Mike's Minutiae

Anybody on the internets know anything about this?

2009-11-22T23:01:00.002-05:00

While perusing some '66 Beatles press , I just saw this notice in Billboard (Jan. 22, 1966) in an article about Polydor Records:

Polydor will press and distribute Reaction, a new label founded by producer-agent-manager Robert Stigwood. A satirical album recorded "live" at a London discotheque will be used to launch Reaction in Britain soon. The album is virtually a "send-up" of the Beatles and their manager Brian Epstein. It is tentatively titled "Are You Fitting Comfortably," and has already been taken by Atlantic for U.S. release.

Did this turn into anything or did this never happen?

TV News as a kid

2009-01-14T19:58:00.002-05:00

Have no idea why, but the name "Warren Doremus" just popped into my noggin earlier today. After treating myself to a momentary blank look, a mental eureka: he was a local news anchor in Rochester, NY, when I was a kid.

So then I thought of these names: John Hambleton (my mom's then-favorite weather guy), Dr. Bill Gutsch, Eddie Meath, Gabe Dalmath

Dalmath is the tallest dude. Hambleton is the "ref."

And this just cracks me up. Definitely worth listening to. I didn't think I remembered it initially, but when the singer on the first piece kicks it into high gear, oh yeah!

Headline of the Year

2008-10-03T14:44:00.000-04:00

Man who claimed puppy saved him now charged with arson.

Dear Jonas Brothers

2008-09-18T13:36:00.002-04:00

Or, more specifically, to the attorneys of the Jonas Brothers:

I happened to follow a link which resulted in me ending up on your official website, and realized that I hadn't read your site's Terms of Service. Normally, you understand, I am very diligent and be sure that I am in compliance with any random site's TOS before reading any of the content therein, but I have been a little under the weather with a cold.

Anyway, my legal team and I were combing through your TOS so I could continue browsing your totally awesome website, and we hit a few sticking points. According to section 8(p), in order to use the site, I must "agree not to......intentionally or unintentionally violate any...regulations promulgated by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, any rules of any national or other securities exchange, including, without limitation, the New York Stock Exchange, the American Stock Exchange or the NASDAQ, and any regulations having the force of law."

See, I have a stock pump-and-dump operation in the works and was planning on violating several SEC regulations, but this has very little to do with my interest in finding out the Jonas Brothers' next tour date, right? So can we strike this section?

Also, in Section 8(r), you take pains to restrict Jonas Brothers fans from teaching each other to "assemble bombs, grenades and other weapons." Just what sort of rabble are you expecting to swell the ranks of Jonas Brothers fans?

Sincerely,
Mike's Minutiae

Sing along!

2008-09-09T20:59:00.002-04:00

Here's the story of a lovely lady
Who was bringing up five very lovely kids
All of them eat their mooseburgers
And one of them's knocked up.

Here's the story of a man named McCain
Who was busy with a bimbo of his own
They had twelve houses staffed with servants
Yet they were all alone.

Till the one day when the lady met this fellow
And they knew it was much more than a hunch
That this group would somehow form a family
That's the way they all became the Campaign Bunch
The Campaign Bunch

That's the way they all became the Campaign Bunch
The Campaign Bunch!

Signage for the Ages

2008-08-28T20:22:00.002-04:00

A lot of learned folks have been bending gray cells of late trying to figure out how to send messages to the future. Not via time machines, but through simple physical signs designed to last for thousands of years.

The U.S. Department of Energy is worried that nuclear waste dumps will give future civilizations the ouchies. So they convened groups of experts in a host of fields: history, future studies, economics, law, physics, sociology, geography, engineering, political science, risk analysis, agriculture, climatology, history, and demographics. And here is the signage they came up with:

This place is a message… and part of a system of messages… pay attention to it!

Sending this message was important to us. We considered ourselves to be a powerful culture.

This place is not a place of honor…no highly esteemed deed is commemorated here… nothing valued is here.

What is here is dangerous and repulsive to us. This message is a warning about danger.

The danger is in a particular location… it increases toward a center… the center of danger is here… of a particular size and shape, and below us.

The danger is still present, in your time, as it was in ours.

The danger is to the body, and it can kill.

The form of the danger is an emanation of energy.

The danger is unleashed only if you substantially disturb this place physically. This place is best shunned and left uninhabited.

Remarkable. And how Planet of the Apes!

Meanwhile, other deep thinkers are worried about how to give future civilizations the teacher's edition of all human knowledge, a Rosetta Stone on steroids:

One side of the disk contains a graphic teaser. The design shows headlines in the eight major languages of the world today spiraling inward in ever-decreasing size till it becomes so small you have trouble reading it, yet the text goes on getting smaller. The sentences announce: “Languages of the World: This is an archive of over 1,500 human languages assembled in the year 02008 C.E. Magnify 1,000 times to find over 13,000 pages of language documentation.”

This graphic side of the disk is pure titanium. A black oxide coating has been added to the surface. The text is etched into that, revealing the whiter titanium. This bold sign board is needed because the pages of genesis which are etched on the mirror-like opposite side of the disk are nearly invisible.

This business side of the disk is pure nickel. Picking it up you would not be aware there were 13,500 pages of linguistic gold hiding on it. The nickel is deposited on an etched silicon disk. In effect the Rosetta disk is a nickel cast of a micro-etch silicon mold. When the disk is held at the right angle the grid array of the pages form a slight diffraction rainbow. You need a 750-power optical microscope to read the pages.

Holy hannah. It appears that Global Warming Shock is starting to really set in, what with all these people trying to clean up our planetary apartment for the next renters in hopes that we get our security deposit back. Hopefully in advance of our departure.

"Virtual Tour"

2008-08-28T20:16:00.002-04:00

Why oh why does a business systems company in Syracuse, New York need a 360 degree virtual tour of their offices? It reminds me of a videogame without objectives, purpose, and much in the way of entertainment.

Actual description from a stop along the "tour":

Employee Kitchen Area 1

View from inside our employee kitchen and break room. This also has an entrance for one of our training rooms to the side.

Oooh, I'm tingley all over!

Paging writers of The Office....

New Post??

2008-07-07T13:36:00.001-04:00

Not really. But I have cleaned up some dead link and updated some of the "College People" section in the side column. IC friends take note.

Flashbacking: January 31, 1997

2008-01-31T13:44:00.000-05:00

Here's part of an email I received on that day, from a listener to my radio show:

I have a small album collection and have been trying to obtain a copy of a song I heard back in the early 1980's. It was the theme to Gilligan's Island done to the tune of Led Zepplin's "Stairway to Heaven". I believe it was done by "Roger and the Goosebumps". I have been told it was only distributed to radio stations as a promo. Ever heard of it? Any ideas on how to obtain a copy?

I heard the song once when it came out on WCMF in Rochester, NY, and then heard nothing for years--not the song itself nor nothing about the band who recorded it. In the '80s, I heard tell that Led Zeppelin's people came down on the song like a ton of bricks, forcing them not only to cease and desist distributing the song but to destroy all copies of it.

As it turned out the hearsay was true: the group (actually "Little Roger and the Goosebumps") "recorded it in March 1978, and released it as a single in May 1978 on their own Splash Records label.[3] Within five weeks, Led Zeppelin's lawyers threatened to sue them and demanded that any remaining copies of the recording be destroyed." (according to Wikipedia; the band's site no longer seems to exist)

Later, I finally got a copy of the song on producer Kenny Laguna's compilation CD Laguna Tunes. Laguna wrote in the liner notes:

[San Francisco Chronicle writer] Joel [Selvin] and Little Roger came up with the concept to record "Stairway to Heaven" and the "Gillian Island" TV theme in a convoluted and comical way.

EARTH QUAKE, who could play every note of the Led Zep classic, did the backing track in THE WHO's London Ramport studio, and Little Roger (Clark) did the lead in San Francisco.

When this record came out it was all over West Coast radio, and was on its way to becoming a huge novelty hit.

PETER GRANT's empire came crashing down on this project like Desert Storm. There were lawyers from LOUIS NIZER, private eyes, and just plain bullies. My chance at a hit dissolved in a whirl of injunctions and professional bring-downers.

Meanwhile, on the same day I got that email, here's something else I did:

A refurbished ''Star Wars'' opens today in about 1,800 theaters. Three weeks from now, ''The Empire Strikes Back'' will strike back, and two weeks after that, ''The Return of the Jedi'' will be the climax, preparing the way for three new ''Star Wars'' epics scheduled to begin arriving at the close of the millennium, recounting the origins of Darth Vader and Obi-Wan Kenobi.

(link)

Flashbacking: Jan 30, 1997

2008-01-30T09:41:00.000-05:00

Recently, I was poking around in the dark recesses of my computer and I found a couple of archived files of old emails. These were from around 1996-1997, when I was more obsessive about backing things up (gulp! I haven't done a full backup in years!).

So I thought it would be interesting to revisit that time with a little compare-and-contrast to today (get your blue essay books ready, please). Some of this material is personal, some professional, and some cultural/societal. All email adress and names will be changed, omitted, or generalized to protect the innocent, the guilty, and the bystanders on the information superhighway.

On January 30, 1997, I received the following forwarded joke:

After a few years of married life, this guy finds that he is unable to perform anymore. He goes to his doctor, and his doctor tries a few things but nothing works.

Finally the doctor says to him "this is all in your mind", and refers him to a psychiatrist. After a few visits to the shrink, the shrink confess, "I am at a loss as to how you could possibly be cured."

Finally the psychiatrist refers him to witch doctor.

The witch doctor tells, "I can cure this", and throws some powder on a flame, and there is a flash with billowing blue smoke........ The witch doctor says "This is powerful healing, but you can only use it once a year! All you have to do is say '123' and it shall rise for as long as you wish!"

The guy then asks the witch doctor "What happens when it's over?"

The witch doctor says "All you have to say is '1234' and it will go down. But be warned it will not work again for a year!"

The guy goes home and that night he is ready to surprise his wife with the good news....... So, he is lying in bed with her and says "123", and suddenly he gets an erection.

His wife turns over and says "What did you say '123' for?"

What's interesting about this joke, from both a comedic and sociological vantage point, is that it pre-dates Viagra, which, although patented in 1996, wouldn't be marketed until 1998. This is key, since the joke's set-up entirely depends on no easy way for the protagonist to get past his bedroom problem. A year later, and the joke would grind to an abrupt halt at the doctor visit.

Of course, the set-up could be re-written (he couldn't afford the high cost of Viagra, say) but it's a good study in how real-world events can kill an otherwise perfectly serviceable joke.

It makes me think somewhat of a bit I had written in the summer of 2001, where I had Osama bin Laden claiming responsibility for the disastrous Bette Midler sitcom Bette. It was funny at the time but I didn't then have a good outlet for humor (since I was no longer doing a radio morning show), and that joke was completely useless after September 11th.

Someone ate the brown acid

2007-11-22T08:22:00.000-05:00

Last year, an outlet mall north of Pittsburgh opened at midnight after Thanksgiving to get a jump start on the shameless day-after orgy of shopping that has become wedded to the holiday tradition. The response was so huge that it nearly shut down a nearby interstate, as traffic from the mall overwhelmed the mall parking lot and backed up for miles.

They're doing it again tonight, while reassuring shoppers that all vehicles will be accommodated this time. But, oh, how they speak of 2006's chaos with a misty-eyed nostalgia!

Get a load of Michele Czerwinski, senior marketing manager for the mall:

"From a business and marketing perspective, it was the most exciting thing that I ever experienced in my life. I don't know what Woodstock was like, but I felt like it was this little secret sale that everybody knew about."

Yes. Woodstock.

Except instead of being the defining moment for a cultural youth movement, it's about 40% off Banana Republic shirts.

As a side note, if they're so confident they'll be avoiding the gridlock from last year, how come their tips for better enjoying the shopping experience (.pdf) include the suggestion "Fully Gas Up the Car"?

Thank goodness I'm working on Friday.

About 19 years ago....

2007-11-12T13:07:00.000-05:00

From Time Magazine, Nov. 14, 1988:

It is one of the least publicized achievements of the computer revolution: a huge, arching communications network connecting 60,000 computers by high-speed data links and ordinary telephone lines. Developed by the U.S. Department of Defense's Advanced Research Projects Agency in the late 1960s, Arpanet, as the information grid is called, has carried everything from unclassified military data to electronic love notes sent from one lonely researcher to another. But last week it became the conduit for something much more dramatic: one of the most sophisticated and infectious computer viruses the world has yet seen.

The trouble surfaced in computer centers at two institutions that serve as major network links: M.I.T. and the University of California, Berkeley. Last Wednesday night computers at both centers started furiously generating unwanted electronic files, clogging up their storage systems and slowing operations to a crawl. Almost immediately, similar problems began turning up at other centers throughout the network, from the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington to New Mexico's Los Alamos National Laboratory. Within hours, operators shut down thousands of machines across the country to quarantine them, severing their connections to other computers and rendering productive work all but impossible.

