Modern musicals

Do the singers in modern musicals really have to over-enunciate when they sing? I just heard a clip of a song in Hairspray and while the song was kinda catchy, the singer over-enunciated to the extent that I just didn't want to listen. That's sort of why I like Jersey Boys - they were pretty true to the original style of The Four Seasons' songs - they didn't "Broadway-ize" them. It was like I was at a Four Seasons show.

Enemy propoganda

I'm so sick of people who criticize anti-war speech because it fosters enemy propaganda. We're in a war - wouldn't the enemy produce propaganda anyway??? And who the hell cares if they do? It's propaganda ! The Republicans love to dismiss other, non-war related criticism of Republican plans or ideas by Democrats as mere propaganda ( http://www.politicalgateway.com/main/columns/read.html?col=74, http://politicalpartypoop.com/category/democrat-propaganda/), but when it comes to war, propaganda is dangerous. Fools.

Woman vs. wildlife

I'm working from home today and I set myself up in the dining room because it's right next to the bathroom and kitchen. Also, there's a nice sliding door that looks out onto the backyard with the roses and daisies.

Anyway, I was in the middle of updating a piece of online help when I hear this thud and scratching on the sliding door. I looked over and there's this groundhog peering into the house like a kid looking into a candy store. I hollered out in fright, thinking "rabies!" and waited for the thing to start foaming at the mouth.

He just stood on his haunches with his front paws on the glass - like he was shading his eyes from the light so he can see better into the house.

Then he went away and started eating one of the plants on the side of the patio.

I don't think I'm safe in my own backyard!

Welcome to the Summer of Paranoia '08

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070712/ap_on_re_us/flight_diverted

Where's the Lucky Charms: Jacques Derrida???

Imagine the possibilities! You could spend all day discussing the signifiers of each marshmallow sign!

http://www.salon.com/comics/boll/2007/07/12/boll/

Star Ledger series on the Newark riots: myth vs. fact

Part one ran today. It's fascinating - Newark was long in decline before the 1967 riots.

The push towards the suburbs was codified - the rules of the Federal Housing Authority actually specified that they wouldn't approve mortgages to "crowded neighborhoods" or to "inharmonious racial groups".

Also

By 1967, Newark believed its property tax rate, $7.75 per $100 of assessed value, was the highest in the nation. If taxed at that rate today, an average home in New Jersey - valued at $350,000 - would owe more than $27,000 a year in property taxes.

Even though Springfield and Bergen was largely populated by rental housing, soaring taxes had an impact. Landlords, fearful that making improvements would increase their tax bills, began neglecting their properties.

And

Even though one of every nine servicemen during World War II was black, only one in 670 mortgages insured by the GI Bill went to black veterans ...

And

Coming north for factory jobs didn't help. After World War II, the nation's economy began shifting from manufacturing toward service-based businesses. Between 1950 and 1967, Newark alone lost nearly 20,000 manufacturing jobs.

"These factory jobs had long been the first rung on the economic ladder that immigrant groups had grasped onto as they climbed upward," said Clement Price, a history professor at Rutgers-Newark. "Suddenly, that first rung was gone. And it dealt a serious blow to the ability of this group of African-Americans to replicate the success of other ethnic groups."

So blacks essentially were stuck in the decaying rentals. Those coming up from the South seeking their fortunes couldn't get a decent-paying jobs in the factories. They couldn't afford a regular mortgage and they weren't allowed to have a subsidized mortgage in either the suburbs or the city.

Update: Here's more at the New York Times.

Good one, Microsoft

It's Monk Time again

Years ago, Kent, Dieter, and I watched a WFMU chotchke video compilation that included an animated video of the extended version of Autobahn by Kraftwerk. But I think the one video that really stuck with us was the Monks' "Monk Chant".

Here's that video:




Autobahn was cool and all, but it's kind of hard to forget guys wearing fake monk wigs, playing large tambourines, and banging on kettle drums.

The Monks seemed to have stuck in a lot of people's minds because a new cover/homage album has been released. From the Village Voice:

Silver Monk Time: A Tribute to the Monks

In 1966, five American ex-GI bar band vets, re-christened the Monks, presented Germany with Black Monk Time. "Uberbeat," they dubbed it: drums directing bass volts, organ jolts, guitar feedback, electric banjo as percussion, echoing harmonies, and pre–Slim Shady chatter, jumping in and out of the mix, right on cue. "It's Monk Time, it's Hop Time," they called, before and after ragging on "Mad Vietcong," James Bond, and "What army? Any army."

Silver Monk Time compiles 29 covers and homages as follow-up to the 2006 documentary Monks—The Transatlantic Feedback. The Fall expertly probe the ripples of "Higgle-dy Piggle-dy," Jason Forrest folds Monks demo tapes into the birthday-suit salute of "Monk Hop," and the Raincoats simultaneously croon and hammer "Monk Chant" 'round the mountain. All this while the 5.6.7.8.'s "Cuckoo" spins right off its peak, brushed by the smoke-ring feathers of Nista Nije Nista's "Kuchhuche."

More at the Voice.

newspapers: Google News is your friend

Here's how newspapers can use Google News to their advantage.

 

Some newspapers were bellyaching about how Google News, which displays a story's headline and it's  lede, kinda steals content from them and, more importantly to the newspaper, gives readers enough information so that they don't click through to the newspaper's website and thus don't feed them ad revenue.

 

But Google News could be the newspaper's best friend. Readers who didn't know that a given newspaper ever existed can be exposed to it just by scanning Google News. The newspaper just has to reorganize the information in its stories. Online newspapers who want readers of Google News to click through to the their site should not put the most important information in the lede anymore. Just hint at it so readers have to click through to get the information they want.

 

Here's an example: The lede to a Houston Chronicle story about the hike in 30-year mortgage rates just said that there was a hike and that the hike was the sharpest its been in I can't remember how many years. But I wanted to know exactly how much the rate increased, so I had to click through to the Houston Chronicle's website. So they've made a few cents off of me when they wouldn't have before because I never think to read that paper.

 

Flowers we got with the house

Poppies will make them sleep...















Sleep...















One of our many roses.

So confined, yet so freeing

When the microwave broke at the office, someone wrote a haiku to it to sort of bring it back to life. Others soon added their haikus and eventually we were given a new microwave.

 

Now the toaster is broken and we're once again envoking the power of haiku to get a new one.

 

Here's my entry:

 

What should I do with

my raisin bread now that you

have foresaken me?

 

Area Man Somehow Roped Into Arguing Passionately For Green Day

Too clever by half... not really

On my way to work this morning I noticed a billboard on the Turnpike that just says, "The Algorithm Constantly Finds Jesus". At first I thought it was another evangelical message. Then I saw one near the Lincoln Tunnel that says "The Algorithm Killed Jeeves".

Ok, so I was intrigued and Googled it.

Turns out, it's a campaign from Ask.com whose mascot used to be Jeeves, that quintessential British butler. According to ValleyWag, Ask is touting that its algorithm is superior to Google's. Ask also staged "a guerrilla campaign against Google's 'information monopoly' in London".

Will it actually get me to use Ask.com? Remains to be seen.

If Ask were really smart, they would have bid on Google for a combination of the keywords "billboard", "algorithm", "Jesus", and "Jeeves" to make searches with those words return Ask.com first on Google's results.

Update: Ask.com doesn't even show up first in Ask.com's search results. :P

It may work for me, but...

Manny Ramirez Asks Red Sox If He Can Work From Home

Another reason to drink more beer

Beer maker, scientists to create energy

"[Prof. Jurg Keller, University of Queensland's wastewater expert] expected the brewery cell would produce 2 kilowatts of power — enough to power a household..."

Off the grid, but still drunk with power!

The War on Wars

White House seeks "czar" to oversee wars: report

So, this is like the drug czar, right? Like the guy who fights the War on Drugs only this would be America's War on Wars?

 

And ain't nobody wants to be the war czar, so maybe we'll escape this one.

 

The Washington Post quotes Retired Marine Gen. John "Jack" Sheehan, a former top NATO commander, and who is one of the men who rejected the job, "The very fundamental issue is, they don't know where the hell they're going."

 

Heh, yeah.

 

Walking in New York

Here's today's Garrison Keillor column in Salon. It pretty much echoes what I feel about walking around Manhattan though I try to avoid Times Square at all costs.

Restaurant mini-review

Viceroy

 

3 out of 5 Chiclets

 

On the southwest corner of 18th and 8th Ave.

 

French-American (pomme frites instead of french fries, but portabello burger) with European laid-backness (they don't rush you to order-eat-leave).

The harbinger

Ice cream man! One benefit of working in an office across the street from a school.

 

I think it's his first day out - I didn't hear him yesterday.

Hey Man, is that Freedom Rock?

Yeah, Man!

Well, turn it up!

What could they be doing?

On a couple of corners on Route 9, there are older men wearing orange crossing guard vests sitting in folding camp chairs on the corner taking notes. I don't think they're crossing guards because I've never seen them before.

Curious...

Cause of the pet poisonings

Is not a rat, is a hamster!

 

Sorry, I'm a pet lover, but I still had to say it.

Streaming WFMU

I'm currently listening to WFMU'S 20k Windows Media Player stream on my Treo as the bus crawls down the turnpike in the slush. Not bad. It cuts out when I browse to another web page, but I still think this is cool. Don't know how long my battery will last, though...

Guess I'd better give them some money as this is pledge week and all.

There goes the neighborhood

I'm one of those jerks with the Crackberries now. Except with a Treo.

So what nickname do the have for these? Special T? I can't think of anything good since I'm not part of the drug culture.

Bubba Ho-tep: review

(3 out of 4 chiclets)


Kent and I watched Bubba Ho-tep last night: it wasn't exactly what I thought it was but I still liked it a lot.

Bruce Campbell plays Elvis, who is alive because he switched places with an Elvis impersonator back in the 70s after he got tired of fame and his soul-sucking friends. The impersonator is the one who died from the drugs and so the king is rotting away forgotten in an East Texas rest home, which is cursed by an Egyptian soul-sucking mummy.

Together with a black man who believes he is JFK (Ossie Davis) with dyed skin and a bag of sand where the blown-out part of his brain used to be, Elvis sets out to kill the mummy before the mummy kills him and takes his soul, the one true thing of his he has left.

But fighting the mummy only takes up the last half hour of the movie. Before that, Elvis has to come to terms with how his life turned out. The main mummy of the movie is Elvis.

This isn't one of those New Age-y mid-80s body switching movies. Elvis switched places with the impersonator through a legal contract that was burned to ashes in a big barbeque catastrophe. If Elvis went public with the scheme to reclaim his throne, who would believe him? So after the impersonator died, Elvis was stuck with with his new identity forever. After breaking a hip impersonating himself on stage, Elvis spends the rest of his years in the rest home, all but locked away in a vault.

The inside of the rest home looks not so much like a vault, but more like what Hollywood portrays the inside of an Egyptian pyramid to be. It's very brown: the walls look like they're covered with mud, so much so that the dirt looks like it dripped down the hallway's wainscotting. Dim, torch-like wall sconces light the maze of corridors. And Elvis lies in his bed, almost in state, waiting for death or a reason to come alive again.

Campbell and Davis make a great team and create real characters, not just characatures. At first I wondered why Ossie Davis would want to be in this movie since I didn't think it fit the rest of the body of his work (turns out, Davis was in an episode of Night Gallery), but by the end I knew it was because it's much more than Elvis and JFK Battle the Mummy.

Another funny coincidence

Today I had another craving for ice cream and decided to pick up some Ben & Jerry's. They come out with crazy new flavors more often so today I picked up Neapolitan Dynamite (half Cherry Garcia and half Chocolate Fudge Brownie, which I guess technically isn't Neapolitan because it has cherries instead of strawberry, although Spumoni has cherries. which used to be sold as a form of Neapolitan ice cream) and Vermonty Python (coffee liquor ice cream mixed with chocolate cookie crumbs and fudge cows).

