April 1, 2007 to April 7, 2007
Wherein . . .
posted by bill at 5:49 AM
Monday, April 02, 2007
email: dontreadmeATgmailDOTcom
Previous Posts
- March 25 to March 30
- March 18 to March 24
- March 11, 2007 to March 17, 2007
- January 27, 2007 to February 3, 2007
- What the hell do you people want anyway?
- Now this is a musical worthy of winning awards
- 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...
50 Comments:
March 31 is dead to me.
Crap.
Jaime, at Something Old, Nothing New, has a thorough rundown on how disappointing the WKRP DVD set turned out to be. Even fucked up, one might say.
But I was prepared to be OK with this set if it was better, or no worse, than that syndication version. Unfortunately, it’s worse in two ways. One, there were a number of songs that were retained in that syndication package (which ran on Nick at Nite and elsewhere) that are replaced here. Songs like “Dogs” by Pink Floyd and “Jailhouse Rock” by Elvis Presley are now gone. And second, because most of these episodes don’t allow the music to be separated from the dialogue track, they’ve dealt with this problem by cutting footage from several episodes.
The theme song topic. Working on a couple that I'll roll out later. So far I think I have songs for:
* Done With Mirrors
* Pooh
* So Quoted
* Sundries
* ALOTT5MA
Need more for a few others. Feel free to chime in.
Driving in, a couple songs came up that almost seemed like good fits for Althouse. There's Way Back to Paradise, sung by Audra McDOnald; it's from Michael John LaChiusa's Marie Christine , a retelling of Medusa. Not quite right. Sisters Are Doing it For Themselves, Eurythmics? No. I seem to be going for an aggressive female type song, while avoiding what I'm really thinking. So, fine, since I think Althouse is embracing humorless and mostly pointless baiting, I'll throw out the following for discussion:
The Kinks' Destroyer:
Self-destroyer, wreck your health
Destroy friends, destroy yourself
The time device of self-destruction
Light the fuse and start eruption
***Note: if any of the nominated songs are unfamiliar, I can post them temporarily at my Vox account for your listening enjoyment.
I think Destroyer is a good fit for present day Althouse.
"You'll be at Disney World for Gay Day," we were told. Really? That sounds festive. Unfortunately, it's incorrect. We'll be checking out when Day Day starts and it isn't just one Day, it's DAYS. Wow. Because if you're going to the happiest place on Earth what could be more fun than a Gay celebration. Unless by Gay they mean British. Hmmm, I'd check into that, but like I said, we'll be gone. For next time I'll see if we can book a trip for Exuberant Week.
From Geekpress is a review of 300 from Eugene N. Borza, professor emeritus of ancient history at Pennsylvania State University.
To judge this film's adherence to historical fact (insofar as we understand it) is to do it a disservice, for the film does not even pretend to be historically accurate. It is based on a graphic novel developed by Frank Miller and Lynn Varley, whose previous credits are mainly as comic book and graphic novel writers and illustrators. This film version of Miller and Varley's graphic novel is the inspiration of director and co-writer Zack Snyder, who is said to have been deeply moved both by his childhood viewing of the 1962 The 300 Spartans and by the Miller-Varley graphic novel. Miller's influence on Snyder appears to be profound. In the on-line production notes for the film Snyder is quoted as saying "Frank took an actual event and turned it into mythology, as opposed to taking a mythological event and turning it into reality." That vision clearly absolves the filmmaker from any pretense of historical accuracy. In brief, this is a comic book version of Thermopylae writ large, utilizing all of the tricks of virtual reality and digitized magic. This film is not even science fiction, a genre based on an extension of reality. In fact, 300 is one step removed from sci-fi: it is fantasy. In a recent review of Oliver Stone's Alexander epic, I suggested that there was a difference between historical inaccuracies based on ignorance and sloppy research, and deviations from historical accuracy based upon the film maker's artistic vision: 300 falls into the latter category.
Looking forward to seeing it once it hits the dollar theater.
This is the story of how Truckbox Al McClintock almost got a tryout with the genuine St. Louis Cardinals of the National Baseball League, but instead ended up batting against Bob Feller, of Cleveland Indian fame, in Renfrew Park, down on the river flats, in Edmonton, Alberta, summer of 1945 or '46, no one can remember which, though the date in question has brought on more than one disagreement, which turned first to a shoving match, then to an altercation, and finally a fist fight, though not a brouhaha, the general consensus in the Six Towns area being that it takes more than two people to staff a brouhaha, the fist fight though, usually resulting in bent cartilege of someone's proboscis, and blood sposts on a Sunday shirt.
