Even if you can’t count on me—O Bloglin—to be prompt and present all throughout the week, you CAN count on me to be a total Dork. A dork whose latest hobby seems to be making little stop-motion fan videos with his toys. Of course, you may remember last week’s installment of this blooming adventure, and while checking that out, you may or may not be one of the 7 people who checked out my ode to hot wheels and 20 year old hip-hop. Or maybe you aren’t. Who can really tell.

Well, this week’s installment of NF brings you more of my new little proto-hobby, but it’s chopped and screwed, smacked up and flipped, possibly even rubbed down. For reals. So, the jump to the end, what is this about little snip is: Hateball loves Le Merde toys by way of talking about DJ Khaled. There you go. Now watch as I attempt to sew a dog onto a watermelon. Ahem.

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I have to alpologize for not posting on here for quiet a while but the Summer of 2010 has been a rough one for me.  If you visit my site, Stagg Street then you know some of the intimate details behind my cruel, cruel Summer. Broken equipment, getting sick, a big job and of course the stress that comes along with it all.  Wah wah wah! But anyway, I’m back now.

I’m back now though and with everything seeming under control, so who wants to hear me cry about it? Not I!  So I’m here to share with you, one of the better parts to my Summer…  I got to take and shoot three of my favorite models Justine, Darenzia and Marlo to Better Farms in upstate New York. Lots of sexy naked ladies outdoors, how could that be bad?  It was one of the best work trips I ever had because I got to combine my two favorite things: naked ladies and nature!!

Enjoy all these sexy pics after the jump!! I’ll be posting more in the weeks to come.

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The Sword - Warp Riders (2010) [Kemado] // Grade: B+

I get heckled by the Mishka fam a lot for being too contrived in my music taste. Jokingly, they’ll accuse me of only liking brutal vocals and predictable growls, pit kicks and blood-curdling screams; often overlooking inherently good music because it’s not metal enough, or something like that. While it’s not entirely true, there is some truth behind that. In fact, when I first hear the Sword years ago, I hated them. I’d much rather listen to Zeppelin or Sabbath. Why would I want to indulge in a bunch of hippie-esque Texas boys who prolly spent their summers in Austin smoking grass and swimming in the Hippie Hole. Fuck that shit. Where’s the METAL!? Right? Well, that’s where the Sword’s newest album Warp Riders steps in and once again, my foot is in my mouth.

Warp Riders is, in many ways the Blue Record of the 2010 stoner rock albums. While a comparison to Baroness may not be the best, one truth is told by bringing that to light; both the Blue Record and Warp Riders are good rock albums that mark a level of maturity for each band. While one is more sludge and the other is traditionally more stoner rock, each shot the bands into a new ranking caste system. In their 5 year career, the Sword has ruffled a lot of feathers. Out of no where, this band came about and kinda nailed the classic stoner rock formula. It was almost too perfect and music snobs everywhere wanted to nit-pick. Well, 5 years later and Warp Riders proves the naysayers, myself included, wrong.

If you’ve spent any amount of time jamming out to Orange Goblin, Sleep or even Cathedral and Saint Vitus, you don’t want to miss Warp Riders. Complete with picturesque cover art and a space-aged theme, the album delivers in the classic and timeless sense. Yeah, I said themed album. It took a few rotations but after reading the lyrics, it became evident that The Sword took on a new direction and added an underlying theme of science fiction. The story tells tales of a war-torn planet. Where good and evil plot against each other and scar their homeland with wars. All tied together with a 1970′s jam fest filled with riffs and soothing vocals.

Warp Riders may not be for everyone. It’s certainly not for your beer-chugging, headbanging “SLAYER!” friends but it’s a good album to blaze out and relax to. A perfect album for the end of summer. So fill up the cooler, grab the bikes, boombox and ride down to the Hippie Hole to cool off while blasting it. Make sure you remember your headband and Levis though. Cynicism aside, I for one, am impressed. Maybe it’s the sci-fi nerd in me who was looking for an anthem album to top off my summer jams? Who knows.

Yo, ya’ll! Welcome to Press Start! Home to insanity, caffeine, and poorly constructed lists numbering five. This is the location where I tell you the five things that caught my eye in the Gaming Geekosphere from the last week. The list is in no specific order, utterly subjective, and I hope you’ll hit me with your own happenings in the comments box.