The Vermonty Python is excellent but since I just happened upon Napoleon Dynamite playing on Comedy Central, I'll have to say that the Neapolitan Dynamite is my favorite pick of the night, if only because of the coincidence. It's kind of like when Kent and I finally watched Eraserhead from our Netflix account after holding onto it for at least two months and it turned out that the night we watched it was David Lynch's 60th birthday.

Mike Schank guitar school

Someone in my office broke out his acoustic guitar and is playing a piece that Mike Schank plays in American Movie (though my co-worker is kinda rusty) and it brought a big smile to my face just like Mike brought a smile to Mark Borschardt's face on Thanksgiving. Unlike Mark, I haven't been feeling like there's nothing worth getting out of bed for but you don't have to be a struggling filmmaker for Mike to bring a smile to your face.

Use the blogs for good!

What can't bloggers do?

 

Now they're on the front lines of home security - they figured the Boston Mooninite  LEDs weren't bombs and had been talking about the guerrila marketing campaign for days.

 

"If Woody had gone straight to the police, none of this would have happened."

 

 

Cromulent

I don't know why, but the word cromulent just popped into my head. I looked it up in www.m-w.com but it wasn't there. Hmm.. Is it an archaic word? So I Googled it. Turns out, it was coined on the Simpsons and while it originally wasn't acceptable or authentic, I guess it is now.

I'm gonna hold my breath until you give me more money for the war!

From Google News ~3:10 p.m.:

It does matter!

A few years ago when I worked for a major software company, one of the system administrators named a cluster of servers after some Titans, specifically Cronus, Zeus, and Rhea. I sent out an office-wide email correcting him - Zeus wasn't a Titan!

 

But no one cared...

 

Where I work now, we're having an email argument about whether to name work teams after figures from the Trojan War. Some people think it's heroic, others think it's awful because most humans didn't survive and the ones that did survive suffered, eventually made it home, and then were killed by children or wives, etc.

 

Here, people care about Greek mythology. I love working here! :)

 

 

My days on the beach will never be the same

Archie comics is getting a facelift.

 

When I was a kid, I'd buy Archie comics all summer long. I'd read them while chewing Bazooka Joe bubble gum in between jumping waves and building sand castles on the Manasquan beach. The new look is stale and has no character.

 

Nothing but nog - Salon

I drank my first glass of spiked eggnog this Sunday. It never appealed to me before, but we had an unopened container left over from our party, so I thought I'd give it a try. I don't think I'd like it plain - the rum blended so nicely with the store-bought flavor.

 

Here's an article by Robert Sietsema discussing the origins of the tasty beverage - engineered and otherwise - in a warm, Christmassy tone.

Parent Mad 6-Year-Old Didn't Like Peanuts Special

Temptation

Someone in my office left a perfectly toasted bialy on top of the toaster oven. It's sitting there looking like it should be in a food magazine photo spread. I must say, I was tempted to steal it.

See, Family Guy is written by intelligent beings

The ongoing saga of the manatee continues here.

The classical is back

I noticed this morning that there's classical music playing again in the Port Authority. I wonder if this is a seasonal thing. I always thought they played it year-round because whenever I went into the city from my college campus, I swore they always played classical music. But maybe that was just when I visited during the winter holidays. It lends a nice calming effect to the whole enterprise.

To all you telecom people out there

Today, George Carlin on my daily George Carlin calendar, asks:

 

"I wonder when we pick up the telephone, does each of us get his own individual dial tone, or is there just one systemwide, master dial tone that each of us jumps on and off when we need it?"

 

Sounds like a stupid question, but it intrigues me. Know the answer?

 

 

Manatee heads to Memphis

Not satisfied with the New York scene, manatee heads to Memphis to try his fortunes in writing country and rockabilly songs.

Broke the curse

I finally broke my Beck curse. I saw him at the Loews Theater in Jersey City last night on my third attempt in seeing him.

The first attempt was at the Free Tibet show in D.C. He was scheduled to perform on the first day, but a huge thunderstorm passed through and someone in the crowd actually got hit by lightning. They ended the first day early and Beck had to go on to another gig in NY.

The second attempt was at Field Day. That was supposed to be held over two days out on Long Island, but the locals kicked them out and the show was moved to Giants Stadium for a one-day show. It rained that day, heavily at times, and while dancing backstage to Underworld (I think), Beck slipped and hurt himself. He cancelled his appearance that night.

I was sure something would happen last night to make Beck cancel, but he didn't and he put on a good show.

This video (from a NY show) is of the marionettes he used in the show. Every band member had a marionette that mimicked what the person did on stage. They created on-the-fly music videos of the puppets and the puppets even had their own teeny tiny puppet theater for themselves.

For Jersey City, they roamed around town to the tune of Bon Jovi's Livin' on a Prayer. The puppet band even stopped at White Castle for a meal.

Today's commuter follies

Well this morning I was seated near the dueling throat-clearers. I don't know if your throat gets any clearer the louder you clear your throat, but these two seemed to think so. TGFiPods.

Then this evening, there was emergency construction on two of the Parkway's local lanes. There was so much traffic on the Turnpike before the exit to the Parkway, and on the Parkway before the Driscoll Bridge, that the bus was rerouted to exit 8 on the Turnpike (for route 33). I guess it was better than sitting in that traffic. It took two hours to get home, but I'm sure it would have taken longer if we stayed the course and went our usual route.

But the cherry on the top of my sundae were the 14-something teenagers skateboarding at the park and ride when we pulled up. About half of the boys had stripped down to their boxer shorts and a couple ran and scrambled to get their pants back on when they saw the bus. Very strange.

Friday the 13th

And in today's commuter follies:

 

I missed the 6:54 bus, which is OK because another one comes ten minutes later. Only that one was a little late as the driver had to switch buses because the first one broke down. She told the Old Bridge attendant this in great detail at which point one of my fellow passengers yelled out "let's get going!" Traffic was light and we got into Port Authority by 8:30, which is good. On bad traffic days, the bus ride takes two hours.

