Cute challenge

Your challenge, should you choose to accept it, is to find something cuter than this:

Winnie Cooper fantasy

She's in Maxim this month. Her clothing is not.

New music from Trent Reznor

Here. For LJ.

Did I mention...

I'm going to see Adam in concert on June 12?!!!!!!!!!!!

Glam Nation Tour

We have tickets to Adam's tour show June 12 at the Mystic Lake Casino, just a hop and a skip from Minneapolis!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  The shows that have been announced are at pretty small venues (2000-3000 people) which means demand exceeds supply.  (Scalper/reseller tickets are going for 2-4 times face value and they're not really even on sale yet to the general public.)  Small venues also mean that there's nothing but great seats and an amazing chance to hear his voice in a room with decent acoustics.

Allison Iraheta is one of his opening acts. 

So far, no tour dates announced in the South, but more dates and venues will be announced later.

I'm shocked...SHOCKED to find that gambling is going on in here

Roger Lowenstein's op-ed for NYT yesterday advocates for: 1) trading derivatives on exchanges and in standard contracts; and 2) banning or at least regulating credit default swaps. These seem like eminently reasonable suggestions.

Adam at River Rock

This is Adam singing Mad World at a concert Friday at River Rock Casino and Resort in Vancouver:
It's all great, but I'm particularly fond of the improv starting midway through. Lyrics are unnecessary.

"None of us is as smart as all of us"

I find this fascinating:

In one study, groups and individuals were given a complicated card game called the Wason selection task. Seventy-five percent of the groups solved it, but only 14 percent of individuals did.

From David Brooks' column yesterday.

I guess Winnie and I won't be getting married after all...

Wonder Years star expecting.

I've finally reached my breaking point

Not sure if anyone else has taken the time to delete spam comments we've been getting over the past several months. Doing so has been part of my morning internet routine and I've finally gotten to the point where I'm getting VERY tired from doing so. I also hate waking up to see 10+ comment emails in my in-box, knowing that more than likely they are all spam comments.

I've made some changes to the blog settings to see if that will stop them - the changes shouldn't affect anyone, other than a certain named ex-blogger. Sorry....

Adam on Nightline

Adam was on Nightline's Playlist last night (video here) talking about musical influences. I share since he mentioned Bowie.

In the past, Adam has identified the Hunky Dory cover as a reference for the cover art for his album.

Springtime behind the Pine Curtain

Haven't seen any dogwoods yet so these will have to do. First, my weekly hawk visit (a day late this week):

Then, the random pear trees at the baseball park:

Finally, something my mom calls a Tulip Tree:

Thomas Friedman gets it right

While I’ve obviously become fatigued with political postings, I still fear that “they are trying to kill us.” Thomas Friedman got it right, I think, in yesterday’s NYT (the first paragraph resonating with the right and the second, I hope, with everybody):

Former President George W. Bush’s gut instinct that this region craved and needed democracy was always right. It should have and could have been pursued with much better planning and execution. This war has been extraordinarily painful and costly. But democracy was never going to have a virgin birth in a place like Iraq, which has never known any such thing.

Some argue that nothing that happens in Iraq will ever justify the costs. Historians will sort that out. Personally, at this stage, I only care about one thing: that the outcome in Iraq be positive enough and forward-looking enough that those who have actually paid the price — in lost loved ones or injured bodies, in broken homes or broken lives, be they Iraqis or Americans or Brits — see Iraq evolve into something that will enable them to say that whatever the cost, it has given freedom and decent government to people who had none.

Poll archive: Adam Lambert for President

I'm wishing we'd archived all the polls.  Here's the latest one:

What kind of hawk visits me often?

This hawk (acually a pair of them) visits weekly:

He's there on the top of the swing. I have to take the pic from inside so I can't get a better shot.

The pair come in and scope the yard looking for insects and worms. My best guess is that they are Coopers Hawks. These are shots of Coopers that I snatched from the web:

The other possibility is Red Shouldered Hawk:

I think I have to go with Coopers.

House of Blues

C and I finally went to the House of Blues here in DFW on Saturday night. We've been wanting to go ever since it opened, but always had scheduling problems when there was someone we wanted to see performing. A few months ago, I was listening to one of the 3 FM stations I regularly frequent on-line (one from Austin, one from Seattle and one in Fayetteville, AR) when they played a 30 minute block from a band I had never heard of - Sound Tribe System 9 (or STS9 as most of their fans call them). I knew nothing about them and when I saw they were going to be at the HOB on a weekend night, I talked C into going. Only after I bought the tickets did I find out from C's college-aged niece that STS9 were a "stoner band". But, since we already had tickets, C and decided what the hell - if it were awful, we'd just check out the rest of HOB.

HOB was a very cool place and we will definitely go back. The performance space was intimate but has great sight-lines (we were in the balcony) and the sound quality was great. Next time we'll go a bit early and eat there and try to get the entire HOB experience.

As for the concert itself, I liked it, though after a bit the songs all sounded sorta similar. And I wouldn't label them as a "stoner" band - I'd call them a "rave" band. I've never been to a rave, but from what I know about them, this was like a mini-rave (lots of glow-sticks). Their light show was incredible and I was a bit nervous about that given my current medical state. Thankfully, nothing happened and other than my ears ringing from the sound, no other ill-effects. They played a little over an hour, then were taking a break and C had had enough.

