Quick posting

Baseball, the sport of camaraderie:

Listening to the World - Albania

I have, in the past, spent a bit of time listening to Top Albania Radio, as it is the first country that generally shows up on the lists of World Internet Radio stations. I Like TAR, as it has quite a lot of local talent on hand - If I am reading their Playlist correctly, 9 artists on the top 20 are Albanian. Listening for a few days off and on I can say that the local stuff is as good if not better than the stuff on American radio at the moment (though I can chalk some of the betterness to my inability to understand any of the lyrics). There was some stuff in English, but the only thing I was able to recognize was Matisyahu doing "King Without a Crown" (US UK). I don't know all that much about Albania's religious demographic, but I find this a little fascinating.

My gosh do I want this.

I love typewriters and I love waffles.


Chris Diminio has other ideas for typewriters besides this one.

Unfortunate Baseball News Headline of the Season (so far)

"Royals To Get A Taste Of Angels' Colon"

Self-reflection is, in some cases, horrific

Those of you who are astonishingly desperate for things to listen to will have noticed that my Pandora account has slowly accumulated different stations as I tinker around with the settings.

My most recent "station" came from an idea that I had: If I start loading in all the songs that I have quoted lyrics from in blog posts, perhaps I will get a glimpse at the sort of music that my subconscious mind enjoys, as that is the sort of thing that pops into my mind anyway.

The process of creating a station requires a song to begin with, so I went with the most recent song lyric that ended up as a post title: "The Streets of Where I'm From" by The Old 97's (US UK). I then added songs as I found them (useless trivia/potential insight: "No Rain" by Blind Melon is apparently the only song I've quoted twice!)

And what did I end up with?

A mixture of 50's era pop Christmas music and speed metal.

I'm still tinkering with it.

Buying the New Yorker 1976 - page 5

I'm not certain, but I think this is Lauren Hutton.



Charles Revson was the founder of Revlon. "CHR" are Revson's initials and "Ultima II" was the name of his 257-foot yacht. At first, one might suspect Revson of being a bit egotistical, but, as this ad appears one year after Revson's death, one infers that the self reference is a sort of homage.

Revson's biography is sadly out of print, but the author has very kindly posted what seems like a healthy chunk of it online here. Enjoy a sample paragraph:

Revson bought the Ultima II in the summer of 1967 from D. K. Ludwig, the secretive billionaire shipbuilder, and then went about a major overhaul and total redecoration. The Burma teak decking alone, hand-laid in Naples, cost $125,000. Also: three new electric generators; two new evaporators (to desalinate 10,000 tons of water a day); radar with a fifty-mile range; forty- eight sterling silver place settings from England, forty-eight gold-plated settings from France; two movie projectors for nightly movies; engraved, gold- lettered Cartier stationery, with the blue, green, and white "R" flag flowing in the wind, at $1.75 or so for each sheet and envelope (about what it costs to manufacture a 750-page telephone book), fine wood paneled walls . . . Ask for a typewriter at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington and the front desk will not even be able to arrange to have one rented to you. Ask for it aboard the Ultima II and the response was, simply, "Will you require carbon paper, sir?" Sniffle imperceptibly at lunch and Kleenex would be waiting by your deck chair when you went to take the afternoon sun. You wish pizza? Sweet and sour pork? Lobster Newburg? Filet mignon? Fresh-squeezed juice in your Dom Perignon? Chief steward Wu would positively run to bring what you desired. And not out of fear, either, but pride. He would watch you take your first cup of coffee and, if it met with your pleasure, deliver every cup that followed precisely that way.

Revson was obviously just plain folk.

If only internet buzz were possible in the early seventies

A concept poster for a film that was on deck at Hammer Films but ultimately never made. And yes, that was the real honest to God working title: