RIP Liam Clancy

Liam Clancy passed away today. My sister-in-law,whose mom had the pleasure of meeting the Clancys, alerted me and this is the first song that came to mind.
RIP Liam

Ohne Mauern leben

It's been twenty years since that momentous day when the unthinkable happened: The Berlin Wall came down. I remember the first time I visited Berlin and was in awe of this monolith, this insane testament to man's warped sense of reason. The citizen's of East Berlin were told the wall was thee to protect them from the evil West.
I was obsessed with the Wall. I spent days just walking along it, looking over the into the eastern side at the tanks traps and razor wire...the soldiers staring down at me through binoculars, until i raised my camera to take their picture, which sent them scurrying away from the window of their tower.

In light of the anniversary of the Wall's demise, I'm recommending a few movies that capture some of the essence of that time;

First is Das Leben der Anderen(Lives of others). This captures the oppressive control the Stasi had over the people of East Berlin and the ultimate futility of the whole system.

Second, a comedy: Goodbye Lenin. An hilarious comedy of errors, where a son tries to convince his good Socialist mother that everything is as it always was, despite the wall coming down.

Last is only remotely related to East Berlin/The Wall, but is worth a watch: Hedwig and the Angry Inch. It's a loves story...boy/girl meets boy, boy/girl loses boy, boy/girls goes on a quest to find boy.

Here's a link from good ol' Paracelsus that shows some pics of the wall. Be sure to click on numbers 13,14 and 15 to see a Before and After...stunning.

And Sid Vicious' observations...

It's Not Like It's Written In Stone

Are you thinking of getting a tattoo? Maybe you've been out with your friends and have had a drink or two...or seven or eight..and think to yourself, "Hey, let's go get a tattoo!(hic)".
Or maybe you're really hip, or the silent, brooding, mysterious type. Maybe you just want one because everyone else has one. All good reasons of course, I mean who the hell am I to say what you should do to your body? It's not like it's written in stone.
Wait. No, really, wait. Go look at some of the Ugliest Tattoos on the face of this Earth...or face even.

Some are dopey typos that just make you wonder "How?"

Others make you wonder about the "skill level" of the "artist". Yeah...or if maybe the artist drank as much as the customer.

Some just make you cringe

Some are NSFW...that is Not Safe For Work OR the World!

Almost forgot: The obligatory Chinese Characters

Still want that ink?

Heroes

"Hero: n., 1.a man of distinguished courage or ability, admired for his brave deeds and noble qualities. 2. a person who, in the opinion of others, has heroic qualities or has performed a heroic act and is regarded as a model or ideal".

When you think of heroes, what typically comes to mind are soldiers who throw themselves on grenades to save their comrades or New York Firemen who, without concern for their own safety, entered the World Trade Center buldings to save the lives of those trapped inside. These are indeed heroic acts, but there are other heroes in this world...A lot of them, like Brooksley Born, are of the unsung variety.
Until now that is...Check out this Frontline Special on the history of the economic meltdwn we are experiencing now.

Even after saying "I told you so" in the late '90's, she was still ignored...then villified and eventually run out of town. But she never gave up...and she was right the whole time.

There's also an Interviewwith her on the Frontline site.

Tom Hanks, your staircase is ready

Or, how to battle obesity.
Would you take the stairs rather than an escalator if it were more "fun"?
Well, some people in Stockholm wanted to find out, so they created the The Piano Staircase. Not too surprisingly, more people chose the stairs over the escalator.
Honestly though, if you were to put one of these in Grand Central Station, the resulting sound would be one, big irritating mess of notes.So it's back to the escalator and a big bag of chips to munch as you slowly ascend.

This just in: A local resident in Stockholm, Sweden was severely injured when he tried pounding out Chopin's "Polonaise" on the stairs in the Odenplan.

People Who Died

Jim Carroll is dead
He died Last Friday and was only 60 years old. Although maybe "only" isn't the right word. He managed to survive most of his childhood acquaintances by several years and considering his early years, it's a wonder he made as far as he did.
I remember having a cassette tape of Catholic Boy and wore the damn thing out in a nihilistic frenzy of non-stop play. Unfortunately, its raw, brutal style was its attraction for me at a young age and I think a lot of people were drawn to that seedy tableau Jim painted with music and words.(He also wrote the autobiographical "The Basketball Diaries"). Wasn't until later in life I realized that it's easy to romanticize the junky/misfit life when you're not living it.
If you haven't read The Basketball Diaries yet, you really should. I think it's a must for everyone....it definitely takes away the glamour of drug use and now that poor Jim is dead, it's that much more powerful.
RIP Jim.
Here's a video of "People Who Died". I chose this one despite the clips of Leonardo DiCaprio in it from the movie of "The Basketball Diaries", mainly becuase this was the version of the song I knew and loved.

