Now this is a musical worthy of winning awards
posted by bill at 7:14 PM
Friday, January 26, 2007
email: dontreadmeATgmailDOTcom
Previous Posts
- If it isn't Scottish it's crap!
- A eulogy for a hauntingly sad naval officer
- Five from Fishbone
- "The author should die once he has finished writin...
- Triple X Kentrivia
- The So Quoted condensed versions
- Lucky Guy
- What I learned today
- What's amusing me today
- Just when I thought that I was out they pull me ba...
82 Comments:
blogger wants to force me to use the new blogger. This requires running the blog thru a google account. I don't want to do this as things work perfectly fine the way they are. Subsequently, this blog might be dead.
bye, for now.
How can they "force" you?
I hope they don't REALLY insist on this. We have not upgraded yet due to problems I've been having with upgraded blogs. The biggest one is that, on many of the upgraded blogs, the Google component wants to default my real name into Blogger comments. While it's true that I have several gmail accounts, mostly affiliated with clients, I have never in any way used my real name in connection with Blogger. Somehow, once Google got Blogger and started this new thing, it's merged the info and wants to "force me" to use one of my Google account names, especially the "real one." In a number of cases, even where it gives the option to use the Blogger name, it won't really let me do that. After I got caught on a couple of blogs (thank goodness the trash can was still operable in one notable case), I now always double-check to see how they've got me defaulted, and if it won't default to reader_iam, I simply won't comment there anymore.
I share this not to whine--I've cut way back on commenting this last month or so anyway--but to see if others are having the same problems. And to say that we don't want to so-called "upgrade" either!!!!
1. I select Old Blogger.
2. Enter username and password.
3. Next screen is "Move your account to use the new Blogger. Enter password again and accept Terms of Service. No way to ignore it.
My guess that they're "upgrading" everyone in groups. Sooner or later you'll have no choice.
Your problem is weird--and potentially hazardous. My guess is that when this happens you've used one of your other gmail accounts and you've set the option "remember me on this computer" (or whatever it's called). Try to comment somewhere else and it thinks you're one person, not the other.
Hmm. Good thought, Bill. I have all of my gmail accounts set up to "remember," I believe, on at least one of the computers I regularly use.
Maybe I should undo that. Interesting.
Shouldn't happen in any case, that merger, for reasons you clearly grasped--and not just, or even mostly, having to do with blogging, but rather more generally, in terms of implications.
I'll try that. Even if it fixes the issue, however, I'm keeping my eyebrow raised at Google/Blogger.
Still holding out, huh?
Oh yeah. I can stamp my foot and hold my breath longer than a week. Plus I've been busy.
Maybe it's a sign to move on. It's an enjoyable hobby, but I probably spend too much time on it. Thinking about learning to play the guitar instead. Probably acoustic, just have to find the right one.
DH has some lovely ones. What sort of "sound" and capabilities are you seeking?
Familiar with Happy Phantom by Tori Amos? Here's a guitar version. Sweet.
Of course, The Replacements and Kinks. Richard Thompson playing Orange-Coloured Sky.
Sad to see you not blogging, feel free to come over and hijack comment threads any time you want, though.
And if Guitar gets too difficult, there's always Guitar Hero.
My dream instrument to learn would be a upright bass. Then I could play along with the Violent Femmes or Charles Mingus. Whatever; flip a coin. But they're a bit more than I want to spend right now, plus it's kind of large.
In the kitchen with grimlock
Steve Jobs, iTunes, and DRM
Reading Between the Lines of Steve Jobs’s ‘Thoughts on Music’
So, it seems to me one of two things is true. Either nine of the ten cities have horrid anti-terrorism policing and only Boston was on the ball. Or … one of the ten cities completely overreacted to something that caused nary a peep in nine others.
In the comments: But 9/11 involved massive airliners crashing into buildings and killing thousands. Yet today, the truck driver at the Port of Miami with language issues, or the Ga. Tech student playing with 2 liter bottles and dry ice, or, yes, some dreadlocked performance artist making probably $50-$100 to distribute battery powered LED’s … are reacted to as a comparable threat.
And it’s not just the politicans and/or cops. Yesterday CNN covered this relentlessly, referring to it completely inaccurately as a “bomb hoax” (implying intent that never existed). Fox News was asking if corporations were trying to profit from our fears. No, guys, I think you’ve cornered the market on that one.
But the bottom line is that, today, you could probably start a terrorist scare with a bottle of Diet Coke and some Mentos.
Yep, So Quoted is definately dead. I'll provide updates as long as the comments here work. If I move on elsewhere I'll try and leave a bread crumb.