Get some.

#1: Gaming Blitzkrieg Hits Gamescom
This week was Gamescom, the European gaming convention set in Cologne, Germany. I wish I could get really amped up over a ton of shit from the convention, but for the most part it was just a collection of new screens and details regarding games that I’m already sweating. Enough Fallout: New Vegas info to make my ass pucker, some Dead Space 2 news, even some shit about the white whale herself, Diablo III.

Aside from that, it didn’t have the megaton reveal of say, an E3. Or perhaps, you know, the most impressive thing for revelations these days: a cover story on Game Informer.

Still though, it’s worth bringing up, innit? According to Mr. Wiki, this son of a bitch is the biggest gaming convention in the world.

What dope shit from Gamescom got your juicy bits inflamed?

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#2: Oh Shit! A Portable Dreamcast?
What’s better than a Dreamcast? Yeah, a fucking Dreamcast. Home to a million little esoteric games that are close to my heart, perhaps none more than Phantasy Star Online. Why, how about a portable one? This effort in awesomeness is the lovechild of Techknott. I’m guessing that’s not his real name. But when you build portable Dreamcasts, I suppose you can name yourself whatever you want.

This ain’t the first endeavor he’s made at making a portable version of Sega’s finale console. In fact, its his third. Now, I ain’t seen any of his other ones, but I can vouch for how tight this one is. This son of a bitch has AV outputs, a VMU that actually works, a CD drive, and more.

God damn, I find all of that so impressive. I’m the sort of guy who gets flustered when looking at instructions for some $10 Ikea coffee table. The fact that our boy Techknott can pull this all together is impressive as fuck.

Well done, good sir.

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#3: Scare the Shit Out of Children With Bioshock Masks
If you want to be well on your way towards coming off as a child-diddling weirdo, then I suggest you pick up the Bioshock Gift Pack. Sold at Toys R Us of all places, the gift pack will bring you a Splicer Mask, and miniature figures of Agent Delta and a Little Sister. I know, right? What a…weird grouping of objects for a gift pack, no? I mean, they’re all sort of neat, but what exactly is the theme that ties them all together. Oh wait, Bioshock!

We can prattle about the gift pack, but let’s talk about the splicer mask. Can you imagine the human being who wants to wear that? I mean, it should be some sort of test that you take before working with children, and one of the questions is simply, “Do you want to wear this mask?” Depending on their answer, you’ll be able to ascertain whether or not they should work with children.

Hint!: If they say “Yes”, then they probably spend a good amount of time hiding in the wastebins behind a Kentucky Fried Chicken, and waiting for someone to pour garbage on them, an act which pushes them into the throes of ecstasy you and I can’t imagine.

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Мишка Fall 2010 Lookbook “Take On the World” by Marley Kate

One part downtown kid and one part reform school, our fall collection provides the only reason to be glad that the weather is getting colder. Beach parties turn into house parties, and although it sucks that it gets frosty, we always find a way to make sure staying warm becomes a new favorite pastime. Our new sweaters, jeans, and jackets will help you with that, too.

When the temperature drops, we turn up the heat with sweaters that make you stand out, be it our ode to the U S of A or Henry Spencer. Illustrations by Lamour Supreme, Sara Martin and James Callahan put a mystical edge on the t-shirts, and the our Bear Mop is back with a vengeance. Filling out the season are crisp trousers and wool jackets which give a nod to the preppy in all of us, and classic letter jackets let you experience the jock side (without losing any neurons).

This collection is about going from daytime into the late, late hours of the night – when anything can happen, and probably will. It will keep you prepared for those unexpected moments between twilight and starlight, and straight until sunrise. We’re for doing what feels good and looking good while doing it, focusing on hot style for cold nights, big style for little effort, and good friends for wild times.

Button-down plaid, dark denim, and patterned sweaters will make sure that you stay looking fresh throughout the year and with tons of jackets in tons of styles, this collection sends a big message. It’s about getting the most style for the least amount of effort. Our 2010 Fall lookbook was shot once again by the incomparable Marley Kate, and the collection is currently shipping to accounts worldwide and will be available for purchase at our stores and vendors worldwide very shortly.

And don’t forget that we will be hosting an official 2010 Fall launch party at The Echoplex in Los Angeles tomorrow, Friday August 20th. RSVP now for entry!

