Cat Scratch Fever

Do you have a cat? Do you think it has too much dignity? Do you wish to psychologically torture your cat? Well, then, the folks at Hello Kitty have got just the thing--bib, collar, and carrying bag to abase and humilate your poor kitty.
If I remember the cats I had when I lived at home, it wouldn't be so much "Hello Kitty" as "Hello Flesh Wounds."

With Six You Get Maalox

From Japan, oddly enough, comes what I would initially think of as the quintessential--and most revolting--American meal:

Pizza Hut Japan's exclusive Double Roll pie is 646 calories per slice, with little bacon wrapped sausages littered across the crust, and mini hamburger patties on top of the mushrooms, soy beans, corn, paprika, garlic chips, green peppers, and pepperoni. As for cheese, it has mozzarella, cheddar and parmigiana. BTW, this comes with ketchup and maple syrup for extra flavor, and is recommended for kids.

Well, recommended, I suppose, for kids you don't particularly like. (It's the "bacon-wrapped sausages" that make it art.) I think the only thing more appetizing would be a big stick of deep-fried butter, or perhaps a personal feeding trough containing the entire contents of a Las Vegas hotel buffet.

Up in Arms

Via Pharyngula, a sacrilege, to be sure: Octopus Faith, or using an octopus as a metaphor for religious faith. As an octopus fancier, I am deeply offended. Now, if it had been the actual deification of an octopus, I could go for that.

Two things strike me about that site: a) octopuses do not have tentacles, they have arms, and b) that woman looks like a deranged Chuckie.

Acorny Joke?

This can't possibly be true. Says the Iranian newspaper Resalat, via the BBC, via the Washington Post):

"A few weeks ago, 14 squirrels equipped with espionage systems of foreign intelligence services were captured by [Iranian] intelligence forces along the country's borders. These trained squirrels, each of which weighed just over 700 grams, were released on the borders of the country for intelligence and espionage purposes. According to the announcement made by Iranian intelligence officials, alert police officials caught these squirrels before they could carry out any task."

There wasn't a moose accompanying any of those squirrels, was there?

How on earth do you train a squirrel? They can't even figure out not to dart out in front of moving cars.

Then again, when I lived in my first apartment in Saratoga, the phone abruptly went out one day and Verizon came and told me that a squirrel had bitten through the outside phone line. So maybe we shouldn't underestimate the power of the squirrel! Or Verizon should stop using acorn-flavored cable insulation. I was also told that they occasionally bite through electrical wires, too. Not very bright; but I do keep a row of barbecue grills lined up beneath my electrical wires, just in case. Here's a serving hint for fricasseed squirrel--leaving the tail on makes for an attractive presentation.

Ice Ice Baby

Are you frail and waiflike? Is putting your hand in a cooler full of ice akin to putting it in a big urn of liquid nitrogen? Now you can ensure that your oh-so-delicate fingers do not freeze and snap off with the silly Arctic Net Cooler Scoop.

There's a Sucker Born Every Minute

I bet you this octopus won't even get a cut of the loot, or even an academic position:

The extraordinary discovery on what was for 58-year-old Mr Kim another 'day at the office' began when he took his small boat out from the town of Taean, 60 miles south west of Seoul. As usual, he was hoping for a good catch of webfoot octopus, which are a delicacy in Korea.
...
Casting out a long line, he felt a familiar tug and hauled up his first octopus of the day. He was puzzled by several blue objects attached to its suckers and thought at first they were shells.

But when he examined them, he realised they were pieces of pottery. Not realising he was on the point of making an incredible discovery, he cast out his line again and again, bringing in more octopus with shards of pottery attached.

Then he brought one up with a whole plate caught on its tentacles.

By now, Mr Kim realised that there had to be something important deep below. He had heard that divers had found several shipwrecks filled with relics, including ancient pottery, along the coast.
...
'We arranged for an urgent exploration of the sea bed and although we did not find a ship down there, we were able to find 30 12th century bowls.

'It seems that a ship carrying Koryo pottery was wrecked there and what excites us is that these pieces are perfect examples of beautiful Koryo pottery. A large number of kilns were established in the area and the ship must have been transporting the pieces when it went down.

'Although other ships have been found and pottery recovered, this is the first time a family of octopus have found a wreck for us.'
...
[T]he chance discovery is being hailed as one of the great undersea treasure discoveries of modern times.

Bat Boy, R.I.P.

Ah, truly a sad moment: an American institution is shutting its doors:

Weekly World News Shutting Down

While it isn't strictly a genre publication, and it does bill itself as "The World's Only Reliable Newspaper," the editor has decided that this announcement does fall within SFScope's purview:

American Media has decided to suspend publication of Weekly World News, both the print publication and the web site. No reason was given at press time, although reliable sources do tell us that management turned down at least one offer to buy the publication.

The weekly supermarket tabloid—known as the home of "Bat Boy" and other less-than-probable stories—has long had staffing connections with the science fiction, fantasy, and horror fields.

Ah, going to the supermarket will never be the same! After all, the Weekly World News was Photoshopping pictures long before there was a Photoshop. The 1990 cover with George Bush walking with the space alien was priceless.

I always liked WWN columnist Ed Anger, who was always incoherently "pig-biting mad" about something, usually liberals. I guess in this age of talk radio and Fox News, poor Ed just can't compete. (Good for the pigs, I guess.)

There was, believe it or not, a Weekly World News TV show for a very short period of time in the late 1990s (I think). It had potential, but could not live up to the print edition.

Gigantic

A new They Might Be Giants album is always a reason to celebrate, and The Else, which came out two weeks ago, has scarcely left my iPod/CD player.

I first discovered They in 1986, when a high school friend of mine bought their debut album (on vinyl), hated it, and gave it to me. I confess, it was about a year before I actually listened to it, and when I did it was only because I was in a friend's car in Syracuse and there was this cool song on the tape deck with the line "All the people are so happy now/They're heads are caving in." I asked what it was, was told it was They Might Be Giants, and realized to my slight embarrassment that I actually owned it. Naturally, when I got back to the apartment, I dug out the record, put it on, and discovered, hey!, I really liked it.

Their second album Lincoln came out in 1988--which I picked up on vinyl, as well--and I thought it a disappointment at the time, but liked a lot on it.

So I have followed Their career eagerly ever since. They were based in Brooklyn, so when I lived in NYC there were many opportunities to see Them live, and They often did free concerts in Central Park or Prospect Park, so I saw Them a half dozen or so times between 1990 and 1996. I last saw Them live in 1998 when They played at the House of Blues in West Hollywood.

They intially started out as just two guys named John--a guitarist and an accordionist/keyboardist/tuba-ist, etc.--who played to a drum machine (an early song was called "Rhythm Section Want Ad"). They also had the ability to absorb, replicate, and mutate a bewildering variety of musical styles, extremely odd instrumentation (friends of mine and I used to si around listening to their records and playing "name that instrument"), and clever, surreal, and downright funny lyrics. One very early song was based on an odd hyphenation one of them discovered on the back of a Bob Dylan album, and thus was born the saga of Mr. Tambo and Urine Man. That's the kind of thing They do.

In 1994, they added an actual backing band, which cut down on the idiosyncrasy a bit, but they have gradually learned how to combine the best aspects of working with an organic, live band and the "musical pop culture in a blender" approach of their earlier material.

My favorite TMBG track? A song called "I Can Hear You," recorded at the Edison Laboratory on an original wax cylinder, and is a litany of modern communications devices (airplane phones, apartment intercoms, fast food drive-through windows, etc.) that sound no better than Edison wax cylinders (it was recorded before thw advent of the cellphone). Absolutely brilliant. It's on 1996's Factory Showroom if you want to find it.

