Follow the link: Righteous Ninja

DueceZ (David J. Benson) is the performer this time, awesome… >:D

- – - – - – - – -

Here’s the other article of interest, details on how the previous Ninja Turtle movies were a success and why THIS movie can be an even GREATER success: Ninja Turtles: Secret of the Movie

Sample:

What made the turtles a success in the past?

Ninja Turtles were a huge hit with children in the late 1980’s. The concept of a “ninja” was very exciting and still relatively new to American culture. Ninja Turtles had everything a child would want to see all wrapped up into one show, ninjas, mutants, pizza, skate boards, and funny jokes. In contrast, shows like GI-JOE were more true to life. The superhero genre had not yet taken off in the way it has over the last decade as a result, the audience was not as spoiled by special effects and big budget productions as they are today.

In 1990 the first live action movie was made for the relatively small price of 13.5 million and grossed a little over 200 million worldwide. It was the first successful live action movie that began as an animated series. People were excited to see their Saturday morning heroes come to life on the big screen. However, as Ninja Turtles grew more popular, more hands went in the decision making pot. Passion and creativity were slowly replaced by a committee of businessmen. It was unfortunate that the next three films did not find the same success as their predecessor.

Our challenge is to bring back the fire and excitement that people had for the first live action Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie.

All for now guys, stay tuned for the next updates =D.

"Come One, Come All and Don't Be Late!" *82

My critters have grown very impatient with me over the last few weeks because I’ve not been feeling very well. Now it’s the start of the Holiday Season and they need to know all will be well ….. Soo… the party is on! Yes, we are having the Pre-Thanksgiving Day party on my patio to start as soon as the sunsets. The word is out…. always tell a rabbit first and it will spread far and wide…. not that they gossip or anything… it’s just that there are so darn many of ‘em! It will be a very busy day today…. it will start soon as the sunrise is not far off. For the critters will be pulling out and putting on their happy pants and dancing shoes! Oh yes, there will be fun and lots of dancing to great music and as always plenty of food for all the different critters. Lets see….. our new raccoon family is still around Little Momma, Benny, June and Bebe. Tater and Tot and Rocco are also around. Then the opossum gang… now consists of Billy Bob, Pinky and her guy pal Tony…oh and can’t forget that rowdy little JoBo! A host of squirrels and one that needs some behavior modification from time to time…. that would be none other than Mr. Double Trouble The Super Squirrel who is a little upstart juvenile that might not make it through his first full season if he doesn’t learn form his mistakes. But I digress…. moving on now…. we have snakes, turtles, lizards, field mice and tons of rabbits as I have mentioned earlier. And birds! Lots and lots of birds. The ones that are here year around and that includes the Red-shouldered Hawks…. oh yeah the ”for hire” Turkey Vultures{they better be careful since its turkey day… and some folks been having hard times…hehehe..}. Our feathered friends…. yes for this short time we still have a few of our summer friends here and some of our returning wintering friends too! It is so nice to have all of them together… well as many as we can as some have left and not all are here yet. By Christmas the full change over will be in place. For now we will enjoy one and all as we party the night away. We will have that fire going. Some of the critters will get a poker game or two going but for the most part we will be dancing! We will be hoppin’ and boppin’ to our man Bob Seger and the new CD by Lynyrd Skynyrd. Some of Hank Jr. too! Led Zep, CCR, Blackfoot, 38. Special, Stones,Bonnie Raitt, Chris Berardo & The DesBerardos, Josh Turner and some ZZ Top Too! We like a mix of tunes…lol…. and there will be others….. the critters make a cool play list. And yes I will be out there too. I need a good party….. I’m gonna get my alien skin cow poke boots out of the attic…. it’s been raining and they can get down right pissy if they get wet so I haven’t been able to take them out much….. so they were making a lot of noise that upset the critters so I had to put them in the attic to calm down. I think it is safe enough now for me to bring them down and take them out of the Debbie Myers zip-lock green bag. So once I shake ‘em out and let them adjust to the temp change…. they should be just right for a real long night of wild dancing…… we both need that to get the Holidays off to a good start! So just what will all of you out there gonna be doing? If ya are close…. just stop on by…. you’ll know when ya find us…lol…we party like none other….. just bring your dancing shoes and your happy pants if ya got some and shake a leg with us….. eat, drink and be very, very merry! Be happy, love and share until our paths cross again….. Lila and all the gang!