Thanks for writing in. The first time you are instructed to switch your
account, there will be an option to pass through and access the old
version of Blogger as before. However, this option will only be available
once, since we do need to get all Blogger accounts switched to the new
version of Blogger so that we can retire the old version. We apologize for
any inconvenience and we hope you enjoy our new features. Additionally,
please let us know of any concerns you have regarding the new version of
Blogger, so we can address them.
Sincerely,
The Blogger Team
Personality test: Watch people sitting in desk chairs (the ones that tilt and spin) in a conference room. Some rock side-to-side and some sit perfectly still. Do you think these actions can be matched to personality types?
For the record, I'm a rocker.
This is the question Steve Jobs needs to answer:
[link
Many of these labels, some of them pretty big, already sell unprotected music in MP3 format through eMusic, the second-largest online music retailer after Apple’s iTunes.
A quick search shows that many of the same tunes available as unprotected MP3s on eMusic are sold as copyright-protected files at iTunes. The list includes recent singles and albums from popular artists like Tom Waits, Bloc Party, White Stripes, Johnny Cash, Ray Charles, Van Morrison, and many others.
If eMusic can sell these tunes without copyright protection, why can’t Apple?
Hey, David,
piss off.
Bruce Schneier discusses DRM in Windows Vista
Unfortunately, we users are caught in the crossfire. We are not only stuck with DRM systems that interfere with our legitimate fair-use rights for the content we buy, we're stuck with DRM systems that interfere with all of our computer use--even the uses that have nothing to do with copyright.
1. key
2. Guessed raven and was wrong
3.LINK: George W. Bush's Oval Office desk was made famous when little John F. Kennedy Jr. opened its front panel and peeked through. The desk, crafted from timbers of the British ship HMS Resolute, was a gift from Queen Victoria to Rutherford B. Hayes, 19th president of the United States. Franklin Delano Roosevelt added the center panel so visitors could not see the heavy leg braces he wore.
4. D'oh
5. It's São Paulo not Buenos Aires.
6. Zagat
7. ????
proposed title: There once was a man from Nantucket
Here's a biopic that might be interesting. Buried in a fascinating article by Susan Orlean about a physicist and origami master is this tease of a description:
In the mid-nineteen-forties, the American folklorist Gershon Legman began studying origami. Legman was a man of diverse inclinations: he collected vulgar limericks, wrote a book about oral techniques in sexual gratification, and is credited with having invented the vibrating dildo when he was only twenty.
Gershon Legman wiki
more origami at kottke.org
Joe Rogan calls out Carlos Mencia as a joke thief.
I think Joe wins this one.
Fascinating and depressing: Misidentified Black Person of the Week
I SWEAR I posted two comments last week. But they're no where to be found!
In any case...way to stealth blog.
But here's the problem, for me: I really, really, really miss your actual blogging, and also seeing your around in comments section.
It's all cool and all, and I totally get and support your new hobby (how's that going by the way?). But the thing is, I get to do both at the very same time.
You know, that annoying "And" as opposed to "Or."
All that flotsam and jetsam aside, I hope you and yours is doing fine--MORE than fine.
Warmest regards,
RIA
I didn't think anyone had noticed the stealth blogging--xwl even delinked me.
Always good to be missed and reminds me of a Loudon Wainwright song.
As far as other commenting at the usual places, excellent stuff at Done With Mirrors, just not enough time to process and respond. Althouse boring and most of the crowd is unpleasant. Other than a few quick pop culture hits at Throwing Things, I haven't come across much I'm interested in participating in.
The "hobby" thing has gotten a bit frustrating in the research and I'm setting it aside for a few weeks/months before I spend any money. Probably a better allocation of resources would be to finish cleaning the garage so I can wire up the kiln and start cooking glass again.
Soundtrack meme grabbed from Tosy and Cosh
Here are the areas that you need to fill out:
Opening credits: I'll Be Gone, Tom Waits
Waking up: Think About (it), Lyn Collins
First day of school: Unlucky Lady, Trip Shakespeare
Falling in love: Tigers, Rickie Lee Jones
First song: Gangster Trippin', Fatboy Slim
Breaking up: I Only Have Eyes For You, The Flamingos
Prom: I Can't Wait, The Subdudes
Life: Beautiful Child, Archie Roach
Mental Breakdown: Under African Skies, Paul Simon
Driving: Stop! Stop! Stop!, Boiled in Lead
Flashback: Hold Out, Hold Up, and Hold On, Tuck & Patti
Getting back together: Soul Man, The Blues Brothers
Wedding: Like a Rolling Stone, Bob Dylan and The Band
Birth of Child: Skeletons, Rickie Lee Jones
Final Battle: Carry Me Away, Rick Springfield
Death Scene: Been Caught Stealing, Jane's Addiction
Funeral song: Cooking Class, The Time
End Credits: Window to Your Soul, Delirium
I notice many things ... just don't blog 'em much anymore.
