Tuesday June 26, 2007
A super-comprehensive rundown of South Beach hostels. Are there hostels anywhere else in Miami?
Friday October 6, 2006
Carnival Center opening
This is it, folks: the big weekend! And not only does the Carnival Center have a brand new website that actually works, but in addition to the expensive stuff happening all this weekend, there’s a free festival, Globalbeat, on Sunday from noon to 10 pm. Ok, ok, there are still some problems: when you click the Globalbeat link on the website you get a blank page (try here for the basics), and apparently the big show on Thursday didn’t go over great, but it sounds like stuff that can be ironed out. See you there Sunday.
Update: Manola comes through with a press release she dug up out of the Google cache(!) and posted in the comments.
Target Globalbeat is free, but space is limited for the indoor performances. Vouchers, which are redeemable for wrist bands on the day of the event, will be available at the 13 Miami-Dade County Commissioners’ District offices from Monday, September 18 to Friday, September 22. Carnival Center recommends contacting the District offices for a specific time and date to pick up vouchers. Vouchers can be redeemed at the Target Globalbeat Tent on Sunday, October 8 for wrist bands which provide admittance into the Center during any one of three three-hour sessions beginning at noon, 3 p.m. and 6 p.m.
Wrist bands will also be issued, as space permits, on Sunday at the Target Globalbeat Tent up to two hours before the start of each session. Arriving early is highly recommended.
Hmm… in other words, anyone who had the inside scoop and got their vouchers two weeks ago is getting in. Everyone else will have to show up and hope for the best.
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Monday June 6, 2005
iVotronic Disenfranchisement Machines
Anybody who knows anything about computers knew that computerized voting machines were a bad idea, even before the systems Florida is using started to show their numerous problems. Ridiculously expensive, difficult to use, and inacurate (choice detail: the machines take so long to boot up that voting officials have been turning them on the evening before elections, then guarding them overnight).
There have been reports of the machines loosing votes, and at least one instance of vote manufacturing. And even with all that money already spent, future elections using the contraptions will cost $4 million each (punch-ballot elections used to cost $1 million). What with all of that, it’s no surprise that ditching them is starting to sound like a viable option. What’s so great about this is that, for example, Brazil has had a reliable, high-tech system in place for years.
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Thursday September 20, 2007
So long, bike!
Well folks, the Kryptolok South Beach Bike Theft Challenge ended this Saturday morning, when I walked outside to find my bike gone! That’s 47 days!! (A much nicer Raleigh mountain bike, which had been parked next to my bike for the past few weeks, was gone too; it had been secured by a very serious-looking Alcatraz chain/padlock combo. The pink bike remains.)
Personally, I’m thrilled — I went out Monday and bought a road bike to replace the mountain bike, getting a much better deal ($150 bike on clearance for $75), a much nicer, aluminum-built bike, and a much more realistic vehicle for practical transportation. I’ve actually commuted to work by bike/bus hybrid twice this week, and plan to do so regularly. (BTW, the new bike is a Crimson Triax)
So . . . what to do now? I’ve been keeping the new bike inside for now, mainly because I have no bike lock at all for now. The case of the Raleigh suggests that merely getting a “tougher” lock isn’t protection enough. So my options are: 1) As ‘I was there’ suggested, get two locks. For example, another Krypto U-lock, plus a heavy-duty chain and padlock from Home Depot. 2) Keep the bike inside at all times.
Having a bike in the apt. is a pain in the ass, although this one is a lot lighter, so lugging it in and out is easier. Another factor to consider is that the bike rack in front of my building, while behind a fence (the gate doesn’t lock anymore) is also behind a hedge; perhaps a more public place to lock the bike is something to look into. One more thing: a road bike is much harder to ride then a mountain bike — more difficult to steer, keep balance, keep an eye on the road, etc. — does that make it less desirable in the underground bike market?
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Wednesday June 21, 2006
Hey, everybody: the Heat just won!
Saturday July 28, 2007
Ghost town Saturday
- The making of Damien Hirst’s $100 million diamond skull.
- Fun with words.
- The Wattson personal energy monitor allows you to monitor your electricity usage minute to minute, and share the info with the world.
- List of words banned from Scrabble in 1993.
- Breathtaking video for a Kanye West song, with Zach Galifianakis and Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy.
- Origin of the term white trash.
- Fake Steven Wright twitter.
