Hey

Anyone want to build a 60's era racecar and go racing down south o' the border with me?

TIRED

Argh - this job really takes it out of you....

Too tired to post, but I will anyway. Nick, glad you kept your blog. Bob-for-apples let me check on Chinese for you, and Tara thank goodness someone is blogging in this family.


Ok, for fun go read this:

Sorry!

Ok, so I now have a (more than) full time job as a Project Manager at RosettaStone - so my blogging has dropped off precipitously. I will try to get some posts up early in the morning this week.

I hope everyone had a nice thanksgiving - it was good here in VA. Surprisingly warm outside and in, but the food was great.

The Historian

Along with Atwood's The Blind Assassin, The Historian is one of the great occult mystery fiction of this generation. On the surface it is ostensibly another chapter in the story of Dracula, but as you delve deeper the intertwining of actual history and common legend become inseparable. The book itself draws you in, which is a real danger in a book quite this long. Tara and I read this book two summers ago in New Hampshire (and eventually North Carolina). We actually read it out loud (as we have with all of the Harry Potter and Douglas Adams books). If you haven't read a piece of adult fiction out loud before you can be amazed by either how well, or how poorly it is written. Thankfully (considering the massive length of the book) it was well written and artfully conceived. Unlike most books that have a few pages at the end to wrap up and moralize, this story goes right until the very last sentence. It was a great read, a fascinating story and time well spent. (It's available in paperback now too!)

Rating: A+ ... very, very highly recommended!

That y chromosome thing

How to take a classic mini off the ski jump at Lillihammer.

Oy Campy

Man 1978 sure was a camp-o-rama for holiday specials....

Pub

Here's a publication that I did awhile back that is now online for general perusal. It's more informative than academic, but I'm not complaining.... believe me.

(caveat/note: for some reason the site is not working for me... so I haven't actually read the final edited version yet.)

Car Kvetch (edit 2)

So I promised a few days ago to update the saga of the rolling art piece that is my car. Like so much art, there is a debate on it's ultimate value, it's use and whether after making continual investments in the upkeep one should bite the bullet and send it off to some other unsuspecting schmuck.

Being the type of person that doesn't easily give up on cars (but should) I am still dreaming of a long life with this beaut.*

Anyway back to the point, as I implied earlier this weekend and to quote Yeats,

"Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;"

Driving home on I-81, about half-way between Staunton (where I worked until Tuesday) and Harrisonburg (the nearest exit to our house) my lights dimmed, the battery light came on and the temperature started shooting upwards. Normally I'm not one to be easily discouraged by mere "warning" lights, this time however, I immediately knew what had happened - adios fan-alternator-water-pump belt. I quickly pulled over, turned the flashers on and went to work.
Not having a spare belt (doh!) I first tried to reroute the AC belt to turn the water pump and alternator. These belts should be the same length for exactly this purpose. They're not, and no amount of creative pulley rearranging would fix that. Sometime during this 20 minute excercise in futility and rising frustration (mind you it was pitch black out, I was using an adjustable wrench on some seriously seized bolts, tractor trailers were doing 75mph 5 feet away from me and I was holding a coin sized LED flashlight between my teeth - I was sure I wouldn't really have to fix the car because I would soon be a large red stain with an odd nearly indestructable light in the middle of it) a police officer pulled up. After a friendly chat about this not being the optimal place to park a "classic" (his word, not mine) we eventually gave up and he called a flat-bed for me. So an hour and a half later after loading up the car and concussing myself on the truck's door (I had quite a goose egg) and then asking the driver if he wouldn't mind a brief stop to pick up the pizza that I had ordered pre-Merc-meltdown - I arrived home.

Mind you that wasn't really the frustrating part....

The really frustrating part came the next day, Sunday, when I went out, bought a new belt and began the disassembly process. Now up until Sunday the week had been beautiful, mid-60s or low 70s, sunny - nice. On Sunday it was in the low 40s (or even high 30s) with a - and I am not kidding here - 40mph wind. I'm just now able to feel my fingers. The entire disassembly took soooooooooo long. There are 3 belts on a 76 Merc diesel, power steering, AC, and then the alt, water pump, fan belt last of all, and closest to the engine. So naturally all the others had to come off first.