One last thing - I was afraid I'd be the oldest person there and for awhile (at least in the balcony section), it seemed liked I would be. But as it filled up, there were a few folks that at least appeared older (some there with their kids).

Here is a video of STS9 playing the song that was our favorite:

Train snow plow

There are oodles of videos like these on youtube. I might watch them all.

Culture clash

Adam Lambert, Shaun White, and Sarah Palin appear tonight on the second night of Leno's return to the Tonight Show. Here's a little video of the guests backstage.

Update: Whisper1111 on Twitter names Shaun/Sarah/Adam "the lion, the witch, and the wardrobe".

Update II: Adam's performance here (illegitimate) and here (legit Leno video, but takes forever to load).

Update III: Embedding from Hulu:

Acoustic Whole Lotta Love

At a concert on Saturday at the Fantasy Springs resort, Adam performed this acoustic, bluesy, jazzy rendition of Whole Lotta Love (video courtesy of anthrogeekPF):



Update: I can't stop listening to this. Have always suspected that he could sing the bejeepers out of the blues with one vocal chord wrapped around his uvula, but this exceeds my expectations.

Update II: The keyboard player deserves a mention. It's Zac Baird (of Korn).

Update III: You can download a very high-quality audio recording (better than in the video above) of this here. The file is a .wav file. It'll play in iTunes. (You can convert it to mp3 in iTunes too.) All of the songs from that concert are available at that link. The middle section of the concert (#5 Soaked through #9 Whole Lotta Love) was acoustic and stunning.

Update IV: And here's a link to the open post at Hoopla Magnet, prepared by drcat83, in which all fan videos, photos, etc. from the Feb. 27 Fantasy Springs concert are collected and organized.

Update V: Rockstar Weekly reviewed the Fantasy Springs concert and said this about WLL:

In the most stunning moment of the night, Lambert abandoned himself to passion’s fire with an acoustic blues-rock interpretation of Whole Lotta Love; lithely unraveling the driving beat and frenetic energy of the song into a seven-minute sensual burn. Kneeling, surrounded by a turquoise bliss of chunky bass lines, sitar-like twangs and languid drumbeats, Lambert reached into his inner depths, drawing out a primal query of desire from his soul; a powerful, spiritual offering of love and sex. Electrically-charged emotions flowing, man and music melded seamlessly as he arose, licking heated cries up to the stars, torso rippling fluidly. Stretching out the pace of the song to render breathing space to the band’s sultry vibe, he warbled with lingering intensity, vocal echoes reverberating in the air as if he stood beneath the Palm Canyon walls. Lambert then bore down with fevered thrust into a cascade of lilting moans, while the absorbed crowd’s screams of pleasure swelled and receded around him. Throating desire to the darkened sand, he slipped back to his knees, fervent wails surging forth in waves. Then, spent and satiated, he caressed the sonic dream to its end with a naked whisper tenderly laid to rest beside a final wistful guitar twang. As the elated crowd roused themselves from the spell, Adam confided the mesmeric compilation had been sparsely conceptualized and virtually unrehearsed. The thunderous response to this conveyed to the gifted chameleon that he and his band had successfully coaxed a funky, impromptu enchantment of raw love as oral art out of the iconic Zeppelin tune. Lambert’s unique artistic integrity from that performance ought to educate critics who dismiss him as merely a “reality star” devoid of lasting substance.

Update VI (March 8): Replaced the embedded video with one that has been edited together by lambosessed from the best audio (cos2mwiz, mwilson3235, tinafea) and video (anthrogeekPF, cos2mwiz, lekispop, Merrycello1, mwilson3235, myspencer50, suz526, TALCvids) sources.  Here is anthrogeekPF's video.

New fav commercial

Love the sock puppet and the robot doing the robot!

East TX Church Arsonist Suspects Arrested

From the Tyler paper. Having seen Shutter Island yesterday, I think that Leo should play
McAllister.

RE: Tiger

Of course it was scripted. Bazillionaires' speeches are ever so. And of course we can never know what goes on in another's heart. What I meant was there was very little in the way of weasel words for the actual apology part:

Now every one of you has good reason to be critical of me. I want to say to each of you, simply and directly, I am deeply sorry for my irresponsible and selfish behavior I engaged in.

I know people want to find out how I could be so selfish and so foolish. People want to know how I could have done these things to my wife Elin and to my children. And while I have always tried to be a private person, there are some things I want to say.

Elin and I have started the process of discussing the damage caused by my behavior. As Elin pointed out to me, my real apology to her will not come in the form of words; it will come from my behavior over time.

"...I am deeply sorry for my irresponsible and selfish behavior I engaged in [emph. mine; dangling preposition his]" and "my real apology to her will not come in the form of words; it will come from my behavior over time [emph. mine]."

While I haven't gone back amd listened or viewed or read again, in the meat here there is none of that "if I offended" type of bologna that puts the fault on the victim or the fan.

Tiger

A few weeks late but an apology even Michael could agree was a real one.

Bad-ass Hebrews and Texans

While there are still far too many Confederate flags flying in my beloved state (including one about 2 miles down the road from my old college and law school roommate's former ranchette just outside of Austin in the Hill Country, I do appreciate the solidarity many Texans show with Israel (for whom I fear more than ever given Iran's grumblings of late).


