Hey You Vegetarians!

As Scott mentioned earlier, today is a day for Vegetarians to celebrate...and for Anthony Bourdain of "No Reservations" to express his hatred for you!

Top Of The Mornin' Monday... On Tuesday!

I know I missed my normal Monday post yesterday to kick off the week, and for that, I apologize. Please accept this offering in return.

I give you The Boba Fett Plush Rocket Backpack! No one will ever question who your favorite Star Wars character is ever again. Make the right fashion statement in school this year. And if someone ever tries to pick on you for it... freeze their ass in carbonite, or at least with the dry ice you packed in all the pockets! Check out Thinkgeek for more deets on this backpack and more awesomes!

That is all. Happy Mon... err... Tuesday!

Life Hacks: The Infograph

Now before you go writing this infograph off as a waste of precious time today, please take a moment to reconsider. This may be one of the only infographs to give some great life tips and tricks, some of which I am sure you will consider adopting. So hit the jump and see for yourself some neato stuff to improve you.

Help Make Puppy Cow A Reality

Halp! Puppy Cow Needs Us!

Jamie Noguchi, one of Super Art Fight's veteran artists/illustrators, is trying to raise money to make his most famous creation a plush toy for everyone to enjoy. Noguchi is hoping this will be the first in a line of toys he would like to create. The Puppy Cow Plush will be seven inches tall, and feature utters made out of a fake leather material.

We here at The Epic Gentleman's Society can never say enough good things about the folks over at Super Art Fight. So if you have a few bones to spare, please donate to help make a dream a reality. There are all different kinds of puppy cow art and collectibles you can receive from Jamie himself for being all kinds of generous and nice.

Click here to go to the Kickstart page, which features a wonderful video promoting the project. You can also stay connected with Puppy Cow on Facebook.

DIY Daft Punk Helmet: I want to go to there.

Who doesn't love Daft Punk? If you said "me", we need to have a long talk. Right now. But for everyone else, check out this amazing DIY Daft Punk Helmet! And better yet, all of the instructions to build your very own helmet can be found over at http://volpinprops.blogspot.com/. The work here is incredibly detailed and pretty spot on. Lots of time went into building it, and mucho kudos the builder on a marvelous job. I'm waiting for volunteers to build me one. So if you're interested, contact me ASAP 'cause I have some meetings coming up at work where this would come in handy.

Hulu Plus

Recently I purchased the Hulu Plus service for the PS3.  We are going to an in depth look at the service and hopefully answer questions you may have. When I purchased the service, I didn't know much about the service besides the promo video below.




You may be thinking something along the lines of, "Wait, I can watch all of my favorite shows from Hulu, on my TV? Screw this review, Hulu Plus is a NO BRAINER. So long cable!" Before you do anything rash, let's keep reading. First off, Hulu plus is currently in a preview phase. The amount of "quality" shows are limited. Where the hell is "Archer"?! You won't find the wide selection, that you can find on Hulu's website.

Make Your MacBook Pro an Epic Gentleman.

Since I have been considering getting a MacBook Pro as of late, I thought this was a particularly good find. Stick With Me, Baby! stickers. An amazing set of stickers to give that extra bit of personality your MacBook requires. My favorites happen to be "El Capitan" and "The Wise Tentacles of Dr. Mooch." Check them all out at http://www.stickwithmebaby.com/

Wafflesicles

This has been floating around the interwebs for a few weeks now, but its worth mentioning. This is probably one of the greatest breakfast inventions ever, just behind Pee Wees Rube Goldberg Breakfast Machine. You may be wondering why this post is under the "Lifestyle" section of this blog, and the answer simply is you need to be living with this device. If nothing else, buy me one because I'm a cheap bastard trying to throw a bunch of awesome waffle parties, and you're invited! The Wafflesicle maker has changed the breakfast game forever. Think of all the possibilities breakfast and brinner have now! We can also put bets on how quickly you will run Donkey's "In the morning, I'm making waffles!" quote into the ground. Fun for everyone!

Robots and Power Tool Races and Free Ice Cream, Oh, My!!

We at EGS are well aware that Artscape is coming up but I have been hearing about something called Betascape. I know a dear friend of EGS is involved but I wanted to learn more. Betascape will be taking place at MICA at the same time as Artscape. According to the Betascape website,

“From July 16 - 18th, 2010, Betascape will showcase innovative technology
through a three-day series of demonstrations, exhibits, workshops, and social
events focused on cutting edge, experimental, and interactive technology.”

Shervonne Cherry gave me some insight to how Betascape came to be. Apparently people in the Baltimore Tech community have been trying to organize something similar to Betascape for some time now to no avail. Cherry states that,

"During a spring Bmore Smart meeting Heather Sarkissian of MP3car invited
Randi Vega from Baltimore Office of Promotion for the Arts (BOPA) and she was
so excited by the energy to help Baltimore, that she asked us how the tech
community could get more involved in what BOPA was doing."