At the time, The New York Times still included the word "virus" in the phrase "computer virus" in quotes. The NYT, Nov. 8, 1988:

The Federal Bureau of Investigation began an official criminal investigation today of the computer ''virus'' that crippled a nationwide Pentagon data network last week, and officials indicated that a decision on whether to prosecute the author of the renegade computer program was near.

Charles Steinmetz, a spokesman for the bureau, said an informal inquiry into the computer incident over the weekend uncovered ''enough elements there for the Federals to investigate it officially'' as a probable criminal act.

[...]

The man suspected of planting the virus in a Cornell University computer terminal, Robert Tappan Morris, a 23-year-old graduate student at Cornell University, appeared briefly with his father outside his parents' home in Arnold, Md., this afternoon, but declined to discuss the incident.

Morris now teaches at MIT.

One Thing I've Been Up to Lately...

2007-10-09T08:02:00.000-04:00

In June, I got married (and since then, alas, I've had little time to blog: moving in, honeymoon, home improvement projects, usual summer hecticity, etc.).

Anyway, my wife and I married ourselves using self-uniting marriage license, which allows a couple to become married with no third-party officiant or celebrant. It's sometimes called a Quaker marriage, and although it's fairly unique across the nation it has been an option in the religiously accommodating Pennsylvania since 1701.

A mere three months afterwards, another couple (one of whom I happen to work with) was denied a self-uniting marriage license by the Allegheny County Marriage License Bureau. They were told that the county no longer offers self-uniting licenses and that they haven't been offered since 2005. After some reflection, Mary Jo and Dave decided to sue the county.

I'll let the media pick up the story from here.

For anyone in Pennsylvania seeking more information about self-uniting marriage licenses--which are legal in the state, but routinely denied (e.g., see this article)--read more here: Knelly v. Wagner.

What the heck is electronic mail?

2007-06-16T12:03:00.000-04:00

Computerworld is running a collection of their favorite old computer ads, including the above one from Nov. 1981. Honeywell, for some reason, chose to depict email as a frightening and dangerous new method of correspondence. Fun.

Flashback Quote of the Week

2007-06-11T19:51:00.000-04:00

A flashback to March 5, 1990:

"Musically, we are more talented than any Bob Dylan," announces Robert Pilatus, 24, with very little prodding. "Musically, we are more talented than Paul McCartney. Mick Jagger, his lines are not clear. He don't know how he should produce a sound. I'm the new modern rock 'n' roll. I'm the new Elvis."

Later...

Farian confirmed to reporters on November 12, 1990, that Morvan and Pilatus did not sing on the records. As a result of American media pressure, Milli Vanilli's Grammy was withdrawn four days later...and Arista Records dropped the act from its roster and deleted their album and its masters from their catalog, taking Girl You Know It's True out of print.

Quote of the week...

2007-06-06T07:53:00.000-04:00

If we can’t restrict the use of the words "fuck" and "shit" during prime time, Hollywood will be able to say anything they want, whenever they want.

Those are the words of FCC Chairman Kevin Martin on the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals Indecency Decision. He released a brief statement (.doc) that is fairly remarkable as a public tantrum.

The FCC's arguments were nearly completely shredded in the court decision (.pdf), and the agency came off even worse in their oral arguments which was absolutely riveting TV viewing (don't have a link, but it was shown on C-SPAN's "America & The Courts" so they might have streaming video on their site). So Martin is hopping mad and perhaps needs a little session in the "time-out" area. (you know, for kids?)

Introducing No Band...

2007-06-03T14:23:00.000-04:00

So I was scheduled to introduce Robert Randolph & The Family Band on Friday (6/1) for a free performance at the opening night of the Three Rivers Arts Festival (the annual June series of free outdoor concerts and arts downtown).

I was psyched to do so, especially since Robert was performing as a headliner. It seems like every time the pedal steel phenom has passed through Pittsburgh in recent years, he's either an opening act or part of a co-headlining package tour. Dammit, I want to see the man play and to see him with a crowd who is also there specifically to see him! Is that too much to ask?

The band was scheduled to get underway at 7:30, so I arrived around 7 at the backstage area. Very quickly, I sensed tension among the Arts Festival staff. Soon I learned why--Randolph was stuck in New Jersey, a victim of thunderstorm-induced airline cancellations. Some of his band was just arriving at Pittsburgh International at that moment. Only one player, bassist Danyel Morgan, had made it to town on time and intact.

There were frenzied discussions about various options. Danyel wanted to play with Robert, I was told (he had not yet arrived on the scene), but that required the rest of the band to arrive. Either way, someone would have to break the bad news to the crowd--it was just a question of (a) when it would be done, (b) who would do it, and (c) how bad the news would be (e.g., no show at all or no Robert Randolph).

After Danyel showed up and he pow-wowed with the Arts Festival staff, it was decided that the rest of the band would not be able to get downtown in anything resembling a timely fashion. Therefore, the show had to be cancelled. I was to go out on stage and speak to the audience, but, to his credit, Danyel was willing to go out with me on behalf of the band and personally apologize. That was huge, as I would not thrilled to have to break the news to the hot and and rowdy crowd alone.

Hell, it's never easy to have to tell and audience that a band is going to be slightly delayed. Announcing a cancelled show from the stage could be downright dangerous. Although everyone were (rightfully) disappointed and/or pissed off, everyone took it as well as could be expected under the circumstances.

Hell, there was a guy who was waving around a folding chair even before Danyel and I walked out on stage, and though he continued to wave it around when we announced the show wasn't happening, thankfully, he kept it firmly in hand before, during, and after the announcement.

All in all, a rough gig...

The Music Minutiae Strikes Back!

2007-03-24T12:17:00.000-04:00

I re-added my "Music Minutiae" music news "sideblog" on the right-hand side of the page. The previous incarnation was via free service that went kaput. Now it's using an RSS feed from the music blog I co-edit at WYEP. Of course, the RSS is converted to a javascript using another free web service, so we'll see if this one lasts...

Let me know if you see any problems with the Music Minutiae. Thanks!

~~I think I'm going to try to add headlines from my "My Life in Concerts" blog as well, which give me a reason to actually update that one...~~ I just added the concert feed as well!

"A Super Huge Rock Band Is Forming Only Group Thats Going To Matter"

2007-03-19T06:40:00.000-04:00

So says the Google AdSense ad, rife with bluster and a casual attitude towards punctuation and syntax.

I didn't want to click on the ad, so I Googled the phrase instead and read what someone else had already blogged on it.

The World’s Next Great Rock Band Is Now Forming. You Will Absolutely Be The #1 Band After Your First Cd Release. I Guarantee It.

The Group Will Have 5 Lead Singing Capable Musicians+ Great Original Songs+ Great Obscure Cover Songs= The Worlds Greatest New Rock Band….........I Say Yeah! Yeah Yeah Yeahh….......I Got Fame….....Right Here….........If You Want It. The Beatles Had 4 Singers, I Want 5. Are You Worthy?

Thank goodness he guarantees it. Otherwise I might be worried. Read more...

Bee-lated?

2007-02-27T19:42:00.000-05:00

Bee vanishing act baffles keepers:

Honeybees are vanishing at an alarming rate from 24 US states, threatening the production of numerous crops.

The cause of the losses, which range from 30% to more than 70%, is a mystery, but experts are investigating several theories.

American bee colonies have been hit by regional crises before, but keepers say this is the first national crisis.

Bees pollinate more than $14bn (£7bn) worth of US seeds and crops each year, mostly fruits, vegetables and nuts.

The mystery disappearances highlight the important link that honeybees play in the chain that brings fruit and vegetables to supermarkets and dinner tables.

The crisis threatens numerous crops, from avocados to kiwis and California almonds - one of the most profitable in the US.

"I have never seen anything like it," California beekeeper David Bradshaw, 50, told the New York Times.

"Box after box after box are just empty. There's nobody home."

Why did Mike spend an unintended night in Jamaica, Queens last night?

2007-02-11T17:10:00.000-05:00

Here's Reason Part 1:

A magician who recently performed for a Super Bowl party at the Versace mansion inadvertently caused flights to be shut down for two hours Saturday at Palm Beach International Airport when screeners checking his bags found a butane canister that allows him to shoot flames from his wrists.

Illusionist Simon Winthrop, who has relatives in Delray Beach, had packed the equipment in his luggage for a flight to Los Angeles. The Transportation Security Administration discovered the tank in his checked bag about 9 a.m. Saturday.

The Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office brought its bomb and arson squad to investigate. At 9:30, the airport evacuated the entire first floor and part of the second, forcing at least 1,000 passengers, ticket agents and airport employees to wait outside.

The sheriff's office sealed off roads leading to the airport in suburban West Palm Beach, and the Florida Highway Patrol diverted traffic from the Interstate 95 airport exit. Passengers from 16 arriving flights were held on their planes for up to two hours while the terminal was closed.

And here's Reason Part 2:

Carrier is not responsible and assumes no liability for failure to make connections on its own flights.

So here's the dingy, depressing, postage stamp-sized, and expensive room that people in such a position find themselves:

Trust me, this picture (from the hotel web site) simply does not do it justice.

So thanks, magician. Thanks, airline. And thanks, hotel chain. You really know how to cap a vacation.

The Modern Age in 7 Words

2007-01-25T08:35:00.000-05:00

Few headlines have summed up the times in which we live more so than the one just read:

Runaway Bride Story to Become Rock Opera

I haven't even read the story. Why bother? It can only be anticlimax.

You know, it used to be that if you were a Runaway Bride, or some other accidental celebrity, the best you could hope for was a quickie TV movie. I'm told that, before my day, you'd only get an antiestablishment theater group production. Now, though, you really have to expect a rock opera to really make your mark. An ice capade about you could maybe work as well, but the rock opera could better reach the youth of today and, therefore, better explain yourself to future generations.

An aside to future Runaway Brides and other accidental celebrities: please note that a YouTube video about yourself is NOT a sufficient way of immortalizing your exploits. YouTube videos are CAUSES of accidental celebrity, not proper memorials to same. I can't stress this enough, this is very important.

My Blue Period

2007-01-06T17:20:00.000-05:00

Below are two photos I took a few years back. For some reason, I uploaded them to blogger last February in a draft post and never did anything with it. I don't even recollect why I uploaded them. Both do feature incredible blue skies, though.

Above is the statue of Neptune which tirelessly contemplates the Atlantic Ocean next to the Paramount Theatre on the boardwalk in Asbury Park, NJ.

The 1600-seat theatre is conjoined with the gym-like Convention Hall space by a nominally "Grand Arcade" arching over the boardwalk (and also obstructing it, when the building is closed). The Convention Hall complex was designed in 1923 by Warren and Wetmore, an architectural firm with Grand Central Station also on its list of accomplishments.

As noted on the building's website, "The Paramount opened in spectacular fashion on July 11, 1930 with a show starring the Marx Brothers and Ginger Rogers." Over the '90s and early '00s I saw a handful of concerts there, including performances from Sinead O'Connor, Garbage, and Pete Yorn. The boardwalk in front of this statue would also be noted by fans of The Sopranos: it's where Tony Soprano, in a dream sequence during the second season finale, sets himself on fire.

Above is one of my favorite less-famous art deco skyscrapers in New York City, the former General Electric Building at 570 Lexington. Ironically, this building was to be the headquarters for RCA, but they instead moved into Rockefeller Center, so GE became the occupant. In 1985, of course, GE bought RCA--leading to the company to vacate this building and to donate it to Columbia University (which leases out the space to business tenants).

The Aztec designs, lightning bolts, and other Art Deco motifs on this building are among the best and most interesting in NYC.

Parking

2007-01-06T15:50:00.000-05:00

Apparently, I have been in seclusion under sedation after the tragic realities of that last Wiggles post set in. Either that, or the holiday festivities + my birthday world tour* left me with extraordinarily less free time this past month. Either way, I believe it's the first time I've skipped an entire calendar month since launching this log on May 6, 2004. Oy.

Anyway, here's an interesting story about San Francisco's on-street parking woes.

Which of course led me to the world of parking bloggers, like Parking Today, CarHarbor, and Parking Planet.

Meanwhile, read what one student's list of the Best Architecture, Planning and Urban Affairs books of 2006 are.

* well, perhaps a Rochester/Lyons/Rome/Syracuse/Ithaca itinerary doesn't quite constitute a world tour, especially since all are the New York State locations and not their European counterparts

Hopes dashed once again for forgotten Wiggle

2006-11-29T21:25:00.000-05:00

As the Yellow Wiggle announced he was quitting The Wiggles due to health reasons, long estranged Chartreuse Wiggle was hoping for a reconciliation with his erstwhile playmates.

Instead, the group decided to place a new body in the yellow shirt and rewarded their loyal and unctious understudy, Uriah Heep, with the position.

In the group's early years, Chartreuse Wiggle was an integral part but was unceremoniously sacked and subsequently scrubbed from the group's official history. Precise reasons for the dismissal are unknown, but some observers claim that Chartreuse's handsomeness with the ladies was threatening to the group's "playa," Purple. Others say that the other members believed Chartreuse's persona as the group's pipe-smoking, urbane sophisticate was not appropriate for audiences of children.