I sort of lost track of Them for a while as they delved into making children's records (which, as it turns out, aren't that far removed from their proper albums).

The Else is their first "real" album since 2004's somewhat disappointing The Spine, but it is a better record. It starts off slow (the first few tracks are a tad dull), but the album gets better as it goes on and gets stranger. "The Shadow Government" marks the beginning of the good stuff, and the convoluted wordplay and odd instrumentation of "Bee of the Bird of the Moth" is classic TMBG. By the time "The Mesopotamians" comes on (with its singalong chorus of "Sargon, Hammurabi, Ashurbanipal, and Gilgamesh!") you're with them all the way. (These are also the same guys who wrote a song documenting the James K. Polk administration, a celebration of Belgium's famous painter James Ensor ("he lived with his mother and the torments of Christ"), a catchy scientific treatise about mammals, a a botany lesson all about conifers.

Anyway, the best of the new album is the bonus disc of podcasts (a 21st century version of their old Dial-a-Song answering machine service), which contains the weirder (and better) stuff. Highly recommended.

The Hunting (and Gathering) of the Snark

This is one of those lines that that just cry out for a snarky, sarcastic comment:

Domino's Pizza credited its investment in IT for significant sales and profit gains for the first half of 2007.

That must be the explanation, because it certainly isn't their pizza, which is pretty inedible.

Giant Sun

It's the weekend, and before you go frolic in the sun, here are They Might Be Giants singing about the sun, performing their rendition of the 1950s science class favorite "Why Does the Sun Shine?" taped, appropriately enough, at Mohegan Sun in July 2006.

Oh, Too!

The Angry Toxicologist (an informative new science blog I found) takes on one of the silliest products one could ever market:

The POD, or Personal Oxygen Device, by GO2, is simply that: portable oxygen for you to "energize" and "refresh, restore, renew your mind and body on the cellular level with oxygen". Ooooo...cellular. Sounds scientificy, let's get it!

First I have to note that if your body is short on oxygen, you'll simply breathe harder.

However, as I have probably discussed on this blog before, breathing oxygen in excess of what we normally breathe in the air is really quite harmful. Why? Well, one more time for the world:

Oxygen is reactive, our bodies exploit this aspect by having O2 accept the energy that we use to keep our bodies going (that's a really broad definition of why we need oxygen). However, this reactivity can have unintended consequences; for one, oxidation is the main reason our bodies age (oxidation is also why iron turns to rust). This is the reason that anti-aging creams try to pack in the anti-oxidants.

Too much oxygen in the lungs can really damage the tissue with its reactivity. Researchers started measuring the damage a couple years ago by looking at isofurans, a chemical that signals that the cell walls are being damaged by oxidation.

When this damage occurs, the lungs heal themselves, but that's exactly where the problem occurs, because the lungs are a really flexible and permeable tissue. Scar tissue isn't. So eventually, the scar tissue builds up and it's not only harder to breathe, but less air gets across the lung surface to the blood and vice versa. As you can imagine, asthmatics and smokers will feel this first.

So there! Marketers attempting to sell the health benefits of pure oxygen are just spouting so much hot air.

I, Robot

Via Pharyngula, a self-test to discover one's personality defects. Oh, the irony; I was hoping for "haughty intellectual."

Your Score: Robot

You are 100% Rational, 0% Extroverted, 14% Brutal, and 42% Arrogant.

You are the Robot! You are characterized by your rationality. In fact, this is really ALL you are characterized by. Like a cold, heartless machine, you are so logical and unemotional that you scarcely seem human. For instance, you are very humble and don't bother thinking of your own interests, you are very gentle and lack emotion, and you are also very introverted and introspective. You may have noticed that these traits are just as applicable to your laptop as they are to a human being. You are not like the robots they show in the movies. Movie robots are make-believe, because they always get all personable and likeable after being struck by lightning, or they are cold, cruel killing machines. In all reality, though, you are much more boring than all that. Real robots just sit there, doing their stupid jobs, and doing little else. If you get struck by lightning, you won't develop a winning personality and heart of gold. (Robots don't have hearts, silly, and if they did, they would probably be made of steel, not gold.) You also won't be likely to terrorize humanity by becoming an ultra-violent killing machine sent into the past to kill the mother of a child who will lead a rebellion against machines, because that movie was dumb as hell, and because real robots don't kill--they horribly maim at best, and they don't even do that on purpose. Real robots are boringly kind and all too rarely try to kill people. In all my years, my laptop has only attacked me once, and that was only because my brother threw it at me. In short, your personality defect is that you don't really HAVE a personality. You are one of those annoying, super-logical people that never gets upset or flustered. Unless, of course, you short circuit. Or if someone throws a pie at you. Pies sure are delicious.

To put it less negatively:

1. You are more RATIONAL than intuitive.

2. You are more INTROVERTED than extroverted.

3. You are more GENTLE than brutal.

4. You are more HUMBLE than arrogant.

Compatibility:

Your exact opposite is the Class Clown.

Other personalities you would probably get along with are the Hand-Raiser, the Emo Kid, and the Haughty Intellectual.

*

*

If you scored near fifty percent for a certain trait (42%-58%), you could very well go either way. For example, someone with 42% Extroversion is slightly leaning towards being an introvert, but is close enough to being an extrovert to be classified that way as well. Below is a list of the other personality types so that you can determine which other possible categories you may fill if you scored near fifty percent for certain traits.

The other personality types:

The Emo Kid: Intuitive, Introverted, Gentle, Humble.

The Starving Artist: Intuitive, Introverted, Gentle, Arrogant.

The Bitch-Slap: Intuitive, Introverted, Brutal, Humble.

The Brute: Intuitive, Introverted, Brutal, Arrogant.

The Hippie: Intuitive, Extroverted, Gentle, Humble.

The Televangelist: Intuitive, Extroverted, Gentle, Arrogant.

The Schoolyard Bully: Intuitive, Extroverted, Brutal, Humble.

The Class Clown: Intuitive, Extroverted, Brutal, Arrogant.

The Robot: Rational, Introverted, Gentle, Humble.

The Haughty Intellectual: Rational, Introverted, Gentle, Arrogant.

The Spiteful Loner: Rational, Introverted, Brutal, Humble.

The Sociopath: Rational, Introverted, Brutal, Arrogant.

The Hand-Raiser: Rational, Extroverted, Gentle, Humble.

The Braggart: Rational, Extroverted, Gentle, Arrogant.

The Capitalist Pig: Rational, Extroverted, Brutal, Humble.

The Smartass: Rational, Extroverted, Brutal, Arrogant.

Be sure to take my Sublime Philosophical Crap Test if you are interested in taking a slightly more intellectual test that has just as many insane ramblings as this one does!

About Saint_Gasoline

I am a self-proclaimed pseudo-intellectual who loves dashes. I enjoy science, philosophy, and fart jokes and water balloons, not necessarily in that order. I spend 95% of my time online, and the other 5% of my time in the bathroom, longing to get back on the computer. If, God forbid, you somehow find me amusing instead of crass and annoying, be sure to check out my blog and my webcomic at SaintGasoline.com.

