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September 30, 2005
Aloha au iā ‘oe
He‘e holua, or the ancient Hawaiian tradition of lava sledding. Buy your Papaholua Sled here. (From ”Metafilter”). Before and after photos of Kilauea lava banch collapse site
Pele, the Goddess of Fire. (Thank you, Robin)
How to say "I Love You" in Hawaiian? Other Hawaiian Dictionaries
More Unusual Links about Hawaii Here
September 30, 2005 in Traveling Places - Hawaii | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 29, 2005
Getting ready for San Francisco
New York Artist & Realtor, also known as The Loft Ninja folded some of his blogs (Loftblog, Urban foto & Ninja Listings) into Just In New York
“826 Cambridge Oval” is a blog about a wonderful home that is for sale in San Antonio, TX . (From ”Inman Blog”)
Similarly, “Mattamy Homes in Hawthorne Village, Milton” is a weblog about buying a new Mattamy home in Hawthorne Village, Milton
Miami Sun Post Columnist & Realtor Phyllis D. Huguenin’s South Florida Real Estate Blog
Mandeville Responds: The purpose of this Weblog is to publish information about the response of the local and national communities in the aftermath of the Katrina disaster. Also: Realtors respond
From Petaluma, California - It’s your best move
The blog of Jason Nowlin, Realtor in Columbia, MO. (I once drove to Columbia, MO, to meet with one of my favorite authors, William Least Heat-Moon)
Denver Modern Homes. The newest from Todd Carpenter, publisher of a network of mortgage and real estate blogs
Vince Bindi of Keller Williams, a new blog from Orange County, CA
Cleveland Ohio Real Estate with Cecilia Sherrard
Real Estate Internet Marketing
Dom Tassone’s My Place Chicago
By the way, if you are going to be in San Francisco at the end of October, and you'd like to meet, let me know...
The complete List of Real Estate Blogs as well as Grow-a-Brain’s Extensive Real Estate Archives are Here
September 29, 2005 in Real estate Blogs | Permalink | Comments (6) | TrackBack
Food fight
The 50 States of Cheese
Kevin Kostner’s delicious low-cal Bison Chili Recipe
Recipe for disaster: Katrina a la Bush
2 funky Jews sell Kosher food. (From ”Screenhead”)
Chances are, if you've eaten at an Asian, Thai, Korean or Vietnamese restaurant, you've used the red bottle of Sriracha Hot Chili Sauce, made right here in Rosemead, CA
Boomers remember their childhood food . From 'Chocolate Soldiers' and 'Cherry Mash' to 'Frozen Mellon Balls' and 'Flavored Straws'
The top 50 things every foodie should do. From “Catching your own dinner” to “Take coffee at Caffé Florian”
Do you want to be a character in a food fight?
Close-up salt and pepper. Winner of The “Visions of Science Photographic Awards”
Pizza Fork and Cutter. Slice and eat with the same utensil!
Many More Unusual Recipes and Meals Here
September 29, 2005 in Food | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack
September 28, 2005
2,000,000 hits
Congratulations to the blog! Here are last night’s statistics:
Total number of hits: 2,001,100
Average per day: 3335.17
Today: 8044
In the last hour: 508
This week: 39717
I know it’s not Go Fug Yourself, and still I’m very pleased...
Every day there are thousands of visitors who arrive here through the search engines (mostly through Google), because “Grow-a-brain” shows as the first or second result to hundreds of search queries. Generally I assumed that these are people who “stumble” into the site, and who possibly stumble right out again. But the more I thought about it, the more I’ve to come appreciate these visits. I now realize that there are many postings here that truly deserve to be the answers people are looking for when they hit the “I feel Lucky” button. It’s actually pretty humbling. Here are a few examples:
Things to do before you die
Realtors Bloggers
Odd & Crazy
Coppola's The Conversation
Unicorn for sale
Military invasion of Iran
Death & Eternity
Who we’all honorin’ here today?
Alinea restaurant
Entomophagy
"You're entering a world of pain". And many more.