In his unauthorized Wiggles biography, Wiggling Shade of Pale, author Dave Chase describes how the depressed Chartreuse Wiggle sought solace in alcohol and self-pity following his ouster, eventually releasing an album of maudlin children's songs titled The Wiggle That Time Forgot. The CD's first and only single, "Brother, Can You Spare This Wiggle a Twenty Cent Coin?," had a promotional videoclip featuring Chartreuse panhandling for beer money and was lambasted by children's advocacy groups. "Shockingly brazen in its attempt to emotionally blackmail trusting child viewers," was a description of the effort, one written by Chartreuse's own publicity team. Critics were much less positive.

Chartreuse Wiggle, reached at his Sydney flat for comment, was philosophical about his ongoing disappointment. "It is what it is. I suppose it just wasn't meant to be," he offered, continuing that "Blue, Red, Purple will one day perhaps realize what they are missing without me. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but definitely when my intricately-planned campaign of kidnapping and ruthless torture come to fruition."

Meanwhile, the only other former Wiggle, Zeppo, could not be reached for comment by press time.

Food Minutiae

2006-11-27T19:19:00.000-05:00

Who Was General Tso And Why Are We Eating His Chicken?

General Tso Tsungtang, or as his name is spelled in modern Pinyin, Zuo Zongtang, was born on Nov. 10, 1812, and died on Sept. 5, 1885. He was a frighteningly gifted military leader during the waning of the Qing dynasty, a figure perhaps the Chinese equivalent of the American Civil War commander William Tecumseh Sherman. He served with brilliant distinction during China's greatest civil war, the 14-year-long Taiping Rebellion, which claimed millions of lives.

Tso was utterly ruthless. He smashed the Taiping rebels in four provinces, put down an unrelated revolt called the Nian Rebellion, then marched west and reconquered Chinese Turkestan from Muslim rebels.

[...]

General Tso's chicken recipe may be no more ancient than 1972, and may have more in common with Manhattan than with mainland China. On "The Definitive General Tso's Chicken Page" New Yorker Eric Hochman theorizes "It was invented in the mid-1970s, in NYC, by one Chef Peng.

I had to look this up, since I'm ordering General Tso's Tofu for dinner tonight.

Bing Crosby & Recording Technology

2006-11-26T11:30:00.000-05:00

Interesting piece here about Bing Crosby's importance to the history of recording. Written by a professor of history at the University of San Diego, it quotes Crosby's autobiography thusly:

By using tape, I could do a thirty-five or forty-minute show, then edit it down to the twenty-six or twenty-seven minutes the program ran. In that way, we could take out jokes, gags, or situations that didn't play well and finish with only the prime meat of the show; the solid stuff that played big. We could also take out the songs that didn't sound good. It gave us a chance to first try a recording of the songs in the afternoon without an audience, then another one in front of a studio audience. We'd dub the one that came off best into the final transcription. It gave us a chance to ad lib as much as we wanted, knowing that excess ad libbing could be sliced from the final product. If I made a mistake in singing a song or in the script, I could have some fun with it, then retain any of the fun that sounded amusing.

Which was startling new stuff in 1947.

A lot here for audio/broadcasting geeks like me. I never knew that the 3M company originally was called Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing, or that Bing essentially invented the laugh track and gave key support to the development of videotape.

This is a very odd webpage

2006-11-18T15:46:00.000-05:00

You know, it's not simply the auto-hagiography, or the unrelated religious testimony, or the use of four Wikipedia-sourced links to "prove" his assertions, or the odd caption to the page's photo, that gets me about this site. It's really the whole experience.

Templates for Executive Success!

2006-11-16T07:06:00.000-05:00

I just read this passage in a music industry trade magazine announcing a record company executive's promotion:

"I want to thank [new boss] for this tremendous opportunity," [promoted exec] says. "I'm happy to join the exceptional executive team [new boss] has in place and believe that [company] has the potential to become one of the most formidable labels in our business. I look forward to extending the reach of our roster as we break new artists and take established stars to even greater heights."

After I bracketed out the specific names, it looks like every single such announcement I've read, ever. Apparently creativity and original thinking is not a pre-requisite.

Feel free to adapt and use in your industry as well! It's like business madlibs!

Oops

2006-11-07T09:01:00.000-05:00

Famous warship museum stuck in the mud:

The USS Intrepid, the aircraft carrier that survived World War II bomb and kamikaze attacks, got stuck in the mud in the Hudson River on Monday as a fleet of tugboats tried to pull it from its berth for a $60 million renovation project.

The ship...was supposed to be towed across the river to a dry dock in Bayonne, N.J.

Six tugs pulled with a combined 30,000 horsepower but moved the Intrepid only about 15 feet. Not even an unusually high tide could free the 27,000-ton, 872-foot-long ship from the ooze.

The article blames the ship's immobility to as much as 17 feet of silt around its hull, built up over the 24 years the ship's been docked.

BTW, you know a news story is going to be interesting when it uses both the words "ooze" and "kamikaze."

Oh christ

2006-11-04T15:21:00.000-05:00

Because we don't already have enough fried foods:

Abel Gonzales, 36, a computer analyst from Dallas, tried about 15 different varieties before coming up with his perfect recipe -- a batter mix made with Coca-Cola syrup, a drizzle of strawberry syrup, and some strawberries.

Balls of the batter are then deep-fried, ending up like ping-pong ball sized doughnuts which are then served in a cup, topped with Coca-Cola syrup, whipped cream, cinnamon sugar and a cherry on the top.

Apparently empty calories is no longer enough. Snacks must be actively bad for you in this here 21st century.

Meant to post this two days ago, but anyway...

2006-11-02T07:11:00.000-05:00

Halloween goes to the dogs, and lizards:

What these animals represent together is the rapidly growing phenomenon of people dressing up their pets for Halloween.

One website, raisingkids.co.uk, reports that 3.5 million Americans will purchase a Halloween costume for their pet this year. According to Elaine Binner of the eponymous Elaine's Pet Depot in Santa Monica, Calif., that's up from a decade ago by ... well, 3.5 million. "I first saw them [pet costumes] 10 years ago, but I only made sure to stock them in the last four years," she says.

She has been nearly sold out for two weeks, but you can still find a limited selection - ballerina, superhero, and the always popular devil. You can also get your animal to appear as another animal, say a zebra, giraffe, or skunk.

Dress up your pet as a ballerina and be rewarded with baleful looks of humiliation!

A Thousand Points of Light, After Inflation?

2006-10-28T10:13:00.000-04:00

CNN did an interview with current U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer and retired Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, and has excerpts posted on their website. Breyer said something odd at the end, though:

But, Breyer said, America's strength comes in part because of our ability to follow even the most hotly contested rulings.

"We've learned as a nation to follow decisions even when we think they're wrong," he said. "And in a country of 300 million people and ... 900 million points of view, that is a national treasure."

Ok, I don't know what was said in place of the ellipsis but is Breyer suggesting that everyone in America has 3 points of view each? Where else are these 600 extra P.O.V.s coming from?

Get Into the UK's Crawley!

2006-10-27T21:53:00.000-04:00

Rude road signs tell drivers where to go:

Commuters driving to work were greeted by an obscene message when they arrived at Crawley, West Sussex, on Thursday morning.

Digital roadside signs, which usually give information about parking availability, instead urged visitors to "F*** off" after hackers gained remote access to the displays. Three of the 11 Variable Message Signs on approach roads to the town carried the expletive.

On a tangent, after reading the above news item I went to a website marketing the town of Crawley to outsiders. You know, I always like to learn more about people, places, and events I blog about.

Anyway, the site had a typical margin navigation menu on the right side (not unlike at the right of this humble blog). It had items like these:

Travellers
Introduction
Summary
Leisure
Out & About
Brief History
Murder
Community
Property
High Street

Wait, what? Murder?

Yes, they promote their own 1940s "acid bath" murder! Between rude street signs and a colorful history of an acid bath murder, It’s all happening in Crawley..

Great Moments in Headlines

2006-10-27T07:35:00.000-04:00

I was in West Virginia for a couple of days recently, in a cabin on the Cacapon River (a tributary of the Potomac). The following item will show you what kind of area it is.

The local newspaper (a daily paper, mind you) featured this headline (on the front page, mind you):

Parade Impresses Newcomers

The story was about the recently-held "Mountain State Apple Harvest Grand Feature Parade." Here's an excerpt.

"I was impressed with how long it was," Virginia Harp said. "Normal town parades don’t last two hours."

While the parade was lengthy, the variety of participants made it "well worth sitting out here," Harp added.

Organizers hope to nearly double (!) the length of the parade in the future. Which may lead to the future headline, Parade Endured by Attendees.

It's a beautiful area, though, and no parade was endured by me.

As a sidenote, the name "Cacapon River" was chosen officially in 1916 but prior to that the river was also known as the following: Big Capon River, Cacapehon Creek, Cacapehon River, Cacapon Creek, Cackapehon River, Cackapohon River, Capcappin Creek, Cape Capon River, Capecapon River, Capon River, Great Cacapehon River, Great Cacapon River, and Great Capon River.

This river had more aliases than a professional assassin.

Is that the Royal Plural or is she vying to be a Sybil Senator?

2006-10-26T08:43:00.000-04:00

"The grassroots have been with us and we think, come Nov. 7, God willing, we'll be the next senator."
~~Florida candidate for
U.S. Senate Katherine Harris,
reported by Florida today.com

For you voice talent aficionados...

2006-10-16T23:12:00.000-04:00

Interesting Juxtapostion

2006-10-15T11:52:00.000-04:00

Hmmm.

[President Bush] could also be heard on Jan. 9 lecturing students at an elementary school in Glen Burnie, Md., that their recent scores on math and reading proficiency tests were "unacceptable."

Having a president call something "unacceptable" is not the same as having him order U.S. troops into action.

See? Although they hint at the overall operation, the Washington Post is careful not to publish operational details about the Administration's plans to invade Glen Burnie, Maryland.

"Clash of Culturesism Wow!"

2006-10-09T20:33:00.000-04:00

Sadr City outraged over 'Buddy Jesus':

Iraqi Shiite residents of Baghdad's Sadr City expressed anger yesterday over a picture of a grinning Jesus they mistook for a Shiite holy figure that appeared in the area after a joint US-Iraqi operation. Residents found a picture of "Buddy Jesus" from the 1999 film "Dogma" posted in the streets, accompanied by a badly photocopied pamphlet bearing a crude approximation of a US military crest and outlining a US "plan" to subjugate the neighbourhood. "That picture abuses our Imam Mahdi and his holy character, and mocks our sacred figures," said resident Abu Riyam, apparently mistaking the satirical movie still of Jesus for one of Shiite Islam's historical imams, whose images adopt a Jesus-like iconography.

This is the most surreal conjunction of fiction with real world events since Sesame Street's Bert appeared in pro Osama bin Laden signage.

Fortunately, both father and sons telephoned beforehand to coordinate who would claim which tie color

2006-10-08T14:34:00.000-04:00

Above: Two generations of Bushes gather to celebrate the elder Bush's new haircut, designed after H.W.'s favorite restaurant mascot (below). The new styling job was done to inaugurate the Navy's recently built Christophe-class Floating Salon ship, the latest addition to the nation's fleet of "haircraft carriers."

After seeing the new high-tech Cut 'n' Blow Dry facilities in the ship, the current President Bush remarked to assembled reporters that he was very impressed with the professionalism and readiness of our men and women in the Style Corps, and that the vessel was a key component in fighting the War on Hairorism.

The new Floating Salon's first assignment was to set sail to southern California, beginning a full-scale assault on Johnny Depp-inspired pirate tresses topping actors throughout Young Hollywood.

Mistah Kah Tehr

2006-10-07T11:26:00.001-04:00

So I was just watching some Welcome Back, Kotter online, which led me to seeing some odd photos.

Here's one of the oddest publicity photos ever, of Kotter's TV wife Marcia Strassman:

And here's a recent one of Gabe Kaplan, Strassman, and Ron "Horshack" Palillo:

Both of these photos have great caption possibilities, but I'm too tired to add 'em. Feel free to add your own.

Lookin' Out for Macca

2006-10-07T09:09:00.000-04:00

In a New York Times article about evangelical youth culture, Ron Luce, the founder of a youth ministry, makes a surprising claim about a concert/religion event he produces:

Mr. Luce has been organizing these stadium extravaganzas for 15 years. The event in Amherst was the first of 40 that Teen Mania is putting on between now and May, on a breakneck schedule that resembles a road trip for a major touring band. The “roadies” are 700 teenagers who have interned for a year at Teen Mania’s “Honor Academy” in Garden Valley, Tex.

More than two million teenagers have attended in the last 15 years, said Mr. Luce, a 45-year-old, mop-headed father of three with a master’s degree from the Graduate School of Business Administration at Harvard and the star power of an aging rock guitarist.

“That’s more than Paul McCartney has pulled in,” Mr. Luce asserted, before bounding onstage for the opening pyrotechnics and a prayer. [emphasis added]

Huh?

