Owner: Bar Stories URL:www.barstoriesblog.com Join Date: Tue, 21 Aug 2007 19:52:51 -0500 Rating:0 Site Description: A blog about bar culture. Site statistics:Click here
Monkey Bars 2007-09-27 10:21:00 With recess back on the schedule and an upswing in litigation over recreational accidents, playground equipment has seen more than a few changes in the last ten years. The days when monkey bars were the norm in the schoolyard or park are fast disappearing. In fact, in some parts of the country the old fashioned monkey bars that people remember have vanished completely as older playgrounds are replaced and newer more versatile and safer products are installed. The first playgrounds were designed to keep kids from playing in the streets of New York, but modern playgrounds have come a long way from tire swings and sliding boards.Today, the cost of a typical school playground can run as high as $20,000 and in most cases more people are involved in the design than ever before, including parents, teachers, and kids. Even some famous architects are paying attention. In June, Frank Gehry announced that he would build a playground at Battery Park. There were a few CHEERS and a few JEERS at the
Puppy Love 2007-10-10 07:26:00 Sleek greyhounds, goofy, but loyal Labradors, regal Poodles, dedicated Dobermans--dogs are everywhere. New figures just released from a National Pet Owners Survey show pet ownership is currently at its highest level, with 63 percent of all U.S. households owning a pet which equates to more than 69 million households in the US. Don't believe it? Take a look around. Some areas like mine have more dogs than public school teachers or four year olds. What exactly are we doing with all these dogs? According to Purina's State of the American Pet Survey at least 95% of pet owners are giving their dogs a daily hug, 45% of us are taking them on vacation and a surprising 43% admit to celebrating their dog's birthday. I'd say some dogs have it pretty good. Not bad for a creature that was once the answer to the question, "Whats for dinner?"So where are all these dogs? One place is the dog parks. Dog parks consist of a fenced area where licensed dogs are allowed to roam off leash and socialize. Read more:Puppy
The Singing Revolution 2007-10-09 17:00:00 The nonviolent revolution known as "The Singing
Revolution" began in 1987 in Estonia with mass protests against the Soviets who had occupied the country since 1945. Night after night singing demonstrators numbering almost 300,000 gathered to sing nationlist songs and hymms that were forbidden during the years of Soviet occupation. In addition to the singing demonstrations there were political actions, and outspoken defiance of Soviet rules that led to the eventual independence of Estonia from the USSR in 1991.According to James Tusty, an American filmmaker of Estonian heritage who recently produced a documentary on the revolution, the story of the Singing Revolution is one that has never been told outside Estonia. "We felt it was time the rest of the world knew what happened here,” Tusty said in a recent interview. The Singing Revolution, a 90 minute English speaking film opened in February to limited engagements. Trusty interviewed most of the major Estonian participants and he has
Light Pollution 2007-10-07 12:15:00 Today on a cloudless night in NYC an amateur astronomer can see far less of the nightime sky than Galileo could see when he first began studying the stars. The reason is light pollution. Light pollution is measured on the Bortle Dark Sky Scale, and Galileo's night sky would have been classified as a 1 or the darkest on the scale while the sky above New York is currently considered a brightly lit, 9. In fact in the US there are no longer any class 1 locations and even class 2 areas are under seige from the omnipresent glow of outdoor lighting, a threat that grows increasingly more powerful each year. In 1988 a non-profit group called the International Dark Sky Association began trying to do something about light pollution. The group's efforts include targeting poorly designed and bad light fixtures, reducing the wattage of individual outdoor lights and working to diminish the overall level of nighttime lighting. Light pollution comes in many forms, but one glaring offender is the unt Read more:Pollution
I Saw Your Nanny 2007-10-04 14:07:00 Watch out SuperNanny
