Say It Ain’t So!

The latest from the Hollywood rumor mill has it the January Jones, “Betty Draper” from Mad Men, is having an affair with… celebrity chef Bobby Flay.

Since I’m already in an awesome relationship and since I’ll probably never meet January, it really doesn’t matter all that much to me. Still, the thought of January hooking up with Bobby Flay makes me throw up in my mouth a little.

January Jones
(click to enlarge)

Continue reading “Say It Ain’t So!”

Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-06-20

  • loves hearing the Boston crowd chant "Beat LA! Beat LA!" #
  • @Deneesie Heeyyyyy Guuuurrrllll! #
  • If this announcer says "North Korear" one more time… #
  • Citizens! Our Fearless Leader is now appearing on your telescreens. Please cease all other activities and watch our Leader! #
  • “A society that will trade a little liberty for a little order will lose both, and deserve neither.” #
  • Weird: reading a book about medieval England, get to a section about money and think about Sixpence None The Richer… and Kiss Me comes on! #
  • Ha-ha! France sucks! #
  • Another tie? And they say soccer isn't exciting! #
  • Anyone in CLT got an HD radio? If so, can you tell me what's on 106.5-2? Thx! #

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Rapidfire Saturday…

Not much more than a bunch of links for today, but fear not… it’s all pretty cool stuff!

This site has a handy World Cup calendar. It’s round, see, and it lets you quickly find matches based on the date, stadium, or team. If you’re at all interested in the matches (let me be honest, my own interest is quickly fading), then this calendar is for you:

World Cup calendar– Music festivals are a big business in the UK. As far as accommodations go, most festival goers have to make do with a tent and sleeping bag. But now Britain’s rich and influential can enjoy a Yurtel, a high-end tent with a king-sized bed, freshly cut flowers, and chocolates:

Yurtel– Speaking of the UK, a British company called Fredericks Dairies has not only come out with a fish and chips flavor of ice cream (and yes, it actually tastes like fish and chips), check out their presentation:

Fish and Chips ice creamCute! Although I like to say that I’d try anything once, I’m not sure fish and chips ice cream is for me. I’ll stick to Ben & Jerry’s Peanut Brittle ice cream for now (it’s a new flavor, and it’s realllllyy good!)

– And lastly, hipsters torn between buying “cool” vinyl records and “practical” compact discs can rejoice now that electronic/dance musician Jeff Mills has released a hybrid record\CD. You’ve gotta admit, it sure looks pretty cool:

Record\CD hybrid

FRIDAY FUN: Jenny Wade

Wikipedia sez:

Jennifer “Jenny” Wade (born October 6, 1980) is an American actress is best known for playing “Nina” in TV series Reaper and “Honey Pie”, recurring character from Feast trilogy.

She is currently appearing on the Fox show The Good Guys, which is actually pretty funny and worth checking out. But check her out:

Jenny Wade
(click to enlarge)

Ch-ch-ch-changes!

A new version of WordPress was released yesterday, and this version has a new default theme known as Twenty Ten. I really like the look of it, and I hope that you do, too! Note that the site’s main pages are linked at the top of the page, and that a few sections have been moved to the bottom of the page.

Please let me know if you find any “bugs” on the new site. For what it’s worth, I already know about the header graphic being off by a couple of pixels; I’m actually looking for a new image for that now and hope to have something up this weekend.

Cheers!

Jim

Episcopal Hypocrisy

Anglican Curmudgeon once again hits it out of the park, filling in the details on the story I reported on back in February.

It seems that the ECUSA’s Executive Council met in Memphis on October 5-8, 2009, and at that meeting they adopted the following resolution, which reads, in part:

Resolved, That the Executive Council, meeting in Memphis, Tennessee, October 5-8, directs the Executive Officers of General Convention and the Office of General Convention to refrain from using the Hyatt hotel chain for General Convention and its related bodies and staff, until housekeeping staff summarily fired from its Massachusetts hotels and replaced by contract workers are offered the opportunity to be restored to their original employment and work conditions and provided with back pay for time missed due to their fall 2009 layoffs;

Two and a half months later – as in, ten weeks, or seventy-five days later – the Episcopal Church headquarters in New York City fired all its union workers and replaced them with a cheaper, non-union company:

The workers lost their jobs – which paid standard wages and benefits – when the church canceled the contract with Paris Maintenance, a union cleaning contractor, and replaced it with the nonunion Benjamin Enterprises.