 

Once in Port Authority, I got on the downtown E train, which paused at 34th St. for more than usual because of congestion on the tracks; the conductor recommended that we switch to the A, which is express. Only by the time I got out of the train, the track cleared up and the train moved on without me. I went to the A tracks anyway figuring it couldn't hurt. But two local trains came and went while I waited for the A, so I decided to go back and take a local. The local train I boarded was slow as molasses and before we got to the next stop, two A trains passed us by.

 

So far, no other bad luck has happened. I wonder if this is all due to the stray black cat that hangs around our house. Maybe he crossed behind my car early this morning...

Update: As I drove home, a black cat ran in front of my car. Damn it!

What's the meaning of irony?

I've come to realize that there's only so much New York irony I can take. Hearing more than five minutes of it makes me want to throw something. It's like hanging out with an unfunny Groucho Marx. He had a sense of humor about himself, which is sorely missing in NY irony.

 

Tell it to my poor ears

Is Taylor Dayne making a comeback or something? I've heard her two hits every day during the past four days in various places. Friday it was at the Chelsea Salvation Army thrift store. Saturday she was on the radio as we flipped through stations. Sunday it was Home Depot. Today it was in Port Authority. And now she's playing incessantly in my head!

If I Had a Hammer

I've been listening to the Smithsonian's series of podcasts, which is very good, about the American Folkways record label. As I was listening to Pete Seeger lead his audience in singing "If I Had a Hammer," I realized how powerless the person in the song is. He/she has all these wonderful intentions of hammering for justice, ringing in liberty, and singing with his brothers and sisters if only he/she had a hammer, a bell, or a song.

 

But the person doesn't have a hammer, or a bell, or I guess a song (but isn't this the song he/she wished they had? What song do they want?) so what are they going to do in the meantime? Sit around and wait for those things? I mean, what are they going to do about it?

 

If I had some eggs, I could make some ham and eggs, if I had some ham.

Also born on my birthday

I've lived all my life thinking that the only famous person (of whom I've heard) that was born on December 20 was the actress Irene Dunne and today, courtesy of Wikipedia, I've found that

 

1957 - Billy Bragg, English singer and songwriter

1957 - Mike Watt, American bassist

1966 - Chris Robinson, American singer ( Black Crowes)

 

were all born on that day, too.

 

That's better.

 

Bad timing

I took my MacBook to work with me today so I could finally watch Throne of Blood, which is one of my Netflix picks that's been collecting dust for about 3 months, on the bus to work. Just my luck, today of all days I happened to sit next to a young fella reading his day's Bible study.

When I got to the part in the movie when one of the lord's soldiers brings in a big bundle that looks like it could be a human head wrapped in a sheet, I turned it off. I figure that I'd like my fellow passengers to try not to do things that annoy me, so I didn't think my neighbor would appreciate seeing too much gore. Not that they show the head...

Dancing with the Stars

Right outside of the subway entrance in the Port Authority today were two people in gold star costumes and someone taking a picture with them. It was an ad for Dancing with the Stars! A woman shouted at us to remember to watch it tonight.

 

I guess it was partially effective because I remember that I saw them but I'm not planning on watching the show. Then again, it could have been a dream as I was not fully awake from my nap on the bus.

 

Come to think of it, it's a really smart campaign. If the MTA gives them the counts of how many people came in and out of the subway during the time the gold stars were there, they'll know exactly how effective the ad is by comparing the show's ratings with how many people saw the ad.

 

The best donut I've ever had

This morning I had an 8 am meeting, which meant that I had to catch the 6:15 express bus into the city. A lot of my fellow meeting-goers might not have been as "inconvenienced" as I was, but they were equally frustrated by the early start time. Luckily, the guy who called the meeting saved the morning by bringing us a dozen donuts from The Donut Pub on West 14th St. They make their donuts often, by hand, and they're open 24-hours.

Wow.

I had the plain cake donut and it was the best donut I've ever had. It was so crispy on the outside and so moist on the inside but not greasy at all.

Now, I like my donuts with some bite and substance to them so I personally don't go for the Krispy Kremes. If I were to get one off the conveyor, I might not even think they were the best. We had a little showdown about that at the meeting.

How precious!

This has got to be the best commentary on the War on Terror^tm yet:

Send in Jack Bauer!

Dad: Honey, where's your teddy bear?
3-year-old girl: Oh, the terrorist are hiding him.

Overlake Hospital
Bellevue, Washington

Overheard by: Nurse says what

via Overheard in the Office, Aug 31, 2006

Lower My Bills

Have you seen those LowerMyBills.com web ads? They usually have bizarre animated GIFs run on a continuous loop that don't seem to have anything to do with mortgage refinancing and debt consolidation. Sometimes it's a bunch of cartoon cheerleaders - one for every state in the union. Sometimes it's a series of photos turned into an animated GIF. Today I saw one of a silhouette of a woman in a long dress gingerly walking the peak of a tile roof. Bizarre. But damn them, they always get my attention.

The only candy with the exploded caramel

I can't have coffee or other caffeinated beverages for a while because of my problems with acid reflux. I'm not supposed to have chocolate either, but I hardly got any sleep last night and I'm crashing. So I bought a caramel Twix from the machine at work to help me out.

 

Lately I've been getting momentarily upset at the ad on the back for peanut butter Twix, thinking I mistakenly bought a peanut butter Twix when I actually did buy the caramel. So after my second of worry and relief, I opened up the package only to find that about half the caramel had exploded into one end of the wrapping.

 

Let me tell you, the Twix chocolate and cookie isn't the same without the Twix caramel and the Twix caramel isn't the same without the Twix chocolate and cookie crunch.

 

I want my money back! That was not a Twix! That was caramel, chocolate, and cookie, but that was not a Twix!

Lunch today

Today is pretty foggy and what I imagine to be London-y (I've never been), so I tried the split pea soup at Hale and Hearty Soups in the Chelsea Market . It was indeed hearty and very tasty. I had a small size and a half of a tuna wrap - they completely stuffed me. I think I'll just go with a small soup next time.

