I noticed that the rose bushes near the park had been nailed by Japanese beetles. As a horticulturist I felt compelled to photograph this.

I arrived early, so the stadium was mostly empty. Outside the gates there were many groups of elementary school kids. Each group had custom shirts with a distinctive color. So groups of yellow, orange, green, red, teal, blue, and all sorts of other colors were present. A baseball game is a great field trip.

In the photo below Mount Nittany is visible through the haze. A few members of the grounds crew are making last minute preparations to the field.

My ticket was in section 204, which is a field box on the first base side. I had a front row seat, which was nice for taking pictures. Before the game Curious George escorted someone out to throw out the first pitch of the game. I noticed that the Spikes were giving out Curious George books to the kids in attendance, so I guess this appearance was due to that. I wanted George to throw a pitch, but he seemed happy to just stand there and wave.  

Ike the spike decided to start signing autographs right in front of me. And I mean right in front of me. Suddenly I was overrun by little kids. As if that wasn't enough, Ike busted out a water gun and shot me in the face. Ike is a punk (I say this in a good natured sort of way, for I don't believe he was trying to shoot me).

The game finally started. This season has been a rough one for the Spikes, they are in last place. The Scrappers have not fared much better. On this day the Spikes hit the ball better than the Scrappers, yet they fielded poorly. The final score was 7-6, with the Spikes losing by a run. In the bottom of the 9th they had the bases loaded, but failed to score. They still had 15 hits, which is very good. It was the four errors (and the official scorer managed to miss a blatant error . . . so there were actually five) that did in the Spikes.

Here are a few shots from the game: 

I've heard of sausage races, presidential races, and pierogi races at ballparks. However, when three giant eyeballs took the field I was surprised. I was rooting for the green eye. Coming down the home stretch the green eye had a large lead. Suddenly Ike the spike began assaulting the green eye with a water gun, causing it to crash. The brown eye flew past. The green eye finished second. Yet another reason I am not fond of Ike.

This is a short video I did for GRNY and I was supposed to interview the artists but it was my first time so I wasn't very good at it. Snaggs and Le Merde both were in attendance and they were absolutely awesome! The works are up through July 16, 2008 at GRNY so I highly recommend that you go IMMEDIATELY. Here are the photos.

Thursday: Catch Ryan Berkley's solo show "Sophisticated Menagerie" at Reading Frenzy, then head upstairs to IPRC for the release of Scrappers' new book Camp! Both events begin at 6:00 and will probably go until about 9:00 or so.

Friday: Celebrate America Grass Hut Style! They're having a big group show (with artwork by my cousin, the very talented Tom Webb!) and a BBQ with hot dogs, lemonade, beer and fireworks! The fun starts at noon.

MOSSY & GLOSSY
New Work by Snaggs, Le Merde & Scrappers
Giant Robot Gallery | 437 E 9th St (between 1st Ave & Ave A)
212.674.GRNY | grny.net

June 21 - July 16, 2008
Reception: Saturday June 21,
6:30 pm - 10:00 pm

Giant Robot is proud to present Mossy & Glossy, a group show featuring new works by artists from the Pacific Northwest with excellent nicknames: Justin "Scrappers" Morrison, Candi "Snaggs" Hibert, and Mike "Le Merde" Kelly.

The art of Scrappers reflects the outdoorsy environment of Portland, OR and his new pieces will preview his upcoming book about a logging crew, feral scouts, beards, and mushrooms. Art mediums include reused house paint and salvaged wood. When Scrappers isn't running the Grass Hut art collective, gallery, and shop with fellow artist Bwana Spoons, he works at the Wieden+Kennedy advertising agency.

Seattle-based Snaggs (work right) was inspired by stuffed Nauga Monsters from the '60s to become a felt artist. Her rainbow-colored body of work, which includes "paintings," dolls, and pillows, has a retro modern style that combines the handmade quality of craft with the sensibility of clean design. Included in her new pieces are felt depictions of the "Bikini Bandito," a fun-loving monster that steals bikini tops off unsuspecting sunbathers.

Le Merde has gained a rabid following in the limited-edition figure scene with his molten and oozing but cute style. Often lost in the shadows of his sculptural work is the Portland artist's equally colorful paintings, which also reference a loving appreciation of underground comix, Japanese horror manga, and rock 'n' roll. For this show, the member of the Grass Hut art collective of will be supplying 30 hand-painted resin pieces.