Link: The Personality Defect Test written by saint_gasoline on OkCupid Free Online Dating, home of the The Dating Persona Test

Seasoned Greetings

Boy, I must be amazingly popular! The sheer number of notices I have received in the past several weeks telling me that I have received an electronic greeting card has now exceeded the number of people in the world who would actually be likely to send me an electronic greeting card. And who is sending me these notices of joy? Well, no names are given, just:

a School mate
a Partner
a Colleague
a Family member
a Mate
a Class mate

The cards apparently are from real card companies (Hallmark, AmericanGreetings) but closer examination shows that a letter or two is off. That and the fact that neither I nor the sender is specifically named made me more than a little suspicious (as did the fact that I am in touch with only two "school mates" and I can't imagine either of them ever being inclined to send me a greeting card apropos of nothing--or, at all, really).

I did some searching and discovered that this is indeed a hoax, designed to trick you into accessing a site that will load a Trojan horse onto your computer (which was my initial suspicion). More info here. This Greeting Card Hoax first made the rounds in 1999, but seems to have become a little more malicious.

Kind of reminded me of the "I Love You" virus that hit in 2000--my suspicion was immediately raised when I received an e-mail from Cygnus' Senior VP with the subject line "I Love You." Entire books could be written about why that was an incredibly unlikely scenario...

And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead

The dark side of today's ubiquitous gardgetry (assuming there's a bright side) is that we are edging closer to the dystopia presented in the movie Idiocracy. Just when I thiougbt that talking on cellphones was among the dumbest, most sociopathic things humans could do, now I find that apparently the hip-yet-utterly-fucking-moronic new thing to do is text while driving, with, of course, the fairly predictable trail of carnage. What is wrong with people?

The debate now is whether to ban texting while driving. Y'know, what is the point? There reaches a point, even in our overly paternalistic society, where you just have to let natural stupidity take its course. It should be obvious that texting while driving is a dumbass thing to do, but then would be barbecuing a steak while driving, or reading Proust while driving, or assembling a bicycle while driving, or doing jigsaw puzzles while driving, or building bookshelves while driving, or playing volleyball while driving, or solving Schrodinger's wave equation while driving...some things should just be obvious. But, I guess not. Why I take great pains to not drink and drive is beyond me...

Keep the Change?

Bank of America--the bank at which I have my account(s) for reasons passing understanding*--has this program called "Keep the Change," which is pitched at me every time I spend the 20 minutes required to to get money out of their lethargic ATMs. I have never been able to understand why anyone would think it was a good idea. And it seems that I am not the only one. Over at Marginal Revolution, economist Alex Tabarrok writes:

The Bank of America's Keep the Change program freaks me out. Every time you make a charge with your B of A debit card it rounds the figure up to the nearest whole amount and transfers the change to your checking account. Commercials for this service are all over the television and radio - tagline: "you don't even have to think about saving" - and every time I see one I feel the gulf between me and the rest of humanity widening (MR readers excepted of course).

Look, I can understand Ulysses tying himself to the mast, I can understand locking the refrigerator and I can understand Christmas accounts but I will never understand how anyone can increase their savings by taking money from one account and putting it into another. I think I will write a book, I will call it Mental Accounting for Dummies:

The secret to saving more money is simple. In your right hand is money for spending. In your left hand is money for savings. Now take some money from your right hand and put it into your left hand. Tada! Wasn't that easy?

Consumer Reports also had a pretty thorough debunking of the program some time ago, as well.

It wouldn't work for me anyway because I adamantly refuse to use a debit card.


*Actually, I remain there because after seven years the managers and tellers all know me, which makes the rare special request so much easier to ask for and be granted.

Head Trip

Sometimes a lollipop is just a lollipop--no matter how freakish.

Tasmanian Devil

Why can't I ever stumble across these things when out for a walk on the beach?

A giant squid washed up on the shores of Tasmania has scientists in a frenzy.
...
They will take samples from the massive creature, which has been identified by Tasmania Parks and Wildlife as giant squid Architeuthis.
...
The hood of the squid is about two metres long and the body a couple of metres long.

A TPWS spokesman said the tentacles have been badly mangled so their length could not be measured.
...
A member of the public made the discovery last night.

Heh

The Onion is on top of things with a new magazine launch:

New Pompous Asshole Magazine To Compete With Cigar Aficionado

NEW YORK—Upscale consumers who enjoy cigars, wine, and "all the finer things in life" will have a new magazine to enjoy beginning next month when Pompous Asshole hits the stands. Targeted at the 23- to 60-year-old pompous-asshole demographic, the new monthly magazine is expected to compete directly with Cigar Aficionado for advertising dollars. "Pompous Asshole is the magazine of the good life," said publisher Paul Westman, "And, unlike Cigar Aficionado, we truly cover it all: From tips on choosing the right humidor to advice on where to gamble in Monte Carlo to the lowdown on the new Jaguar XJ8, Pompous Asshole is the magazine no rich prick can afford to be without."

More Walkies

Yesterday, the Two Rivers group and I went for a hike up Bash Bish Falls near Taconic State Park, in the "three corners" area (where New York, Masschusetts, and Connecticut meet). It was billed as an easy hike to the falls, then a "slightly" more arduous trek up the falls (or, more properly, up the side of the falls). At the bottom is a bulletin board containing a half dozen or so news stories of people who have died while hiking there--typically by ignoring the "do not go beyond this point" signs or doing similarly dumb things. (My recurring question was whether the name "Bash Bish" came from the sound of hikers caroming off rocks.)
Anyway, the extremely steep ascent was quite arduous indeed; fortunately, there is a metal handrail you can use to help hoist yourself up (would installing an escalator chairlift kill them?). We lunched on a small plateau midway up the falls, which I thought was part of the legal trail but actually wasn't so we got chased off by a park ranger. The view from the top was quite spectacular, and the very steep descent even more challenging than the ascent, IMO, thanks to the, um, gravity of the situation. Happily, the six of us made it up and down none the worse for wear--a few bruises and cuts and some aching muscles, but that's about it. Still, it was a great deal of fun.
I think it's time to invest in a good pair of hiking boots....

Aloha, "Octosquid"

This is cool:

Scientists at the University of Hawaii at Manoa will soon have a chance to investigate a creature that appears to be half squid, half octopus that was found in waters off the Big Island.

It appears that the creature was sucked up in a deep seawater pipeline at the Natural Energy Laboratory Hawaii Authority at Keahole on the Big Island.
The pipeline pumps cold water up from 3,000 feet below sea level. Occasionally deep-sea marine life will get caught in a filter in the line, officials said.

Workers call the latest find an "octosquid." It has the body of a squid and the tentacles of an octopus.

This isn't entirely unheard of; marine biologists have already found Taningia danae, an eight-armed deep sea squid.

Cold Calling

If you're eager to get out of your wireless contrat (and, quite frankly, who wouldn't be?), Sprint makes it easy: just call customer service too much:

A Sprint customer, whose personal information has been obscured in this image, recently received this letter from Sprint Nextel saying that his contract would be canceled because Sprint believed he had contacted customer service too much. Other subscribers received similar alerts.

Cutting Remarks

You know, not all economic news has to be depressing. If you're in the market for a machete and are worried about overpaying for one, you're in luck:

The price of machetes has halved in parts of Nigeria since the end of general elections in April because demand from thugs sponsored by politicians has subsided, the state-owned News Agency of Nigeria reported.

NAN surveyed prices in the northeastern state of Gombe and found that a good quality machete was now selling for 400 naira ($3) compared with 800 naira before the elections, which were marred by politically motivated violence in many states.

It's common to overlook the "hired thug" factor when analyzing economic data.

