December 2010 Blizzard Timelapse

This video was shot in New Jersey. No wonder the planes have been stuck.


December 2010 Blizzard Timelapse from Michael Black on Vimeo.

EDIA: Make the Call

By Paul Overton at Every Day Is Awesome:

Somebody needs you to call them today, or email, or facebook, or tweet. Somebody's name popped into your head today, maybe even someone you haven't seen in a while, and you may not know why, but it's important that you get in touch and you don't wait.

Mary Zimmerman's Arabian Nights

Just saw Mary Zimmerman's "Arabian Nights" at Berkeley Rep. If you're in the Bay Area I highly recommend doing whatever you need to do to see it before the show closes at the end of the month.

12 Gays of Christmas

Best. Xmas Dance. Ever.

News: Man Cured of HIV

For the first time, a man has been declared officially cured of HIV.

Read the full story at Gizmodo

Love Sounds Stupid

Paul over at Every Day Is Awesome continues to poke at life and I love it.

I was having this conversation the other day with a friend of mine about the idea of loving yourself and the fact that if you don’t like yourself, let alone love yourself, your capacity for loving others is greatly diminished. In the middle of the conversation we took a detour into why it is so hard to even utter the words “self love” and how we always feel like hippie stereotypes who are living outside the “real world” when we say it.
I’ve heard many other people say the same thing about feeling stupid when they talk about love, and especially love that is directed toward themselves. But if we can’t do it, look at the price we pay. If I can’t escape the feeling of being mired in self-criticism, I can spend whole days flogging myself for my imaginary crimes, leaving little time for anything that might actually matter. What good is that?

Read the whole post: Love Sounds Stupid

Dopamine Makes You Addicted to Seeking Information

Interesting, perhaps especially for those of us who are constantly looking for new things online:

The myth — You may have heard that dopamine controls the “pleasure” systems of the brain: that dopamine makes you feel enjoyment, pleasure, and therefore motivates you to seek out certain behaviors, such as food, sex, and drugs.
It’s all about seeking — The latest research, though is changing this view. Instead of dopamine causing us to experience pleasure, the latest research shows that dopamine causes seeking behavior. Dopamine causes us to want, desire, seek out, and search. It increases our general level of arousal and our goal-directed behavior. (From an evolutionary stand-point this is critical. The dopamine seeking system keeps us motivated to move through our world, learn, and survive). It’s not just about physical needs such as food, or sex, but also about abstract concepts. Dopamine makes us curious about ideas and fuels our searching for information. The latest research shows that it is the opioid system (separate from dopamine) that makes us feel pleasure.

Read the full article here. 

Miracles Club - "Church Song"

This goes out to all my dancer friends. We have some new moves to learn.
Also: What's with the goat?

MIRACLES CLUB - "CHURCH SONG" from Mexican Summer on Vimeo.

Beauty Academy of Kabul (Documentary)

Finally saw The Beauty Academy of Kabul. Highly recommended, especially if all you know about Afghanistan is guns and devastation. A great story about people.

Minimalist Muppets by Eric Slager

Kinda in love with these:


by Eric Slager