Penguin is Norwegian army Colonel

Honestly

Offered without comment.

Enjoy a virtual vacation with semi-literate cranks

I have just discovered that TripAdvisor has a blog where they post "the stuff we can’t publish. Whether it’s funny, rude, bizarre, potentially libelous, incomprehensible, or all of the above, we love it, and we think you will too."

So far, this one is my favorite:

It looks like such a nice place on the pictures and brochures.

My new wife and I were so looking forward to a weekends stay, we had saved specially for it.

However, when we arrived we were greeted by the one of the worst receptionists I have ever had the misfortune to come across, it wasn't that she was rude and impolite, that i could deal with, but she kept making reference to the fact that we were not the type of person welcome at the establishment.

It wasn't until later in the evening that I found out why we were not the right type of clientele. At around eight in the evening I heard the roar of what sounded like a thousand blood hungry lions outside the hotel. It was to my wifes distaste to find out that they were indeed hells angels, apparently this is regular stop for them on Friday evenings. Now being a jovial character i thought maybe my wife and I could plead with brutes to move on to there next destination. I thought it was going well until one of them a chap named "B----" with a "I hate my mum" tatoo on his forhead took a particular interest in my wife "---------". She spent the whole evening with this rogue whilst his fellow angels......well all I want to say is humiliated me in ways that I do not feel comfortable describing.

Well to cut a long story short, they are now engaged after B----- paid me visit to enourage me to give her a divorce, which I had no choice he threatened to shoot me up my bottom and feed the bits to his doberman.

I will not be visiting again!

My Third Annual Christmastime Fun

This year watching the ramp-up to the UK Christmas single from afar has been quite interesting, as quite a number of folks seem to be hard at work attempting to rescue the spot from "The Winner of X-Factor." This seems to have caused a few ringers to appear.

I was thinking that the trend seems to be songs by people who are now dead, but looking closer we see that it is in fact duets by people of whom one are now dead.

Eva Cassidy & Katie Melua - "What A Wonderful World"

Pogues Ft Kirsty MacColl - "Fairytale of New York"

John & Yoko / Plastic Ono Band - "Happy Xmas (War Is Over)"

and perhaps by the time I post this:

Mark Ronson Ft Amy Winehouse - "Valerie"

I'm sorry. That was mean.

So here we go.

40) John & Yoko/Plastic Ono Band - "Happy Xmas (War Is Over)" About twenty years ago, I would have thought I would be sick of this song by now. Of course, I would have also thought that it would completed the trajectory that it was on at the time and become totally irrelevant. Dammit.

39) Foals - "Balloons" As with previous years, I haven't heard many of these songs, so some of them I just have to take a shot at. At New Year's Eve parties, balloons are frequently dropped on party goers at midnight.

38) Rihanna Ft Jay-Z - "Umbrella" If you don't want balloons landing on your head, you can open an umbrella.

36) Chris Rea - "Driving Home For Christmas" For years, I thought that Chris Rea and Tommy Roe were the same person. I just now find that they are not. On the plus side, both of them are still alive! On the minus side, I now have "Sweet Pea" stuck in my head. Dammit.

27) Band Aid - "Do They Know It's Christmas" I'd take odds that this is the original one, and not one of the follow ups. For the obsessive: The Wikipedia entry on Band Aid has a handy chart of exactly who sings which line in all three versions.

23) Shakin' Stevens - "Merry Christmas Everyone" Here's some goofy trivia. "Do They Know It's Christmas" was the Christmas Number One in 1984 and this song was the Christmas Number One in 1985. And here they are on the same chart two decades later. Perhaps next year "There's No-one Quite Like Grandma" by St Winifred's School Choir will be back on the charts. I would love to see that. Particularly as I won't be able to hear it.

22) Slade - "Merry Xmas Everybody" This was on the charts last year, and I didn't realize that it was a reissue. But Slade is still together, so that's nice to see. Merry Xmas, Slade!

21) Andy Williams - "It's The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year" He's still alive too! That's amazing! Good for him!

20) Shaun The Sheep - "Life's A Treat" Please, someone tell me this is a cartoon character. [Update: Yes. It is a cartoon character. [Update: No. It is not a cartoon character, it is a claymation character.]]

16) Wizzard - "I Wish It Could Be Christmas Everyday" Wizzard broke up in the seventies. This is the fourth Christmas that this track has had a shot for the number one. Not yet.

14) Wham! - "Last Christmas" This is the fourth Christmas release without a number one for this track as well. That's just silly.

11) Mark Ronson Ft Amy Winehouse - "Valerie" I don't think that this is a Christmas song per se, I'm just hoping that this is a cover of the Monkees song.

8) Pogues Ft Kirsty Maccoll - "Fairytale Of New York" Cards on the table. I want this to get it this time. I would have before, but know that I know that this getting number one this year will bring more media attention to the fact that it took the BBC twenty years to realize that this song contained the word "faggot" will just make it all the more sweet.

4) Mariah Carey - "All I Want For Christmas Is You" I've erased about nine different comments about this. Snarking on this is like kicking a puppy.

1) Eva Cassidy & Katie Melua - "What A Wonderful World" Sometimes I have this weird dread that some day they're going to discover that the form of cancer that Cassidy died from can be caused by recording too many demo tapes. I think they may have finally run out of demo tapes as this is one of those things where they dub a new singer onto an old tape, thus creating a duet. Perhaps some day someone will take one of those tracks and add another person in, creating a trio. In centuries to come there will be videos of huge choirs of celebrities across time singing standards of the 1940's to 1960's. What a wonderful world that will be.

I take a moment to step back

I've had a little blogging vacation (a vacation from blogging, not a vacation that I blog from) due to work, snow, illness and something in the basement that we have decided to rename "Frankenboiler."

As I start to nudge myself back on-line, I'm going to be taking a chance to think about just what it is that I am doing here compared to what it is that I set out to do and what I would like to do.

To prepare for the process, I notice that there is a meme going about where the blogger is required to list and discribe the first post of every month of 2007. Let's have a look.

• January - I discuss my then ongoing Jean Shepherd phase. The phase died out after I hit a few too many instances of race related humor that, while not hateful, could be described as "of its era."
  
• February - I briefly note my unwilling participation in the "2007 Boston Mooninite Scare."
  