. Hold on to your umbrella Mary Poppins. Nanny tattle-tales are watching you in the virtual world. On the website I Saw Your Nanny anyone can report a Nanny behaving badly and give up the goods for public consumption. Most of the eyewitness accounts on the website of over-zealous, negligent, and sometimes abusive nannyism come from New York City, but there are also plenty of incidents of arm tugging, nanny disapproval, care-giver meltdowns and so on from cities big and small. These highly subjective nanny sightings run the gamut from "child was refused a juice box" to a video of this purported Nanny (wrong) using her young charge as a "child bandit."The Nanny relationship cuts both ways and the blog includes nanny complaints about reckless, indifferent, stingy, and down right insensitive parents as well. One live-in Nanny posted this picture of her employer's refrigerator. Apparently the young Nanny was not allowed to eat most of the family's food. Many of us have
Bar Girls 2007-10-04 11:11:00 Many young women in Southeast Asia are unknowingly lured into the sex trade by high priced offers to dance in South Korean nightclubs that cater to American military personnel. Once the girls arrive at the clubs their passports are taken and they are forced to live as virtual sex slaves. These girls sometimes called "juicy girls" offer men their companionship and other services in trade for high priced juice drinks, and money paid through "bar fines."Sex trafficking is a global world wide problem and affects millions of women. Prostitution and sex tourism are forms of sexual exploitation, and have become a major industry in Thailand beginning with the U.S. Military involvement during the Vietnam War. In the 1970's the U.S government contracted with the Thai governement for recreational services for U.S. soldiers, later in 1975, The World Bank built an economic plan for Thailand based on the sex industry.In Thailand today, it is estimated that at least one third of the prostitutes are Read more:Girls
Tiki Bar 2007-10-14 16:05:00 Ernest Raymond Beaumont Gantt also known as Don the Beachcomber was the founder of the Tiki bar. In the 1920's Grant a decorated WWII veteran traveled around the South Pacific then returned home to open his own club called "Donn the Beachcomber." Gantt's nightclub was done up in faux Polynesian style and served popular rum drinks in coconut shells. Included on the menu was a bar favorite, known as the "Zombie." The original Zombie was a strong cocktail, but here's a recipe that claims to be as good as the original.ZOMBIE1 oz light rum1 oz golden rum1 oz dark rum1 oz apricot brandy1 oz pineapple juice1 oz papaya juice1/2 oz 151 rumDash of Grenadine or other syrup. Shake all ingredients except the 151-proof rum in a shaker with ice. Strain into a tall glass filled with ice cubes. Float the 151-proof rum on top. Garnish with pineapple and cherry.Tiki bars were popular in the 1940's and 1950's and Victor J. Bergeron opened his own version called Trader Vics in the late 1930s near San
Bunker Spreckels 2007-10-24 23:19:00 Taschen recently published a new coffee table book about Bunker
Spreckels, the one time hottie surf champ and errant stepson of Clark Gable. The book, Surfing's Divine Prince of Decadence, was authored by TR Strecyk and has photos by surf veteran Art Brewer. Strecyk who wrote Dogtown and Z-Boys was one of the first on the scene in the California skate scene and a close friend of the surfer. Bunker Spreckels led a short and privileged life and the book documents the comings and crazy goings of one of the true Princes of BelAir.Spreckels mother Kay was Clark Gable's fifth wife and Bunker, born Adolph Spreckels was five when the pair hooked up. A talented surfer in his early years, Bunker was also heir to his mother's sugar fortune, and not long after the day that he collected his first check as an adult Bunker began down the road to a truly decadent lifestyle filled with drugs and sex. In an interesting and perhaps some would say weird move Spreckels invited people to both photograph
BUNCO SQUAD 2007-11-05 19:02:00 Bunco squad is a slang term from way back in the '40's and '50s that refers to a police or law enforcement group charged with investigating confidence games. Back in the 1920's there were underground Bunco gambling parlors in cities around the country where the dice game was played and the term Bunco itself eventually evolved to mean any dishonest dice or card game. Bunco squads were charged with doing clean up. Now Bunco the dice game is making a comeback in a big way. To my surprise I recently saw an ad in Prevention magazine sponsored by Prilosec and the World Bunco Organization touting the "festive" game of Bunco and providing instructions for a potluck Bunco party. Seems that in 2006 Prilosec's started sponsoring the World Bunco Championships and this March they will be held in Las Vegas with a $50,000 prize. What is Bunco? According to the WBO, Bunco is a progressive dice game that was unknown in the U.S until 1855 when it was introduced on the west coast, most likely San Fr