A reception for Scrappers, Snaggs, and Le Merde will be held from 6:30 to 10:00 on Saturday, June 21

more:

• Read the 2005 Vanguard article, "Scrappers Town"
• Read the 2007 Crown Dozen interview of Snaggs
• Read the 2007 Vinyl Pulse interview of Le Merde

Mossy & Glossy
June 21 - July 16, 2008
Reception: Saturday, June 21, 6:30 p.m. - 10:00 p.m.

Giant Robot Gallery
437 East 9th Street
Between 1st Ave. & Ave. A, in the East Village
New York, New York 10009
(212) 674-GRNY (4769) / grny.net

Giant Robot is proud to present Mossy & Glossy, a group show featuring new works by artists from the Pacific Northwest with excellent nicknames: Justin "Scrappers" Morrison, Candi "Snaggs" Hibert, and Mike "Le Merde" Kelly.

The art of Scrappers reflects the outdoorsy environment of Portland, OR and his new pieces will preview his upcoming book about a logging crew, feral scouts, beards, and mushrooms. Art mediums include reused house paint and salvaged wood. When Scrappers isn't running the Grass Hut art collective, gallery, and shop with fellow artist Bwana Spoons, he works at the Wieden+Kennedy advertising agency.

Seattle-based Snaggs was inspired by stuffed Nauga Monsters from the '60s to become a felt artist. Her rainbow-colored body of work, which includes "paintings," dolls, and pillows, has a retro modern style that combines the handmade quality of craft with the sensibility of clean design. Included in her new pieces are felt depictions of the "Bikini Bandito," a fun-loving monster that steals bikini tops off unsuspecting sunbathers.

Le Merde has gained a rabid following in the limited-edition figure scene with his molten and oozing but cute style. Often lost in the shadows of his sculptural work is the Portland artist's equally colorful paintings, which also reference a loving appreciation of underground comix, Japanese horror manga, and rock 'n' roll. For this show, the member of the Grass Hut art collective of will be supplying 30 hand-painted resin pieces.

A reception for Scrappers, Snaggs, and Le Merde will be held from 6:30 to 10:00 on Saturday, June 21. For more information about the artists, GRNY, or Giant Robot magazine, please contact GRNY.

I just came across a new site called "I Can Photoshop Scrappers." For those who haven't heard of Scrappers, he works at the Ad Agency Wieden + Kennedy in Portland. Here is his website Scrappertown. To see an amazing video of him wearing a stuffed raccoon, please go to here to AdFreak's blog.

The random backgrounds are hilarious, the same goes for the different bearded images of "Scrappers."

Too bad you cannot do it with your own image....

Speaking of that I just bought PHOTOCHOPPHRIDAY.COM

Much awesomeness to come from this site soon!

Do you ever return from vacation with tons of great snapshots, only to become overwhelmed by them all or have them become lost by life's shuffle? Before your next trip, plan to organize your snapshots even before you leave.

Try this tip. Pack a small note book or even a notepad in your camera bag or your purse if you rather. Take notes or just jot down something about your favorite places or sights as you go about your sightseeing. Maybe take note of your feelings you experience throughout your trip.

Remember to take snapshots of various signs, menus, and other details that will help you identify certain details that you want to recall. You then will have a record of exact names and places that you visited.

Later, you will have visual clues and pictures that will not only help you identify details of your trip but enhance your scrapbook pages as well.

Pro Digital

La historia detrás de Wordprexy y del por qué están copiando todos esos blogs, es debido al bloqueo que Turquía le ha impuesto a todo Wordpress.com bajo alegatos de que es muy facil crear un blog difamatorio en contra de una persona muy influyente (supongo yo) que presento su queja ante un tribunal y este ordenó el bloqueo de todos los blogs hospedados acá, limitando así la libertad de expresión en aquel país.

Según declaron ellos, no están tratando de robar contenidos si no su intención es evadir el blogqueo impuesto por Turquía, y los anuncios que muestran son solo para pagar las cuentas de sus servidores. Todo creo que estaría bien si no mostrarán anuncios en los contenidos y esfuerzo de otros.

Si bien mantener un sitio con 12 millones de páginas vistas, como aseguran, es algo un tanto difícil; no creo que sea tan difícil pagar los $20 que les costaría el primer año de hospedaje en Dreamhost (si son pilas y buscan descuentos), quienes son los que dan el hosting según se ve en el registro whois del dominio (en la configuración de los nameservers).