- U: Inbount/outbound tact filters.
- M.I.A.: banned in the USA, weird accusations, censored on MTV, is single, photos from NY show, new music: Boyz (photos from shoot), Bird Flu, new album tracklist and releaste date: Kala, Aug 21.
- Creepy photos of an abandoned village in Italy.
- Lifehacker 10 DIY office projects.
- I don’t like this one as much but whatever: Triangles.
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Monday October 2, 2006
“Miami was the most dangerous place on earth.” Cocaine Cowboys opens October 27. (via SotP)
Wednesday May 16, 2007
T.M. Shine on The Artpartments/Kunst Motel, an apartment building that Blair Russell renovated and turned into live/work spaces for artists. “While renovating the former crack house into an art house, Russell discovered the walls of one apartment were filled with machetes.” Here.
Wednesday October 4, 2006
More about the future of newspapers
A great article about the dangers and opportunities newspapers face in case my rant from Monday wasn’t long enough.
Internet advertising revenues account on average for no more than 10 percent of total ad revenues because online readers of newspapers still have small value for advertisers. Newspapers need to expand their Internet readership very substantially and, particularly, persuade their online readers to stay hooked to their digital versions much longer. The way to do that is to embrace the cultural change.”
It goes on to suggest customization as one way to embrace cultural change. In one way, the Herald is doing this: they have hundreds of RSS feeds, so anyone who knows about RSS can get a customized version of the Herald. Which makes me wonder: why not a customized home page, ala My Yahoo?
Unfortounately, even the RSS feeds are slightly snafu’d: right at the top is Liz Donovan, who hasn’t written for the Herald since July. And just this morning, when I clicked an item from the Local section’s feed for a brand new article, I got this error message page. Great, I guess I’m back to wading through web site. Good thing I caught it today, because by tomorrow I’d be forced to use the dreaded search engine. (thanks, Val)
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Sunday April 17, 2005
La Vraie Difference
We all love Tap-Tap. But there’s a nagging doubt about . . . well, its authenticity; it just seems a little too westernized. La Vraie Difference, in Little Haiti, leaves little room for such doubt. No menus; we were told that “Fish, spinach, and fish-kebabs,” were the choices of the day. We ordered the fish-kebabs, and (due to some glitch of communication,)
were served a suculent goat and cabbage stew, fried rice, and an entire plantain each. Tasty stuff, though (and vivid). Would have been even better if we’d though to order beer. A wall-mounted television played a video of a . . . actually, I’m not sure I can describe the video. Chad remarked, “I don’t know what to do with the rest of my life now.”
They do take-out, but believe me, that is not the way to go. Also, the guy at the next table had the fish, and it looked amazing.
La Vraie Difference
5912 NE 2nd Ave, Miami
305 758 1062
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Friday January 26, 2007
Low ticket sales and high operating costs caused an unanticipated $610,000 loss for the first three months at the Carnival Center for the Performing Arts. Not good, but attendence went from 26% in October to 38% in November to 52% in December.
Monday January 9, 2006
Head for Sure
[Contributed by Steve Klotz]
Reliable sources have reported body parts turning up in some unorthodox locations throughout the region, the most unnerving of which is the floating head in Jupiter inlet. Turns out that this sort of thing goes on often enough that the state has an entire department established to investigate these incidents and coordinate with local law enforcement and environmental authorities. So I dutifully place a call, and get the usual “off the record don’t quote me” official to dish.
For background, I ask him a little about the department itself.
“Bureau of Parts and Wrecks really got going in the 30’s,” he says. “Before that, we mostly pulled bodies outta the water after boating accidents. But back when South Florida was teeming with racketeers murdering one another, body parts were found all over the place, and somebody needed to put them together just to keep track of who was dead or alive.”
That doesn’t happen any more?
“Oh, it still happens, but people are a lot more thorough these days. What with technology like wood chippers, explosives, etc., there ain’t a whole lot left over. And with paved roads all the way through the Everglades, it’s easy take a nice ride out, dump your prey, and let nature take over in a matter of hours.”
So what’s with the head floating in Jupiter Inlet?
“You mean Bob? We’re pretty sure there wasn’t any foul play with that one. No evident trauma at all. Maybe just an unfortunate boat person got ate by a shark and had his head horked up.”
Charming. Guess you got a lot of grisly tales to tell.