According to McCartney's MPL Communications, McCartney's 1989-1990 tour alone "had been to 13 countries, a total of 102 concerts to three million fans." So even one of McCartney's tours blows away this praiseapalooza by more than a million attendees, and that's even ignoring his 1976, 1993, and 2002 tours.

Let's also not even count McCartney's two Super Bowl performances in the past five years which was seen by nearly a million people each.

I'm just saying.

The prodigal "A"

2006-10-07T08:36:00.000-04:00

Software revises Armstrong's moon quote:

That's one small word for astronaut Neil Armstrong, one giant revision for grammar sticklers everywhere.

An Australian computer programmer says he found the missing "a" from Armstrong's famous first words from the moon in 1969, when the world heard the phrase, "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind."

And to think all these years, we were worried about aliens stealing our precious bodily fluids. It's been the letter "A" of which they've been robbing us all along.

Curses!

Cool pavement drawings

2006-10-07T08:16:00.000-04:00

Trompe l'oeil public art by British artist Julian Beever.

Nice.

Taking journalistic objectivity too far?

2006-10-05T18:01:00.000-04:00

I'm all for journalistic objectivity with a heavy, healthy dose of reporter skepticism. But you can take it too far.

Here's a story in a weekly NJ paper about two local police officers receiving a promotion.

Eatontown has new police sergeant, officer:

Both Sgt. Daniel Guthrie and Officer Bryan J. Mulholland received their new police department pins when they appeared before town officials, apparently proud family members and friends, and police superiors and colleagues at the Borough Council's Sept. 13 public meeting.

"Apparently proud family members and friends"?

Can't we just assume the pride? I'm just askin'.

Meet The Beatles' confusing catalogue

2006-09-27T07:59:00.000-04:00

I just read an odd news retraction:

In a story Sept. 12 about the Royal Mail's plan to issue six stamps honoring The Beatles, The Associated Press erroneously said "Meet The Beatles" was the group's first album released in the United States. Instead. "Introducing The Beatles" on the Vee-Jay label appeared in the U.S. before "Meet The Beatles," according to Bruce Spizer, author of the book "The Beatles are Coming!"

The story also said incorrectly that the U.S.-released "Meet The Beatles" was identical to the British 1963 album "With The Beatles." Nine of the 12 tracks on the British album were on the American one, according to The Beatles' official Web site.

Hey, everyone makes mistakes. I happen to be a Beatles nut, though, so I really notice such mistakes.

Until 1967's Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, The Beatles' catalogue in the U.S. was so thoroughly butchered by Capitol Records that it almost makes no sense to describe their "first album," "second album," and so on.

The Beatles themselves made twisted commentary on this state of affairs when they made the cover photo for the album made for the U.S. market comprised entirely of trimmed songs from previous British albums, Yesterday...and Today:

Introducing The Beatles, on the Vee-Jay label, was the first album under The Beatles' name in America, but it wasn't really "their" album in a sense. It featured material from the band's first album, Please Please Me, released in England only, but it wasn't the same album.

So the first Capitol album, Meet the Beatles, may be technically the band's second U.S. album, but it not strictly correct to call it their second album--in the same way that sections one through three of an abridged five-part novel serialization IS that author's novel.

Thank goodness Capitol had the sense to issue only the British catalogue for the CD reissues--even in the U.S.--to make this confusion remain only for collectors and music historians....and journalists writing about postage stamps.

Socially Awkward Media Headlines

2006-09-25T07:52:00.000-04:00

Today's winner:

TurboNick's Mr. Meaty Graduates

"Cocaine," Candy Cigs, & The Beatles

2006-09-22T08:42:00.000-04:00

What I love about the WWW, part 341: you see one thing, which leads you to further research, which leads you to something wholly unexpected.

Starting Point. I saw this news item about a new super-caffeinated beverage charmingly named "Cocaine":

Las Vegas-based drinks company Redux Beverages is producing the drink which contains 280 milligrams of caffeine. According to the company's website, the only way to get more caffeine per ounce is with an espresso.... Dr Charles O'Brien, a professor and vice chairman of psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania, said: "It's just a bad idea and has all the same downsides of too much caffeine plus a very bad name."

Next Step. This led me to think about those bizarre candy cigarettes many of us used to enjoy as children. Remember how some of them added a layer of powdered sugar to the outside of the candy stick so that you could blow on them and produce "smoke"? So I found this entertaining website by a collector of candy cigarettes (which are, amazingly, still in production):

For some reason, a lot of people believe candy cigarettes were "totally outlawed" in the United States sometime in the past, when in actuality, the major players have remained one step ahead of governmental regulation via sluggish self-policing and a strong commitment to what ESPN would call "Extreme Hiding." The links below will take you on a magical tour through the world of the only candy product that sells so much more than itself.

Ending Place. And this site led me to The Beatles Yeah Yeah Candy, probably the world's only known source for a plastic "Ringo hand puppet":

Ain't it fun?

One angry, angry constituent

2006-09-20T09:37:00.000-04:00

Via the New York Times, here's a photo of California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signing into law a raise to the state's minimum wage.

Check out the woman to the right of Schwarzenegger.

Man, is she not happy with the guv:

Whew. Daggers!

More blog crossover

2006-09-20T09:32:00.000-04:00

This post is like when Mrs. Garrett brought The Facts of Life gang to the big city to visit the Diff'rent Strokes family. You know, network sitcom crossover.

Over at my sporadic mp3 blog, Musical Spelunking, I've got a new post up on the late Scott Goddard's "Cowpunk".

Now that's just silly

2006-09-20T09:27:00.000-04:00

X-rated font used on third-grade handout:

School officials apologized after an X-rated font was used on a third-grade spelling packet handed out to parents. The font showed male and female stick figures in provocative poses to form the letters of the alphabet.

Titillating fonts? Who uses those? Mustachioed '70s swinging bachelors transplanted to the 21st century?

Peter Sellers

2006-09-17T22:59:00.000-04:00

By the way, the 81st anniversary of Peter Sellers' birth was just over a week ago (on September 8th). Here's some interesting tidbits:

"Peter's not a genius," said [Goon Show colleague Spike] Milligan, who knew him well and appraised him frankly. "He's something more. He's a freak." (link)

Sellers was the first man to appear on the cover of Playboy — he appeared on the April (1964) cover with Karen Lynn. (link)

Peter Sellers and Ringo Starr became close friends during the making of the film [The Magic Christian] and used to play practical jokes such as knotting together the belts of coats belonging to the film crew. When one of Ringo’s friends visited the set he couldn’t figure out why there were so many sniggers, until he discovered that a variety of objects, including match boxes and empty cigarettes packets, had been taped to his back. (link)

At Sellers' request, the song "In The Mood" was played at his funeral, a tune that he hated. According to biographer Roger Lewis, Sellers had told his son Michael that the song was "wonderfully inappropriate - hence, wonderfully appropriate - for solemn occasions." (link)

FYI. These are not this author:

2006-09-17T21:40:00.000-04:00

Hatin' on Bloggin'

2006-09-16T10:34:00.000-04:00

It's fashionable in some circles to dis blogging and bloggers (as in this humor piece, How to Dissuade Yourself from Becoming a Blogger).

Among the points made in the above-linked snark is (a) there are so many blogs that one blogwriter will never gain a significant audience, (b) that most blogs are of limited interest, and (c) most bloggers are written by poor or uninteresting writers.

However, these criticisms miss the point in one important area. It's the need to feed Google with data (really the entire internet, but since Google is the way most people access the internet's data let's just call it "feeding Google").

For example, I recently wrote about "Chatter By Charlie." There is no other current net source in Google's database even mentioning Chatter By Charlie. The same goes for a search of a former radio station and one of the DJs there at the same time I was.

You might say these searches are of extremely limited interest. Sure, no question. But please wait until the next time you search for some obscurata and come up empty in Google, and then argue against the usefulness of limited-appeal data on the web. It's only "useless information" when it's someone else's search, not yours.

And yes, traditional websites and wikis and all sorts of methods of internet publishing will do the same job as feeding Google as blogs. But, sorry--blogs are one of the frankly easiest ways to publish quickly and frequently on the net.

Poor writing about an otherwise unavailable subject (assuming it's not simply disinformation) is preferable to no information at all.

Pointless Nostalgia - Part V.A.01: What was being being played the week I started working full-time in radio.

2006-09-16T10:10:00.001-04:00

FM 106.3, WHTG
weekly chart for week of January 28, 1991

Program Director: Michael Butscher.
Music Director: Matt Pinfield.

POWER ROTATION
1. Jesus Jones, "Right Here, Right Now" (SBK)
2. Sting, "All This Time" (A&M)
3. Chris Isaak, "Wicked Game" (REPRISE)
4. Living Colour, "Love Rears Its Ugly Head" (EPIC)
5. Mission U.K., "Hands Across The Ocean" (MERCURY)

HEAVY ROTATION
1. Pop Will Eat Itself, "X, Y, Zee" (BMG)
2. Daniel Ash, "This Love" (BMG)
3. Prefab Sprout, "Machine Gun Ibiza" (EPIC)
4. Sisters Of Mercy, "Detonation Blvd/More" (ELEKTRA)
5. Red Kross, "1976" (ATLANTIC)
6. Happy Mondays, "Kinky Afro" (ELEKTRA)
7. INXS, "Bitter Tears" (ATLANTIC)
8. Charlatans U.K., "White Shirt" (BMG)
9. Replacements, "When It Began" (REPRISE)
10. Echo & The Bunnymen, "Gone, Gone, Gone" (WB/SIRE)
11. Lush, "Sweetness & Light" (REPRISE/4AD)
12. Jane's Addiction, "Classic Girl" (WB)
13. Connells, "Get A Gun" (TVT)
14. Butthole Surfers, "Hurdy Gurdy Man" (ROUGH TRADE)
15. Peter Gabriel, "Shaking The Tree" (GEFFEN)
16. The High, "Box Set Go/Up & Down" (POLYGRAM)
17. Ride, "Taste" (REPRISE/SIRE)
18. Parachute Men, "Every Other Thursday" (FIRE)
19. Drivin' And Cryin', "Fly Me Courageous" (ISLAND)
20. Darling Buds, "End Of The Beginning" (COLUMBIA)
21. An Emotional Fish, "Grey Matter" (ATLANTIC)
22. Trash Can Sinatras, "Obscurity Knocks" (POLYGRAM)
23. Cause And Effect, "You Think You Know Her" (EXILE)
24. Goo Goo Dolls, "Just The Way You Are" (METAL BLADE)

MEDIUM ROTATION
1. Inspiral Carpets, "This Is How It Feels" (ELEKTRA)
2. various artists, "Red, Hot & Blue" (CHRYSALIS)
3. Pet Shop Boys, "How Do You Expect To Be..." (EMI)
4. Primal Scream, "Come Together" (WB/SIRE)
5. Fishbone, "In The Name Of Swing" (COLUMBIA)
6. Soup Dragons, "Lovegod" (MERCURY)
7. Sonic Youth, "Dirty Boots" (DGC)
8. Nine Inch Nails, "Get Down, Make Love" (TVT)
9. Enigma, "Sadeness" (CHARISMA)
10. Hex, "Shelter" (RYKODISC)
11. Susanna Hoffs, "My Side Of The Bed" (COLUMBIA)
12. Chagall Guevara, "Violent Blue" (MCA)
13. King's X, "We Are Finding Who We Are" (MEGAFORCE)
14. The Box, "Temptation" (CAPITOL)
15. Blue Rodeo, "'Til I Am Myself Again" (EASTWEST)
16. Harbour Kings, "Tattoo" (FIRE)
17. Posies, "Suddenly Mary" (DGC)
18. Soho, "Out Of My Mind" (ATCO)
19. Eno/Cale, "One Word" (WB/OPAL)
20. Rembrandts, "Burning Timber" (ATCO)
21. 29 Palms, "Fatal Joy" (IRS)
22. Todd Rundgren, "Public Servant" (WB)
23. Dream Academy, "12-8 Girl" (REPRISE)
24. Edie Brickell, "Black & Blue" (GEFFEN)

LIGHT ROTATION
1. Falling Joys, "You're In A Mess" (IRS)
2. Buffalo Tom, "Fortune Teller" (BMG)
3. Front 242, "Gripped By Fear" (EPIC)
4. Kitchens Of Distinction, "Drive That Fast" (A&M)
5. Hollow Men, "November Comes" (ARISTA)
6. Book Of Love, "Alice Everyday" (WB/SIRE)
7. Material Issue, "Valerrie Loves Me" (MERCURY)
8. Beautiful South, "My Book" (ELEKTRA)
9. The Children, "If I Gave U My Heart" (SKY)
10. Screaming Trees, "Bed Of Roses" (EPIC)
11. Exene, "Missing Nature" (RHINO)
12. Chickasaw Mud Puppies, "Do You Remember?" (MERCURY)
13. Havana 3 A.M., "Reach The Rock" (IRS)
14. Eleventh Dream Day, "Rose Of Jericho" (ATLANTIC)
15. Divinyls, "I Touch Myself" (VIRGIN)
16. Soul Asylum, "Something Out Of Nothing" (A&M)
17. Spooner, "Tomorrow Never Comes" (DALI)
18. Danielle Dax, "The Id Parade" (WB)
19. Bootsauce, "Let's Eat Out" (NEXT PLATEAU)
20. Cocteau Twins, "I Wear Your Ring" (CAPITOL)
21. Graham Parker, "Weeping Statues" (BMG)
22. Roger McGuinn, "You Bowed Down" (ARISTA)
23. Killing Joke, "Money Is Not Our God" (NOISE)
24. Stranglmartin, "Bury The Thunder" (DRAGON STREET)
25. Meat Beat Manifesto, "Psych Out" (ELEKTRA)
26. Nirvana, "Sliver" (SUB POP)
27. Alice In Chains, "Man In The Box" (COLUMBIA)
28. Paris, "The Devil Made Me Do It" (TOMMY BOY)
29. Brian Ritchie, "Religion Ruined My Life" (DALI)
30. A Tribe Called Quest, "Can I Kick It?" (JIVE/BMG)
31. Lonesome Rodeo, "Blind Streets" (CURB)
32. KMFDM, "Naive" (WAX TRAX)

Like the man said, "Scotty, bringin' the power! "

2006-09-15T22:02:00.000-04:00

Artwork...dope!

