Posts

Posted on

SONGS I LOVE: “16 Candles”

Danielle DaxBack in high school, I was the pretentious twit that had to be “this much more alternative than you”. Remember the first time you heard The Pixies? I was already “done” with them by then. The Replacements? Please – I was into them years ago. The Residents? Yep – been there, done that! Mission of Burma? I’ve already taken my MoB albums back to the store, to trade them in for the “latest and greatest”… except for that one album with the guy wearing the WREK t-shirt on the back – that’s kind of cool.

At any rate, being the “most alternative guy you know” was my badge of “cool” I suppose, pointless though it all was. To keep myself on the cutting edge, I buried myself in a gigantic pile of imported or obscure music magazines, like Melody Maker, NME, Option, and Trouser Press, to name but a few. One of the positives of this was that it really did keep me on the edge for several years. One of the downsides was that magazines don’t actually play music. Before the Internet, you could read about a band in a magazine, and if you wanted to actually hear them, you paid $15 for the LP or CD. Picking a new band using the printed word works well much of the time, but sometimes I’d shell out $18 for an import LP that I really didn’t like.

Such was the case with Danielle Dax. Her 1987 album Inky Bloaters came highly recommended from several indie mags, so I shelled out the $21 for the import CD… only to hate it. But it’s not a “New York Yankees” kind of hate. It’s more of a “Vegemite hate”, in that I’ll still go back to it every so often and think “oh, it couldn’t possibly have been that bad…”. But after ten minutes with Danielle Dax (or biting in to a thick layer of Vegemite on toast), it just wasn’t meant to be… until now.

I stumbled across this song from Blast The Human Flower, her only major label recording. It’s the last song on the disc, and probably a throw-away track… but it’s somehow cool. Have a listen:

[audio:16_candles.mp3]

Posted on

Facebook and my site are one!

OK, so… as I mentioned a few days ago, I recently signed up with Facebook after being “MySpace Only” for the past couple of years. One of the cool things about Facebook is that you can add an RSS feed to the “Notes” section of your profile. So I could use this site’s RSS feed to automatically “copy” entries I make here into my Facebook account. People that have no idea I even have a site would be able to read anything I post here.

Neat, huh? And that’s exactly what I did. If you’re my friend on Facebook, look for posts from this site as new Notes in my profile. If you have no idea what any of that means, don’t worry: it’s not for you. Also, for some reason, Facebook’s RSS importer kind of sucks, so you might see gibberish characters in Facebook when I post something here that looks perfectly normal.

Posted on

Truro Church Wins (Again)

From BabyBlue:

Judge Randy Bellows ruled today that property disputed by The Episcopal Church and the Diocese of Virginia is indeed held in trust by Truro Church, Fairfax and therefore, subject to the Virginia Division Statute, 57-9.

This property was originally bought by Christ the Redeemer, a mission church-plant of Truro Church. The original mission dissolved and the property was given to the mother church. TEC and the Diocese intervened, claiming that this particular property was not subject to 57-9 but were unable to answer testimony given in court today by the former Senior Warden of Christ the Redeemer (Truro mission) and the current Senior Warden of Truro Church. The judge ruled from the bench that indeed this particular property is held in trust by Truro Church and therefore subject to 57-9.

The Episcopal Church and the Diocese of Virginia acknowledged just prior to trial that the Division Statute 57-9 applies to all the other property held in trust by Truro Church.

Continue reading “Truro Church Wins (Again)”

Posted on

Mad Men: “The Jet Set”

Wow. I really did not like this episode of Mad Men. I’ll explain why later… but first: the recap… which begins right now:

The episode starts off with Roger and Jane in bed at the Sherry-Netherland hotel. Jane is dressed only in a sheet. Jane writes poems about Roger. Roger proposes to Jane. Seriously. I’m still not buying it.

Meanwhile, Peggy leads a meeting about Right Guard deodorant, with Paul, Harry, Sal, Kurt and Smitty in attendance. Paul mentions a study that found that “80% of men say that Right Guard makes them feel more confident at work”. Wasn’t “confidence at work” at part of Right Guard’s advertising later on? At any rate, it’s clear that no one is very interested in working in Don’s absence: the meeting quickly turns to pop culture gossip: Sal asks if anyone saw The Loretta Young Show the previous night; he then says it was “awful” with “the aprons, the nauseating upholstery on the couch”. Upholstery, huh? Smitty asks if anyone’s heard from Paul Kinsey, who is at Ole Miss protesting on behalf of black student James Meredith (this dates the episode to around September 30, 1962). A conversation starts about prejudice but quickly turns to how the event will affect business. Kurt says the he has no idea what’s going on, since he doesn’t have a TV. Harry tells him that he must have a TV for his job. The guys ask Kurt what he does in his spare time instead of watching TV. He says that he goes to concerts, and Smitty mentions that Kurt recently saw Dylan. This sparks an interest in Peggy, who breaks the meeting up to flirt with Kurt, who asks her if she wants to go see Dylan with him.

