Another precinct heard from

In which I ramble on hoarsely for an hour

2009-02-05T17:58:00.000-08:00

Poor Karl Erikson. In an hour he and I will be chattering away on his Secondhand Radio hour of power, and I've got a cold so ferocious I just might be able to infect people over the phone. Sneezing, gasping for air, fumbling for my handkerchief, and slurping up the hot tea -- yes, I am the perfect freaking guest. Spare a kind thought for him, won't you?

(I, on the other hand, expect to enjoy myself just fine; after all, I'm gonna have the cold whether I'm inflicting it on the rest of the Internet or not. Sharing is caring!)

1... 2...

2009-01-14T14:14:00.000-08:00

Mysterious Worlds edition: First, Patrick McGoohan, the eternal Number 6. (We pause here for a very wrong rendition of "Dem Bones.") Second -- oh, lord -- Ricardo Montalban, and whether he's Mr. Roarke or Khan to you, we've just lost one of our most thrilling voice actors. In one day, no less...

From the That'll Larn 'Em! department...

2009-01-13T15:46:00.001-08:00

From the indispensable Perfume (Luca Turin and Tania Sanchez), p. 226:

Rose jam is one of the most delicious things ever and, aside from artichokes, one of the few opportunities we have of demonstrating our superiority over flowers by eating them.

Your moment of zen, 2008

2008-12-23T18:40:00.000-08:00

David Milch speaks for me:

"The biggest lie is the idea that we are entitled to a meaningful and coherent summarizing, a conclusion, of something which never concludes. In that regard, this is the lie I'm telling myself so I don't set fire to anything."

Every day it really does take learning all over again how to fucking live.

1... 2...

2008-12-19T00:16:00.000-08:00

That Voice edition: First, Mark Felt -- Deep Throat -- who acted in defense of democracy, though it's debatable as to whether it was all for the right reasons. And second, Majel Roddenberry, who as the dulcet tones of the Enterprise's shipboard computer boldly went.

(And I am very glad, as we are re, that Miss Lena Horne is not currently our #3. Dammit, EW, don't scare me like that.)

Having fun all wrong, or by proxy anyway

2008-11-05T00:48:00.000-08:00

I just spent the greatest communal celebration of my adult life sitting in a dirty apartment while one of my hosts threw up and the other played computer solitaire and asked why anybody gave a damn about politics. Other than the Obama-winning, Libby Dole-smashing, South-Dakota's-actually-sane-re-women's-health-revealing parts I'm feeling rather fucking sorry for myself tonight. On the other end of the country, OTOH, there was much fun to be had, as demonstrated by my friend Jon and his sunroof:

This image of revelry brought to you by The Stranger, to whose cranky news reporter I say fuck you, you don't know what exile is.

I like to live in America!

2008-11-04T08:12:00.000-08:00

Courtesy of the wonderful Cagle Post, an editorial cartoon from Thailand that I'd love to have as a poster. Have you voted yet, friends?

1... 2...

2008-10-31T16:33:00.000-07:00

One of the great chroniclers of American lives, and one of the great American stories: Studs Terkel passes at 96, and word just reached me today of the not-by-exploding-El-Dorado death of Frank "Lefty" Rosenthal, Martin Scorsese's inspiration for Casino. Working made me want to be a writer; Lefty's story makes me watch Casino every damn time it turns up on TV. And it turns up a lot.

As with Paul Newman, Studs Terkel should have at least gotten a pass 'til Wednesday -- both of them, I think would want to see how this campaign ends. And so let us all hope fervently that whoever the "3" in this trilogy might be, that s/he waits at least a little while before completing the cycle.

(ETA ...and that's three. Oh dammit. Oh dammit, that was so what I was hoping would NOT happen.)

Who? Wait, there's a blog here?!

2008-10-27T10:57:00.000-07:00

Yeah, very quiet; thoughts on that when I get my feet back under me. (I love the new gig but the pace is something else, and then there are all these bookshelves I need to finish building. The most-used fixture in the new house appears to be the Time Sink. Does the kitchen in the TARDIS have a Time Sink? I digress.) But I needed to tell someone that I need to have the entire Particle Zoo (and its Antimatter Annex) shipped to me immediately. That is all. (HT to Book of Joe.)