• March - I discover the existence of a "Stephen Fry Talking Alarm Clock."
  
• April - A perusal of the first episode of Spender invites me to ponder on how my brain compensates for driving on the opposite side of the road when I am abroad. I don't spell it out, but the thing that inspired it was the subject of the screen grab - the hand-held camera is being operated from the front passenger seat, but my brain translates it to being the driver's seat. This freaked me out as I momentarily believed that someone was actually operating a video camera while driving.
  
• May - Zeppelin vs. Pterodactyls!
  
• June - I apologize for not blogging.
  
• July - I share a video of Brother Ali in performance. The second half of the selection is his "Forest Whitaker" rap, which I am quite fond of.
  
• August - I enjoy a collection of maps from the end papers of old books.
• September - I share a youtube video of the film His Girl Friday with all of the words removed. Youtube seems to have deleted the clip, thus completing the process.
  
• October - In the course of looking at New Yorker ads, I muse on the Triumph TR7. A commenter joined in with memories of the family TR7: "The electrics went and it didn't start on damp days (not a good thing for a British car). My father sold it to a teenager who took it on a test drive on a sunny day."
• November - I discover that my blog is written for the reading level of a college undergrad. (Semi-related snatch of overheard conversation between two English Lit professors yesterday: "You know, I am always surprised by how much the undergraduates enjoy Rabelais.")
  
• December - Inspired by my accidental purchase of Peril Island, by Percy James Brebner, I vow to write a post on every chapter, thus wringing value from mishap.
  

Buying the New Yorker 1976 - page 60

The ads are frequently not scanned with the same care as the rest of the content. I might be the only person on the planet who cares about such things - and to be fair, if they upped the quality of the ads to the level that I would enjoy, there would be a need for perhaps another DVD-Rom or two. So it's completely understandable to treat the ads with less care so the cost of the set can be fifty bucks cheaper.

But it's times like this that make me wish that I could get a better look at the ad, just to have a better sense of the pattern. In the text, we are asked to pay attention to "the scoop neck and the tie." I've spent more time than I really want to looking for any evidence of a tie, either a necktie or anything that might be used to cinch this garment together. I'm stumped.

It would be marvelous to see this in color, particularly in the green and white, but the ad is in black and white, so we can't fault the New Yorker people for that.

I also wish I had a better idea of what the hell was on her head.

Google street view expands!

Nothing so fair, so pure, and at the same time so large, as a lake, perchance, lies on the surface of the earth. Sky water. It needs no fence. Nations come and go without defiling it. It is a mirror which no stone can crack, whose quicksilver will never wear off, whose gilding Nature continually repairs; no storms, no dust, can dim its surface ever fresh; -- a mirror in which all impurity presented to it sinks, swept and dusted by the sun's hazy brush -- this the light dust-cloth -- which retains no breath that is breathed on it, but sends its own to float as clouds high above its surface, and be reflected in its bosom still.

View Larger Map

Addendum to the thing I learned yesterday

I think that if Robert Conquest and Robert Service were the same person, the world might be a slightly better place. Somehow.

Hello, my computer generated baby

One Froggy Evening, remade with CGI. Not as bad as you might think.

I'm just surprised that anyone admits to writing it

At least four people claim to have written "Footprints."

Be sure to look at the comments.

The thing I learned today.

Robert Conquest

Robert Service

Not the same person.

The statue of Ramona in Portland Oregon scares the bajeesus out of me

Buying the New Yorker 1976 - page 59

"Seeing everything wonderful and being seen looking wonderful wherever you go."

Who cares about the pull-on polyester pants and snappy print shirt? It's that sentence that just makes the ad over-the-top amazing.

Bonus: She seems to be standing in front of some sort of a cartoon duck.

I love the Kansas City Public Library's new parking garage

Classics
Originally uploaded by davidking

Viking Kittens?

Yes. Viking Kittens.

Plushie!

I can only think of one use for an inflatable pig.

Buying the New Yorker 1976 - page 57

And now the new style for 1976, it's 1961!

Thank you driver, for getting me here

An advertising suppliment in a recent music magazine consisted of postcards of concert photographs of some rising musical acts. Unfortunately the sponsor, Greyhound Buslines, neglected to inform the acts in question or the venues that they were performing at of their participation in the campaign.

Dan Deacon, one of the "featured" performers, was a little upset.

in the december issue of XLR8R magazine there is an ad for greyhound bus service that uses a photo of me at a show did at silent barn, a diy venue in brooklyn. no one asked me if this was ok. no one asked silent barn if it was ok to associate them with the company.

i first heard about it from jason of wzt hearts, who are also used in the ad, also without permission or even the courtesy of letting us know.

But what does he think of Greyhound as a company?

greyhound bus company is one of the worst run, bullshit companies i have ever had the misfortune to use. they are a total monopoly and take advantage of that with poor service and price hikes and route cancellation. they have bought all the other smaller companies and run them out of their office in dallas. they treat both their employees and customers like shit. they are a cancer.

since i do not drive i used to use them to get to shows (when nothing else was available). on many occasions i had to cancel shows because the bus would be late, my luggage would get lost/stolen, the over sell their buses, and fuck i fucking hate them.

it really upsets me that i am being used to promote them. if i had my way i would see all their buses transport guns to all the people they have fucked over.

like many evil companies they are trying to use subversive advertising and i will not allow myself to be a cog in their wheel of lies and deceit. these rats stink like rotten cum. fuck them with 1000 fires.

via Idolator

Pop culture mysteries solved!

It is impossible to count the number of times I have woken up in the middle of the night in a screaming panic because I had no idea what happened to Nicole Kidman's prosthetic nose from The Hours.

Now I can rest easy.

Residents of Hazelton, PA do love their football.

Well, some of them anyway.

via Google Maps

I am trumped again

My piffling attempts to observe the UK Christmas single pales in comparison to Steve in South Korea, who has devoted an excellent blog to nothing but that.

It's a Muppet Christmas Miracle!

Hopefully this will be my last post on the subject, but Lawrence Miles is now back to posting on The Beasthouse and the takedown has been taken down.

Hopefully this starts to bode well for the coming year.