Plagarists, And the People Who Love Them

2006-09-15T08:34:00.000-04:00

College friend Affinity8 is now teaching and offers tales from the trenches:

Caught a second student plagiarizing in my college class. First she turned in her mid-term essay 4 days late, meaning the best she could get was a D. Then I googled part of it and found it had been lifted from Wikipedia. I referred her to the Dean and she brought her boyfriend to the meeting. He had written the paper for her. He argued that Wikipedia entries aren't copyrighted, so it wasn't plagiarism. The Dean asked him to leave and he refused, and the police were almost called. The boyfriend left, shouting that if a record of the incident is placed in the student's file (it was), the school will be hearing from his lawyer!!!! So there.

Charming.

New Feature

2006-09-15T08:24:00.000-04:00

I added something new to the bottom of this blog's right column (what some bloggers refer to as the "blogroll," although many links showcased therein are not to other blogs and very little linked there actually "rolls").

It's a set of links to find "Music From People I Know." These lead to websites or MySpace pages by individuals (or bands featuring individuals) who I either know in college or worked with.

The caveat "inclusion here is not necessarily an endorsement" is necessary, since some music linked to is quite praiseworthy and one or two is absolutely the opposite. Your mileage may vary, however, so I refrain from individual commentary.

Images in the News

2006-09-13T08:35:00.000-04:00

1. From the New York Times: "Pope Benedict distributing communion Tuesday to some of the 250,000 people who attended the Mass he celebrated in Regensburg, Germany."

2. From Ingmar Bergman's The Seventh Seal: Death leading a dance into the beyond.

This is the oddest news photo evocation I've seen since "the name of this summit is the talking heads."

Five Years

2006-09-11T08:46:00.000-04:00

"Pushing thru the market square
So many mothers sighing
News had just come over
We had five years left to cry in
News guy wept and told us
Earth was really dying
Cried so much his face was wet
Then I knew he was not lying..."

~~David Bowie, "Five Years"

"Pictures of the missing
Soon lined every New York block
Some turned up in hospitals
Most did not

People who would never
Have flown the flag before
Proudly hung the stars and stripes
Over their front door

People they lit candles
And said what can we do
They went and prayed in churches
And in the subway too

The President he seemed to grow up
Right before our eyes
Said we'd find out who did this
And they'd pay with their lives

Mayors, Governors, Senators
Foes the day before
All joined hands as comrades
As the country edged toward war

But what kind of war can this be
When the foe don't show his face
When his own life ain't worth nothing
And fear's his only ace

I can't say what will happen
How ends this deathly game
One thing I know for certain
We'll never be the same

We'll look over our shoulder
Pause when we hear a plane
We'll search the face of strangers
And wear the scars of pain

I pray we'll find who thought this up
No matter who or where
And that we'll string them up and
Leave 'em hanging in Times Square

I pray we'll try to understand
The anger behind the deed
I pray we'll know all people are
The same color when they bleed.

I pray we aren't so frightened
To let freedom find its end
The freedom that we desire
So much to defend ..."

~~Dan Bern, "New York 911"

O, the vitality!

2006-09-09T09:46:00.000-04:00

Baby-Faced Mayor Takes Over an Aging Pittsburgh:

At 26, many people haven’t even decided on a career. Luke Ravenstahl is already the mayor of Pittsburgh.

In the four short years since he left college, Mr. Ravenstahl has mastered the art of being at the right place at the right time, and last week he became the youngest mayor of any major city in the country, after the previous mayor, Bob O’Connor, died of a brain tumor.

The article also addresses a question I've been wondering about all week.

According to the United States Conference of Mayors, Tallahassee, Fla., is the only other city with a population over 100,000 that has had a mayor as young as Mr. Ravenstahl — Scott Maddox, who was 26 when he was elected in 1995. Detroit, Cleveland and Dearborn, Mich., have had mayors who were 31, the conference said.

But according to Arbitron's metro rankings, Tallahassee is ranked market #163 while Pittsburgh is #23. Ravenstahl, therefore, is clearly the first mayor in his 20s of a major U.S. city.

So, Pittsburgh: now featuring the youngest major U.S. mayor ever and the youngest Super Bowl winning QB.

Now let's hope that both perform well in the months ahead.

Headline-O-rama

2006-09-08T22:36:00.000-04:00

My favorite headline on the 28-17 Steelers victory over the Dolphins in the NFL season opener? It's from The Australian:

Steelers flatten fish in opener

Nice!

Steve Irwin, 1962–2006

2006-09-04T07:12:00.000-04:00

'Crocodile hunter' killed by stingray:

Steve Irwin, the passionate conservationist who shot to international fame as the Crocodile Hunter, was killed today in a freak accident while diving off the north Queensland coast.

In a bitter irony, the man who risked his life handling one of the world's most dangerous reptiles was mortally wounded by a stingray, a usually passive sea creature which attacks only if threatened. Irwin, 44, was stung in the chest by the stingray's barbed tail, which whips up in a reflex action. The accident happened while he was filming a TV documentary called Oceans' Deadliest at Batt Reef, near Port Douglas.

And, in what's becoming an increasingly common scenario, Irwin's Wikipedia page defaced:

Within minutes of the news of Irwin's death breaking this afternoon, someone had written: "Steve Irwin's dead! LOLOLOLOLOL!" on the biography of the Australian icon.

The entry was quickly spotted and removed from the page.

Here's the Wikipedia link.

Musical Spelunking

2006-09-03T22:41:00.000-04:00

As part of my ongoing yet extremely sporadic attempts to mp3 blog, here's The 25th of May, "What's Going On."

Enjoy. Or not. Whatever.

Marketing copy gone horribly awry

2006-09-03T22:40:00.000-04:00

Gack!

When twilight falls, prowl the night with the mysterious Nokia 7280 phone. Shrouded in the mystery is a passion that will only reveal itself as you slide it open. Its sublime form is exquisitely crafted, leaving you with a slim, sleek object of beauty, unmatched by any other. You and the Nokia 7280 phone, a combination that's as compelling as the night.

Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men?

Chatter By Charlie

2006-09-02T10:03:00.000-04:00

Years ago, I used to co-write a video review newspaper column (along with Steven Lance). It was mildly syndicated in under a dozen or so New Jersey weekly newspapers, including the Atlanticville based in Long Branch.

At the time, there was a weekly column called "Chatter By Charlie." I think that Charlie was the son of someone at the paper, and he wrote about whatever popped into his head. Often, it was merely recounting visiting a friend or his grandmother. That's it. And food--always a description of what he ate, wherever his travels took him. He sure liked to talk about his food.

I sure wish I knew what Charlie was doing right now. I miss "Chatter By Charlie."

I was still doing the morning show at WHTG at that time, and Chris Mailley was the overnight DJ. I used to bring in the paper when it came out each week, and we used to both devour the latest "Chatter By Charlie." We would discuss Charlie's chatter amongst ourselves.

Occasionally, we would talk about Charlie's column on the air, and I always thought about inviting Charlie to be my guest on the radio sometime. He could talk about who's house he visited the previous day and what food he ate.

I never did contact Charlie, though.

I sure wish I knew what Charlie was doing right now. I wish there was a web archive of "Chatter By Charlie" columns somewhere. There wasn't even a Google link anywhere to be found, so I had to quickly write this post and let the world know about "Chatter By Charlie."

Google doesn't know what it missed, never having the pleasure of indexing "Chatter By Charlie."

I miss "Chatter By Charlie."

Now that's faith!

2006-09-02T09:54:00.000-04:00

Evangelist drowns trying to walk on water:

An evangelist who tried replicating Jesus' miracle of walking on water has reportedly drowned off the western coast of Africa.

Pastor Franck Kabele, 35, told his congregation he could repeat the biblical miracle, and he attempted it from a beach in Gabon's capital of Libreville.

"He told churchgoers he'd had a revelation that if he had enough faith, he could walk on water like Jesus," an eyewitness told the Glasgow Daily Record.

"He took his congregation to the beach saying he would walk across the Komo estuary, which takes 20 minutes by boat. He walked into the water, which soon passed over his head and he never came back."

I'm sure he began to doubt his revelation when the water closed in over him, but he simply pushed that stinkin' thinkin' out of his mind and forged ahead.

Feel free to extract from this tale some sort of metaphor.

The return of the pocket watch...sort of.

2006-09-01T19:04:00.000-04:00

Cell phones taking over as timepieces:

The proliferation of cell phones, with their list of extra features, has had the knock-on effect of eliminating the need to wear a wristwatch unless it is to make a fashion statement.... U.S. watch sales, which have been on the decline since 2001, fell 4.9 percent in 2005, according to a new market research study.

How soon is it before Dick Tracy's "2-way wrist radio" becomes full-fledged reality?

Gimmees vs. Buccos

2006-08-26T09:41:00.000-04:00

So I went to see the Pirates vs. the Astros on Thursday night, and hooray! The Bucs won.

The sellout crowd wasn't actually there to see the 50-79 Pirates, though. It was all about "Skyblast," a massive fireworks display following the game synchronized (more or less) to music. The annual event is so popular that the team is up to three consecutive nights of Skyblast.

This year, the team decided to add a live band into the feast of sights and sounds that is Skyblast (and, to a lesser extent, smells). Not being very plugged in to the whole Skyblast thing before the game, I was startled to discover during a between inning promotional mention that the jokey cover band/punk supergroup Me First & The Gimme Gimmes was to be performing as part of the festivities.

For a few years after the release of their debut album in 1997, the Gimme Gimmes provided a steady source of annoyance to me. I enjoyed their punk renditions of songs like "Me and Julio Down By the Schoolyard," "Over the Rainbow," and "Don't Cry for Me Agentina," but I used to frequently get requests from the Gimme Gimmes rabid fans who wanted to hear these novelties over and over like kids on November 1st shoveling ever more fistfulls of Halloweeen candy down their sugar-encrusted gullet until they puke. 'People, people,' I used to silently rage. 'Gimme Gimme songs are like Weird Al's stuff: enjoy it once, maybe twice, then move on.'

But seeing the Gimme Gimmes live? At a MLB game, no less? 'This has got to be good,' I thought. I couldn't imagine either (a) the Pirates booking a punk cover band to perform on a stage set up at second base, or (b) the band agreeing to be house band for a big-league fireworks display sponsored by Alcoa. Surreal.

Immediately during and following the band's first song, a punked-up "Stairway to Heaven," things seemed to be going okay, but another round of fireworks started up immediately afterwards (the live music was only during pauses in the explosive activity above) leaving the crowd no time to react.

After their second song (REO Speedwagon's "Take It on the Run"), there seemed to be some scattered booing. I assumed I must have imagined the boos--the band hadn't, in my view, done anything meriting booing.

Following Me First & The Gimme Gimmes' third song (was it Gershwin's "Summertime"? or maybe "Sweet Caroline" or "Rocket Man"--I now forget the set order), the booing was obvious and unignorable--even in the right field upper deck, where I was. For some reason, people were having a vitriolic negative reaction to the group.

Check out the blog post-dissection:

The band tonight was about the most hideous thing the Pirate organization has put on the field. And considering Dave Littlebrain put Burnitz, Hernadez, Randa, and others on this team, that speaks volumes.... Honestly, it's so bad, then after the game tomorrow, I am running out of there before it starts. (link)
The show was suppose to be spectacular. Instead the 32,000+ fans which attended the game booed the band after they totally cut up some famous songs made famous by big time bands and singers. The band which calls its self a punk band sang a song and then a few minutes of fireworks were to be folowed [sic] by the orginal [sic] playing of the song, but that may of been a mistake as the orginal [sic] version of the song made the band look even worst as fans booed.... Overall the bad [sic] sucked and let;s [sic] just hope they don’t perform at Skyblast 2 and 3 which are tonight and Saturday. (link)
That band was so bad that my wife made me change the channel (yes I was actually going to watch the fireworks). (link)

The anger was distinctly felt by those onstage, as well. According to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette:

Gimmes singer Spike Slawson, who grew up in Shadyside, Oakland and Point Breeze before moving 20 years ago, said he knew something was wrong when they started into Led Zeppelin's "Stairway to Heaven."