Free Beer 2007-11-12 13:40:00 "Dreams do come true. Everyday until Dec. 31, two lucky people can win free beer. Yes, $40 worth of fine Anheuser-Busch products. The catch? You can only enter once a day. But the good news is, you can win twice a month. So grab a good luck charm and logon to Bud.TV everyday to be entered. Because, today could be the day. And if not, there’s always tomorrow. Must be 21 to enter. No purchase necessary."Go to Budtv.comYou can also enter the BUDTV contest ARE YOU THE NEXT BIG PRODUCER? Just reinvent one of the movie scenes featured on the website. The winning clip may be broadcast (I guess porn is out) but the "next big producer" definitely gets a free trip to MOVIES ROCK in LA. The headliner is Carrie Underwood. So bring your soup ladle if you suffer from objectophilia. Objectophilia?Tales from Objectophilia Land A friend of mine recently acquired a huge stainless steel refrigerator after many years of mooning over them in the Home Depot. When she asked me to stop by her house for a vi
BIZARRO BOOKS 2007-11-11 15:09:00 About twenty years ago booksellers in England were encouraged to display their worst sellers in an exhibit called Dud Books. The idea was a popular and financial success, and ever since there has been public interest in bizarre book titles. Here's a few examples that I've encountered in the blogosphere. 11/12/07 UPDATE.How bizarre is this?Looks like the NY Times blogged this same post a few days ago on Paper Cuts. Here's a link to a book on the subject from Harper's Collins, Bizarre Books: A Compendium of Classic Oddities.
Serpico 2007-11-22 18:14:00 In 1971 Frank Serpico was the first cop in the history of the NYC Police Department to break through the "blue wall of silence" to testify about widespread corruption in the police force. Serpico, a plainclothes detective had been telling his superiors for years that his fellow cops were blatantly taking kickbacks and making under the table deals with drug dealers, but nothing was ever done until Serpico took his evidence to the NY Times. When the story broke Mayor John Lindsay appointed the Knapp Commision to investigate, but before Serpico could testify he was shot in the face during a drug bust in Brooklyn. In the incident Serpico accompanied three undercover cops to an apartment on Driggs Avenue to make a drug buy. Serpico was tapped by his fellow officers to make the buy because he spoke Spanish. At the dealer's apartment, Serpico knocked and when the door opened a few inches he tried to push inside, but the dealer pushed back and Serpico became wedged.Believing the other cops to
Zombie Squad 2007-11-29 10:56:00 Ran across information on the Zombie Squad
while tip-toeing through the Internet looking into the recent resurgence in survivalism in the U.S. The group calls itself a non-stationary cadaver suppression task force, but the pierced and tattooed members of Zombie Squad are actually a posse of latter day survivalists intent on preparing people for the Apocalypse by making it fun. I guess there's no sense in being dark and gloomy about the End Times.Appears that in the post-9/11 and post Katrina world the guys and gals of ZS have found a mission. They want to educate people about the next big disaster and these survival enthusiasts use Zombies as a metaphor for catastrophe and the slogan "You can never be too prepared" to push the message. No matter what Tom Ridge said about duct tape and plastic bags, The Zombie Squad wants to offer more. They provide training sessions on self reliance and preparedness, survival boot camp, and fund raisers for disaster relief. According to the website Zo
Eddie Would Go 2007-12-09 21:31:00 Eddie
Aikau was born on the island of Maui and became the first lifeguard to work the rough North Shore of Wimea Bay on the island of Oahu, tackling thirty foot swells and saving dozens of lives. Aikau was also a well regarded surfer and a rising star in big wave competitions winning several awards including the 1977 Duke Classic. In 1978 the Polynesian Voyaging Society was seeking volunteers for a 30-day, 2500 mile journey to follow the ancient route of the Polynesian migration between the Hawaii and Tahiti. Aikau at loose ends after the break up of a brief marriage decided to join the voyage. On March 16th, the double-hulled voyaging canoe sailed out of the dock and straight into some swift tradewinds. After developing a leak the boat capsized around midnight about twelve miles south of the island of Molokai. The crew hung on until morning, but after being smashed by huge waves and dragged by the current Aikau in an attempt to get help decided to paddle his surfboard toward Lanai.