Electile Dysfunction

It's safe to say that politics is the entertainment branch of government, and nothing is more purportedly entertaining than Presidential election campaigns. So I say, let's make 'em more entertaining, by giving this list of dark horse candidates a chance on the national stage. I mean, come on, does not this sound like appealing commander-in-chief, if only for the kicky robe:

Jonathon Albert "The Impaler" Sharkey — 43, Satanist/pagan who is the founder, national chair and commanding general in the 1st Vampyre, Witches, Pagans Party Regiment (2006-present); former U.S. Army soldier; former board member of Hillborough, New Jersey's County Executive Republican Committee; dark priest/ advisor to the Church of the Followers of Lucifer; founder and national chair of Vampyres, Witches, Pagans Against Impaired Driving (2005-present). As an ordained Satanic dark priest, vows to perform same-sex marriages at White House at least once a month and to only impale criminals and terrorists, not law-abiding American citizens.

Hmm...I dunno, the Hillsborough NJ Executive Republican Committee... Sounds fishy to me.

But having this guy in a debate would be fun:

Gene Amondson — 64, running for the second time for the Prohibition party, Amondson has spent the past 20 years dressing up as the Grim Reaper with a whiskey bottle in one hand and a scythe in the other to preach the ills of liquor. Also a wood carver, oil painter, pie baker, children's book author and professional impersonator of 1900s evangelical anti-booze preacher Billy Sunday.

It would be fun to watch, but I can't get on board with the whole Prohibition thing...

And it's almost hard to believe this guy is single:

Jackson Kirk Grimes — 56, a single pagan with a GED who once portrayed Hitler on "Star Trek," this director of the United Fascist Union (which promotes the economic theories and political ideologies of Benito Mussolini and Saddam Hussein) and two-time presidential candidate promises to abolish paper money and create a global government if elected.

You have to admit, these clowns are not appreciably worse than the usual bozos who run--or who have even been elected.

Airport Insecurity

Oh, this is comforting:

The Albany International Airport supports efforts to improve security, after government inspectors managed to sneak fake bomb parts through an airport checkpoint.
...
In one test, TSA inspectors hid the components of a fake bomb in carry-on luggage that also had a bottle of water. The TSA screeners at the airport confiscated the water bottle -- passengers cannot carry on more than three ounces -- but missed the bomb.

Well, at least the water bottle didn't get through! Call me cyncial, but I can't help but think that is designed so that passengers are forced to buy the extortionately priced water at the airport convenience stores (assuming bottled water isn't extortionately priced to begin with).

I would have thought that security at smaller, less crowded airports would be more thorough than zooish big airports, but maybe not. Perhaps small airports have a false sense of...security.

List-O-Mania

TV Guide has revised its list of the top 30 cult TV shows. Let's see: Nos. 1 (absolutely), 2, 4, 5, 6, especially 7, 9, very much 13, 14, definitely 16, and you betcha 25 are some of my favorite shows...well, ever, and pretty much sum up a large chunk of my DVD library. (What, no Futurama?) As for the rest of the top 10, well, I liked Buffy (I rented all the seasons at various points) but never obsessively. And The Simpsons--well, that goes without saying, although it's been years since I have watched it. Never liked Xena.

London Calling

Buoyed by the success of the Atlanta flight, I have officially booked a flight to London for next month. Blimey! Depending on the willingness of my hosts to indulge an utter dork, I do hope to get a chance to visit Portmeirion Village in Wales, if only to make Vince N. jealous.

Chime and Punishment

I love the "Selling It: Goofs, Glitches, and Gotchas" in the print edition of Consumer Reports. I did like this one offer:
Stun gun...wind chimes...it's a fine line. Actually, having lived next door to people who have had wind chimes, I don't find that the difference is too great. Wind chimes do tend to do more lasting psychological damage, as, on windy days, they gradually drive you to madness. At least a stun gun is quick.

A Show of Hands

Last night, I trotted up to the Saratoga Performing Arts Center (SPAC) to see one of my all-time favorite bands in the world--Rush. Scarily, it has been 25 years since I went to my first Rush concert (1982's Exit...Stage Left tour at the now-gone Boston Garden). I saw them three or four more times since--the 1983 Signals tour, probably the 1984 Grace Under Pressure tour, and in 1985 while in college, Ken A., Todd B., Steven H., and Mike K. and I trekked to Binghamton, NY, battling Mike K's increasing psychosis (don't even ask) to catch them on the Power Windows tour. That was actually the last I would really listen to Rush until "rediscovering" them in 1999. They toured again in 2002 and I had caught them at SPAC at the time.

Anyway, they put on a terrific show. They have never been ones to just "phone it in"; they put 100% into every note and it shows. The new album (Snakes and Arrows) is really good and the songs were even better live. The background visuals worked well and there were some funny video clips (Rush have rarely gotten credit for their sense of humor). Rick Moranis and Dave Thomas (actually old school friends of singer/bassist Geddy Lee) appeared in their old SCTV roles of Bob and Doug McKenzie, doing a skit to introduce "The Larger Bowl" (I couldn't tell if it was an old clip or a new one) and a South Park animation had the kids pretending to be Rush and screwing up "Tom Sawyer" (I never liked South Park, but it was pretty funny). The 2002 stage set had included--oddly--three clothes dryers that were never explained, and this time there were three large rotisseries full of chickens. Occasionally, in the middle of a song, someone would come out in an apron and chef's hat and baste them. It tied in tenuously with the introductory video clip, but was just kind of surreal.

The most striking thing about the show was the song selection. Since Rush have never had any real hits to speak of, the band's entire discography has always been fair game--in fact, Rush fans would probably love it if the band picked more obscure album tracks. "Tom Sawyer" and "The Spirit of Radio" are really the only two "must-plays" and everything else is up to what the band feels like playing. In 2002, they had played a lot of tracks from the 1989-1996 period, but this time around, they only played one song from that period, instead favoring the 1980-1981 period. The oldest song was actually my least favorite song from 1976's 2112. The Permanent Waves album was almost played in its entirety. They even did two songs from 1982's Signals--their ill-advised "synth" album whose songs seem to work better in a live setting. I'm certainly not complaining ("Natural Science" is probably my favorite Rush song, even if they did excise a verse, but then it is a 10-minute song), although one misses old concert staples like "The Trees" or "Red Barchetta."

They did two one-hour sets and a 15-minute encore. They had quite a lot of energy for three fifty-somethings--more than I did, as my feet were killing me after having had to stand for three hours. I also discovered that SPAC is a 40-minute walk from my house.

The complete song list played last night (with the album the song is from) was:

Limelight (Moving Pictures, 1981)
Digital Man (Signals, 1982)
Entre Nous (Permanent Waves, 1980)
Mission (Hold Your Fire, 1987)
Free Will (Permanent Waves, 1980)
The Main Monkey Business (Snakes and Arrows, 2007)
The Larger Bowl (Snakes and Arrows, 2007)
Secret Touch (Vapor Trails, 2002)
Circumstances (Hemispheres, 1978)
Between the Wheels (Grace Under Pressure, 1984)
Dreamline (Roll the Bones, 1991)

break

Far Cry (Snakes and Arrows, 2007)
Workin' Them Angels (Snakes and Arrows, 2007)
Armor and Sword (Snakes and Arrows, 2007)
Spindrift (Snakes and Arrows, 2007)
The Way the Wind Blows (Snakes and Arrows, 2007)
Subdivisions (Signals, 1982)
Natural Science (Permanent Waves, 1980)
Witch Hunt (Moving Pictures, 1981)
Malignant Narcissism (Snakes and Arrows, 2007)
Neil Peart's Drum Solo
Hope (an Alex lifeson solo acoustic 12-string piece) (Snakes and Arrows, 2007)
Summertime Blues (yes, the Eddie Cochrane song, from Feedback, the band's 2004 30th anniversary EP of cover songs)
The Spirit of Radio (Permanent Waves, 1980)
Tom Sawyer (Moving Pictures, 1981)

Encore:

One Little Victory (Vapor Trails, 2001)
A Passage to Bangkok (2112, 1976)
YYZ (Moving Pictures, 1981)

That'll Be the Deity

Wow, I had no idea that being God, the Creator of the Universe, was so supremely dull that this is what he chooses to focus his energies on:

New Kensington resident Joey Salvati, 39, a father of two, was in the shower about a month ago when he first heard God speak to him about the matter. Whether it was an external or internal voice, he wasn't sure. He tried to ignore it, but it kept coming back, day after day, until he realized he had to do something about it. The message was for Salvati to make wooden paddles for corporal punishment and give them to parents who need help disciplining their children.