I cut the AC belt because the AC is long gone, but the power steering took about 1.5 hours to get off after loosening the pump and wiggling my hand and the belt in a space that only a five year old could reasonably reach. I finally had to ask Tara to get the belt off while I pushed the power steering pump out of the way. The remainder of the time was spent trying to develop extra joints in order to twist bolts that had last been seen and twisted sometime in the early Precambrian and were located somewhere outside of our space-time reality. Oh yes, and then there was the matter of the horn I had to remove to make the envelope sized space to get my hand to the belt in the first place. I lost the bolt. So once I finally got everything back together there was about 10 minutes of shuffling through the grass to find the bolt and then another 5 while I tried to convince my numb fingers to start the bolt in the threads so I could use the ratchet.

I like to pride myself on being fairly mechanically adept. That was before I bought the diesel. Which is running fine now, thank you very much.

---------------------------------------------

* It should be noted that I still have dreams about taking the 77' BMW 320i I have fitting a fiberglass hood, trunklid, and fenders, stripping the interior, dropping about a grand on the engine and lighter/wider wheels and driving that for fun on summer days.... ...120hp goes a-long-way with 1800lbs..... but then again it's been on jack-stands for a year now and I've agreed to give it away to the original owner - so that's likely to remain a dream.

Very Vespavibey

I'd say go for it Bob, there was a Vespa/coffee shop down the street from us in Providence called Javaspeed and it was the coolest place in town. We also rented a scooter in Rome while we were there.... I enjoyed it much more than Tara - who screamed alot and dug her nails into my back...

La Dolce Vita

Vroom with a View - Peter Moore (website - with pictures: see image below of author reading a Haynes Manual for a 61 Vespa)
Combining two great romantic ideas; those of Italy and the diminutive 61 Vespa Peter Moore embarks on a wonderful journey from Milan to Rome. That his trip takes 3 months instead of just an afternoon is indicative of the type of pace that a scooter - especially an ancient Italian scooter - requires. There are many wonderful places that he discovers as a result of this greatly reduced pace and an equal number of wonderful characters. The book explores what it means to truly escape while holidaying. It would be hard to take a trip like this on a working class vacation schedule (especially a regrettably limited American one), but the allure of it is charmingly strong. The story is also a sort of love story as the author delves into his relationship with the woman that will become his wife. That is probably the greatest literary fault of this book - but you can't fault him for falling in love over Italian wine, scenery and scooters.

Rating: A-

Currently Listening to: (bluesy guitar)

Rain, rain go AWAY!

It rained yet again here in the pleasant Amazon Basin Shenandoah Valley.



Our yard is looking like a lake, and this is a picture of the gentle, ambling, burbling, not 3 feet wide on a normal day, stream.

Now it is a class five rapid - with a blevy of unusual obstacles such as fences, former bridges and the occasional Chevrolet Luv truck.

FYI Blogging Friends

Don't bother switching to the new beta version of Blogger - it's a pain...... trust me.

Vox Clamatis in Deserto

The Sheltering Sky - Paul Bowles
Another in my growing list of existentialist fiction, this is one of (if not the ONE) great desert book of all time. The desolation and regurgitant colonialism (or Hybridities That Gesture Towards Moments of Post-Colonial Erasure) that are represented here have literally no equal; though arguments could be made that Greene and Naipaul had equally interesting things to say, or imply at least, about the imperial urge. Bowles who lived in Tangier, Morocco until his death (Nov. 18, 1999) was enamored with what most others consider vast wastelands. He believed (or at least stated to an interviewer that I have since forgotten) that you were only whole when you were near absolutes and the desert, especially the Sahara, was an absolute par excellance. The story itself is one of displaced, or perhaps misplaced, Europeans and their futile attempts to come to terms with the Sahara and it's peoples, as well as with one another. The ensueing madness when exposed to the seeming infinity held within the vast and empty desert makes for entertaining and revealing reading. This book is not for the light of heart or mind though - it deals with some very Camus-esque (another lover of deserts) ideas and some very Kafka-esque endings. Caveat Emptor.
Rating: A
Related Works:
The Sahara Unveiled - William Langeweische
The Stranger - Albert Camus

Do you have a Jared Leto crush Bob?

Looks like you're hanging out with Chandler for the weekend eh Bob?

And that list of movies you just posted - I thought half of them were made in the 1930s - well then again, what's 20 years give or take to man of your advanced age.

Bobby 5-0

Test time: What does this picture illustrate?





That's right... Uncle Boberino is over the hill - happy birthday bud!

