Alex Winter, best known as Bill S. Preston, Esq. from the cult classic Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure, is working on a new documentary about the dark underbelly of the Internet, and he wants you to help out via Kickstarter. Winter has skewered sideshow entertainment with his debut film Freaked, turned MTV culture upside down with the beloved and much-missed series The Idiot Box, and most recently made a documentary on Napster and the P2P revolution called Downloaded.

Deep Web: The Untold Story of BitCoin and the Silk Road will be a full-length doc exploring the side of the Internet that's recently been making some interesting headlines. From their Kickstarter page:

In the last ten years, the digital revolution has swept like a brushfire into every corner of modern life. The world we now live in bears little resemblance to even the recent past. And the changes that are coming will disrupt our lives in even greater ways, some good and some harmful. But this tidal wave cannot be stopped, and its path can best be charted by examining the Deep Web; the vast unseen world that lies at the heart of the Internet and is the engine for the entire technological era.

Amazingly, the story of the Deep Web has never been told on film. Until now.

The Deep Web on one level simply represents the 96% of the World Wide Web that is unseen by the average citizen and not indexed by standard search engines. But more significantly, the Deep Web is a movement, a philosophy, a tool for revolution, and its foundation was built long before Napster and the iPod, WikiLeaks, The Arab Spring and the revelations of widespread NSA surveillance.

It is a long and winding road that has brought us to today's landscape of crypto-currency, Internet-fueled revolution and dangerous online black markets. And to explore this world is to better understand the full implications of where we now find ourselves and what may be the best way forward.

Some of the benefits of throwing Winter some scratch are most excellent indeed. For a $100 pledge you can have a private Skype session with Winter and talk about whatever you'd like. I'd like to ask him if he was his own stylist on the set of Lost Boys. $200 gets you a private screening party of Bill and Ted's in a SoHo apartment in New York City with Winter. For all you high rollers, you might want to consider the "Russian Oligarch" pledge level, where $10,000 gets you a screening of Bill and Ted's with Winter on a yacht in the city of your choice, plus an air guitar session. To quote Keanu Reves, "whoa."

A graphic cellphone video surfaced of a Yeman man accidentally discharging a weapon into a crowd of wedding guests while dancing to Psy's "Gangnam Style." There are three confirmed deaths but it's still unclear as to how many people were injured. Warning: It's not pretty.

The People’s Bank of China announced that the it doesn't benefit the country to increase its foreign-currency holdings. The yuan continues appreciate and China's foreign-exchange reserves surged $166 billion in the third quarter to a record $3.66 trillion.

“It’s no longer in China’s favor to accumulate foreign-exchange reserves,” Yi Gang, a deputy governor at the central bank, said in a speech organized by China Economists 50 Forum at Tsinghua University yesterday. The monetary authority will “basically” end normal intervention in the currency market and broaden the yuan’s daily trading range, Governor Zhou Xiaochuan wrote in an article in a guidebook explaining reforms outlined last week following a Communist Party meeting.

Serial Grillers, the Best of Tucson 2013 Food Truck winner, had a great week. We announced that the roadside eatery was one of two local food trucks that will be featured in a future episode of the Food Channel's Eat St. Forbes made a list of the coolest 25 food trucks in the country, and SGT is one of them. It's not the "Best of.."collection, but it's a solid list of food trucks around the nation.

William and Travis Miller's Serial Grillers names its dishes with a killer-inspired theme (i.e. Boston Strangler Cheesesteak, Zodiak Burger). The business also opened up a more conventional eatery with tables and chairs.

(via Forbes)

I've railed about the idiocy that is the Arizona Interscholastic Association before, and with good reason.

But nothing compares to fuck shit stack of a decision the state's high school athletics governing body made today when they decided to POSTPONE EVERY FOOTBALL PLAYOFF GAME scheduled for tonight and Saturday because of ... egads!!!!! Rain.

Yes, rain.

Not lightning. Not duststorms. Not snow, frigid temperatures, or anything really dangerous.

Nope, just rain.

I've covered high school football games in Arizona since 1995, and I have NEVER seen a game postponed for anything other than lightning. Rain? Really? What the fuck?

Tomorrow, Friday, Nov. 22, UA President Ann Weaver Hart will present the university's new strategic and marketing plan to the Arizona Board of Regents at the Center for Creative Photography Auditorium, Room 108, 9:30 a.m. The UA announced two options will be available so the public can see the presentation because of limited seating—the Student Union Memorial Center South Ballroom to watch a live broadcast or online via Arizona Public Media.