Don and Pete have made it to Los Angeles. The airline has apparently lost Don’s luggage, so he’s stuck at the pool in a suit:

Pete wants to spend the day at the pool, but Don tells him to get out his list and get to work. Pete kind of mumbles for a few minutes, then Don snaps him to attention with the best line of the episode:

“Do you want to be on vacation, Pete? ‘Cos I can make that happen.” – Don Draper

Continue reading “Mad Men: “The Jet Set””

Posted on

FCC Sides with NFL Net

The FCC has taken the side of the NFL Network in the network’s ongoing feud with Comcast.

In a nutshell, it goes like this: the NFL wants Comcast to include the NFL Network on its basic cable package. Normally, “contracts of carriage” between cable networks and cable providers state that each household pays a certain rate (say $1/month) for a channel, multiplied by the total number of households each provider has. So if, for example, Time Warner Cable wants E!, and E! costs $1.25 per household month, and TWC has 100 million households, then TWC must give E! $125 million a month to carry the channel on their cable systems.

Comcast thinks that the NFL wants far too much money for the NFL Network, so they want to put it on an optional “sports tier”, in which case Comcast would only pay the NFL for each household that subscribes to the tier. The NFL is opposed to this, as it effectively limits the number of people that will get NFL Network. The only problem for Comcast is this: the cable provider also owns Versus and the Golf Channel, both of which are sports channels that the company happily provides on their basic package.

Look, there’s more than enough blame to go around in this situation. The NFL is being greedy and demanding too much money for their product. But they also have a point in that the network will never get off the ground until it appears on basic cable tiers. And Comcast is being disingenuous when they whine that NFL Net costs too much money… all the while pimping two basic cable sports channels that they happen to own.

According to Ars Technica, the FCC on Friday sided with the NFL Network on at least two issues surrounding this bitter dispute. For starters, the Communications Act of 1996 “forbids a multichannel video programming distributor (MVPD) from discriminating against content providers ‘on the basis of affiliation or nonaffiliation’ with the MVPD”. This means that Comcast can’t offer programming by Comcast-owned stations while at the same time discrimination against channels owned by others. The FCC also found “evidence suggesting that Comcast demanded a financial interest NFL Network programming in exchange for carriage, another violation of the agency’s rules”.

According to FCC rules, the issues will now go before an Administrative Law judge, who will send recommendations for action to the full FCC within 60 days.

Maybe… someday… NFL Network will show up on Time Warner Cable!

Posted on

The Zen of Homemade Pizza

I have a confession to make: I love Chef Boyardee Pizza Kits. They come in a box that contains pizza crust mix, pizza sauce (with or without pepperoni), and some Parmesan cheese. All for just $2.37! You just add some warm water to the pizza crust mix, mix it up, let it rise, put the dough in a pan, add the sauce, sprinkle on the cheese, and in 16-20 minutes you have pizza!

Look, I don’t like the pizza kits because of their kick-ass taste. I like them because they remind me of my childhood. My mom loved buying the kits, because they meant that she’d have the night off in the kitchen. As kids, my sister and I loved them because they were fun to make. And that’s really the gist of it: making pizza at home is fun! Buy one of those kits sometimes – they’re fun to put together… and when you’re done, you have pizza!

Another reason I love the kits so much is that they kicked off my love of homemade pizza. I used to make pizza at home a lot. New York pizzas. Chicago pizzas. Pizzas that creatively used leftovers. Pizzas that cost me $50 in ingredients. You name it, I did it. Especially after I turned 21 and found an awesome recipe for Sam Adams Pizza Crust (2 c flour, 1 c whole wheat flour, 1 T baking powder, 12 oz Samuel Adams Boston Lager).

Even if you don’t buy a kit or become a home pizza baking fanatic, pizza is easy to make at home and cheap, too! Just remember to follow the path of Zen:

THE CRUST

The crust is the most important part of the pizza. Seriously. Don’t skimp on this step, as having a good crust is the heart of a good pizza.

Continue reading “The Zen of Homemade Pizza”

Posted on

Sign of the Times

Debt ClockThe National Debt has grown so large that it can no longer be displayed properly on the National Debt Clock in Times Square in New York.

The sign was originally put up in 1989 to highlight the then-staggering $2.9 trillion US debt. The debt, which now exceeds $10 trillion, is simply too large for the clock, which has run out of digits.

Douglas Durst, son of the late Seymour Durst, the clock’s inventor, says a new version will be installed sometime next year that can hold all the necessary digits. In the meantime, the dollar sign has been removed and replaced with a “1”.

Awesome!