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The polls have closed and the winner is.......... TOUR! I even tried to make it a musical tour and went as far as to bring my guitar out to the beach and improv a song about the city, but the editing just wasn't working out the way I wanted it to. You can still see some remnants of the musical towards the end when I'm dancing on the shore, but everything else was left on the editing room (my kitchen) floor.

Overall I spent two days doing the filming for this video and think (personally) that it's one of my best to date. Enjoy!

It's not secret that the "Almighty Grishno" has been missing on the youtube scene for the past several months -- well mourn no longer.  Prepare to be dassled by her triumphant return to the world of youtube videos.  But why just celebrate the return of Grishno on your own when you can have a hand in shaping her next video?  Take the most recent poll on the left-hand side bar of the main page at Grishno.com to vote for the tone her glorious return video will take.  Will it be a serious video, or a silly one?  Will she talk about how her day went or take you on a tour of San Francisco?  Will it be musical or drab?  You vote, you decide.

If you don't see an option that you can fully get behind feel free to add your own ideas in the topic section for this article.

Polling will end on Tuesday June 1st and a video will be "released" the following weekend.

It seems that every television show that wants to stay current has done or will do an episode featuring a Transgender character, the most recent of which was the ever offensive Family Guy.  I'll admit that I watch Family Guy on a fairly regular basis, and am no stranger to their "offend everyone we can" attitude; which is why when  I heard Quagmires father, in the episode "Quagmires Dad", state that he wasn't gay, he was simply a woman trapped in a mans body, my heart sank.  However, for the first 15-20 minutes of the show I was fairly impressed with how well they managed the topic (granted I was definitely grading on a curve), but unlike most episodes, where the family comes to realize the error of their ways and learns a lesson at the end, the episode took a spin for the worst.  In the end, Brian ends up having sex in a hotel with a post-op versions of Quagmires father only to become smitten and in love.  Upon finding out that he's had sex with a post-op transsexual though, Brain proceeds to vomit for upwards of 15 seconds, followed by insecurely scrubbing himself clean in the shower before Quagmire comes over to "kick Brian's ass".  The episode culminates in the final scene where Brian tells Quagmire, "I #%@&ed your Dad" and slams the door.

Admittedly I shouldn't have expected much out of a show like Family Guy, but after watching the first half of the show I actually had hope.  And while this may not be the first time a show like Family Guy has completely botched an opportunity to build a bridge between the transgender community and the general public, it was the most recent and one of the most viewed.

Read more and see some positive examples after the break:

A while back I created a design for a coffee mug that I wanted for myself, and recently I finally got around to creating the actual mug on my CafePress store.

The design is reminiscent of the shirt I wore while riding my bike in the 2009 NYC Gay Pride Parade, as seen in the video I made during the parade.  I'd taken one of the my old CafePress shirts (which are no longer available) and drawn a checklist of various labels that people would/do assign me on the back with a marker.  In the most recent design (as seen in the picture here) I've taken it one step closer to the absurd by adding "Dinosaur" to the mix... but honestly, who wouldn't want to be a dinosaur?

A version of the mug is available without the check marks, so that you can feel free to label yourself as much or as little as you'd like.

Both mugs are priced at $11.99, which I know is pricey for some people, but that is literally with no markup at all, so talk with CafePress about their pricing if it's too high.  However, I thought I'd go ahead and share the design with anyone who might want to get their own copy of this mug.  Enjoy!

It's not a big surprise to anyone that Ophrah loves the trans men, but this article by Allison Cooper over on Ophrah.com showed a side of the story that we don't hear about as often... falling in love.  In the article Allison talks about falling in love with her now fiance', who happens to be a trans man, and it's one of the sweetest stories that I've heard in a while.

Sometimes it seems like there is so much wrong in the world, and it's stories like this that help me to see that it's not ALL bad.  I definitely recommend heading over and checking it out.