Driving between Athens and Austin many, many times over the last two years I was always amused by the US, Texas, and Israeli flags flying at a small establishment just east of Buffalo, Texas off of I-35 and Hwy 79.


Had to smile this morning at this blurb from a note to Nordlinger:


Wanted to publish a fun letter for you! It responded to something I wrote about conservative Christians and Israel.
Hey Jay,

My parents live in the Texas Hill Country, about ten miles outside of Fredericksburg specifically, and on the road to their place is a house that has three flagpoles out front: flying Old Glory, the Texas flag, and the Israeli flag. Every time I’m in the Hill Country and we drive by that house, I think of a Texan I heard who admiringly described the Israelis as “bad-ass Hebrews.” God bless Israel and God bless Texas.

NYT, NYMag, WaPo, TIME Agree: Joe Stack Was One Crazy Teabagger! - Stephen Spruiell

I should have known it wouldn''t take that long to blame me for Joe Stack. Ok, so I'm not really a tea party guy but sheesh.

[Btw, first time I've used the "share" function. Click on "re:" line for link.]

My diagnosis (finally...sort of)

Had my follow-up with the Otolaryngology specialists earlier today. The general consensus is that I am having vestibular migraines without headaches. Not a 100% certain diagnosis, but somewhere in the 90% certain category.

Now the fun part really starts - trying to find the trigger(s). I may never find it, which means taking some type of medication from now on. I also get to try out different types of medications (if needed). For the time being, I'm sticking with my current medication. I've gotten the OK to up my dosage another 10mg if needed. I go back in 8 weeks or if my meds don't seem to be working (i.e. blocking or stopping the episodes). In that 8 week span, C and I will be making a trip, so they are very interested to see how I do on on the planes and immediately afterward. They are also interested to see how I do in the environment I'll be in (in keeping with my tradition of not disclosing info about trips I take until I return, the destination will remain a mystery until I get back to post about it).

The real bummer is that starting tomorrow, they want me to cut out (as much as possible):

• chocolate
• caffeine
• wine, especially red
  
• cheese
• MSG

On a positive note, they told me that the vast majority of people who have this rarely, if ever, have headaches. I've been trying to remember when I last had a headache and discounting an after several glasses of wine one back in September, I can't recall one. So I have that going for me....

Austin Plane Crash

was apparently in about the 9400 block of Research/183. Looks like it was intentional per the Statesman.

About 5 miles north of my old place and about 6 1/2 miles north of my old office.

Adam performing a Stripped concert for Z100 Radio yesterday

Yesterday in New York, Adam gave a small five-song concert for Z100's "Stripped" series.  It's a pleasure to have high quality audio/video of a live performance.  Eventually, all of the songs will be available, but for now, there's just Fever and an incident with a rude audience member:

Can navigate to the phone incident in this one:

Adam at the Highline Ballroom Feb. 12

Friday night, Adam and a couple other Idols performed a concert together at the Highline Ballroom in NYC.  For anyone disappointed in the highly-produced, electro-pop qualities of his album, you should still consider seeing him perform live.  Here is Sure Fire Winners.  The note he hits at 2:42 is unreal:



And here's Fever:



You can see his whole set via fan videos collected in an unlocked post at Hoopla Magnet.

"Happy Valentine's Day, honey"

Personally, I think shoveling the side of the driveway your wife uses says "I love you" better than flowers....

Great DFW Blizzard of Feb 2010

Have been out-and about taking pictures now that our record 12 1/2" snow event has ended...


This is the house across the street:




Looking down our street:




Diving board of our pool showing snow accumulation:




There are limbs down all over the neighborhood due to the wet, heavy snow:

Smowmageddon

Now that the pesky power is back on...


My sister in Minnesota would laugh but sometimes it even snows in Athens. Mom would kill me if she knew about this pic. She's wearing her Walmart hat/bonnet (one of those little plastic checkout bags)--after all, she had had her hair done the day before. This was yesterday:






I snapped it because I figured it would be the best we got this year having missed out on the Christmas snow that LJ got. I was wrong.



Some pics from today. First from the backyard:





And then the front:


The perfunctory Courthouse Pic:




And some Backyard Ice Art:

A backyard before picture might be in order:

F@$&!!

Get to go to 30mg @ day now :(

When the doctor and I discussed the meds that are normally prescribed for what they think is going on, I wondered if it was a coincidence that the 2 most common happened to be anti-depressant or anti-anxiety drugs - I think the answer is becoming much clearer...

Free shaping: crate training

When we first got Karma (age 6 months), I tried to confine her to a crate at night and when we left her alone.  I thought that was the safest place for her (and for everything else in the house).  She went into hysterical fits in the crate, though, shredding her bed and shrieking like a banshee.  I gave up on the crating and she magically behaves herself really well when she's alone.

When we started agility training, the instructors warned that by the third level (week 19) our dogs would need to be crated sometimes during class in crates along the side of the room.

I re-dedicated myself to the task of training her to accept being crated. I tried to lure her into the crate with the big guns of dog training: bacon, peanut butter, Velveeta. She would not put a paw in the crate to get to them, even when she was alone. When that didn't work, I figured our agility training would come to an end at week 18.

A few weeks before the deadline, it dawned on me to try free-shaping to get her into the crate. (The first behavior she learned by free-shaping was backing up onto an inclined plank. She's so pleased with learning that behavior that she does it all the time spontaneously during class.)

