taste at all, then all we’ll be leaving are the future Britany Spears of the world – mindless hip-hop pop. And, while that would certainly be enough to aggravate me the way she would intend, I don’t see it as enough of a departure to fit the bill.

See, the other problem is that so many styles of music are blending these days – country into alternative rock, hip hop into pop rock, acoustic rock into soul and blues, etc – that it’s going to be harder for her to find a distinct style that doesn’t, in some way, tie back to music she grew up with through me.

Historically, even when music hadn’t engulfed society-as-a-whole and wasn’t as prevalent in the mainstream, it always played a large role to specific movements. There are many timeless songs about “sticking it to the man” or just “sticking it to our parents.” If “the man” and “the parents” are listening to the same music as the kids, what are they going to do to show their individuality? What are they going to do to rebel?

Maybe they’ll start spending all their time at the opera and playing their opera too loud too late into the night. That’ll certainly work on Gen X (although it would make my daughter’s grandpa quite happy, were it the case).

*Updated: Okay, so I changed the headline. I should just hire friend Rick to do all my headlines…

Finally, someone has designed clothing to combat against L.A.’s intentionally uncomfortable benches, ledges and seats. Frnch developers created sweat-suits with fashionably hilarious looking cushions built into the back for a cloud nine ninety degree sleeping condition. This is the ultimate stick it to the man idea, mixing cleverness with plain common sense. The design allows for the wearer to upon resting from their run of funny stares, lay down on (or in) bus stop benches and other Los Angeles land forms. See if you can guess the land form for the costume based on the pictures.

Like a marshmallow in a cup of hot cocoa, today’s “3sday’s 3Q’s in 3 Min” is guaranteed to sweeten up your cold winter’s day.

Every Thursday, socialTNT channels the spirit of citizen journalism by putting bloggers, reporters, PR pro’s or anyone with something to say about social media in front of the camera for a short, three minute interview. The videos are meant to encourage dialog between PR/communications practitioners and marketers on the future of media.

While on vacation in Austin, socialTNT was able to catch up with Twitter friend and Social Media Marketing Consultant, Jon Ray. Today, Jon tells us what it is a Social Media Consultant does and also what to look for when choosing a live videocasting host.

At the ripe age of 23, Jon is founder of Suited Productions, a media production and marketing firm. The company, founded in 2005, originally started off as an HD video production company for television and music video. Jon’s move into social networking campaigns began in the early days of MySpace, when a real estate company asked him to figure out ways to attract a younger crowd to the near-campus district. Jon set up a renter community to help calm parents’ and young renters’ fears, while also generating leads for the real estate firm.

Since then, Jon’s main focus is helping brands integrate their ad campaigns and marketing goals into social media campaigns that create a conversation. His biggest success so far has been the Toyota Line of Scrimmage to introduce high school students to Toyota. The series involved reporting on and broadcasting high school football games from the back of a Toyota Tundra. Not surprising, Jon has been hired as a consultant for ad agency Saatchi & Saatchi.

Jon’s approach to social media is very hands-on and experiential. He’s not just satisfied with reading about the various tools and strategies, he has to test the technology and see what works. You can find him on Twitter, Flickr, MySpace, LinkedIn, and Facebook. Right now, Jon is testing transparency while trying out various lifecasting and video casting platforms.

[For an archived video of Jon's lifecast from our interview and warm-up, click here. Watch as we talk about Apple's lack of social media strategy and other geek stuff.]

See the results of Jon’s trials to find out which videocasting platform Jon prefers and listen to him say sooth on upcoming social media marketing and advertising trends for 2008!

Are you as much a video fan as Jon and I are? Or do you think live video is just another fad?

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[The above photo, "Jon Ray is the Future," used by permission from Jon Ray]