PS: THE CRITTERS HAVE MADE A SPECIAL REQUEST THAT SARAH PALIN IS NOT INVITED!

PPS: For any of my new readers please know that when we have our parties and during the Super Bowl all the critters agree to not try and eat any of the other critters…lol… some times I do have to remind the Red Shouldered Hawks that the other smaller critters are NOT part of the snacks….. and so far so good!

One week before I start my first “real job,” I couldn’t feel any more like an adult.  Then I got a swift kick to the groin by my kindergarten-self.  The CW had a special 90-minute movie entitled “Turtles Forever.”  Now, I had watched the new TMNT cartoons, and although I enjoyed watching them for Turtles’ sake, they were not the Turtles of old.  My turtles, the early 90s incarnation, are THE turtles, and I think most of you would agree with me.

So you can understand why I might have been hesitant to sit and watch this entire movie.  But then it happened.

The movie opened with a classic Turtles entrance- out of the shadows they save the day.  I noticed something unexpected.  The masks that the shadowed turtles were wearing looked oddly familiar… something old.  Turns out I was right.  The old turtles were BACK.  They had warped into an alternate dimension (inhabited by the new turtles of course) and wallah- 2 sets of turtles in one show.

And where there are two sets of turtles, you have to have two sets of Shredders.  It was the Technodrome that warped the turtles, which of course warped Shedder, Krang, Bebop, Rocksteady, and the robotic Foot Soldiers.  IT WAS AWESOME.

This movie did a lot to point out how ridiculous the old turtles were- always worried about pizza, jokes, and generally tomfoolery.  The use of trashcans to take out enemies was a favorite joke in this movie.  However, I think that’s why we all liked them so much.  They were lighthearted and fun, less intent on making sense and being realistic (I mean, it was a show about TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES right?).

The main part of the story is that good ol’ Shed-Head has finally figured out how to destroy the turtles once and for all.  After learning about alternate dimensions and seeing that every dimensions has its own set of turtles (a cool moment where you get to see about 15 different versions of the turtles, including live-action movie turtles), he decides he must warp to Turtle-Prime and destroy Laird and Eastman’s very first comic book versions.  Turtle-Prime Turtles are BAMFs by the way.

Overall, this was a great way to spend my Saturday morning.  It reminded me of all the good times I had with the Heroes on a Half-Shell back in the day, and the story was actually really really good.

As a fantastic tribute to the 25th Anniversary of the Ninja Turtles, this movie definitely gets a Grade: A    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YixMJJzOCoA

An insightful interview with the dynamic visionaries Luke and Kieth:

- – - – - – - –

Hey guys! Welcome to the official Ninja Turtles: Dawn of the Ninja blog!

I’ll be updating this web site constantly, with pictures, articles, video’s and anything news worthy in general!

I hope you all are as excited as I am about the amazing progress that has been taking place in recent months.

For now, please visit the official website: Dawn of The Ninja

And check out this awesome art piece:

Just a little slice of awesome for the day.

- Video from YouTube.com

Here is a very brief clip of, what appears to be a giant affrican “sea-turtle.”  No details were given – some claim the “thing” to be, simply put, a rotting whale.

Have fun.

HG

Home, home on the rage
Where the turtles gallop and graze
Where seldom is heard an un-turtle-y word
And shellers are non-physical all day!

That’s right, our latest trader item is over 50% complete, but instead of the normal clue, Grim and I decided to just flat-out tell you what the item is, and we’re extremely excited about it.  This item will be something that allows all of your turtles to become non-physical and stay within a certain radius.  This will make it so that they will not create ANY collisions, and will also make it extremely easy to have “free-range” turtles.  This also means that they won’t stay within enclosure walls unless their range stays within the enclosure, which is why this is something that will be completely optional.

This is such an important thing, though, that Grim and I have decided that this should be free for everyone and not cost any points.  What will the lottery winners get this time then, you may ask?  Each of our five lottery winners will get TWO boxes of hatchless food, valued at L$2900.

While the home item will be distributed as an item, Grim and I definitely hope that people take the script and make turtle habitats with the script in it that are pre-made non-physical enclosures for peoples’ turtles.  There will be more details about the actual usage of the item coming soon.