Capgras Delusion 2007-12-19 20:19:00 The Capras delusion is a rare disorder where a person suffers from the delusion that someone close to them has been replaced by an identical looking imposter. A French psychiatrist Joseph Capgras was the first to discover the disorder and the MH literature has many examples. The syndrome is believed to arise from damage to the fusiform gyrus, the same part of the brain that recognizes faces. The theory is that there is both an unconscious and conscious pathway to recognizing faces and that damage to this area of the brain causes an emotional reaction to a familiar face.Several movies including the Stepford Wives and Invasion of the Body Snatchers have made good use of this fear inducing delusion to provide a plot full of twisted "what-ifs" for audiences. In most of these plots the replacements or imposters involve aliens or in the case of Stepford Wives some big bosomed robots.The 2006 National Book award for fiction went to Richard Power's The Echo Maker which made use of Capgras syn Read more:Delusion
Daydream Believer 2007-12-16 16:25:00 The inner domain of the human brain is an interesting planet that I visit often. In fact my own personal INZONE is a spectacular place that boasts a constantly changing narrative, visual images, and inner speech. The only prompting that I ever need to access its environs is to fire up the vacuum cleaner or perform some other mind numbing task.Unfortunately some folks like those in the business community consider day dreaming an infraction of the work ethic. If you are interested you can look at Oops: Discovering the Wandering Mind where a variety of slip-ups, mishaps, and other happy thoughts on what medical and transportation industry people call "attention failures" and their dire consequences are listed. From these you can gather where most of the mind wandering research is headed in this country.The fact that boredom and lack of sleep are often the cause of these daydreaming lapses is no surprise to any of us. But one of the ways that we can improve our conscious attention may be. Read more:Daydream
Bio Mapping 2007-12-15 23:07:00 Since 2004 a community research project known as BioMapping
has wired up over 1,000 people with an innovative device which records the wearer's Galvanic Skin Response (GSR), an indicator of the emotional arousal to chart their reaction to geographical location. After the subjects explore their local area a map is created which visualizes points of high and low arousal. By interpreting and annotating the data, communal emotion maps are constructed that show the relationship between the external and the internal world of the participants. The idea is to represent areas that people feel strongly about, and somehow project the social space of a community. Bio-Mapping is the brainchild of Christian Nold, an artist, teacher and cultural activist in London. To date Nold has been able to complete a San Francisco Emotion Map using 300 paricipants and a Tokyo map is in the works. You can find a copy of a documentary about the project at the Internet Archive.