So, until the next benchmark, here are a few, free gifts for you: The beautiful Magic carpet and Escape from The Museum of visual poetry by artist Jose Santos
Grab a graphic to link to Grow-a-brain
September 28, 2005 in Website News | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBack
We don’t do body counts
“Once I wasn't and then I was And now I ain't all over again”. Virtual tour of Pere-Lachaise Cemetery in Paris, including many famous graves…
Violent Art. (Warning: Violent Art!)
Obituary for one Dorothy Gibson Cully, 86: She was born the second child of six in 1919, daughter to Kathleen Heard Gibson and Calvin Hooper Gibson, an inventor best known as the first person since the Middle Ages to calculate the arcane lead-to-gold formula. Unable to actually prove this complex theory scientifically, and frustrated by the cruel conspiracy of the so-called "scientific community" working against his efforts, he ultimately stuck his head in a heated gas oven with a golden delicious apple propped in his mouth. Miraculously, the apple was saved for the evening dessert. Calvin was not. (From “Bifurcated Rivets”)
Death in Venice, based on the novel by Thomas Mann
Smelleze™ Funeral Home/ Autopsy Deodorizer Pouch
Another great product: Vidstone, a pioneer in multimedia tombstone technology, has introduced the first product of its kind, the Serenity Panel
Rapture Letters online death notification. After the rapture, there will be a lot of speculation as to why millions of people have just disappeared. Unfortunately, after the rapture, only non believers will be left to come up with answers. You probably have family and friends that you have witnessed to and they just won't listen. After the rapture they probably will, but who will tell them?
We have written a computer program to do just that. It will send an Electronic Message (e-mail) to whomever you want after the rapture has taken place, and you and I have been taken to heaven
Many More Unusual Links About Death and Eternity and about Unusual Coffins & Caskets Here
September 28, 2005 in Death & Eternity | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack
September 27, 2005
That Cooper baby
“…To dispel the myth that Diane Arbus only took pictures of freaks, she made up a list of elegant people she wanted to photograph...As if to prove her point, she took a remarkable portrait of Gloria Vanderbilt's sleeping baby son, Anderson Hays Cooper, for a Harper's Bazaar Valentine issue…”
Portroids are Polaroid Portraits
Celebrities outlandish requests: When touring, Macy Gray likes to bring a chimpanzee on the road with her to keep her company. Singer Robbie Williams decorates his dressing room with kumquats, a bonsai tree, a pair of undies, and a framed photo of Bob Holness. Re-post: The Smoking Gun’s extensive list of contract riders
Mark Seliger portfolio
Portraits by John Kascht
From “Supermasterpiece”: Aaron and John Cougar Mellencamp's Wife
Peter Marshall: In one state, you can deduct $5 from a traffic ticket if you show the officer...what?
Paul Lynde: A ten dollar bill. Paul Lynde’s greatest Hollywood Squares lines
Short shelf life of celebrity marriage
Many More Unusual Stories About Celebrities Here
September 27, 2005 in Celebrities | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBack
September 26, 2005
Social bookmarks manager
Improve this article! A magazine article on Wikipedia - written by Wikipedia. (From ”Pathologically Polymathic”)
Blocked pages to the internet in the middle east: From Qater, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabian and Iran. Screen shots from China
del.icio.us is a social bookmarks manager. It allows you to easily add sites you like to your personal collection of links, to categorize those sites with keywords, and to share your collection not only between your own browsers and machines, but also with others.
Here are some of the most popular bookmarks on the network:
43 Folders with 3242 users,
Boing Boing with 2500 users,
PostSecret (2793 users),
Fark (1942 users),
CNN (1944 users),
Grow-a-brain (with 86 users – c’mon, people, what’s up with that? Bookmark it already!)
