Sorry about the language, this is not my video, just ignore it.

Nu sunt eu fana Michael, dar ce-au facut persoanele respective e demn de admirat. Jos palaria!

Dopo il Tributo ai Radiohead ed ai R.E.M. sul sito è possibile scaricare l’album tributo a Bjork: “Post” è stato coverizzato da 12 artisti tra cui gli Atlas Sound (Headphones), Xiu Xiu (Isobel) e Liars (Army of me).

Buon ascolto.

A statue to the founder of the Football League, part-funded by Aston Villa supporters, is unveiled at Villa Park…. From BBC News. Full story

This site may contain information about: soccer player. The blog is also related to: german football.

I could have typed:  A Tribute to Martha but that would not have been correct.  That title would give the impression that my words were simply a way to honor this friend of  51 years.   My intention is different.

Martha is a tribute to us, her fellow humans.  Her life of courage brings honor to our species.

For years, we have teased about writing her life story.  Admittedly, Martha’s emails rarely  require more that 8 to 10 words.  Her talents are science and math.   So the plan (my plan) was to use my keyboard and her memories to record her story.   So far, she is still laughing at my persistence.

Obviously, it would be a breach of trust for me to write the story without her participation.  I won’t do that.

But I can write, Martha, A Tribute so you, Gentle Reader, will know the name of a woman of amazing strength, courage and an abiding trust in her God.

My friends have on more than one occasion commented on my eccentric taste in music, and how I listen to bands none has heard of. I usually reply by claiming that most people like bands more than their music. But quite frankly, the people who compose stuff I listen to can’t always be characterised as “bands” (and I don’t mean that in just the commercial sense).

I have often wondered how great artistic merit emerges out of places where no-one is looking. Not the popular media, not the critics. And these are being generated at an enormous rate. How can you NOT FALL IN LOVE WITH THIS:

More pieces like these get rejected in monthly contests at deviant art and deleted than future archeologists will be able to uncover and catalogue.

How many literary critics have even heard of Planescape Torment?

How many short fiction enthusiasts are familiar with the art of quoting from fictitious books?

I have realised that most soundtracks on my playlists are ambient compositions meant for videogames. I think its high-time I published those that most frequently get listened to. So, here are the top 10 videogame tracks of all time (in no particular order):

1. Underworld II (from the original UNREAL TOURNAMENT)
2. Hell March 2 (from RED ALERT 2)
3. Zerg Ambience 1 (from STARCRAFT)
4. Rebel Base Theme 1 (from CRUSADER: NO REMORSE)
5. Rain in the Night (from the original COMMAND AND CONQUER)
6. At Doom’s Gate (from the original DOOM)
7. Main Theme (from ADVENT RISING)
8. Track 24 (from HALF-LIFE 2)
9. Main Theme (from METAL GEAR SOLID 3: SNAKE EATER)
10. Main Theme (from TOMB RAIDER 4: THE LAST REVELATION)

So there you go. I have fulfilled my nonconformist quota for several lifetimes. Happy listening ^_,^

Photosource: www.starsjournal.com

Artist David Ilan is creating a hand-drawn portrait of Michael Jackson completely compromised of dots. The dots are only added to the drawing if people sign up on the tribute website. Signing up for a dot is free, and every person who signs up gets their own individual dot number that will be added to the drawing. The tribute is endorsed by a lot of celebrities including Jermaine Jackson, and Diana Ross.

Being the dedicated Michael Jackson fan that I am, once I heard about this I immediately signed up for a dot. I’m always up for anything that’s free, and has to do with Michael Jackson. I encourage other fans to sign up for their dots, it’ll be done at one million dots.

Copyright Disney

After a full meal of turkey, stuffing and mashed potatoes, I plopped myself down in the space rocket-type chairs at the Union Square Regal theater to see the new Disney movie Old Dogs.

After watching the trailer for the movie, it seemed like it should be a must see family movie this holiday season. Now don’t get me wrong, if you have younger kids or are looking for a cheap, cheezy laugh, definitely go and check this film out.

