June 2005 Archives

It's Time For The July Title Contest

For those of you who’ve been around for a while, the title of this post is self-explanatory. For those of you who haven’t, this should explain what’s going on.

I'll Take Cult TV Series for $2000, Alex

I’ve never seen a single episode of the cult TV series Fishing With John, where cult musician John Lurie goes fishing with a bunch of famous friends (i.e. Dennis Hopper, Tom Waits, etc.). However, I do own the soundtrack CD.

Here’s my All-Star Ballot:

AL:
1B: Mark Teixeira, Texas
2B: Brian Roberts, Baltimore
SS: Miguel Tejada, Baltimore
3B: Alex Rodriguez, New York
C: Jason Varitek, Boston
DH: David Ortiz, Boston
OF: Manny Ramirez, Boston
OF: Johnny Damon, Boston
OF: Vladimir Guerrero, Los Angeles of Anaheim

NL:
1B: Derrick Lee, Chicago
2B: Jeff Kent, Los Angeles
SS: Clint Barnes, Colorado
3B: Morgan Ensberg, Houston
C: Ramon Hernandez, San Diego
OF: Andruw Jones, Atlanta
OF: Cliff Floyd, New York
OF: Bobby Abreu, Philadelphia

… and can someone explain to me why Nomar is third in the NL voting for shortstop despite batting more than 50 points below the Mendoza line before his season-ending injury?

Ok, Someone's Not Being Honest Here....

| 1 Comment

The Daily News on President Bush’s speech yesterday:

…Bush gradually warmed to the task in front of 750 soldiers at North Carolina’s Fort Bragg. Their silence, except for one round of polite applause, added to the solemnity.

The Post on the same speech:

The White House asked the 750 pumped-up soldiers and airmen in the crowd to avoid clapping or cheering, but they couldn’t resist loud applause when Bush vowed to defeat terrorism in Iraq and around the world.

Of course, one wonders why Bush felt the need to use troops as background props.

Update: The applause was faked.

What's The Bark For Brains Again?

Alex at Brokentype warns us about ZOMBIE DOGS!!!

Woof. Your dog wants brains… brains… brains…

This is a Very Interesting Idea

I’m at this week’s Berkman Lunch Series. The speaker, Martin Zogran, just introduced us to the Yellow Arrow—a way to make pepole look differently at the environment they’re in by tying ito personal stories. Ties in nicely to how people are repurposing the city for their own uses (e.g. flash mobs & the improv everwhere guys).

In a Land Called Make-Believe

Ya know, someone needs to tell this guy that it was only a movie.

When Prog Rock Went Pop

| 1 Comment

For most of the 1970s, the rock band Yes was known for lengthy, self-indulgent prog-rock songs (the double-album Tales From Topographic Oceans featured four tracks, three over 20 minutes long and the fourth clocking in at a relatively compact 18 minutes). On 1983’s 90125, the band was reborn (after numerous lineup changes)as a tight, guitar-driven rock band with an uncanny aural resembalance to Rush.

90125 is an interesting album. There are some great songs on there (“Owner of a Lonely Heart”, “It Can Happen”, “Leave It”). However, the rest of the album is full of tracks that are almost great yet fall squarely into undiluted cheesiness. They’re guilty pleasures; songs you know are bad (I mean—is ‘mystification’ even a word?), but can’t quite resist anyway.

Words of Wisdom Found In Spam

From a spam I got this morning:

The privilege of a lifetime is being who you are. It is twice the pleasure to deceive the deceiver.
None are more taken in by flattery than the proud, who wish to be the first and are not. It is a miserable state of mind to have few things to desire and many things to fear.
I learned why they’re called wonder drugs — you wonder what they’ll do to you. At the entrance of a second person, hypocrisy begins; live out of your imagination, not your history.
Thanks to the Interstate Highway System, it is now possible to travel from coast to coast without seeing anything.

Half-expected to see “Learn Chinese” and “Your Lucky Numbers are…” at the bottom.

The Mr. and the Mrs.

