I want to thank everyone for the outpouring of love and support during the recent Olympic Games. The 2010 Olympics will be a memory that I will cherish for the rest of my life. I feel that I skated two of the best performances of my career, making my coaches, my family and, above all, myself very proud. But I would not have been able to skate the way I did without the encouragement of my fans worldwide.
And while I am still embracing my Olympic memories and have the momentum to move forward, I have decided that it is not advantageous at this time for me to partake in the World Championships in Torino, Italy. After my sixth place finish in Vancouver, I believe that I must take time to reassess my strategies and goals. While I understand the importance of competition, I feel that a short break at this time would be personally beneficial to me. I know all may not share my stance, but I can assure everyone that I will be re-energized after I’ve had time to rework my technique. I want to be a better competitor and win medals for my country and I hope everyone can respect my decision to take this time off.
Once again, I want to thank everyone who supported me this season. Specifically, I would like to thank my coaches Galina Zmievskaya, Viktor Petrenko, Nina Petrenko, Priscilla Hill and David Wilson for helping me make my Olympic dreams a reality. I would also like to thank my family and friends for their never-ending support. Finally, I want my fans to know that I love them and I work every day to make them proud. I will continue to work hard and I hope my work for next season will be the most exciting of my career.
Werner Herzog is a lover of conflict. Whether it’s man vs. man, man vs. nature or man vs. himself, his films have a habit of pitting a man against the extremes. In RESCUE DAWN (2006) the man is Deiter Dengler (Christian Bale), a US Navy pilot who was shot down in Laos only 40 minutes into his very first mission in 1965 during the Vietnam War. Between surviving the crash, his Pathet Lao captors and his subsequent escape, Dengler confronted and triumphed over man, nature and himself.
On Sundance Channel’s Tastemakers Series this month. Every week, watch a different award winning film from festivals around the globe. A series of contemporary hits and timeless masterpieces that define cool and defy limits. Sundays at 10PM E/P.
Homes wired for electric vehicles, artificial islands, and floating power plants… here are your green tech finds for this week.
Dell’s new Optiplex — most efficient desktop ever? According to Jaymi Heimbach at Treehugger, the new 980 model is, as it features a 90% efficient power supply, meets ENERGY STAR 5.0 standards, and has earned an EPEAT Gold rating.
No more downcycling for plastic? That’s what researchers at IBM and Stanford claim their new development in plastic production does: the material can be continuously recycled. See the video above… (via Green Inc.)
The ECOWEEK logo and their cringe-inducing slogan.
I was surprised to learn that ECOWEEK isn’t just a one week event, it’s the actual name of the NGO that hosts the weeklong conference as well as “eco awareness” all year long. To be honest, their mission statement is a bit naive: ECOWEEK was established because temperatures are rising; the glaciers are receding; permafrost is thawing…because our children and grandchildren face an uncertain future. That’s nice, but it’s not very specific. It’s also not very current and sounds as if it was written ten or fifteen years ago – by a third grade teacher.
And that’s a real shame when you take a look at their big event, the Eco Week itself, an Athens-based conference that focuses primarily on sustainable architecture and boasts speakers from some of the biggest firms around the world. Keynote speakers include Diebedo Francis Kere, the 2009 winner of the Global Award for Sustainability and Daniel Wicke from Rural Studio, the visionary architecture program at Auburn University. In fact, the more I peruse the week’s program, the more exciting the conference seems. There’s big picture stuff, but there are also talks about structural engineering and sustainable landscape design. Unfortunately, the ECOWEEK website is one of the most confounding I’ve ever visited, and it’s nearly impossible to retrieve all this information without taking the time to dig deep into their site. A case of good intentions and poor planning? It’d be worth the trip, but good luck figuring out how to get there (they don’t exactly make it clear).
The Armory Show has come and gone, but one image is still very much alive in my mind. Last week I wrote about the transgendered porn star Buck Angel, showing his transexual PSA here on SUNfiltered. The above image is a stunning, solid gold, life size statue of Buck created by the British artist Marc Quinn. A series of gold statues, all of pop icons, will debut in London on May 6th. The Buck statue had a sneak peak this past week.