I still check in here regularly, if not daily, and intend to continue to do so (and keep you linked) as long as you weigh in.
Nicely done stealth blogging.
The internet will be a waste of space today. What with just about every conversation having to do with the Oscars. Or how great/horrible Al Gore is. Doesn't everyone know there's poverty in Africa.
I used to watch movies. A few a week. Helped when I had the U of M Film Society near by and the Uptown theater was in fullblown repertory mode--got to see plenty of old movies on the big screen. Later, they expanded into independents and foreign movies just when I preferred that kind of thing. Want a funny/sad movie? Try to find the Australian movie "Bliss."
Now, not so many. Very little personal time combined with most movies just sound annoying. I've lost patience for movies that want to challenge me and prefer competent entertainment. I snuck out of the house and saw maybe 5 nonkid movies last year. Of those, I'd only recommend two: "Thank You For Smoking" and "Stranger Than Fiction." Also loved "Matador" but that's technically a 2005 film. Bought Mike Judge's "Idiocracy" and was slightly amused. Not enough to watch it again, so there's $19.99 I'll never get to spend on [waiting for obtuse punchline...].
Thanks, Icepick! What happened to the Mothership?
Ms. DeGeneres said it had been a lifelong dream of hers to be host for the Oscars, rather than to win one. “Let that be a lesson to you kids out there: Aim lower,” she said...
The problem with that joke is it's backwards. Each year there are hundreds of Academy Award nominees and only one host. Obviously it is harder to host the show than to be eligible for an award.
Moo, by Jane Smiley.
Chapter 4: The Common Wisdom
It was well known among the citizens of the state that the university had pots of money and that there were highly paid faculty members in every department who had once taught Marxism and now taught something called deconstructionism which was only Marxism gone underground in preparation for emergence at a time of national weakness.
It was well known among the legislators that the faculty as whole was determined to undermine the moral and commercial well-being of the state, and that supporting a large and nationally famous university with state monies was exactly analogous to raising a nest of vipers in your own bed.
It was well known among the faculty that the governor and the state legislature had lost interest in education some twenty years before and that it was only a matter of time before all classes would be taught as lectures, all exams given as computer-graded multiple choice, all subscriptions to professionl journals at the library stopped, and all research time given up to committee work and administrative red tape. All the best faculty were known to be looking for other jobs, and this was known to be a matter of indifference to the state board of governors.
It was well known among the secretaries inevery office and every department that the faculty and administrators could, in fact, run the Xerox and even the ditton machines. They were just too lazy to do so.
It was well known among the janitorial staff that if you wanted to maintain your belief in human nature, it was better never, ever to look, even by chance, into any wastebasket, but to adopt a technique of lifting and twisting the garbage bag in one motion and tossing it without even remarking to yourself that it was unusual in weight or bulk or odor.
It was well known among the students that the dormitories, like airlines, were always overbooked, and that temporary quarters in corridors and common rooms happened by design rather than accident. It was also well known to the students that there had been three axe murders on the campus the year before, that the victims' names had started with "A" or "M," and that the murderer had never been found, and that the university would do anything to hush these crimes up. It was well known to the students that the chili served in the dorms every Thursday noon contained all the various kinds of leftover meat from the preceding errk, even meat left on plates. Some students found it tasty anyway. It was a further tenet of popular student belief that the bars stopped checking IDs at midnight Fridays and Saturdays. This happened, in fact, to be true.
It was well known to all members of the campus population that other, unnamed groups reaped unimagined monetary advantages in comparison to the monetary disadvantages of one's own group, and that if funds were distributed fairly, according to real merit, for once, some people would have another think coming.
Stop blogging and the internet doesn't notice. As long as people are interested in the banana boat song (and wiki links to me--which is only fair, because I'm convinced the original wiki article was cribbed from me), this site will always have activity. Alan Arkin winning an Oscar had a trickle down effect and will probably double my average number of hits for the day.
This isn't an answer, just another piece of the conversation. Well, maybe not that conversation. Maybe another conversation where the people are more interested in discussion than insults.