Why I still love my poor dead bank

2008-10-02T16:41:00.001-07:00

If you got just funny left and not much dignity, work the funny. New WaMu ad today:

HT to ChangeOrder, via Gawker.

A little soothing schadenfreude

2008-09-29T18:39:00.000-07:00

Such a day. While we ponder the markets, the Hubble, and other rattiness of the day, take heart: You're not as lost as this little chickadee. Though I'll bet it's warm and happy and rainbow-colored in her head. I'd bet there are ponies, even. Ponies. (HT to The Blingdom of God and Jeff T., who got the first laugh of the day out of me.)

When the mainstream media shines

2008-09-25T08:08:00.000-07:00

Okay, NY Times, this is why we let you live: Check out this impressive team-reported investigative piece on a shady situation with Long Island Railroad retirees and their disability claims. The reporters and researchers involved heard about a strange situation (an anomalous number of former LIRR employees going for occupational disability payouts -- your tax dollars, even if you're not in NYC) and dug in, talking to employees and management at the LIRR, union officials, industry experts, medical folk, people on an obscure government agency called the Railroad Retirement Board, and the lady who's in charge of those free state-park golf-course passes for disabled folk. They do the legwork, they lay out the evidence, they make a very good case for the system needing fixing. Beautiful work.

We are all New York Yankees

2008-09-21T20:04:00.000-07:00

(Yeah, BoSox fans, go cry for a few sentences.) They shone, they stunk, they rocked, they made you want to cauterize every damn brain cell that holds the baseball stuff: They will still be the Yankees next year, I reckon, but they're not ever again going to be the Yankees of Yankee Stadium. Last time I was there I dropped $20 of beer on some poor bastard after slipping on the upper-deck steps; it's a fond memory of baseball's cathedral -- which, like most medieval buildings, is more pleasant to contemplate from the outside. Moving on. (Okay, Boston fans, you're safe to start reading again...)

Money talks and sings

2008-09-21T10:19:00.001-07:00

I'm ashamed to say that I had to be sent this clip from The Stranger, our local weekly, by someone 3500 miles away. I'm a wretch. Please accept the clipping itself as my apology, with great thanks to whoever AFT keeved it from in the first place:

Fly-by crazy is fun to watch, but...

2008-09-21T01:15:00.000-07:00

...it takes a bit of time to clean up after the droppings. Until the flock flaps away (if you've been watching the DFW thread, you know what I'm talking about), comments will be moderated before they post. Sorry for the inconvenience, sane members of the congregation! As we've learned from other venues, the skies will clear again soon.

Holding the journalists to account

2008-09-15T18:02:00.001-07:00

This isn't usually how the Net-vs-mainstream-media thing works, but the readers commenting on Lou Lumenick's NY Post coverage of the Toronto Film Festival feel that the writeup should have included an apology for his smackage of Roger Ebert, and they are making their thoughts known most engagingly. They're in his review of The Women too. (Ebert, apparently serene in the knowledge that he's four or five orders of magnitude more talented and respected than the Post writer will ever be, ain't talking.) Post management would be smart to have the guy step up and say his piece, that piece consisting of OMG I AM SO SORRY GOD DO I SUCK FORGIVE ME AAAAAA or resign themselves to anarchy in the comments for a while. Which, hey, it's the Post -- either way works for me. (HT to Defamer.)

“Stop blogging. Stop blogging right now!”

2008-09-14T19:44:00.001-07:00

Oh, Sarah Palin. Sarahsarahsarahsarah Palin. I am so pleased to hear that bloggers can get under your thin white skin.

The Times today has a not-bad vetting of the woman's personal / political style, which is... well, if this was your boss you'd be chatting up HR pretty much daily. Once you've been through that, may I direct your attention to a film made about the woman before she was even born? It's called A Face In The Crowd, and it was made in 1957 by Elia Kazan. It's the story of a folksy plain-talkin' charismatic with a serious case of megalomania, and it will keep you up nights. The star is Andy Griffith; you will never look at Mayberry RFD quite the same again, and you will have clarity of thought re Sarah Palin's sort that only great art can provide. YouTube has, for the moment, the whole freakin' movie in twelve parts. Get it while you can.