Mr. Softee

I'm ten floors up from the street but I'll be damned if I can't hear the Mr. Softee truck down there now.

name of my new MacBook

I came up with a good name for my MacBook as I drifted off to sleep on the bus to work today: Chiclet!

 

The MacBook looks like a white chiclet - it's smooth, rectangular, and shiny. And who knows, maybe I'll use my MacBook write a novel that'll be categorized as chick-lit. Not that I love chick-lit, but whatever the publisher decides is out of my hands.

 

I love it when form follows function.

Bruno Kirby, R.I.P.

It is with great sadness that we here at Mime is Money pay our last respects to actor Bruno Kirby, who died Monday from complications related to leukemia.

 

He had a long career: he was in such early-70s TV shows as Room 222 and the pilot of M.A.S.H.

 

Most notably for us, he played Rat Pack fan and limo driver, Tommy Pischedda, in This is Spinal Tap. The outtakes on the Spinal Tap DVD of Kirby crooning in his tighty whities is as good as anything in the released movie.

 

Bruno Kirby was certainly no fad.

 

Cat in the photo booth

Strange checking out my new MacBook.

Christmas in August

Yesterday, I ordered a white MacBook with 1 GHz RAM and an 80 GB hard drive. I can't wait for it to arrive - I feel like an eight-year old waiting for Christmas!

 

My six-year old Compaq PC is showing its age. I plan on reformatting the hard drive (again!) and installing more memory (if the thing isn't too old for that). I'm only going to use it for personal business- and work business-related functions; I'll use the MacBook for the fun stuff like ripping and burning, man! Maybe I'll buy a video camera somewhere down the line and make video films, Bren Bren! Yeah!

 

(That reference to video films and Bren Bren is from Brendon Small's cancelled cartoon, Home Movies. The character who said "video film" and called Brendon "Bren Bren" is Fenton, voiced by Sam Seder, currently of Air America's Majority Report. Every now and then you can hear Fenton's voice slip out when Seder gets agitated.)

After success with Family Guy, manatee takes on New York

If he can make it there, he can make it anywhere.

Summer Reading: Little Children by Tom Perrotta

I just finished reading Little Children by Tom Perrotta, who also wrote Election (they made that one into a movie with Reese Witherspoon and Matthew Broderick).

 

Rather than being about literal little children, the book is really about adults behaving like children on a playground and infatuated, horny teenagers.

 

Todd, a stay-at-home dad, and Sarah, a stay-at-home mom, have a summer fling: they think they're going to leave their spouses and run away with each other. But what will they live on? Their giddy adolescent feelings for each other? Neither one of them has ever held down a job good enough to raise a family on.

 

In the primary storyline, Perrotta deftly recreates the feelings of desperation felt by a girl with a crush: in a flashback, Sarah is in high school obsessing over a theater geek and finally gets to kiss him. The next morning, her father drives her to the SAT test; on the way, Sarah is giddy with the assumption that she has a boyfriend. Her heart is broken when, in line for the test, her "boyfriend" coldly explains that the kiss was a mistake.

 

In the present time, Sarah obsesses over keeping Todd and over his pretty wife Kathy. Sarah parks her car in front of Todd and Kathy's apartment and sits there for hours waiting for a glimpse of Kathy. When Kathy does finally come outside, Sarah's heart sinks at just how pretty Kathy is.

 

Minor characters include a child molester with the mentality of a 10-year-old weakling being bullied on the playground, his present-day bully: an ex-cop bent on driving the child molester out of town, Sarah's husband Richard, whose philosophy is to never fool himself into thinking he can fight his base desires, and a group of stay-at-home moms acting like a snotty band of popular teens.

 

The book ends with a suspenseful point-of-view switching scene in which the major and some of the minor characters reach their respective epiphanies. Todd and Sarah even realize that they've been acting like irresponsible teenagers, though Todd has to be hit on the head to finally get it.

 

Little Children is a deceptively quick read: its dialogue and prose belie a deeper meaning than a mere chronical of events that take place over one summer.

 

Recommended!

Pee Wee's Playhouse

I've been watching Cartoon Network's Adult Swim's reruns of Pee Wee's Playhouse (Wikipedia's entry) and it really takes me back to the late 80's/early 90's. I must have seen every episode three or four times because I remember them with great clarity.

 

I also find it hilarious that it's showing at 11 at night when the kiddies are supposed to be asleep. My sister was watching it at the tender age of 5 and I at 13.

 

I absoultely love the first season. It was an absurd mixture straight out of a John Waters movie. Everything fits together: the wonderful incedental music by Mark Mothersbaugh; the strange toys; the puppets; the speedo-wearing, buff and tan Tito the lifeguard; and the Divine Mrs. Steve.

 

The second season started up the other night - wow, what a disappointment. I forgot how much things changed. And not for the better, in my opinion.

 

In the first episode of the second season, Pee Wee is redecorating his playhouse and everything's under drop cloths. I guess this is their way of easing the kids at home into the big changes.

 

And those changes in order of what irks me most are:

• Captain Carl (the always funny late Phil Hartman) is gone
  
• The incedental music of Mark Mothersbaugh is replaced by that of The Residents and is more like traditional cartoon music than Mothersbaugh's subtle stylings
  
• the cute and sassy Dixie is replaced by the trio of flowers who now announce the King of Cartoon's arrival (lame!)
  
• the bedroom-eyed Globey, who always looked as if he were looking directly at whomever was talking to him, is replaced by a new cartoony, beady-eyed one (although the French accent remains)
  
• there's a new King of Cartoons (and a TV to replace the film projector; Pee Wee was righteously disappointed when the new King bestowed upon him the TV)
  
• beefcake Tito the life guard (hey, everything can use more Tito!) is replaced by Ricardo the soccer player who wears more modest shorts and a shirt (a shirt?!)
  
• the playhouse kids (did you know Opal was played by the ill-fated Natasha Lyonne?) are gone
  
• the "Divine" Mrs. Steve is replaced by Mrs. Renee

Thankfully, Lawrence Fishburn remains as Cowboy Curtis. (hoooo-whee!)