!!! (Chk Chk Chk) - Strange Weather, Isn’t it? (2010) [Warp] // Grade: C+

What do you get when you stick the notoriously funk-friendly !!! in a Brian Eno-colored Berlin, leaving them to record bits of a fourth record that purports to feel, above all else, like a true “Berlin Record”?

Here’s what you get: you get Out Hud. You get Nic Offer and Tyler Pope’s side project, its lovely 2005 LP Let Us Never Speak Of It Again and the disco-house that created—in cahoots with the Juan MacLean, Ratatat, et al—a Berlin dance moment for a generation still taking electro in real small doses.

Okay, sometimes you get that. Not enough times. Sometimes you get Happy Mondays; sometimes you get a technosonic jam band if you’re feeling particularly grumpy about things. And other times, if you really want it, you actually do get Brian Eno. But you really have to want it.

What you don’t get on Strange Weather, Isn’t It?—barely even a little—is the !!! of legend. All those neon-buzzed freak outs and disco explosions, the things that made 2004 the dance-punk banner year it ultimately was—they’re a pastel of the past. Muted. Taupey. And the merit of what’s risen in their place is debatable at best: a surging, hook-light darkness that feels progressive in its good moments, over-stretched at its worst. “Wannagain Wannagain” is a wah-pedal nightmare, “Made of Money” a desperate (and sleepy) look back—but then there’s “The Most Certain Sure”, all sexy swagger and Nick Cave croon, and the warm kiss of sax in “Steady As The Sidewalk Cracks”. And “Hollow”—the most potentially divisive track with its Toni Basil/Gwen Stefani stomp-stomp-clap—even that one has a satisfying cascade of guitar and bass crammed in the middle, a depressive A Certain Ratio ambiance crucial to the otherwise sorta-silly hook.

But you can hardly fault !!! the musical tumult. It’s been a rough year—a rough couple years. The death of drummer Jerry Fuchs, the departure of Tyler Pope, a pervasive funk- and tribal-obsessed sound culture that renders the band irrelevant as often as it does revolutionary; Offer & Co. had nowhere to go but away. For them, this classic “Berlin Record”—and those of Bowie, Eno, Iggy Pop, whomever—is one of transition, of figuring-it-out, and Strange Weather succeeds in that respect. Where they’re transitioning to is another story: !!! seem intent on pushing their personal conversation forward, but the trajectory is unclear. A muddy, sometimes-good purgatory. Unfortunately: forgettable. And !!! have been many things—but they’ve never been forgettable.

Madonna – Express Yourself (director: David Fincher)

Madonna- Frozen (director: Chris Cunningham)

Madonna – Secret (director: Melodie McDaniel)

Madonna – Bedtime Story (director: Mark Romanek)

Madonna – Hung Up (director: Johan Renck)

Rupert Sheldrake lectures on the Morphogenetic Field Theory

Our society is governed by the scientific disciplines of materialism. We’re taught in universities that the most fundamental component in the universe is matter while our governments spend billions of dollars on Hadron Colliders in search of the “God Particle.” Is understanding the nature of the universe all about breaking matter down to it’s smallest form?

Is that how we’ll know exactly how certain atoms and compounds form into trees and crystals, while others human beings and plants? What really tells the cells what to do? Yes, genes play a essential role in coding and synthesizing proteins, but perhaps genes are only a component in the forming of living things. What is it that truly organizes all of this information?

Rupert Sheldrake is a biochemist and physiologist with Ph.D’s from Cambridge and Harvard who served as a Research Fellow of the Royal Society. He theorizes that matter isn’t the core component in biological phenomena, but an energy field that shapes and influences self organizing systems (any living thing) at all levels of complexity. Not to be mistaken with the mainstream definition, Sheldrake has been championing his Morphogenetic Field theory as the master key in understanding how life and the universe operate.

Discussion between Terence McKenna & Rupert Sheldrake on Morphic Resonance (the collective memory of Morphic Fields)

Think of the Morphogenetic Field as architectural blueprints, providing all the plans and information to the construction of a building. In this case, the building is us, a blade of grass, or an amoeba… ANY LIVING THING. Genes serve as the workers executing the blueprints, and every class of organism has their own blueprints as the Morphogenetic Field shapes them into organization.
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