It’s 2am and the drinks are flowing, music is grooving and there’s a rhythmic flow of people bumping and grinding on the dance floor. You take a sip of your organic beer in its polycarbon cup and think its time to break the seal, and head to the rainwater fed toilets. As you make your way through the sea of bodies in the low-wattage lit club, there’s a slight movement in the floor coming from the springboards that it’s mounted on, which capture the energy produced from dancing and convert it into electricity.  

Welcome to the latest of idealistic innovations in sustainable clubbing. That’s right, eco-friendly status with the hope to be fully sustainable nightclubs. Lets get down with our bad selves! Plans to open in early July in the UK are touted with hopeful seeds being planted for similarly run bars and nightclubs in New York, Cape Town, Amsterdam and Rio. Consider for a moment about how much heat, trash (debris, not the trash wearing the eff me pumps), and pure energy is expelled out of bars and nightclubs today. We all contribute to it, going out and having fun is extremely important to the well being and happiness of many responsible adults. What if this energy could be harnessed into supplying the very business that is churning it?

Enter Dr. Earth. An entrepreneur whose alias I am still attempting to uncover, Dr. Earth seems to aspire to be the Al Gore of nightclubs. Behind the concept of club4climate, he is attempting to spread the message of green nightclubbing and is even promoting an earth friendly private island destination, due to open in 2010. Perhaps a green Ibiza?  While “hedonism not destruction” is a noble concept, Dr. Earth’s attempts to donate his profits to Friends of Earth are unwanted due to the island concept’s encouragement of international air travel. Nevertheless he attempts to party on, hosting green parties across London and hoping to spread his message through the world.

The entertainment business as a whole is such a huge market, it makes you wonder just how much bars, restaurants and nightclubs are adding to our carbon footprint. Even for those that support local farming and organically grown produce, is it adequate for these establishments to be serving conscious foods without eco-friendly means of producing them? Seek and ye shall find: while researching this article I stumbled across www.dinegreen.com, the Green Restaurant Association’s website. You can find a small but solid database of restaurants that adhere to the GRA’s environmental guidelines, and they also list tips, suggestions and endorsed products for consumers and those in the restaurant biz. While it doesn’t look like there are any nightclub or bar listings for the party people and aspiring alcoholics, evidence suggests that it’s all on the up and up. We are slowly coming into eco submission, proving that just about everything and everyone can take a stab at sustainability and earth friendliness.

The launch of the iPod spawned an entire second industry catering to accessories to help do more with your iPod, in more places.  The list of products seems endless, but I think today I may have stumbled upon one of the greatest uses for an iPod that I would never use, ever.  Introducing iCarta.

This strangely named device from Atech Flash Technology combines an iPod dock with speakers and a toilet paper holder.  Next time you are feeling a little stopped up, put on some soothing music, grab a magazine and enjoy the situation.

Possibly most disturbing is the fact that I know of no one who washes their hands before sitting down to go number two or before preparing a mummy hand to clean up.  Also for consideration are those late night wakeups when us men get up to go to the bathroom and refuse to turn the light on because we have such superior aim.

Great video of a kid that gets his.

I have a huge place in my heart for the lottery. I grew up with a father who through wind, hell and an extremely hot weather would purchase a lottery ticket every Wednesday and Sunday. So when I saw this commercial for the Washington Lottery I just about melted.

I love when people do random acts of kindess. I especially like it when it continues to get passed from one to another. This is a great example.

Music has always been a big part of my life. When I first saw this commercial it was love at first sight.

G’head call me a geek but I like this Halo commercial.

One of my favorite bands, Diet Kong, will be rocking the shit out of Philly tonight. The NYC-based (and newly-reorganized) duo will be performing at Doc Watson’s (11th between Walnut & Locust) tonight at 10pm. This band first caught my attention as a three-piece outfit about a year ago at the now-defunct Grape Street in Manayunk (funny how so much has changed since then in this scene… and in this particular band). Fronted by artist/singer/creative genius Keith Gladysz, Diet Kong masters the blend of avant-garde/arthouse performance and catchy songwriting. Their self-titled CD proved to be well produced and listenable, but yet with a definite futuristic-electronic bend. The live show kicks ass, especially with Keith’s unique onstage presence making the show undeniably entertaining.

