Great Moments in Wikipedia Vandalism

Chunky Mario Delight!

Home decorating tips

The English Buildings blog alerts us to Derek Jarman's cottage in Dungeness.

I am particularly struck by the photo of John Donne's "The Sunne Rising" added to one side of the house in raised wooden letters.

I want to do this to my house!

(I am also reminded that every time I read the poem, I am filled with a desire to call somebody a "Sawcy pedantique wretch.")

I have absolutely no idea why I was looking at this,

But now you can too:

The Norwegian Submerged Floating Tunnel Company.

The submerged floating tunnel is an innovative concept for crossing waterways, utilizing the law of buoyancy to support the structure at a moderate and convenient depth. The tube like structure is flexible with respect to cross section, length and water depth. It can be held in place by columns, tethers or pontoons.

What could possibly go wrong?

So what becomes of you, my love?

A while ago, I commented on the worldwide proliferation of remakes of The Office (Next in line: Russia!)

Need Coffee provides an update with video. And Wikipedia has a handy chart.

Noted: Martin Freeman's haircut translates into all cultures!

Yeah, what he said

The Americans, who are the most efficient people on the earth, have carried this device to such a height of perfection and have invented so wide a range of pithy and hackneyed phrases that they can carry on an amusing and animated conversation without giving a moment's reflection to what they are saying and so leave their minds free to consider the more important matters of big business and fornication.

--Somerset Maugham, Cakes and Ale

I want to read the transcripts.

From the Wikipedia page for Jaffa Cakes:

Under UK law, no VAT is charged on biscuits and cakes — they are "zero rated". Chocolate covered biscuits, however, are subject to VAT at 17.5%. McVities classed its Jaffa Cakes as cakes, but in 1991, this was challenged by Her Majesty's Customs and Excise and the case ended up before the courts. This may have been because Jaffa Cakes are about the same size and shape as some types of biscuit. A question that the court asked itself was "what criteria should be used to class something as a cake?"
McVities defended its classification of Jaffa Cakes as cakes. In doing so it produced a giant Jaffa Cake to illustrate that its Jaffa Cakes were simply miniature cakes.
McVities argued that a distinction between cakes and biscuits is, inter alia, that biscuits would normally be expected to go soft when stale, whereas cakes would normally be expected to go hard. It was demonstrated to the Tribunal that Jaffa Cakes become hard when stale. Other factors taken into account by the Chairman, Mr Potter QC, included: name, ingredients, texture, size, packaging, marketing, presentation, appeal to children, and manufacturing process. Contrary to a commonly held belief, whether something is considered a 'luxury item' is not a test for VAT purposes.
Mr Potter ruled that the Jaffa Cake is a cake. McVities therefore won the case and VAT is not paid on Jaffa Cakes.

Tangents.

The most frequent subjects of posts that never make it to actually being posted here involve me back tracking my path to whatever I find myself looking at.

A couple of months ago, the Cool Blue Shed had a revamp and a separate music blog was spun off. This is excellent, as there have been a number of posts about interesting groups that I've never heard of.

One of the posts was about his local music festival. I decided to click through and see who was playing. On the list: Gandalf Murphy and the Slambovian Circus of Dreams. They will be making their UK premiere at the festival.

Now, GMatSCoD has been one of those groups that I keep hearing about but never have actually heard. So I decided to do some digging and snagged a few songs from eMusic.

There are some groups that people don't "get" until you see them live, and I suspect that this is one of them.

This clip might not be the best representation, but I thought it was clever so that's what you get.




And here's a silly Amazon widget to listen to:



Also, I see the festival offers "premium 100% beef burgers and Dutch treats. Don’t expect to see greasy tinned 50/50 hamburgers at Rhythm Festival!"

Now I'm going to have to find out what a 50/50 hamburger is.

Curiosity is a harsh mistress!

Buying the New Yorker 1976 - page 69

I had to do a bit of research for this one.

Much of this research involved me asking, "What was it like to shop for clothes at Talbots in the 1970's?"

The answer was "Is this for your blog?"

I'm starting to get a little worried about this.

The real answer: Much the same as now, except that back then it was across the street from the dentist.

One difference after looking at the ad: Back in the day, it seems that Talbot's stocked items from other designers, now it is all in house.

You can now find Meadowbark skirts at vintage clothing stores. Here's one.

Jacques Cohen Shoes has been bought up by Jacques Levine. They look sort of the same.

I tried to find Tapemeasure brand t-shirts, but I was thwarted by the large number of t-shirts that have images of tapemeasures on them. Here's a nice one from the V&A Museum store.

The strange luck of the amateur Star Wars tourist

A bit more than a year ago I had the opportunity to have a drive up and down California Route 128. As I was driving through, I thought "Hey! I think this is where Return of the Jedi was filmed! Cool."

Nope. It was filmed further north. I was in the wrong place.

About eight years ago I was in Finse, Norway. And I have just found out that The Empire Strikes Back was filmed there.

Of course, I was there in the summer when it didn't look quite so Hoth-y.

A muxtape of a mental mashup

Instead of having one song stuck in my head at a time, I frequently find myself with a bunch of songs in my head simultaneously. Come on in, have a look at what I've got going on at the moment.

The "anchor song" seems to be Frankie's Gun" by the Felice Brothers.