A muchos no nos gustan los anuncios en los blogs, peor aún si vemos que alguien más toma el contenido que hemos escrito y se gana algunas monedas extras cuando ni siquiera nosotros podemos ganarlas en Wordpress.com. A pesar de que hay una buena intensión en la idea, sigo viendo a Wordprexy.com como otro pinche scrapper/spammer aprovechado. Para mí que ellos deberían detectar la IP de donde viene el visitante, si es de Turquía le presentan la página espejo, sino lo fuera deberían de redirigir al blog legítimo ya que no se vería afectado por el bloqueo y no se afecta al autor original del blog con la perdida de tráfico.

Algo que me pareció bastante curioso fue ver que aquellos blogs que han comprado Custom CSS no muestran correctamente los estilos y los anuncios de adsense, después de todo no clonaron todos los blogs correctamente. Aquellos que tengan un dominio para su blog, pues no perderán todo el tráfico ya que solo están remplanzando *.wordpress.com por *.wordprexy.com, así que aún pueden ganar algunos entrantes adicionales.

Mi blog está duplicado, ¿Qué puedo hacer?

Si no estas de acuerdo con las acciones de Wordprexy.com y sientes que duplicar tu blog no es legar, afortunadamente no todo está perdido. Yo mismo tuve mis reservas de las intenciones de esta gente, así que de todos modos les escribí en el formulario de contacto que ellos proveen y solicite que dieran de baja mi blog en su proxy:

Hi guys,
I'll ask you to stop mirroring my blog: jaroche.wordpress.com in your servers, I don't wanna get banned by google and other search engines by your duplicate content; and as I never have been asked for this, now I wanna you stop this.

Thanks for your collaboration,
--Javier Aroche

Al cabo de unas horas la copia de mi blog estaba fuera, mostrando el mensaje que yo les escribí. Otros amigos les han escrito y wordprexy los ha elimando rápidamente, después de todo hay buenas intenciones. Si tienes dudas de si esto es legal o no, yo te recomiendo escribirles (no es necesario que des tu dirección de correo por aquellas) y solicitarles de buena manera que den de baja el espejo de tu blog, parece que atienen estas solicitudes sin mayor problema.

Lo mejor sería que el mismo Wordpress.com bloqueara el acceso de los servidores de Wordprexy.com e impidiera que sigan copiando los contenidos de los blogs acá hospedados, pero según me contestaron en los foros y via correo electrónico dicen que esto está fuera de sus manos y que en todo caso hay que escribir a Dreamhost con todo y cartas DMCA solicitando el respectivo cierre. Pienso que Wordpress.com podría bloquear la clonación de blogs al limitar las IPs de los servidores involucrados, pero parece que no quieren meterse en esos asuntos.... Quizás sea hora de escribir a Dreamhost.

¿Wordpress.com hackeado si o no?

Inicialmente varios bloggers pensaron que se trataba de algun hack a Worpdress.com o alguien del equipo facilito el acceso a las bases de datos. Pero como se lo mencione a David, el tamaño de Wordpress.com es enorme. Tienen unas 4,096 bases de datos distribuidas en 3 DataCenters, con más de un millón de blogs y muchos más miles de posts, toda esa información no la copias de la noche a la mañana y la pones en un hosting como Dreamhost.

Ellos deben estar usando algun tipo de CDN o script que les facilite copiar los contenidos generardos por Wordpress.com y hacerlos pasar a nombre Wordprexy.com con algunos anuncios de Adsense; es lo que supongo por el cache que están manejando en las páginas y por los problemas con el Custom CSS que algunos blogs tenemos comprado.

En fin, mientras unos apoyan la protestas, otros ven como su trabajo es duplicado; yo por mi parte ya solucione el problema y veo que cualquiera lo puede hacer basta un mensaje para que te den de baja; aunque sigo pensando que después de todo van a sacar buenas monedas si tienen tanto tráfico como dicen tener. Google como siempre ya los está indexando, casi 20,000 páginas hasta el momento.

Actualización 24 de Septiembre: Según me comentan, Wordprexy.com ha eliminado la publicidad en todos sus copias, seguramente debido a la lluvia de críticas de los últimos días.

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