Step by step, over the course of days, in 5-10 minute sessions:

• I put the crate in the living room and stocked myself with treats (chicken, hotdogs, Velveeta).
  
• Stood in the living room.
  
• Karma started offering behaviors (rolling over, backing up, sitting...) which I ignored.
  
• When she looked in the direction of the crate, I marked (with a clicker) the behavior and gave her a treat.
  
• After treating her a few times for just looking in the direction of the crate, I withheld the click/treat until she took a step toward the crate.
• Then I waited for her to take two steps toward the crate before rewarding her.
• Then I waited for her to get right up to the crate.
• Then the big hurdle: I waited for her to put one paw in the crate. She did it!
  

Eventually (this is over the course of many days), she walked all the way into the crate.

Then I worked on increasing the amount of time she had to be in the crate before treating her.  I did this while leaving the crate door open.  I increased the time by one second at first, then later, when she was up to 15 seconds, I increased time in 5 second intervals. Then, I worked on stepping away from the crate. At first, just one step away, then two, then five, then turning my back and walking one step, etc. Eventually, I worked up to being able to turn my back, leave the room, go upstairs and come back down, while she stands quietly in the crate even though the door is open. Then I worked on incrementally closing the door. Voila! We did it! She can be crated!  Finally, we went through the same process (but much more quickly) at the training center.

I can't explain why she was willing to put a paw in the crate when we were free-shaping, but wouldn't do it when she was lured with bacon. Something about it was just fundamentally different to her. Free-shaping is a fun game to her.

Tonight we start Week 27 of agility training.

Dracula

We read Bram Stoker's Dracula for book club.  It was a fun read.  I pitched it but really had no idea what the story was beyond the fact that Dracula was a vampire.  It's considered a classic and seemed worthy of reading since it's the literary origin of an icon.

It was published in 1897, after the Industrial Revolution and about 30 years after Darwin's Origin of the Species.

In short, a group of Westerners (British, Dutch, American) defeat Dracula through use of Christianity, modern science and technology, and folklore.

Dracula is essentially pro-Western, pre-WWI propaganda. Its message is that "evil Romanians will corrupt our pure, virtuous women through sexual deviancy and our women in turn will corrupt our men thereby destroying Western civilization, therefore Romanians must be stopped; P.S. Romanians are Satan himself".

Happy (belated) Birthday, Scooter

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, SCOOTER

LJ medical update

MRI was today. Nothing bad found. It was cool looking at the images with the doctor as she explained what they were looking for.

As for what is causing my problems, the new leader is something called Vestibular Migraine. There are many variations of this, the rarest seems to be the one I possibly have - the one without the headaches. There is an outside chance that this is all allergy related and that theory will be examined more closely if in the next couple of months my episodes do not stop.

As for treatment, it is a 2-pronged attack. First is medication that I start in small dosages and increase only if the episodes continue. The second avenue is food. While the causes of migraines are not completely understood, certain foods and food types are thought to be triggers. So I'm going through the process of eliminating certain foods, then re-introducing them one-by-one to see which (if any) seems to trigger something. I started this process back in early January and get to add something starting today. If after adding them all back and nothing happens, then the process starts over with a different type of food group (elimination, then adding one-by-one). I think there are 4 food group/types, so this could be a rather long, drawn out process.

One last note, that is a bit negative in my case - driving. While they didn't tell me to not drive, they did suggest I limit my driving, at least while I ramp up on the medication. Neighborhood and very local driving seems to be OK - anything more than that they wanted me to be cautious about. Bummer :(

How cold has it been in Dallas (NEW UPDATE)

Our pool system is finally up and running. No pool issues, no plumbing issues, no pump issues. The only casualty was the backwash value which malfunctioned and started the chain of events that resulted in our "frozen pond". The pool guys got everything fixed and the system was up and running yesterday. Yea!

Re: My lack of posting

As I posted about here, I've started my 2nd round of testing for my mystery condition. MRI is scheduled for tomorrow morning, with a follow-up with the ENT "team" after. Since my episode on the plane, I've had 2 more. One was last week when it appeared as if I woke up at my normal time having one. On the severity level, it was about a 4, but it was a very strange sensation waking up with a vertigo type thing going on. The other episode was Monday and it was a bad one. Not only did I have the nausea thing going on, but it was so bad I was actually over a sink...well you get the idea. That is the first time I've been that nauseated, so that was a bit freaky. This one lasted about 15-20 minutes and I was wiped out afterward.

All-in-all , not a good week. We'll see what the MRI results are tomorrow and go from there.

Whataya Want From Me and Daylight Breaks

Just released this morning, here's a new music video from Adam in support of his second single, Whataya Want From Me from the album:

VH1 TV Shows | Music Videos | Celebrity Photos | News & Gossip

And the question of the day is, who is the person behind the camera? There are several interpretations: 1) a lover; 2) fans/media/public; and/or 3) Adam himself (i.e. Regular Adam is in conflict with Star Adam).

Reviews/analysis: Rolling Stone (too safe; give us Ziggy Stardust), Jim Cantiello at MTV ("In fact, we're happy to get back in bed with [Adam].")

My perspective is so warped by adoration that I have no idea whether it works, whether it connects, whether people will be moved by angsty, lone-tear Adam, whether his acting is good enough to tug on heartstrings. It works for me. I want to make him some tea.