“Nah, not so bad. Mostly hands with the fingerprints burned off, occasional femur, bone chips in backyard gardens, ears. We got a whole freezer unit fulla ears. We call it the cornfield. Heh-heh-heh.”
Yeah, heh-heh-heh. When he offers to show me around if I ever get up that way, I beg off. I also skip lunch.
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Saturday May 6, 2006
The report draft Omar wrote up — about the Miami Civilian Investigative Panel’s report on the 2003 Free Trade Area of the Americas Summit — has been covered in the Herald. Better yet, here’s a pdf of the report itself.
Wednesday July 12, 2006
Photos of the new Apple store on Lincoln Rd. It opens Saturday morning, and the first 1000 customers get a t-shirt. (via Fanless)
Thursday March 8, 2007
“Meanwhile, Buffalo Barf hoists himself up and staggers to the men’s room to dump his fetid stew, only to return to his corner and repeat his rosaries. The horrid stench works its way through the refrigerated waiting room.” Steve Klotz visits the Memorial Hospital in Hollywood.
Monday May 15, 2006
One of these days I’m going to write up a whole big thing about how Miami Art Guide sucks so so bad. Meanwhile, check this out – they’re apparently biting content from tNFH. Nice work, guys.
Friday March 16, 2007
Website weekend
- This weekend brings the 1-year anniversary of Miami Nights and Miami Music Guide, both of whom are throwing special events. Check ‘em (MN Friday, MMG Saturday).
- Arteaméricas — art of Latin America, right here in Miami (and where else, really?).
- The South Florida Theatre Festival, including a behind-the-scenes free forum, Monday.
- Opening festivities for the new ArtsPark in Hollywood.
- Sort of a big deal: starting this weekend, a site-specific video installation by Anna Gaskell will be showing at Viscaya (through May).
- Students from the FIU Honors College curated Aesthetics and Values 2007, on exhibit at the FIU Green Library, including notable Miami artists such as Carlos Betancourt, Wendy Wisher, Bill Maguire, Samantha Salzinger, and Cliff Childree.
- The Fair — be there. Or something.
- The last weekend of the Cleveland Orchestra’s Miami season, and they’re doing Tchaikovsky.
- Three words: Big. Daddy. Kane. If you care, get on the Google right now.
- Speaking of Google, if you care about played 90s shit like Stone Temple Pilots, try Googling “Bacardi B-Live,” and in the nicest way possible, may a pox befall your fucked-up house.
- Colombian rock en espanol icons Aterciopelados, Saturday.
- More Tchaikovsky: NWS does its thing.
- Not this weekend but soon will be bringing the WMC, of which CM will not be attending, and instead directs you to the New Times’ coverage (this week’s issue). Also of interesting note is the Miami Beach 411 stuff, which appears almost completely unintersecting with this here listing.
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Thursday June 8, 2006
Tuesday May 9, 2006
Comments on herald.com!
Be still my heart: this article in the Herald (on the debate over rock mining) allows comments!! Has anyone ever seen this before? I wonder if this is an experiment, or the beginning of a new policy of some sort? In any case, it’s long overdue.
Nice system, too: there’s a comment rating system, a separate RSS feed (the herald has the RSS thing down), and some transparent moderation going on: “Messages 89.6 through 89.10 were deleted.” Nice job, Herald!
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Thursday February 1, 2007
Why doesn’t the Grove just ditch Miami? I was intrigued by this when I saw the CGGV post, but I, too am feeling too lazy to look more into it. I’m sure it could happen, though: everybody else did it, why not them? Thanks to Alex for at least rounding up a few pertinent links.
Tuesday March 6, 2007
“[David] Barnes also used nearly $900,000 budgeted for witness protection to build a firing range in the Miami federal courthouse . . .” (via SDoF)
Saturday July 14, 2007
Jelly fish Saturday
- At Ironic Sans, a roundup of terrorist organization logos.
- The loudness war — how record companies are ruining your music (true, even if the example is a bit exaggerated).
- Photo above is from the Black Sea. More here.
- Top 10 strangest deaths.
- New, minimalist Coke can, and the history of Coke cans.
- The pretty fucking impressive sculpture of Kris Kuksi.
- Blah: nature photos. these are from the Smithsonian, and not too bad.
- Charlie Vandergaw is a dude who enjoys hanging out with bears. Hopefully he won’t get eaten like the dude in that Herzog film.