Nice. Read the whole article here, especially the part at the end, where it’s noted that TEC is using a non-union Hyatt in Indianapolis for the 2012 General Convention.

Hypocrites, the lot of them!

Random Thursday

– Remember the “Death to All Juice” guy? The guy from this post?

death_to_juice

Described as a “wannabe New Jersey Jihadist”, he was apparently arrested last week on his way to Somalia to get “terrorist training”. The man, Carlos Almonte, apparently loved his friend’s cat and wanted to take him to Somalia, but his mother refused. I guess it’s hard to be a badass terrorist when you have pictures like this on your Facebook page:

terrorist_cat

– There’s a vending machine in Spain… that sells meat! Awesome!

– Not so awesome: a recent study from Taiwan found that cage-free eggs contained almost six times the amount of environmental pollutants of their caged counterparts. Of course, it’s just one study, and it’s from Taiwan, but it should still give you pause at the grocery store.

– Lastly… a drawing of a horse playing a saxophone!

R.I.P. “Unk”

I just found out today that my great uncle, James O. Harris, passed away on Sunday after a long disease. He was 80.

From here:

James O. Harris, age 80 of Lawrenceville passed away, Sunday, June 13, 2010. Funeral Services will be held 2:00 PM, Wednesday, June 16, 2010 in the Lawrenceville Chapel of Tim Stewart Funeral Home with Pastor Kenny Kuykendahl & Rev. Gary Livingston officiating. Burial Gwinnett Memorial Park, Lawrenceville. Mr. Harris was a long term member of the Azalea Chapter of the American Rhododendron Society, and had developed many varieties of Azaleas that were patented and distributed worldwide through a partnership with the University of Georgia. He was an Army Veteran during the Korean War and had worked as an auto body and fender repairman. Mr. Harris is survived by: Wife of 52 years: Ella Ruth Harris, Lawrenceville; Children: Jim Harris, Atlanta; Bryan & Carolyn Harris, Centre, AL; Aunt: Dorothy Pirkle, Dunwoody; Sister-in-law: Mildred Stancel, Forest Park; Grandchildren: Kristin Harris, Jarred Harris, Jordan Harris, Niece: Teresa & Jack Cofer, Suwanee; and many cousins.

God bless, James.

Fun with Factory’s Catalog!

Factory Records was an influential British record label based out of Manchester. Founded by TV host Tony Wilson and band manager Alan Erasmus in 1978, the label was home to giants like Joy Division, New Order, The Durutti Column, A Certain Ratio and Happy Mondays, and was the “starter label” for bands like Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark and James. Like competing label 4AD, Factory relied on a producer (in this case, Martin Mannett) and a graphic designer (Peter Saville) to give the label’s releases a unique and consistent look and sound.

factory_records-logo

As anyone who has seen the film 24 Hour Party People will tell you, there were a lot of drugs being used by practically everyone at the label. In fact, one need only to look at the label’s catalog system to see that.

Almost every Factory release begins with the prefix “FAC”, except albums, which have the prefix “FACT”. “Special” numbers were reserved for big, important releases, so Joy Division’s Closer album is FACT 25, New Order’s Movement is FACT 50, New Order’s Power Corruption and Lies is FACT 75 and New Order’s Low Life is FACT 100. Because these “special” numbers were used, sometimes the catalog numbers seem out of order: New Order’s greatest hits album Substance is FACT 200, while Joy Division’s greatest hits album, also called Substance, is FACT 250, even though Joy Division preceded New Order.

The last digit of a catalog number was often reserved for certain bands, although there are many inconsistencies in its implementation. However, the last digit being 1 usually signified a release by Factory Corporate, 2 was used for Happy Mondays singles, 3 for Joy Division and New Order singles, 4 was used for Durutti Column singles, and 6 was reserved for short-lived “Factory Classical” releases.

Continue reading “Fun with Factory’s Catalog!”