I hit up another graffiti spot recently. This time it was in Atlanta’s Cabbagetown neighborhood. These particular photos were taken in and around Krog Street Tunnel, which I had heard was a top spot in Atlanta for graffiti. The tunnel was definately covered in graffiti, however most of the graffiti was tags instead of murals. Walking through the tunnel was a little creepy. It was dimly lit and we almost expected someone to be sleeping in the place but it was empty when we walked through it. Being an amateur photographer, it was hard for me to get a lot of pictures in the tunnel itself because the lighting was so bad. Near the tunnel there was a lot of other graffiti around. Anyway, I hope you enjoy these pictures.
Archive for April, 2007
Since joining FraudWasteAbuse I’ve had several good article ideas, each of which was eventually tossed out for lack of data. (Sorry for the lame coffee article - it was all I had left!)
For example: a few months ago I read two unrelated articles - one that tallied the number of terrorism related deaths in the USA over the last ten years, the other that tallied the number of deaths caused by deer-vehicle crashes in the same time span. While reading the deer article I made a surprising connection: For nine of the last ten years, deer have killed more people on American soil than terrorists (2001 being the exception). For April 17th, I planed on writing an article about fear, death, and taxes based on this data.
Alas, I could not find the data needed to support the article and thus it was nixed. It was not due to a lack of effort.
And that made me wonder: Why is good data so hard to find? With the 2008 elections coming up and all the talk about universal health-care, the war on terror, illegal farm subsidies, and CO2 emissions; isn’t data - which provides us the ability to measure impact and effectiveness - of dire importance?
Without good data analysis to prove or disprove the merits of a particular policy, aren’t we destined to argue endlessly without truly comprehending the significance of our actions as a nation? Isn’t it likely that, without meaningful data, bad policies will continue and good policies will be eliminated simply because the policy fit or didn’t fit into some political ideal that can be proven wrong, but hasn’t been? Isn’t data the key to accountability?
So where is the data politicians keep spouting off about? I want it. Show it to me. I do not want ridiculously misleading statistics, true as they may be. I want raw data that I can analyze myself should I choose to do so. I want to see people like Hans Rosling analyzing the data and debunking myths caused by ignorance. I want to know the facts behind the facts, not perspectives on data designed to manipulate my opinion. Where is it?
Tiger got to hunt,
bird got to fly;
Man got to sit and wonder,
“Why, why, why?”Tiger got to sleep,
bird got to land;
Man got to tell himself he understand.-Kurt Vonnegut
I was browsing reddit.com the other day and came across an interesting website. It’s called the Gender Genie and it uses an algorithm to predict the gender of the author of a piece of writing. I’m always curious as to how others perceive my writing, even if it is only a piece of software. I decided to take one of my blog entries and paste it into the Gender Genie. Considering that I’m male, the results were a little disconcerting.
According to this website, my article was written by a female. Just barely. I didn’t realize that my writing was so androgynous. It occurred to me that I should probably give the website a little hint to help it along. I decided to put in a little tidbit of information at the end of the text that would help it identify my true gender.
This time I received an even higher female to male score! It seemed more convinced than ever that I wasn’t male. The results made me wonder a little. If I don’t have a vagina and I’m not male, then what kind of freakish female does it think I am? Anyway, it was time to take a more direct route. I decided to feed it some information that, if the program worked as advertised, would in no way cause it to mistake me for a female.
Yet again it thinks I’m female, although my male score improved marginally. I suppose there’s no winning with this thing. Maybe I’m a girly writer after all. Or maybe this software is a piece of crap.
22
Apr
Sticker art and posters
For those of you who have been reading my blog, you will remember that I paid a visit to Little Five Points near downtown Atlanta. While Little Five Points was a great place to find graffiti, it’s also a great place to find cool sticker art and posters. Stiocker art ranges from the seemingly pointless to advertising to political statements. Posters are usually just advertising a local event, but sometimes contain interesting pictures and wording. While I didn’t spend as much time as I would have liked taking pictures, here are a few that I really enjoyed.
19
Apr
Movie theater crap
From when I was 16 until I was 18, I worked at a movie theater. I did just about everything. I tore tickets, sold tickets, cleaned theaters, worked behind the concession counter, ran the projectors, and even became an assistant manager. I earned minimum wage almost the entire time I worked there, but I didn’t care. The job was a blast.