Speaking of angsty acting, yesterday Adam's buddy Cassidy Haley released a video for Daylight Breaks, a song from his EP Little Boys and Dinosaurs. He doesn't have a record deal. The video was produced with donations from fans. Conceptually, it's Edward Scissorhands meets Mannequin. I think it's beautiful. I love the color tint amidst the black and white. (Houston Chron's music critic Joey Guerra labeled it "gorgeous" and promoted it via Twitter.)

Athens Chuch Burnings...

Yikes. I even go to one of these occasionally (Grace, when I can't handle one of mom's church's substitute pastors). From the Athens Daily Review:

It was the third suspected arson reported at an Athens-area church in 11 days. Two hours before, AFD received the Lake Athens Fire report, Grace Community Church on State Highway 19 was in flames. The year began with Faith Church burglarized and scorched.

How cold has it been in Dallas? (UPDATE)

Last night it finally did not get below 32 and my pool/hot tub has completely thawed. Will be calling the pool tech guys to come check out my system to ensure no lasting damage was done before turning everything back on. I guess this means the great freeze of '10 is officially over.

Former client mentioned on The Corner

Ok, actually his firm was the client. Nordlinger makes mention here. Ouch. I can't believe that after many meetings and conversations with this guy, I never made the connection with his name.

Movie trailers

We've lamented before that movie trailers were not generally made available for legal embed. But I see Avatar's is, and I hope this means a shift in the industry.


Official Avatar Movie

McGwire

When I heard the story on the radio yesterday that Mark McGwire admitted steroid use, I was so confused, because I thought we already knew this. I had to have my memory refreshed that he had declined to come clean earlier.

The better headline is not that he used steroids, but that he's shown himself to be completely delusional:

Still, McGwire told Costas he “absolutely” could have broken the record without using steroids, pointing to his home run prowess going back to Little League.

I'll give him this about his prowess. It takes a special kind of douchebaggery prowess to wait until after the most recent round of Hall of Fame voting to make the admission.

As a North Dakota girl, I'm obliged to note that Roger Maris, born in Minnesota, grew up in Grand Forks and Fargo, ND. Maris held the single-season home run record prior to baseball's steroid period.

Whole Lotta Love (I know you're wondering what Adam's been up to, but you're just too embarrassed to ask)

I post this for the glory of the minute from 3:09 to 4:06:



This is a combo of fan videos and audio taken at the New Year's Eve Gridlock event in LA. (Specifically, this was compiled by terraj, using videos by alreference, intimations, sdljroller, with audio recorded by alreference, anthrogeekPF and edi5289.) Adam sang 10 songs from his album, For Your Entertainment, then sang Whole Lotta Love as an encore.

The guitar player is Monte Pittman, who toured with Madonna. The drummer is Longineu Parsons III, of Yellowcard. (Drum solo here sounds painfully dull, but I'm not sure we're hearing everything that's going on in this audio. He CAN play. Trivia: he's the son of Longinue Parsons, the jazz trumpet player.) Keyboard player offscreen is Lisa Harriton of Smashing Pumpkins. Bass player is Tommy Joe Ratliff.

Videos of Adam's set can be found at Hoopla Magnet (an Adam fan community site) which has left this post open to viewing by non-members. (I think it's open to the world, but you might need a free Live Journal account. Let me know.) This post offers an interesting peek into how diligent and thorough and dedicated this fan community is and how hard working its moderator is. This particular post is solely about stuff (videos, press, photos, reviews, audience accounts) related to the Gridlock performance and the list of its contents is about 14 screens long, not counting the pages of user comments.

Adam's album has sold almost 450,000 copies in seven weeks since its release on November 23. For context, Idol winner Kris Allen's album has sold a little under 250,000, and was released a week earlier. For further context, the highest selling album in 2009 (Taylor Swift's Fearless) sold 3.2 million, according to Billboard.

Of course, Susan Boyle is outselling everyone by a mile. Adam and Susan will be taping an Oprah show tomorrow, to be aired Jan. 19.

I'm sorry this is illegal because it's a hoot OR Ideas for what to do with frozen bodies of water

Two airplanes landed safely on Lake Calhoun, however such a landing is a violation of the Park and Recreation Department's ordinance.

This is taking place across the street from my office.

How cold has it been in Dallas?

We are over 90 consecutive hours of temps below freezing....not the best time for my pool pump/filter/heater equip to malfunction.

GUIs of 1990

Work today took me in search of information about graphical user interfaces circa 1990.  I came across this time capsule:



Search YouTube for "Computer Chronicles" if you want to shake your head some more at how things have changed.

My lack of posting

While I can, and will, use being in Milwaukee over the holidays as my excuse, there is another reason. As I mentioned here back in October, I was dealing with some medical issues....well, they have reared their ugly head again. I've had 5 more episodes since mid December - 2 of them rather memorable. Since the onset back in July, I've been worried about what would happen if I were driving. Unfortunately, I got to experience that the night before C and I left for Milwaukee. I was able to make it to the shoulder safely, but as C and I switched positions, I had to hold on to the side of the vehicle to keep from stumbling into the closest lane of traffic.

The other memorable episode happened on Monday, sitting on the airplane about to take off. We had just pulled away from the gate when it started. I was very close to having to say something to a flight attendant about getting me back to the terminal or letting me get on the floor - something, anything. I made it through take-off and being able to move about the cabin so I could get to the lavatory. After about 20 minutes, all was well (relatively speaking).