Where The Wild Things Are 2008-03-02 21:38:00 Let the Rumpus begin. Where the Wild Things Are is set to appear in theaters in 2009 with a new script by Spike Jonze (Adaptation) and Dave Eggers (Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius). Currently in post production the cast includes James Galdolfini, Forest Whitaker, and seven wild creatures that have been created using foam body costumes and CIGI faces. The movie is based on the popular children's picture book by Maurice Sendak published in 1963. The story is all about Max, a little boy who is banished from his room for kicking up a fuss and decides to go live with the imaginary Wild Things. The movie version has been in development since the 1980's and has been tossed from studio to studio. The project eventually landed at Warner Brothers in 2007 when some concern arose at Universal
Birth Of The Cool 2008-02-13 07:37:00 Everyone knows what cool means. Cool is an aesthetic, an attitude, an amorphous but defining quality that is often difficult to explain, but easily recognizable. The Internet is full of cool places like The Cool Site of the Day and Daily Candy and other search engines that aggregate cool. Cool can also be found on the library shelf and any up and coming Hipster can turn to the pages of the book Birth of the Cool: California Art, Design, and Culture at Midcentury and explore the beginnings of Fifties modernist influences on the West Coast.Besides being an aesthetic and an artifact of culture--individuals and music can also embody cool. Nothing is cooler than Jazz and nobody is cooler than Miles Davis. Davis' legendary album Birth Of The Cool was released by Capitol Records in 1957 with musi
Valentine's Day 2008-02-11 08:07:00 My daughter used to hang out in this coffee shop in Boulder when she was a student. On the last day before she graduated and headed home her favorite barista made her a latte with a little heart in the center. She was thrilled. Maybe this Valentine
's Day you can wake your Sweetie with a heart latte.The following is from WikiHow:"HOW TO MAKE A LATTE"Things You'll NeedEspresso machine, with Steam WandTampMetal PitcherFill the metal pitcher 3/5 of the way full with milk, or to the base of the pour spout.Place thermometer securely inside of the pitcher. Steam milk to 145ºF. The temperature will raise an additional 5 degrees as it sits. If you prefer hotter drinks, that's fine, but you will scorch it above 155ºF. (be sure your thermometer is calibrated!)The steam wand should be inserted diag
Is There a Hell 2008-02-09 10:14:00 Pointy-tailed Devils with pitchforks. Naked souls writhing in a lake of fire. The acrid smell of Brimstone. (What is Brimstone anyway?)These are the familiar and icongraphic images of Hell with which most of us are familiar. But does Hell really exist? Almost all religions believe in a place of future punishment. For some religions the concept includes eternal damnation and an eternity of sado-masochist torture. For others like Buddhists, Hell is just a plateau where the human soul stops off to be cleansed before moving on to another life.For those of you who believe in God--I know you're out there because you've been sticking The Lighthouse in this sinner's mailbox for years--The big question is whether or not believing in Hell means believing in accountability--Will people really get th
Spock Goes Nude 2008-02-06 18:12:00 Leonard Nimoy is one of the latest to add his voice to the female body acceptance movement. Last May he mounted a gallery show that featured photographs of obese women and in November he released a book The Full Body Project that includes photographs of full bodied women like those pictured above.In an article in the NY Times Nimoy says that the Xtra large nude photographs were his artistic response to the cultural pressure on women in American society to conform to the size 2.It's true. The size 2 woman is an unrealistic standard. Most women weigh 25% more than the average runway model. BUT STILL not many women are at the top of the curve that Nimmoy photographs. My guess is that this particular aesthetic is truly under appreciated by the public and in my opinion the unimaginative poses t Read more:Spock
Haunted Television 2008-01-26 14:03:00 Stories of souls trapped or lost in television's nowhere land permeated the folklore of the Sputnik Era.In 1953 the NY Times carried an article about a Long Island family with a TV set inhabited by the ghost of a mysterious woman. Jerome Travers and his 3 children reported seeing the woman during Ding Dong School. The Travers family was besieged by reporters, but the image never reappeared. In the 1960's a Wisconsin woman claimed to have seen a couple arguing on a balcony and the call letters of a defunct radio station on her television screen. The vision was followed by a desperate cry for help. Rosella Rose was not the first person to see the KLEE station card almost twelve year after it was abandoned, and when news of her sighting appeared in the papers it reinforced public perception Read more:Haunted