flickr (4054 users),
and Slashdot with 7675 users
Russian Wooden PC Case Mod. From the same outfit: Decorative hand-painted mice
Kevin Schofield writes: Ten Reasons Why I Love Microsoft. (From Michel Vuijlsteke's blog)
How to Write sensible email messages
More To Life On The Internet Here
September 26, 2005 in Internet | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBack
Ukiyo-e
Go to pretty much any Japanese super market or combini and you'll find Umaibou. Literally translated it means "delicious stick"
The Dream of the Fisherman's Wife, an erotic woodcut made circa 1820 by Hokusai. Interpretations in stained glass by Judith Schaechter, and by New Zealand artists at Otago Stained Glass. Also, NSFW galleries by photographer Juergen Specht
Hello Kitty Vibrator Sale. Now Only $ 189 + $ 4 for priority mail shipping in the U.S
Yosuke Yamahata Photographing the Bomb in Nagasaki Journey. (From ”Folderol”)
Japan on Uncyclopedia. The physical geography of Japan is characterized by upheavals and the depressed. Because so much of the land mass is mountainous, 94% of the population is forced to live on mountaintops so that the limited amount of flat land can be used for cultivating monsters. Being squeezed onto mountaintops has forced the Japanese people to come up with space-saving innovations such as Game Boy Advance
Originally filmed in November 2001, this short video shows an extremely rare and ancient Japanese geisha dance as performed in Niigata, Japan by life-long, professional Japanese Geisha
The Pachinko Museum
Japan Seldom Asked Questions (SAQ). What do Japanese People wear underneath their Kimonos? Why do all the Jizo statues in Japan wear "bibs"? What is the sound of one hand clapping? Many more
Anime Phone Cards. (From Podwall)
(Graphic above from The Octopus News Magazine.) Many More Unusual Links about Japan Here
September 26, 2005 in Japan | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack
September 25, 2005
"#2 Grandpa
Losing consciousness - Don't make the commitment if you can’t handle the stress. (Very funny)
Complaint letter of the year. (From ”Wesa Turtle”)
Cumulative wind distribution - Rita in red & orange
Midlife Assessment. I'm 41 years old, and I'm absolutely falling apart. I'll start from the top and work my way down, cataloging, as it were, my disintegration
Who would throw away a perfectly good horse?
Many More Unusual Oddities and Crazy linkage Here
September 25, 2005 in Odd & Crazy | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
I Smoke Pot. Whats The Big Deal? "So what? I smoke pot. Think about it. Out of all the after work activities, there are about a bazillion other things that I could be doing that are worse than getting high. I am a tax paying citizen. I have a full-time job in the mental health field. I attend college full-time and carry a 3.5 GPA. And yes, I smoke marijuana"
Five kids smoked this - Two are in the hospital, one in jail – And the others have blown their mind!
Cannabis pipes made from vegetables
flickr set tagged with Cannabis. Some folks are very brave or stupid
A guide to higher education - High Times annual list of the Top 10 Cannabis Colleges in the US
Re-post: Kermit rolls a joint
At up to £300 an ounce, exotic strains of designer cannabis are fuelling a booming market in herbal highs for affluent smokers
Myron Stolaroff finally discloses the name of the Secret Chief of The Underground Psychedelic Therapy Movement
(Graphic from ”Holy Mother of God!”). More about any kind of illegal drugs especially Acid and Pot Here
September 25, 2005 in Drugs - "Save the Roaches, Arnie" | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack
Technicolor Dreamcoat
Men’s leather pants for sale. You are bidding on a mistake
Apple Logo Shoes. Very Rare. Distributed to Apple employees in the 90's
Benefits of wearing a foil hat. (From ”Look at This”)
Billie Jean King’s tennis dress, 1973
Alice in Wonderland slideshow. Vogue Style version
Awkward Moments In Knitwear Modeling
Many More Unusual Fashion Trends Here
September 25, 2005 in Fashion | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Real Estate Commissions -
The Malibu Pyramid house presented by Gary Harryman
Rows of Low-income housing in Ixtapaluca, Mexico
Small Polish Houses. (From ”Things Magazine”)
Rare opportunity in Rhode Island. 1494 sq. ft. house from 1979 - on sewer. Includes 245 sq. ft. porch
My Gay Agent. (From FHC's aborted blog)
If you own apartment buildings, you can find out how your tenants are rating your complex
More about brokerage fees: The 6 Percent Solution. Skip Real Estate Agents all together? (A NY Times article)
Many More Unusual Real Estate Stories Here
September 25, 2005 in Real estate | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBack
Fake Beatles
Last weekend, we saw a performance of “Classical Mystery Tour”, a Beatles tribute band at a Newport Beach show. This was the first time I ever attended a Beatles-like performance, and as suspect & artificial as this concept is, I actually liked it a lot. The band tried to look & sound as closely to what The Beatles must have been in ‘64 & ’67, and they did a pretty good job at it. However, it must be strange to live a live of a performer, pretending to be somebody else like that.