That is the enormously entertaining first sentence from the enormously entertaining Box Socials from the enormously entertaining W.P. Kinsella. With multiple digressions and repetitions, it's a like a coiled spring bouncing up and down and twisting side to side. It's a book that's a pleasure to be read out loud and I did so when I had a show on a 7 watt college radio station. You can have a lot of fun when no one's listening. Kinda like blogging.
Enjoy.
Theme song for Done With Mirrors. Rather than try and separate Reader and Cal, I chose the easy way out that I think captures the dual nature (though not opposite) of the current state.
They get Figure Eights from Rich versus Roach. A 1959 "battle of the bands" recording, it features the Buddy Rich Quintet in the left channel and the Max Roach Quintet in the right channel. The bands play together, then part to let individual players go at it in competing and complimentary solos. For Figure Eights, the bands rest while Rich and Roach tear it up. Strong, forceful voices that command attention on their own, occasionally overlapping and playing together, yeah, that's Done With Mirrors.
I will not define who is Rich and who is Roach, nor would I apply any meaning to who is left or right.
Theme song for A List of Things Thrown 5 Minutes Ago.
Based on their previously documented slavish addiction to Bruuuuuuce Springsteen, their own choice for a theme song would probably be fanfic that involved sucking tequila from Bruuuuce's belly button. Yeah, that grossed me out, too.
I'm not completely sold with this one, but for now I'm going with Television, The Drug of a Nation, by the Disposable Heroes of Hipocrisy. Mostly because, as a group, it seems like they watch an amount of television that should exceed that of a functioning and productive member of society.
Or something by Laurie Berkner. Either I'm a Mess or The Toy Museum.
First time I was in Atlanta was 1977 for the NCAA FInal Four. My dad actually won tickets in the lottery. This was the last year for the third place loser game and I think it was also the last year the Final Four was held in a normal stadium. Since then, they've all been held in domed stadiums.
That year, it was in the Omni Center. The Omni arena has since been torn down (though I did see a Grateful Dead show about 1994-95), but the Omni Center is still there as the CNN Center. What used to be the ice rink is the now the food court. The world's longest escalator is still there, but instead of leading to the Sid and Marty Krofft World indoor theme park, it's now the start of the CNN tour.
Winning lottery tickets is extrememly cool and the icing on the cake for a kid from North Carolina was two North Carolina teams making it in. UNC, of course, and UNCC. Despite living in Charlotte, I'd never heard of UNC of Charlotte. They got in, barely beating Michigan in the regionals--which also would have been pretty cool, since my dad was from Michigan, went to the U of MI and had just seen Michigan and USC in the Rose Bowl three months before.
In one semi, UNC beat UNLV in one of the great games I remember watching. I think UNLV averaged close to a 100 points that year and I just remember them hitting bombs from the corner all night. Marquette beat Charlotte with a tip in at the buzzer in a game so ugly (51-49) it should still be shown as an example of how not to play basketball.
In the finals, Marquette had a 12 point halftime lead, then UNC came storming back. Taking the lead back with 12 minutes to play, Dean smith smashed his big fat foot on the brakes and went into the 4-corners. Killed all the momentum, Marquette rallied, and that crybaby Al McGuire won the game. Maybe if Dean Smith hadn't screwed up and lost, Al would've kept coaching instead of polluting the airwaves.
I still have the program, ticket stubs, and a bunch of autographs. Earlier this year I thought maybe I'd scan them in and show them off. Looks like that ain't going to happen.
Florida and Ohio St? Eh, not interested.
Jazz! Cool.
March 31 is dead to me.
As well it should be. When I saw that rule you imposed on last week's commentblogging, I thought: WTF?
It's like when you were a kid and you got to eat all the candy you wanted at Halloween, or whenever, and so, you'd stuff it in your face long past the point you'd gotten tired of it. But you know, it was the principle of the thing, and so you'd keep it up.
LOL.
reader_iam,
I wish I could claim your explanation, it sounds better than what really happened: I screwed up. These things are supposed to run Sunday-Saturday and I stopped on the 30th, a Friday. So for the purposes of whatever I'm doing March 31, 2007 really doesn't exist.
1977 NCAA championships, continued
$14.00 - that's the price for the saturday semi-finals. Yes, BOTH games and it includes $1 in handling charges.
$14.00 - for the loser game and the Championship game.
$28 was enough to cover the last 4 basketball games of the season. For next year's final 4, $140 is the cheapest package and it's "distant view."