Turtix didn’t know what would happen when he tried casting a powerful spell without the supervision of his teacher. He lost control, and now things are even worse than he knew! He needs your help! He must find the pieces of a shattered amulet, and help save all the young turtles who were captured in the chaos. Guide Turtix through his world in this charming side-scrolling arcade adventure.

3 difficulty levels.

5 worlds to conquer.

Dozens of enemies to defeat.

System Requirements:

OS: Windows 2000/XP/VISTA

CPU: 600MHz or faster Processor

RAM: 128 MB

It Takes Just A second To Say Thanks,

It Takes Longer To The Work On This.

Turtix

I really love turtles. I just think that they’re fascinating creatures. They’re slow and plodding on dry land, but they are graceful and beautiful to watch while in the water. The fact that they could be trained to be ninjas while still adolescents probably did much to build my reverence for them in my younger years. I wanted one badly when as a child, but my parents warned that they carried diseases. In hindsight, they probably just didn’t want to clean out the aquarium, or for me to take it out of the aquarium and have it crawling around on the new carpeting. Though I’m all grown up and on living far away from their dictatorial grasp, I haven’t yet taken the plunge and bought my own. This can be attributed to my wife’s dictatorial grasp, but in her defense it’s also because I’m too lazy to clean out an aquarium. As compensation, I’ve downloaded the turtle widget on my igoogle homepage, and usually waste numerous seconds each day “feeding” them and watching them swim around.

Given how much I love turtles, it’s only natural that I’d be compelled to learn about them. Instead of  tackling the whole genus, I’ve decided to focus on a few of my favorite species. First up, in case you couldn’t read the title of the post, is the soft shelled turtle. Now I know what you’re thinking, “But DJ, turtles have hard shells, that’s what makes them turtles,” but that’s what makes the soft shelled turtles so interesting.

Instead of hard, bony shells, the soft shelled turtles shells are made of thickened skin. While the area covering their body is relatively hard, the edges are soft and pliable. This makes the soft shell turtle more vulnerable to injury and attack than other turtles. To avoid these injuries the soft shell turtle usually spends its time buried under sand or mud at the bottom of lakes and rivers. The different types of soft shell turtles are usually distinguished by the color of their shells, which are different depending on the type of sand they’re most around.

Since they spend most of their time underwater, the turtles are able to absorb a large amount of oxygen through their skin. They also have the longest neck compared to its body of all turtles so that they can reach their heads above water to get air without disrupting itself from the sand of more shallow waters. They also have a long proboscis on their nose which allows them to reach further, and to keep their snouts above water when buried.

The turtles are mostly carnivorous, their diet consists mostly of aquatic invertebrates and crayfish, but some have been known to eat ducks which they grab from below.  They’ve also been known to feed on frogs, tadpoles, mollusks and worms. Since they are carnivorous, the soft shelled turtles have strong jaws. They can also be quite aggressive out of water and have been known to amputate human fingers.

Every once in a while, a truly remarkable story happens. The kind of story that you want the world to know. While procrastinating studying for my Buyer Behavior exam tomorrow, I find it only appropriate to share this story with the world. If you were one of the lucky few that witnessed this, you can agree just how ridiculous it was.

So a few weekends ago I had my four best girl friends come visit me who I met abroad. These girls know me really well. We spent every moment together abroad. From  getting along in France using our French with our all-too-typical American accents to laughing at the French have a hard time distinguishing and differentiating the words bitch and beach and shit and sheet (it’s a really fun game, try it with a French person some time), we have all been through a lot.

Of course by nature this story had to happen when they visited. One of the girls visiting has a few very close friends from Chicago who also attend CU. The weekend I spent a good amount of time with these boys as well seeing that they wanted to see her as much as I did during her 48-hour visit.

So we decide to go one of the guys houses, located just off of the Hill  (the general student ZONE at CU loaded with student houses.)I should have known it would make a good story when the reason we went initially was to meet Desi, the puppy who one of the boys (who shall remain nameless for identity purposes and because I want him to still be my friend is he reads this) was obsessed with. “Desi is the cutest dog ever,” he says. Yeah ok, whatever, I think. My house has a dog, Steve. In my mind Steve is the cutest dog. Everyone thinks that their dog is the cutest.