 

I'll still watch, but I'll feel cheated.

 

 

 

Jersey Shore literature

Salon is doing a series of book discussions focused on where in the world the book is set. Today's article by Susy Hansen is about the literature of the Jersey Shore. The first book on her list is Frederick Reiken's Lost Legends of New Jersey .

 

I read this a couple of years ago and found Reiken's discussions of the Shore to be pretty much just an expansion of those "You know you're from the Jersey Shore if..." emails. Great for people who grew up in Jersey and moved away, boring for people like me who still live here. FYI: The book only focuses on the Shore in the first half; it moves up to North Jersey thereafter.

How to take the bus from Aldrich Road in Howell, NJ to New York Port Authority

I recently took the bus from the Aldrich Road Park and Ride in Howell, NJ to New York Port Authority. When I take a mode of transportation I've never taken before, I like to do a little research about fares, tickets, parking and all that. I couldn't find much on the web about daily parking at the park and ride so I set out in the real world to find out and am sharing my knowledge with you here.

Note: At off-peak hours, the bus to NYC doesn't stop at the Aldrich Road park and ride, instead it picks passengers up at the bus stop on Route 9 North just before Aldrich Road. You can park at the park and ride regardless of where you board the bus.

Schedule: You can find the PDF schedule (valid as of July 28, 2006) for NJ Transit route 139 here at the NJ Transit website.

Costs (as of July 28, 2006):

• The bus costs $12 one-way. It seems that you can't buy a round-trip ticket, so you'll have to buy two one-way tickets.


• The park and ride costs $.25 to park for 3 hours. You can park for a maximum of 24 hours.

To use the park and ride when boarding the bus in the park and ride:

1. Buy your ticket(s) from the Colonial Coffee Shoppe in the Aldrich Plaza strip mall, located at the Southwest corner of Route 9 North and Aldrich Road.




2. Park your car in the park and ride, just behind the strip mall on Aldrich.

   
   

   Daily parking is in the West side of the lot (the side furthest from Route 9).

   
   

   Daily parking spaces are numbered. Only monthly permit holders should park in non-numbered spaces.
   

3. Remember your parking space number.




4. At the park and ride bus shelter, go to the machine with the big 'P' on it and pay for your parking.
   

   Follow the instructions on the screen.
   

5. Sit back and wait with joyous anticipation for your bus.
   

To use the park and ride when boarding at the bus stop on Route 9 North: I suggest parking your car at the park and ride first, walking to the Colonial Coffee Shoppe to get your tickets, and then walk up to the bus stop.

Helpful Hints

• Sometimes buses from the Academy bus line substitute for NJ Transit. So don't be surprised if you wait in line at the Port Authority at the gate that says it's for NJ Transit route 139 and then get to the bus and find Academy bus #500-something. You can politely ask the driver whether or not the bus will be stopping at your stop.
  
• Don't sit directly behind the driver if you plan on talking to your companion or on your cell phone. I've learned this from experience. Apparently, if you look out the window while talking, your voice in full volume travels up the window to the driver and distracts him. The driver will get very angry and start yelling at you to keep it down.

Update (8/3/06):Here's the Wikipedia article about bus 139.

President Garfield died there

I'm reading Sarah Vowell's Assassination Vacation and while trying to find where the old Francklyn Cottage was in Long Branch, NJ (where President Garfield died; I think Vowell might tell me, but I'm not at that part yet), I found this cool website of old prints chronicling Garfield's death.

 

Hat tip to Annabelle for bringing up the story a couple of months ago and reminding me to read this book. (I hope she doesn't mind the pseudonym I gave her!)

 

If I had a million dollars

Audrey Hepburn's black dress from the first scene in Breakfast at Tiffany's is going up for auction. Le sigh.

Kill, Do, or Marry

Ok, gang, let's play Kill, Do, or Marry!

For each choice, tell us if you would kill them, do them, or marry them. Give us a little explanation for each choice to make this fun.

You can just play with choices of the opposite sex, or for even more fun, play with both sexes!

Here are your choices:

Women:
Katie Holmes
Angelina Jolie
Gweneth Paltrow

Men:
Keanu Reeves
Woody Harrelson
Robert Downey Jr

Go!

Yeah yeah, she's cute, but what's her thetan count?

Only Scientologists can see Suri-with-a-fringe-on-top.

Look out, Plankton! The oil companies are comin' ta git ya!

Geez, I didn't think Plankton was that bad.

This is weird - when I did a Google search for the Spanish company that's partnering with the Spanish University of Alicante to make the oil, Bio Fuel Systems, I found a company called BioFuel Systems based in England.

The only thing I can find that mentions Bio Fuel Systems, the University of Alicante, and plankton is the Reuters article.

And I realized after reading the article more closely that nobody's name is used. The article only attributes a "press dossier" from the company.

The article does say that Bio Fuel Systems was created this year, but I would think that a cutting edge company that released a press dossier would have a Web site containing that very dossier.

So I guess Plankton is safe: I wouldn't count on gas from that process any time soon.

Don't marry a gossip

I admit it - I'm hooked on My Life on the D List, the reality show that follows Kathy Griffin around doing her D list-y things. I find it funny - she's funny and she tells a good story. And I'm all about the story telling these days, which is why I listen to The Croncast, because I'm trying to hone my own story telling skills so I can start writing good fiction.

Anyway, back in May, Kathy Griffin divorced her husband, Matt, who was heavily featured in the show, because he stole about $72,000 from her.

So Kathy went on Larry King and told her story and Matt doesn't like that because it's a private affair. He hasn't been blabbing about it, so why is she?

Uh, hello? Because she's Kathy Griffin, queen of gossip, and this is a really juicy story, that's why.

You should have known what you were getting into, buddy.

Howell is safe

An Asbury Park Press article reported that Howell is the 11th safest town in the whole country.

I can attest to that. During the recent Independence Day four-day weekend, about half of our neighbors were shooting off firecrackers and bottle rockets and not a one caused a fire. Neither did I hear about anyone losing any fingers.

