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It’s AMVIV time again! Passing out cards! PHOTO CONTEST!

I found a batch of cards left over from MTTS 2006 and passing them out at AMVIV (thanks Califzeph!) That’s MINI Takes The States and A Mini Vacation In Vegas for those in the know. The front side has my email, Skype ID, this website, and pics of 2 cars:

2003 MINI Cooper S ‘Mindi’ Indiblue/White — This car will NOT be at AMVIV but will be motoring around the San Francisco Bay Area.

1964 Austin Mini (upgraded to Cooper spec.) ‘BamBam’ (formerly known as Guinness) Black/White owned by Rob Cerno. This car is probably zooming around AMVIV somewhere.

If you see either car, take photos with our without yourself and the car, and email it to me to the address on the card, I will be holding a random drawing and giving away prizes for fabulous Mini/MINI giveaways to all who email me photo!

Get creative and there are no restrictions of course don’t hurt yourself or the car in the process!

Categories for best and worst photo will be awarded as follows:

Silly picture

Racing picture

Sexy picture

Celebrity look-a-like (Elvis?)

Rude/angry picture (get some punks together and show us your warrior faces)

Use of Lighting (lasers, flashlights, glow-sticks, or just the warm sun..)

So get to it!

Links from the back of the card direct you to Northern California MINI / Mini clubs.

Enjoy and please visit these clubs’ booth at AMVIV to sign up and get info on their events. I don’t think MOASF has a booth this year, but NorCal MINIs and REME (booth #2 next to SinCity MINIs) generally do.

You should have had that V8..

I should have had a V8, really? Okay, well I had one today, hurrah for my health. Let’s read the label.

“The Dietary Guidelines describe a healthy diet as one that
* Emphasizes fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and fat-free or low-fat milk and milk products;
* Includes lean meats, poultry, fish, beans, eggs, and nuts; and
* Is low in saturated fats, trans fats, cholesterol, salt (sodium), and added sugars.”

Oh, did that just say low in salt and added sugars? Bummer. V8′s have 690mg of sodium, that’s 29% of the daily recommended amount, and 11g of sugar, well, added sugar. (what’s that?) Added sugars are sugars and syrups that are added to foods or beverages during processing or preparation. This does not include naturally occurring sugars such as those that occur in milk and fruits.

Let’s run with that. How much sodium occurs naturally in fruits and veggies combined? About 14%, so a V8 has 15% more than you need, but c’mon, that may not be fair. I mean, it’s not like you can live on V8′s, have 3 of em and be done with your daily salt intake.

For me, a 2200 calorie diet allows for 290 ‘discretionary calories’ – looking just at sugars, thats 12 teaspoons of sugar a day, or 56 grams. So if I drank 5 V8′s I would be done with sugars for the day. Is that so bad? It doesn’t sound so bad. But let’s compare that to what we got, 2 full servings of vegetables. I could have sworn the commercials said something about a serving of fruit, but there’s no fruit in a standard V8. Anyway, 1 cup of veggies, or 2 servings, is only half of what I need for my daily requirement. That also allows me 40g (or 10 tsp) of sugar per day.

In summary, would having 2 V8′s a day be good for me? I wonder if I really should have had that after all. Even with just drinking one of them, my tongue is burning from the amount of salt I just consumed, that can’t be good.

What is good? Well 60% of vitamin A, 170% of Vitamin C, 4% of Calcium, 4% of Iron, and 670mg of Potassium, which is 19%. 0 fats or trans fats. Yeah, that’s alot more than what I’d get if I had a can of soda or a bottle of water, though, the water would probably do me the best good.

that dude who summons ufos..

yeah a friend found this on youtube (alexis, you know who you are!)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nNnllwGmUB8&feature=related

wow, interesting.. huh? i do think that calling himself a ‘shaman’ or ‘prophet yaweh’ takes away some of the credibility though, it’s cool nonetheless.

the only question now is, who’s ships are coming to him and what’s their underlying purpose.. and of course, ‘hey mister can i bum a ride?’

even if they are balloons or air force test craft, the ability to communicate via whatever hidden means is still cool. nanotechnology perhaps? hidden radio communications? alien implants?

one person i know, who is an expert in these kinds of things, says this: “looking at his body, he has some sort of imprinted circuit pattern overlaid on his central nervous system — that means whenever he holds the correct posture (like Indian mudras) it has an effect, in his case, ‘summoning’ ufos. he could say whatever shaman phrases he wants, or simply concentrate and say ‘i love banana peels’ and it would have the same effect. it’s extraterrestrial technology, in otherwords, that makes it possible.”

still would like to get a ride, you know, just so i can blog about it and take pictures and video and stuff like that.

Songs in my head

NPR did this great multi-part show over the weekend about music, that is, music in people’s head. Some people like having tunes stuck in their head, others hate it, and some analyze it for all it’s worth..

Well, ok I figured I should make a note of what songs I have stuck in my head, normally I have some tune going first thing in the morning.

I don’t mean annoying little ditties that get stuck in your head like jingles or limericks set to music, I mean just everyday music you might hear on the radio, and for whatever reason there they are popping into your head and plodding along as if someone hid tiny headphones somewhere that you’re picking up the frequency of.

Anyway. Here’s what I had going this past work week..

• 3/3/08 – Some tune  from Cirque du Soliel (don’t know the title, it’s a horn song)
• 3/4/08 – The Killers – Read my mind
• 3/5/08 – Alien Ant Farm – Summer
• 3/6/08 – Luce – Good Day
• 3/7/08 – Ingrid Michaelson – The Way I Am

So there you go, at least there’s a good mix there, sounds like the start of a iTunes playlist.

The NPR series (which I don’t recall what it was named, but wrote in asking them to give me more info) also showed some interesting comparisons with music, or simply inspired songs which sound like other songs, for example comparing the Afghan music of Ahmad Zahir side by side with Mary Hopkin’s “Those Were The Days My Friend” and other songs which sound remarkably like each other.

The fascinating thing, when layered on top of each other the tunes’ notes and tempos match up, even though they were created in different parts of the world on different instruments, without one artist knowing anything about the other.

I’ve seen this happen in random jam sessions where people seem to instinctively know the same tune as the other person, in fact it has happened to me, as well. Mind you I am making up the song as I go along, it’s not a cover tune or well-known riff, in otherwords, just something random and new coming out of the artists.

Is that spooky or cool or what? Yeah, me thinks there is something deeper here. Music in your head. Good stuff.