For me, seeing mechicanically seperated meat (aka meat soft serve) in the ingredients sereves as a red flag that says DON"T EAT ME...

I would like to second what Dan Williams said. I have been told by multiple people in the industry that the program at Seattle U is much better preperation for working in a kitchen and cheaper.

I have been working as a prep cook for about six months and everyone that I have worked with that went to Le Cordon Bleu has been, to put it bluntly, pretty worthless. This includes a chef who was forced to resign after they figured out he knew next to nothing about cooking despite having had several high profile gigs and a culinary school education. Another is a recent graduate who brought his full school kit with about fifty different knives and kitchen tools but literally didn't know how to peel a carrot properly. Sorry for the rant.

Overall, Le Cordon Bleu seems to produce people who think they know a lot than they do and aren't open to learning from others.

There is a local guy in Seattle who records under the name The Sight Below that I've really been digging lately. Its close to stars of the lid and other ambient music but with more of a shoegaze vibe. This track always blow my mind:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-YwZNfjJ15U
Its basically just the same simple guitar part looped over and over with increasing amounts of reverb and feedback...simple but effective. Though his previous albums had more keyboards and drum machines, his latest one, It Falls Apart, is mostly guitar...

Emeralds, and their guitar player Mark McGuire's solo stuff, is mostly very clean looped guitar that is layered until it becomes a giant drone...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fabt4-UyvM8

Masterati is a recently defunct band that features layered looped guitars with hard driving rhythm section... a lot heavier than most of the other looped guitar stuff that's been recommend. Easily one of the best live bands I have ever seen.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UKSRvqnrajQ

Early examples of looped guitar that I really like are Ash Ra Tempel's Inventions for the Electric Guitar and the Brian Eno/ Robert Fripp collaborations (which is the first example of live looping that I'm aware of).

I am done nerding out now....

For some reason I had this very thought when I read the article. I guess there's something about it being labeled as dangerous and possibly limited in availability that makes it sound appealing...then I remembered that I'm an adult who doesn't really need a shitty buzz followed by a headache.

It seems to me that between all the weird chemicals and ultra cheap booze in Four it would be healthier (and possibly even more dignified) to go huff paint thinner out of a paper bag... not that I'm judging you in any way...

I have very curly hair, and cutting down on shampooing and using Alffia shea butter hair lotion every day after showering has finally made me feel like I have semi-normal hair for the first time in my life, rather than a weird dried up ball of fuzz on my head... it think you just have to find what works for you.. the key is to make sure you use some powerful conditioner/leave in stuff to compensate for the lost moisture when you use shampoo... although I'm a dude so the advice might not be totally applicable

To go in a different direction from everyone else I would say look at a trade schools if you are at all mechanically inclined. The programs are usually at community college, which is cheaper and faster than regular college, and they are usually jobs that could never be shipped overseas.

I know HVAC (Heating Ventilation and Air Conditioning) has a pretty much 100% placement rate if you are at all competent and you can usually be placed into a high paying job (50-60K) right out of school.

I was considering going this route until I realized that I was horrible at both driving and using power tools, which is more or less 99% of the job.

Probably because you LIVE IN NEW YORK CITY!!! I visited NYC about a year ago and felt like I saw the most bizarre thing I had ever seen in my life thus far every five minutes...

But since you insist on letting it shock you...my gut reaction says some kind of African altar.

I know that many traditional African religions involve building altars such as the one you describe. I also know that many of these religions integrated Catholic elements into their rituals after European colonizers, uh, lets say paid them friendly visits, which would explain the inclusion of the saint statue in the altar.

Although Santeria, as Rhias Hall, pointed out, is a likely possibility, it could also be an altar a number of other lesser known tradional religon which sometimes just get lumped together as Santeria by the media. I know that there has been a strong African influence on the culture of the Dominican Republic.

If you think that this is what it is and you really wanted to get to the bottom of it, you should check out "Flash of the Spirit" by Robert Farris Thompson. It is a book that catalogs the rituals and artwork of countless religious groups past and present in Africa, including if I remember correctly Santeria.

The Aquarium by the pier in Seattle frequently hosts weddings is a really fun venue for a wedding. They can do both the ceremony and the dinner there. The guest have a pre-mixer with cocktails in a room with multicolored lights shined through jellyfish and whatnot and a petting tank full of weird sea life that it is ok to touch. Guest can also go out on the pier if they like.

The food is fairly good for catered food and it is a fun, nontraditional venue that takes care of most of the details of the wedding (food, decor etc).

If you're looking for more traditional but still edgy Herban Feast in Sodo is really great. It is a reclaimed old warehouse space with much of the original woodwork still in tact. The staff there is extra nice and accommodating and food is quite good.

I have done catering at both places and feel like I should get some kickback for my plug, but they are both seriously both great venues for a wedding.

Jesus' Son by Denis Jonson. It is a collection of short stories about a small town fuck-up that blows me away every time I read it (it also has some Seattle refrences near the end of the book). Its simple yet effective writing style reminds me a of Hemmingway.

If you can deal with his idosyncratic writing style, Hubert Selby Jr matches, if not tops, all three of the writers you mentioned in terms of testosterone and unflinching bleakness. Although Last Exit to Brooklyn and Requiem for A Dream are his most famous books, I would reccomend The Demon as the closest to the writers you mentioned.

Hope these help.