I'm seeking 2nd medical opinions, in fact I started that process today. I'm going to a vestibular disorder specialist and will start a new round of testing. Had the hearing ones today - next up, another MRI.

My dreams of motorcycle ownership are slowly fading....

Could not have been more wrong

I didn't think Favre would be effective: "He's old and he hasn't practiced," I said .  I was wrong; he's been plenty good.  Regardless of what happens during the playoffs, he deserves props for getting the Vikings there.

I remain ambivalent about this season.  The success seems merely purchased or borrowed.  That's probably ridiculous; all the teams' successes are purchased.  But winning with Green Bay's quarterback is just still very awkward to me.

Breaking in Mpls: Lindbergh terminal evacuated -- Updated: NEVERMIND

Can't get to the article on the Strib site due, no doubt, to too much traffic.  Bomb-sniffing dog detected explosive device in luggage.  Screencap for you of main page in the meantime:

Updated at 3:44 pm:  All safe.  No dangerous materials were found, and the airport has been reopened.

Update 1/6/10:  Strib's follow-up story here.  The bomb-sniffing dog alerted on an empty pink bag used by baggage handlers to signal the end of a batch of luggage from a flight.

Speaking of fan videos

Fans have set several of Adam's songs to videos.  Some make more sense than others:

• Pick U Up:  basejumpers and their ilk (Actually, I'm not sure the lyrics of this song make any sense unless you're watching this video)
  
• Broken Open:  firefighters saving cats
  
• Down the Rabbit Hole:  Alice in Wonderland plus cool "fractal " graphic thingees, that are like a digital kaleidoscope
  
• Sleepwalker:  anime
  
• Strut:  Oh dear.  Cats, again.

Update:  A few more:

• Fever:  The Singapore dance school (not yet ordered to take it down)
  
• If I Had You:  Clydesdales and Dreamer Donkey.  Huh.
• Music Again:  Sims.  
• Soaked:  Montage of wet kitties.

Nine Inch Nails community video project

LJ has previously mentioned Trent Reznor's blog and Reznor's thoughts about band marketing.  Today, there's an announcement about the release of a fan video project (Part 1 of 32 starts on YouTube here):

dozens of fans and a network of thousands spanning the entire globe pooled their efforts to create this professional quality ... concert film, and have released it in every format from Blu-ray and DVD to iPod and YouTube.  It combines footage from all three shows and includes DVD menus, bonus footage, a PDF booklet and more.  That something of this scale was produced entirely by fans, on their own time, purely for the sake of giving something back to the community, is absolutely unprecedented.

The result is a full-length concert edit of their Lights in the Sky tour.

(H/t to Adam's bass player (and AMA kiss-ee) Tommy Joe Ratliff who re-tweeted Trent 's tweet about this.)

This is the wave of the future, letting fans create derivative works freely.  (As I opined before, Sony was way off the mark when they made the Singapore dancing group remove their youtube video of the choreographed dance to one of Adam's songs.)  NIN gets it right:  support it, promote it.

Open, An Autobiography

For a tennis fan, Andre Agassi's autobiography, is simply necessary. A huge slice of contemporary tennis history belongs to him. This is a fascinating peak into the thoughts of a champion.

I've been a fan of Andre's since before he shed the wig and shaved his hair. For a decade, I watched nearly every one of his televised matches. I got up in the middle of the night to watch live coverage of his matches from the other side of the globe.  I took time off of work to watch his matches. I preferred him and rooted for him over every competitor he faced, except Patrick Rafter when I was neutral. I believed he could win every one of the matches I watched, but now I know he did not believe he could win every one of those matches. (For some matches, he didn't even care about winning as much as I cared about him winning.)

It's stunning really to read about the degree of misery he was in and to observe the fragility of his confidence. By ALL measures, he was one of tennis' best players. There'd be some debate about where exactly he should place among the best, but no one would dispute he makes the top 15 of all time.  (He'd make most people's Top 10.) That's top 15 out of the thousands, or tens of thousands, of people who've played pro tennis. He won 8 Major titles. He was the first man to win all four majors on three surfaces (grass, clay and hard) and the only man to win a career golden slam (all four slams plus an Olympic gold).  (Incidentally, Andre's wife, Stefanie Graf, was the only woman to win a golden slam; she won them all within a calendar year.)

Surely, someone who is THAT good at what they do for a living should feel accomplished at their profession. But no, he was constantly addled with frustrations about not being good enough. His struggle to find satisfaction without finding perfection will resonate with people in all kinds of professions. This is one of the universal themes of Andre's story.

The other universal theme is Andre's search for a purpose for his tennis career, in spite of hating tennis. He found purpose and motivation when he found a reason to play that wasn't about him, but instead was about service to others. In the last years of his career, he found satisfaction in playing to be able to deliver financial backing to the charter school in Las Vegas that bears his name.

I was delighted to read about his very fond memories of his match against James Blake at the U.S. Open in the quarterfinals in 2005. (Contemporaneous news stories about it: WaPo, AP.) That match was my all-time favorite tennis-watching memory.  K and I watched at a sports bar downtown.  It was empty except for us;  in the beginning the staff peaked in now and then, mildly curious to see the score, but by the end they were watching and whooping with us.  The match was drama-packed, with Andre coming back from two sets down, and every single point was top quality tennis.