Of all of my years at CU (four) I have never been into a house with so many animals. We walk in and Desi, (yes I will admit the puppy was VERY cute as a German Shepherd with blue eyes) attacks us. The guy picks her up and starts kissing her open mouthed. They are full on making out. Then we notice a strange case on the side. He explains to us that it is his houses’s ecosystem, or terrarium. He holds up Salamanders, lizards, and points to the pond. He tells us that he probably goes to Petsmart like once a week. IN COLLEGE? GET OUT OF HERE. I can not believe that him and his roomates go to Petsmart once a week to buy an animal or food to keep up the “ecosystem.”

Then he gets tip-tup who is in solitary confinement for murdering 6 other fish in a pot. My girls and I get heated because we’re thinking that this is mean! Tip-Tup didn’t chose to murder the fish. He was hungry. Maybe they all shouldn’t be put to live together like a big happy college family.

Then one of the girls screams in the bathroom and runs out. She goes, “OMG there is a crab in the toilet!” The guy goes, ” oh yeah sorry about that I meant to flush.”  (thinking she said crap) “Wait, what, how can you go to the bathroom and have that come out?” “OOOO the CRAB. yeah that is not for you that is for H.”

ok so recap. E goes to the bathroom and sees a crab in the toilet that is not there for her, it is there for H. Wow.

So we all start laughing at the craziness of this situation. Crazy until it gets documented.

So there is Edward Scissorclaws in  the toilet. This spurs the following conversation:

Hey everyone!

Last week’s show proved to be extremely tough, but we still got a nice variety of entries.  Congratulations to our winners:

• Salmon TPKB (owned by Trystan Parx) with 689 points
• Charlie (owned by Quenlay Myrtle) with 655 points
• Valencia Flame (owned by Tabitha Miranda) with 651 points

For this week, we chose to do a much more accessible color and can’t wait to see the scores.  This week’s colors are:

• Body: (100, 60, 60)
• Top Shell: (100, 60, 60)
• Bottom Shell: (100, 60, 60)

I can’t wait to see what you guys are able to breed for this week!

The first new point item from the trader was released this past weekend.  It allows you to revive any turtle that starves from now on.  Along with this, there was an update to fix a couple of bugs related to the point item.  Thanks to server optimizations that Grim made last week, the update went very smoothly.  The trader’s meter has once again started back up.

This is strictly a post for chicks. Critter jewelry is one of the biggest trends in the business, so much so that HSN has an entire section on its Web site called “Critter Corner.”

It’s basically jewelry fashioned out of every kind of creature you can imagine.

On ShopNBC Monday, vendor Chuck Clemency had on the cutest pieces of critter jewelry we have ever seen: A squirrel pendant and ring.

They both featured a squirrel holding a “nut,” which is actually a citrine stone, and nibbling on it. These items have sold out three times, and this squirrel is Clemency’s No. 1 favorite critter.

He told some wacky story about a squirrel making a nest and having babies in his attic, and said he did not know if the rodents gave birth or laid eggs. Yikes, and this guy is from Jersey!

As for his squirrel pieces, Clemency said, “This squirrel will not multiply.”

HSN has a large variety of critters, including a “Magic Motion” turtle ring by Princess Amanda and a monkey from Adrienne Arpel.

More good news for endangered turtles

Sandy the adult Hawksbill sea turtle flew home to the Virgin Islands to be released back to the ocean in the Virgin Islands  after nearly one year of rehab.at The Turtle Hospital. American Airlines airline flight for Sandy, Turtle Hospital Director Richie Moretti, and Administrator Ryan Butts to St. Croix. This is the farthest destination that The Turtle Hospital has ever traveled to release a sea turtle.

Sandy goes home

Thanks also are in order to USFW biologist Claudia Lombard who organized the release in St. Croix, USDA wildlife services biologist Toby Hairston, and St. Croix Educational Complex student Mohammed Misbeh and Dan Raymond who also assisted in the release.

