GraphJam is pretty much some of the smartest, dumbest, mostest superlative fun on the internet. Check it out.

 There’s no accounting for my sense of humour.

I’m here in downtown Asheville at my office with all my co-workers and their significant others, watching the results roll in on the Promethean ActivBoard. The biggest news right now is that there Kay Hagan is farther ahead than the polls suggested. Awesome!

MoOM: The Museum of Online Museums

This is an incredible website. Here’s just a sample of the online museums they feature.

• The Met’s Timeline of Art History †
• National Gallery of Art †
• Rijksmuseum †
• Russian Museums List †
• Museum of Design Zurich †
• Smithsonian Art Museum Weblog †
• Museum of the History of Science at Oxford †
• Virtual Museum of Canada †
• United States Holocaust Memorial Museum †
• SFMOMA †
• American Package Museum
• The Bauhaus Archive
• Los Angeles County Museum of Art
• Musée d’Orsay
• The Museum of Useful Things
• Eisner Museum of Advertising and Design
• Rhode Island School of Design
• MoMA
• The Art Institute of Chicago
• The Smithsonian

Here are my pictures from the show at the Wedge Gallery down in the River district, and then a few I took at the house all night. Fun stuff! Thanks to everybody who came and made it an awesome time. And to everybody who didn’t - well, you missed out on a great time with some great folks.

Our photographer Lis just posted photos of our Halloween After-Party. Everyone had so much fun; I really have to say that it was one of the best times of my life. Had lots of old friends and lots of new friends, plenty of alcohol, lots of incredible stories to tell, and lots of clean-up but no damage to the house. DJ Par of Trinumeral spun a great set, and the Party at the Wedge was rockin as well. I’ll be posting some of my photos from the party later today. Enjoy!

Come. Be the DEATH of the PARTY.

I’m leaving right now to get these babies printed up. More later, word on the street is this party is gonna be rocking. Late-night House party!

Car Hits Oil Slick At 150MPH

Great technique; he keeps the wheels pointing in the right direction and doesn’t ever panic. Other than the 150mph part, this is an awesome example of good driving. I’ve gone into dangerous slides like this before without having ABS and made it, but none quite this insane. Seeing this makes me pine for a nice piece of German engineering again.

My life has sort of hit an oil-slick, and I’m in the midst of pulling out if it. The main problem right now: need a roommate. Any suggestions/applications?

My new favorite website: mint.com. I’ve been a struggling student for too long and I’m carrying a little more credit card debt than I would like. I’ve tried Quicken, but it wasn’t really fun or easy to use. It never liked to talk to all my credit cards at once or my bank account and never made me happy to use it, so I abandoned it a long time ago. Mint however, has worked really well for me. Not only do I get to see all my credit cards in one place, but it makes it fun and slick and satisfying. They don’t support many of the smaller banks, so mine isn’t covered, but even without it talking to my bank account it has helped me keep the goal of defeating credit card debt in the forefront of my mind. Check it out!

www.mint.com

This is Abraham Maslow’s Hierarchy of Human Needs. I think it’s a marvelous approach to self-improvement. It was a handout in my Literature-based Research class, but I’ve learned that it embodies the humanist school of psychology, which Maslow founded.

1. Physiological: the need to satisfy hunger, thirst, and other bodily preoccupations.
2. Safety/security: the need to be out of danger.
3. Belongingness: the need for affiliation with others, a sense of being loved or accepted.
4. Esteem: the need to gain approval and recognition.
5. Cognitive: the need to know, to understand, to explore
6. Aesthetic: the need for symmetry, order and beauty.
7. Self-actualization: the need to experience self fulfillment, to realize one’s full potential. The self actualizing person is one who is:
   • Not afraid of the unknown and can tolerate doubt, uncertainty, and tentativeness that accompany the perception of the new and unfamiliar.
   • Not ashamed of his/her human nature with its shortcomings, imperfections, frailties, and weaknesses.
   • Not hampered by conventions but does not flout conventions merely for the sake of doing so.
   • Missioned-oriented on the basis of an uncoerced sense of responsibility, duty, or obligation.
   • Respectful of others and tries to understand their perspectives.
   • Attuned to the opportunities of solitude and privacy as well as of social interaction.
   • Fully conscious of personal responsibility for actions and for growth, not blaming others or charging others with the task motivation.
   • In awe of the wonder of the everyday world and of life’s limitless possibilities.
   • Possessed of a deep and unconditional empathy for human beings in general.
   • Humble in his/her recognition of what he/she knows in comparison to what could be known and acknowledges others as teachers, respecting everyone as a potential contributor to his/her knowledge.
   • Highly ethical and at least intuitively aware of Kant’s famous categorical imperative, which charges us to “Act only according to principles which we can will also to be universal laws.”
   • Philosophical and possessed of an unhostile sense of humor
   • Visionary but not inclined to impose his/her beliefs on others.
   • Alive!
8. Self-transcendence: the need to connect to something beyond the self and to move toward a meaningful selflessness through that connectedness.