Once the Center for Creative Photography reaches capacity, the UA will post a notice on its Twitter and Facebook accounts. You can also go to the UA@Work website to get a preview of the presentation.

Back in July, we wrote a story on some controversial hires and admin changes at the UA and the early stages of the strategic plan. Shortly after, a video was released on YouTube highlighting the new strategic plan theme—Never Settle. That version never allowed for public comment and made private soon after as grumbling surfaced, particularly about the music in the video and possible trademark issues.

A new video is online now, but no embed is allowed. You can watch it here, and yes, you still can't post comments.

The story in July also focused on recent administration departures and hires, particularly in the UA's marketing department. Weekly sources confirm this remains an issue, as well as the cost for this new strategic and marketing campaign done by Ologie—reportedly $250,000 and that the project was not put out to bid. There was also a delay in getting the Never Settle website up, possibly due to the same trademark issue.

Loft Staff Selects is a new series kicking off tonight at the Loft Cinema. They're handing over the wheel to the staff for one night a month, letting them program the movie of their choice. The series starts with Tobe Hooper's (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre) 1986 action-packed remake of Invaders From Mars, starring Louise Fletcher, Hunter Carson, and the recently deceased cult actress Karen Black. Trust me, any movie that features Louise Fletcher in full Nurse Ratched mode gulping down a living, breathing, squirming frog is worth watching.

You may have noticed that rapper/clothing designer/sire-to-Kardashian-hellspawn Kanye West is, from time to time, a tremendous asshole.

While his previous feuds could be understood to an extent (I mean, I guess; I'm not sure George Bush hated black people so much as he wasn't very good at crisis management), his latest smacks of a businessman who doesn't understand that he needs to handle his business in private.

During a podcast with Bret Easton Ellis, writer of American Psycho, West talked about a recent tour he took at the Las Vegas headquarters of Zappos, given by Zappos CEO Tony Hseih himself.

West's take:

"I got into this giant argument with the head of Zappos that he's trying to tell me what I need to focus on. Meanwhile, he sells all this s—t product to everybody, his whole thing is based off of selling s—t product," West stated.

Speaking of shit products, I would like to note that West is still charging $120 for a plain damn T-shirt.

Now, while West being a douche isn't exactly news in and of itself, Zappos' response is brilliant. The shoe retailing giant has decided to fire back at West by literally selling a Shit Product:


Zappos' informative copy underneath is perfectly pitched, as is the accompanying video (which I would have embedded here, had the embed code not turned out something oddly sized and funky):

• Interested  in  buying  sh-t product? You've  come to the right place! Here at Zappos.com, we happily sell sh-t  products to everybody! This is the throne, everyone has been watching. Whether you're #1 or #2, your clique will show no mercy, even in Paris. 
  
• The perfect gift for the man that has everything
  
• Requires lots of "focus" for most productive use.
  
• Considered a "safety zone" when in arguments.
  
• Makes giant arguments seem much smaller.
  
• Caution: Do not place our Sh-t product near any fans.
  
• Avoid storms.
  

No word yet on a response from West, though if I remember his M.O. correctly, he'll bitch about it for a while drop a diss in his next album, two years from now.

[reddit.com]

All my life people have been telling me that Hotel Congress is haunted, but they can never explain why. Some say there are some visitors that never checked out when a fire in the basement traveled to the third floor of the hotel while authorities were trying to apprehend John Dillinger and his gang in 1934. I have never heard of the story behind Room 242 in 1993. Aric Allen filmed this hard boiled, noir Youtube video reminiscing what happen the night of the suicide.  

I travelled to Tucson in October to visit family, but I used that opportunity to check into the “Suicide Room” at Hotel Congress. I learned about the haunted room a few years back when I was trying to recall the events of a night that changed my life, I was at the hotel about twenty years ago when a woman in room 242 killed herself. 

Almost anywhere you put your foot down here, especially anywhere downtown, you're in the footsteps of a good four or five thousand years of folks who led the way. Preservation archaeologist and digital-media specialist Doug Gann reveals what we know about what's underfoot in a presentation "You Are Here: Virtual Tucson" at 7 p.m. tonight at Maker House, 283 N. Stone Ave.