#2

John Adams - David McCullough
The 2002 winner of the Pulitzer Prize (Biography) and frequent inhabitant of the New York Times 10 best list for that year it may be redundant to say this is indeed a very good book. McCullough has managed to distance himself from the spate of historians who have admitted to a significant amount of plagiarism - and thus established himself as the pre-eminent modern "popular" historian. The story is (as he told it to Terry Gross among others), he initially set out to write a book on Jefferson, but found that the man wrote little of his personal life and had few surviving correspondences with any of his contemporaries. In contrast John Adams wrote almost daily to his wife and several friends, thus making him a very apt subject for a work of this depth. McCullough has written several other large works on events, people, and objects that have shaped the American experience (no reference to the PBS series intended) ; The Johnstown Flood, The Great Bridge (on the building of the Brooklyn Bridge), and several other weighty works. This book is by no means short, but is a very engaging and easy read and well worth the time. He also has a great voice, as the narrator of the Ken Burns' epic Civil War documentary, as well as Tara's Ph.D. graduation speaker at Dartmouth (who beat Cornell in hockey this weekend, yes!).
Rating: A
Related: (any other work by the same author - for stylistic purposes)

Interesting Financial Times finding

"House exit polls showed Democrats also won every income category under $100,000."

well, duh.

Send-off Comedy Central style

For some reason I'm having a problem embedding the video - so go here to see it, or click and save this link to download it. (Also Colbert ripping on nepotism)

Threesome

So Terry, Tara and I went to Flushed Away last night in which we learned several important things:

a: Tara and I can go to roughly 35 regular movies for the average price of one of my cars (more on car issues later in the day, when I calm down from the latest fiasco(s)). In future, matinees are the way to go.

b: Walking into a movie theater with Terry while Tara is in the restroom and exclaiming loudly, "You never hold my hand in public anymore, the magic is gone" is a great way to embarrass Terry and also to get some blatantly homophobic looks from the theatergoers (which is, of course, sad).

c: Singing slugs are more funny than you would think at first blush.


d: You can pack a whole lot of adult humor into a kids movie, the frogs (French, naturalment) complete with mimes, food jokes and automatic surrendering.

e: If you have to go to a movie at night, Monday night is the night to go. 7 people in the theater at a popular movie.

Quite a funny movie.

Time wasting

The leaked Spidey3 trailer... and yes that's Topher Grace as Venom.... (the anti-Spiderman)

Odd

So guess who broke the Rummy's getting canned news... CNN.... WAPO.... even the Wonkette.... nope, Comedy Central.....

Tripping the funny meter

This is one of the more interesting, and funny things I've seen in awhile.

Another South American Story

Alive - Piers Paul Read
As encouraging and uplifting a tale as a book about a group of rugby players whose plane crashes leaving them stranded in the Andes subject to avalanches, starvation and madness could possibly be. This is one of the great survival stories of the 20th century and as such deserves a place on the list of great biographical/history books. 16 of the 45 people on the plane survived the crash and the next 72 days high in the Andes. "Nando" Parrado later said of the event, "Our ordeal was being celebrated as a glorious adventure...I didn't know how to explain to them that there was no glory in those mountains. It was all ugliness and fear and desperation, and the obscenity of watching so many innocent people die."
This is certainly worth the read, and for the most part is well written and enjoyable. It begs the question if you had to survive for seventy days would you be able to make the step to cannibalizing your dead friends and if you did, could you recover?
Rating: B
Related:
Not much, though there are plenty of stories of cannibalism concerning the Donner Party. There are also several books on the Star Dust which crashed under similar conditions and very near where this occurred some 30 years prior.

Also see:
Miracle in the Andes: 72 Days on the Mountain and My Long Trek Home - Nando Parrado

Deaniac

So Howard Dean, former VT governor, became (in)famous one day in the Spring of 2004 (yes, I know it's a loose play on a Postal Service lyric in the song Sleeping In), but if there is any such thing as redemption in politics, this must be it. When Dean ascended to Democratic National Party leadership he pronounced that the new strategy would be to run in all of the races, not just to focus on (primarily) key races. It is possible that this strategy enabled the Democratic party to pull off this election by playing to nationwide dissatisfaction with the Bush Presidency. Good strategy, good luck or a combination of the two? Who knows, but I still like the Dean Machine.