- Segovia tears it up.
- Photos from Pakistan, 2004.
- Apparently American Express jacked this photo from flickr.
- “When Dateline NBC recently asked children to choose between a banana and a rock with a Scooby-Doo sticker on it for breakfast, nearly all chose the rock.” Great moments in product placement.
- Some idiot cheats on Price-is-Right.
- Denis Darzacq’s falling photos.
- Schadenfreude is a German word meaning ‘pleasure taken from someone else’s misfortune’.
- Photos from inside a McDonald’s factory in Moscow.
- I’ve had this tab open in my browser for weeks, and since I can’t seem to bring myself to read it, I think everyone else should read it instead: The Stylistic Artistry of the Declaration of Independence.
- Reversal ring? We don’t need no stinkin’ reversal ring: how to turn a regular camera lens into a microscope on the cheap.
- ‘Bush Lied, They Died’ t-shirt banned in three states.
- Nude LP Covers. Where’s the Blind Faith cover?
- Here is a decent optical illusion. If you stare at the + in the middle, first the moving dot will turn green. Then all the purple dots will disappear, leaving only a moving green dot. “Proof enough, perhaps, that we do not see always what we think we see.”
- BrianBrown’s photostream.
- We build tunnels through things.
- Rare deleted scenes from Shawshank Redemption. “2 not so good deleted scenes from the classic Shawshank Redemption. Rare scenes are from an old VHS taping of a Showtime cable special in 1995, and never seen again. Not in the DVD, because Frank Darabont had regrets about showing these. Both scenes feature Morgan Freeman.”
- The wonderful objects of pan-dan.
- Thomas Pynchon: essay about, literature map, random page from Gravity’s Rainbow, Against the Day deathmarch.
- Michael Moore vs. CNN on fact-checking Sicko: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.
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Wednesday June 14, 2006
Don slips a love note to Miami on his way out. So long, Don. And actually, there’s some stuff on his list I need to check out.
Sunday May 22, 2005
How Long Does it Take to Walk 2,500 Feet?
Miami Beach Mayor David Dermer is pushing for a law that would make it illegal for convicted sexual offenders to live within 2,500 feet of a school. It sounds like a good idea, but it’s not.
Consider: Only 5 to 10 percent of sexual crimes against children are ever reported. 97% are committed by family members and friends of the family. So living near a school is irrelevant, because it’s not how most child sexual predators find their victims. This suggests that the law would create little more then a false sense of security. Also, by grouping all sexual offenders into a single category (an 18 year old who has consensual sex with a 17 year old is considered a sexual offender) we spend massive resources on groups of people, some of whom are know to be very unlikely to re-offend.
The point that is stressed by researchers over and over is that money spent on prevention is much more effective at preventing these crimes then money spent controlling convicts the way we are currently doing it.
Now, Miami Beach is a small place. Very little of it is not within 2,500 feet of a school. Some suspect that Dermer is merely trying to push convicted sexual offenders off the island altogether. Understandable, but the City of Miami is not happy about it, and is considering suing.
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Monday July 23, 2007
Feast your eyes: photos from last week’s Swim Fashion Week.
Tuesday July 10, 2007
The Wallflower Gallery is in trouble and needs help.
Sunday December 10, 2006
MoCA has an idiotic no-pen rule. (via SotP/r)
Wednesday April 11, 2007
Charlie Crist is considering pardoning Jim Morrison for indecent exposure in Coconut Grove in 1969.
Friday April 14, 2006
The South Beach Fry-It Diet. Ouch!
Thursday May 3, 2007
Bellsouth romantic
I got this incredibly pathetic card in the mail from Bellsouth yesterday and I just had to share it. It’s not new — anyone who’s gotten rid of their land line over the last few years has probably seen it, but it’s worth going into anyway. Here’s the slide-show, with my comentary.
All kidding aside, when they say “We promise to be really really good to you from now on,” they are full of shit. I have Bellsouth’s web hosting at work, and recently we’ve had problems with the e-mail. Turns out we were over our drive space quota, which is (wait for it) . . . 500 megabytes. This is for a $19.99/month plan. Dreamhost charges $7.95 for their cheapest plan, and they give you 160 gigabytes. And they increase it automatically every month. Here’s an article about Bellsouth- from two years ago. Since then they’ve been purchased by AT&T;, but it’s all the same crap.
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