Chunks of Nina Gordon's version of "Straight Out of Compton" pop in and out of the verse of "Frankie's Gun." Frequently alternating between verse lines. I wonder if this might be a thematic thing rather then a melody thing, although the hunks of melody do fit together. At least when it's confined to my head.

Popping in less frequently is chunks of Al Stewart's "Post World War Two Blues." Most often the line "Now Ramona's in Desolation Row." The song is an attempt to do a British "American Pie" and that line is purposely tweaked to sound "Dylany." This makes it a good counterpoint to a song by a band that seems to defy all attempts to not be compared to The Band.

Also kicking around in there is small bits of what I will have to call "A song by Game Theory" I sometimes have the idea of a song stuck in my head without having the actual song. This can be frustrating because any attempt to think of what it might be can cause the song that I'm not thinking of to change into the one that I think it might be, but isn't. Anyhow, there is an absence of a Game Theory song that fits in with these other quite nicely. I can't, however, link to that. So here is a positive value of Game Theory songs.

Happy New Year!

Well, it is for me at least.

I've been hard at work with the day job for the last month and a half. Now it is slowing down. 07/08 is done and dusted and 08/09 is still getting its boots on.

Be prepared for a quick posting uptick as I finish up all the half started posts that have been laying dormant for far too long.

BBC News will teach you how to juxtapose photos

Proof that I'm not paying attention to the blogging

On July 15th I make a quick post. It posts at 6:15, meaning I did it roughly between my morning back stretches and my first cup of coffee.

There is then a gap of ten days until my next post.

In that span, I believe that I looked at this site once. Long enough for me to go "That doesn't look right." Then something else distracted me, and I forgot what it was that looked not right.

I misspelled "Feist."

Sorry about that.

Let me make it up to you by posting some other musical guests visiting Sesame Street.

Stevy Wondre:



Nohra Onjes:



ERM:

Help Wikipedia get their ducks in order

The Wikipedia's List of Fictional Ducks is flagged as "incomplete."

++++++

Hey! Gladstone Gander is listed as a Fictional Duck and a Fictional Goose.

Feist on Sesame Street

I'm sure everyone on the planet has this embedded on their blog by now, but "why not" I say.

I love the look on her face right as the segment ends.

How to improve The Running of the Bulls.

Instead of bulls, use Roller Derby girls with wiffle bats.

Elvis impersonators on scooters are also involved, but I'm not sure how.

A time bomb of filk

A hilarious story from Stephen Gallagher.

Strange carafes

I'm fascinated by these decanter things. I think that they won't be very good as actual decanters - the idea of a decanter is that you increase the amount of surface that is in contact with the air. These actually seem less efficient than leaving the wine in a bottle. I think pouring from these will be quite an event as well.

I suppose I just enjoy watching the videos of the things getting filled up with liquid.

Enjoy some tea!

via I'm Learning to Share!

If you are in New York City on August 5, you can see history being made

"Artist Cory Arcangel appears at Light Industry to perform the first complete and authoritative version of his now-notorious Bruce Springsteen Born to Run Glockenspiel Addendum. This appearance marks the first time—and perhaps last—that Arcangel will provide live accompaniment on glockenspiel to Springsteen’s canonical album in its entirety, alongside the premiere of a new video featuring Springsteen and the E Street Band."

observe a piece of comic strip history

The title was originally "enjoy a piece of comic strip history." I've taken the pressure off.

Cartoon Brew serves up a helping of what is perhaps the most consistently awful comic ever.

Click through to have a look at "Uncle Funny Bunny and Chumpy."

I am impressed by the masterful use of color.

Late Of The Pier - Heartbeat

I'm curious to see the storyboards for this.

A Question

If you were the curator of The Hammer Museum, would you see every problem as something to loan to the The Nail Museum?

Breaking Down the Nervous Detectives - How come all your friends are on their way to being someone else?

Word comes that the pilot for the American version of Life on Mars has been totally scrapped and production is off for a complete redo.

Will Pickering puts his finger on exactly what feels so wrong.

he Battle Creek Crafts Fair That Haunts Stu Mandelbaum’s Phantom Leg

The Poetry Foundation offers "Eight shortcuts to writing timeless odes and getting $$$ for it!"

Here she comes, here she comes. She's gonna cause a sensation now.

What seems to be a complete copy of Metropolis has been found.


It might be a while before it can get all cleaned up.

The Saturday Morning Cartoon will soon have a new golden age

from RTE:

Oates' 'tache gets cartoon treatment

One of the most famous moustaches of the 1980s could be coming to screens in a new animated series.

Billboard reports that 'J-Stache' follows the adventures of Hall & Oates star John Oates, who is coaxed out of his family man life and back into the music world by... his moustache (voiced by comedian Dave Attell).

Speaking to Billboard, Oates said: "In a cartoon setting, the moustache has its own personality. Just as I'm represented as the John Oates of today, the moustache is the John Oates of yesterday."

The plan is for the series to feature music from the Hall & Oates back catalogue.

"The focus of the music will be on the back catalogue," said Oates, "but it's an open-ended situation. There's even talk of the moustache trying to bring new bands into the picture."

The pilot episode, which is currently being storyboarded, finds Oates opening a new section of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame for musicians with moustaches.

He is then warned by David Crosby of a mysterious group of moustache wearers trying to kill other moustache wearers.