(disclosure: I voted for him as governor in VT when I lived there, and I voted for him in the Primary against Kerry - so I may be a bit biased)

The (im)Perfect Murder

The Stranger - Albert Camus
A wonderful companion piece to The Fall, also by the same author. The Stranger delves deeper into the understanding and effects of pure existentialism through a dark tale populated with empty people and empty scenery. Camus seems to have mastered the short novel of immense depth, a sort of Anti-Tolstoy - (not that Tolstoy is shallow, just long). It is not a book for those suffering a crisis of existence however as it can be both depressing and pointedly agnostic.
Rating: B+
Related: The Fall - Camus

QUIZ TIME!

For those time waster foodies out there, click here.

Stitch

Tara's new nickname, use it well.

reader quiz

Is it just the ancient TRS-80 that I have at work or does everyone have to scroll way down to read this? On my laptop it seemed fine..... stupid electrons.

300 The Movie - Trailer

Herodotus's version of the battle of Thermopylae (literally Gates of Fire - hence the "Tonight we die in hell" quote) in his histories has facinated me since college. 300 Spartans (and 700 Thespians) against 5 million Persians (though later sources say 120,000 was probably closer)- they didn't win - but they lasted 3 days. These guys were the original tough guys. When Xerxes told Leonidas to lay down his weapons he responded with 2 words in Greek - Molon Labe - come and get them. The quote about fighting in the shade is also from Herodotus. Frank Miller was the creator of the Sin City comic books, so I'm sure he didn't skimp on the blood and gore. But it's war, it's probably good to remember that it isn't bloodless.

Schadenfreude

OK so I'm not entirely a bad prognosticator. On April 12th I laid out a variety of ways the election could go (reposted in May here) oddly based around Rumsfeld's firing or not at any given time - what happened was a mixture of the first and third options.

And Boy-oh-Boy, did Bush and Rumsfeld look alternately mad and upset during the press conference.


One thing, though, does Rummy get an outgoing jab at the president in?

"In this little understood, unfamiliar war, the first war of the 21st century. It is not well known, it is not well understood, it is complex for people to comprehend and I know with certain certainty that over time the contributions you've made will be recorded by history." (so recorded as what? positive or negative - ? )

Things that I'll miss with Rumsfeld gone....
1. His impecable illogic and farsical poetry - that "Known knowns, and unknown knowns and unknown unknowns" business was priceless.
2. The irony of pre-Bush Admin. former business dealings with North Korea (selling weapons and possibly fissile material!!) and Iraq (that shot of Saddam and Rummy shaking hands is classic).
3. Having one less bluster-monkey to be amazed at, and now it looks like Bolton is going too.... alas soon I will only have Congress, the Supreme Court (Scalia!!) and a few amusing state politicians to mock soon. Even K. Harris is gone now - but indeed she was far too easy of a target.

... yes Warren

There is a Santa Claus.... and I am a crappy election fortune teller.

Uh.....

I couldn't be more happy to be wrong.

Pessimist

There is huge turnout being reported in Virginia, Tennessee, and Montana and huge problems being reported in Ohio (natch), New Jersey, Indiana, Colorado and a few others. Considering that in 2000 the income level for more than have the voters was over $50,000 I'm not sure the high turnout is a good thing. (see Didion review below)

So here's my prediction: House stays republican, but with less than a 5 member majority for the Reps. and the Senate remains republican as well, but is a 52-48 majority (counting Lieberman as a Democrat).

Check back tomorrow to see how badly I am at guessing.

Less Serious and Funny - ha religion and science !

religion and science!

That genocide thing

Once again... and I've been saying and working on this for months.... we have to do something in Darfur. I have a friend that's working in Darfur for UNDP - and it's worse than we know.

GO VOTE!

I'm not going to tell you who to vote for, although "none of the above" is increasingly popular.

I'm sitting here watching the Daily Show and The Colbert Report (warming up for the The Blitzkrieg on Grinchitude), and I must say this IS the choice of a new generation.


For today's review: Joan Didion - Political Fictions



This book is a series of vignettes about the politics in our country between 1988-2000. The string holding all of these stories together is one of mild-to-wild disillusionment. The stories revolve around how the US political system has evolved into a contrivance more in line with our myths about what "America" is than what it actually is. Didion also delves into the crafting of the image of a politician, which can be quite disturbing. She lambasts both parties, although she is clearly a democrat. Self criticism is always a nice thing to see. People who are unable to self-criticize or admit to mistakes scare me. This is a good, if dissuasive, read for those of you interested in the state of politics in America. [on that note, thank goodness there will be no more political ads for at least another 8 months....]