Probably the single best part of Mr. & Mrs. Smith comes near the end, where Brad Pitt is interrogating someone wearing a Fight Club t-shirt.

Make of that what you will.

Tell Me Why

| 4 Comments

Why do you blog?

Why don’t you blog?

And speaking of blogging, two regular reads of mine have dropped their conventional domainname blogs and have started up again on either MySpace or Tribe.

Curious.

Three Blind Rodents

When many people think of Gustav Mahler, they have an image of the stern, humorless, gray, self-conciously profound composer (on the other hand, Tom Lerher fans may remember him mostly as the first husband of Alma Malher Gropius Kokoschka Werfel), who wrote such epic works as Symphony For 1,000 and Das Lied Von der Erde. However, Mahler was not entirely humorless; the main theme of the third movement of his first symphony is based on Three Blind Mice.

Play Mysty For Me

Robyn Miller has a blog. If the name sounds familiar, it’s because he was one half of Cyan, the company behind educational titles like The Manhole, Cosmic Osmo, and a little adventure game called Myst.

Perchance

Spankees

Teams the Yankees have a losing record against:

  • Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim (43-29) (why don’t they just go back to California Angels?)
  • Boston (43-30)
  • Baltimore (42-32)
  • Minnesota (39-32)
  • Texas (38-34)
  • Kansas City (25-47, worst team in the league)
  • Tampa Bay (26-49, tied with KC on a percentage basis as the worst team in the league)

They do have a gaudy 10-6 record in interleague play, but the AL has been beating the stuffing out of the NL in interleague play this year, so that’s not too surprising…

Top Ten Least Requested Songs At A Karaoke Bar

| 1 Comment

Peter Gabriel, “San Jacinto”
Neil Young, “Arc”
Yes, “Ancient Giants Under The Sun”
Emerson Lake & Palmer, “Hoedown”
Bruce Springsteen, “Atlantic City”
Peter Frampton, “Do You Feel Like We Do”
Enya, “Miss Clare Remembers”
Brian Eno, “Dunwich Beach, Autumn, 1960”
Dire Straits, “Private Investigations”
Divinyls, “I Touch Myself”

SCOTUS FEVER!

| 2 TrackBacks

Fallout from the recent SCOTUS decision: New York City Invokes Eminent Domain to Acquire New Jersey

Next Time...

| 2 Comments

Next time I’m backing everything up before I try to get a new module installed. ;-)

An Automotive Koan For The Weekend

| 1 Comment

If a car has 4-wheel independent suspension, how many axles does it have?

In an amusing flashback to the summer of 2003 it seems that the best place to get updates on what I’ve been doing is over at Whybark’s place.

The Boy is Back In Town

| 4 Comments

I’m going to be back in NYC this weekend, so I was kinda thinkin’ that we could all get together for a summer drinks thing on Saturday night. Howabout the Fat Black Pussycat (W. 3rd St., just off of 6th Ave), Saturday, 8 p.m.?

On The Paucity of Posting

| 2 Comments

To blog, or to blog, that is the question.
Whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to suffer
the slings and arrows of outragous fortune
or to sit around in my underwear writing about it.

In short—I’ve been busy.

Screw the Clone Wars, What About the Wikipedia Wars?

Wikipedia presents: The Lamest Edit Wars Ever

My favorite?

Gasoline or Petrol: Should this substance be called gasoline or petrol? Currently unresolved … see the talk page for … claims that UK-wikipedians are set to re-establish the British empire by moving pages to British spellings.

Coming Soon! In Glorious VistaVision!

Check out The Movie Trailer Generator.

My favorite so far?

“A film by Quentin Tarantino…

From the producers of ‘Rio Bravo’ and ‘8½…’

This Is Really Really Really Creepy

| 4 Comments

The Right Stuff

| 1 Comment

The single coolest thing about Boeing’s new 777-200LR Flight Test blog is not that there are test pilots blogging now; the single coolest thing about the blog is that it reveals that the lead test pilot for the 777-200LR is a woman.

How cool is that?

Leafy Cambridge

| 3 Comments

Anyone want a postcard from the scenic bay state?

Update—it would help if you included your address