Write much?

Well, apparently not.....that extended vaction thing really took its toll on me. I lost all motivation to do anything except swim, ride my bike and lay around in the sun.

But, now that I'm back to the real world, I've fallen into my old routines: Still not writing and watching too much TV at night. Which brings me to this little gem. Out on the West Coast we have an ice cream chain called Baskin Robbins(Some people call it 31 Flavors, I guess it's kind of like how some people call Kentucky Fried Chicken "The Colonel's"....what is that all about?).
So they have this really annoying or catchy(depending on your tolerance level)commercial on TV that everyone just calls "Ice Cream and Cake":


Now, the first time I saw this, I thought it must have been something created by the Writers of Saturday Night Live. In fact, I defy anyone to tell me that isn't Justin Timberlake singing...
Turns out it's the Buckwheat Boyz who, evidently, excel at really annoying riffs like this and the Internet meme Peanut Butter Jelly Time. Wow...yeah...I kinda like my original idea that it was SNL writers who came up with it, because now we have to face the fact that someone out there is writing this and taking it seriously!

Man, I've listened to it far too many times...I think I need a vacation.

Auf Ferien

Out of commission for the last few weeks(and a few more to come)...I'm on an extended vacation.

Honda Hypocrites!

I found it! Finally, thank you Internets for keeping all of our embarrassing past acts preserved forever.
Maybe you remeber me Railing against the new Hond Insight...Now I have proof of their..their..what is this, duplicity? I don't know, but here's Honda making fun of the "cheese-wedge" shaped Prius...and, oh what's that, your new Insight looks just like a Prius!!!. Gah, it makes me so mad that they'd think we'd forget.

W.W.E.W?

Huh? Yeah, it's a stretch, but "What Would Einstein Write?"
Before I go any further, apologies for being AWOL for the last who-knows-how-many-weeks...We're tasting the fruits of the economic downturn at home and it is NOT good. So rather than blog about lay-offs, our precarious housing situation, general malaise and depression, I did the sensible thing and shut the hell up.

So, what's all this about Einstein? I'll tell you what, he was a smart guy, but don't you think you could do better? Sure you could, come on, the guy worked in a Patent Office! If you feel up to it, you can go HERE and change history! No more of that boring ol' E=mc2 crapola, no way, we're talking "That's what she said!", huh? Am I right?
Here's my bit...lifted from the wall of a bathroom in Goettingen Germany...truer words were never spoken(written)!














OK, here's another, cuz it's just that much fun...

The Hybrid has no clothes

I don't know why I get so angry over this commercial for the new Honda Insight. Maybe it's because the last eight years of Bush's smirk-filled lies that I'm overly sensitive to bullshit.

I can't find the commercial from about a year ago, but Honda was advertising their Civic Hybrid, and the gist of it was that the Prius was a "cheese wedge shaped" car...and who wants to be seen in that? Well, now look at them...I mean ,when I first saw this ad, I thought it was for a Prius. Could they be any more blatant?
I suppose Toyota can feel good though, you know, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery and all that stuff. Still, it really chaps my hide that they think they can get away with this.
What exactly they are getting away with, I don't know....

Elvis Lives

Of course, not that Elvis. I'm talking about Elvis Perkins, son of Anthony Perkins of "Psycho" fame. I heard him interviewed on NPR(you can check it out here) and was immediately taken with his music.

They made a point of focusing on the tragedy he has faced in his life and after hearing his music, you understand how it had to have an influence. I really don't know how you would classify this music, or if you should classify it, but check it out...I bet you like it.

I like "Doomsday", but wish I could here the more dirge-like version he later changed to the current one on the album.

UPDATE: Just read all that up there..man, how sloppy and disjointed. Well, I'm just trying to download his music and enjoy it, so I kind of threw all that together really fast. Sue me.

OK, I'll stop now, but I found this great video of "Doomsday"

Vegan cats

"I can't haz cheezburger??"
Almost too funny to be true...