Betascape has been heavily promoting via web and social networking sites about their upcoming event. I was impressed to learn that Betascape is a volunteer run project. Every person involved is passionate about technology in the Baltimore area. Their enthusiasm is contagious! I am very excited to attend their kickoff party on Thursday July 15 at The Windup Space. I have had my tickets for a few weeks now. Note to the wise…tickets are still available, FREE, and there will be FREE ICE CREAM! Be sure to register so they know you are coming. The speakers series will begin at 7:00pm and feature Doug Retzler: The Greening of Art, Zolt Levay: Art from Space, and Kevin 'KAL' Kallaugher: The Art of Political Satire. As the evening moves on there will also be some live music to keep spirits high! This sounds like a great way to kick off make your presence known at Artscape.

The event will be taking place Friday, July 16- Sunday, July 18. Cherry, a volunteer that has been in charge of the advertising also informed me that ,

"Innovate Baltimore is bringing together individuals and educational institutions
across Maryland to showcase their video games. Attendees can get out of the heat
and demo these locally created video games or play arcade favorites like Donkey
Kong, Pac-man, Mortal Kombat, Marvel vs. Capcom, and King of Fighters.”

In other words, we get to play some video games and get out of the heat! Where does EGS sign up?? Video games are not the only thing that will be at Betascape. There will be multiple DIY groups showcasing their work, robotics exhibit-with robots you can play with, and plenty of speakers on hand.

In a press release Bmore Smart- the talented brains behind Betascape,

“The Betascape tent will be located near the MICA Brown Center at 1301 Mount
Royal Avenue and Café Doris located within The Brown Center. You can find out
more about Betascape via the website http://www.betascape.org/, www.facebook.com/betascape , and www.twitter.com/betascape”.

This addition to Artscape seems a tad late but better late than never! We are thrilled for our friends behind Betascape and hope their event is a “Great success” (insert Borat voice here)!

xoxo,

The Divine Miss J

An Epic Gentleman Keeps a Busy Schedule

Some people "don't want to work, (they) just want to bang on the drum all day" others are just "working for the weekend". Either way an EG works hard and parties hard, we just do it with style. We don't scoff at enjoying an adult beverage we just do not treat Baltimore like our personal frat house. Even before the EGS was formed we would pride ourselves in finding enjoyable events throughout this beautiful city that we call home. Now that we are in the long days of summer there is no end to the fun and inexpensive fun to be had.

I will start with my personal favorite summer event ARTSCAPE! This particular festival totes itself as being "America's Largest Free Arts Festival". It will run from Friday July 16- Sunday July 18. For an Artscape virgin the size of the festival alone can be daunting. This is the type of festival that you should actually attend all days so you can feel like you almost did everything. Be sure to to pick up The City Paper on Wednesday and check out the schedule and map before even leaving the house. This year the band that I'm looking forward to seeing the most is Cold War Kids. They will be taking the main stage at 6:30pm on Saturday evening. My hint is to GET THERE EARLY!! Cake was a madhouse at last years festival.

That same weekend I will have to split my time between the above mentioned Artscape and the 36th Annual Pow-Wow. This is poor planning in my opinion. This is a festival that deserves more attention and attendance. Scheduling it the same weekend as one of the largest festivals in the country isn't that smart. Either way I will be penciling in some time to get there. I personally recommend getting there around 11:00am and getting a good spot for the Grand Entry at 12pm. If you've never seen a Grand Entry it is truly unique.

There is another reason that I adore Summer and that is for the outdoor movies. Thankfully there are multiple neighborhoods in Baltimore that play host to this event. If you plan carefully you could spend the majority of your week watching an outdoor film. My two cents here would be investing in a tarp and a picnic basket. Grab a few blankets, pack a few sandwiches, brownies, and a bottle of wine and you will have a delightful evening for a very affordable price. Be sure to remember the wet naps and a bottle opener! About.com has done a fabulous job of compiling the complete schedule of the outdoor films so I will direct you there.

Hope I see you around! Don't be shy, just say hi!

xoxo,

The Divine Miss J

DWI

Gentlemen, I think it’s safe to say that many of if not all of us are guilty of this heinous act. We don’t know when to cut ourselves off and before the night is over we've done something that it is irreparable. No, I’m not talking about Driving While Intoxicated (which something that an Epic Gentleman would never do). This is a discussion about Dating While Intoxicated.

We all have our war stories. Some of us have called our dates by another woman’s name while others have gone to the extreme and vomited during a date. Now, I’m not suggesting that we put X’s on our hands and go straight edge. Hell, I am drinking a glass of Malbec as I’m writing this essay. Some of us may believe that we need a couple of drinks to “loosen up” or gain “Dutch courage*”. Which is fine, to an extent. The problem lies in knowing when enough is enough. This isn’t Bro-mageddon guys, there’s no need to get hammered. If I may, here are some suggestions when it comes to drinking on a date. First, NO SHOTS! It’s the easiest way to get drunk. Your date may also think that you are trying to get her drunk. Second, despite how many drinks you think can handle, always drink less. You don’t want to look like a lush in front of your date. If don’t know what your magic number is, a good rule of thumb is to have one less drink then your date. I am going to make it my personal goal to not rely on drink while on a date. After all we are EPIC gentlemen I suggest that we start living up to our name.

*Where the hell did the term Dutch courage come from? I didn’t think that the Dutch were known for drinking?

If you have any comments or thoughts please feel free to share!