"There's a fine line between irreverence and lampooning," said Mr. Slawson, "and [the Gimmes] kind of ride that line. It's not supposed to be a homage -- that's not what we do. 'Stairway to Heaven' is, like sacred, though, and everyone started booing. I felt it in the pit of my stomach. That's the most people that ever booed me in my life."

The Pirates organization appeared to not know what hit them. Vice President of Marketing Tim Schuldt said, "Me First and the Gimme Gimmes was hired by the Pirates to perform players' favorite songs during the postgame festivities, but their odd renditions of the tunes did not sit well with the sellout crowd and the result was noticeable booing.... Frankly, though, we missed the boat with the band." Director of Marketing Brian Chiera generouly offered, "Their interpretations of the songs were a little harder than we expected, but it was in keeping with their style of music."

I guess when the band was booked (for what singer Slawson says "was an obscene amount of money for the amount of work we did"), the Pirates staff had been unaware or ignored the title of their last album: Me First and the Gimme Gimmes Ruin Jonny's Bar Mitzvah

Thus...

The Pirates decided Friday to cut ties with the band "Me First and the Gimme Gimmes" after just one show, thus ending the SkyBlast live band experiment.

The band, which plays punk covers of hit songs, did not go over well with the family oriented SkyBlast crowd. They were booed loudly after their performance Thursday night, and the team received several complaints from fans after the band's performance.

"SkyBlast has been very successful for many years. We tried to enhance it and make it more entertaining -- that's why we added the live band," said Pirates vice president of communications Patty Paytas. "I think we just missed the mark with the type of band we picked. That's why we're not going to include them in the Friday and Saturday shows. They'll be more in the tradition of past SkyBlasts."

The Pirates' on-field entertainment staff will make up for the time the band would have been playing during the final two SkyBlast events by adding more scoreboard presentations of player interviews.

"We really do appreciate the feedback we get from the fans because it helps us decide what to do [in future events]," Paytas said.

All in all, I thoroughly enjoyed the experience.

And the fireworks--I mean, the version that is an aerial display via the combustion of explosive or flammable compositions--were pretty awesome, too. Amongst the best I've ever seen.

Playing with time near the lumber section...

2006-08-25T09:35:00.000-04:00

The group Improv Everywhere combines the concept opf the flash mob with Algonquin Roundtable-style "head scratcher" pranks in public spaces.

Their latest was "slowing down time" in a Home Depot:

After everyone had assembled I revealed the mission details. We would sychronize our watches and then walk over to Home Depot and shop. At exactly 4:15 we would all begin moving in slow motion. We'd do that for five minutes, and then shop normally for five minutes as if nothing had happened. At exactly 4:25 we would all freeze in place for five minutes. When that was over we would go back to normal and eventually leave the store.

Photos and video are included on their site.

Almost as much fun as when we set up similar co-ordinated group actions every 5 minutes on the last day of Mr. House's Earth Science class in 9th grade!

The Scientific Method

2006-08-23T08:45:00.000-04:00

The International Astronomical Union (IAU) has sought to resolve the heated debate about whether Pluto is a planet or not by punting it into a new category called "Plutons." I first heard about this via a link from Washinton Monthly's Political Animal, a political blog, that derisively referenced the old Saturday Night Live "Shimmer" floor wax sketch:

It's a floor wax and a dessert topping!

Now geologists are ticked off about the designation, since they already have a term "pluton."

And, according to Nature.com, here's how the IAU checked whether it would be cool to adopt the word themselves:

Owen Gingerich, an astronomer at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and chair of the IAU committee that created the definition, says that they were aware of its usage amongst geologists, but unaware of its importance to the field. "Since the term is not in the MS Word or the WordPerfect spell checkers, we thought it was not that common," Gingerich wrote in an e-mail to news@nature.com.

Spell check? And do we trust the IAU to be looking at the correct Pluto through its telescopes?

Here's another great quote on the controversy, via the New York Times:

“I think that today can go down as the ‘day we lost Pluto,’ ” said Jay Pasachoff of Williams College in Williamstown, Mass., in an e-mail message from Prague.

Weep for Pluto, friends.

In memoriam, Joe Rosenthal

2006-08-22T08:14:00.000-04:00

Joe Rosenthal, Photographer at Iwo Jima, Dies:

Joe Rosenthal, the Associated Press photographer who captured the enduring image of the American fighting man in World War II with his depiction of five Marines and a Navy corpsman raising a huge American flag over the Japanese island of Iwo Jima, died Sunday in Novato, Calif. He was 94....

His photograph of the flag-raising atop Mount Suribachi on Feb. 23, 1945, may be the most widely reproduced photo in American history. It was re-created on at least 3.5 million Treasury Department posters publicizing a massive war-bond campaign. It was engraved on three-cent Marine Corps commemorative stamps that broke Post Office records for first-day cancellations in 1945. It was reproduced as a 100-ton Marine Corps War Memorial bronze sculpture near Arlington National Cemetery. And it brought Mr. Rosenthal a Pulitzer Prize.

The true test of how iconic this photo is: mention Iwo Jima to almost anyone today, and they'll assume you're speaking of the image, not the place.

Perhaps too iconic:

Almost from the day the photograph was emblazoned on the front pages of Sunday newspapers as a symbol of embattled patriotism, Mr. Rosenthal faced suspicions that he staged the shot, posing the Marines. He always insisted that he recorded a genuine event, and others on the scene corroborated his account.

“The picture was not posed,” Louis Burmeister, a former Marine combat photographer who was among four military photographers alongside Mr. Rosenthal as the flag went up, said in a 1993 interview for “Shadow of Suribachi,” by Parker Bishop Albee Jr. and Keller Cushing Freeman.

Rebel Who, Rebel What?

2006-08-22T07:22:00.000-04:00

While visiting Gettysburg over the weekend (and not for the omnipresent "outlet" malls), I saw a teenager wearing a Confederate flag T-shirt. It bore the inscription, "If this shirt offends you, you need a history lesson."

It seemed a little silly and perplexing, especially in an overstuffed Perkins Restaurant entryway, so I later tried to search online for some helpful T-shirt slogan explanation website somewhere. After all, the shirt all but invited me to discover more about itself. I couldn't, however, find any such site.

I did find this, though:

Wildwood, like many costal resort towns in South Jersey, is home to a tourist-bating boardwalk. But Wildwood's boardwalk is unlike many of its neighboring counterparts. It's a massive, 38-block stretch that sports no fewer than five amusement parks and hundreds of crooked, carnival-type games.... Perhaps the only source of commerce that's more present [than food vendors] is that of the junky, "sundry"-cum-T-shirt shop. As a rough estimate, we'll say that there are an average of three of such places per block. If there are around 100 places to buy T-shirts (or 75, or 50 or whatever), I'd say that at least half of them have prominent displays like this:

[photo of Confederate flag T-shirts]

We'll get to the actual content of the shirts in a bit (but really, "You wear your X...?" How fucking 15 years ago!). The point here is that this shit is everywhere.

Aggressively everywhere.

Incredibly, though I've visited Wildwood many times throughout my life, I'd never really noticed it before.

The blog entry also featured a photo of the same "history lesson" T-shirt. As a former resident of the Jersey shore, I rarely remember seeing such items and am at a loss as to explain much of it. At least Gettysburg is close to the Mason-Dixon line, so its presence there is not quite as much of a head-scratcher.

But I still couldn't find any shirt-induced history lesson online. I did find a website that was also selling the shirt in question, but it included no explanations with its wares.

Oh well. I guess it's a Rebel variation of the old "if you have to ask, you can't afford it" saw.

So what's wrong with the music industry?

2006-08-15T08:53:00.000-04:00

This:

"There's so much competition for people's consciousness now that a band has to grab anything that gives them exposure," [new Geffen Records chairman Ron] Fair said. "There's no such thing as selling out, now. There's just getting heard."

Bullshit.

That may be the mantra of the money people in the business, but it doesn't make it so. It's just a way to grab short-term visibility over long-term viability.

There's always a catch...

2006-08-07T19:32:00.000-04:00

What a treat for Iowans! Kevin Costner to visit Field of Dreams during movie screening:

On Friday, Iowans will get the chance to relive their state's glory days when the movie is shown on a 30-foot screen at Left & Center Field of Dreams in Dyersville. The screening is part of the 2006 Netflix Rolling Roadshow, which is traveling across the country to show modern-day classics at the locations where the movies were filmed.

Wow--supercool! But that's not all!

As an added bonus for "Field of Dreams" fans, Kevin Costner, who starred in the film as farmer and baseball field builder Ray Kinsella, will make an appearance.

Unbelievable! Excellent!

Hey, wait a minute! Is this too good to be true? Ooop. Yep, there's always a catch.

His unnamed band will play a concert prior to the screening --- the group's first public appearance.

Ugh. Never mind. Cancel my plane ticket to Dyersville International.

We've suffered through the Bacon Brothers. We gritted our teeth to make it through the Dogstar scare. And I don't even know how we pushed through the wall to survive 30 Odd Foot of Grunts.

Haven't we suffered enough?

ur grammar will brb

2006-08-01T08:49:00.000-04:00

Instant msg-ing messes with grammar? As if! lol!

With 80% of Canadian teenagers using instant messaging and adopting its unique linguistic shorthand, many teachers and parents are concerned about the medium’s potential to corrupt kids’ grammar. But instant messaging doesn’t deserve its bad reputation as a spoiler of syntax, suggests a new study from the University of Toronto.

[...]

This research focuses not only on characteristic features of computer language, such as, acronyms like lol, but goes deeper by looking at four features of grammar; intensifiers, as in that's so cool; the future system as in, the show tonight is going to be fun; quotatives, as in "he was like oh hi"; and deontic modality, as in "I have to go to work.

[...]

"Everybody thinks kids are ruining their language by using instant messaging, but these teens’ messaging shows them expressing themselves flexibly through all registers," says Tagliamonte. "They actually show an extremely lucid command of the language. We shouldn’t worry."

Of course not. Everyone knows that it's SMS that will destroy all language as we know it, not IM. As if! Lol!

Sap...

2006-07-27T18:39:00.000-04:00

Man gets 5-10 years for stealing syrup:

A man convicted of stealing maple syrup has been sentenced to between five and 10 years in prison.

Stephen R. Bain, 53, was formally accused of possessing stolen syrup and possession of marijuana.

What the hell kind of concoction is this fellow brewing? Some sort of new, gooey street drug, or simply preparing for the inevitable munchie/craving for flapjacks?

Oh, wait. This was no petty larceny...

Bain was charged with taking syrup from Dwight Miller's store in Dummerston after police learned that 900 pounds, or 75 gallons, of syrup had been sold by Bain to a farm in New Hampshire for $1,300.

900 lbs. of maple syrup?? I can only imagine those frantic phone calls to find a fence for these stolen goods!

A Vision of the Web, Had It Stayed Within "Walled Gardens"

2006-07-25T07:47:00.000-04:00

So Wal-Mart started their own social-networking website for kids:

Desperate to appeal to teens with something other than pencils and backpacks during the crucial back-to-school season, Wal-Mart is launching a highly sanitized, controlled and rather unhip site at walmart.com/schoolyourway. Teens are invited to create their own page, "show it to the world and win some fab prizes," including a chance to have their videos appear in a Wal-Mart TV commercial.

[...]

The site is an attempt at closing the trend gap Wal-Mart now faces as Target wins more teen-apparel dollars. But if Wal-Mart thought it could win over Amy Kandel, 14, of Columbus, Ohio, it was wrong. "Some of the kids looked like they were trying to be supercool, but they weren't at all, and they were just being kind of weird," she said. "Are these real kids?"

Nor did it impress Pete Hughes, 18. "It just seemed kind of corny to me," he said.

Wal-Mart declined to comment.

This site is one of the most bizarre, ham-handed attempts at appealing to the youth market I think I've ever seen (outside of the '60s, anyway).

One of the front page's "hot pages" is ostensibly by an ordinary tween girl, but has a video of herself which is clearly professionally made and offers the following personal description, a nightmarish mashup of teenspeak and ad-agencyese:

Shopping will be my number ONE hobby this fall. I am going to be the most fashionable teen at school! I'll be on the lookout for the latest fashions. From leggings to layers, to boots and flats, big belts, and headbands! I'll be looking for it all! Layering is SO IN right now. Hobo bags are also in style. OH! And big sunglasses! WHOO!! I don't know where to stop! With all of the new clothes I'll be getting, the kids at school will be begging me for fashion tips!

Or here's another "user," supposedly a kid named Tyler:

Although summer is fun for relaxing, sun, swimming and travel, I always look forward to heading back to school in the fall. Back to school is always a time where I get excited to see my friends and shop for new clothes. My friends and I like to shop for back to school clothes together, and check out the new fall fashions. School My Way is trying not to be a follower. Mixing student council with academics. Cheerleading with drama. Finding the blend between what I want to do and who I am. Finding my stride.