It's said that in the nineteenth century, actors who portrayed ghosts on stage would often use phosphorous as make-up, since it gives the skin that all-important "glow-in-the-dark" effect (q.v. the big green dog in The Hound of the Baskervilles). Of course, it also has a tendency to kill you. Any number of actors might have died from the long-term effects of phosphorous poisoning, which raises the technical question: what happens if you're haunted by the ghost of someone who died while made up as a ghost? We might imagine that the ghost-ghost would glow twice as brightly as a normal ghost - fitting, for a dead prima donna - but we might also imagine that such entities would be pariahs amongst the rest of their kind, and that walking into a meeting of ghosts while covered in glowing green phosphorous would be much like walking through Brixton while made up as a Black and White Minstrel.

Buying the New Yorker 1976 - page 56

I stalled out on these two. We've seen both of these vendors before, so I wanted to say a little more about them, but there really isn't much.

Brazil has always seemed like the kind of place where someday someone will tell me, "Guess what! We're sending you to Brazil!" And then I say "Oh good! I knew this would happen sooner or later."

Hasn't happened yet. Maybe next year.

Not sure how to parse bow and arrow guy as an advertising element. "Come to Brazil! Get shot at by the disgruntled natives! Like Indiana Jones!"





Put your architects on danger money.

Himmel!

Book One, Chapter One - In the Casino at Boulogne

(Yes, you read that right - it's divided up into three books!)

Our nameless narrator is having dinner in Boulogne with his friend Bobbie Harrington, Harrington's aunt and uncle, the Boussets, and the Boussets' mysterious friend Lefevre.

The nameless narrator and Bobbie (it takes half the chapter before we can confirm that they are both male) have one more night in Boulogne before they head off in their yacht, so the five decide to have a night at the casino.

If you would like to go to Boulogne to visit a casino, you should read up on Northern France in a spiffy guidebook.



At the casino, Nameless Narrator and Mrs. Bousset are content to people watch while Bobbie and Lefevre gamble. It turns out that Lefevre is an excellent gambler, which is nice because he was a rather dull dinner guest. A pair of Germans are watching Fefevre intently. Suddenly a crazed "artist, student or anarchist, or perhaps a compound of the three" wanders in and draws a gun. In the ensuing chaos, Lefevre disappears. The crazed "artist, student or anarchist, or perhaps a compound of the three" is backed against a corner as the narrator, Bobbie and the two Germans try to advance on him. Suddenly and inexplicably, the crazed "artist, student or anarchist, or perhaps a compound of the three" is dead.

And we're off - a quick little chapter, but a nice hook at the end. While the book is not dated, my research indicates that it was published in 1924 - I have a feeling that there's going to be some politics that I have to read up on. I am also a little curious about nameless narrator and his pal Bobbie - they seem to be having quite a life gallivanting about on their yacht.

Next: "Lassie Ahoy!"

I'm in the mood for some waffles! You can make waffles with a waffle maker!

Dagwood is not a Glam Rocker

Dagwood is a Breakdancer.

Pardon me while I test something

Ghanian is a language of economy.

An item on the program for a chamber music concert that I recently attended was a piece based on folk tales of Ghana. From the program notes to the piece, I learn that

Kola Per Bir, jo kol' no op

translates to

The cat fell asleep under a tree; his enemy the mouse saw his opportunity and bit the cat's testicle, whereupon the cat promptly died.

It was three weeks before Christmas Eve in the drunk tank

The only apparently Christmassy songs on the UK singles chart this week are:

• 23 Mariah Carey - "All I Want for Christmas is You"
• 33 The Pogues - "Fairytale of New York"

also unrelated to Christmas:

• 25 Phil Collins - "In the Air Tonight"

I don't think I want to know why this is happening.

if only...

Via Strange Maps, a promo for a book on world transit maps showing a transit map of the world - every city with a metro (or a planned metro) is included a world Beck Map. I would be delighted to be on the same line as Mexico City, Bilbao, Istanbul and Beijing!

The only quibble so far is the Detroit to Seattle leg. Spot the error!

Take me out to the %#^&@% ballgame

From Yanksfan vs. Soxfan, we see a piece of baseball history that is currently being considered for auction.

This is a memorandum from league management to players regarding reports of players resorting to obscenities during game play, including enough examples that they were afraid to send the document via US Mail.

A new adventure

Two problems have come up to cause me to start a new project, one that I hope I can finish faster than the others that I have been dealing with.

1. Frequent readers will have noticed that I occasionally provide links to Amazon.com. I have done this not out of a sense of necessity but of "oh what the hell." Because of this, many of the things that I could have linked to have not been -- going to Amazon to work up the code is just a bit too much of a bother for me to have gotten into the habit. (By the way, Amazon has really been pushing me to put up links so that I can entice you to purchase a Kindle. Not gonna happen.) This hasn't been too much of an issue for me as I set the thing up because I was inclined to link to listings on Amazon anyway, so why not make a few bucks (or pounds) off it. A new service that Amazon has is a link that offers recommendations based on what Amazon feels the readers of my site will want to read. At first I thought that this meant that they analyzed the site text for content and offered suggestions that way, but it turns out that what they do is analyze based on what people who go to Amazon from my site actually buy. Some friends in Academia have used my code on their webpage related to a textbook they wrote. Because of this, the algorithms in the bowels of Amazon's processors believe that you, gentle reader, are interested in little other than books about thermodynamics. Which means that if I put up these links, I will all of a sudden have a bunch of ads for books on thermodynamics. Which is funny, but not very helpful.
   
2. One of the things that I am doing is sitting down to read the source material for all of the Hitchcock films - When I said I was starting, I mentioned that I did not have the source of his first film (The Pleasure Garden by Oliver Sandys), after a bit of time it turned up on e-Bay. I bookmarked the link to the item, and waited a few days to bid. In that time, the person putting the book up withdrew the item from bidding, but my bookmark resolved into a different auction from the same fellow. Not realising that I was bidding on the wrong book, I put my high bid in, and went on about my day. Result: I spend $62 on something called "Peril Island" by someone named Percy James Brebner.

I have a solution, but first perhaps you would be interested in purchasing a copy of the new Robert Plant/Alison Krauss CD as a holiday gift for a loved one.



So here's my solution.

I will do a close reading of Peril Freaking Island and include Amazon links in the posts. My goal is to earn back the $62 and break even. This should also show that Amazon that I'm about more than just thermodynamics.

Max Headroom is back!

He looks horrible!

Here's the story.

Word of the day

Gongoozler.

"People who enjoy watching activity on the canals in the United Kingdom. The term is also often used in a more general way to describe those who have an interest in canals and the canal life, but do not actively participate."

Here's where you join up.

Go Gongoozlering on Google Earth! (Googlogongoozlering?)

Vote Splashy Pants!

You know you want to.

And he's back.

Right after I made a small deal about Lawrence Miles gaining in popularity, he pops up and posts to his secondary blog about Doctor Who. (Because everyone should have a secondary blog about Doctor Who.)

Of course, to us, the mad glut of Doctor Who merchandising available for Christmas 2007 is definitive proof that We Win. Let's be quite clear on this point: here in the latter '00s, Doctor Who is more popular than at any time in its prior history. Naturally, the viewing figures were higher in the late '70s. This is partly because there was nothing else to do in those days, when the TV set was the only leisure accessory that ran on electricity, and when "getting boozed up on a Saturday night" wasn't seen as a fit pastime for all ages, classes and genders. But it's also because viewers in the 1970s saw themselves as belonging to a wilfully captive audience. Saturday-night viewing was part of a complete entertainment experience, the stay-at-home descendant of the Music Hall, and you sat through the entire BBC schedule - or the entire ITV schedule, if you were a bit common - whether you liked all the programmes or not. You wouldn't have switched channels, even if you'd had one of those newfangled remote controls. In those days, before geek-scum tried to claim that Doctor Who should be just like Babylon-5, the series was part of the World of Showbiz. And yet…

…and yet it wasn't what the BBC now likes to call its "jewel in the crown" show. Doctor Who was halfway down the bill of the entertainment line-up, it was never the star attraction. The ratings may have been higher in the supposedly golden year of 1979, but even then - even at a time when you could rely on one-third of the population to have seen Julian Glover rip his face off and become a one-eyed seaweed-man - the importance that's attached to the series now would have been unthinkable. In 1979, it was taken for granted that it'd always be there. In 2007 (if slightly less so than in 2006), it matters. It's a lodestone of British pop-culture rather than a reassuringly ever-present quantity, the Beatles rather than One Man and His Dog. "Popularity" is measured by impact rather than ratings, and for the people of the 1970s, it'd beggar belief that "Sontarans Return" would qualify as a news headline. In a world where Showbiz was a rare and precious commodity, it was always going to be overshadowed by The Generation Game. In a world where celebrity culture seems somehow more banal than fly-on-the-wall footage, something as strange and as (potentially) unpredictable as Doctor Who is bound to thrive. For a while, anyway.

In a perfect world, there would already be statues of this man.

testing

Let's see if this works. Enjoy it if it does.



Learn More.

Great moments in tech support

From the Microsoft Help pages:

"During normal operation or in Safe mode, your computer may play "Fur Elise" or "It's a Small, Small World" seemingly at random. This is an indication sent to the PC speaker from the computer's BIOS that the CPU fan is failing or has failed, or that the power supply voltages have drifted out of tolerance. This is a design feature of a detection circuit and system BIOSes developed by Award/Unicore from 1997 on."

Larry goes viral!

When Lawrence Miles posted that he would be taking his blog down, I decided to set up a Google search to alert me in case he popped up again someplace else. Recently, I've been picking up hits for posts such as this one.

It seems that the list of "Nine Things Which Appeared on The Muppet Show, But Wouldn’t Make It Onto Family Television These Days" is getting passed along. I hope this has a positive effect.

One of the bits most frequently quoted is:

But what we forget is that the issue of cross-species fertility is raised even in the original series, specifically in Miss Piggy’s performance of “Waiting at the Church”, a song about a bride being deserted by her bigamous husband on the day of her shotgun wedding. Piggy performs the song in a wedding dress that’s been bulked out to make her look eight months pregnant. This image is so distressing that it’s been erased from our collective childhood memory, yet there she is on the screen, reciting the opening lines ‘I’m in a nice bit of trouble, I confess / somebody with me has had a game’ in the finest music-hall tradition. Four-year-olds in the audience must surely have asked their parents why she looked so fat that week, and it’s doubtful that the phrase “big with spawn” would have satisfied them.

I have to admit that I did not remember this bit.

Turns out that every episode had a UK-only segment, as a half hour episode had to run shorter for American broadcast to make room for the increased number of commercials. These segment were generally music segments of no consequence, but I can easily see that this particular one was flagged to be cut from the US version for censor appeasement - in this case invalidating Miles' argument.

For the curious, it's in the second season episode hosted by John Cleese.

Tired of the same old Ikea bookshelves?

Time to Pimp My Billy!

Well, I screwed that up

Yesterday I put up two posts about where to go to listen to music. Today I discover that yesterday was No Music Day.

Sorry.

Take the memes and make a theme

There's plenty of potato peeling being done this morning!

[embedded video removed - youtube is acting weird today. See it here.]


And then comes the shopping! (via Cool Blue Shed)

The Armchair Traveller

I am alerted to a recently published book that compiles a few works by a 19th century travel writer named Favell Lee Mortimer.

In the middle of the 1800s, Mrs Favell Lee Mortimer set out to write an ambitious guide to all the nations on Earth. There were just three problems. She had never set foot outside Shropshire. She was horribly misinformed about virtually every topic she turned her attention to. And she was prejudiced against foreigners. The result was an unintentionally hilarious masterpiece: 'People who are dainty must not come to Norway.' 'If the Siberians' taste in dress is laughable, their taste in food is horrible.' 'British America [Canada]'s Lake Superior is so immense, that Ireland might be bathed in it; that is, if islands could be bathed.' In "The Clumsiest People in Europe", Todd Pruzan has gathered together a selection of Mrs Mortimer's finest moments, celebrating the woman who turned ignorance into an art form.

You can purchase the volume (as I will, if after Christmas has gone past I've not been given a copy) in the usual manner (US,UK) or go to Google Books where a large number of her original volumes have been scanned and posted. To help you out, here are the links to her volumes on Asia and Australia, Africa and America and Europe.

To give you a quick hint of what is in store, a quick skim allowed me to find her entry on the city of Liverpool, which I now post in its entirety:

And one more once.

In my post about places to go on the interwebs to hear some fine music, I forgot to add Crying all the Way to the Chip Shop, "The sentimental musings of an ageing British expat in words, music, and pictures." It's fast becoming one of my favorites.