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Happiness 2008-01-25 14:49:00 Everyone recognizes that "in the groove" feeling when someone is totally immersed, focused, and fully involved in some activity. In this state time drops away, the world recedes, and we become at one with whatever endeavor or task we are engaged.Mihalyi Csikszentmihalyi, a psychologist known for his work in the field of creativity called this feeling flow. In his best selling book Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience Csikszentmihalyi describes flow as a source of great freedom, enjoyment, and fulfillment. According to Csikszentmihalyi, flow is one of the hallmarks of happiness in life and work.Until recently happiness has been an unexplored dynamic of human life, but lately some psychologists have begun to map the dimensions of positive human experience. In fact there is a Positive P
New Black Panther Party 2008-01-23 14:44:00 The New BlackPantherParty
takes its name from the original Black Panther Party, a radical black nationalist group active in the 1960s and 1970s. Since the late 1990s, NBPP has become the largest organized anti-Semitic black militant group in America. After the death of former leader Khallid Muhammad in February 2001, Malik Zulu Shabazz took over leadership. Under Shabazz, the NBPP is expanding, forging relationships with violent prison gangs like the Black Guerilla Family, and organizing the party hierarchy to include links to The Nation of Islam.The Black Separatist Movement has a long history in the US going back to the time of African American abolitionist Martin Delaney, the first black nationalist. Black Separatist groups are against interracial marriage, desegregation, and military Read more:New Black
Drinking Games 2008-01-22 17:11:00 Researchers at San Diego University did a little field work recently and discovered first hand that drinking games lead to higher blood alcohol levels for college students. Most academics study alcohol behavior by examining student self reports after the fact, but in this study the researchers observed 1,304 young adults at 66 college parties over the course of three semesters.Not surprisingly they found that playing drinking games, having a personal history of binge drinking, attending a party with many other intoxicated people, and attending a themed event all predicted higher blood alcohol levels. In addition something surprising turned up when they discovered that women at themed events drank more heavily than men, especially at parties with sexual themes or costumes. The point of dri Read more:Drinking
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Duplessis Orphans 2008-01-13 13:29:00 In a scheme that boggles a person's mind, fifty years ago in Canada, Quebec Minister Maurice Duplesiss entered into a pact with the Catholic Church to defraud the government by relabeling children left in orphanages by unwed mothers as psychotic or mentally deficient to gain greater funding. In the demented plan orphanages were also relabeled as insane asylums and run that way.When the asylums were closed in the 1990's, the profit scheme came to light and a scandal erupted. The survivors began to tell about the horrors of imprisonment from childhood---the profound abuse, treatment as slave labor, electro-shock treatments, sexual abuse, physical tortures, straitjackets, and medical experiments.Confronted with the evidence the government chose to trivialize the impact and refused to punish Read more:Orphans
The New Age Travellers 2008-01-02 20:00:00 The New Age Travellers
are a loose band of modern day drop outs attracted to the nomad existence. Travellers eschew the ho-hum conventional lifestyle and prefer instead to live as vagabonds in tents, old school buses, and converted recreation vehicles. The Traveller scene morphed from the "Hippie" movement of the Sixties and Travellers are a broad based communal group that share common values of personal freedom, spirituality, and individual discovery.Although the movement began in Britain, New Age Traveller groups can be found around the globe where they go by a variety of names like Rainbow Truckers, Hippie Travellers, and New Age Gypsies. Most experts agree that the Traveller lifestyle got a boost from Britain's seasonal free music circuit where promoters provided free campgrounds and
Free Beer 2007-12-28 18:17:00 Guess what? I posted this a few weeks back and my Sis is one of the latest winners. Whoopee Do! That means free beer.....glug....glug. One more day to go on the contest so you'd better hurry. Dreams do come true...."Dreams do come true. Everyday until Dec. 31, two lucky people can win free beer. Yes, $40 worth of fine Anheuser-Busch products. The catch? You can only enter once a day. But the good news is, you can win twice a month. So grab a good luck charm and logon to Bud.TV everyday to be entered. Because, today could be the day. And if not, there’s always tomorrow. Must be 21 to enter. No purchase necessary."Go to Budtv.com
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