Yes! Life should really be all about finding one's "inner copywriter" and dreaming of growing up and winning a Clio.

Hmmm, but I know what you're asking at this stage. Do they have TOTALLY AMAZING prizes for users? Well, let's check their FAQ page...

SO, WHAT CAN I DO HERE?
There’s tons of fun stuff to keep you entertained! Check out the latest fashion trends and make your own personalized page for a chance to win amazing prizes from Sony®!

[...]

WHAT KIND OF PRIZES ARE WE TALKING ABOUT?
We’re talking awesome Sony® stuff from laptops to High Def Camcorders and all the gear that comes with them! We’ve also got another prize package that will really give you the celeb treatment: A trip for 2 to LA that includes spending money and a chance to meet some pretty impressive people in the industry of your choice!

Oooh, I've been DYING to meet someone "impressive" in the Import/Export industry!! OMG!!

Their FAQ also includes this exchange:

WHO’S BEHIND THIS GENIUS WEB DESTINATION?
The guys from Wal-Mart and Sony® teamed up to bring you all the sweet stuff you’ll find on the HUB!

Damn, how do their skulls even hold in all that sweet, sweet geniusness! I'd assume their heads would just explode, if they weren't all wearing tightly-fitted men's Dale Earnhardt, Jr. comfortable, yet durable, cotton cap, only $7 now on clearance, with bold colors and contrast piping.

The Quibblers

2006-07-25T07:45:00.000-04:00

According to Nya Uh: An Excruciatingly Detailed History of The Quibbler's Society by Wilton D. Hagenberger, Quibbler's Knob is the historic location where the Quibblers Society meets each third month for their monthly meetings.

Stephen Austrich, one of the earliest and most famous of the Quibblers, used to loudly question why "monthly meetings" where being held quarterly. The other Quibblers would shout him down, calling Austrich a "mere nitpicker"--a strong rebuke within Quibbler circles, as the Nitpickers were crosstown rivals to the Quibblers with similar Bylaws but greatly inferior hats.

Each July, the Quibblers would hold their Initiation Rites at Quibbler's Knob. To keep away curiosity-seekers, newspapermen, and novelty vendors, the exact date of the Rites was a closely held secret, although a casual query of any local townsperson would find the appointed time readily available.

Despite the penalty of "toe removal" mandated in the Bylaws for all serious transgressions, most Quibblers were known to noisily clear their throats and declare without preamble things like "Sorry, my lad, I'd like to go fishing with you next Thursday but I've got these damned Quibblers Rites to attend." Some Quibblers would, in a bid to impress neighbors, mail out cards inscribed with "Please do not call
on me Thursday, July 11th, at 7PM. I will be attending Secret Initiation Rites and will be unavailable."

When confronted about these gross violations of the secrecy mandate by an exasperated Quibbler Sergeant-at-Arms, charged with upholding the Bylaws and meting out Justice as prescribed therein, the other Quibblers would simply remind him of his mortal fear of toes due to a horrible childhood sandal accident and he would flee to the nearest
water closet to make sure his specially-knitted individual toe-covers had not slipped off and exposed what he tremblingly referred to as the "shame digits" to each other.

Gathered together for the Initiation Rites at Quibbler's Knob, the assembled Quibblers would begin their ceremony just before dusk. A hush would fall over the group, resplendent in their multi-hued robes reflecting the fading glory of the brilliant evening sun, and, at the appointed time, would argue vehemently over who got to speak first during the ceremony.

That point settled, and after the return of the Sergeant-at-Arms from a quick check of his shame digits, the Rites would begin, much to the delight of the nearby curiosity-seekers and newspapermen who had been haggling over novelties from vendors during the preceeding argument.

The Rites would begin with the Lighting of Candles, followed by the Naming of Names, and then continue with what the Quibblers called "General Bitching."

It is at this point that the ceremony was nearly always interrupted by rock-throwing from a contigent of Nitpickers who had heard about the ceremony from a littered "Please Do Not Call on Me" card and had spruced up their inferior hatwear with fierce plumes to crash Quibbler's Knob while chanting "Rumble! Rumble!" in low voices.

Following the Rumble, and after any wounds were attended to, the new Quibblers were considered duly inducted into the group, were taught the Secret Handshake and the Even More Secret Hacking Cough, and a round of novelties was purchased from the nearby vendors for the fresh Quibblers by their beaming elders.

Wha?

2006-07-25T07:43:00.000-04:00

Sheesh, you just get a little bit busy, and next thing you know you haven't blogged in a month.

What's up with that?

Administrative note

2006-06-13T07:53:00.000-04:00

The Sideblog service seems to be down right now, so the Music Minutiae will be on hiatus until and if it comes back online.

Sure, why not?

2006-06-09T09:05:00.000-04:00

'Caped Crusader' foils Uptown robbery:

"If you're in Uptown, and you're gonna commit a crime, watch out for galactic superheroes," Evans said.

The Moo-gitive

2006-06-04T17:47:00.000-04:00

Japanese cow leads police on wild chase:

A cow being delivered to a Japanese slaughterhouse tried to bolt to freedom Sunday, leading nearly two dozen police on a 3.7-mile car chase through town and sending one man to the hospital unconscious.

Security camera footage of the wild escape, aired by public broadcaster NHK, showed the frenzied 1,606-pound animal zigzagging across a parking lot and then darting down a street, hotly pursued by a stream of patrol cars.

"The cow was being delivered to the slaughterhouse, and it was startled by a loud sound and just ran off," said Masashi Kitabayashi, a police official in the central town of Yakkaichi, where the incident took place.

The 3-year-old cow eventually crashed headfirst into a metal fence, fell down and died, but not before attacking a rendering plant worker who was trying to recapture the animal, Kitabayashi said.

Meat eaters, take note. After the cow died after bashing into a fence and, apparently, a struggle to the death with a rending plant worker, the body was reclaimed by the plant:

Slaughterhouse workers took the cow's body away.

"I don't know whether it will be processed into meat or not," Kitabayashi said.

Probably.

Intuition vs. Facts

2006-06-03T09:36:00.000-04:00

I was flipping through the latest issue of Newsweek, and I ran across this remarkable pair of sentences:

Statistically, people who marry at much higher-than-average ages don't have lower odds for divorce. But intuitively, some experts are starting to think that later-in-life marriages may have better chances of survival.

Wow. So the facts point one way but intuition points in another direction. And then the magazine goes on to quote an "expert" expounding on the anecdotal approach--which, um, only happens to be contradicted by those annoying statistics.

I can't help but find this example emblematic of much of today's journalmalism.

My annual Memorial Day post

2006-05-29T20:13:00.000-04:00

I went on a trip to France and England in May of 2002, and one of the places I visited was Normandy, the site of the D-Day invasion during World War II. Upon my return, I put my photos online.

Feel free to click on the links below to see and read a little bit about some of these locations.

If you ever get an opportunity to visit Normandy, I highly recommend it. Very well worth it, even if you only have two days there (as I did).

And, by the way, my photo site is hosted on free server space, so I apologize in advance for popups.

Attention

2006-05-25T22:28:00.000-04:00

group 415 group 415
01305 60510 17079 04606 50100
93000 08203 90130 94069 01207
81080 17028 07906 90220 73038
01401 70150 15073 00402 00680
12013 12510 00540 04091 01401
30150 86022 09608 10660 02082
05507 00020 00000 02208 30290
08022 01200 40710 13065 02709
40190 29014 02200 80020 11083
07300 30260 19000 00700 00000
86 86

That is all.

Technology Changing Us

2006-05-25T20:58:00.000-04:00

I had read a while ago that the thumb has become or is becoming the most used digit among young people, over the index finger, largely due to mobile phone usage. We shape the technology, then the technology shapes us.

Well, as Leonard Nimoy said on The Simpsons, "The cosmic ballet... goes on":

Soldiers bond with battlefield robots:

U.S. soldiers in Iraq are giving nicknames and forming emotional bonds with bomb-defusing robots they have come to regard as teammates, according to the founder of the company that invented the machines.

IRobot Chief Executive Colin Angle said one group of soldiers even named its robot "Scooby Doo" and grieved when it was blown up after completing 35 successful missions defusing improvised explosive devices.

"Please fix Scooby Doo because he saved my life," a soldier told repair technicians, according to Angle's account at last week’s Future in Review technology conference.

Doctor, did you warm up with 'Grand Theft Auto'?

Surgeons who warmed up by playing video games like "Super Monkey Ball" for 20 minutes immediately prior to performing surgical drills were faster and made fewer errors than those who did not, said Dr. James "Butch" Rosser, lead investigator on the study, slated for release Wednesday.

The research involved 303 surgeons participating in a medical training course that included video games and was focused on laparoscopic surgical procedures--which use a tiny video camera and long, slender instruments inserted through small incisions. The study was conducted by Beth Israel Medical Center in New York in conjunction with the National Institute on Media and the Family....

The results supported findings from a small study conducted by Rosser in 2003, which showed that doctors who grew up playing video games tended to be more efficient and less error-prone in laparoscopic-training drills. That earlier study suggested that playing video games sharpened eye-hand coordination, reaction time and visual skills.

Just wake me when we're 20% android, okay?

"Crib Potatoes"

2006-05-25T03:14:00.000-04:00

Babies and TVs Making More Sense to Parents:

A new study released today by the Kaiser Family Foundation...found that despite increasing debate over the potentially harmful effects of television on young children, many parents believe that the benefits of a little tube time — whether for their children's development or their own sanity — outweigh the risk of raising a generation of crib potatoes.

According to the study, one-third of children under 6 have a TV in their bedroom. Jeepers.

Dinner Table Talk Fodder

2006-05-24T13:40:00.000-04:00

Quote spotted in passing on a random blog's comments:

The phrase "jumped the shark" has jumped the shark.

Discuss.

Weightlessness

2006-05-24T13:20:00.000-04:00

Dan Povenmire, a director for Family Guy, writes on the official show blog about riding a private-sector version of the Vomit Comet:

My group was very eclectic, there was a 70 year old woman, a blind violin player, a hotel manager, a performance artist, a race car driver, and an attorney most of you would recognize from the O.J. Simpson trial....

"OK, we’re going into our first parabola!" the coaches informed us, "You’re gonna feel heavy now." Sure enough, it became really difficult to raise my arm. They had given some of us Nerf balls to toss around. When I dropped it from my heavy hand, it landed with a thud on the mat next to me as if I had dropped a sack of sand. After about 20 seconds of this, someone said, "Here we go!" and suddenlythat extra weight was gone and we lifted off the floor. It was not that sickening feeling centered in the pit of your stomach that you get from a rollercoaster drop, it was just this pleasant lightness that you could give yourself over to, which is exactly what I did.

The strange and wonderful thing about weightlessness is that it somehow manages to be both completely unexpected and exactly what you had imagined. It is a feeling of incredible freedom that is just ripe with the possibilities of play. No matter how adult you feel, it is virtually impossible not to push off a wall and go flying through the air like Superman. Soon the cargo hold of the 727 resembled a 3 dimensional slow-motion mosh pit with bodies flying around every which way like cotton candy in a cotton candy machine.

The experience cost four grand, but it sounds worth every penny.

Illicit Stairs

2006-05-14T14:26:00.000-04:00

So Betsy had a suggestion: let's climb some illicit stairs.

Near the supermarket, there's the bottom entrance to one of Pittsburgh's many public stairs. These outdoor staircases were built back when steel workers needed an efficient way to get down to the riverside mills from the steep slopes where their small saltbox homes were perched. These steps are often daunting memorials to the hardiness of millworkers--even a leisurely stroll up some of these monster walkways can knock the wind out of billygoats.

Many of these stairs are legal streets, with mailboxes for adjoining homes and official status on street maps (reportedly to the chagrin of the occasional motorist, intending to use one of these map lines as a vehicle shortcut only to be confronted with narrow concrete steps).

San Francisco has public steps of renown, with some 350 staircases in that city. Cincinnati has a reported 400. Pittsburgh, meanwhile, has 712.

According to the book The Steps of Pittsburgh: Portrait of a City, one Pittsburgh neighborhood alone (South Side Slopes) has a total step count of 5,447. Compare that to the Empire State Building's 1,575 steps from the lobby to the 86th floor observation deck.

These particular stairs Betsy suggested we traverse were blocked off at the bottom, likely indicating that they were no longer in practical service. There was no sign saying "Do Not Enter" or other warning, but we knew any trip up the steps would be an illicit one.

Getting past the metal pipe barrier at the bottom of the staircase was easy, and the walk up the lower portion of the steps was relatively uneventful (although it was obvious that people used the blocked-off stairs as a "secret" drinking location from the amount of empty bottles in the foliage beneath and beside the concrete steps).

Halfway up, one of the metal railings was twisted off its post and bent completely across the stairway. Whether this was vandalism or secondary warning was not clear.

