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Halloween

Halloween Video [:60 wmv file, 1.8 meg]

Terry McVey honored.

Musicologist, Barbeque God and Good Friend Terry McVey has been recognized by the Missouri Bar for "outstanding legal service." Terry was presented with a Pro Bono Publico Award (no connection to Irish rock singer) for outstanding pro bono service to indigent or low-income persons in need of legal assistance. These awards are presented to three persons a year--one each from St. Louis and Kansas City and outstate Missouri. This is the first time the award has been given to an attorney in the Bootheel.

I'm burning up in this thing.

The two unmistakable symbols of global terrorism are the Kalashnikov assault rifle and the black ski mask. Are the ski masks as interchangable and easy to obtain as the AK-47? Do they buy them from the same arms dealer?

"Yeah, let me have 500 more AK's and...better give me two gross of ski masks."

What about material? Wool would seem damned uncomfortable for summer terror work...do they come in some cooler fabric? I'm guessing one size fits all or is it like T-Shirts?

"What do you mean you only have XXXX left? I'm a medium...a 4X will be all saggy and the eye-holes won't stay in the right place. I can't wear a 4X! Hey, Hasan, let me borrow your ski mask tonight."

"No way. Your head is too big. Last time you brought it back all strectched out and it stunk of goat."

And if every terrorist has their own ski mask, do they sew in little name tags so they don't get mixed up? You can imagine some Laurel and Hardy moments as they get
ready to go on a mission.

"Abdulla! You got my ski mask. Here, swap."

And why black? Allah knows, they don't have to be black to terrorize us. We know what they're capable of. Why not a blue one? For that matter, why ski masks? Wouldn't a guy in a Spider Man mask wearing 50 pounds of C4 be even scarier? Or masks of former/current U. S. Presidents.

Maybe there's a way to make the black ski mask work for us. What if we gave everybody in Iraq --every man, woman and child-- a black ski mask and told them to wear them when they go out in the street. Wouldn't that fuck with the terrorists just a little?

"Achmed, is that you, man?"

"Yeah, is that you?"

Transmitter for Sale.

When I first started working at the radio station (1972), we were required to take transmitter readings every 15 minutes. Keeping the transmitter on was the number one --and obvious-- priority. And I guess that's still true for radio stations today. No transmitter...no radio. But not for TV.

On Monday we noticed we were not receiving the local ABC affiliate. Just static. We watch very little network TV these days but still try to catch Peter Jennings and we're hanging in for the final season of NYPD Blue. So I called the TV station and asked the lady who answered the phone what was going on.

"One of our transmitter tubes went out over the weekend but you can get us on the cable," she explained.

"I don't have cable," I infomed her.

"So, how do you watch us?"

"I have an antenna."

"Oh. Well, we should have the transmitter working again by the end of the week."

This struck me as something of a revelation. The TV station wasn't concerned that their trasmitter was down. The "signal" (content) was getting out via cable. I wanted to ask her about the rural viewers that don't have cable but there aren't enough of us to pose a problem.

I started wondering what does the local TV station add to the content mix? Their local newscast. Local weather. Bunch of local commercials. It just feels like those local affiliates are becoming less important every day.

All of this reminded me of ABC Now, the network's effort to deliver content by non-traditional means. How much would I pay to be able to download World News Tonight directly from the network? Or NYPD Blue? I'm already doing this with XM and it works just fine, thank you.

In conclusion, I guess I'm no more concerned about the TV station transmitter being dark than they are.

Their guy is smarter than our guy

William Gibson on why OBL and W need each other:

"OBL today is probably a very satisfied, very optimistic man, and if he can skew the last-minute dynamic of the election in Bush's favor, he'll have cause to be all the more satisfied.

And that's the danger, that some crucial percentage of our dimmer, more reactive voters will flash back to 9-11 and the Bush of the bullhorn, the Bush buffeted with the heartbroken grit of Ground Zero, and vote for that -- childishly imagining that such a vote runs counter to the wishes and the needs of OBL, the bearded stickman, the cave-dwelling spider, our new Old Man of the Mountains. Player of the long game."