There are many other Beatles tribute bands; Yahoo lists 31 of them. I imagine that there’s an Artistic Management Conglomerate that runs all of them, and when a Ringo or John is sick or indisposed at one band, they replace him with another…
Lucy In the Field With Flowers, Susan Lawlor’s grandmother. (More kitsch at The Museum Of Bad Art. Thank you, Julie!)
A different MIDI version of Revolution #9
Flash version of Maxwell's Silver Hammer
Beatles Blotter Art - Have your LSD & eat it too. Obviously, Lennon did a thousand trips…
Wax Ringo Lost his sticks. More than a 1000 photos tagged with Beatles on flickr
9" long version of George Harrison Gretsch Country Gentleman Guitar and other Beatles Mini Guitars
A great version of Don't Let Me Down. Letting us down: What is Paul McCartney doing in that Fidelity ad? Going to the McCartney concert in Las Vegas November 30?..
Hard to find Beatles tracks from 1960 & later
A Hard Day's Night Screen Grabs
While my ukulele gently weeps. More at Ukulele Disco
Re-post: Musicologist Alan W. Pollack’s copious Notes on all of Beatles 187 songs & 25 covers
What's your favorite Beatles record?
The radio wars that erupted around the Beatles in 1964
A short story composed exclusively of Beatles song titles
Many More Unusual Beatles Links and Unusual Bob Dylan Links Here
September 25, 2005 in Music - Beatles | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 24, 2005
Vermeer
The Iconography of Saint Sebastian. (From ”Cipango”)
Alison Lapper Pregnant, A statue of an armless, naked, pregnant woman was unveiled in London's Trafalgar Square
The Girl with a Pearl Earring. An In-Depth Study of Vermeer's masterpiece, by Jonathan Janson. (From “Presurfer”, which celebrates 5 years of blogging today)
Realistic Tattoo Portraits by Hungarian tattoo artist Boris
This poster features famous surrealists posing at a photo booth, one of the first of the time. The goal of the poster was to portray the quintessence of surrealism. (From “Jaf Project”). A photo booth blog
Art of Crap? Do you know your Dada from your Moma? Try the quiz and see
Society for Art of Imagination
Many More Unusual Contemporary Artists Here
September 24, 2005 in Modern Art | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack
September 23, 2005
e = mc hammer
Prophets to the Nation. The Founders of Gospel Mime. Ladies & Gentlemen - The animated ministry of J&K Mime
Lourdes water bottle. Since the first healing, of Catherine Latapie, on March 1st, 1858, as many as 2,500 unexplained healings have been recorded
The Bible Translated In Glaswegian: At the start, the Big Yin, brought aboot up rerr and doon here. An doon here wis sod all, and all the lights were oot. So the Big Yin says,"put the lights oan rerr"and here did the lights no go oan! The Big yin saw rat and sez "rerr, sorted" "Ah'll keep that dark bit though and call that the night and when they lights are oan Ah'll call rat the day!"
Maharishi Mahesh Yogi is 95 years old
From NPR’s middlebrow “This I believe”, listen to Bill Gates’s Unleashing the Power of Creativity
Top Ten Signs You're a Fundamentalist Christian. No 2: You define 0.01% as a "high success rate" when it comes to answered prayers
Welcome to the Christian Tattoo Association website
Photo galleries from “Jesusland” abandoned - PTL Heritage USA, Fort Mill, SC
The Poetic Eddas, the oral literature of Iceland which were finally written down from 1000-1300 A.D, are like big summer movies, full of gore, sex, revenge and apocalyptic violence
Himalayan Art. Images of the hand and foot prints of famous teachers, predominantly Kagyu and Nyingma
The Dilgo Khyentse Fellowship (DKF) is dedicated to fulfilling the vision and projects of Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche (1910-1991. Last two links from “Malanda”)
Many More Unusual links about Unusual Gods Here
September 23, 2005 in Spirituality | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack