When the power of love overcomes the love of power.

[kenny]

First off I want to give a plug to a new local rag that I picked up in an unexpected spot, the north yard. It’s called "Spreading The Disease" and you can find it at Uprok and Mechanized. There was one other place but I can't quite read my handwriting... too much time on a keyboard. Anyhow I want to thank Josh for my copy (hopefully those batteries lasted for the rest of the day), it's got a beautiful layout and crisp color pages with a shit load of great art. Hopefully people will take the time to pick up a copy because it's nice to see quality local projects and sad to see them go due to lack of support.

This week's graffiti project.
This week's digiCam project.

Last but not least, my new project launched tonight. I am not stopping my offbeat writing, just anything personal goes towards the new project. I need a little more freedom than I have here. Also since the re-launch of our site and moving to new hardware our traffic is down and being winter and cold as a motherfucker our street team is not out nearly as much. So you can help by linking to us as much as possible, or if you got the money make a donation. If you have made a donation... Thank you very much. Last but not least Aadil, our partner from the islands will be dumping some photos soon to give us a glimpse of island life. In fact he's doing it now, you can find them here. Nice pictures Aadil... already enjoying.

As always thanks for stopping in and keep the word of mouth alive.

[aadil]

Thanks mate! I still need to add the captions and an album description.
Cheers.

Album description is now ok.

[aadil]

No one else has some feedback? :|

[idbeholda]

I usually don't look at pictures too much, as I'm on dialup. Nevertheless I'll take a look at them later this evening. My absence you ask? This time we have 2 things to thank for that: Triple Hard Drive Faliure, and my ISP was apparently acting fruity. Long story, and I'll get into that later.

[Teep]

I have some questions, aadil... what does 786 mean? and why do they stick foot long needles in their chests and faces, other than they use the pain, they need the pain, they love the pain?

[kenny]

Originally Posted by Teep

I have some questions, aadil... what does 786 mean? and why do they stick foot long needles in their chests and faces, other than they use the pain, they need the pain, they love the pain?

This reminds me of a long running festival in Phuket (pronounced foo-kay, but I think they might or did change their name). Anyhow it's called the Vegitarian festival, I first learned about it 10/11 years ago, it was the piercing that got me looking in to it. It has been a long time but if I recall right a priest blesses and administers opium (not sure if they all do this). Maybe it was the needles that were blessed, but then the priests pierce the people. It's a religous thing, a way to repent and then afterwards the needles, hooks, weights are removed the pass out, go in to a mini seizure and wake up feeling fine - I think the shaking represents the holy sprits leaving their bodies.

I did look around online to find a little more about it, but this is all I really came up with, but I just did a quick glance http://www.thailandmagic.com/Thailand-Festivals.html I am sure a refined search would turn up more. But their primary religions there are Taoism and Buddhism and this festival used to be only in Phuket, but over the last few years it has spread, so maybe the festival in Aadils land is related, because a lot of it looks very similar. Just my two cents until he responds.