Curing disease and suffering? Nope. Putting an end to poverty? Uh-uh. Telling humans that killing people in his name is really bad idea? Not gonna happen, God's got better things to do. But making wooden paddles to beat the shit out of kids? Yep.

Oy gevalt.

Net Worth

Well, this is comforting. If someone were to sell my body to medical science, it would yield about four times what I got for my 10-year-old car. Truth be told, though, the car ran better.

$3950.00The Cadaver Calculator - Find out how much your body is worth

Mingle² - Online Dating

Gimme 40

This appears to be the 40th anniversary of many things, such as "The Summer of Love," Sgt. Pepper, me, and, as it turns out, the bane/convenience of all our existences: the ATM.

Before the first ATM was installed by Barclay's Bank near London in 1967, there was a lot of standing in line and writing of checks, though there were probably a lot fewer $20 bills in the United States back then.

Funny with all the advances in chip power how ATMs have not gotten any faster over time. In fact, Bank of America ATMs are getting slower. Oh, wait, that's so we can read their dumb ads while trying to get money...

Delta Dawn

Well, the trip to Atlanta went off without incident; actually, the flight(s) were far more pleasant than the drive down I-87 to Newburgh (why why why do people insist on doing <65 in the left lane when the signs quite clearly say "keep right except to pass"? Do they know the problems and near-accidents this causes?).

I was headed to Atlanta for the NAPL Technology Conference (or whatever it was called) and the hotel it was held at (the Renaissance Concourse) was located right at the airport, which was a pain, as I like to be closer to things to do and places to go rather than trapped at a conference. It was also one of those irritating hotels that have a fee for everything--Internet? $15 (uh, no, thanks; thankfully the BlackBerry worked just fine). Want to use the computer in the lobby? $10. Want the air conditioning on? $5. Want the air conditioning off? $6. Want towels? $9. Oy.

Still, this was the view from my room:
It's interesting how the universe loves to taunt me so. But sitting and watching planes take off and land for a while is really quite hypnotic, and was actually quite therapeutic for anticipating the return flight.

Anyway, I really don't like business travel all that much, and I find that the only advantage to it is to explore cities I've never been to--like Atlanta. The woman I sat next to on the plane (who is a sales rep for a company that imports handbags that resemble dogs--it sounds extremely upsetting) recommended a jazz club in Atlanta called Dailey's. I arrived at the hotel about 5:30 and was starving, and I try to avoid chain and hotel restaurants, so I looked up Dailey's Web site on my BlackBerry. It looked like a nice place, so I grabbed a cab and headed downtown. And it was a terrific restaurant--if a tad on the pricey side. They were known for a cracked pepper swordfish and it was phenomenal. I had never heard of black bean soup, but it was very good. After the second gin and tonic, I kept wondering if the restaurant was owned by Bill Daily, who played Major Healey in I Dream of Jeannie. (The spelling should have been a good indication that it was not.)

Next door to Dailey's restaurant is the jazz club/bar area I had heard about. I had about a half hour before the band came on, so I walked around downtown for a bit. Not a massively bustling city, but clean and pleasant enough. It definitely looks like it's in the midst of a renaissance of sorts.

The jazz club was nice enough, although it is also billed as a "cigar bar," which usually means you have to put your clothes in a HazMat van when you're done, but fortunately it wasn't crowded and no one was smoking cigars. It wasn't really a jazz band--more like a blues band and they did a decent enough job covering Van Morrison.

I was exhausted so I did not stay very long, although I did enjoy a local Georgia microbrew called Sweetwater Pale Ale, which is quite good.

The cab driver--the same one who had driven me there from the hotel; he gave me his card and was having a slow night and said to give him a call when I was ready to return--was a really nice if often impenetrably accented guy named Bade, who was of Nigerian extraction, having lived in Atlanta for 16 years. He gave me a tour (it was a flat rate to the hotel, so I wasn't being taken for a ride, so to speak) of the city--mostly of Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthplace, his original church, and where one of his first marches took place (it's a National Park now). We also went past Turner Field (the Braves were playing the Red Sox--I do not know who won, but was glad that I do not have a New England accent).

I did not see "The Magician" (you'll have to watch the Futurama clip below).

After my presentation Wednesday afternoon, I headed back to the airport. As I mentioned previously, I had not flown since before 9/11 and was not used to having to remove my shoes (although all I could think of was Kurt Vonnegut's quote that it was a good thing no one tried to sneak exploding pants onto a plane). Still, even with the immense security lines in Atlanta, everyone was well-behaved and the staff there know how to keep everyone moving. The Atlanta airport has its own subway system, but I elected to walk (I had a lot of time) the 3000 feet to Concourse B. Unfortunately, I realized too late that I had left my shoe inserts (for my plantar fasciitis foot problem) in my dress shoes--which were in the luggage I had checked. Doh!

It was about dinner time and after searching desperately and with aching feet for a place to eat that was not completely mobbed, I finally found a Sam Adams pub right near my gate and had a few pints of Sam's Summer Ale and a cheeseburger that was slightly less inedible than a McDonald's cheeseburger.

As it turned out, the flight was an hour late taking off because the crew were delayed getting in from Gulfport, MS. There was some grumbling; actually, every Delta flight was delayed, leading some to think DELTA stood for "Doesn't Ever Leave The Airport," which I found amusing. Still, I'm a veteran of Amtrak, so an hour late is nothing. I just wish they had more seats at the gate (my feet were really killing me and the beer was wearing off).

The flight back itself was very pleasant (there's something quite ethereal about night flights), and I found the drive back up I-87 at 2 a.m. a much better time to be driving. I can see the appeal of being a vampire (except maybe for the blood thing).

All in all, I achieved my goal of coming several steps closer to getting over my fear of flying. London, here I come!

South by Southwest

I think a big part of my fear of flying came from all the times I had to fly on Southwest when I lived in California. I dug through my video archives and edited together these clips of my various flights on Southwest Airlines:

More Obsessing About Atlanta

Of course, I can never think of Atlanta without thinking of the Futurama episode "The Deep South," which explains what happened to Atlanta by the year 3000.

In the Court of the Crimson King

I couldn't find a video of King Crimson doing "One More Red Nightmare" (see below) but I did find pretty much the same lineup (except with the addition of David Cross on mellotron and violin) doing "Easy Money" from their 1973 Larks Tongues in Aspic record.

For the Birds

Video of Andrew Bird playing "Fiery Crash" live in Minneapolis, a week before mi hermano and I saw him in Boston.

The Robot Holocaust--Nice Day for a White Wedding?