Tasteless, incorrect and funny

TheStranger.com gives us this year's Scariest Halloween Costumes:

"The Littlest Prisoner at Abu Ghraib. Your child will be the hit of the neighborhood costume parade in this recreation of the Abu Ghraib prisoner-abuse scandal's most indelible image. As an added bonus this easy-to-make costume will remind everyone on your child's trick-or-treat route of our national shame! Simply roll a cone from a sheet of 24"x38" black cardstock, making sure to cut out a hole for the face. Drape with two yards of black felt, and add leftover wires from your last lamp-rewiring project. Voila! So easy, so quick, and so terrifying!" [via Boing Boing]

Office-cam back online.

Thanks to the brilliance of Christie and the other hard-working men and women in our IT department. Bottom, right side of this page.

Happy what?!

While I was brushing my teeth this morning, Barb hugged me and announced, "Happy anniversary!" "Mmmph rompf," I replied. Shit, I forgot our 26th wedding anniversary. Sort of. We'd talked about it and decided we wouldn't go nuts with presents. But I don't think we agreed I could just forget the day entirely. My friendly florist came through with a nice arrangement and Barb presented me with gift certificates good for three, full-body, hour-long massages. Oh, and last weekend I bought her the high-tech vacuum cleaner she'd been lusting for. Don't tell me the romance is gone.

First portable satellite radio

XM has announced the MyFi. $349.99 retail. Like all such gadgets, these will get better and cheaper so I'll wait.

What if?

What do George Bush and Dick Cheney dream about when they're deep in REM sleep? James Wolcott wonders:

"Suppose there had been no Iraqi insurgency, no al-Sadr popping out from behind the curtain or Saddam loyalists prepped for guerrilla war, no car bombings or beheadings or roadside explosives. Or an insurgency so feeble and scattered it was swiftly squashed and swept up. Just imagine how different things would have been over the last year, how different they would be now."

Love it or leave it.

That was a popular "establishment" slogan back in the sixties, aimed at those protesting the war in Vietnam. The idea being expressed was, if you didn't support the war in Southeast Asia (it was a lot more than Vietnam), you should leave America. (We lost that war against Communism but gained a new trading partner.) The notion that if you don't agree with the current administration's foreign policy you're un-American and should leave, was as lame then as it is now. But that's not my point here.

I'll be 57 next March. White male. Married. Two Golden Retreivers. Our house is paid off (Barb has a spare in Florida) and we have money in the bank. This country has been "berry, berry good to me."

And for the the first time in my life, I'm not completely convinced America is the best country in the world. It might be. I hope it is. But I'm no longer positive. I haven't traveled much so I don't know much about other countries. But Canada seems like a good country. Sweden, Denmark, Australia, New Zealand. They all seem like pretty nice places. Don't get me wrong, I'm not thinking about leaving. I like it here. But I'm sad to think we might not be the best country in the world. Maybe we never were, but it was nice to think it was true. I'd like to think so again.

Pattern Recognition, the movie?

I cannot stress how much I enjoyed the novel and would be surprised and delighted if someone could make it into a good movie. From William Gibson's blog:

"Peter Weir wants to direct it, there's an option deal in place, and Weir has a contract with Warner to...well, not to go ahead and shoot it, but to go forward toward that end. Toward which he's hired a screenwriter -- whose name I've forgotten (which is actually a good sign with regard to Weir's choice) -- and has gone to London, Tokyo and Moscow to look at locations."

I won't dance...don't ask me.

My life might have been so different had I had this kind training aid in high school. Halley reports zefrank sent a link to 17 friends on Thursday and by the end of the week had a million people visiting his website.

Fear and Loathing, Campaign 2004.

I guess you can add Dr. Hunter S. Thompson to that list of folks (George Carlin, Dennis Miller, Garrison Keillor et al) that write and say what I'm thinking. Dr. Thompson saw the same debates I did. [Rolling Stone via Boing Boing]

Tiny Dancer

I'm not a big fan of animated gifs on websites. But I confess to a distrubing fascination with this one and can watch her for long periods of time.