Wrestle up some money and a couple of friends and get your butts down to Doc’s to show some love. I’m interested to see what Diet Kong offers as a duo… and to see how much baby powder Diet Keith will have on his head.

Gas is at a national average of about $4.00 per gallon right now and as much as you hate your local gas station for changing the price daily, and what seems hourly sometimes, they don’t actually profit as much as you think they do. They are simply passing on the costs that they have to pay for fuel. The fuel suppliers still want big profit margins though, so many of them have started to cut the gasoline in their tanks, creating a mixture with ethanol. This has caused some bit of concern as Consumer Reports studies prove E85 delivers substantially worse gas mileage. While E85 is up to 85% ethanol and costs on average 15-20% less than low grade gasoline (for those cars that can run it), it is still not readily available across the country and according to Consumer Reports, can end up costing more per gallon than gasoline when you figure the mileage in.

Almost all cars can run a slight amount of ethanol mixed into their gas and the big gas companies started to slip in this corn-fuel without really telling anyone. On most pumps in my area small stickers have started to appear, some say Contains up to 5% Ethanol while others say Contains 10% Ethanol. The wording, at my best guess, is very deliberate. Those pumps that say up to could have only a trace amount of ethanol in them, and based purely on my own speculation, I think the oil companies get a kick-back for using ethanol because it does burn cleaner.

The gas station around the corner from my house has been the cheapest in the area for the last two years running, which is good for me I guess. As of writing today, they are 6 cents cheaper per gallon than the gas station that is a block from my work. While my Civic only fits about ten gallons of gas and I’m only saving sixty cents, those sixty cents adds up. I noticed about two months ago a sticker on the pumps that read Contains 10% Ethanol but didn’t think much of it. It was about that time that I started to notice better gas mileage in my car though, again, not really linking the two together.

For as long as I can remember, I’ve reset my trip odometer and then divided the miles driven by the gallons to refill to get my average miles per gallon. No specific reason, just curious. Currently, my Civic is in dire need of an alignment, pulling to the left fairly hard, is 2,500 miles past due for an oil change and I haven’t changed the air filter since I bought it more than four years ago. Basically, I’m doing nothing to increase the miles per gallon. Even so, I routinely get between 29-31 miles per gallon with my daily driving. Last few fill-ups, I’ve been averaging between 33-35 miles per gallon. My driving style hasn’t changed, I haven’t been doing more highway driving and the weather has been so hot that I’ve used the air conditioning. The only explanation for this nearly 10% gain in average miles per gallon that I can come up with is the 10% ethanol in the gas, as I’ve been filling up at the same gas station for the last several months.

Mixing ethanol may not give the same effect in all cars, in all driving conditions, but now out of nothing more than superstition I will continue to only fill up at the gas station around the corner from me and / or any that clearly say Contains 10% Ethanol.

Title of the post get your attention? I think that’s kind of the point - Head is one of my favorite bands in the Philly local rock scene. Technically, Head never went anywhere… but they’ve been going through line-up changes, taking some time in the studio, working their asses off at their day jobs so Philly hasn’t been treated to a live show in a minute.

I had the opportunity to see a “rehearsal” at The Nail in Ardmore last night (what other band has rehearsal at a bar?? It was a blast). They sound tight and new drummer Ryan Jarrell (formerly of Noosphere) fits like a glove in the rhythm section. They rolled through mostly newer tracks, including “Lost,” “Certain,” and one so new that vocals haven’t been laid down. They even improv-ed a cover of “Lakini’s Juice” by Live, which might reappear at their August show (although I’m pushing for Tool’s “Aenima” as their next cover). Hit up their MySpace and check out newly re-recorded “Home” (formerly entitled “I Fall” and one of my personal faves) - they added edgier guitar riffs and rearranged some parts with the end result sounding incredibly cohesive. Lead singer Lexi Greene proves again in the recording why she’s considered one of the best female leads in the city, exhibiting both restraint and raw emotion at the right times.