Autographs:
Walt Davis
Mike O'Koren
Rich Yonakor
Jeff Wolf
Steve Krafcisin
Bruce Buckley
Tommy Lagarde
Dudley Bradley
Phil Ford
The Tommy Lagarde autograph I almost feel guilty about. Caught him getting on an elevator and he was very polite. Also very doped up and on crutches. He had torn knee ligaments and didn't play.
Wow, the program has an ad for the Playboy Club. $25 a year to become a keyholder
The Soquoted Theme Song: Misunderstood by Pete Townshend
ust wanna be misunderstood
Wanna be feared in my neighborhood
Just wanna be a moody man
Say things that nobody can understand
I wanna be obscure and oblique
Inscrutable and vague
So hard to pin down
I wanna leave open mouths when I speak
Want people to cry when I put them down
Go listen to it at soquoted.vox.
For the purposes of this blog, this seems to fit. For nonblog life I'd probably go with Better Git It in Your Soul by Charles Mingus. Just one of the collest pieces of music ever.
Tuesday Trivia XL
1. ??
2. Mary Lou Retton
3. ??
4. ??
5. ??
6. ??
7. ??
Undercover Black Man:
And since my peoples all hail from Virginia – the capital state of the Confederacy – I aims to do my part throughout the month of April to recognize Confederate History and Heritage Month on this here blog.
Shall we start by listening to the voice of an actual freed slave?
Instapundit Theme Song:
Should be something short and pithy. How about Maggie Estep's Car Guy, all 11 seconds of it.
So I was riding my bike across 20th St the other day. This guy in a red car rolls down his window and goes "Hey, bike lady!" So I looked down at him and I go "Hey, car guy!"
Heh.
Immodest Proposal Theme Song.
xwl proposes three songs for himself. Good, because I felt my nominees were lacking.
Here's what I had.
Pissing in the Wind, Badly Drawn Boy. Can't remember why I was considering this.
Funny Face, The Muffs. That one is probably more appropriate for me.
Memories, Slick Rick. Cool song. But XWL isn't that nostalgic. Perhaps I should move that to one of my newer blogroll additions: Undercover Black Man
For the record, I would like it to be known that for Reader_iam I did not consider using John Linnell's Iowa.
Silhouette on the moon
Flying around on a broom
Iowa
Is a witch
She's a witch
She's a witch
She's a witch
She likes the conical hat
Matching black dress
And a cat
Iowa
Is a witch
She's a witch
She's a witch
She's a witch
"And if that broom don't fly,
I'm gonna buy you
a Dustbuster."
(dustbuster noise)
Stirs a large iron pot
Casting a spell
On Vermont
Iowa
Is a witch
She's a witch
She's a witch
She's a witch
She is a witch
She is a witch
She is a witch
I did not go there.
This article, Prof discovers homosexual unicorns amidst fossil remains of Noah's Ark, contains the dumbest editor's note.
Did I ever share with you that I won a prize for best witch costume a couple of years' running as a child in the '60s (and in a town, though in IL, pretty close to hear)?
I was a natural! (Or maybe it was that mother quite literally dyed me green using food color. I like to blame a lot of things on the amount of nasty additives that seeped through my pores as a consequence.)
"Here."
Hear here?
googled answers
1. click
2. See above
3. Smyrna's finest
4. click
5. click
6. click
7. Couple of fuzzy ideas, but nothing to guess on. Closest I've come is wondering if the openings have something in common--showing movement from point A to point B. The Hillbillies move, Jeannie goes from a bottle on the beach to a house...the others I don't know and all I remember of My Three Sons is the feet.
At the risk of courting outrage from folks in the Southern Hemisphere, there's something familiar about that face.
Theme song for Sundries.
I think it was Reader_iam who first sent me over to Victoria. Emailed me saying Victoria needed some cooking advice. So I popped over and provided some guinea pig recipes she could use for her Peruvian house guests. I think Victoria went a different direction. I don't read Sundries as often as I should, because despite the constant jock-sniffing of the Royalty it's usually quite interesting. Though sometimes--based on the amount and type of photos--I think the whole thing is a ruse and she's a cab driver.
Whatever he/she/they is/are, when this song popped up the other day, I immediately thought of Sundries.
Life Has Been Good To Me, from Randy Newman's Faust.
Here's Mr. Newman's intro to the song on the demo track:
Faust and Margaret have just wandered off into the forest, somewhere. Martha, Margaret's bad friend, comes in with the devil and she sings a song that sorta scares the devil a little bit.
If you'd like to hear it I can put up either the Randy Newman demo version or the final studio version by Bonnie Raitt.