Old TV, New TV.

A friend who had seen Jon Stewart savage the Crossfire weenies called to tell me about it and I remember thinking, "Crap. I missed it." Then, I remember thinking, "I'll be able to find it on the Net." And I did. Jeff Jarvis calls it "the future of TV":

"In old TV, a moment like this came, and if you missed it, you missed it. Tough luck. In new TV, you don't need to worry about watching it live--live is so yesterday--because thousands of peers will be keeping an eye out for you to let you know what you should watch, and they'll record it and distribute it." [C|Net story]

Yum.

Could this be the future of advertising? Produce a great spot. Release it to the Web and let a few hundred thousand people email the link to their friends.

Friday Night Lights

Hard not to come away thinking of Hoosiers. Billy Bob did a very credible job but he's no Gene Hackman or Dennis Hopper. Still, I can't recall a better movie about high school football. I think I'd be a little embarrassed if I were from Odessa. All of the beautiful, aerial views of desolate, empty desert must have been to help us understand that "football is all they have" in small, West Texas towns. My favorite line (this probably isn't verbatim) was: The future is getting ready to start in a few minutes. "Forever's about to happen in just a few minutes." Sound track was great. And the movie was shot in what I've come to think of as the "Saving Private Ryan" effect. Very effective. [IMDB]

Recently read.

Christopher Buckley's Florence of Arabia. The Amazon reviewer worries this book will offend Muslims with reference to beheadings and oppression of women.

Jon Stewart's appearnce on Crossfire.

Russell Beattie has posted an mp3 file. Or you can watch the video here.

Zero Bullshit TV.

Dave Winer asks: "wouldn't it be great if we had a TV network whose only job was to explain what was really going on on the other networks? "

Radio-Guy.

Steve Erenberg collects stuff. "Oddball & scary scientific stuff, globes, industrial masks and helmets, motors, contraptions, electrostatic devices, salesmen's samples, anatomical models, x-ray tubes and early radio equipment." I'd love to see where he lives. Erenberg is a creative director at a NY advertising agency but was trained as an architect. He designed the five-story globe in front of Trump Tower.

Let's say it's just half this bad

Wall Street Journal reporter Farnaz Fassihi --who has since been relieved of her duties there-- emailed friends about the situation in Baghdad.

B&B Hell.

I'll forgive Halley for not liking dogs because I so completely share her feelings regarding bed and breakfasts: "Bed and breakfasts are "honey, let's go away" punishment detention camps for men who owe their extremely furious wives some stab at romance every few years. It's a way station for dead marriages trying to get it up one last time before that long deep dive into marriage counseling."

Interview your grandmother.

Or your dad. Or somebody. When I interviewed my dad I had no idea what I'd ever do with it. It just seemed like a good idea. When the web came along, I had a place to share it.

Clean pipes

A year ago my LDL was 130 (HDL 73). That's boderline high and my doc encouraged me to watch my diet. By April this year, my LDL was 114 (HDL 72) so he started me on Lovastatin in an effort to get it under 100. My LDL is down to 75 (HDL 75), a reduction more than 40% (just like it says on TV). You can exercise and eat right but if heredity is working against you, go with the drugs.

The Long Tail

The Long Tail, by Chris Anderson (Wired) explains why you can't find movies like Sorcerer (Roy Scheider) at the corner Blockbuster but can at Netflix. Anderson's easy-to-follow-explanation is a tad long but an informative piece. In the (near) future, everything will be available online. While nobody cares about everything, somebody cares about every thing.

Republicans.

Regular visitors to this space have heard me flex my political cynicism in previous posts. I've often said it doesn't matter who we put in the White House. They're all lying politicians... blah, blah, blah.

But this campaign --and the prospect of four more years of Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld/Ashcroft-- has given me the willies. Im fearful. This time, I think it matters a lot. So I'm talking through my fears here.