"the largest political party in America ...... [are] those who did not vote."

Rating: A-

HA! great pic

A kid dragging a husky.... aw....

Werk

In my somewhat inconsistent Friday night lite series we are once again featuring Terry Pratchett. This time his latest:



This story is the third in the Tiffany Aching series of young adult books. The lead character a particularly precocious and stubborn child who, in the two previous installments (The Wee Free Men, and Hat Full of Sky), has battled the Queen of the Fairies and a Hiver (oh you'll have to read them to find out what that means) with her retinue of Nac Mac Feegle. The Feegles add hilarity and random free association to the story, as you can probably assume from the names of two of the characters: Rob Anybody and Daft Wullie. There are also an assortment of other standard Discworld characters that show up in these novels, most notably the witches Granny Weatherwax and Nanny Ogg who make standard and revealing appearances here.
But enough of background, and on to what this book covers. In Wintersmith, Tiffany falls in love with the spirit of winter (the eponymous title character) who is far from human. In her first crush she inadvertantly invokes unending winter for the disc, almost. The story of how she eventually fights back is a quite amazing one, but not being a spoiler I will save that for you to discover. The real genius of this, or any, Pratchett book is the humor. In this book the most hilarious point was a single worded (or onomatopoeia) footnote. Ah, what sparse and delicious humor.

Rated: A

Currently Listening: (3 stars out of 4)

... and if you haven't seen the original yet

check it out....

Make Poverty History

The One Campaign's voter drive.... and what's really shocking is how small Julia Roberts and Matt Damon are.

Howard Zehr

Howard Zehr, one of my professors and quite a funny and interesting guy recently one a very prestigious award. Check out his acceptance speech, or other recipients, here.

Poll

Ok - so I have somewhat mixed motives here, since my boss and I were the people who got this poll done (though we didn't do it - a national pollster took care of that).

A snippet:

I'd encourage you to go look at the remainder of the findings, they are very interesting.... ok they are at least marginally interesting.....

The Norman Invasion and beyond

If my blog counter were the date, in years.... William the Conquerer would have just strolled up the beach in southern England. Which to put in perspective was some 600 years after Arthur is supposed to have lived - and 900 years after the Romans built Hadrians wall.

A higher level of birdness

Jonathan Livingston Seagull - Richard Bach

One of those great transcendent (har har, a pun... well you'll understand it if you've read the story... oh never mind) stories that many people from my generation read as children (or had read to them - that sneaky 4th grade teacher - who oddly also taught me to play chess....) regarding what is good, and right and whole. At first it seems like a child's tale of a fanciful seagull naively concerned with the art of flying - more than the necessity of eating. After the first 20 or so pages though it is clear that this is an allegory of the Buddhist search for Nirvana - told through a gentle gull. This book could also be interpreted in an existentialist way - it concerns what is "gullness" - and acting that out. At less than 100 full pages, in large print, this book is easily doable in one sitting. Much like Siddhartha, this is the best way to read it - almost as a meal for your mind. If you read this as a child, as I did, it is well worth the return trip for the entertainment and sense of clarity Jonathan can bring.
Rating: A
Related: Siddhartha - Hermann Hesse

Currently listening to:

yes.... bluegrass..... a trip to Floyd this summer got me seriously interested in mountain music and the Seldom Scene are quite incredible.

Happy All Saints Day.... in case you didn't get the reference below

It must also be video day - below is a funny review from slate for the Tennessee race.... race...

U2 and Green Day "The Saints Are Coming"

And a slightly less serious video.... a music video. This is the song Green Day and U2 sang at the 1st home game of the New Orleans Saints. The video revolves around the fictional redeployment of the national guard from Iraq to New Orleans and the resulting rescue operation that never happened. It's quite good.

Late Show With David Letterman Bill O'Reilly 10/27/06

The second half of a very snarky interview with Bill O'Reilly. Dave uses Bill's style and then just rips him apart. It's almost as funny as the last time he was on the show where Dave said he thought O'Reilly was 60% crap. Somebody fact checked the paltry few facts that O'Reilly says this episode and none of them are actually accurate. So 60% may be a bit on the low side.