Actually, Doctor Doom and I went to the same tennis camp

As part of my Thanksgiving travels, I find myself in the company of a six-year old boy whose blossoming interest in superheros has caused him to come into possession of a copy of the Amazing Spider-Man Omnibus (US, UK) (Pronounced AAAAAAAHM-nee-bus).

He's been waiting for me to show up, as he was told that I know all about superheros. I think that this might have been taken to mean that I am friends with them.

The young lad is particularly taken with Doctor Doom, particularly after I told him that Doom is not a robot. It is terribly unfair that other villains appear twice in the Omnibus, but Doom only appears once. We have just finished having a long discussion on how Doctor Doom's arms and legs can bend even though they are encased in metal.

I like this kid. He is going to go far.

Helpful Hint: "If you have to be in a fight with a robot, you gotta punch the robot in the throat, so that you make its head fall off and that's how you win."

This week off pod

I've left the little bugger home for the holidays, so I'll quick share some other sources of good sound I've been nibbling at lately.

PVAc to 44.1 kHz is a music blog that posts entire albums - almost all of which have never been released on CD ever. Consistently excellent stuff.

I've been dipping my toe into tapes of entire John Peel programs. I've had phases of looking at his playlists and descriptions of his tastes, but I'm finding that there is no better method of getting into his head than listening to a nice two hour broadcast. (I'm even starting to appreciate Kevin Ayers.) Here's a good place to start from.

Pandora has just expanded its "Music Genome" to include classical pieces. Naturally, I have been goofing around with it.

Finally NPR has been fiddling about with their music interface. This means that I'm not going to link to the things that I was going to. I can't find them anymore. When I can find them again, I will link to them. So there.

Girls with blue whiskers tied up with noodles.

Thanksgiving week

Posting will either be lighter or heavier this week, depending on the whims of the Turkey Gods.

Late harvest

Enjoy the best crop circles of 2007.

Already?

I was hoping to put off my annual look at the UK Christmas single woo ha until December started, but I am alerted to an underdog that I must champion.

Christmas chart battles are usually the territory of reality TV stars, novelty artists and Westlife, but this year a very unlikely pop star has thrown his hat into the yuletide ring.

Malcolm Middleton, once of Scottish "miserabilists" Arab Strap and now a successful miserabilist in his own right, has announced he will release the single "We're All Going to Die" in a bid to make it the Xmas number one single.

"Dying is a bit like writing a letter to Santa," explains Middleton, by way of a press release, "unless you've been a good boy or girl, you're fucked."

Go to his MySpace for a listen, it's quite nihilisticly jolly!

Copyright kielbasa

In the news

Boy George Charged For Allegedly Enslaving a Norwegian

Continuing with the genres

Continuing on with my glurbling on about Saturday Morning bubblegum pop, I offer this bit of fluff, a segment from the 1969-71 Hardy Boys cartoon. The conceit of the show being that in addition to solving crimes, the boys are in a band. The producers of the show were able to push out two soundtrack comps of the songs, which are now quite the collector's items.

So, enjoy the excellently catchy well-produced tune, while also goggling in amazement at the astonishingly rotoscoped psychedelic animation.



Meanwhile, here is a review that cought my eye - The Duke of Straw examines Corb Lund's new CD and proclaims it to be "the greatest horse warfare album ever." I think I will recant all the bad things I have ever said about genre compartmentalization if I can find my way to a store that has a labeled section for "music about horse warfare."

Have a taste.

This Week in Pod doesn't want to end up a cartoon in a cartoon graveyard

Between my last post and this one, I have added a grand total of three CDs to my iPod. They are:

Various Artists - Mojo Magazine: Americana 2004
Various Artists - The Songs of Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart
Various Artists - Scooby-Doo's Snack Tracks: The Ultimate Collection

I have a playlist programed to only play things that have been added in the past week, so currently I have a playlist that only contains the contents of those three discs.

It's an odd mix. The three of them are odd mixes to begin with, but mixing them together is particularly odd.

From what I've been able to tell, "Americana" is a term that started out in the early nineties as sort of an umbrella term for record stores that didn't want to have separate racks for "Blues" and "Country/Western." As it was presented as a holistic genre, contemporary artists began believing that it really was one, and we are left with things like Gomez. I am very strange about "Americana" because while I hate the genre as a concept, I tend to really like just about everything that gets coded with the term.

(I am a hoot in record and video stores when I am in a foul mood and start asking the manager to quantify the genres. I stopped going to Blockbuster because every time I went in I took issue with the fact that they had separate sections for "Action" and "Adventure." "If this 'Action' film turns out to be quite adventurous, can I get a refund?")

Boyce and Hart were a songwriting team/occasional band. History has caused them to be be best known for their stint writing for The Monkees, but a look at their resume shows that they had their fingers in a lot of the sixties. One thing that they didn't have their fingers in, I discover, was what was called "The Bosstown Sound," a bunch of bands from Boston that were marketed heavily in the mid-sixties as an American response to the "British Invasion" bands. (See, here's those arbitrary genres again.) I had presumed that Paul Revere and the Raiders was one of the Bosstown bands, because their first single was a Boyce/Hart tune and, well, the name and the whole Spirit of 76 outfit/getting their photos taken with muskets thing.

Turns out the guy's name was really Paul Revere, and he showed up at precisely the wrong time, or right time depending on how you want to look at it. The Boyce/Hart song was "I'm not Your Stepping Stone," later covered by The Monkees, and then The Sex Pistols. You could write a dissertation on the meaning and trajectory of that one song.

I'm certain I picked up the Scooby-Doo CD because it had the tracks from the first season that played in the background as our heroes were being chased back and forth across the screen. While televised animation of the late sixties and early seventies stunk to high heaven, the folks making it were blessed with a bunch of talent pumping out the bubblegum pop in the background. Also on the disk are two tracks from the era of Scooby Doo when every episode had a guest star, and the musically inclined guest stars would do a song. These two tracks are from Davy Jones, who was at the time recording with Boyce and Hart, and Jerry Reed, who would later become best known for acting in and performing the theme song to Smokey and the Bandit, in a genre that is now wrapped into "Americana." It all comes together quite nicely, doesn't it?