“Bless you all and many thanks”-Mother Nature

Research

Excerpts ans Image courtesy of  http://www.virginislandsdailynews.com/index.pl/article_home?id=17640710

Imagine, a lighthouse, the shining ocean, the moon hanging high in the sky,and the love of your life proposing to you amongst lights he placed on the beach. Très romantic, I agree. What is tragic is that this also caused the mass death of 60 baby sea turtles. Okay, so the man claims he was not aware that lights on the beach would disorient the endangered species journey to the big DEEP but as all Beachside residents of Hilton Head, South Carolina know, from May 1 to October 31, there is an enforced “Lights Out for the Turtles” policy especially, “lights on structures visible from the beach [having to] be shielded or turned off after 10 PM from May 1 to October 31. Any windows facing the beach must also be covered with draperies or shade screens.”

‘It is during May-August that female loggerhead sea turtles climb onto the beach and lay their eggs in nests in the sand. After about 60 days, the baby sea turtles hatch — usually at night — poke their tiny heads through the sand and make the short, but arduous journey to the ocean.

Lights that appear anywhere near or on the beach can disorient the hatchling sea turtles, since they instinctively head for the glimmering ocean. “They look for the natural light reflecting off of the ocean,” Sarah Skigen, a member of the Island’s Turtle Patrol, told WTOC News. “They’re looking for the natural light, the surf, the brightness of the white surf, as well as the general slope of the beach, so they head downwards and make their way to the ocean.”

But last week, a man staying at the Palmetto Dunes, a luxurious oceanfront resort on Hilton Head, placed dozens of glowing white cones of light lit with flashlights all over the darkened beach to create a romantic atmosphere while proposing to his girlfriend. Unfortunately, he picked the exact night that the baby sea turtles hatched, reports WTOC News. The hatchlings, disoriented by all the lights, wandered around the dark beach before dying on the sand.

Local resident Tom Skigen and his wife, who keep watch over the turtles’ nests, were devastated at what they found Wednesday morning, reports WTOC News. “Approximately 60 hatchlings disoriented and that means they went everywhere but the ocean,” Skigen told WTOC News. “They went back to the dunes, they got confused by the light on the beach at the times so they go in circular motion and eventually succumb to either crabs, birds or simply exhaustion and die.”

“You’re angry,” Skigen told WTOC News. “it’s just very frustrating to work this hard and to have essentially a whole nest lost.”

Town officials gave the man a warning, who said “he was unaware of the rules and was very sorry for what had happened,” reports WTOC News. The woman he proposed to apparently said yes to the offer of marriage, as she was spotted wearing a ring. The Palmetto Dunes resort said it would do more to educate its guests about the lights out policy, reports WTOC News.’

sad sad

I just got back from a few days in central Florida…DeLand, Deltona, Orange City, DeBerry area.  We stopped by the St. Johns Marina in DeLand on the St. Johns River to meet and visit with friends of my husband’s brother and his wife who live in Orange City.  If you ever drop by the St. Johns Marina, don’t forget to visit the Shady Oaks Bait and Tackle shop there and Let Chris or Jeff know that we sent you.  They also rent pontoon boats, have live bait, provide dockside service and have marine batteries.  Well, these young men are great!  They let us take a pontoon boat out on the river.  It was a marvelous experience!  The only time I have been to Florida was once to see Disney World and visit Sea World.  It was straight down and straight back and I never got to see the sights.

My idea of what Florida was all about turned out to be just that…my idea, not reality.  It was a very nice place.  These towns are about 20 minutes from the ocean.  They are near Orlando, South of Jacksonville.  Oh, and the St. Johns River…not like any river I’ve seen.  They are nothing like the rivers of the west.  They meander through swamps where thousands of birds live along with the manatee, gators, and turtles.  It is green and lush, and dotted with flowers everywhere.  Moss hangs from the trees.  It was one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen.

Of the four days we were there, only one was cold and rainy.  The rest of the time it was warm and mostly sunny and wonderful for a mid-November day.  Chris and Jeff are looking for a boat for us to buy and remodel so that we can store it in a slip when we are not there, and enjoy boating in this tropical paradise when we vacation.  Slip storage is very inexpensive.  Of course when we are living on the boat, the expense goes up but for a vacation place, it is very reasonable.

I have volunteered to paint a mural on the wall in Chris’s bait and tackle shop.  So, the next time we head to Florida, I will be taking along my smock, paints, brushes, and vision and spend time painting.  I can hardly wait!  Jim is going to make me a portable easel to keep on the boat.