David Mills has had some interesting posts around, if not specifically of, this/these issue[s]. And has posted the first of a four part interview with ****. Guess who said:
The strong condemnation of America, the constant criticism of America, this has fixed a certain mindset. This is the mindset I have broken with, and it’s the mindset I encounter almost universally among middle-class blacks, which is what you find mostly on college campuses: America not being their home, or America being the worst country in the world, or everything being racist. Just racism, racism, everywhere is racism – not being able to draw some distinctions and to see some good in America as well as the bad.
If that doesn't interest you, then check out his interview with guitarist Jef Lee Johnson with links to some damn fine music. Never heard of him before, but I'll be sending him money for a few CDs.
If that doesn't interest you, look! Boobies!
This can not be said enough: And I agree with whoever said truffle oil was the ketchup of the foodie; all it does is allow chefs to charge extra for food that smells like ass.
incomprehensible intersections. There are jobs I've refused to consider because it would have meant dealing with Atlanta's Spaghetti Junction.
Kentrivia, somenumberorother:
1. I guessed tombstone, but Stanley Cup is pretty much the same thing. Why I thought someone's name would appear six times on their own tombstone is a more interesting question. Some day I may share that answer with you.
2. Vitruvian Man is by Da Vinci, Da Vinci is Italian, so I'll say Slovenia. Just kidding, it's Italy.
3. If it isn't "A Spoonful of Sugar Helps the Medicine Go Down" I'm never playing again.
4. The first dog in space. Ah, the first living creature in space. While technically correct, I think my answer is lacking preciseness. I will generously award myself 1/4 of a point.
5. The length of time it would take them to die of thirst?
6. I think one was a large black man. NO idea on the second. Again, I'll claim 1/4 of a point.
7. Checking this list of 1996 bestsellers, I'll guess Primary Colors.
I hate the Rainbow Fish.
It teaches children you can only have friends if you pay them. And that it is wrong to have more than someone else. There is no way I can understand why the Rainbow Fish is in the wrong while the greedy, snobby "friends" are somehow in the right. Learning to share is one thing, giving in to bullying is another.
Had an incident yesterday picking The Child up from pre-K. She and another girl were coloring. The other girl drew something on The Child's picture. A third girl walked up and said "I can do that, gimme the crayon." I told her she was being rude and stared at her until she went away and cried in the corner. Ok, she didn't cry, but she did go away.
Neal Boortz also hates the book as "anti-individual, anti-property rights." He spends an entire chapter on it in his new book, and this might be that chapter: Rainbow Fish Fraud.
He makes some good points, but buried under a lot of uninteresting typing. I expected better from him and if that's the best he can on such a softball topic, I'll skip the book.
What I learned today: Try a Little Tenderness was written in 1933 and recorded by Bing Crosby. I've also never recognized it playing over the opening credits of Dr. Strangelove.
People:
I tried to busy myself with other things as not to indicate I was sticking by the counter merely to watch this all play out, and I had to turn my head to hide the giggles that were bubbling on the surface. When she left, I could no longer contain them. The Flower Shop Owner - also my friend - looked and me and said, "What in the Holy Hell is going on in this world?"
'ho there' equals joder
What happened to the Mothership?
Sorry, I just saw this. The last few weeks have been insanely busy, at least by my slacker standards.
The Mothership is hosted on a server built and maintained by one of the co-bloggers, The Man They Call Vanilla. Unfortunately, the server he was running it on died a few weeks ago. He's ordered and received the replacement but hasn't had time to install the back-ups, so we're in an Information Superhighway Rest Stop at the moment.
It's a shame, too, because several stories worthy of The Chopper City Story of the Day have come along recently, including this one from The Happiest Place on Earth. Nut 'graphs:
One worker, 22-year-old Brandon Hoffman, accused the other of cheating in a card game about two weeks ago.
The man he accused, Stephen Kim, poured gasoline on Hoffman and struck a lighter at a distance, said Sheriff's Commander Lester Allen. Hoffman backed away, but then Kim dropped the lighter and picked up a shovel, holding it like a baseball bat and threatening Hoffman with it, according to the police report.
[emphasis added]
It's the bit with the shovel that makes the story. He had a backup option in case setting the other man on fire didn't work out!
The real shame was missing what has to be The Chopper City Story of the Decade: crappy cartoon characters shutting down an entire city!
And I think that's enough exlamation points for one comment. No, really!
Damn, I got upgraded to the New Blogger while commenting! Apparently the New Blogger won't allow me to delete my own comments. Bill please delete the comment with my personal info.
This comment has been removed by the author.
I had to update to New Blogger to delete the comment. Kinda pissed about that.