From the beginning of this film I felt rushed as a viewer. There were frantic cuts everywhere, and it seemed like they were either trying to make up for a lack of good shots or were trying to speed through ALL of the beginning dialogue. This got better throughout the film, but even at the end there were some scenes that felt like they were being rushed through.

The plot didn’t see to flow very well. There were some awkward transitions and some really weird jump cuts that, if I had edited the film, I definitely would not have added.

The acting again felt a bit rushed, it wasn’t the normal comedic experience you expect from Robin Williams, but there were some moments where Mrs. Doubtfire truly showed through that made me laugh. John Travolta’s comedy seemed forced, but some of his scenes you can’t help but crack up at. As for Seth Green, I was surprised at how little he was actually in the film. He had maybe 5 scenes, but that might be pushing it.

I’d like to take this part of the review and dedicate it to Bernie Mac. He did an exeptional job in this film and I already truly miss his presence on the big screen. He was a fantastic actor and he has, and will continue to be greatly missed.

Overall this filmed seemed to be a bit rushed and forced, but I would be lying if I said it didn’t make me laugh. If you are looking for a film to make you chuckle, I would recommend this. The man behind me did shy away from blurting out that he had not laughed that hard in a long time. So if you don’t think you will be annoyed by the jumpy editing, or the mediocre acting, go see this film over the holidays.

Happy Black Friday!!!!! If you are not from the U.S., it is just like Boxing Day in Canada.

For the Maze, I can’t really explain it so here’s the map.

Step 1: Go to the Ski Village

Step 2: Click the Red Button

Step3: Click the Red Button to show the Map.

The Map will look like this:

How to get the Yeti Costume:

Step1: You will need to find the end of the maze

Step 2: Go inside and it will look like this

Step 3: Walk over to the Big Bin That Says Prize

How to Get the Blue Pom Pom Toque:

Go to the Ski Hill

Click on the Big Bin That Says Free

This should come up, Click “Yes” and you now have this item.

New Sleds

Snow And Sports Catalog Cheats:

Click the Green Penguin’s Face for the Green Hockey Jersey

Click The Lime Green Penguin’s Face for the Green Goalie Gear

Click the word Ice in Ice Skating for the White Pom Poms

During a holiday where we typically celebrate with those we love and share those things we are grateful for (and direct that thankfulness accordingly, in our case, toward God), I must admit that my focus has been limited to being faced with the truth of my beloved mother-in-law’s seemingly limited time on this earth.

Tributes are all too often done AFTER someone departs this earth. I wanted to make sure that I crafted a Thanksgiving Tribute to Peg before she leaves us. I don’t know if she’ll be able to hear this if someone reads it to her but I want her and those around me to know how much I love her and how grateful I am that she’s been such an inspirational woman of faith and fortitude in my life.  Here are some snippets of the letter I posted to Peg on my personal blog at Abramo-Bits & Bytes:

Peg, I don’t know if you will awaken long enough to ever read this or to hear it read to you but I couldn’t let you go without saying good-bye to you. It seems at this time I won’t get a chance to see you unless God intervenes in a big way, the only way He ever intervenes  . So, as the tears flow down my cheeks, I want you to know that I love you.

You’ve been a great model of a wife who loved her husband like the one described in Proverbs 31. I think it’s right to include some of that Proverb here because it aptly describes much of the woman you’ve been to your husband and family:

An excellent wife who can find?
She is far more precious than jewels.
The heart of her husband trusts in her,
and he will have no lack of gain.
She does him good, and not harm,
all the days of her life.

I love your zest for life.  You’re always willing to speak what’s on your mind.  There is no “wondering” about how you feel about something.  I love that.  I love the discussions we’ve had about life, faith and the world around us.  As easily as you express your opinion, you also listen to what others have to say.

Your laugh is infectious.  Some of my best memories are of us all laughing…

I’ll also never forget how you accepted me into your family as one of your own.  I’ve felt as much a part of your family as I have my own…

I wish we could play one more round of golf together.  Your compliments of my golfing far exceeded my actual ability.  You’ve been a great …

Read the entire LIVING tribute to my mother-in-law Peg by CLICKING HERE and going to Abramo-Bits & Bytes

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!

I have so many reasons to be grateful!!  This entire year has been filled with so many blessings and signs of just how much God truly loves me! 