The point I want to make here is that if I had not accepted my sister-in-laws invitation to visit, (originally we were going down to see the launch of the space shuttle that was canceled due to weather), I would never have gotten this new vision of Florida.  My husband is Ex Navy and has been trying for years to convince me to live on a boat.  It was not part of my life experience and I just ignored his suggestion.  After my experience this week, I can actually see myself living, part-time, on a boat and traveling the water ways and perhaps even up the inter-coastal waterways.  This is paradigm shift for me.  So, before you cross things off your list of possibilities, check them out.  You may be pleasantly surprised.

Earlier this year, Taser International announced that they were offering a semi-automatic version of their popular party toy–the stun gun. This new version is capable of shooting up to three people without reloading the $30/shot taser cartridges. As this news was released in June, let me put some context around why this is relevant today.

Let’s say you’re in the airport awaiting a return to a state you have a love/hate relationship with (love the weather, abhor being unemployed). You receive a phone call from a friend/relative/stranger who will remain unidentified. After appropriate formalities, she (yes, my hypothetical girl is a girl) dovetails into the inevitable topic– legal advice.

“Um, I need you to draft a waiver for me.” She says, not as tentatively enough as she should have given the direction that this conversation continues.

“Okay….”

She launches into a story of a trip to the store with her boss the day before. A trip that culminated in the purchase of a taser and hundreds of dollars of accessories. Given the slight build of this hypothetical girl and her propensity to run in the dark in her hypothetical not-so-safe neighborhood, this seems like a relevant, although somewhat extreme, purchase. Oh no, my dear viewing public, this purchase was not for security and safety. This attempt at stimulating the economy was social experiment-cum-personal entertainment.

The waiver that she spoke of was to limit her liability for when she tases people. For fun. Whose fun, she was a bit more vague about. Once they had run out of “friends” willing to be tased for $50, they were going to move onto the larger pool of sadists and unemployeds who reside on Craigslist. She was giddy at the prospect of seeing how much money it would take for people to come and be tased, her newest barometer of economic stability and growth in the economy. Have to give her props for thinking outside of the box in terms of economic modeling, but also have to tell her emphatically to find another attorney. Which I did. Which she was not thrilled with, and is probably tasing people right now. But not as my client, she isn’t!

Which brings me to the moral of today’s story. In the days of economic upheavel and job uncertainty, it is important to remember that ethics and character are in short supply and high demand. Maintain your dignity, and don’t make money off of the loss of dignity of others. And spell check. Sermon over, now get back to job searching.

And when in doubt, go save turtles.

Money is wasted on the rich. ~ Hypothetical consultant I discussed this article with, quoting anonymous

You guys need to know something about me: I loooove animals. Animals are a part of my family and I love each one of them dearly. I’ve had all kinds of animals including dogs, cats, birds, hamsters, turtles, degus, lizards, frogs, etc.

I had a really bad day today.

I’ve been having problems with my cat, Kitty. She’s never actually learned how to use the litter box, so there’s constantly a pile of shit on our floor and more recently, she started pissing on the floor.

She’s not allowed in Hubby’s room (this is the room we spend all our time in because the TV and computers are in there) because she chews up wires. We’ve lost speakers, Hubby’s special sound thingy, camera USB cords, etc. And Hubby doesn’t allow animals in our bedroom (his rule, definitely not mine). Well, Kitty will stand at the door scratching and meowing. Not just a little meow, but she will sit there and wail until I open the door. It’s gotten worse the past week and I’m not sure why because she still hasn’t been allowed in that room.

To make matters worse, after putting her outside, she went and got stuck in a tree. Again. I was out at 3 in the morning climbing a tree because I couldn’t sleep due to being worried about her.

I was sick with a migraine yesterday and couldn’t even throw up in peace because the cat wouldn’t leave me alone. And I need complete silence when I have one of my headaches, but the cat just didn’t seem to grasp this idea at all.

So today… let me go ahead and warn you, my depression is back WITH A VENGEANCE (and for once I actually don’t feel like discussing it, it’s that bad), and something in me snapped. I came home to a big pile of shit, a puddle of piss, and a meowing cat.

So in a stupid impulse decision, Kitty has been taken to the local shelter.

I’m devastated and can’t believe I even did this. Sure. I’ve given rats away, a degu, and my parents have my two old cats, but I gave Kitty up just like that.

