My latest in a series of unrelated posts.

Artist Background
American War is Matt Scheuermann, an awesome person who combines guitar playing and singing to create exceptional music.  I know, it sounds a little far-fetched, but I assure you the combination is nothing short of spectacular.  His tunes are catchy, heartfelt, and poetic.  His voice is colored with panache. He has a beard now, and like most people who have beards now, he used to not have one. The songs on his free album Rhetoric (link below) have become a staple of my daily listening routine.  He also did a split with Andy Cook titled Through Leaves, Over Bridges, which is quite good – it used to be available free online, but none of the supplying websites seem to exist anymore.  If you’re hard-pressed for a copy, email us (juicetheblog at gmail dot com) and we’ll see what we can do.

Free Album Download || Facebook Page || MySpace || Twitter @AmericanWarMatt

[Music] Videos follow… more after the jump:

American War – Bricks from If You Make It on Vimeo.

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The New Colossus

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

Emma Lazarus, 1883

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I came across this video the other day and have watched it a couple times since and always find something new. It was made in conjunction with an episode of Radiolab WNYC. Enjoy at will.

After watching the Hesher post, and realizing that I somehow missed all the good movies at Sundance this year despite the fact that I had TICKETS…I did remember that I saw one good movie; Restrepo. I don’t remember if I mentioned how good this film was to anyone, but I think it was the best documentary I have ever seen.

Restrepo’s 2 directors went to Afghanistan and filmed the life of soldiers for one year. Its amazing to see soldiers in their element without Hollywood’s glossy spin on it…(think Hurt Locker….which was good, but basically worthless once I saw Restrepo).

For all you fancy boys still back East, I just saw that its still playing at the Angelika Film Center in NYC. I’d say it’s worth the effort to see this movie if you’re in the city and a fan of film (*cough*eric).

That’s the official trailer for Blocks. I worked very closely with sir Eric Rothman on that elegant piece of art, and man did that guy do a fantastic job. Thank you so much Eric, you are a true professional.

If you still don’t know what Blocks is, it’s a game that several Juicers have been making at a company called Darkwind Media. We’ve spent a lot of time designing, polishing, testing, refining, testing again, so on and so forth. We’ve even had a beta testing pizza party, where we invited about 50 people to come in and give us feedback, complete with interviews and surveys. We’re riding the express train to legit-town my friends, and this is the first game of hopefully many more to come.

We’re planning on entering Blocks into 4 game development competitions this year, starting first with www.indiepubgames.com. Voting begins August 1st and lasts until August 31st. If you feel like you want to support our efforts, swing by that site and vote for us. You can also join our Facebook group from the website, where we are amassing an army of followers to help spread the word and vote for the various competitions.

I officially invite everyone to visit the brand new www.blocksthegame.com. Enjoy.

<3

Lawyers for the State of Arizona have filed a response to DOJ’s petition for a preliminary injunction yesterday.

In looking over the arguments raised by Arizona, there seem to be some compelling arguments on their side, particularly involving Sec.2 of SB1070, which requires local law enforcement to determine status of persons detained, who are reasonably suspicious of being in the country illegally.  There are also many bogus claims, specifically those regarding the rest of the sections in the act, and most specifically those regarding Sec. 3 (making it a crime to be in Arizona illegally).

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Only when you set out to completely eradicate fake foods from your diet do you notice how deep the food-industrial complex has crept into your routines.  Growing up, my family would rely heavily on boxed rice mixes.  So much so, in fact, that as a child I literally didn’t know how to make rice without them.  Soon, I learned how to make plain white rice, but this was a far cry in terms of flavor from Herb and Butter Flavor Rice-a-Roni.

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When SB 1070 passed, I began pondering ways in which it would be challenged in federal court.  I dreamed up some fairly specious arguments for an as-applied challenge with respect to the Equal Protection clause of the 14th Amendment.  But as I’m not a constitutional rights lawyer (I only try to play one on the internet), I didn’t know about the fairly substantial claim of preemption under the Supremacy Clause that could be applied in this case, which is exactly what the Department of Justice cited in its brief today, filing for a preliminary injunction against SB 1070 from taking effect.

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I was just about to write BLin an email to discuss the Tiny House Movement and see if his inclination for good/health conscious food had ever spilled over into a want/desire to dwell in a more conscientious space. Then I realized that I really haven’t ever talked with ANY of my friends about how obsessed I am with the Tiny House movement.

I purposefully made this image small.