Poblacht na hÉireann

Happy St. Pat's

R.I.P. Lux Interior

I saw that scrawled on the wall of a bike tunnel at UC Santa Barbara way back in 1986. To my shame, I didn't know who Lux was, but found out soon after and whoa, was I happy I did. I suppose that was a running joke at the time, fake death reports, etc., who knows, but today the inevitable happened, Lux Interior died

Here are a couple of videos, the first a slick, MTV product, the second is a live video, and you can see how Lux put everything into his songs.
Enjoy, go buy some Cramps music, you'll be glad you did and STAY SICK!

Coolest...Bridge...Ever

Just so you don't think I'm totally out of touch, I did watch the Innaguration today. Awesome. All I can say. Oh, and thank GAWD Bush is gone.

In other news, I found this via Jalopnik, The coolest bridge in the world!

I used to room with a Physics Grad Student and he and his freinds laways would rant about the horrible Engineering students who had to take classes like "Physics for Engineers". Whatever, after seeing this, you gotta love Engineers.Because a regular drawbridge just isn't good enough!

Dodging Bullets

Yeah, I know it's been a while. I can blame part of it on the Holidays...But that only goes so far.
Lately I've been getting over what too many people in this country have been going through: Layoffs. Thankfully, I was spared. I still have my job, but a colleague of mine was not so lucky.
The most disturbing thing was, the other morning as I was going to get coffee,(I already knew what was slated to happen that day)and I walked past the printer/copier room. Stacked on the floor, in a tidy pile, were hundreds of neatly folded moving boxes. The kind you use to clean out your personal belongings. I was truly astounded...I think the only thing that would have floored me worse than that, would be if they had stacked a bunch of coffins in there.
In any case, it's nealry the same thing. Good luck to all of you who were not so lucky and may we see better times.

The Messiah!

Merry Christmas.

Dear Marketing Genius, ...

I went to the Motorcycle Show this weekend. It's an annual pilgrimage for me this time of year...sort of the adult equivalent of Ralphie's quest for the Red Ryder BB Gun in A Christmas Story.I, like Ralphie, must have the object of my desire in order to make my life complete. But unlike our hero, I, alas, never find my motorcycle carefully hidden behind a piece of furniture on Christmas morning.

What DO I get? I have to deal with the ever-changing whims of the guys who make up the various Marketing groups who name the motorcycles every year. Normally, I'm not a fan of names per se, I prefer an alpha-numeric designation. Unfortunately, names can be evocative and thus, more powerful. Who can forget the Vincent 'Black Shadow', the Norton 'Commando' or the Kawasaki 'Ninja'? The problem is, every Marketing hack thinks his idea will be the next 'Ninja' or 'Super Duke, but we wind up with something like the Aprilia 'Shiver'.Shiver? Are you kidding me? Shiver...really...What is that supposed to evoke? Fear? Draftiness? I mean, Aprilia shares the same cachet as its fraternal company Ducati, which has the awesome 'Monster' in its lineup. The Shiver is an excellent bike, but what self-respecting biker could hang around Zeitgeist talking about his SHIVER?? The 'Shiv' maybe....

Suzuki also gets a thumbs down on their new model that essentially replaces the SV650. As soon as I laid eyes on this it, I was on it faster than an auto exec on a Gulfstream 250! I reached over the bar and grabbed the tag and nearly fell off: The Gladius.What in the name of...GLADIUS? Jesus, it's like the lead in to a raunchy joke. How did they come up with that name. What does it mean?? Its like a Latin test.."Damn, how do you conjugate the verb gladius?" Or was Gladius a famous emperor? It's too bad, because it's a great bike, a possible Monster-killer even, but with a name lime Gladius...Good luck.

That being said, if any of you high-level Suzuki corporate types are reading this and want to prove me wrong, just drop an email and I'll send you a delivery address.

I Love The Internet By Cracky!

You know, you really have to wonder how we got along before the Interwebs came along. I caught myself the other day telling my daughters how, when I was their age, we didn't have the Internet. God, I sounded like my Mom when she'd talk about growing up before they had televisions in every house.