Most Played Song:

Thea Gilmore - "Bad Moon Rising"

I pick ten tracks at random:

Abra Moore - "Summer's Ending"
Paul McCartney - "Nod Your Head"
Kirsten Bråten Berg - "Bånsuller"
764-HERO - "You Were a Party"
Jimi Hendrix - "Love Love"
Cold 8 - "Club Hearts"
Lisa Loeb - "Furious Rose"
Brian Keane - "American Open"
Maire Brennan - "Peacemaker"
Matisyahu - "Close My Eyes"

For hard drive space (and my own sanity) I do have to delete the occasional album. This week I deleted:

Scooby-Doo's Snack Tracks: The Ultimate Collection

I had completely forgotten that I owned this CD:

Scooby-Doo's Snack Tracks: The Ultimate Collection

The last thing that I ripped:

Scooby-Doo's Snack Tracks: The Ultimate Collection

The future of medicine

Let us suppose that you have been charged with the task of encouraging the youth of America to consider a future as a health care professional. What would be the obvious method to attract their attention?

That's right, an enormous rapping groundhog.



Here's the background.

++++++++

Further breaking news! It seems that there are folks who are under the impression that when the background singers are chanting "Go G-Hog," they are in fact chanting "Go Jihad." While it seems likely that these folks are not serious, the idea that someone could think that this video is some sort of subliminal message makes it even more amusing.

Yay!

There's a new Lucky Luke film coming out!

See the trailer.

This Week in Pod Has Lost Track of the Time

I think I shall have to abandon all hope of turning into a feature that I do regularly, and just keep on chugging it out when I can.

Luckily, I've slowed down the process of ripping CDs to match the slowdown in posting about it.

There are two reasons for this: First, I've been busy. Second, I've been noticing that my hard drive has been filling up. Because my hard drive has been filling up, I'm going to have to start making a lot more choices about what to remove then I have been.

First, I will probably have to get rid of the video that has filled up a few loose gigs. As my iPod is one of those video deelies, I've been taking the opportunities to download the free video content that iTunes has to offer. Most of these things I have yet too actually watch, but they are filling up about twelve gigabytes, so I suppose they ought to be jettisoned to make way for other things. For the curious these videos include:

1. The pilot episode of The Starter Wife. This is another in the current hip genre of shows about how interesting it is to see horrifically rich white assholes being made vaguely uncomfortable.
   
2. A Sesame Street Special about muppets with asthma. As someone who grew up as an asthmatic child, I do appreciate the attempt at informing the youth of the nation that if your classmate has fallen over and is unable to breathe, it is perhaps unkind to start tickling them. Unfortunately, I have yet to actually watch a moment of this. I think that in the back of my mind, I am saving it on my iPod for the moment when I suddenly collapse in front of a schoolyard, I can show the traumatized schoolchildren the episode while I dig through my manbag for my inhaler.
   
3. The first episode of Curl Girls. This is a reality show about a bunch of lesbians who like to surf. It is conceptually impervious to snark.
   
4. The first episode of Scott Baio is 45 ... and Single. Oh, let's just face it, if you put something up on iTunes for free, I'm going to download it.
   
5. The 15 minute short film which was meant to be a prequel to a film now in current release, but which seems to have attracted attention not for the merits of the short film itself, but rather the moment in it where a currently popular starlet takes her pants off. (I'm being rather circumspect, to foil the Google-bots) I have yet to see the actual film that this is a prequel to, so I think I cannot comment on the short as an independent work.

And we go forward:

Most Played Song:

The Pernice Brothers - "Somerville"

I pick ten tracks at random:

The Boomtown Rats - "Go Man Go"
Sinead Lohan - "Disillusioned"
The Gufs - "Give Back Yourself"
The Waifs - "Circles"
Steve Earle - "Nothing but a Child"
Kurt Wiell - "No 13: Mattes! Mattes!"
The Police - "Peanuts (live)"
Vic Chesnutt - "Girl's Say"
Yo-Yo Ma - "Franck: Sonata in A for Violin & Piano"
John Lennon - "Cold Turkey"

Hey! I got the Yo-Yo Ma the last time I did the random shuffle. That's weird.

For hard drive space (and my own sanity) I do have to delete the occasional album. This week I deleted:

Tiny Tim - Live in Chicago with the New Duncan Imperials

I had completely forgotten that I owned this CD:

"anything by The Cranberries" - I have two of them! I might have gambled that I had the CD with "Linger" on it, but I have two! Oh boy!

The last thing that I ripped:

Diamanda Galas and John Paul Jones - The Sporting Life

Enjoy a truly strange ad from Thailand

Not only am I an architect!

But I can play an awesome cowbell!

and if all else fails...

The Simple Dollar has advice on "Dealing With Professional Burnout Without Quitting Your Job"

It has nine bullets.

Number eight summed up is "Get your resume together so you can quit."

Number nine summed up is "What the hell, Quit!"

I suppose this means I have to throw some sort of internet keg party

and if I still had eyes, then I would surely cry

Enjoy a music video for Hallowe'en:

Wait a minute, Chester

I am reminded of a friend from high school who, as a fan of music and Christianity, was inclined to rate songs based on what he called their "Righteousness." While this might sound dismal, his combination of an excellent musical ear, and a willingness to consider that a secularly focused song might have an inherent spiritual component made for some very excellent and surprising choices.

(The song that he first explained his theory of Musical Righteousness to me was "Lay Your Hands on Me" by Thompson Twins. I'm still not certain if he ruined that song for me or gave it more meaning, but every time I can hear it I can still see him taking a big slug from a bottle of Canadian Whisky and yelling "This song is so Righteous!" over and over.)

This is a selection of cover versions of "The Weight." I've never known that The Staple Singers did a cover of "The Weight," and even before listening to it I could feel the Righteous Meter zooming up into the red.

Listening to the World - Antigua and Barbuda

I notice that the list of countries on Wikipedia has been reduced by one. It seems that Wales is not a country.

Sorry, Wales.

And to Antigua and Barbuda.

This is my second Caribbean radio station in a row, so I'm in a very Caribbean mood. I've never been a big fan of the Caribbean, but now I think it might be nice to go someplace with a beach and dial up this sort of radio.

So I've been listening to Liberty Radio ZDK.


The first thing that I heard when I clicked into Liberty Radio was a delightfully groovy Caribbean version of "You Were Always on my Mind" - which became even more groovy and delightful when the DJ broke into the middle of the song to read birthday greetings. The next tune up was apparently about Jesus. I could tell this because the Chorus went "Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus."