The book is missing some of the details I would have enjoyed, but that may not have been interesting to anyone else. How many hours a day did he work out? How many hours of tennis practice? Who did he practice with? What drills did he do? What did he eat? How many calories a day did he eat? His very close friend and former business manager Perry Rogers sued Stefanie in December 2008 for management fees. What's that story? What kind of deals did he have with sponsors (e.g. there were stories that in his later years, he made them contribute to his school)? He mentions that Nike dropped him along the way; was there any drama with that? Does anyone continue to sponsor him? He says they have no tennis court and that the kids will not play tennis, but what are they doing (because it'd be surprising if they weren't athletes with those genes)? His serve improved markedly after his comeback; how? why? what did he adjust?  Why meth, of all drugs? It'd have to be a multi-volume set to satisfy my curiosity.

There are lots of interesting tidbits, though:

• Pete Sampras was comically stingy with tips;
• Jimmy Connors was particularly douchey to Andre;
  
• Jeff Tarango was a jerk when he was 8 years old (I could have guessed that. We saw Tarango play pro doubles at a tournament in Arizona and that man just oozes bile);
  
• Rafter and Federer actually are the class acts they seem to be;
• Show Andre a picture of your kids, mention that you're worried about how you'll pay for college and he'll write you a check. (Bless him; he's a trusting soul, but cynical readers will observe several people in Andre's life taking advantage of him while he seems oblivious. Still, it was this act of funding college for someone and feeling really happy about being able to do it that gave him the spark of the idea to start the school, so cheers to un-cynical oblivion.)
  
• Andre is a herd creature:  he is miserable being alone and competing alone.  He needs people around him.  Oh, the irony, that his dad channeled him into one of the only sports that you play entirely alone -- with no team and no coaching breaks.  Even the opponent in a tennis match is physically remote.
• He's still claiming that he didn't even notice Pres. Clinton's arrival during his loss to Grosjean in 2001 at the French Open.  And I still don't believe him, although I can't fathom why he'd lie about that when he's come clean about the wig and the meth.  

Photos from NYC trip

I've been meaning to post some photos from our NYC trip. Here are a few:

Lincoln Center plaza, where we saw The Met doing Tosca.

Ravi
 Coltrane performing at The Village Vanguard

Grand Central Station.  One of my all-time favorite buildings.  If I had to take just one building with me to a deserted island, this would be it.

On the outside of a fire station mid to upper West side.

Bryant Park.  Spin sponsors this free outdoor table tennis venue (in addition to having a swanky indoor club with a bar that they wouldn't let me take pictures of).  The NY Public Library is in the background.

One of my favorite NYC activities is oggling stone work.  Gorgeous stonework is everywhere.

Another sample of stonework. The Alwyn Court Building.

 

Maybe this is where Scrabble is played in Central Park, but it was closed when we were there so I didn't get to find out.

Tried to see the Daily Show, but it was off for the night following the Emmy Awards. The entrance to the studio is on the left side of this building.

Oh no. UPDATED with AfterElton response

Peggy Noonan goes after Adam for his AMA performance.

Pretty sure she's already on her Christmas vacation and just copy/pasted this from an opinion piece from the 1950's about Elvis.

Update 12/18/09: AfterElton responds to Noonan:

Noonan isn't a stupid woman and I don't really think she believes the tripe she writes here. She's part of the Washington Beltway that she and other conservatives like to pretend they have nothing to do with, and what she's doing here is classic Republican sleight of hand. Is your party mostly responsible for the worst economic collapse in 80 years? Did your party start two failed wars? Did your party run-up massive deficits? Is your party responsible for killing the health care reform the vast majority of Americans want?

Well, then you better find a way to distract the Average Joe from what's going on or they might keep you out of pwer. And what's been better at distracting folks than dragging out the tired old cliche of the gay boogeyman!

Update II 12/18/09: Steve Benen at WashingtonMonthly.com copied me:

It was more than a half-century ago, but I suspect a similar column must have run in 1956, when Elvis swung his hips a little too much on The Ed Sullivan Show.

Happy Birthday, Michael

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MICHAEL

Time's Person of the Year (OR My dreidel spins the other way)

was not Adam.  (No, I wasn't expecting him to be; I'm not quite that delusional.) But he did make their list of People Who Mattered.

He was not the winner of American Idol. He was not even the first Idol runner-up to later make the thoroughly unsurprising announcement that he is gay. (See Aiken, Clay.) But Lambert came first in generating attention: that eyeliner, that voice — ranging from a husky smolder to a granite-splitting glam-rock shriek — and those glittered-out, magnetic performances. And there was the way Lambert treated his sexuality, which reflected the tricky path of gayness toward mainstream acceptance. Lambert never confirmed his being gay until finishing Idol, but, importantly, he never denied it. And unlike Aiken's, his performances had an unmistakable erotic charge — he was a man, not a man-child. After Idol, he infuriated some viewers with a raunchy, grinding show at the American Music Awards on ABC. Rather than apologize, he charged a double standard for gay men while keeping a smile on his face: when Joy Behar told him, on The View, that he was "not exactly a nice Jewish boy," he quipped, "I'm a little different. My dreidel spins the other way." Lambert ended 2009 out, proud — and loud.

— James Poniewozik

(It's a dubious honor, since Jon and Kate Gosselin made the list too.)

