Sandy Belle, the Desert Tokyo Rose

Country crooner and proud American Sandy Belle has a message for the troops.

Stolen from Seattle’s SLOG, the Stranger Blog, who were kind enough to compare it to the Donnie Davies video we have here at the ol’ raincoaster blog. Then they hosed my comment, the fuckers!

Nonetheless, we Vancouverites shall rise above it and, like Sandy herself, direct a welcoming wave of the hand down South.

“Now boys, I know you have a job to do and you’re far away from home,
but my girlie parts are turning into deserts of their own.”

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soap, not dope: Don Bolles jailed over Dr. Bronner’s

Never forget! 

Now I’m worried about the Cybergypsy. He’s been known to take trips to the United States of Amerika, and I happen to know that he’s in possession of a large bottle of this very (apparently-controlled) substance. Like very large. Like, this could be a fucking trafficking charge if he gets busted.

What the hell am I rambling about?

Don Bolles, drummer of the legendary punk band the Germs, was arrested for felony drug possession because he had a bottle of Dr. Bronner’s peppermint soap in his van when he was pulled over for a busted tail light.

Sounds like a late April Fool’s joke; isn’t.

Should be.

Here, for general distribution, is the official press release from Dr. Bronner’s PR:

“Germ” Wrongly Jailed Over Soap

Absurd GHB Drug Charges for Don Bolles, Drummer of the “The Germs”, Stem From a Bottle of Dr. Bronner’s Peppermint Soap Found in Van During Police Stop

an 8 ounce bottle? Not even enough to get a good buzzESCONDIDO, CA – The Bronner family, makers of the popular organic Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soaps are shocked and disturbed by musician Don Bolles’ April 4th arrest for felony drug possession after police alleged an 8oz bottle of peppermint Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soap tested positive for the illicit drug GHB (Gamma Hydroxy Butyrate). The notion that anyone would put GHB in a rinse-off liquid soap product is beyond belief, and the police field test used must have been flawed or tampered with. GHB, which produces euphoria and is an alleged aphrodisiac when ingested, of course has absolutely no effect in a soap product that is rinsed off the hands and body.

Mr. Bolles, drummer of the legendary punk band The Germs http://germsreturn.com/ was arrested following a police traffic stop and spent three and half days in various jailsin Orange County before being released early Easter morning. During a consented search of Mr. Bolles vintage 1968 A-108 van, Newport Beach police found a bottle of peppermint Dr. Bronner’s soap which is made with organic coconut, olive, hemp, peppermint and jojoba oils. Felony drug possession could mean 20 years in prison if convicted. A pretrial hearing is scheduled for Friday, April 13, 2007 at the Harbor Justice Center, 4601 Jamboree Road Newport Beach, CA at 8:30am.

“I’ve used only Dr. Bronner’s soap for 35 years,” says Mr. Bolles. “I use it for everything – bathing, washing my hair, washing my clothes – it goes everywhere I go. I’m scheduled to go to Europe to tour with The Germs this summer, but these felony charges could keep me from traveling out of the country. This whole thing could be really devastating to a 50 year old guy just trying to make a living. I told the officer ‘its soap, it smells like peppermint soap,’ but he seemed intent on arresting me.”

“It is totally outrageous that the police could be this malicious and idiotic,” says Michael Bronner, Vice-President of Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soaps. “This clearly is a case of profiling by the Newport Beach police of a person who doesn’t look like the people who live in that town. We are paying the cost of Mr. Bolle’s lawyer, and we demand the charges be dropped or proof from the police forensics lab of GHB contamination be immediately provided to us,” said Bronner. Adds brother David Bronner, President: “We cannot imagine anyone putting GHB, or any other drug for that matter, into a rinse-off soap product that is lathered and rinsed off the body immediately. The Newport Beach police should see how much of a buzz putting beer in their shampoo gives them, and get a grip and apologize on their hands and knees to Mr. Bolles.”

At the time of the arrest Mr. Bowles was driving his girlfriend, and fellow musician Cat Scandal to an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting in Newport Beach. “I had heard of GHB but the police had to tell me what it was,” said Bolles. “I’m going to fight these charges.”

To arrange an interview with Don Bolles, Michael Bronner or David Bronner please contact Adam Eidinger at 202-744-2671

Omigod, I just remembered: the Cybergypsyleft me a bottle of this soap too! And I had a bath with it just today! Omigodomigod brb d00d, got 2 sterilize th scene, but 1st…hmm, what’s good for barricading patio doors? And hey, is anybody else up for some nachos?

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Fame, Glory, Sex and Money through Blogging: what it takes to beat the squirrel babies

Jedi Squirrels unite! 

Fame. Glory. Sex. Money. You want it all. You want it now.

And you want to get it by blogging.

I hear you, baby. I know how you feel. I’m one of you.

I’m about to give you some bad news

The Fame? That comes fast, as long as you define “fame” as “slightly known, in that they can kindasorta recognize my header but have no idea what I look like way, to people who already read blogs.” This is a smaller group than you currently imagine, and even your late-night entreaties of the retired longshoremen on the rail at your local watering hole are not likely to change it on a measurable scale.

If you want to be famous to politicians’ research staffers, WoW-playing slackers, or sysadmins, however, you’ve got it made.

