Accept no substitutes

Category: Amusements (Page 8 of 31)

Things that are amusing

In Spring an old man’s heart turns to …

Capt SinbadPiracy! Capt. Horatio Sinbad, North Carolina’s only licensed Privateer, will be bringing tall ships to Morehead City for the Amercias’ Sail 06 in June 30 – July 5.

Proceeds from Pepsi Americas’ Sail will benefit the development of Olde Beaufort Seaport, a turn-of-the-century maritime village being developed along Gallants Channel as a project of the N.C. Maritime Museum. The N.C. Maritime Museum interprets the state’s maritime history and celebrates the natural beauty, precious resources and rich cultural heritage of coastal North Carolina. It is part of the Division of State History Museums, Office of Archives and History, N.C. Department of Cultural Resources.

MisAdventures with Google Calendar

It loves me not. Google Calendar is live and that’s nice. But getting it loaded with my agenda is not working that great. I’m using Oracle Calendar and PalmDeskTop synced. I try to export from Oracle and although I get several formats out, none will go into Gcalendar. However I can get them to just drag and drop into Palm. So I try exporting from there. No luck. Gcalendar hates the formats. No matter which ones I try. Then I try putting the exported file into iCal. Hey it works! For iCal. Not Gcalendar. So I export from iCal in .ics format (as described by Gcalendar as the thing to do). I can preview the text in FireFox. It looks just right. I try to upload to Gcalendar. I get “Failed to import events: Failed to upload ical/csv file.” Sometimes I get a timeout message instead. I could be hitting a load problem on Gcalendar and will try again later. But YIKES this is frustrating. But hey I now have iCal, PalmDeskTop, my Treo and Oracle Calendar all in sync.

UPDATE:
Somehow the iCal formated file finally made a successful upload and I now have a GooCal in operation. Now to learn more about it. SMS for verification of the alerts was so slow getting here that I’m lead to believe that the SMS alert will be next to useless. I haven’t tested to see if the slowdown is at Google or at Cingular tho.

Documenting the American South wins Lincoln Award

Documenting the American South (hosted at ibiblio.org) was just named winner of the 2006 Electronic Lincoln Prize from Gettysburg College.

The $10,000 award is given for significant contribution in new media to scholarship about Abraham Lincoln, the American Civil War soldier, or a subject relating to the Civil War era.

“The winner of the Electronic Lincoln Prize proves that the historian’s work can be immensely improved if scholars move fully into the 21st Century,” said Gettysburg College Fluhrer Professor of Civil War Studies Gabor Boritt, who serves as chair of the Electronic Lincoln Prize.

Gettysburg College press release.

Which Famous Modern Poet Are You?

I have to agree with my poet-twinning by the little quiz:


Which Famous Modern American Poet Are You?


You are Wallace Stevens. You love everything, especially the sound of things. Too bad you are so obscure that at times even you don’t understand what the hell you have written.
Take this quiz!


Quizilla |
Join

| Make A Quiz | More Quizzes | Grab Code

Not a rich array of choices tho as about 28% of the folks who took the test also were linked to Stevens.

Madison County Project to be screened tomorrow

Donna singing - Madison County Project

Rob Roberts writes to let us know of a screening of the film he made with Martha King:

What: Madison County Project: Documenting the Sound, a documentary short about ballad singing and filmmaking in Madison County, NC
When: Wednesday April 12th at 4:00 pm
Where: Murphey Hall, room 104 on the UNC-Chapel Hill campus
More: Madison County Project examines the tradition of unaccompanied ballad singing in Madison County, North Carolina and how the works of documentary filmmakers, photographers, and academics have influenced that tradition. The story unfolds through the historical works of John Cohen, Rob Amberg, and Harvey Wang as well as the voices of today’s ballad singers such as Sheila Kay Adams, Donna Ray Norton, Denise Norton O’Sullivan, and DeeDee Norton Buckner. Filmed in North Carolina, Madison County Project has been selected for multiple regional festivals and academic conferences as well as winning the Audience Choice Award at the 2005 Asheville Film Festival.

Note: Madison County Project is also featured on the ibiblio-hosted Folkstreams.net and blogged at http://www.madisoncountyproject.org/ (also ibiblio-hosted).

Dr. Fun Peep Week Continues

Dr. Fun has a Heart Like a Peep this week as we approach Easter. So far:

Universal Digital Universal Declaration of Human Rights?

Just turned in answers for an email interview with Christian Hall of .Net (UK). Most were about the Blooker, but there were also a few about blogging in general. One question got me thinking (see below). What if every bit of Free Software carried the Universal Declaration of Human Rights within it? There are versions in over 300 languages so it could be truly viral in a good sense, discovered and read worldwide.

+4: How can blogger’s rights be improved?

i wish there were a way for technology to somehow embed the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights in every piece of software produced. even more
so i wish that every country might live by the principles therein.

http://www.unhchr.ch/udhr/index.htm

Season of Peeps

Pink Peeps of WikipediaAs Easter approaches, I am reminded that we are in High Season for Peeps.

Dr. Fun has done a great job on Peeps humor over the years.

BBC needs a copy editor, Mr Scooter

Found at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4885100.stm
at 9:57 EDT (US) and still there at 10:22 pm [Note site reads: Last Updated: Friday, 7 April 2006, 02:16 GMT 03:16 UK ]

Pre-trial court papers cite Lewis “Libby” Scooter as saying he was told to tell a reporter Iraq was “vigorously trying to procure” uranium.

