Negev Rock City

The Onion: 8.4 Million New Yorkers Suddenly Realize New York...

Thu, 02 Sep 2010 14:52:15 -0400

The Onion: 8.4 Million New Yorkers Suddenly Realize New York City A Horrible Place To Live

“I was sitting on my stoop, drinking coffee, and out of nowhere this crazy-looking woman just starts screaming, ‘I am inside all of you,’ over and over,” Bronx resident Sarah Perez, 37, said. “Then, we both had this moment where we looked at each other and realized, okay, we have to get out of here.” “This place sucks,” Manhattan resident Woody Allen, 74, told reporters. “It just fucking sucks.” When fleeing New Yorkers were asked if they would miss the city’s iconic landmarks, most responded that Central Park is just a pathetic excuse for experiencing actual nature, that the Brooklyn Bridge is great but it’s just a fucking bridge, that nobody goes to the Met anyway, and that living in a dingy, grime-caked apartment while exhaust fumes from an idling truck seep through your bedroom window isn’t worth slightly bigger bagels.

Editor’s Note: Sorry. Just had to post this.

90s flashback time: Live - I Alone (via LiveVEVO)With that,...

Thu, 02 Sep 2010 14:05:54 -0400

90s flashback time: Live - I Alone (via LiveVEVO)

With that, we’re turning off the blog for the American Labor Day holiday. See y’all next Tuesday barring any craziness.

1,000 Followers On Tumblr

Wed, 01 Sep 2010 19:09:26 -0400

Thanks all. Flattered, a bit confused, happy nonetheless. Cheers.

"bacha baz"

Wed, 01 Sep 2010 19:07:39 -0400

aatombomb:

All of this was so disconcerting that the Defense Department hired Cardinalli, a social scientist, to examine this mystery. Her report, “Pashtun Sexuality,” startled not even one Afghan. But Western forces were shocked - and repulsed. For centuries, Afghan men have taken boys, roughly 9 to 15 years old, as lovers. Some research suggests that half the Pashtun tribal members in Kandahar and other southern towns are bacha baz, the term for an older man with a boy lover. Literally it means “boy player.” The men like to boast about it. “Having a boy has become a custom for us,” Enayatullah, a 42-year-old in Baghlan province, told a Reuters reporter. “Whoever wants to show off should have a boy.”

In Kandahar, population about 500,000, and other towns, dance parties are a popular, often weekly, pastime. Young boys dress up as girls, wearing makeup and bells on their feet, and dance for a dozen or more leering middle-aged men who throw money at them and then take them home. A recent State Department report called “dancing boys” a “widespread, culturally sanctioned form of male rape.”

- SFGate via The Dish

I suppose it’s a sad, inevitable reality that in a culture with such harsh, repressive gender roles this sort of grotesque sexual outlet has emerged.

The Conjecturer knows a lot about this phenomenon from his travels in that area. I’ll leave this bait here and await further commentary from him.

Twitter For Dummies: Share Your Twitter Tips, Win a Copy

Wed, 01 Sep 2010 14:57:20 -0400

Twitter For Dummies: Share Your Twitter Tips, Win a Copy: Twitter for dummies… but isn’t that called Twitter?

Note to my clients: I kid.

peterfeld:

Apparently someone thinks Twitter needs more dummies.

mashable:

Whether you’re learning or a pro, we want to hear your tips for using Twitter. The readers with the best tips will win their very own copy of Twitter For Dummies to further their skills.

The tips can include everything from best tools to use, the do’s and dont’s, etiquette and more. Be…

Update On Discovery Networks Hostage-Taker

Wed, 01 Sep 2010 14:21:00 -0400

Welcome to the Y2Khole. News reports indicate that the hostage-taker has a website listing his demands, which include rambling (and, yes, typo-filled) references to Ishmael Reed and Ponzi schemes. Excerpt:

1. The Discovery Channel and it’s affiliate channels MUST have daily television programs at prime time slots based on Daniel Quinn’s “My Ishmael” pages 207-212 where solutions to save the planet would be done in the same way as the Industrial Revolution was done, by people building on each other’s inventive ideas. Focus must be given on how people can live WITHOUT giving birth to more filthy human children since those new additions continue pollution and are pollution. A game show format contest would be in order. Perhaps also forums of leading scientists who understand and agree with the Malthus-Darwin science and the problem of human overpopulation. Do both. Do all until something WORKS and the natural world starts improving and human civilization building STOPS and is reversed! MAKE IT INTERESTING SO PEOPLE WATCH AND APPLY SOLUTIONS!!!!

Editor’s note: Oy.

Gunman Holding Hostages At Discovery Channel HQ In Maryland

Wed, 01 Sep 2010 14:06:11 -0400

Currently unclear on number of hostages, more TK.

