- Even though the marijuana business hasn’t exactly
revolutionized the economies of Washington and Colorado, that doesn’t mean
would be pot-trepreneurs in other states aren’t preparing themselves for the
possibility that ganja could some day be legalized in their state. Andy and Frank
Huston are brothers and cheeba visionaries from Roseville, Ill. and they are planning
to start growing medical marijuana to get in on the ground floor of the ganja
industry in their state. These forward thinkers are the co-owners of a
construction company called Huston Land Improvement, but on the side they farm
1,700 acres and harvest traditional crops like corn, soybeans and hay. Those
items are all fine, but soybeans aren't bringing in the big money and that’s
where the hippie lettuce comes in. “It was actually my brother’s idea,” Frank
Huston said. “He got to thinking about it and said there are other states that
have done it and it seems to be working.” Younger brother Andy Huston explained
that during his short lifetime, he hasn’t really seen any industries or
business opportunities where he could get in on the ground floor and be part of
the early stages of something big. He believes that pot will bring high-quality
(pun intended) jobs to Roseville and inject some life into the town’s moribund
economy. The brothers have submitted an application to grow medicinal marijuana
to the Illinois Department of Agriculture and if that application is approved,
the Huston’s believe their expanded operation will create at least 20
high-paying jobs. They plan to grow for the Chicago-based company Salveo Health
and Wellness, which has helped them with their application, on which they must
provide a detailed outline for where the cultivation center will be located,
how it will control entrance and exit points and assure the government there
will be 24-hour camera surveillance and an alarm system. “The building is going
to be 10,500 square feet,” Andy Huston said. “We’re figuring we will grow about
1,200 plants.” With the brothers planning to submit their application in
August, they are hoping greener days are not far off………
- It took years of work and plenty of grassroots campaigning,
but the forthcoming documentary on the life and legacy of the late indie/folk
cult icon Elliott Smith is nearing its release and those behind the project
have suggested that the film will be more than just a rehashing of old stories.
Kevin
Moyer, an old school friend of Smith's who worked on the film with director
Nickolas Rossi, said that the documentary will feature a large number of
unheard songs from the late singer's archives. Titled “Heaven Adores You,” the
project will include 35 songs from Smith’s catalog and according to Moyer, 15-20
of those tunes will be previously unreleased tracks. Much like Smith himself, a
tortured artist who resonated with so many fans struggling with similar issues
of depression and addiction, the documentary about his life has been an uphill
battle funded by a Kickstarter campaign. Filled with conversations with Smith's
close circle of friends, its focus is on his life more than on the murky
circumstances surrounding his death. "I'm one of the few people who have been
able to look into both the Universal and Kill Rock Star vaults,” Moyer said. “Elliott's
masters are split between two labels. It was fun to be able to get in there and
listen to songs and try to get some of that music that had never been heard out
there and into the fans' ears." According to Moyer, the new songs include
efforts from different eras of Smith’s short life, including some from his time
growing up in Texas and stretching all the way to his adult life in Portland, Ore. "The biggest part of his
music is the connection it makes. Somehow when you listen to his music he just
connects with your heart and your brain,” Moyer added. Smith released five solo
albums prior to his death in 2003 and two additional albums, 2004's “From A
Basement On A Hill” and 2007's “New Moon,” were released posthumously……..
- The Danes are awesome people. They love to drink at any
time of the day, they annually rank at the top of the rankings of the happiest
countries in the world and unlike their German neighbors to the south, they
actually have a sense of humor. Unfortunately, that sense of humor only extends so far. It clearly
does not extend to the ill-received and short-lived cartoon-based campaign to increase
involvement for young voters in the political process. The Voteman campaign –
the terrible name should have been the first hint that this was not going to go
well – centered on a YouTube-posted cartoon that opens with two apparently
politically disaffected young men. The story jumps to Voteman, a muscle-bound,
stubble-chinned superhero, answering a call asking him to persuade voters to
have their say in the upcoming European Parliament elections. That, as it turns
out, is the end of normalcy in this debacle. A naked Voteman hops out of bed
surrounded by a harem of attractive women apparently performing sex acts on him
and after donning a leather waistcoat and pants, he departs from a Bond
villain-esque island hideout using a pair of harnessed dolphins as water skis.
