Accept no substitutes

Category: Amusements (Page 11 of 31)

Things that are amusing

Jones alerts Parents!

Well, not exactly if you read what I said and if the tape captured my tone. The little piece that I did with NBC 17 went live last night.
Some things are accuate ;-> Not my rank and title. The headline doesn’t actually match the story. But overall the right message is there (somewhere).
The basics are right. People put more on FaceBook that maybe they would if they thought about what they were doing. Parents should educate their children (not necessarily “monitor” them as the headline reads). The ALA has helpful guidelines.
Off to the NC Press Association.

Carnaval Brazilla – This weekend!

Heating up the town as we approach Mardi Gras. Mary Overby alerts us to opportunities to samba and more this weekend:

Friday Feb 24 8 PM – 11 PM
Live Brazilian Jazz with Eduardo DeSouza
Brasa Brazilian Steak House
8551 Briar Creek Parkway
Raleigh, NC
544-3344

Saturday Feb 25 11 PM
NC Capoeira
at Talullas on West Franklin Street
Chapel Hill, NC
$5 Cover
Capoeira Demonstration and Brazilian Music DJ
SAMBA, PAGODE, FORRO!
CAIPIRINHAS (Brazilian Martinis)

Losing my tech edge

Jerry has a SchedulerI’ve always been a better observer of emerging tech than a consumer of it. This was brought home to me today when my collegue, Jerry Saye talked lovingly about his Roomba. Not his first Roomba but his second. The old one wasn’t up to what the new one can do and lacked in certain features like scheduling a cleaning whilst you are away.
Another collegue, Jeffery Pomerantz, bought his wife a Roomba for Valentine’s this year.Valentine's Roomba
We support a wonderful artist in part by having her clean our house. We also get to have her highly decorated car which is a piece of sculptural work parked in our drive while she cleans. It’s like rented a piece of art every two weeks — plus ending up with a clean house.
I did take Sally to Chicago and to NextFest where we saw the latest Roomba. One like Jerry’s new vac. We also saw Hubo and the Philip K Dick Android. We didn’t buy them either.

On the phone with BBC

Skype to BBC didn’t happen. I’m queued to talk after some iTV folks. One Holmes of VideoBomb. The other, Leslie does Full Disclosure.net. It was def a British-style interview, in which the speakers had their spiel prepared and the hosts tried to take them off on their weak points. Pointing out the absurd selections chosen by VideoBomb voters and being sure that we all knew that CSpan has low ratings so that will surely doom FullDisclosure. The interviewees handled it pretty well.
I was next up and handicapped by the fact that I don’t know what blooks will perculate up to me as final judge — and in an untimely lapse of memory, when will the winners of the Blooker be announced. I know the Lulus told me but errrrrr.
Still I think I did an okay job. I was able to defend vanity press books using Whitman as an example. “But surely all of these aren’t Whitman.” No, but if one is the contest will have been worthwhile. Besides several of these blooks are from Large Publishing Houses and have been reviewed in the NY Times. Then a question about a silly author’s name, like Hamburger which I can’t find on the list, but I counter with “The World According to Mimi Smartypants” by Mimi Smartypants. The host agrees that this is a truly wonderful name. I get to mention several of the entries — none of which I have read since I’ve placed myself in blook embargo until the finalists arrive. But here goes what I recall — “Julie and Julia” “The Search” by John Battelle, “Ambient Findability” “The Intimate Adventures of a London Call Girl” by Belle de Jour (this gives way to a conversation about fiction and non-fiction. M. de Jour has entered in non-fiction but is this the next “Million Little Pieces”? I say that the hosts are closer to knowing that than I am.) and “Biodiesel Power” by Lyle Estill.
Save forgetting the announcement date, I got most all of what could be gotten out in I hope an interesting way. Yes I mentioned Swift, deFoe, Dickins and other serial or pseudo-diary writers as forebearers of Blook authors.

Up All Night runs once a week. The last show being on the 14th so I expect this show to run tonight late on the 21st (in the UK).

Stuck CD in PowerBook

I have Johnny Cash forever! Or so it seems. I went to digitize American Recordings III and the CD stuck in my PowerBook G4. Using the various eject procedures results in a tiny edge of the CD peeking at me for a fraction of
a second then disappearing. On the upside, I can listen to “I won’t back down” anytime I want too.

Is there an easy way for me to get the damn thing to eject — or should I head out to the “genius bar”?

Things I’ve tried:

    drag cd to wastebasket
    pressing eject botton
    holding function and pressing eject button
    rebooting
    rebooting with trackpad button held down

I believe that the cd is experiencing some kind of resistance and so backs itself back into the player.