And I feel so guilty. I’m sitting here wondering if anyone will adopt her, take care of her, is she’s lonely, if she knows I gave up on her… I just feel like shit, plain and simple. And with my current mood, I can’t handle feeling this way. I’ve cried all day. I never thought I would give up an animal just like that.

Hey everyone,

Early this morning, Grim and I had to take down all affiliate vendors, leaving only the vendors at our store in Shark active.  This is because of some Linden Lab bugs that we have no control over that cause security issues.  Recently, there has been a large increase in the number of blog posts from the more dubious parts of the Second Life community about how to scam any affiliate vendor, which would of course include ours.  We found out this morning that one of those holes was being exploited, which forced us to act immediately and without warning so that this person could no longer get any Petable products they wanted for free.

After looking at the many options available to us (including having only a small number of approved people able to own affiliate vendors or Grim and I having to place all affiliate vendors for people), we are deciding to work on a back-end monitoring system that will allow us to compare the products that people actually pay for contrasted with what has been given out.  Anyone who is discovered to be exploiting these Linden Lab bugs will be banned from owning affiliate vendors immediately.

We definitely regret having to take down the affiliate vendor system without any warning, but hope that you realize how crucial it was to do so.  Grim hopes to have the new affiliate vendors done by tomorrow, but it will depend on what other Linden Lab bugs he runs into in the process.  There is a way that you guys can help, though.  Linden Lab has a system called JIRA where you can vote for bugs and features to help them know what people care about.  Something that will fix these issues has been there since 2007, and has never been addressed by the Lindens.  If we can get a large influx of votes toward this issue, the Lindens will hopefully take notice and work on this issue.  Grim and I would ask that as many people as possible go to this ticket and vote for it.  To do so, you have to log in with your Second Life account (it is a page on secondlife.com, so it is safe), and then click the Vote link.

Thanks for your help and your patience as we work on this tracking system.  We will have the new version out as soon as possible.  While the affiliate system is down, food and all other products can still be purchased at our main store in Shark.

On the rickety back porch of THE EARL in ATLANTA, GA Greg Alsop, drummer for TOKYO POLICE CLUB did an interview with me.

We immediately bonded over Christmas pop-up books and then moved on to remark about how music critics are never criticized. Although not at all turtle-like, Greg would love to carry his home around with him. Like many bands with interesting names, there’s no good story as to how TPC got their name, but there is a good reason that their tour van floor is covered in jellybeans.

Special thanks to my new friend John Kurc for sharing his photographs of Tokyo Police Club with me.