He also came in first in the Rolling Stone Reader's Poll for Top Artist of 2009.  He topped Lady Gaga, which is just wrong, and Adam would be the first one to say so.

And, as you may have heard, he was on Barbara Walter's list of the Ten Most Fascinating People of 2009. (Again with Kate Gosselin.  My disinterest in the Gosselins rivals LJ's disinterest in Adam.)

Update:  Adam is also on Forbes list of Music's Biggest Breakout Stars.

Update II: Adam was the third-most trended person on Twitter in 2009, after Michael Jackson and SuBo.

The Tomb of Tutankhamen

Another Half Price Books purchase. I was listening to the sports talk station here in DFW and one of the morning guys was talking about his fascination when he was a teenager with King Tut. He eventually got this book at a library and was captivated by the story and the life of the man who discovered the tomb, Howard Carter. As he was talking about this book and the story, it got me interested. It took me a few months to find this. The original edition of this book was published in 3 volumes (Volume I in 1923, Volume II in 1927 and Volume III in 1933.) Those volumes were condensed into this edition that was published in 1954. The story of the tomb discovery is, of course, captivating. However, that is only a small portion of the work. The book goes into great detail describing each object found and their significance, if any. At times it is too technical and I found myself struggling to get through it. The issue, at least for me, was that this work is written in a textbook/academic type style which is very dry.

Almost as interesting as the story are the pictures - many of which were taken at the time of the discovery. Those pictures are combined with color plates of many of the treasures. If you can fight through the lengthy descriptions of beads, of mummies, of statues and of archaeological techniques, you'll be rewarded with a compelling and fascinating adventure story.

Nazi Hunter: The Wiesenthal File

I picked this up at Half Price Books many, many months ago when I was on a Nazi kick. This book details the life of Simon Wiesenthal and chronicles some of searches for ex-Nazi's, some of whom were quite famous (Eichmann and Mengele) and some I'd never heard of (Franz Stangl and Hermine Braunsteiner Ryan). I found it intriguing how these persons were tracked down, as well as how they escaped and disappeared in the first place. Who helped them and why were they helped? Wiesenthal has his own theories, some of which I agreed with; some I didn't. It also chronicles his feuds, most famously with Eli Wiesel. Certainly held my interest as I read it (which was abnormally a long time for me) and at the price I paid, a bargain.

"Conservatives have no voice in the media"

While I sometimes find KO's rants a bit over-the-top, the last 3 or 4 minutes of this one had me laughing so hard I was crying...



(He probably shouldn't quit his day job and become an impersonator though)

Deserted island: Music Edition

Question 1: You're going to be dropped alone on a deserted island for the rest of your life with one album/CD, a device that plays albums/CDs and a magical power supply for said player that will last your lifetime. What's the album?

Question 2: Same thing, but you get 5 albums/CDs.

You're invited to edit into the post, so the answers are on the main page instead of being in the comments.

[Update] LJ: - My 1 album/CD would be U2's "U218 Singles". My 5 album/CDs would be:

1) U218 Singles - U2
2) The Allman Brothers at Fillmore East - The Allman Brothers Band
3) The Downward Spiral - Nine Inch Nails
4) The Singles 86>98 - Depeche Mode
5) Evita (1978 Original Broadway Cast)

[Update] Stephanie:  One CD:  Garrick Ohlsson's The Complete Chopin Piano Works, Vol. 3, Ballades

1) The Complete Chopin Piano Works, Vol. 3, Ballades - Garrick Ohlsson
2) Greatest Hits - Journey
3) Ballads - Dexter Gordon (coming in 2nd for the jazz slot:  Standard Time Vol 3, Resolution of Romance, Wynton and Ellis Marsalis)
4) Icky Thump - White Stripes
5) . . . and Serenity - Glenn Gould

I'll change my mind tomorrow.

Favorite Christmas Music?

Nothing says Christmas like the Roches.

Just ordered these three:

Down the Rabbit Hole

The best song on Adam's album isn't on the album proper. It's a bonus track, available on iTunes, here. Hear the whole thing here, while watching someone's attempt at transcribing the lyrics.

The mystery to me is why this isn't the centerpiece of the album, rather than a bonus track. It's funk, it's glam, it's disco. It's catchy. It's just a little bit weird. It's more Adam-y than the songs that made the album. Adam is clearly having a blast singing this. (Aural trivia: can you catch the vocal hat tip to his Ring of Fire?)

I think the lyrics in the above-linked youtube video are almost accurate, but the line at 0:31 "If it's getting high fee" should be "Hippies gettin' hyphy", I believe. Urban Dictionary defines HYPHY thusly:

San Francisco Bay Area, shortened perhaps from English dialect "hyperactive"; other sources cite a combination of "hype" and "fly." Popularized by E-40 and the Federation's song "Hyphy" (2004); first known use on record by Keak Da Sneak in 1998 (on "Cool," from his LP Sneakacidle).
1 : dangerous and irrational: CRAZY;
2 : amusingly eccentric; without inhibition: GOOFY
"They were getting hyphy up in the club Saturday night."

Also, others have opined that the line at 1:52 is "It starts in the bass and ends in the crystal ball", rather than "It starts in the vase and it ends in the crystal bowl".

Adam is a co-writer on this, along with E. Kidd Bogart and Greg Wells.

My new obsession is....

Not much difference between this and fresh ground & brewed (or maybe our coffee maker needs cleaning).