Life Has Been Good To Me
Life has been good to me
Got very few complaints so far
Life has been good to me
Hope you're as happy where ever you are
I got the blue sky every morning
Big yellow moon at night
I always do whatever I want to
And everyone I do it always turns out right
Life has been good to me
Man I would not change a thing
Life has been good to me
Can't wait to see what tomorrow will bring
In every life a little rain must surely fall
I'm here to say that there's a rainbow just around every corner
Life has been good to me
Well I admit I've had a ball
Life has been good to me
I never worry about nothing at all
I got some good friends they adore me
Know how to treat me right
I got a good man waiting for me
I've won every fight I've been in and it's always turned out that I was right
Life has been good to me
Life has been good to me
Life has been good to me
Did I ever share with you that I won a prize for best witch costume a couple of years' running as a child in the '60s
Then I will hold that song in the wings for when you start up your original blog.
Amy Alkon asks: As for so many cancers -- can you talk about why they get as far as they do? Are there any advances being made in detection?
Orac answers:
It's a common assumption (indeed, a seemingly common sense assumption) that detecting cancer early is always a good thing. Why wouldn't it always be a good thing, after all? It turns out that this is a more complicated question than you probably think, a question that even many doctors have trouble with, and in this post and a followup, I'll try to explain why.
Or even restart.
Why not give Ryan Block a pony?! Because he’d only bitch that he wanted a bigger, shinier pony.
Photodude buys a Dell:
Go to their home page. Do not click “Desktops.” Do not click “Home and Home Office.” Click “Small Business.” On that page, do not click “Desktops.” Click “Workstations.”
You’ve now entered an entirely different place. This is not Your Daddy’s Dell.
Now you may say, but Reid, I am not a “small business” like you are, so this is useless to me. What, do you think they card you or something? The only card they are interested in is your credit card. Do you hope to make some money with your new computer some day? Say yes. Then you’re a small business. Need a business name for their silly form? Your new last name is “Productions.”
What’s different about the workstation on the Small Business side of the site? Well, before I even get to my previous reasons for buying a workstation from the Small Business section, let’s look at the latest and greatest reason. It’s right there on the page I lead you to, in colored text…
"Available with Windows Vista or Windows XP"
Emphasis mine. Now, see if you can find that option anywhere else on the Dell site, particularly the Home and Home Office side. It’s all Vista, baby (though it appears Linux may soon be an option). And Vista is a total deal breaker for me. But by ordering this workstation, I’ll get an XP Pro machine that will likely outlast Vista. Or my use of a PC of any type. Whichever comes first.
Need a business name for their silly form?
I am the CEO of Global Domination, Inc.
And the COO of Swift Enterprises, LLC
(at least when it comes to those type of forms)
I'm still enjoying Vista, even with the hiccups, by the way.
But I understand Vista hatred, as certain things haven't worked as well as they should, and many, many drivers aren't yet where they should be.
Still, I've had early adopter disease for quite some time, so it was inevitable given a fast enough computer that I'd buy Vista it's first week out.
Things I don't have:
* Coffeemaker. We had one for when when our parents came over, but they always turned down our offers to make a pot. So we threw it out/gave it to Goodwill. So if you come over to our house and want coffee, you are screwed.
* HBO. I've never seen an HBO show. Not one. For the entire existence of HBO. We also have none of the other premium cable channels. Paying $50/month for the DISH already, paying another $15 for a channel that might get watched once or twice a week just seems stupid. Anyway, I think we're within 10 years of the whole broadcast/cable industry exploding and fracturing, with almost everything being available through the computer and being able to order individual channels or shows. What I'm looking for is the one pipe into the house and then all TV/movie/Games/Internet wirelessly ported to pretty much any device you choose.
* TIVO or similar device. While I like the basic idea, I dislike that I'm tied to the TV where it was recorded. Videotape gives me choices--I can record on one TV and watch on another. Plus, haven't some networks restricted how long some shows can exist on TIVO before being deleted?
* Game console system. Again I wouldn't mind having one as sometimes it's just since to mentally relax by blowing crap up for 30 minutes or so. But at $200-$300, plus $50 a game, just doesn't seem worth it. But if anyone has a spare Wii just taking up space, I could watch it for you.
* Car with automatic transmission. We're stick all the way. Next car will probably be one of the new 4-door Jeep Wrangler with a six-speed stick. My scooter, though, is automatic. It also gets 70+ miles a gallon so all you hybrid drivers can suck my tail pipe.
* Bruce Springsteen songs. This should not be a surprise.
XWL,
I'm really not anti-Microsoft, but it was XP that ultimately drove me away. There were also a bunch of other niggling issues I got tired of dealing with almost everytime I sat down to the computer, but XP's ability to shut down the computer because you might have changed something it didn't understand just pissed me off. Luckily, Apple, with OS X and the iMac with the swiveling screen, was making a comeback, so I shelved my plans to learn Linux. Heh, I'd probably still have an unusable computer and be divorced if I'd gone that way.
As long as I have a support department, I have no problem using Windows at work. At home though, I can't see ever going back. And while I know that dev and support have tested our systems on Vista, there are no immediate plans to upgrade everyone to Vista. On an individual level, most of the developers I've heard talking about it are sticking with XP for awhile. Many have even purchased the Intel Macs, as they can easily work in XP/Linux/Unix/OS X with no problems.
I am completely stymied trying to come up with a theme song for Icepick at Theoretical Bling Bling; or should it be referred to as "Kitchen Drawer?
What song would be appropriate for a site of multiple topics written by someone living in the path of hurricanes and who has had multiple golf ball-sized objects removed from his mouth? I give up and select Our Town by Iris Dement. If you need reminding, this was the song that played over the final montage as Northern Exposure ended. Lovely song. Not entirely inappropriate as he often writes about his home town.
Theme Song for World According to Pooh.
I'm Wrong About Everything, John Wesley Harding. Why?
1. Don't think Pooh stops by, anymore.
2. He lives in Alaska.
3. Made me laugh.
4. Might make a couple other people laugh.
That's four more reasons than I usually require for anything else I write.
Theme song for Jessica Valenti.
I've never read her website, but this seems appropriate: 36-24-36, Violent Femmes
Theme Song for Starbucks Gossip.
There's really only one choice here and that's Busting Up a Starbucks, Mike Doughty:
This bitter drink
Has made you drunk
The thoughts you think
Become unthunk
If you ever decide to get into Linux, I know someone who'd be happy to chat via e-mail about that.
Coffeemaker. We had one for when when our parents came over, but they always turned down our offers to make a pot. So we threw it out/gave it to Goodwill. So if you come over to our house and want coffee, you are screwed.
Portable French Press to the rescue!
(Hmm. Are you a sweet tea drinker?)
I miss Pooh, but I think he's left us all behind.
Sigh.
Linux -- Luckily, I know plenty of hardcore Linux people, which is the only reason I even considered the move. But the main reason I went back to Apple is because I was just tired of messing around with computers. Just wanted to turn the damn thing on and have it work. I was done spending half the night reinstalling drivers to get some peripheral running only to have them not recognized the next time I turned the computer on. Sure, it'd be nice to be able to break down a computer and rebuild, from either the hardware or software side; then again, I have plenty of other interests and hobbies I don't have enough time for.
French Press -- I use one for brewing cups of tea. Wouldn't want to foul that with the evil coffee bean. We drink unsweetened tea and even have an ice tea maker for the convenience, we drink so much. Helps keept the kid from ODing on sugary drinks and juices.
French press for HOT tea. My preferred dried leaf is Darjeeling. Also like a good good gunpowder pearl for a green tea or a smoky Lapsang Souchong for a change of pace.
I don't know how it is with coffee, but it's a real pain in the ass to clean tea off the mesh strainer of the French press. I drink more tea at work than at home and finally ditched that piece of the press and just poured the tea into my cup with a handheld strainer.
A large teaball is also convenient. I prefer the large size for a single cup because it allows plenty of room for the tea leaves to expand.
I repel several more assaults until, finally, word must spread that there's a total asshole guarding the little boy in Room 5426, because we find ourselves well and truly alone.
Canadians suck
The internet has let me down. I can not locate an online version of "The parts left out of the kennedy book". I suppose I could transcribe it myself from Paul Krassner's The Winner of the Slow Bicycle Race, but I'm busy today.
Bill, I think of it as "The Kitchen Drawer", the one that ends up with all the little pieces of flotsam and jetsum that you don't want to throw away on the off chance you ever need some random piece of junk. The URL came from a Ricard Feynman story.
That's a sweet song. Somehow seems entirely inappropriate! Still, damned if I can come up with something suitable. Maybe, PUSA's "We're Not Gonna Make It" or Richard Cheese and Lounge Against the Machine's version of "Down with the Sickness". (I only like that version of the song. The original is just lifeless and dull to me but the remake is truly ridiculous, and I appreciate that.)
As I wrote this note, I realized what my blog's song should be: "Dracula from Houston" by the Butthole Surfers. That just hits the spot!
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