Flea Markets are interesting places.

This past Saturday I went with my dad and uncle to the nearby flea market that has taken over what used to be a massive hardware store.

If you have never been to a flea market, I will have you know that you can find ANYTHING, literally anything, at this type of market.

The idea is much like having a ton of garage sales all crammed under one roof. There are booths run by different individuals who come back every week to that same booth to peddle their wares. And their wares range from VHS players to bicycles to magazines to candy. Yes, people sell food in this place.

The smell of a flea market is much like that of your attic or crawlspace, if there had been a hobo living in it for the past few years. Like when you find a box of newspapers in your closet, for example, and you get the stagnant odor of old paper and possibly mold. That is just one of many stenches you will encounter at the local flea market.

Much like a garage sale, you encounter the types of people who attend garage sales. If you have had a garage sale, you know what I mean. You could live in the richest of suburban neighborhoods in the yuppiest of communities and you would still encounter the type of people who scour the newspaper listings for garage sales, hoping to find a non-functional fondue set from 1976 to make those summer driveway BBQs on mismatched lawn chairs that much more classy. Or the type of person who finds your how-did-I-end-up-with-this Budweiser bar mirror the most treasured find of all their hunting.

After visually assessing the surroundings of the flea market, I wondered to myself, then aloud to my uncle and father "Which is worse/creepier/seedier: the people who work at the flea market, or the people who frequent the flea market?" Then, after making a decision, I posed the next question "Are they worse/creepier/seedier than carnies?"

Several booths caught my eye. And when I say booths, I really just mean squares drawn with masking tape on the floor that divide the each vendor's property from the next. Although, about 80% choose to supply a tent or curtains of some sort to block sight of neighboring sellers. Many vendors are the type of people who couldn't work a normal sales job. By this, I mean that they sit watching a TV (for sale!) playing an old DVD of Full House episodes (also for sale!) with absolutely no interest in trying to get you to buy anything. Their signs, which are black sharpie scrawled on torn pieces of cardboard, exclaim GREAT DEAL!!! and ONLY ONE DOLLAR!!! You wonder if the people running the booth are the same excited people who created those hopeful signs. Their facial expression is apathy, without a care to be there or sell goods. At this point, right now, their only thought is focusing on merely existing, to just being there and breathing.

Other vendors, however, take it to the next level. One in particular, let's call him Cowboy Ned, with his grey ZZ Top beard falling over his shirt and cutoff jean shorts (for sale?) , was sleeping. My dad and uncle looked over some things of his, like some mechanical doodad (for sale!) that only dads and uncles know what it could possibly be used for since they probably had six of them in their house in 1961. We picked things up, looked them over, and put them back down again, all without a stir from Cowboy Ned, who uncomfortably slumped in his metal chair with nothing to lean his head on.

That's another thing. There is so much junk and distraction that you could be looking at stuff in a booth and not even realize that you are standing right next to the vendor. It is as though they lurk in the shadows and pounce when you least expect. Some human-like things like dolls and mannequins start to make you edgy, when you begin to wonder if that doll in the corner is going to start trying to sell you some belt buckles made out of lead.

At one point in our shopping excursion, we passed by a man playing some indistinguishable tunes on his guitar, while a woman danced. The woman, possibly pushing 100 years old, was wearing a flowing multicolored dress and a red cowboy hat (for sale!) and moving off-beat to the guitar strums as she greeted passing customers with "Hello!" "How do you do!" and "Good evening!" It should be noted that it was noon.

The things people are selling, and the quantities in which they are selling them, are unimaginable. You have not one, not two, but 60 pairs of gardening gloves? How did you come across that many? Did you collect them? Who collects gardening gloves? Some people don't just sell old things that they found in their basement, their attic, the garbage cans, or other garage sales, but instead sell NEW things. Not good quality new things, but knockoffs of new things. Like "Nicke" shoes and "Calvin Cline" underwear. Again, in cases like these it is best to not ask questions.

You wonder if the $100 mattresses sold by vendor D-6 are the reason why the market is in fact called a "flea" market. After seeing so many things of weird origin, and metal objects like knives intended for food use that probably contain unimaginable amounts of lead, my mind wanders to the horrific and maybe not-so-unlikely origins of these things. I turn to my dad and say that if you committed a crime, this would be the easiest place to get rid of evidence. Cash exchange, object never to be seen again. What are those, some bloodstained leather gloves? For only $2? I'll take 'em!

One vendor is even selling Thin Mint cookies. In jest, my dad says we should look for the hidden Girl Scout's body. A joke with serious afterthoughts.

Speaking of food, the Flea Market even has a food court in the back, selling the type of food you'd see at a movie theater or skating rink. Soft pretzels, popcorn and hot dogs are some of the many unhealthy options offered. As we walk past, a man walks up to the cashier and says "Now, did I hear you announce this morning that you were having $2 burgers for lunch?" One might ignore such a comment until you think about it little more in depth: how long has this man been here? He says "this morning" as though it were more than an hour ago. Has he been waiting all morning for flea market burgers? Considering that entering the flea market costs $1, could he possibly have paid that dollar to have access to flea market burgers? How good could flea market burgers possibly be? What kind of meat are those burgers? Where IS that girl scout?!

Female writers are ugly

This is hilarious.

hurt vs. injured

"So are you hurt or injured? Hurt means you can play. Injured means you can't. If someone steps on my foot, I am hurt. If my bone is sticking out of my thigh, then I am injured."--Eric

SHOUT!