Further attempts to log in have been thwarted - there seems to be more people who want to listen to the radio than the servers can handle. That is a good thing -- in its own way.

I'd like a "none" pizza with left beef

Steven from The Sneeze tries out the Dominos Pizza online order form.

by Nathan Coley

Buying the New Yorker 1976 - page 54

The Ritz-Carlton that is being advertised here is now the Taj Boston. Around the corner from the Taj Boston is the Ritz-Carlton Boston Common. When I Google "Ritz-Carlton Boston" I get four addresses.

1. 15 Arlington St. This is the old Ritz-Carlton/current Taj Boston. (This is where Boston Red Sox outfielder Manny Ramierez lives/lived depending on how happy he is at any given time.)
2. 2 Avery St. This is the address of the Ritz-Carlton Boston Common.
3. 172 Tremont St. I had to go to the satellite to figure this out. This is the back entrance to the Ritz-Carlton Boston Common. But this is an important address, as it is, unlike the main entrance/address, actually on the Common.
4. 6 Newbury St. This is/was the car wash in the parking garage of the original Ritz-Carlton. I don't know which is more swank: getting your rental car washed while you are on vacation, or driving downtown to get your car washed at the Ritz.

I think you need to get a suite to have a fireplace in the Ritz-Carlton Boston Common and the Boston Taj.


In 1976 the Dominican Republic was coming to the close of the presidency of Joaquín Balaguer. As a means of holding the Communist influences of Cuba in check, Balaguer's tenure was marked by "a repression of civil liberties."

On the plus side, folks who responded to this as in January would have had the chance to get themselves to the Dominican Winter Baseball League title series. There's always a trade off.

Finally something makes me want to consider signing up for Second Life

From the Dilbert newsletter we learn that Scott Adams will be doing a virtual book signing on Second Life on October 30th. His avatar will be passing out free Dilbert posters and the Second Life system has been programmed so that other avatars can kick his in the groin.

Great Moments in Reader Feedback!

In my inbox:

no sé inglés, no se nada !!!! en fin, me gusto el formato de tu blogger.
besos

:)

My reply:

Takk til deres slag bemerkning! Har en praktfull dag!

Buying the New Yorker 1976 - page 52

In the seventies, families didn't include women.

Buying the New Yorker 1976 - page 50-51

Apparently, in the seventies, different sorts of Volvos meant that you thought in different sorts of ways.

Now, if you drive any sort of a Volvo it's pretty much a given that you are a nasty dirty hippie that eats sprouts and watches the Daily Show.

The best laid plans of mice and car manufacturers gang aft aglay.

White Hall Hotels

A spiffy little brochure from London:




The cover is a very stiff cardboard and the interior page is a heavy bond. The binding is a goldish yellow ribbon.

Here's the front interior page:



The middle:



The final interior page:



And a spiffy map on the back:



Here's the location in Flashearth.

I will probably have more to say on this in upcoming posts, but I have to notice a personal connection. I've actually stayed in one of these hotels! I spent a night at the 18, 19,& 20 Montague hotel - actually I slept there one morning. The plane was late and I arrived about 4:30 AM. The hotel manager was not terribly happy, and we were gone by lunchtime. That's all I remember about the place. Sorry.

I'm also not sure which, if any, of these hotels Great Grampa stayed in. We'll figure it out.

Old Questions are Answered

Back in May, 2006 I was feeling advanced nostalgia:

I am going to miss the Enron trial, only because I love listening to reporter Wade Goodwyn. He sounds exactly like the guy who did the narration for those old Disney nature documentaries.

That guy was a gentleman named Winston Hibler.

You can read more about him here.

Meanwhile, in December, 2006 I mused about wanting to see this Blue Peter segment:

"Other well-remembered and much-repeated items include the Girl Guides' bonfire that got out of hand on the 1970 Christmas edition."

It is on this Youtube clip, about 4:50 in:



Somehow I was expecting more carnage.

This Week in Pod

I did have this post ready to go a few days ago, but I haven't had the internet time that I thought I would.

+++++

An addendum to my previous discussion of covermount CDs.

One of the side effects of having a constant influx of covermounts is the occasional discovery that the CD that you (read: "I") went out and purchased for only one song was useless because the one song that you (read: "I") wanted was on a covermount CD that you (read: "I") just hadn't listened to yet.

For a little while, I've been considering picking up the new Feist CD, partly because I find that "1234" song amusing. This is the song that rocketed up the charts after it was featured in an iPod ad, which was running concurrently to the debut of the current iteration of the Amazon.com mp3 store, which caused the same song to be the first number one song on the service that was competing with the one that had been successfully advertising it.

You should understand that if that is something that makes me want to pick up a CD, I am in many ways utterly hopeless.

Luckily, in this case, I found that there was a CD still in the plastic envelope that was in a stack of things that I hadn't read yet. On the CD? "1234" by Feist!

I am in no way exonerated, but now I am no longer amused enough to purchase the CD simply for the one amusing song. I fear that Feist will amuse me with other songs, for I am a sucker.

And onwards:


Most Played Song

Helen Love - "Debbie Loves Joey"

I pick ten tracks at random:

The Hope Blister - "Sweet Unknown"
Tom Jones - "Sunny Afternoon (with Space)"
Jimmy Cliff - "Samba Reggae"
Yo Yo Ma - "Franck: Sonata in A for Violin and Piano"
The Beastie Boys - "Looking Down the Barrel of a Gun"
Alphaville - "Ascension Day"
David Sylvian - "God Man"
The Pretenders - "Bless You"
The Pogues - "Fiesta"
The Police - "Can't Stand Losing You (Live)"

For hard drive space (and my own sanity) I do have to delete the occasional album. This week I deleted:

Ant and Dec - We're on the Ball (2002 England World Cup Team Theme Song)

[Yes. I purchased this because I was amused by it. As I was saying...]

