Here’s a picture of earth, taken from the surface of Mars by the Spirit rover on March 8, 2004. It’s the first photograph of the earth taken from the surface of another planet.
Wow!
Image Credit: NASA/JPL/Cornell/Texas A&M
Feel small yet?
Mad Men: “Christmas Comes But Once a Year”
This episode kicks off the “Francis family” looking at Christmas trees. As the rest of the family walks off, Sally hears a familiar voice calling out to her: Glen, the neighborhood kid with whom Betty has had an… “interesting” relationship. Glen’s mother has gotten married, and he gives her advice about dealing with her new family.
The next morning, we see Don typing away when his secretary, Allison, comes in with the mail, which includes a “Santa Claus” letter from his kids. She reads the letter to Don, and at first it’s your typical, light-hearted letter to Santa Claus. But things become emotional near the end, when Sally says the thing she wants the most is for Don to be home for Christmas. Don gives Allison some money to buy the kids gifts, then tells her that Lane’s cost cutting prevents her (or anyone else) from bringing guests to the office Christmas party.
Meanwhile, Roger welcomes the newly-sober Freddy Rumsen into his office. Freddy says that he’s left JWT and can bring SCDP the Pond’s Cold Cream account, a $2 million deal. When Roger asks how, Freddy only says that he and the Pond’s contact are “in a fraternity together”. Freddy’s only condition is that Pete, who got him fried from Sterling Cooper, not me let anywhere near the account. Roger agrees, then takes him to Don’s office. Peggy welcomes him back with open arms.
Continue reading “Mad Men: “Christmas Comes But Once a Year””
The Heist of the (14th) Century
Dick Puddlecote was angry. And not your average “oh, I forgot to pick up the dry cleaning” angry, either. He was angry to the very core of his being. Trillions of cells made up Dick’s body, and every last one of them was furious with the King of England.
Dick had been born in London, sometime in the 1270s or 1280s, to what we would today call a lower middle-class family. Dick was educated enough to read and write, a skill he parlayed into a series of low-paying assistant jobs. But Dick had dreams, dreams of one day owning his own business exporting wool, butter and cheese to the cities of northern Europe. So Dick scrimped, saved and called in every favor he could until his dream came true.
But then the King of England defaulted on a loan given to him by the merchants of Flanders. In retaliation, those merchants seized the trade goods of every English merchant in the area, and threw every Englishman they could find into prison… which was where Dick was, and why he was so angry.
Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-08-01
- "I can use my expense account if I say they're whores." I missed you SO MUCH, Mad Men! #
- Yaaaa! We're #27 Go USA! http://tinyurl.com/273shg9 #
- R.I.P. Jack Tatum #
- @TikiDarling "Miami Vice" suits? Try Antony Price, dear! in reply to TikiDarling #
- “Maybe that's what life is…a wink of the eye and winking stars.” – Kerouac #
- Just got Madden 2010 for the Wii. First game: PIT 98, CLE 0. I think I'm gonna like this game! #
- is at Big Daddy's Burgers! #
- “If one only wished to be happy, this could be easily accomplished; but we wish to be happier than other people, and this is always difficul #
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Mad Men: “Public Relations”
This episode begins with Don giving an interview to a reporter from Advertising Age. Unfortunately, Don doesn’t see the point in it, and comes off as aloof and secretive. This leaves the reporter to fill in the blanks, something that will haunt both Don and his new firm in the near future.
Roger and Pete approach the table where Don is sitting with the reporter. They’re there to take Don to the Sheraton, where the agency will take place in a “cattle call” with representatives of the Jantzen (swimwear) company. The meeting doesn’t go as well as they might have hoped: Murray emphasizes that Jantzen is a family company, and they’re not about to stoop to (what they consider to be) the near pornography of their competitor’s ads.
It never happens to me…
So… ten years ago, a British guy named Rick Norsigian went to a garage sale in California and picked up a set of photo negatives he found interesting. His cost? £30 ($46).
He made prints of them from time to time, and his relatives always commented about how much they looked like Ansel Adams’ work.
After a decade of hearing this, the man finally took the negatives to a Beverly Hills art gallery… who not only confirmed that it is Adams’ work… but estimated that they’re worth around £128 million (almost $200 million).
Sigh.
Story here.
“One Parishioner’s Boycott”
Stand Firm has a link to this interesting article about one man’s boycott of the Episcopal Church:
67% of Episcopal clergy identify themselves as Democrats, 8% Independents, and 22% Republicans. Maybe that helps explain this:49% of Episcopal clergy say that gay couples should be allowed to legally marry and 38% say that civil unions should be allowed. Of course this majority might claim that politics has nothing to do with their quest for gay marriage. In fact, I have read the claim that the Holy Spirit has is guiding them to this er…, um…, position. Unfortunately, they are lying because they have failed to back up their claims by using scriptural sources. There is a good possibility that an unholy spirit is doing the leading, and that the filthy spirit of politics has a lot to do with the current course of the Church.
Linked within that article is this post, entitled “Red Pew, Blue Pulpit”, which goes through some interesting numbers about the PCUSA. Of course, the PCUSA isn’t the TEC… the TEC is worse.
via Stand Firm.
The Mad Men Periodic Table
New to Mad Men? Or a longtime fan who enjoys neat graphic design? Then check out this nifty periodic table, designed by Emily Miethner:
Originally posted at Flavorwire.
A Brief Update on Mad Men Recaps
The season premiere of Mad Men was last night (hooray!) and I just wanted to let you know that I’m changing the format of the recaps. As much as I love the show, I just don’t have it in me to do the “full blown” recaps I’ve done in the past.
When I first started with the recaps, I decided to make them as comprehensive as possible, so that if you missed an episode you could read my recap and know everything that happened in that episode. This often led to episode “summaries” of 7,000 words (or more). This is something I just can’t do any more.
So, starting this season, I’m drastically cutting down on the “summary” part, making it more like the recaps you see at other websites. However, I’m keeping the “Other Stuff” section (the part of the recaps I enjoyed doing the most) as well as the “My Thoughts” section.
I have a couple of errands to run just now, but hope to start on the season opener some time later this afternoon.
Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-07-25
- failed at being a plumber today… 🙁 #
- AAAAAUUUUGGGGHHH! Giant black snake under the deck! I wanted to scream like a little girl! #
- Question: Which golf club is best for killing a snake? I like the compactness of a 9 iron, but think the heft of a 5 iron might do better. #
- Anyone up for a game of Mornington Crescent? I'll start: Parsons Green #
- "Adobe Reader Protected Mode… is a new mitigation feature scheduled for the next major version release of Adobe Reader." AMEN!!!! #
- is starting season 2 of "Underbelly"! #
- "The first lesson of politics is to disregard the first lesson of economics.” – Sowell #
- has entirely too many remote desktops and virtual machines going on at once! #
- Apple the new world leader in software insecurity: http://tinyurl.com/26t2ceh #
- "One of the greatest delusions in the world is the hope that the evils in this world are to be cured by legislation." – Reed #
- @rlaw1971 Because Twitter is pointless fun! #
- Thoughts and prayers to the Cowher family on the loss of Kaye! 🙁 #
- Ice cold Diet Dr Pepper? Check! Hawaiian pizza? Check! "Mad Men" season premiere tonight? HELL YEAH! #
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