The email printed at the top is real: dontreadmeATgmailDOTcom
Now I'm faced with a dilemma: Do I continue my pointless protest in the comments or do I resume blogging? I've reserved a blog spot with another service, so maybe a third option is to spend the weekend getting that up and running.
bus crash.
It's sounding to me like the driver didn't realize he was in a exiting lane--thought he was just hanging out in the left lane--and when he hit the top of the ramp it was too late to stop.
Even before this (and this was the second of the morning), we've had a large number of fatality accident the last couple of days.
Thanks for deleting that comment. I forgot you had the email address on your blog.
Come to think of it, I was forced to upgrade when I tried to delete that comment. Damn you Blogger, damn you to Hell!
I am very sorry you were forced to upgrade. Personally, I like the stealth blogging. It's almost guerilla blogging.
VF: arzsnik
What Blogger using to spike the Kool-Aid.
What I like about the stealth blogging is it keeps the writing small. I've rarely had the time for any decent long form entries and I'm much more a linker type. When I first came across Instapundit (probably from Lileks) I thought, "hey, linking to stories with a pithy comment, I've been doing that since 1995!" Bastard.
Seeing as how I have over 140 hits today because I screwed up and wrote once about Kellie Pickler a year ago, I'm really feeling no need to feed the blogger beast. So I'll probably stay in the comments. I do need to see what I can do in the other space and I'll leave a link in here.
heh!
In related news, big, bad, hard-assed NBA star Tracy McGrady said yesterday that he would consider skipping next year's All-Star game if it is held in New Orleans because he is too scared to come here. "When they first mentioned to me that the All-Star game was going to be in New Orleans, the first thing I thought about is how much security they are going to have for the players and everybody there ... I don't think it's the right city to have this type of event right now. I know the city is in need of trying to get back on their feet, in need of money. Safety comes first. I'm sure they have to do a lot of research and look into before they really make this decision.''
Christ. The world is so full of pussies, I may go out and buy it a box of Tampax.
Back to the KP thing. I did enjoy these lines:
Sure, this isn't the middle of Times Square, but it also isn't Hooterville Junction from the planet Hayseed in the Galaxy better known as East Bumfuck.
Good to know the Mercury News is written by mentally disturbed third graders.
From a movie I've never heard of, Andre Braugher and Paul Giamatti sing Try a Little tenderness
Alison Moyet also sings Try a Little Tenderness. Not bad, nice piano and bass.
Same singer and song on David Letterman. Straight cover of Otis Redding's cover. I blame Paul for being too much of a tradionalist and obscuring Alison's interesting take. Don't compete with Otis, he will only kick your ass.
Not sure why, but I swear I thought Shirley Bassey had been dead for a very long time. Here she is from 1997. No idea who the wardrobe alterer is.
"I got no knickers on."
Try a Little Tenderness
Can't forget Duckie.
The Man himself from Monterey.
No youtubish of Bing Crosby's version, so I'll just have to buy the CD.
This is just sad and highlights all that was wrong with music in the 1980s. It's the 1987 Minnesota Music Awards and the nominees for Entertainer of the Year are:
Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis
Husker Du
The Jets
Prince
The Wallets
The undeserving winner
For the record, I did not win $267 million last night. Luckily, no one else did, so I'll probably spend one more dollar to not win the new jackpot of $340 million.
Yes, I agree that a lottery is a tax for the stupid. Still, I'm ok spending the occasional dollar. But no more than that. A group at work was collecting money (at $20 a head) in an attempt to purchase 2000 tickets. I don't think my email stating that to even have a one percent chance of winning would require 1.7 million tickets and that there was no appreciable statistical difference between 2000 tickets and 1. Whatever...they lost $20, I just didn't buy a bag of chips and a Dr. Pepper yesterday afternoon.
thought not finished: meant to say my email wasn't appreciated.
Q&A: Eldridge Cleaver (pt. 3). Discusses politics and his thoughts on the fashion industry. Here's Reagan and Carter:
MILLS: Is it true that in California during the ’60s, when you started speaking out against the Vietnam War and for revolution, Gov. Ronald Reagan got the parole officials to harass you to make you shut up?
CLEAVER: There’s no doubt about that.
I was chosen by students to be a lecturer at Berkeley. And as governor, Ronald Reagan was on the board of regents of the University of California system. He used to try to prevent me from speaking on campuses.
We referred to Ronald Reagan as the father of the Black Panther Party. It started under his administration. Reagan was always trying to get me off the streets. They were always trying to revoke my parole.