The band is playing Bootlegger’s new local music night on Wednesday, June 25th with Evolv and Preston Swift (who are playing their asses off as of late). If you can get up to Woodlyn, you’re sure to have a kickass time. Head will also be playing the Nail in August, but you want to get as much Head as possible this summer… doesn’t everyone??

The 6th part in this ongoing tutorial about making money selling digital photos focuses on promoting similar groups of images all linked to each other. My experience is only with iStockphoto, as mentioned before, your ability to do the following promotional method with other stock agencies may vary.

In the photographer’s description section of an image on iStockphoto, you as a contributor are allowed to add more information about your file to help the buyer understand exactly what it is they are buying. This field also allows for UBB code, that is, code that can simply be used to create links or show images of related photos for sale.

So why would you want to use this? I often shoot the same subject on two or three angles, with people, different expressions. Even if two images have the same keywords, sometimes they don’t show up in a search next to each other or one becomes very popular and the other gets barely any views. Buy linking to similar images, you increate the chances that a buyer will see more of your work and the possibility that they will buy more of your work. Let’s take a look at this practice in action.

Recently, this photo of a pair of DJ headphones became really popular, but I shot a half dozen similar shots that weren’t doing so well. I wanted to tell the buyers about these other shots in hopes of boosting my sales and providing the buyer with the best choice of images. I could add everything by hand, but that is time consuming and UBB can be kind of a pain, luckily I found my answer in the iStockphoto forums.

Longtime contributor and admin Sirimo wrote a small script that he hosts on his website. The script is called iStockphoto UBB Thumbnail Link Generator. This is the script I used to generate the nice thumbnails for the shot of the headphones above. Please note, this script is not officially licensed by iStockphoto and using it is not guaranteed to work, but that is just the legal stuff that must be said. I’ve been using it for months and had no issues. It allowed me to quickly add linked images to the description field of existing images. Within days, the views and downloads increased on the images that I have done this for.

Adding similar file links is not guarantee to increase downloads, that is still somewhat based on how good your keywords are, but it will increase at least the views for similar files from a set. Well worth the small effort for your existing files as well as something to do for new ones as you add them.

Related articles:

• Make money selling digital photos Part I
• Make money selling digital photos Part II
• Make money selling digital photos Part III
• Make money selling digital photos Part IV
• Make money selling digital photos Part V

I posted this on my MySpace earlier and I need some more feedback… I usually don’t post super-personal blogs on this site, but I’m wondering… is this funny or just really awkward?

From a recent conversation with a soon-to-be ex, regarding a mutual friend and discovering how he knew her. It was kind of funny then too, but the kind of funny where you laugh without really feeling joy, per se, but incredulity. Now, it’s funny. And if you think the girl in question might be your little sister… then she probably is and I apologize. All names removed to protect the innocent. Since guy in question is not so innocent, we shall refer to him as “DB.” I’m sure you can figure out what that stands for.

ME: Hey, so I Facebooked you and we have one mutual friend - [redacted] - how do you know her? She’s one of my best friend’s little sisters.
DB: It’s a funny story actually…
ME: Really?
DB: Yeah… I met her at a party at Penn State when she was a freshman there and I was a junior in high school.
ME: Oh… I’m not laughing yet, where does it get funny?
DB: Well… she was pretty drunk… and I was a virgin at the time…
ME: [silence]
DB: You don’t want to hear this, do you?
ME: No, I don’t. But keep going.
DB: I lost my virginity to her. I was 16, she was 18. And she had a boyfriend at the time too, she even said his name while we were going at it… I think she was kinda drunk.
ME: [silence]
DB: She’s hot though.
ME: [silence]
DB: Adrienne, I’m kidding. Not about her being hot - she is hot, but not as hot as you.
ME: Fuck you.
DB: I mean - at least I lost my virginity to someone you know!! And it doesn’t hurt that she was hot… like, really hot. You’re friends with her older sister? What’s she like?
ME: [rolls eyes, wonders how she got here]

I’m not sure what is more disturbing… the fact that he banged my friend’s little sister, or the fact that I was kind-of-possibly-almost-dating someone younger than my friend’s little sister. The end.