AHA! UPDATE: I took a key and gently but firmly nudged the slot a little larger or upward. (aka the caveman method of computer repair). The disk ejected just as if things were normal.

I’m Intimadated Already!

Kiyara the Intimadator from Hillsborough won best of Opposite Sex in the Miniture Poodle Bred at the Westminister Kennel Club Show.

You would think, if you knew the owner was a novelist, that the name would be spelled correctly as Intimidator. But then, when you see he wrote “The Bone Collector.” The plot of which stuns the mind of even the jaded Richard Ebert. “Bone Collector” is from an ongoing series on featuring Lincoln Rhyme, a paraplegic detective who can only move one finger. Deaver also appeared, not as writer but as actor, in “As the World Turns.”

I’m intimadated already!

American Romeo

Catching up on my State of Things podcasts. Now listening to an interview with Django Haskins of Old Ceremony, a band whose pop-noir is one of my fav sounds. Django is now playing “American Romeo” live (but recorded now) on the show. Now Django is singing in Mandarian Chinese, a song called “Bao Quin”.

I’ve written about Old Ceremony earlier on this blog explaining how Low Power – FM, sample downloads, MySpace and a local record store helped me discover the band, get to really like ’em and buy their CD as soon as it was available. I need to get out and hear them live.

State of Rosenthal

Jane Tyndall writes to alert us of photographer essayist and cheap vodka drinking doo woop singer John Rosenthal’s upcoming interview on WUNC’s State of Things.

During the past several weeks, so many of you have told me that you remembered John Rosenthal’s insightful commentaries on NPR’s “All Things Considered.” You will have the unique opportunity to hear John again on public radio this Thursday, February 16.

He will be speaking with Frank Stasio on “The State of Things” about his current photography exhibit at Tyndall Galleries. John’s interview is scheduled to air tomorrow at 12:40 pm as a segment of the noon show and again on the 9:00 pm show.

Magritte
What: John Rosenthal on State of Things
When: Thursday, February 15 at 12:40 (live); 9:00 (replay); podcast and download (later on)
Where: WUNC-FM 91.5 or State of Things Archive or Podcast (XML)

I wrote about John’s show earlier.

UPDATE: The State of Things segment is available for download (and by podcast) now.

Wolfgang’s Vault – Concerts come Live

Bill Graham recovers his name, Wolfgang Grajonca, and the music from the live shows he produced is set free for us all to hear at Wolfgang’s Vault. The concert recordings are streamed in a 128k radio-like format and are not yet available for download (I hear you’ll be able to purchase music sometime this summer. So far I’ve heard some very strong covers including Lighthouse’s take of the Byrds’ “Eight Miles High” (recorded in 1969) and the Staple Singers’ version of Buffalo Springfield’s “For What It’s Worth” (1968) as well as early live versions of James Taylor’s “Fire and Rain” (1970) and Bruce Springstein’s “Blinded by the Light” (1973).
Like radio, you have to take it as it comes. No pause. No playback. All surprises. Just now hearing Cream doing “Sunsite of Your Love” (1968).
Damn! Just caught Grace Slick and the Great Society doing “White Rabbit” at the Fillmore in 1966 before she joined the Jefferson Airplane.

Lineage of a Giant Walking Monster Eating Plant

Biollante
How did a giant monster eating plant, Biollante come to attach Godzilla? In three easy evolutionary steps, beginning with:
Little Shop of Horrors (1960) in which Audrey II gets hungry and says the famous line “Feed Me!” Her diet is limited to humans.
Next the plant walks and multiplies:
Day of the Triffids (1962) in which the prey, humans again, are struck blind as they watch a meteor shower. A shower that also brings plant spores!
Finally, the spirit of a young girl, a rose bush and Godzilla are blended, along with their DNA, to create Biollante:
Gojira tai Biorante (1989) aka “Godzilla vs. Biollante” in which the walking growing plant develops a taste for lizard — one of my favorite Godzilla movies, lyrical some call it. For the best review see StompTokyo.com.

If you know of other movies with similar plants, please let me know in the comments.

I love Adium

Adium
I had three different chats open when my son told me to shutdown iChat, gTalk and Gizmo and download Adium. Why? So I would only need one client to connect to all three services plus a local Jabber server. Those are all I’ve tested so far. He has MSN Messenger on his too so we know that works.
The client, Adium, requires a plug-in for Gizmo or as they call it an Xtra. I added Homestarrunner sounds (also an Xtra) and have turned off the other clients. I added the Aqua Plus Xtra to get the little Gizmo icon. Everything (icons, buddies, etc) moved over seamlessly.
Mac OSX only. Open Source. Community supported.

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