MILLS: How do you feel about Reagan as president?
CLEAVER: I voted for him. I supported him over Jimmy Carter in 1980.
I voted for Jimmy Carter in 1976, but I was completely upset by his performance. One of the things that had me upset was his very weak foreign policy, his weak way of dealing with every problem that we had, from Iran to the Soviet Union, Afghanistan, stuff that was jumping off in Latin America.
I felt that I had seen enough of Carter’s policies to recognize that he was basically accommodating America to the expansion of Communism in the world. So when it came to the election, I chose Ronald Reagan because I felt he would give the country a very strong foreign policy, and I had no doubt that he would do the things he was talking about to the economy. I still feel this.
Listen to Gunslinging Bird at soquoted.vox.com.
If you want to leave a comment, I think it requires registering with vox, which is just stupid. Leave it here and I'll add it to the post.
from an email: Now it's buried
On second viewing, maybe it was just a Sunday and it took awhile for everyone to show up.
just because it's supposed to be funny, doesn't mean it isn't true.
Elvis Mitchell on Richard Pryor:
I saw Richard Pryor as a kid because my uncle had a club in Detroit. We sat in and watched Richard Pryor come out. Watching him walk onto the stage was like what I imagine it must have been like watching Marlon Brando when he was onstage. I mean, he had this enormous physical presence. He was just wired.
So we were sitting there, my uncle said to me and my cousin, “Sit here, drink your Cokes and don’t say a word. Shut up.” Place was full of pimps – big rabbit-fur hats, big coats hanging off of them, really ugly hookers sitting around at these tables. And Pryor comes out and he just started pacing back and forth.
Finally, after – I’m not kidding – about four minutes of not saying anything, just walking back and forth, he looks up at one of these tables and goes, “Damn, y’all got some ugly hoes in Detroit. I wouldn’t fuck her with your mama’s dick.”
And the bartender covered his mouth. I was too shocked to laugh. And all you heard in the place was the sound of knives and straight razors and guns being dropped on the tables. All I thought was: “How’m I gonna tell my mother that I’m at this place that she hates – my uncle’s place – where a man was shot?” Because I knew they were gonna kill him.
Within minutes, he turned it back on himself and talked about his own desperation, and he had them eating out of the palm of his hand. He started by going after them, and then made it about him. It was an incredible thing to see because it was the first time I was ever aware of seeing a performer who could pull people into whatever psychological state he was going through. Which made him different from any comedian I’ve seen before or since.
From this ALOTT5MA post I'd like to highlight 3 comments of mine.
1. cruising through the channels the other night, we saw that Mannequin was on. I remarked "I paid money to see that in the theater. [pause] I sure hope I was on a date, because if I saw that by myself that's probably the most pathetic thing I've ever done."
2. To atone for my rude remark towards Adam C, here's my secret shame: first concert was REO Speedwagon.
3. My Beach Boys experience: they played a 4th of July concert in the Minneapolis Metrodome after a Minnesota Kicks game. I set off a bottle rocket from the second deck that promptly dove towards the field and landed 5 feet from a cop, where it then exploded. This would be a most embarrassing moment, except that I did not blow off my thumb, nor, despite black powder all over my hand and a trail of smoke pointing right at me, did I get arrested.
Victory, thy name is tequila.
A pink blog reminds me of strawberry soup
The2scoops asks and answers:
Why are my TV news posts labelled "Teeth on The Dial"?
Before TV's had remote controls as a standard, we turned the channels using things called "knobs" or "dials". When I was a child, about 3 or 4, I lacked the strength to manipulate and turn the dial by hand. And dammit, nothing was going to stop me from watching Captain Kangaroo, Barbapapa or Sesame Street. I found if I bit down on the channel dial, which was at about head height, I could use the rest of my body to torque and turn the channel. This went on for about a year, and over time the channel dial became covered in bite marks.
My rule: funny ads should not be banned.
I was youtubing for a Pete Townshend song and found this: Townshend plays back up to a pajama'd Martha Wainwright.
Which led me to discover: In The Attic
iTunes has 12 video podcasts for free.
sounds about right
If nothing else, check out episode 1 with The Flaming Lips [iTunes]. Brilliant.
"The National Recording Preservation Board at the Library of Congress has announced its additions for 2006" and Callimachus comments.
Best thing ever said about Gaceland.
Graceland. Paul Simon. (1986) Worst choice on the list. Big American fading folk star who's out of fresh ideas vampirizes the world music catalogue to stave off career death for another decade. Bonus points off for including Linda Ronstad.