The job came with several perks. The most important one of course was free movies. We also could drink as much soda and eat as much popcorn as we wanted. No free or discounted candy though. Although many times when we cleaned a theater after a showing we would amazingly find unopened candy boxes. I remember thinking that Starburst was an especially awesome find because even if the bag was opened, each candy was individually wrapped and was thus acceptable for consumption. I know, we were gross.
During my two and a half year employment, I collected a sizeable amount of what most people would call junk. Indeed, looking at it now I too consider most of it junk, but I’m a pack rat and I can’t bear to part with it because “I might need it one day.” Unfortunately my large collection has been whittled down to about a box’s worth of trinkets. I lost several posters and promo kits after a pipe in my parents’ basement burst. I wore through most of the t-shirts and hats long ago. I was forced to throw away a ton of movie trailers during a move. There are other items I know I still have but I just can’t seem to find them. These include several movie trailers, some Star Wars Pepsi cups, and even a reel from the movie Rush Hour.
One of the things I did get a lot of were buttons. I used to think the buttons were cool, but after pulling them out of the box it seems that most of them were from crap movies. I mean, how many people have seen Star Kid. How many people have even heard of Star Kid? I barely remember it myself. For myself and my fellow movie theater employees, these buttons served as a sort of “badge of honor.” We would collect the buttons and wear them on our vest as a sort of indicator as to how long each of us had been working there. For example, a Titanic button was better than an Armageddon button because Titanic came out first and thus made the wearer cooler. We would continue to wear the buttons long after the movie had stopped playing at the theater. Man, were we a bunch of retards or what?
I used to have stacks and stacks of these things. The theater would get shipped about five or six trailers for each movie. When the trailers were no longer being shown I was always sure to snatch a few for my collection. Unfortunately most of the trailers for the good movies disappeared quick, but I managed to get a few decent ones. A few people I worked with were lucky enough to snag a few of the Star Wars Episode I trailers. Sure the movie sucked, but they make nice collectors items.
18
Apr
Atlanta graffiti
I’ve lived in Atlanta for most of my life, yet I don’t really know the city. Being a suburbanite, most of my recent experiences with the city itself consist of driving through it to get to the airport. Sad I know, but lately I’ve been determined to learn more about the city I call home. Now that my leg has healed and I can walk again, I decided to go to explore Little Five Points, not to be confused with Five Points, Five Points, 5 Pointz, or the Five Points.
The great thing about going to Little Five Points is that it’s a cool neighborhood, as well as a great spot to see some nice graffiti. So this past weekend, some friends and I decided to drive to Little Five Points and check things out. By the time we got there, we all happened to be starving.
We decided to eat at a burger place called The Vortex. On interesting thing about the restaurant (besides the giant skull that makes up the entrance) is that you have to be at least 18 years old to eat there. It has something to do with Georgia’s loony smoking ban in restaurants. Anyway, all of us decide to order a Coronary Bypass. It’s a burger with a half pound of beef, tomatoes lettuce, cheese, bacon, and a fried egg. It was quite good, although it was very hard to eat because it was so tall. Just trying to take a bite of the thing without the whole burger falling apart was an exact science. If you are ever in the area I highly recommend it.
After lunch we headed out with my camera to get some graffiti shots. We didn’t have to go far to find any. It was everywhere. This was somewhat unusual for me personally, since I live in a part of Atlanta where graffiti is nonexistent. I apologize for the angles on a few of these pictures. Some of the graffiti were in narrow alleys and it was hard to get a good shot.
Every Monday through Friday I wake up at 6:30, 6:38, and again at 6:46, thanks to the snooze-button. I then trudge out of bed, get ready for work, and then head into the office.
Once at the office I take a few minutes to check my email, then I get up do what gets me through the day: I get coffee. The coffee where I work is awful, nay, terrible! I mean it is just plain disgusting. It has a decade-old cardboard taste that no amount of cream and sugar can cover. To make things worse, it costs a dollar!
But it ain’t the coffee that drives me. It is the snooze-button effect that the ritual has on my day. To get to the coffee I must walk down three long hallways and two flights of stairs. When I arrive at the cafeteria, I get to chat mindlessly with the same three people that get coffee at the same time I do. Mostly we talk about how bad the coffee is.
Once I’ve shelled out my dollar, I don’t walk - or even stroll - back to my desk: I mosey. And I don’t take even a single sip of my coffee until I get back to my desk. That way I don’t waste it. Once I am back at my desk, I take sips each time I need a little break. The feel of the coffee moving down my throat, and even the awful taste, brings an exquisite feeling of relaxation and well being.