I don’t mean to boast.  Yet, I do because  I’ve had plenty of holidays and birthdays that I would just refuse to acknowledge.  These days, I try to make the most out of each day, each holiday, and each birthday.  Every day is a celebration!!!

So Thanksgiving, for me, has been every single day.  As soon as I wake up every morning:

“Thank you. Thank you. Thank you!!!” 

EAT AS MUCH AS YOU CAN, BUT PLEASE DO NOT!!!!

                                                                          OR!!!

THAT’S ALL I ASK…

Last week, SOBs got together with some of Roc Raida’s friends and family and hosted a benefit concert. The official lineup was D.I.T.C., Brand Nubian, Large Professor, Immortal Technique and The Beatnuts. Then lots of guests showed up.

DJ Jazzy Jay

Check out more after the jump.Large Professor

Lord Finesse and Kool Herc

Lord Finesse and Easy Mo Bee

Sadat X (Brand Nubian)

Brand Nubian

Beatnuts

Immortal Technique

R.I.P. Roc Raida, you will be missed.

Thanks to all those who came out to wish their support, show their love and offer condolences to the family. If you have your own photos or videos, we’d love to see them! Share in the comments.

Picture this: laughter, gaiety, pleasant company, delicious dinner on the floor, Nerf darts flying through the air, giant piles of bean bag-esque dealies to sit on—a generally lovely night all around. Queue temporary anoxic nightmare. Queue emergency room. Queue nothing. Somewhere a doctor at Edwards Hospital retreats to his/her office and admires his/her own face in a solid gold plate before delicately eating a decadent truffle off it. At least that’s how I picture it.

Alright, so you tell me where the money went.

I am having an evening with my darling male escort at the home of a few of his friends about two months back. His friend is cooking us a superb dinner (which we will then eat, charmingly, on the floor. Having grown up in a home that was additionally a daycare in the basement during my formative years, I have an affinity for floor-eating, so I am in my element). The food being prepared far outweighs my abilities in the kitchen, and so I volunteer triumphantly to take the little Pillsbury crescent rolls out of the tube and arrange them on the pan. The ones I do look like multi-layered and variously sized sticks. Huh. Not sure how I pulled that off, but at least it does not affect the taste. We eat, all is right with the world.

After about an hour and a half eyeing their cat, whose name is Tribute (as I’m told, he’s not the greatest cat in the world), my cat allergies begin to overtake my fragile little body. Massive asthma attack (oh yes—I am asthmatic too. My mother did not breed genetically superior progeny). No uses of my inhaler (17 puffs in about a half hour will give you the shakes, child) will take it down. I inform Darling Male Escort, who since dinner has been engaged in a lovely Nerf dart gun fight with others, that I’m just a touch out of stuff like oxygen and seem to be getting worse by even the minute. I am trying not to panic; I feel like possibly Pavarotti has popped a squat on my chest. Knowing that Pavarotti died recently, I can be reasonably certain that it’s an asthma issue and I need to go home. I pop a Benadryl that the lady of the house is wonderful to provide me with, and we are off.

Alright, strike that “home” business. We have now left the house 5 minutes ago, and I cannot catch a breath. I am panicked and coughing, and I’m concerned I’m going to lose oxygen and pass out. To the ER, Jeeves! Step lively, step lively.

So Darling Male Escort quickly gets me to an ER, where they promptly put the Swine Flu prevention mask over my mouth—my mouth which already cannot get a breath. Thanks, guys. One of those cruel to be kind things, I wager. Hack, hack, hack, cough, cough, wheeeeeze, as a mask sucks itself to my face like gauzy kidnapping gag tape.

I am then wheeled to an ER room and given a gown and a bed. I am already feeling a little better, breathing better, certain I won’t be passing out at least. Darling Male Escort and I wait for a doctor or a nurse or something. Someone to get my information. Someone to give me a nebulizer treatment, or even just half-assedly pretend to read my blood pressure. We wait for an hour.

An hour when you are unable to breathe due to environmental causes will accomplish one of two things—1.) you will die, or 2.) you will entirely recover. I’ll break the tension here: I did not die.