Beside the obvious advantages of the Internet, like online shopping, music downloads, and as Paracelsus points out, learning to play the paino, there are people out there who will share the most specific information. Let's go back about two weeks, when I was driving and inserted my favoriteMary Gauthier CD in the ol' Camry's CD player. Nothing. I pushed Play, FFWD, you name it. In despair, I hit the Eject button. No disc magically slid out. I was depressed and not a little mad that yet another vintage Japanese car had eaten a favorite musician's work(I had an old Infiniti G20 whose tape player gobbled up a Who tape, but at least let me play it).
I finally had some time on my hands today and went online to see if some other hapless soul had experienced the same thing. What I found was a godsend...Removing the radio from your Camry. Hurray! Not only did I get the radio out, I found my CD and 2 others!(The car used to be my sister's). The weird thing, none o fthe CD's were in the player, but resting on top. Oh well, one day I'll have a car with an iPod jack and never have another problem!

Trabivergnuegen

Paracelsus sent me this amusing, yet amazingly real, link for the Trabi Safari.
Now on the face of it, I thought, "Hell no!!!" You see, years ago when I was in Germany, we visited then-East Germany with some friends. We actually rode in a Trabant Taxi, and let me tell you, I think I would change that old saying about foxholes and Atheists, because there were a lot of prayers being whispered in that car. Most were coming from the driver! The supposed Godless Eastern Bloc...Yeah, well, when your Taxi has a huge fire extinguisher strapped to the floor, it stalls at every red light and there are more holes in the floorboards than O.J.'s alibi, you know you're in for the ride of your life.

I'm sure at ~$50 for a 2 person joyride, these Trabis are in top condition. I'm pretty sure there are mountains of spare parts all over Germany. Still, I think half the fun of this Safari is the inherent danger of driving what an Americanm car is slowly becoming!(Just kidding Big Three junket boys...Keep begging for money!).
But seriously, remember This Guy I wrote about before? See, that's the "Safari" part of this trip: The whole panic-inducing, omnipresent anxiety of "Will this break down and leave me stranded?" Man, what have we bceome as a species that we have to pay for what was, for our ancient forerunners, every day life? I mean without the stinky smoke -belching 2 stroke motor and fine German beer of course.

Anyway, I say kudos to you, you crafty, enterprising Germans. Why, think of the possibilities of this kind of thing here, with a Pontiac Aztek!.
Doesnt work so much here, but I wonder if these same Germans are thinking of a full blown East German Land amusment park(?)...

Imagine, travelling back in time to the Cold War era. Your stay will be at a luxurious 1 star, Warsaw Pact Hotel, with cold running water, straw filled matresses and a continental breakfast consisting of gray, unidentifiable meat, stale toast and lukewarm, greasy coffee. Hop in your Trabi for a trip across town. Be sure to purchase fuel from a man under the overpass for the best deal. You are then free to wander the shopping districts of East Berlin, marvel at the complete lack of consumer products available to you. Wonder at the loathsome treatment you receive from the shop owners, public works employees and just about anyone else you meet on the street who notice your nice clothes and holeless shoes.
Up for some adventure? Try the "Berliner Mauer" obstacle course(NOTE: Those in 'B' class hotels, this is listed as "In-House Gym". 'A' Class hotel residents are not eligible). Try to make your way through concertina wire, mock mine fileds and crack border guards. Make it to Checkpoint Charlie unscathed and recive 10% off your visit!

Yeah, very funny. Check out Das Leben der Anderen for a stark portayal of the time.

Change You Can't believe...in

Things look a little weird around here. I gave up and chose the "new" template from Blogger. And by "new", they mean kiss all your old links goodbye. Gah!
Well, it's off to the Wayback Machine to see if I can recover them.

UPDATE:I was able to get my links back from a saved source of my old template...I had to use the Blogger.com half-assed "tool" to do so...I still can't get my Feedjit tool back on the page and sent a nasty note to blogger about their idiotic new tamplates....May be time to find a new host.

Oh, and PS, the "Tom Waits Library" site is hosed...trying to find out what's up.

Why GM is Failing

Oh, and it really doesn't help when you fly to D.C. in your Private Jet to beg for money...

The Oi-Phone

Apparently, in the future, we'll all have to speak like some 1950's family sit-com character in order to get our robotic appliances to understand. They never mention this kind of problem in Science Fiction!

Seems a new Google App for the iPhone gets confused by various accents in the UK...and does what Google does best and defaults to 'sex' as a return for almost any query.

"British iPhone owners had less luck when speaking the word "iPhone" into the application -- a Scottish user was offered a porn website after it mistook his search for "sex," the Telegraph reported."

"A Welsh accent gave the suggestions 'gorillas' and 'kitchen sink.'"