Prince and Michael Jackson together?
Oh, I think that's a bad idea. I think Michael Jackson is as overrated as Paul Simon and Bruuuuuuuuce Springsteen. By that I mean lots.
online--for now-- Mimsy Were The Borogroves
Youtube link: Mary's Danish
Cricket chirps
Opposed to hate crime legislation:
(2) Aside from punishing offenders — which should happen anyway under existing law and which could be enhanced without creating special categories of protection — the purpose of a hate crimes law seems entirely symbolic. While I'm not unmoved by the symbolic value of law, I'm opposed in principle to criminal laws of purely symbolic value. Opposition to purely symbolic criminal laws was a good reason, for example, to oppose sodomy laws, which were a largely symbolic (and very partial) reinforcement of traditional sexual morality.
Who doesn't recognize the author's voice and needs a link?
Because I am KATE THE ENORMOUS. I rode Paul Bunyan like a pony last week in the back alley of the Stork Club. Don’t cross me.
William Saletan on that diet study:
In the real world, wise policies admit and work with human weakness. Capitalism uses greed to spread wealth. Political checks and balances use ambition to check ambition. Atkins uses meat and fat cravings to kill appetite. As Gardner explains, "Protein is more satiating than carbohydrates or fats, which may have helped those in the Atkins group to eat less without feeling hungry." Complaining that people follow Atkins only because it's tasty is like complaining that businessmen create jobs only to get rich. A job is a job.
I know it seems crazy that sausage and cream cheese could be good for you. In the long run, I'm certain they can't be. But the beauty of science is its disrespect for certainties. You play the game and see who wins. In the short run, so far, Atkins wins.
The ideal diet, I'm sure, is Gardner's. He's a vegetarian. I'd be one, too, if I had the strength. And the ideal birth-control method would be abstinence, if we could all be chaste. But until people are more like angels, you'd better deal with us as we are, or be prepared to share in the failure.
Ignore the "Blah Blah Blah" appearing at the end of all posts. I was experimenting with show/hide, but couldn't get it to work. But looks like I still have stuff to clear back out of the template.
Thinking about taking all these comments and creating week by week posts.
What If It's All Been A Big Fat Lie?
Gary Taubes
July 7, 2002
Ny Times
One of the most fascinating articles on diet and eating I've read. It pulled together a lot of thoughts I'd had about how most dieting is just extreme overreaction. This selection is the heart of the argument for me. Just marinate on that last sentence for a few months.
It was Ancel Keys, paradoxically, who introduced the low-fat-is-good-health dogma in the 50's with his theory that dietary fat raises cholesterol levels and gives you heart disease. Over the next two decades, however, the scientific evidence supporting this theory remained stubbornly ambiguous. The case was eventually settled not by new science but by politics. It began in January 1977, when a Senate committee led by George McGovern published its ''Dietary Goals for the United States,'' advising that Americans significantly curb their fat intake to abate an epidemic of ''killer diseases'' supposedly sweeping the country. It peaked in late 1984, when the National Institutes of Health officially recommended that all Americans over the age of 2 eat less fat. By that time, fat had become ''this greasy killer'' in the memorable words of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, and the model American breakfast of eggs and bacon was well on its way to becoming a bowl of Special K with low-fat milk, a glass of orange juice and toast, hold the butter -- a dubious feast of refined carbohydrates.
In the intervening years, the N.I.H. spent several hundred million dollars trying to demonstrate a connection between eating fat and getting heart disease and, despite what we might think, it failed. Five major studies revealed no such link. A sixth, however, costing well over $100 million alone, concluded that reducing cholesterol by drug therapy could prevent heart disease. The N.I.H. administrators then made a leap of faith. Basil Rifkind, who oversaw the relevant trials for the N.I.H., described their logic this way: they had failed to demonstrate at great expense that eating less fat had any health benefits. But if a cholesterol-lowering drug could prevent heart attacks, then a low-fat, cholesterol-lowering diet should do the same. ''It's an imperfect world,'' Rifkind told me. ''The data that would be definitive is ungettable, so you do your best with what is available.''
Some of the best scientists disagreed with this low-fat logic, suggesting that good science was incompatible with such leaps of faith, but they were effectively ignored. Pete Ahrens, whose Rockefeller University laboratory had done the seminal research on cholesterol metabolism, testified to McGovern's committee that everyone responds differently to low-fat diets. It was not a scientific matter who might benefit and who might be harmed, he said, but ''a betting matter.'' Phil Handler, then president of the National Academy of Sciences, testified in Congress to the same effect in 1980. ''What right,'' Handler asked, ''has the federal government to propose that the American people conduct a vast nutritional experiment, with themselves as subjects, on the strength of so very little evidence that it will do them any good?''