Yes, but is this a non-denominational robot or can it "multitask"?

A robot called "Tiro" acts as master of ceremonies at a wedding for Seok Gyeong-Jae (L), one of the engineers who designed it, and his bride in Daejeon, 130 kilometres (78 miles) south of Seoul. The robot acted as master of ceremonies at a South Korean wedding in what its creators claimed as a world first.

This Fan Blows

Please kill me:

If you're the type that likes to call attention to yourself, and happen to need to lower the apparent room temperature at the same time, we can think of no better way than with this LED fan. With 42 LEDs mounted on the blades, the LED Art Fan spins and flickers at a brazillian* RPM to create beautiful persistence of vision images. Of course, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, so make sure you behold the video below.

Unbelievable bright images 5 megs of memory holds up to 128 individual frames.

No, no, no! I do not want a fan whose specs include megabytes!

Baby Got Pac

This is funny:

Pac Man’s Skull Exposed

Who knew that a circle with a giant mouth and tiny eyes could have such interesting anatomy beneath the surface. Pac-man’s skull was carefully crafted by artist Le Gentil Garcon after studying the skulls of human and predatory animals. He even collaborated with paleontologist Francois Escuille to make the most accurate representation right down to the tiny sacrum on his back-end.

iPhone, Therefore I Am

Here's a dopey headline (from Information Week):

Applications May Be The iPhone's Shortcoming

No. Given my experience with crappy cellphones, the only shortcoming would be if it is incapable of sending and receiving phone calls, a feature which is becoming rarer and rarer on phones these days.

Baby Got Bacteria

So I subscribe to this Co-Op America Newsletter, which offers tips and tricks for "shopping green." Not that I ever really do, given the fact that I'm basically cheap and lazy, but I at least like the idea of shopping green. (I also can't quite get into the "organic food" craze, preferring as I do inorganic foods, like Twinkies, given that my biological forebears evolved on another planet and were thus not carbon-based.)

Anyway, the current issue has a column on antibacterial soaps. It contains the passage:

In 1998, Tufts University reseracher Stuart Levy published a study in Nature, which found that frequent use of antibacterial soap caused genetic changes in bacteria, to the point where Levy speculated that these genetic changes couold create antibiotic-resistant "supergerms" and cause a public health crisis.
...
However, in October 2005, reserachers from Tufts (including Stuart Levy), Columbia University, and the University of Michigan did a follow-up study and found that household use of triclosan-based antibacterial hygiene products for one year did not result in participants carrying antibiotic-resistant bacteria on their hands.

Let's be clear about what we're talking about. The phrase "genetic changes in bacteria" is a little misleading, as it implies that the chemicals go into the bacterium's genome and cause mutations (like a Godzilla movie or something). What happens is that those bacteria that happen to have a genetic immunity to antibacterial products survive and replicate while those that do not, naturally, die. So the number of antibiotic-resistant bacteria increases. This is not science-fiction; it's basic Darwinism in action, and it's been well-documented that the overuse of pesticides in past decades has in fact led to the emergence of pests that are resistant to them, and for basically the same reason.

Now, this is not to say that it's a foregone conclusion that such organisms will develop, or that bacteria that are resistant to Dial handsoap will kill off humanity, but it's not a completely outlandish notion.

Personally, I try to avoid antibacterial products, simply because I'm not Howard Hughes (although, rent me Ice Station Zebra and we'll see what happens...) and have more important things to be afraid of--like silver gleaming death machines that shoot across the sky and purportedly land in Atlanta.

One More Red Nightmare

And, of course, for my return flight on Wednesday, I shan't forget this classic King Crimson* track from 1974:

Pan American nightmare
Ten thousand feet funfair
Convinced that I don't care
It's safe as houses I swear
I was just sitting musing
The virtues of cruising
When altitude dropping
My ears started popping
One more red nightmare

Sweat beginning to pour down
My neck as I turned round
I heard fortune shouting
"Get off of this outing"
A farewell swansong
See you know how turbulence can be
The stewardess made me
But the captain forbade me
One more red nightmare

Reality stirred me
My angel had heard me
The prayer had been answered
A reprieve has been granted
The dream was now broken
Thought rudely awoken
Really safe and sound
Asleep on the Greyhound
One more red nightmare

*The best King Crimson lineup (Robert Fripp, John Wetton, Bill Bruford), IMO.

Yeah, I Know...

...long time no post. Hey, you get what you pay for.

Anyway, what follows are some recent activities.

I should also mention that I saw Ocean's 13 the other night--it was enjoyable (I did not see the previous two) although it strained the very limits of believability. (I would imagine that casino pit bosses would think something was awry when dice magically change sides after being thrown and how exactly does one get a permit to dig under a hotel and trigger an earthquake?!) Still, it did make some of the Mission: Impossible plots seen downright plausible!

Fiery Crash

So today is my day for wigging out—I am flying to Atlanta tomorrow for some NAPL thing. It is perhaps a testament to the success of Toastmasters that I am completely blase about giving the presentation, but am dreading the flight (I need to find a Planemasters group, methinks). This is the first time I will have been on a plane in more than seven years (April 2000 was the last time). Actually, I had no desire to do this NAPL thing whatsoever, but only took it on it as an excuse to take a “test flight” in preparation for a trip to London to visit Amy and Steven in August.

I figured it was high time I got over this ridicuous fear of flying—it reached the height (so to speak) of absurdity last Graph Expo when I spent more time getting to Chicago than actually being in Chicago.

Of course, one of the worst things about flying, I discovered, was actually finding a flight. I wanted a non-stop flight (I don’t like takeoffs and landings—well, I should say I like the latter better than the former...). Naturally, there was no non-stop flight from Albany to Atlanta that cost under $1,000, but with Dr. Joe’s help I discovered one out of Newburgh, NY—about a 90-minute drive south of here—for under $200. As long as I keep thinking logically—the drive to Newburgh is statsitically less safe than the flight—I should be fine.

I also will keep playing one of my favorite Andrew Bird songs—“Fiery Crash”:

turnstiles on mezzanines
jet ways and Dramamine fiends
and x-ray machines
you were hurling through space
g-forces twisting your face
breeding superstition
a fatal premonition
you know you got to envision
the fiery crash

oh close your eyes and you wake up
face stuck to a vinyl settee
oh the line was starting to break up
just as you were starting to say
something apropos I don't know

beige tiles and magazines
Lou Dobbs and the CNN team
on every monitor screen
you were caught in the crossfire
where every human face
has you reaching for your mace
so it's kind of an imposition
fatal premonition

to save our lives you've got to envision
and to save all our lives you've got to envision
the fiery crash

it's just a formality
why must I explain?
just a nod to mortality
before you get on a place

oh close your eyes and you wake up
face stuck to a vinyl settee
oh the line was starting to break up
what was that you were going to say?

Walkies!

My friend Rob and I decided to look into joining an outdoor/social club in the Capital District called Two Rivers and, as it happened, I know one of their members via my Toastmasters Club and I ran into her again at the parade last weekend (see below).

So Saturday, we went on a hike through Thacher State Park in Voorheesville. I loaded up my backpack with water, bug spray, sunblock (precious liquid), trail mix, Band Aids, aspirin, Immodium (I prepare for everything!), and, at my sister-in-law’s suggestion, dry socks. I didn’t need the extra socks, but it was great fun. It wasn’t especially arduous (thankfully, as I am old), but it was very scenic. There were eight of us, and getting us all together to head down to the park was rather like herding cats; people kept going off and getting lost and it was like those horror movies where one search party gets lost looking for other search parties.