It's evidently OK with Yorkshire and Irish accents...go figure. Especially since Yorkshiremen seem to have it rough already!

They don't mention Australia, but I imagine queries for "iPhone" would result in "beer", "beer", "vegemite" and "wombat".

Of course, you can see where this would be a problem in Sci Fi classics...

Dave Bowman: "Open the pod bay doors,HAL"
HAL: "I'm afraid I can't grope the body course, Dave"
Dave: "Wha'? Grope...? What the hell is wrong with you, HAL?"
HAL: "I think you know what a hen weighs Dave."

Proposition H8

I live in California, more specifically, the Bay Area. I consider myself pretty Liberal in my political views, which is why, when Barack Obama was elected to be our next President, I was happier than a Hippie at a Dead show.
What I wasn't happy about was the outcome of Proposition 8. I'm not gay, but I am married, so I figure, hey, I can't put my 2 cents in here. Since November 4th, a lot of people have been putting their 2 cents in, and thye're really not too happy to have to do it.

I just found a very intersting tool that will show you who donated how much to either side of that proposition. The Interwebs make for a very strange world...I mean, you think you can just go out and donate to a particular campaign or proposition and the next thing you know, someone builds a searchable database.
This has trouble written all over it. And by trouble, I mean boycotts. Well, mostly boycotts.
Go Nuts

A Mug's Game

"Oh God it's another day..."
When you think of the band Soft Cell, the song "Tainted Love" probably comes to mind. Fair enough, but a little known track(a B side if I'm not mistaken) that totally kicks ass is A Mug's Game(no video, just audio). Be warned that it's not something you want to crank up at work, but you have to listen to it loud to enjoy the lyrics.
Amazingly, I can remember this getting airplay(maybe once) waaay back in the Eighties. I haven't heard it since and have had no luck finding an MP3(didn't look that hard).
Despite it's Britishisms(Waiting to buy "do-do's" at the "Chemists"), it hits a lot of the angst-ridden notes of youngsters everywhere. Indeed, at a young age, Life can be a Mug's Game.

Horsing Around

OK, I am going out on a limb here and saying this is going viral.

It has everything: Drunken hilarity, more drunken hilarity and unfortunately some property damage. But I think the drunken hilarity trumps the inert horsey.

Hi Yo Silver, Away!!!

And here's the News Story about the whole sordid affair.

If I were these guys' attorney, I'd be working on an "Overcome-by-the-emotion-of-an-Obama-victory" defense.

Double Yay!!

Found this via BoingBoing...Some really great images...
I wonder if the Right Wing talking heads would consider this a "Terrorist Fist Bump"? Man, looking back, you just gotta wonder, how could there have been so many paid, moronic Republican shills? I guess they'll be gearing up for the next four years, ready to pounce on anything Barack Obama does in office...

I especially like this one...I just love how his kids are so into him. They seem like such a great family. Take that Traditional Values Coalition!!

Yay!!

Meet Me In The Middle

A former co-worker of mine is a total Evite queen and is always planning Happy Hour get togethers with current and former employees. Problem is, I don't work in Silicon Valley anymore and another former co-worker and I are always getting pissed off that the gatherings are invariably in Mountain View or Sunnyvale. Neither of us are thrilled at the prospect of driving about an hour to the gig. What's a guy to do? Well, fortunately, there's MeetWays, which will provide you a halfway point to use as a meeting place! Awesome, so let's see...I enter their work address and mine...*searching*...and there ya go...we'll meet in the middle of the Bay, just west of San leandro.
Hmm, OK, maybe I should add a "Halfway Location", like "Pub" or "Beer". Ah, there...wait, Embassy Suites in Burlingame?

Despite this particular case, I really like this tool, at the very least, becasue it will finally end those squabbles over who drove farther to meet someone.
So have fun.

O'Bama

OK, looks like we've wrapped up the Catholic vote. Yeah, no, I mean...didn't you know Barack was Irish? Don't give me that look...You haven't heard of Hardy Drew and the Nancy Boys?

The link above includes their lyrics and here's their Video. Pretty dang funny...

But, it gets better. Shay Black got permission to add a few lines, and there are some great ones in there.
"Fenian to Kenyan it's the American Way..."
or
"With Cheney and Bush, they are ALL IGNORAMA...
There's no one as Irish as Barack O'Bama"

And I believe this is performed at the Starry Plough in Berkeley.

So check it out and enjoy.