What's Up Everyone?? Thanks for stopping by, look around, have fun, grab a beer outta the fridge if ya like!
Check out the links to the left if you want to learn about me and the things I am interested in, check out the links on the right to see the businesses I support and who support me.
Or just start scrolling down and read up on my latest and greatest ramblings.. (add me on twitter for some good stuff and facebook for the more lengthy debates)
Is anyone surprised? Just a few days ago, I was watching an episode of the Rachael Maddow show, where she discussed how closely the current gulf oil spill resembles the 1979 gulf oil spill. refer to my twitter post here – http://twitter.com/dsogthomas/status/14805090792
Although the spill in 1979 was only in 200 feet deep water and it was a smaller well, the same exact methods were attempted in an effort to stop the flow. That’s right, they tried to place a “cone” over the leak, then they attempted a “top kill”. Both of these methods failed. Eventually, the only way they were able to stop the flow of oil, was to drill a relief well. This took nearly 4 months! – At this point, the canadian regulators seem like the smartest people on the planet when it comes to “oil company regulation”. They require that relief wells be drilled at the same time as the main well is being done. this could turn a 4 month job into a weeklong job.
Now here we are 31 years later, trying the same damn technology to stop a well that is in 5200 feet of water and has a much, much heavier flow?! WTF is wrong with this picture? President Obama, I understand your desire to keep your cool. I also realize that working with BP to get this fixed may be the only way to go about it. But when all of this is said and done, I hope that you take the gloves off and give BP and the entire oil industry the ass kicking that they deserve! 31 years is an extremely long time to still be using the same EXACT technology! This applies to any industry, especially an industry that makes billions upon billions of dollars.
I have watched both liberal and conservative news outlets, on none of these outlets have I heard of any large effort to begin cleanup, neither from BP or from the United States Government. This is unacceptable! I don’t care what the statutes from the corp of engineers say, let Bobby Jindal and the other governors do what must be done to protect their coastline and wetlands. It doesn’t matter how the laws were written after the Exxon Valdez oil spill, let these people in the affected areas begin clean up! If BP had any common sense, they would be paying all of the local fishermen and others who are out of work to help with the efforts. Then they could have saved the billions that they are going to spend on PR next year.
As president, you have the power to issue a state of emergency and bypass all of this political bullshit.
Make BP get the job done and make sure they pay, but in the mean time, let the people of the gulf region get to work!
Ok well here it is, my take on the Lost Series Finale and my experience with the entire series for that matter.
For some it was 6 long seasons, but for me it was only 3 seasons, prefaced by some long exciting nights with the DVD’s. I was reminded of this as I watched the season finale with Vis, she commented, “aren’t you glad there were no good movies at blockbuster that night?” referring to the night that she and I were both introduced to Lost. Season 3 was already underway, but as interested as we may have been, it seemed pointless to start watching it and actually be “Lost”. So as we stumbled across the season 1 DVD’s, we both shrugged our shoulders and said “ehh lets try it”.
Seasons 1 and 2 were finished on DVD before season 3 ended on TV, yet still, we didn’t watch it. We waited patiently for season 3 to come out on DVD and then watched that to catch up before season 4 started. This was about the time that people speculated that the writers were lost in the script. I must admit, there were some pointless twists and turns all over the place, ex; Walt and Michael, they kinda just fizzled away, unlike Daniel Faraday, whose backstory was very intriguing and propelled him into the limelight as he proposed the H-bomb explosion to Jack, thus sending the series and revelations about the island into overdrive.
Once the time traveling was introduced, things did get dicey, but what kept me interested was the actual story of other people and their history with the island. From Charles Widmoore, to Danielle Russeau, Ben Linus’ transgressions as a child, the entire Dharma Initiative story, Charlotte being on the island as a child, the Bomb, Miles and his ability to hear dead people and his father being the notorious Dharma scientist “Dr. Pierre Chang”
Season 6 came with a lot of hype and non-revealing revalations on the web, I read a few.
- “The island is a 4 letter word with an o” – I was going to be so pissed if it was “soul” luckily it was “cork” represented by Jacob and the wine bottle.
- “Richard Alpert’s story will be revealed” – Yes indeed it was! This was one of the most interesting episodes, as a viewer you were instantly given compassion for Richard, where formally there was none. This episode also cast doubt on the Good/Evil roles that were played by Jacob and The Man in Black.