And when I’m finished with the coffee? A bathroom break, of course.
What is your morning coffee ritual?
The purpose of commercials is to get us to buy the product advertised, or at the very least get us interesting in it. I’ve seen thousands of commercials in my lifetime and most of the time my eyes glaze over when they come on. Now I have a DVR so I hardly ever see commercials anymore. But sometimes I’ll see a commercial that causes me to hate the very characters I’m supposed to like, makes me not want to buy the product, or sends the opposite message intended. There are quite a few that fall into those categories, but here are a few of my favorites. Continue reading ‘Commercials that didn’t quite get the message across’
I’m a Pepsi fan. I like Coke too but I’ll always take Pepsi over Coke if I have a choice. A year ago, one would be hard pressed to convince me that there was no real difference between the two drinks. To me the drinks were very distinct; so much so that I preferred one over the other. But in a college marketing class I took last spring, my beliefs surrounding brand name soda were shattered.
During class one day my professor asked for a show of hands of those who thought they could tell the difference between Pepsi and Coke. I raised my hand along with most of the other people in the class. The professor picked me along with three others and she told us to leave the room. She filled up three cups for each of us. One was filled with Pepsi, one with Coke, and one with a generic cola. We then came in one at a time, took a drink from each cup, and guessed what we thought each one was.
After all of us had finished, the professor revealed the answers. All of us had gotten at least two wrong. I remember that I had gotten the last one right, and I probably only got it right because it was the only choice left. The whole experiment changed my soda buying habits. I switched from buying Pepsi to buying generic cola at the grocery store. Not only did I care much less about the label on the can, I was also paying half of what I was paying when I bought Pepsi.
My Taste Test Experiment
I told my friend Jimmy about the experiment. Sure enough, he was very confident that he could taste the difference, so I challenged him to a test. The test would include him and four other people. The test would consist of two rounds. During each round I would pass around three cups and everybody would take a drink and write down what he or she thought was in each glass. The choices were Pepsi, Coke, and generic cola. Between each drink the participants ate a cracker to clear their palates. After each drink and before the next drink, the participants were to write down what they thought they had just drank. Answers were not shared until the test was over.
Continue reading ‘Pepsi vs Coke: Difference in taste is mostly in your head’
08
Apr
Why Kids Do Drugs
When I was in elementary school, during the “Just Say No” days, I remember hearing about drugs and being utterly confounded by the message. If drugs are so bad, I thought, why the heck (I didn’t say hell - it was a bad word) did so many people risk their lives just to get high? Something didn’t make sense.
In sixth grade, I was confronted with marijuana for the first time when a friend of mine tried it. Still believing the propaganda, I was very concerned and nearly turned him in “for his own good.” After all, he couldn’t be thinking straight… could he? Well, yes, he could. Contrary to my expectations, my friend was perfectly happy, did well in school, and did not start hanging out with the wrong crowd. Something didn’t make sense.
In high school, things started to get heavier. People I knew were not just smoking pot; they were snorting coke, dropping acid, and more. Being the straight kid, I even acted as a trip sitter on a few occasions.
Finally, I saw some of the negative impacts drugs could have. Of course, the reality of the negative impacts were nothing compared to what anti-drug propaganda would have had me expect. Upon smoking pot, eating shrooms, rolling on X, or whatever - none of my friends went crazy, had their life destroyed, or any such nonsense. The vast majority of the time, all they got was a good time.
Things started to make sense. Kids do drugs because they realize that adults have lied to them about it. If they are to discover the truth, they have only one course of action: Do drugs.
Yesterday I heard a story on NPR in which children were asked what they thought about drugs. Each child parroted back, with conviction, all the same false information I believed at their age. They said things like “you’ll die” and “you’ll lose all your friends.”
What will these kids do when they find out it’s not true? Drugs. When it is discovered first-hand that drugs aren’t so bad what, then, will these kids do? More drugs.
Duh.
Don’t get me wrong. I did see a few who “crossed the line” and actually abused drugs. However these kids had a lot of problems, drugs being only one of them. Unfortunately for them, the stigma of drug use would prevent them from seeking help even after they realized they had a problem. Making matters worse, “help” would often put the focus of treatment in the wrong place; they were treated for drug use when the focus should have been more holistic. Even if they got sober, they still tended to be depressed and self-abusive - just without drugs.