David Foster excuse me WHAT?!

2008-09-14T00:54:00.001-07:00

I go offline for 24 hours and this is what happens? David Foster Wallace checks out? Dammit, interwebs, I apparently can't leave you unattended for a minute without getting the feeling I've been punched in the side of the head. Because that's obviously why I'm sitting here barely able to breathe. Dammit. Dammit. Dammit.

Cosmic Variance has perhaps the most perfect tribute quote.

No words. Great dismay at having no more from himself.

(But I do have this. I generally have a lot of sympathy for those who decide to depart on their own schedule, but for those who choose to leave the remains for family to find? Fuck you. Seriously, talk about leaving this life as a piece of shit. I respect the man's work and I'm sorry about whatever led to this choice, but I'd spit on his fucking corpse right now if it turned up.)

Lead. In my vitamins.

2008-09-12T19:43:00.000-07:00

Oh, that's just fantastic. Interested that they didn't also test men's vitamins, though OTOH, I don't know any men who take 'em. In any case, this profoundly sucks; my eating habits are weird enough that I really need to not skip the supplement, but I definitely don't need the extra heavy metal. What to do? (HT treehugger.com.)

Meet Ike, or rather DO NOT

2008-09-12T19:26:00.001-07:00

Hi. This is Ike.

Ike is on its way to Texas. Despite the feeling of many of us re certain political tendencies of Texas (and its fellow hurricane magnet Florida), this is a houseguest no one decent wishes on anybody. If you're in Ike's path, on behalf of everybody else I would appreciate it if you'd get the hell out of there to whatever extent possible. If not, stay safe and hang on; we're all hoping for the best for you. (Photo skeeved with thanks from Michael Farnum's blog -- one of the good security-industry folk currently battening down the hatches. We look forward to hearing an all-is-well from that quarter ASAP.)

Open-source security, sort of

2008-09-12T18:13:00.000-07:00

By fiat. I'm waiting for more detail before I condemn or praise the hackers who popped security -- really bad security, to hear them tell it -- at the Large Hadron Collider. Disclosure of vulnerabilities, whether they're in Microsoft products or massive physics experiments that already scare the snot out of nervous types, are one of those things that require a system. An orderly system. A system that the hacker community will never in a bazillion years be able to agree on.

But while I wait Estragon-like on those rules of etiquette for telling something their computer's zipper is down, I wonder if the Greek Security Team hackers who 0wned the LHC made even a little effort to contact CERN re the holes before they grasped for their fifteen minutes of fame. Look, dudes, it's nice that you're actually geek enough to not want to screw up the coolest science experiments of the decade, but maybe a little less cheap notoriety and a little more...honor?

2558 days later

2008-09-11T20:43:00.000-07:00

On the whole I was prepared to tune out the inevitable 9/11 tributes today -- I mark it in my own way, thanks, and don't need to be beaten over the head with other peoples' ideas* of what we lost that day -- but I was hoping that Evolution of Security, that ever-fascinating TSA blog, might offer up some words on this occasion. And lo!, they did. And the readers did behold the post, and the comments did fly freely. And AG did see the free speech, and declared it was good.

* Except for Jon Stewart, who then as now speaks just fine for me. Though damn him for, of all things, an optimist in that clip. We were so much younger then...

Oldest living Confederate widow... ain't

2008-09-11T15:55:00.000-07:00

Well, one of the oldest anyway. Astonishing to do the math on this one.

Damn those succubi

2008-09-11T15:42:00.000-07:00

It's true, all true.

...to keep me from thinking of mine

2008-09-10T13:42:00.000-07:00

Some people have unseemly reality-television addictions, but I haven't got that kind of patience. Instead, I read advice columns for the entertainment value, by which I mean the armchair quarterbacking and the wondering what the other side's side of things sounds like.

To ruin the productivity of my kind, we have Sidetaker, in which he says and she says and then we get to vote. ~~So far the side has a bad case of eHarmony-itis (that is, only The Straights need apply),~~ I apparently have vastly deterioriated reading-comprehension skills this week, but that doesn't mean I haven't been compulsively reading and voting on the life crises of perfect strangers. Hey, it ain't snooping if they volunteered...