Every Independence Day the residents of Santa Cruz, California pay homage to this nation’s founders by blowing up beaches. Behold the fury:

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A brilliant ad campaign for the upcoming “The Simpsons Movie” (July 27th) - for one month, twelve 7-Eleven stores have been converted into Kwik-E-Marts. I went to the Mountain View location (which is walking distance from Google Headquarters) - the store is completely outfitted with KrustyO’s*, Buzz Cola, Squishees, Homer Simpson pink doughnuts, and immigrant employees. [click photos to enlarge]

*KrustyO’s are produced and distributed by Momco, a likely Futurama reference.

(via AMP and Ari)

[UPDATE by Heywood]:

I too got a chance to visit one of the 12 7-Eleven Kwik-E-Marts, here in New York City (42nd Street at 9th Ave). Here’s my photo proof:

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First of all, Happy 4th of July to all you ‘Dillas out there.

Today I journeyed to Coney Island to witness the 92nd annual Nathan’s International July Fourth Hot Dog Eating Contest. It was a battle for the ages, with Joey Chestnut demolishing his own recently-set world record of 59.5 franks, but still only narrowly beating out Takeru “The Tsunami” Kobayashi in total HDBs (Hot Dog and Buns) consumed. Chestnut scarfed down an amazing 66 hot dogs in 12 minutes, with Kobayashi ‘close’ behind at 63.

While it was difficult to get close to the actual competitors, the atmosphere was fantastic, as 30,000 people turned out for the event and an estimated 1.5 million people watched on TV.

Chestnut v. Kobayashi:

(image courtesy of the San Jose Mercury News)

Some of my own images are below:

Joey Chestnut entering the stage

The countdown until next year has already begun

Happy 4th, Everyone!!!

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“I feel a great disturbance . . . as if a million geeks cried out in ecstasy and then were suddenly silenced.”

Location: the Apple Store, Downtown Palo Alto (University Ave.), CA. (”The Heart Wallet of Silicon Valley”)
Time: 6hrs 11 mins to iPhrenzy.
Local Mood: Perhaps the largest collection of geeks without Star Wars or Renaissance Faire costumes on (and Shatner isn’t at a table signing stuff).
Am I Buying An iPhone?: Hell no. I prefer $600 in groceries. I just duct-taped my iPod to my cellphone and it’s pretty much the same thing.

Footage as of 11:35AM, Pacific Time.

Footage as of 12:30PM - The News Media ClusterF**k Has Begun (if you enlarge the photos, you’ll see how incredibly short some reporters are).

Report by: Blogadilla NewsTeam Field Reporter, Tim.
Linkety-Link

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How cool is this?
UrbanDrinks.com is a site developed here in Portland to make your “getting-drunk-plans” easier. They’ve even added a Pub Crawl section where you can add your upcoming drunken events. This is especially handy, as we put on an annual pub crawl. They have plans to expand to other cities, so stayed tuned. Check it out ›

“UrbanDrinks.com is the work of a small group of friends who have made it their mission to provide you with the most up-to-date happy hour information.”

-UrbanDrinks.com

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OhMyGod!!! iPhone is coming out in a week!! You can hear the sound of thousands of geeks frothing at the mouth and screaming out in ecstasy. It’s almost here!!!
If you want to have some fun, make your own iFone. It’s like an iPhone, but not. Simply upload the iPhone stock ringtone and the iFone wallpaper to your phone. It’s fun to let your iFone ring in places frequented by geeks - heads turn, and for a brief moment you become a geek demigod as they assume you have some super-secret insider early release.

(inspired by the magic of the Neistat Brothers)

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Last night was a great time as I took part in my second Midnight Mystery Ride, which also happened to be a part of this year’s Pedalpalooza.

The premise of a Midnight Mystery Ride, if you’re unfamiliar, is this:

“We meet, greet, gather and drink. At midnight, we ride to a mystery location. Not for the faint at heart.”

Every second Friday of the month, bicycle-riding freaks and geeks meet at a pre-determined location. Although this location usually ends up being a local brew-pub, its whereabouts are only posted on the website the day prior to the event. Around 10pm (ish), crowds of people on bikes of all types begin to gather at the chosen spot to load up on as much barley-pop as possible before midnight. At that time the mystery ride of roughly 150–200 people begins, which is led by one person who is the only individual that knows where we are riding to. Upon arriving at the mystery destination, which is within approximately five miles of the original meeting location, the partying commences. The crowd is comprised of everything from hipsters riding fixes to nude double-decker bike riding weirdos—My kind of peeps!

Below are a few photos and videos of last night’s ride. Unfortunately, my memory card was full, so I was only able to capture as much as I could erase. I was, however, able to get a poorly-lit snippet of a by-passer in an SUV acting-a-fool because he thought someone touched his precious vehicle. Way to uphold the stereotype, f*cktard! Not to mention he was slightly out numbered by 200 people on bicycles. Although, he did have a sweet east coast wise-guy accent.

Anyhow, enjoy my lousy, poorly-lit photos and videos as much as you can. It was pitch-black once we got there and I was pretty f*cked up, mind you. Better photos and videos next month, I promise.

WERD!

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Wow. It was like Us magazine threw up in my TV. If you didn’t watched the MTV Movie Awards on Sunday make sure to TiVo it when it airs again. The all seeing eye of Viacom has blocked most of it from YouTube, but you can see some highlights here on MTV.

Comedic dominatrix Sarah Silverman rips Paris Hilton a new one (and she’s in the audience), Will Ferrell and Sacha Baron Cohen make out, Nicholson is his usual smarmy, drunken self, Amy Winehouse looks as if she’s about to cry during her musical performance, Johnny Depp is just getting weirder by the minute, AND there’s an assload of Vitamin Water advertisements for Tim. Good times.

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May 19th-20th (last weekend) was the 2007 Make: Magazine “Maker Faire”. It was a spectacular event: steam-powered robots, battery-powered motorcycles, tinfoil hats, human-powered carnival rides, a life-sized version of the game “mouse trap,” and lots of explosions.
Below is a video I put together for Blogadilla, and below below are some nice shots of the event by our own Blogadilla photographer, Garry. [click on photos to enlarge]

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