So what is the War on Drugs really accomplishing? Or, rather, is it being waged effectively?
I’ve only been to a head shop only a handful of times. I’ve always found them a little fascinating in how they operate in a legal grey area. Whenever someone wants to make a purchase they are required to play a game. The rules to this game are usually posted on the wall or are told to you by one of the employees. If you break the rules they won’t do business with your or may even kick you out of the store. The rules to the game are pretty simple: All products sold in the head shop are for tobacco use only. If you even mention that you plan on using your new purchase to smoke illegal substances then you’ve just lost the game. In the particular store I went to they had these little cards. I suppose they give them to the people they have to kick out.
Another thing I found funny, as well as utterly rediculous, was a sign posted by the bongs. The sign said, “THESE ARE WATER PIPES. DO NOT REFER TO THEM BY ANY OTHER NAME.” Because we all know that bongs are only used to smoke weed and water pipes are only used to smoke tobacco and as a vase to keep freshly cut roses. Okay I was only kidding about that last part. But, the idea that an object referred to by the wrong name can get you into trouble sounds a little like newspeak, don’t you think?
And remember, kids. Only turkeys do drugs.
03
Apr
Joke’s on you, bitch!
Am I wrong for liking this? Am I juvenile for getting a chuckle out of it? I do enjoy the witty banter and comical drawings the local restroom graffiti artists provide, so maybe that answers those questions. Whatever the answer may be, I feel compelled to share this.
I came across this on Jackie Clarke’s blog. She’s a comedian from New York and also a fan of graffiti. This photo was on her site and it gave me a chuckle.
Seriously, folks. Who could not love this devious little girl who decided to turn the tables on the very doctor who helped tend to her injured arm? I bet that doctor was pretty surprised when she saw that girl pull a gun out of the very sling she had just put on her.
I’m sure that most of us have had the pleasure of munching on a few of those candy conversation hearts around Valentine’s Day. Back when I was in elementary school, candy hearts were my absolute favorite candy to get on Valentine’s Day. I’m not even sure why kids even bother handing out cards when they know the true spirit of Valentine’s Day is getting as much candy as possible.
Even to this day I can’t resist chomping down candy hearts whenever I get them. This is why I was shocked to discover the uncanny resemblance of the candy hearts to, of all things, ecstacy tablets. While the shape is different, ecstasy still has that tasty look that drives me to devour as many candy hearts as possible.
The resemblance is uncanny isn’t it? Two of the ecstasy tablets on the bottom row even have special Valentine’s Day messages. Almost makes you wonder if NECCO is really just a front for a much larger ecstasy producing operation, and the candy hearts are really an ingenious way to get kids to take ecstasy. I mean who wouldn’t want to chow down on a something that looked like candy and had endearing little messages and pictures on it?
In the meantime let’s just hope that I don’t happen upon any ecstasy tablets. I might just have to snack on a few to see if they taste like one of my favorite candies.
01
Apr
Ditching the crutches
After two months of hobbling around on crutches, I finally had my cast removed last week. The doctor gave me this huge removable walking boot which I am supposed to wear for another six weeks. Walking in the book took a little getting used to. I could actually get around faster in the crutches and walking on anything but flat ground is slow going. That aside, I wouldn’t go back to the crutches for anything. I only have to use the crutches at night after I take the boot off to go to bed.
This boot increased my quality of life tremendously. While on crutches I could neither carry anything around nor could I take a shower. Taking my first shower in two months was pretty much awesome, as I got to remove the thick layer of crusty dead skin that had formed underneath my cast.
From the picture you can tell that my right foot is still very swollen, even though it’s been two months since I broke my legs and six weeks since my surgery. Before the surgery, they had shaved my leg and it has mostly grown back by now. But since my leg was in a cast for six weeks, a lot of the hair was ingrown. I cannot describe the ecstasy I got from scratching my foot and leg.
That white fuzz on my foot is just some of the cast padding that got stuck to it. The rest is crusty skin. My not being able to wash my leg for two months, the dead skin just kept piling up. Please keep in mind that I took a shower right after these pictures were taken.
Here you can see the incision where they put in the screws and plate. There were no stitches to take out. I guess they must have glued the incision back together or something. You can see more of the nasty crusty skin as well. There was tape over the wound when the cast was removed. That’s why the area around the wound looks so clean while everything else looks to dirty.