I had completely forgotten that I owned this CD:

Mike McGear - McGear

The last thing that I ripped:

Lucinda Williams - Car Wheels on a Gravel Road

I hate to lose things

One of those videos that I have been hunting forever for a copy of, Michael Smotherman's "Crazy in Love" circa 1979 (I see that the date at the end says 1982, but I think it is actually earlier):



This was one of the videos that showed up pre-MTV, in the gaps between movies on HBO and "Look Kids! Videos!" programs. I had this in the middle of the first videotape that I ever owned, and picked up a copy of the album. The videotape was lost in the early eighties (I recall that a drunken friend stood on it.) and I have been on the lookout for it ever since.

Upon moving in, my sophomore year roommate went digging through my record collection, as I went simultaneously digging through his. When he came across the Michael Smotherman album, he immediately started waving it around and said that he had been looking for the video for ages.

I told him my sad story, and we drank a bottle or two of something or other and pledged that we would both keep looking for this video and the moment one of us found it we would tell the other.

Unfortunately, he died more than a decade and a half ago.

This sucks. I'm sorry, I'm in a bit of a grim mood.

Buying the New Yorker 1976 - page 49

Nostalgia:


In 1976 NBC changed its logo. This was a big deal. I remember this because NBC spent a lot of money explaining how this was a big deal.

To sum up -- the last logo was a peacock. The reason that NBC chose a peacock was because it had made the jump to color television. As everything was broadcast in color in 1976, NBC decided that "Hooray! We're in color!" as a branding theme had run its course.

So a new logo.

Unfortunately there were a few snags:

1. The period from 1976 to 1980 saw NBC in last place in the ratings. (The 75-76 season that this ad is appearing smack in the middle of was particularly dismal).
   
2. The new "N" logo was distressingly similar to the logo of Nebraska Public Television, naturally leading to a lawsuit.
   

By 1979 the "N" was recast with the peacock superimposed on it, and in 1986 the "N" was removed and the peacock was once again the logo, as it has remained to this day.

You will be astonished to learn that there is a page on Wikipedia about the history of NBC logos.

Important internet debate of the year

Resolved: "Superman doesn't poo."

I come late to the meme parry

I did these two a while ago and forgot to post them.

For my many readers from Bryn Mawr

In a dizzying four years, Preston Sturges reinvented American film comedy. With seven landmark films, his mix of wordplay and slapstick created a school of movie-making that was wildly funny and distinctively American— a sophisticated take on the screwball cycle: fast and smart and never too dignified for pratfalls.Sturges was the first prominent writer-director in Hollywood history, paving the way for his Paramount Pictures colleague, Billy Wilder, among others.

In this course, we will discuss the process by which Sturges the writer became Sturges the director, and what his films, which include The Lady Eve and Sullivan's Travels, say about their times and the American character. We will also see how he achieved his comic effects, and how, in an era of strict censorship, Sturges managed to creatively and amusingly evade the retrospective.

So Go Sign Up!

The Globe will teach you language skills

From here

Jeff Yamaguchi, who serves as Hideki Okajima's translator, was interpreting for the reliever last weekend and said Okajima had thrown a "cookie," a common expression used by English-speaking pitchers to describe a fat pitch. Yamaguchi insisted that Okajima had employed the Japanese equivalent for cookie. "Amai [pronounced ah-MY] means sweet," Yamaguchi said. "Tama is ball. So when you say 'amai tama,' you're saying 'sweet ball.' " In other words, a cookie.

Previously on "The Globe will teach you language skills": "Wank"

A particularly silly castle

This is Castle Doune, where most of the various castle scenes from Monty Python and the Holy Grail were filmed.


Have a look.

Not filmed at Castle Doune were the final scenes of the film. They were done at Castle Stalker which can be found here (currently not nearly as good resolution).

This Fortnight in Pod

This week (okay, two) I've been concerning myself with covermount CDs - the free CDs that come with magazines and newspapers and whatnot.

I am a sucker for the things.

Right now I am about a third of the way through the CD binder of CMJ covermounts that I have accumulated. It's a monthly magazine and I've had a subscription since 1997. That should tell you about how many of the damn things that I'm loading in. I stopped paying for a subscription in 2002, but am still getting a copy every month. That should tell you something about how organized they are.

It is sort of astonishing to go through a forced march of these CDs - to remember how many artists I discovered when I listened to the latest issue (and how many songs I liked and completely lost track of.) All of the CDs I have by The Nields and The Coral and Gomez and The Streets can have their blame placed directly on CMJ magazine.

Anyway - on to the regular stuff:

Most Played Song

Al Stewart - "Katherine of Oregon"

The first line of the song is "When I am even more old than I am now" and goes on from there. It psychs me up as I walk to work.

I pick ten tracks at random

The Boomtown Rats - "Sleep (Finger's Lullaby)"
Minibar - "It is What it is"
Lambchop - "Something's Going On (and On) [alternative version]
Britten - "Serenade for Tenor Horn & Strings, Op 31"
Wall of Voodoo - "Living in the Red"
Playmates - "Days After Tomorrow"
Alanis Morissette - "Utopia"
Oasis - "(Untitled)" - [one of those forty second tracks from What's the Story (Morning Glory)]
Vasen - "Tomten Kammer"
Coldplay - "Yellow (Live at Glastonbury)"

For hard drive space (and my own sanity) I do have to delete the occasional album. This week I deleted:

Cartoon Sound Effects - Volume One

I had completely forgotten that I owned this CD:

Black Tape for A Black Girl - Remnants of a Deeper Purity

The last thing that I ripped:

CMJ Covermount CD - Issue #097 (October 2001)

interesting fun fact

The word "botulism" comes from the Latin "botulus," which means "sausage."

Science marches on and on!

Use your iPod to clean your teeth!

Great moments in road trips

Michael Nesmith drives his eldorado to the moon, 1985.

Science marches on!

Carbonated Yogurt!

Buying the New Yorker 1976 - page 47

No.

Buying the New Yorker 1976 - page 46

"The kind of thing that means business. Or lunch."

That's a slogan that stays with you.

Buying the New Yorker 1976 - page 45

The first quote says that the interior is more spacious than a Z-Car. I'm pretty sure the reviewer is referring to the Nissan 280Z, which would have been a comparable reference in 1976.

The Triumph TR7 is one of those cars that a few people seem to just love the hell out of, and most everyone else sort of looks at and goes "eh." The people that I've met that love the hell out of Triumphs tend to own them, which leads me to believe that they are fun to drive.

Which brings up another point - this is probably going to be the last year that I'll be seeing ads for cars that look like I can still see them on the road occasionally.