It's possible that it was an intentional blockage, however, as the walk became much more precarious afterwards. A couple whole sections of stair or landing was missing entirely, and we had to shimmy along the gap on the uncertain remaining concrete structure. The ground was only mere feet away, but one wouldn't want to take a tumble of any distance mixed up with crumbling concrete and metal railing.

We needn't have worried, however, as we completed our ascencion unscathed. We quickly realized though that the quiet little neighborhood street at the top of the stairs wasn't actually the top; after respite of a short city block, the stairs continued up the hillside. That's when we realized that the days when steel workers traveled up and down these inclines were truly a Sisyphus-like nightmare. Today's automobile commutes home from work can be maddening, but try a little taste of mountain climbing after a 12-hour mill shift.

The next set of stairs were intact and fully functional, and these finally led us to the top (or at least as high up the slope as this set of stairs would take us). The neighborhood at the top of the stairs was interesting. The houses were small and some were in shabby repair, but the views of many were stunning: the late afternoon sun glinting off the Allegheny River. Beyond, the waterway coursed below its succession of bridges and the skyline of downtown loomed largely in front of Mount Washington.

The next time we climb some illicit stairs, I have to remember to bring a camera.

A Night No Longer Remembered...

2006-05-09T08:46:00.000-04:00

...at least no longer by direct participants.

Last U.S. Titanic survivor dies:

Lillian Gertrud Asplund, the last American survivor of the sinking of the Titanic in 1912, has died, a funeral home said Sunday. She was 99.

Asplund, who was just 5 years old, lost her father and three brothers -- including a fraternal twin -- when the "practically unsinkable" ship went down in the North Atlantic after hitting an iceberg.

[...]

Asplund was the last Titanic survivor with actual memories of the sinking, but she shunned publicity and rarely spoke about the events.

At least two other survivors are living, but they were too young to have memories of the disaster. Barbara Joyce West Dainton of Truro, England, was 10 months old and Elizabeth Gladys "Millvina" Dean of Southampton, England, was 2 months old.

Mona Lisa x 2

2006-05-04T08:38:00.000-04:00

From the Mona Lisa In the News Desk (a generally underutilized desk, to be sure)...

Famous Smile Gets A Voice:

She is probably the most famous woman in the world...who came to fame in 1506. That's when Mona Lisa was painted. Yes...the voice, say Japanese experts, is what Mona Lisa would sound like....

Scientists at the Japan Acoustic Laboratory in Tokyo made Mona Lisa talk.

"Knowing her bone frame," says Dr. Matsumi Suzuki, "I can make her voice. What I believe to be very close to her real voice."

Measuring her fingers give them a guess at her height...about 5-feet-6 inches. Using the painting they determined the structure of the skull. Finally, they turned it all over to a computer with a data base of 150-thousand voices...and a special program by Microsoft...and out it came.

And how about this one....

This may look like a fake Mona Lisa. It isn't. It's a fake of a fake Mona Lisa:

Were he alive, Konrad Kujau, the man who forged the Hitler diaries and countless paintings, would no doubt feel a tingle of pride for his great-niece, Petra.

She is being prosecuted for forging his signature on hundreds of cheap, Asian-made copies of works such as the Mona Lisa and selling them at an inflated price as "original Kujau fakes".

Blogging on "Non-Ultra Joy"

2006-05-02T08:40:00.000-04:00

Jen Ahearn, 1/20/03:

so in the kitchen here at the office there are two bottles of dish soap for us to wash our grimy coffee mugs and scinece experiment containing tupperware with. one of them is Ultra Joy. The other one is Non-Ultra Joy. not just Joy, but expressly Non-Ultra. who would buy a product labelled as non-ultra? why would someone call their dish soap that? it seems that any potential "we're being totally up front with you here" brownie points, consumer-appreciation wise, would be totally obliterated by people's unwillingness to buy something that's labelled as inferior. are they trying to tap into people's pity or sympathy for an underdog detergent? "it may not be all 'ultra' but it gets my dishes clean and i love it." i just don't get this at all.

Meg's Food and Wine Page, 6/2/05:

I have to admit that when purchasing dishwashing liquid, I am drawn to one in particular: Non-Ultra Joy. Because, let's face it, there is just something charming about a product that comes right out and declares that it it NOT the tops! Not super-concentrated, not extra-strong, not to-the-max.

I'll admit that it isn't the best dishwashing liquid out there. You have to use a lot to get the job done. But, hey, it's darned cheap, and at least you know going in that it's non-ultra!

Carleen and Michael Huxley, 7/10/05:

So, I went to Albertson’s on Friday to get the weekly groceries. We’ve been running out of dishwashing liquid so I scanned the shelves for the Ajax but it looked as though they were out so I grabbed the next cheapest thing I could find, which was a bottle of Joy. When I got home Mike started to help me unload everything. When he pulled out the dishwashing liquid, he started to chuckle. “What?” I asked. Apparently, I hadn’t bought just any bottle of Joy. I had bought a bottle of Non-Ultra Joy, because really, who in all of worlds creation could possible want a bottle of Ultra Joy.

sweeper, 8/10/05:

OK, maybe it takes marketing genius to figure out this one. I'm no genius. Heck, I'm not even "your average consumer".

So I noticed on a bottle of dishwashing liquid the words in rather bold type "Non Ultra Joy".

WTF?!

I looked closer for the sub label "Because your dishes shouldn't be clean enough" or something like that. I guess I wouldn't have been miffed it if just said Joy or Joy Classic or even Moderately Elated. But there it was like it was something special "Non Ultra".

On the back there was buried in the directions (like you need directions to use dish soap) that "for greasy dishes, try Ultra Joy".

Because you have a product called Ultra Joy you have to name your other product Non Ultra Joy? Is this some kinda new law? Will I soon see "Non Peanut M&Ms"? Will second order siblings be named "Non Dave"?

kyneburh, 8/11/05:

Wow how random. I just got back from refilling my water glass in the small kitchenette here in the office. The dish soap now stocked in there is “Non-Ultra Joy”. Now I can understand the marketing of the “Ultra” version of a product, but what genius came up with Non-Ultra. Why not just call it old formula, unimproved? Or ½ strength from the other bottle you could be buying? This must be why I am in engineering not marketing.

Chris Marino, 12/23/05:

I just got back from Safeway where I had to buy some dishwashing liquid. I scanned the shelf and came across 'Non Ultra Joy', as in, not 'Ultra Joy'. I couldn't believe what I was seeing.

It Ain't Over Until the Fat Lady Is Clubbed on the Right Knee By a Man Wielding a Blunt Object Leading the Lady to Mournfully Wail "Why? Why? Why?"

2006-05-01T20:00:00.000-04:00

Tonya and Nancy Turned Into Sports Opera:

When Tufts music student Abigail Al-Doory sought inspiration for her opera, she looked not to Wagner's "Ring" cycle but to the Olympic rings, where themes like power, envy and greed are plentiful.

In "Tonya and Nancy: The Opera," Al-Doory provides 18 movements on the scandal that turned the once-dainty sport of figure skating into a soap opera of whacking, wailing and time spent in jail.

Scheduled for two Tuesday night performances, the production portrays the skaters not as rivals but as a pair, singing for the audience's sympathy as the tawdry affair unfolds.

BTW, Kerrigan's "Why? Why? Why?" quote is actually in the Columbia University Press' Columbia World of Quotations. Take that, Shakespeare!

Holy yikes

2006-04-30T18:24:00.000-04:00

Chimp attack kills cabbie and injures tourists:

Police are hunting 27 chimpanzees that escaped from a Sierra Leone preserve and attacked the occupants of a taxi, killing the driver.

Four other people among the group of local and American sightseers were mauled by the animals and needed hospital treatment, including a Sierra Leonean man whose hand was later amputated.

Killer chimp still at large:

The first chimpanzee to join Sierra Leone's reserve for the animals is believed to have turned killer and is still at large, rangers said on Tuesday.

The 20-year-old animal, named Bruno, has been linked to the death of Sierra Leonean driver Issa Kanu, said zoo officials....

According to zoo officials, citing survivors' accounts of the attack, Bruno smashed the windscreen of the car that took the men to Tacugama with his fist....

"Bruno grabbed the driver by the neck, slammed him on the ground and chopped off all his fingers and toes," said one official who asked not to be identified.

"He then ate up the entire face of Issa, leaving him dead."

"Purity Balls"

2006-04-20T08:08:00.000-04:00

Is it just me or does this seem a little creepy, like Bob Carlisle's '90s hit "Butterfly Kisses" (that painfully strained would-be counterpart to "Cats in the Cradle" that has become an embarrrasing part of wedding ritual)?

The Father Daughter Purity Ball

What could be positive and innocent seems here to be nudged over the line into a future CNN story backgrounder...

Shot Himself in the Foot

2006-04-19T08:24:00.000-04:00

Agent who shot himself during gun safety talk sues DEA over video:

When a Drug Enforcement Administration agent accidentally shot himself in the foot while demonstrating gun safety before school children, he hoped news of the embarrassing incident wouldn't get out.

But a videotape of Lee Paige's self-inflicted gunshot was somehow leaked and soon became popular on the Internet and even aired on CNN and late-night talk shows. So Paige sued the DEA for "improperly, illegally, willfully and/or intentionally" disseminating the video, according to the lawsuit.

Paige "is the target of jokes, derision, ridicule and disparaging comments...."

Well, duh. He embodied a cliche. That's rarely fun for the embodier (I guess it depends on the cliche).

Headline Body in Topless Algorithm!

2006-04-09T20:46:00.000-04:00

Interesting story about how Google News (and other automated news sites) are affecting newspaper structures and traditions...

This Boring Headline Is Written for Google:

Some news sites offer two headlines. One headline, often on the first Web page, is clever, meant to attract human readers. Then, one click to a second Web page, a more quotidian, factual headline appears with the article itself. The popular BBC News Web site does this routinely on longer articles.

Nic Newman, head of product development and technology at BBC News Interactive, pointed to a few examples from last Wednesday. The first headline a human reader sees: "Unsafe sex: Has Jacob Zuma's rape trial hit South Africa's war on AIDS?" One click down: "Zuma testimony sparks HIV fear." Another headline meant to lure the human reader: "Tulsa star: The life and career of much-loved 1960's singer." One click down: "Obituary: Gene Pitney."

"The search engine has to get a straightforward, factual headline, so it can understand it," Mr. Newman said. With a little programming sleight-of-hand, the search engine can be steered first to the straightforward, somewhat duller headline, according to some search optimizers.

On the Web, space limitations can coincide with search-engine preferences. In the print version of The New York Times, an article last Tuesday on Florida beating U.C.L.A. for the men's college basketball championship carried a longish headline, with allusions to sports history: "It's Chemistry Over Pedigree as Gators Roll to First Title." On the Times Web site, whose staff has undergone some search-engine optimization training, the headline of the article was, "Gators Cap Run With First Title."

If the clever headline goes the way of the evening edition, what will become of the fabled New York tabloid headline writers, famed for such delicious copy as "Headless Body in Topless Bar"? Or some of the other great headlines, like these among those dubbed "Greatest" by New York Magazine:

FORD TO CITY: DROP DEAD
(Daily News, 1975)

'I AM DEATH WISH VIGILANTE'
(Bernie Goetz turns himself in; Post, 1985)

KOTCHA!
(Koch re-elected; News, 1985)

MARLA: 'BEST SEX I EVER HAD'
(Post, 1990)

KISS YOUR ASTEROID GOODBYE!
(Meteor misses earth; Post, 1998)

CLOSE BUT NO CIGAR
(Senate fails to convict Clinton; News, 1999)

Bible Thumped!

2006-04-06T09:03:00.000-04:00

Or, The Scientists Strike Back!

Oh, the indignity! First, despite already shaky claims by creationism advocates that there's no evidence of transitional forms in the fossil record, here comes another one.

Fossil Called Missing Link From Sea to Land Animals:

In two reports today in the journal Nature, a team of scientists led by Neil H. Shubin of the University of Chicago say they have uncovered several well-preserved skeletons of the fossil fish in sediments of former streambeds in the Canadian Arctic, 600 miles from the North Pole.

The skeletons have the fins, scales and other attributes of a giant fish, four to nine feet long. But on closer examination, the scientists found telling anatomical traits of a transitional creature, a fish that is still a fish but has changes that anticipate the emergence of land animals — and is thus a predecessor of amphibians, reptiles and dinosaurs, mammals and eventually humans.

As if that's not enough, though, a wholly separate area takes a body blow. Jesus may not have actually walked on water after all:

Jesus may have appeared to be walking on water when he was actually floating on a thin layer of ice, formed by a rare combination of weather and water conditions on the Sea of Galilee, according to a team of US and Israeli scientists.

Their study, published by the Journal of Paleolimnology (the study of prehistoric lakes), argues that salty springs along the Galilee's western shore can stop surface water circulating at cold temperatures and there were unusually cold spells lasting up to 200 years in biblical times.

One thing that is also evident. The whole message of love by Jesus (up to and including turning the other cheek) seems to be blithely ignored by many of his perported followers:

Prof Nof said he had been receiving emails every two or three minutes. "Three out of four of them are negative and some of them are pretty nasty," he said.

Jesus wept.