From there, a cavalcade of cartoon violence unfolds, with one of the two
aforementioned disaffected voters ending up decapitated, while other would-be
non-voters are punched, slapped and tossed through the windows of a polling
station to vote. Amazingly, this train wreck of a video is actually the work of
the Danish Parliament's EU information center and was posted to its official
YouTube page. It looks more like the work of a couple of disaffected slackers
with too much Red Bull, too few hours of sleep and not nearly enough social
interaction, but it was truly churned out by a government office. Sadly, it was
pulled from YouTube and an apology was made for its graphic sexual and violent
content. Mogens Lykketoft, speaker of the Danish Parliament, said in a
statement on his Facebook page that many people had perceived the cartoon as
"more serious and offensive than it was intended, and see it as talking
down to the youth.” No Mogens, it wasn’t talking down to the youth. It was more
about the video being a ridiculous, ill-conceived and amateurish dumpster fire
that never should have seen the light of day………
- No credit for not doing the wrong thing, NCAA. Just
because you bureaucratic ass hats always find a way to make the wrong decision
is no reason to start fist-bumping and high-fiving when you stumble into a
situation so easy to figure out that even you can't possibly f*ck it up. Such a
case came before the NCAA this week in the form of incoming Boise State recruit
Antoine Turner, who is currently homeless. Turner, who said recently that he
has been living at a motel and in his girlfriend's car and even sleeping on
park benches because of an assortment of financial and family issues, became
the subject of a story by a local television station. After his story aired, a
fearful Boise State compliance department felt compelled to caution boosters
that it would be an NCAA violation for them to provide any financial assistance
to Turner. Thinking that it might be good for a homeless athlete’s future
school to be able to lend him a hand before he was technically allowed on
campus this summer, Boise State applied for a waiver from the NCAA that would
allow the school to house and feed Turner prior to enrolling. Shockingly, the
NCAA granted that request and now the 6-foot-3, 280-pound defensive end can
receive -- among other items -- room and board from Boise State because he's
now allowed on campus. Turner is the sort of person that could definitely use
an assist, having lost his mother to cancer when he was 4, had a strained
relationship with his father and lost an uncle during Hurricane Katrina. He
grew up running drugs for gang members in the Lower Ninth Ward, escaping that
life only when he became a standout football player in high school and the
gangs gave him a pass. His football skills took him to Fullerton Junior College
in California, where he says he slept on park benches because he had nowhere to
stay until his girlfriend’s family took him in. Since then, he’s napped it out
at a motel or in the back seat of his girlfriend’s car. A dorm bed in Boise
should be a nice upgrade……….
- There are two groups of people in this world when it comes
to Google Glass. There are the über-few who are delusional enough to spend
$1,500 for a ridiculous piece of technology that makes one look like the most
douche-tastic human being walking the planet, and then there is the remainder
of the population that wants to punch these Glassholes in the mouth –
repeatedly. The news for the supposed eyewear of the future has gotten
progressively worse, including rumors that the markup
on the cost of building each unit could be as high as 1,000 percent. The
resulting $1,500 cost speculation comes right as the beta program to test out
the wearable augmented-reality display is being made open for the general
public. Google’s Glass team has maintained a tight hold on the beta testing
program over the past year, bringing people in through invitations and then by
way of a one-day sale window that was open to the public. Making the program
open to the public had to happen at some point, but the odds that anyone heard
the call to join the Glasshole revolution are small because the company
announced the decision in a blog post on its wholly irrelevant social media
arm, Google+. In the post, Google wrote that, "Starting today anyone in
the US can buy the Glass Explorer Edition, as long as we have it on hand."
The post noted that the current incarnation of Glass is still an early version
of the technology and not the final model that will be marketed to the average
consumer, if that ever happens. A video attached to the post highlights some of
the ways early adopters have used Google Glass, but it sadly does not include
scenes of bar patrons ripping the Google Glass system off some dork’s face and
stomping it into pieces before depositing the discombobulated remains in a
pitcher of said dork’s cheap beer……….
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