And while I love the cigar chomping performance artist, I am equally excited about another one of Quinn’s statues set to be unveiled. The actress Pamela Anderson too was given the gold treatment. Less realistic than the Buck’s bust, Pam’s statue has her become a Siamese twin attached to her own hip. Freaky.
USC film student Damon Stea made this funny short filmMEMOIRS OF A SCANNER which depicts the antics of a typical company’s office through the lens of their scanner. This short, which picks up around the 0:25 mark, was fittingly shot entirely on a scanner.
We were too young to realize it at the time, but Corey Haim’s LUCAS (1986) showed us exactly why the band geek makes a better boyfriend than the captain of the football team. Rest in peace, Corey Haim — you may not have been the most eloquent cast member of the reality show The Two Coreys, but the wisdom of your characters continues to ring true. Here are our top ten favorite on-screen Corey moments — heavily favored toward LUCAS, of course. What can we say? That kid was a hero:
1. From LUCAS (1986)
Maggie: You know how wonderful you are?
Lucas: Yeah, but it doesn’t turn you on, does it?
2. From DREAM A LITTLE DREAM (1989)
Bobby [Corey Feldman]: Dinger! Dinger, wake up for a minute. I gotta talk to you, Buddy.
Dinger [Corey Haim]: Bobby, I’m asleep. I’m fast asleep, Bobby. I’m dreaming. Apache women. Mai-tais. Vanna White and a whip.
Bobby: I’m in love.
Dinger: That could be a problem.
Bobby: I don’t think you understand.
Dinger: No, no, I do understand. I really do. Which hand is it this week, pal?
On Monday, ITVS (the Independent Television Service) launched a new online series titled FUTURESTATES, eleven short films imagining a contemporary American issue thrust in to the future. Full disclosure: I’ve got a piece in the series. But it’s worth a plug here: it’s the first time to my knowledge that a major funder (ITVS, supported by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting) has invested this heartily in a web series, and almost most importantly, put significant marketing muscle behind it. In the press release, Executive Producer Sally Jo Fifer (haven’t you seen that name dozens of times on television docs?) says: “FUTURESTATES is an opportunity to reach new audiences that are younger and more diverse by combining online viewing with a shorter-format and edgy content with a sci-fi twist that inspire, entertain, and inform. Our end goal is to make FUTURESTATES available for public television broadcast down the road bringing along the new online audiences we gain.”
The Brit Insurance Designs of the Year is the Design Museum’s assessment of a year’s worth of good design in 7 separate categories: architecture, fashion, furniture, graphics, interactive, product and transport. One winner is selected in each group out of roughly 100 nominations, all of which are currently on exhibition at the museum. Among the winners is Alexander McQueen’s Spring 2010 collection. The futuristic fantasy printed dresses are some his most brilliant work yet, though sadly his last. The Interactive award goes to another futuristic design, The Eyewriter, essentially a pair of sunglasses that allow people who suffer from paralysis as a result of Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis to draw using only their eyes.
Ok Go is an indie band that has mastered viral marketing with clever, innovative one-shot vids for their songs. First there was “A Million Ways,” in which they did an awesome little dance routine in someone’s backyard. Then they upped the ante with a choreographed number on a set of treadmills for “Here I Go Again.” Then came “WTF?” — its psychedonkulous colors and patterns made you go WTF when you watch it (here’s how they did that one). Now, for the song “This Too Shall Pass” from their new album “Of the Blue Colour of the Sky,” they’ve done it again — even better! It’s a giant Rube Goldberg machine in a two-story warehouse that moves along in perfect freakin’ synch with the song, all captured in one glorious take (after more than 60s tries over two days). You can read all about how they did it in this Wired article. Or, after the jump, check out the four video installments of “The Making of TTSP“:
One of the gayest actors of all time (Sean Hayes), who starred as one of the gayest characters of all times (Jack), on one of the gayest TV shows of all time (Will & Grace), has come out of the closet. You know, many years after his TV show has gone off the air.
While more American cities are including bicycling in transportation planning, and even shooting for status as “bicycle friendly communities,” it can still be tough to get around on a bike. Today, during the opening sessions of the National Bike Summit 2010 in Washington, D.C., Google will be announcing its contribution to making biking easier: a bicycling directions option in Google Maps.