Nonetheless, once the N.I.H. signed off on the low-fat doctrine, societal forces took over. The food industry quickly began producing thousands of reduced-fat food products to meet the new recommendations. Fat was removed from foods like cookies, chips and yogurt. The problem was, it had to be replaced with something as tasty and pleasurable to the palate, which meant some form of sugar, often high-fructose corn syrup. Meanwhile, an entire industry emerged to create fat substitutes, of which Procter & Gamble's olestra was first. And because these reduced-fat meats, cheeses, snacks and cookies had to compete with a few hundred thousand other food products marketed in America, the industry dedicated considerable advertising effort to reinforcing the less-fat-is-good-health message. Helping the cause was what Walter Willett calls the ''huge forces'' of dietitians, health organizations, consumer groups, health reporters and even cookbook writers, all well-intended missionaries of healthful eating.
ew experts now deny that the low-fat message is radically oversimplified. If nothing else, it effectively ignores the fact that unsaturated fats, like olive oil, are relatively good for you: they tend to elevate your good cholesterol, high-density lipoprotein (H.D.L.), and lower your bad cholesterol, low-density lipoprotein (L.D.L.), at least in comparison to the effect of carbohydrates. While higher L.D.L. raises your heart-disease risk, higher H.D.L. reduces it.
What this means is that even saturated fats -- a k a, the bad fats -- are not nearly as deleterious as you would think. True, they will elevate your bad cholesterol, but they will also elevate your good cholesterol. In other words, it's a virtual wash. As Willett explained to me, you will gain little to no health benefit by giving up milk, butter and cheese and eating bagels instead.
But it gets even weirder than that. Foods considered more or less deadly under the low-fat dogma turn out to be comparatively benign if you actually look at their fat content. More than two-thirds of the fat in a porterhouse steak, for instance, will definitively improve your cholesterol profile (at least in comparison with the baked potato next to it); it's true that the remainder will raise your L.D.L., the bad stuff, but it will also boost your H.D.L. The same is true for lard. If you work out the numbers, you come to the surreal conclusion that you can eat lard straight from the can and conceivably reduce your risk of heart disease.
The ubiquitous blogpost of random iTunes selections. This does require iTunes and an iPod. You could use something else, but I'll have to sniff as I walk by and give you a withering glance.
song, artist (album); rating
rating is a scale of 1-7:
1 = where the hell did this come from (bad)
2 = uh, must be the wife's (no comment)
3 = ok (either a gift or maybe just a weak selection from a decent song; either way, it's ok but I'm forwarding to the next song)
4 = Hey, I remember this! (Not bad, I'd recommend it)
5 = Sweet! (quiet, I'm listening to this)
6 = That's what I'm talking about! (I just might hit repeat 3 or 4 times so just shut the hell up)
7 = 6 plus I'm cranking the volume until my ears bleed
1. 1994, Loudon Wainwright III (Grown Man); 4
2. See My Friends, Richard Thompson (1000 Years of Popular Music); 5
3. The Closer You Are, Channels (The Doo Wop Box); 3
4. Ain't Gonna Get You Yet, Paul Cebar and the Milwaukeeans (That Unhinged Thing); 4
5. Get Down, War (War Anthology); 4
6. Wrap Me Up, Sam Brown (Stop!); 5
7. Hey, Jack Kerouac, 10,000 Maniacs (MTV Unplugged); 2
8. Pressure, Fishbone (The Reality of My Surroundings); 3
9. The Fool, Richard Thompson (1000 Years of Popular Music); 4
10. The Electric Co., U2 (Under a Blood Red Sky); 2
11. Why Won't Jesse Helms Just Hurry Up and Die?, MC Hawking (??); 6
12. J'm'en Fous Pas Mal, Edith Piaf (Edith Piaf 50th Anniversary Collection); 6
13. Seasons in the Sun, Me First and the Gimme Gimmes (Have a Ball); 6
14. Easy and Free, Danu (All Things Considered); 4
15. Situations, Jack Johnson (In Between Dreams); 3
16. Chantilly Lace, Big Bopper (Fabulous Fifties), 4
17. Hot House, X, (More Fun in the New World); 6
18. I Wish I knew, Mandy Patinkin (Experiment); 5
19. Heaven, Tangle Eye (Alan Lomax's Southern Journey Remixed); 7
20. And the Band Played On, The Pogues (Red Roses For Me); 6
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