Mr Scooter, former chief-of-staff to Vice-President Dick Cheney, is facing trial in connection with another leak.

He is accused of lying to prosecutors probing the naming of a CIA agent.

Former diplomat Joseph Wilson – husband of the agent, Valerie Plame – wrote a high-profile article in the New York Times in July 2003 casting doubt on a key White House claim about Saddam Hussein’s pursuit of nuclear weapons.

Mr Libby reportedly says in court papers filed on Wednesday that soon afterwards, Mr Cheney told him to pass information from the classified National Intelligence Estimate to Judith Miller, a New York Times reporter.

BBC-TV Blooker story

WillR reports that he saw the BBC-TV Blooker story last night. It’s online now (or for now). They did a cute trick with video effects that makes it look like you are seeing the series of interviews in a QT player on a large Mac OS X box. You may be, in fact. Well, almost — you can only watch the BBC stream in WinMedia or Real. Julie Powell, our Blooker winner is there, I am there, Russell Davies of Bacon, Egg, Chips & Beans, the anonymous Iraqi blogger (not Saleem Pax) and a rather confused editor from a traditional publisher in LA.
WillR sends this link which didn’t work so well for me. I did a search on Blooker on the BBC site and found the video link in this context which worked fine for me.

01:02:03 04/05/06

Journalism School Dean Tom Bowers reminds us that this evening (or very early morning) at two minutes and three seconds after one a.m. the time and date will be 01:02:03 04/05/06.
If we were to use the US 12 hour clock and were to celebrate based on EDT, we’d have two chances to celebrate — a.m. and p.m.
But if we were to celebrate using GMT, it would be more proper to celebrate on the fourth of May at 01:02:03 that is 01:02:03 04/May/06 aka 04/05/06 since most of the world lists their dates as day/month/year rather than the US’s month/day/year.

Blooker and Jones on NPR Marketplace

Between returning from the University of Pennsylvania and heading up to Boone for the Odyssey of the Mind competition, I did a bit for Marketplace about the Blooker. Several of my collegues heard it, but not me. Stephen Fraser sent me the link to the story (my/Blooker part begins about 3:30 into the 8:24 segment. Lasts about 1 minute).

Not as bad as I feared.

UPDATE: Stephen sends this better link (if you only want to hear the Blooker segment).

Cooker beats Hooker to win Blooker

As seen in Guardian UK: [with some corrections and additions]. More Blooker winner stories here. And the official Lulu Blooker announcement is here.

Diesel, death and dinosaurs

Overall winner and winner of non-fiction category

Julie and Julia: 365 Days, 524 Recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen
Julie Powell (Penguin) [and Little, Brown in hardback – pj]
Source blog blogs.salon.com/001399

[A great blook isn’t a website shoveled onto paper. Julie and Julia successfully makes the transition and grows as it goes having learned from the blog readers. The deeply personal story here, the story of an obsession, leads us all to see what could be trival and indulgent as a personal and as it turns out communal art, an art of transformation and of conquest (of egg dishes and of selfdoubt). – pj]

Runner-up

Biodiesel Power
Lyle Estill (New Society Publishers)
Source blog www.biofuels.coop/blog

[This blook too is about obcession and drive and community. The blook is printed and bound in the most environmentally friendly manner true to the last drop of ink to the higher goals for the writer. This attention to detail, to harmony inform the writing and the story telling while the self-reflective humor in the stories keep the blook from become preachy and sour. – pj]

Fiction winner

Four and Twenty Blackbirds

Cherie Priest (Tor Books)
Source blog http://wicked-wish.livejournal.com

[I am not a reader of the gothic, but this blook captivated me with its gusto, its invocation of a dark South both in mountains and in swamp. Priest can tell a tale and she can write a sentence that competes with the best out there. Stephen King should be very afraid. – pj]

Runner-up

Hackoff.com: An Historic Murder Mystery Set in the Internet Bubble and Rubble
Tom Evslin (dotHill Press)
Source blog www.hackoff.com

Comic books winner

Totally Boned: A Joe and Monkey Collection

Zach Miller (Boxcar Books – self-published through Lulu.com)
Source blog www.joeandmonkey.com

[I teach people about the same age as Joe. I thought this comic blook was a non-fiction documentary. The humor cuts to the bone. It’s that true. That’s why it hurts but you laugh. – pj]

Runner-up

Dinosaur Comics: Huge Eyes, Beaks, Intelligence, and Ambition
Ryan North (CatPrint)
Source blog www.qwantz.com

[A single set of illustrations manipulated into dozens of different stories by the words alone. The art, i mean the skill and imagination, dazzles me at every page turn. Everyone I hand this blook to is delighted and laughing. – pj]

Blooker Winners are out!

It’s Monday somewhere. Specifically in the UK. Stephen Fraser is a little upset that the word of the winners is out already, but hey Lulu didn’t plan an awards ceremony so Monday is midnight GMT if you are a leading UK paper. The Telegraph has their story here. The Independent has theirs here. And USA Today has their story here.

Who was the overall winner? The person who worked as nanny to the only two-time winner of the Booker Prize.

I’m waiting til Monday here in NC to announce any more than that.

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