Planning My Next Tattoo

Wed, 01 Sep 2010 12:51:28 -0400

So I already have a tattoo of the Brooklyn Bridge w/ the Manhattan skyline in front of a blue sky tattooed on my right arm. I’m planning to get a half-sleeve done around it showing the first Dutch sailing ships coming into NYC. Getting the initial sketch for the tattoo done after Labor Day… I’d be lying if I didn’t say I was excited aboutit.

Foursquare's Newest Badge: An STD Testing Badge

Wed, 01 Sep 2010 11:21:22 -0400

Foursquare's Newest Badge: An STD Testing Badge:

1. This is a good idea. Anything to encourage people to hit the clinic, right?
2. Shame Frank Zappa isn’t around to write a song about this.

A Blog Post For The Parents

Wed, 01 Sep 2010 10:36:30 -0400

Note: I’m not a parent. But I have quite a few friends w/ children, which means I get to experience kids once or twice a month - with no responsibility to actually raise them. You know, the way it should be.

Anyway, a friend of mine recently pulled his daughter from a Spanish-speaking class for 4-6 year olds. The reason? The daughter’s Spanish, even at that young age, advanced past his. He decided that because he could no longer help his daughter with Spanish, that she was better off quitting the class.

Stuff like that bothers me. Dude, you’re just DEPRIVING THE KID.

My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2010-8-29)

Wed, 01 Sep 2010 06:41:09 -0400

My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2010-8-29):

Imported from Last.fm Tumblr by JoeLaz

Sign pasted to office window, Ft. Lewis, Washington. (Photo via...

Tue, 31 Aug 2010 16:04:46 -0400

Sign pasted to office window, Ft. Lewis, Washington. (Photo via Boing Boing)

Israeli Researchers: "Arabic is Hard to Learn"

Tue, 31 Aug 2010 15:15:48 -0400

Israeli Researchers: "Arabic is Hard to Learn":

Chalas! Arutz Sheva, the main news site of Israeli settlers in the West Bank, reports on a Haifa University study that claims Arabic is unusually hard to learn:

Haifa University’s Professor Zohar Eviatar and neuropsychologist Dr. Rafik Ibrahim of Rambam Medical Center have shown that the complexities of the Arabic language impede the right brain from taking part in learning to read it. This is largely because of the graphic complexities of the language, in which very similar shapes stand for different letters, while the same letter is depicted in a variety of ways depending on whether it is in the beginning, middle, or end of a word.

Coming up next, Negev Rock City will discuss German studies claiming Polish is unusually hard to learn and Turkish studies on the sheer inscrutability of Armenian.

The lads at Street Boners have just gone to the trouble of...

Tue, 31 Aug 2010 15:05:26 -0400

The lads at Street Boners have just gone to the trouble of analyzing Scottish culture for us. Thanks crew.

I'm Underemployed; It's The Pre-Labor Day Slow Stretch. Let's Network.

Tue, 31 Aug 2010 14:35:02 -0400

I just sold out and made a LinkedIn profile. Let’s network.

How The Buddha Became A Catholic Saint

Tue, 31 Aug 2010 13:05:54 -0400

One of my favorite RSS reads, Beachcoming’s Bizarre History Blog, just ran a feature on how The Buddha became a Catholic saint in the Middle Ages through the story of St. Josaphat and St. Balaam.

A Guide To Post-Soviet Eating Habits

Tue, 31 Aug 2010 10:43:58 -0400

Because every single neighborhood I grew up in had large Russian populations (Holla Brooklyn/Holla Staten Island!), here’s a link to a blog post on post-Soviet food. Totally having memories of awkward dinners at my friends houses when I was 12 and this American was totally confused.

The Problem With Having Your Indie Band Perform In The Middle East...

Mon, 30 Aug 2010 23:53:26 -0400

Beloved NYC band LCD Soundsystem is currently dealing with an epic spam-bombing of their Facebook page’s wall because they’re… playing Tel Aviv.

But something tells me LCD Soundsystem’s Israeli fans aren’t exactly West Bank settlers, y’know?

Sri Lankan Maid Says Saudi Employers Hammered Nails Into Her Body - NYTimes.com

Mon, 30 Aug 2010 15:45:45 -0400

Sri Lankan Maid Says Saudi Employers Hammered Nails Into Her Body - NYTimes.com:

Ever hear the urban legend about the airplane pilot who landed in Riyadh and got fired for announcing “You have now landed in Saudi Arabia; please set your clocks back 500 years?”

Well, have you?

Uh-Oh: New Study Says People On Internet Dating Sites Lie

Mon, 30 Aug 2010 15:15:43 -0400

Would an article in the New York Post make things up? Wait, don’t answer that.

Either way, I’m going to update my OkCupid profile to say that I’m a Nobel Prize winner right now.