I didnt plan to watch the second debate but got hooked and couldnt turn away. At one point I recall thinking that if Kerry did too well in this debate and the next, an accident might befall him prior to the election. Shudder.

Those of you that have found your way here before also know that Im prone to let others do my thinking --or at least my talking-- for me. George Carlin, Dennis Miller and others just say it/write it better. Like Garrison Keillor, who rails on Republicans in his new book, Homegrown Democrat: A Few Plain Thoughts from the Heart of America:

"The party of Lincoln and Liberty was transmogrified into the party of hairy-backed swamp developers and corporate shills, faith-based economists, see-through fundamentalist bullies with Bibles, Christians of convenience, freelance racists, hobby cops, misanthropic frat boys, lizardskin cigar monkeys, jerktown romeos, ninja dittoheads, the shrieking midgets of AM radio, tax cheats, cheese merchants, cat stranglers, taxi dancers, grab-ass executives, gun fetishists, genteel pornographers, pill pushers, chronic nappers, nihilists in golf pants, backed-up Baptists, Crips and Bloods of the boardroom, panjandrums of Ponzi marketing and the grand poo-bahs of Percodan, censors, spin dentists, Swiss bankers, hit men, body snatchers, mouth breathers and tongue thrusters, testosterone junkies, oversexed hedge-hogs, brownshirts in pinstrips, sweatshop tycoons, line jumpers, randy preachers, marsupial moms and chirpy news anchors, UFO scholars, johns, shroomheads, hacks, fakirs, aggressive dorks, wizened aliens, aluminum-siding salesmen, Lamborghini libertarians, people who believe Neil Armstrong's moonwalk was filmed in Roswell, New Mexico, little honkers out to diminish the rest of us, braying, smirking, scratching on the national blackboard, Newt's evil spawn and their Etch-a-Sketch president with a voice like a dial tone, who for almost four years has looked as if here were just about to say something smart, not much introspection going on here, no inquiring minds eager to learn about the world, not much chances of anyone picking up a book that isn't on the official reading list and hearing a still small voice, a dull and rigid man suspicious of the free flow of information and of secular institutions in general, whose philosophy is a jumble of badly sutured body parts trying to walk, supported by millions of good folks who do not share the anarchist dream but sleep well with this West Texas sphinx for a nightlight. Republicans: the No. 1 reason why the rest of the world thinks we're deaf, dumb and dangerous."

Roger --who is too smart and too kind to be the Republican he believes himself to be-- said he was bothered less by the things Keillor is wrong about than by the things he is right about.

Need wood?

Wonkette watched the same debate I did.

Hump? Hump? What hump?

I guess I think Bush is dumb enough to need this and dumb enough to do it.

No Shit Sale

Why are the made-up commercials always better than the real commercials?

Murrow Award Finale

One of the websites I help feed and care for won a nice award back in June. On Monday, Clyde and Stan were kind enough to go to NY and pick it up. Many of the Big Names in journalism were there: Brokow, Jennings, Rather... and our own Bob Priddy who --as RTNDA chairman-- MC'd the event. Here's a little (5 meg) 2-min video excerpt.

What he said.

John Perry Barlow explains why he is Supporting Kerry Anyway: "Terrible things have happened during the last four years that should not be rewarded no matter how we feel about John Kerry. The war in Iraq alone is unforgivable. While it would be a wonderful thing to have a beacon of democracy in the Middle East, it is criminally misguided to think that we could bomb such a thing into existence. And while it has become a mandatory cliche to say that the world is safer without Saddam Hussein in charge of Iraq, I wouldn't even say this appears true at present. "

Podcasting

"...allows you to subscribe to feeds, which include links to audio programs. Every time one of your subscriptions posts a new program, it automatically downloads onto your computer. You then transfer those shows to a portable music device, listen to it throughout your house via a wireless connection or take it with you wherever you go. Think of it as a personalized radio station that you program and change whenever you want." [Story]