Cats that Look Like Hitler

The name says it all:

www.catsthatlooklikehitler.com

My b/w cat does not look like Hitler, although he does tend to bark (meow?) orders at me quite a bit.

The Monks!

There's a new documentary out about The Monks, a band from the 60's made up of U.S. Army GIs stationed in Germany. I first learned of them from a WFMU video. The documentary doesn't have international distribution yet but rumor has it that the band will reunite for a late-2006 tour.

But mine goes to 6.0

Holy crap.

Just make the damn site intuitive!

From Overheard in the Office.

You know what happens when you assume things?

I was thinking about why wearing a Support the Troops t-shirt would be considered an act of protest.

Maybe someone was reading into the message the wrong way because he feels very guilty that his actions aren't actually supporting the troops? Hmmm?

Granted, the woman wasn't treated as badly as Cindy Sheehan, but she was still removed from the audience.

Stress

As one of the buttons on my denim jacket in high school said, stress is "The confusion created when one's mind overrides the body's desire to beat or choke the living shit out of some asshole who desperately deserves it."

Seems like I know a lot of people who want to choke somebody what with the Alito confirmation, the spying, the continued violence in Iraq, bickering going on in the office while the cats are away...

Little less than 7 weeks till Hawaii! Hooray!

R.I.P. Chris Penn

I wasn't going to comment on the recent death of Chris Penn, one of my favorite actors, because I don't like projecting feelings I would feel for a friend onto a complete stranger.

But my iPod played Sinatra's It Was a Very Good Year and then Stealers Wheel's Stuck in the Middle with You and even though Penn wasn't in that scene in Reservoir Dogs it nevertheless made me think of him and how I'm sorry I won't see him in much of anything else again.

And when I read that one of his last movies is the upcoming The Darwin Awards, I kinda winced.

The black cloud of crime spreads far and wide

O! how I wish a story like this popped up in the Montclair State campus police blotter when I was on that beat.

In today's Asbury Park Press police briefs lies an item just teeming with story ideas for one Guy Ritchie (or maybe it's a sequel to Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle).

Two guys, one from Piscataway, the other from Woodbridge, work at one of those shady car audio shacks you see across the state, this one in Edgewater Park. (Edgewater Park??!! That's about an hour from where these guys live so I hope the pay is worth it).

They go to Eatontown (Eatontown??!!) thinking they're going to sell some audio equipment to a bunch of guys in 80 Acre Park at 11:30 on a Saturday night.

So it's no surprise to you that once these guys get to the park, they "were threatened [by five guys, one of whom works for the Bradley Beach Department of Public Works] with a knife and a gun and robbed of jewelry, cash, cellular telephones and their 1997 Chevrolet van, which contained equipment from their business."

I see quick cuts slickly edited to the funky beats of James Brown as the Dept. of Public Works employee and his gang plan the heist and tool up route 35...

Ritmo Latino: the correct link

A while ago I posted about one of my favorite podcasts, Ritmo Latino. I gave you links that were all wrong. This one is the right one.

Listen to it! It's great work-out music...

Prejudiced Google

This article points out a "Prejudice Map," which points out stereotypes of the world according to Google's search results. It's cute; not all countries are represented.

la la la la La Llorona

I was listening to the latest Hometown Tales podcast this morning and they were talking about the legend of La Llarona, the wailing woman, which is featured in one of my favorite movies, Mullholland Dr.

On my short walk from my car to the office, it hit me. I should write a song about La Llarona set to the tune of My Sharona.

Brilliant!

Substitute teachers and houses

Last night I realized that a house is like a room full of middle- or high-schoolers. You must earn its respect or else it'll start throwing spit balls and paper airplanes at you while you nervously fiddle with the VCR so you can show the assigned after-school special to the class.

When we moved into our new (used) house, we had a nice month where nothing big needed to be fixed. Kent added a trap to the master bathroom sink, we painted the family room, all went fairly well.

Turns out that the house was merely sitting back and sizing us up. After that honeymoon month, it said, "Ok tough guys, let's see what you got. Let's see if you can keep up with me."

So when Kent replaced the wax seal on the downstairs toilet to stop the sewer smells from leaking into the house, another leak in the toilet developed. After a few attempts to fix the leak, a small crack in the tank grew worse from the jostling that requires us to replace the toilet.

Like a teenager with a vendetta, the house is creative and persistent.

As the weather got colder, the Pergo in the living room started to buckle and come up at the edges.

One of the garage door openers broke and Kent spent a day replacing it.

The roof leaked a bit during the eight days and nights of rain we had a couple of months ago.

The performance of the washer and dryer is starting to deteriorate; the timer on dryer no longer works.

The faucets for the washer sprang a slight leak and though Kent can fix it by tightening the faucet, we really should get them replaced.

I feel like Kent and I are Glenn Ford and Sidney Poitier of Blackboard Jungle and To Sir with Love, respectfully. If we could just show the house that we only want to help it, to nurture it, to make it stronger, maybe it will grow to respect and even love us.

And then maybe Lulu will show up and sing to us...

Christmas at the Beach Cinema

This Saturday Kent and I took in a matinee at the Beach Cinema in Bradley Beach. It's their 80th anniversary this month and they celebrated by showing White Christmas along with a vintage cartoon and the Three Stooges short, The Three Beers. All for 2 bucks. And real butter on the popcorn.

It was such a nice time. There were a bunch of little kids there and even though they got restless at some parts (White Christmas is about 2 hours long with some extraneous musical and dance numbers to pad it out so it's hard to not get restless), they weren't annoying. Neither were the adults - no talking on cellphones or speaking at a conversational volume.

I wish I could open up a movie house just like the Beach Cinema.

Christmas in our first house

We bought the first Christmas tree for our first house last Sunday from the lot next to our local Applegate Farms (how lucky am I - I got to eat their great ice cream at their Montclair location while I was at college and now they're in Freehold!).

This is my desk in our "library," which is the room in the front of the house. We'll fill it with books some day.



O Tannenbaum!

This just might be true

One of The Onion's most believable articles:

Voice of God found to be Cheney on Intercom

http://www.theonion.com/content/node/43189&rss=1

Can I play too?