- “A female character will be reintroduced” – Everyone knew it was Claire, we just didn’t know it was “Crazy Claire” To add to that, in the final episodes we did see Juliette, Charlotte, Libby and Shannon these were all pleasant surprises.
For the Final Episode, I feel like I would have been happier if the characters simply met at the church and rejoiced on the memories they had and lived on in their sideways lives. Learning that Jack was dead was kind of a downer, but I can deal with it no problem. Another downer for me was there were a lot of holes left open throughout all of the episodes, people coming and going for no obvious reason: Cindy the Stewardess, Dr. Artz, Shannon and Boone, Paulo and Nikki.. Even the finale had a couple of huge holes, the biggest being, How the hell did they get the tree off of Ben? LOL
While I happily shrugged them all of these things off, there was one question, that if left unanswered, was going to ruin it all for me…
“Where the hell did Vincent go?” I had asked Vis earlier in the day, “Ohh Yeah! I dunno” She replied. “Wouldn’t it be crazy if he showed up tonight in the finale?” had been my off handed comment. Then, just a few hours later, there it was, with a simple glance at the ground and a few words from Locke/The Man in Black “It looks like a dog has been here”.
With this gesture I was forever satisfied with the thoughtfulness of Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse. Kudos Gentlemen…
and it ended as it began, with Jack and Vincent in the bamboo.
I took Ray for a little day trip today. We ended up going to the lafayette resevoir where it was a little windy and chilly, but it seems like a great place to take your canine friends. They have lots of paved and unpaved trails to walk and hike and they even have doggie poo bag dispensers!
We have had some dope original ideas for photoshoots and promo for United Stacks. So we went down to Telegraph ave. in Berkeley to work on some of the ideas and get a feel of how it will go down, that way when we go for it, we will have all our ducks in a row. Our Photographer caught a bunch of sick candids of me rapping with the locals about the line, so I figured I would post one up of me and Jimmy Lee! (we even got him to throw on our logo tee)
Its hard to remember that there is actually a person inside this suit. I couldn’t stand on top of that ladder with regular clothes on, much less that cumbersome suit!
Kudos to Bango, the deer mascot for the Milwaukee Bucks NBA team. Watch this video as he performs a backflip dunk off of a 16-20 foot ladder.
Some of you may have caught a glimpse of the dog adoption “ADOPT” poster in the movie “The Back Up Plan” with Jennifer “JLo” Lopez. It was hanging in the wall of her pet shop, the poster was styled after the President Obama “Hope” poster which shows his face with a cool red/blue/off yellow vector color scheme.
Here is the place that has those posters. www.adoptapetshop.com Its a great cause and they also have T-shirts, downloadable desktop images, and much more! Check them out! Its actually done as a collab with Shepard Fairey from Obey, so its legit!
The only thing that sucks about traveling so much is that I miss a lot of things that I may want to see at home here in the Bay Area. Well it worked out perfectly that I would have the weekend of April 17th off, so I could attend the grand opening of Benny Gold’s Flagship store.
I learned of Benny, by way of a collab hat he did with Rebel 8 called “Partners in Crime” They had short run of them made and I knew I had to have one even though I had no clothes that matched. Since then I have bought these Shell Toes to go with the hat and our own United Stacks “Champagne” shirt goes well with both.
As some of you know, I am still getting my feet wet in the streetwear game, so checking out an Iconic designers flagship store grand opening was a real treat and a great way for me to show some respect to those who have been putting it down. Benny’s store was easily accessible off of the freeway via Cesar Chavez blvd (for those of you who may be coming from outside the city to visit)
The address is :
Benny Gold
3171 21st street
San Francisco, CA 94110
415-814-3940
The store itself serves dual purpose, it is retail downstairs and design office upstairs, the retail section is very tastefully decorated with dark wood accents and Benny’s signature paper plain trail in white on the off white walls. The scene at the opening was real casual, guys were skating on the sidewalk, there was a taco truck out front, Pabst Blue Ribbon flowed abundantly and Benny’s famous pug “Levi” ran around a bit making sure everyone was in line!
I wanted one of the True Native leagues shirts, but they were sold out, so I copped a red “Union Label” which utilizes the same logo that Benny used on the tag for his new denim line. All in all, it was dope to go see everyone having a good time, I met the guys from InfiniteSF and kicked it with Benny’s Dad. I will definately stop by the next time I am in the city.
They had short run of them made and I knew I had to have one even though I had no clothes that matched. Since then I have bought these Shell Toes to go with the hat and our own 