Still, it was a great time, and I look forward to future hikes and other outdoorsy events. (There is a bike ride next weekend, although I do not have a bike.) Kayaking will be a challenge; I suspect if I try that I will end up upside-down in no time.

That New Car Smell

My 10-year-old Saturn was acting up, so after several years of shilly-shallying I finally bit the bullet and bought a new car: a 2007 Toyota Camry. I was willing to pay extra for a hybrid version (even though, doing the math, given how little I drive, I would need to own the car for about 90 years before it paid for itself in gas savings) but the only one they had was cherry red (an obnoxious color) and tricked out with an extra $6K worth of crap like GPS and Bluetooth that I have no use or desire for. (I’m a simple people—all I wanted was an iPod adapter and decent cupholders—both of which came standard).

If you’re in the Saratoga area and are in the market for a car, I highly recommend New Country Toyota at Exit 15. They were very friendly and not high-pressure—or at least Aimee, my salesperson, wasn’t, but then she said she was new at car salesmanship. I thought I got a pretty good deal (like I know...), although they could not answer my question about the difference between a sunroof and a moonroof (apparently, the only difference is time of day you use it) and whether the latter would accelerate my lycanthropy.

I was excited by the fact that I had an iPod adapter (and a decent sound system) and no longer had to use a craoppy tape deck adapter—but then the day after I got the car, my iPod died. (Yes, I felt like Burgess Meredith in that Twilight Zone episode “Time Enough at Last” where he finally has the chance to read all the books he wants but then breaks his glasses). So my shakedown cruise was down to the Apple Store in Crossgates Mall to see what was wrong with it—fortunately, it just needed a power boost and a restart. Whew!

Pride (in the Name of Love)

June 10 was the annual Capital District Gay & Lesbian Pride Parade and Festival, held down in Albany. I was on the event planning committee this year, and a great time was had by all. I also volunteered to work the parade, and got to don an orange vest and walk alongside the Bomber’s Burrito float, keep traffic moving, and keep from being crushed by an immense burrito. We estimated about 3,000+ people showed up in Washington Park for exhibitors, live acts (Albany band Ten Year Vamp was really good), and general merriment.

Book 'Em, Dano

The latest roundup of what I have been reading lately.

Breakfast of Champions
Kurt Vonnegut
Apr. 2007
Fiction

A reread of Vonnegut's seventh novel (1973), the first Vonnegut book I had read (I borrowed it from Steven Hodges sometime during my sophomore year in college in 1986). It's not a "typical" Vonnegut novel, in that it was, as he says, written as a birthday present to himself on his 50th birthday.

Slapstick
Kurt Vonnegut
Apr. 2007
Fiction

A reread of Vonnegut's eighth (1976) novel, and one of the few I'm not really wild about.

Falling Man
Don DeLillo
May. 2007
Fiction

Falling Man is the new novel from a favorite author of mine (although I have only read a fraction of his books). I still am having a tough time determining what to make of it. DeLillo is a New Yorker, and Falling Man is a novel that is based on 9/11--Keith Neudecker was in the WTC when the planes hit, and the book opens with him fleeing the devastation. The event reconciles him with Linnia, his estranged wife and their young son Justin. Meanwhile, Keith returns a briefcase he found on a stairwell as he was fleeing to its owner, another survivor, and they have an affair. There is also Linnia's mother's European lover Martin, who had been a terrorist of sorts in the 1960s, and sections of the novel follow one of the hijackers as he trains with Mohammed Atta. There is also the titular "Falling Man," a performance artist who appears in random locations around NYC reenacting the poses of people who jumped from the towers. Themes related to terrorism have suffused DeLillo's work since the 1970s, so 9/11 seems ripe territory for him. While there is much to recommend in the book, it lacks the brilliance of his best work, like Underworld or White Noise, which were exceptional (and often sardonic) glimpses of 20th (and 21st) century disconnected America. DeLillo has a gift for language, and much of the novel becomes psychological exploration of 9/11 and its aftermath. Keith's poker buddy died in the towers, so he becomes obsessed with professional poker. Linnia beats up her Middle Eastern neighbor. Most chilling, though, is young Justin, who has a secret game with his friends where they scan the skies with binoculars waiting for a man named "Bill Lawton" (that is, a childhood garbling of "Bin Laden"). The book has much emotional depth and resonance, but it was hard to really get into Keith and Linnia as characters, since they're just kind of unpleasant. It's a very short novel, and needs....something else, something I can't put my finger on. Falling Man is good, but I would have expected something better from DeLillo, especially on this topic.

After Dark
Haruki Murakami
May. 2007
Fiction

My absolute favorite contemporary author is bestselling (in Japan) author Haruki Murakami. I first read his magnum opus The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle when it came out in 1997, and I have been a fan of his ever since. His novels are like dreams, in that they take surface reality and combine elements of what is called in literary circles "Magic Realism": cats talk, sage figures appear dressed as Colonel Sanders or Johnny Walker, and reality becomes distorted. It’s like the literary equivalent of a Dali painting; the point isn’t to explain and understand every aspect of it, but to just take it in and let the experience wash over you--and change you. It's a very visceral way to read, and one that doesn't always lend itself to being written about (ironically). Anyway, his last novel, Kafka on the Shore was a return to brilliance after a couple of (IMO) moderate misfires, and After Dark is not as good, but is still good Murakami. A very short book (more novella; I finished it in basically two sittings) takes place in the six hours after midnight in Tokyo. A young girl, Mari Asai, is eating in a Denny's when she is visited by a series of strangers--a young jazz musician and a housekeeper at a "love hotel"--the latter of whom enlists her help in translating for a young Chinese prostitute who has been beaten up and robbed by a businessman, who fled the scene. Meanwhile, Mari's sister Eri sleeps and is pulled into a strange netherworld visible through her unplugged television set (told you this was magic realism). "Time moves in its own way in the middle of the night," says a bartender at one point. "You can't fight it," which could be the best way to sum up the book. It distorts reality, rends time and space, and is kind of a head trip in parts, but there is some wonderful dialogue between Mari and some of the other characters. My only complaint is that it was too short and, even though you expect things to be unexplained in Murakami, it seemed a bit too unexplained this time. Still, I enjoyed After Dark very much.

The Undercover Economist
Tim Harford
May. 2007
Non-Fiction

And now for something completely different. A very good introduction to basic economic thought by a Financial Times columnist. It isn't really an economics textbook per se, but rather uses the basic principles of economics to look at everyday questions, such as "Why can Starbucks get away with charging so much for coffee?" "why are poor nations poor?" and "Why has China been such a success story?" This has been billed as the companion book to Freakonomics, but I disagree; Freakonomics was basically a way of using bizarre convolutions of economic thought to examine arcane and fairly irrelevant issues while The Undercover Economist is more a way of "thinking like an economist" in everyday matters. Very enjoyable, as well.

I’ll Sleep When I'm Dead: The Dirty Life and Times of Warren Zevon
Crystal Zevon
May. 2007
Non-Fiction

Warren Zevon was one of my favorite singer/songwriters and this book, published by his ex-wife and longtime friend (published at his insistence, not as a hatchet job by a vindictive ex-spouse) is an "oral history" of Zevon's life. That is, not written in a narrative form, but rather is a collection of interviews with friends (writers like Carl Hiaasen, Dave Barry, and Stephen King), family, fellow musicians (Bruce Springsteen, Jackson Browne, etc.), ex-lovers, etc., that tells Zevon's story. Would that everyone had a bit nicer things to say about him. Almost the entire book reads like it was a hatchet job; detail after detail of Zevon's battles with alcohol, womanizing, his own temperament, etc., wear very thin, and one only occasionally gets a glimpse of the "good" Zevon, or ultimately what made him a great songwriter and a world-class entertainer. Ultimately, it's a very depressing book. I think I'd much rather listen to his records. In fact, I think I will...