GET OUT OF MY SHIRT, STAIN! Oh, you didn't mean that "shout?"

Hey, Idiot.

Hey Idiot,

They're called U-turns. Not "four-points-in-the-freaking-middle-of-the-road-turns."

Data crunching as art

A couple years ago, Wired.com featured an article about artist Aaron Koblin, who uses data to create beautiful visual art.

While many people would see lists of numbers and data as dull and mundane, Koblin proves them wrong with exceptional masterpieces compiling data into thought-provoking pieces.

My current desktop background has been one of Koblin's Flight Pattern pieces for quite some time. The graceful beauty of the lines representing flight patterns in 24 hours outline the continental United States and show the power of technology and travel.


He has also done some music videos, one of which I am a huge fan, called The Wilderness Downtown. It is the interactive video project for Arcade Fire's single "We Used to Wait." Utilizing Google Maps to animate the viewer's childhood neighborhood, it creates a sentimental touch that isn't expected in a data-filled world.

http://www.thewildernessdowntown.com/

His project, Ten Thousand Cents, (http://www.tenthousandcents.com/) puts new meaning to the phrase E Pluribus Unum (From Many One). He divided a picture of a ten-dollar bill into tiny little pieces, then asked people (for one penny each) to re-draw the segment that was sent to them. All the tiny pieces, when put together, look just like a ten-dollar bill, but represent 10,000 different laborer's work.

A project similar to the aforementioned crowdsourced piece is The Sheep Market, where participants were paid to draw "sheep facing to the left. The result, thousands of cartoon sheep, is both funny and unique. Check it out at http://www.thesheepmarket.com/.

To see more of Aaron Koblin's works, go to his website at http://www.aaronkoblin.com/.

Wait...WHAT?!

Today I was catching up on some missed episodes on the cwtv.com website when I saw this:



Take a closer look...Vampire Diaries wants viewers to catch WHAT?

"Wanna go for a walk?!"

So my uncle sent me this link of a super extreme hike in Spain, joking that I should do it the next time I head to Spain.

http://www.angelfire.com/ak2/intelligencerreport/scariest_path.html

The 2:18-2:40 mark is my favorite.

I responded to my uncle by saying "knowing my daredevil dad, we've done similar or far worse feats on our family vacations."

It's true...my brother hopped onto an unsupported 40 foot rock pillar at age 12 at The Fiery Furnace in Utah. My mom was freaking out.

Or there was the time my dad and my brother went hiking and stashed their water bottles throughout the desert to retrieve later...then took an entirely different route home, without access to water for several hours in high heat. This ended in their bursting into the closest convenience store at the end of the hike and standing in the beverage aisle, chugging several full bottles of Gatorade without taking a breath. Between bottles, they managed to gasp out to the sales clerk "don't worry...we promise...to pay for these."

Or...there was the time we went surfing in shark-infested waters in Kauai. Or that same day, when Eric and my dad went surfing straight into a large coral formation, emerging from the saltwater with bleeding shins and wounded limbs, their faces plastered with prideful grins from the awesome wave they had caught.

Or there was the time in 2009 we went running down scree in Glacier National Park to see who could get to the parking lot first.

Or there was the time Eric and I climbed into a cave in Ohio only to find hundreds of bats sleeping in the darkness, and I rushed out of there so quickly that I smacked my head on the cave ceiling, literally chopping the hair on my crown off, and leaving bleeding gash.

So really, I could totally see myself doing this.

A homophone to think about!

I have discovered a new homophone (group of words that sound the same but mean different things)!
Grimmest.
Grimaced!

The end.

Antonio, Barcelona, Carmen, it's as easy as 1, 2, 3!

The "spelling alphabet" is an alphabet used by the army or navy or radio people to communicate the spelling of things without them being confused for other letters.
Like "d" and "b" sound the same when read aloud, but won't be mistaken if you say "delta" and "bravo."

You most likely have heard of these in movies before. Or, if you are like me, you recognize them from the N64 video game "Rainbow Six."

What intrigues me is that in other languages, the words are different. I mean, obviously Spaniards aren't going to use the "alpha, bravo, charlie" alphabet we use, so they use their "antonio, barcelona, carmen" one. I saw this on wikipedia while browsing links from the creepy "numbers stations" article due to a recent Fringe episode I saw, and it was pretty interesting to see what words they use to refer to the letters of the alphabet. They seem to have an obsession with first names and cities, whereas we use...random stuff.
See the chart at the link below...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spelling_alphabet

I seriously JUST shoveled.

My driveway is being covered by The Fast and the Furious: Snowkyo Drift.

I AM A CUBE FIST MAN!

I love this scene from Nick's Victorious.


GIFSoup

Book Trailers

Sometimes new books put out "trailers" to be able to advertise them on tv. Usually these trailers consist of a narration and some title graphics and pictures.

I have never seen a book trailer be nearly as deceiving as this one, where they make a whole cast of characters and waste three minutes of your time until you realize it is a book! Not even a show or movie.

Although, this trailer is so bad, with such horrible acting and a typical plot, that I can't imagine anyone actually wanting to see it. Er, read it.

Favorite parts:
"If you screw this up, you're going back to juvie. ENTIENDES?!"
and
"Hey. I'm throwing a party Friday night if you wanna come. You do party, right?"