Today's Salon broadsheet by Lynn Harris describes the current political discussion about abortion; that is, the discussion the menfolk are having. Seems that women aren't even pawns in this game anymore; we're not even on the chess board.

Great.

Podcast alert

For those of you who podcast listen to podcasts, you have got to check out Ritmo Latino. It is awesome!

(Yes, I said "awesome.")


Update
Here's the RSS link.

And here's the homepage although I can't get it to load.

Science rules!

From Reuters:

'Intelligent-design' school board ousted in Penn

By Jon Hurdle Wed Nov 9,12:35 AM ET

DOVER, Pennsylvania (Reuters) - Voters on Tuesday ousted a Pennsylvania local school board that promoted an "intelligent-design" alternative to teaching evolution, and elected a new slate of candidates who promised to remove the concept from science classes.

Thank God!

At The Office

Whenever I get stressed out at work from being forced to listen to long, ill-informed conversations about politics, I get the title song to the American version of The Office stuck in my head and I immediately feel calmer.

Maybe it's because The Office is 10 times more deranged than mine. Maybe it makes me feel better knowing that there must be a million offices like mine otherwise how would this stuff wind up on TV.

All I know is, it works.

(Wouldn't it be sad if that's really all I know?)

Attacking cat

Strange multitasks by attacking Roscoe mid-yawn.

Friday copycat blogging

Top: Roscoe
Bottom: Strange

I have the same cats as Atrios except that Strange, my b/w cat, has a black nose where Atrios' b/w cat has a pink nose.

Rome?! You shoulda seen Naples!

I've been reading a thread on dKos about the downfall of American society (so what else is new?). One person cited the ever increasing rudeness of American drivers as evidence of the downfall. Someone else said that rude drivers aren't confined to America and asked if they've ever been in Athens or Rome during rush hour. Then a third person said:

"The main train station in Naples, Italy, was (is?) one of those psychotic traffic circuses. I used to take friends visiting from the states to a small cafe nearby, and we'd watch the fun for hours.

My mother, who is an awful driver, inspired my favorite Italian reaction to drivers that cut them off, went too slow, or generally pissed them off. The poor driver discommoded by Mom's driving would place their hands together in prayer, and look to the sky while gently shaking their hands back and forth.

Here, we just flip people off."

Maybe that's why I didn't take it personally when the Neapolitan train station employees purposely sent us foreigners to the wrong train during the work strike of June 2004.

But when an American driver pisses me off, I take it personally.

I think aggressive American driving would be so much more fun if everybody would do the shaking of the prayer hands thing.

Alternatively, we could do the waving of raised hands with palms inward, thumbs touching middle and ring fingers. It's not just a stereotype - Italians really do that.

English as She is Spoke

Kent gave me this book for Christmas last year and now it's a website. It's an English phrasebook translated from Portuguese to French to English and it's deliciously horrendous.

Mark Riley zinger

So on today's Morning Sedition on Air America, Marc Maron says, to the disbelief of others in the studio, that he'd like to go to Antarctica because of the peace and solitude: "it's so white and quiet."

To which Mark Riley replies, "You can find places like that in Brooklyn."

Yowza!

Maybe Riley should write more material for the show. Something to replace the WiFi 3000 Headline Translator. That bit is pah-ri-tee stale.

This week's Onion

The Onion hits the nail on the head yet again.

I wonder what the Daily Show has been saying. I keep forgetting to watch it.

These days, at least until the journalists went down to LA, sarcasm is the only source of truth I can find.

The Hummer Brigade

Everyone who owns a Hummer or H2 or any big-ass SUV should be called up to the Hummer Brigade to drive down to New Orleans and pick up as many people as they can.

We have the technology...

Exactly, dammit!

In this day and age, why can't computers be used by the masses like cars are? Yes, you still need to take the car to the mechanic to really fix it (unless you have all the special diagnostic equipment) but at least they give you airbags and seatbelts in case of an accident!

Regender bender

Here's a neat thing Misbehaving.net alerts us to: Regender - it changes the gender pronoun in a Webpage. Male pronouns get changed to female, proper male names get changed to female, and vice versa.

The translation of the Google News front page is kind of funny: "Florida Braces for Yet Another Hurricane as Katrina Strengthens" translates to "Floyd Braces for Yet Another Hurricane as Karl Strengthens."

As a sidenote, I used to think that it didn't matter if I had to read texts that only used male pronouns, but one of the books I read for my thesis only used female pronouns and I found that it did matter. I was so not used to seeing female pronouns used exclusively that I felt proud seeing them in that book as if womenkind had made some huge leap or something. As if we were finally let in on the conversation.

another cool Google map gadget

In my search for motivation to exercise (I pretty much broke my habit when I started writing my thesis a year ago), I came across WalkJogRun.net. It's a pedometer/route planner that uses Google maps.

Go go Google gadgets!

Another interesting discovery - I checked to see if Google satellite maps show topography and I found out that you can't zoom all the way in on Scranton, PA. Hmmm...

(Disclaimer: I own a little over 5 shares of Google. Not much, but I earned enough off of it to give me spending money for Christmas.)

First night

We camped out overnight at the house on Saturday. We ate pizza outside on our patio that evening and slept on the floor on a small, lumpy futon. I woke up to a slight backache - it was great! I'm not sure when we can move over the extra bed, but we'll have to wait until my Mom's truck is available for us to borrow.

The night was cool enough so that we could sleep with the windows open and the ceiling fan going. Around midnight, I heard some whispering outside and thought that people were trying to break into our seemingly vacant house to have a party. My homeowner's instincts are already sharp.

Turns out they were sneaking into the house across the street; the sound just carried. Seemed like one of the teenagers or 20-somethings lived there or knew the owners and that the owners were away. As soon as the emptiness of the house was verified, they swiftly moved from car to house, bottles clinking along the way.

That doesn't worry me - it's a typical suburban happening. What worries me is all items we'll have to buy to get the house and garden running smoothly. But that's just first-time homebuyer's anxiety I'm sure.