How to Lie With Statistics
Darrell Huff
May. 2007
Non-Fiction

First published in 1954, I read this classic "pop mathematics" book way back when while I was working for You Know Who, but it deserves a reread. Huff was not a mathematician; he was a magazine editor (Family Circle) who wrote many books in his lifetime, this being the only math-themed one. It is a wonderful introduction to statistical thought and the ways that statistics can be used to mislead. Even though the examples from the 1950s are a bit dated, the principles sure aren't. This is required reading...for anyone, really.

Wickett's Remedy
Myla Goldberg
May. 2007
Fiction

Hoo boy. I really wanted to really like this book. I thought Bee Season, Goldberg's first novel, was delightful, even if it went off in some bizarre directions. This one shows her mastery of language and a willingness to take chances. Essentially, Wickett's Remedy is about Lydia, an Irish woman from South Boston who, following the death of her husband and brother, becomes a volunteer nurse during the Spanish influenza epidemic of the 1910s during the First World War. What is cool about this book is that the marginal notes provide a sort of Greek chorus by characters who have died, "correcting" or commenting on action in the main text. It's a unique idea and it works very well (and is often quite funny). However, there is also a subplot (or maybe even a main plot, it's hard to tell) about the titular remedy itself. That is, "Wickett's Remedy" was a "health elixir" that Lydia's husband had invented and, after his death, his business partner stole the recipe and turned it into the nation's bestselling soda. Indeed, each chapter ends with excerpts from "modern" (that is, 1990s-era) “QD Soda” promotional literature, factory tour guides, a newsletter, and so forth. How this ties in with the Spanish influenza story...um...not so well. It seems there were two books here and at the end of the day (or at the end of the book), the two stories are not integrated in a very satisfying manner--or, indeed, at all. Even the main story ends a bit abruptly, as if someone said "Pencils down" and Goldberg was forced to stop writing and it was published wherever she happened to stop. (I was amused to note in the Acknowledgements that her editor is someone I worked with--and hated--at St. Martin's Press and I'm happy--in a vindictive sort of way--to see that he has become a crappy editor.)

Blog Tired

Yeah, I know, it's been a while since I have posted (you get what you pay for...). Now that Spring is here and the weather has been beautiful, I have been eager to spend as little time as possible in front of the computer (just enough to get my work done) and more time out frolicking, gardening, wining and dining, etc.

Think Thin?

Ken forwarded me this article, with some additional comments that are not suitable for a family-friendly (?) blog. But:

Thin people may be fat inside

Some doctors now think that the internal fat surrounding vital organs like the heart, liver or pancreas — invisible to the naked eye — could be as dangerous as the more obvious external fat that bulges underneath the skin.

"Being thin doesn't automatically mean you're not fat," said Dr. Jimmy Bell, a professor of molecular imaging at Imperial College, London.
...
"The whole concept of being fat needs to be redefined".

OK, I have the utmost respect for science in general, and medical science in particular, but it's stuff like this that makes holistic medicine, homeopathy, and other such quackery sound appealing. Yes, yes, yes, everything is lethal, everything will kill us. Let's fret about every last nanogram of fat in our bodies. What's next: "Not being sick doesn't automatically mean you're healthy"? "Being alive doesn't automatically mean you're not not dead"? It's amazing that the human race survived for hundreds of thousands of years. Y'know, my grandmother lived on a diet of basically butter and she lived to be 99.

I'm going for a hamburger...

The Mollusk that Refreshes

My vote would go to R.C. Cola or perhaps Genessee Cream Ale, but Japan's Octopus Dumpling Soda would be a contender for Worst Beverage Ever.

UPDATE: Ah, the Octopus Dumpling Soda is just a joke. Pity. Would that Genesee Cream Ale were.

Something for Nothing

Would you pay $6+ for nothing? Some people apparently would. Yes: someone is selling a shrinkwrapped package of "nothing." That is, a clear plastic dome filled with nothing. OK, then.

The Giant Spider Invasion

Now, I rather like spiders (up to a point, natch) and despite the tarantula's fearsome reputation, truth is, there is no record in the history of medicine of anyone ever having died from a tarantula bite (the proteins in their saliva have been known to trigger some allergic reactions, but is not considered venom per se). Plus, many species of tarantula are quite docile and rarely bite anything as large as a human (unless the human is causing it undue aggravation). It's interesting to me that, even knowing all this, people are still terrified of tarantulas, while mosquitoes--which have been responsible for millions of deaths (malaria, encephalitis, dengue, etc.)--are just considered pesky nuisances. Go figure.

Anyway, that all said, a tarantula that measures one foot wide and eats chickens is just wrong. We may have to send in John Agar.

Cutting the Cords

This is cool:

Plastic sheet delivers wireless power

Desks and walls could one day light up electronics without need for cables.

Annoyed by the tangle of power cords under your desk? A sheet of plastic invented by researchers in Japan could one day make for tables and walls that power devices placed on them — without any need for wires or plugs. Computers could be powered through the desks on which they sit, for example, or flat-screen televisions through the walls where they hang.

The team of seven researchers at the University of Tokyo has produced a sample sheet of the plastic, which is about the size of a very thin magazine — just one millimetre thick and weighing 50 grams. It can deliver up to 40 watts of power to products on or near it that contain a special 'receiving coil': enough to power a lightbulb or a very small laptop. They say that scaled-up production of such sheets could be inexpensive enough for widespread installation in desks, floors, ceilings and walls, ushering in a "new class of electronic devices".

The plastic, described today in Nature Materials1, has as its base a layer of transistor featuring pentacene, an organic molecule whose electrical conductivity can be controlled. Topping that are layers holding copper coils that can sense whether a compatible electronic device is nearby, microelectromechanical-system (MEMS) switches that serve to turn on and off the power, and copper coils to transmit electricity.

Breakfast of Champions?

If Internet cafes started serving breakfast, I can only assume they would use the latest in utter nerdiness: the keyboard waffle-iron. Most of us have inadvertently spilled syrup, butter, or other comestibles into our keyboards at one time or another, but now we can do so without worry. What's next--mouse-shaped muffins? (Oh, dear, let's not give them any ideas...)

You have to eat the Enter key to feel full.

If you eat the Shift key, the portions will be bigger.

If you eat the Tab key, you will fly across the breakfast table.

To get away from an unwanted breakfast guest, eat the Esc key.

If you eat Ctrl-Alt-Delete simultaneously, breakfast will abruptly end.

Whatever you do, don't eat the Up Arrow key.

Eating the space bar will just give you gas.

And after breakfast, of course, you can have a vowel movement.

Days of Future Past

Someone has unearthed and posted a set of vintage postcards from 1900 illustrating what the quaint fin-de-siècle Victorians (actually a German chocolate company) thought life would look like in 2000. The House-Moving Train is not that far removed from (but a little smaller than) some of today's SUVs. The Personal Flying Machines are an interesting illustration of a class-action clawsuit about to happen, but my favorite would have to be the Personal Airships. Who wouldn't want their own blimp?

What I especially love is how dignified and respectable everyone looks--quite the opposite of today, where decorum and dignity (must people wear flip-flops in public?) appear to have gone the way of Victoria.