Full Transcript: (Audio)
Nichole Bennett: Just introduce yourself.
Greg Alsop: I’m Greg Alsop. I’m in Atlanta, and I play drums in Tokyo Police Club.
NB: Thank you so much for joining me. So I guess just a little bit of background on the band. If you could describe the story of your band, would it be a comic book or would it be a pop-up book? And maybe fill in the details.
GA: I would probably choose a pop-up book. I’m not as familiar with graphic novels as some. I sort of grew up on pop-up books. I had a great version of “The Night Before Christmas” that my mom bought in the seventies that saw me through year after year.
NB: Yeah I make my parents read mine every Christmas.
GA: Yeah, same. We formed in January of 2005. We were all friends in high school. So you could picture us all there drawn in mostly pastel colors. And there’s a little slide arrow of us waving in front of our high school. We’d all just been friends in high school. The other three had known each other since elementary school, and we all just kind of bonded over similar taste in music. We were the only people we really knew in our small town who were into a lot of the new bands that were coming out around that time. You know like Interpol, The Strokes, Arcade Fire… Everyone else was, kind of strangely, into hip hop. It was a bunch of really rich white kids. Just like…beating each other up for no reason. And we were like “I don’t want any part in that.” So, our thing to do on Friday nights was just to gather in somebody’s basement and just play music until our parents told us to stop. Eventually, that brought us here.
NB: Where did the name Tokyo Police Club come from?
GA: There’s no good story.
NB: Is it just words mashed together?
GA: Yeah, it really is just words mashed together. That’s the best description. We should come up with a decent story for it because people ask us that all the time. We’re not a band full of mystery. That’s the problem…very open. And we’ve got nothing to say about our name. We wrote the song “Cheer It On” in May of 2005 and it came to be our first show, and we were like “We need to call ourselves something.”
NB: So how is this tour going?
GA: It’s fantastic. It’s the best. Yeah, we are touring with all incredible bands that we are great friends with. Ruby Coast from our home town in Toronto. Born Ruffians from there also. The Harlem Shakes, who are amazing. Ra Ra Riot, who we’ve been out with before. If I’m missing somebody, then I apologize, but it’s just all incredible bands.
NB: Yeah, I saw that all of your openers are fantastic.
GA: Yeah, we wanted it to be that way. We haven’t toured in a while, and we’re not going to be touring again for a while, so we wanted to make this as fun as possible. Going out on tour can be very exhausting, but when you get to the venue everyday and there’s a bunch of people there that you’re really excited to hang out with it’s much better.
NB: How would you describe the sound of the band, or even maybe the sound that you guys are looking for, to a three year old?
GA: To a three year old? We’re music you can jump around and have fun to, I’d say. You don’t have to cover your ears. We don’t have too many swears. Hopefully they aren’t words that a three year old would be familiar with anyway so it doesn’t really matter. Even if, there’s nothing that you would be shocked to hear a three year old say. It’d be a little more cute.
NB: Three year olds cover Tokyo Police Club.
GA: Yeah, yeah, you could do that. If Kidz Bop or whatever that was decided to do one of our tracks, they wouldn’t have too much trouble choosing, sifting through the lyrics.
NB: Do you ever read your own reviews? I always wonder, as a musician, if you read your own stuff.
GA: Yeah when the album first came out, I did. But eventually it became too difficult separating what they are saying as an actual critique from just journalism. You can’t take it to heart. Sometimes you find reviews that maybe do offer very good criticism that you can use to make better songs in the future. Some publications are just about tearing bands up, and some publications are just about puffing bands careers up. I don’t know. I feel like it’s good to find a middle ground.
NB: I feel like reviewers should also be reviewed sometimes.
GA: Yeah.
NB: They’re never criticized for their writing.
GA: That’s the one thing. That is the one part of the music industry that is completely unnecessary. It’s kind of the easiest job out there.
NB: Yeah, nobody is looking over their shoulder.
GA: Exactly. Maybe that will be my thing…writing in just letters to the editor week after week. More counter-reviews.
NB: What is your favorite flavor of jellybean?
GA: In just the regular variety, yellow.
NB: Yellow-flavored.
GA: Yellow lemon I guess. Or white, I guess. I like white beans sometimes. But if you’re going to go all the way to the Jelly Belly gourmet flavors, Dr. Pepper. We had a bunch. I got a bunch for Easter last year, and they were all nicely laid out in a tray, and within a few hours they all just spilt and were all over the floor. So every once in a while, you could just reach down, grab a couple up and just make a cocktail.
Matt Crisler (WSBF-FM): Do you eat the black ones? That’s the big question as to whether or not they like jellybeans?
NB: Yeah, I like the black ones.
GA: I do, yeah.
NB: My friends would all hand me the licorice ones. And I love food, so I was always like “Give me all of yours.” So, I gradually grew to love them.
GA: Yeah, I will take all of the other ones. But if I reach down and grab one, then I’ll eat it. No problem.
NB: So you guys have a Candyland van with jellybeans all over the floor.
GA: Yep.
NB: So I was thinking about this the other day that pop music, when you think about the word “pop” it has become something totally different in especially the minds of young people these days. Do you have your own personal definition? Or has it become a bad word? It used to be like pop and that meant Brittany Spears.
GA: I definitely agree that it used to be something to approach rarely, and if you were labeled as pop music it was just stuff that was very trite and easily digestible. The definition has become much for vague and all-encompassing. I mean, what do you really consider not “pop” music these days? Clearly if it’s not jazz and if it’s not composed in a modernist classical sense, then everything else can really fall under the pop category. I mean, we label ourselves as pop music. I don’t like assigning genres. Oh it’s like trip-electrocore or something. What are you talking about man? It’s just music, and if you like it, then listen to it. It shouldn’t be something that you try and find a label for and then listen very strictly to that.
NB: One more, and this is the one more and this is the one that I ask all bands. If you were an animal, what would you be?
GA: Me? Maybe a turtle because then when I tour, I can bring my home everywhere with me.
NB: That would be nice.
GA: That’d be the best actually. That would be really great. I don’t think it fits with me any other way.
NB: Thanks so much.