A recent NPR article on the subject refueled my passion on the subject and I have slowly started to add ‘tiny house links’ to my delicious account for safe remembrance. For the past couple years or so I have slowly started to collect ideas for my eventual dream to either live in a barn (i probably need a lot of money to restore one of those bad boys), or to find a plot of land and build a small modern dwelling for myself. I have to admit that a lot of this started with my affinity towards good design in small spaces (think NYC apartments), but once I began reading about it, it became apparent that people all over the country (and world) are starting to take a smaller approach to where they live.

There are tons of styles of houses, some look like sheds, some like children’s play houses (i kid you not), and some ultra modern. I personally prefer the ultra modern style and love the idea of being able to actually afford to live in a more modern space. If you’re square footage is reduced significantly you can theoretically afford nicer materials. Theoretically.

At any rate, I theres plenty of reading that you can do on your own on the subject… but I basically wanted to know…Does this interest any of you guys in the least? It kind of fascinates me.

Donation link

Hey Juicers. A good friend of mine, Reid Sacco, lost a battle 5 years ago to cancer. He was an incredible person worthy of another post in the future. In his honor, every year there is a 28-mile bike-a-thon, Reid’s Ride, that starts in my hometown of Lynnfield and travels up the north shore of Boston ending at Stage Fort Park in Gloucester, MA.

Each rider is required to earn $175 dollars or so in sponsorships in order to partake in the ride. The money goes towards the Reid Sacco Memorial Foundation and towards research to find a cure for cancer in young adults. It is, of course, a good cause.

I have never been very good at earning sponsorship. I am not very good at soliciting donations. Normally my parents sponsor me the minimum amount required to partake in the event. This year, however, I thought I would appeal to the good side of you juicers to help register me for this event and sponsor the good fight. I do not mean to use this blog as a platform for solicitation, but you are all my friends and oddly enough adults at this point in time and it seems like the appropriate place for me to ask for your help.

I would like to try to earn a minimum of $200 for this event through Juice sponsorships. Anything that you can donate would be ever so appreciated. $5, $10, $50, anything. I have never asked my friends for money like this. If we are able to make the minimum, I will do the ride with a juicetheblog.com logo affixed to my shirt. A true juicetheblog sponsorship!

I have set up a paypal donation link for the event here. Please forgive the poor appearance of the website: I just wanted to get something up and running. As a note, donations through paypal do suffer a small service charge. I wanted to offer it as a means of convenience as it can accept any major credit card. If you would like to donate through another means, I can give you my mailing address or we can work something else out.

The ride is on July 18th, so there isn’t much time to lose! Thanks Juicers! I love you all!

Making good salsa was something of a unattainable quest for me for several years. At first, I wasn’t really quite sure what kind of salsa I really wanted. Was I trying to make a fresh salsa, or a cooked one? How about style? Traditional or Tex-Mex? What I definitely knew that I didn’t want was the spicy ketchup so commonly labeled salsa, sitting in jars on the store shelf.

While this crusade isn’t like my others, which usually centers around the ingredient list of whatever I’m replacing (turns out most salsas are pretty tame from the processed food standpoint), it was equally as important to me, and turned out to be solvable by sticking to similar principles.

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In the vein of keeping this discussion on technology going, I wanted to bring up an article I read in The New Yorker a few weeks back that raised some interesting questions about the limits of technology in solving certain global challenges.

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This post is inspired by BLin’s previous post… it’s nice to hear people talk a bit about the benefits of local produce and sweet, sweet jam. The topic of food shipment brings up a good opportunity to talk about the homogenization of supermarket produce sections (yay!). Not only do suppliers pick fruit early (and use chemicals to delay/instigate fruit ripening), but they also choose breeds that are more tolerant to traveling conditions; breeds that have long shelf lives, are resistant to damage, and are able to retain some remnants of flavor when ripened en route instead of in vivo. Add that to the fact that suppliers also choose cultivars which produce near factory-quality visual consistency (color, size, shape), and the sum total is a bland and watery crate of tomatos. I used to hate tomatoes until a friend gave me some of his own homegrown heirloom beefsteak and cherry tomatoes — it was an epiphany.  I was biting into an entirely different food.

I believe this is a symptom of mass consumerism in American food culture; consumers value consistent appearance, practicality, and predictability over flavor.  It’s true that sometimes flavors offend… not everybody has the same tastes. But the more we try to please everybody, the more we please nobody, a problem which is clearly portrayed in American beers (wait, hear me out!).

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