The Glory? See above, plus your mother will be proud of you once you spend three consecutive holidays explaining to her what blogging is and showing her how to put YOUR blog in HER email signature. Unless you’re a porn blogger, and then we don’t want to know about your relationship with your mother.

The Sex? You mean with other people? What would I know about that? Ask the porn bloggers if you must.

The Money?Ah, the money. Now we come to it; you figured that if you stuck Adsense on your cat blog that you could just sit back and watch the millions roll in, didn’t you? You’ve taken a couple of overpriced SEO seminars and can’t understand why you aren’t able to quit your day job just yet.

In point of fact, there are three ways to earn six figures from blogging.

  1. Be Robert Scoble.
  2. The engtech method
  3. The Manolo method

Of these three, we at the ol’ raincoaster blog favour #3, for lo, we are in truth and in fact not Robert Scoble and yea verily we can hardly understand what engtech says half the time (and could only get a six-figure job if you left out the decimal entirely), so that leaves only one option.

Fortunately, the Magnanimous Manolo has laid out a simple yet superfantastic planenabling you to scale the heights of the six-figure-blogo-strato-sphere. Or, as he puts it, “to beat the squirrel babies.”

You may think, Mr. Arturo G. Bloggerman, that your grand mission is to enlighten the unwashed masses, to whom you declaim the unpleasant truth from your exalted perch at declaimingloudly.blogspot.com. But in the point of fact, if the unwashed masses do not find your loud declamations entertaining they will quickly move down the street to the Cuteoverload to look at the pictures of the squirrel babies.

So, what must you do to compete with the squirrel babies?

Read the rest of the articleto learn the superfantastic surefire secret to six-figure success!
(sorry, been reading a lot of marketing faff lately)

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Berlin Wall stolen!

This very piece of the Wall was stolen 

I. Am. Serious.

In the middle of the night over the quiet holiday weekend, a huge section of the historic Berlin Wall was removed and transported to destinations unknown without warning. The theft was discovered, of course, when the usual flock of tourists arrived to photograph the famous Cold War monument and its artistic and legended graffitti and found…

air.

Who pulled off this brazen heist? Who felt the need for anonymity so deep that it paid double- or triple-time to remove a massive wall over the quietest weekend of the year, one devoted to family and the remembrance of the death of Jesus, and under cover of the deepest darkness?

The usual suspect.

The Guardian has the full report:

After a couple of days spent keeping its head down, the government finally owned up. The federal civil engineering and planning office said it had removed the panels so that construction of the new environment ministry could go ahead on the site.

Quick to attempt to heal the public relations gaffe, a spokeswoman for the planning office said the intention was to eventually incorporate the strip of wall into a visitor centre of the ministry, which onlookers would be able to view through a window. She said the missing segment had been put in storage and was being professionally restored.

Of course, we’ve all heard that one before.

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speed dating and the flaw-o-matic

Speed Dating...oh, you missed it! Gotta be faster next time! 

Well naturally a love theory called the Flaw-O-Matic would originate from New York. Ronald Perelman gets all the hotties he can handle…there’s obviously some complicated yet brutal math going on behind the false eyelashes and toupees.

They found that a 5-foot-8 man was just as successful in getting dates as a 6-footer if he made more money — precisely $146,000 a year more. For a 5-foot-2 man, the number was $277,000…

Customers of online dating services typically end up going out with fewer than 1 percent of the people whose profiles they study online. But something very different happens at a speed-dating event. The average participant makes a match with at least 1 in 10 of the people they meet; some studies have found the average is 2 or 3 out of 10. Women are still pickier than men, and in some speed-dating experiments they still prefer affluent, well-educated men, but the preference is less strong — and in some other studies they don’t discriminate at all by income or social status.

What happens to speed daters’ Flaw-O-Matics? The people at these events realize that there aren’t an infinite number of possibilities. If they want to get anything out of the evening, they have to settle for less than perfection. They also can’t help noticing that they have competition, and that their ideal partner just might prefer someone else.

Well imagine that! Almost like in real life (oops, sorry, TMI, do not adjust your blogs, I’ll just go back to listening to Nine Inch Nails, nothing to see here).

Also, here’s a related Mister Science podcast on the Science of Speed Dating, including whether or not to choose a porn name for your tag or play it straight, so to speak.

So, distilled, the deal is that speed dating is far more likely to result in a date or three than Internet dating, even if you’re short or poor. The article doesn’t talk about the women much because, I suppose, that would be contentious what with the “there are no ugly women, only lazy ones” quotations and The Swan and the ever-popular Sex and the City myth that with fabulous hair and a good stylist even Secretariat could pull a man.

The true secret is towards the end of the article; it turns out being generally genial is probably the key to my problem in this department. Seems people don’t want to date people who are friendly to everyone; they want to feel that you’re being nice to them as an exception to your normal routine, which presumably includes blasting members of the opposite sex with the deadly laser beams from your eyes, cracking them across the face with your taloned hand and kneeing them in the groin by way of hello. Okay, so back to standard greeting procedures for me then.

The New York dating scene; it’s a jungle out there! Or at least downtown Tokyo, circa  1954.

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