No, in an hour, I got entirely better. Apparently the Benadryl kicked in, and that was enough to stave off the allergy attack, which effectively released the stranglehold on my asthma issues. Let me tell you, gentle reader, one begins to feel a little silly lying pitifully on an ER table in a gown when the doctor comes in to find you a rather lovely shade of flesh-colored, no longer wheezing or coughing, and you tell him “Hey, um, so about that breathing. All better. Uh, thanks for all your negligence; how did you know it would be just the ticket? Amazing.” You feel silly because it’s actually the truth.

Ah well. I collect my humiliation up to use at a later date, reconstruct my previous outfit onto my newly oxygen-occupied body, returning my hour-long hospital gown to the bed, and Darling Male Escort and I ease on down, ease on down the road back to his place so’s I can sleep it off. And as I drift off to sleep in a happy haze of Tylenol PM and Xanax, a cynical thought occurs to me—I sat in an ER for an hour with no treatment whatsoever. I bet this is going to cost lots of money.

I had no idea. I received the bill this week in the mail. I got charged $22. I do not think I received $22 of service. I mean, I rented a gown that doesn’t close in back and a bed without a blanket from the hospital for an hour, but I’d probably only consider that to be worth about $10. And no tip! Bastards never checked up on me. Hey MD, you got other tables to serve here, guy.

But $22 was nothing compared to what my insurance company got billed. $850! Let me repeat that—they had to cover $850!! How do you people sleep at night? Aside from, clearly, on 1200 thread count Vera Wang Egyptian cotton sheets. With people fanning you and feeding you grapes. Goodness. For a bed, for an hour. Whores charge less, and they at least make sure you leave the bed smiling.

Jesus. I hope that ER bed is rent-to-own, or someone might have been screwed here…

Time alone heals, counting ticks of the clock…
A year gone by, since they entered through the dock…
They came, they surrounded, they fired…
They took away as many lives, as they desired…

I still remember the day, to the idiot box we did glue…
Of when it would end, how many would survive, we had no clue…
I sincerely hope that no such incidents will occur…
No neighbor, no terrorism, henceforth makes us suffer…

I wonder if we can re-wind the time…
To paint a different picture altogether, so sublime…
One with no pain, no terror, no nothing…
One with peace, love, growth and no uprising!!

A moment of silence, we offer to all the lives cost…
And a piece of advice to the offenders, just get lost…
To the ones who sacrificed for others, we offer our humble tributes…
Fellow citizens at Mumbai, for showing us how to move on..heartfelt salutes…

*********************************************************************

It’s been a year since the 11/26 terror attacks took place at several locations in Mumbai. The guts of the people who conspired against India are worth condemning…they were cowards who attacked and killed innocent people just for some kind of false faith they were made to believe in. No religion or faith in the world preaches voilence and hatred. The young men who came in as terror faces were no doubt brainwashed, so much that common sense failed to prevail in them…
It feels sad to see the state of our judiciary, in which we all (seem to) have immense faith…it’s been a year now and they still seem to argue over the nationality and blood group of the lone terrorist caught…that I sometimes chuckle, at the thought that they are conducting more of a matrimonial enquiry for him rather than a judicial one.
Some people do bakwaas about ‘Mumbai not belonging to India’ and all that but then those very folks were scribbling in the comforts of their homes while the aam junta were making “Saamna” of the situation at hand….anyways, kudos to the spirits of Mumbaikars who once again braved against all odds in successfully facing the idiosyncrasies that life had in offer for them.

Achilleas art is a distinctive one, he combines the Greek Sun, the unique design, the state of art techniques and fine materials like yours, Happy birthday keep up both the great work!

As we near closer and closer to Hemp Works Sweet 16th anniversary (check our party blog here!), we are proud to present one of HoodLamb’s most enchanting collabs all year with featured artist: Achilleas Giannissis. Hemp Works were so pleased to work with Achilleas that we asked him to create a 2nd HoodLamb Art jacket for the anniversary. This because Achilleas is a wizard of art, or a machine if you want. He creates instantly and intensely. That’s magic!

μέσω Achilleas for Hemp Works’ Sweet 16th anniversary – Hemp Works Blog.